Ok, I note in the stats that I get people looking for pictures of those who have died.  I want to provide some linkages, and the first one is one that always punches ME in the gut…why should I suffer alone?  Pass this one on to your conservative friends who think we women should be at home baking cookies, will you; cause they are notably silent about ending the wars that have killed gods know how many Iraq and Afghani women and more than 100 American servicewomen.  These are the work of one artist trying to keep up:

http://www.borntowar.com/thumbnails/borntowar.html

Otherwise, you might be able to search for a photo here:

http://www.rememberthefallen.com/

Or, of course, the two CNN sites, one for Iraq and one for Afghanistan:

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2004/oef.casualties/

Except it has moved from Germany to Vermont.  Yep, you read it correctly and you have Homeland Security to thank.  They want a fence through the center of a little town in Vermont that straddles the border with Canada.

Yep, Canada.  Because, you know, Canadians are foreign…they may as well be some of them Afghani Taliban types or something.  (Sorry, I just can’t type misspellings for stupid dialect!)  And the many paranoid gun-toting sorts posted to this formerly peaceable place are creating the very problems that never existed before they got there–the things they say they protect against.

When do we know when to call bullshit?  Really?  Come ON!!

Read it and point & laugh, weep, swear, whatever works.  Gods, I HOPE something works, cause the stupid …yes, yes, it burns.  It isn’t patriotic to behave like Brown Shirted assholes or Soviet draftees on watch towers.

http://tinyurl.com/6pqwg5

(hat-tip to Les H.for the source of my rantage)

Ah, how many heroic epics have instructions about fighting to the last man? Doesn’t it make good movie footage, and how very “300-ish” it is, eh? Note, however, even in “The 300″ the man so wounded as to not be able to fight effectively was sent home. I guess America is more Spartan than Sparta. We are sending men and women incapable of battle readiness back over and over again. The military contends that sending men and women who are on “medical hold” is usually a case of minor things like waiting on glasses or needing a cavity filled. I wish that were true, but I think the need to fill the numbers of “warm bodies” required is making those judgment calls more than a bit questionable. It gives a whole new meaning to the term “recycled”…which in military parlance usually means something very different than the local ecologists mean.

When I was in the military, I passed out on runs occasionally; I had undiagnosed asthma. And since I was considering a career, I was happy enough with that—because asthma would have gotten me tossed out of the Army. Now, they routinely deploy troops with asthma to a war zone. Hard to move out of harm’s way when you cannot breath or stop coughing, hard to move quickly at all.

What else counts as similarly minor? Let’s list a few things:

Diabetes.

Sleep apnea severe enough to require a machine to breath at night.

A rare and difficult to treat and incurable lung illness called eosinophilic granuloma.

Pain from war wounds so severe that helmet wearing is forbidden by medical profile. Or pain so disabling that you cannot bear the weight of the protective armor plates and do without them as you go on patrol in IED loaded zones.

Herniated spinal disks. I have HAD this, I wrecked four of the disks out of seven in my neck. The pain is unrelenting, I could not grasp items securely in my hands, I could not possibly have held a gun steady enough to hit the target, nor could I have put on a gas mask in time to save my life. It took two surgeries and FIVE YEARS of healing and rehab to regain even 65% of my former strength and use. These soldiers are not getting surgery, they are given useless and addictive drugs and sent back to war. Or they are given surgery and more pain and then sent back to war.

Knee surgery recipients…some of them classed as “permanently disabled” afterwards. My son was medically discharged in this condition. He can’t walk more than 100 feet without nigh incapacitating pain, he sometimes can’t drive a standard transmission vehicle because his “clutch” leg locks. He can’t bike, carry heavy gear, or any of other favorite activities. He cannot run and is often in agony. Men just like him and in worse shape on in a war zone now.

I could go on and on. The Army contends that it is just innocent and honest mistakes. The men and women being sent not only fear for their own lives since they know their incapacity, they fear for the comrades they cannot adequately protect in desperate situations. And when doctors DO find their medical ethical p’s and q’s? Commanders have the option of over-ruling them and sending the troop anyway.

