Youse Gotta Try this!
Okay. Does this sound like anyone YOU know?
You gotta, you gotta try this. This isn't the picture, I was given, but one
I have in my "magic" picture stash, that ALWAYS seems to have the
right picture in it. Ever notice that?
http://www.dragonhame.com/
your inner dragon is a .... Celestial Dragon
In the war between good and evil, Celestial Dragons take the side of the noble and good.When it comes to the powers of Chaos vs. those of Law and Order, your inner dragon is a risk taker and answers to no one.
As far as magical tendancies, Magical spells come as natural to the Celestial Dragon as breathe from it's body.
During combat situations, whether by spells or by claw, your inner dragon will do whatever it takes to get the job done.
Dragon Description:
The Celestial Dragon is a large dragon species, and is covered with perfectly mirrored scales. It roams the skies and has been seen both during the day and at nighttime.
This dragon does not speak, but communicates by thought alone.
Celestial Dragons are solitary in nature. Often these dragons seem to act without rhyme or reason.
The are very benevolent in nature, but at the same time they are totally unpredictable.
The dragons are kind and merciful, and will often offer their aid to mortals when they can see that they are needed.
Celestial Dragon's earn their name from their visual appearance.
When landing at night or in the daytime, it appears as if part of the sky has materialized into the form of a dragon.
This Dragons favorite elements are: Calcite and Good Fortune
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November 27, 2005
That was a wonderful letter! Let's hope it's heard and Gov. Warner does the right thing. Oh, and I found your blog by doing a http://www.technorati.com search - I love this site you can see what people are blogging on each topic.
All the best!
-----Original Message-----From: Virginia S. eeching2004@yahoo.com
I do not know how you found my blog, but I am glad you did. I abhor the death penalty. This was my addition to the petition. Keep on keeping it up!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * *
No one has the right to play God.
This inhumane medievel form of punishment should have been BANNED years ago.
The practice of capital punishment role models to the youth of every nation that violence solves problems. This is never the case.
I am an American forced by political circumstances to live in exile in Canada. I know what it is like to be "framed". Up here, so much more is done in defense of those unfairly punished and all that work is good. It is a triumph for humanity to see Guy Paul Moran and others walking free as they should be. What if someone had "pulled the plug" on him and David Milgaard? What needless heartache for all. [and I SHOULD have said I saw Guy Paul eating dinner with his family after his release. No, I didn't talk to him, I sent them good and loving vibes. I did not tell him I KNEW inside he was framed by a buncha whacky small town, small time idzitz, and a buncha lazy cops just because he played the clarinet! I had to go to the ladies' and have a good cry, though.]
Nothing has made me sicker in my lifetime than the media circus in America when there are media-televised executions. Nothing.
Scapegoating is a idea of the PAST. An idea well worth shedding from the human psyche. It so happens that my birthday, March 3 was the traditional day for such events in barbaric Olde England.
End this inhumane, foolish practice forever. Start showing love and forgiveness.
Please show compassion for the families of the wrongly or rightly convicted people.
For the sake of humanity, PLEASE do not, do not execute Robin Lovitt or anyone else. Do not give me another reason to cry and grieve the needless death of another human being. It really hurts my heart, the very best part of me.
www.ladybroakoak.blogspot.com
Virgiinia Simson
I was so so shook up when I wrote that letter, I mispelt my name!
November 26, 2005
Let us unite our hearts in response to the recent serial natural disasters.
30 years ago, some of you may remember that miraculous rescue of the three astronauts of Apollo 13. Why were these astronauts able to survive when many said safe return home was impossible? I was 30 at the time and did not understand why then. However, now that I have gained the wisdom of water, vibration, and resonance, I understand.
Not until that time has the people all over the world prayed for the safety of these astronauts in unison. Through my 20 years of research with water, I learned the existence of immense power within people's prayers, thoughts, and words. With the help of Einstein's E=MC2, I can now explain the Apollo 13's miraculous rescue.
In 1999 July 25th , 4:30am, 350 people gathered at the shore of the largest lake in Japan, Lake Biwa, to conduct an experiment of the power of words. That experiment was lead by Dr. Nobuo Shioya, a man that will be turning 103 years old this year. There, we repeated the following words:
The Grand Declaration
The infinite power of the Universe has gathered itself to create a world with true and grand harmony.
A month later, a local newspaper reported on a drastic change at the lake. Here is the article:
Newspaper article of the Kyoto Newspaper on Aug 27, 1999, a month after the prayer offering
This year, a foreign species of an aquatic alga Kokanadamo has not shown up on the surface of Lake Biwa, which had been growing extraordinarily every year so much as nearly covering the surface of the lake. There is also very few calls with the complaint of the bad odor from the local residents to Shiga prefecture. The amount of alga that has been harvested by the prefecture is very little as well.
The official in charge of the lake says, "It is good that there is no abnormal growth of the alga. However, I wonder if this is a good thing because we don't know the reason at all", tilting his head.
Originally M= mass and C= speed of light in the formula, E= MC2. However, I believe that these actually meant M= number of people and C= consciousness. Now, using this formula, the phenomenon at the lake can be explained as follows:
Here, M= the 350 people that gathered around from all over Japan and C= each person's energy of pure prayer. Since Dr. Shioya who was respected highly by all there took the lead, everyone was able to give off that powerful pureness of the prayer. Their pure words of prayer reached far into the outer space and resonated with the frequency of about 300,000 Hz and echoed back to the lake again. This ultrasonic wave in the lake helped to purify the water in the lake. The explanation of why the ultrasonic wave can purify the water can be understood in the following newspaper article:
Newspaper article of the Sankei Newspaper on Apr 16, 2000
Prof. Yasuaki Maeda (environmental chemist) at the Faculty of Technology, the Osaka Municipal University, developed a method to decompose toxic materials of organic chlorine compounds such as dioxin and PCB dissolved in water by use of ultrasonic sounds.
