Great News!

The federal government dropped charges against Lt. Ehren Watada who refused to be deployed to Iraq in 2006! Cheers!

Read This Article Concerning Souter, His Legacy, and Obama's Options

I do think that Kimberley Williams Crenshaw should be considered to replace Souter on the court. She would make a great justice and her values are in sync with mine and those of the better angels of America. I vote for Crenshaw for the Supreme Court.

The Women of Kenya Have Launches a Sex Strike-Read From The Kitchen Table

You and I are both deep into the end of the semester's responsibilities...our actual day jobs that pay the bills. But I have to come up for air and just talk a little about our sisters in Kenya, particularly the women of the G10, a Kenyan national women's movement. This coalition of various grassroots organizations in Kenya is driven by a mission to empower women in politics, by giving voice to women's social and economic concerns and redefining what "political space" means in Kenya. And our dear sisters have just ended a 7 day long boycott that began on April 29th: it was a sex strike.

To protest the politics of their bickering leaders, to compel them to do something instead of just arguing, a group of women in Kenya (including the wife of the prime minister, Ida Odinga) withheld sex from their husbands as an act of protest. By striking, these women resolved to draw attention to brutal national politics, stalled government reforms, sexual violence, and other causes. In addition to boycotting sex for a week, the women of the G10 also offered to pay local prostitutes to refrain from having sex with the local men. The women in these grassroots organization have made it clear that this sex strike is not about punishing men, but about getting them to focus on the political and economic issues at stake, as well for these men to take seriously women's agency and political power.


Now Melissa, you know that there are many places I could potentially go with this information (we have got to have lunch next week), but let me offer these thoughts: sex strikes are nothing new. Women, individually, have used this as a negotiating tactic since the beginning of time. But is it different when a collective group of women use a sex strike as a particular means of bargaining? Does this action symbolically reduce women to sex objects? Or does it reveal that women have a collective strength in a very particular form of female power? Why is it the assumption that it is the men who suffer because sex is being withheld? Or are we forced to think about the differences between male and female sexual control (i.e. Eliot Spitzer or Kwame Kilpatrick)? Can a sex boycott be an effective means of non-violence resistance, especially for a protest that is, in part, about the prevalence of sexual violence? Can sex change the political landscape of any country?

Melissa, when I first read this story, I had to laugh. I wanted to tell my Kenyan sisters, "good luck with that," while shaking my head in disbelief that a week-long sex boycott would accomplish anything of note. But over the past few days, I'm thinking about the broader implications. Sex, sexuality, sexual orientation, gender, and romantic relationships find their way into the political process all the time. Sexual activity has humbled many and has literally changed the course of government and politics (think former president Bill Clinton). In today's news, Elizabeth Edwards is publicly bemoaning her husband's affair while he was on the campaign trail, and the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, is calling for a public apology from his wife who has accused him of having an affair.

So while I am still skeptical about a sex strike, no one can deny the power of sex in its potential to change the political landscape around us. I'm thinking about how our Kenyan sisters are using all the tools in their arsenal to draw attention the issues of violence and poverty and hunger - issues that dispropotionately affect women. And I feel a powerful solidarity with their causes. So I'd love to hear from our Kitchen Table readers: can a sex strike potentially change the political climate of a particular community? Can collective abstinence work where personal indulgence has failed?

Ronald Reagan and Black People are not Friends

It always bemuses me when I hear people remember Ronald Reagan fondly. I am Black,from Chicago, born in the 1980s... Read this essay linked above--its a great assessment of Reagan and his relationship to Black Folks....Angela Davis vs. Ronald Reagan round 2...lol

Please Read Frank Rich's Article in the New York Times Concerning Torture

This topic is even more depressing than I care to own up to. Ever since our victory in November, Ive sort of been on a happy pill so to speak and have not even glistened at the news. However, as the truth comes to light and all of the dirtiness and filth of the past eight years starts pouring out into public view, it is a horrible revisiting of just how far towards fascism and pure evil we came. We still have to be vigilant and we need to cleanse and purge this evil from our systems.

The torture policies set in place by the Bush administration will forever be a tarnish upon America. The most damning assessment in Rich's article:

In other words, the ticking time bomb was not another potential Qaeda attack on America but the Bush administration’s ticking timetable for selling a war in Iraq; it wanted to pressure Congress to pass a war resolution before the 2002 midterm elections. Bybee’s memo was written the week after the then-secret (and subsequently leaked) “Downing Street memo,” in which the head of British intelligence informed Tony Blair that the Bush White House was so determined to go to war in Iraq that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” A month after Bybee’s memo, on Sept. 8, 2002, Cheney would make his infamous appearance on “Meet the Press,” hyping both Saddam’s W.M.D.s and the “number of contacts over the years” between Al Qaeda and Iraq. If only 9/11 could somehow be pinned on Iraq, the case for war would be a slamdunk.

To think that elected officials in the United States could approve the waterboarding of a human being 84 times and carry out other horrendous and inhumane acts all in the name of justifying their already evil deeds is sickening. There must be justice. We must have everyone responsible for these acts brought to trial.

Arlen Specter is Now a Democract-Oh My God!

Great news as it puts progressives one vote closer to a filibuster-proof majority in the senate. Although, that should be no deterance to making bold, progressive action--I would make every single one that stands up and threatens a filibuster stand up there and read until they drop.Now, we need to get Al Franken seated(what is the holdup really?) and then we can move!

Reps Woolsey, Lewis, Ellison, and Edwards Arrested at Darfur Protest

Kudos to them for standing up for justice in Darfur!

Today's Tyra on the Gay Community!

I sooo love Tyra! Yes!

In a Most Unusual Way

BJS

In a very unusual way one time I needed you.
In a very unusual way you were my friend.
Maybe it lasted a day, maybe it lasted an hour.
But, somehow it will never end.

In a very unusual way I think I'm in love with you.
In a very unusual way I want to cry.
Something inside me goes week,
Something inside me surrenders.
And you're the reason why,
You're the reason why

You don't know what you do to me,
You don't have a clue.
You can't tell what its like to be me looking at you.
It scares me so, that I can hardly speak.

In a very unusual way, I owe what I am to you.
Though at times it appears I won't stay, I never go.
Special to me in my life,
Since the first day that I met you.
How could I ever forget you,
Once you had touched my soul?
In a very unusual way,
You've made me whole.

I so want to meet Barbra Joan Streisand!

I am so sitting here crying while watching Barbra on CBS!

Bea Arthur

1922-2009

Happy Birthday To Shirley Maclaine Too!

The Birthday Girl

Happy Belated Birthday Barbra! 4/24/04! Concert tonight on CBS at 7 central!

This Weeks News!

Kudos to President Obama for opening the door for the prosecution of torture under the Bush administration! Kudos to Code Pink for getting rid of laws in Afghanistan that would have legalized marital rape!

This Month's O

Thank You Martha Beck;-)

More on the Torture Decision

Congrats to the ACLU for their victory against the Justice department!

George Stephanopoulous--The Truth On Torture

This is important news. Thank GOD for Obama! The Light Is Coming to pass!

Ich Liebe Verboten Liebe!

Well the sun is surely sinking down
But the moon is slowly rising
So this old world must still be spinning round
And I still love you

(chorus)
So close your eyes
You can close your eyes, its all right
I dont know no love songs

And I cant sing the blues anymore
But I can sing this song
And you can sing this song
When Im gone

It wont be long before another day
We gonna have a good time
And no ones gonna take that time away
You can stay as long as you like

Britain's Got Talent

I love Susan Boyle. I think she is the greatest thing as of late! And I love how she simply unveiled as this incredible talent,defying all expectations and the judgements that had already been made. Ella Fitzgerald started that way....

