Cartooning Again!!

It's about time that I did another editorial cartoon, don't you think? Took 3 hours to do, start to finish. Posted it up on Air America Place.

Fun Stuff Found on Day Off with Sick Hubby!

Words of wisdom. Have fun learning the Ukelele with anonymous Japanese guy.

Fun STUFF!!

Don't Play!
If you are still a poor player, you don't have to play. You are playing music not typwriting. Forget your fingering and song voice. The most important thing is to keep the rhythm and continue singing. This technique is very useful if you memorize only the first chords of some songs.

Geography Flutecake style

I have been so busy, no time to post here, lately! Well, I will try to do better!

Talking to blog pals AAP, I was trying to describe things geographically around here. I came up with this web site..

The C & D canal

The Chesapeake & Delaware Canal runs 14 miles long, 450 feet wide and 35 feet deep across Maryland and Delaware, connecting the Delaware River with the Chesapeake Bay and the Port of Baltimore. It was opened for traffic back in 1829. Now, it carries about 40% of the container ship traffic into the Port of Baltimore.


Here's the real fun page that shows near real time traffic on the canal! Very fun!

Delmarva Snow Storm

We got over 8 inches of snow.



and my washer water pipes are frozen. I need some clean clothes!!

Fortunately, the house is fine, the utiltiy is a closed porch off the back door, no heat. This is the first time it has happened in the 11 years we've owned this house.

Brrrrrrrrr

How I spent my New Year's EVE

I worked in the flower shop from 8-1, then went for a couple pints of Guinness with the old man.

From 3-6, I did my usual First Night Volunteer job to do kids crafts, this year we had clear plastic lunch bags for them to decorate, I was the ribbon stringer for the handles, insert a glow stick so they could carry their luminaria to the 6 o'clock kids fireworks at the Legislative Hall (our State Capitol building) a few blocks away!

From 7-11, Kelly & I were First Night paid performers at the Beyond Dimension Gallery/Shop. Well publicized, a lot of good friends stopped by to say hello. I took the opportunity to start the ball rolling for our own commute to DC for the January 20 protest.

We got over to our friends house just in time to toast the New Year and played music until 4AM!!! So, that means we played music for 8 hours, drinking wine and spending quality time with friends!

Such stamina for old people!! Contacts in eyes for 20-1/2 hours!!!




So, what did you do???

Randi Rhodes fans ROCK!

Air America Place Message Board was temporary host to the good people, whom we hardly knew but know better now, Randi Rhodes Message Board people, we now consider them a sister board and embrace them to our hearts.

Along with my fellow moderators at AAP, we all wish the RRMB people a good holiday and best wishes on their board refurbishment. We will be visiting them more often and hope that they stop by for a visit at AAP!

My Post Election Experience & Thoughts

Sometimes it does not even seem real.

The back of my car is still covered with anti-Bush stickers. "Turn Left at the Next Election" "Aren't you POOR enough? Vote Democrat in 2004" "Drunken Frat Boy Drives Country into Ditch". These all seem valid & reasonable. I even left the "Donald Rumsfield/Doctor Strangelove" one on long enough, we thought he was leaving - then he's staying - now they really might get rid of him. (Despite his "Craptacular" job that Lizz Winstead reminds us about, what a great description, eh?)

Its all part of my poor relationship with TIME. No, no, not the stupid weekly mag rag that just named Dubya the man of the year, in a giant "Take that you bad 54.5 Million people voted against the Emperor". I mean, the ever quickening pace of the hands on the clock, the pages on the calendar... flying by faster than I can prepare!

Why does Christmas always get here so quickly and yet, when I think about saving money for the trip to Ireland or embarking on a diet or exercise plan, the prospect of taking that AMOUNT of time seem so long? Is just further proof that Einstein was correct? Is TIME RELATIVE??

It seems like a few weeks ago only that I took into account all the possible Presidential challengers and weighed their chances for electability, well before the Primary season. I was pretty darn certain early this time. I signed up with the Kerry campaign in November 2002. Just a few weeks after the sad news about Paul Wellstone.

