KIDS ARE HEROES

Just when I think my fellow Americans can sink no lower and I despair for what my grandchildren will have to endure in this country, I stumble across something that helps restore my faith in the next generation being not only capable but eager to make their world a better place.

I’d like you to meet MaryMargaret who, with a little help from her Dad, created this website, Kids Are Heroes, in order to showcase kids with a mission. Here, in part, is what MaryMargaret has to say:
“Hey there! My name is MaryMargaret and I am 10 years old. Welcome to my web site!! I created this site (with some help from my dad) because we thought that this will help people to help others and cute animals too!! We get to meet all kinds of great kids that are doing wonderful things and inspiring more kids to get involved.

MaryMargaret has been involved in helping animals, running a lemonade stand for a kids cancer camp, had a sleepover and collected pjs and slippers for a local charity and has been involved in getting cell phones for soldiers. Now, keep in mind, MaryMargaret is 10 years old!

Kayleigh Crimmins spent some time watching K-9 training with her policeman father. While there she learned that not all the dogs had ballistic vests because they were so expensive. So this feisty little hero set out to earn money so all the police dogs could have vests. She was 6 years old. To date, she has bought four vests and 1 heat alarm/door popper for the K-9 unit by selling her toys, collecting donations, selling t-shirts and gathering aluminum cans. Think maybe we’ll be voting for her for president someday?

Cati has bravely taken on a serious situation teens all too often the victims of; cyber bullying. After being a victim of cyber bullying herself and then the tragic death of Megan Meier, Cati started a website to help teens and parents battle this deadly social disease. Cati has also started a club at her school open to any student that takes a pledge not to cyber bully. With 60 members, her’s is the largest club in the school.

James Brooks' passion is to help endangered apes and empower children to make a difference. Since he was 8 years old (2004), James has been raising funds by asking for donations in lieu of gifts for holidays and dozens of other activities and has donated $1000's of dollars to ape conservation. He wrote and maintains "apeaware.org" to “inform people about apes and help save apes” and in fall 2008 launched a project to help give impoverished African widows an income, feed malnourished children, protect endangered gorillas, and save valuable rain forest while teaching, inspiring, and motivating thousands of children.

Nine year old Tyler Page watched an episode of Oprah with his mother about children who were being sold by their parents into slavery for as little as $20. Once sold these children were forced to fish 14 hours a day with only one meal a day. When he found out that $240 would keep one child out of slavery for a year, Tyler asked his mother if he could have a fund raiser. He and his friends held a car wash and raised $1200! Since then Tyler has continued to hold fundraisers and started a non-profit organization called Kids Helping Kids Leadership Academy, Inc. He set a $50,000 goal which he surpassed in just 17 months.

These are only a few of the stories found at Kids Are Heroes and you should click on over there and read some for yourself. Want to make a REAL difference in our world? Pick one of these kids and their project and donate or just give them a little encouragement.

If these children are any indication of the future, then I am not afraid!

Peace & Love, Rocky

Rape, racism and Republicans

A friend of mine used to have the job, back during the Vietnam war, of flying a helicopter over dangerous areas so as to draw fire from hidden gun emplacements, flushing out the enemy so that we knew where they were. Barak Obama has been a bit like that and sad to say, I've now identified far too many enemies, some that I thought were friends.

I got another e-mail this morning, from someone I would hardly call a redneck: a northeasterner, ex military intelligence with a long career at the Pentagon. "I despair for the country" was the title and it had a link to a YouTube video wherein the President confesses to being a Muslim. It's an obvious cut and paste job that wouldn't fool anyone who didn't want to be fooled -- and there's the rub. Too many want to be fooled and bask like pigs in the warm and stinky deception. The hate and fear of our President long preceded his election and for some it preceded his birth. The closeted racists of America desperately need such insultingly stupid stories as a defense against the obviously true accusations of racism.

I grew up in the 1950's and I'm no stranger to segregation or blood in the streets for that matter, but still I'm amazed at the breadth and depth of the long concealed and highly fermented racial and ethnic hatred that's been lurking in the jungle and is emerging like tracer bullets whose dotted line shows the way, right to their source.

I can't count the outraged e-mails and comments I've seen about the recent California schoolyard rape, which of course has allowed the haters to vent their paranoid fear and loathing of Hispanics. It was of course a Hispanic girl who reported it, not a "regular" American as Archie Bunker would have said, but no matter. Hate has its own sort of statistics and only needs an example to declare it "typical." Indeed, it doesn't even have to be true if you have even a mediocre shareware video editing program.

