Debates make me want to gnaw my fingernails to death.
John McCain is nothing new. Same old bullshit. Same old aggravating, truth-twisting, bullshit that will only take this country (and the rest of the world along with it) further into the mire that the current Administration has created. Unbelievable.
Please, please, please, please, please, PLEASE don't fuck this one up America. PLEASE.
There are flecks of paint
still gracing my hands
from the creative flurry
that erupted out of me
a night ago.
there is dirt
beneath my fingernails.
a peacock feather earring adoring just one ear,
-just because-
i am in love
with what is unfolding before me
with guts and glory
and paperclips.
with hummingbirds and wasps
blackbirds and kitty purrs.
i.
am.
in.
love.
the most precious thing
is happening-
i am weaving.
i am sewing, knitting, growing.
i am pruning.
i am choosing.
i am creating a Life of my own,
by hand.
by sweat and blood and tears.
by laughter and singing.
by listening and asking myself,
first and only,
"What do YOU want?"
Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for 'The Vagina Monologues', wrote the following about Sarah Palin:
Drill, Drill, Drill.
I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.
I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.
But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.
I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.
Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, 'It was a task from God.'
Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.
She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.
Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.
Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.
Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.
I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.
If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, 'Drill Drill Drill.' I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.
Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?
Eve Ensler September 5, 2008
This is a website promoting the film.
It is truly incredible and worth checking out. Maybe YouTube has it for free or perhaps I'll just get it and pass it around.
Wow.
Watching an amazing documentary/film on forgiveness.
A few names...
Thich Nhat Hanh
Thomas Moore
Elie Weisel
Some issues...
Catholic/Protestant division
Attacks on an Amish Community
The Holocaust
Phew. Incredible. Will post title or link, etc. when one is mentioned...
-Paz
CHECK THIS SHIT OUT.
NO JOKE, people. No 'Effing Joke.
The "tactics" used by the Police at the Republican National Convention DO NOT CONFORM TO THE STANDARDS ADOPTED BY THE UNITED NATIONS.
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL IS CONCERNED, INVOLVED, AND CALLING FOR IMPARTIAL INVESTIGATION.
These reports are right in line with the "tactics" and force shown on the border, at the protest I have talked about here before.
BELIEVE IT. THIS IS REAL.
THIS IS NOT WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE.
[-Thanks for the heads up, Jeremy.]
Well I heard a story
about Alex Supertramp,
he dared to live a Dream he loved
and he died in the cold and damp,
We could tell his story-
tell it to scare our kids
into living lives of monotony
at the cost of being Free
Or we could tell his story,
Tell it in such a way-
It makes everyone a Believer
in the Magic of Today-
it makes everyone a Believer
in the Magic of Today.
My sister's name is Sara
she lives Life on the Road
she's never in one place for long-
it's sad to see her go,
but she's daring to live a Dream she loves
and that's more than most can say-
She makes all of us Believers
in the Magic of Today-
she makes all of us Believers
in the Magic of Today.
Every Mountain has a Valley
Every River curves and rolls-
With every step we take,
we walk the Great Unknown...
We walk the Great Unknown!
We all write a story
with the lives we choose to live-
the fears, the hopes, the Dreams we have
what we Take and what we Give-
For each one of us it's different,
if we go or if we stay-
but never stop believing
in the Magic of Today,
Never stop believing
in the Magic of Today.
Concerning the summer blockbuster, Tropic Thunder.
"Stiller plays Tugg Speedman, a fading action star who earlier failed in his bid for an Oscar as 'Simple Jack,' a man with an intellectual disability. 'Simple Jack' is featured as a film-within-a-film, with Stiller sporting a classic institutional bowl haircut and bad teeth. The film within-a-film's promotional poster bears the subtitle "Once upon a time there was a retard." A promotional website for the Simple Jack movie, that has since been withdrawn, bears the slogan, "What he doesn't have in his head, he makes up for in his heart." A satirical plot synopsis quotes a critic as saying that Speedman's Jack was 'one of the most retarded performances in cinema history.'
Several staff members of The Arc, along with self-advocates and other representatives of the disability community, were able to preview the movie. It is clear that the film’s depiction of people with intellectual disabilities is derogatory and demeaning. The Arc of the United States, in coalition with other disability groups across the nation, is calling for a national dialogue on the language and treatment of people with intellectual disabilities. "
