Did everyone remember that Wednesday, April 23rd was Administrative/Professional Day. Hum?!? Well, the company I work for did remember and sent all us wonderful Admin's a nice gift. Received a small box of Godiva chocolates, plus an American Express gift certificate. With this gift certificate, on Thursday, I went to the local bookstore [Shakespeare & Company] to purchase a few tomes. I ended up with two books I've been wanting for sometime:

"Ferret Chronicles - Rescue Ferrets At Sea" by Richard Bach
"The Eagle's Shadow - Why America Fascinates & Infuriates the World" by Mark Hertsgaard

I just finished the first book yesterday and loved it. Richard Bach [famed author of the book "Jonathan Livingston Seagull"] has this delightful series out called "Ferret Chronicles" and its inspired by his own beloved pet furkids. He's got ten of them! Lucky guy! "Rescue Ferrets at Sea" is the first in the series and last year I purchased the second book of the series [Air Ferrets Aloft}. Both are delightful books for teens on up to adults. Anyone who loves ferrets ... then get these books. The next book in the series is called "Rancher Ferrets on the Range". I've seen it in Barnes & Noble and hope to pick it up soon.

The second book I purchased with my "gift certificate" was by Mark Hertsgaard. About a month or so ago I read a cool, fascinating interview with him on Booksense.com. He was promoting his new book called "The Eagles Shadow". I started reading this last evening and so far its great. Hard to explain it now, but after I'm done reading it I'll write up a review and post it here. If your wondering if the book has a political theme ... yes ... it does.

Today I participated, along with several other co-workers [ie: Laurie & Heather], in the annual March of Dimes Walk America. The weather today is a lovely, perfect Spring day. Great for walking and walk we did, about 6 miles. Received lots of free goodies AND got to briefly meet Joe Namath [brilliant football player from 1960s/70s]. Good ole Broadway Joe has been an honorary celebrity chairman of the March of Dimes for years. Wish I'd brought my camera, so as to get a pix with him. Oh well.....................

On that note ... gotta split ... remember to keep rocking in the free world!

Check this out ... if you wish ... if not ... that's okay too. Found this little political tidbit on a Pearl Jam chat room [Sony-BBS] today and it claims to be from music artist MOBY.

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Question for you from Moby Posted: Apr 23, 2003 2:26 PM

ok, here's a little question for you...

how would the republican leadership deal with a democratic president who:

a-had been a cheerleader in school.
b-was a documented draft dodger.
c-had been arrested for public drunkenness.
d-had lost the election by 600,000 votes, but was president after being installed by his fathers friends in the supreme court.
e-had been best friends with the ceo of the corporation involved with the biggest instance of corporate fraud EVER.
f-had invited the perpetrators of the aforementioned fraud to the white house to set policy.
g-had long standing family ties with saudi arabia and the bin laden family.
h-allowed a private jet to fly around the united states after september 11 to pick up members of the bin laden family and return them to saudi arabia without being questioned by the fbi.
i-had presided over the steepest drop in the stock market and the greatest rise in unemployment figures of any president in the last 60 years.
j-bombed afghanistan looking for osama bin laden and never found him.
k-bombed iraq looking for saddam hussein and weapons of mass destruction and found neither.
l-proposed a 700 billion $ tax break for the wealthiest americans and planned on paying for it by cutting money to the police, fire departments, education, etc.
m-had members of his administration who had long standing ties to racist and white-supremacist organizations.
n-had a vice president who had been in business with the bin laden family.

And so on. How would the republicans and the conservative media deal with george bush jr. if he were a democrat? They would roast him alive and would probably impeach him. I write this as a reminder that:

1-the democratic party in the united states is pathetic for not drawing more attention to the fact that bush and his cabinet are corrupt and inept.
2-george bush jr. is still a terrible president with a terrible record. don't forget. especially when it comes time to vote in the next presidential election.

thanks,
moby

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p.s. In a non-political comment ... I'm participating in the annual March of Dimes "Walk America" this Sunday here in NYC. Hope the weather is halfway decent. I'll be joining some of my E&Y co-workers and having a good time. If you know someone who is participating in this worthy cause, please make a donation or participate yourself. Make a difference and you'll be happy you did. Peace!

Have received some unpleasant news today regarding my Duchess website. No, not my blogger online journal, but my website called "Tea, Tales & Travel with the Duchess". If I wish to continue to utilize the services of that particular site, I'll have to pay for it, as of May 4th it'll no longer be free. DAMN!!!! Now I have to look for a new, free service for the Duchess page. This sucks!! In the meantime, I've saved all the info from my site, so it'll be easy to "set up" a new page elsewhere. Geez!

