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Have you ever sold a cell phone? Have you ever given one to a family member, or thrown one away in the trash? You may have given away your financial records, your passwords, even the secret of the affair you're having on your spouse. This could be true even if you were careful enough to delete all your cell phone's records first.
Don't believe it? Read the article "Betrayed by a cell phone" at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/betrayed_by_a_cell_phone
"Where is the fiscal responsibility of the party I joined in '68? Where is the international engagement of the party I joined — fair, free trade, individual responsibility, not building a bigger government, but building a smaller government?" Sen. Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record), R-Neb, asked that question, according to the article "Sen. Hagel says GOP has lost its way" by Associated Press writer Will Lester.
It's a good question--what did happen to the Republican Party, the Grand Old Party, of 1968?
The answer is, it committed suicide. After the first resignation ever of a United States president, Republican Richard M. Nixon in 1974, the party had a serious image problem. Vice President Gerald "Mr. Clean" Ford helped clean up the image, but still lost the election to Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976. So what was the Republican Party to do?
The answer was, recreate itself. While still calling itself the "Grand Old Party," in fact it became a new political party with a very different agenda by the time Ronald Reagan won the U.S. presidency in 1980. Now the American people were told that they needed more government, meaning more bureaucracy, to protect them in the War on Communism. And they had to assist the wealthy, because by the Trickle Down Theory their wealth would fall to the middle class and the poor. The government sunk America into a level of debt it had never seen.
Now it's a quarter of a century later, and after the government under Democratic President Bill Clinton finally got out of debt, America is buried in it again. Now it's not the War on Communism (which died from economic collapse, not the U. S. Military--the Soviet Union couldn't keep up with America's overspending), it's the War on Terror. It's not the Trickle Down Theory (which failed miserably), it's refusing to raise the minimum wage because it would cost business too much and they'd have to let workers go. After all, by not raising the minimum wage, the money saved by the rich can trickle down to help the poor. And if the wealthiest 7,500 families get a huge tax break, that will trickle down to help the poor and middle class too. So maybe it is the same old thing--or the same new thing--all over again.
Where is the true Grand Old Party? They are now just a memory, like Ronald Reagan, who was viewed by even his enemies as a man who stood up for what he believed in, and truly believed in what he claimed he stood for. How many of George W. Bush's enemies will say that of him? Ronald Reagan is gone, and the Republican Party has to be satisfied with a very poor imitation. Perhaps it's time for the Grand Old Party to recreate itself once again.
"It was never the intent of the Framers to give the President such unfettered control, particularly where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights."
-- U.S. District Court Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, in a ruling that strikes down the National Security Agency's warrantless domestic spying program.
"I would say that those who herald this decision simply do not understand the nature of the world in which we live. I strongly disagree with this decision."
-- George W. Bush, President of the United States of America
Is the decision against the NSA monitoring the phone calls and emails of millions of Americans without a warrant a victory for freedom of speech or a defeat for the security of the homeland? Is it good to stop warrantless spying to preserve freedom, or to allow spying without a warrant to keep America safe?
Feel free to post your opinions on the issue and the articles at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060819/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush and http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/08/18/bush.ap.
(Alden Loveshade is a freelance writer who became involved in a political protest while vacationing in Boulder, Colorado, some time before JonBenet Ramsey was reported missing. Alden has been following the Ramsey case ever since. Here, Alden looks at the problem of false accusation, like what happened in the Ramsey murder case and to a small town mayor).
The tabloids, whether in print or local TV news form, are having a field day: a suspect has been arrested in the murder case of JonBenet Ramsey. If you don't know, Ramsey was a 6-year-old beauty queen who was found, dead and beaten, in her family's basement in Boulder, Colorado, on December 26, 1996. The parents, John and the recently late Patsy Ramsey, were named by the pop media as possible suspects, but were never charged.
Ironically, the number of parents who signed up their preschool and other young girls to run for beauty queen shot up after the case. It's an odd example of how sometimes publicity, any publicity, can help.
