Peace, Love and Sasha Grey

This should end it. Contradicts everything in her affadavit. Admits she assaulted me, sex pictures consentual

2011-09-28T07:49:00.000-07:00

[Offline] Marcy Beckman to me

show details 9/10/10

Thanks for being responsible about the photos. I appreciate it. I would never destroy the Ganesha murti. I love it and will use it with the mantra that you told me about. I really do appreciate your sharing knowledge of yoga, meditation, and mantra with me. There are so many wonderful things about our relationship.....but we need a break. A real one this time. I hope you enjoyed your Hot Yoga today, and since I don't really have anyone else to give the +1, you can keep it for the month of September. I will work on myself and try to stay steady and focused as best I can.
- Hide quoted text -

On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 2:48 PM, Soren Sorensen wrote:

Your pictures are safe on a non-networked computer that has lots of security features and is password protected. I will never share them with anyone without your consent, and it is likely that I will delete them. I deleted all pictures I had of Christine, Montana, Kayla, etc.

I have experienced some discomfort from your actions, and my muscular effort to stay covered up and in a fetal position. Thank you for not cutting up my ID or EBT card, destroying my meditation bench, etc. Please do not destroy the Ganesha murti. Send it to me if you decide you do not want it.

I really want to take a few Hot Yoga classes before Teacher Training starts again. I would like to use your +1 benefit as you previously agreed. I will avoid taking any of your classes or overlapping with your work with any classes I take, and have no interest in telling anyone at Corepower about our problems or your actions last night. I can cope if you show up at my classes or events at the meditation center, and you are welcome to seek me out if you realize that I have been largely faithful, good, truthful, and a good guide. Seek me out if you remain celibate and attain sobriety. But seek God/Goddess/TheUltimateReality with more verve than you parent, more passion than you've ever used in the pursuit of cock, cunt, food or drugs.

I spent most of the day talking about Eat, Pray, Love. I agree with you about that book and if I enter celibacy as we discussed I will seek advice about how to do it from a qualified Guru, meditate and pray on it. I have only manage 2 months before - but it is a great goal.

Please go to a Central Pacific (CP) inspired AA meeting and get a sponsor - there are women only groups. Many of the CP people had alcohol and cannabis, or or just cannabis and drug issues that use CP and AA because it works.

Get counseling or see a psychiatrist.

Doing the right thing is not easy, but you can do it.

It has nothing to do with me or what I want. I want to take the 3:30 hot to get through the muscle and other pain in my back. E-mail me back ASAP if that is somehow not OK for me to use your +1 then.

On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 1:41 PM, Marcy Beckman wrote:

Hi Soren,

I just got back from taking Nora's C2 downtown. I am hoping that you are doing ok today, and that last nights events aren't affecting you too much. I feel like I got hit by a train today. I am completely emotionally drained. I do appreciate your ability to forgive me for being crazy last night, and for your kindness to me over the last 2 years. I am deeply sorry for my behavior. I know now that we really do need to distance ourselves from each other if we are ever to be in any sort of relationship (friends/lovers) again. I hope you know that I know that you think you are just trying to help me get sober and be a better person, but I don't think you are going about it in the right way. I know that you will be a great dad to your kids when you finally get to see them on a more regular and frequent basis. I don't want to interfere with that process in the beginning stages of it, either, so it will probably be in everyone's best interest for us to not see each other for a while. I will miss your tickles and cuddles, your warmth and love and our passion. In the end, we are not able to accept each other enough to stay together in any capacity. I truly meant what I said about celibacy. I think Eat, Pray, Love spoke to me so much that it inspired me to want to have that alone time and celibacy time that she was able to do. I am going to work on being a good mom and yoga teacher, and member of the community. I am a bit worried that you have some pictures of me on your computer. I would really hope that you wouldn't even think of sharing those private pictures with anyone. I would actually like you to put them on a cd or delete them completely and remove them from your computer altogether. Thank you for being so great with Riley and Bella, and for everything else.....the list is too long to go into it all now. Please take care of yourself above all, and I may see you again sometime......

Best,
Marcy

--
Marcy A. Beckman

PoHo Community Yoga

612-239-8298

"Ah, hoptoad! Can't you see? You have potential! You're a mother lode of wit, of spunk, of courage, of adaptability. You need to cut loose, open up, break free." -Tom Robbins

Maybe 22,001 here is one more

2011-06-13T10:19:00.000-07:00

For your viewing pleasure: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_tUTjQlBUX-0RMXqQ932EEPweoWea0-8cD1AkxM7w9w/edit?hl=en_US

I think some of this is based on Montana's allegations, but much of it weird. Yet it establishes fact she kicked the Bhagavad Gita on Thursday, but strangely leaves out the part where she throws it and hits me with it, and the large number of invitations, texts, etc she has sent me in violation of the OFP that she acknowledges exists.

She sent death threats and 15+ facebook messages, posts, and comments the evening before applying for this. Madness.

Here is a suggestion - instead of making shit up years later, if someone really abuses you sexually, call the cops. Document it when it happens.

All of this is in retaliation for a Child Protection report. As Christine with Family Courts points out in the last post - the courts don't automatically intuit child abuse, neglect or endangerment, you have to file a Child Protection report.

Both Marcy and Montana have pried into the parenting of others and criticized other mothers, and called the cops to stop domestic violence in progress in the hood - why didn't the call if they themselves were victims? Why do the make this up months and years later?

I put up with 10 - 11 years of violence and threats to the kids if I didn't do what Montana wanted (e.g. coming home from The Netherlands, buying her a car, bailing her out when she bounced checks).

I decided last year that I would document violence when it occurred - though the first time Marcy assaulted me I vacillated and approached the church and spiritual leaders first. When she stole the percocet - I made a report.

There are still Gunea worms in Africa and 22,000 OFPs in Hennepin Co. Per Year

2011-06-13T06:48:00.000-07:00

There are Guinea Worms in Africa, 22,000 Orders for Protection per year in Hennepin Co. and Family Court Judges don't have to follow the law, say Court Staff with Guinea Worm stories

From the files: 12/18/07 gchat w/ Hennepin Family Courts Employee

Christine: i am having a bad day.

me: err, why?

9:42 AM Christine: coworker arrived to work to tell us about her daughter who just arrived back from africa who was pulling worms out of her feet.

me: That happens

Christine: I don't want to get to work and hear about that. Yeah, but I don't care about her stupid daughter.

me: adopted?

Christine: She could be pulling nuggets of gold out of her feet and I could care less. No.

9:43 AM The daughter was over there in the peace corps.

me: I see

Christine: Is back for Christmas. Seriously, keep that shit to yourself. I don't want to hear about it from her.

me: You should always wear shoes in Africa

9:44 AM Christine: The daughter was wearing sandals, but still go chiggers from the dust.

me: Perhaps you need to remember this

Christine: There's realyl serious disease you can get from worms in africa.

me: sandals don't work that well

Christine: Obvs.

me: shoes, sock with permethrin in them

9:45 AM When we go to Africa, we won't be so stupid! I <# you

Christine: I'm afraid now. I don't want to get worms in my feet.

me: I <3

Christine: Then I was reading about Guniea worms! ACK! I heart you!

me: yes

Christine: Guniea worms are really bad!

me: maybe
9:46 AM they come from the water though

Christine: There are parasite worms that can give you a form of elephantist. Yeah.

me: towel off vigourously or douse your self with rubbing alcohol if you get in stagnant water in the tropics

9:47 AM otherwise, it is all good

Christine: Then the guniea worm comes out and infects the warm supply!
I'm scared!
*water.

9:48 AM me: "Charlie Wilson's War" is opening on Friday, but it is only in theatres in Monticello and Hutchinson!
yeah, don't go swimming in unchlorinated pools with co-worker's daughter, ehh?

Christine: no.
9:49 AM what if her worms get down the drain???

me: this is not Africa, love

Christine: then all of the twin cities will be infected!

me: no
Christine: Oh-- they only live in the tropics?
the worms

me: yeah

Christine: Ooooh.

9:50 AM me: we have other little parasites here that cause swimmers itch - they can't live in us though, they die in us instead because they are adapted for ducks and geese

I took some parasitology courses or courses that covered them critters

Christine: i'm glad we do have those kinds of worms.
me: invertebrate biology, insect pathology, etc.

9:51 AM Christine: fun stuff!

me: yeah
Christine: Apparently Guniea worm is almost erradicated thanks to the Gates Foundation.
only 16,000 cases reported in 2004.

me: when we are rich we can go back to school or start a lab and study stuff like that again
9:52 AM yeah - it is them special socks, and basic education, that is getting rid of those and river blindness

Christine: Oh yeah!
And Jimmy Carter helps a lot, too.
I saw a PBS show about it.

9:53 AM And polio vaccanations.
9:55 AM You can file papers to bring a motion before the Court to get parenting time for your children.
Even if you have an OFP.
You file papers, set up an appointment to go over them and you get a Court hearing.

9:56 AM me: No thanks

Christine: Well, that's what you can do and lots of people do it. 22,000 cases a year.

9:57 AM me: that is a huge number

Christine: The Court wants to grant parenting time to both parents.

me: just Hennepin Co?

Christine: Yep.
That's why I have a job at this point!
Many people file papers with an active OFP.

9:58 AM me: I need to keep the OFP in effect because Montana is a nut

Christine: The Court wants to grant parenting time to both parents as that is in the best interests of children.

me: and violent

Christine: It doesn't matter. It's about what's best for the kids.

9:59 AM me: I am surprised the court has not investigated her parenting, but it is easier not to care or worry
And I am skeptical about the courts

Christine: She won't be investgiated unless a report is made to Child Protection.

The system sucks. Judges decide and they don't have to follow any laws.

10:00 AM But generally, if Montona is a nut, putting the children at risk, they will order a psych eval.

me: It is not my problem any more
I tried hard for many years
like 11

Christine: That's redonkulous!
If my father would have given up on me, I would be dead. Except my mom isn't crazy.
She's pretty sane.
And awesome.
10:01 AM me: I am glad you are alive
My father gave up
Christine: He did? I thought he died.
me: yeah, he just died
heart attack

Christine: That's not giving up.
10:02 AM Silly!
My dad had a heart attack. It feels like he gave up. I know what you mean.
But it's just a feeling. It isn't reality.

me: maybe
I like my PONKEY
10:03 AM Christine: Boo.
Ponkey is here to help because she was blessed with the ability to do so.
so there.

me: Cool, thanks!
10:04 AM Christine: It sucks have well adjusted parents who care about you.
me: NO worries
Christine: They're always nagging at you for your own good.
hee hee.
me: I will care enough about you to do the dishes in the sink before you come home
Christine: ok nice!
I better get back t work!
me: yep
10:05 AM have a better day - there are no worms in Heenpin Co
Christine: ok!

Kucinich introduces bi-partisan resolution on Afghanistan - House Concurrent Resolution 28

2011-03-09T21:12:00.000-08:00

Washington, Mar 9 -

Representatives Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Walter Jones (R-NC) and eight others introduced a bipartisan, privileged resolution, House Concurrent Resolution 28, which, if enacted, would require Obama to withdraw all U.S. Armed Forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2011.

The bill is cosponsored by Representatives Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Walter Jones (R-NC), Pete Stark (D-CA), Ron Paul (R-TX), Bob Filner (D-CA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Michael Honda (D-CA), Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), Keith Ellison (DFL-MN) and John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI).

Following the press conference, Kucinich immediately took to the House floor to call upon his colleagues to support the resolution. His statement from the floor follows:

Today a bipartisan coalition of Members of Congress has introduced a privileged resolution calling for a vote in this congress to end the war in Afghanistan.

More than 60% of the American people want us out of there. This war is already approaching a cost of a half a trillion dollars. We have Americans who are losing their jobs; their wages are being knocked down. We have Americans losing their homes, losing their retirement security; they can't send their kids to colleges they want. And we are spending all this money on a war that is a waste of time, money, blood, and treasure to try to prop up a corrupt regime in Afghanistan.

Now, our occupation over there is fueled an insurgency. It’s time for this Congress to take the Constitutional responsibility under Article 1, Section 8. We haven't done that with respect to Afghanistan. It's time for us to do that. Let's have an up or down vote. That's what this resolution is about. I urge all Members of Congress to consider supporting the privileged resolution that ends the war in Afghanistan.

Gaza Flotilla testimony

2010-06-11T04:41:00.000-07:00

Detention at US Embassy video clip

2009-12-29T21:36:00.000-08:00

This should cause a few people in the State Department, Congress, and Obama Administration to ask questions about why US Citizens should be deprived of access to their consulate, at their consulate.

Who is responsible? What is the remedy for the infringement of this basic right?

Gaza Freedom March: Minneapolis solidarity action Dec 30th, 11:30AM

2009-12-29T16:05:00.000-08:00

Please join CODEPINK and other groups marching in support of the Gaza Freedom March, the 7 Minnesotans who have traveled to Egypt and wish to enter Gaza, and ultimately ending the illegal siege of Gaza. We will gather at 11:30 in the skyway level "public service concourse" of the Hennepin County Government Center. Please do not bring homemade signs or distribute any literature in the skyways, respect or deal with the building managers and our message that we must lift the siege of Gaza for the sake of the children of Gaza and to realign the United States foreign policy with International Law.

We will have rally signs we will loan out and collect for reuse at future events. Wear some pink if you can, and bring family and friends of all ages!

View Larger Map

Update: This event was a success! Thank you to all who participated! We were covered on KSTP Channel 5 evening news and in multiple print outlets, and reached tens of thousands of Minnesotans in multiple congressional districts.

National Democratic Institute should report discrepancies in Honduran election

2009-12-14T10:56:00.000-08:00

The National Democratic Institute(NDI)assessment mission to Honduras has failed to correct propaganda being repeated by mainstream media outlets designed to legitimize the Honduran elections. The NDI was the only international election observer. Most credible international election observers (e.g the Carter Center) refused to participate in the elections. The NDI has failed to mention a 15% discrepancy in its observations, and violence it witnessed around the election.

One election night he victor asserted that 62% of voters participated in the election, and corporate media has repeated that more than 60% number uncritically, despite the fact that the election managers could say that only 49% of the electorate had participated at the time TheRealNews Network produced the embedded video clip.

Cyber Monday, Internet Shopacalypse

2009-11-29T20:33:00.000-08:00

Black Friday is now behind us, but another shopacalypse looms on Cyber Monday.

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to see the Morgan Spurlock documentary "What Would Jesus Buy?" and a couple of sermons by the Reverend Billy. I found his call to reestablish the Mall of America as a public commons and free speech zone appealing, but disagree with the cynicism turning the progressive political impulse into performance art.

Amy Goodman, who was recently detained while crossing the Canadian border, also visited the Twin Cities this weekend, and her progressive, democratic vision was much more uplifting. The airwaves and the internet are the free speech commons, a public resource temporarily and conditionally licensed to corporate media that are failing the challenge posed by true journalists and the public's hunger for actionable, timely, unfiltered truths.

At each of these events this weekend I distributed hundreds of handbills about the Gaza Freedom March. We have an even coming up a week from today. At 4PM, Sunday, December 6th there will be a showing of the documentary Occupation 101 as a fundraiser for the Minnesota to Gaza effort

While most Cyber Monday deals can be ignored in good conscience, it is important to remember that Monday, November 30th, 2009 will be your last opportunity to register with CODEPINK to travel with them to Egypt and Gaza for the Gaza Freedom March.

Black friday internet sale for Gaza Freedom March participants?

2009-11-26T21:04:00.000-08:00

Would it help increase the number of participants in the upcoming Gaza Freedom March if there was a Black Friday sale for new registrants?

In a sense there is a limited-time only sale registering for the march, as the deadline is November 30th.

While millions of Americans are sloughing off their post-Turkey day food comas while waiting for deals on electronics and other consumer goods outside of their local outlet mall, a few hundred activists contemplate joining those several hundred who have already committed to go visit a population deprived of even the simple opportunity to purchase foodstuffs and sufficient fuel for their cooking and heating needs.

Are you one of these compassionate Americans more concerned with realigning our foreign policy with international law than abusing what remains of your consumer credit to purchase yet another electronic distraction device? Are you willing to go beyond the simple choice of consuming or not-consuming, of buy compulsively or buy nothing compulsively on Black Friday, and consider purchasing awareness itself?

Please join us on the Gaza Freedom March, register before November 30th. Here is the itinerary for the Gaza Freedom March Dec. 27— Jan. 2:

Sunday, Dec. 27: Orientation meeting in Cairo at 7 p.m.

Monday, Dec. 28: Leave Cairo for Al-Arish at 9 a.m.; overnight in Al-Arish

Tuesday, Dec 29: Try to enter Gaza from Rafah border

Wed. Dec 30 (if in Gaza): Visit areas most devastated during Israeli invasion

Thurs., Dec 31: MILE-LONG MARCH FOR FREEDOM

Fri., Jan. 1: Meet with civic organizations and community leaders, evening peace event

Sat., Jan. 2: Return to Cairo (arrive Cairo 11 p.m.)

