Help Locate! Missing 15 year Old

http://www.facebook.com/widgets/like.php?href=https://dirtylowdown.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/help-locate-missing-15-year-old/

Amber Alert

My friend , Sharon Jacobs is asking for help in locating her granddaughter

Headed from Caldwell, Idaho to possibly Calif. should put her on I84 headed west, then down the I5 Corridor. If you spot her, please call the police, email me rcarraher@live.com  , call 503-901-7528 or email Sharon directly at the address below.

My granddaughter, Olivia Rasmussen has run away from her Caldwell, Idaho home. We think she’s traveling to California somehow. If you spot her, please call the police and/or email me at beachbrat12@cox.net
Thank you, Sharon Jacobs

 

Thanks for your help!

National Women’s History Month-Race For The Cure

this month is National Women’s History Month, and a friend, Maria K. also asked me for our help in The Race For The Cure. So follow the links Maria Provides below and Save the boobs! You know you want to.

 

Breast Cancer. Isn’t It Time To Stop
This Disease in Its Tracks?

Maria K. Accepted the Challenge

Walk for the Cure:
The Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure® is an amazing 60-mile walk that helps mothers, sisters, spouses and friends get one step closer to a world without breast cancer. Join us for three inspirational days where together we’ll walk so long, so far and with so much hope, the world will hear our footsteps.
What YOU can do:
There are many different opportunities to be a part of the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure®.
1. Register as a walker or as a crew member
2. Volunteer
3. Support a participant with a donation or come out and cheer them on
4. Sign up for updates and newsletters to learn more
Follow Maria’s journey as she trains for the 3-day 60 mile walk:
A Mind Lively and at Ease

March is also National Women’s History Month which may sound strange after reading what the Republicans have planned for women with their defunding of Planned Parenthood. “Big money has co-opted conservative activists for its agenda, but scratch the surface and it’s the religious right that rears it’s head. The Republicans who seem to have been co-opted by the Tea Party tell us they are not interested in social issues but just economic ones. It must have been quite a surprise, then, to have the new Republican-dominated House of Representatives, which rode in on a sea of Tea Party energy and funding, to immediately put most of their efforts into controlling the uteruses of America, through a series of bills that  defund Planned Parenthood, end all private insurance funding for abortion, and even allow doctors to refuse to save the lives of pregnant women if doing so would require performing an abortion.” There are two great articles that were recently published that lay this out, one by Amanda Marcotte in The Guardian which I have quoted from above. The other was in this mornings Alternet News. Both point out how the Tea Part/Republicans/Religious Right intend to marginalize women and there by marginalize the Democratic Party. This seems a tragedy when women in America have fought so long and hard for equal footing in the U.S.

As Black History Month comes to a close, Women’s History Month begins.
Women’s History Month is a relatively new invention, dating back to the 1970s, when women were fighting for greater recognition of female accomplishments. (Also at that time, the Equal Rights Amendment debate was in full swing.)
According to the National Women’s History Project, the idea for a month dedicated to women’s history sprouted in 1978.
That year, the Education Task Force of the Sonoma County (California) Commission on the Status of Women declared the week of March 8 “Women’s History Week,” selecting March 8 because it isInternational Women’s Day. The event was a success, with schoolchildren learning about women’s contributions to history, and a parade bringing the week to a close.
The following year a member of the Sonoma County commission told colleagues at the Women’s History Institute at Sarah Lawrence College about the Women’s History Week experiment. Excited by the idea, the Sarah Lawrence group decided to replicate the efforts in schools across the country and to begin pushing for National Women’s History Week.
Their efforts paid off quickly: In 1980, President Jimmy Carter issued a message asking people to recognize National Women’s History Week from March 2-8. He said, “[T]he achievements, leadership, courage, strength and love of the women who built America was as vital as that of the men whose names we know so well.”
But National Women’s History Week was still not yet formally recognized. So then Rep. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., and Sen Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, co-sponsored legislation to ask that the president make National Women’s History Week official in 1981. It passed, and in 1982, President Ronald Reagan issued the first official proclamation naming the week including March 8 as National Women’s History Week.

