Nancy Pelosi rocks the presser!

Please check out this clip on Crooks and Liars of Speaker Pelosi advising W to "calm down with the threats." There's a new Congress in town alright. Finally!

Veterans for Peace Caravan to the Gulf Coast

VETERANS FOR PEACE
www.veteransforpeace.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 14, 2007

CONTACTS: Cherie Eichholz - Co-organizer, 314-397-5356
Sandy Kelson - Co-organizer, 814-382-4887
Cathy Browning - Local Organizer, 912-995-6523

Veterans For Peace Caravan to the Gulf Coast
** Georgia and Florida **

HINESVILLE, Georgia:
March 21, 2007

Ft. Stewart Army Base
229 Gen. Screven Way (outside Main Gate)
Noon - 3 p.m. Vigil and Outreach

Kevin Benderman, a former soldier with the 3rd Infantry Division, and his wife, Monica will join the vigil. Benderman is back in Hinesville after spending 13 months in prison at Fort Lewis, Wash. for refusing to deploy to Iraq with his unit in 2005.
See: www.BendermanDefense.org, www.BendermanTimeline.com,
"Soldier Who Refused Combat Fighting Discharge," by Sean Harder, Savannah Morning News, October 3, 2006.

SAVANNAH, Georgia:
March 21, 2007

Showing of "The Ground Truth"
The Senient Bean
13 E. Park Street (Forysth Square)
912-232-4447
7 p.m. Discussion following film.

Co-sponsored by Fear No Arts and Savannah Code Pink.

JACKSONVILLE, Florida:
March 22, 2007

Mayport Naval Base
Mayport Road
West side of sidewalk at Main Gate
Noon - 3 p.m. Vigil and Outreach

All veterans are welcomed to participate. The general public is welcomed and encouraged to attend.

On March 17th, veterans, military families, Active Duty members of the Armed Forces and peace activists will join representatives from Veterans For Peace (VFP), Gold Star Families for Peace, Military Families Speak Out, Iraq Veterans Against the War, signers of the Appeal For Redress, and possibly several war resisters as they converge on Fayetteville, North Carolina to commemorate the beginning of the 5th year of the occupation of and war on Iraq.

On Tuesday, March 20, 2007, Veterans For Peace will launch a veterans' convoy, bound for the Gulf Coast, to raise awareness of the government's persistent commitment to an illegal, immoral war fought at the expense of Gulf Coast survivors, other critical needs across the nation and a ballooning out of control financial deficit.

VFP says the convoy will move out from Fayetteville, stopping at towns near military bases to dispense information to active duty soldiers about the Iraq War and their rights to appeal to their congressperson to end the war (Appeal for Redress www.appealforredress.org). Organizers and local volunteers are planning programs in each town where local military will be invited to join in actions and discussions regarding the power of their voices and the support of the majority of Americans to end the war.

Organizer Cherie Echholz states, “President Bush did not mention Katrina in his State of the Union Address. We have not forgotten. We will remind our nation of the staggering costs of the war both financially and in human casualties. VFP will stand with the people of the Gulf where the huge task of recovery and rebuilding remains far from being finished.”

VFP will lead a week-long convoy from Fayetteville, North Carolina, home of the Army's Fort Bragg, stopping in the military towns of Columbia, SC - Fort Jackson, Hinesville/Savannah, GA - Fort Stewart, Jacksonville, FL - Mayport, Columbus, GA - Fort Benning, and Montgomery, AL - Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base to Pascagoula, Mississippi (see attachment) to bring a message of Support Our Troops, De-fund the War, Bring Them Home Now and Take Care of Them When They Get Here.

Members of the Caravan will then engage in a week of home construction in solidarity with survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

"De-fund the War --- Rebuild the Gulf Coast"

BRINGING SHELTER FROM THE STORM........

http://www.veteransforpeace.org/Rebuilding_the_gulf_coast.vp.html


Veterans For Peace (VFP) is a national organization founded in 1985. It is structured around a national office in Saint Louis, MO and comprised of members across the country organized in chapters or as at-large members. The organization includes men and women veterans from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, other conflicts and peacetime veterans. Our collective experience tells us wars are easy to start and hard to stop and that those hurt are often the innocent. Thus, other means of problem solving are necessary.

