BLOOD MONEY PART 2

El Salvador. Two words that make it impossible for me to vote for Mitt Romney even if I wanted to. By 1983 several priests, an archbishop and four American churchwomen (three nuns and a lay missionary) had been murdered.The sister's crime? Trying to get refugees out of the killing zones. Running a school and an orphanage for children who had lost their parents in the fighting? Our ambassador to El Salvador, Robert White was fired by the Reagan Administration for not towing the party line.

 In December 1981 the Atlacatl battalion, American trained at the school of the Americas, entered the village of El Mozote. By the time they left about three days later, the people of El Mozote and several surrounding smaller hamlets were dead. The youngest was eight months old. There was more violence to come before the decade was over, but all of this was known before Romney accepted the investments of the El Salvadoran oligarchs.

That Romney and Bain were willing to business with families that either contributed or stood by while these murders took place is more than I can stomach. There's an old saying. All that is needed for evil to flourish is for good men and women to do nothing.

SKYLIGHTS

Five in the morning. Venus,  the last quarter moon and Jupiter all lined up. Venus and Jupiter have been my morning companions while I feed the cats the last couple of months. Sometimes I even remember to put my glasses on so they're less of a blur, but they're bright enough that even I can see them. 

Picture from Starry Night Backyard. 

BLOOD MONEY

Just when you think it can't possibly get any worse this headline greets your unbelieving eyes. MITT ROMNEY STARTED BAIN CAPITAL WITH MONEY TIED TO DEATH SQUADS.  Included in the list were the supporters Roberto D'Aubisson's ARENA party. D'Aubisson, trained at the school of the Americas at Fort Benning was finally tied to the assassination of archbishop Oscar Romero. 

Goddess can it get any worse? Drove me to haul out my old Jackson Brown albums. This one is painfully appropriate. I want to take this sorry excuse for a human being, shake him until his teeth rattle and ask him what the hell he was thinking. 

SOLDIER OF PLENTY

God is great, God is good
He guards your neighborhood
Though it’s generally understood
Not quite the way you would
You try to take the slack
Stay awake and watch his back
But something happens every now and then
And someone breaks into the promised land
Ah boy boy
This world is not your toy
This world is long on hunger
This world is short on joy

A-e-i-o
You speak as if you know
What’s good for everyone
What’s good in what you’ve done?
What’s good about a world in which
War rages at a fever pitch
And people die for the little things
A little corn, a little beans

Ah boy boy
This world is not your toy
This world is, this world is
Long on hunger
Short on joy
How much longer
You gonna keep the world hungry boy?

You measure peace with guns
Progress in mega-tons
Who's left when the war is won?
Soldier of misfortune--
Soldier of an angry call
Soldier on foreign soil
I’m not here to fight your war
I know what you're fighting for

Ah boy boy
This world is not your toy
This world is, this world is
Long on hunger
Short on joy
How much longer
You gonna keep the world hungry boy?

I wonder if he can claim he retroactively returned their investments? 

Cross posted in Women On. 

HAND FASTING BLESSING

Hand fasting is an old way of marrying. It was a legal way of getting married in Scotland until the middle of the 1930's. It's a beautiful piece, I wish I could hear is used just once. 

Raven’s Blessing Song

May the earth welcome your footsteps,

May the wind sing your tale,

May fire dance from your fingertips,

May the ocean speed your sail.

May your courage never fail you,

May your words be blessed with grace;

May the spirit of inspiration light your way.

(Goddess that first verse! Can you imagine dancing this?)

May you be a friend to your destiny

May you always know your name.

May your learn to dance with lightning

When life brings storm and rain.

May you never be far from family

Whether kin by blood or heart

May you never feel completely set apart.

May you walk through life like a balance beam

And never stumble and fall.

May you walk through a hundred angry glares

And may it not matter at all.

May you never cease to teach

And never cease to learn’

May the spark of hope inside you always burn.

May you walk with light through your underworld

May you never fear your dark

May you learn to love the monsters that populate your heart.

May you be healed of your deepest wounds

And wear the scars with pride,

And may your soul never have to hide.

May the earth welcome your footsteps,

May the wind sing your tale,

May fire dance from your fingertips,

May the ocean speed your sail.

