A demure woman walks up in this 1950s Barbara Billingsly emerald green dress with her cute little pony tail hanging, in high heels and starts to beller out the old hit Poor Boy. OMG… do I love the dress, do I love the voice… is it because she is sooooooo sultry and soulful… yes, yes and yes!
The Man: How much of your life is your fault, and how much is the world’s? That is your big question. You have no career, you’ve been fired from your job, your own daughter won’t speak to you. Bottom line, you can’t even earn a living.
Singer: That’s what it’s all about for you, isn’t it? Money.
The Man: Let’s leave money out of the equation, what would you like it to be all about? Continue reading
Last year, over 850,000 people in America were arrested for marijuana-related crimes. Despite public opinion, the medical community, and human rights experts all moving in favor of relaxing marijuana prohibition laws, little has changed in terms of policy.
There have been many great books and articles detailing the history of the drug war. Part of America’s fixation with keeping the leafy green plant illegal is rooted in cultural and political clashes from the past. Continue reading
… or at least think about maybe, say, between work, watching the hockey playoffs, and taking your kids to choir practice, possibly considering working with fellow citizens to, some would say, take a stand—no, stand is too strong a word: perform a fullblown, unapologetic sit—against, hmmm, how shall we speak of it, well, okay, torture by the US government…
You can see what we’re up against, can’t you? Continue reading
Kelly Canter: [quoting Waylon Jennings’ lyrics]
“If you see me getting smaller, I’m leaving, don’t be grieving, just gotta get away from here. If you see me getting smaller, don’t worry, and no hurry, I’ve got the right to disappear.”
This was just a likable little movie from the gitgo. Very simple, the above four characters are really the only ones with important lines. Singer Tim McGraw is frankly out of his league in Actorville, but still carries on bravely and makes whatever plot there is connect in a convincing way. As for that plot, it’s about the country superstar Kelly Canter (Gwyneth Paltrow), whose fortunes have waned for various reasons and who is hanging on for a big comeback orchestrated by her manager husband James (Tim McGraw). She loves her husband, who has been there for her ‘despite all the crap,’ (mostly from her) but she is also fond of a semi-renegade, non-or-at-least-less materialistic new singer Beau Hutton (Garrett Hedlund). Continue reading
Excerpted by the Coffee Coaster 4/16/12
Full 4.6.12 column in The Guardian here
In a five-four ruling this week, the supreme court decided that anyone can be strip-searched upon arrest for any offense, however minor, at any time. This horror show ruling joins two recent horror show laws: the NDAA, which lets anyone be arrested forever at any time, and HR 347, the “trespass bill”, which gives you a 10-year sentence for protesting anywhere near someone with secret service protection. These criminalizations of being human follow, of course, the mini-uprising of the Occupy movement. Bagram airbase was used by the US to detain its ‘high-value’ targets during the ‘war on terror’ and is still Afghanistan’s main military prison. Photograph: Dar Yasin/AP Continue reading
Three things cannot be long hidden:
the sun, the moon, and the truth
— Buddha
For a book that rather prosaically walks the reader thru centuries of political principles, statutes, and regulatory code pertaining to the American federal “income” tax (FIT)[1], Cracking the Code (CtC) is exceptional in so many ways. I especially want to draw the connection between concrete tax resistance or defiance—or in the case of Pete’s book on the FIT, accurate tax definition—and the worldwide movement toward adoption of the simple nonaggression principle in civil societies. Continue reading