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November 30, 2007

Hasso Herring is an Ignoramus

Note that I used the word "ignoramus" – or ignorant person – instead of idiot. Yeah, I know it's rude to say that, but it's true. After all, what thinking, informed adult could possibly write that the "Crusade against Sizemore smacks of revenge"? Hence, I can only assume Mr. Herring is ignorant of the facts.

For instance, he writes:

The unions persuaded a court that irregularities in signature gathering by Sizemore’s outfit amounted to racketeering, and that this had damaged the unions by forcing them to campaign against measures that would have hurt their members. That line of argument should have been rejected by the courts.

Mr. Herring, if that actually had been the line of argument, you would be correct, but it wasn't. You've spent too much time allowing that silver-tongued devil Sizemore to lick your ear and not enough time educating (or reminding) yourself of what really went on. Here's a little refresher course, just for you. And if you want more, you can find a whole lot of it here. Don't miss this one.

After that, you would see why the following statement is so ludicrous:

Legal issues aside, the main public issue in this court struggle is not about money and court orders, but about political freedom.

But then, you probably think Paul Jacob is being persecuted unfairly, too. (He isn't.)

Posted by Becky at 04:54 PM |

Irony in the Vatican

Pope Benedict's latest encyclical, released today, says that atheism was responsible for some of the "greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice" in history.

Against the backdrop of the Crusades, Spanish Inquisition and the Catholicizing of Central and South America, where all to frequently the natives were offered the choice of converting or being murdered, I'm thinking that Benedict's not exactly in a position to... uh... pontificate about belief system-based cruelty and violations of justice.

None of that justifies anything done by or in the name of atheism. I'm just saying that the Catholic Church has no moral authority on this particular subject. And Benedict, as a conservative, has less than others in the Church.

To paraphrase a bumper sticker I recently saw and which was aimed at the Republican Party...

Jesus helped the poor
Conservatives help themselves.

Posted by Kevin at 11:05 AM |

November 29, 2007

Thou Shalt Not Question Their Authoritay

I think this video speaks for itself.

Anyone who has ever tried to fight an illegitimate traffic ticket in court knows the lying cop is always right, no matter how much evidence you present. In other words, waiting until you get to court (a.k.a. "the proper forum") to argue your point is an exercise in futility. Apparently, in this Taser Era, so is trying to argue the point on the spot.

Posted by Becky at 03:51 PM |

Male Dominance Without Chivalry

The news today that the teachers' unions have filed another lawsuit against Bill Sizemore (thereby launching a new chapter in what is beginning to feel to me like a never-ending nightmare) has really brought into sharp relief for me what has bothered me most about the man over the years. My reaction relates to something that always deeply bothers me when I see it, and something that no doubt will not be appreciated by a lot of modern women, but which is, nevertheless, a core part of my own view of the world due to my upbringing. That something is chivalry. And what bothers me most about Bill Sizemore is his utter lack of it, particularly because it is combined with his male-dominated view of the world.

The latest lawsuit alleges that he is hiding behind his wife, who is being paid by a Nevada company called the American Tax Research Foundation for work that Sizemore is actually doing. As a side note, it is revealing that the "foundation" lists no officers on its website (which not coincidentally was designed by the same website designer Sizemore uses for his own site). This is contrary to what one would expect from a legitimate foundation. It is also interesting that this foundation is located in Nevada - the same state where Loren Parks, who has a history of laundering money through non-profits to pay Sizemore, now resides.

Anyway, this is allegedly being done so that Sizemore can remain technically peniless and unable to pay the unions what the Court has ordered him to pay. Really, this is a common tactic and I don't doubt that the allegations are true. Still, it demonstrates in my opinion a serious disregard for the well-being of his wife. If something illegal is going on here, she is now a party to it and will be held responsible, too. And I'm betting it was Sizemore's scheme, not hers.

