You Can Now Read My Fantasy Writing!

I created an account over at writing.com so that I can upload my fiction/fantasy writing a chapter at a time. I just uploaded chapter one of And Six Bright Stars Followed Her.

Here's the description: After economic and environmental disasters bring down the world as we know it, Eliza, a homesteading mother living in Canada, works hard to keep her family alive but when a sudden event forces her and her six children from their home she must travel through the wilderness finding food and shelter along the way while keeping herself and her children safe from the mysterious and often dangerous creatures that have emerged in this new world - all in hopes of finding safe harbor in the south with a long lost relative.

To view my portfolio and read the first chapter click here

You Can Now Read My Fantasy Writing!

I created an account over at writing.com so that I can upload my fiction/fantasy writing a chapter at a time. I just uploaded chapter one of And Six Bright Stars Followed Her.

Here's the description: After economic and environmental disasters bring down the world as we know it, Eliza, a homesteading mother living in Canada, works hard to keep her family alive but when a sudden event forces her and her six children from their home she must travel through the wilderness finding food and shelter along the way while keeping herself and her children safe from the mysterious and often dangerous creatures that have emerged in this new world - all in hopes of finding safe harbor in the south with a long lost relative.

To view my portfolio and read the first chapter click here

Getting Back Into It

Life seems to be on hold from Samhain (Halloween) until Christmas/New Years for us. Since Ronan's birthday is on the 8th of January I think the holi-daze might last until after his party. Everything takes a back seat to preparing for the holidays. Planning, baking, crafting, knitting, sewing, cards, wrapping, etc, all get top priority. Homeschool is put on hold in a formal way and a more "unschooling" approch gains a footing. As the days grow dimmer and there is more to do and less day in which to do it, things fall by the side.

Now is the time to begin to pick them up again as the sun grows stronger and brighter!

Wash on Monday
Yoga on Tuesday
Mending and crafting on Wednesday
Library on Thursday
Play Group on Friday (starting in March)
Bake on Saturday
Rest and read scriptures on Sunday (and sometimes we go to sacrament)

It's a flowing guide really. For example we are going to the library today because some books we ordered arrived -so we did the wash yesterday (we still managed to sneek in about an hour to read some of Ether in the B of M and the Goddess chapter in Sprial Dance by Starhawk).

And just when I want to get a bit more serious and "accomplish" some things I look over and what do I find? A little bird in a co-op bag!

Getting Back Into It

Life seems to be on hold from Samhain (Halloween) until Christmas/New Years for us. Since Ronan's birthday is on the 8th of January I think the holi-daze might last until after his party. Everything takes a back seat to preparing for the holidays. Planning, baking, crafting, knitting, sewing, cards, wrapping, etc, all get top priority. Homeschool is put on hold in a formal way and a more "unschooling" approch gains a footing. As the days grow dimmer and there is more to do and less day in which to do it, things fall by the side.

Now is the time to begin to pick them up again as the sun grows stronger and brighter!

Wash on Monday
Yoga on Tuesday
Mending and crafting on Wednesday
Library on Thursday
Play Group on Friday (starting in March)
Bake on Saturday
Rest and read scriptures on Sunday (and sometimes we go to sacrament)

It's a flowing guide really. For example we are going to the library today because some books we ordered arrived -so we did the wash yesterday (we still managed to sneek in about an hour to read some of Ether in the B of M and the Goddess chapter in Sprial Dance by Starhawk).

And just when I want to get a bit more serious and "accomplish" some things I look over and what do I find? A little bird in a co-op bag!

The Freedom to Starve: Why the Left Should Reject Ron Paul

This is an amazing well written peice and gets to the heart of my reaction to Ron Paul. It's hard for me because I respect everyone's right to their own political opinion but I see Paul as so dangerous I feel like I cannot stand by and be silent and even if I don't convince one person to see the other side of Ron Paul, then at least I can say I tried my best. If you support Ron Paul, I beg you to read this.


The Freedom to Starve: Why the Left Should Reject Ron Paul

* By SHERRY WOLF
Counter Punch, December 26, 2007
Straight to the Source

"POLITICS, LIKE nature, abhors a vacuum," goes the revamped aphorism. Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's surprising stature among a small but vocal layer of antiwar activists and leftist bloggers appears to bear this out.

At the October 27, 2007, antiwar protests in dozens of cities noticeable contingents of supporters carried his campaign placards and circulated sign-up sheets. The Web site antiwar.com features a weekly Ron Paul column. Some even dream of a Left-Right gadfly alliance for the 2008 ticket. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, liberal maverick and Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich told supporters in late November he was thinking of making Ron Paul his running mate if he were to get the nomination.

No doubt, the hawkish and calculating Hillary Rodham Clinton and flaccid murmurings of Barack Obama, in addition to the uninspiring state of the antiwar movement that backed a prowar candidate in 2004, help fuel the desperation many activists feel. But leftists must unequivocally reject the reactionary libertarianism of this longtime Texas congressman and 1988 Libertarian Party presidential candidate.

Ron Paul's own campaign Web site reads like the objectivist rantings of Ayn Rand, one of his theoretical mentors. As with the Atlas Shrugged author's other acolytes, neocon guru Milton Friedman and former Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan, Paul argues, "Liberty means free-market capitalism." He opposes "big government" and in the isolationist fashion of the nation's Pat Buchanans, he decries intervention in foreign nation's affairs and believes membership in the United Nations undermines U.S. sovereignty.

Naturally, it is not Ron Paul's paeans to the free market that some progressives find so appealing, but his unwavering opposition to the war in Iraq and consistent voting record against all funding for the war. His straightforward speaking style, refusal to accept the financial perks of office, and his repeated calls for repealing the Patriot Act distinguish him from the snakeoil salesmen who populate Congress.

Paul is no power-hungry, poll-tested shyster. Even the liberalish chat show hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar on "The View" gave a friendly reception to Paul's folksy presentation, despite his paleoconservative views on abortion, which he-a practicing obstetrician-argues is murder.

Though Paul is unlikely to triumph in the primaries, it is worth taking stock not only of his actual positions, but more importantly the libertarian underpinnings that have wooed so many self-described leftists and progressives. Because at its core, the fetishism of individualism that underlies libertarianism leads to the denial of rights to the very people most radicals aim to champion-workers, immigrants, Blacks, women, gays, and any group that lacks the economic power to impose their individual rights on others.

Ron Paul's positions

A cursory look at Paul's positions, beyond his opposition to the war and the Patriot Act, would make any leftist cringe.

Put simply, he is a racist. Not the cross-burning, hood-wearing kind to be sure, but the flat Earth society brand that imagines a colorblind world where 500 years of colonial history and slavery are dismissed out of hand and institutional racism and policies under capitalism are imagined away. As his campaign Web site reads:

"The true antidote to racism is liberty. Liberty means having a limited, constitutional government devoted to the protection of individual rights rather than group claims. Liberty means free-market capitalism, which rewards individual achievement and competence-not skin color, gender, or ethnicity."

Paul was more blunt writing in his independent political newsletter distributed to thousands of supporters in 1992. Citing statistics from a study that year produced by the National Center on Incarceration and Alternatives, Paul concluded: "Given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the criminal justice system, I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal." Reporting on gang crime in Los Angeles, Paul commented: "If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."

His six-point immigration plan appears to have been cribbed from the gun-toting vigilante Minutemen at the border. "A nation without secure borders is no nation at all. It makes no sense to fight terrorists abroad when our own front door is left unlocked," reads his site. And he advocates cutting off all social services to undocumented immigrants, including hospitals, schools, clinics, and even roads (how would that work?).

"The public correctly perceives that neither political party has the courage to do what is necessary to prevent further erosion of both our border security and our national identity," he wrote in a 2005 article. "Unfortunately, the federal government seems more intent upon guarding the borders of other nations than our own." The article argues that, "Our current welfare system also encourages illegal immigration by discouraging American citizens from taking low-wage jobs." The solution: end welfare so that everyone will be forced to work at slave wages. In order that immigrants not culturally dilute the nation, he proposes that "All federal government business should be conducted in English."

Though he rants about his commitment to the Constitution, he introduced an amendment altering the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteeing citizenship to anyone born in the United States, saying in a 2006 article: "Birthright citizenship, originating in the 14th amendment, has become a serious cultural and economic dilemma for our nation. We must end the perverse incentives that encourage immigrants to come here illegally, including the anchor baby incentive."

Here we come up against the limits of libertarianism-Paul wants a strong state to secure the borders, but he wants all social welfare expenditures eliminated for those within them.

Paul is quite vocal these days about his rank opposition to abortion-"life begins at conception," he argues. He promotes a "states' rights" position on abortion-that decades old hobgoblin of civil rights opponents. And he has long opposed sexual harassment legislation, writing in his 1988 book Freedom Under Siege (available online), "Why don't they quit once the so-called harassment starts?" In keeping with his small government worldview, he goes on to argue against the government's right "to tell an airline it must hire unattractive women if it does not want to."

