One day in Yellowstone
The buffalo filled up the road
Someone took a film and shared it on the web
So we could watch the Buffalo roam down the road.
Please watch the Buffalo walking slow down the road
Mellow buffalo moving slowly down the road
Wait and yield because this is their home where we built the road
The land where the buffalo roam
© Greg Spence Wolf
Courtesy of Sioux @native_sioux on Twitter. https://twitter.com/i/status/1317495082241589248
Home grown apple trees from seed
Orange mint
Blue Lupine
Grape from seed
This grows as a bush in my yard.
Strawberries
Your Voice
by Paulette C. Wolf
Spider web or pressure cooker --
Any other choice?
No matter where you go, there’s no interest in your voice.
They only want to see how you fit in their web --
As you smile they’ll suck your blood until they’re well-fed.
If your faith gives you
a roof, hot water and bed,
be active in your space or you’ll be cooked to lead.
If the pressure cooker doesn’t get you, chemicals flood your innards,
or your own inactivity melts your words.
The only road to sanity is to begin
to hear your own voice and face your needs within.
Then direct that voice without
(no need to shout)
to meet the needs of others
from where you are not in doubt.
Thank you all for the response to my "Cosby memory". Someone pointed out that by starting it with the New York Magazine link, people sharing it would only be able to share the link, not the text. So here it is again, with a different format.
The photos are of me, at 16, on the Smothers Brothers show. They're here so anyone sharing will be able to share the text as well. The link to the New York Magazine piece is http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/07/bill-cosbys-accusers-speak-out.html. And here's my memory:
Do I have a stake in this issue? Yes. Of course. Outside of being female, outside of knowing women aren't "heard" as loudly as men are heard, outside of firmly believing that if women were treated equally around the world, many if not all of the world's problems would no longer exist - outside of all that... I have a personal stake.
No, I was not sexually bothered by Bill Cosby. We met because he was curious about me.
My song "Society's Child" was climbing the charts and creating a great deal of controversy. The Smothers Brothers took a huge gamble and had me on their hit television show. I was just sixteen years old when we taped it. I'd been on the road for months, doing press and one-nighters. My chaperone/tour manager, a family friend six or seven years older than me, was doing everything in her power to make sure I was protected and getting as much rest as possible.
Remember. I was sixteen. Still in high school. Fairly naive, including about my own sexuality. For months on the road, my chaperone was the only consistent face I saw. Everyone else was a complete stranger - radio personalities, newspaper reporters, magazine photographers, audiences, promoters, disc jockeys, all strangers. So I clung to my chaperone.
We'd never been to a big-time TV taping. We had no idea we'd have to be inside from early early morning until whenever they called for me. There were only a couple of chairs for us on the set - I was pretty low on the totem pole, way lower than Jimmy Durante or Pat Paulsen or Mason Williams (all of whom were wonderful to us). And I was exhausted. I'd been having nightmares for weeks, the result of the controversy surrounding "Society's Child" and the death threats I was receiving daily. I needed to sleep. So I fell asleep in my chaperone's lap. She was earth motherly, I was scared. It was good to rest.
We taped the show. I had a ball. (You can see it on Youtube, in fact. That's me, looking scared, in the green dress. My friend Buffy from East Orange, where I'd started high school, made it for me. I treasured it.) Then we went back to New York, and I went back to school.
A while later, my manager called me into her office. "What happened at the Smothers Brothers show?!" I had no idea what she was talking about, and said so. "Well, no one else on TV is willing to have you on. Not out there, anyway." Why? I wondered. And was told that Cosby, seeing me asleep in the chaperone's lap, had made it his business to "warn" other shows that I wasn't "suitable family entertainment", was probably a lesbian, and shouldn't be on television.
Again, a reminder. I was 16. I'd never slept with a man, I'd never slept with a woman. Hell, I barely been kissed, and that in the middle of the summer camp sports area, next to the ping pong table.
