Thursday, May 27, 2004

Yahoo reactivated my account! I think the ACLU gave them a call. Whatever it took, here is the trouble-making e-mail. Moral: Make a hard copy of your addressbook!!!!!!

Summer of terror? We're losing the war on terror? What?

What is with this new "Summer of Terror" nonsense?

Our George PROMISED to save us from terror. And we have the receipts to prove it too! "Give me two trillion dollars," Bush told us, "and I will make you safe."

Then that foo' announces that us and our family and our dog are all about to get bombed and biodegraded in our beds? On the incompetence meter, that's 10 on a scale of 10. I want my money back!

Appoint ME President. Give ME two trillion dollars and I will give you so much peace that you will think you are in Heaven! And cheaper gas prices too.
YAHOO HAS DEACTIVATED MY ACCOUNT!!!!

The article that did it criticized George Bush. (as best as I can remember it):

Thursday, May 20, 2004

Perverts, voyeurs & Peeping Toms: A short history of the Republican Party

"Remember back in the good old days, when our great-grand-daddies got to sleep with the slaves?" In the modern Republican party, the roots of addiction to hidden sexual perversity stretch far back in time.

"President Clinton had sex with that woman!" the Republicans cried. Then they spent almost a billion dollars of OUR money trying to get off on all the juicy details. How much, how often, where? Yuck!

"We have to stop homosexuals and abortions and..." And what? Third-trimester potty training? Scratch a Republican and you'll find someone who never got to wear Pull-Ups (and probably spent a whole lot of time in the woodshed too).

"Let's shut down the porn sites!" cry the Republicans. Pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry in America. Who buys it? Who watches it? Republicans! I can prove it. Where do you think they learned all those bondage techniques they used on those poor Iraqi prisoners? Porno flicks!

"The media and political frenzy over apparent prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq continued to spiral out of control over the weekend much to the detriment of our nation..." Who is protesting the protest against use of pornographic torture in Iraq? Republicans! Who made this statement on the Concerned Women of America's website? Gary Bauer, a man accused of having an affair with a 26-year-old staff member (not named Monica).

"Welfare queens are immoral!" But only if you are not a Republican. Republicans are systematically bankrupting America through energy scandals and war-profiteering in Iraq. The amounts of money we are pouring into the coffers of such welfare queens as Halliburton and Enron? That's obscene.

Remember all those photos of aborted fetuses they are always parading around to make us feel bad? I have a question. "Why aren't you also parading around all those photos of babies born in Iraq, Kosovo and to the families of Gulf War veterans? Babies that have been grossly disfigured by exposure to depleted uranium, another Republican gift to the world?"

"Homosexuals are an abomination!" Yeah? Then why are there so many Republicans jammed into all those closets? Have you ever been to one of those secret gay bars in Dallas? The GOP are wall to wall.

"You f*ucking *sshole b*tch!" Who is most likely to send me this kind of gross language potty-mouth hate mail? Republicans!

"Everyone doing drugs should go to jail!" Except Rush Limbaugh.

The thing about Republicans that angers me most is their blatant hypocrisy. They are just as sinful (if not more so) than the rest of us. Only they just hush it up.

If Republicans want to crow about morality, we normal people might even consider listening to them -- if they were to become secretly as well as outwardly moral. A good START would be for Republicans to begin to behave themselves, obey the laws of our country; confess their sins, end corporate welfare, jail George Bush and get out of Iraq.

Sunday, May 16, 2004

Who dun it? The mysterious case of Nicholas Berg

I love murder mysteries! And as the Agatha Christie of Berkeley, CA, I am here to help find out who killed Nicholas Berg. My heart bleeds for his parents. It is the least I can do.

So. Who did it? Col. Peacock with the knife in the kitchen? I think not.

What would Sherlock do? "Was it even actually Nicholas Berg?" Can a big man lose that much weight in just two weeks? Maybe his prison guards should open a health spa or write a book. "The South Baghdad Diet." We don't even know if the body belonged to Nicholas Berg. For his parents' sake, I hope not. It's no mystery to me how I would feel if someone did that to a child of mine.

"In my day," said Nancy Drew, "we didn't have Photo Shop." Or computer enhanced images either. "Could this be a cobbled-together fake geared to come out while General Taguba was making his report?" And what is with all those weird clock time changes too.

