Jane Stillwater's Web Log

2013-05-14T10:16:00.003-07:00

America: The place where Israeli neo-cons get their Big Ideas!

    Some people are always unjustly accusing Israeli neo-cons of learning their rather barbaric occupation strategies (of torturing, killing, harassing, stealing from and jailing Palestinians) from the Nazis -- but that's just not true! Israeli neo-cons actually stole their barbaric, inhumane and uncivilized methods and ideas from America! And I have the maps to prove it too.

   You know that map series that shows the changing demographics of land distribution between Israel and Palestine, from 1947 to present times? With the Israeli lands all illustrated in white and the shrinking native lands illustrated in green? http://en.avaaz.org/1108/palestine-gaza-statehood-bid-un

Well, I've been working on creating a demographic map of America between 1492 and present times too -- illustrating land distribution between Native Americans and Euro-Americans in 1492, 1700, 1850 and now. And will it look familiar? Oh yeah. So stop trying to blame the current Israeli neo-con foreign and domestic policies http://www.roitov.com/articles/inventions.htm on the Nazis -- when we already gots a winner right here in the good old U.S.A.

PS: Here is my version of the above-described demographic map of America, that I've drawn so far -- except that I got the green bits and the white bits mixed up. Mercator would probably be rolling over in his grave right now but, hey, it's the best I could do.

     And now perhaps it's time to start working on a new map -- of what America's very own "Project for a New American Century" neo-cons have in mind for Israel next. And this one is gonna be big, even bigger than my map of the U.S. And it's gonna use up a hecka lot of green ink too -- stretching all the way from Algeria and Libya, through Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran, all the way to Uzbekistan by 2050. Will get back to you on that one.

PPS: A mainstream Israeli newspaper has just reported that an ex-Bush official believes that the current chemical weapons charges against Syria are all false flags, planted by Israeli neo-cons. And if Bush's guy is right, the Israeli neo-cons probably also copied that idea from all those American false-flag reports that Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons as well http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/west-of-eden/former-bush-administration-official-israel-may-be-behind-use-of-chemical-arms-in-syria.premium-1.519172

    And now those copy-cat Israeli neo-cons have just dropped bombs on the Damascus airport.

     Since 1997, Syria http://www.freepalestinemovement.org/home.html, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iran, Pakistan, etc. have all suffered violent military and economic attacks by American neo-cons. And this roll-call of preemptive aggression on the Middle East reads just like a page out of the PNAC playbook http://morallowground.com/2011/06/03/on-this-day-1997-project-for-the-new-american-century-founded/.

     And now even East Jerusalem is under attack by Israeli neo-cons http://www.roitov.com/articles/jerusalemroads.htm

    When we all voted for Obama in 2008 and again in 2012, we naively assumed that we had finally put an end to all that PNAC craziness. But no, no, no and no. The PNAC plan is obviously stronger than ever right now. So much for hope. Obama is clearly a PNAC type of guy.

      And apparently America's current upper escalations of power are also Al Qaeda types of guys too. According to Global Research, "[T]he recent Israeli strikes prove outright that Israel, acting on behalf of the US, is fighting on the same side as Al Qaeda in Syria. Western efforts to bolster supposed ‘moderate rebels’ have clearly only bolstered what has always been the main demographic of the militant ‘opposition’: Salafi/Jihaddi inspired and fomented militias, that do not espouse anything close to democracy." http://www.globalresearch.ca/war-and-moral-expediancy-us-and-israel-support-salafist-jihadist-terrorists-in-syria/5334315

     As Dorothy Parker used to say, "What new hell is this!" It's a Hell that is costing American taxpayers their very life-blood, that's what.

PPPS: Here's a recent report from Gaza by an American doctor visiting there:

     "...The refugee camps we visit seem even more soiled and overcrowded than before, and there is trash everywhere. The UN is running out of money to maintain its food assistance program and people are revolting.... Gaza is a pressure cooker. The UN predicts that Gaza may become inhabitable after 2020.   But we will keep coming back as long as we can. Our conscience demands this of us http://palestinechronicle.com/gaza-we-will-keep-coming-back/#.UYQsxsqcHBY

     Sounds like a Native American reservation to me -- as best described here by Johnny Cash: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdNV9JX-Xi8 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCAf_Ajh_KQ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0zbD84Q1U4.

PPPPS: Sanctions on Iran? Screw that. Somebody needs to put sanctions on those sleazy, war-mongering Israeli and American neo-cons http://vimeo.com/64853585. And what if Russia, Iran, China and India started a boycott of America and Israel too? What then? Here's what: All of the shelves in all of the WalMarts in America and Israel would stand empty quick as a wink.

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Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!

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If anyone ever wants to hire me on as a travel writer (or war correspondent), "Have laptop, will travel!"

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Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

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Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come! Here's my reel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C91uEYjLUXA
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Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
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I recently got my Notary Public commission!

Need a Notary Public? Have seal, will travel. E-mail me at jpstillwater@yahoo.com and I'll stamp your document, make it official and only charge $10. Of course if you live outside of Berkeley, I may have to charge travel expenses -- but am well worth it!

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Want something good to read? Buy my book! "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719/ref=cm_pdp_rev_itm_title_1. It's like if Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain and/or Janet Evanovich went to war.

I also wrote a book about going on Hajj (also included as a chapter in "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book is cheaper -- but it's worth buying them both!) My book on the Hajj is so outstanding that I bet even Christian fundamentalists will love it! Please buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product
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"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!"You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here:http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds." You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for those of us who are still idealists in these troubled times. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

2013-05-03T19:25:00.002-07:00

Stuck in history: Mother's Day, Niles, Bikers & Charlie Chapman

     "Would you like to play Charlie Chaplin's mother in my new movie?" a film student at UC Berkeley asked me recently. Of course I would. Yeah. Sure!

     Did you know that Charlie Chaplin's mother suffered from and finally died of tertiary syphilis, which she contracted while being forced into prostitution in the gold fields of South Africa by her greedy and unscrupulous husband? And that Charlie then grew up in a Dickensian-style orphanage in the slums of London? It's true.

    And did you also know that Chaplin made a whole bunch of his movies in Niles, California -- back before Hollywood was Hollywood and Niles was Hollywood first? And that Niles is just 30 miles south of Berkeley? And that Niles is now one of the antique-store (and biker-bar) capitals of the world?

    Just for a moment, let's take a break from all the lies and propaganda http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/17948-forget-cocaine-the-bigger-danger-to-america-is-snorting-crack-koch we are all currently being bombarded with on our flat-screen TVs (propaganda that tells us Syria has WMDs just like Iraq did; that Iran, not the CIA, is the world's baddest Bad Guy; that only Wall Street needs and deserves a bailout; and that John Kerry has the absolute right and cajones to contest honest elections in Venezuela but did diddly-squat to contest dishonest elections in Ohio http://filmmakermagazine.com/69630-slurping-docs-at-tribeca/). Instead, let's return to those simple days of yesteryear when everything was uncomplicated and nice and the Little Tramp was king of comedy.

     That's what happens when you visit Niles, CA.

     Niles is a sweet little all-American town with a main street and steam trains and an old-fashioned tearoom that is offering Mothers Day high tea.

     I remember my own mother with very mixed feelings. She's dead now (death is the ultimate career change, BTW), so it's obviously too late to be working out all that emotional spaghetti with her in person -- so on Mothers Day these days I just have to say goodbye to all that ambiguity and just let it all go.

     But apparently Charlie Chaplin couldn't -- and didn't. He always thought that he was the one who drove his mother nutzo and never even knew that she had syphilis.

     Did I drive my own mother around the bend also? Did Barbara Bush drive young GWB nuts? And what was Anton Scalia's mother like? We should ask Sandra Day O'Connor about that one.

     Happy Mothers Day.

     According to Mary Catherine Bateson, her mother (Margaret Mead) completely changed the way that babies were brought into the world and how children were treated here in America. At a time when American children were regimented rigidly with regard to feeding times and that babies were tortured with weird-looking instruments immediately after their birth, Mead let the world know that, in Samoa it was okay to hug one's child and even actually breast-feed it when it was hungry instead of just letting it cry for three hours and then feeding it only from a bottle.

    My mother herself wrote in my baby book that the hospital staff where I was born didn't hardly allow my mom to see me during the first whole ten days of my life -- and then they had the chutzpah to tell her that she couldn't breast-feed because her milk had all dried up. No wonder so many American guys have such fixations with breasts!      And American women seem to be fixated on them too. Just ask your nearest local plastic surgeon.

     So. Perhaps the simple days of yesteryear weren't so simple after all. Charlie Chaplin's mother was bonkers from syphilis. We had the great 1929 stock market crash. And World War I was basically a slaughterhouse driven by propaganda and lies -- so much so that the main difference between then and now appears to be that, back in the day, no one had flat-screen TVs.

     But Niles' silent-movie museum, antique stores, biker bar and tea room are still nice places to go on Mothers Day, and to dream about a simple and peaceful time long ago -- one that never really existed.

PS: I also got to play another mother in a recent Academy of Art student film as well. Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6frzpjGhHEM

PPS: Chicago's probate court system seems to have developed a rather unique way of celebrating Mothers Day. First, court attorneys who act as guardians for elders (at $250 an hour!) actively seek out home-owning old people; send in a phony doctor who declares them to be incompetent; get them tossed into a warehousing-type old people's home; sell off the helpless elders' homes; and then pocket the profits http://marygsykes.com/2013/05/03/a-system-set-up-to-dump-people-in-nursing-homes-let-the-attorneys-hold-a-bake-sale-for-funding/#comment-2050

     How can people like this sleep at night? And how can they ever even look their own mothers in the eye after doing these grossly egregious things to other people's mothers?

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Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!

******

If anyone ever wants to hire me on as a travel writer (or war correspondent), "Have laptop, will travel!"

******
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

2013-04-23T11:14:00.002-07:00

The U.S. Supreme Court, tax laws & insanity: What I learned at three rubber-chicken lunches recently

     The Berkeley-Albany Bar Association has been on a huge roll this year. First we had a local expert on the U.S. Supreme Court speak at our January monthly luncheon, giving us the complete 411 regarding what the court had been up to this past year. Not a pretty picture. It's really hard to eat rubber chicken and contemplate Anton Scalia at the same time. But I took lots of notes. But then I lost them in the process of getting my apartment renovated.

     Then, two months ago, we had a tax-law expert tell us all about Congress's latest new IRS laws. It was also totally informative and I also took a whole bunch of notes. But then they got lost too.

     However, regarding taxes, it doesn't really matter what kinds of laws that Congress does or does not pass when it comes to you and me -- not while rich people are being allowed to hide approximately 32 trillion dollars in offshore tax loopholes; money that, unlike your and my money, will never ever be touched by the IRS.

   According to the Los Angeles Times, "[32 trillion dollars is] roughly the size of the American and Japanese economies combined, according to the report from James Henry, a former chief economist at McKinsey & Co. And the figure only includes financial wealth, not real estate, yachts or other assets held abroad." http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/23/business/la-fi-mo-tax-havens-20120723.

     The rich really are different from the rest of us -- especially when it comes to cheating on taxes. We go to jail. They don't.

   In 1950, corporations paid 40% of America's taxes. And now they pay almost zip.

   This month's speaker at the BABA luncheon was a psychiatrist and he spoke to us about how to prevent substance abuse and mental illness. Fascinating. "It's mostly genetic," he said.

   Apparently if one of your parents or grandparents was nutzo or addicted, there is a 25% chance that you will be too.

   "Most substance abuse and/or mental illness shows up in adolescence," the speaker continued. Great. Now all we gotta do is keep our teenagers from being teenagers. Problem solved.

     If only I myself had been able to somehow jump over those crucial hazardous teenage years.

     Then the psychiatrist gave us six main signs to look for as flags for future mental illness. I think I had at least five of them -- but then I already know that I'm crazy because I keep hopelessly believing that Mankind is basically good, that world peace is possible, that we will someday give up letting Wall Street and War Street be our gods, that the internal combustion engine causes climate change and that too much television is bad for you.

PS: Here are the six main flags for mental illness. Enjoy. But once you realize that you too (and almost everyone else in America) are also officially crazy, then you can just sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.

1. Feeling that "something's not quite right"
2. Jumbled thoughts and confusion
3. Being fearful for no good reason
4. Hearing sounds/voices that are not there
5. Declining interest in people, activities and self-care
6. Trouble speaking clearly.

PPS: I just scored an actual solar-powered Lucky Kitty over in San Francisco Chinatown the other day. How crazy-good is that!

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Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!

******

If anyone ever wants to hire me on as a travel writer (or war correspondent), "Have laptop, will travel!"

******
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

****
Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come!
****
Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
****

2013-04-16T09:42:00.003-07:00

Living & dying on the streets: Being homeless is HARD WORK!

