Performance of "I Am Rachel Corrie" in the Heartland

I attendeded a performance of " I am Rachel Corrie" last evening at Purdue University. The Semiotic Society of America is having their annual meeting at this fairly conservative university so I was quite heartened to see an organizer of the SSA encouraging attendance at Katherine Burke's solo production of this play by Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner (produced with permission of Rachel's family) about a young woman's life (and death).

This play is not about Palestine and Israel - it about a young woman's maturation as chronicled through her writings from age twelve through 23 when when her young life ceased was crushed under an Israeli tank in front of a Palestinian home she was attempting to protect as an ISM member. Youth, self-awareness, recognition of mortality, the sadness that comes with wisdom, family, desire for some modicum of fairness in a world that has none -- these are all themes, strings, and tendrils of meaning that regularly wander in and out of her expressed thoughts as depicted in her journals, emails, and miscellaneous writings through this amazingly aware and articulate young woman explored more deeply, broadly and with more passion in her short life than do most people who live 4 times longer than she did.

This play is not about all the things the hoopla about it imply. It is about a life. See it if you can. Put on your own production of it. Read it.

A soldier's dilemma and honorable action.

Justin Watts is an honorable man. A local Tucson man showed a strength of character that few possess and fewer still can maintain when confronted with horrific knowledge that if disclosed will permanently alter untold numbers of lives and indeed the course of a nation.

Justin is the man who voiced his concern about what his brothers in arms appeared to have done -- raped a young teenage girl and then killed her and her family. The story is here in the Arizona Daily Star.

What amazed me is comment 63 on this story.

I'm very happy this man [Justin] was so brave to come forward. He is a hero to me and to my kids now. He will never know how much he helped my family alone. One of the soldiers he told on is my husband. He used to beat me and make me sleep on the floor while pregnant. In april he was home on a leave and he wanted me to be alone with him but i said no. I've been trying to divorce him for more than 2 years now and i had a restraining order against him. He violated it so many times that I had to move. I told the army what was going on and they did not help at all. they left me with no option but to run and hide. Now thanks to Justin watt, my children are safe and so am I. God bless him and I hope things get better for him.

This is a neglected aspect of the horrific situation our country faces. Violence begets violence. Allowing violence upon women is symptomatic of a cultural suppression of morality. Thank you Justin for keeping the tiny spark of belief in the essense of good alive within me. This heinous war is creating a generation of military vets who have been wounded in unimaginable ways -- scars unlike anything ever before seen are forming.

Thank you Justin for showing me that although our troops are being asked to ignore international law and conventions, and because of this evil cultivation are having their darkest sides emerge that men and womenof character are refusing to go along with an immoral status quo. Justin and those others who will now step forward because of his bravery, along the folks who are refusing to go back to fight in this immoral attrocity, are showing that Americans still have among them the best, the brightest, and the most honorable citizens who serve because they believe in justice and what Americans hold in their hearts as the essence of what our country is and can be.

Let us all send safe energies to him, pray for his safety, and for this shining example of courage to be followed and to inspire other soldiers to do what is right and just.

Breathe in courage. Breathe out action.

Tucson. Tonight. Peace. At The Loft.

Tonight!

Two Must See Videos

Two must see shorts:

Allegory - above most heads?

If you didn't see V for Vindetta, or didn't "get" it -- watch this clip.

I am NOT a "9/11 Truth" type, but V for Vindetta wasn't created as a narrow conspiracy awareness tool but as a broad-based allegory.

Straight shooting commentary

Keith Olbermann's now historic speaking truth to power commentary.

I'm ba-aack -- without guilt.

Yep, I took a long vacation and relaxed for several weeks. Shame on me, right? How could a progressive blogger take a vacation before a critical election? Well, I am in this for the long haul and I am living a relatively new approach to U.S. politics but a millenia old approach to life. I call it the sane woman's approach to life. I do it all-- but unlike the male-mimicking old order 70s superwoman clad in a gray flannel suit, when I begin to stress out and am unable to live with joy and creative energy, I step back to doing only personal life essential tasks.

That beleif, that we have to bring about whole life work life integration and do what preserves our sanity, is what got our species through several extinction level events --- and that is what we have to do to get us through this BRC (bush rumsfeld cheney) extinction level event. I'm not joking. This is about species survival and approaches to life itself. We have to do what keeps us alive. For me I cannot live without creative joy. That is what drew me to CODEPINK in February of 2003 and what has made me step back from it a bit too. I live from my heart and go to where my spirit tells me to go. I live by women's rules.

I will be talking about what i did during this this vacation, eventually. It is too long and divergent a topic for right now. For right now just let me say...

Jeff Latas is still the best AZ CD 8 Democratic Candidate. I stilll think Gabbie Giffords is a Republican in Democratic clothing who left the Republican Party only because of her support for the pro-woman's right to control her own body. There are Pro-choice Republicans. Why didn't she stick with her life-long political affiliation and fight for truth and justice within her network. She jumped ship and went with what she thought was the easy route to power. If she had been all about representing beliefs she would have fought for women's rights within the Republican Party. What turn will she take next?

Pima County Supervisors are corporatist pigs -- they will not stop the destruction one of the most beautiful natural spots left in the world -- the Santa Ritas -- by letting a Canadian Company strip mine the Santa Ritas that is one of the premier birding spots in the world that still is part of a complex functioning ecosystem.

Oh... oh the places we'll go. (That is a paraphrase of one of my favorite authors."