For the next five years, Congress continued to pass the legislation, and the president continued to issue his proclamation. Then, in 1987, organizers decided to be expansive and changed the week to National Women’s History Month.
Since 1987, the president has proclaimed March to be Women’s History Month; for the first few years, Congress was involved, but since 1995, our presidents have done so without congressional prodding.
This year, the National Women’s History Project has declared Women’s History Month’s theme to be “Our History Is Our Strength.”

I’d like to suggest to all the guys out there, they take sometime this month to acknowledge the contribution of women in this country. if you’d like to take a moment to contribute to a cause by contributing to  Maria K.’s Race for the Cure, please do so, if you’d like to read some good books, Amazon has a great selection here: http://www.amazon.com/American-Womens-History-Doris-Weatherford/dp/0671850288 and almost more importantly, don’t let the Tea Party, The Republicans and the Religious Right get away with killing these important services for women.

 

The Dirty Lowdown

A Light Bulb Moment for the Tea Party?

While 100,000 people gathered in Madison, WI yesterday to demonstrate for their right to collective bargaining, 2,000 Tea Party supporters gathered in Phoenix for their first “national policy conference.” Mark Meckler, the Grass Valley attorney who cofounded Tea Party Patriots, a coalition of 3,300 groups says they are for fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free markets. I guess some of those groups couldn’t make it. But it made me wonder if by “fiscal responsibility” they meant giving tax breaks to big business, like Governor Walker did in Wisconsin thus creating a budget deficit for his state that he planned to fill by taking away workers rights to bargain for fair pay. I guess that encompasses “limited government” too. And Walker, also, with this bully boy bill is trying to give himself the power to sell Wisconsin’s public utilities to private businesses without a competitive bid. That’s a bit different from how I learned “free markets” in school.

Two supporters, Roger Langenberg and his son, Don, drove two days from Eugene, OR to be there said, “They are not concerned that Tea Party Patriots avoids taking positions on gay marriage and abortion.” Which made me wonder if perhaps they had missed the news for the past year or so. After all South Dakota just shelved a potential law that would have made it “justifiable homicide” to kill an abortion provider and something like 14 other states, lead by Tea Party candidates are considering such laws. Now if that isn’t a position, a position like a gun fighter in the street at noon, I don’t know what is.  They won’t decriminalize marijuana, but they’ll decriminalize shooting health care providers. And when they say the Tea Party hasn’t taken a stance on gays, perhaps they missed the stink in Montana. “I would consider it a distraction to deal with those issues,” Dan Langenberg, 29, said Saturday. “That’s not going to affect our jobs and the debt.”

A couple of their heroes and honored speakers at the gathering were Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce, author of the state’s controversial new anti-immigration law, “We can take this country back, one state at a time,” said Pearce, who recently introduced a measure that would require  schools to notify law enforcement if enrolling students could not provide proof of legal status. Apparently they are taking the war for “fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free markets” to  school students. Way to go guys. I know a lot of parents that have a hard time getting their kid to remember their lunch, now they must remember their papers.

Rep. Joe L. Barton (R-Texas) was one of the few veteran Washington politicians to attend. When he told the crowd he’d been in Congress for 26 years, a veritable chill fell over the room. But he was cheered when he mentioned he had sponsored an effort to repeal the law banning incandescent light bulbs.

One politician that was warmly received was businessman Herman Cain, the former chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza who has apparently declared his candidacy. Cain advocates lowering the corporate tax rate, eliminating the capital gains tax and suspending taxes on profits parked overseas by American companies. So his idea is to give money to the rich, including himself. looks like he is trying to do an end run around those IRS agents looking into off shore and Swiss Bank account tax fraud too. Still, it’s better than banning incandescent light bulbs, and Barton should have done his home work and known going in that the Tea Party doesn’t back anything green….unless it’s “parked over seas by American companies.”

Former Minnesota Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty ended the conference with an appeal to the “Birthers” by saying, “Now, I’m not one who questions the existence of the president’s birth certificate. But when you listen to his policies, don’t you at least wonder what planet he’s from?”

What planet are you from, Tim? And have they replaced the incandescent light bulb?

The Dirty Lowdown

While You Were Sleeping….