        While my apartment was busy being renovated, re-habbed and fixed up for most of last month and a good chunk of this one, I had been forced to find "alternative housing" -- staying with relatives, living in cheap motels, house-sitting for strangers, sleeping on various couches and futons, renting rooms-by-the-night in other peoples' homes, staying in hostels, whatever. But yesterday I finally got to move back home!

      Sure, all my stuff was still in boxes when I got back and the heater didn't work and there was no hot water, but it's like Virginia Woolf used to say, "All one really needs is a bed and a computer of one's own."

     Everything else is just icing on the cake.

     This past month has been a grand adventure, obviously, and a whole lot of fun in many ways. But the bottom line is that, for most of this time, I was disoriented and grouchy and unsure and unorganized and even afraid. And for much of this time I was basically living out of the back seat of my car -- and in laundromats and diners and parks and libraries. Even now, my head hurts just thinking about it.

      And even though I myself was never in any real danger of being actually homeless during this time and didn't have to go without any meals and always found a roof to put over my head, nevertheless, I was constantly stressed out during this entire month. Mucho stressed out. Stressed out a lot!

    So just imagine if someone was forced to do this uber-stressful homelessness gig 24/7; for months and even years at a time -- with no resources, no backup and no future hope that someday soon they would be going back home again. I can't even imagine doing all that and still keeping sane.

     In just the past month, my complete respect for the homeless has grown by leaps and bounds. It's a wonder to me that they can handle all this stress day after day and still remain sane. It's even a wonder to me that they can even still stay alive.

     According to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, "[T]he number of homeless people on a single night in January 2012 was 633,782." http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/20/us-usa-economy-hunger-idUSBRE8BJ14I20121220 And I bet there were a lot more than that.

     Here's to you, homeless Americans everywhere. Having been almost one of you for only one month, I salute you with all of my heart.

PS: My all-time favorite bumper sticker reads, "Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World Peace in one generation!" And I sincerely believed this was true until I met a young woman from China recently -- and now have to re-think that idea completely.

     "What are they like -- those adults in China who have grown up under its single-child system, the fortunately-nurtured ones whose needs have all been met? Are they happy, secure, hopeful, compassionate?"

     "No, hardly! They're egocentric, self-centered and spoiled. They think only of themselves and their own wants and needs. Having been raised without siblings and with so many doting parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, all they can pretty much do now as adults is to whine a lot when they don't get their own way -- and expect to be waited on."

     And this same sort of thing seems to be true here at my housing co-op as well. When we all moved in here back in 1979, a lot of us had some pretty grim stories to tell -- having endured poverty, homelessness, spousal abuse, single-parent loneliness, unemployment, overcrowding, victimization, addiction, etc; before finding these wonderful homes. I myself had previously been living in an attic without running water and then in a small apartment with no privacy.

     And then our sweet little housing co-op offered all of us bruised members of society an idealistic new chance to be wanted, nurtured, protected and loved. My co-op's motto became "Caring and Sharing".

      And so what happened next? How did these new residents handle this wonderful new chance? Humph. Instead of creating "neighborhood peace in one generation" like we had hoped, they soon became a re-creation of the worst of today's modern American society, almost exactly. We soon developed an almost Darwinian example of survival of the fittest.

     Within ten years, my sweet little housing co-op had already developed its very own Boss Tweeds and its very own 1%.

     However, something good did come of all this. Timid little me actually began to develop the necessary cajones to go up against this new 1% all by myself. And even after surviving attempts to beat me up, illegally raise my rent, stage frequent sudden illegal "inspections" of my apartment, actually try to pass an ordinance that I was not allowed to knit in board meetings, hold five (5) kangaroo courts to try to convict me of wrong-doing, attempt to evict me illegally and even to throw me in jail, I did finally win the battle to get my housing co-op not only financially stable for the first time in years but actually renovated and restored to its original pristine condition.

     And then, even more important, when George W. Bush stole the 2000 election, I realized that if I could single-handedly defeat the greedy Boss Tweeds who ran my housing co-op, then taking on GWB should be a walk in the park! And that's how I became a blogger. So, actually, I do owe those former powers-that-be in my co-op a huge debt of gratitude after all.

     They proved to me that if someone, even the weakest and meekest of us all, can work long enough and hard enough to achieve justice, then it can be obtained.

    And so Wall Street and War Street had better watch out! I am still coming after them. And I'm now locked and loaded -- with a computer and a bed!

PPS: A well-known local psychiatrist recently gave a speech to members of the Berkeley-Albany Bar Association, and he said that children raised in child-centered households were far LESS likely to become substance abusers than children raised in adult-centered households.

     This probably means that the egotistic children of China at least won't be at risk for getting all addicted to alcohol and drugs -- plus it certainly explains why GWB was a drunk and coke addict for so many years.

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Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!

******

If anyone ever wants to hire me on as a travel writer (or war correspondent), "Have laptop, will travel!"

******
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

****
Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come!
****
Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
****

2013-04-06T14:41:00.000-07:00

America: Always searching for new and better ways to kill people

     It's not at all hard to believe that our most popular national priority right now is to see how many more new and effective weapons of death we can supply our troops with, supply foreign dictators with, supply our cities' paramilitary police with, supply every rabid gun-nut and gangsta in the country with and/or also supply ourselves? Geez Louise!

     And can you also believe that we just spent over 300 billion dollars on developing a F-35 bomber which, despite its crappy design, construction and performance, is still an ultra-deadly weapon of mass destruction on a post-Godzillian scale? http://www.warisboring.com/2010/11/01/kill-the-f-35/

     What ever happened to knives, shivs, nunchuks, baseball bats or even fists? If you really want to kill someone that badly, shouldn't you be required to do it with just your bare hands?

     Over in this pile on my left we have all kinds of stuff we could be spending our money on that would make us healthy, happy and safe. And over in that pile to my right we have all kinds of stuff to kill people with. If you were to compare these two piles right now, one pile would about the size of a wedding cake -- maybe. And the other pile would easily dwarf the Empire State Building or even the Twin Towers -- the one that all the gazillion weapons we own couldn't save. How misguided (or even sick) is that!

     We Americans need to get a hold of ourselves. We need to put our blood-lust in check.

     On the one side we have drones, robo-cops, tasers, lasers, assault weapons, white phosphorus, torture chambers, chemical weapons, biological weapons, gun shows, Blackhawks, Bradleys, hummers and atomic bombs.

   And on the other side we have ballet. The symphony. Arts and crafts and music in the schools. Yawn. To most Americans, this side is a joke. "All that sissy stuff won't protect us from The Enemy," you cry. But guess what? With almost all our wealth and experience and knowledge and intentions going toward developing even newer and better ways of killing people, the enemy is already within our own walls. We ourselves are the ones who are slowly but surely destroying America -- physically, financially and morally.

     And we ourselves have now become all those scary nightmares in the closet, angels of death, schoolyard bullies, serial killers, relentless attackers and masters of our own doom that we fear so much.

     That's beyond sad. That's psychotic.

     Imagine if we had spent seven or eight trillion dollars on stuff like healthcare, jobs, schools, food and parks -- instead of on constantly inventing new and better ways to turn human beings into fetid and rotting corpses and cadavers? Sure, we might all have been murdered in our sleep by the Bad Guys. But at least we would all die happy. And there wouldn't have been all that many bad guys to begin with either. Or we could have just bought them all off.

     Not only that, but having all these nasty cold-blooded weapons instead of having adequate healthcare, decent housing, infrastructure improvement, etc. is already killing us on a gargantuan scale. More Americans die of hunger, homelessness, untreated diseases, unregulated firearms, domestic violence, child abuse, corporate greed, agribusiness pesticides and GMO epidemics, Wall Street shadiness, prescription drug "side effects," over-the-top industrial pollution, improper nuclear waste disposal, prison-industry callousness, heartless pension cuts, bankster housing scams, etc. than have ever died as a result of any "enemy" action.

      And according to journalist Mark Karlin, the NRA is currently trying to sponsor legislation that supports selling guns to terrorists on our watch list, violent abusers of women, and the legally blind! How many Americans would that kill in a year? Osama bin Ladin woulda been so proud. http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/17893-gun-guys-support-selling-guns-to-terrorists-on-watch-list-violent-abusers-of-women-and-the-legally-blind-carrying-handguns

Despite all our good intentions, bravery, wisdom and even common sense, America's largest and most popular industry right now is still designing, manufacturing and selling weapons that kill men, women and children.

America today is not a country I can be proud of.

PS: I am currently reading Peter Barus's new book, "Matters of Life and Death" -- all about Japanese sword-fighting and the honorable philosophy and art of "engagement" with an opponent http://www.amazon.com/Matters-Life-Death-Essays-Budo/dp/1481204432. But guess what? No one is ever "engaged" by a nuclear weapon. No one is ever "engaged" by a drone. There are no heroics involved in wholesale murder and slaughter. Just ask the surviving victims of Hiroshima and Auschwitz.

PPS: And speaking of Auschwitz, my very favorite holocaust museum ever is located in Terre Haute, Indiana. Founded by Eva Kor, a survivor of the Mengele twins project, this museum is based on Kor's heart-felt philosophy, "Forgive your worst enemy. It will heal your soul and set you free".

We have seen again and again in places like Bosnia, Congo, Kosovo, Israel, Afghanistan and Rwanda, how victims of brutality then turn around and become victimizers themselves -- how quickly prey learns to become predator. So let's try something new and end this vicious cycle. "Let there be," as Kor herself says, "no more wars, no more experiments without informed consent, no more gas chambers, no more bombs, no more hatred, no more killing, no more Auschwitzes." http://www.candlesholocaustmuseum.org/index.php?sid=44

Someday I hope to visit this inspiring museum myself.

PPPS: I'm still taking my month-long involuntary tour of cheap places to stay in Berkeley while my apartment is still getting re-habbed -- although a friend of mine just commented that I should say "renovated" instead because re-hab sounds too much like someone has just sent me off to the drunk tank.

But the house-sitting/dog-walking gig ended yesterday and now I'm renting a SRO up on Parker Street for three nights. Hopefully I'll be moving back home on Monday, although who knows? They just discovered black mold in the apartment above me and that might take some more time because they gotta call out the haz-mat guys in white suits. But that's okay. I'm sort of actually starting to enjoy being pseudo-homeless and constantly "On the Road" -- just like that other Berkeley resident, Jack Kerouac.

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Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!

******

If anyone ever wants to hire me on as a travel writer (or war correspondent), "Have laptop, will travel!"

******
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

****
Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come!
****
Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
****

2013-04-01T13:46:00.002-07:00

Purple Haze: Putting the ghosts of Savo Island to rest

Did you know that one of the first American naval battles fought in the South Pacific against the Japanese imperial fleet during World War II took place in the Solomon Sea, off the shore of some god-forsaken volcanic outcropping called Savo Island -- and right next to another god-forsaken rocky island called Guadalcanal? And that the American navy lost that battle -- bigtime? And that 1033 American sailors and Marines died from wounds received at Savo Island? And that four Allied heavy cruisers were sunk? http://historywarsweapons.com/battle-of-savo-island/

According to naval historian Lt. Col. David E. Quantock, "The Battle of Savo Island occurred early in the morning on 9 August 1942, when the Japanese 8th fleet surprised the Allied Task Force shortly after the landing at Guadalcanal. In approximately 37 minutes, the Japanese Navy destroyed four Allied heavy cruisers and killed more than 1000 American and Australian sailors, handing the U.S. Navy the worst defeat in its history. There were many strategic, operational, and tactical reasons for this debacle; however, the one common thread through the entire disaster was the poorly framed command and control relationships." http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/rep/Savo/Quantock/index.html

Soon after this tragic event, a new housing project for naval personnel was constructed in Berkeley, CA, and named after that sad and humiliating battle. According to the January 3, 1945 Berkeley Gazette, "Located across the street from the WACs barracks, [Savo Island] will consist of 192 units [where] some combat personnel returning to shore jobs may rent a single-bedroom unit for as low as $11 a month." http://tinyurl.com/cqx8exr

And one of the children raised in this new housing project was Jimi Hendrix. And we all now what happened to him.

And then Vietnam came and went. And Nick Terse's excellent new book, "Kill Everything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam," tells us the most accurate story to date about what really happened in Vietnam. As one reviewer put it, "'Kill Anything That Moves' is a hard book to read. You want to look away but finally turn the pages and read of mass killings and targeted assassinations of Vietnamese civilians, rape committed casually and coldly in sight of officers, sport killings and road rage incidents." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-van-buren/nick-turse-kill-anything-that-moves_b_2897858.html

And the ghosts from Savo Island, Vietnam and all the other bloody and unnecessary "wars" perpetrated by greedy corporatists and/or their "poorly framed command and control" have just kept on piling up since then. The 9-11 blunder, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq -- and now Syria, Iran and North Korea are also in the mix http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175669/tomgram%3A_ira_chernus%2C_obama%27s_risky_middle_east_fantasy/.