Notes I Took A While Ago From An Elizabeth Warren Lecture

This weekend I caught a lecture by economist Elizabeth Warren on television, discussing the financial crisis in the US. Amazing and wonderful stuff. Here are some notes I took down. The largest expenses for American families are Houses, healthcare, car maintenance, childcare, and taxes. Americans spend 3/4ths of their two salary incomes on these expenses, in 1970 they spent just half of a one income salary on these costs.--In my words, there is no longer an Archie Bunker effect.-- In 1970, women just giving birth spent at least five days in the hospital, today its 24 hours, and many times thats because its required by law. Hospitals are pushing people out--sicker and quicker. There are nearly fifty million uninsured in the US. Also those who think they are insured until time for treatment. She calls it Faux insurance...something touted by one of Bush's secretaries of Health, Education, and Welfare... In 1970 the average uninsured person was a 23 year old male with no children. Now, its a 35 year old with 2 kids....In 1970 parents believed it only took 12 years of public funded grade school education for their children to enter the middle class, in 2002 it took 18 years--preschool-grade school-plus four years of college with families paying for 1/3rd of the child's education out of pocket... She says we are quickly moving from a three class society to a two class society... The main reasons why families go into bankruptcy these days is because of one of three reasons 1. Family Breakup 2. Joblessness 3. Medical Problems. Most hide it--guilt and shame, especially from children....more children live in homes that have experienced bankruptcy than have experienced divorce. .... I find all of this very interesting. I wonder how all of this compares/fits along with the trend in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, of the children of Black maids and chauffeurs and other members of the working class rising into the middle class, recieving college educations. I have noted before on this blog, and thought about a lot too--it used to be that it was people of color, particularly Black people who went to school, earned college degrees and ended up working as somebody's maid...that due to discrimination. Nowadays, its everybody...macdonalds, walmart. Interesting turns in the U.S. economy.

I am feeling my inner Josephine Baker! I am so channeling her right now!

An Excerpt From Barack Obama's Speech on the Economy

Excerpts from "A New Foundation"

Today, I want to step back for a moment and explain our strategy as clearly as I can. I want to talk about what we've done, why we've done it, and what we have left to do. I want to update you on the progress we've made, and be honest about the pitfalls that may lie ahead. And most of all, I want every American to know that each action we take and each policy we pursue is driven by a larger vision of America's future -- a future where sustained economic growth creates good jobs and rising incomes; a future where prosperity is fueled not by excessive debt, reckless speculation, and fleeing profit, but is instead built by skilled, productive workers; by sound investments that will spread opportunity at home and allow this nation to lead the world in the technologies, innovations, and discoveries that will shape the 21st century That is the America I see. That is the future I know we can have.

...

All of these actions -- the Recovery Act, the bank capitalization program, the housing plan, the strengthening of the non-bank credit market, the auto plan, and our work at the G20 -- have been necessary pieces of the recovery puzzle. They have been designed to increase aggregate demand, get credit flowing again to families and businesses, and help them ride out the storm. And taken together, these actions are starting to generate signs of economic progress. Because of our recovery plan, schools and police departments have cancelled planned layoffs. Clean energy companies and construction companies are re-hiring workers to build everything from energy efficient windows to new roads and highways. Our housing plan has helped lead to a spike in the number of homeowners who are taking advantage of historically-low mortgage rates by refinancing, which is like putting a $2,000 tax cut in your in pocket. Our program to support the market for auto loans and student loans has started to unfreeze this market and securitize more of this lending in the last few weeks. And small businesses are seeing a jump in loan activity for the first time in months.

This is all welcome and encouraging news, but it does not mean that hard times are over. 2009 will continue to be a difficult year for America's economy. The severity of this recession will cause more job loss, more foreclosures, and more pain before it ends. The market will continue to rise and fall. Credit is still not flowing nearly as easily as it should. The process for restructuring AIG and the auto companies will involve difficult and sometimes unpopular choices. All of this means that there is much more work to be done. And all of this means that you can continue to expect an unrelenting, unyielding, day-by-day effort from this administration to fight for economic recovery on all fronts.

...


It is simply not sustainable to have a 21st century financial system that is governed by 20th century rules and regulations that allowed the recklessness of a few to threaten the entire economy. It is not sustainable to have an economy where in one year, 40% of our corporate profits came from a financial sector that was based too much on inflated home prices, maxed out credit cards, overleveraged banks and overvalued assets; or an economy where the incomes of the top 1% have skyrocketed while the typical working household has seen their income decline by nearly $2,000.

For as some were chasing ever-bigger bonuses and short-term profits over the last decade, we continued to neglect the long-term threats to our prosperity: the crushing burden that the rising cost of health care is placing on families and businesses; the failure of our education system to prepare our workers for a new age; the progress that other nations are making on clean energy industries and technologies while we remain addicted to foreign oil; the growing debt that we're passing on to our children. And even after we emerge from the current recession, these challenges will still represent major obstacles that stand in the way of our success in the 21st century.

There is a parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that tells the story of two men.The first built his house on a pile of sand, and it was destroyed as soon as the storm hit. But the second is known as the wise man, for when "... the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house ... it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock."

We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand. We must build our house upon a rock. We must lay a new foundation for growth and prosperity -- a foundation that will move us from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest; where we consume less at home and send more exports abroad.

It's a foundation built upon five pillars that will grow our economy and make this new century another American century: new rules for Wall Street that will reward drive and innovation; new investments in education that will make our workforce more skilled and competitive; new investments in renewable energy and technology that will create new jobs and industries; new investments in health care that will cut costs for families and businesses; and new savings in our federal budget that will bring down the debt for future generations. That is the new foundation we must build. That is our future.

...

I've talked a lot about the fundamental weakness in our economy that led us to this day of reckoning. But we also arrived here because of a fundamental weakness in our political system.

For too long, too many in Washington put off hard decisions for some other time on some other day. There's been a tendency to score political points instead of rolling up sleeves to solve real problems. There is also an impatience that characterizes this town -- an attention span that has only grown shorter with the twenty-four news cycle, and insists on instant gratification in the form of instant results or higher poll numbers. When a crisis hits, there's all too often a lurch from shock to trance, with everyone responding to the tempest of the moment until the furor has died away and the media coverage has moved on, instead of confronting the major challenges that will shape our future in a sustained and focused way.

This can't be one of those times. The challenges are too great. The stakes are too high. I know how difficult it is for Members of Congress in both parties to grapple with some of the big decisions we face right now. It's more than most congresses and most presidents have to deal with in a lifetime.

But we have been called to govern in extraordinary times. And that requires an extraordinary sense of responsibility -- to ourselves, to the men and women who sent us here, and to the many generations whose lives will be affected for good or for ill because of what we do here.

There is no doubt that times are still tough. By no means are we out of the woods just yet. But from where we stand, for the very first time, we are beginning to see glimmers of hope. And beyond that, way off in the distance, we can see a vision of an America's future that is far different than our troubled economic past. It's an America teeming with new industry and commerce; humming with new energy and discoveries that light the world once more. A place where anyone from anywhere with a good idea or the will to work can live the dream they've heard so much about.

It is that house upon the rock. Proud, sturdy, and unwavering in the face of the greatest storm. We will not finish it in one year or even many, but if we use this moment to lay that new foundation; if we come together and begin the hard work of rebuilding; if we persist and persevere against the disappointments and setbacks that will surely lie ahead, then I have no doubt that this house will stand and the dream of our founders will live on in our time

Women & Sexuality, the Oprah Show

Kudos to Oprah on her show today--very important topics and very handily dealt with.

Happy Birthday Rachel Corrie....everyone should honor her memory.

Socialism Is Becoming More Popular in The US

According to the latest Rasmussen poll, more Americans are looking favorably at socialism. The upfront and direct view that Americans are having of capitalism in its throws of death are allowing them to look at other alternatives.

I love the film Purple Violets.

Renewed Israeli Threat Against Iran: Report by Trita Parsi

Netanyahu and threat of bombing Iran - the bluff that never stops giving?

By Trita Parsi

April 7, 2009

The Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/trita-parsi/netanyahu-and -threat-of-b_b_183822.html



In an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed to have told President Barack Obama that either America stops Iran or Israel will. Not surprisingly, the interview sparked quite a controversy and only a day later, General David Petreus told the Senate Arms Services Committee that "the Israeli government may ultimately see itself so threatened by the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon that it would take preemptive military action to derail or delay it."

