My letter to Rep. Bart Stupak

Dear Rep. Stupak,
For years I have admired you. I thought you were just great and as an avid C-Span watcher, I enjoyed seeing you speak on the House Floor or be an occasional guest on Washington Journal.
It came as a shock to find out you were a member of the authoritarian evangelical "Family" from the infamous "C" Street House. I am reading Jeff Sharlet's book and it is pretty shocking to find that members of Congress hold such views about being the chosen ones with the right to dictate what goes on in the world, your attitude about wealth being only for the chosen and your medieval views about women. None of you are quite so pure either, in spite of your "prayer circles." Members of The Family are hypocrital to the nth degree.
You are clearly in the wrong in your arrogance to push your personal agenda to block a woman's right to decide what happens to her body and especially the rest of her life.
No one has an abortion on a flippant whim to get rid of a pregnancy. You are behaving like the Taliban, just as self-righeous and cruel. Next you will be advocating punishment like the Taliban mullahs who demand total dominion over the female sex.
I plan to work hard to find a real Democrat without a personal agenda to replace you in Congress. You will be defeated and your Amendment in the Health Care Bill WILL be defeated. Stick a fork in your congressional career as it will be done come next election.
Sincerely,
Bonnie Sonder

The great vampire squid has gotten religion

Virtuous Bankers? Really!?!
By Maureen Dowd
In an interview with The Sunday Times of London, the cocky chief of Goldman Sachs said he understands that a lot of people are “mad and bent out of shape” at blood-sucking banks.
I know I could slit my wrists and people would cheer,” Lloyd Blankfein, the C.E.O., told the reporter John Arlidge.
But the little people who are boiling simply don’t understand. And Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi, who unforgettably labeled Goldman “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money,” doesn’t understand.
Banks, Blankfein explained, are really serving the greater good.
“We help companies to grow by helping them to raise capital,” he said. “Companies that grow create wealth." continue reading article

My letter to Rep. Jim Gerlach today

I am writing you not knowing whether or not you joined your Republican colleagues yesterday at Rep. Michelle Bachman's Teaparty "Press Conference." I did not see your face in the group of people behind her. People whom I once at least considered respected even though I don't agree with their policies and positions.
That was the worst and most shameful display I have ever seen. It felt like I was watching a mad comedy or a demented horrow movie. Michelle Bachmann is INSANE. And those grinning ghoulish faces standing behind her in support of destroying a health care bill that could help millions of people were all chanting "Kill the Bill." What a sad and tawdry scene. They are the same folks that might as well be wearing white Klan hoods. I am ashamed to live in these times.
If healthcare for all is socialism, than so is Medicare, Medicaid, police departments, jails, fire departments and the government. And you members of Congress all get superb healthcare coverage for yourselves, but to hell with the common man.
I hope you were not a part of that crowd yesterday though as I am an avid C-Span watcher I have seen you vote lock stock with the Republicans every time. Don't even think of running for Governor of Pennsylvania if you are a Glenn Beck Teaparty supporter. There are many Democrats that mobilized for Obama across Pennsylvania and we will all mobilize against you.
We demand a Public Option. Healthcare should not be a business proposition to make the most profit, it should be a public service for humanity. Insurance companies deserve to be broken up like all monopolies and be prosecuted by the RICO Act. Just saying.
Sincerely,
Bonnie Sonder
www.hotproductions.net

Killers making living off of killing.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Natalie Portman on Eating Animals, book by Jonathan Safran Foer

I truly love Natalie Portman. She is exquisite and a great actress. Her SNL rap is my favorite response when ever some conservative gets vicious and sends me a nasty message to something I might have tweeted. I just tweet the link to them and say "these are my sentiments to you." I never hear back from them again. I linked the x-rated version, no wonder.
By Natalie Portman at Huffington Post

Jonathan Safran Foer's book Eating Animals changed me from a twenty-year vegetarian to a vegan activist. I've always been shy about being critical of others' choices because I hate when people do that to me. I'm often interrogated about being vegetarian (e.g., "What if you find out that carrots feel pain, too? Then what'll you eat?").
I've also been afraid to feel as if I know better than someone else -- a historically dangerous stance (I'm often reminded that "Hitler was a vegetarian, too, you know"). But this book reminded me that some things are just wrong. Perhaps others disagree with me that animals have personalities, but the highly documented torture of animals is unacceptable, and the human cost Foer describes in his book, of which I was previously unaware, is universally compelling.
The human cost of factory farming -- both the compromised welfare of slaughterhouse workers and, even more, the environmental effects of the mass production of animals -- is staggering. Foer details the copious amounts of pig shit sprayed into the air that result in great spikes in human respiratory ailments, the development of new bacterial strains due to overuse of antibiotics on farmed animals, and the origins of the swine flu epidemic, whose story has gripped the nation, in factory farms.
I read the chapter on animal shit aloud to two friends -- one is from Iowa and has asthma and the other is a North Carolinian who couldn't eat fish from her local river because animal waste had been dumped in it as described in the book. They had never truly thought about the connection between their environmental conditions and their food. The story of the mass farming of animals had more impact on them when they realized it had ruined their own backyards.
But what Foer most bravely details is how eating animal pollutes not only our backyards, but also our beliefs. He reminds us that our food is symbolic of what we believe in, and that eating is how we demonstrate to ourselves and to others our beliefs: Catholics take communion -- in which food and drink represent body and blood. Jews use salty water on Passover to remind them of the slaves' bitter tears. And on Thanksgiving, Americans use succotash and slaughter to tell our own creation myth -- how the Pilgrims learned from Native Americans to harvest this land and make it their own.
Read her entire article: here.

Wall Street's Naked Swindle

By Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi
A scheme to flood the market with counterfeit stocks helped kill Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers — and the feds have yet to bust the culprits
Short-Selling Vs. Naked Short-Selling: An Explanation

Symphony of Science "We are all connected." I find this comforting.

My daughter Melody's Birthday is today, Oct. 16th

The first picture is of Melody at 8 years old, the second picture is from an ad that appeared in Philadelphia Magazine where she was once made the cover. I only wish that the photo had been digitized . The third photo was taken for an ad campaign to promote my chocolate brownie business, Bonnie's Brownies. I scanned a transparancey shot so it is not clear and sharp. I am and have always been so proud of her. She made my life worth living. Such a wonderful daughter, so kind. generous and giving, volunteering her time when she isn't working to her son's school, their small church and too many other projects to name.
She, her son and husband are all ham radio operators plus amateur astronomers, They recently decided to become Bee Keepers and she treats the bees like pets. She worked for Intel Corp for fifteen years and was a highly valued employee who constantly met goals and surpassed them, winning prizes.
When growing up she grew to be 6'1" by 11 years old while I was a mere 5'10 3/4". She had to put up with a mother who worked as a secretary for a steady paycheck and was a model on the side commuting to NY for a few years.

Today is Climate Change Day & Stop Rainforest Deforestation

EPA Releases Bush Administration’s Endangerment Document
Greenhouse Gases Reached Dangerous Tipping Point a Full Ten Years Ahead of Expectations.
Texas heavy industries worry about EPA crackdown
The Rainforest Alliance works to conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainable livelihoods by transforming land-use practices, business practices and consumer behavior.
Rahall, Capito question EPA Administrator on mountaintop removal
Secret to Slowing Global Warming Lies Beneath the Waves

Thirty Republicans

Tney voted against punishing Haliburton employees who raped a fellow female employee. They wanted to deny her justice. Suppose it had been their daughter or close relative?