Upon reading the story I was immediately reminded of an incident that occurred when he was running for Governor. The Oregonian had just published the second of its hit pieces on Sizemore and my eyes were just beginning to be opened. As I read the story of his having lied on a loan application, my eye was drawn to the article's accompanying photograph of his and his wife's signatures on the application. Having seen his wife's real signature I was immediately certain that he had forged her signature on this particular loan application. I spoke with him by telephone that morning and told him what I thought. Rather than denying it, he asked me to call her for him and tell her about it. So not only did he apply his wife's name to something in a lordly fashion with no regard to whether she would have supported it, he then hid behind me to tell her about it. An honest and chivalrous man in the male-dominated sub-culture of which we were both a part would have handled the entire matter quite differently.

I could go on and on about his unchivalrous behavior toward me, setting me up to take the blame for what was happening at OTU, asking me to sign his signature on documents he knew were legally problematic so that he would have an "out" down the line, claiming I did the taxes and the reports and he merely signed them, etc. But the point is, rather than taking his role as a man and a leader seriously and looking out for the women in different roles in his life, he exhibited a pattern of using them without concern for their feelings or futures.

And ultimately, that is the problem when someone who, due to upbringing and other cultural factors, comes at the world from an old-fashioned, conservative, male-dominated perspective, the way both Sizemore and I do, but does not incorporate chivalry into their behavior. Not only are women less than equal, they don't matter. When the rules of chivalry, which remind such men of their role to protect the women in their lives, are abandoned, then men are left to merely use women as tools to get what they want.

When both sexes are equal, with neither dominating the other, then chivalry is not necessary. But a male-dominated world without chivalry is the worst oppression of all for women.

***********UPDATE***********

I just received a copy of the American Federation of Teachers' press release on the new lawsuit:

Oregon Educators and School Employees File Lawsuit Against Sizemores

Suit Claims Fraudulent Transfer of Funds and Civil Conspiracy

Portland – This morning, attorneys for the Oregon Education Association (OEA) and the American Federation of Teachers-Oregon (AFT-Oregon) filed a lawsuit in Multnomah County Circuit Court against Bill Sizemore, his wife Cindy, and the Americans for Tax Research Foundation (ATRF) for fraudulent transfer of funds and civil conspiracy. The lawsuit is based on evidence of the illegal transfer of funds among the defendants named in the suit and evidence of a conspiracy to defraud the plaintiffs.

The new lawsuit stems from evidence gathered during court proceedings in which Bill Sizemore disclosed information about his income and household finances. The proceedings are part of the process to enforce a court-awarded money judgment against Mr. Sizemore. During the proceedings, Mr. Sizemore admitted that the Americans for Tax Research Foundation has been paying CBS Consulting, a firm operating under Cindy Sizemore’s name, $7,500 a month to design a website. ATRF is Cindy Sizemore’s only client. Additionally, ATRF has paid $2,500 a month for rent for the Sizemore family residence and additional amounts for a family vehicle, office space and equipment. Mr. Sizemore is legally obligated to pay the amounts owed to OEA and AFT, but he has consistently claimed he has little to no income. Mr. Sizemore has disclosed, however, that he receives $1,000 a month from his wife.

“Bill Sizemore has stated under oath that he receives a salary from his wife, who, in turn, is on the payroll of Americans for Tax Research. It seems pretty clear what is going on here.” says Richard Schwarz, Executive Director of AFT-Oregon. “This is not only illegal, it’s unconscionable.”

The lawsuit asserts that Mr. Sizemore, his wife Cindy, and the Nevada based Americans for Tax Research Foundation have devised a complicated conspiracy to illegally funnel money to the Sizemore household.

“Mr. Sizemore continues to think and act like he is above the law,” says OEA President Larry Wolf. “And now he’s enlisted the help of his wife and an out-of-state special interest group to assist in his continued unlawful schemes.”

On a related note, attorneys for OEA and AFT-Oregon are pursuing contempt claims for Mr. Sizemore’s repeated violations of a court-ordered injunction barring him from raising and spending money through a political action committee until the judgment is satisfied. They argue that because of Mr. Sizemore’s ongoing course of conduct, which violates the court’s order, that Mr. Sizemore should be held in contempt and be required to serve as much as six months in jail.

