very low food security = BULLSHITE

very low food security indeed. what a bunch o' idjits. hungry IS hungry

Some Americans Lack Food, but USDA Won't Call Them Hungry


By Elizabeth Williamson Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, November 16, 2006; Page A01
The U.S. government has vowed that Americans will never be hungry again. But they may experience "very low food security."
Every year, the Agriculture Department issues a report that measures Americans' access to food, and it has consistently used the word "hunger" to describe those who can least afford to put food on the table. But not this year.
Mark Nord, the lead author of the report, said "hungry" is "not a scientifically accurate term for the specific phenomenon being measured in the food security survey." Nord, a USDA sociologist, said, "We don't have a measure of that condition."
The USDA said that 12 percent of Americans -- 35 million people -- could not put food on the table at least part of last year. Eleven million of them reported going hungry at times. Beginning this year, the USDA has determined "very low food security" to be a more scientifically palatable description for that group.
The United States has set a goal of reducing the proportion of food-insecure households to 6 percent or less by 2010, or half the 1995 level, but it is proving difficult............

"food insecure households"?????? wtf?
are the poor being covered over by ridiculous words instead of being attended to (i.e. fed)?

Tech Tags: usda hunger poverty

the angels wanna wear my red shoes

or is that supposed to be the penguins wanna wear their blue shoes?

Penguin Shoes Ensure "Happy" Feet








Photograph courtesy International Antarctic Centre

you can whip 'em out

and shake 'em all about as long as you are blonde and blue-eyed and have a beer in one hand and that wet tee shirt in the other. but goddess forbid you breastfeed your baby IN PUBLIC

why are we made to feel embarrassed about feeding our babies? that's the ONLY reason we have breasts to begin with. THE ONLY reason. as much as some people (and cultures) want, WE cannot stay locked in our homes for the rest of our lives.

a shout out to emily gillette

For Hungry Baby, Unfriendly Skies

Liza Featherstone
Just about everyone agrees that women should breastfeed their babies (if possible), but God forbid they ever leave their homes with said babies! The American Pediatric Association recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of a baby's life, saying that the practice reduces diarrhea, ear infections, and meningitis, and may also protect babies against SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome), diabetes, obesity and asthma. Breastfeeding is becoming a far more acceptable topic of public discussion -- even, at times, a fashionable one, with numerous celebrity moms, including Jennifer Garner, Julia Roberts, Heidi Klum, Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie, crediting nursing with their speedy post-pregnancy weight loss. Yet some women do, amazingly, still encounter hostility when feeding their infants in a public place.
According to news reports, Emily Gillette, a 27-year-old New Mexico woman, says that when she attempted to nurse her baby on a Delta Airlines flight, the uptight stewardess gave her a blanket, asking her to cover up. When Gillette refused, the flight attendant threw mother and baby off the plane! Silly Emily--doesn't she know those things are for selling beer and cars? Any other public use is obviously obscene.
Breastfeeding in public is legally protected in at least twenty-eight states, according to La Leche League; many statutes -- including Vermont, where Delta so unhappily encountered Emily Gillette -- stipulate that a mother may breast-feed anywhere she and her child have a right to be. But clearly, as I once heard a civil liberties activist say, the only way to protect rights is to use them..........................

Tech Tags: delta+airlines breastfeeding emily+gillette

talk about delusional self-centered WINGNUTS

who like to use exclamation marks!!!

Candidate spends concession urging opponent to convert

After Minnesota State Senator Satveer Chaudhary defeated challenger Rae Hart Anderson, he received a rather unexpected congratulatory email, RAW STORY has learned.
Anderson, an apparently devout Christian, spent most of the concession urging Chaudhary, a practicing Hindu, to convert to Christianity.
The full text of the email, as obtained by RAW STORY, follows:

Congratulations on winning the District 50 senate race. Your phone is "busy"...no doubt with good wishes!
I've enjoyed much of this race, especially the people I've met...even you! I see your deficits--not all of them, and your potential--but not all of it. Only your Creator knows the real potential He's put in you. Get to know Him and know yourself...you'll be more interesting even to you!
The race of your life is more important than this one--and it is my sincere wish that you'll get to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. He died for the sins of the world, yours and mine--and especially for those who accept His forgiveness. His kingdom will come and His will be done--on earth as it is in heaven. There's more....I love belonging to the family of God. Jesus is the way, the truth and offers His life to you and each human being. Pay attention...this is very important, Satveer. Have you noticed Jesus for yourself...at some moment in time, yet???................

