Blue Hearts

Hey all you Blue Hearts,

I thought we'd kick off our official 2nd blog with a bit of humor. My personal favorite - #10:

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.

4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country -- if they could find the time -- and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.

6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.

9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.

10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a country ... or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy provided, of course, that they are not Republicans.

11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the Grocery store.

12. The Gualala Independent Coast Observer is read by people who want to know the tide table and are interested in the rummage sales, and the Sheriff's reports--to see if one of their relatives is involved, and for a little kindling.

13. None of these is read by the guy who is running the country into the ground.

AND

While visiting his niece, an elderly man had a heart attack. The niece drove wildly to get him to the emergency room. After what seemed like a very long wait, the E.R. doctor appeared, wearing his scrubs and a long face. Sadly, he said, "I'm afraid that your uncle's brain is dead, but his heart is still beating."

"Oh, dear," cried the woman, her hands clasped against her cheeks with shock, "We've never had a Republican in the family before!"





Here's something non-political but possibly helpful:

Paramedics will turn to a victim's cell phone for clues to that person's identity. You can make their job much easier with a simple idea that they are trying to get everyone to adopt: ICE.

ICE stands for In Case of Emergency. If you add an entry in the contacts list in your cell phone under ICE, with the name and phone no. of the person that the emergency services should call on your behalf, you can save them a lot of time and have your loved ones contacted quickly. It only takes a few moments of your time to do.

Paramedics know what ICE means and they look for it immediately. ICE your cell phone NOW!





Subject: E.L. Doctorow

An Essay by E.L. Doctorow
Edgar Lawrence Doctorow occupies a central position in the history of American literature. He is generally considered to be among the most talented, ambitious, and admired novelists of the second half of the twentieth century. Doctorow has received the National Book Award, two National Book Critics Circle Awards, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Edith Wharton Citation for Fiction, the William Dean Howell Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the residentially conferred National Humanities Medal.

Doctorow was born in New York City on January 6, 1931. After graduating with honors from Kenyon College in 1952, he did graduate work at Columbia University and served in the U.S. Army. Doctorow was senior editor for New American Library from 1959 to 1964 and then served as editor in chief at Dial Press until 1969. Since then, he has devoted his time to writing and teaching. He holds the Glucksman Chair in American Letters at New York University and over the years has taught at several institutions, including Yale University Drama School, Princeton University, Sarah Lawrence College, and the
University of California, Irvine.

=================================================

I fault this president (George W. Bush) for not knowing what death is. He does not suffer the death of our twenty-one year olds who wanted to be what they could be.

On the eve of D-day in 1944 General Eisenhower prayed to God for the lives of the young soldiers he knew were going to die. He knew what death was. Even in a justifiable war, a war not of choice but of necessity, a war of survival, the cost was almost more than Eisenhower could bear. But this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for it!

You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the WMDs he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man. He does not mourn. He doesn't understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

But you study him, you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because he has no capacity for it. He does not feel a personal responsibility for the thousand dead young men and women who wanted be what they could be.

They come to his desk not as youngsters with mothers and fathers or wives and children who will suffer to the end of their days a terribly torn fabric of familial relationships and the inconsolable remembrance of aborted life…'' They come to his desk as a political liability which is why the press is not permitted to photograph the arrival of their coffins from Iraq.

How then can he mourn? To mourn is to express regret and he regrets nothing. He does not regret that his reason for going to war was, as he knew, unsubstantiated by the facts. He does not regret that his bungled plan for the war's aftermath has made of his mission – accomplished a disaster. He does not regret that rather than controlling terrorism his war in Iraq has licensed it.

So he never mourns for the dead and crippled youngsters who have fought this war of his choice. He wanted to go to war and he did. He had not the mind to perceive the costs of war, or to listen to those who knew those costs. He did not understand that you do not go to war when it is one of the options, but when it is the only option; you go not because you want to but because you have to.

This president knew it would be difficult for Americans not to cheer the overthrow of a foreign dictator. He knew that much. This president and his supporters would seem to have a mind for only one thing — to take power, to remain in power, and to use that power for the sake of themselves and their friends. A war will do that as well as anything. You become a wartime leader. The country gets behind you. Dissent becomes inappropriate. And so he does not drop to his knees, he is not contrite, he does not sit in the church with the
grieving parents and wives and children.

He is the President who does not feel. He does not feel for the families of the dead; he does not feel for the thirty five million of us who live in poverty; he does not feel for the forty percent who cannot afford health insurance; he does not feel for the miners whose lungs are turning black or for the working people he has deprived of the chance to work overtime at time-and-a-half to pay their bills — it is amazing for how many people in this country this President does not feel.

But he will dissemble feeling. He will say in all sincerity he is relieving the wealthiest one percent of the population of their tax burden for the sake of the rest of us, and that he is polluting the air we breathe for the sake of our economy, and that he is decreasing the safety regulations for coal mines to save the coal miners' jobs, and that he is depriving workers of their time-and-a-half benefits for overtime because this is actually a way to honor them by raising them into the professional class.

And this litany of lies he will versify with reverences for God and the flag and democracy, when just what he and his party are doing to our democracy is choking the life out of it.

