Monday, January 30, 2006

twenty

Watch Robert Cray's moving video here.
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---------------oOo--------------- how did your magnet support the troops?

Egad, more apologies for not blogging regularly. People, I'm a mess right now... too much info I know. I swear things should be getting better in the next several weeks. At least I'm hoping. I'm just completely wiped out right now: I've got severe anemia and an appointment with a gynie specialist in three days. Then I expect it will be surgery and recovery. Right now, it's all I can do to get my butt to school and do the most limited home related stuff that I can manage. Sorry for the excuses but that's where I am right now.

However, I just got this in my email box and I had to spread the word. I've got a nephew in Iraq and so it means extra, extra much to me. If you can possibly do so, please give to this most worthy cause:



Received this info from Cranky Liberal today and here is the gist:

the next couple of weeks a new site will be launched called Bake Sales for Body Armor, it is a not-for-profit site that will be dedicated to raising money to buy body armor for the less fortunate men and women of our Armed Forces that cannot afford to buy it on their own. This not-for-profit is being endorsed by Bring It On! because we feel it is a disgrace that our own government cannot properly equip our brave men and women of the Armed Forces.

Bring It On! also felt that this is something that cannot wait and have decided to raise money in advance of the launch of Bake Sales for Body Armor . Please click on this link to donate and get a bumper sticker or shirt to show your support for this cause, all proceeds will be donated to Bake Sales for Body Armor . This is a non-partisan issue, the lives of our soldiers are at stake, please donate now!

After donating you can use this to put on your site and help get the word out.

And now a word from the creator of Bake Sales for Body Armor, Tammara Rosenleaf, who is a member of Military Families Speak Out (MFSO), Helena Peace Seekers, Just Don't Go and the Prairie Chapel 12. Tammara's husband Sean is currently serving in Iraq. Tammara can be reached at: tammara@bakesalesforbodyarmor.com

OK friends,

as many of you have been aware, Charlie Anderson of iraq vets against the war, and i have been working on this little project called bake sales for body armor.

this is because despite our government's best and fervent insistence, we keep getting reports of soldiers who do not have it, and are in Iraq, which is a stupid place to be in the first place, but really bad without body armor.

we know that the military says that they get the armor to those who need it the most, but the others need it none the less. at this point we have not heard of any one still lacking the breast and back plates, but some are still lacking the delt and side plates… the very things that were just such a hot topic when it came to the recent pentagon study regarding mortality and the marines… if you haven't read this study and want to, let me know…

our web site dedicated to this effort will be going up in the next two weeks, it is being worked on by a really good designer, and what we have seen looks wonderful. you'll all love it.

our first real bake sale will be Feb 11, here in Helena, but we will be looking for folks who want to host sales in other places, and there will be a place to post them on the site. we also plan to have a virtual bake sale, where you can down load pictures of baked goods with a receipt for your tax free donation, if you just want to donate to the cause.

we have the pay pal account set up, it will go up with the website, and a way for folks to sign up people who need things is also going up.

which brings us to the point where we say that this site is not limited to body armor alone..we will always put a soldier lacking armor at the top of the list, but, anything else a soldier needs over there, we will try to get for them…

our very good friend and sponsor, at bring it on, has come up with a fundraiser to support this cause.I've given you the link below… what i really like about this is that it addresses the need for the body armor, at the same time as it says… "What the hell do all these yellow ribbons have to do with real support of the troops"

--

www.teambio.org

If everyone were to buy one of these stickers, if everyone who bought one of those lousy magnets were to replace them with one of these stickers, just think how much body armour that would buy for our brave men and women in the armed forces? This is just about the least any of us could do, and as pathetic as it is that our own government hasn't done their part, We the People can do better. This is a very simple, very real way we can show our support to our troops. Dump those damn magnets today and do your part to buy our troops the body armour they need. Bless you all!!!
Posted by etherealfire :: 7:03 AM :: 2 Comments:

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---------------oOo---------------

Monday, January 23, 2006

looks like it's time to play jihadball

Some people claim they've been misunderstood; I say Michael Moore serves out some Just desserts to those who had it coming.
Posted by etherealfire :: 3:56 AM :: 2 Comments:

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---------------oOo---------------

Sunday, January 22, 2006

under the weather and wide awake

I feel really terrible; I think I've got a bug or something. But as usual my hours are out of whack and I just can't sleep. And I can't concentrate on much of anything but thank the heaven's above for Photoshop to take my mind off things. I was hoping it would help me to get sleepy too. I might just be able to go lie down and rest even if I can't actually sleep yet. Anyway, I don't have anything, though I know that there's lots going on in the world.

