The Brockovich Report

I'd like to take a moment here to remember, Jenny Tetlock, whose story has been publicized. Jenny Tetlock received the Gardasil shot at 15, was paralyzed and God rest her soul, passed last week.

Bless you Jenny. Your story is heartbreaking, and we all feel your loss.

And Jenny, we want to find answers. Who knows where to look? Not to the CDC. Maybe to Spain. Why Spain?

A month ago, Spain recalled 76,000 doses of the HPV vaccine when two adolescent girls got seriously sick after getting their shot. We've had more than two girls get sick, and to my knowledge NO doses of the vaccine were ever recalled here. The issue is that two girls got sick and Spain responded immediately.

Has our FDA done anything? Not to my knowledge.

If we came across 50, 40, 30 or even a single dead person in the woods, our agencies would send out alerts; they would investigate. They would search and search and search for the answers until they were found. The VAER Database Gardasil line reports that list more than a dozen deaths among the serious adverse events of otherwise healthy girls should be enough of an alert that someone among us should step up and search and search and search for the answers until they were found. There is a common denominator that we haven't yet exposed. That's my point. We must uncover that lethal factor; we must identify it so that no more girls die needlessly.

But here it is in black and white Spain withdraws cervical cancer shot after illnesses.

Let's let it pass that Gardasil is an HPV vaccine, not a cancer shot. (That's a marketing angle to avoid talking about the percentages. Let's let it pass that while it is marketed as a cancer preventative, it only goes after 4/30 of the HPV strains that cause 70% cervical cancers. That works out to something like 9%. Would you use a prophylactic that only guards against 9% of pregnancies? Should we let people go around thinking they're protected when they're 91% vulnerable?) Let's let all that pass, for now, and think about the human cost of rushing to market.

The two girls in Spain who had the vaccine both went into convulsions. They both went into convulsions within hours of taking the vaccine.

So Spain has decided to recall 76,000 doses of Gardasil after two girls had seizures. But the FDA has not --after more than two girls have died. Does Spain love its daughters more than the US?

Why hasn't the FDA acted on the incidents which have happened here? Are the FDA and CDC really on top of things? Is the US looking at the VAERS LIST to see how many girls in the US have had adverse reactions after taking Gardasil, let alone those who have died?

But in Spain, 2 girls had seizures--only seizures, they didn't die--and in Spain 76,000 doses of Gardasil were recalled.

VAERS Reports are available online. You can run them yourself here. The results show significantly more than 2 incidents related to Gardasil. All girls had one thing in common; the Gardasil shot.

Spain has recalled 76,000 doses of Gardasil. Meanwhile the US is trying to mandate its use. What is wrong with this picture?

At the very least, the use of Gardasil should be elective. Its use should be a matter of choice. As Americans, our young girls and their parents should have the choice to make their own decisions, good decisions, for the sake of their health. To avoid becoming statistics, to safeguard their health, they should go into making that choice armed with the knowledge of all of the contraindications and negative interactions. Shouldn't the FDA and CDC at least be LOOKING for contraindications and negative interactions?

And of course, we still have the unanswered questions of why so many American girls have had adverse reactions and died after taking Gardasil. They and their families deserve an answer. But for the seven women I know whose daughters have died after taking Gardasil, and for Jenny, no matter how soon the answer is found, it is too late.

Whenever I go out of the country, as exciting as it is to experience new cultures and see the sights, it is always good to be home. There are drawbacks of course--pedestrian chores pile up while you're away. Phone calls, bills, old mail, a pile of pending work that expands a little daily until you finally attack it: that prosaic stuff is gradually taken care of. Of course jet lag strikes like a ton of bricks so while you're playing catch-up, you're perky while everyone else is winding down, and lurching around like a zombie during normal active time. Or maybe--depending on how laggy that lag is--it's zombiehood fulltime, until normalcy creeps back. But after the long trip to Mumbai India, and Istanbul Turkey, well, there's no place like home.

