Who has come a long way?

I got to thinking the other afternoon about Sarah Palin and O.J. Simpson. Not that there is any connection. Well other than societal and political issues o' the day. Let's throw Mr. McCain into this mix now, too. Now that he has given veracity to the shouts of "terrorist" coming from his supporters. That would be aimed at Barack Obama, of course. Barack Obama is a terrorist. That's the Republicans' new chant. And yes, this actually did occur, and John McCain said nothing. NOTHING.

Does it occur to us that these three people are setting us back decades in our race relations, decades back in Feminism and ........... well, about as far back as yesterday where older middle aged white men are concerned. But there you see my own prejudice slipping below my skirt an inch or two.

If there ever was a time for good public manners to reappear it would be now. If there ever was a time for good people to speak out, it is now. Now is the time for all good women (and men) to come to the aid of their country. For the first time since the Revolutionary War we need ....... no we MUST have good people stand up and say this is enough. We've had enough. If you can't speak publicly then do it with your vote. No one of sound mind and heart can vote for someone who allows his opponent to be called a terrorist. No one of sound mind and heart can vote for a woman to be our Vice President who must read from note cards in order to have anything of substance to say, and even then she gets her facts wrong.

O.J. managed to divide the nation by color. The Republicans AND the Democrats had a chance to bring the country together, finally, in support of a woman running for high political office. Instead they threw Sarah Palin into the mix for all the wrong reasons. John McCain could have proven that even white life-long politicians can resist appealing to the lowest common denominator with his campaign ......... but he didn't.

There will always be the Rush Limbaugh fans and Howard Stern fans out there amongst the most insecure of our society. The ones who must lower themselves to a state of prejudice and hatred in order to feel their own "power."

It's time to publicly reject these attitudes. Time to bring back good manners and gentlemanliness. Time to rise above bad language, hateful insinuation, acceptance via omission of people who shout "terrorist" and appealing to the lowest of human nature in order to garner votes for a failing campaign. In fact it's time to raise society to a higher level in general. A higher spiritual plane on which we view each other with a gentility that has been largely left unused for decades.

I hadn't intended this BLOG to morph into a treatise of a spiritual nature. But since I've ended up at this point, please refer to this link to read the BLOGS of Deepak Chopra, who has it way over me where it comes to spiritual issues and most everything else for that matter:

http://www.myspace.com/deepakchopra

It's time for change and not just political change, although a vote for Barack Obama is a vote for societal change, also. It's time for all good people to step up and demand something better.

Republicans and the Truth

Ok - gotcha with that title, didn't I? You thought it was an oxymoron. It is.

This morning I listened to Bill Bennett (former Secretary of Education and later the "Drug Czar" under the first Bushy) answer a reporter's questions regarding Sarah Palin. He was asked what he thought about her saying she'd been to Iraq (she hasn't), about her saying that most vice presidents have never met with foreign leaders either (they have, with the exception of Spiro Agnew, a Republican), about her saying she said an emphatic "NO" to the bridge to nowhere (she didn't). His response? All that is quite minor, stop talking about it.

Ok .... I want to get straight on the Republican point of view. Clinton lied about getting a blow job and should be impeached. Palin and McCain lie about their own records and their opponents' records and that's minor, stop talking about it.

I think I understand now.

Check it out:

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hjO6YPkd2LcstrGwzE3p9bRY7k0g

What happened to the notion that "change is in the air"?

"Bobby is seen through the eyes of twenty-two characters. The hope, excitement and notion that a change is in the air, which Kennedy ignited in us all, black and white, rich and poor, young and old was extinguished that evening in June. From young men in their late teens to early twenties, facing the possibility of shipping off to Vietnam, to the retired doorman of the Ambassador, who has greeted the likes of every U.S. President from FDR to Johnson. From the hotel staff to the guests whom occupy the suites, to the "Youth of Kennedy Volunteers", all ages and genders are represented in screenplay."

