Stone Cupid Real - travel

Some ammo for your "friendly" recruiter....

noreply@blogspirit.com (Julie CHRISTENSEN) — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 01:04:10 -0700

"A teacher for 30 years, Truthout reader Kirk Stapp now faces a new problem: how to advise his students on the offers made to them by over-eager military recruiters."--TO.

He sent sent them the account below, which moved me to tears, so I sent him an email (mine follows the piece, FYI), and he has kindly allowed me to copy the whole thing here. --Julie

The Class of '05

By Kirk Stapp
t r u t h o u t | perspective

Friday 24 June 2005

After a marine or army recruiter visits Mammoth High School, students frequently ask me questions about my military experience in Vietnam. Eventually, these conversations lead to a single question: Should I enlist?

Advice can carry a heavy burden in shaping a seventeen-year-old's future: employment, culinary school, a community college, a UC, a tour in Iraq, an amputated leg, a lifetime full of nightmares, cancer from the hundreds of tons of depleted uranium used in US and British munitions, a flag-draped coffin.

Ryan (not the student's real name): "The recruiter said that my ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) scores were so high that I could become a helicopter mechanic or even go to officer's candidate school."

"You know, if you enlist, you're going to end up serving a tour or two in Iraq or Afghanistan." There is an awkward moment of silence. "If you're smart enough to have options in the military, why don't you go to college?"

Ryan hesitates: "My folks said they could help me pay for books, but that's about it. They can't afford to ..." There is a pause - then a glimmer of hope: "The recruiter said that if I enlisted I would receive ten thousand dollars, an enlistment bonus, and thousands more in college tuition assistance when I get out." If you get out. He's looking for an opening. It's not "Should I enlist?" He wants to know why he shouldn't enlist.

"What do you think?" Ryan asks, while looking at the floor.

I think recruiters target poor kids. The chance of Ryan's being killed in Iraq or Afghanistan are minuscule. The chance of his losing a leg or arm or eye are probably less than two percent. Sadly, the chances of his suffering from exposure to radiation are probably astronomically high given the fact that hundreds of tons of depleted uranium munitions have been expended in Iraq during the first gulf war and Bush's crusade.

The idea of advising Ryan to not serve his country is repulsive to me. Americans have always served ideas bigger than themselves: "freedom," "opportunity," "liberty," "justice," "truth," "equality." Most of these ideas are enshrined in our Constitution: they are called the Bill of Rights.

Ryan hands me an Army National Guard brochure: "BE ONE OF AMERICA'S MOST POWERFUL WEAPONS." "Citizen. Soldier. Defender of Freedom." "Your country needs you."

"Ryan, you're not American's most powerful weapon and you're not an army of one. You also need to know that there were no…

COURAGE TO RESIST

noreply@blogspirit.com (Julie CHRISTENSEN) — Wed, 4 May 2005 12:55:00 -0700

www.CourageToResist.org

Call for a National Day of Action for GI Resisters on May 10, 2005

May 2, 2005

We urge you to join us in a "National Day of Action for GI Resisters" on Tuesday May 10, 2005. This is the day before the US military is planning to bring sailor Pablo Paredes and soldier Kevin Benderman before military court martial tribunals for their opposition to the Iraq War. They face forfeiture of pay and benefits, and military jail time.

On December 6, 2004, Navy Petty Officer Pablo Paredes refused to board his ship as it left the San Diego Naval Station in support of the Iraq War and occupation. At the time of his refusal, Pablo said he hoped his protest might inspire other GI's to refuse to take part in the war.

On January 5, 2005, Army Sgt Kevin Benderman refused to deploy for a second tour of duty in Iraq with the Army's Third Infantry Division. At the same time seventeen other soldiers from his unit went AWOL, two tried to kill themselves and one had a relative shoot him in the leg to avoid deploying.

Both men applied for discharge from the US military as conscientious objectors. The military has wrongly rejected both claims.

It's time for us to escalate public pressure and action in support of Pablo, Kevin and the thousands of other courageous men and women who have followed their conscience to uphold international law and to take a principled stand against the unjust, illegal war and occupation of Iraq. It's time we had their backs.

Objection and resistance by military servicepersons is a healthy and important assertion of Democracy in a country where the decisions to invade Iraq, to maintain an occupation, and engage in widespread human right violations and torture were made undemocratically in violation of international law and based on continuing lies and disinformation.

Please join us by organizing a public demonstration, vigil or rally of support on May 10. Every action, no matter how large or small is important.

Also,

Send letters of support and donations to cover legal fees to Pablo and Kevin via their websites listed below.
Come to San Diego, California (Pablo) or Fort Stewart, Georgia (Kevin) to show your support during their trials.
Write letters to the editor, and help educate your organization, church, union, school, co-workers and community.

Resisting illegal occupation and war is not a crime! The right to conscientious objection is being systematically violated by the military. Those objectors who are publicly asserting their rights are being singled out for punishment. We demand that military personnel retain their right to follow their conscience, publicly dissent and that their basic democratic rights be respected.

A better world is possible.

More info about Pablo Paredes:
www.SwiftSmartVeterans.com
More info about Kevin Benderman:
www.BendermanDefense.org

Left: Pablo Paredes refuses to ship out in support of the Iraq War at the San Deigo Naval Station pier. Right: Monica and Kevin Benderman outside of Fort Stewart, Georgia.

Initial signatures

Monica…

Save the Arctic Wildlife Refuge!

noreply@blogspirit.com (Julie CHRISTENSEN) — Mon, 21 Feb 2005 16:00:34 -0800

Save the Arctic Wildlife Refuge!

