mousemusings...multimedia, music, progressive politics, video, web design and general rants
Human beings will be happier - not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That's my utopia.
~Kurt Vonnegut
Monday, September 29, 2003

SNIPER GLUE: the unpopular e-zine of a young Glaswegian writer

a fragment of "Fragment":
and a doorbell rings but it isn’t mine, so i open another bottle, drink in the honey sweet liquid and wait until it brings oblivion, into which the evening and my body will sink. then sleep… and a thousand dreams of golden angels and green fields burning into a darkness filled with twisted shapes and the long-dead faces of people i never knew from old newspapers and photo albums.
posted by Andy | link |   | |

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Sunday, September 28, 2003



I am back. My hike was wonderful. Yes, of course I'll put some pictures up soon, as I also intend to resume some semblance of blogging shortly. You know the mess...the cat was away and the mice played. I have to clean up after them and it's slow sweeping. No, I'm not talking about Andy. I asked him to stay, although, after the preceding entry I have to wonder about him. Labor saving devices that can hold a broom, yet can't sweep? I just dunno.
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |


Let's give a hand to the Japanese and their handy electronic labor-saving devices

Well, Cyndy's back but hasn't got back to her blog yet, so I'll continue apace in the alienation of her reader base. She said I could! You're never gonna get rid of me now!
posted by Andy | link |   | |

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Thursday, September 25, 2003

Be Michael Moore for Halloween (in Ypsilanti)

Michael Moore
Friday, October 31, 2003
(come dressed as your favorite politician!)
EMU Convocation Center, 7 p.m.

Michael Moore has been challenging economic and political giants for more than two decades and has emerged as one of America’s freshest and funniest political voices. His hilarious 1989 film debut, Roger and Me, introduced America to real life in the post-industrial society. Now with his most recent film, Bowling for Columbine, Moore provides a powerful and thought provoking commentary on America's culture of guns. Winner of an Academy Award for best documentary feature, the film has already won 22 awards and been called the "best documentary of all time" by the International Documentary Association. For more on Moore, click here . The lecture is followed by a booksigning. Free and open to the public.

See also on this page: Art Spiegelman on Nov. 11
posted by Andy | link |   | |

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Wednesday, September 24, 2003

Our heroic (ok, drunk) soldiers vs. caged endangered species

[T]he US soldier had apparently tried to feed the big cat and "the tiger then engaged the soldier's arm."
You will all be relieved to know that Cyndy will be back in the driver's seat of Mousemusings very soon.
I thank you for your kind attention. Right on and good night.
!Viva la Revolucion!
posted by Andy | link |   | |

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Tuesday, September 23, 2003

We The Planet Tour tonight at Eastern Michigan University

Date: Tuesday Sept 23
Location: Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti (near Detroit) www.emich.edu
Venue: Pease Auditorium
Price: Free to students & general public
Ticket Info: No tickets necessary
Doors: 6:30pm
Show: 7pm
Speakers: Julia Butterfly Hill, Tracy Chapman, Howard Lyman + 2 local activists TBA
Music: Tracy will also perform a 20-30 minute acoustic set
posted by Andy | link |   | |


Rolling Thunder tour comes to Ann Arbor on Thursday

Thursday, September 25, 2003 - Ann Arbor, Michigan

Rolling Thunder and partners are bringing together progressive leaders and future leaders on college campuses to feed the grassroots and develop tools for change and to register everybody and their mama to vote.

Join us with Jim Hightower and former Iraqi Ambassador and whistleblower Joe Wilson, next Thursday, September 25, 2003 on campus at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor at The Power Center. We are collaborating with Rock the Vote, the Apollo Alliance, PIRGIM, and the UMICH Student Assembly.

Admission: Voter Registration or proof of voter registration or bring somebody who needs to register to vote. Nobody will be turned away due to disenfranchisement (citizen or legal record).
» For more information contact Elisabeth Daley at eldaley@umich.edu.
posted by Andy | link |   | |

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Monday, September 22, 2003

NEWS FLASH: Bill O'Reilly is an asshole!