- From the synopsis of "Bobby", 2006 movie

The movie "Bobby" is on HBO this afternoon and I'm taking a break from my hectic schedule of taking bubble baths and eating bon bons to watch. There's another line in the movie,"Now that Dr. King is gone, no one left but Bobby." The film features many news clips of Bobby Kennedy, including people who were thrilled to just "lay their hands on him."



This got me to thinking about today's political climate. What happened to the audacity of hope we were feeling which now seems to have turned to the repetition of despair? Repetition of the fear and despair felt four years ago and eight years ago. Four years ago we were thinking, "how could this happen again." Eight years ago we were aghast at what was happening directly in front of our eyes: the installation of a President of the United States who was not elected by the people, but by the Supreme Court.

Forty years ago (and I remember this, thank you very much), there WAS change in the air. There was hope in people's voices and energy in their spirits. Where is that now? Perhaps I'll see a tidbit tomorrow night when I go to Obama headquarters to offer my services. To date I haven't seen much of it. In fact lately, Democrats already seem to be ramping up for their next defeat. We're watching the polls and instead of feeling "change in the air" we're saying "how can people be so stupid", "how can the polls be so close", "how can the Republican lies be working again?"

Forty years after the assassination of Bobby Kennedy a black man is in the running for President and we have lost our hope? What has happened to the collective liberal soul? What has turned us to such wimps, so ready to believe the Republicans who tell us we are the establishment and THEY are the mavericks.

Have we become our own self-fulfilling prophecy? We so believe we're not going to take back this election and install the audacity of hope that our collaborative liberal conscience has already shot us down the rabbit hole?

It's a dead heat right now. Watching the political ads for Robert Kennedy, Jr. make me wonder why the Democrats are not putting out similar ads right now. They are talking about war, pollution and social change. Hello? Have I heard that somewhere lately?

Say it with me now: President Obama.

Sarah Palin and Witches

This morning I was reading a news article about Governor Palin's church in Wasilla, Alaska. Seems to be quite the conservative, Pentecostal, "we must convert you in order to save you" kinda place. In fact, as Governor she gave a speech to a class of newly minted missionaries (you know, those who are destined to go forth and convert the rest of the poor world to their one and only TRUE religion) telling them "that our leaders, that our national leaders, are sending [soldiers] out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure that we are praying for -- that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan."



Well, I suppose it's reassuring to some to think that this unwarranted, illegal mass murder going on in Iraq is God's plan. That then makes it all okie dokie and we can sleep well at night knowing we're only murdering in the name of God ....... oh yes, and to keep us safe from those nasty Iraqis (Muslims, you know .... can't trust 'em).

Now don't get me wrong here ...... I have absolutely nothing against praying, meditating, concentrating or just plain giving life a lot of focused thought. As far as I'm concerned, their God IS my God in a roundabout sort of way ...... even though I see spirituality in a bit of a different light. You see, my Goddess does not tell me to go out and murder people. She doesn't speak in tongues (unless you consider the loving sounds of nature to be tongues) and in fact has never instructed me to go about any type of violence. Given that, perhaps my God is a different Goddess from theirs. At least her attitude is different.

But I digress, as that discussion will be a different BLOG.

What I got to thinking about this morning was the far right wing fervor over this Pentecostal Mrs. who was chosen as the Republican running mate to "the maverick." What makes us in any way assume that her (and her church's) type of thinking is anything but WAY over the line, off the board, and into The Twilight Zone any less than say, the Moonies (remember them?), the Hale-Bopp Comet followers (I hope they're up there somewhere) or our Haitian neighbors who dance with snakes and stick needles in dolls? The difference is that there are more of the Evangelicals ....... many more.

Before you jump to conclusions, know that I believe that there is validity in almost every choice of religion. I believe that there is a high power. For me that power is nature itself. Can you imagine anything which is at the same time much larger than any one of us and yet still reactive to the actions of all mankind?