May your courage never fail you,

May your words be blessed with grace,

May the spirit of inspiration light your way. 

From Hand fasting and Wedding Rituals. 

FREEDOM TO DEFEND YOUR BELIEFS

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech…”

There it is, the freedom of religion and speech part of the first amendment. That’s it, there it is. The only guaranty we have is that congress (and the lower legislatures) will make no law establishing a particular religion or practicing whatever religion you choose. The lawmakers are also forbidden to interfere with your freedom of speech.

It does not guaranty that your neighbors will accept the religion you follow. If you happen to know any pagans ask them how free they feel these days. Especially live in back of beyond rural America or in the Bible Belt.

The constitution does not guaranty that anyone will listen to you, agree with you, stay in the same room with you, disagree with you or demand that you back up your claims. Now here is where rubber is hitting the road. The claimant has to come up with something more that I believe such and such to be true. Or, the favorite when it comes to gays and marriage equality “the Bible says so.”

The fundagelicals have been getting a free ride for generations with that one phrase along with the quotation of one of a half dozen verses on the subject. That’s not good enough anymore. I want facts, not scripture. Legal examples not “I believe such and such to be true.” How about some examples of how folks used to get married, probably still get married and how that overlaps with their view of “traditional” marriage.

I suspect that what really bothers those denouncing the views of the owner of Chick-fil-a isn’t his support of “traditional marriage.” Whatever the heck that is. What bothers me is the implicit violence in his belief that gay marriage will call God’s judgment on the nation. If you believe that, then you may just believe that any action necessary to avoid that judgment is justified.

And that, heads us down a path most of us don’t want to follow. Imagine someone like the Aurora, Colorado shooter only he’s convinced that his mission is to save us from God’s wrath. And while we’re at it we’ll go after the families and friends of our targets just to make sure the danger is averted. 

DEMAND RESPECT, YOU'V EARNED IT

Stop dismissing the Chick-fil-A fight by Guy Branum. When you read this remember all of the Pat Robertson style denunciations that fill the air whenever Mother Nature sneezes and substitute Wiccan, or Pagan, or tree hugger, or any other group that's born different or chooses to walk a path that's barely tolerated these days.

I'm straight but I'm about one fourth Quaker and about three fourths Celtic I'll get this figured out one day and I agree one hundred percent with what the author says. Just listen to the Pat Robertson's of the world whenever Mother Nature sneezes. It's the fault of the gays, the lesbians, the tree huggers, the wiccans, the neo pagans, WHOEVER. Whether you were born a little different or you've chosen a spiritual path that goes beyond what's "tolerated" we all need to stand together.

"I don't ask for tolerance: I demand respect." from a comment by another member of the HP community a couple of days ago.

And we can start by reminding these folks that all the constitution gurantees is that Congress won't make laws abridging freedom of speech, restricting religion or favoring one over the other. The constitution doesn't guranty that anyone will agree with you, listen to you, stay in the same room while you're talking or keep quiet if they believe you're wrong, disrespectful or hateful. One side has been hiding behind "freedom of" for far too long as attempts are made to take freedom from others. 

I got a kick out of a few comments claiming that the money the Dan Cathy donates isn't going to hate groups. After all it's just libs and leftists who claim that the likes of the Family Research Council and the American Family Association are hate groups. And anyway it's his money he can do what he wants. Before it was his money it was our money and some folks aren't too happy with where it's going. 

I'm almost happy that these dust ups are finally happening. We've wallpapered over the cracks in our society for far too long. The moderates in this country outnumber the ultra conservatives but we've allowed them to define the words and set the agenda for far too long. 

It's long past time for us to shout out "hell yes, I have an agenda. I demand to be respected as a human being not defined by orientation, gender, the spiritual path I follow or the belief that the earth is just a really, really big space ship and it's past time we treated her that way. 

TOLERANCE OR RESPECT?

This comment was in reply to an article on fundamentalists and their view of religious liberty; a one way street in the author’s opinion. Chick-fil-A Dustup Shows Freedom for Fundamentalists Is a One-Way Street

“you know, this "tolerance" talking point is getting really weak.

I do not tolerate someone saying ugly things about me. Do you?

If Mr. Cathy wants to speak about himself, that's okay. He has every right to speak about someone else. Fortunately, the person he speaks about has the right to respond.

