I'm Back because Fuck Everyone

My blog's 8th aniversary!

2014-10-18T09:40:00.002-07:00

I can't believe I missed my October 6th blog anniversary!

It's harder and harder to find time for this old friend of mine. I thought I was busy eight years ago with my lawyer husband, four homeschooled kids and two dogs in a cabin out in Big Arm, MT. Now I have six homeschooled kids, four dogs, forty chickens and frankly, just being the wife of the Oath Keeper guy is a full time job by itself.

Poor baby stayed out in the cold all night

Hopefully this year we'll add goats and sheep to the mix, as well, and at 40-something I am toying with the idea of one more round in the baby department. I do wish I was a few years younger though, but don't we all.

So much to rant about and generally my sarcastic snippets are more likely to be vented in short bursts on Reddit and Facebook than in a drawn out post.

Well, here's to eight more years of nonsensical, disorganized bitching.

-Tasha

Expansion of the terrorist watchlist requires neither “concrete facts” nor “irrefutable evidence”

2014-07-23T23:46:00.002-07:00

Well, well, well, back in 2004 my husband had about 100 books laying open on his desk and his auxiliary desk (the kitchen table), each one completely filled wit

h sticky tabs, bookmarks, torn strips of paper and thousands of little notes.

His paper, Solving the Puzzle of Enemy Combatant Status, was the product of those endless nights of note scribbling and is a brilliant fucking masterpiece (and like most masterpieces also really fucking depressing).

It basically lays out predictions of how looking for Taliban terrorists back in 2001 would eventually devolve into rounding up anyone who supports individual freedom as a terrorist and what it would look like. Spoiler Alert; it looks a lot like this shit right here.

We should turn this into a drinking game. Take a drink every time you're declared an extremist, a shot when you make a watchlist, drain the bottle when supporting the constitution gets a terrorist label slapped on your forehead.

-Tasha

The Secret Government Rulebook For Labeling You a Terrorist

The Obama administration has quietly approved a substantial expansion of the terrorist watchlist system, authorizing a secret process that requires neither “concrete facts” nor “irrefutable evidence” to designate an American or foreigner as a terrorist, according to a key government document obtained by The Intercept.

The “March 2013 Watchlisting Guidance,” a 166-page document issued last year by the National Counterterrorism Center, spells out the government’s secret rules for putting individuals on its main terrorist database, as well as the no fly list and the selectee list, which triggers enhanced screening at airports and border crossings. The new guidelines allow individuals to be designated as representatives of terror organizations without any evidence they are actually connected to such organizations, and it gives a single White House official the unilateral authority to place “entire categories” of people the government is tracking onto the no fly and selectee lists. It broadens the authority of government officials to “nominate” people to the watchlists based on what is vaguely described as “fragmentary information.” It also allows for dead people to be watchlisted.

Over the years, the Obama and Bush Administrations have fiercely resisted disclosing the criteria for placing names on the databases—though the guidelines are officially labeled as unclassified. In May, Attorney General Eric Holder even invoked the state secrets privilege to prevent watchlisting guidelines from being disclosed in litigation launched by an American who was on the no fly list. In an affidavit, Holder called them a “clear roadmap” to the government’s terrorist-tracking apparatus, adding: “The Watchlisting Guidance, although unclassified, contains national security information that, if disclosed … could cause significant harm to national security.” Continue here

Border Patrol Agent Draws Gun on Boy Scout

2014-07-22T18:15:00.001-07:00

This makes me so furious, my heart is thumping in my throat.

Boy Scouts walk to different events at the 2005 National Scout Jamboree. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You know, we hold nurse ins when some rouge cop tries to bully or shame a nursing mom into feeding her baby in a toilet stall (nothing like a little human E coli with lunch).

I really think these feds need a lesson in the law. It is not fucking illegal to take pictures- you fucking cock suckers (cock sucker, of course, being a term of endearment).

I think an organized protest of iphones snapping away at the border is a good idea.

I understand the temptation. But just because you wear a badge doesn't mean you get to make up the law to suit your druthers.

I can't just threaten arrest to people for wearing crocs or to Peter Jackson for chopping up the Hobbit.

It's because of this type of thing that I don't like to let my kids go on scouting trips that cross the border into Canada.

I feel bad sometimes because they do a lot of awesome events out in the Canadian Rockies and we're only a few miles down from the northern border (they also do a lot of stupid shit too-like hiking grizzly territory without firearms).

From Gondola, Banff, Alberta, Canada. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But I constantly worry that my kids, in particular, will be singled out because of who their dad is.

Anyway, article below.

-Tasha

Here is the blurb on this from Reason
A group of Boy Scouts from Central Iowa received a lesson they won't forget in federal manners at a border crossing from Canada into Alaska. According to the scoutmaster, a casual snapshot of a Border Patrol agent got the group of about two dozen scouts and volunteers detained, searched—and one of them ultimately held at gunpoint . . .

Continue here

Rand Paul; At least he sold out for a high price

2014-07-17T14:10:00.001-07:00

I forgive him for his sins; most notably endorsing Romney, because, lets face it, selling out for a presidency shot is pretty fucking understandable. Most people sell out their convictions for the sake of a more comfortable conversation over drinks.

So this Washington Post article sort of ripped on Zogby's latest poll . I'm not so sure that he would even be given a fair election but I'm looking forward to the fun.

I miss the old Ron Paul gang.

Late night sign painting party circa 2007

My three oldest kids when they were still little

Stewart Rhodes of Oath Keepers starting trouble even before he started Oath Keepers

I loved those Warhol style signs

-Tasha

NSA still withholding Documents on Death of UN Secretary-General over 50 Years Later

2014-07-17T11:19:00.001-07:00

Apparently, someone involved has lived too long. Just once I would love to see some honesty, just for the novelty of it.

This response to your request was dragged on as long as possible but was, unfortunately, not long enough.

Despite all our best efforts, some of the people involved in the aforementioned request are simply not dead yet. Previously released SIGINT documents all involved dead people.

The classified documents will continue to remain so until anyone who could possibly be implicated is wearing a toe tag.

Also, for fun a pic from the NSA beauty pageant

-Tasha

National Security Agency Refuses to Release Documents on Mysterious Death of UN Secretary-General Over 50 Years Ago

July 16, 2014

by Mary Curry

The NSA’s response to our FOIA appeal.

The National Security Agency continues to withhold all portions of two documents about the 1961 death of Secretary-General of the United Nations Dag Hammarskjold in Ndola, Northern Rhodesia – now Zambia. The Agency continues to withhold this historically significant material despite a FOIA appeal from the National Security Archive that provides specific examples of previously released SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) documents from the 1950s and 1960s and explains why the Agency should not treat fifty-year-old documents as though they were created today. The Agency’s response to the Archive’s appeal merely reiterated the same exemptions and statutes listed in its original August 2013 denial letter. Its response makes no reference to the evidence provided to the Agency. The Agency also refused to consider the wide public interest in the United States, the international community, and the United Nations for information about Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold’s mysterious and tragic death while flying to Ndola to resolve a conflict in the Congo. The Agency has refused to help clarify the historical record. The rest here

Is that rhetorical?

2014-07-16T03:51:00.001-07:00

Is The TSA The Most Monstrously Incompetent Agency In History?

Back in the 1960s my uncle took a small suitcase down from his closet. He packed it for a business trip and headed to the airport.

While passing through security the guard discovered a handgun. My uncle explained he hadn't realized it was in there. The guard then asked for my uncle's phone number so he could call his wife to pick it up. He unloaded it and made the call.

My uncle made his flight and likely slapped the stewardess on the ass. My aunt picked up the gun. The end.

No one was shot. No one was arrested. No one was probed.

-Tasha

Is The TSA The Most Monstrously Incompetent Agency In History?

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has identified a massive new threat to domestic airline security. No, it’s not ISIS, Al Qaeda, or the Taliban.

It’s the dead battery on your smartphone.

Last week, TSA announced what it called “enhanced security measures” in which passengers will be required to power up their cell phones before boarding their flight. According to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, TSA has “assesse[d] the global threat environment and reevaluate[d] the measures we take to promote aviation security.”

Your cell phone is evidently part of a “global threat environment,” and so it must be turned on in order to prove that it’s a legitimate mobile device.

“Powerless devices will not be permitted onboard the aircraft,” the TSA now threatens. “The traveler [with a powerless device] may also undergo additional screening.” It seems the only truly powerless device in this situation is the traveler, who must yet again submit to the whims of an incompetent and unthinking bureaucracy.

“Powerless devices will not be permitted on board the aircraft.” Presumably, that means you’ll either have to miss your flight or throw your phone away. A few questions spring to mind as a result of this new announcement: is the TSA incapable of simply having a phone charger on hand with which to test a “powerless device?” And is the agency so criminally inept that it has no way to determine whether a “powerless device” is, in fact, an explosive device?
Read the rest here
http://thefederalist.com/2014/07/15/is-the-tsa-the-most-monstrously-incompetent-agency-in-history/

Rehashing Michigan's lost "Right to Farm"

2014-07-16T00:30:00.001-07:00

This is an older article (from May) but it caught my eye all over again as it was being passed around on the homesteading sub-Reddit.

It's always about control, isn't it?

There is no other skill that is half so intimating to a control freak than the ability to feed oneself.