I've gone and gotten into another online fight with someone whose co-pilot is Bill O'Reilly. I don't know why I do this to myself. He's on a big anti-ACLU kick now (and, surprise surprise, not even representing the facts of the cases accurately). So I wrote the Main Man (i.e., demagogic turd) himself:
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 09:01:44 -0400
From: xxxxx@xxxx.xxx
To: oreilly@foxnews.com
Subject: BSA + God


Mr. Bill,
If the Boy Scouts aren't a religious organization, well, they're not NOT a religious organization either, or else they wouldn't have ejected the atheist Eagle Scout. If you think someone can't be a good citizen without God, you should get out more often. Another hint: follow the money (most of BSA's funding comes from churches).

http://www.valleyskeptic.com/bsa.html

Andy Xxxxx
Ypsilanti, MI


He can sooo kiss my ass.
posted by Andy | link |   | |

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Sunday, September 21, 2003

"Antisemite!"

It's about time that someone-- in this case Counterpunch's Alexander Cockburn and a host of contributors-- took a prolonged and very public look at the gnarly practice of automatically branding Israel's critics as anti-Semites. It happened to me once when the Iraq war was looming, on a stupid mailing list for a band, and it's such transparent bullshit.
posted by Andy | link |   | |

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Friday, September 19, 2003

Zingerman's Roadhouse opens with some difficulties

Meanwhile, Eric has eaten about a third of his burger, when he arrives at the center of the patty (ordered medium rare) and discovers that it is still raw.
But they do have chili rellenos-- Cyndy's favorite!
posted by Andy | link |   | |


The Beatles' "Let It Be" naked

What's that? You say you never liked Phil Spector's work on this classic album? Well, you're in luck!
posted by Andy | link |   | |

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Thursday, September 18, 2003

Michael Moore's letter to General Clark

A Citizen's Appeal to a General in a Time of War (at Home)

September 12, 2003


Dear General Wesley Clark,

I've been meaning to write to you for some time. Two days after the Oscars, when I felt very alone and somewhat frightened by the level of hatred toward me for daring to suggest that we were being led into war for "fictitious reasons," one person stuck his neck out and came to my defense on national television.

And that person was you.

Aaron Brown had just finished interviewing me by satellite on CNN, and I had made a crack about me being "the only non-general allowed on CNN all week." He ended the interview and then turned to you, as you were sitting at the desk with him. He asked you what you thought of this crazy guy, Michael Moore. And, although we were still in Week 1 of the war, you boldly said that my dissent was necessary and welcome, and you pointed out that I was against Bush and his "policies," not the kids in the service. I sat in Flint, Mich., with the earpiece still in my ear and I was floored -- a GENERAL standing up for me and, in effect, for all the millions who were opposed to the war but had been bullied into silence.

Since that night, I have spent a lot of time checking you out. And what I've learned about you corresponds to my experience with you back in March. You seem to be a man of integrity. You seem not afraid to speak the truth. I liked your answer when you were asked your position on gun control: "If you are the type of person who likes assault weapons, there is a place for you -- the United States Army. We have them."

In addition to being first in your class at West Point, a four-star general from Arkansas, and the former supreme commander of NATO -- enough right there that should give pause to any peace-loving person -- I have discovered that ...

1. You oppose the PATRIOT Act and would fight the expansion of its powers.

2. You are firmly pro-choice.

3. You filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in support of the University of Michigan's affirmative action case.

4. You would get rid of the Bush tax "cut" and make the rich pay their fair share.

5. You respect the views of our allies and want to work with them and with the rest of the international community.

6. And you oppose war. You have said that war should always be the "last resort" and that it is military men such as yourself who are the most for peace because it is YOU and your soldiers who have to do the dying. You find something unsettling about a commander in chief who dons a flight suit and pretends to be Top Gun, a stunt that dishonored those who have died in that flight suit in the service of their country.

