"The Center and allies this week launched a new legal challenge against Wildlife Services, the rogue federal program that kills millions of wild animals each year. Our latest action is a notice of intent to sue the program over its large-scale, often secretive work in Idaho. Last year more than 3,000 coyotes, black bears, fishers, foxes, mountain lions and other species were killed by Wildlife Services in that state, using methods like aerial gunning, neck snares, traps and exploding poison caps.

"We're asking that Wildlife Services halt these lethal activities, including plans to destroy beaver dams with explosives that will harm endangered bull trout, until an adequate and up-to-date environmental analysis of the program's impacts is prepared. "'Grizzly bears, lynx and bull trout are all suffering at the hands of Wildlife Services, and that needs to stop,' said the Center's new Idaho-based attorney, Andrea Santarsiere."
--- 09/11/14 - Center for Biological Diversity

"Washington wildlife officials have determined that the wolf they killed last week was the Huckleberry Pack's alpha female. It's devastating news: This killing could shatter the structure of the entire pack and her orphaned pups may face starvation this winter.

"This is the second time in two years that Washington has targeted a pack because a livestock producer refused to do what was necessary to protect his stock. This has got to stop.

"Two weeks ago the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife secretly sent a helicopter to kill up to four members of the Huckleberry pack. Thanks to your help we flooded the governor's office with calls and emails and soon the helicopter was grounded and the slaughter was called off -- but sadly help didn't come soon enough for the pack's matriarch."
--- Center for Biological Diversity

"Wildlife Services is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It grew out of federal predator removal programs designed to help the livestock industry take hold in the West. Wildlife Services describes its current mission as resolving conflicts “to allow people and wildlife to coexist.” But critics say the agency still puts too much emphasis on killing animals."

"Last night, we were shocked to learn that the wolf killed two weeks ago by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) was the alpha female of the Huckleberry pack.

"This is a massive blow to the wolf pack.

"Contact the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Phil Anderson, and demand that he rescind the kill order immediately!

"Make no mistake, WDFW has reaffirmed that the kill order on wolves in the Huckleberry pack is still in effect. Until the kill order is lifted, these wolves are not safe. WDFW, as well as ranch staff, continue to have authorization to remove up to three more wolves from the pack.

"WDFW has grossly mismanaged the situation from the beginning - from the poor implementation of non-lethal methods to taking nearly two weeks to announce the fact that they had killed the most important member of the pack.

"It was just two years ago that WDFW killed every single member of the Wedge pack in a highly controversial lethal control action that was also tragically mismanaged. There were only five breeding pairs in the entire state last year and wolves are still a state listed endangered species today.

"Tell Director Phil Anderson to rescind the kill order NOW.

"With the tragic loss of the alpha female, the future of the Huckleberry pack is highly uncertain. The young pups are motherless and the pack has no matriarch - by allowing the kill order to remain in effect, WDFW is sealing the fate of the pack."
-- Defenders of Wildlife

August 20, 2014

Ferguson, FERGUSON, FeRgUsOn, ferGUSon, FERGUson, fErGuSoN, Ferguson, FERGUSON, FeRgUsOn, ferGUSon, FERGUson, fErGuSoN, Ferguson, FERGUSON, FeRgUsOn, ferGUSon, FERGUson, fErGuSoN, Ferguson, FERGUSON, FeRgUsOn, ferGUSon, FERGUson, fErGuSoN, Ferguson, FERGUSON, FeRgUsOn, ferGUSon, FERGUson, fErGuSoN, Ferguson, FERGUSON, FeRgUsOn, ferGUSon, FERGUson, fErGuSoN, ????????????????

August 15, 2014

Well, it's the middle of August and Congress has been on a well-deserved leave. Can't you just feel the disruption, the slowdown, the loss of leadership? If they were to stay on leave permanently, would anyone notice? The original reason for an August vacation was the intolerable late summer heat in Washington, DC. But now, in the golden age of air-conditioners, why is that necessary? Tradition. If nothing else, Congress rigidly and faithfully upholds traditions.

For example, in 1953 the CIA orchestrated the overthrow of the democratically-elected government of Iran, its first. It was a test run, a field experiment to work out the bugs and the unforseen. From it, an actual user's manual was derived, later refined and tweeked to take into account all possible scenarios and contingencies. That original coup d'etat was masterfully accomplished, and, after the first failure, an experiment gone bad, set the model for all to follow, establishing the tradition of coups.

King Reagan concocted the trickle-down economic joke that the Republican party embraced as a bona-fide tradition, a keystone of their political philosophy. Through the 80's and 90's production of products in America increased several fold while wages and benefits remained constant. The increased profits were gobbled up and distributed to the upper eschelon and did not manage to trickle down to the workers responsible for the increase. Trickling down was bullshit from the beginning, and in the circles I've traveled, refers to being pissed on.

We can only hope that the month goes by quickly so Congress can return to its three-day-a-week job of saying no and generally refusing to do anything to help the country and its citizens. After months of anal retention, a relatively new and perversely adhered to tradition of the Republican Party, they certainly need the break.

August 12, 2014

I recall after the World Trade Center attacks, some spokesman for Al-Qaida anticipated a coup taking place in the United States. I remember how truly shocked I felt at that. The very idea. America is a highly complex, interwoven social, cultural, and political structure. For ignorant insulated ragheads to believe that it would disintegrate into an amorphous bowl of jelly as a result of those attacks demonstrates their lack of knowledge about the history of the US--Pearl Harbor, anyone?--and seriously underestimates the strength, resolve, and determination of the American people to stand up for our country and way of life. And why the hell would there be a coup in the first place and by whom?

This told me far more about those countries, their people and how they think than anything else I've come across. In their world it's possible or even likely that a coup would be inspired from a proportionate attack by some terrorist group. They don't get it and never will. They don't belong to a country and so the country they call home doesn't belong to them. None of the 22 members of the Arab League is free or democratic. Kings, princes, nobles run the land and own the oil to do with as they wish, however wasteful. As long as they remain enslaved by their own political and sectarian systems, putting allegiance to tribe and religious group above that of their home country as a nation state, as long as they adamantly refuse to form an integrated society working with all its faults for the good of the whole, nothing will ever change. Never.

Review of Popular TV Shows:

Smallville:
Mostly twenty-somethings pretending to be high school students involved in supernatural activities and events.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
Mostly twenty-somethings pretending to be high school students involved in supernatural activities and events.

Royal Pains:
Does anyone really care if the top one percent of the country living or summering in the Hamptons develops tennis elbow or gout or almost drowns in his pool after drinking too much champaigne?

July 25, 2014

Does anyone remember the communications officer for Sadaam Hussein? When we invaded Iraq and were in downtown Bagdhad with troops and tanks practically outside his front door, this guy was giving press talks telling people how badly the Iraqui military was beating the Americans. It was surreal and insane and a little pathetic at the same time. Well, that's who comes to mind whenever I hear or read about something John Boehner said.

All kidding aside, I find it extremely disturbing to realize that Boehner, as the Speaker of the House, is third in line to run the country. My God. Please Lord, if you have any mercy left in your hearts for us overbearing and self-destructive Americans, please keep the president and vice-president safe and healthy. Please?

June 12, 2014

Just listening to John Boehner's warning of danger over the Bergdahl trade--traditional Republican scare tactics. "Releasing those five detainees has put every American at risk."

Really? What about closer to home, nutjob? If you're so intersted in keeping Americans free from random danger and threats, try cleaning up the streets in New York, Chicago, LA, and, oh, here's one: why not do something serious about gun control? Why not do something about a Veterans Aaffairs system that's been clearly busted for decades and is responsible for the unnecessary deaths of men and women who've put their lives on the line in wars we should've been done with long ago? There's lots you and your obstructionist cohorts can do to alleviate danger to Americans. I don't see how sending angry men--and I would be too--back home halfway around the world even begins to compare with mass killings and ineffectual gun laws. Do something about helping people out of poverty so they won't have to resort to crime to get by and support their families. Do something positive, for Christ's sake, and get off this opportunistic bashing of the president. You just make yourselves look like racist fools and hate mongers, trying to scare people about boogeymen from the Far East when there's plenty right here at home. I'll tell you what, I grew up on the streets of Philadelphia, and the only thing that scares me in this country is you people, the staunchly resistant and anal-retentive Republican slice of the Congress. And the Democrats, forever timid and afraid to upset an imagined populace, demonstrate cowardice in their lack of energetic support of the president. All you people should be ashamed of yourselves, but I think you're beyond the reach of such provincial emotions.

Idaho's orgy of death continues unabated with its War on Wolves. Check out this infographic from Defenders of Wildlife:

June 6, 2014

The difference between real philosophers like Hoffer, Emerson, and Sartre and those with merely an intelectual grasp of freedom is street sense. That's the dimension that allows for its full expression. One must feel comfortable and at home in the world. Openness connecting as self and acceptance of doing nothing are not givens.

You have to own yourself.

Without the visceral element of eros, without the physical medium of consciousness, there can be no true understanding of freedom.

May 28, 2014

"Monarch butterflies have habitat where you wouldn't expect it -- for instance, agricultural fields across the Midwest. But this habitat is in danger of being lost to a deadly new herbicide.

"The EPA is planning to approve a Dow Company herbicide that contains glyphosate, the active chemical in Roundup, and 2,4-D, a major component of the infamous Agent Orange toxin used in the Vietnam War. Wildlife habitat, plants and crops that haven't been genetically engineered to withstand this dangerous cocktail will be harmed.

"The increase in genetically engineered crops and herbicides in recent years has already reduced milkweed populations by 51 percent, and monarch populations have plummeted by 81 percent.

"The use of 2,4-D will also hurt threatened species like California red-legged frogs, Alameda whipsnakes and several types of salmon by destroying plants where these species live."
--- Center for Biological Diversity

"Americans have a special bond with horses. They helped build our nation, and they’re not raised to be food because we don’t eat them. So how is it that we could allow more than 150,000 U.S. horses to be sent abroad to slaughter every year?

"Make no mistake—any horse can wind up at a slaughterhouse: the patient Quarter Horse, the sleek Thoroughbred, the gorgeous Clydesdale. Every single horse in America is vulnerable—and just one bad sale away from the butcher’s knife.

"The ASPCA is fighting this grisly industry on all fronts, but we can’t do it without your help. Our immediate task is to block the resumption of U.S. horse slaughter. We made great progress last Thursday, when language to renew the ban on using tax dollars to fund horse meat inspections cleared its first hurdle by passing the Senate Appropriations Committee. But there’s more work to do. The ASPCA is pushing for passage of the SAFE Act, a bill that will ban horse slaughter in all 50 states as well as ban export of our horses to other countries for slaughter."
--- Keep Horses Off the Killing Floor

May 26, 2014

Demagogue: A leader who obtains power by means of impassioned appeals to the emotions and prejudices of the populace.

Sound like anyone you know? Maybe lots of someones. Fear mongering has become tools of the trade for Republicans these days. What contempt they have for the American people.

May 22, 2014

I just watched this on Free Speech TV:

Check it out.

"A new GOP push to dramatically cut federal spending for summer school lunch programs comes after years of right-wing media misinformation about and attacks against funding for school lunch programs."

GOP Push To Cut School Lunch Funding Echoes Years Of Conservative Media Attacks
May 21, 2014 - Media Matters for America

May 14, 2014

The great State of Idaho is at it again:

"Ravens are among the most intelligent species on this planet. They are also among the only creatures who engage in play for the sheer joy of it. Juvenile ravens have been known to steal and cache shiny objects and slide down snowbanks on their backs. They have even been observed to make their own toys and to engage in games with other species. Ravens are also a federally protected species, yet the state of Idaho is planning on killing at least 4,000 of them over the next two years.

"The ravens are being culled in the name of conserving another species, the greater sage-grouse. Ravens are an opportunistic species and are known to occasionally prey on grouse eggs and chicks, yet predation ranks low on the list of threats to their survival. The greatest threat to the birds by far is loss of habitat, mostly due to residential building and energy development. Increased predation is the direct result of loss of ground cover and suitable habitat for sage-grouse nesting, yet while the ravens are sentenced to death for engaging in their natural behavior little is being done to restrict development and save grouses’ native brushlands.

"The sage-grouse is currently on a conservation wait list. Federal officials will decide next year whether or not to officially list the bird as threatened. As a threatened species the grouse would be subject to federal protection, including limiting development on critical habitat. Because of this states like Idaho that have large historic populations of sage-grouse are rushing to increase their numbers in an attempt to limit federal regulation on their public lands. This is an irresponsible and misguided fix to a complex, fundamentally human problem."
--- Stop Wildlife Officials' Senseless Raven Killing

April 25, 2014

I would like to draw your attention to the following polls. The question asked was: "Do you approve or disapprove of the job the Republicans in Congress are doing in office?" Here are the results.

And according to a Gallup poll: No Improvement for Congress' Job Approval Rating | April 10, 2014

In the movie Elysium, with Matt Damon and Jodie Foster, the basic theme was that only the wealthy could afford state-of-the-art medical care because only they were considered citizens. Sounds very much like how Republicans want it to be which would be the case without the Affordable Care Act.

I don't know how many times I've seen the positively brilliant movie Avatar. Every time I watch it some new details are revealed. James Cameron created his very own category, a breathtaking and beautiful experiencce. The content tends to distract, necessarily, from the context which is mentioned briefly and only at the very beginning. Backed by an aggressive military, some obscure corporation seeking the improbably-named and prophetic mineral unobtainium is running the show, making the final decisions, launching the invasion. The movie is futuristic as is Elysium; however, where that movie is clearly a class allegory, Avatar tells the story of native Americans and their plight at the hands of invading Europeans seeking gold and land. But the point I'm trying to make is this: We have a corporation backed by mercenaries invading another planet with the intention of taking it over no matter the cost to life, but no mention of any Earth-side government.

In fact, it may not be too much of a stretch to imagine Pandora to be Iraq, unobtainium to be oil, and the corporation to be that of the oil industry. And who has backed them? Digressing somewhat, that's where the comparison ends, though. I don't believe the Iraquis are in touch with much of nature as native Americans are or at least were. People who feel close to, if not one with, the Earth and the natural order are far more tolerant--although not so much towards invaders--than those who believe in abstract notions of God. And because of the abstract character of their God, Iraquis are fragmented in their beliefs based on trivial differences. Moreover, it doesn't seem that the sanctity of life is very high on the Islamic agenda.

