What took Congress so long to do away with the foolish Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy of the infamous Clinton “Third Way” sellout?
And what’s up with Crazy John McCain who was for it before he was against it? Methinks it’s time for the doddering old fool to pack it in and retire to one his 13 scattered million-dollar mansions. Good riddance.
I struggle mightily to understand why anyone would oppose allowing gay people to serve in the military, marry the partner of their choice, or adopt children who might otherwise be parentless. What kind of irrational beliefs drive these absurd notions?
One of these days, sooner rather than later I hope, even the Troglodytes will realize that just as you are born with red hair, large hips, autoimmune disorders, or black skin, so are you born gay. How can anyone punish a human being for being who he is?
Monday, December 20, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
And Don't Punish the Sick
Sometimes, the debate over health care reform gets personal. Like two weeks ago, when my oldest daughter ended up in the emergency room to replace fluids after a raging flare-up of ulcerative colitis. She had lost eight pounds in just a few weeks, and was so weak she could barely walk.
Colitis is a debilitating autoimmune disorder that frequently hits between the ages of 15 and 30 (she was in her mid 20s), or later in life at 50 to 70. It is not a lifestyle-induced disease so common to today’s fat and bloated Americans who stuff themselves with McDonald’s non-food and KFC’s artery clogging crapola.
Kate has always eaten nutritiously, and has never been overweight. She is simply the victim of a bad gene pool that afflicts my father’s side of the family, where Type 1 diabetes (another autoimmune disorder) is rampant.
Kate is a bright girl with a gift for math. She has a master’s degree in statistics, and is working toward a second master’s in real estate finance. She loves her job as a risk analyst at Freddie Mac, which comes with good health insurance.
But what happens if she loses that job, either due to her illness, or to the vagaries of the marketplace? She would be uninsurable if she had to buy an individual policy. If she did manage to find a health insurer that would accept her, decent coverage would be unaffordable.
And so we have the Catch-22 of our broken, illogical, heartless system of reliance on employer-based, private-enterprise health insurance, a vestige of World War II wage controls that no longer serves our society.
If Kate lived anywhere else in the world, her health and well-being would not be tied to her job. If her illness prevented her from working, she would still have access to affordable medical treatment. Any decent society provides this, at the least.
This is why I’m so pissed off at Barack Obama and his constant caving in to the Right Wing Fox Nuts. He has allowed the Plutocrats to frame the agenda, starting with his “health care reform” proposal that offers a leg up to a paltry few who fall through the cracks.
The 20-somethings who can’t find work can remain on their parents’ plan, and those with pre-existing conditions can’t be dropped (but nothing stops the insurers from jacking up rates to the point where the chronically ill can’t afford them.) I suppose this is a small measure of progress compared to what we have now.
But what rankles the the Tea Baggers, the Plutocrats, AND us Progressives is the mandate to buy a faulty for-profit product that is overpriced and which weasles out of its contractual obligations to pay whenever the bills come due.
Colitis is a debilitating autoimmune disorder that frequently hits between the ages of 15 and 30 (she was in her mid 20s), or later in life at 50 to 70. It is not a lifestyle-induced disease so common to today’s fat and bloated Americans who stuff themselves with McDonald’s non-food and KFC’s artery clogging crapola.
Kate has always eaten nutritiously, and has never been overweight. She is simply the victim of a bad gene pool that afflicts my father’s side of the family, where Type 1 diabetes (another autoimmune disorder) is rampant.
Kate is a bright girl with a gift for math. She has a master’s degree in statistics, and is working toward a second master’s in real estate finance. She loves her job as a risk analyst at Freddie Mac, which comes with good health insurance.
But what happens if she loses that job, either due to her illness, or to the vagaries of the marketplace? She would be uninsurable if she had to buy an individual policy. If she did manage to find a health insurer that would accept her, decent coverage would be unaffordable.
And so we have the Catch-22 of our broken, illogical, heartless system of reliance on employer-based, private-enterprise health insurance, a vestige of World War II wage controls that no longer serves our society.
If Kate lived anywhere else in the world, her health and well-being would not be tied to her job. If her illness prevented her from working, she would still have access to affordable medical treatment. Any decent society provides this, at the least.
This is why I’m so pissed off at Barack Obama and his constant caving in to the Right Wing Fox Nuts. He has allowed the Plutocrats to frame the agenda, starting with his “health care reform” proposal that offers a leg up to a paltry few who fall through the cracks.
The 20-somethings who can’t find work can remain on their parents’ plan, and those with pre-existing conditions can’t be dropped (but nothing stops the insurers from jacking up rates to the point where the chronically ill can’t afford them.) I suppose this is a small measure of progress compared to what we have now.
But what rankles the the Tea Baggers, the Plutocrats, AND us Progressives is the mandate to buy a faulty for-profit product that is overpriced and which weasles out of its contractual obligations to pay whenever the bills come due.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Don't Punish the Doctors
The most recent depressing development in the War Against Ourselves Concerning Health Care was reported this week when a growing number of doctors declared they will no longer accept Medicare patients because the government is cutting their payments.
Republicans, Tea Partiers, Faux News followers, right-wing extremists, Second Amendment fanatics, and other assorted nut cases, I’m ready to join your anti-government screed on this issue.
That is, if you agree that any savings in health care expenses should NOT be born by the doctors who deliver our care. Unlike health insurance companies, physicians have invested heavily in time and money to contribute to the health and well-being of us all.
Contrast this with Anthem Blue Cross, a giant health insurer with no purpose other than serving as a middleman to skim money from the system. Anthem heals nobody, can’t give a flu shot, does no research into cures for diabetes or cancer, and couldn’t hook up an IV if their life depended on it (though ours often does.)
Why do we in this country allow the likes of the health insurers to hijack our system and make our health care more expensive and our lives more miserable? The insurers contribute NOTHING to the good of the country, or to the health of its citizens.
I think we can all agree that we are unique among the developed nations, and even some Third World countries, that we pay too much for our health care and get too little in return. The statistics are daunting. The most recent estimate is that 59 million of us now go without health insurance, up from 46 million just a few years ago.
Health insurers have taken a necessity, like water and electricity, and monopolized it for profit. When we will we awaken, take up arms (hooray for the Second Amendment) and extinguish these thieves once and for all? Health insurers should be regulated like public utilities, which is exactly what the Obama Administration has tried to do with its reforms.
“Obamacare,” as the Right Wing has dubbed it, is NOT socialized medicine, but a long-overdue attempt to put some much-needed rules in place to reign in the worst practices of the health insurance tyrants.
So Annie get your gun, and let’s go after these outlaws.
Republicans, Tea Partiers, Faux News followers, right-wing extremists, Second Amendment fanatics, and other assorted nut cases, I’m ready to join your anti-government screed on this issue.
That is, if you agree that any savings in health care expenses should NOT be born by the doctors who deliver our care. Unlike health insurance companies, physicians have invested heavily in time and money to contribute to the health and well-being of us all.
Contrast this with Anthem Blue Cross, a giant health insurer with no purpose other than serving as a middleman to skim money from the system. Anthem heals nobody, can’t give a flu shot, does no research into cures for diabetes or cancer, and couldn’t hook up an IV if their life depended on it (though ours often does.)
Why do we in this country allow the likes of the health insurers to hijack our system and make our health care more expensive and our lives more miserable? The insurers contribute NOTHING to the good of the country, or to the health of its citizens.
I think we can all agree that we are unique among the developed nations, and even some Third World countries, that we pay too much for our health care and get too little in return. The statistics are daunting. The most recent estimate is that 59 million of us now go without health insurance, up from 46 million just a few years ago.
Health insurers have taken a necessity, like water and electricity, and monopolized it for profit. When we will we awaken, take up arms (hooray for the Second Amendment) and extinguish these thieves once and for all? Health insurers should be regulated like public utilities, which is exactly what the Obama Administration has tried to do with its reforms.
“Obamacare,” as the Right Wing has dubbed it, is NOT socialized medicine, but a long-overdue attempt to put some much-needed rules in place to reign in the worst practices of the health insurance tyrants.
So Annie get your gun, and let’s go after these outlaws.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
At Long Last, I Understand
I am old enough to have studied history long before the State of Texas was able to hijack the publishing industry and rewrite the textbooks to propagandize their fundamentalist right-wing agenda.
But though I read history texts untainted by Texans back in the 60s, I never really grasped, at a gut level, how Germany could have fallen prey to the Nazi plague. After all, most of my ancestors are German, and their descendants are the salt of the earth.
My contemporary German relatives are God-fearing Midwesterners who say grace before they devour their homemade chicken and noodles. They don’t just pass away. When they write their obituaries, they enter into the arms of their savior or ride the wings of an angel up to the heavens.
