The Good Doctor told me a number of things over the course of our weekend that may get you angry enough to speak out:

1. AIDS is curable. We can eradicate AIDS by manipulating the disease's genetic code, as in Polio.

2. We haven't eradicated AIDS because it's far too profitable for the medical/pharmaceutical industry to allow people to go on dying.

3. Stem cells won't cure Alzheimer's as Alzheimer's is a progressively degenerative disease of the brain. The brain has only so much space. Once it is taken up by dead zones, there isn't anywhere else in the brain to put new, scientifically generated cells.

4. Back surgery is a no-no. almost never ever works, in any circumstance. My uncle has had five surgeries on his back to no improvement. Zero. Cero. Told me the best thing to do for my neck is lift weights. Strengthen the muscles. I knew that already. Then she did everything but ask me exactly HOW I managed to herniate a disc during sex... ahem...

5. If you are obese and have disc problems, if you aren't willing or able to lose weight the old-fashioned way, the best thing for you to do is have gastric bypass surgery. All other surgeries - discs, joints - will be recurrent throughout your lifetime until you do lose the excess weight.

6. 99% of patients don't want to know the truth. They ask for it but when they hear it, they decide it's not what they wanted to hear after all and either get flat out enraged at the doc who's told them the truth and/or keep seeking other opinions until they get the one they want.

7. Schizophrenia is, indeed, a genetic thing. Not caused by trauma, although trauma can bring it out (not unlike diabetes in that respect). This apparently is old news except to everyone but my Psycho 101 teacher and the NEW text book he used in which is stated the old information of childhood trauma being the actual cause of it. "If it was trauma that caused it, there'd be a helluva lot more nuts out there than there are," said the Good Doctor to zippy. "Also, there wouldn't be any schizophrenics from healthy homes." Oooohhhhhh, the voice of REASON! I wished I known that BEFORE I went down the dark path of trying to figure out what happened to Huggy in his childhood that made him turn out the way he is today.

8. Of course, that's not saying nothing happened during his childhood that enhanced his instability, I'm just saying.

My weekend in Philly was really GREAT!

No. Seriously. GRRRRRRRRRRRRREAT!!!!

My old friend the Good Doctor picked me up at the airport and said "OMG! YOU LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME! YOU HAVEN'T CHANGED ONE BIT IN TEN YEARS!"

"I've put on forty pounds since we last saw each other. Of course I've changed!"

"OH, WHO CARES? YOU LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME! YOUR FACE HAS GROWN INTO YOUR AGE AND YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL! THIS GIVES ME HOPE. IT MAKES ME FEEL GOOD ABOUT AGING."

And that set the tone for the weekend.

The first thing we did was drive to the South side where she grew up, walked a few city blocks as she described the changes her old neighborhood has been through in her lifetime, and then sauntered up to her favorite cheesesteak counter and ordered two with provolone. The Good Doctor told the guy behind the counter "ZIPPY CAME ALL THE WAY HERE FROM THE SOUTH!" The guy behind the counter took pity and presented me with two souvenir pens from his establishment (GENO'S STEAKS 1219 S. 9TH ST, PHILLY, if you're wondering). It was cool out, so we sat in the car to eat, the juices of the sandwich running down the front of my new sweater (a souvenir stain of my trip north).

The entire weekend was much the same, no matter where we went or what we did. History, lessons, and good eats.

She toured me through her city with a mix of pride and irreverence. Her 19th c stone house, bought as a derelict building and renovated personally by her husband, is in a neighborhood long in decline but due to people like themselves - those who choose to clean up rather than flee - it's coming around again. She loves it for its diversity. "I have gay neighbors, lesbian neighors and naked neighbors," she said.

"Naked neighbors?"

Apparently, the (straight) middle aged couple next door don't like to wear clothes. After much pleading, they put up half curtains on the first floor. "That helps. A LOT."

She has four springer spaniels that demand her attention and a red rubber ball tossed for hours.

She also has three young adults living with her, a fourth on weekends when home from Penn State Uni. She's taken them in as follows:

One met her husband on line as a fellow student entering the same program he was entering for a Masters in Science degree (Physician's Assistant). She was crossing the country from where the Good Doctor and hubby had moved from, didn't know where she was going to live or what sort of job she'd have to take to pay the rent, but she was excited none-the-less. The Good Doctor had the entire third floor (the old servants quarters) as yet untouched, so they turned it into an apartment and offered it up to the girl and her boyfriend moving with her. He works full-time and she goes to school full-time.

The one at Penn State is Hubby's niece. When my friend met her, she'd been abandoned by her father at conception, and had only ever been told by her mother that she couldn't do anything - anything she'd ever hoped to do. So at the ripe old age of 19, she was living in a trailer with a 44 yr old man and had essentially given up on life. She had only a basic education, very poor grammar and teetering social skills.

The Good Doctor said to her, "You can be more."

