In this post, I came upon a link someone provided in the comments section about Mother Agnes Mariam and her assertions on stuff going on in Syria.
Someone pointed me towards this piece in the Guardian and how Human Rights Watch disputed Mother Agnes’ assertions.
Human Rights Watch carries more weight with me than Mother Agnes, because I don’t know enough about her. I think she is probably scared.
Stay tuned…
The women of Idle No More tried to hold a Native American dance in the Mall of America, which promptly had them arrested. I kid you not.
123 years after Wounded Knee, and they’re still objecting to the Native Americans dancing.
What is the harm in that? I thought it was quite moving.
They won’t even give her the respect of telling her a valid reason why they can’t be there….because they don’t have one…
…well, I wish I could say this is a surprise…but, no, I was waiting for the “re-write” because Jesus is just too, too, liberal…you know, feeding people, healing the sick without being paid, throwing the bankers out of the Temple…
See, the neocons were hiding behind the “Moral Majority” schtick and intimidating folks with their self-righteous blather. Now that some of us have been speaking out about spirituality, they have suddenly realized their game is up.
Sorry, neocons….try as you might, you cannot have a re-do to support your selfish, hateful, punitive actions that feed the dark side.
Warrior Publications has a blog up on the massacre at Wounded Knee.
As I look at the photo of the mass grave, it is a shocking picture too similar to the Jews in Nazi Germany camps.
Something that is really important to know—these Native Americans had laid down their guns. They had given all their weaponry to the calvary in what they thought was a truce…
…and then they were fired upon…
Unarmed men, women, and children gunned down…
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Warrior Publications also has this up on Carter Camp, of the 1973 Wounded Knee siege. Treaty after treaty had been broken, and the Native Americans were asserting their right to exist, their right to practice their spirituality–which had been outlawed–and their right to their land. They were protesting the war-like atmosphere created by Dick Wilson, whom thought of the traditional American Indians as “communists” . He terrorized the traditionals.
The movie Thunderheart is loosely based on the events at Wounded Knee. (Pay close attention to the bartender in one of the scenes–Crosby, Stills, and Nash fans will see a familiar face. 🙂
On the message board under portrayal of elders, a commenter talks about Grandpa Reaches being their favorite character in the movie–he was a medicine man, but not full of himself, not holier-than-thou. He was the genuine deal.
Another commenter was commenting on the scene where Grandpa’s TV and ancient sacred turtle rattle are destroyed–they were trying to explain to someone why Grandpa would be upset about them breaking his TV, but not the sacred rattle.
It struck me odd, too, but trying to think as the Native Americans do about possessions, perhaps it was supposed to be a “letting go” of possessions such as the rattle, because it, too, could be replaced? Or perhaps Grandpa Reaches thought that the rattle represented connection with the Creator, but he didn’t need an object because he was always connected? I don’t know the answer, but it’s a good question.
They also talked about what Grandpa Reaches gave Ray Levoi for his sunglasses. I thought it was probably a stone that Grandpa had blessed?
Anyway, I hope I haven’t given too much away to anyone who hasn’t seen it but wishes to–a really good movie full of twists and historical value.
Bill de Blasio better check with ole’ slick Willy and Hilly to rethink his choice for Chancellor. He must be mistaken, because Bill, Hillary, Michelle Rhee, Eli Broad, and Bill Gates don’t approve of actual educators being involved in…you know…education administration. De Blasio obviously didn’t get the memo that he needs to appoint an investment banker, technology terrorist, or some other profiteer to run the schools. /very snarky
The opening quote is an understatement. (love the mural, too)
Of course, the people want peace–it’s the politicians and war profiteers who want war. Most of the people in the world just want to live in peace…raise their families…earn a living…follow their own paths….
…but then you get to the end of the article…<sigh>….well, baby steps towards Peace…but I’ll take it.
Yeah, I didn’t know what “colocation” meant, either. The former post on Bloomberg at Diane Ravitch’s has led to a great discussion on it and there is a charter school troll there advocating Success Academy, a charter. A poster supplied a link to an insightful post here.
