Fun With Politics - Rally Against Sarah Palin

Speaking of Alaska...

I spent some of the most difficult years of my life in Alaska, from 1993-1997. I was in very bad shape. In fact I was certifiably insane for much of that time. Hardly a high point of my life. Most of my memories of Alaska are not happy. One good thing, though, I did reunite with my brother after many years of separation.

We lived in Anchorage, a strange city, full of strange people. I fit right in. I was freaked out by the barely visible sun in winter and loved the nearly endless summer days, although I missed seeing the stars.

Alaska is incredibly beautiful and needs to be preserved.

Alaska deserves much better than Sarah Palin.

A friend sent me this article, along with the pictures.

Psssst...pass it on!

[The] Alaska Women Reject Palin rally was to be held outside on the lawn in front of the Loussac Library in midtown Anchorage . Home made signs were encouraged, and the idea was to make a statement that Sarah Palin does not speak for all Alaska women, or men. I had no idea what to expect.

The rally was organized by a small group of women, talking over coffee. It made me wonder what other things have started with small groups of women talking over coffee. It's probably an impressive list. These women hatched the plan, printed up flyers, posted them around town, and sent notices to local media outlets. One of those media outlets was KBYR radio, home of Eddie Burke, a long-time uber-conservative Anchorage talk show host. Turns out that Eddie Burke not only announced the rally, but called the people who planned to attend the rally "a bunch of socialist baby-killing maggots," and read the home phone numbers of the organizers aloud over the air, urging listeners to call and tell them what they thought. The women, of course, received some nasty, harassing and threatening messages.

I felt a bit apprehensive. I'd been disappointed before by the turnout at other rallies. Basically, in Anchorage , if you can get 25 people to show up at an event, it's a success. So, I thought to myself, if we can actually get 100 people there that aren't sent by Eddie Burke, we'll be doing good. A real statement will have been made. I confess, I still had a mental image of 15 demonstrators surrounded by hundreds of menacing "socialist baby-killing maggot" haters.

It's a good thing I wasn't tailgating when I saw the crowd in front of the library or I would have ended up in somebody's trunk. When I got there, about 20 minutes early, the line of sign wavers stretched the full length of the library grounds, along the edge of the road, 6 or 7 people deep! I could hardly find a place to park. I nabbed one of the last spots in the library lot, and as I got out of the car and started walking, people seemed to join in from every direction, carrying signs.

Never, have I seen anything like it in my 17 and a half years living in Anchorage. The organizers had someone walk the rally with a counter, and they clicked off well over 1400 people (not including the 90 counter-demonstrators). This was the biggest political rally ever, in the history of the state. I was absolutely stunned. The second most amazing thing is how many people honked and gave the thumbs up as they drove by. And even those that didn't honk looked wide-eyed and awe-struck at the huge crowd that was growing by the minute. This just doesn't happen here.

Then, the infamous Eddie Burke showed up. He tried to talk to the media, and was instantly surrounded by a group of 20 people who started shouting O-BA-MA so loud he couldn't be heard. Then passing cars started honking in a rhythmic pattern of 3, like the Obama chant, while the crowd cheered, hooted and waved their signs high.

So, if you've been doing the math… Yes. The Alaska Women Reject Palin rally was significantly bigger than Palin's rally that got all the national media coverage! So take heart, sit back, and enjoy the photo gallery. Feel free to spread the pictures around to anyone who needs to know that Sarah Palin most definitely does not speak for all Alaskans. The citizens of Alaska , who know her best, have things to say.

A bunch of pictures of that rally:

COURAGE, HOPE - AND A SORT OF FREEDOM - IN YEMEN

What to say about this? One very strong, brave little girl who - with the help of an aunty - stood up and said, "ENOUGH!"

I am sort of lobbying for the rights of very young girls. I am outraged by the systematic murder of preborn girls among Asian Indian communities. This has been going on long enough that there now exists a gender imbalance resulting in a shortage of marriageable women in some communities. That is a subject for another post, however.

