Happy Birthday, Mother!!

Birthday greetings to Margery Anne Spindler McIntosh, who will be pretending to be 82 on October 26, 2006. With black hair and rosy skin, a sharp mind, and community involvement of all kinds, who will believe 82?

Congratulations as well on getting your photo in the Middletown Journal. Way to go.

I have a great idea for you for a blog, you could call it:

The Wellesley Spin.

What do you think?

We love you, Mother. Hope it's a good one.

Egregious JOY--a rare event

We pause to acknowledge a moment of sheer, unadulterated egregious joy. My college kid is unexpectedly home for the weekend, is happy, interested and engaged in life. I thot I might not see said child until Thanksgiving. So it is Thanks-giving here in chez egregious! Joy to the world! Or at least joy for egr. Thanks to all for love and hugs in dark hours. The flip side of that is usu heightened fear but is occasionally soaring happiness, usually I experience mania as anxiety but every once in a while it actually produces euphoria. How to bottle this…preserve it…journal and remember it…And several things happened today that I simply must ascribe to the power of prayer. “Coincidences”/ providential occurrences. Thank you to all who have sent prayers and positive spiritual energy my way. You are saving lives in Russia, go ahead and take credit! It takes a net-village to raise up a spiritually crushed nation=Russia. Lessons learned for us to raise up THIS nation. Yay! Happy! Thanks! Joy! Did I say yay!

And just to put Hugh with a serious issue at comment 58 [at firedoglake] and me with joy at 59 into perspective, it is the great overflowing love and happiness that is the source and wellspring of my egregious energy. Am learning [ow! painfully] to spend the necessary time to rest and re-create. THEN I can go back out there with my sword. Look out world.

I need encouragement like oxygen. If you have ever seen the move Fifth Element well that’s me. I have speed-read thru human history and am crying for our inhumanity towards each other. And most important I can only save the world when I know that I am loved.

MINISTRY OF ENCOURAGEMENT—-it is SO important to people out there. I think for every person on the front lines it takes AT LEAST 100 people in support. At a minimum.

I am trying to support people like Kissell, Laesch, Benson, and our own Nate.

Lead. Follow. SUPPORT. Teach. Learn. Everybody can do something.

Chiming in: YES THANK YOU GOD for medicine

Responding to teacherken/kos.

For me depression is like drowning.

[I'm bipolar...will talk about mania another time, except to say that alcohol isn't for the depression, it's for the mania.]

When I was drowning in depression, medicine brought me back up to the surface. I still had to swim to the shore.

These things helped me swim to shore: therapy of different kinds, stupendous self-will, the love of family and friends and pets, and becoming more open within the community. I have given speeches to thousands of people about being mentally ill, bipolar with ADHD.

Now I have climbed out of the water, but I'm still standing very close to the edge, and am shivering and cold and wet. It is better, but still uncomfortable and occasionally dangerous.

Please DO reach out to help other people you see drowning, it really matters and helps.

Cross-posted at firedoglake, where I am known as the ranter on all things mental health, including my own, not making fun of people who are sick, and changing our society so that all of us can live a better life.

Mentally ill people as political props. NO.

NO, no, no, no, no. Not again.

Badwater @ 11

Off topic, but a South Carolina mom has been charged with killing her twin boys. When a similar thing happened in 1994, Gingrich used it to get votes, saying it "vividly reminds every American how sick the society is getting and how much we have to change."

It would be great if there were a newsworthy Democrat who would use this tragedy and remind voters which party controls today's sick society.

I must strongly disagree. How about if nobody "USES" this tragedy, we try to get some mental health treatment for a clearly sick person, and show some love and sympathy? You know, like human beings instead of all things political?

Btw way if you have never had twins, you cannot speak about the unbelievable stress. She is already going to spend the rest of her tortured life trying to wrap her mind around the fact that she killed her children. And you're going to make her a public example for political gain? Have a heart.

/end yet another rant on mental illness, and heartless lack of treatment in a "civilized" society.

Be Scottish. FIGHT BACK.

Sharkbabe to zennurse at firedoglake--"I think all kinds of honorable military people are going to be right beside us in the US gulags."

A toast to cbl, who first said she would sit w me on the porch waiting for the soylent green trucks.