* Package one (indoor camping): $250, which includes transportation from Cairo to Gaza and within Gaza, planned activities within Gaza, translation, 2 meals/day, donations to local organizations, Gaza accommodations (domitory/indoor camping; details still being finalized), donations to local organizations. Payment does not include flight, Cairo accommodations or visa fees.
* Package two: $400, same as above, but hotel accommodations in Gaza.

If you must cancel your march registration, refunds will paid minus a $200 "processing" fee.

Note: You should book your airfare as soon as possible, since flights at the end and beginning of the year fill up fast.

House Healthcare Reform Vote Results

2009-11-08T05:45:00.000-08:00

The House healthcare reform bill that was HR 3200 (the tri-committee bill) became HR 3962 (Pelosi's bill) and was passed on Saturday night after the adoption of the Stupak amendment. The pro-life amendment offered by Rep. Stupak received a 240 to 194 vote with a handful of members voting present.

The partisan breakdown on the Stupak amendment: 176 Republicans and 64 Democrats supported the pro-life Stupak amendment while 194 Democrats voted against it.

Two great progressive House leaders voted against the bad, pro-life Pelosi-Stupak bill after the Stupak amendment passed, Representatives Eric Massa and Dennis Kucinich.

The Stupak amendment vote was roll call 884 and final passage was roll call 887. You can see how your representative voted by search for these roll calls on this Clerk of the House index

Here is Dennis Kucinich's statement on his vote against passage of the prolife Pelosi-Stupak bill:

We have been led to believe that we must make our health care choices only within the current structure of a predatory, for-profit insurance system which makes money not providing health care. We cannot fault the insurance companies for being what they are. But we can fault legislation in which the government incentivizes the perpetuation, indeed the strengthening, of the for-profit health insurance industry, the very source of the problem. When health insurance companies deny care or raise premiums, co-pays and deductibles they are simply trying to make a profit. That is our system.

Clearly, the insurance companies are the problem, not the solution. They are driving up the cost of health care. Because their massive bureaucracy avoids paying bills so effectively, they force hospitals and doctors to hire their own bureaucracy to fight the insurance companies to avoid getting stuck with an unfair share of the bills. The result is that since 1970, the number of physicians has increased by less than 200% while the number of administrators has increased by 3000%. It is no wonder that 31 cents of every health care dollar goes to administrative costs, not toward providing care. Even those with insurance are at risk. The single biggest cause of bankruptcies in the U.S. is health insurance policies that do not cover you when you get sick.

But instead of working toward the elimination of for-profit insurance, H.R. 3962 would put the government in the role of accelerating the privatization of health care. In H.R. 3962, the government is requiring at least 21 million Americans to buy private health insurance from the very industry that causes costs to be so high, which will result in at least $70 billion in new annual revenue, much of which is coming from taxpayers. This inevitably will lead to even more costs, more subsidies, and higher profits for insurance companies — a bailout under a blue cross.

By incurring only a new requirement to cover pre-existing conditions, a weakened public option, and a few other important but limited concessions, the health insurance companies are getting quite a deal. The Center for American Progress’ blog, Think Progress, states “since the President signaled that he is backing away from the public option, health insurance stocks have been on the rise.” Similarly, healthcare stocks rallied when Senator Max Baucus introduced a bill without a public option. Bloomberg reports that Curtis Lane, a prominent health industry investor, predicted a few weeks ago that “money will start flowing in again” to health insurance stocks after passage of the legislation. Investors.com last month reported that pharmacy benefit managers share prices are hitting all-time highs, with the only industry worry that the Administration would reverse its decision not to negotiate Medicare Part D drug prices, leaving in place a Bush Administration policy.

During the debate, when the interests of insurance companies would have been effectively challenged, that challenge was turned back. The “robust public option” which would have offered a modicum of competition to a monopolistic industry was whittled down from an initial potential enrollment of 129 million Americans to 6 million. An amendment which would have protected the rights of states to pursue single-payer health care was stripped from the bill at the request of the Administration. Looking ahead, we cringe at the prospect of even greater favors for insurance companies.

Recent rises in unemployment indicate a widening separation between the finance economy and the real economy. The finance economy considers the health of Wall Street, rising corporate profits, and banks’ hoarding of cash, much of it from taxpayers, as sign of an economic recovery. However in the real economy -- in which most Americans live -- the recession is not over. Rising unemployment, business failures, bankruptcies and foreclosures are still hammering Main Street.

This health care bill continues the redistribution of wealth to Wall Street at the expense of America’s manufacturing and service economies which suffer from costs other countries do not have to bear, especially the cost of health care. America continues to stand out among all industrialized nations for its privatized health care system. As a result, we are less competitive in steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping while other countries subsidize their exports in these areas through socializing the cost of health care.

Notwithstanding the fate of H.R. 3962, America will someday come to recognize the broad social and economic benefits of a not-for-profit, single-payer health care system, which is good for the American people and good for America’s businesses, with of course the notable exceptions being insurance and pharmaceuticals.

Unless the Kucinich amendment that was stripped out of HR 3200 as passed by the Committee on Education and Labor is reinserted into the bill in conference committee, Rep. Kucinich and Rep. Eric Massa should continue to vote against the bad Pelosi-Stupak bill, and the rest of the Democratic Caucus, or at least what remains of the Progressive Caucus, should join them.

Pelosi press release on Weiner Amendment (withdrawn)

2009-11-06T12:38:00.000-08:00

Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued the following statement today on Representative Anthony Weiner's single payer substitute amendment:

Within the next few days, the House will vote on the most comprehensive health care legislation in our history. Our bill will provide affordability to the middle class, security to our seniors, and responsibility to our children by not adding a dime to the deficit. While our bill contains unprecedented reforms, including an end to discrimination for pre-existing conditions and a prohibition on raising rates or dropping coverage if you become ill, our bill cannot include provisions some strongly advocated. The single payer alternative is one of those provisions that could not be included in H.R. 3962, but which has generated support within the Congress and throughout the country.

Congressman Anthony Weiner has been a forceful and articulate advocate for the single payer approach and our legislation. His decision not to offer a single payer amendment during consideration of H.R. 3962 is a correct one, and helps advance the passage of important health reforms by this Congress. While single payer, like other popular proposals, is not included in the consensus bill we will vote on this week, Congressman Weiner has been a tireless and effective advocate for progress on health care, and his work has been a vital part of achieving health care reform.

Released by the Speaker of the House on 11/06/2009

Weiner amendment info from SICKO stars...

2009-11-05T13:38:00.000-08:00

There is a 2:00 PM hearing in the U.S. House Committee on Rules tomorrow which will approve any amendments to be offered and constraints on this important debate.

Please call your member of congress now in support of the Weiner Amendment, and join the facebook group Pass the Weiner Amendment for Healthcare for All!

The House switchboard number is: (202) 224-3121

Weiner amendment vote coming to US House floor soon! Health care for all!

2009-10-09T15:36:00.000-07:00

I have been told to expect HR 3200 after Columbus day. The vote on the Weiner amendment will follow soon after the HR 3200 healthcare reform bill is merged out of the three committee reports.

In order facilitate nationwide support for the Weiner amendment, I have created a facebook group - if you are on facebook and you want more Americans to have direct access to health care please click and join it here: Pass the Weiner Amendment for Healthcare for All!

Call your Member of Congress, urge them to vote NO! on HR 2346

2009-06-12T20:00:00.000-07:00

No more funding for these wars!

Obama, keep your promises for peace!

2009-04-19T13:37:00.000-07:00

Help Obama keep his promises for peace. Support CODEPINK in their campaign, attend, or help someone else attend the Mother's Day vigil at the White House. Watch the Rethink Afghanistan documentary and then post a comment or make a phone call to The White House comment line.

"Prosecute, Prosecute" Eddie Joe and the Redeemers

2009-03-31T07:37:00.000-07:00

Repost this! Then call Barack Obama and tell him we need an Independent Prosecutor to examine the crimes that lead up to the war on Iraq, and the crimes committed in the conduct of the Iraq War and occupation!

White House comment line: 202-456-1111

Opposition to Agrofuels/Biomass

2009-01-21T17:23:00.000-08:00

A diverse alliance of organizations concerned with climate change, agriculture and food policy, human rights and indigenous peoples rights and biodiversity protection has issued the following statement in opposition to increased public subsidies of agrofuels (large scale industrial biofuels):

We strongly oppose the rapid and destructive expansion of agrofuels; the large-scale industrial production of transport fuels and other energy from plants (corn, sugar cane, oilseeds, trees, grasses, waste etc.). Agrofuels are a false solution and a dangerous distraction and they must be halted.

Agrofuels are a "false solution":
Many prominent voices in the United States, including President-elect Obama, have voiced support for the large-scale production of agrofuels as a central strategy for solving the problems of energy supply and global warming. A growing body of scientific evidence, however, indicates that this is a tragic misconception and that continued pursuit of agrofuels will aggravate severely rather than resolve the multiple and dire consequences of the climate, energy, food, economic and ecological crises we face. Like other dirty and dangerous technologies and devices being promoted by industry to supposedly address climate change-including "clean coal," carbon capture and storage [CCS], coal gasification, nuclear power, carbon offset markets, and ocean fertilization-agrofuels are a distracting "false solution" promoted for their potential to reap profits rather than their capacity to address problems effectively. [1]

Agrofuels worsen climate change and poverty:
A growing body of literature from all levels of society is revealing that, when all impacts are considered, agrofuels create more, not less, greenhouse gas emissions; deplete soil and water resources; drive destruction of forests and other biodiverse ecosystems; result in expanded use of genetically engineered crops, toxic pesticides, and herbicides; and consolidate corporate control over access to land. While claims are made that agrofuels will benefit the rural poor, in reality, indigenous and smallholder farmers are increasingly displaced. Industrial agriculture and the destruction of biodiversity, two leading causes of global warming, will be further facilitated by agrofuels. [2]

Next generation "cellulosic" fuels will not resolve the problems:
With recognition of the role of agrofuels in driving up food prices, there has been increasing attention to the social and ecological costs of corn and sugar cane derived ethanol. In response, there is now a massive push to develop non-food, so-called cellulosic fuels based on claims that these new feedstocks (grasses, trees, and "waste" products) will not compete with food production and can be grown on "idle and marginal" lands. The incoming Obama Administration is clearly positioning to advocate strongly on this platform. [3] Unfortunately, these claims do not hold up to scrutiny.

An enormous additional demand for trees, grasses and other plants, edible or inedible, will not avert the problem of land-use competition. Land that could be used for food crops or biodiversity conservation will be increasingly diverted into energy production. Demand for land for both agriculture and timber is already intense and escalating globally as water, soil and biodiversity dwindle and the climate becomes increasingly unstable. [4]

The scale of demand cannot be met sustainably:
Virtually all of the proposed cellulosic feedstocks (including dedicated energy crops such as perennial grasses and fast growing or genetically engineered trees, agricultural and forestry "wastes and residues", municipal wastes etc.) present serious ecological concerns on the scale required to maintain biorefinery operations and significantly contribute to U.S. energy demands. Furthermore, renewable fuels targets in the U.S. mandate the use of 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol per year, an amount that requires one third of the nations corn crop, and an additional 21 billion gallons a year of "advanced" agrofuels, the definition of which opens the possibility that demand will be met with foreign sources. The massive new demand for agrofuels is escalating deforestation and resulting in conversion of biodiverse and carbon-rich native forests and grasslands into biologically barren and carbon-poor industrial tree plantations and other crop monocultures. [5]

Land use changes resulting from industrial agriculture, including widespread deforestation, are major causes of climate change. Recent research finds that old growth forests sequester far more carbon than was previously estimated, (i.e. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change underestimated carbon stocks for temperate old growth forests by two-thirds). This means that deforestation has been a much larger causal factor in global warming than initially thought, and that intact natural forests are critical for sequestering carbon. It is imperative therefore that we protect remaining forests, grasslands and other carbon-rich ecosystems. [6]

The widespread application of biotechnology for agrofuel production, including genetically engineered (GE) feedstock crops such as GE grasses and GE trees, and plans to use synthetic biology and other genetic engineering techniques to alter and construct microbes, is an unacceptable and dangerous risk. [7]

Sustainability criteria cannot address the problems with agrofuels because they are incapable of addressing many complex and often indirect ecological and social impacts. Neither can they be implemented under globally diverse ecological, social and political situations. Similar efforts to develop criteria for soy, palm oil and timber, for example, have proven vastly inadequate. Finally, these efforts are based on the fundamental and flawed assumption that such massive demands can and should be met.

Agrofuels are not a renewable energy source:
While plants do re-grow, the soils, nutrients, minerals and water they require are in limited supply. The diverse and complex ecosystems that native plants belong to are also limited and not easily regenerated. Subsidies and incentives for renewable fuels should be focused on truly renewable options, like wind and solar energy. Instead, currently in the U.S. close to three-quarters of tax credits and two-thirds of federal subsidies for renewable energy are being wrongly invested in agrofuels. [8]

Agrofuels are a disaster for people:
As governments, investors and corporations recognize the increasing demand for and profitability of land for food, fiber and now energy, we are witnessing a veritable tidal wave of land grabbing on a global scale. This is disastrous for rural and indigenous peoples who are increasingly being evicted or displaced. If tariffs currently limiting international agrofuel trade are diminished or eliminated, social and ecological damages will escalate.

Social movements around the world, including the international peasant movement, Via Campesina, call for "food and energy sovereignty." Via Campesina, along with the independent International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), a long-term independent assessment of agriculture involving over 400 scientists and diverse stakeholders, point to the key importance of a return to locally controlled, diverse, ecologically sensitive, and organic agriculture practices as vital to both addressing climate change and poverty. In demanding a halt to the insanity of agrofuel expansion, we stand in solidarity with peoples around the world who are resisting the loss and destruction of their lands, and with the wildlife and biodiversity being driven to extinction for corporate profit. [9]

Real solutions must be given a chance.
There are numerous better options for addressing climate change. These are generally proven, do not involve risky technologies, return control of resources to local inhabitants rather than profiting irresponsible corporations, and are more equitable. [10]

These include but are not limited to:
* A massive focus on improvements in energy efficiency, public transport and reduced levels of consumption within the United States (and other affluent countries);
* A rejection of industrial agribusiness and biotechnology and a return to locally adapted and community controlled diverse agricultural practices with the goal of feeding people, not automobiles, while conserving soil and water, maximizing carbon sequestration and protecting biodiversity;
* Repeal of the 36 billion gallon per year Renewable Fuel Standard biofuel target in the Energy Independence and Security Act.
* Support for indigenous land rights and community stewardship initiatives as the major focus of efforts to preserve biodiverse ecosystems and the implementation of free and prior informed consent from indigenous peoples with respect to projects proposed on their ancestral lands and territories.
* Reducing demand for forest products and aggressively protecting remaining native forests and grasslands;
* Rejection of coal and nuclear technologies, which are inherently toxic and dangerous;
* Scaling up of decentralized and unequivocally renewable and cleaner wind and solar energies;
* Leaving fossil fuels in the ground, where they cannot contribute to climate change;
* Rejection of ineffective market-based approaches that commodify the atmosphere, biodiversity, and humanity itself.

Minnesota should seek more stimulus funds creating jobs eradicating invasive species

2009-01-21T16:47:00.000-08:00

The National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) page on Invasive Species says:

Natural ecosystems are under siege by many harmful species of plants, animals and diseases. The impacts of invasive species are second only to habitat destruction as a cause of global biodiversity loss. The current environmental, economic, and health costs of invasive species could exceed $US138 billion per year, more than all other natural disasters combined.

I believe the amount of money dedicated to invasive species eradication in the Obama stimulus proposal should be doubled, as the control of invasive exotics can be considered the perfect labor-intensive, shovel-ready and otherwise buzzword-compliant
1 - 2 year job creation scheme.

Removing woody invasive plants like Common Buckthorn and Russian Olive from open spaces like St. Paul city parks, Hennepin County parks, Minnesota state parks and state forests and even private property could generate significant quantities of burnable biomass for St Paul District Energy...

Sasha Grey on Sasha Grey on Tyra Banks

2008-11-20T07:32:00.001-08:00

Here's a link to Sasha's YouTube profile.

Al Franken election results?

2008-11-18T22:45:00.000-08:00

Al Franken election results? Not until December. Secret histories of the neocons revealed? Everyday can be truth and reconciliation day... beats settling for dancing with the stars results!

Obama - Minneapolis election night parties

2008-11-04T06:36:00.000-08:00

This new blog lists a few Minneapolis, Minnesota Obama election night results watching parties. Look for posts about the context/meaning of the election and ideas for the transformation of Minnesota and America in the coming days. We become the change we need!

Dinner with Barack? $28,500. A GOP contributor running Barack's operations in MN? Priceless!

