Cherokee Sage Woman

Fun & games at the Family reunion..
That's me as JarJar.. Dan as Darth.. Dustin as Obiwan.. Yanna as Yoda.. Angi as Princess Leia (quite fetching), & Alec as a Storm Trooper. We won 2nd place.. yay!!

A Smithsonian exhibit on climate forces at work in the Arctic was a victim of self-censorship, according to a former Smithsonian director. He said evidence of human contributions to climate changed was toned down to avoid repercussions from Congress and the Bush administration.
Quote
"The obsession with getting the next allocation and appropriation was so intense that anything that might upset the Congress or the White House was being looked at very carefully."
Former museum director Robert Sullivan, who says the museum revised evidence of climate change to avoid angering officials
(CBS/AP) The Smithsonian Institution toned down an exhibit on climate change in the Arctic for fear of angering Congress and the Bush administration, says a former administrator at the U.S. museum. Among other things, the script, or official text, of last year's exhibit was rewritten to minimize and inject more uncertainty into the relationship between global warming and humans, said Robert Sullivan, who was associate director in charge of exhibitions at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. Also, officials omitted scientists' interpretation of some research and let visitors draw their own conclusions from the data, he said. In addition, graphs were altered "to show that global warming could go either way,"

Maybe I'll just go back to sleep..
zzzzzzzzzzzzz

What MUST it feel like to have a real leader??

http://news.scotsman.com:80/index.cfm?id=782222007

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/52042

May 17, 2007 -- In Illinois, they shoot before they can even walk.
The state issued a firearm owner's ID card to a 10-month-old baby.
The boy, Bubba Ludwig, got the card after his father filled out the application and paid the $5 fee.
His father applied for the card because he'd bought the infant a shotgun as a gift.


~~~
?????????????????????
1st of all, his 'name' should be a clue.
2nd of all, 5 bucks for a license to shoot???
3rdly, his father should be turned over to DHS.
Good god.

I was laying out in the sunshine, on my new deck today.. enjoying the rising of my serotonin levels.. when out of my eyes periphery I see a winged thing coming at me. Now, this creature could have been my arch nemesis, i.e., bees/wasps/yellow jackets/ things-of-unknown origins-with-stingers-attached.
But it was a beautiful swallow tail butterfly.. & I swatted at it, scaring the bejesus out of it, no doubt.
I was immediately taken back to my Cherokee Mama who taught me as a child that ladybugs & butterflies brought special blessings to you when they passed over you. I've always made a special attempt at allowing a ladybug to climb onto my finger, making a wish, & then allowing her to fly away. And of course the metamorphosis of the butterfly from caterpillar to the winged goddess, has always facinated me.. to the point of making it the symbol of SpiritWorks.
So I felt bad that I had dismissed this 'blessing' so rapidly & rudely. Isn't that the way it is in 'real time' tho? We tend to knee-jerk-react to perceived fearful things before even thinking. We slap the Universe's gifts away before we realize what we've done.
Mea culpa.

Bring back the butterflies..

http://www.alternet.org/asoldierspeaks/51545/

For years, copying other people,
I tried to know myself.
From within, I couldn't decide what to do.
Unable to see, I heard my name being called.
Then I walked outside.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.

__Rumi

He won't protect gays from 'hate crimes'.. but he'll protect suspected terrorists rights to buy guns??
You hell betcha!
http://www.cbsnews.com:80/stories/2007/05/04/national/main2762113.shtml

Of some 'downed' bloggers..

http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2007/05/army_bloggers