Banned from TV. Unbelievable. Bless Johnny Carson and his producer Freddy de Cordova, one of the nicest men I've ever worked with, because they didn't listen. Or maybe they didn't give a damn. I don't know. I do know that they broke the barrier Cosby tried to create and left me with an open invite to The Tonight Show.
There's a lot to bother a sensible person about this. The years these women were ignored. The years they were derided. That the story finally really "broke" because a male comedian named Hannibal Buress kept bringing it up, kept calling Cosby a "rapist". Not because woman after woman after woman went to the police, to the press, to anyone who'd listen, with horribly similar stories.
Let me be snarky for a moment. Interesting that there are so few women of color in the New York Magazine photo. Interesting that the ones in the photo all appear to be light-skinned. Perhaps darker skinned women have not come forward yet? Perhaps they're among the other 12 women who've accused him but aren't pictured?
Or perhaps not. I have to wonder if this rapist has some issues with his own race.
Continuing the snarkiness, I find it horrifying that his wife is still insisting it was all consensual. That she sounds more upset by "the invasion of privacy" than the rapes.
People seem to be confused because she continues to stand by him. I have just two words for that - money, honey. According to the press, she's his manager, and has been for years. And his "business manager", eg the person who handles the money. So if there were pay-offs, she saw the checks. She is complicit.
If it was consensual, why pay anyone to be silent?
If it was consensual, why are there so many women who do not want money, who do not need fame, who are by turns ashamed, violated, exposed, vulnerable, and still continue to speak out?
Cosby was right in one thing. I am gay. Or bi, if you prefer, since I dearly loved the two men I lived with over the years. My tilt is toward women, though, and he was right about that.
But what an odd thing, that a black man who slept with so very many white women chose to take my possible lesbianism away from our one meeting, rather than the message I tried to get across with "Society's Child." How pathetic. How truly, truly pathetic.
Janis Ian
Reprinted with permission for non-commercial use:
This article originally appeared at
https://www.facebook.com/janisianpage/posts/880427738710612?pnref=story
During the 2018 midterms the Republican party through Donald Trump, Lindsay Graham and FOX news and the Epoch Times. They ramped up scapegoating of immigrants, who conveniently can't vote.
The Epoch Times listed immigrant crimes which is similar to the way nazis published Jewish crimes.
Immigrants are no more dangerous than other people. It's manufactured opinion that is used to rile up people. Some of these people feel they need to run off with their guns wherever their corporate media elites tell them to. In this case gun lovers announced they would go to the border to "Protect" us from a caravan labled an invasion.
They only care about this subject because they are fed propaganda.
The Republican party, and it's presidential candidate, are scapegoating immigrants, who conveniently can't vote. I believe that this is a losing political strategy for the voting public. And the working class. I believe that the purpose of scapegoating immigrants is to make them more vulnerable to deportation and therefore easier to exploit.
When they say scapegoating, I mean that they are unfairly generalizing about their behavior by listing and reporting their crimes in order to make them more threatening in the voting and purchasing public's perception. This is similar to the way nazis published Jewish crimes. It's manufactured opinion that distorts public opinion of reality in order to benefit a small group of people's political and economic intrests. Some of these people are private prison owners.
CoreCivic, GEOgroup a nd the Corrections Corporation of America are the three biggest.
If you believe that when the corporate media scapegoats immigrants on cable tv and talk radio. they are looking for someone to blame so that they can have privately owned prisons that make people money.
They allow people to be jailed for being immigrants.
Then I am concerned that you'd have allowed people to be jailed for being Jewish, just as our grandparents in the United States of America allowed Japanese Americans to be locked up, thankfully not killed.
All attacks against immigrants and people we can be convinced are unamerican, should be called out for what they really are, political and economic scapegoating.
These attacks are done so we can keep Immigrants desperate for jobs and easily exploited in the workplace. Immigration restrictions make immigrants more desperate and more willing to hire others to smuggle them. Some smugglers take advantage of their employers and hand them over to human traffickers. This benefits employers like Mar a Lago which employs immigrants.