But there is one more terribly sad thing about all of this. I remember the millions of people here and around the world who marched against the war. It was extraordinary, that spontaneously aroused oversoul of alarm and protest that transcended national borders. Why did it happen? After all, this was not the only war anyone had ever seen coming. There are little wars all over the world most of the time.

But the cry of protest was the appalled understanding of millions of people that America was ceding its role as the last best hope of mankind. It was their perception that the classic archetype of democracy was morphing into a rogue nation. The greatest democratic republic in history was turning its back on the future, using its extraordinary power and standing not to advance the ideal of a concordance of civilizations but to endorse the kind of tribal combat
that originated with the Neanderthals, a people, now extinct, who could imagine ensuring their survival by no other means than pre-emptive war.

The president we get is the country we get. With each president the nation is conformed spiritually. He is the artificer of our malleable national soul. He proposes not only the laws but the kinds of lawlessness that govern our lives and invoke our responses. The people he appoints are cast in his image. The trouble they get into and get us into, is his characteristic trouble.

Finally the media amplify his character into our moral weather report. He becomes the face of our sky, the conditions that prevail: How can we sustain ourselves as the United States of America given the stupid and ineffective warmaking, the constitutionally insensitive lawgiving, and the monarchal economics of this president? He cannot mourn but is a figure of such moral vacancy as to make us mourn for ourselves.

E.L. Doctorow



NYTimes
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: August 12, 2005
WASHINGTON, Aug. 11 -The nation as a whole is moving in the direction of its two most populous states, California and Texas, where members of racial and ethnic minorities account for more than half the population, the Census Bureau said Thursday.

New Majority Non-Hispanic whites now make up two-thirds of the nation's total population, the bureau said, but that proportion will dip to one-half by 2050, according to the agency's latest projections.

In a new report, estimating population levels as of July 1, 2004, the Census Bureau said Texas had a minority population of 11.3 million, accounting for 50.2 percent of its total population of 22.5 million.

Texas is the fourth state in which minority groups, taken together, account for a majority of the population. But no one racial or ethnic group by itself accounts for a majority of the total population there.

Steven H. Murdock, the state demographer for Texas, said, "In some sense, Texas is a preview of what the nation will become in the long run."

"Our future in Texas is increasingly tied to our minority populations," Mr. Murdock said. If their education and skills continue to lag, he added, the state will be less competitive in the global economy.

Members of racial and ethnic minorities also make up more than half the population in Hawaii (77 percent) and New Mexico (56.5 percent). In California, state officials said minorities had accounted for more than half of the population since 1998, and the Census Bureau said they now made up 55.5 percent of the total. Minorities accounted for about 40 percent of the population in each of five other states: Maryland, Mississippi, Georgia, New York and Arizona.

New York had the largest black population, 3.5 million, while California had the largest Hispanic population (12.4 million) and the largest Asian population (4.8 million).

Mr. Murdock said immigration accounted for half of the recent increase in Texas's minority population, while half was because of the excess of births over deaths. Hispanic women, who are having children at a rate of 3 per woman, had a significantly higher fertility rate than blacks, with an average of 2.3, and non-Hispanic whites, with an average of 1.9, Mr. Murdock said.

In the four-year interval from the last census, in April 2000, to July 2004, the bureau reported, the total population of the United States grew 4.3 percent, to 293.7 million, and the black population increased by 5.7 percent, to 39.2 million. But, it said, the Asian population increased 16.2 percent, to 14 million, and the Hispanic population rose 17 percent, to 41.3 million. Hispanics can be of any race.

In the same four-year period, the bureau said, the non-Hispanic white population grew 1.1 percent, to 197.8 million, while the rest of the nation - the "minority population" - grew 11.6 percent, to 95.8 million.

Cecilia Muñoz, a vice president of the National Council of La Raza, a Latino civil rights group, said: "This great diversity and constant demographic change make us a dynamic country. They do not cause unrest or commotion. They are part of a process that's intrinsically American."

Ms. Muñoz said "the political strength of Latinos takes a while to catch up with our demographic strength," in part because one-third of the Latino population is under the age of 18 and many Hispanics are not citizens.

Among counties, the Census Bureau said, Los Angeles had the largest Hispanic population, 4.6 million, and the largest Asian population, 1.4 million. Non-Hispanic whites accounted for just 30 percent of the county's total population of 9.9 million.

Cook County, Ill., which includes Chicago, had the largest black population, 1.4 million.

The Census Bureau figures show that Hispanics account for 36 percent of the total population in the nation's five largest counties: 9.1 million of the 25.4 million people who live in Los Angeles, Cook County, Harris County, Tex. (Houston), Maricopa County, Ariz. (Phoenix) and Orange County, Calif.

In Texas, as in many other states, said Mr. Murdock, a professor at the University of Texas, San Antonio, "the white population is growing very slowly, while other racial and ethnic groups are growing quite rapidly."

Officials in California and Texas said Hispanics had fanned out across their states, while the black population tended to be more concentrated in urban areas.

Hispanics are the largest ethnic group in four of the five largest cities in Texas, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and El Paso, Mr. Murdock said. But, he said, they also account for much of the population growth in rural counties.








