The Lone Liberal

Tue, 20 May 2003 15:51:17 GMT

I had an interesting gratitude full weekend .... a conversation with Rick Kahn, James cheated death again, and I attended the MN Opera's version of the Matrix- Margaret Attwoods Handmaidens Tale..... ( freedom to OR Freedom from)
I will attempt to cover all three events this week.....

One of my good friends, who shall remain nameless, who was one of the head staff on Paul Wellstone's campaign, and I attended a photo exhibit dedicated to Paul on Saturday afternoon. The artist Terry Gydesen is publishing a book of Paul and Sheila photos via the University of Minnesota Press that will come out this fall. www.terrygydesen.com (the photos are from 1990- 2002)
Who happened to arrive right behind us? Rick Kahn and his wife. It was the first that I have seen him since the Memorial Service that so upset everyone! "Kahn set off an election eve earthquake. His speech was considered too political; too partisan —not the elegant eulogy many had expected. His speech included an impassioned plea for Republicans to break party ranks and help get a Democrat elected to the Senate in Wellstone's place."
For those of you who are not from MN, Rick Kahn is one of the most shy, mild, quiet individuals you might ever meet. He was trying to embody his faithful fireery friend Paul when he made that speech ..... When the group I was with left the Memorial service, we talked about how Rick had gone a little over the top and that we wished no one had BOOOOOOOOOed the republicans... but that over all we were satisfied with the service... We had no idea how it had played out on TV............
On to today - I want to say thank you to Rick for his on going work and words of encouragement on Saturday.... He said "Melissa, no matter how discouraged we are by things right now, we can't give up, we can't move away,.... that is what they want, they want us to just give up........ If he can stay dedicated, how can I not .... He lost not only his political hero but his best friend and has been vilified across the nation......... Thank you for reinspiring me!
Kahn gave KARE 11's Kerri Miller his first television interview since that night. He talked frankly, and emotionally, about what has happened since. The following is based on Miller's report. http://www.kare11.com/news/news-article.asp?NEWS_ID=46538

James, or THE BOY as my family and friends call him, called me Saturday afternoon and said - Mom, I am not injured, but please call me right back.... - NOT the most soothing statement for a Mother to hear ...
James is in Birmingham, AL, for the next few weeks helping the Red Cross respond to a flood. He was driving down the interstate with a van full of volunteers, when a motorcycle sans driving came flying out of the ditch right in ront of his vehicle, as if launched off a ramp! The cycle was in mid air when the impact occurred. Thankfully non of them was seriously injured, including the motor cycle driver. My favorite quotes- "Mom I was driving carefully like I do with you, becuase there were old people over 50 in the van!" and " I am always going to wear my seatbelt, I guess you never know when you might have an accident!" Once again I wish to express my gratitude!

Thu, 15 May 2003 16:57:22 GMT

Is the US turning into Jamaica?

This is the main question I have been mulling over the last week.

The correlation's I am thinking about are:

-Lack of accountability on corporate/government corruption

-Huge disparities in income/wealth

- Road repair/ entrepreneurial sprit

In 1999, I spent 3 weeks in Jamaica as the team lead for a Global Volunteers project.

www.Globalvolunteers.org ("At the request of local leaders and indigenous host organizations, Global Volunteers mobilizes teams of volunteers to live and work with local people on human and economic development projects identified by the community as important to its long-term development. ")

We lived and worked in a village of 60 people called MountVernon which is perched on the top of the Blue Mountains located east of Kingston in a very Non-Tourist section of Jamaica. The driving direction provided to me stated- " you know you have arrived after you have driven through three rivers and the road ends"

We were there to complete the next section of the second foot bridge over one of the three rivers. The footbridges were needed because during the rainy season people were unable to safely walk through the rivers. Students couldn't walk to school, adults couldn't get to down to the market in Morant Bay to sell their vegetables and the closest phone is half way down the mountain.... (I will not flush out the wonders and anomalies of coordinating a group of US and Canadian volunteers in this setting, during this post.... but if I ever get this tool figured out, I will post the team journal from the trip)

Mount Vernon Statistics-

Population- 60

Income-Coffee farming 90% bananas & other vegetables 10%

Cars- Zero

Phone- Zero

Post office- open twice a week

Church- one

School- one Pre-6th grade -

Water - from river piped into house via garden hose.

