Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Another St. Patty's Day (and all that)

Posted by Mickey Z on 03/16 at 11:46 AM

  2. ‘Trees not flags’ - I love that, Mickey!

    And I heart the Irish in general, especially since they have liberated themselves from the clutches of an once all-powerful Catholic church.  I have yet to meet an unfriendly Irishman or Irishwoman.

    All best from a sunny but cool Daylesford,
    HElga

    Posted by Helga Fremlin from Daylesford, Australia  on  03/16  at  02:55 PM

  3. Um, yeah, lots of rain these days in Seattle, even for Seattle. Helga, please to send us some Oz sunshine?

    Redundant Epihpany Dept: with this nuke nightmare leapfrogging by orders of magnitude last year’s Gulf-killing oil disaster, it’s becoming clearer: people in power will do anything possible to keep alive the illusion that we’re not utterly raping the planet to a miserable consumerist death. As we pick up speed after departing the cliff edge, this effort will become Catch-22 ridiculous.

    T.C. Boyle recently noted “To be a friend of the Earth, you must be an enemy of the people.”

    Posted by Zen Prole from Rain x5,000,000  on  03/16  at  08:10 PM

  4. Wars, slaughter everywhere, torture, nuke power plants malfunctioning, poisoning of the planet, corruption as the rule, recalled cars that are unsafe, holes in condoms, matches that don’t combust, wealthy deciders raping the poor, tyrannical politics, torture, imprisonment horror and the list goes on and still people think this degenerate way of life with the destruction of all things, is fixable. History wants to happen and deciders and their pawns block change. The illusion of being in control through a constant state of being out of control. How absolutely stupid and unaware of ourselves, until we walk into a wall, then we awaken for only seconds, and the bullshit keeps flowing.

    Posted by Joe Of Maine from The Window  on  03/17  at  03:45 AM

  5. Hi Helga, Joe, Zen, and all…

    Mickey, thanks for ‘liking’ the book. Last night I found a typo in it. My heart sank - oh well, I’m sure it isn’t the only one. As far as I know, it is the only book on the shelves that has never been edited… no money for an editor.

    Joe...Yesterday I saw the first bright red cardinal of the season. I always have a lot of birds here, but cardinals and jays are rare during the winter.  Today the sun is shining and some of the snow has melted, revealing green grass that has been covered for many months.

    To anyone who still believes that there is justice in the USA think Price-Anderson, Vaccine Courts, Bradley Manning, the US operative who was just freed with blood money in Pakistan, drones, DU, GE, NBC, CBS, ABC, Boeing, the NRC, the Offense Dept., and the biggest one of all CAPITALISM. The bottom line is that no one on the planet will be safe until Capitalism is eliminated.

    Posted by RMJ from Ward Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts  on  03/17  at  08:22 AM

  6. Hello all...on this green day.

    RMJ: I more than liked your book and please don’t sweat the typos. Every book has them but not every book has your spirit behind it.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  03/17  at  08:45 AM

  7. Gripe of the Day: “matches that don’t combust.”

    Posted by Zen Prole from Pac NW  on  03/17  at  09:34 AM

  8. Rolling over from the last post. Richard was reminding us about the various consequences of both digital and paper.

    I want to add another vital point.

    The lion’s share of rainforest, and indeed all southern hemisphere, deforestization comes from clearing for cattle ranches. This is specifically for beef export.

    One of the many consequences of meat eating.

    And here’s the thing - we don’t need to debate how much meat we need to get the word out, we can just stop eating it right now.

    Captcha sez: efforts

    Posted by Andy from Shanghai  on  03/17  at  11:44 AM

  9. Thanks Mickey, You made my day!!! xoxoxox

    Many years ago, while I was afflicted with misinformania, before I realized that what I had been taught in school was wrong, I worked in Schenectady for General Electric. I worked in the same building where it is reported that the nukes in Japan were manufactured. That was an era when many believed that science and technology would ‘save us’. I am glad that I lived long enough to know how wrong I was.  Is this the revenge of the machines? So far the machines are winning… and all because people wanted to boil water. There must be a better way, or is it too late? (Correction - people wanted to make money so they found the most expensive and most dangerous way to boil water.) Further proof that Capitalism kills.

    It is really something - the way that the people in Japan are cooperating and helping each other. Can you imagine the looting and violence when there is a big nuke accident in the USA.

    The Prez just said that there is nothing to worry about when the plume arrives in the US on Friday. Of course he also said that Bradley Manning was not being mistreated.

    Posted by RMJ from Ward Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts  on  03/17  at  03:26 PM

  10. RMJ 4. Yes, we have seen Cardinals, Eagles, Hawks. A copy of days ago, a large Owl was in our backyard again. This Owl doesn’t seem to be afraid of us. I think he must know at some vibrational level, he is welcome, though smaller birds don’t jump for joy over the presence of this Owl.

    My partner Jeanne is planting Clary Sage for Hummingbirds.

