Obama: "I'm a citizen of the World."

What is wrong with Conservatives? Why are they so confused, fearful, ethnocentric and selfish?

An article on March 13, 2011 by The Illinois Conservative Examiner, said: Barack Obama Described Himself as a Citizen of the World, Not a Citizen of America..

The article says:

"He went to the UN and then the Arab League to discuss his Libyan options but not to Congress. He bowed to the king of Saudi Arabia and canceled our National Day of Prayer. So, should it not surprise you if we wonder if Barack Obama supported jihad in his Cairo Egyptian speech. A speech his mainstream media cheerleaders called monumental. Did the president of the United States incite the Egyptian and Libyan rebellions?"

Why are conservatives such cowards of life, so fear inspired? But then, I shouldn't be surprised because conservatives tend to be religious and most religions are based upon fear. A ridiculous and juvenile concept held over from childhood, but our own and our species.

I don't even know where to start with this article. Let's start with how we all need to start thinking of ourselves as "Citizens of the World". A citizen of the world is respectful of others, worldwide. Gives considerations to all people, everywhere and life on this planet. Once you start thinking globally, you have to be protective of life, because if you kill life locally, it may not really affect you, but if you kill it world wide, your a dead one, you are.

The article claims President Obama went to outsiders, the UN, the Arab League. And it's about time we stopped being ignorant and acting like cowboys. We need to act like scholars (oh wait, Pres. Obama, IS a scholar). We need to be open, as transparent as is reasonable. We need to act with others, not alone because we cannot afford it and it spawns ill feelings by other countries, which is just stupid, if we don't have to.

One bows to royalty, we can give that because we know ourselves, we are sure of our own place in the world. And it's showing respect, in the way of that person's country, and they are treated like royalty, so we work with that.

Why did Pres. Obama go to others about military action in Libya and not our own Congress? How about, by law, he doesn't have to due to THE WAR POWERS ACT OF 1973 (which Richard Nixon vetoed but got passed anyway), until ninety days after he initiate action, but his entire decision was to stop an emergency situation of people being slaughtered, then pulled back as soon as was possible. We are now out of there, and he has no need to go to Congress.

The New York Times put it this way:

"The law requires the President to notify Congress in a timely fashion when American troops are being sent abroad with a strong probability that they will engage in combat. It calls for the troops to be removed from foreign territory within 90 days unless Congress explicity gives approval for them to remain. In practice, the law has proven largely ineffective because of Presidential resistance and the willingness of Congress to stand aside and allow the White House to assume the political risks of sending troops abroad. In its place, Congress and the president have often negotiated congressional authorizations of force, measures that give prior approval to combat under certain conditions -- though those conditions have been vague enough to leave critics complaining that they, too, essentially give the White House a free hand."

So, what's the problem? What did he do wrong? Did he go to war and move thousands into a country, beat it down, take it over, and have no intention of getting out within ninety days? No, that would be little Bush, "W" himself.

So, what's the problem? Well, there is none. Other than conservatives being frightened of their own shadows ninety percent of the time.

Women in combat

What do you think about women in combat duty? Are gender differences in the risk of PTSD? More than 40,000 American women served in the war against Iraq.  The Marine Corps awarded twenty-three women the Combat Action Ribbon for service in the Persian Gulf War because they were engaged by Iraqi troops. Desert Storm was a huge turning point for women, much like Vietnam was for African-Americans, and it showed that modern war boundaries between combat and non-combat zones are being blurred. It makes no sense to cling to semantics (combat vs combat support) given the reality of war.

In an effort to get closer to the local population, American female soldiers stationed in Afghanistan are being encouraged to wear a Muslim headscarf when interacting with civilians. But some question whether the practice constitutes cultural sensitivity or a form of appeasement that is degrading to U.S. soldiers. Having female soldiers in countries where the society and religion are male dominated is always a risky situation as it's very easy for humiliation to take account of a national's reaction to a soldier who is not a man. Sensitivity is necessary, something women have historically been better at than women. It's a possible situation where women may be able to somewhat at least, counter the paradigm with appropriate interactions. However, there will also always be times where it will only lead to disaster. Since soldiers fighting soldiers will always lead to things like that, it's a calculated risk, as war always is.