In 2002, a Multnomah County jury found that Mr. Sizemore had engaged in racketeering, fraud and forgery during the signature gathering process and a final judgment of approximately $3.5 million was entered against Mr. Sizemore’s organizations. The court also entered an injunction limiting Mr. Sizemore’s ability to utilize the assets of those organizations. In September 2004 the court found Bill Sizemore in contempt for violating the court’s injunction and ultimately awarded OEA and AFT $125,000 to compensate for their attorney fees in the contempt matter. In 2006, the Court of Appeals denied Mr. Sizemore’s attempt to overturn the jury ruling and affirmed that his organization engaged in a “calculated course of criminal conduct” and “cynical, criminal manipulation of the democratic process.”

A little different take on the website design than what I found by Googling, but definitely interesting. And so obviously another Sizemore scam that it turns my stomach. Just when I had begun to entertain the hope that he had learned something from all this, he proves he hasn't learned a damned thing. It's the saddest thing I've ever seen.

Posted by Becky at 11:09 AM |

November 28, 2007

Willy Week endorses Novick.

In what appears to be a naked attempt to generate buzz for Oregon Dem Senatorial candidate Steve Novick while downplaying his lack of endorsements from elected Democrats, Beth Slovic's editorial concludes with a four-part comparison between Novick and fellow Oregon Dem Senatorial candidate Jeff Merkley to allegedly see which of the two is most like Montana Senator Jon Tester (D).

One particularly noteworthy thing about that is the fact that earlier in the campaign Steve Novick had run ads comparing himself to Tester
only to have Senator Tester endorse Merkley in no uncertain terms. Which you would think kinda settles any questions about who Tester himself believes compares most favorably to himself.

Another thing that's noteworthy about Slovic's editorial is that Tester is coming to Portland on December 15th to stump for Merkley, as she notes in the endorsement... er... editorial. Nevertheless Slovic picks up where Novick left off and uses the aforementioned 4-part comparison as her vehicle.

The comparison itself, called the Tester-Meter, is almost comedic in what it uses to determine who is "more like the Montana maverick." I mean here we have a Democratic primary campaign focused on both removing the Bush rubberstamper also known as Senator Gordon Smith (R) and bringing new, constructive (for a change!) ideas to the United States Senate and what is one of the four criteria which Beth Slovic deems relevant in such an important campaign? How many fingers Senator Tester has on one hand!

Yes, you got that right... billions of dollars are being squandered in Iraq, our civil rights are in tatters, almost nobody else on the planet sees this administration as an honest broker on anything and Beth Slovic thinks that Steve Novick's "signature look" warrants being one of only four criteria in this important campaign??? And it's a forced comparison at that.

Novick was born without a right hand and Tester is missing three fingers on his right hand. Forget the fact that in most other respects Tester actually resembles Merkley much more than he resembles Novick, Ms. Slovic won't be denied stacking the deck in order to pump up an irrelevant comparison with a Senator who has already rejected Novick by explicitely endorsing Merkley. It'd be funny if it wasn't so completely out of touch with the truly important issues that the winner of this race will grapple with.

Is it any wonder that the for-profit media is viewed with such disdain these days?

I don't know about you but I am not even slightly interested in or entertained by the notion that I or any other Oregonian ought to give a flying rodent's backside how many fingers our elected representatives have.

Give me my gawd damned civil rights back and some friggin' sanity in our nation's capital and to hell with how many fingers are associated with whomever can achieve that end!

Posted by Kevin at 01:44 PM |

Another reason to be an Indie

Remember the Bush administration crowing about how they'd reduced the federal deficit? Yeah... more lies, aided and abetted by both sides of the aisle:

Consider the proud trumpeting that came from Washington at the close of fiscal 2007. The deficit for the unified budget was, politicians crowed, down to a mere $162.8 billion.

In fact, our government is overspending at a far greater rate. The total federal debt actually increased by $497.1 billion over the same period.

But politicians of both parties use happy numbers to distract us. Democrats routinely criticize the Republican administration for crippling deficits, but they politely use the least-damaging figure, the $162.8 billion. Why? Because references to more-realistic accounting would reveal vastly greater numbers and implicate both parties.

Posted by Kevin at 08:00 AM |

November 26, 2007

Outrageous Anti-Troop Action by US Military

I was shocked an apalled to read this report telling how the U.S. military is demanding that thousands of wounded military personnel repay portions of their signing bonuses because they are hurt too badly to complete their service commitments.