In that same book, written as the AIDS crisis was laying waste to the American gay male population prompting the rise of activist groups demanding research and drugs, Paul attacked AIDS sufferers as "victims of their own lifestyle." And in a statement that gives a glimpse of the ruling-class tyranny of individualism he asserts that AIDS victims demanding rushed drug trials were impinging on "the rights of insurance company owners."

Paul wants to abolish the Department of Education and, in his words, "end the federal education monopoly" by eliminating all taxes that go toward public education and "giving educational control back to parents." Which parents would those be? Only those with the leisure time, educational training, and temperament commensurate with home schooling! Whatever real problems the U.S. education system suffers from-and there are many-eliminating 99 percent literacy rates that generations of public education has achieved and tossing the children of working parents out of the schools is not an appealing or viable option.

Paul also opposes equal pay for equal work, a minimum wage, and, naturally, trade unions. In 2007, he voted against restricting employers' rights to interfere in union drives and against raising the federal minimum wage to $7.25. In 2001, he voted for zero-funding for OSHA's Ergonomics Rules, instead of the $4.5 billion. At least he's consistent.

Libertarians like Paul are for removing any legislative barriers that may restrict business owners' profits, but are openly hostile to alleviating economic restrictions that oppress most workers. Only a boss could embrace this perverse concept of "freedom."

Individualism versus collectivism

There is a scene in Monty Python's satire Life of Brian where Brian, not wanting to be the messiah, calls out to the crowd: "You are all individuals." The crowd responds in unison: "We are all individuals."

Libertarians, using pseudo-iconoclastic logic, transform this comical send-up of religious conformity into their own secular dogma in which we are all just atomized beings. "Only an individual has rights," not groups such as workers, Blacks, gays, women, and minorities, Ron Paul argues. True, we are all individuals, but we didn't just bump into one another. Human beings by nature are social beings who live in a collective, a society. Under capitalism, society is broken down into classes in which some individuals-bosses, for example-wield considerably more power than others-workers.

To advocate for society to be organized on the basis of strict individualism, as libertarians do, is to argue that everyone has the right to do whatever he or she wants. Sounds nice in the abstract, perhaps. But what happens when the desires of one individual infringe on the desires of another? Libertarians like Paul don't shy away from the logical ramifications of their argument. "The dictatorial power of a majority" he argues ought to be replaced by the unencumbered power of individuals-in other words, the dictatorial power of a minority.

So if the chairman of Dow Chemical wants to flush his company's toxic effluence into rivers and streams, so be it. If General Motors wants to pay its employees starvation wages, that's their right too. Right-wing libertarians often appear to not want to grapple with meddlesome things like economic and social power. As the bourgeois radical Abraham Lincoln observed of secessionist slaveowners, "The perfect liberty they seek is the liberty of making slaves of other people."

Too much government?

Unwavering hostility to government and its collection of taxes is another hallmark of libertarianism. Given the odious practices of governments under capitalism, their repugnant financial priorities, and bilking of the lower classes through taxation it's hardly surprising that libertarians get a hearing.

But the conclusion that the problem is "big government" strips the content from the form. Can any working-class perspective seriously assert that we have too much government involvement in providing health care? Too much oversight of the environment, food production, and workplace safety? Would anyone seriously consider hopping a flight without the certainty of national, in fact international, air traffic control? Of course not. The problem doesn't lie with some abstract construct, "government," the problem is that the actual class dynamics of governments under capitalism amount to taxing workers and the poor in lieu of the rich and powerful corporations and spending those resources on wars, environmental devastation, and the enrichment of a tiny swath of society at the expense of the rest of us.

Ron Paul argues, "Government by majority rule has replaced strict protection of the individual from government abuse. Right of property ownership has been replaced with the forced redistribution of wealth and property" Few folks likely to be reading this publication will agree that we actually live in a society where wealth and property are expropriated from the rich and given to workers and the poor. Even the corporate media admit that there has been a wholesale redistribution of wealth in the opposite direction. But Paul exposes here the class nature of libertarianism-it is the provincial political outlook of the middle-class business owner obsessed with guarding his lot. As online anti-libertarian writer Ernest Partridge puts it in "Liberty for some":

"Complaints against "big government" and "over-regulation," though often justified, also issue from the privileged who are frustrated at finding that their quest for still greater privileges at the expense of their community are curtailed by a government which, ideally, represents that community. Pure food and drug laws curtail profits and mandate tests as they protect the general public."

In fact, the libertarians' opposition to the government, or the state if you will, is less out of hostility to what the state actually does than who is running it. Perhaps this explains Paul's own clear contradiction when it comes to abortion, since his opposition to government intervention stops at a woman's uterus. But freedom for socialists has always been about more than the right to choose masters. Likewise, Paul appears to be for "small government" except when it comes to using its power to restrict immigration. His personal right to not have any undocumented immigrants in the U.S. seems to trump the right of free movement of individuals, but not capital, across borders.

Right-wing libertarians, quite simply, oppose the state only insofar as it infringes the right of property owners.

Left-Right alliance?

Some antiwar activists and leftists desperate to revitalize a flagging antiwar movement make appeals to the Left to form a Left-Right bloc with Ron Paul supporters. Even environmental activist and left-wing author Joshua Frank, who writes insightful and often scathing attacks on liberal Democrats' capitulations to reactionary policies, recently penned an article citing-though not endorsing-Paul's campaign in calling for leftist antiwar activists to reach out to form a sort of Left-Right antiwar alliance. He argues, "Whether we're beer swilling rednecks from Knoxville or mushroom eatin' hippies from Eugene, we need to come together," ("Embracing a new antiwar movement").

Supporters of Ron Paul who show up to protests should have their reactionary conclusions challenged, not embraced. Those of his supporters who are wholly ignorant of his broader politics beyond the war, should be educated about them. And those who advocate his noxious politics, should be attacked for their racism, immigrant bashing, and hostility to the values a genuine Left champions. The sort of Left-Right alliance Frank advocates is not only opportunistic, but is also a repellent to creating the multiracial working-class movement that is sorely needed of we are to end this war. What Arabs, Blacks, Latinos-and antiracist whites, for that matter-would ever join a movement that accommodates to this know-nothing brand of politics?

Discontent with the status quo and the drumbeat of electoralism is driving many activists and progressives to seek out political alternatives. But libertarianism is no radical political solution to inequality, violence, and misery. When the likes of Paul shout: "We need freedom to choose!" we need to ask, "Yes, but freedom for whom?" Because the freedom to starve to death is the most dubious freedom of all.

Sherry Wolf is on the editorial board of the International Socialist Review. She can be reached at sherry@internationalsocialist.org.

The Freedom to Starve: Why the Left Should Reject Ron Paul

This is an amazing well written peice and gets to the heart of my reaction to Ron Paul. It's hard for me because I respect everyone's right to their own political opinion but I see Paul as so dangerous I feel like I cannot stand by and be silent and even if I don't convince one person to see the other side of Ron Paul, then at least I can say I tried my best. If you support Ron Paul, I beg you to read this.


The Freedom to Starve: Why the Left Should Reject Ron Paul

* By SHERRY WOLF
Counter Punch, December 26, 2007
Straight to the Source

"POLITICS, LIKE nature, abhors a vacuum," goes the revamped aphorism. Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's surprising stature among a small but vocal layer of antiwar activists and leftist bloggers appears to bear this out.

At the October 27, 2007, antiwar protests in dozens of cities noticeable contingents of supporters carried his campaign placards and circulated sign-up sheets. The Web site antiwar.com features a weekly Ron Paul column. Some even dream of a Left-Right gadfly alliance for the 2008 ticket. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, liberal maverick and Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich told supporters in late November he was thinking of making Ron Paul his running mate if he were to get the nomination.

No doubt, the hawkish and calculating Hillary Rodham Clinton and flaccid murmurings of Barack Obama, in addition to the uninspiring state of the antiwar movement that backed a prowar candidate in 2004, help fuel the desperation many activists feel. But leftists must unequivocally reject the reactionary libertarianism of this longtime Texas congressman and 1988 Libertarian Party presidential candidate.

Ron Paul's own campaign Web site reads like the objectivist rantings of Ayn Rand, one of his theoretical mentors. As with the Atlas Shrugged author's other acolytes, neocon guru Milton Friedman and former Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan, Paul argues, "Liberty means free-market capitalism." He opposes "big government" and in the isolationist fashion of the nation's Pat Buchanans, he decries intervention in foreign nation's affairs and believes membership in the United Nations undermines U.S. sovereignty.

Naturally, it is not Ron Paul's paeans to the free market that some progressives find so appealing, but his unwavering opposition to the war in Iraq and consistent voting record against all funding for the war. His straightforward speaking style, refusal to accept the financial perks of office, and his repeated calls for repealing the Patriot Act distinguish him from the snakeoil salesmen who populate Congress.