One survey showed 86 percent of  soldiers have no problem with females fighting alongside them. And they are now, more and more are in coed units. The French, German, Danish, and Canadian women are now serving in their countries as direct ground combat forces. There are some incidents of sexual harassment and inappropriate romantic relationships, but these are typical issues in these kinds of situations and require education, monitoring and management.

Women cannot typically carry the same amount of weight that regular male troops can, but then they even have trouble with their loads. Where they shouldn't be carrying more than 60-80 pounds, they are not infrequently carrying 100-120 pounds, sometimes more than half their weight. But women can be more agile, fit into places many men cannot. And as domestic Police agencies have discovered, women can frequently diffuse situations that would immediately lead to confrontations with a male component. Perhaps because of a life long situation of living as a smaller, weaker gender, women have found how to think around aggressiveness and direct confrontations, something that is typically better utilized than putting ones' head down and barreling into a wall of opposition.

So, if most issues about multi gender field units can be worked through, the question comes about how can women handle the stress, emotional and mental?

One study, Women in combat and the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, found this:

"These findings suggest that military duty in Iraq confers a similar risk of PTSD and depression by gender. It is likely that this risk has more to do with the intensity and frequency of combat experiences than gender. However, other variables need to be assessed in future studies to better understand the relationship of direct combat to mental health outcomes among women compared with men. These variables include the specific nature of the combat experiences, the prevalence of mental health problems prior to deployment, complicating factors such as sexual harassment or abuse in the deployed environment, and the trajectory of gender differences over time following return from deployment. As further studies emerge it is likely that there will not be a simple conclusion about the relationship of gender and combat to the mental health of veterans of this war. The available data point to an important hypothesis that combat duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, due to the high intensity and persistent level of threat, acts as a great equalizer of risk, resulting in similar rates of PTSD and depression for men and women. The article by Rona and colleagues underscores the importance of continued research and efforts by clinicians, policy makers and military leaders to address mental health problems among male and female war veterans."


I was told back in the 60s or 70s on this topic, that a country needs a gender to be home, and sane, mentally and emotionally stable and ready to help the men when they return with their issues from having been in Hell and then find themselves trying to remain sane in a peace time environment. It sounded reasonable at the time. But then if women want to go to war, there will always be those men and women back home to help them through their nightmare, to find their way back.

Does this make it okay for women to be in combat? No. Should women be in combat? When I consider the Israeli way of dealing with this, I would have to say yes. When I think of the American way of doing things, I almost want to say, no. But it is not for me to choose. This IS America. If women want to go to war, it is their right, and that pretty much ends it there.

It's been proved it can be effectively and functionally done. There is no real reason not to allow them to do so. It is there choice. America has tried for decades now, ever since the original Temperance movement, perhaps because of our sad Puritan beginnings, to try to protect it's citizens in an almost Big Brother way. But they, these citizen groups, the Government, need to back off and remember what America is all about. Freedom, choice, and the pursuit of Happiness. If that for a citizen, man or woman, is to go to war, then that is their choice and we need to support them to seek their "bliss".

If you don't like the idea of women in war, I would submit to you, we need to stop being at war, for both women, and men.

The Happiest Place on Earth - a movie

I found this very cool project (film) and I really like what they are doing. If you want to throw $15 (or more) to help, go to their site and pledge a few bucks:     Check them out:

Our Story

Exactly one week before Thanksgiving 2008, director John Goshorn was laid off from his job in local television.  