So once again, in spite of President Obama's best efforts, the military option was put back on the table and the atmosphere for dealing with Iran was turned into "Do as we say - or else..." Even if the President wants to give diplomacy a chance, disbelievers have been quick to limit Obama's options by seeking to set arbitrary deadlines for negotiations - or by threatening Israeli military action if America doesn't act with its military might.

Reality is, however, that talk of an Israeli military option is more of a bluff than a threat - but it is a bluff that never seems to stop giving.

Israel does not have the military capability to successfully eliminate Iran's nuclear program. Even the most successful bombing campaign would only set back the known program for a few years - without affecting any potential clandestine program. This is not classified information. Military experts are well aware of Israel's capabilities - and its limits.

Yet, the threat of military action, or rather the bluff, serves a purpose: Threats of military action militarizes the atmosphere. It creates an environment that renders diplomacy less likely to succeed - it may even prevent diplomacy from being pursued in the first place.

In the Iranian case, Netanyahu's tough talk undermines the Obama administration's prospects for diplomacy in the following ways.

Getting to the negotiating table has proven an arduous task for the US and Iran. Both sides are currently testing each other's intentions, asking themselves if the other side is serious about diplomacy or if the perceived desire for talks is merely a tactical maneuver to either buy time or build greater international support for more confrontational policies down the road. From Tehran's perspective, uncertainty about Washington's intentions during the Bush administration was partly fueled by the insistence of the military option remaining on the table. Tehran seemed to fear entering negotiations that could have been designed to fail, since that could strengthen the case for military action against Iran.

Today, talk of Israeli strikes has similar effects. Tehran has repeatedly failed to appreciate the policy differences between Washington and Tel Aviv, oftentimes seeing them as either a perfectly coordinated team or as a single entity. Consequently, explicit or implicit threats of Israeli military action reduce Tehran's confidence in Washington's intentions.

Furthermore, Iran's sense of a threat from the US (and in extension Israel) is believed to be one of the driving forces of Iran's nuclear program. Whether Iran seeks a weapon or a civilian program that provides Iran with a weapons capability, the program's existence provides Tehran with a level of deterrence against the perceived US threat. The Obama administration's approach seems to have been to reduce Iran's sense of threat in order to kick-start negotiations. The threat of Israeli military action does the opposite - it fuels Iranian insecurity and closes the window for diplomacy.

Moreover, Israel uses this threat to pressure Washington and the EU to act tough. This has been a cornerstone of Israeli policy towards Iran since the mid-1990s. Even though Israel is reluctant to put itself on the frontline against Iran, fearing that this would counter its message that Iran is the world's and not just Israel's problem, it also fears that the absence of Israeli pressure would cause the West to go soft on Iran. Hence, Israel keeps the pressure on the West - by threatening military action - in order for the West to keep pressuring Iran. However, under the current circumstances, Israeli pressure may compel the Obama administration to adopt a confrontational approach that is incompatible with the diplomatic strategy President Obama seems to prefer.

Finally, Netanyahu - as well as hawks in Washington - are using the threat of Israeli military action to create arbitrary deadlines for negotiations with Tehran combined with exaggerated expectations of what diplomacy must achieve. The message of Israeli hawks has been that it can only afford to give diplomacy "a few months," meaning that whatever sanctions and confrontation has failed to achieve with Iran in the past 30 years, must miraculously be obtained after only a few months of negotiations - otherwise Israel will take military action.

This logic does two things. First, it brings us back to the foreign policy approach of the Bush administration in which diplomacy was treated with suspicion and skepticism, and military confrontation was viewed as a policy option with guaranteed success. Second, it ensures that diplomacy fails by denying it the time and space it needs to succeed and by setting the bar too high.

This does not mean that Israel does not have legitimate reasons to fear Iran's nuclear advances - on the contrary. But what lies at the heart of Israel's maneuvers is not necessarily the fear of a nuclear clash, but the regional and strategic consequences nuclear technology in Iranian hands will have for Israel.

In spite of its rhetoric, Israel views the regime in Tehran as rational, calculating and risk-averse. Even those Israeli officials who believe that Iran is hell-bent on destroying the Jewish state recognize that Tehran is unlikely to attack Israel with nuclear weapons due to the destruction Israel would inflict on Iran through its second-strike capability.

The real danger a nuclear-capable Iran brings with it for Israel is twofold. First, an Iran with nuclear capability will significantly damage Israel's ability to deter militant Palestinian and Lebanese organizations. Gone would be the days when Israel's military supremacy would enable it to dictate the parameters of peace and pursue unilateral peace plans.

This could force Israel to accept territorial compromises with its neighbors in order to deprive Iran of points of hostility that it could use against the Jewish state. Israel simply would not be able to afford a nuclear rivalry with Iran and continued territorial disputes with the Arabs at the same time.

Second, the deterrence and power Iran would gain by mastering the fuel cycle could compel Washington to cut a deal with Tehran in which Iran would be recognized as a regional power and gain strategic significance in the Middle East at the expense of Israel. This has been a major Israeli fear since the end of the Cold War, when Israel's strategic utility to Washington lost considerable justification due to the absence of a Soviet threat. Under these circumstances, US-Iran negotiations could damage Israel's strategic standing, since common interests shared by Iran and the US would overshadow Israel's concerns with Tehran and leave Israel alone in facing its Iranian rival. The Great Satan will eventually make up with the ayatollahs and forget about the Jewish state, Israeli officials fear.

Netanyahu's threat of stopping Iran if Obama doesn't should be seen in light of the Israeli right's fear of a US-Iran deal. Talk of Israeli military action has not coincided with major advances in Iran's nuclear program, but rather with hints of an American preparedness to strike a compromise with Tehran that would grant it the dreaded know-how and limit Israel's strategic maneuverability.

The flaw in the Netanyahu's approach, however, is its underestimation of how US-Iran diplomacy can significantly alter Iran's posture towards the Jewish state and reduce the threat it faces from Tehran. Therein lies the opening for Israel's new prime minister that carries far greater promise for Israel's security than efforts to complicate Washington's path towards diplomacy.


Trita Parsi is president and co- founder of the National Iranian American Council and author of "Treacherous Alliances: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States."

Kindergardner Handcuffed in St. Petersburg, Florida

Hungry Blues reports about a pending case involving a black kindergardner who was handcuffed because she was having a temper tantrum.

Raul Castro Meets with Black Congressional Caucus!

Progress has been made! We need normalized relations with Cuba! First step!

How brilliant that Obama ended his European tour in Turkey!

The Way He Makes Me Feel

Barbra

There’s no chill and yet I shiver
There’s no flame and yet I burn
I’m not sure what I’m afraid of
And yet I’m trembling
There's no storm yet I hear thunder.
And I'm breathless, why I wonder?
Weak one moment,
Then the next I'm fine.
I feel as if 1'm falling every time
I close my eyes
And flowing through my body
Is a river of surprise.
Feelings are awakening
I hardly' recognize as mine!
What are all these new sensations?
What's the secret they reveal?
I'm not sure I understand
But I like the way I feel.
Oh, why is it that every time
I close my eyes he's there?
The water shining on his skin,
The sunlight in his hair?
And all the while I'm thinking things
That I can never share with him.
I'm a bundle of confusion
Yet it has a strange appeal.
Did it all begin with him,
And the way he makes me feel
I like the way he makes me feel...

Journaling

I am not a fashion connossiuer, at least now now. When I was growing up, everyone in my family--and indeed the entire community put so much emphasis on dress and possessions(lets not even talk about church politics) that I grew to lack a passion or a care in the world for beauty, style, or fashion. It was stale and hegemonic with a driving brutality behind it all and I wanted no part of it.

I just saw MJB's "Take Me As I Am" video. What a compelling story!

