neversremedy8: (Soap Box)
What happens to the voices of individuals, and to free, multi-perspective discourse when corporations decide what views can be heard? We're about to find out, if Google decides to trade integrity and revolutionary ideals for a large paycheck.

Sign the Petition to tell Google not to sell out


"Dissenting voice" will become an archaic term if this deal goes through.
neversremedy8: (Solidarity)


I <3 Rep. Grayson.
neversremedy8: (Soap Box)
I'm sure by now, many of you have already seen the horrified conservative mother who was brought to tears thinking about the President giving a speech to her children. There was a well-publicized outcry against having our children exposed to the President's "agenda" today in schools, but here's the text of what they were so afraid of, as well as the video:



There was nothing in there that smacked at all of politics. Not like, say, Reagan's speech. Obama's address was a call to be creative, work hard, and be open to asking questions and exploring one's world. Gee, gotta protect your children from that. ("You have to be carefully taught.")

Frankly, I'm with John Harwood:




One mother's permission slip:
"Despite the warnings of right-wing radio hosts, and fully cognizant that my daughter risks learning a lesson in civics, I, nonetheless, grant her permission to watch a televised address by the duly-elected leader of these United States, President Barack Obama, on the controversial subject of the importance of school."


What's all the fuss about?

And I'm not embarrassed to admit, I got a little teary-eyed listening to Obama's speech. What was more amazing? While Ana was listening to it, she said, "mhm" at several places, or said, "like me" at others. She was engaged, and she saw herself in his words. For the first time in my life, I want to write a letter to a president to honestly thank him for his words and efforts. Yeah, that good.
neversremedy8: (Happy Jumping)
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Even Fox said it:

OBAMA WINS


McCain just called to concede the election. Fuck, yeah. Sorry Naderites, but he didn't have a chance this election.

Barak Obama: first multicultural president-elect.

EDIT: McCain's concession speech has the crowd booing Obama, despite McCain saying, "Now, please ..." He managed to get them to clap later when bringing up the "first African-American" president.

VOTE!

Nov. 3rd, 2008 02:19 pm
neversremedy8: (Solidarity)
First, let me share [livejournal.com profile] squidflakes' endorsement for Obama, because he hits on so many points that many of us are focused on and concerned about.

Yesterday, I mentioned to Craig that I sometimes think of Gore (our Presidential-Elect in 2000) as our sovereign-in-exile. It seems appropriate to me that after eight years of his work to change our environmental policies through media and community discussions, that we should be looking again at an election that may suffer the same election-stealing tactics that the 2000 election did. This isn't so close a race, and yet the Republicans are once again up to their voter fraud tricks, and trying to divert attention from it through accusations against those "vile and evil liberals" (i.e. us) of doing exactly what they do themselves. So, keep copies of the mounds of articles coming from the media already about voter fraud on the Right, because if we don't, those bits of proof may disappear after tomorrow.

On the other side, if Obama is elected and recognized as the President-Elect, let's hope that he and his family are kept safe during and after the election. We've lost too many important leaders to the whims of the mad and prejudiced.

BTW, when did "liberal" become a bad word? And when did being a liberal equate being less of a patriot? Rhetorical questions, but they bother me often.

P.S.
I think I nailed that midterm today.

"57 academics just punched the air."
neversremedy8: (Imperious)
Werewolf
neversremedy8: (Panic at the Disco Masqued)
First, let me say Blessed Samhain or Dia de los Muertos to those who celebrate.

Should I be on my way to the UW right now dressed in a naughty sweater and draped in my burgundy cloak? Yes. I'm not though. Oh no. I didn't fall asleep until almost 4am, and when I don't get enough sleep for a couple of days in a row, I end up with cold-like symptoms. It doesn't help that there's a cold-infused boy upstairs sleeping right now. I figure I can get more done AND get the rest I need before the party tonight and maybe avoid actually getting sick. At the moment it's just some ear congestion/draining, and I think some tea and warmer clothes will do me in good stead. So will a nap later today. And curry, so I'm going to suggest India for lunch. I don't think I have a virus, but I know my body, and when I don't sleep well enough in a week, I tend to feel like crap by the end of it.

I have a Niko with her face buried into the crook of my arm as I type this. She purrs loudly and sends waves of heat from her body to mine.