A speaking tour can be a really breathless rush with no time to think about anything but what's going on in the moment. So an inevitable part of lag recovery/getting back to speed is catching up on the news. And let me tell you what really floored me after this trip: the negativity that is coming from every news channel I turn on, every paper I pick up, every corner of the world I am in.

All we see, all we hear is negative, negative, negative. I know the business of journalism is to report the news that people read, and because people always read the bad stuff, journalism presents that negative information flow that the market consumes--but this is ridiculous. We are listening-- and the media is ensuring that everything that we hear is negative. How about something positive? Come on journalism people. After all this time presenting Obama as the poster child of hope, don't just staple him on the wall and make him your bulls-eye for the next four years.

The press thrives on tearing down, but this is ridiculous. The LA Times leads with "Liberals not pleased with go-slow approach by Obama." And Where's the President Obama who promised to unite us?GOP Senators say Obama Off to a Bad Start This isn't even scratching the surface of the negativity.

Good God. Can we expect the man to cut taxes for 95% of Americans, cure the energy crisis, heal the economy, raise education standards, change bankruptcy law, end the war, and restore our standing in the world (etc...) overnight ?

I would like to remind everyone that we just elected someone who gives us the promise of hope. Remember, he said "It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where we are today, but we have just begun. Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today."

Remember, we put him in the hot seat. It took a lot of us to vote him in. And he can't do this alone. It's going to take us all.

I look at my own personal backlog of work in front of me. It looks insurmountable; but I know I can do it. And that applies to the country, too. We didn't get here overnight, and our recovery will take time. Let's give our president breathing room. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was the economy. Government wheels have always grinded slowly, in a cumbersome, clanky, make-shift sort of way--but they do turn. Let's at least give President Obama a little time to let his political WD-40 to sink in.

What or who is behind this negativity?

If I could draw cartoons, this is what I would draw:

A few fat cat CEOs walking up a steep hill. Those CEOs who don't have the forethought or vision to look on the other side, where, on that easy downhill slope they expect, where unexpectedly all the rest of us--millions and millions of us--wait in anger at being robbed, disenfranchised, victimized.

Those who have skimmed immense profit packages while millions of people in their financial custodianship have lost their homes, Home Depot's Chief Executive Robert Nardelli who retired with a $210 million package, and the Madoffs of the world, are happy that the spotlight is now on President Obama. But if we look at who stands to profit from all the negativity, is it industry? But what would there be to gain? Who gains but the media--who simply is looking for something to fill their pages. Regardless of where the blame is placed, it is the media who can help light the way with a little change of attitude.

Remember Pandora's box? You know, that mythological box of evils, all of which escaped when Pandora opened it to satisfy her curiosity--leaving trapped in the box one last entity: hope. We should never forget that trapped inside the box of all the evils that inflict the world, there is always that germinal seed of hope. I do believe that if our media is going to talk about the ills and evils of government, let's not leave hope in the box, but put her on the page too, and keep her in our hearts. Because always, in addition to the belief in better time to come, and the work and plans it will take to get there, we all need that ray of hope that lights our way.

America is a place where all things are possible.

Today I watched the hope and dreams of America come to life again. I am referring to the inauguration. How much it means. The words spoken and how they apply to the work I do.

Like most Americans and much of the world, I was glued to the TV; chills coursing up and down my spine, I watched my own young daughter as she watched the historic moment in history. I saw and shared the sense of pride and inspiration at the commencement of a new era.

I was spellbound by the inauguratory address of the forty-fourth president of the United States, and entranced as well by the enthusiasm of the diverse crowd as our President Barack Obama was sworn to office.

We are about to roll up our sleeves and get down to hard business of the price and the promise of citizenship.

I heard the words of our new president about where we could go. He promises to deliver better schools, renewed science, improved and more economical health care, solar and green energy. He promises that government will "spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do business in the light of day."

I hope Industry is listening to that message.

Especially, I hope Industry was listening when our president said "To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history."

