Murat Gurnaz, an aid worker and an innocent man who was held in Guantanamo Bay for five years then released without charges, is interviewed in the following video. He was arrested when and because Pakistan offered $3,000 for al Queda members so people turned in enemies, neighbors, even strangers, like Murat to get that huge reward! This kind and gentle man was tortured and mistreated and separated from his country and loved ones and then released without apology five years later. When he talked about being put in a dark cell for 30 days for giving some of his bread to an iguana, well, it made me start crying. I have always had a place in my heart for animals lovers and to think of someone being denied sun for a month for such a thing! It makes me angry. It makes me want to throw up! It makes me ashamed of our government.

Our media refuses to tell his story. It is up to us. There are others just like him still there. Let's not wait 50 years like we did to talk about the Japanese we interred. We need to bring public attention to this now. I am writing journalists and asking them to view it and/or interview him. Please help in that effort.

We have a perfectly good justice system. Grant these people trials! Holding them indefinitely flies in the face of our democracy. It is one of my bitterest disappointments in Barack Obama, especially after seeing this.

Please share this with people. Please get this story out. Our media will not cover it. It is up to US!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYxtm1jfato...

Miss Landmine is an international organization that increases awareness of these weapons of war left behind to destroy lives for decades. It also empowers and celebrates the beauty, both internal and external, of brave women and girls who have been mutilated by landmines. I am not normally keen on "beauty pageants". Most of them celebrate superficial qualities instead of substance. But this pageant is different. It is open to women of all ages and celebrates resilience, courage and strength, beauty from the inside out. It is a pageant that makes us think twice about our concept of physical perfection. Their goal is to replace the word "victim" with "survivor" and to advocate for the rights of the disabled around the world while putting a face on the people who are hurt by landmines.

The first Miss Landmine was held two years ago in Angola. You have only to look at the photos http://miss-landmine.org / to see the effect it had on the women involved. It also raised awareness of the landmine issue around the globe. The next pageant was scheduled to come up this fall in Cambodia, a country so riddled with landmines that an average of 40 people have been blown apart every week for the last 20 years! But the Cambodian government just put the kibosh on the Miss Landmine pageant. Their government has banned it.

Miss Landmine is going forward by taking their pageant online! I encourage you to vote and express support for these women and for this program. Reading their stories touched me very much! The purpose of this pageant is to advocate for people with disabilities and to make women torn apart by war feel beautiful and to empower them but it is also to educate! When you vote, you get to see the face and read the story of someone who has been directly affected by these weapons of war, weapons that kill indiscriminately -- men, women, children animals, enemies and friends. More than that, with your vote you are helping complete a mission that has been started in Cambodia, one that lifts women's spirits and makes them feel beautiful! You can see it on their faces. Check it out here and vote while you're at it:

http://miss-landmine.org/cambodia/index.ph...

The Cambodian government released a statement Friday saying that this pageant would damage "the dignity and honor of our disabled." Funny, they haven't cared about their disabled for the last several decades! The Cambodian government has a long history of not caring for their disabled and also of not trying to clean up these landmines! In my opinion, it's a cover-up. One of many from a country that covered up for Pol Pot for decades and that even now incarcerates AIDS patients in unsanitary colonies. But that's another rant for another day.

The Cambodian Ministry of Social Affairs for Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation is responsible for this ban. Can you believe it? A branch of government that is supposed to be supportive of people with disabilities!?! I encourage you to write them and respectfully express your support for the Miss Landmine Program and also for the eradication of landmines which hurt farmers and the poor disproportionately. (Several of the participants in this year's pageant are farmers. You can imagine how this has impacted their ability to earn a living.)

I've included an email address below. Be polite. Our letters have an effect and those effects could positively or negatively affect the future of this program and others that highlight the problems of landmines in Cambodia. Just let them know why the program is good for women and disabled people but also let them know the world is watching. It's unlikely they'll change their minds this year but our actions and our intention will echo into the future. Please act.

Here is the contact information: http://tiny.cc/DhNpe
Address #41, Russian Federation Blvd, Phnom Penh
Phone 012 804442
Fax 023 880624
Email ocm@cambodia.gov.kh
Homepage www.ocm.gov.kh

Everyone deserves to feel beautiful. After all, everyone IS beautiful! We are all the ever changing sculptures of our creator.

Sometimes I just need some happy news and lately I've been running across a lot of it so I thought I would share it with you. Enjoy!