Mr. Cathy doesn't live in a bubble. Everyone has the same right to speak, including and especially those that have been spoken about.

It has absolutely nothing to do with tolerance.

Gay people don't want or need your tolerance. We demand equality. Tolerance presupposes that you are superior to me...that I must beg you for your approval of me somehow.

I don't have to do that.

I don’t ask for tolerance: I demand respect.”  Screen name CRandallB

Tolerance: Sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one’s own beliefs; or the act of allowing something.  It can also mean the allowable deviation from a standard, especially the range of variation permitted in maintaining a specified dimension in machining a piece or part.

To be honest, like many folks, I’ve never looked at the idea o f tolerance from the “I’m sick and tired of being tolerated” side of the fence.  And frankly, as one quarter Quaker and three fourth Celtic I’m workin’ on it, I may find myself with more sympathy for that point of view than before.

And this gentleman has said it a lot better than I ever could.  Especially when the attitude of too many folks is ‘you just get back in the closet and I’ll tolerate you.” Thanks but no thanks. 

A HUMMINGBIRD'S WINGS

Yesterday morning I held a hummingbird in the palm of my hand.

We have an partially enclosed porch and it flew in and got turned around, kept trying to fly through the glass at the end of the porch. The wings were so loud in the enclosed space and was that chirp coming from that bit of beak and feathers. I managed to get the lower pane open and then came the fun part. Finally I had it in my hand. How does something that tiny survive? Managed to maneuver it down to the open window. In a moment it was streaking away, chirping all the way. 

OUR BOYCOTTS ARE GOOD

Before I tackle Chick fil A here is a partial list of companies and corporations targeted because they support gay rights and/or marriage equality.

Note: The American Family Association is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group and the National Organization for Marriage is basically on their watch list.

Oreos – In June 2012, Oreo posted a phote of a rainbow sextuple stacked cookie to its Facebook page in honor of Pride month. While the responses were most positive, some commenters were outraged, even calling for a boycott of the product.

General Mills – Betty Crocker, Cheerios, Wheaties, Pillsbury and Green Giant targeted by the National Organization for Marriage for opposing the Minnesota Marriage Amendment. Go get a Rainbow Chip cake mix.

Levi’s – In 1992 Levi’s pulled its funding of the Boy Scouts over the organization’s exclusion of Gays. Supporters included disgraced Texas congressman Tom Delay.

American Apparel – in 2009 American Apparel put its “Legalize Gay” t-shirt in its storefront windows in DC. Vandals broke the stores windows. They fixed the windows and left in the shirts.

Walt Disney World – although Disney World’s Gay Days are not officially sanctioned they were on object the Florida Family Association. The group paid to have two planes fly over the park with warning banners; lest any unsuspecting families be in the park during Gay Days.

Starbucks – In January 2012 Starbucks released a memo support gay marriage. The National Organization for Marriage launched DumpStarbucks.com to urge people to boycott the company.

Procter and Gamble products – Tide, Pampers, Crest - In 2004 Proctor and Gamble angered conservatives by opposing an anti gay rights statute that would have exempted gays and lesbians from special civil rights protection in its hometown of Cincinnati. The American Family Association called for a boycott of some of the most popular products and presented a petition with almost 365,000 signatures urging a change in policy.

Home Depot – In May of this year the American Family Association announced a boycott of Home Depot until it agrees to remain neutral in the homosexual culture war. Home Depot was condemned for giving financial and corporate support to open displays of homosexual activism. Etc and so forth. Home Depot was not impressed.

Pepsi – The American Family Association strikes again. Calling for a boycott of Pepsi, Frito lay chips, Quaker Oats and Gatorade because PepsiCo gave donations totaling a million dollars to the Human Rights Campaign and PFLAG.

Safeway – In June 2009 Safeway put large gay/lesbian Pride posters in stores across the country. Here’s the American Family Association to the rescue again.

Old Navy – In 2011 Old Navy planned to sell shirts to benefit the anti suicide, anti bullying It Gets Better Project. American Family Association to the rescue again.

Girl Scouts – In 2011 the Girl Scouts decided to allow a transgender youth to participate. Here comes the American Family Association again. Who’d have thought one little kid could cause such a stir.