There are more emails from the UW staff about the burning yesterday. In some ways, his death feels like a ritual sacrifice, and I feel that though it was a great tragedy and traumtic for those who witnessed it, we should not let such an offering go without honor and respect. No one will know why he did it, and I think it will bother some, but there is energy in there, and I intend to see it to some better, cleansing, healing purpose.

Yesterday as I drove to pick up Ana, the song that made me cry after ... well, everything, turned out to be so poignant in the lyrics, I could imagine this faceless, unknown man singing it in his heart when he decided to bring the gas can with him to the campus that day. Full lyrics are behind the cut, but even the chorus is enough:
And its days like this that burn me
Turn me inside out and learn me

Not to tell you anything I think I know
Well I think I'll tell you all that I know

I don't want to be alone I want to be a stone
I wanna sink to the bottom of the ocean
And lie there with you til I'm gone

Bob Schneider's Big Blue Sea )

And for less intense subjects I present Zombies singing in "Re: Your Brains":



"I Had a Shoggoth" complete with ASL signs for creatures like daleks, cylons, and Cththulu:




And for next week, "Don't Speak for Me, Sarah Palin" to the tune of "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina":



EDIT: Last night I finished my second scarf. It's truly fuckable. Today I have an Artemis costume to make Ana and a Sarah Palin costume to improvise for Craig. I have no idea how I'm going to put all of his hair in a beehive. Or even half of it. Pray my throat feels better by the afternoon.
neversremedy8: (Brains!)
OK, so maybe he shouldn't be working 20 hours a day. Take a nap! Of course the BBC thinks he might not be the immortal that they thought him to be.:
This indication that he is only mortal will increase speculation about his prospects for re-election in the presidential poll, due to be held next summer, says our correspondent.
He's not an Egyptian pharoah, he's an elected official. They don't really think he's immortal, right? I mean, the British are prone to believe in all sorts of things, like still having an Empire, but ... I digress. ;)

No, really, what kind of foreign leader in the Mid. East could get any sleep with the U.S. leadership vote only a week away? Do they get another Bush? Or someone who will be the target of fundamentalists and racists if elected? (And both of the candidates have used threatening language against Iran.) For now, Mr. Ahmadinejad, take a nap. You'll have plenty to worry about after Nov. 4th. *sighs*

Did I mention that we invaded Syria?
neversremedy8: (Maggie Mischief)
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Civil liberties. I hear they exist, but I don't believe it. The last I'd heard, they'd been hunted to extinction here in the United States. I suppose there might be a few small ones left out there, hiding. Maybe we can put them on the endangered species list?

Oh, um, I mean Nessie. Anything water-bound and Scottish. Yeah. Nessie.
neversremedy8: (Happy Jumping)
Beluga whales protected by Feds despite efforts by Palin to halt further protection of the declining Beluga population. Too bad the Feds didn't care much about what happened to the wolves and their pups, though.
As with the polar bear, Ms. Palin’s administration opposed the beluga listing in part because of its potential to restrict coastal and offshore oil and gas development. The beluga listing could also affect other projects, including the expansion of the Port of Anchorage and a proposed bridge over Knik Arm that would connect Anchorage to the Matanuska-Susitna Valley and Ms. Palin’s hometown, Wasilla.

[...]

“I have never seen this agency take any more action than it was forced to,” Mr. Van Tuyn said, “so going through to endangered is great. I think the population is so darn small that they had no choice.”
According to Palin, only small towns in the U.S. are "pro-America," while she doesn't state it, I'm sure she meant to imply that the rest of us are heathen terrorists and underground communists who secretly wish to see America fail in its glorious path toward the ultimate in capitalist imperialism. Right? Biden sets the SouthWest--and Palin--straight.

In other news, we've been eating a lot of hummus. Different types of hummus. We got the "make your own flavor" hummus from Costco, we've had two containers of white bean and basil hummus with pine nuts, and then I just found this recipe: Hummus en Fuego made with homemade red pepper oil. *drools*

Palin

Oct. 15th, 2008 10:25 pm
neversremedy8: (Smug Rogue)
Ana just asked me: "Is Sarah Palin like Shelob?"

EDIT: We just saw someone refer to Palin as "Bible Spice."


