Dear President Obama,

What is going on? I don't even know where to begin. Why are you so blatantly turning your back on the people that got you elected? You promised change. You instilled hope in everyone, after the 8 years of hell we went through, and it's just turning out to be more of the same. Politicians for years have said the same things that you had said during you're campaing, but we thought there was something diffrent with you. We belived you. You brought people out in droves that had never voted before in their lives, all because they had some hope that you would be diffrent. They saw something in you. If you continue on the path that you have been taking the past year then you will be letting alot of people down. They will never vote again.

It is beyond sad to me that you cannot get REAL health reform to pass, with a majority in the house and senate and the White house. Please explain how this is possible. The senate bill that is to be voted on christmas eve is NOT health reform. And to claim victory in it's passing is unconcionable. Did you actually think that republicans would work with you? You've let them and the insurance companies step all over the bill and beat any form of a public option out of it and you want to claim this as a historic vote? Single-payer? gone. Public option? gone. Medicare buy-in? Out of here. What are we left with Mr. President? What are the people of this country left with? The people who came out and voted for you, the poor, the young, the minorities. A mandate?! A mandate to give these corporations even more money?! Thats health reform?!

"With liberty and justice for all..." Really? Those words ring hollow to me now. I cannot have any pride in those words that Ive repeated so many times in school as a kid, when we deny a segment of our society the right to marry or serve in the military. We as a nation OPENLY discriminate against people for their sexual orientation. Sounds really bad and hypocrytical when you say it to yourself. You've done nothing as of yet to address this.

You've adopted the bush doctorine and escalated the war in Afghanistan. In you're speech on Afghanistan you said that you "saw first hand the terrible wages of war". Im sorry Mr. President but you have not. You've seen bodies coming back in caskets but you have not experienced war. YOu haven't seen the millions of innocent people we have killed in our "crusade" against terrorism. Solving violent actions with more violent actions is not the way to go. America is a bully Mr. President. If we follow the bush doctorine with any sense of fairness then we should be invading ourselves for all of our secret sponsorships of terrorism that we have engaged in when it suits our interest. But I won't go into that. That'll be another post. All I will say is to just look at our Foreign policy history with Latin America....


You're going to let the people who took this country into the ditch take it further into the ditch because you and the democrats don't have a back bone. Bush and the neo-cons got 2 wars through with far less then you and with no problem at all. Ill just say it again President Obama...Whats the deal?

Great speech on Marriage Equality

As some of you may know the New York State Senate recently voted down a bill to ensure marriage equality for same-sex couples. The vote came to 38-24 with no republicans voting for it (what a suprise). The people at the Human Right Campaign recenlty sent this great speech by Senator Diane Savino in an email and I wanted to share it with everyone too. Enjoy

Zen Koan: Temper

A Zen student came to Bankei and complained: "Master, I have an ungovernable temper. How can I cure it?"

"You have something very stranger," replied Bankei. "Let me see what you have."

"Just now I cannot show it to you," replied the other.

"When can you show it to me?" asked Bankei.

"It arises unexpectedly," replied the student.

"Then," concluded Bankei, "it must not be your own true nature. If it were, you could show it to me at any time. When you were born you did not have it, and your parents did not give it to you. Think that over."

Speak Easy

If there's a scream inside of you
Just let it go
You're beating yourself up baby
Don't you know
You've got to get through
And lift the roof off your soul

It's like the pain locked
In the part of your heart
It's never gonna leave it
Unless you start
To warm it up
Be wise and be smart

Out on the ocean
There's no one around
No one to hear a sound
It's just us out here
Out on the ocean
Speaking free

Away from the city
Away from the ears that
Bug us and judge us
It's so liberating
To be free
And my heart slows down

Nice and easy
And your breathing will be pleasing
Just speak easy
And say what's on your mind
I search for something
to compare you to
Thought long and hard
For a simile true
Now I'm suddenly aware
End the quest you're beyond compare
So speak easy

If there's a shadow in your life
Then there's sunshine
Things turning inside out
All the time
Just rewind
It's all in your mind

Oh so speak easy
Out here we're floating
Late in the night
And the only light to guide us is a
Full moon that's glowing
On the sea

Nice and easy
And your breathing will be pleasing
Just speak easy
And say whats on your mind
I search for something
To compare you to
Thought long and hard
For a simile true
Now Im suddenly aware
End the quest you're beyond compare
So speak easy

- 311

Tao Te Ching: Verse 7

The Tao is inifinte, eternal.
Why is it eternal?
IT was never born;
thus it can never die.
Why is it infinite?
It has no desires for itself;
thus it is present for all beings.

The Master stays behind;
that is why she is ahead.
She is detached from all things;
that is why she is one with them.
Because she has let go of herself,
she is perfectly fulfilled.

Tao Te Ching: Verse 6

The Tao is called the Great Mother:
empty yet inexaustible,
it gives birth to infinite worlds.

It is always present within you.
You can use it any way you want.

Please Call Me By My True Names - Thich Naht Hanh

I have a poem for you. This poem is about three of us. The first is a twelve year old girl, one of the boat people crossing the Gulf of Siam. She was raped by a sea pirate, and after that threw herself into the sea. The second is the sea pirate who was born in a remote village in Thailand. And the third person is me. I was very angry, of course. But I could not take sides against the sea pirate. If I could have, it would have been easier, but I couldn't. I realize that if I had been born in his village and had lived a similar life - economic,educational and so on - it is likely that I would now be the sea pirate. So it is not easy to take sides. Out of suffering, I wrote this poem. It is called "Please Call Me By My True Names," because I have many names, and when you call me by any of them, I have to say "Yes."

Don't say that I will depart tomorrow --
Even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: Every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a spring branch
to be a tiny bird, with still fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, inorder to laugh and cry,
to fear and to hope.

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of a river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am a frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve year old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his "debt of blood" to my people
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter all at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart,
can be left open,
the door of compassion.

- Thich Naht Hanh