Author: Damnit Janet

We need a happy story about our disabled loved ones.  So today I will share with you my son’s story.  February 2nd was a big night in his life.  One he will never forget.  His story, dreams and goal was shared on Fox Sports after the Super Bowl.  We are very proud of him.

My son is 20 and autistic.  He is in a program for young adults with neurological disabilities.  Part of this is Work Experience.  The first year, he completed every job available so the many agencies got together to think outside the box. For the past two years, Wesley has been working as a volunteer with the Portland Winterhawks.  This summer, the work experience portion was gutted.  

Wesley is a bit of a “hockey savant”.  He loves the game.  He loves his class.  So he decided to do something about it.  He asked the Portland Winterhawks if they could do a benefit game for his class.  They agreed.  

$5 from every ticket sold via the special web link on the hockey site was given to Community Transition Program out of Beaverton, Oregon.  He raised over $600.  
I am unable to get the video to embed.  I yield to the BooGods who can make it so.

http://www.kptv.com/video?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=8320342

I was always questioned by the “experts”, “What are your dreams and goals for you son?”  My answer was always that I wanted him to have the tools and skills to create and reach his own dreams and his own goals.

Thank you for taking the time to watch my son’s dream.  

My son asked me to share the below video with you all.  So that maybe you can hear the many voices who will be voting and so that maybe you can help another’s voice be heard this election.

My son, like his sister, takes voting very seriously.  Just the act of voting itself is hard for him.  Holding a pen is not the easiest thing to do.  He fretted last election about his signature on the envelope.  He worried and agonized over every dot that he filled in.  Every measure was met with the same concern of not misunderstanding.  The wording in the measures can be very confusing and misleading.  He didn’t want to be “tricked”.  We attempted to drop the ballots off at the Washington County Election Office but it’s right next to the Sheriff’s office, their lights going and lots of police activity which spooked him so we dropped our votes off elsewhere.  

We talk about GOTV, voting and all the bullying that is going on.  We can not forget just what this voting means…

Our voice being heard.  Even if that voice is hard to hear.  And those are the voices we need to hear the most.  
This week, my son shared a video of a commercial that one of his former post-graduation developmentally and neurological disabled program’s classmate was in.  It’s from the Oregon Council on Developmental Disabilities, Disability Rights Oregon and The Oregon Secretary of State.  It’s very powerful.  More so than ever.  He asked me to pass it along to you all.  

The young woman who says she votes because she cares about her community is his dear friend, Carly.  He wants you all to know just how proud he is of her and all of his classmates who are voting.  So many of us take it for granted.  

My son is 20 and my daughter is 18.  Both are registered Democrats.  Both are compassionate, aware and active.  Both are voting for the first time in a Presidential election.  Both are counting on you to vote as well.  

Vote!

Thank you.

Rapepublicans, rich angry men yelling at empty chairs got you down?  Just ease on down your local river. It’s medicinal!

Yes, you CAN get two 12 ft Old Town kayaks on top of a Honda Civic 2 door.

Few weeks ago, after over 15 years of not smoking, I decided to gift myself with an Old Town (made in America) kayak.  It cost me the equivalent of 15 cartons of cigarettes.  I’ve been doing yoga for over a year now which has gained me some more mobility in my chest and shoulders and both my doctor and my Yogi told me to go work out on the river.

Kayaking has been very healing in many ways.  You don’t run across many who don’t love Mother Earth when you’re on a river.  You truly can’t fight water.  You have to work with it.  Allow it.  Be it.

It’s not just working my chest, shoulders… it’s meditation.  I’ve been doing TM for a year now and I had never realized before that I had no idea how to breathe.  Yes, breathe.  

I’ve found that breath is like Peace.  You can’t have it if you try to hold on to it.  Most of the stuff we “have” isn’t even worth having.  None of it really is needed.  We fill up our homes with so much crap as we do our own bodies.