When ultrasonic sound of 200 kHz is applied into water to make very minute bubbles in the water, the bubbles absorb the chemicals and also decompose them together when they burst out.
So, at the Apollo 13 incident, it was the very first time that people all over the world came together and prayed for the safety of the astronauts. Therefore, the immense energy created by the large number of people along with their pure prayer for the astronauts reached the water molecules of the outer space and took on the role as their guiding pilots. Now, understanding these water molecules as "pilots" is appropriate here since the word pilot originally meant "guides of the water".
When we can understand the great power of words along with the power of collective consciousness, we may be able to find a way to prevent the expansion of destruction made by natural disasters.
I think that all natural disasters occur when there are imbalances in the energy. And energy is vibration and the origin of this vibration is what I call Hado. I think that people's consciousness has a direct connection with this Hado. Therefore, the recent natural disasters may be the result of the imbalance of the people's consciousness.
I believe that when those people that wish for peace and harmony come together in unison and speak together, the earth will be able to regain its balance again.
Now, especially for the destruction of the earthquake in Pakistan and the hurricane Wilma, let all of us that wish for the peace of the world come together and create the power of words. Let's repeat the following words every night for a week before we fall asleep.
For adults:
The infinite power of the Universe has gathered itself to create a world with true and grand harmony.
As for children, since water is the only substance that can carry the vibration that may help in regaining the balance of energy of the earth, I would like them to say the following with their pure hearts and mind:
We love you water, We thank you water,
We respect you water.
With love and thanks,
Masaru Emoto,
Oct. 24, 2005
To those women who deemed my story inappropriate for their yahoo! groups.
Untapped Source of Peace
Untappped source of peace,
The only real hopeIs to draw upon the collective wisdom of women.
Those with direct experience of the cost of war:
The life of child, grandchild, sibling, spouse.
The loss of limb or mind of someone near and dear,
The loss of laughter, the pervasiveness of fear,
The loss of hope for the future.
Untapped source of peace,
Those who know of domestic violence:
Seen the effect of bullying on sons,
Seen daughters become silent,
Seen light go out in their eyes.
Those who know That when every child matters
,When none are hungry, abused or discounted
The world will become a kinder place
For us all
Untapped source of peace,
Women with empathy
Who live in a world apart,
Are safe, loved, and fortunate,
Yet can imagine
Being helpless, beaten, and raped,
Then forced to bear a child
Conceived in violence.
Women who know in their hearts
That what happens to any woman
Anywhere
Could happen to them.
Untapped source of peace,
Women who see loved ones filled with vengeance and hate,
Hypervigilant, fear-ridden, or afraid to sleep
Because of the nighmares.
Husbands, brothers, sons, and now daughters
Home from wars,
Bearing little resemblance to who they could have been
In a peaceful world.
Untapped source of peace,
Women in circles,
Women connecting,
Women together
Bringing the sacred feminine,
Maternal instinct, sister archetype,
Mother power
Into the world.
From Urgent Message From Mother: Gather the Women, Save the World
published by Conari/Red Wheel, September 2005
- Dr. Jean Shinoda Bolen
I am so sorry that you didn't have the hearts to recognize mine. If were are to achieve peace, we must face the unpeaceful conditions imposed on our sisters.
Good bye.
November 25, 2005
New Orleans residents return to ravaged homes Culture of second-storey living emerges
Nov. 25, 2005. 01:00 AM
RUKMINI CALLIMACHI
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW ORLEANS—Almost five weeks after he swam out of his flooded house, pushing his parrot's cage on a floating tire, Dr. Joe Thompson decided he couldn't go another night away from home.
"That's it," he told himself. "I need to sleep in my own bed.''
Half his home had been destroyed, but like an optimist who sees the glass half full, the 42-year-old doctor focused on the half of his house left intact by Hurricane Katrina: High above the floodwater, the farmhouse's second storey, had survived the storm unscathed.
Even without electricity, gas or hot water, it's still "my home," Thompson said — and so he moved back in, joining the ranks of self-proclaimed "homesteaders," who are bravely resettling a new urban frontier: The second storeys of their hurricane-ravaged homes.
While 80 per cent of the city flooded when New Orleans' levees broke after Katrina hit on Aug. 29, many streets were submerged in a metre of water — enough to destroy a house's first floor, but not enough to harm the second.
In the city's middle-class neighbourhoods, where houses are often two- and three-storeys tall, a culture of second-storey living is quietly emerging. Tired of hotels and imposing on relatives, families are returning to their partially destroyed homes.
He uses a Coleman lantern from room to room to dispel the darkness. "But it's even worse being away.''
Around the city, second-floor dwellers are easy to spot when night falls. High above a pitch-black street, a candle flickers at the end of one block. A few streets away, the darkness is broken by the intermittent beam of a flashlight.
`A hot shower would be nice ... but I can't inconvenience my friends any more.'
Beth Danisavich, school teacher
"I'd like the convenience of electricity, cable TV. A hot shower would be nice, too. But I just can't inconvenience my friends any more," said Beth Danisavich, 38, a former school teacher, who was the first to return to her street, a few blocks from Thompson's house.
When dusk falls, she begins lighting the 20 candles in her living room, the 10 in her kitchen and the eight in her bedroom, including one in a heavy glass jar that bears the image of a winged angel. "I need all the guardian angels I can get," she said.