Besides the physically battered and broken being sent back, many units have now served FOUR terms in the war zone. In Viet Nam, they served 12 months…and only more if they voluntarily signed up. But now, in the “Volunteer Army” they can be sent back again and again, and the popular (not with soldiers) “stop loss” order keeps them in the military past their expected tour of service. It is a back door draft and without it, they would have already had to admit they don’t have enough military for the wars already in progress.

How many more will they need if we start more wars? With Iran, or Gods forfend…with Russia? The mind boggles. And here is where I must interject a bit of real mean nastiness for the small crew of Democratic voters who are angry enough to “vote Green” or otherwise rather than support Obama. If you truly believe it doesn’t matter who wins the next four years in office, make sure your high school and college aged children take Spanish as a language choice. Because Canada is slamming the door and your sons and daughters will NOT be safe. It is one thing to be patriotic, it is another to throw a whole military into a meat grinder with no exit door. Eventually, they will draft. Because they will run out of volunteers.

Your Senator most likely has a staffer who is dedicated to military and veteran issues. Learn the name and phone number and email address of this person and keep after them. Do NOT shut up or be re-assured that it is “only a few mistakes” or be told that “a few soldiers contacted us and we helped them” because getting through to the Senator’s office is a bit tougher from Iraq or Afghanistan.

And remember, after all, the walking wounded won’t be able to walk or fight forever. Even angels and valkyries must weep as witnesses to this horror. Athena turns her head in shame. If you don’t all speak up for these men and women NOW, who will be left to speak for your children?

The sound of women going “Hillareeeeee” is still ringing in my ears.  I sure hope it isn’t all sour grapes.  I read my way around the blogs this morning, and some on the other side of the Hillary argument dismisses her followers as bitter bull dykes.  Welllll, that is certainly….well, yeah, let’s not, ok? Over simplification solves nothing at all.

Every hard-core Hillary supporter is not a bull dyke.  Not even any kind of dyke.  But I know a few dykes and mind you, I will defend their right to be bitter.  But not about Hillary, ok?  On that score I am willing to smack a few hands and act rather Nunzilla with a rapping ruler. Grow the hell UP, ok?  I have heard that “It doesn’t matter who is elected, it will likely only be for four years.”  Really?

Look what George the Fool accomplished in four years, will you?   And McCain is crazier and more damaged than he was—you really want to submit America in her already screwed up fragile state to THAT?  Because you think Hillary was unfairly treated?  Let’s grant you that, because judging from her speech last night, the stuff the media chose to show all through her campaign was NOT her best moments.  But geez louise, take it out on the MEDIA, not on the American public by letting John McCain take the White House.

Let me assure you from the seat of a half-crazed Sybilline sort (admittedly not as infallible as the Pope, but less dogmatically motivated), that hard and rotten times are in the very near future for America.  Do you really want a man in the Oval Office whose response to this will almost certainly be to blame some country far away and start another war?  Because that IS the GOP answer to economic woes—cause it works for THEM and THEIR friends, they are all getting richer.  And because they still pump the ‘trickle down’ bullshit, because if McCain’s $270,000 a year “domestic help budget” is any example, they envision all of us dressed in French maid outfits.  (I admit, I want to see them try that withe the reputed “bull dykes”, ok? )

Another blogger did float an idea that I have discussed with friends—whether Obama might put Clinton on the Supreme Court bench.  Oh, my, Scalia might stroke out at the thought…and that makes me smile and drool a bit too much for mixed company.  And others bitch that, while , yes Scalia is a puke, it is wrong to prostitute the Court for political quid pro quo.  Nice sentiment, I agree with the ideal behind it.