Anyhow ... enough ranting for now. Below is a listing of links to websites that I read or check out on a regular basis. There related to current events regarding democracy, war in Iraq, freedom of speech, etc, etc. Definitely check them out............

http://www.nonviolence.org/vitw/

Http://www.unitedforpeace.org/

http://www.moveon.org/

http://www.workers.org/

http://www.internationalanswer.org/

http://www.notinourname.net/

http://www.commondreams.org/

http://www.copvcia.com/

http://www.wbai.org/

http://www.progressive.org

http://www.thenation.com

Some of these links have been shared with me by good friends and others I've located via articles or scanning the Internet. Quite a wealth of info, facts and truth.

Remember to keep rocking in the free world or what's left of it. Peace!

Back on Sunday, April 13th, we had another lovely spring day here in NYC. Took my camera and headed off to Central Park for a leisurely stroll. It seemed like everyone was out and about. Naturally the horse & carriage rides were doing a booming business with the tourists. It felt soooo good to be out, walking leisurely and feeling the sun on ones face. Considering we had a snowstorm only 6 to 7 days before. Weird! Then on April 15th and 16th the weather got alot warmer ... up in the 80s and plenty of sunshine. One didn't need a coat cause it felt like summer. Oops ... I'm rambling again ... anyhow ... back to April 13th. After strolling around the southern part of Central Park, I walked down 6th Avenue to 50th Street and Rockefeller Center [Radio City Music Hall]. That weekend the annual Orchid Show was being held in the Rockefeller Center councourse. For years it was always held at the World Trade Center, but since 9/11 its been relocated to midtown. I took lots of pictures of dozens of beautiful flowers and arrangements. Breath-taking, fantastic and yes, even sensual! The show was also very crowded with New Yorkers and tourists.

Recently read an article by Norman Solomon on "Common Dreams News Center" website. Mr Soloman was talking about one of America's most revered writers ... Mark Twain ... in connection with todays current events. Here are some quotes from the article:

[Mark Twain was painfully aware of many people's inclination to go along with prevailing evils. When slavery was lawful, he recalled, abolitionists were "despised and ostracized and insulted" ... by "patriots". As far as Twain was concerned, "Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul."]

["Who are the oppressors? The few: the king, the capitalist and a handful of other overseers and superintendents. Who are the oppressed? The many: the nations of the earth; the valuable personages; the workers; they that make the bread that the soft-handed and idle eat."]

[What Mark Twain had to say is all too relevant to what's happening these days. But policymakers in Washington can rest easy. Twain's most inflammatory writings are smoldering in his grave ... while few opportunities exist for the general public to hear similar views expounded today. "None but the dead are permitted to speak truth," Twain remarked. Even then, evidently, their voices tend to be muffled.]

And finally, one of my favorite Mark Twain quotes ... "I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land."

Has it been a whole week since my last post?!? I meant to do some posting earlier, but it was a good, productive work week and I put in over two hours of paid overtime. That is always a nice perk. Let's see ... on to some news:

Back on Sunday, April 6th, I did volunteer work for the 18th annual MS Walk. This is my 10th year in either participating in the walk or doing volunteer work. Sunday dawned a cool, windy, but sunny day. I dressed in layers, put on gloves and my sneakers, then headed to Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn. Got there, via two subways, at exactly 12 noon to find the tables had already been set up by other volunteers. So I helped with putting the rest of the free goodies on the tables for when the walkers come thru. Cadman Plaza, in Brooklyn Heights, marks the second rest stop along the 12 mile route and there are a total of three. Some of the volunteers I'd worked with in past years and their a fun bunch. Some of the free goodies we handed out to the walkers were oranges, bottled water & fruit juices, cookies, chips, raisins and sports bars. After the last walker came thru we proceeded to pack everything up in the waiting van while noshing on free Subway sandwiches. Us volunteers also received free MS Walk t-shirts and whatever leftover goodies we could carry home with us. I had a little satchel of oranges, cookies, sports bars and bottled water. Yeah! Overall it was a good day.

Today I went up to Yonkers Ferret Shelter to do my usual volunteer work. Which I always enjoy ... love those furkids. It was good seeing Joanne again and when I came in she was in the process of feeding baby squirrels. [four weeks old] They are soooo cute. While there two of new, young female shelter ferrets tried to bite me. I'm like ... what the hell did I do wrong. Joanne assured me I didn't do anything wrong, its just that those two came into shelter as known "biters". Tho, she says, they are getting better over time and with socializing. One of the older furkids I had to give a bath, as he was abit stinky. Joanne also informed me that dear Bouncy Bear may be adopted this coming week. I'll miss the little critter with his playful, perky personality. [The weather was delightful today. After all that cool, windy rainy crap we got a warm, sunny, blue sky day. Lovely!]

