and so it goes:
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
In a minute....!
Alright, now hold on here. HGF will be along in just a second you big pervs, just hang on. First I want to show you a letter from the Director of the Vermont Arts Council to Dam Brownback and address a couple of issues regarding him and that...THEN we'll leer, just bear with me.
The letter:
The letter:
An Open Letter to Kansas Governor Sam Brownback
May 25, 2011
The Honorable Sam Brownback
Governor of Kansas
Dear Governor Brownback,
I have been following with great interest your efforts to remove government support from the Kansas Arts Commission and to re-establish it as an independent, non-profit agency, with the expectation that doing so will relieve your administration of the responsibility of allocating taxpayer funds to match federal funds from the National Endowment for the Arts. The budget now awaits your signature and there is a great deal of concern that you will use your line-item veto to effectively abolish the Commission which, I understand, a bipartisan coalition in the Kansas Senate representing a broad cross-section of Kansas citizens hopes you will not do.
It is neither my place nor my intention to engage in the political discourse of your state. However, since our small agency has been frequently singled out by your administration as an example of a nonprofit state arts agency that is thriving without, as the media has reported it, the benefit of state investment I am compelled to weigh in and set the record straight on just three points.
First, in Vermont our nonprofit state arts agency is effective only BECAUSE there is significant state investment in our work. Without a State appropriation of just over $500,000 we would be unable to provide the professional development services, educational outreach to underserved communities, accessibility services to hundreds of historic cultural venues that were built long before the passage of the ADA, and a host of other grants that support our creative sector.
Second, without State support we would be forced to raise more than half million dollars (to match our Federal grant from the National Endowment for the Arts) from the private sector—an activity that would put us in direct competition with the very cultural institutions that our mission requires us to support. In addition, our largest grant program (Cultural Facilities), not only provides significant improvements to our historical and cultural institutions in the area of accessibility, the funds we award employ hundreds of carpenters, bricklayers, plumbers, electricians and other blue-collar workers that are, along with artists and teachers, the life-blood of our communities.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, every State SHOULD invest in the arts sector simply because it makes good economic sense. One of our most conservative policy analysts looked at state and local tax revenues that flowed to state and municipal coffers from our very narrowly-defined arts sector in Vermont. Income taxes paid by artists, arts administrators and independent arts contractors, as well as the long-established IMPLAN economic modeling analysis on just the nonprofit arts institutions in the state, reveal a total return of $19.45 million on a combined investment of $2.5 million, which includes our $500k appropriation. This annual ROI of 775% is even more astonishing since virtually all of Vermont’s state tourism dollars promote skiing, outdoor recreation, fall foliage, maple syrup, and artisanal food preparation and service, NOT art and culture—a circumstance which, I am happy to say, is going to change starting this summer.
Our legislature is getting more and more comfortable with thinking of the work we do as expanding the revenue base of our state, not increasing the expenses that our citizen taxpayers must bear. Our sector provides good jobs. It adds enormous social and civic value to our communities. It improves the relationship that young people have with their schools and communities. And it serves as a powerful attraction to entrepreneurs seeking to locate their new businesses in a creative, vital community setting. The “creative economy” is real and it is thriving here in Vermont. I believe that all these arguments are relevant to making the case for keeping the Kansas Arts Commission on sound financial, PUBLIC footing.
With great respect for you and for the wonderful citizens of Kansas, I am
Sincerely yours,
Alexander L. Aldrich
Executive Director
Vermont Arts Council
Dam Brownback (the first time it was a typo but I've decided I like it) is a prime example of GOP extremism. We're seeing it all over the place and I have high hopes that the voters will react appropriately. The sudden insurgence of the teabaggers should, (if it already hasn't) alarm each and every one of us. The small towns in Kansas are dying, and no one seems to understand why. But they keep voting for the GOP, who then gives all the power, wealth, and tax breaks to the corporations that are starving these communities of their money. And no one seems to get how they're perpetuating this vicious circle.
Recently I posted about the meat packing plants in western Kansas that are essentially creating a third world out on the plains at the expense of the immigrants, legal or otherwise, that live and work there. there are no roads, no sewage infrastructure, no decent schools, no health care, and if the locals rebel, they pack up the whole operation and move it to the next town where they'll be allowed to do as they please.