The End of Excess

Kurt Andersen's assessment of America's current state of crisis and how it has gotten here is very good. He does a wonderful timeline of America's growing cynicism and excess from the end of WWII to Reagan to now, when it all ends. However, I think he is too optimistic. I don't think Americans are as good, moral, or as full of potential for living in more humane ways as he makes them out to be. I hope they do. But perhaps he has more trust in this country than I do. My favorite part of this essay, however, is when he says

"But at least as much of the new America of the 2010s and beyond will be the result of transformed sensibility, changes in our understanding of what's important and sensible and attractive, and what feels hollow or silly or nuts."

Yes, my hope is there.

From Paul Begala and the DNC

First they counted the votes. Then they recounted them. Then they painstakingly went over every disputed ballot by hand. It was the most thorough and exhaustive recount process Minnesota has ever seen.


First the bipartisan canvassing board declared Al Franken the winner of the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota.

But Norm Coleman didn't like that result, so he took it to court. And now when even his own lawyers are predicting he'll lose, Coleman's threatening to keep appealing to more and more courts.

How many more recounts does Norm Coleman want? How many more delays? How much longer will the Republican Party hold Minnesota's Senate seat hostage?

Coleman can end it today and give Minnesota the two Senators it's entitled to. But he's not going to give up unless we convince him to act. So let's speak with one voice and tell Norm Coleman it's time to go.

Tell Norm Coleman to pack it in, give up the endless court battles, and concede the race so Minnesota has its full representation in Congress.

On election night, Norm had a small lead. He said then that if he were behind, he wouldn't bother with a recount. "I would step back," he claimed. "I just think the need for the healing process is so important."

But the moment he fell behind is the moment he stopped caring about the "healing process." Al Franken came out ahead after a bipartisan recount that took place in front of live cameras, and Norm decided the best place to nurse his wounds was in court.

And that's where this election has been stuck ever since, as Coleman's legal team brings one obscure challenge after another.

Enough is enough. The people of Minnesota need their fair share of representation in Congress now, and President Obama needs Al Franken working with him in the Senate. We're debating the very survival of our economy, and Minnesotans deserve a voice!

So let's tell him nicely. Let's remind him that all the legal experts say he's done. Let's ask him not to drag this out just for the sake of dragging it out.

Let's speak with one voice and tell Norm Coleman to drop the legal challenges and concede this race!

Tell Norm Coleman to concede his Senate race for the good of Minnesota.

This has gone on long enough. But maybe if Norm hears from enough of us, he'll get the message. Thanks for your help.

Sincerely,


Paul Begala

Today's Oprah

Much love to Star Jones....

Bob Marley-Redemption Song

Redemption Song by Bob Marley
Old pirates, yes, they rob i;
Sold I to the merchant ships,
Minutes after they took i
From the bottomless pit.
But my hand was made strong
By the and of the almighty.
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly.
Wont you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for atomic energy,
cause none of them can stop the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look? ooh!
Some say its just a part of it:
Weve got to fulfil de book.

Wont you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.
---
/guitar break/
---
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our mind.
Wo! have no fear for atomic energy,
cause none of them-a can-a stop-a the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look?
Yes, some say its just a part of it:
Weve got to fulfil de book.
Wont you help to sing
Dese songs of freedom? -
cause all I ever had:
Redemption songs -
All I ever had:
Redemption songs:
These songs of freedom,
Songs of freedom.

Reposts On the Economy From A Year and A Half Ago-Visit These Links

Here and here.

The World of Publishing Needs a Bailout, Not a Question.

Read two very good articles on the subject here and here.

Something I Wanted to Blog About

I can't believe that Chicago has allowed Tom Joyner to be taken off of its airwaves. Its tragic. I started listening to Tom Joyner when I was a little boy on Hot 107.5 GCI--when he was on at night and when he had an Afro. Its part of my childhood--and part of Chicago history. I think they need to bring him back to the airwaves in Chicago.

Prince on Leno

Prince is still so hot after all these years. lol

Oh Dear God

I learned today over at Melissa Harris-Lacewell's blog that John Hope Franklin has died. He was a giant among historians and one of the most important voices in the Black community, indeed in this country. His absence will surely be felt.

Harsh Beauty

I saw this documentary, which followed the lives of three eunuchs living in modern day India, on the Documentary Channel last night and I was quite intrigued. The entire concept of eunuchism is something very queer and one that has roots into the origins of humanity. While wathcing this documentary, I came to the realization that this history, that of the presence of eunuchs within societies-is one that has existed in societies ranging from Europe to China and one that has been practiced up until the 19th century ( and perhaps even later). It is truly fascinating what people will think up when left to their own devices. The most famous eunuch I have ever heard of was the Italian singer, Farinelli the famous 18th century castrato who's life was made into a film bearing his name. Wikipedia says that the last Eunuch present at the Vatican died in 1922. What intrigue. Definitely food for thought.

Analogies and The Language of Economic Crisis

Tonight, Chuck Todd perpetuated a practice that many in Washington and journalist all over this country have engaged in that I would like to see stopped. He referred to our efforts to emerge from this recession as a war. It has also seemed that the Obama Administration has also been forced into using this language as well--I have heard Christina Romer and others make use and agree to use this analogy on the political show circuit. The war analogy is wrong. Firstly, when you fight against something, you only strengthen it. Many have pointed out,and the history of this country reflects that the countless wars that this country has engaged in have for the most part failed. Vietnam, the war on drugs, the war on poverty...all of these have failed--and failed because those in power have engaged these problems in the wrong way. When I first heard the Obama administration announce its plan, they were making use of Dr. King's analogy of the house that is on fire. I believe this is the proper approach they should be taking and I believe they should not be persuaded from using this analogy. I pointed this out when they first laid out their plans for economic recovery. America does not need to engage in another ceaseless war that in the end will only serve to disintegrate this country even more. We need to shake off the shackles of patriarchy and phallocentrism(which is where this language comes from) and embrace a more humane way of living and being in this world. Only then, will the United States be secured against the total ruin that it now faces.

This Month's O Magazine

I want to rave some more about this month's O magazine. I just finished reading it-I never read the magazine all at once--and I go to what I really want to read first most times. So, I just finished reading O's magnificent essay on the fluidity of sexuality, She's So Fine! which I thought was very well done. I personally subsribe to Helene Cixous' theory that everyone is bisexual to various degrees. My own experiences with sex, gender, and sexuality have allowed me to come to this revelation. Sexuality is fluid-and people can bend. Now that said, I do say that it is in degrees. I think people have their preferences shaped and formed by the cultures and social settings that they come out of and those percieved choices(which oftentimes are just cultural imprints upon one's psyche and person) are hard to break. However, broken they can be. I can not tell you and you most probably couldn't imagine how many straight men I have found to be not so straight-or have personally recruited for the other team.I could, should, and probably will right a book. Men are easy-married, not married, doesn't matter. With enough lubrication, I believe any man can move from strict heterosexuality into queer. I wonder, and think that its probably the same for women. I myself have found women attractive and have even found myself flirting (on one particular occassion). However, I don't ever see myself becoming sexually or romantically involved with a woman. I found O's profiles of the lesbian couples in the article(with at least one previously straight partner) intriguing. Each of these couples tackle such issues as hierarchies within relationships(which mainstream society won't even acknowledge as existing nowadays) and the politics of being a lesbian couple in today's society. The article also does an interesting introspection of Jackie Warner of Bravo (you know that I am not a lesbian or the least bit hetero because I have never even feigned to watch that show lol). Perhaps each gender is supsceptible to it's own. Sexuality and gender roles are fascinating stuff. The study of identity and the politics of attraction are definitely fields that have not yet and probably never will be fully mined.

"Our Visions Begin With Our Desires"-Audre Lorde

Barbra-Stoney End

I was born from love
And my poor mother worked the mines
I was raised on the good book Jesus
Till I read between the lines
Now I don't believe I want to see the mornin'
Going down to stoney end
I never wanted to go down to stoney end
Mama let me start all over
Cradle me
Mama cradle me again

I can still remember him
With lovelight in his eyes
But the light flickered out and parted
As the sun began to rise
Now I don't believe I want to see the mornin'
Going down to stoney end
I never wanted to go down to stoney end
Mama let me start all over
Cradle me
Mama cradle me again

Never mind the forecast
'Cause the sky has lost control
'Cause the fury and the broken thunder's
Come to match my ragin' soul
Now I don't believe I want to see the mornin'
Going down to stoney end
I never wanted to go down to stoney end
Mama let me start all over
Cradle me
Mama cradle me again

Who Is The Greatest Prophetic Voice The United States Has Ever Seen?

