Crop Circles....

I can't say that I blame them!

GMO Free USA FB is here.

Natural Beauty - Polish Chicken

(Image from here, via FB - a Polish chicken)

Natural Beauty - Full Moon Rising

Full Moon Silhouettes from Mark Gee on Vimeo.

Elephant self-portrait

Is it true?  Snopes seems to think it is.

I give you fair warning...

(Image found here)

When I grow old, really old,
I shall be eccentrik.
I shall wear long silken skirts
that sweep in the dust
and keep Abyssinian cats. 

I shall speak clearly to the cats, of course,
but to other people I shall speak
only in symbols, codes and cryptograms,
and let them think
that they understand.  

I shan’t knit. 

My garden will be wild and rich, and
I shall plant tall stones
in suitable places. I shall make
potions of flowers and light,
and I shall keep bees. 

With my knobby old knees
and sagging breasts, I shall
dance naked under the Moon,
and I shall sing to Her
with the cats. 

I shall carry a blackthorn stick,
and frighten small boys away from my apples -
they’ll like that —
and I’ll tell tales of the goddess
to small girls so they will know who they are. 

I shall say outrageous true things
to people, anyone at all,
and make waterfalls and small pools
in wild places. 

I shall have a deep, deep well of silence
in myself, and it will fill
with the love flowing through me
like a wild underground river.  My hair
will be very white and unmanageable -
rather like a dandelion.  My roots
will grow to the heart
of the Earth, and the horned god
will be a personal friend of mine. 

~Jessica MacBeth~ 

Today's Animal in Need - Shelter Connecticut

Top 5 Reasons to Adopt a Shelter Dog from Serena Chandler on Vimeo.

Today's Animal in Need - Eclipse

Mother's Day Love

The love she feels for her daughter is stronger than the violence, horror and mutilation visited upon Somayeh and her daughter by her husband.  That is the strength of a mother's love and what Mother's Day is all about.

Amir, Somayeh’s husband and Rana’s father who was a drug addict, poured acid on Somayeh and his daughter in the middle of one of nights of June 2011 in reply to Somayeh’s divorce request and so he opened a deep and old wound again by pouring acid. This wound is an event that repeats in Iran for many years and victimizes new people now and then.
Pouring acid on women and destroying their faces to prevent from their remarriage or in reaction to rejecting propose has became a common matter in the culture of some regions of Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.

Somayeh Mehri, two daughters’ mother who is 28-years old and the resident of Hemmatabad village of Bam city lost both her eyes, ears and nose in pouring acid happened recently in Iran and burn affecting 60 percent of her body area. Rana, her daughter that is just 3-years old lost one of her eyes completely and her face burnt severely.

Presently, Amir is in prison by Somayeh’s complain and she and her daughter are being treated in Tehran hospitals and it is expected that more than one hundred surgeries to be done on them and the cost of these surgeries is so heavy for Somayeh’s family that her father (Reza Mehri) had to sell many parts of his palm grove which is the only income source of his family to provide the surgeries costs of her daughter and granddaughter and could be a balm for her daughter’s wound.Somayeh’s father sold his land in order to raise money to pay their medical expenses, and fellow villagers have also helped.

Photographer : ebrahim noroozi.

Source nd watch more photos of this lady:
http://www.sheedphotos.com/portfolio/daddy-poured-acid/

http://www.worldpressphoto.org/awards/2013/observed-portraits/ebrahim-noroozi

Sender:
Saumyata Singh

(Requesting everyone not to argue or post indecent comments. Please don't oppose any country or an individual. It won't be tolerated and will be removed immediately along with the person doing so. We don't own the picture or its copyrights. We only use it for information purpose)

Image from here via FB.

Best use of an iPhone

The Fifth Sacred Thing

I read this book when it first came out in 1993 and I honestly couldn't finish it. I didn't feel strong enough to imagine something like this happening in my beloved San Francisco because a part of me knew that there was truth to what Starhawk was writing.  I still have the book and now, 20 years later, I will pick it up again.

The 10 year thing is interesting to me.  In 1993, I quit my corporate job.  I had been diagnosed with melanoma 2 years earlier.  I stayed on because I had wonderful benefits, but the stress of the job was such that I began to see that I would have to use those wonderful benefits because of the stress.  It wasn't worth it and I quit in April of 1993.  I sold my townhome and enrolled in beauty school, something I had wanted to do since I was a kid and wasn't allowed because "only stupid girls went to beauty school."  I thought that if I were going to die, I wanted to at least die having gone to beauty school!

The 10 year period of time between 1993 and 2003 was disruptive, edgy, uncertain, financially insecure, and to make those things even more intense, Pluto went retrograde in 1996 until 2008.  To say that was an adventure would be putting it mildly!  I actually left the Bay Area on 10/10/2003 and find myself longing, 10 years later, to return.  Perhaps reading this book will help me find my way back.

The FB page for The Fifth Sacred Thing can be found here.

The website for the film can be found here.

If you haven't read the book and would like to read a synopsis, you can do so here.

