"
True, much of the dated advice ... is now amusingly camp,
but the potential thrill of being single still saturates each page.
"


Saturday, June 29, 2002

Cool Vegans (I am a vegan wanabe)

coolvegan.com - shopping, community, food and fun for cool vegans everywhere

Welcome to coolvegan.com, a gathering place for cool vegans everywhere to connect, share, shop, and cavort. We aim to provide the best information on the web for vegans with discriminating tastes.
On this site, you will find recipes submitted from around the world, links to various vegetarian/vegan resources, exclusive games, listings of vegan-friendly merchants, and several ways to connect with fellow vegans


vegan recipies
what the hell _does_ a vegan eat anyway?


OK, here's the deal -- A simple vegan blog about what I eat everyday. This blog came together because once people know I'm a vegan, the first question I get asked is...What The Hell Does A Vegan Eat Anyway?
A few things to consider while reading this blog
1. When an ingredient is listed like [this], it means [this] was the original ingredient in the recipe. 99% of the recipes get adapted in one form or another.


Abortion Rights

Yahoo! News - Senate Rejects Ban on Military Abortions Abroad

Senate Rejects Ban on Military Abortions Abroad Fri Jun 21,10:32 AM ET
By Vicki Allen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate voted to let U.S. servicewomen get privately funded abortions in overseas military hospitals on Friday, rejecting the current ban on almost all abortion services at military facilities abroad.

The Democratic-led Senate on a 52-40 vote passed the measure that backers said would restore rights to women who now must get a commanding officer's approval for travel back to the United States for abortion services or rely on the host country's facilities, where they may face language and cultural barriers or receive inferior care.


A beautiful thought sung by Joan Baez found on a wonderful website
From The Scratching Post

You're Aging Well by Dar Williams


Why is it that as we grow older and stronger
The road signs point us adrift and make us afraid

Saying "You never can win," "Watch your back," "Where's your husband?"
Oh, I don't like the signs that the signmakers made.

So I'm going to steal out with my paint and brushes
I'll change the directions, I'll hit every street
It's the Tinseltown scandal, the Robin Hood vandal
She goes out and steals the king's English
And in the morning you wake up and the signs point to you

They say,
"I'm so glad that you finally made it here,"
"You thought nobody cared, but I did, I could tell,"
And "This is your year," and "It always starts here,"
And oh... "You're aging well."

Well I know a woman with a collection of sticks
She could fight back the hundreds of voices she heard

And she could poke at the greed, she could fend off her need
And with anger she found she could pound every word.

But one voice got through, caught her up by surprise
It said, "Don't hold us back, we're the story you tell,"

And no sooner than spoken, a spell had been broken

And the voices before her were trumpets and tympani
Violins, basses and woodwinds and cellos, singing,

"We're so glad that you finally made it here
You thought nobody cared, but we did,
we could

And now you'll dance through the days while the orchestra plays
And oh, you're aging well."

Now when I was fifteen, oh, I knew it was over
The road to enchantment was not mine to take
'Cause lower calf, upper arm should be half what they are

I was breaking the laws that the signmakers made.

And all I could eat was the poisonous apple
And that's not a story I was meant to survive

I was all out of choices, but the woman of voices
She turned round the corner with music around her,
She gave me the language that keeps me alive,

she said,

"I'm so glad that you finally made it here
With the things you know now, that only time could tell
Looking back, seeing far, landing right where we are

And oh, you're aging, oh and I am aging,
Oh, aren't we aging well?"


Sung in duet with Joan Baez on Joan's CD "Ring Them Bells" (1995)




Alice Walker

puppy vaugn :: a journal

"The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men."
- Alice Walker



Belief-O-Matic

Beliefnet.com

Even if YOU don't know what faith you are, Belief-O-Matic knows. Answer 20 questions about your concept of God, the afterlife, human nature, and more, and Belief-O-Matic will tell you what religion (if any) you practice...or ought to consider practicing.


drawing the line

What do you get when you cross a lawyer with the godfather?

An offer you can’t understand.

From a 5/29/02 lecture by Attorney David Wise about his new book Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights on Book TV C-SPAN.

.

......Whether or not one accepts Wise's premise that certain animal species meet the law's criteria for personhood, his book is a fascinating examination of animal behavior and intelligence.

Crammed with data, case studies and reports from the field, it engages the reader in a thoughtful debate about the place of animals in a world dominated by humans. Not only does Wise (Rattling the Cage) know how to build a logical argument for legal rights for some animals, he also knows how to tell a good story.

From early morning forays in Ugandan mountain forests, where he observes the complex behavior and social structure of chimpanzees, to the MIT Media Lab, where he chronicles the astounding mental agility of its resident parrot-scholar, Alex, Wise strengthens his case and intrigues the reader with his tales. The narrative includes creatures both exotic (the loving family groups of elephants in Kenya) and common (our beloved companion dogs) and there's even the occasional animal celebrity conversation)


...............from the book review in amazon.com


Nowhere to Run nowhere to Hiiide (anymore)
Justices Strike Down Minnesota Law Prohibiting Political Statements by Judicial Candidates


Friday, June 28, 2002 Friday, June 28, 2002
The Palestinian Infrastructure

The Palestinian Infrastructure


why the left has never been a viable option for feminists

Archives | May 12-18 2002 | Yourish.com


Thursday, June 27, 2002 Thursday, June 27, 2002
under none but all for one and one for all

I pledge allegiance to [the flag of] the United States of America
and to the republic for which it stands
One Nation, Indivisible,
with Liberty and Justice for All.


Wednesday, June 26, 2002 Wednesday, June 26, 2002
HALI--------- U---------- YA!
A ninth circuit federal appeals panel of three judges in San Francisco ruled today, that the words "under god" in the pledge of allegiance are unconstitutional,...just as words such as "under Jesus" ....or "under Zeus" would be unconstitutional.