2008-10-29T12:23:00.000-07:00

From OpenSecrets.org - Center for Responsive Politics

POHLAD, CHRISTOPHER
EDINA,MN 55436 RECENT COLLEGE GRADUATE 6/30/07 $2,300 Ramstad, Jim (R)
POHLAD, CHRISTOPHER
EDINA,MN 55436 RECENT COLLEGE GRADUATE 6/30/07 $2,300 Ramstad, Jim (R)
POHLAD, CHRISTOPHER
EDINA,MN 55436 6/30/08 $-200 Obama, Barack (D)
POHLAD, CHRISTOPHER R
EDINA,MN 55436 NOT EMPLOYED/STUDENT 5/24/07 $2,300 Obama, Barack (D)
POHLAD, CHRISTOPHER R
EDINA,MN 55436 NOT EMPLOYED/STUDENT 6/16/08 $2,300 Obama, Barack (D)
POHLAD, CHRISTOPHER R
EDINA,MN 55436 NOT EMPLOYED/STUDENT 6/16/08 $2,100 Obama, Barack (D)
POHLAD, CHRISTOPHER R
EDINA,MN 55436 NOT EMPLOYED/STUDENT 5/24/07 $200 Obama, Barack (D)
POHLAD, CHRISTOPHER R
EDINA,MN 55436 NOT EMPLOYED/STUDENT 5/23/07 $200 Obama, Barack (D)
POHLAD, CHRISTOPHER R
EDINA,MN 55436 NOT EMPLOYED/STUDENT 5/24/07 $-200 Obama, Barack (D)
POHLAD, CHRISTOPHER R
EDINA,MN 55436 NOT EMPLOYED/STUDENT 6/16/08 $-2,100 Obama, Barack (D)
Pohlad, Christopher R Mr
Edina,MN 55436 Not Employed/Student 6/30/08 $28,000 DNC Services Corp (D)
POHLAD, CHRISTOPHER R MR
EDINA,MN 55436 STUDENT/STUDENT 6/6/08 $500 DNC Services Corp (D)
POHLAD, CHRISTOPHER R MR
EDINA,MN 55436

To be fair, I'll post my own OpenSecrets record:

SORENSEN, SOREN
BEMIDJI,MN 56601 10/1/07 $500 Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party (D)

1,000 Strong Against the Cake Eaters

2008-10-29T10:03:00.000-07:00

The other version w/ Tim Armstrong has Page Morgan in it, and Oakland, CA. This one's got the latex catsuit. I'll eventually write something about the SNAFUs with the cake eaters and the influx of probably well-intentioned kids from elite East Coast schools descending upon Minnesota as field organizers for the Obama campaign and failing to orient themselves to our party, our struggles, this landscape, etc.

For all of the talk about grassroots in the Obama campaign, there's been more insensible top-down direction from Chicago, from circles with too much money, and they've burned out a lot of good volunteers, shredded goodwill with thanklessness.

Hopefully, the people understand they have more riding on this election than the professional political class. Minnesotans will show up to vote with or without a functional GOTV operation. Self-organize on your block or precinct level. Plan on crashing the party on election night and at your next caucus opportunity. In Minneapolis, that's the spring of 2009.

The last weeks of a long campaign inevitably get weird

2008-10-26T12:23:00.000-07:00

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro..." -HST

Marching orders for Minneapolis

2008-10-21T10:41:00.000-07:00

If you are going to be volunteering on election day, here are your marching orders :)

apologies for militarized terms when referring to campaigns, but - our wars abroad are an extension of our politics and we need to use our political power in a very intentional way if we mean to create space for peace, diplomacy, sustainability, and human survival!

Cast an Absentee Ballot in Person:

From the Hennepin County Elections website:

You may vote by absentee ballot if:

• you are going to be absent from the precinct on election day
• illness or disability prevents your going to the polling place
• religious discipline or observance prohibits your attendance at the polling place
• you are an election judge in another precinct
<snip>

You may vote in person at the Hennepin County Government Center during normal office hours, on the Saturday before the election between 10:00 AM and 3:00 PM, or on the Monday before the election until 5:00 PM;

I bolded the line with the reasoning you should use when you cast your absentee ballot - you may be assigned to volunteer in another precinct by the political campaign, union, or non-profit you are working with.

Know your precinct polling place and your precinct's boundaries:

http://pollfinder.sos.state.mn.us - Minnesota Secretary of State's polling location finder

Hennepin County Wards and Precincts

Minneapolis Wards and Precincts

Send me an e-mail and let me know what you are doing on election day - I am curious!

impeccableliberalcredentials (at) gmail (dot) com

If you don't know what to do, but would like to help and you live in or are interested in Minneapolis Wards Ward 6 or Ward 7 - especially Whittier, Stevens Square, Loring Park and Wedge/Lowry Hill East neighborhoods - you are invited to:

"One Week Out" planning meeting and social
India House on Eat Street
1400 Nicollet Ave
Tuesday, Oct 28th from 8 PM to whenever

- maybe with a venue change at 10 PM to 'King and I', just like last time, but better!

W. Patrick Lang on Colin Powell

2008-10-19T20:33:00.000-07:00

W. Patrick Lang reminds us as to Colin Powell's real legacy:

Powell is someone who truly "blotted his copybook" as the Brits used to say. After a lifetime of service and achievement, Powell chose in the end to "drink the koolaid" that flowed in the bloodstream of the Bush/Cheney/neocon regime that has ruled the United States for the last eight years. He was Secretary of State at a time when his firm oppositon, and ultimately his resignation would have crippled the onrushing utopian crusade for Westernization in Iraq.

He did not choose to follow that path. Instead, he chose to believe the corrupted judgments of an intelligence community leadership that betrayed the country and the armed forces by producing nonsensical estimates designed to create support for war among an ignorant and bellicose public that hungered for revenge aganst an enemy they could not even define.

Today Powell is a hero creating a temporary bump in traffic and polls for Barack Obama, a hero to Democrats who are looking for justifications for their complacency.

It is time to turn off your TV and radios, stop with the silly blog posts, and use your accumulated vacation time to make sure we actually win this and that we are organizing our communities, not massaging our egos, fantasies, etc. THat we are not being massaged by media into forgetting why we became political in the first place.

It is time to end this war - a war that Colin Powell lied us into!

Into the Wild!

2008-10-10T07:26:00.000-07:00

Come join me. I have a quick errand in town, and then... Call me in the next 30 minutes if you want to come with.

Warning van is messy. A dirty van is a manifestation of a dirty mind...

I love you!

If I survive this trip soon I'll be starting a new blog, and an index/'secret decoder ring' for this one!

Wanna see Tammy Baldwin speak again?

2008-10-09T14:16:00.000-07:00

Give me a call after work and I'll pick you up, or be at the 331 Club at 6 PM and be ready to leave (Drinking Liberally). 612 559-9963.

The event is in Minnetrista, for Ashwin Madia from 6 - 8 PM and it will take awhile to get there, so we will arrive fashionably late.

Kucinich on the Bailout

2008-10-04T19:50:00.000-07:00

Representative Dennis Kucinich's speech Friday morning on the Bailout, as reported in The Nation:

We have come a great distance in seventy-five years; from the New Deal to the Raw Deal, from having nothing to fear but fear itself, to being afraid of everything. We traded democracy's warm heart containing the ideals of faith, fairness and frugality, for the greedy, cold calculations of the Dow Jones ticker. The New Deal saved free market capitalism with jobs and regulation; now both sink in the swamp of speculation, manipulation and capitulation.

The Golden Rule of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," is submerged by the rule of gold, "do unto others before they do unto you."

Some people will ask of this Congress, what were we thinking? Why did we give $700 billion bailout to Wall Street without fixing what caused the problem in the first place? Why did we rig the free markets for security fraudsters? Why didn't we explore alternatives to let Wall Street solve its own problems? Why didn't we have money save millions of homeowners, create millions of jobs, and a green economy? Why didn't we stop the speculators? Why wasn't there accountability? Why didn't we take time to make an intelligent decision?

Why? Why? Why?

Barter Town?

2008-10-02T12:26:00.000-07:00

The imagery of "Barter Town" in relationship to the fear of forecast economic collapse if we don't grant Secretary Paulson sweeping new powers and an ability to tap the public treasury for another $700+ Billion dollars caught my attention more than a week ago in a DailyKos diary by Larry Madill: ACTION REQUIRED: Executive Power Grab in Banking Bail Out Bill, in one of the most enticing above-the-cut lead-ins:

If you care to check my posting and comment history you will see that I have been totally in favor of a bail out rescue plan for our financial markets. I've said and will continue to say that it is a necessary evil to keep the U.S. from collapsing into a Second Depression. Sorry, I don't see pie in the blue sky alternative proposals like the government paying off everyone's mortgages as viable, nor do I think we should let the economy collapse in a heap to punish the rich (who never get punished) and then go off to live in a Barter Town world were we all grow corn on the roof. The U.S. definitely needs to do something fast to stop the erosion of the financial markets.

BUT, as NPR's Adam Davidson points out in his new Planet Money Blog, this bill also appears to constitute the greatest transfer of political power from the Congressional to the Executives Branches ... Possibly ever.

I don't fear barter town, and yet I am not a serious proponent of it. I think our economic uncertainty could be dealt with by real leadership but the party in power wants to milk our fears for a last attempt to bankrupt civil society. I find it somewhat hilarious, but even more sad, that so many Americans are reacting to the fear of an economic meltdown as if were a threat to their physical being. Hopefully that physical fear will result in a new consciousness of the physical economy, and less reliance on hope, magical thinking, and blind trust placed on economic advisers, retirement planners, marketers of financial abstractions like derivatives and hedge funds.

Absent real leadership, we had better prepare for Barter Town, because it is coming sooner or later.

I have seen Barter Town, and been prepared for it most of my life. My father survived growing up in the Great Depression and wandering in the Himalayan foothills of Burma after his plane went down in WWII, and he passed on some knowledge that was the fruit of his experience in times and places where self-sufficiency or affability/social graces were the difference between real survival and real death. I saw various degrees of Barter town after the Asian Economic Crisis in 1997-1998 and again after the tsunami, in Aceh. I have seen currency lose and regain all value, and the value of gasoline exceed the value of human life. No, I don't propose we seek barter town to punish the rich and the profligate risk takers in the big banks and insurance firms. I do propose that if we increase the public debt by another $700 Billion to $1 trillion we do it by spending on real physical infrastructure, creating green jobs and energy independence, a distributed and resilient power grid that will not be metered by the literal or philosophical descendants of T. Boone Pickens, Richard Cheney, or that madman in "There Will Be Blood" (I drink your milkshake!)

Alternative Viewpoint: What are we waiting for?

2008-10-02T10:58:00.000-07:00

Hello, blogosphere, my name is Susan and I recently met Soren at a fundraising event for Congressman Keith Ellison, one of the "Yes" votes for the Economic Rescue Package voted down in the house earlier this week. I just had a somewhat heated discussion with Soren in which he asserted that an economic meltdown is just what this country needs to snap us out of our current consumerist-driven catatonic state. I thought this somewhat callous and so I am posting this response in Soren's blog space, which he has generously agreed to share with me for the purpose.

I have read Congressman Ellison's defense of his vote on the "Bailout" package (don't think that the irony inherent in the extreme right and extreme left using the same loaded terminology to describe this measure is lost on me) and have accepted his vote as one of good faith, reflecting his understanding of the current economic situation, however flawed that may be, which I share. His stance was published in the Star Tribune Op Ed section, and can be read here: Keith Ellison's OpEd on the Bailout Package

There are several other Op-Ed columns in the Star Trib saying essentially the same thing: the bailout package, while far from ideal, was a good short-term measure to prevent economic collapse, despite being so unpalatable and so unpopular (I think the numbers showed a 75% disapproval rating from the voters). Ellison's vote and subsequent defense of it could be interpreted as an act of moral courage if it weren't so deplored by those on the left, right and center of the political spectrum. I would argue that if one were to look at this issue with a critical rather than a reactive and fearful eye the rescue package would seem less abominable. Indeed, it is nothing more or less than triage to a system that has been allowed to weaken as its regulations decay.

Soren has asserted that the whole damn system is a reflection of a perverted collective imagination, a fever-dream that has no real manifestation in reality. I again would counter with the reflection that people's homes, jobs and financial well-being, while perhaps not necessary for their survival (homeless people somehow manage to stay alive, after all) are nonetheless not something that should be discounted as frivolities that distract us on our path to Nirvana. People come home from work where they have spent all day earning "imaginary" money to pay their "fictional" mortgage so that their bosses portfolios gain a couple of points of "fabricated" value; people's lives revolve around the "lie" that is our collective economy but that does not mean that the economy does not affect people's health and well-being.

Mainstream society is against any sort of tax money going to protect the interests of Wall Street on principal because they have taken up the cry of both the right and the left: don't use our hard-earned tax money to interfere with the market just so that the very rich get off scott-free for screwing us over. In principal, I would have to agree but what mainstream society doesn't understand is that their day-to-day life is reliant upon the financial solvency of these banking Goliaths and however satisfying it would be to see them fall, they take us with them when they do. Soren may be looking forward to Bartertown but middle America sure as hell isn't.

Feingold voted against the bailout

2008-10-02T10:12:00.000-07:00

Senator Feingold on his no vote for the Bailout Bill:

I will oppose the Wall Street bailout plan because though well intentioned, and certainly much improved over the administration’s original proposal, it remains deeply flawed. It fails to offset the cost of the plan, leaving taxpayers to bear the burden of serious lapses of judgment by private financial institutions, their regulators, and the enablers in Washington who paved the way for this catastrophe by removing the safeguards that had protected consumers and the economy since the great depression. The bailout legislation also fails to reform the flawed regulatory structure that permitted this crisis to arise in the first place. And it doesn’t do enough to address the root cause of the credit market collapse, namely the housing crisis. Taxpayers deserve a plan that puts their concerns ahead of those who got us into this mess.

The Senate passed the bill and it is time to call your member of the U.S. House of Representatives and urge them not to bail out Wall Street speculators, but to genuinely stimulate the physical economy by investing in a new, green economy that will create jobs in the rust belt, in rural America, and end the round-trip trading schemes of the Enron failures that Wall Street foists on us year after year.

David Swanson on AfterDowning Street encourages you to call today: SAY NO AT 202-224-3121

Senator Bernie Sanders on the bailout

2008-09-21T08:24:00.000-07:00

Excerpt reposted from the website of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders - Op-Ed: Billions for Bailouts! Who Pays? -- 09/19/2008:

While the middle class collapses, the richest people in this country have made out like bandits and have not had it so good since the 1920s. The top 0.1 percent now earn more money than the bottom 50 percent of Americans, and the top 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. The wealthiest 400 people in our country saw their wealth increase by $670 billion while Bush has been president. In the midst of all of this, Bush lowered taxes on the very rich so that they are paying lower income tax rates than teachers, police officers or nurses.

Now, having mismanaged the economy for eight years as well as having lied about our situation by continually insisting, “The fundamentals of our economy are strong,” the Bush administration, six weeks before an election, wants the middle class of this country to spend many hundreds of billions on a bailout. The wealthiest people, who have benefited from Bush’s policies and are in the best position to pay, are being asked for no sacrifice at all. This is absurd. This is the most extreme example that I can recall of socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor.

In my view, we need to go forward in addressing this financial crisis by insisting on four basic principles:

(1) The people who can best afford to pay and the people who have benefited most from Bush’s economic policies are the people who should provide the funds for the bailout. It would be immoral to ask the middle class, the people whose standard of living has declined under Bush, to pay for this bailout while the rich, once again, avoid their responsibilities. Further, if the government is going to save companies from bankruptcy, the taxpayers of this country should be rewarded for assuming the risk by sharing in the gains that result from this government bailout.

Specifically, to pay for the bailout, which is estimated to cost up to $1 trillion, the government should:

a) Impose a five-year, 10 percent surtax on income over $1 million a year for couples and over $500,000 for single taxpayers. That would raise more than $300 billion in revenue;

b) Ensure that assets purchased from banks are realistically discounted so companies are not rewarded for their risky behavior and taxpayers can recover the amount they paid for them; and

c) Require that taxpayers receive equity stakes in the bailed-out companies so that the assumption of risk is rewarded when companies’ stock goes up.

(2) There must be a major economic recovery package which puts Americans to work at decent wages. Among many other areas, we can create millions of jobs rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and moving our country from fossil fuels to energy efficiency and sustainable energy. Further, we must protect working families from the difficult times they are experiencing. We must ensure that every child has health insurance and that every American has access to quality health and dental care, that families can send their children to college, that seniors are not allowed to go without heat in the winter, and that no American goes to bed hungry.

