Pre-Thanksgiving Open Thread

Here's a photo for the in laws.

God, I hate Thanksgiving.

But I like the Huffington Post.

THEY FINALLY SAID LIAR LIAR LIAR LIAR!!!

HAHAHA!!

Genie in a bottle no more!

All the relatives live too far away .. it'll be me, my husband, my son & our Thai friend from Portland who has been here for years.

He gets a free turkey from the HIlton so we'll have that but it'll be with ginger, basil & rice wine & we'll have Thai food to accompany.

I've long ago given up associating with relatives who are rightwing. They live too far away anyway but it's part of why we moved in the first place.

Scottie and his publisher are trying to backtrack
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21917188/

I don't avoid rightwingers in my family, or else I would have to avoid all of them.

I enjoy confronting them. Not a single one of them has studied the issues more than I and not a single one of them can beat me in an argument about it.

And every single one of them know it.

If they don't like it, I don't care.

I know they love me, but liking each other was never a requirement.

All of you gathering tommorrow...

Do not avoid a bush confrontation with bushevik family members. Embrace it and give as well as you get.

Why are we required to say nothing while the republicans spit all over the turkey trying to get another mindless lie of a talking point in...?

Screw civility. People are dying.

Don't back down an inch.

Publisher: McClellan doesn't believe Bush lied
Spokesman 'did not intend to suggest' the president purposely misled him

WASHINGTON - Former White House spokesman Scott McClellan does not believe President Bush lied to him about the role of White House aides I. Lewis Scooter Libby or Karl Rove in the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, according to McClellan's publisher.

Peter Osnos, the founder and editor-in-chief of Public Affairs Books, which is publishing McClellan's book in April, tells NBC from his Connecticut home that McCLellan, "Did not intend to suggest Bush lied to him."

Osnos says when McClellan went before the White House press corps in 2003 to publicly exonerate Libby and Rove, the problem was that his statement was not true. Osnos said the president told McClellan what "he thought to be the case." But, he says, McClellan believes, "the president didn't know it was not true."

Osnos says the quotes which appeared on the Public Affairs Books website were part of the roll out of the book catalogues for the spring printings. And he says McClellan had not finished the manuscript for the memoir yet and was working under deadline to have the book completed for the April publishing.

more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21917188/

Gee friggin wiz, did I not call this yesterday?

TOO LATE SCOTTY! Your own words say otherwise.

Unless you lied then. So which is it Scotty, were you lying then or are you lying now...?

They were involved in getting you to lie. They were'nt involved. Which is it?

Either way, he opened himself up to be questioned directly on what he has been ducking for years.

You can not put the crap back in the cow.

So Scotty...how often do you lie...? Do you do it for fun too, or just for money?

"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

There was one problem. It was not true.

I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the president himself."

So which is it scotty...? Were you lying then, or are you lying now...?

Look who I painted today...

http://christysartblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/valerie-plame.html

Well - that was a fast backdown. I guess when the president offers you - imagine, what was offered - you cave in. Very quickly. We know that the president would not have told him he'd be sued for libel. If Scotty were sued - wouldn't it all come out in court? No. I imagine that Scotty will have an amazing brand new all paid for mansion to move into. And a brand new, all expenses paid lifestyle to match. Especially now that the damning quotes have been edited from the manuscript. I'll bet the publisher is pissed at the quick turnaround.

Valerie will be pleased, Christy. She looks so very young. It's a lovely painting. As usual. Your work is fascinating. Some are clear and simple. Others are detailed and complex. All make you return to look at them over and over. And I mailed a small package to you - Monday.

TY Woz.

I have Ann Bolin up on my easel now. Just needs the last details and I'll put a pic of her up by tommorrow.

I redid her famous portrait, put her on a yellow background. It is a very interesting likeness of her. She looks alive on my canvas. I was curious to see what those features actually looked like not painted in that dreadful gothic style. She is actually quite pretty.

Or was, before she lost her head.

I don't think the hair style of the period was terribly flattering, Christy. The very long forehead way back to the hairline was rather austere. Or perhaps the artists of the time considered it attractive, and painted them like that. I actually saw the wood block from whence the heads were chopped. Anne Boleyn's too. Creepy. Made me shiver.

