Congratulations! You have found this time capsule in the western part of what my people used to call the United States, and I hope you find the salvaged information from this long-lost civilization fruitful and informative.
I know my generation didn’t make it easy for you – I’m sorry for the sweltering heat caused by global warming and the ensuing attacks by roving hoards of angry, armed penguins and polar bears, and I apologize for our idea of replacing the Stock Exchange for multi-layer, home-based pyramid marketing schemes and making Beanie Babies the national currency. To be fair, I think no one could have foreseen what would have happened after President Bill Gates Jr. (or, as we called him, "2.0") was defeated by Senator Paris Hilton, and the beginning of our ongoing "War on Mammals".
I want you to know that not all of us were mindless lemmings - there were some things that we did, some small pieces of art that actually showed the human race could have been worth all the initial hype it received. They are all here in this hermetically-sealed Folgers coffee can – put the shiny discs into the playback machine we used to call a Discman and see if you like them...
JENA, La. - A teenager at the center of a civil rights controversy is back in jail after a judge sentenced him on charges that were pending before the attack that put him in the national spotlight, his attorney said Thursday.
Mychal Bell, who along with five other black teenagers had been accused of beating a white classmate, went to juvenile court Thursday expecting another routine hearing, said Carol Powell Lexing, one of Bell’s attorneys.
Instead, after a six-hour hearing, state District Judge J.P. Mauffrey Jr. sentenced him to 18 months on two counts of simple battery and two counts of criminal destruction of property, Lexing said.
I recieved an e-mail from the folks at the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center, and it looks like Fred "God Hates Fags" Phelps is going to conduct an outdoor religious service in West Hollywood tomorrow, Saturday at 1:30 p.m. PST.
There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!
Mario Savio said this in 1964 - Cindy Sheehan is putting her body on the gears, working vigilantly to stop this war with all her heart and soul. The bloggers of Daily Kos respond by calling her everything from "crazy", to "media whore", to an agent of the Republicans, all the while doing NOTHING to push their elected officials to stop the war.
For the past three years I have been involved with a wonderful organization called ICUJP: Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, a group of people who came together after September 11th to say that religious communities should not be blessing war and violence. Some who blog here might know the Reverend George Regas from our organization - for those who don't, here's a copy of a sermon he gave at the National Cathedral that upset a few on the religious right.
TONIGHT at 7:00 p.m., ICUJP will be hosting a talk at Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles – the question we will be asking is:
For the past three years I have been involved with a wonderful organization called ICUJP: Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, a group of people who came together after September 11th to say that religious communities should not be blessing war and violence.
This coming Monday, June 11th at 7:00 p.m., ICUJP will be hosting a talk at Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles – the question we will be asking is:
For the past three years I have been involved with a wonderful organization called ICUJP: Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace. We have become a place for people to come when their faith traditions are not giving them the answers that feel right – answers to questions like:
Why should I hate gay people, or fear those with AIDS, or be afraid of women who speak their mind and heart?
Why is the Prayer of Jabez becoming more important than Jesus call not to neglect "the least of these"?
I don’t lump all Christians with unreasoning, polarizing, elitist, warmongering Fundamentalists, why do you define all Muslims as terrorists?
And most importantly:
Why are we at war with someone who did not attack us?
Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace is having a Jubilee for Justice & Peace,Sunday, April 15th 5:00 pm, at historic Bethel AME Church in Los Angeles, and we would like to invite all the SoCal Kossacks to this free event.
It seems to me that there has been a concerted attempt by the right-wing to try to undermine Daily Kos, mostly by trolls posting inflammatory and disgusting diaries and the right-wing sites linking to them in an attempt to paint us all with the same dirty brush.
I am saying that the plan is working - we have had a series of disgusting diaries propped up by these weasels, and tonight one of them got linked to a right-wing site as proof of our intolerance.
We have to be more vigilant about keeping this racist crap off of our site, or we will be marginalized so quick it will be amazing.