She introduced her to new words every day, and over time, the niece improved her grammar, became socially aware, started reading the New York Times and working its crossword puzzle, and entered Penn State where she's on the honor roll. She became a political activist, motivating some 3,000 people to register to vote for the very first time. She now wants to go on to law school.

The fourth is the niece's brother, just out of the Navy, not sure what he was going to do, but receiving the exact same treatment from their mother as his sister had. "You can't do... you can't do... you're too stupid... you'll never achieve..."

The Good Doctor said to him, "You can be more."

The niece said to him, "Move in with the Uncle and the Good Doctor."

And so he did. He's now working the same crossword puzzle and going to PA school like his uncle.

His uncle, btw, had been a general contractor when he met the Good Doctor. he'd never finished college, and was crippling himself every day to make a blue collar living. She said to him... you get the picture.

She cooks a big meal every night and they all sit down and eat together. If one isn't going to be home, they call in advance. They spend time together (all of us touring the Mall in Washington, D.C. my Saturday with them), doing things "normal" families do. She said she hadn't really considered it that way before but, yes, they really are a "family."

It was a beautiful thing.

My friend thinks most doctors are stupid. "They perpetuate this myth that they're god-like because it makes their lives that much easier - people tend not to question gods." Which, of course, often leads to more harm than good. It infuriates her that my current physician doesn't return my calls. When I told her she's only one of two physicians I've ever had that did she said, "Every doctor should. It's just common decency."

After working her way through school and residency in kitchens - where she picked up most of her excellent culinary skills by watching the chefs she worked for - she spent three years with the Peace Corps in Malaysia. "Anyone who's spent time in a Muslim country could have told the American government this [uprising of Muslim terrorists against the US] was going to happen."

She took me through the Mutter Museum which, if ever you get the chance, DO THIS TOUR. And, if at all possible, do it with a doctor. It's a museum of medical aberrations, from dwarves to giants, skulls of suicides compared with skulls of natural deaths, small pox, a cadaver (after 123 years) turned into soap, conjoined twins, miscarried fetuses of varying ages, fetuses and babies born with varying defects, a human head sliced into segments (like an MRI does, only this is the real deal), every disease known to man and MORE!

"I can't believe you're interested in this stuff!" she exclaimed.

"It's FASCINATING!" said me.

While looking at the babies born with spina bifida and other defects that killed them (or prevented their natural birth), she said, "You rarely see this anymore."

"How come?"

"Abortion."

Not the answer I was expecting. I was expecting a marvel of medical science.

"At least until the recent ban on trimester abortions. Now OBs will do it the way they did it for years: instead of aborting the fetus, the mother will have to go through the delivery and they'll let it die."

She said it happens a lot, too. In the past, it was usually because mothers weren't prepared to have an abortion, but they knew the baby they were carrying was so deformed it wouldn't survive. So the OBs would dope them up for delivery, so the mother would really be completely out of it, deliver the baby and let it die. "And now it will be the norm, again, to do this barbaric thing rather than abort."

And it only now occurs to me that I know someone who went through this exact thing last year, before the ban. She knew the child she was carrying was good as dead. But she had tried so long to be pregnant that she did not want to abort. So she carried that dead baby for two months, and when she delivered, it was a hideously deformed corpse.

. . .

We toured the foundations of this great nation - Independence Hall and the original buildings that housed the first Continental Congress and various debates that wrangled together our national consciousness. The Liberty Bell is a disappointment - much smaller than I expected. You know how we're inundated with huge images of such things. Much like the White House is just another house, which wasn't so much as a surprise until seeing how it is positively dwarfed by the more modern buildings surrounding it.

It was fun seeing some of my ancestor, John Hanson's, belongings in the Smithsonian. John Hanson was the president of the First Continental Congress. He was a founder of this nation that only historians really know about, as he didn't sign on the Constitution and isn't remembered by the rest of us as a result (not unlike, I must say, most of those who did sign on).

The Good Doctor fed me so much delicious food, I gained five pounds in four days! Whenever I'd say "I can't eat that!" She'd say, "Just take some extra insulin! EAT THIS!" and I would, and I was glad for it. Italian desserts from Termini's, excellent wine from a Mafia liquor store in New Jersey:

"How do you know it's Mafia?"

"Because they never have the same thing twice and nothing's more than $3."

"Oooooooh..."

Meals she made largely from scratch:

"Cooking is the one thing that relaxes me anymore. I go to the gym every day after work to get out aggression, but I cook to unwind."

Frank, practical talk about my various ailments.

"You're the healthiest Type 1 I've ever known."

"I've not been so healthy these last couple of years."

"How come?"

"All my family drama hit at the same time that I found out more than I ever wanted to know about diabetes. I've been struggling with depression for about three years now."

"It's in your genes."

"At one point I just gave up and started grazing."

"Everybody has a point where they just say 'fuck it.' Come on. Try this...."

And she'd feed me canoli or cognac or bagel with lox.

I lived a very full life in the four days I spent in Philly and what I learned was this: that's all it takes. Forget about the limitations. Enjoy the rest.

"I may die tomorrow," she said. "You never know. So enjoy what you can."

