Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged dance, facebook, Nia, Studio 206 on January 7, 2012| Leave a Comment »
From the sublime use of social media, to the ridiculous but still entertaining, Facebook has been asking people to post the top song from the year of their birth. So here goes – “Buttons and Bows” by Dinah Shore! Shimmy shimmy shake girl!!
And thanks to the Bride for encouraging me to dance again. Just left the downtown Mall with endorphins churning from a magical Nia dance class at Studio 206. Could the New Year get any sweeter?
Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged Freedom From Fear, Indefinite Detention, NDAA on January 5, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Something happened on New Year’s Eve that not many national news networks picked up on; instead they reported the latest celebrity divorce and weight loss strategies of the stars. And the adnauseum chronicle of pre-Iowa caucusing. This is where social media is filling the gap. I noticed it on a news feed, and then got an action alert in my email –
“President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law. It contains a sweeping worldwide indefinite detention provision. And it has no time or geographic limits. It can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield.” It was signed by the Executive Director of the ACLU, Anthony Romero.
And snap, being the third charmer to reinforce the insanity of this bill, Jon Stewart did a bit about it too! “…Destroying Our Own Way of Life Before Terrorists Have a Chance to Do it For Us.” You have to love the little red Gitmo, right?
http://gawker.com/5866210/jon-stewart-bashes-obama-for-backing-indefinite-detention-bill
We’ve been through this before, detaining Japanese Americans during WWII. Ronald Reagan apologized for that blunder. Now we can hold Americans abroad without trial as long as the hostilities exist? I don’t pretend to be a lawyer, but I know when freedom shudders. We Americans are supposed to be free from fear, but passing this bill while everyone was busy toasting in 2012, or sleeping, was a cowardly act. To read more about it: http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/three_myths_about_the_detention_bill/
Want to sign a pledge to defend freedom?
https://secure.aclu.org/site/SPageServer?s_subsrc=120103_NDAA_redirect&pagename=120103_NDAAGOLAsk&JServSessionIdr004=ifa1ufc8c1.app217a
Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged CeeLo, Imagine, Religion on January 2, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Let’s just admit it. We are usually asleep by the time the ball drops in Times Square. But these last few years we’ve had a hospital gala on New Year’s Eve and it just keeps getting better and better. Which means we end up staying later and later. Still, determined to see Gaga and Kathy Griffin with our man Anderson, I managed to get home just in time to see Kathy in her bra and listen to Cee Lo Green singing John Lennon’s “Imagine.”
Imagine my dismay! The outright sacrilegious audacity of the man to change “And no religion too,” to “And all religion’s true.” I was furious. I kept saying to Bob, who was trying desperately to fall asleep, let him change “F*#^” You” to “Forget You,” but WHY WHY WHY impose his religiosity on the rest of us? And it seems, I’m not the only one…http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/cee-lo-green-outrages-john-lennon-fans-by-changing-lyrics-to-imagine-20120102
This comes on the heels of a small road trip through TN right before Christmas. If you’ve never listened to conservative talk radio, which I never do, you would be absolutely astonished at the amount of Islamophobia that comes over the airwaves in certain parts of the South. There had been a demonstration at Memphis Airport because two Muslim clerics had been thrown off a Delta flight for acting suspicious. Interfaith groups went to this peaceful protest to support the clerics, and this particular radio station, which caters to Christian Fundamentalists, sent their representative. Oh the scathing links to Bible passages and doomsday scenarios.
One might think the religion that brought us the Inquisition, was preparing a holy Crusade to keep the flag of Islam from flying over the USA!
And here I was, on New Year’s Eve, back in the birthplace of Jefferson – who btw built a library at the center of his university and NOT a church for a very good reason – trying to reconcile this lyric debacle. Words have meaning to this word nerd, and you can’t try to make a classic song into a pop, feel good everybody’s OK and religion does no harm song Cee Lo. Read your history books, and keep your paws off my Beatle.
MountainMornings 