Check this site: http://www.meetwithcindy.org/

From: Elizabeth Edwards [mailto:Elizabeth@OneAmericaCommittee.com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2005 1:13 PM
Subject: A Mother and Her Son

Casey Sheehan was born May 29, 1979, the first born child of Cindy and Pat Sheehan. It was a long labor. Fifty-one days after Casey was born, our first child, Wade was born, also after a long labor. They started school the same year, played the same games, watched the same television shows, loved the same country. On April 4, 1996, three weeks after going to Washington as a winner in a national contest about what America meant to him, Wade died in an automobile accident. On April 4, 2004, eight years later to the day, Casey, who loved his country enough to wear its uniform, died in Iraq. Cindy and Pat's hearts broke, as had ours.

We teach our children right from wrong. We teach them compassion and honor. We teach them the dignity of each life. And then, sometimes, the lessons we taught are turned on their heads. Cindy Sheehan is asking a very simple thing of her government, and she and her family, and most particularly Casey, have paid a very dear price for the right to ask this.

Cindy wants Casey's death to have meant as much as his life - lived fully - might have meant. I know this, as does every mother who has ever stood where we stand. And the President says he knows enough, doesn't need to hear from Casey's mother, doesn't need to assure her that Casey's is not one small death in a long and seemingly never-ending drip of deaths, that there is a plan here that will bring our sons and daughters home. He doesn't need to hear from her, he says. He claims he understands how some people feel about the deaths in Iraq.

The President is wrong.

Whether you agree or disagree with every part, or any part, of what Cindy wants to say, you know it is better that the President hear different opinions, particularly from those with such a deep and personal interest in the decisions of our government. Today, another voice would be helpful.

Cindy Sheehan can be that voice. She has earned the right to be that voice.

I grew up in a military family. My father and my grandfather were career Navy pilots. I saw what it meant to live a life every single day when the possibility of an honorable death is always there, at the dinner table, on the playground, at the base school. Will someone's father not come home tonight? And I didn't just feel the possibility, I saw the real thing, and, believe me, it stays with you, it changes you.

I also saw, then and more recently as I campaigned across this country and spent time with courageous military mothers and wives, how little attention is paid to the needs and the voices of military families. It has to change. The sacrifices that our military men and women make assure us that we have the strongest military in the world, but the sacrifices that their families make are too often ignored. The President's cavalier dismissal of Cindy Sheehan is emblematic of a greater problem. This is a mother who raised her son to love his country enough to serve. This is a mother who lived the impossible life of a mother of a soldier serving in Iraq, unable to sleep when he sleeps, unable to sleep when he is on duty, unable to watch the television, unable to stop watching the television.

And when the worst does happen, when the world comes crashing down and she puts the boy she bore, the boy she taught, the boy she loved in the ground, what does that government say to her? It says we'll do the talking; we don't need to hear from you. If we are decent and compassionate, if we know the lessons we taught our children, or if, selfishly, all we want is the long line of the brave to protect us in the future, we should listen to the mothers now.

Listen to Cindy.

Elizabeth Edwards



Another Cindy Sheehan one:





Cindy Sheehan: "This Is George Bush's Accountability Moment"...

The Huffington Post | Cindy Sheehan

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thenewswire/archive/2005/08/cindy-sheehan-this-is-g_5471.html

This is George Bush's accountability moment. That's why I'm here. The mainstream media aren't holding him accountable. Neither is Congress. So I'm not leaving Crawford until he's held accountable. It's ironic, given the attacks leveled at me recently, how some in the media are so quick to scrutinize -- and distort -- the words and actions of a grieving mother but not the words and actions of the president of the United States.

But now it's time for him to level with me and with the American people. I think that’s why there’s been such an outpouring of support. This is giving the 62 percent of Americans who feel that the war is wrong something to do -- something that allows their voices to be heard. It's a way for them to stand up and show that they DO want our troops home, and that they know this war IS a mistake… a mistake they want to see corrected. It's too late to bring back the people who are already dead, but there are tens of thousands of people still in harm's way.

There is too much at stake to worry about our own egos. When my son was killed, I had to face the fact that I was somehow also responsible for what happened. Every American that allows this to continue has, to some extent, blood on their hands. Some of us have a little bit, and some of us are soaked in it.

People have asked what it is I want to say to President Bush. Well, my message is a simple one. He's said that my son -- and the other children we've lost -- died for a noble cause. I want to find out what that noble cause is. And I want to ask him: “If it’s such a noble cause, have you asked your daughters to enlist? Have you encouraged them to go take the place of soldiers who are on their third tour of duty?” I also want him to stop using my son's name to justify the war. The idea that we have to “complete the mission” in Iraq to honor Casey's sacrifice is, to me, a sacrilege to my son's name. Besides, does the president any longer even know what “the mission” really is over there?

Casey knew that the war was wrong from the beginning. But he felt it was his duty to go, that his buddies were going, and that he had no choice. The people who send our young, honorable, brave soldiers to die in this war, have no skin in the game. They don't have any loved ones in harm's way. As for people like O'Reilly and Hannity and Michelle Malkin and Rush Limbaugh and all the others who are attacking me and parroting the administration line that we must complete the mission there -- they don't have one thing at stake. They don’t suffer through sleepless nights worrying about their loved ones

Before this all started, I used to think that one person couldn’t make a difference... but now I see that one person who has the backing and support of millions of people can make a huge difference.