But the publicity must have been a very heavy weight on the shoulders of John and Patsy, and likely still weighs on John. How could anyone handle losing your daughter, finding her dead body, and then living with the blame that you killed her? Now there's a heavy weight on the former schoolteacher who was arrested in Thailand. Whether he is ever formally charged, whether or not he is ever convicted, this accusation will weigh on his shoulders until he dies.
In modern day America, and in much of the world, you don't have to actually be convicted of a crime against children; all you have to do is be accused. I know of a small town California mayor who was accused of sexually abusing his young daughters by his wife, who was suing for divorce. He was arrested, "coincidentally" while a reporter for the local newspaper happened to be there. In jail, he was given a towel to use after his shower, a towel with a long brown streak of "something" on it. Outside of jail, he was socially ostracized, and his political career was ruined.
He was eventually released, and all charges were cleared. But the accusations stayed with him.
As it happened, I was an acquaintance with one of the police officers who was involved in the arrest. That officer said the department had to arrest him, even though they believed it was all part of the custody dispute over who got to keep the kids. In fact, the officer said privately that the police never thought he was guilty. False accusations are common in custody disputes. But they had to do their legal duty, and an innocent man's career was destroyed.
The world will be watching the latest lurid twist in the Ramsey case. Expect to see photos of JonBenet popping up in even more places on the Internet, on supermarket tabloids, on tabloid TV programs, everywhere. Look for the photo op when the suspect is brought into the U.S. Look for schoolteachers to start feeling even more paranoid about being accused than they are now.
Is the suspect innocent or guilty? Of course we don't know. But in the eyes of many, regardless of whether or not he's found not guilty, he, like John and Patsy Ramsey, will be guilty for the rest of his life.
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When you write about an event immediately after it happens, you often find that the known facts change very quickly. That happened here. Very shortly after I wrote the article above, reports said John Mark Karr confessed to JonBenet's murder. If accurate, his apparent guilt came out of his own mouth.
But I wonder about his confession. People under stress, such as the stress of being arrested, or people suffering from certain mental problems, will sometimes confess just to relieve pressure or out of self-delusion. A confession may be real or not. And his confession apparently doesn't fit the known facts of the case, and his ex-wife apparently said he has an alibi. But I'll leave off making conjectures.
In any case, my point about false accusations, particularly in cases involving children, remains. Anyone thus accused can be punished by social ostracizism, difficulty in finding work or friends, and hate and fear for the rest of his or her life.
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See more recent entry in this case at http://loveshade.org/blog/2008/07/jonbenet_ramsey_parents_cleare.html
Please read the Warning at the bottom of this entry before clicking on any links.
On August 23, 2001, a 13-year-old California teenage girl, later known as Lorien Loveshade, started posting her online diary. It was more in the intimate style of "The Diary of Ann Frank," or even "The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer," than a typical 21st Century teen blog. Lorien, who then wrote under her real name, shared her feelings and thoughts and the personal life of a young teenaged girl.
But things changed. Fear seized America, and the paranoia that infected America and much of the world reached Lorien as well. She stopped posting her diary online. But she continued writing it on computer privately, and this secrecy enabled her to write even more openly about her personal life and her feelings as a young teen girl. Later, she began posting it again, but this time only on a private site for members only.
Now, on the six-year anniversary of when it began, Lorien is bringing her secret diary into the open. You can already see most of Lorien's life as a 17-year-old revealed on her website, and on August 23, 2006, will be able to read the accounts of her then 13-year-old life. These will be posted in near real time, only five years later--on September 11, 2006, for example, you should be able to read what she wrote on September 11, 2001.
Lorien is 18 now, out of high school and with a few community college classes under her belt. In September, she'll begin full-time study as a college freshman English major. She will continue to post accounts of special events and highlights of her life, such as her upcoming summer vacation. In a few days, Lorien, her 15-year-old soulmate Mindy, Mindy's father and mother and younger brothers, and their mutual friend (and girlfriend of Mindy's 13-year-old brother Bobbie), 12-year-old Flower will be on the road. They plan to spend time with Mindy's aunt and her teenaged sons and daughter, and also plan to see Harmony, a friend Lorien and Mindy met over the Internet. Harmony plans to post his version of their vacation as well.