© Greg Spence Wolf 9/12/2020
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/09/epstein-mar-a-lago-trump-1456221
https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/blog/crackdown-immigration-puts-trafficking-victims-more-danger
I Want COVID-19 Testing For Everyone, Everywhere.
Paid sick leave is necessary
To stop the spread of viruses
Viruses are really scary
Cause they mortally infect us.
Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome - 2(SARS-2)
Is caused by the COVID-19 virus,
Through the eyes mouth and nose
That's how they get themselves inside us,
It causes coughing, diarhea, fever, chills
and shortness of breath.
And if it overtakes your lungs, it can cause your death.
I want COVID-19 testing for all bus drivers.
So that they can stay home and not spread it to the riders.
I want COVID 19 testing for all educators,
Sustitutes, assistants, therapists teachers and administrators.
Janitors, house cleaners, cooks and food servers
Should get the protection that they deserve.
The secretaries and receptionists - who greet us folks at the front desk,
Should get treated with our respect
And offered the Novel Coronavirus test.
I want COVID-19 testing for police officers
Because they don't choose who they get to come into contact with.
They can't refuse to work with someone without a mask.
And many people in the public don't know if they are sick.
And they don't know all the names of all the people that they come in contact with
They could contract COVID from contact with a suspect or a member of the public
All the people served and protected, saved and arrested
Have not been contact traced or COVID19 tested
Everyone who works in crowds put on your mask and get tested
If your job places your health at risk go out and get your self tested.
Protesters, shoppers, hobbyists, panhandlers
Go wash your hands and follow health reminders.
I want COVID-19 testing for airline pilots,
So that they can know if they are spreading the coronavirus
around the world. in the crowded planes
I want COVID-19 testing for
EMTs
Because everybody needs the expertise of EMTs
ambulance drivers, doctors and nurses, physician's assistants
So they can know if they got COVID-19 from their patients.
I want COVID-19 testing for doctors & dentists
I want COVID-19 testing for grocery clerks
So that they can know that it is safe to go to work
I want COVID-19 testing for prison guards
I want COVID-19 testing for prisoners in crowded cells
I want COVID-19 testing for nurses
I hope that COVID-19 testing flattens and reverses the curve
I want COVID-19 testing for all prisoners.
I want them to get treatment and be survivors
I want the sick people to quarantine
I want medical supplies at the scene
Yo quiero las pruebas para COVID-19
para todos en todas partes.
In February 2020
I felt so bad that I took three days of sick leave
I knew i was too sick to leave the house
And concerned that I might be contagious
I had a fever, labored breathing, achy limbs
And my throat was coughing just like my student was coughing
+7
When I felt a whole lot better, I got myself tested for Coronavirus,
I had to drive 20 minutes to take a test in Puyallup .
There were people in lab coats in a drive thru tent
I waited my turn and then pulled up
They stuck a long cotton swab up my nose
And told me in three days I would know
I Was told a few days later that I didn't get the coronavirus
I felt relieved I wasn't spreading something so catchy and deadly
I wished that others could get testing cuz if we're healthy then were ready
To go back to work .
If we can avoid something deadly
By knowing where the Coronavirus is spreading
Then maybe we can get back to work safely and reboot the economy.
It was paid for by my insurance
+6
© Greg Spence Wolf 09 14 2020
Updated 9/25/2020 &11//25/2020
I want COVID-19 testing for all grocery clerks.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/coronavirus-trader-joes?fbclid=IwAR27eCJP6mYR7qT2Rb0T6DpT9FbpR9ZjCoWo2aH8e1XjzH4gNRVI0uBJGnU
FREE CORONAVIRUS TESTING IN WEST SEATTLE.