That's why I'm going to be out here until one of three things happens: It's August 31st and the president's vacation ends and he leaves Crawford. They take me away in a squad car. Or he finally agrees to speak with me.

If he does, he'd better be prepared for me to hold his feet to the fire. If he starts talking about freedom and democracy -- or about how the war in Iraq is protecting America -- I'm not going to let him get away with it.

Like I said, this is George Bush's accountability moment.

Posted August 11, 2005 03:10 PM




Another Cindy Sheehan one:





AFSC Peace and Justice Alerts

Educate Yourself. Share your knowledge. Take Action! For information about the American Friends Service Committee,
contact us at 816 931-5256 or afsckc@afsc.org


The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should it stop at the border?
--Pablo Casals


President Bush has refused to meet with Cindy Sheehan, the grieving mother who lost her son in Iraq. Cindy is fast becoming an international spokeswoman against the war. But now, it's up to all of us to show that she's not alone in demanding answers from the president.

Cindy has asked supporters to start candlelight vigils in our communities to remind people of the terrible price of war. So, MoveOn, TrueMajority and Democracy for America have teamed up to organize nationwide "Vigils for Cindy Sheehan" (and for all military and gold star families) on this coming Wednesday, August 17th, starting at 7:30 PM local time.

Since Saturday, folks have agreed to host close to 300 vigils, but we need to do better than that. Hosting a vigil doesn't take much time, but it'll offer lots of people in your community a way to connect. We've prepared a kit that walks you through exactly what you need to do. Can you host a vigil in your community?

Check here to see if there is a vigil in your neighborhood already.

http://political.moveon.org/event/cindyvigils/?id=5892-1770535-dpmCNQL0GL7Vm2mjTAZHPg&t=3


(Obviously these have passed, however there may be more to come if you're interested. Kristin)

Come to a Candle Light Vigil For Cindy Sheehan
Wednesday, August 17, 7:30pm
Vigil for Cindy Sheehan
JC Nichols fountain (horse fountain) on the Country Club Plaza
47 & Main, Kansas City , MO
Hosted by Kim Anderson / organized by MoveOn

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There also will be a Kansas City Camp Casey organized by the 63rd Street Patriots

Sunday, August 21, from noon to 2:00pm
At the Main Entrance to Swope Park
Meyer & Swope Park Blvd., KCMO
(outside the Ethnic Festival)

Come with a sign on message
– Why are U.S. soldiers dying in Iraq? Isn’t it time for the troops to come home!

An opportunity to reach the “moveable middle.” No Bush Bashing Please.

According to KC Star Columnist , Mike Hendricks -“We get the impression from her critics that she’s way out there on the radical fringe. When in fact, there is ample evidence that mainstream America agrees with Sheehan that we were wrong to go to war.”

Let’s send the message that we care about the troops in Iraq, we care about the Iraqi people. The best thing for the future of both Iraqis and the Americans is to bring the troops home!

See KC Star Column by Mike Hendricks http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/columnists/mike_hendricks/12384857.htm
Posted on Mon, Aug. 15, 2005

COMMENTARY


We deserve explanation about Iraq

MIKE HENDRICKS


By now, we’ve all heard of Cindy Sheehan. She is, of course, the mother of a soldier who died in Iraq, and she recently followed the president to Crawford, Texas, to ask him a question: To what purpose did her son give his life in the service of his country?

Each day the TV cameras chronicle Sheehan’s vigil on the road leading to Bush’s ranch, where he is in the midst of a month-long vacation. It’s another media circus. Her backers issue press releases and set up interviews. She tells reporters that she’ll stay in Crawford as long as Bush does, or until he answers her face to face.

And that’s probably not going to happen, as Sheehan’s rhetoric grows more heated by the day. But if a meeting were to take place, she promises Bush won’t get away with simply saying her son died for “freedom” or “in service of democracy.” She wants specifics. Therefore, some see Sheehan as a hero. Others call her a kook, as well as a stooge of the extreme, anti-war left. Probably the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Sheehan’s allies include the Bush haters who would embarrass him at every turn.

But it’s also true that the president deserves to be put on the spot where it concerns our involvement in a war that we entered into under false pretenses. Just what did Sheehan’s son die for? Because if the purpose of waging war in Iraq was to make this country safer, a majority of Americans now believe the opposite has been the result.

That’s what the attacks on Sheehan threaten to obscure. We get the impression from her critics that she’s way out there on the radical fringe. When in fact, there is ample evidence that mainstream America agrees with Sheehan that we were wrong to go to war.

Public opinion has flip-flopped as the insurgency has become deadlier. A majority of Americans now question whether invading Iraq was worth the cost in lives and material. The turnabout reflected in the polls resembles the shift in public opinion during Vietnam.

Remember those days of shock and awe, back in March 2003? Then the number of Americans in favor of the war outnumbered those against it three-to-one. Now 54 percent think it was a mistake, according to last week’s CNN/Gallup Poll.

