Health care and the pressure on Obama

This is from Alternet and it's important:

Our health care system is a structural rip-off that burdens American families and creates an unfair treatment gap based on people's financial means. While many politicians have campaigned on the promise of health care reform, once elected they shirk their responsibilities, succumbing to pressure from powerful medical groups, insurance companies, and individuals such as anti-reform frontman Rick Scott. These powerful medical lobbyists use their influence to stand in the way of progress in the name of profits. We must put an end to it, and now is the best time to act.

According to research cited by Democratic pollster Celinda Lake (PDF), 70 percent of Americans -- including almost 2 out of 3 Republicans -- want major health care reforms, with the choice of a public insurance plan open to everyone added to the current mix of Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers.

With significant grassroots pressure on members of Congress and the Obama administration to challenge the status quo, we might just be able to avert a looming public policy disaster.

As Franklin Delano Roosevelt once famously said to a group of activists from the progressive movement of that era who were arguing for him to act on an issue as vital to them as health care is for America's future, "I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it." It's time to make sure Obama and his administration do what they know is right.

I agree. Oh my, I agree. Put the pressure on, folks. Check out the various oganizations that are applying pressure as a group. (You can see a list in the original article if you click through.) And you can also email the White House directly. Here's how: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
~~~

Happy Mother's Day

Sunday poetry blogging

Oh, I like this:

O Karma, Dharma, pudding and pie,
gimmie a break before I die:
grant me wisdom, will, & wit,
purity, probity, pluck, & grit.
Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, kind,
gimmie great abs & a steel-trap mind,
and forgive, Ye Gods, some humble advice--
these little blessings would suffice
to beget an earthly paradise:
make the bad people good--
and the good people nice;
and before our world goes over the brink,
teach the believers how to think.

-- Philip Appleman

What can I say but Amen. And Amen again!
~~~

Torture and the Religious Right

This is from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

At long last, a prominent Christian conservative has called waterboarding what it is: torture. Last week, Richard Land, an official with the Southern Baptist Convention, said the practice is unethical and “violates everything we stand for.”

“There are some things you should never do to another human being, no matter how horrific the things they have done. If you do so, you demean yourself to their level,” said Land, president of the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

His comments, though belated, are welcome. He breaks a telling silence about torture among the most politically active leaders of the religious right, who had a tendency to endorse all decisions and embrace all practices of former President Bush. Indeed, Land had nothing to say about waterboarding when Bush was still in office, though many reports confirmed the administration’s use of the practice years ago.
...
Even as reports leaked out about simulated drownings, chaining prisoners to the ceiling and slamming them against walls, there were few voices raised in protest. Much of America stood by quietly as our ideals were trampled, international law violated and our moral standing eroded.
...
At the very least, Land and his fellow theologians might have been able to curb the enthusiasm for torture among their own parishioners. Perhaps they could have added to their condemnations of homosexuality and abortion a reminder or two about the words of the Galilean they purport to follow. “Love your enemies,” he said. It’s not a torture-friendly gospel.

-- Cynthia Tucker

I really like her last two sentences. I've never understood how the religious right folks square their convictions with what Jesus actually said.

Just plain nuts

Look at this:

Dan Choi, a West Point graduate and officer in the Army National Guard who is fluent in Arabic and who returned recently from Iraq, received notice today that the military is about to fire him. Why? Because he came out of the closet as a gay man on national television.

We're out of our freakin' minds to do this. Really.

Why capitalism is killing us

This is very powerful and insightful, I think:

We are so used to the idea of possession in our society that it isn’t easy to get any perspective about it. Most Americans assume that it’s “just human nature” to want to own things. Yet more than 90 percent of all the human beings who have ever lived have been hunter-gatherers, and for most such people mobility has been so important that possessions were shunned as a useless encumbrance. A few tools and weapons might have been in one person’s possession, but the sense of “mine” and “yours” was very weak indeed.

Private ownership of land is also a very recent concept. The original inhabitants of the U.S. thought it ludicrous to imagine that a person could “possess” a segment of the land, which so obviously belonged to all living things and therefore to no one in particular. Human beings lived off the land on this planet for millions of years before anyone was arrogant enough to claim ownership.

-- Philip Slater

Utterly shameful

This was sent to me by Paul Rogers.

Quote of the week

This is from Sojourners and I think it's very important:

Delaying medical care is a characteristic of poverty. For people living close to the edge, taking off a day to visit a doctor or staying home sick is literally taking food out of their mouths.