You'd think that having AIDS would probably be one of the worst things that could possibly happen to you. You'd think that getting leukemia on top of it would be almost too much to bear. But what if your treatment for leukemia led to a cure for AIDS!?! It might all be worth it, huh? Well that's exactly what may have happened. When a 42 year old American AIDS patient living in Germany underwent a bone marrow transplant to treat his leukemia, it seems to have also eradicated HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, from his body. Since his treatment, over 600 days ago, doctors have been unable to find any trace of HIV or its antibodies in his blood. This is exciting news and all the more reason to register to be bone marrow donor the next time you give blood!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1226023941...

In these economic hard times, folks are getting laid off, wages and benefits are being cut, companies are being sold ... and if the family business you worked for, say, a ball bearing company, got bought out by a larger Swedish company in September, it seems likely that your Christmas bonus might actually be a pink slip. Well, not if that ball bearing company was owned by the Spungen family of Illinois. This Thanksgiving, in addition to getting the usual turkey each employee has received since the company's beginnings, employees also received a Christmas bonus -- a huge Christmas bonus! -- one paid directly to them from the people who didn't even own their company anymore. Each of Peer's Ball Bearing Company's 230 employees got a bonus based on their years of service that ranged from $10,000-$35,000 per employee. 6.6 million dollars worth of bonuses altogether! "My grandfather was always charitable," said Danny Spungen, grandson of Peer founder Nathan Spungen. He said Laurence and Florence Spungen and their four children decided on a bonus formula a year before the acquisition closed. Read more about it here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081129/ap_on_...

Getting a birthday card is always a happy surprise. When you're 80, though, most of those cards are from people much younger than you. Imagine getting one from your third grade teacher 70 years after she taught you!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/odd_surprise_bi...

Being a helpful and friendly server can lead to big tips, sometimes beyond your wildest imagination ... say, a college education?

http://niceone.aol.com/2008/11/21/waitress... /

PlayPumps! Imagine play healing the world's water problems, providing water to drought ridden villages and allowing girls to attend to school instead of spending their days lugging water to their homes. Then stop imagining and start playing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQu_Jppvzyk

A census reveals that the Gorilla population is actually growing! Yay!!! A 2008 census tallied more than 125,000 western lowland gorillas in the Congo which may double population estimates. Estimates from the 1980s had suggested fewer than 100,000 of the great apes had survived and many experts believed those numbers had been cut nearly in half by disease and hunting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C0fL4pPInE...

So there is good news in the world. And if our media outlets are unwilling to share it, well, it's up to us!

Love to you,
Caroleeena

p.s. Patrick Swayze says that the news about his worsening cancer is also untrue. Another reason to celebrate! Yay!

This ad was on Crooks and Liars today. Is this supposed to make me want to switch phone companies? It sooooo doesn't. Are they implying that Lieberman switched parties for reliable service AND reliable values? Or that he should switch parties? Or what? I don't get it. Credo says in their advertisement that they've been a loyal supporter of progressive causes since 1985 but they post a picture of Lieberman on their ad. I am sitting here scratching my head.

If that headline caused you to have an emotional reaction, I hear ya. Seeing those stickers on cars made my blood boil for years. They felt like someone was taunting me, which they were. They felt like a slap in the face.

Now the winds of fortune have changed. Barack Obama is president-elect and Congress has changed hands. Republicans have been given a public drubbing and Democrats have been given a mandate (a real one, not the kind GW claimed after barely stealing the 2004 election.) My, "Yes We Did!" sticker is on it's way from MoveOn. org even as I type this.

I'll probably put that sticker on my laptop or a cooler but I will not be putting it on my car. Instead, I choose to remember how I felt upon seeing those W stickers. I choose to put myself in the shoes of McCain/Palin supporters and I choose not to provoke them and add to their pain or to the divisiveness that has torn our country apart for the last eight years. If ever there was a time to rise above, it is now.

So yes, I am happy Barack Obama won but I am choosing not to wave it in front of the noses of my brothers and sisters, whether or not they agree with me and whether or not they would do the same. Someone has to be the bigger person. Someone has to stop the flag waving and start the healing. Let there be peace on earth. And let it begin with me.

With Love,
Caroleeena

It is a beautiful new day in these United States. My head hurts a little from the champagne I enjoyed last night but what a beautiful day! The sun seems brighter somehow.