FREE CORONAVIRUS TESTING IN PIERCE COUNTY, WASHINGTON
https://piercecountywa.gov/6758/Covid-19-Mobile-Testing
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1102818/south-korea-covid-19-test-total-number/
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2020/09/26/COVID-19-South-Koreas-new-cases-fall-below-100-but-calls-for-holiday-lockdown/4281601120898/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h4vdOJhIeY
https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news-netcast/video/nightly-news-full-broadcast-october-10th-93606469859
12:25 Is a story about a school in Houston using distancing for ...
The mask mandates come from the working class. Please respect workers and wear a mask. This is how Trader Joes was forced by their workers to institute social distancing and PPE by the threat of a union strike.
https://www.eater.com/2020/4/10/21216678/trader-joes-employees-fight-for-protections-union-amid-coronavirus-pandemic
I am. I can. I do. I don't ... I go. I stop. I will. I won't.
I do, I dare, I really care
I share what I have got to spare
I try to keep myself aware,
Of what is going on out there.
I do good deeds for goodness sake
To make the world a better place
I reuse things over again
So they don't have to go to waste.
I've paid my dues I read the news,
I've walked in many pairs of shoes
I do my best, surpass the test,
I'm sure that you will be impressed.
I check the facts, i do the math
To make sure that it all makes sense.
I understand that differences
Are still part of the greater whole
I understand that more is less
And less is more and I am blessed
I know my self, I show myself,
I'm confident not arrogant.
I rock, I roll, I'm in control,
I rule, I School, I aint no fool.
I overcome my doubts and fears,
I overcome adversity.
I make a plan, I plant a seed,
To get the things I want and need.
I try to do the things I say
And make good friends along the way
I laugh and play every day
I am going to be okay
+||=+=+=+=+=+=+=+==+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=||+
I am amazing
You are amazing
We are amazing together
She is amazing
He is amazing
They are amazing together.
+-=-+-=-+-=-+-'='-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-
I respect you, will protect you
Won't forget you or neglect you,
I adore you, won't ignore
I will do more and more for you
I accept you the way you are
I want to be right where you are
I'll even let you drive my car
Because you are my shining star
You are my super shinning star
That's why I'll be right where you are
Every where from near and far
I'll be your super shining star
I said I do to you my wife
I will for the rest of my life
You are the only one for me
From now until eternity.
I will spend my whole life with you
Give you all I got to give you
The only face I want to see
Is you when you are kissing me
!=+=!! /+=+\ +!!+ =+= !!\+/|| \/=\/ !!\+\=!!\+/||
I am alive aware awake, I learn a little every day
I'm mindful of each move I make as I make my way through each day.
I recover from my mistakes as I improve along the way
I understand what is at stake I''m going to go all the way
We are all super shinnig stars
Who's life can be seen from afar.
That's why I see your shining stars
Everywhere from near and far.
I am a man who understands
That there is not a master la
I make it up along the way
And this is what I have to say
I believe in the real world
I believe in the human race
i believe that the universe
is a strange and wondrous place
That's why I see your shining stars
Everywhere fome near and far
Because we all are shining stars
Whose light can be seen from afr
=\+\=+\=+\=+\=+=\+=\
Trump Will Throw You Under The Bus
In order to make himself a quick buck
He can't be trusted, he's bad luck
He'll throw you under the bus.
Trump has cheated on all his wives (1)
Trump has cheated all his life
Trump is a fraud who's been caught
Committing white collar crime.
In New York for a second time.
The Trumps steal from charlities
That share their name for their own needs,
To pay for his legal fees
Cuz he's the one in need,
Yeah he's the one in need.
Trump Will Throw You Under The Bus
In order to make himself a quick buck
He can't be trusted, he's bad luck
He'll throw you under the bus.
A judge has ordered him to produce
DNA so they can prove.
If E Jean Carroll is telling the truth
When she says that he raped her
While buying furniture(2)
+60
When DJT was on a bus
With Billy Bush, he told us
That he went down on hard..like a bitch
I forced on her a kiss.