Mama Nature amazes me every single day. Today I am loving her choice of gentle rain, dark skies and contemplative mood. She tells me what I can do on any given day (if I don't wish to get soaked): work in the garden, stay indoors and read by the fire, sweat like a marathon runner or bundle up in my fuzzy knee boots. On the other hand, we have made her quite angry and she is reacting in response to our overuse of modern day technology by giving us warmer temperatures, increased rain, more tornadoes, flooding and more and harsher hurricanes. Yes, I am willing to take responsibility for our part in this weather transition and think that THIS is what our leaders should be talking about: the reality of the world's climate change and what we can do about it, rather than leaving it to our children and grandchildren to fix once nature's wrath has gone to much higher levels and they are left to suffer the consequences of our actions.

Once again I digress. Here's my point (and thank you, Ellen, I do have one). What if we put a nature-based believer into office. Someone you might call a Pagan or a Wiccan or a Witch. Someone like me who believes that there is a higher force in everything: within every human being, in the animals, plants and every living thing. How would this person be received by the masses? Would we find ourselves with another Pope Gregory IX, burning people at the stake because they did not believe that the Christian God was the ONLY God allowed? Just how enlightened are we today, I'm left wondering, if our separation of church and state is so defunct that we have this Evangelical Christian running for the second highest office in the country and thinking that the Iraq war is "God's war"?

I am scared by this woman. You may laugh, but it's true. I am scared by anyone in a potential leadership position who wants to tell me what God I should believe in, what God is telling us to do, and what choices I need to make with my very own body and soul. THAT is terrifying. THAT is what we came to this country to escape, is it not? Well, that and drinking tea and paying taxes all the time.

We already have the taxes, which will increase substantially in order to pay for this debacle of an Iraq war. Do we want to add a Religious Dictator to the mix, also?

A Lesson in Toilet Hubris

Upon returning from Harley Fest in Milwaukee (but that's another BLOG), I discovered that my toilet wasn't flushing properly. After waiting two days to see if my hubby was going to notice this all on his own (he didn't), I ASKED if he had noticed the problem. He hadn't.

Of course I found myself mildly irritated because when things go wrong in our home, shouldn't my husband automatically notice and immediately fix them? I readily admit that my early lessons on what men do came from my Dad, and he was Mr. Fix-It. Mr. Can-Do. Mr. Done-It-Already and Did-It-Right. My brother didn't fall far from that tree, so I figure that all men are like that. And generally when I figure that way I figure wrong.

But I digress. Rather than be mad at my husband for not noticing and fixing, I decided to take the job on myself, plumber that I'm not. So when in town taking my Mother on her errands and out to lunch I stopped at one of those enormous home supply stores and checked out all the new toilet handles available. Zowee - what a nice array of incredibly cheap ($4.29 for cheap plastic just like the one that broke) all the way up to $15.50 for the best.

I decided that since I was going to fix this myself I would get the best, most expensive one. It WAS the nicest looking, after all, and just accidentally happened to match the sink faucet handles rather well. I'll take credit for that happenstance but I hadn't planned it, as I forgot to remind myself what the sink faucets looked like before going into town to get the new parts. Don't you just love it when an accident turns out well?

Upon returning to the ranch that night I started my new toilet job. Figured this would be a piece of cake. After all, I only had to unscrew the current, broken flush handle (which I had completely broken, by the way, trying to fix it in the first place) and screw on the new one. Easy, right?

Nope. The old part was one of those incredibly cheap things made completely from plastic. This would be why it didn't last long in the first place. First it wore to the point of bending and when I straightened it, it broke off entirely.

So I start to unscrew the piece inside the tank that holds the toilet handle on. Nothing. Won't move. I get a pliers. Still nothing. It turns, but does not release. I keep wrangling with the pliers, turning this thing, and it simply will NOT release the toilet handle. Nothing goes anywhere. I get angrier and more frustrated. I call my husband, telling him how frustrated I am and asking if he had replaced this part already at some point (imagining that it MUST be his fault for putting this part on too tightly). I don't say so, but I know he can hear in my voice that somehow, some way, this must all be his fault for not fixing it in the first place or at the very least, doing it wrong sometime in the past.