# # #

Casualty of War: Mental Health -- TIME

Please read the Time article here. As devastating as physical injuries can be, we must not neglect the mental health of our soldiers, marines, and veterans.

Update for March 18 Military Veterans Speak Out

March 18 Event Details

Here's an external link for the March 18 GlynnPeace Event Details. Hope to see you there!

GlynnPeace Meeting

Just got back from the GlynnPeace meeting at The Annex of St. Mark's in downtown Brunswick. Good meeting. Plans were finalized for The Iraq War Anniversary event. As previously announced, GlynnPeace is hosting an educational event called Military Veterans Speak Out For Peace. It will be held on Sunday, March 18th from 4:00 to 5:30 at the Casino building on St. Simons Island in the Multi-Purpose room. Refreshments will be provided. Come see me at the literature table. Tony Baker will be providing the music. The main event is a panel of those directly affected by the ongoing war in Iraq. Scheduled to speak: Don Forsyth (a Brunswick native who was at the forefront of the Iraq invasion four years ago), Joe May (extended Iraq tour 2004-2005; medical discharge 2006; member Iraq Veterans Against the War, and his mother Jan May (mamber of Military Families Speak Out - Atlanta).

We also learned that Cathy will be with Veterans for Peace in Hinesville and Jacksonville. She might even go along with them to New Orleans, where they'll be spending at least a week rebuilding.

There was more, but Lost will be on soon.

Attention Glynn County: Don't forget to vote March 20

There is a special election scheduled for March 20, to decide whether to approve a new E-SPLOST to pay for immediate facility needs in our schools. You can read more about it here. Early voting is March 12-16. Please vote YES on March 20, 2007 (if not sooner)

Barack Obama in Selma

"I'm here because somebody marched . . ."

A Donkey and An Elephant Walk Into A Bar now in Beta-ish

Come join the newest political/social networking site. We get points when people join through our invites, so join already. I need the points: sign up

Use the Google!

I finally know how to properly post video from youtube, thanks to Dr. Know.
This Special Comment is from a few weeks ago, but it's definitely one of my top 5. Olbermann takes Secretary Rice to school, and she fails! Dr. Rice, are you smarter than a fifth-grader? Not according to your recent statements comparing the situations after World War II and after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Good for Keith, for not letting her get away with such blatant misrepresentation.

Call for help: posting from youtube

Here is a question for those of you more tech-savvy than I (that's pretty much everyone): I used to post videos from youtube with ease when I was using the old blogger. Since switching to ggogle blogger, I haven't been able to make it work! Any advice? I changed my blog settings on youtube to reflect my new username and password. I am such a lazy/busy blogger, I rely on youtube for material! Help!!!!!!

(enough exclamation points for you?)

AP article on Jekyll Island

Ga. Island Faces Development Pressure

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:34 p.m. ET

JEKYLL ISLAND, Ga. (AP) -- For nearly 60 years, Jekyll Island has been Everyman's island.

A 1950 Georgia law explicitly says the state-owned coastal strip should be accessible to Georgians of ''average income.'' What constitutes ''average income'' is a matter of debate -- there's one four-star hotel, and the many ranch-style homes built in the 1960s are worth more than a half-million dollars by virtue of being so close to the beach.

But for the most part, this is a middlebrow, Rotary Club sort of place, with modest low-rise hotels like the Buccaneer Beach Resort and the Days Inn, both at $89 a night.

Now, however, it's starting to look a little shabby, and the politically appointed keepers of the island are entertaining proposals from developers for luxury hotels and million-dollar homes -- an idea that has some people worried that Jekyll Island will put itself out of reach to the common man.