For the past three years I have been involved with a wonderful organization in Los Angeles called ICUJP: Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace. This community of activists that meet every Friday morning at 7:00 has spurred me to action way past any cerebral blurriness I would normally have at that hour. We have become a place for people to come when their faith traditions are not giving them the answers that feel right – answers to questions like:
• Why should I hate gay people, or fear those with AIDS, or be afraid of women who speak their mind and heart?
• Why is the Prayer of Jabez becoming more important than Jesus call not to neglect "the least of these"?
• How can you characterize the Koran, or the Torah, or the Dhammapada as evil if you have never read them?
• I don’t lump all Christians with unreasoning, polarizing, elitist, warmongering Fundamentalists, why do you define all Muslims as terrorists?
And most importantly:
• Why are we at war with someone who did not attack us?
Accountability. It’s a scary word – stomach-churning, adrenalin-pumping, and it makes you take stock of your current situation almost before you’ve gotten to the "ty". It recreates the nausea in the pit of your stomach that you felt when you handed your mom the report card that had that special note from your teacher.
The year in music has been a fight for what is real, what is honest, what is not disposable - most of all, it’s been a fight for accountability. No one wants to be the person who admits to pushing a contract across a big mahogany table into the Dorito-stained fingertips of the former Mr. Spears, but it happened. That, unfortunately, is one person’s point of accountability, and there are many sleepless nights that accompany that pound of liposuctioned, Botoxed pound of flesh.
Maybe we write these lists to be like little karmic prayer wheels, sending the good vibes of brilliant work out to subdue the waves of mediocrity that flow so easily into the public consciousness.
It looks like the Eagles, bastions of 70's rock, have signed an exclusive long-term strategic marketing agreement with the Great Satan itself:
The Eagles and Wal- Mart Stores, Inc. today announced an exciting long-term strategic marketing agreement that will encompass sponsorship, exclusive audio and video releases, and product visibility. As America's biggest supporter of the music business, this partnership will create significant additional holiday interest at Wal-Mart.
General Motors has made the boneheaded decision to let Sean Hannity be it's spokemodel for the "You're a Great American Car Giveaway", in which G.M. is awarding a free car every week through Nov. 6.
It's time we let General Motors know that we will not tolerate them using a spokeperson who is so incredibly indecent and idiotic to say, among many other things:
...there are things in life worth fighting and dying for and one of `em is making sure Nancy Pelosi doesn't become the speaker.
Here's how you can let GM know that their choice of spokesmodel will effect your choice of future vehicle:
Saturday and Sunday, September 10th and 11th, ABC plans on airing a docu-drama called "The Path to 9/11", based on the inaccuracies and coverups inherent in the 9/11 Commission Report. Among the most glaring misstatements is the notion that there was no response to the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen (This happened in October 2000, and there was not enough time for the Clinton Administration to respond before handing over the presidency to GW Bush, who subsequently did nothing on the matter), and that Clinton had multiple opportunities to capture Bin Laden, but let him go.
I saw this amazing article in Yahoo Health that explains for me not only the actions of this administration, but the actions of the poor and disenfranchised who enable the abusers in the White House to do their damage:
In 1999, responding to questions about his use of drugs and alcohol, George Bush told the Washington Post, "Well, I don't think I had an addiction. You know it's hard for me to say. I've had friends who were, you know, very addicted...and they required hitting bottom [to start] going to A.A. I don't think that was my case."
Having observed the president's behavior in office, I wonder if he might be wrong. Perhaps not only the president, but also his administration, suffers from alcoholism. After all, arrogance and the inability to take responsibility for one's actions, classic alcoholic traits, have become trademarks of the Bush presidency.
Bernie Ward just asked one simple question: Do you think the government should decide what the media reports? Chris Baker spent two minutes doing everything he could do dodge the question, before he insulted Bernie's weight and cut-and-run.