Melissa Lacewell Harris declares it to be James Baldwin and I wholeheartedly agree. Listen to the speech he gave at UC Berkeley in 1979...

I applaud President Obama for extending a hand to the Iranians.

Gloria Steinem Interviewing Barbra!

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all." -- Helen Keller

An Urban Garden At The White House

Does anyone else find it just absolutely magnificent that Michelle Obama is planting an urban garden at the White House? I think it is a bold and beautiful move...truly bringing the White House and the seat of power back to the people. And what a powerful message she is sending to the American public about their food choices!

From Portside

El Salvador's Left Wins Historic Election

By Mark Weisbrot

Center for Economic and Policy Research The
Guardian (UK) March 18, 2009

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica2009/mar18/el-salvador-election

Last Sunday's election in El Salvador, in which the leftist
FMLN (Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation) won the
presidency, didn't get a lot of attention in the
international press. It's a relatively small country (7
million people on land the size of Massachusetts) and fairly
poor (per capita income about half the regional average). And
left governments have become the norm in Latin America:
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, and
Venezuela have all elected left governments over the last
decade. South America is now more independent of the United
States than Europe is.

But the FMLN's victory in El Salvador has a special
significance for this hemisphere.

Central America and the Caribbean have long been the United
States' "back yard" more than anywhere else. The people of
the region have paid a terrible price - in blood, poverty,
and underdevelopment - for their geographical and political
proximity to the United States. The list of U.S.
interventions in the area would take the rest of this column,
stretching from the 19th century (Cuba, in 1898) to the 21st,
with the overthrow of Haiti's democratically elected
president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (for the second time) in
2004.

Those of us who can remember the 1980s can see President
Ronald Reagan on television warning that "El Salvador is
closer to Texas than Texas is to Massachusetts" as he sent
guns and money to the Salvadoran military and its affiliated
death squads. Their tens of thousands of targets - for
torture, terror, and murder - were overwhelmingly civilians,
including Catholic priests, nuns, and the heroic Archbishop
Oscar Romero. It seems ridiculous now that Reagan could have
convinced the U.S. Congress that the people who won Sunday's
election were not only a threat to our national security, but
one that justified horrific atrocities. But he did. At the
same time millions of Americans - including many church-based
activists - joined a movement to stop U.S. support for the
terror, as well as what the United Nations later called
genocide in Guatemala, and the U.S.-backed insurgency in
Nicaragua (which was also a war against civilians).

Now we have come full circle. In 2007, Guatemalans elected a
social democratic president for the first time since 1954,
when the CIA intervened to overthrow the government. Last
September, President Zelaya of Honduras - which served as a
U.S. base for U.S. military and paramilitary operations in
the 1980s -- joined with Bolivia's Evo Morales and
Venezuela's Hugo Chávez when they expelled their U.S.
ambassadors: Zelaya defended their actions and postponed the
accreditation of the U.S. ambassador to Honduras, saying that
"the world powers must treat us fairly and with respect." In
2006 Nicaraguans elected Daniel Ortega of the Sandinistas,
the same president that Washington had spent hundreds of
millions of dollars trying to topple in the 1980s.

El Salvador's election was not only another step toward
regional independence but a triumph of hope against fear,
much as in the U.S. presidential election of 2008. The ruling
ARENA party, which was founded by right-wing death squad
leader Roberto D'Aubuisson, made fear their brand: fear of
another civil war; fear of bad relations with the United
States; fear of a "communist dictatorship." Almost comically,
they tried to make the election into a referendum on Hugo
Chávez. (Venezuela kept its distance from the election, with
no endorsements or statements other than its desire to have
good relations with whomever won).

ARENA was joined by Republican Members of Congress from the
United States, who tried to promote the idea that Salvadorans
- about a quarter of whom live in the U.S. - would face
extra-ordinary problems with immigration and sending
remittances home if the FMLN won. Although these threats were
completely without merit, the right's control over the media
made them real for many Salvadorans. In the 2004 election the
Bush administration joined this effort to intimidate
Salvadoran voters, and it helped the right win.

The right's control over the media, its abuse of government
in the elections, and its vast funding advantage (there are
no restrictions on foreign funding) led José Antonio de
Gabriel, the deputy chief of the European Union's observer
mission to comment on "the absence of a level playing field."
It's amazing that the FMLN was still able to win, and
testimony to the high level of discipline, organization, and
self- sacrifice that comes from having a leadership that has
survived war and hell on earth.

This time around, the Obama administration, after receiving
thousands of phone calls - thanks to the solidarity movement
that stems from the 1980s -- issued a statement of neutrality
on the Friday before the election. The administration appears
divided on El Salvador as with the rest of Latin America's
left; at least one of Obama's highest-level advisors on Latin
America favored the right-wing ruling party. But the
statement of neutrality was a clear break from the Bush
administration.

El Salvador's new president Mauricio Funes, a popular former
TV journalist, will face many challenges, especially on the
economic front. The country exports 10 percent of its GDP to
the United States, and receives another 18 percent in
remittances from Salvadorans living there. Along with
sizeable private investment flows, this makes El Salvador
very vulnerable to the deep U.S. recession. El Salvador has
also adopted the U.S. dollar as its national currency. This
means that it cannot use exchange rate policy and is severely
limited in monetary policy to counteract the recession. On
top of this, it has recently signed an agreement with the IMF
that commits the government to not pursuing a fiscal stimulus
for this year. And the FMLN will not have a majority in the
Congress.

But the majority of Salvadorans, who are poor or near- poor,
decided that the left would be more likely than the right to
look out for them in hard times. That's a reasonable
conclusion, and one that is shared by most of the hemisphere.

Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and
Policy Research, in Washington, D.C. (www.cepr.net).

_____________________________________________

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to people on the left that will help them to
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The 'Picnic' Controversy

I almost hesitate to mention this issue on my blog, but I have on several occassions run into Black people who have told me that they don't use the word picnic because they believe it has racist connotations. I have not tried to dissuade them of this idea, because they are partially true--there is a shared legacy between the history of "picnics" and the blotted history of this country in terms of its treatment of Blacks.Here is a link to a very profound discussion on the topic.

Thanks to Jane Fonda and Joan Didion For This Essay

This is a chapter from Joan Dideon’s 1961 book “Slouching Towards Bethlehem.” The chapter is called “On Self Respect.”

Once, in a dry season, I wrote in large letters across two pages of a notebook that innocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself. Although now, some years later, I marvel that a mind on the outs with itself should have nonetheless made painstaking record of its every tremor, I recall with embarrassing clarity the flavor of those particular ashes. It was a matter of misplaced self-respect.

I had not been elected to Phi Beta Kappa. This failure could scarcely have been more predictable or less ambiguous (I simply did not have the grades), but I was unnerved by it; I had somehow thought myself a kind of academic Raskolnikov, curiously exempt from the cause-effect relationships which hampered others. Although even the humorless nineteen-year-old that I was must have recognized that the situation lacked real tragic stature, the day that I did manage to make Phi Beta Kappa nonetheless marked the end of something, and innocence may well be the word for it. I lost the conviction that lights would always turn green for me, the pleasant certainty that those rather passive virtues which had won me approval as a child automatically guaranteed me not only Phi Beta Kappa keys but happiness, honor, and the love of a good man; lost a certain touching faith in the totem power of good manners, clean hair, and proved competence on the Stanford-Binet scale. To such doubtful amulets had my self-respect been pinned, and I faced myself that day with the nonplussed apprehension of someone who has come across a vampire and has no crucifix at hand.