China Denies US Aircraft Carrier Access To Hong Kong
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071122/pl_nm/china_usa_kittyhawk_dc

US Pressing For Explanation
2 hours, 22 minutes ago
HONG KONG (Reuters) - China has refused permission for a U.S. aircraft carrier and accompanying vessels to visit Hong Kong for a long-planned Thanksgiving holiday visit, the U.S. State Department said on Wednesday.
The Kitty Hawk group and its crew of 8,000 U.S. airmen and sailors had been expected in Hong Kong on Wednesday, but will now spend the holiday on the South China Sea.
Hundred of relatives of crew members of the USS Kitty Hawk had flown to Hong Kong to celebrate Thanksgiving with their loved ones. Hong Kong has been a regular port of call for U.S. sailors on "R & R" (rest and recuperation) since the Vietnam War.
The Chinese move comes as a surprise just weeks after a visit to China by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, which he said he hoped would lead to a long-term dialogue.
"At present, it appears the USS Kitty Hawk strike group will not be making a port call in Hong Kong as previously planned as a result of a last minute denial by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs," State Department spokeswoman Nicole Thompson said.
The United States was pressing China for an explanation and to reconsider its decision, she added.

Report: Homeless Bribed With Food To Support California GOP Ballot Initiative

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 20 — The chairman of a committee formed to fight a ballot initiative to change how California’s electoral college votes are apportioned has asked the city attorney here to investigate a report that a group collecting signatures for the initiative has offered food to homeless people in exchange for signing the petitions.
The Republican-supported initiative would replace California’s winner-take-all system of allocating its 55 electoral college votes with one that allots the votes by Congressional district.
“We respectfully request that the office of the Los Angeles city attorney conduct a comprehensive investigation into this matter,” Thomas F. Steyer, the chairman of the steering committee for the group Californians for Fair Election Reform, wrote to Rocky Delgadillo, the city attorney.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/21/us/21calif.html?ei=5088&en=edcc05e38a05afee&ex=1353301200&adxnnl=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1195654277-rfOzziD8/h0Vv7meR9ORYQ

Look who I painted today...

Very good Christy, I liked that photo of her when I say it, she smarter, than the lot of the GOP thugs put together, and has a quite dignity about her. can't wait to see Ann Bolin

Foreign fighters in Iraq from US allies
Saudi Arabia and Libya mostly to blame, say senior US military officials.
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
BAGHDAD — Saudi Arabia and Libya, both considered allies by the United States in its fight against terrorism, were the source of about 60 percent of the foreign fighters who came to Iraq in the past year to serve as suicide bombers or to facilitate other attacks, according to senior American military officials.

The data come largely from a trove of documents and computers discovered in September, when American forces raided a tent camp in the desert near Sinjar, close to the Syrian border. The raid’s target was an insurgent cell believed to be responsible for smuggling the vast majority of foreign fighters into Iraq.

The most significant discovery was a collection of biographical sketches that listed hometowns and other details for more than 700 fighters brought into Iraq since August 2006.

The records also underscore how the insurgency in Iraq remains both overwhelmingly Iraqi and Sunni. American officials now estimate that the flow of foreign fighters was 80 to 110 per month during the first half of this year and about 60 per month during the summer. The numbers fell sharply in October to no more than 40, partly as a result of the Sinjar raid, the American officials say.

Saudis accounted for the largest number of fighters listed on the records by far — 305, or 41 percent — American intelligence officers found as they combed through documents and computers in the weeks after the raid. The data show that despite increased efforts by Saudi Arabia to clamp down on would-be terrorists since Sept. 11, 2001, when 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi, some Saudi fighters are still getting through.

Libyans accounted for 137 foreign fighters, or 18 percent of the total, the senior American military officials said. They discussed the raid with the stipulation that they not be named because of the delicate nature of the issue.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/22/world/middleeast/22fighters.html?_r=1&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

Baghdad Bonanza
The Top 100 Private Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan

Bill Buzenberg, The Center for Public Integrity

KBR, Inc., the global engineering and construction giant, won more than $16 billion in U.S. government contracts for work in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2004 to 2006—far more than any other company, according to a new analysis by the Center for Public Integrity. In fact, the total dollar value of contracts that went to KBR—which used to be known as Kellogg, Brown, and Root and until April 2007 was a subsidiary of Halliburton—was nearly nine times greater than those awarded to DynCorp International, a private security firm that is No. 2 on the Center's list of the top 100 recipients of Iraq and Afghanistan reconstruction funds. Another private security company, Blackwater USA, whose employees recently killed as many as 17 Iraqi civilians in what the Iraqi government alleges was an unprovoked attack, is 12th on the list of companies and joint ventures, with $485 million in contracts...
http://www.publicintegrity.org/WOWII/

