Think of Standing Rock Today #WaterIsLife

Think of Standing Rock Water Protectors Today
#WaterIsLife
#NoDAPL
#HonortheEarth
#FreeRedFawn

Standing Rock
Today
Wherever YOU be
When YOU wash your face and hands think of Standing Rock
When YOU bathe your children think of Standing Rock
When YOU clean your food think of Standing Rock
While YOU go about Your day think of Standing Rock
When YOU drink water today think of Standing Rock
When YOU flush your toilet today think of Standing Rock
When YOU shower today think of Standing Rock
When YOU make coffee today think of Standing Rock
When YOU wash clothes today think of Standing Rock
When YOU drink tea today think of Standing Rock
When YOU turn on a hose today think of Standing Rock
When YOU see the sky today think of Standing Rock
When YOU walk on the Earth think of Standing Rock
When YOU are kissed by the wind think of Standing Rock
When YOU think of Standing Rock think of our sisters and brothers Protecting the Water.

 

~~~~~~~

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A Very Sincere Shout Out to ExxonMobil

Today on FaceBook I had a close encounter with ExxonMobil’s Public Relations Machine via a video advertisement. The following is my comment/feedback/response to said ad: 

Okay, I just ‘inquired’ why I’m seeing this ad and got a ‘good’ explanation from Facebook

[thank you, Facebook]–Exxon wants to reach out to people like ‘me’. Well, Exxon you and

your fellow Oil companies ‘reached’ me long ago via the Niger Delta, Ecuador and

Guatemala, and the house down the street where the owners were ‘stuck’ with a gas drill in

their front yard for years, via the oil storage tanks and refinery in the little township two

miles up north where cancer runs rampant, with the oil spill in Alaska, the oil spill in the

Gulf, et al and that’s why I say NO! to Big Oil. #NoDAPL, No to the entire fossil fuel industry,

NO to Exxon’s influence in Politics, NO to an industry with the biggest profits in the world-

-an Industry which destroys the Earth we all live on, attacks people who criticize it, and lies

about Climate Change and truly doesn’t give a damn about people like me. Yeah, I get it,

you’re on a Public Relations Roll. Good luck with that. I guess the upside is that you’re

giving work to some people in advertising, Facebook and everywhere you’re placing these

ads. So you reached out to someone in my demographics. Well, now I’ve reached back.

#WaterIsLife But hey, Exxon, ‘you’ already knew that, didn’t you? Now learn how to

#HonortheEarthbefore it’s too late. I don’t think Mars is ready for Homo sapiens just yet.

Have a nice day. 🙂 .

Ad reference is to  ExxonMobil’s #Energy Lives Here ~ “ExxonMobil is a leader in carbon capture and storage”  This sponsored video ad appeared on my fb timeline. Perhaps you’ve seen it there or elsewhere.

~~~~

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A few words about this blog

It’s not often I write about this blog–why it exists, why I return to it after long and short lapses, or its purpose. In reality this blog served its main purpose years ago. Other than that it’s been a means for a non-tech person to learn the absolute bare basics required to connect with the ever-changing venue of the world-wide web. As such it has continued on as a means of sharing any thing that interests me.  That said, let’s get a few things very clear:

1–This is a ‘free’ blog: I do not pay WordPress for the privilege of using theme thirteen. And WordPress does not pay me. I appreciate having a quality venue for sharing my personal interests with whoever is inclined to visit my blogcasa.

2–This blog earns absolutely ZILCH, Zero, Nada, Nothing in dollars and cents. I have absolutely no connection to any advertisements which appear here. This blog was never intended to generate any personal income whatsoever for moi. It has not. It does not.

3–I will not post comments which contain hate speech, personal attacks on individuals whose books, views, films, music or other creative work I’ve written about. There’s too much hate speech in the world already and I prefer not to contribute to it by giving it yet another platform. Note to those returning to look for said comments: while I respect your First Amendment right to make certain statements please do take some time to consider the meanings of the words slander and libel and potential legal consequences thereof.

4–Regarding a number of primary historical documents from record group 75 posted on this blog. As stated on several such posts–but not all–historical information to which anyone who visits the National Archives has access (take note that there are many people who for one reason or another do NOT have direct access to the National Archives) was shared to make it available to individuals searching for family information (some of this is now currently on ancestry.com), to inform others about historical conditions, perspectives and the lives of real people–what they suffered and endured.

