May 28, 2012

What if they contract the work out to companies that are the ideological twin of Eric Prince?

Would you feel safe having all your thoughts and connections exposed to Teaparty Terrorists?

Just a thought. They still haven't come for my rebellious self as revealed on the world data base.

Not yet, anyway. I must not be special enough.

May 24, 2012

Causing desperation is good for their business model. It allows them to bully workers, then

Cut social services from their needy family members. The more chaos in those people's lives, the cheaper the labor will be.

They have no morals in that area or any other. The rest of the talk is just to divert attention from the real money and assets that change hands every time they pull this stunt.

May 23, 2012

And the GOP just stonewalled the bill Obama said they must pass to stop these rates.

This is what 20 years of GOP majority in D.C. has wrought. In the 60's and 70's there were grants and low-rate loans.

Imagine the future if this keeps up.

Oh, wait, Romney's advice is 'Borrow the money for college from your parents.'

If they can't, Boehner's advice is, 'If your parents didn't work hard enough to pay for your education, you were born to be a ditch digger. So get to it.'

Oh, excuse me. The future is now.

May 20, 2012

I saw them in west Texas my last visit, clustered on mesas standing above the valley floor.

A large dairy in one community I know well put them in and are happy that they will now be going off grid. They have thousands of acres of land and needed power for their walking sprinklers to grow fodder for their herds, run refrigerators for their milk, etc. I didn't see any cows near the bases of the turbines, but then most of these outfits have a lot of land for either beef cattle or dairy cows. They didn't report any problems there, but I'm talking about a lot of acreage

That is an area rich in wildlife but not rainfall, so these are all dry land farms and ranches. The locals were very happy to get the work fabricating the towers and transporting them. Those areas are virtually without people at this point, many homes sitting vacant as their owners left to the big city for work. Not because of foreclosures, since there were never many houses, no subdivisions, etc. But that was always the case there, and it's only increased as the younger generation no longer want to deal with drought, poor prices for their products, etc.

May 20, 2012

Thanks for telling me where they are. It sounds like a wonderful area to visit.

May 19, 2012

A foray for groceries: Anyone tried these yet?

Yesterday's trips yielded:

First I went to my favorite store to get some bulk foods, long brown rice, lentils and beans. While I was there, I just had my first taste of 'emmer farro' as a sample, in a dish called 'Emmer Farro Caprese Salad.'

The cook gave me over a third of a cup, and a dozen fresh blueberries as dessert. I was full and completely satisfied as always by their little treats, another of those 'panza llena corazon contento' moments.

He said 'farro is the ancient form of wheat, before humans altered it.' It was like a nutty, chewy type of long grain brown rice, but really, it was much better.

Then I went to COSTCO for carrot juice, avocadoes, apples and few odd items. I decided to buy a locally produced vegan product I'd seen a few times but didn't get. It's called 'vegetarian sausage.' Generally I don't try to 'romance the meat,' but it looked too good to miss when I saw the ingredients.

The company is 'Original Field Roast Grain Meat.' It said the 'grain meat' is a variety of wheat, but it didn't say which one. It claimed to contain 25g of protein per serving. I'm wondering if it's 'farro' wheat.

In the package are three flavors of rather large links, 'Smoked Apple Sage, Spicy Mexican Chipotle' and 'Italian With Eggplant.' Each one has some gluten and torula yeast with various vegetables, herbs and spices. I'm planning to pan fry them in olive or coconut oil. Has anyone here tried these yet?

Thought it would be helpful if I transcribed the recipe for the 'Emmer Farro Caprese Salad' from above:

Emmer Farro Caprese Salad

Step 1

1 cup emmer farro
3 cups water
1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt

Place farro, water and salt in a medium saucepan over high heat. Bring to a boil, reduce to low, cover and simmer for 50 minutes. Drain excess water.

Step 2

2 cups cooked farro
2 tablespoons EVOO
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup chopped fresh shallot or onion
2 medium fresh tomatoes, diced
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
4 ounces fresh mozzarella, diced
1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Place the warm, cooked farro in a large serving bowl and add oil and vinegar and mix well. Add shallot, tomato, basil, mozzarella, salt and pepper. Stir to combine. Flavors are best when served warm or at room temperature, but it can also be chilled and served cold.

Recipe from Bluebird Grain Farms.

