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Re-posted via ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) one_hoopy_frood: If you are reading this right now, you have more luxury than someone in Iran could ever hope for right now. If you are watching TV or a video on youtube, updating your status on Facebook, Tweeting, or even texting your friend, you are lucky. If you are safe in your home, and were able to sleep last night without the sounds of screaming from the rooftops, you need to know and understand what is happening to people just like you in Iran right now. They are not the enemy. They are a people whose election has been stolen. For the first time in a long time, a voice for change struck the youth of Iran, just as it did for many people in the United States only seven months ago. Hossein Mousavi gained the support of millions of people in Iran as a Presidential candidate. He stands for progressiveness. He supports good relations with the West, and the rest of the world. He is supported with fervor as he challenges the oppressive regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. On Friday, millions of people waited for hours in line to vote in Iran's Presidential election. Later that night, as votes came in, Mousavi was alerted that he was winning by a two-thirds margin. Then there was a change. Suddenly, it was Ahmadinejad who had 68% of the vote - in areas which have been firmly against his political party, he overwhelmingly won. Within three hours, millions of votes were supposedly counted - the victor was Ahmadinejad. Immediately fraud was suspected - there was no way he could have won by this great a margin with such oppposition. Since then, reports have been coming in of burned ballots, or in some cases numbers being given without any being counted at all. None of this is confirmed, but what happened next seems to do the trick.  The people of Iran took the streets and rooftops. They shout "Death to the dictator" and "Allah o akbar." They join together to protest. Peacefully. The police attack some, but they stay strong. Riots happen, and the shouting continues all night. Text messaging was disabled, as was satellite, and websites which can spread information such as Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and the BBC are blocked in the country. At five in the morning, Arabic speaking soldiers (the people of Iran speak Farsi) stormed a university in the capital city of Tehran. While sleeping in their dormitories, five students were killed. Others were wounded. These soldiers are thought to have been brought in by Ahmadinejad from Lebanon. Today, 192 of the university's faculty have resigned in protest. Mousavi requested that the government allow a peaceful rally to occur this morning - the request was denied. Many thought that it would not happen. Nevertheless, first a few thousand people showed up in the streets of Tehran. At this point, it is estimated that 1 to 2 million people were there. Mousavi spoke on the top of a car. The police stood by. For a few hours, everything was peaceful. Right now, the same cannot be said. Reports of injuries, shootings, and killings are flooding the internet. Twitter has been an invaluable source - those in Iran who still know how to access it are updating regularly with picture evidence. People are being brutally beaten. Tonight will be another night without rest for so many in Iran no older than I am. Tonight there is a Green Revolution. For more information: PICTURES: here and hereNEW INFORMATION: Here - near constant updates Here - ONTD_political live post ON TWITTER: @ StopAhmadi, @ IranElection09, @ persiankiwi, @ NextRevolution, @ Change_for_Iran دنیارابگوییدچطورآنهاانتخاباتمان دزدیده اند Tell the world how they have stolen our election To add a brief thought - I was absolutely outraged and disgusted by the lack of coverage by American media of this. After spending the entire day wondering what the heck was going on, I came home after work and immediately channel-surfed through all of the news channels available to me, including CNN, and aside from a ticker tape at the bottom, only ONE was talking about what was happening, and that was Hardball with Chris Matthews, and in that case, there was no actual reporting going on, but rather histrionics and hyperbole from Chris while his two "guests" sat there trying to get a word in edgewise. Unfortunately, I don't have access to the BBC with my cable subscription. For shame, American media. Tags: politics
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I just inserted a footnote, and instead of showing up at the bottom of the page (where I want it), it shows up at the bottom of the text box...which would be fine, except this text box is linked to a second text box which is the one that goes to the bottom of the page. I've tried changing the Footnote settings, to no avail. I've tried adding text, to see if it "bumps" the footnote, but it doesn't. The non-footnote text bumps down to the next text box just fine, while the footnote stays at the bottom of the first text box...which is NOT WHERE I WANT IT
beats head against desk
Edit the First: Obey me, you stupid program!
Edit the Second: To heck with that, let's try a single box, text-wrapped around the object.
Edit the Third: Victory is Mine!
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Do try and take a moment today to think fondly of our small little planet, and remember that it's the only one we've got, so no matter what side of the politcal-environmental spectrum you fall on, common sense would seem to dictate that we do the best we can to take care of the Earth and her creatures (all of them, including us homo sapiens sapiens) since we have to live here. Try to imagine the Earth as your house if you start to ask why we should bother working towards cleaner air and water, less chemicals in our food, less trash and waste, and better use of resources, and why we should do our best to live as peacefully as we can while maintaining everyone's basic human rights.
After all - I don't know about you, but while I may be a little cluttered, I don't live in a house that has piles of trash rotting everywhere, and where everything is filthy and stinking, and where there are people fighting and screaming at each other all the time. Not to mention, right now, this little planet is all we've got, so it's not as though we can just decide to pack up our belongings and move elsewhere. As Carl Sagan so wisely said about our little pale blue dot:
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
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