Phillis Bennis scoffed at us

I was invited to a meeting of this group on February 10th: http://www.justicewithpeace.org/

Noam Chomsky and Phillis Bennis spoke (and left... they're rock stars). We exchanged email addresses and ideas, and passed around a bucket for donations. I met these amazing Somali women, who I want to follow up with, and now I am part of an email circle of about 20 + local progressives. Four hours of my valuable time spent in hopes of "doing something" (!)

Phillis Bennis, who I admire, annoyed me. She asked the group of about 250 how many had marched in protest February 16, 2003 before the invasion of Iraq. I was impressed by how many hands went up (about half), but she scoffed, "Oh, I would expect to see many more." Scoffed. Nice. Did she ask why any one of us didn't make it? Did she ask anyone to volunteer what they had done instead? Nope. Way to encourage people with positive reinforcement!

I had small children in 2003 (they are big enough to march themselves, now) and I was sick on top of it. I get sick often, which is probably why I am so sympathetic to the plights of others. But I didn't do nothing. For weeks before and after the protests, because those were the days before YouTube, and I wasn't tech saavy enough to know how to post videos anywhere else, I was taping HER and others speaking on FreeSpeech TV: Why the war war wrong, why you won't get the the truth about it from the press, etc. I made copy after copy on VHS and mailed them to everyone I knew who didn't yet "know". Then I would call them and bug them. "Did you watch the tape? Please watch it, just once!" "You won't get the truth from the main stream media!" (Which was packed wall to wall with generals and WoMD "experts"). So I couldn't get out and march, but I didn't sit and do nothing! I did what I could, and I did it with every spare moment I had. I didn't go to play dates or "do lunch" or go shopping. I made and mailed tapes. What I wanted to know was: What did those other non-hand raisers do? Something worthwhile, I'll bet. But for Phyllis, if your aren't marching on the street, you deserve to be scoffed at? Because marching made such a big differnce on our Iraq policy? Appealing to our "leaders" by marching in protest doesn't seem to be doing much, so why do we keep falling back on that?

Jason, my husband, also scoffed, calling Phillis a "gate keeper". You might think not, since she is not in the mass media much, but she is much admired in the left of politics. If her message is, "If you're not marching, you don't matter" then that is what her adherents will abide by, right? Marching takes lots of time and energy, keeps folks busy. And what happens? "Our" troops invade anyway, our banks get our tax dollars to pay their bonuses, health care gets "reformed" into an institutionalized hand out for the insurance companies, whose raping of us is what lead to the health care crisis to begin with. Marching doesn't seem to work, but it sure keeps us too busy to figure out something that will.

I think the overlords of this country delight in reporting to us the chaos and the blood shed in the streets of Cairo and Alexandria, because even most of the left want no such thing happening here. We admire the Egyptians, but lets face it, life is so much grimmer there than here, so they have far less to lose. We don't want to destroy what we already have, which is a lot. So keep marching peacefully US citenzens, and see what little good it does you, or see the time and energy it takes, much sound and fury over nothing, and choose to stay home instead...

Can you imagine living in the streets for 17 days? You would have to be unemployed, right? You would be cold. (Even in Egypt it gets cold this time of year, but where I live? Imagine that!) Dirty, hungry. I find the protests pretty discouraging, actually, because just to get a sideways shift, Mubarak for military rule, people had to last 17 days, and many of them had to die, and many, many more were beaten. We aren't going to do that. Yet short of a strike, a general strike, that shuts eveything down and makes everyone miserable, what is going to make an impact on the fascists who keep handing our tax money over to banks, and insurance companies, and war contracters, and petroleum companies...?

So, marching doesn't do much in this country, the press spins it as a parade of crazed malcontents (if they cover it at all!), and the overlords do as they please in spite of it. But if you don't march in protest, what *do* you do, and are your efforts any less valuable? And if marching is the answer, how far are you willing to take it? As far as Egypt? ...Me neither.

Why God Sends Rain To Mexico But Not to the Mid East

Why God Sends Rain To Mexico But Not The Middle East...

Boycott Saudi petroleum

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5633134989&v=wall

On September 11, 2001 the US was attacked by 15 Saudi Nationals with the assistance of 4 Pakistani Nationals. The plan was conceived of by a Saudi national, Osama Bin Laden, and was financed by Saudi Royalty.

http://goo.gl/f34C2

Yet the US defends the Saudi Regime endlessly. Why?There is no democracy, no separation of religion and state, sexual apartheid (which, in its severity, pales South African apartheid of old), and an absolute intolerance for "alternative lifestyles." Slavery still exists there. Medieval punishments are still meted out, yet nothing, nothing bad about Saudi Arabia appears in our press.