Finally I decide, after trying a dozen more times to release the dang nut (not my husband ..... the toilet handle), to go to bed and sleep a frustrated sleep over my attempts to complete what should have been an easy task.

So, you know how you have those light bulb moments occasionally just as you're waking up? Must have been bubbling around in your settled down mind overnight and if you're lucky, it bubbles up again during your morning grogginess just before getting out of bed.


So here it comes: my great idea. My light bulb moment. My AHA! I only turned the nut on the toilet handle one way. What if I was supposed to turn it the OTHER way to release the handle? Hmmmm. Obvious. Stupid. Moronic. HUBRIS!

The toilet handle had just taught me a great lesson. The worst part is that I've learned this one before, but obviously it has not stuck with me well enough to cease repetition. One of my life lessons was obviously meant to be to stop assuming. Stop assuming that someone else should do it. Stop assuming that possibly someone else ALREADY did it and must have done it wrong. Stop assuming that it's not my responsibility. Stop assuming that it is someone else's responsibility to fix a toilet which I use as much as they do. Stop assuming that every man is or should be like my Dad; we're all different, with often equally good and negative qualities, just different good and negative qualities. Just plain stop assuming!

To this end I am aware that to assume means making judgments. Making judgments based on our past experiences (sometimes a worthy thing to do, but not always), making judgments biased by our own early life learning experiences (often a rather nastily ingrained and unfortunate trait), making judgments in general as the starting point of our thinking rather than its final resting place. Each single experience often needs to be what brings us to our final judgment of that experience, not some preconceived and often erroneous assumption.

Who knew that a toilet tank could be so instructive?

Just in case you doubt my ability to plumb ...... or to learn ....... here are pics of the finished product:

My kitty bath, full of original black kitty art, is happy once again.

Impeach the SOB

Another day of interesting, albeit disheartening, news. Ron Suskind's book, entitled "The Way of the World." Among other things, his basic accusation is that Bush WANTED the war in Iraq and manipulated information in order to make a case for going to war against Saddam Hussein. This is hot news?



Is there still a handful of folks in this country who believe that Bush is a wonderfully upstanding president who has, all along, wished to do the right thing? OK, I'm aware that there is that handful of sorely, sadly misguided soles. I'm even related to some of them. Please don't hate me because I used to be a Republican and had to learn to be a liberal via my life experience.

Just to be fair, the White House (who knew it could speak?!) has called this book "gutter journalism." I'm shocked. Is Tony Snow still with us or is that just a redux of his typical terminology used against facts he wished to refute? Condoleezza Rice has said "no one wants to go to war." Oh really? Has she met her boss? She says that such claims "get under her skin." Well it's good to know that accusations get "under her skin" but 3,000 dead American soldiers, 300,000 dead civilians and 50,000 maimed American soldiers have little effect on her lovely skin.



I'm going to get right to the point here and not go into all the details of the book which are intriguing, in particular the news that Bush cut off intelligence with Habush, one of the highest ranking of Saddam's political entourage, when the information he was getting did not promote his desire to go to war. Most importantly, that Iraq did NOT have WMDs, as we now all know. Also, that the White House ordered the CIA to write a fake letter from the Iraqi intelligence chief, Habush, claiming that Mohammad Atta (9/11 criminal) trained in Iraq prior to 9/11.

I won't lay out the entire book here because I want to make a point, as always. WHY ARE WE NOT IMPEACHING THIS PRESIDENT? We impeached Nixon because he broke into a friggin' office! We spent millions trying to impeach Clinton because he got a blow job!! But we let a president slide who has killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of people via his wanton abandonment of human empathy and his narcissistic drive to be a "war president."