And what about the logging and mineral companies invading tribal lands and destroying villages and wild habitat in South America? And what about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge? What about human beings ruthlessly going after whatever they feel they can't do without, must have, at the cost of some other people's lives and ways of life? What about the Chinese government uprooting tens of thousands of people from their ancestral villages and homes in order to build a dam? What about all this shit?

Would an alien race on a research anthropological tour of this sector of the galaxy even begin to consider contacting us? Don't you think they'd be wary, given our predilections, lest we visit their planet?

April 25, 2014

Night of the Living Dead
"A disturbing ritual in Holley, New York has surfaced in the media. Residents take part in an annual “Squirrel Slam,” a fundraiser in which citizens kill as many squirrels as they can in order to “benefit” the local fire department. As if this isn’t bizarre and gruesome enough, children are encouraged to take part and awards are given to those who kill the most squirrels. Fortunately, by supporting a bill that would ban senseless killing contests, we can help stop the event.

"Residents in the town of Holley take pride in squirrel hunting. One image shows children carrying the dead animals down the street, while adults stand by idly. Since squirrels are said to be a vital asset to forest regeneration, their removal would upset the local ecosystem and harm the growth of at least 10 species of trees. Estimates suggest that the Holley Squirrel Slam results in the death of over 2000 squirrels per year, thus deliberately damaging the environment.

"The animal rights organization Friends of Animals, along with state senator Tony Avella, who proposed the bill, are hoping to stop animal killing contests across the state of New York. Other senators have already jumped on board with the idea that senseless killing and destruction of wildlife is unacceptable."
-- End Gruesome Squirrel Slaughter

April 23, 2014

"The Thai Police have recently made a gruesome discovery in the forest alongside the Laos border. They uncovered hundreds upon hundreds of dog pelts in a pile next to dog bones. This horrific discovery sheds light on how big the dog leather trade really is. Many people are familiar with the dog meat trade, however, the dog leather industry may be just as shocking.

"Dog leather is used by factories to make everything from drums to golf gloves. Golf glove manufacturers especially value the skin from male dog testicles because the skin from that area has a softer quality. The demand for dog pelts appallingly works hand in hand with the dog meat trade. Many dog smugglers are drawn to Thailand due to its large population of stray dogs. Smugglers continue to sneak dog parts across the border from Thailand and Laos. If their attempts are successful, it is most likely that the dog pelts and meat would be transported to Vietnam or China, where the demand for dog parts is particularly strong.

"The entire ordeal for these dogs is extremely cruel from beginning to end. Usually the dogs would be skinned alive and have to endure an excruciating amount of pain before they die. It is an absolutely cruel and horrendous industry and it must be stopped as soon as possible. Sign this petition and urge the Prime Minister of Thailand to crack down on the smuggling and trade of dog parts."
-- Stop Killing Dogs for Leather in Thailand

April 21, 2014

Standing, left to right: Associate Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Samuel Alito.
Seated, left to right: Associate Justices , Anthony M. Kennedy, John Paul Stevens, Chief Justice John Roberts,
Associate Justices Antonin Scalia and David H. Souter

"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." -- Excerpt from the Declaration of Independence

April 20, 2014

"The Copenhagen Zoo in Denmark sparked anger all over the world in February when officials killed a healthy 18-month old giraffe. As if that didn’t cause enough outrage, according to the New York Times, the zoo decided to euthanize four more animals in April. This time they killed four healthy lions to clear some space for a new male lion. The zoo’s decision caused a huge public backlash with some even calling Copenhagen Zoo officials “murderers.” The zoo defended the killing of the four lions by saying that they wanted to save genetic purity of the animals in their facilities. They were afraid that the new male lion would prey on the cubs and breed with one of the female lions that were his offspring, which would cause inbreeding."
-- Condemn Zoo for Killing Four Lions | Animal Petitions

"Three conservation groups recently initiated a lawsuit against the governor of Idaho and other state officials to halt trapping that illegally kills one of the rarest cats in the United States, the Canada lynx. According to The Center for Biological Diversity, the state of Idaho is enabling Endangered Species Act violations by permitting trapping that leads to incidental killing of lynx. Urge the Idaho Department of Fish and Game to develop a conservation plan that would help maintain the survival of these beautiful, threatened animals.

"Under the Endangered Species Act, trapping of lynx is illegal, even if the animal is released alive. Any agency that permits trapping is liable under the Act. Trapping permitted by the state of Idaho is pushing these animals toward extinction, which is a clear violation of the Act.

"The Canada lynx is a threatened species that numbers as few as one hundred in the state of Idaho. Recreational trapping poses great risk for the lynx living there. Although the intentional trapping of lynx is not permitted under Idaho law, increases in trapping licenses and fur prices, especially for bobcat, have resulted in incidental trapping of lynx. In the past two years, at least three lynx have been unintentionally caught by bobcat trappers."
-- Save Rare Lynx from Illegal Trapping | Animal Petitions

"Kentucky State Representative Joni Jenkins sponsored a bill in January called House Bill 222, with the intent to set strict standards for the use of euthanasia in animal shelters. Unfortunately, when the bill entered committee in the State Senate, things went awry. Language was added to the bill that would restrict or even ban animal rights advocates from entering farms and slaughterhouses to record animal abuse.

"Such legislation bans the use of hidden cameras to film abuses carried out on factory farms, and is a direct attack on animal rights organizations trying to stop and prevent animal rights violations. Bills including language like this are often referred to as “ag-gag bills.” The addition of such a provision comes on the heels of many alleged instances of animal cruelty on Kentucky family farms, many reported here on ForceChange. Call on the Kentucky Senate to remove the “ag-gag” provision of the bill, and restore this important piece of legislation to Representative Jenkin’s original intention of helping animals. Senator Paul Hornback, who leads the Kentucky Senate Agricultural Committee, has the power to remove all “ag-gag” language in this bill; call on him to do so today.

"The ability of animal rights groups to investigate factory farming operations and slaughter houses is crucial to preventing animal abuse. In the last few years, undercover operations have exposed animal cruelty in Kentucky and many other states time and time again. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals pointed out in a recent statement that while it is deplorable that big agribusiness is edging its way into legislation at all, it is especially tragic in the case of House Bill 222, which was originally meant to protect animals. The Kentucky Farm Bureau, a lobbyist group that represents not only small family farms but also large factory farm operations, unsurprisingly supports the bill."
-- Stop Law Meant to Keep Animal Abuse in the Dark | Animal Petitions

April 19, 2014

April 18, 2014

It not only depends on what news outlet you listen to, it depends on how closely you listen, the details. On the Jon Stewart show a representative of the State Department was being interviewed in one of their typically derisive question and answer segments. He stated at one point that President Putin was concerned that "neo-nazi terrorists were going to (oppress) ethnic Russians." It was intended to be absurd, of course, as we Americans are conditioned to believe that anything our former cold-war enemy says is nonsense and just pretense to justify military involvement in order to keep the country--Ukraine plus Crimea--from breaking away completely from Russian influence. But later on in the day during the David Pakman show on Free Speech TV the story came out that Jews in the town of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine are being told to "register" with the pro-Russian militants who have taken over a government office. How taking over an office puts them in charge of the country, or anything, for that matter, and in a position to dictate to any particular group is a testament to the fragmented and incoherent nature of Ukraine's current status. Sounds like intimidation, extortion and robbery by an armed gang of petty thugs--a shakedown--just like in Germany at the onset of the Nazi movement, only not so organized.

"Jews emerging from a synagogue say they were handed leaflets that ordered the city's Jews to provide a list of property they own and pay a registration fee "or else have their citizenship revoked, face deportation and see their assets confiscated," reported Ynet News, Israel's largest news website, and Ukraine's Donbass news agency."
--- Leaflet Tells Jews to Register in East Ukraine | April 17, 2014 - USA Today

At the bottom of this article was:

"Michael Salberg, director of the international affairs at the New York City-based Anti-Defamation League, said it's unclear whether the leaflets were issued by the pro-Russian leadership or a splinter group operating within the pro-Russian camp.

"But he said the Russian side has used the specter of anti-Semitism in a cynical manner. Russia and its allies in Ukraine have issued multiple stories about the threat posed to Jews by Ukraine's new pro-Western government in Kiev, Salberg said."

The emphasis is mine. Understand that Salsberg's point of view is as the spokeman for the Anti-Defamation League home-based in the U.S. of A.. Nonetheless, the point I'm trying to make is that, except for the allegation by western media sources that the people threatening the "ethnic group"--Jews--are Pro-Russian militants wanting Ukraine to be part of Russia, what Putin purportedly said turns out to be correct. That is, if we can believe what USA Today and other news media tell us insofar as their designation of just who these people are and what they represent--their agenda--as opposed to Putin's, their anti-Semitic actions are the same. The question then comes down to: whose side are they actually on? Perhaps they're just on their own side, like the Taliban, which would make President Putin's observation the more accurate one.

Ultimately, what is really going on there and who the main actors are and what they want has been so terribly muddled by global media through its divergent interests and perspectives, its slants and cultural biases, and by the obtuseness of the usual suspects in Congress whose knee-jerk and typical response to such provocations is to shoot first and clarify later, that the true state of affairs may never surface. The end result of such confusion is that someone attacks someone else in an effort to put a lid on the whole mess in the name of imposing order and justice, thereby usurping control. All that's needed is a rationale, an excuse, a trigger, even if the aggressor has to fabricate one out of thin air. We Americans are no strangers to that.

April 14, 2014

Republican War On Women
The Republicans in Congress and their Governor cohorts and city councils around the country have been working overtime to dismantle and undermine Roe v Wade; that should come as no news to anyone paying attention. Restrictions of the most ridiculous nature have been devised by these perverted, misogynistic assholes. In Texas they passed an ordinance or statute that places a minimal square footage on abortion clinics for reasons too obscure and clearly bogus to repeat. None of the clinics are able to comply, of course, the required footage was researched, so now they're all closed. Let me point out that these clinics don't just perform abortions, they also supply planned parenthood, contraceptive, and gynecological services to those unable to afford them.

They haven't focused soley on reproductive rights, a bill known as the IVAWA--International Violence Against Women Act--is being reintroduced to the House for the fourth time. The GOP has blocked it on its last three incarnations.

"I-VAWA would make preventative measures against gender-based violence a permanent addition to U.S. foreign policy. It would also seek to solidify and uniform research and reporting standards; strengthen prevention and response to violence; and nurture effective local organizations offering programs and services to women in matters of health, law, education, and other issues." -- Nina Strochlic - The Daily Beast
• VAWA Goes Global
  November 21, 2013 - Nina Strochlic - The Daily Beast

“It’s a Republican-held Congress and they’re dead set on shooting down anything we introduce,” says Sabrina Singh, the Congresswoman’s (Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat representing Illinois’s 9th district who sponsored the bill last Fall) communications director. According to GovTrack.us it has a one percent chance of being enacted.
• H.R.3571: International Violence Against Women Act of 2013 (IVAWA)| GovTrack.us

I feel like I'm on a boat that's slowly and jerkily being pushed back by the tide and wind, lots of wind. This right-wing almost fascist fervor and attitude of Republicans is nothing short of startling. They don't even try to hide with cleverness their determination to revoke womens rights and will to self-determination. Will the right to vote be next? Put forward by some southern reactionary as a means to curtail all possible threats from the left? The Voting Rights Act has already been seriously tampered with all through the south, so why not?

What I'm hoping for is what I refer to as "the rubberband effect." I've seen it happen in other social contexts. Easy victories in the beginning lead to larger, more arrogant steps, assertions. False confidence builds inspiring daring leaps of aspiration when suddenly--one goes too far, the limb breaks, the baloon pops, the rubberband snaps, kaplow, right in the kisser.

It's coming, the backlash, wait and see.

• House Republicans Kick Off 2014 With Renewed Focus On Abortion, Birth Control
  January 8, 2014 - The Huffington Post
  "As the Senate takes up a measure to extend unemployment insurance, Republicans in the House of Representatives are looking to make 2014 another banner year for anti-abortion laws."
• These Five States Have Spent More Than 3 Million Dollars Defending Anti-Abortion Laws
  January 24, 2014 - Think Progress
• Anti-Abortion Laws: States Pass Record Wave of Abortion Restrictions | The Huffington Post
• How Blue States Could Push Back for Abortion Rights | November 13, 2013 - New Republic
• Texas passes one of toughest anti-abortion laws in US | July 13, 2013 | The Guardian
• 5 Anti-Abortion States to Watch in 2013 | January 8, 2013 - Mother Jones
  • The 4 Worst New Anti-Abortion Laws...In The Past Three Weeks | July 11, 2013

April 10, 2014

Idaho, Land of the Dead
Rich Americans fly to Africa to kill animals for the hell of it, to brag about--trophy hunters. We love it, it's in our genes, our heritage, the way we think. America is easily the most kill-crazy country in the world, and no state more exemplifies that than Idaho. Forget potatoes, it's kill wolves, all of them, adults, cubs, pregnant mothers, allll of them. The blood lust is upon them. No holds or methods are barred, shooting with assault rifles from helicopters, trapping, snaring, then shooting, poisoning, blowing up, whatever, they have the blessing of the government backing them up, all hell is breaking loose.

Goodbye wolves, you had your chance, we have to protect our livestock, even us folks what ain't got none, we're too stupid, selfish, and sociopathic to come up with another strategy, we're too dumb to figure out how to cooperate with wild animals, it hurts our brain, it's easier to just kill 'em. We need to boost the elk and deer populations for our sportsmen, there simply is not enough to go around. They're bad shots so they need lots of targets. It ain't like anybody eats wolf meat, you understand, no humans leastwise, it's not like we need to kill ya' to survive, no, it's all just for fun, git it?

Now get this: The Earth is our planet, ours, you see, and we intend to keep it that way even if we have to kill every last one of you sons of bitches!