Subject: Canada busy sending back Bush-dodgers

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

The flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased patrols to stop the illegal immigration.

The re-election of President Bush is prompting the exodus among left-leaning citizens who fear they'll soon be required to hunt, pray and agree with Bill O'Reilly.

Canadian border farmers say it's not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, animal rights activists and Unitarians crossing their fields at night.

"I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn," said Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota.

The producer was cold, exhausted and hungry.

"He asked me if I could spare a latte and some free-range chicken. When I said I didn't have any, he left. Didn't even get a chance to show him my screenplay, eh?"

In an effort to stop the illegal aliens, Greenfield erected higher fences, but the liberals scaled them. So he tried installing speakers that blare Rush Limbaugh across the fields.

"Not real effective," he said. "The liberals still got through, and Rush annoyed the cows so much they wouldn't give milk."

Officials are particularly concerned about smugglers who meet liberals near the Canadian border, pack them into Volvo station wagons, drive them across the border and leave them to fend for themselves.

"A lot of these people are not prepared for rugged conditions," an Ontario border patrolman said. "I found one carload without a drop of drinking water. They did have a nice little Napa Valley cabernet, though."

When liberals are caught, they're sent back across the border, often wailing loudly that they fear retribution from conservatives. Rumors have been circulating about the Bush administration establishing re-education camps in
which liberals will be forced to drink domestic beer and watch NASCAR.

In the days since the election, liberals have turned to sometimes ingenious ways of crossing the border.

Some have taken to posing as senior citizens on bus trips to buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs. After catching a half-dozen young vegans disguised in powdered wigs, Canadian immigration authorities began stopping
buses and quizzing the supposed senior-citizen passengers.

"If they can't identify the accordion player on The Lawrence Welk Show, we get suspicious about their age," an official said.

Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are creating an organic-broccoli shortage and renting all the good Susan Sarandon movies.

"I feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy just can't support them," an Ottawa resident said. "How many art-history majors does one country need?"

In an effort to ease tensions between the United States and Canada, Vice President Dick Cheney met with the Canadian ambassador and pledged that the administration would take steps to reassure liberals, a source close to
Cheney said.

"We're going to have some Peter, Paul & Mary concerts. And we might put some endangered species on postage stamps. The president is determined to reach out."


Joe Blundo is a Columbus Dispatch columnist


:-)

Before I tell you about my weekend (which was FAB!) let me tell you about my morning.

doggy zippy starts tossing her cookies around 3am. By 3:15 it is evident she is just not right. She is listing, eyes darting back and forth, hurling from the deepest parts of her intestinal track the most vile bile you can imagine. I didn't think I'd ever get that crap up off the floor. And she has fallen over and can't get up, no matter how many times she presses that little plastic box chained around her neck. She's seriously acting like she's had a stroke.

I am scared.

I weep.

I think to myself, "I need a spare! I need a spare! I need a spare!"

mr. zippy and I dash through every red light in town en route to the Animal Emergency. He's driving as I cover doggy zippy's eyes so she's not moaning and hurling even more as her brain overdoses on rapid input. We are covered from head to toe in bath towels and sheets. I am wearing my rain slicker - as it's raining outside, but what a stroke of GENIUS that was!

but the AER had good news:

it's not a stroke, but a burst blood vessel in the part of her brain that controls motion and stability.

"Very common in older dogs. Here's a shot in her ass and some drugs for home. It'll happen again but next time won't be so scary as the first time."

It's doggy vertigo.

They don't know exactly why it happens in people either, but it won't kill her, so long as she's not driving, and isn't actually painful to her. Just scary and uncomfortable and, with sudden onsets as this one was, will make her hurl.

On the way home, mr. zippy didn't drive through anymore red lights. doggy zippy held her head out the window with her nose to the wind just the way dog's are supposed to ride in moving vehicles. I wondered how many parents think they need a spare when their only child gets ill.

six hours later she's clearly feeling better but not well.

"Expect it to happen again."

It's going to break my heart when she goes.

I definitely need a spare.

Hello Friends,

It seems the Majority Whip, Tom Delay, has been censured not once, not twice, but THREE times by the House committee - lead by his own appointed Republican counterparts - investigating allegations of his illegal behavior. They waived censuring him a FOURTH time by leaving it to a Grand Jury to decide.

Now you know the Republican party is now worried that Tom Delay may, in fact, be indicted on criminal charges by said Grand Jury, as they RECENTLY CHANGED THEIR OWN RULES that prevent anyone in the party from retaining leadership positions (such as Majority Whip). This rule was instated in 1993 when the big scary Democrat from Illinois was caught on racketeering charges for pilfering stamps from the House Post Office. The Newt Gingrich GOP said "SEE WHAT MORAL UPSTANDING PEOPLE WE ARE?? WE WILL NEVER ALLOW A CRIMINAL TO RUN OUR PARTY LIKE THE EVIL DEMOCRATS!"