However, I am of the camp that applauds the selection of Joe Biden because Biden will open his mouth and shoot poison arrows back at McCain.   The Democrats have been taking the supposedly high moral road in Congress and in public discourse for the last eight years and it has availed us NOT.  It has been the political version of advice I was given (and discarded) as a girl: In case of rape, it is inevitable, so lay back and enjoy it!

WE have not been enjoying it, but the Democrats HAVE been laying back.  It is time to do some punching, some stiletto heeling of foreheads  and that includes on the Supreme Court.  The pendulum needs a good damned shove to the opposite direction if we ever hope to put the country back in shape to be recognized on any moral map again.  If Obama  wins and puts Hillary on the Court, pray there are enough folks in Congress to ratify that choice!

If Hillary truly has enough disgruntled followers who will either fail to vote or vote for McCain, or any other candidate, just don’t let me hear any of you saying bad things about Ralph-Spoiler-Nader again, ok?  Because if this election is thrown to McCain , you will all surely learn a most unpleasant lesson in why it certainly does fucking matter who is elected. One blogger I read has one thing dead right—if McCain is at the Wheel of State when it goes down, it will be on the GOP neo-con slate as it deserves to be.  But the signatories at the bottom will include all those misguided, cult-of-personality Hillary-ites who can’t see the writing on the Babylonian wall.   Are you really all up to put your “John Hancock” to THAT?

I have been reading blogs for three days now, and almost nothing else since I have been a bit ill and feeling very lousy.  The house is a mess, yard tasks are untended and I can’t have cuddles with my pet ferrets for fear of giving them the respiratory crud that is knocking me back.

I was both distressed and comforted to read that other bloggers are tired.  Weary of the battle against the “burning stupid” being tossed about as actual news, weary of the line of crap defending various governmental choices that beggar the nation AND the imagination.  Nice to know I am not alone in my extreme desire to pass out in sleep and wake up when it is over; but distressing to think that so many of us fighting the good fight are wearing out.  It isn’t as if we can quit, is it?

And reading and thinking, the thought sprang..thank Gods the year ends soon.  Whoops.  One of those little markers of how far I have come since  1986.  That is the year that I quietly mentally declared myself a heretic of sorts…since I was Catholic then and that was the only label I could imagine.  That is the year I knew I was done, done, done with Christianity as my personal path.  I didn’t know then that there was a whole neo-pagan community.  I didn’t yet think of myself as pagan; I did recognize that I was heading down shamanic pathways into dark places all by my lonesome, but I really thought I was alone.  It was nice to learn otherwise by about 1992!

But all the same, that “end of the year” thing tells me how long it has been, how natural it is now to step away from the main conventions…I no longer have to remind myself to think of the year ending in fall.  You see, some pagans consider the holy day of Samhain (pronounced ‘Sow -in’ or as I do, “Sav -ain” the end of the year.  This ends the year not on Dec. 31st, but sometime after Oct. 31st.  Some do it just in a ritual sense, it is the “last” ritual of the year cycle, rather like the government ends the fiscal year in October.  For others, it really is more related to a mental calendar….I see my year END as the harvest finishes and the cold and dark close in.  I never could grasp New Years on January 1st—what could possibly begin in the midst of the dark and cold at that time of year?  I was always exhausted and ready for New in the fall.  I needed a formal “Quit now” signal that was out of synch with the calendars on my wall.  I am weary far ahead of the calendar’s end zone.

Is the earth, do you think, as weary as the sun beats down?  Does She toss in her leaf-shrouded bed as fall comes to us?  Is She so weary she wants to throw  in the towel prematurely and fall into Winter as into a lover’s arms?  Around here, it almost seems so; for though August is our hottest month most of the time, not this year.  This year the nights fall into the 50’s and the rain comes early.  Some leaves are yellow, and flowers rushed to bloom and seed sooner than normal. Peculiar storms toss the clouds about over our heads, rather rare tornado funnels form and lightening strikes are prevalent.