"The feds just released the latest wolf kill numbers, and the news is heartbreaking: 1,131 wolves killed in Idaho since federal protection was removed in 2011. The state's population has plummeted by 42 percent since then. Otter's goal is to wipe out most wolves, until the entire state has only 10 packs left.

"The state's wolf population is in sharp decline for the first time since wolf-recovery efforts began in the 1980s.

"And it's going to get much, much worse if we don't stop Governor Butch Otter's atrocious plan to radically ramp up the killing.

"Idaho has wiped out half its breeding wolf packs in just two years, leaving only 20 now. Otter has pledged to wipe out another five packs and bring the state's total population down to a mere 150 animals.

"To pay for the slaughter he's taking $400,000 of taxpayer money and funneling it into his handpicked Wolf Depredation Control Board's funding. He's taken wolf management away from the state wildlife agency. He's expanded hunting areas and times, making killing a year-round sport in the northern half. And now he wants to give the livestock industry free rein to kill wolves whenever they want.

"And if those few remaining packs successfully raise families and grow? Otter's "wolf depredation control board" will spend taxpayer money on helicopters, guns, traps and sharpshooters to kill them and if Otter gets his way, there will be so few gray wolves left that the species will be threatened with extinction again."
-- Center for Biological Diversity

"Idaho has gone too far with their endless assaults on wolves.

"Less than five years after losing federal protection, it is clearer than ever that the state refuses to manage its wolf population responsibly.

"That’s why today, Defenders of Wildlife officially requested that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) immediately initiate a status review of wolves in the Northern Rockies and examine the relentless threats that this species has encountered since being stripped of Endangered Species Act protection back in 2011.

"Instead of managing their wolves like other wildlife, the state of Idaho has declared war on them.

"In the less than three years since Congress stripped Idaho’s wolves of protection, the state has:

• Used aerial gunning to wipe out entire packs, including those on national forest lands, to artificially boost elk populations;

• Allowed hunting of wolves every day of the year;

• Doubled the number of wolves that could be trapped or snared from five to ten;

• Sent a professional trapper to eliminate two packs of wolves in a federal wilderness area;

• Has proposed killing 60 percent of the remaining wolves in the Frank Church Wilderness; and

• Recently passed HB470 into law setting aside an annual amount of $400,000 for the sole purpose of killing as many wolves as possible.

"The Governor of Idaho has made no secret of his intention to reduce the state's wolf population to 150 animals or less – which would require initially killing more than 450 wolves and their young as more are born."
-- Defenders of Wildlife

Nearby where I live is a small lake. A handful of locals use it in the summer to wade and swim in. Last year they complained, some of them, about the goose droppings in the water, seemed it bothered their otherwise perfect enjoyment. Consequently, the Fish and Game authorities went there and killed all the geese, 60 of them.

Up the road from me lived a beaver and his family. As beavers do, they constructed a dam and built a house in the middle of the pond that resulted. It rains a lot here in the spring. After an especially long downpour that lasted several days, the pond flooded over and covered the roadway, not much, just an inch perhaps. The people who lived up that way, not many to be sure as a mile further is the entrance to the Olympic National Forest, complained about it. They could've waited until the sun came out and the water subsided, it wasn't going to be a permanent fixture and they were never in any danger of having their vehicles washed off the road. Nonetheless, the authorities came out and killed the beaver family--male, female and two cubs I saw on one occasion--and broke up the dam.

This is the American way, how we deal with wildlife. Someone complains or might complain or is temporarily inconvenienced and the culpable creatures are killed fortwith; no tolerance or attempt to work out some strategy that's mutually beneficial is considered. And the authorities, Fish and Game or Fish and Wildlife, are very obliging and quick to respond the only way they know how.

April 9, 2014

"Rep. Paul Ryan ”the Republicans' self-appointed policy wonk” is out with a new plan to cut ... well, pretty much everything: Head Start, Medicaid, food stamps, low-income housing, energy assistance, job training, education, veterans programs ... basically finding every way possible to cut from programs that help hardworking Americans in order to give more money to special interests.

"Just one problem, though. He cherry-picked data from various academic and governmental studies to make his numbers work and the economists whose work he's misrepresenting are not happy about it.

"Simply put: Paul Ryan is a fraud who can't balance a spreadsheet."
-- The Daily Kos

April 8, 2014

"Oil companies are continuing to seek permits that would allow them to explore for oil in Africa's oldest national park, Virunga. This national park is also the home range of more than half of the world's mountain gorillas, a critically endangered species whose survival would be seriously threatened if it were to lose a large portion of its habitat. Despite the fact that Virunga is a protected UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has considered revoking the national park's protected status, therefore becoming "degazetted"� and making it legal for oil companies to drill in the area.

"Not only is Virunga National Park home to a majority of the mountain gorillas currently living in the wild, but it is also the home of several other endangered species including chimpanzees, forest elephants, and hippos. The incredibly rare forest giraffe, Okapi, resides in Virunga National Park exclusively. Allowing oil companies to search and drill for oil in this beautiful landscape would further threaten the survival of these rare creatures.

"By signing this petition, you will be asking U.S. government officials to urge the DRC government to abandon its plans to degazette Virunga National Park to allow oil development, revoke all previously issued permits to explore for oil in the park, and permanently declare all of DRC's protected areas and national parks off-limits to oil companies."
-- Save National Park from Oil Drilling

When Big Oil says jump, these corrupt governments hold out their hands and ask, "How high?"

April 5, 2014

As we enter the Golden Age of Corporate Oligarchy (Corporatocracy), let's take a moment to look back at how it came to be.

President Eisenhower warned of the Military Industrial Complex, but no one took heed. Through the seventies and especially the eighties multinational corporations, led by Big Oil, invested heavily in every developing country in the world, making deals with the ruling governments. They superceded restrictions placed on mere sovereign nation-states and had the backing of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Asian Development Fund. These institutions offered large sums of money to countries in desperate need with conditions that demanded the elimination of local village and community access to clean water and agricultural necessities--seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides--in compliance with the business interests of those multinationals concerned.

In general, today the peoples of these countries have thus become dependent, to a great extent, for their survival on the multinationals who, in a very real sense, exert a controling influence on the cultures of these societies, undermining their previously traditional sustainable and independent life-supporting practices.

Any and all pretense to legitimate democracies, military juntas, communist dictatorships, and local political regimes has been supplanted by an entrenched infrastructure regulated by the complex of corporate banking interests in collusion with and supported by a corrupt governing body.

Welcome to the New World Order.

Corporation
1. A body that is granted a charter recognizing it as a separate legal entity having its own rights, privileges, and liabilities distinct from those of its members.

2. (Law) a group of people authorized by law to act as a legal personality and having its own powers, duties, and liabilities.

Recently--April 15--the following report/analysis came across my desk so to speak:

• Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens
  PDF File - April 9, 2014 - Martin Gilens - Princeton University

Two documentaries that will shed more light on the global situation are:

• "The World According to Monsanto" | 108 minutes - Top Documentary Films
  "There's nothing they are leaving untouched: the mustard, the okra, the bringe oil, the rice, the cauliflower. Once they have established the norm: that seed can be owned as their property, royalties can be collected. We will depend on them for every seed we grow of every crop we grow. If they control seed, they control food, they know it – it's strategic. It's more powerful than bombs. It's more powerful than guns.

  "This is the best way to control the populations of the world.

  "Thanks to these intimate links between Monsanto and government agencies, the US adopted GE foods and crops without proper testing, without consumer labeling and in spite of serious questions hanging over their safety. Not coincidentally, Monsanto supplies 90 percent of the GE seeds used by the US market."

  • Seed banks in south Asia: building grassroots support for crop diversity | The Guardian
    Seed banks improve food security and help preserve indigenous farming practices. How can they be better supported by development efforts?

• Watch Free Online -- "Flow: For Love of Water" | 93 minutes - Top Documentary Films
  "Irena Salina's award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century - The World Water Crisis. Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world's dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel."

• A Message from Us Rich Plutocrats To All You Little People | Nick Hannauer

• The United States of Corporate America: From Democracy to Plutocracy
  January 22, 2010 - Prof. Rodrique Tremblay - Global Research

• The World Top Incomes Database

• Out of Control: The Coast-to-Coast Failures of Outsourcing Public Services to For-Profit Corporations
  12/04/13 - In The Public Interest

• 15 Things Everyone Would Know if There Were a Liberal Media | August 7, 2013 - The Daily Kos

April 4, 2014

• Supreme Court Rulng Gives Small Number of Wealthy Donors New Ways to Drive Campaigns
  April 3, 2014 - The Washington Post
• Supreme Court Strikes Down Overall Political Donation Cap
  April 2, 2014 - The New York Times
• Supreme Court lifts ban on aggregate campaign donations
  April 2, 2014 - USA Today
  The decision represents another step toward easing decades-old restrictions on political contributions that were designed to combat corruption.
• The Supreme Court Just Struck a Blow to Individual Campaign Donation Limits
  April 2, 2014 - Slate.com

• Recommended Documentaries
  "We suggest the following films as great educational resources on corporate power (many additional films are also listed on the website Films for Action)." Their tag line is: Films For Action Presents: The Top 100 Documentaries Inspiring the Shift to a Sustainable Paradigm

• "The Corporation" | Full Movie - Chapters 1 to 23
• "The World According to Monsanto" | 108 minutes - Top Documentary Films

• The 'Citizens United' Decision and why it matters | October 18, 2012

"A recent undercover investigation by The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) has revealed that puppies are being tortured and killed for vaccine research at MSD Animal Health, which is owned by the pharmaceutical company Merck, Sharp and Dohme. Modern technologies have made this type of testing unnecessary. It is time to stop the senseless killing of animals.

"During an eight-month period, a BUAV investigator, who was posing as an employee, witnessed 92 beagle puppies, 10 adult nursing female beagles, at least 15 kittens, and an unknown number of rabbits, calves, and chickens killed at the MSD Animal Health facility which is located in Cambridgeshire, England. Some of the puppies were as young as four weeks old when they were repeatedly injected with vaccines in the name of research. When they were deemed no longer useful, many of the adult dogs were killed without any attempt to find them a loving home.

"The BUAV investigator captured disturbing video footage of puppies thrashing and squealing as they try to prevent being injected with a lethal does of medicine. After the puppies are killed, their small bodies are ripped open and their organs are examined. Shockingly, MSD Animal Health are not breaking any laws with their cruel research, but alternative techniques like cell bacteria analysis would provide ample information without killing innocent animals. BUAV’s spokeswoman Sarah Kite says, “We do not believe that the company or the wider research community are doing enough to use alternative approaches to animal testing in the development of animal vaccines.”"
-- Stop Killing Puppies for Vaccine Testing

April 3, 2014

The Chariman of the House Budget Committee, Republican Paul Ryan, recently released his master plan for balancing the budget by 2024. His intention is to increase defense spending and cut corporate taxes, even though most corporations don't pay what they owe now and some don't pay anything, subsidized as they are by federal money, cut Medicare, food stamps, college loans, and repeal the Affordable Care Act as a sideshow, everything and anything that helps those most vulnerable in today's economy. He is a mouth-piece for the wealthy, corporate interests, and the military-industrial complex and doesn't even try to hide it. And he's just the spokeman for that mentality, for the Republican war on poor people.

And yet, and yet, those very same people who are and would be most affected by entitlement and program cuts still get out there and vote for them. It's mindboggling. Could it be some variant on the Stockholm Syndrome? Could they be under some kind of spell? Even though they're made to feel inferior and accused of being lazy and unamerican, they still vote those bastards into office. If some Republican congressman says he's a Christian opposed to gay marriage and for gun rights, that's enough. Issues close to the heart of evangelists, homophobes, and second amendment fanatics are so important that being knocked into the mud and held there while simultaneously raising up the rich and powerful is a small price to pay if it means voting those people into office who will work tirelessly to support what real America is all about, misunderstood and opposite to the truth as that may be. And it's not as though they, the politicians, are being clandestine about it. No, they're far too arrogant and sure of the gullibility and ignorance of their audience who, as a matter of pride, accept gross inequities and being the victims of corporate and financial-market fraud as God's will and a cross to bear that will be rewarded in heaven.

Regardless of what the Party wants to do and has done to make their lives more difficult if not impossible, having the right core value attributes appears to be sufficient to warrant their vote. What insanity. How unbeleivable. The right-wing fascist movement in Germany in the '30s used the same kind of tactics, began with the same sort of mentality, easily manipulated with lies and propaganda. It's a human thing, and we the people of democratic freedoms are not immune.
-- Ryan's Budget Would Cut 5 Trillion in Spending Over a Decade | April 1, 2014 - New York Times

"Siberian Tigers are the rarest breed of tiger on our planet and right now illegal logging is putting their future in jeopardy. Only 400 to 500 Siberian tigers are left in the wild, living throughout the vast forests of the Russian Far East, the only place they call home and the origin of millions of square feet of illegally logged hardwoods used right here, in the United States. Not only does illegal logging damage the environment, it disrupts our climate, hurts communities, and threatens American jobs.

"A landmark law called the Lacey Act helps the United States combat trafficking in illegal wood products and penalizes those who import illegally harvested wood products and wildlife. It is imperative that the Lacey Act continue to be enforced and strengthened."
-- Save Wildlife and their Habitats from Deforestation! -- Protect the Lacey Act

April 2, 2014

"Two Texas teenagers were recently arrested after they admitted kidnapping, skinning and murdering neighborhood pets. Local police had been investigating the sudden disappearance of an eight-year-old rescue dog named Camo after rumors began spreading that the beloved pet had been kidnapped by cult members for a satanic ritual. Authorities eventually found Camo dead, hanging from a tree. The poor animal had been skinned and was reportedly missing several internal organs. Investigators believe that Camo endured severe abuse and torture before he was likely sacrificed in a cult-style manner.

"The teenagers, 17-year-old Mark Ainsworth and 18-year-old Delaney Walters, reportedly admitted to kidnapping Camo and killing him during their satanic ritual. They also admitted to stealing, torturing and murdering a cat and three kittens. After their confessions, police also discovered evidence of these disgusting crimes, as Ainsworth and Walters took photos and videos throughout their cruel rituals."
-- Condemn Teens for Torturing and Murdering Neighborhood Pets | Animal Petitions

"Right now, politicians in Alabama are considering the most extreme and restrictive abortion ban in the country. And if that wasn't bad enough, this bill, which would ban abortion at just six weeks of pregnancy, is just one part of a sweeping package of bills aimed at restricting a woman's personal medical decisions.

