I just got back from the best Thanksgiving ever.

I had my plan, and I stuck with it. Each day, before I did anything else, I got up and went for my brisk walk. Then I went back to my parents’ house, had a drink of water or juice, and closed myself off in an extra bedroom to stretch and lift my weights (which I brought with me). I had my breakfast in the usual fashion, and I took my time.

Whenever I got overloaded (which happened a few times), I stepped away and took a nap. I had help, too. My spouse was there to help “cover” for me, when my family was wanting to talk and visit and spend time. And people didn’t seem to be pushing as much as they were in other years.

I managed to get through the holiday without melting down or insulting people or saying things that I hadn’t thought through. I was careful and deliberate, and I was very, very present with just about everyone I talked with.

I think people really saw a difference, too. By the end of the weekend, my mom was asking me about what exercises I do, and she had that look in her eye that said she was going to try them.

I also (finally) talked to my folks about the TBIs, and how they had played a role in the problems I had as a kid. I’ve been wanting to do this for some time, now, because my folks aren’t getting any younger, and I didn’t want them to spend their final years burdened by the same regret and remorse that they’ve carried around with them for as long as I can remember. My parents have spent a lot of time apologizing to me for being bad parents, and I never knew what to say.

This Thanksgiving, I figured out what to say:  “All the problems I had weren’t your fault. They were neurological, and they were because I got hit on the head a lot. It’s nobody’s fault, and all those people who gave you a hard time for being bad parents were wrong about you. And they were wrong about me.”

It really choked them up. My mom got scared, and my dad had to step out of the room to compose himself. My parents love me a lot, and they could never understand why I didn’t respond to them the same way my other siblings did. Now they have a very important piece of the puzzle, and maybe now we can start healing some of the old hurts that never made any sense, but hurt, all the same.

Yes, my strategy did work — If I take care of my body, my mind can take care of my brain.

I was very careful about what I ate (tho’ I did overdo it on Thanksgiving Day — but who doesn’t? At least  it was real — not junk — food!), I paced myself well. I took my time, and I did not rush the things I often rushed (like packing the car and moving around). I was very mindful of my surroundings, and I took time to breathe deeply and relax.

Now I’ve got a lot of body aches and pains — too little sleep and too much long driving and too many unfamiliar activities — but while I was with my family, I was in a good space, and I was in good form.

And for that, I am truly thankful.

Wow, this is old but I missed it and is it ever exciting!

I keed.  Not exciting, but pretty freaking funny.

In the great “Facts Optional” tradition of Conservapedia and the Conservative Bible Project, stand back:  there’s a Conservative Christian alternative to Twitter!

A few weeks ago, a Christian Twitter user (Christweep?) was hit with a one-week suspension from Twitter for spamming.  The user, James L Paris, immediately upshifted into Persecution Complex mode and claimed he was suspended for supporting Rush Limbaugh.   Paris harrumphed:

I guess I am making some liberal at Twitter upset.

and fretted:

These are the kinds of things that we as Christians and Conservatives can only expect to happen more and more often.

Of course:  it’s all about anti-Christian bigotry and the Silencing of Christians, not the fact that in trying to promote his “Christian Money” site, Paris made such gratuitous use of the “@” key (replying to all and sundry with the Good News about Christian Money) that Twitter thought he was a spammer.

But Paris was determined to fight back against Twitter’s liberal bias, so in early November he launched ChristianChirp, the Christian Alternative to Twitter:

“It was not just the suspension for sharing my conservative views, but I was also receiving a number of very inappropriate messages to a computer that I share with my children”, said Paris. “I decided that enough was enough and that I needed to be a part of the solution, so I started a Christian alternative.” According to Paris, his version of Twitter will not allow any profanity, vulgar language, or adult content. “We are very serious about keeping this a safe Christian space”, said Paris on Monday.

It’s funny:  by setting up these alternative information sites and social networking platforms, fundies contribute to their own isolation far more than any malevolent liberal anti-Christian forces they might imagine.  Yet that doesn’t stop them from bitching about how they’re being “silenced” and driven from mainstream political dialogue.

And one last point of interest:  if this guy thinks Twitter has a liberal bias, he’s never seen #tcot (“top conservatives on twitter), a Twitterstream of such cataclysmic brain damage that reading more than 2 tweets at a time is a mental health hazard.

(h/t the Mad Voter on Twitter)

I think I better start following the climate change debate if this is any example of the hilarity coming out of it.

The climate-flavoured asshattery continued apace this week, rising to a screeching crescendo on Thursday when the Drudge Report mistakenly linked to a post at Scienceblogs’ Deltoid with the headline “New Zealand Climate Science Coalition caught lying about temperature trends“.

Drudge apparently didn’t read any further than the headline.  Since the “NZ Climate Science Coalition” sounded like a group of actual scientists instead of, well, you know,  what it really is — a group of anti-climate science wingnuts who’ve just hung a sciency-sounding name on themselves to shore up their credibility — Drudge linked to the Deltoid post. For added goofy goodness, wingnuts blindly reposted the article to “Digg“:

Noting Drudge’s mistake, Tim Lambert added a shout-out to Drudge readers to the top of his post, and incoming wingnuts who were rubbing their hands with glee in expectation of a good lambasting of climate science — on Scienceblogs, no less — were instead greeted with this liver-quivering message:

Update: A special message to visitors from Drudge: you are being lied to.  [...]