But before you read her diary, here's a warning from Lorien:
"I write about everything that happens to me. That means that some of this is boring but some of it gets explicit! So really dont read it unless ur mature ok?"
In this issue you'll find:
* Information about the planned Aug. 25 to 27 Summit Meeting/Battle for World Rulership between the Discordian Division of the Ek-sen-triks CluborGuild and Mythics of Harmonia.
* Coming Holydays (Weird and Fun)
* Reverend Loveshade in Hospital--and back out again
* Special Message from Untroubled Teen and Princess Unicornia
* Mega Cool New and Coming Entries for Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia: The Tales of Shamlicht
See Ek-sen-trik Discordia Snooze Letter -- August 2006 at http://discordia.loveshade.org/xtra/snooze0608.html
Warning: contents may open your mind
What would you tell your children to help them grow up to be terrorists?
Reverend Loveshade wrote "How to Raise a Terrorist" in 2001. In the early part of 2002, federal agents seized it and a lot of other things written by Reverend Loveshade and other people. One of the things they took was a poem I wrote about September 11 that was published in a school book when I was 13.
I guess they got the wrong idea. We weren't writing anything to promote terrorism, but to show how to stop it. My poem talked about fighting terrorism with love, but his essay was satirical, as if he wanted to teach people how to make their children terrorists. I guess you could call it a Jake. I guess the government doesn't have a sense of humor!
Anyway, here's part of what he wrote. You can add your own ideas on how to raise a terrorist. But here's a note to the Government. THIS IS SATIRE!
"If I truly believed that it was the right thing to do, that it was what sovereign God wanted me to do, and that if I did it I'd be rewarded in heaven with a huge mansion, 80,000 servants, and 72 beautiful, willing virgins all waiting there just for me, I'd crash a plane into a building too."
-- Reverend Loveshade in "How to Raise a Terrorist" (2001)
There are more comments on this topic at http://www.23ae.com/?showo=1&post=338#comments but heed this warning: we have no control over the contents of that site, and cannot be responsible for what you find there.
There are two primary types of posts: Entries written by our Family and Friends, and Comments posted by anyone who visits.
Anyone is welcome to post a comment to one of our entries, and we welcome all opinions, including those that strongly disagree with our entries. But because this site is for a general audience, we ask that you stay away from profanity, graphic/gratuitous descriptions of sex/violence/bodily functions, posts that blatantly promote illegal activity, hate mongering, etc., or links to the same. To avoid possible problems, we screen all comments before they're posted, and reserve the right to censor your post.
In general, we are opposed to censorship, and think you should be able to say or write what you like. But we also believe we have the right to decide what's posted on our own site. That's part of freedom of speech too.
You've probably heard by now that today, Thursday, 10 August 2006, British officials are taking credit for stopping a major terrorist plot to blow up several planes flying from London to America. If true, that's great. A number of lives may have been saved, and a spread of mass paranoia through America and Great Britain and other parts of the world may have been stopped. Or could this effort be used to spread paranoia?
Since the Department of Homeland Security was created in America after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack, it has been used as a tool to scare the American people. The citizens were told on more than one occasion that the level had been raised from yellow to orange. At first, it frightened people, which seemed to be its only purpose. What was the reason for alerting the American people to danger when they were told to "just go about your normal, everyday routine?" In other words, there's absolutely nothing you can do, but we want to scare you anyway. Why?
Because terror makes the citizens more accepting of threats to freedom from their own governments.
It's ironic that just last night I was talking to my friend Danacasso about how most Americans don't even know what alert level they're on. It seems like it's always yellow or orange, never green or red. We've gotten so used to the government crying wolf that we've ceased to listen.
