Remember Kent State

What's happening in Portland OR? Federal agents in unmarked cars in military fatigues and no identification are grabbing people off the streets and taking them to a "safe location for questioning." says Ken Cuccinelli Homeland Security officer.

      This reminds me of a simialr approach to protestors forty years ago. Kent State University was the site of student protest against the Vietnam War. In 1970 they were fired upon by National Guardsmen  killing four and wounding nine. It triggered  outrage, further protests, with more killings and injuries of civilians.

   The past does tend to repeat itself.

DHS, Portland protest, Kent State shooting,

Yes All Women and Men Can

Most phenomenon have a tipping point. The current news stories about the o going cultural/political war against women all seemed tame and harmless until a nut job recently took out his immature frustration out on seven people-- especially women. It got men and women talking to each other about the rampant misogyny in our society and it's about time.

I expect the usual sound bites from the media when there is yet another mass shooting but this one got my attention with some rather astute observations from surprising voices. Men. A certified nerd zeros in on the myth pushed by Hollywood that nerdy guys will always get the hot chick. A persistent and irritating plot line that I always found offensive and wildly unrealistic.

Bishop Ken Robinson in his Daily Beast article put his finger on something known all too well by women:
" It is difficult for those who are not subject to discrimination and denigration to believe that it’s happening right under their noses, especially if they belong to the group that is perpetrating societal bullying. White people are shocked to learn that African-Americans are routinely followed around stores while they shop because of the color of their skin and their perceived likelihood of being thieves. Able-bodied people rarely notice the barriers that riddle the world which keep the disabled from participating in society. The threat of violence against women, because they are women, goes unnoticed by most men."

This conversation needs to happen everywhere, In India where the national sport of gang raping/ murdering of women occurs on a regular basis. In Afghanistan where young women  attempt suicide rather than  be forced to marry some shriveled up old man. In China where female infratricide is still the norm where males are more precious and if they can't find a women locally they buy them.

Women are fed up being treated as cattle, sex toys or prizes for the male ego. Men have to recognize the value of the other half of humanity if the species is to evolve. 

Let's keep talking.

Fuskashima Legacy

If I were you I wouldn't eat any fin-if there is any from the pacific. Apparently there is little marine life anyway. But don't worry I'm sure the crippled nuclear power plant can withstand the next typhoon to hit it.

Fish is out of my diet thank you.

How The Military should Teach Sex Education

The military is used to getting the men to stand at attention, yell orders at them and dismissed. They are handling the whole rape epidemic that way- "Soldier rape is bad, don't do it, dismissed." because so far it's been working pretty well, right? Well, a soldier and long time listener to Dan Savage's podcast  provided the new approach the old boys need.

Sometimes the answer can be so simple and why military intelligence is still an oxymoron.

Stupid Police Watch

As if we need more proof that police are poorly trained, we present the Oregon State Police using a taser on a naked 11 year old autistic girl.That’s right folks, they are protecting us at great personal risk, from this dangerous menace to society. 

We Have a Pope and This One's a Winner

Pope Francis “Frankie”, replaced Pope ”Benny” and not a moment too soon. The church has kept it’s head in the sand about financial corruption, power struggles among the cardinals and the sinful raping of child for decades. Along comes a man who eschews the lavish trappings of the office, who is geniunely dismayed by the wealth and indiffereence of the church and advocates for the poor. The vatican curia, the people behind the throne are so shocked by his Christian airs they try to pull the “what his holiness really meant to say” PR. crap.

From St. Malachi to Nostradamus and Edgar Cayce there have been predications about the line of popes and the demise of the church. This one, according to the prophesy, is the last one. Who knows what will happen but this one is engaging in a super human feat of transforming the biggest and most secretive fraternity in the world and doing a fine job so far.Viva il Papa.

He Was Fine Until He Put His Foot In His Mouth

Orson Scot Card is a fine writer and  has a movie coming up based on his novel Ender's Game". I don't intend to see the movie not because of his notorious homophobia but because I found the book weird and unreadable for a number of reasons.

Still It amazes me how smart people can parrot ignorant ideas as if they were original and sincere.  Please don't boycott my movie, he says, I get that the whole same gender marriage argument is moot, but now those radical queers have to be tolerant and not be upset with me, his statement seems to say. After decades of discrimination and abuse, being denied basic legal rights and looked down as immoral, this guy has the gall to imply he and his fellow members of the tight ass club are the ones being persecuted.