Paul is no power-hungry, poll-tested shyster. Even the liberalish chat show hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar on "The View" gave a friendly reception to Paul's folksy presentation, despite his paleoconservative views on abortion, which he-a practicing obstetrician-argues is murder.

Though Paul is unlikely to triumph in the primaries, it is worth taking stock not only of his actual positions, but more importantly the libertarian underpinnings that have wooed so many self-described leftists and progressives. Because at its core, the fetishism of individualism that underlies libertarianism leads to the denial of rights to the very people most radicals aim to champion-workers, immigrants, Blacks, women, gays, and any group that lacks the economic power to impose their individual rights on others.

Ron Paul's positions

A cursory look at Paul's positions, beyond his opposition to the war and the Patriot Act, would make any leftist cringe.

Put simply, he is a racist. Not the cross-burning, hood-wearing kind to be sure, but the flat Earth society brand that imagines a colorblind world where 500 years of colonial history and slavery are dismissed out of hand and institutional racism and policies under capitalism are imagined away. As his campaign Web site reads:

"The true antidote to racism is liberty. Liberty means having a limited, constitutional government devoted to the protection of individual rights rather than group claims. Liberty means free-market capitalism, which rewards individual achievement and competence-not skin color, gender, or ethnicity."

Paul was more blunt writing in his independent political newsletter distributed to thousands of supporters in 1992. Citing statistics from a study that year produced by the National Center on Incarceration and Alternatives, Paul concluded: "Given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the criminal justice system, I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal." Reporting on gang crime in Los Angeles, Paul commented: "If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."

His six-point immigration plan appears to have been cribbed from the gun-toting vigilante Minutemen at the border. "A nation without secure borders is no nation at all. It makes no sense to fight terrorists abroad when our own front door is left unlocked," reads his site. And he advocates cutting off all social services to undocumented immigrants, including hospitals, schools, clinics, and even roads (how would that work?).

"The public correctly perceives that neither political party has the courage to do what is necessary to prevent further erosion of both our border security and our national identity," he wrote in a 2005 article. "Unfortunately, the federal government seems more intent upon guarding the borders of other nations than our own." The article argues that, "Our current welfare system also encourages illegal immigration by discouraging American citizens from taking low-wage jobs." The solution: end welfare so that everyone will be forced to work at slave wages. In order that immigrants not culturally dilute the nation, he proposes that "All federal government business should be conducted in English."

Though he rants about his commitment to the Constitution, he introduced an amendment altering the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteeing citizenship to anyone born in the United States, saying in a 2006 article: "Birthright citizenship, originating in the 14th amendment, has become a serious cultural and economic dilemma for our nation. We must end the perverse incentives that encourage immigrants to come here illegally, including the anchor baby incentive."

Here we come up against the limits of libertarianism-Paul wants a strong state to secure the borders, but he wants all social welfare expenditures eliminated for those within them.

Paul is quite vocal these days about his rank opposition to abortion-"life begins at conception," he argues. He promotes a "states' rights" position on abortion-that decades old hobgoblin of civil rights opponents. And he has long opposed sexual harassment legislation, writing in his 1988 book Freedom Under Siege (available online), "Why don't they quit once the so-called harassment starts?" In keeping with his small government worldview, he goes on to argue against the government's right "to tell an airline it must hire unattractive women if it does not want to."

In that same book, written as the AIDS crisis was laying waste to the American gay male population prompting the rise of activist groups demanding research and drugs, Paul attacked AIDS sufferers as "victims of their own lifestyle." And in a statement that gives a glimpse of the ruling-class tyranny of individualism he asserts that AIDS victims demanding rushed drug trials were impinging on "the rights of insurance company owners."

Paul wants to abolish the Department of Education and, in his words, "end the federal education monopoly" by eliminating all taxes that go toward public education and "giving educational control back to parents." Which parents would those be? Only those with the leisure time, educational training, and temperament commensurate with home schooling! Whatever real problems the U.S. education system suffers from-and there are many-eliminating 99 percent literacy rates that generations of public education has achieved and tossing the children of working parents out of the schools is not an appealing or viable option.

Paul also opposes equal pay for equal work, a minimum wage, and, naturally, trade unions. In 2007, he voted against restricting employers' rights to interfere in union drives and against raising the federal minimum wage to $7.25. In 2001, he voted for zero-funding for OSHA's Ergonomics Rules, instead of the $4.5 billion. At least he's consistent.

Libertarians like Paul are for removing any legislative barriers that may restrict business owners' profits, but are openly hostile to alleviating economic restrictions that oppress most workers. Only a boss could embrace this perverse concept of "freedom."

Individualism versus collectivism

There is a scene in Monty Python's satire Life of Brian where Brian, not wanting to be the messiah, calls out to the crowd: "You are all individuals." The crowd responds in unison: "We are all individuals."

Libertarians, using pseudo-iconoclastic logic, transform this comical send-up of religious conformity into their own secular dogma in which we are all just atomized beings. "Only an individual has rights," not groups such as workers, Blacks, gays, women, and minorities, Ron Paul argues. True, we are all individuals, but we didn't just bump into one another. Human beings by nature are social beings who live in a collective, a society. Under capitalism, society is broken down into classes in which some individuals-bosses, for example-wield considerably more power than others-workers.

To advocate for society to be organized on the basis of strict individualism, as libertarians do, is to argue that everyone has the right to do whatever he or she wants. Sounds nice in the abstract, perhaps. But what happens when the desires of one individual infringe on the desires of another? Libertarians like Paul don't shy away from the logical ramifications of their argument. "The dictatorial power of a majority" he argues ought to be replaced by the unencumbered power of individuals-in other words, the dictatorial power of a minority.

So if the chairman of Dow Chemical wants to flush his company's toxic effluence into rivers and streams, so be it. If General Motors wants to pay its employees starvation wages, that's their right too. Right-wing libertarians often appear to not want to grapple with meddlesome things like economic and social power. As the bourgeois radical Abraham Lincoln observed of secessionist slaveowners, "The perfect liberty they seek is the liberty of making slaves of other people."

Too much government?

Unwavering hostility to government and its collection of taxes is another hallmark of libertarianism. Given the odious practices of governments under capitalism, their repugnant financial priorities, and bilking of the lower classes through taxation it's hardly surprising that libertarians get a hearing.

But the conclusion that the problem is "big government" strips the content from the form. Can any working-class perspective seriously assert that we have too much government involvement in providing health care? Too much oversight of the environment, food production, and workplace safety? Would anyone seriously consider hopping a flight without the certainty of national, in fact international, air traffic control? Of course not. The problem doesn't lie with some abstract construct, "government," the problem is that the actual class dynamics of governments under capitalism amount to taxing workers and the poor in lieu of the rich and powerful corporations and spending those resources on wars, environmental devastation, and the enrichment of a tiny swath of society at the expense of the rest of us.

Ron Paul argues, "Government by majority rule has replaced strict protection of the individual from government abuse. Right of property ownership has been replaced with the forced redistribution of wealth and property" Few folks likely to be reading this publication will agree that we actually live in a society where wealth and property are expropriated from the rich and given to workers and the poor. Even the corporate media admit that there has been a wholesale redistribution of wealth in the opposite direction. But Paul exposes here the class nature of libertarianism-it is the provincial political outlook of the middle-class business owner obsessed with guarding his lot. As online anti-libertarian writer Ernest Partridge puts it in "Liberty for some":

"Complaints against "big government" and "over-regulation," though often justified, also issue from the privileged who are frustrated at finding that their quest for still greater privileges at the expense of their community are curtailed by a government which, ideally, represents that community. Pure food and drug laws curtail profits and mandate tests as they protect the general public."

In fact, the libertarians' opposition to the government, or the state if you will, is less out of hostility to what the state actually does than who is running it. Perhaps this explains Paul's own clear contradiction when it comes to abortion, since his opposition to government intervention stops at a woman's uterus. But freedom for socialists has always been about more than the right to choose masters. Likewise, Paul appears to be for "small government" except when it comes to using its power to restrict immigration. His personal right to not have any undocumented immigrants in the U.S. seems to trump the right of free movement of individuals, but not capital, across borders.

Right-wing libertarians, quite simply, oppose the state only insofar as it infringes the right of property owners.

Left-Right alliance?

Some antiwar activists and leftists desperate to revitalize a flagging antiwar movement make appeals to the Left to form a Left-Right bloc with Ron Paul supporters. Even environmental activist and left-wing author Joshua Frank, who writes insightful and often scathing attacks on liberal Democrats' capitulations to reactionary policies, recently penned an article citing-though not endorsing-Paul's campaign in calling for leftist antiwar activists to reach out to form a sort of Left-Right antiwar alliance. He argues, "Whether we're beer swilling rednecks from Knoxville or mushroom eatin' hippies from Eugene, we need to come together," ("Embracing a new antiwar movement").