To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 in some cases.

Now men and women who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.

Will someone remind me who really supports the troops? I don't think it's this Administration.

Posted by Becky at 09:55 AM |

November 24, 2007

Capon day?

Just out of curiosity... how many of you have ever chosen to go with a Capon on Thanksgiving rather than the ubiquitous (and boring, IMO) Turkey?

For that last number of years I've usually opted for the more expensive Capon. Sometimes I go with a smoked Turkey, but most of the time I prefer the moistness of a Capon to the rather dry meat of a Turkey. A Capon is much larger than a regular Chicken but not as large as a Turkey. In my estimation it's about halfway inbetween in terms of size and taste.

Posted by Kevin at 12:12 PM |

Monkey meat & religious freedom?

Holy moly! I can't say that I would ever have anticipated something like this. Although I suppose it was inevitable in a society that reveres religious freedom.

NEW YORK - From her baptism in Liberia to Christmas years later in her adopted New York City, Mamie Manneh never lost the longing to celebrate religious rituals by eating monkey meat.

Now, the tribal customs of Manneh and other West African immigrants have become the focus of an unusual criminal case charging her with meat smuggling, and touching on issues of religious freedom, infectious diseases and wildlife preservation.

Naturally, a case such as this couldn't be as simple as that. Ms. Manneh is serving a 2-year sentence for trying to run over a woman she suspected of sleeping with her husband. If convicted of smuggling Monkey meat she faces an additional 5-years and deportation.

Be that as it may, where would you draw the line between a person's religious convictions and wildlife preservation?

Posted by Kevin at 11:24 AM |

Fun poll

I ran across this fun political poll a couple days ago. It's interactive in that you can go through and answer each of the questions and the next page shows you what the poll found and you can compare your answer to those of the respondants.

Of course polls can be parsed six ways to Sunday, depending on exactly who participated and how realistically they represent the larger population. But what I found most interesting about this poll was the variety in responses it got from those who did participate and the questions they were asked.

For example, this poll asks how often folks experience stress in their daily lives (Q8) and how often they feel like their lives are beyond their control (Q9). Question 12 asks whether the respondants feel that most people can be trusted or not and then follows that up with question 13 which asks whether they favor or oppose the Iraq War. I've taken a variety of polls and never have I been asked those kinds of questions.

Other fascinating questions were a series of morality questions about how respondants felt about drinking alcohol to excess, using Marijuana, gambling, downloading music files without paying for them, stealing cable TV access and about whether it's okay to use your neighbors wireless internet access, without paying for it of course. Those are followed by more conventional morality questions about gun laws, stem cell research and the like.

The last three questions are the most interesting to me because they are all very fundamental issues:

27: Do you favor or not favor having the federal government intervene to reduce the income differences between the richest and poorest Americans?

28: Do you favor or not favor canceling the tax cuts passed since 2001 for people who are wealthy?

29: Do you favor or not favor a government insurance plan that would cover all medical and hospital expenses for everyone?

Posted by Kevin at 10:42 AM |

November 22, 2007

Campaign strategy question.

Okay political junkies, I've got a question for you.

Can you name a single General election that was won by a candidate whose Primary election strategy consisted, in part, of essentially declaring common cause with the incumbent General election opponent in order to secure the Primary win?

Posted by Kevin at 07:48 AM |

November 21, 2007

The Good Life

I just stumbled across this blog: Goldilocks Finds Manhattan and it delighted me. It's about good food, the wonderful outdoors, pets, and the farm. Just a lovely, carefree, refreshing reminder of the good life.

Posted by Becky at 02:21 PM |

Zimbabwe Won't Miss Ian Smith

Ian Smith, former white prime minister of the racist government that ruled Rhodesia until the Africans took their country back in 1980 and renamed it Zimbabwe, has finally died. And if this moving editorial is any indication, he won't be missed, even by now-struggling Zimbabweans. The dramatic economic downturn being experienced under current-President Mugabe's rule, resulting in life expectancy of 37 and 7000% inflation, is still better for native Zimbabweans that life under white rule. Shocking, isn't it? Almost inconceivable - and yet, it is true.