(3) Legislation must be passed which undoes the damage caused by excessive de-regulation. That means reinstalling the regulatory firewalls that were ripped down in 1999. That means re-regulating the energy markets so that we never again see the rampant speculation in oil that helped drive up prices. That means regulating or abolishing various financial instruments that have created the enormous shadow banking system that is at the heart of the collapse of AIG and the financial services meltdown.

(4) We must end the danger posed by companies that are “too big too fail,” that is, companies whose failure would cause systemic harm to the U.S. economy. If a company is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. We need to determine which companies fall in this category and then break them up. Right now, for example, the Bank of America, the nation’s largest depository institution, has absorbed Countrywide, the nation’s largest mortgage lender, and Merrill Lynch, the nation’s largest brokerage house. We should not be trying to solve the current financial crisis by creating even larger, more powerful institutions. Their failure could cause even more harm to the entire economy.

Rachel Maddow on Drill Baby Drill

2008-09-17T06:52:00.000-07:00

Rachel Maddow vs. Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) on the Democratic bill that expands offshore petroleum exploration...

Drill Now or Impeach Now?

2008-09-15T08:43:00.000-07:00

A diary on Daily Kos by Meteor Blades discusses the Energy Plans to be considered by Congress in the coming days. A key piece of of information:

An unknown number of Republicans don't think even the House compromise package goes far enough on drilling. They would prefer to let the 27-year-old moratorium on most off-shore drilling expire on September 30. If it does, oil and gas drilling could theoretically occur as close as three miles off shore anywhere companies are willing to bid on a federal lease.

There is infinite opportunity for theater here where no resolution gives the Big Oil servants in Congress everything they want - an end to the off-shore drilling moratorium and no requirement to invest new federal oil revenue into renewable energy.

As soon as it becomes clear that this is their goal and the faux drama of the "Rebel Congress" seeking votes on energy plans hits peak pitch, maybe we should change the subject and quickly impeach somebody.

If you missed it, here is a fragment from the Washington Post article on the sex and drugs scandal in George W. Bush's Department of the Interior:

The report from Inspector General Earl E. Devaney contains fresh allegations about the practices at the beleaguered royalty-in-kind program of Interior's Minerals Management Service, which last year collected more than $4 billion worth of oil and natural gas from companies given contracts to tap energy on federal and Indian lands and offshore. The revelations come as Congress is set to consider opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and areas off the coast of Florida for drilling.

The royalty-in-kind program, based near Denver, allows energy companies to pay the government in oil and gas, rather than cash, for the privilege of drilling on government land. It has been the subject of multiple investigations since 2006 by the Interior Department's secretary, its inspector general, the Justice Department and Congress for alleged mismanagement and conflicts of interest.

In the report released yesterday, investigators said they "discovered a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" in which employees accepted gratuities "with prodigious frequency." The report cited one e-mail from a Shell Pipeline representative asking a woman in the royalty office to attend "tailgating festivities" at a Houston Texans football game: "You're invited . . . have you and the girls meet at my place at 6am for bubble baths and final prep. Just kidding."

Besides Shell, the energy company employees mentioned in the report worked for Chevron, Hess and Gary-Williams Energy. The social outings detailed in the report included alcohol-, cocaine- and marijuana-filled parties where certain employees of the Minerals Management Service were nicknamed the "MMS Chicks" by the energy employees. The companies paid for federal workers to attend football and baseball games, PGA Tour events, Colorado ski trips, paintball outings and "treasure hunts," investigators found.

Democrats who have opposed expanded drilling seized on the report as fodder for the debate. "This all shows the oil industry holds shocking sway over the administration and even key federal employees," said Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who supports more exploration offshore but not in Alaska. "This is why we must not allow Big Oil's agenda to be jammed through Congress."

We need to conserve energy, not expand drilling and deepen our dependence on petroleum. We also need an impeachment inquiry!

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RNC protest poetry

2008-09-10T13:05:00.000-07:00

I mentioned this in a previous post about the Coldsnap Cabaret benefit for RNC arrestee legal defense

Ruth's poem:

I've been looking for a cause
in strangers' bedrooms
the backrooms of dimly lit bars
and at every bus stop between here and the Mall of America

so far I've only found hoarse voices scratching at daylight
a few dirty coins
and my own broken heart

I've never been much of an activist
primarily believing in getting enough rest
and eating healthy
because even I know you can't fight if you're tired and hungry

So I've watched the events of this week with a lot of curiosity
I stayed up past 11
I started smoking again

It all began for me when I meant to go to a party last Friday night
and ended up outside this building
trying to avoid the glare of cameras and the gaze of the police line
and watching as much of the story as possible
emanate from the faces of people who hoped their country was better than this
hoped, but knowing better as
we watched the state's true colors surface

I went home and fell asleep reading what only can be described as chick lit
the kind of book where no one puts a gun in the face of a five year old
I ended up dreaming of shots fired
even though we had heard none
because we all know what sound a weapon makes
when it is only drawn

I felt edgy all weekend in a way I never had before
that kind of feeling when every layer of skin is screaming
something here is wrong

so I marched
and I chanted
and I started to believe that when we said
whose streets
our streets
that it included me

And then, the shit really started going down

and I thought
these protesters don't look like heroes
they just look like roadkill
the riot police don't look like they're protecting anyone
they just look like robots

what is the point of this?

because despite everything I do not believe that people are bad
or that ideas are bad
I believe it is actions that make us evil

but if you put a gun in the face of a child
you might as well put a gun in his hand
and you don't get to choose whose side he's on

I feel like I've got to choose whose side I'm on
and the police made it easier when they surrounded me in full riot gear
while I was riding my pink bicycle
First, they called me a liar
then they ran my I.D
looking me up and down like I'm some threat to national security
while they were the ones hiding in the bushes

No justice
No peace
whose streets...?

I wondered standing on the curb with a cigarette
watching yesterdays crowd become surrounded
while so many voices point out that this doesn't look like America
say they didn't think they'd ever see this our city
and the real cynics reply
get used it

I smash my smoke on the street like it's the state
wondering if the cops will turn their attention on me for littering
but the way things are looking
it doesn't matter
they are thinking
what's one more cigarette butt in the gutter
while in some countries they fill mass graves
like a chain smoker fills ashtrays

I'm trying not to make things worse

Some day, that will be us

and if you can believe it, I'm still not sure if I'm an activist

because I've been around enough to know that being secretly in love with an anarchist
does not make you one

still, I've narrowed down some causes that I think I could get behind
like picking up every penny i see on the ground until they're worth something and then taking us all out to dinner

my cause is to show up to work on time and sober
so i can teach little kids how to treat each other better

my cause is to take responsibility for every different place i wake up in
and to not keep love like a secret

my cause is to be honest about how these things do not necessarily constitute direct action or result in real change

but my cause is believe that these are direct action and real change

my cause is to keep one foot in reality while the power structure attempts destroy it
to keep my other foot
in the street.

If you cannot cross the border - stick around, overthrow the New World Order

2008-09-06T22:54:00.000-07:00

Friday night I attended the Coldsnap Cabaret Benefit for RNC Arrestees, which was billed as "Fabulous, sexy, and still family-friendly!". It was the first time I visited the Convergence Space, a site raided by Ramsey Co. Sheriff Bob Fletcher on Friday August 29th, and it was the most wonderful night of theatrical and musical entertainment I have experienced in a long time. It reminded me a lot of who I am and who I used to be. I wished from the moment the show began that I had someone to share it with - someone who once appreciated how I appear to be larger than life, someone I sat through so many lesser political events with, someone I wanted to tell my whole story to - someone I imagine needed to hear the call of the opening act, sung by a 7 year old named Nara:

What good is sitting alone in your room?
Come hear the music play.
Life is a Cabaret, old chum,
Come to the Cabaret.

Put down the knitting,
The book and the broom.
Time for a holiday.
Life is Cabaret, old chum,
Come to the Cabaret.

Come taste the wine,
Come hear the band.
Come blow your horn,
Start celebrating;
Right this way,
Your table's waiting

The event was MC'ed by a beautiful, bearded lady named "Jessie Sparkles", a lady Jesus in a tiara and combat boots, which seemed cosmically significant to me because the person I miss so much today is the person I have mythologized as "Lady Jesus" in part because of her name. I could have fallen in love with Jessie Sparkles though, or did for the rest of that evening.

A 70 year old poet named "Diamond Dave" followed, then an amazing poet by the name of Ruth Kohtz (the blond in the pic in this page), whose lines included:

looking for a cause in others' bedrooms...
I stayed up past eleven, I started smoking.

I am still not sure I am an activist, because I know being secretly in love with an anarchist does not make you one...

my cause is showing up to work sober

Stop being secretly in love! Seriously! Life is too short. If you still love me, call!

The Dapper Cadavers played an old Townes Van Zandt tune:

At some point Jessie Sparkles told a joke:

Why do anarchists drink only herbal tea?

Because property is theft!

And then Fanny Smack of Bench Press Burlesque performed a misfit striptease, waking up to an alarm clock ringing, slipping out of sweet pajamas and getting dressed up into a full black bicycle punk/anarchist uniform complete with petzl headlamp, while punctuating her progress with stockings and zippers with poses and pouts, then finally dancing about the room brandishing the components of a molotov cocktail. Before the RNC I would have found this alarming, an incitement to riot, afterwards, it seemed more like good natured satire of the media treatment and pervasive, out of control rumors.

An aging Vegas Showgirl performed hits from the DNC related anarchist gatherings, including a piece with a line that hits too close to home:

"If you cannot cross the border - stick around, overthrow the New World Order"

And the Nancy Drew Crew finished with one bad song I have heard on the Current, and one I hadn't heard but really liked, College, Inc. Education should be free!

The fundraiser raise more than $534 for Coldsnap Legal Collective and their work on behalf of the RNC arrestees. If you were arrested, contact them and attend one of their arrestee meetings. If you took photos or videos of the protests, Coldsnap lawyers may need them. There is another fundraiser at the Convergence Space tonight (Sunday, September 7th) a dinner for $10-15.

Dan Rather on the need for independent media

2008-09-06T21:09:00.000-07:00

...so-called "political debates" where the one thing that is sure not to happen is genuine debates, and where the questions that the public really cares about seldom if ever seem to get asked...

...international coverage that leaves the American public ignorant of the world outside our borders, unaware of its complexities and the ways that U.S. interests are bound with those of other nations - does the American news audience know, for one example - that the concern among foreign policy elites in this country over the situation in Georgia has everything to do with major gas and oil pipelines constructed there with U.S. backing against Russian protests?

Idaho RNC delegates against the war

2008-09-06T20:19:00.000-07:00

Montage

2008-09-05T11:05:00.000-07:00

The hours approaching, to give it your best
You've got to reach your prime.
That’s when you need to put yourself to the test
And show us a passage of time
Were going to need a montage (montage)
Ooh it takes a montage (montage)

Sure a lot of things happing at once,
Remind everyone what’s going on (what’s going on)
And when every shot you show a little improvement
Just show it all or it will take to long
That’s called a montage (montage)
Ooh we want montage (montage)

And anything that we want to know
From just a beginner to a pro,
You want a montage (montage)
Even rocky had a montage (montage)

(Montage...montage)

Anything that we want to know
From just a beginner to a pro,
You need a montage (montage)
Ooh it takes a montage (montage)

Always fade out in a montage,
If you fade out
It seem like more time has passed in a montage
Montage

Sarah Palin's RNC Speech - Hottest VP?

2008-09-03T20:26:00.000-07:00

Republicans seem pretty excited about Sarah Palin - she's hot. "Hottest VP" read the button worn over the heart of one RNC delegate. Poor bastards - the GOP falls in line, not in love, and the delegates have all been told to stay away from the strip clubs, despite the revelations of last night's speech (that McCain drove a corvette and dated an exotic dancer), RNC delegates have been instructed to stay away from Schiek's Palace Royal and other fine Minneapolis/St. Paul strip clubs.

Abby - dancing tomorrow afternoon - Abby is hot. Sarah Palin? Not so much!

If you are in Minneapolis/St. Paul tomorrow I'll meet you for lunch at Schiek's and we'll see some truly hot women.

I dropped in there today to see if the RNC brought the business it seemed to promise, or as reported by PoliticalPartyTime.org the GOP Party is once again at the Minneapolis Airport. I would think after the Larry Craig incident they'd avoid that venue, and purposefully make appearance in macho, hetero, stripper-packed venues with modestly priced lunch specials. The RNC in MSP has not been a river to my people.

I'd love tickets to the Google party tomorrow night... leave your extras at the counter at Schiek's for me, if you don't see me there with the hot, half Native girl, giving me Eskimo kisses and breathing my coffee breath.

The disappearer?

2008-08-31T10:24:00.000-07:00

A wistful, hopeful, peaceful insurgency. We await a new, more civilized century... rootlessness and mobility have an accidental power that compensates for the geographical hierarchies underrepresentation of nomadic people, young people, crowds.

Dennis Kucinich at the DNC

2008-08-26T22:00:00.000-07:00

MN State Fair

2008-08-21T08:10:00.000-07:00

I will be at the MN State Fair for sure on the 24th and the 25th.

Last year my focus on the fair and getting out the message about impeachment (H. Res. 333) screwed up something really important, and I am sorry. I pray often for reconciliation.

Here are a few pics from last year's State Fair:

I'd like a second chance...

2008-08-18T00:54:00.000-07:00

I'd like a second chance. I am where I said I am, and I'll be here until November, doing the obvious things, trying to be of service. I am sorry for not seeming practical, for not radiating security, for being insecure and uncertain about my choice. Now, if it were my choice, I would choose you. It's your choice, now.

I don't have to be a snake charmer.

We can choose our own dreams.

Sasha Grey

2008-08-09T21:24:00.000-07:00

Edwards admits Rielle Hunter affair

2008-08-08T14:25:00.000-07:00

John Edwards, former Democratic Presidential contender, candidate for Vice President, and Senator from North Carolina has finally admitted to the affair with Rielle Hunter. Prominent liberal bloggers on DailyKos are now outraged. In December, Kos commentators on my diary, John Edwards real problem is not Rielle Hunter, but John Edwards, wanted me to take my diary down. I was right, they were wrong. I really don't frequent DailyKos anymore :)

What's more relevant than today's admission by Edwards, is the fact that another former Presidential candidate, Representative Kucinich, persists with his efforts to impeach Bush and/or Cheney for the criminal acts and intents that lead to the invasion and occupation of Iraq:

Progressives should have stood behind the one consistent champion of proposals like national single-payer health care (H.R. 676), the one candidate that actually voted against the Oct. 2002 Authorization for the Use of Military Force in Iraq, etc.

Also in todays news - Russia has reportedly invaded the Republic of Georgia. Going forward into the Obama vs. McCain decision in November, the candidates' positions on conflicts in Caucasus region matter more than the Edwards affair.

Today is the Feast of St. Dominic, founder of the Dominican Order - the Mendicant Order of Preachers. Pray for courage to speak for the peace promised by Christ with the same dedication as this beggar!

You worry too much!

2008-08-04T12:57:00.000-07:00

Tammy Baldwin on the need for impeachment proceedings

2008-07-25T18:37:00.000-07:00

Representative Tammy Baldwin on the need for impeachment proceedings:

"I now firmly believe that impeachment hearings are the appropriate and necessary next step"

I saw Tammy Baldwin speak at the Allan Spear lecture at the University of Minnesota last fall. The speech that she gave had the theme "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice" and while the talk was not about impeachment, we chatted about it afterwards :)

Starbucks - Union Forms at Mall of America (from an e-mail)

2008-07-21T08:49:00.000-07:00

Today at 10am, baristas at the Mall of America I Starbucks donned red-and-black union pins and walked off the floor to present their manager with a demand letter. They announced their affiliation with the Starbucks Workers Union, a campaign of the Industrial Workers of the World.

This is the first of many actions that have taken place in Starbucks stores around the city over the past few years of internal organizing, and the first action as a public union campaign. Exiting, yes! and we are asking for your support.

Welcome to the IWW's New Labor Solidarity List for the Starbucks Union Campaign. This list will be used to ask for your participation in this worker-driven campaign, and we are grateful for your support. Learn more about this campaign below!

Want to help?

* Join our solidarity committee and be one of the people planning out the support strategy for this campaign in partnership with those who work at Starbucks. Contact tcsbuxunion@gmail.com or call 612-245-4871 to get involved!
* Come to the press conference tomorrow at noon at the Mall of America's Northside Parking Lot and show your support for your fellow workers (press release attached).
* Stay on this email list and help out as you can with upcoming actions, by talking to your friends and co-workers, participating in actions of various kinds, or sending us your advice or support

Now back to the action…

The baristas demanded an option to transfer to other stores and a fair severance package for affected workers. Starbucks reportedly plans to give workers just one month notice before laying them off with a paltry two weeks' pay. The company will insist that some baristas transfer and will revoke severance pay if transfer offers are refused.

The protesting baristas are members of the Starbucks Workers Union, which is a campaign of the Industrial Workers of the World labor union. Starbucks previously backtracked on its refusal to disclose which locations would be shuttered after the union and others condemned the company for leaving workers in a nerve-wracking limbo.