Fifty-six percent said things were going badly for the United States over in Iraq, and 57 percent said the war has made American less safe from terrorism. It’s not just one poll. Sixty-one percent of Americans disapprove of the president’s handling of the war, according to Newsweek. Personal attacks on Cindy Sheehan by Rush Limbaugh and his ilk do not change that.

All her story did is give voice to what once upon a time we referred to as the silent majority. Remember them, Mr. President? It’s the American people, not just Cindy Sheehan, who deserve an explanation.

Just what have we gained from the sacrifice of 1,850 lives, and the maiming of many thousands more American service men and women? That’s not a rhetorical question. Because frankly, if my 10-year-old daughter asked me to explain to her why we are in Iraq, I couldn’t do it.

Maybe that’s the reason the president is ducking Cindy Sheehan. She’s asking the impossible. For not even the president of the United State can make sense out of something so senseless.

To reach Mike Hendricks, call (816) 234-7708 or send e-mail to mhendricks@kcstar.com.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Post Cards to Support Cindy and Camp Casey

Apparently authorities are threatening to arrest Cindy Sheehan and her protesters camped out on the road in front of President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Since we are not, most likely, going to Crawford here's a plan:

We are going to begin sending postcards daily to Cindy Sheehan with notes of support. The goal is to have thousands of postcards arrive daily. Spread the word. Tell a friend, tell 10 friends and send a postcard today.

If you send a postcard every day from now until September 1st, it'll cost you $3.91.

Send post cards to:

Cindy Sheehan
c/o Bush Ranch
Mill Road
Crawford, TX 76638

Dear Friends,

DriveDemocracy has put together a brief "Cindy" video with footage from Crawford and Cindy's appearances with us around the country at our Freedom AND Faith events. It was put together by Margie Becker.

We think you will find it moving. Please share it with your friends and contacts. Cindy's courageous Crawford stand is galvanizing opposition to the war and awakening America to the senseless tragedy that is Iraq.

She is showing the world the difference one person can make. You should be proud of all you have done to help get Cindy's message out. You have made an incredible difference.

The crowd of supporters in Crawford is swelling. If you are there, or if you are on your way, be safe and be proud.

Cindy is a gift to us. This short video is our gift to you, and to Cindy.

Thanks again for all you do.

Glenn Smith, DriveDemocracy.org

Ira Harritt
Kansas City Program
American Friends Service Committee
4405 Gillham Rd., KCMO 64110
(816) 931-5256
Fax (816) 561-5033



Date: August 17, 2005 12:38:00 PM CDT
Subject: local meetings to organize for the wal-mart movie
Reply-To: bnf@democracyinaction.org

Dear Field Producers and Screening Hosts:

A lot of you have been asking who else and what else is happening in your area. We thought the best way to start was to give you the opportunity to meet up and get to know one another. Let each other know your thoughts and plans for your screening, promotional ideas, what your organization is doing, etc...

So mark this date down -- Tuesday, August 30th -- two weeks from now.

Would you be willing to organize one of these strategy sessions in your area? Nothing complicated, just figuring out a place to meet, and being responsible for making the whole thing happen and letting us know how it went.

You can sign up to host a meeting here:

http://www.bravenewfilms.org/screenings/strategy.php

We'll follow-up with you, and then next week we'll send out another email encouraging people to attend your meeting.

Our hope is that this is a first step in building a foundation for future local organizing around the films and other brave new media ideas. Plus, it'll be fun!

Thank you!
Lisa, Kabira, and Jim

P.S. Just yesterday, we announced a new 10-part series with the ACLU called "Freedom Files". It premieres on September 8th, and we're looking forward to telling you more about it soon.   You can check out the trailer.

http://www.aclu.tv/






Op-Ed Contributor
Left Behind
By THOMAS LYNCH
Published: August 17, 2005
Moveen, Ireland

LIKE President Bush, I enjoy clearing brush in August. We both like quittance of the suit and tie, freedom from duty and detail and to breathe deeply the insouciant air of summer.

He makes for his ranch in Crawford, Tex., a town with no bars and five churches. I come to my holdings near Carrigaholt, here in County Clare, where there are six bars and one church and the house my great-grandfather left more than a century ago for a better life in America.
Of course, we have our differences - the president and I. He flies on Air Force One with an entourage. I fly steerage with hopes for an aisle seat. His ranch runs to 1,600 acres. My cottage sits on something less than two. He fishes for bass stocked in his private lake. I fish for mackerel in the North Atlantic. He keeps cattle and horses. I have a pair of piebald asses - Charles and Camilla I call them, after the sweethearts on the neighboring island.

I suppose we're just trying to reconnect with our roots and home places - Mr. Bush and I. He identifies as a Texan in the John Wayne sense as I do with the Irish in the Barry Fitzgerald sense. And we're both in our 50's, white, male, Christian and American with all the perks. We both went into our fathers' businesses: he does leadership of the free world; I do mostly local funerals. Neither of us went to Vietnam, and we both quit drink for all of the usual reasons. I imagine we both pray for our children to outlive us and that we have the usual performance anxieties.