The Republicans in the House of Representatives have been busy carrying out their mandate  to make Government Smaller. In reality what they are doing is handing back control of our future to the Pirates on Wall Street, the predatory banks, the greedy oil industry led by the Koch Brothers, trying to deny all Americans affordable health care, attacking women through the use of a time warp to take us back before Roe vs Wade, and basically declare a vengeful war on not just Democratic Policy and the goals of our elected President, but on the very constituents that elected him. Make no mistake, this is only one front in the war to punish the voters that support the Democrats. There are other fronts. In Wisconsin, Gov.  Scott Walker is trying to break the union of public sector employees…but not all unions, just the teachers and other state and municipal workers that traditionally vote Democrat. he is leaving alone the unions that back Republicans. In Ohio the same moves are being contemplated and Gov. Cristie who has it in for the unions in New Jersey is doing the same thing. A number of other states  are working to find a way to let states declare bankruptcy and get out from under debts including the pensions, as well as the ability to void union contracts. In South Dakota they are contemplating a law that would no longer make it an offense to kill people. Abortion providers that is. If passed this law would allow a ruling in a court of law of Justifiable Homicide if someone were to decide to kill an abortion provider. Robert Reich, a Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley has a pretty good assessment of the Republican Strategy here but make no mistake, this is practically a declaration of war on democratic voters and the whole Lower and middle income population of the U.S. There have already been threats to call out the National Guard in Wisconsin to combat teachers and librarians and clerks from your local DMV office….well, maybe them it would be okay.

.Here are some of the things your House of Representatives did early this Friday:

• Voted to strip funding from just about every EPA project, including air quality, emissions, and water pollution monitoring. The Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the EPA had the power to regulate greenhouse gases as air pollutants under the Clean Air Act. So, the Republican party has unilaterally decided to trump the Supreme Court. Under the guise of carrying out the “peoples mandate” of smaller government the House Energy and Commerce Committee made this a top priority in budget cuts. In reality the committee is stacked with people elected directly using Koch Brothers funds. The Koch Brothers own the second largest privately owned company in the U.S. with an estimated net worth of $21.5 Billion each. Think about that. Between them they could pay the budget deficit for two or three states and still have enough money left over to buy a couple of Major League Franchises. You may want to call that a push for smaller government, but it sounds like a push for BIG BUSINESS to me. But I guess that when you have $43 billion between you, you can over rule the Supreme Court.
• Defunded NOAA  At first this doesn’t sound so bad, but when you consider that the NOAA is the main agency riding shot gun on BP in assessing the damage done by BP’s irresponsible actions on the Deepwater Horizon Spill and making sure that BP follows the direction of the courts and the government is limiting and repairing that damage as well as compensating gulf businesses effected by the spill, it becomes a major move to again, take from the poor and give to the rich.
• Stripped funds to administer the Affordable Care Act. This will eventually go to the Supreme Court, but pay attention to how they treated the Supreme Courts decision with their defunding the EPA rule.
• Eliminated funds for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This is almost a rider on the EPA defunding.
• Continued $53 billion in oil subsidies. Why are we, the tax payers, subsidizing a couple of guys worth $43 billion and their cronies in the other oil companies.?Especially when they won’t have to spend all those millions of dollars to make sure their companies don’t pollute the environment?
• Tried to eliminate Davis-Bacon rules for government projects (that failed) if they had managed to push this one through, it would have meant that Congress would no longer have had to pay prevailing wages and benefits contractors and employees on Public Works Projects. The Davis-Bacon laws have been on the books since 1931 and were meant as a safe guard against under cutting pay and benefits on government projects. Again, an attempt to screw the working man.
• Stripped federal workers of their salaries in positions within agencies targeted for defunding. This one is kind of vague since it still has to go to the Senate and won’t actually be passed right away, but it means that if you are an EPA Inspector who has worked for the agency, inspecting mine safety, inspecting refineries, paper mills, etc…for safe working conditions and proper hazardous waste disposal, safe emissions etc…you no longer get paid.
• They have also cut additional funding for the SEC. This means that the SEC won’t even have the money they had last year when they were going after Madoff, nor the money to pursue prosecution of other corporate Pirates. Further, it provides no moneys for the new Consumer Protection organization which is supposed to police among other things, the mortgage industry and credit card companies so that illegal foreclosures and fraudulent interest rates don’t get charged. again, a win for big business and a bif loss for the citizens of the U.S. that don’t have 8 figure bank accounts.

