-- spidermoon cobweblog --

.

As the United States pounds Iraq with bombs and munitions, it is also giving birth to the deadly legacy of depleted uranium. The radioactive dust and fragments will not only kill and cause birth defects in Iraq, but will forever change the lives of American soldiers and their families.

--

bloggers' delight?

the inconsistency of news reporting seems to be generating an avalanche of warblogs. it's an ironic way for the masses' introduction to this weblog dimension.


jezebel 10:19 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

PEACE ACTIVISTS CONFIRM IRAQI HOSPITAL BOMBED Charles J. Hanley, AP Special Correspondent Associated Press (30 March 2003)

Bruised and bleeding, in need of medical care, the Americans stranded in Iraq's western desert approached the mud-brick town and found the hospital destroyed by bombs. "Why? Why?" a doctor demanded of them. "Why did you Americans bomb our children's hospital?"


Iraq Diaries

US warmakers will pay a lethal and grisly price for any attempts to overtake and occupy Iraq.
  'We will lose the battle, but the US is not the winner,' she vowed....


SILENCE IN THE RANKS
Hussein Ibish, Electronic Iraq

A troubling climate of censorship, self-censorship and intimidation is emerging in the context of the attack on Iraq.

--


jezebel 08:58 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

.

when i was a kid and learned about world war II sometimes i wondered what the citizens of germany felt like during the reign of hitler.

i think i'm finally beginning to understand now since the past ten days have gone by. i'm starting to get the gist of what feelings they must have experienced.

it's pretty disgusting actually.

jezebel 18:19 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

.

torture a spammer ...

...


jezebel 17:32 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

i just can't stop posting these updates. i don't know why. i'm sure nobody else is reading them, yet i keep posting them. o well, here's another update from the latest war zone.

...


jezebel 06:13 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

"The television exploded and a metal bar on the window melted. The mattress where the family were sleeping is covered with blood. Munib Abid Hamid managed to shield his wife and child with his body. His wife Sahar Taha had chest injuries but has been discharged from the An-Naman surgical hospital. Their six year son Khaiser Munib has two broken legs. His parents were downstairs with the rest of the family, all unhurt." Jo Wilding writes from Baghdad.

NOWHERE IS SAFE

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jezebel 19:36 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

.
from http://sfgate.com

== Let Freedom Ring Huh Huh Hey Look Boobies ==

Proving that lonely desperately inept uber-geek computer hackers are not necessarily the slightest bit hip or alternative or radical or anarchistic or anti-government or coolly rebellious or the slightest bit interesting or smart or funny or even likeable, not that many people defend them as such, but still, hackers broke into Web sites operated by the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera, temporarily diverting Web surfers to porn and to a page with a U.S. flag and the message "Let Freedom Ring," because they're all socially stunted and sexually twitchy and love nothing more than to get drunk of their dad's beer and swap lame C++ jokes and snort ketamine and secretly masturbate to Justin Timberlake videos. Meta-geek dork monkeys who never have sex and who call themselves the "Freedom Cyber Force Militia," which could've been more childish and inane-sounding, maybe, if they really really tried, but only by a very, very little, teeny-tiny bit, initially redirected Al-Jazeera's English site to a different Web page on a Net provider in Salt Lake City, Utah, which pretty much says it all right there.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2003/03/27/national1312EST0646.DTL&nl=fix

----------------------------------------------

jezebel 10:20 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

Subject: General Forum: Conflict
.

a love note to all my friends at my favorite chess hangout on the subjects of chess and protesting and war....

jezebel has posted the following to the forum called: General Forum
Message Heading: Conflict
Message:
.
i normally don't post much here as you all know. but i read here regularly, and play chess with most of you for a long time now. this site and you all have become like an extended family to me over time.

personally i'm anti-wars. but for the above reasons i couldn't care less about your political stances, will always love you all or not love you all equally no matter what politics.

so i have just one question. how can someone play as many games of chess -- the original game of war -- as we all do here, while protesting with a straight face, any war, any where on this planet, at the same time we are each playing hundreds of wargames like those disembodied brain gamesters in that old classic star trek episode and even dream of having anyone believe we are not joking?

it's like, how does the saying go .. "the pot calling the kettle black."

xoxo,
jezebel 19:28 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

.

as the world watches the u.s. wipe the tv screen with bloody pictures of the desert, a separate but not disconnected and every bit as criminal war intensifies in its atrocity.

israel is committing genocide, wiping out the remaining palestinians and the u.s. is deeply involved in this war as well.
...