General Clark, last night I finally got to meet you in person. I would like to share with others what I said to you privately: You may be the person who can defeat George W. Bush in next year's election.

This is not an endorsement. For me, it's too early for that. I have liked Howard Dean (in spite of his flawed positions in support of some capital punishment, his grade "A" rating from the NRA, and his opposition to cutting the Pentagon budget). And Dennis Kucinich is so committed to all the right stuff. We need candidates in this race who will say the things that need to be said, to push the pathetically lame Democratic Party into having a backbone -- or get out of the way and let us have a REAL second party on the ballot.

But right now, for the sake and survival of our very country, we need someone who is going to get the job done, period. And that job, no matter whom I speak to across America -- be they leftie Green or conservative Democrat, and even many disgusted Republicans -- EVERYONE is of one mind as to what that job is:

Bush must go.

This is war, General, and it's Bush & Co.'s war on us. It's their war on the middle class, the poor, the environment, their war on women and their war against anyone around the world who doesn't accept total American domination. Yes, it's a war -- and we, the people, need a general to beat back those who have abused our Constitution and our basic sense of decency.

The General vs. the Texas Air National Guard deserter! I want to see that debate, and I know who the winner is going to be.

The other night, when you were on Bill Maher's show, he began by reading to you a quote from Howard Dean where he (Dean) tried to run away from the word "liberal." Maher said to you, so, General, do you want to run away from that word? Without missing a beat, you said "No!" and you reminded everyone that America was founded as a "liberal democracy." The audience went wild with applause.

That is what we have needed for a long time on our side -- guts. I am sure there are things you and I don't see eye to eye on, but now is the time for all good people from the far left to the middle of the road to bury the damn hatchet and get together behind someone who is not only good on the issues but can beat George W. Bush. And where I come from in the Midwest, General, I know you are the kind of candidate that the average American will vote for.

Michael Moore likes a general? I never thought I'd write these words. But desperate times call for desperate measures. I want to know more about you. I want your voice heard. I would like to see you in these debates. Then let the chips fall where they may -- and we'll all have a better idea of what to do. If you sit it out, then I think we all know what we are left with.

I am asking everyone I know to send an e-mail to you now to encourage you to run, even if they aren't sure they would vote for you. (Wesley Clark's e-mail address is: info@leadershipforamerica.org.) None of us truly know how we will vote five months from now or a year from now. But we do know that this race needs a jolt -- and Bush needs to know that there is one person he won't be able to Dukakisize.

Take the plunge, General Clark. At the very least, the nation needs to hear what you know about what was really behind this invasion of Iraq and your fresh ideas of how we can live in a more peaceful world. Yes, your country needs you to perform one more act of brave service -- to help defeat an enemy from within, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, an address that used to belong to "we, the people."

Yours,

Michael Moore
Lottery # 275, U.S. military draft, 1972
Conscientious Objector applicant
mmflint@aol.com
posted by Andy | link |   | |

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Wednesday, September 17, 2003

We Are Not Alone

Interesting, I was poking around the web for Detroit broadcast and print outlets I could inform about the below Salon.com article (which I duly mailed off to a handful of them), when I found this online petition from people who've evidently noticed a similar pattern in our media as I did. That feels nice.
posted by Andy | link |   | |

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Tuesday, September 16, 2003

Speaking of Ecstasy

requires subscription or a few clicks thru ads
"In one of the more embarrassing moments in drug research history, a study that "proved" how dangerous Ecstasy is was retracted after its authors realized they actually gave monkeys speed."
You just know the gummint was behind this propaganda! I've noticed a disturbing trend on the local news programs in Detroit where they always use the exact phrase "the dangerous drug Ecstasy"-- the conspiracy-minded might think they were getting paid every time they say it, as a rat pushes the button for a pellet of food.
posted by Andy | link |   | |


Todos somos Lee!

