Bald Eagles, Condors, and the Beach (video)

Dev, CC Liu, Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Mari Wirta (via Sonocarina); NPR.org

Releasing a California condor into the wild after lead poisoning (ventanaws.org)

Black Sand Beach or Vík í Mýrdal, south coast of Iceland (Mari Wirta/epod.usra.edu)

  

When we were mermaids

The black sand and pebble beach near the town of Vik i Myrdal, which is the southernmost settlement in Iceland. The sand originated as basalt lava that covers much of the area. Because black sand isn’t routinely replenished like most blond beach sand when storms and tides wash the it away, black sand beaches tend to be short lived.

The geology of Iceland is comparatively young -- owing its existence to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge that splits the island in half. 

Venice/Santa Monica beaches, Los Angeles

Volcanoes along the ridge, such as Katla, erupt with some regularity, continuing to add surface area and mass to the “land of ice and fire” and to augment the black sand beaches. Photographed Oct. 3, 2012, Vik coordinates: 63.419444, -19.009722

California Condors to be released today!

(Tim Huntington/Vimeo) California Condors "recycle" Gray whale that washed ashore, Big Sur

Reintroducing the Condor in Big Sur

Ventana Wildlife Society (ventanaws.org)

Baby condor in nest (ventanaws)

By the 1980s, the California Condor population was in crisis, and extinction in the wild seemed certain. The dramatic decline of condors in the 20th century has been attributed to shooting (by killers who proudly call themselves sportsmen), poisoning, electric power lines, egg collecting, and habitat loss. In 1987, the last wild California Condor was taken into captivity to join the 26 remaining condors in an attempt to bolster the population through a captive breeding program. At that time, it was uncertain whether or not North America's largest flying land bird (by wingspan, 9.5 feet) would ever again soar in the wild. More

• Hunters, Ranchers help Wildlife, Condors by Using Nonlead Ammunition to Kill them Gently. Thanks, guys! (*irony*)
• VIDEO: Quick tour of the real Iceland? Watch "The Secret Life of Walter Middy" 2013

Bald Eagles of Catalina Island, California

(Catalina Island Conservancy)

The harsh winter has caused headaches for many in the Midwest, but there's a silver lining for some bird watchers looking for American bald eagles. Jenna Dooley of NPR member-station WNIJ explains how this harsh winter is helping attract them to an unusual spot in Illinois. LISTEN

Far to the west there is a nesting population within view of the Los Angeles skyline (when its visible through the smog swirling trapped by the basin).

 

The dent west of LA is Santa Monica Bay (NPR)

Those birds, affected by the pesticide DDT, are offshore on a unique island full of wildlife. Catalina's flora and fauna even includes Sasquatches and buffalo. But wild inhabitants are threatened by fire and invasive species.

As Stephen Colbert must be happy about, the eagles are landing, or at least hatching, and everyone can see it live: BALD EAGLE NEST CAM

See how it follows a male pattern in the back? I blame the DDT, which...

has left me looking like George Costanza. Don't judge (Samantha Holmes).

Permaculture Design Course (Living Mandala)

Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Living Mandala, Permaculture, Social Enterprise and Leadership Program: 7 Stages to Sustainability Permaculture Design Course

Kat Steele (Esalen, Urban Permaculture Guild)

Living Mandala -- in conjunction with Empowerment WORKS and a host of community leaders, social entrepreneurs, visionary organizations, and amazing educators -- presents a groundbreaking 7 Stages to Sustainability Permaculture Design Course starting in less than a week!

 

Of all the more than 100 courses, workshops, and events Living Mandala has co-produced over the last six years, this one is going to be exciting.

Looking for an exceptional, manageable, affordable, and accessible PDC? This is an amazing program to support getting projects, social enterprises, and long term goals off the ground from Vision to Impact. It is an amazing opportunity! See more at livingmandala.com/7SS

UPCOMING

7 Stages to Sustainability (7SS)
Permaculture Design Course:

Permaculture for International Sustainable Development and Social Entrepreneurship 

4 Modules, 13 Days

March  27-May 18, 2014
MA Center /GreenFriends Farm, Castro Valley, California

Regenerative Leadership: From Igniting Our Purpose to Cross-Sector Co-Creation
March 27-30, 2014
MA Center /GreenFriends Farm, Castro Valley, California

Ecological Design in Action: Appropriate Technology, Measurable Impact and What it Takes

April 10-13, 2014
MA Center /GreenFriends Farm, Castro Valley, California

Social Enterprise for Synergistic Partnerships and Resilient Communities: From Harvest to Market to Reinvesting the Surplus
May 1-4, 2014
MA Center /GreenFriends Farm, Castro Valley, California

The Soil Food Web Intensive, March 2014 (livingmandala.com)

The Ghost Dance (Native American Buddhism)

Hendon Harris, Wisdom Quarterly, Xochitl, CC Liu, Ashley Wells (eds.)