This story has a much happier ending than a dead child.

I read this today in the Los Angeles Times. A bride who is very young woman, has already been married - and, thankfully, divorced - at age 10. I am struck that her father seems to have been trying to protect her by giving her to a brutal pedophile. Is he really that stupid, naive, uncultured? Who knows. As for the this young lady, surely she can serve as an inspiration to all of us who sometimes feel that we have too much to overcome in life! Maybe even make our complaints and lack of action seem a little bit silly.

from The Los Angeles Times:

Yemeni 10-year-old divorcee Nujood Ali goes back to school

SANA, YEMEN -- Still groggy, the schoolgirl brushed her hair, struggled to pull on her socks and snuggled into her school uniform: a green gown and a white head scarf.

By the time she gathered up her books and strapped on her backpack she was smiling and enthusiastic, her nervousness eclipsed by anticipation of the first day of class.




Like children across the world, 10-year-old Nujood Ali went back to school this month after a lengthy break. But Nujood hadn't been lazing about or playing hide-and-seek with her friends during the summer.

Instead, after she was pulled out of the second grade by her father earlier this year, she was married off to a man three times her age, who beat her and sexually abused her.

For many girls in this traditional society, where tribal custom and conservative interpretations of Islam dominate, that would have been the end of the story. But Nujood was outraged. She gathered up her courage and on the advice of an aunt went to court in April. She got the help of a lawyer and filed for divorce.

A judge quickly granted it.

And on Tuesday morning, the divorcee, possibly the world's youngest, once again became a schoolgirl.

"I'm very happy to be going back to school," she said, waiting in her ramshackle home for her younger sister Haifa to get ready. "I'm going to study Arabic, the Koran, mathematics and drawing. I will do that with my classmates and I will definitely make friends there."

Nujood's unusual story of rebellion made her an international celebrity. Since The Times wrote of her in June, CNN, Elle magazine and other international media have come to this mountaintop capital to chronicle her tale.

Hordes of nonprofit organizations offered to help her get back to school, some even willing to foot the bill to send her abroad or to a fancy private academy, though they ignored Haifa, Nujood's little sister and best friend.

In the end, Nujood opted for a small, government-run public school relatively close to her home. She would begin where she left off, starting the second grade again.

Even then, it wasn't easy. One teacher said she worried that Nujood might disturb other students by talking about her sexual experiences.

The night before she went to school, Nujood said she dreamed of notebooks, drawings and new friends.

"When I left school, I learned how to count from one to 100," she said. "Now, I am going to learn how to count until a million."

Nujood said she wanted to study hard, to be able to attend university and become a lawyer like Shada Nasser, the well-known Yemeni human rights advocate who helped her get her divorce.

The girl's experience, and her ambition, have even served as an inspiration to her parents, uneducated rural people who moved to the capital's outskirts a few years ago and say they married her off to protect her from the dangers of the city.

"We were never asked if we wanted to go to school when we were children," said her father, Ali Mohammed Ahdal, who has two wives and 16 children.

"If we had a choice, we would have loved to study like Nujood."

On Tuesday morning, Nujood and Haifa climbed into a yellow taxi paid for by an Italian aid group and drove through the capital's smog-choked streets, passing vendors of the mildly narcotic khat leaves and the occasional shepherd.

Outside the schoolhouse, Nasser stood waiting, eager to share a day she had anticipated. "I can't believe we finally made it," said the attorney, who agreed to drop the rest of her caseload to take up Nujood's cause after the girl showed up alone in a Sana courthouse in April.

Nujood and Nasser were welcomed by Njala Matri, the principal of the school in Rawdha, a lower-middle-class neighborhood along the road to the city's international airport.

"You are welcome here. You can feel at home," she said, smiling at Nujood.

Only about half of Yemeni girls attend primary school. Last year, one of the school's 1,200 girls, a 13-year-old, dropped out to marry, though the legal age of consent is 15. "Now, she's a mother," Matri said in dismay.

