National IMPEACHMENT Day

Today is National Impeachment Day. For those of you who disagree with the job President Bush has done and will continue to do, please call attention to the administrations impeachable offences today on your blog. If you can't do that, put up a sign in your front yard, in your window, on your car, or write it on your forehead. Here are just some of the reasons why President Bush and Vice President Cheney should be impeached:

President Bush pressured the EPA to clear the area around Ground Zero so that construction crews and first responders would get to work earlier.

The Bush Administration has consistently denied the existence of Global Warming until recently, and has taken no steps to improve the condition of the planet.

President Bush and his Administration completely mishandled everything involved with Hurricane Katrina, including the evacuation, the housing of survivors, and the clean-up effort.

President Bush introduced and The Patriot Act, which puts no limits on what the government can do to form a case, arrest, and detain a US Citizen without telling them what they're being accused of or allowing them access to a lawyer.

President Bush ordered the illegal wire-tapping of US Citizens.
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Presdident Bush allowed the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghrab.

President Bush and his Administration initially lied to the American people about why we were going to war with Iraq, and has continued to lie about the purpose of the war, the management of the war, and what is happening to our soldiers.

And let's not forget:
3,334 US Soldiers have died in Iraq
24,912 US Soldiers have been wounded in Iraq

9/11: Toxic Legacy

Though 3,000 people were killed on 9/11, many are still dying from the effects the environment in and around the area of the World Trade Center has had on their lungs. The people who are truly most important to us as a nation, the men and women who sacrifice EVERYTHING to save us, are dying because the Bush Administration and the EPA said that it was safe to go back to work. Our fighter fighters and police officers who responded first and those men and women who were active in the clean-up (about 25,000 people) have lung problems beyond belief, some of them with so much debris in their bodies that they are almost at 0% lung capacity, and their health benefits are going to run out in 2009. Please contact your local, state, and federal representatives and tell them that the REAL heroes of 9/11 need our continued help and support, and that President Bush and Vice President Cheney should be impeached for their role in the cover-up.

And the continued victims of 9/11 could use a little help as well:
3,322 US Soldiers have been killed in Iraq
24,764 US Soldiers have been wounded in Iraq

What I Learned From Virginia Tech

I learned that 32 people can be killed in the course of several hours and no one in this country really gives a damn. Don't mistake the voyeuristic media coverage for actual concern. Yes, people are upset by what happened and their hearts go out to the students and staff at Virginia Tech, but few people are talking about what's really important about this massacre: that we live in a culture where this kind of thing can happen anywhere at any time to anyone.

Isn't that just a little disturbing? Forget about all the political crap that goes along with this tragedy. Forget what the kid said on the videotapes that the media has so insensitively aired on national TV. Forget about the debate on the 2nd Amendment and the people's right to have guns (even though we don't have the right to decide what do do with our own bodies, we have what we need to decide what to do with the lives of others). Forget that he's an Asian kid from Virginia and has probably been the victim of horrible racism since he came to this country (trust me, I've lived in VA). Sure, he had mental problems. How many people are there across this country with some sort of mental illness? How many of them have access to guns? How many of them have motive, real or imagined, AND opportunity?

This tragedy is a symptom of the violent culture of America, as were about a hundred other SCHOOL shootings in the past 10 years (not including Lancaster or VT). We live in a country where we cannot say with reasonable certainty that our children are safe in school. How do people not find this alarming? How are people not rioting in the streets? This tragedy has illustrated beyond a reasonable doubt that gun violence is OUT OF CONTROL in the United States and the only people truly outraged DON'T LIVE IN AMERICA. More children are going to die. If we don't do something now, we might as well get used to seeing higher and higher numbers of casualties in tragedies such as this, tragedies that could have been prevented.

And let's not forget the other victims of gun violence:
3,315 US Soldeirs killed in Iraq
24,764 US Soldiers wounded in Iraq
Over 60,000 Iraqis killed

The Imus Double Standard

I think Don Imus is an asshole. I don't like him, but I don't get to decide how people choose to entertain themselves. Imus was fired for making a racist and sexist comment, but no one has really mentioned all of the other people on the air whose comments have been just as bad or worse. Bill O'Reilly, for example, has referred to Mexicans as wetbacks and has NEVER apologized. Ann Coulter recently called John Edwards a faggot, but apparently that doesn't count because she had to go to rehab. Rosie O'Donnell has used a very offensive "Chinese" accent on The View. I haven't even mentioned all of the rap "artists" who use offensive language on their albums, but no one is stringing them up.

And while America was paying attnetion to Don Imus, few people noticed that Karl Rove and his staff deleted hundreds of emails over the course of several years.

3,302 US soldiers killed in Iraq
24,645 US Soldiers wounded in Iraq

300 - The Other Side?

The idea for this post is completely stolen from Dave Away From Home. He suggested that the movie could be seen as a triumph of reason and logic (Sparta) against Fundamentalism and the supernatural (Persia). It's an interesting point, especially if we add in that Leonidas was in the position of fighting the entire Persian army with a small force of 300 men because the priests in Sparta had been paid off to tell him that to go to war was against the will of the Gods. God, apparently, wasn't a huge fan of liberty. Both the Persians and the Greeks were slaves to their religion. The Greeks served old, outdated Oracles who were really just drug-induced playthings. The Persians served a man-god who believed he was immortal but was really only a man. Still, all involved believed that their god was the real god, the one who would allow them to triumph.