Native Americans are the indigenouss people of what is now the USA (thedqtimes.com)

Lama in ritual costume and American bison mask performs ghost dance at Taer Monastery in Xining, NW China, Qinghai Province, Feb. 5, 2012. The ghost dance is performed across Tibetan regions to ward off disasters and bring luck and fortune (Zhang Hongxiang/Xinhua).

  

Tibetan ritual, California (Sacramento Bee)

There is a link between the Native American "Ghost Dance" (Nanissáanah), which so frightened the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in the late 19th century, and the Tibetan Buddhist Ghost Dance tradition troubling China today.

The basis for the Native American Ghost Dance, the sacred circle dance, is a traditional ritual used by many Native Americans since prehistoric times.
 

Lakota chief (PRIR, 1899/W)

A new form was first practiced among the Nevada Paiute in 1889. The practice swept throughout much of the Western United States, quickly reaching areas of California and Oklahoma.
 
Psychologist Michael Katz, in his book Tibetan Dream Yoga, writes: "The last known enactments of the Ghost Dance were held in the 1950s among the Shoshoni. A contemporary Native American leader, Mary Thunder, upon seeing the [Tibetan] Vajra Dance performed, commented on the similarity of the two dances."

 

The Ghost Dance is a spiritual ritual to regain the tribe's pre-invasion life (thedqtimes.com).

 
When the Tibetan Ghost Dance was performed at Taer Monastery, Chinese media reported, "The ghost dance is performed across Tibetan regions to ward off disasters and bring luck and fortune."
  

Buffalo in Tibet? (Eadweard Muybridge)

"According to the prophet [of peace] Jack Wilson (Wovoka)'s teachings [which prophesied a peaceful end to white expansion, while preaching goals of clean, honest living and cross-cultural cooperation by Native Americans], proper practice of the dance would reunite the living with the spirits of the dead and bring peace, prosperity, and unity to native peoples throughout the region" (James Mooney, The Ghost Dance Religion and Wounded Knee, NY: Dover Publications, 1896).

It is characterized by a revival of many traditional beliefs and by the fervent expectation that a time of perpetual bliss was immanent (thedqtimes.com).

 

White postmortem photography (GG)

The call to return to the Ghost Dance was a call... [to the Native people, to the First Nations, to resist British colonial imperialism, American expansionism, displacement, and genocide. The same holds true when Tibetan Buddhist dancers perform the same ritual, frightening Chinese officials who in Tibet are the imperial forces, expansionists, and perpetrators of displacement and a cultural genocide.]

No dance means war (Siege of New Ulm)

The Sioux variation on the Ghost Dance tended towards millenarianism, an innovation that distinguished the Sioux interpretation from Jack Wilson's original teachings. The Caddo Nation still practices the Ghost Dance today (Phil Cross, "Caddo Songs and Dances," Caddo Legacy from Caddo People).

Moonlight Dance: Early "Indians" of India
Ashley Wells (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly, Wikipedia edit

When the Moon appears over the hills...

Thabal Chongba is a popular Manipuri Indian folk dance associated with the Yaoshang festival. Manipuri Indians, or Meiteis, are the majority ethnic group of Manipur, India; they are made up of seven clans, who trace their written history back to 33 AD).

 

They know our dances in ancient India? (SW)

The literal meaning of thabal is "moonlight," and chongba means "dance" or "leap," thus "dancing in the moonlight" (Encyclopaedia of Indian Tribes, Shyam Singh Shashi, Anmol Publications, 1997). Traditionally conservative parents in Manipur, India, did not allow their daughters to go out and meet young men without their consent. Thabal Chongba therefore provided the only chance for girls to meet and talk to boys (Grapevine). In earlier times, this dance was performed in the moonlight accompanied by folk songs. The music is rhythmic beating of drums accompanied by other instruments....
 