You can’t have Peace if you try to hold on to it.  It’s like your breath.  Try holding on to it.  Trust me, you will fail trying to greedily hold on to it.  

Let Go.
Allow.
Receive.
Have.
Let Go.

I felt that if I “Let Go” I wouldn’t be useful in any movement let alone the much needed Peace Movement.  But slowly, I’ve been holding my breath in numerous forms.  Anger. Doubt. Frustration. I’m just now learning that I can be angry but only in a healthy way.  I have to have balance in my life.  I’ve had some illnesses and surgeries that have slowed me down.  At first I was ANGRY about that – typical Scorpion Unreasonable Woman that I am.  

So, I’ve been meditating, doing yoga, singing in the shower… and the world still seems to be burning down around me.  But it’s not.  As long as I am not falling apart, as along as I am still moving forward, as long as I am taking care of things I need to do to take care of myself – this world has so much to offer – if we just stop yelling, fighting, arguing and experience it.  

Then we can go and march for it with a new found sense of Peace, Love and Wonder.  Am I less angry? Hell, No!  But I try really fucking hard to not let those fires consume me anymore.  I really need to allow them to help me burn brighter.  

Let me take you down my river.  Just for a few minutes.  I promise to bring you back.

Kayaks, unlike outboards or other loud, gas powered zen disturbers, are silent.  You can sneak up on sleeping ducks… and they don’t even mind.

Great Blue Heron aka The River Keeper.
Or in Hockey terms, The official Blue Coat of the Tualatin. Making sure we don’t stand up or leave our seats.

This uber young Peeping Tom somehow knew we weren’t packing anything more than granola bars and chapstick.
Can you see him?

Therapy for arthritis in my sternum… and my weary, liberal soul.

Just chillaxing in my ultra cool hat.  Which is now adorned with my old black on white peace button.  It’s nice wearing clothes that don’t stink of pepper spray 🙂

Portland Pride.
Yes, we are a total hockey family, but the Timbers, even though they suck, they are our local boyz.

Let Go
Allow
Receive
Have – truly Have
Let Go – truly…

This now ends your moment of Portland Zen.

Do I even need to go into how much the recent attacks on women have triggered me and mine?  Do I even need to explain how much fury I try to keep at bay so I can go to work, make dinner and …. fall asleep.

This is not really a diary but a post to author Meteor Blades in one of his diaries about the insane, terrorist attacks and asinine stupid shit coming out of the GOP’s mouths.  

Let me be crystal fucking clear on one thing:  Todd Akins did not cross any line, he’s toeing the damn party line.  

We are at war.  Fighting for our very right not to be raped.  Not to be dragged back to the dark ages. Forced to undergo unmentionable torture and pain because angry white men feel they have the final say over your own life, decisions and your body.

These are not your Daddy’s Republicans from the good ole boy days.  

These are Rapepublicans.  Here’s how they work.
Say something stupid. When your stupidity is pointed out, cry that you are being attacked.  

Denounce science and the environment. Shriek about your magical connection to the Masters of the Universe and the ability to harness hurricanes, quakes and floods as a political compass.  

Accuse innocent people of terrible things that you yourself are actually doing.  

Treat women, minorities and others as lesser than while whining that white, angry men are victims.

Claim you are pro-life all the while you whip up the morans to go kill doctors.  

Fight for the rights of the unborn while you tell pre-schoolers to fuck off.

Wear yellow ribbons and fly flimsy EWW ESS AYYY flags made in China and call yourself a “Real American Patriot”.  

Insuring your car is being responsible but seeing to it that all people have health insurance is a sure fucking sign of the apocalypse.

Bringing guns and rifles to anti-health care rallies, some of which were on school properties and other public places is just fine and dandy, while people protesting war, drones, torture and Wall Street should be beaten, tased, and have cannisters shot directly at their head.  And people wearing t-shirts should be rounded up and arrested.

Do as I say and not as I do.  

Bawl your eyes out that gay marriage is ruining this country, while you cheat on your 5th wife with some child of the street in a dirty rest stop bathroom.