THE AFTERMATH OF THE FIRST THANKSGIVING

1st Thanksgiving: praying to a Christian god in front of Indians who saved them from starvation Malcom Lagauche
...Within two years, most of the proud Wampanoag Indians were massacred. A nation that included more than 30,000 people with highly-organized governments and social structures, became a shabby band of no more than 2,000 Indians at the end of the war. They were ordered into slavery. Until this day, they have never recovered. The descendants of the Wampanoags of the 17th century live today in southeastern Massachusetts and most live in poverty. Metacomet was killed by the Puritans who paid an Indian informant to spy on him and report his location. His body parts were put on public display throughout the region. Within six decades of landing at Plymouth Rock, the whites had forever destroyed a culture that had inhabited the area for thousands of years prior to the arrival of the Mayflower...
======
Here is another note of irony. Each year, at Plymouth, a mock Thanksgiving feast is held for the public to view. The clothing and the food are meant to be identical to those of the original Thanksgiving. The script for this year’s event had to be re-written. Members of the Wampanoag tribe, who normally participate, decided to boycott this year’s show. They have had enough.

http://www.malcomlagauche.com/id1.html

Enjoy your day everyone.

I'm thankful more my many blessings, and for all of you here!

"Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds." ~Theodore Roosevelt

Happy Thansgiving white people!

Can we have our lands back now?

Just thought I would ask.

I am thanful to our Founding Fathers, who were genocidal maniacs. For even though they killed so many of my kind, they knew one day things would be different so they produced a Constitution even I can love.

Christy,

Great comment...

On that Constitution thingy: We seem to be losing it, one revision at a time. So to honor the blood of those who have resisted genocide and fought for freedom and democracy, we plan to continue the long tradition of speaking truth to power wherever and whenever we can.

There are always two words that dominate my thoughts on Thanksgiving.

Manifest. Destiny.

Manifest Destiny is a 19th-century belief that the United States had a mission to expand, spreading its form of democracy and freedom. Advocates of Manifest Destiny believed that expansion was not only good, but that it was obvious ("manifest") and certain ("destiny"). Originally a political catch phrase of the 19th century, "Manifest Destiny" eventually became a standard historical term, often used as a synonym for the territorial expansion of the United States across North America towards the Pacific Ocean.

The term was first used primarily by Jacksonian Democrats in the 1840s to promote the annexation of much of what is now the Western United States (the Oregon Territory, the Texas Annexation, and the Mexican Cession). It was revived in the 1890s, this time with Republican supporters, as a theoretical justification for U.S. expansion outside of North America.

The term fell out of usage by U.S. policy makers early in the 20th century, but some commentators believe that aspects of Manifest Destiny, particularly the belief in an American "mission" to promote and defend democracy throughout the world, continued to have an influence on American political ideology.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_Destiny

Native Americans
Manifest Destiny had serious consequences for American Indians since continental expansion usually meant the occupation of Native American land. The United States continued the European practice of recognizing only limited land rights of indigenous peoples. In a policy formulated largely by Henry Knox, Secretary of War in the Washington Administration, the U.S. government sought to expand into the west through the legal purchase of Native American land in treaties. Indians were encouraged to sell their vast tribal lands and become "civilized", which meant (among other things) for Native American men to abandon hunting and become farmers, and for their society to reorganize around the family unit rather than the clan or tribe. The United States therefore acquired lands by treaty from Indian nations, often under circumstances which suggest a lack of voluntary and knowing consent by the native signers. Advocates of civilization programs believed that the process of settling native tribes would greatly reduce the amount of land needed by the Indians, making more land available for homesteading by white Americans. Thomas Jefferson believed that while American Indians were the intellectual equals of whites, they had to live like the whites or inevitably be pushed aside by them. Jefferson's belief, rooted in Enlightenment thinking, that whites and Native Americans would merge to create a single nation did not last his lifetime, and he began to believe that the natives should emigrate across the Mississippi River and maintain a separate society, an idea made possible by the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.

