Clipmarks | debbyski's clips

A Fresh Fourth

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:28:55 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Looked at from a certain distance, all of the Independence Days in one’s life resemble a string of firecrackers. Bang, bang, bang, bang, and suddenly here you are in the present, on another Fourth, thinking about the difference between this one and the ones that came before it — the weather and the menu and the fireworks and the friends and family you celebrate with.

The Declaration of Independence speaks of truths and rights, but we are more likely to understand that document in terms of the freedoms we feel. And yet how often do we really enumerate those freedoms, really assess their costs and count up the obligations they imply?

It’s tempting to seek a kind of refuge in the Saturday-ness of this Fourth, to let the meaning of the holiday slip a little in the interest of a relaxing day in the backyard or at the beach

But there is a special understanding and joy in having struggled for it

Behind The Facade

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:18:29 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "Reality is unforgiving. There is no escape.
The Michael-mania that has erupted since Jackson’s death — not just an appreciation of his music, but a giddy celebration of his life — is yet another spasm of the culture opting for fantasy over reality. We don’t want to look under the rock that was Jackson’s real life.

As with so many other things, we don’t want to know."

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Meeting Michael Jackson in the mid-1980s was one of the creepier experiences of my life.

There was something about his overall behavior that weirded me out. He seemed, even then, to be a person who was trying with all of his being to step outside of reality and leave it behind.

Emmanuel Lewis, the child star of the hit TV series “Webster,” was with Jackson that evening.

I remember thinking as I left the Garden that Jackson had treated Lewis almost as a pet.

In many ways we descended as a society into a fantasyland, trying to leave the limits and consequences and obligations of the real world behind. Politicians stopped talking about the poor. We built up staggering amounts of debt and called it an economic boom. We shipped jobs overseas by the millions without ever thinking seriously about how to replace them. We let New Orleans drown.

Sarah's Straight Talk

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:13:21 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "Perhaps there is some new and interesting scandal that Palin has yet to let us in on. (If so, I hope it involves a soul mate.) Otherwise, it would appear that this is all about her desire to start raising money and setting up operations for a presidential run in 2012
So if she’s starting to run, it will be as the same reporter-avoiding, generalization-spouting underachiever that she was last time around.

Now we know she not only doesn’t have the concentration to read a policy paper, she can’t focus long enough to finish the job she was hired to do."

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Truly, Sarah Palin has come a long way. When she ran for vice president, she frequently became disjointed and garbled when she departed from her prepared remarks. Now the prepared remarks are incoherent, too.

Smiling manically, she looked like a parody of the woman who knocked the Republicans dead at their convention. She babbled about her parents’ refrigerator magnet, which apparently had a lot of wise advice. And she recalled her visit with the troops in Kosovo, whose dedication and determination inspired her to ... resign.

The timing of Palin’s announcement was extremely peculiar. Not only did she interrupt the plans of TV newscasters to spend the entire weekend pointing out that Michael Jackson is still dead, she delivered her big news just as the nation was settling into Fourth of July celebrations. You’d have thought she didn’t want us to notice.

Mavis Leno

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:04:45 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "Why is "feminist" regarded as a dirty word by some people?

The women who freed 50% of the American population -- at last, to hear their names in speeches [at the Democratic convention] was the most emotional thing in the world to me. So if you don't want to call yourself a feminist, then give it all back, OK? If these women so long ago had the guts to stand up and go through what they had to go through, then have the decency to call yourself a feminist."

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

When she spoke to me at the Feminist Majority offices in Beverly Hills, she was preaching to the choir. What she wants is a lot bigger choir.

The Taliban was so egregious and so extreme that if women who were free to speak did not speak, we might as well say to the entire world, "No matter what you do to women, no one cares, just go right ahead." I promised the Afghan women that I am not one of those Americans who has no attention span

I would like somebody to tell me how they think a woman who didn't like the culture that oppresses her can do anything about it when she can't vote, she can't go anywhere, she has no say over her own body? There's a difference between silence meaning agreement and being silenced.

The war in Afghanistan was supposed to have changed things.

So what happened?

Four letters -- Iraq.

The Taliban started creeping back.

Landmark Ruling

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:37:37 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "One change the ruling could bring soon,activists said, is in dealings with corrupt police officers, who reportedly sometimes extort money by threatening to apply the law or "out" gays and lesbians to friends or family.

Akash Verma, 26, a Delhi resident, said he was returning home late one night in 2004 when two intoxicated policemen who suspected he was gay stole about $20 from his bag and demanded sex, but released him. Verma said other officers later "strongly advised" against filing a complaint.

Although Verma's account could not be independently verified, gay rights activists said such behavior by police is not uncommon."

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

The Delhi High Court issued a landmark ruling Thursday decriminalizing homosexuality, a move that could bring more freedom to millions of people in this deeply conservative nation.

The ruling said that treating relations between consenting adult homosexuals as a crime is a violation of basic human rights safeguarded under the Indian Constitution.

For many homosexuals, the immediate effect on their personal lives will not be dramatic. There's still a strong social stigma here against gays and lesbians, with young people often pressured to marry early and produce grandchildren.

