My New Years wish!

Watching a riveting Documentary about America’s online sex slavery trade, a trade that exploits minors for profit where the police are barely able to keep up and locate and rescue abused children made my stomach ache. I am certain if we had compassionate laws that deeply examined prostitution and drugs we could come up with laws that were compassionate. As it stands the under ground nature of drugs and prostitution and the stigma associated with it keep children and women in slavery. It keeps it underground in secret societies and online out of reach for monitoring keeping it unsafe and dirty. Legalizing the sex trade and drugs gives us much needed over sight and creates self monitoring within the community where women and men don’t need “Pimps” to function and where the government agencies can exert more control over STD’s disease and improve efforts to keep minors out of the trade. This alone would remove the stigma. Okay it wouldn’t solve all of the ills of this life but it would help in giving power and more safety to it’s workers. The men and women who can get off the street and into safer warmer shelter where they can nurse their addictions and maybe examine and change their choices. With drugs and prostitution illegal it helps the pimps and abusers keep their workers in the shadows on the street and in shabby motels across America. Most of the laws dis-empower the weak creating slavery…when will it stop? Justice isn’t served and the pimps are not brought to justice and the registering violent individuals isn’t possible and the vicious death spiral is maintained. As a so called civilized society we are barbaric in the treatment of the weakest of us, Women and Children we throw the poorest to the dogs. We are dismal in our record and it is present today in 2013. My New Years wish is a serious examination of compassionate law making. Laws that impact and make safer the weakest of us. Laws that can empower entire groups of people who historically are unseen and unsafe. We desperately need to examine legalizing drugs and prostitution and I pray it will happen in my life time, now. May we all continue to want the very best for everyone and may we continue to want to help each other in every way we can. It is not every man for himself it is holding up our human community, as a whole, as a whole we get stronger and everything is better when everyone can prosper. Blessings!

Religion

Last night I was immersed in love and fellowship and faith which wasn’t necessarily in the service I attended it was very present in my heart and I appreciated everything in the room. The experience made me realize that every shred of faith cloaked in a fairly dramatic story if one happens to be Evangelical or Pentecostal say versus New age which I learned is very different from each other is valuable and key to navigating life successfully. Okay so I like my spirituality more toward the new age side but I certainly enjoyed the zeal in the room last night even if I differ on most of the stories as to truth and I differ in the beliefs that there is only one book or way to God. We sang songs and prayed and listened to a rather common man pastor speak his truth. So much hope and love and care so much and I am certain any critique I have and there is a lot I hold is easy pickings so I will hold back. I am a great fan of Christopher Hitchen’s book “God is not Great” and I must say find his thesis important as we traverse spirituality. There is something magnificent that is the glue and web that holds us together and watches over us and it is intelligence personified so there is faith and spirituality deep in my core and heart and the only difference is rules and source. I adore the story of Christ and I believe Jesus exists now in our hearts and I do believe lived add the idea that Jesus died for our sins is fascinating. I think I die metaphorically for everyones sins everyday. Every person who suffers on planet Earth I suffer along with. I could sit and shed tears all day long if I wanted. I try not to but lately it has been really hard not to be emotionally devastated both for our domestic tragedies and for my own small “I” issues many loved friends and family have suffered this year. It is life I suppose, the condition that we endure all manner of experience and it hurts and uplifts simultaneously. Still I am humbled by all the biblical politics, the rules I bump up against plus I am truly tickled that New age is so scorned and or feared by the evangelicals… it’s humorous. Wouldn’t it be kind of lovely if we could allow and respect every religion and person who practices their beliefs equally? I know dream on…still that is what I want for Christmas; Tolerance with a capital T. Happy Holidays to all!

Dope

Yes, we need to make ALL illegal drugs legal…we need to tax and create environments where both drugs and prostitution are practiced in safe and well monitored establishments so that people who work in this business are safe and so are the patrons. Wow the idea that a society can finally come to terms with its community and allow us to individually decide what we do to our bodies in private. This is an important step to our evolution as a whole. The drug war is an enormous failure and will continue to fail as long as we believe the rhetoric that it is winnable. Nothing is further from the truth, all wars are intrinsically flawed. The reality is that those of us who can don’t feel motivated to be excessive about drugs and those of us who cannot control ourselves can get proper help or die. The truth is the law doesn’t deter us from doing things that are bad what deters us is free will and help. We can afford one pay health care if we have new larger tax revenue which we would have if all illegal drugs were legal and regulated. Ahhhh heaven okay maybe not heaven but it is mature more mature then being treated like children. Apparently it is a scientific statistic (IE;The Netherlands)that if drugs are made available it does not make the use go up or higher(no pun intended) in fact it appears that legalized drugs create a drop in use. So some of us conspiracy people think that, that is the truest reason drugs have stayed illegal for this long. It keeps demand sexy and popular. Let’s legalize all of it. I am willing as a citizen to try this experiment out. So let’s hope we get a very open discussion regarding drugs in general now that some of these states have won legalization. Let us not go backward. Then we can begin(again)funding mental hospitals with the state of the art facilities that will help keep clear our streets of homeless souls who are in need of monitored care. When the Reagan administration gutted mental health out of the federal budget it flushed many souls out into the streets. We need to gather them back inside to safety. A society that ignores or doesn’t help it’s citizens is indeed a poor society. So much good would come of this move and I hope between Obama and the President of Mexico we can accomplish this. It is worth it.

Checking in...