Women's rights activists say child marriage is part of a vicious circle. Girls drop out of school and bear too many children, contributing to Yemen's high female illiteracy and exploding birth rate.

But on Tuesday, Nujood stepped through the school's gates into a vast courtyard, disappearing into a swarm of noisy classmates. Some paid her no mind, while others approached the girl who had become a local and international media star.

"I am so excited," she said, playing nervously with her hands.

A bell sounded and the students quieted down, forming lines for roll call before shuffling into classrooms of about 50 students each.

Nujood took a seat in the third row, neither at the front nor the back of the classroom.

The teacher, dressed in an all-covering black abaya, hushed the students and began the day's lesson by asking them to recite the national anthem as well as passages from the Koran.

Small hands shot into the air.

"Who can recite the Surat al-Hamd?" the teacher asked, referring to the first chapter of the Koran.

She saw Nujood's hand, and called her name.

"Nujood?" she said.

Nujood stood up and began, ending with: "Show us the straight path. The path of those whom You have favored. Not the path of those who earn Your anger nor of those who go astray."

"May God bless you," said the teacher.

"Let's give her a round of applause."

The others clapped as Nujood sat down, a little girl once again.

daragahi@latimes.com

Special correspondent Minoui reported from Sana and staff writer Daragahi from Beirut

*******************************************

Pictures by Delphine Munoui:

Nujood Ali, 10, stands near her home on the outskirts of Sana, Yemen. Her father gave Nujood's hand in marriage to a man three times her age.




Nujood Ali sits with her father, Ali Mohammed Ahdal, who is unemployed and has two wives and 16 children. Yemeni law sets the age of consent at 15. But tribal customs and interpretations of Islam often trump the law in this country of 23 million.




ONE THOUSAND CHEERS FOR THIS LADY!!Human rights lawyer Shada Nasser is representing Nujood Ali. Publicity surrounding the case prompted calls for tightened legislation, which conservative Yemeni lawmakers refused to take up.




Nujood Ali, left, sits in the living room of her modest home with her mother, Shuaieh. “All I want now is to finish my education,” Nujood said. “I want to be a lawyer.”






Ten-year-old Nujood Ali, left, waits for her sister to get ready for their first day of school. She was pulled out of classes earlier this year by her parents who married her off to a man three times her age.

Nujood, left, enjoys a day at an amusement park with her younger sister Haifa. After being married to a man aged 30 and suffering physical and sexual abuse, Nujood went to court to get a divorce, becoming a sensation in Yemen and abroad.

Nujood Ali, left, enjoys a break at a playground with her older sister Mona as she got ready to go back to school this week. Child marriage is common in Yemen, which suffers a vicious cycle of poverty, high female illiteracy, early marriage and booming population.

Nujood Ali, second row, right , sits with classmates during her first day back to school Tuesday. Many schools had refused her admission, fearing that she might share her experience of sexual abuse with fellow students. But the principal of a small government-run school in Sana welcomed her.

Developing My Social Consciousness

One of my seventh grade teachers turned out to be one of the most influential people in my life. His name was Mr. Bodecker. If I ever knew his given name, it is now long forgotten. He was incredibly intelligent and held some very unpopular political opinions. I had a great deal of respect for him.


One day he took me aside. ' I need to talk to you.


'You and I are what are called intellectuals. We live by our brain power. And we tend to get above ourselves. I don't want you to make that mistake. I cannot stand the thought of you becoming a snob.'


He was talking very seriously; clearly this was something important to him. 'We like to think that we are the most important people in society, but we aren't. Not at all. Society could get along without us perfectly well. It wouldn't be as easy or as much fun, but it would be possible. We are not the meat and potatoes of society. Not even the vegetables.'

'We are just the dessert.'

We are not just the dessert, we aren't the cake, we aren't even the frosting. I think we're those little sugar sprinkles that decorate the top of the cake.






