This Week's Independent Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, May 16, 2013

Abercrombie & Fitch is a 121 year-old retailer that makes really hot clothes for really cool people. And they don’t make anything over a size 10. Exclusionary? Yup. Their CEO said he only wanted good-looking, sexy people wearing his clothes.

Which is his right.

But Greg Karber of somewhere in California didn’t get mad, he got even. Karber, a writer, went to thrift stores and bought all the A&F clothes he could find and handed them out to the homeless. Right or wrong, Karber threw a tomato in the face of what he saw as arrogance with a touch of bulimia.

And maybe he made both rich and poor look at A&F a little differently.

This Week's Independent Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, May 09, 2013

Charles Ramsey sounds like a rare individual but we suspect there are millions of people as good as he is living right here in North America.

Ramsey, a hard-working Cleveland dishwasher, was enjoying a McDonald’s hamburger Monday night when he heard kicking and screaming coming from the house next door. He went over and said, “Can I help?”

A woman said she had been kidnapped, so Ramsey kicked the door in, got the woman and a child out, and called 911.

Turns out he rescued three women who had been held captive for 10 years.

When offered a reward Ramsey said, “No, I’ve got a job. Give the money to those women.”

This Week's Independent Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, May 02, 2013

There are laws that protect our citizens and there are laws that tromp on them needlessly. Mark Miller owns a Toyota dealership in Salt Lake City, a city where there’s never quite enough water.

The environmentally sensitive Miller built an elaborate rainwater collection system to wash new cars, assuming rain that fell on his dealership was there for the gathering.

How wrong, SLC law enforcement said as they charged Miller with unlawful diversion of rainwater, a violation of Utah’s water rights.

Corporations now own 20 percent of our genetic code and can take our land for their financial benefit, but come on, rainwater?

Yes.

This Week's Independent Thinkers
ESI Staff- Thursday, April 25, 2013

People of Eureka Springs, known for alpha-personalities, intelligence and a different way of looking at things, have banded together before to stop what they saw as a detriment to their way of life: a marina at the dam; a railroad through private land to benefit a few; a WalMart Express – intrusions they found wounding.

Some say they step on the toes of progress, but being active stewards of water, land, air and authenticity is what they do best.

Defending a way of life is never easy and rarely popular, but vital.

And all the rest has been practice for stopping this insidious SWEPCO line.

This Week's Indpendent Thinkers
ESI Staff- Thursday, April 18, 2013

Although kidnapping young girls is part of the marriage custom of rural Ethiopia, it doesn’t make it pleasant. Or right.

Recently a 12 year-old girl was abducted by seven men and beaten repeatedly for a week. She was terrified, violated and all alone.

Three black-maned lions heard her cries. They surrounded her, frightened off her captors and stood guard around her for half a day until her family and other scouts found her.

The lions left her, like a gift, and wandered back into the forest.

Ethiopian authorities, who said her cries could have sounded like a lion cub, called it a miracle.

This Week's Independent Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, April 11, 2013

“I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to do, but we’ve got to do it right. We’ve got to give those animals a decent life, and we’ve got to give them a painless death. We owe the animal respect.”     Dr. Mary Temple Grandin

She invented livestock handling facilities that are currently used in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia. Her inventions use behavioral principles rather than brute force to control animals. They keep animals calm and unhurt.

Temple Grandin is an inventor. She’s a writer and a public speaker. She looks out for animal welfare on an international level.

And she’s autistic.

This Week's Independent Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, April 04, 2013

Arkansas State Senator Joyce Elliott, a smart and stylish legislator, spent Monday morning this week asking the Senate State Agencies Committee to go ahead and be the 36th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. Thought that was over, eh?

In 1923 Alice Paul of the National Woman’s Party proposed the ERA. It only took 49 years to pass Congress, which sent it to the states for ratification. It needed 38 states, it got 35.