Now, for the first time ever, the U. S. Government has raised it to red, the highest and most frightening level. Now, when the Bush Administration is losing popularity, when much of the current power base in Washington D.C. is under a threat from an election coming up in less than three months, now is the perfect time to scare America.
George Orwell talked about this technique in his book Nineteen Eighty-Four. The country was always at war, so there was always a threat from "out there." As long as the people were afraid of a threat from "out there," they wouldn't band together to fight the threat from their own government. The government really didn't want to win the war, because the constant threat kept the people afraid and subservient.
So do your elected officials really want to win the war on terror? Or would they prefer to have it continue indefinitely?
Here's a note to any government that wants to keep its people controlled (as if your government doesn't already know this). Terrified people do not want to be free, they want to be protected. If you can keep the people in a state of terror, you won't have to take away their freedom--they'll give it to you willingly.
We don't believe in Ageism, which is deciding what you can do and can't do based on an arbitary age. (Read The Myth of the Adulthood Fairy for a humorous story about ageism).
But this ACLU survey is fun. How old should you be to do adult things in America? Check it out and fill it out at http://www.aclu.tv/youthsurvey
Under the guise of responding to the NSA spying scandal, the Bush administration and its allies in Congress are actually pushing for new ways to invade your privacy, with unprecedented and dangerous spying legislation crafted under Dick Cheney’s supervision.
The bad news is, if these bills pass, our homes, cell phone records and email inboxes will be laid bare to new kinds of government spying that are currently completely illegal. The good news is that we have a chance to stop these bills now, before White House pressure drives them to a speedy vote.
This August you can help generate a public outcry that will make Congress think twice before they hand over even more power to the Bush administration. Call your member of Congress today, and get the word out in your local community with a letter to the editor.
This legislation is being characterized by some as "surveillance we can live with," but the fact is it would vastly expand the government's power to search and spy on Americans without any judicial checks, including reading any email you send if the government does not know where all the recipients are physically located.
Don’t be deceived by claims the Cheney-Specter bill restores judicial review. The legislation really tries to make warrants optional while allowing a secret court to rubber-stamp surveillance of Americans, without even knowing the names of Americans to be wiretapped or whether they’ve done anything wrong. We are running advertisements and working with every contact we have in the major news outlets to counteract the government’s spin, but we need your help.
If you’ve had enough of an administration that’s proven itself grossly indifferent to the rule of law and the balance of power time and time again, on issues from warrantless spying, to secret kidnapping, to the unlawful treatment of Guantanamo detainees, now is the time to say “NO MORE.”
Just last week, President Bush and Attorney General Gonzales were pushing Congress to rubber-stamp a new plan for military commissions at Guantanamo that would violate U.S. law and the Geneva conventions, flying in the face of the recent Supreme Court ruling striking down the entire Bush-sponsored system of detainee trials.
Use the links above to learn more about the Cheney-backed proposals and get involved during this critical month of action. You can help get out the truth about this bill and the dangers it poses.
Throughout August, we’ll be calling on you to help cut through the White House spin and tell Congress how toxic these bills are to our basic freedoms. They need to hear the wave of opposition while they’re on their summer break. And we’re counting on you to help turn the tide, by speaking out at home and online.
Thank you for standing with us.
Sincerely,
Anthony D. Romero
Executive Director
American Civil Liberties Union
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This 9 August 2006 letter belongs entirely to the ACLU, and no threat to its rights in any way is intended by posting it here. It was sent free to everyone who chooses to subscribe to their email notices of critical threats to freedom in American, and to successes in fighting those threats.
To get on the action list on this issue, go to action.aclu.org/site/Ecard?ecard_id=3281
To subscribe to their email, so that you can know what's happening in America and what you can do about it, go to action.aclu.org/getemail
You can visit the ACLU website at www.aclu.org
That’s right, friends and enemies, I have returned. Thanks to everyone who posted kind messages for me here and at www.23ae.com and wherever else they posted them. Also thanks to those who sent me emails, not to mention those who visited. And thanks even to those who posted nasty messages, who said "good riddance" or "who cares?" or even "isn’t he dead yet?" Whether you like it or not, taking the time to post shows you care *grin*.