- Paul J. Gertler, a professor of economics at the School of Public Health at the University of California at Berkeley, in response to why some in Mexico self-medicated before receiving hospital treatment for swine flu.

This is also part of why it's so terribly wrong to claim that health care coverage is each individual's "personal responsibility" (i.e. why we shouldn't have universal government financed health care.) Everyone's health is affected when those who cannot afford medical care don't receive it.

Today's Quick Vote

From CNN:

Do you trust the U.S. banking system?

Yes - 35%

No - 65%

Interesting, isn't it?

Somthing to think about

Henry Finlay (May 1, '95 - May 5, '09)

Henry Finlay

My wonderful, wonderful cat, Henry, died "the good death" peacefully in my arms around 12:30 PM today.

His kidneys had failed and he had stopped eating and drinking. It was time.

Henry was magnificent in every way - beautiful, possessed of great dignity, and more affectionate than any other cat who has ever shared my life. He specialized in nose kisses and ear nuzzles! He was the "old man" of the family and never lost his "top kitty" status --- even after he got sick.

I am, of course, grief stricken - especially losing him so soon after my beloved Izzy.

But I am grateful and always will be. Grateful to have had the opportunity to give him a forever home when he needed one and even more grateful for all the emotional and spiritual support he has given me for thirteen years now.