The president works out a couple of hours a day. I go for long walks by the sea. We occupy that fraction of a fraction of the planet's inhabitants for whom keeping body and soul together - shelter, safety, food and drink - is not the immediate, everyday concern. We count ourselves among the blessed and elect who struggle with the troubles of surfeit rather than shortfall.

So why do I sense we are from different planets?

"The same but different" my late and ancient cousin Nora Lynch used to say, confronted by such mysteries and verities.

Out of Ireland have we come.

Great hatred, little room,

Maimed us at the start.

I carry from my mother's womb

A fanatic heart.

It was in August 1931 when W. B. Yeats wrote "Remorse for Intemperate Speech," which includes this remarkable stanza. Yeats had witnessed the birthing of a new Irish nation through insurgency and civil war. He had served as a Free State senator, and, after winning the Nobel Prize in Literature, was the country's public man of letters. An Anglo-Irishman who had ditched high-church Christianity in favor of swamis and Theosophists and his wife's dabblings in the occult, he was torn between the right-wing politics of between-wars Europe and the romantic, mythic past of Ireland.

His poem confesses and laments that reason and breeding, imagination and good intentions are nonetheless trumped by the contagion of hatred and by the human propensity toward extreme and unquestioning enthusiasm for a cause - whatever cause. It is what links enemies, what makes terrorists "martyrs" and "patriots" among their own - the fanatic heart beating in the breast of every true believer.

Yeats' remorse was real, and well it should have been. The century he wrote this poem in became the bloodiest in the history of our species. Wars and ethnic cleansings, holocausts and atom bombings - each an exercise in the god-awful formula by which the smaller the world becomes, by technologies of travel and communications, the more amplified our hatreds and the more lethal our weaponries become. Great hatred, little room, indeed.

So far this century proceeds apace: famines and genocides, invasions, occupations and suicide bombers. Humankind goes on burning the bridges in front and behind us without apology, our own worst enemies, God help us all.

And maybe this is the part I find most distancing about my president, not his fanatic heart - the unassailable sense he projects that God is on his side - we all have that. But that he seems to lack anything like real remorse, here in the third August of Iraq, in the fourth August of Afghanistan, in the fifth August of his presidency - for all of the intemperate speech, for the weapons of mass destruction that were not there, the "Mission Accomplished" that really wasn't, for the funerals he will not attend, the mothers of the dead he will not speak to, the bodies of the dead we are not allowed to see and all of the soldiers and civilians whose lives have been irretrievably lost or irreparably changed by his (and our) "Bring it On" bravado in a world made more perilous by such pronouncements.

Surely we must all bear our share of guilt and deep regret, some sadness at the idea that here we are, another August into our existence, and whether we arrived by way of evolution or intelligent design or the hand of God working over the void, no history can record that we've progressed beyond our hateful, warring and fanatical ways.

We may be irreversibly committed to play out the saga of Iraq. But each of us, we humans, if we are to look our own kind in the eye, should at least be willing to say we're sorry, that all over our smaller and more lethal planet, whatever the causes, we're still killing our own kind - the same but different - but our own kind nonetheless. Even on vacation we oughtn't hide from that.

Thomas Lynch, a funeral director, is the author of "The Undertaking" and "Booking Passage: We Irish and Americans."






This is from State Rep, Cathy Jolly:

Hello friends. I hope you can join me for a birthday party / fundraiser on August 25th from 5:00 - 7:00 pm at Californos in Westport. It should be a fun event and it will be great to see everyone as the Legislature gets geared up for Veto Session and Special Session--which is rumored to start as early as September 6th.

Please come and help me put on my armor for the battles we will be taking on. As you may know, I have already been personally attacked while we were in session. Ads were taken out criticizing my position on the issues we hold dear --- the rights of organized labor, full funding for education and choice. I have stood firm in my positions.

Hope you can come. See you then.
Your friend,
Cathy







Daily KC recently posted a good interview with our friend Rep. Beth Low . . . .

August 08, 2005

A Few Questions with Our District 39 Rep, Beth low

I received a generic mailer from State Representative Beth Low regarding Missouri’s past legislative session. It got me to wondering what the rookie representative of Kansas City/Jackson County’s District 39 thought of this session. So I asked her a couple questions.

As a young politician, how did you like your first year as a state representative? Was it everything that you expected it to be?

First, I love my job as state representative, and I had a good first session. I think that these two facts would remain the same whatever my age, but since you inquire about that as well, I think that my youth was an excellent advantage. My youth means that some of my peers in the legislature bless me with underestimation; this is a huge advantage in terms of political strategy. Additionally, my youth provides me with a perspective that is fairly unique within the legislature. I am one of only a handful of women who are of childbearing age, for example. Finally, my youth means that I am blessed with numerous older, more seasoned politicians who are eager to mentor me and share their wisdom and influence with me. I was given excellent committee assignments in part because my party leadership is determined to bring up a new generation of influential political leaders.

What were your thoughts on this past legislative session? Is there anything that stands out to you as a positive or a negative for folks here in Kansas City?