Tech Tags: satveer+chaudhary rae+anderson minnesota hindu christian

way to go oregon!!!

i don't know what one has to have within themselves to shoot a captive pen raised animal. i'll never know. that's for sure

'Canned hunting' goes in garbage can

An ibex is a wild goat found in the Alps of Europe, the Middle East, Africa and central Asia, but trophy hunters don't have to leave the United States to shoot them.
Until now, they didn't even have to leave Oregon. They could pay $500 to $1,000 to shoot a captive, pen-raised ibex on the Clover Creek Ranch near Madras, Oregon's one and only blood-sport wildlife park.
Mercifully, the Oregon Supreme Court issued a sensible ruling last week that may finally put this operation out of business. Justices decreed that state wildlife officials have the authority to prohibit the so-called "canned hunting" of captive exotic animals on enclosed ranches such as Clover Creek.
The ruling, which upholds a rule passed by state fish and wildlife regulators in 1999, effectively outlaws this reprehensible amusement in Oregon. The court rejected a lame argument by the ranch's owner, Clark Couch, who claimed the agency's authority extended only to wild animals considered property of the state, not to privately owned animals such as his.
What nonsense. Wildlife imported from overseas is still wildlife, even if it's confined to a fenced ranch. Fish and game managers have a legitimate concern about exotic species escaping confinement and causing irreversible ecological disaster.
This issue involves much more than legality and ecology, however. Canned hunting operations have proliferated worldwide over the past decade, with more than 1,000 in this country alone, according to the Humane Society of the United States. It's an odious faux sport that degrades humanity and respect for nature. ..............

Tech Tags: oregon canned+hunting

women in saudi arabia and afghanistan: they are ghosts

i mentioned the other day i watched the tail end of a documentary an islamic woman made on women in saudi arabia. i don't believe she herself was from that area. i think i found the title

Women of the Holy Kingdom

WOMEN OF THE HOLY KINGDOM marks Sharmeen Obaid’s Third Compelling and Personal Report for the Discovery Times Network
In Saudi Arabia, women need permission from their male guardians to study, work and travel. They are also forbidden to drive and to mix with men in public. Now, a growing number of Saudi women are challenging these traditions and are clamoring for more rights. In Discovery Times Channel’s world premiere documentary, WOMEN OF THE HOLY KINGDOM, filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid documents the emerging women's movement. Obaid also interviews religious clerics and young working mothers who denounce change and label the women's movement as immoral.
Obaid (Terror’s Children, Reinventing the Taliban?) travels across Saudi Arabiato explore why the Muslim religion’s holiest land treats half its population as second-class citizens. From segregated restaurants, to banks and shopping malls,WOMEN OF THE HOLY KINGDOM provides a rare look at the life of Saudi woman. From all-women factories to a women's conference and a gathering of intellectuals, the film also provides an unprecedented look at the faces behind the emerging women's movement. Obaid meets with Nadia Bakhurji, the first Saudi woman to announce her candidacy for the country's new local elections. She also gets access to young female students at an all-women's university who make it very clear what rights they want in the future. Obaid meets young women who embrace the Islamic traditions that so many in the West can’t understand and won’t tolerate.......

it was eye opening. most of the women ms obaid interviewed did indeed want change but many did not. many enjoyed seeking their husband's or male family member's permission to go to school or even just to talk to ms obaid. even women who work (outside of the home) must work separately from men.

Five years on, conditions for women in Afghanistan are still poor

Filed by Diane Sweet
Late in 2001, after the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and the opening of that country's doors to the international community, the treatment of Afghan women almost overnight became a cause cйlиbre throughout the world. Organizations flocked to Kabul to open offices and begin projects aimed at the needs of women.
U.S. coalition troops moved into southern Afghanistan, and NATO countries offered the services of thousands more troops, who were deployed to provide national security. During this time in 2001, the opportunity was present to found a lasting peace in a nation that had suffered nearly a quarter of a century of violent conflict.
Women's rights were at the forefront of discussions of a new form of government for Afghanistan, and an amazing 102 female delegates participated in the Constitution Loya Jirga of December 2003. It appeared that progress was being made and women were occupying central roles in the country's political life........

...........In Sept.'06, Safia Amajan -- the head of the Department of Women's Affairs -- was shot dead outside her home in Khandahar by two men on a motorbike......
............It is estimated that between 60-80% of all marriages are forced, with 57% of girls married before the age of 16 and some as young as 6 years old. Many more, if not married during their childhood, are betrothed without their consent or knowledge..........
.........Still ongoing is the tribal practice of "baad," the exchange of girls or women as restitution for a crime or debt..............
..........Of the available schools, only 19% are designated for girls (there are no co-ed classes in Afghanistan), and 415 of the existing educational districts have no girls in school at all.Women also have limited accesss to higher education. Kabul University is only able to acept 10% of all applicants for entry, as they are under-resourced and in need of qualified staff, better libraries, and reconstruction of facilities. An additional barrier is the lack of dormitories for women or safe transportation. Aside from the normal tuition, bribery of school officials is commonplace.The educational process often ends altogether for girls and women upon marriage............

Tech Tags: Sharmeen Obaid afghanistan saudi+arabia women islam

i've never watched glenn beck's show (that i'm aware of)

and it looks like i never will. what an ASSHOLE!