When the first television station called the election and posted the chyron "President-Elect Barack Obama" my friends went nuts! Not me though. I'd been through this before. President-Elect Al Gore, an election stolen and snatched from our hands at the very last second. I was afraid of it happening again. It wasn't until John McCain gave his very moving concession speech, the most class he's shown the whole election, that I began to cry. I think it's unlikely that one speech can undo all the emotional harm and division of his entire campaign and eight years of Rovian politics but it was a step and I am grateful. My own senator, Elizabth Dole, made famous by her terrible, terrible "Godless" ad about Key Hagen, was not nearly as gracious. She spewed hate and accusations to the very end. It was shameful. Still, for the first time in my adult life, my vote for president counted. We have this crazy system here called the Electoral College, something started in the days of the pony express, where we don't count each vote, the Popular vote (which Gore won in 2000 and Kerry probably won in 2004, the voter fraud cases are still going to court as recently as yesterday) but where each state gets a number of votes and if one candidate wins the state, all the state's votes go to that candidate. Not since Jimmy Carter (who is still, in my opinion, one of the most decent people who has ever served us a president. He still serves all around the world, unlike these others who leave office and never help anyone ever again) has my state voted for a democrat. It feels good to finally have my vote count. Wow.

I know a lot of people are feeling empowered today. A lot of disenfranchised black voters. A lot of black kids. A lot of people who are biracial finally see a representation of themselve in no less than the highest office in the land. A lot of us big hearted people who do love our families and don't just preach about values are actually seeing someone with our values using them to love on a larger scale. A lot of people who appreciate the value of non-violent communication, got to see it in action in a campaign that won. Finally. Our country is bubbling with hope.

Now I won't lie. A lot of hurtles lie ahead. A lot of fearful and angry people have their feelings hurt and fear and anger and hurt feelings are a dangerous combination. We've got our work cut out healing that. Also, major corporations are now all woven through our government and our media (which is one of the ways they manipulated public opinion and the use of public resources for so long). That is going to be a bear to untangle. But I am hopeful. I am hopeful.

I want to feel proud of my country again. I know so many good people, people doing good work here and all over the world. I worked beside them at the shelter for Katrina victims when New Orleans was destroyed by that hurricane. Our govenment did nothing but the people came together and did what we could despite them. I worked with them to build libraries in Jamaica and build shelters for homeless dogs and treat injured wild animals -- so I know our love does not stop at our borders or our species. I sat beside them and answered calls at the AIDS hotline so I know that our love does not stop because of someone's disease status or sexual orientation or the color of their skin. I see people helping. My eyes show me what my television does not. And while there are misguided and ignorant people too, they are not the totality of what our country is. Not even close. And it's a bright day when I can actually see that when I look to the highest office in our land.

My feelings are all over the place right now. It's been a long dark time here. It's been eight years of suffering and shame, of helplessnes and despair. It's been eight years of watching our government start an illegal and unjust war, of watching the infrastructure fall apart, of watching the economy fail, of watching our standing with our international neighbors go down the toilet, of watching ignorance revered and "Joe Six Pack" becoming a hero and having religion shoved down our throats when our very country was formed based on freedom of religion! It's been eight years of watching our media become a propaganda tool (Karl Rove, more than anyone else, put the tool in propaganda tool). It's been eight long years. I'm almost afraid to exhale. I'm almost afraid of the next dirty trick.

I have something to confess. I went to the Free Republic website the night before the election. Freepers, the people who post there, protested us at a peace march once, protested peace, that's how I know who they are. They are the ultra right wing nut cases who put Bush in office. At the peace march, they yelled at us to "Swim Back To Cuba you Commies!" and crazy stuff like that. So I went to their website to see if they thought McCain was going to win. What I saw there were posts about buying guns and stocking up on bullets. Hundreds of posts like this. It was so scary. So I know ... I know ... I know we are not out of the dark ages yet.

Still, even as I type this, I must also be grateful to these people, to the George Bush's and Karl Rove's and Dicks Cheney (and all the other dicks too, of course). They have shown us what we are capable of. They have exposed our seedy underbelly. They have given us something to rise above. They have provided a powerful catalyst for conscious evolution.

Our democracy is very young. I often think of us as an adolescent boy filled with testosterone and no adult supervision. I don't know when we became a bully but this is our chance to grow out of it. To grow up. That's what the last eight years have given us. And though it has been a painful growing experience, I hope we've learned something. I hope. I Hope!

So I am pleased. Even as I bubble back and forth, even as my head bubbles from the bubbly. I am happy, happy, so happy. It is a new day. And freedom is within sight. Bush doesn't leave office til Jan 20th and he's going to be up to a lot of mischief between now and then. He'll probably pardon a lot of criminals. He's already creating legislation to pardon himself! So there's work to do. But we can do it.

Yes. We. Can.

With love and joy,
Caroleeeena

Some people think only humans have to deal with "Values Voters". I think not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvVnoEjXYtc

Happy Halloween Everybody.