The ERA has been brought to committee every two years since 1972, and each time legislators put it back out to pasture. Wonder why these “law” makers are allergic to women, human rights and equal pay?

This Week's Independent Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, March 28, 2013

Youth continues to give our planet hope.

Nineteen year-old Boyan Slat of the Netherlands figured out how to attach seawater processors to the seabed by using floating booms attached to solar and current powered platforms. Already rotating currents would deliver plastic waste to the platform where it would be put in containers and collected.

Yes, we don’t understand it either, but what if the ocean could clean itself? And the recycled plastic could be sold to pay for the technology?

And what if we didn’t dump any more crap in the rivers? It all just gives us the flutters.

Photo: TedX

This Week's Independent Thinkers
ESI Staff- Thursday, March 21, 2013

Thousands of protesters gathered in the cold outside Hungary’s Parliament over the weekend in support of, among other issues, freedom of the press. Groups like this in 2006 convinced Hungary’s government to become the first one in Europe to ban production, use and distribution of genetically-modified Monsanto corn seeds. Although at first considered temporary pending further testing, the ban remains.

In the summer of 2011 inspectors found 1000 acres of “frankencrops” and plowed all of it under even though it was too late in the season to replant. Almost 100 municipalities in Hungary have declared themselves GMO-free despite pressure from the European Union to lift the ban.

The message for Monsanto – Don’t mess with Budapest.

Photo from Deutsche Welle

This Week's Independent Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, March 14, 2013

Lynne Osterman used to be a Republican Minnesota state representative. It was her dream to work for her state from the time she was young.

Osterman voted under pressure to support the Defense of Marriage Act when she was in office. She said she thought she could shrug and forget it, and so would everyone else.

But she couldn’t forget. She said she was wrong to vote for a law that was disrespectful and unfair. She said government has no authority to tell people how they should live their personal lives.

She could have been pope. If she were only male, Catholic and from Argentina.

Photo from MSNBC

This Week's Independent Thinkers
ESI Staff- Thursday, March 07, 2013

Two hundred voters in Montville, Maine, (pop. 1032) sat around the woodstove in their meeting house recently and, in the spirit of fire and revolution, cast their vote with a show of hands to enact an ordinance banning cultivation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Schoolteachers, fathers, nurses and retired military said emphatically that GMOs provide no benefit to their families and compromise the integrity of their food.

Two percent of the U.S. population produces food, which makes 98 percent dependent on what others grow.

Corporations that place GMO food on our grocery shelves do not have our best interest at heart, but the people of Montville realize that healthy food sustains life. And did something about it.

This Week's Independent Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, February 28, 2013

Richard Turere is 13 years old and doesn’t like lions. But he is responsible for keeping them away from his family’s livestock in Kenya.

Lions would come at night and devour cows, goats and sheep, and all Richard could do was report the death toll to his father. Until he had a Eureka moment.

He discovered that lions are afraid of moving light. Without any training, he rigged flashing LED bulbs around the livestock compound and wired them to a switch box and an old battery powered by a solar panel.

And now the animals are safe and Richard’s going to the TED 2013 conference in California.

Photo from familysurvivalprotocol

This Week's Independent Thinker
ESI Staff- Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Michael Warren, a trained infantry soldier, told the Independent he was “foolish to buy an AK-47 and crazy to keep it,” but he bought it in fear following Sept. 11, 2001. After the Newtown shootings he had a change of heart. “If I simply gave it away someone else would own it and who knows what they would do with it?”

So Warren, now a Colorado defense attorney, donated his rifle to Guns-to-Garden Tools where it was forged and reshaped into a trowel, cultivator and weed puller.

“…and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” Isaiah 2:4

This Week's Independent Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, February 14, 2013

Rookie golfer Daniela Holmqvist was trying to qualify for the Women’s Australian Open. On the fourth hole, she felt a sharp pain in her leg. She and her caddie saw a black widow crawling away. The caddy warned her of the impending danger, so she knew she had to respond quickly.