Now, its not that I was so very certain about Kerry that WHOLE time. I really liked Dean's message. I could have supported him, had he prevailed to the convention. What happened to him was not fair.

I wanted to back the man I felt sure that could trounce Dubya and send them back to wherever Connecticut Cowboys go. I was a little conflicted about my goals for world peace but, hey, the trade off was going to be worth it. I knew that if we were looking at a Kerry inauguration in a few weeks, we would have our hands full- working to pull the Kerry people to the left.

But now... look folks, you've all experienced at least a bit of my disorientation since November 2. When you hear about further civilian deaths in Iraq, more torture, more civil liberties trampled and when you see that cast of clowns taking up all the public space for Corporate sponsorship on Inauguration Day.

Wasn't it just a few minutes ago we were contributing to effort in Ohio?

I really think, since we are already disenfranchised, we should demand a more liberal agenda from the minority party. It is almost truly come true that the Democrats have become a party like any of the others, Green, Libertarian, Looney and all the others, any but the one, the Corporate Republican party.

I really feel that as long as the damn Democrats want to be Republican-LITE, they cannot be anything but shills taking the corporate crumbs and working the periphery of the political system. Like political vermin, opportunistically gorging themselves on the leavings of this not-so-GOP-like party, whatever the hell they are.

Anyhow, as I have always been a Democrat, like my mother & her mother before her, etc. I am not necessarily advocating starting over with a new party. The same as I am not ready to scrap the friends I have here & farm out the aged feline to move to Europe. Its our country, too, dammit!

What do you do to keep your tenuous grip on the passage of time, the lunacy of another four years of Dubya?

Post Election Blues

What a week this has been. This might get you caught up with what's going on in my head...

The Democratic National Committee sent me a link to a survey. Here is how I filled it out.

1. How did you participate in this election?

I made my first donation of many & signed up with the Kerry campaign in November 2002.

As a moderator on a political forum with almost 5,000 members.

Air America Place

Kept my friends & family in the loop with the latest campaign issues.

Put 15 Pro-Kerry and Anti-Bush bumperstickers on the back of my PTCruiser and drove all over town.

Drove people to the polls. Stood outside of poll place to greet voters.

I am a musician in a working Irish band, we donated the band's time to play for fundraisers for local State Senate & for Gov. Minner. Took money to play for Republican fundraiser and donated the money to our favorite Democrat for State Senate campaign.

2. Is this the first time you participated in election activism?

No, won't be the last, either.

3. How would you like to continue to stay involved? (Volunteering, phonebanking, fundraising, local organizing, etc.)

I don't know if I want to be associated with the Democratic Party anymore. If I am going to be disenfranchised, I might as well find a party that is more liberal and does not try to be GOP-LITE to get the middle of America.

I am a leftie. You guys don't represent me, it seems.

4. Did you feel the actions you took were effective?

Yes.

5. Was it a good experience for you?

Yes. Up until election night.

6. How would you make it better?

How can you ask THAT?? When 60% of eligible voters go to the polls, people were very committed to voting.

The Democrats AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL could have made the National message better- more about the economy and what is now going to happen to us, now that we will truly have one party government. You guys dropped the ball.

7. Please share other thoughts and comments you have about the 2004 election and what Democrats and the Democratic Party should do going forward.

I am mad as hell at the DNC, because those GOP bastards stole the election in Ohio and Kerry was TOLD to concede too early.

Before the 2006 election cycle, there needs to be many changes made at the STATE/COUNTY level to avoid fraud. Not enough was done about Black Box voting. America can do better than this 3rd world shambles voting and protect votes for each and every eligible citizen. The dirty tricks of the Karl Rove gang for preventing poor & minorities from voting must not be allowed to continue. The DNC dropped the ball on this for the 2004 vote, too. We knew they would try to steal it. And they did.

I want our troops out of this sham of an illegal war. Terrorists cannot be defeated in a ground war in the wrong country. (Of course Iraqis hate us now, we are occupying their country and torturing people) Where is Osama bin Laden?