"If it becomes law, the proposed six week ban would become the earliest and most extreme abortion ban in the country, with no exceptions for cases of rape and incest. If passed, this bill would essentially ban all abortions in the state of Alabama. Unfortunately, these politicians aren't the first to try it. Just last year a federal judge blocked a similar ban passed in North Dakota because it was blatantly unconstitutional. It's clear these attacks will not be stopping any time soon. It's important we show that we are watching and taking action."
-- Pledge to Fight the Most Extreme Abortion Ban in the Country

April 1, 2014

• The Obamacare Photos the MSM Doesn't Want You to See | March 31, 2014 - The Daily Kos
• ACA Signups.net | Tracking Enrollments for the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare)

• Interactive Map: The War on Voting Rights | The New Yorker
• With Eye on 2014, GOP Ramps Up War on Voting | 02/05/14 - MSNBC
  • War on Voting - Videos
• Ari Berman: "GOP War on Voting" Targets Swing States with New Voter ID and Registration Laws
  Democracy Now!
• The GOP War on Voting
  August 30, 2011 | The Rolling Stone
• If Section 5 Falls: New Voting Implications
  June 12, 2013 - Brennan Center for Justice
• Supreme Court gives big boost to war on voting
  June 25, 2013 - The Washington Post
• Ugly New Turn in Republican War on Voting
  March 29, 2014 - AlterNet
  Following Scalia's script, Kansas and Arizona can force would-be voters to produce proof of citizenship.

• Shooting dead of homeless camper sparks outrage against Albuquerque police
  -- the department that kills more people than the NYPD | The Independent
• Police Under Fire for Shooting Homeless Man | BBC
• Helmet Video of Albuquerque Cops Shooting Homeless Man Sparks Outrage Across New Mexico | Video Included
• Police Violence Sparks Riots in Albuquerque, New Mexico | YouTube
• ADP releases Helmet Cam footage of shooting | YouTube

War on Wolves in Idaho
"Idaho Governor Butch Otter just signed a death warrant for 500 more wolves. And he's going to divert $400,000 of taxpayer money to kill them. If Otter gets his way, there will be so few gray wolves left that the species will be threatened with extinction again.

- He lengthened the regular hunting season in much of the state and made killing a year-round sport in the northern half.

- He took wolf management away from the state wildlife agency and turned it over to a handpicked "wolf depredation control board" entirely made up of anti-wolf hunters and ranchers.

"Idaho has already killed more than 970 wolves since federal protections were stripped away by rightwing congressmen in 2011. The state's population has plummeted by 42 percent since then. Otter's goal is to wipe out most wolves, until the entire state has only 10 packs left."
-- Center for Biological Diversity

The following are from Animal Petitions:

"Tiger slaughters have been a problem in China for nearly a century, but over the last few years it has become a symbol of stature for wealthy businessmen to not only have tigers slaughtered for their meat and bones, but also to be able to witness the slaughter as a form of entertainment.

"More than ten tigers have been killed in the last five years solely for the purpose of entertaining officials and wealthy business people who gather to watch in order to show off their social stature. These events are described as “visual feasts.” Police in the city of Zhanjiang recently discovered a freshly slaughtered tiger and other tiger products in a raid. A video taken two years ago shows a tiger in a cage having an electrified mass forced into its mouth with stick. After being electrocuted for more than ten seconds, the tiger finally collapses."
-- Stop Slaughtering Tigers for Entertainment

"The worst case of animal abuse documented in the United States took place at an unlicensed slaughterhouse in Florida where drug dealer and owner, Raul Fernandez, shot, stabbed, beat and boiled animals alive — all for the sake of a profit.

"Visited by undercover members of the Miami police and Animal Recovery Mission, the illegal, unlicensed slaughterhouse quickly transformed into a house of horrors as a cameraman inquired about purchasing a whole pig. Intrigued, a member of Fernandez’s staff set out to find the perfect hog, where the obscenities were filmed on a hidden camera. One butcher is caught shooting a wild boar in the head and dragging it 150 feet to its fate with a metal hook through its jaw. Another worker beats a screaming pig with a mallet before stabbing it. Lastly, a helpless goat has its neck sliced and blood drained while wooden slabs are attached to its legs in preparation for a dunk into a vat of boiling water."
-- Reprimand Slaughterhouse for Atrocious Animal Abuse

"An officer from the Filer Police Department in Idaho recently shot a dog to death at a young boy’s birthday party. According to news reports, Officer Tarek Hassani was called on duty to a home, based on reports that dogs were running loose around a neighborhood. The owner of the black labrador that was shot believed that the situation could have been handled differently, because his dog was not violent or aggressive. The officer shot the dog only yards away from the children’s party. He could have easily harmed not only the dog, but also the children nearby."
-- Punish Police Officer for Shooting Dog

March 31, 2014

Excerpts from email:

"The Exxon Valdez oil tanker spilled off the coast of Alaska 25 years ago this month, coating the waters and shores of Prince William Sound with nearly 11 million gallons of oil and killing hundreds of thousands of sea animals. The local killer whales, sea birds, and other wildlife populations are still seeking recovery from the toxic spill. Today we risk a disaster of equal or greater proportions as oil companies clamor to drill U.S. Arctic Ocean."
-- 25 Years Later: Why Alaska Can't Afford Another Exxon Valdez

In 1989 I was briefly involved with the cleanup effort. I was helping a guy I knew in Cordova, where I was living at the time--the spill killed my fishing season--out in the southwest sector of Prince William Sound around Latouche Island and Knight's Passage. We were babysitting an oil skimmer, no big deal for large sums of money. The currents at tide shifts are brutal in that area. They speed up when passing through the narrow channels separating islands. If your boat can't exceed 12 knots or so, you could find yourself in big trouble. Anyway, the work was a joke. Dozens of men spraying a ruined beach, hopelessly, the oil was sludge, once you got it on your fingers you had to use this citrous juice stuff to get it off. So imagine what it did to birds and otters. They'd clean one beach, move off, then later come back to the first beach. It was money thrown away for appearances sake. I remember one day, we were tied up next to the Cape Douglas, a 120 foot sludge container, when a man from Exxon came into the cabin on the Douglas where we were watching a movie and said to look busy because some News televison channel was going to fly over in a helicopter some time that day. It was all bullshit and after about a month, I quit to go herring tendering in the north Bering sea, the Togiak opener.

The sludge on those beaches has never been even slightly removed, it's just buried by the relentless tidal comings and goings. I remember all the Orcas, Gray whales and countless dolphins that used to run beside the bow in their playfulness that once lived in the Sound and were exhilarating to see and be around. They all moved out after the spill along with the seals from Columbia Bay and up to 1994 when I left Cordova I never saw any or heard of anyone else seeing them again.

Incidently, I recollect that Exxon made record profits that quarter; they passed the enormous cost of the cleanup and subsequent settlements on to the consumer.

"Oceana has published a new report exposing nine of the dirtiest fisheries in the U.S. These fisheries combined throw away almost half of what they catch and are responsible for killing thousands of dolphins, whales, and sea turtles each year. Oceana is calling on the federal government to clean up these dirty fisheries to protect marine wildlife and reduce wasted catch.

"The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has released their final Environmental Impact Statement on seismic airgun blasting, taking another step forward to releasing these blasts in the Atlantic. Oceana CEO Andy Sharpless and actress Kate Mara penned an editorial for the Huffington Post explaining how seismic airguns will harm marine wildlife and coastal economies."
-- Seismic Airguns Threaten the Atlantic.

March 29, 2014

March 28, 2014

The following are excerpts from some of the daily email I receive:

"Animal advocates and lawmakers in New York are working to make sure barbaric wildlife killing contests like Palenville's Crow Down and Holley's Squirrel Slam never take place again. Opponents continue to raise concerns over the cruelty inherent in these contests and the dangerous, indifferent, attitudes they promote towards wildlife especially when it comes to what they teach children about the species we share our landscapes with. Species who are considered pests are often targeted in these contests, but the so-called hunters who continue to support them are completely ignoring not just the role their targets play in the environment, but their inherent value."

"The National Rifle Association has mounted an outrageous campaign to torpedo President Obama’s nomination of an outstanding young doctor, Dr. Vivek Murthy, to be the next surgeon general of the United States because he has acknowledged in the past that gun violence is a public health problem. The sad part is, the NRA's campaign is causing some nervous Democrats whose votes may be needed for Senate confirmation to consider breaking with the president to bolster their own chances for re-election in states where the gun lobby is powerful. President Obama has the constitutional right to name his executive team. There is nothing in Dr. Murthy's background to suggest he would violate his pledge not to use the office to advocate for gun control."

"This fact should be making headlines: An extra 50 million people will be at risk of hunger by 2050 due to climate change. And the world's poorest countries are least prepared and at greatest risk."

"The D.C. City Council adopted a measure that removes criminal penalties for possession of up to one ounce of marijuana for adults and replaces them with a civil fine of $25."

"A bill to decriminalize marijuana possession is moving forward in Maryland. Earlier this month, the Senate approved a bill that would remove criminal penalties for possession of up to 10 grams of marijuana and replace them with a civil fine."

"At a highly emotional news conference this week, mothers of children with epilepsy slammed Gov. Mark Dayton for continuing to block a widely supported medical marijuana bill."

"Idaho’s governor signed a virtual death warrant for hundreds of the state’s wolves. The new law, HB470, establishes a $400,000 special fund, the sole purpose of which is killing as many wolves as possible. It is part of a broader effort by wolf-haters to reduce Idaho’s wolf population down to 150 animals – which means killing more than 450 wolves."

"The sweeping anti-choice law that closed a third of Texas abortion clinics on October 31, 2013, will continue to devastate women’s lives and deny them their constitutional rights. Many of those clinics remain inoperable, and each new day that they can’t serve patients increases the likelihood they will never reopen their doors. The bottom line: millions of women in Texas live nowhere near an abortion provider."

"Well-known oil company Exxon-Mobil recently revealed its plans to pump toxic tar sands oil through pipelines along the East coast of the United States. These deadly substances would travel through a 63-year-old pipeline, which runs through a sensitive moose habitat. Since moose feed on aquatic plants in lakes, rivers, and wetlands—often submerging themselves underwater to reach vegetation beneath the surface—a tar sands oil spill in their habitat would have a devastating effect on their already threatened survival."

"The state of Oregon has granted three of the four permits that would allow Ambre Energy to build a coal-export terminal on the Columbia River and ship coal from Montana to Asia.

"I'll bet you've noticed coal and oil trains in the news lately. Every week there's another derailment, spill, or explosion around the country. Did you know that out-of-state energy corporations want to dramatically expand transport of these toxic substances to ports on Puget Sound? They plan to ship oil and coal to refineries along the West Coast and to power plants in Asia to be burned, polluting the air, and changing global climate."

"The Copenhagen Zoo recently euthanized four healthy lions, two adults and two cubs, to make room for a new male lion. This is the same zoo that killed a healthy 18-month old giraffe earlier this year to prevent inbreeding rather than finding it a home with another zoo or sanctuary. As with the giraffe, the zoo said it failed to find a new home for the lions."

"The Kane County Animal Control volunteers have been keeping a close eye on a Hampshire farm petting zoo in the state of Illinois because they have not kept up with their animal health guidelines. Because the farm has not been keeping up with strict county regulations, the county animal control team obtained a search warrant to see if what they were told by people who visited the farm have been true. Sadly enough, the authorities found the animals at the farm in horrid conditions and they needed to be removed immediately. The animal control team were told by the local residents that there were deceased animals on the property, and that is when the investigation into the farm started. During the investigation they discovered a number of dead horses, along with dead chickens, llamas, goats, rabbits, and many more. This is a huge discovery since there were over 90 known living animals on the farm. Authorities took over and had the surviving animals checked by a local veterinarian."

"The geese population at South Gate Pond in Ocean Pines, Maryland has become a major concern for environmental groups and local residents. The Environmental and Natural Assets committee determined that goose waste in this area harms water quality and that the geese create traffic problems. The committee determined that the best way to deal with these problems is to simply kill the geese."

"Animal sanctuaries are meant to keep animals safe, healthy and happy. Unfortunately for the animals that end up at some ‘sanctuaries,’ such as the Barry R. Kirshner Wildlife Foundation in California, this is not always the case. Former volunteers at the Kirshner Wildlife Foundation have recently come forward to report animal abuse, neglect, and deaths. The sanctuary owner, Roberta Kirshner, has been accused of failing to treat sick and injured animals to the point that many animals died, as well as inflicting (and instructing volunteers to inflict) injuries on the animals."

"The recent deaths of two chimpanzees and three birds have led to what is at least the fourth United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) investigation of the G. W. Exotic Animal Park in Wynnewood, Oklahoma. The park has had a long history of unexplained deaths and many of its prior investigations are still ongoing."

March 22, 2014

Besides the Ukranian insurrection, the Syrian indiscriminate killings and mass migrations of the populace, and the Iranian leader questioning the historical validity of the Holocaust: "The Holocaust is an event whose reality remains uncertain and, if it happened, it's uncertain how it happened." -- Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader, here on the homefront this past month's been one of empty Congressional inaction (how unusual!) -- automatically refusing to confirm any of the President's nominees for the most ridiculous and irrelevant of reasons.

Sarah Palin, Paul Ryan, and Rand Paul continue to amaze. Not by what they have to say, mind you, but that anyone cares what they have to say.

February 22, 2014

Senator Ted Cruz--you remember him: Republican, Texan, irrational, anal-retentive, leader of the Tea Partiers--was awarded Statesman of the Year in Florida. One must consider the source; after all, this is the state that brought us the Bush/Gore fiasco. Now, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine were not only members of our Founding Fathers but could also be considered statesmen in the true world-stage sense of the word. Would anyone with the slightest shred of common sense consider madman Cruz to be of the same caliber as they?

