I’ve done a lot of productive things, lately. I deleted all my duplicate songs from iTunes (even though who uses iTunes anymore? and who capitalizes the T? such a loser, Stace). I went to Home Depot. I caught up on The Mindy Project and made like 18 mental notes on how I just need to be more like Mindy Kaling. I went to the library and got a copy of David McCullough’s biography of Harry Truman, and now I’m reading lots about Missouri and realizing no one ever taught me anything about Missouri and I’m fascinated that it’s actually, like, southern, but not really that southern, but still really like that southern. It’s actually freaking me out a little bit. Plus I read John Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven last summer about Mormon Fundamentalism, and it discussed how in the mid-1800s the Mormons and non-Mormons fought this horrific, violent war over the land in western Missouri (among other wars) and it’s all being discussed all over again in Truman, so now I just know so much about Mormons too, incidentally. (I really recommend that book, by the way. Nice, light reading.)

I’m trying to be more into geography. I don’t want to be one of those people who goes on a game show and like Bob Barker or whoever says hey where is Pakistan and I’m like, durr. I want to be an informed, worldly member of our society, without having to dole out my entire savings account to visit these places just to figure out what the climate or natural landmarks are like. And, in the name of true honesty, that’s just mostly because I just absolutely hate my passport picture and want to use it as little as possible until it expires and I can get a new photo. Seriously, it’s horrible. I almost had a heart attack when Walker suggested that that’s the photo that might be used if I ever went missing or robbed a bank or something. I hate it more than my senior high school yearbook photo, which is a lot. (Sidenote: I’m actually not joking about how terrible the picture is. I look like a drugged-up garage/grunge band male singer from the 70s. Walker likes to find my passport and open it and laugh at it whenever he wants an upper. Isn’t he sweet? And it’s only that horrible because I was going through a phase where I didn’t care about what I looked like, and I guess that’s okay and all, but I really still think my parents should have slapped me and been like, you look like an asshole, get your shit together.)

The other night I wikipedia’d Afghanistan. And read everything about Afghanistan. And then that of course led me on a lot of other searches, and I found out all sorts of interesting things. Here are 5 facts that I’d love to share with you, and that I can actually remember from the three hours worth of information I read.

1) Afghanistan is not technically in the Middle East. Neither is Pakistan. The Middle East technically is made up of *17 countries: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Yemen, Jordan, Israel, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Kuwait, Turkey, Bahrain, the UAE, Egypt, Iraq, Palestine, and Cyprus. Afghanistan and Pakistan are part of what is known as the Greater Middle East, which was just sort of made up by President Bush almost a decade ago.

2) *Kurdistan actually exists in the Middle East as well. It’s an autonomous, sort of peanut-shaped region in Iraq, Turkey, and a few other countries.

3) Pakistan is the ONLY country that does not recognize Armenia as a country.

4)  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states will take up your entire day if you actually open it and start to read it.

5) In the 1920s, Afghanistan had a King who attempted to introduce all these reforms including eliminating the burqa, opening co-educational schools, and installing compulsory elementary education. He was forced to abdicate.

While, as you can clearly tell, I do enjoy these sorts of things, and while I do enjoy wikipedia and every now and then feel some Catholic guilt and donate to them when they display those really big banners at the top of the pages saying please donate and keep us in business!, it does take quite a bit of time to sit there and read all sorts of things about Sanskrit and Mongolian kings. And even then I still can’t pronounce anything in my head, which is important for my memory for absorption purposes, so then I end up skimming a lot and forget things like years and names and crucial facts, which makes me totally useless on Jeopardy! so really what’s the point, right?

SO, I have come up with a brilliant idea that I’m not even afraid to post about because I don’t care about the credit if someone takes the idea, I just want it to happen.

I want a major television network – ideally the BBC, but really whoever is fine – to create a 196-part series on all the countries of the earth. (I’ve thought about this number a lot and decided on a solid 196. Even though the US State Department doesn’t recognize Taiwan as an independent state, I’m including it, because they made all my favorite toys.) They should all be roughly 80 minutes long and narrated by the same person (ideally Sir David Attenborough, and no this is not as negotiable). They should include a brief history, border states, natural landmarks, climate, tophography, demographics, flora/fauna, how safe it would be for me to visit, and any other pertinent information that I may need to Sporcle someday. They should all end inspirationally, even if the country is in a state of disarray. They should have lots of pictures and some time lapses and lots of maps for those of us who are very visual. And they should all be on Netflix, released weekly over a 4-year period.

