test blog #10

A victory for peace and common sense! Alexis Hutchinson, the single mom and soldier who refused deployment because she had no one to care for her young son, who the US Army imprisoned and threatened with court martial, will be discharged, not court martialed. However, Hutchinson will be demoted and will lose her veterans' benefits. Story here. I blogged about Hutchinson here and here . [I'm trying to concentrate on schoolwork right now. Hopefully I'll write for wmtc in the next day or three.]

A new Nanos Poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Canadians embrace the idea that all countries participating in the Olympics should declare peace for the duration of the Games. Every age group and region shows strong support for this idea; support for peace was highest in Quebec. From Nik on the Numbers : Support for Olympic Peace Question: As you may know, the Winter Olympics will be starting in February 2010. Do you support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose or oppose all participating countries declaring peace, that is stopping hostilities around the world, during the Olympic Games? Support 80.7% Somewhat support 7.6% Somewhat oppose 1.9% Oppose 5.5% Unsure 4.3% This reminds me of the lunacy of the Christmas ceasefire. Start with an Olympic peace. Then extend the idea. Peace.

Are you all aware of this? From Wired , see original for linkage: The company once known for its "don't be evil" motto is now in bed with the spy agency known for the mass surveillance of American citizens. The National Security Agency is widely understood to have the government's biggest and smartest collection of geeks — the guys that are more skilled at network warfare than just about anyone on the planet. So, in a sense, it's only natural that Google would turn to the NSA after the company was hit by an ultrasophisticated hack attack. After all, the military has basically done the same thing, putting the NSA in charge of its new "Cyber Command." The Department of Homeland Security is leaning heavily on the NSA to secure .gov networks. But there's a problem. The NSA and its predecessors also have a long history of spying on huge numbers of people, both at home and abroad. During the Cold War, the agency worked with companies like Western Union to ...

Some years back, I wrote a post called "The Tyranny of the Subconscious" , about the lingering effects of trauma that live buried in our minds. If you haven't read it and are interested, it's one of my better posts and an excellent, brief discussion followed. I've done a ton of healing work around my own personal trauma, and I can say with confidence that I am healed and am whole. Almost three decades (28 years) have passed since I was raped, and entire years will go by without even a trace of post-traumatic stress. Then one night, I'll have one of those dreams... The whole thing really pisses me off. I don't need it, I can't control it, and it just seems frigging ridiculous that something that happened to me in 1982 is still buried in my brain somewhere, and won't leave me alone. Not completely alone, anyway. Seriously. Enough already. These days my subconscious is playing a new trick on me. Not as brutal and as extreme, but man, it is ever annoyi...

I've blogged before about Marc Hall, a stop-lossed soldier who has been arrested and imprisoned for speaking out against the unjust policy that led to his involuntarily re-enlistment. Hall - on his own time - wrote and played a song protesting stop-loss, and for that, he's feeling the full wrath of the US military. He faces court martial - a "trial" staged by his accusers - and either a lengthy prison sentence or forced deployment to Iraq. Veterans for Peace , Iraq Veterans Against the War , Courage to Resist and other groups - the ones that "support the troops" - are joining together to help Hall. The goal is to generate 1,000 letters to to the US Army - and to bring Hall's case to national attention in the US. You can click on this link to send your letter, and share the link every way you can. You can also visit Stop Loss Music to sign a petition in support of Marc. This weekend I saw a news item on a horrific case of untreated PTSD from a veter...

The news about wild canines in the US is absolutely stomach-turning. More than 400 gray wolves have been slaughtered since Obama's Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar made good on Bush-era plans to remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list. The other night, I saw a friend who is also passionate about wild canines - one of the people we visited the Haliburton Forest Wolf Centre with. I remarked how I can't understand killing such magnificent creatures for no reason. She said, "It's worse than killing them for no reason. It's killing them for fun ." I was struck by the appropriateness of that correction. Killing them for fun . Not for food, or even for commerce. For recreation. And never forget, the slaughter stems directly from government policy. For these animals, as for many of us, it's a one-party system. The only silver lining is that policy can be changed. From email from the NRDC Save BioGems project: The war on wolves is getting uglie...

What a bad dog-mommy I am! January 29 was Tala Day, and we forgot all about it! So, in honour of three years of our hilarious, big-eared Bo (short for Talabo, short for Tala Bobala), let's all go terrorize squirrels. In other news, Cody - 13 years old, with arthritis and hip dysplasia, not to mention newly-diagnosed cancer - is snoozing on the bed when we're not home. We don't know how she gets up there anymore. We have a ramp for her at the back door, and we help her in and out of the car, and the bed is kind of tall. But after years of trying to keep dogs off the bed - barriers, balloons, alarms - now I'm thinking of ways to help Cody get on it! I don't think a ramp would work in the bedroom, but maybe some sort of step. Not much to update yet regarding Cody's condition. She has no symptoms yet. We have an appointment with an oncologist in Guelph , and I'll post an update after that.