And these ghosts of more and more dead people from more and more unjust American wars seem to keep showing up at Savo Island. Why? Because "someone had blundered" on War Street (again) -- or because someone else on Wall Street had gotten greedy (again). http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/the_last_letter_20130318/
In 1974, the old Savo Island housing project in Berkeley was torn down and then Jimmy Carter (my hero, he built housing like this in every single city and town in America in 1979) gave orders to build a new, renovated Savo Island right on the same site -- but as a housing cooperative. However, somehow I think that the ghosts of the old Savo Island still remain. There have been murders here. And suicides. And cancer victims. And hoarders. And addicts. And all-too-many cases of people going bat-shite crazy -- perhaps even me!

The current Savo Island housing project is supposed to be an idealistic neighborhood cooperative, a perfect example of neighbors "caring and sharing" -- yet now the only thing that we neighbors seem to do together is to bicker and quarrel night and day about every single little thing.

And now that our extensive new re-hab in progress and I've been forced to move out of my sweet little home for a month, I've also come to notice that every time I even set foot back on the property even for few minutes, I start to get this irrational feeling that it's time to either fight or flee, almost like I was back on Guadalcanal myself!

Perhaps all the ghosts of all the dead from all those unnecessary American wars are still coming back to haunt us.

Can anyone recommend a good exorcist?

PS: And during the period that I have been out of my apartment during this re-hab, I've also been taking quite an extensive tour of Berkeley -- renting rooms in people's houses and apartments, sleeping on people's floors, staying in cheap motels and house-sitting people's dogs. It's been quite a wild ride. But the squabbling at Savo Island has still remained a constant in my life. For instance, some of my neighbors at Savo have just accused me of staying up at the luxurious Claremont resort and spa in high style -- at our co-op's expense! Don't I wish. Up there in the hot tub. Just me and a million or so ghosts.

PPS: I was watching a documentary on the Holocaust in Germany during World War II the other day -- such inhuman brutality. In Nazi Germany, corporatists treated living and breathing men, women and children as mere instruments of profit, and all compassion was gone. This cold and brutal objectification of human life serves us as an obvious example of cwhat happens when orporate profit-driven motivation is taken to its extreme.

And so here is a warning: What German corporations did to the Jews -- worked them to death, callously starved them and even stole their gold teeth -- all in the name of making a profit? Then American multinational corporations may be about to do this to you and me too.

When profit alone is allowed to be king, hatred is then thrown into the mix and all compassion is dead, then no one is safe.

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If anyone ever wants to hire me on as a travel writer (or war correspondent), "Have laptop, will travel!"

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****

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I recently got my Notary Public commission!

Need a Notary Public? Have seal, will travel. E-mail me at jpstillwater@yahoo.com and I'll stamp your document, make it official and only charge $10. Of course if you live outside of Berkeley, I may have to charge travel expenses -- but am well worth it!

****

Want something good to read? Buy my book! "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719/ref=cm_pdp_rev_itm_title_1. It's like if Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain and/or Janet Evanovich went to war.

I also wrote a book about going on Hajj (also included as a chapter in "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book is cheaper -- but it's worth buying them both!) My book on the Hajj is so outstanding that I bet even Christian fundamentalists will love it! Please buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product

****

"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!"You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here:http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds." You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for those of us who are still idealists in these troubled times. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

2013-03-23T11:58:00.000-07:00

Kristallnacht in slow motion: Palestinians as the new Jews

     Every time I write something unflattering about Israeli neo-cons, I always get a burst of anonymous phone calls for a few days. But this never happens when I write about American neo-cons. What's with that?

     Perhaps it's because almost every progressive on the internet today writes unflattering things about American neo-cons and it would take forever to bully us all.

     A FaceBook friend of mine living in Israel-Palestine just sent me a photo of a group of ordinary Jewish-Israeli citizens -- beating up on a terrified Arab-Israeli woman in the street http://rabbibrant.com/2013/03/04/jewish-violence-on-purim-time-for-a-religious-reckoning/. And this photo reminded me of how, back in the 1930s, "Good Germans" used to beat up ordinary Jews on the streets too.

     And the next thing you knew, along came Germany's infamous Kristallnacht.

     But the difference between "Good Germans" back then and "Good Israelis" now is this: Back in Nazi Germany, racism based on religious hatred all culminated in one horrible Kristallnacht orgy of killing, looting, oppression and genocide -- whereas the new Zionist oppression and genocide in Israel-Palestine seems to be happening now in slo-mo. One day at a time, one house at a time, one street at a time, one Palestinian at a time http://www.roitov.com/articles/eastjerusalem.htm.

     But the results are the same.

     And now, in 2013, the average individual "Good Israeli", just like the average individual "Good German" back in the 1930s (and the average individual "Good American" today) needs to finally wake up and finally realize that what neo-cons and pseudo-religious crazies can do (and have done) unto others, they can also do unto us as well.

PS: According to journalist Roi Tov, formerly a captain in the IDF, "On March 1, 2013, the Israeli Ministry of Transport inaugurated two lines of buses to be used exclusively by Palestinians and created the opportunity for a Palestinian Rosa Parks to spark the struggle for Human Rights in the Holy Land." http://www.roitov.com/articles/bus.htm How come when "neo-cons" in Alabama segregated the buses, we all thought this action was abominable -- but when Israeli neo-cons do the exact same thing, we give them a pass?

     Tov calls this slow-motion attack on Palestinians "A war of the turtles" -- except that the Israeli neo-cons' turtle is a million times bigger, stronger, better armed and more powerful than the Palestinian turtle. Duh.

PPS: And does all this new slow-motion holocaust in Palestine mean that, 30 or 40 years from now, the UN will also allow Palestinians to establish a new homeland in Germany -- as a salve for our guilt because the world knowingly stood by, did nothing and watched silently as six million Palestinians were sent off to concentration camps and/or gassed?

PPPS: And it appears that you and I are the ones also paying for this new "Kristallnacht in slow motion" racket as well. According to a recent Congressional report, America even bought Israeli neo-cons a whole shite-load of F-35s (those stealth bombers that don't even work) in order to reign down even more slo-mo hell onto Palestinians!

     And according to Joe Biden at a recent AIPAC conference, President Obama "has directed close coordination, strategically and operationally, between our government and our Israeli partners, including our political, military and intelligence leadership." So apparently we are also guiding Israeli neo-con "strategic and operational" policies behind the slo-mo massacre of all those women and children in Palestine too. Good to know. http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/03/08/vice-president-biden-aipac-policy-conference-2013

****

Here's a really good instruction manual to use if you're an Israeli neo-con trying to steal homes from Palestinians in East Jerusalem. It's even better than the manual used by American neo-cons and banksters to steal working-class Americans' homes! http://www.roitov.com/articles/eastjerusalem.htm

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Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!

******

If anyone ever wants to hire me on as a travel writer (or war correspondent), "Have laptop, will travel!"

******
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

****
Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come!
****
Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
****

2013-03-17T20:24:00.004-07:00

Mexico: America's on-the-job construction apprenticeship training program

Been anywhere near an active construction site lately? I have. And the first thing that you will probably notice on almost any construction site in America these days is that almost everyone there is both skilled and hard-working. And the second thing that you might notice at each construction site in America is that almost everyone there is speaking Spanish.

"Where did those guys learn all those amazing and intricate construction skills?" you might ask after watching almost any construction crew in action.

"They learned them in Mexico."

You want to receive excellent on-the-job training? Want to sign on to an excellent apprenticeship program in carpentry, woodworking, plumbing, roofing, whatever? Want to go to an outstanding trade school or attend a five-star-rated "technical institute" (as they used to be called in America back in the day)? Then just swim the Rio Grande backwards. Become a wetback in reverse.

No one here in America seems to be learning these skills any more. Plus, in many schools in America now, they don't even teach woodshop in high school any more. So if you wanna learn construction skills, go south of the border. Or if you want to hire a good already-trained journeyman carpenter, Mexico is your go-to source for qualified craftsmen.

Just like there used to be a brain-drain of highly-skilled doctors and computer geeks coming to America from other countries, now we also have a brain-drain of highly skilled carpenters, steel-workers, stone-masons and bridge-builders coming to America from Mexico.

And that's just sad; that strategically-important construction skills are no longer either the birthright or the passion of Americans born here these days -- because almost no one is teaching them here now. And, more important, almost no one born here in America is even interested in learning these skills.

Mexico has become our new source of future skilled labor.

PS: Like it says on that famous T-shirt, "Illegal immigration began in 1492". But instead of hating undocumented Americans, we should be grateful to them for helping to build America.

PPS: All those strong young American men and women who used to go into the building and manufacturing trades? They are now mostly specializing in becoming trained killers -- heartless killers being sent to foreign lands where they don't belong and instructed to murder children.

"The US war on Iraq has cost $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans. But the cost could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades when interest payments are included, according to study released on Thursday" according to AntiWar News http://news.antiwar.com/2013/03/14/iraq-war-could-cost-6-trillion/

And according to journalist Robert Parry, even the pope approves of this kind of carnage http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/16515-focus-pope-francis-cia-and-death-squads

And as for the rest of us? It's like Mark Morford of the San Francisco Chronicle just wrote, "37% of [Americans] are completely lost" http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2013/03/12/37-percent-of-people-completely-lost/

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Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!

******

If anyone ever wants to hire me on as a travel writer (or war correspondent), "Have laptop, will travel!"

******
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

****
Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come!
****
Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
****

2013-03-10T14:32:00.002-07:00

No fun at all: Homeless in Berkeley and poor in Jakarta

     My friend Gordon Lau works for a charitable foundation in Jakarta that tries to help the poorest of the poor -- and so he decided to see exactly what his clients are going through by being "Poor for a Day" himself http://www.grameenfoundation.org/

     I wanna be poor for a day too -- and have just been given the perfect opportunity to do so. My housing co-op is being re-habbed and I have to be out of my apartment for three weeks while they do everything to it except install a new chimney for Santa Claus to come down.

    Fifteen years ago, I started fighting like a tiger to get my co-op re-habbed because it was falling apart -- but its board of directors kept balking or even actively fighting the idea, getting so sick of me that they even threatened poor sweet me with eviction and jail if I didn't shut up.

     However, some broad members finally had a change of heart and others retired, and we actually finally started getting re-hab plans made -- but even then it took us an additional five years to get the re-hab finally under way.

     And now that it's here and actually happening? I think I've created a monster!

     Almost everything on the property must go, from shingles to roofing to flooring to kitchen sinks. The whole place has been in complete chaos for months.

     Around forty units have been re-habbed already -- and now it's my turn to put up or shut up as my own unit goes through a complete wash-rise-and-dry cycle. But although the co-op is giving me a per diem to stay somewhere else for three weeks, if I can somehow scrounge by for less than the per diem, I'll have extra money for food and/or for getting a root canal (you gotta be a member of Congress or live on Wall Street to receive federally-funded dental care these days -- so most of the rest of us are either going to have to work three jobs, win the lottery or go toothless. But I digress).

     So in the interest of not going hungry and good dental hygiene, I decided to follow Gordon Lau's Jakarta example and go "Poor for a Day" too.

      Let's see. First I can follow a rising trend here in Berkeley and camp out on the front steps of that abandoned building next door. That won't cost me anything. However, the current policy there seems to be, "Bring your own mattress".

    Now where can I get a good meal for less than a dollar? St. Paul's AME church does a free lunch on Tuesdays. I'm in.

    The rest of the day I can spend at the public library, using its computer and reading murder mysteries in the back room. Then what about dinner? You know that Chez Panisse caught on fire recently? http://www.berkeleyside.com/2013/03/08/fire-at-chez-panisse-damages-front-of-restaurant/ Maybe they would be having a fire sale? I could always swing by and see.

     And then there is always dumpster-diving. Oh, and the Sweet Adeline bakery might have some leftover chocolate cream pie at the end of the day? Wistful thinking. There's never gonna be any left over. That stuff sells fast!

     The South Berkeley farmers market is held on Tuesdays too. I could see what they have for cheap at the end of the day. Or up on Telegraph, at People's Park, don't they still have a soup kitchen at night? Or the Berkeley Bowl is having a big sale on Brown Cow yogurt. I could do that.

    Then back to the abandoned building for the night -- or perhaps I could get a more scenic view by sheltering in place up in Tilden Park? And still have fifty cents left in my pocket at the end of the day. I could do this. Once. But every single day? No, no, no and no! I truly don't see how genuinely homeless people can do it.

    "But what if it rains, Jane?" you might ask. "Or what if you get mugged, raped or killed?" Oh well. Just one less poor person and one less senior citizen on Social Security for the RepubliDems to look down their noses at and/or rob. No wonder Congress is helping seniors die off so fast -- less Social Security to pay out, so more money for Wall Street and War Street!