We are the only ones who can put a stop to what's being done to this country, and we have to accept the responsibility of fighting the people like Dam who think it's a good thing. The longer I live the more I realize that we're doomed to repeat history because we not only don't learn from it, we don't teach it.
Anyone who has ever received a check, a job, an opportunity to view or participate in an arts event due to the existence of publicly funded arts councils should be supporting their existence, and fighting to keep their budgets intact.
Vote responsibly folks. The GOP no longer stands for what you think it does.
And now for something you'll really like:
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Today is my birfday!
Four activities planned, a bike ride, lunch at the gallery with a friend and then viewing of the monet, a horseback ride, and dinner with a friend.
Such a whirl!
Have a nice day!
And so it goes:
Such a whirl!
Have a nice day!
And so it goes:
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Them that's got shall get...them that's not got lose, So the bible says...
It's amazing to me that after Katrina, the GOP would even consider not rushing immediately to the aid of American citizens. Alas...
New York – Eric Cantor says he won't OK aid money for Missouri tornado victims unless Democrats agree to an equal amount of spending cuts. Goodbye, "compassionate conservatism"?
In the wake of the murderous tornado in Joplin, Mo., plus other recent natural disasters, the federal government may need to replenish its disaster-relief accounts. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) says that, before his House GOP caucus would support such a funding bill, it would have to be offset by spending cuts elsewhere. Is this insistence on budget-slashing in the face of disaster "heartless," or is ruthlessness necessary to turn the "tide of federal spending"?
The GOP's callousness is shocking: "I don't expect much from House Republicans, but this has managed to actually surprise me," says Steve Benen at Washington Monthly. When part of the country is devastated by a deadly natural disaster, federal lawmakers "are expected to put aside politics and ideology" and help, not hold the victims "ransom" to their pet causes.
But cutting spending is the GOP's mission: Cantor is just faithfully representing his caucus' views, says Stephen Dinan in The Washington Times. Plus, Cantor has clearly learned a key lesson from former Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-Texas), who "stumbled" and "took flak from conservatives" for arguing that disaster relief for Hurricane Katrina should be tacked onto the deficit.
Well, voters were warned: No one should have "reacted with horror" to Cantor's remarks, says David Dayen at Firedoglake. Republicans gave up "compassionate conservatism" as a Bush-era failure, and their renewed passion for small government essentially means "you're on your own," even in the face of disaster. So the fine folks of Joplin might have to get ready to "rebuild their homes themselves." Elections have consequences.
But there is a ray of hope-
Last night Democrat Kathy Hochul upset Republican Jane Corwin in the blood red New York 26th Congressional District special election -- largely because of Corwin's support for the House Republican plan to end Medicare.
Her victory comes on the heels of a month during which Republicans have been battered for their vote to end Medicare at town halls across America and polls that show their plan is radioactive.
Maybe last night's election will be the alarm that awakens the Republican establishment from their dream-like fantasy that -- as much as the right hates Medicare -- the American people don't agree.
Memo to Republicans: snap out of it! Americans love Medicare and there is nothing you're going to do to change that.
Of course, the Republican right has hated Medicare since it was first passed in 1965.
At that time Ronald Reagan, who was a spokesman for the AMA, railed against Medicare as the harbinger of socialism in the United States.
Thirty years later, Newt Gingrich waxed eloquent about the Republican plan to allow Medicare to "wither on the vine."
And just this Spring, Congressman Paul Ryan managed to convince all but four Republicans in the House to vote for a plan to end Medicare and to put seniors back at the mercy of private insurance companies -- this time with a plan that provided partial "premium support". You can call that whatever you like -- maybe "partial care" or "coupon care" -- but it's not Medicare. Really, what were they thinking?
The thing is that Republicans can't seem to remember that every time they grab the third rail of opposition to Medicare they are very nearly electrocuted.
You'd think they'd remember that after they had scored an overwhelming victory against the Democrats and Bill Clinton in 1994, it was the battle between Newt Gingrich and Clinton over cuts to Medicare that turned the political tide and helped assure Clinton's re-election in 1996. Democrats accused Gingrich of wanting to cut Medicare to give tax breaks to the rich. Sound familiar?
