Tuesday, June 30, 2009
i have lost all patience with bigoted e-mails.
really!
i can laugh at the ones that poke fun at elected officials. comedy about them is an american staple.
what i can not abide anymore are the ones that are ugly, mean spirited, full of falsehood and hearsay and have no more than a moments thought, if that, to the fact that they are disgusting at best, treasonous and violence provoking at their worst.
the real kicker is that i keep getting these hate filled ones, america is perfect ones, arm yourself to the teeth and take back your country ones...
from people that never served, are on unemployment or assistance a lot of the time, use drugs, have multiple DUIs, have low morals (not that i have high ones mind you or haven't had a drink or two over the line)
yet have the arrogance to call for armed insurrection as they wrap themselves in the flag and wave their bible around like it was a magic wand. (which i always thought was a little off putting, waving around what you believe is a holy book and the word of god)
anyway, my little rant.
i can not equate ANY political party with a god or a devil. i think that's blasphemous at best and i have always looked a little suspiciously at anyone but especially any politician that flaunts their religion(and in THIS country, that would be christian politicians)
so please. thankfully we still have elections so IF you do not care for a specific politician or party or style of governing, get your lazy ass to the polls next time and VOTE! (after doing some reading and watching of more than 1 t.v. channel and there is this thing called the Internet, use it.)
by the time you get done becoming an informed voter(and when you do you can, if you want, cancel out my vote, at least i will know you have valid reasons instead bigotry and stupidity and fear.)
in the meantime spare me the racist, far right blasphemous crap e-mails.
jokes i can take. pudd'n sends me some funny stuff, but the other people-and you KNOW who you are, no thank you.
oh, and yes, i'm proud i suppose of being white-to answer one of the e-mails. i could break it down more for you-white/female/italian-english american/brown eyed/grey haired/ A positive blood type/right handed, blah blah blah.
but you know what i'm MOST proud of???
that i try to treat others as i would like to be treated.
don't always succeed, fucked up plenty in 57 years, but i try.
wish the e-mailers would. especially the "lady" that sent the "proud to be white" e-mail to someone that sent it to me.
she may be proud to be white because that's about all she has going for her. that's sad.
the arm yourself one was from a guy.
rant over.
i'm not saying i know what god's thinking but i'll bet somewhere in there is the phrase, "FUCKING NUTS!"
Oklahoma Republicans Ready To Blame The Recession On 'Debauchery'
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Oklahoma Republicans Ready To Blame The Recession On 'Debauchery'
Posted using ShareThis
Ode To Meaning
by Robert Pinsky
Dire one and desired one,
Savior, sentencer--
In an old allegory you would carry
A chained alphabet of tokens:
Ankh Badge Cross.
Dragon,
Engraved figure guarding a hallowed intaglio,
Jasper kinema of legendary Mind,
Naked omphalos pierced
By quills of rhyme or sense, torah-like: unborn
Vein of will, xenophile
Yearning out of Zero.
Untrusting I court you. Wavering
I seek your face, I read
That Crusoe's knife
Reeked of you, that to defile you
The soldier makes the rabbi spit on the torah.
"I'll drown my book" says Shakespeare.
Drowned walker, revenant.
After my mother fell on her head, she became
More than ever your sworn enemy. She spoke
Sometimes like a poet or critic of forty years later.
Or she spoke of the world as Thersites spoke of the heroes,
"I think they have swallowed one another. I
Would laugh at that miracle."
You also in the laughter, warrior angel:
Your helmet the zodiac, rocket-plumed
Your spear the beggar's finger pointing to the mouth
Your heel planted on the serpent Formulation
Your face a vapor, the wreath of cigarette smoke crowning
Bogart as he winces through it.
You not in the words, not even
Between the words, but a torsion,
A cleavage, a stirring.
You stirring even in the arctic ice,
Even at the dark ocean floor, even
In the cellular flesh of a stone.
Gas. Gossamer. My poker friends
Question your presence
In a poem by me, passing the magazine
One to another.
Not the stone and not the words, you
Like a veil over Arthur's headstone,
The passage from Proverbs he chose
While he was too ill to teach
And still well enough to read, I was
Beside the master craftsman
Delighting him day after day, ever
At play in his presence--you
A soothing veil of distraction playing over
Dying Arthur playing in the hospital,
Thumbing the Bible, fuzzy from medication,
Ever courting your presence,
And you the prognosis,
You in the cough.
Gesturer, when is your spur, your cloud?
You in the airport rituals of greeting and parting.
Indicter, who is your claimant?
Bell at the gate. Spiderweb iron bridge.
Cloak, video, aroma, rue, what is your
Elected silence, where was your seed?
What is Imagination
But your lost child born to give birth to you?
Dire one. Desired one.
Savior, sentencer--
Absence,
Or presence ever at play:
Let those scorn you who never
Starved in your dearth. If I
Dare to disparage
Your harp of shadows I taste
Wormwood and motor oil, I pour
Ashes on my head. You are the wound. You
Be the medicine.
by Robert Pinsky
Dire one and desired one,
Savior, sentencer--
In an old allegory you would carry
A chained alphabet of tokens:
Ankh Badge Cross.
Dragon,
Engraved figure guarding a hallowed intaglio,
Jasper kinema of legendary Mind,
Naked omphalos pierced
By quills of rhyme or sense, torah-like: unborn
Vein of will, xenophile
Yearning out of Zero.
Untrusting I court you. Wavering
I seek your face, I read
That Crusoe's knife
Reeked of you, that to defile you
The soldier makes the rabbi spit on the torah.
"I'll drown my book" says Shakespeare.
Drowned walker, revenant.
After my mother fell on her head, she became
More than ever your sworn enemy. She spoke
Sometimes like a poet or critic of forty years later.
Or she spoke of the world as Thersites spoke of the heroes,
"I think they have swallowed one another. I
Would laugh at that miracle."