     What makes us human? Capitalists say that it is our ability to produce profit -- at any cost. However, Jesus, the Buddha and Mohammed all agree that it is only compassion for others who are weaker than us that gives us our humanity and raises us up above the rest of the beasts.

     Still and all, I will be really really really glad when I can move back into my apartment again. And if you live in the Berkeley area and need me to house-sit between now and the end of March, please let me know. I'll even try to walk your dog. Er, maybe not. Or there's always http://airbnb.com. And my wonderful son Joe's futon in his apartment in La Mission.

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Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!
******

What next? I'm still trying to get to Haiti ASAP but unfortunately my investigative-reporting trip has had to be postponed until the end of March. Please donate toward my trip's expenses here if you can:
https://www.wepay.com/donations/going-to-a-vodou-cave-in-haiti And if this link doesn't work, please just cut and paste. Thanks.

     And if anyone ever wants to hire me on as a travel writer (or war correspondent), "Have laptop, will travel!"

******
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

****
Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come!
****
Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
****

Want something good to read? Buy my book! "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719/ref=cm_pdp_rev_itm_title_1. It's like if Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain and/or Janet Evanovich went to war.

I also wrote a book about going on Hajj (also included as a chapter in "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book is cheaper -- but it's worth buying them both!) My book on the Hajj is so outstanding that I bet even Christian fundamentalists will love it! Please buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product
****
"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!" You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds." You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for those of us who are still idealists in these troubled times. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

2013-03-04T10:24:00.001-08:00

Haiti, Baby Doc, GWB & Obama: Let the punishment fit the crime?

     David Pratt, my favorite war correspondent (besides myself, of course), just wrote an excellent article describing the BBC's recent interview with Tony Blair -- wherein Blair repeatedly made embarrassingly ineffective attempts to excuse and defend his indefensible and inexcusable actions regarding the illegal invasion of Iraq ten years ago.

     But one particular thing that Pratt wrote caught my eye bigtime. "Challenged in the interview [emphasis mine] on what kind of mandate or legal basis would be required for military action in Syria," wrote Pratt, "Mr. Blair dismissed the role of the UN as readily now as he did back in the days leading up to the Iraq war." http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/world-news/blair-still-misleading-on-the-middle-east.20380809

     Might this actually mean that somebody in the British mainstream media actually came up with the integrity and guts to actually challenge Tony Blair live on national TV? That's amazing.

      But where, exactly, was this brave and intrepid reporter back when we needed him most -- back in 2003, when nobody in the mainstream media ever challenged Tony Blair or even thought of challenging him. Nobody. And also,where were the intrepid reporters back then who had the cojones to challenge George W. Bush as well? 2003 was definitely not our mainstream media's finest hour.

     But it's still not too late. Our mainstream media can still spring into action and demand the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth from Mr. Blair (and also from Mr. Bush and even from Mr. Obama as well) -- and win a Pulitzer Prize doing it too.

    And then perhaps some intrepid souls in the mainstream media might even demand that the punishment fit the crime as well.

    But Bush, Blair and Obama aren't the only ones who have happily murdered folks for fun and profit -- and gotten away with it too. Various courts in Haiti are, even as we speak, still trying to bring Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier into the dock of justice for his crimes -- and are equally having no luck.

     27 years after committing innumerable horrible atrocities between 1979 and 1986, Baby Doc is finally being subpoenaed for his crimes. Hey, maybe 27 years from now, Blair, Bush and Obama may finally get subpoenaed for their crimes too!

     However, Baby Doc's lawyers are apparently trying to postpone his trial, claiming that Duvalier's statute of limitations are up. According to IPS News Service, "Duvalier was first indicted for crimes against humanity in 2008 and then again in 2011. But last year, the court suddenly ruled that he would only be tried for embezzlement, saying that the alleged abuses had taken place too long ago." http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/02/all-eyes-in-haiti-on-duvalier-hearing/

     No, no, no and no.

The statute of limitations for torture and murder are never, ever up -- no matter what "Zero Dark Thirty" might lead us to believe. Baby Doc must pay for his crimes. And so must Blair, Bush, Cheney and even Obama.

PS: I'm still trying to get to Haiti by the end of March, but so far things aren't looking so good. Why? Because of problems with money, transportation, in-country contacts and even hotel accommodations. But wouldn't it be any (non-mainstream-media) reporter's dream come true to sit in on Baby Doc's trial for murder in Haiti? That would be almost as good as being here in an American courtroom when Cheney, Bush and Obama go on trial for murder in the Middle East!

PPS: Since War Street has so obviously screwed up our own American interests in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Palestine and Syria, what makes us think that a war on Iran is gonna go any better?

     War Street, however, has not screwed up their own interests in these countries at all -- only ours. Trillions of dollars in profits have been pouring into War Street as a result of these cruel and unnecessary invasions. "Keep it coming!" cries War Street. And so Iran is now next. And once again all of us poor "sequestered" fools in America will be paying for this whole new war adventure for the rest of our lives as well.

     Here's an article from the Washington Post that a friend of mine just sent me -- her sons have served in Iraq and Afghanistan as Marines so she keeps on top of this kind of stuff. The article's headline reads, "The U.S. may not have money for infrastructure repairs, but Afghanistan does." Maybe some people in the MSM are finally getting it right after all. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/the-us-may-not-have-money-for-infrastructure-repairs-but-afghanistan-does/2013/02/27/c11b475e-7f9c-11e2-8074-b26a871b165a_story.html

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*********************************************************

Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!
******

What next? I'm still trying to get to Haiti ASAP but unfortunately my investigative-reporting trip has had to be postponed until the end of March. Please donate toward my trip's expenses here if you can:
https://www.wepay.com/donations/going-to-a-vodou-cave-in-haiti And if this link doesn't work, please just cut and paste. Thanks.

     And if anyone ever wants to hire me on as a travel writer (or war correspondent), "Have laptop, will travel!"

******
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

****
Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come!
****
Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
****

Want something good to read? Buy my book! "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719/ref=cm_pdp_rev_itm_title_1. It's like if Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain and/or Janet Evanovich went to war.

I also wrote a book about going on Hajj (also included as a chapter in "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book is cheaper -- but it's worth buying them both!) My book on the Hajj is so outstanding that I bet even Christian fundamentalists will love it! Please buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product
****
"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!" You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds." You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for those of us who are still idealists in these troubled times. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

2013-02-26T09:56:00.002-08:00

Baby Boomers: Four funerals and a wedding...

     A good friend of mine just passed away -- and he was a Baby Boomer. Plus I know of at least three other Baby Boomers who have died during the last few months.

     This whole Baby Boomer generation may be historically unique. They were all born at the same time, got jobs at the same time, had kids at the same time and retired at the same time. And will they now also be dying at the same time too? And what does all this mean? That now might be a good time to open a funeral home? (Sorry, sick joke, couldn't resist)

     Someone on the radio just mentioned that, at this point in time, there are approximately 75,000 people who are now 100 years old or older -- and that many of them are still in excellent health. So maybe our Baby Boomers won't be all dying off together after all.

      And according to Dr. Mario Martinez, author of "The Mind-Body Code," one thing that most of these 75,000 centenarians have in common is that they rarely, if ever, go see a doctor http://www.amazon.com/The-Mind-Body-Code-Wounds-Heals/dp/1591797101. So much for giving Big Pharma kudos for keeping all these old guys alive! But I digress.

     I myself had always planned to die at the age of 88 -- 5,743 days from now (but who's counting). However, given all this new information, I may even end up living forever. So. Then my next big question would be, "With all those years left to live, how can I possibly keep from beingtotally bored?"

     Watching cable television 24/7 and taking endless trips to the mall aren't gonna fill up my days for the next 30 or 40 years. Been there, done that already. Boring.

     And I can't just up and join the Army and go fight in the latest stupid corporate war either. The military is looking for young guys who they can brainwash into becoming trained killers, not little old pacifist me. Nor can I become an Olympic athlete or jungle explorer because I gots bad knees. But I could learn to play the violin or become the next Grandma Moses. Given 40 more years, I could do that. Or I could always write another book http://tinyurl.com/a8dt9ac -- or write a whole library-full for that matter.

     If America is going to have millions of new 100-year-old men and women running around loose very soon, then we all need to start thinking about all the things we might be doing during all those extra years -- things that will be useful, interesting and productive. We can't just sit around in rest homes and/or bemoan the theft of our Social Security benefits for the next 30 or 40 years -- or just spend all our time planning funerals.

     I'm just saying.

     This issue really needs to be addressed. We clearly need to start re-thinking what it means to be old.

PS: I still wanna be a war correspondent when I grow up. And, fortunately for me, the idiots who run this country are always abundantly happy to keep me supplied with an endless array of stupid wars to report on.

PPS: A 104-year-old woman just got kicked off of FaceBook for being too old! Just you wait, FB. She's gonna be joined by a hecka lot more of us -- very soon. But even then, spending 40 years updating our FaceBook pages is still no kind of life. http://rt.com/usa/facebook-woman-104-age-195/

PPPS: Enclosed is a photo of the view out my bedroom window -- as Hurricane Re-Hab gets closer and closer to the shores of my housing co-operative. On March 11, 2013, they are gonna re-hab my entire apartment -- and then me and Ashley and sometimes Hugo and Mena are going to have to go live somewhere else for three weeks. DOES ANYONE IN BERKELEY NEED US TO HOUSE-SIT?!? Where's a FEMA trailer when you need one?

PPPPS: Do we even care whether or not the current pope is gay? Except for the blatant hypocrisy of it all -- all that holier-than-thou crap the Vatican issues about how women can't be priests? Because they would foul up the "old-boys" network? No problem! Female priests could be lesbians if that would make the pope feel better.

     Or has all this happened because priests aren't allowed to get married? Perhaps if the pope had been happily united in a same-sex marriage (lavishly performed in St. Peter's basilica with cardinals, altar boys and everyone dressed in their best), this whole weird scandal would never have happened.

     Not only that but a gay pope (or even a married one) would then have additional resources to fall back on in old age, like in the movie "Amour" -- yet another way to keep him (or her) from getting bored?

PPPPPS: Here's a trailer for Jordan Rader's new short film, "Crimson's Kiss" -- with a brief glimpse of me in it, playing a little old lady http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B22xnLcGlFM

*********************************************************
*********************************************************

Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!
******

What next? I'm still trying to get to Haiti ASAP but unfortunately my investigative-reporting trip has had to be postponed until the end of March. Please donate toward my trip's expenses here if you can:
https://www.wepay.com/donations/going-to-a-vodou-cave-in-haiti And if this link doesn't work, please just cut and paste. Thanks.

     And if anyone ever wants to hire me on as a travel writer (or war correspondent), "Have laptop, will travel!"

******
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

****
Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come!
****
Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
****

Want something good to read? Buy my book! "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719/ref=cm_pdp_rev_itm_title_1. It's like if Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain and/or Janet Evanovich went to war.

I also wrote a book about going on Hajj (also included as a chapter in "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book is cheaper -- but it's worth buying them both!) My book on the Hajj is so outstanding that I bet even Christian fundamentalists will love it! Please buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product
****
"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!" You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds." You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for those of us who are still idealists in these troubled times. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

2013-02-20T13:46:00.003-08:00

AIPAC: Israel's Santa Claus or just another wing-nut fringe group?

     Have you ever found yourself in the following awkward situation? There you are, hanging out at a peace rally or something, chit-chatting with some perfectly sane left-wing progressive who hates war and loves democracy -- and you both are happily nodding your heads in agreement regarding how mega-corporations, greedy neo-cons, avaricious war mongers and all of their sleazy congressional lobbyists are currently stealing your very own government right out from under your very own feet?

     But then you make that one big mistake! You happen to mention that perhaps Israeli neo-cons might be killing too many Palestinian children on the West Bank. And then all hell breaks loose. And suddenly your sane and rational left-wing progressive friend is suddenly all in your face and screaming at you that you are being anti-semitic, while he himself has now become a freaking hero for gleefully cheering on greedy neo-cons, avaricious warmongers and sleazy lobbyists -- solely because they are Israelis instead of Americans.

     And suddenly YOU have become the bad guy for criticizing Israeli neo-cons who are using the exact same techniques that American neo-cons use, and that both of you are now protesting when they're used in the good old USA -- such as corporate election-buying, NRA-style fear-mongering, Fox-News-style propaganda lies, "preemptive" war, genocide, theocratic manipulation, indefinite detention, outrageous land grabs, racism, fudging public records, shady banksters http://www.roitov.com/articles/yareah.htm, corrupt government officials, false-flag spying http://www.roitov.com/articles/x.htm, corporate welfare for the 1%, nepotism, housing scams, insider trading and all kinds of other things that progressives normally hate.

     And the next thing you know, your friend isn't even SPEAKING to you any more. Or, worse still, he isn't even reading your blog!