Needless to say, Drudge removed the link — wouldn’t want anyone reading anything but anti-science horseshit, after all — but not  before hordes of wingnuts descended upon Deltoid.  Imagine them reading the link at Drudge, jumping into their virtual ‘75 Harvester and barreling over to Scienceblogs, and then… “the screaming tires, the busted glass, the painful scream(s) that I heard last”:

Sorry wingnuts,  ALLCAPS and exclamation marks don’t make it any truer. (!!!)

Deltoid has more.

UPDATE for extra wingnutty goodness: If you click on the image of the Digg link, you’ll see that whoever posted it wrote that the Deltoid article was about pretty much the opposite of what it was really about.  So any wingnut who saw the link on Digg would have been extra excited and ultimately, extra disappointed.  Boo-hoo!

Oh guess what guess what guess what no you’ll never!… Dr. Morgentaler gets to keep his Order of Canada.  What a surprise! (/end sarc)

Most of you will recall how fetus fetishists attempted to get a “blizzard” of returned Order of Canada medals in protest against Dr. Morgentaler finally getting this well-deserved and long-overdue honour.   (Oh what fun that was last summer — MASSIVE amounts of fun!)  Needless to say, the perfect storm of returned medals never materialized… the final tally was about nine(9), including “4 from beyond the grave”, as we like to say around here.

Yep, I’m sure you’ll fondly recall all of that.  But you probably won’t remember this part of it — I sure didn’t.  About a year ago, Frank Chauvin, one of the fetus fetishists who swore up and down that he was returning his medal, had a bit of a change of heart.   In spite of his threats, Chauvin apparently had trouble parting with his medal (and in fact has not returned it to this day), so rather than giving it up for the “cause” like he said he would…

“Yes, it’s definitely going,” Chauvin said Thursday from his Windsor home. “I don’t want to be painted with the same brush as Morgentaler. It’s definitely going back.“

…he decided to hang onto his medal and try to get Dr. Morgentaler’s medal taken away from him instead.  To this end, he launched a legal challenge to invalidate Dr. Morgentaler’s  award:

Local Order of Canada member Frank Chauvin has launched a legal challenge against the advisory council that decided to make abortion-rights activist Dr. Henry Morgentaler an Order of Canada member.

“This is not the way they’re supposed to choose,” Chauvin, a devout Catholic, said from his Windsor home on Friday.

No indeed!  They’re only supposed to choose fetus fetishists, right?  Well, the verdict is in and Chauvin’s court challenge is a MASSIVE FAIL:

A Federal Court ruling this week has said that the Governor General’s highly controversial induction of Canada’s “father of abortion,” Henry Morgentaler, into the Order of Canada last summer cannot be legally contested.

In a decision released this week, Order-inductee Frank Chauvin’s application for a federal court review of the award was rejected on the grounds that it is “plain and obvious that [it] cannot succeed.“

That’s legalese for “Well, DUH!”

Now come on, Frank, let’s have the medal… you said you would… come on now, give it up… you promised… you wouldn’t want to be a hypocrite, now would you?  Come on…

I’m shocked, SHOCKED, I tells ya:

Roman Catholic Church leaders in Dublin spent decades sheltering child-abusing priests from the law and most fellow clerics turned a blind eye, an investigation ordered by Ireland’s government concluded Thursday.

Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who handed over more than 60,000 previously secret church files to the three-year investigation, said he felt deep shame and sorrow for how previous archbishops presided over endemic child abuse — yet claimed afterward not to understand the gravity of their sins.

Martin said his four predecessors in Ireland’s capital, including retired Cardinal Desmond Connell, must have understood that priests’ molestation and rape of boys and girls ”was a crime in both civil and canon law. For some reason or another they felt they could deal with all this in little worlds of their own.

“For some reason or other” — and I wonder what that might have been… wanted to keep the party going, I guess.

Dammit Janet has come up with the “Maurice Vellacott Award” — an honour recognizing leadership in what DJ calls “gynophobia” (which I think is probably the irrational fear of women managing their own reproductive systems).   It kind of reminds me of Andrew Sullivan’s awards that are named after Michelle Malkin et al.

When you think about it, Canada has enough wingnuts that there are many awards that could named after the leading Canadian lights in deranged disciplines from misogyny to fetus fetishizing, and occasionally bestowed upon deserving individuals:

the ALLCAPS Award – for fetus fetishism so extreme that it borders on the psychotic;

the KEN Award – for incoherent misogynist gibberish posted in blog comments  (named for “Ken”, one of ALLCAPS’ regular commenters);

the Landolt Award – for demented homophobic hyperbole;

the Lakritz Award – for excellence in blaming feminists for every problem in the world from Climate Change to the Stock Market Crash

I bet we can think of a few more if we try…

…especially you socially conservative so-called “free” so-called “speechers”…Hello?  Hello?? (*tap-tap*  Is this thing on?)

More teabaggy Goin’ Roguey- booky-waity-lineuppy wingnutty goodness…

Let the squeals of misplaced outrage begin:

Oh, boo hoo hoo! All this self-pitying outrage from the Queen of the Rabid, Rancid, Maggot-Infested, Shit-stained Smear herself.

