Inga Swearingen on Prarie Home Companion, 12/12/09

RIP, Teddy

Who will take on the mantle of Teddy Kennedy?

Purity

Billionaires for Wealthcare

This is fantastic; check out the teabaggers who have no idea they're being punked. Click on the title for large screen view.

I love Barney Frank

This is an excellent example of curmudgeon-ness in the service of reason.

Publicity Hogging Squirrel

This couple, vacationing in Banff National Park in Canada, had an unexpected subject in their timed photo.

Jeff Sharlet on The Daily Show

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Jeff Sharlet
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Spinal Tap Performance

Je

And now I indulge in some personal introspection.

I haven't seen my therapist, Michael, for a while, but I think I've internalized him on the familiar issues we've talked about over the years. So I know what he would say about the recent communication with my sister. I got an email from her today, no personal message, just a forwarded long-winded screed (from my other sister) about all the horrible things Obama has done in his first 5 months in office, and suggesting that GW Bush never would have gotten away with so many gaffes and so much incompetence. It's kind of funny really. It's goes to show what an altered universe is Fox News. So I bounced the email back to her unanswered and contemplated, for a fraction of a second, writing a thoughtful and sincere response, asking her to disengage from conflict, try to agree to relate on some other level--civilly, gently. Which brings me back to my therapist, who would say, at this moment, "Ah, I see you're holding out hope again." Which I know is futile. The sisterly relationship I've always wanted was never there, so I'm not longing for something I've lost, but something I never had. And, in truth, I have a great life. My husband loves me, and I him. My daughters are incredible, independent, competent, loving, compassionate women. What more could I ask for?

As for my sister, it's not that I can't abide someone with different political views, but rather that there is no common ground on which she is willing to engage without competition and disagreement. Why is it that some people seem to live for conflict? Why the compulsion to insult, to denigrate, to engage with someone only to abuse them? I suppose it's nothing more than garden-variety bullying. And that's why my inner Michael advises me to disengage, cut my losses, move on, be grateful that the family I have is the one I've built, not the one I was born into.

Let's give the apoplectic town-hall screamers what they want on health care

From dailykos.com (click on the title of this post to read the complete article):

Alright Republicans, We Give Up.
by Stroszek
Sun Aug 09, 2009 at 12:48:52 PM PDT

In accordance with your cogent and potent criticisms, these are the terms of our concession:

1. We will not euthanize your grandmother.
2. Rahm Emanuel's brother will not kill Sarah Palin's baby.
3. The government will not nationalize hospitals and other health service providers.
4. We will make the health care reform bill available for all Americans to read as soon as possible.
5. We will not subsidize abortions with your hard-earned tax dollars.
6. We will not allow the government to have direct access to your bank account.
7. We will not provide illegal immigrants with unlimited free health care.
8. Private health insurance will not be eliminated.
9. You will not be issued a "National Health Insurance ID."
10. There will be no super-secret-awesome health care program for ACORN employees.

With these concessions having been made, I trust that we can now move forward on health care reform with a broad, bipartisan consensus. Blue Dogs and Republicans, you can now rest easy knowing that the concerns of the town hall protesters have been met. While the progressive dream of a nation in which old people are slaughtered to pay for the abortions of ACORN-employed illegal immigrants will again have to be deferred, we are willing to settle for a bill without these measures in the name of bipartisanship.

Congratulations, Republicans. You've won this round.

Time-Life: The Bush Years

Surprising, but maybe not so surprising. Bush was just trying to fulfill biblical prophesy??

http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=haught_29_5

The Second Coming

by William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Why the Public Option Sucks

FORGOTTEN WARRIORS: Injured war zone contractors fight to get care - Los Angeles Times

FORGOTTEN WARRIORS: Injured war zone contractors fight to get care - Los Angeles Times

Posted using ShareThis

More on the health care debate, thanks to my sister as told to her by Fox News

This is the final post in the debate between my sister and me on health care, as I wrote about a few days ago:

"No, I never received any public assistance. I applied but was turned down. No problem if I was an illegal! So I am paying everything out of pocket. [My husband's] union cancelled all our insurance the moment he died. [My son] was right in the middle of a root canal the day [his dad] died and the union stopped paying. So that was another grand I had to pay. We definitely have to change our health system! But Government run health care is not the answer! I don't want the government to tell me what doctor I will see and what treatment they feel is best. Ask [our cousin] Debbie about the health care she received in Europe. The military wouldn't treat her cancer and she had to be treated by 'European Government run health care'. She is still suffering from the mistakes they made and not having the treatment she needed because she wasn't 'important enough'. There are a lot more people trying to get into the U.S. for health care then people leaving to get health care elsewhere."