     And if you should also happen to mention AIPAC and all the right-wing dirty tricks that it does here in America too, and all the wing-nut conservatives that it sends to Congress, your normally-sane progressive friend suddenly gets this hurt look on his face like he was a four-year-old and you had just told him that THERE WAS NO SANTA CLAUS!

      But seriously, guys. Just tell me one single thing -- just one little thing -- that the America-Israel Political Action Committee has ever done that was even remotely progressive. Er, I'm waiting. What have you got?

     On the other hand, I'm sure that you could tell me a whole bunch of things that AIPAC has accomplished that would make any right-wing fanatic proud and happy and supportive. Fox News seems to love AIPAC. So does the NRA. Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, even Rush Limbaugh get all googly-eyed over AIPAC. GWB loves AIPAC. And so does Dick Cheney. Can't get much more wing-nut than that!

     And who, exactly, do you think orchestrated that recent crazy filibuster against Chuck Hagel? The most sturdy crop of wing-nuts in the Senate this year were obviously behind that one. And who do you think was responsible for planting this year's crop of wing-nuts and neo-cons in Washington? Why, it was Farmer AIPAC of course -- using a Citizens United tractor. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33981.htm

      To quote the Huffington Post, "According to at least one former Israeli diplomat, Alon Pinkas, [the recent Senate filibuster against Hagel has] risked introducing dangerous politicization into the U.S.-Israel alliance -- exactly what the senators claimed they were trying to avoid. 'When Israel is mentioned 166 times and China 5, you know something is distorted and wrong and cannot seriously reflect serious foreign policy priorities.'" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/01/chuck-hagel-israel_n_2600367.html

     The politicization of America's foreign policy by 40 senators whose campaigns were funded by AIPAC? Has a neo-con wing-nut fringe group taken over our Senate or what!

Would Emma Goldman, Rosa Luxemburg, Albert Einstein, Howard Zinn or even Noam Chomsky condone AIPAC's obviously shady right-wing and neo-con tactics and goals? Or would even Hillel the Elder or the Baal Shem Tov, Master of the Good Name approve? What do you think?

     Face it guys, AIPAC isn't Santa Claus for Israel or even for America. AIPAC is Santa Claus for neo-cons, right-wingers and fringe-group right-wing fanatics.

PS: Here's what Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh of Bethlehem University has to say about the AIPAC-funded Israeli neo-con wing-nuts who have taken over Palestine (and Israel too, shame on them): "Rhetoric about democracy and liberty in Syria and Iran is stripped naked when people see Western-supported colonialism, racism and subjugation in Palestine. Here is where billions in Western taxpayer money is used to destroy life while enriching land thieves and war criminals." http://popular-resistance.blogspot.com/2013/02/here-facing-immorality.html

PPS: Have you seen the new music video "Gangnam Gaza Style"? It's hilarious! A handful of brave Gaza guys soon discover that, in their home town now under neo-con occupation, gas is mostly unavailable, ATMs don't work, kids can only safely play soccer if they simultaneously watch out for IDF aerial bombardments, that they face chronic unemployment and have to sneak food in through tunnels from Egypt and that they live in the world's largest prison -- and they do all this Gangnam Style! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW7PN9fn9PQ&feature=share

   And here's a video from my FaceBook friend Saeed Amireh (from Ni'lin) that we could easily call "Gangnam East-Jerusalem-Style" -- if only someone would set it to music, and if only it weren't so tragically sad. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxCX9j230x8

    And most of these heartless killings and bombardments and war crimes in Palestine are paid for with monies that have been approved by our Congress -- under the financial influence of neo-con right-wing fringe groups such as AIPAC.

     And then it is we progressives who get yelled at for not supporting cold-blooded murder. Sigh.

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Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!
******

What next? I'm still trying to get to Haiti ASAP but unfortunately my investigative-reporting trip has had to be postponed until the end of March. Please donate toward my trip's expenses here if you can:
https://www.wepay.com/donations/going-to-a-vodou-cave-in-haiti And if this link doesn't work, please just cut and paste. Thanks.

     And if anyone ever wants to hire me on as a travel writer (or war correspondent), "Have laptop, will travel!"

******
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

****
Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come!
****
Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
****

Want something good to read? Buy my book! "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719/ref=cm_pdp_rev_itm_title_1. It's like if Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain and/or Janet Evanovich went to war.

I also wrote a book about going on Hajj (also included as a chapter in "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book is cheaper -- but it's worth buying them both!) My book on the Hajj is so outstanding that I bet even Christian fundamentalists will love it! Please buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product
****
"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!" You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds." You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for those of us who are still idealists in these troubled times. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

2013-02-12T11:04:00.002-08:00

Wall Street & War Street: Why we have trouble liking Obama

     What's not to like about Barack Obama? He's educated, erudite -- and even cute. He gave a dynamite State of the Union speech. His family is perfect. Michelle is intelligent, suave, beautiful and compassionate and Sasha and Malia look like an African-American version of the Brady Bunch. Plus every racist, wing-nut, fanatic, truther, birther and pond-scum in America hates Obama -- so I should like him just for that reason alone.

   Plus Obama is tall and thin like my father. How Oedipal is that?

   And Obama is also trying to give us healthcare and to appoint judges on the Supreme Court who aren't complete corporate shills and/or wannabe neanderthals. And the Prez is also trying really hard to drag America up from being ranked 33rd among modern first-world nations with regard to education.

   Obama also represents all of that stuff that I fought for so valiantly back in the 1960s -- racial equality, a Black man being able to achieve everything a White man can achieve, and like Ginger Rodgers used to say, "Doing it backwards and in high heels." Except, of course, for the part about high heels.

     So why are we progressives having so much trouble liking Barack Obama right now? Five little words. "Wall Street and War Street". Too many of our young men and women in the military are dying needlessly and being used like Kleenex so that large corporations and weapons manufacturers can make a killing. Literally.

     Plus Obama has allowed -- and perhaps even welcomed -- the militarization of America's local police forces. The friendly cop on the corner is now wearing Kevlar and carrying super-heat.

     And that's not all. According to MSNBC, "Despite President Obama’s stated objections to American indefinite detention policy, his Justice Department has forcefully advocated for it in court." http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/01/03/obama-signs-2013-defense-authorization-minus-indefinite-detention-ban/

     And apparently this policy also means that if you and I object too much to the corporate takeover of our country, you and I can be detained indefinitely in Guantanamo too -- not exactly the Caribbean cruise we were hoping for. And Obama is fine with that. And War Street is too.

     According to journalist David Sirota, "Obama, let’s remember, is the president who escalated the Afghanistan War and whose spokesman recently reiterated that U.S. troops are not necessarily leaving that country anytime soon. He is the president who has initiated undeclared wars in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya. He is also the president who, according to data from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, has launched more than 20,000 air strikes -- and those assaults show no sign of stopping" http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_president_of_perpetual_war_20130125/

     Not only that, but Obama has apparently been in cahoots with all kinds of sleazy Islamic fundamentalist wing-nuts trying to stir up big trouble in Syria as well -- to the point that even those Syrians who truly hate Assad's guts are beginning to prefer Assad over the foreign 'rebels' who are currently destroying their country with the help of the U.S.

      And according to both CLG News and Haaretz, the Obama administration has also been giving War Street neo-cons in Israel a green light for further air strikes on Syria. "...'At least one to two additional targets were hit [there recently],' a Western intelligence official indicated to Time, adding that Israel received a 'green light' from the United States to carry out further attacks in the future." http://www.legitgov.org/US-official-says-White-House-gave-Israel-green-light-carry-out-more-attacks-Syria

     That's totally scary.

     But the most important reason we have for not liking Obama's constant flirtation with War Street is his increasing authorization of continuous drone strikes and "targeted" assassinations -- both here and abroad. And do you know what this drone mess ultimately means for you and me too? At this current time, THERE IS NO PLACE IN THE WORLD WHERE ANYONE IS SAFE -- not even in our own homes here in heartland America.

     At any moment, today, right now, a War Street-owned hellfire missile could suddenly eliminate your home without warning -- and you too. That's even more scary than when I was a kid and we thought that at any moment an atomic bomb might do us in. But at least back then it would have been the enemy that was doing it.

     In addition, on Obama's watch, all too many Americans here at home have also been sold down the river into economic slavery by Wall Street -- in its never-ending lust to gut the American economy, feather its nests in the Caymans and kill the golden goose that has been laying golden eggs for Wall Street all these years.

     According to journalist Mark Karlin, "Obama, Geithner, Holder and others in the executive branch are sending a message that if you got enough dough and run banks too big too fail, you can break the law and hurt the economy for the average American, but you won't be held accountable -- and they will allow you to be rewarded to boot."
http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/17776-treasury-approved-bonuses-and-raises-for-wall-street-bankers-who-tanked-economy

     I would love to be able to like Barack Obama. But for these two reasons, I just can't. Why has Obama never stood up to Wall Street and War Street? Not even once? If he had, if he did, then his legacy as President would be AWESOME!

     But as it stands now, Obama is just managing to stand only a couple of rungs higher on the presidential-accomplishment ladder than even George W. Bush -- who wasn't even legally elected!

PS: In 2003, Time magazine published a letter from me regarding Bush's upcoming war on Iraq. It read, simply, "Is it possible that Iraq will be to America what Afghanistan was to the U.S.S.R.? The similarities are chilling."

      Well, it turned out that Iraq (and Afghanistan too) actually is to America what Afghanistan was to the USSR. And if you are looking for any further proof of that statement, just go look in your mailbox on the first Saturday in August. A whole lot of the money that might have gone to saving our post office is now going to pay for the Bush/Obama wars. http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/thom-hartmann/48068/the-usps-media-fail

     And also it seems that RepubliDems in Congress have come up with various poison pills that will force the USPS to sell off thousands of our post offices to private corporations. http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2012-11-09/article/40488?headline=Berkeley-s-Historic-Post-Office-is-NOT-FOR-SALE---Margot-Smith How post-Soviet-Union Russian oligarch is that!

     And let's not forget the poor buggers out in Rockaway who are currently dying in the snow because so much of our money went off to Wall Street and War Street instead of to them -- just like all the old people who froze to death on the mean streets of Moscow after the USSR fell or else died when the equivalent of Russian Social Security disappeared. Oh well. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/02/us-cancels-regular-drone-strikes-on-saturdays.html

*********************************************************
*********************************************************

Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!
******

What next? I'm still trying to get to Haiti ASAP but unfortunately my investigative-reporting trip has had to be postponed until the end of March. Please donate toward my trip's expenses here if you can:
https://www.wepay.com/donations/going-to-a-vodou-cave-in-haiti And if this link doesn't work, please just cut and paste. Thanks.

     And if anyone ever wants to hire me on as a travel writer (or war correspondent), "Have laptop, will travel!"

******
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

****
Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come!
****
Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
****

Want something good to read? Buy my book! "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719/ref=cm_pdp_rev_itm_title_1. It's like if Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain and/or Janet Evanovich went to war.

I also wrote a book about going on Hajj (also included as a chapter in "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book is cheaper -- but it's worth buying them both!) My book on the Hajj is so outstanding that I bet even Christian fundamentalists will love it! Please buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product
****
"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!" You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds." You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for those of us who are still idealists in these troubled times. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

2013-02-06T10:05:00.002-08:00

"Beasts of the Southern Wild": Learning how to stand up to aurochs

     Me and my son Joe and my granddaughter Mena finally got a chance to go see "Beasts of the Southern Wild" the other day. That whole freaking movie deserves an Oscar. It's definitely got my vote. Wow!

      And the movie's main plot-line (which involved people idealistically working together to save their small town) reminded me strongly of my own housing co-op where I have lived for the past 33 years.

     And this so-called housing "cooperative" once started off all idealistically too. Back then, we too had grand and idealistic intentions of working together for the common good -- sort of like how the framers of the U.S. Constitution back in 1776 or whenever had put forth their own dreams of what a more perfect union would look like.

     But gradually, over the years, my small housing co-op shamelessly degenerated into a bunch of self-seeking, self-interested individuals who would do anything to get a leg up. Corruption, apathy, conflict-of-interest, nepotism, lethargy, back-stabbing and bickering ruled the day among most of the residents. And, physically, the place soon started falling apart. I'm talking about major failing infrastructure here.

     And so I've spent the last 15 years of my life fighting like crazy to get a re-hab to happen here at my housing co-op. And it finally did. And it's a wonderful re-hab, don't get me wrong. The contractors are doing a great job. But the process is truly intense. The whole infrastructure is being replaced, repaired and/or remodeled -- almost from the ground up. Inside and out. And they are doing it while over fifty families are all living here too.

     And the pressure of this intensive re-hab, as people struggle to get their life-long belongings all packed up in boxes, their walls pounded on by a whole battalion of workers, their siding and roofs torn off and put back on again and their heating and plumbing and bathrooms and carpets and kitchens replaced -- it's almost like the pressure of the storms, floods and new levees pressing down on that small town in "Beasts". And this pressure has also acted to bring my own "small town" together again too and to finally, maybe, even become a real co-op again.