Well, Newt Gingrich himself apparently did remember, when he called the Ryan plan "right wing social engineering" -- only to be sent off by the party's right wing ideologues, with his tail between his legs like a dog that chewed up his master's favorite shoe.
You'd think the Republicans would remember the damage that was done by the 1996 Democratic spot that showed Republican Presidential candidate Bob Dole making a speech to conservatives where he bragged: "I was there fighting the fight, voting against Medicare."
You'd think they would remember that just a few short months ago, their own ads blatantly, falsely and effectively pandered to the public's love affair with Medicare by claiming that the health care reform bill had "cut Medicare."
They are like Dr. Strangelove in the famous 1960's movie. The Doctor -- a German former scientist -- had an irrepressible tick. No matter how hard he tried he could not help periodically snapping out a Nazi salute. The right wing of the Republican Party can't help themselves when it comes to trying to eliminate Medicare. To them, the basic idea of Medicare is an abomination.
Basically this is a question of values. They don't believe that we're all in this together. They believe that we're all in this alone -- that you're on your own, buddy. They don't believe that government is the name we give for the things we choose to do together. In other words, they believe -- like their ideological mentor author Ayn Rand -- in a society where the strong dominate everyone else - in essence a society based on social Darwinism. And they positively reject the notion that our top priority should be to create a society where everyone can achieve their full potential -- a society with shared prosperity a strong middle class.
To them it just doesn't compute that Medicare is the most efficient system to deliver health insurance -- and that people like the idea that they are guaranteed coverage of their health care needs in their senior years. They simply dismiss the fact that Medicare spends -- depending upon how you count it - from 3% to 6% of total outlay on administrative costs and private insurers spend from 26% to 30%. I guess when the facts don't conform to your pre-conceived ideological view, it's just easier to dismiss the facts.
Medicare is a "fact on the ground" that demonstrates that all of their theorizing about how big corporations always do things more efficiently than government is a fairy tale.
That's why initiates in the cult of right wing orthodoxy are made to take a blood oath to destroy Medicare and Social Security.
But Medicare is an example of the political axiom that once something is a "fact on the ground" it is very hard to destroy. It's one thing to prevent people from getting the things they aspire to. It is much harder to force them to give up something they love and already have. That's why the right is desperate to undo the Affordable Health Care Act before its provisions themselves become "facts on the ground" too. When they do, everyday Americans will like what they see. And they will see that just as Medicare was not, as the right warned, the beginning of the Soviet conquest of America - heath care reform will not bring "death panels" to seniors' bedsides.
In the meantime, yesterday's defeat in the New York 26th District, the shellacking they are taking at town meetings, and the fusillade of angry calls to Republican offices have begun to cause panic in the Republican ranks. The Empire struck back last fall. The progressive counter-offensive has begun.
Woohoo!
And so it goes:
New York – Eric Cantor says he won't OK aid money for Missouri tornado victims unless Democrats agree to an equal amount of spending cuts. Goodbye, "compassionate conservatism"?
In the wake of the murderous tornado in Joplin, Mo., plus other recent natural disasters, the federal government may need to replenish its disaster-relief accounts. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) says that, before his House GOP caucus would support such a funding bill, it would have to be offset by spending cuts elsewhere. Is this insistence on budget-slashing in the face of disaster "heartless," or is ruthlessness necessary to turn the "tide of federal spending"?
The GOP's callousness is shocking: "I don't expect much from House Republicans, but this has managed to actually surprise me," says Steve Benen at Washington Monthly. When part of the country is devastated by a deadly natural disaster, federal lawmakers "are expected to put aside politics and ideology" and help, not hold the victims "ransom" to their pet causes.
But cutting spending is the GOP's mission: Cantor is just faithfully representing his caucus' views, says Stephen Dinan in The Washington Times. Plus, Cantor has clearly learned a key lesson from former Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-Texas), who "stumbled" and "took flak from conservatives" for arguing that disaster relief for Hurricane Katrina should be tacked onto the deficit.
Well, voters were warned: No one should have "reacted with horror" to Cantor's remarks, says David Dayen at Firedoglake. Republicans gave up "compassionate conservatism" as a Bush-era failure, and their renewed passion for small government essentially means "you're on your own," even in the face of disaster. So the fine folks of Joplin might have to get ready to "rebuild their homes themselves." Elections have consequences.