+20
Trump will put his hand on your cunt
Call you a bitch and try to steal a fuck
He can't be trusted, He's bad luck
Put an unwanted kiss upon your lips
And then he'll throw you under the bus,
I believe Temple Taggart, Kristin Anderson and
Jessical Leeds,
When they say that DJT
Used them for his own needs
Obscenly - instead of - romantically.
Jessica Leeds was on a plane
And she was offered a better seat
She was excited to get the upgrade
Then she met DJT
In the adjoining seat
She talked to him while they ate dinner
Then he lost control of his hands
When he got his hands on her genitals
She went back to her original seat
Where she meant to be
Trump has friends who are like him
Greedy men who pimp and pimp
He said that Epstein was a great guy
Who like beautiful women
Almost as much as him+1
Maria Farmer went to the FBI
In 1996 to report Epstein's crimes
She said, "They were so dismissive that I just fealt daunted and I stopped."
As they brushed her complaint aside.
Maxwell threatened her life.
And Epstein continued his crimes.
+10
If you are in the nightclub
And you got pussy a to grab
He'll tell Billy Bush So that they can laugh
As they get off the bus.
+6
Joe Biden is a decent man
Who doesn't associate with the Klan
Sometimes He's too much of a Republican
But he's got a Coronavirus plan
https://joebiden.com/covid-plan/
Joe Biden and Orin Hatch
Wrote The Violence Against Women Act
It protections for victims of abuse
You should support it too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_Against_Women_Act
+6
If you got the Coronavirus
Trump has thrown you under the bus
He's against testing for all of us
He don't think we're worth the fuss
.https://www.vox.com/2020/5/15/21259888/trump-coronavirus-testing-very-few-cases
Trump Will Throw You Under The Bus,
In order to make himself a quick buck,
He can't be trusted, he's bad luck,
He'll throw you under the bus.
Ghislaine Maxwell told the teenage girls
That they could be models and gave her a number
She theni ntroduced them to Jeffrey Epstein
Who raped some of those teens
+6
If you were raped as a teen,
By trafficker Jeffrey Epstein,
Donald will not call the police,
He'll say Epstein great guy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-called-epstein-a-terrific-guy-before-denying-relationship-with-him/2019/07/08/a01e0f00-a1be-11e9-bd56-eac6bb02d01d_story.html
Guiffre worked at Mar a Lago
Where she was recruited by Epstein to give massages
She then got sexually abused
This is how Trump lets his business get used.
+2
4) https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-called-epstein-a-terrific-guy-before-denying-relationship-with-him/2019/07/08/a01e0f00-a1be-11e9-bd56-eac6bb02d01d_story.html
If you want to vote by mail
Donald Trump wants you to fail
His followers say "Sigh Heil"
And the US mail is for sale
(3)
+5
On the Apprentice he wasnt the boss
Somebody else was paying the cost
To pay the reality TV show host
He's throwing us under the bus.
+2
They gave the guy a TV show and all he does is talk
He does not help anybody he doesn't walk the walk
He can't fight his own battles
Virginia Roberts Giuffre
Tara Reade
Christine Oxenberg
Learned about the Lolita Express
Which Clinton rode when
1) https://www.newsweek.com/how-many-times-trump-cheated-wives-780550
2) https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/obviously-required-to-provide-it-trump-given-deadlines-to-produce-dna-in-e-jean-carrolls-defamation-lawsuit/
3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_DeJoy
Tim Tebow's fund for Human Trafficking
https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/rescuethemnow
I have observed over 12 years of experience as an assistant teacher including five as a substitute,. The titles I have held in Seattle Public Schools are Special Education Assistant and Instructional Assistant. In Ithaca New York I also worked as a substitute teacher in the 1990's as well.
I have determined that the more profound a student’s disability, the more likely they will be working with a substitute instead of a certified teacher or permanent staff.