Announce to the world that there’s different types of rape and that women have super ninjas in their lady parts capable of killing off any nasty man sperm.  But that most women really want it and that Rapepublican men should preside over all women’s thoughts, decisions and lives.

Assert that racism is a part of one’s heritage.  Like cockfighting, dog fighting, beating your wife and kids.

Act offended because people are offended by your shit.

My daughter and I visited the OccupyPortland Camp on Saturday.  

On Sunday, me and my husband marched with BOHICA and Veterans for Peace with the Mayor’s Office, the Policemen, the Portland Marathon Officials and The 99%. Imagine!

Here’s my favorite sign:

My Daughter being recorded for an #OWS montage:  “Hello, my name is Danni, I’m a high school student in Portland, Oregon and I AM THE 99%!”

Definite Trouble Makers
(Me and BOHICA)

Danni taking it all in

Danni found a “safe place”
It’s probably illegal to climb a tree in the city.

Not really a diary.  A Very Merry Undiary, perhaps?

Today my daughter turns 17.  You might recall, she’s been a “Hell Raiser” since she was 8 and questioned the killing of “Iraqi Kids”.  I’ve forgotten how to do all these cool little diary techniques but there are past diaries and posts and I know that many of you put Danni in your hearts and minds and remember her.  But I still know how to share when I feel I have something to say.

Some people think my daughter does what she does because of me or her Dad.  When in reality it was she who changed our world… simply by being in it.

Today she turns 17.  She’s been marching for Peace for 10 damn years now.    
Here’s my birthday message to her today at a hockey chat… but as Danni and I gear for the Occupy Portland tomorrow, I wanted to share this with you.  You have marched with us many times.  You have witnessed this movement that has taken so long to reach this point and who knows where it will go.

Tonight Danni, sadly, knows to gather bandanas to soak in water and place into baggies in case there’s spraying.  Extra bottles of water to share with the homeless and to use to clean out our eyes or others. She knows not to run if panicked.  She knows how to simply walk off the street into a store.  She knows where to meet me and how to get home alone if we are seperated. She’s got the cameras and peace bag ready.  

I wish she didn’t have to know these things.  

*

Happy 17th Birthday, Danni!

The Poet, The Peace Marcher, The Procrastinator, The Princess, The Punk, The Powerful and The Pool Pix Pick Champion.  

We scream and fight because we are so much alike you and I.  We scream and fight because we are so very different.  Yet we come together on the important stuff and have each other’s backs.  We don’t question that at all.  If I were to pass away tomorrow, I would know that you would continue to support peace and human rights.  That you would always cherish reading and the arts.  That you would continue to grow and learn.  That you would continue to be curious and always question authority.  That you would become your own person and not be like someone else.  Not even like me.  I know that even now, in just the beginning of your life, you have the tools to move forward and to be a beautiful, loving, compassionate, empowered person.  Today may be your birthday but it is you who are a gift to so many you haven’t even met yet.

Continue to write your own lyrics while you are on this planet.  And as Dylan sang, “know your song well before you start singin’ it”

Update [2011-2-9 13:34:15 by Damnit Janet]: I tried to fix some errors before running off to work. Now I can’t seem to submit it.

My apologies, this isn’t really a “diary” but a Hello.

Dear Oui & WW and Froggie Friends,

I’m alive and well.  I’m much safer and more focused nowadays.  Still beating the street and conversing with the politicians and movers-shakers.  Chased off Condi and got “this close” to Karl Rove (by accident) and got to stand up and called him what he is a “effing War Criminal”. I’ve lost a few cameras due to being “maced” which isn’t mace at all – it’s a combination of nasties.  

It’s odd, we were hassled and arrested for wearing t-shirts near “free speech zones” yet the GOP (and that’s what the teabaggers are) get away with hauling guns and rifles to health care rallies, many of which were on school grounds and they get massive media coverage.  I guess 10 Bubbas with guns at a school wanting to deny kids medicine is impressive compared to 30,000 in the street, peacefully demanding an end to illegal occupations.  But you get what you pay for, and many have been paid off and bought.  