5–Main points one through four being stated as clearly and  concisely as I am currently able to write: It’s 26 degrees here (nothing compared to the brutal cold at Standing Rock, North Dakota)–a drop of over sixty degree in a week’s time. Less than one inch of snow has fallen. This is not normal. The ground remains hard as a rock. It’s necessary to break and refill water dishes for the birds, squirrels, coyotes, and whatever creatures dare to come out at night as there is NO standing water in any of the usual areas for them. The city’s seasonally hired snow crews are cutting down trees instead of plowing snow. I am none too thrilled about this continuing tree removal program but so far am as powerless as the squirrels and birds to do anything about it. Removing diseased tress I understand. Cutting down healthy ones is beyond my comprehension. The news on the political level is testing my patience. My tolerance for the mainstream media has entirely evaporated with their failed coverage of the election, #NoDAPL Standing Rock, and Climate Change.

—On the upside: I am NOT a woman living in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Syria, etc.etc. Yes, I’m well aware certain ‘parties’ in America would have it here as is there. When will the female half of the human population decide enough is enough? I don’t know.

Do No Harm 

namaste

PS. If you have any questions regarding any of the above or something else, you are welcome to leave them in the coments section for moderaton and posting.

 

 

The Time Is Now. The Place is Earth. The Tipping Point is Real.

Get informed. Raise your voice. Use your talents. Reach out and engage however you can. Do not put this on the back burner. Do not wait for another day. Do not wait for more time. There is no more time. The time is now. The place is Earth. It’s the ONLY home you’ve got. Finding water on Mars is of no use to you or me or anyone’s children.  We can’t just f—the Earth and fly away into space. Star Trek is not reality. Scottie will not be beaming anyone to a nice safe place–and definitely not to any quaint islands whose people are watching the sea rise even as I type.

400 ppm CO2 is here to stay while all of us are alive.