The store action makes the Mall of America location the first Starbucks in Minnesota, and the first store in the Mall of America, to have a public union presence.

Erik Forman, a barista at the store recently fired for union activity, said, "With the skyrocketing cost of living, workers have no other choice than to stand up for improvements on the job. The alternative is a continued decline into poverty and a degraded quality of life for working families. But this doesn't have to happen. Our message is hope- even at Starbucks in the Mall of America, we can organize and fight!"

While portraying itself as a 'socially-responsible' employer, Starbucks pays baristas a poverty wage of $7.60/hr. In addition, all retail hourly workers at Starbucks in the United States are part-time employees with no guaranteed number of work hours per week. According to Starbucks figures released to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 40.9% of its employees (including managers) are covered by the company health care package, a lower percentage than the oft-criticized Wal-Mart, which insures 47% of its workforce.

Since the launch of the IWW campaign at Starbucks on May 17, 2004, the company has been cited multiple times for illegal union-busting by the National Labor Relations Board. The company settled two complaints against it and is awaiting a decision by a judge in New York on more than 30 additional rights' violations. Starbucks' large anti-union operation is operated in conjunction with the Akin Gump law firm and the Edelman public relations firm.
.
The IWW Starbucks Workers Union is a grassroots organization of over 200 current and former employees at the world's largest coffee chain united for secure work hours and a living wage. The union has members throughout the United States fighting for systemic change at the company and remedying individual grievances with management. The SWU has been especially active in New York City, Chicago, and Grand Rapids.

Union baristas, bussers, and shift supervisors have fought successfully toward improved scheduling and staffing levels, increased wages, and workplace safety. Workers who join the union have immediate access to co-workers and members of the community who will struggle with them for a better life on the job.

Thanks again for your support! We look forward to this and future struggles in the days to come,

Erik Forman, Jake Bell and the Starbucks Workers Organizing Committee
(and Brendan Rogers, David Boehnke, and the Twin Cities General Membership Branch of the IWW).

www.StarbucksUnion.org

Ting-a-ling!

2008-07-21T06:45:00.000-07:00

By chance, I had the opportunity to read Kurt Vonnegut's Timequake this last weekend, but I don't have the book handy as I write this. I took some notes but did not write down anything of the fairly insightful conclusion, which seems to leave us where Eckhart Tolle also leaves us - that fundamentally we are awareness masquerading as human beings.

In the book Vonnegut mourns his wife, Jane, his dying brother, the death of the short story, of words written in black ink on flattened wood pulp. He admits he writes so well because he suffers from mono-polar depression. He champions humanism, celebrates the luxury of skepticism about religion while respecting the necessary comfort it provides to so many people. At one point the book becomes a meditation on holding self-respect together.

I bothered to write down a few passages:

Many years earlier, so long ago that I was a student at the University of Chicago, I had a conversation with my thesis advisor about the arts in general. At that time, I had no idea that I personally would go into any sort of art.

He said, "You know what artists are?"

I didn't.

"Artists," he said, "are people who say, 'I can't fix my country or my state or my city, or even my marriage. But by golly, I can make this square of canvas, or this eight-and-a-half-by-eleven piece of paper, or this lump of clay, or these twelve bars of music, exactly what they ought to be!'"

Perhaps I fail to create great art because I operate under the possibly delusional mindset that we can fix our state and our city.

Also:

My first wife Jane and my sister Allie had mothers who went nuts from time to time. Jane and Allie were graduates of Tudor Hall and had once been two of the prettiest, merriest girls at the Woodstock Golf and Country Club. All male writers, incidentally, no matter how broke or otherwise objectionable, have pretty wives. Somebody should look into this.

That is enough to inspire me to conquer my writer's block! I have to capture a pretty wife with my charming words before writing becomes completely irrelevent, and reading is a lost art practiced only by legal clerks and prisoners.

Quoting and commenting about Eugene Debs:

"While there is a lower class I am in it, while there is a criminal element I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free"

In recent years, I have found it prudent to say before quoting Debs that he has to be taken seriously...

it is a sign of these times that such a moving echo of the Sermon on the Mount can be perceived as outdated, wholly discredited horsecrap.

Which it is not!

Some of Timequake is not of this literal, autobiographical and confessional nature. There is this sort of building energy towards a meeting with his fictional, short story writing alter ego, Kilgore Trout. After years of obscurity, after compulsively writing and binning hundreds of short stories while living as a vagabond (and looking like a bag lady), Kilgore finds himself in the unique position of being the only human being who understands that he has free will. Unable to convey the message using that term, he invents a story of a nerve gas attack that has left the world in a form of psychosis instead of the paralysis he knows to be Post Timequake Apathy.

He gives us a new mantra, that becomes known as Kilgore's Creed:

"You were sick, but now you are well, and there is work to do"

Truly, we live in a time "years after free will has ceased to be a novelty." The implication of free will, that we are made in God's image and likeness, co-creating reality and capable of mastering our destiny, if we can just get out of this post-modern malaise, away from the TV sets that have killed the advertising revenue that once made writing in print a respectable profession and not an eccentric, obsessive compulsive disorder...

Maybe we could write for ourselves a new code that doesn't lead inexorably towards ultimate extinction. Maybe we could avoid the fate Vonnegut warns about in his last printed words:

When the last living thing
Has died on account of us,
How poetical it would be
If Earth could say,
In a voice floating up
Perhaps
From the floor
Of the Grand Canyon,
"It is done."
People did not like it here.

I like it here. I used to love it, grew up in the woods. I once had a dream that said, "Those who have been initiated know - God exploded in the woods". I think that is true. God had an inordinate fondness for beetles. I have had the luxury of studying biodiversity - bees and wasps and ants, flowering plants, molluscs. I knew my best chance for transmitting this wonder was to embed it in porn, to make hybrid nature documentaries that seamlessly interweave with naughty frolicking in the landscape. I hope there is still time to make a proper record of who we were and what we destroyed.

Vonnegut, and Kilgore Trout, came close.

Going On

2008-07-05T22:16:00.000-07:00

The Alchemist, p. 121-124:

Fatima appeared at the entrance of the tent. The two walked out among the date palms. The boy knew that it was a violation of the Tradition, but that didn't matter to him now.

"I am going away," he said. "And I want you to know that I'm coming back. I love you because..."

"Don't say anything," Fatima interrupted. "One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving."

But the boy continued, "I had a dream, and I met with a king. I sold crystal and I crossed the desert. And because the tribes declared war, I went to the well, seeking the alchemist. So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you."

The two embraced. It was the first time either had touched the other.

"I'll be back," the boy said.

"Before this, I always looked to the desert with longing," said Fatima. "Now it will be with hope. My father went away one day, but returned to my mother, and he has always come back since then."

They said nothing else. They walked a bit further among the palms, then the boy left her at the entrance to her tent.

"I'll return, just as your father came back to your mother," he said.

He saw that Fatima's eyes were filled with tears.

"You're crying?"

"I am a woman of the desert," she said, averting her face. "But above all, I'm a woman."

Fatima went back to her tent, and, when daylight came, she went out to do the chores she had done for years. But everything had changed. The boy was no longer at the oasis, and the oasis would never again have the same meaning it had only yesterday. It would no longer be a place with fifty thousand date palms and three hundred wells, where the pilgrims arrived, relieved at the end of their long journeys. From that day on, the oasis would be an empty place for her.

From that day on, it was the desert that would be important. She would look to it every day and would try to guess which star the boy was following in search of his treasure. She would have to send her kisses on the wind, hoping that the wind would touch the boy's face, and would tell him that she was alive. That she was waiting for him, a woman awaiting a courageous man in search of his treasure. From that day on, the desert would represent only one thing to her: the hope for his return.

* * *

"Don't think about what you've left behind," the alchemist said to the boy as they began to ride across the sands of the desert. "Everything is written in the Soul of the World, and there it will stay forever."

"Men dream more about coming home than leaving," the boy said. He was already reaccustomed to the desert's silence.

"If what one finds is made of pure matter, it will never spoil. And one can always come back. If what you had found was only a moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you would find nothing on your return."

The man was speaking the language of alchemy. But the boy knew that he was referring to Fatima.

30 Days of Sobriety

2008-06-22T07:51:00.000-07:00

I have thirty days of sobriety today. I am grateful for this opportunity to remake my life and to experience wonder, magic and goodness again. My higher power and I are on speaking and listening terms again and I am not so willful and committed to specific outcomes in life, but finding the courage and sense of self required to start planning and dreaming and to do good where I can for others.

I hope to have the time and courage to write down the best of what I have discovered, but it is so comforting to just live, pray, meditate and read.

I have a great new group of friends who are committed to the same spiritual journey, but I am still able to go out into the madness that is a Minneapolis midsummer night and dance like I want to and not risk a DUI or spending too much money on booze.

Headed to the Basilica for mass and an ice cream social...

Detachment

2008-06-13T05:51:00.000-07:00

I had the first waking impression of a dream that I can remember for more than a week this morning... drying concrete forms protected under blue plastic tarpaulins from the rain during the night.

Sleep came last night and gave me peace for a time from this strange energy that is welling up inside of me. Today is the twenty first day without any alcohol or sexual release, and by and large I think I am handling it well, but the meditations I have done are not skillful, I will need some training in pratyahara and better mantras. I got into a very deep and calm place yesterday evening using a long, English language mantra that helped me early this year, "There is nothing I have to do, there is nothing I have to have, there is nothing I have to be, other than what I am being right now"

Swami Rami's excellent book "Om, the eternal witness" is helping me hold on to the detachment that has arisen in me after my long period of grief, and is a great companion to the Eckhart Tolle and Thomas Keating I have been reading. I'll eventually write more about these books and my new vantage point on reality, but I don't want to delve into any memories or reports (of the the state convention, etc.) since I am trying to stay focused in the present moment.

Here is a snippent from Swami Rama:

Ultimate enjoyment for most human beings is sleep. But the yogis say that sleep is not the ultimate enjoyment. When a fool goes to sleep he wakes up as a fool, there is no change in him. There is no transformation. This is not the case with Turiya. If a fool, by chance, goes to Turiya, he will emerge as a sage. By chance, Saul came in touch with that great inner power and his whole life was transformed; he became St. Paul. Valmiki was a notorious robber who used to rob everyone, even swamis and sadhus. When he came in touch with that great power, Turiya, his whole life was completely tranformed. Some sudden grief, some accident, some loss in life, may allow you to come in touch with that inner power. When you lose someone who is very dear to you, you become disillusioned with this world. You wonder, "Is this what I was expecting from the world?" You become completely detached from the whole world, because till then you had never realized the meaning of life on this worldly stage. By the time you have cried your heart out, by the time you have buried that person, you will have become like a sage. But when you return home, you think, "I have to do this, I have to do that" and you lose that detachment. If at that particular moment when you had genuine detachment, vairagya, you had resolved to yourself, "I want to search for truth, for reality; I realize that this is false," perhaps that moment would have lead you to the highest wisdom

Heading to Rochester today

2008-06-06T05:50:00.000-07:00

I am heading to Rochester today for the DFL State Convention. This is going to be fun!

This is also where my political obligations end. I had planned, early this year, to go this far and no further, and make being a better life partner for some girl my plan after that, and maybe to find a way to take her to Indonesia to witness my project there. While it sucks that she's not around anymore, the heartbreak has caused a major spiritual reawakening for me, and I am inspired to become more of the things I admired in her (but had a sort of rebellious adolescent contempt for most of my life).

Instead of focusing on the big desperate situations of this world, I have spent the last two weeks focusing on staying sober, perfecting my art in preparing steel cut oats in the morning, making my bed each morning and doing laundry when I need to. My sponsor has given me this list of twelve things to do each day and wearing all clean clothes each morning is required - no more bachelor sniff test!

This summer I expect to get more writing done, expect better blog posts from me as I get more comfortable and organized in my new living situation, but also know that I will be writing something serious for the market.

This weekend though is more manic follow through on my previous efforts to end the war by promoting the agenda of Congressman Kucinich and promoting broader public participation in the caucus and convention process.

Gratitude

2008-06-03T20:40:00.000-07:00

I am grateful for the experiences I have been having lately... they are too profound to relate in a quick blog post, but I have been praying a lot, doing a lot of yoga, eating well and I have been sober for 11 days. I have made an apology for my selfishness to one girlfriend, telephonically, and it was well received. I am often able to forgive myself, if only temporarily, for my shortcomings. I have been able to turn things over to a Higher Power and have received at least temporary relief from passions that have consumed me.

I pray that I will be able to become the man you have all needed me to be. A good life partner for the one woman that the Higher Power might intend for me. That I may become a person of greater moral integrity and greater courage. A river to my people.

I spent today with another old girlfriend, walking around a suburban lake, talking about our broken hearts, failed relationships, Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body, sobriety. I have known her for fifteen or sixteen years, lots of phases, lots of cities. Like me, she remains very much in love with someone who isn't there for her, and had spent a couple days drinking after what looks like a pretty permanent breakup. I tried to listen to her unselfishly, in part because she was able to listen to me a little when my big heartbreak was fresh, in part because the discipline I have undertaken requires service to others, that my survival depends now on an ability to get outside myself to help others. Hours passed and the anguish melted away from her face. We drank dandelion tea. She gave me some great essential oils. I am hoping I have someone to hangout with and pray with that there is a plan, there is a design, some reason for this suffering and that our lovers will come back to us in answer to these prayers or we can let go.

I found an amazing yoga instructor the other day. I have also found a lot of Fellowship with people recovering from excesses and consequences far greater than my own.

If I stay on this path and pace of healing, self-knowledge, service to other broken individuals like myself for any length of time I think some of the pain I have caused myself to get here will be worthwhile, but I wish I had not caused pain to, and let down the hopes of, the sweetest people I have ever known - my children - and Christine. Someday I hope the barriers between us will be removed and there will be direct and mutually beneficial communications between us, and we could all know each other as the new people we have all no doubt become. I have the good intention of accepting whatever becomes, despite my high hopes, and not being attached to or impatient for specific outcomes...

From Neale Donald Walsch's Happier than God I have posted prominently near the entrance to my room a mantra of sorts: "The way to move out of judgment is to move into gratitude - Be grateful for every outcome"

Basilica centennial, personal prospects for love and peace

2008-06-01T04:03:00.000-07:00

I attended the Masqueray Ball at the Basilica of St. Mary last night. I ended up seated at a table with the couple that became engaged during the toast inside the church, and with an Augsburg professor who is interested in peace and humanitarian work in Somalia, and who had recently returned from Ethiopia.

The most familiar faces at the event were Sam and Sylvia Kaplan, and those of the various priests and church volunteers that I have seen around the church and rectory since I started hanging out there during Lent.

Sylvia had the latest information on the Florida delegate dispute, and their passion for Obama was evident in nearly every conversation I had with them or overheard - they were headed to a fundraiser for Obama at Trocadero's and left the Ball early. In the only bit of pure DFL discussion Sam agreed with me that more pre-caucus training from the party could be a useful thing in the future, but Sylvia seemed convinced that the caucus process would remain and essential elitist event. I reminded them that the seating of illegally elected delegates was in my experience par for the course, after the 2006 Beltrami County delegate dispute.

City Council member Don Samuels was also in attendance.

As far as the spiritual component, the repeated mention of Jeremiah 29:7 was instructive, for while I am obsessed with peace and biodiversity conservation in SE Asia and the Horn of Africa, I am obviously in Minneapolis for at least this summer:

seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you,
and pray to the Lord on its behalf,
for in its shalom you will find your shalom

The proximity of the newly engaged couple strengthened my hope and belief in romantic love, and reminded me of an element of prayer and affirmations I read and lit a candle for on New Year's Eve at dusk, affirmations which included work towards peace for Somalia and love (and maybe even marriage)... a sign such things are possible despite the complications, anger and disappointments?

Jackforsenate.org dishonest video clips

2008-05-26T09:49:00.000-07:00

Jack ForSenate.org - The Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer for Senate website has posted dishonest video clips of the question and answer session from the CD 8 DFL convention in Duluth.

BAE Systems investigated in Saudi arms deals

2008-05-20T16:46:00.000-07:00

The brief detention of BAE Systems chief executive Mike Turner, and employee Nigel Rudd, as their company faces renewed investigations concerning Saudi arms deals is hugely significant, and a hopeful sign.

Imagined that former CIA officer Robert Baer would have something say about this, and a google search proved my suspicions right: Robert Baer: The Saudis do not give up their secrets, Mr Blair

Disposed of two old SUN SPARCstation computers

2008-05-20T14:14:00.000-07:00

I just recycled two of my old computers... letting go of the collection of these old heavy things should be a form of progress - being less clingy and grasping of old ideas and old plans, traveling light into the NOW and future.