Write to your representatives today. Hold them to their promise.

http://www.congress.org

I have spent my entire day debating. From debating both sides of the global overpopulation problem (is it a problem?) to talking politics with my neighbor and as soon as I finish posting this I am heading to a debate on something entirely different from either of those things. Film at eleven.

My neighbor sent me this note:
*my friend zip,

have you kept-up with the oil-for-food scandal? it's getting more interesting every day. seems like a realistic leap here is that, at the minimum, large sums of money were available through saddam to multiple terrorist organizations, to the tune of scores of billions. hmmmm. seems like the world was getting ripped-off by a sadistic tyrant, the people who suffered the most were the innocent, intended recipients of the money and those who benefited the most were no doubt evil
manipulators.

good golly, shortly before the invasion, the un was talking about expanding the oil-for-... program. no wonder.

i remember hearing harsh criticisms over the years from various sources of the decision not to overthrow saddam at the
conclusion of phase one of the thirteen year-old war, most notably the kurds who felt abandoned by the un/us. and there has
been harsh criticism of the us policy to support saddam during the iran/iraq war and also for our long-term support of
saddam. point is, the antagonists to the liberation of iraq were/are doing the same as the us has been repeatedly criticized for. and i say bravo to bush for having the guts to take a moral stand and say enough is enough. what saddam did to his country's stability and prosperity was immoral.

the estimates are as high as 40 billion dollars skimmed from the program. i'm sure none of it went to terrorist organizations or wmd programs.

sorry, i just think the administration saw this scandal long ago and knew the support from those on the take was a lost cause. it also saw early-on the irrelevance of the un and kofi anan. in short, it was because of the un that saddam was allowed to flourish and nothing short of removing the head of the beast had a chance of succeeding (it's your guess as to

To which I have responded with this:

Dear neighbor, my friend, please don't apologize for the way you feel. On these things we agree: Saddam needed to be gone; Iraq will, ultimately, hopefully, I pray, be better for what we have done there; The oil for food program was a scandal; The UN, in terms of forceful strength, has outlived its usefulness.

However, I draw the line at condoning an invasion of another country based on evidence discovered after the fact. If this administration was so certain of this scandal then, why didn't it come clean then instead of throwing out bogus reasons based on fraudulent evidence? Is it too much to ask that before we send people to die for something, that we do so based on empirical evidence? They relied on a self-serving spy's testimony because it was what they wanted to hear. This administration had plans well before 9/11 to invade Iraq. Even on 9/12, the first thing they set about doing was this invasion.

Forget about the fact that Condi Rice, John Ashcroft, et al completely ignored information handed to them by the Clinton administration telling them exactly what they needed to know to prevent those terror attacks from ever happening. Forget about the fact that Colin Powell and other military leaders fought hard against rushing in, but the neo-conservatives in this administration - namely Rice, Rumsfield, Bush, Cheney and Rove - who've never actually served in the military, so what the hell do they really know about it that Powell doesn't? - pushed for and won the movement. And now suddenly there's a "legitimate" link that you're raising between Iraq and Al Queda that somehow makes it all right? It would only make it all right if 10,000 civilians hadn't already been killed.

And where's your liberal media on that little number? We don't hear about that - nor do we hear about the White House's trump of the bi-partisan bill to further fund veterans' healthcare because why? Because the monies wouldn't have gone directly to the war effort. So, shoot up the soldiers, alright, but who cares how they mend once returned home. You want to know why so many veterans I've met have been angry at Dubya? This is it.

But I don't actually expect so much from an administration that comes from the state w/ the highest teenaged birth rate (not to mention divorce rate) in the country and has just mandated use of abstinence-only text books. And while standing on the stump of the Constitution, cried out for an amendment to make discrimination legal - again - as though we really really don't live in the 21st century, as though our history of slavery and illegal incarceration of minorities in this country (I'm thinking of the Japanese-Americans during WW2) isn't what it most certainly is.

If hindsight were truly 20/20, we wouldn't repeat our most egregious mistakes.

American Muslims today wouldn't be afraid to leave their homes, or their country, for fear of not being allowed back in, or for fear of being rounded up and put in prisons without recourse like 5,000 inmates in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Timothy McVeigh was not a Muslim.

But it's too much to expect reason based on reality from a man completely certain of his being "right" when his own background is littered with failures.

Do you know why the ostrich sticks its head in the sand? To look for water. When a human being sticks his head in the sand, it is to ignore his reality.

I am someone who firmly believes we should have settled this thing the first time, even with my brother on an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, firing weapons used for the first time that I helped write the curriculum for.

Let me tell you, it's a perverse sense of patriotism to see something you've designed go into effect to kill other people.

I continue to believe that we should have taken Saddam out then. But the fact is, we did not, and for good reason -- the existence of violent turmoil as we're seeing today as a result of this second war. Read George HW Bush's autobiography to get a glimpse of his rationale on this. It cost him the election - that and a crappy economy - but it made sense.


____

so, I ask you, when is enough enough?

blah blah blah blah.

you know... sometimes you just have to say blah.

sort of like how sometimes you just have to say POP!