There was no “smear” in this case.  The possibility that some brain-damaged right-wing fruitbag might have killed Sparkman in a frenzy of anti-government fury wasn’t dreamed up by “The Left” the way Malkin hallucinates her paranoid notions — it was a very real possibility that was investigated by law enforcement as a feasible motive.   After all, Sparkman wouldn’t have been the first casualty of right-wing extremism, which has claimed five victims this year alone.

So please, spare us the fauxtrage.  Here’s an idea:  just shut the fuck up.

UPDATE: Don’t hold your breath.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and today I’m traveling to my extended family, several states away. I expect the traffic to be heavy, and I expect the trip to be long. I’ve spent the past week preparing myself for this mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. I’ve consulted with my neuropsych, I’ve checked in with friends, I’ve been eating right and I’ve been working out and stretching regularly. Last night I actually got eight hours of sleep.

This year is very different from past years, in that I’m not pushing myself up to the very last minute when my spouse and I hit the road. I’ve been taking it easy, taking the different tasks in manageable pieces, not biting off more than I can chew, but keeping on task and on point. And I’ve been using my timer, to make sure I stay on schedule.

This year is also different, in that I called my parents ahead of time to find out what the plan was going to be for the next few days. I checked the weather, too, so I could be prepared to offer suggestions. I’ve requested that we just take Friday “off” and relax and do some light activity outside — the weather is going to be beautiful, and I would really like to spend time with my folks, just hanging out and talking.

I am also planning to share with them the findings of my neuropsych evaluations and work. I’ve made tremendous progress, over the past year, and I want to share the info with my parents in a positive and constructive way. I haven’t been able to do that, till lately, as I’ve had a lot of reservations about my progress (not helped by my psychotherapist, who has been trying to talk me into “accepting” (i.e., giving up on) my limitations and settling for less of an amazing life than I believe I can have.

I’m not sure how they got to be that cynical, but I’m not on the same page with them, and I am certainly not going to settle for less, just ’cause I’ve had some misfortunes along the way.

Anyway, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to how much progress I’ve made over the past year or so. My neuropsych says they are encouraged and inspired by my progress, which is great. I’m really happy I can return the favor of their assistance. I really have come a long way. A year ago, I was pretty turned around, I didn’t have much direction, and I was very muddled and confused by the ramifications of my issues. I had a long way to go, to figure things out.

My previous therapist wasn’t helping matters, by constantly focusing on what my mother did, as a source of my woes. I invested a lot of time with them, essentially being led down the wrong path — it wasn’t necessarily my mother (or my father) that was the root of my issues. It was more the neurological context in which I was living in my childhood — all those unidentified, misunderstood, pesky issues that complicated and intensified every experience I had, and had me “pegging” emotionally and behaviorally all over the map.

Now, I have to say, my current psychotherapist has helped me regain my balance from before. I think my previous therapist was trying to regress me, to find some deep, dark secret hidden in the innermost recesses of my psyche, so they could exorcise my demons or something like that. And my current therapist helped me regain my balance by helping me focus on the logistics of my day-to-day life, rather than floating around in the distant past. And I am very grateful for their help (tho’ I have to move on now).

Indeed, I think the thing that has helped me the most, over the past couple of years, has been the help I’ve gotten in dealing with my everyday life — keeping my issues in mind, understanding them and how they impact me, and getting to the bottom of the problems I can expect to have, given different situations. Being aware of patterns, like:

I get tired after a full day of intense activity, and when I get tired, I have a tendency to get turned around and agitated, which adds to my internal confusion and throws gasoline on the fire of my temper… and really contributes to me melting down over every little thing

helps me immensely, and it also helps the people around me to help manage and anticipate my issues before they get completely out of control.

And one of the big things that helps me identify my patterns is examining my life on a regular basis. I take a lot of notes, and I record a lot of my experiences. I look back on my days and weeks, and I watch for issues and patterns that emerge over time. I write down the times when I am having a really hard time of things, and I identify the contributing factors. And I draw pictures of my problems and the “flow” I use to deal with them. I work with my life — the failures and the successes — as my own individual recovery plan and practice. And I see results.

Real results. Like promotions at work. Like improved relationships with others. Like a more creative approach to my life, overall. If I can get past the old bad habit of being so hard on myself, and I can treat my difficulties as challenges (from the outside — from my faulty wiring — rather than from my inside character or personal worth) to be tackled creatively … challenges just waiting to be overcome… well, then, the ultimate results of my examined life are tangible improvements, the likes of which I never thought I’d see happen.

Truly, this is remarkable. I always thought — before I knew why things were always getting so screwed up with me — that I was flat-out doomed to failure. I had precious little expectation that things would ever turn around for me permanently… I figured it was always just a matter of time, till things got mucked up for no reason I could identify, and everything I’d worked so hard for just went away, swallowed up in the sinkhole of my life.

But now that I’m paying attention to the basics, and I’m following up to deliberately study the results of my actions and see how they can be improved… Now that I’m treating my life like the miracle that it is, and I’m studying my daily “playbook” with focus and intention, and I’m refining my approaches, based on what I know about my limitations, I no longer believe that I am stuck in endless cycles of attempt-failure-attempt-failure-attempt-failure.

My life is different now. Because I’m living it differently now.

And it’s good.

