OGM: Sizzlin' Hot

I am sizzlin' hot this week, so my fan club is running a special promotion ~ a free hug for every new fan.

OGM: Casting Thousands

We're casting thousands for the off-planet production Christy's Little Red Cell Phone.  You can audition for a lead role Right Now in 3  ~  2  ~  1  ~  [beep]

OGM: Coconut Oil

(These are the first lines in a song I wrote this summer .... I sang them for the OutGoing Message.  Replacing with a new one today.)

When coconut oil is thin and clear, the day is hot and summer's here.

The Seventeen-Percenters (17%ers)

A 17%er is a politically active person who cares about liberty. Only about 17% of politically active people do care about liberty for everyone. The other 83% care about things like political power, clout, or money, or they care about being part of the crowd who aims to gain power, clout, or money, or they care about getting or maintaining special privileges for themselves (see power, clout, or money for routes to privilege).

"Seventeen percent" comes from taking note of statistics in three races.

First was Hughie Tweedy's race for Iowa State Representative in 2000. Hughie and his political views were well-known among the like-minded in Lee County. He ran as a Libertarian against an entrenched incumbent of the most active party in his county and a much lesser known candidate of the second-most active party of the county. In this three-way race between R, D, and Libertarian, Hughie got 17% of the vote.

Next was Clyde Cleveland's race for Governor of Iowa in 2002. Clyde ran an energetic campaign and became well-known for his political views in his hometown of Fairfield. In the race with Clyde were a one-term incumbent governor and a several-term congresscritter, both of the two most active parties in the state, and an unknown minor party candidate. In this four-way race among R, D, Libertarian, and Green, Clyde got 17% of the vote in his own Jefferson County.

And then there was my race for the At Large seat on the Fairfield City Council in 2007. I ran a $10 campaign, but my name and my views were well-known due to my four years as city councilor for Third Ward. In the race with me were three others. One was an unknown candidate whose campaign chair was a county supervisor and whose campaign treasurer was a past city council member of eight years, and both were influential in the most active party in the city. Another candidate was a local officer of the second-most active party in the city and a several-time candidate for office. The third candidate appeared to be unknown and unaffiliated with any particular party. In this nominally non-partisan yet actually heavily partisan four-way race among R, D, Libertarian, and unaffiliated, I got 17% of the vote in Fairfield.

Judging by the results of these three races, it seems that 17% has special significance for libertarians and liberty-oriented people.

Rookie Alert!

Just saw my name in a blog post about Iowa Senatorial candidates.  So I had to tag back, 'coz I'm such a rookie.  ;-P
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cspg/smartpolitics/2010/06/roxanne_conlin_poised_to_hold.php
Excerpt ~ 

"After [Jones' top performance], the next best performance by a female in an Iowa U.S. Senate race is just 1.0 percent, when Libertarian Christy Anny Welty finished third out of five candidates during Grassley's last victory in 2004."

Just one letter off, and they got the spelling right later in the article.  :)

Healing Starts Here

Friday's book: Femininity Lost and Regained

Enterprises in western culture are weighted, loaded, and rigged against the feminine. When the feminine is weak, the masculine rampages, and downward they spiral to ultimate destruction. That is the thesis of Robert A. Johnson’s 1990 book Femininity Lost and Regained . I bought it last Friday night, read it through, and now the contrast is much more vivid as I watch the dramas unfold in our human enterprises.

Saturday's Book: Seeds of Deception

I bought Jeffrey Smith’s Seeds of Deception (2003) after watching his video about genetically engineered foods, or transgenic foods as I’ll call them. What an eye-opener!

Until now, the battle for our food supply has seemed to me like just another tawdry political mess – bureaucrats ignoring citizens, industries buying judgments, politicians jockeying for control. It is all that, but it’s more. As I learn more about transgenic foods, I wonder, “Is this some kind of plan to wipe out the human race? Who actually wants to do such a thing? Are people that clueless?”

Well, actually, yes. Some people are that clueless. Americans have had it pretty easy, so they think, as they rack up material gains and pursue ever more. But there is a price ….

Johnson uses Sophocles' play Antigone to show the price paid for the drive for power. I agree with Johnson: “The pursuit of power is the most serious danger that faces feminine values” ... values like love, kindness, compassion, loyalty, forgiveness, and relatedness.

The antagonist Creon’s single-pointed drive for power over the city of Thebes pushes a cascade of events that ends with him standing alone after the violent deaths of his son’s fiancee and his son and his wife – his whole family is dead. So much blood stains the stage in a quest for power and denial of love.

And it was all foretold in the play – the Greek chorus and the oracles warned of the terrible fates. But characters who spoke for love and compassion did not exercise enough strength to prevail over the forces for power and the artificial order imposed over natural vibrance.

Such a fateful cascade is arranged for us, you and me, here and now, as our little blue planet spins through space. The chorus and oracles have been warning us for years, decades, and our fate becomes ever more obvious to those who are listening.

To represent those who are not listening, I’ve chosen one who spoke Tuesday, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, during the hearing of Monsanto’s GM alfalfa case. He said to the farmers’ attorney, Mr Robbins, 

“It's the creation of plants of -- of genetically engineered alfalfa which spring up that otherwise wouldn't exist. It doesn't even destroy the current plantings of non-genetically engineered alfalfa. This is not the end of the world. It really isn't. The most it does is make it difficult for those farmers who want to cater to the European market, which will not accept genetically engineered alfalfa, it makes it more difficult for them to have a field of 100 percent non-genetically engineered. But that's not the end of the world, Mr. Robbins.”

Mr Robbins replied, “I don't think we bore the burden, an end-of-the-world burden, Justice Scalia."


That’s true, the farmers bringing the case don’t need to prove the likelihood of the end of the world. But in the end, in an ironic turn of the phrase, all of us bear the burden of the potential end of the world.

DNA’s double helix symbolizes the intricacy and vitality of creation on our planet. It is marvelous and mysterious, and it tantalizes industrialists to apply their hard logic and their hard probes, to fantasize about wielding their power over the slinky and unpredictable sex symbol. Like Creon’s drive for power over Thebes, the industrial drive for power over DNA is pushing at the head of a cascade that will ripple through every living organism on earth. Like Creon, alone on the stage after his family has perished because of his policies, will the last lone industrialist see the perishing of the human race and wonder?

“I am nothing. I have no life.

Lead me away,

That have killed unwittingly

My people, my race.

I know not where I should turn,

Where to look for help.

My hands have done amiss, my head is bowed,

With fate too heavy for me.”

This is our fate if the feminine of our culture, like that of the ancient Greeks, continues to be too weak to challenge the masculine drive for power. The drive for power is one-tracked and heavily invested – not easy to guide, slow, and turn. Thus, Robert Johnson calls us to regain the strength of femininity through understanding it in the Hindu culture. His examples come from the Mahabharata.

Of all the places on earth for this understanding to grow, for healing to begin, for wounds to mend and bonds to become strong, my little town is the place. If we can’t do it here, then the world has not much hope.