Rest in peace my sweet boy. You are purring for the angels now.

~~~

Church and State again

Tulsa Interfaith Alliance sent out an email a little while ago that called attention to the book entitled The Religion Commandments: The Religion Commandments in the Constitution: A Primer by Gene Garman. Here's Amazon's Product Description:

It was the national Congress, but "not with my approbation [approval]," said James Madison (Hunt, Writings, 9:100), which unconstitutionally hired the first congressional chaplain. It was during the Civil War when the words "In God We Trust" first appeared on some national currency, but it was not until 1956, by an act of Congress, when those words first appeared on all U.S. currency. It was in 1954 when Congress put the words "under God" into the national pledge of allegiance, which pledge no longer represents all American citizens. Therefore, the monumental lesson to be learned: religion liberty is in most danger when the national Congress and state legislatures are in session. "Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by ecclesiastical bodies may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history," James Madison, (William and Mary Quarterly, 3:555).

It's really important that we all be clearly informed abut the Constitution on this matter. I understand that there's best selling book out there from a right wing perspective arguing just the opposite. For the life of me, I don't see how they do it -- but they do.

If you haven't explored this much, you might like to take a look at the webstie of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Gene Garman, by the way, is a religion major graduate from Baylor University, Waco, Texas and has a Master of Divinity degree from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Traditionally in this country, Baptists have been VERY strong supporters of separation of church and state. Sadly, the support has dwindled hugely over the last few years. Many people don't realize that those of us against tearing down that wall are as concerned about the potential for the government's interferece with religion as we are religious interference with government.

Be Kind to Animals Week

The Humane Society sent me an email saying that this is "Be Kind to Animals Week" .

Then, my friend Evelyn Duncan sent me the following:

It just hurts my heart so much. Yes, it really does.

Please, dear people, can you find it in your heart to give a little cat a forever home? Trust me, it'll give you GREAT karma -- OR a thousand years off Purgatory (whichever you prefer!)

Okay, okay. If you're allergic to cats, a dog will do. A dog is FINE. Dogs are GREAT!!! :-)

Quote of the week

In my humble opinion, that is:

The same conservative gang that remained mum when George W. Bush praised Putin’s “soul” and held hands with the Saudi ruler Abdullah are now condemning Obama for shaking hands with Hugo Chávez, “bowing” to Abdullah, relaxing Cuban policy and talking to hostile governments. Polls show overwhelming majorities favoring Obama’s positions. But his critics have locked themselves in the padded cell of an alternative reality.

~~Frank Rich

It's in yesterday's New York Times right here.

Tidal power

Had you heard of this? It's a cool renewable energy source:

Tidal energy can be generated in two ways, tidal stream generators or by barrage generation. The power created though tidal generators is generally more environmentally friendly and causes less impact on established ecosystems. Similar to a wind turbine, many tidal stream generators rotate underwater and is driven by the swiftly moving dense water. Although not yet widely used, tidal power has potential for future electricity generation. Tides are more predictable than wind energy and solar power. Historically, tide mills have been used, both in Europe and on the Atlantic coast of the USA. The earliest occurrences date from the Middle Ages, or even from Roman times.
...
British company Lunar Energy announced that they would be building the world’s first tidal energy farm off the coast of Pembrokshire in Wales. It will be the world’s first deep-sea tidal-energy farm and will provide electricity for 5,000 homes. Eight underwater turbines, each 25 metres long and 15 metres high, are to be installed on the sea bottom off St David’s peninsula.

I found it here.

Art, science and creativity

Remember Mr. Rogers? Something he said came to my attention today and I ended up going looking for other stuff. I found the following and I like it very much:

There would be no art and there would be no science if human beings had no desire to create. And if we had everything we ever need or wanted, we would have no reason for creating anything. So, at the root of all art and all science there exists a gap - a gap between what the world is like and what the human creator wishes and hopes for it to be like. Our unique way of bridging the gap in each of our lives seems to me to be the essence of the reason for human creativity.

~ Fred Rogers

Bumper sticker repeat

Yes, I've posted this before but it's definitely worth repeating these days.

This really sickens me

The name of the CNN piece is "Churchgoers more likely to back torture, survey finds". Take a look:

The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new analysis.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed, according the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Shameful. Shameful.

Just 'cause I like their style

About our "vital economic interests"

I have had Simone Weil on my mind today. (Largely, I suppose, because of her ambiguous relationship with the Church.) Here's something she wrote that truly bears pondering:

What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war; petrol is much more likely than wheat to be a cause of international conflict. Thus when war is waged it is for the purpose of safeguarding or increasing one's capacity to make war. International politics are wholly involved in this vicious cycle. What is called national prestige consists in behaving always in such a way as to demoralize other nations by giving them the impression that, if it comes to war, one would certainly defeat them. What is called national security is an imaginary state of affairs in which one would retain the capacity to make war while depriving all other countries of it. It amounts to this, that a self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war. But why is it so essential to be able to make war? No one knows, any more than the Trojans knew why it was necessary for them to keep Helen. That is why the good intentions of peace-loving statesman are so ineffectual. If the countries were divided by a real opposition of interests, it would be possible to arrive at a satisfactory compromise. But when economic and political interests have no meaning apart from war, how can they be peacefully reconciled?