      Or I could just be a dreaming idealist like Hush Puppy in the movie -- but I hope not.

     But is there a moral here somewhere? Sure, of course. Just like a huge disaster had brought a small town together in "Beast of the Southern Wild," now our massive (but wonderful) re-hab is finally getting my housing co-op members to actually cooperate with each other for their own good. And who knows? Perhaps the many disasters that are also facing America these days will also finally unite us all into working together for our common good too -- instead of all too many of us acting like aurochs toward each other, tearing at each others' throats and ripping each other apart.

*********************************************************
*********************************************************

Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!
******

What next? I'm still trying to get to Haiti ASAP but unfortunately my investigative-reporting trip has had to be postponed until the end of March. Please donate toward my trip's expenses here if you can:
https://www.wepay.com/donations/going-to-a-vodou-cave-in-haiti And if this link doesn't work, please just cut and paste. Thanks.

And if anyone ever wants to hire me on as a travel writer, "Have laptop, will travel!"

******
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

****
Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come!
****
Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
****

Want something good to read? Buy my book! "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719/ref=cm_pdp_rev_itm_title_1. It's like if Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain and/or Janet Evanovich went to war.

I also wrote a book about going on Hajj (also included as a chapter in "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book is cheaper -- but it's worth buying them both!) My book on the Hajj is so outstanding that I bet even Christian fundamentalists will love it! Please buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product
****
"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!" You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds." You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for those of us who are still idealists in these troubled times. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

2013-01-29T10:58:00.002-08:00

Spoiled brats: How neo-con kiddies demand their Second Amendment rights but refuse to obey the rest of the Constitution

     How come so many right-wingers, neo-cons, corporate RepubliDems, NRA lobbyists, Fox News commentators and radical-extremist talk-show hosts are currently getting all up in our faces about how wonderful the Second Amendment is? "Second Amendment! Second Amendment!" they cry night and day. That's all we ever hear from these guys. You would think that they might occasionally mention the rest of the Constitution occasionally as well -- but no.

    Right-wingers, gun lobbyists, Tea Party congressmen and corporatist-owned radio talk-show hosts all scream and yell and hold their breath and throw temper tantrums about the sanctity of the Second Amendment constantly. But have they ever thrown tantrums or held their breath when other parts of our Constitution were violently stepped on -- especially by they themselves? Er, no.

    Where were these spoiled brats when George W. Bush trampled all over our Constitution and forced several illegal wars down our throats? Silent as the tomb.

     Did these spoiled brats ever throw themselves down on the sidewalk and wail and flail around violently when the PATRIOT Act gutted so many of our sacred rights as citizens? No, no, no and no. Nary a peep from the right wing noise machine.

     The Constitution begins with "We the People..." But you never hear any right-winger ever bitch and moan about how America is now run by "We the Corporations...." Right-wingers, the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch, John Boehner, etc. apparently have never met a corporation they didn't like. "Corporations are people!" they always cry. And what about the rest of us? Chopped liver? "Pretty much."

     Section 2, paragraph 1 of the U.S. Constitution states that, "The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." George W. Bush used that clause again and again to mire our country in the quicksand of trillions of dollars of debt, and not one right-winger anywhere seemed to even notice that our George had illegally used presidential executive privilege -- let alone voice any objection to its misuse. We never heard any protests at all from the Tea Party, the NRA, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, Grover Norquist or any of those guys. GWB was using executive powers to benefit the wealthy 1% but not the rest of us? Fine with them!

     And speaking of GWB, doesn't the Constitution also state somewhere that you gotta be elected before you can live in the White House? Bush was never elected. Both the 2000 election and the 2004 election were blatantly stolen. But there's been no outcry from any right-winger about that. Hell, Anton Scalia didn't even seem to mind. And neither did AIPAC or CPAC. What's with that?

    And what about our First Amendment rights such as "Freedom of Speech"? You never ev-ah hear right-wingers' strident voices raised in hue and cry whenever ordinary people like us are arrested and beaten for practicing free speech.

    "Freedom of Religion". Worth fighting for? Yeah sure -- as long as it only includes some kind of weird slash-and-burn Wall Street and War Street version of "Christianity" that wingers go nuts over and that Jesus would have abhorred.

     And what about protecting Native Americans' freedom of religion too? That the land itself is considered sacred? No freedom there. "Just shut up, stop whining and let the Great White Father shove his tar-sands pipeline up your throat."

     I'm not even going to mention Muslims' freedom of religion. For right-wingers, it simply doesn't exist.

    And what about the 19th Amendment, which dares to speak out against involuntary servitude? Neo-con spoiled brats have no issues with this one -- just as long as we allow them to keep their prison labor system of involuntary servitude going. And their involuntary sweatshops in Asia and Haiti that have stolen our jobs. And sleazy American factories that keep their doors locked even when there is a fire. And those thousands of WalMart workers who aren't allowed to organize or demand a decent wage or respect? Does that count as involuntary servitude too? Apparently not.

And the 19th amendment also covers the right of everyone in America to vote except, apparently, in Virginia -- where right-wingers are trying to return to the old "Three-fifths of a person" approach. http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-parry/47801/the-return-of-three-fifth-of-a-person

     And what about "Freedom of the Press"? Are right-wingers defending it at all? Hell no. Just ask WikiLeaks's founder about that one -- or even the New York Times. It seems that if you ever even dare to publish anything in America that goes against Wall Street and War Street, you end up either fired or in jail. Like Bradley Manning for instance. No right-wing temper tantrums or breath-holding over him. The only exception to this rule is when the neo-con media darlings on talk-radio or Fox News get called out on their lies. Then right-wing spoiled brats really do start holding their breath.

   Amendment Four? No illegal search and seizure? Violating this one is the right wing's sweetest dream. "Gotta protect the Homeland!" they cry -- apparently protecting it from We the People.

     Amendment Six? "Right to a speedy and public trial." You never hear right-wingers throw a fit about this one either -- only about their treasured Second Amendment.

    Then there's Amendment Eight. No cruel and unusual punishment. Abu Graib? No outrage. "Zero Dark 30"? That torture got cheers. Mordechai Vanunu kept in solitary confinement for eighteen years by Israeli right-wingers because he spoke out? Or the countless Palestinian non-violent protesters now in Israeli neo-con jails? http://world.time.com/2013/01/25/oscar-nominated-documentary-brings-palestinian-plight-to-center-stage/ "Oh goody!"

     But these particular cruel and unusual things are all happening to foreign nationals, not us. However, even when horrible things like that happen right here at home too, right-wing spoiled brats still don't even care. "Bradley Manning? Leonard Peltier? The Cuban Five? Lynne Stewart? Chris Williams and other legal medical marijuana growers and dispensers? Martin Luther King Jr?" Yawn.

    Rep. Alan Grayson just wrote an article in the Huffington Post stating that Tea Party right-wingers in Congress are attempting to violate two other Constitutional Amendments -- the 14th and the 27th. "As Texas Gov. Rick Perry would say, 'Oops'." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-alan-grayson/federal-budget_b_2563242.html

     I could go on and on about all the parts of the U.S. Constitution the right-wing has happily gutted over the last several decades. But you get the gist. For them, only the Second Amendment counts.

     But I have an important question here to ask "We the People" of America regarding the right wing's constant spoiled-brat behavior. "At what point do all these temper tantrums and breath-holdings get old?"

     When do "We the Parents" finally put our foot down, stand up for our own selves and send spoiled-brat Wall Street and War Street and Wrong-Wing Street and Wreck-the-Constitution Street off to bed without any supper? Apparently never.

*********************************************************
*********************************************************

Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!
******

******
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

****
Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come!
****
Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
****

Want something good to read? Buy my book! "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719/ref=cm_pdp_rev_itm_title_1. It's like if Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain and/or Janet Evanovich went to war.

I also wrote a book about going on Hajj (also included as a chapter in "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book is cheaper -- but it's worth buying them both!) My book on the Hajj is so outstanding that I bet even Christian fundamentalists will love it! Please buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product
****
"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!" You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds." You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for those of us who are still idealists in these troubled times. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

2013-01-21T14:05:00.000-08:00

Django Unchained & Zero Dark 30: 160 years later, they're still torturing colored folks

     In honor of Martin Luther King's birthday this year, I treated myself to a movie marathon, watching "Django Unchained" and "Zero Dark 30" back-to-back. And it was like a cold slap in the face.

     "Django Unchained" allegedly took place in 1858 -- and here we are now, 160 years later, where things have apparently changed and we're now being all civilized with our I-phones and our electric cars and our digital TVs. Nobody enslaves "colored" people any more and tortures them like that any more, right? This is the 21st century!

     No one ties "colored" people up with ropes and beats them and beats them and beats them and then sics dogs on them any more, right? That's barbaric. That's why Lincoln freed the slaves and Dr. King marched in Montgomery, right? What happened to Django was old skool.

     But hold onto your popcorn, guys. "Zero Dark 30" is about to come next.

      When the theater screen darkens, suddenly here we are again, right here in the 21st century, but still tying up "colored" people with ropes, beating them and beating them and then siccing dogs on them.

     "Hey, but that's different," you might say. In what way?

     In "Django Unchained," we saw a man have all that he owned taken from him -- simply because he wasn't White -- and then we saw him beaten and tortured when he fought back against the Master.

     In "Zero Dark 30" we also see the end results of years and years of "colored" folks in the Middle East having everything taken from them by the Master too -- and then when they too fought back, they too got beaten and tortured.

     So how come we cheer Django Freeman on but hate Osama bin Ladin? Both are "colored" men fighting for their very lives.

     But I digress.

     This commentary is not about whether bin Ladin was or was not a good guy. Obviously he was a bad guy -- even making his wives do his laundry by hand, according to "0D30". Wouldn't even buy them a washer and dryer.

     This commentary is about how far Americans have progressed, between 1858 and now, along the path to moral evolution. Not an inch.

     In 1858 we had Candyland, where Leonardo di Caprio's character used torture to maintain his power over people of color who rebelled against their own exploitation.

     And now, 160 years later, we have the CIA instead -- with Jessica Chastain's character using torture to maintain her power over people of color who rebelled against their own exploitation.

    On past Martin Luther King birthday holidays, I've honored the day by watching "The Long Walk Home" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-YwJKIqyOE or "The Help," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbuKgzgeUIU, listening to Joan Baez sing the hauntingly immortal "Birmingham Sunday," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ0y-vO9QLE and/or remembering back when I myself marched with Dr. King in Montgomery in 1965 -- while seven months pregnant with my first baby.

     During past MLK birthday celebrations, I was always filled with hope.

     On this MLK birthday celebration, however, I was only filled with despair.

*********************************************************
*********************************************************

Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!
******

******
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

****
Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come!
****
Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
****

Want something good to read? Buy my book! "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719/ref=cm_pdp_rev_itm_title_1. It's like if Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain and/or Janet Evanovich went to war.

I also wrote a book about going on Hajj (also included as a chapter in "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book is cheaper -- but it's worth buying them both!) My book on the Hajj is so outstanding that I bet even Christian fundamentalists will love it! Please buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product
****
"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!" You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds." You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for those of us who are still idealists in these troubled times. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

2013-01-16T13:11:00.003-08:00

In your face: Homelessness in America

     And what are YOU doing about the vast new epidemic of homeless people flooding the streets of America right now?

     America's wealthiest 1% are doing something about it -- they're creating even more homeless men and women just as fast as they possibly can!

     The Department of Defense is doing something about this problem too, creating vast brigades and armies of blind, paralyzed, traumatized and/or limbless disabled 20-somethings who should have been in their prime of life right now, the backbone of America's labor force -- but are instead sleeping rough, out on the streets.

     The CIA, DEA, FBI, local police forces, INS, Homeland Security, TSA, etc. are also doing their bit regarding homelessness here as well -- they are housing Americans in jails just as fast as humanly possible, with or without being charged with a crime. How patriotic is that! And you can even get thrown in a jail cell for using legal medical marijuana or driving an unregistered car (or being homeless). The vast American prison-labor system is always here to help out.

     The Department of Housing and Urban Development is also doing something about homelessness in America too -- by actually supplying housing. Imagine that. And if HUD closed its doors tomorrow, America would immediately reveal its true self -- as Great-Depression-style tent cities begin springing up like mushrooms and we start tripping over the dead bodies of homeless senior citizens left and right. Without HUD, America would look like background shots from the movie "Les Miserables".

     Thank you, HUD. It's nice to know that somebody else besides just America's 1% is getting a safety net these days.