I have often wondered how the condition in that beautiful country could deteriorate to such a degree without sparking major civil unrest. Perhaps the reason the country is not in a total uproar today is that the grinding poverty and hopelessness these people experienced under Smith and his predecessors conditioned them to accept much more hardship than we could tolerate.

I recall two incidents I witnessed on a trip to Bulawayo during my one-year stay in Zimbabwe in 1982 that demonstrated the ingrained racism that characterized white rule in Rhodesia. The first was when I boarded a bus driven by an African man and attempted to hand him my fare. He would not take it from me and asked me to set it down for him to pick up. The reason was that blacks were not allowed to touch whites. If by chance our hands had touched during the exchange of money, he could have been in serious trouble. The second incident was when I purchased a pair of shoes. The white clerk, who was quite pleasant and even deferential toward me, carefully boxed and wrapped my shoes for me. But the next customer in line was a black woman. Her shoes were unceremoniously dumped on the counter and the box kept by the clerk. The difference in the clerk's demeanor was shocking to me.

I am not one to wish death on others. But I can say that Ian Smith's death is, to me, a symbol of my undying hope for the ultimate death of cruelty and oppression as an aspect of human nature. And my heart goes out to all Zimbabweans, whom I know to be warm hearted and deserving of so much more.

Posted by Becky at 10:55 AM |

November 16, 2007

Fox News Porn

This may explain why those right-wingers are so addicted to Faux News. Maybe by saturating their broadcasts with sex they figure they can ensure the sheep aren't as shocked by all those Republican sex scandals.

Posted by Becky at 08:17 AM |

November 15, 2007

Cool New Widget

If you look on the right-hand sidebar just below the BlogAds there is a new Iraq War Cost counter that breaks down what that same amount of money could have provided back here at home. The first two stats were stock options that I chose when I customized the counter for PK. The second two I created and added to it, a really cool feature IMHO. My source for both of those is right here.

Think about it... Instead of foolishly (and expensively!!) invading and occupying Iraq we could have...?

Just to put this into perspective for my fellow Oregonians, remember Measure 50, the Healthy Kids Plan? The goal there was to provide basic health care for 117,000 kids in Oregon. Instead of squandering money in Iraq we could have provided basic health care for over 31 MILLION kids in America. And not just for a few years either. From birth until they were 17 years old!

Posted by Kevin at 08:18 PM |

If This is How God Answers Prayer ...

...then stop praying! On Tuesday, Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue led a prayer service on the capitol steps begging God to send rain to the parched state. The next day the rains came. But was it, as some inspired Christians are claiming, a blessed answer to prayer?

In fact, the rain and accompanying storm came so hard that in Tennesee, the roof of a Baptist church was heavily damaged, sending glass flying into three children, who were subsequently taken to the hospital for their injuries. An ambulance business next door sustained heavy damage and a house collapsed, sending its residents to the hospital. And to top it all off, the rain wasn't sufficient to ease Georgia's drought, as only about an inch fell on the state.

Maybe the good Governor should have been a little more specific - say, asking for enough rain to fall on Georgia to ease its drought without hurting the neighbors.

Posted by Becky at 02:24 PM |

Where Is The Oregonian?

It is amazing to me that the international press is covering this dramatic story, which is unfolding right in our back yard, but The Oregonian isn't. Why?

Posted by Becky at 01:03 PM |

November 13, 2007

Concealed Carry Permits Should Remain Private

Looks like the Medford Mail Tribune is sticking its nose where it doesn't belong. Can anyone justify for me releasing to the public the names of people who hold concealed carry permits?

Posted by Becky at 05:45 PM |

Saddam's Last Confidant Talks of Iraq WMDs

If Saddam Hussein's last friend and confidant - an FBI Special Agent - is to be believed, then there were no WMDs, at least not of the nuclear variety. George Piro was assigned to befriend and care for Saddam in his final months and thereby gain information from him. According to Piro's account, Saddam admitted to gassing 180,000 Kurds. He also admitted to plotting to build a nuclear weapon, but he never succeeded:

Until 9/11, Saddam thought UN sanctions would go away and he could make a nuclear bomb. His prewar weapons of mass destruction deceptions were a ruse to convince Iran - whom he feared - that he had an arsenal.

