‘Tis the season of holiday rituals and obligations. We all have familiar celebrations. We also have familial losses, regrets and ways of relating that no longer work. Facing holidays past and Hallmark expectations can leave one feeling powerless. One friend decided to spend the season in Italy with his son: a handy escape. But for those who can’t jet across the pond, it’s good to be certain that you are celebrating rather than obligating. This year, I decided to create my own celebrations instead of driving to my mother’s home in Orange County.
What do they say about how to make God laugh? Tell Her your plans. For Thanksgiving I intended on being solo. I was going to hike, order a turkey dinner and watch two DVDs. For those who know my movie propensity, this may not seem like a treat. But I was going to splurge on movies from redbox instead of trolling the free library bins. I even had the movies selected: It’s Complicated and Temple Grandin.
The first kink in plans was that my friend Andy, who is visiting the area from out of town, didn’t want to be alone. I invited him to my place. I worried about who was going to sit in the comfortable chair if he stayed for the movies.
Kink number two was that I knew another person who was also visiting the Central Coast solo. No way do I have three comfortable chairs. The third kink was, well. At least I was laughing.
  In October I taught a group of young adults about the power of ritual. I told them the most important point of any ritual was clarity and intention. That’s why we were celebrating the Day of the Dead on October 26 instead of November 2. That’s the reason they could join me by proxy during my full moon burning bowl ceremony. They wrote their intentions on cards: I blessed and released the intentions a few weeks later.
Another thing about ritual is that after a time, traditional rituals need to be revamped. Change is a good thing. If the kids are gone, do you really want to decorate? If not, a poinsettia or bowl of pinecones as a centerpiece is festive enough. I love, love, love decorating. I even have two mini Christmas trees: one for each room. But due to creative projects, I’m going to set my nativity-in-a-coconut-shell on the table, step back and announce, “I have achieved good enoughness!”
Ritual can be tiny. Maybe I’ll memorize another Mary Oliver poem. The one that starts, “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice…” That way the words will be handy whenever I feel obligated to sacrifice my spirit on behalf of an outdated idea.
Celebrate. Create. Appreciate. Rituals are for grounding your soul into your sweet body of life. Trust your Inner Wisdom to light the way and leave you laughing.
Dorothy Segovia is a certified Life Coach who facilitates group and individual workshops. She is currently writing a magazine series based on her coaching work.

“You must give back for the space you take up on this Earth.”

There, in a few simple words, was the life philosophy of my friend, Mina Vaughn. Mina was one of two friends who passed away unexpectedly in the last few weeks. Like my other friend, Estelle Wall, Mina lived her life philosophy to the fullest. These two women, on the surface, appeared to be totally different. One was tall and slender, with the grace of a dancer (and she was). The other was shorter and rounder. Both women had seemingly endless amounts of energy to devote to their passions: community groups, politics, and children – always children. They both doted on their grandchildren, whether they achieved the title by birth or by “adoption”. They both gave back to our community much more than the space they took up.

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It is obscene that Tom DeLay is not sitting in a Texas prison for felony charges brought against him four years ago. Instead, he has been dancing with the stars and making regular appearances on Fox News. In those latest talking head appearances, Tiny Tom has been telling us that Republicans should fight aggressively to make sure that unemployed Americans don’t get unemployment benefits. According to DeLay, American workers are slackers and paying them unemployment benefits will keep them from looking for a job.