Barbaric governments use food control, just ask Mike Tyson's tattoo. Your mother-in-law probably does too. You know the thing where she offers to loan you money right when you're at your lowest. And you accept and suddenly she's telling you how to discipline your kids and now you feel all powerless to tell her to fuck off because you're still late on paying her?

Ya, that thing.

I'm just speaking in general terms here, of course.

And the crappier the location (made so by other outrageous laws) the more likely this is to go on and Michigan is the crème de la crème of crappy locations due to bullshit laws.

I really think everyone should grow a mother fucking corn field on their front lawn. It would cost almost nothing and if they really wanted to protest, let a few chickens go and have their merry chicken way with it all.

-Tasha

Michigan residents lost their “right to farm” this week thanks to a new ruling by the Michigan Commission of Agriculture and Rural Development. Gail Philburn of the Michigan Sierra Club told Michigan Live, the new changes “effectively remove Right to Farm Act protection for many urban and suburban backyard farmers raising small numbers of animals.” Backyard and urban farming were previously protected by Michigan’s Right to Farm Act. The Commission ruled that the Right to Farm Act protections no longer apply to many homeowners who keep small numbers of livestock.
Kim White, who raises chickens and rabbits, said, “They don’t want us little guys feeding ourselves. They want us to go all to the big farms. They want to do away with small farms and I believe that is what’s motivating it.” The ruling will allow local governments to arbitrarily ban goats, chickens and beehives on any property where there are 13 homes within one eighth mile or a residence within 250 feet of the property, according to Michigan Public Radio. The Right to Farm Act was created in 1981 to protect farmers from the complaints of people from the city who moved to the country and then attempted to make it more urban with anti-farming ordinances. The new changes affect residents of rural Michigan too. It is not simply an urban or suburban concern.

English: Chickens at Daubies Farm (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Shady Grove Farm in Gwinn, Michigan is the six and a half acre home to 150 egg-laying hens that provide eggs to a local co-op and a local restaurant. The small Michigan farm also homes sheep for wool and a few turkeys and meat chickens to provide fresh healthy, local poultry. “We produce food with integrity,” Randy Buchler told The Blaze

Read more at http://www.inquisitr.com/1235774/michigan-loses-right-to-farm-this-week-a-farewell-to-backyard-chickens-and-beekeepers/#fBdoc83YifLHRVDk.99

A story of two births Part I

2014-04-22T20:19:00.001-07:00

I do have to go back in time a bit for this birth story; not to go into excruciating detail about how I discovered homebirth and how I never saw myself as the type.

No, I’m the type.

I’ve always been the type.

I have to go back to tell you about another birth, the one that happened two years, two days and eight hours before this one.

I had five beautiful kids and while I considered having more, I was pretty focused on getting back into shape. I spent my life as a fit, size one but after five children I had evolved into something that barely squeezed (and I mean squeezed, because I would not wear a fourteen) into a twelve. So if I was going to have more it was going happen after I lost ten more pounds.

Then something really weird started happening.

All my life I’d had these sort of “psychic” moments. Nothing too dramatic, just a few odd things; I would occasional hear someone’s thoughts. Once in a great a while I’d have a dream that would unfold a few days later in real life. It was always something unbelievably mundane and meaningless.

Once I was so very excited to find a Pinesol type cleaner that was potpourri scented. An hour later my husband called to ask me, “What the hell is potpourri?” and why hasn’t he been able to get the word out of his head for the last hour.

I often dubbed myself the World’s most useless psychic. If nothing important were to happen that day, I would the first to know the details of it.

But overnight the events went from three, four times a year to several times a week. It was very strange, even for me.

And then I realized I hadn’t had a period in forever.

I was pregnant, almost twelve weeks. I had been so busy I just didn’t notice. With all my other pregnancies I had been waiting to be far enough along for a pregnancy test to even work. I always knew. This one had crept up on me.

My best friend in the entire world was a midwife. For my past pregnancies she had flown all over the country to help birth my kids. She retired because she was battling breast cancer but had still driven three and a half hours in the night to deliver my youngest son.

She was so so thrilled to find I was pregnant again. She was in no shape to deliver a baby but was determined to be there for it. A deeply spiritual person; Kay believed strongly that the door to generations before was wide open during a birth.

For months we made plans. My wonderful Montana midwife, Marcy (the same midwife who delivered my fourth baby) was more than willing to deliver this baby while my friend, Kaye, helped in anyway she could.

Kaye’s condition worsened quite a bit over those months. We decided we would rent a motor home and her partner could drive. They could set up in our yard, we had plenty of room. I’d have the baby there, in the motor home.

Kaye was determined to be there for this birth. Her family told how she did everything she could think of to keep strong.

Meanwhile, as my pregnancy continued so did this strange psychic phenomenon. I’d dream some silly scene, just some person pushing a cart across a store while the cashier announced something on the PA . The next day it would happen in front of me. But along with all this trivial stuff came something else; an unending sense of forebode.

I could not imagine this pregnancy ending well.

I tried really hard to figure out why I felt this way (and tried harder to ignore the idea it might simply be a premonition). My first thought was that after five perfect pregnancies and five super easy births, maybe I felt I was pushing my luck. I was 38 years old. Two of my friends who had this many children also experienced (including Kaye) a stillbirth. I reasoned that this, this was why I felt this way.

Kaye often talked of pregnancy being the walk through the valley in the shadow of death; that you were a bridge between worlds. I know a lot of this came from her own experience. She had been carrying twins when one stopped moving. She gave her still alive baby three more weeks in her womb so he could have the time he needed, and then induced herself, six weeks early.

We talked a little about birth and death being intertwined.

Kaye felt as strongly about death as she did birth. She would not numb herself, she didn’t want to miss any time she had left to foggy, dulled thinking.

I did not tell her about this sense of dread I carried because she carried so much of her own.

I did tell my Montana midwives. Marcy set up a thorough ultrasound at the hospital to put me at ease. They checked for everything imaginable. Everything was absolutely perfect.

We made a trip from Montana to Las Vegas while I was in my 28^th week. In Vegas, we spent some time with Kaye. She wanted to feel my belly. Her arms and hands were swollen and huge; one arm was almost unusable from her non functioning lymph nodes. Two people helped her stand while her daughter filmed what everyone knew to be her last prenatal.

After we left, she told her daughter she couldn’t trust her own hands because they were so swollen but she felt something wasn’t right.

By the time we made it back to Montana I was 30 weeks along. I realized that my own fear had kept me from bonding with my baby. I was still unable to visualize the birth and focus on it like I had always done at this point in pregnancy, but I at least felt I needed to visualize my baby. I hadn’t even begun to prepare for her. So I forced myself to remedy that. I found a car seat on eBay and ordered a bouncer seat online. I picked up a few more baby clothes. While standing in the Salvation Army, I heard someone’s newborn baby cry. At that moment, I almost cried myself. I imagined that sound coming from my own baby. I imagined nursing her and looking into her eyes. Just hearing that baby’s beautiful cry had allowed me to really intellectualize that I was going to have a baby. This baby was alive and kicking. Everything in the ultrasound had been perfect. Her heartbeat was perfect (I was calling the baby her at this point because I felt it was a girl, but we hadn’t checked). And soon, I convinced myself, I would be hearing that beautiful sound from my own baby.

I stood in that stupid thrift store aisle between a broken organ with twenty thousand “do not play” signs and a row of stretched out bras and fell in love.

I held onto that feeling. I couldn’t seem to stop the sense of dread and fear but I could push passed it and remember how much I loved my baby. I went in for a prenatal and again everything was perfect. By the next check up it would be time to order my birth kit.

I was at 32 weeks. My little boy laid his head on my belly to talk to the baby like he did every night. She kicked back a little like she always did. He drifted off to sleep and so did I.

I awoke about an hour later to the hardest kicking I have ever felt. I told myself everything was fine. Only a crazy person thinks a baby kicking hard is a bad sign but down inside I knew those would be her last kicks. I fell into a deep deep sleep.

Later that day we would go in to check on her because she hadn’t moved. It would all play out like I had seen in my head a million times. No heartbeat from the Doppler, off to the hospital, no heart beat on the ultrasound. It took two weeks and two attempts to get labor started; I just wasn’t ready to let her go.

I had never had a hospital birth or a hospital anything before. They had me on Cytotec, Pitocin, a ton of IVs. And I really didn’t give a f**k. I didn’t take any pain meds. I wanted to be there for it all. I didn’t want to give anything less to her than I gave my others.

I didn’t want doctors and nurses around my baby. I’m still not sure how it happened but somewhere in that time span, the room sort of cleared out. I think the doctors and nurses didn’t know enough about a natural birth (at least pain wise natural) to understand that the baby was about to be born. My midwives Marcy and Carrie walked in then to visit and check on us. The baby came then with one small push. Caught by midwives while the staff were strangely gone from the room.

Kaye was on the phone through a lot of it. She was devastated. She had been living for this birth. She reminded me that I would want to take time with my baby; to look at her and look at her as long as I could. And so we did. We spent hours with her. But it wasn’t enough.

It will never be enough.

Because at the end, we still had to hand her over to the morgue people and at the end my three year old couldn’t understand why we left our baby at the hospital.