If true, then it would appear the UN sanctions were working and war was unnecessary. Hmm, where have we heard that before?

Posted by Becky at 12:10 PM |

The Hypocrisy of Kevin Mannix and Freedomworks

Hart Williams has once again broken open a big one with his latest find on the huge payments being made to Kevin Mannix by Freedomworks - and the hypocritical behavior of Freedomworks and its hierarchy. You don't want to miss it.

Posted by Becky at 09:05 AM |

November 11, 2007

Cig taxes: an inconvenient truth

Congress wants to tax cigarettes to fund SCHIP services. Oregon voters recently shot down a hefty proposed cig tax, but we're far from the only state to tax cigarettes to pay for a variety of programs.

Tobacco taxes aren't the cost-free source of funding that many citizens think. Higher taxes give rise to organized crime smuggling cigarettes in California, Oregon (.pdf warning), New York and elsewhere. In fact all over North America, including Canada which levies massive taxes on tobacco products, England, Russia and elsewhere.

New York City has been struggling with cigarette tax-fueled organized crime for over 50 years (.pdf warning).

Perhaps worse than the diversion of money has been the crime associated with the city's illegal cigarette market. Smalltime crooks and organized crime have engaged in murder, kidnapping and armed robbery to earn and protect their illicit profits. Such crime has exposed average citizens, such as truck drivers and retail store clerks, to violence.

One would think that Americans would have learned from alcohol prohibition that trying to outlaw popular products, now matter how well intentioned the motives or how unhealthy the habit might be, that it would lead to epidemics of crime. High taxes do the same thing just to a lesser degree. Either approach creates huge profit motives for unsavory characters. And it's worth noting here that while the A in ATF stands for Alcohol, the T stands for Tobacco... for a good reason!

Worse, high cigarette tax schemes are increasingly leading to international terrorist organizations turning to the cigarette black market as a way to raise illicit funds for themselves.

We plug along with a so-called "War on Drugs" while organized crime gangs get richer and more violent every passing year. Tactics of outlawing popular vices simply don't work in a free society. They inevitably lead to organized crime which leads to over-crowded prisons which leads to higher taxes or fees of one form or another to pay for it all and to pay for the law enforcement structure with which to ineffectively attempt to enforce such counter-productive approaches to forcably reducing "sin" in America.

Touting cig taxes as an easy means of funding health care for kids, whether that be just here in Oregon (M50) or in the whole country (SCHIP), without also discussing the increased crime that we know is going to be associated with it is dishonest and ultimately a disservice to every citizen.

Posted by Kevin at 10:38 AM |

November 07, 2007

M50 victim of economic uncertainty?

Okay, I don't really believe that this is a major contributing factor to M50 having been defeated rather soundly. Personally, I think that a variety of factors spelled doom for M50, one of which was it's regressive funding scheme and another was that it was a constitutional amendment. Although I would buy that economic uncertainty might be a contributing factor too.

OPB's political pundit Bill Lunch and others have attributed M50 going down in flames to "anti-taxers." Our neighbors to the North in Washington state defeated EHJR 4204, which would have allowed citizens to pass any future tax measures with a simple majority. Currently any proposed tax raise requires a 2/3 or "super" majority to be passed.

I was pondering this as I drove home from work today and it occured to me to wonder if perhaps "anti-taxers" might not be more accurately described at least in part as folks who are feeling economically squeezed rather than as being opposed to taxes per se. As supporting evidence I would submit the talk we've all been hearing for the last several years about the shrinking middle class in America and how so many jobs don't pay a "living wage" any more. Throw in the housing and mortgage woes and maybe a lot of what seems on the surface to be opposition to new taxes is really just a reaction to people's own individual economic circumstances and if those circumstances improved, so too would their willingness to pass new taxes.

So what do you think? I'm really just throwing this out there rather than trying to make an argument. I honestly don't know if it has merit or not. So I figured I'd ask y'all.