Good bunch of articles about the WTO meeting in Cancun here.
With the black blocks providing security from the provocateurs, and cordoning off the first 10 meters in front of the wire walls, more than a hundred women went forward with bolt cutters and began dismantling the walls, bit by bit. What a diversity of women it was! Indigenous women, punks, students, old women, young women, Mexican women, American and European women, African women. Once the wall was weakened, the Koreans supervised the attachment of 50 meter long, 4 inch circumference ropes to the top of the walls. Then thousands of people of all nations, races and cultures, punks, black blocks, peasants, etc., together pulled the walls down. Quite literally, the power of the people, united, pulled down the walls of the WTO
posted by Andy | link |   | |

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Monday, September 15, 2003

pics of Burning Man 2003

My brother went for the first time this year. He had fun handing out little Fimo-clay CatBots of his own creation, but didn't follow my advice and do some ecstasy.
posted by Andy | link |   | |

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Sunday, September 14, 2003

Mozilla is your friend

Screw those other browsers!
posted by Andy | link |   | |

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Saturday, September 13, 2003

If I had a song that could dissolve you like SLEEP

I've been offered a dayshift position and I am utterly conflicted about whether to take it. One of my biggest complaints about my current Midnight Shift situation is poor sleep. But I don't think I want to deal with all those population pressures (yes, that means most of YOU, day-dwellers).
posted by Andy | link |   | |


Random advice

Bookmark to get a fresh new Oblique Strategy for each and every day!
posted by Andy | link |   | |

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Friday, September 12, 2003

Kucininch on Israel-Palestine

I'm sorry, since when did 'even-handed' come to have negative connotations? Was I out sick that day?
posted by Andy | link |   | |


Suzanne Somers is fine!

and did you know the late John Ritter's late father was singing cowboy Tex Ritter?
posted by Andy | link |   | |


Hello, I Was Johnny Cash

CRY CRY CRY
Written by: Johnny Cash

Everybody knows where you go when the sun goes down
I think you only live to see the lights uptown
I wasted my time when I would try, try, try
'Cause when the lights have lost their glow

You'll Cry, Cry, Cry
posted by Andy | link |   | |

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Wednesday, September 10, 2003

"I Like to Watch"

here's a ridiculous yet artistically coherent music video concerning media saturation-- and masturbation to hardcore porn. watch this if only in order to inoculate yourself against all the smaltzy propaganda on teevee this week.
posted by Andy | link |   | |


music and terror for your 9-11 party

See the 2 links on this page to relive Sept *12*, 2001, via the magic of archived RealAudio and the beautiful folks at the NY/NJ freeform radio station WFMU. In many ways I hate my country and my government (I still think the Pentagon getting hit was the height of hilarity), but I've been very emotional since that day, sometimes on the verge of tears for no good reason.
posted by Andy | link |   | |


Cremaster

hey, is this thing on? testing 1-2-3
posted by Andy | link |   | |

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Tuesday, September 09, 2003

Taking a Hike

 
Time for me to take a hike. You may see some updates here from a friend of mine, Andy. If he shows up, he has my permission to be as random as he wishes. I hope he does. This weblog could stand some fresh perspective.
Go for it! Back in a couple weeks.

posted by Cyndy | link |   | |


RIP Ian MacDonald

 
Nick Drake: Exiled From Heaven
written by Ian MacDonald
Revolution In The Head was the product of a lengthy period spent living away from London, and its success encouraged him to write for a new generation of music magazines. His exacting, trenchant and sometimes very funny essays appeared first in Mojo and then in Uncut; a collection of them was published earlier this year under the title The People's Music.