Corruption: The farmers are paid 50 cents per pound for their coffee, which is sold for 50-60 DOLLARS per pound in the U.S. and Japan. In response to this drastic difference, the farmers formed a coffee cooperative to try to receive a better price. They hired an ex government official from Kingston to negotiate their international sales. (Few people in Jamaica can afford to drink coffee- no versions are even for sale in the area where we stayed- much to the disgust of my team of volunteers!) Long story short-THE guy ended up selling three years of their coffee crop in advance, pocketing the money, and leaving them obligated to deliver 3 years of harvest and he is back in a government post - without any consequences...

Income Disparity:

The flight I was scheduled to fly home on was canceled at the last minute so the airline put me up at a luxury hotel in Kingston. Needless to say, there was a huge contrast in amenities-driving by woman washing their clothes in streams to sitting beside an Olympic size pool sipping a martini... I ended up chatting with two of my fellow hotel guests who were in Jamaica for a polo tournament. Extremes- no telephones, no vehicles- to discussing the flight experience of their polo ponies. Gated compounds compared to coffee cooperatives..... (See the Nytimes article from today on income distribution www.nytimes.com/2003/05/15/opinion/15SHIL.htm - The political argument is true in at least one sense, however: this change will become only more difficult as inequality becomes more pronounced. When the top tenth of the population has attained such a high percentage of society's wealth that it can effectively block any reform, it can be counted on to use its power to keep its riches. America ought to act now to make to sure this never comes to pass.

Road repair/ entrepreneurial sprit- I was provided with an Isuzu jeep for transport- this seemed like a good idea based on the directions saying I would need to drive through three rivers... the astounding thing was that I needed the off road capacity as soon as I drove off the airport grounds! The roads have not been tended in many many years.... (at the time, I thought this was the case only in this part of Jamaica - I have since visited as a tourist and discovered it to be the case everywhere) We are talking about an obstacle course with 4-foot wide two feet deep holes that are around any and every curve.. in addition to wandering cows, goats and chickens. Note: they drive on the other side of the road and the driver sits is on the right!

But the most interesting part of the driving experience was the man that I encountered one day as I was driving down the mountain to go to the market to purchase groceries for our team. I came upon a man shoveling rocks into one of the massive holes. I was thrilled to see this endeavor occurring! When I got close to him, he started waving me over and I saw that he had a sign leaning against his pail of rocks. I do not remember the exact wording but it said something about accepting donations..... He did not have a job and therefore was filling the holes and charging a "toll" as cars passed... I was an easy mark as the lone white girl driving up and down the mountain every few days .. Transporting bags of cement for the bridge building and groceries and making phone calls on behalf of the team members... (Note: you do feel like a movie star: I even received more than one hand written marriage proposal, handed to me by total strangers ......

US questions - have you all noticed the deterioration of our roads here inspite of the supposed incredible wealth generated during the preceding ten years? Do we have still have the will to accomplish collective community endeavors?

My financial status/ unemployment situation is reduced from making about one and half to twice the average US amount down to me thinking about acquiring my own shovel and pail .... Do you thing the federal of state administrations or my neighbors would appreciate my entrepreneurial sprit?

Thu, 08 May 2003 16:40:18 GMT

The book of Laughter and Forgetting- Milan Kundera

I first read this book years ago, but the Bush flight performance made me pull it out to read again. The "hat" image has always haunted me ... " It is 1971, and Merick says that the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting"

Excerpt page one - "In Febuary 1948, communist Leader Klement Gottwald stepped out on the balcony of a Baroque palace in Prague to address the hundreds of thousands of his fellow citizens packed into Old Town Square" It was was a curcial moment in Czech history- a fateful moment of the kind that occurs once or twice a millennium."