It's hard to be optimistic with observations like these, isn't it? But those observations are also immanently sensible.

The truth about torture

People have known for centuries, millennia even, that the real reason for torture is not to get true information but to extract false confessions.

Now Frank Rich writes about it in the New York Times. The column is called "The Bush White House's Appalling and Evil Legacy: Now We Know the Whole Story" and the lead goes like this: "Did we torture to extract bogus 'intelligence' from detainees to make the case for Iraq?"

Just take a look at this paragraph:

The report found that Maj. Paul Burney, a United States Army psychiatrist assigned to interrogations in Guantnamo Bay that summer of 2002, told Army investigators of another White House imperative: "A large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq and we were not being successful." As higher-ups got more "frustrated" at the inability to prove this connection, the major said, "there was more and more pressure to resort to measures" that might produce that intelligence.

I think I want to throw up.

And I certainly agree with Rich's conclusion:

President Obama can talk all he wants about not looking back, but this grotesque past is bigger than even he is. It won't vanish into a memory hole any more than Andersonville, World War II internment camps or My Lai. The White House, Congress and politicians of both parties should get out of the way. We don't need another commission. We don't need any Capitol Hill witch hunts. What we must have are fair trials that at long last uphold and reclaim our nation's commitment to the rule of law.

Sounds like there are some people involved in this who have Obama by the short hairs...

Just sayin'.

About waterboarding

Here's something from a Huffington Post article by Paul Begala:

In a CNN debate with Ari Fleischer, I said the United States executed Japanese war criminals for waterboarding. My point was that it is disingenuous for Bush Republicans to argue that waterboarding is not torture and thus illegal. It's kind of awkward to argue that waterboarding is not a crime when you hanged someone for doing it to our troops. My precise words were: "Our country executed Japanese soldiers who waterboarded American POWs. We executed them for the same crime we are now committing ourselves."
...
I was referencing the statement of...John McCain. On November 29, 2007, Sen. McCain, while campaigning in St. Petersburg, Florida, said, "Following World War II war crime trials were convened. The Japanese were tried and convicted and hung for war crimes committed against American POWs. Among those charges for which they were convicted was waterboarding."

Not that I approve of capital punishment, mind you, but they deserved it if anybody did. When are we going to let go of this completely dishonest silliness that waterboarding is not torture?

Quote of the week

In my humble opinion, that is!

Listen up Republicans: It's been almost 100 days, and your country is not coming back to you. She's found somebody new.

-- Bill Maher

The rest of the article is right here.

Recommended

I've just read an article I'd like to recommend but it's really impossible to offer an excerpt that will give you a good idea of its message. Here's the title:

Conservatives Live in a Different Moral Universe -- And Here's Why It Matters

And the lead is this: "Liberals and conservatives have highly different moral priorities. And we have to understand them if we want to accomplish anything."

It's very thought provoking - as are the comments that follow.

A reminder to us all

Shakepeare's birthday

Yes, today is the day. Or, at least, the day it is traditionally observed.

Here are some of the things the Bard wrote that I really wish all politicians would ponder:

God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.

He that loves to be flattered is worthy o' the flatterer.

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?

Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.

Ah, there are so many more! I could so wish that our nation's leaders could be counted on to have a liberal arts education!

Quote of the day

Another good one from Sojourners:

You should never let your fears prevent you from doing what you know is right.

- Aung San Suu Kyi, (Nobel laureate and leader of the nonviolent movement for human rights and democracy in Burma)

Happy Earth Day!

This is encouraging

From the Sojourners Daily Digest:

President Obama said Tuesday that he would not rule out prosecuting senior Bush administration officials who provided the legal rationale for harsh interrogation techniques used against detainees in the war on terrorism.

Constitutional privilege

I really like this story (true or apocryphal!):

Like every other president, William Howard Taft had to endure his share of abuse. One night at the dinner table, his youngest boy made a disrespectful remark to him. There was a sudden hush. Taft looked thoughtful.

“Well,” said Mrs. Taft, “aren’t you going to punish him?”

“If the remark was addressed to me as his father, he certainly will be punished,” said Taft. “However, if he addressed it to the President of the United States, that is his constitutional privilege.”

I found it here.

Okay, guys! Wanna save your marriage?

Take a look:

The more housework a woman sees her husband do, the less likely she is to think of divorcing him. That’s the conclusion of researchers Joan Huber and Glenna Spitze, who note that each one of the following tasks performed by a husband at least half the time lowers the chances that his wife is thinking about divorce by 3 percent:

* Meal preparation
* Food shopping
* Childcare
* Daily housework
* Meal Cleanup

Source: Robert Bellah, in The Good Society, Signs of the Times, February, 1994

Just sayin'....... :-)

(Well, maybe 3% isn't a heck of a lot but if you were in that 3% it would be your marriage that got saved!)

So true, so true

Sojourners sent this out today:

As long as people use tactics to oppress or restrict other people from being free, there is work to be done.

- Rosa Parks

Why people "snap"

An article with this title really caught my attention today: "Is There Any Wonder Some People Snap Like in Binghamton and at Columbine?" I've thought that myself quite a number of times over the years. Take a look:

Our entire way of life -- from our exploitative economy to our foreign policy -- is violent.
...
As Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's posthumous infamy turns 10 on April 20, I wish I were surprised that Columbine-like shootings are still happening, or even that our national discussion about violence hasn't yet matured past gun control and video games.

I wish I were surprised, but sadly, I'd be surprised if it were any different because we still refuse to ask the most uncomfortable questions.
...
For example, isn't violence a predictable byproduct of our economy? When torture victims are waterboarded, they freak out. When a winner-take-all economy tortures society, should we be shocked that a few lunatics go over the edge?

For three decades, we converted our economy into one that enriches the rich and stresses out everyone else. Paychecks dwindled, debts accumulated, health-care bills spiked. We now spend more hours working or seeking work, and fewer hours on parenting, family time and rest -- all while schools and mental-health services deteriorate.

Considering this, shouldn't we expect the recent Associated Press story telling us "the American home is becoming more violent" because of the recession? Shouldn't we expect the new Department of Homeland Security report saying that "the economic downturn" is "invigorating rightwing extremist activity, specifically the white supremacist and militia movements"? And, ultimately, shouldn't we expect the deep alienation that may lead the occasional troubled kid to turn video-game fantasies into real-world terror?

It's a very short article so you might like to click through and read the whole thing. And, as I write, there are 107 comments where it's published on Alternet. Seems to have stirred up a lot of emotion.

'Idolatry always lets you down in the end"

Saturday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

World peace

Wouldn't you know it would be George Carlin to come up with the perfect plan:

Another plan I have is World Peace through Formal Introductions. The idea is that everyone in the world would be required to meet everyone else in the world, formally, at least once. You'd have to look the person in the eye, shake hands, repeat their name, and try to remember one outstanding physical characteristic. My theory is, if you knew everyone in the world personally, you'd be less inclined to fight them in a war: 'Who??? The Malaysians??? Are you kidding??? I know those people!!!'"

-- George Carlin

Impressive

I hope a lot of people see this.

~~

"The biggest wake up call ever"

Anybody out there need a lift today? Trust me, this will do it.

I'm not a person who is easily moved to tears but I came very close on this one.

Oh dear. The embedding has been disabled. You're going to have to go to the YouTube site. Please click through and do it!

Susan Boyle - Singer - Britain's Got Talent 2009 (With Lyrics)

~~

Only humanity

Frank Ford sent me this:

There are no nations! There is only humanity. And if we don't come to understand that right soon, there will be no nations, because there will be no humanity.

-- Isaac Asimov

One of my pet peeves, too! :-)

Oh this is just wonderful!

Look:

President Obama on Thursday night hosted what may have been the first Passover Seder in the White House, and in a sign of the president's popularity, Elijah showed up.

--Seth Meyers

I read somewhere else that the Obamas had a Seder last year and when the traditional "Next year, Jeruslem!" was proclaimed, the candidate replied, "Next year, the White House!"

When the bottom line is god

Well, big companies are shipping manufacturing to China in order to maximize profits. And they keep demanding lower and lower manufacturing costs. So is it a surprise when the products we get end up poisoning us? Take a look:

A toxic fungicide in imported furniture is behind an outbreak of chronic dermatitis, skin burns, eye irritation and breathing difficulties across the world. Medical experts here are warning consumers to watch for symptoms.

The international journal Allergy has confirmed what thousands of British and mainland European citizens have known for more than a year: new leather sofas imported from China are a hotbed of allergens.

Dimethyl fumarate, in the form of a fine, white crystalline powder, was found in sachets embedded in the furniture sourced to China. It is believed the body heat generated from sitting on a contaminated couch causes a toxic vapour to seep out.
...
About 200,000 of the suspect couches have been imported by 15 furniture retailers in Britain alone and compensation for victims, some of whom required hospital treatment, could be in the tens of millions of dollars.

Somehow that old saying, "You get what you pay for," comes to mind.

The above excerpt is from an article entitled "New Sofas to Blame for Rash of Allergies". It's from the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia).

Easter Day

May each of us "fan the ashes":

Easter is not a time for groping through dusty, musty tomes or tombs to disprove spontaneous generation or even to prove life eternal. It is a day to fan the ashes of dead hope, a day to banish doubts and seek the slopes where the sun is rising, to revel in the faith which transports us out of ourselves and the dead past into the vast and inviting unknown.

~Author unknown

Bumper Sticker

Sadly, it's true:

You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.

-- James Thurber

Deep, focused inspiration

Photo by Colleen Meacham

Dear Readers,

Today is Good Friday. And, whatever your religious convictions (or lack thereof), it seems to be an auspicious day for focusing on what it means to give of oneself for others and to maintain a true hopefulness in the midst of great darkness and the seeming triumph of evil.

I want to steer you toward an amazing essay by Clarissa Pinkola Estes entitled "You Were Made For This". There is nothing sentimental or superficial about what she has to say. But it is inspiring in a strengthening sort of way, in a way that energizes and encourages and confronts our complacency. Here are a few passages:

My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times.
...
In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there.
...
Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.

What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul.

Today, this essay is bringing me enormous consolation because I am in the midst of a great difficulty. Perhaps someone reading this is in the midst of a great difficulty as well. Let us be in solidarity with each other, then, and know that we are profoundly connected in a way that is truly for the good of all.