The remarkable thing about this post is that she's saying that the military, for whom my cousin (a computer programmer) works as a contractor, would not pay for cancer treatment, yet the "European Government run health care" system did. (I hate to sound like an elitist over-educated liberal, but I feel compelled to inform her, if by chance she reads this blog, which I doubt, that Europe, like Africa, is actually made up of separate countries; each with their own health care system). Apparently this issue of American military contract workers not getting treatment is a big problem. Who insures them? Not the U.S. military or another government run health care system, but private insurers, like AIG, contracted by the military. I'm posting a link to an L.A. Times article about this issue. The article focuses on contractors with injuries sustained in war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan; how much more likely is it that a non-combat employee, like my cousin, would be denied coverage? I guess my cousin wasn't "important enough" to the private insurer who denied her care.

Does every family have their own embarrassing Sarah Palin in the closet?

Is "de-friended" a word or not? Either way, I have de-friended my sister on Facebook. This feels terrific. She had not spoken to me for a couple of years after my parents' estate was settled, but called about a year ago to inform me that she was in poor health with a heart condition. She wrote: "My heart mussel is very week. It is just barley pumping out the blood." She has no health insurance, but vehemently opposes a national health care system based on the advice of her friends at Fox News.

I feel a little bad about shutting her out, but her posts to me had begun to take on a snarky, offensive tone that brought back the pain of her abusiveness in childhood and on into adulthood. Her personal invective is much like that which she relentlessly delivered throughout the painful months (actually, years, all told) it took to settle my parents' estate, though she admitted to me last year, to my amazement, that she had not then, nor since, bothered to read the Will or Trust or settlement documents which she was arguing about. She and my other sister think that I act like I know more than they do, that I rely too much on things I read in books rather than "common sense" (which they apparently possess, in their estimation, unencumbered by study or reading, including legal documents which they are signing).

So I am, once again, moving on. I hope that the health care thing works out for her down there in Texas, where she has plenty of like-minded compatriots for her anti-immigrant ravings, and she can join in on some tea-parties and Sarah Palin 2012 rallies. She's right at home there, and I have nothing to offer her. We both drive each other crazy.

Actually, I like to think I'm not crazy yet, but I'm not willing to tempt fate by perpetuating the relationship.

Crackpots and local politics

If you've ever attended a local public governmental board meeting, this will look familiar. It's funnier when it isn't your town. . .

This makes me feel crazy

Here is a recent exchange with my sister, Denise, on Facebook. Her comment was in response to an online Facebook poll about universal health care, to which I posted my affirmative vote. Here we go:

Denise: The Government run health care system will kill me! I can't wait months to see a doctor. The doctors say my heart is very very weak. Will the government think I am too sick or too old at 55 for treatment? Scary thought!

Donna: That would be a scary thought if it were true. According to the World Health Organization, Canada, Netherlands, France, all with universal health care, have better outcomes (fewer deaths) for heart disease. You're arguing political talking points, not actual data. The "waiting in line" scenario is not accurate except perhaps for elective, non-urgent procedures. I don't know what health insurance you have, but it's only available to you as long as you are employed. When you're too sick to work in America, and you don't qualify for Medicare (which is a nationalized health care system) you're out of luck. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_hea_dis_dea-health-heart-disease-deaths

Denise: I would feel better if Obama and his family would receive the same health coverage that he wants to force on us. It took him 6 months to decide on a puppy, yet he wants congress to approve something in just a few days that no one has fully read including him! Sounds crazy to me!!

Donna: Don't worry; your governor in Texas (where 25% of the population is uninsured--highest percentage in the nation) is claiming he's going to opt out of federal health care.

Denise: That's right! He's got the right idea. Now we just have to get rid of all the illegals! Gov. Perry is a great guy with great ideas! Texas is a great state!!! What other state can you go out for pizza and watch Fox News on the giant flat screen?


Okay, so Denise's last post says it all; she gets her information from Fox News, apparently while eating pizza. I was going to comment further, but it makes me feel so crazy that I can't. I was raised by a pack of wild bigots, and I'm running for my life.

John Yoo gets punked

I hope John Yoo is extradited to the Hague for a war crimes trial. I don't want my daughter to have to be on the same campus as this man (a law professor at UC Berkeley), who is either unspeakably evil or deranged or . . . what?? He can't be that stupid. But in the meantime, here he is getting punked in his classroom by an Australian comedian, dressed to evoke the well-known image of the hooded & tortured Abu Ghraib prisoner (click on the title to view in full screen mode).

Oleg Sharov on accordion

This is how I wanted to play when I was 11 and started taking accordion lessons.

We are apes, after all.

This interesting lecture about power, reconciliation, dominance relationships, and fairness in ape communities illuminates something about human politics.

@ Yahoo! Video

I like crows

Palin resigns as governor of Alaska

"We know we can effect positive change outside government at this moment in time on another scale and actually make a difference for our priorities." --Sarah Palin

?????????????