We need Native boy dancers (Hans Thoma)

As soon as the Moon rises over the hills, the flute, the drums, and the cymbals start pouring out music. The boys and girls in a circle clutch each other's hands with rhythms of music slow and fast, high and low, upbeat and down. If the number is great, they may form two or three rows so everyone can participate. More

 

"Native Chineseans" - Tibetans post-Chinese invasion, Potala Pueblo Palace, Lhasa (WQ)

• A Tongva Native American Garden (and Tibet)
• The Ghost Dead of early white Americans
• White Tombstone Weirdness (goregrish.com)
• The Buddhist University of the West (California)
• Ecological Permaculture Design at Living Mandala
• Daytime Practices of Dream Yoga (Reality Sandwich)
• 5 Drinking Myths That Can Kill You (Cracked)
• Dream Yoga and the Practice of Natural Light (Chogyal Namkhai Norbu)
• Indian sex rackets mar the country

News of the World: Fly Malaysia Airlines cheap

Pfc. Sandoval, Pat Macpherson, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly (NEWS REVIEW)

Lose yourself! Dare to live, dare to fly, dare to fall into a hijacking black hole (cutideals)

(SH) A baby moose is stuck in the fence in the snow. Humans sneak up. What will happen?

1. Wells Fargo admits to defrauding homeowners out of their houses, robosigning, foreclosing, training employees to "lose" paperwork -- will not be charged with theft or any major felony but may have to pay small penalty to banking insiders.

2. DARPA is encouraging many academics and ametuers to work for the Killing Machine, the U.S. Imperial Military Service. But they don't know it. "I don't work for the military," they exclaim. "I just enter contests sponsored by DARPA; I can't help what they do with my invetions. If they want to build decision-making killer robots out of my contest winner, that's on them. I don't work for the military. I'm just a garage tinkerer, a code writer, a contest enterer." Oy vey.

3. "We Come As Friends" Anti-imperialist radio host Michael Slate (revcom.us) talks to the film maker showing just how "empire" is accomplished whether it's the British yesterday or the Americans today. The world's newest country is South Sudan on the continent of Africa. When Hillary Clinton visited, she invited investment and exploitation. Come, bankers, "do well while doing good," was her PR campaign's slogan. "There's plenty of money to be made" off of these black-skinned dummies, dark skinned needy, dimwitted pawns, poor, up-and-coming Third World youth. It is what the British did for centuries, and we're just following that Western lineage of invasion, occupation, and unadulterated exploitation while bringing "God" and "civilization" to these savages, those in need...while extracting everything we can via the railroads and infrastructure we first build to benefit ourselves. It's not for them, mind you, but for getting the goods to market by way of the exit ports for shipping. Thanks, future president Hillary; you're a Good Old Boy after all.

Dr. DeGruy, Fullerton College, March 28

4. Southern California progressives have become so open minded that they finally see that "mass incarceration" is a reality and a purposeful policy, a ALEC-style conspiracy? Have professors Michelle Alexander and Joy DeGruy finally broken into the popular imagination? What else could explain quizzing L.A. Sheriff candidates on their views of "mass incarceration"? Sure, they'll probably lie and do it anyway, but they can't say they were never asked. Then they can be called on their lying and voted out, and another set can be brought in and do the same thing, then voted out... See how well democracy works? Just ask the Great Communicator, our Fearless Leader Obama. He would never lie. He would sooner chop down a cherry tree and be spanked than fib about it.

Here's a handy chart provided by USAF

5. Dr. Roger Lear, M.D. (alienscapel.com) is dead? The only man brave enough to remove extraterrestrial alien implants, expose them, and live to tell about it... Well, perhaps not the latter. He has succumbed to medical interventions, one of America's leading killers (the iatrogenic effect). Was he assassinated for saying too much? He will be missed, and his evidence cannot be explained by ordinary means. The only way to ignore him is to ignore him. This leaves no messy questions about how inanimate objects, the "implants," have bundles of nerves going to them. Since when does the body not only not reject foreign matter but embrace it more than medical implants? His findings were shocking, so of course they could not be widely reported. To do so would mean having to find a way to dismiss the obvious: there are others, and they occasionally implant people.

6. Republican Chris "Christ" Christie has group sex and makes a polished porn movie about it? That's what Gawker is currently investigating -- with its near forensic analysis of the footage -- and reporting.