The day I decided I will no longer be intimidated by the powers that be, and that I will speak the truth regardless of the consequences to myself, I became a free person. Try it, you'll like it.

THEY CAN'T KILL US ALL, if we stick together.

Yes I have people I love. Yes they can be held against me. I like to think they would support my speaking the TRUTH as God wants us to do. We will receive our reward in heaven. Stand up, stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross. Now's good! TAKE ACTION!

The fundies don't have a monopoly on bringing down the power of God! And for the record if I mysteriously die prematurely it is not of my own hand. I swear on the graves of my Scottish ancestors. If I am gone prematurely it is from the evil hands of those who would harm our nation.

PRAISE THE LORD AND PASS THE AMMUNITION!

I am happy. Truth will prevail.

From the intuitive side,

I have had a burst of happiness* about what is developing. People who treasure what is good are becoming stronger as they realize the struggle is against ACTUAL EVIL, like in the Bible. Things look grim politically, but it calls out many more people who are beginning to see the depths of where our country is now.

People serving under persecution dig deep into their souls, as trees in drought send their roots ever deeper in search of water, and determine to stand against what is wrong. Our work is to illuminate what is happening so many more people will become engaged in the struggle to save our Constitutional republic.

Encourage each other, keep moving, step by step and small stone by small stone WE WILL WIN.

*burst of happiness is extremely improbable for someone with major depression. I think it is God-given. TRUTH WILL PREVAIL.

Everyone can do something:

LEAD. FOLLOW. SUPPORT. TEACH. LEARN.

Our children die for...PNAC? Oil?

Pachacutec at firedoglake-–”Not only has every rationale for the invasion and occupation of Iraq been discredited (I’m with Atrios: I still want to know why we really went)”

Well duh OIL of course. Interesting to see the debate where Webb said we should NOT HAVE PERMANENT BASES in Iraq and forced Allen reluctantly to agree.

Iraq IS a terrorist threat. To "The Realm." Alliance between elements of their government and rogue/dual citizenship/loyalty elements of our own government. What’s good for A must be good for B. And that’s how we find ourselves on the food end of the Matrix.

PNAC goal: to get the US government to send its military to wipe out terrorist threats to their country. Sounds good until you talk to the families of the 3,000-8,000 killed [OH COME ON, you think they’re counting everyone killed? If in the helicopter or at the hospital they ARE NOT COUNTED.] and 20,000-40,000 grievously wounded.

I talked with a father of a Marine in Ramadi. The casualty rate, dead and seriously wounded, is 54%. That’s FIFTY-FOUR PERCENT. And the morale of the rest of them = ?

This makes the news here…not so much. OUR SHAME. THEIR DEATHS and their loss of eyesight, ability to think clearly ever again, arms, legs. And FOR WHAT REASON? FOR WHAT GLORIOUS NATIONAL GOAL? For the glory of the Bush administration?

Even Bush acknowledged there is no connection between 9/11 and Iraq. So WHAT THE HELL are we doing there?

God help us. God forgive us.

Webb for Senate: please donate

Please donate generously to help Jim Webb kick George Allen out of the Senate.

It's easy, go to the Links here and click Campaign ActBlue Egregious.

Or Webb's campaign site.

Take back the Senate!

Don't give up. FIGHT for the children.

A commenter at firedoglake has a dark view.

I disagree: No, No, and No.

egregious @ 83

Guitar Playing Bastard @ 54

*****NONE***** of the opposition are decent people. Not one fucking soul. They are ALL EVIL. Y'all better get that through your thick skulls.

Sigh...we're going to lose again. Shit.

Suicide is looking like a better option.

No, No, and No.

No #1. There ARE decent people in the opposition, and we are winning them over to our side more and more.

No #2. We are NOT going to lose again. There is unprecedented energy in House and Senate races. Keep up the momentum, not a done deal yet.

No #3. You owe it to your children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, and neighbor children, to fight as hard as you can. YOU understand what is happening; they do not. They will be the bewildered survivors of the ruins of this nation. Re staying alive, duty is an over-riding goal. We live not for ourselves alone. Despite your pain, which I honor, you OWE it to them to keep fighting until you drop. Good God, man, hae ye no Scottish, Irish, or Welsh blood in ye?