UPDATE FROM THE
ELECTRONIC INTIFADA

http://electronicIntifada.net

27 March 2003 - 4:52PM US CT
_____________________________

Diaries:

MYRIAD FORMS OF ETHNIC CLEANSING

Kristen Ess, Live from Palestine, 27 March 2003

At 3am the Israeli military invaded the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun with Apache helicopters and tanks. The bulldozers demolished 100s of trees, further desecrating the land. If one were not watching this happen, it might be easy to arrive here next year and truly believe that this was a land without a people. The Israeli military has destroyed thousands of dunams of orange and olive trees, shrubs, grass, and life. The US donated helicopters fired missiles into the Beit Hanoun Palestinian National Security building, killing two men who were at work. Kristen Ess writes from Gaza.
http://electronicIntifada.net/v2/article1301.shtml

...


jezebel 17:03 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

.

reality tv is evolving again with the latest war and its embedded reporters. but don't get too overwhelmed yet. things are not always as they seem, censorship still exists.

what's the answer to the question of possibly revealing or embarrassingly questionable items in print? the u.s. government simply intends to paint it black.

....

other blogs o' war:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/26/sprj.irq.soldier.blogs.reut/index.html

http://www.blogsofwar.com/

...


jezebel 07:10 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

.

if this war lasts much longer i'm gonna run out of electronic paper.

_____________________________
News & Analysis
IPT REPORT: US BOMB DAMAGE AND CIVILIAN CASUALTIES IN RESIDENTIAL/COMMERCIAL AREAS OF BAGHDAD, 22-26 MARCH 2003 IPT members, Baghdad, Iraq (26 March 2003)

Between 22 and 26 March 2003, members of the Iraq Peace Team were able to travel to different areas of the capital to see US bomb damage to residential and commerical neighborhoods of Baghdad. The following report offers an overview of what they saw and recounts conversations they had with the families affected.


Iraq Diaries
THE FOCUSED THOUGHTS OF CHILDREN,
THE SCATTERED DESTRUCTION OF BOMBS
Kathy Kelly, Iraq Peace Team (26 March 2003)

"This morning eight year old Reem, the daughter of one the Al Fanar hotel workers overcame her shyness and began to talk with me. Later, I hurried out of our hotel with an Italian journalist to view a site where we were told that a bomb had killed at least 15 people. " Kathy Kelly writes from Baghdad.
and so it goes ...

...


jezebel 18:59 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

weekend? what weekend? it just went poof.


it's difficult for me lately to write anything as my normal keyboard has still not been replaced. sometime this week i hope.

here is a blog from baghdad. it's supposedly written by a guy named raed. as far as i can tell it is the real thing. daily reports from a real inhabitant.

...

holy technology batman.
here's more war diaries from iraq.

...
jezebel 17:33 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

.
more war stories.