In its own way, this sick and disgusting incident seems not to be out of context of what is happening in many disparate groups, even of white, Anglo-Saxon protestants, marching in the streets for lower taxes as though Obama had actually raised them; showing pictures of Nazi death camps as though any sane person connects piles of murdered bodies to a government administered health plan -- the people who call the Democratic health care bill "Obamacare" but never think to call Social Security Roosevelt Retirement or identified the GI bill with Communism or call the public library the Socialist Book Store -- or identify the recession with Republican economic policies. These things and more are part of the Us against Them view where the government is "them," the 15% fringe element and the corporate lobbyists are "We the people," the government is the enemy and only illegitimately exercised authority is legitimate.

The twenty or so witnesses to this crime, if they had any compassion at all, were prevented by the entertainment value and hatred of police and the Maverick mentality from doing anything or reporting anything. The criminals are The People, the cops are not and the law is the enemy because it interferes with our freedom to commit crimes ad libidum. Is that really different from not caring how many innocents are killed abroad in a war started and continued under false pretenses and appeals to fear and patriotism? Is that different from not giving a flying damn how many millions die, how many sick children clog the emergency rooms and drive up the cost of insurance and spread disease, or how many lives are ruined by insurance companies? Its them against us and 'them' are the unfortunate, the minorities, the sick the old and unemployed. Who wants the damned law and the government to help them even if it protects us too?

Perhaps you find the connection tenuous or even far-fetched, but I don't. There is no "us" in the US any more unless it's in the context of us against them and that miserable, militant and malicious group who flatter themselves with the stolen title of 'Conservative' are as much to blame as anyone for the rape that is our for-profit, cartel run health "system." Anyone who brings the government in is a "snitch."

Oh no, it's those liberals who insist any criticism of the President is racist and we're not racist at all - it's just that he's a foreign born, Marxistnaziterroristracist who "hates white culture" (whatever the hell that is) and murdered his grandmother and wants to murder yours. It's because he's trying to reconstitute the Auschwitz death camp by giving us health insurance, not because he's a Ni - I mean black.

Hey, we're not responsible for not reporting a vicious and nearly fatal rape, it's because we can't trust the cops, the cops are the problem, the government is the problem and we want less government, you know.

DISGUST

Sign seen at the fake grass roots anti-health care protest in Washington DC.

[I  had intended to insert a photo here of the sign carried by the phoney protesters in DC, but I will not further stain the memory of the human beings depicted in it by placing it here on my nor on The Swash Zone.  If you don't know what I refer to, go to the Huffington Post where it is documented.]



They've gone too far.

When will decent people rise up and tell these brainless mobs that comparing health care reform and President Obama to the slaughter of millions of Jews is indecent, inhumane, and unacceptable?

More important, Congressional Republicans took part in the protest and not one had the moral courage to condemn the slur committed on the memory of the Holocaust.

I don't watch FOX, listen to Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, or Malkin, so I don't know if any of those self-absorbed rabble rousers denounced the sign.  But I'm guessing none of them did, because feeding into the murderous rage of phoney grass roots imbeciles attracts more imbeciles to their audiences, and that means more dollars in the bank for them.

Cynical heartless bastards.  All of them.

Eight years ago, during a trip to Germany, I visited Dachau.  The stark horror of what that place represents has stayed with me since then.  If I remember correctly, after the war, the people of Dachau were given the chance to rename their city, for obvious reasons, but instead chose to keep it.  And they were correct to do so.  We cannot remove the monstrous history of that place and all the other camps where men, women, and children suffered and died just by changing a word.  Nor should we ever allow the memory of the horrors committed there to be appropriated by mindless fools who have no sense of decency or human empathy for what the signs they carried represent.

We as a nation have reached yet another new low in our political discourse.

Today I am ashamed to be an American.

A good cop.

Ocotopus was kind enough to offer me the opportunity to cross-post this (from my blog). Thanks for taking the time to read it.

A good cop

I have mentioned to a few folks that I was going to put up a blogpost about an issue that I feel is important. That it involves a young man I've know for his entire life, the son of one of my best friends makes it much more personal than most of the things that I talk about here.

I've known Brad Jardis' dad about 40 years, and I've known Brad's mom for something like 35 years. I have known Brad Jardis since he was a very young boy. In the time that I have known Brad he has gone from being a curious and very determined child to a smart, hard working, honest and very courageous cop. He's a good son, from a good family, who has always acted as a professional in his LE capacity and who has always been cognizant of the fact that he is first and foremost an officer of the LAW.