~~~

The White House and climate change

I came across an article today called "Obama looking at cooling air to fight warming" and I don't know whether to think of it as hopeful or terrifying. Here's part of what it says:

Tinkering with Earth's climate to chill runaway global warming — a radical idea once dismissed out of hand — is being discussed by the White House as a potential emergency option, the president's new science adviser said Wednesday.

That's because global warming is happening so rapidly, John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month.

The concept of using technology to purposely cool the climate is called geoengineering. One option raised by Holdren and proposed by a Nobel Prize-winning scientist includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays.

Using such an experimental measure is only being thought of as a last resort, Holdren said.
...
Scientists say they worry about side effects that they don't anticipate.
...
Holdren didn't spell out under what circumstances such extreme measures might ever be called for. And he emphasized they are not something to rely on.

"It would be preferable by far," he said, "to solve this problem by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases."

Yet there is already significant opposition building to the House Democratic leaders' bill aimed at achieving President Barack Obama's goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050.

What is wrong with people? It is essential that we do something. But until we really and truly confront the evils of capitalism I don't think we will.

UPDATE: Oh my goodness. Just go read this: "What will global warming look like? Scientists point to Australia"

One could easily get discouraged.

I nicked this from over at Mad Priest's place - with his blessing, of course!

Just in case you've been living under a rock for a while, not long ago the Pope actually said the the distribution of condoms made the AIDS crisis worse.

Yeah, I know. There's just no explaining it.

Why isn't this obvious to everyone?

A tip of the hat to Frank Ford.

I didn't know he said this

Take a look:

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

For your listening pleasure

Folks, this is truly amazing. WOW!

Quote of the week

What an indictment. And sadly, true:

If the people of any country rely solely on private companies to provide essential information, the lifeblood of democracy, then you're really risking it. I think countries like the U.S. have done that to their peril. Americans, God love them, are one of the most uninformed people on the planet. A lot of it has to do with the failure of their media to keep them informed.

~ Tony Burman

PBS censorship

Please go read Something is Rotten at PBS over on Common Dreams. It's about health care. It's a short article but I really can't come up with an excerpt that will make sense.

And, yes, it's important.

Banks

Supposedly, Robert Frost said this one:

A bank is a place where they end you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.

Ideas

I'm pretty sure I've posted this before but I'm also pretty sure that it's time for a repeat:

I can't understand why people are frightened by new ideas. I'm frightened by old ones.

- John Cage

Telling it like it is. Really.

Over on Common Dreams there is an article called "The Changes And Chances Of This Mortal Life" (the title being an allusion to a prayer from the ancient monastic office of Compline - the bedtime prayer service). Here's the way it ends:

This is the Twenty-First Century. It will be hot. The storms will get worse. The water will run out and the food will fail. Money will not save us; not your stock portfolio, not your precious 401K, not the boxes of bills delivered to General Motors. Our wars will be a bloody and expensive sideshow of no consequence except to our victims. In this new century, in our lifetimes, in the years so close that our middle-managers already have meeting dates marked in their daily planners, we will come up against population and pollution and natural systems overloaded and uncontrollable by any military or economic or industrial firepower or religious faith we will own. No less than after 1492 we enter an unknown New World.

We will know the Change We Cannot Avoid.

Expect no bailout.

Grim. And, undoubtedly, the way things are.

No kidding

Fixing the economy

Cindy Reynolds sent me the following WONDERFUL story:

This was an article from the St. Petersburg Times newspaper on Sunday. The Business Section asked readers for their ideas on "How Would You Fix the Economy?" I think this reader nailed it!

Dear Mr. President,

Patriotic Retirement: There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force. Pay them $1 million dollars apiece severance pay with these stipulations:

1) They leave their jobs. Forty million job openings - Unemployment fixed.
2) They buy NEW American cars. Forty million cars ordered - Auto Industry fixed.
3) They either buy a house or pay off their mortgage - Housing Crisis fixed.

Done !!!

Now isn't THAT much more effective than throwing billions to the greedy un-needy?

I love it. I just love it! (And heck, it sounds as if it would work.)

UPDATE: Crumbs. It wouldn't work. It would only cost the government 40 million dollars if you gave each person $1.00. Poo. I can't believe I didn't notice that right away!

A first principle

Sojourners sent this quotation out today. What Chávez is saying here is so, so focused, so radiant with clarity, that it inspires me greatly. I think I will post it on all three blogs because it speaks to the theme and purpose of each one:

The first principle of nonviolent action is that of noncooperation with everything humiliating.

- César Chávez

A very good question indeed

The Sojourners people sent this out today:

Since when do you have to agree with people to defend them from injustice?

- Lillian Hellman

Good one, Jay!