Gottwald was flanked by his comrades, with Clementis standing next to him. There were snow fluries, it was cold, and Gottwald was bareheaded. The solicitious Clementis took off his own fur cap and set it on Gottwald's head."

"The party propaganda section put out hundreds of thousands of copies of a photgraph of that balcony with Gottwald , a fur cap on his head and comrades at his side, speaking to the nation. On that balcony the history of Communist Chechoslovakia was born. Every child knew the photograph from posters, schoolbooks, and museums."

"Four years later Clementis was charged with treason and hanged. The propaganda section immeadiatly airbruashed him out of history, and obviously out of all the photgraphs as well. Ever since, Gottwald has stood on that balcony alone. Where Clementis stood, there is only bare palace wall. All that remains of Clementis is the cap on Gottwald's head."

Excerpt page two- "He had finally come around to the position of his more cautious friends. True, the consitution guaranteed freedom of speach; but the law punished any act that could be construed as undermining the state. Who could know when the state would start screaming that this of that word was undermining it? "

Excerpt page 7 - " The bloddy massacre in Bangladesh quickly covered over the memory of the Russian invasion of Chechoslovakia, the assination of Allende drowned out the groans of Bangladesh, the war in the Sinai Desert made people forget Allende, the Cambodian massacre made people forget Sinai, and so on and so forth until unltimately everyone lets everything be forgotten.

In times when history moved slowly, events were few and far between and easily committed to memory. They formed a commonly accepted backdrop for thrilling scences of adventure in private life. Nowadays, history moves at brisk clip. A historical event, though soon forgotten, sparkels the morning after with the dew of novelty. No longer a backdrop, it is now the adventure itself, an adventure enacted before the backdrop of the commonly accepted banality of private life"

Sat, 03 May 2003 18:15:35 GMT

My friends are starting to send their causes to me to post on my flegling blogg site ...

My main thought on the environment topic:

100 years ago people could eat fish from any lake in the entire world with gusto, and now we cannot- NOW - even here in Minnesota - we have restriction reccomendations of the number of fish it is safe to eat and pregnant women should not consume any.... I find that fact beyond my understanding.... How did anyone ever come to the conclusion that posioning their own enviroment was reasonable choice? What was the logic? Was the trade off of higher imeadiate profits deemed acceptable in exchange for generations of poisoned food consumtion or did people not know the kind of effect they were having or did they just not care?

This especially bothers when it comes to explaining this reality to children- Sorry, you can only eat two of the fish you caught because you can only eat that much posion per year.... and when your Grandma was a little girl the fish were safe to eat... beyond my comprehension............

Freedom of Speech - Except For MN Organic Farmers?

I wasn't reading it I'm not sure I would believe it. I guess the "Free" market economy is only for those big enough to afford it. Please call or e-mail your representatives.

Thanks,

Mike

Attempts to silence opposition to factory farming in Minnesota has reached new levels at our state's capitol. Senator Steve Dille of Dassel is attempting to pass legislation that disqualifies people who have opposed factory farming from receiving organic funding from the MN Department of Agriculture.

In other words - no organic funding if you have tried to stop feedlot expansion, the growing of biotech crops, the application of farming chemicals or ANY industrial agriculture practice in MN during the past 3 years.

This bill is now headed for the Senate floor for a vote and is expected to happen very soon. Please call Senator Steve Dille (651-296-4131) and contact your Senator and tell them to remove lines 8.6 - 8.11 in SF 990. Tell them that people have the right to protect the environment without fear of being singled out. You can find your Senator's contact info here:

Below is the wording that has been inserted into SF 990.

7.34 (d) For the purposes of expanding, improving, and
7.35 developing production and marketing of the organic products of
7.36 Minnesota agriculture, the commissioner may receive funds from
8.1 state and federal sources and spend them, including through
8.2 grants or contracts, to assist producers and processors to
8.3 achieve certification, to conduct education or marketing
8.4 activities, to enter into research and development partnerships,
8.5 or to address production or marketing obstacles to the growth
8.6 and well-being of the industry. The commissioner may not
8.7 provide a grant to or contract with an individual or
8.8 organization that in the previous 36 months has taken, or
8.9 participated financially in, an action to prevent a person from
8.10 engaging in agricultural activities or expanding an agricultural
8.11 operation.