Functioning in the dark, using flashlights, lanterns and candles, is by far the biggest adjustment, say those who have returned. Besides the hassle, there's the issue of fear: Before she snuffs out her candles, Danisavich places a flashlight, as well as a large kitchen knife, underneath her pillow.
Then, there's the cooking.
Instead of toasted bagels for breakfast, Thompson, who uses a Coleman stove to heat his meals, switched to instant oatmeal, which requires him only to boil a pot of water — the same water he then uses to make coffee. Even in houses that have had electricity restored, cooking without a gas stove and a proper sink is a chore.
Terri Stuckey's kitchen was located on the ground floor and had to be ripped out. Now, she cooks on the barbecue outside. She uses the garden hose to clean her family's dishes, or else the bathroom sink upstairs. She combs the local grocery store for ready-to-eat ingredients — like pre-washed lettuce and packets of broccoli florets.
"It's a lot of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches," said Robin Albert, 31, whose entire first floor, including her kitchen, stewed in the fetid water for 13 days. She had to strip the entire ground floor, including the kitchen, to the beams.
But the pull of home is strong.
"Even if there's no electricity, or no running water, home is familiar. Home is where you want to be after a big trauma. And even though home is not what it used to be, it's still home," said Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, the chair of the urban planning department at the University of California, Los Angeles.
In Florida, following hurricanes Charley and Francis last year, residents of Polk and Osceola counties had to be removed from their homes after they tried to move back into the second floors of condemned structures.
1,000th U.S. prisoner about to die
Opponents say the question must be asked: Can the U.S. government be trusted not to execute an innocent person?
Nov. 25, 2005. 04:22 AM
BRADLEY BROOKS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK—"Let's do it."
With those last words, convicted killer Gary Gilmore ushered in the modern era of capital punishment in the United States, an age of busy death chambers that will likely see its 1,000th execution within days.
After a 10-year moratorium, Gilmore in 1977 became the first person to be executed following a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court decision that validated state laws to reform the capital punishment system. Since then, 997 prisoners have been executed, and next week, the 998th, 999th and 1,000th are scheduled to die.
Robin Lovitt, 41, will likely be the one to earn that macabre distinction Wednesday. He was convicted of fatally stabbing a man with scissors during a 1998 pool hall robbery in Virginia.
Ahead of Lovitt on death row are Eric Nance, scheduled for execution on Monday in Arkansas, and John Hicks, due to die on Tuesday in Ohio. Both executions appear likely to proceed.
Gilmore was executed by a Utah firing squad, after a record of petty crime, killing of a motel manager and suicide attempts in prison. His life was the basis for Norman Mailer's book The Executioner's Song and a TV miniseries.
While his case was well-known, most today could probably not name even one of the more than 3,400 on death row. In the last 28 years, the U.S. has executed on average one person every 10 days.
The focus of the debate on capital punishment was once on whether it served as a deterrent to crime. Today, the argument is more on whether the government can be trusted not to execute an innocent person.
Thomas Hill, a lawyer for a death row inmate in Ohio who recently won a second stay of execution, thinks the answer is obvious. "We have a criminal system that makes mistakes. If you accept that proposition, that means you have to be prepared for the inevitability that some are sentenced to death for crimes they didn't commit," he said.
But advocates of the death penalty argue that its opponents are elitist liberals who are ignoring the real victims.
"Since 1999 we've had 100,000 innocent people murdered in the U.S., but nobody is planning on commemorating all those people killed," said Michael Paranzino, president of Throw Away the Key, a group that supports the death penalty.
Race is also a key question in the debate. Since 1976, 58 per cent of those executed in the U.S. were white while 34 per cent were black, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. But non-Latino whites make up 75 per cent of the U.S. population, while non-Latino blacks comprise just over 12 per cent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Some supporters say ending the death penalty would be harmful to poor minorities, who are disproportionately murder victims. "Increasingly violent crime is primarily for working class folks, poor people and people of colour," Paranzino said.
Opponents of capital punishment also point to the unfair role of class and race in death penalty cases. "There is tremendous arbitrariness to the death penalty ... the race of the victims has a lot to do with who winds up getting executed," said Barry Scheck, co-founder of the New York-based Innocence Project, a legal clinic that seeks to exonerate inmates through DNA testing.
Death sentences nationwide have dropped by 50 per cent since the late 1990s, with executions carried out down by 40 per cent, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Twelve states do not have the death penalty, and at least two have formal moratoriums on capital punishment.Canada abolished capital punishment from the Criminal Code on July 14, 1976, with a free vote in the House of Commons. In June 1987, a motion to reintroduce it was defeated 148-127 on a free vote, despite polls indicating majority support.
Canadian support for the death penalty has dropped through the years. A 2001 Ipsos-Reid poll showed 52 per cent of Canadians surveyed supported it — down from 69 per cent in 1995 and 73 in 1987.
An October Gallup poll showed 64 per cent of Americans support use of the death penalty. But that is the lowest level in 27 years, down from a high of 80 per cent in 1994.
Still, some powerful political forces are looking to speed up the trying and executing of prisoners. Both houses of the U.S. Congress are considering bills that would lessen the ability of defendants in capital cases to appeal to federal courts.
Proponents of the legislation say appeals can add 15 years to the process of executing a prisoner. Detractors say the law will not allow federal courts to review most cases and will result in executing innocent people.
Since 1973, 122 prisoners have been freed from death row. The vast majority of those cases came during the last 15 years, since the use of DNA evidence became widespread. While there is no official proof an innocent person has been executed, opponents of the death penalty say the number of prisoners whose convictions have been reversed should fuel skepticism.
"I don't think any rational person seriously examining the evidence can have any confidence that an innocent hasn't already been executed," said Scheck.