Maybe we add a little beauty, a little sweetness, but people ought to wash out there mouths after eating those, they form cavities and eating too much makes them fat. My dear young lady, we have to be careful not to become just a top-heavy burden.'

'There are, however, people who really are necessary. Mostly they all into roughly three categories.'

'First are the producers, most importantly those who provide us with food. Farmers. And farm workers of all sorts. Nobody could live without the food they provide, the nourishment necessary to sustain life.'



'But that food wouldn't do us any good if it rotted on the farm, so we also need people to get it to us. Truck drivers, loaders, packers, grocers, all the people that get that food to us/


'And then there are those who clean up the mess. These are the least respected, but vitally important. Have you ever thought what it would be like if the garbage collectors refused to pick up your trash?




--An aside. In fact, I lived in Las Vegas for a time. Summers there in the desert are very, very hot, temperatures often hovering around 45C (115F) in the summer. I will never forget the summer the garbage collectors went on strike. My garbage was taken care of, though, thanks to Bodecker's teaching.)

'And the sewer workers and the grave and most women.'

That took me up. 'Huh?!'


'Most women spend most of their lives cleaning up after others, keeping homes livable. Think about your own home.' What could I say? My mother was more interested in drinking coffee and smoking ciagarettes with our neighbor than cleaning the house.


I heard him loud and clear, though. I vowed then and there never to be the perfect housekeeper.

'These are people society cannot get along without. Those who produce. Those who distribute. Those who clean up. These are the most important people, the ones most deserving of our respect. The ones who rarely get it.'


'Most of these people are workers, working class people, not the intellectuals.

'Remember, we make life enjoyable; they make life possible. I suggest you learn to appreciate the workers and always treat them with the highest respect. If you ever start to consider yourself above these people, I promise you, I'll hunt you down and pull you down a few notches.'

To this day, his words are almost a mantra to me, a sort of poem.


Those who produce,
Those who distribute,
Those who clean up the mess.


These ideas weren't really new to me, however, although this expression of them was. I didn't exactly start singing L'Internationale. Although I was never actually a Communist, I have always been quite a bit left of centre. I was told I'd outgrow this perversion, but I never have.



This philosophy of respecting workers has served me well in practical ways.


When I was, for a short time, playing the role of 'professor,' my colleagues couldn't figure out why, when some work needed done in my office, such as a light changed, it was done at once, while it took days or even weeks for the same service to be given them, or why I couldn't walk across campus without a groundskeeper handing me a flower or two.


As I mentioned above, my garbage collectors came and took mine during the strike, a way of saying thanks for the cold lemonade in the summer and hot coffee in the winter. ( I still provide those to our garbage collectors, by the way. Just a small way of saying thanks.) My 'colleagues' and my neighbours, of course, resented me, but they had never had a Bodecker, I guess, the set them down the correct path.


Note: The picture of the Sikh farm workers is from the Sacramento Valley in 1912, from a website called, Sikhs: The Most Visible Yet Most Misunderstood Minority. You might like to check it out.

At Last! Freedom From Corporate Amerika

I have a new possession. Those of you who know me know that I really have little use for most STUFF. Once in a while, though, I really, really, really want something. That happened earlier this year with the Aerogarden, which is really cool.


That was a sort of major thing. I know $250 isn't a lot of money to most people, but our finances are such that is is a true extravagance to us. Having a lot of money has never been a priority in my life. (Truthfully, though, having enough for a good computer and a high-speed connection would be nice.) As I said, STUFF really is mostly an annoyance to me.

What I wanted this time is a whole lot smaller. Smaller than a bread box.

It happened like this.

My husband absolutely must have rice with his meals. I prefer to have bread of some sort, saving rice as something for special occasions. I love the fragrance of basmati rice

filling the house on holidays; I would like to keep that aroma associated with specialness. (Is it my imagination, or has something happened to basmati rice? GMO, maybe? The smell just doesn't permeate the whole house as it used to, and our current house isn't very large.) So, he has his ordinary, long-grain rice - I do manage to save the basmati for celebrations - and I usually eat flour tortillas.