Make those calls and please spread the word.

Tom Taylor
Midwest and Southeast Field Organizer
Organic Consumers Association
Tel: 612-331-7309
Fax: 612-331-7483
tom@organicconsumers.org

Thu, 01 May 2003 18:32:55 GMT

Ok, I paid for a year long membership - Do I need to re-download the application and will I then get a salon version of my web pages?

Thu, 01 May 2003 14:07:12 GMT

Happy May Day One and All! http://www.hobt.org

This weekend is our funky liberal spring celebration

On May Day (actually, the first Sunday in May) at 1 p.m., Minneapolis celebrates May Day at Powderhorn Park. Starting with a colorful parade filled with living puppets from The Heart of the Beast Puppet Theater, the parade and parade watchers wend their way down Bloomington Avenue, in South Minneapolis, until they reach Powderhorn Park. The Heart of the Beast living-puppet cast then performs along the banks of Powderhorn Lake in front of crowds gathered on the hillsides.

It is always especially interesting to see which politicians show up to demonstrate that liberal credentials.... We will miss you Paul!

Thu, 01 May 2003 13:49:57 GMT

Bryan Bell- I had to revert back to the default template again.... I hope you can leave a suggestion now...

Thu, 01 May 2003 03:53:42 GMT

OK, I am going to try applying this theme again- so much more soothing than the standard.... Lets hope I don't lose my comments again... My categories do show up...

Thu, 01 May 2003 01:24:16 GMT

Sobriety High School- www.sobrietyhigh.org

My useful contribution to the world today was finalizing the details of new student mentor program. I am a Director on the east campus board. (Yes, I volunteer, as all good liberals should!) Sobriety High consists of two schools (a third will be added in 2004, if the school budgets are not cut too severally) that serve up to 46 students per campus. Requirements for admission are successful completion of chemical/alcohol treatment program and a commitment to stay sober.

I guess I am ready to reveal via this website that my son (the Americorp-ite) graduated from SHS last year as the Valedictorian Student Body President, and he will have 3 years of Sobriety on June 1, 2003!

Without going into all the gory details - In fall of 1999 James went to a party with the kids from his AP physics class and had his first drink. Soon after his grades plunged and I was left trying to figure out where my star student and engaged young man had gone. I dragged him to a therapist within weeks because of his attitude change but it took all of us, nine months to figure out that it was more than teenage angst. On May 30 2000, the answer was revealed when James was rescued from drowning in the Mississippi River. He attempted to kill himself because all he wanted to do was drink and felt so desperate. He immediately entered Fairviews' teen treatment program. They told me during family week that less than 3 % of teens stay sober after completing treatment. In spite of those odds, James has been sober ever since! We enrolled him in Sobriety High School and as a family, we both are committed to the "program". He attends AA and sees his sponsor weekly and I attend Alanon. This is the same kid I mentioned previously, who whips out his Noam Chomsky (sp?) books to debate with me.....

When I can figure out how to activate the categories, I have already set up for this blogg - I will create a parenting teen alcoholics/addicts section....

Check out the Sobriety High site at www.sobrietyhigh.org

We still need to raise another 26 thousand dollars by the end of June, feel free to send us a check!

Sun, 27 Apr 2003 15:21:49 GMT

Where Have I Been?

Well, Black Beauty, my 91 Volvo Wagon and I had an accident and it took all of my time and energy that isn't devoted to looking for employment to negotiate with the offenders insurance company about the obscenely low $ value they were offering me, search for a reasonable replacement and in the end plead for its life! I want to note that the other driver slammed into the back of me! I did not in anyway cause this accident!

I want to acknowledge that if I were employed this would not have been such a devastating blow. (Pun intended) The question became- Do I sue the company for the true replacement value of my car as advised by the attorney generals office and my insurance agent and my mechanic and my friends and not be taken advantage of and go without a car for an unknowable length of time since I do not have enough 401K or savings dollars left to purchase a replacement or do I accept their offer.