Using post-conviction DNA evidence, the Innocence Project has helped in more than half of the 163 cases vacated — 14 of which were from death row. "We've demonstrated that there are too many innocent people on death row," Scheck said.
But that argument doesn't impress Charles Rosenthal, district attorney for Harris County, Tex., which has sent more prisoners to the death chamber — 85 — than any other U.S. county and all but two states, Texas and Virginia, statistics show.
"I don't know about every death penalty case in Texas, but I feel quite sure that no one that this office has had anything to do with was factually innocent," Rosenthal said.
Scheck believes Rosenthal's claim is based "more on faith than fact." He noted that the police DNA lab in Houston has been shut down since 2002 because an investigation found problems with poor training and contaminated evidence.
"What kind of confidence can you have when the jurisdiction that executes more people than any other is fraught with unreliable testing results?" he said.
In at least two cases, questions are being raised about whether an innocent person was put to death. Larry Griffin was executed in St. Louis in 1995 for the fatal 1980 shooting of a 19-year-old drug dealer. His conviction rested largely on testimony of a career criminal who's now said to have been lying. Ruben Cantu was executed in Texas in 1993 for killing a man during a robbery attempt in 1984, when he was 17. Now witnesses and a co-defendant say he was innocent.
Virginia Governor Mark Warner is examining Lovitt's case, and could decide on clemency this weekend. DNA tests on scissors used in the stabbing were inconclusive, and the scissors were later thrown away. Lawyer Kenneth Starr (who famously investigated former president Bill Clinton) says the death penalty should not apply to Lovitt for reasons "including above all right now the destruction of the DNA evidence."
Ignatieff decides to run as Liberal candidate
Nov. 25, 2005. 07:23 AM
Michael Ignatieff has decided to run as a Liberal candidate in the upcoming election,
Ignatieff, director of the Carr Institute for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University,
Ignatieff, 58, was unavailable for comment last night.
Speculation about his possible entry into Canadian politics
Fluent in several languages,
In August, it was announced Ignatieff would
Professor Michael Grant Ignatieff, Ph.D (born May 12, 1947 in Toronto) is a noted Canadian scholar and novelist.
Ignatieff is the son of Canadian diplomat George Ignatieff and Alison Grant, and the grandson of Count Paul Ignatieff, the last minister of education to Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, and his wife Princess Natasha Mestchersky. His Canadian antecedents include his maternal great grandfather, George Monro Grant, the dynamic 19th century principal of Queen's University. A cousin was the political philosopher George Grant (1918-1988), author of Lament for a Nation.
Ignatieff went to Upper Canada College, an elite secondary school, and then studied political science at Trinity College at the University of Toronto. There he met fellow student (and later Premier of Ontario) Bob Rae, who became a longtime close friend. From 1965 to 1968 , he worked as a journalist at the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper. Ignatieff then went on to receive his Ph.D in History from Harvard University in 1976, after which he taught at the University of British Columbia from 1976 to 1978. He then held a Senior Research Fellowship at King's College, Cambridge from 1978 to 1984.
Descended from Russian aristocracy, Ignatieff is perhaps best known for his Russian Album which discussed the history of his family in the context of Russian history. He is a well-known scholar and has written frequently on human rights issues. He is fluent in several languages, including French, English and Russian.
In January 2005, influential journalist and historian Peter C. Newman suggested that Ignatieff could be an ideal leadership candidate for the governing Liberal Party of Canada after Paul Martin retires as leader sometime in the future. Ignatieff was the keynote speaker for the Liberal Party's national biennial convention in Ottawa in early March 2005.
Ignatieff is a world-renowned expert on Middle Eastern affairs and has advised many of the world's leaders. He has written extensively on the dangers of nationalism using the example of Yugoslavia though his consistent attacks on nationalism appeared to focus more on Croatian nationalism rather than the Serbian nationalism of Slobodan Milosevic which many argue caused the breakup of the country. Critics of his unorthodox views of the break up of Yugoslavia cite his years in Belgrade when his father was a Canadian diplomat as a possible reason for his anti-Croatian bias.
He also writes fiction, his most recent publication being the well-received Charlie Johnson in the Flames. In 1997, Maclean's magazine named Ignatieff in its "Top 10 Canadian Who's Who." In 2003 Maclean's also named him Canada's "Sexiest Cerebral Man" because of "his made-for-TV looks and effortless eloquence."
Ignatieff was chosen to deliver the 2000 Massey Lectures. His lecture series, entitled "The Rights Revolution", looked at how, since the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, rights have become "the dominant language of the public good around the globe." [2]
In recent years, Ignatieff has gained notoriety in his home country because of his resolute stances in favour of Canadian support for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and the proposed Canada-U.S. North American Missile Defence Shield. [just what the world needs!]
Particularly controversial was an article by Ignatieff published in The New York Times Magazine on May 2, 2004 in which he argued in favour of certain types of torture: "Permissible duress might include forms of sleep deprivation that do not result in lasting harm to mental health or physical health, together with disinformation and disorientation (like keeping prisoners in hoods) that would produce stress."
Michael Ignatieff is currently married to Hungarian-born Zsuzsanna Zsohar and has two children from a previous marriage.
November 24, 2005
GTA/News Metro Toronto From today's Toronto Star
24 Novemember 2005
More and more Iraq deserters are expected to seek sanctuary here as America's involvement in the conflict lingers, writes Christian Cotroneo.
I remember when they first ran the story on my family coming to Canada from the US as refugees. We came August 1994.
No one, NO ONE, thought we could win a refugee case here. No one.