Climate Change is real. It’s happening now. If you’re not feeling it yet, you will. I guarantee it.

~~~

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Video Postcards from Standing Rock, ND #NoDAPL #WaterIsLife

#NoDAPL  #WaterIsLife  #HonorTheEarth

A few news items you may have missed on the evening news. Actually unless you’re following independent alternate news media you would have missed all of this entirely.

When Water Protects try to unblock Hwy 1806 the Dakota Access Pipeline POLICE get nasty.

R.W. James

 

TYT‘s Jordan interviews Red Dawn–sister of Red Fawn

FreeRedFawn.com

Chris Turley’s update Dec. 3.

Uprising TV

I think these postcards all pretty much speak for themselves. No ranting from me at the moment.

(aside: any ads appearing here do so via wordpress and have no connection whatsoever to moi. thank you for visiting my blogcasa.)

Make Your Money Sing Solidarity With Standing Rock

H10 no black snake

https://nodaplsolidarity.org/

Yes! magazine’s list of Banks invested in ETP/DAPL 

How to Contact the People Sending Militarized Police to Standing Rock

Make this holy-day season truly meaningful. Stand with Standing Rock. Honor Our Mother Earth. Sing Water Is Life Loud and Clear.

 

(side note: any ads appear via wordpress only and reflect no connection with moi. thank you for visiting.)

PBS News Hour’s William Brangham Gets Energy Transfer Partners’ CEO Kelcy Warren, The Man Who Moves Crude Oil, Finally Talking About the Dakota Access Pipeline. #NoDAPL

PBS News Hour’s William Brangham questions Energy Transfer Partners’ CEO Kelcy Warren and Warren answers without dodging. It’s a must listen.

PBS New Hour 

Respect to PBS News Hour’s William Brangham for getting Warren out in the open and speaking his mind in full view of the public at large on public television.

Permit or not, it sounds like ETP/DAPL intends to do just as it pleases. Who is going to stop them? The Army Corps of Engineers?

Apparently not according to Myron Dewey’s drone video which shows the drill ‘appearing’ at 3:16 am on Nov. 16, after the statement by the Army Corps of Engineers for work to halt while they do their ‘research.’.

Myron Dewey on YouTube

#WaterIsLife

Hmm, yeah, let’s let this “play out for a couple of weeks” as President Obama says. Hmm. yeah, let’s do that while Kelcy Warren’s partners thumb their noses at everyone.

 

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A Cold Wind Blows Across Standing Rock, ND As Energy Transfer Partners/Dakota Access Pipeline Builders & Morton County Police Minions Act With Impunity. Big Oil Business Behaves As Usual While Obama Plays Rank Political PR Games And The Army Corps of Engineers Sends Up A Pretense of Due Diligence.

What can I say? Really what is there left to say at this point? If you’ve been following events at Standing Rock there’s nothing to share because you’ve seen and heard it all via social media and alternative press–with a few blips on mainstream media when it’s convenient or a ‘filler’ report is needed or they’ve been hounded into coverage by celebrities. It’s down to the wire as to what President Obama and the Army Corps of Engineers will or will not do regarding the Dakota Access Pipelene that no one wants except Energy Transfer Partners. What can I say? What would Obama do if they wanted to run that pipe down the Mall in DC?

What can I say?

That racism still runs rampant in North Dakota just as it did when the region was part of the Dakota Territory before state-hood?

That Big Oil Companies continue to ravage the land and water without check in the United States of Corporate Owned America?

That the militarized state of the American police is on full view at Standing Rock–and mainstream media doesn’t want to touch it with a hundred yard pole and the President is steadfastly unwilling to address it?

What self-respecting journalist would NOT want to cover what’s going at Standing Rock where unarmed Water Protectors are going up against an Armed Police presence which serves only the interests of Big Oil  while getting to give vent to its own home-grown racism? It’s the kind of story journalists have wet dreams about. Or they used to. Or maybe only the likes of Sinclair Lewis and Edward Morrow did. (I write that last with FULL respect for all the independent journalists doing their best on the ground at Standing Rock.)

If there were hundreds of pretty blue-eyed blondes facing off with police anywhere have no doubt the mainstream media would zero in on them like a heat seeking missile and never let go until it drank the story cup to its driest dredges. Journalists would be swarming all over those attacks with pepper spray, batons, strip searches, dog kennels, rubber bullets, grave descerations, arrests of independent journalists, violations of civil and human rights like flies on a slice of cheese on a hot summer day.

Maybe that’s what’s required–thousands of white people going toe to toe with Morton County Police aka ETP/DAPL’s security force–a police force which ironically is now at least $10 Million in debt for playing toady to the oil business (according to one local news report Morton county thinks the feds will ante up for their security efforts. Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out for them.)

Or maybe not. I think the problem runs even deeper than skin color and culture and language to core values.

That’s where the crux of the problem lies:  The values of corporate mainstream media, Big Business, the President of the United (sort of) States, the Army Corps of Engineers and the dominant culture are in direct conflict, 180 opposition to the values of the Standing Rock Lakota, their Indigenous and Non-native allies and everyone else who loves the Earth –with or without humans running amok on it.

Rampant capitalism, greed, exploitation of the Earth’s resources without a care beyond the goddamned almighty profit margin VERSUS honoring the Earth and all other living beings it supports; a formerly perfect planet with a formerly perfect ecosystem for supporting an immense diversity of life.

It’s Death versus Life.

It’s Oil versus Water.

It’s the value system which claims Earth is a but a resource for non-stop consumption versus the value system which claims Earth is our Mother which allows us the ability to live and thrive as long as we Honor and Cherish it by living in harmony and balance with our environment and non-human relatives.

It’s the illusion of control and dominance of Nature versus graciously living in our place in the web of life.

But, hey, you probably already have thought all this out.

So–what’s next?

What will happen when ETP/DAPL lays pipe under the Missouri River? Does anyone really think an acting without a permit fine will stop them? In our more idealistic moments we like to think so in a fair game. But this is not a fair game played by nice players willing to obey a set of rules. The oil industry is not bluffing, it really is an absolutely ruthless business run by people perfectly willing to LIE endlessly about the reality of Climate Change and make no apologies for it. Exxon, Chevron, Shell–all you have to is check their histories in the Amazon, Niger Delta and in the Gulf of Mexico to get the point–if you don’t have it already. These people do NOT play fair. They do what they please–until it blows up–literally–in their faces. And even then they go right back to business as usual.

