Picture and Lyric of the Week (week 5)

Eternal Frost


The place all frozen still [The glaze of frozen steel]
Upon the body laid still
Extracted by sorcery
Once there was a myth [Once temples of myth]
Rivers of fear run cold
Ice castle formation
Frozen tears escape eternal frost
Hope and desire fade
Fury in the emperor's eyes
Cast here for eternity
Season of the damned [dead]
Rivers of fear run cold
Ice castle formation
Frozen tears escape eternal frost
Forbidden land of sorrow
At last the winter winds sing
Scattered ashes of kings
Gaze at the fallen walls [fallen ones; fallen world]
Rivers of fear run cold
Ice castle formation
Frozen tears escape eternal frost

Picture and Lyrics of the Week (week 4)

Okay, I thought this doggie was cute! Had to post him. He's actually representing how I feel this week. I had such a great time ignoring the troubles of the world. Forgetting about the Evangelicals, the radical Right, the struggle for peace, the Iraq war. It did a body/mind/spirit good!

So, I hope everyone had a worry-free holiday! I hope we can take the spirit of the holidays and spread them throughout the year! I know this year, more than ever, I have realized the intrinsic connection I have to the world. The unbreakable bond of humanity, spirit and will. I have taken more time to understand death, life, -rebirth. Very important concepts to me these days.



Pagan Grace

There are many different varations of this song that have been recored over the years, below is but one of several that has been created.

V1

Amazing Grace, how sweet the Earth
That bore a witch like me
I once was burned, now I survive
Was hung and now I sing.

'Twas Grace that drew down the moonand
Grace that raised the seas.
The magic in the peoples' will
Will set our mother free.

We face the East and breathe the winds
That move across the Earth.
From gentle breeze to hurricane,
Our breath will bring forth change.

Turn toward the South and feel the fire
That burns in you and me.
The spirit's flame will rise again
And burn eternally.

V2

We greet the West, our souls awash
In tides of primal birth.
Our tears and blood, our pain and love
Will cleanse and heal the Earth.

Reach to the North and know your roots
Down deep ancestral caves.
We find the wisdom of the Crone,
"Of circles we are made."

Amazing Earth, enduring life,
From death unto rebirth.
'Tis Earth I am and Earth I love,
And Earth I'll always be.

Goddess Bless, so mote it be.
Our magic spirals on.
Merry meet and merry part,
And merry meet again.

V3

Amazing Grace, how sweet the Earth
That bore a witch like me.
I once was burned, now I survive
Was hung and now I sing.

'Twas Grace that drew down the moon
And Grace that raised the seas.
The magic in the peoples' will
Will set our mother free.

Amazing Earth, enduring life,
From death unto rebirth.
'Tis Earth I am and Earth I love,
And Earth I'll always be.

Goddess Bless, so mote it be.
Our magic spirals on.
Merry meet and merry part,
And merry meet again.

Peace!

A spirited letter against media consolidation. . .

So, as many of you know, the FCC secretly voted to allow for hte ownership of multiple media outlets in a single location allowing for the enhancement of media consolidation. I received this letter from a concerned American named Craig E.

___________________________________________________


Hi, For those of us who don't want a few big companies deciding what we see, hear, and read in the news, it's a bad day. The Bush-appointed FCC just voted to loosen media ownership rules so media titans like Rupert Murdoch can swallow up more local news outlets. They did this despite a huge public outcry--when the FCC asked for public comments, 99% opposed media consolidation!

The LAST thing our democracy needs these days is fewer independent media voices and more news outlets like FOX. We are allowing the insidious creation of "Big Brother" right under our sleepy, apathetic little noses!

Congress has the power to reverse this rule change, and I just signed this petition asking Congress to do that. This issue is very important. Can you join me at the link below?

I can't tell you how annoyed I am with both the government AND the corporate media. After being enlightened about our involvement in Iraq, I am so livid with "the system" that I feel there needs to be a grassroots revolution peaceful, of course) to kick this country in the ass and wake up in regard to how we are asleep at the wheel when it comes to staying fully informed about matters of national discourse and policy.

While I am a former military man, and supporter of our national interests, I'm an independent thinker with no allegiance to either political party. That said, I feel our country is being eroded from within. When I studied journalism in college, Woodward & Bernstein were my idols, along with Mike Royko. The way the media is being conducted today, guys like that would be muzzled, thrown out of work, or never hired in the first place. And we'd never have known about the corrupt hacks that we entrust with creating public policy on every level of the government--from Nixon to Vrdolyak.