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Ann Coulter, last week, told the media there was hope for the conservative movement in America. Coulter said she was inspired by the small but enthusiastic group of “young right-wingers” who showed up at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C. But when you do understand a little bit more about the leadership in that group of “young right-wingers” the idea of a bright future for the struggling movement is anything but probable.
James O’Keefe is one of those young right-wing leaders that the conservative movement embraces. O’Keefe showed up at CPAC only after he posted bail on felony charges he faces in New Orleans. That CPAC young right-wing leader was arrested for trying to tap the phone lines and computer system of a Democratic U.S. Senator. The criminal operation led by O’Keefe and several other leaders of the conservative movement’s “bright future” would not be considered inspirational by normal standards. It was a criminal operation not much different than one led by another conservative leader named G. Gordon Liddy. Liddy and his pals also believed that criminal break-ins and wiretaps should be part of the conservative social and political agenda.
Liddy’s felony convictions had no effect on how conservatives regard him. He is apparently a neo-con hero for young wing-nuts like O’Keefe. O’Keefe will no doubt become a conservative icon if he serves the full ten-year prison term he is facing for his political espionage. We can only hope.
The F.B.I. special agent who helped arrest O’Keefe explained that O’Keefe was disguised as a telephone repairman during his attempt to promote the conservative movement by tapping a U.S. senator’s phone. But do a simple Google search on O’Keefe and all his disguises are easily removed. You will see stories about his association to white supremacist groups as well as a dozen other neo-nut organizations that allow him to fit in perfectly with the birthers, the deathers, and tax protestors who kill people by crashing their airplane into government buildings. O’Keefe may represent the “bright future” by CPAC standards, but today he appears to be just another paranoid conspiracy freak who defines the new conservative movement.
It is no surprise that Ann Coulter was thrilled to see O’Keefe show up at CPAC. Coulter and O’Keefe are soul mates. She made that clear when she told us that the widows of 9/11 were “The witches of East Brunswick” who actually were “enjoying their husbands’ deaths.” She made those statements because those 9/11 widows were critical of the fact that “W” allowed that massacre to occur.
Ann also showed her best side when she said this about all Muslims: “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.”
The CPAC meeting this year was desperate to attract a younger crowd. They organized an event called XPAC that stands for “X-treme Politically Active Conservatives.” Imagine the excitement surging through the room at that “X-treme” rally when their most visible and most relevant young right-wingers – Coulter and O’Keefe – made their entrance. Gordon Liddy surely must have felt like a proud father. He saw clear proof that the nut never falls far from the tree.
Mike Papantonio hosts Ring of Fire, a nationally syndicated radio show.  He appears as a regular contributor with political commentary on Fox News Network.

A hyena will scavenge graves for food. It is an animal that shows no respect for the dead. Instead, it merely regards the misfortune of once-living carcasses as an opportunity.

In east Nigeria they have a belief that there are people who are capable of turning themselves into hyenas at will. Rush Limbaugh gave credence to that Nigerian superstition last week when he used the tragedy of 100,000 Haitian men, women, and children to promote himself as America’s number one radio thug without a conscience.

The pseudo-manly, rational thinker without a heart radio bit is nothing new for Rush. He has built his career by giving his listeners reasons to hate, fear, judge, and attack the easiest targets among our fellow man. Recently that target was dead, dying, starving, terrified Haitians who ranged in age from newborn to 90. Rush picks his targets well. While the world was seeing pictures of the bodies of Haitian children being dug up from earthquake rubble, Rush was once again reasserting himself as the “dispassionate”, “clear thinking”, wannabe tough guy who masters concepts that are beyond the grasp of less insightful observers. That is the Rush shtick. He projects this idea that as America’s conservative brain trust he is one of the few insightful thinkers capable of rising above those lesser human emotions like compassion, empathy, and decency. His 12 years in school no doubt equipped him for that. Rush is always selling himself as a character you might find in the cult books of Nietzsche or Ayn Rand. His listeners seem to eat up the idea of him being wholly unsympathetic but thoroughly narcissistic and all-knowing when everyone else around him is weighted down with those weak-minded beliefs that the well-being of our fellow man actually matters.

Limbaugh is much like that Nigerian mythical creature who evolved to the point that he is more hyena than human. When he suggested last week that there was no need for Americans to provide for Haitians because we have already paid income tax, he knew that statement would improve his radio ratings. A real “ditto head” would embrace that idea, and he knew it. After that, he used his mic time to politicize the tragedy by suggesting that, in keeping with Obama’s new healthcare reform “death panel” policies, Americans would be giving pills to Haitians to end their lives and their suffering. That was great radio entertainment in Rush’s world and I’m certain that as he spoke those words he was focused on how his clever snarkiness could extract bigger Nielsen ratings from the dead bodies of Haitian earthquake victims.

Haitians are easy targets for hate talkers like Rush. After all, they are black. And as we have heard from every neocon nut with a microphone, they pose an illegal immigration problem in America. They live in self-imposed and self-perpetuated poverty on a useless island. Worse yet, if you believe the TV evangelist Pat Robertson, they are Satan worshippers, capable of black magic and sorcery. As I watch this story unfold, I am hopeful that a surviving Haitian will use sorcery to change Rush’s bloated figure from a hyena back into a human being.