These are decent folk who keep clean homes. They don’t cheat on their taxes (though they’ve been known to cheat on their wives), and they are frugal to a fault.
Still, at worst my German ancestors participated in one of the most vile movements in the history of the civilized world. At best, they simply ignored atrocities carried out in their name.
How could they have bought into a movement so evil?
Plainly and simply, they were angry, afraid, and looking for someone to blame for their diminished status after their economy was devastated by World War I. Pretty much like what we see going on in the U.S. these days.
Which makes me wary of what lies ahead as I watch the anger of the Tea Party foment into a combustible stew poised to lash out at the most convenient scapegoat they can find. Their target is always The Other, just as the Nazis scapegoated the Jews.
Today’s Tea Party targets are Brown or Black, most often, and practicing an unfamiliar religion that has been demonized by politicians in the War On Terror, which is just a euphemism for empire-building, theft of natural resources on another continent, and reducing labor here and abroad to a cheap commodity.
God help us all.
But though I read history texts untainted by Texans back in the 60s, I never really grasped, at a gut level, how Germany could have fallen prey to the Nazi plague. After all, most of my ancestors are German, and their descendants are the salt of the earth.
My contemporary German relatives are God-fearing Midwesterners who say grace before they devour their homemade chicken and noodles. They don’t just pass away. When they write their obituaries, they enter into the arms of their savior or ride the wings of an angel up to the heavens.
These are decent folk who keep clean homes. They don’t cheat on their taxes (though they’ve been known to cheat on their wives), and they are frugal to a fault.
Still, at worst my German ancestors participated in one of the most vile movements in the history of the civilized world. At best, they simply ignored atrocities carried out in their name.
How could they have bought into a movement so evil?
Plainly and simply, they were angry, afraid, and looking for someone to blame for their diminished status after their economy was devastated by World War I. Pretty much like what we see going on in the U.S. these days.
Which makes me wary of what lies ahead as I watch the anger of the Tea Party foment into a combustible stew poised to lash out at the most convenient scapegoat they can find. Their target is always The Other, just as the Nazis scapegoated the Jews.
Today’s Tea Party targets are Brown or Black, most often, and practicing an unfamiliar religion that has been demonized by politicians in the War On Terror, which is just a euphemism for empire-building, theft of natural resources on another continent, and reducing labor here and abroad to a cheap commodity.
God help us all.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
We're Still in Kansas, Toto
The violent storm system that brought tornadoes to the Midwest and South this week reminded me (1) How grateful that I no longer live in Tornado Alley, and (2) The destructive twister that hit Dorothy’s family in The Wizard of Oz is likely to descend upon us Nov. 2 in the form of some brutal windbags being elected to the halls of Congress.
It looks all too likely that Teabagger Sharron Angle will defeat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada. If she were running for a House seat, I wouldn’t fret, as it would take less than a year for her backers to have buyers’ remorse and kick her butt out. However, as a U.S. Senator she'd have six years to inflict real damage on the entire country.
Angle would abolish the Department of Education, privatize Medicare, and “transition out” Social Security because it is "welfare. " (Nevermind that we Boomers have paid into the system for 40 years.) And just ask our kids whether they would like to be responsible for our well-being in our dotage if we weren’t able to collect it, as their children will be for them if Angle has her way.
She wants the U.S. to withdraw from the United Nations. She does not believe that the U.S. Constitution mandates the separation of church and state.
And then there are her anti-immigrant rants and television advertising spots that reveal her as a racist to the core.
If she prevails, Sharron Angle will become the ugly elected face of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
Rand Paul is ahead in the Kentucky Senate race, despite the despicable scene witnessed this week when his Brownshirts stomped on the head of a woman who showed up outside his event to peacefully draw attention to his allegiance to the Corporatocracy.
In the Alaska race for U.S. Senate, the Palin-backed Joe Miller resorted to using hired guns to handcuff a reporter who wanted to question him about his dubious (and illegal) electioneering activities while holding public office. He has since confessed his guilt to the original charges, although he issued no apology to the editor of the Alaska Dispatch who had the temerity to raise the issue.
Thankfully, Miller has plunged in the polls. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has a shot of winning back her seat as a write-in, if Alaskans only know how to spell her name. But with the dumbing down of education that has taken place over the last 30 years, it is doubtful that Sarah Palin’s fellow citizens can master that task.
Mercifully, Christine O’Donnell in Delaware has exposed herself as so utterly ignorant that even the dumbest of the dumb can’t bring themselves to vote for her, so her Democratic opponent Chris Coons is well ahead in that race. Score one for the realists.
But back to Kansas, and what’s wrong with it. As author Thomas Frank pointed out in his book, "What's The Matter With Kansas?," these are good people who for some strange reason, keep voting against their own self interest. And they are about to do it once again on Nov. 2.
The cyclone is on its way. God help us all.
It looks all too likely that Teabagger Sharron Angle will defeat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada. If she were running for a House seat, I wouldn’t fret, as it would take less than a year for her backers to have buyers’ remorse and kick her butt out. However, as a U.S. Senator she'd have six years to inflict real damage on the entire country.
Angle would abolish the Department of Education, privatize Medicare, and “transition out” Social Security because it is "welfare. " (Nevermind that we Boomers have paid into the system for 40 years.) And just ask our kids whether they would like to be responsible for our well-being in our dotage if we weren’t able to collect it, as their children will be for them if Angle has her way.
She wants the U.S. to withdraw from the United Nations. She does not believe that the U.S. Constitution mandates the separation of church and state.
And then there are her anti-immigrant rants and television advertising spots that reveal her as a racist to the core.
If she prevails, Sharron Angle will become the ugly elected face of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
Rand Paul is ahead in the Kentucky Senate race, despite the despicable scene witnessed this week when his Brownshirts stomped on the head of a woman who showed up outside his event to peacefully draw attention to his allegiance to the Corporatocracy.
In the Alaska race for U.S. Senate, the Palin-backed Joe Miller resorted to using hired guns to handcuff a reporter who wanted to question him about his dubious (and illegal) electioneering activities while holding public office. He has since confessed his guilt to the original charges, although he issued no apology to the editor of the Alaska Dispatch who had the temerity to raise the issue.
Thankfully, Miller has plunged in the polls. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has a shot of winning back her seat as a write-in, if Alaskans only know how to spell her name. But with the dumbing down of education that has taken place over the last 30 years, it is doubtful that Sarah Palin’s fellow citizens can master that task.
Mercifully, Christine O’Donnell in Delaware has exposed herself as so utterly ignorant that even the dumbest of the dumb can’t bring themselves to vote for her, so her Democratic opponent Chris Coons is well ahead in that race. Score one for the realists.
But back to Kansas, and what’s wrong with it. As author Thomas Frank pointed out in his book, "What's The Matter With Kansas?," these are good people who for some strange reason, keep voting against their own self interest. And they are about to do it once again on Nov. 2.
The cyclone is on its way. God help us all.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Virtual Virtues
I used to be terrified to enter a virtual world populated by what I perceived to be as pervs, peepers and perps. If I were single and looking for a date, and thank God I’m not, why on earth would I go online to find one? I considered it Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places.
And then, over the past several years, I had an epiphany when I learned that many of my close friends, my hairdresser, and even my family have successfully found friendship, love, and marriage via the internet.
Come to think of it, the online world is probably a better venue for discovering genuine human being-ness than a bar full of drunks and ne’er-do-wells, or a church full of self-righteous hypocrites who are keeping their demons in check by quoting the Bible while buggering little boys in the vestry on a Tuesday afternoon.
So I guess you could call me a convert to the wonders of the virtual marketplace. I still have reservations about privacy issues on Facebook, and Google’s intrusion into our neighborhoods and homes with its Wi Spy invasion while billing itself as the company that promulgates the mantra, “Don’t Be Evil,” so trust us.
So play Frontierville (as I do) and hook up with your old high school classmates online (as I do) but keep a watchful eye out for the potential for Facebook to sell you out to the highest bidder, as Mark Zuckerberg has done time and again.
And never take your eye off Google, whose tentacles are reaching into the smallest crevices of our lives and shaping our existence in ways unimaginable to the least sophisticated among us. Beware the Octopus.
So my advice for all of us who are addicted to the wonders of the internet is, go forth, engage, indulge, and enjoy. But do practice safe text.
And then, over the past several years, I had an epiphany when I learned that many of my close friends, my hairdresser, and even my family have successfully found friendship, love, and marriage via the internet.
Come to think of it, the online world is probably a better venue for discovering genuine human being-ness than a bar full of drunks and ne’er-do-wells, or a church full of self-righteous hypocrites who are keeping their demons in check by quoting the Bible while buggering little boys in the vestry on a Tuesday afternoon.