EXAMPLE: The Chicago Sun-Times is losing money, and must save something like $50 million this year. Has anyone been reading this formerly great paper, once home to Mike Royko? Well, if you have, you're reading a paper that is filled with pre-written press releases, packaged news items, and National Enquirer-style pap. On the front page yesterday, I saw a headline detailing the squalid love life of a Chicago Bears player. WTF!!!!!!

I guess we can thank Paris, Lindsey, and Britney for that, but I digress. In an effort to stop the hemorrhaging and save the paper, they are cutting their news reporting staff to the bone.

Here's an idea to all the brain surgeons at the Sun Times and other papers like them. Get back to what made the industry great--report the NEWS! Get the best reporters who aren't afraid for their jobs, who can dig deep, make contacts, do the footwork, and make a difference by keeping valued readers informed about the things that matter locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally. Then, grow these types of reporters from within and cultivate a media culture of being professional, inquisitive, unbiased, and dogged in their pursuit of stories that MATTER.

Then maybe, just maybe, you'll have a product that is worth the investment of time to read every day, thereby increasing your readership and subscriptions. When that happens, your viability as a business increases exponentially, allowing ad revenues to go up. What does that do? It ensures success as both a business AND as a trusted source of news the public needs. DUH.

RRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

If you agree with me, visit
here
and get your opinion HEARD!

Picture and Lyrics of the Week (Week 3)

Lately, I feel disheartened. I feel like no matter what I say or think, the currently regressive regime in the US will be heard. Their spin will be put on their stories. I feel like we have lost. I feel like that the days when Americans wanted Peace are over. I though that was the whole point to all of this...PEACE. Not CAPITAL gain. Why aren't we working for Peace?

Don't get me wrong, I will not be giving up. I will continue to work for peace. I will continue to expose the Bush regime for the criminals and assholes they are! We will win in time, but now, I want to refocus some energy on the struggle for Peace.

So, here's the lyrics of the week!


Peace

You do not speak for me
When you say let's go to war
You do not act for me
When you go to kill some more

All I want is peace
All I want is peace

It's time to evolve
As a species, as a family
It's time to resolve
Our conflicts peacefully

When will you speak for me
When will you work for peace
When will our hearts be free
Of all this tragedy

All we want is peace
All we want is peace

It's time to transform
Our warfare into healing
May peace now be born
May we open, may we feel it

May all hearts open now
And grow in understanding
And teach our children how
To live in harmony

All they'll know is peace
All they'll know is peace

©2002 Eileen Hazel



Eileen Hazel - acoustic guitar, vocal
Recorded live on KPFA - March 8, 2003

Finally a positive. . .

I've been spending most of my time on this blog complaining about the U.S. government while seeking positive resolutions. It seems one of the biggest in-house problems in the U.S.- disparity in the execution of law- is being resolved. . .by those in power! Wow!

Read this!.

So first, let's talk about the problem.

Where to begin. . .

Okay.

Here we go!

A while back (2001) I was given a book through a friend of mine Sara Zia. The book was titled No More Prisons written by William Upski Wimsatt. This book spawned a whole movement, really. William was the founder of the Self Education Foundation in NYC. Focusing on philanthropy, the group sought o help individuals take responsibility for their education- personal education- outside of the academic arena! Nice, right!

So, the book, No More Prisons, talked about the disparity written into the Legal System. One of the examples in the book was the sentencing of Crack users and Cocaine users. It turns out that crack users were more likely to go to prison longer for using smaller amounts of crack than their cocaine-using counterparts with larger amounts. That means if I were caught with a gram of cocaine, I'd go to Jail for say, (for example) 6 months while a person caught with 1/2 a gram of crack would go to prison for say, a year. Weird, right?

So, due to other Social disparities in America (i.e. distribution of wealth), it turns out that the people going to jail for crack were poor black people while those going to jail for cocaine were white middle to upper class people. Mmmhmm. Racism inherent in the system is icky people! Icky!

So, now, we have more black people in Jail for drugs than white people and for longer time than white people! Ugh, fucked up!

Finally, people are waking up to this issue and are decreasing prison sentences for crack users/addicts. Yes! Finally people are waking up to the issue and doing something about it! Hooray!