But I made myself a new desktop and I also made a couple of sigtags (for a group I belong to) the other day too. So I can't resist posting them here.

I wish I had more of substance. I wish I felt better. School just started late last week and I really don't want to start out by being sick and out of it. Anyway, wishing everyone out there healthy, happy times!


For Yemaya's virtual altar at a forum I belong to; I blended 3 images that had no restrictions on usage thanks to the generous photographers who uploaded them for sharing at stock.xchng.


My desktop wallpaper is anticipation and preparation for Imbolc:

image used for my desktop © Liiga Smilshkalne; all rights reserved
Posted by etherealfire :: 2:02 AM :: 2 Comments:

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---------------oOo---------------

Thursday, January 19, 2006

couple of quizzes



Take the "How Do You Use Magic?" test!

Written by Brimo




Where your beauty lies...


Heart, your beauty lies within your heart. You love those who are put down or even just because you want too. You would hate to be alone and couldn't possibly survive without a compainon whether that be human or animal. Always remember that beauty is not only skin deep...

2601 other people got this result!
This quiz has been taken 9770 times.
27% of people had this result.

brought to you by Quizilla
Posted by etherealfire :: 5:16 AM :: 3 Comments:

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---------------oOo---------------

Monday, January 16, 2006

you gotta have faith

Last night, feeling kinda lousy (I'll spare you the details of my current female problems) I walked into the middle of the movie Contact; right at my favourite part of the movie (if you've never seen the movie before, you've gotta see it because it's awesome).

If you've seen it, you know the part: from the moment she steps into the machine they've been given instructions to build and sets off on an 18 hour journey that she cannot prove she made. This is the part of the film that never ceases to fill me with a myriad of emotions, not the least of which includes the thrill of living vicariously through the very talented Jodie Foster's embodiment of a bright, inquisitive and incredibly brave Ellie Arroway, the first human to take the incredible and beautiful journey deep into our galaxy and make that momentous contact.

A couple of favourite quotes from the movie (the 2nd one below the image):

I... had an experience. I can't prove it, I can't even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real. I was given something wonderful, something that changed me forever. A vision of the universe, that tells us undeniably, how tiny, and insignificant and how... rare, and precious we all are! A vision that tells us that we belong to something that is greater then ourselves, that we are *not*, that none of us are alone.

~~~Ellie Arroway, Contact



Ellie Arroway sees stars:

"Some celestial event. No - no words. No words to describe it. Poetry! They should've sent a poet. So beautiful. So beautiful... I had no idea."

image found here

image © Warner Brothers- all rights reserved

Posted by etherealfire :: 10:46 PM :: 2 Comments:

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---------------oOo--------------- the man who dared to dream

about a better America. Today we commemorate and celebrate the man behind that dream.

I Have a Dream

The King Center

The Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute

Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

~~~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Posted by etherealfire :: 9:59 PM :: 0 Comments:

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---------------oOo--------------- baby, you're the greatest!

To steal a Ralph Kramden quote coz it's the first thing that popped into my head when I saw this:

Page's Stairway Tops Guitar Solo Survey

And here's the Top Ten:

1. STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN - JIMMY PAGE (LED ZEPPELIN)
2. ERUPTION - EDDIE VAN HALEN (VAN HALEN)
3. FREEBIRD - ALLEN COLLINS and GARY ROSSINGTON (LYNYRD SKYNYRD)
4. COMFORTABLY NUMB - DAVID GILMOUR (PINK FLOYD)
5. ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER - JIMI HENDRIX
6. NOVEMBER RAIN - SLASH (GUNS N' ROSES)
7. ONE - KIRK HAMMETT (METALLICA)
8. HOTEL CALIFORNIA - DON FELDER and JOE WALSH (THE EAGLES)
9. CRAZY TRAIN - RANDY RHOADS (OZZY OSBOURNE)
10. CROSSROADS - ERIC CLAPTON (CREAM)




image from the great big Led Zeppelin Photo Album Online

Posted by etherealfire :: 9:25 PM :: 2 Comments:

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---------------oOo---------------

Sunday, January 15, 2006

wise words from a wombat

listen to the wombat here!

Link sent to me by one of my very cool Care2 buddies, Amin!

We are One, Brothers and Sisters!
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---------------oOo---------------

Saturday, January 14, 2006

a view of the Cartwheel Galaxy

Space telescopes capture a cosmic jellyfish

A cosmic jellyfish appears to pulse with light in this multi-wavelength image of the Cartwheel galaxy, compiled from images taken by four space telescopes.