You also in the laughter, warrior angel:
Your helmet the zodiac, rocket-plumed
Your spear the beggar's finger pointing to the mouth
Your heel planted on the serpent Formulation
Your face a vapor, the wreath of cigarette smoke crowning
Bogart as he winces through it.
You not in the words, not even
Between the words, but a torsion,
A cleavage, a stirring.
You stirring even in the arctic ice,
Even at the dark ocean floor, even
In the cellular flesh of a stone.
Gas. Gossamer. My poker friends
Question your presence
In a poem by me, passing the magazine
One to another.
Not the stone and not the words, you
Like a veil over Arthur's headstone,
The passage from Proverbs he chose
While he was too ill to teach
And still well enough to read, I was
Beside the master craftsman
Delighting him day after day, ever
At play in his presence--you
A soothing veil of distraction playing over
Dying Arthur playing in the hospital,
Thumbing the Bible, fuzzy from medication,
Ever courting your presence,
And you the prognosis,
You in the cough.
Gesturer, when is your spur, your cloud?
You in the airport rituals of greeting and parting.
Indicter, who is your claimant?
Bell at the gate. Spiderweb iron bridge.
Cloak, video, aroma, rue, what is your
Elected silence, where was your seed?
What is Imagination
But your lost child born to give birth to you?
Dire one. Desired one.
Savior, sentencer--
Absence,
Or presence ever at play:
Let those scorn you who never
Starved in your dearth. If I
Dare to disparage
Your harp of shadows I taste
Wormwood and motor oil, I pour
Ashes on my head. You are the wound. You
Be the medicine.
Monday, June 29, 2009
sauce is simmering. ginormous dust bunnies vanquished. laundry done and made a few more stones.
changed the proportions of dry and wet. just wanted to see what would happen. won't know for a day or so since rain is again in the forecast! PHOOEY!
my little sweetie when with her dad and some of his friends to her 1st pirate game yesterday. eric said she liked it!
taking a break for my knee. it's healing pretty good for an oldie!
changed the proportions of dry and wet. just wanted to see what would happen. won't know for a day or so since rain is again in the forecast! PHOOEY!
my little sweetie when with her dad and some of his friends to her 1st pirate game yesterday. eric said she liked it!
taking a break for my knee. it's healing pretty good for an oldie!
Supreme Court Firefighters
Shared via AddThis
i'm glad they ruled as they did. the law as it was written and the way it was executed in this case was wrong. i only hope bigoted people do not try to use THIS case to continue to be bigoted in employment and promotion matters.
UPDATE!
People for the American Way :
Sotomayor and her panel colleagues were bound by longstanding precedent and federal law. They applied the law without regard to their personal views and unanimously affirmed the district court ruling. To do anything but would have been -
activist judges.
Shared via AddThis
i'm glad they ruled as they did. the law as it was written and the way it was executed in this case was wrong. i only hope bigoted people do not try to use THIS case to continue to be bigoted in employment and promotion matters.
UPDATE!
People for the American Way :
Sotomayor and her panel colleagues were bound by longstanding precedent and federal law. They applied the law without regard to their personal views and unanimously affirmed the district court ruling. To do anything but would have been -
activist judges.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
A very tired nurse walks into a bank.
Totally exhausted after an 18-hour shift.
Preparing to write a check,
She pulls a rectal thermometer out of her purse
And tries to write with it.
When she realizes her mistake,
She looks at the flabbergasted teller
And without missing a beat, she says:
'Well, that's great....that's just great....
Some asshole's got my pen!
(from my cuz, linda)
Totally exhausted after an 18-hour shift.
Preparing to write a check,
She pulls a rectal thermometer out of her purse
And tries to write with it.
When she realizes her mistake,
She looks at the flabbergasted teller
And without missing a beat, she says:
'Well, that's great....that's just great....
Some asshole's got my pen!
(from my cuz, linda)
Ode To a Lemon
by Pablo Neruda
Out of lemon flowers
loosed
on the moonlight, love's
lashed and insatiable
essences,
sodden with fragrance,
the lemon tree's yellow
emerges,
the lemons
move down
from the tree's planetarium
Delicate merchandise!
The harbors are big with it-
bazaars
for the light and the
barbarous gold.
We open
the halves
of a miracle,
and a clotting of acids
brims
into the starry
divisions:
creation's
original juices,
irreducible, changeless,
alive:
so the freshness lives on
in a lemon,
in the sweet-smelling house of the rind,
the proportions, arcane and acerb.
Cutting the lemon
the knife
leaves a little cathedral:
alcoves unguessed by the eye
that open acidulous glass
to the light; topazes
riding the droplets,
altars,
aromatic facades.
So, while the hand
holds the cut of the lemon,
half a world
on a trencher,
the gold of the universe
wells
to your touch:
a cup yellow
with miracles,
a breast and a nipple
perfuming the earth;
a flashing made fruitage,
the diminutive fire of a planet.
by Pablo Neruda
Out of lemon flowers
loosed
on the moonlight, love's
lashed and insatiable
essences,
sodden with fragrance,
the lemon tree's yellow
emerges,
the lemons
move down
from the tree's planetarium
Delicate merchandise!
The harbors are big with it-
bazaars
for the light and the
barbarous gold.
We open
the halves
of a miracle,
and a clotting of acids
brims
into the starry
divisions:
creation's
original juices,
irreducible, changeless,
alive:
so the freshness lives on
in a lemon,
in the sweet-smelling house of the rind,
the proportions, arcane and acerb.
Cutting the lemon
the knife
leaves a little cathedral:
alcoves unguessed by the eye
that open acidulous glass
to the light; topazes
riding the droplets,
altars,
aromatic facades.
So, while the hand
holds the cut of the lemon,
half a world
on a trencher,
the gold of the universe
wells
to your touch:
a cup yellow
with miracles,
a breast and a nipple
perfuming the earth;
a flashing made fruitage,
the diminutive fire of a planet.
friday- JOKE DAY!