The world community cannot believe we Americans are so stupid. And neither can I.

Bush's answer for robbing Social Security is THE FLU. Steal from the poor and give it to the rich. That's a hell of a way to live out the rest of our miserable lives.

Oh, yeah, and did I mention, that I am mad as hell at the DNC??? Fire that damn Terry McAuliffe and quit selling out to big money corporate outfits. Get back to the people and pull your heads out of your backsides!

You can take this survey yourself, Democrat Post Election Survey

Bush: "Success Is Not An Option!"

Posters for your people to see!!

We are less safe than in 2001, thanks DUBYA!

C.I.A. Unit on bin Laden Is Understaffed, a Senior Official Tells Lawmakers


By JAMES RISEN

ASHINGTON, Sept. 14 - Three years after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency has fewer experienced case officers assigned to its headquarters unit dealing with Osama bin Laden than it did at the time of the attacks, despite repeated pleas from the unit's leaders for reinforcements, a senior C.I.A. officer with extensive counterterrorism experience has told Congress.

The bin Laden unit is stretched so thin that it relies on inexperienced officers rotated in and out every 60 to 90 days, and they leave before they know enough to be able to perform any meaningful work, according to a letter the C.I.A. officer has written to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.

Hold BUSH Accountable

Please view this ad from the Kerry campaign. Bushites want it both ways. They should condem the ads by the spin off groups that incorrectly throw mud on Kerry's distinguished service record.

We're Back!

We had a great trip and I have some crazy pictures of the family. The surprise party for my mother went very well. I will add to this later when I put pictures up on this blog.

So, the politics have really hotted up. More on this!

Blog ECHO, I found this today...

Y'all should check out this stuff in the Tom Tomorrow blog...

and this cartoon...

Busy, busy & going back to Oklahoma

Kelly and I are flying back home for quick trip, a surprise for my mother's 70th birthday. I reckon she does NOT read my blog. We get in this afternoon in time to see my sister for HER birthday, too!!

I will have to try to blog remotely, from the wireless gizmos.

I have been very busy and have been bad about blogging. The
Air America Place forum has been a lot of work, because despite the Bush Crime Family effort, the post-convention bounce was felt by our traffic and new members.

Its a problem we could only dream of 2 years ago!!

Talk to you from the road!

Flutecake, the webpage style gets updated now that I have a new DOMAIN Host!

I got it all done! Now, I just need to add more photos and artwork. Oh, yeah, and the Cafe Press store is coming, too, baby!

Web Based RSS News Reader

I have to say, I couldn't decide or figure out any better way than to do it this way. If you can tell me a better way, comment.

Convention B L O G G E R S

We gotta love bloggers, right?? Let's get geared up for the DNC!!

TomPaine.com - Betraying Iraqi Women

This, to me, is not a shock but it is still very sad, I hope this makes you want to read this article.

Betraying Iraqi Women
Lucinda Marshall
July 16, 2004

Remember when the Bush administration told us that American soldiers would be greeted as liberators? How about when we were told that the war would free Iraqi women? We know that the citizens throwing flowers never materialized, and now it turns out that helping Iraqi women was just a PR line too.
...
Despite the Bush administration's assurances to the contrary, conditions for women have worsened substantially as a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and its continuing aftermath. The contrast between the rhetoric and the reality is stunning. ...
The Bush administration’s claim of rescuing Iraqi women is just one more false pretense for war. It systematically ignores Iraqi women’s needs, terrorizes their lives and shows an extraordinary degree of misogynistic hubris. While it would be impossible to undo the damage, we must go beyond the basics of rebuilding the infrastructure and address issues such as honor killings—as well as our own complicity in the violence committed against women as an act of ‘liberation’. Most importantly, we must listen to the voices of Iraqi women and insist on their right to fully participate in healing their country.

Iraq Coalition Casualty Count.

893 for US troops, 60 UK, 60 Other in the last 485 days

Civilians.

Min 11,164 or Max 13,118

:(