The galaxy probably came by its distinctive shape when a small galaxy – possibly one of the objects at bottom-left of the image – collided with it head-on 100 million years ago. The crash set off ripples in the large galaxy's gas that led to concentric rings of star birth.

"It's like dropping a stone into a pond, only in this case, the pond is the galaxy and the wave is the compression of gas," explains Phil Appleton of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, US. "Each wave represents a burst of star formation – the youngest stars are found in the outer ring."

Read the rest.

The Cartwheel galaxy shows concentric rings of star formation, probably caused by a collision with a smaller galaxy (Image: GALEX/Chandra/Hubble/Spitzer)

Posted by etherealfire :: 10:37 PM :: 0 Comments:

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---------------oOo---------------

Friday, January 13, 2006

what he said

GK is feeling blue and I can relate.

Yesterday's shenanigans were just about the last straw for me. Every single time I think we are making some headway, getting close to breaking the ridiculous spell that our country has been held under, something surreal like this happens and we are right back where started once again. Lost in the land of delusion with our hands tied behind our backs.

Ah, well all I can say is Give Em Hell, Harry. Obi Wan, (it sure is feeling like) you are our last hope...
Posted by etherealfire :: 2:00 AM :: 3 Comments:

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---------------oOo---------------

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

yes it's a bit of old news but lest we forget...

...corruption... very extensive...


Meanwhile Digby shares a clearheaded commenter's clarification between "what people perceive as 'big-business influence through lobbying" (which they relate to both parties) and the Culture of Corruption swirling around the Republicans..." in this post which reminds us to K.I.S.S.
Posted by etherealfire :: 9:15 PM :: 2 Comments:

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---------------oOo--------------- life path # 9

Your Life Path Number is 9

Your purpose in life is to make the world better. You are very socially conscious and a total idealist. You think there are many things wrong with the world, and you want to fix them. You have a big idea of how to world could be, and you'll sacrifice almost anything to work towards this dream. In love, you can easily see the beauty in someone else. And you never cling too tightly. You are capable of great love, but it's hard for you to focus your love on one person or relationship. You have a lot of outward focus, and you tend to blame the world for your failures. You are often disappointed by the realities of life - it's hard for you to accept the shortcomings of the world.

Posted by etherealfire :: 1:31 AM :: 3 Comments:

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---------------oOo--------------- on top of the world

ooops and one more thing!!! I've gotta tell the world, if you haven't seen this yet, I really really recommend it!!! This is one of those moments that I really wish I were Michael Palin. But the dvd set (which was a Christmas present from my most awesomely beautiful inside and out hubby, Stu!) is a very handsome consolation prize. I've absolutely got to get my hands on every single one of the travel dvd's he's done... what I really want is THIS.

But I can't coz they don't deliver it here. So I guess I'll have to scrounge around and order one series at a time, and maybe settle for videotape if I can't get it in dvd form.

I guess I know what is going to be be on my permanent gift request list for a good long while! :-)
Posted by etherealfire :: 12:27 AM :: 0 Comments:

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---------------oOo---------------

Monday, January 09, 2006

Happy Birthday to my Glorious Guitar God!

Oh my ~ Another seat of the pants, last-minute post. I'm super busy right now and school hasn't even started again yet. :-(

Mina is back!!! YAY! We both had doctor appointments today and the cupboard was bare so we also had a very big grocery shopping expedition to attend to as well.

And the sobering news is that I'm probably going to have to have a hysterectomy done in the next couple of months... is it too late to wonder if that was an appropriate thing for me to post here? Oh well, there it is. It's on my mind and so it just became posting fodder. I'm not exactly heartbroken about the prospect to be honest; but I am a bit apprehensive, to say the least. But, I'll know more when I see the specialist about it on February 2nd.

I've got a million things going on right now but it's almost midnight and I had to pay tribute to my Guitar God since today is his 62nd year on the planet!!!

And the world is better for it, so says I (and about a million other fans)... I'm certainly better for it. So a Very Happy Birthday to James Patrick Page and here's wishes for a very creative and very fulfilling year ~ hopefully with a record completed by the end of it! crossing my fingers and hoping like mad...

And... that's all I've got right now.


Some people are forever beautiful!


And some people grow more beautiful


both inside and out ~ every single day!