We accord praise to the most worthless and undeserving of government actors these days. Have we been so vulgarized by what passes for honest values and genuine character that we bestow unwarranted compliments to just anybody with the biggest mouth or most extreme opinon and willingness to act uncaring of others? Cruz stands out, but is self-righteous, ostentatious behavior a sufficient criterion for respect? On second thought, perhaps I go too far, give him too much credit, calling him righteous. His actions are more like those of a spoiled shallow child who's learned that saying no and whining will get the most attention. He's an entertainer, nothing more, and not a very enjoyable one at that.

So we hand out Statesman of the Year awards the way we hand out others of the many entertainment awards. However, the ones with which we're familiar are intended for those who excel in one field or another; except for being a fool and an obstructionist, I don't think Cruz qualifies in any, certainly not as a statesman or even a responsible adult in a position to do something helpful and worthwhile for the people of this country.

If Cruz were considered to be sincere he would also have to be deemed a sociopath, out of touch with reality. An oxymoron to be sure but Congress is riddled with contradictory personalities; hence the gridlock and inability to perform the service for which they were hired.

I'll bet the room of shouting Cruz enthusiasts smelled of greasy chicken and redneck sweat. I can just see it, I've been there.

February 7, 2014

It's a testament to the deplorable state of mainstream media with its sensationalism, slanted editorializing, and preoccupation with trivia, gossip, and distractions that the venues exposing the bull and hypocracy forever in the air can be found only on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert's Report. Otherwise, you have independent and participatory news sources like Free Speech TV [Democracy Now!], Link TV, PIVOT, and RT, all of which have their own websites, as you can see. Also, looking at what's happening around the world from the perspective of foreign news sources, like Al Jazeera, gives not only a broader and more detailed view, coming from people who live in these areas, but also lets we Americans see what's happening here from a point of view we might find surprising and humbling, a picture our localized news outlets avoid.

I would also like to point out that we're living in a country where the most popular televison program is The Walking Dead.

God help us.

February 2, 2014

This is said from outrage and sadness, not hatred. The Japanese people, that offshoot of humanity responsible for the atrocities in Nanking, China in 1937 and the Bataan Death March, are about to hold their annual dolphin-eating festival. That's right, I said dolphin, as in intelligent, sociable, playful mammals capable of communicating with one another through a bona-fide language. There is something terribly wrong with those people. They give credence to the understanding of evolution that when a population of a given species is separated and isolated for whatever reasons from the main mass for a long enough time, they evlove into a completely different species. I believe it's the case with the Japanese. How else to explain their complete lack of empathy and refusal to accept the common humane principles the rest of the world lives by?

January 27, 2014

• State of Conflict: Bill Moyers on North Carolina's Right-Wing Takeover and the Citizens Fighting Back
  “State of Conflict is more than a local story,” states BillMoyers.com. “It offers a case study of what may be the direction of American politics for years, perhaps decades, to come.”

January 20, 2014

Since humans first established villages, towns, communities, we've been embroiled in conflicts, both inner, between various factions, and outer, between the townsfolk and the raiding barbarians; conflicts and wars between the Shias and the Sunnis, the Muslems and the Christians, the invading Europeans and the indigenous peoples of the Americas, between the Romans, Mongols, Germans and everybody who isn't, between the invading aliens and earthlings, the list is endless. Wars between the ups and the downs, the befores and the afters, the haves and the have-nots. It's a mindset, inculcated and ingrained, practically hardwired into our brain, a language we speak to ourselves. This aggressive mentality comes from somewhere, an unfortunate derivative of what our species nurtured and needed to possess at the very beginning of our time, a natural species imperative to survive with which we have an ancestral bond. Our sports embody it; our personal relationships employ it; our refusal to suppress it validates it. Its guilt-free expression in certain predefined contexts reinforces its intrinsic nature.

Aggression justifies counter-aggression as a response to tyranny or attack; that's completely acceptable. It's the predisposition to address potentially dangerous situations with aggression, triggered into action by a subjective perception of the intolerable, that's the problem. Without reflection we believe it to be the innate and necessary driving force that maintains our way of life, has been and always will be. We are at war with nature, with the Earth, with the universe at large, fearing asteroid collisions, cosmic radiation, black holes, and alien invasions; we're ready to take on all-comers and we see them everywhere--threats. It's a point of view and an attitude. Can it ever change? Is it too late to do anything about it? Is the eventual and inevitable end self-destruction on a global scale?

Our leaders are no less affected and afflicted. Change can come about only incrementally, nothing grand is likely to happen, no new inner structure is liable to overthrow the old within our psyche, inspire new genes to manifest. There will be no sudden shift as with the magnetic field of the Earth, no abrupt about-face with a new attitude slowly and methodically instilled from the start, from birth. Hatred and the propensity for conflict is handed down, passed along as hereditary legacy from one generation to the next as though the most sacred truth to be treated with the utmost respect--dogma. Common sense and the lessons of history are our only hope to correct what has gone before.

To whit and of a practical consideration: sanctions proposed and imposed on Iran can serve only to cause suffering to its people and justify anger and hatred towards the United States. The weak-minded on both sides are ready to fight. This cannot be, this can be avoided. We need to change the way we do business and get away from old habits of ten thousand years duration. Iran is not going to attack us, so what our Congress proposes looks like bullying, and it is, what else can you call it?

Below are relevant links:

• US Treasury | OFAC: Office of Foreign Assets Control

January 14, 2014

Long ago in the Andromeda galaxy on the planet Xulcatur close to the central black hole a cave serpent dutifully tended her eggs. After they hatched and grew to maturity, they crawled to the nearby village. Now this was a magical planet filled with magical beings who could take whatever form they chose. The residents of this village were humanoid and in order to move about freely, the serpents morphed to appear like them. They attended school and chose paths dependent on their inclinations. In time and seeking adventure, they enlisted in the Galactic Explorers and after training were sent along on a distant voyage to the nearest galaxy, ours, the Mily Way, although they didn't call it that.

To make a long story short, they canvassed one star system after another looking for intelligent life. They found several. They measured, assessed, analyzed, and filed away their reports. Eventually, they came upon our system and discovered Earth. Because it appeared simlar to their own, they were intrigued. Could this be another magical planet, they wondered? They decided to investigate and so landed in an obscure area to hide their ship. As they were capable of manipulating time--that's how they could traverse such vast distances quickly--they had plenty of it. Accordingly, they chose to spend some living amongst the strange inhabitants--as they saw us--in order to collect a detailed study, the first of its kind. Unfortunately, from their perspective, they were disappointed to learn that the dominant intelligent beings could not transform externally, but all was not forsaken, however, for they discovered that these beings--us--could change identities from within to suit their purposes, a feat they couldn't do. Indeed, it was a magical planet after all, only in a curiously different way.

They transited to our time and morphed further to appear human. Besides being explorers for the homeworld, these were mischievous creatures--serpents, remember--and so decided it would be fun to affect the course of events in a less than friendly way. They didn't care, they weren't from here. They readily saw that control was held by the wealthy, but to become such took work and a considerable amount of luck, although they didn't call it that. Instead they chose a political life in a country called the United States. They didn't have to do any actual work and the wealthy catered to them as people who could intercede on their behalf in their dealings with the government. Being serpents at heart they were naturally drawn to the Republican Party. As a group they climbed the political ladder and were elected to Congress, eventually forming a faction within that party. After studying American history, they decided it would be clever to choose a name for themselves that conjured up heroism and a sense of rebeliousness against established rule in the minds of Americans. To whit, they called themselves the Tea Party Conservatives. Periodically, they meet in a private secure location to commemorate their origins as snakes from Xulcatur and to slither around in the grass as a ritual of remembrance, their true nature never to be compromised. And thus a political group dedicated to undermining the quality of life of ordinary citizens and the functionality of government was born.

January 12, 2014

I am not paranoid, really, nor am I one of the many conspiracy-minded folks we seem to run into occasionally, people we know. Some people seem to think they're smart because they believe in conspiracies--nobody's gonna pull the wool over their eyes. I know people who are convinced the moon landings--all six of them--were faked. People who are convinced our intelligence apparatus orchestrated the World Trade Center attacks. People who believe climate change warnings are a big hoax; why anyone, scientists, would do that is a mystery, but conspiracy freaks don't need a reason, they allow for an agenda beneath the surface, an ulterior motive that has to do with controlling some facet of our lives. I don't know. Nonetheless, I can't help but think there's a conspiracy going on with Congress, specifically the Republicans, and even more specifically, the so-called Tea Party enthusiasts.

Speaker John Boehner promised two years ago to put a Jobs program on his agenda. He didn't and hasn't, in spite of the fact that the country's infrastructure continues to crumble and is in desperate need of upgrades. There's always plenty of money for defense contractors but none for railroads, vehicle roads, bridges, electrical grids, and so forth. We're still in the midst of the worst recession since the thirty's. People are still losing their jobs and homes in spite of what Fox news is trying to convince us about an upturn. Food stamps have been drastically cut; unemployment compensation payments have been stopped; Ted Cruz, a spokeman for the Tea party folks, wants to cut Social Security and Medicare and repeal universal health insurance coverage--Obamacare, they call it. Those on the bottom of the economic ladder, a number that has grown considerably over the past few years as the gap between rich and poor has widened, are being pushed into a corner, a dark tight mean corner, even while the top five percent or so are being continually protected.

What the hell is going on here, I ask myself, me who is not a conspiracy-minded type? Is the situation as blatant as all that? Are they truly that arrogant?

They insult the workers of the country, calling them slackers looking for a handout from the government. Cutting food stamps and denying continuance of unemployment benefits will somehow encourage the recipients to get off their lazy butts and find a job in a market where there aren't many worth a crap. Where is Boehner's Jobs program? They seem to be on a crusade of some kind. Could it all be an accidental confluence of disparate circumstances, could they sincerely have the best interests of the nation at heart by coming down on those who need assistance from their government? Could it be true that our 'leaders' honestly can't find any other way to help America out of the recession? What is going on? Who are these people? They don't act like Americans.

I smell a conspiracy.

January 10, 2014

I signed a petition that was sent to my senator in Washington state, Maria Cantwell, requesting that the cuts to food stamps be taken out of the farm bill. I received a response from her office today. Below is that email:

Dear Mr. Dorn,

Thank you for contacting me about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. I appreciate hearing from you about this important matter.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service, roughly 45 million Americans are hungry or living on the edge of hunger. This figure represents more than 14.9 percent of American households. Over 15 percent of all households in Washington are food insecure and our state ranks 14th in the nation in hunger, which is higher than our neighboring states of Oregon and Idaho. It is obvious to me that too many Washington families are still on the verge of hunger and malnourishment. We must lower these numbers.

The Senate passed the Agricultural Reform, Food, and Jobs Act of 2013 (S.954), also known as the farm bill, on June 10, 2013, to reauthorize the federal government's agriculture and food programs. I supported passage of this legislation, which will strengthen investments in Washington State's agriculture economy and research, sustain local and organic food programs.

The Senate farm bill includes an initiative I championed to include more lentils, dry peas, beans, and chickpeas in school lunch menus. This initiative will authorize research grants to further examine the nutritional benefits of these vegetables, provides technical expertise to help food companies use pulse crops in their products, and increases their inclusion in school breakfasts and lunches. These crops are inexpensive, nutrient-rich, and support thousands of jobs in Washington State.

Despite these successes, the legislation unfortunately also cuts $4.1 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Representing the majority of farm bill spending, the food stamp program cuts across rural and urban communities, benefitting millions of people who experience hunger. This cut in funding will decrease food stamp benefits for about 500,000 households by an average of $90 per month. On May 21, 2013, I voted in support of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's (D-NY) amendment (S. Amdt. 931) to restore these funds; unfortunately this amendment was not agreed to and will not be in the final bill.

Sincerely,
Maria Cantwell
United States Senator

Fifty years ago today, President Lyndon Johnson—a Democrat—declared an “unconditional war on poverty in America." But now, Congress is willing to pass a Farm Bill that cuts food stamps another $90 per month for another 850,000 poor families.

Where could the money come from, I wonder? The defense budget? It costs a million dollars for one Tomahawk missile. Why no, they need those to practice with; as many as possible, war with Iran is imminent. How about...

"Last year over 750,000 Americans were arrested on marijuana charges. Many of them were sentenced to mandatory prison time. Our courts and prisons are clogged with non-violent people whose only offense is smoking, buying or selling marijuana. While our nation is in a serious financial crisis, it spends literally billions of dollars annually chasing down responsible adults who are good, tax-paying citizens in all regards except for the occasional use of marijuana." - Rick Steves

January 8, 2014

The Congressional Republicans are such insulting degrading bastards. Their cynical comments about americans on unemployment insurance are wholly without justification. Their paycheck comes directly from taxpayers. They don't produce anything, manufacture anything, perform any practical service, yet they have the audacity to characterize those who do as con-artists and bums; people who need to be able to pay their bills and eat regularly, men and women with families, single mothers with children in school. Let them try looking for a gig lightheaded and disoriented from lack of food or severely stressed from a less than stable living situation. When you have little to no income, your confidence and capacity to do is seriously compromised; you lean on friends and family too much and end up losing respect for yourself. And the instability that comes with being jobless eats away at a person's sense of control.

Congressional politicians spend three days a week at their 'worksite.' They make decent money, have homes to live in and full insurance coverage for themselves and their families. And this is not counting the special interest and coroporate contributions and gifts they stuff into their pockets. They are the very epitome and definition of the word bum. They have no idea what a decent day's work means; they never get their hands dirty--in the literal sense--or suffer from overworked muscles. And yet they have the arrogant self-important umitigated gall to attempt to strip away the dignity of their betters.

The proper role of government leaders--and I use that word only as a reference--in trying times is to bolster confidence and inspire success as they seek avenues to aid the distressed. The Republicans do none of that, just the opposite, in fact. They are underminers and saboteurs, behaving as though filled with hatred and contempt for their fellow americans in need of assistance. And yet, mystifying as it is, they continue to be elected into office. Perhaps we americans have truly become a land of guilt-ridden masochists, deserving to suffer submissively at the hands of worthless bums.

Republicans in Congress need to get their asses kicked.