POP! POP! POP!

I have a headache this morning. Could be from ... oh who knows... who cares? Desert Salamanders voted in GWB and somehow they are deemed more [i]true[/i] than those of us who actually fund their agriculture.

But I will rant no more.

Instead, I will be seeing my old doctor this coming weekend who's constantly berating the doctors who work for her and their "fucking God complexes." She tells me she is forever perplexing them as she looks "just like one of them." When I ask her to clarify she says "I have big fucking pearls but I'm a Democrat."

I was up all night coughing. That's why I have a headache.

LET ME JUST ASK EACH OF YOU.... DID YOU WATCH 'ER' LAST WEEK????

If you did not, then you missed the BEST WEEP-FEST EVER!!!

Ray Liotta turned in one terrific performance, I must say. I was CRYING LIKE A BABY before the end -- two spots along the way, I think, two had me a blithering idiot.

Give that man an Emmy, please, thank you.

Alright. mr. zippy just stepped out of the shower. time to give up the computer.

RANT! RANT! RANT! MOST FOUL AND HEEEELARRYOUS!!


FXXK THE SOUTH!

FXXK THE SOUTH PART DEUX!

This just in . . .

"The Democrats' mistake was in thinking that a disastrous war and national bankruptcy would be of concern to the electorate.
The Republicans correctly saw that the chief concern of the electorate was to keep gay couples from having an abortion."


:-)

GOD OF OUR FATHERS
Jefferson's spiritual beliefs were vague, but one thing is clear: he wanted to keep religion and politics separate.
By Walter Isaacson

Whenever an argument arises about the role that religion should play in our civic life, such as the dispute over the phrase "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance or the display of the Ten Commandments in an Alabama courthouse, assertions about the faith of the founders are invariably bandied about. It's a wonderfully healthy debate because it causes folks to wrestle with the founders and, in the process, shows how the founders wrestled with religion.
The only direct reference to God in the Declaration of Independence comes in the first paragraph, in which Thomas Jefferson and his fellow drafters of that document -- including Benjamin Franklin and John Adams -- invoke the "laws of nature and nature's god." (The absence of capitalization was the way Jefferson wrote it, although the final parchment capitalizes all four nouns.) The phrase "nature's god" reflected Jefferson's deism -- his rather vague Enlightenment-era belief, which he shared with Franklin, in a Creator whose divine handiwork is evident in the wonders of nature. Deists like Jefferson did not believe in a personal God who interceded directly in the daily affairs of mankind.

In his first rough draft of the Declaration, Jefferson began his famous second paragraph: "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable ..." The draft shows Franklin's heavy printer's pen crossing out the phrase with backslashes and changing it to "We hold these truths to be self-evident." Our rights derive from nature and are secured "by the consent of the governed," Franklin felt, not by the dictates or dogmas of any particular religion. Later in that same sentence, however, we see what was likely the influence of Adams, a more doctrinaire product of Puritan Massachusetts. In his rough draft, Jefferson had written, after noting that all men are created equal, "that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable." By the time the committee and then Congress finished, the phrase had been changed to "that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." For those of us who have toiled as editors, it is wonderful to watch how ideas can be balanced and sharpened through the editing process (and also how even giants have trouble knowing whether the word is inalienable or unalienable). The final version of the sentence weaves together a respect for the role of the Almighty Creator with a belief in reason and rationality.

The only other religious reference in the Declaration comes in the last sentence, which notes the signers' "firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence." Most of the founders subscribed to the concept of Providence, but they interpreted it in different ways. Jefferson believed in a rather nebulous sense of "general Providence," the principle that the Creator has a benevolent interest in mankind. Others, most notably those who followed in the Puritan footsteps of Cotton Mather, had faith in a more specific doctrine, sometimes called "special Providence," which held that God has a direct involvement in human lives and intervenes based on personal prayer.

In any event, that phrase was not in Jefferson's original draft or the version as edited by Franklin and Adams. Instead, it was added by Congress at the last minute. Like the phrase "under God" in the Pledge, it got tucked into a resounding peroration and somewhat broke up the rhythm:" . . . for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

In the Constitution, the Almighty barely makes an appearance, except in the context of noting that it was written in "the Year of Our Lord" 1787. (Jefferson was ambassador to France at the time, so he missed the convention.) The one clear proclamation on the issue of religion in the founding documents is, of course, the First Amendment. It prohibits the establishment of a state religion or any government interference in how people freely exercise their beliefs. It was Jefferson, the original spirit behind the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, who emphasized that this amounted to a wall between two realms. "I contemplate with sovereign reverence," he wrote after becoming President, "that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church & State."

Colonial America had seen its share of religious battles, in which arcane theological disputes like the one over anti-nomianism caused Puritans to be banished from Massachusetts and have to go establish colonies like Rhode Island. The founders, however, were careful in their debates and seminal documents to avoid using God as a political wedge issue or a cause of civic disputes. Indeed, that would have appalled them. Instead they embraced a vague civic religion that invoked a depersonalized deity that most people could accept. "Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved," Jefferson once wrote. "I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker, in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle." So it is difficult to know exactly what the founders would have felt about the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance or about displaying the Ten Commandments. It is probably, however, that they would have disapproved of people on either side who used the Lord's name or the Ten Commandments as a way to divide Americans rather than as a way to unite them.

