{"id":76291,"date":"2014-05-03T09:05:59","date_gmt":"2014-05-03T13:05:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=76291"},"modified":"2014-05-03T09:45:09","modified_gmt":"2014-05-03T13:45:09","slug":"may-flowers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/by-judith-gayle-2\/may-flowers\/","title":{"rendered":"May Flowers"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

It’s the lusty month of May, a time when the emergence of spring leads us to a kind of giddy relief that the cold and dark are behind. It would be lovely to throw our arms wide to embrace less restriction and more freedom of body and spirit, essentially what this season represents, but our enthusiasm seems dampened by the calamities that are not just piled up to confront us, but continue to pop up like mushrooms in dank places. And this year, we’re rather like a newly sober and regretful drunk, looking back at the trail of destruction our long binge created.<\/p>\n

\"PoliticalSigns of adult behavior notwithstanding, news of faulty decisions and disturbing events keeps cluttering the headlines. Elizabeth Warren has joined Al Franken and Bernie Sanders in going after the FCC and its proposal to allow charges for service, essentially gutting net neutrality. Warren has gravitas, and she ties the FCC’s suggestions to her campaign against big-money exploitation of the struggling class (et al<\/em>). The new proposal violates the basic premise of net neutrality, that similar content should be treated equally, creating, as Obama has suggested, a tool for equality.<\/p>\n

Freenet, a group dedicated to remediating this problem, tells us, “The right response is to reclassify broadband Internet access as a telecommunications service that can be regulated in the public interest.”\u00a0Visit their site<\/a>\u00a0to learn more and find out what you can do in the weeks remaining until a decision is finalized. (They’re also mobilized to try to\u00a0stop cable monopoly<\/a>\u00a0should Comcast be allowed to buy Time Warner.) We need to write letters and make phone calls. From their editorial at Common Dreams, Bill Moyers and Michael Winship add “… you can send an e-mail to make your opinion known at\u00a0openinternet@fcc.gov<\/a>. Or direct a tweet to Wheeler @TomWheelerFCC.” You can find more\u00a0group activities here<\/a>. This FCC ruling\u00a0will gum up the information pipeline and severely limit our ability to gather, share and influence our mutual, if virtual, reality, as well as\u00a0limit innovation<\/a>\u00a0and tech start-ups. Creating tiers in service would be an across the board game changer,\u00a0little guys like you and me, bloggers and yes, astrology sites, the losers.
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In other news,\u00a0politicians still have their short list to manage, of course: the right invested in killing off government, the left trying to find a way around them. Despite the popularity of a minimum wage hike, Senate Pubs filibustered the debate, effectively stalling legislation to help the working poor. Reports that Obamacare now has\u00a0over eight million members thwart projections on the right that it would fail miserably.\u00a0Rather, conservatives seem less inclined to rail against it as they discover it helps them as much as it does Democrats, none of which will stop the House from voting another round of Obamacare-killing measures, since they’ve determined that they won’t vote anything of substance until after the election (IN NOVEMBER! Long, hot and, likely, contentious summer ahead, my dears).<\/p>\n

FOX<\/em>\u00a0news continues to beat this dead horse (ACA,) much as it has whipped up a froth this last week over Benghazi. If you listen to\u00a0FOX<\/em>\u00a0— and its contributors, Krauthammer, O’Reilly, and our squeaky-wheel of a Pub Senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, who is being primaried on the right and needs anti-gummit cred — this is the worst scandal since Watergate. I guess they’ve forgotten about Clinton’s blow job, something then special prosecutor Ken Starr didn’t allow us to do for literally years, and to the tune of 70 million buckaroos. Pubs have already spent 14 million on Benghazi investigations, and still haven’t found that smoking gun that makes this more than a witch hunt.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Starr-wannabe and Pub hatchet man, Darrell Issa, has subpoenaed John Kerry (who wasn’t in the State Department when all this happened) to testify about internal correspondence that the Pubs insist upon calling cover-up. Dragging this out even more — the unhappy incident occurred two year ago — Boehner will appoint a select panel to investigate.\u00a0Amazingly, some of the top-tier Pubs are tired of rehashing this non-story, but — pushed ahead by\u00a0FOX<\/em>\u00a0and its usual suspects — the public will now be treated to another attempt to make something out of nothing (to blame on the black guy and kill some time until the election).<\/p>\n