CNN's Beck to first-ever Muslim congressman: "[W]hat I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies' "

On the November 14 edition of his CNN Headline News program, Glenn Beck interviewed Rep.-elect Keith Ellison (D-MN), who became the first Muslim ever elected to Congress on November 7, and asked Ellison if he could "have five minutes here where we're just politically incorrect and I play the cards up on the table." After Ellison agreed, Beck said: "I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.' " Beck added: "I'm not accusing you of being an enemy, but that's the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way."............

Tech Tags: keith+ellison glenn+beck cnn

this was forwarded to me by pam levin cameron

matthew costa's mother. she asked that i post it here are a couple of her words:

" If you could post this article and highlight the part about donations, I’d really appreciate it. Matt loved Africa and wanted to equalize the injustice in the world. The soccer field, equipment, etc. that we are planning will honor his memory by doing that in a small way. Thanks, Pam Cameron"

matthew lived in connecticut. i think it would be kind of cool to donate to this cause. perhaps you can do so as a christmas, hanaukkah or winter solstice gift in a friend's name.

A Promising Life Of Giving Cut Down In Tragic Mishap
Matthew Costa, 24, of Cheshire, died Sept. 3.
November 5, 2006 By ANNE M. HAMILTON, Special To The Courant

Matthew Costa combined a deep-seated idealism with practicality and, in his own unassuming way, set an example for others.He was a serious philosophy major who loved soccer, volleyball and the guitar, on which he played both classical and popular music.
He starred in a play in high school and was interested in politics. He was so intrigued by West Africa that he extended his Peace Corps commitment and was planning to be a lawyer so he could help others.Costa grew up in Cheshire, the son of Frank Costa and Pam Cameron, and had a younger sister, Danielle. Wiry and athletic, he started playing soccer when he was 5 and excelled at running and jumping. He had an independent spirit: Around age 6, Costa flew alone to Washington to visit his grandparents, and the pilot invited him to sit in the cockpit.In middle school, he participated in a student ambassador program that sent him to England, Scotland and Wales."He understood that the world was way bigger than Cheshire," his mother said. In high school, Costa was elected treasurer of his class.His mathematical skills earned him a scholarship to the University of Connecticut to study actuarial science, but he turned it down in favor of a broader liberal arts education."He thought of college as a way of becoming an educated person, not as a vocational-technical idea," his mother said. Costa chose Tulane University in New Orleans because it offered a contrast to his Connecticut upbringing. It was in the South, in a city far from home.His college major was philosophy, and when his grandfather urged him to be practical and think of his future, "he said he was more concerned with public service," said Bernard Levin, his grandfather. "He wanted to use law to help people who were underprivileged.""People just liked being around him," said Todd Gilbert, a college friend. "He was incredibly funny. He made you smile."Costa joined the Peace Corps after graduating from Tulane in 2003, offering to go anywhere. He had studied French in school, so the Peace Corps sent him to Chad, a poor, French speaking landlocked country in north central Africa where there has been sporadic fighting over the years. (The Peace Corps closed its program there this year.)On an informal Peace Corps scale of adversity, Chad ranked among the toughest assignments."Chad had the reputation: If you could do Chad in the Peace Corps, you could do anything," his mother said.In Mani, a village close to N'Djamena, Chad's capital, Costa taught English and helped start a soccer league. When he realized that the children had no concept of geography, he had them paint a large world map on a wall of the school so they could see where they lived and where he came from."He really wanted them to understand where they fit in the world," his mother said. The village was isolated, and sometimes his family didn't hear from him for two months at a time. But they quickly learned that he was happy."He loved Africa," his mother said.After his two years in Chad were up, he asked to extend his commitment and was assigned to Mali, another French-speaking country in Africa. "He wanted to make a change on a small level and be an ambassador for America," said Chris Kennerlly, a high school friend.Costa was assigned to Kita, a less-isolated village than his previous assignment. He had a refrigerator and a cellphone that worked. He could e-mail from a café in the village.Besides teaching English, Costa started a weekly radio show featuring American music that made him a minor celebrity.Malian women traditionally pound millet, a native grain, into flour, which is boiled into a porridge eaten with sauce. Costa gave them a grinder that made their job quicker and easier. He also taught Malian men how to repair water pumps.He played on the local soccer team and worked with "Shoes for Mali" after learning that two of his players shared one pair of sneakers.Last summer, Costa and three other volunteers decided to build a sailboat.For their first trip, they were sailing the Niger River. Photographs show their wide smiles.The wind propelled them more quickly than they had anticipated, so they lowered the sail. They were approaching rapids and rowing against the tide, trying to reach an inlet, when the mast hit a high-tension wire. Costa and Justin Brady, a volunteer from Oregon, were thrown from the boat. Costa and Brady died, but the other volunteers survived.Costa had been scheduled to return to the United States two weeks later to take his law-school admissions test."He was very intelligent, very insightful," said Nelson Cronyn, Costa's director in Chad. "He was able to teach and stay positive with teaching, despite the fact that the school was dysfunctional and cheating was rampant."Costa talked often about politics and his career plans. "He probably would have remained working in development," Cronyn said."I imagine he would have had a significant impact. ... I imagine he would have been very, very successful."Matthew Costa's family and the Peace Corps are building a soccer field and buying soccer equipment in his memory in the village of Kita in Mali. Donations by check can be made out to Rogin, Nassau, Caplan, Lassman & Hirtle and sent to the attention of Paul Zolan, 185 Asylum St.,, City Place I, 22nd Floor, Hartford, CT 06103-3460.Please put "in memory of Matthew Costa" on the checks.