Another examples of how it takes money to make/not lose money!

The conclusion: My angelic mechanic found me a body shop that agreed to make the minimum necessary repairs: unbend the frame and make the passenger doors operational for under the insurance $ amount. My stead is now in its' stable and I keep getting down on my hands and knees to look at its undercarriage to see if it is leaking....

A big shout out to -

Como Imports- 1501 Como Ave SE Minneapolis MN 55414 612-331-5115

Collins Auto Body- University Ave Columbia Heights MN 763-572-8282

This adventure has lead me to the following recommended resources:

BBB.org, http://www.claimcoach.com/freereport.htm

And I big thumbs down to American Country Insurance -the insurance company of the Taxi that hit me and Met Life my own Insurance company and CCV the valuation company- Who is already has a CLASS ACTION pending for colluding with Insurance companies for undervaluing vehicles!

Note: Driving a Volvo wagon.... I really do fit most of the liberal stereo types!

Mon, 14 Apr 2003 11:52:58 GMT

Well, Well, Well, it is NOT only David Brooks ( yesterdays post) who believes that
Democracy is equal to Capatalism! (SEC’Y RUMSFELD & William Saffire think it also! )
I do here by swear to document this connection, where ever it is found!
I also promise to go back a reread the book: The incorporation of America!
believes

Meet the Press 04/13/03
http://www.msnbc.com/news/899716.asp

MR. RUSSERT: What happens if Syria doesn’t change their behavior?

SEC’Y RUMSFELD: Oh, that’s above my pay grade. Those are the kinds of things that countries and presidents decide. That’s broad national policy. I’m a participant, but I’m certainly not a decider.

MR. RUSSERT: But could they be risking the future of their government?

SEC’Y RUMSFELD: Well, I guess to a certain extent you’re known by your friends. And being on the terrorist list is not some place I’d want to be if I were a country or a leader of a country. I don’t quite understand a country that foregoes the economic opportunity that comes from interaction with the world community and the opportunities for their people by creating an environment that’s hospitable to enterprise and to economic intercourse. Why they want to live like that. Why they want to think that the only way to sustain their dictatorships is to repress people and to deny them the fruits of economic interaction with the world. I think it’s a shame. I don’t know what motivates people except preservation of a regime. I mean, you look at dictatorships and basically, they get up in the morning and the single most important thing is not looking out for their people, it’s how do we preserve the regime. How do we continue our ability to control everything and repress everyone and control the press and deny freedom of religion and enlarge our prisons and force people, in the case of other countries, to live on subsistence food. I don’t get it."

The Best Defense By WILLIAM SAFIRE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/14/opinion/14SAFI.html
"If we steadily introduce free enterprise and the rule of law into a loose confederation; if we expect little gratitude from Iraqis exercising the freedom to complain loudly and a lot of carping from "the little three" in Paris, Berlin and Moscow — then Americans could possibly achieve what seems as far-fetched as defeating fascism in the 40's and Communism in the 90's. We could give liberty a chance to take root in the land of Job. Then our children may be able to lay down the burden of a great offense because there will be less need for a best defense. "

Ultimate Insiders By BOB HERBERT
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/14/opinion/14HERB.html

