Displaying 4,231 To 4,260 Of 5,146 Comments I know Patsy – and here we took her on faith that she was just a natural, Bible bangin’, God lovin’, gun totin’, man-deferring, all-American woman, right? I’m shocked that’s not her natural hair color, too. » Posted By choicelady On July 13, 2010 @ 10:14 pm Patsy – I’m SO with you. I want to learn to use that lip liner so I, too, can have ring around the fat lips. First I’d have to get fat lips, but hey. Black outlines are tres chic, doncha think? » Posted By choicelady On July 13, 2010 @ 10:11 pm Not to worry, dear AdLib – it just means you have good taste. Personally I think this is a send up, but many think she (presuming it IS a she) is for real. She is actually too well spoken in her banality to be anything BUT a joke, IMHO. » Posted By choicelady On July 13, 2010 @ 10:09 pm BT – there is no doubt these things happened, but the question that loom large in my mind is – who ARE these guys really? I had a serious run in with NWROC that we had full reason to know were provocateurs. My organization defused them with HUMOR (the leaders were pissed!) but I suspect these guys are not whom they appear to be. Too many instances under conservative administrations of people posing as “radicals” who are paid agitators who TRY to stir up trouble to make whoever they pretend to be look bad. For me, with wads of experience with such dudes infiltrating peaceful groups – for me, the jury is out on all this. And even if they ARE who they appear to be – what federal crimes did they commit? If people were not barred from the polls by them, there is no case. But the decision NOT to prosecute came under Bush, not Obama. So, in the immortal words of Gilda Radner – never mind. » Posted By choicelady On July 13, 2010 @ 6:19 pm That is brilliant, kes, because asking a question of him made him have to ANSWER it. And putting it into a frame of values he could share (have you ever seen anything…). According to Olbermann last night – the decision NOT to prosecute these guys came Jan. 9, 2009. Eleven days before Obama was inaugurated. A month before Holder was selected and confirmed as AG. It was the Bush administration who answered the question – no, there is nothing anyone has seen that make these guys more than a nuisance. And, BTW, I firmly believe they are NOT Black Panthers but more likely part of NWROC – National Worker (or Women’s) Rights Organizing Committee that I have some evidence is a FBI front and provocateur group that operates under conservative administrations. So…. » Posted By choicelady On July 13, 2010 @ 6:14 pm kes – you have named these phenomena precisely. Magical thinking and tribalism. To that I would add one more thing: believing in conspiracies against you is the only excitement disaffected people ever get anymore. It gives purpose, shape, and meaning to lives that are without any in any other way. In the 1950s several sociologists examined UFO cults in America in a book called, “When Prophecy Fails”. They found that, like the Millerites and other ‘end of the world’ visionaries, the more the prophecy failed, the MORE the believers adhered to the ideology, not less. The End did not come, the spaceships never arrived, but the more they believed it would happen and soon. The believers were beyond reason. Yes humor CAN work, but it also can generate rage in the one who believes. I have no real idea quite how we got here, but I wonder how much “The Bourne Identity” coupled with REAL conspiracies (and yes, there ARE some) have generated broad based fear that propels people into ideological camps. We on the progressive side are not immune either. We had real fears of Bush’s potential to move us into fascism, and even I feared he, not Clinton, would impose martial law to remain in power. I was wrong – gladly so! – but there are the dupes who believe it even more profoundly since they follow leaders such as Beck and Bachmann who propagate the “Obama equals concentration camps for Christians” mantra. Guess what my job is? Telling people truth about the messes we’re in and recommending how to fix them. It confronts some of this on a daily basis. But what works is grounding my explanations in moral frames and explaining its failures in those terms first followed by policy details: “We all want a state or country where we can support ourselves and raise our kids.” (Value) Question – “Why are we creating or permitting policies that make that almost impossible?” Answer – “Let’s look at what does and does not work for this value.” = examining the policies step by step. OK – I don’t have Beckians for members – our folks have their marbles. It does not mean they are all liberal and informed. One older man railed against our critique of corporate dominance BUT did so in terms of small business. When I gently unpacked the issue with him, he began to change his mind. He was thinking Bailey Savings & Loan; we are talking about Potter Global Bank. He began to see we were NOT imposing new standards of operation