Clipmarks | debbyski's clips

The Forever War Of The Mind

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:13:38 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Wars are not over when the shooting stops. They live on in the lives of those who fight them. That is the curse of the soldier. He never forgets.

War is haunting. Death. Pain. Blood. Dismemberment. A buddy dying in your arms.

After America’s wars, the used-up fighters are too often left to fend for themselves.

This is inexcusable, and it comes with frightening moral costs

In his poem “The Dead Young Soldiers,” Archibald MacLeish, whose younger brother died in World War I, has the soldiers in the poem tell us:“We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.” Until we help our returning soldiers get their lives back when they come home, the promise of restoring that meaning will go unfulfilled.

Happy Birthday Tany

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:55:44 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: Your day; your day . . .

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: to you

We Don't Trust Your Country

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:47:14 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: I'd be interested in those who do not live here in the US commenting how our country is viewed by other nations.

It really concerns me.

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

We don't really trust your country.

No matter how hard Clinton tried to reassure audiences in Lahore and Islamabad with talk of providing economic aid where it's needed most, Pakistanis seized on her visit as the perfect moment to lash out at a U.S. government they perceive as arrogant, domineering and insensitive to their plight.

At a televised town hall meeting in Islamabad, the capital, on Friday, a woman in a mostly female audience characterized U.S. drone missile strikes on suspected terrorist targets in northwestern Pakistan as de facto acts of terrorism. A day earlier in Lahore, a college student asked Clinton why every student who visits the U.S. is viewed as a terrorist.

The opinions Clinton heard weren't the strident voices of radical clerics or politicians with anti-U.S. agendas.

In those voices what rang clear was a sense that Pakistan was paying a heavy price for America's "war on terror."

For You TN

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:51:51 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "Sometimes life is hard to bear,
When a friend is not there."

Clip Source: 100-poems.com

Instead of different words, however, we're stuck with simple adjectives. Close friend. Best friend. Childhood friend. Intimate friend. Trusted friend. Beloved friend. But whether you use adjectives or different words, few could deny the nearly infinite meaning in such a simple word.

Friends are special people. We can't pick our family, and we're sorely limited in the number of them at any rate. Society and mores (and often our own conscience) dictate we select a single mate. But our friends can be as diverse and infinite as the adjectives we choose. Our friends, in a very real sense, reflect the choices we make in life.

Let the countdown begin.

It's Never Easy

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:25:50 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: iamonetoo told me once that she didn't understand why it had to be so hard to be herself.

She could have taken the easy way. But she didn't and I admire her.

Social change is hard, long and difficult work. It will often spawn hatred by other's who are just ignorant of human differences.

That's ok; the struggle of civil rights for everyone is always worth it

Clip Source: www.365gay.com

listen up peoples: freedom struggles are difficult and filled with losses and setbacks. It’s not fair and many of us are not going to see the very things we are fighting for, but if you want quick results it’s time to find something else to do. If you are not in it for the long haul, what’s the point? If you think struggles for rights are easily earned in one election cycle, you are not paying attention to the narrative called American history.

Nothing wrong with being angry and disappointed today, but when you are finished put the armor back on because the struggle still continues.

Who Are You Calling A Narcissist

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:10:02 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

In those days, he called himself a “harmless little fuzzball.” He’s a lot less harmless now.

As he and Sarah Palin conduct their auto-da-fé of moderate Republicans — “Moderates by definition have no principles,” he told his radio audience on Monday — Limbaugh is more than ever the face of his party, as Rahm Emanuel said.

He’s also the mouth.

the tactics of Limbaugh, Palin, Cheney & Fille are more cynical: They spin certainty, ignoring their side’s screw-ups, and they exploit patriotism, labeling all critics as traitors.

In an interview on “Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace,” Limbaugh accused the president of trying to destroy the economy — yes, the same economy that W. came within a whisker of ruining.

he ripped the president for having “an out-of-this-world ego,” for being “very narcissistic,” “immature, inexperienced, in over his head.” (Isn’t immaturity scoring OxyContin from your maid?)

It gives new meaning to pot, kettle and black.

License To Wonder

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:59:50 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: judson.blogs.nytimes.com

There are plenty of (probably) apocryphal tales about what inspired a great discovery, from Archimedes in his bathtub, to Newton and his apple.

Among the most famous is the story of Rosalind Franklin and her non-discovery of the structure of DNA.

She had the data. Why didn’t she reach the solution?

There are several answers to this; but one is that she had a fixed idea about how the problem should be solved.

But there’s one way in which we should not be limited: imagination. As Einstein put it, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

Nonviolence As Their Weapon

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:33:08 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "It was 2001. Khatib watched in horror as Israeli soldiers shot an unarmed friend at a checkpoint. Two weeks later, the militant Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade made a revenge attack on the checkpoint, killing seven soldiers.

"My first reaction was 'Good for Al Aqsa!' " Khatib said. Then he realized the dead soldiers belonged to a different unit, not the one on duty when his friend was shot.

"It made me wonder: This cycle of death, of violent action and reaction, how we can break it?"

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

"If they cannot accuse us of terrorism, they cannot stop us. The world will support us."

His message is a hard sell: Khatib, 35, is a modern-day Gandhi in a culture that enshrines the language of the gun, even if most Palestinians have never used one. And the risks of his activism are enormous.