Supporters of Ron Paul who show up to protests should have their reactionary conclusions challenged, not embraced. Those of his supporters who are wholly ignorant of his broader politics beyond the war, should be educated about them. And those who advocate his noxious politics, should be attacked for their racism, immigrant bashing, and hostility to the values a genuine Left champions. The sort of Left-Right alliance Frank advocates is not only opportunistic, but is also a repellent to creating the multiracial working-class movement that is sorely needed of we are to end this war. What Arabs, Blacks, Latinos-and antiracist whites, for that matter-would ever join a movement that accommodates to this know-nothing brand of politics?

Discontent with the status quo and the drumbeat of electoralism is driving many activists and progressives to seek out political alternatives. But libertarianism is no radical political solution to inequality, violence, and misery. When the likes of Paul shout: "We need freedom to choose!" we need to ask, "Yes, but freedom for whom?" Because the freedom to starve to death is the most dubious freedom of all.

Sherry Wolf is on the editorial board of the International Socialist Review. She can be reached at sherry@internationalsocialist.org.

Pictures

I found these online, they are very moving.

Pictures

I found these online, they are very moving.

Dennis Kucinich vs. Ron Paul

I'll admitt it, I can't stand it. I can stand seeing another, intelligent, liberal friend of mine fall into the Ron Paul trap! It's driving me nuts! Meanwhile Dennis Kucinich can't drum up nearly the support Ron has when his policies are heads and shoulders above Ron's! Ron Paul seems to have an almost hypnotic hold on his supporters and few of them have researched anything beyond "legal drugs, legal guns and no taxes" or if they have they seem perfectly fine with selling out gay rights, Latino rights, abortion rights, the poor and the environment so that they don't have to pay taxes.

The Issues

Abortion

Kucinich would keep it legal, Ron Paul is against Roe v. Wade

To read Dennis' indepth approuch to reducing abortions while still providing safe access to those who need them go here.

Death Penalty

Both are against

Stem Cell Research

Kucinich is fine with it, Ron Paul is against it

ANWR Drilling (Environmental Issue)

Kucinich is on the side of the earth, Paul would see it plundered for corporate gain

Kyoto

Dennis supports Kyoto (voluntary reduction in carbon emission, only the US has not signed even though we are the biggest polluter). Paul is againt Kyoto *cough* is it getting hot in here?

Banning Assult Weapons

Kucinich supports banning assult weapons, Paul is against banning them

Background Checks to Buy a Weapon

Kucinich supports background checks, Ron Paul does not

Patriot Act

They are both against it

Guantanamo, Torture and Wire Tapping

Both are against all of the above

A path for Citizinship for our Latino Brothers and Sisters

Kucinich is for it, Ron is against it

A Fence on the Southern Border

Kucinich would not build a fence, Ron Paul would

Internet Neutrality

Kucinich would keep the net open and equally accessable, Ron would turn it over to big business so that the only pages you could get would be the ones "they" want you to see (Hummmm.... wonder where all the Ron Paul spammers would be then? They could fill up the net with their Paul-isms but no one could read them)

Iran

Both oppose sanctions on Iran

Iraq

Neither supports the Iraq war and neither would increase troop levels

Minimum Wage

Dennis wants to increase the minimum wage, Paul does not

Gay Rights

Dennis supports civil unions and/or marriage, Ron Paul would leave it up to states (and most states have already ammended their constitutions against it)

Health Care

Kucinich is the ONLY canidate with a universal, not-for-profit health care system.

So those are the popular issues but what about some of the not so popular ones? Ron Paul supporters always like to bring up that Ron Paul would pardon all non-violent drug offenders, he would abolish the IRS, he's a constiutionalist, and he would make drugs (including marijuana and by virtue the non-drug hemp) legal and he would investigate 9/11.

Dennis advocates returning America to a strong constiutional democracry. On the drug issue Dennis says, "The primary job of law enforcement should be protecting our country and its citizens -- not protecting people from themselves. Drug addiction is a medical and moral problem that should be treated by professionals, not dumped on the criminal justice system. Setting up a national commission of medical professionals to develop an intelligent program, based on the experience of drug experts from around the world, would be a first step. Allowing doctors to treat drug addiction humanely and intelligently, including the prescription of maintenance doses, would allow us to quickly eliminate most of the black market and much of the damage to a safe, free, and just America.I have studied the issue for decades and recognize that our "War on Drugs" has failed. In fact, because our War on Drugs drives up the price, it encourages violence. Prohibition simply doesn't work. It only creates thousands and thousands of Al Capones. Prison should be for people who hurt other people, not themselves. We don't jail people for merely drinking. We jail people when they drink and drive or hurt another human."

On decriminalizing marjiuana, Dennis proposes;

"As a nation, we must work to implement a drug policy that removes responsible recreational users and medical users of marijuana from the criminal justice system, in order to redirect resources toward the following goals:

* Enforce penalties for those who provide marijuana to minors.
* Enforce penalties for those who endanger the rights of others through irresponsible use, such as driving under the influence.
* Develop drug treatment programs focused on rehabilitation, rather than incarceration.
* Support the efforts of state governments in developing innovative approaches to drug policy.
* Improve drug education by emphasizing science over scare tactics.
* Implement a Department of Justice program that would review the records of, and consider for sentence reduction or release, inmates convicted for nonviolent marijuana offenses." He also supports legalizing Hemp by the way.

As far as taxes are concerned Dennis has a wonderful plan and policy that you can read in full here.

Also, on November 24th, 2007 Elizabeth Kucinich said that not only would Dennis change the monetary system but that he would re-open the 9/11 investigation!

So here's something else to chew on, Ron Paul is not in favor of social services either, at all. He would get rid of them. Have you ever been on welfare, a housing voucher, section 8, food stamps, or any other program that helps the needy and desperate get by another day? I kow I have and I know lots of Paul supports who have as well and it strikes me as extremely hypercritical of them. Reform of these programs is a valid argument, abolishment is not, especially when Ron Paul doens't support the minimum wage increase. Removing the only safety net some people have in times of desperation is not the answer to strengthing our nation.

I would also like to point out that before politics Dr. Ron Paul was an OB/GYN. That's right, an OB/GYN. He is one of the countless males in our culture that believes that he and the rest of the medical profession know more about delivering babies than women do. Not only does he like women birthing in hospitals he decided it was his calling, his career, to put them in that place. Ron Paul went through what must have been 10 years of hard medical school because he wanted to put women's feet in stir-ups, he wanted to shoot them up with drugs, he wanted to slice open their vagina's or bellies and pull their traumatized babies away from them as they screamed. He liked it, a lot. He must have otherwise why would he have gone through all that schooling to make it his full-time job? And where on earth would our midwifery protections and rights to birth at home go if we had a former OB as our president? I shutter to think!

Have you ever been working really hard for minimum wage and couldn't make ends meet? Do you know someone who has? Do you have gay friend, neighbor or relative who would like to be able to marry their loving partner and recieve the same rights heterosexuals have? Have you ever benefitted from a social service? Have you ever needed, wanted or considered an abortion? Ever know someone who has? Do you want a clean and healthy environment? Do you want to be able to view and post whatever YOU want online and know that everyone has equal access no matter who they are? Do you know a hard working Latino family who immigrated to the US? Has anyone in your family ever immigrated to the US legal or otherwise? Are you any race other then Native American? Do you want a fair shot at having your own business? Do you want a strong, localized economy? Do you want the return to small town business?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions I would put forth that Ron Paul should NOT be your canidate.

Or maybe you don't care because this doesn't hit home to you. You don't have any of these issues or you don't percieve yourself to but I implore you on behalf of my family to not vote for Ron Paul. My partner works very hard but we still need food stamps to get our children healthy foods. My children and I are uninsured and we could never afford private insurance. My mother-in-law is working well past retirement because her husband is sick, dying perhaps, and she cannot lose her health coverage for him. I have gay friends who deserve the right to marry. I'm a bi-sexual who would like to have the opportunity to express my choice fully and marry a woman if I chose to. I would like to know that if I became a single mother again and found myself in a position of not receiving child support, that my kids and I could get emergency money, food and shelter.

But most important of all I want all the children of this world to grow up in the cleanist, healthiest environment we can possibly provide them.

Please include the poor, women, minorities, and the environment in your revolution of love.

Dennis Kucinich vs. Ron Paul

I'll admitt it, I can't stand it. I can stand seeing another, intelligent, liberal friend of mine fall into the Ron Paul trap! It's driving me nuts! Meanwhile Dennis Kucinich can't drum up nearly the support Ron has when his policies are heads and shoulders above Ron's! Ron Paul seems to have an almost hypnotic hold on his supporters and few of them have researched anything beyond "legal drugs, legal guns and no taxes" or if they have they seem perfectly fine with selling out gay rights, Latino rights, abortion rights, the poor and the environment so that they don't have to pay taxes.

The Issues

Abortion

Kucinich would keep it legal, Ron Paul is against Roe v. Wade

To read Dennis' indepth approuch to reducing abortions while still providing safe access to those who need them go here.