Tech Tags: matthew+costa peace+corps mali

faux news: the more you watch the LESS you know

i can't take credit for that. however, it IS on a bumper sticker on my car (little green is her name)

Will John Moody be Forced Out of Fox Like Dan Rather from CBS?

by Cenk Uygur Nov 15 2006 - 12:48pm Cenk Uygur
Four producers for Dan Rather were fired when they did not double check documents they used in a "60 Minutes II" piece about Bush's service in the National Guard. Eventually, Rather was moved out of the anchor desk and pushed out of CBS entirely. Most of this was based on the perception that they were slanting a story.
The independent panel selected to investigate the National Guard story said they found no evidence of a political agenda against Bush, but that the documents should have been more thoroughly vetted.
Now, we have an instance of Fox News Channel clearly and indisputably slanting their whole lineup of news against the Democratic Party in an internal memo sent by the Vice President of News, John Moody. Instead of covering the Republican losses in the elections, they choose to focus on, and in some cases invent, stories of how insurgents might be emboldened by the Democratic victory. They push the story line of Democratic infighting on a day that had bitter Republican finger pointing on who was responsible for their momentous losses. And they call a Democratic legislator a "political hack.".............

Tech Tags: fox+news john+moody democratic+party

if i didn't know better

i'd say someone took one too many hits of acid in the 60s

Top general warns against Iraq troop timeline
Abizaid also tells senators situation 'not as bad as ... back in August'

WASHINGTON - The top U.S. commander in the Middle East warned Congress Wednesday against setting a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, putting him at odds with resurgent Democrats pressing President Bush to start pulling out of the violence-torn country.

Gen. John Abizaid spoke as the Senate Armed Services Committee began re-examining U.S. policy in the wake of last week’s elections, which gave Democrats control of Congress starting next year and was widely seen as a repudiation of the administration’s war policies.

Democrats have been coalescing around a call for beginning a U.S. withdrawal in coming months. In arguing against a timetable for troop withdrawals, Abizaid told the committee that he and other commanders need flexibility in managing U.S. forces and determining how and when to pass on responsibility to Iraqi forces........

Tech Tags: general+abizaid iraq+withdrawal troops

is chad conrad castagana

the same person as constanzo? we don't know. most likely he is. what we DO know is he (allegedly, since he's not been convicted of anything YET) sent white powder through the mail to people like keith olbermann. we know mr castagana is a fan of the skinny yellow haired bio - tch. we know someone who sends threatening letters through the mail is NOT in their right mind. we know that if we had a television show and we, in the past, had received one of these threatening letters with a powdery white substance in it, we'd be talking MORE about THAT than senator murtha. that's what we know

Olbermann on what motivated Coulter 'acolyte' to allegedly send threatening 'white powder' letters"
Filed by David Edwards and Ron Brynaert

On Tuesday night, Keith Olbermann speculated about what may have motivated a California man, reported to be an acolyte of conservative pundits such as Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin, to allegedly send threatening letters to personalities including the MSNBC host himself.
39-year-old Chad Castagana was arrested on Saturday, accused of sending more than a dozen envelopes containing "fake anthrax" to anti-war celebrities, journalists, and politicians.
"Castagana has also been identified as a gushing online admirer of Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin and Laura Ingraham," Olbermann said. "And the Web site RAW STORY reports that many bloggers believe he is also a contributor, under a different name, to the conservative Web site Free Republic."
Posters at the liberal websites Democratic Underground and Daily Kos brought to light the similarities between Castagana's Internet footprint and Costanzo's writings at Free Republic, and RAW STORY unearthed a series of eyebrow-raising connections between the two men, as reported on Monday.
In one Free Republic post first cited here, Costanzo contends that he hails from the town of Woodlands Hills; the same city where Castagana was arrested.........

Tech Tags: chad+castagana keith+olbermann anthrax coulter costanzo

wicca is JUST as legitimate as any OTHER religion

(more so in my humble opinion)
i wrote about this before.

it's something i'm actually familiar with. the wiccan part, not the military part

Military Widows Sue Over Wiccan Symbol

MADISON, Wis. -- The widows of two combat veterans and a Wiccan church in Barneveld, Wis., are suing the government because it won't recognize their beliefs.
The widows said Wiccan symbols were not allowed on their husbands' military headstones.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs allows military families to choose any of 38 authorized headstone images, including symbols for Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Judaism.