I think he's onto something here:

I have a plan to end the war in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Here’s what we do. We bring all our soldiers home. We send in our investment bankers. They’ll screw up the place in six months. Six months!

- Jay Leno

So, is anybody actually surprised?

I simply give you the headline:

Information Secured Through Torture Proved Unreliable, CIA Concluded

Now go read the article - if you really think you need to.

The Pope's attitude toward condoms

Really, this is beyond reprehensible:

One of the world's most prestigious medical journals, the Lancet, has accused Pope Benedict XVI of distorting science in his remarks on condom use.

It said the Pope's recent comments that condoms exacerbated the problem of HIV/Aids were wildly inaccurate and could have devastating consequences.
...
"When any influential person, be it a religious or political figure, makes a false scientific statement that could be devastating to the health of millions of people, they should retract or correct the public record," it said.

The above excerpt is from an article on the BBC website.

The Lancet and the BBC are not exactly slouches in the publishing world.

The John Yoo memos

Naomi Wolf may well have a number of detractors but she's no crackpot (you know, of the David Icke variety). I want to direct your attention to her article entitled "Do the Secret Bush Memos Amount to Treason? Top Constitutional Scholar Says Yes". It is, quite frankly, chilling. Here's just a sample:

In early March, more shocking details emerged about George W. Bush legal counsel John Yoo's memos outlining the destruction of the republic.

The memos lay the legal groundwork for the president to send the military to wage war against U.S. citizens; take them from their homes to Navy brigs without trial and keep them forever; close down the First Amendment; and invade whatever country he chooses without regard to any treaty or objection by Congress.
...
The memos are a confession. The memos could not be clearer: This was the legal groundwork of an attempted coup. I expected massive front page headlines from the revelation that these memos exited. Almost nothing. I was shocked.

As a non-lawyer, was I completely off base in my reading of what this meant, I wondered? Was I hallucinating?

Astonished, I sought a reality check -- and a formal legal read -- from one of the nation's top constitutional scholars (and most steadfast patriots), Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has been at the forefront of defending the detainees and our own liberties.

Please. Click through and read the transcript of their conversation. But be sure you're sitting down while you do. And maybe have some smelling salts handy.

Yeah, this concerns me too.

Our current moral condition

I want to beg you to go read the latest piece by Chris Hedges. It is entitled "America Is in Need of a Moral Bailout" and, long as I have been reading Hedges and have admired him, I'm still astonished by the insight expressed. Here is a sample of what he says:

We live in an age of moral nihilism. We have trashed our universities, turning them into vocational factories that produce corporate drones and chase after defense-related grants and funding. The humanities, the discipline that forces us to stand back and ask the broad moral questions of meaning and purpose, that challenges the validity of structures, that trains us to be self-reflective and critical of all cultural assumptions, have withered. Our press, which should promote such intellectual and moral questioning, confuses bread and circus with news and refuses to give a voice to critics who challenge not this bonus payment or that bailout but the pernicious superstructure of the corporate state itself. We kneel before a cult of the self, elaborately constructed by the architects of our consumer society, which dismisses compassion, sacrifice for the less fortunate, and honesty. The methods used to attain what we want, we are told by reality television programs, business schools and self-help gurus, are irrelevant. Success, always defined in terms of money and power, is its own justification. The capacity for manipulation is what is most highly prized. And our moral collapse is as terrifying, and as dangerous, as our economic collapse.
...
Frank Donoghue, the author of "The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities," details how liberal arts education has been dismantled. Any form of learning that is not strictly vocational has at best been marginalized and in many schools has been abolished. Students are steered away from asking the broad, disturbing questions that challenge the assumptions of the power elite or an economic system that serves the corporate state.
...
The single most important quality needed to resist evil is moral autonomy. Moral autonomy, as Immanuel Kant wrote, is possible only through reflection, self-determination and the courage not to cooperate.

Moral autonomy is what the corporate state, with all its attacks on liberal institutions and "leftist" professors, has really set out to destroy.

I truly believe this is an important essay. It was originally published on Truthdig and has been reprinted today over on Common Dreams. As I write, there are already eighty-six comments to the piece on the Common Dreams site.

I will tell you something else that disturbs me greatly. Tenure is disappearing in our universities. Not only that, the number of full time professorships is diminishing so that many higher education classes are taught by part time adjuncts who receive no benefits, have to work other jobs and (needless to say) have no time to do research and to write.

I'm sorry; it's the geek in me!