Death Penalty

Both are against

Stem Cell Research

Kucinich is fine with it, Ron Paul is against it

ANWR Drilling (Environmental Issue)

Kucinich is on the side of the earth, Paul would see it plundered for corporate gain

Kyoto

Dennis supports Kyoto (voluntary reduction in carbon emission, only the US has not signed even though we are the biggest polluter). Paul is againt Kyoto *cough* is it getting hot in here?

Banning Assult Weapons

Kucinich supports banning assult weapons, Paul is against banning them

Background Checks to Buy a Weapon

Kucinich supports background checks, Ron Paul does not

Patriot Act

They are both against it

Guantanamo, Torture and Wire Tapping

Both are against all of the above

A path for Citizinship for our Latino Brothers and Sisters

Kucinich is for it, Ron is against it

A Fence on the Southern Border

Kucinich would not build a fence, Ron Paul would

Internet Neutrality

Kucinich would keep the net open and equally accessable, Ron would turn it over to big business so that the only pages you could get would be the ones "they" want you to see (Hummmm.... wonder where all the Ron Paul spammers would be then? They could fill up the net with their Paul-isms but no one could read them)

Iran

Both oppose sanctions on Iran

Iraq

Neither supports the Iraq war and neither would increase troop levels

Minimum Wage

Dennis wants to increase the minimum wage, Paul does not

Gay Rights

Dennis supports civil unions and/or marriage, Ron Paul would leave it up to states (and most states have already ammended their constitutions against it)

Health Care

Kucinich is the ONLY canidate with a universal, not-for-profit health care system.

So those are the popular issues but what about some of the not so popular ones? Ron Paul supporters always like to bring up that Ron Paul would pardon all non-violent drug offenders, he would abolish the IRS, he's a constiutionalist, and he would make drugs (including marijuana and by virtue the non-drug hemp) legal and he would investigate 9/11.

Dennis advocates returning America to a strong constiutional democracry. On the drug issue Dennis says, "The primary job of law enforcement should be protecting our country and its citizens -- not protecting people from themselves. Drug addiction is a medical and moral problem that should be treated by professionals, not dumped on the criminal justice system. Setting up a national commission of medical professionals to develop an intelligent program, based on the experience of drug experts from around the world, would be a first step. Allowing doctors to treat drug addiction humanely and intelligently, including the prescription of maintenance doses, would allow us to quickly eliminate most of the black market and much of the damage to a safe, free, and just America.I have studied the issue for decades and recognize that our "War on Drugs" has failed. In fact, because our War on Drugs drives up the price, it encourages violence. Prohibition simply doesn't work. It only creates thousands and thousands of Al Capones. Prison should be for people who hurt other people, not themselves. We don't jail people for merely drinking. We jail people when they drink and drive or hurt another human."

On decriminalizing marjiuana, Dennis proposes;

"As a nation, we must work to implement a drug policy that removes responsible recreational users and medical users of marijuana from the criminal justice system, in order to redirect resources toward the following goals:

* Enforce penalties for those who provide marijuana to minors.
* Enforce penalties for those who endanger the rights of others through irresponsible use, such as driving under the influence.
* Develop drug treatment programs focused on rehabilitation, rather than incarceration.
* Support the efforts of state governments in developing innovative approaches to drug policy.
* Improve drug education by emphasizing science over scare tactics.
* Implement a Department of Justice program that would review the records of, and consider for sentence reduction or release, inmates convicted for nonviolent marijuana offenses." He also supports legalizing Hemp by the way.

As far as taxes are concerned Dennis has a wonderful plan and policy that you can read in full here.

Also, on November 24th, 2007 Elizabeth Kucinich said that not only would Dennis change the monetary system but that he would re-open the 9/11 investigation!

So here's something else to chew on, Ron Paul is not in favor of social services either, at all. He would get rid of them. Have you ever been on welfare, a housing voucher, section 8, food stamps, or any other program that helps the needy and desperate get by another day? I kow I have and I know lots of Paul supports who have as well and it strikes me as extremely hypercritical of them. Reform of these programs is a valid argument, abolishment is not, especially when Ron Paul doens't support the minimum wage increase. Removing the only safety net some people have in times of desperation is not the answer to strengthing our nation.

I would also like to point out that before politics Dr. Ron Paul was an OB/GYN. That's right, an OB/GYN. He is one of the countless males in our culture that believes that he and the rest of the medical profession know more about delivering babies than women do. Not only does he like women birthing in hospitals he decided it was his calling, his career, to put them in that place. Ron Paul went through what must have been 10 years of hard medical school because he wanted to put women's feet in stir-ups, he wanted to shoot them up with drugs, he wanted to slice open their vagina's or bellies and pull their traumatized babies away from them as they screamed. He liked it, a lot. He must have otherwise why would he have gone through all that schooling to make it his full-time job? And where on earth would our midwifery protections and rights to birth at home go if we had a former OB as our president? I shutter to think!

Have you ever been working really hard for minimum wage and couldn't make ends meet? Do you know someone who has? Do you have gay friend, neighbor or relative who would like to be able to marry their loving partner and recieve the same rights heterosexuals have? Have you ever benefitted from a social service? Have you ever needed, wanted or considered an abortion? Ever know someone who has? Do you want a clean and healthy environment? Do you want to be able to view and post whatever YOU want online and know that everyone has equal access no matter who they are? Do you know a hard working Latino family who immigrated to the US? Has anyone in your family ever immigrated to the US legal or otherwise? Are you any race other then Native American? Do you want a fair shot at having your own business? Do you want a strong, localized economy? Do you want the return to small town business?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions I would put forth that Ron Paul should NOT be your canidate.

Or maybe you don't care because this doesn't hit home to you. You don't have any of these issues or you don't percieve yourself to but I implore you on behalf of my family to not vote for Ron Paul. My partner works very hard but we still need food stamps to get our children healthy foods. My children and I are uninsured and we could never afford private insurance. My mother-in-law is working well past retirement because her husband is sick, dying perhaps, and she cannot lose her health coverage for him. I have gay friends who deserve the right to marry. I'm a bi-sexual who would like to have the opportunity to express my choice fully and marry a woman if I chose to. I would like to know that if I became a single mother again and found myself in a position of not receiving child support, that my kids and I could get emergency money, food and shelter.

But most important of all I want all the children of this world to grow up in the cleanist, healthiest environment we can possibly provide them.

Please include the poor, women, minorities, and the environment in your revolution of love.

Sweet Days

Sweet days are lingering on my tongue and melting like soft snowflakes. A bright morning sun rises and melts the frost and other days it just illuminates it. Gravel salted roads cruch under feet and tire alike. Nursing cuddles, cold toes searching for warmth, yummy left-overs, mornings under the blankets with my sexy partner.


Cat-like yoga stretches in front of the window.

We move slowly, full of grace, in all our winter concentration.

Sweet Days

Sweet days are lingering on my tongue and melting like soft snowflakes. A bright morning sun rises and melts the frost and other days it just illuminates it. Gravel salted roads cruch under feet and tire alike. Nursing cuddles, cold toes searching for warmth, yummy left-overs, mornings under the blankets with my sexy partner.


Cat-like yoga stretches in front of the window.

We move slowly, full of grace, in all our winter concentration.

(12.26.07) Recommends:

The track "Blue Eleanor" by Old Canes.

One of the many reasons that we love our inbox is that, here we sit, the day after Christmas, and it's still giving us little gifts. And one of the many reasons we love blogging is we get people -- friends and strangers alike, and sometimes even strangers who become friends -- who send recommendations our way.

So today, our love of inboxes, and blogs, and friends, and recommendations all came together, and the result, predictably, is pretty effing cool. Today a friend sent us along this track and we've been swimming in it all morning. We know little about the band or the album from which this track comes, but when the holiday season starts calming down a little -- starting tomorrow for us, unfortunately -- we're gonna figure this out. What we know now is that Old Canes come from Lawrence, KS and the album came out in July 2004. If our calculations are correct, this means we had already left the KC metro area for California and therefore can feel a little less bad about not knowing about this sooner.

(12.25.07) Recommends:

A Survey!

This is our second installment of A Survey! Last time's game is here. Today we're asking: do we like Portfolio, Conde Nast's new business magazine, or does it annoy us?

The Pros:

1. As we mentioned last time we blogged about the magazine, Michael Lewis is a contributing editor. And today, we gave a family member a Michael Lewis book for Christmas. We've gone this for about 19 Christmas' in a row. If, god forbid, Michael Lewis stops writing books, our family members will likely stop receiving gifts.
2. The stories are short and are informal.
3. There is a humor present in the stories -- stories that are more or less about serious subjects -- that you rarely find in other mainstream periodicals.