So I guess you could call me a convert to the wonders of the virtual marketplace. I still have reservations about privacy issues on Facebook, and Google’s intrusion into our neighborhoods and homes with its Wi Spy invasion while billing itself as the company that promulgates the mantra, “Don’t Be Evil,” so trust us.
So play Frontierville (as I do) and hook up with your old high school classmates online (as I do) but keep a watchful eye out for the potential for Facebook to sell you out to the highest bidder, as Mark Zuckerberg has done time and again.
And never take your eye off Google, whose tentacles are reaching into the smallest crevices of our lives and shaping our existence in ways unimaginable to the least sophisticated among us. Beware the Octopus.
So my advice for all of us who are addicted to the wonders of the internet is, go forth, engage, indulge, and enjoy. But do practice safe text.
Friday, October 15, 2010
A Meeting of the Minds
Well, at long last, a rabid right-wing acquaintance of mine sent me one of those emails churned out by the Tea Party noise machine that I can actually get on board with.
You may have seen it too. It’s entitled “My Twenty People,” and it offers a prescription for fixing what’s wrong with Congress.
“You're part of my 20 people,” it says. “Hoping you will send this on to your 20 so we get this out before November. If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive the message. Maybe it is time. "
Congressional Reform Act of 2010 .
Term Limits.
12 years only, one of the possible options below:
Two Six-year Senate terms
Six Two-year House terms
One Six-year Senate term and three Two-Year House terms
No Tenure / No Pension.
A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.
Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.
All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people.
Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.
Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.
Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.
Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.
All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/11.
“The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work. "
Well maybe it IS time for some fundamental changes in the way our self-serving Congress operates. At the very least, if there were term limits they wouldn’t be constantly running for office and forced to be whores for the big money elite. (Note to Meg Whitman: “Whore” is synonymous with “sell-out”, so don’t get all self-righteous on me.)
And you can bet your bippy if they had to go out on the open market and buy health insurance like the rest of us do, they’d pass single-payer in a flash. Dick Cheney would be first in line to champion it. After all, we taxpayers have been funding his gold-plated health care since his first heart attack at 37. Without our benevolence, he would have been shut out of the insurance risk pool 30 years ago, and quite likely, be long dead by now.
Now just think of the money THAT could have saved us.
You may have seen it too. It’s entitled “My Twenty People,” and it offers a prescription for fixing what’s wrong with Congress.
“You're part of my 20 people,” it says. “Hoping you will send this on to your 20 so we get this out before November. If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive the message. Maybe it is time. "
Congressional Reform Act of 2010 .
Term Limits.
12 years only, one of the possible options below:
Two Six-year Senate terms
Six Two-year House terms
One Six-year Senate term and three Two-Year House terms
No Tenure / No Pension.
A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.
Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.
All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people.
Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.
Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.
Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.
Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.
All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/11.
“The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work. "
Well maybe it IS time for some fundamental changes in the way our self-serving Congress operates. At the very least, if there were term limits they wouldn’t be constantly running for office and forced to be whores for the big money elite. (Note to Meg Whitman: “Whore” is synonymous with “sell-out”, so don’t get all self-righteous on me.)
And you can bet your bippy if they had to go out on the open market and buy health insurance like the rest of us do, they’d pass single-payer in a flash. Dick Cheney would be first in line to champion it. After all, we taxpayers have been funding his gold-plated health care since his first heart attack at 37. Without our benevolence, he would have been shut out of the insurance risk pool 30 years ago, and quite likely, be long dead by now.
Now just think of the money THAT could have saved us.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
A Rap for our Times
You got the GOP and the Tea Party Crowd
They have crazy ideas and they’re nasty and loud
From the anti-masturbator who was once a witch
To the woman in Nevada who’s a first-class bitch
They’re all misguided, and obnoxious as well,
They all say they’re Christians, but they’re going to hell
For if Jesus is their Savior as the Bible preaches
He’d hate the rhetoric of these sons of beaches
Just look at Kentucky where if Rand has his way,
No Social Security for a rainy day!
Thunderstorms are coming so you better be ready
Who holds your mortgage? Is it Fannie or Freddie?
Nobody knows, and that’s the rub
It’s been sliced and diced for the Rich Man’s Club
Are you ready to rely on your 401K?
Instead of a pension, when you’re 80 and a day?
Hope you get your wish in two thousand ten
When you win the election but you chose the wrong men
BREAK...
They have crazy ideas and they’re nasty and loud
From the anti-masturbator who was once a witch
To the woman in Nevada who’s a first-class bitch
They’re all misguided, and obnoxious as well,
They all say they’re Christians, but they’re going to hell
For if Jesus is their Savior as the Bible preaches
He’d hate the rhetoric of these sons of beaches
Just look at Kentucky where if Rand has his way,
No Social Security for a rainy day!
Thunderstorms are coming so you better be ready
Who holds your mortgage? Is it Fannie or Freddie?
Nobody knows, and that’s the rub
It’s been sliced and diced for the Rich Man’s Club
Are you ready to rely on your 401K?
Instead of a pension, when you’re 80 and a day?
Hope you get your wish in two thousand ten
When you win the election but you chose the wrong men
BREAK...
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
The Truth About Obamacare
I’ve found a new poster child for the right wing/tea party patriots who claim they want to take back their country.
Let me introduce to you Mr. Cranky, a blast from my Midwestern past, who now lives in the OC and who apparently, from his Facebook posts, has “arrived” and therefore doesn’t give a crap about the rest of us. He is, however, intensely focused on his own gene pool.
To wit:
“ 4 hours at the hospital with granddaughter #1 getting some stitches after her forehead met a brick column when she tried to step over the dog. Glad for private insurance, no government help required. Plastic surgeon? You got it! Great attention? You got it! Red tape! Hell no! Colored bandaides? Yah betcha bootie baby! Obamacare? Stuff it where the sun don't shine!”
He does have a way with words, does he not?
Cranky, I’m delighted that your granddaughter got a colored band-aid, but if whoever provides her with health insurance loses his/her job, all bets are off. Hope it never happens to your family, but if or when it does, you’ll have my sympathy, even though you seem to lack any compassion for those of us who aren’t adequately covered through no fault of our own.
What’s striking in Cranky’s post is his lack of understanding about what he calls “Obamacare” . He thinks it’s Socialism.
Well Cranky, let’s just put that tired old canard to rest once and for all.
The reforms that were enacted are just some much-needed rules of the road that reign in private insurers who have been screwing us ALL. If you have a new grandbaby and she is born with diabetes, the insurance companies won’t be able to deny her coverage.
Any of your kids still under the age of 26 but unable to find work and therefore uninsured? Now they can remain on your obviously gold-plated policy.
Did you ever have a problem with alcohol and check into rehab to dry out? You may have been sober for 35 years, but it matters not to the health insurance industry, as that is their definition of a pre-existing condition. You would have been UNINSURABLE, until the new rules were put into place.
“Frankly,” as the degenerate Newt Gingrich would say, I wish we did have national health insurance like all the rest of the civilized industrial nations of the world.
It STILL wouldn’t be socialism, but at least we would be rid of the pariah of a blood-sucking industry that has no business being in business.
Let me introduce to you Mr. Cranky, a blast from my Midwestern past, who now lives in the OC and who apparently, from his Facebook posts, has “arrived” and therefore doesn’t give a crap about the rest of us. He is, however, intensely focused on his own gene pool.
To wit:
“ 4 hours at the hospital with granddaughter #1 getting some stitches after her forehead met a brick column when she tried to step over the dog. Glad for private insurance, no government help required. Plastic surgeon? You got it! Great attention? You got it! Red tape! Hell no! Colored bandaides? Yah betcha bootie baby! Obamacare? Stuff it where the sun don't shine!”
He does have a way with words, does he not?
Cranky, I’m delighted that your granddaughter got a colored band-aid, but if whoever provides her with health insurance loses his/her job, all bets are off. Hope it never happens to your family, but if or when it does, you’ll have my sympathy, even though you seem to lack any compassion for those of us who aren’t adequately covered through no fault of our own.
What’s striking in Cranky’s post is his lack of understanding about what he calls “Obamacare” . He thinks it’s Socialism.
Well Cranky, let’s just put that tired old canard to rest once and for all.
The reforms that were enacted are just some much-needed rules of the road that reign in private insurers who have been screwing us ALL. If you have a new grandbaby and she is born with diabetes, the insurance companies won’t be able to deny her coverage.
Any of your kids still under the age of 26 but unable to find work and therefore uninsured? Now they can remain on your obviously gold-plated policy.
Did you ever have a problem with alcohol and check into rehab to dry out? You may have been sober for 35 years, but it matters not to the health insurance industry, as that is their definition of a pre-existing condition. You would have been UNINSURABLE, until the new rules were put into place.