Came So Far For Leonard Cohen

noreply@blogspirit.com (Julie CHRISTENSEN) — Tue, 8 Feb 2005 19:40:00 -0800

Review of the Show From the Sydney Morning Herald.....
with my boldface in your face! It was such an honor working with everyone again on this great music, and an Australian woman named Lian is making a documentary film on Leonard for which some of the concert, rehearsals and interviews with artists was filmed. Scotty has beamed most of me back, but some is still on Cloud Nine....
Came So Far For Beauty
By Bernard Zuel
January 31, 2005

Page Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House, January 28

In Leonard Cohen's 1973 song A Singer Must Die, presenting himself
before a panel of stern judges he declares: "I'm sorry for smudging the
air with my song." Some smudge. Some song.

That smudge's lasting imprint on several generations of singers and
fellow songwriters is the subtext of what simplistically would be
called a tribute show but in effect was a celebration of song. Spread
across nearly four hours it was as strong on interpretation as it was
light on unnecessary reverence; as steeped in Jacques Brel and country
music as German cabaret and folk; as joyous as it was moving.

You could see that with a cocked-hip Jarvis Cocker wholly inhabiting
Death of a Ladies Man (in duet with Beth Orton) and bringing a
self-mocking playboy touch to I Can't Forget. And certainly it was
there in Nick Cave, who made us re-evaluate one of Cohen's more
contentious songs, Diamonds In The Mine - "a nasty Leonard Cohen song"
he cheerfully declared - by playing up some Vegas sleaze while the
always impressive and flexible backing group briefly turned into Elvis
Presley's TCB band.

Not that the evening's stars were only the best-known faces. The
Handsome Family took and gave great delight by relocating A Heart With
No Companion to the Kentucky hills, while Teddy Thompson (whose mother
Linda Thompson earlier had hushed the room with The Story of Isaac)
found a bruised centre to lines such as "I choose the rooms that I live
in with care/the windows are small and the walls almost bare".

And in the category of "where the hell has he been hiding?" was the
hulking, shambling figure of New York singer Antony, who left open
mouths on and off the stage with his heart-piercing explorations of The
Guests and the prayer-like If It Be Your Will. (He's playing tonight at
the Vanguard and must be seen.)

What was staggering was how each time you thought the night had just had its peak someone else would stroll on stage and give you another one. And then another. For example, Rufus Wainwright's version of Hallelujah, which escaped from the shadow of Jeff Buckley's seemingly definitive interpretation with an elegant but effortlessly transporting take, is the kind of song that would climax any regular show, but here was presented early in the first set. Three songs later a former Cohen backing vocalist, Julie Christiansen, beautifully balanced The Singer Must Die between pathos and humour and upped the ante again.…

More on the Cohen thing....

noreply@blogspirit.com (Julie CHRISTENSEN) — Sat, 15 Jan 2005 15:31:36 -0800

He's their man

January 2, 2005

Leonard Cohen, who for the past decade has been a reclusive devotee of Zen Buddhism.
Photo: Supplied

Leonard Cohen inspires an uncommon kind of devotion among his fans, as the all-star line-up at a tribute concert in Sydney proves. Guy Blackman reports.

"I don’t think he plans on performing any more, and now he doesn’t have to because we’re doing it,” American music industry veteran Hal Willner says of Leonard Cohen. “He is really happy, he has been totally supportive in every way.”

Willner — who has worked with everyone from Sting to Sun Ra and whose credits as a movie soundtrack director include Gangs of New York and Robert Altman’s Short Cuts — is the man behind Came So Far For Beauty, an all-star concert tribute to the music of Leonard Cohen.The concert will be performed for three nights only at the Sydney Opera House later this month, as part of the Sydney Festival.

Already in his 30s when he had his first musical success, the Canadian-born Cohen is now 70. For the past decade he has been a reclusive devotee of Zen Buddhism. It seems unlikely he will ever return to live performance.

Cohen was a respected but relatively obscure poet and novelist in 1968 when his first (and still his most famous) song, Suzanne, introduced a literate, decadent and world-weary romantic vision to the world of pop music. His subsequent body of work, consisting of just 11 studio albums recorded over five decades, has become the subject of more serious analysis and feverish discussion than virtually anyone bar Bob Dylan.

“I just adore Leonard Cohen’s music,” says Willner. “I know it backwards and forwards. So the opportunity to do what I call an exploration or a dissection of his music is fantastic. Hey — I get to choose the set list!”

And the line-up. The hand-picked cast is impeccable, comprising Nick Cave, Beth Orton, Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Linda and Teddy Thompson, the Handsome Family and Cohen back-up singers Perla Batalla and Julie Christensen.

Each night these 13 performers will present 31 songs from Cohen’s total canon of 101, with the backing of a nine-piece band.

The show has already been staged in New York and Brighton, England, to uniformly rave reviews — no small feat for a night dedicated to a man whose music inspires such fierce devotion. Late last year Nick Cave told The Age’s Patrick Donovan how Came So Far For Beauty managed to come as far as Australia.

“Hal’s events are notoriously ramshackle, with lots of different people singing,” he said. “In Brighton, it somehow clicked together, and after that we got offers from all over to do more stuff. But we didn’t want to spend the next year doing tributes to Leonard Cohen — we all have other things to do. But the Sydney Opera House is too interesting to pass up.”

Cave is a Cohen fanatic and his…