Brad has been a police officer since he was eighteen years old. He graduated the NH State Police Academy before he was 19. He has served ably and honorably on three different departments. In the ten years that he has been a uniformed officer Brad has worked his share of petty and major crimes, domestic disturbances and drug busts. He has also volunteered his time as a counsellor for crime victims.

Brad is currently at loggerheads with his employer, the Epping, NH PD because of his integrity, honesty and outspokeness. He is a member of LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) an organization that is made up of law enforcement professionals who believe that the current policies of most law enforcement agencies, re: criminalization and prosecution of drug use is misguided and counter productive. His public stance on this issue is amply documented and it is a major reason, if not THE reason, that his employer is attempting to deprive him of his livelihood and his good reputation. Suffice to say that Brad is being "railroaded" by his department and his union. The charges are trumped up and Brad is fighting them. As is usually the case with fighting city hall, they don't bother to post the rules in a concise and clear way, so that gets added into the mix.

Following the links at the bottom will allow you to familiarize yourself with the situation.

Brad is a bright, energetic and earnest young man. He and I have had some fairly "energetic" discussions in the area of politics. We don't always agree, but we always respect one another's viewpoint. His positions are never based on anything but logic and his reading of the U.S. constitution and the laws of the United States. He's the only guy I ever met who actually keeps a copy of the constitution on his Blackberry. More to the point, he understands it as well as--and often better than--many people who are older and have made the study of that document a passion of their lives. I have suggested to Brad that going back to school and working toward a degree in law would be a great way to channel his energy and passion about justice. Whether he ultimately remains as a police officer or moves on to another career, he has my total support as my friend and my "nephew".

I would be quite happy if any of my readers want to take this post and re-post it. It would be a nice if it went viral and brought the sort of attention to his employers that they are most certainly trying to avoid.


Links:

http://www.theunionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Epping+officer+suspended%2C+alleges+harassment&articleId=8738624e-5502-4f5e-9bb3-0bc45f22549b

http://gamma.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Selectmen+deny+Epping+officer%27s+bid+for+public+hearing&articleId=e99f3b6d-556a-4a1b-9e1b-890912a46d06

http://copssaylegalize.blogspot.com/2009/10/leap-speaker-in-nh-legal-battle.html

http://freekeene.com/2009/10/30/free-keene-hits-the-raw-story-via-heroic-cop-brad-jardis/

http://rawstory.com/2009/10/claim-cop-turfed-pot-legalization/

http://www.theunionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Wrongful+death+suit+to+go+forward&articleId=89ae4274-a613-421f-a106-fa3fad3486e9

http://forum.freekeene.com/index.php?topic=1786.msg21054#msg21054

(O)CT(O)PUS IS PISSED!

Notice this poster that equates Holocaust victims with national healthcare reform. Protestors displayed this poster today at a rally near the Capital steps, an event sponsored and organized by House Republicans. More than tasteless hyperbole, it goes far beyond all boundaries of civility and decorum. It is obscene to exploit the Holocaust to score a political point, and it offends me to the core! There are times when a non-violent Octopus would like to smack a tea bagger, and this is the time!

Here are the names of House Republicans sponsoring this insult:

Minority Leader John Boehner (OH), Minority Whip Eric Cantor (VA), Roy Blunt (MO), Jeb Hensarling (TX), Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA), Michele Bachmann (MN) -- a key organizer of the event, Virginia Foxx (NC), Ginny Brown-Waite (FL), Jean Schmidt (OH), Sue Myrick (NC), among others.

One would think Eric Cantor, the only Jewish Republican in the U.S. Congress, would have shown better judgment than to associate with such shameful imagery. Noo! How do you spell s.c.h.m.u.c.k ? If any of these reprobates appear on our beach, drown them at once!

Dick the Impaler

We seem to have forgotten about torture. Comedians and far right shamans still make jokes about how those still left in the cages at Guantanamo are the "worst of the worst." People are heavily against giving them any amenities like flu shots and some have the audacity to say we treat them too well, even though so many of them have never had any case proved against them or have been cleared: so many are guilty of little more than being Muslim or accused of something by an enemy.

That Dick Cheney, the once and in his own mind future Führer pokes fun at the idea that we ever engaged in torturing prisoners and although he's not well liked by any but the most extreme subhumans, he has never suffered any consequences for having directed and promoted things we used to hang people for when I was a boy: kidnapping, torture and murder. Republicans prefer to believe him, many of the rest of us believe so much in our essential virtue that we just don't want to hear any more of it.