--Walter Isaacson is president of the Aspen Institute. His most recent book is Benjamin Franklin: An American Life.
--Published in Time Magazine, July 5, 2004

Now, for something funny:

Scream with Bunnies!


Texas Chainsaw Massacre with Bunnies!


Freddy vs Jason in 30 seconds with Bunnies!

if the links above are broken, you can check them out in the bunnies library later in the month at

www.angryalien.com

Enjoy!

Ever wonder how the term "liberal" became a dirty word in this country?

The Lingo of Politics

Published on Monday, October 25, 2004 by CommonDreams.org

No Longer a Christian

by Karen Horst Cobb

I was told in Sunday school the word "Christian" means to be Christ-like, but the message I hear daily on the airwaves from the “christian ” media are words of war, violence, and aggression. Throughout this article I will spell christian with a small c rather than a capital, since the term (as I usually hear it thrown about) does not refer to the teachings of the one I know as the Christ. I hear church goers call in to radio programs and explain that it was a mistake not to kill every living thing in Fallujah. They quote chapter and verse from the old testament about smiting the enemies of Israel. The fear of fighting the terrorists on our soil rather than across the globe causes the voices to be raised as they justify the latest prison scandal or other accounts of the horrors of war . The words they speak are words of destruction, aggression, dominance, revenge, fear and arrogance. The host and the callers echo the belief in the righteousness of our nation's killing. There are reminders to pray for our “christian” president who is doing the work of the Lord: Right to Life, Second Amendmendment, sanctity of marriage, welfare reform, war, kill, evil liberals. . . so much to fight, so much to destroy.

Let me tell you about the Christ I know. He was conceived by an unmarried woman. He was not born into a family of privilege. He was a radical. He said, “It was said an eye for and eye and a tooth of a tooth, but now I say love your enemies and bless those who curse you.” He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” (Mattew 5: 3-9) He said, “All those who are called by my name will enter the kingdom of heaven." He said, "People will know true believers if they have the fruit of the spirit--love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self control.“

He knew he would be led like a sheep to the slaughter. He responded with “Father forgive them.“ He explained that in Christ there is neither Jew nor gentile, slave or free male nor female. He explained that even to be angry is akin to murder. He said the temple of God is not a building, but is in the hearts of those are called by his name. He was called "the Prince of Peace." His final days were spent in prayer, so that he could endure what was set before him, not on how he could overpower the evil government of that day. When they came for him he was led away and didn’t resist his death sentence.

This is a stark contrast to the call of the religious christian right, who vote for war and weapons, and suggest towns and villages be leveled to bring freedom and peace to the people. They proudly boast this country’s superiority, suggesting God has blessed our nation. Today, as I listened to a popular christian news network, I was reminded that in the last days, even God’s elect will be deceived, (II Timothy 3:13). When the religious media moguls preaching prosperity spout their rhetoric, I am reminded of the difficulty Jesus described of a rich man’s ability to enter the kingdom of God. (Matthew 19: 24) (http://www.4religious-right.info/rr_economics.htm) Some who believe they are fighting evil will cry to the Lord, and he will say “I never knew you.“ (Matthew 22). They will have a form or godliness but will deny the power (II Timothy 3:5) to move mountains through prayer. (Matthew 17:20). Jesus explained that he has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind. (II Timothy 1:17) I wonder if the innocent moms and dads, brothers and sisters, and aunts and uncles, and grandmas and grandpas who were the victims of US military weapons (the never reported collateral damages we are protected from in the “liberal” nightly news) felt the love of Jesus with the shock and awe. I wonder if the surviving family members now understand His radical love and that they no longer have any need for weapons or defense.

The solutions to the social issues used to manipulate good, decent people have no resemblance to how Jesus responded to the social concerns of his time. He never once mentioned the “right to life” the year he was born King Herod ordered the execution of all babies. (Matthew 2:16). He knew that passing laws does not change the heart. As a follower of his teaching I believe in the right to life, including the children in Iraq who stumble onto land mines, cross the street at the wrong time, or who are snuggly tucked within the warm bellies of their wounded or grieving mothers as US fighter jets fly overhead. These are living, breathing children. The killing of these little ones are never even reported, and our tax dollars pay for these bombs. I believe in the right to life for those in the United States who are unwanted and impoversihed. I believe in the right to life of the naive kid who was promised by the recruiter they could choose a desk job and still get their education paid or could see the world or could accelerate their life or could play a very realistic video game from a cockpit.