A few weeks later my due date came, and a few days after that, Kay died in her sleep.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We kept ourselves very busy for the net year. We signed our kids up for tons of sports, scouting, and every second of summer was some type of out door activity. After the summer we moved form town to a place in the country. I needed the change of scenery. We grew a garden, had chickens, staying busy was the thing.

I still wasn’t able to be around an infant though. It set off an almost PTSD reaction. My youngest who was three when the baby died (Sonora Rain was her name) couldn’t watch or read anything with a baby in it without crying.

This weird psychic thing was still going on a year or so later and then suddenly it stopped. I realized it had been forever since a dream or daydream had come true. I couldn’t remember when I’d picked up on someone’s thoughts last.

It was a beautiful summer day, just before the fourth of July when I discovered I was pregnant again.

And this time it felt wonderful. There was no sense of dread. I was certainly scared but more in a gun shy sort of way instead of the ominous sensation that had followed me with the last pregnancy.

After almost twenty years of marriage and endless gypsy roving we bought our first (and last!) house. Moving was quite an adventure. We are practically an army. We had a blast one upping our game of “What’s the most redneck thing you’ve ever done?”. This move brought on so many hillbilly opportunities. In the end, we decided that moving the chicken coop full of chickens, miles down the road was the topper. Extra credit was given when the neighbors’ peacocks ran down the road the whole way behind it.

I nested like crazy. I planned and overspent and over-organized. I bought cloth diapers because, I reasoned, we lived so far out in the country, but really it was because they were all so pretty. I watched a million YouTube videos on cloth diapering. I exhausted every home birth story available on line (if your story says homebirth in the tile- I have read it) occasionally running into one of my own stories and sometimes not recognizing them until halfway through.

I was positive this baby was a boy. We chose Justice for the name either way (but this was definitely a boy).

I ordered everything I could possibly need. When it came time for my birth kit I agonized where to set up. I washed and re-washed baby clothes.

About 38 weeks in we thought we would go in for another ultrasound just to be sure (we had had one a while back as well). We live over an hour from our midwives (the same ones who caught Sonora, this birth would be closure and healing for them, as well). We were thinking of giving my body a nudge to labor just before my due date (I usually go over by a week or more) while they waited at my house for something to happen. I have history of ridiculously short labors. Even if I called right away, had I gone into labor naturally, an hour might not be enough time.

This ultrasound would let us know if the position was good and, if so, we could then start evening primrose oil (to soften my cervix).

……………………………………………………………………….

The ultrasound tech was a bit gruff and hostile (toward homebirth, I believe) and a bit scared because of my history. She said the water was far too low. My placenta wasn’t doing its job. The baby was small and wasn’t showing the deep breathing pattern she liked to see. I looked over to see tears running down five year olds cheek.

Midwife Marcy called in her favorite doc. The doc had spoken with the tech. and it seemed dire to all of us. I wondered if my baby was OK. Had my failing placenta already harmed him? We did the non stress test. The doc seemed a bit muddled, as all seemed perfect to her. She said to go home for now, but come back in two days to check again and possibly start labor. This would not be a home birth unless I went into labor within two days on my own. I knew this would not happen.

I felt like I was caught up in a whirlwind of fear and this desperate sensation of wanting a baby that I would never have. At the very least I would have a hospital birth. I had spent this entire pregnancy reassuring my now five year old that this birth would be nothing like the last one, that there would be no hospital, no doctors, he would never be separate from me. He could hold my hand the entire time and then he could hold the baby’s live wiggling hand. But now we were looking at induction of my very stubborn cervix two weeks prior to my due date and at least three weeks before I would normally give birth. I was not at all convinced that induction would work. Even if the baby (a big if) were alive and healthy, at the very least I was going get hacked and possibly separated from my baby and I was going to break my promise to my already traumatized five year old.

Two days later after having torn apart my home birth station, I did what I have never done before. I packed a hospital bag. Car seat in the car, nightgown, toothbrush; I wasn’t sure what to bring, in seventeen years of babies it never crossed my mind. I grabbed some baby things and also unearthed the “Welcome with Love” home birth storybook. I promptly threw it against the wall.

We met our midwife at the doctor's office where she would do her own ultrasound and non-stress test.

I noticed immediately that her demeanor was considerably more relaxed than two days ago. She had since gone over the ultrasound pics herself and found them not dire but inconclusive. She then ran her own scans and found the water to be a little higher than average. Then baby’s hear beat was perfect. His breathing pattern was perfect. He was a good sized kid. And he was busy playing with his toes. You’d swear someone nudged him and whispered act casual. This was not a baby in a life threatening situation.

And then the doctor said this,

“I see no reason why you couldn’t still have a home birth.”

I could have sobbed with relief and I did but I waited until we got to the car. All of us, my husband, all my kids, we just sat in the car and soaked it in. We were all smiling with relief

She still wanted to see me have this baby by the due date as the risks go up quite a bit after the date at my advanced age (can you just feel my disdain for that term in the italics?).

At 39 weeks and 3 days the midwife crew showed up with every midwifery/witchcraft/medicinal /herbal concoction known or imagined or once thought of to possibly start labor.

And so that afternoon we began

Every 15 minutes I was trying something else. I kept walking. I kept taking herbs. I’d get a few contractions here and there but nothing too real. My cervix was opening and softening a little. That evening I felt a pop that almost seemed audible.

Oh, I know that sound, mucus plug and water all in one pop. Well, this was good, it meant that all these herbs were doing something, but now it meant yet another clock ticking threat. It meant I had to get into established labor within a certain number of hours. I didn’t even ask how many, but I knew the drill, if the bottle of castor oil comes out, I’ll know I’m approaching deadline time.

Everyone started getting tired.

We all went to bed for a bit.

Crazy is the new Enemy Combatant Status

2012-12-09T15:24:00.000-08:00

Akin (almost) to the witch hunt of 17 century Salem; there was a time during the early 20th century when the ultimate oppression against someone you didn't like was to threaten a lock-up in the loony bin.

You only have to sit through a few old flicks before you see it used as part of a slapstick routine, like with a lot of things we're afraid of; we laugh.

Uh oh, Jeb made a snide remark about the mayor's wife -here comes the paddy wagon. Look likes the boys got a straight jacket for ya, Jeb.

-Cut to hilarious lobotomy scene.

We shake our heads and tsk tsk this simplistic view of behavioral oddities while producing Hollywood blockbusters and docudramas at the injustice done under the guidance of ignorance.

Nooo, you don't understand, the stretchy pants help me save lives, dammit.

Seizures that look like staring spells? Lock him up.

A female who likes to fuck?

Clearly, this is a dangerous mental ailment.

Someone who believes in a god the rest of us don't (or none at all)? Evidently the subject is bat-shit fucking crazy.

The motivations are obvious now. This was a user-friendly weapon and it was fired against anyone targeted out of fear.

This idea of locking people up for having unpopular ideas has fallen out of fashion over the last few decades.

I credit the hippies' coming of age for the decriminalization of eccentricity and sandals.

But now the power elites, who, I must say, have really had their nose to the grindstone, at this whole "hate them for their freedom" thing, have discovered that their new toys aren't all that useful, at least for the time being. Political pressure against the use of NDAA and the media (internet, anyway) firestorm over enemy combatant status makes these weapons of purge politically difficult to use (especially for a democratic president).

So now, once again, having Jeb hauled to the loony bin is looking like a pretty doable option.

The building designation is of little solace when you're locked inside it.

And I really have to wonder;

where have all the hippies gone?

The common factor in all of these columns of power is a shared building block: in none of these situations do you stand before a jury of your peers.

And it really is poetic and kind of beautiful to think; that with all their unimaginable wealth and unfathomable power they are still so very terrified of a jury of 12.

Norman Rockwell's The Holdout

How do we know this is coming? Because power elites telegraph their next move

About a million years ago before half a baseball team called me mommy, I did a little boxing and I kind of sucked. I sucked because under no circumstance could I throw a jab without telegraphing. If you telegraph your jab, you don't have a jab. If you don't have a jab, you don't have shit (I didn't have shit).

And here it is; they don't have shit either because they keep telegraphing their next move. They telegraph by feeding the media everything they need to feed them to smooth out the road.

Here is what they've telegraphed over the last year of so; every criminal is suffering from mental illness (batman murders, Bran Raub -covered by Oath Keepers here ). No longer are we hearing about all the vices of their pre-crime life, all the juicy details of who they dated, who they voted for and what type of porn they watched. All we hear now is how terrible and sad it was that someone didn't notice this mental illness sooner and "do something about it".

But is the media really that complacent? Would they really repeat what they're told ? Aren't they just trying to get the good stories? To be best and first?

Well, yes and yes.

King Stern

Many years ago Michael Jackson's press people (I swear this ties in) started referring to him as the king of pop (The king was already taken by Elvis Presley -who had a nose).

Media outlets, battling to get in close to be first with any MJ news were eager to impress his peeps. They hoped to get on his gatekeepers' good side and gobbled up the king of pop line. They slung it better then his own press agents did. Sometimes even skipping his name to make room for his title.

Some years later, Howard Stern commented that he found this absurdly hilarious and loudly proclaimed he would do the same. He would just give himself a title, any title. He would repeat it. He would ask to be introduced by it. And he would favor media who repeated it.

Go ahead; Google "The king of all media".

And that was just the entertainment industry.