Of course, last week they defunded Planned Parenthood, FCC allocations for enforcement of Net Neutrality rules which means that the big internet providers like AT&T can deny you equal access to the internet if someone pays them more  or if they decide they don’t want you going their unless you pay a fee. It’s interesting to note that AT&T is a big donor to the Republican party. Again, a move for big business and a loss for the average citizen. Next up is deregulation of “for-profit colleges” which probably shouldn’t concern us since none of us will be able to afford to send a kid to college anyhow. The Republicans like to say that we must cut spending to preserve the future, but it looks more like they are trying to assure that the average Joe in this country won’t have a future. As an aside, John Boehner, their leader, tried to spend on a redundant engine for a future fighter jet. An expenditure that the Sec. of Defense doesn’t even want. It was interesting to note that said engine would be built in or near his home district by another big company, GE. Also a big Republican fund raiser.And that’s the…

Dirty Lowdown

Democracy-Government by the People (that agree with me) or I can shoot them.

That would seem to encapsulate the conservative definition of democracy whether talking about about establishing democracy in the middle east or right here at home, in the good old U.S. of A.

To be fair, when the world was first used to describe a form of government (Think ancient Athens and Rome), democracy was defined as simply “rule by the people”. You could say that the entire concept relied on the collective intelligence and consciousness of the population to define what was right and wrong, legal an illegal for their society. This is as opposed to, say a Monarchy: Government by a single ruler. Or Oligarchy: Government by few persons (the elite).  It wasn’t until the Age of Enlightment (17^th/18^th centuries), when philosophers defined the essential elements of democracy: separation of powers, basic civil rights / human rights, religious liberty and separation of church and state.

This seems to be where political conservatives in America start to have a hard time with the concept of democracy. Especially those last three concepts. Separation of Church and State. Basic Civil Rights/ Human Rights. Religious Liberty. Boy, those are toughies.

Pointing out the first concept isn’t hard. Everybody from Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck to John Boehner can’t get enough of telling us that America was established as a “Christian Nation”. To an extent that is true, most if not all of “The Founding Fathers” were at least nominally Christian. They didn’t come from Jewish countries or Muslim countries and they probably weren’t even aware of Shinto countries or Buddhist countries. By the same standard you could say that America was established as an English Nation or a Spanish Nation or French, or German, …well you get the idea. That is where The Founding Fathers were from after all. No, what the Founding fathers sought to establish was a nation made up of people that were absolutely free to seek spiritual guidance in there own hearts and as long as that spiritual belief did not impinge on any one other persons freedom to seek there own spiritual beliefs, it was pretty much okay. Grasping that concept, we can segue into the other concepts…

Basic Civil/Human Rights. this seems to be a very hard concept for conservatives to grasp. At this very moment in the ‘Great State of South Dakota’ there is a bill before the legislature that redefine homicide. Specifically, it would make killing an Abortion Provider justifiable homicide. Just to clarify this a bit, since The U.S. Supreme Court handed down the decision in Roe vs. Wade, abortion has been legal in this country. The Court decided that a right to privacy under the due process clause in the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution extends to a woman’s decision to have an abortion, but that right must be balanced against the state’s two legitimate interests for regulating abortions: protecting prenatal life and protecting the mother’s health. Now South Dakota is actually willing to consider a bill preempting a woman’s protection under the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution as well as the doctors right to life.  Democracy at the point of a gun? Apparently the conservative population in South Dakota truly believes in Democracy as defined in ancient Athens and Rome and not the definition after the Age of Enlightenment. I’d like to point out to those conservatives that ancient Rome also allowed crucifixion and in ancient Athens they could fill your ears with molten lead for disagreeing with the population.