January 6, 2014

The curious case of tax dollars: After the collapse of Wall Street institutions, brought on by self-destructive greed and fraudulent practices, wholly illegal and imoral yet never prosecuted, the american taxpayer came to the rescue with a magnanomous and mindnimbing gift of billions of dollars. Here's the blurb from the documentary "Inside Job": " [the] 2010 Oscar Winner for Best Documentary, 'Inside Job' provides a comprehensive analysis of the global financial crisis of 2008, which at a cost over $20 trillion, caused millions of people to lose their jobs and homes in the worst recession since the Great Depression, and nearly resulted in a global financial collapse."

And yet, they, the arrogant Wall Street perpetrators of this crisis returned to business as usual. Now, here's what I don't get. Congress-- I'm assuming they hold the purse strings and are responsible for allocating funds--had no problem coming up with the bailout bucks. However, they can't find a nickle to save food stamp and unemployment insurance benefits for the working and poor classes. What gives?

I voted twice for President Obama because he was clearly, to my mind, the best man for the job. But I fear he is dropping the ball on helping those of us who need it most while giving away the farm to the rich and powerful. Traditionally, the Democratic Party was on the side of the little guy, the man and woman in the street who have sacrficed their lives in wars and paid the price of citizentry in many other ways. People who, by and large, have played by the rules, wanting only to have a decent life and to trust in the government to come to their aid when they need it. But I've gotten very disillusioned with a Congress that doesn't seem to give a damn about them, and I include myself in the them.

No one is representing the vast majority of the amercian people anymore. We're on our own, apparently. Nobody from the wealthy class volunteers for military service to fight in these extended wars we're mired in, why should they? Senator Ted Cruz wants to cut Social Security and Medicare, and for some reason that baffles me, he has influence. The real war that's going on, one with meaning, is between the government and the people. The gulf between the rich and the vast majority of amercans has widened to the point where we can justifiably talk about two completely different countries. The top five percent don't even identify with being americans, they're part of an international elite, a world unto themselves.

We need help, but where it's going to come from is impossible to imagine.

January 4, 2014

Of the many informative, enlightening, and attitude-altering documentaries you could or may watch all year, include these three, please. They challenge our perceptions and ingrained beliefs about how the world around us, specifically America, works. We are being duped, lied to, manipulated, and treated with contempt, and it needs to stop, before it's too late.
1. Watch Free Documentary Online - "The War You Don't See" - 1:36
   A powerful and timely investigation into the media's role in war, tracing the history of embedded and independent reporting from the carnage of World War One to the destruction of Hiroshima, and from the invasion of Vietnam to the current war in Afghanistan and disaster in Iraq.
   "The War You Don't See" | Vimeo

2. "Food, Inc." | 94 minutes - IMDb
   • "Food, Inc." (2009) | Youtube - 58 minutes
   
   Part 1: For most Americans, the ideal meal is fast, cheap, and tasty. Food, Inc. examines the costs of putting value and convenience over nutrition and environmental impact.

   Part 1: For most Americans, the ideal meal is fast, cheap, and tasty. Food, Inc. examines the costs of putting value and convenience over nutrition and environmental impact.

   Director Robert Kenner explores the subject from all angles, talking to authors, advocates, farmers, and CEOs, like co-producer Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma), Gary Hirschberg (Stonyfield Farms), and Barbara Kowalcyk, who’s been lobbying for more rigorous standards since E. coli claimed the life of her two-year-old son.

   Part 2: The filmmaker takes his camera into slaughterhouses and factory farms where chickens grow too fast to walk properly, cows eat feed pumped with toxic chemicals, and illegal immigrants risk life and limb to bring these products to market at an affordable cost. If eco-docs tends to preach to the converted, Kenner presents his findings in such an engaging fashion that Food, Inc. may well reach the very viewers who could benefit from it the most: harried workers who don’t have the time or income to read every book and eat non-genetically modified produce every day.

   • "Food, Inc." | Amazon
     The free full online version is difficult to find--I looked hard, believe me--so this might be your best bet. It's inexpensive and worthwhile and safe. However, if you're a DIRECTV customer, you can find it at: "Food, Inc.".

3. "Inside Job" (2010) | Youtube - 1:44
   2010 Oscar Winner for Best Documentary, 'Inside Job' provides a comprehensive analysis of the global financial crisis of 2008, which at a cost over $20 trillion, caused millions of people to lose their jobs and homes in the worst recession since the Great Depression, and nearly resulted in a global financial collapse. Through exhaustive research and extensive interviews with key financial insiders, politicians, journalists, and academics, the film traces the rise of a rogue industry which has corrupted politics, regulation, and academia. It was made on location in the United States, Iceland, England, France, Singapore, and China.

December 31, 2013

"I think it was absolutely a mistake for President Obama and Harry Reid to force a government shutdown." -- Senator Ted Cruz.

December 4, 2013

A friend recently handed me this comic on Republican Alternatives to Obamacare that I think you might get a kick out of.

November 29, 2013

You need to watch this documentary (listed below) on the deplorable and undeserved mistreatment of teachers, the low-esteem with which they're held, and the practical consequences for individual students and our society. After parents, they play the most crucial role in shaping the minds and character of the future citizens of any functioning society. Teachers are the keystone species in the social ecosystem, and that position and grave responsibility is underappreciated and goes unrewarded. How many people can point to a specific teacher who inspired them to follow their dream, to believe in themselves, and as a result, to experience a fulfilling life with family, friends, and colleagues? And how many can recall a teacher who simply made them feel good about themselves and planted the seed of learning-for-its-own-sake? I know I can look back at a few. Teachers affect, direct, and transform the lives of young people, moreso oftentimes than anyone else, especially if their home lives are not all that wonderful. If nothing else, they make a difference, probably the most significant one, and so, don't we want the best possible candidates instructing our children?

"Directed by Academy Award winner Vanessa Roth and produced by Dave Eggers and Ninive Caligari, "American Teacher: A Documentary" aims to address the difficult questions about the broken public school system through honest dialogue with the people who strive to give our children a proper education. The film is part of the Teacher Salary Project and is based on the book “Teachers Have it Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America’s Teachers.” "

From an article (Dec.3, 2013) in the Boston Globe on the recent "Program for International Student Assessment" tests, I excerpt these few paragraphs:

"One of the problem areas was math, where the US score of 481 points was 13 points lower than the international average. In science and reading, US scores of 497 and 498 respectively, were not measurably different from the international average, making it a statistical tie.

"The results also revealed gaps in achievement among students of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, and students from low-income households tended to score lower on the exams than their more prosperous peers.

"US Education Secretary Arne Duncan called the US performance “a picture of educational stagnation.”

"'This is a reality at odds with our aspiration to have the best-educated, most-competitive workforce in the world,' Duncan said in a statement."

The single most important resource of any country is its people. For a country to be strong, healthy, and capable of rational informed decisions, its people must be well-educated and encouraged to realize their potential and have the complete spectrum of opportunities open to pursue. Finland, Singapore, and South Korea have the best records when it comes to their educational systems. Their teachers are well-paid and because the profession is held in such high esteem schools can pick and choose, recruit, the best and the brightest in a stiff competitive market. In particular, in Finland a career in teaching is considered more laudable than one in the medical or legal professions. Right now, America lies somewhere in the middle of the pack worldwide with regard to student achievement and learned skills. For the future, which is now, a good solid education is mandatory for the jobs available and for a general ability to function in an increasingly technical world.

Here's a few links you might find interesting; I recommend them. I watched the video on the new TV channel PIVOT.

• Classroom Confidential: 'American Teacher' Schools on a Misunderstood Profession
  
• The Teacher Salary Project
  
• Watch "American Teacher: A Documentary" - 2:43 | United Federation of Teachers
  
• The New Press - "Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America's Teachers"

And here's something else not entirely unrelated. Food stamp benefits have just been cut to save money. Did you know that a single Tomahawk missile costs a million dollars? Our priorities are so screwed up right now it's not funny, and the folks in Congress are running around talking about shit that has nothing to do with day to day living, except, in this case, to make matters harder for people who need help the most.

How about this for a cure:

In an Idealized Alternative Reality: Suppose the people who created and are responsible for the financial crisis precipitating mass loss of homes and jobs were to have their fortunes confiscated in order to pay for low-income housing and plenty of food to eat for the poor (working and not) and their children? Is that too far-fetched? Oh wait, isn't that socialism? Badddd!

"These bins are for Wal-Mart employees to donate [food] to other employees. And where can Wal-Mart's low-wage workers find cheap food to donate? Wal-Mart. Anyone can afford food there... except people who work at Wal-Mart." -- Stephen Colbert.

Walmart is the largest employer in the country--possibly the world--and because most of its employees are underpaid, they have to resort to using food stamps to make ends meet. Brilliant labor-expense strategy by Walmart: Have the American taxpayer supplement their employees salaries.

Addendum - January 31: Walmart Stumbles on SNAP: Warns of Lost Profits

November 21, 2013

Yesterday I watched Charles Ferguson's "Inside Job." I think every American should. I can't say I understood the mechanics of the financial doings Mister Ferguson so intricately delineated--my brain doesn't work that way--but the bigger picture and the gist of it I certainly got. Below I include a link where one might watch the film and a link to his book "Predator Nation."

Here are some resources that may help the uninitiated, like myself, understand the film and the economic situation.

• Investopedia - Educating the world about finance
  • Collaterized Debt Obligation (CDO)
  • The Barnyard Basics of Derivatives
  • Derivatives 101
• How to Speak "Structured Finance" | Charles Davi - Derivative Dribble
• CDOs or Collaterized Debt Obligations: CNBC Explains
• How Derivatives, Collaterized Debt Obligations and Credit Default Swaps Crushed the World Economy | Vince Flaherty - Examiner.com
• How Derivatives Caused the Economic Crisis | Washington Public Bank Coalition
• A Criticism of Derivatives | Khilafah.com
  "Derivatives, what they have caused in the world and what they continue to cause in the world, are therefore nothing but a symptom of a much more fundamental issue facing the world today, which is that the benefits of a few in this world trump the benefits of the masses and even the whole of this world."

From the perspective of the eloquently presented film and with no exaggeration, organized crime in the form of the Wall Street-Academia complex makes the mafia (yes, they do exist) look like a bunch of boyscouts knocking over gumball machines. President Eisenhower warned us of the Military-Industrial complex; now we have this. Organized crime has been directing the country for the past 25 years, becoming increasingly entrenched with each administration, and the perpetrators, who are well known, continue to get away with it. Not a single one, of which there are thousands on different levels, has been charged with a crime. They not only caused the global recession we're still going through but ruined the lives of millions of Americans and managed to restructure society from top to bottom.

Surprisingly, President Obama has some of them on his team in strategic positions, positions that allow these people, devoid of morality, ethics, and conscience, to perpetuate their reign. And academia, for its part, has been instrumental in shaping economic and financial policy by advising the administration and consulting for all aspects of government and by teaching their mode of economic theory--deregulation and then do whatever you can get away with--to their students. They fluidly slide from government to Ivory Towers to Wall Street; it's become one world, an elite class who share the same aristocratic vision. It's unfortunate that the membership is so widespread and pervasive that the people most qualified to help the economy, to straighten things out, are also the people who have created the conditions that are in need of reform, conditions that best serve them and their exorbitant lifestyles. What is currently going on in Congress between obstructionist Republicans and ineffectual Democrats is nothing more than a smokescreen, a distraction from the real politics going on behind the scenes.

I came away from the film, which I watched twice and probably will again in order to attempt to absorb all the information so compactly presented, with a sense of total despair as though I'd just been informed an enormous asteroid was about to decimate the Earth or that an uncontrollable and deadly disease was spreading around the planet. The perpetrators appeared to have the aura of an alien invasion or of a group of sociopaths intent on destroying the world. Unfortunately, A James Bond is not going to save the day. And it's not like they didn't and don't know better. They were fully aware, for example, that they were selling bogus unsafe so-called financial derivatives (CDOs) and yet they did so anyway and made fortunes by betting these instruments would prove worthless--financial entities their own firms were selling and touting as good solid investments.

Moreover, these institutions own, one way or the other, rating firms which gave these worthless derivatives triple 'A' ratings. The people involved had to know these ratings were not a true assessment, and by facilitating their sale, they committed open, unadulterated fraud for which they've never been held legally accountable. So they knew, they knew, they're that knowledgeable and smart; they just have no ethics or principles or moral compass by which to live. It's all about greed and self-centeredness and low character.

When the ponzi scheme finally collapsed and these major institutions went bankrupt, the taxpayers bailed them out to the tune of billions of dollars, money that could've gone towards the public good in many forms, and they, in their arrogance, turned around and gave their people, the ones who created the situation in the first place, millions in bonuses, millions of taxpayer dollars, which their employees accepted without conscience or misgivings. How do they justify this behaviour? Why are none of them in prison?

Organized crime--the Wall Street-Academia complex--has been running and continues to run the nation. They've essentialy hijacked our country, and apparently, no one in power has the will or the means to do anything about it.

November 16, 2013

Last year an estimated 46 million americans, including 7.2 million children, were without health insurance. The Affordable Care Act is meant to resolve this situation. Yet the Congressional Republicans are bound and determined to undermine that protection to the point of irrational obsession. Their latest complaint is that people who have insurance my be dropped or have their premiums raised. Well, that actually remains to be seen and, if so, would be one of the problems that needs to be fixed as the program goes forward. But that's not the point of the Act.

All social programs --social security, medicare, medicade--have had glitches at inception and with implementation, but, thanks to the effort of Congress to work out the bugs, in spite of detractors wanting to scuttle them, they were eventually put into action, and we are the better for them. The ACA is brand new and needs to go through the same processs, the same field testing-feedback-fixes-more field testing and so forth until it's running smoothly. The Republicans would better serve the american people if they got onboard with it. If the 46 million people without insurance, whether because they can't afford it or have pre-existing medical conditions, are able to take insurance for themselves and their families off the table, they would then have the time and money to concentrate on other important matters, like housing, food, clothing, transportation, and education. The Republicans, particularly the two drama queens, John Boehner and Teddy Cruz, don't want this to happen, they don't want the middle and working poor classes to get a leg up, to clear away the worry and concern. They are at war with these 46 million americans.