"As I wrestled with questions of why and how, and developed coping strategies, I was also struck by how my circumstances could have been much worse, how desperate I might have become if they were, and why.   As I wrote, I realized that I was far less concerned with the mechanics of the plot than the national – and human – psychology the plot revealed.  Namely, the tendency to believe that we should remain immune from harm, that the end of restoring “what’s ours” justifies whatever action will get us there, and our inability to accept that perhaps the life we perceive to be “ours” was never real in the first place, just an attempt to recreate a fairy tale."  

Over a period of nine months of unemployment, this thinking developed into the story of the feature film, The Happiest Place on Earth:

Days after Jonah and Maggie Price move into their first home, he loses his newspaper job, jeopardizing their dream of finally starting a family after a decade together.  Maggie picks up a second job, and they attempt to muddle through, but Jonah can’t find work and they find themselves in danger of losing their home.  After a particularly humiliating job interview, Jonah retreats to the coast to console himself, but doesn’t come back.  When he is declared missing, Maggie must weigh her material circumstances against her hopes of his safe return.

All that being said, check out the Top 6 sites for raising money for a film.

Gogol Bordello - Just a band?

A few years ago I was watching Henry Rollins Show.

I miss that show. Henry, of Black Flag, a punk band that used to scare the crap out of parents and sometimes fans alike, had a show formatted so it started with his, scary good looking face, leading to an introduction of his show.

Then he would have a guest, a Rant he called "Sounding Off", where he would scream at you for a few minutes on some relevant topic, during which he would be intermittently funny, serious and pissed off. And you felt he had a right to be and you had a right to be and you felt good that someone else felt that way. More than once he introduced me to topics, things, people, music, I'd had no idea about. He would then have a musical guest on at the end doing a couple of songs.

Why, don't we have that kind of quality, speaking to a group, such as we are?

I don't know. Has to be a bunch of us out there. Well, at least Henry did it for a while.

So one night he had on a band new to me. I didn't know what to do, other than to call my kids downstairs and say, check this band out: Gogol Bordello. We realized later my friend Dave had given us a "Cool" CD of some music he had now idea where it was from. It was Gogol for the most part, from the film, "Everything is Illuminated".

Eventually my two kids and I went to their concert in Seattle and it was unbelievably cool. The loudest bass I'd ever experienced. I love these guys and wow can they party on stage! There is a documentary where a woman took Eugene, the lead singer, back to his homeland (The Pied Piper Of Hützovina).

Wikipedia:

"Gogol Bordello is a Gypsy punk band from the Lower East Side of New York City, formed in 1999 and known for theatrical stage shows and persistent touring. Much of the band's sound is inspired by Gypsy music. The band incorporates minor-key accordion and violin (and on some albums, saxophone) mixed with punk and dub.

"Gogol" comes from the name Nikolai Gogol. As one of the most influential writers in Russian and Ukrainian literature, Gogol paved the way for the likes of Kafka and Dostoevsky. He also serves as an ideological influence for the band because he "smuggled" Ukrainian culture into Russian society, which Gogol Bordello intends to do with Gypsy/ East-European music in the English-speaking world. "Bordello", in Italian, refers to a brothel or a "gentleman's club".

"The band was originally titled Hütz and the Béla Bartóks, but Eugene Hütz says that they decided to change the name because "nobody knows who the hell Béla Bartók is in the United States". The band played their first show as the unofficial band at an after-hours club called Pizdetz where they became the house band and DJ Hütz became the house DJ."

I knew the first time I saw this band on The Henry Rollins Show was something special and they don't disappoint when you see them live. One or more of them have been on TV, film and documentaries.

