I mean not to tell the people that read my blog things that they already know and I definitely don’t intend to talk down to those who are nice enough to indulge me. I simply find so many things fascinating, infuriating or downright ridiculous about so many things in our world.
When we were attacked on 9/11, at first I was shocked and saddened. But, secondly I was incredibly intrigued. My naivté on the issues of Muslim fundamentalism led first to anger, but then on a quest to find out why. And why it had all festered in Afghanistan? Over most of the past decade I figured out some fascinating things pertaining to some of the history of America’s involvement in Afghanistan. My abridged understanding is ridiculously surface, but it may just help to understand why we are where we are. Read the rest of this entry »
Afghanistan and US in a Nutshell
December 29th, 2009Happy Holidays!…yep, I said it.
December 23rd, 2009Why healthcare at hyperspeed?
December 21st, 2009If you don’t have concerns over this healthcare bill, check your pulse. While discussing it the other day, I finally conceded that I just didn’t know what was happening. This bill is so complex, and so involved, if you know exactly what’s in it, you’re lying. I’ve been asked by several people recently why this has to rushed through? Why does it have to happen right now? Read the rest of this entry »
Katrina’s Global Warming Fluke
December 18th, 2009
Ha! Isn't this a funny global warming joke?
Just to clear up any misguided cynicism on global warming—just because we still experience snow and cold weather every once and awhile, doesn’t mean climate change isn’t occurring. Incremental increases in temperature raise ocean surface temperatures. This in turn causes unstable weather patterns and glacial melting. This in turn causes disasters like increases in large storm systems (i.e. Katrina and the Indonesian Tsunami) and the droughts that fuel massive wild fires. Read the rest of this entry »
Yummy hormones and profits
December 18th, 2009I’m sick. Well, my son is sick literally. He’s got a fever and is generally not in good spirits. But I’m more figuratively sick. This morning, while visiting the doctor, she requested that we only give him the organic, hormone free whole milk. “But”, I protested,“a lot of the milk on the shelves these days say “our farmers pledge to use no artificial hormones.”” I guess the key word was “artificial”. She told me that recently she had attended a seminar at Harvard where the use of hormones in milk production was discussed. The industry has successfully lobbied to make it against the law to place a label stating that bovine hormones were not used in production. I guess that if the public was educated to the use of natural bovine hormones they might have a problem with it and it might just cut into the poor factory farmers bottom line. Turns out that the injection of “natural hormones” can jack up the production by 60x. Maybe telling people that artificial processes, that plump up the company’s profits, while in turn making us sicker, is just bad for business. This is just another example of how unbridled capitalism is protecting profits over the health and the welfare of it’s citizens. But actually, now that I think about it, it seems that a citizenry in poor health might just plump up another industry’s bottom line. Wow, what a great model for perpetual profits!! And just look at the banks now. “Thanks for setting us up with billions, but you’re really not profitable for us anymore, so we’re just going to turn our backs on you and let you suffer in our wake.”
The American government when run using the model that was intended isn’t really the great satan that it’s made out to be. However, government that’s effectively run by the rich and for the rich is. Unfortunately, that’s what we’re now facing. We can elect Presidents and legislators that claim to represent us until we’re blue in the face, but if even 10% of these politicians are the lap dogs of the corporatocracy, the people of this country will continue to be led under false pretenses. That’s almost the perfect definition of fascism.
Well, I’m happy.
December 2nd, 2009Sorry. I’ve been drinking and I started feeling all mushy.
I love Barack. Still. With all the noise, and yelling and complaining, I still think he’s doing as great job as can be expected in such an annoying time. I’m TRULY trying to complain about some things. I’ve been whining about the fact that Larry Sommers and Geitner were partially responsible for not regulating the financial industry during Clinton’s eight. Why the hell are they now attempting to regulate it. Turning over a new leaf I suppose. Keep your eyes wide. Then, I don’t like the whole “here’s Obama to entertain us with lofty speeches” b.s. But that’s not really his fault. I’m hearing a lot of criticism, some great questions and some crazy (literally crazy) banter, but I still think he’s kicking ass. Recently, the heath care, Afghanistan and global warming debates have reminded me of the last months of the campaign when everyone panicked when the poll numbers started to slide. Friend’s were emailing me with angry rants, the word “terrorist” was being thrown around like hand grenades and people were “mad as Hell and {weren’t} going to take it.” And Obama, with his typical grace, just waited out the storm. Someone sent me this that made me laugh. Still think it’s suiting:
...and he did.
Who is RethinkReform.com?
November 29th, 2009Taken from the Grensboro North Carolina News & Record.