Penney’s – Boycotted by the One Million Moms for Choosing Ellen DeGeneres as a spokesperson. Penney’s came under criticism because its June catalog showed two men playing on the floor with their kids and hugging them. The American Family Association again.

Gap – When Gap launched an ad campaign featuring two men pressed toether under a shared t shirt the One Million Moms (part of the American Family Association) swung into action launching a boycott of Gap brands until the corporation decides to remain neutral in the culture war.

So, OUR boycotts are good because we’re doing God’s will or some damn thing and your calls for boycotts from the other side are bad because you’re a bunch of Godless, atheistic heathens. Count me on the side of the heathens 

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE RIGHT TO SELL, NOT BUY

Aurora, Colorado. The list just keeps getting longer. It’ll keep getting longer until we realize that the right to buy guns isn’t the problem. After all, according to a quick check on the net, this country has almost as many guns as people. That we know about. Trying try pry those guns from our cold, dead hands is not going to happen anytime soon. If buying isn’t the problem then the right to sell them, and to keep selling them no matter what the cost could be what’s happening around us.

There were twenty seven years and a revolution between the writing of the Declaration of Independence and the prologue to the constitution. During that time the phrase life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness morphed to life, liberty and property. Most of us understand the phrase as protection for the property we OWN. There’s another kind of property though. The property we want to SELL to somebody else.

My first Sony Discman lasted forever. I finally had to tape the batteries in but it kept truckin’ along for years until the drive finally died. I’ve had two since then and neither one of them lasted more than two years. That’s how companies keep costs deceptively low.  And it doesn’t really matter to anything but your pocket book if electronics don’t last as long as they used to. Can’t do that with guns though.

Guns are not like single use cameras. They can be used again. Guns are not like cheap clothes from third world countries. Fool around with the quality of manufacture and you may end up with a handgun that blows up when the customer tries to use it. That is not good for business. The same with boxes of ammo that have a lot of duds.

So how do you solve the problem? Convince people to buy as many guns as possible, make it as easy as possible and don’t give a damn about where the guns go after the original buyer forks over his money.

 I tried Googleing the phrase “National Rifle Association Donor Transparency.” Didn’t get much information beyond the fact that any useful information is scarcer than hen’s teeth. And, that earlier this month the NRA went to a great deal of time and trouble to threaten our representatives who were getting ready to vote on campaign finance law that would have made it easier to find out where the money comes from.

I suspect that if we could trace donations to the NRA we would find that much of the over $205,000,000 in income in 2004 came from the same groups that benefit the most from the NRA’s lobbying efforts; the manufacturers of weapons, ammunition and those other lovely accessories the well dressed nutcase needs to go on a rampage. After all there are only so many SWAT teams in the country and body armor isn’t single use either.

So, who benefits from the shell game that hides behind the second amendment? It isn’t us. It’s said that if you follow the money, you’ll usually get to the truth. If only it were that easy.

The mantra started within a day. “If only there had been someone in the audience with gun, he could have….” A dark theater, smoke grenade, bullets flying, a room full of people all trying to be someplace else. You sat in the middle where the picture is best. How do you get to a spot where you can get a clear shot without getting trampled or drawing fire? Or even get there before shooter bugs out looking for new targets?

And there’s the old standby “you need a gun to protect yourself in case someone invades your home.” For that to work you need a gun in every room. Otherwise, how do you get to the gun stored in another part of the house before the bad guys get to you? The answer is, ninety percent of the time you probably can’t. So, again, who benefits. The manufacturers not the customers. 

STANDING ON BIG SHOULDERS

“When you go to build a cathedral, you must build your foundation strong.” Robin Longstride in Ridley Scott’s version of the Robin Hood story. Or you can go with Sir Isaac Newton. “If I have seen further than other men it’s because I’ve stood on the shoulders of giants.”

The president made a speech the other day. Rush Limbaugh excerpted about three sentences from the whole thing and issued one of his over the top fulminations. Oh, Rush, the gift that just keeps giving, like dysentery. 

“I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together." (Ok, maybe he was speaking off the cuff and wasn't as clear as he could have been)

The president didn’t say businesses don’t succeed on individual hard work and creativity. He did say that you have to have a strong foundation to build on. And a profound appreciation for all the hard work that went into building those foundations. That pyramid of strong shoulders we stand on.