The Cons:

1. The shortness and informality seem to almost border on the flippant. This worries us.
2. The shortness also prevents any in-depth analysis. We know this seems like a preposterous thing to even have to mention -- how could shorts things contain in-depth analysis? Two words: James Surowiecki. His pieces in the New Yorker are never longer than one page (plus, there's also a cartoon in the middle, so it's actually less than one full page). And we always feel like we walk away with a grasp on whatever topic he explores after that one page. We were hoping Portfolio would be a magazine full of Surowiecki-esque pieces. We're not hopeful it's reached such heights.

So, Survey Time, boys and girls. Go out and read the magazine, and let us know what you think. Does this magazine have the chance to be a must-read, always-on-our-coffee-table magazine? Or does it just annoy us?

Star Baby Give Away!

We have our winners! Congrats Dragonclanstar and Lizz!

Merry Christmas! I have some star babies to give away to two of my readers! Just post me comment (come on lurkers, this means you! :)) and let me know what you're looking forward to in the new year. Be sure to include your email address. Nykki and I will draw two winners randomly by New Years and post the results!

Blessings to all my readers, I am truly thankful for you!

Star Baby Give Away!

We have our winners! Congrats Dragonclanstar and Lizz!

Merry Christmas! I have some star babies to give away to two of my readers! Just post me comment (come on lurkers, this means you! :)) and let me know what you're looking forward to in the new year. Be sure to include your email address. Nykki and I will draw two winners randomly by New Years and post the results!

Blessings to all my readers, I am truly thankful for you!

December 24, 2007 - The Widening of Time

I’m taking a break from writing my Christmas Eve sermon to add a few words here, about the holiday and about how I’m doing.

I just read an online update from Walt Wangerin, a Lutheran pastor and novelist who, like me, is dealing with cancer. (I previously mentioned Walt in my Februrary 12, 2007 entry). Also like me, Walt has been engaged in a hard, uphill struggle, but has now emerged onto a sort of plateau. He has gone from thinking death was near to realizing he will likely live quite a while longer.

Back on August 10th, when he was still feeling sick, Walt wrote these words:

“Time used to tumble for me. Like the mountain stream that breaks at the big rocks, spouts and plunges at speed from crags to canyons. Time was narrow and very fast.

Now Time has slowed to a stately progression. I measure it in day/feet – feet per day. For there are fewer days left to me and heavier feet for the passage. Slowth: it requires enormous patience. Slowth: a damming of anxiety. The consequence of a body restrained, slower than an infant's crawl. My motion by disease reduced to the child's eternal wait for good things far away.

On the other hand, slowth's no trouble at all. Where once Time tumbled, now Time has widened. Like the river that covers a broad plain. And the patience I thought was severity has become my benefaction.

I don't look forward so much any more, dashing to grasp the future. I look left and right. I've the Time, you see, to scrutinize all that is. And what is companions me.”

As of his most recent update (November 26th), Walt is in a very different place. Like me, he’s had reports from his doctor that indicates the cancer has not progressed further. Consequently, he’s now got a different perspective on time:

“...my more earthly anticipations are turning toward living as well, yes, yes, yes – and with them come back again the old responsibilities little and large, personal and public; come back anxieties over things unfinished, the sense of the terrible rush of time eating away my days, my plans, my hopes of completing this thing and that.”

I can attest, from my experience, that it’s a strange thing to return to ordinary life, after some time spent dealing with life-threatening illness. I feel, at times, like I can’t trust good news to be good. After spending a long time waiting for the other shoe to drop, it’s hard to avoid keeping an ear out for it.

Yet, as Walt observes, there are certain advantages that come from the perspective offered by the valley of the shadow of death:

“And there at the threshold of eternity my casual sins, the bitterness certain people have conceived and still hold against me, the unresolved, unresolvable troubles lingering in relationships – all these diminished. The lesser the time, the less pressing these. What a lightness of spirit such a shuffling off afforded me. How sweetly my preparations for death consumed me. How elemental, how simple the holy focus of my attentions. And I knew no fears that I might still wound my friends or aggravate my family. We were at peace. I didn’t have time to destroy that. Dying made me a very good man. And mortal sickness drew both patience and compassion, mercy and love from all those so dear to me.”

I’m sitting at the computer keyboard, listening to glorious music on the radio from the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge. There’s a timelessness to this beloved service: the soaring voices of the choirboys, the mellifluous, English-accented readings from the King James Version of the Bible, the beloved carols and anthems. It’s Christmas coming round once again: the same, year after year.

But, it’s also different. Two years ago, my Christmas was swathed in anxiety, as I was living into the reality of my diagnosis. Last Christmas, I took comfort in the fact that I was in remission. Now, I’m no longer in remission, but am on a similar sort of plateau to the one Walt now occupies. I could be here a very long time before undergoing further treatment, or perhaps it will be sooner. Only God knows.

The only thing to do is, as Walt says, to look for those places in life where Time widens, and attention is sharply focused on the things that make for peace.

Christmas can be such a time. As the organ music swells and choirboys sing on, I realize that.

A joyous Christmas to you!

(12.23.07) Recommends:

The Megabus.

We don't think we've mentioned the Megabus before, but we would be remiss if we allowed 2007 to fall away into the record books without first shining our light on what surely is one of the Top Three Modes of Transportation in the United States.

The setup: Megabus is a "low cost, daily, express bus service in the US." The system was first described to us was thusly: It could take a rider from St. Louis, MO to Kansas City, MO for $1. This is roughly 300 miles. Even assuming you have a 10-gallon gas tank and get 30 miles a gallon, such a trip would cost $30.

We studied Economics in college and even went on to work professionally in the field. Yet, we have no idea how this Megabus system possibly works. How and why it works escapes us. But works, we know, it does.

Here's how we know: after hearing fanciful tales of such civilized travel from family members in (the Middle of) America, we tried the thing out on the West Coast.

San Jose. To Los Angeles. For $10.

No kidding.

As far as we can tell there are no catches to this system (other than, you know, it might go bankrupt at any second). The buses are new and big and comfortable. The drivers are reasonable. There is one stop, approximately 30 minutes in length (at least this is so for the SJ-->LA leg). The company, if it advertises at all, only advertises online and tickets can only be purchased online, so rather than getting sketchballs like on Greyhound, you get a bunch of people who look like they're being shipped off to Hipster Bandcamp. And we can be down with that.

This seems like a system too good to stay this pure for very long. So, if you live in or near a city served by Megabus, make 2K8 the year you try it.

Note: More background info found here.

A Pause and a Blue Bird

Today is always an odd day for me. It's a brief lull between Winter Solstice and Christams Eve that stands as almost a day without time. It hangs in the air like that free-fall feeling you get just as you are about to take a huge plunge on a roller coast. I take a deep breath and hold on.


The season will linger for us, with many lulls in between. We have a huge Christams Eve and Christmas day present orgy at the in-laws (LOL) followed by a visit somewhere around the 27th from my father (bearing more gifts) and then *hopefully* a visit from my mom for Ronan's birthday on the 8th. I feel like "normal" life will not gain a foot hold until somwhere in mid-January. Until then I'm content to hide in the creaveses of the day, snug and warm, in our little house in the big woods.


It's no mistake we have these quiet spaces inbetween the rush of the holidays. If it weren't for a present-daze at the in-laws the holiday for us would be all quiet spaces with burts of merriment inbetween. Seth and I have delibertly carved things out this way with no mall trips, no huge packages at the post office, no mountians of holiday cards, no mad-buying dash.

We sent out an email a few weeks ago requesting addresses for those who wished to receive a holiday card. Only those who responded got a holiday card purchased at our local thrift shop. Seth and I exchanged one gift each (I got him a book light and he got me a we'moon planner). Other then that, we bought thrift shop toys for the kids and I made star babies as gifts for other people. We choose our social engagments carefully, a sparingly.

Simple, Peaceful

This morning when we woke up I looked out our bedroom window to see a blue bird stealing a spongue from our back yard (I had been out there cleaning the Thomas train set earlier in the week hence a spongue in our yard) He grabbed it and flew up to the top of our wooden fence, he paused picking at it for a moment while I urged my family to come to the glass door and look. After a moment he flew off with the yellow spongue no doubt to add it to his nest.


What a wonderful time of year this is to nest. To tuck in, cuddle down, hibernate with the bears and move slowly like the bats. Here's wishing you a slow, warm and happy holiday season!

A Pause and a Blue Bird

Today is always an odd day for me. It's a brief lull between Winter Solstice and Christams Eve that stands as almost a day without time. It hangs in the air like that free-fall feeling you get just as you are about to take a huge plunge on a roller coast. I take a deep breath and hold on.


The season will linger for us, with many lulls in between. We have a huge Christams Eve and Christmas day present orgy at the in-laws (LOL) followed by a visit somewhere around the 27th from my father (bearing more gifts) and then *hopefully* a visit from my mom for Ronan's birthday on the 8th. I feel like "normal" life will not gain a foot hold until somwhere in mid-January. Until then I'm content to hide in the creaveses of the day, snug and warm, in our little house in the big woods.