on small business but valuing and rescuing them FROM Potter Global Bank. Understanding whom and what he valued helped to have that conversation successfully. But I don’t have to deal with the Huttaree or the militias of any stripe – only my mailman (unionized, well paid who hates state unions and blames them for everything wrong in CA) is that dim. We may have to give up on them and shoot for the middle who are just wobbly in their worry. But unless and until the MSM begin challenging some of the unmitigated crap out there, the Lords and Ladies of Fear and Magical Thinking will have undue influence. After all – fear and banding together are the only communitarian experiences left, and it’s just so damned much FUN. » Posted By choicelady On July 13, 2010 @ 10:18 am Hi KQ – good to hear from you! Hope things are OK? We’ve missed you. And therein lies the beauty of Ques’s deep and beautiful post. What there is about missing someone you don’t even know in person, the capacity to care about someone unseen, the capacity to care at ALL, is elusive, indeterminate, and NOT capable of reductionism. So yes, KQ – all my synapses lit up when I saw your name and knew you were back in discussion with us – happy and eager to read what you say – but how does that get explained, any of it? Love, compassion, caring, humor – these are “useless” aspects of purely physical life. Animals can and do have young about which they care not at all, just tend, sometimes kill and even eat, but for which they do not feel the same things we do. Reductio ad absurdum to say that friendship, fellowship, common purpose, shared ideas and the joy from that are merely some kind of bio chemistry. God IS in our minds. I’ve never liked the cranky Santa figure at all because it’s so limited. When the Bible says it is a “jealous God” – what a pissant that would make GOD! God lives in the details of emotions, caring, and that boundry we inhabit between the rationality of Newton and the chaos of quantum mechanics. Anger, fear, etc. MAY be biochemical survival mechanisms for fight or flight. But how does one explain the human drive for the positive emotions that add cultural but NOT survival dimensions. Therein, IMHO, lies God. The best we are, can be, can project, can perfect and what we SHARE. Art, beauty, intentional kindness, civilization at its best. All of us when we work in concert toward something good – there is God. The dominionist and fundamentalist views of God are shameful – it’s so base and demeaning to think God is nothing more than our animal instincts. Why do we pray and give thanks? Because it’s good to do so even if our language and image skills become antropomorphic. Hard to pray to a wisp, but thanks itself – gratitude for what we’re given – there is God. Someday we will break the yoke of narrow reality, of God created in our own image, of holiness that is just a list of rules. We will be one with the world around us and with one another, not all the same but all honoring our differences, and being joyful in our varied contributions. First Nations people may be closer to the truth than we. Too bad we listened too little, learned too little, paid attention perhaps too late. At the boundaries of everything that merges, of infinity and eternity and great human emotions – where all of that intersects, there is God. So welcome back KQ – my happiness to see you is a tip of my and God’s hat to you. Welcome back! » Posted By choicelady On July 13, 2010 @ 6:05 pm It’s Time for Soylent Green Energy Back in the 50s, who knew that the real call was not “Power TO the People” but “Power FROM the People”???? I had thought I’d have myself cremated, but now you bring it up, maybe I should find one of those depleted oil deposits and just have myself slid in to decompose and help the world? I’d find one that was easy to drill, posed no harm to the environment, and help replenish the supply fairly quickly. I understand there is a process called pyrolysis that can squish garbage into oil and get more energy than it consumes, so maybe I can do that – get squished to become oil. Wonder how many barrels I’d make? Not a lot compared to some. Saw a great headline: “Obesity swells in America.” Can’t dispute that.WTS is right – all that O’Hare lard should think about “giving it up for the home team” and turning themselves into oil, too. If it takes more gasoline to ferry around a 400-pound guy, then should he not contribute back at the end? If we’re headed for oil depletion, then it should be every person’s call to do his or her part to help supply future generations. For the squeamish we should not that dinosaurs probably did not envision ending up in a gas tank either. Get over it. » Posted By choicelady On July 7, 2010 @ 3:41 pm Does a Dog Have the Buddha Nature? Dearest dildenusa – this supports my belief that even if you don’t believe in a supreme being, there is more than ‘meets the eye’ or can be dissected by science. Is that not true of love, hope, compassion – all the things