Okay it has been a glorious post election holiday season and it definitely feels better to be victors, thank you. We have a lot of work to do and it all feels bubbly and exciting. Yes for me personally I have a couple of challenging projects one I am certain will be a challenge the other less so but still I am grateful to be working. Also with “The Celebrant “ we are doing crowd funding for the first time and whenever I try something new it is both exciting and scary and humbling. One is never allowed to get fat or grow old if one was ever a siren…so it feels as if I have to constantly work out which I happen to love to do as well as watch what I eat which I happen to have to since I am pre-diabetic and suffer from Hashimoto’s disease and arthritis… Ahhh good times. It could be worse and yes I am grateful I get to play competitive tennis and run my dog in the woods. Life is good if not a wee bit stressful at times. Finally go to www.radonsport.com and have a look at the race car my husband designed. He is under a lot of stress since the SCCA decided to make The Radon illegal. Why pick on us? What a bunch of bull…maybe it isn’t meant to be but they couldn’t be more wrong and the car isn’t unsafe and in fact the new rule changes are strange and personal and seriously let’s hope these guys get smarter and change their minds.Change or innovation is a good thing and it is American and it is all about fair trade. I feel confident we will survive this drama and everything will work out in our favor. Here is hoping the holidays are filled with love and laughter and may all of us get our wildest dreams and wishes. Peace!

We worked hard to get Obama re-elected and it worked. Living in a swing state sort of upped the ante to getting involved in the campaign. One cannot sit by and expect results when the very state one lives in is small and potent to the process. A funny thing happened on the way to this election a sleeping community organizer was born. Unlike any other person I know in Hollywood where it is expected if one is "Liberal"to get involved. Where I live it isn't even a 'thing" a lot of my so called concerned friends barely showed up. Being engaged takes energy and a lot of us work and being a self employed person I had the time. We were "graced" with a thank you call from POTUS which was very thrilling even if I shared him with 30,000 others. You read right 30 thousand people were on the call.He explained so much, the metrics of their thinking in this campaign. It is sort of Ninja the way they went after otherwise non interested people, who we got to vote. Okay,so it made me think there is so much more to life than living and working and paying taxes. Yup I have had a taste of a bigger whole. What to do...I was reading about Matt Lauer being in trouble with his show. I would love to do a morning show and get up and chat about the days and weeks and months news. Meet interesting people or not so and talk about stuff...Yet I have no idea what it entails and it seems more cut throat than say Hollywood and Hollywood is tough. Not sure what I will end up doing and believe me I ask everyday. I will say being involved in this campaign made me think it is fulfilling to do something for a bigger whole not just for the small "I". Okay?

Zoe, Mitt and Bush

I signed two petitions both against the casting of my friend Zoe Saldana as Nina Simone. I love, love, love Zoe Saldana but I do not think she is a good choice for Nina Simone and Hollywood this is political. Not that Diana Ross made a good Billy Holiday but she was so wonderful we let that slide. Maybe the same will be true here but unlike Billy Holiday who on a good day was gorgeous Nina Simone was never gorgeous well maybe when she was singing then she was transcendent. So to love her music Nina was to love her and to love her was to know we entered her kingdom of pain. I for one shiver when I would sit and listen deeply to her singing knowing that she had that face, that face and its intrinsic hardships. Life is harsher if one is not beautiful, showbiz is especially cruel. the other issue is casting there are so few parts for us. There are zero roles for those of us whose visage is challenged so why take the ONE opportunity away from some magnificent sister? Would the movie "Precious" been as good if someone as perfect as Zoe were cast? Would we believe it?No we would have been kept out of the realistic story by her beauty it would have hurt the depth the poetry of pain. Recently I went to the movies and yet again a perfect looking actress was cast as the female lead. Honestly it was the only thing I felt was out of balance for the film. It made it feel "Hollywood" and that can be bad. the other actors were perfect in their misshaped faces and bodies, brothers each who had something weird in their stance and expression it helped to elevate the movie experience and made me feel as if we were there. yet the female lead was flawless and it was the only thing that I didn't buy and it hurt me thinking the film was a 10 instead I give it a 7.5 out of 10 stars. Listen this particular actor she is very good and works nonstop so my little opinion does nothing except make me feel good about being maybe critical about beauty casting. Would someone with Ellen Barkins face make it today in film? I wonder? Noomi Rapace would have been better in the role than the girl they cast. Still she is pretty...I want Nina to be presented with all of her feathers and wound. Otherwise I will not bother going to see it. Speaking of ugly the telling nastiness of Mitt is very entertaining and it reveals what we all suspected about him he is a plutocrat so it behooves us Dems to remind the public of every failed policy and mess up the last administration authored and how we were on the brink of total devastation with Bush and the overall amnesia that the right seems to have should not be allowed.I want the Obama campaign to drill the airwaves with memories and stats and figures and details of where we were back then and how far we have come. listening to the aw-shucks cruelty of Mitt and his cronies or "cohorts" as he calls them. Their complete inability to have empathy or be honest to the 47% is a very bad sign for him and the country. Bush and company are criminals and the way Mitt speaks and behaves reminds me of that motley crew of thieves and murders. As I watch this news cycle for fun I invert/turn around everything Mitt says and I repeat it about him and I find it is just as true or truer.

Listening to the news coupled with the scary missteps and messaging from Mitt Romney and his campaign staff makes me want to scream and hug the White House all at once. Not good to go against America in such a sensitive explosive time. We do need to respond to the people who inflame racial division and who stir up religious furor globally. I am so sad because ignorance may be our internal undoing as a nation we do have a mighty large community who are just that IGNORANT! Yikes, what is a president and his administration to do? What a crazy time we live in. I am appalled yet not surprised. How clunky is Mitt? I keep hoping he calms down and takes a breath and does something cooler but no off he goes with his tin ear making us look goofy he so reminds me of W. That alone should sway the vote...shades of W.