Also inspiring - John Perkins

2008-05-19T20:31:00.000-07:00

So we use "The Secret" and "The Success Principles" to create peace and preserve biodiversity, to change the corporations and to prevent our candidates from serving corporations because we forget to instruct them after we elect them...

Jack Canfield

2008-05-19T19:53:00.001-07:00

Made it back to Bloomington

2008-05-19T18:20:00.000-07:00

Made it back to Bloomington today, which is great because then I can go to yoga tomorrow w/o a stiff back from hours of driving and after a proper shower (water was turned back on at the lake house today, but I was in a hurry to get back on the road).

I brought back my Burmese books but couldn't find the tapes, and I am still missing my passport. I also brought back the computer desk I bought at IKEA in an attempt to save my relationship w/ Christine and keep kompy (my desktop) in her Virgo-perfection apartment. That was before I got as good as I am getting at using the Law of Attraction (this link is to MySpace TV - Esther Hicks on OPRAH), and I was trying to magic my way back into another trip to Vegas w/ Page Morgan, yet I was deeply in love with and becoming very attached to Christine.

Today I was thinking about Reader's Digest while driving, and later pulled over at the Dunn Bros. in Monticello to stop for coffee, stretch and empty my bladder and there was a Reader's Digest, jammed half open into the stainless steel railing in an otherwise immaculate and overly crafty bathroom.

I listened to a Dale Carnegie audio book while driving, and started to miss the corporate life I touched and was so maladapted to in the dot-com days. I was really trying on the role of supergeek, pushing myself to master Enterprise Java in my off hours, adopting the mannerisms of stereotypical geeks and my most out of touch biology professors. If I had only had a "positive mental attitude" and some of these success manuals with me, instead of trying to be autistic Linux/Java man, I might have been comfortable with the management type gigs that people kept pushing me into, and I'd be a gazillionaire now. Next time, next time!

One of the useful principles in the Jack Canfield success manual I have been reading and carrying around was to use drive time (or TV watching time) to listen to motivational audio books. Beats hearing MPR repeat the news six times during rush hour!

MPR: Father Michael O'Connell (Basilica of St. Mary) - what's on the minds of the next generation of Catholics

2008-05-19T09:31:00.000-07:00

MPR's midmorning today hosted Father Michael O'Connell, who is leaving the Basilica of St. Mary in a discussion that included what's on the minds of the next generation of Catholics (the conservative tide, social justice/fighting poverty) and also his plans for Minneapolis' North neighborhood and his new parish at Ascension.

I'd like to hear more from the Catholic Church about how the war/occupation of Iraq hurts the poor, about how we need to redirect militaristic spending towards fighting poverty and other domestic programs. Young Evangelicals lead by Shane Claiborne are already there...

Erica Campbell, playboy model of the year 2005, appears to have retired, converted

2008-05-18T14:48:00.000-07:00

Looking at my google keyword traffic it seems that some of you are searching for confirmation of the news that busty and compassionate Playboy model of the year (2005) Erica Campbell has retired from nude modeling to serve Christ. I will try to get confirmation of this and I am totally willing to help Erica tell her story whatever it is.

The original site that made her famous, which I was an affiliate of back in 1999/2000, "BustyAmateurs.com" closed down to the conversion of its owner many years ago.

Update: There an interesting post and comments on Fleshbot.

Sunday in Bemidji

2008-05-18T10:04:00.000-07:00

Since we didn't have any food at the house we headed into town to eat breakfast and buy groceries for the next 48 hours and all of my favorite restaraunts downtown are closed and both Perkins and Country Kitchen seemed overwhelmed with the post-church crowd.

On the way in we listened to Garrison Keillor's loveless "Lives of the Cowboys" and that caused me to think deeper and harder about what sort of life I want to start creating for myself. I have been thinking about how I might have been tricked by hormones and my own capicity for delusion - that the love I shared with Christine was stuff of a meaningful, eternal nature - and I looked hard at the growing stack of books that I want to bring back with me to Minneapolis, math books, Burmese signs of an attraction to the less changeable things. I could get into math. Also a book on how to draw pretty girls, Manga style, and an unused sketch book.

One fantasy I had of a future life was camping and hiking deep into the state forests here and collecting seeds all summer. The market is too fickle though, I barely managed to sell $750 in seeds in 2004, and only because Prairie Moon bought out what I had put on consignment with them so I could afford my plane ticket to Sumatra to do tsunami relief.

The fact is that I have to follow through on the politics/activism a bit longer - at least to the state convention. Reflecting back on yesterday's convention in Alexandria - the parts I stuck around for - it was clear that the pro-impeachment crowd had made an impact here - one visibly frustrated delegate wanted to amend the agenda to have Q & A or debate on the merits of impeachment immediately before the endorsement was to be conveyed to Rep. Colin Peterson. What is also clear is that Minneapolis impeachment/Jack supporters have not invested enough time in this district to help organize anything successful, there has not been a transfer of knowledge to newcomers or liberals as to how you organize to accomplish anything using Robert's Rules and the convention format, that delegate lists are available to any DFLer for the same price the campaigns get them, that they could organize a real challenge to Peterson or his agenda by phone in the days and weeks before the next convention.

Otherwise, the convention chairs end up marginalizing such spur of the moment challenges to their pre-arranged order of business, that they protect the incumbent despite his marginally Republican voting record from imagined threates like the NRSC "tracker" and his video camera, and other dragons. That is what's the matter with CD 7 - a bigger problem than Kansas.

In Bemidji

2008-05-17T17:19:00.000-07:00

I am in Bemidji, after dropping by the DFL's 7th Congressional District convention in Alexandria. My mom is moving back here, but I will be moving into cheap housing in Minneapolis' Whittier neighborhood. I was enroute to the house on the lake with mom and a van full of her possessions, so I decided not to stay, and have her be bored and impatient waiting. I didn't stick around to make a candidate appearance because my stump speech is only a minute and thirty seconds, and I would rather be in a real debate or forum.

Franken and staff seem to prefer to avoid the question and answer format, especially questions direct from the floor, because they imagine Franken will get tripped up and will be caught on video by the NRSC "tracker" that comes to all our conventions. I have no need to wait hours to give a short, canned speech and not have the opportunity to display the full passion of my youthfulness next to these aging baby boomers.

In Alexandria, Charley Underwood encouraged me to get over Christine, as my depression and fixation is ruining an otherwise good blog, and "life will be more interesting" when I get over her. I told him about my ongoing difficulties in identifying new goals, but that seeing "Body of War" last night at the Lagoon reminded me of the value and necessity of our pro-peace, anti-Iraq war activism. I was willing to give a lot of that up for a comfortable life with a retiring, book loving, art and theatre geek, and I am not sure I have forgiven myself for succumbing to temptation, losing the better part of a year but gaining a neighborhood and regaining my aesthetic.

The house is always a little hard for me to handle - my library and my clutter remind me of a thousand possible futures never fully explored, my collection of Burmese language materials and manuals to the flora of New Guinea and Sumatra, the ugly punk rock tattoo flashbooks that I keep throwing away because of the wasted years spent on the mother of my hateful children. Acres of programming books and aging computer hardware. Dust, especially book dust, triggers my allergies and tears eventually follow. I wander about my miniature botanical garden in the yard and old pasture, and miss the sweet innocent days after 9/11 when I returned to the forest and field, quit civilization and worked out protocols for seed collection, cleaning and germination of a hundred wild plants.

It is still too early to wade out into the cold water and cast into the reeds for largemouth bass, too easy to provoke on their spawning beds. The past and hopes for the future crush in on me and asphyxiate my mind, anxiety sucks up mental and emotional energy, and I desperately want to leap ahead into some possible future where after years among the tribes that tattoo with cobra venoms, I have come back to the West with strange new wealth, powerful animal magnetism and fame among that set that subscribes to Outside, National Geographic, Smithsonian and Hustler magazines, and she has taken me back with the express hope that I will occasionally bring home women for us to share...

Bemidji is still slow on and early weekend night, the debauchery of languid summer nights is months off, we wait on the arrival of language camp instructors, summer stock players, bored divorcees on long road trips from Chicago. Yet there is a rumor of a new place near Walker, in an old red barn, with a central dance floor on an elevated stage...

Eckhart Tolle and Neale Donald Walsch

2008-05-12T18:55:00.000-07:00

I have spent the afternoon searching google video, etc. for Eckhart Tolle and Neale Donald Walsch materials. Soon I have to start spending afternoons packing for the move to Bemidji for the summer, the first trailer load will go up on Friday or Saturday.

A year ago I was on the road back to Las Vegas and Los Angeles after spending Cinco de Mayo and the May Day parade with the Ponkey. I am still not able ascribe any meaning that I can put behind me about that relationship, I only know that she did not have patience with the depth in which I needed to explore materials on "The Secret" before putting them into practice to fix my unbalanced life. I dropped the fantastic role I was playing when she first met me - which was pretty wild, out to conquer the blogosphere, to end the war, to promote Page Morgan - to become a very domestic, comfort-seeking guy who loved making burritos and turkey pot pies but hated making money, and was at a loss too often in social situations outside of politics, and absorbed in this Law of Attraction mysticism.

I still need to find new worthwhile goals - being in a position to help conserve biodiversity is the best goal I can find to replace the simple goal I had to pick up after the end of this political season in June. My highest goal had been to be her companion and inspire her to live bigger dreams, but my wild talk or something...

Anyway, here is a Neale Donald Walsh clip from google video:

Burma or Aceh

2008-05-09T14:06:00.000-07:00

I have a couple things to do before I could leave - renew a passport and get some dental work done - but I am thinking about volunteering in Burma (I have wanted to learn Burmese for years) or returning to my project in Aceh. I will follow the path of least resistance in deciding my destination. In any case I may not leave until after the State DFL convention in June and after a new passport arrives. I have misplaced my outdated passport - searching for it is taking time away from packing to move back to Bemidji for the summer.

A little sad today

2008-05-04T10:49:00.000-07:00

I am a little sad today that Christine wasn't able to see my success yesterday in a side by side short speech + Q & A session with Al Franken and Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer. Out on the desk next to the computer I had notes for a mailing that I wanted to put out in early January that she had commented on and promised to type up for me at work. It is one of the last artifacts from our relationship that remains, and I finally summoned up enough courage to stuff it into the duffel bag that contains all of my reminiscences about her.

A few weeks ago I was driving through Grand Rapids and I stopped to politic a bit in Brewed Awakenings. There were a couple of older guys talking about the business of writing, and I told them a bit about how I was skipping the 4th CD convention to take a writing class at The Loft. Eventually the story about how the last time I had politicked in Grand Rapids Kucinich dropped out of the race and Christine broke up with me. I said that I had done a bad job at the relationship and at the Kucinicgh thing and if I could do it over I would just choose one thing and do it well. They had some sympathy but pointed out while there were plenty of fish in the see, there is only one Kucinich.

The responses to my somewhat Kucinichy policies during the 'debate' showed me that my time was not wasted, especially in the Northwoods. While I wish we had resources back in the fall of 2007 to do phone banks, buy call lists and arrange a visit by Congressman Kucinich, people in Duluth and the Range are aware of the true history of this last year, that the impeachment effort targeting Cheney may have slowed the rush to war with Iran, etc.

So I am sad that I didn't have Christine's support in doing everything that I have done, but I am glad that I have done it, and maybe I should just be hopeful that the next Erica Campbell, Sasha Grey or Page Morgan could grok our politics and would stick around longer...

Dissolving the Pain-Body

2008-04-29T11:41:00.000-07:00

Eckhart Tolle's book has a useful term, "pain-body", that I think perfectly describes the wave of emotion that creeps up on me and takes over. Today it was less successful, I was able to watch it and find it interesting, not overwhelming, when it hit grocery shopping. I often am loneliest while grocery shopping, now that I am not shopping to produce a menu for two.

I am not going to date anyone who hasn't read this book, isn't willing to read it, isn't taking yoga classes or trying to connect with their higher selves and be more peaceful. The Ponkey wanted drama, towards the end, to replace the waning, early rush of initial love and "bondy chemicals", to feed the addictive-relationship pain-body, and she complained that I would not fight her, would not call her a bitch, etc. I am pretty serious about trying to be a peaceful person.

The girl that I have seen, on and off since Ponkey threw me out after during her mom's visit, that girl and I are over - since it is very clear she is not willing to do this work and examine herself, or be patient and faithful.

The pain I felt a year ago vs. the pain I know today

2008-04-28T16:14:00.000-07:00

A year ago, driving around Nevada, I felt a different sort of pain than I feel now. I felt separated from my fellow humans, definitely separate from any kind of creator or higher power, enthralled at times with my ego and cleverness at the politics I was engaged in, wrapped up in high expectations, somewhat suicidal in my willingness to abstain from the economic activity that I saw as sustaining the war machine. Only an obligation to meet the trust my mom had put in me in lending me the minivan for my trip to do politicking in the early state kept me from sliding into some self destructive trap or starving myself on purpose in the desert.

I totally had no connection to the radical spiritual ideas of Dennis Kucinich, the "we are all one" vision, but his votes on war and peace issues made him the one candidate deserving my early enthusiasm.

I had a crazy courage, imagining that my life was already somehow forfeit, that the election was an existential crisis, that this was the last shot for defending freedom in any acceptable future. Evil was real, and good people were trying hard, lighting candles in the darkness, and I was teaching a few people about candles in the form of homemade political lit pieces, blogs, mass emailing. I was tired, and exhausting myself. I was usually poor, spending $4-5 a day, living on green tea, graham crackers and power bars, gas tank usually running on empty. During the period I was operating completely out of the van, parked in casino ramps for the shade, I had no way to print handbills but made crazy pro-impeachment signs with large tag board, and explored promoting strip clubs as a way to make a little money to eventually dig into Las Vegas, or afford to get out. I washed in casino restrooms, or drove out to a truckstop with a shower north of town. I loved the crowds. I was actually happy most of the time. I felt pain about the impact of my activism, but I figured that while I was there we really clued in at least 10,000 people, that articles of impeachment had been filed against Dick Cheney. The liberation of human potential was something that could be accomplished politically, that there was a political way to end the war in Iraq and regain face for America.

Today I have a sense that there is something to the "we are all one" idea. I think that idea is best expressed in the writings of Neale Donald Walsh's "Conversations with God" series. I am just starting Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now". I am most often hurt by self criticism - that I was wrong about Kucinich, or The Ponkey - and by an awareness of the lack of a good opportunity to beam love at some deserving fellow human as she scrambles around getting ready for work in the morning.

Had I known that The Ponkey was about to leave me, I would have gone back to Nevada for the January 19th primary, and maybe Kucinich would have done better. Instead I figured my love for her was a more permanent thing than political opportunity, and we were headed to Dubuque to stay in a bed and breakfast and to attend a family wedding. That caused conflicts for The Ponkey that I am not privy to and cannot fairly relate. We didn't go. Kucinich didn't fair well.

Lost opportunity. Lost love. An absence of any plan or motivation to move forward. I have to hope that there is something to just being. I was good at just being, just being in touch with my dreams and some of this material this fall and winter, taking afternoon naps before planning political outings or cooking dinner.

Having a real tough time

2008-04-28T11:52:00.000-07:00

I am having a really tough time, despite a few breakthroughs regarding communicating my experience in Aceh, or starting to effect U.S. policy towards Indonesia. Inability to do anything for Aceh and the failure of the U.S. peace movement to realize any success vis a vis Iraq after the supposedly successful 2006 democratic gains in Congress were the big causes of the depression and malaise I suffered from when I lived with The Ponkey. I still did everything I could, attended every DFL function, ever event on the peace calendar, tried to build support for Kucinich with striking AFSCME workers. I did too much, spent too much for my meager resources to allow comfortable living or to have any pocket change left for the last weeks of the month. I brought The Ponkey to many of these events, showed her the whole state, yet her harshest criticism of me and the time we spent together was, "what the fuck did you do while I was at work?". My DailyKos posts, recs and uprated comments did not make her more secure about meeting future mortgage payments or taking a Roman holiday.

I wonder if they did any good at all.

Anyway, the depression I am suffering now is a hundred times worse than what I normally suffer, I cry almost every day. I do want to die, I am tired of life, and I cannot find worthwhile goals unless I am convinced there is a path back into the sweetness I shared in caring for The Ponkey, the breakfast and driving her to work, the gChats, spending time together on the couch as much as the hot Seksi-on-Ponkey action.

At the same time I am glad for the break up, as I have been more effective at the DFL activities I have undertaken, been able to manage my paperwork and file taxes, to spend time with my desktop computer, all things that were impossible in that beautiful museum she made for herself out of her condo, in typical Virgo neat-freakishness.

Anyway, I cry a lot now. I read books that are supposed to help and I struggle to reconcile the calming "just be" message of the Neale Donald Walsch books I have picked up and the aggressive, goal setting spiritual materialism of The Secret and Jack Canfield's "the Success Principles".