[Poll #1279580]
neversremedy8: (We Need to Talk)
Check out one of the remaining videos on YouTube that talks honestly about Palin's policy on rape kits. It's not exactly new news (somehow the Renegade Right manages to throw out at least one doozy a day), but Sarah Palin held a policy in her town of Wasilla that required rape victims in the ER to pay for their own rape kits. As [livejournal.com profile] duckydoolittle pointed out, this is a war on the poor. Being able to get the tests necessary to prosecute one's rapist is essential to the victim and to the community; money should not be an obstacle to any person that has suffered such an atrocity.

And yet, ALMOST EVERY SINGLE VIDEO TALKING ABOUT THIS ATROCITY HAS BEEN PULLED FROM YOUTUBE. It's far from the only censorship I've seen recently on YouTube ... censorship that goes far beyond copyright worries, and into the realm of political and social silencing. As if we don't have enough of a skewed media on mainstream television and in mainstream newspapers, but now the realm of free thought and shared information is becoming increasingly censored. Who agreed to pull this? Why?

I have been posting comments about this to each one that's been pulled asking the same question. Why is this pulled and many other videos that show how scary Palin is, yet negative ads and videos with falsified "facts" about Obama, Nader, and other moderate or liberal points of view have been left for anyone to watch.

If you have the opportunity, pass along videos that show the truth and preserve them. Keep reposting them, and don't let them censor the truth.
neversremedy8: (Doom Song - Gir)
Solar System Birthed from 'Little Bang'

Car no bang, just grind. Returned borrowed object to owner with much thanks for year's use. Wish I'd made that decision BEFORE spending $500+ on new alternator. Meh. Must find either used car to buy, or lease better car. Either way, much more money spent than really should be spending. People may just get scarves for Christmas/Solstice this year. Or something.

This is a bad week to be carpooling, since I have two volunteer obligations. I may have to cancel Thursday's visit to the PacSci Center with my classmates (I have membership, can get them in at low-low price of $0) and bite the bullet on Wednesday and take the long 2 hour bus trip home. Of course, if anyone has suggestions for good (read inexpensive) place to lease a car, let me know. I'm not sure I want to plunk $1000 for another car that's going to need $2500 worth of repairs before the year is out.

I did the right thing last night and paid my first year's membership for AAA, so no matter what I'm driving, I can get towed without too much fretting.

And as if this wasn't a bad enough start to the week, I hear McCain and Palin are still running for the White House. Although these make up for it a little bit. We wouldn't have even understood the very last one if we hadn't just watched that Dr. Who episode last night. Seriously, I choked when trying not to laugh here in the library.

Speaking of which, inside the North Allen Library on the wall I'm facing reads "Raven Brings Light to this House of Stories," and various ravens with nest-building items in their beaks have been hung in an array from the ceiling. Really need to bring camera.
neversremedy8: (Doom Song - Gir)
Daily Kos covers tonight's SNL VP debate skit. I think they nailed it.

Favorite lines:Spoilers )

From the comments on Daily Kos:
"I can see the moon from my house. That doesn't make me a fucking astronaut."

George Orwell is banging on the lid of his coffin and screaming, "1984 was a cautionary tale, you dolts, not a motivational speech!"
Tina Fey says, "I want to be done playing this lady Nov. 5. So, if anybody can help me be done playing this lady Nov. 5, that would be good for me."

Falling

Oct. 4th, 2008 10:39 pm
neversremedy8: (Lion and Me)
When autumn is called fall, it is indicative of the nature of falling leaves that occur throughout the early months of the season. Yet no one expects the type of fall that happens in Woodinville. There are trees everywhere and as it happened today, a great wind picked up amidst the rain shower we had, and leaves came swirling, crashing down. In a matter of two hours, the streets are literally blanketed in leaves and debris. Our cars after my nap look as though they've been sitting in the driveway under the trees for weeks, untended. Everything here falls all at once.

And so it doesn't surprise me that my car, which had been making strange noises lately and wobbling a bit, should prove even more dire. Actually, it isn't my car, I've just been lucky enough to borrow it for a year. I've put hundreds of dollars into repairing it already, and when I took it to get a free brake inspection today (slight, disconcerting grinding noise when I hit my brakes), I was told that to make it safe to drive, I need $1000 worth of brake (and other?) work and another $1500 worth of other work done. It seemed rather excessive, but there's a laundry list of problems they handed me, and I'm sure it's not all. The car, while having been good and useful, has 226K+ miles on it. As sturdy as those little Accords are, there's not much to be done for it when it finally wears out.