Your question regarding my thoughts on this past session is a tougher one to address briefly. I frequently despaired of the direction our general assembly was taking in policy decisions. There were relative few days this session when I was NOT confronted with legislation based on ideology rather than on facts or solid research. The results of this are tragic for many Missourians. 120,000 people in our state will loose health insurance as a result of "reforms" enacted in the name of fiscal restraint. Saddest of all, these cuts will not result in cost savings for the state, or for the people of Missouri, while at the same time resulting in incalculable suffering. Equally disturbing to me is that so many of my colleagues who I think a great deal of as people voted in favor of such fiscally unsound, politically calculated, and totally ruthless legislative decisions.

I wish I could report that I found a legislature that was above the fray of divisive partisanship, but I cannot. I instead found a body where the walls read "What is morally wrong can never be politically right", but where with halls echo with the voices of disabled citizens unable to even get an appointment with their elected officials to discuss the dishonesty of a budget that proudly boasts that wheelchairs have been reinstated into the budget, while still cutting out wheelchair batteries. There is a type of disingenuousness in that budget, and in the people who would proudly pass it, including our Governor, that is to me utterly contemptible in any person, but particularly in a public servant.

And finally, what are your thoughts on Governor Blunt? Was it easy or difficult to work with Mr. Blunt as a legislature? As an individual legislator? Is this Governor as bad as people make him out to be?

I believe that our Governor is as bad as many people say he is. Although I do not actually believe his politics to be any more extreme than those of previous Republican administrations, I believe he lacks the leadership skills necessary to run our state in an effective and healthy way. While in office he has alienated not only Democratic elected officials but many Republicans as well, through a dictatorial style that prefers coercion to team building or inspiration. You can win battles with such a style of leadership, but you will never win a war. Governor Blunt was largely unavailable during session, to Senators and Representative of either party. I saw him in the house chamber only once, and thus I cannot tell you about working with him individually.

Rather than ending on a sour note, I want to reinforce that as difficult and challenging as my first session was, I enjoyed immensely. I joke that it is the worst possible job I can imagine loving this much. I feel like I am making a difference most days, and even on the worst days I feel challenged and engaged and passionate about the job. I am deeply honored to have been chosen to represent my district in this capacity and I hope they will see fit to extend me the opportunity of another term.

Representative Beth Low

-dailykc August 8, 2005 12:00 PM









Rainy Day Books
2706 W 53rd Street
Fairway, KS 66205-1705
Phone: 913-384-3126
Fax: 913-384-9209
Mailbox@RainyDayBooks.com

Time: Friday, November 11, 2005 12:00 PM
Location: Unity Temple on The Plaza, Sanctuary.
Title of Event: Former President Jimmy Carter will join us for his new book, Our Endangered Values.

Who: Former President Jimmy Carter authored the International Bestselling book, Living Faith, published: November 01, 1996. Our Author Event with Former President Jimmy Carter back on January 08, 1997, at Rolling Hills Presbyterian Church, remains our biggest and our best Author Event of all times. He signed thousands of copies of his Living Faith books for thousands of people who waited for hours on end, to the point where his hand and arm were so numb that a Secret Service Agent had to help him put his suit coat on after he finished signing all the books. Our Jimmy Carter Author Event benefited Habitat for Humanity. Jimmy Carter was the 39th president of the United States, serving from 1977 to 1981. In 1982, he founded The Carter Center, a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization that addresses national and international issues of public policy.

What: Jimmy Carter will join us to autograph his new book, Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis, $25.00 Hardcover, ISBN 0743284577, publication date: November 01, 2005. This will be an Autographing Event Only. Jimmy Carter will briefly meet & greet people in the booksigning line as they pass before him for his autograph. Other books by Jimmy Carter could possibly autographed if there is enough time to pass all the people and their books through the booksigning line. Jimmy Carter will be here to autograph copies of his book(s) rather than memorabilia and paraphernalia. Please refrain from asking Jimmy Carter to autograph anything other than copies of his book(s). Thank you.

When: You are encouraged to join us at our Rainy Day Books Author Event on Friday, November 11, 2005, at 12:00 PM, Noon.

Where: A Rainy Day Books Author Event at Unity Temple on The Plaza, Sanctuary, 707 W 47th Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64112.

Why: Jimmy Carter will autograph copies of his new book purchased from Rainy Day Books, on our website and/or at our Author Event, that are accompanied by a Stamped Ticket.

Admission: $25.00 plus Tax, includes One (1) copy of Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis (Hardcover) to be Autographed and a Maximum of One (1) Ticket from Rainy Day Books on a First Come, First Served Basis, while supplies last. One (1) Person can obtain a Limit of Two (2) Admissions. Please specify your need for a Ticket with each Book in the Notes field of your Online Order. All Author Event Book Sales are Final and Non-Returnable.


Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis by Carter, Jimmy
Format: Hardcover (Cloth)
Price: $25.00
Published: Simon & Schuster, 2005
Inventory Status: Not Yet Published








Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it's the only thing that ever has.
~Margaret Mead


The choice is yours…


Please designate Planned Parenthood as a recipient of your United Way gift by filling in the following information on the United Way Donor Choice Card:

For information on United Way Donor Choice programs please contact your United Way representative.