For a year and a half I worked in a classroom with a student who can’t walk more than a few feet without a walker. They were served by multiple substitutes for over a year. This student has been pushed to the floor by another student, In that situation I caught her quick enough to keep her head from hitting the floor.
+23
The substitutes who worked with this student for over a year and a half did not have a key to the building even though the student’s class is in a portable and the main building door is sometimes locked. This student's needs were under-served because of the Seattle Public School District's policy of treating substitutes, especially special education assistants, as less valuable employees.
During the 2015 school year I watched a series of subs work with two students with profound needs. Both students were transferred to Louisa Boren STEM from different schools with one-on-ones assigned to them. At the start of the next school year each of the permanent assistants assigned to work as their one-on-ones were no longer working in that classroom because they had transferred to other jobs.
For about half the school year the special education department refused to hire replacements and insisted on overriding the IEP's of both students, because they thought there was too much staff in the room. Both of these students needed constant adult supervision and one required regular hygienic care. For half the year the staff assigned to them were substitutes who would work a few days and quit because these students demanded so much of their energy and time. A meeting finally happened where the two positions were merged into one 1 on 1 job.
You would hope that people with the most profound disabilities would get the the most professional help in school, in reality, they get short term substitutes. They get short term substitutes not because someone is home sick, but because the Seattle Public School District Special Education Department and the State of Washington won't hire a permanent staff person for the most profoundly impacted students. I want a good substitute who has experience when a position can't be filled. But in reality these students need a trained employee working in my place, not a sub.
There are retired teachers and therapists willing to work as subs for Special Education Assistants and teachers. But Seattle Public Schools limits how many days retirees are allowed to work. So many days, classes are staffed with new substitutes instead of our experienced retiree subs. This means that classroom staff are required to train the sub on the fly. This takes time and therefore costs money. I know we need to be cost efficient, and so I am pointing out that an experienced sub is more cost efficient because they don't need to be shown how to do the job at the same time they are doing the job.
Sometimes this training is from an assistant teacher, not a certified teacher. If someone is subbing in the certified teacher role. This means that our assistants are doing a teachers job form an assistants pay. So the situation is also economically unjust.
The state does not agree with me that substitutes are valuable enough to be trained, so they have this policy.
“Substitute paraeducators are not required to meet the requirements of the Paraeducator Certificate Program.”
https://eln.seattleschools.org/paracertandfcsintro/#/lessons/QdKa1uRmw26LfQHtEsREdcuGHPqYBH28 FAQ Quoted 12/22/2020.
This means that our students are served by substitutes who are not even trained in the Paraeducator Certificate Program. This means that we are sending inexperienced or less experienced and undertrained assistants to work with our most vulnerable students when there is a need for a substitute.
Thank you very much
Greg Spence Wolf
Roxhill Elementary - Special Educaton Assistant
7217 Yakima Ave
Tacoma, WA 98408
2020-2021 Sept 30. One on one for a SPED student was promoted to Counselor. School and program lose well trained staff member after two and a half weeks of work.
Replacement found in less than a week, so only two days of overlap. No sub needed. )10/7/2020 GSWolf)
I Want You to Remember ... Ali Ismael Abbas.
Ali Ismaeel Abbas lost his arms in an attack,
An aerial missile attack against the people of Iraq,
He was twelve when the bombs fell,
His life matters so I want you to remember.
He said, “The house collapsed on us. The fire was all over.
He said "I heard so much screaming from my family."
“After this one of my neighbours came and took me out ....
… and put me in a car and sent me to hospital.”
Ali Ismaeel Abbas lost his mom in an attack
That was authorized by Congress against the country of Iraq
She was pregnant when the bombs struck
Her life matters so I want you to remember
Ali Ismaeel Abbas lost his dad in an attack
That was ordered by George Bush against the nation of Iraq
One of thirteen family member who were killed or dismembered
Their lives matter so I want you to remember
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Ismail_Abbas