''There are so few of these places left, why can't this be kept for the people?'' asked Frank Mirasola, 75, who retired to the island 10 years ago. ''Not everybody can afford a $500,000 condo.''

Connected to the mainland city of Brunswick by a six-mile causeway, Jekyll Island is known as ''Georgia's Jewel.'' Under law, it must remain two-thirds undeveloped, making it one of the least built-up East Coast islands reachable by car.

The 7 1/2-mile island wasn't always so accessible. From 1886 until the 1940s, it was the private winter playground of America's wealthiest -- Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, J.P. Morgan, Joseph Pulitzer. They built hulking Victorian ''cottages'' that by anyone else's standards are mansions.

The millionaires' exclusive Jekyll Island Club fell into decline with the Depression and folded during World War II. In 1947, the state bought the island for $675,000 to set aside as a park for budget-minded tourists.

Because of the state's limits on development, the island was spared from the rapid buildup that swept neighboring St. Simons Island and Tybee Island off Savannah.

''Developers have figured this out and there's almost a gold-rush mentality on the Georgia coast right now,'' said Chris DeScherer of the Southern Environmental Law Center in Atlanta.

Jekyll Island has more than 600 private homes, eight hotels, a convention center, four golf courses and a water park. (In one of the few holdovers from the gilded years, there is a $399-a-night Presidential Suite at the Jekyll Island Club.)

However, decades of wear and tear are slowing the influx of visitors and hurting business, said Bill Donohue, executive director of the Jekyll Island Authority, which manages the place for the state.

Conventions have stopped coming because of the musty, outdated hotels. For 40 years, more than 1,000 Georgia Rotary Club members used the island for their spring convention, but they haven't been back since 2003 because of complaints about the rooms. The group now meets in Sandestin, Fla.

The water park's wave pool shut down last summer so that a cracked basin could be fixed. Golfing has declined, and the amount the island collects in greens fees each year has dropped by about $750,000 from a decade ago.

The island's authority has solicited ideas from developers and is finding itself under pressure to make the island more stylish, like other island resorts.

No one is talking about upsetting the two-thirds rule. But on the already built-up part of the island, one development team has proposed ''high-end, luxury redevelopment'' where soccer fields and a 4-H Center for children now stand. Another developer submitted a plan for 2,000 new homes and condominiums, ranging from $350,000 to more than $1 million.

Georgia House Speaker Glenn Richardson favors more luxury hotels, as well as budget options, describing Jekyll as a potentially ''multimillion-, maybe billion-dollar asset.''

''Can you imagine if a Ritz Carlton or Four Seasons or something like that, a St. Regis, came in there, and each one of them took over one of the golf courses, developed the villas around them and a hotel on the beach?'' Richardson said.

Such talk has raised fears the island will revert to an exclusive retreat for the wealthy and spoil the place as an ideal spot for nature walks, bird-watching and beach vacations on the cheap.

''There's not a whole lot to do here, but that's why you come,'' said Kay Royer, 59, of Sparrows Point, Md., who has visited twice a year with her husband since he retired as a steelworker in 1999. ''It's not overbuilt and congested, compared to Hilton Head (S.C.) or some place where it's totally overdone.''

Donohue said he understands the fear and suggested that luxury development could be combined with more affordable lodging without running afoul of the ''average income'' law (''What we say is `all' Georgians. I don't know what the `average' Georgian is.'') and without utterly transforming the island.

''Everybody out there says, `If you give me all the oceanfront property, I can make it like Panama City and you'll make a billion dollars,''' Donohue said. ''You may think it's supposed to look like South Beach, but we don't.''

Ed Boshears, a former state senator and member of the Jekyll Island Authority board, said the island needs new hotels and an updated convention center, but warned against pricing it beyond the means of most folks.

''An average Georgian is who's been coming to Jekyll Island for the last 50 years -- bus drivers, farmers, church groups, teachers groups,'' Boshears said. ''We don't attract investment bankers from New York.''