that are not measurable? We can detect the physiological reactions, but good luck to ya actually finding THEM. I have no problem with science at all. The more we know the more fascinating the universe is. I also have no problem with NOT knowing. Anyone who tells you they can “understand” infinity and an endless universe is probably lying to him/her self. They are beyond knowing. That’s part of the “wow” of life. If there is a One, it’s probably NOT an old guy with a beard, a cranky Santa watching our every move. But is there not MORE than just our individual selves – coming together to do anything is synergistic, and that is the other “wow” of life. Human consciousness transcending the individual and building a better world is enough “God” for me. And dogs are definitely part of the mystical unknown beauty. All animals and nature contribute to that. Do we need a Devil in this? Nope. We take care of that all by ourselves by misapplying the “wow” of human consciousness in action and putting it to very bad ends. Dogs and terns and dolphins and lions, tigers, and bears don’t do that. Ever. The beauty of it all is just proof that we are given great gifts even if there is no “giver”. Just nice to remember there is much to be grateful for even if there is no one to thank. It’s worth the doing anyway. But I thank YOU for this beautiful reflection! » Posted By choicelady On July 2, 2010 @ 11:26 am What a marvelous story! How amazing that you created MORE wilderness out of a little, thus reversing the urban encroachments of our lives. I’m so glad you’ve been rewarded with the joy of critters migrating to your water and giving you a look at them as they look at you. No animals or birds coming to your idyll will want to be served cocktails. They already have paradise on earth! Beautiful! My only brush with nature has been a broken sewer line under my house and a couple of wayward raccoons and a skunk that threaten the neighborhood cats. On the whole, I like yours a LOT better. Thanks from the world for making it better. » Posted By choicelady On July 1, 2010 @ 12:43 pm An Atheist/Technologist Envisions the Afterlife Hi Bauart/David! Welcome to the Planet where wit is highly prized. As the resident “Churchlady” in the group – but one who deeply questions the existence of a Big Guy who always smacks of a cranky Santa: making a list, checking it twice – but not sure you can dismiss some Other, I am deeply engaged with your take on it all. I think even atheists harbor some hope that there is “more”, however that may be conceived. It is precisely our profound commitment to our own existence that makes me pretty sure we create God in OUR image, not the other way ’round. I’m not sure I care about an afterlife, but I know I’d like to live a long time because I’m always eager to see “what’s around the next bend”. That’s even knowing that “may you live in interesting times” is a Chinese curse and NOT a prophetic wish for your happiness. But I want to know what’s possible, what the grand human mind and collective human endeavor can bring about. What’s out there I don’t yet know, what ideas have not been shared or possibly even thought up. What beauty lies around that curve ahead – as along the Columbia River absolute beauty unfolds with majesty as you round the curves. Is there more? Is it cool? May I share it? After death, I’m not so concerned. Oddly I want it for others, but I have been longing for a decent nap, so…for myself, not so much. I’d still probably have to freaking clean something. Or clean UP something. We all have our longings. Whether they are fear based or hope based, we want something to validate why we’re here. I know lately I’ve been feeling that I’ve had a good life, well lived. Immortality is not important, and afterlife not interesting. But I am happy with the course of the Now. And tomorrow – another adventure, another great discussion, another contact with real people with great values. Another thing that makes me laugh out loud. That’s enough. Good luck with your quest. We all will be waiting for your insights! » Posted By choicelady On June 26, 2010 @ 2:14 pm kes – H.L. Mencken once defined Puritanism (should actually have been Victorianism) as “the fear that someone, somewhere, somehow is having a good time.” Apparently the only real joy Cheney gets is shooting things. Or people. I would imagine you’re quite right that knowing the “little people” are getting sick from his making billions would at LEAST bring a smile. Stinking old bastard. » Posted By choicelady On June 23, 2010 @ 9:02 pm AdLib. I’m so overwhelmed by all this. I knew none of it, and it’s so typical of the way we proceed. Science is no longer “pure” but always applied, and it seems that when we learn something about any aspect of our world, we move immediately to the WORST applications. There is a serious incentive NOT to do the things that are easy since they cannot be securely patented or pinned down as our exclusive property. The more complex the process – the