The only reason I can come up with to be a conventional, well-dressed success is to have a shot at winning The Ponkey back. Apart from advocating for peace and traveling, I am having trouble envisioning my right-livelihood. I wish she could have seen that and appreciated it, and not measured me against her father or whatever. At least not without more discussion between the two of us, I am sure now that we could create shared goals, or take baby steps towards my employment as a Target-tron IT engineer (or maybe some sort of medical technician) if that is what she needed for financial stability while she took her time to grieve her losses and mistakes in life, too.

The girl that I have been seeing since the night I got tossed out after meeting The Ponkey's mom, that girl is confusing - screwing around a little on me (I have been absent/distant/busy) but also now wearing a 'wish bracelet' that is supposed to make me fall in love with her.

I just wish I could find someone who could love me back, and someone who could afford to help me follow through on what I started in Aceh.

MPR's 'In the Loop' Story Slam

2008-04-24T14:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I wrote and read a short story about my experience in Aceh for MPR's 'In the Loop' Story Slam.

Here is how it begins, as I rewrite it without the 4 minute time constraint:

Panga was half nightmare and half paradise. A few tall coconut palms and two ancient mango trees provided a little shade, a relief from the parching heat of the sun. Around their trunks were a cluster of tents, a bunker fashioned from coconut palm logs, small buildings being built from scavenged sheets of corrugated tin and thin planks were beginning to take shape. The bunker was manned by a group of young Indonesian marines, or "Marinirs". A long green canvas tent, with crisp yellow letters that said "Departmen Sosial" was the largest of these structures that now stood over the ruins of the town, where 100% of the buildings had been shorn off of their foundations. The walls had smashed into millions of pieces of concrete that on average could be palmed in one hand. In between the concrete pads, tiled bathroom floors, and deep holes held open in the earth by conrete well rings several feet in diameter, there were tangled piles of clothing and hairbruhes, children's toys and flip-flop sandals, colorful plastic furnishings that typified the average Indonesian householder's sense of style and simple pride.

A small crowd formed daily to watch and wait for the arrival and departures of helicopters...

It is possible that my story will be picked to be broadcast on an upcoming "In the Loop". I'll link to it if it ends up on the web!

The theme was Achilles Heel, and it was hard to work that in in just 4 minutes, and I didn't get to tell the whole story about the Red Cross fiasco, or anything at all about the Samaritan's Purse mindfucks and dangerous lies of the housing program manager, who I was going to call "Jethro" in the story.

One year ago today: articles of impeachment vs. Cheney

2008-04-24T10:17:00.000-07:00

One year ago today Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced articles of impeachment vs. Vice President Richard Cheney. I helped to hand out thousands of handbills announcing this move to tourists and others on the Las Vegas strip.

Hillary beats Barack in PA, yoga class, spiritual materialism

2008-04-22T19:47:00.000-07:00

While the official Pennsylvania election returns website is currently overwhelmed/unavailable, the Pittsburgh Channel posts that Hillary has beaten Barack 54% to 46% with 6657 out of 9268 Precincts Reporting.

I don't care so much. I spent much of the afternoon basking in the sun out in front of the Spyhouse reading Jack Canfield's 'The Success Principles', visualizing a world with a little more love and debating how much spiritual materialism I should engage in in any attempt to draw my Ponkey back to me. I checked out the house we had looked at together and noticed the Sotheby's sign had been removed. It was an obvious easy goal to buy that to impress her, once my book of short stories gets made into a smash hit movie. I put those silly fantasies away for Hatha Yoga class and meditation this evening, and asked some tough questions about spiritual materialism, initiation, the goal of true meditation.

Robert Young Pelton had this to say on his ComeBackAlive.com forum about my review of Morgan Spurlock's "Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?"

sadly you are talking about a constructed reality aka "high concept"

Obviously he had no intention of finding or dealing with Bin Laden so he turned into a lame spoof of the U.S.s failed efforts to find bin laden. Thus you have to camp it up as much as possible and find a media friendly reason to fail instead of confirming the difficulty in finding OBL. So he uses cowardice which is why the movie falls flat.

The other example of this would he hey" What if Osama tries to find George Bush"? its an idea that pitches well but executes poorly. And we all have Michael Moore to thank for the high concept doco.

I am learning how to be my own witness in life, not being so attached and dependent on the idea that some girl out there, preferably a famous playboy model or hot celebrity has to accompany me on trips into the last remaining wild lands. I would still like to make a documentary about Aceh, rubber and forestry, the conflict and the tsunami, and if anyone is qualified to do that it is me, with two years of TV production classes and paid experience in my high school career, and my ten year fascination with the island of Sumatra, 'the land beneath the winds'.

Loft class was great

2008-04-19T14:46:00.000-07:00

I skipped the 4th Congressional Distict DFL convention today to take a class at the Loft Literary Center, "Making Good Writing Great" taught by John Lehman. My writing, and my desire to write about my life is keeping me alive, while my frustration with and involvement politics, on the other hand, is killing me and helped destroy the sweetest relationship I have ever had in my adult life. I am not quitting the senate race, but I took a time out to try to develop my writing skills and maybe eventually this blog will be a little more compelling.

Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?

2008-04-18T15:25:00.000-07:00

I saw the first showing today of Morgan Spurlock's "Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?" at the Uptown Theatre in Minneapolis. The film makes good use of video game style avatars of Osama dancing and battling an avatar of the documentarian in the intro - Osama bin Laden has become a pop culture icon in the Western and Islamic worlds alike. The question of 'Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?' is a troubling one that all of the resources of the U.S. military and Western intelligence agencies have been unable or unwilling to answer for more than a decade.

Spurlock's film is not a serious attempt to uncover the location of bin Laden. He turns back, at the end, from the crossing into the Tribal Areas of Pakistan, as he is an expectant father and he says the risk is not worth it. Nevertheless, the journey is worthwhile if you need a reminder of the common humanity of Arabs and Americans, and a reminder that Afghanistan, despite the well publicized pledges of foreign aid, is desperately poor, an environmentally degraded landscape with little water.

Morgan Spurlock travels with good preparation, yet great trepidation, to Egypt, Morocco, Israel, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and starts up a thousand silly conversations, as well as a few substantive ones, with Arabs, Israelis and the Pashtu tribesmen of Afghanistan/Pakistan.

There is no questioning whatsoever from Spurlock of the frame of the Neocon engineers of the Global War on Terror that al-Qaida cells exist in the vast majority of countries worldwide.

The film ends with the water-birth of a child that Spurlock had neglected in utero while he traipsed across foreign desert in his sometimes self-glorifying, somewhat self-deprecating film. The film was a great way to kill some time, but I would steer seekers of a real solution to the East vs. West conflict to other materials, like Omar Nasiri's book 'Inside the Jihad' or John Perkins' book 'The Secret History of American Empire'.

Returned earrings

2008-04-17T05:00:00.000-07:00

I returned two pair of earrings I bought her and hoped to give her last time I was here in Bemidji. Now there are no artifacts of my sentiments. There are only addresses I have to avoid. As/if/when I come to the end of my grief, it will be as if she never existed...

On the way up I found a strange and good audio book, Shamanic Navigation by John Perkins, who also wrote Confessions of an Economic Hitman and what I was listening last time I came up this way, The Secret History of American Empire, which I did give to her, with $50 cash, the night before she had me arrested. The point of that gift was to explain what happened in Aceh, and to show thee were some good Catholics working in Indonesia on social justice issues, and that our job, if we want to save the world, is to change our dream in the Western, modern world.

I will eventually forget The Ponkey and the last overly cautious year because at some point I will be busy again, have to learn a new language and travel, and she really wasn't up to that sort of challenge. Hopefully I will meet someone who is, but still embodies that kind of sweetness, love and interlocking of souls/intellects that I think I had with her.

filed my taxes

2008-04-15T21:21:00.000-07:00

I filed taxes today, handing off my envelope to a US Postal Service employee from my car window after making it through a long line to the downtown post office next to the river. There was some Ron Paul supporter passing out leaflets - I didn't take one from him but I heard his spiel about the Federal Reserve and tuned out. That's not my kind of tax protest.

My kind of tax protest is rejecting the whole of the war economy - at least to the extent that is possible - reducing my obligation to pay taxes by reducing my income and devoting myself fully to action and words that might end the war. Doing more with less - a radical ephemeralization.

The total amount of income I earned last year was $1115.55, plus $8000 or so unearned from Social Security Disability. I was too busy and frantic this last year to keep good receipts so my business income did not zero out and I owe $150 or so in self employment taxes. By eschewing too many meals out, not buying new clothes and general being frugal, I managed to do a lot more this last year on a lot less money than I was used to in the good old pre-war days, when flipping bits and pushing packets allowed me to live in San Francisco and to buy too many books.

My total contribution to the DFL party and parallel organizations in 2007 exceeded $800 and I still managed to buy groceries and contribute a little money to the household when I was with The Ponkey, spend two months campaigning in Nevada and California, and I was treated a little by friends to a few nights couch tripping in a marquee suite at the MGM. I also slept in my van for a week lobbying on behal;f of a Dept of Peace in Washington , D.C.

If everyone who was against the war would consume less, share more and reduce their participation/earned income and thus their tax contribution to the war economy things would change a lot faster. At least consider the General Strike for Peace/Iraq Moratorium!

The Century of the Self

2008-04-08T16:02:00.000-07:00

Links to the Century of the Self. Google video/FreeDocumentaries.org were too slow, so I am downloading the whole thing and might write a review.

Seth Godin writes about marketers' (and lobbyists') responsibility:

Marketing works.

Advertising and promotion and lobbying cost money. And organizations pay for it because, by and large, it works. Not all the time, and rarely as big as people hope, but sure, you can influence the public by spending money.

Which leads to the key question: are you responsible for what you market?

Some people will tell you that the market decides. They’ll remind you that most consumers are adults, spending their own resources and doing it freely. That people have a right to buy what they want, even if what they want isn’t good for them (right now, or in the long run). That’s what living in a free country is all about, apparently. Buy what you want.

But wait.

I thought we agreed that marketing works.

If marketing works, it means that free choice isn’t quite so free. It means that marketers get to influence and amplify desires. The number of SUVs sold in the United States is a bazillion times bigger than it was in 1962. Is that because people suddenly want them, or is it because car marketers built them and marketed them?

Cigarette consumption is way down. Is that because people suddenly don’t want them any more, or is it because advertising opportunities are limited?

Others will tell you that if it’s legal, it’s fair game. If it’s legal for Edelman to post a blog called Working Families for Wal-Mart (when it’s really working Edelman employees for Wal-Mart), then they have every right to do so. In fact, they have an obligation to their shareholders to do so. Or so they say.

I believe that every criminal, no matter how heinous the crime, deserves an attorney. I don't believe that every product and every organization and every politician deserves world-class marketing or PR.

A neighbor was complaining that the baseball field in my town needs upkeep, and wonders why we don’t go ahead and take $100,000 from Pepsi for sponsorship of the field and a long-term contract to put vending machines on site. It doesn’t matter to him that obesity and heart disease are the number one preventable cause of death. He says that it’s a personal choice, and if we can get the money, we should. [Read More at Seth Godin's blog]

21 - Visions of Las Vegas

2008-04-07T17:57:00.000-07:00

I just returned from seeing "21" a second time at the Southdale AMC theater. The movie is based on the book, "Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions", by Ben Mizrich, which I haven't read.

I really enjoy the montage sequences of Las Vegas, which was home to me for two months early last year, and there is a scene that I can tell was probably shot while I was there (from the Prince symbol on the side of the Rio).

I don't gamble. I do know the extent to which the application of mathematics to winning games of chance has contributed to further development of math - as does everyone who has taken a college-level math class. I was never good at math - because I lacked discipline and encouragement in it after my father died - and also because I could do too much of it my head and sometimes was at a loss for how to show the work in the right format. I developed the same math phobia nearly everyone else has.

My father good at math and bad at spelling. I became freakishly good with words and spelling and grammar precisely because my father had so much trouble with it that he called out for spelling help while working on his psychological evaluations so often and me and my sister would race through the 'Misspeller's dictionery' or other dictionaries to help him out. I won a fifth grade spelling bee with the word "PSYCHOLOGIST" and "RHUBARB" some of the other finalists complained without any satisfaction. Unlike the students in the film I am better with languages and logic than numbers.

One of the odd student jobs I had was working with digital video, and I am familiar with some of the digital video protocols and applications in used and development for loss prevention in Vegas and other places, though I worked on it for microscopy, and was stymied on using it on the adult internet, unnecessarily, by the Acacia/DMT patent enforcement scare.

One odd thing I caught in the second viewing was the placement of a couple SEIU logos on an extra in the Chinese New Year sequence. Other than that, it was a good way to blot out my consciousness for a couple hours after an emotionally stressful day. Counter to real world statistics, the smart kid wins in the end.

While I don't know anything about card games, if I could put together a cohesive team of bloggers, web designers, videographers and adult talent, I could bring them to a party in Vegas better than "21"...

All of the drama is over...

2008-04-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

All of the drama is over. We put on a good show. Now it is back to work. I am thinking about summer up North, maybe trying to rescue plants from the Pine Island Bog or similar. There is some money to be made doing good things for the environment, and maybe the right girl will come along and I'll be in a better place economically to keep up if travel to Italy is really a requirement for love.

If there is no girl, then I can go after adventure and knowledge in Sumatra, but for eight months or so I got really used to, and became appreciative of having a partner.

I am reading Marianne Williamson's Enchanted Love: The Mystical Power Of Intimate Relationships and I wish I could find a girl brave like that but I am afraid I won't find that in The Big City, not from anyone my near my age.

New insight into the soured relationship with Ponkey

2008-03-29T12:32:00.000-07:00

I am back in the hospital, wrestling with my grief and despair over the break-up as well as the state of the world and my lack of visible success in issue advocacy.

One session in the hospital gave me a needed insight into why Ponkey was so angry/distressed with any and all overtures to her to discuss the relationship or any real reconciliation - he typified the relationship as in a category known to relationship councilors called "runners and chasers". She's a runner - and there is nothing I can do until she comes around, and the fact is that a runner/chaser match in couples counciling with a total commitment on the part of both parties is still hard work. The fact is any benign sign of interest is throwing more fuel on the fire, and behaviors of both runner and chaser easily escalate out of control quickly in this situation.

I have to try to pull off hard cleavage between us. I have to learn to want this peace and silence. Ponkey failed as my existential detective. She's programmed to fail in relationships too, which is why she always wanted to engineer a breakup before ever holiday or relationship-significant date. I would have been interested in working through all this, but now I need to develop a new life, a new interest, a new plan and start from scratch. Alone. I can do it.

Easter Sunday

2008-03-23T07:56:00.000-07:00

All of the new snow from yesterday and last night makes Minneapolis look new and fresh. The streets are slick. I am passing on the early services at the Basilica today as there is a line for parking and also I look a little rough this morning. I'll have to run out to Bloomington, find more appropriate close and a less tattered jacket and clean up a bit first. I saw quite a lot of preparation and extra seats being set up when I went in to light candles again yesterday. If I don't make it, I am kind of covered as I have a five day candle going in the shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe.

I want to reflect a bit before I forget on the commonalities between the Catholic faith that I have begun to observe again during Lent and what I learned of Islam in University and in the field. First, on Ash Wednesday the pastor spoke about the the three things that characterized the practice of Catholics during Lent: fasting, prayer and giving alms (at the Basilica - to the St. Vincent De Paul outreach the run on at the Basilica on weekdays.) FWIW, I think that Catholic Relief Services provided credible humanitarian assistance to both victims ofthe conflict and the tsunami in Aceh, if you give alms across borders.

Additionally in the preparation of the Eucharist there is the statement of faith: "Christ Has Died. Christ Has Risen. Christ will Come Again."

The fact is that fasting, giving alms, prayer and a statement of faith are 4 of the Five Pillars of Islam.

We have more in common with the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Indonesia than media-inspired war-hysteria lead us to believe.

Lent and Easter are also supposed to be times of reflection and reconciliation. I do now genuinely desire reconciliation and a future opportunity to meet my obligations, commitments, parental love and other noble notions towards my children. I also genuinely desire reconciliation and a future opportunity with Ponkey. The ball is completely in the other parties courts, unless I want to risk arrest and embarrassment again, and I don't. I want to learn to respect boundaries, and I hope that none of these boundaries are permanent, inflexible.

These past three months have held the most difficult, heart-breaking and frustrating experiences of my adult life, which says a lot, as I have seen a lot more of this world than most of my peers, utter deprivation, and survival by sheer luck and skill in too many places.

My mom sees the deep loss as the sum impact of years of small failures, and maybe as something that goes back to my father's death when I was 11. I don't think so. I think it is a combination of blowing the opportunity to live well with my soulmate and/or to have turned the DFL caucus into a clear referendum supporting impeachment of Dick Cheney and for the strategy for peace as outlined by Congressman Kucinich. I did both things badly and I have to forgive myself first, before POnkey or anyone else can. I am very hard on myself.