Leave it to Beaver

Today's Animal in Need

Calli is a big bundle of love, wrapped up in spotted gift wrap who would so love to be your gift. As another FREE gift for adopting Calli, Zen Dog Canine Behavior & Training has offered FREE training to a local adopter!!!!!!

Calli is a female cattle dog mix who has been overlooked because she's a big girl, and not a puppy. She has lived in the Smithtown, NY animal shelter for two of her four years. She's seen hundreds of dogs come in, and go out with new families and we are trying our very best to find a person to be her forever friend.

Please SHARE her story and give a call to her advocate if you have any additional questions. 

Debi, 631-864-6512  

    About - Smithtown Animal Shelter

This site was started by VOLUNTEERS for the dogs at the Smithtown, NY shelter who needed more exposure, and has morphed into promoting the photos and bios of local dogs and cats who need forever homes.

Description

Focusing on the dogs and cats in Long Island's shelters, and saving the lives of as many companion animals as possible. We are trying to find forever homes for our local dogs and cats right here on Long Island, located in New York. 

Many former pets are languishing in kill and no-kill shelters and need help with exposure through social media or word of mouth. We intend to show people that there is nothing quite like the lifelong bond you form when you save a life and adopt an animal, and if that animal is a rescue there is twice the payoff.We also hope to education people as to the needs of homeless pets and the local animal resuce organizations. 

Please feel free to friend us and to share this page freely. Thank you.

Need assistance with vet bills?

May 4, 1970 - Kent State remembered

When Ohio National Guardsmen fired sixty-seven gun shots in thirteen seconds at Kent State University (KSU) on May 4, 1970, they murdered four unarmed, protesting college students and wounded nine others. For forty-two years, the United States government has held the position that Kent State was a tragic and unfortunate incident occurring at a noontime antiwar rally on an American college campus. In 2010, compelling forensic evidence emerged showing that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) were the lead agencies in managing Kent State government operations, including the cover-up. At Kent State, lawful protest was pushed into the realm of massacre as the US federal government, the state of Ohio, and the Ohio National Guard (ONG) executed their plans to silence antiwar protest in America.

The new evidence threatens much more than the accuracy of accounts of the Kent State massacre in history books. As a result of this successful, ongoing Kent State government cover-up, American protesters today are at much greater risk than they realize, with no real guarantees or protections offered by the US First Amendment rights to protest and assemble. This chapter intends to expose the lies of the state in order to uncensor the “unhistory” of the Kent State massacre, while also aiming toward justice and healing, as censoring the past impacts our perspectives in the present.

Read the rest of the article, written by Laurel Krause, sister of Allison Krause who was murdered at Kent State, here.

Viva Loreta Velazquez

  

Published on Apr 16, 2013

Why was Loreta Velazquez, a woman soldier and spy of the American Civil War considered so dangerous she was erased from history? Writer/director/producer Maria Agui Carter, and producer Calvin Lindsay bring you behind the scenes of the new documentary REBEL.

For screenings and more Like Facebook.com/rebel-documentary.

About - from the FB page

REBEL: A film about a woman, a myth, and the politics of national memory. Contact us at info@iguanafilms.com

Description

Just completed! Will be posting soon about screenings and PBS national Prime time airdate!

Plot Outline

Loreta Velazquez fought as a Confederate Soldier, then spied for the Union, during the American Civil War. At the outset of the American Civil War, a teenager from New Orleans paid a tailor to make a soldier's uniform. Serving under an alias, Lieutenant Harry Buford was an officer in the battle of First Bull Run, was wounded at Shiloh, and served as a secret agent for the Confederacy.

Buford's real name was Loreta Janeta Velazquez. Born in Cuba and raised in New Orleans, Loreta was brash, quick-witted, and unconventional. Her memoir was published in 1876. It revealed the dark side of the Confederacy, the horrors of war, and the corruption of war-time society. It caused a sensation. She was publicly attacked and discredited by a prominent Southern General, and for over a century, critics have dismissed her as a hoax.

But contemporary historians have uncovered evidence indicating that she did exist, and that, in fact, she was one of over 400 women documented to have fought in the Civil War. The historical record both confirms some of her experiences detailed in her memoirs, for example with newspaper reports of her arrests for disguising herself as an officer, and contradicts other experiences, such as the extent of her union connections and sympathies. Who was this woman? Why did she choose to fight? And why has she disappeared from histories of the American Civil War?

REBEL is structured as a detective story aimed at a broad audience with a focus on an unusual Civil War era soldier, and a non-traditional approach to historical documentary filmmaking. Weaving dramatic scenes, actor’s readings, archival material, interviews, and contemporary documentary footage, REBEL is a provocative investigation into the life of a Latina woman and the Southern Hispanic communities during one of the most pivotal moments of American history.


Written and Directed by Maria Agui Carter
Produced by: Maria Agui Carter, Calvin A. Lindsay
Production Coordinator: Kat Alix-Gaudreau
Editor: Bernice Schneider
Assistant Editor: Summers Henderson
Camera: Miguel Angel Aponte Rios

Science Set Free - Rupert Sheldrake, PhD

It's May - Happy Beltane!