Those words ring true for me because of the line of work that I am in. I face the silencing of dissent all the time. The corruption and the deceit perpetuated by industry. Deceit is the root cause of so many of our problems. Deceit robs us of information. Deceit robs us of choice. Deceit eats away at our freedom. Deceit undermines our value system and our intrinsic worth as human beings. For what is the value of a deceitful man?

So how do we stop the deceit? How do we educate those whose reckless pursuit of profit cheats us out of our money, our homes, our health, our lives?

One truth at a time. One step at a time.

I am inspired to continue in my avocation, shining the light on deceit.

I am inspired to continue working toward sharing awareness. Most of the cases I deal with begin with revealing deceit--in seeing that the light of day is shined on those dark secrets--just as it was in Hinkley, California and perhaps now in Kingston Tennessee. When these malevolent and unhealthy secrets are uncovered, then changes can be made. Once the truth is known, the problem no longer festers and escalates; no, that is when healing and remediation begins, Sometimes it means we do have to roll up our sleeves and pitch in to get it all cleaned up--but we will clean it up. And perhaps like our president promises, we “will not falter. Perhaps with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, you and I too will carry forth a gift--one of a clean and healthy country--safely to future generations."

It looks like I may be paying a visit to Tennessee. Numerous residents have asked me to come to the community for a meeting on the coal fly ash disaster around Knoxville, and I think I will be going.

I know the question on everyone's lips. What is coal fly ash, and why does it need to be contained? The folks around Knoxville are getting to know a lot more about coal fly ash than they ever wanted to learn.

Coal fly ash. It sounds like someone has been burning fly poop or airborne coal. But seriously, it is akin to the creosote that coated those chimneys and chimneysweep boys of Charles Dickens ancient London.

Fly ash comes from chimneys, specifically the chimneys of power plants. The collection point determines exactly what kind of ash it is. Fly ash apparently contains silicon dioxide and calcium oxide as well as trace concentrations of heavy metals. In other words, coal ash is nasty stuff to have floating around in your river, air, and drinking water.

Anyway, thanks to the failure of a containment retention wall at TVA's Kingston Fossil Plant that's where it is. In the river. Spread out on the land.

The Clinch and Tennessee Rivers are affected. So the TVA is out there collecting "cenospheres." Cenospheres are apparently little floating balls of residue which according to this TVA publication "are useful in bowling balls, paint, concrete and epoxy" --just a partial list of ways fly ash in general is used. There are 3000 feet of skimmers in place to vacuum up this stuff and some other collection devices in the water. I don't think the sludge is only made up of cenospheres, so I wonder what they're doing to control the rest of it.

The TVA publishes data on Kingston's Fossil Emissions and water data .

The TVA does NOT publish data about that retention wall. (Or maybe they do, and I just don't know where it is. The TVA is welcome to let me know that information.) So I'd like to know why they were using retention ponds to store this stuff. (You may remember I have a history with retention ponds. Don't like 'em. Never will.)

Why does it need to be contained? Well, that's a moot point, isn't it? Since it is composed of heavy metals, and other nasty things. It is better contained than it is spread out over 300 acres thirty some-odd miles away from Knoxville. Truth is, I should speculate on some other questions. Like...

Why was that fly ash sitting around a retention pond rather than being immediately ported to some Portland Cement factory, or bowling ball maker? Was there some earthquake we don't know about? Why did the retention wall give way? How much trace metal is realistically dangerous, and how much trace metal and toxin is really there? Is it truly inert?

AP has already released an article talking about how the TVA won't have retention ponds on TVA property any longer. Better late than never, I suppose. (Does that mean It's moving to private property, that it's going to be sold or that they're shooting it to trash cans on Jupiter or Pluto?) We'll have to see what their actual solution is, and if it really is an improvement over what they're doing now.

A dozen families have lost their homes to 2.6 million cubic yards of fly ash. OR a Billion cubic yards. (The numbers change depending on whose saying them.) Three hundred acres are destroyed. In fact, that number has grown to four hundred acres six feet deep.