In case you’re wondering how I go about doing this, here’s the basic flow of my practical-life-recovery-plan:

1. I figure out what I want to do. I understand why I want to do it, and how it fits in the overall picture of my life. For example, I figure out that I need to exercise first thing in the morning, and I need to really work up a sweat, because I have been feeling a little sluggish lately and I need to “pump up” my system a little more.
2. I do it. And I track what I do. For example, I do my morning workout, but I don’t manage to work up much of a sweat.
3. I figure out if I accomplished what I set out to do, and if I succeeded, I celebrate in some way. If not, I ask myself why that is. For example, I make note that I worked out — and I congratulate myself for doing that — but I didn’t work up a sweat, and I wonder why.
4. I figure out why I didn’t accomplish exactly what I set out to do, and I ask myself what I can do differently to change that the next time. For example, while I’m having my breakfast, I look at how I’m doing, and I realize that I’m tired and distracted. I figure out that I didn’t get to bed at a decent hour the night before, and I also see that I let to many errands wait till later in the day, which pushed my schedule back farther into the evening, so I couldn’t relax and get to sleep at a decent hour.
5. I think of alternative strategies I can follow to make changes in my daily life, that will help me accomplish what I set out to do better today. For example, I spend a little more time planning my day in a way that will let me get my busy-work done first thing, and give me more time in the afternoon to take it easy and wind down.
6. I go about my day and check in with myself periodically, to see how I’m doing. I make a point of remembering the goals I did not accomplish, which I really, really wanted to accomplish, and I work a little harder to keep myself in line. For example, I check my daily work list periodically to make sure I’m staying on schedule and make sure I’m not overloading myself with extra stuff in the evening.
7. Last but not least, I follow up. I do a check-in later to see how I’m doing, and if I’ve accomplished the goals I set for myself, I celebrate and reward myself. For example, if I get to the end of the day without wiping myself out, I treat myself to a little bit of television, watching a show on cable that I really like. Or better yet, I make an early night of it and I get in bed at a decent hour, which lets me sleep and sleep and sleep till I’m actually rested.
8. And then I do it all again the next day.

To some, it might sound arduous and like a lot of work, and it is. But it’s good work, and it’s really more of an orientation to my life, a kind of spiritual practice, if you will. In the Give Back Orlando material, they talk about how TBI survivors need to be more mindful of their lives, and I have found that to be very true. But even more importantly, I’ve found that I want to be more mindful of my life. Yes, it’s work, but I don’t mind the work. Yes, it’s different from how most people live. But I’ve never been like other people, so why start now — and why feel badly that I can’t be like them? I’m just fine, the way I am.

In the end, yes, it does take more work to live this way. In the end, yes, it is more time-consuming to do things that a lot of people do quickly and easily without a second thought. In the end, no, I don’t have as much time to fritter away on non-essential activities.

But in the end, the payoff is huge. I get to have a life.

Better yet, I get to have the life that I want to live.

I happened upon this film (broken up in to segments) about a brain-injured woman from Australia.

Seven years earlier, an 18 year old woman, ALICIA was seriously injured in a car accident. It was her brain rather than her body which suffered.

This documentary tells the story of her long journey of recovery. Not content with just regaining a ‘normal life’, Alicia pursues her original dreams of becoming an actress. Through Beth, the main character from Sam Shepard’s play ‘A Lie of the Mind’, Alicia is able to express the common experiences of brain injury, her alienation from society for being different and her lack of inhibitions.

Flashbacks, dreams, Alicia’s video diary, interviews told with heart and extraordinary honesty by her family, friends, medical practitioners, healers and theatre colleagues; all contribute to unmask and reveal the many faces of Alicia and explores the issues confronting everyone involved with acquired brain injury. ( http://www.stellamotion.com.au)

Watch and learn

The investigation into the mysterious death of Bill Sparkman has ruled that Sparkman’s death was a suicide:

Census worker Bill Sparkman committed suicide and deliberately made it look like murder as part of an insurance scam, Kentucky state police have concluded.

State police, working with the FBI, said at a press conference moments ago that Sparkman had recently taken out two life insurance policies that would not pay out for suicide. It appears Sparkman hoped that the scheme would benefit his son, Josh Sparkman.

It was initially feared that Sparkman was the victim of anti-government sentiment driven by the furious right-wing hate rhetoric that’s been escalating since Obama took office, in much the same way as Dr. George Tiller’s murder was driven by insane anti-abortion hyperbole and demonization.

Although wingnuts will no doubt be whining for apologies, the conclusion that Sparkman wasn’t murdered because of right-wing extremism doesn’t change the fact that there’s something seriously rotten happening when such a motive would even be considered… and it’s something they are helping to perpetuate.

You might have already seen this vid over at CC’s, but it was so truly horrifying that I had to post it here.  It’s Sarah Palin supporters explaining why they think she should be president, and it’s so bad that it took was less than :35 seconds before I fell to the floor screaming “Holy FUCK!  The burning fucking stupid!!!”.

I wonder how people can be this stupid and remember to breathe in and breathe out.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my reaction to the post about the BIA booting a blogger from their conference. And I’m wondering if I should regret my hot-headed reaction.

On the one hand, I have received tremendous help from the BIA in some respect. On the other, I have heard stories like this — and other accounts, where people were actively discouraged by the BIA from saying that you can recover from traumatic brain injury.

It’s a mixed bag. As most things with people are.