Yes, the stakes are fairly high. There is money. There is fame. There are careers to make and break.

But is it as high stakes as war? The leadership of a nation? The world? What about billions or trillions of dollars? Is it crazy to think that that amount of power and position could slant an individual reporter?

Power players and those who cheer lead for them would call this conspiracy theory.

I prefer to call it human nature.

In a world filled with sociopaths you only have to follow the trails of self interest to see where we're headed.

Crazy is the new Enemy Combatant Status/NDAA and is every bit as dangerous.

-Tasha

See Also;

Marine Veteran Brandon Raub, Victim of Soviet Style Pre-crime Detention

The Emperor Drinks Boxed Wine

2012-08-13T08:38:00.000-07:00

Recently there was a show on one of the Discovery channels focusing on all the ways our subconscious minds fuck with us. In one segment a wine taste test was given to multiple targets. One poured from a box, one from a French wine bottle.

No surprises here, the targets swished and sniffed and twirled and declared this new French wine to be something fruity yet woodsy, fresh yet matured and simply elegant on the palate.

They shook their heads and rolled their eyes at the wine-in-a-box. They wrinkled their noses at just the sniff of it, as if to say, "I'll be a good sport and try it, but my accomplished olfactory already tells me this inadequate inebriate is of wino paper bag variety."

Of course, the twist ending was both wines were from the same cheap box.

Did they really believe the bottled stuff tasted better? Is it that they trusted so much in the price tag, set by experts, that their own taste buds were rendered completely numb? It is possible but I don't that's it.

The thing is; we lie to ourselves all the time, but we're not usually all that convincing when we do it.

I believe they saw this as a chance to feel superior to the masses. To finally look down from above at those box drinkers. With such an obvious - pick the dainty bottle over the cardboard box- password, to the super secret upper echelon club, who could refuse?

But why, why do we care? Why do we want so much to be a puffed-up compatriot of the preferential posh?

All of us are expert in something.

I don’t know shit about French wine.

I can only estimate the price afterwards; by degree of headache. I know the difference between a your and a you’re. Does that make me, by internet forum decree, better than someone who doesn’t know a there, from a their, from a they’re, but can reassembled a car’s engine with her eyes closed?

Why do we do this? Is this just basic tribalism? Is this desperate need to be accepted into something exclusive worse now than years ago when we were surrounded by a multi-generational family? Or maybe this is nothing new. Maybe this is just yet another off-shoot of royalty/celebratory worship.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pink vs. Gray Vaginas

When my husband first started law school, we had a neighbor who attended art school. This was one of the top, and therefore one of the highest stress (think cut-throat business world intrigue, then up it a notch) art schools in the country.

My neighbor’s art was always some type of vagina. It was sometimes rainbowed, sometimes flashing, sometimes ethereal, but always, always, it was some type of vagina.

Despite her inspired passionate drive, she was never really in the art school incrowd. These were the people who would be chosen to 'make it' in the fast paced, who's who, latex wearing, world of art.

Georgia O’Keeffe; subtlety was not her thang

For her senior project exhibition she created a covered walk-way, filled with neon light, you guessed it, vaginas. The floor was granite tile and the effect was actually quite pleasing to the eye. The light reflected onto the floor making a delightful, flashing, twinkling vaginal reflection. People walking through commented on how pretty it was. They would stand with hands leaning against the very shiny, very pink archway wall opening and wonder aloud what it could all mean . . .

Neon Virginia? Close enough

At the end of the second day's showing, our neighbor, reacting to the weight and constant pressure of her supervisors' disapproval and her peers' non-stop eye rolling at, what they considered, her unsophisticated display, broke down and, for lack of a better term, flipped her shit.

She purchased a gallon of gray paint and overnight, dumped it out and sloshed and smeared it all over the floor and structure of her cunt-cabana. It looked like mud, but more dreary.

The next day people could not get out of there fast enough.

The director of the department followed visitors around and listened to their comments as part of the grading assessment.

They all said how ugly it was, mostly "Eww, gross" and "OKaaay, that was weird."

Our neighbor was officially inducted into the in crowd that day.

The director congratulated her and told she had finally done it.

She had made people experience something they didn’t wish to experience and, in this, had embodied the true essence of an artist.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is everyone full of shit?

It's examples like this that make one wonder, how much bluster and bullshit are the upper spheres of any area of society full of?

I suspect the answer is a lot.

Because all of us are knowledgeable in something, all of us have experienced a similar unveiling of the wizard. We have all witnessed the bona fide, recognized expert in our own area of knowledge buffoon his way through an appearance and talk out of his ass. It's no surprise but disappointing, all the same, to see that he really doesn't sport a giant green papier mâché head.

Maybe it's the anti-elitist in me, but while I have an interminable, boundless faith in the power of the average person, who may or may not know a your from a you're, to achieve seemingly impossible heights, at the same time, I have a deeply ingrained suspicion when an expert claims to know better than the rest of us.

I leave you with a kind of long but, worth it, except from the autobiographical novel; Expecting Adam.

This ridiculous snippet made the email circuit at Yale, for obvious reasons, usually titled Faking it at Harvard (as if no one at Yale did the same).

And maybe I don't have an artist's eye but I still really think vaginas are better in pink.

-Tasha

From Expecting Adam by Martha Beck ;

It was mid-November and the few remaining leaves rattled on the trees. I welcomed the winter chill, since icy air helped keep my mind off the nausea. I breathed it carefully one day as I waddled over to William James Hall (known to the intelligentsia as Billy Jim) to attend a class. I arrived a few minutes early and decided to use the extra time to visit a friend in the Psychology Department, one floor above the Sociology Department, where my class was held. My friend was in her lab, conducting an experiment that consisted of implanting wires into the brains of live rats, then making the rats swim around in a tub of reconstituted dried milk. She told me why she was doing this, but I have no memory of what she said. Maybe she was making soup. Whatever the reason, she had put the rats and the milk in a children’s wading pool, the kind you fill up with a hose so that toddlers can splash around on a hot summer day. The tub was decorated with pictures of Smurfs. Smurfs, for those of you who are not culturally aware, are little blue people whose antics you may have observed on Saturday morning cartoons during the 1980s. I personally feel that the Smurfs were cloying, saccharine little monsters, but Katie adored them.

After chatting with my rat-molesting friend for a moment, I excused myself and headed downstairs for the seminar. There were seven or eight other graduate students in attendance, along with a couple of extra professors who had come to hear the latest twist on established theories. I felt the way I always did when I walked into a classroom at Harvard, that I had just entered a den of lions — not starving lions, perhaps, but lions who were feeling a little peckish. The people in the room were fearsomely brilliant, and I was always terrified that I would say just one completely idiotic thing, make one breathtakingly asinine comment that would expose me as a boorish, politically incorrect half-wit.

“Ah, Martha,” said the course instructor, “we’ve been waiting for you.” I blushed. I had stopped at the rest room to blow a few chunks, and had been hoping that the class would start a bit late. I did not want to be the focus of attention.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was upstairs in the Psych lab, watching rats swim around in a Smurf pool.”

“I see,” said the instructor. “Yes, I believe I’ve read about that.”

A professor, one of the visiting dignitaries, chimed in. “How is Smurf’s work going?” he inquired. “I understand he’s had some remarkable findings.”"Yes,” said a graduate student. “I read his last article.”

There was a general murmur of agreement. It seemed that everyone in the room was familiar with Dr. Smurf, and his groundbreaking work with swimming rats. It took me a few discombobulated seconds to figure out that everyone at the seminar assumed a Smurf pool was named for some famous psychological theorist. I guess they thought it was like a Skinner box, the reinforcement chamber used by B.F. Skinner to develop the branch of psychological theory known as behaviorism. Comprehension blossomed in my brain like a lovely flower.
“I think,” I said solemnly, “that Smurf is going to change the whole direction of linguistic epistemology.”

They all agreed, nodding, saying things like “Oh, yes,” and “I wouldn’t doubt it.”
I beamed at them, struggling desperately not to laugh. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to mock these people. I was giddy with exhilaration, because after seven years at Harvard, I was just beginning to realize that I wasn’t the only one faking it.

-From Expecting Adam by Martha Beck

Joy After Loss

2012-08-06T00:00:00.000-07:00

There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy -Mark Twain

I don't down own the copy-write to grief. If we are lucky enough to live long enough we lose those we love.

We just do.

To experience loss is to experience the full palette of human emotion in all its vibrancy and darkness.

When it happens earlier in life it seems shocking. When it happens a little later in life we view it as a sort of phase. We realize we all must face these things at some point. Our friends and family are derailed by tragedies and we wait, watch and help while they go through it. When it happens toward the end of our lives, well, we view it as an inevitable part of the ride; another signal that our time is coming too.

If there is such a thing as scale of loss and I'm not sure there is, mine falls on the lower end. I did not know my baby as a little girl or as a teenager or as a young woman. I never heard her laugh or tucked her in at night. I don't have those memories of her to mourn.

I mourn the possibilities.

I stare at her little empty car seat and imagine buckling her in. I see the empty seat in my truck between my two youngest and visualize her in the middle. I see the empty table place and imagine her high chair there.

While she is not physically here; she holds a window, a view of what might have been.

If there is a spectrum of grief I cannot begin to fathom the outer edge; losing a child whom I knew, one who colored my life beyond the eight months that I carried mine. To lose her so young is such a very sad thing. But is it any different from what we all must face at some point?