I've worked at a shelter, and I know first hand the reality of unwanted children. I know the reality of this right wing rhetoric when week after week I begged and pleaded with people to give up only one night every three months to sit with these unwanted living children for a few hours while the overworked house parents had a night off. Of the few I found, many changed their minds when they discovered that they would need to wear rubber gloves to change the babies diapers. These “believers” stand on the street corners holding right to life signs and then vote against medical assistance for the mothers and their unwanted children creating an impossible existence for them. The few of these abortion activists who might adopt some of these unwanted children generally want the white and the healthy. The ones with hydrocephalous, tracheotomies, emotional/ mental problems and communicable diseases along with their life long medical expenses can be someone else’s problems.

I cringe as many christians vote for policies that deny help to the poor in our own county, who vote to support the war and military strength, assuring the latest weapons are developed and that the heavens will be dominated by the military of the United States. We develop electromagnetic weapons to shatter skulls , split the earth (http://www.raven1.net/emr13.htm) and silently destroy a body as a thief in the night. Studies are even now searching for the frequencies to override the freewill. These unbelievable technologies are a reality and DNA specific weapons can or soon will target a specific nationality (http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/981116/1998111619.html ).I weep as the waters Jesus walked on become contaminated with uranium. (http://www.greendove.net/resources3.htm) I grieve as the missiles fly through the atmosphere on the continent where Jesus rose into the sky, defying death and the grave and where the Holy Sprit first descended. I cry out at the horrors of war and the indignity of the prisons so close to where He took captivity captive. So I am no longer a christian if Christianity has become what is presented to us by our christian president and christian media. Icannot support the right of the United States and Israel to develop and use the most heinous weapons ever imagined. I want no part of a temple built on the blood of the innocent. The sheep have been lead astray by the teachings of prosperity and misinterpretation of the final battle between good and evil. Many no longer can recognize the voice of the good Shepard.

Some “good christians” even work at weapons facilities. It is not a stretch to say that a woman who tightens a last rivet on a shiny new missile just off the assembly line might be the same woman who licks the gold star on the attendance chart in morning Sunday school. The missile could be launched by the kid in the youth group who reads the invocation and it will find it’s destiny at a “target of interest” which might or might not have been a result of good intelligence. The collection plate circulates children are taught to love their enemies and bless those who curse them.

The statements and lifestyle of Jesus are difficult for me to understand. What would he say to evil dictators? This God would not justify 15,000 or more deaths. Even the wrathful jealous God of the old testament spared whole cities for a few righteous souls. For christians, to support mass killings as a way to prevent future deaths is not at all like Christ. He would not say,"When I am talking about war I am really talking about peace," like the self professed christian President proudly states. Who but God has the right to determine what price a people should pay for their freedom? The religious leaders on the airwaves today respond to the voices of the few brave peacemakers who dare to speak out. They say that pacifism is insane, and that it doesn’t make sense, but what is forgotten is that logic and faith are separate entities. I believe in the example of Jesus and his admonition to love your enemies and bless those who curse you . Do I understand how this works on the global scale? Do I know what Jesus would say to all the world’s leaders? No, nor do I totally understand how the example of Christ’s life and his message of love works in the world today. That’s why I need faith. Am I always correct in my assessments and actions? No, that’s why I need grace. Am I brave and unafraid? No, that’s why I need the perfect love that casts out fear. Some put trust in Chariots and some in horses but I will remember the name of the lord our God--the Prince of Peace. Perhaps politics has no place for imitators of Christ.

Who will show the face of Christ to the world? Who will speak His radical message? I hear from these so called imitators of Christ that the pacifists are a collection of kids, hippies, socialists and communists who haven’t got a clue. Some of us, however, have come to our beliefs as a result of careful and prayerful study of the scriptures and admonishment from our elders. Many are Mennonite, Amish, Quaker and other Anabaptists, whose ancestors did not resist their torturers and were drowned, burnt at the stake and flogged for their pacifist stand. They truly followed the example of Christ, and their resistance against the catastrophic effects of the merging of church and state cost them a great price. Churches today have signed onto the government plan and have agreed to look the other way in exchange for tax free privileges. The true message of Christ still exists to some degree in the quiet of the land to peacemakers, but sadly these good people have been deceived by the angry words from a righteous sounding religious media majority broadcasting in cars and trucks and tractors all over our land ironically preaching the “good news of war for peace“ and convincing 24-7 “liberal“ bashing. I suspect there are many who share my sorrow at the loss of what it means to be Christ-like, but our voice is seldom heard. The blaring rhetoric drowns out the still small voice of the mighty God. Peace used be the opposite of war, Conservative used to mean the tendency to conserve resources. Liberal used to mean kind and generous, and Christian used to mean like Christ.

So I am no longer a christian but just a person who continues trying to follow the example of Christ. I’ll let him call me what he wants when I see him face to face. Until then, I will pray that someday people like me will be able to reclaim the meaning of Christ’s identity, and the world will see the effects of the radical message of Christ‘s love--the perfect love that casts out fear.

Karen Cobb is a freelance writer and artist in Santa Fe, NM and can be contacted at cairnhcobb@msn.com.