I think this is brilliant, personally. It’s like watching Planet Earth on a Sunday, except I’ve seen all of them, and there’s only so many times I can find bat guano compelling and engaging. (Actually, bad example, I always find that part really interesting.) I’m a sucker for documentaries, and geography, and random knowledge, so this idea just all sounds so thrilling, as long as North Korea has no say in the documentary about North Korea, because it needs to be accurate, and not, well, like this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/8965694/50-fascinating-facts-Kim-Jong-il-and-North-Korea.html

I hope you enjoy this idea. If so, let me know and I’m happy to make a petition. We need to move quickly, because even though Sir David Attenborough will live forever, that’s also what I said about my cat and she died last year.

In the meantime, I guess I’ll stay on wikipedia, and read about cartography and how Greenland is super small. I’ll discover the flag of Samoa, what the Great Wall of China really looks like, and memorize the history of Macedonia. I don’t know. Maybe it’ll come up someday.

PHILOSOPHIES & COVENANTS CREATE EXPERIENCES UNDER THEIR LEADERSHIP

We the English-speaking peoples are watching helplessly while our supposedly representative governments embrace corporate Fascism and control by Secret elements of Industry that also refuse to speak what is true. Their ads lie, their publicity statements lie, their policies lies, they refuse to answer to our objections, and they dominate over “governance by the consent of the governed.” This site is now a catalog of issues, expressed in videos, over which we the people no longer have any control or say. Why? Because some people don’t know yet.

Fiat money enslaves us all; wars and oil and drugs for profit ruin our planet and our health; and what once was a culture spread across the world — the English culture — valueing decency, honesty, truth and care, is now a financial monopoly awaiting disaster and punishing dissent. Science and Education are driven to idiocy by politics, and we all know that false-flag terror lurks in secret compartments of governments, who have spent billions creating ways to drive our people crazy. It’s horribly true.

I tutor a child from China; and today she brought me her second grade reader from her local California school. I grimaced in horror at the Glossary: not one single word of “value” in that textbook: NO honesty, no truth, no decency, no cooperation, no dominion, no sovereignty, no chastity, no thrift, and on and on. The Glossary–an Open Court Text–was BEREFT of value WORDS. And schools feed kids this empty crap and call it education?

Meetups are
neighbors getting together to learn something,
do something, share something…

GOD is an ET, a telepathic one at that.

Prophecy is what people hear when they listen telepathically to the Deities in Less Dense Frequencies.

Scripture is Prophecy recorded in writing … at the time.  It changes.

Religion is the service to Prophecy which other telepaths perform in order to become competent and Eternal souls.

And so it is.  Let’s share what we hear and know.

“To understand why there is a truth embargo we need to come to terms with the fact that America’s major media groups lost their independence a long time ago.”
—Researcher Richard Dolan

Published on May 12, 2013

“Let’s try it!” Piper said, wiggling her body and rubbing her head on my arm.

A fit of giggles ensued. Obviously. Bonding accomplished.

Off the back of Sea Shepherd‘s most successful campaign to date,

Operation Zero Tolerance that saved 932 whales,

Sea Shepherd launches Operation Relentless.

Like last season’s campaign, Operation Relentless will be managed and led by Sea Shepherd Australia with campaign leaders Bob Brown and Jeff Hansen.

It will be Sea Shepherd’s 10th Antarctic whale defence campaign defending at risk whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. During the past nine seasons, Sea Shepherd’s direct-action interventions have saved the lives of more than 4,500 whales and exposed illegal Japanese whaling to the world. With the help of Australians and people around the world, Operation Relentless is shaping up to be a monumental success for the whales.

“Australia is now the focus of the biggest whale saving operation on Earth and funding depends on the generosity of whale loving Australians. These whales are Australia’s responsibility. Sea Shepherd is acting where Governments have failed to intervene in the illegal slaughter of these magnificent creatures,” said Dr Bob Brown, Sea Shepherd board member.

“Japan stated that the attempt to kill whales in the Antarctic whale sanctuary was abandoned due to ‘relentless interference’ by Sea Shepherd,” said Jeff Hansen, Sea Shepherd Australian Director.

“Sea Shepherd likes that kind of relentless accusation, we like being relentless in the pursuit of finally bring peace to the whales of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. Sea Shepherd knows that this is a David and Goliath struggle. Our past victories show we have one thing that the whalers do not, and that’s the passion and courage of our crew. No matter what the odds, no matter what the risks, no matter how well equipped, funded and Government backed your opponents are, you must never give in, must never surrender.  You must fight for what is right, because the one thing that is worth fighting for on our beautiful planet is life,” said Mr Hansen.

Sea Shepherd Australia :: Sea Shepherd launches Operation Relentless, its 10th Antarctic whale defence campaign.