AND THE WINNER IS...
Hussein Ibish, Electronic Iraq (20 March 2003)

"This is not your daddy's Gulf War. The unprecedented
domestic and international opposition is driven by
concerns about the devastation that it is likely to bring
to the long-suffering Iraqi people, and well-founded fears
that it is an entirely avoidable conflict which will
create many more problems than it solves. What is truly
shocking are not the usual distortions, untruths and
juggled rationalizations. The deeper scandal is the
refusal of the President and his advisers to acknowledge
the profound risks and costs this war entails," writes
Hussein Ibish in this contribution to Electronic Iraq.

http://electronicIraq.net/news/339.shtml


Iraq Diaries
BIRDS AND BOMBS: A SPRING MORNING IN BAGHDAD
Laurie King-Irani, Electronic Iraq (20 March 2003)

"Skittish CNN news teams, fearful of the US bombs that
their anchors are celebrating from the saftey of Atlanta's
news studios, have left stationary cameras with
microphones on rooftops throughout Baghdad before
departing to safer ground. These recording devices are
picking up the sounds of Baghdad's birds, singing in the
new year, the first day of Spring, the first day of war,
the first day of our frightening new world order, live and
in real time from the Cradle of Civilization, now the
grave of the United Nations." Electronic Iraq's Laurie
King-Irani sends Now Ruz (New Year's) greetings to Iraq
from Canada as another war begins.

http://electronicIraq.net/news/342.shtml

...




jezebel 11:14 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

diaries from yet another war zone ....

Iraq Diaries
BOMBS AT DAWN
Bettejo Passalaqua, Iraq Peace Team (20 March 2003)

"At 5:30 AM the opinion was that if it didn't come by
dawn, it wouldn't come tonight. The first explosion came
just as Cathy Breen remarked, 'Well, dawn is here, so I
guess we can go back to bed.' The attack lasted for about
1 1/2 hours." Iraq Peace Team member Bettejo Passalaqua
managed to get this diary written between bombings.

http://electronicIraq.net/news/343.shtml

...


jezebel 01:00 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

.
more news from palestine about rachel corrie, her final email home.

and as a final insult, israelies crash her funeral.

...


jezebel 09:36 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

UPDATE FROM
ELECTRONIC IRAQ
http://electronicIraq.net

19 March 2003
_______________________

Action & Activism

...A SAND STORM HIT THE DESERT

      By Jeff Guntzel and Danny Muller

     Voices in the Wilderness

"Earlier today a sand storm hit the desert south of Baghdad stretching all the way to Kuwait. There, columns of advancing US and Allied infantry were slowed. It is poetry, I guess, that mother nature would make one last desperate attempt to delay terrible violence when all other desperate attempts have failed." Jeff Guntzel and Danny Muller comment for Voices in the Wilderness.

Read the article at http://electronicIraq.net/news/

...


jezebel 21:28 - [Link] - Comments ()
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FOUR EYEWITNESSES DESCRIBE THE MURDER OF RACHEL CORRIE

Tom Dale, Greg Schnabel, Richard Purssell, and Joe Smith International Solidarity Movement

American peace activist Rachel Corrie was murdered by an Israeli bulldozer driver on 16 March 2003 while attempting to defend a Palestinian doctor's home from demolition. Four of the seven other International Solidarity Movement members present have written down their recollections of the incident: Tom Dale (US), Greg Schnabel (UK), Richard Purssell (UK), and Joe Smith (US). First web publication courtesy of the International Solidarity Movement.

http://electronicIntifada.net/v2/article1263.shtml


STATEMENT FROM THE PARENTS OF RACHEL CORRIE

Craig and Cindy Corrie, Press Release, 19 March 2003

On 19 March 2003, Craig and Cindy Corrie, parents of murdered peace activist Rachel Corrie, held a press conference on the terrace of Cannon House, one of the three buildings of the US House of Representatives in Washington D.C. The following text is the statement they made at the press conference. Text courtesy of Partners for Peace in Washington DC.

http://electronicIntifada.net/v2/article1270.shtml

...


jezebel 14:38 - [Link] - Comments ()
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OF BROKEN BODIES AND UNBREAKABLE LAWS
Laurie King-Irani

Last weekend, the murder of a civilian by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in the Occupied Gaza Strip dominated international news headlines, evoking sorrow and outrage throughout the world. The victim in this case was a bright, eloquent, and courageous 23-year-old American activist, Rachel Corrie, a student at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington who had been serving as an International Solidarity Movement (ISM) observer in Gaza since January.