I know I should make roti, chapattis,

but they really should be round and it just takes too much effort with my one good hand.

One day, the tortillas turned out to be moldy! Yeach! What to do?

With the miracle of the Internet, I found several thousand recipes for flour tortillas, all pretty much the same, actually. I mixed the whole wheat flour, baking powder, oil (I don't use hydrogenated shortening and I most certainly don't use the more traditional lard.), salt and water. Then I kneaded it as instructed, formed into balls, placed each ball between two plastic sheets and pressed down with a cutting board. Next I cooked them. An easy enough process, but not very satisfying. Oh, the result was delicious, much better than that processed junk from the store, but there was something about the process I used that I just didn't like. Making these using this method each day was time-consuming and tedious.

I decided I needed a tortilla press.

Now the purchase of anything in our home is always a negotiation. (Yawn.) I first found a suitable press at a store nearby, cheap, too, at $8.99. They run about $20.00 on line. So I made my case and eventually prevailed. Now I am the proud owner of a genuine 'Hecho en Mexico' (it says so right on the top!) tortilla press. This is a very simple machine: two metal discs hinged together with a handle that acts as a lever to flatten the dough. It cuts the working time into about a third. Of course, unlike chapattis, flour tortillas don't need to be perfectly round; in fact, even the commercial ones are always a bit odd shaped. And I feel myself the latest in a centuries old tradition of tortilla making. I see thousands of Mayan women doing it just like I do, well, not exactly, I guess.

I cheat. I dump all the ingredients into my electric bread machine (purchased at Goodwill, of course - reduce, re-use, re-cycle and cheap!),

set it on 'dough,' and let it go for about ten minutes. Then I roll the dough into a rope and snip it with my kitchen scissors. Then I use my tortilla press.

Sometimes I make corn tortillas, too. They usually come out closer to round.

And I have achieved another small measure of freedom from corporate America.

(I am so effing sick of politics. And the economy. Lehman Bros., Merrill-Lynch, AIG, and locally, WaMu. Still... )

BLAME BUSH! BLAME THE REPUBLICANS! VOTE OBAMA! (Do I really believe that'll change things? Stay tuned for my answer.)

THE SEARCH FOR INDIA'S WELL-HIDDEN NUKES

I believe that the collapse of the artificial state of India is inevitable. India, however, is a nuclear power. So who will inherit the nukes? The collapse of the Soviet Union has taught us that the nukes belong to the region where they are physically present.


I have been giving this idea of where India's nukes might be a lot of thought. I believe I have come up with an answer, using logic and my personal experience.


My husband has a habit of putting things from around the house in some very strange places which I have trouble finding. So over the last 20 years, I have developed a method for finding things that works pretty well.


For example, if my little electric chopper, which belongs on the third shelf beside the kitchen table isn't there, I think.

"Where would he put it?" It's not something he would use, so he must have moved it to get to something else. The details of my reasoning would be boring, but finally, I found it behind the oatmeal on the fourth shelf. Over my head, of course.

Back to India.



I must think like a brahmin ruler of India, a lover of Bharat Mata (BM).

Nothing could be more screwed than having nuclear weapons stored in you. And who are most screwed in India. Having studied The Laws of Manu when I was a teenager, I conclude that would have to be an Untouchable Woman - by whatever is the current terminology - Harijan, Dalit, whatever. I think the closest American equivalent would be N-Word C*nt. (I have been told that the C-Word is etymologically related to the Indian Heroine (?), Kunti.)

An actual Untouchable Woman would be too small to hold all those nukes, so I think of a symbolic one. I think of Bharat Mata herself, totally disgraced, humiliated, dirty. And the perfect picture comes to mind. Actually, this is a perfectly lovely picture, but play along with me, please.

Now, if she is to be screwed, where does one screw a woman? Exactly!

Next we get a map of India:


Place the two side-by-side.