We couldn't find a lawyer to even help us file the papers until the end of September. That lawyer, a MSW, besides being a lawyer, could NOT, would not understand that to have to take a child and flee from Britain because his perpetrator was a M16 agent, was morally repugnant. That we were persecuted people from a specific social group. She wrote to Legal Aid and told them NOT to fund our case. She said that IF my son had been abused it was ONLY once and hadn't hurt him much.
My son had been abused long and hard over a 2 year period. He was told his mother would die if he told. That to me is TORTURE.
The UK social system wanted to make "hay" out of our story. They couldn't care less what effect their publishing the story on the front pages of the newspaper would have. They wanted to justify their "jobs". Their job was to keep their jobs funded. It wasn't to help children. Bully me as they might, I wouldn't give in so they called the police to ARREST ME. Not the perpetrator. It was their job to protect my son. Under the law.
I called the US State Department who advised we go underground until we could leave Britain. The perpetrator could file for visitation, custody and make sure we never left Britain until my son was 18, 12 years away. We lived in HELL for seven days. My heart nearly stopped (for real) as we endeavoured to just pack up a few suitcases and get my son's passport renewed.
When we got to the US, we were apprehended by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and sent "upstairs" at JFK. After spending $90 and several hours of intense emotional agony, we were told to go, but to GO TO MINNESOTA. (This is a free country?)
After 2-1/2 years there something fishy developed. We realized we had been "set up". The government had set a quota on each state to deport so many "drug addicts" to make some kind of statement they were doing something. We didn't KNOW about the quota, we just knew something really insane was going on.
On the 7th of July 1994 (to make a long story short as possible), my husband was deported from the US illegally. A Federal judge colluded with the INS to make this happened. This "operation" had been planned for weeks, months, maybe a couple of years. We learned about the quota becuz I went to the press and made a BIG STINK. Nothing illegal about that. I just had TV stations and newspapers ask the INS and the Senators and Congressman involved what they thought about all this. How could an American be told who to marry and what to do when they were breaking no laws?
During the INS rampage, I was held hostage in the Bloomington INS office and told -- point blank -- that if I didn't say my husband was a drug dealer into a tape recorder, they would bring in my two sons. I cannot tell lies: I just went CRAZY. The wound today is still open. It will never close. I had eight people with guns on them TELL ME to lie. I heard my husband in another room being slammed against the wall and thought; Is this Columbia or something? One INS officer grabbed me by the arm and threw me to the floor violently. There was no way to press charges: his wife was a federal prosecutor. Do you think she would file charges against her husband? If you don't think what happened to me was TORTURE, what do you think it was?
My son had a total collapse hearing his stepfather was gone. He went catatonic and couldn't hear. So a friend lent us $5000 and by the end of July we were in Thunder Bay Canada, joined up for a weekend.
However, by the end of the weekend, the US had told the RCMP and Immigration Canada that we were drug dealers. They had been tapping our phone and knew where we were. After the Senior Immigration official and a couple of cool RCMP guys "investigated" our hotel room, my son got suicidal and REALLY sick.
Deciding he couldn't get the help he needed in Thunder Bay we worked our way across the Northern route across the Great Lakes, cleaning motel rooms for gas money. We lived in our car with a very sick 9 year old.
In Toronto, we were told by a leading immigration worker to: Go underground.
We couldn't see much sense in that. How would my son go to school? How would we get medical care when the whole system up here is socialized? We were FORCED to file for refugee status in order to eat and get a roof over our heads and see a doctor.
As I type this, I am thinking about these guys who are stepping up to their consciences and coming to Canada. You, the reader, may think, "Oh, easy for them to run away." I am telling you -- no, what they have already been through is horrific. What they are about to go through is EVEN WORSE.
I asked for support from the media and I got it in the initial stages. But it wasn't right for them to write about my son and traumatize him further. We had a NASTY hearing office assigned to our case initially who stalled our application for over one year. We had to go to the UN to complain. The Toronto Star helped us get a new lawyer.
After 2 and 1/2 years, January 1997, we finally had a real hearing (we had several skirmishes previous to this regarding giving us deportation certificates). For those of you folks that don't know, refugee court is HELL. No matter how nice the hearing room, no matter how kind they "might" try to be, it is HELL. Let that sink in, two and one half YEARS!
We won our case. For two years I worked away at proving our case. Making it air tight.
What a process -- looking at all commonwealth law, digging up US law on sedition and treason, showing how what the INS did broke state laws, getting letters of support and commendation (letters of support are necessary!), showing there was no internal flight option, keeping up with the doctors, going through PTSD flashback hospitalizations; always, always getting everything in written form.
And I will tell you; feeling completely and utterly alone most of the time. And broke. Everyone in the US sort of abandoned us. Those who filed petitions were tax audited. We were pariahs. We didn't fit into any convenient cubby hole to get help from anywhere. We made friends and were sent many angels, but inside something snapped for all three of us.
The government had 15 DAYS to appeal the decision. Behind our back, our lawyer negotiated with the BBC and other news outlets for "rights" to our story. And he signed an agreement without our knowledge that a judicial review could be done by the government. But for six months we were oblivious. We were happy. The indefinite sentence was OVER. Or so we thought.
We lost the judicial review. We lost the appeal. We were sent back to refugee court for a SECOND hearing. Only this time we were not even allowed to defend ourselves, to make our hearts and hurts heard. We knew we couldn't "win" as the two judges in our first case were fired. The Judge in the second case is now head of Amnesty International and calls America a fascist country. But he ruled against us.
The prosecutor in the case for the Canadian government felt very bad. He got sick. He sent our case to Canadian Immigration for processing for Humane/Compassionate Relief. Those claims aren't meant for outsiders. They are for Canadians to get their relatives in to bail out their businesses when they get sick and so forth. As we are considered disabled, how were we to pass a medical exam to get in?