Rachel, like thousands of other concerned and committed human rights activists from the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, and Japan, had left the comfort and security of home behind in order to assume the considerable risks of monitoring and lessening an increasingly lethal and lawless conflict.

Rachel went to Occupied Palestine to witness and prevent daily Israeli infractions of international law. From her reports on the International Solidarity Movement's website, it is evident that she possessed true grit and a maturity beyond her years. Day after day, she and her comrades faced dangers, stood their ground, and never wavered in their commitment to protect the rights and even the lives of vulnerable Palestinian civilians.

Rachel's murder last Sunday was not the first time she experienced IDF hostility. Despite constant dangers and recurring nightmares of menacing tanks and bulldozers, which she chillingly conveyed in e-mail letters to her mother, Rachel never got cold feet or ran away.

complete story at:

http://electronicIntifada.net/v2/article1259.shtml

.......

jezebel 10:33 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

"the powerful odor of mendacity"

in case anyone out there hasn't yet seen the stupidity of gw bush's ways, here's more proof that he is at best a really bad prevaricator.


...



jezebel 08:22 - [Link] - Comments ()
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Cassandra Speaks

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
   TROY, Turkey

It is quiet here in the rubble at the presumed site of ancient Troy. No tourists gawk at the spot where Achilles pierced Hector's throat, at the high stone walls on which King Priam tore his gray hair, at the gate that shows signs of having been widened as if to admit an unusually big object, like an oversized wooden horse.

Then there's a roar, and two fighter jets streak across the sky, creating a collage of one of the world's first battlegrounds and the next one, just southeast of here in Iraq. The instruments of war have changed mightily in 3,200 years, but people have not; that is why Homer's "Iliad," even when it may not be historically true, exudes a profound moral truth as the greatest war story ever told.

So on the eve of a new war, the remarkably preserved citadel of Troy is an intriguing spot to seek lessons. The Trojan War was the very first world war, between Europe and Asia, and the legends suggest that it was marked not just by heroism but also by catastrophic mistakes, poor leadership and what the Greeks called atê: the intoxicating pride and overweening arrogance that sometimes clouds the minds of the strong.

Troy offers us three lessons about war, each as enduring as the spring that still trickles here ? described by Homer as the place where Trojan women washed clothes.
First, even when one has a legitimate grievance, war is not always the best solution. The Greeks were initially divided about whether to attack Troy, with even heroes like Agamemnon and Odysseus reluctant. Yet the hawks won the day, in part by offering an early version of the Bush doctrine: if we let the Trojans get away with kidnapping Helen, then they'll steal women again; if we don't fight them now, we'll have to later, when they're stronger.

Turns out the doves were right. So many lives were lost "in this insane voyage," as Achilles put it, "fighting other soldiers to win their wives as prizes," that even for the victorious Greeks the struggle was simply not worth it. "Why must we battle Trojans?" Achilles asks in what I fancy was an early advocacy of an alternate strategy of containment.

The plain below Troy, where the Greeks pitched their tents, is a fine place to consider a second immortal truth of war: the crucial importance of maintaining allies. The Greeks outnumbered the Trojans by more than 10 to 1, but they were still almost defeated and came within a whisker of having their ships burned because of feuding within the Greek "coalition of the willing."

Agamemnon was the Donald Rumsfeld of his day, needlessly angering his key allies ? and outraging Achilles by swiping his concubine Briseis. Agamemnon later tried to mollify Achilles by insisting that he had never slept with Briseis and offering Achilles seven gorgeous captive women, but Achilles still withdrew from battle, threatened to go home and said things like "ça ne marche pas."

The third lesson has to do with the fall of Troy itself. Some experts have offered a hawkish lesson ? the vulnerability of even the most refined city to military weakness. After all, an armed attack destroyed Troy in an instant; one evening the Trojans were celebrating victory, and a few hours later the Greeks were hurling Hector's baby son, Astyanax, to his death so Troy could never rise again.