I know that this country would riot in the street… if you took Monday Night Football off the air, yet no one really blinks an eye when attrocity after heinous attrocity occurs.  I no longer know what it will take to wake this country, this society up – but it’s not about them…

I have one mantra in life:  “What did you do once you knew?”  It helps me look my kids in the eye.  It keeps me from being complicit in my own enslavement.  It keeps me attempting to live a life of integrity, dignity, responsibility.  I could become an ExPat (still an option) but no matter where I run, there I’d be still having to walk my talk with my children.  

It’s not about politics.  Not anymore.  I don’t think it every really was political for me.  Yeah, I’m a bleeding heart liberal.  I see many Liberal Hunting bumperstickers, I hear that “Liberalism” is a disease whose only cure is a bullet throught the head. Politics is ugly, barbaric and downright brutal, bastardly business. Always has been I think.  

This is about humanity for me. Not Tweets, not recs, not tips.  I’m an activist, not an author.

What I did here and at the Big Orange was I tried to put a human face on the newbie activist.  The Mom who flew away so she could come back a better person and hopefully in a wee bit better world. I tried to share my fear, my worries, my achievements and my defeats.

Marching and protesting and infiltrating and GOTVing and coming face to face with pure evil like Rove are the easy things.  They’re nothing!  What’s hard is living your life and making the daily choices.  Cheap has a price, being a locovore and supporting sustainability is hard work, knowledge is power and empowering your self and kids with love and volunteerism is hard. I know many “progressives” who still purchase Bud Beer and support bastard stores like Wal-Mart.  I can’t.  What does shopping and cooking got to do with war? It’s all connected.  It’s all about humanity.

I came to share with others. I came to get strength. What I didn’t realize all along was that I was already strong. But I have grown up in these past few years.  I have made changes in my life and hopefully a few others.

I’ve batttled with intense anger and hopelessness issues.  I’ve had to make a will to soothe my husbands worry about whether or not I’ll return home safe after just attending a freaking Peace Rally or what some redneck might do to me as I walk to my car after work. The other day my car was vandalized.  

I’ve learned many truths that have made me question whether any society is actually a safe and sane one.  I’ve seen many things that should make me stop.  I’ve been threatened just because of my words on a screen.  I gather that Glen Beck or Fox has recently put out an American Taliban style fatwah against CodePink.  But all women who stand up for anything are not really chreished or protected in this country anymore.

I’m still with CodePink.  But that is not who I am. It’s a part of me. I am just a human.

Due to numerous ear infections (I’m now dairy free) I have serious ear injuries which causes nasty episodes of vertigo.  My job allows me FEMLA and they treat it as if it were like seizures.  Vertigo lasts for me about 8 to 10 hours on average where I’m completely incapcitated.  This, too, has brought me to a new learning curve in my journies.  I hate loss of control.  I hate feeling so vulnerable.  But I have to make some peace with it…  Vertigo is a real bitch.  But I’m in a place where I’m safe, supported and still can live sanely with it.

My son has graduated with a modified diploma and is in a wonderful program for adults with developmental disabilities.  He raises money for the Oregon Food Bank.  This year he got his Oregon ID -bittersweet as he didn’t get a driver’s license.  He was refused an ID because of a new law that states a military issued birth certificate is no longer valid.  The DMV stated that if didn’t obtain a “real” BC that they’d have to notify social security, homeland security, the school district… blah blah.  He was born in Washington State at a NAS.  I wonder if McCain had the same problems?? I didn’t just wonder though. I wrote letters and made phonecalls and empowered my son to act. He got his ID eventually and this year he voted for the first time.  On his own.  

My daughter is still quite the humanitarian hellion.  She really puts her teachers through the paces. Personally, last year was a horrendous one for me as I lost my mother due to morbid obesity and colon cancer and pancreatic cancer.  