Although to be driven back upon oneself is an uneasy affair at best, rather like trying to cross a border with borrowed credentials, it seems to me now the one condition necessary to the beginnings of real self-respect. Most of our platitudes notwithstanding, self-deception remains the most difficult deception. The tricks that work on others count for nothing in that well-lit back alley where one keeps assignations with oneself: no winning smiles will do here, no prettily drawn lists of good intentions. One shuffles flashily but in vain through ones’ marked cards–¬the kindness done for the wrong reason, the apparent triumph which involved no real effort, the seemingly heroic act into which one had been shamed. The dismal fact is that self-respect has nothing to do with the approval of others – who we are, after all, deceived easily enough; has nothing to do with reputation, which, as Rhett Butler told Scarlett O’Hara, is something people with courage can do without.

To do without self-respect, on the other hand, is to be an unwilling audience of one to an interminable documentary that details one’s failings, both real and imagined, with fresh footage spliced in for every screening. There’s the glass you broke in anger, there’s the hurt on X’s face; watch now, this next scene, the night Y came back from Houston, see how you muff this one. To live without self-respect is to lie awake some night, beyond the reach of warm milk, phenobarbital, and the sleeping hand on the coverlet, counting up the sins of commission and omission, the trusts betrayed, the promises subtly broken, the gifts irrevocably wasted through sloth or cowardice or carelessness. However long we postpone it, we eventually lie down alone in that notoriously uncomfortable bed, the one we make ourselves. Whether or not we sleep in it depends, of course, on whether or not we respect ourselves.

To protest that some fairly improbably people, some people who could not possibly respect themselves, seem to sleep easily enough is to miss the point entirely, as surely as those people miss it who think that self-respect has necessarily to do with not having safety pins in one’s underwear. There is a common superstition that “self-respect” is a kind of charm against snakes, something that keeps those who have it locked in some unblighted Eden, out of strange beds, ambivalent conversations, and trouble in general. It does not at all. It has nothing to do with the face of things, but concerns instead a separate peace, a private reconciliation. Although the careless, suicidal Julian English in Appointment in Samara and the careless, incurably dishonest Jordan Baker in The Great Gatsby seem equally improbable candidates for self-respect, Jordan Baker had it, Julian English did not. With that genius for accommodation more often seen in women than in men, Jordan took her own measure, made her own peace, avoided threats to that peace: “I hate careless people,” she told Nick Carraway. “It takes two to make an accident.”

Like Jordan Baker, people with self-respect have the courage of their mistakes. They know the price of things. If they choose to commit adultery, they do not then go running, in an access of bad conscience, to receive absolution from the wronged parties; nor do they complain unduly of the unfairness, the undeserved embarrassment, of being named co-respondent. In brief, people with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called character, a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to other, more instantly negotiable virtues. The measure of its slipping prestige is that one tends to think of it only in connection with homely children and United States senators who have been defeated, preferably in the primary, for reelection. Nonetheless, character – the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life – is the source from which self-respect springs.

Self-respect is something that our grandparents, whether or not they had it, knew all about. They had instilled in them, young, a certain discipline, the sense that one lives by doing things one does not particularly want to do, by putting fears and doubts to one side, by weighing immediate comforts against the possibility of larger, even intangible, comforts. It seemed to the nineteenth century admirable, but not remarkable, that Chinese Gordon put on a clean white suit and held Khartoum against the Mahdi; it did not seem unjust that the way to free land in California involved death and difficulty and dirt. In a diary kept during the winter of 1846, an emigrating twelve-year-old named Narcissa Cornwall noted coolly: “Father was busy reading and did not notice that the house was being filled with strange Indians until Mother spoke out about it.” Even lacking any clue as to what Mother said, one can scarcely fail to be impressed by the entire incident: the father reading, the Indians filing in, the mother choosing the words that would not alarm, the child duly recording the event and noting further that those particular Indians were not, “fortunately for us,” hostile. Indians were simply part of the donnée.

In one guise or another, Indians always are. Again, it is a question of recognizing that anything worth having has its price. People who respect themselves are willing to accept the risk that the Indians will be hostile, that the venture will go bankrupt, that the liaison may not turn out to be one in which every day is a holiday because you’re married to me. They are willing to invest something of themselves; they may not play at all, but when they do play, they know the odds.

That kind of self-respect is a discipline, a habit of mind that can never be faked but can be developed, trained, coaxed forth. It was once suggested to me that, as an antidote to crying, I put my head in a paper bag. As it happens, there is a sound physiological reason, something to do with oxygen, for doing exactly that, but the psychological effect alone is incalculable: it is difficult in the extreme to continue fancying oneself Cathy in Wuthering Heights with ones head in a Food Fair bag. There is a similar case for all the small disciplines, unimportant in themselves; imagine maintaining any kind of swoon, commiserative or carnal, in a cold shower.

But those small disciplines are valuable only insofar as they represent larger ones. To say that Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton is not to say that Napoleon might have been saved by a crash program in cricket; to give formal dinners in the rain forest would be pointless did not the candlelight flickering on the liana call forth deeper, stronger disciplines, values instilled long before. It is a kind of ritual, helping us to remember who and what we are. In order to remember it, one must have known it.

To have that sense of one’s intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference. If we do not respect ourselves, we are the one hand forced to despise those who have so few resources as to consort with us, so little perception as to remain blind to our fatal weaknesses. On the other, we are peculiarly in thrall to everyone we see, curiously determined to live out – since our self-image is untenable – their false notions of us. We flatter ourselves by thinking this compulsion to please others an attractive trait: a gist for imaginative empathy, evidence of our willingness to give. Of course I will play Francesca to your Paolo, Helen Keller to anyone’s Annie Sullivan: no expectation is too misplaced, no role too ludicrous. At the mercy of those we cannot but hold in contempt, we play roles doomed to failure before they are begun, each defeat generating fresh despair at the urgency of divining and meeting the next demand made upon us.

It is the phenomenon sometimes called “alienation from self.” In its advanced stages, we no longer answer the telephone, because someone might want something; that we could say no without drowning in self-reproach is an idea alien to this game. Every encounter demands too much, tears the nerves, drains the will, and the specter of something as small as an unanswered letter arouses such disproportionate guilt that answering it becomes out of the question. To assign unanswered letters their proper weight, to free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves – there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect. Without it, one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home.

The End of the Death Penalty in New Mexico!

Cheers to Bill Richardson for ending the death penalty!

Sad Tidings-the Death of Natasha Richardson

What a horrific, tragic loss. Natasha Richardson was a great actress. My heart goes out to Vanessa Redgrave, Liam Neeson and the entire Redgrave clan.

From the Campaign for Peace and Democracy

For immediate release

Contact: Joanne Landy, Campaign for Peace and Democracy, jlandy@igc.org



STUNNING VICTORY

FOR CZECH OPPONENTS

OF U.S. RADAR BASE


NEW YORK, March 18, 2009 – In a major setback for Pentagon plans to install a U.S. military radar base in the Czech Republic, the Czech government yesterday withdrew, at least for now (and possibly for good), its proposal to ratify an agreement on the base. Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek halted the ratification process when it appeared that the Chamber of Deputies was likely to vote to reject the agreement. According to Jana Glivicka, a leader of the grassroots “No Bases Initiative” that has been active in opposing the radar for more than two years, this was a very significant retreat, since the radar has been promoted as one of the key accomplishments of the current government.

Two thirds of Czechs have consistently opposed the radar ever since it was first proposed in 2006. Anti-radar activists have repeatedly called for a referendum on the issue, but have been rebuffed. Meanwhile, in 2008 the Czech government signed the agreement with the United States to proceed with the installation of the radar, and the Czech Senate approved the accord. However the agreement could not be implemented until the Czech Chamber of Deputies ratified it. Thanks to the tireless activities of anti radar groups in the country, the No Bases Initiative and the Nonviolence Movement, popular opinion remained strongly mobilized against the radar. This public opposition culminated in a likely “no” vote in the Chamber.