Why is Russia a very fast country?
Because the people are always Russian!
How do you cure a headache?
Put your head through a window and the pane will just disappear!
What did one virus say to another?
Stay away! I think I've got penicillin!
What happens when plumbers die?
They go down the drain!
Your ugly.
And you're drunk.
Yes, but in the morning I'll be sober!
How do you stop a cold getting to your chest?
Tie a knot in your neck!
What is the fastest thing in water?
A motor pike!
Why is Russia a very fast country?
Because the people are always Russian!
How do you cure a headache?
Put your head through a window and the pane will just disappear!
What did one virus say to another?
Stay away! I think I've got penicillin!
What happens when plumbers die?
They go down the drain!
Your ugly.
And you're drunk.
Yes, but in the morning I'll be sober!
How do you stop a cold getting to your chest?
Tie a knot in your neck!
What is the fastest thing in water?
A motor pike!
Thursday, June 25, 2009
'Stoned wallabies make crop circles'
from the BBC news!
Wallabies have been observed acting strangely in poppy fields
Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around "as high as a kite", a government official has said.
Lara Giddings, the attorney general for the island state of Tasmania, said the kangaroo-like marsupials were getting into poppy fields grown for medicine.
She was reporting to a parliamentary hearing on security for poppy crops.
Australia supplies about 50% of the world's legally-grown opium used to make morphine and other painkillers.
We have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles. Then they crash
Lara Giddings, government official
"The one interesting bit that I found recently in one of my briefs on the poppy industry was that we have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles," Lara Giddings told the hearing.
"Then they crash," she added. "We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high."
Rick Rockliff, a spokesman for poppy producer Tasmanian Alkaloids, said the wallaby incursions were not very common, but other animals had also been spotted in the poppy fields acting unusually.
"There have been many stories about sheep that have eaten some of the poppies after harvesting and they all walk around in circles," he added.
Retired Tasmanian poppy farmer Lyndley Chopping also said he had seen strange behaviour from wallabies in his fields.
"They would just come and eat some poppies and they would go away," he told ABC News.
"They'd come back again and they would do their circle work in the paddock."
Some people believe the mysterious circles that appear in fields in a number of countries are created by aliens. Others put them down to a human hoax.
from the BBC news!
Wallabies have been observed acting strangely in poppy fields
Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around "as high as a kite", a government official has said.
Lara Giddings, the attorney general for the island state of Tasmania, said the kangaroo-like marsupials were getting into poppy fields grown for medicine.
She was reporting to a parliamentary hearing on security for poppy crops.
Australia supplies about 50% of the world's legally-grown opium used to make morphine and other painkillers.
We have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles. Then they crash
Lara Giddings, government official
"The one interesting bit that I found recently in one of my briefs on the poppy industry was that we have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles," Lara Giddings told the hearing.
"Then they crash," she added. "We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high."
Rick Rockliff, a spokesman for poppy producer Tasmanian Alkaloids, said the wallaby incursions were not very common, but other animals had also been spotted in the poppy fields acting unusually.
"There have been many stories about sheep that have eaten some of the poppies after harvesting and they all walk around in circles," he added.
Retired Tasmanian poppy farmer Lyndley Chopping also said he had seen strange behaviour from wallabies in his fields.
"They would just come and eat some poppies and they would go away," he told ABC News.
"They'd come back again and they would do their circle work in the paddock."
Some people believe the mysterious circles that appear in fields in a number of countries are created by aliens. Others put them down to a human hoax.
Life and Art
by Emma Lazarus
Not while the fever of the blood is strong,
The heart throbs loud, the eyes are veiled, no less
With passion than with tears, the Muse shall bless
The poet-sould to help and soothe with song.
Not then she bids his trembling lips express
The aching gladness, the voluptuous pain.
Life is his poem then; flesh, sense, and brain
One full-stringed lyre attuned to happiness.
But when the dream is done, the pulses fail,
The day's illusion, with the day's sun set,
He, lonely in the twilight, sees the pale
Divine Consoler, featured like Regret,
Enter and clasp his hand and kiss his brow.
Then his lips ope to sing--as mine do now.
by Emma Lazarus
Not while the fever of the blood is strong,
The heart throbs loud, the eyes are veiled, no less
With passion than with tears, the Muse shall bless
The poet-sould to help and soothe with song.
Not then she bids his trembling lips express
The aching gladness, the voluptuous pain.
Life is his poem then; flesh, sense, and brain
One full-stringed lyre attuned to happiness.
But when the dream is done, the pulses fail,
The day's illusion, with the day's sun set,
He, lonely in the twilight, sees the pale
Divine Consoler, featured like Regret,
Enter and clasp his hand and kiss his brow.
Then his lips ope to sing--as mine do now.
me-this man thinks his version of "god" speaks to him and commands him to do and say these things. sad and wrong.
The Problem With Randall Terry
The anti-choice activist who called the late Dr. George Tiller “a mass murderer” has a long and provocative past.
By Matt Zeitlin
June 23, 2009
Activist Terry Randall doesn’t just say outrageous things — he basically started the militant anti-abortion movement. (Illustration by August J. Pollak)When Dr. George Tiller, one of the few doctors in the country who performed late-term abortions, was murdered in his Wichita church, most pro-life movement leaders condemned the killing. But one pro-lifer, Randall Terry, took a different approach. Although he briefly noted that “we grieve for [Tiller],” it was only because “he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God.” Beyond that, Terry said Tiller was a mass-murderer. What Terry was more concerned about, it seemed, was that the Obama administration was “using Tiller’s killing to intimidate pro-lifers.” Terry’s antics continued when he called two press conferences following the killing and declared, despite his record of calling for non-violent action to stop abortion, that the Obama administration made “violent protest inevitable.”
Why does anyone care about what Randall Terry has to say? He’s not affiliated with any major pro-life group like National Right to Life or even Operation Rescue any more. Socially conservative stalwarts have been distancing themselves from him of late. But it turns out that much of the venom in the abortion debate can be traced back to him.