Even the Mountain –Rainier, looks gray and cold under low clouds, a visage putting on no pretty face at all.   Sunday, we rode the Harley to town and both were transfixed by the look of “our” mountain; we realized what we were seeing  was rain falling on Rainier, something we don’t see on the mountain since it is usually buried in clouds when it happens.  Rainier is a “young” mountain, being volcanic and not an upthrust prominence, so to see the familiar anchoring edifice of our landscape looking gray and cold and old…….it feels portentous and threatening.

So, weary as I am, the landscape around me seems to be hurrying out of summer, too.   Physically the summer wears me down with work and heat and this year, with the heartless pounding of the political scene.  I need the clouds to close in and storm, occasionally putting out lights and ending my need to read, hear or see the news that distresses me.  I have a while to go, I must hold on for the turn of my yearly “wheel” because the first harvest fest is over, but the Equinox must pass and then a few weeks wherein the frost will come will pass.

And then Samhain will be upon me.  I try very hard to pay all my bills off by this date…obviously that goal falls short, but usually at least one pile of paper goes ritually to the fire, all finished. The last fire of the year will burn.  I will make a liqueur of rowan berries.   I will dress a tiny ceramic skeleton in lace and roses and give her a tiny scythe….she will be Death on my altar.  For this final ‘harvest’ festival is the Feast of Souls, the remembrance of the dead is a primary task.  I will burn a handwritten list of the men and women fallen in the wars.  I will meditate on life and on death, on the cycle of falling and waiting through the winter cold to come again to life in the spring.  I will think of the black, cold, resting earth, close my eyes and look for spring within my own darkness.

…I mean, really, sometimes don’t you wonder? Carville goes home to Mary the Republican at night…don’t you wonder? And after watching Ted Kennedy pass the torch and blow life into the dim sparks of the DNC fire last night, as Maria Shriver brushed tears from her cheeks, while her husband Arnold addressed the GOPs…don’t you wonder what passes for conversation when they crawl into bed together later?

Yes, no doubt none of my business, but I just can’t help wondering.

And another thing I wonder about? The pouting Hillary crew. The media is asking whether, on the second night of the convention, is there anything Hillary Rodham Clinton can say to get the disgruntled among her supporters to back Obama with enthusiasm. Well, you know what that makes me think? If she cannot find anything sufficiently convincing to say to move HER OWN SUPPORTERS it means it is a good thing she isn’t running for President. Because if she cannot command her own troops, so to speak, how could she contend with people who do NOT like her at all? And to all you “If I can’t have Hillary, I won’t play at all.” people…..you are childish imbeciles. Get the hell over it….cause it makes nasty old political pragmatists like me think that it isn’t about feminism at all, that it really is just that you are all closet racists who don’t want a black man instead of a white woman. Prove me wrong, please….I’d love to be wrong.

Will SOMEbody please tell the idiots who work for Faux News that “freedom of speech” does not mean anyone HAS to talk to YOUR sorry asses? The birth-control eye-glassed dude (Griff?  Seriously, that is the name he uses?) in Colorado whining cause the “leftist protesters” would not speak with him does not understand this basic fact. Freedom of speech works both ways…they didn’t tape his mouth, for example. Of course, my own view is that talking to a Fox reporter really should require a Miranda warning first.

If only internal combustion engines could run on burning stupid!

Ferrets are not pets for the unaware. They are too inquisitive and too acquisitive for the casual pet owner. They steal keys, cigarettes, wallets, pagers, cell phones and shoes. And they investigate any likely source of goodies—thus today’s picture of Taz proving that Woozles, unlike Tiggers, DO like honey. This is what happens if we forget to move the turntable from the table when he is at liberty. Lids are a temporary impediment at best! Unfortunately, they also eat things like ear plugs, which are bad for them and result in expensive surgeries.

