Author's posts
Oct 10 2010
A dog named hope… this is something we can change. NOW.
Gratiela Ristea is one of the founders of Prietenii Nostri, an animal rescue in Romania. Gratiela is a hero. Plain and simple. She does hard work with very little money and scarce resources.
Gratiela wrote about her experience with a dog she named Hope and she’s given me permission to publish this beautiful story. For me, it’s feels like a personal story, because before Hope, Gratiela saved Bobby, whom I first saw at the shelter in Romania via the video below. From the moment I saw her in that video, I knew Bobby was my dog… and indeed, she now lives with me and my husband in Leiden, The Netherlands. She is a great dog and incredibly cute, smart, and she finally believes that we are her pack, her family. It feels really really good to have her here.
Please, read the story of Hope. There are so many creatures who need help. Gratiela provides all of us with an opportunity to be able to do just that: HELP to make the world a little better. And please, if you are able, donate a few dollars. Just a few dollars can really make a difference for these animals, our fellow earthlings.
Oct 09 2010
Journalism?
A story broke on 7 September about Charles Leaf of Fox News being accused of sexually assaulting a four-year-old child.
And I wonder: what is the real story here? Is it about Charles Leaf: The New Most Repulsive Fox News Reporter? Is it about this particular child and the attending epidemic of worldwide abuses against our children?
Or is the story some macabre parable of America (and maybe even the white western world) gone wrong?
Maybe the story is an allegory about the powerful (men like Leaf) and powerless (like the child), and what passes for “civilization” these days: an epidemic of woman and children sold into slavery, the rape and plunder of third world countries, and what plays as the pornographic orgasmic uberness of our own lives… in this bigger and more is better universe where everything has to be special, unique… it must be uber sex, uber religion, and uber partisan politics. Not to mention, um, uber consumerism.
Oct 04 2010
you mean if the republicans win
.. dems won’t have any chance of passing their progressive agenda?????
is that what you’re all going on about? if the dems lose… the rethugs are gonna do what?
ladies and gentlemen, i propose the following:
we have all, from tea parties to progressive, been David Kuo’d.
Jun 09 2010
sanctions on iran? somebody tell me he’s kidding . . .
iran? sorry. but i’m not impressed. iran. am i supposed to take this seriously? sanctions on iran is kinda like sending Martha Stewart to jail.
BP et al. now sanctions on those mother fuckers… i could see that.
sanctions on the boys and girls in banks and on wall street who engineered crashing of economies around the globe? now that would be sane.
and what can one say about this… Human Experimentation at the Heart of Bush Administration’s Torture Program… am i supposed to not “look back” at this? i should worry about sanctions on iran while my country continues to fuck up the rest of the planet?
here’s what has come into my thoughts these last months. we need to stop worrying about the future. i know that sounds strange. but the future hasn’t happened. in fact, it never happens does it? we never get there. we only ever get here. now. we are always in NOW. in fact, why worry about tomorrow? today is fucked up enough. let tomorrow go. concentrate on now.
oh, yeah. and that change thing? i’m done with CHANGE. no.more.change. fuck change. i’ve had enough CHANGE. any more change and there’s nothing left of the gulf coast. my country has changed into fashionably fascist with tons more regulation of private citizens. yet … somehow … those causing the problems, like gun and drug dealers and bankers, continue to make tons of money. but drug dealers never get called “terrorists.” i wonder why that is.
i don’t want to hear any more predictions about the future. really. i want my life right now. i don’t care about 10 years from now. i work it now. make it better now. live it now. fuck the power brokers. their petroleum, plastic, and toxic obsession with wealth and power. fuck them. i want to live outside of their constructs.
in large part, i’ve stopped thinking about them. i shop small. got rid of my credit card. live in a house, mortgage free. the only bad thing i do is fly home twice a year. oh, and one other really terrible thing. the snails and slugs were eating my flowers and i put down poison. i did that. and when i saw what i did, i couldn’t believe it. i’m not over it yet.
it’s still there in me. that sense that i can just erase what ever gets in my way. i can simply clap my hands and dispose of inconvenient things.
i’m like them in that way. a little bit like them. still there. but every day i try to move farther and farther away from it. not fighting them. not being like them. not obsessing.
no. it’s not the oil spill. it’s still NOT health care or any of the myriad things listed where urgent action is urged.
it’s us. it’s simply up to us. has been. is now. will be. i’ve stopped expecting the bad guys to be better. it’s me who has stop poisoning the snails and the slugs.
Apr 14 2010
is there a point to pointlessness?
There could be a point, a moment in which you look around your home. There are perhaps pictures or paintings hanging on walls. Pots and pans in the kitchen. A dozen pair of shoes and rows of hangers holding shirts and pants in a bedroom closet. Not to mention assorted potted plants. Lamps. Shades. Nicknacks. All that infrastructure. All those things . . .
Anyway. That point, that moment could happen: looking around your place and it all goes funny. It hits soft, at first, this simple thought: maybe… maybe it’s all a bit ridiculous. Slightly absurd. The idea that a thing could hold value. Have meaning. Or stir memory.
It goes further. I’m in a wheel upon which I run. The wheel keeps turning because I keep running on it. I can’t stop running. Actually, I don’t know how to stop. Or how to get off the wheel. I don’t think I’m trapped. In fact, I think I’m free. And yet, I can’t get off the wheel.
Feb 25 2010
when is enough ENOUGH? & bite me.
Banks Bet Greece Defaults on Debt They Helped Hide
Bets by some of the same banks that helped Greece shroud its mounting debts may actually now be pushing the nation closer to the brink of financial ruin.
Echoing the kind of trades that nearly toppled the American International Group, the increasingly popular insurance against the risk of a Greek default is making it harder for Athens to raise the money it needs to pay its bills, according to traders and money managers.
cross-posted at dKos
Feb 23 2010
to a god unknown
Here’s the thing. The truth? Useless. Facts, even more so. Reality? What the fuck is that?
There’s only this: what people believe.
Men often become what they believe themselves to be. Men often become what they believe themselves to be. Men often become what they believe themselves to be.
Men often become what they believe themselves to be.Men often become what they believe themselves to be. Men often become what they believe themselves to be. Men often become what they believe themselves to be.
Mahatma Gandhi
Feb 21 2010
out of whack
A guy whacks his plane into an IRS building. Another guy whacks his home to ground with a bulldozer.
and I’m thinking… the American Dream’s thinning veneer is starting to show its cracks.
cross posted at Daily Kos … firefly-dreaming … and firedoglake
