Surviving Fort Hood

Frank Ford just sent me an opinion piece from the New York times that was written by a combat veteran named Joseph Kinney. Here's part of what it says:

Warfare has a way of making us into something that we are not. I once cuddled a dying Marine who desperately wanted to believe my lie that the medical evacuation chopper was just minutes away. As I watched him die I felt that I was losing part of myself with him. I still see his face in my sleep.

Could it be that the psychiatrist we want to hate saw the unbearable suffering of warriors he was tasked to treat? Could it be that he identified with the suffering of those he treated at Walter Reed Army Hospital? Did he become one of us, another soul tortured by war’s anguish? I cannot forgive this man who betrayed us but I must try and understand him nonetheless.

To my mind, Mr. Kinney's response is much more respectable than that of blaming Islam or painting all Muslims with the same brush.
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I get so fed up with this party sometimes...

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

One reason I love cats

Here's something I just found:

Confront a child, a puppy, and a kitten with a sudden danger; the child will turn instinctively for assistance, the puppy will grovel in abject submission to the impending visitation, the kitten will brace its tiny body for a frantic resistance.

- Saki (1870-1916)

You know, the Democrats could learn a lot from cats.

Just sayin'.
~~~

A little break from all the political seriousness

No matter how you feel right now, this will make you feel better!

Pathetic

Another apartheid

I want to call your attention to an article entitled "The Next Phase of Healthcare Apartheid". Apartheid is actually a good word for what we have now and what we will continue to have without single payer care in this country. Here's part of what the article says:

People who scrape together enough money to buy health insurance will discover that they're riding in the back of the nation's healthcare bus. The most "affordable" policies will be the ones with the highest deductibles and the worst coverage.

We're hearing that large numbers of lower-income Americans will be provided with Medicaid coverage in the next decade. Translation: If funding holds up, they'll get to hang onto a bottom rung of the healthcare ladder. Many will not be able to get the medical help they need, from primary care providers or specialists.
...
The specter of "healthcare reform" that requires individuals to stretch their personal finances for often-abysmal insurance coverage is the worst of all worlds -- government intrusion for corporate benefit without any guarantees of decent health coverage.

The horror stories just keep adding up.

And you know something? If you can't afford the co-pays and deductibles, you might as well not have coverage at all because you can't use what you do have.
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Suppose YOUR rights were put to a vote

This morning I came across an article entitled "The Tyranny of the Majority - Should Gay Marriage Even be on the Ballot?" and I want to share just a little bit of that with you:

It's my opinion that gay marriage should not be put on the ballot in any state. Nor should civil rights such as the freedom to not be discriminated against at work or to have equal access to spousal health care benefits. America has a separation of powers, a system of checks and balances. Where is the balance of power when it comes to a "people's veto" or a bias motivated majority?

Suppose desegregation of schools had been put to a popular vote in the South?

Think about it.
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Maine defeats gay marriage

Well, I woke up this morning to the very dismaying news that voters in Maine have turned against gay people:

Maine voters repealed a state law Tuesday that would have allowed same-sex couples to wed, dealing the gay rights movement a heartbreaking defeat in New England, the corner of the country most supportive of gay marriage.

Gay marriage has now lost in every single state -- 31 in all -- in which it has been put to a popular vote. Gay-rights activists had hoped to buck that trend in Maine -- known for its moderate, independent-minded electorate -- and mounted an energetic, well-financed campaign.

With 87 percent of the precincts reporting, gay-marriage foes had 53 percent of the votes. "The institution of marriage has been preserved in Maine and across the nation," declared Frank Schubert, chief organizer for the winning side.

Oh, please. You want to "protect" heterosexual marriage? How about outlawing adultery and then let's really prosecute people who commit it and throw them in jail!

I don't for the life of me see how "the institution of marriage has been preserved" when half of all marriages end in divorce. Sheesh.

(Many thanks to Paul Rogers for the photo above, by the way.)
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UPDATE: Ha! Just for fun go read a blog post entitled Ten Threats Bigger than Gay Marriage written by an Alaskan with a nice little snarky sense of humor!
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All too true

Just for fun!

Quintessential Letterman

Take a look:

Former governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, is promoting her new book and she's going to appear on the Oprah Winfrey Show. ... Sarah and Oprah. On the one hand, a very powerful woman qualified to be President of the United States, and on the other hand, you have Sarah.