· Organization: Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri

· Phone Number: 913.312.5100

· Address: 4401 W 109th Street

· City/State/Zip: Overland Park, KS 66211


For more information please visit:

www.ppkm.org

or
contact
Shelley Davis
Director of Development
913-312-5100 ext 228



And, finally, here are a few installations from a new "friend", Paul Rola:


New posting to: www.adifferentslant.com

The Downing Street Memos - The much ignored smoking gun that confirms: Bush lied us into war!

Today begins a multi-part series outlining the plans to invade Iraq (long before 911), the philosophy behind the plans, how the plan was put into play in early 2001 and how the Downing Street Memos, after the fact, have exposed the duplicity of this plan. Not much time will be devoted to action in Afghanistan. Afghanistan and Al Queada were just an interruption of the administration's real plan for the Mid-East. Afghanistan is only significant because it opened the door for an all-out war against terrorism which, interestingly, became the preordained target - Iraq. To tell the story, I have tried to use documents that will be accepted by all. I have avoided threads that might just lead back to Jane Doe's blog. Instead, government documents, PNAC writings, and valid media stories were used to construct the path to this war. Please be patient as we take a rather long ride through this maze of information. Subsequent installments will follow every 2 or 3 days.

But first, before you read any of my stuff: go to the Bulletin Board for a message about ICEing your cell phone. And if you want to have a little fun take a peek at the Poppin' Pup video - click fun!

Take Care
Paul

For those receiving this notification for the first time; don't panic. We don't charge or even ask for contributions. This is just my website, where I occasionally discuss (usually just with myself) things that are on my mind. You may at anytime attack, rebut, agree or otherwise comment by emailing me (Click on Contact Me). If you agree I may even publish it. And if you disagree I may publish it too.

How did you get here? You were not randomly harvested! You were selected! Either I have had ecorrespondence with you or you have some how contacted me; or you have inadvertently given me your email address. Or your name has been submitted by a friend... or maybe an enemy, to be added to the list.

If you should find yourself to the Right of my viewpoints, never fear you are amongst about half of the people that receive this notice. You will find I am not here to attack (well maybe a little) you or your viewpoint. I'm just trying to lure you over to right side (which in this case would be the left side). I try to offer a well reasoned and non abusive approach to the subject discussed. Recognizing that I am a liberal you know I will handle any discussion in the most politically correct manner possible; as Rush would say "cause that's what the libs do".

If you wish to get off the list simply drop me an email saying drop me and it will be done. But please check out the website before you do so. You would hate to miss out on hearing or seeing something that could add a little excitement to your life. We all like to have that "something" to get mad about.

Thanks &
Take Care
Paul




New posting to: www.adifferentslant.com

The Downing Street Memos - The much ignored smoking gun that confirms: Bush lied us into war!

Part II - The Mindset, The Philosphy is devoted to a discussion of Leo Strauss a noted thinker and teacher who taught at the University of Chicago between 1949 and 1968. Several of the founders of the Project for a New American Century were either students or followers of Strauss. Most notably, Paul Wolfowitz, Irving and William Kristol, John Ashcroft etc. Ah but poor Leo died in 1973, before he could see the fruits of his labor take hold in the PNAC. Thus, It would appear he is the unsuspecting mentor of a group that seems to be the power behind the throne within the Bush Administration. Read on:

Thanks &
Take Care
Paul




New posting to: www.adifferentslant.com

The Downing Street Memos - The much ignored smoking gun that confirms: Bush lied us into war!

Part III - Rattling Saddam's Cage. Though it was not widely publicized, from the first days of the Bush administration, regime change in Iraq was at the top of the priority list. Quietly and progressively the heat was turned up on Saddam. Bold measures were employed to let Saddam know he was a marked man. Increased bombing, funding and training of Saddam's enemies were only a small part of the buildup for war that took place from the beginning of 2001 thru 2002. Though much of this activity took place before 9-11 the war with Afghanistan did not take focus off Iraq.

Hope you are all having a great weekend!

Thanks &
Take Care
Paul





New posting to: www.adifferentslant.com

The Downing Street Memos - The much ignored smoking gun that confirms: Bush lied us into war!

Part IV - The Memos. In Part IV we discuss the first 6 memos. These are the least formal of all of the documents. Essentially they are the writings of various highranking British official, where they are expressing their Ideas and concerns as they find themselves trying to justify going to war with Iraq. They recognize the war is a forgone conclusion; it's going to happen. Britian has already agreed to partner with the Bush Administration, who has already made the decision to attack Iraq, long before the American people were aware of it. Read on and watch the Brits step lively as they play the game of CYA!

Take Care
Paul




New posting to: www.adifferentslant.com

The Downing Street Memos - The much ignored smoking gun that confirms: Bush lied us into war!

Part V - The Memos. We discuss the last 2 memos. These are the most recent, and reveal the plan discussed in earlier memos is now the UK's Iraq policy not just random writings of individuals within the government. The memos signal that war is inevitable. Details of how to wage the war must be finalized and agreed upon by the US and the UK. In these last 2 memos you see the British government struggling with 2 problems: finding a legal basis to attack Iraq, and convincing parliament and the people of England that the war is justified. The policy by now was decided: all they had to do was fix the intelligence and facts around it.

Part VI - The Conclusion follows.

Take Care
Paul