Born in 1959, Terry showed little direction as a young man until he became a fundamentalist Protestant. He considered serving as a missionary, but instead, in 1984, he started protesting in front of an abortion clinic in his hometown of Binghamton, New York. In 1986, he was arrested for the first time for his anti-abortion activity. That same year he founded Operation Rescue, which for the next four years was the most active and notorious pro-life group in the country. He has since been arrested nearly 40 times.
Operation Rescue’s mission, Terry has said, is to bring about “necessary social tension that effects political change.” It specialized in disruptive direct action on abortion clinics, as described in James Risen and Judy Thomas’ 1999 history of the pro-life movement, The Wrath of Angels. Terry insisted that pro-lifers needed to “storm abortion clinics; solder shut elevators and blockade doors so that police could not reach them; and completely trash clinic offices, throwing furniture and abortion equipment out clinic windows and down into the street.” Although some allies were taken aback, Terry’s radical vision won out.
Terry also revolutionized the pro-life movement by actively enlisting the support of evangelical Christians and their ministers. Before him, the pro-life movement mostly consisted of Catholics, many of whom came from the anti-war movement and were opposed to violence or civil disobedience. Terry even tried to convince fellow pro-life leader Joe Scheidler, a Catholic who is now the head of the Pro-Life Action League, to convert to Protestantism.
In 1988 and 1989, Terry and his followers staged massive protests on the East Coast, most notably in New York City and Cherry Hill, New Jersey. At the protests, hundreds of activists blocked off entrances to clinics and went limp when police tried to remove them. Police had to arrest all the protesters to end the incidents, and clinics had to take out restraining orders to prevent others. The protests were largely ineffective at closing clinics, but they garnered gobs of media attention for Terry and other pro-lifers. In Atlanta, Terry was arrested and convicted of trespassing. He refused to pay the fine, calling it “blood money” to the judicial system, and so was sentenced to a year in jail, but left after five months when an anonymous donor paid his fine.
Operation Rescue’s biggest event was the so-called “Summery of Mercy” in Wichita, Kansas, in the summer of 1991. Although the group was officially led by Keith Tucci because Terry had a falling out with several other Operation Rescue leaders, Terry was very much on the scene in Wichita. For 46 days of what Risen and Thomas describe as a “fundamentalist Woodstock,” Terry and several thousand activists blockaded clinics, lay down in front of doctors’ cars as they tried to get to work, and harassed clinic employees in their homes. They specifically targeted Tiller.
After a federal judge ordered the arrest of Rescue’s leaders, levied large fines, and threatened to go after their assets, the “Summer of Mercy” ground to a halt. But not without a 25,000-person rally headlined by Pat Robertson, who, like James Dobson, supported Terry. As a result of the massive surge of pro-life energy, anti-abortion activists were able to take over the Sedgwick County Republican Party and made abortion, and specifically Tiller, a continual hot button issue in Kansas politics.
After the Summer of Mercy, Congress passed the Federal Access to Clinic Entrances law in 1994, which made it a federal crime “to injure, intimidate, or interfere with those seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health care service.” Operation Rescue then largely faded from the scene, but Terry stuck around and became a talk radio host. In 1998 he led a campaign, with the help of James Dobson, against Barnes & Noble for selling books that featured the work of Jock Sturges and David Hamilton, two photographers who published nude, non-sexual pictures of children. The campaign started with protests outside Barnes & Noble and activists defacing the books in the stores. Terry and Dobson pressured prosecutors in Tennessee and Alabama to bring charges against the store for obscenity.
Terry became fed up with the Republican Party and started campaigning and organizing for the U.S. Taxpayers Party, a radical right-wing party now known as the Constitution Party. In 1998, Terry tried to pressure the Republican Party to be more conservative by raising money for him and six other “Patrick Henry Men” to run for Republican House nominations. Once again supported by Dobson, Terry ran for an open seat in New York’s 26th district, campaigning on a broad list of hard-right policy positions beyond just banning abortion. He described his supporters as “the hard core of the Republican Party, as measured by primary voters: pro-lifers, home schoolers, Second Amendmentists, antitax, patriotic American activists.” His platform was everything you’d expect for an extreme right winger: He called for eliminating income taxes, eliminating the government role in education, getting rid of Social Security and basing the law around the Ten Commandments. Terry lost the Republican nomination to moderate Bud Walker, but he ran in the general election as the nominee of the Right to Life Party and got 7 percent of the vote.
In 2003, Terry popped up again in Florida, founding a new group called the Society for Truth and Justice, which sought to uphold sodomy laws. He then became a counselor and spokesperson for the Schindler family, who sought to block Terri Schiavo’s husband, Michael Schiavo, from removing his wife’s feeding tube because she had been in a persistent vegetative state since 1990. Despite his efforts and those of conservative leaders nationwide, Schiavo died in 2005 when a court ruled her feeding tube could be removed.
In 2004, in the midst of Terry’s campaigning against gay marriage, his adopted son, Jamiel, came out as gay in an interview with Out magazine. In an article for WorldNetDaily, Terry said his son’s life was “in a shambles” and attributed his homosexuality to the fact that his biological mother was a prostitute.
Terry had another foray with electoral politics in 2006, running for state Senate in Florida against incumbent Jim King, who had voted against a Florida bill that would have mandated Schiavo’s feeding tube be reinserted. Terry ended up losing the election—despite accusing King of being a regular customer at a strip bar—with only about a third of the vote.
In the wake of a divorce from his wife of 19 years, Terry converted to Catholicism in 2006. As a Catholic, Terry led protests against President Obama giving the commencement address at Notre Dame, and he was once again arrested for trespassing.
Despite being ostracized by much of the mainstream social conservative movement, Terry is indefatigable in his desire for publicity. Even when pro-lifers were publicly ashamed and embarrassed by Terry’s antics after the Tiller murder, he pressed on, forming a new anti-abortion group, Insurrecta Nex, which in high-Dungeons and Dragon style roughly translates to “insurrection against slaughter.”