We went to war in 1991 to suppress a rival to Saudi Arabia, then again in 2003. We are still there. Now they want us to invade Iran.

http://goo.gl/TNH3y

A Saudi prince is the second largest owner of one of our most influential media conglomerations, News Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, the channel that most makes Americans angry at one another, whether they are on the right or the left.

http://goo.gl/LyYJG

When we spend hours in the news talking about the importance of holding to account violators of human rights, why does Saudi Arabia never come up?

There are other places we can buy our gas. We don't have to underwrite tyranny and oppression when we fill our tanks. Please join our boycott and bring freedom to the people of Saudi Arabia, as was done for the people of South Africa.

Peace.

PBS and NPR were lost to me years ago

My liberal and progressive "friends" (and some real ones, too) are urging me to take action to save NPR/PBS from Republican hatchet men. I can't be bothered, and I have three words explanation as to why not: Mobil Masterpiece Theater.

Actually, I have many more words than that. In the run up to the invasion of Iraq we took to calling NPR "National Petroleum Radio" because it was right on the "ask the general" band wagon with every other news outlet, and was taking the WoMD story exactly as it was handed down to the press by the administration.

And I don't want my tax money going to fund reporting "both sides" of the political "debate", either. The right already has enough media coverage. I don't want to fund with taxes one second more, even in the name of this "fairness" The fact that PBS/NPR's funding can be threatened with cuts when ever it leans even slightly to the left is exactly what makes it no longer any more relevant than MSNBC.

I stopped "listening" to PBS years ago the night Frontline showed a report that the nuclear power industry was getting a bum rap, that nukes aren't at all dangerous. Every time I flip to PBS it's showing Riverdance or Three Tenors or Celtic Woman. Rarely, I catch one of its science programs. Those play like corporate PR reels. Read this from the PBS website (your tax dollars paid for this): http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/harvest/interviews/grant.html

100% Monsanto propaganda. Please, just read the PBS site. It is PACKED with stuff like the Monsanto piece. Why does the COO of Monsanto need good press anyway? Merely to counter the truth, that they are trying to control all food every where on earth? By being perceived as liberal, PBS gives credence to Monsanto in the eyes of the left. That is very perilous. Liberals are writing to me when I post against GMO alfalfa that only bio technology can save the planet from starvation. That is horseshit, and you all know it as well as I do; it's straight out of the agro-bio-tech propaganda hand book. PBS and NPR are to blame for the dissemination of these lies among the left. They are more than irrelevant. They are dangerous.

I'd rather have every penny of my percentage of tax money that goes to the public system in my pocket so that I can give it to the media I choose, media that does some actual investigative reporting and educating.

So thanks Republicans for saving us some money and for cutting a vital conduit for corporate propaganda into the psyche of the left. Regarding the money you save the taxpayer? I'll take a check, please.

My Review of Crayola Glow Color Explosion

Originally submitted at Toys R Us

Crayola Glow Color Explosion. Create colorful, glowing creations. Patented colored Glow technology. Provides an empowering and magical new way to create a glowing coloring experience! Open ended creativity - create free form designs and glowing signs.

From its earliest beginnings, Cra...

Crayola Glow Color Explosion

Do not buy!

By Lulu from Massachusetts on 12/12/2010

 

1out of 5

Cons: Messy, Poor Quality, Poor Color Variety, Runs Out Quickly

Best Uses: Trash

Describe Yourself: Child Care Provider

Primary use: Personal

Was this a gift?: Yes

I grew up trusting Crayola. When I had my own kids, I would give them Crayola products over others, as I trusted their conformity to non-toxicity. Not anymore. My son received this kit for the 7th night of Hanukkah (Tuesday) from my mother-in-law, and promptly set it aside. (He has never been very interested in crafts.) After we had gone to bed, my daughter, who is interested in crafts, took it to her room and opened and used it. The smell filled her room, and his. She put the spinner at my son's feet. When I got near it, the smell was near blinding. I promptly packed up the entire set, even the scraps and sealed it into some Ziploc bags. The smell was scary strange and persistent, but I reassured myself: Crayola can't label something non-toxic if it actually is, right? The next day, my son, who is sensitive and has allergies, began having strange symptoms. First a rash started on his back. Then his hands and feet itched. Then he broke out in hives and an all over rash. I took him to the doctor Friday. Hives may be from an allergy or virus. She asked me what new thing he had been exposed to, but I had forgotten the product already. After all, Crayola is non-toxic, right? That night his hands and feet HURT. We took him back to the doctor Saturday. She said hives can make your extremities hurt. Tonight his rash is a tiny bit better, but his ankles hurt so much he is walking funny. I have been racking my brains trying to figure out what he is having a reaction to; then I remembered when it started. I just packed the kit into ANOTHER plastic bag and removed it from the house to the garage (in case the doctor wants to see it tomorrow.) I will be calling his allergist tomorrow. He has NEVER had hives this bad, even after being attacked by wasps. Though the rest of us did not get sick, the smell was so foul, I wouldn't dare bring another Crayola chemical into my house again. Shame on you, Crayola!