Yet the story makes it clear that Troy's fundamental failing was not a military one. Troy would not have saved itself with higher walls or better spears. Better intelligence might have helped, but above all Troy was destroyed by its refusal to listen to warnings about the wooden horse.

So, by Zeus, that third lesson from Troy is the paramount need to listen to skeptical voices. Virgil suggests that the Trojans rashly brought the wooden horse inside their city despite the alarm of two early pundits ? Cassandra and Laocoon, who warned against Greeks bearing gifts. If the Trojans had just thought it over for a week, by which time the Greeks inside would have died of thirst, then the Trojan War might have ended differently (and we could all be speaking Luvian, the ancient language possibly spoken by Trojans).

But the Trojans dismissed the warnings as "windy nonsense" and sealed their fate. We Americans are the Greeks of our day, and as we now go to war, we should appreciate not only the beauty of the tale, but also the warnings within it.   

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company | Privacy Policy

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jezebel 09:12 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

there's a green beer party happening across the street. i think both pubs down the road got together and rented the parking lot. very noisy drunken mob.

my cat is not pleased about it.
jezebel 20:26 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

st. crap day --

don't wear green. wear black to mourn all the displaced, lost pagan souls that good ole st. pat drove from ireland and cry for them in your green beer.

bush2 is a copycat. st. pat already did regime change in ireland -- what bush2 is trying to do today in iraq.

maybe hundreds of years from now people will be celebrating st. bush and wearing red to symbolize all the blood he needlessly spilled while trying to emulate his favorite saint.

jezebel 11:06 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

.
wonderful news! the rate of human population growth is declining.

we might even just fade away. oh i guess that part's my fantasy.



Humanity's Slowing Growth


A generation ago, Paul Ehrlich warned in "The Population Bomb" that with demands on resources soaring, overpopulation would kill our planet. As demands on water and air soared, many thought he was right. Now it turns out that population growth rates are plummeting ? for good and tragic reasons. The implications are profound.

According to a United Nations report issued recently, most advanced countries could, in effect, slowly turn into old-age homes. For example, by 2050, the median age in Japan and Italy will be over 50. Fertility rates in nearly all well-off countries have already fallen below 2.1 babies per woman, the rate at which a population remains stable.

In the developing world, fertility rates average three children, down from six a half-century ago, and the U.N. projects that the rate will dip below the replacement level in most poor countries later this century. Slower growth rates are both the cause and consequence of a higher standard of living, and of the emancipation of women.

There are also alarming reasons for the drop in the population growth rate ? notably the H.I.V./AIDS epidemic. It is one of the factors the United Nations cited in revising its 2050 world population projections, from 9.3 billion people down to 8.9 billion (we're at 6.3 billion today). The U.N. estimates that there will be a half-billion fewer people in the 53 nations most afflicted by AIDS than there would have been.

For its part, Europe will decline, after accounting for immigration, from 728 million people to 632 million in 2050. Italy, meanwhile, is expected to shrink by a fifth; Estonia, staggeringly, by half.

By contrast, America's population, boosted by a higher fertility rate and immigration, is projected to be 409 million in 2050, up from 285 million today. Ours is one of eight countries expected to account for half the population increase in the next 50 years. This will improve our economic prospects. Not so for the others, which are all much poorer: India, Pakistan, Nigeria, China, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Congo.

Aging populations will pose an economic challenge for most wealthy nations as smaller working-age populations will have to pay for the health and pension benefits of a growing number of longer-living retirees.

Even a cursory understanding of these demographic trends makes two things clear. Helping poor countries improve their economies is not a matter of charity but of intelligent foreign policy. And no matter how much progress is made, there will be large population shifts into better-off nations. The immigrants will need the jobs and the richer countries will need the workers. So increasing the orderly, legal migration of labor from poorer to richer countries in the next few decades is a global imperative. Those who oppose this trend will be embracing long-term economic suicide.