May 13, 2012

I've never known any blacks to be anti-gay and vice versa. The main thing, as you say, is for us to

Not fall for what these guys are selling.
This is how they keep the poor, poor.

We are at fault if we buy this product while they rob us, because the ones selling this don't believe it. This is a diversion to keep our eyes off what they're doing to all of us.

Confront these clowns. Tell them we're not buying it now, that we all want our freedom to live without being stomped on by the people paying them.

We should ask the media selling this, is it too much to ask, not being robbed and being left to live in peace?

May 9, 2012

Janx (and others), Kadie found it and asked me to post it here:

President Obama Endorses Gay Marriage



There is a second video on Kadie's thread:

Obama: 'I Think Same Sex Couples Should Be Able To Get Married'

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101727251

May 8, 2012

The problem of these schools is not new, and I am sorry to see not much more progress has been made

Since I was enraged when I read this Kozol's book, Death At An Early Age. This young lady, despite using out the ultimate card, reflected the spirit of the system she is being schooled in, take a glimpse of the book reviewed here:

September 1967
Death at an Early Age
by Jonathan Kozol

Someday, maybe," Erik Erikson has written, "there will exist a well-informed, well-considered and yet fervent public conviction that the most deadly of all possible sins is the mutilation of a child's spirit..."

It is a commonplace by now to say that the urban school systems of America contain a higher percentage of Negro children each year. More than anywhere else, it is here within these ghetto systems that the mutilation of which Erikson speaks becomes apparent. My own experience took place in Boston, in a segregated fourth-grade classroom. The Boston school system is not perhaps the worst offender, but it provides a clear example of the kind of education being offered the disadvantaged children of many cities. There are, admittedly, in Boston a cluster of unusually discouraging problems, chief among them the school administration's refusal for a great many years to recognize that there was any problem. Only slightly less troubling has been the exceptional virulence of the anti-Negro prejudice, both among teachers and the general public. Yet Boston's problems are not much different from those of other cities, and the solutions here as elsewhere will have to await a change in attitude at all levels of society...

http://www.theatlantic.com/ideastour/education/kozol-full.html

Kozol's work did not change the world as I thought it would in the sixties and seventies, although I'm sure things got better in some places. I've seen the battles for funding for education and control of the minds and hearts of our youth and the wonderful sucesses and failures. In no way do I believe that we should allow the privatization of schools, or fail to support the people to whom our children are their calling in life. And I want to see us fund them.

But this is not what is happening with privatization, it is an apartheid between those who can game the system and wreck it and those who are not wanted by the wealthy. The battle is ongoing.

Kozol has written another book that is more timely and worth reading:

Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools

is a book written by Jonathan Kozol in 1991 that discusses the disparities in education between schools of different classes and races. It is based on his observations of various classrooms in the public school systems of East St. Louis, Chicago, New York City, Camden, Cincinnati, and Washington D.C.. His observations take place in both schools with the lowest per capita spending on students and the highest, ranging from just over $3,000 in Camden, New Jersey to a maximum expenditure of up to $15,000 in Great Neck, Long Island.

In his visits to these areas, Kozol illustrates the overcrowded, unsanitary and often understaffed environment that is lacking in basic tools and textbooks for teaching. He cites the large proportions of minorities in the areas with the lowest annual budgets, despite the higher taxation rate on individuals living in poverty within the school district.

Kozol cites various historical cases regarding lawsuits filed against school districts in East Orange, Camden, Irvington and Jersey City in which judges have sided with the children and concerned locals in a given district instead of adhering to state law concerning the taxation and distribution of funding. He additionally goes into detail comparing the current conditions poor, minority children are expected to learn in, and the findings of the historical case Brown v. Board of Education, and Plessy v. Ferguson. He also mentions other such historical cases in which the outcomes have supported what he views to be an unjust system of funds distribution and taxation in Milliken v. Bradley, San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, and through the overturning of State Supreme Court decisions in both Michigan and Texas by the Supreme Court of the United States...

The rest of the description is at this page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savage_Inequalities

I could post the words of many writers to show this should not be. It's up to us to make sure it ends, or it will end many things we hold dear.

May 6, 2012

President Obama - 2012-05-05 Rally in Ohio

Saw this reported with photographs on other threads but the video on those links doesn't work for me. So I found it on youtube and am posting this video of Michelle introducing Obama in Ohio beginning of the campaign for those who want to watch it here.