With her leg throbbing and beginning to swell, she pulled a golf tee out of her pocket and used it to open the wound further and squeeze out the venom. She finished the round and shot 74 in spite of the bite. Holmqvist did not qualify for the tournament, but she made clear she can think quickly and independently.

This Week's Independent Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, February 07, 2013

Favio Chavez, an ecologist/musician, has been teaching the children of Cateura, Paraguay, music because they had little else to do. Cateura is built on a landfill. Residents are poor but they use the hidden treasures beneath their feet to fashion musical instruments.

Picture a 50-gallon drum turned into a cello, two jelly cans transformed into a guitar, or a violin from an old salad bowl, and all of them playing Mozart, Mancini or McCartney.

Fifty students make up the Recycled Orchestra. They have performed in Brazil, Panama and Colombia. Chavez taught them to make beautiful music using discarded waste and they are all incredibly independent tinkerers.

This Week's Independent Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, January 31, 2013

They are mammals, just like us. They thrive in groups, just like us. They work as a team to get food, they communicate underwater, they form intense bonds, they play, they are intelligent. They could be called non-human persons.

Last week a video captured a pod of dolphins tending one of their own that was in distress. Twelve dolphins surrounded a female whose flippers were paralyzed and created a life raft for her. They performed dolphin CPR on her, trying to stimulate breathing. They comforted and encouraged her and seemed to understand the value of life. And love. We thought this was independent thinking at its purest.

Photo credit Cetacean Research and Rescue Unit

This Week's Independent Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, January 31, 2013

They are mammals, just like us. They thrive in groups, just like us. They work as a team to get food, they communicate underwater, they form intense bonds, they play, they are intelligent. They could be called non-human persons.

Last week a video captured a pod of dolphins tending one of their own that was in distress. Twelve dolphins surrounded a female whose flippers were paralyzed and created a life raft for her. They performed dolphin CPR on her, trying to stimulate breathing. They comforted and encouraged her and seemed to understand the value of life. And love. We thought this was independent thinking at its purest.

Photo credit Cetacean Research and Rescue Unit

This Week's Independent Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, January 24, 2013

Upwards of 38,000 children in northern Uganda were being kidnapped and forced to fight as child soldiers in a war that has led to murder, torment and rape of thousands. Three boys created Invisible Children: Rough Cut, a documentary that inspired a generation to see beyond their own borders. Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy watched the documentary and his passion to help end the atrocities ignited his band’s involvement in this crisis through Invisible Children (invisiblechildren.com). He also participated in “Displace Me,” in which 67,000 activists slept in the streets in makeshift cardboard villages, hoping to raise awareness about those displaced by the Ugandan government.                                                         

PHOTO FROM TAKE40.COM

This Week's Independent Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, January 17, 2013

Aaron Swartz was a kid whose interest was computer programming spiced up with political activism. He believed knowledge should be free and available, which put him at odds with publishers who benefited from downloaded articles rather than the authors, who had done all the work.

Swartz was sued and threatened and facing criminal charges, and had to choose between jail and fine, or trial. Instead he chose to hang himself.

This Week's Independent Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, January 10, 2013

Although he was not our favorite human during the Vietnam War, Richard Nixon, who would have been 100 on Wednesday, followed his heart throughout his life.

Nixon was a calculating man who flew to Moscow and Beijing to encourage peace while financing war; strove for American oil independence; and oversaw putting a man on the moon.

He was caught cheating (in politics!) and decided the best response was a cover-up, which ended his presidency. Being an independent thinker is not always a good thing.

Yet Nixon had a deep love for his country, and if we are to turn over new leaves this year, forgiving Richard Nixon is a good place to start.

Photo courtesy of bing.com

This Week's Independent Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, January 03, 2013

Andrew and Madeleine Schwerin operate Sycamore Bend Farm on Rockhouse Road in Eureka Springs. They are local heroes in the sustainable agriculture movement and reliable vendors at our area farmers’ markets with tomatoes, greens and root vegetables. They are prime teachers of what it means to pursue quality of life rather than a mere standard of living.