Nice try.

No News on the News

There are four local channels in Eugene but like so many other towns the stations are owned by corporations far away. Recently Fisher Communications  bought a second station and promptly fired over 30 people in a swift act of downsizing. The fall out has been pretty intense but not surprisingly it’s been virtually ignored by the now enalrged media presence. Funny how they like to poke their nose in other people’s business but like the town gossip, reveals little of it’s own warts for public consumption.

News, like everything else these days, is just another commercial venture out to profit to the max. It’s genertic, bland and almost totally lacking in real substance. Soft stories about local poltics crafted not to offend the current powers, a few mug shots of petty criminals to install a sense of fear and another inane story about a cute pet. With this aquistion locals can look forward to identical stories on two news broadcast. It leaves me so annoyed and frustrated I only tune in for the weather report. No wonder I cruise the net in search of more substantial news.

It reminds me of the old Soviet era joke. The newspaper was Pravda which means truth and the news show was Vremya which means news. So there was no thruth in the “news” and no news in the “truth”. 

Ironic isn’t it.

Beware Citizen, Terror is Everywhere.

Thanks to the endless war on terror and mission creep, our governemtn can now label anything and everyone a terrorist. When hysteria runs amok the term loses all meaning.For example ,If you complain about your local government about something as common as water quality - you’re a terrorist. Protesting corporations has long been viewed as communistic  but now you are also a terrorist. Even questioning the cost of the very security system erected to keep us safe from terrorists is viewed as heresay. Where does it end? It never does citizen.

How Can We Sleep While Our Beds Are Burning

Is it just me or does it feel like people around the world are sick and tired of the status quo? It’s about time I say for the tipping point of the cultural shift that has been going on for 25 years or so.The whole Y2K thing was not about the computers going haywire, it was about humanity going from naive childhood to mad adolesence. It started with 9/11 followed by natural disasters of  volcanoes and earthquakes and now the change of regimes in Libya, Eygpt, Turkey, Brazil and even North Carolina. The good news is that Iceland can teach us a thing or two about how to effectively change the system and the main stream media isn't entirely ignoring what's happening here.

The BSA Inspires a Round of Ironic Hypocrisy

The Boy Scouts of America has decided to allow gays scouts until they are eighteen. But some members are unhappy with this attempt at inclusion. They feel it infringes on their beliefs so their kids must suffer.

". . .Aaron Butler, the leader of his 8-year-old son Evan’s Cub Scout Wolf den in Roseau, Minn., said he didn't explain to his eldest son exactly why they were walking away from an organization they loved so much, but he told NBC News that it was because of last week's controversial decision by the Boy Scouts of America to allow gay youth to participate.. ."

So the message of the deeply concerned father is: "ooh it's those awful homosexuals fault my son is unhappy. If they weren't so pushy about being, you know accepted, my son would properly learn the BSA value of equality for all. But I mean, if I can't understand it, how can a nine year old."

To which I reply: Contrary to the hysterical fear imagined here, homosexuals are not out to ruin everything. The members of the BSA who voted on this issue decided they didn't get a shit if a scout is gay or not. They have always been in the scouts, will continue to be in the scouts with zero reprecussions. Grow up.

Orwellian Democracy

Our government has a deep fear of it’s own citizens. It wants to control everyone on the pretext of the War on Terror or the War on Drugs. Despite their pledge to protect and enrich our lives they don’t. Our President can have anyone arrested for any or no reason and hold them indefinitely . The feds can snoop into your mail, phone conversations and business with impunity. They go after non violent protesters engaged in lawful civil disobedience. Government officials who let power go to their heads routinely make pronouncemnets on your sex life and allow police depatments and private companies to use drones to spy on you and kill you.

And yet we claim to still live in a democracy. At this point that means “you can vote but it doesn’t rreally count for much and every else is decided by authroity now go out and shop. citizen.”

“Those who sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither.”- Ben Frnaklin.

The Sins of the Child Are Not the Same as the Sins of the Father

A child picks up a gun and shoots another kid, everyone is horrified that a child could be so callous. A teenager joins in with his buddy and helps him kill. A bunch of high schoolers gang rape a girl and everyone is shocked at the sociopath glee of those in volved. The courts declare they are monsters who should be tried as adults because they did adult crimes. They are seriously screwed up.