Although Terry’s influence is at a distinct low point, his ability to stay in the headlines isn’t. And even if he’s no longer recognized by much the pro-life movement, in the wake of the murder of George Tiller his style of inflammatory, pugnacious and radical anti-abortion activism is still very much with us.
In his own words
“Our banner, Christianity, and our Sovereign, King Jesus, have laws, statutes, principles that are unalterable by the heathen. The Bible not only has judgments that Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy cannot annul, but its precepts, laws, statutes and principles are unalterable by Christians. The Christian community can no more change the Law of God than change the law of gravity. We cannot—in the name of Christ—set aside His commands. We cannot—in the name of the Christian right—compromise what God gave Moses on Mount Sinai. We cannot—in the name of the Christian Coalition—sell out the law of heaven for short-term political gain. To do so is abominable.”
–From a Washington Post editorial, “Selling Out the Law of Heaven” published September 18, 1994
“A dreadful reckoning is coming. The blood of the innocent cries from the ground to God for justice. We will all be judged for our part in allowing this slaughter to continue. We will be held accountable for what we have done, and what we have failed to do; for every idle word, and every silent denial of Christ.”
–Statement issued after his arrest at Notre Dame on May 5, 2009 (full transcript here)
“There are many Catholics who believed that to vote for Obama—knowing his promises to extend child-killing even further—that to knowingly vote for him under those circumstances was a type of cooperation with moral evil. It was cooperating with evil.”
–From an interview with Archbishop Raymond Burke on June 17, 2009
“Either abortion is murder, or it is not. Either this is a holocaust, or it is not. Either we have a duty before God Almighty to bring this horrific crime to an end, or we do not. God forgive us; we Christians have not met the crime of child-killing with actions and rhetoric equal to the crime.”
–From his self-published book, A Humble Plea
"We fear God, the Supreme judge of the world, more than we fear a federal judge."
–Quoted in James Risen and Judy Thomas’ Wrath of Angels
“I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good…Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty; we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don’t want equal time. We don’t want pluralism."
–From a 1993 speech, quoted in The Religious Right: The Assault on Tolerance & Pluralism in America, published by Anti-Defamation League
The Problem With Randall Terry
The anti-choice activist who called the late Dr. George Tiller “a mass murderer” has a long and provocative past.
By Matt Zeitlin
June 23, 2009
Activist Terry Randall doesn’t just say outrageous things — he basically started the militant anti-abortion movement. (Illustration by August J. Pollak)When Dr. George Tiller, one of the few doctors in the country who performed late-term abortions, was murdered in his Wichita church, most pro-life movement leaders condemned the killing. But one pro-lifer, Randall Terry, took a different approach. Although he briefly noted that “we grieve for [Tiller],” it was only because “he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God.” Beyond that, Terry said Tiller was a mass-murderer. What Terry was more concerned about, it seemed, was that the Obama administration was “using Tiller’s killing to intimidate pro-lifers.” Terry’s antics continued when he called two press conferences following the killing and declared, despite his record of calling for non-violent action to stop abortion, that the Obama administration made “violent protest inevitable.”
Why does anyone care about what Randall Terry has to say? He’s not affiliated with any major pro-life group like National Right to Life or even Operation Rescue any more. Socially conservative stalwarts have been distancing themselves from him of late. But it turns out that much of the venom in the abortion debate can be traced back to him.
Born in 1959, Terry showed little direction as a young man until he became a fundamentalist Protestant. He considered serving as a missionary, but instead, in 1984, he started protesting in front of an abortion clinic in his hometown of Binghamton, New York. In 1986, he was arrested for the first time for his anti-abortion activity. That same year he founded Operation Rescue, which for the next four years was the most active and notorious pro-life group in the country. He has since been arrested nearly 40 times.
Operation Rescue’s mission, Terry has said, is to bring about “necessary social tension that effects political change.” It specialized in disruptive direct action on abortion clinics, as described in James Risen and Judy Thomas’ 1999 history of the pro-life movement, The Wrath of Angels. Terry insisted that pro-lifers needed to “storm abortion clinics; solder shut elevators and blockade doors so that police could not reach them; and completely trash clinic offices, throwing furniture and abortion equipment out clinic windows and down into the street.” Although some allies were taken aback, Terry’s radical vision won out.
Terry also revolutionized the pro-life movement by actively enlisting the support of evangelical Christians and their ministers. Before him, the pro-life movement mostly consisted of Catholics, many of whom came from the anti-war movement and were opposed to violence or civil disobedience. Terry even tried to convince fellow pro-life leader Joe Scheidler, a Catholic who is now the head of the Pro-Life Action League, to convert to Protestantism.
In 1988 and 1989, Terry and his followers staged massive protests on the East Coast, most notably in New York City and Cherry Hill, New Jersey. At the protests, hundreds of activists blocked off entrances to clinics and went limp when police tried to remove them. Police had to arrest all the protesters to end the incidents, and clinics had to take out restraining orders to prevent others. The protests were largely ineffective at closing clinics, but they garnered gobs of media attention for Terry and other pro-lifers. In Atlanta, Terry was arrested and convicted of trespassing. He refused to pay the fine, calling it “blood money” to the judicial system, and so was sentenced to a year in jail, but left after five months when an anonymous donor paid his fine.
Operation Rescue’s biggest event was the so-called “Summery of Mercy” in Wichita, Kansas, in the summer of 1991. Although the group was officially led by Keith Tucci because Terry had a falling out with several other Operation Rescue leaders, Terry was very much on the scene in Wichita. For 46 days of what Risen and Thomas describe as a “fundamentalist Woodstock,” Terry and several thousand activists blockaded clinics, lay down in front of doctors’ cars as they tried to get to work, and harassed clinic employees in their homes. They specifically targeted Tiller.