People work sick and injured, I know this for a fact, I've done it and I know others who have when working at jobs that don't supply medical benefits, and if you don't work you don't get paid and risk being fired. Consider Walmart and the Service industry for two prime examples. This prevalent condition lowers productivity and impacts quality of life, and, not to exaggerate, accounts for a significant negative factor affecting individual and family life: excessive drug and alcohol use, physical and emotional abuse, and the absence of proper nurturing of offspring, resulting in the next generation having the same problems. How can the Republicans say they're trying to help people suffering from this major disadvantage and chronic source of anxiety when they expend so much negative energy trying to undermine and nullify a Law intended to correct and normalize their condition and improve quality of life?

They represent corporate interests, in particualar, the financial sector responsible for our present economic crisis and the largest contributor to their coffers, and the wealthy, that one percent who make more than the rest of us combined, and clearly don't give a damn about the 46 million without insurance. And, they have nothing of their own to offer as an alternative health program, one that throws a blanket of protection over the entire population. They should be spending their tax-paid time working on other issues of a more pressing nature, and there certainly are plenty of those, doing something positive for the country. Nothing is getting done, gridlock. It's an embarrassment to the world, to see our leaders bickering instead of working together towards a mutually beneficial goal, an objective that has to do with helping our own people.

I keep repeating that number--46 million--because it seems that we americans need to hear facts stated over and over in order to get them through our head, their significance.

How can the Republicans say they're trying to help people by attempting to undermine the ACA with the propaganda of failure, saying it's broken before it's even been road tested, and with obvious lies and misleading disinformation as to its consequences? They pronounce that americans don't want it. Christ almighty, americans are not even familiar with it yet, have not had the opportunity in real-time practice to see how it works and how it impacts their lives, what advantage it gives them, how it might alleviate needless stress.

Europe and Canada have had health insurance coverage for their citizens, all their citizens, for decades. At first, no doubt, there had to be problems with implementation; as well they probably had their share of Chicken Littles, yet we, the leader of the Free World, are only now attempting to grow into a society that takes care of ALL its people, especially those on the bottom of the economic ladder. And let's also remember, the ACA is based on the Massachussetts model, a success story that had birthing difficulties. What spellbound hold do congressional Republicans have on the american psyche that allows them to be voted into office again and again when they have so clearly demonstrated contempt for the welfare of the vast majority of the american people?

It's disheartening; they should be ashamed, but they're not. They keep attempting to convince all of us that it's in our best interest to mainatain the status quo--medical coverage for those who can afford it and to hell with the 46 million who can't or who have pre-existing medical conditions. Whose side are they on?

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

November 12, 2013

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina--the only state in the Union where both dog fighting and bear baiting are legal--has proven again what a complete obstructionist moron he is. He has sworn on news programs that he intends to block all of President Obama's nominees because of the Benghazi attack. The propagandistic irrationality and logical sophistry [newspeak] of the Congressional Republicans continue to amaze. It's mindnumbing. No doubt there are those in this country, particularly among the ignoranti in South Carolina, who believe that somehow blocking qualified persons from being nominated to administrative positions is an adequate and reasonable response to the terrorist attack on the Lybian consulate.

I know a man who believes the great Biblical flood carved out the Grand Canyon and that the Earth is only six thousand years old. And there are millions of other like-minded folks in this country. I can accept idiots like that in the general populace, they usually don't rise to positions that affect us on a broad scope, intruding into our lives and those of our families. But now, it's all too clear, and frightenly so, that they have arrived and are flourishing in the United States Congress.

November 10, 2013

John Boehner and Ted Cruz were recently spotted at a downtown New York city tattoo parlor. On their left arm they had tattooed in bright red: "Screwing Obama is our Business," and on the right, "Business is Good." Later they were seen at a Greenwich Village bar kicking back shots of tequilla with a gang of gay bikers. Who knew?

What we have is a clash of cultures: The rational modernists opposed to the irrational traditionalists, progressives verses ultra-conservative reactionaries. I don't mean tradition in the sense of a nation's cultural values or its collective practices like Thanksgiving Day or July Fourth celebrations, but rather the tendency, perpetuated and enforced by both Bush presidents, to place ourselves above all other countries, an arrogant isolated attitude--'You're either with us or you're against us.' This is a political tradition whose time has passed. Barak Obama sees the need for cooperation, to approach other nations as an equal in spite of, or perhaps because of, our superpower status. The rightwing Congressional Republicans adamantly refuse to surrender the highground, the superiority, the arrogance of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. But, it's time to enter the next age in the evolution of world society, not an easy thing to make happen, transforming the mindset of millions.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, the way adults thought about the world and their place in it was replaced by a completely new order of things. Superseding the old was not possible for those whose minds had been instilled and ingrained with the worldview of the times, the historic currency of social and political media. A new order, a new way of conducting business and the workings of society could not simply be rewired overnight. Fresh minds taught in the new way were the only hope for its actualization. A society and hence the country which houses it exist solely in the minds of the participants, the inhabitants, those who give their hearts and souls and bodies to its fruition. Millions of Russians would love to bring back the glory days of Imperial Russia, some even pine for Stalin's Russia, difficult as that is to believe. It's natural to hold onto an almost romantic illusion of a previous era. But the Soviet Union was sown with seeds of its own destruction from the get-go; hopefully, that won't prove to be the case with America.

The so-called Tea Party represents the last bastion of 'my way or the highway' kind of thinking and needs to end, however that may happen.

November 1, 2013

The other night Piers Morgan and Bill Maher, two people possessed of intelligence, common sense, and maturity, had a conversation on air. It was worth watching, very informative. However, they both agreed, a little too enthusiastically, that Senator Ted Cruz was brilliant, brilliant, referring to an interview with one of his Harvard professors. His brilliance was based on being good at school work. Brilliance without awareness as to the consequences of actions and the moral backbone required to choose the right path no matter how difficult has brought the people of the world more tragedy and trouble than natural disasters. It was unfortunate, I thought, that they neglected to mention that his professor attributed this brilliance to his single-minded focus, that it was so intense as to preclude any consideration of possible doubt, symptomatic of a deeply-rooted certainty bordering on obsession. Paraphrasing the professor, once Cruz had decided on a viewpoint all reasons that undermined it or pointed to the possible validity of an alternative view were discarded. This is a dangerous mind-set.

When a person makes a decision and afterwards reflects on it based on new information or a less emotional appraisal, he oftentimes changes his mind. To me, this is a mark of maturity, responsible intelligence, and, especially in the political arena, considerable moral courage. The Republicans call it "flip-flopping" as though it were a sign of weak character, of someone with no integrity or strength of will. Morgan and Maher agreed that Cruz could very well be the next Republican candidate for president. Self-righteous arrogance and refusal to entertain the possiblity of other choices in a Commander-in-Chief can only bring negative repercussions. A man who religiously and unwaveringly adheres to his course of action regardless of its clear destructive impact on the American people, as we saw with the government shutdown, is not someone who should ever be running the country. God help us if that happens.

When Asaad used chemical weapons on his people, the hawks in Congress wanted an immediate military repsonse. But the vast majority of Americans didn't want anything to do with it. President Obama, to his credit, refused to cave in to Congressional pressure and instead complied with the will of the people. Ted Cruz, on the other hand, in spite of the obvious detrimental impact the government shutdown was having on the country, adamantly held onto his position, refusing to relent even though it was pointless and counterproductive to his Party, ignoring the harm inflicted on the people.

Who is the better man? Who is the more conscientious leader? Who better serves the country and the will of the people?

There is a difference between standing on principle and being anal-retentively stubborn. Apparently, Teddy Cruz doesn't know that.

Brilliance (mentally quick and bright) and vacuousness (lacking substance or reality) can co-exist in the same person. That was certainly the look I saw on Cruz's face in the news clips. The look of a self-centered child simply enjoying being the center of attention, without the slightest trace of responsibility or obligation towards others. Opportunism for the sake of self-aggrandizement solely, a buoyant look unencumbered by the weight of concern over consequences, unaffected by empathy, a self-absorbed spoiled rich Harvard frat boy playing with power.

I've seen, known, people in my life who were convinced, for whatever reasons, that some significant action they had decided to undertake involving others was the right thing to do, but beneath the surface the strain of awareness of the possible harmful effects such action might have on those others revealed itself, if only in subtle ways. I saw nothing resembling that in Cruz's rapturous countenance as he vehemently worked to continue the shutdown of the government with all its negative impact on the people, just the opposite in fact.

In the face of a person with conscience asking others to endure hardship won't be found carefree joy, rather what will be seen is the stress of concern, the contours of empathy and the burden of responsibility. To feel obligated to none but a few supporters and then try to pretend that one's actions are for the benefit of the many is a betrayal of fundamental trust and a misrepresentation of the truth of what you're about.

I don't know how many times I heard Ted Cruz state that the American people don't like and don't want Obamacare before anyone even had a chance to find out about it in a practical hands-on way. How the hell could he know? It's unknowable. Yet, it never stopped him from saying it. He can look you right in the eyes and lie. But, you say, he's a politician, they all do that. To spout such nonsense without blinking, to claim to speak for the will of the people about something so important, knowing full well no one is going to believe it for the simple reason that it's impossible--how brilliant is that? And yet, no one that I'm aware of, no one in the media, bothered to point that out. According to polls, one-fourth of the population doesn't know that the Affordable Care Act and Obamacare are one and the same. So how smart does he have to be? So much confusion and chaos has been sown by those bastards that most of the country doesn't know up from down. Going on and on with misleading lies and false allegations and the double-speak of calling a refusal to give in to extortion a refusal to compromise has been the mainstay of the Republican leadership in both the House and the Senate. What compromise? Give us what we want and we promise not to shut down the government and default on the debt is not a compromise.

The Affordable Care Act is a law sanctioned by the Supreme Court. Trying to undermine it by refusing to fund it and demanding that the President somehow cancel it is not even procedural let alone sensible. Shouldn't knowledge of the Constitution be a necessary requirement of all congressmen? You would think so.

Fortunately, they pulled the plug at the last second as everyone knew they would, as they knew they would. But why put the American people through all that? For what purpose? How much money did the economy lose? Billions. How much did the inconvenience disrupt households? Can it be measured? How much loss of faith in the government did the whole circus cause? How much instability and anxiety will remain? Children playing games at our expense. It makes you sick, such pettiness and foolishness. It's sad and pathetic, as our young people continue to die in Iraq and Afghanistan, our so-called leaders jerk us around over short-sighted political ambitions and mean-spirited hatred for the President. May they all be thrown out at the next election.

October 29, 2013

Well, what's the latest? The NSA got sloppy and supposedly overreached itself. How about some facts? The United States has come to the aid of Europe to end two world wars and has spanned an umbrella of protection over those countries ever since. What would NATO be without us? There are more terrorist groups plotting and scheming ways to bring harm to the United States living in Europe than anywhere else in the world including the Middle East, most likely. And let us not forget, the plan to attack the World Trade Centers was hatched in Germany. So yes, of course, we're going to be spying on them. On the surface, for the sake of appearances, Europe is protesting vehemently--How could we? What gall? Where's the trust and the love?--but don't imagine they aren't spying on us. Countries have been spying on one another since there's been countries. Now, at this technological time, we have more sophisticated ways of doing it, what with satellites and cell-phones and the internet. It's embarrassing to be caught with our hands in the cookie jar, but why aren't those other countries doing more to ferret out terrorist threats? Would the attack on 911 have happened if they had been? Tiny populations compared to ours and yet they had no knowledge of such activity, of such a horrendous act to come?

Let's get something straight. The world is not the pleasant place it used to be long ago. I have a friend who spent six years traveling the world back in the 60's and 70's. He went through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, all the way to Burma where he spent time building a boat which he sailed to Australia. He had a lot of stories to tell of helpful, intersting people he met along the way. Occasionally, he ran into trouble, but nothing life-threatening. Now, of course, such a monumental journey would be suicidal from the get-go, even for Canadians. So yes, the NSA got caught doing what its mission statement mandates--protecting the American people from all foreign threats. I wish the world were as it once was, a much friendlier place, but it's not and we have to accept that and take the necessary precautions.

October 21, 2013

At a recent Texas KKK meeting, Senator Ted Cruz was overheard to apologize to the Grand Wizard or Dragon or whatever fairytale character he's calling himself these days for his failure to bring down the "black devil's government." The wizard was not happy; nonetheless, he patted Cruz on the head and bade him "better luck next time, son." Feeling deservedly chastised but nonetheless inspired by the pat, Cruz and his anally retentive co-conspirators have decided to put the business of running the government--the reason they were elected and sent to Washington, DC--on hold while single-mindedly pursuing the vacuous course of trying to lynch Obamacare, as they call it, a vendetta pandering to the neurotically narcissistic fascist faction of the Republican Party.

With the zeal of your average self-righteous and inflexible practitioners of religious fanaticism--NASCAR Evangelists, e.g.--Cruz's cult has completely committed itself to the aforementioned obsession, abandoning corporate benefactors and special interest groups as though they didn't matter. At a secret location in the woods outside city limits their unwavering campaign to repeal Obamacare was sanctified by blood ritual involving chickens and possibly even a goat. Rumors state a human was sacrificed, but that's too absurd, really. However, the on-scene undercover investigative reporter stated she was bedazzled by Cruz's otherworldy charisma and transcendental oratory, its mesmerizing Baptist intonation blurring her perception of reality and nullifying her rationality. Emotions welled up to the point where she forgot why she was there. The available drugs may also have had something to do with it.

October 11, 2013

Let's step back for a second, folks. Take a deep breath. What is going on with our government? Speaker John Capone Boehner and Ted Nitti Cruz are trying to extort the President of the United States. This is unprecedented. There is no constitutional law designed to deal with this. Consequently, we all stand helplessly by, unable to do anything about it. Our representatives are non-responsive; they're living in their own private oblivious world, as anal retentive as any ultra-conservative, rigid-minded, self-righteous evangelist would be when being force-fed evolution. We're not just talking about a right wing faction of the Republican party intimidating, somehow, the rest of its members, it's an attempt to alter the way our government runs. It's a corruption of the responsibility each member of Congress has sworn towards the American people. If the president caves, America will never be the same. Business as usual will take on a whole new meaning.