The anti-radar movement has drawn support from around the world from people alarmed by the dangerous military escalation of the proposed European “missile defense” program of the Czech radar and its companion Interceptor missiles in Poland. In the United States, the Campaign for Peace and Democracy has since November 2007 supported the movement with public statements, letters published in The New York Times and The New York Review of Books, visits to the Czech Mission to the United Nations, demonstrations, a hunger strike, and, over the past weekend, an open letter to members of the Czech Chamber of Deputies signed by more than 550 people in less than 48 hours.

The CPD open letter was sent on Monday March 16 to all 200 members of the Chamber of Deputies. A member of the Chamber planned to read the letter aloud from the floor of the Chamber if the ratification had come up for a vote, Signers included public figures such as Noam Chomsky and Ariel Dorfman, and leaders of many major U.S. peace organizations. Most signatories were from the U.S., but there were some international signers including the Polish intellectual Adam Chmielewski, Iranian human rights activists, and a number of individuals from the United Kingdom, Japan and other countries. The text of the letter and list of signers are available at the CPD website, www.cpdweb.org

Czech Prime Minister Topolanek said that the government has not abandoned its plan for the radar. "This does not mean we would give up on the ratification process," Topolanek said in a live television address. "We will return to this issue after talks with the U.S. administration and after the NATO summit in Strasbourg and Kehl." (This information is from a Reuters story. Up until now there has been no significant U.S. media coverage of the withdrawal of the Czech government proposal.) It is by no means clear that the government will in fact reintroduce the radar for a vote after the NATO summit in early April. In any event, anti-radar activists in the Czech Republic and their international supporters are committed to continuing their campaign until such time as the proposal to install the radar is decisively and permanently withdrawn.

THE CAMPAIGN FOR PEACE AND DEMOCRACY (CPD) advocates a new, progressive and non-militaristic U.S. foreign policy -- one that encourages democracy, justice and social change. Founded in 1982, the Campaign opposed the Cold War by promoting "detente from below." It engaged Western peace activists in the defense of the rights of democratic dissidents in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and enlisted East-bloc human rights activists against anti-democratic U.S. policies in countries like Nicaragua and Chile. The Campaign sees movements for peace, social justice and democratic rights, taken together, as the embryo of an alternative to great power politics and to the domination of society by privileged elites.

Other current CPD campaigns are an open letter to Iranian officials in defense of human rights leader Shirin Ebadi, published by the New York Review of Books at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22511, and a statement on Gaza entitled “No More Blank Check for Israel!,” available at the CPD website.

Campaign for Peace and Democracy, 2790 Broadway, #12, NY, NY 10025. Email: cpd@igc.org Web: www.cpdweb.org

Fantasia Barrino and her Mother

Dear God,

If it be in accordance with your will,
I pray that this new age in human history
be a time of spiritual renaissance,
a "second Enlightenment" that will heighten values
and help everyone to realize their true purpose in life.
I pray for peace and justice,
and love and light.
I pray for an abundance of beauty, truth and goodness
in the lives of all the inhabitants of this troubled world.
May there be harmony, sustainability, and evolutionary progress.
Thank you for this gift of consciousness, dear God.
Amen - Steve McIntosh

This Mornings' News

Edward Liddy....is he related to G. Gordon Liddy....? Can't people who own AIG policies just stop paying?....Oh, capitalism

April's O, Oprah and Michelle

I am SO inlove with my April O magazine. Oprah's interview with our First Lady, Michelle Obama is very inspiring. I love the collage of pictures from the White House and the campaign. These two women, Oprah and Michelle, are role models for anyone out there searching for them....Pick up an O....

Allessandro, First Duke of Florence

Read about the first Medici Duke of Florence, Allesandro de Medici, known as 'il moro'- The Moor, who was the son of an African slavewoman and Pope Clement VII.

From The Campaign for Peace and Democracy

Dear Friend,




We have just learned that the Czech Chamber of Deputies is likely to vote this coming week of March 16 on whether to accept the U.S. military radar base that was originally proposed by the Bush administration. The radar, along with Interceptor missiles in Poland, would create a European "missile defense" system. Two thirds of Czechs have consistently opposed the radar, and the Campaign for Peace and Democracy has been active in supporting the Czech anti-radar movement. The upcoming vote in the Chamber of Deputies is critical; a vote to defeat the radar could put an end to this dangerous escalation.



Please sign the open letter below TODAY; we will be sending it to Prague early in the week of March 16. To sign the letter, donate, or see the full list of signers, please go to the CPD website at www.cpdweb.org If for any reason you have difficulty signing on at the website, just send us an email at cpd@igc.org



Thank you for your support,
Joanne Landy and Thomas Harrison
Co-Directors, Campaign for Peace and Democracy



Here is the text of the open letter:


TO THE MEMBERS OF THE CZECH CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES:




It is our understanding that after much debate in your country, the Czech Chamber of Deputies will vote very soon on the proposed agreement to accept the U.S. military radar. We are writing to let you know that we deeply believe that the radar is not in the real interests of people in either the United States or the Czech Republic. We hope you will vote to reject it.

Millions of Americans, including ourselves, are eager for a new peaceful U.S. foreign policy that advances democracy and demilitarization around the world, rather than an escalation of the arms race. Moreover, the extremely expensive missile defense program is, like so much of our country's military budget, a vast waste of resources. We would much prefer to spend our nation's wealth on education, housing, healthcare and other human needs, both domestically and internationally.

We are inspired by the fact that more than two thirds of the Czech people have repeatedly expressed their opposition to the radar. We join with them in calling on President Obama to pull back from plans to install Interceptor missiles in Poland and a companion radar station in the Czech Republic.

An end to this dangerous "missile defense" program could form the basis for a very positive and constructive relationship between the people of our two countries, and could serve as an important first step in a broader process of global disarmament.

Has Anyone Else Not Heard About the Murder of Brandon McClelland?

24-years-old,this Black youth was dragged behind a pickup truck by two white men in Paris, Texas last year until his body was nearly dismembered. I have heard nothing about this.

The Man In the Moon Is A Lady

The Chris Brown and Rhianna Story On Oprah

Today's Oprah is a powerful show. Everyone should be watching. I don't have much to say on this topic right now, except that I believe that the entire Chris Brown/Rhianna incident is shameful. I think he ought to be ashamed of himself and I think she is absolutely foolish to be in a relationship with him.

Today's Oprah

I love Oprah's hair today. I'm going to blog more later.

I Need Some Advice

I want to change the background color of Juliusspeaks. Anyone know how?

Interview With Shaindel Beers, Author of A Brief History in Time

With the recent publication of her first book of poetry,A Brief History in Time, I had the opportunity to interview author, Shaindel Beers, a former classmate of mine at Huntingdon College. Here is what transpired.

1. Your poetry is filled with some very astute perceptions along the lines of race, gender, and class. What is your background? Where are you from? What is your family like? What do they do?

I’m from a very small rural town in northern Indiana, called Argos, which, at least in the 2000 census, had a population of 1,613. It might seem unusual to someone that you can grow up somewhere that is 98% white and be so impacted by race, but I moved from Argos to Montgomery, Alabama, to go to Huntingdon College, and it was like another planet. I’d heard racist comments in Indiana, but they were the sort of things one “expects” from people of a certain generation. Like, my grandpa would say something and change the channel if he walked in and I was watching The Cosby Show. But I think there was a lot of jealousy in this. If you remember, on The Cosby Show, Bill Cosby’s character was a doctor, and the wife was a lawyer, and here’s my grandfather who has a sixth grade education and has had a hard life—farming (which always depends on the weather), factory closings (which depends on the whims of the wealthy, or the economy), all sorts of things. I think a lot of people from his generation in the same position probably felt the same way. It isn’t right, but you can understand where it comes from.

When I got to Alabama, the racism was much more real. First of all, there were people of other races—at least then in Alabama, Whites and Blacks. And, to me, it felt like the Civil Rights movement had barely happened. When I met one of my first college friends and wanted to go to Wal-Mart to buy some dorm supplies, she started driving the opposite way I thought we should be going. When I asked why we weren’t going to the Wal-Mart next to the college, she said, “Oh, that’s the Black Wal-Mart,” like it was the most common thing in the world. I heard other such gems such as a wealthy woman who said, “Of course, we’re not racist; all our maids have always been Black” and the one that appears in my poem, “Branching.”