     But what am I myself doing about homelessness in America today? Besides giving an occasional dollar to a street person shivering out in the cold? Obviously not enough. (But I did act in a docu-drama on the subject recently. Does that count? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2cTACN-iNA)

     Can you imagine what it is like to stay out all night, every night, in the rain and the cold, vulnerable to criminals and rapists, being humiliated, vilified and scorned by those lucky enough not to have been chewed up and spit out by Wall Street and War Street quite yet, shamefully begging for spare change and having no place to go? I can't.

     If it was me out there on those mean streets, I'd be lucky to still be alive after only a week.

PS: Speaking of being homeless, I will be going to Haiti as part of a Global Exchange delegation at the end of March to do research on homelessness there. No other country in the western hemisphere has as many homeless people as Haiti -- even though it is still being milked like a cash cow by the world's NGOs.

     According to journalist Bill Quigley, "Despite billions in aid which were supposed to go to the Haitian people, hundreds of thousands are still homeless, living in shanty tent camps as the effects from the earthquake of January 12, 2010 remain. The earthquake devastated Haiti in January 2010 killing, according to Oxfam International, 250,000 people and injuring another 300,000. 360,000 Haitians are still displaced and living hand to mouth in 496 tent camps across the country according to the International Organization of Migration. Most eat only one meal a day." http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/bill-quigley/47484/how-the-international-community-failed-haiti

    And you think that America's homeless won't fare any better than Haiti's homeless if the 1% have their way? Think again. Just remember all those homeless Americans created by Hurricane Sandy -- who are still homeless now. And then thank whichever God that you pretend to follow that it wasn't you living out there in Far Rockaway.

    And when the 1% finally get their hands on your Social Security money pot like they have been trying to all along, you won't need a hurricane to know which way the wind blows either.

PPS: If you want to be a part of Global Exchange's delegation to Haiti in March 2013, here's the program's contact information: http://www.globalexchange.org/tours/haiti-beyond-disaster-alternative-spring-break-trip See you there!

*********************************************************
*********************************************************

Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!
******

******
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

****
Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come!
****
Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
****

Want something good to read? Buy my book! "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719/ref=cm_pdp_rev_itm_title_1. It's like if Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain and/or Janet Evanovich went to war.

I also wrote a book about going on Hajj (also included as a chapter in "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book is cheaper -- but it's worth buying them both!) My book on the Hajj is so outstanding that I bet even Christian fundamentalists will love it! Please buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product
****
"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!" You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds." You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for those of us who are still idealists in these troubled times. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

2013-01-16T12:17:00.000-08:00

Nablus, Palestine 1839

Hebron, Palestine, 1839

David Roberts, Palestine, 1840

Homeless in Palestine

    The next time that someone tries to tell you that there is no such thing as Palestine, show him these drawings by Scottish artist David Roberts done there in the early 19th century

     And then ask the person who asked you this question to show you some drawings of Israel made before 1947. Bet he can't!

     But then ask him to show you photos of all the Palestinian children that the IDF has murdered since 1947 and I bet he can come up with hundreds of them (if not thousands) just by using Google.

2013-01-09T18:19:00.000-08:00

My latest invention: The Kiddie Phone!

     I have just invented and patented something called "The Kiddie Phone"™. Know anyone who might want to manufacture it for me? AT&T for instance? Or perhaps MicroSoft? Or the Pentagon?

     This amazing new telephone concept is similar in many ways to the actual working cell phones that big people use -- except that it has only two buttons and two buttons only. One button calls Mommie and the other one calls Daddy.

     How do little kids use it? That's easy. If, for instance, you are a little kid and want to get picked up early from your play-date because little Mergatroyd won't share, then just press the "Daddy" button.

     Or if you are a little kid and you're lonely after your nap and want to talk with someone other than your daycare provider, just press the "Mommie" button.

     Or if you are a little kid and you live with your daddy during the week and your mommie on weekends, you can always keep in touch with both parents.

     And if you are being kidnapped or molested or are lost or are being bullied or endangered by mad gunmen, just push a button on my hot new invention and you'll instantly be connected with help.

     If, however, you are a starving child in Africa or a little kid being shot at by drones in Pakistan or IDF tanks in Palestine or a homeless child in some American ghetto, this phone is not for you. Unfortunately for you, little guys, in the eyes of the powers-that-be -- you don't count. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XID_UuxiGxM

     But, in my eyes, every child counts. Why? Because every single child in the world is a dearly-beloved offspring of the Family of Man.

PS: While eating hamburgers with my granddaughter Mena at Phil's Sliders in Berkeley the other day http://www.philssliders.com/, I had a nice chat with a cancer researcher who was eating sliders there too -- and this is what she told me:

    "I personally think that we are currently losing the battle against cancer." But why? "Because cancer is basically caused by our very own bodies turning against us -- and, for some unknown reason, this process seems to be escalating in America because something keeps knocking us out of balance." Physically, mentally or emotionally? "Who knows."

     Fall-out from Hiroshima, Chernobyl, Fukushima, DU weaponry in the Middle East and nuclear power plants in America perhaps? Yeah, duh.

    "Whatever the cause," (and the researcher surprised me by saying that it wasn't necessarily food), "whenever this type of imbalance happens, we get cancer -- a sad-but-true fact. So. What can we do to get our bodies back into balance again? This is an interesting question." Hey, I'm interested. Totally. And, since all of us either have had cancer ourselves, know a lot of people who have recently died of cancer or are currently fighting against it for their lives, then you probably are interested too.

     "Apparently our bodies get out of balance when our genome sequencing is adversely affected. And we already know what it looks like when the sequencing is pushed out of balance -- and we researchers even know how to get it back into the right mode again. But there is currently a very big gap between what researchers can do to help out this process and what your local oncologist or cancer center can do."

     "You mean," I replied, "that it's like when a doctor looks at an x-ray of a patient's arm and can see whether or not a bone is broken and if so, how to fix it? And that doctors in the future will be able to look at a gene-sequencing 'x-ray' and see which gene is acting up -- and then be able to fix it too?"

     "Something like that -- because a cancer is simply a gene that is out of control. However, currently, chemotherapy and radiation treatments nuke not only the out-of-balance gene but also its whole cell and the whole body as well. But with this new gene-specificity, the target we aim for is only the errant gene." Sounds good.

    "But right now, even though great research strides are being made against stopping cancer at the gene level, we have yet to find a way to get this type of research into the hands of the front-line cancer fighters, our local oncologists. It would be as if, like doctors everywhere who have already been taught to use bone-x-ray machines and then were given access to these x-ray machines as well, we now need to make these gene-sequencing and repairing mechanisms available on the local level too -- and to train doctors how to use them as well."

     Not a bad lecture for the price of a few sliders!

     "But I'm not in any way bad-mouthing chemotherapy," continued the researcher over Phil's famous organic salted-caramel milkshakes, "Life is always worth fighting for -- and it's also worth almost dying for during a few months of chemo if this means that you can live for a few years more. And while lots of researchers are now on the right track, it is like I said -- we still have to get this methodology out to the doctors."

     Then the researcher brought up another problem with regard to innovative cancer research. "People like Lance Armstrong are willing to try anything to stay alive. Armstrong even took blood transfusions before each race and was willing to try experimental drugs. So why doesn't this information also get trickled down to the local oncologists? Because the information delivery system here is almost medieval. And many doctors' hands are also tied because of fears of malpractice."

PPS: With regard to the many types of blended families here in America these days, you could also program the Kiddie Phone buttons to call whoever is most likely to love and care for said little kids -- such as two Daddies or two Mommies or Grandma and Grandpa or both foster-care providers or even Big Bird and Elmo or Brad and Angelina in a pinch.

     What only matters is that the next generation's little darlings (ALL of them) are safe and taken care of.

*********************************************************
*********************************************************

Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!
******

******
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

****
Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come!
****
Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
****

Want something good to read? Buy my book! "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719/ref=cm_pdp_rev_itm_title_1. It's like if Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain and/or Janet Evanovich went to war.

I also wrote a book about going on Hajj (also included as a chapter in "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book is cheaper -- but it's worth buying them both!) My book on the Hajj is so outstanding that I bet even Christian fundamentalists will love it! Please buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product
****
"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!" You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds." You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for those of us who are still idealists in these troubled times. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

2013-01-02T12:29:00.002-08:00

"Less government, more military" & other popular American riddles that have me stumped

    My friend RJ at http://www.topplebush.com/ just sent me a very interesting riddle: "Why are right-wingers always talking about cutting down on government spending and 'red tape' yet never ever try to cut down on military spending? Aren't the armed forces part of the government too?" Ya got me stumped there.

      Here's another riddle I can't seem to solve: How come us salt-of-the-earth American types who protest against all the banksters' outrageous crimes get thrown in jail, while the criminals themselves are given "get out of jail free" cards like it was Christmas? Except, of course, for Martha Stewart.

   More riddles: "Why is it okay for Al Qaeda to be the good guys in Syria and Libya -- but are the bad guys in Lower Manhattan?" I'm all confused.

     Why is it okay to tax middle-income Americans for an arm and a leg but not okay to tax rich people? "I wonder." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMHdq4jm0oQ

     How come everybody bitches and moans about the obesity epidemic and the cancer epidemic and the heart attack epidemic and the autism epidemic and the bi-polar epidemic but still live on junk food, never exercise and watch too much TV? And still have enough balls left to complain about single-payer healthcare? Can someone please explain this? http://www.indiegogo.com/SuperFatSeries

     How come American taxpayers get to pay for the costs of demolishing Christian and Muslim homes in East Jerusalem yet can't get any tax relief when our own homes are being demolished in Detroit and Cincinnati? http://www.roitov.com/articles/caesarea.htm

     How come statistics (and election results and Fox News) show that Americans are definitely being dumbed down these days, but no one wants to spend any money on improving American kindergartens -- let alone on upgrading our colleges. What ever happened to Sputnik?

     Why do people fear climate change so much but still happily drive their gas-hogs around like there's no tomorrow?

    How come I can't resist playing free-cell solitaire by the hour when I should be out doing the laundry and saving the world?

     How can anybody in their right mind vote for any candidate that spends millions of dollars on getting elected? You would think that if a politician had that kind of money he (or she) might want to just retire to the Bahamas. Or give it to us.

     "Why does America need to own approximately 800 military bases throughout the 'Free World'?" Hell, if the freaking world is all that free, surely it doesn't need all those American soldiers to keep it in line? And why does all this so-called freedom always end up costing us taxpayers trillions of dollars as well?

    And how come most of "our" jobs are now located in places like China, Haiti and Burma? Isn't that a really long commute?

    And please explain the riddle of how all the top American industrial jobs here at home are now mostly being performed by prison labor? While the 1% sucks down Oxycontin and Prozac legally and the rest of us all get busted for using medical marijuana -- just to make sure they have a large enough prison labor supply in jails?

    And why are American labor unions that help the working class being given such a bum rap, but when Wall Street and War Street form unions that destroy the fabric of America's economy, it's called "Capitalism" and "Showing Initiative" -- not welfare for the rich?

And why are the RepubliDems always saying that the fiscal cliff is a bad thing? If it is spozed to be such a terrible disaster, then why in the freak did they create it in the first place?

And why does 2013 still feel so much like 2012?

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Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!
******

******
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

****
Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come!
****
Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
****

Want something good to read? Buy my book! "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719/ref=cm_pdp_rev_itm_title_1. It's like if Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain and/or Janet Evanovich went to war.

I also wrote a book about going on Hajj (also included as a chapter in "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book is cheaper -- but it's worth buying them both!) My book on the Hajj is so outstanding that I bet even Christian fundamentalists will love it! Please buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product
****
"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!" You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds." You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for those of us who are still idealists in these troubled times. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

2012-12-27T10:43:00.002-08:00

My post-holiday epiphany: Why the price of gold has suddenly dropped

(Photos are of Ashley and Hugo's wedding on the USS Red Oak Victory on 12-12-12)

     This December, about two weeks before Christmas (or Hanukkah or the Islamic New Year or Buddha's enlightenment or whatever), the price of gold suddenly started to drop, suddenly catapulting downward over one hundred dollars an ounce http://www.kitco.com/charts/popup/au0030lnb_.html.

     "But why?" you might ask. "I thought gold prices had hung steady for years -- or else had gone up."

     Here's why. There has been a sudden glut on the gold market -- and, after that happened, this sudden gold-rush-in-reverse was on. Everyone was suddenly trying to get rid of their gold.

     "But why?" you might ask again. "I thought that people were buying gold as a good investment."

     Here's one reason why. 2012 has been the saddest holiday season ever in America -- or at least since 1929 -- in terms of economic buying power for the 99%. Millions of jobs have been outsourced overseas, and Wall Street and War Street have swallowed up America's treasury whole. And, by this last December, it was looking like there'd be only coal in most American children's stockings this year.

     But then all those prudent Americans who had purchased a few gold coins here and there over the years suddenly remembered all that wealth they had stashed away in some sock drawer, went out and cashed in their coins -- and Christmas (etc.) was saved! Disaster averted! At least for one more year.