“Frankly,” as the degenerate Newt Gingrich would say, I wish we did have national health insurance like all the rest of the civilized industrial nations of the world.
It STILL wouldn’t be socialism, but at least we would be rid of the pariah of a blood-sucking industry that has no business being in business.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Descending Into Poverty
I friended an acquaintance from my Midwestern hometown past on Facebook some months ago, and his rants ever since have been a real eye-opener for me.
Mind you, from what I remember, this guy, (who has been dubbed as Mr. Cranky by my BFF Diantha), was as middle class as I was, though perhaps a notch above, since I’m pretty sure his dad was a veteran and mine wasn’t. And that made a huge difference in social and economic status the 50s and 60s, unless you were university professors like my in-laws.
My Dad was too young to enlist in WWII. By the time the Korean Conflict (how’s THAT for a war euphemism???) rolled around, a cyst on dad’s back kept him out of that one too.
So my family didn’t benefit from “Big Gov’ment” benefits like Cranky’s family did. No GI Bill for us, no cushy jobs at the Postal Service, no government-provided health care at the VA.
And since my father didn’t want to work the land like his German ancestors, we didn’t get those farm subsidies that continue to enrich the few at the expense of the many. Are you listening, Billy B?
Instead, Dad just went out there and worked in non-union jobs for rich guys that paid him too little, screwed him out of a decent pension in his old age, and convinced him that if he dared join a union, the company would fold and he would never work again.
Dad was duped.
As are too many of us in what used to be the Middle Class, but who are now sinking into the ranks of the working poor. If we can get work. Otherwise, we’re just poor.
4
Mind you, from what I remember, this guy, (who has been dubbed as Mr. Cranky by my BFF Diantha), was as middle class as I was, though perhaps a notch above, since I’m pretty sure his dad was a veteran and mine wasn’t. And that made a huge difference in social and economic status the 50s and 60s, unless you were university professors like my in-laws.
My Dad was too young to enlist in WWII. By the time the Korean Conflict (how’s THAT for a war euphemism???) rolled around, a cyst on dad’s back kept him out of that one too.
So my family didn’t benefit from “Big Gov’ment” benefits like Cranky’s family did. No GI Bill for us, no cushy jobs at the Postal Service, no government-provided health care at the VA.
And since my father didn’t want to work the land like his German ancestors, we didn’t get those farm subsidies that continue to enrich the few at the expense of the many. Are you listening, Billy B?
Instead, Dad just went out there and worked in non-union jobs for rich guys that paid him too little, screwed him out of a decent pension in his old age, and convinced him that if he dared join a union, the company would fold and he would never work again.
Dad was duped.
As are too many of us in what used to be the Middle Class, but who are now sinking into the ranks of the working poor. If we can get work. Otherwise, we’re just poor.
4
Saturday, September 25, 2010
We're Stupid, All Right
A flu bug impaired my body, my brain and my ability to crank out a meaningful post this week. But even on my best day, I could never compose as cogent a piece as one of my favorite writers, David Michael Green, whose commentary on what has brought America to its knees is nothing short of brilliant.
Be advised fellow liberals, Green is no Obama apologist. He lays out all the ways in which this administration has been spineless, and thus, ineffective, in its first two years. On the other hand, he sounds a clear warning on the folly of returning to power the very people responsible for wrecking the country over the last 30 years.
For you Tea Party types, I hope you will read the essay with an open mind. Perhaps then you'll understand who your real enemy is.
Read it here. And leave your comments. Let the discussion begin!
Be advised fellow liberals, Green is no Obama apologist. He lays out all the ways in which this administration has been spineless, and thus, ineffective, in its first two years. On the other hand, he sounds a clear warning on the folly of returning to power the very people responsible for wrecking the country over the last 30 years.
For you Tea Party types, I hope you will read the essay with an open mind. Perhaps then you'll understand who your real enemy is.
Read it here. And leave your comments. Let the discussion begin!
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Raindrops On Roses
When I feel despair for the future of my country, and lament that one in seven of my fellow citizens now lives in poverty, and wonder how those Values Voters have managed to turn Jesus into an unrecognizable stranger, I seek refuge in Julie Andrews and one of the best movies ever made.
The Sound of Music is worth watching once a year, as is The Wizard of Oz. And nothing in The Sound of Music inspires me as much as “My Favorite Things.”
Call me a putz, but when I'm feeling sad, I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don't feel so bad.
And for a landlubber whose roots are in the Midwest, it doesn’t get any better than when the blue whales show up in your neighborhood in Southern California. These magnificent creatures, the largest animal ever to inhabit the earth, reach up to 100 feet long and weigh as much as 100 tons, in the Southern Hemisphere at least. In our neck of the woods, they are a bit smaller at 80 or 85 feet.
To put it in some perspective, a blue whale is as big as 40 elephants.
It's rare to see the blue whales near our beaches, as they are usually found farther north near Santa Barbara and the Channel Islands. But as many as 35 of them showed up less than two miles off the Redondo Beach pier a little over a month ago. Cooler weather here has produced a bloom of krill, the tiny shrimp-like creatures the blue whales engorge at a rate of four tons a day.
Best estimates are that only one percent of the population of the world has ever laid eyes on a blue whale, so I am now a member of an exclusive club.
So forget politics, turn off Fox News, stop arguing with me on Facebook, and indulge in a spiritual experience on the Voyager, if you happen to be in Redondo Beach any time real soon.
But hurry. The blue whales, like some hapless incumbents in Congress, might well be here today, gone tomorrow.
Watch the video from CBS News here.
The Sound of Music is worth watching once a year, as is The Wizard of Oz. And nothing in The Sound of Music inspires me as much as “My Favorite Things.”
Call me a putz, but when I'm feeling sad, I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don't feel so bad.
And for a landlubber whose roots are in the Midwest, it doesn’t get any better than when the blue whales show up in your neighborhood in Southern California. These magnificent creatures, the largest animal ever to inhabit the earth, reach up to 100 feet long and weigh as much as 100 tons, in the Southern Hemisphere at least. In our neck of the woods, they are a bit smaller at 80 or 85 feet.
To put it in some perspective, a blue whale is as big as 40 elephants.
It's rare to see the blue whales near our beaches, as they are usually found farther north near Santa Barbara and the Channel Islands. But as many as 35 of them showed up less than two miles off the Redondo Beach pier a little over a month ago. Cooler weather here has produced a bloom of krill, the tiny shrimp-like creatures the blue whales engorge at a rate of four tons a day.
Best estimates are that only one percent of the population of the world has ever laid eyes on a blue whale, so I am now a member of an exclusive club.
So forget politics, turn off Fox News, stop arguing with me on Facebook, and indulge in a spiritual experience on the Voyager, if you happen to be in Redondo Beach any time real soon.
But hurry. The blue whales, like some hapless incumbents in Congress, might well be here today, gone tomorrow.
Watch the video from CBS News here.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Rot and Decay
Give me your best baritone voice, and chant along with me: “USA! USA! We’re Number One. We’re Number One.”
Now switch to a tinny falsetto, and let’s speak the truth: “No we aren’t.”
Although we cling to the certitude that we are the cat's meow of civilized societies, we are actually Number 11 in the rankings of the best countries in the world, according to a recent Newsweek report.
Newsweek measured countries on health, economy, education, political environment and quality of life in an attempt to answer the question: "If you were born today, which country would provide you with the very best opportunity to live a healthy, safe, reasonably prosperous and upwardly mobile life?"
Unsurprisingly, the countries faring best were the enlightened democracies, and highly regulated free market economies, of Northern Europe...Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway. You know, the countries the Tea Baggers refer to as the “socialist nations.”
So let’s examine several of Newsweek’s categories and see where we stand here in the good US of A.
Starting with health, we’re all the way down at Number 37, according to the World Health Organization. How is it possible that we rank below Oman, at Number 8? France (Number 1, those despicable Socialists) I could understand, but Oman??? Even Colombia, home of the Drug Kingpins, outranks us at Number 22.
I suspect our miserable ranking is connected to the reality that we spend more on medical care, but with worse outcomes, than any industrialized nation in the world.
Let's see where we stand in education. Ouch! Don’t we have Harvard and Berkeley? Oh, wait...We’ve starved our K-12 program so badly for the last 30 years that the most highly-qualified students for those lofty institutions are foreigners. Looks like our home-grown high school graduates are destined for careers at Taco Bell.
Isn’t anyone upset by this? This is our future we’re talking about here. We’re eating our seed corn, folks.
Political environment? We have become totally dysfunctional, with the Party of No obstructing every positive move our President tries to implement, just because they want to see him fail to further their own nefarious political purposes.
We have become an embarrassment throughout the civilized world. (If you don't believe that, get a passport and go see for yourself.)