The Wiccan pentacle is not on the list and the widows said that is unconstitutional...........

Tech Tags: wiccan veterans military+funeral va pentacle

WE have one hell of a nerve

well i'm not counting ME in that WE. we ILLEGALLY invade other countries because of some bullshit about weapons (which as it turns out DO NOT exist) and at the same time, we're handing out weapons TO EVERYONE EVERYWHERE (well not handing out, charging through the teeth i'm sure). this makes my blood boil. this is just WRONG WRONG WRONG. i knew we were providing israel cluster bombs and the like, but i didn't know all of this.

U.S. top arms supplier to developing world

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 (UPI) -- The United States supplied 46 percent of the arms sold to developing countries in 2005, a congressional report said.
The Congressional Research Service said the level of arms sales was the highest in eight years, the Boston Globe reported.
"We are at a point in history where many of these sales are not essential for the self-defense of these countries and the arms being sold continue to fuel conflicts and tensions in unstable areas," said Daryl Kimball , executive director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association in Washington. "It doesn't make much sense over the long term." ............

Tech Tags: arms+sales united+states

one of the first people to comment on my blog

when i first started it, was a woman affiliated with:

one by one

INSPIRE PEOPLE EMPOWER SOLOUTIONS END FISTULA

(unfortunately i have forgotten her name and i apologize for that). i posted a link to one by one on my sidebar then and there and it has remained ever since.

about one by one

Our Mission-One By One contributes to the elimination of obstetric fistula worldwide by engaging the public and providing financial support to those who treat and prevent fistula in the developing world.
Our Vision-Inspire people. Empower solutions. End fistula.
Our Philosophy-Many of us respond to the suffering of others around the world with sadness, guilt and shame. Stories of the sick and the dying leave us disempowered and wondering how any one person can make any significant difference.
At One By One, we believe that small is not insignificant. We believe that it is possible to address global public health issues like obstetric fistula from the “bottom up” to meet the “top-down” work of multilateral agencies. We harness the “smaller” and otherwise disparate energies of those who want to help but don’t know how. We empower regular people to conceive of and implement concrete solutions to manageable pieces of the “fistula problem”.
In addition to raising public awareness of fistula and encouraging widespread participation, One By One believes that our resources are best used to address the unmet needs of fistula treatment and prevention programs in the developing world. To this end, we make direct grants to support fistula treatment and prevention in Africa and beyond.

women are treated as animals (not just in congo but everywhere-of course it's not by everyone). after they are raped they are tossed aside even by family members. it's as if THEY (the woman) were the evil one. can you imagine on top of all of this, not being able to control your bladder and/or bowels? WE ARE NOT ANOTHER SPECIES. we are human beings. we not only want but we deserve to be treated as nothing less

this was in a recent newsweek online/msnbc:

More Vicious Than Rape

The atrocity reports from eastern Congo were so hellish that Western medical experts refused to believe them—at first.

Web Exclusive
By Rod Nordland
Newsweek
Updated: 6:01 p.m. ET Nov 13, 2006
Nov. 13, 2006 - Warning: do not read this story if you are easily disturbed by graphic information, or are under age, or are easily upset by accounts of gruesome sexual violence.
This is about fistulas—and rape, which in Congo has become the continuation of war by other means. Fistulas are a kind of damage that is seldom seen in the developed world. Many obstetricians have encountered the condition only in their medical texts, as a rare complication associated with difficult or abnormal childbirths: a rupture of the walls that separate the vagina and bladder or rectum. Where health care is poor, particularly where trained doctors or midwives are not available, fistulas are more of a risk. They are a major health concern in many parts of Africa. In eastern Congo, however, the problem is practically an epidemic. When a truce was declared in the war there in 2003, so many cases began showing up that Western medical experts at first called it impossible—especially when local doctors declared that most of the fistulas they were seeing were the consequence of rapes. "No one wanted to believe it at first," says Lyn Lusi, manager of the HEAL Africa hospital (formerly called the Docs Hospital) in the eastern Congo city of Goma. "When our doctors first published their results, in 2003, this was unheard of."..........

Tech Tags: fistula women's+health rape congo one+by+one

an army for god

men lead, women follow (that reminds me i watched part of a documentary on the history channel yesterday. it was done by a muslim woman about women and women's rights in saudi arabia. i didn't see the beginning, but i don't believe the filmmaker was from saudi arabia. the parts i saw were quite disturbing. yes, there was a TINY GLIMMER OF HOPE, but still in all it was rather sad) and bear scads and scads of children. hopefully MALE.

my goddess doesn't want me to be subservient to ANYONE. my goddess wants ME to decide about the number of children i have or don't have. my goddess wants me to treat the earth with respect and take care of it's inhabitants. oh and my goddess is a peace-loving one. she doesn't want OR need an army