1st photo and 2nd photo via the great big and awesome Led Zeppelin Photo Files
(photographers unknown by me at this time but the 2nd one is Outrider era ~ so very sorry about the lack of information regarding photo credits)
3rd photo: (AP Photo/photographer unknown by me at this time ~ so very sorry)
4th photo: (AP Photo/Fiona Hanson) Associated Press

All photos copyright their owners
Posted by etherealfire :: 11:25 PM :: 2 Comments:

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---------------oOo---------------

Thursday, January 05, 2006

a sentimental journey

So one bit of mindless self-indulgence is in order as far as I'm concerned. I had a great birthday and that most certainly includes in the (admittedly shallow of me to covet so much) gift receiving department.

I'm completely impressed with people's abilities to read my mind this time around! I was absolutely thrilled with my in-laws surprise: a DVD of March of the Penguins and... a fantastic 6 dvd set of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Collection!!! I love Rodgers and Hammerstein Musicals as much as I love It's a Wonderful Life or The Wizard of Oz (ooh gotta get that deluxe version!!!) or any of my other sentimental movie classic favourites.

And the last time Suzanne and I went hunting for some ancient commercial and all VCR tape from a televised version of one of them (I think it was The King and I or Oklahoma) we discovered that the last 10 minutes never got taped!!! Bleah...

That was several years ago and I honestly don't know why it never came up to replace those movies (some I didn't even have, the rest were badly taped from the t.v. VCR versions) before now, because Suzanne and I both watched them fairly regularly for years and years. But for some reason it never made either of our gift lists and Stu didn't really have much of a clue that we needed brand spanking new dvd versions (... or did he... put a bug in my in-laws ears maybe???).

Anyway, it was an awesome surprise!!! The set includes Carousel (tear-jerker of the highest order), The (very sublime) King and I, The Sound of Music (I've got three words for you: Christopher. Plummer. Rawrrr!), South Pacific (GAWD, I love it!!!!) and my absolute favouritest, most beloved Oklahoma! (sheer Musical-perfection!) and... it has one that I've never even seen before and I'm totally looking forward to watching first: State Fair.

I know this is all sentimental-value stuff and most modern and urbane people probably don't get it, but I don't care about that now do I. :-) I love Cole Porter; I love Hoagy Carmichael. I love Rodgers and Hart and I absolutely love Rodgers and Hammerstein. Lyric and Music; and old fashioned musicals! I love it as much as I love Led Zeppelin and that's saying alot... My in-laws, bless their hearts, are brilliant!!! Absolutely... and thoughtful as can be.

My sister-in-law and brother-in-law sent me a gorgeous Abbey Road T-Shirt and my daughter got me the latest Jimmy Carter book I've been coveting: Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis (she actually gave me this just before she left for her Christmas vacation... she finally gets back tomorrow and believe me that's gonna be the best birthday present yet; I just miss her so much) and my sweet sister gave me my always requested Borders Gift Certificate and the newest edition to my journal collection (those two items are always, ALWAYS on my birthday/Christmas lists and every year without fail I get at least one absolutely gorgeous and unique journal - one of my favouritest things to receive!!!)

But, the best gift of all. My hubby got me The 1950's Classic Edition of the Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book. To understand what that book means to me is to take a trip down memory lane; to my earliest memories in fact. The original version of that cookbook, may not have been my mom's only cookbook but it was certainly one of the oldest, and most frequently used, tried and true cookbook. Next to my Grandma Vera's handwritten masterpieces, that book was the one that held the most culinary magick in our household.

I remember looking through that cookbook over and over as a child, salivating over the color-plate pictures of all kinds of scrumptious food (laughable really as the colour was "off" in that 1950's book - and I'm happy to report that the latest edition has those very same images in their very same slightly "off" hues! what a blast from the beautiful past!).

Some of my favourite desserts are buried in there, including the hard-to-find Strawberry Delight that I got a hankering for (a couple of birthdays ago in fact) that my sweet hubby improvised for me based on a description of the dessert from my memory of the recipe in this book. NOW, I've got the recipe again!!!

One of the first desserts I ever made for Stu was way back when I was 17 years old and using mom's original version of the cookbook to make Baked Alaska! I was madly in love and my love was the colour of that lovely pink ice cream featured in the colour-plate image of that most heavenly dessert (page 243!). Mine didn't come out quite so lovely as the inspiration and it threatened to melt away quickly as we scambled to make short work of it, but I was proud of the end result just the same! I will never forget that moment or countless other warm memories that I associate with that dear old cookbook.

To own the revised copy is almost as precious as the memories it evokes! It's a very cool little time-capsule of a book too with lots of great old-fashioned hints and cute little vignettes explaining the origins of various recipes!