As a little girl I had seen such grief in my father, when my parents received a call that my 22 year old half sister had died. I could hear from the hall what sounded like laughter, but not. I was five at the time. I had never heard my dad cry. Peeking around the corner into my parent's room; I watched my dad hit his knees with his hands clasped out in front of him. I didn't know what happened but I knew it wasn't laughter I was hearing. The neighbors came by and picked me up “to play”. Hours later I learned what had happened from their kids. And while my father grieved his little girl, my 22 year old sister also had a little girl of her own whose life was upended in ways I cannot imagine.

So clearly I do not own grief. It is public domain. We all own a share.

But mostly what I want to talk about are the little oddities of the experience, the strange places where joy can be found even among such sadness. I find my emotions don't always "match up" with the store bought variety. I suspect no one's grief squares with what it is "suppose" to be.

I find joy and peace in anything that proves she existed. And in anything that makes me feel she still exists in some way.

Anything that makes her feel real brings me great joy. The photos of us holding her and seeing her little plaster hand cast on the shelf bring me such serenity. I dream of her at night and sometimes in the dreams she's alive for just a little while and I get to see her eyes. She looks right at me. You would think such a dream would be devastating but to see her looking back at me is such a beautiful experience that I smile when I wake up. It feels like I've been given a small sweet gift.

I have a habit of counting my kids when we're out and about. I do it so often that I don't really hear the numbers anymore. When I've mentally checked them all off, I go right back to what I was doing. If I don't get to the right number, I look to see who is missing and why and then I count again. Ever since the death and subsequent birth of my daughter my brain doesn't feel satisfied when I reach five. My mind rings the someone is missing bell so I start to count again. Mid-way through the second count I realize who is missing and why.

This brings me joy, an odd bittersweet kind of joy.

It tells me that somewhere beneath the veil of consciousness, my mind detects her.

She was really here and somewhere, in some form, she still exists.

It tells me that the empty space is not really as empty as it seems.

Baby Sonora Rain with Mom, Dad and brothers and sisters

-Tasha

Is Skut Farkus style Obamacare really that big of a deal?

2012-07-05T15:36:00.000-07:00

What does it really mean? I mean the philosophy is fucked, that is a fact.

A governing body that makes decisions based on how much power it can gain and how much money it can can avoid spending will essentially be in control of our lives and our bodies.

You want to drink raw milk? No, that's up to us now. Vaccinations? Well, we're in charge so that's up to us now, too and you know how we feel about that. Oh, and we do things about twenty years behind the times so, high fat? That's bad. Salt? That's bad too or it was fifteen years ago. Corn syrup is awesome though, so plenty of that if you're to be an upstanding citizen. Birth at home? Nope, not allowed.

Also, make sure you and your kids load up on pharmaceuticals like all the good people of the world who wash their cars on Sundays do. What's that? You don't want your children on drugs? Sounds like child abuse. We'll have to declare you unfit.

The possibilities are endless.

It's like accepting a gift of money from your mother-in- law. Oh you thought that was free?

No, the price is your kids wear the clothes she likes and do the activities she likes. Don't don't like beauty pageants? Too bad, mom loves them and if you want the goods, you'll make peace with having your daughter twirl on the runway while mom,"Ooohs and Aawws".

So yes, the philosophy is fucked.

How much of this health care plan that is philosophically and legally feasible is actually politically feasible and how much and how far can they push? Well, we shall see.

This will affect everyone.

NDAA however, is the power to kill.

NDAA is the power to imprison.

NDAA is the power to send anyone to a foreign land to place a check mark for all of the above.

It does not affect everyone. It only affects those who are politically expedient for it to affect.

That is me

and possibly, if you are an active libertarian; that is you.

Control over health care is important in that it really truly does affect everyone . Not just those at the top of Martin Niemöller's first they came for . . . list .

So maybe, in that way, it really truly is that important.

Maybe this is the today's tea tax and or stamp act. Those not yet jaded and so full of enthusiasm had no idea the road ahead in this movement (thank God). Maybe, combined with the hard cold reality that Ron Paul could not get a fair shake, and make no mistake, to the young people who were new to the idea of freedom, the fact that the laws do not apply to those in charge was a cold hard and surprising slap, it really is important.

Here's to hoping that now that it is evident, we are not getting what we wanted for Christmas, that we received a deserved C+ on our response to NDAA, that maybe this health care shove from Skut Farkus and his yellow eyes, so help me, yellow eyes, was just one shot too many.

-Tasha

Life Lesson From Dad or Never Walk with Your Hands in Your Pockets

2010-12-12T00:10:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid, my dad had a theory that you should never walk around with your hands in your pockets.

He was quite a story teller and many a tale had misfortune woven into it via a man rendered helpless by trapped hands.

One day while going up a restaurant stairwell on a family evening out to dinner. A guy came up behind us and sort of "cut us off" and entered the stairwell first.

The free handed man in the danger sign above is far better off than our poor protagonist

His hands planted firmly into his Dockers and sleeves of his silver Members Only jacket pushed up to his elbows as he clip-clopped by.

Toady a Members' Only jacket is vintage cool; in 1983 it meant you were a dork like this guy.

He was also whistling (my dad had many many theories about people who whistle, mostly that they are full of themselves ) he made it to the top step, tripped and rolled all the way down like a kid rolling down a grassy hill and landed at our feet.

His hands never came out of his pockets.

He pulled one hand free when he landed to help himself up and then re-pocketed it and whistled off.

It was like my dad's imagination suddenly materialized in front of us.

-Tasha

River is here.

2008-12-11T14:00:00.000-08:00

Yes, I have a new little nursling. He is perfect. 8 lbs. 1 oz. and 20 inches. It was an awesome birth with one our dearest friends as midwife and very little pain (for childbirth) . All our kids where there and cut the cord together. He was born Saturday night (Nov. 15th). The night of the Couture Lesnor UFC). Our TV equipment is somewhat jacked and we have no ability to record. So ya-I watched the UFC in labor. It was really kind of nice -took my mind off of the contractions. My husband joked that he should film me commenting on fights and stopping to moan. My midwife/friend lives 3 1/2 hours away and I tend to labor pretty quickly, so her advice was soak in a tub, relax and slow the contractions. So I soaked in a tub for an hour or so then went downstairs to watch fights. I managed to concentrate on slowing them to ten minutes apart just until my friend arrived . She showed up as the last fight ended and we wandered upstairs to have a baby. We hung out and talked a bit and I secretly felt that I had already dilated to ten but, frankly, I just didn't feel mentally up to pushing. The whole feeling like you're about to rip apart thing just didn't appeal to me. I figured I'd wait until I really felt that pushing urge. So just as I felt a little pushy, I asked her to check me and sure enough I was ready. I think I pushed for about 15 minutes and gave birth at 10:56 PM. Luckily there was still pizza left.

Birth and death belong at home

2008-10-02T12:45:00.000-07:00

The whole reason I started this blog some two years ago, aside from from having a new little nursling and needing something to do while I sat and nursed and nursed and nursed, is I had something on my mind but it always seemed a little too much to put into words in one sitting.

Now two years later I realize that I am just never going to find the time to lay it all out. Frankly, if I had been able to go to school, I think my focus would have been this topic. But since I'm a frazzled, hurried, all of my life is a blur mom, I think I'll only be able to say all I want to say in segments.

We'll start with a film.

If you were all in in my class I would say it is required viewing for all students.

Here a link to the PBS synopsis and in case you're still living in the dark ages of Blockbuster's new release or nothing selection I'm also linking to Netflix, where it is actually available on their instant watch menu. So you can watch it right now and never even leave your chair.

Here is a clip and a link to the rest of an L.A. times piece.

So my two much for one post, multi-blog rant in a nutshell is, the process of birth and death are are so deeply rooted into our subconscious minds that hiring both of these out to professionals and having no part in the process of either is of great detriment to our emotional well being.

No one even wants to think about either one of them and yet these are the only two things we have in common with every person who has ever lived.

Oh yeah -I got a lot of ranting to do.

-Tasha

Crying and Digging

Reclaiming the realities and rituals of death

By Nancy Rommelmann,

For centuries in America, we tended to our dead. People died at home, and relatives prepared the body, laid it out in the parlor and sat by as callers paid final respects. The body was buried in the family cemetery, if there was one, or on the back 40; pieties were spoken, and life went on until the next person died. Death, if not a welcome visitor, was a familiar one. This changed, incrementally, during the Civil War, when others were paid to undertake the job of transporting the bodies of soldiers killed far from home; this is when formaldehyde as an embalming agent was first used. But it was only 100 years ago that we began routinely to hand over our dead to the undertakers. Soon the gravely ill as well were deemed too taxing, and moved to hospitals to die. Within decades, what had for millennia been familial responsibilities were appropriated by professionals.

"People think we're not emotionally capable, let alone physically capable, of carrying this out," says Jerri Lyons. "Well, what were we doing before when we weren't supposedly able to take care of people?"

The rest here

No cool title today

2008-10-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

This whole birth thing is sort of creeping up on me. Yesterday I hit 34 weeks, this is sort of deadline in the world of homebirth. It's when you order your birth kit and when you start taking some gentle herbs to ready your uterus.