Why is it that it takes a disaster to find the better way to do things? When are we ever going to learn to use forethought instead of hindsight?

As familiar to us as the backs of our own hands, the little main street square lives in our minds as concretely as if we walked those streets, and jumped over the actual cracks not to break our mother's backs; you know, that cozy town square and all the homey penny candy dispensing shopkeepers who know our names--straight out of the collective unconscious--or some James Stewart/Frank Capra common mythos. But that's not really main street these days. Main street has gone the way of wall street--lost to power mongers who follow the path of corruption, otherwise know as corporate sleight of hand. All around us, the big packagers, the huge corporations are shutting down branches, laying off people, and the empty buildings stare at us through their empty-window eyes, making a mockery of yesterday's affluence. In many areas of the country, formerly thriving economic retail centers are starting to look like the abandoned tenements of Urban blight. And it is spreading.

How many power brokers are like Fred Smith of Federal Express, taking a personal 20 percent pay cut and freezing wages rather than putting hundreds--perhaps thousands--out of jobs?

No, it looks like most power brokers these days take multi-million dollar bonuses seconds before their corporations are liquidated, tossing millions of people out of work, out of savings, out of pensions.

What is happening to wall street and main street is happening to the environment.

Abandoned by the corporations who caused them, abandoned environmental hot spots are collected under the Superfundumbrella, with the optimistic mission "to clean up the nation's uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. . . . ensuring that remaining National Priorities list of hazardous waste sites are cleaned up to protect the environment and the health of all Americans."

It looks like Obama has plans to make a few changes. Obama named Harvard physicist John Holden as Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology policy, and Marine Biologist Jane Lubchenco as National Oceanic Atmospheric Administrator. And also he's engaged other scientific leaders like Nobel Prize-winning scientist Harold Varmus, former director of the National Institutes of Health; and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Eric Lander. These are leading thinkers of the green movement. Let's hope they can live up to their reputations.

It's a start.

I hope when Obama met with Al Gore and talked about global warming that they talked about how to clean up all the contamination. We are committing our own genocide and don't even seem to care. Does anyone care? How do I get someone's attention here? How do we get these sites cleaned up?

I don't really mind that the old town square is fondly remembered anachronism. There's a long history: the Roman Forum; the Italian Piazza; the French Grand-Place. Somewhere, sometime, towns and their squares will be rebuilt and be vital and live again. And if not, well, town gathering places are bound to grow and evolve just as people grow and evolve. I only hope that other things that we hold dear--like clean water, clean air, unimproved land in its natural state--will not become fondly remembered relics of the past.

I'm going out on a limb to make an analogy here. It's not going out on a limb because it's dangerous. It's going out on a limb because I'm not a lawyer, and only lawyers can make official "pronouncements" about law. But we're all entitled to our opinions.

So here is one more opinion. (Believe me, I have a lot of them. ) There are a couple of ways that building a lawsuit is like building a house. I'm just going to mention two: it has to rest on a solid foundation and it takes lots of hands.

The foundation part makes basic sense. You have to have a case. There has to be some tangible thing that happened. If something might have happened, or it is just hearsay or gossip, there's no case. If you heard it happened, or your friend said it happened to him, there's no case. Or--you won't believe what happened to my cousin's niece's next door neighbor's roommates in-laws. Plenty of those come thru my mailbox--where something might have happened, but we're not exactly sure what.

Let me invent an imaginary case here: The sun rose, and you got out in it and got a sunburn--you can't sue the sun. Now, if you slathered yourself with a sunscreen and the person next to you didn't use a sunscreen, and you're burned worse and now you have malignant melanomas...then maybe you've got something. In either case, you're not suing the sun. Your suing the ones at fault--maybe some crook down the road who sold the sunscreen maker baby oil but claimed it was paba. It's still going to be hard to prove because that melanoma could have had a gazillion other causes. And you still have to prove it and look for the deceit, to connect the dots. But if it is an event that clearly happened to you, that's a foundation.