The thing is, though, the Brain Injury Association is more than a person. It’s a collection of persons which professes to assist other persons. And as such, if it’s going to truly assist, I would think they would welcome the presence not only of a member of the press but also someone who has been impacted by brain injury.

Or maybe they’re wary of brain-injured folks in general, knowing what they do about “us”…?

Who can say? One of the things I’m taking away from this is yet another reminder of how hot I can get on short notice. And it warns me to check myself periodically, to make sure I don’t go off the deep end. It reminds me I’ve had multiple concussions, multiple mild traumatic brain injures… and as such, I owe it to myself and to others to measure my responses carefully, and weigh the possible effects/consequences, before I let fly.

I had considered taking down the post from before, but it’s a valuable learning/teaching lesson. So, I’ll leave it up there, warts and all.

The Catholic church has always carried an absurd amount of political clout in the US. For evidence, look no further than their recent attempt to stick their noses into the health care debate and use health care reform as an opportunity to limit access to abortion, something they still haven’t given up on.   Catholic mullahs routinely employ bullying, blackmail and threats to bend politicians to their anti-woman, anti-gay will.

The latest victim of ecclesiastical strong-arming is Rep.Patrick Kennedy, who was banned from taking communion because of his pro-choice voting record.  The Church Enforcer who perpetrated Kennedy’s punishment appeared on Hardball yesterday, where Chris Matthews explained the concept of church and state separation, why Catholic bishops shouldn’t be meddling in politics, and oooooh, he went there! and asked the question every anti-choicer hates because they can’t answer it:

You see why, when a seemingly-controversial story emerges, bloggers in the reality-based community don’t instantly run around screaming, shitting themselves uncontrollably and hallucinating blindly with their hair on fire…

…until they know the whole story?

AFTERSNARK: You have to appreciate the knee-slapping hilarity of “Stumblebumming Retard” Louise choosing to link to me, of all people, in a post about climate change, of all things — a topic I rarely if ever blog about, since I know sweet fuck-all about it.  But then, that doesn’t stop her from blogging about it.

(h/t John Cross at Dawg’s Blawg)

]]> http://unrepentantoldhippie.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/speaking-of-shitcrazy-bonkers/ Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:22:26 +0000 JJ http://unrepentantoldhippie.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/speaking-of-shitcrazy-bonkers/

The War on Christmas is fast approaching, and maybe you’re wondering what to buy the teabagger in your life.  Wonder no more (or maybe in this context that should be “wunder know more”) — here’s something that will warm their crusty, calloused barnacle of a teabaggy little heart.   Remember the Teabagger Movie?  This is the week “Teabaggers: The Movie” (or something like that) premieres, and you can buy the straight-to-DVD production for the low low price of $18.95.

With its melodramatic voice-over and goofy, overwrought prose, the teabagger movie might appear to be satire, but it’s not.  It’s more parody-proof wingnuttery with unintentional humour that cannot be improved upon by satire.   I mean, really:

“It began as a ripple, an online whisper, a grassroots awakening to a new threat on freedom!”

“Lady Liberty faces her newest challenge and across this great nation a new generation of patriots stands ready for her defense.”

And my favourite:

“They were ignored. They were mocked. But in the end they would not be silenced.”

Who could mock the teabaggers??

I can’t wait for the sequel!

]]> http://unrepentantoldhippie.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/why-do-teabaggers-hate-the-fetus/ Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:25:43 +0000 JJ http://unrepentantoldhippie.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/why-do-teabaggers-hate-the-fetus/

Looks like teabaggers only care about Teh Unborn when it’s opposed to health care reform:

The family, Dan and Midge Hough, of Chicago, spoke in favor of health care reform and in support of U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-3rd) at a Nov. 14 town hall meeting in Oak Lawn.

Their daughter-in-law, Jenny, and an unborn grandchild died recently due in part, they believe, to a lack of health insurance. They said Jenny was not receiving regular prenatal care and ended up in an emergency room with double pneumonia that developed into septic shock. Her baby died in the womb, and Jenny died a few weeks later, leaving behind a husband and a 2-year-old daughter.

Catherina Wojtowicz, of Chicago’s Mount Greenwood community, an organizer for a Tea Party splinter group, Chicago Tea Party Patriots, falsely claimed that the Houghs fabricated their story. In an e-mail, she called them operatives of President Barack Obama who “go from event to event and (cry) the same story.”

When the Houghs spoke at the Lipinski event, some Tea Partiers ridiculed them. They moaned and rolled their eyes and interrupted. Midge Hough began to cry.

Keep it klassy, ‘baggers.

(via political carnival)

]]> http://atumrakis.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/%ce%b7-%ce%b1%cf%81%cf%87%ce%ae-%cf%84%ce%bf%cf%85-%cf%84%ce%ad%ce%bb%ce%bf%cf%85%cf%82-%ce%b5%ce%af%ce%bd%ce%b1%ce%b9-%ce%b5%ce%b4%cf%8e/ Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:02:49 +0000 atumrakis http://atumrakis.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/%ce%b7-%ce%b1%cf%81%cf%87%ce%ae-%cf%84%ce%bf%cf%85-%cf%84%ce%ad%ce%bb%ce%bf%cf%85%cf%82-%ce%b5%ce%af%ce%bd%ce%b1%ce%b9-%ce%b5%ce%b4%cf%8e/

και λέγεται 21-12-2012. Κάποιοι σκεπτικισταί νομίζουν ότι είναι πάνω από το σύμπαν, έξω από τα γεγονότα, νομίζουν ότι γνωρίζουν τι έπεται του γένους τούτου. Όχι κύριοι, ψεύδεσθε, πλανάσθε, και ευρίσκεστε συνεχώς εις αδιάλειπτον σκότος. Η νεοκουλτουριάρικη προπαγάνδα σας κυβερνά, εσάς και τις σκέψεις σας.

