Posted by Marsha Wenig - September 13th, 2008
Have you ever heard of aerial wolf hunting? It’s a brutal practice. Wolves are shot from low-flying aircraft or chased to exhaustion, then shot and killed at point-blank range.
Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican nominee for Vice President, promotes this barbaric practice, exploiting a loophole in the Federal Airborne Hunting Act to allow private wolf killers to shoot down wolves using aircraft. We have to get the word out about this!
Please watch this powerful video by Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, and then share it with every wildlife lover and conservationist you know:
http://actionfund.defenders.org/palinvideo
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Posted by Marsha Wenig - September 11th, 2008
Obama and The Palin Effect
 From: Deepak Chopra | Posted: Friday, September 5th, 2008
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 Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the Republican convention in Minneapolis this week. On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth of New York City. By comparison, Rudy Giuliani is a towering international figure. Palin’s pluck has been admired, and her forthrightness, but her real appeal goes deeper.
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 She is the reverse of Barack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding his idealism and exhorting people to obey their worst impulses. In psychological terms the shadow is that part of the psyche that hides out of sight, countering our aspirations, virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of “the other.” For millions of Americans, Obama triggers those feelings, but they don’t want to express them. He is calling fo r us to reach for our higher selves, and frankly, that stirs up hidden reactions of an unsavory kind. (Just to be perfectly clear, I am not making a verbal play out of the fact that Sen. Obama is black. The shadow is a metaphor widely in use before his arrival on the scene.)
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 I recognize that psychological analysis of politics is usually not welcome by the public, but I believe such a perspective can be helpful here to understand Palin’s message. In her acceptance speech Gov. Palin sent a rousing call to those who want to celebrate their resistance to change and a higher vision.Â
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 Look at what she stands for:
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 –Small town values — a denial of America’s global role, a return to petty, small-minded parochialism.
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 –Ignorance of world affairs — a repudiation of the need to repair America’s image abroad.
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 –Family values — a code for walling out anybody who makes a claim for social justice. Such strangers, being outside the family, don’t need to be heeded.
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 –Rigid stands on guns and abortion — a scornful repudiation that these issues can be negotiated with those who di sagree.
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 –Patriotism — the usual fallback in a failed war.
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 –”Reform” — an italicized term, since in addition to cleaning out corruption and excessive spending, one also throws out anyone who doesn’t fit your ideology.
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 Palin reinforces the overall message of the reactionary right, which has been in play since 1980, that social justice is liberal-radical, that minorities and immigrants, being different from “us” pure American types, can be ignored, that progressivism takes too much effort and globalism is a foreign threat. The radical right marches under the banners of “I’m all right, Jack,” and “Why change? Everything’s OK as it is.” The irony, of course, is that Gov. Palin is a woman and a reactionary at the same time. She can add mom to apple pie on her resume, while blithely reversing forty years of feminist progress. The irony is superficial; there are millions of women who stand on the side of conservatism, however obviously they are voting against their own good. The Republicans have won multiple national elections by raising shadow issues based on fear, rejection, hostility to change, and narrow-mindedness.
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 Obama’s call for higher ideals in politics can’t be seen in a vacuum. The shadow is real; it was bound to respond. Not just conservatives possess a shadow — we all do. So what comes next is a contest between the two forces of progress and inertia. Will the shadow win again, or has its furtive appeal become exh austed? No one can predict. The best thing about Gov. Palin is that she brought this conflict to light, which makes the upcoming debate honest. It would be a shame to elect another Reagan, whose smiling persona was a stalking horse for the reactionary forces that have brought us to the demoralized state we are in. We deserve to see what we are getting, without disguise.
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Posted by Marsha Wenig - September 8th, 2008
From Stephanie Meyer’s bestselling serial novels for teens about a love triangle between 17 year old Bella, vampire Edward and Jacob the werewolf, to HBO’s latest foray from Six Feet Under’s darkly creative mastermind Alan Ball, True Blood, the sexy and macabre find homes in the hearts of our youth.
I was quite shocked to see this new series open with strong intimations of oral sex. Then go on to see the brilliant Anna Paquin of The Piano and other fame– a bold, brilliant , brilliant character whose psychic powers are a titillating contrast to the vampire who enters her restaurant on the first nite of this brilliant, yet disturbing debut.
Stay tuned to both.
Transfer to Transylvania and beyond.
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Posted by Marsha Wenig - September 8th, 2008
Yoda, a four eared cat, has a rare congenital defect that made his earlobes split, which produced two normal ears and middles ones that look like horns. He is anything but a Satan, in fact quite a sweetie and adorable too. Check out the Yogic Yoda on You Tube.
I thought his was a wonderful YogaKids pose to teach children with, especially those with special needs. How can we recognize their specialness without trying to change the unchangeable, and accept what is. Love abounds everywhere….
So….how do you do the Devil Cat Pose and why? Here’s my take….
Instead of doing Cat and Cow like we normally do, back and forth with moos and meows….try this:
1.Show the children the picture of the kitty/gato named Yoda.
2. Let them express their opinions and discuss all their takes and viewpoints on the situation.
3. Then do the cat pose. Meow, purr, rub up against each other. Scratch each other behind the ears and under the neck. Make nice. Very nice. 30 seconds-1 minute.
THEN……
4. Give them the freedom to turn into the devil cat. Play it out…. howl, raw, scratch, snarl, etc. for just 30 seconds.
5. Go back to the Angel Cat. I see this technique as allowing them to express aggression, anger, let out yucky emotions and then come back to love.
Please share with me the responses you get and additional ideas you might have.
How can we do the Talking Turtle with 2 heads pose?
Purrfection in imperfection. Namaste.
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