In the age of Manifest Destiny, this idea, which came to be known as "Indian Removal", gained ground. Although some humanitarian advocates of removal believed that American Indians would be better off moving away from whites, an increasing number of Americans regarded the natives as nothing more than "savages" who stood in the way of American expansion. As historian Reginald Horsman argued in his influential study Race and Manifest Destiny, racial rhetoric increased during the era of Manifest Destiny. Americans increasingly believed that Native Americans would fade away as the United States expanded. As an example, this idea was reflected in the work of one of America's first great historians, Francis Parkman, whose landmark book The Conspiracy of Pontiac was published in 1851. Parkman wrote that Indians were "destined to melt and vanish before the advancing waves of Anglo-American power, which now rolled westward unchecked and unopposed".

Go back up to the part starting with Native Americans...

Is that not the CLEANEST description of genocidal extermination you have ever read?

They make it sound so vannilla, it really is like ice cream and that is what happened to all those darn indians, they just MELTED and vanished away. Yeah. Ok.

Two whole paragraphs to decribe the annihilation of a people.

My favorite line of all 'The United States therefore acquired lands by treaty from Indian nations, often under circumstances which suggest a lack of voluntary and knowing consent by the native signers."

Do tell.

in our lifetime:
Racial policies of Nazi Germany (which sound like Indian Removal)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_policy_of_Nazi_Germany

I hope everyone's having a decent Thanksgiving.

I am avoiding the word "happy" because it's so difficult to be happy under the current circumstances.

Thanksgiving Prayer, by William S. Burroughs

Afghanistan: All Private Security Firms Must Close
11 hours ago
KABUL (AFP) — Authorities in Afghanistan want to close down all private security firms operating in the country, many of them illegally, President Hamid Karzai's office said.
About nine unlicensed companies have already been shut down in a crackdown that has been under way in Kabul for weeks, according to city police.
Under the constitution "only the Afghan government has the right of having and handling weapons, so private companies are against the constitution," the president's spokesman Siamak Hirawi told AFP late Wednesday.
A cabinet meeting Monday argued that the dozens of private security firms were illegal and a source of criminality.
"The session decided that in the long term all private companies should be shut down," he said.
"But for the time being a small number of private companies which can prepare themselves to meet the regulations put in place by the ministry of interior will be allowed temporary licences."
Only a "handful" of such companies would be allowed to operate mainly for the use of international organisations and the United Nations, he said.
"In the long run, when Afghan security forces have the capacity to replace them, they will be replaced by government security personnel, police."
Insecurity in Afghanistan has sharply increased because of a rise in crime and an insurgency led by the extremist Taliban who held power until 2001.
A range of security companies are operating in Afghanistan, from US-based Blackwater to smaller Afghan firm, some of them linked to militias or former warlords.
They guard embassies and other premises or act as bodyguards, while some, like the US-based DynCorp, also train Afghan police.
A report released this month by the Swisspeace research institute said that while about 90 firms could be identified by name, only 35 had registered with the government.
Some are alleged to be involved in extortion, kidnapping and the smuggling of drugs, it said.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gUikB4yVqHEf7eGIvBboJprdDPkw

I'd like to send Bush the bird and hope he gets peppered with Cheney pellets and stuffed with dead crumbs.

Wishbone Ash

The name game continues in California: Odds increasing that electoral initiative will qualify
Source: Los Angeles Times

Backers of a California initiative that could significantly aid the next Republican presidential nominee said today they're still collecting signatures to qualify it for the state's ballot in June, terming as premature reports that they have wrapped up the process. "The goal is to be completed by Dec. 1," Mike Arno, the contractor heading the signature-gathering effort, told The Times' Dan Morain. He added that "people are still out working" and circulating petitions.

To qualify the measure, its supporters must obtain signatures from 434,000 registered California voters. They say they have obtained roughly that number of names, but inevitably many will be disqualified when state officials vet the petitions, often because the signers are not registered to vote. So to ensure they reach the required mark, the initiative supporters aim to amass about 700,000 signatures....

***

Morain reports that the initiative's backers filed a campaign finance statement late Tuesday showing they had garnered more than $500,000 in donations to their cause in recent weeks, pushing their total to about $1.2 million. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) donated $50,000, raising his total contribution to $100,000.

The measure's main financial angel has been Paul Singer, who also is a major money man for Republican Rudy Giuliani's presidential bid. Other prominent Giuliani supporters are playing key roles in pushing the initiative, causing its opponents to file complaints with federal officials charging the Giuliani campaign with masterminding the measure....

