Missed posting yesterday as I was off at a wedding but I’d like to share this with all y’all.
Big thanks to the work mate that forwarded it to me. . .
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Happy late 4th
Posted on July 5, 2008 @ 10:13 am
I’m Voting Republican
Posted on June 17, 2008 @ 5:16 pm
While living the good life…
Posted on May 11, 2008 @ 4:17 pm
If all of your rants about Congress and politics. If things really are bad. As bad as you say they are? When thousands of American troops are dead- and more dying. Probably as we speak. You tell me? How can we enjoy the good life?
Rome is burning son!
And the problem is not with the people that started this. They’re past irredeemable. The problem is with us. All of us- who do nothing. Who just fiddle. Who try to manoeuvre around the edges of the flame. And I’ll tell you something. There are people out that door today, all over the world that are fighting to make things better.
Robert Redford in Lions for Lambs
I watched Lions for Lambs on the plane over and this speech affected me so much I took the time to fight with the entertainment system to transcribe it.
After we checked into the hotel, Mark and I took the Metro into DC and walked around the mall. The last time I had been in DC I was a 16 year old puppy. Being there as a 37 year old woman seeing all the young things that were zygotes when I was their age, I had a fresh appreciation of how annoying I must have been.
It was a beautiful day. Bright, warm. All the usual clichés.
We walked past the Washington monument, the WWII memorial up to the Lincoln memorial and then stumbled on the Vietnam memorial. It starts out so small when the US ‘officially’ became involved in Vietnam in 1955, then the granite full of names tower over you until Saigon fell in 1975. So many names.
The granite reflects your face back at you.
In the DC airport there was a shop called ‘America’ with cheap jingoistic tchotchkes and cardboard cut-outs of McCain and Obama being used to sell tee shirts.
People can wear a tee shirt and say, “This is who I am. This is what I stand for.” They can buy a tee shirt that was probably made in a sweatshop and they can walk away and think that means something.
I protested the war before it started, walking down the street holding a sign. A big sign that said, “This is who I am. This is what I stand for.” But I haven’t done anything. I haven’t done anything real.
What might happen if we all stood up today and did something? If we took action that said, “This is who I am. This is what I stand for.”
What terrifies me is how many people would just shrug. And that I would be one of them.
Holding On To Hope
Posted on February 9, 2008 @ 11:07 am
How horrible. Article in the NY Times about the mother’s of brain injured soldiers pushing for proper care.
Defeating John McCain and the Continuation of the Bush Nightmare
Posted on February 4, 2008 @ 5:51 pm
For Democrats in this country, the choice has been difficult. Now, it is almost excruciating. The freshness and vitality of Barack Obama versus the experience and doggedness of Hillary Clinton. In the wake of the endless nightmare of the Bush years, Democrats seem to want someone truly exceptional. They seem to want a candidate who will actually have a chance at cleaning up some of the mind-blowing mess that George Bush has created in eight years. Unlike the Republicans, who elected Bush twice and who organized a recall of California Governor Gray Davis and replaced him with body-builder/action star Arnold Schwarzenegger, who went on to lead California into an even bigger fiscal mess than the Davis years saw, Democrats want substance as much as electability. Gore seemed a likely choice, but Gore would have none of it.
Edwards was right on many important issues, but seemed green in the post-9/11 world. He isn’t, actually, but appearances trumped his ideas and rhetoric. Now we have two people remaining on the eve of Super Tuesday and the most significant question is “Which one can beat McCain?” Hillary Clinton has done everything right. She stood by her husband and endured the ridicule of Republican bullies like Newt Gingrich during what must have been the worst time of her life. She rewrote her own epitaph by crawling out from under the rubble of her marital troubles and became a Senator in a state where the egos in the political arena are as oversized as New York’s skyline. She studied hard, as she always has, and she won. Twice. She became a role model for all other women in politics. She is smart. She is tough. And most people agree that she will probably run a better White House than any other candidate that has taken the field.
But Hillary Clinton is wrong on the war in Iraq and that should matter a lot in this race. Critics of Hillary Clinton who are leaders in the Democratic Party that I have spoken to privately believe that she is too much like McCain to offer voters a meaningful choice. “Voters will choose a real Republican over a fake Republican every time,” one politico said to me, slashing at Clinton for her tilt toward the right on the war.