After a federal judge ordered the arrest of Rescue’s leaders, levied large fines, and threatened to go after their assets, the “Summer of Mercy” ground to a halt. But not without a 25,000-person rally headlined by Pat Robertson, who, like James Dobson, supported Terry. As a result of the massive surge of pro-life energy, anti-abortion activists were able to take over the Sedgwick County Republican Party and made abortion, and specifically Tiller, a continual hot button issue in Kansas politics.
After the Summer of Mercy, Congress passed the Federal Access to Clinic Entrances law in 1994, which made it a federal crime “to injure, intimidate, or interfere with those seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health care service.” Operation Rescue then largely faded from the scene, but Terry stuck around and became a talk radio host. In 1998 he led a campaign, with the help of James Dobson, against Barnes & Noble for selling books that featured the work of Jock Sturges and David Hamilton, two photographers who published nude, non-sexual pictures of children. The campaign started with protests outside Barnes & Noble and activists defacing the books in the stores. Terry and Dobson pressured prosecutors in Tennessee and Alabama to bring charges against the store for obscenity.
Terry became fed up with the Republican Party and started campaigning and organizing for the U.S. Taxpayers Party, a radical right-wing party now known as the Constitution Party. In 1998, Terry tried to pressure the Republican Party to be more conservative by raising money for him and six other “Patrick Henry Men” to run for Republican House nominations. Once again supported by Dobson, Terry ran for an open seat in New York’s 26th district, campaigning on a broad list of hard-right policy positions beyond just banning abortion. He described his supporters as “the hard core of the Republican Party, as measured by primary voters: pro-lifers, home schoolers, Second Amendmentists, antitax, patriotic American activists.” His platform was everything you’d expect for an extreme right winger: He called for eliminating income taxes, eliminating the government role in education, getting rid of Social Security and basing the law around the Ten Commandments. Terry lost the Republican nomination to moderate Bud Walker, but he ran in the general election as the nominee of the Right to Life Party and got 7 percent of the vote.
In 2003, Terry popped up again in Florida, founding a new group called the Society for Truth and Justice, which sought to uphold sodomy laws. He then became a counselor and spokesperson for the Schindler family, who sought to block Terri Schiavo’s husband, Michael Schiavo, from removing his wife’s feeding tube because she had been in a persistent vegetative state since 1990. Despite his efforts and those of conservative leaders nationwide, Schiavo died in 2005 when a court ruled her feeding tube could be removed.
In 2004, in the midst of Terry’s campaigning against gay marriage, his adopted son, Jamiel, came out as gay in an interview with Out magazine. In an article for WorldNetDaily, Terry said his son’s life was “in a shambles” and attributed his homosexuality to the fact that his biological mother was a prostitute.
Terry had another foray with electoral politics in 2006, running for state Senate in Florida against incumbent Jim King, who had voted against a Florida bill that would have mandated Schiavo’s feeding tube be reinserted. Terry ended up losing the election—despite accusing King of being a regular customer at a strip bar—with only about a third of the vote.
In the wake of a divorce from his wife of 19 years, Terry converted to Catholicism in 2006. As a Catholic, Terry led protests against President Obama giving the commencement address at Notre Dame, and he was once again arrested for trespassing.
Despite being ostracized by much of the mainstream social conservative movement, Terry is indefatigable in his desire for publicity. Even when pro-lifers were publicly ashamed and embarrassed by Terry’s antics after the Tiller murder, he pressed on, forming a new anti-abortion group, Insurrecta Nex, which in high-Dungeons and Dragon style roughly translates to “insurrection against slaughter.”
Although Terry’s influence is at a distinct low point, his ability to stay in the headlines isn’t. And even if he’s no longer recognized by much the pro-life movement, in the wake of the murder of George Tiller his style of inflammatory, pugnacious and radical anti-abortion activism is still very much with us.
In his own words
“Our banner, Christianity, and our Sovereign, King Jesus, have laws, statutes, principles that are unalterable by the heathen. The Bible not only has judgments that Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy cannot annul, but its precepts, laws, statutes and principles are unalterable by Christians. The Christian community can no more change the Law of God than change the law of gravity. We cannot—in the name of Christ—set aside His commands. We cannot—in the name of the Christian right—compromise what God gave Moses on Mount Sinai. We cannot—in the name of the Christian Coalition—sell out the law of heaven for short-term political gain. To do so is abominable.”
–From a Washington Post editorial, “Selling Out the Law of Heaven” published September 18, 1994
“A dreadful reckoning is coming. The blood of the innocent cries from the ground to God for justice. We will all be judged for our part in allowing this slaughter to continue. We will be held accountable for what we have done, and what we have failed to do; for every idle word, and every silent denial of Christ.”
–Statement issued after his arrest at Notre Dame on May 5, 2009 (full transcript here)
“There are many Catholics who believed that to vote for Obama—knowing his promises to extend child-killing even further—that to knowingly vote for him under those circumstances was a type of cooperation with moral evil. It was cooperating with evil.”
–From an interview with Archbishop Raymond Burke on June 17, 2009
“Either abortion is murder, or it is not. Either this is a holocaust, or it is not. Either we have a duty before God Almighty to bring this horrific crime to an end, or we do not. God forgive us; we Christians have not met the crime of child-killing with actions and rhetoric equal to the crime.”
–From his self-published book, A Humble Plea
"We fear God, the Supreme judge of the world, more than we fear a federal judge."
–Quoted in James Risen and Judy Thomas’ Wrath of Angels
“I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good…Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty; we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don’t want equal time. We don’t want pluralism."
–From a 1993 speech, quoted in The Religious Right: The Assault on Tolerance & Pluralism in America, published by Anti-Defamation League
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Pittsburgh Peace Vigil Iran Elections
Please bring a flashlight
Date: Tuesday, June 23, 2009.
Time: 8:00-9:30 PM (dark).
Location: Market Square, downtown Pittsburgh, PA.