“Here’s my thing about politics. I don’t want to be rich. So I don’t see that it’s important to support a political agenda that is about making everybody richer. In fact, I would like a system that encourages Americans to be poor, so that my playing field would be more level.” – ANDREW SCHWERIN

This Week's Independent Thinker
ESI Staff- Friday, December 28, 2012

The New Year’s Baby is innocent, pure and hopeful. We love to raise a toast bidding Father Time farewell and focus on the baby, the diapered child depicted in editorial cartoons for generations – a symbol of rebirth, joy and dreams.

We raise our glasses to all of you who believe the whole point of being here is to make life better for babies and their babies. Trading and spreading knowledge and dreams makes for a Happy New Year everywhere on our earth.

May this be the year we put fresh swaddling thoughts on all our babies and guide them to full, contented lives. 

Image from fotosearch.com

This Week's Independent Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, December 20, 2012

“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.” RACHEL CARSON

Carson pursued her interests in nature and writing until she struck it right. She had a trilogy of books about the sea published, then became interested in government use of DDT to eradicate fire ants. Her interest arced from fish to pesticides, and her lyrical writing and ethical research culminated in the publication of Silent Spring 50 years ago this year. The book proved DDT was harming the natural world and led to its ban.

[IMAGE FROM BING PHOTOS]

This Week's Independent Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, December 13, 2012

Michael Bishop of Douglass, Texas, believes that TransCanada committed fraud by telling Americans the substance in the proposed Keystone pipeline, which crosses Bishop’s land, was crude oil, but it was bitumen, which produces tar sands. He took TransCanada to court and won a temporary restraining order against the oil giant.

Tar sands are heavier, nastier, and require chemical solvents to flow like crude. Which means it corrodes pipes. Which means it leaches into the water table the minute it spills. Which means people and cattle and birds and plants and fish and whatever’s left would be drinking oil in their water. Which is an avoidable catastrophe.

Bishop, a retired chemist, is up against big oil $$$ and has given renewed definition to “Don’t Mess With Texas.”

This Week's Independent Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, December 06, 2012

The Independent’s Independent Thinker is Dave Brubek, jazz giant who died Wednesday, one day shy of his 92nd birthday. He challenged the musical genre-makers for 60 years. As was his style, his most famous song, “Take Five,” is deceptively complex rhythmically, yet it sounds so natural.

Brubek learned polyrhythms from listening to the hoofs of animals on a farm as a youth and instinctively tried to imagine the accompanying melodies. His piano work was also instinctive, adding classical influences to fearless jazz.

Always a human rights advocate, Brubek refused to play in apartheid South Africa.

Good work, Dave.

Take five.

This Week's INDEPENDENT Thinkers
ESI Staff- Thursday, November 29, 2012

Max, Harvey and Lucas Udell weighed less than two lbs. each when they were born 15 weeks early one year ago this week. The triplets and their parents endured stunning odds and beat them all, as all three boys are not only now in their ones, they are healthy.

How does this relate to independent thinking? Naturally, the parents and doctors deserve a lot of credit for never giving up, but these little British boys seemed to tell us, “Yes, we can,” in the universal language of survival. They defined love as nourishment and determination as effective.

We fancy that.

This Week's Independent Thinker
Gwen Etheredge- Wednesday, November 21, 2012

George Washington gave it a go, but people in 1789 were not hot to commemorate “a few hardships” of early colonists. Then Thomas Jefferson said, “Don’t be silly,” when asked if the United States should give thanks all on the same day.

Finally, in 1863, it occurred to Honest Abe, in the middle of a devastating war, that we should have a national day of Thanksgiving.

It occurred to Lincoln because of the efforts of one woman, Sarah Josepha Hale, a magazine editor who wrote editorials for 40 years championing a national Thanksgiving Day. Behind every powerful man is a smart woman. We give thanks.