I watched my mother die while I was being Palined and Becked to death by her family.  Hospice were wonderful and some of my mom’s relatives have actually left their church of hate due to all that took place at her deathbed and funeral.  I couldn’t fight or flee… there was another option. A hard one. I just had to keep my head up.  One of the harder things I’ve ever done.  Hold my mother’s hand as she slipped away. We also lost our dearest friend and almost every pet we had died of old age.  So… we have a new cat named Dylan who was 5 yrs old and never had a home.  Life continues.

But through these times and this blog I made many wonderful friends.  Some I’ve met and many I intend to in the future.  

I continue to make friends and make peace with myself.  I know I can’t stop the illegal occupations but I can stop the wars within myself.  I can’t stop the oppression of children and women but I can continue to progress as a citizen, as a woman, as a human being. As they take my rights away, I can still make choices.  

This year I’m working on a little patch of my yard and making a herb garden and try to make a small garden of edibles.  An Urban Homesteader who hasn’t a clue about any of it but I’ve gained several books about it and what the hell… there’s something about gardening and learning to can jam that’s somehow very basic and almost magical.  Sometimes that’s what I need, the basic and the magical.  I need a balance from the RoboCops and the pulling my hair out.  The jam may not turn out but I’ve heard that jam mistakes make great margaritas.  

I hope all continue to be safe and sound… but continue to be alert and aware… and active in their own way.  

I have to run to work now, sorry for the typos, errors and butchering of grammar and if this is bad form or meta or I’ve broken some rule.  

I had asked AndiF about a few people a while back.  I was curious how Oui, OMIRtheStoryteller and my mind is blank now… 🙂 were doing.  NancyP today alerted me of Oui’s post and …. again, I had to share.

Peace & Strength.  

 

Things to not forget when the partying quiets down:

The VFP 72 (BOHICA’s baby) constructed and maintains Peace Park in Portland, Oregon. The largest park for Peace in America.

1. Bob Gates is a crook, a liar, major scumbag who was at the very center of Iran Contra and Arms for Hostages. He cannot be rubber stamped by the outgoing lame duck Fascist-dominated Congress.

2. Donald Rumsfeld is a war criminal and should not be allowed to escape prosecution. There are legal moves being made right now in Germany to officially declare him, as Henry Kissinger was, an international war criminal subject to arrest and detention in many countries. There are documents available which identify Rumsfeld as directly running extreme Gitmo tortures and illegal extradition for the purposes of torture of a number detainees–in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions, to which we are signators. This man deserves to hang just like Saddam.

3. We still have on the books un-Constitutional laws which illegally retroactively indemnify the Bush war crime family from any prosecution from their heinous acts against Humanity. This would be like OJ passing a retroactive law making it ok for a Black man to kill 2 White people as long as he was only using sharp objects.

4. The United States currently has abandoned the rule of Habeas Corpus. This must be reinstated immediately.

5. We have legalized extradition of American citizens for the purposes of torture. This must end.

6. We have legalized torture and all manner of violations of the Geneva Conventions. This must end.

7. We have legalized un-Constitutional violations of privacy against Americans. This must end immediately.

8. Every Federal department and agency has been jam packed with corrupt corporate shills selling off our land, the very air we breathe, our water, our seas and our birthright to voracious multinational conglomerates. They harass broadcasters to kowtow to the hysterical whims of radical Religious nuts. Freedom of Speech has disappeared. The FDA is approving dangerous drugs with little or no oversight, and blocking safe drugs which violate the superstitious fantasies of radical religious lunatics. This too must end.

9. Science is under attack at all levels in America by religious fanatics with a huge sway over corrupt politicians. This too must end.

10. The Middle Class is under attack on all fronts by policies forged by elitist neocons which have long since run away and hid and disavowed their original policy input. Thus we have a kind of political V-Ger which lives on past its shelf life continuing to destroy without thought or reason.