For me, at least, gender and social class are so intertwined. I think that there is much more hope of social mobility for men than for women. There’s a book I haven’t read yet but want to called Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class. I remember when I was in high school and things were rough, my mom would say things like, “Maybe some nice boy will marry you.” That really seemed to be the answer she had for everything. She bought me a subscription to Brides Magazine when I was around fifteen and seemed fine when my high school boyfriend at that time just assumed we were getting married and gave me a ring.

I think a lot of women my age were raised without the skills we really needed because our parents still expected us to move from their house to a husband’s. And that really seems to surprise a lot of people, but I think small towns are socially a generation behind other places.

As far as my family, they are sort of a “mad genius” family. That’s probably saying enough.


2. What is your ethnic makeup?

On my father’s side, I’m Russian-Jewish, maybe with a few other Eastern European countries thrown in. On my mother’s side, it’s pretty much everything from the British Isles. I can look up family tartans in Scottish museums and things like that.

3. Do you have a great interest in Greek mythology? Your knowledge of it seems to be very expansive. Does it inspire you?

I absolutely love all mythologies, but I know more about Greek mythology than others, probably because it was required in eighth grade. We had to memorize who was the god or goddess of what and read The Odyssey. I’m always fascinated by rewritings of myths and fairy tales for a few reasons. First, there’s less work for the author because the reader already knows the basic story, and secondly, because there is a wealth of the human condition for the reader to connect to. For instance, in Louise Glück’s Meadowlands, she uses the figures of Odysseus and Penelope to explore the breakdown of (presumably) her own marriage. Most of us know the story of The Odyssey, and most of us have suffered broken hearts, so putting these elements together creates something between the author and the reader that is greater than the sum of the parts. For my creative writing MFA at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, part of my graduation requirement included giving a lecture on a specific topic in creative writing, and I did mine on “Feminist Revision of Myth and Fairy Tale.” If any readers are interested in it, they can let me know, and I’ll email them the lecture.

4. You seem to have lived a very interesting life--from the mundaneness of rural Indiana to the cosmopolitan life of the city. Give us a rundown of your life from birth to present. Where have you lived? What has marked you?

First of all, I don’t see how rural Indiana is any more mundane than living in a city. Wherever you are is your reality, and you can have a boring or an exciting life in either. I was born in South Bend, Indiana, which is where Kenneth Rexroth was born. (Maybe it will eventually be a city known for poets?) I lived in Argos until I moved away to Montgomery, Alabama, for college, then I moved to Chicago to go to the University of Chicago for graduate school, and after that, I kept moving further and further out to the suburbs, for jobs. (And I would do my graduate residencies in Vermont in the summers and winters from 2003-2005.) Eventually, I got a full-time college teaching position in Florida. I just wasn’t a Florida person and had to get somewhere where it would snow before I died of depression (or drank myself to death), and I ended up in Eastern Oregon. So far, it’s the best place I’ve lived. I have fantasies of a cabin in Montana or Alaska or somewhere more remote than this with bigger mountains, but this is pretty phenomenal for now. It’s also a great teaching position. It’s a rural mountain community college, and there are only three full-timers in the English department (myself included), so in addition to the regular Composition sequence, I get to teach Shakespeare, British literature, Fiction writing, Poetry writing, and Poetry as Literature. It’s nice to get to use my graduate degrees in both British literature and Creative Writing. Anywhere else, I’d most likely have to choose one or the other.

A lot has marked me. A. Lot. I’ll let people read my poetry collection and decide that.

5. You seem to have had a lot of experiences in terms of love and loss. What is the greatest lesson you have learned?

I’m still learning, but I think I’m discovering that you can survive anything if you have to. I’m also learning to value myself and not to mould myself into whatever will make other people happy, but it’s definitely a process.

6. Who are your greatest influences as a writer?

I’m just going to start listing here. As far as poets: Anne Sexton, Anne Carson, Richard Jackson, Eavan Boland. Fiction writers: Alice Munro, Lorrie Moore, Antonya Nelson, Ellen Gilchrist. I’m sure there are at least a hundred others, but I’m hoping readers will look up everyone on this list if they’re not already familiar with them.

7. What's next for you?

So far, I feel really fortunate to be booking readings since the publication of A Brief History of Time since it’s my first full-length book. I hope to keep giving readings and to keep up with my radio show, Translated By, on www.blogtalkradio.com . In June of 2010, I’ll be teaching at Writing Away Retreats http://writingawayretreats.com/ , which I’m really excited about.

I have a two book deal with Salt Publishing, which is just amazing. I’ve never even heard of another poet getting a two book deal! For my second book I’m working on, tentatively titled The Children’s War, I’m looking at children’s art drawn during war-time from the Spanish Civil War to the current time and writing an ekphrastic poem on each one that inspires me.

I have what amounts to maybe half of a short story collection so far, and one novel in progress that I wish was more in progress. And I always have stories and poems going on in my head.

Next stop on Shaindel Beers' Virtual Book Tour Kate Evans:Being and Writing.

This Mornings News

Kudos and much applause to President Obama for endorsing Stem Cell Research! This will go a long way towards stopping preventable diseases. I cannot believe there are those who can't or who refuse to make the connection between funding stem cell research, providing health-care for all people(healthcare IS a right, not a privilege), and boosting the American economy....Cheers to Obama!....In regards to the story I heard on the Today Show concerning the state of Connecticut planning to strip away financial control over parishes from the Catholic Church, I do believe that is unconstitutional although I applaud the effort. I believe the parishioners themselves should strip the church of financial control. They can set up their own board and refuse to give money to the priests....The big story this morning was Warren Buffett and others' admonishment of Barack Obama and his handling of the economic crisis that the United States is facing. Firstly, Obama inherited this mess from eight years of incompetence. He won't(even though he is brilliant) be fixing this problem in three months time. Secondly, I wholly disagree with Warren Buffett and others for making use of a war analogy to address this problem....that is the problem...this country has been engaged in nonstop warfare for three hundred years...and is no longer the superpower....I applaud Obama for making use of Dr. King's analogy in tackling this difficult and immensely complex problem. Thank you for your wisdom President Obama!

Does Anyone Remember This Film?

Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveler--

I soo got caught up in this film as a child!

Labelle and Nyro

Happy International Women's Day

Cheers to Alice Walker and Medea Benjamin on being in Gaza today to stand in solidarity with the women of Palestine on International Women's Day!

Dianne Reeves- Peace Song

Oprah: Fridays Live

Barbra had her Sadie...now Oprah has hers...lol

Congratulations to Ted Kennedy on his knighthood!

Labelle- What Can I Do For You?

People want truth
Or nothing at all
People want sincerity
And nothing false
People need happiness
As land needs rain from above
We need rain. We need
life, We need love
Most people find it so
hard to live without
Love, love, love, love, love, love
Oh yeah

People want to live, not merely exist
People want to enjoy,
not suffer and fear
People need
understanding, not
impatience or confusion
Oh I wonder should we hate those
[ Find more Lyrics on www.mp3lyrics.org/BwZG ]
Who present us disillusion
They talk about love, love, love
And lie about love, love, love
And they talk about love, love, love
Oh yeah

We need power
We need power
And we need peace,
peace, peace, peace
I think we all agree
Let's stop fighting
Let's stop fighting
And become sisters and brothers
And become sisters and brothers
And become sisters and brothers
And become sisters and brothers
And show its not too late to
Love, love, love
Love, love, love
Love, love, love
Love, love, love
Love, love, love
Love, love, love
What can I do for you
What can you do for me

Big Love

Oh my god. In ways, Bill and that family are as crazy as Nadia Suleiman. Both sets of families need to be locked up. No, not locked up-sent to that farm where Suleiman was offered a job...so they can pick some cotton...and do what people with fourteen and fifteen children used to do.I cannot believe that old crappy man killed Cathy!