Never's Remedy

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.

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.

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.

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?

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*

An essay on Palin from Gloria Steinem, well worth the read.


And this image ...

Craig adds to the deployment of 1st brigade that I mentioned last night.

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 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.