For example, did you know that:

"the first waffle is said to have been made in 13th Century England. A crusader wearing his armor accidentally sat in some freshly baked oat cakes. The cakes were flattened and bore deep imprints of the steel links. His wife, delighted with the way butter stayed in the imprints from the armor, made him put it on once a week and sit on fresh oat cakes. They were called "warfres," meaning flat honeycomb-like cakes."

~~~from The Betty Crocker Picture Cook Book (please don't sue me General Mills; that blurb was too cute not to share!!!)

All in all, a perfect birthday and a lovely trip into the far, faaaar distant past....
Posted by etherealfire :: 4:08 PM :: 5 Comments:

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---------------oOo--------------- all the bad news fit to print?

Reading the news the last couple of days has just been heartbreaking and depressing. The other day there were half a dozen tragedies listed one right after the other at the place I (grudgingly) get the online headlines. Is it just me or was last week a particularly bad week?

Really and truly I don't like to dwell on these things but I feel almost remiss not paying some sort of sorrowful tribute to it so I began collecting the links the other day but I had to stop at four because it was just too much. Though I know everyone's already no doubt read these and wallowed in the misery of them, this is what I found before I couldn't take it anymore:

Officials Piece Together Coal Mine Tragedy

Suicide Bomber Kills 32 at Iraq Funeral

Body of 14th Victim Found a German Rink

Indonesian Rains Death Tool Could Hit 190

So I walked away from it; but I came back today only to see this.

If I seem as though I've been extra-airheaded and glib lately, I apologize. I'm just not made of that sterner stuff where I can take a steady diet of this sort of thing without hitting that proverbial brick wall and coming face to face with a visceral need to bail.

I find I'd rather dwell on the lighter side of life; and I find that I have a need to create it if I can't find it or I'll just completely lose my mind.

Then again there are little bits of news like this that give me little tiny rays of hope.
Posted by etherealfire :: 3:50 PM :: 0 Comments:

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---------------oOo--------------- bush blows off mine safety

Just like he blows off just about everything else...

From David Sirota's Blog on Working for Change, Bush ignored explicit warnings in 2002 about mine safety

The 2002 fact sheet and the Chicago Tribune article shows that Bush knew full well that mine safety was suffering - and now we know he didn't do anything about it, to tragic consequences. They can put out GOP hacks and administration spokespeople to deny this reality - but the facts are there. Here's hoping Democrats are able to force an investigation, as requested by Reps. George Miller (CA) and Major Owens (NY) - it's high time the White House answer for its negligence.

And as always I'm not surprised, but I'm really depressed. Does anything really matter to this administration besides lining the pockets of Halliburton and their corporate fatcat compadres? That's a rhetorical question BTW. Everyone already knows the answer to that whether they will allow themselves to admit it or not.

Reprehensible...
Posted by etherealfire :: 3:48 PM :: 0 Comments:

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---------------oOo---------------

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

it hasn't been all work, no play

Alright, it is my birthday so I'm not gonna deny I've had my moments of idle pleasure, and YES, I will confess that may have contributed to the fact that I seem to be making slowwww progress on my great big get~organized project.

Here's a couple of insubstantial bits of fun I've had today, just because I wanna show them off:





No, they serve no purpose... except for the possibility of forum or message board sigtags; those pointless bits of graphic-based vanity plates that are strictly for fun. But that's reason enough for me. But if I don't get my project done I'm not going to get to use them anytime soon...
Posted by etherealfire :: 4:56 PM :: 5 Comments:

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---------------oOo--------------- Happy Birthday to Me!!!!

I'm sorry I haven't been around. I'm trying desperately to get myself together and get my only New Year's Resolution going. All I want to do is get organized around the house, get back on schedule so I don't get slam-dunked by the simplest little things like school... or laundry... or medical appointments.

So I can have clean sheets and towels in a reasonable and timely manner. But I'm struggling and its going awfully slow. But I really want to make some headway before I spend extensive time blogging and doing all the things I'd rather be doing besides sorting through and giving away clothes and books and....

well, but anyway, had to post this news. It's news to me anyway, since I've been buried under a pile of laundry for the better part of the day. It gives me hope that while I'm cleaning up my act at home, our government may have to spend some serious time cleaning up theirs as well!

Gives me a little ray of sunshiny hope in this still brand-spanking New Year!!!

Well, time to start another load of laundry... but... I WILL BE BACK.... soon!!!
Posted by etherealfire :: 4:31 PM :: 6 Comments:

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---------------oOo---------------