This is just absolutely wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Another link provided a report on Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy receiving preferential treatment from the DOE. Good Grief, can they be any more of an enabler?
More here,
The preceding also has a link to Juan Gonzalez’s column on the sardine-like atmosphere in the colocation schools. Shocking cannot even describe the overcrowded conditions that led to an autistic child disappearing. Good God.
…and $1300 on marketing…per child….are you kidding me?? That money could have been used for public schools in more education-oriented ways. It’s just mindboggling how dense and misguided this misuse of funds is…
…and how the public is being ignored:
Moreover, it is also clear from the abundance of comments at public hearings that the vast majority of parents oppose these proposals – and these parents’ choices are being ignored. Just check any of the Public comment analyses on the DOE webpage. In many of these summaries, every single parent who spoke opposed the co-location, as well as representatives of the Community Education Councils and elected officials.
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The public, that pays the taxes for the public schools, is…ignored.
Warrior Publications has a blog up on the ruling that it’s okay to allow a repeat offender access to its victims…
Part of the problem with the conditions set is that even though Enbridge must carry $950 million in insurance…one cannot replace what is lost with…money. You can’t eat money. You can’t breathe money. You can’t drink money. It won’t make a bit of difference if you have billions upon billions of dollars if you are made ill by breathing particulate, eating food grown in polluted soil, or trying to cleanse your kidneys and liver with petrochemically poisoned water.
(said very snarkily)
Jan Ressenger has this up on the recent nominee to the Dept of Education. Yeah, if you were hoping that President Obama had somehow seen the light about the U.S. education fiasco, well, you (and I) were sadly mistaken, because he’ s nominated another corporate takeover twerp.
Be sure to click on the link to the Nation’s report:
In addition, [Ted] Mitchell serves as an adviser to Salmon River Capital, a venture capital firm that specializes in education companies. Mitchell sits on the board of Parchment, an academic transcript start-up that is among Salmon River Capital’s portfolio. Salmon River Capital helped create one of the biggest names in for-profit secondary education, Capella University.
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Italics mine.
That, my friends, should read as a rap sheet.
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In other Education News, School Matters has this blog on the lack of transparency for the State of Indiana….so what else is new?
I agree that individuals should probably not be named, but there absolutely needs to be an accounting of how many students went to school B, and how much money was diverted from School A.
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School Finance 101 has a good report on the lies and statistics of mis-edumucation. One can make statistics say anything you want, if you know how to skew the data…or leave out the data that doesn’t agree with your goals.
Michael Twitty has done it again with this blog on African Soul Fried Rice. Sounds delicious.
I like the fermented aspect of the food. I wondered if he means the bean from the locust tree…so I went looking and found this.
It’s considered medicinal, too….gotta wonder how much wisdom has been lost about our ancient remedies. Thanks, modern medicine, for a bang up job of ignoring past wisdom. /snarky, for sure.
The locust beans are seen as a nuisance here…as is the dandelion. We’ll discover, when it’s too late, that the things we thought were nuisances were healing plants to cure cancer, diabetes, etc.
Michael Twitty also has a blog up on some badass rice growers. Yes, badass rice growers. I *love* that they are bucking the system, the status quo of Big Ag and getting the cold shoulder for it. They are raising rice crops in unconventional ways that thwart the Ag profiteers who want to sell chemicals and bioengineered rice. Heh.
On top of that, the way that they are raising it lowers the arsenic level in rice–very important to lower our exposure to heavy metals.
From the Washington Post article:
Thomet has unwittingly aligned himself with a small group of experimental U.S. farmers and hobbyists, probably no more than 50, who are breaking with a tradition that dates to colonial America. They’re rejecting paddy rice in favor of an increasingly accepted agricultural system that promises to increase crop yields while decreasing water use, chemical dependency and even the amount of arsenic in our grains.
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See, it bothers the status quo when you don’t play along with the technology-is-king mentality. Using one’s brain is not allowed. :p
Eagle 
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