As you know, I've been talking about war and politics for last month or so. Well, this is still a free country and I'll continue to sprout my views on these topics. The latest are not my thoughts, but by others and I wanted to share some tidbits with you all. In the April 4th edition of THE RECORD-REVIEW the Reverend Doctor Bill Weisenbach [First Presbyterian Church of Katonah] wrote an article in the "guest column" of this newspaper. The title of the article was "Let Us Not Disparage Those Who Disagree". Here is one of his comments:

"Protest is healthy, not scary. Remember, our nation is the result of protest. And where do you think the word 'Protestant' comes from! In the last month we have heard commentators argue that protest against the war is wrong, during the war and even after the war. Not so ... Protest is our heritage and a mark of freedom."

Amen reverend amen!!

Recently, I received an email from a friend [merci beaucoup Josee] of mine in Ottawa, Canada. It was an article from the "Ottawa Express" [independent newspaper] by James Sinclair called "Winning the War of Words". I wanted to share some tidbits from it with you all.

"With another war in Iraq comes a new campaign to win our hearts and minds. And as in any propaganda campaign, semantics are crucial. Decoding and understanding the terminology used by the military and the media can be a daunting task. To assist you, FRONTLINE spoke to some propaganda experts to define the new war lexicon. COALITION FORCES ... The good guys, right? This term, 'creates consensus where one does not exist,' says Jonathan Rose, a professor of political science at Queen's University. Many of the 40 or so countries that form the supposed coalition were brought onside by the expectation of U.S. aid, adds Randal Marlin [Carleton University]. Buying legitimacy must be the next best thing to going through the legalities of the UN. 'Coalition' sounds better than 'unilateral'. OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM ... Straight-up doublespeak. Along the same lines as 'Operation Just Cause,' these phrases are used as slogans by the media to promote the war, says Rose. This particular phrase implies that the US war is to liberate Iraq, same as the last Gulf War was all about liberating Kuwait. Whats not said, however, is that Iraqis will not be liberated from a US-imposed future, says Marlin. 'Its a matter of trading slavery for domination by the US,' he says. That's of course for Iraqis who survive the war."

Okay ... enough politics from this lady for one day. As I've said in the past ... if you wish to read my thoughts and/or comments on Gulf War ... great ... if not ... thats okay too. I won't be offended. One has the right to freedom of speech, thought and action.

Press Release Statement from Pearl Jam
Thursday April 3, 2003 @ 8:00 pm ET

OKLAHOMA CITY, April 3 /PRNewswire/ -- There were close to 12,000 people at the April 1st Denver show. It's possible two dozen left during encore but it was not noticeable amongst the 11,976 who were loudly applauding and enjoying the evening's music. It just made a better headline to report otherwise. [You'll note the writer doesn't mention this in his review of the show from the day prior. See "Pearl Jam Show Will Make a Great CD" by Mark Brown, Rocky Mountain News. And it is little more than a mention in any of the show reviews.] Dissension is nothing we shy away from -- it should just be reported about more accurately. Ed's talk from the stage centered on the importance of freedom of speech and the importance of supporting our soldiers, as well as an expression of sadness over the public being made to feel as though the two sentiments can't occur simultaneously.

[Just me expressing my democratic right to freedom of speech, thought and action. The tidbit below is from "Vote to Impeach Bush" website. If you disagree, then don't read on, but if you do, then read on and take action.]

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Thanks to the outpouring of support from founding supporters of the VoteToImpeach movement, the first full page ad of the impeachment campaign was placed in the New York Times on March 19 - Bush's ultimatum day - in the front section of the paper, page A23.

The political impact of the New York Times was far-reaching. The circulation of the New York Times extends all over the country and all over the world. In turn, the response of people across the country to the ad was magnificent. The office was flooded with thousands of letters from people who filled out a VoteToImpeach ballot. Tens of thousands more immediately went on line and voted to impeach Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft for their criminal conduct in waging a war of aggression against the people of Iraq, wantonly sacrificing the lives of U.S. servicemen and women, and for the assault on our civil rights and civil liberties at home.

The VoteToImpeach newspaper ad campaign is expanding.

With your help, we are now seeking to place the full page ad in the San Francisco Chronicle in the next week. If you can, please help this to happen by making an online donation at http://www.votetoimpeach.org/donate.htm

Also check out this website for intelligent, progressive, balanced views on current and/or world events:

http://www.thenation.com/