But at least we still have Lady GaGa. Whoever the hell she is.
Now switch to a tinny falsetto, and let’s speak the truth: “No we aren’t.”
Although we cling to the certitude that we are the cat's meow of civilized societies, we are actually Number 11 in the rankings of the best countries in the world, according to a recent Newsweek report.
Newsweek measured countries on health, economy, education, political environment and quality of life in an attempt to answer the question: "If you were born today, which country would provide you with the very best opportunity to live a healthy, safe, reasonably prosperous and upwardly mobile life?"
Unsurprisingly, the countries faring best were the enlightened democracies, and highly regulated free market economies, of Northern Europe...Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway. You know, the countries the Tea Baggers refer to as the “socialist nations.”
So let’s examine several of Newsweek’s categories and see where we stand here in the good US of A.
Starting with health, we’re all the way down at Number 37, according to the World Health Organization. How is it possible that we rank below Oman, at Number 8? France (Number 1, those despicable Socialists) I could understand, but Oman??? Even Colombia, home of the Drug Kingpins, outranks us at Number 22.
I suspect our miserable ranking is connected to the reality that we spend more on medical care, but with worse outcomes, than any industrialized nation in the world.
Let's see where we stand in education. Ouch! Don’t we have Harvard and Berkeley? Oh, wait...We’ve starved our K-12 program so badly for the last 30 years that the most highly-qualified students for those lofty institutions are foreigners. Looks like our home-grown high school graduates are destined for careers at Taco Bell.
Isn’t anyone upset by this? This is our future we’re talking about here. We’re eating our seed corn, folks.
Political environment? We have become totally dysfunctional, with the Party of No obstructing every positive move our President tries to implement, just because they want to see him fail to further their own nefarious political purposes.
We have become an embarrassment throughout the civilized world. (If you don't believe that, get a passport and go see for yourself.)
But at least we still have Lady GaGa. Whoever the hell she is.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Smart or Stupid?
I like to think of myself as an intelligent person, but when my husband comes home with a problem invented by Google to screen its prospective employees, and has the solution while I’m still scratching my head, I realize just how stupid I really am.
Here’s the problem: You have eight balls which are identical in appearance, but one is heavier than the others. You have a scale, and can use it twice to determine which of the eight balls is the heavy one. How do you proceed?
While you’re chewing on that one, let me ruminate on one of my favorite subjects, multiple intelligences, as outlined by Dr. Howard Gardner.
Gardner’s thesis, now widely supported in the mainstream, proposes that there is no such thing as a universal intelligence, but says that we all possess gifts that constitute what the world would define as being smart. Here are the categories that Gardner defined:
Linguistic intelligence ("word smart")
Logical-mathematical intelligence ("number/reasoning smart")
Spatial intelligence ("picture smart")
Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence ("body smart")
Musical intelligence ("music smart")
Interpersonal intelligence ("people smart")
Intrapersonal intelligence ("self smart")
Naturalist intelligence ("nature smart")
I suppose the more categories we can lay claim to, the smarter we are. Truth be told, I'd claim three of the eight at most. I won’t tell you which three, but I will confess it IS NOT logical-mathematical intelligence, the category that is most rewarded in our society. (Thank goodness my oldest child inherited that gift from her father.)
So although I’ll put my head down on my pillow tonight feeling dumber than dirt because I’d never make the cut for Google, perhaps I’ll awaken in the morning inspired to write another blog piece, or play a Beethoven sonata on the piano, or counsel a friend who is going through a nasty divorce.
Let that be my contribution, for just one day, to a better world through my limited intelligence.
As for the solution to the Google problem, well, just Google it. Or tune in here tomorrow.
Here’s the problem: You have eight balls which are identical in appearance, but one is heavier than the others. You have a scale, and can use it twice to determine which of the eight balls is the heavy one. How do you proceed?
While you’re chewing on that one, let me ruminate on one of my favorite subjects, multiple intelligences, as outlined by Dr. Howard Gardner.
Gardner’s thesis, now widely supported in the mainstream, proposes that there is no such thing as a universal intelligence, but says that we all possess gifts that constitute what the world would define as being smart. Here are the categories that Gardner defined:
Linguistic intelligence ("word smart")
Logical-mathematical intelligence ("number/reasoning smart")
Spatial intelligence ("picture smart")
Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence ("body smart")
Musical intelligence ("music smart")
Interpersonal intelligence ("people smart")
Intrapersonal intelligence ("self smart")
Naturalist intelligence ("nature smart")
I suppose the more categories we can lay claim to, the smarter we are. Truth be told, I'd claim three of the eight at most. I won’t tell you which three, but I will confess it IS NOT logical-mathematical intelligence, the category that is most rewarded in our society. (Thank goodness my oldest child inherited that gift from her father.)
So although I’ll put my head down on my pillow tonight feeling dumber than dirt because I’d never make the cut for Google, perhaps I’ll awaken in the morning inspired to write another blog piece, or play a Beethoven sonata on the piano, or counsel a friend who is going through a nasty divorce.
Let that be my contribution, for just one day, to a better world through my limited intelligence.
As for the solution to the Google problem, well, just Google it. Or tune in here tomorrow.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Bring On Big Government
If it means more cops on the beat, more ambulances to respond when I choke on a fish bone, or more firefighters to keep California from burning to the ground in the dry season, then by all means, give me Big Government.
Bring it on, as Shrub would say.
I want more employees in the FDA to keep Big Pharma from peddling me drugs that prove dangerous within five years of their release on the market; more inspectors for the chicken growers whose eggs contain salmonella, and more IRS agents to catch the tax cheats who make me pay more than my fair share for the commons.
I’d like more nurses, whether in our public hospitals or in the private sector, so that if I end up hospitalized with an “e coli” infection that’s resistant to any available antibiotic I have an angel to hook me up to an IV and monitor my vital signs. And hold my hand if I am croaking.
It would be lovely to have enough teachers so that classroom sizes didn’t exceed 20. I’d pay extra for that.
Please give me more investigators to prevent Medicare fraud so that Medicare will be around when I need it in my dotage.
I’m not so keen on expanding government to revamp the interstate highway system, as depleted oil supplies and rising oil prices will soon make our roads obsolete. So I’d prefer that my hard-earned money not go down that rathole. But I’d sure like to see more government subsidies for rail, whether high speed or just restoring our existing tracks.
I’d write a bigger check for more FEMA employees (as long as they aren’t beholden to industry) so the country could respond efficiently to a disaster like Hurricane Katrina. Likewise, the Minerals and Management Service (MMS) could use some higher-caliber employees to prevent accidents that kill our coal miners. If we have to pay more to expand these departments, I’m all for it.
And let’s not short-change our veterans, who go off on questionable missions like Iraq or Afghanistan, and return with missing limbs, brain damage, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, only to find no resources to treat them.
Where Big Government loses its luster for me is its entry into my doctor’s office or my bedroom. I don’t need government dictating to me whether I will have an abortion or use marijuana to ease the symptoms of an untreatable illness.
Most of all, I’m tired of paying for endless wars that don’t make us more secure but only enrich the mercenaries and munitions makers.
That’s the sort of Big Government I think most of us could agree we should dump.
Bring it on, as Shrub would say.
I want more employees in the FDA to keep Big Pharma from peddling me drugs that prove dangerous within five years of their release on the market; more inspectors for the chicken growers whose eggs contain salmonella, and more IRS agents to catch the tax cheats who make me pay more than my fair share for the commons.
I’d like more nurses, whether in our public hospitals or in the private sector, so that if I end up hospitalized with an “e coli” infection that’s resistant to any available antibiotic I have an angel to hook me up to an IV and monitor my vital signs. And hold my hand if I am croaking.
It would be lovely to have enough teachers so that classroom sizes didn’t exceed 20. I’d pay extra for that.
Please give me more investigators to prevent Medicare fraud so that Medicare will be around when I need it in my dotage.
I’m not so keen on expanding government to revamp the interstate highway system, as depleted oil supplies and rising oil prices will soon make our roads obsolete. So I’d prefer that my hard-earned money not go down that rathole. But I’d sure like to see more government subsidies for rail, whether high speed or just restoring our existing tracks.
I’d write a bigger check for more FEMA employees (as long as they aren’t beholden to industry) so the country could respond efficiently to a disaster like Hurricane Katrina. Likewise, the Minerals and Management Service (MMS) could use some higher-caliber employees to prevent accidents that kill our coal miners. If we have to pay more to expand these departments, I’m all for it.
And let’s not short-change our veterans, who go off on questionable missions like Iraq or Afghanistan, and return with missing limbs, brain damage, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, only to find no resources to treat them.