You can't build a case if the foundation is jello.

Now...about a case needing about a lot of hands. There is usually a lot of people involved in a case. Sometimes there are lots of people to interview. Sometimes there are intermediaries. Even the intermediaries have intermediaries. Sometimes a lot of people have been affected, and they all need to be heard. Sometimes there is some kind of cover-up and it doesn't show up until you've talked to a couple hundred--or a couple thousand--people. (If it's a corporate cover up, there can be a lot of payrolled people aware that something fishy is going on.) Every single person who helps ferret out the deceit is part of the solution. And with all of these people involved, you really do need people skills. It helps to genuinely like people.

Ever since it came out, I've gotten mail from law professors and students who use "Erin Brockovich" the movie as part of some legal learning experience. In fact, right now I have an email from the Deputy General Counsel for the Office of the Comptroller in Massachusetts who also teaches 1st year legal research, who is saying that "I use the movie Erin Brockovich as a teaching tool, to demonstrate that being able to connect with people is more effective than legal skills."

I am flattered that the movie is being used that way. And maybe it is a good thing.

In the course of getting justice done, there are lots of people involved. The law is all about people. Sometimes the legal system and lawyers seem to forget that. The law is not just a bunch of rules. The law is rules whose intent (is supposed to be) helping civilization be fair and reasonable. It's not a civilization of Martians we're talking about, nor robots; it's people.

Lawyers tend to get very compulsive and nit-picky when it comes down to looking at details in legal gobbledygook which is what they do. They're very good at arguing the fine points or putting on their close-up glasses and decoding all that fine print the rest of us skip over. But a lot of the time, lawyers don't deal well one-on-one with the people they have to interview, or the very people who have hired them. They have to take off those close-up and impersonal glasses to deal with the people.

Maybe being a lawyer is just one of those professions where the meat of the job gets in the way of the meaning. Like when you go to a doctor's office, and the doctor--who may be quite excellent at medicine--is terse and rushed and you're in and out the door with a diagnosis without feeling you've ever actually been doctored.

Now, I'm not chewing out doctors here, I've had some very kind doctors who relate well. I've had some who don't. I've known some really fine lawyers who relate well. I've known some who don't.

I'm just glad that someone engaged in the profession of teaching lawyers how to be lawyers is taking the time to remind them that they need to be people too.

Fellow citizens of the US, you can not believe all of the current environmental issues that have been coming to my attention. It is scary to see just how much environmental pollution is out there. I don't know if people realize that while it is wonderful to progress into the future and look for green energy, if we don't stop to look behind us and learn from history, we are doomed to repeat our mistakes in the future.

I am feeling increasing frustration that nothing is being done about all of the problems. Who knows where the candidates truly stand on the issues? (Everyone knows that campaign promises must be taken with a pillar of salt.) We will die holding our breath waiting for Industry to do something on it's own. Sometimes I wonder if everything is going to be up to us--if we the people are going to have to deal with the issues, hands on.

I've been thinking about the amazing feats of Habitat for Humanity. Habitat for Humanity--in case you're not familiar with it--has built and rehabilitated more than 250,000 houses. According to their website, the organization started out "financed by a revolving Fund for Humanity. The fund's money comes from the new homeowners' house payments, donations and no-interest loans provided by supporters and money earned by fund-raising activities. The monies in the Fund for Humanity are used to build more houses." Habitat for Humanity funds housing, and is manned by volunteers, donations and by individuals who do their share to contribute sweat equity to earn their piece of the pie. All of this because Clarence Jordon and Millard and Linda Fuller saw the need, and a way to do something about it.

Well, I see a need. We need to clean up the contamination. And I'd like to figure out a way to do something about it. I have wondered about the possibility of starting a foundation--Let's call it Environment for Humanity, a self-sustaining foundation to provide support for communities with environmental problems. Imagine a foundation where people can go when they see their local pollution issues. Somewhere people can band together, to organize with like-minded volunteers, both individual and corporate, all of whom do their share to contribute whatever they can--whether it is organizational talent, cash or sweat equity, all with one purpose in mind: to clean things up. I would be thrilled if the Habitat for Humanity people would like to get in touch with me and we can talk about putting something together.