more dangerous – the more the corporation that invented it is essential to the ownership, operation, and yes, clean up of whatever disaster we have created. We also do see people as utterly extinguishable. Today on HP there was a story about a tiny town SE of Los Angeles, Maywood, that is giving up ALL its services and contracting with surrounding communities since they have absolutely no tax base. It is 1.20 square miles large. There were SO many people who wrote – 1.20 square miles? Who cares? CA will have an $11 billion water bond up in November. I want DATA on what is to get done, what it costs, who has bad water and why, and why we are not using up what’s left of the last TWO water bonds. We were approached for support of the bond, and I asked for data. What I got was the slick glossy PR shit. (Yeah – the Churchlady swears. Often.) I do not doubt now that we have problems, probably around King City from Frac work I betcha, but WHERE and WHY. ANd if gas companies are responsible – why put this state in MORE debt??? Make the companies provide the clean water and do the cleaning up!!! I’m exhausted from stories about poor and isolated people – often immigrants – who come here for hope and die for the lack of simple justice. I’m sick of being expendable. I’m sick of the 19th-century rape the planet, there’s always more kind of attitude. There is NO more. None. I never thought I’d live to see the planet die, but I am. It’s entirely preventable, but we won’t do it until it comes to Beverly Hills. BTW – there ARE gas fields there and under Hancock Park. That might be our answer – off a few of the rich and famous, and then see the remediation! This is as depressing as (was it WTS? bito? Sorry I can’t look) the post on the Big Burp in the Gulf on OT. I watch this president try to stave off the creepy technologists with little impact, but somewhere, some time, we have GOT to come to our senses! I simply do not know what to do. It’s all beyond me anymore. I deeply appreciate the story. It is information I never had, and it’s incredibly useful. Thank you. When I get over being depressed about it I WILL act on it! Thanks, AdLib! » Posted By choicelady On June 23, 2010 @ 7:00 pm This may explain his support for GLBT rights and marriage equality – fewer kids, none of them his grandchildren. Is that too cynical? » Posted By choicelady On June 23, 2010 @ 6:45 pm kes – Oh Freaking My God! That’s creepy as hell. I checked out both McC and Petraeus for ties to RW Christians and found they’re pretty clean. Gen Amos (Marines) and Deputy Defense Sec’y McHugh – VERY tied, but they don’t figure into this – yet. bito – No – it makes no sense. He’d gotten what he wanted from the president, so why diss him and the rest of the administration and do so in an incredibly public way? Yeah – those reporters. SO powerful. Make you talk with no provocation at ALL. Shudda used them on the folks in Guantanamo. They are really abusive by letting you speak your mind. Sneaky devils. I do agree Marion and all, that I bet we never learn what’s behind this ever. At least I hope we don’t because if we never have to have lingering doubts about anyone, then the worst will not have happened. One day 9 years ago, I got up, exercised, made coffee, had breakfast, and headed to an appointment all without turning on the news as was my wont. That was 9/11. I heard it all in the car, could NOT wrap my mind around ANY of it. To this day, I now never leave home without checking the news FIRST. I want never EVER to have those news reports of horror that have been part of my teen years and adult life from JFK to RFK to MLK, Jr. to 9/11. Never, ever again. » Posted By choicelady On June 23, 2010 @ 2:16 pm Marion – I do agree with you so much about this. I confess that despite what I think is a nose for news, I’ve NO idea what is going on here. What would possess a general to shoot off his mouth in such a fashion unless it was to BE dismissed from a job he no longer wanted to do? This way the leftie mag would be his cover for the Right, and the Left would – I dunno. I hope this permits Obama to rethink the war. It was my understanding (and that’s pretty thin) that McChrystal got the game plan McChrystal wanted, so – what’s he made about? MacArthur had an agenda, and it was NOT to Truman’s benefit. It has been rumored that he had a hand in the attempted coup of 1935 and that’s why he left the US not to return until after FDR’s death. Could this be similar? Is McChrystal looking for a new “job” that could be really hideous for this nation? So where are the infotainment people in exploring the WHY of all of this which, on the face of it, make no sense? Everything I have seen of analysis is so superficial, and it strains credibility. No pro does this sort of thing. So why did he do it? Are there hidden agendas here? If so – who has the cojones to tell the American public? Lies, lies, and damned lies are the lingua franca of our public exposure. We learn, decades later, what the truth