The last Greener Times of 2009 suggests that US salvation could be won on the streets of the District of Columbia, and accordingly paints a picture of one million seriously pissed off souls occupying it. That's a lot of urine. Thinking about the logistics has turned up the obvious:  Island mobile units complete with medical, food, and sanitation. Composed of neighbors and friends, a unit once formed could respond to a variety of emergencies as well as that ultimate. Having this come to mind clicks with Joe Ulatoski's  NERO strategy for earthquakes etc.. Making a socio-political unit from a NERO would be unwise if the "politico" element became partisan, but if you read the GT piece you see that its idea of street presence is precisely to abandon political affiliation. So some of the NEROs might in fact become nuclei for street work. Off island, you understand. Anyway, the idea of fairly permanent mobile units for "street work" would have collateral impact on island life. Yeah, I know the Beachcomber is 100% for...

Let’s marvel at industry’s attention to breast cancer and menopause only where profitable. Let’s marvel at the back of hand misogyny of a Congress whose palm is out for the healthcare industry to salve. And let’s marvel at the spectacle of senator Ben Nelson making sure women cannot get care for a basic female need. Let’s recoil from all that callous hypocrisy to honor what women do in addition to supplying half the brains on this planet. I hardly know where to begin, so might as well start with the two mammaries, those wonderful hug bumpers. Industry has interfered with their primary purpose by sly promotion of bottle feeding here and by criminal promotion of bottle feeding in the third world. Industry has hijacked their secondary function of attraction to create an unhealthy fixation on fake standards of beauty. All of this contributes to the noted travesties. Anyway in regard to mammaries I am reminded of a story about cows my wife told her grandaughter the other day. My wife grew up on a dairy farm in Oppdal,...

There is this racetrack and these four Jockeys.  The Book of Revelations had it that Conquest, War, Famine and Death were  neck and neck.  But in today's news Death is in first place and the other three are in second place riding the same horse. What prompted that take is the unnerving revelation that no matter how bad the news is on a given day it will be worse the next. Clearly, we Americans  are not connecting the dashes. If we were, we would have placed our list of jockey woes in the context of the 450 silos in the US Midwest each containing a bomb capable of killing every soul in a city of two million people.

 

The "dash" that set me off today was the pentagon setting up shop in Colombia to terrorize all of South America http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/eva-golinger-obama-is-preparing-for-war-in-south-america- It was then I remembered what I was doing at Boeing...

Mark Jensen says: ". . . .It is surprising that one so clear-sighted as Glenn Greenwald cannot see what this consensus means.  --  It means that not only is the U.S. government a national security state, it is also the case that U.S. society is militarist, that is, has embraced militarism as an ideology and as a social system.  --  Its policies are largely directed by a miltary caste, what the Pentagon calls "core warrior values" are regularly propagandized, and its social system is dependent on aggressive preparedness for war and on aggression itself."  Here's what pushed Mark's button:

THE STRANGE CONSENSUS ON OBAMA'S NOBEL ADDRESSBy Glenn GreenwaldSalon.comDecember 11, 2009 So, I copied this because if Mark is right, which he is, then the current move in Seattle to dump Patty Murray is going to need a howitzer loaded with silver bullets. She's a war goddess. Furthermore, it's not just Murray, it's like Mark says, it's us. Ike was right but Mark is righter.  Menwomen, for as long as towns like Vashon...

Upon receiving a Christmas card bearing the image of The Three Kings I realized that what really fries my butt is a  US administration that persists in abetting genocide in the birthplace of Christ. Yeah, I know Obama tried to snuff the West Bank settlements, but he didn't spend much of his political capital and failed. Plus, he has not even tried to save Gaza. I stand, uh, sit, fried.

I quit watching this panel of mainstream reporters shortly after the personable Gwen Ifel became moderator. I had  joined Stand Up Seattle, and my education had begun. But last night I was trapped in front of the screen. After Obama's Nobel speech was, accurately, reported, Balz led off a round on the president by putting the speech in the context of Obama's busyness: healthcare, Afghanistan, etc.  The consensus was that a president can do only so much. I was eating with my head down and hearing aid off but it still ruined my dinner. All the president had to do was one thing, pull out of Afghanistan.

The address of the courtroom was given to me, 600 5th Avenue, but what’s that? I map-googled it to find that it seemed to be City Hall which made sense. So to be sure, I then googled City Hall and got 600 4th Avenue. Well, okay, my sometime incarcerated buddy could have been mistaken, and anyway all those big ones downtown take up entire blocks so back door, front door, City Hall. The bus comes up 3rd, so when I got to town I asked what steet for City Hall and the reply was James. I almost missed it because the driver didn’t call James. He called a bunch of County buildings. The fact that I would approach from below -- the hill, you know -- is pertinent because when I got to 4th and looked up I was transported to a city I had never been in before. What, where, did that thing come from? Half of the bulk was set well back and up to the 5th Ave level. A ramp of granite steps formed at the near corner (4th and James) and ascended fifty feet wide as to the Great Pyramid. Half way to the top a left exit to a terrace...

Invited for T-Day with our son’s family in Ballard we were so thrilled by the thought of being off-island that we decided to stay overnight and then keep going. The destination was to be Granite Falls on account of a Seattle Times article on the mayoral race there. The challenger is the Pakistani-American owner of the town’s watering hole, The Timberline Café. Text and photos from the Times: “Saleem Haroon tells a classic immigrant's tale of coming to America in 1979 as a young man seeking wider opportunities. He candidly admits to overstaying his visitor's visa and at one point, moving from San Francisco to Los Angeles to stay ahead of immigration officials. In 1987, when then-President Reagan extended amnesty to undocumented immigrants, Haroon became a legal resident and won his citizenship in 1995.

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Willie Nelson sings about a hobo riding West on a mail train called City of New Orleans: " Good Morning America, How are ya?" At 11:30 this morning my answer is poorly, Willie, poorly. The health care bill, to begin with, has been prepped, spiced, stuffed, sewed and browned to a perfection calculated to make progressives ill if the Senate passes it and ill if the Senate kills it. The Israel lobby and its extensions at Universities successfully browbeat us into giving Israel a pass on destroying Gaza and on defying Obama's request that it stop more settlements in the West Bank, and with ease, censor speeches on the Middle East.  Homeland Security head Napolitano continues the reactionary immigration policy of past administrations. Obama has yielded US policy in South Asia to the Military. Obama's overall score on changing this country for the better is negative. He cannot be expected to change much? He could at least have tried. It's  hard to pick Obama's most serious failed opportunity, but it's probably staying...

Yesterday Stanley W. Rogouski reported via IndyMedia: "Black radicals protest Barack Obama. After a marathon rally in Malcolm X Park lasting over 5 hours, the Black Is Back Coalition led a march to the White House. "

Elaborate photo coverage came with some text:

"Speaker after speaker lambasted Barack Obama (as well as other members of the black political elite) as nothing more than a new black face on the same old white capitalist imperialism. And this: A number of issues were addressed in addition to the Obama administration. The connection between attacks on Muslim immigrants and racism against African Americans was a constant theme, and a poster of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah was in prominent display at the front of the rally. Speakers stressed the continued need for reparations for slavery as well as for solidarity with the Palestinians against the Israeli State. Obama’s refusal to support Durban II was mentioned briefly as well as gentrification, the sub-prime housing crisis and the difficulty...