The climax of the anthology is a lengthy meditation on the life and work of Nick Drake, the precociously gifted singer-songwriter whom MacDonald had encountered at Cambridge and who committed suicide in 1974, when still in his mid-twenties. Written with an intensity that at times overwhelms its ostensible subject, it can now be seen to have provided clues to MacDonald's own lengthy struggle with profound depression. "Can it be," he asks, apropos of Drake's preoccupation with spiritual transcendence, "that the materialist worldview, in which there is no intrinsic meaning, is slowly murdering our souls?" The decision to commit suicide, at his home in Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, indicates that he had drawn his own conclusion. [ entire obituary ]

posted by Cyndy | link |   | |

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Monday, September 08, 2003

The War in Iraq is Not Over and Neither Are the Lies to Justify It

Point by point excerpts of the speech.
It is disturbing that President Bush has once again tried to link the very real threat to American security from mega-terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda to phony threats originating in Iraq. Not only does he try to link the terrorism that has grown out of the post-invasion chaos in Iraq to the devastating Al-Qaeda attacks on the United States two years ago, President Bush has depicted all the current violence against Americans and other foreigners in Iraq as part of this terrorist threat. more
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |


Warren Zevon's Final Cut

Warren Zevon, a restless, sardonic bard who embodied the dark edge and excess of the famed singer-songwriter scene in 1970s Southern California, died after a battle with lung cancer. He was 56.
``I feel the opposite of regret,'' he said then. ``I was the hardest-living rocker on my block for a while. I was a malfunctioning rummy for a while and running away for a while. Then for 18 years I was a sober dad of some amazing kids. Hey, I feel like I've lived a couple of lives -- and now when people listen to the music they'll say, `Hey maybe the guy wasn't being so morbid after all.' ''

Zevon spent much of his time during his illness doting on family and working in a home studio on a new album, ``The Wind.''
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |


Campaign Embeds

MSNBC’s Karin Caifa is embedded with the presidential campaign of U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich. Read her ongoing coverage at California Countdown
found via Muslims for Kucinich Blogroll both for the best Kucinich information.
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |

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Sunday, September 07, 2003

Evolutionary Politics and the Promise of Peace

An Interview with Congressman Dennis Kucinich
by K. Lauren de Boer
"Evolutionary politics will confront the chaos of the moment, a chaos which is driven by fear, control, and power; and by fragmentation, secrecy, isolation, alienation, and mistrust. That system cannot stand. It’s falling apart. We’re not seeing the beginning of some new empire, because that’s ridiculous. This chaos will yield to harmony...as we move forward in evolving our politics."

...LdB: You talk frequently about our interconnectedness. What about our connection to the non-human? I’d like to draw on cultural historian Thomas Berry. He writes that one major difficulty with the U.S. Constitution was that it was written with rights attributed solely to the human, and not to the non-human. Berry also writes about Pax Gaia, peace for all beings, as opposed to Pax Romana, or Pax Americana.

DK: I think there’s a misinterpretation of theology when it talks about the human bringing the Earth into subjection. We’re to come into harmony with nature, not to dominate it, because in dominating it, we separate ourselves from nature. To achieve harmony with the Earth is to live in grace and freedom. Chief Seattle said "the Earth doesn’t belong to us, we belong to the Earth." Peace for all living beings, for the biosphere is our inalienable right
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |




Why do 70% of Americans still think that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11 terrorist attacks?
The Washington Post provides a page of comments from Bush Administration officials linking Saddam Hussein to September 11 and, although the Bush administration denies having drawn any connection, somehow 'September 11, terrorism, and Iraq' invariably end up in the same sentence whenever Bush opens his mouth.
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |


Aldous Huxley's World

The satirist as mystic
Writing in the late 1940s, Huxley described radio as "nothing but a conduit through which prefabricated din can flow into our homes--a Babel of distractions." He added that advertising is "the organized effort to extend and intensify craving--to extend and intensify, that is to say, the workings of that force, which (as all the saints and teachers of all the higher religions have always taught) is the principal cause of suffering and wrong doing and the greatest obstacle between the human soul and its divine ground."