It’s been quite a trip the past few years--embroiled in secret conspiracies they won’t explain, investigated by agencies that haven’t told me why (at least not the real reasons), living in hiding from The Agents of Greyface (whoever they really are), and spending time in hospital being chased by doctors and nurses who put things in me almost as quickly as they took things out. What’s next?
I think a mother nursing her baby is one of the most beautiful things in the world. It's best to breast-feed at least a year and really as long as you and your child want to. And here's more evidence that's true!
Scientists learned that breast-fed babies handle stress better when they're older than babies who were bottle-fed. They studied 9,000 children at birth, age 5 and age 10. One thing they found was that breast-fed babies whose parents divorced or separated were twice as likely to be highly anxious as babies whose parents didn't. But bottle-fed babies of divorce or separation were nine times more likely to be highly stressed!
You can read the article "Breast-Fed Babies Handle Stress Better Later in Life" at http://health.msn.com/pregnancykids/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100142172>1=8404 and learn more about breast-feeding at http://womenshealth.gov/Breastfeeding/index.cfm?page=home
(the photo is in the public domain)
According to our latest information, Reverend Loveshade, our trouble-making Discordian, may be out of the hospital as early as Sunday, August 6. The Rev. appears to be making a full recovery. Depending upon whom you ask, R. L. is either amusing the hospital staff with refreshing wit and charm, or peppering them with arcane commentaries and double entendres. If we know the Rev., and we do, it's probably a little of both. In any case, we look forward to seeing Reverend Loveshade return very soon.
If you haven't read R. L.'s tongue-in-cheek letter to friends and family, it's at http://discordia.loveshade.org/xtra/rlsick.html
The U. S. Senate just nixed raising the minimum wage, which hasn't been raised in nine years. Why? Because the Republican-sponsored bill would also give a huge tax break to the wealthiest 7,500 American families.
The bill, which essentially originated in the U. S. House of Representatives, was designed as a "win-win" situation for House Republicans. If the bill passed the Senate, the wealthiest Americans would get a huge tax break (meaning more financial support for Republican candidates). If the bill failed, the Republicans could blame the Democrats for voting against raising the minimum wage, even though the Democrats have been pushing for a raise for years.
I'm not a big fan or a member of either major party. In my personal view, the Democratic Party has become the Weak Party, and the Republican Party has become the Greed Party. Neither one is a great option. But the Republican leadership has become increasing out of touch with most of America, more so even than the Democrats. Do they really think the American people are so stupid as to not see what they're up to? I hope not. Taking inflation into account, the minimum wage is the lowest it's been in 50 years. And it's not the super rich who are suffering because of that.
For more, see "Senate blocks minimum wage hike," which was posted a little over an hour ago at this writing, at http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060804/ts_nm/congress_wage_taxes_dc
Does anyone remember the time about three years ago when the United States of America, England, and other nations liberated Iraq? Remember how those nations brought democracy and freedom and peace to the Iraqi people? Apparently not--certainly not the Iraqis.
For those who have forgotten already, the attack on Iraq was staged because that nation might possibly be developing something that could possibly be used to develop nuclear weapons, which they might possibly be thinking about using on the United States, England, and other good guys.
The United States had definite, hard evidence of that, you bet! Even though for some reason the U.S.A. failed to communicate that evidence to its allies. (At the time, the Russian newspaper Pravda, pointing out the lack of any verifiable evidence, called the U.S. led attack an act of terrorism.) It had nothing to do with getting Iraqi oil to increase the supply and thus reduce the cost to oil corporations, no sir. And if it did, they blew it. Does anybody who’s paying $3 per gallon at the American gas pump remember the good old days when gasoline was under $2 a gallon? The good-old days of about a year and a half ago?