Oh, and there's something living in the air filters. Perhaps a mouse. Ugh.

So, having spent a year listening to the car, driving it about, and very often driving it with the windows down or at least ajar (the windows fog up something fierce when it's raining and defrost doesn't do much for visibility). I'm already floored at the work that needs to be done, and as usual, my mind starts racing about plans to put into place. I'll look for another car, I figure out how much I can budget in my already fairly tight college student budget, and explain to Ana that Christmas might be rather small this year. I decide that I'll finish my errands in the area, drive home, and drive it a few days until I find a new car to drive. Except, as I'm driving home with my windows down slightly, I notice that the grinding noise that used to occur only when I hit the brakes, was CONSTANT. I took it in for inspection and they handed it back to me even less useable than before.

I called up the Firestone I went to and was told to bring it back and they'd get it working the way it was. Craig drives behind me with Ana in his car, and I get there to hand them the keys. The guy I spoke to when I first went there (not the same person on the phone who told me to come in) told me the sound had always been there and I just hadn't noticed and the only way they could fix it was to do the $900 worth of brake work they originally quoted me. I go outside, tell Craig what transpired and he's obviously livid. He gets out of the car and goes in to talk to the mechanic there.

Same spiel, same assumption that I don't know what noises the car does and doesn't make. We'd already had a discussion when I brought it in the first time what noises it made and that the brakes were worrying me. He only said after the second visit that they'd noticed it made noise all the time, and he refused to look at it unless we were going to pay for all of the work he had laid out. He wouldn't just put in brake pads or give us some temporary help so I could get it to a different mechanic.

So, now I have a car I'm afraid to drive, but I need to get it to Seattle one way or another to have it looked at by someone I trust implicitly to give me straight answers. I need a safe and reliable car to get between home and our various schools; to bus would mean to have a five hour commute every day, and have to drop all after school and extracurricular activities including my volunteer work with her school, the volunteer work I've offered to do at my school, and Ana's drama class that just started this last Thursday. That's highly unacceptable. I have money I put aside, and I can juggle our money and shave off enough to get something ... but I'm wary of what I might get next. I've already purchased a car that didn't even last a year, and while part of that was due to mishandling by a tow truck after an accident, I'm not sure how much of its life was shortened because of it.

If anyone knows of a car that's for sale in and around the Greater Seattle area for a price around $1000 (manual transmission preferred), let me know. I just need something that has reasonable gas mileage and will get us safely and reliably around the city and home again. In the mean time, I'll see if it's possible to salvage anything from the Accord, and if not, see what [livejournal.com profile] jodawi wants done with the "disposable" car.

And this evening we went to Third Place Books as I swore we would and listened to another talk by Naomi Wolf. It was rather similar to her End of America talk, but with updated information. Including the fact that Bush has amassed an army--the 1st brigade--that is entirely beholden to him and could be used to stage a coup. As Naomi put it, "the coup has already happened." As of October 1st, the threat of a military state is real. What will you do about it?

Brigade Homeland Tour Starts Oct 1st.

This is exactly what we were supposed to be protected against. Someone at the event tonight suggested that the Governors of each state could use the National Guard or the police forces there but the former have been taken fully over by the Feds and the latter have been trained in Homeland Security methods to prevent our protests and have funding in the event that a citizen tries to take a police officer or station to court for misuse of power. It's been a rather upsetting day all around. We at least distracted ourselves for a time with Snappy Dragon food before heading home again ... and back to our worries.

Already I have cheated myself in my writing. I was so tired last night I went to bed early without writing and promptly couldn't sleep until 4am. Ugh. Need to write now, but feel rather distracted by everything going on around me and in me. Murr. Will push myself anyway.

!!!

Oct. 3rd, 2008 07:20 pm
neversremedy8: (Insert Chinese Here)
Neil Gaiman is, right this very minute, talking about his latest Graveyard Book at the University United Methodist Church. And I just found out. Fuck.

Tomorrow, Naomi Wolf is presenting her latest book at Third Place on Bothell Way at 6:30pm. We will be there.

Gaiman said that unlike movements like cyberpunk, which announced itself, "steampunk is one of these odd movements that sort of happened in retrospect." from MTV interview

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