In the meantime, I have been caught up on working on the problems in Cameron, Missouri, where there's a cluster of brain tumors; and if you're following the news, there's also the Hexavalent Chromium problem in Davenport, California. But that is just a drop in the bucket. I am constantly inundated with emails from people who live near industry have acquired cancers and illness.

Government is absent--and even if it weren't, it's all but bankrupt and an inefficient use of human and financial resources.

We the people have to find some way clean up the mess. Maybe we have to create the programs ourselves. After all, we made the mess; maybe our Public Health and Safety will depend on our cleaning it up.

Let me start off by saying (again) that I am as green as I have ever been. My concern for the environment and health and welfare for all of us has not lessened, nor will it. If anything, my feeling is stronger than ever, as the need for personal responsibility grows.

We are all responsible for our own sphere of influence.

I would like to address the "green" movement going on in the world today. What does that really mean to each of us as individuals? Even those who perceive themselves as being green or living green manifest their greenness in different ways.

Some people see green as a way to make money. That is okay as long as we progress and don’t jeopardize more of the environment.

Some people see it as recycling.

Others see being green in terms of carbon credits.

Being green means more than just being aware that the ice caps are melting and that global warming is upon us.

It means acting upon that knowledge in an infinity of small ways.

Being green is about fighting air pollution, and cleaning up the contamination that exists today. Being green is about changing to efficient light bulbs and being generally more energy efficient in our daily lives.

Being green is about finding other energy sources to use besides oil.

Being green means saving our oceans, our wildlife, our air, water and soil.

Being green means bypassing the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or other artificial agents in order to choose organics.

Being green is both a state of mind and activist issue because being green is something that is not merely spoken; it is a thing that is done. Thinking about it is the first step. Doing something about it is the next piece of the puzzle. If one doesn’t happen, the other won’t and the continuum of life will be broken.

Green is not a fad. It is a matter of survival--that’s how crucial every individual contribution and commitment is. We all caused the problem, and it will take all of us to clean up after ourselves.

Green is the natural state. It is what we come from and where we must return if we want to survive. We can only do that by working together. We must join in this commitment to this our common cause. After all, nothing is more common among us than our need for the air we breathe and the water we drink. Our very lives are contingent upon these elements.

We have got to take our places on the front lines of our battle for the environment--each and every one of us--to keep the continuum going. This is the daily battle and the long term movement inching us towards a better environment and a better life for us all.

I know I've talked before about politicians and heroes, but now I am speaking of the power and reach each of us as individuals. In this sense, we do not need politicians standing on the stump. We are all Oprahs. We are all Al Gores. We are all--if you will pardon sharing my name--Erin Brockovich--up on the big HD screen of life, fighting the fight for the environment.
Nothing in nature stands still. We need to remember if we simply do nothing, we will get pushed back. In order to have progress, in order to maintain progress we have got to keep fighting forward together.

The time has come to stop feeling that we have no hand in our own fate. We do have a hand in our fate; it is our choice to do or to do nothing.

This being nearly election time, I must also add that the best expression of freedom that I know of is the freedom to think for oneself and to act in our own defense. So with that in mind, may we always choose truth over deception, whatever political face it wears. May we always see clear enough to know which is which. And may we always choose green.

I want to clarify a few things. To those of you who say I am endorsing Palin...

Where does it say that I endorse Sarah Palin?

Nowhere.

At no point in the September 8th blog did I say I endorse Palin. I said she is a strong women.

What is wrong with that?

Nothing.

If you pay attention to the words, you would see that the blog says nothing about endorsements. This isn't political. The blog says, "Whether or not we stand on the same side of the fence, she gives off the aura of being a strong woman...."

Let's face it. No matter what people read, sometimes they only hear what they want to hear.