Most of the public, as opposed to the congress, which they think\u00a0is past redemption, have suddenly got a bit of wind beneath their wings. We lived through the hottest summer ever last year, and weathered one of the coldest winters in the Midwest; I suppose we’ve learned to weather the political storms as well. We’ve stopped giving them our power and started taking a second, even a third, look at what they tell us. Perhaps we’ve even begun to change our minds. As PW contributor Carlos Cedillo\u00a0told us this week<\/a>, “It is what is inside of us that changes, so incrementally we haven\u2019t really noticed.” When we ourselves change, the conversation shifts as well. And once the conversation shifts, the manifestation curve begins.<\/p>\n

Thanks to the racist commentary by Nevadan Clive Bundy and Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, the notion that we are “post-racial” — driven home by the recent and egregious voting rights and affirmative action decisions of the Supreme Court — has been flipped on its pointy head. This week a federal judge in Wisconsin and a state judge in Arkansas invalidated their states’ voter ID laws, while a judge in Pennsylvania refused to reconsider an earlier decision striking down his state’s ID law. Insisting that limiting a citizen’s right to vote is a serious matter, courts are no longer taking a desire for “election integrity” at face value, now requiring the state to prove sufficient election fraud has taken place to justify a change. Since the nationwide incidence of actual voter fraud is less than one percent, this may signal a sea change in voter ID laws. Keep a good thought.<\/p>\n

Sarah Palin, behaving as the fine Christian lady [sic] she’s always been, told a group this week that “water boarding is how we baptize terrorists.” The blowback came not from Sarah-haters, but from Christians who consider Sarah an extremist, not a spokesperson for their faith. Thousands of on-line Christians — whom Sarah referred to as “overly sensitive wusses” — signed petitions to that effect. Truth be told, Sarah is no longer the darling of the far-right. She got her 15 minutes plus some, but good sense seems to have finally descended from above, trumping the Wasilla Hillbilly. And if you think that’s amazing, check this out: Rush Limbaugh seems to be\u00a0losing his mojo<\/a> as well. His listeners have been in steady decline since his sponsors pulled out over the contraceptive “slut” tirades of 2010.<\/p>\n

And we can never get far from rape, these days, can we? With one in every five female college students sexually assaulted, the administration has come down on the side of prevention, sending Veep Joe Biden (joined by\u00a0a group of celebs<\/a>)\u00a0out to reinforce the announcement of 20 new recommendations from the White House Task Force to Prevent Students from Sexual Assaults. In addition to the list, the government will establish a website, NotAlone.gov, where people can get information on both education and assistance while remaining anonymous (NSA aside, I suppose).<\/p>\n

While advocates say the recommendations are welcome, they don’t do enough to stem the tide of violence against women. Nevertheless, these victims join a growing number of complainants of sexual violence and cover-up, including the military and the church. The administration’s attention to the problem gives it added weight, in tandem with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights releasing new guidance on students’ rights and schools’ obligations under Title IX. Fifty-five colleges are being scrutinized for how they handle sexual assault, as gender discrimination disqualifies schools receiving Title IX money. The list includes Ohio and Arizona State colleges, Swarthmore, Harvard, Princeton, Tufts and Dartmouth, among many others. It’s all a little close to home, isn’t it?<\/p>\n

It’s May. We don’t do May Day parades in support of workers anymore, sadly enough, but let’s not underestimate the potential of this month to shift attitudes and attention toward the Venus Principle of love in all its splendor. May First is also celebrated by those of mystical persuasion as Saint Germaine’s Ascension Day, sending out life changing energy to embrace the world. Then there’s Beltane, where we can allow ourselves to feel inspired, to open our hearts, to touch the lush possibilities of new growth and beginnings. Ahead of us is Mother’s Day, on the 11th, when appreciation for the nurturing attributes of Goddess reigns supreme, bringing the feminine into balance.\u00a0The yearly celebration of the enlightenment of Gautama Buddha takes place on the Taurus Full Moon, and this year the festival occurs on May 14th, lending us thoughtful, introspective energy to help sort out\u00a0our challenges and blessings. And finally, Memorial Day takes us into the Gemini signature on May 26th, when we examine the price we’ve paid for our warlike nature and national defense.<\/p>\n

It’s May, spring’s sprung, and bathed in the\u00a0Venus energy,\u00a0we’re awakening. It’s a mystical month and a pivotal year. Keep an open heart and a watchful eye on signs of attitude change around you. That’s where it happens — in mind and heart — well before we see it come into form.\u00a0Tuck some May flowers in your hair and celebrate. We’re the change, and the energy is beginning to move.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves It’s the lusty month of May, a time when the emergence of spring leads us to a kind of giddy relief that the cold and dark are behind. It would be lovely to throw our arms wide to embrace less restriction and more freedom of body and spirit, essentially … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1744],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76291"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}