It took 12 psychiatrists. Two doctors (one an elected representative). Help from churches. A very kind immigration consultant and Immigration Canada. It also cost somewhere in the region of $100,000 altogether to pull this off. My husband went back on drugs and was deported. He couldn't take any more after the five year mark.
We got no settlement "allowance". My son and I are basket cases. He may never be a productive citizen.
Our names and our country have been changed.
I have no passport from any country and face charges of treason and sedition if I cross the border. I started out innocent and now I am on an interpol computer base saying I am a HUGE drug dealer. I never dealt a drug in my life.
Forty nine other Americans came up here and made claims. No one but me and my son ever got landed as far as I am able to ascertain.
Our lives are meaningless unless we keep on telling our story to people who will listen. I make it my fulltime job to be a "spiritual journalist", spreading the deep dark tales no one wants to hear or listen to. I will probably NEVER have the capacity or willingness to work a "regular" job again.
These new American arrivals in Canada have my biggest prayers. I am sorry they have been sent to HELL before they got here and I am sorry about the hell they will endure whether they file refugee papers or not.
At my first hearing, I started talking about home. I thought I was so d*mned angry that I didn't WANT to go back. But that wasn't and isn't true. Something big and awesome about my Minnesota rootz has been STOLEN.
Canada still doesn't have ANY ONE in elected postion speaking out about US torture of detainees or prisoners of "war". These men (and maybe some women) are prisoners of conscience.
I am waiting.
The world is waiting.
The killing must stop.
The torture must stop.
And all prisoners of conscience need to feel like global citizens and be accorded some respect.
Pass my story on. It's only part of it. But you can see something is terribly out of whack.
I now sign myself,
A Vital Drop in
The Tide that will NOT Be Stopped
November 22, 2005
Read the story by Joe Stephens and David B. Ottaway•
VIDEO: Following the Money Interactive Map Photos
A Rebuilding Plan Full of Cracks
After the routing of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Bush administration launched a $73 million program to construct schools and clinics. But design flaws and other problems soon plagued the effort.
By Joe Stephens and David B. OttawayWashington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 20, 2005; A01
MADRASAH, Afghanistan On a humid morning, scores of women and wailing babies crowded into the dirt courtyard of a private home a day's journey north of Kabul. They squeezed into a sliver of shade against a mud wall, the only refuge from the intense sun on a summer day when the temperature reached 120 degrees. Across the courtyard, inside a canvas lean-to, a doctor vaccinated infants atop a dusty plastic cooler.
A veiled woman named Tela squatted in the sun, lifting her black robe to create a bit of shade for her 9-month-old daughter, Shoghla, dehydrated from severe diarrhea . . .
Iraq's a colossal disaster.
But with the level of coverage it's gotten from theso called "liberal" media, you'd never know it because there's days when Iraq isn't even mentioned on the news.
I'm serious.
And no news doesn't mean the day was quiet and peaceful.
On the contrary.
There's death, destruction and violence every day in Iraq. You just don't hearabout it.
When American deaths are reported on the news (incredibly, some aren't) that'sall it is - reported.
No carnage, no blood and no chaos; so it's forgotten as
soon as the commercial break.
In Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, there was a scene of an IED attack. The
carnage, the blood and the chaos was seen in graphic detail.
wasn't muted to allow an anchor's voice over,
were also heard.
Of course it shouldn't make a difference whether there's video of these attacks
or not because American casualties are very important.
bomb or IED attack every once in a while isn't nearly the same as seeing the
results of a car bomb or IED attack every single day.
If news occurs, but there's no video of it,
Unfortunately not.
On September 20 a group of KBR contractors took a wrong turn and were attacked.
Two were shot in the firefight and two others were forced out of their truck
and executed. Their bodies were set on fire and dragged through the streets
"while crowds denounced the US occupation."
In their celebration, local residents "threw straw and other inflammable
materials on the fire" (two other contractors survived and were rescued by
American forces).
This was very similar to what happened in Fallujah in March 2004 when the car
that four Blackwater contractors were traveling in was firebomed.
Let me guess:
attacks was that there was video of the first one
news of the second one).
For some reason television can't have news without video.
For instance:
1.
wounded, about 15 per day. Most, if not all, go unreported by the "liberal"media.
The tens of thousands of soldiers that have returned home because of
psychological or medical reasons have been ignored by the "liberal" media.
2.
(then quickly forgotten), shortages of spare parts and supplies have gone
unreported by the "liberal" media.
3.
attack," the rest of the Iraqi casualties - dozens across the country every day-
are ignored by the "liberal" media.
4.
chiefs and local political and religious leaders are ignored by the "liberal"media.
The assassinations of barbers and liquor store owners (for Islamic reasons) are
ignored by the "liberal" media.
5.
ignored by the "liberal" media.
set on fire every week
7.
are well armed, well organized, and aren't going away any time soon,
police units
8.
such as, typhoid, cholera, and hepatitis
9.
casualties is ignored by the "liberal" media. Civilians losing their homes
and/or being driven out of their homes -
Last week an Italian TV station reported that the U.S. military used chemical
weapons (white phosphorus) on civilians in its raid on Fallujah last year.
Let's see how long it takes for the "liberal" media to pick up on it
10.
arresting the wrong people, and looking for weapons and explosives that
sometimes aren't there
11.
airport to the "Green Zone" is the most dangerous in the world
12.
billions of dollars that is lost and unaccounted for,
13.