OK, somewhere in northern Karnataka.

Now to find a detail map of northern Karnataka

Move into the Koppal District .It appears to be just outside of Kushtagi.

On the farm of Ashok Naidu

Inside his barn.

FOUND THEM!

Now, the next logical question is, why am I looking for India's nuclear weapons?

Mucking In The Political Slop

At the Republican National Convention - yes, I watched most of it - did everyone catch Rudy Giuliani's speech? It was really and truly the most nasty, mean-spirited and just plain dirty-politics-Republican things I have ever heard. A true classic of the genre.





OK, the gloves come off. I said I would be respectful of McSame as a POW as long as he kept his word for a clean campaign. But now it's turning really dirty, so...

What the hell is heroic about being gunned down over a civilian city, while bombing innocent children, women and animals in an unjust genocidal war against the people of Asia? While I do not approve of torture, of course, John McSame earned everything he got. So there!

And as for Ms. Palin, she seems to be pretty rude. And racist, too. (Actually, for a note about this "Little Black Sambo, see the end of this post. Some things you might not know.)

"So Sambo beat the bitch!"

This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama's win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

According to Lucille, the waitress serving her table at the time and who asked that her last name not be used, Gov. Palin was eating lunch with five or six people when the subject of the Democrat's primary battle came up. The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would likely hear her, uttered the slur and then laughed loudly as her meal mates joined in appreciatively.

"It was kind of disgusting," Lucille, who is part Aboriginal, said in a phone interview after admitting that she is frightened of being discovered telling folks in the "lower 48" about life near the North Pole.

Then, almost with a sigh, she added, "But that's just Alaska."

Racial and ethnic slurs may be "just Alaska" and, clearly, they are common, everyday chatter for Palin.

Besides insulting Obama with a Step-N'-Fetch-It, "darkie musical" swipe, people who know her say she refers regularly to Alaska's Aboriginal people as "Arctic Arabs" – how efficient, lumping two apparently undesirable groups into one ugly description – as well as the more colourful "mukluks" along with the totally unimaginative "f**king Eskimo's," according to a number of Alaskans and Wasillians interviewed for this article.

But being openly racist is only the tip of the Palin iceberg. According to Alaskans interviewed for this article, she is also vindictive and mean. We're talking Rove mean and Nixon vindictive.

No wonder the vast sea of white, cheering faces at the Republican Convention went wild for Sarah: They adore the type, it's in their genetic code. So much for McCain's pledge of a "high road" campaign; Palin is incapable of being part of one.

Read the whole article at: http://www.laprogressive.com/2008/09/05/alaskans-speak-in-a-frightened-whisper-palin-is-“racist-sexist-vindictive-and-mean”/

Down and dirty! The political season escalates!

And here's a bit of nastiness from Virginia:

Officials in charge of voter registration in Virginia seem to be asking for Federal investigation… According to this press release from this extremely important battleground state, students are being told that they risk losing their scholarship and tax dependency status if they register to vote in their college, as opposed to home, state. And surprise, it appears all these warnings are bogus and have one impact and one impact only: to suppress voter turnout among college-aged people, who are overwhelmingly supporting Obama this year.

Memo to Virginia: that's illegal.

InsideHigherEd:
Last week, Virginia's Montgomery County, home to Virginia Tech, issued a press release regarding proper protocol for college students registering to vote. In interviews with Inside Higher Ed Tuesday, it was described by turns as "unsubstantiated," "chilling," and (more generously) as not "incredibly encouraging or friendly." Read more…

(Read the rest of this story…)

http://www.crooksandliars.com/

Promised note on "Little Black Sambo." The original Little Black Sambo was not an African. Nor was he an African American. He was, in fact, a Tamil -a southern Indian - child. The original book can be found at Little Black Sambo.

This, of course, in no way excuses Sarah Palin. She clearly internded a racial slur against Barack Obama as an African American.

Nor does it excuse any slights against Tamil people.