With odds increasing that the initiative will qualify for the ballot, Chris Lehane, a San Francisco-based Democratic activist leading the campaign to derail it, issued the following statement today: "The power-grabbers are pursuing a lose-lose-lose strategy: It will lose at the ballot box, where it is polling below 30%; it will be a loser for the Republican Party, as it will brand the GOP as the party of presidential hijackers; and it will be a loser for Rudy Giuliani, whose close connections to the initiative will only further define him as someone who puts the raw, crass pursuit of power before the best interests of the country."...
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2007/11/the-...

Security guards, police officers and armed forces could become Robocops able to take bullets in their stride, thanks to a carbon nanotechnology yarn which can defect projectiles without a trace of damage.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml;jsessionid=AI3TS4S34XML1QFIQMFCFFWAVCBQYIV0?xml=/earth/2007/10/31/scicop131.xml

What we talked about at the table at Thanksgiving:

Bush on the Couch - the book

- he has trouble with metaphors
- the psychiatrist suspects chronic alcohol
- he is comfortable, fluent & animated on aggressive themes
- he is dumbstruck on compassion issues, vague & impersonal

We are Googling our relatives - this is my sister-in-law's ex - he wrote a book about Lakota resistance to white domination
http://www.uncp.edu/news/2007/edward_valandra.htm
still good looking

Wow - here's the book
http://www.beheard.com/cgi-bin/beheard/browse/Liberal%20Thinkers/Academics/Vine%20Deloria%20Jr..html
One of his academic reviews said, "If you're a Republican, don't take his course." He's tough andn you have to work. He also tells inside jokes that no one understands except Lakotas. He wrote it with Vine DeLoria Jr., who once met my younger brother and asked if he was my mother's son, the resemblance was so strong.

Turkey every day of every year

Poor bloody turkey. What's it looking for? Can't find it huh? Grab it turkey! Bite it off!

Christy - the invaders' determination to eliminate our indigenous is almost an exact copy of what happened in America. Manifest Destiny. I'll remember that one. There was also a government requirement that our indigenous should be bred out. Hence, rape wasn't such a bad thing if it involved and indigenous woman. The child, if there was one, would be half white and taken from the mother. And the Australian government was still adhering to this practice in the late 1960s.

For you on Thanksgiving, and for indigenous Australians on Australia Day, there is much grief. We need a new day that includes us all. Like New Zealand has when they celebrate the signing of a treaty with Maoris.

For me, although we don't have Thanksgiving, I am very thankful to live where I do. I'm safe. I'm healthy. Kind of. I have a beautiful outlook through every window from where I sit at my computer. The colour of all four seasons. There is peace all around me. Friends and family who always have enough to eat. And drink. I give thanks.

"Grab it turkey! Bite it off!"

HAHAHA! OMFG! That is hillarious.

I don't mean to sound too angry Woz. As I said, the Founding Fathers killed off indians as best they could, but they also gave us a better way to live than they did.

Perhaps it was inevitable, and maybe even destiny. I only get angry at our inability to deal with it openly.

It is a confusing holiday for me, it feels like a test of loyalty. You know, what you knowingly pledge loyalty too. Anyways...

Yup, your history very much mirrors ours. Sisters. Different but the same. Same blood different natives.

Oh, I remember why I popped in... hehe.

http://christysartblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/ann-bolin.html

Australian journalists a few months ago were sent to Iraq to put out better news of the surge and successes. The news this past week has been all good news. Iraqis are returning in their thousands, they say. Don't forget. They were paid by the government to go there and speak good news on their return.

This interactive is different, but it seems that in Afghanistan, too, there is no hope of an outright win. And with an unstable and nuclear-armed dictatorship in Pakistan, what hope of any success.

Afghanistan's violent frontier
Interactive: The Taliban is spoiling for war and drug barons have the country by the throat. Paul McGeough finds Afghanistan on the brink.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/

With a photograph on the right of SMH's front page.

Woz, Christy
Didn't both cultures make the indiginous peoples separate from their children in "boarding schools" and give up their languages?

I found this article comparing the two cultures back in the day and there were some differences, but in both cases, an arrogance about going to other parts of the world and just "taking over."

http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/essays/essay_15.html

How different is it from what we're doing in places like Iraq and wouldn't we do the same thing if we colonized other planets and found some sort of beings there?

It's obnoxious.