'Arrows for the War'

by KATHRYN JOYCE
[from the November 27, 2006 issue]
When the Gospel Community Church in Coxsackie, New York, breaks midservice to excuse children for Sunday school, nearly half of the 225-strong congregation patters toward the back of the worship hall: the five youngest children of Pastor Stan Slager's eight, assistant pastor Bartly Heneghan's eleven and the Dufkin family's thirteen, among many others. "The Missionettes," a team of young girls who perform ribbon dances during the praise music, put down their "glory hoops" to join their classmates; the pews empty out. It's the un-ignorable difference between the families at Gospel Community and those in the rest of the town that's led some to wonder if the church isn't a cult that forces its disciples to keep pushing out children.
But after the kids leave, Pastor Stan doesn't exhort his congregation to bear children. His approach is more subtle, reminding them to present their bodies as living sacrifices to the Lord, and preaching to them about Acts 5:20: Go tell "all the words of this life." Or, in Pastor Stan's guiding translation, to lead lives that make outsiders think, "Christianity is real," lives that "demand an explanation."
Lives such as these: Janet Wolfson is a 44-year-old mother of eight in Canton, Georgia. Tracie Moore, a 39-year-old midwife who lives in southern Kentucky, is mother to fourteen. Wendy Dufkin in Coxsackie has her thirteen. And while Jamie Stoltzfus, a 27-year-old Illinois mom, has only four children so far, she plans on bearing enough to populate "two teams." All four mothers are devoted to a way of life New York Times columnist David Brooks has praised as a new spiritual movement taking hold among exurban and Sunbelt families. Brooks called these parents "natalists" and described their progeny as a new wave of "Red-Diaper Babies"--as in "red state."
But Wolfson, Moore and thousands of mothers like them call themselves and their belief system "Quiverfull." They borrow their name from Psalm 127: "Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate." Quiverfull mothers think of their children as no mere movement but as an army they're building for God. ..........

Tech Tags: quiverfull homeschooling feminism christianity birth+control

book of the day

after reading the following article, i of course thought of geek love. it's a book i devoured years ago. a wonderous odd read. not your grrrl and boy next door read. i think it's time for a re-read

Step Right Up, Ladies and Gents, to See the End of an Oddity

American Album
Step Right Up, Ladies and Gents, to See the End of an Oddity
By CHARLIE LeDUFF
YORK, Pa. — Ward Hall, the King of the Midway, has perpetrated perhaps his greatest illusion. He has risen from the dead. He has collected up his big top, rustled up the midget, dusted off the rubber fetuses and beat it back out on the road. Once again, he is the geriatric front man of the last traveling freak show in America.
Retirement just didn’t sit right.
“I live in Florida but I never summered in Florida, and I discovered it’s too damn hot,” says Mr. Hall, standing inside his trailer in a back lot of the York Fair in Pennsylvania. He is in a white suit, stained on the elbows and rump. Some sequins have fallen off the lapel.
His freak show, the World of Wonders, has been shoved by the organizers to the back corner of the fairgrounds, next to the horse stables.
“I missed the road life anyway,” he goes on, his elegant vaudevillian verbiage nearly drowned out by the sound system of the whirling Himalaya thrill ride. “I missed my friends. I missed the money. This is what I am.”
And, returning to the nation’s state fair circuit after a full season off, Mr. Hall has discovered something he already knew. When he goes, it will be the end of an old-time American art form.........

Tech Tags: sideshow geek catherine+dunn freak+show

my favorite food: polenta

i made this for my pops and kept some for me on the side (since i don't eat cheese, i made mine vegan)
i started with this recipe as a guide but then i added my own touches.
(all the ingredients i used i found in my fathers fridge or cabinets)

i made a simple sauce out of onions and parmalat pomi tomatoes (the ones in the little box, not canned), a can of whole foods sauce and a can of tomato paste (of course i used seasonings as well). i only cooked the sauce for 20 minutes or so. i rehydrated a bunch of different kinds of dried mushrooms i had and set those aside. i cooked up some frozen spinich and mixed that with the drained mushrooms. i grated some fresh nutmeg in the mixture and set it aside. i then grated some parmesean and chopped up some gouda and set that aside. i made the polenta (i got some bulk polenta from whole foods. the grains were big and were a very nice yellow color) using a couple of vegan bouillion cubes and a couple of tablespoons of margerine. i used approximately 8 c of water to 2 1/2 c polenta. i added about 1/3 of the polenta with the mushroom spinich mixture and i added a cup or two of the sauce to the remaining polenta. i put 1/2 of the red polenta in the bottom of a greased foil pan. i then spooned on the green layer. i topped that with the two cheeses. after that i spooned on the remaining red polenta. put a bit more of the plain red sauce on top of that and sprinkled a bit more parmesean on the very top. i baked it for about 1/2 hour (give or take) at 350 degrees.

my popi couldn't stop raving about it (if i do say so myself). then again, he grew up on it. it was one of noni's standard dishes (my noni was the best cook in the ENTIRE UNIVERSE.