I can forgive Dennis Kucinich for not thinking straight about mounting a real presidential bid in all states. I can forgive him and Elizabeth for being to in love with each other to be focused and successful in communicating their vision. I failed to communicate mine in part because I was in love, too.

The nasty, taunting attack on my own self-confidence at this point is that I failed to comunnicate it (either the love or the desirability and inevitability of peace, and my refusenik economic strategy) to my partner this last year - who threw me out on that same day as Kucinich dropped out and lead to my some of my anxious/depressed antics in various venues (the Blue State Ball, Latino caucus fundraiser, and anywhere I could find my lost love).

Whether or not it is this Spring, I am optimistic that I will enjoy love with my ponkey again, in this life or the next. Unconsciously, and too quietly I deified her - despite my wild talk about preparing "Lasagna for Ladies" nights or entertaining a host of babes (and beer gnomes) during the day (instead of the blogging, reading and meditation that accompanied a little solitary beer drinking, and boozy naps in her bed, reconnecting to my unconscious and my soul) - ponkey was singular.

In fact I came up with a quick silent and strange mantra when contemplating her "in her, on her and with her" that seems to be paralleled in a mystic bit of liturgy from the weekday noon masses that I have been attending "Through him, with him and in him".

Whatever. Spring will bring love. I am open.

Spring is also going to continue to bring economic opportunity and uncertainty (largely driven by a growing world desire to shake off the primacy of the dollar and international unwillingness to bond the Iraq War debt, our increasingly ridiculous houses and revolving mortgage-based consumer debt).

I can probably shake off my economic-refusenik mantle, do something profitable and good. I have got some great ideas. I am happy to talk about any and all of them with anyone, once the campaign winds down. I want to be a river to my people!

I love you!

In the Northwoods today

2008-03-21T07:18:00.001-07:00

I am taking the weekend off of politics. I am up in the Northwoods, re-opening the lake house for the season. I am almost over my Lenten "blogging fast".

For those of you celebrating Easter weekend services, I ask that you remember me in your prayers, that you ask St. Jude to hear my prayer and answer it. I have had a hard couple of months, really, really miss my ex-girlfriend, and am trying to do some good with my life. I would love to be able to win her back, and get to a point where the long years of peace activism have been effective that there are no war taxes, where I can build a profitable "self-sustaining farm" and take care of her, and also myself.

I think I have a book or two in me to write, maybe a top forty dance hit, be patient with me.

Frustration in politics?

2008-02-10T21:36:00.000-08:00

Things I know:

There remains a lot of support for ideas absent in the media and public campaigns of "viable" candidates. This is why resolutions are important, and creating support for the best resolutions - seeing them supported statewide is an opportunity for activists right now.

There are opportunities for people who did not try or did not succeed in advancing as delegates out of precinct caucuses - volunteering with party units that will run the upcoming conventions, volunteering with campaigns. Some delegates to higher level conventions may be elected, as some party officers may be, from conventions they did not become delegates to. This is something I may explain in more detail when I have time.

The perception that caucuses were not well run in some places, that the DFL did not invite meaningful participation at caucuses for most attendees, and the lack of opportunities to support ideas that are not part of the Mainstream Media narrative of the campaigns is a sign that we need to learn to handle frustration when we feel it, and work harder for success in telling our own political stories, retain and develop an ability to hold focus on our priorities, try to tune out media that won't honestly portray what is happening accurately.

There is a certain kind of magic to working with your focus and intentions and emotions that is critical if we want to force our party and our government to allow self-representation. There are hard working volunteers that are focused on making this work. Join them if you can help hold this focus on the grassroots opportunity, keep your commitments, learn enough to become competent as an advocate for yourself, your friends, your neighbors.

Look for the meaningful invites. Avoid the spectacle.

I have to assume that I have completely and permanently

2008-02-09T16:26:00.000-08:00

I have to assume that I have completely and permanently fucked things up now with my ex-girlfriend, and it really is time to move on. I wish I had time and space to reflect on our relationship, to write about it.

Someday I will try. Today - tonight, I must go dancing. I can not let one sweet, shy girl cause me to bottle up and hide away all that I've got to share with other ladies. I should have tried to do that when I had this seemingly solid good thing with the ex, but I am wild, full of wild talk, but I never cheated.

I just tried to hard to change the world, and not hard enough to buy new house, furniture, Roman holiday.

I don't know that I could holiday in Rome - there would be too much work to do. I had really hoped back in 2005 that FAO (based in Rome) would have launched a biodiversity inventory in Aceh, and follow my lead on aid to rubber smallholders, with reforestry using native plants with economic value (e.g. rattan)

A Balinese holiday, after a few months work in the jungle - that is another thing!

I think I am giving up politics or blogging for Lent

2008-02-08T19:54:00.000-08:00

I haven't decide which yet. I am not giving up on hope, or love. I have taken some babysteps towards becoming more conventional, trying to please the ex-girlfriend, and participate more fully in consensus reality (meals eaten out of the house together, in restaurants, sending bouquets on Valentine's, etc. - maybe even someday the Roman holiday) but I am not giving up on persuading more of you to exercise your sovereignty and to create with me a more just, more exciting world! I am not giving up being naughty, being impressed with helicopters and logistics, wanting to deliver BustyRelief or pioneer new fair trade routes for strategic commodities and things that just smell good.

I have a new $2 a day candle habit, and a blossoming relationship with the Virgin Mary.

Please let me know if you caucused DFL, became a delegate or submitted one of my resolutions. I am pretty serious about this peace thing, but also a little lonely.

Please also pray for me, and that my girlie takes me back. I miss her, a little, but I have positive, hopeful expectations. And I am strangely - learning to relax and have faith.

I have been too silent, am I done suffering? No, ready for more...

2008-01-31T06:59:00.000-08:00

The last week has been a very hard one. A week ago Kucinich announced he was dropping out of the race for president, and my girlfriend and I broke up. Basically I had to adapt and come up with new plans, and a new reason to keep my organism alive, as the sweet awkward girl I lived to take care of, and the leader who had the most consistent strategy to end the war and improve the lot of average Americans, both abandoned shared visions I had become heavily invested in. That I identified with.

I had just gotten serious about my own candidacy, and was on the return from my first loop through northern Minnesota as the candidate, from the debate in Duluth through cafes on Hwy 2 in to Bemidji, checked my mailbox, cashed a check from Erica Campbell, and spent to much money on advertising, ear rings for the girl about to break my heart, and later that night, a bottle of wine with her at the Bad Waitress.

So I have since put a lot of energy into advertising the caucus, arranged a pre-caucus feed for the neighboorhood, and unfortunately, slipped back into romantic situations with this girl, and put my heart through the meat grinder again. And do to some delays to spend cuddle time with the girl after the break up, I missed the good weather and had to flyer about the caucus on days it was -10 to -14 F, but that is a form of penance I required. More penance to perform later today, but I have nearly finished the task of inviting Minneapolis precinct 6-4 to caucus, and adjacent community centers for the urban Native American population.

I need to find a new place to live in Minneapolis, at least through the Congressional District conventions (CD 2, 3, 4, 5). Depending on how the campaign looks at that time, I will probably want to go to convention and participate in the endorsement battle for U.S. Senate, lobby for the election of party officers who might revitalize our part of our democracy, etc.

I am also going to be looking for work that will be very flexible with my temporary need to follow through with my candidacy and party activities - something with machines. Machines make sense. It has been a while since I have done serious programming, system administration, software and hardware quality assurance, but I'd like to ease back into it and start making some real money for awhile, even if it ends my long personal strike against the economy that supports the illegal occupation of Iraq, and forces selfish advantage seeking when we should be organizing collectively to preserve our system of government, our landscapes and ecosystems from further degradation and commodification, assaults on our civil liberties and the civil rights of those easier to deprive of their franchise because of institutional bias, personal predjudice, and poverty.

I need a new girlie, one who will be more supportive of this whole enterprise, and be ready to travel when the show here is over. I have some villagess on a beach on the otherside of the planet I want to go check up on, too!

The Bad Waitress has kind of become my office in SD 61, I think the ex-girlfriend is holding her public brooding sessions down the block in the Spyhouse. I would love some form of divinity to intervene and either patch things up for us or send us to opposite ends of the earth, not opposite ends of the same block on Nicollet Ave., so we can be useful and find love again. As the backdrop and context of this sappy broken heart love story saga, we have our messy, fragile democracy, and an imploding economy. The supposed Chines curse, "may you live in interesting times" could be made more horrible by extending it to:

"may you fall in and out of love, in interesting times, while a deadline fast approaches, an opportunity to impact the fate of the world, many watch in fascination and dread, and mostly comment on your personal appearance and the trendiness of your clothes. Essentially you live in a van, it is -14 below outside, and you are the most competent of four adventurers (they are better dressed but aged, richer but less thrifty and efficacious) who are also competing for the attention of the village that is looking for a modern dragon slayer, punk rock poet or people-powered political/spiritual leader..."

Oh the drama, the megalomania, the heartbreak. What fun! I am ready for more, this is not Disneyland, and I cannot get off the ride. Might as well just submit to the rush of events, and try to maneuver the currents looking downstream, instead of exhausting myself trying to paddle upstream to the safety I remember, that is gone. We are all loose in this torrent, and until someone else steps up, it looks like I am the river guide for our little tour group! Kiss me, I am crazy, but the right kind of crazy to be powerful and successful here. In the words of HST, When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro...

DFL Precinct Caucus Guide

2008-01-29T08:43:00.000-08:00

I have created a simple guide for Democrats seeking an explanation of the February 5th DFL Precinct Caucus.

Please tell your friends about it if you find it informative!

Soren Sorensen for U.S. Senate; Iraq Moratorium #5

2008-01-18T08:32:00.000-08:00

I am seeking the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party's (DFL) endorsement for U.S. Senate. I have set up a blogspot blog as a placeholder website: Soren for Senate.

It is not fancy, but it has some important links. Expect a lot more in the coming days and weeks!

I realized that I have to get in it, because it is again Iraq Moratorium Day (#5), (so I am a month late in making a formal announcement) and because this morning I read this inside cover quote in praise of an important book, by Jim Hightower

Agitation is essential for progressive reform. But agitation without organization equals frustration. In this book, Wellstone Action shows you how to combine the two for success.

I'll probably improvise too much, not stick precisely to the winning recipe outlined in that book, but together we can build an organization that will alleviate some of that frustration we feel from agitating for the change, the peace, the justice and the love we want in this world, but aren't delivering for ourselves in our party and our government.

We have to make our government work for us again. We have to take responsibility and action to inject the political will into the process to get accountability for the mis-leadership and criminality of the Bush/Cheney Administration. We can do that when we caucus on February 5th.

Let's keep in touch, make good plans, and follow through!

-Soren

Action Alert: NBC Uninvites Kucinich; WexlerWantsHearings.com crosses 200,000 mark

2008-01-17T13:06:00.000-08:00

FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting) has issued an action alert on the exclusion of Kucinich by General Electric's MSNBC. From the announcement:

Kucinich's peace platform might be something that a major defense contractor like General Electric would rather not expose to voters on its cable network. Likewise, Kucinich's strong opposition to nuclear power likely doesn't sit well with GE, a major player in the industry; the issue was sure to come up in any debate in Nevada, where the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump is intensely controversial.

Indeed, one of the rare challenges from the NBC moderators at the Las Vegas debate came in response to John Edwards' critical comments about nuclear power. Meet the Press host Tim Russert responded:

"Senator Edwards, you say you're against nuclear power. But a reality check: I talked to the folks at the MIT Energy Initiative, and they put it this way, that in 2050, the world's population is going to go from 6 billion to 9 billion, that CO2 is going to double, that you could build a nuclear power plant one per week and it wouldn't meet the world's needs. Something must be done, and it cannot be done just with wind or solar."

It's also worth noting that NBC--like most other corporate media outlets--has had little time for Kucinich's campaign from the start, deciding long ago that the candidate was simply not viable (FAIR Media Advisory, 5/8/07). Kucinich's name has been mentioned only a few times in passing on NBC Nightly News, and Kucinich--unlike six other Democratic candidates--has yet to appear as part of Meet the Press's "Meet the Candidates" series.

WexlerWantsHearings.com has crossed the 200,000 signatures mark, after Rep. Robert Wexler took the House floor to discuss the public response to his call for hearings on Kucinich's Articles of Impeachment against Vice President Cheney (H. Res 799)

Kucinich wins injunction vs. NBC, will appear in the Nevada debate

2008-01-14T15:31:00.000-08:00

Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, the peace candidate for U.S. President, has won an injunction in Nevada courts that will allow him to participate in the Nevada Democratic Party debate, co-hosted by U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, IMPACTO, 100 Black Men of America, the African American Democratic Leadership Council and the College of Southern Nevada, and broadcast by MSNBC.

According to LasVegasCourtsBlog.com: Information from the Clark County Courts (Nevada):

Senior Judge J. Charles Thompson granted an injunction sought by Dennis Kucinich seeking to allow him to participate in the Democratic Party debate scheduled for January 15, 2008 in Las Vegas. Judge Thompson asked Kuchnich’s attorney to prepare an order for his signature.

Kucinich’s attorney argued that NBC had violated the FCC’s rules on providing equal time on nationally regulated airwaves for candidates running for public office. NBC argued the equal time requirements do not apply to debates being broadcast on cable television. In addition, Kucinich’s attorney argued NBC had breached a contract made when the Democratic Party and NBC invited Kucinich to the debate last week, then resinded the offer. NBC denied it had invited Kucinich to participate.

Judge Thompson keyed in on who made the original invitation to Kucinich and then asked both parties about the subsequent change in the lineup for the debate. In making his ruling Judge Thompson said, “If the rules changed in the middle of the game, then I am offended by that.”

Technorati Tags: Nevada, caucus, Kucinich, NBC

Kucinich's call for a New Hampshire recount tops digg.com

2008-01-11T18:35:00.000-08:00

Digg.com has a submission on the Kucinich demand for a New Hampshire Recount topping all news, though I haven't heard mention of it yet on mainstream media (I just watched a News Hour w/ Jim Lehrer program that recapped the NH primary with no mention, and catch a little MPR from time to time, but I don't consume much mainstream media...)

President Clinton on Obama: Hillary, Barack voting record equivalent

2008-01-11T18:14:00.000-08:00

Former President Bill Clinton on the equivalency of the Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's senate votes, opposition, if any, to the war (Barack is a phony, summarized PBS commentator on this same speech just now):

We need Kucinich in the debates, we need to include him in the Nevada debate. Because there is no difference on issues of war and peace between any of the remaining candidates.

Defy General Electric and NBC by caucusing for Kucinich on January 19th in Nevada, and on February 5th in the Super Tuesday states (including Minnesota).

Edwards concession speech in NH

2008-01-09T05:16:00.000-08:00

All of the medical-related examples in Edwards speech will not be fixed by Edwards own plan - his plan keeps for-profit insurance in the picture, instead of actually guaranteeing comprehensive, universal medical care by single-payer. For profit insurance will always seek to maximize coverage by denying claims and refusing care to patients. Our citizens deserve better. We can do Single Payer Universal Healthcare.

See my previous post on the Edwards theme, "too many voices not heard in our democracy." Fundamentally, the biggest problem with the Edwards candidacy is his vote for the 2002 AUMF against Iraq, his calculation that the great sin of war was worth committing in order tp project a political persona that was not "weak on defense" in preparation for his pursuit of higher office. After that, the fact that his fake populism is full of complaints and insufficient remedies, falling far short of popular progressive goals, is not a fatal character flaw, but not inspiring, either.

In Iowa, Edwards essentially tied with Clinton for second place, but in New Hampshire he had less than half of the votes of either of the frontrunners. Edwards did get four delegates out of New Hampshire, though, according to TheGreenPapers.com.

Technorati Tags: John Edwards, New Hampshire

Edwards the excluder: Too many voices have not been heard?

2008-01-08T19:20:00.000-08:00

Edwards began his concession speech tonight with the line that there were 48 states left to go, 98% of voters have not been heard, and he would continue, because "too many voices have not been heard in this democracy."

Yet Edwards is responsible in part, along with Clinton, in excluding some democratic voices from the debates:

This isn't the clip I normally link to, but someone is fussy about the noise while I am hunting around for the right YouTube clip... anyway, I am done with blogging for tonight!

New Hampshire Primary - Predictions v. Results

2008-01-08T18:49:00.000-08:00

My New Hampshire Democratic Primary predictions look spot on as far as predicting a narrow win for Obama or a tie with Clinton, with Edwards so far behind he is in virtual Kucinich space (though he is currently ahead Kucinich by about as many votes as he trails either of the front-runners). I had forgotten about Richardson, who has money and some professional staff, and has been included in many more debates than Kucinich, but lacks the popular and online support that Kucinich has.