Λάβετε!

Η ομάδα αυτή ουδεμία σχέση έχει με κάποιας ομάδας αθεόφοβων πιτσιρικάδων, που μόνος τους στόχος είναι ο αποπροσανατολισμός της νεολαίας και η έπειτα κατακυρίευση του γένους με ξενόφερτα – ανθελληνικά – είδωλα. Πρόκειται για ανθρώπους με βαθύ πνευματικό κόσμο και τεράστιες γνώσεις γύρω από την – Καθήστε Προσοχή – Ένδοξη Ιστορία Μας ως γνησίων απόγονων ΕΛ, ταυτοποιημένου DNA, μάλιστα.

Φάγετε!

Μόνοι σας θα διαπιστώσετε, αν επισκεφτείτε τις σελίδες στας οποίας παραπέμπουν τα δυο βίδεα, πως το κίνημα της αφύπνισης του γένους έχει ξεκινήσει και αποκτά όλο και μεγαλύτερους αριθμούς με το πέρασμα του χρόνου. Σας προσκαλώ λοιπόν να παρακολουθήσετε το ερευνητικό ντοκυμανταίρ με τίτλο ‘Η αρχή του Τέλους’ για να διαπιστώσετε μόνοι σας πως:

- Είμαστε ο περιούσιος Λαός (Ναι, εμείς είμαστε αυτοί, όχι οι βλαμμένοι με τις κοτσίδες)

- Είμαστε ο Λαός που Γαμάει Και Δέρνει (αλλά δεν το ξέρουμε γιατί μας ψεκάζουν καθημερινώς)

- Είμαστε 7 φορές ανώτεροι από κάθε άλλο φυλετικό είδος επάνω στον πλανήτη (αλλά δεν το ξέρουμε γιατί το DNA μας είναι σε κατάσταση ύπνου)

- Ο NiBiRu είναι υπαρκτός κομήτης.

- Και μάλιστα είναι το όχημα των ΕΛ που πήγε μια βολτίτσα στον Γαλαξία και θα έρθει όταν τελειώνει το Ημερολόγιο των Μάγια.

- Και οι ΕΛ θα μας αφυπνήσουν (θα καθαρίσουν την ατμόσφαιρα με ΕΛ-σπρέυ)

- Όταν ξυπνήσει το DNA μας θα πνίξουμε το σύμπαν με το Ιερό Σπέρμα Μας (βασικά από τώρα νομίζω…κολυμπάμε)

- Η προπαγάνδα Μας Προετοιμάζει για τα επόμενα. Ως παράδειγμα, νομίζετε ότι είναι ΤΥΧΑΙΟΙ ΟΙ ΑΡΙΘΜΟΙ ΜΕ ΤΟΥΣ ΟΠΟΙΟΥΣ ΚΕΡΔΙΣΕ ΕΚΑΤΟΜΜΥΡΙΑ Ο ΧΟΝΤΡΟΥΛΗΣ; ή μήπως είναι τυχαίο ότι ΑΥΤΟΙ ΟΙ ΙΔΙΟΙ ΑΡΙΘΜΟΙ καθυστερούσαν την ΕΚΡΗΞΗ; ε; ΕΙΝΑΙ ΤΥΧΑΙΟ νομίζετε; Η εξίσωση της Ζωής περιγράφεται με ακρίβεια, αδελφοί.

-Οι Αριστεροί Είναι Σατανιστές (και υποσκάπτουν το λάκκο της Πατρίδος Μας). Μακριά Από Αριστερούς Παιδιά. Μόνο με δεξιούς παρέα πλέον.

- Ο Πυθαγόρας γράφετε με Ω (ΝΑΙ, ΝΑΙ, δε λέω ψέμματα)

Αδελφοί Συν-ΈΛ-ληνες, μην αφήνετε τα μιάσματα να σας κοροϊδεύουν. ΞΥΠΝΑΤΕ. ΟΛΟΙ ΣΤΟΝ ΑΓΩΝΑ. ΠΑΜΕ ΜΠΡΟΣΤΑ ΓΙΑ ΕΝΑ ΕΛΛΑΔΙΣΤΑΝ ΚΑΘΑΡΟ ΚΑΙ ΔΥΝΑΤΟ.

(Σημείωσις: Προτείνεται τα δυο βίδεα – κυρίως το δεύτερο – να τα παρακολουθήσετε σε στάση “Ημίσια Κλίση Επί Δεξιάς”. Βοηθάει στην κατανόηση. Ευχαριστώ)

If you haven’t had your fill of Wild-Eyed Shitcrazy Bonkers for the week, at Wingnut Daily the deranged Ken Hutcherson begins an unhinged anti-gay screed by hinting at some upcoming craze-a-liciousness:

It has been said loudly and proudly that gay marriage is a civil-rights issue. If that’s the case, then gays would be the new African-Americans. I’m here to tell you now, and hopefully for the last time, that the gay community is not the new “African-American” community. In fact, I think Christians are the new Negro – but that’s an issue for a follow-up column.

