Pissed off Wiccan for Peace: 06/20/2004

Friday, June 25, 2004

COUNTERPUNCH

This is an absolute RIOT!!! You have got to read the whole thing. (Link pilfered from Will Brady who I have added to the blogroll. Hope he doesn't mind. :oD )

COUNTERPUNCH:

"Gays are getting married in Massachussetts. And already I can feel the country's moral fiber unraveling around me. This morning I was happily married. But now that gays are getting married I find the entire institution of marriage has been so damaged I have no real choice but to abandon my wife and kids. How can I possibly stay married when Adam and Steve are husband and husband?

To my kids I say, sorry, but when you grow up you'll understand that the legally sanctioned committment of two people I don't know, has rendered my moral obligation to you invalid, even innappropriate. Yes, I love you both, but how can that love continue when we live in a world where people who make disturbing choices when it comes to orifices are allowed to live together under color of law? How?"

posted by Kimber at 10:34 AM :: ~#~
(0) comments

Thursday, June 24, 2004

It will destroy the US as we know it...

Alan Keyes is a nut. That is a stand alone point but reading one of his speeches is what got me started this morning so he gets the mention. I try to steer clear of personal attacks whenever I can. It's not productive and detracts from sincere discussion of topics. But this time I can't help it. He really is.

According to conservatives there are a frightening number of things out there that will destroy the US as we know it. Gay marriage, abortion, a living wage for every citizen... You know, what they consider to be the liberal agenda. But I have yet to hear one of them tell me HOW any of these things will destroy the US as we know it. Will someone, anyone, conservative or non, please explain to me how gay marriage will destroy the United States of America????? Or abortion???? Or a higher minimum wage???? Or anything in the so-called liberal agenda??? HOW will this happen. What will the mechanism be? Outline the process. How will we go from living our "normal" everyday lives; going to work, going to the store, picking up the kids at daycare, going to the beach on the weekends to some kind of apocalyptic cataclism when gay people start getting legally married? Please detail to me how my life will be suddenly dessimated by women being allowed to excersize control over their own bodies?

And exactly what form will this annihilation take? Will the ground under our feet be suddenly rent assunder plunging the entire population into a firey lake of lava? Will the dollar automatically devaluate the minute two women legally say "I do"? Will the entire societal structure from the bottom of Texas to the tippy top of Michigan and everywhere in between immediately unravel if Roe vs. Wade is upheld intact and unwatered? PLEASE someone tell me.

But, here's another thought. Perhaps "as we know it" is a key phrase here. The US as we know it will be destroyed. In the 1860s the United States as the contemporary citizens knew it was ripped apart and destroyed. There was a civil war over states rights. Previously, the United States was a loose union of states and territories where it was legal to own slaves. Afterward, it was a solidified union where it was illegal to own slaves and states rights were secondary to federal law. The US as they knew it was destroyed and I think most people (aside from White Supremesists) believe it was a good thing. Thomas Jefferson once said that he would be terribly dissapointed if there wasn't a revolution in this country every 20 years or so.

The US as I knew it in 1999 was destroyed in 2000. Within 100 days we had gone from a country with a thriving economy, committed to the environment, global unity and 5 years from eliminating the national debt to being further in debt than we were, we have the largest deficit in the history of the nation (and that's saying a lot 'cause in the '30s this nation went BANKRUPT!), the EPA is fighting to drill in the Arctive Reserve and our pResident has either alienated or invaded the entire rest of the PLANET!

Excuse me if I don't find the idea of destroying the US as we know it now to be a dredfully bad thing. To borrow a phrase, Bring it On.

posted by Kimber at 11:34 AM :: ~#~
(0) comments

Wednesday, June 23, 2004

Madonna gets a warning from the Vatican about Kaballah -- Beliefnet.com

Madonna gets a warning from the Vatican about Kaballah -- Beliefnet.com

Oh this is just PRECIOUS!!!!!!

"The Vatican has been holding a special summit with Catholic leaders from around the world, hammering out a way to deal with New Age religions and spiritual fads that pose a threat to the historic Christian faith."

Remember Joel, y'all have to come check on me!!!! ;oD

posted by Kimber at 12:42 PM :: ~#~
(0) comments

Tuesday, June 22, 2004

CNN.com - Private craft soars into space, history - Jun 21, 2004

CNN.com - Private craft soars into space, history - Jun 21, 2004

I wasn't sure how to feel about this whole concept for a while. Privitization of space flight. I am a huge fan of Carl Sagan. If I had ever had a head for math I would have been an astronomer. I love space and the whole idea of the cosmos. The mystery. What's out there. When other girls were reading Judy Blume, I was reading Isaac Asimov. Probably part of where I got my distrust of corporate involvement in space exploration. They aren't in it for the science, they are in it for the cash. Remember Burke in Alien? All they want to do is spread out and see what they can exploit for profit. When W. stated that he wanted to turn part of the space program over to private companies rather than leaving them under the auspices of NASA I was outraged! Of course he wants to do that! Let those corporate fat cats cash in on the military contracts that come out of the research. UGH!

But then I read about SpaceShipOne. And I started thinking again. Have you ever read "Space" by James Michner? I did in the 9th or 10th grade. (I did a report on it because I couldn't find any american science fiction writers I liked and the author had to be american for that project.) It's a great read, you should try it sometime. Or watch the intro to Enterprise sometime.

It didn't start with NASA, or any government for that matter. It started because men wanted to fly. And you can't blame them I suppose. Most of us have had those flying dreams, you feel so free and in control and powerful up there. You have broken the law of gravity. And some men were just stubborn enough to not take no for an answer. They knew it was possible, that someday men would fly.

