Dear Ms. Pelosi

Dear Rep. Pelosi,

I am writing to implore you to impeach.

With his latest executive order, Bush has gone too far. Again. You are in a position where you can stop him. The only way I can stop him is to implore you and the other representatives to do so. In doing nothing, you are letting down not only every of us who worked so hard to elect democrats last November, but the entire American people.

Moves like this place us closer than ever to becoming a dictatorship. The time has come to impeach, before it's too late and you no longer have the option because Congress has been dissolved by executive order. Though the thought seems far-fetched, much of what Bush has done over the past seven years has been beyond my wildest dystopian nightmares, and I no longer doubt any possibility. In fact, with the recent systematic dismantling of checks and balances, it merely seems inevitable.

Ms. Pelosi, I am not a conspiracy theorist. I'm an average citizen: a mother, a taxpayer, a homeowner, a person who is trying to make a nice life for future generations. That cannot occur unless you impeach Bush AND Cheney AND Gonzales, right away. In swearing to uphold the constitution, you owe us nothing less. I care little for excuses, or for reasons why it would endanger anyone's political career. The time for that has passed. You must decide whose side you are on. I truly hope you side with the American people.

Yours Truly,
Maya Dexter

No Rich Girls or Males Left Behind

Via Suburban Guerrilla, the horrible paradox of federally mandated HPV vaccination:

Each vaccine shot will cost $120 through private insurance, or $96 through governmental programs buying at the federal rate. Those that have insurance may only need to pay a co-payment if it is offered by their provider and those on government assistance programs might not pay at all, but those without insurance would have a hefty bill to pay, particularly if it is mandated for school attendance, and if there are several girls in a family. $360 on average for each girl would add up quickly for a family that may fall in the working poor class -- the people that most often do not have health care through their employer but do not qualify for government assistance. These are the same women that are most likely not receiving regular Pap tests to detect early pre-cancerous conditions before they develop into life-threatening cancer.

So to sum, if you are a member of the growing class known as the working poor, don't expect your girls to get more than a sixth grade education if you can't cough up for a vaccine that has nothing to do with school safety. I hope I don't need to spell out the travesty that this sort of right wing wet dream would produce. But hey, the next generation of cheap, disposable labor had to come from somewhere. If this passes, I predict a major upswing in the domestic servant business.

Reduce, Repurpose, Recycle

I went to Portland, OR a couple weeks ago & my best friend turned me onto the repurposing movement, in which you take something used and make something completely different out of it. She showed me clothing made out of multiple cut up t-shirts sewn together & restructured into something completely different. I never considered it as a movement - my parents built their hippie house in the woods out of scraps my dad took home from his demoltion job. It was just necessity.

But as a movement, I think it's a brilliant idea & I figure as I come across repurposing projects I think are neat, I'll share them with you. Here's the first: cloth grocery bags made from old t-shirts.