If only now we can help the crack users recover and destroy the social disparities that drive disenfranchised brothers and sisters to turn to drugs in the first place!

One step at a time, sweet Jesus!

Picture and Lyrics of the Week (Week 2)

Okay, I found this picture on the web. Very Very Very Very Funny. It is freezing here in Amsterdam but unfortunately, we only get cold rain here. NO SNOW. I miss real winter and hope it gets better during the next few months. So, here's a big 'fuck you' to Amsterdam winter so far!

I want to make it very clear that I do view winter as a time to become introspective. A time to focus on the matters of the house. Getting closer to myself, getting closer to my partner, getting closer to my family, getting comfortable being inside and alone. Shutting down only to be reborn in Spring again with new energy. I imagine this is how the trees must feel. But imagine being a tree, wanting to have leaves, but not being able to. Being stuck in your shell waiting to bloom. How frustrating! Perhaps this is why people get depressed during winter...we turn all of our feeling inward too quickly and then after dealing with our shit, we get stuck there, waiting to re-open, bloom, what have you! That's a lot for us to handle all at once.

Anyway, here's to turning inwards and hopes of patience while waiting to bloom!

Paz, Salaam, Shalom!


Heaven and Earth Welcome Spring after a Long Winter from Clear Harmony.

After the longest night,
Memory of sunny days long gone,
Cold, frightened, lost...
One day, the Fa(1) is rectified.
One day, time to awaken.
Day finally breaks:
Turn towards the sun,
Open your eyes,
And welcome the dawn.


(1) Law and principles.

Terror Tapes

Well, the bullshit out of this administration is continuing. Apparently the CIA destroyed some tapes of terror suspects as they posed a security risk.

Pause.

Think.

Risk for who?

I personally believe that keeping these tapes would've posed a risk to the administration torturing the suspects. However, since WATERBOARDING isn't torture now, the suspects weren't technically Tortured, right???

Fuck that!

The story is here!

Home Despot?

Lately, the strategy of many large consumer-hungry corporations is to wield power in a way that puts the people helping that corporation under its control. Whether it is the workers who do the labor yet suffer due to decisions made in the best interest of the corporation, or the consumers who have become unwilling slaves to the many corporations that have taken our place in the public and political arenas.

The latest example: Home Depot. Home Despot has laid off 950 slaves, I mean, workers, in an attempt to make a larger profit. Just in time for Christmas!

Mother fuckers!

Unfortunately y'all, this is Despotism.

Workers, we have to unionize. We have to make sure we are not treated as slaves and that we are given the respect we deserve as workers.

Pharaoh, Pharaoh, Let my people go!

Iran and Knowledge. . .(Fascism part II)

Okay, my thoughts on the Iran situation.

Sure, Bush has been talking about Iran's nuclear program, a program that has not been active since 2003. He was all about working the American people up to go to war, yet AGAIN! Luckily, we have some semi-intelligent people working in intelligence. Whew. Conflict avoided.

However, I'd like to make some comments on Bush's latest speech in which he stated that "Iran is dangerous with the knowledge to produce nuclear weapons." Uh, knowledge? What? I thought we were worried about Iran having the TOOLS to produce nuclear weapons, weren't we?

Since the tools are not being used (since 2003- and remember, there was no intelligence suggesting they were producing WEAPONS- we have to go to controlling knowledge?

My question: Does the government of the U.S. think that it is so superior that it can regulate Knowledge?.

Sure, the US has been regulating the knowledge of it's own people (and that's wrong), but trying to go to war based on access to knowledge is fucked up. In fact, it's Bush's neo-demo-fascist bullshit!

Holy shit! People, we really gotta pay attention to our governments 84-esque Newspeak!

Picture and Lyrics of the Week (week 1)

Your Infuriated Faggot is starting a new tradition on his blog. A picture, song/poem to inspire the week! Enjoy this week's entry. Just in time to spend assloads of money making corporations richer...why? because as Americans the only way we can show love is by purchasing shit? I hope not.

Peace





















Borderlines
By: Valerie Depriest and Gayle Gingrich!

