http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUPMjC9mq5Y

I'm really ashamed to be classified as a citizen with these folks who have no idea what they are marching for - amazing, they know the buzzwords, but not what they mean.

I hate going anywhere public anymore where there is a television - it seems like it is invariably tuned to Fox News.

My daughter died a violent, bloody and needless death, as did Neda, so when I watched the life fly from Neda, when the blood gushed from her nose and mouth, I knew all to well that it was not red-tinted corn syrup, but the blood that had sustained a life mere seconds before.

Perhaps because of my background, both as a resident of Iran and one who has witnessed a dreadful murder in the first person, I was not a desensitized, television-numbed American, but a woman and a mother shocked to the core. Neda is much more than a martyr to me - she is, in part, a representation of my daughter, a woman whose life was taken by an uncaring man, brutalized by a system that will never give her or her cause justice.

Neda may have become an instant icon of the movement in Iran, but to me she was a living, breathing, loving woman, one who cared for others, as evidenced by her willingness to expose herself to danger by attending a rally, seeking the fair results of a tainted election and to protest the corruption of those men that wield power. Just as the man who took my daughter's life has not yet paid, I'm sure neither will Neda's killer be called to justice. These are the true tragedies in our world, the loss of our loved ones and the complete lack of justice that follows that loss.

I pray for peace for her family, though I know that will never be achieved, one never has peace after losing a child. I pray as well for the dubious chance of peace and the ejection of the power-mad clerics in Iran. It seems that my prayers are bound to fall upon deaf ears, so impossible does it seem that any of the results I pray for will actually occur, though that near certainty will not discourage my prayers. Neda, I will bear witness for you as long as I draw breath upon this earth, as I bear witness for my child and as I bear witness for other murder victims across the United States and the world.

I usually never read this haggard nag's column, but was curious about her take on Rush, the junkie. My preconceptions about Camille proved true - she's not a feminist, any more than is Ann Coulter. CP's love affair with with right and her hate affair with the modern left is simply revolting. Salon, please rid yourselves of this terrible woman, she doesn't even belong on the often lamentable, often non-feminist "Broadsheet."

If you know someone who is sitting on the fence, please use your powers of persuasion. I tipped my fence sitter by persistently informing her of the facts - without being overbearing or obnoxious. She voted yesterday in Ohio and she told me as she stood there "you betcha" and my rant about crazy Pentecostal Bitches and Mean Old War Hawks flashed in her mind and she touched the screen for Obama. YAY!

Please, please, please try - believe me, it's not too late. I know that I did my best and even though I'm wracked with anxiety about this election, I think I'll be able to wake up November 5th, after what I know will be a hellacious day as a poll worker, without guilt. I hope.

I don't think I'm being paranoid, just seeing things clearly. On the GOP sponsored "He Lied" ads that are currently running in Ohio - it appears the the photographs of Obama have been darken just as Time Magazine did to O.J. Simpson and, surprisingly enough, to Obama himself: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-shaw/reading-the-pictures-emon_b_121916.html

That the GOP would do this does not surprise me at all.

Things change. People change. Often forever, sometimes just for a while, as they (or you) are going through a personal crisis and they back off. This insistence in knowing every detail of her sabbatical away from your friendship can lead to nothing but ill feelings - she will really not want to renew ties and will instead, turn to other friends who do or don't know about it, but care enough about her to not make value judgements.

So she's not fitting into your world - stop trying to force the issue, it brings to mind a vision of someone trying to cram themselves into jeans two sizes too small - it ain't pretty. You don't have to know or see every single detail. Leave her be. If she wants to tell you, she will, if not, she won't. Don't risk losing a good friend because you are nosey. You are not her mother and she is not nine years old.

Thank the Lord for the bonds you still share and for the fact that she's now willing to reenter your friendship. Thank God you have her back - sometimes we don't get a second chance.

Do your chick stuff like nothing has changed, as if the last months didn't exist. Shop, eat out, dish the dirt on celebrities, party together, whatever you did before she took a break from you. Once she's comfortable that you are not questioning, once you stop picking away at a scab that she may be just learning to deal with, she may open up. Or not. It's her life and her privacy. Let it be.