was, but then it’s too late. So where are the analysts vs. the pundits who will ask the investigative questions rather than the ego-driven hype about “what it all means”. Frankly – I think, the more I think about it, this is quite scary. But then, I may have re-read SueinCA’s analysis far too closely again – and yes, I may be paranoid. But doesn’t this all stink of something NO one is discussing – a plot? Just asking. » Posted By choicelady On June 23, 2010 @ 10:59 am Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire: A Trilogy of Manipulative Media Types – Part II Marion- I’ve been totally inattentive to ALL of this since I’ve seen none of it. It is deeply distressing to think that people who have always appeared to have integrity may be getting as sucked into self promotion as Rush Baby. Indeed, Watergate spawned a kind of “investigative” feeding frenzy among journalists, but it wound up being so partisan as to be scary. Remember when CBS or ABC backed off the story about the phony body counts out of Vietnam and paid a settlement to Westmoreland over their report? They were right, he was a liar, but he WON – and we never knew what pressure was brought to bear to make CBS (or whoever) back down. No one in journalism would look at Reagan’s actions prior to the 1980 elections to see if his “secret plan” was in fact treason. Remember when the helicopters failed and crashed in Iran? Do you know who was in charge of making sure the sand screens were in place (they were NOT which is why they all crashed)? It was Oliver North. Where was THAT investigation? We have some pretty solid evidence and testimony from numerous people that Reagan (or his owners) may well have been so desirous of power they committed outrageous acts against this nation. Where is that story? Investigative jounalism almost does not exist because covering up the actual acts of outrage while lifting the curtain on peep shows such as Monica Lewinsky and John Edwards’ dalliance is the best we can get. I’m not so interested in whether a Congressman has a “wide stance” as I am in whether someone(s) are selling out this nation via The Family or other means and committing acts of foreign and domestic policy that undermine the official ones we voted for. If we can’t get that from Olbermann – who is actually a very good reporter – or Maddow who is better, then we’re sunk. We need to know who is ready to overthrow this country. But NOT telling us the truth is time honored since the last attempted coup in 1935 when several high ranking RW corporate and other figures tried to enlist WW I hero Smedly Butler in overthrowing FDR. And I heard about but never read about any of that until two years ago. There was even an investigation when Butler refused to be complicit, but it got almost NO notice in the press. It’s a true story we never read in papers and still don’t read in textbooks. I guess I will forgive almost anything personal about people if they are driven to tell us all some smattering of the truth. And we CAN handle the truth! What we can’t handle, and where I don’t want to see large egos and ratings headed, is their blasting the wrong people for the wrong thing. When Olbermann and Maddow say what Arianna says, we have problems. The pretense that by criticizing a Black president it proves we have standards is one of the most dangerous things we have going with so-called progressives right now. The first step toward false analysis is to begin criticizing someone not for what they said, but for what YOU think they SHOULD have said. This way lies falsehood and the undermining of genuine, essential analysis. I hope this was a glitch in the moment and not a portent of things to come. » Posted By choicelady On June 21, 2010 @ 3:57 pm Hi MArion. I think your criticism are accurate and yet, oddly, when he’s good he’s outstanding. The work he did on health care reform, particularly the stories of friends and family, were powerful and moving. His sponsorship of the free clinics and making it available to us to support was also wonderful. He can definitely be over the top, and it’s wearing. I don’t need constant reminders of Rush’s weird speaking voice for Rush’s weird points to resonate. I do kind of like Worst Persons stuff – they are tidbits I usually had not known. I don’t know why he doesn’t vote. That peeves me no end, but it does not affect my frequent appreciation of his often incisive insights. I did not hear either his or Rachel’s “Obama shudda said” stuff, but what this says to me is that they have been pilloried for giving Obama a pass (I don’t agree that’s what they do) and felt this was one speech they could roundly critique. So they did – and then found out what Obama had been doing which was pretty much what they’d wanted. I doubt many of us have our views shaped by commentators since we on the Planet know much, much more than the average Joe the Plumber. Yes – Olbermann is hyperventillating too often, and yes Rachel can be edgy, but they are to me a relief from the