Since this is most likely my last baby, I've pulled out the stops. I just ordered a belly cast kit and yesterday we splurged on a 4D ultrasound. We also cheated and found out we're having a boy. I always liked being surprised but I thought it would cool to know this time around.

The 4D thing is pretty amazing. With six weeks to go, we discovered this little guy is already 6lbs.

It's seems so strange to look at this little guy and know that he's only a few inches from the outside world. It seems like it should be so simple for him to get outside.

Oh well, the next deadline for me is about two weeks out when I start knocking on the neighbors doors and telling them not to call the police when they hear blood curdling screams coming from my house.

-Tasha

Nevada Ron Paul delegates, hospitals and flying chairs

2008-09-10T11:30:00.000-07:00

I am purposely avoiding the topic of elections. We had something absolutely insane happen, here in Nevada, with our RNC delegates. Essentially, what it breaks down to is a year of my life and thousands of dollars wasted.

I have to wonder if Kent Snyder really needed to literally give his life to the cause of liberty, when no one really appreciated it. I’m just not even ready to discuss how entirely fucked up, Benedict Arnold style, these last few weeks have been.

So I’m just going to talk about my mundane life.

Today’s outrage? Hospitals

My mom broke her back last Friday.

My mom is in her seventies, but this was not a- fall out of bed and break your hip- type thing.

My parents had a window manufacturer for some forty years and after my dad died, she and my aunt (also in her seventies) cleared out the glass shop BY THEMSELVES.

Yes, I am shouting, because you cannot imagine the amount of heavy equipment this place held- huge saws from the 1960’s, a glass washer that reminds of the Hadron Collider and piles of metal and glass.

Well, now there is still a bit of scrape metal and glass at the house and my mom decided to clean it up.

The hospital viewed her accident like this;

A little old lady was lifting some trash into a can; the weight was too much for her bones, her back fractured.

The way it happened was like this;

A retired contractor was lifting a commercial sack containing the crushed remains of at least TWO SLIDING GLASS DOORS, she lifted it but the strain re-fractured a previous fracture from an on-the-job accident 15 years ago.

The condescending attitude was amazing and one point the doctor recommended a nursing home. I wasn’t there for that –he‘s lucky she didn’t throw a chair at him; my dad had ducked chairs over the years for far less.

The explanation of the previous fracture should have been enough to shake some sense into him. The conversation went like this;

Q: You fractured your spine in two places and broke your collarbone in 1994. How did this happen?

A: Well, I fell off a roof and landed on my shoulder onto concrete, at the time, I was on way too high a dosage of thyroid medication and it was eating up my bones.

Q: What were you doing up on a roof?

A: Looking at him like he’s the biggest idiot on the planet. Well, I was roofing.

Oh well, another reason to homebirth. Condescending attitude?

Watch for falling chairs.

-Tasha

Thank You, Las Vegas!!

2008-07-13T13:23:00.000-07:00

My mom in law, Dusty Buckel's fundraiser was a success!

Thank you all so much for coming out and for sending in your donations!

Here's a blurb from the local news on the festivities!

Vegas Fund Raiser and Potluck-Friday, July 11

2008-07-07T09:47:00.000-07:00

If you are in Vegas please c'mon by.

We're holding a swim party and potluck on Friday July 11 to raise funds for my MIL.

Cancer or no this woman can throw a party, so please come by!

Contribute here;
Antioch Church of Las Vegas
Put Dusty on bottom left of check and mail to:
3825 Melody Lane, Las Vegas, NV 89108

Or contribute directly:
Dusty Buckel Enterprises,
Bank of America of West Sahara
routing - 122400724 - account # 501001703274
(If you have a Bank of America account you can do it online in about two seconds)

Or just bring it to the party!

July 11, 2008 (7-11) at 7P to 11P
YOU are invited for a swim party and pot luck, with live entertainment.
RSVP Darlene Mea tvdarlene@gmail.com
For more info contact Darlene Mea at 702-227-8393 or 702-477-5110 tvdarlene@gmail.com

Or just leave a comment here!

Press Release below;

Media please give this your support!

PLEASE - we can not loose this woman...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Local Giver needs to Receive, to LIVE...

Las Vegas, NV. July 3rd – Dusty Buckel, a Las Vegas local resident for over 29 yrs is in Stage IV Cancer of the Lymph Nodes and does not have health insurance.

"I have been been graced with health most of my life, so I lived life fully as a giver, here to help, and now I am humbled to the position of having to ask for help, to live."

Dusty Buckel is many things to many people not only in Las Vegas but around the world.

Along with being an Ordained Minister, known to thousands as Rev Dusty.

Dusty has had her own radio show & television shows, An Opportunity to Make a Difference for years; is the originator of of Secret Santa which provides toys, food and necessities for hundreds of Las Vegas families every year, as well as helping stranded mothers off the streets and helping our Vets with clothing and counseling.

Dusty engages donors to give namelessly, selflessly. All who know Dusty have been graced by her extreme presence and drive to help those who need help on many levels, body, mind and spirit... Dusty lives to Give...

The stories are many, and those of you that know her or have been in connected with her, either through a real estate transaction, past president of Commercial Marketing Group in LV, Church, or on an outing in Sedona, AZ, knows the grace of this woman.

Now Dusty needs medical treatments for Stage IV Cancer of the Lymph Nodes. She has been receiving "Intelligent Medicine" out of the country and needs to continue the therapies or she will not survive. We are asking the community – please GIVE TO LIVE for DUSTY, NOW. The cost of treatment is $21,600.00 for 3 week stay to detoxify her blood, strengthen her body to help itself in destroying the cancer cells.

The hospital ~ "Bio Science Research Institute" is dedicated to the CURE, not just treatment. Centro Medico Excel, (a hospital in Mexico, owned by a San Diego cardiologist) has 4 of it's 15 story floors. Dr. Carlos Bautista is Dusty's doctor along with world renown cancer specialist, Dr. Donsbach. Contact: Gosela (Dr. Bautista's Assistant) 619-519-6374 for more information.

"This is a complete humbling experience, asking for help, but I choose to live.",

says Dusty who is always Responding to Miracles!
dustylasvegas@gmail.com

Make your tax deductible donations to:
Antioch Church of Las Vegas
Rev. Peter Gang is a client/friend of Dusty and is glad to help.
Put Dusty on bottom left of check and mail to:
3825 Melody Lane, Las Vegas, NV 89108.

or a contribution directly to:
Dusty Buckel Enterprises,
Bank of America of West Sahara
routing - 122400724 - account # 501001703274

July 11, 2008 (7-11) at 7P to 11P Dusty's family of friends and associates are invited for a swim party, pot luck, with live entertainment. RSVP Darlene Mea @ tvdarlene@gmail.com

For additional info please contact Darlene Mea – 702-227-8393 or 702-477-5110 – tvdarlene@gmail.com

Kent Snyder; A truly good man

2008-07-05T13:10:00.000-07:00

For those who don't know; Kent Snyder, chairman of the Ron Paul presidential campaign died on June 26,2008 after a long illness. It was Kent who convinced Dr.Paul to run for president. We've known Kent for about ten years.

I never worked with Kent Snyder and I never talked politics with him (unless you count the great Tele-Tubbie controversy of '98, which we discussed at length, since my son never went anywhere without his Tele-Tubbie in tow). I hadn't spoken with him (in person) since the Ron Paul presidential campaign began. But like all truly wonderful people, just the little contact I had with him touched me dearly.

I first met him in 1998 when my husband, Stewart, worked for Ron Paul.
Kent came on board to run Dr. Paul's Liberty Committee. He and Stewart quickly became friends, soon Kent was spending many a Friday evening having spaghetti with us in our tiny townhouse.

Working for a congressman, as many people know, is really an occupation best fit for a single person. But at the time of hubby's employ, we had a two year old, a baby on the way and me- a stay at home mom.

Obliviously, this was a difficult financial situation (despite the fact that Dr. Paul personally helped us out on many occasions).

I was nine months pregnant with baby two when our poor little Honda Accord with 200,000 miles on it finally blew. So Kent would show up early for spaghetti and drive us to the grocery store.

A couple of weeks later my friend and midwife flew into town to assist in my baby's homebirth. I thought I had everything I needed for the birth but afterward realized that I'd made a huge error.

As anyone who has had more than one child knows the afterpain of birth get worse with each baby-sometimes rivaling labor. Twenty minutes after the birth, I realized I needed like a gallon of Tylenol, I was in agony.

Within a hour, Kent arrived to greet baby Sedona and to present me with a giant bottle of Tylenol.

Kent joked that he looked over the store shelves tying to figure out the best one to get and thought to himself-Hmm -"Regular or extra strength? Well, huh, for childbirth-probably extra strength."

He was immediately my hero.

Years later my husband graduated from law school and Kent drove up from Virginia to Connecticut to attended the ceremony. He handed Stewart a beautiful congratulations card that was addressed to both of us saying -this is to both of you; because he never could of achieved this without you-words that still choke me up.

Through the years, I don't think we ever made a major life decision without consulting Kent.

We will miss you, Kent.

-Tasha

Beautiful slideshow

2008-05-30T07:35:00.000-07:00

This is the homebirth of Emma. I've lost the link to her mommies blog but will post it after I hunt it down. An incredible contrast to the last story I posted.