What goes up must come... Not necessarily.

7. Then there was something about some missing plane or something? Went off its route straight to Diego Garcia, a military base expert in secrecy for the clandestine military-industrial complex (MIC). It was probably just a coincidence that it was carrying 20 top secret chip researchers, many of them Americans, on their way to the capital of China. Sure the world is searching millions of square miles of sea for them, yeah. Hey, but did you hear about the discounted flights? Bring a cellphone (mobile) and call us the next time this happens so we won't worry so much.

• WARNING: Click on email, hackers could take control
• Washington landslide: 18 CA rescue specialists go to help

Update: Suspect in Hollywood Hills shooting dead; officer hit by small debris A police spokesman said the suspect in a shooting in the Hollywood Hills Monday morning has been executed by police is dead of apparent gunshot wounds but, more importantly, an officer has been slightly hurt during the altercation and is now doing well, according to Chief Charlie Beck. And as for the suspect Anaheim police recently executed for protecting himself against a vicious trained K-9 agent, uh, well, at least the doggie, whose name is Bruno, is making progress (video). But someone is trying to stop surveillance helicopters and their noise by complaining to the FAA when they are needed for police state protection law and order

Michelle Obama goes Tibetan in China

Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; A Martinez and Alex Cohen, Take Two (scpr.org)

B----, please! Don't show me up. - Why, Laura, I would never dream of it; I'm Ivy League.

They're fighting again because her husband, G.W., used to be dictator and now he's gay and paints himself in the bath. - I thought Barrack's gay? - Yeah, both! (Alexsaurel/flickr)

  

The FLOTUS dresses well (Haley Fox/SCPR)

The First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama is currently visiting China with her daughters Sasha and Malia and her mother, Marian Robinson. She is currently in China, where her style is generating a lot of buzz.

 

First ladies in Beijing (Stuart Leavenworth)

Mrs. Obama is there to promote educational exchanges between the U.S. and China, but she has also subtly been addressing the issue of freedom of expression.

For a look at the substance of the First lady's trip, Laurie Burkitt, a reporter in the Beijing bureau of the Wall Street Journal, joined Take Two: LISTEN

HIGHLIGHTS
Indirectly criticized China for severe restrictions on the media.

FREE TIBET!

She was giving a speech to Stanford Univ. at Peking, one of China’s biggest and most important universities. She talked about the importance of overseas education to broaden the horizon of each individual and mixed in between that she mentioned freedom of speech and access to information. She used pretty strong language. She said something like, ‘Countries are stronger and more prosperous when everyone can be heard.’ She mentioned her own experience and said, ‘My husband and I are on the receiving end of a lot of criticism but we really wouldn’t trade it in for the world.’

Later this week she will be eating a Tibetan lunch in China.
Tibetan food is not the world’s greatest. It’s mostly [momos]. So the reason to eat it would be to open discussion about a region of China that has really been fighting for independence. And Pres. Obama recently met with the Dalai Lama, the religious leader who now lives in India [because] he’s not allowed to go back [to Tibet/China]...

• China to silence Dalai Lama in Tibet 
• In China, Michelle Obama gently broaches free speech
• Michelle Obama arrives in China on hotly anticipated trip (Reuters)  U.S. first lady Michelle Obama arrived in Beijing on... have already begun criticizing Obama for planning to lunch on Tibetan food... on what the trip would bring and what she would wear and eat.
• Michelle Obama and China's first lady Peng Liyuan...
• Michelle Obama and children arrive in Beijing for visit
• Michelle Obama's "fashion showdown" with China's First Lady (Huff Post) As Michelle Obama began her much-anticipated visit to China on Thursday... she is scheduled to eat lunch at a Tibetan restaurant in Chengdu...
• Michelle Obama to use "grandma diplomacy" to help win over China (Daily Mail) Michelle Obama will be joined on trip to China by daughters and her mother...obesity, LGBT rights advocate, promotes organic food and healthy eating... Visits Chengdu Panda Base; has lunch at a Tibetan restaurant.
• Michelle Obama's carefully-considered China Tour outfits

The Zen of Field Tripping ($10 tour)

Roshi Jeff Albrizze, Wisdom Quarterly; The Buddhist Progress Society (hsilai.org)

Hsi Lai Temple ("Going West" Monastery), Hacienda Heights, suburban Los Angeles, CA

Hillside parking lot, main entrance, Hsi Lai (Jesse Kaplan/TheGuibordCenter.org)

  

Courtyard with dining hall behind

PasaDharma provides a place to practice Zen. With an idea of having no ideas but "just sitting," the trip often remains on the mat. However, on Saturday (March 29) the local sangha will take up mats and walk around the grounds of the largest Buddhist temple complex in the western hemisphere: Hsi Lai ("Going West") on a hill that separates the eastern suburbs of Los Angeles from Orange County. This is a field trip.