The ”Rethink Reform” TV ad, using the former Congressional Budget Office director who is, of course, paid for her services, was funded by the Employment Policies Institute. EPI was created by Rick Berman, who lobbies for the restaurant, hotel, alcoholic beverage and tobacco industries.
O.K. Bob McDonnell, I’m listening
November 21st, 2009Updated for the real world: When I wrote this article I thought I’d give Bob McDonnell the benefit of the doubt, but Bob McDonnell sucks. He’s terrible. He’s exactly what I was worried he would be. He really is a judgmental, ideologue that pushes his puritanical holier-than-thou agenda. Damn Bob McDonnell.
The Devil We Know
What a wonderful idea. Deregulate the Virginia ABC stores to allow private business do it correctly and to drop this puritanical charade that Virginia is obsessed with. While we’re at it, we should allow bars to operate as bars and drop the food sales requirement. We’re all adults out here. We can temper our own habits, thanks. I hope it happens Mr. McDonnell. If and when you use your religion or moral authority to undermine my and my friends rights, you lose my support. But for now, I’m listening.
Read all about it in The Washington Post online
We lost but we always win
November 3rd, 2009There’s never been a progressive agenda that hasn’t met fierce resistance. Never. Change doesn’t come easily probably because it seems that many, if not most people simply don’t like to change. It’s uncomfortable. It’s hard. It requires adjusting to new ideas about things that they’ve thought for years to be the only way. It’s easier to hunker down and resist. It’s easier to fight that change than to try to make things better and expand outside of the circle.
In one word, it’s conservatism.
Conservatism will never die. It’s a necessary basic human instinct to protect what’s known and safe. Conservatism allows us to recognize when driving too fast on the interstate may lead to a terrible accident and it protects us when we realize that excessive drinking and drug abuse may lead to an early death. But conservatism when it’s not tempered with progress becomes a unwieldy weight that drags people into set ways and a stubbornness to recognize when real changes are necessary. Without progress, and therefore progressives, slavery would still be the way of the land, women would still be fighting to vote, a National Parks system wouldn’t exist and Rosa Parks would still be sitting in the back of the bus. This is not to mention the countless other examples of social and economic advances that were driven by progressives.
While progressives are constantly moving the ball forward and pushing to make for a fairer healthcare system, for gay rights, for an economy based on clean, renewable energy, for an educational system that doesn’t effectively bankrupt it’s citizens, we will constantly be fighting conservative thinking that fights that change. Currently the GOP is fighting to reconcile a natural shift towards a more progressive agenda. The shift is inevitable and unstoppable and conservatism must adjust or face becoming obsolete. Since becoming obsolete isn’t an option, we can expect a more moderate, dare I say, more progressive agenda from conservatives.
What progressives should take solace in is the fact that eventually we always win. Since our agendas are based in equality and fairness and not exclusion and class warfare, we will always be on the winning side of any argument. It may take many years, we may take two steps forward and one step back, we may lose battles along the way, but it is always important to remember one thing…
eventually we ALWAYS get what we want.
Decades of Decadence
October 21st, 2009All politics aside, it seems like our country might be getting back to basics. Or at least trying to. I almost feel as if the best of times were back in the early 1900s when people had to struggle a little more. When it didn’t seem like everybody thought they deserved the best simply because they were American. I recently visited the graves in Normandy and was humbled. At a time when so many had so little , the dream of house ownership was just that and everyone was struggling to give this country identity, thousands of Americans made the ultimate sacrifice to prove what this country meant to them. Now, far too many people depend on this legacy to promote their own narrow vision of American greatness. In this shortsightedness, the quest to accumulate wealth has become our motivation, and in it’s wake jobs have moved overseas, we demand the lowest possible prices at the peril of our own productivity and, more importantly, we’re losing our identity. What can we say makes us great anymore? We don’t want to or can’t take care of the the most vulnerable among us and far too frequently see dollar signs as the only reason for doing anything.
However, there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe, just maybe, we’re all starting to pay a little more attention to how we’ve been doing business. The experiment of the last 30 years has failed. Making money, while important, is suddenly playing second fiddle to being a good citizen. Maybe this most recent financial slap in the face has been the wake up call we all needed to stop feeding this beast of consumerism and helped us to get back to living as needed and not as the advertisements tell us we need to. I’m sick of constantly being told that I need to buy more in order to stimulate the economy. Maybe the problem is that we were already buying too much. Maybe we were rewarding an economy that merely made us spend more but didn’t enrich our lives and this great economic failure is more a great correction of decades of decadent opulence.
I say “Here, here.”