Instead, the war has cost America, get this, "more than 2,500 U.S. lives and more than a quarter trillion taxpayer dollars," according to government figures as reported a few hours ago by Anne Plummer Flaherty of the Associated Press. If there are 250,000,000 taxpayers in the United States (there’s probably less) that would be more than $10,000 per taxpayer. Remember when the U. S. amazingly paid off the national debt, back in the good old days of, well, shortly before George W. Bush was elected president? And who can put a dollar value on the lives lost?
Has the loss of life and the money helped? Are things in Iraq getting better, less violent? "‘Iraq could move toward civil war’" if the violence is not contained, Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, told the Senate Armed Services Committee." In addition, "Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the panel, ‘We do have the possibility of that devolving into civil war.’" (Both those quotes are from Flaherty’s article.)
But U. S. President George W. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld "have steadfastly refused to call the situation in Iraq a civil war...." A year ago, the American public was told things were getting better, and it could all be worked out. How?
There’s a nation there with thousands of years of history--Iraq/Babylon may well have been the cradle of Western Civilization. They have a culture and religion and tradition that’s been built up and supported for centuries. So did the U. S. really think that taking out a single ruler and one government would change all that?
Ironically, a previous U. S. president did not think so. That president was over a conflict in Iraq, but saw it would be a losing battle and got the U.S. out. That president saw that taking out one government would not yield a stable situation, and that chaos and violence and yes, even civil war, could result. Who was this person, some liberal Democrat fanatically opposed to the conservative Republican views of President George W. Bush? No. That president was moderate Republican President George H. W. Bush, father of the current president. Maybe junior should have spent more time listening to Daddy.
For more information, see the article "Generals raise fears of Iraq civil war" by Anne Plummer Flaherty at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060803/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq_17.
Much of the world is in a time right now of paranoia. Paranoia is an irrational fear, in this case the fear that "somebody" is out to get you. You know "they" are very different than you, and thus dangerous, even if you really don't understand what "they" are.
In today's world, people of various skin colors and hair and body types are increasingly living near each other. In much of the world, we're starting to get used to this, and "racial discrimination" is losing popularity, although by no means has it disappeared.
But discrimination based on religion or creed is "hot" right now. In various parts of the world, the "somebody" who's out to get you is anyone who belongs to a specific religious group, or even anyone who doesn't belong to your particular religious group. To protect yourself, "they," meaning anyone who might think differently than you, must be stopped at all costs. The goes even to the point of attacking them because they might be thinking about attacking you, and might possibly be able to do it if they do happen to be thinking about it, and might be so dedicated to doing what they might be thinking about that they'll work long and hard to do it, maybe. So we should attack them first.
And if we think that way, then they have good reason to believe we're thinking about attacking them, because we are, and have good reason for attacking us first. It can easily become a Lose-Lose situation, a No-Win Game.
But instead of jumping in blind ignorance, we can try to learn about them. If we can better understand them and their needs and wants, we can learn their motivations. And if we teach them about us, they may become more understanding of our position and needs, and thus become more sympathetic toward us. Violence can be stopped through understanding. But we have to be willing to look at each other's perspective.
A classic story that deals with this theme of different perspectives and failing to understand them is the story of the blind men and an elephant. There are several different versions of the story, and Wikipedia even has an article about them called "Blind Men and an Elephant." Yes, this mentions our own Reverend Loveshade's version, "Five Blind Men and an Elephant," which is on Wikisource and our own site. And yes this could be considered publicity for one of our members.
But as reports say Reverend Loveshade may be in the hospital for at least a few more days and thus unable to post here, and as this story particularly applies to our present time, we provide the links.
For those who don't know, Reverend Loveshade is currently recovering in a hospital. The Rev. is Episkopos of the Discordian Division of the Ek-sen-triks CluborGuild and editor of Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia: The Tales of Shamlicht. If you don't know what that means, don't worry about it. It's one of those Things Humanity was Not Meant to Know, Fnord.
But for those who know or would like to, you can read the letter for you at Reverend Loveshade in Hospital. We wish the Rev. the best, and hope for a full recovery so we can continue to be blessed with Devine Madness.