Carpooling provided from Pasadena at 10:30 am. Those driving themselves are invited to meet at the temple at 11:00 am or join the carpool caravan going east to the temple. Chinese vegetarian lunch at 11:30 am. Tour starts at 1:30 and concludes at 3:00 pm.

• Saturday March 29th, 2014
• 3456 S. Glenmark Drive
• Hacienda Heights, CA 91745

What is Hsi Lai?

WQ at Hsi Lai full moon observance

This massive Taiwanese Mahayana Buddhist temple encompasses 15 acres and a floor area of 102,430 square feet. The temple's dynastic Ming (1268-1644 CE) and Ching (1644-1911 CE) architecture is reflected in its buildings, gardens, fountains, and statuary. Chinese speakers may regard Hsi Lai as "Coming to the West," signifying the dedication of the Buddha's Light Mountain (Fo Guang Shan) Buddhist Order to spread the teachings of the Buddha to the Western world. It is incluseve and provides Theravada as well as Mahayana teachings, having established the first Buddhist universities (University of the West) in the US. The founder, Ven. Master Hsing Yun, had previously established Fo Guang Shan, the largest monastery in Taiwan, which encompasses over 600 acres.

Going West under a full moon (WQ)

The temple was built to serve as a spiritual and cultural center for those interested in learning more about Buddhism and Taiwanese/Chinese cultural practices. This form of Mahayana came to be called "Humanistic Buddhism" aimed at creating a "Pure Land" on Earth. Built to fulfill these goals in the USA, the temple's objectives are to benefit society through charitable programs, nurture missionary activity through education, spread Dharma through rich cultural observances, and to edify people through traditional Buddhist practices.

RSVP (Roshi Jeff Albrizze at 626.529.4074 or jeffalbrizze@hotmail.com) so an advanced count can be provided to the temple.

CARPOOL: Meet at the Pasadena School District parking lot, 351 S. Hudson Ave., Pasadena, cross street East Del Mar Blvd.

MEET: Main entrance outside first Buddha Hall at 11:00 am; the group will then proceed together to dining hall for lunch, followed by tour starting at the Information Center at 1:30 pm.

DRESS: Out of respect dress comfortably but appropriately: avoid tank tops, shorts, or mini-skirts, smoking, and please avoid bringing meats of any kind or outside foods and beverages.

DONATION: $9 (cash only) per person covers delicious all-you-care-to-eat buffet Chinese vegetarian lunch. Museum admission is an additional $1. There is also a temple gift shop with prayer beads (malas), Dharma books, statuettes, souvenirs, and art.

Humanistic Buddhism & Leadership Online Certificate Program (uwest.edu)

Nature is cheaper than therapy: Walkabout!

Xochitl, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Tim Martinez, Arroyo Seco Foundation (facebook)

"NATURE. CHEAPER THAN THERAPY." (Sun Gazing/facebook.com)

The shores of Hahamongna "Lake" along JPL and Watershed Park, Pasadena

How the native inhabitants, the Tongva, saw Hahamonga at the head of the LA River

  

Go with the flow. If nature is cheaper than therapy, what could be more therapeutic than a walkabout in spring?

Wisdom Quarterly will join the Dry Riverbed preservationists of the Arroyo Seco Foundation to talk about Tongva culture, engage in environmental activism to save and restore the sacred site, and enjoy what Douglas Adams coined "sand, surf, and suffering" (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy).

The sun will be up, sand underfoot, surf lapping on the eastern edge of the park (thanks to the recent rains that came mysteriously out of nowhere), and "suffering" is ever present to remind us that enlightenment, nirvana, and freedom beckon.