Let's give Sarah Palin credit for what she has done to date in a hard and difficult world: Raising kids. Being a mayor. Being a governor. I admire that when she didn't like how things were getting done in Alaska, instead of griping, she did something about it. She had the courage to run for office. Good for her or anyone else that can do it.

I don't agree with everything Palin says. I don't agree with everything anyone says. I think for myself. Guess what? I think that Hillary Clinton is a strong woman too. To paraphrase something Maya Angelo once said, "I admire Hillary on the basis of her having the authority to be herself, a mother, and a politician. When a woman stands up for herself, she stands for all women."

We can all choose for whom we vote. We choose what we think and what we do. That is the beauty of America. The freedom of choice.

For those of you who disagree with me, I respect your right to your opinion. Just don't misquote me, or quote me out of context to make what you want out of what I said.

I don't agree with everything Sarah Palin does. I don't agree with everything
corporate America does. I don't agree with all candidates on all issues. I don't always agree with my husband or kids or friends but that doesn't mean that I don't give them credit where credit is due.

Just because someone is a Republican, Democrat or Independent doesn't mean
that I do or don't, will or won't look at their positives and their negatives. I make up my mind after I see and hear everything the candidates have to say.

Besides, how many times have we voted someone into office and they turned out to be different from what they promised?

As long as we're talking about endorsements, I am endorsing a local Senate candidate named Tony Strickland.

Tony Strickland is a friend of mine and a Republican. He is also for green energy and would make a great Senator.

The idea that we can't cross party lines is ridiculous.

I could sit here and say I am Republican, I live in this box. I could sit here and say I am a Democrat, I live in that box. I could refuse to extend my hand across the aisle for a common goal and cause. Then I could sit side by side--or back to back--with my fellow Americans, forever at a stalemate. Nothing would ever get done.

But I don't live in a box. I want what I think we all want--which is to help people over all.

Rather than only being one sided and part of the problem and getting nothing done, let's work to be a part of a solution. Let's reach our hands across the aisle to help negotiate so we can get to work and get this country moving again.

I was born and raised in a Republican family in Kansas. My father worked for industry and the government. He is a mechanical engineer. He is the very person who taught me the value of our land, air, water, health. And that the greatest gift we have is our family. Funny, he is a Republican yet taught me very fundamental Democratic ideals.

As an adult I have been a registered Republican and a registered Democrat.

Neither party has a patent on caring.

Neither party has a patent of caring for the environment, health or anything else. These are not partisan issues; these are Humanist issues. You will never convince me that just because someone is a Republican that they don't care about the environment or that their kids could be poisoned by environmental pollutants. You will never convince me that just because someone is a Democrat, that they don't care about money or the economy. We all care about the environment and our kids, and money and the economy.

I wish there were a "Humanist" party because that IS the party that I would join.

A recent blog post touched on a topic which gets me all worked up.

"America is in love--again. Remember how we loved Vivian Ward, the pretty woman in Pretty Woman? And who could forget Maggie Carpenter, the runaway bride in Runaway Bride? Or Tess Ocean, the twelfth ocean in Ocean's Twelve? But then there's my personal favorite: Erin Brockovich, who was Erin Brockovich in Erin Brockovich." Read the full post...

People keep confusing Julia/Erin. That's the first time I've ever seen "Erin who was Erin in Erin..." Excuse me, but there IS an actress in there somewhere. Doesn't an actor have to play a character for 30 years (like Captain Kangaroo) to become such an icon that they become their character?

And--Excuse me!--I'm not fiction. I exist. Julia can't be me because I am me.

"America is in love--again. Remember how we loved.....But then there's my personal favorite: Erin Brockovich, who was Erin Brockovich in Erin Brockovich." What is that sentence even supposed to mean?

I had to look up all of those roles...

Vivian Ward, (Pretty Woman)
Maggie Carpenter, (Runaway Bride)
Tess Ocean, (Ocean's Twelve)
Erin Brockovich, (Erin Brockovich)

... to figure out that ALL of them are Julia Roberts.