"There's still a mental block," said Rahil Zafar, 22, a student, wearing a bandanna over his face to hide his identity from television cameras as he celebrated. "I don't want my family to know. They keep the pressure on me."

Patients Doctors Don't Know

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:55:48 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Often even experienced doctors are unaware that 80-year-olds are not the same as 50-year-olds. Pneumonia in a 50-year-old causes fever, cough and difficulty breathing; an 80-year-old with the same illness may have none of these symptoms, but just seem “not herself” — confused and unsteady, unable to get out of bed.

She may end up in a hospital, where a doctor prescribes a dose of antibiotic that would be right for a woman in her 50s, but is twice as much as an 80-year-old patient should get, and so she develops kidney failure, and grows weaker and more confused. In her confusion, she pulls the tube from her arm and the catheter from her bladder.

Instead of re-evaluating whether the tubes are needed, her doctor then asks the nurses to tie her arms to the bed so she won’t hurt herself.

This shouldn’t happen.

Basic geriatric knowledge is preventive medicine.

Facing Vatican Scrutiny

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:51:51 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

The Vatican is quietly conducting two sweeping investigations of American nuns, a development that has startled and dismayed nuns who fear they are the targets of a doctrinal inquisition.

The more extensive of the two investigations is called an “Apostolic Visitation,” and the Vatican has provided only a vague rationale for it: to “look into the quality of the life” of women’s religious institutes.

In a speech in Massachusetts last year, Cardinal Rodé offered barbed criticism of some American nuns “who have opted for ways that take them outside” the church.

Given this backdrop, Sister Schneiders, the professor in Berkeley, urged her fellow sisters not to cooperate with the visitation, saying the investigators should be treated as “uninvited guests who should be received in the parlor, not given the run of the house.”

“It’s an opportunity for us to re-evaluate ourselves, to make our reality known and also to be challenged to live authentically who we say we are,” she said.

An Unforgettable Graduate

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:44:56 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "Last year, Luis worked for the No on 8 campaign, which sought to defeat the voter initiative outlawing gay marriage. He circulated pamphlets and went to marches, but at home he kept quiet, because his parents still did not know he was gay."

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Luis is one of those young people who was gifted to us by El Salvador, a little Central American republic that has lost too many of its brightest and most ambitious people to the United States.

At the Los Angeles Leadership Academy, he tried his hand at op-eds for the school newspaper. He wanted to provoke his fellow students. Last month, he wrote an article decrying the lack of ambition among many students at the school.

The response: silence and apathy. He wondered if they'd even read it.

He had more of an impact with an essay describing how he told his friends and classmates he was gay. It has since been republished on the website.

"It was coming out or suicide," he wrote. "I couldn't go on living with who I was pretending to be; it's like living with your worst enemy, except you share one body."

Say Something

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:16:23 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "The more courageous among us say “Let's try something different. Let's organize ourselves based upon those things which we hold in common reverence. The first of these is our nation's basic ideals, laws and traditions. We may not fully agree what these comprise, or even their meanings. Nonetheless, we can agree in principle on some of them as a more or less consistent framework for the political, economic and social interactions of individuals and groups within our society.”

Clip Source: www.opednews.com

The greatest duty of a free people is to speak out when they see something occuring in their country that they believe is wrong. It is a duty we should be taught from the cradle, and be reminded of until we are in our graves.

I think we exclude the opinions of individuals, however personally odious, however contrarian, at great risk to ourselves and our own freedom of speech.

Many times these comments seem to be entirely self-serving

They are often times angry and filled with ad hominem attacks. Their primary purpose seems to be to ridicule the opinions of those they disagree with, and obscure any real discourse on the subject with an obscuring mud coat of obfuscations, slogans and platitudes.

They seem to be far more interested in engaging in tautological (tail chasing in simple terms) arguments that support their own system of beliefs, rather than putting forth arguments that legitimately support their contentions against your own.

Women's Friendship Lifts Moods

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:07:38 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.opednews.com

About a decade ago, a study carried out at UCLA examined the benefits of

friendship among women. It made official what many women have known all along: Our friendships not only make us feel better, they are a positive force for reducing stress and helping us lead healthier, happier lives.

The UCLA study found that women respond to stress with a rush of brain chemicals that makes us seek out women for comfort and support.

The catalyst for this research came when Klein and a colleague, Shelley Taylor,
realized that when women working in their lab were stressed, they gathered

together to commiserate, while stressed-out men went off on their own.

Even having a woman nearby in stressful times makes a difference: Doula-supported childbirth in which a woman supports the birthing mother has been demonstrated to reduce labor by more than an hour. In short, friends help us live calmer, longer, better lives.

Medicare For Everyone

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:03:50 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: blog.buzzflash.com

The goal and slogan of "healthcare reform" should be quite simple: "Medicare for Everyone."

Why do we have to wait until we are 65 to be guaranteed the right of health coverage?