“The Clintons don’t know when to get off the stage,” another offered, suggesting that eight years of Bush and the war on terror seem to have pushed the Bill Clinton years, where Hillary will remain inexorably framed in the minds of many, into a bygone political era.
Barack Obama represents hope to many and some in Clinton’s camp have underestimated how much Americans are hungering for that hope in 2008. Obama is clearly not McCain. He is young. He is against the war and he is inexperienced. Republicans, to their shame, will trumpet McCain’s experience over Obama’s, running as fast as they can from the fact that Gore was the smarter, tougher and more experienced candidate in 2000. Republicans don’t care about anything but winning. That’s why they put forth candidates like Reagan, Arnold and Bush. By the time they reach the end of their first term, it’s assumed they have all the experience they need. Like their nephew at the bank.
Which candidate will have the best chance against McCain? The experienced one or the exciting one? The one who is smart and tough and whose stances on some issues are oh-so-similar to those of the presumed GOP opponent? Or the less experienced, less tested one who has many Americans believing that someone more like them may make a return to the White House? During the Democratic debates, I wanted someone to ask one question. “Do you believe that any of the people sitting in this audience have as much hope of becoming president as you do?” I think that should matter, because the presidency of this country has become the exclusive preserve of legal elites and political or corporate barons. And our country is suffering as the result of it.
Vote on Tuesday. And let’s begin the job of defeating John McCain, and his continuation of the Bush nightmare, right now.
Sí se puede!
Posted on @ 11:27 am
Bloody Brilliant. Saw it at Matt’s blog first.
The Yes We Can Song
by will.i.am
I was sitting in my recording studio watching the debates…
Torn between the candidates
I was never really big on politics…
and actually I’m still not big on politics…
but 4 years ago, me and the black eyed peas supported Kerry…
And we supported Kerry with all our might…
We performed and performed and performed for the DNC…
doing all we could do to get the youth involved…
The outcome of the last 2 elections has saddened me…
on how unfair, backwards, upside down, unbalanced, untruthful,
corrupt, and just simply, how wrong the world and “politics” are…
So this year i wanted to get involved and do all i could early…
And i found myself torn…
because this time it’s not that simple…
our choices aren’t as clear as the last elections …
last time it was so obvious…
Bush and war
vs
no Bush and no war…
But this time it’s not that simple…
and there are a lot of people that are torn just like i am…
So for awhile I put it off and i was going to wait until it was decided for me…
And then came New Hampshire…
And i was captivated…
Inspired…
I reflected on my life…
and the blessings I have…
and the people who fought for me to have these rights and blessings…
and I’m not talking about a “black thing”
I’m talking about a “human thing” me as a “person”
an American…
That speech made me think of Martin Luther King…
Kennedy…
and Lincoln…
and all the others that have fought for what we have today…
what America is “supposed” to be…
freedom…
equality…
and truth…
and thats not what we have today…
we think we are free…
but in reality terror and fear controls our decisions…
this is not the America that our pioneers and leaders fought and
died for…
and then there was New Hampshire
it was that speech…
like many great speeches…
that one moved me…
because words and ideas are powerful…
It made me think…
and realize that today we have “very few” leaders…
maybe none…
but that speech…
it inspired me…
it inspired me to look inside myself and outwards towards the world…
it inspired me to want to change myself to better the world…
and take a “leap” towards change…
and hope that others become inspired to do the same…
change themselves..
change their greed…
change their fears…
and if we “change that”
“then hey”..
we got something right…???…
1 week later after the speech settled in me…
I began making this song…
I came up with the idea to turn his speech into a song…
because that speech effected and touched my inner core like nothing in a very long time…
it spoke to me…
because words and ideas are powerful…
I just wanted to add a melody to those words…
I wanted the inspiration that was bubbling inside me to take over…
so i let it..