Eugene Hütz with Gogol Bordello live at Pisa, July 2010

• 2004 - Kill Your Idols - Hütz was interviewed in this documentary about New York's "No Wave" music scene.
• 2005 - Everything Is Illuminated - In Liev Schreiber's directorial debut, which stars Elijah Wood, the role of Alexander Perchov was played by Eugene Hütz. It includes cameo appearances by other Gogol Bordello members in the train scene.
• 2006 - The Pied Piper Of Hützovina - Documentary by Pavla Fleischer about a road trip she and Eugene Hütz took to Ukraine to trace his roots.
• 2006 - Wristcutters: A Love Story - "Eugene", played by American actor Shea Whigham, is partly based on Eugene Hütz, whose music ("Through the Roof and Underground" and "Occurrence on the Border") is featured in the film as that recorded by the character's old band.
• 2008 - Filth and Wisdom - The entire band appeared in this independent film directed by Madonna. Eugene Hütz is the protagontist. Madonna also allowed Eugene to add his own dialogue into the script.
• 2008 - Gogol Bordello Non-Stop - The development of the band was documented in this film directed by Margarita Jimeno. It follows the band's rise from underground legends to international fame from 2001 to 2007.
• 2009 - Larger Than Life in 3D - Live High-def digital concert footage shot in stereoscopic 3-D at the Austin City Limits festival in October 2009.
• 2009- Live From Axis Mundi: Professionally recorded live concert footage shot in New York.

Elizabeth Chi-Wei Sun

For Pamela Racine photo

Gogol may not be the music for the masses, they may even be an acquired taste for many, but you can't deny their energy, their positive attitude and their lighthearted orientation coming out of a group of people who have had a rough time of it over the centuries. Regardless, they are one of my all time favorite bands.

Weekend Wise Words

Be Smart. Be Brilliant.

“A word to the wise isn’t necessary, it is the stupid ones who need all the advice.”
—Bill Cosby

“Many years ago I chased a woman for almost two years, only to discover that her tastes were exactly like mine: we both were crazy about girls.”
—Groucho Marx

“Not all chemicals are bad. Without hydrogen or oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer.”
—Dave Berry

“I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll be glad to make an exception.”
—Groucho Marx

“Some see the glass as half-empty, some see the glass as half-full. I see the glass as too big.”
—George Carlin


“Men are like steel. When they lose their temper, they lose their worth.”
—Chuck Norris

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then give up. There’s no use in being a damn fool about it.”
—W.C. Fields

“The man who can’t dance thinks the band is no good.”
—Polish Proverb

“When you’re in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, ‘Damn, that was fun.’”
—Unknown

"Fair Game" and How the Bush Administration Misled the World

Happy April Fool's day. Find someone you care about and make them laugh. Just don't be mean spirited. Pull a joke on someone. But don't hurt them. Don't "Out them" in anyway. Don't do what the Bush Administration did to Valerie Plame Wilson and tell the world she was an CIA agent, who just happened to be under cover at the time, running multiple ops around the world and most likely got some people killed. Someone, in the White House, was a traitor to the United States, a penalty typically enforced by death, but in the case of "Scooter" Libby, was enforced with a Presidential pardon, commuting the sentence he was given by the court.

Thank God that fiasco is now over. This country has suffered severe set backs in the eight years of the Bush rodeo in this Nation's capital.

I just got my Blu-Ray disk of the movie "Fair Game" with Naomi Watts and Sean Penn, about CIA Officer Valerie Plame and ex Ambassador Joe Wilson and how the President Bush and Vice President Cheney and their Administration named her as an active agent with multiple live operations in play around the world, because she was the wife of Joe, who stood up and said the White House lied.

This is a story about how the White House wanted to go to war, to take down Saddam Hussein, and how they faked a need, faked evidence, to be able to do so. And when someone calls them on the carpet about it, how they tried to destroy people's lives. It has now been shown that this all did happen. Now one knew, the American public was tricked, deluded, lied to. The Bush Administration fooled their constituents and the world.

Valerie, once her cover was blown, was ejected from the CIA, and was then treated, in a way, that one could only describe as how a wanton woman was once treated in the old days when she had been raped. As if she had brought it on herself, or had caused it and was in some way to blame for it. After receiving many serious death threats during this initial time after her cover was blown (by the white house), she requested from the CIA, personal protection for herself and her family.