This man, George W. Bush, was charged with the guardianship of the United States of America when he stole the office of the president. It is not beyond comprehension at this point that he was also behind 9/11. I've not wanted to get to this point of believing conspiracy theories, but the more we go on with this war, the more we hear about Bush's wanton relinquishing of ANY fact which would have kept us from war, the more I am pushed to the belief that yes, this man would do nearly anything to get his way.

Where this idea at one time seemed far fetched to me, one needs only now to watch this man speak, see the irritation in his face when he is questioned on just about anything, watch his isolationist body language and read the facts. Yes, the facts. There actually ARE facts, much to the White House's chagrin. Hey, if the White House can speak, it can also chagrin.


But back to my point. My point is, WHY ARE WE NOT IMPEACHING THIS MAN WHO HAS BROUGHT SUCH DISASTER TO OUR COUNTRY and made hs hated around the world? Are we that apathetic, that wrapped up in our daily myspace and facebook lives, THAT politically stupid, that we just cannot sit ourselves down and figure this out?

Please. Do the right thing for this country and for yourself. I'll make it easy for you. Help to impeach this fraud of a president by going to this site. Read what Dennis Kucinich (a good man) has to say. Write a letter or at least an email. If any of this information touches you ....... write ten letters and ten emails!

Millions of us can do this. We can. I want to be a proud American once again. Right now that's impossible ... but we can fix this. We can.

Don't we need to take this country back?

Check it out:
http://www.impeachbush.org/site/PageServer

We Can Fix Our Infrastucture. We can!

We have reached another anniversary in this country. Yep, another reason not to celebrate the state of recent developments in the good ol' USA. It's the anniversary of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis one year ago, where 13 people lost their lives.



According to the news this morning it would cost this country a whopping $140 billion to correct the infrastructure sufficiently enough so that you and I can venture across bridges feeling reasonably safe in the knowledge that we will stay suspended above the water rather than plowing engine down into it.

$140 billion. Pretty steep price to keep our families safe, eh? Oh wait a moment .... we're already keeping our loved ones safe, I forgot! We've spent almost $600 BILLION to date keeping safe from Iraqis. This has also cost 90,000 civilian lives, 4127 US soldiers lives, 4,439 coalition forces, and 53,000 US soldiers maimed . . . . to date. I sure feel safe, don't you?

Heckuva job, Bushie!

The money clock is ticking. Too bad it's the wrong money clock:

###
Iraq War Cost ... can you keep up?

Nuts, anyone?

OK, I admit it. I admit it. I'm confused here. So now, the new "N" word is ..................... NUTS?

Just heard on the news this morning that indeed, Jesse Jackson used the "n" word. Now I ask you, how ridiculous is it to hear a professional, national news anchor saying "the 'N' word". Are we in grade school?



When I watched the Jesse Jackson tape, rerun multi-gillion times in case we missed it the first 2295 showings, I heard him say "nuts." Shocking. Next he's gonna say cashews and the national gasp will be heard on Mars.

I'm not denying that Jackson's sentiments are nasty, uncalled for, out of place and well ...... just plain stupid. I mean ...... in his eyes there's a problem with asking Fathers to step up to the plate and act as Fathers? Bill Cosby has said it, now Barack Obama is saying it. If you don't like what they're saying, step up and be a Father (and a good, non-cheating husband while you're at it) and maybe you won't hear it anymore. Leadership is the stepping stone to change.

But I'm not writing this BLOG to soap box my personal feelings about responsibility. I want to talk about nuts. Really. I do.

I'm wondering if now that the "N" word means nuts ....... will we move on to the "F" word meaning ........ um ....... figs? The "S" word will mean (heaven forbid) ..... squash? CARAMBA!


I'm all over this!!

See you in my next "B" ...... or maybe on "FB".

"LG" all my "F"s out there in "B" land.


PS - I'm really "J"ing here. This "B" was just for "F". I know what the "N" word means.