No Fly Zone

Just thought you might like to see this "saddle" I made for one of the hens. She's missing some feathers from being a "favorite" of the rooster, so I made her this protective shield. Needs some work...

This is a high iodine meal, just to increase the levels so one doesn't absorb the radioactive kind... vegetable/venison soup with kelp strands and biscuits with kelp butter. Good ol' peasant food.

by freeacre

Well, I just spent about 45 minutes searching for the latest news on the pending extension of the odious Patriot Act. Has it been extended? Got me hanging. I searched several 'progressive” news sites – Capitol Hill Blues, Huffington Post, Crooks & Liars, Alternet, etc. and couldn't find an answer. Ron Paul seems to be the only one who gives a rat's ass, since we received an e-mail message from him recently asking us to contact our Senators regarding extending the bill. But, now I can't find that either. Funny how in this “information age” I'm having such a hard time finding out details on extending the Patriot Act, the most startling example of the demolition of our civil liberties in the history of the United States of America.

What prompted this frustrating search was an article on cryptogon this morning about a former Marine who finds himself on the No Fly List due to e-mailing a Muslim cleric regarding how to raise his children in a mixed religion marriage. He's a dog trainer now, married to a Christian, and when he tried to fly to another state to train a dog, he was unable to get on the plane. When he protested, he was investigated by the FBI. They would take him off the list, if he would be a snitch for them. He refused, so he's on the list indefinitely. Just one more example of the outrageous infringement of our liberty since the fascist Patriot Act was enacted.

Then there is the story, on cryptogon and others, that China is dropping cell phone calls on anyone who uses certain words, like “protest” in their conversations. The calls are being monitored in real time, and apparently being dealt with by some humongous computer program triggered by certain unacceptable words. Of course, if they can do it there, they can do it anywhere. Here, for instance. One of these days, we are probably going to attempt to go out of the country for either medical or dental care. I doubt we will be allowed to get on a plane.

Ah, well, no sense dwelling on these indignities. At least that's what my health practitioner told me the other day when I went in for a routine blood test to get my prescriptions renewed.

“You sound pretty negative,” I was told.

"Well, yeah. After suffering chronic pain for 8 years and trying everything I can think of to get better to no avail, it tends to catch up with one at times. Anyway, you asked.."

“Have you tried 'The Secret'?”

"You mean, “The Secret,” like on Oprah? Well, as a matter of fact, as a student of metaphysics for the majority of my life and a Science of Mind practitioner for twelve years, I practically could have written the fucking book myself."

“Well, why aren't you following it now, then?”

"Because, Brenda, I got sick of what I consider to be an unconscionable disregard for the planet and the consequences of all this “abundance consciousness” that it engenders. I mean, $2,000 weekends to learn firewalking or some bullshit, after which all these Yuppies can sit around and enjoy their mahi mahi lunches. But, nobody is concerned about the fact that they have killed 90% of the large fish in the oceans and their kids will be slurping up jellyfish in the future. I think it's stupid to manifest parking spaces at the Mall, when you're there to buy toxic products made by slave labor and disenfranchising the working class. It makes me sick."

“Well,” she says, “Ignorance is bliss.” “I just don't think about it.” I'm a little surprised that she didn't attempt to put me on Prozak.

That's the problem in a nutshell with trying to convince the general population of anything rooted in reality. They don't want to hear it. Period. It's too painful. Too much of a downer. Let's just pretend that everything is OK. Things will bet better. We're Number One. All our problems are due to the Muslims. And Obama is a Muslim. Yeah, that's got to be it...

On a more positive note... well, maybe not positive, but at least intelligent and insightful, Chis Hedges wrote a memorable piece lately on the demise of the Liberals that still haunts me. The essay is entitled “Power Concedes Nothing Without a Demand.” It was on truthdig.com on March 14. He wrote, in part,

“The liberal class has busied itself with the toothless pursuits of inclusiveness, multiculturalism, identity politics and tolerance—a word Martin Luther King never used—and forgotten about justice. It naively sought to placate ideological and corporate forces bent on the destruction of the democratic state. The liberal class, like the misguided democrats in the former Yugoslavia or the hapless aristocrats in the Weimar Republic, invited the wolf into the henhouse. The liberal class forgot that, as Karl Popper wrote in “The Open Society and Its Enemies,” “If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”

This is another “inconvenient truth” that hardly anyone wants to face. Much like the burgeoning bullying problem that seems to have taken off after the big push in the last several years for well-intentioned programs on “conflict resolution,” so favored by the limp-wristed. Sounds good. Too bad it doesn't work. The Chinese took another tack. When housewives were bullied by their husbands, they got together and went to the home of the abuser, dragged him outside, and collectively kicked his ass. And, it was sanctioned by the State. Amazing.

Well, if the earth changes chronicled on The Big Wobble and The Alien Project, Half Past Human, and even the USGS volcano and earthquake sites along with the sun information on spaceweather.com, come to pass, we may all be getting our butts handed to us real soon. Maybe we shoulda left some of those dolphins and fish in the ocean, not poisoned the corrals, not cut down the rainforest, sucked up the water in the aquafirs, poisoned the lakes and streams, ruined the topsoil, destroyed the Gulf, etc.

It seems the Earth is fighting back. And, it ain't about some lame committee suggesting that we be nice. She's kicking our ass.