There were three others (Tenant, Ashcroft, and Rove) who had also received this types of threats and who had already been given round the clock protection. All they offered Valeria and her children and husband, an ex US Ambassador was the promise of a few more City Police cruisers to pass her house each day. If you know anything about espionage at all, City Police are not properly prepared to deal with that kind of action. One might almost get the feeling that had she or her husband actually been killed, it would have been a desired event. Where is all the "we are a family" that the CIA likes to have people believe?

Joe and Valerie

Or, did they? I know many of us were oblivious, ignorant, or naive. But there were others. Myself being one of them. But then, I have had a background that lead to an understanding power plays in politics and espionage and intelligence gathering.

I remember many of the news briefs shown in the film, many of President Bush and those of his administration and what they said, how I felt, what people around me thought.

I had a strong sense of being lied to, back then.

I asked some of my friends, coworkers: "Do you believe what they are saying? Do you think they are making things up just to go to war?" Everyone said the same thing: "Of course they are lying, Bush wants to go to war, oil is at stake, the middle east is at stake; Bush and his family are oil and in bed with companies like Blackwater, and Halliburton, that Cheney was head of it at one time."

It was just a bunch of rich guys, in charge of the US Government, looking to make themselves and their friends, billions of dollars and over the course of the decade and perhaps even now still, trillions of dollars.

I did not then fully believe what was being said and I was trying to make up my mind, after the attack on the Two Towers in New York, on American soil: did I care? It kept me from thinking clearly, not that I could have done anything at the time, anyway. And I had a lot of other stuff going on back then, some very dark moments in my own personal life and really, I wanted to see some wrong's, righted.

We had no one to strike back at in Al-Qaeda, we needed a good old John Wayne conventional war.

Oh, look, there's Iraq, over there. Saddam is a bastard (even though we set him up, cut intelligence assets in the Middle East because he was our "friend"), let's take him out.

As for the movie, I really liked it. I checked out the extras when the movie was over because I wanted more. I found that on the second audio track, were the people who the story was about, the authors of the books they had both separately written that the movie had been based upon.

I had to listen to it.

Hearing their voices and what they had to say, was a strong statement. We had eight years of insanity with Bush in power. The Horror Years. I don't know if it was Bush, or Cheney, really. Carl Rove has said that if the President had known there were no WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction), he wouldn't have gone to war (blaming the CIA, which is always the White House's scapegoat).

There is a shot in the film in another country, where you feel that country is run by a bad government, then when we next are in the US, you have this correlation, is America like that too? Are we too living in a government run amuck?

Valerie Plame Wilson's blog on Huffington Post.

Demographic Transitions

A 2005 report by the World Watch Institute, what Bill Maher has called, a "Hippy ThinkTank", said, that in countries where there is what they call a "youth bulge" like in Saudi Arabia, 75% of the people there are under thirty years old.

They say this is what causes civil unrest. They call this a "demographic transition", to go from large families with a short life span, to small families with a long lifespan. The thought is that this is a precursor to what typically leads to calls for Democracy.

One suggestion could be not to attack these countries, when they turn instead from what our kids would do, to play hard, instead to terrorism, blowing things up, or flying planes into buildings, to see this happening, and the CIA reports on this frequently, for every country in the entire world (C.I.A.: Central Intelligence Agency, part of their charter, IS to collect "intelligence", that is to say, information, but then to apply commentary upon that, so that then you have, "intelligence" reports; clever how that works isn't it?). Key to this situation, is the lack of jobs for this "bulge" of young people, how can that NOT lead to unrest?

The smart thing to do with countries like this, would be to help along that decrease in population and help to increase the longevity of that countries citizenry. Because then they have a bottom heavy citizenship with no jobs and that leads to civil unrest. As that time approaches, help them to find new industry, found corporations, businesses, ways to manage their country.

How do you do this? One comedian suggested dropping condoms, rather than bombs (yes, Bill said that).

The Tea Party, according to Journalist David Brooks, is a group that uses "Abby Hoffman means to achieve Norman Rockwell ends".

That has no bearing on this.

I just wanted to share that.