"What was the motive?" Assuming it was Berg, why was he killed? Was it in order to take our minds off of Abu Ghraib? Mission accomplished. Further, Berg's father was on a right-wing hit list (See http://www.freerepublic.com). The Bushies obviously didn't like him.

"Who had the opportunity?" Who had custody of Berg? The FBI? That's discouraging. Sidebar: What was the FEDERAL Bureau of Investigation doing in Iraq? Aren't they supposed to be here at home chasing bad guys?

What question would Hercule Peroit ask? "What shape was the body in when they found it?" This is an interesting question. "Was it decomposed?" After three weeks, it should have been. If it wasn't, then the culprits probably used that old murder mystery trick of storing the body in the freezer. "Who, in Iraq, had a freezer?" It wasn't the terrorists! Half the time, they don't even have electricity in Baghdad.

Inspector Gadget? If the body was discovered the day of the beheading (what WAS the day of the beheading? I'm all confused), "How was it found so soon?" What with all the other bodies stacked like cordwood in Iraq, how did they even know it was Berg?

"Where was the blood?" Have you watched the video? They hold up the head. No blood comes out. That's weird. That's really weird.

There is a big mystery here. The game is definitely afoot. If this had taken place in a mystery novel, Stephanie Plum would have put on her slut shoes and gotten right to work. Rina Lazarus would have put on her headscarf and checked out the facts -- but only after they got through being sick. That is one sickening video. "If the rebels did it, why would they even release such a film?" Surely they knew it would hurt their cause.

More clues. "What was that plastic chair doing in the picture?" That was an American chair. I have one just like it in my back yard. Does that mean I am a suspect? And who were all those fat guys standing around -- especially if one of those fat guys was what-his-name, the terrorist with his leg blown off. "He could stand around that long?" The fat guys all looked like those pictures of the "contractors" who guard Paul Bremer. I have one word for them. "Weightwatchers." If you're gonna star in a terrorist flick, you gotta look the part. And check out the flack jacket pictures at http://marc.perkel.com/archives/000233.html (courtesy of Detective Maggie at "I Want My Country Back")

And what about those terrible yellow Abu-Ghraib-colored walls in the background? Lula would have been revolted! "Damn skippy I would." Guys, get yourself a decorator.

"In which Middle Eastern country do they behead people?" Not in Iraq. That is a technique most favored by George Bush's pals in Arabia -- the same country that gave us the people who allegedly highjacked the 9-11 planes (and left their passports for evidence too -- but that's another mystery, another book).

So. Who dun it? It's time to assemble everyone in the drawing room. "The murderer of the alleged Nicholas Berg is (dramatic pause) ... you and me." Us? Yes, us. We did it -- by standing by and doing nothing while that criminal George Bush instigated this sickeningly barbaric war -- and for STILL keeping Bush in power despite knowing that he is the antithesis of everything about truth and justice and American goodness that we know in our hearts to be true.

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

When abused children come of age: Auschwitz, The Passion and Abu Ghraib
By Jane Stillwater, http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/

Regarding the evils that lurk in the hearts of men, we civilized people keep asking ourselves, "What were they thinking!"

Just what drove the Nazis to commit the evils of the concentration camp? And, in The Passion, why did they keep flogging and flogging and flogging Jesus? And why have Americans committed such a long list of atrocities -- slavery, the Trail of Tears, the brutal Civil War (51,000 casualties at Gettysburg, 24,000 casualties at Chancellorsville), Wounded Knee, the Klu Klux Klan lynchings, the Dresden fire storm, the Marine deaths at Parris Island, the massacre at Mai Lai, classes in torture at Fort Benning and the abominations at Abu Ghraib?

What do all these murderers, torturers and sadists have in common? Three things: No empathy, hardened hearts and rotten childhoods.

How many times do I have to say this? "Adults treat other adults the way they themselves were treated as children." If we want a perfect world, we must learn to put away the switches, the paddles and the belts and to keep our children out of the woodshed.

Highly recommended reading: John Gray's book "Children are from Heaven".

Saturday, May 08, 2004

Finding America's moral compass: Beyond hypocrisy, perversion and fear

Everyone in America with a TV set knows that the Bush administration has just turned the six o'clock news into the world's largest porn site.