Some early human realized that you could use scrap rock with sharp edges to cut pieces off a critter. The first brick in the foundation came when somebody, somehow realized he/she could recreate that edge on demand. That you could shape those rocks, put them on the end of a long piece of wood and have a more reliable weapon than a sharpened stick.

Lightning starts fire. Humans made it semi portable. More bricks went in when several somebody’s figured out how to make it reliable and portable. How DO you get from rubbing sticks together really, really fast to making fire? How DO you get the idea of putting a piece of string (after you’ve invented string), gut or tendon between the ends of a piece of wood and using it to shoot another piece of wood with a stone tip at something, preferably dinner.

Domesticating animals for meat, milk, hides and fleece. Love to know how that happened. When did some bright man or woman (Probably a woman, men still hate to take out the garbage) notice that the wild grain they’d been gathering was growing near the camp’s rubbish tip?

Weaving? How did we get to that? Watch spiders spin their webs? But spiders don’t use looms or spinning wheels. What Neolithic genius fastened a piece of hide to a stick and used it to catch the wind to help move his raft along? And who the heck was the unsung genius somewhere in the Med who came up with the Lateen sail. That triangular steering sail that lets a ship tack against the wind?

Wheels? And some folks saw the Central American natives as backward because they put wheels on their kid’s toys but didn’t use them the way Europeans did. And did I also mention they lived in either a jungle or steep mountains or both. Even the northern Europeans used the sea, rivers or man made rivers when they could.

The biggest improvements in the last thousand years haven’t been in how we do the jobs but where we get the power to do them. From animals walking in circles to power millstones to water wheels to internal combustion engines. Same job, different power source. And what genius figured out how to use a series of wheels and gears to turn the round and around motion of a water wheel into up and down or back and forth to power sawmills, lathes, trip hammers the whole foundation of industry. Actually, what genius realized he could put two really big wheels together with flat pieces of wood between and harness the power of a river in the first place. All Watt’s engine did was make it possible to have your factory someplace besides the edge of a river or canal. As long has you could get fuel you could keep the engines going. 

The president’s speech might have been better written but it was said in praise of the foundation builders. The ones who provided the tools for the bright, hard working business builders we have now.

Cross posted in Women On. 

OH AND

"thanks"  Blogger. It's only taken you four years to get your blogs to do what AOL Journals could do with pictures. Yes, I know there were codes I could use, but it never seemed to work for me.

THE NEW KID, ER CAT, ON THE BLOCK

I mentioned a few posts back that we had a new "adoptee."  He showed up during the big snow last Spring.

He had a collar missing its tag, Said hello and moved in. By the second evening he showed up with his right front leg through the collar. Picked him up, tossed him through the front door and cut off the collar. That's when we discovered he knew what windows and doors were for. Went to the front door, meowed and went out when I opened it. Since then he's evolved into something of an outie/innie. Especially when he discovered that he could mooch some of Bandit's dinner.

Bandit tolerates the obstreperous upstart. Big change from trying to kick him in the pants, so to speak. And Smokie Jo is obviously very comfortable with the situation. 

And the other night he hopped up with mom in her chair. That did put the Bandit's nose out of joint. "That's my place!" Relax kid. Smokie never stays in more than half an hour or so, so far. He sniffs at but hasn't tried to use the litter box. I am not sure how that would go over right now. I'm really not, so I'm not pushing it.

And best of all, he knows that Amber was here first. I put another towel on the bench out back while the weather was still cool and damp. Whoever got there first usually ended up in the corner but there's room enough for two and some munchies. I haven't been able to get a good shot of the two of them snoozing in semi perfect harmony. LOL

BRIGHT LIGHTS

Was out at four thirty or so feeding the porch kitties and happened to look up. I'm very nearsighted so two really bright lights above the horizon caught my attention. Fired up my astronomy program, ran it back to the right time and there they were Venus and Jupiter. And up in the corner what some folks call a dry moon because the tip of the curve is pointed up as if it were a cup.

Found this shot on the Astronomy Picture of the Day website. This was taken just before dawn from the Atacama Desert yesterday morning. A really lovely shot.