...Huxley's attraction to mysticism isn't really surprising; he was, after all, cerebral, introverted, and quite blind--already, by temperament and physical fact, withdrawn from the world. And unlike Thomas Huxley or Matthew Arnold, he found it nearly impossible to articulate any real hope for the future of humankind. Huxley had no more hope in democracy than in organized religion--and only a very guarded belief in the redemptive powers of science. Revealingly, in one late interview, he called Zen "just the sort of inward turning which makes for cushioning an otherwise intolerable existence."


...in the final year of his life, Huxley offered words simple enough that even half-wits could understand. "It is a bit embarrassing," he admitted to a lecture audience, "to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and to find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than 'Try to be a little kinder.'" [ more ]
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |


When The Big Lie Prevails, Crime Pays

The 9/11 murderers were Americans, and they likely won't be caught
When reality becomes too shocking for us to confront, we invent fantasies to keep us from freaking out and going catatonic. Like the fear of our own impending deaths: too scary to comprehend directly, we invent gods and angels and sundry fantasy processes to convince ourselves we don't really die, because that stark inevitability would paralyze us with abject depression if we dwelled on it too long.

So it is with those indelibly etched images of silhouetted matchstick figures falling from skyscrapers on a warm September morning in 2001. You see them, you know it happened, yet you still can't believe they're real. In this waking nightmare that life in America has become, you avert your gaze and return to the mundane reality you have constructed for yourself, and utilize all sorts of fantastic rationalizations to convince yourself that all is well and you'll still wake up in the morning as though nothing has changed.

I know some of you think I'm reaching but I have questions that won't go away. My initial reaction compels me to ask. Read more explore his site and read his book if you have questions too.

Related:

9/11 'may have been allowed to happen'

This war on terrorism is bogus

Meacher sparks fury over claims on September 11 and Iraq war
Michael Meacher, who served as a minister for six years until three months ago, today goes further than any other mainstream British politician in blaming the Iraq war on a US desire for domination of the Gulf and the world.

Sept 11 theorists to meet in Berlin
Writers and activists who believe the United States government is hiding the truth about the September 11 attacks will hold a conference in Berlin this Sunday, organisers announced.
via | New World Disorder
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |

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Saturday, September 06, 2003

Midge Miller: Kucinich's record shows he's an antidote to Bush

Midge Miller of Madison is a former Wisconsin state legislator who played a critical role in organizing the insurgent anti-war presidential campaign of former U.S. Sen. Eugene McCarthy in 1968. She has been active in every presidential campaign since then.
... Many people measure candidates by their campaign war chests, their oratory or their political allies. In the long run, there are three important things we as voters need to know about a candidate. Are their policies right for the country? Do they have the integrity to really pursue those policies, if elected? Are their policies consistent with what they have been doing?

After watching and reading about the Democratic candidates for president, I find that Congressman Dennis Kucinich has the best grasp of the situation we are facing as a nation. For almost every issue I care about, Kucinich has a well-thought-out policy that is consistent with the courageous work he has been doing for years as co-chairman of the Progressive Caucus in Congress.

...The imperialistic ambitions of this administration are destroying the best efforts of both parties and most countries for over half a century to contain the nuclear threat, promote treaties and build international institutions to help the world live in peace. It is not enough just to be against the Iraq war now that we know Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction. Kucinich rejects Bush's aggressive pursuit of military dominance. He will move us once again to be a trusted partner in the family of nations. Kucinich has long promoted a Department of Peace and led 125 of his congressional colleagues to vote against the Iraq war. [ read it all ]



posted by Cyndy | link |   | |

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Friday, September 05, 2003

The F Scale

Fifty years ago, the Authoritarian Personality studies attempted to "construct an instrument that would yield an estimate of fascist receptivity at the personality level."