Everyone who even reads the comics knows that the Bush administration has taught us Americans how to lie, embezzle, threaten, coerce, cheat at elections, corrupt the Supreme Court and turn our armed forces into perverts.

Forget about the Jessica Lynch media spin. Now we got Lynndie England. Forget about Janet and even Monica. Compared with the true obscenity of Abu Ghrai? No comparison.

Anyone with a dial-up and a modem knows that the Bush administration has turned America to the dark side, demonstrated to our children how NOT to be Christians -- and instructed them on how to get away with it too. That's yesterday's news.

Todays news is this: There is still hope for America. We can still stop this downward spiral of destruction and death. Repeat after me, America: "Death and destruction ALWAYS leads to more destruction and death." If you want to guarantee that you will die a fiery and violent death, just follow the new Golden Rule. "Do it unto others -- and they will do it unto to you."

We Americans need to forget about what Bush and Al Qaeda are up to. They've turned to the dark side. Raiders and killers and psychopaths will always be with us. Americans tend to forget that there are more of us than there are of them. Forget about them.

Remember only this: Sometime, some day, every single one of us has to face death alone.

When I die, I do not want to have to face death alone. I want my clean conscience to be standing next to me, holding my hand. I want to hear him or her say to me, "Jane, you tried to be kind, to help children, to do no harm. For this reason and this reason alone, I will stand here with you and when you die you will not be afraid...or die alone."

Americans need to remember that this -- not money or war toys or global domination or abundant cheap labor or even free access to S&M -- is the most important thing in the world. And every single day of our lives we need to act accordingly. That is the moral compass America needs to hold on to.


Saturday, May 01, 2004

Ariel Sharon: Real estate developer extraordinaire

It was the middle of the night. The phone rang. "If you ever say that Palestine is like the Warsaw Ghetto again, we will kill you." Click. And they didn't even leave a call-back number!

Despite all that, here I am again. Equating Gaza with Warsaw. What am I thinking! But jeez Louise. The simile is just too ripe for a writer like me to resist. And besides, don't you just hate it when people tell you what to do?

I first figured that Gaza might be for sale when Ariel Sharon was accused of corrupt real estate dealings in Greece. And I was right too. Sharon has put together a real estate package in Gaza that is a sleazy developer's dream: Trading that run-down Gaza dump for the eloquent olive groves and high rises of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Score!

That's like trading the South Bronx for The Garden State -- including Princeton, Washington Crossing AND Atlantic City. That's like dumping Mediterranean Avenue and buying the Boardwalk. AND Park Place!

But wait. Won't the Palestinians at least come out of the deal owning Gaza? Isn't that a trade up for them? They will now own houses and hotels, right? Wrong. Palestinians will not be passing Go. And they will not be collecting $200. They will not be owning Gaza. Ariel Sharon will still own Gaza. What the Palestinians will be getting from this real estate deal is the right to continue to live in a prison, a jail and a slum.

What the Palestinians will be getting is a place on a map that is the exact re-creation of the spirit and mood of the ghetto at Warsaw -- no more, no less. The Israeli army will surround Gaza on all sides. No one will be let in or out. Watch towers, machine guns and barbed wire will ring the city. Tanks will rumble up and down the streets. The only thing missing to complete this tableau will be the yellow crescents sewn on residents' clothes -- and that can be arranged.

Being an Arab these days is chillingly similar to being a Jew in 1939. The only difference I can see is that instead of Prescott financing genocide, we now have his grandson George.

No one spoke out to protect the Jews in 1939. But dag nab it, I'm not going to let that happen again. And, hopefully, it's not going to kill me to do it.
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"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved; World Peace in one generation!"

Great advice to sleazy real estate developers like Ariel Sharon: From CEO Mark Ernst : One thing I learned from Monopoly is that you can't get greedy. The other players will quickly refuse to do business with you if you are.

From J. Paul Getty: You must never try to make all the money that's in a deal. Let the other fellow make some money too.

From the Australian Financial Review: The end of Globalization -- For the world economy to work, there are other factors to consider besides Monopoly! http://afr.com/articles/2004/02/19/1077072774981.html