It's no mistake we have these quiet spaces inbetween the rush of the holidays. If it weren't for a present-daze at the in-laws the holiday for us would be all quiet spaces with burts of merriment inbetween. Seth and I have delibertly carved things out this way with no mall trips, no huge packages at the post office, no mountians of holiday cards, no mad-buying dash.

We sent out an email a few weeks ago requesting addresses for those who wished to receive a holiday card. Only those who responded got a holiday card purchased at our local thrift shop. Seth and I exchanged one gift each (I got him a book light and he got me a we'moon planner). Other then that, we bought thrift shop toys for the kids and I made star babies as gifts for other people. We choose our social engagments carefully, a sparingly.

Simple, Peaceful

This morning when we woke up I looked out our bedroom window to see a blue bird stealing a spongue from our back yard (I had been out there cleaning the Thomas train set earlier in the week hence a spongue in our yard) He grabbed it and flew up to the top of our wooden fence, he paused picking at it for a moment while I urged my family to come to the glass door and look. After a moment he flew off with the yellow spongue no doubt to add it to his nest.


What a wonderful time of year this is to nest. To tuck in, cuddle down, hibernate with the bears and move slowly like the bats. Here's wishing you a slow, warm and happy holiday season!

Wal-Mart's Crimes Against Forests

Wal-Mart's Crimes Against Forests

* By Al Norman
Huffington Post, December 19, 2007
Straight to the Source

from Alternet.org



If a tree falls in the forest, will Wal-Mart hear the sound?

Apparently not, according to an environmental investigative report released this week on Wal-Mart's unsustainable timber procurement practices. The new study says Wal-Mart's "good wood" procurement policy only looks good on paper.

Last month, Wal-Mart released a 59-page "Sustainability" progress report, in which the company said "we want to provide our customers with the assurance that not only are they getting value and quality, but they are getting a product that was produced in a socially responsible manner." But the retailer's wood procurement policies are basically all bark, and no bite.

Wal-Mart sells wood products ranging from furniture, to picture frames, candle holders, tooth picks and popsicle sticks. The typical Wal-Mart supercenter can carry more than 900 different wood products. Wal-Mart tells the public that "an area of forest the size of a football field is cleared every second. That's 86,400 football fields a day. In tropical forests, it's estimated that 50,000 species become extinct each year because of deforestation." The retailer has a "Forest and Paper Network" that seeks to get its suppliers to convert to certified wood, and to give preference to suppliers who can verify the use of sustainably harvested wood fiber. "When we discover sustainable factory issues, we are committed to seeking alternatives," the company says, "or even removing products from shelves."

Based on this pledge, the Simplicity corporation should expect a call any day now from Wal-Mart, pulling Simplicity's wooden cribs from its shelves. An undercover study released this week by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a non-profit research agency based in Washington, D.C., says that despite the company's rhetoric about sustainable wood products, "Wal-Mart is turning a blind eye to illegal timber sources in its supply chain which threaten some of the world's last great natural forests."

According to EIA, Wal-Mart does not ask its suppliers where their wood comes from, and the retailer's 'don't ask' policy "is having particularly dangerous consequences for the high conservation value forest of the Russian Far East and the endangered species dependent on them, including the world's largest cat, the Siberian tiger.

Roughly 84 percent of Wal-Mart's wood products, like cribs and toilet seats, are sourced from China, and much of China's lumber is imported from Russia, where as much as 50 percent of the logging is illegal. EIA undercover investigators met with 8 Chinese manufacturers that supply Wal-Mart with wood. EIA asserts that Wal-Mart is focused only on price, and "has not concerned itself with the origin of the timber used for its products." Wal-Mart's supply chain "will contribute to the depletion of Russia's 'protected' forests unless concerted changes are made," the EIA warns.

One supplier EIA examined makes over 200,000 baby cribs for Wal-Mart every year from Russian poplar and birch. EIA employees, posing as wood buyers, learned that Wal-Mart suppliers admitted to paying protection money to the Russian mafia, and to illegal logging. Almost comical is the fact that logs coming into China from Russia have to be offloaded from the railcars, and reloaded onto Chinese railcars, because the Russian train tracks are a different size than the Chinese. When Wal-Mart customers buy these wood products, they are supporting "criminal timber syndicates," the environmental group says.

Wal-Mart has pledged to "develop transparency to the wood fiber source," but EIA replies that the retailer has shown a "lack of concern" about the sustainability of its wood sourcing. Illegally harvested wood is cheaper because it bypasses environmental regulations, permits, labor laws, taxes and tariffs. Illegal lumber also has a negative impact on the American economy. In 2004, illegal timber cost American suppliers $460 million in lost exports to foreign markets, and as much as $700 million in depressed U.S. prices.

The EIA claims that Wal-Mart's drive to squeeze the lowest price from its suppliers encourages illegal logging. "While the company has laid out strong talking points," EIA notes, "it has thus far avoided taking any firm action to eliminate even illegally logged timber from its supply chain, much less to source from sustainably harvested forests." The group says that without concrete goals and more transparency, all Wal-Mart's rhetoric about 'good wood' "cannot yet be taken seriously." EIA documents several case studies of Wal-Mart's "total inattention to the legality of their raw materials."

The EIA report calls on Wal-Mart "to commit to eliminating illegally sourced wood from its supply chain, and to implement a rigorous purchasing policy for wood products that includes auditing and tracking mechanisms." EIA concludes that "the drive for 'everyday low prices' to the exclusion of other questions has a serious cost..The type of logging pervasive in the Russian Far East damages the environment, robs the government of revenue, and promotes corruption. There is nothing sustainable about this model."

Wal-Mart admits "it's difficult to know if the products we source are coming from certified suppliers and are being made using legally sustainable practices." But the EIA says it's not enough for Wal-Mart simply to acknowledge the problem. "It is now time for Wal-Mart to commit to eliminating illegal wood from its shelves, and communicate this policy to its suppliers of furniture, frames, toys, paper and packaging and other wood products," the EIA insists. "Wal-Mart shoppers do not want to be an inadvertent party to forest crimes."

Alexander von Bismarck, the Executive Director of EIA, says, "To have Wal-Mart ignore measures that to the rest of the world seem common sense -- such as asking where your suppliers' wood is from -- has an enormous impact. It undermines the current global efforts to clean up the timber industry. When Wal-Mart fails to implement an entire category of environmental responsibility, it creates demand designed to take advantage of that. This is currently feeding the illegal logging problem." The EIA believes that Wal-Mart has within its power the ability to "limit the destruction of some of our planet's final frontier forests and the wildlife and people who depend upon them."

Today, there are more than 6,800 Wal-Mart stores around the globe (the company recently opened its 3,000th international store), but only 400 remaining Siberian tigers. That's not very sustainable odds.

Al Norman is the author of The Case Against Wal-Mart. Forbes magazine has called him "Wal-Mart's number one enemy."

(C) 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/71103/

Wal-Mart's Crimes Against Forests

Wal-Mart's Crimes Against Forests

* By Al Norman
Huffington Post, December 19, 2007
Straight to the Source

from Alternet.org



If a tree falls in the forest, will Wal-Mart hear the sound?

Apparently not, according to an environmental investigative report released this week on Wal-Mart's unsustainable timber procurement practices. The new study says Wal-Mart's "good wood" procurement policy only looks good on paper.

Last month, Wal-Mart released a 59-page "Sustainability" progress report, in which the company said "we want to provide our customers with the assurance that not only are they getting value and quality, but they are getting a product that was produced in a socially responsible manner." But the retailer's wood procurement policies are basically all bark, and no bite.

Wal-Mart sells wood products ranging from furniture, to picture frames, candle holders, tooth picks and popsicle sticks. The typical Wal-Mart supercenter can carry more than 900 different wood products. Wal-Mart tells the public that "an area of forest the size of a football field is cleared every second. That's 86,400 football fields a day. In tropical forests, it's estimated that 50,000 species become extinct each year because of deforestation." The retailer has a "Forest and Paper Network" that seeks to get its suppliers to convert to certified wood, and to give preference to suppliers who can verify the use of sustainably harvested wood fiber. "When we discover sustainable factory issues, we are committed to seeking alternatives," the company says, "or even removing products from shelves."

Based on this pledge, the Simplicity corporation should expect a call any day now from Wal-Mart, pulling Simplicity's wooden cribs from its shelves. An undercover study released this week by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a non-profit research agency based in Washington, D.C., says that despite the company's rhetoric about sustainable wood products, "Wal-Mart is turning a blind eye to illegal timber sources in its supply chain which threaten some of the world's last great natural forests."

According to EIA, Wal-Mart does not ask its suppliers where their wood comes from, and the retailer's 'don't ask' policy "is having particularly dangerous consequences for the high conservation value forest of the Russian Far East and the endangered species dependent on them, including the world's largest cat, the Siberian tiger.