Dark Side of reporting that does not report, and certainly the RW commentators. Air America has something of the same problem. I have had a back and fort with Mike Malloy who is even MORE strident – though he read a letter from me on the air, bless his pea-pickin’ heart – as are many of the “lefties” whose outrage can be wearisome. We already ARE angry already! All of them (save Malloy with respect to my chastisement of a prejudice he promulgated) form as rigid a set of positions as the right – and don’t pay a speck of attention to those of us who don’t fit their mold of Leftie thought. Where ARE the Murrows et al. who had criticisms and analyses but were REALLY “fair and balanced” with respect to their overall views? I mourn that the precise moment “investigative journalism” hit its stride with Woodward and Bernstein, it began to slide into tabloidism. I think we had solid investigative stuff for about three months before “yellow dog” journlism began to substitute for the genuine article. I have a very good friend who has won several Pulitzer Prizes for his articles, and he left the field to TEACH good journalism. He did that about three years before there was virtually nowhere to send his grads since papers were laying off, not hiring, and TV is without interest. So if Keith and Rachel, Mike, and Randi are the best we can get, at least they’re something. They are far from perfect, but they give us insights into stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Of course people such as I with issues that irritate BOTH sides are still left out in the cold, and there is stuff going on across the nation – good, progressive, redemptive stuff – that gets NO hearing, but we ARE getting the critique we lacked entirely from Reagan to Bush’s last days. So they may be imperfect and annoying, but they are all that holds the ground against the Teabaggers and the Brown Shirts. So I will keep watching unless and until something better comes along. » Posted By choicelady On June 21, 2010 @ 1:28 pm Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire … A Trilogy of Manipulative Media Types – Part I Marion – this is fascinating! To have such an insight into the REAL news behind the HuffPo disclaimer is amazing and wonderful to read. Thank you! I do agree that Rachel was over the top on her pseudo Obama speech, and I’m glad that her lunch came on the heels of policies already in the works that the President could hand her on a platter along with her club sandwich (or whatever they were eating.) That said, I love her 99% of the time, whereas AH is getting more shrill and less relevant by the minute. When AH ran for governor during the special election, she was the CAUSE of Ahnold’s success. During the phony “debate” with the leading candidates, Arnold was asked – it was a question FOR him – just what he would do to that Gray Davis had not to fix the crash in CA state budget income. Just as Arnold opened his mouth – AH butted in and started exoriating him, and the others followed suit. They never themselves answered the question, but she in particular would not SHUT UP and make him answer, so he NEVER had to say a word. That was the one chance Californians had to see that Arnold hadn’t a clue how to govern, and SHE allowed him to slip free. So he was elected based on the fact that he was famous, and only shortly thereafter did people begin to understand he hadn’t the foggiest idea how to govern. She keeps pretending she has great ideas, hires columnists who also think they show “courage” by browbeating the president, and incresingly has headlines that don’t even reflect the actual story but sure are sensational. HuffPo has taken on that nearly breathless air of National Equirer in way too many areas. AH is mostly enamored of AH. Being the dahling of the slightly left media is her top priority. But what HuffPo once offered – a genuinely interesting place to have real discussions – is just shot to hell now. I read it about once every other day, but I rarely trust what I read anymore. The stories have too often been wrong AND the troll factor has become way too big. She has sold out, and I’ll be damned if I will go down with her. Thanks for outing her and her ‘previous engagement’. I now also believe that she was never invited, and frankly, I think she’d make a lousy lunch companion anyway. Good move, Mr. President. » Posted By choicelady On June 20, 2010 @ 11:19 pm QUICK, GO BUY A CARD. MAYBE A TIE? Thank you, bito – what a wonderful thing to read on Dad’s Day! My father was a very wonderful man for a thousand reasons. He was not as present in some ways as I’d have liked when I was little, but that had everything to do with the fact that he’d learned he had Parkinson’s Disease at age 34. Adjusting to the probability that he would die too soon and be incapacitated was pretty much all-consuming. The docs told him to take it easy, but it drove him nuts, so he started exercising every day to keep flexible. He lived to be 89, worked a full career, and