In the second half of the century, the entire world's population should start declining, if these demographic projections prevail. That could present a more affluent world with problems that are the mirror image of what Paul Ehrlich once worried about.

-- from:
New York Times Company

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jezebel 07:59 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

.

...
blogspotting
...

i don't seem to be doing so well as far as keeping up-to-date here lately. too many things going on at other places maybe. who knows.

this link, "blogspotting" is to keep anyone entertained while i'm away. it's a good place to start to look at what weblogs have to offer.

till i return.
..
jezebel 07:56 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

.

this is how freaks are treated in hawaii. they are gawked at and exploited for amusement.

whether human or chee-to, a freak is still a freak. has anybody asked this chee-to how it feels? what are its aspirations? maybe it doesn't want the "barnum and bailey" treatment.

imagine being whisked away from sunny hawaii, where any obese chee-to would rather be, to iowa of all places (no offense to iowans). i've heard they have a really good english department at the university of iowa.

but where would you rather be if you were a freak chee-to, in iowa or hawaii?

humans on this planet never cease to amaze me.

Posted on: Monday, March 10, 2003 10:53 PM HST

-- from honolulu star-bulletin, "breaking news":

BIG Chee-to from Hawaii arrives in Iowa
Associated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa >> A giant misshapen Chee-to found in a bag of the cheesy snacks in Hawaii arrived safely today in northwestern Iowa, where residents plan a special unveiling ceremony later this week.

The U.S. Postal Service delivered the Chee-to to KLGA-FM in Algona, where disc jockey Bryce Wilson, 24, helped obtain the lumpy oddity to become a tourist attraction. It is comparable in size to a small lemon, Wilson has said.

Chuck Shockley, the station's news director, said the Chee-to will be kept in a safe deposit box at the bank until Thursday's ceremony.

A sheriff's escort will take the Chee-to to Sister Sarah's Restaurant, a band will play and the mayor will issue a special proclamation, Shockley said.

Frito-Lay, maker of Chee-tos, has donated items to be auctioned at the event. Proceeds will benefit the Kossuth County food bank.

honolulu star-bulletin
...

jezebel 05:38 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

latest update from
electronicIraq.net
10 March 2003
_____________________________
Action & Activism

INTERNATIONAL ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT TO HOLD MARCH 15 ACTIONS press release, International A.N.S.W.E.R. (6 March 2003)

Following meetings of international anti-war activists in London, England last weekend it has been decided that the next major day of action will be on March 15 to oppose the war. Actions will take place around the world in solidarity with the emergency convergence on the White House planned by A.N.S.W.E.R. The following press release tells you how to get involved.

http://electronicIraq.net/news/248.shtml

electronicIraq.net
...


jezebel 13:34 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

....................................

...from eminism.

What gender is Emi anyway?

Emi's gender identity is neither male or female, but slut. Does that satisfy you?

No, not quite... What is the slut gender anyway?

Oh, I just came up with it because people won't leave me alone unless I give them some answer. But apparently just giving any answer wasn't good enough.

Take it easy, man... I like being slut though - I feel like I'm doing my part to destroy traditional American families and bringing down the entire Western civilization.

.........................

that somehow makes me feel a bit better and less crazy for refusing to give people an m/f answer and instead not labeling myself and staying gender-free. 

you wouldn't believe the reactions i get.  people are like, "what--are you embarrassed?" or something else equally as stupid and nonunderstanding.


jezebel 05:47 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

its just my opinion. that silly opinion, again. darned politic, gets me in trouble all the time, nothing new.

whips and chains had no effect on it. i finally gave up. so it runs rampant now. it's become feral, wild. nevertheless, i usually enjoy hearing my opinion. i don't usually apologize for it. (i have before in attempts to recover from moments of absolute stupidity or severe acts of unintended rudeness from my opinion.)

but even more, i enjoy reading others' and your opinions, and i try really hard to respect them, no matter how much i might or might not disagree. i would never expect you to apologize for your opinion to me.