This online, interactive F Scale presents that instrument in its final form. Additional infomation, including an explanation of the personality variables the F Scale tries to measure, is given below after the questionnaire. So take the F Scale now --- and enjoy!
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |


10 questions for Howard Dean

1. Why did you support sending Vermont's nuclear waste to the poor,
mostly Hispanic town of Sierra Blanca, Texas, 16 miles from the
Mexican border -- a plan described as "blatant environmental racism"
by Paul Wellstone?

2. Why did the Dean administration increase funding for Vermont's
state colleges by only 7% while you increased funding for prisons by
150%?

3. Why did IBM, the leading polluter in Vermont, receive your
Environmental Achievement Award nine times?

4. What did you mean when you said, "I've had 40 or 45 private
meetings with IBM since I've been governor. And IBM has gotten
pretty much everything they've asked for"?

6. Why did you wait for the courts and legislature to bring about
the civil union bill before you supported it? Why did you sign the bill
in private when you finally did sign it?

7. Why do you oppose the Israeli Labor Party candidate for prime
minister Amram Mitzna's call for unconditional peace talks with the
Palestinians?

8. While you acknowledge that you "haven't condemned Congress for
passing the Patriot Act," Bernie Sanders from your own state of
Vermont is leading efforts in Congress to overturn the Act. Why are
you not supporting Bernie Sanders' efforts and condemning Congress
for its attack on civil liberties?

9. How do you respond to Annette Smith of Vermonters of a Clean
Environment who says: "Dean's attempt to run for president as an
environmentalist is nothing but a fraud. He's destroyed the Agency
of Natural Resources, he's refused to meet with environmentalists while
constantly meeting with developers, and he's made the permitting
process one, big dysfunctional joke. EP under Governor Dean meant
Expedite Permits, not Environmental Protection"?

10. Since you pride yourself on your "fiscal responsibility", why do
you refuse to even consider any decreases in the bloated Pentagon
budget?
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |


Mixing bugs and bombs

For months, U.S. and coalition forces have scoured Iraq searching for biological weapons and the labs that might have made them; the possibility of these labs’ existence led broadcasts around the world.

Meanwhile, in the United States, with very little media attention or public discussion, the Bush administration is quietly pursuing plans to build biowarfare agent facilities of its own. The new labs will handle, modify, and experiment with some of the most harmful agents known to humanity, including live anthrax, plague, Q fever, and botulism.

But what should be even more controversial is where some of these biofacilities are being built: at nuclear weapons design sites -- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

Proponents say the new facilities will improve U.S. biodefense. But mixing biowarfare research and nuclear weapons design might not be such a good idea; it could not only be dangerous for the communities near the labs, but could also ultimately undermine global security.

And considering the seriously troubled security and safety histories both Livermore and Los Alamos have had, is it really wise to give the labs the added responsibilities of advanced bioresearch facilities? [ please continue reading ]
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |

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Wednesday, September 03, 2003

Windows XP - Home User Self-Defence

posted by Cyndy | link |   | |


New Directions

The are some new strands of fiber in this vast web of innovation, far from routine, far from boredom. Two special places that are exploring new directions are an inspiration and a turn from the mundane. I know I've been examining my direction and the fiber that this weblog consists of. I'm still in limbo but I find some inspiration in Brian Flemming's creativity and fair and balanced resolve.
See how he's using the web. It's working!

I also find inspiration and hope with the new collaborative weblog Open Source Politics Some of the best progressive political writers contribute. Sharp design. Explore the offerings. Different daily categories from worldview to social eyes.

The new fiber of revolution. Creative revolution.
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |

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Monday, September 01, 2003

A conversation with my dad Tony Hillerman

 
This will probably only be at this link for a very short while.
Story by Anne Hillerman
Photography by Steve Larese
(As published in the July 2003
issue of New Mexico Magazine)

It's a warm, blue-sky day in March. The air in Albuquerque's North Valley is lush with spring smells.