Now, lets take this show on the road. I think we have all heard by now of the popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia and the call for Democratic reforms, both my those being beaten and killed in Tahir square, and nations around the world. Yet, there is no shortage of conservative politicians and commentators ready to warn that we are libel to end up with a Muslim ruled country where we had ‘benevolent’ dictators before. Glenn Beck has come right out and said, in effect, that the uprising in Egypt is “orchestrated by the Marxist Communists and the Muslim Brotherhood,” I guess Democratic reforms can only be enacted by South Dakotans in Becks book. Only staunch Christian Americans can be  “the people” in “rule by the people”. And in yet more fear mongering, Monica Crowley on this weekend’s McLaughlin Group went on to express the same, saying “that the only Arab democracy that we currently have in the region is the one built by the United States in Iraq.” So Democracy at the point of an AMERICAN gun is the ideal? By the way, how’s Iraq working out for you?

I’d like to remind Beck, O’Reilly, Limbaugh ,Crowley , Fox News and others that even if restricted to the antiquated and incomplete definition of Democracy being ‘Rule of The People’ that ‘the people’ are also the ones  who may disagree with  and thank god,  you don’t have a right to shoot them for disagreeing or being different. They are being protected by the constitutional laws of the United States,. And in  the middle east, those people aren’t White Christians, nor do they listen to your shows and your talking heads on TV’s.  It is very unlikely that their democracy will be made up of White Christians and even less likely they’ll be South Dakotan. But they are still entitled to their Democracy, their rule of the people, lets hope they institute basic civil rights / human rights, religious liberty and a kind of freedom you’d take away.  I’d also like to remind you that they have lived for decades under dictatorships and autocracies at the point of a gun, and they aren’t apt to accept your version of Democracy at the point of one either. And that is the….

The Dirty Lowdown

Keeping the world safe from Terrorist Cats

http://www.facebook.com/widgets/like.php?href=https://dirtylowdown.wordpress.com/2010/12/07/keeping-the-world-safe-from-terrorist-cats/

A lot of you know that I have a soft spot for cats. Persians to be precise. Raised them for years and used to go to shows. My cats still go to shows, but being blind, I kind of get lost looking for the concession stands. But, I have ‘cat’ friends who take my cats to the shows and still stay in touch with a lot of cat people.

Just this weekend there was a show here in Portland and I sent two of my girls. A friend who shows a different breed than Persians. She shows and breeds Somali cats, a breed closely related to  Abyssinian cats which turns out would have been a safer breed to show, but wouldn’t have fit on a Vanity License Plate, She shared the following story in an email this evening, and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

See, times are tough, even amongst people that still pursue this hobby. So, she took her two cats to the show hall, and found out that parking near the Rose Garden was $8.00 a day! So, being the thrifty person she is she decided to park across the busy  four lane road in a shopping mall, brave the rainy cold weather and save a buck or two. She diligently read the sign that said ‘Complimentary 4 Hour Free Parking for Mall Customers’. So, she decided that if she went in and grabbed a latte from ’that place’ she’d at least be technically a mall customer. She was even thoughtful enough and dedicated enough to go move her car every 4 hours.

All went well Saturday, and she even did some Christmas shopping at the mall after the show Saturday and had another over priced coffee before the show Sunday. But that is where the happy story ends.

She came out of the show Sunday, around 4:00 pm, had her cats and all the paraphernalia that cat people haul around to show; carriers, combs, toys, shampoo, brushes,anti static spray, “Summers Eve” feminine hygiene powder, which believe me is used for when your cat has an accident and is a cat show persons secret weapon, and to quote Arlo Guthery, other implements of destruction.…she had all this loaded on a little four wheeled cart and secured by bungee cords so she could cross the street safely. She makes it across the street and approaches her Toyota Sienna Van-brand new and perfect for hauling all your cat show stuff. Oh, and it has black out windows. Very ominous.

I remember talking to her when she bought it and suggesting the vanity plate (a pun in itself) of CAT BOX. Well, she couldn’t get that plate but she did pick out a great vanity plate. She chose the plate number of SOMALI. By the way, she got a great deal on this van from another cat friend who works for the Toyota dealer in Corvallis, OR. She has even managed to find stickers, like you see saying “Proud Parent of an Honor Student” only these are of Somali cats. I think it’s terrible to put bumper stickers or any other stickers on a car, especially a new car, but you know these crazy cat ladies….