Christy, she's gorgeous. She looks far less like a mean-spirited bitch than her portraits of the time. In fact she looks like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. I've seen some great tv dramatisations of the British monarchy. The BBC did them so they are heavily reliant on fact rather than fiction, although actual spoken words have to be created. I've seen a few that were about her.

Another topic at the table:

My son said that Mexico and India are both trying to come up with national health care systems, though China doesn't have it. India has over a billion people and if they can do it, why can't we, he said? He thought we could learn from the experiences of other countries that have done it. He thought we'd probably do it about the time China did. He had found a chart on Wikipedia that told what various countries were doing about health care.

And how about this for a headline about the greatest warmonger of our time.

"Bush Aims For Peace Deal In His Time"

Well, shame he didn't think of peace way back when. We might have believed in his sincerity. Ah, but reading the article, he only aims for peace between Abbas, the party that was not democratically elected, and Israel. Hamas can go elsewhere for peace apparently.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/bush-aims-for-peace-deal-in-his-time/2007/11/22/1195321948652.html

NMP, it is not just the boarding schools, or mini interment camps if you will. I was speaking really of Australias overall similarity to ours. Our growth almost perfectly mimics one another. It is fascinating. Like finding another earth almost exactly like your own except they talk funny.

Woz,

I was thinking when I was painting her and studying the original, whomever painted it probably did not like her very much. It may just be that gothic thing, but I was thinking whomever painted it probably did not think she was pretty in any way.

It is hard to make something pretty if you are repulsed by it.

What you were saying about how some are simple, some complicated, this one looks simple, but she was actually quite complicated as far as detail work.

November 22, 2007 7:57 PM not my president said: Woz, Christy Didn't both cultures make the indiginous peoples separate from their children in "boarding schools" and give up their languages?

nmp - yes, they certainly did that, but even worse - in both highly spiritual indigenous groups, the occupiers brought compulsory Christianity, regarding the ancient earthy spiritual connections as blasphemous and primitive and outright evil.

So, who is it again who stole, raped and pillaged any of the old countries?

Christy - I didn't mean simple in the actual sense of the painting. I meant simple in the overall reception of the completed work. I can see that she's painted by someone who loves what she sees in her. I also think that you've brought her hairline just a fraction forward. I can't see how it could possibly back as far as it is in the older portraits. And in your portrait she has just a hint of a smile, belying the harshness of her time. that almost-smile gives her a more humane appearance, than the austere look of past portraits.

I still think Leyla is probably both the most simple, and the most complicated I have ever painted.

I still see those eyes in my dreams.

It is wierd, I have never seen people react to one of my paintings like they did her.

They all did the same thing, they would see it and frown, and you could see them trying to grasp what they were looking at. And when they did, all of them would let out a deep breath and say softly 'Oh!'.

You could literally see them harden, then soften once they understood what they were seeing. And once that gaze locks you can't look away. I literally could SEE them connect with her. With that canvas it it palpable.

It is so strange how a simple image can be so emotionally complex. And not an intellectual complexity, but a raw, primal emotion.

She is what art should be.

Christy, I know exactly what you mean. I can't pick her up for another week. I'm a tad short of funds at the moment. I miss her too. She certainly resonated with me, the moment I opened the package. Now I'm just nervous to think I might have chosen a bad combination for the framing. But, I'll think positively - and all will be well.

Which reminds me Woz,

When she gets back from the framer can you get a straight on pic of her, one of the larger size digital images if you can, so I can enlarge it to study brushstroke..?

What is Australia Day?

Is that the Aussi version of Thanksgiving?

Where the white man went wrong

Indian Chief 'Two Eagles' was asked by a white government official,
'You have observed the white man for 90 years. You've seen his wars
and his technological advances. You've seen his progress, and the
damage he's done.'

The Chief nodded in agreement.
The official continued, 'Considering all these events, in your opinion, _
where_ did the white man go wrong?'* *

The Chief stared at the government official for over a minute and then
calmly replied. 'When white man find land, Indians running it,* *
no taxes, no debt, plenty buffalo, plenty beaver, clean water.* *
Women did all the work, Medicine man free. Indian man spend all day
hunting and fishing; all night having sex.'* *

Then the chief leaned back and smiled. 'Only white man dumb enough
to think he improve system like that.'*

Yes, I can, and will, Chisty :)

Australia Day is January 26th - which was the landing date of the first fleet in 1788 - several shiploads of convicts and their military - often very brutal - overseers. Wives and children of the officers were also brought to this *unoccupied* land. Among the convicts were children as young as 7 years. Their sentence for their crime/s was either 7 or 14 years transportation or "for the term of his/her natural life".