was able to travel and enjoy things to their fullest until the last five years. I once went to the exercise room with him in his retirement home, and he would bike for 10 minutes then pulled weights for another. He pulled 80 pound even though by that point he weighed only about 145. So much for doctorly advice! He was Director of Research for a business advocacy organization in Chicago. Despite the organization’s basic conservatism, he used his research to do several things – the biggest was to promote equal opportunity hiring by proving it would be economically beneficial (which it was) and open housing (which ended block busting.) Many years later, I learned from Chicago civil rights leaders that my father was a deeply admired man for his work. He could convince anyone of anything. He was calm, kind, funny, and warm – and people listened to him. He also advocated for unionized workers since he thought that also promoted prosperity for the city’s businesses, and they listened to that, too. Everything I know about respect for all people I learned from him. My mother talked about respect. My father lived it. I also got my sense of humor from him. He’d laugh until the tears ran down his cheeks, and I still am a “throw your head back and laugh hard” person. It turns out to be rare among older people, and I’m grateful to him for that gift! He had a great appreciation of the absurd – never unkind – and could find humor in just about any situation. To this day, when I train people in how to advocate, first I make them laugh, then I show them if you can laugh at something political, really LAUGH (not just snicker cynically) you can deal with it. He also gave me my best professional “tool” that way. He taught me courage – having Parkinson’s is no walk in the park. He never got mad, never was embarassed by his condition, and through all kinds of hard times adjusting to new meds, starting to falter physically, losing his sight to macular degeneration, he kept an even keel. He was thoughtful of all other people and kind to everyone around him. I don’t know a single person who did not love him. His best gift was to love my entirely unloveable mother. He never stopped, even as she sank into a miasma of self pity and anger. He, a lifelong atheist, found after her death that he was “seeing” her as she came to “visit” him, and one of the best conversations we ever had was about how he’d find her when he died. It was not religious, but it WAS life and love affirming. I was pretty much shooting from the hip since I have no idea what comes “after”, but it was a powerful discussion. There was a minor miracle in it, too – he was almost unintelligible by then, but I understood every word he said. Wow. He died almost a year to the day after her, and he made the most of that last year on his own terms, in his own way. He was in a Catholic nursing home (NOT my idea) and started going to mass. While the nuns thought they had a convert, I knew better. He was just bored, and mass was a way out of the room and away from the infernal cartoons the aides insisted upon having him watch despite my repeated pleas for CNN. He thought it was interesting to be around people, did not understand or believe any of it theologically, but it was pure enjoyment. He thought also that if it made the nuns happy, it made him happy to do it. He liked them, and they liked him. He never revealed that he did not believe a word of it. In the last three weeks he lost the ability to swallow. Just like Terri Schaivo, he did without food or water. He turned his face to the wall, closed his eyes, and let come what may. It was his wish, and it was honored. He simply slipped away, peacefully and without pain. I miss him a lot, have tons of photos and a few items from his service in the Coast Guard during WW II, and I treasure them all. He was a wonderul human being, and I’m so glad he was my father. » Posted By choicelady On June 20, 2010 @ 11:03 pm Whew, AdLib – major stuff! The Gaza story interests me enormously since I was part of a group looking at the Dominionist Christian influences over many aspects of life, notably this blockade. It seems as if the tide is slowly turning against their hegemony as world opinion turns against the inhumanity of Israel’s efforts to create an internal colonialism with Palestinians in the place of the Irish to Israel’s replacement of Britain. Public opinion matters, though it’s past time that these sentiments were so vigorously aired. I doubt most Americans, even Jewish ones, really understand the corrosive evil of Christian Zionism on Israel and Judaism. Christian Zionists are entirely instrumental – they want Israel simply to fulfill their amazingly un-Biblical prophesy that if they (not the Jews) rebuild the Temple by driving out all Muslims and reclaiming the mount, the End Times will come, Jesus will return, and they, the Christians, will ascend to Heaven. They profoundly wish the death of the Jews. Convert – maybe OK, but otherwise, death. How can