Government employees on furlough will be paid retroactively. So what does this mean? It means that we the people, especially, we the taxpayers, are being denied government services--everything from Alaska crab fishing permits to state parks to 'head-start' programs to websites--while still paying for them. How does this help the budget? The House Republicans have cut off services to the American people and will turn them back on again only if the president, somehow, cancels, neutralizes, rescinds a law that the Supreme Court has already validated. A small fanatical racist faction is trying to dismantle the country from within. Why is this insanity legally allowed to continue?

September 29, 2013

As our government disintegrates and fragments into an impotent, ineffectual memory of its former self, we the people sit helplessly by wondering in utter amazement at the stupidity of our elected officials. The way it's set up, the Affordable Care Act is going to be funded NO MATTER WHAT. Boehner and his comrades are trying to appease, or ingratiate themselves to, the far right of their party. Why? What the hell is really going on in front of our eyes? Terrorism? An extreme self-destructive act by people whose racist hatred for our president has become psychopathic?

• The House Republicans’ Dangerous New Constitutional Doctrine: Repealing Laws by De-Funding Them | September 23, 2013
• Robert Reich | Wikipedia
• Inequality for All
  A documentary film about income inequality, public policy, and economics and features professor Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor during the Clinton Administration.

Press Releases: U.S. Congress Newsroom

Republican John Boehner's scheduled colonoscopy had to be postponed when it was discovered that his head was in the way. No one who knows him was surprised; it explains his muffled tone of voice.

At a recent gathering in the Hamptons of the Have You Kicked A Puppy Today? club, co-founder John Boehner, Grand Wizard of the House of Representatives, let it slip that his fondest wish is for a 30-foot-high bronze statue of his butt to be placed in the foyer of the United Nations' building. A congressional committee has been convened to discuss it; they have nothing better to do with their time, apparently. It was suggested by the Chairman of the Tax Loophole for the Top One-Percent committee that monies be diverted from less important matters like food stamps and medicaid to pay for its construction. The motivation, though not explicitly stated, seems to be that foreign dignitaries and representatives will know at a single glance just where America is coming from. Boehner is America and America is Boehner. Kiss that, world.

September 21, 2013

For the 42nd time the Republicans in Wonderland have attempted to dissolve the Affordable Health Care Act. If only they got paid by the job, they'd all be living on food stamps and sharing studio apartments. They're hanging the whole country up in the air--as though there wasn't enough to stress about already (Colorado?)--and they just don't give a shit. Surely, they must be breaking some terrorism law; isn't it one of the aims of terrorists to spread anxiety, insecurity, and loss of confidence in the government? Boehner claims to be "protecting the American people from Obamacare." Protecting. Protecting people who have pre-existing medical conditions from getting health insurance, very admirable. Making it almost impossible, Republican state by Republican state (most notably, Florida), for health care Navigators to help people understand how the program works and what their options are, how considerate. Undermining, sabotaging the quality of life for all Americans is their objective, and at that they are most passionate. These are our representatives. We voted them in to look out for our best interests. And here they are, the Republicans under John Boehner, doing whatever the hell they can get away with to make life more difficult than it already is. May God have mercy on their souls; I sure don't believe they deserve any.

September 16, 2013

Okay. Syria is using chemical weapons on its people, indiscriminately killing hundreds including children. Stockpiles are most likely hidden underground throughout the more desolate regions, never to be found. Russia has been sending and continues to send Asaad weapons, on the one hand, and on the other, appearing to act responsibly, although everyone--you can feel it creeping up the back of your neck--involved in discussions between the United States, Great Britain, France and Russia is just wating for Putin to pull some shit. Threats to attack if Asaad doesn't comply can't be taken off the table in spite of Russian demands, so we have a standoff on that point, a very large point. Colorado has been experiencing Biblical floods; it's like the Apocalypse. People died, many are missing and unaccounted for. Homes are gone, knocked off their footings, washed away and destroyed; at the least, water and mud damaged beyond repair. At the Washington D.C. Navy yard, a man goes berserk and kills several. Why? Nobody knows and probably never will.

Meanwhile, the Republican Congress is spending its time--the government will default in two weeks because the budget is not yet resolved--on yet another attempt--I think this is the fortieth--to undermine and repeal the Affordable Care Act as well as hold more committee hearings on the Lybian Consulate attack, trying to find someone--hopefully, the President, from their perspective--to blame for the four American deaths. The social chaos in Lybia at the time, within which the attack played out invisibly, masked by the mayhem, can't be discounted. No one could have seen it coming. We, our intelligence apparatus and military experts, were outsmarted, plain and simple. But instead of accepting that, the Republicans in Congress, in their arrogance and neverending obsessive need to throw dirt and accusations of incompetence on our president, insist that it could've been prevented, and so they must find fault.

During the Reagan administration, 299 American and French servicemen [220 marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers] were killed by two truck bombs in Beirut. According to Wikipedia: "Shortly after the barracks bombing, President Ronald Reagan appointed a military fact-finding committee headed by retired Admiral Robert L. J. Long to investigate the bombing. The commission's report found senior military officials responsible for security lapses and blamed the military chain of command for the disaster." No one accused Reagan of administrative failure.

But the Republicans of today are attempting to use the Lybian incident to discredit Obama himself, as though he was personally responsible. What planet are the Republicans living on? How do they manage to get through the day on their own? Obviously, they need watchers, managers, people who assist them in everyday chores. Perhaps we can trust they have no problem going to the bathroom, but is that true?

A Boy's Prayer

Let us pray that some day soon the Republicans in Congress will wake up and realize that the country is going down the toilet and all the people--even the filthy rich ones--are in jeopardy. And with this sudden epiphany, they become instilled as though from God with common sense. Let us pray that the Far Right loses its stranglehold on them, and like a rubberband, they snap back into the mainstream where most of the rest of us live, struggle, cry, and wonder how people whose health insurance for themselves and their families is fully paid for by we, the taxpayers, could act so irresponsibly and selfishly.

Hot Off The Press - July 26, 2013

"Paul Ryan just popped out of hiding and backed another round of crippling and indiscriminate cuts. This isn't just some budget plan -- a growing gang of Republicans are calling for a government shutdown unless they can get major cuts to Medicare and a complete defunding of Obamacare. If Ryan and the Republicans get their way, almost nothing is safe. Not education or the EPA; Medicare or Social Security. There is one thing sacred to Ryan -- the yachts his billionaire buddies can buy with their cushy tax breaks." [Democrats 2014]

The right-wing Republican Party in the House has become the enemy of the people.

John Boehner, you remember him, neo-conservative reactionary presently acting as the Speaker of The House by default, has recently proclaimed the mission of his Republican bretheren: "We are not here to pass laws, we are here to repeal laws."

July 25, 2013

Senator McCain's knee-jerk and predictable advice as to Syria is completely wrong-headed. He wants to supply the rebels, the opposition, with weapons and moral support. Well, right now there are different rebel gangs, ad hoc self-organizing factions, fighting amongst themselves, competing for PR-space on the media, so who do you choose as the one and only representative of the anti-government forces? You don't just hand out guns to whoever speaks the loudest or can come up with someone fairly articulate to act as leader. Besides which, I'm guessing they probably have enough guns available in the first place. After all, it is the Middle East. I say we stay far far away from the whole scene.

The Arab League consists of 22 countries, a union that seems to be rather ineffectual. Although Syria was suspended from the League for its repressions of protestors, the League's monitoring mission fell apart in spite of good intentions. However, it's their responsibility; it's their family of people. If they don't care about the Syrian-caused instability in their own neighborhood, the tragic deaths of tens of thousands and the displacement of millions of fellow Arabs, then why the hell should we?

The right-wing of Congress, aka the Republican Party, has decided it would be in America's best interest to gut the Environmental Protection Agency, already severely limited in scope and undermined by loopholes and injunctions. Enforcement powers have been rendered ineffectual and agents needed to investigate possible infractions are in short supply. As usual, however, their motives are transparent. They represent wealth, coroporations, mining companies, all the industries whose excrement after production of whatever would definitely harm the environment, air, water, forests, and all the animals who live therein. It costs them money to have to comply with EPA regulations.

Why not let unfiltered soot and particulates belch out of coal plant chimneys, like in China? Why not let nuclear power plants manage their own radioactive waste? Why not let fertilizer and toxic pesticides be washed off the fields and down into the streams and water table? Why not let mining companies and smelters soak the earth with heavy metals and acidic solvents left over from processing? The slag, it's called; sounds like what it is. Why not just shit on everything for the good of business, and to hell with the country and the people living downstream of it all. There's no soot or slag mills in the Hamptons, so who cares? Live for now, and let future Americans figure out how to clean up the mess, to counter its effects, and save what's left of America.

The Republican Party, in particular, the House, used to be, or can be, a voice offering a different direction to choose. And when the situation demanded a non-partisan approach, they would usually act sensibly. But now, they are nothing more than obstructionists and saboteurs. Their role is to undermine the president, no matter what. The hollow, meaningless yet symbolic vote against Obamacare--38 times to date--is the most outrageous testament to their sick and twisted hatred of Mister Obama. They offer nothing positive of their own, they serve only to block any agenda put forth by the current administration, even when it serves the good of the majority of the middle class, or especially then.

Why 50% of the voting population supports the Republican Party is a genuine mystery to me.

May 30, 2013

Former President George W. Bush recently donated his complete collection of Doctor Seus books to his library. He insists that their importance lies not in his confessed affection for the fond memories they evoke, but as a botttomless source of wisdom influencing his major decisions during his terms in office. God bless America.

April 18, 2013

Republican senators voted against the gun control bill that would require universal background checks for gun purchases. What unprincipled cowards. Going against the will of 90% of Americans, to boot. Scumbags. I guess what has to happen is something tragic and gun-related to one of theirs, as usual. It has to hit home for them to stand up for what's right.

April 9, 2013

Once again the Republicans in Congress, in particular the fourteen senators who've promised to filibuster any debate on gun control legislation--in spite of the fact that 90% of Americans want such--have blatantly demonstrated their racist attitude and personal hatred of Barak Obama. Their controlling base, as they allude to it, consists of waspish, arrogant, aristocratic old money, people who trace their roots back to the Plymouth Rock invaders. The very idea of a black man as president sticks in their crawl. These senators have stalwartly (anal-retentively) decided, out of loyalty to an inflexible belief in white superiority, that all politics, all fairness, and all questions of right and wrong can be dismissed as irrelevant. What matters, for better or worse and in complete denial of what the people want, is that any domestic program or legislation sponsored and put forth by the president should be crushed out of hand and thrown on the scrap heap. They don't even bother, in their own arrogance, to hide their contempt anymore. Their mission is to undermine and discredit his presidency by their adamant obstructionism, so that, after this last term, they can point to his record and say at their exclusive get-togethers, "See what little he accomplished? What a poor performance he turned in, he couldn't get anything done; never again should we elect a non-white person to that office, they're just too lazy."

It's a sorry time for America when a lofty and honorable government body, the U.S. Senate, should be held hostage by such despicable and unworthy men, men of low character and base values. They need to be booted out, for the good of America.

Here are the 14 Republican Senators

And here are the Complete Email Addresses for all Members of Congress, the House, the Senate, Governors, and State Legislators

March 14, 2013

Lately, the Republicans have been trying to change--talking about it, anyway--their identity from defenders of the monied class--200,000 new millionaires came onboard here in America in 2011--and screwers of the middle and poor to... what exactly? They are at least aware that their right-wing, anti-abortion, ultra-conservative, evangelical base isn't going to be enough to win the White House.

I envision those people--the mysterious and invisible base--as being older than the hills, possibly immortal, having consumed copious amounts of an elixir of longevity discovered by captive scientists working in a warren of underground laboratories somewhere deep in the Alps. These are shadowy, decrepit, scary vessels of their former selves. Creepy, but powerful, in control of the leadership of the Republican Party. Our base, they refer to them as, without actually naming them -- these obscure unknowable phantasms of petty hatreds and narrow-minded, narcissistic, mean-spirited ambitions, braking progression at every turn. May they wither away some day; at least, may their power to dictate the course of America fade to oblivion. They are old-school, old-politics; what we need are new approaches and perceptions of reality. Now, not decades from now, after we've beome a second-class economic country.

In the article about the new millionaires:

My, my, those poor fretting millionaires. I feel sorry for them, truly. They might have to let go a staff member or two. Maybe a pastry chef will have to be laid-off; assuming, of course, he's documented in the first place. Next stop, the local Hamptons food bank, I suppose.

A new story about millionaire growth, March 15: 300,000 New Millionaires in 2012. The number of millionaires in the country is nine million, almost at the level before the recession, while the working class continues to lose jobs and opportunities. What gives? If you're a stock holder or real estate investor, you win. So, over the past two years, the number of millionaires has increased by 500,000. The gap doth widen. The middle class doesn't exist, hasn't really since the late eighties, as far as I saw. Used to be a ladder going from poor to rich in this country; that ladder is now gone. The Republicans, and others, speak about the middle class, but they're talking to an empty house, aspirers only.

I looked at over a dozen web-news sites for this story about the increase in millionaires, and almost all defer to Robert Frank, an economics reporter for CNBC. And also they refer to the Spectrem Group. In fact, most of them simply copied the story from CNBC. In other words, the news we hear about the current financial situation comes from only one or two sources. Who is the Spectrem Group and why does Robert Frank have so much influence?

Misleading information: 53% of Americans invest in the stock market

Fact: 10% of Americans own 80% of the stock, and also, it can be presumed, are the major investors in real estate.

Robert Frank paints a rosy picture about the economy. Despite the working-poor getting poorer, because the stock market continues to grow--an illusion based on inflated values, I think--the economy is growing. For whom? His assessment is based on how the rich are doing. The rich don't take their earnings and invest in small business or anything else that might help the vast majority of Americans, they invest in transnational corporations and money-making schemes: stocks, bonds, commodities, instruments, derivatives, real estate, and other things about all of which I know next to nothing. It's a global stock market affair, individual countries have little meaning, except as places to stash large amounts of cash unreachable by the IRS and the SEC. They invest around the world, they live in that economy and identity as world citizens. They don't identify with being Americans, why should they?