But there is a ray of hope-
Last night Democrat Kathy Hochul upset Republican Jane Corwin in the blood red New York 26th Congressional District special election -- largely because of Corwin's support for the House Republican plan to end Medicare.
Her victory comes on the heels of a month during which Republicans have been battered for their vote to end Medicare at town halls across America and polls that show their plan is radioactive.
Maybe last night's election will be the alarm that awakens the Republican establishment from their dream-like fantasy that -- as much as the right hates Medicare -- the American people don't agree.
Memo to Republicans: snap out of it! Americans love Medicare and there is nothing you're going to do to change that.
Of course, the Republican right has hated Medicare since it was first passed in 1965.
At that time Ronald Reagan, who was a spokesman for the AMA, railed against Medicare as the harbinger of socialism in the United States.
Thirty years later, Newt Gingrich waxed eloquent about the Republican plan to allow Medicare to "wither on the vine."
And just this Spring, Congressman Paul Ryan managed to convince all but four Republicans in the House to vote for a plan to end Medicare and to put seniors back at the mercy of private insurance companies -- this time with a plan that provided partial "premium support". You can call that whatever you like -- maybe "partial care" or "coupon care" -- but it's not Medicare. Really, what were they thinking?
The thing is that Republicans can't seem to remember that every time they grab the third rail of opposition to Medicare they are very nearly electrocuted.
You'd think they'd remember that after they had scored an overwhelming victory against the Democrats and Bill Clinton in 1994, it was the battle between Newt Gingrich and Clinton over cuts to Medicare that turned the political tide and helped assure Clinton's re-election in 1996. Democrats accused Gingrich of wanting to cut Medicare to give tax breaks to the rich. Sound familiar?
Well, Newt Gingrich himself apparently did remember, when he called the Ryan plan "right wing social engineering" -- only to be sent off by the party's right wing ideologues, with his tail between his legs like a dog that chewed up his master's favorite shoe.
You'd think the Republicans would remember the damage that was done by the 1996 Democratic spot that showed Republican Presidential candidate Bob Dole making a speech to conservatives where he bragged: "I was there fighting the fight, voting against Medicare."
You'd think they would remember that just a few short months ago, their own ads blatantly, falsely and effectively pandered to the public's love affair with Medicare by claiming that the health care reform bill had "cut Medicare."
They are like Dr. Strangelove in the famous 1960's movie. The Doctor -- a German former scientist -- had an irrepressible tick. No matter how hard he tried he could not help periodically snapping out a Nazi salute. The right wing of the Republican Party can't help themselves when it comes to trying to eliminate Medicare. To them, the basic idea of Medicare is an abomination.
Basically this is a question of values. They don't believe that we're all in this together. They believe that we're all in this alone -- that you're on your own, buddy. They don't believe that government is the name we give for the things we choose to do together. In other words, they believe -- like their ideological mentor author Ayn Rand -- in a society where the strong dominate everyone else - in essence a society based on social Darwinism. And they positively reject the notion that our top priority should be to create a society where everyone can achieve their full potential -- a society with shared prosperity a strong middle class.
To them it just doesn't compute that Medicare is the most efficient system to deliver health insurance -- and that people like the idea that they are guaranteed coverage of their health care needs in their senior years. They simply dismiss the fact that Medicare spends -- depending upon how you count it - from 3% to 6% of total outlay on administrative costs and private insurers spend from 26% to 30%. I guess when the facts don't conform to your pre-conceived ideological view, it's just easier to dismiss the facts.
Medicare is a "fact on the ground" that demonstrates that all of their theorizing about how big corporations always do things more efficiently than government is a fairy tale.
That's why initiates in the cult of right wing orthodoxy are made to take a blood oath to destroy Medicare and Social Security.
But Medicare is an example of the political axiom that once something is a "fact on the ground" it is very hard to destroy. It's one thing to prevent people from getting the things they aspire to. It is much harder to force them to give up something they love and already have. That's why the right is desperate to undo the Affordable Health Care Act before its provisions themselves become "facts on the ground" too. When they do, everyday Americans will like what they see. And they will see that just as Medicare was not, as the right warned, the beginning of the Soviet conquest of America - heath care reform will not bring "death panels" to seniors' bedsides.