You probably haven’t been able to miss the story all over the news about the young American student-terrorist that went to school at Oregon State…in Corvallis. The one who was born in Somalia and with the assistance of the FBI managed to plant a dud bomb near Portland’s Pioneer Court House Square for the annual Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony. 

I’m sure you can see what’s coming. My friend gets back to her car. A van, with black out windows,  with the SOMALI  Vanity plate and the dealer license plate frame from Corvallis Toyota. She is immediately surrounded by 5 mall security vehicles and officers with their  guns out. Right behind them is two squad cars from the local PD. Her first thought was, “Wow, there are really serious about “Customer Parking”. She immediately cops to beating the $8.00 a day parking at the Rose Quarter, but explains that the sign for mall parking wasn’t excluding others from parking, and besides she had her coffee cup still, proving she was a legitimate mall customer. Give them credit, they didn’t have the bomb disposal van there nor did she see any FBI agents. They demanded to search her van though. So, she opens the back and besides the cat toys, cat beds and other cat items, she has a box of plastic 1 gallon mason jar type containers of detangler. Not all that plainly marked, and to be honest you wouldn’t know what was in these jars unless you were a cat person. They all stepped way back and conferred in hushed voices.

She finally caught on to why she was getting all this attention and asked point blank (pun again intended) if it was because of her license plate. They said, “Well, yeah. Plus she was parked in the very back of the lot, had black out windows and when they had peeked in the windows there were suspicious looking containers.” So she proceeded, very cautiously,  to open one of the pet carriers and show them the cat and the ribbons from the show and explaining that it was a Somali cat. They had another conference and finally let her go on her way with a stern warning about how not to look suspicious and the proper use of Mall Parking. One even suggested she think about a different vanity plate.

Paranoia on their part? Is the threat of terrorism translated to this level of scrutiny? I don’t know, but it did make me think that if we end up invading Iran next, I might want to consider a different breed of cats than Persians.

 

The Dirty Lowdown

"Decision Points," G.W. Bush

http://www.facebook.com/widgets/like.php?href=https://dirtylowdown.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/decision-points-g-w-bush/

“To know my deed, ’twere best not know myself.”-Shakespeare’s Macbeth

With those words, Macbeth tells us that to judge ones impact on history you need to be a little bit blind as to what that impact was. The former president took these words to heart in ‘Decision Points’. The Presidents memoir was released yesterday and though I haven’t read it in it’s entirety, I did manage to get through a few key chapters. I’ve  also read reviews and responses from both sides of the Atlantic from some of the other world leaders that are key characters in this account.

The first thing that comes to mind is clueless. There is an alarming off-handedness about the implications of what’s being said. About the unfolding financial crisis at the end of his presidency. About the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. About the use of “enhanced interrogation” better known as torture.

The book is surprising in the fact that apparently it is not ghost written but is an unexpectedly engrossing memoir. But, you quickly get the feeling that reality and his memory are two different animals. For instance, he states, “Their interrogations ( of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) helped break up plots to attack American diplomatic facilities abroad, Heathrow airport, and Canary Wharf in London, and multiple targets in the United States,” British officials have said there is no evidence to support this claim. The Heathrow alert in fact happened a month before his (Mohammed’s) arrest. In fact, British Counter-Terrorism officials have said that the most useful information provided by Mohammed was mainly related to al-Qaida’s structure and was not extracted under torture.

Later on Bush writes that German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder told him in January 2002 that the US president had his full support when it came to his aggressive Iraq policy. Bush wrote that Schröder indicated he would even stand behind Bush should the US go to war against the country. Gerhard Schröder has said that George W. Bush is not telling the truth.

On the other hand, he does sound sincere when he talks about his decision to stop drinking, and when he talks about his religion. But then he blows it when he goes on to present his anti-abortion stance and how he adamantly had to “convince Pope John Paul II not to waver in his pro-life convictions.” Uh huh, gotcha…..