anyone IN Israel wish to ally with such horrible people? Even for the support the CZs give in Congress, is it worth it? How can your ally be trusted if at the end, said ally wishes your eradication from earth and certainly heaven? Israel will know peace when they stop being imperialist and violent. When Palestine is allowed to create its own nation state – no impediments, no blockades, no violence, no chipping away at their land – then peace will come to both nations. Until they figure that out and until they determine that there is a much better way than they now pursue with these dreadful “allies”, then ONLY world pressure will make them stop. Enough already. The time has come to end the blockade and the horrors of imperialism, and if it takes world pushback, then that’s what we shall pursue. » Posted By choicelady On June 17, 2010 @ 3:48 pm LIVE – BP Testifies to Congress Well kes – that’s DIFFERENT! He’s a private citizen. Boehner is in Congress. Private citizens with a moral message have to be held to much higher standards don’t they? » Posted By choicelady On June 17, 2010 @ 3:56 pm What amazes me is how little they spent per corporation in the last election. If you’re gonna be bought as a Congressman – shouldn’t it be for a whole lot more? Don’t you have STANDARDS? They’ve sold their souls for very little, IMHO. » Posted By choicelady On June 17, 2010 @ 3:54 pm Then we’ll make him apologize for apologizing for apologizing about the apology. We can do this longer than he – we’re smarter, and I bet he can’t even spell apologize. » Posted By choicelady On June 17, 2010 @ 3:23 pm LIVE BLOG – Pres. Obama’s Address to the Nation Agreed! » Posted By choicelady On June 17, 2010 @ 10:37 am AdLib – I did not see the speech, but I’d have to agree. Yesterday an interview on NPR raised some serious concerns about how we’re approaching “green” energy, especially in CA with the massive solar fields. Off Cape Cod, the plans for the wind farm are meeting huge opposition. The NIMBY attitude is disheartening, but more to the point, these are NOT necessarily the best approaches since long-line transport of energy from distant sources is wasteful. They did begin discussing alternatives such as home-based generation, local siting of smaller facilities, but at the core, from the part I heard, no one challenged the involvement of for-profit utilities in this mess. If you take them out of the equation, and you think of alternative energy also being local rather than corporate, of living off the grid with your own wind and solar sources, it begins to change everything. I question, though, whether anyone in this nation, right or left, if prepared to undertake the full court press needed to erode corporate utility dominance. If Obama were to promote this as self sufficiency and not mention the utilities, perhaps this would have greater impact, but he’s going to take it in the neck no matter what he does. » Posted By choicelady On June 17, 2010 @ 10:36 am Kalima – I can forgive the thing for Kiefer, but I HATE THAT SHOW since I was on the board of the National Religous Campaign Against Torture, and that had more impact on people than anything we ever said. Total hooey, but people ate it up. Kiefer though – I can see it. I like his dad better, however. » Posted By choicelady On June 10, 2010 @ 9:36 pm WTS – I hate it when I don’t get a joke. Makes me feel like an old fuddy duddy. But I won’t ask you to explain. Sigh. » Posted By choicelady On June 10, 2010 @ 9:33 pm Today she was heard dissing Boxer’s hairstyle as being so outdated. She wants to go to Congress and that’s the only thing she has to say? Bad hair? Wow – I sure know I want Carly for Senate! She’ll raise standards! Give me strength… » Posted By choicelady On June 10, 2010 @ 9:30 pm Yeah – but he’s an Arab, too, and the Reeps are in an uneasy tension with him. My knowledge of him goes way back to Michael Moore’s “TV Nation” because Issa invented the car alarm, and Moore took a car to Issa’s house, set off the alarm and waited to see what happened. Issa was FURIOUS! It was pretty funny -hoist on his own petard! That is the high and low of Issa’s life. He survives in OC because he’s so scummy. It trumps his ethnicity – you know, like Bobby J. in LA. And this, apparently, is the BEST the Reeps can do for “the big tent”. Forgive me if I repeat myself, but one poster over on the dark side pointed out that with all the new gay sex scandals among Reeps, they don’t need a bigger tent, they need a bigger closet. Roy Ashburn appeared at an EQCA fund raiser a couple of weeks ago – his maiden voyage as an “out” gay man – which totally pissed off openly gay Sen. Mark Leno’s staffer who said, furiously, that Ashburn can show up – and he’ll still vote Republican which is anti-GLBT rights. I suspect he was accurate. Repubicans used to have principles. Now they just have money. » Posted By choicelady On June 10, 2010 @ 9:26 pmComments Posted By choicelady
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