i enjoy hearing other people's points of view. even when, or maybe even especially when, they are venting. that's what these places are for.

it's digital. sometimes i just can't control my fingers. they cause me to have textual diarrhea.

jezebel 08:29 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

.

isn't it frighteningly funny how our wonderful hawaii (not hawaiian) governer is in denial about terrorism? i feel history repeating itself. except this time it will be herstory. how embarrassing.

omg. any respect or hope of common sense i ever had for this woman, which never was very much at all, has now all gone after this episode, no matter what the ultimate outcome.

it's all drained away like so much dirty bathwater down the pipe.

tra-la-la,

jezebel 17:06 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

---

.

Peace Takes A Bullet

In which the Bush Doctrine means never having to say, sorry about all the warheads and death

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

These are the final days of peace in America. Please remember to turn off the lights and lock up when you leave.

These are the last days of relative calm before we start bombing and massacring hundreds of thousands of people and in so doing enter into what many believe will a very long, drawn-out, insanely expensive, volatile, destabilizing, completely unwinnable war against a cheap thug of an opponent who has negligible military might and zero capacity to actually harm the U.S. in any substantive way. U-S-A! U-S-A!

>continue here:<

...

jezebel 10:02 - [Link] - Comments ()
...

.

PRAY FOR PEACE
by Ellen Bass
(www.ellenbass.com)

Pray to whoever you kneel down to:

Jesus nailed to his wooden or marble or plastic cross, his suffering face bent to kiss you, Buddha still under the Bo tree in scorching heat, Yahweh, Allah, raise your arms to Mary that she may lay her palm on our brows, to Shekinhah, Queen of Heaven and Earth, to Inanna in her stripped descent.

Hawk or Wolf, or the Great Whale, Record Keeper of time before, time now, time ahead, pray. Bow down to terriers and shepherds and siamese cats. Fields of artichokes and elegant strawberries.

Pray to the bus driver who takes you to work, pray on the bus, pray for everyone riding that bus and for everyone riding buses all over the world. If you haven't been on a bus in a long time, climb the few steps, drop some silver, and pray.

Waiting in line for the movies, for the ATM, for your latté and croissant, offer your plea.

Make your eating and drinking a supplication.

Make your slicing of carrots a holy act,
each translucent layer of the onion, a deeper prayer.

Make the brushing of your hair
a prayer, every strand its own voice,
singing in the choir on your head.

As you wash your face, the water slipping
through your fingers, a prayer: Water,
softest thing on earth, gentleness
that wears away rock.

Making love, of course, is already a prayer.

Skin and open mouths worshipping that skin, the fragile case we are poured into, each caress a season of peace.

If you're hungry, pray. If you're tired.
Pray to Gandhi and Dorothy Day. Shakespeare. Sappho. Sojourner Truth.

Pray to the angels and the ghost of your grandfather. When you walk to your car, to the mailbox, to the video store, let each step be a prayer that we all keep our legs, that we do not blow off anyone else's legs.

Or crush their skulls.

And if you are riding on a bicycle
or a skateboard, in a wheel chair, each revolution of the wheels a prayer that as the earth revolves we will do less harm, less harm, less harm.

And as you work, typing with a new manicure, a tiny palm tree painted on one pearlescent nail or delivering soda or drawing good blood into rubber-capped vials, writing on a blackboard with yellow chalk, twirling pizzas, pray for peace.

With each breath in, take in the faith of those who have believed when belief seemed foolish, who persevered. With each breath out, cherish.

Pull weeds for peace, turn over in your sleep for peace, feed the birds for peace, each shiny seed that spills onto the earth, another second of peace. Wash your dishes, call your mother, drink wine.

Shovel leaves or snow or trash from your sidewalk. Make a path. Fold a photo of a dead child around your VISA card. Gnaw your crust of prayer, scoop your prayer water from the gutter. Mumble along like a crazy person, stumbling your prayer through the streets.

