Category Archives: voters

Neil Young sings Mother Earth

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What a stirring, beautiful song.  (Now THIS is what I’m talking about when I talk about music stirring the soul!) (hat tip to Global News Canada)

Thank you to Neil Young for making this available.  The video is just stunning…how beautiful the untouched Earth is when left alone…and how quickly it is destroyed by thoughtlessness and lack of vision of the future…

Young isn’t asking for any contributions, but I’m sure this song will be available for download.  If you’re able, please support him and this effort.  We are all connected.

Newark parents fighting back

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This just makes my morning!  Bob Braun’s article here.

The explosion of personal anger occurred at 8:30 pm, two hours after the meeting at First Avenue School got off to a delayed and troubled start.  Scores of residents who wanted to attend the meeting were kept outside in single-digit temperatures. Then some were allowed to enter an unheated cafeteria. Police officers, citing fire regulations, said the auditorium in the school was too crowded.

The venue clearly was chosen to keep the size of the crowd down.

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See…you can control the negative speech against you by making it harder for the mounting opposition to even get a space to stand.

Remember what I said in the previous blog about education and how it seemed like they were trying to separate kids from their parents by reducing the amount of time at home?

Well, this statement kind of supports that:

a letter to families that suggested if Newark children were home from school they would get into trouble, make the city “less safe” and cause crime to go up

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Where do I start?  The insinuation is that parents don’t know how to raise their kids.  That kids are little criminals just waiting for the opportunity to commit a criminal act.

Perhaps art and music instruction would be helpful here in creating and encouraging imaginations so that kids could entertain themselves while out of school, eh?

They could be painting, drawing, learning a new game, playing/practicing an instrument,  playing tag outside, making snow sharks 🙂  , or doing something to give back, like shoveling an elderly/disabled person’s sidewalks, or running errands…the list is endless….

NSA using phone apps like Angry Birds to gather personal info

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Well, I wish I could say I’m surprised, but no…nobody is going to design a game and give it away for free…ain’t gonna happen without some benefit for themselves.  No free lunches, folks.

Here we have another case of taxation without representation…since a majority of people want this invasion of privacy to stop.

 

 

Update: Indiana HB1320

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Update on this post on the power grab/information grab by Pence and his henchmen.

I found this summary of the bill– as you can see, it does not outline what information is being gathered.  It does not say who is receiving this information.  It does not outline how this benefits children and education.  And why does the state need to provide backup when schools routinely backup their own records??

As I wrote on Diane’s blog–

It looks like Gates has his dirty little fingers in this–gathering more information for…what? or perhaps I should say…who? What kind of information are they gathering? Who will benefit from gathering this information?

The bill does not tell us. Highly suspicious.

I also found this excellent blog by Doug Martin (you might recall he posted on firedoglake).

If passed into law, HB1320 will probably hand another $3.7 million of our tax dollars to a private company which will sell off personal and confidential information of students and families to companies out to market their products and agenda to them.

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This new move is not a new one.  In fact, HB1320 was probably inspired by a model bill drafted for various states by the American Legislative Exchange Council, the corporate sponsored bill-mill behind the scenes in Indiana and across the country bringing us school privatization, attacks on the postal service and unions, and the infamous Stand Your Ground Law.

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Yep.  This has the smell of ALEC all over it.

 

 

 

Action Alert: Pence Power Grab from Glenda Ritz

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Once again, Glenda Ritz is under threat of losing her authority granted to her by the citizens of Indiana….who voted more for her than Pence.

Calling all Hoosiers…send out emails to have your voice heard.  Don’t let Pence become a dictator!

Sherman and Crabtree

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I’m not a big football fan, but have caught the controversy surrounding Richard Sherman and his opponent, Michael Crabtree.

I think the whole thing has been blown waaaay out of proportion.  Sherman wasn’t threatening Crabtree with physical violence.   Should he have toned it down a bit?  Yes, in my opinion.  But it’s not on the level of being a thug, as some have referred to him.

Ed Schultz was talking about it, and Sherman has questioned whether “thug” is the new word for the n-word.  I don’t know, but I don’t think so.

I do find it interesting that the media, which framed this message in a way that almost guaranteed Sherman would be flamed for what happened.  The video is cut off to *just* Sherman’s rant….instead of showing the entire context with Crabtree pushing Sherman away after Sherman offered to shake hands.  That is why Sherman went off.  Again, it wasn’t the wisest thing, but yeah, not a crime, either.

~~As a side note, MSNBC, via Ed Schultz, is once again trying to push Hillary Clinton for president with yet another talking head declaring that “everybody” wants Clinton for candidate.  Bullshit.

I find it ironic that Ed is blasting the new super secret trade agreement, TPP, while promoting Hillary Clinton for president.  She is in the back pocket of Wall Street, and Big Oil, and the war profiteers.  Her husband signed NAFTA into law which drove our economy into the toilet…and here Schultz was promoting her.  Unreal.

Teacher’s experience in Gulen Charter school

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Diane Ravitch has an account of a teacher’s experience in a Gulen charter school.  Unreal.

No books.  And teachers with 100 students limited to 25 copies per day.  Money missing from their paychecks unaccounted for.  Seriously?

All of this is flying under the radar because the mainstream media is not only not covering the Newark 5, they’re not covering the criminal and unethical activities of people running charter schools.

…but they’ll be more than happy to run story after story of bad teachers in public schools…

 

 

Mi’kmaq Warriors begin tour

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Mi’kmaq Warriors will begin a speaking tour on the environmental protests against fracking, but also pipelines and tar sands.

“We are all being systematically displaced within our own traditional territories,” Patles explained. “Once they destroy our territories and these resource companies are gone, we will be the ones left with destroyed land and poisoned water.”

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Again, we have the disaster capitalism…take the resources without even paying for them, and then leave poisoned land and water.  And no, I don’t think the Mi’kmaq would take money even if it were offered to them. Their spirituality cannot be bought…and the Earth is seen as connected to the Creator…

You can’t buy clean air, clean water, nor clean land after it’s been poisoned.  This point seems to always be lost on politicians and energy companies who couldn’t care less what happens to people after the fact…

The Newark Five: Being heard

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The Chalk Face has a video up of the Newark principals who were put on indefinite layoff (fired) for exercising their right to Free Speech. (hat tip GF Brandenburg)

This is probably the only place you’ll hear them…because no one in the mainstream media is covering this.  It is a hot topic going by the amount of activity my blog has received.  This should be a top story on the networks…and yet…*crickets*.

Why?