Maybe they can do a movie about Julia Roberts's life and I can play Julia. Then someone can write an erroneous blog ostensibly about me, that says "Julia Roberts, who was Julia Roberts in Julia Roberts."

That would really confuse them.

When it comes to politics, I'm not about attacking someone because they are on a Republican ticket or a Democratic ticket. Let’s look at the person, their ideas and what they might represent for us humans. After seeing Sarah Palin's acceptance speech, I came away with several thoughts, one of them that it looks like Palin-speak is going to mean plain-speaking.

Plain speaking is a good thing.

What am I leading up to?

Sarah Palin is being compared to me. I've got four of the quotes right here:

Like this quote:

"Palin is a cross between two archetypes, frontier woman Annie Oakley and muckraker Erin Brockovich. A reformer in a state of cunning politicians, she made her name quitting the Alaska Oil & Gas Conservation Commission in outrage over backroom deals and parlayed that into running against a hugely unpopular governor, Frank Murkowski."
Read the complete Bloomberg News article...

and this:

SARAH PALIN IS THE ERIN BROCKOVICH OF ALASKA
Read the complete The Astute Bloggers post...

and this:

Awesome: one part Reagan, one part Erin Brockovich, one part Annie Oakley, one part hockey mom. One part mother of a child with special needs-and soon to be a grandma.
Read the complete The Astute Bloggers post...

Of course, not all of the comparisons are so flattering. This last one one equates Sarah with me (in a negative way) and all the Democrats as Stepford Wives.
Read the complete Abbey-Roads post...

Okay, I know she sniped at Obama a little bit, but she did it with an admirable, graceful semi-scary pit-bull/hockey-mom tenacity that is as natural as breathing; and she stood up to all the media pressure without a semi-casual hair out of place. It doesn't matter whether you are Republican or Democrat, or Independent... (which is about the way I am ready to turn because both parties are acting foolish and judgmental and attacking.) Some of the comments about Sarah Palin have been unfair and I don’t say that because blogs say she is “Sarah Brockovich” or "half Ronald Reagan half Erin Brockovich” or “The Erin Brockovich of Alaska.”

More importantly, beaming with pride, she unapologetically brought out her entire family, including her expecting teenage daughter. (And in the history of the presidency, Republican OR Democrat, I don't think there's been a candidate who had the gonads to do that. ) She was so proud of them it was coming off of her in waves--and rightly so. Frankly, I didn't see a waiver or a weak spine in the whole crew. That's an impressive show of family solidarity. I feel certain the best candidates for office never ran because they kept their secrets in their closets. Sarah Palin seems like her closets are all opened up, and she's right out there saying "Here I am. Let's get to work."

How can you not admire what she has done, and appreciate the position she is in? Sure, she may be loud. So am I. Sometimes you've got to scream to get anyone to hear you. So what if her 17 year old is pregnant? Even though I'm proud she didn't stick her in a closet to hide her away, I realize that girl has got to have true grit to be standing out in front of the spiteful media like that. It’s no one’s business. It happens to young girls all over the WORLD. In history, girls use to have babies much earlier.

None of us should judge Sarah Palin for anything but her own actions. We do our best to raise our kids and when they grow up they develop their OWN minds and their own life and their own way of thinking and I am certainly in favor of that.

Sarah Palin is running a State--and mighty well I should add. She has a successful marriage, 5 kids, which HELLO, is a BIG, BIG, JOB! She takes care of herself, she speaks her mind and her heart. Her son is in the War. I would be scared to death if my son were over there.

I think it is a simple thing really. The fact is that Sarah Palin positively emanates strength. Whether or not we stand on the same side of the fence, she gives off the aura of being a strong woman who doesn't back down, and she does it sporting heels and wearing her family like a badge of well-deserved honor. I am sure there are a million other women out there who are doing the same thing.

And the truth is I am proud to be a member of the same Strong Woman's Club that Sarah Palin is in.