+
March 5, 2003
+
www.beautyandtruth.com
+
WAR IS STUPID CRAZY!
What Would Martin Luther King Jr. Do?
www.freewillastrology.com/beauty/saints.shtml

Outrage Fatigue
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/ 2003/03/03/DD130869.DTL

101 Ways to Stop the War
www.earthfuture.com/

Tenderly Militant Poetry
www.puddinghouse.com/peacelines.htm

Overcoming Terrorism
www.gatheringin.com/12step_1.html

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jezebel 20:54 - [Link] - Comments ()
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million dollar city
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back in the days of "twin peaks" and the nation-wide tv cult we all became members of, many strange things happened.

one of them was all our names became "bob" no matter what gender or species we were.

this column reminded me of those days for some strange reason. but david lynch can pop into people's heads at the weirdest times.

time can be so cyclical and yet we humans wrongly treat it so linearly (is that a word). well.

here's my salute to cyclic revolutions. if only i had a million dollars. i would be living in new york city right now, having a burlesque time.

bob

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jezebel 15:58 - [Link] - Comments ()
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== Worse Than Marilyn Manson Antichrist Superstar World Tour '96? ==

An eighth grader has been suspended from school for wearing a T-shirt with a drawing of two towers, an airplane and a man in traditional Arab headdress.

Officials at Finley Jr High School in a suburb west of Chicago, told Ian Itani's mother in a letter that the 14-year-old's decision to wear the T-shirt "could be taken as a promotion of terrorism."

Colleen Itani said her son, whose father is of Lebanese descent, was simply trying to send a message that all Arabs are not responsible for 9/11.

In related news, a teen from CA was also suspended for wearing a t-shirt featuring an actual grainy spy-cam photo of a heavily latexed and cellulitic Lynne Cheney snorting a huge pile of premium powdered Andalusian spider monkey dung off John Ashcroft's exposed and pallid thigh in the back of a White House limo just after a monster truck rally/Kid Rock concert, because said thigh was "too horrific" and "deeply nauseating" to other children, and also might give the impression that premium powdered Andalusian spider monkey dung was somehow cool when in fact it only makes you want to initiate bitter war whilst swooning into dreams of gutting U.S. foreign policy paradigms in favor of re-sanctioning preemptive modes of politicized international fiscal behaviors. "Plus it makes kids pee their pants," someone added.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2003/03/03/national0537EST0466.DTL&nl=fix
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jezebel 10:25 - [Link] - Comments ()
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malfunctioning URL corrected
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V

its the invasion of the blogsnatchers!

something to say? do it in a blog. start your's now. or simply read and write in some else's.

beware it can become time consuming, especially for addictive personalities with too much time on their hands.
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jezebel 08:37 - [Link] - Comments ()
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modern hieroglyphics

there's a new written language evolving. today if you can't read sms shorthand it could be a very confusing world.

this could be one of its first attempts to break through into academia.

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jezebel 07:33 - [Link] - Comments ()
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this interview from the great beyond is another point of view from a real person in the middle east.

he's dead now, but during his latest physical incarnation mullah mustafa barzani, a former leader of the kurds, spoke with william safire and said some things that still can be considered as relevant.

i'm posting this because barzani should be allowed to speak now. his words should be heard, no matter which side of the veil he dwells on.

the following is william safire's interview with a dead person.

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jezebel 06:19 - [Link] - Comments ()
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oscar bites

what? you mean movies are not real? but what about superman, batman, and king kong?

my god-zilla....
things are all blending together. i can't take much more.

i bet "ironside" wasn't even a real cop, huh. and he could probably walk too.

it's all a mickey mouse job. i always suspected that rodent was just a big rat wearing fake ears.
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jezebel 18:48 - [Link] - Comments ()
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just think, any book on the planet is within reach. a worldwide online library. i wonder if it will ever become a reality. i hope.
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jezebel 06:25 - [Link] - Comments ()
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