But it took a LONG time. And a lot of dead dreamers before it happened. This poor fella plunged 190 feet in 5 seconds to his death trying to fly off the top of the Eiffel Tower. But the fact that he felt strongly enough that he could strap some homemade wings to his back, jump off a 190 foot structure KNOWING he would fly tells of how desperately men wanted to achieve that landmark in human evolution.

And they finally did it. And once they did that, it wasn't too long before they wanted to go even higher. And this was all done with no government funding. No committees to answer to, just private citizens with balsa wood and a lot of wide open space. Pioneering spirits and Visionaries is what we used to call them. Crackpots and kooks.

This type of personality later went on to become test pilots. Which is where we come into the space age. You have a space program. You're trying to beat the other guys to space. You want to find someone who is willing to strap a rocket full of highly flamable fuel to his ass and light it on fire hoping it will launch him 70 to 100 miles into the air and then out of the air and then back into the air again. Then hope the teeny little metal capsule he's crammed into doesn't burn to a cinder before it crashes into the ocean. Then hope it doesn't spring a leak and sink to the bottom before the helicopter can get out there to rescue him. You're either going to start puting up recruitment posters at Belleview or you get test pilots. They do stuipd shit with flying machines every day. And they say...Sure, but we've got to be able to fly it. Gregharin didn't have any controls in his capsule. He was just human cargo. These guys wanted to have control over where their grease spot ended up. Apollo 13 is another good read. These guys weren't doing this for any other reason than because it was there. They were the pioneering spirits and visionaries. The crackpots and kooks.

And I suppose that, in a way, these guys who are fighting for the "X Prize" have a bit of that in them. Yes, they are trying to turn space travel into a tour industry and make lots of money. But they are doing it. They are keeping the human element in it. There is only so much "Views from the Red Planet" folks can see before they start saying, "Yeah, but did you see what the Brothers W did in The Matrix?" It detaches people from the active process and makes them observers rather than explorers. And if we are ever going to actually go out and explore, we have to have people who want to do it enough to strap a rocket to their ass and light it on fire. And there can't be a government agency listing 5,000 subparagraphs of regluations stating that they can't, or they can but only on the third Tuedsday after the new moon when we get that money from this subcommittee that is holding it back because they want to have pork farm subsidies in Ohio. There is a wonderful short story by Robert Heinlein called "Requiem". It's about a man who wanted to go to the moon. His whole life all he wanted to do was go to the moon. So he worked and built company after company, bought and sold and made and lost fortunes all so he could go to the moon. But when he had finally created the technology to accomplish it, he discovered he had a heart condition and the regulations forbade him from going. So he fought, his family, the board of directors of his company and everyone else to use his private money to build a rocket to fly him to the moon. And he did. And he died there on the moon, looking back at earth. Happy.

I guess there are quite a few things to make you go hmmmm in this situation. Government regulation verses personal freedom, commerce verses science, and what the hell ever happend to the indominable human spirit. Personally, I think it went up about 62.5 miles in the air yesterday and came back down cheering.

But that's just me.

posted by Kimber at 3:00 PM :: ~#~
(0) comments

Monday, June 21, 2004

Ok, I moved.

Here I am. New digs. Welcome.

posted by Kimber at 11:12 PM :: ~#~
(0) comments

Moving...

Look for this blog to be moving soon. I moved my family blog yesterday and it works so much better at the other site that I am going to move this one too. I hope y'all find me. :oD

posted by Kimber at 11:27 AM :: ~#~
(0) comments

Pax Nortona - FDR's Second Bill of Rights by Joel Sax

Pax Nortona - FDR's Second Bill of Rights by Joel Sax

A flat out Hell Yeah! for Joel. I really liked this post a lot. Go read it!

posted by Kimber at 11:26 AM :: ~#~
(0) comments

Sunday, June 20, 2004

NCLB Article

HOW "NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND" UNDERMINES QUALITY AND EQUITY IN EDUCATION

The first two years of implementation of the controversial "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) law have damaged education quality and equity because of the law's incorrect assumptions and arbitrary requirements, according to a 170-page report released today. In addition to critiquing NCLB, "Failing Our Children" by the National Center for Fair & Open Testing outlines a fundamentally different approach to assessment and accountability that the authors say would better promote needed school reforms. "The current federal law is aggravating, not solving, the real problems that cause many children to be left behind," explained FairTest Executive Director, Monty Neill, the report's lead author. "NCLB must be thoroughly overhauled if the federal government is to make a useful contribution to enhancing the quality of education in U.S. schools, particularly for low-income and minority group students." Based on evidence collected from two years of classroom experience around the nation, FairTest documented a series of basic flaws in NCLB, such as: (1) The law falsely assumes that boosting test scores should be the primary goal of schools, an approach that has not improved education when implemented by individual states; (2) Widespread school "failure" is an inevitable outcome of NCLB's one-size-fits-all design because of rigid "adequate yearly progress" provisions, which set unrealistic goals for academic gains, punish diversity, and ignore measurement error; (3) NCLB's school transfer policy undermines ongoing reform programs and disrupts the lives of students and teachers. Heavier sanctions required for schools that do not boost test scores have previously been shown to be counter-productive; (4) The requirement that limited English proficient students score "proficient" on English exams is self-contradictory, as is the provision that most children with special needs demonstrate competency in the same manner as other students; (5) Education is being damaged as students are coached to pass tests rather than taught a rich curriculum that will help prepare them for life in the 21st Century; and, (6) The federal government has failed to adequately fund the law.

http://www.fairtest.org/Failing_Our_Children_Report.html

posted by Kimber at 2:32 PM :: ~#~
(0) comments