Ok, I'm going to say right off the bat that my good friend pinot grigio has visited my house tonight and that jocular bitch stayed looooooong past her welcome.

My good friend the increasingly neo-conservative says "HA! HA! HA! I'm dusting off my Bush-Cheney signs for the celebration party!"

I asked him if he's really having a celebration party. He said, "well, Joy's here."

My good neighbor the pro-Dubya soul that he is says "My five year old son greeted me as "Welcome Home Bush!" -- there is hope for the future!"

"That's just 'cause he hasn't started thinking for himself yet -- friend."

SMILES SMILES EVERYBODY SMILES (zoom in shot of biplane flying over midget in white suit)

My father's crazy family says TONIGHT JUST NOW "Not one of us has voted for that bastard Bush, nuh-uh, no way, no sir, no how!"

My mother's crazy family says TONIGHT JUST NOW "Oh zippy! You're so funny! OF COURSE we're voting for Bush! HAHAHAHAHA!"

This evening I spoke with a good friend in the UK who said "What do you mean Bush never visited a nation outside the US prior to his presidency?"

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Last night I watched the first four episodes of the third season of Farscape - beginning with Season of Death, wherein Aeryn Sun comes back from the dead - to Cou'd'a Would'a Should'a: Wait for the Wheel, wherein Zhaan dies - and I CRIED LIKE A BABY!!! AGAIN. sigh.

am I menstrual?

am I political?

If I'm for Dubya, I can't be menstrual or political because, you know, women can't possibly do/be anything the average white man can't talk about.

If I'm for Kerry, I can't be menstrual or political because... oh, wait... I guess I can.


So, I'm weeping like a baby as I watch Zhaan die AGAIN.

I tried watching a political documentary on those who would have Clinton's presidency... but

FUCK YOU!

... I'm sorry... Missouri just came in with its 11 electoral votes for Dubya.

sigh.

my good friend Helen-I-look-just-like-an-Indigo-Girl in Missouri said to expect it.

senior pinot grigio has gone from my home. I'm thinking monseeeenyoooor merlot is about to come a knockin'.

it is statistically true that most people become more conservative as they grow older. I know that is true for myself.

however:

HAHAHAHAHAHA RALPH NADER IS DOING LESS THAN THE 1% HE PULLED IN THE 2000 ELECTION HAHAHAHAHAHA

...excuse me... I digress...

SEAT BELTS.... what the hell happened to Ralph Nader?? we all use seat belts these days! ISN'T THAT ENOUGH?? no. apparently not.

So. Zhaan dies in episode four, season three, Farscape.

Zhaan was the reason I fell in love with Farscape. She was this amazingly beautiful, true, reasoned, spiritual, blue soul.

then she hacked the arm off one of her own and said "I will ease your pain..."

VEDDY. SKEDDY. GEDDY.

and I swoooooooned for Farscape.

if only I could swooooooooon for my president.

sigh.

I have promised to show up in my environmental science class with tape over my mouth, should Dubya actually win (as opposed to steal) this election.

I hope he wins by a landslide, if he wins.

My sincerest fear is a repeat of the fiasco of the 2000 presidential election.

mr. zippy is at work tonight, awaiting "issues" with the ensuing election.

he sent me a report from the AP that discloses the GOP's agenda of charging journalists $300 a piece if they want to have a view of the presidential re-election campaign party tonight. Another $200 if they want to eat. If they want internet/telephone access, they have to provide funds to Verizon (presumably in the GOP pocket -- glad I didn't sign up w/ them after all).

and my good republican neighbor said, "And this is supposed to make me feel badly for journalists?"

"Nope," said I. "I'm just wondering if Fox "News" was included in this exclusion."

monseeeenyoooor merlot is here now and I must go.

weekend conversations in zippy's world...


zippy: hi! how are you???

her: croak.

zippy: EW!

her: croak croak croak.

zippy: well what'd you answer the phone for?

her: croak.

zippy: sorry.

her: croak croak

zippy: no need to call me back, just get better.

her: croak


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neighbor: Planned Parenthood... Margaret Sanger... that woman... should never... OH! don't get me started!

zippy: And yet, you have two children because why?

neighbor: Because we chose to have two children.

zippy: And you were able to use birth control to plan it just the way you wanted.

neighbor: . . .


_____


me: Who could tame me? Who could capture my wild flame and harness it to provide heat but not devastation? Who could ride the thunder and bottle the lightning?

him: Who?

me: You, baby. Brave, asbestos-gloved you.

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zippy: I wish we lived closer together.

her: you'd have to move here because there's no way I'm moving there.

zippy: thank GOD! get me the hell out of here!

her: we could move to Costa Rica.

zippy: would we have to shave our legs in Costa Rica?

her: no, but we'll have to grow mustaches.

zippy: DONE.

her: what are you doing right now?

zippy: working on Boolean problems.

her: what's that?

zippy: a mathematical thing for computers.

her: good luck with that. I know it will make you a better writer.

zippy: bite me. with a mustache.

her: see! it's working already - note the nice contrast of expression.


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