Dad, Tony Hillerman, waits in his office, looking comfortable in one of those soft knit shirts he loves. His roll-top desk, where I remember him at a manual typewriter, sits against one wall. He's been writing mysteries for more than 40 years now. Before that he wrote letters home from World War II, advertising copy for Purina, news stories, magazine articles and whatever else paid enough to support our growing family. He came to New Mexico with United Press International, worked at the Santa Fe New Mexican and then moved to Albuquerque where he revitalized the University of New Mexico's journalism department before leaving to work on his novels full time. [read the conversation]
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |


DMT, Moses, and the Quest for Transcendence

When I asked Rick Strassman, M.D., author of DMT: The Spirit Molecule, about my theory, he responded: I'm not familiar with a specific theory that we made more DMT in the old days than now. But, are you familiar with Jaynes' idea of the bicameral mind--that people routinely hallucinated until the connections between our hemispheres got evolved out for whatever reason? I don't think hemispheric connections would support his idea as much as might higher levels of endogenous DMT. If indeed we made more DMT in the past, this may have to do with the increase in artificial light that has come upon us in the last 1000 years or so.
via TechnoShamanic
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |


Is 9/11 and Bush's "War on Terror" a Psychic Trigger for a Quantum Leap in Human Consciousness?

...This would suggest that we are in the midst of a pivotal human evolutionary moment, equal to that of earlier critical points such as the shift from hunter-gatherer to agriculturalist some 8 or 9 thousand years ago. That the U.S. "war on terror" may in fact be seen as directly aimed at assuring access to the remainder of dwindling oil resources relating to our entire way of life may trigger an awakening about urgent need for a huge shift in thinking. One might conclude in a fairly short time span of intensive discernment that a radically changed life where less is seen as more may be the necessary survival response. The concocted "war on terror" may be recognized as one aimed at achieving world hegemony to extend our way of life for a little longer, with the realization, however, that, once those resources have run out, never again will we be able to live the way we have grown up believing in.

Thus, in a short period of time, massive numbers of people could conceivably choose to withdraw their support from a political and economic system, and its plutocratic structures, seen now as one destined to doom humans and other living things to unprecedented extreme danger, even possibly extinction. In the alternative, people could choose to actively participate in a worldwide effort to identify and begin experimenting with truly sustainable steady-state economies, manifesting in federations of bioregions where the carrying capacity of Mother Nature would determine and be inextricably intertwined with human values and lifestyles
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |


Not just warmer: it's the hottest for 2,000 years

found via lean left
The earth is warmer now than it has been at any time in the past 2,000 years, the most comprehensive study of climatic history has revealed.

Confirming the worst fears of environmental scientists, the newly published findings are a blow to sceptics who maintain that global warming is part of the natural climatic cycle rather than a consequence of human industrial activity.

..."The importance of the finding is that it shows there's something going on in the climate system that's certainly unusual in the context of the last 2,000 years, and it's likely that greenhouse gases are playing the major role," said Prof Chris Folland of the Met Office's Hadley Centre. "If you look at the natural ups and downs in temperature, you'll find nothing remotely like what we're seeing now."
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |


Hard Talk On Labor Day

by William Rivers Pitt
Some will argue that George W. Bush is a great leader. I would argue that he is a symbol, in more ways than one. As a leader he is literally symbolic, a figurehead. Symbols are important. He is a symbol of what happens when workers stop believing that they have a say in their rights as workers. When that happens, guys like this find themselves able to run the show. And let's face it, ladies and gentlemen: The incredible mess this Iraq war is, and is turning into, is nothing more or less than a prime example of what you get when you put the boss' son in charge of the production lines.

It is all well and good for Mr. Bush to praise the greatness of the American worker. But it behooves us to look long and hard at how the American worker has fared under his administration, and to talk long and hard about what that record means to us, and to this country.

So let's talk hard.
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |

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