Where Big Government loses its luster for me is its entry into my doctor’s office or my bedroom. I don’t need government dictating to me whether I will have an abortion or use marijuana to ease the symptoms of an untreatable illness.
Most of all, I’m tired of paying for endless wars that don’t make us more secure but only enrich the mercenaries and munitions makers.
That’s the sort of Big Government I think most of us could agree we should dump.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Scary Fanatics
There’s been a whole lot of hoohah in recent weeks over plans to build a community center, which would include a mosque, near the ruins of the World Trade Center.
The hysterical masses are up in arms over the audacity of Muslims to dishonor those sacred grounds by building within eye-shot of where some crazed terrorists, who hailed primarily from our ally Saudi Arabia (and who incidentally were Muslim) blew up almost 3000 of our fellow citizens on 9/11. (Did you know that some of those victims were...Muslims?)
I don’t now what’s sacred about Lower Manhattan or its environs, which is where the proposed Community Center That Includes A Mosque would be built. Wall Street’s a pretty sleazy neighborhood, given the rape and pillage that’s been inflicted upon the common folk of this nation by the big banks, hedge fund managers and super wealthy hucksters over the last 30 years.
I don’t think there’s much left in that neighborhood to sully.
Whether the mosque gets built or not, the disturbing undertone in this flap is an irrational fear and intolerance of Islam. You can see it in the mistaken notion that our President is a Muslim. That’s patently absurd, since just three years ago the anti-Obama crowd was complaining about his Christian preacher Jeremiah Wright. You can’t have it both ways, folks. He’s either with the Rev. Wright, or he’s facing Mecca.
But this is an appropriate moment to ask: What if he WERE a Muslim? Would that preclude him from being the POTUS?
In the latest example of Islamophobia, a Florida fundamentalist preacher plans to hold a Koran-burning ceremony Saturday on the anniversary of 9/11. Hoping to forestall the “reverend” (whom I refuse to name as it just feeds his attention-seeking agenda) from igniting a powder keg, Gen. David Petraeus, Hilary Clinton and other sentient beings are pleading with him to cancel the ceremony.
Petraeus warned that a public Koran burning that’s likely to go viral worldwide on You Tube would endanger U.S. troops in Afghanistan and undermine our efforts to win hearts and minds there. So far that plea has fallen on deaf ears, but the pastor did say he is praying about it and waiting for God to give him instructions.
My prayer is that God will answer swiftly and tell the psychopath to crawl back under his rock.
Fanatics of any faith are frightening, whether Muslim or Christian. But some in this country seem to feel that the Constitution only protects the civil liberties of the Christian fanatics. The First Amendment does NOT read “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof (except for Islam.)”
We should be very, very careful. If we want our religious freedom to be preserved, we had better be willing to extend it to those of other faiths. Or it might come back to bite us in the butt someday.
The hysterical masses are up in arms over the audacity of Muslims to dishonor those sacred grounds by building within eye-shot of where some crazed terrorists, who hailed primarily from our ally Saudi Arabia (and who incidentally were Muslim) blew up almost 3000 of our fellow citizens on 9/11. (Did you know that some of those victims were...Muslims?)
I don’t now what’s sacred about Lower Manhattan or its environs, which is where the proposed Community Center That Includes A Mosque would be built. Wall Street’s a pretty sleazy neighborhood, given the rape and pillage that’s been inflicted upon the common folk of this nation by the big banks, hedge fund managers and super wealthy hucksters over the last 30 years.
I don’t think there’s much left in that neighborhood to sully.
Whether the mosque gets built or not, the disturbing undertone in this flap is an irrational fear and intolerance of Islam. You can see it in the mistaken notion that our President is a Muslim. That’s patently absurd, since just three years ago the anti-Obama crowd was complaining about his Christian preacher Jeremiah Wright. You can’t have it both ways, folks. He’s either with the Rev. Wright, or he’s facing Mecca.
But this is an appropriate moment to ask: What if he WERE a Muslim? Would that preclude him from being the POTUS?
In the latest example of Islamophobia, a Florida fundamentalist preacher plans to hold a Koran-burning ceremony Saturday on the anniversary of 9/11. Hoping to forestall the “reverend” (whom I refuse to name as it just feeds his attention-seeking agenda) from igniting a powder keg, Gen. David Petraeus, Hilary Clinton and other sentient beings are pleading with him to cancel the ceremony.
Petraeus warned that a public Koran burning that’s likely to go viral worldwide on You Tube would endanger U.S. troops in Afghanistan and undermine our efforts to win hearts and minds there. So far that plea has fallen on deaf ears, but the pastor did say he is praying about it and waiting for God to give him instructions.
My prayer is that God will answer swiftly and tell the psychopath to crawl back under his rock.
Fanatics of any faith are frightening, whether Muslim or Christian. But some in this country seem to feel that the Constitution only protects the civil liberties of the Christian fanatics. The First Amendment does NOT read “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof (except for Islam.)”
We should be very, very careful. If we want our religious freedom to be preserved, we had better be willing to extend it to those of other faiths. Or it might come back to bite us in the butt someday.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Clueless, Costly Spooks
I’m reflecting these days on the early 80s, when the Cold War was in full swing, and Ronald Reagan declared the Soviet Union the Great Satan and chief enemy of United States of America.
It was difficult for me to think of the USSR as a threat to my existence once I met Muscovite Mikhail Ozerov at a newspaper editors’ gathering in Washington D.C. Mikhail, or Misha as he preferred to be called, showed up at a cocktail party hosted by Bob White, a newspaper publisher from, of all places, Mexico, MO (my home state). My husband John and I instantly bonded with Misha.
We had so much in common. We were journalists. We had daughters roughly the same age. We were interested in world events, public policy, and the nuances of the Cold War. We just liked each other, despite the all-out efforts of our respective nations to insist that we shouldn’t.
Misha was clearly nervous even as the night wore on, fearful of the watchful eyes of his countrymen who might report back to the authorities. John and I respected his cautiousness, so we left the party promising each other to exchange gifts for our daughters before he returned to Moscow.
We met again the next night in the downstairs cloakroom of the Soviet Embassy before a diplomatic reception. Misha brought a xylophone and Russian childrens' books for us; we gave him Barbie dolls. We were all thrilled to have pulled off such a clandestine rendezvous without Misha being caught and sent off to the Gulag.
John and I saw Misha and his wife Marita several times over the next few years in Moscow. We were struck by their ability to survive as well as they did in a planned economy and closed society.
Food was in short supply, the best hotel in Moscow had bedbugs, and customers stood in long lines at GUM, the “department store,” for hours just to find out what they might be able to buy. A gilt-edged 15-page restaurant menu at the National Hotel was a cruel joke, as there were really only two options: Beefsteak, or Chicken Kiev. And don’t even think of trying to get fed there after 9 p.m.
Moscow was clearly in disarray, and one can only assume things were no better anywhere across the continent.
After witnessing these fundamental failings, I couldn’t help but wonder: If it was crystal clear to me that the Soviet Union was a paper tiger, where in the hell was the CIA for the last 30 years and why couldn’t they figure out the Evil Empire was collapsing?
That’s why I don’t trust our spies, their covert operations in the Middle East or anywhere else, their assassinations, their renditions, and the taxpayer dollars they waste. Just send me and my husband on a mission. We’ll hook up with Misha and Marita and tell you anything you need to know. And we’ll work on the cheap.
It was difficult for me to think of the USSR as a threat to my existence once I met Muscovite Mikhail Ozerov at a newspaper editors’ gathering in Washington D.C. Mikhail, or Misha as he preferred to be called, showed up at a cocktail party hosted by Bob White, a newspaper publisher from, of all places, Mexico, MO (my home state). My husband John and I instantly bonded with Misha.
We had so much in common. We were journalists. We had daughters roughly the same age. We were interested in world events, public policy, and the nuances of the Cold War. We just liked each other, despite the all-out efforts of our respective nations to insist that we shouldn’t.
Misha was clearly nervous even as the night wore on, fearful of the watchful eyes of his countrymen who might report back to the authorities. John and I respected his cautiousness, so we left the party promising each other to exchange gifts for our daughters before he returned to Moscow.
We met again the next night in the downstairs cloakroom of the Soviet Embassy before a diplomatic reception. Misha brought a xylophone and Russian childrens' books for us; we gave him Barbie dolls. We were all thrilled to have pulled off such a clandestine rendezvous without Misha being caught and sent off to the Gulag.
John and I saw Misha and his wife Marita several times over the next few years in Moscow. We were struck by their ability to survive as well as they did in a planned economy and closed society.
Food was in short supply, the best hotel in Moscow had bedbugs, and customers stood in long lines at GUM, the “department store,” for hours just to find out what they might be able to buy. A gilt-edged 15-page restaurant menu at the National Hotel was a cruel joke, as there were really only two options: Beefsteak, or Chicken Kiev. And don’t even think of trying to get fed there after 9 p.m.