11. The massive corruption in Washington can only be stopped by public campaign financing, and strict limits on spending.

It’s exactly to the degree that the Democrats answer to these issues and many more over the next two years that our present exhilaration will be vindicated. As Han Solo said…

“Don’t get cocky, kid!”

In fact, if 2 years from today we can point to ONE of the above getting crossed off the list, it’ll be a $&%^%$#@ miracle. We only have a better class of politicians in place now, kind of like getting mugged by a better class of mugger. These guys will thank us for the nice watch.

——————–

No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. — James Madison, 1795

Full credit to my dear friend and hockey pal, Ken Melville. Photographs I’ve taken from along the way of a very strange year and a half.

I’d like to add:

Bring our Troops home NOW and get our War Resisters out of jail… NOW!

You may recall how right after Hurricane Katrina struck the gulf coast, I was in New York, spending thousands of dollars on shoes. Ferragamos to be precise. It’s true –people were drowning, people were suffering and losing their homes and I was out shopping. Remember after 9-11 when my boss told us to be patriotic and go shopping? Well, I truly believed that a little retail therapy in a time of stress was a good thing for the economy and for the soul.

But a funny thing happened to me on my way to Jimmy Choo’s. I stumbled upon a bunch of old shoes in front of Hillary Clinton’s office on Third Avenue. I wondered if it was some kind of tag sale. But as I looked closer, I saw that each pair of shoes instead of having a price tag was labeled with the name and age of an Iraqi child.

A woman dressed all in fuchsia, with a pink statue of liberty crown on her head, explained that each pair of shoes represented a child who had been killed in Iraq. It was a CODEPINK: Women for Peace demonstration. I was told, it was part of a campaign called “Walk in Their Shoes.”

In that moment I had what my boss might call a conversion experience.

Suddenly it hit me. Between my high-powered job, my shoe shopping and my piano playing, I had never stopped to think about all the dead children in Iraq. I went to my hotel room, gathered up my shoes and ran back to Hillary’s office to donate them to the campaign.

So I’m writing to you now, a new woman, asking you to join me. Vote for peace candidates. Sign the Give Peace a Vote pledge. Organize a Walk in Their Shoes action in your community. Donate money to the campaign.

Let’s kick the heels out of office and fill their shoes with leaders who will bring our soldiers home!

Yours in sole and soul,
Condi Rice

P.S. Alright, so Condi didn’t actually have a pink conversion or write this letter, but if you want to see the White House turning pink, please help. We have over 70,000 signers of the peace pledge! Won’t you help us get to 100,000 by November 7 by signing and getting 5 friends to sign on?

Give Peace A Vote is featured on The Peace Team Site adding thousands of new pledges this week. The Peace Team is a group of nearly 50 candidates, who have taken our Peace Pledge. Many have produced some very hard-hitting TV spots directly confronting the Bush administration on the lies they used to invade Iraq. These Lie/Die ads are running right now. To see some of them playing as flash streams or to learn more about the Peace Team go to http://www.peaceteam.net.

Thank you, Janet
CodePink

Peace Vigil 9/13/06
Peace Vigil 9/06/06
Peace Vigil 8/23/06
Peace Vigil 8/16/06
Peace Vigil 8/09/06
Peace Vigil 8/02/06

Washington County Peace Vigil 57th Week.
Beaverton, Oregon, 6:30 to 7:30
It’s Raining, it’s pouring
And George is still warring…

I share these photographs of the faces of those opposed to war and the Bush Administration because you will not see or hear of them on the news. They are your neighbors, your co-workers, your teachers, your students, your bus drivers. I want to share that they are you and I.

I hope to capture the energy of these peace vigils and more importantly the passion of the people. I hope to empower others to find their local vigils or create their own. To at least know that they are not alone.

…and many miles to go before I sleep…

Many miles to go before we all can sleep

*Cross posted at MyLeftWing and Peace Gone Wild*