Details: This will be a quiet/silent show of support for the historic democratic movement now underway in Iran, and for those who have given their lives in the name of their cause.
The intention of this grassroots vigil is to show support for the human right to peaceful assembly and to protest election fraud worldwide.
We have invited and coordinated this vigil with members of the local Iranian community, a broad and diverse group, many of whom have indicated a show of support and awareness by non-Iranians is welcome and will be in attendance.
Remember: Please bring a flashlight.
Dogs must be on a leash and under control; owner responsible for clean-up.
Posted by Gloria
me- please see article and video below:
Please bring a flashlight
Date: Tuesday, June 23, 2009.
Time: 8:00-9:30 PM (dark).
Location: Market Square, downtown Pittsburgh, PA.
Details: This will be a quiet/silent show of support for the historic democratic movement now underway in Iran, and for those who have given their lives in the name of their cause.
The intention of this grassroots vigil is to show support for the human right to peaceful assembly and to protest election fraud worldwide.
We have invited and coordinated this vigil with members of the local Iranian community, a broad and diverse group, many of whom have indicated a show of support and awareness by non-Iranians is welcome and will be in attendance.
Remember: Please bring a flashlight.
Dogs must be on a leash and under control; owner responsible for clean-up.
Posted by Gloria
me- please see article and video below:
Family, friends mourn 'Neda,' Iranian woman who died on video - Los Angeles Times
Posted using ShareThis
WARNING GRAPHIC VIDEO.
I THINK IT NEEDS TO BE SEEN UN SANITIZED
Posted using ShareThis
WARNING GRAPHIC VIDEO.
I THINK IT NEEDS TO BE SEEN UN SANITIZED
posted by gloria at the pittsburgh woman's blogging society.
thanks gloria!
Monday, June 22, 2009
Pittsburgh Peace Vigil Iran Elections
Please bring a flashlight
Date: Tuesday, June 23, 2009.
Time: 8:00-9:30 PM (dark).
Location: Market Square, downtown Pittsburgh, PA.
Details: This will be a quiet/silent show of support for the historic democratic movement now underway in Iran, and for those who have given their lives in the name of their cause.
The intention of this grassroots vigil is to show support for the human right to peaceful assembly and to protest election fraud worldwide.
We have invited and coordinated this vigil with members of the local Iranian community, a broad and diverse group, many of whom have indicated a show of support and awareness by non-Iranians is welcome and will be in attendance.
Remember: Please bring a flashlight.
Dogs must be on a leash and under control; owner responsible for clean-up.
Posted by Gloria
thanks gloria!
Monday, June 22, 2009
Pittsburgh Peace Vigil Iran Elections
Please bring a flashlight
Date: Tuesday, June 23, 2009.
Time: 8:00-9:30 PM (dark).
Location: Market Square, downtown Pittsburgh, PA.
Details: This will be a quiet/silent show of support for the historic democratic movement now underway in Iran, and for those who have given their lives in the name of their cause.
The intention of this grassroots vigil is to show support for the human right to peaceful assembly and to protest election fraud worldwide.
We have invited and coordinated this vigil with members of the local Iranian community, a broad and diverse group, many of whom have indicated a show of support and awareness by non-Iranians is welcome and will be in attendance.
Remember: Please bring a flashlight.
Dogs must be on a leash and under control; owner responsible for clean-up.
Posted by Gloria
Monday, June 22, 2009
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
YES kiddies this is how it was and how it will go if we don't learn from our past.
this is short and to the point. please watch. thanks.
Last Night I Dreamed of Chickens
by Jack Prelutsky
Last night I dreamed of chickens,
there were chickens everywhere,
they were standing on my stomach,
they were nesting in my hair,
they were pecking at my pillow,
they were hopping on my head,
they were ruffling up their feathers
as they raced about my bed.
They were on the chairs and tables,
they were on the chandeliers,
they were roosting in the corners,
they were clucking in my ears,
there were chickens, chickens, chickens
for as far as I could see...
when I woke today, I noticed
there were eggs on top of me.
by Jack Prelutsky
Last night I dreamed of chickens,
there were chickens everywhere,
they were standing on my stomach,
they were nesting in my hair,
they were pecking at my pillow,
they were hopping on my head,
they were ruffling up their feathers
as they raced about my bed.
They were on the chairs and tables,
they were on the chandeliers,
they were roosting in the corners,
they were clucking in my ears,
there were chickens, chickens, chickens
for as far as I could see...
when I woke today, I noticed
there were eggs on top of me.
o.k. utah, here i be!!!
i hadn't had a hair cut since the 5th of may and my hair grows fast so there was a lot to get rid of. it gets too long and i can't even see. i look like a sheepdog because my hair is poker straight.
(note the smudged mascara left over from scrubbing my face to get all the little clippings off of my skin!)
why must itself up every of a park
by E. E. Cummings
why must itself up every of a park
anus stick some quote statue unquote to
prove that a hero equals any jerk
who was afraid to dare to answer "no"?
quote citizens unquote might otherwise
forget(to err is human;to forgive
divine)that if the quote state unquote says
"kill" killing is an act of christian love.
"Nothing" in 1944 AD
"can stand against the argument of mil
itary necessity"(generalissimo e)
and echo answers "there is no appeal
from reason"(freud)--you pays your money and
you doesn't take your choice. Ain't freedom grand
by E. E. Cummings
why must itself up every of a park
anus stick some quote statue unquote to
prove that a hero equals any jerk
who was afraid to dare to answer "no"?
quote citizens unquote might otherwise
forget(to err is human;to forgive
divine)that if the quote state unquote says
"kill" killing is an act of christian love.
"Nothing" in 1944 AD
"can stand against the argument of mil
itary necessity"(generalissimo e)
and echo answers "there is no appeal
from reason"(freud)--you pays your money and
you doesn't take your choice. Ain't freedom grand
sun for the next few days. yippee!
i'm not much of a movie watcher anymore but last night i watched 2 that i thought i might like.