Tech Tags: noni polenta

addendum: looks like this MAY have been removed from youtube sometime between when i posted it and 4:30 am. that's TWO 1/2 HOURS

Care Net's Purity Ball Preview

(be afraid, BE VERY AFRAID)

the dead

of iraq. there's no room at the inn

we started it. we stirred up this hornet's nest.

look at what WE did

Baghdad's Morgues Are Bursting

With no space to store bodies, some victims of the sectarian slaughter are not being kept for relatives to claim, but photographed, numbered and quickly interred in government cemeteries. Men fearful of an anonymous burial are tattooing their thighs with names and phone numbers.In October, a particularly bloody month for Iraqi civilians, about 1,600 bodies were turned in at the Baghdad central morgue, said its director, Dr. Abdul-Razaq al-Obaidi. The city's network of morgues, built to hold 130 bodies at most, now holds more than 500, he says.Bodies are sent for burial every three or four days just to make room for the daily intake, sometimes making corpse identification impossible."We can't remove all the bodies just so that one can be identified and then put them all back in again," al-Obaidi said. "We simply don't have the staff."Al-Obaidi said the daily crush of relatives is an emotional and logistical burden."Every day, there are crowds of women outside weeping, yelling and flailing in grief. They're all looking for their dead sons and I don't know how the computer or we will bear up," he said.While no one knows how many Iraqis have died, daily tallies of violent deaths by The Associated Press average nearly 45 a day. About half of them are unidentified bodies discovered on city streets or floating in the Tigris River.The United Nations estimates about 100 violent deaths daily. The Iraqi health minister last week put civilian deaths over the entire 44 months since the U.S. invasion at about 150,000 -- close to the U.N. figure and about three times the previously accepted estimates of 45,000 to 50,000..............

Tech Tags: baghdad+morgue iraq death torture

a little background on keith

everyone claims the media is biased to the left. those that say things like that took one too many hits of acid in 1969 i think. the media has so VERY FEW of a 'liberal slant' i think you can name them on one hand. (of course now that the democrats have won both houses, i think more journalists will turn liberal overnight. A MIRACLE!). at any rate, one who wasn't afraid to speak out ALL ALONG was keith olbermann.

Olbermann taps a well of discontent as the anti-O'Reilly

- C.W. Nevius
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Keith Olbermann just needed to find his voice. He'd been a droll sportscaster, a serious news anchor and a bickering critic of Fox News host Bill O'Reilly. But none of those personas really clicked.
Then he found one. A little over a year ago, as the White House fumbled and botched the Hurricane Katrina recovery, Olbermann finally blew up.
He concluded a broadcast of his MSNBC cable news show, "Countdown,'' with an indignant rant in the rat-a-tat-tat cadence of his idol, Edward R. Murrow. He called it a "Special Comment.''
And just like that, Olbermann found his voice -- the angry everyman. He became a liberal counterpoint to conservative media ranters like O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, and an Internet star, too.
The result has been a cultural earthquake.
"Here's what happened,'' Olbermann said in a phone interview this week. "Five years ago (on Sept. 11), 50 percent of the country went quiet. There was this self-imposed censorship. Suddenly it became unimaginable to criticize the administration. And no one else was brave or stupid enough to say, 'I don't remember signing that document.' ''
Today Olbermann is hot, in every sense of the word. He likes to say that the first step to creating one of his blistering editorials is to "get pissed off,'' and that's certainly how he sounds.
But there's something more to it, too. Conservatives may hate his attacks, but no one doubts that he comes across as one of the smarter guys in the room. When he laid into then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Aug. 30, he threw in references to Neville Chamberlain and the policy of appeasement. Let's see NBC network anchor Brian Williams pull that off. ........

Tech Tags: keith+olbermann journalist msnbc countdown

foreign laws?

we don't need to obey no stinkin' foreign laws!!!! (or domestic ones neither it would seem)

Outrage at London sting by US spies

By CHRISTOPHER LEAKE, Mail on Sunday Last updated at 21:41pm on 11th November 2006

Undercover American agents are staging secret 'sting' operations in Britain against criminal and terrorist suspects they want to extradite to the US.
• Comment: Beware: George Bush's secret agents can now arrrest us in our own country
In a recent operation, agents from America's Department of Homeland Security set up a suspect by posing as dealers wanting to illegally sell night-vision goggles for export to Iran.
The spies arranged a series of clandestine meetings in London hotels, which they secretly filmed as evidence. It is thought to be the first time American agents have been caught using such sting tactics in Britain.
Urgent questions were being asked about whether the British Government had been aware of the operation. If so, it raises issues of the State collaborating with foreign agencies to entrap suspects - and if not it raises the spectre of American spies working unchecked on British soil.
Human rights campaigners demanded an explanation from Home Secretary John Reid and Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett.
The case has provoked a huge row because the agents used tactics banned in Britain. In addition, the offence of which he is accused would not be a crime in this country. If British police officers had employed this type of sting, the ensuing case would almost certainly be thrown out of court.
In July 2003, ten defendants accused of laundering £15million walked free from Southwark Crown Court after Judge George Bathurst-Norman described police actions as 'massively illegal'. The judge said a police sting aimed at trapping them had 'overstepped the line between legitimate crime detection and unacceptable crime creation'..............