It's not that there is no evidence of the Bush Administration's capital crimes, not at all. We have imprisoned and tortured many people with essentially no evidence against them, but there has been a constant flow of increasingly horrible information about kidnapping and the kind of torture even Limbaugh or Dick the Impaler himself couldn't pass off as a frat-boy prank. Crain Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan now tells us, says Raw Story, that the people the CIA sent to secret dungeons there were raped with broken bottles and/or boiled alive until they "admitted" to being affiliated with Al Qaida. Some were forced to watch their children being tortured and all so that the Bush administration could justify destroying Iraq to the eager war lovers back home.

"I'm talking of people being raped with broken bottles,"

he said at a lecture in October that was re-broadcast by the Real News Network.

"I'm talking of people having their children tortured in front of them until they sign a confession. I'm talking of people being boiled alive. And the intelligence from these torture sessions was being received by the CIA, and was being passed on."

I'm not ashamed to say that I'm ashamed of my country. I'm ashamed not so much by the monsters and tyrants and murderers of children some of us still revere as heroes and patriots, but by the way we still support what they did, still can't accept the horror, don't want to be told about it, still want to continue crimes as hideous as any ever committed, because after all, these people are "suspects." These people are "the worst of the worst" whether guilty or not and most of all they aren't Christian, like us. It's not really important anyway, not like gay marriage or insurance company profits or ACORN or tax breaks for Cheney and Bush.

I Want My MSNBC

My local cable monopoly has decided to move MSNBC to a premium level so only the wealthy can afford to watch Maddow dissect right-wing narratives. I've written doggerel for the occasion, set to this tune:

Now look at them yo-yo's that's the way you do it
You play the race card on the Fox TV
That is workin' that's the way we do it
Teabaggers marchin' on Fox TV
Now that is workin' that's the way we do it
Local rednecks, them guys are dumb
Beck can do the wacky on your little wingers
Bill-O gets em twisted up and numb

We gotta install fear of the other
Custom lobby derivatives
We gotta lose these equivocators
We gotta own their colour TV's

See the little maggot with the wiring and the makeup
Yeah buddy that's his own hair
That bigger maggot wants his own pro ball team
And Rupert Murdoch is a billionaire

We gotta instill fear of the other
Custom lobby derivatives
We gotta lose these equivocators
We gotta own their colour TV's

Ailes has learned how to play the race card
Hannity's learned to beat the drums
Look at that blah blah, we got it comin out the camera
Man this is a lotta fun
And he's up there, what's that? Hawaiian noises?
Bangin' public option like a chimpanzee
Call him liar that's the way we do it
Money for nothin' but controversy

We gotta instill fear of the other
Custom lobby derivatives
We gotta lose these equivocators
We gotta own their colour TV's, Lord

Now that ain't workin' that's the way we do it
They call our bullshit on MSNBC
That ain't workin' that's the way we do it
Call up Comcast and move it to pay feed
Money for nothin' but controversy

I want my
I want my
Em-e's-en-bee-cee

Those Swedes!

A few months ago I was watching a travel show on the Travel Channel and they were exploring the food of Sweden. During the course one dinner the host and his guests had a conversation exploring a particular Swedish word: Lagom.

Lagom is a Swedish word with no direct English equivalent, meaning "just the right amount".
The Lexin Swedish-English dictionary defines lagom as "enough, sufficient, adequate, just right". Lagom is also widely translated as "in moderation", "in balance", "optimal", "suitable", and "average".

Of course to most English speaking Americans we really have no way to grasp a concept such as ‘Lagom”. How could anything, that is enough, sufficient, or adequate, be also in balance, suitable, average, or lord forbid, optimal?

To Americans, the concept of “adequate,” ‘sufficient,” or such signifies abstinence, scarcity, or failure. We are a society that is for BIGNESS, DOMINANCE, OVER THE TOP, and WINNER TAKE ALL.

Where we value “more is better” the Swedes obviously value “just enough”: Which probably explains, in a very paradoxical way, why the Swedes and most of the other Nordic countries score so much higher on the various happiness indexes and prosperity indexes.

We get pumped up when someone says, “Drill, Baby Drill” while Lagom would favor a more sustainable alternative. How many cars, televisions, phones, and all the other consumer items would one really need if one appreciated the concept of Lagom?

It isn’t that we have no intellectual history of a concept of balance: Aristotle and his concept of the “golden mean”; where the most desirable path is the one between two extremes because the reality of extremes is that one is of excess and the other is of deficiency.