• Hahamonga Walkabout 2014
• Watershed Park, Pasadena (lower lot)
• March 22, 9:00 am to noon

Review: Pussy Riot in L.A. (video)

Amber Larson, Seth Auberon, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly;  Library Foundation L.A. (lfla.org)

Nadia T. (right) and fellow Pussy Riot member post-prison; Euro TV (RTE 1) last month (S).

 

What were we expecting to find at author (Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot) Masha Gessen's Pussy Riot lecture in LA? Riot Grrrl protests in a staid building in the middle of the largest library in town? There were crowds taking advantage of the extra hour afforded by daylight savings time. It was cool and breezy, yet there was not a single balaclava in the audience. DayGlo hair yes, "Free Pussy Riot" teeshirts yes, feminists yes. Activists? Not so much. No nude protesters, no riot police, no mobs of newsmen after photos of topless demonstrators.
 

Don a balaclava and you, too, are Pussy Riot

The capacity crowd was here to be intellectually stimulated by researcher Masha Gessen, who somehow managed to survive gay and out in increasingly draconian Russia. She relayed the arresting details of a sham trial that was a "trial" only in one sense: The Pussy Riot defendants got to read their own prepared statements near the end. It almost brought us to tears as Nadia (pictured above, right), who conceived of a Wee-wee (later changed in English to Pussy) Riot, a radical feminist art protest collective, read a statement that explained our whole reason for working on Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal. Nadia speaks for us by her brave court statements. She was a philosophy major, after all.

 

(HBO Special) "A Punk Prayer" the American Pussy Riot documentary

 

We got to hear first hand from Gessen how Putin is, indeed, a dictator the likes of which have not been seen since George W. Bush stole a pair of American elections. (She is also the author of Man Without a Face: Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin).

He appointed himself "president" three times then rigged elections after the fact to confirm and legitimize the appointment. He was suffering from a great deal of unpopularity, particularly at the time Pussy Riot was singing a "Punk Prayer" (see entire HBO special above) against him in the former empire's most famous Christian church.

Russian Buddhist temple (Alexey Savransky)

(The Buddhist temples, such as the famous monastery in Elista, tend to be in the east, in Europe's only indigenously Buddhist country, Kalmykia, which is part of Russia). But, Gessen pointed out, traditionally the Eastern Orthodox Church has always been the last resort of scoundrels in officially atheist Russia.
 

If Imperialist Hillary says so

Russia was never actually atheist; that was just the official party line, and most Russians were never members of the official party, which was for elites. The Church was always there to back a dictator if called upon, according to Gessen. (This was because the KGB killed or defrocked any resistors within the Church then replaced them with spies and cronies, much like our American mainstream media).

Protesting Putin, promoting Pussy Riot (FP)

Putin has only recently seen his numbers skyrocket because of his incursions into Ukraine and Crimea, moves which most Russians seem to approve. Moscovites and Kremlin insiders certainly love it, as do the very rural areas of the country. Why? As Gessen reveals, 85% of Russia is wholly dependent on state-run media [and, we would guess, the other 15% is involved in making and/or disseminating that media].

 

But now, as of the day of her lecture, it's worse. What little independent media there was has been dismantled in the past two weeks. Since Sochi things have only gotten worse. Pussy Riot activists have been attacked, as aided and abetted by the police state. But Russia has never known democracy or any real freedom in their lifetimes, yet Nadia and the others recognized the lies and faux freedoms were lies.

 

Men conquer, and I'm The Man.

For instance, how could Russians not see how Pussy Riot was trying to help and liberate them? The state-run media saw to that: A "Punk Prayer" has the lyrics "oh shit, oh shit, oh shit," and due to this and some spin doctoring, most of the surprisingly pious country to this day thinks Pussy Riot members defecated inside the church. Thus their sensibilities were hurt, accused and convicted of a hate crime.

RT helped WikiLeaks

And as ludicrous as it may seem, even RT -- which has done so much to reveal what American media/propaganda tries to conceal -- has been forced to go overtly pro-Moscow in reporting new propaganda. The channel was always funded by the state but exhibited editorial freedom that made it one of our favorite outlets to turn to get a view on what our own government wouldn't tell us. An opposition party, no matter how awful, is always needed in a democracy.

• Datelines, maps - casualties of Russia’s Crimea invasion
• Yes, there are bag guys in the Ukrainian gov't [but never mind that, the U.S. loves friendly dictators]
• AUDIO: Pussy Riot: Words Will Break Cement!