TAKEN and THE MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA.
both were very different but both were very good.
i usually HATE war movies, but this one(st. anna) was done in such a way that there was just so very much more than just war.
i'm not much of a movie watcher anymore but last night i watched 2 that i thought i might like.
TAKEN and THE MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA.
both were very different but both were very good.
i usually HATE war movies, but this one(st. anna) was done in such a way that there was just so very much more than just war.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
in the Northern Hemisphere summers solstice begins on June 21, 2009 at 1:45 A.M. EDT
in the UK on June 21, 2009 at 5:45 UT
Sol + stice derives from a combination of Latin words meaning "sun" + "to stand still." As the days lengthen, the sun rises higher and higher until it seems to stand still in the sky.
As a major celestial event, the Summer Solstice results in the longest day and the shortest night of the year. The Northern Hemisphere celebrates in June, but the people on the Southern half of the earth have their longest summer day in December.
Early Celebrations
Awed by the great power of the sun, civilizations in the northern areas have for centuries celebrated the first dayo of summer otherwise known as the Summer Solstice, Midsummer (see Shakespeare), St. John's Day, or the Wiccan Litha.
The Celts & Slavs celebrated the first day of summer with dancing & bonfires to help increase the sun's energy. The Chinese marked the day by honoring Li, the Chinese Goddess of Light.
Perhaps the most enduring modern ties with Summer Solstice were the Druids' celebration of the day as the "wedding of Heaven and Earth", resulting in the present day belief of a "lucky" wedding in June.
Today, the day is still celebrated around the world - most notably in England at Stonehenge and Avebury, where thousands gather to welcome the sunrise on the Summer Solstice.
Pagan spirit gatherings or festivals are also common in June, when groups assemble to light a sacred fire, and stay up all night to welcome the dawn.
Summer Solstice Fun Facts
Pagans called the Midsummer moon the "Honey Moon" for the mead made from fermented honey that was part of wedding ceremonies performed at the Summer Solstice.
Ancient Pagans celebrated Midsummer with bonfires, when couples would leap through the flames, believing their crops would grow as high as the couples were able to jump.
Midsummer was thought to be a time of magic, when evil spirits were said to appear. To thwart them, Pagans often wore protective garlands of herbs and flowers. One of the most powerful of them was a plant called 'chase-devil', which is known today as St. John's Wort and still used by modern herbalists as a mood stabilizer.
in the UK on June 21, 2009 at 5:45 UT
Sol + stice derives from a combination of Latin words meaning "sun" + "to stand still." As the days lengthen, the sun rises higher and higher until it seems to stand still in the sky.
As a major celestial event, the Summer Solstice results in the longest day and the shortest night of the year. The Northern Hemisphere celebrates in June, but the people on the Southern half of the earth have their longest summer day in December.
Early Celebrations
Awed by the great power of the sun, civilizations in the northern areas have for centuries celebrated the first dayo of summer otherwise known as the Summer Solstice, Midsummer (see Shakespeare), St. John's Day, or the Wiccan Litha.
The Celts & Slavs celebrated the first day of summer with dancing & bonfires to help increase the sun's energy. The Chinese marked the day by honoring Li, the Chinese Goddess of Light.
Perhaps the most enduring modern ties with Summer Solstice were the Druids' celebration of the day as the "wedding of Heaven and Earth", resulting in the present day belief of a "lucky" wedding in June.
Today, the day is still celebrated around the world - most notably in England at Stonehenge and Avebury, where thousands gather to welcome the sunrise on the Summer Solstice.
Pagan spirit gatherings or festivals are also common in June, when groups assemble to light a sacred fire, and stay up all night to welcome the dawn.
Summer Solstice Fun Facts
Pagans called the Midsummer moon the "Honey Moon" for the mead made from fermented honey that was part of wedding ceremonies performed at the Summer Solstice.
Ancient Pagans celebrated Midsummer with bonfires, when couples would leap through the flames, believing their crops would grow as high as the couples were able to jump.
Midsummer was thought to be a time of magic, when evil spirits were said to appear. To thwart them, Pagans often wore protective garlands of herbs and flowers. One of the most powerful of them was a plant called 'chase-devil', which is known today as St. John's Wort and still used by modern herbalists as a mood stabilizer.
Friday, June 19, 2009
By JENNIFER KAY
Associated Press Writer
MIAMI -- The inventor of the "Magic Fingers Vibrating Bed," which brought weary travelers 15 minutes of "tingling relaxation and ease" for a quarter in hotel rooms across America during its heyday as a pop culture icon in the 1960s and '70s, has died. He was 92. John Joseph Houghtaling died Wednesday at his home in Fort Pierce, his son Paul Houghtaling said Friday in a telephone interview...
Associated Press Writer
MIAMI -- The inventor of the "Magic Fingers Vibrating Bed," which brought weary travelers 15 minutes of "tingling relaxation and ease" for a quarter in hotel rooms across America during its heyday as a pop culture icon in the 1960s and '70s, has died. He was 92. John Joseph Houghtaling died Wednesday at his home in Fort Pierce, his son Paul Houghtaling said Friday in a telephone interview...
Digging
by Seamus Heaney
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pin rest; snug as a gun.
Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.
by Seamus Heaney
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pin rest; snug as a gun.
Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.
got a hitch in my "getalong!"
walking like walter brennan(anyone remember him?)
my right knee is swollen and scraped and ugly.
the left is just bruised and scraped.
as my mom used to say, "sherry, grace is NOT your middle name."
expressions of sympathy were in short supply in my immediate family.
smart ass-ness, yep! ; )
walking like walter brennan(anyone remember him?)
my right knee is swollen and scraped and ugly.
the left is just bruised and scraped.
as my mom used to say, "sherry, grace is NOT your middle name."
expressions of sympathy were in short supply in my immediate family.
smart ass-ness, yep! ; )
Thursday, June 18, 2009
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