Moscow was clearly in disarray, and one can only assume things were no better anywhere across the continent.
After witnessing these fundamental failings, I couldn’t help but wonder: If it was crystal clear to me that the Soviet Union was a paper tiger, where in the hell was the CIA for the last 30 years and why couldn’t they figure out the Evil Empire was collapsing?
That’s why I don’t trust our spies, their covert operations in the Middle East or anywhere else, their assassinations, their renditions, and the taxpayer dollars they waste. Just send me and my husband on a mission. We’ll hook up with Misha and Marita and tell you anything you need to know. And we’ll work on the cheap.
When Others Say It Best, I Rest
This insightful nugget from David Michael Green, political science professor at Hofstra University In New York, is from an article he wrote for Common Dreams.
It's well worth reading the entire piece. Take a look. Click here.
“It is now transparent, for anyone who cares to look, that the ugly tea party movement in America is an invention of the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch, Dick Armey and their sick ilk, once again mobilizing a boatload of fools who are angry, but too stupid to know quite why. This explains their endless rhetoric about the evils of the federal government, and their simultaneous desire to keep their Social Security and Medicare benies. It also explains their unmatched idiocy in serving as tools for their own destruction. If they succeed, they fail. If they get their champions elected, they lose their government-provided (Shhhh!) goodies. Brilliant."
It's well worth reading the entire piece. Take a look. Click here.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Guess I Shoulda Listened to Mom
Don’t you just hate it when your mother is always right?
The first time I remember Mom’s sage counsel was when I was four years old. All my little friends were taking dance lessons, tapping their way to future stardom and looking darling in the process. They had the cutest costumes! I SO wanted to buy into that.
At the same time, I was intrigued by the piano in my aunt’s house. Those ivories just screamed “tickle me!”
I told Mom I wanted to take dance lessons and piano lessons. Nope, she said. We can only afford one. You’ll have to choose. Making decisions was something I was pitiful at then (and not much better at now) so this threw me into a tailspin.
Wise Mom refused to make the choice for me, but she did give me these words of advice: “Carol, you’ll look pretty silly in a tutu when you’re 80.”
That mental picture did the trick. I chose piano lessons, and that decision has given me a lifetime of rewards.
Mom’s had a pretty good track record over the years. Most recently, she was highly skeptical of Obama’s promise of Hope and Change in the 2008 election. This despite the fact that my husband John was an Obama volunteer who burned two weeks of his vacation time canvassing in the Republican stronghold of Southwest Missouri while bunking at my mother’s house.
Mom and my brother Gerald have been disgusted with politics and politicians for many years. Those two Show-Me-Staters had become so jaded they weren’t even planning to vote until John and I begged them to “get out there and make a difference.”
“You want us to choose between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum?” they asked.
They didn’t trust that Obama would deliver on any of his lofty promises, but we assured them it would be different this time. Obama’s the Real Deal, we said. They rolled their eyes, but at least they cast their ballots.
Alas, almost two years later we’re all still waiting for the change we had hoped for. Please President Obama, don’t let my Mom be right this time.
The first time I remember Mom’s sage counsel was when I was four years old. All my little friends were taking dance lessons, tapping their way to future stardom and looking darling in the process. They had the cutest costumes! I SO wanted to buy into that.
At the same time, I was intrigued by the piano in my aunt’s house. Those ivories just screamed “tickle me!”
I told Mom I wanted to take dance lessons and piano lessons. Nope, she said. We can only afford one. You’ll have to choose. Making decisions was something I was pitiful at then (and not much better at now) so this threw me into a tailspin.
Wise Mom refused to make the choice for me, but she did give me these words of advice: “Carol, you’ll look pretty silly in a tutu when you’re 80.”
That mental picture did the trick. I chose piano lessons, and that decision has given me a lifetime of rewards.
Mom’s had a pretty good track record over the years. Most recently, she was highly skeptical of Obama’s promise of Hope and Change in the 2008 election. This despite the fact that my husband John was an Obama volunteer who burned two weeks of his vacation time canvassing in the Republican stronghold of Southwest Missouri while bunking at my mother’s house.
Mom and my brother Gerald have been disgusted with politics and politicians for many years. Those two Show-Me-Staters had become so jaded they weren’t even planning to vote until John and I begged them to “get out there and make a difference.”
“You want us to choose between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum?” they asked.
They didn’t trust that Obama would deliver on any of his lofty promises, but we assured them it would be different this time. Obama’s the Real Deal, we said. They rolled their eyes, but at least they cast their ballots.
Alas, almost two years later we’re all still waiting for the change we had hoped for. Please President Obama, don’t let my Mom be right this time.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Back to the Future
The latest Gallup Tracking Poll, released today, has Republicans winning generically over Democrats in the upcoming midterm Congressional elections by 10 points, the highest margin ever for the GOP. Although polls are only a snapshot in time and something unpredictable could happen between now and November, the gap has been trending upwards for the GOP all summer.
If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d say that this is the result of a nefarious plot hatched by Turd Blossom, aka Karl Rove, to return the Republicans to power permanently. After all, it worked like a charm when he helped Nixon devise the Southern Strategy.
It would go something like this: Take the budget surplus you inherited from Bill Clinton, start an unnecessary, immoral and expensive war in Iraq, belatedly do the same thing in Afghanistan, “reform” Medicare to enrich Big Pharma at taxpayer expense, cut taxes for the richest among us, and drive deficits through the roof.
Reward companies that move offshore, crippling the manufacturing base and destroying the jobs that built a strong middle class. Sit back and watch unemployment skyrocket. Take a short-term loss in one election by putting up a half crazy old coot who chooses an unknown bimbo from Alaska as his running mate.
Turn the whole mess over to the Democrats and wait for the fur to fly when a raging, impatient and financially devastated electorate turns on them in less than two years because they haven’t fixed the mess you made in your eight-year reign of terror.
But no conspiracy theorist I! That’s the realm of the kooks who bay at the moon and think the black U.N.helicopters are coming for their AK47s. So it couldn’t have been a deliberate trashing of the country for long-term political gain. It’s probably just a coincidence.
Whichever, if the numbers hold, we’ll be turning the keys back over to the irresponsible teens who wrecked the family car. And we’ll surely be going Back to the Future.
If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d say that this is the result of a nefarious plot hatched by Turd Blossom, aka Karl Rove, to return the Republicans to power permanently. After all, it worked like a charm when he helped Nixon devise the Southern Strategy.
It would go something like this: Take the budget surplus you inherited from Bill Clinton, start an unnecessary, immoral and expensive war in Iraq, belatedly do the same thing in Afghanistan, “reform” Medicare to enrich Big Pharma at taxpayer expense, cut taxes for the richest among us, and drive deficits through the roof.
Reward companies that move offshore, crippling the manufacturing base and destroying the jobs that built a strong middle class. Sit back and watch unemployment skyrocket. Take a short-term loss in one election by putting up a half crazy old coot who chooses an unknown bimbo from Alaska as his running mate.
Turn the whole mess over to the Democrats and wait for the fur to fly when a raging, impatient and financially devastated electorate turns on them in less than two years because they haven’t fixed the mess you made in your eight-year reign of terror.
But no conspiracy theorist I! That’s the realm of the kooks who bay at the moon and think the black U.N.helicopters are coming for their AK47s. So it couldn’t have been a deliberate trashing of the country for long-term political gain. It’s probably just a coincidence.
Whichever, if the numbers hold, we’ll be turning the keys back over to the irresponsible teens who wrecked the family car. And we’ll surely be going Back to the Future.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
We Need a Zenyatta in the White House
I’ve always loved horses, and in recent years, horse racing. I’m not a gambler by any means. In fact, I hate wagering my husband’s hard-earned money on anything, whether it’s the lottery, a penny slot machine, poker, or the ponies.
Despite my gambling aversion, my husband and I have been eagerly joining our good friend and horse-racing aficionado John at the races at Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Del Mar for the last two years. I’m bravely wagering $2 on each race, hoping I won’t lose more than $2 for an entire afternoon of entertainment.
Along the way, I’ve discovered the new love of my life. Her name is Zenyatta. She’s big, and she’s smart. She entertains the crowd with a prancing routine rivaling anything you’ll see on Dancing With the Stars,. She lays back early but surges from the back of the pack to overpower anyone in her way. She’s won all of her 18 races.
Also, she happens to be black.
Zenyatta is a metaphor for what I had hoped a President Obama might be. Zenyatta has never let me down. Alas, Obama has disappointed not only me, but countless of his supporters, including many political neophytes who worked their butts off to bring about REAL hope and change. The younger generation’s disappointment with Obama’s lack of meaningful reform could result in them never voting again.