Sea Shepherd confronts Japanese illegal whalers in the Ross Sea (Photo credit: guano)

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Related articles

• Sea Shepherd launches Operation Relentless (earthfirstnews.wordpress.com)
• Sea Shepherd Announces 10th SOWS Campaign: “Operation Relentless” (cyberwhalewarrior.com)
• Anti-whalers call for cash (nst.com.my)
• Sea Shepherd appeals for donations, legal battles hound them in the US (japandailypress.com)
• Sea Shepherd ask for cash (bigpondnews.com)
• Japan’s whaling institute criticizes Australia for tolerating Sea Shepherd activities (japandailypress.com)
• Praise Conservationists for Least Successful Whale Hunting Season in History (forcechange.com)
• Crime › Sea Shepherd sues Japan whalers in Netherlands for piracy (japantoday.com)

A five mm small spider (Family: Salticidae). I`m not sure, but maybe the scientific name is “Salticus cingulatus”.

http://vimeo.com/63878449

Sherman Alexie

Born on a reservation in Washington state, Alexie has been navigating

the boundaries in American and Native American culture for two decades.

He is the author of 22 books, including The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,

winner of the 2007 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, War Dances,

winner of the 2010 PEN Faulkner Award,

andThe Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven,

a PEN Hemingway Special Citation winner.

Smoke Signals, the film he wrote and co-produced,

won the Audience Award and Filmmakers’ Trophy at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival.

English: American author, poet and filmmaker Sherman Alexie (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Related articles

• Sherman Alexie’s Top Ten Native American Poets (billmoyers.com)
• Sherman Alexie (billmoyers.com)
• Sherman Alexie on book banning (holly-troy.com)
• Friday Flix: Smoke Signals (litandscribbles.wordpress.com)
• Sherman Alexie on Living Outside Cultural Borders (amren.com)
• Sherman Alexie : The search for a Positive Native American Identity (theculturetrip.wordpress.com)
• Sherman Alexie on Living Outside of Cultural Borders (peninsulademocrat.wordpress.com)

Thank you Pierce Brosnan!

“Whales should not have to suffer and die for military practice.”

– Pierce Brosnan

The Navy’s reckless plan for training with sonar and explosives will put thousands of marine mammals in imminent jeopardy. Join me in calling on Defense Secretary Hagel to put safeguards in place that will protect our planet’s whales!

 

Dear Friend Nature,

The Navy has announced new plans for training and testing with high-intensity sonar and explosives.

Unless we stop them, more than 1,000 whales and other marine mammals — including rare and endangered species — could be killed over the next five years.

Fortunately, NRDC is mobilizing nationwide opposition to this reckless plan.

Please join me in sending a message to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel right away.Tell him to direct the Navy to put safeguards in place that will stop this deadly assault on whales.

The scope of the Navy’s plans is staggering. They threaten entire populations of marine wildlife off the East Coast, Southern California, Hawaii and the Gulf Coast.

The Navy’s mid-frequency sonar will bombard whales with noise so intense — up to 236 decibels — it can actually cause their internal organs to hemorrhage.

There will be more than 5,000 cases of serious injury – such as permanent hearing loss or lung damage — and tens of millions of incidents in which marine mammals are harassed and harmed.

And these alarming numbers come from the Navy itself!

So it’s all the more distressing that the Navy refuses to put common-sense measures in place that could protect whales during routine training – especially because doing so would in no way compromise our military readiness.

Call on Secretary Hagel to chart a more responsible course by making the Navy take concrete steps to save whales from the deadly impacts of sonar and explosives. 

The Navy should start by avoiding key habitats where whales are known to migrate and raise their young — one of the most effective ways of reducing harm.

Time is of the essence. Once the Navy’s plan goes into effect, it will take a terrible toll on marine mammals for five long years.

Let’s not wait for thousands of whales to suffer and die before taking action. Please join me now in making your voice heard at the Pentagon in defense of whales. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Pierce Brosnan
Actor and NRDC Member
Natural Resources Defense Council

Related articles

• Navy Training Raises New Concerns for Whales off California Coast (science.kqed.org)
• Whales stranded in Scotland during major navy exercise (telegraph.co.uk)
• Navy Sonar Criticized For Harming Marine Mammals (npr.org)
• This folks has got to be a first! (sachemspeaks.wordpress.com)
• Shh! Will U.S. Navy Turn It Down for Whales and Dolphins? (yesmagazine.org)
• Iceland to resume commercial fin whale hunt (radionz.co.nz)

The music seems to be from Two Steps from Hell’s Invincible album and the score to The Last Airbender film by James Newton Howard.