It's the adults who are screwed up. When will we learn that children and adolescents don't process social behavior like mature adults. That's why they are called immature. A child points a gun at another and kills them and we all cry in shock. But to the kid it's just a toy, they don't understand how they did something wrong.

Some kid wants to impress another at how cool he is but he doesn't see the moral consequences of doing so. Children are used as soldiers for the same reason. They lack the subtle understanding that comes with maturity as an adult.

Putting kids in juvenile detention until they turn eighteen isn’t the solution but locking them up in an adult penitentiary for most of their life isn’t the solution either. What is needed is new kind of place where young offenders transition  from child to adult while gaining a moral compass to guide them.

We Deny We are in Denial.

I read the news every day and lately find myself incredulous at the shear audacity of denial going on in the world. We live in a age where folks are simply dismissing  reality. As Adam Savage of Mythbusters famously put it " I reject your reality and substitute my own." . It seems to be the motto of everyone from politicians, fundamentalists, educators and those claiming to know better than scientists.

This is nothing new. It's always been around- revisionist historians, paranoids who see conspiracies under every rock instead of the obvious, propagandists skewing events to suit their purposes. I think a lot of it is based on fear of change and a desire to frame events into something controllable or understandable rather than the subtle and confusing nature of the mystery of why things really happen. The greater the denial the greater the fear. We are very afraid these days.

Instead of looking at someone else being at fault, the way to release this fear is an acceptance of the forces at work. We are in a vast ocean; we can't command the currents but we can go with the flow. We can overcome powerlessness by choosing to change one thing in the world and by doing so change everything.

A Voice of Reason Crying in the Wilderness

Finally, we have an intelligent discussion on TV about Terrorism, the influence of Saudi Arabia and the media. Unfortunately not enough people will hear this man or recognize the truth of his words. Spread the word.

There Must be Something in the Water

I knew kids and teenagers were capable of being mean spirited and insensitive but I thought adults outgrew that.

I guess not.

After reading his story all I can think of is has civility truly died? What the fuck were these cretins thinking?

Through the Looking Glass

I read the news every day, why I don't know, most of it is utterly depressing and demoralizing but I try to keep in in touch. One of the things I've noticed is how increasingly fictionalized people's thinking has become. Whether the issue is the environment, religion, or politics the opinions being expressed bare little resemblance to reality. It seems institutions like the Tea Party, the Catholic Church or the average radio talk show host are looking at the world through a weirdly distorted lens that only sees the past and refuses the present.

Argentina just legalized same-sex marriage. As Glenn Greenwald at Salon noted:

"It's worthwhile now and then to take stock of the vast disparity between how we like to think of ourselves and reality. When a country with Argentina's history and background becomes but the latest country to legally recognize same-sex marriage -- largely as the result of a population which demanded it -- that disparity becomes quite clear."

Like the other countries that have recognized this small minority, they don't view the issue as a threat to their cosmology but as a matter of social equality. By contrast, the current US policy is wildly outdated. In some Middle Eastern and African countries with their rabid homophobia makes one wonder what is in the water to make these people so paranoid.

It's not that this is a big issue it's merely focused on as a symbol of the change in reality fundamentalists can't tolerate.

All hail alternative energy

What would you prefer-this:













Which kills fish, birds, coral reefs and pollutes the water. Or this:
















Which produces clean energy and looks kind of cool. Your choice.

The War on Drugs. . . and Common Sense

As the judge in this video so clearly points out there is a lot of money in drugs and drug law enforcement. Both sides profit so there's little incentive to change the law. When the public and state governments realize they are being screwed and insist on getting in on the action then we'll see change.

The Future of America part 2

Here's proof of what I was talking about in the previous post about saving our colleges and universities

(CNN) -- A California movement protesting $1 billion in budget cuts to the state's university system appeared to have burgeoned into a nationwide demonstration on Thursday.

The greatest product America has is higher education and our government is bent on destroying it because of incompentent spending. Congress approves a trillion for military action overseas without any protest, bails out banks for billions but can't seem to fund education or health care. If the government can't take care of it's citizens first, It is doomed to fail.