This Week's Independent Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, November 15, 2012

Happiness is a skill that requires effort and time, according to the world’s happiest man.

Matthieu Ricard, 66, holds a doctorate in molecular genetics and was eyeing a career in neuroscience when he changed his mind, moved to the Himalayas and became a Buddhist monk.

Ricard has spent more than 10,000 hours in meditation, just a bit more than a solid year. During neuroscientific measurements in the U.S., Ricard’s realm of positive emotion was off the charts.

Ricard laughed that he is not the happiest man in the world – that anyone, anywhere can be the happiest person in the world – it is simply a matter of training the mind. Twenty minutes a day. Every day. Anyone can do it. And it’s free.

This Week's INDEPENDENT Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, November 08, 2012

American voters are independent thinkers. When two of them meet for discussion there can be an octagon of ideas, viewpoints and reasons.

There was an election this week that left some voters jubilant and others kicking the dirt. It left some candidates with a job and others looking for work.

American voters expect candidates to endure expensive travel, impossible scheduling, un-homecooked food and sleeping in someone else’s beds to offer us their vision, plans and expectations.

True, the physical discomfort was on the candidates. But if they didn’t want to impress us, they wouldn’t have come a-courtin’. Voters had to choose. And they did.

This Week's Independent Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, November 01, 2012

When Taylor Wilson was 11 he built a bomb in the family garage. Not to destroy anything, just to understand how it worked. When he was 14 he became the youngest person in the world to build a nuclear fusion reactor.

Now, at the ripe old age of 18, he is in great demand from corporate and academic institutions to speak on radioactivity. He built a liquid-based radiation detector by measuring light emitted when subatomic particles move through water. The same detectors that cost corporate America hundreds of thousands of dollars to build, Taylor built for a few hundred dollars, and it worked.

We don’t understand what this kid does, but he’s from Arkansas and we expect he can save the world.

This Week's INDEPENDENT Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, October 25, 2012

Russell Means’s ashes were scattered in the Black Hills of South Dakota this morning. The ashes were taken from his ranch near Porcupine to a public gathering in a horseback procession with a riderless horse, said to carry his spirit. The Oglala Sioux was a political activist who ran for nomination of President of the United States as a Libertarian  in 1987, but was beaten by Ron Paul. He was a writer. He was a painter. An actor. A musician. Andy Warhol painted 18 portraits of him. Mostly, Means was a man of courage and conviction who found himself in a heap of trouble but for all the right reasons. Which makes him a teacher.

This Week's Independent Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, October 18, 2012

Mary Anderson was an incredibly independent thinker who sold her California cattle ranch and vineyard in 1898 and went traveling.

The woman from Alabama was in New York City when she noticed streetcar drivers had to stand up, open windows and wipe them with a cloth when it rained. So she made a swinging arm device and put a strip of rubber on a spring-loaded arm and called it good.

Men, who had invented the streetcar in the first place, said it will never work, it’s just too distracting and only seasonal. It became standard equipment by 1916.

And Mary Anderson’s attitude just makes us feel giddy and her ingenious invention keeps the rain scattered so we can see where we’re going.

This Week's INDEPENDENT Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, October 11, 2012

There are such varied cultures and assorted philosophies on this planet that it’s hard to keep up but easy to judge.

Forcing people to believe want they don’t want to is like herding flying bullets.

Malala Yousafzai, 14, wanted girls in her native Pakistan to get an education. She received the National Youth Peace Prize for her efforts.

But the religion of her country demands anyone of the female gender to be invisible, forever, with no hope of being who they are.

Religious fundamentalists shot Malala in the head on her school bus Tuesday to teach other girls a lesson.

She is alive, and has shown the world that when you believe in something there really is only one way to act.

This Week's INDEPENDENT Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, October 04, 2012

Judge Jim Gray is the vice-presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party in the 2012 presidential election.