The Israeli army has targeted him. He was arrested, severely beaten and threatened with death during a series of midnight raids on the village this summer

He believes Israel is trying to crush nonviolent activists because it would rather take on an armed insurgency.

Today's nonviolence initiatives tap into nostalgia for the first intifada, in what Khatib calls a sober reaction to the armed uprising that bloodied the first half of this decade after peace talks broke down.

Khatib, who dropped out when things turned violent, remembers the killings that changed him.

Should We Trust The Experts?

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:45:01 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "None of this suggests the public should abandon a healthy skepticism toward even well-credentialed authorities. Pharmaceutical companies, with colossal missteps like the dangerous medication Vioxx, have earned suspicions about their motivations.
Vaccinations foregone put not only those individual children at risk but clear the path for infectious disease to spread more easily. That's not a great outcome, whether we're collectively battling the measles or this season's H1N1 flu.

"You can't minimize your individual risk," Wallace writes, "unless your herd, your friends and neighbors, also buy in."

Our children most certainly deserve safe vaccines; that's a given. I don't blame people for not trusting special interest groups. I just thought this article brought out some interesting points regarding social media.

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Two weeks after the story hit the Internet, the e-mail keeps flowing. A majority voice support for “An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All.” But at least one in five disagrees. Many seethe with indignation. A few sling vile names and veiled threats.

Wallace has run smack into an abiding, perhaps growing, phenomenon of the Internet Age: Citizens armed with information are sure they know better.

Unhappy with the scientific consensus that man's activities have exacerbated global warming? Then just find and promote the academic naysayers. Or merely post your personal musings: "Climate change, bah, there's a foot of snow on my lawn."

The rise of computer literacy, high-speed Internet connections, blogging and social networks has emboldened the common man to tell his own story and, sometimes, to disdain trappings like a university degree, professional training or corporate affiliation.

Emerging As Equals

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:52:55 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: :While more men over all suffer from the disorder because they are a majority of those deployed, Dr. Resick added, “people underestimate what these women have been through.”

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

For Vivienne Pacquette, being a combat veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder means avoiding phone calls to her sons, dinner out with her husband and therapy sessions that make her talk about seeing the reds and whites of her friends’ insides after a mortar attack in 2004.

As with other women in her position, hiding seems to make sense.

as women return to a society unfamiliar with their wartime roles, they often choose isolation over embarrassment.

Many spend months or years as virtual shut-ins

Never before has this country seen so many women paralyzed by the psychological scars of combat

Psychologically, it seems, they are emerging as equals

experts and veterans say, the circumstances of military life and the way women are received when they return home have created differences in how they cope

A man, for instance, may come home and drink to oblivion

Today's Web Jockeys Are Tomorrow's Grandparents

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:09:15 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

My mother, born in a Belarussian village before the advent of commercial radio, was by her late 90s using a cellphone, receiving e-mail messages from her family and asking me “what is this Twitter thing anyway?”

Some of the highest growth rates in broadband use are happening among the elderly. The Pew Research Center found that broadband use for those 65 and older increased from 19 percent in May 2008 to 30 percent in April 2009. Since 2005, broadband use has tripled in that group.

For those concerned that Microsoft’s Windows interface is too daunting for elders, Big Screen Live (bigscreenlive.com) simplifies the standard interface

While imagining your elderly uncle using high-tech devices to keep in touch might at first seem far-fetched, it’s only a matter of time before it is second nature. Just remember: today’s Web jockeys are tomorrow’s grandparents.

Election Day

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:19:08 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.365gay.com

There are lots of things about this country that grate and our history is a hodgepodge of greatness and shame. Yet election day mornings always stroke my patriotic genes. Sure at the end of the day I’m depressed all over again (being in the minority can do that for you), but there is something about a bunch of disparate people pulling a lever for politicians that gets me every time.

This wasn’t always the case, and I know too many liberals and conservatives who would have no problem returning to our past when it comes to voting (allowing only the “right” people access to the ballot). Thank goodness those backwood reactionaries are in the minority…at least for now.

Get out and vote,

Politics

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:13:40 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.mathewbinkley.org

Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian. -- Robert Orben

Republicans In Congress

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:44:29 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: Understanding complex issues in Washington is a big challenge and I'm incredibly excited about this new technology.

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: wowo

Pot Paradise

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:37:32 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "Jacqueline Patterson, 31, uses marijuana to treat her cerebral palsy and a severe stutter.
She fears she would be booted from the program if she tried to grow dope at home or buy it from street dealers.
The upshot, critics say, is that a law crafted to help sick people has morphed into a lucrative trade, one in which rural farms are supplying urban dispensaries that cater to mostly recreational users armed with doctors' recommendation"

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Education has long been preached as a way to keep kids away from drugs. It's the walk to school that has Supt. Tom Barnett worried.

Some students talk openly of farming pot after graduation, about the only opportunity in this depressed timber town.

"Marijuana is drying in their houses. It's falling out of their pockets."

This town has no stoplights. No home mail delivery. Nearly a quarter of its 1,900 residents are poor. But that hasn't stopped outsiders from bidding up the price of real estate with sun-soaked southern exposures, all the better to cultivate plants that can grow 12 feet high or taller.

Hikers have been threatened at gunpoint for wandering too close to where they aren't wanted.

"It's just torn the fabric of our society," said Judy Stewart, a 69-year-old retiree who has lived in Trinity County for more than 50 years. "It's pitted people against one another."