The domesticated pet ferrets act a lot like their wild cousins, the black footed ferret, but in spite of what California law says—they are NOT wild and cannot replace the wild ferret. The black footed ferret, while still very endangered, is being bred and released into its old habitat. While I have watched hours of video related to this desperate effort to save these beautiful little predators, I can’t say I have much hope. They had such limited breeding stock to begin the program, I fear there will not be a healthy amount of genetic diversity in the animals produced. And in July this year, sylvatic plague swept through the prairie dog/ferret habitat in the Dakotas and killed over a third (last check) of the re-established ferrets dwelling there.

My pet ferrets are my link to a world I fear is disappearing: a nature under assault. The latest video I enjoyed is to be found at the link: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/551895/black_footed_ferret/

Usually, I update on the non-US Coalition dead at New Moon, and we have a week to go yet, but the count in Afghanistan was so high this month that I am doing that part now, I will update the Iraq war dead of the other nations next week.

So, here are the American dead for both Iraq and Afghanistan and the many soldiers of other countries killed in Afghanistan since the last posting for them. My sympathies to the families and friends, and to their comrades at arms.

Lance Cpl. Jacob J. Toves, 27, of Grover Beach, Calif., Marine, Afghanistan - combat ops

Staff Sgt. Kristopher D. Rodgers, 29, of Sturgis, Mich. - Army - Afghanistan - IED

Pvt. Janelle F. King, 23, of Merced, Calif. - Army - Iraq - non-combat incident

1st Lt. Donald C. Carwile, 29, of Oxford, Va. - Army - Afghanistan - IED, grenades & sm. arms fire

Pfc. Jonathan L. Luscher, 20, of Scranton, Pa. - Army - Afghanistan - non-combat incident

Pfc. Paul E. Conlon Jr., 21, of Somerville, Mass. - Army - Afghanistan - IED, grenades & sm. arms fire

Lance Cpl. Travis M. Stottlemyer, 20, of Hatfield, Pa. Marine -Iraq -non-hostile incident

Another man who died much earlier after his service in Iraq, but was not initially listed as having died of wounding in the Iraq War:
Sgt. Nickolas Lee Hopper, 27, of Montrose, Ill., died Sept. 8, 2007 - Marine

Sgt. 1st Class David J. Todd Jr., 36, of Marrero, La. - Army - Afghanistan - small arms fire

Sgt. 1st Class George Stanciel, 40, of Greenwood, Miss - Army - Iraq - mortar attack

Cpl Mihalo, Anthony G. Mihalo, 23 Napierville, Ill. Marine Hostile - hostile fire -Afghanistan
Lcpl Juan Lopez-Castaneda, 19 Mesa, Az. Marine Hostile - hostile fire - Afghanistan

Dustin R. R. J. Wasden Canada - IED attack
Stephan J. Stock Canada - IED attack
Shawn Eades Canada - IED attack
Erin Doyle Canada Hostile - hostile fire
Joshua B. Roberts - Canada - Hostile- hostile fire

Pawel Brodzikowski - Poland - Hostile - hostile fire
Pawel Szwed - Poland - Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
Waldemar Sujdak - Poland -Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack

Melam Baouma France - Hostile - hostile fire
Sébastien Devez France - Hostile - hostile fire
Damien Buil France - Hostile - hostile fire
Nicolas Gregoire France - Hostile - hostile fire
Kevin Chassaing France - Hostile - hostile fire
Damien Gaillet France - Hostile - hostile fire
Julien Le Pahun France - Hostile- hostile fire
Anthony Riviere France - Hostile - hostile fire
Alexis Taani France - Hostile - hostile fire
Rodolph Penon France - Hostile - hostile fire

Barry Dempsey UK(Scotland) Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
Wayne Bland UK Hostile - hostile fire - suicide car bomb

Edgars Ozolins Latvia Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack

(And I must say, a horrid thought hit me as I walked these names into the Labyrinth this evening—as I watch the count go up in Afghanistan, I see politicians scrambling to find sufficient men to send to quell the upswing in death.  And then, as it settles in the hills that defeated Russia, the violence will rise again in Iraq.  They will bounce our military forces back and forth like a tennis ball…..and the death counts will rise and rise.)