The words "under God" were added by Congress in 1954 and when signing the bill, Eisenhower said it would indoctrinate children as they would be saying those words everyday. The federal panel held that text addition was over the line separating church and state, holding that the words "under God":
...send the message that believers are insiders and non-believers are outsiders. It is coercive to non believers and promotes state endorsed monotheism.

Reversal is expected, said Nina Totenberg. Nina said this was only one 3 judge panel of the ninth circuit and the full ninth circuit court will hear an appeal of this ruling. Nina said this ruling will fail right there by the full court. But even if it does, that reversal can be appealed to the Supreme Court. However, the USSC has said in other cases that "under god" is constitutional.

How can these legal professionals worship at the altar of intellectual objectivity and reverse this holding? What can they say?

Power, when confronted with its' own hypocrisy, generally looks away and maintains a dignified silence while others speak for it. The Supreme Court will refuse to hear the case and let the full ninth circuit do the reactionary political work.

It is expected that the ninth circuit will reverse by ignoring the plain meaning of the language and by ignoring its' duty to uphold and enforce the protection of Amendment I to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the spiritual freedom of American citizens whose views are not consistent with majority norms.

Now Why?

In many, many ways the law functions to protect the propertied classes against the unwashed hoards. Beside the State, the other main institution of social control is Religion. Religion controls the people; teaches them to stop questioning and submit to the rules of their betters. The legal system as an institution is composed of people who see ORDER , not freedom, as a primary value. Therefore, their inclination is to see religion as beneficial to government.

There are enough words in the Big Books to allow a Court to affirm or reverse ANYTHING or George Bush would not be president.

No Judge is objective or rules objectively. They do what's best for their class and their kind. It is important to understand the values of those who make the decisions that limit your choices.

Law and Order=Church and State.

Now, having said all that, I do not think the 9th circuit will reverse although the Congress spent all day calling them names and attempting to threaten the Court into voting the way Congress dictates. I just do not see how intellectually they can reverse and the Court just may resent all the pressure and name-calling from Congress.


Friday, June 21, 2002 Friday, June 21, 2002
Home Sweet Home
The temple is being sold; the priestess and temple cats are gone.


Thursday, June 20, 2002 Thursday, June 20, 2002
Resurgence: Nov Dec 96 CONSCIOUSNESS AND COSMOLOGY David Lorimer


Resurgence: Nov Dec 96 CONSCIOUSNESS AND COSMOLOGY David Lorimer
A Review of A Brief history of Everything by Ken Wilber (Gill and MacMillan, 1996)

...where the manifest world was seen as an embodiment of the Good. The key Enlightenment figure in this respect is Schelling, who understood the necessity of differentiating mind and nature but saw that the transcendental and unifying ground of both had been forgotten.

Schelling goes further by insisting that Spirit is the only reality: "Spirit descends into manifestation, but this manifestation is nevertheless Spirit itself a form or expression of Spirit itself." Nature is "God-in-the-making"; the processes of nature are themselves spiritual processes. Wilber sums this up by stating that "Spirit knows itself objectively as nature; knows itself subjectively as mind; and knows itself absolutely as Spirit - the Source, the Summit and the Eros of the entire sequence."

He goes beyond Schelling in his understanding of the transcending of the mind itself through the creative emergence of non dual consciousness which is both its source and goal. It is a process which, as he says, goes from pre-personal to personal to transpersonal, from biosphere to noosphere to theosphere, from subconscious to self-conscious to superconscious.

This dialectic was misunderstood by Schelling's pupil, Hegel, and was not pursued to its logical conclusion by Idealism, which provided no transpersonal practice consonant with its insights. This part of the book is the clearest and most succinct account of the evolution of consciousness which I know,

Wilber's remarks on eco-philosophy and environmental ethics are both instructive and controversial. As might be guessed from my account of subtle reductionism above, he traces the roots of eco-philosophy to the Romantic movement, which itself was a feeling reaction against the rational mechanistic impulse of the new science.

Their mistake, according to Wilber, is to reject transcendence as ruining nature instead of realizing with Schelling that nature is an expression of the Spirit. Thus they recommend a regressive return to an earlier form of society, which is itself romanticized.

I found his criticisms appropriate in the light of his thesis, and would encourage eco-philosophers to re-situate themselves within a Schelling metaphysic:

We are not just parts of the Web, but, at a deep level, We are the Web itself.

Wilber's ideas on environmental ethics are based on his distinction between ground, intrinsic and extrinsic values: all holons have equal ground value as manifestations of the same spirit; every holon has the intrinsic value of its own wholeness and depth; then each holon has an extrinsic, instrumental value for other holons.

This leads to the injunction to protect or promote as much depth or consciousness as possible.

Deep ecology tends to conflate these three values while Wilber's distinctions can bring greater clarity to ethical discussions, especially those involving relationships between different species.



Monday, June 17, 2002 Monday, June 17, 2002
Blogs help Gender Slaves

Web gives a voice to Iranian women http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2044000/2044802.stm BBC News | SCI/TECH | Web gives a voice to Iranian women

I am sick of all the tiptoe language we use in the pursuit of religious tolerance. I don't want to be tolerant of religions that justify slavery. The Muslim religion by its' (sharia) system of laws advocates holding females as slaves by males. Any war effort by any democracy against the slave states has my support. I am pleased to see the slaves have gained some access to contact and communication. May this be an avenue of escape for them.


Tuesday, June 11, 2002 Tuesday, June 11, 2002
Now here is a GREAT Journal Big Fat Blog

Big Fat Blog

Gaining Momentum

Tish notes that the Southern Poverty Law Center, creators of the excellent tolerance.org site, now features a section on weight discrimination.


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