Crazy Backwards Shoes

Wacky.

My ears were pierced when I was two months old. I had diamond earrings.

Sadly, the diamond earrings were stolen when I was in kindergarten and our house got robbed. I wonder, though, if they gave me unreasonable expectations from life.

What brings me to my knees it the mention of the US internment camps. I still can't accept that. So fucking wrong. And yet.... Guantanamo, and I'm not at the gates.

This. So much this.

Early on, I tried to look for Japanese American activist groups that were applying their experience to opposing Guantanamo, and I couldn't find any. Possibly I was looking in the wrong internets, but then I just dropped it, instead of pursuing it and creating my own such group.

Which reminds me of a big giant thing I was going to post in my lj. Habeas corpus. I want it back.

Last week the Senate failed to pass (by 4 votes) a cloture motion to allow discussion of restoring habeas corpus for those detained by the US. It needed 60 votes to succeed, and received 56, which means there is some turning of the tide (last session a similar motion failed to get 50 such votes) and that there was some republican and independent crossing of the lines. You can check here to see how your Senator voted: [link]

It looks like the House is currently considering similar legislation (I think it's HR 2826 or possibly HR 1416.) this week. Please write a letter to your Congressional representative letting him or her know how you feel about this issue.

Habeas corpus means "You must have the body." It is an essential protection allowing us to challenge our unlawful detention. The US constitution prohibits its suspension except when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.

Although Gonzales may say that the constitution does not explicitly grant habeas corpus, only prohibits its suspension, I beg to differ.

Habeas corpus is an important part of our constitutional protections for both citizens and foreigners to prevent us from being unlawfully detained. I hope you join me in this effort.

Liese, thanks for the info.

WWII discussion is interesting. As is the family discussion. My own family geneology is so messed up, largely because no one ever mentioned the scandalous things. Like, I didn't find out until I was grown that my aunt had had a whole 'nother family besides the one I knew. She'd married and had a couple kids, and then just left them one day, married another guy and had a couple more kids. No one ever talked about the first family. Just like no one ever talked about my mom's first marriage, even though my sister was RIGHT THERE. Weird.

The current talk about returning to the good old days of marital fidelity, abstinence before marriage, and nuclear families is ridiculous. Those days never existed, and the people pushing the hardest for them are the ones who should know they never existed.

Here's a song US Navy Helldiver pilots sang

My bff's father flew a Curtiss Helldiver. This is a man who was a third-generation banker and was what you'd get if you ordered "uptight banker" from central casting, so it was hard to see him as a dive bomber. When I was helping my friend clear out her parents' house, we not only found his leather jacket and helmet, but also a survival kit he'd been issued. It had fishing hooks, signaling mirrors and the like, plus a many-times-folded onionskin page of survival information. My favorite line: "Do not approach the natives of Papua-New Guinea."

My favorite line: "Do not approach the natives of Papua-New Guinea."

Heh. ex-GF studied anthropology and loved the New Guinea cannibals. Her prof was one of those anthro guys that goes native. I don't know is that really a type? Anyway, he was that type.

My Dad got heavily into geneology after he retired and tracked our family name back to 1400-something. The hardest part was figuring out which ship Johan Schmeh took to the New World (in the 1750s). Once he figured out we were from Rottweill he went there and looked up locals with our name and invited them out to drinks.

Being good, obedient Germans, they showed up.

A picture from April of Matilda totally cracking up.

Why should have the United States entered WWII (or WWI for that matter) earlier than they did?

Helldiver is a great name.

IOmeN: (omen? scary) I am telecommuting! Finally, my department has joined the modern world and I can do my job from home! Yay! Now I can work anytime! Nights, weekends, it's great! And, um, wait. I sense danger.

and, there's a weird smell in my living room that wasn't here a few minutes ago. It smells like something rotting. I'm pretty sure I would have noticed that. Hopefully it's drifting down from upstairs through the vents and will be gone soon, and I won't have to do anything about it.

"Do not approach the natives of Papua-New Guinea."

The later edition added "Unless you approach palms up with cold hard cash. Regardless... do not poke, tickle, or zerbert the natives of Papua-New Guinea"