You are left with the feeling that Bush, like Macbeth, need not know himself to judge himself. He constantly seems shocked and disappointed at the many failures of his presidency; Not finding WMD’s in Iraq, the financial melt down, the failure to capture bin Laden, leaked identities of CIA operatives, but then he turns around and blames these failure on others. Indeed, he judges his biggest failure in his administrations response to Hurricane Katrina. And his biggest accomplishment as “After the nightmare of September 11, America went seven and a half years without another successful terrorist attack on our soil.” So, to summarize, in his own eyes and words, his failure was in not dealing correctly with an act of god, and his fait accompli was in what terrorists didn’t do…..

I guess reality really is subjective.

 

The Dirty Lowdown

Bigotry, Arizona, Immigration and the Scared White Man

It has been stated to the point of cliché that prostitution is  the worlds oldest profession. I beg to differ.

Since man has been identifiable as man, the oldest profession has been migrating. Even Neanderthals took road trip for sanity. Scientists generally agree that homo sapiens came out of the north of Africa some 10,000 years ago. (don’t worry Alabama, this doesn’t mean you are descended from a black man-just an Arab) ,  From there, mankind as we know it; (us) all of the different races, cultures, religions, and political  views radiated out across the continents. Europe, Asia, the Indian Subcontinent, and Lower Manhattan,  across the “land” bridge, in to North and South America, Australia, etc…This reputably happened in a warm summer month, when there were no good picture shows at the drive in.  Such were the 50’s

From there, white America or at least “the western world” is about nothing if not migration.  1000-500 BC the Celts ruled South Central , not L.A., Europe ya’ll !  Well, maybe not ruled as just lived there, kind of like failed actors and writers in Ensenada.Them Celts (this was before Bob Cousey and Bill Sharman)  gave us the bronze age.  The  Germanic Tribes in northern Europe they worshiped gods like Thor, who claimed to be the god of thunder, and, frankly acted like it. .  In Northern Africa we had the Ethiopians, and the Somali empires (some of the most advanced civilizations man has ever known as well as the base of international trade), as well as the Egyptians, and the Bedouin tribes that became the Moroccans, Libyans ( Carthaginians et al) as well as the “dark white” tribes (AKA the black Irish, Basques, and trouble-making –little-bastards, and Leprechauns)  in what is now Spain, France, Portugal, and the Pyrenees  Mountains. Sometime in the dark ages (300-500 AD) the tribes started  the first documented big migration. Word has it that CNN wasn’t fully capitalized then, but the tribes went a ead with the migration anyhow, counting on word of mouth to get the, well, word out..

Germanic tribes known as the Goths were forced out of the Euro-Asian steppes (Eastern European plains) by the Huns/Mongols/Scythians/Iranian “hordes” and BP.  These German tribes known collectively as the Goths (and the inventors of terrible architecture) consisted of Vandals, Alan’s, Eastern Goths (Ostrogoths) Visigoths (Western Goths) Franks, Burundians, Wookies, and Ents, etc…These people moved from eastern Europe (and other run down parts of the galaxy) to western Europe, and even took over the Roman empire (rent was cheap then and so were the senators) because of the push from the Asian tribes and the competition for farmable land. Spain became a country of not indigenous people (Which they never had in the first place-Iberia means land of the rabbits fer Christ sake0 but of Germans and Moroccans. At the same time Spain had an infusion of what we would call Arabs (even tho’ they weren’t ethnically Arabs)-just north Africans,  (how come when you say someone is African everybody assumes black?) giving us the make up of present day Spain and southern France, which was going through it’d own “racial metamorphous”  France was at the time of Caesars Gaulish wars, mainly Celtic (gaulish) but feeling pressure from across the Rhine from the east, and the Rohr and Mosel to the north, these were the Franks and the other Germanic tribes. who assimilated the Celts, or evicted them for non payment and were in turn assimilated by the Viking Norse (Normans) Consequently France became Germans and then German again (got to love it) , and eventually fought one of the most terrible wars in history so as not to become German…err, a third time….anyhow, (but with Roman laws and Roman influenced religion, culture and laws) with an assimilated gaulish population.