I wasn’t afraid to stand for something…
to stand for “change”…
I wasn’t afraid of “fear”…
it was pure inspiration…
so I called my friends…
and they called their friends…
in a matter of 2 days…
We made the song and video…
Usually this process would take months…
a bunch of record company people figuring out strategies and release dates…
interviews…
all that stuff…
but this time i took it in my own hands…
so i called my friends sarah pantera, mike jurkovac, fred goldring, and jesse dylan to help make it happen…
and they called their friends..
and we did it together in 48 hours…
and instead of putting it in the hands of profit we put it in the hands of inspiration…
then we put it on the net for the world to feel…
When you are truly inspired..
magic happens…
incredible things happen…
love happens..
(and with that combination)
“love, and inspiration”
change happens…
“change for the better”
Inspiration breeds change…
“Positive change”…
no one on this planet is truly experienced to handle the obstacles we face today…
Terror, fear, lies, agendas, politics, money, all the above…
It’s all scary…
Martin Luther King didn’t have experience to lead…
Kennedy didn’t have experience to lead…
Susan B. Anthony…
Nelson Mandella…
Rosa Parks…
Gandhi…
Anne Frank…
and everyone else who has had a hand in molding the freedoms we have and take for granted today…
no one truly has experience to deal with the world today…
they just need “desire, strength, courage ability, and passion” to change…
and to stand for something even when people say it’s not possible…
America would not be here “today” if we didn’t stand and fight for
change “yesterday”…
Everything we have as a “people” is because of the “people” who fought for
change…
and whoever is the President has to realize we have a lot of changing to do
I’m not trying to convince people to see things how i do…
I produced this song to share my new found inspiration and how I’ve been moved…
I hope this song will make you feel…
love…
and think…
and be inspired just like the speech inspired me…
that’s all…
Let’s all come together like America is supposed to…
Like Japan did after Hiroshima…
that was less than 65 years ago…
and look at Japan now…
they did it together…
they did it…
“We can’t?…
Are you serious..?..
WE CAN!!!
Yes we can…
A United “America”
Democrats, Republicans and Independents together…
Building a new America
We can do it…
“TOGETHER”
Please visit www.yeswecansong.com
Thank you for reading and listening…
will.i.am
Bhutto Killed in Attack on Political Rally
Posted on December 27, 2007 @ 2:16 pm
Woke up to this headline in the NY Times.
One of my old tirades against the sexism in America used to be , “Even Pakistan has had a female Prime Minister.”
Pakistan is a different place than it was ten- fifteen years ago and I know she wasn’t perfect. . . but goddammit.
All My Bags Are Packed, I’m Ready To Go
Posted on September 4, 2007 @ 10:17 am
Off to America for 5 days.
Al and I were thinking of creating a pool to see how long immigration detains Javed. You see Javed is Muslim and he is brown and his family immigrated in the UK from India/Pakistan a few generations ago and the last time he came over to Seattle for a work trip they detained him and Khaled for a hour and a half.
I think all 30 of us should wait and gather behind passport control rather than waiting for him down in baggage claim.
Freaken Awesome
Posted on March 6, 2007 @ 8:13 pm
Didja hear the one about what George Bush said to the guy in the wheelchair?
Posted on May 2, 2006 @ 5:40 pm
I know the title of this post sounds like a set up to a joke. It could be a joke on The Prairie Home Companion joke show, which they do every year and is one of my favorite things ever.
(This reminds me that I haven’t listened to Prairie Home Companion for a while. Prairie Home Companion is something I miss about America. I need to listen to it online. But this post is not about Prairie Home Companion. It is about a Bush joke.
But first, I will tell you another joke. My favorite joke actually. . . A Grasshopper walks into a bar. The bartender says, “Hey, we have a drink named after you!” The Grasshopper is pleased. He’s thrilled. He claps his feelers. “You have a drink named Steve?”)
Here’s the George Bush joke.
George Bush walks into a Community College where senior citizens are trying to sign up for very confusing prescription drug benefits. He walks around shaking seniors hands and he sees a man in a wheelchair. He goes over to the man in the wheelchair and he says, “You look mighty comfortable.”
Isn’t that HYSTERICAL? Isn’t that a classic? You look mighty comfortable! To a guy in a WHEELCHAIR!!!
You want to know the best part? What is really funny? The part that makes this a classic of the highest art???
It really happened. Look it up.