The Paranoid Persecution Complex, now with added civil rights metaphors for extra wingnutty goodness!

Hutcherson is African-American himself so he should know better, but he’s also a fundie, which by definition makes him a demented crackpot regardless of race, colour or creed.  A pastor who stokes the hellfires of anti-gay sentiment from his pulpit at the Antioch Bible Church in Kirkland, Washington, Hutcherson has a long and depraved history of anti-gay activism.  A favourite target is Microsoft…

A few years ago he was so pissed at Microsoft for supporting anti-discrimination laws that he devised a plan to punish the software giant:  all his supporters would buy a couple of shares in Microsoft with the goal of selling them all at once on a pre-arranged date in order to drive down the stock price.   Stock manipulation for Jesus — it’s not securities fraud if you’re a conservative! The day of the fundie stock dump the mighty Microsoft was shaken to its core, with stock closing 14 cents higher than the day before.

Knowing Hutcherson’s bugfuck nuttiness, it’s hard not to breathlessly anticipate his column explaining how “Christians are the New Negro”. But I wonder if he’s thought about how it will go over with his anti-abortion cohorts, who’ve already made pretty much the same claim about Fetuses.  Maybe they’ll compromise, and the New Negro will be Christian Fetuses?  Stay tuned.

(h/t – right wing watch)

My current therapist tells me I should not work so hard. So do other people who care about me. I’m sure they mean well, but they cannot see how much work it really takes to make me as functional as I am.

I work my ass off. Regularly. As a matter of course. My body is dotted with little bruises from too much contact with my everyday life. And my head is spinning with the details I have to keep in order, and reminders to use the tools I’ve developed for myself to manage it all.

My head is a playground for efficacy and my body is a scarred-up old warhorse that has seen plenty of battles. The net result: tremendous success, by any measure. But plenty of pain and anxiety and suffering in the meantime.

I go out of my way to obscure the “clatter” of my start-stop-faltering-resuming life from the ones I love, because I don’t want to hurt them, and I know from experience that they feel pain when they see me going through things that cause them pain. So, I just don’t bring it up. And I work-work-work away-away-away, to get myself through life. I just want to get from Point A to Point B to Point C and so on, without the hindrance of other people’s discomfort. I sincerely don’t want to harm anyone who cares for me. And I keep the laborious nature of my adventures to myself.

It works for me — pun intended. Or is that a double-meaning?

Anyway, I’m feeling strong this afternoon. I work-work-worked this morning on some really important tasks. And I work-work-worked on tracking my progress, which I have not done in about a week. I’m thinking it would make sense for me to do my regular check-ins on weekends (preferably Sundays), so I can focus on them fully. The rest of the week, I’m too busy working, to spend a lot of time recapping and assessing and checking in.

Then, I lay down and took a nap, while listening to Belleruth Naparstek’s CD on “Stress Hardiness Optimization” for helping first responders and people in high-stress situations manage their stress level. My whole life is a first-responder situation — I’m the first on the scene at all my catastrophes, and I’m the one who has to pull my ass out of the fire or back from the brink, time and time again, before anyone has a clue that I’m as close to disaster as I am.

It’s one of the hazards of keeping your difficulties to yourself — you’re on the hook for fishing yourself out of the drink, if you go overboard in rough seas. You’ve got to make sure your life jacket is always strapped on tight, that you can swim properly, and that you haven’t eaten anything in the last 20 minutes that might give you the bends.

That takes work. A lot of work.

So what?

It’s not like it’s not worth it. It’s not like I have a choice. Oh, certainly, I could sit around and feel sorry for myself — Poor me! — and sit on that pity pot all the live-long day. Sure, I could rail at life for setting me up for failure. I could moan and bitch and complain at my crappy fate. I could resist with all my might, and refuse to do the Work that Life requires.

But where would that get me?

Nowhere.

And who would care?

No one.

All anyone would know — or see — is that I can’t manage to do a damn’ thing with my life, that I just keep screwing up, and what the hell is wrong with me, anyway, for having so much potential, yet doing so little with it?

I have a theory — everyone has great gifts, and everyone has great potential. It’s the people that have to work the hardest to bring it out, who experience the greatest payoff.

I want my payoff.

I have an evening’s worth of achievements waiting for me. Back to work…

Twitter is a free social networking service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to the subscribers.

Over time, we forget details of events that happened long ago or even mis-remember them.

But today’s technology, such as Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter, creates opportunities for people to capture minute by minute footage of memorable events.

Microsoft is developing a camera SenseCam, which captures photos of everything you see and do all day.

If we rely on technology for every source of  information what will become of our minds?

But none of these task-replacing devices has been shown to damage the mind.

Learning how to use technologies is good for the brain, just like learning a language or doing puzzles, he said.

Relying on the Internet for answers does have its advantages in terms of brain stimulation. A recent study from Small’s group at UCLA found that Internet searching among middle-aged and elderly adults who don’t have much experience with the Web had increased activity in key areas of the brain after searching the Web for an hour each day for two weeks.