"In December 1983 Donald Rumsfeld was sent to the Middle East as a special envoy in an effort to jump-start the peace process in Lebanon and advance a presidential initiative for peace between Arabs and Israelis."
"The primary goal of Mr. Rumsfeld's visit to Baghdad was to improve relations with Iraq. But another matter was also quietly discussed. The powerful Bechtel Group in San Francisco, of which Secretary Shultz had been president before joining the Reagan administration, wanted to build an oil pipeline from Iraq to the Jordanian port of Aqaba, near the Red Sea. It was a billion-dollar project and the U.S. government wanted Saddam to sign off on it."
It was known by the fall of 1983 that Iraq had used chemical weapons against Iran. That did not prevent the U.S. from pursuing improved relations with Saddam, or curb the enthusiasm for the Aqaba pipeline — a project promoted by a company that had given the Reagan administration not just its secretary of state, but also its secretary of defense, Caspar Weinberger, who had been Bechtel's general counsel.
Now, 20 years later, Mr. Shultz (who is currently on the board of Bechtel) and Mr. Rumsfeld are among the fiercest of the war hawks. They wanted war with Iraq and they got it.
This unilateral war and the ouster of Saddam have given the hawks and their commercial allies carte blanche in Iraq. And the company with perhaps the sleekest and most effective of all the inside tracks, a company that is fairly panting with anticipation over oil and reconstruction contracts worth scores of billions of dollars, is of course the Bechtel Group of San Francisco.

Sun, 13 Apr 2003 14:09:28 GMT

Can Democracy exist without Capatalism/Free market economy?
David Brooks does not think so......

(DAVID BROOKS: I covered the end of the Soviet Union and the beginning of Russia. That was different obviously, but it was totalitarian and this is totalitarian. There is no easy road from here to there. There is just none because people don't have political habits. They don't have a sense of property. They have been living their lives without any sense of that this is property -- of rule of law that there is a legitimate rule of law and I should obey the law the walk lights. That's all gone. )

Shields & Brooks Transcript http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/political_wrap/jan-june03/sb_4-11.html
JIM LEHRER: A pure politics question, the political pundits have been saying since the fall of Baghdad, and they've had three days to say this now, that any Democratic presidential candidate who voted wrong or who was on the wrong side, in other words, any peace candidate is toast as a result of this. Do you agree? You're a pundit. Both of you guys are qualified.

DAVID BROOKS: I'm three days behind. I'm not sure. I really am not sure because it could go terribly in which case Sean Penn will be president. JIM LEHRER: Let me write that down.
DAVID BROOKS: The problem the Democratic Party has is that 80 percent roughly approve the war, 17 percent disapprove of the war, and the core of the Democratic party is that 17 percent. You can't win elections with 17 percent. And the problem is not so much how things are going to look in 2004, who knows. The problem is there's a fundamental divide in the Democratic Party between the activists and the majority. 62 percent of registered Democrats support the war but when Edwards, Gephardt, Lieberman go out and speak, they're heckled by the core who oppose. And that's a divide over America's role in the world that is a fundamental divide in the party that somebody has got to solve.
JIM LEHRER: Mark.

MARK SHIELDS: Jim, I think that first of all this is not 1991. 1991 the argument that was used against, by Democrats opposing that war was that the body bags, the thousands of body bags that would come back. That didn't materialize in the war in 1991. And therefore could you say they were wrong. Democrats did win the presidency in 1992 over the president who had presided over that victory...
JIM LEHRER: To remind people, that was Bill Clinton defeated George Bush.
MARK SHIELDS: George Bush. That's right. This time, the criticism of the Democrats, the opposition was based upon what I considered to be two factors. The first was the diplomatic botching by the administration, which they faulted the fact, the isolation ended up acting unilaterally. And second it was the sense of what the implications would be, what the fallout would be both regionally and globally and internationally and what the consequences of our act would be? If it would unleash terrorism and things of this sort. In both cases, I think those are open to criticism and we don't know the answer yet.
JIM LEHRER: They're not toast, not yet - too early. You two pundits say the other pundits are wrong.
DAVID BROOKS: We will be talking for the next two years about how untoast they are.
JIM LEHRER: And we're just going to leave it there.

Sun, 13 Apr 2003 02:31:31 GMT

SEX, sex, and more SEX, oral sex, straight sex, bi sex, gay sex, boy on boy, girl on girl, lucious, provacative SEX...

Title of one of my silk screen prints:

Sex is only friction between bodies and souls

This is my shameless attempt to appear in more Yahoo & Google searches and attract more traffic to this Blogg.

Sun, 13 Apr 2003 02:23:19 GMT

How come so many of the Iraq People know and can speak English?
No one in my circle knows their language. The army guys scream things in english..... What is their language?