(legalese)

Two politicians were on Safari when the Land Rover broke down and they had to hoof it back to camp. As they reached the top of a little rise in the grasslands, they spotted a lioness, looking right at them, crouched, tail twitching. They realized they were in trouble right away. Only one took off his pack and crouched to tighten his laces. Theother politician said to him incredulously, "That is a full grown lioness, and she looks hungry! You can't possibly intend to outrun her!" The first politician said, "I'm planning on outrunning YOU."

Supporting Salem

Well, we never took the kids to the Cape or to Martha's Vineyard this year, even though we promised that this would be the summer. We finally sold our condo in August, which I thought would free up some cash for some travel, but Jason got "furloughed" the same week. I don't feel deprived. We are blessed. Especially in the autumn in New England. Every Halloween season we have the great city of Salem to visit. At least, that is what my mom did with me every fall. I thought it was about time I took my kids there. The kids had Monday off from school, and I decided, that was the day to go.

Going to Salem in the fall is a excellent way to support your local economy. And though some of it can be a little kitschy, especially along Essex Street, it is, over all, quite charming. The old architecture, wonky alleys, and coble stone streets are a nice change from the mall. My daughter remarked that it brought to her mind Patriot Place, and I told her that perhaps that is what the designers of Patriot Place were trying to achieve. Why not visit the original? She agreed the real deal, Salem, was far superior.

The first shop we visited was Aroma Sanctum on Central Street across from the Trolley Depot because we know the proprietress, Akuura Kulak. Years ago, Jason and I were in business with her when we called ourselves Medieval Outfitters. Akuura's passion was always fragrance though, so she made it happen. I'm impressed. I really like her stuff, too. I wear her "Forest Rain" and Sam, after smelling every blend in the shop, settled on "Vanilla X". http://www.aromasanctum.com/

Avery, being nine, wanted to ride the tour trolley, and visit the Witch Museum. I had never done either of these, as they are too expensive in my opinion. But there is little else in Salem to hold the attention of a nine year old boy. So I rode the trolley with him, and Jason took him to the Museum. All Samantha wanted to do is shop, and wouldn't you know, there is a costume shop on Essex Street called "Samantha's". They have some mid-quality pirate clothes at reasonable prices. They also have a great selection of fishnet stockings, a few colors of striped tights and thigh highs, and every color wig. We almost bought Sam some pantyhose that makes the wearer look like her legs are tattooed all over. She went with black and purple thigh highs instead. And funky fairy wings. And purple hair spray... you get the idea.

I would have taken the kids to The Fool's Mansion on Essex, because (last time I was there, anyway) the costumes are hand made, and LARP appropriate, therefore very cool. But they are closed on Mondays. Fools. That may change in the month of October, but it might not. I took Avery to Crowhaven Corner, but he was completely unimpressed. Sam was with Jason at the time, and I never got her in to see the oldest witch shop in Salem. Oh well.

Our favorite shop, also on Essex, wasn't witch related at all. It is called Yarinas, but don't go looking for a sign. There isn't one. It is full of Indian clothes, some hand embroidered in Equador, and lots of inexpensive fair trade jewelry. You can see in the pictures to the right, Sam and me with Anna, the shopkeeper. Sam loves her new dress. (I like the red one hanging next to her in the picture, but it's up to her what she likes to wear.)

Before we left town we stopped on Front Street, and I took some pictures. I thought Front Street was totally charming. Notice the red line running along the sidewalk. I believe this is something like the Freedom Trail, only for Salem, obviously. Down the alley, off Derby Square, is the Lobster Shanty, where Jason bought a couple of mega size lobstah roll plattahs, at about 18 bucks each. I don't like such a repast myself, but Jason said that they were very good. They were piled high and hard to pick up, but that's a good thing, right? The fries were perfect.

My hope is that when my mother-in-law comes to see us for Halloween we will visit Salem again this season. There is still plenty that the kids didn't see, and Mimaug, as the kids call her, love taking them to art museums. All the times I have been to Salem I have never been the Peabody-Essex Museum. The PEM is also closed on Mondays, so we didn't go there, either. Halloween is Mimaug's favorite holiday with the kids, and she adores a day at the mueseum. We should have taken her to Salem years ago.