“You can’t walk around through life carrying all of your books under your arm,” he said. “It’s possible that these devices that people now rely on will discourage anyone from doing this disciplined learning that we always used to do.”

But recording everything you do takes people out of the “here and now,” psychologists say. Constant documenting may make people less thoughtful about and engaged in what they’re doing because they are focused on the recording process, Schwartz said.

A 1993 study led by researchers at the University of Virginia found that undergraduate students who were asked to think about their reasons for choosing posters chose differently and reported less satisfaction than those who did not have to justify their choices.

Every morning I get up and exercise. I don’t always want to, but I do it anyway. As I’m working out, I often have to run through a whole list of reasons why I am doing it, why it’s a good idea, and what I will gain from the experience. I’ve made an agreement and a contract with myself  to do this each morning — in part, to avoid having to go on medication for my trouble waking up in the morning, in part, because it just feels so good to have exercised… after the fact.

One of the big payoffs that I promise myself I’ll enjoy, is improved balance. I have always had vestibular problems (which might have contributed to my falls when I was a kid?), and on and off, I still have trouble with dizziness and lightheadedness. I’m regularly concerned with the threat of additional falls or accidents, due to my intermittently poor balance.

Exercise, it’s my understanding, helps with balance, by strengthening the muscles we use to keep upright. (Especially strengthening the muscles of the pelvic floor — the muscles that keep your internal organs vertical, as well as connect the parts of your pelvis/hips.) It makes sense to me.  I’ve heard that the elderly become more prone to falls if they are weak, so strengthening the muscles with some basic exercises — like I do in the morning, each day — can go a long way towards keeping you stable in a vertical position.

I recently came across the blog Balance Chicago, which talks about vestibular rehabilitation. I will be checking them out, from time to time, as losing my balance is one of the most hazardous things that can happen to me – especially if I’m at the top of a flight of stairs or I am doing something physically strenuous. Falling is a major cause of head injuries — and my most serious TBIs have been due to falling. Out of trees. Down stairs. While playing sports…

But physical balance is only one piece of my puzzle, albeit a very important one.

Just as important to me are emotional and mental balance.  Exercise helps me work out my agitation, first thing in the morning, and it helps me train myself to pay attention to what I’m doing for extended periods AND focus on my form, which also contributes to impulse control. And when I have focus and can manage my attention properly, I find myself more emotionaly and mentally centered.

That’s especially important, this time of year. Thanksgiving is coming up, and with it comes a shift in my daily activities. This could really throw me, if I’m not properly prepared, because I rely on my routine to keep myself stable and sane. Additionally, at the same time that my major support, routine, is being disrupted, more demands are being made on me, in terms of activities and more social interaction. Without proper preparation, it’s a recipe for disaster.

And the fact that I never adequately planned or prepared in the past, is probably a big reason why the holidays in general have been so challenging and traumatic for me.

This year, I’m doing it differently. Together with my spouse and my neuropsych, I am spending a fair amount of time planning and prepping and thinking through the trip out of state to see my biological family. I am walking myself through the days, ahead of time, seeing where I can fit in my exercise routine… checking the weather for the area I’ll be in, so I can tell in advance if I need to take rain gear or not, and I can tell if I’ll need to really motivate myself to get out of the house, first thing in the morning. Next Thursday through Sunday look all clear — a good thing — with highs in the 40s and 50s. So, the weather should not be a discourager for me.

This makes me so happy!

The shift in schedule is also causing me (yet again) to see how important regular routines are for me — and to realize that not having a regularly scheduled time with a psychotherapist is a problem that needs to be solved. My last therapist always had me in the same time slot, with rare exceptions. That was much more doable for me. The next therapist I see needs to make a regular appointment for me. That’s non-negotiable. Well, to a certain point… within reason, of course.

Again, balance is important.

Anyway, one of the other things that’s been in the back of my mind is that this Thanksgiving weekend is the 5-year anniversary of my fall down the stairs of the house I’ll be visiting. I lost my balance at the top of a very steep staircase, and I went down hard, hitting the back of my head on the steps a number of times. And from that point on, my life changed in subtle but rapidly worsening ways, till it was almost too late before I realized something was terribly, terribly wrong with me and my life.

It upsets me so much, that I lost so much — a critical chunk of time out of my promising career, my retirement nest egg, my savings, my credit… and I almost lost my marriage in the process. My inability to parse out what was going on with me caused a lot of things to deteriorate terribly around me, and I’m just now starting to battle back. But I’m battling. And I’m getting back. I’m making amazing progress…

And I need to remind myself of that. Because if I don’t, I get out of balance again, and I start focusing on all the things I’ve done wrong and have messed up.

I don’t want to do that. I want to have a good mix of positives and negatives. I want to be able to see all the amazing progress I’ve been making, over the past few years. And I need to measure my success by new measures that recognize the hidden difficulties I have, and accurately assess my true progress.

I have another appointment with my neuropsych tomorow, who is helping me think through my plans for the holidays. I’m unbelievably fortunate to have this person in my life, and I’m glad that I can help them, too, by doing as well as I am. They’ve told me that I inspire and encourage them, though I’m sometimes not sure why they would say such a thing.

Well, it’s not for me to decide what they should or should not think of me and my progress. It’s just nice to have someone who can objectively understand my issues and truly appreciate my progress — to balance out the people can’t, won’t, and don’t.