Tech Tags: homeland+security london american+spies british+government

the signs for drinking fountains indicating 'whites only' or 'colored'

are historical too. are you going to leave THEM up as well?

Ga. display divides vets’ names by race
County says plaque featuring ‘White,’ ‘Colored’ lists is historical

BUTLER, Ga. - A display in a central Georgia community divides the names of 800 local veterans into two lists, marked in large type: “Whites” and “Colored.”

The display has been in the lobby of the Taylor County courthouse since 1944, honoring service members who fought in World War II. The two lists are mounted side by side behind glass in two large frames.

John Cole Vodicka, an activist from Americus, is organizing a rally Monday at the courthouse to persuade the county commission to take down the display.........

Tech Tags: georgia colored segregation integration cole+vodicka

i meant to post this the other day

adrienne shelly was murdered. i liked her work. i first saw her in a couple of hal hartley movies, the unbelievable truth and trust (i like MOST of mr hartley's work, especially his earlier films)

D.A.: Suspect admits he killed actress

NEW YORK (AP) -- A construction worker was jailed without bail Tuesday after confessing to the slaying of an actress left hanging from a shower rod in the bathroom of a Manhattan apartment.
Diego Pillco, 19, made written and videotaped statements implicating himself in the slaying of Adrienne Shelly, Assistant District Attorney Marit Delozier said Tuesday at Pillco's arraignment in state Supreme Court. Pillco was then ordered held without bail pending a Thursday hearing.
"He said he fought with the victim, tied a sheet around her neck and dragged her to the bathroom and hung her from the shower rod," Delozier said at the brief hearing. "This is an exceptionally egregious case."
Shelly, who appeared in the movie "Factotum" with Matt Dillon last year, was renovating the Greenwich Village apartment she used as her office. Pillco, one of the workers, was one of the last people seen going into the apartment, police said...........

adrienne shelly

Tech Tags: adrienne+shelly murder hal+hartley

a different kind of jihad

there are more of THESE kinds of terrorists in the united states (i'm guessing) than the 'other' kinds of terrorists.

why didn't we hear about the terrorist david mcmenemy trying to blow up a building in iowa on september 11, 2006? (looks like only ONE major newspaper reported it). he thought his target, the women's health center provided abortions. according to this story, IT DOESN'T. (another thought - wonder what would happen if these terrorists were targeting MEN'S HEALTH CENTERS???)

The Terrorists Who Aren't in the News

By Jennifer L. Pozner, AlterNetPosted on November 11, 2006, Printed on November 12, 2006http://www.alternet.org/story/43182/
This piece was originally published by Newsday.
On Sept. 11, 2006, the fifth anniversary of the terror attacks that devastated our nation, a man crashed his car into a building in Davenport, Iowa, hoping to blow it up and kill himself in the fire.
No national newspaper, magazine or network newscast reported this attempted suicide bombing, though an AP wire story was available. Cable news (save for MSNBC's Keith Olbermann) was silent about this latest act of terrorism in America.
Had the criminal, David McMenemy, been Arab or Muslim, this would have been headline news for weeks. But since his target was the Edgerton Women's Health Center, rather than, say, a bank or a police station, media have not called this terrorism -- even after three decades of extreme violence by anti-abortion fanatics, mostly fundamentalist Christians who believe they're fighting a holy war.
Since 1977, casualties from this war include seven murders, 17 attempted murders, three kidnappings, 152 assaults, 305 completed or attempted bombings and arsons, 375 invasions, 482 stalking incidents, 380 death threats, 618 bomb threats, 100 acid attacks, and 1,254 acts of vandalism, according to the National Abortion Federation.
Abortion providers and activists received 77 letters threatening anthrax attacks before 9/11, yet the media never considered anthrax threats as terrorism until after 9/11, when such letters were delivered to journalists and members of Congress.
After 9/11, Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights groups received 554 envelopes containing white powder and messages like: "You have been exposed to anthrax. ... We are going to kill all of you." They were signed by the Army of God, a group that hosts Scripture-filled web pages for "Anti-Abortion Heroes of the Faith," including minister Paul Hill, Michael Griffin and James Kopp, all convicted of murdering abortion providers, and a convicted clinic bomber, the Rev. Michael Bray. Another of their "martyrs," Clayton Waagner, mailed anthrax letters while a fugitive on the FBI's 10 most wanted list for anti-abortion related crimes.
"I am a terrorist," Waagner declared on the Army of God's web site............

Man Attacks Women's Health Center

Tech Tags: domestic+terrorists abortion david+mcmenemy suicide+bombing