Oh wait, if the pipeline isn’t laid at Standing Rock and gets rerouted elsewhere is not the same problem still on the books for potential contamination of the soil and water?

Change is in order.

Climate Change is coming one way or another.

Ask Mother Nature what’s on her agenda. Perhaps her answer is on the winter wind so cold it hurts to breathe.  Perhaps a touch of global warming would be welcome at Standing Rock, North Dakota where the cold freezes bones and ices the air it sucks from your lungs. Ask the buffalo what they prefer.

#NoDAPL

#WaterIsLife

#HonortheEarth

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Have I Got This Right? : North Dakota Repudiates The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution Because It’s Not Good News for Energy Transfer Partners’ Big Oil Agenda

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

First Amendment ~ U.S. Constitution

The First Amendment is not respected in North Dakota. Or maybe it got lost in the Second Amendment Shuffle. The right to bear arms is definitely allowed–well, as long as you’re a police officer or a member of a private security force or oil company executives. Can’t say for sure about oil company executives because they don’t show their faces in public and they’re definitely not heading out any time soon to lay any pipe themselves. Personally, I’d really like to see that dirty work in the field happen but that’s an entirely different issue. Oh, wait, there’s also some serious history of law authorities not being too fond of the Lakota/Sioux having weapons of any sort close at hand–so I suspect the Second Amendment is off-limits to them in North Dakota.

When in North Dakota:

Journalists Shall Not Report what is going on at Standing Rock or elsewhere regarding the defense of water and land under threat by a big oil pipeline. They will arrest you for this:

Citizens Shall Not Live-stream the actions of Police, the National Guard and Private Security Firms. They will arrest you for this.

Thou Shall Not Take Photographs which document Police, National Guard, and Private Security Firms which contradict their stated version of events involving peaceful Protectors.They will arrest you for this.

Thou Shall Not Reveal How the Police in North Dakota are doing the bidding of Energy Transfer Partners. They will arrest you for this.

If you think I’m joking just ask Deia Schlosberg, Unicorn Riot , Shailene Woodley, Madison WI City Alderman Rebecca Kemble  and the Standing Rock Protectors who’ve been jailed for documenting what’s happened with North Dakota Police, ETP’s private security, and the National Guard.

If you do record and share such information you are an enemy of the state of North Dakota and its good buddies, Energy Transfer Partners and the big banks which are funding the Dakota Access Pipeline. (If you think ‘enemy’ is too strong a word then feel free to suggest other word choices. I’m open to suggestions.)

Wondering why I’m rambling on about the Freedom of the Press?

Things are going to get a tad interesting regarding the Freedom of the Press in North Dakota on Monday morning when Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman intends to turn herself in to authorities to deal with the charges made against her for doing her job.

UPDATE Regarding North Dakota Versus Amy Goodman  Now it’s “riot” instead of “trespassing.”

I’m wondering if any mainstream media operations will cover this action. Will CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, NPR show up for this confrontation regarding First Amendment festivities? How about Al Jazeera? CNN maybe? At the moment I’m betting they’ll all be no-shows, though they do like using Democracy Now!’s news footage from time to time. Those pesky independent journalists get to go to all the ‘fun’ hot spots television news anchors might not be able to find on a travel guide map. (Is that too harsh? I don’t think so, but one never knows.) By the way, if you don’t know who Amy Goodman is and you’ve never watched Democracy Now!’s Independent Global News well then it’s about time you considered expanding your news horizons. Be forewarned, there will be no hot blondes in tight dresses breathlessly spewing out sound bites in an effort to give you an anxiety attack about local events. The headlines are often delivered at a fast and furious speed in an effort to make the most of the time. The in-depth coverage might take you places and introduce you to people you never knew existed–and probably would never meet via mainstream news.

 

You might get angry. You might be offended. You might start wondering why mainstream media treats people like blithering idiots. Some of those interviewed such as Henry A. Giroux will share their thoughts on that last notion from time to time. If you have children in school you might want to pay close attention. (Damn all the teaching to the tests.)

 

So, if you’re a serious reader you might discover some new books. Said books may depress you with their reality checks. But so be it.

And then there are the discussions of films ET wouldn’t dare spotlight:

If you’ve read and watched so far you now have some idea of the nature of independent journalism as practiced by Amy Goodman and the rest of Democracy Now! It’s probably clear why Energy Transfer Partners and the authorities in North Dakota are none too keen on making Goodman or any other kind of journalist welcome to venture out to Standing Rock and other oil pipeline sites. Even from New York City, Democracy Now! has provided all kinds of ongoing intriguing issue raising coverage of #NoDAPL.  Most of which puts the likes of PBS to shame for its depth and breadth.

Hence, come October 17, 2016 I wonder which journalists will be covering the story of Goodman turning herself in Mandan, North Dakota. There’s a chance there might only be the Democracy Now! crew and Standing Rock Protectors as witnesses. Let’s hope not. Let’s hope mainstream media can find its way to Mandan, Standing Rock and the Dakota Access Pipeline no one needs. Like Climate Change, which mainstream media has done a damn fine job of ignoring, the First Amendment impacts all of us. Ignorance is not bliss. You really do need to know what the hell is going on. That’s the purpose of having an independent news media.

 

~~~

Respect.

Solidarity.

#NoDAPL

 

 

 

Elegy for Paradise

Sweet water ripples

falls fruit ripe

lovely breath

lush was paradise

until

anchors dropped

sailoirs landfall

 legacy:

color flows out of the world

what words for this loss

life flows out of the earth

tiniest to largest creature vanishing

words cannot serve this loss

sky closes saturated with human waste

homo sapiens self harms

collateral damage in excess

all life flows out of the earth

words fail

waters cries

~~~

 

In the sixties,

In a Catholic school,

Thou Shall Not Ask:

“Where are all the Indian People?”

Answer:

Time out,

On your knees in the corner,

Another pink slip home.

In 2016,

“Where are all the Indigenous People?

Answer:

At Standing Rock defending the Water, Earth and Sky.

NoDAPL

 

 

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