Even worse for the future of our country and the possibility of having any productive discourse on solutions to real problems is Obama’s lack of backbone, which has allowed a dingbat like Sarah Palin to spew nonsense like “How’s that Hopey Changey thing workin’ for ya?”
If Obama wasn’t going to come out of the gate and take charge of the race from the beginning, why isn’t he using those long legs to take down Mitch McConnell and John Boehner now that they have demonstrated that their only goal is obstructionism? Does he not understand that the GOP wants nothing more than to lay blame on him for eight years of Bush/Cheney idiocy? And to ensure that he won’t have a second term?
Is Obama really more naive than a classy racehorse???
Despite my gambling aversion, my husband and I have been eagerly joining our good friend and horse-racing aficionado John at the races at Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Del Mar for the last two years. I’m bravely wagering $2 on each race, hoping I won’t lose more than $2 for an entire afternoon of entertainment.
Along the way, I’ve discovered the new love of my life. Her name is Zenyatta. She’s big, and she’s smart. She entertains the crowd with a prancing routine rivaling anything you’ll see on Dancing With the Stars,. She lays back early but surges from the back of the pack to overpower anyone in her way. She’s won all of her 18 races.
Also, she happens to be black.
Zenyatta is a metaphor for what I had hoped a President Obama might be. Zenyatta has never let me down. Alas, Obama has disappointed not only me, but countless of his supporters, including many political neophytes who worked their butts off to bring about REAL hope and change. The younger generation’s disappointment with Obama’s lack of meaningful reform could result in them never voting again.
Even worse for the future of our country and the possibility of having any productive discourse on solutions to real problems is Obama’s lack of backbone, which has allowed a dingbat like Sarah Palin to spew nonsense like “How’s that Hopey Changey thing workin’ for ya?”
If Obama wasn’t going to come out of the gate and take charge of the race from the beginning, why isn’t he using those long legs to take down Mitch McConnell and John Boehner now that they have demonstrated that their only goal is obstructionism? Does he not understand that the GOP wants nothing more than to lay blame on him for eight years of Bush/Cheney idiocy? And to ensure that he won’t have a second term?
Is Obama really more naive than a classy racehorse???
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Why I Play Frontierville
Who would have thought I would get hooked on a Facebook game when there is so much more important work to be done, like saving the planet and countering the Fox Propaganda Machine?
Alas, I am a Frontierville addict. I play daily and waste more time than I care to admit clobbering groundhogs, scaring bears and harvesting eggplant.
I’ll lay the blame on my 28-year-old comedienne daughter, Alexis, who left Philadelphia six months ago and moved in with us to try her hand breaking into the Big Time Comedy Scene in Los Angeles.
Alexis caught me more than once playing Bejeweled Blitz, another Facebook game that is less addicting than Frontierville, but a time-waster nevertheless.
“Don’t be embarrassed Mom,” was her reassuring counsel. “I play Facebook games too.” Including Frontierville. And the rest is history.
So what’s the appeal of that silly game?
For me it harkens back to a time when we as a people in this United States of America were more collaborative than competitive. We helped our friends and neighbors. We were there for them in a pinch.
Barn raisings and quilting bees were routine. If a hungry neighbor needed a chicken to eat during the Great Depression, we looked the other way when she stole one from our coop. We might have been down to our last loaf of bread, but when someone needier than us came along, we gave him the center, not the heel. We had no money and couldn’t buy goods or services, so we bartered.
I don’t think politics or religion really mattered to a homesteader desperate to get his crops harvested before the winter ice storms. Any philosophical differences were put aside until the firewood was chopped, the crops were stored and the animals fed.
And so it is with Frontierville. I have many new friends who have become my neighbors just to play the silly game, and these “strangers” are some of the most incredible people I’ve ever meet.
My new friends Rod, Crystal, Nicole, Jill, Kelly and Michelle would give you the shirts off their backs in virtual reality.
And I suspect they would do the same in the Real World when the shit hits the fan.
I’m keeping them close, along with my old friends.
Alas, I am a Frontierville addict. I play daily and waste more time than I care to admit clobbering groundhogs, scaring bears and harvesting eggplant.
I’ll lay the blame on my 28-year-old comedienne daughter, Alexis, who left Philadelphia six months ago and moved in with us to try her hand breaking into the Big Time Comedy Scene in Los Angeles.
Alexis caught me more than once playing Bejeweled Blitz, another Facebook game that is less addicting than Frontierville, but a time-waster nevertheless.
“Don’t be embarrassed Mom,” was her reassuring counsel. “I play Facebook games too.” Including Frontierville. And the rest is history.
So what’s the appeal of that silly game?
For me it harkens back to a time when we as a people in this United States of America were more collaborative than competitive. We helped our friends and neighbors. We were there for them in a pinch.
Barn raisings and quilting bees were routine. If a hungry neighbor needed a chicken to eat during the Great Depression, we looked the other way when she stole one from our coop. We might have been down to our last loaf of bread, but when someone needier than us came along, we gave him the center, not the heel. We had no money and couldn’t buy goods or services, so we bartered.
I don’t think politics or religion really mattered to a homesteader desperate to get his crops harvested before the winter ice storms. Any philosophical differences were put aside until the firewood was chopped, the crops were stored and the animals fed.
And so it is with Frontierville. I have many new friends who have become my neighbors just to play the silly game, and these “strangers” are some of the most incredible people I’ve ever meet.
My new friends Rod, Crystal, Nicole, Jill, Kelly and Michelle would give you the shirts off their backs in virtual reality.
And I suspect they would do the same in the Real World when the shit hits the fan.
I’m keeping them close, along with my old friends.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Tea and Sympathy
I understand the anger of the Tea Party Crowd. I’m angry too. But I’m frustrated with their inability to understand where the responsibility for our problems lie, and their failure to direct their anger toward the real culprits.
Lest you think I’m partisan, let me say I blame ALL administrations over the past 30 years for our current morass, beginning with Reagan. That includes Bill Clinton, the Best Republican the Democrats ever elected. Clinton was responsible for NAFTA, elimination of the Glass Steagall Act (with help from Republican Phil Gramm), and the elevation of dicks like Robert Rubin, Larry Summers and Tim Geithner.
NAFTA created that giant sucking sound that Ross Perot presciently warned us about, offshoring the good jobs to Third World countries where labor can be hired for $2 a day, and toxic pollution is rampant.
Elimination of Glass-Steagall allowed the banksters to operate casinos, which created the housing bubble and nearly brought the world economy to its knees. If it weren’t for the TARP program, instituted NOT by Obama, but by GW Bush, we would now be in the Second Great Depression. Unfortunately, Obama did too little too late to generate a real recovery.
I was adamantly opposed to a Hilary presidency because I knew it would be Bill Clinton Redux. William Jefferson Clinton set in motion the policies that led to the complete rape of our country as we know it, paving the way for GW Bush and his henchman Cheney to finish the job.
The USA is approaching Third World Country status, not because of Obama. He is no socialist, by the way. He appears to be bought and sold by the same entrenched oligarchy that the dear leaders of our country have swooned over for three decades.
Obama is not your enemy. At least not in the way you think.
So dear Tea Partiers, can you begin to have an open mind, and look to sources other than Fox, Beck and Rush and David Limbaugh?
Lest you think I’m partisan, let me say I blame ALL administrations over the past 30 years for our current morass, beginning with Reagan. That includes Bill Clinton, the Best Republican the Democrats ever elected. Clinton was responsible for NAFTA, elimination of the Glass Steagall Act (with help from Republican Phil Gramm), and the elevation of dicks like Robert Rubin, Larry Summers and Tim Geithner.
NAFTA created that giant sucking sound that Ross Perot presciently warned us about, offshoring the good jobs to Third World countries where labor can be hired for $2 a day, and toxic pollution is rampant.
Elimination of Glass-Steagall allowed the banksters to operate casinos, which created the housing bubble and nearly brought the world economy to its knees. If it weren’t for the TARP program, instituted NOT by Obama, but by GW Bush, we would now be in the Second Great Depression. Unfortunately, Obama did too little too late to generate a real recovery.
I was adamantly opposed to a Hilary presidency because I knew it would be Bill Clinton Redux. William Jefferson Clinton set in motion the policies that led to the complete rape of our country as we know it, paving the way for GW Bush and his henchman Cheney to finish the job.
The USA is approaching Third World Country status, not because of Obama. He is no socialist, by the way. He appears to be bought and sold by the same entrenched oligarchy that the dear leaders of our country have swooned over for three decades.
Obama is not your enemy. At least not in the way you think.
So dear Tea Partiers, can you begin to have an open mind, and look to sources other than Fox, Beck and Rush and David Limbaugh?
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