I was hungry, and you said "Get a job"

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Tip/Wag - Cynthia Davis & Fox News
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Jeff Goldblum

HAARM (Healthy Americans Against Reforming Medicine)

Quote of the Day

"You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." Mark Twain

Sanford

Comedian Craig Ferguson on Mark Sanford's affair in Argentina: "Oh great; now we're outsourcing mistresses."

Kouross Esmaeli on Democracy Now--McCain has no credibility with Iranians

Remember McCain singing "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" during the campaign? Yes, we have a right to hold Obama's feet to the fire when we disagree, but it helps every now and then to consider that this man, John McCain, was the alternative. Thank you thank you thank you, American voters.

Click on the title of this post to view the video of Kouross Esmaeli discussing this topic.

Iran, June 19,2009: "Do you hear the people sing, singing the songs of angry men. . . "

The Mathematics of War

Why Do White People Have Black Spots

Winner of the Media That Matters 2009 International Dialogue Award.

Iranian peaceful protest

Wednesday, June 17th: peaceful protest in Tehran. 

When paramilitary forces approach, the protesters sit 

down in peaceful resistance.

War on Jokes

Iran

MathArt: Ceiling of the Octagon Barn, San Luis Obispo, CA

Demoralized

The steam went out of all of us when our district started with massive layoffs.  I didn't get a pink slip (because they can't cut math out of the curriculum), but it's demoralizing nonetheless. Our school board and district administration handled it badly, and took no responsibility for the awful way they went about it, giving out pink slips to last year's District Teacher of the year with over 20 years of service, and some teachers with over 30 years.  These were good teachers, loyal teachers, teachers whom the kids love too.  So both staff and students have lost a bit of momentum and hope.  Some of my colleagues will be gone next year, class sizes will be bigger, and we're losing essential programs like music and art.  One of the school board members shed tears over having to cut ANYTHING from the athletics budget.  She didn't mind so much firing teachers or cramming 50% more K-3 kids in classrooms next year.  But threaten the football program, and the tears flow.  This clueless and inept school board member (she's a waitress in her day job) proposed reducing the cut to athletics to 5% instead of 20%.  She tearfully talked about how "sports changes lives!"  Another (more sane and educated) board member reminded her that "EDUCATION changes lives".  They ended up cutting the already huge athletics budget by only 11 or 12 percent; which means they'll have to take the difference from somewhere else. They cut the 6th grade music and marching band program completely; one of the teachers for that program spoke and said they were cutting music at the roots--if they don't introduce it early, they'll lose a lot of kids.  Who's gonna play the fight songs at those football games?  

Certainty

If I had the world to give I'd give it all to you. . .

My dear daughter is back from 5 months in France as an exchange student, and I know it's hard for her to be missing her family and friends there.  I am delighted, contented, full of wonder at her growth and as always awed by her great goodness of heart.  In a few months she will be off to college, and I intend to cherish these last few months with her.  And I also feel an odd sense of sadness because I can't give her what she wants most, which is to have the life she loved in France and also have her life here.  I know, and she knew, it would be like this.  There are many things I would love to give my dear and deserving daughter, but I can't give her France.  

Inauguration Day

I went to an event in a nearby town, where we watched the inauguration ceremony and speech, and celebrated with food and music.  As we watched G.W. Bush lift off in the helicopter on his way to Texas, we sang, "Nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah, hey hey, goodbye" and cheered.  I was standing next to my former therapist, and I asked her, "As a mental health professional, do you feel some sympathy for the guy or do you just see him as a war criminal like the rest of us do?"  She looked thoughtful for a few seconds, then said, "To say I feel sympathy would be too personal.  I would say I feel some compassion.  My Buddhist self compels me to feel compassion."  Then she contemplated for a few more seconds, bounced off toward the dance floor, and said, "Aw, f**k it, I hate the guy; I need to go dance now."

Last day for 43

Certainly the years of the 2nd Bush administration will be remembered as the era of preemptive war, of torture, of spying on Americans, of incompetence and/or deliberate abdication of responsibility, of Bush-fiddles-while-Rome-burns head-in-the-sand non-action on global climate change.  I hope history books also brand them as the archetypes of shameful and malignant cowardice.  This mob of fools used fear--and exhibited fear--in response to every threat, real or imagined.  Instead of inspiring the people with courage, with calling forth our better angels, they cowered in undisclosed bunkers, whiled away time in the wastelands of Texas while a city drowned, whined and grew petulant in the face of hardship, and dishonored themselves, our nation, and each and every one of us, both on the world stage and within our own collective psyche.  Bush hopes the history books will portray him as he deserves to be portrayed, and on this one point I agree wholeheartedly with President #43.  

The Best One-Sentence Summary of How We Feel About W:

"He's America's mean ex-husband and the country can't wait to sign the final divorce decree."

from Digby's post "Portrait of a Jackass" at digbysblog.blogspot.com