-David Letterman

Church history in four minutes

Shamelessly stolen from MadPriest, of course:

I've posted this before

and I think it's time to post it again:

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

-- James Kenneth Galbraith

The rest of the developed world looks on us with appalled amazement that there's even a debate about universal health care. People die from lack of health care. Children die. Unborn babies die. How is it that the same people who call themselves "pro-life" and are against a woman's right to choose are just fine with the death of a fetus due to lack of pre-natal care? It's not really about the baby, is it? It's about punishing women for having sex and it's about punishing families for being poor. Shame on our society. Shame.
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"The greater forces of commodity capitalism"

It's been a while since I've come across a piece by Joe Bageant and I had forgotten what a wonderful writer he is. This one is called "The Iron Cheer of Empire" and Bageant writes it from Mexico.

Here are some observations that caught my attention:

But their jobs are their livelihoods, not their lives, and every transaction is permeated with the ebb and flow of daily neighborhood and family life.
...
People work hard, especially tradesmen and laborers, but there is a complete lack of obsession and stress that characterizes North American jobs. Which, of course, many Canadians and Americans retired to Ajijic take for laziness.

It may be my bias, or my imagination, or my distaste for toil, but from here America looks like one big workhouse, "under God, indivisible, with time off to shit, shower and shop." A country whose citizens have been reduced to "human assets" of a vast and relentless economic machine, moving human parts oiled by commodities and kept in motion by the edict, "produce or die." Where employment and a job dominates all other aspects of life, and the loss of which spells the loss of everything.
...
But the truth is that we are all very commonly issued products of a profit driven workhouse where no human commons is allowable, lest the workers find meaning and joy in each other as human beings, and perhaps become less work driven, less productive and less profitable.

I really recommend the article. It's truly thought provoking.

And then you might try asking the question, "Is my job my livelihood or my life?"
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UPDATE: I just discovered that the Bageant piece is published on The Smirking Chimp as well. You might like to go over there to look at the comments. Here's one by MizzGrizz that I particularly appreciate:

Somewhere in the late seventies and early eighties--perhaps at the very time wages began to stagnate---Americans turned from people who were just beginning to enjoy a creative leisure into willing inhabitants of a workhouse, living their lives with almost military regimentation, and anyone unable or unwilling to join the goddamn circus was excoriated.

It was right around then that anyone trying to make their way in the arts was excoriated with ''Get a REAL job.''

And the concept of the workhouse is exactly where feminism made its mistake. Instead of focusing on how to grant a quality life, and develop equal creativity and leisure for all, the new model insisted that women get out into the marketplace also. It was a pattern that wasn't, and isn't, even working well for men. Why in HELL did they think it would work for women?

Dear people, please remember who was elected president in 1980. And he won that election through racism and ridicule.
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Some seasonal pollution news

So, when the weather turns cold, do you idle your car to "warm it up" before driving?

I just came across an article that begs us not to do that. Here's part of what it says:

Although typically ignored or played down by state and even national environmental regulators, more people need to be educated that the best way to warm up your car or truck is to drive it. And studies have shown that frequent restarting has little impact on engine parts such as battery and starter motor.

Idle Facts:

* Ten seconds of idling can use more fuel than turning off the engine and restarting it. If you are stopped for more than 10 seconds - except in traffic - turn off your engine.
* Every 10 minutes of idling costs you at least 2/10 (0.2) of a gallon of gas - and up about 7/10 (0.7) of a gallon for an 8-cylinder engine. Keep in mind that every gallon of gas you use you produce about 19 pounds of carbon dioxide.
* Exessive idling occurs at drive through windows, drive through bank deposits, and train crossings; while waiting for your kids to get out of school, running into the convenience store, and when picking up your friends for a night out.
...
A good rule of thumb is: "Idling gets zero miles per gallon."

In the United States and Canada, if every driver avoided idling for just 5 minutes a day, millions of tons of CO2 would be prevented from entering the atmosphere each year. That would represent a staggering contribution to positive climate change efforts...

I was once scolded by someone for NOT idling my car before driving it! I wish I knew that person's email address so I could forward this article! :-)
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