14.
to settle old scores,
15.
women's rights and brings Islam into the government
up to the week of the election,
The fact that most Iraqi's didn't know for sure what they were "voting" on went
ignored by the "liberal" media.
16.
17.
18.
and Israel then it was under Saddam Hussein
And then there's Afghanistan.
While it's thought of as this big success story,
nothing could be further from the truth:
The Taliban has reformed, al-Quaeda -remember them? -
the Karzai government is a sham,
And two-thirds of the wounded,
Afghanistan was never "won,"
In all fairness, the reporters in Iraq are confined to their hotel in Baghdad
because it is so dangerous
reporting of the daily violence.
But why do I get the impression that
Despite the media's failure to report the war accurately
Unfortunately, the "liberal" media hasn't come close to reporting that.
For more Facts, Logic And Intelligent Thought
November 22
Eberhard Arnold died in Germany, 1935 Eberhard Arnold and his wife Emmy were founding members of the Bruderhof movement. In 1935, Eberhard Arnold died unexpectedly following surgery in Darmstadt, Germany.
Handful of Katrina Victims in Deportation
By SUZANNE GAMBOA
The Associated Press
Monday, September 19, 2005
WASHINGTON -- After heeding the Bush administration's call to seek help
regardless of status, a handful of illegal immigrants who fled
Hurricane Katrina have been ordered to appear for deportation hearings.
Three undocumented immigrants were met by immigration agents at the El
Paso, Texas, airport when they were flown in from the Gulf Coast along
with other evacuees, said Leticia Zamarripa, Immigration and Custom
Enforcement spokeswoman in El Paso. A fourth person, a permanent legal
resident, was questioned and released, she said.
The immigrants went through background checks and fingerprinting and
were released with orders to appear for deportation hearings, Zamarripa
said. They were allowed to go to other shelters in Texas, said Ouisa
Davis, an attorney for one of the immigrants. She did not have details,
including the date of the initial questioning.
In another instance, state troopers in West Virginia called in
immigration agents on Sept. 4 when a woman alleged that she was sexually
assaulted by another passenger on a bus carrying evacuees to Camp Dawson, ICE
spokesman Dean Boyd said Monday.
The accused passenger and a companion, both from Central America, were
taken into custody, Boyd said. When ICE officials interviewed the
woman, she refused to press charges or testify. The accused immigrant denied
her allegations. He and his companion remained in custody.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Homeland Security Department
encouraged all storm victims, including illegal immigrants, to seek
help. The appeal was made in English and Spanish.
The agency stopped short of assuring that information about immigration
status would not be shared with law enforcement agencies _ a protection
that was extended after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Senate
Democrats have been pressing for such protection.
In the days after the hurricane, Mexican President Vicente Fox made a
televised appeal, also in English and Spanish, urging Mexican nationals
affected by the storm to seek help. He said U.S. authorities had
assured his government that "those who were not documented at the time will
not be subject to any pressure or persecution whatsoever."
The law enforcement actions have left at least one group concerned
about lending its influence to the federal government's efforts to reach
immigrants affected by the storm.
The White House was "actively communicating to us and the
Spanish-language press that everyone could come forward," said Cecilia Munoz, vice
president of policy for the National Council of La Raza, the largest
U.S.-based Hispanic advocacy group.
"If federal authorities are using this as an enforcement opportunity,
it creates a moral dilemma for us in how do we advise our constituents,"
Munoz said. "We are getting mixed signals."
Munoz said she supports law enforcement action when a crime has been
committed.
On the Net:
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Migration and Refugee Services:
Department of Homeland Security: http://www.dhs.gov
National Council of La Raza: http://www.nclr.org
November 21, 2005
okay. okay. I owe this space another creative article. But I have been working away at my new weekly digest called Activist Page. But it really should be called Activist Scrapbook. Later today I will post a URL to go find it. It's at least 45 pages of pdf file. With pictures and videos and a Thanksgiving card and all such like.
Meanwhile the war horror stories continue. I think of my son the marine recruiter daily. Today I was "researching" the School of the Americas. They had a demonstration there yesterday with 16-19,000 people. That place should be TORN DOWN. I knew all about in the 60's for pete's sake. Why is it still there? It trains people to TORTURE.
I just ran across the following article. I wanted some fun and was laughing at some jokes when it was in an email. As I opened up the article a BIG shockwave ad for champagne flew towards my eyes. Then I saw ads all over the page for gobs of canapes and food. The newspaper ads that paid to run this article are all about glut and consumption. Let's fight a big fat war and keep consumer alive, shall we?
Today, 30,000 jobs were cut at GM. Each one of those jobs will affect lots of other people. Towns will die. Of COURSE Oshawa, Ontario is one of the affected plants. NAFTA has not proved good for us. More jobs will be outsourced from here when an international conglomerate comes in and buys the ruins of General Motors. The guys at the top were cheating on their accounting practices, so to avoid bankruptcy, they take it out on the backs of workers, who in turn can't pay their pharmacists, their babysitters, their automechanics, their electric companies ...
I am not sad to see the dinosaur SUVs pass away. Time for them to go. But look at the price that some people pay to keep the war machine going. Rumsfield & His Cohorts have different types of war plans that don't need tanks. They can torture, send in planes to release white phosphorus with impunity, let American and Iraqi soldiers fight with no protective armor. Meanwhile, everybody have a good time on dayz off and party hearty. Here's to the champagne and canapes ....
GAO says military falling far short in filling vital positions
Defense official denies missions are hampered
By Damien Cave
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE
November 18, 2005
The military is falling far behind in its effort to recruit and re-enlist soldiers for some of the most vital combat positions in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new government report.