Posted by Kevin at 06:08 PM |

Life as We Know It Simply Can't Go On

I read a lot of outrage – and have expressed a lot of outrage – over the misdeeds of those who are governing our country. The lies, manipulation, squandering of our resources, inattention to the environment, destruction of the economy, undermining of our freedoms, torture, war, nuclear threats, etc. are maddening to those of us who wish to create a peaceful society - or even just survive in the society we've got. It is easy to convince ourselves that if we just got rid of the people who are doing this, the world would be a better place for everyone. Maybe then we could find peace. Maybe we could save the planet. But after thinking about this for some time, I don’t believe it would be a better place. I’m not convinced it can be a better place.

In short, I’ve become discouraged at our prospects for building a better future, let alone our prospects for life of any kind in the future.

If you took away all the crooked politicians and all the wars and all the famines and all the earthquakes and all the tornados and all the hurricanes and all the diseases, we would still be a miserable bunch. Because on an individual basis, it seems even the little people can’t stop themselves from inflicting misery. From those who produce made-to-order videos of child sexual abuse to sell internationally, to those who sexually abuse their own children, from those who torture children, to those who ignore and neglect their children, from those who abuse animals, to those who merely confine them to lonely garages or pens, from those who injure others accidentally and don’t care to those who walk on by and pretend not to notice, the world is simply chock full of people who don’t love others, who don’t feel connected to others, who don’t care.

Even those of us who don’t commit heinous crimes too often don’t really feel connected to others, whether we know them or not.

If we have extra money to give, such that it doesn’t hurt, we might give it to charity, but we would never go to such lengths as to give up our six pack on Friday night or our daily latte so we could give that money to those who would use it to feed and shelter a hungry family we’ll never see. We won’t give up a Sunday afternoon of football to mow the elderly neighbors’ lawn, even though it’s someone we do see. We won’t even turn off the television so we have time to play with our own children or help them with their homework. We’d rather allow them to become poorly-educated, mind-numbed video game addicts who can’t reason their way out of a box. And so that is precisely what they will become.

And as for saving the environment? Forget about it. We wouldn’t give up our cars and our consumerism and our cell phones for anything, even if it meant saving the bees and, therefore, life on this planet. We’d rather die. And so we probably will.

The only hope for peace and life on this planet really rests on each one of us, individually. Regardless of national or international circumstances, if we are not connected to each other and all living things, if we don’t see the value in sharing what we have and sacrificing our own comfort for others, then we are doomed. Regardless of the circumstances of our lives today or in the future, our commitment every morning should be to do all in our power to bring comfort, relief, love, and joy to all living things within our sphere of influence.

I believe that is the only thing that can possibly counteract and eventually overwhelm the evil being done in our names on a national and international level. The problem is, it isn't easy. We're all tired. We deserve that treat. It's boring to play Monopoly with the kids for the 100th time. Everyone else is consuming and if we don't it won't make a difference anyway. We'll be seen as weird if we love the unlovely or don't know who won the game or haven't seen the latest episode of the latest hit show. On and on it goes. We justify not caring more easily than we justify telling a lie. We've become a nation of sponges, each simply wanting to soak up as much stimulation and comfort and pleasure as we possibly can without having to dish any of it back out to others.

That's why I'm discouraged about our future.

Posted by Becky at 01:47 PM |

November 05, 2007

Waterboarding - you decide

Here is a video of a guy getting waterboarded. Understand that he willingly subjected himself to it and that it was his second time undergoing the procedure.

Is waterboarding torture?

The link doesn't work for some reason, so just use the URL - http://current.com/items/76347282_getting_waterboarded

Posted by Kevin at 01:09 PM |

November 01, 2007

Britney Spears Bent Heel or "Bent Spear"?

At the time of the disappearance of six nukes, otherwise known as "Bent Spear," America was conveniently distracted by Britney Spears' bent heel and subsequent meltdown on national television. Now seems a good time to revisit "Bent Spear," provided the fluff-headed American public can ever be counted on to give a rat's ass about something that actually matters.

David Lindorf has taken a disturbing look at the nuke incident and leads the reader to consider some most unsettling conclusions. It may feel better now to gloat over Britney's meltdown, but if we are unable to tear ourselves away from that distraction, the meltdown to come won't feel good at all.

Posted by Becky at 10:59 AM |