It was on this day that Aborigines were forced to surrender ownership of their beloved country/land/earth. Spears were no competition against guns and gunpowder.

Poverty in Britain was widespread and jails were crammed full. Ships were turned into prisons. These floating prisons were sent off to this unoccupied large land in the southern hemisphere. Flogging and hanging were the main sentences. So, this country wasn't just settled by white Europeans, but mostly by criminals. Convicts outnumbered the military.

Australia Day has always been regarded as Australia's beginning, which we have finally learned was not so. However, it's still celebrated as the birth of a nation. And it's mourned by others as the loss of an ancient nation.

Families don't get together to celebrate. It's just another *day off* *long weekend*. We really don't think of it in any other way - except for our indigenous brothers and sisters.

Hey you two, what you up to?

Australia Day is the official national day of Australia, which commemorates the establishment of a settlement and penal colony at Port Jackson by Captain Arthur Phillip, who later became the first Governor.[1] Australia Day is celebrated on 26 January annually, and has been declared as an official public holiday in all states and territories of Australia. Known also as Anniversary Day or Foundation Day, Australia Day is widely considered to be an important day in the history of Australia.

Just as woz said another holiday.

What we where talking about the other day Christy, but I still haven't found that site.

It is ok Rossi. Me too, no luck. We will come across it again.

BTW, has anyone in here ever tried to apply for a grant, like an arts grant?

I am totally freaking lost.

Wait, I think I got the grant thing figured out.

Hmmm.

Well I am a Tetris Master once again!

Christy, I've thought of it a lot. But never actually did it. A writer friend of mine, applied every year. Every year she was turned down. She said, you watch - once I'm successful, they'll say yes - and I won't even need it then. Sure enough - she's had grants and also been offered the art's council's flat in Paris for 6 months and on and on it goes. And she doesn't need it. But to start out, they didn't want to know her.

nmp - what's a Tetris Master?

Rossi, Australians have been involved in another *incident* in Afghanistan. Press conference by the ADF at 4.30pm

Another young 24yr old during combat with the Taliban.

woz don't like this at all, even if it is a tiny sample, the night before voting.

You've read the final pitches ... who gets your vote?

John Howard 51% (2326 votes)
Kevin Rudd 43% (1962 votes)
Neither 2% (115 votes)
I'm voting for someone else 3% (151 votes) Total votes Total of 4554 votes

Yeah I read it woz. Lovely Christmas Present for his family. Did I tell you Howie sucks just as badly as Georgie Boy.

Yes, but I think that was an unscientific poll taken from the readers of some rich-boy-club-newspaper. I can't think of anything that could have caused such a backswing. But it's what friends and I have been scared of. Fear has worked for Howard in the past. And it could again. I don't think I can live here if he gets over the line.

Damn. I wanted to vote Greens here this year, since the Giant-Dioxin-Spewing-Pulp-Mill is to be put into my electorate. So much for clean, green Tasmania, huh? I still may have to do that. We need to stack the senate so that Howard's mob can't put through disgraceful legislation.

I doubt that he'd get away with taking back one of our maimed soldier's bonuses though. That's low - even for Bush - I can't imagine ever having to be in the same country with someone that low.

Age Reader Poll - skewed like the pro Howard one.

Your vote
Who will you vote for in the 2007 federal election?

Coalition - 17%

Labor - 61%

Greens - 18%

Democrats - 1%

Independent - 1%

Undecided - 2%

Total Votes: 3460

Frankly rossi - I see it more as a beat-up by the media. They love to have things uncertain. How many times have we heard about leadership challenges that haven't even been thought of until the media has whipped them up.

Cruise ship sinks in Antarctic
Rescue teams were working to save 154 passengers from a cruiseliner sinking in the Antarctic Ocean, a British coastguard spokesman said today.

"This morning the Argentine and American coastguards are coordinating the rescue of 154 passengers from the Explorer, which is holed and taking water down in the Antarctic near the south Shetland Islands," Andy Catrell, a British Cornwall coastguards spokesman told Britain's BBC television.

He said British coastguards were helping the operation.

Reuters

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/cruise-ship-sinks-in-antarctic/2007/11/23/1195753305578.html

Well, it seems our so-called Scotty bombshell has already melted away into nothingness... gee, I'm shocked.