Hearing how business is tough in America
How the union is out of hand
well I heard on the news today
about the latest threat to my pay
but there's one thing I just don't understand:

You say you can't afford our wages
So you turn your greedy eyes to distant shores

While patrols guard the border lines
I'm standing on a picket line
In corporate boardrooms plans are formed
to move my job to El Salvador
Where for fifty cents a day
A woman sweats her life away
and they tell me she's my enemy

At first I didn't have the time
to bother with the words oh no
it seemed so very far away
but now I'm in a worried mood
'cuz hands need work and kids need food
and I just got laid off today

They say it only makes good business
While their PROFITS swell up like some disease

While patrols guard the borderlines
I'm standing in an unemployment line
and somewhere in the Philippines
a mind grows dumb from stitching seams

Guatemalan hills are cash
a coffee picker's skull get smashed
and they tell me HE's my enemy?

I think I am finally putting it all together
borderlines don't hold their loyalty

They don't care who is the drone,
hand of yellow white black or brown,
profit is their only deity!

As corporate arms spread all around the world,
they'll strangle any weakness they can find:
from the mines in South Africa
to the fields of El Salvador
from the manquilladoras in Mexico
to the white slots in Tokyo

Sweat is Sweat and blood is blood
and one day soon the time will come
to stand face our common enemy!

My feelings on Venezuela. . .

So people, I'm disappointed about the results of Venezuela's vote on 69 constitutional amendments. All of them did not pass.

Of course, the major loss for Chavez was the inability to run again in 2012. (I think a lot of people thought this meant he could just be president without being elected, but that isn't true. Every term he'd have to be re-elected.) This loss isn't that important to me as an American expat living in Amsterdam, however, my feeling is without Chavez in office, Venezuela will open itself up to American neo-demo-fascism and be stifled by the race-to-the-bottom economics that is manifest in the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Eek. With all that oil too. . . shit Venezuela!

The most important losses here were things like: the 36 hour work week; Rights for women, multiracial minorities and homosexuals; the establishment of social security benefits; the establishment of communities that help give the poor a greater voice in Venezuela; and housing amendments.

On the outside, Chavez looks like an angry dictator. The truth is, Chavez has struggled as a multi-racial man living in Venezuela and was honestly hoping to make Venezuela a better place with these referenda.

I'm sorry for the loss of Chavez's vision and I'm sorry the U.S. succeeded in clouding the dreams of a patriot.

I'm happy however, that the 56% of Venezuelans that went out to vote- did! The Venezuelan Democracy is doing better than America's in that aspect!

I'm happy Hugo C. handled his loss well. Well played!

I'm scared of what this means for the Venezuelan people.

¿quién le mató? - Who Killed Him?

CNN Spain aired a report asking the question. . ."Who Killed Chavez?"



Video can be found here!.

For the record, Chavez is NOT dead and he is loved by his people. . .despite what the U.S. has tried to do to oust him (i.e. stage a coup) the people of Venezuela respect Chavez as a libertarian whole. By the way, read Petras' uncovered memo Re; Venezuela Referenda here. It describes the U.S. involvement in disrupting Chavez's Power. You can also read about the referendum at Petras' site.

Here's a detailed explanation of the Referenda being considered in today's Venezuelan Vote. (There is mention in the paragraph of SOA graduates as well).

"The outcome of the Referendum of December 2 is a decisive historical event first and foremost for Venezuela but also for the rest of the Americas. A positive vote (Vota ‘Sí’) will provide the legal framework for the democratization of the political system, the socialization of strategic economic sectors, empower the poor and provide the basis for a self-managed factory system. A negative vote (or a successful US-backed civil-military uprising) will reverse the most promising living experience of popular self-rule, of advanced social welfare and democratically based socialism. A reversal, especially a military dictated outcome, will lead to a massive blood bath, such as we have not seen since the days of the Indonesian Generals’ Coup of 1966, which killed over a million workers and peasants or the Argentine Coup of 1976 in which over 30,000 Argentines were murdered by the US backed Generals."

So, my Venezuelan brothers and sisters. . .Vota ¡sí!

Media Bullshit

I saw this article entitled Death toll for Iraqis falls and freaked out a little bit.

Sure, they talk about the number of dead Iraqis this month being 781 (less than previous months) but saying that the Death Toll fell implies, to me, that the dead have been waking up. Truth is, the Iraqi Death Toll went up 781 this month. It didn't fall.

The media is spreading falseness through sort of misnomers! Bastards! That shit infuriates me!

Check out This Site: Iraq Body Count for DOCUMENTED cases of Iraqi deaths during this war- including ages, situational causes of death, etc.