 

And so it goes throughout Europe, and the rest of the world. Russia, started as a trading outpost, wasn’t Slavic/Russian at all, but a Viking trading station. Kiev Ukraine, became a country out of the largest population of Hebrews, that’s right, Jews, the worlds largest Jewish kingdom ever seen out side of New York City and Broadway. Word has it that you can’t find a Goldstein in the phone book today in Kiev. Most of the middle Asian Kingdoms/Sheikdoms/Etc…doms were formed my migrating Hunnish/Mongol/Scythian (Iranian) Tribes, most of Europe from Germans, Celts, Greek, Romans, Africans. 

 

Then the biggest migration of all. Columbus tripped across two whole new continents. Gave us a bad holiday that even congress can’t get behind. Not one two. Since then, the English, Scotts, Irish, Welsh, French, Spanish, Italian, Chez, Austrians, Portuguese, Belgians, Danes, Swedes, Norse, Finns, Lats, Letts, Rus, Bulgars, Huns, Greeks, Slavs, Serbs, Jews, Lebanese, Syrians, Iraqi Arabs, Iraqi Jews, Iraqis, Indians, Pakis, South Africans ( of both discernable colors don’t ya know) Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Lao, Pilipino, Guamese, Libyans, Moroccans, Nigerians, Ethiopians, et al have migrated to these 50 states to become the dream we call America.

 

And now there is an out cry from the general populous, decrying the migration of Mexicans to these shores? Somebody explain this to this poor white child.

 

The supporters of the Arizona “law” cite the crime instituted by illegal’s. Fact: Arizona’s violent crime stats: There are facts and there are perceptions, and the Wall Street Journal points out some facts on violent crime. Bottom line: Violent crime is down, even in places like Arizona where perceptions of increased violent crime spurred passage of a politically unwise immigration law.

Arizona cites the loss of jobs: Fact, the jobs that most illegal’s do aren’t jobs that most citizens would take. Even our “poor” white children struggling to get through college won’t wash cars, hang dry wall, pick seasonal crops, or clean houses/.hotels/etc…we can get welfare and do.

The Fed doesn’t protect the borders from violent, even terrorist criminals. Fact: 40% of illegal’s crossed the border legally. That’s right, they came in on tourist or worker visas, and over stayed,. 40%. That means that of the 500,000 illegal’s that Arizona passed this stupid law to punish, less than 300,00 are border jumpers and could have been stopped at the border….legally.

Fact: Law enforcement is REQUIERED (by the Ariz. law )to question the legality of anyone reasonably suspected of being illegal. Never mind the obvious bigotry in enforcing the law, this means that if the cops let someone slide (he/she cooperated in questioning) and then that person goes on and commits another crime, that officer becomes liable in civil court. Now is that an invite for a cop (who needs little invite to abuse his power in the first place)L like a cop needs an incentive to be a hard ass. Of course he is going to act in his own best interest and get a citizen deported even if he is here legally.

Fact: I have been alive too fucking long and am not naive enough to believe in the fairness of law enforcement. I have seen the Montenards machine gunned by the Vietnamese with full power of the law to kill the only peeps that stood behind them when they couldn’t even stand.  I have seen black men kicked to death just because they were pissed at being kicked in the head. I have seen Mexicans hustled on to busses so their boss wouldn’t have to pay them for the past months work. I was a young lad and watched Kent State live on TV. Don’t ask me to believe that the police will enforce any law fairly.

Bottom line, the dirty lowdown? This law is a travesty.  This law is no better than the Jim Crow Laws of not so long ago. and possibly worse because it says DO IT.  This law is a state trying to assert state rights. Like the rights to allow businesses to deny service to anyone, ( Think white only drinking fountains) colleges to not give education to those who seek it (Remember Miss St) , to a state to deny people that want help towards a better life that right given to all the above mentioned peeps..

 

The real bottom line.  The real Dirty Lowdown: In my life, I have encountered many haters, may injustices, many conundrums.  I am considered pretty smart by most folks. But I don’t have an answer for a lot of those conundrums, all I can do is argue my position. Republican vs Dem, Lib vs Prog. Argue from a position of thought, heart and tolerance. But when it comes to bigotry…..Noun: One who is strongly partial to one’s own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ. There is just something that makes me puke. It’s a gag reflex. Can’t argue with unreasonable hate so I choose not to.

 

Dirty Lowdown