How is religion today any different? How is this war any different from that war? People blindly follow religious leaders without question, even when they build huge temples with a fast food place in the back and a Starbucks by the altar (didn't Jesus warn about that?). The Muslims follow their clerics into a war they could probably win due to sheer numbers, destroying everything and everyone they love in the process. The Christians follow their leader into a war they cannot win without reinforcements that will not come until the first wave has been slaughtered completely.

3,292 US soldiers killed in Iraq (the living ones have had their tours extended by 3 months)
24,645 US soldiers wounded in Iraq

300 - Entertainment or Propaganda?

My husband received movie tickets for his birthday and decided he wanted to see a movie that didn't come out until recently. We both have an interest in the ancient world, so I thought 300 might be interesting. What I found was a movie so mired in propaganda that the message was loud and clear. Support our troops, fight for freedom, or we all die! Here are just a few of the parallels I found:

Leonidas lead a small group of free troops against the vast minions of slaves serving Xerxes (who thought himself a god), just like the small number of troops we have in Iraq are fighting against untold numbers of insurgents faithful to Allah. The Greek troops have racial features closer to our own and the Persian troops looked, well, like Persians. The weapons of war were tried and true on the Greek side - the sword and spear (guns and knives), the phalanx (tanks), the shield (body armor) - while the Persian weapons were sneaky and strange - unusual animals (IED's), Immortals (suicide bombers), and fear. Finally, Spartan women are free to make their own decisions, as long as those decisions support the men in upholding and pursuing liberty, democracy, and freedom, unlike the Persian women who are slaves to their men and their god.

After leaving the theater I found myself asking a lot of questions. Why would Hollywood choose to tell this story now, especially when there were battles that were so much more spectacular? Is it because support for the Iraq war is beginning to fade? Since it was the Queen who ultimately convinced the Greeks to fight, and it is women who carry on social traditions, is Hollywood trying to convince women to be strong, to support our troops, or even to join the military? Who knows? Every war has propaganda. It seems this movie is part of ours.

3,280 US soldiers killed in Iraq
24,476 US soldiers wounded in Iraq

You Are What You Eat

Frozen food uses 10 times more energy to produce, and let’s not forget how much energy it costs to store. Fresh foods taste better and are better for you. Frozen and overcooked foods lose a lot of their vitamins and almost all of their taste. Buy locally grown and produced foods from area farmers markets or Whole Foods. The average meal in the United States travels 1,200 miles from the farm to your plate. Not only does buying locally help reduce the amount of energy required to grow and transport the food to you by 1/5, it keeps money in your local community, which is ALWAYS a good thing. More farms means fewer housing developments, which means more green space and less carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere. Try to make sure the farm you buy from is organic. Organic soils capture and store carbon dioxide at much higher levels than soils from conventional farms. If all of our corn and soybeans were grown organically, we’d remove 580 billion pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere! Eat less meat. Methane is the second most significant greenhouse gas and cows are one of the greatest methane emitters. Their grassy diet and multiple stomachs cause them to produce methane, which they exhale with every breath. Besides all that, less meat is better for your health.

Disney - Gays Are OK

Though Disney has never actively discriminated against homosexual visitors, they have made their policy even more inclusive by changing the requirement that those participating in their Fairy Tale Wedding program have a legal marriage licence. Of course, this probably has more to do with revenue than common decency, but for a major US company to publicly admit that there is a large enough population of homosexuals for them to make a profit from could be the beginning of some actual social change. Most of this country revolves around money, after all, and once it becomes okay to exploit the gay population, it also becomes okay to BE homosexual. The military HAS actively discriminated and continues to do so.

3,268 US soldiers have died in Iraq
24,476 US soldiers have been wounded in the us

12,000 more National Guard soldiers (if they're in Iraq, who will guard the nation?) are being sent to Iraq in addition to the 21,000 "Troop Surge" that President Bush said would stabilize Iraq. Tell me again how this ISN'T just like Vietnam.

The Death of Habeas Corpus

I was going to say that I have no idea how this was overlooked by the American people and the American media, but I know exactly how. The breaking of the Mark Foley scandal was timed exactly to cover up the Senate's passing of a Bill giving the President the ability to bypass the Writ of Habeas Corpus. For those who are unaware, bypassing the Writ of Habeas Corpus gives the government the opportunity to hold detainees who have been labeled as "the enemy" for extended periods of time without contact with a lawyer and with no idea when the accused will be granted the right to appear before a judge or receive a fair trial. But let's not talk about impeachment.

The Cost of Entertainment

I'm posting this because I have the feeling that gas prices and movie prices are much the same - they differ depending on where you live in the country. Even if they don't both are way too high. The cost of both are due to intense greed, and in some cases, extreme stupidity. So, for two adults to go to the movies in the suburbs of Philadelphia the cost is:

Two Tickets: $18.00
Shared Large Popcorn: $7.00
Shared Medium Drink: $5.00 (Water - $4.00)
Candy: $2.50 - $3.50
Total Cost: $ 33.00

This is not even factoring in the cost of going out to dinner beforehand (or gas to get to the movie theater because none are within walking distance anymore), assuming you can afford it. How are college kids affording this? Of course, their tickets are only $7.50, but I remember being completely broke through most of college. Maybe this is why the kids are drinking so much. Select beers at many places on a Friday night cost no more than $3.00. If a family of four wants to go to the movies, they have to save for a month. This is ridiculous. There is no reason why entertainment needs to be so expensive.

3,254 US Soldiers killed in Iraq
24,314 US Soldiers wounded in Iraq