Gray’s experience as a Navy JAG, Peace Corps volunteer and superior court judge convinced him to spend time persuading Americans that our government should be financially responsible and socially tolerant. He encourages civic leaders and corporations to explore regulating and taxing marijuana. He introduced a Peer Court System where juvenile defendants travel to a school outside their district to be tried by other teenagers. He wants to abolish the death penalty.

He was not invited to debate Obama and Romney, but he will speak in Eureka Springs on Oct. 19 at the New Delhi.

This Week's INDEPENDENT Thinker
ESI Staff- Thursday, September 27, 2012

Elizabeth Warren is a bankruptcy lawyer running for the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts. She is running up a steep hill, indeed.

Yet she is exactly the sort of person who has the best interests of a strong middle class at heart. She knows what medical bankruptcy does to families, what no access to higher education does to young people, what the difference in pride and self-worth between having a job and not having one is.

She has spent her life fighting outrageous money lenders and their policies of high interest and low tolerance.

We wish there were 100 U.S. Senators who had as much heart as she does.

This Week's Independent Thinker for September 20, 2012
ESI Staff- Thursday, September 20, 2012

James Earl Carter IV, grandson of our 39th president, saw a clip on YouTube catching Mitt Romney saying that 47 percent of Americans don’t pay any taxes. He tracked down the source of the video and arranged for it to be released to Mother Jones magazine this week.

Carter said he was motivated by Romney’s frequent attacks on his grandfather’s presidency, particularly Mitt’s insinuations of Carter’s “weak” foreign policy.

It’s nice when family defends family, and even better when someone is able to shed light on a candidate secretive about his own taxes but publicly critical, and wrong, about everyone else’s.

Speaking of foreign policy, didn’t Jimmy Carter win the Nobel Peace Prize?

This Week's Independent Thinker for September 13, 2012
ESI Staff- Thursday, September 13, 2012

Hopi means Peaceful People. Hopi, and there are only about 7,000 of them in our country, will not fight or die for what they believe to be the right way of life. How can this be?

They seem to know how to fight without killing or hurting. They educate by conveying clear thoughts, accurate pictures and carefully chosen words.

They believe Earth is a live, growing person, and all that grows on it are her children.

They believe their power can bring about world change.

They believe life will survive by simple and spiritual methods.

We believe them.

This Week's Independent Thinker For September 6. 2012
ESI Staff- Thursday, September 06, 2012

Bill Clinton once again captured the thoughts of a nation in disarray and made sense out of them. Clinton nominated the President of the United States to be the President of the United States Wednesday night while massaging us with words of hope, zeal and forgiveness. He inspired us by including us.

Clinton didn’t deliver empty words, he zinged us with logic, history and power, letting us know each of us is as great as the other.  Our boy Bill has always been in independent thinker, and because of him we believe that when the attitude is right, so is the result.

This Week's Independent Thinker for August 30, 2012
ESI Staff- Thursday, August 30, 2012

Three young Jersey women started a petition in May that suddenly had 180,000 signatures in its support. Elena Tsemberis, Sammi Siegel and Emma Axelrod of Montclair, New Jersey, wanted the Commission on Presidential Debates to appoint a woman moderator to an upcoming debate.

The result of their effort is that Candy Crowley of CNN will run the Oct. 16 presidential debate. Crowley is the first woman moderator of a presidential debate since 1992.

"Women hold 17% of Senate seats and 16.8% House seats," the girls said. "In 20 years, they have held 0% of moderators’ seats."

The three are not old enough to have drivers’ licenses, but wise enough to understand their power in a democracy.

This Week's Independent Thinker for August 23, 2012
ESI Staff- Thursday, August 23, 2012

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevish are members of a Russian feminist punk-rock band who defied their government.

Pussy Riot's provocative performances in unauthorized locations musically denounced Russian President Vladimir Putin for seeing to it that the government will rule not only from the Kremlin but from the pulpit.

At Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow last February the women sang about the importance of a civil society. They were promptly arrested and are in jail for three years. Their daughters have ordinary mothers who did an extraordinary thing.

This Week's Independent Thinker Archive
ESI Staff- Thursday, August 16, 2012

This Week's Independent Thinker For August 16, 2012

Isn't it grand when someone from Scott’s Prairie is considered an internationally known independent thinker? Scott's Prairie is the original name of Green Forest, Ark., where Helen Gurley Brown was born on Feb. 18, 1922.

Like her or not, you probably knew her name. She was a woman who landed the editor's job at Cosmopolitan without ever having been an editor, and was totally capable and successful at it.

HGB knew she needed something she would never find in the Ozarks, so she went out looking for it. She told the truth as she saw it, achieved success as she saw it, and gave away a lot of money as she saw fit.

Good for her. Rest peacefully.

“The first thing said to me was, ‘I hope you’ve got a good lawyer.’ I felt it was an internationally important story because this kind of thing is happening all over the world, where local people feel powerless and are not given a voice.

We were holding people in power to account and giving ordinary people a voice,” Baxter said.

Google “You’ve been trumped.”

This Week's Independent Thinker For August 2, 2012

Steve LaTourette of Ohio, who has been elected nine times to the United States House of Representatives as a moderate Republican, announced Tuesday he will not seek another term because he is so dismayed with extremists.

LaTourette said parity is long gone in the halls of Congress and there is no middle ground. “Compromise is considered cowardice. That’s wrong,” he said. “We are forced to vote with Party extremists, not Party principles.”

Thank you, Steve LaTourette, for following the lead of Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe (R) and making us remember that we’re empowered by virtue rather than dominance.

And thank you for proving that there are Republicans with heart, soul and courage.  

This Week's Independent Thinker For July 26, 2012

Sally Ride rode through our lives much too fast. Her smile had the dazzle only introverted people have. Her brain had the brilliance only the curious achieve. Her name sent us over the moon.Sally Ride answered a classified ad calling for astronauts. She could have been a pro tennis player but decided it would be more fun to ride around in rocket ships.

Every one of us knew her name, few knew anything about her except that she was ours.

Sally Ride showed little girls they can love whom they want to love, fly where they want to fly, pursue what they choose, and that being first is merely a by-product of shooting for the stars.

This Week's Independent Thinker For July 19, 2012

Nelson Mandela turned 94 on July 18, and 67 of those years have been devoted to bringing about social justice.

Mandela was arrested for various crimes, including sabotage, because he non-violently defied his government that insisted black people and white people stay on opposite sides of the fence, with whites getting the pasture and blacks getting the gravel.

After spending 27 years in prison, he became President of South Africa. He provided free health care for all citizens under 6; mine safety; sharecroppers' rights; management committees for nursing homes and education money.

Then he won the Nobel Peace Prize.

And when he turned 90 he asked the world's rich to help the world's poor.

No telling what he'll come up with now. 

This Week's Independent Thinker For July 12, 2012

Whether or not the Catholic Church keeps its gold, real estate and art treasures makes precious little difference in our lives. But the nuns on the bus got to us.

It wasn’t long ago that a bus full of nuns would be considered high comedy, but not now. The nuns are protesting the Republican budget, the Pope’s authority and the insanity of a first-rate country having so many hungry people wandering around with no healthcare and little hope.

They defied the Pope, to whom they had pledged allegiance, and managed to send him the message that women really don’t need to be managed.

This Week's Independent Thinker For July 5, 2012

Warren Buffett is This Week's Independent Thinker because he uses his head. He has made more money than the rest of us but he still drinks his coffee one sip at a time.

We have no idea how much money Warren Buffett has or has made, but we do know his heart is made of gold. He committed himself to pursuing his talent and interest, created his job and stuck with it.

Warren Buffett made billions of dollars and has given away 99% of his wealth to charitable causes instead of leaving it to his three kids and the family dog.

He would qualify as a financial artist, and we're all about art.