The report, completed by the Government Accountability Office, shows that the Army, National Guard and Marines signed up as few as a third of the Special Forces soldiers, intelligence specialists and translators that they had aimed for in the last year.
Both the Army and the Marines, for instance, fell short of their goals for hiring roadside bomb defusers by about 20 percent in each of the past two years.
The Army Reserve, meanwhile, failed to fill about a third of its more than 1,500 intelligence analyst jobs. And in the National Guard, there have been consistent shortfalls in filling positions involving tanks, field artillery and intelligence.
The report found that, in all, the military – which is engaged in the most demanding wartime recruitment effort since the 1970s – had failed to adequately staff fully 41 percent of its combat and noncombat ranks.
Officials with the accountability office, the independent investigative arm of Congress, found that some of the critical shortfalls had been masked by the overfilling of other positions in an effort to reach overall recruiting goals.
As a result, the GAO report questioned whether Congress had been given an accurate picture by the Pentagon of the military's ability to maintain the force it needs for Iraq and Afghanistan.
"The aggregate recruiting numbers are rather meaningless," said Derek B. Stewart, the GAO's director of military personnel. "For Congress and this nation to truly understand what's happening with the all-volunteer force and its ability to recruit and retain highly qualified people, you have to drill down into occupational specialties. And when you do, it's very revealing."
David S.C. Chu, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, denied that the military lacks what it needs to complete the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. "That's what I'm trying to advise against as a conclusion," he said in an interview from the Pentagon.
He said the report failed to appreciate how the Department of Defense handles its recruiting efforts, and had "failed to take into account the dynamic nature of the problem we're trying to solve."
"This report tries to cast that pall on what's going on, but it's misread the fundamental mechanics of how the department actually manages personnel," Chu said. He said that the targets the GAO used to calculate shortfalls are simply guideposts for staffing levels, established at the beginning of a fiscal year.
"As a strategic matter, you may decide, 'Well, I don't really need to have every unit at 100 percent,' " Chu said. "Or, 'I don't really need to fill a particular career field at this point in history at 100 percent.' The report assumes that all positions will always be filled. That's not, in fact, the strategy."
Some military experts also said the gaps would be dangerous only if they continue.
Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution, said the problems posed by the shortfalls would be eased if the military begins to cut the number of men and women it has deployed in Iraq. "But in the degree we have shortfalls of various sorts now, and we multiply that by several years, then we get into serious trouble," O'Hanlon said.
The GAO report also found that often the military offered enlistment bonuses to people who signed up for jobs that were already overfilled.
An Army recruiter in New York, who insisted on anonymity because he had not been authorized to speak to the media, said it was not uncommon for noncombat positions to be opened up at the end of a tough recruiting month, even though people were not needed in those jobs.
[One good lie deserves another, eh?]
November 20, 2005
The First Thanksgiving: Prelude to Genocide
by Mary Shaw
http://www.opednews.com
As the American Thanksgiving holiday approaches, our minds wander to idyllic images of Pilgrims and Indians peacefully sharing a feast in celebration of the fall harvest.
This November 24th, as we break bread with our families and friends, let us take some time to reflect on the fate of Native Americans in the centuries that followed the first Thanksgiving.
This nation was founded on principles of inalienable human rights and civil liberties. It would appear, however, that initially those guarantees applied only to those fortunate enough to have been born white European-Americans. As African-Americans remained enslaved in this country's early years, Native Americans didn't have it much better, enduring centuries of cultural, political, and economic repression, forced relocation, confinement to reservations, massacres by federal troops, and broken treaties.
As European-American settlers pushed westward in the late 18th century and through the 19th century, land theft of a massive scale ensued. In 1830, the 23rd Congress of the United States passed the "Indian Removal Act", legitimizing the land greed of the white settlers and resulting in the death or displacement of countless Native Americans. This legislation was signed into law by none other than all-American action hero President Andrew Jackson himself. (Think of that when you pull out your twenty-dollar bill to pay for your Thanksgiving turkey.)
Fast forward to the 20th century to find that things hadn't gotten much better. Beginning with President Ulysses Grant's 1869 "Peace Policy" and continuing well into the 20th century, more than 100,000 Native Americans were forced by the U.S. government to attend Christian boarding schools that tried to school, and sometimes beat, the Indian out of them. These children were separated from their families for most of the year and forcibly stripped of their language, culture, and customs in an effort to "kill the Indian and save the man". Virtually imprisoned in the schools, the children experienced a devastating litany of abuses, from forced assimilation and grueling labor to widespread sexual and physical abuse. School officials routinely forced children to do arduous work to raise money for staff salaries, and "leased out" students during the summers to farm or work as domestics for white families.
In addition to bringing in income, the hard labor prepared the children to take their place in white society - the only one open to them - on the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder.
Those who remained on the reservations faced their own set of challenges.
This form of apartheid separated Native Americans physically, socially, and economically from the world outside the reservation. Traditionally nomadic hunter societies were forced to learn to farm for their subsistence. Disenfranchised and disillusioned, the Native American population came to face the highest rates of poverty, suicide, alcoholism, high school drop-out, and teen pregnancy amongst ethnic groups in the U.S. - a trend that continues to this day.
This Thanksgiving, please take a moment to reflect on the fact that Native American history comprises so much more than just some stereotype caricature sidekicks to macho cowboy movie heroes. They are human beings, and they were here first.-----
http://www.maryshawonline.com
Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist. She currently serves as Philadelphia Area Coordinator for Amnesty International, and her views on politics, human rights, and social justice issues have appeared in numerous online forums and in newspapers and magazines worldwide. Note that the ideas expressed in this article are the author's own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Amnesty or any other organization with which she may be associated. E-mail mary@maryshawonline.com.