Ok, the promised book review. Or shredding, as the case may be? First off, I must say, one hears so many different opinions about what is “green” living, but even the most environmentally conscious person is always conflicted because how DO you live in the modern world without damaging it? So, getting this book was my attempt to remedy my problem and answer my questions.

I have to say it answered some questions, remedied nothing at all. I bought this one out of a stack because it had the recommendation of Michael Pollan–the author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”, which I really DID like. He is right, this book is largely more realistic and practical than others I have seen….but….well, always a but, right?

The “buts” of this book revolve largely around flying off on popular tangents. The most recent one being the “OMG, plastics are going to kill us, they poison the very water inside the bottles” tangent. The book does a very good job of telling you which plastics ARE likely to leach toxins into your food and water, I have no complaints about that; it attempts to tell you how to successfully check the pile of storage containers in your kitchen for safety, too. But then it slips into a wee bit of nuttery by advising you to “not buy canned food that has the white plastic lining in the tin.” While it does acknowledge this is a trial and error exercise, I find this silly. Most cans do not have this lining, and those that do may need it to keep the can from corroding around the chemical property of the particular food. Geez, it’s hard enough without this level of insanity.

The book talks a lot about how to get rid of stuff you don’t want w/o putting it in a landfill. All well and good, I guess, but it doesn’t address in hard enough terms —only makes a weak attempt, to tell us to maybe stop buying so many semi-disposable toys to begin with. I guess that is reasonable, after all a single book is not going to be able to tackle the “throw away society” on its own.

The book does have a bounty of information on who to call about issues when trying to green up—for instance I learned that if you must dry clean (the man WILL have suits), there is a process less toxic than normal that uses carbon dioxide. Never mind that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas….but it is better than the usual chemicals. It does a good job of telling you how to shop, and as the title proclaims, offers you three levels of commitment and do-able. It was refreshingly un-dogmatic, and yet honestly addressed several issues.

Nonetheless, some suggestions were non-viable in this house. Unplugging all things not in use, for instance. If I un-do the spaghetti connecting this computer mess to its power source, you won’t see me for three days while I find out how to re-connect it. If I unplug the television-dvr complex, it loses all settings and must laboriously be re-programed. But the book did finally give me the ammo to make the man stop leaving chargers plugged in with nothing attached to them!

I found the section on carbon offsets a bit cynical, if the book lacked anything totally, it was a full grasp of the entire PLANET being the point, not only spoiled Americans getting over here on our side of the world.  Especially the sections where she recommends Walmart without noticing the horrors of dumping waste that this company does.  Hellooooooo?

It had very common sense suggestions for the ‘buy organic’ argument, recognizing that food prices are high and troublesome and we all have to eat. But one comment in that section, about cleaning with eco-friendly products kind of wrinkled both my brow and nose. It said that being ecologically conscious did not have to mean being a drudge (or words to that effect), that you could HIRE someone to do some of the work.

And therein dear readers is my main bitch about this otherwise good guide to ecologically sustainable life: you need to be financially very well off to follow all these suggestions. For if there is one thing all the greener and greenest things had in common it was EXPENSE. And this is what the ecologists need to work on, you see….if the ordinary citizen can’t afford to be green, the planet is screwed. The book’s response to this issue seemed to be recommending WALMART for it’s supposed green improvements, because the human ecology of lousy pay and cheap Chinese crap sold there apparently is just another strange political bedfellow!  Walmart is a cosmetically green company, but the actual ecological record is a nightmare!

But all that aside, the book has some very useful suggestions and does seem better than the three or four others I leafed through in the store. Author Lori Bongiorno really gave it a good try, I don’t think any book on this subject will please me fully, but this one was the best of the bunch.

If there was a section missing entirely, it was the most needed one of all: the one telling you how to motivate your government to crack down on the BIG polluters instead of merely accepting campaign contributions from them!  It just isn’t easy being green and small….