FIGHT!!! SAVE THE CHILDREN!!!

Welcome to Germany. Or the Soviet Union, your choice.

I once asked a Russian colleague to try to explain, just how they could kill 20,000,000 of their own people, most of whom were obviously innocent.

Answer: to show they can, and for slave labor.

Method: monthly quotas—-find some people and bring them in. People settling grudges turning in their neighbors or family members? Political opponents, journalists, people of the wrong religion or sexual orientation? Bring 'em in, the Communist German U.S. government needs to make this month’s quota.

If you think it can’t happen here, think again. They have lied us into war and stolen elections, tortured innocent people and called it holy. Why would they stop there?

PLEASE VOTE. Oppose torture. No war in Iran.

Well that about covers it, yes?

Egregious' recommended candidates:

In Virginia: James Webb for Senate

In Connecticut: Ned Lamont for Senate

In Montana: Jon Tester for Senate

In North Carolina: Larry Kissell for Congress

In Minnesota: Dan Walz for Congress

In Illinois: John Laesch for Congress.

In Alaska: Diane Benson for Congress.

Please vote, folks, this is the big one.

Politically active. And in pain.

dialogue at firedoglake:

egregious: And this doesn’t even count the billions announced by the Pentagon as simply “lost” on September 10, 2001. snl = sorry no linky

ed*ard teller: this will get you started:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dov_S._Zakheim

egregious: And here’s the paradox. Based on new self knowledge, supported by folk here at fdl, unnamed but you know who you are, I am passing along the responsibility of this to either other people, or me tomorrow. Soul-killing stress comes from seeing horror and feeling that I, alone, RIGHT NOW, and only now, can take action to make things better. Maybe that’s right sometimes. But for me it is destructive. Have to allocate my energy “care”-fully. Thanks to fdl people who are on team egregious. I need you. The lives of children in Uzbekistan depend on your support. See what I’m talking about? Undeniable pressure.

I am seeing a HUGE overlap here between our fdl military threads and our fdl labor threads. Contractor/private army versus regular military. Who works for us, the American people? Who works for those who use OUR TAX DOLLARS to hire mercenaries?

The Billions acknowledged lost on 9/10/01 and the Billions lost in Iraq go a long way to providing a permanent mercenary army for those who would do us harm. Or at minimum, those who do not care whether their actions do us harm. Ahem $$$$.
Hotflash, thank you. This is my life, so far I have been able to keep things going. I do worry. So I am doing all required stuff to keep me going: meds, shrink, reaching out to family and friends, speaking the truth even when it is painful.

When I’m on I’m superwoman. But it comes at a cost. Bipolar is very high energy for a while but then it crashes. At the high energy level I can do amazing things, ask the people at children’s hospital in st. petersburg russia. But when it crashes OMG. I have spent a lot of energy shielding my children from the crashes so it wouldn’t ruin their lives. Pretty much worked but they are so sensitive they see thru the curtain sometimes.

What can you do, pick up the reins if you see them, take action. If you mean for me in particular, …long pause… if providing feedback here please be gentle not harsh and dismissive, that’s one. On a higher level talk about …teary pause… that other people are also involved in saving the family/world, that not everything is the responsibility of one person.

My father was only not an alcoholic due to his determination not to go that route. Otherwise, all the sudden rage/bipolar stuff is there in spades. I will probably spend tens of thousands of dollars in therapy to understand that it is not my responsibility to keep our family of 9 intact but it may take the rest of my hopefully long life.

I am wired to try to help save babies/children/people/nations. Ref: Russia. If I pull back now, when our country is in trouble, is that a good thing? Would help to hear that there are sufficient people in the fray, that I can rest a spell.

Thank you and sorry for the immense OT rant.

What if people whose only goal was power have already used our tax dollars and our military to set up their own kingdom? Neocons/Bush Crime Family/Moonies, take your pick. Should we continue to support this with the lives of our soldiers? Tinfoil or titanium, your choice. Sometimes it seems the only possible explanation sounds like 1984 type fiction. But what if that is what’s really happening?

Not asking you to believe, just asking you to think about what it would look like, if this was true.