     And that's where the sudden glut of gold on the market has come from.

     But what about next year's holiday season? When the mean-spirited Grinches of Wall Street and War Street come to steal Christmas yet again?

     With your gold coins all gone by 2013, you'll be lucky to even have milk and cookies to lay out for Santa.

     And if you live in the path of a hurricane or a bankster or on a flood plain or a rust belt, you'll be luckier still if you even have a chimney for Santa to come down in.

     What to do? How to start work on saving next year's Christmas? Here are some great stocking-stuffing ideas: End the wars. Levy a $1 transaction tax on every stock and bond bought and sold on Wall Street -- like we do on those other casinos in Atlantic City and Las Vegas. Tax the rich and get our money back from them. Put a cap on election-spending corruption. And, like Alan Grayson suggests, end "legislative constipation" in Congress by demanding simple up-or-down votes on stuff like saving Social Security and ending pork-barrel spending on wars-for-oil http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-alan-grayson/fiscal-cliff-taxes_b_2367621.html. And, most important of all, let's throw all those law-breaking Grinches on Wall Street and War Street in jail.

PS: Another factor causing the downturn on gold prices has to do with out-and-out theft. No, not the kind with safe-crackers or masked riders or John Dillinger involved. Hey, that was old skool. In these modern times, only our banks are stealing our gold.

     Apparently, several national central banks are now leasing (not selling) their gold supplies to something called "bullion banks," and then these bullion banks in turn sell (not lease) it to various markets several times over. That is, gold is being used as collateral that is then being slipped into the markets more than once, and thus the price of gold has been artificially suppressed because there now seems to be a glut. But there's not. http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/12/banks-pledge-same-gold-to-numerous-people.html

      And so all of those sweet little old ladies and hard-working salt-of-the-earth types in America who have carefully hoarded a few gold coins over the years in order to have security in their old age or at least have happy Christmases (etc.) for their grandchildren are now being happily screwed over by the banksters. Again. http://vimeo.com/55940623

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*********************************************************

Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!
******

******
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

****
Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come!
****
Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
****

Want something good to read? Buy my book! "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719/ref=cm_pdp_rev_itm_title_1. It's like if Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain and/or Janet Evanovich went to war.

I also wrote a book about going on Hajj (also included as a chapter in "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book is cheaper -- but it's worth buying them both!) My book on the Hajj is so outstanding that I bet even Christian fundamentalists will love it! Please buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product
****
"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!" You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds." You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for those of us who are still idealists in these troubled times. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

2012-12-23T10:25:00.002-08:00

OPEC, Chavez & WalMart: Union-busting large and small

     Recently I've been reading some really scary stuff about the folks who own WalMart. For instance, despite the fact that Jim and Christy Walton alone are worth approximately 30 billion dollars each, they are still treating their employees pretty much like chopped liver http://abcnews.go.com/Business/walmart-ceo-pay-hour-workers-year/story?id=11067470#.UMYpM3ecHBY. Like some modern-day Ebenezer Scrooges, WalMart's avaricious owners appear to be hoarding every penny of profits they make -- and just in time for Christmas too.

     Baby Jesus would NOT approve!

    And recently I've also been reading Jimmy Carter's excellent personal memoir, "White House Diary". And what I have learned so far is that, first, Jimmy Carter was one of America's greatest presidents because he did everything he possibly could do to help average Americans like you and me get ahead; fought against climate change almost even back before Al Gore; stood up for civil rights worldwide; and scared the shite out of Wall Street, the Pentagon and AIPAC -- thus almost guaranteeing that he would never ever get re-elected, be cut off at the knees by the powers that be and get defeated by a puppet like Ronald Reagan as soon as humanly possible.

     But if Carter had won a second term and our Ronnie had been forced to go back to making grade-B cowboy movies, we definitely wouldn't be facing a RepubliDem-generated "Fiscal Cliff" right now http://www.nationofchange.org/archeology-decline-1354551090. But I digress.

     The second idea that I came up with after reading this book was that back in the 1950s, the Middle East was pretty much a hell-hole of poverty, thanks to the American "extractive industry" and their scab pashas who had been exploiting that area like it was 1859 back in the States and no one had yet freed the slaves -- or like the coal-mine workers had been exploited in West Virginia before miners there unionized themselves back in 1902.

     However, the exploited "sweatshop workers" of the Middle East finally began to organize and form their own union too. And they called it OPEC. And practically the entire history of that region from that day to this has been merely one episode after another of what can only be described as UNION-BUSTING -- except that the "extractive industries" no longer use Pinkertons. They use GIs. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33286.htm

     All over the world today, the "extractive industries" are running people off their land, stealing their resources and, in every way that they possibly can, performing the type of union-busting activities that would make WalMart owners proud. And whenever victims of these "extractive industries" actually try to unionize or rebel, we immediately have yet another union-busting war http://www.roitov.com/articles/100.htm.

     Incidentally, it is also my personal opinion that Iran's leadership made a disastrous deal with the devil when they started negotiating with Ronald Reagan back in the 1980s -- because Reagan ended up supplying weapons to both Iran and Iraq, a very clever example of union-busting at its best. And thus the Ayatollah Khomeini, after his deals with Reagan such as the famous alleged October Surprise and the very real Iran-Contra scandal, ended up having the blood of his own people on his hands. One million Iranians died in that "war". http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/23/iran-iraq-war-anniversary

PS: Have you been noticing lately how Muslims are constantly being demonized and accused of being terrorists and other types of bad people by the powers that be? And have you also noticed that almost every Muslim country from Libya to Indonesia also has oil, valuable minerals or water resources under their soil? Coincidence? I think not. http://windowintopalestine.blogspot.com/2012/12/mazin-qumsiyeh-on-12-12-12.html

     Further, the Quran clearly states that, "God has sent down the Torah and the Gospel, as a guidance to the people...." And rest assured that this guidance definitely includes the Sermon on the Mount. “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." But what the pseudo-Jews and pseudo-Christians who spread this crap about Muslims don't seem to understand is that when they are happily busy dissing Muslims, they are also dissing Judaism and Christianity too.

PPS: I just got an e-mail from a friend of mine in Jakarta. She said, "Obama's better than most presidents because he's got more dimension, having gained more experience after living all over the world. However, when Obama's step-father worked for American oil companies in Indonesia, he took that posh lifestyle too seriously. And that's why he lost Obama's mom and his family."

     Apparently Obama's mother couldn't stand being just another member of the union-busting WalMart generation http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2012/12/2012121874846805636.html and so left his step-father and moved back to Hawaii where Obama had originally been born -- and how ironic is that? That Obama's mother's son should now be helping to preside over some of the greatest "extractive industry" union-busting puschs of all time?

PPPS: Remember the grape strikers out in California's central valley back in the 1960s? How, under Cesar Chavez, these little guys were demonized and persecuted but they hung in there and persevered and finally won a few union victories over the growers?

    And also remember that Hugo Chavez is also a union rep for OPEC -- and he too is being demonized and persecuted. But he too is hanging in there and may finally even win a few union victories himself. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0909/24/lkl.01.html

     And remember back in 1965, when thousands of us marched with Reverend King in Montgomery and chanted "Wallace, you never can jail us all"? That attitude of dogged resistance against injustice, against all odds, also explains why I still keep grinding out this Cassandra-like blog that nobody reads year after year -- ever since GWB stole the 2000 election -- because there are still more of us than there are of them and eventually, someday, the "union" of all us underdogs will finally prevail. Why? Because our immense "collective bargaining" power is the only single thing that the powers-that-be are afraid of.

   And so the world's WalMart types always keep trying to brainwash us peons into hating one another instead of organizing against them. But this divide-and-conquer technique can't go on forever. Sooner or later, as things go further and further downhill across the world both economically and democratically, all of us little guys are gonna finally be forced to become "Union Maids" too.

*********************************************************
*********************************************************

Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!
******

******
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

****
Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come!
****
Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
****

Want something good to read? Buy my book! "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719/ref=cm_pdp_rev_itm_title_1. It's like if Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain and/or Janet Evanovich went to war.

I also wrote a book about going on Hajj (also included as a chapter in "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book is cheaper -- but it's worth buying them both!) My book on the Hajj is so outstanding that I bet even Christian fundamentalists will love it! Please buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product
****
"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!" You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds." You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for those of us who are still idealists in these troubled times. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

2012-12-17T21:23:00.001-08:00

NO tidings of comfort & joy: It's still Hell out in Rockaway

     While our government still happily continues to peel big bucks off its wad and shower it down on Wall Street, big business and the "war" machine like it was Christmas for banksters and war-mongers all year long whether they need it or not, all too many hard-working tax-paying victims of Hurricane Sandy out in Staten Island and Rockaway are still getting no help at all. Zero. Ziltch. Nada.

     Nothing is currently being peeled off our government's endless roll of big bucks for them.

     Last week I was riding in a Muni bus over in San Francisco (on my way back from an audition to play a bored office worker in a student film) and on the bus was a very delightful older couple who seemed to have absolutely no cares.

     "Where are you from?" I asked them.

     "Rockaway," they replied hesitantly. Rockaway? OMG! Not THAT Rockaway? "Yeah, that's the one. And, yes, we did live through Hurricane Sandy and, yes, our home was badly damaged and almost destroyed." http://www.phillipvan.com/filter/PHOTO/BREEZY-POINT

   "So what the freak are you doing out here?"

     "Having fun! After having survived a personal visit from Sandy, we realized that life is just too short not to enjoy it. So we came out here to have fun."

     "But did you at least get any help from FEMA?" I asked, figuring that after our government has spent trillions on bailing out Wall Street (where no one hardly ever pays taxes and pretty much lives on Welfare for the Wealthy), then the least that our government could do is send a measly few billion bucks off to bail out afflicted taxpayers in Rockaway. http://www.phillipvan.com/filter/PHOTO/ROCKAWAY-BEACH

     "Have we received any help from FEMA? In a word? No."

     "Not even anything?" No.

     "It's been a whole month after Sandy and parts of Rockaway still don't even have electricity now. Or places for people to go."

     "But did FEMA give you any money to help you out?" No.

     "We got nothing but an avalanche of paperwork." They didn't even get bottled water. "A relative in Wisconsin finally ended up bringing us some." And they can't go back to their home because the wife has asthma and their house is a hell-hole of black mold right now. Ah, black mold, the bane of asthma sufferers' existence.

     "We just took out a 60-day insurance policy from Lloyd's of London on our stuff and left."

     I tried to grill the happy couple for more information on what is happening in Rockaway right now -- and right in the middle of the Christmas and Hanukkah season too -- but they weren't interested in being reminded. All they wanted to do was forget their worst nightmare and celebrate that they, unlike some of their neighbors, were still alive and had survived one of the fiercest mega-storms ever.

     And as our bus drove on past Chinatown, the happy couple soon had all us passengers singing "Merry Christmas" -- in Chinese. Brave souls. I almost cried.

http://vimeo.com/52711779

PS: And in the spirit of Christmas, what would Jesus have done after Sandy? He woulda given government money to the happy couple instead of lavishing it all on Wall Street and war. And I bet He would have also levied a transaction tax on every stock and bond that was bought and sold at the N.Y.S.E and used that money to keep seniors, hurricane victims and the middle class from falling off our RepubliDem-created "fiscal cliff" -- and would have kicked the moneychangers out of the temple too.

    And them Jesus would have removed that tax-exempt status from every single church in America that supported bigotry, the NRA, corporate welfare and war. "Go Jesus!" Happy Hanukkah. Happy Kwanzaa. Merry Christmas.

(Photos are by Leah Meyerhoff and Phillip Van, two of many New Yorkers who have volunteered their time to help out victims of this horrible mega-death storm)

EXTRA: I just figured out why the Mayans were right about December 21, 2012! It's the exact day that climate change becomes irreversible. Duh.

     We now only have a few shopping days left to do something about this.

      Perhaps if we camped out all night in front of Best Buy or Target or WalMart the night before?

*********************************************************
*********************************************************

Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!
******

What next? I'm still trying to get to Haiti ASAP but unfortunately my investigative-reporting trip has had to be postponed until the end of March. Please donate toward my trip's expenses here if you can:
https://www.wepay.com/donations/going-to-a-vodou-cave-in-haiti And if this link doesn't work, please just cut and paste. Thanks.

And if anyone ever wants to hire me on as a travel writer, "Have laptop, will travel!"

******
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

****
Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come!
****
Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
****

Want something good to read? Buy my book! "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719/ref=cm_pdp_rev_itm_title_1. It's like if Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain and/or Janet Evanovich went to war.

I also wrote a book about going on Hajj (also included as a chapter in "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book is cheaper -- but it's worth buying them both!) My book on the Hajj is so outstanding that I bet even Christian fundamentalists will love it! Please buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product
****
"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!" You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds." You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for those of us who are still idealists in these troubled times. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters