Are you out there?

"It is often hard to be a person on the planet Earth. It can be scary, overwhelming, fraught with obstacles, and most of all, inescapably lonely." - The Rino and the Buddha

"Are You Out There"
Words and music by Dar Williams

Perhaps I am a miscreation
No one knows the truth there is no future here
And you're the DJ speaks to my insomnia
And laughs at all I have to fear
Laughs at all I have to fear
You always play the madmen poets
Vinyl vision grungy bands
You never know who's still awake
You never know who understands and

Are you out there, can you hear this?
Jimmy Olson, Johnny Memphis,
I was out here listening all the time
And though the static walls surround me
You were out there and you found me
I was out here listening all the time

Last night we drank in parking lots
And why do we drink? I guess we do it cause
And when I turned your station on
You sounded more familiar than that party was
You were more familiar than that party
It's the first time I stayed up all night
It's getting light I hear the birds
I'm driving home on empty streets
I think I put my shirt on backwards

Are you out there, can you hear this
Jimmy Olson , Johnny Memphis
I was out here listening all the time
And though the static walls surround me
You were out there and you found me
I was out here listening all the time

And what's the future, who will choose it?
Politics of love and music
Underdogs who turn the tables
Indie versus major labels
There's so much to see through
Like our parents do more drugs than we do
Oh....

Corporate parents, corporate towns
I know every TV set that has them lit
They preach that I should save the world
They pray that I won't do a better job of it
Pray that I won't do a better job
So tonight I turned your station on just so I'd be understood
Instead another voice said I was just too late
And just no good....

Calling Olson, Calling Memphis
I am calling, can you hear this?
I was out here listening all the time
And I will write this down
and then I will not be alone again yeah
I was out here listening
Oh yeah I was out here listening
Oh yeah I am out here listening all the time

Amerika, Inc.

A recent study by the New America Foundation "places the United States at the top of the list of the world's leading arms-selling nations in 2007, accounting for more than 45 percent of all global weapons transfers." The Bush administration "signed arms sales agreements...worth more than $32 billion last year, including with one or more parties involved in 20 of the world's 27 major conflicts."

Can you connect the dots to see why the Bush Administration is buddying up to the Dalai Lama? Think of it as the latest chapter in an ongoing sales and marketing effort to create the new Taiwan-of-the-west - another place to sell billions of dollars in weaponry, should we succeed in leveraging off another chunk of China. The only exiled government of Tibet is the one we created starting in 1956 when the CIA, under a directive from the Eisenhower Administration, trained, armed and funded revolutionaries within Tibet - then abandoned them like we did in Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.

Human Anunnaki Anthropology - Lloyd Pye

Ever wonder why it is that humans have only 46 sets of chromosomes while ALL other primates have 48? It seems that we have two sets of chromosome pairs that are fused together. I wonder how that happened? It doesn't seem to fit the Darwin model of evolution.

Celebrating 9/11...

As of Tuesday June 03, 2008 New York state had the highest cigarette taxes in the nation. Seems like a pact with the devil... or the perfect marriage between corporate profits and state revenues. Meanwhile, more than 30 other states, including Vermont, have enacted laws banning smoking in certain publicly-accessible places like bars, restaurants, and workplaces. Over 4000 chemical compounds are created by burning a cigarette, many of which are toxic and/or carcinogenic. Carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen cyanide and ammonia are all present in cigarette smoke. Forty-three known carcinogens are in mainstream smoke, sidestream smoke, or both. The list of 599 additives approved by the US Government for use in the manufacture of cigarettes is something every smoker should see.

"Once upon a time, the rich, sweetly pungent smoke of tobacco offered more than dreary old diseases like emphysema and lung cancer. It promised sophistication, sex appeal, even longevity itself. This nostalgic site is powered by the white-hot bitterness of long-term Nicotine withdrawal."

So what does this have to do with September 11? Seven years ago almost 3,000 people died in the collapse of the Twin Towers. The image of those former towers reminds me of a pair of cigarettes, in both a literal and a figurative manner. They each represent the number of people, 1,500 who continue to die EVERY DAY from smoking-related illness. Where's the outrage?

Books Sarah Palin attempted to ban

The list of books Sarah Palin attempted to ban in Alaska:

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Blubber by Judy Blume
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Christine by Stephen King
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Cujo by Stephen King
Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Forever by Judy Blume
Grendel by John Gardner
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Impressions edited by Jack Booth
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
It’s Okay if You Don’t Love Me by Norma Klein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
My House by Nikki Giovanni
My Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women’s Health Collective
Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Revolting Rhymes by Ronald Dahl
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Separate Peace by John Knowles
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Bastard by John Jakes
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Devil’s Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Living Bible by William C. Bower
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
The Shining by Stephen King
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
Then Again, Maybe I Won’t by Judy Blume
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth

Shades of 1968...

Reviewing a Brief History Of Chicago's 1968 Democratic Convention 40 years ago, brings to mind how chaotic the world must have appeared to me at 21 years of age. Having grown up in Chicago under the cloud of the "last of the big city bosses," the Democratic Party under Daley's rule was accepted as a powerful machine that churned out votes and could "fix" parking tickets if you had a friend. But at that time, nationally, the Dems were wracked with dissent over the war. The California and New York delegations were in revolt, forced to sit in the back of the convention hall. A huge battle took place over the inclusion of a proposed Peace Plank in the official Party platform.

Back then, Daley and the Chicago police saw the press as the enemy, for covering the rioting - 17 reporters, including Hal Bruno (then a reporter for Newsweek, now political director for ABC) were attacked. It is amazing how much has changed in 40 years.

Now, it is up to the grassroots to circulate the news. "The rest of the story," as Paul Harvey puts it, often remains untold in the mainstream media. With that in mind, I want to share this release from the Green Party that fills in a bunch of blanks on the recent preemptive police raids that took place in St. Paul:

On Saturday police surrounded the home of Michael Whelan, a long-time Green Party supporter, whose Arise Bookstore at one time housed the party's office. He was host to a group of independent journalists. The police broke down doors and subjected occupants to house arrest. "You figure this would be going on in South Africa, or Russia, not in St. Paul," Whelan said. "St. Paul is nice."

The previous night, police had invaded a meeting space in St. Paul rented by the anarchist RNC Welcoming Committee. They seized equipment and subjected some fifty people to handcuffing and search. Next day Monica Bicking, a leading member of the organization, was jailed along with three friends, and her home in Minneapolis was boarded up for alleged violation of city codes.

Meanwhile, the group's nonviolence consultant and trainer, Betsy Raasch-Gilman, expecting arrest, took "sanctuary" at the meetinghouse of Twin Cities Friends (Quakers). As of this morning Bicking had been released, but those arrested with her and several others remain in custody. Both Bicking and Raasch-Gilman are daughters of former Green Party candidates and present spokespeople.

According to Minnesota poet and writer Richard Broderick, who is a member of the Green Party and has also been one of its candidates, "The erosion of civil liberties and constitutionally guaranteed rights in this country makes all the eloquent calls we heard from Denver for unity and restoring the American Dream little more than hollow rhetoric."

Despite the efforts at intimidation orchestrated by federal authorities and carried out by DFL administrations in both Hennepin and Ramsey counties, Minnesota Greens have united to bring their VP candidate, Rosa Clemente, to the Twin Cities. She addressed the antiwar marchers in St. Paul today and tonight appeared with the National Truth Commission on Poverty. She will be participating in the Poor People's march from Mears Park tomorrow.

The 9% Factor...

That's the number of Americans who still think that Congress is doing a good job... 9%.

This weekend (July 17–20, 2008) there are two simultaneous political blogging conventions taking place in Austin, Texas. The 3rd annual gathering of what was originally the YearlyKos Convention, now known as Netroots Nation, is broadcasting live and archiving the numerous presentations as video clips on their UStream TV channel.

I am watching a live keynote speech by tech pioneer and professor Lawrence Lessig promoting the "Just say 9..." campaign. Add .09 cents to any and every campaign contribution to bring home the message that only 9% of Americans still have faith in their own system of government as represented by Congress.

"We have to solve the Democracy crisis," before we can solve any other problems says Lessig.

Track their tweets at #NN08.

A few miles away at the Renaissance Hotel in Austin you can find the other half... RightOnline billing themselves as coming into being, "for conservatives tired of being left behind." A first time event taking place July 18 and 19, they seek to penetrate the Web2 world from the right sphere with support from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation. Track their tweets at #rton08.

Remembering Angela Davis...

It may be Howard Zinn's influence that always causes me to repeat a silent mantra, "History, whose-story," each time I consider how historians mark the record. Despite the fact that we now use video and the rising voice of the blognation to counter the seemingly pointless narrative delivered by mainstream media, the words of Marshall McCluhan also continue to chant in my subconscious ears, "The medium IS the message" - a phrase he introduced in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, published in 1964.

While the New Yorker decides to play a "joke" on everyone - hoping that readers will peel back the cover of their latest issue to read what's between the ads in order to get at the clever punch lines - the conservative right gets it immediately! They love the cartoon, espousing it as an accurate portrait of all things considered Hussein about the Obamas. That cartoon image may work well for the New Yorker as a viral ad for its own publication but, because broadcast media has already decapitated it from the body of intellect that explains it, that visual image will far outdistance any literary efforts at humor. Here in the Midwest and across the nation most people just get another free dose of fear-marketing: Osama, Obama, flag-burning, fist-pumping, foreign, militant, danger.

When I look at the New Yorker cover, I immediately think of Angela Davis. The 1970's militant image of an African American woman, proud of her natural wooly hair, sporting bandileros of ammo and a weapon slung over her shoulder is now shared with Michelle Obama. But, Angela Davis is and was an intellectual force to be reckoned as an educator, an activist for social justice and an author with 10 books to her credit beginning in 1971 with If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance (ISBN 0-451-04999-3 ). She continues teaching and lecturing (How Does Change Happen? Angela Davis video clip October 10, 2006)...


Speak Out! promotes speakers, artists, exhibits and films including appearances by Angela Davis. Here's a few of the important background facts they provide:

Professor Davis’ teaching career has taken her to San Francisco State University, Mills College, and UC Berkeley. She has also taught at UCLA, Vassar, the Claremont Colleges, and Stanford University. She has spent the last fifteen years at the University of California Santa Cruz where she is Professor of History of Consciousness, an interdisciplinary Ph.D program, and Professor of Feminist Studies.

Like many other educators, Professor Davis is especially concerned with the general tendency to devote more resources and attention to the prison system than to educational institutions. Having helped to popularize the notion of a “prison industrial complex,” she now urges her audiences to think seriously about the future possibility of a world without prisons and to help forge a 21st century abolitionist movement.

Now, if only the artistic merger of identities that takes place in my mind when I see the cover of the latest New Yorker Magazine would actually have an affect on the Obamas, we might be rewarded with a candidate who is about real change. For now, I will continue tracing the speeches of Angela Davis for that message.

Hummer Heads West... Guns a blazin'

On July 19, the Army will be taking their computer simulation, called the "Virtual Army Experience" to Duluth, for the Duluth Air Show. The exhibit allows children as young as 13 to practice firing a machine gun at life-sized images of people projected on a computer screen. Witnesses report that Army recruiters in Milwaukee weren't even asking for proof of age, so it's likely that children even younger than 13 were allowed to participate.

Yes, it's outrageous - but it can be stopped, and Peace Action has shown how. WNPJ can help support an effort by Minnesota and Wisconsin peace activists to keep the Army from providing Duluth-area twelve-year-olds with machine-gun practice. What do you think? Can we make it Peace 2, Army 0?

Contact the administrators of the Duluth Air Show at 218.628.9996 - to ask them to keep the ‘Virtual War Game’ out of the show – and then call Summerfest in Milwaukee at 414.273.2680 to thank them for their recent action!

Virtual War Game at Summerfest

This year's Milwaukee Summerfest (June 26-July 6) features a "Virtual Army Experience Exhibit" at the north end of the grounds. The tent contains a real Humvee mounted with 4 machine guns that interacts with a huge screen. The screen projects the virtual experience of traveling through a town. You can shoot the machine guns at people on the street as you pass through. The people are generic-looking - could be from anywhere. You must be at least 13 years old to enter the exhibit and identification is asked. They take down that information and it will likely be used for recruitment purposes. They also give away a free DVD video game of a similar virtual experience when you leave the tent.

Call the Summerfest office and demand that the exhibit be shut down now. 414-273-2690

Points to make:

• War games should NOT be presented as entertainment. War is NOT a game.
  
• Summerfest is meant to bring people together for a good time in peace, not to present opportunities to practice shooting people. The exhibit is totally inappropriate and offensive and should be removed immediately.

The person you talk with will fill out a form with your concerns and will ask for your name and phone number. You do not have to give your phone number but they will want your zip code.

Please act now. The more calls of complaint they receive the better. (Please remember to be pleasant to the person on the phone - the exhibit is not her fault.)

9.6.2008 Fighting Bob Fest

Mike McCabe says," Wisconsin's unique history is comfort food for those disgusted and disheartened by current political conditions. People much poorer than us and much less educated than us faced conditions at least as bad and turned those dark days into a glorious gift to future generations."

Visit www.fightingbob.com for more information on this summer's event set for 9.6.2008. To see more videos visit the YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/user/FightingBobFest.

Coming back from the dead in 30 days

"This one's coming back from the dead in 30 days," says Rep. Dennis Kucinich.

The House has voted to send articles of impeachment against President Bush to a committee that is not likely to hold hearings before the end of his term. By 251-166, House members dispatched the measure to the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday — a procedure often used to kill legislation. Incredibly, 24 Republicans voted with 227 Democrats; the 166 no votes came exclusively from Republicans.

That means Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers now has the power to decide whether to hold impeachment hearings - or not. Since 2005, Conyers has received millions of impeachment petitions. Hundreds if not thousands of activists have spoken to him personally. But he remains adamantly opposed to hearings, for one simple reason: he fears it will hurt the Democratic candidate for President (now Barack Obama) in November.

AFTER The House sent articles of impeachment against President Bush to the Judiciary Committee Rep. Kucinich said that if the Judiciary Committee does not act within 30 days, he intends to introduce another, longer version of the articles of impeachment, with 60 counts instead of 35.

"I am not going to let this go. I am not going to let it go. I'll just keep coming back and they can pile these things up in committee but I'll keep coming back," Kucinich said. "I'll bring it up again, and there will be more. There will be more."

Purple Redux

Rededicated to bringing forth news and views from outside the great dome...

The Red Ponchos in Bolivia are made up of armed and militant Quechua Indians who support President Evo Morales. Today the nation's richest and largest state, Santa Cruz, is expected to pass an autonomy referendum seeking to justify withholding the revenues that they are expected to pay to the national government.



Early this morning I was lucky to catch a BBC's Instant Guide to Raul Castro. Since taking over the presidency from his brother Fidel, Raul Castro has introduced a series of liberalizing reforms in Cuba. I never knew much about him until now.

Gerald Celente, founder, forecaster, Trends Research Institute

On Monday, December 31, 2007 on WPR Ben Merens's 5 PM guest said "...in 2008 major financial markets will suffer a mortal blow and the U.S. dollar will be worth a dime..." but, he also says "not all the trends are gloom and doom." The guest was Gerald Celente, founder, forecaster, Trends Research Institute.
This link will permit you to listen to the show:
http://clipcast.wpr.org:8080/ramgen/wpr/bme/bme071231m.rm

The Trends Research Institute founded in 1980 by Gerald Celente, has earned its reputation as the world leader in trend forecasting by identifying major trends with time proven accuracy ... before they occur.

"When CNN wants to know about the Top Trends, we ask Gerald Celente." — CNN Headline News

"A network of 25 experts whose range of specialties would rival many university faculties." — The Economist

"Gerald Celente has a knack for getting the zeitgeist right." — USA Today

"There’s not a better trend forecaster than Gerald Celente. The man knows what he’s talking about." — CNBC

"Those who take their predictions seriously ... consider the Trends Research Institute." — The Wall Street Journal

The Trends Research Institute maintains an apolitical stance but on the recent WPR broadcast, Gerald Celente did reflect on President Eisenhower's famous farewell speech that warned against the impending failure to curb the powers of the military-industrial complex.

Add to that... the military-industrial-media complex. How is it that Fox News is now the Decider?

"The leading GOP fund raiser for the fourth-quarter (2007) is being snubbed from the debates for nothing more than having political views outside of mainstream Republicanism," says Shane Cory, executive director of the Libertarian Party. "The Republican establishment shuns Paul for his pro-liberty views, and will do everything it can to marginalize him. Unfortunately, this is nothing new. There is a long-standing culture of censorship among the political elite when it comes to competing viewpoints."

Add your vote... to the AOL poll about Ron Paul's exclusion from debate:

http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2008/01/03/hot-seat-paul-excluded-
from-fox-debate/?ncid=NWS00010000000001