    Posted by Joe Of Maine from The Window  on  03/17  at  05:32 PM

  11. #9 joe: What kind of owl? The owls I’ve handled are fairly low-key. Red-Tailed Hawks are physically strong, but mostly mild-mannered. It’s the smaller raptors that run on higher frequencies: Cooper’s Hawk, Kestrel, Merlin, Peregrine Falcon.

    Of course this my unprofessional opinion about a highly-controlled environment. Be careful, even in your backyard (which sounds like a cool place to hang out).

    Posted by Zen Prole from Pac Nw  on  03/17  at  08:07 PM

  12. Zen 9, A Barred Owl.  Very large and apparently not one of the largest Owls. That makes it hard for me to imagine a Great Horned Owl, which I’ve never seen.

    There was a very small Hawk sitting on a shovel handle, last week, 10 feet from our door.

    Barred Owl

    http://tinyurl.com/mnmm3m

    if not:

    http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Barred_Owl/id

    Posted by Joe of Maine from The Window  on  03/18  at  02:28 AM

  13. “misinformania”...I love that one.  this whole country is infected and there is no sign of a cure.

    speaking of birds, my cousin found a injured bird in her backyard a while back, it obviously had been a pet and was not all prepared for survival in the Chicago weather.  She nursed it back to health and keeps it in a cage in her house...better than dying...I guess.

    Anyway, last night we were enjoying a St Paddy’s day meal and some drinks and listening to some tunes when Heartache Tonight by the Eagles came on.  I am not a big Eagles fan, but I do think the song kind of rocks...this bird starts dancing and singing right along to it, it was adding its own melody to the song that fit right in.  He or She didn;t do it to any other song played that night.  Hilarious…

    Posted by JOS from Chicago  on  03/18  at  02:01 PM

  14. Hey JOS...Glad you are back. 
    About wild life...CNN is reporting that squirrels are attacking people up here. One of my friends and some others have had to go for rabies shots.  Seems like the animal kingdom is getting annoyed with humans.

    Off topic...Ralph Nader and Daniel Ellsberg and others might get arrested over the week-end in a protest over the mistreatment of Political Prisoner Manning.

    Posted by RMJ from Ward Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts  on  03/18  at  02:43 PM

  15. “Has anyone tried cutting the reactor’s taxes?” - Blaine Capatch

    Animal Instincts Dept: feeding & cleaning the critters is still great; the personalities on-site...not so much.

    JOS! Good to see you.

    Posted by Zen Prole from Pac NW  on  03/19  at  02:05 AM

  16. Zen 14, Received this email last evening from some local.

    Dear our friends in the peace community in the U.S.,

    New Japan Women’s Association


    This is Emiko HIRANO, international section head of the New Japan Women’s Association (Shinfujin).

    Thank you very much for solidarity, compassion and support you have been extending to us, in this most difficult time in our postwar history. You keep reminding us that we are not alone in enduring and recovering from the unprecedented tragedy.

    President Barack Obama said in his statement on Thursday, “We will stand with the people of Japan as they contain this crisis, recover from this hardship, and rebuild their great nation.” We are grateful that the president of our ally is ready to do whatever it can to help us out of this tragedy.

    The New Japan Women’s Association calls on our sisters and brothers, friends of the U.S. peace and just movement to ask your president to return the money he receives from the Japanese government, that is our taxpayers’ money, to cover the 75 percent of the cost of the U.S. military stationing in Japan. We have over 130 U.S. military bases and facilities with about 40,000 personnel. The expenses for the maintaining the U.S. military in our country is called “sympathy budget,” (host nation support in your media) because it covers far beyond the Japan’s obligation under the Security Treaty; it includes the salaries of the Japanese employees working in the bases, as well as heating, electricity and water, and even dry-cleaning charges of military families. In 2010, the expenses totaled nearly 190 billion yen (about $1.6 billion), and Japan covers 50 percent of all the cost of U.S. military stationed around the world.

    With the unprecedented scale of damage in Tohoku region, well-known for its fishery and agricultural products, and the possible radiation contamination, we need money for the rescue work and for assisting the people who barely survived to recover. In the long run, Japan will need more and more money not only for the reconstruction of the disaster-stricken areas but also for recovering from the economic and human losses we are facing as a whole nation. We cannot afford sustaining U.S. military bases and daily life of the military families any more while we need money to help our fellow people living in sorrow, grief and fear to get back to their normal life as soon as possible, although life will not be the same as it used to be.

    Please tell your president to show his support by saying that he kindly declines to receive the “sympathy budget.” Please tell your congresswomen, congressmen and senators to present a resolution to this end.

    Here in Japan, the New Japan Women’s Association, urges the Japanese government to stop spending the Japanese people money for maintaining the U.S. military and to reallocate the budget for human need, with immediate focus on the assistance to the Tohoku population. We believe this will lead to the drastic cut in military spending to make our world safer for all and more sustainable.

    Posted by Joe of Maine from The Window  on  03/19  at  02:56 AM

  17. Hello again and welcome home, JOS.

    Just put up a new post but just wanted to add that I’ve seen where many geological factors are pointing towards a major quake on the US west coast.

    Wow…

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  03/19  at  05:52 AM

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