Who is publicly against Medicare? Just the fringe right wing loonies in the GOP (although a larger number of Republican politicians oppose it as a government entitlement, but won't say so because they would be slaughtered at the polls by outraged seniors who love their Medicare.)

Private healthcare insurance only accomplishes two things: increases the costs of healthcare and denies needed care as much as it can get away with.

So when politicians keep talking about free market alternatives as being more efficient: the private health insurance industry proves just the opposite. In order to make a profit or pay high non-profit insurance (think Blue Cross) salaries, they have to add costs onto the healthcare system. It's that simple.

And they have to deny care as frequently as they can in order to increase profit

Turf War At The Hot Dog Cart

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:40:40 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

MONDAY was a routine day for Grant Di Mille and Samira Mahboubian, the owners of the Street Sweets food truck, a mobile trove of croissants, cupcakes and cookies that got rolling last month.

In four weeks of business, the couple has been threatened at the depot where they park the truck; cursed by a gyro vendor who said that he would set their truck on fire; told to stay off every corner in Midtown by ice cream truck drivers; and approached by countless others with advice — both friendly and menacing — on how to get along on the streets.

I should not have to carry a baseball bat on my truck in order to sell cupcakes.

“If I only did business where these hot dog guys said I could do business,” said Lev Ekster, owner of the new CupcakeStop truck, “I would be vending in New Jersey.”

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Vendors say that the traditional code of the streets may be effective, but that it feeds on fear, intimidation and the city’s lack of enforcement of permit rules.

Lyrical Voices

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:29:20 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "Nooriala has written about the failures of the Islamic revolution, erotic love and such taboo women's subjects as abortion and menopause. She recently posted a piece dedicated to Iranians protesting the country's presidential election.

I have seen your nightmares in my dreams
I have kept your sorrows in my heart

I picked a dandelion flown about by the wind

Bringing me news, anxiety and trembling hands

If you are tied down

I shall be your wings

If you are at war

I shall be your armor

Your voice

will fly through the blue sky again,

And your free hands

will weave through the sun again."

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

From the house we built
With blood and soil

To the road on which
The moonlight procession
Flies forth on their boat

Of shooting stars
It is a pity you did not wish

To stay here with us

Ever so briefly, the poem mourns, Lady Liberty had arrived at her oppressed homeland of Iran in 1979. But, within a year after the revolution, she had vanished. The ayatollah banned opposition parties and shut down newspapers. His theocracy ordered women into the hijab and enforced Islamic family law that gave men greater rights to divorce, marry and hold custody of children.

So Nooriala and her family eventually left, bringing their dreams to California instead.

Now, nearly three decades after that people's movement, she and her daughter Shahrzad Sepanlou have become overseas heralds of another one. Nooriala, a poet, and Sepanlou, a singer, are lifting their voices in the diaspora to support their people's freedom once again.

The "What The Hell Is This Shit Helmet Award" goes to... Tanyamm!

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:48:01 GMT

clipped by: thisnamecantbetaken
clipper's remarks: As the current holder of the much coveted Helmet Award, I think the time has come to pass it on. I'd like to give it to Tanyamm, who every day makes us all smile with her fabulous LOLcat clips and is always so polite, sweet, funny and just an all 'round great gal, who I am proud to call a fellow clipper. It was also she, who suggested we should honour each other, so no one could be more deserving of this very, very, very prestigious award.

*drumroll*

"THE HELMET AWARD"

*applause applause applause*

Congratulations, Tanyamm!!

The Helmet Award is now yours and you're free to pass it on to whomever you choose. Wear it with pride.

Clip Source: content2.clipmarks.com

Clip Source: clipmarks.com

What The Hell Is This Shit Helmet Award!!

YAY!!!!

Congratulations!

Helmet Award!! Wow!!

'LOL' and "LOL" again!

Pop for the future!

Clip Source: content1.clipmarks.com

Clip Source: clipmarks.com

What do the rest of think ? Can we do this? Are we breaking a rule? I like it .

Do any of you have a special clipper?

for whatever reason, they picked me for a special clip with my name in it.

Clip Source: content4.clipmarks.com

An Open Letter

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:18:53 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "Every day, LGBT Americans face discrimination and are being denied their constitutional rights. There is no one in public life who could, and based on your stated principles and promises should, do more to move America forward toward becoming a country in which LGBT people are respected and treated as fully equal under our Constitution and laws.
We ask for your leadership and voice. When you lead, we will back you with every bit of heart and determination we can muster."

Clip Source: site.pfaw.org

Dear President Obama:

I am writing to respectfully urge you to bring the energetic moral vision that you championed as a presidential candidate to the cause of equality for gay and lesbian Americans.

That vision energized not only gays and lesbians, but many other fair-minded Americans who recognize discrimination as a national moral failing

That vision would be even more powerful coming from you as president, but since your election we have heard very little.

Any reasonable person is aware of the extraordinary challenges that faced the nation as you took office, including a dire financial crisis that has cost millions of Americans their jobs

Mr. President, you are uniquely capable of communicating to the American public the moral and constitutional values at stake in ending discrimination against gay Americans.