While we view beauty as an extreme the Greeks believed there to be three 'ingredients' to beauty: symmetry, proportion, and harmony. This triad of principles infused their life. They were very much attuned to beauty as an object of love and something that was to be imitated and reproduced in their lives, architecture, and politics. They judged life by this mentality.

Plastic surgery, drugs, cosmetics, and coaching represent our concept of beauty, just watch the Miss America contest; nothing natural there!

In Chinese philosophy, a similar concept, Doctrine of the Mean, was propounded by Confucius.
We do not want to just exist, or prosper, or be successful but rather as Americans we want to dominate! Secretly we actually glorify that some of us do without because it gives us a sense of superiority.

We have no problem with the fact that our CEO’s pay is hundreds of times more than the lowest paid employee of the same firm. We see nothing wrong with the fact some companies are “Too big to fail” while others are failing on a daily basis. We glorify in the accomplishments of our healthcare system yet we do not find it odd that we have never figured out how to equalize access to these accomplishments.

We suffered more and incurred greater long term damage to our economic system due to the financial meltdown than any other country and we did because our society exhibits the greatest amount of imbalances in just about everything.

On one hand we want to bemoan the growth of government and yet the same people who protest government dominance over their lives are also the ones promoting dominance in every other area of our society: especially in regards to economic and military affairs.
If you find yourself losing your personal freedoms in one area of your life you can pretty much bet that you have lost it in others areas also.

We love our banks big, our Wal-Mart Super Centers, our sports heroes on steroids, our beauty queens with implants, and our aircraft carriers…why not our government?

I also can’t fail to wonder if this is the reason this country is so dependent on anti-depression drugs….because obviously we are lacking balance in everything.

Tales of Hoffman

It's hard to know what to make of Doug Hoffman's defeat last night. After the foam-flecked Glennbeckery, after Sarah's transfusion of roguery by proxy and a million bucks from the Club for Growth, the voters clubbed him with the first Democratic victory in his backwoods Republican bailiwick since the U.S. Grant administration. He had everything going for him but the votes writes Chris Kelly at The Huffington Post.

Everyone seems to want to make yesterday's elections seem like a precursor, an omen and a bad one for Democrats -- at least everyone who gets paid to make a ratings-generating ruckus. I'm not sure what it proves other than that third party candidates have little credibility, have no coat tails to ride on and don't benefit from party loyalty even when the party's big guns are saluting him.

"I believe America is turning the page to a new dawn"

said Hoffman. It's easy to say his metaphors are mixed and I think almost as easy to believe the chances of the Freakazoid Right for a comeback are too.

THE FEMALE PARADOX

This week’s session of the series, “Women on the Evolutionary Edge” continues the discussion with this week’s guest speaker was Zen teacher, Diane Musho Hamilton. She has an impressive list of accomplishments as do all the slated speakers. The topic was about the adaption of women from the more “masculine” aggressive model of the recent past back to a more feminine model. The goal is to create a unique power base embracing both feminine and masculine qualities.

We women are being called to “mother” the earth like we “mother” our children and families. But this is not about stepping away from all we have accomplished but rather to be powerful and active agents of change, moving toward our highest potential while discovering how to be comfortable with our feminine side.

Women need to strive toward a true collaboration with men, fostering a deep mutual respect for our similarities and our differences, allowing for positive advancement.

And while there is a lot of positive energy in these sessions, there is also a need to explore some of the negative aspects that have affected women over the years. Without addressing our failings we cannot hope to move forward into more influential positions worldwide.

And so we must own our reluctance to take full responsibility for our past positions. By allowing men to “take care of” us, we relinquished our ability to move up the ladder of corporate and political success.
And as the feminist movement took hold and women began to push against those glass ceilings, we did not always support and encourage each other. In fact, it has been common for women to compete and behave aggressively toward each other.

We are entering a new era where many of our young women have no personal knowledge of gender bias. They are free to pursue whatever interests them without the stigma of having to consider if they are trying to do “men’s” work instead of “women’s work.” In order for both genders to work together to improve the world we live in, we must leave behind outdated labels and unproductive rivalries.

Women taking responsibility not only aids in advancing women’s equality but it also removes some of the burden from men who no longer have to be in the lead to define their masculinity and there would be much less stress for everyone if we work side by side, sharing the responsibility.

What a wonderful world THAT would be!

Peace & Love, Rocky

UPDATE!

My friend, Dan at Through The Woods blog is doing a series of posts of quotes from people with November birthdays and he has a really terrific post on Sojourner Truth that seemed fitting to this post so, with his permission, I have lifted an excerpt:

"Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say."