-Tasha

2008-05-28T17:06:00.000-07:00

I definitely have birthing on my mind lately. My due date is still months away but I just been obsessed with birth stories and such lately.

I ran across this "lovely" article today. It makes me very very grateful that all my babies were born safe and sound at home.

I've copied the first part and linked to the rest.

Happily I have much nicer birthday stories to share with you all a bit later.

-Tasha

Not a happy birthday

Threatened, intimidated, bullied, violated: this is hospital birth as many mothers experience it. Amity Reed reports on the little-recognised crime of birth rape

When Lynsey* went into hospital to have her baby, she expected to leave a mother. After many hours of difficult labour and a wholly unexpected turn of events, she exited the building not only a mother but a victim of assault. Like thousands of other women, she was violated in the worst possible way when at her most vulnerable. What she had experienced was birth rape, and she would never be the same.

The idea of being raped while giving birth is difficult to imagine. In most people’s minds, rape means forced sexual intercourse where a penis is inserted, forcefully and without consent, into another person’s body. Some broaden that definition to include objects as well as body parts. But still, we often picture rape as an act of demented sexual anger and misogyny, perpetuated by sick individuals. In fact, rape is more frequently a display of power and control, a way to subjugate another human being. And it doesn’t just happen in dark alleyways, bedrooms tinged with the smell of alcohol and ‘mixed signals’, or in war zones. It can (and does) happen in some of the most respected and revered institutions in the land - hospitals.

A woman who is raped while giving birth does not experience the assault in a way that fits neatly within the typical definitions we hold true in civilised society. A penis is usually nowhere to be found in the story and the perpetrator may not even possess one. But fingers, hands, suction cups, forceps, needles and scissors… these are the tools of birth rape and they are wielded with as much force and as little consent as if a stranger grabbed a passer-by off the street and tied her up before having his way with her. Women are slapped, told to shut up, stop making noise and a nuisance of themselves, that they deserve this, that they shouldn’t have opened their legs nine months ago if they didn’t want to open them now. They are threatened, intimidated and bullied into submitting to procedures they do not need and interventions they do not want. Some are physically restrained from moving, their legs held open or their stomachs pushed on.

Desperate for the attack to stop, she lashed out and tried to kick the woman away, only for another midwife to firmly hold her feet down

Lynsey, whom I met on an internet support group for birth trauma survivors, tells of how her midwife rammed a hand up into her vagina to manually dilate her cervix (a procedure that is very painful and ill-advised) because she had been up all night and was “tired of how long this was taking”. Even as Lynsey squirmed and screamed “No! Get off of me!” while dealing with the excruciating pain of another monster contraction, she was laughed at and mocked for being a “bigger baby than the one she was trying to push out”. Lynsey looked to her partner for support, but he just held her hand and whispered soothing words as the midwife continued to assault her genitals. Desperate for the attack to stop, she lashed out and tried to kick the woman away, only for another midwife to firmly hold her feet down. When the procedure didn’t speed things up satisfactorily enough for the staff on shift that night, Lynsey’s labour was declared as ‘failure to progress’ and she was rushed into theatre for what she feels was an unnecessary caesarean.

Lynsey said of the experience: “When the midwife ripped off her blood-stained glove after she had finished with me and threw it on the floor in disgust, I felt as if she had completely discarded my dignity as well. I went numb, unable to speak for the remainder of the labour, remembering the disgust in her eyes when my body and my behaviour didn’t match her expectations. To then be cut open felt like punishment for not being a ‘good girl’ and complying.”

Violating and abusing patients into submission to make things simpler for health care professionals is not an acceptable excuse, no matter how many hours they’ve been on shift

As a result of this trauma, Lynsey suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and tokophobia (fear of childbirth). She became deeply depressed, had nightmares and flashbacks, trouble bonding with her son, and her marriage nearly broke down because her husband couldn’t acknowledge that she was raped by the midwife and he had stood by while it happened. He begged her to stop calling it rape and to let it go, get on with her life. As so many new mothers can attest, any anger, sadness or disappointment expressed about the birth is usually swept under the rug. Everyone says: “Yes, but it’s all in the past now. You have a healthy baby and that’s all that matters.” As if the woman who endured the birthing experience was merely a passive observer, the emotionless vehicle through which the baby arrived.

After two years of therapy, medication and joining a support group with other women who have experienced severe trauma and mistreatment during childbirth, Lynsey is finally starting to heal but will never forget the humiliation and degradation she suffered at the hands of a medical team hell-bent on forcing her to submit. Every time she looks at her caesarean scar she remembers how frightened, violated and alone she felt. But she’s tired of keeping quiet and wants other women to know, especially those who campaign to end violence against women, that rape can and does happen to women giving birth and that it’s no less serious than those crimes fitting the more accepted definition. More and more women are coming forward and sharing their stories but it’s still a tiny proportion of those who have been assaulted. Even more so than ‘regular’ rape victims, these women feel they won’t be believed and will be ridiculed. Going up against a rapist is scary enough, but when your rapist is a well-respected doctor or matronly midwife at an NHS hospital run by the British government, the odds of a successful complaint or criminal prosecution seem remote and insignificant.

So how in the world did we get to this point, where scores of women are being treated like slabs of meat on a butcher’s table or cogs in the machinery of a conveyor belt? We believe that western medicine is so advanced and our technology so incredible that we rarely stop to think about the effects they have on biological processes and people themselves. Some things are not meant to be tampered with too much and childbirth may be one of them. While we have been conditioned to believe that hospitals are the safest places to birth babies, studies show that the risks of infection are higher, maternal satisfaction with the experience is lower and maternal and infant mortality rates are the same or worse for low-risk mothers delivering in hospital as for those babies born at home to low-risk mothers.

Women who experience rape or abuse in the maternity ward often plan for caesareans (which have their own, very real risks), terrified of going through the pain and degradation again, or forgoing hospitals altogether and birth their babies at home

Many are quick to state that without modern technology, women would be dying in droves like they did ‘in the old days’. While it is true that many women died during childbirth in decades and centuries past, there is more than just the absence of technology to account for that. Poor diet, the prevalence of infectious diseases and conditions such as rickets (a calcium and vitamin D deficiency) which can result in pelvic deformity, unhygienic living conditions, contaminated water, lack of antibiotics to treat infections, lack of blood supplies for successful transfusions and poorly informed birth attendants were more often than not the cause of death, not a lack of epidurals and electric foetal heart monitors.

The incidence of babies being too big to pass through a pelvis, getting truly stuck or being in such distress as to warrant a caesarean is much smaller than current advice would have us believe. At the moment, the caesarean rate is the highest it has ever been in the UK, at 23%. Considering that it was under 3% in the 1950s and 12% by 1991, such a huge leap in the past 15 years is alarming. While caesareans are a necessary means of delivery for the small percentage of births that truly require them (the World Health Organization and NICE guidelines recommend a rate of no more than 10-15% in any country) and should be celebrated when used appropriately and in the right circumstances, too many are performed for reasons the medical professionals are not keen to admit - lack of space and beds, lack of staff and resources to support a woman through a vaginal birth and the rising concern with covering themselves from a legal standpoint. When the slightest drop in heart rate or a long labour sends the surgeon scrambling for a knife, is that progress? Or has the medicalisation of birth gone too far?
The rest here

For Memorial Day; Two kinds of Good-bye

2008-05-26T15:30:00.000-07:00

This photo has been around the internet a few times but is certainly very appropriate for today.

If you are unable to read the captions it says-

"This is my friend Steve, saying bye to his brother who is off to Iraq.

And this is my same friend, months later, at his brother's funeral, saying bye for the last time."

End Real I.D,Patriot & Military Comm. Act say Nevada REPUBLICANS

2008-05-01T21:15:00.000-07:00

2008 Nevada Republican Platform demands an end to real I.D.,Military Commissions and Patriot Acts.

Says to return to gold standard(sound familiar?),for the government to butt out of homeschoolers lives and much to the dismay of the McCain camp; to dump the MCCAIN Feingold Act.

Rumor has it that McCain's camp & the RNC are PISSED!

That is ALWAYS a good day!

Dear Hubby was on the platform committee. He says his part was small but he can be very persuasive.

He was raised around motivational speakers and reverends-no wonder he's a lawyer.

He's the only person I know who can talk about the power of the jury (yes, that's right- the right to jury nullification is on there too) and bring a tear to your eye.

He's a copy of the now infamous platform, but please click the read more link to hubby's blog as he has a first hand account on how it all went down.