Roughly 84 percent of Wal-Mart's wood products, like cribs and toilet seats, are sourced from China, and much of China's lumber is imported from Russia, where as much as 50 percent of the logging is illegal. EIA undercover investigators met with 8 Chinese manufacturers that supply Wal-Mart with wood. EIA asserts that Wal-Mart is focused only on price, and "has not concerned itself with the origin of the timber used for its products." Wal-Mart's supply chain "will contribute to the depletion of Russia's 'protected' forests unless concerted changes are made," the EIA warns.

One supplier EIA examined makes over 200,000 baby cribs for Wal-Mart every year from Russian poplar and birch. EIA employees, posing as wood buyers, learned that Wal-Mart suppliers admitted to paying protection money to the Russian mafia, and to illegal logging. Almost comical is the fact that logs coming into China from Russia have to be offloaded from the railcars, and reloaded onto Chinese railcars, because the Russian train tracks are a different size than the Chinese. When Wal-Mart customers buy these wood products, they are supporting "criminal timber syndicates," the environmental group says.

Wal-Mart has pledged to "develop transparency to the wood fiber source," but EIA replies that the retailer has shown a "lack of concern" about the sustainability of its wood sourcing. Illegally harvested wood is cheaper because it bypasses environmental regulations, permits, labor laws, taxes and tariffs. Illegal lumber also has a negative impact on the American economy. In 2004, illegal timber cost American suppliers $460 million in lost exports to foreign markets, and as much as $700 million in depressed U.S. prices.

The EIA claims that Wal-Mart's drive to squeeze the lowest price from its suppliers encourages illegal logging. "While the company has laid out strong talking points," EIA notes, "it has thus far avoided taking any firm action to eliminate even illegally logged timber from its supply chain, much less to source from sustainably harvested forests." The group says that without concrete goals and more transparency, all Wal-Mart's rhetoric about 'good wood' "cannot yet be taken seriously." EIA documents several case studies of Wal-Mart's "total inattention to the legality of their raw materials."

The EIA report calls on Wal-Mart "to commit to eliminating illegally sourced wood from its supply chain, and to implement a rigorous purchasing policy for wood products that includes auditing and tracking mechanisms." EIA concludes that "the drive for 'everyday low prices' to the exclusion of other questions has a serious cost..The type of logging pervasive in the Russian Far East damages the environment, robs the government of revenue, and promotes corruption. There is nothing sustainable about this model."

Wal-Mart admits "it's difficult to know if the products we source are coming from certified suppliers and are being made using legally sustainable practices." But the EIA says it's not enough for Wal-Mart simply to acknowledge the problem. "It is now time for Wal-Mart to commit to eliminating illegal wood from its shelves, and communicate this policy to its suppliers of furniture, frames, toys, paper and packaging and other wood products," the EIA insists. "Wal-Mart shoppers do not want to be an inadvertent party to forest crimes."

Alexander von Bismarck, the Executive Director of EIA, says, "To have Wal-Mart ignore measures that to the rest of the world seem common sense -- such as asking where your suppliers' wood is from -- has an enormous impact. It undermines the current global efforts to clean up the timber industry. When Wal-Mart fails to implement an entire category of environmental responsibility, it creates demand designed to take advantage of that. This is currently feeding the illegal logging problem." The EIA believes that Wal-Mart has within its power the ability to "limit the destruction of some of our planet's final frontier forests and the wildlife and people who depend upon them."

Today, there are more than 6,800 Wal-Mart stores around the globe (the company recently opened its 3,000th international store), but only 400 remaining Siberian tigers. That's not very sustainable odds.

Al Norman is the author of The Case Against Wal-Mart. Forbes magazine has called him "Wal-Mart's number one enemy."

(C) 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/71103/

Mall Walkers Confront Marine Recruiters

(If I lived near a mall I would want to do something like this with a slant also on anti-consumerism)

Iraq Moratorium Mall Walkers Confront Marine Recruiters in San Mateo

Sat Dec 22 2007 Under the Holly and Mistletoe with Marine Recruiters

Iraq Moratorium Mall Walkers Confront Marine Recruiters in San Mateo
On December 21st, about 30 Mall Walkers for Peace, including members of San Mateo Peace Action, Declaration of Peace, Veterans for Peace, San Mateo Democracy for America and the Raging Grannies, strolled the Hillsdale Mall in San Mateo as part of the 4th national Iraq Moratorium event in as many months. The Raging Grannies wore their signature hats and buttons while others sported t-shirts with the words "Troops Home Now!"

Mall Walkers Confront Marine Recruiters

(If I lived near a mall I would want to do something like this with a slant also on anti-consumerism)

Iraq Moratorium Mall Walkers Confront Marine Recruiters in San Mateo

Sat Dec 22 2007 Under the Holly and Mistletoe with Marine Recruiters

Iraq Moratorium Mall Walkers Confront Marine Recruiters in San Mateo
On December 21st, about 30 Mall Walkers for Peace, including members of San Mateo Peace Action, Declaration of Peace, Veterans for Peace, San Mateo Democracy for America and the Raging Grannies, strolled the Hillsdale Mall in San Mateo as part of the 4th national Iraq Moratorium event in as many months. The Raging Grannies wore their signature hats and buttons while others sported t-shirts with the words "Troops Home Now!"

Our Winter Solstice

Our breath came out in smokey puffs as we made our way to the community building. Nykki was dressed in a bright green dragon costume and I was wrapped in a fluffy white house coat converted to become a polar bear, complete with felt mask. Ronan was a tired little bumble bee and I wondered if he would make it through the whole event.



Papa saved some seats out front for us and we went behind the sceens the gather with the other animals. I chatted with a friend who was dressed as a lion and we waited the typical extra 20 minutes for the folks of Willits to show up on "willits time". It seemed like an eternity waiting in a small space with two lively children but suddenly the turtle in front of us perked up and said "That's our que!" We began to dance out from in a clock wise circle around the preformance/ritual area. Bears, turtles, giant chickens and a buzzing bunch a bumble bees growled, meowed, and roared our way around while singing;

Fur and Feathers and scales and skins
different without but the same within
many a body but one the soul
by all creatures is the world made whole!

Then lead by the lovely Anne we called the quaters. Raising our hands high we welcomed the east,south, north and west. The speaker thanked the council of all beings and that was our que to take our seats.



I then played the ancient dance of mother trying to keep an eye on squirmy children AND actually try and see some of the preformers. There was a bear dance, a dance of spring, a belly dance, and, always my favorite, a light dancer! The lights went out and we all held up candles and sang. Seeing a dark room lit only by singing faces in candle light brings my eyes to tears every year. It's breath taking and I try to drink it all in and make it last. It's one of my most tresured moments all year.



My favortie song is Silent Night;

Silent night
Solstice Night
All is calm, all is bright
Nature slumbers in forest and glenn
Till in springtime She wakens again
Sleeping spirits grow strong
Sleeping spirits grow strong!

Silent night, Solstice night
Silver moon, shining bright
Snowfall blankets
the slumbering Earth
Yuke fired welcome the Sun's rebirth
Hark, the light is reborn!
Hark, the lighht is reborn!

(written and produced by Ann Weller and Karina McAbee)

Ronan fell alseep so when everyone moved the chairs for the spiral dance we stepped out of the hall and headed for our car. When we got home the children were too excited to sleep so we put on some solstice music and Seth and I danced in the living room while the kids laughed and played. Finally I was getting tired so I insisted that little children must be in bed so that Santa could come.

Nykki objected quite strongly but finally after setting out some cookies and a candle for Santa, some teeth brushing, a few winter time stories and kisses he went to sleep. Seth and I then began the chore of bringing the Thomas train set table out and setting it up. I got it off of freecycle last week. It's a complete set with tracks, buildings, trains and table. I sat in the back yard in the cold and rain and scrubbed it all clean, then took some of the more damaged pieces and sanded and bleached them a few nights ago. It looks practically new now (I would take a pic but our camera broke).

This is the type it is, I got this picture form Photobucket


It took us a while to figure it all out and construct a little town for Nykki to wake up to but Papa's a good engineer and I decorated the town beautifully. We then laid out the wrapped gifts by the table. The other gifts were all scored at the thrift shop for less than $5 and include, for Nykki; 4 Clifford books, 5 other books about nature and grandmothers, and a tiger dress up, and for Ronan; a stuffed bunny that rattles, stacking boxes with beautiful pictures painted on the sides, a baby play block with pictures of the family and two wooden trucks.

When Nykki woke up this morning he was practically taring down the door to find out if Santa brought him the train set he wanted. He expected it to be under the tree so when he ran into the livingroom he ran right past it and said, "Where are my presents?" aftering looking under the tree. I said, "I don't know Nykki where could they be?" and he turned around and said, "Oh!!" He loved it of course. They quickly tore through the rest of the presents. The kids have been acting high all morning. They are on a toy rush.

I made some pancakes shapped like ginger bread men, trees and suns. Nykki called his nana and his opa to tell them what he got for Solstice. I have a lovely lunch planned for us and we're hoping our friend Carlee can make it up this way to join us.



Blessed Solstice!