First, some "A guy walks into a bar" jokes:

Descartes walks into a bar. The bartender asks, "Would you like a beer?" Descartes replies, "I think not", then disappeared.

A neutron walks into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender sets the beer down and says, "For you, no charge!"

A professor walks into a bar and orders a double martinous. The bartender says, "you mean a double martini?" The professor says, "If I want more than one I'll ask for it."

Shakespeare walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a beer. "I can't serve you." says the bartender. "You're Bard!"

And now for some bumper stickers:

The generation of random numbers is too important to leave to chance.

Black holes are where God divided by zero.

Resistance is futile (if > 1 ohm)

There's no place like 127.0.0.1

And now this one - just because I live in Tulsa:

Forget world peace; visualize using your turn signal.

I'll get back to politics tomorrow, folks!

Just because it's funny

I don't know if this is true or not (about the Russians, I mean) but it does illustrate how we like to complicate things:

When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300 degrees Celsius. The Russians used a pencil.

Found here.

The (not so) hidden cost of greed

Okay, you great big greedy corporations. So you get to inflate your profits by shipping manufacturing overseas because that way you don't have to pay American wages. I guess it's worth it to you (for the short run, that is) but is it really worth it to the country? And if this sort of thing keeps up, your market is going to disappear on you:

(CNN) -- Officials are looking into claims that Chinese-made drywall installed in some Florida homes is emitting smelly, corrosive gases and ruining household systems such as air conditioners, the Consumer Product Safety Commission says.

The Florida Health Department, which is investigating whether the drywall poses any health risks, said it has received more than 140 homeowner complaints. And class-action lawsuits allege defective drywall has caused problems in at least three states -- Florida, Louisiana and Alabama -- while some attorneys involved claim such drywall may have been used in tens of thousands of U.S. homes.

Homeowners' lawsuits contend the drywall has caused them to suffer health problems such as headaches and sore throats and face huge repair expenses.

The drywall is alleged to have high levels of sulfur and, according to homeowners' complaints, the sulfur-based gases smell of rotten eggs and corrode piping and wiring, causing electronics and appliances to fail.

"It's economically devastating, and it's emotionally devastating," said Florida attorney Ervin A. Gonzalez, who filed one of the lawsuits. It would cost a third of an affected home's value to fix the dwelling, Gonzalez said.
...
"The breadth of this thing is a lot bigger than people think," said Chaikin of the Parker Waichman Alonso law firm in Bonita Springs. Chaikin said the problem is perhaps more easily recognizable in Florida because humidity exacerbates it.

Personally (and I'm not alone in this), I think it's a national security issue that so much of our manufacturing is done overseas.

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Quote of the week

I am listening to this man right now on Bill Moyers Journal. He is so right:

[T]he only possibility of getting this country out of the crisis, the only possibility that really deep set reforms can occur (including the protection and renewal of the productive base of the economy) is labor has to become more powerful. We need more protests. We need more noise in the street. At the end of the day, political parties tend to legislate what social movements and social voices have already achieved in the factories or the streets or in the civil rights demonstration.

-- Mike Davis

For your entertainment

Until I get my own computer back! :-)

Blogging interruption

Dear Readers,

My computer is in the shop at the moment and so there will be an interruption in my normal posting routine. (Not sure how long that will be but I just didn't want anyone to worry.)

It bothers me that the newspapers are dying.

Hello, folks.

I know that times change and that print newspapers may well be going the way of the steam locomotive. However, right now I'm concerned about the lack of first rate investigative reporting. I don't think the blogs are able to pick up that slack.

And so, the cartoon below (that I found over on All Hat No Cattle) expresses my dismay about the matter:

Please don't shop at Wal-Mart --- Part 28

Here is a comment found on YouTube under this video:

"Instead of listening with your pocket, listen with your heart"

Oh, if only.

Amazing video. I hope she doesn't get in trouble for this!

I personally have vowed to never shop at Wal-Mart.

And I have vowed the same thing.

Irish trivia

Here are two VERY nice things about Ireland:

Ireland is the best place on the planet to avoid an earthquake. No epicenter has ever been recorded there.

Ireland has more dogs per capita than any other EU country.

You learned it here!

Today

"Ireland, thou friend of my country in my country's most friendless days, much injured, much enduring land, accept this poor tribute from one who esteems thy worth, and mourns thy desolation."

~ George Washington, speaking of Ireland's support for America during the revolution.