Preamble:
We believe that government is instituted solely to secure the life, liberty and property of the citizens of the country, that the Declaration of Independence defines the philosophical foundation of the country, that the Constitution of the United States is the basic law governing the existence and operation of the U.S. Federal Government and the first ten amendments describe its limits, and , as Thomas Jefferson said, that the government that governs least governs best.
Federalism & Limited Government
1. We support less government, less taxes, less regulation and more self determination.
2. All legislation, Federal Agencies, and public servants must adhere to a literal interpretation of the U.S. Constitution and as instructed by the Tenth Amendment, in conjunction with Article I, Section 8.
Patriotism
3. We recognize the importance of the national values expressed by our flag, anthem, pledge-of-allegiance and other patriotic symbols that define us as a nation and we believe that the words, “in GOD we trust,” should remain on our currency and the words “under God” should remain in our Pledge of Allegiance.
Taxes and Government Spending
4. We support reform of Social Security, including establishment of private retirement accounts and prohibiting use of its funds for any other purpose. All citizens shall have the right to opt out of the system, but the government must honor its commitments to those who have paid, are legally in the U.S., and remain in the system. We propose the abolishment of the Windfall Elimination Tax when computing Social Security Benefits. We oppose Nationalization of Healthcare.
5. We urge the Nevada Legislature to cut spending and avoid new taxes to encourage strong economic growth. We support the Nevada Constitutional Requirement of a 2/3 majority legislative vote to raise state taxes. We support balanced state, local and federal budgets. We oppose unfunded mandates, Riders, Ear-marks and Set-asides at both the state and national level. We support the permanent elimination of the Federal Death Tax.
The Economy
6. We support a strong private minerals industry. We support the Nevada Mining Association endorsed reform of the 1872 mining law and strongly oppose any laws, regulations, ordinances or any other legally binding actions that diminish the ability of the minerals industry to discover and or access minerals and mine them.
7. Fires are increasing because of the lack of livestock grazing. Therefore, livestock grazing shall be increased immediately on Federal Lands.
Education
8. We support a parent’s right to choice in education including vouchers, charter schools, and home schooling. We also support the elimination of the U.S. Dept. of Education. We further oppose requiring licensure for parents who choose to home school. We support the elimination of the No Child Left Behind law and require the State of Nevada to replace the No Child Left Behind concept.
Family Values
9. We affirm the sanctity of human life and the inherent dignity of each human being from conception to death and oppose cloning complete human beings. We support the private development of adult stem cell research and we support all efforts to stop human trafficking. We support the definition of marriage as only between one man and one woman.
The Environment
10. We support initiatives to maximize the development of America’s domestic oil, gas, coal, solar, wind, geothermal, and nuclear resources, and the development of alternative sources of energy to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil. We support granting local government more authority in decision-making regarding water rights within their jurisdiction.
Legislation
11. We demand the repeal of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 and reaffirm the right of free political speech. We support legislation to require full disclosure of all donations made to political candidates.
12. We support the repeal of the Federal Reserve Act and the return of the power of minting and coining money to the Congress of the United States as so stated in the Constitution. In addition we demand a return to a gold and/or silver backed currency as provided for in the U.S. Constitution.
13. We demand that electronic voting only be allowed when uniquely numbered receipts are provided to the voter and results are made publicly available showing simultaneously all votes comprising the total by receipt number.
The Litigation Crisis
14. We believe in informing juries that it is their power and duty to decide on both the law and the facts as they apply to each case so that justice is the main priority. We support election of judges.
Immigration
15. We welcome legal immigrants from all nations, cultures and races. We demand strict enforcement of all immigration laws by all levels of government. We demand that the federal government secure our borders. We do not support amnesty, government benefits or other special treatment for aliens who have or will enter the United States illegally. We support English as the official language of the United States and the printing of government materials in English only.
National Defense and Veteran's Affairs
16. We support all of our men and women in the military who are serving both in the United States and around the world and the missions of all U.S. troops around the world. Be they active duty, National Guard, or reservist, they have our highest admiration and respect. We support honoring veterans with education benefits and we support a strong Veterans Administration subject to strong oversight and audit, to assure veterans and families receive the care and support as promised.
Constitution, Bill of Rights and Protection of Rights
17. We believe that the First Amendment to the Constitution was intended to prevent a state-sponsored religion rather than a separation of God from public life. We affirm that the Second Amendment protects an individual right which should be enforced as strictly as the rights protected by the First Amendment.
18. We support repealing the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act. We support repeal of the federal act requiring a national ID card or other required identity papers providing government with “big brother” intrusion into constitutional freedoms.
US Sovereignty & trade
19. We support the withdrawal of the United States from the United Nations. We demand that Nevada join Montana, Idaho, Utah and other states in opposing the North American Union (NAU) in withdrawing from the Security & Prosperity Partnership (SPP), withdrawing from North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and that Congress resume their duty of regulating Commerce with Foreign Nations.
Public Lands
20. We oppose Federal legislation regarding public lands including wilderness in Nevada counties unless approved by the county.
END

-Tasha

read more | digg story

Beavis and Butthead were right or The C.S. Doctrine

2008-04-24T10:13:00.000-07:00

The great philosophers Beavis and Butthead were basking in greatness when they put their somewhat over-sized philanthropistic minds together and collaborated what is now a staple doctrine in great thinkers the world over;

that all things great and small, known and unknown, imperative to our survival or insignificant to all, can be summarized, allocated and categorized into two simple and yet somehow beautiful groups;

Cool and Suck
or The C.S. Doctrine.

I might note there is also a very rare somewhat mythical, almost sacrosanct category that, as far I know, the great minds themselves only used to revere the venerable Johnny Cash, the category is titled;

This is the coolest thing I have ever seen.

They’re have been other sightings of this bestowal but the aforementioned anointment is the only one I have personally witnessed.

Most of you know from reading either this or my hubby’s blog that my kids are heavily involved in mixed martial arts; jiu jitsu, Thai boxing, wrestling and western boxing.

These are the only martial arts that have made it to the cool list.

While my oldest child loves this stuff,

and my five year old thinks it's cool,

my nine year old daughter absolutely lives and breathes and counts the seconds until her next opportunity to tap out anyone who is unlucky enough to to get paired up with her.
I say, paired up, because the volunteers to roll with her are getting fewer.

I have even had kids come up to me and say. Can you tell her not to do so many arms bars? Tell her to switch off with more chokes, my arm is getting sore.

She loves this stuff but I think it’s because she is so amazing at. She’s a natural wrestler, and I am not exaggerating or even using a parents eyes-just using plain logic when I say that she will most likely be a member of the first Olympic submission wrestling team, on track (if all goes well) to come about around 2016 or 2020.

It is with this backdrop that I give you the first of my categorical divisions.

Meet coach Bob Owen.

(I couldn't find a photo-but the above portrait is a close rendition)

He has been a wrestling coach in Polson, Montana since at least the early 1800s, possibly the 1700s. Wrestling is a big big deal in Montana. With no Pro teams and the nearest college teams a hundred miles away, at

least, from most towns, the citizenry of God's country actually show up to Jr. High meets to root for their town.

Coach Owen runs a wrestling camp. It runs for 6 weeks, it’s an after school thing for like three hours a day. It's not part of the school system so it was awesome for us (we're homeschoolers). My son had already done a three day version of it taught by two of the ancient couch's sons, designed for older kids- but this upcoming “camp” was open to kids even younger than my daughter. She had already watched all of my son’s class and she was literally chomping at the bit to get in there.

There was a month or so between the two events and my daughter made a calender for the sole purpose of counting down the days. We had singed up with Coach Owen's sons. We arrived at the camp with my son wishing he could do something else for the day and my daughter almost jumping up and down.

"Sorry no girls," Said the senior Owen."It’s just too demeaning to the boys to lose to a girl."

Of course, we stormed out and took both kids.

And with that, I induct Coach Owen, the senior, onto the suck list.

Coach Bob Owen; Suck

And just to add a little Ying to the Yang. I’d like to induct a wresting coach onto the cool list - even bordering on the mythical coolest ever list.

The following coach is known all over the country as absolutely rocking cool. This coach let my daughter (and all the other girls he coaches) roll with the boys.

He treats the women and girls he coaches with absolute respect and takes his sport seriously. Also, having met his dad and witnessed both of them coach Jason's nephew and niece I can tell you, that the apple doesn't fall far, his family is cool too.

Coach Jason Townsend; Cool

Also on the cool list, Coach Uly Gomez for letting the girls roll and for treating all the kids with respect and putting a lot of time and effort into his coaching.

Coach Uly Gomez; Cool

Also, from the dark side of jiu jitsu, I induct Marc Laimon, for cornering nine year old kids with every bit the same enthusiasm he coaches bald headed, tattooed, fighters.

Dark Lord Marc Laimon; Cool

Many more cool and suck awardees are coming but for now I'd just like to thank the scholars Beavis and Butthead and I'd also like to end with a quote I ran across.

“A child is not a vase to filled but a fire to be lit”-anonymous

Did someone say, fire?

Fire Fire FIRE

-Tasha

I'm Back because Fuck Everyone

My blog's 8th aniversary!

Expansion of the terrorist watchlist requires neither “concrete facts” nor “irrefutable evidence”

Border Patrol Agent Draws Gun on Boy Scout

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NSA still withholding Documents on Death of UN Secretary-General over 50 Years Later

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Is that rhetorical?

Is The TSA The Most Monstrously Incompetent Agency In History?

Back in the 1960s my uncle took a small suitcase down from his closet. He packed it for a business trip and headed to the airport.

While passing through security the guard discovered a handgun. My uncle explained he hadn't realized it was in there. The guard then asked for my uncle's phone number so he could call his wife to pick it up. He unloaded it and made the call.

My uncle made his flight and likely slapped the stewardess on the ass. My aunt picked up the gun. The end.

No one was shot. No one was arrested. No one was probed.

-Tasha

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For Memorial Day; Two kinds of Good-bye

End Real I.D,Patriot & Military Comm. Act say Nevada REPUBLICANS

Preamble:

Beavis and Butthead were right or The C.S. Doctrine