Military service

Just after I'd chatted with some folks online about not wanting Blue to join the military, like, EVER, and about my church's historical C.O. and/or noncombatant status, the next time I cracked open my church magazine I saw an article about military service. That sort of synchronicity happens often, believe it or not. Anyway, I wrote about it and put the article on one of my other LJs, so if you want to read it you can go here:

http://spread-word.livejournal.com/21056.html

It doesn't address the only lingering issue I haven't resolved for myself in regards to the topic. The fact is, it seems that sometimes military action is truly necessary--as in the Holocaust, to use an obvious example. What is my duty in that circumstance? Should I feel comfortable excluding myself due to my religious beliefs? It's sortof like the vaccination thing; I'm able to pick and choose because most kids are vaccinated. Is it OK to let others carry that burden? What would be a truly effective nonviolent solution to something like WWII? If people from all over the world had traveled to Germany, Poland etc. to clog up the works and become nonviolent human shields, would that have stopped the Nazis? Eventually? Ever? I know I am personally committed to nonviolence, but I am also committed to compassion and serving others. I'm not sure how to reconcile those values in certain situations.

I'm just musing, but of course your thoughts are welcome!

Knock on Wood

This song takes me straight back to the days of rollerskating rinks, loud music, disco balls and glittery spandex. I was 10 in 1977 when this came out; Sue and I went rollerskating every chance we got. It was a highly stimulating environment for us little churchgoing girls; I didn't go to my first rock concert until age 16. I don't think my mom knew exactly what it was like in that roller rink, LOL!

Anyway, somehow I always had a picture of Suzi Quatro as Leather Tuscadero in my mind when I heard this song. I have no idea why--Leather Tuscadero was definitely hot and I had a huge girl crush on her, but her music was nothing like this. Maybe I saw her on Happy Days the same week I first heard this song on the radio, or maybe the radio station played "Stumblin' In" and "Knock On Wood" back to back and when the announcer said Suzi Quatro's name I put it together with the wrong song. All I know is, whatever I saw in my mind's eye, it was NOTHING LIKE THIS.

But, hey, WOW! Right? I love the scorpion/Kali/medusa thing Amii Stewart has going on here. Also, holy eyeshadow!

This was several years before MTV, so I never saw it until just now. Long live YouTube.

Bubbling Brown Sugar

WOW! I need to get off of YouTube. But you guys!! Does anybody else remember this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIuRwP2ei_o

(Sorry, embedding is disabled)

Dude, disembodied fragments of this song have been swimming around in my head for, like, 30 years. I had no clue where it came from, but I must have heard it on this What's Happening episode. I listened to the "original cast recording" which is the only version available on Amazon and that ain't it--it was these kids! I can't believe how firmly it got lodged in my brain. And DOUBLE WOW on the whole What's Happening concept. It was one of my favorite shows and I haven't seen it in forever. I think Shirley and Rerun are both dead--wonder how the other folks are doing these days? Must resist the urge to google them...

My hippie bus

I just dug up this old post to share some of my GD history with someone, and realized it's been a year and a half since I wrote it--and that I've gained some new Dead-friendly LJ friends in the interim. So if you've never seen pictures of my beloved 1966 VW microbus, go read this post!

http://twirlgrrl.livejournal.com/33541.html