In the meantime, yesterday's defeat in the New York 26th District, the shellacking they are taking at town meetings, and the fusillade of angry calls to Republican offices have begun to cause panic in the Republican ranks. The Empire struck back last fall. The progressive counter-offensive has begun.
Woohoo!
And so it goes:
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
It just never stops!
I have driven through Joplin Missouri many many times when I was in grad school. I went home to KC at least once a month from Fayetteville, but these pictures and video leave me speechless, and regular readers know how difficult that is.
These pictures are before and after of the same corner.
The video has no narration and I couldn't imagine what one would say, the town is just gone.
And so it goes:
These pictures are before and after of the same corner.
The video has no narration and I couldn't imagine what one would say, the town is just gone.
And so it goes:
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Happy Birthday K!
It's a big day in paradise! Someone can now join AARP!!! woohoo!
And now for something you'll really like!
Congrats my friend!
And so it goes.
Friday, May 20, 2011
final post?
Since the end of the world is apparently nigh I'm surprised by a couple of things.
First, That I don't see anyone, and I mean anyone, online repenting. Do these people think they have no "sins" to repent for> Kinda arrogant don't you think?
Second, why aren't more of them divesting themselves of their worldly possessions? Wouldn't one think that if you knew sinners you figured could use your shit once you've moved on to your reward, why not let them have it?
Alas, they're selfish too...figures.
Not a very exciting hgf today, we're saving it up cause Sunday is a big day!
First, That I don't see anyone, and I mean anyone, online repenting. Do these people think they have no "sins" to repent for> Kinda arrogant don't you think?
Second, why aren't more of them divesting themselves of their worldly possessions? Wouldn't one think that if you knew sinners you figured could use your shit once you've moved on to your reward, why not let them have it?
Alas, they're selfish too...figures.
Not a very exciting hgf today, we're saving it up cause Sunday is a big day!
Thursday, May 19, 2011
who really wants to create death panels? and religious love.
And the Catholics still aren't getting it:
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — WPBF.com
At the Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church, Osama bin Laden appears on the bulletin for Sunday's service.
A parishioner made the prayer request for the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks on America.
Louis Pizzano Sr., a parishioner at the church, said he's against praying for the Al-Qaida leader, who was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs more than two weeks ago.
"I just don't think it's right, I really don't," Pizzano said. "I think what's happened to the American people, what he's done, what he was planning to do and because we killed him, it doesn't stop there."
The request has created a division between some parishioners.
Vince Stankey said he has no problem praying for the terrorist leader.
"The way he was trying to prove his god to do killing, I can't approve of that," Stankey said. "But I have mercy on his soul and I have to pray for him."
Pizzano said he will not pray for bin Laden on Sunday. He said he has a better idea.
"Let's pray for our soldiers that are over there, not for somebody that caused our soldiers to go over there," Pizzano said.
The prayer service is scheduled for Sunday at noon.
And another thing:
"We are becoming a country that not only supports perversion, we cheerlead for perversion. A day against homophobia and transphobia -- what they're saying is Judeo-Christian morality is the equivalent of bigotry and irrational fear, and that is a false message. What they're saying essentially is if you are a Christian, a Muslim or a Jew, and you oppose sexual perversion or gender confusion, you are a hater; you are a bigot. This is the liberal message." - Porno Pete LaBarbera, denouncing Hillary Clinton's statement in support of the International Day Against Homophobia.-via Joemygod.
And so it goes:
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
And in this corner representing the people who want America back...
via huffpost
WASHINGTON -- Former Sen. Rick Santorum said Tuesday that Sen. John McCain, who spent 5 1/2 years enduring brutal treatment at the hands of his North Vietnamese captors, doesn't know how effective waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques can be. The Republican presidential contender insisted the tactics led the United States to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a speech last week that waterboarding al-Qaida's No. 3 leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, did not provide information that led to bin Laden's compound in Pakistan.
McCain said he asked CIA Director Leon Panetta for the facts, and that the hunt for bin Laden did not begin with fresh information from Mohammed. In fact, the name of bin Laden's courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, came from a detainee held in another country.
"Not only did the use of enhanced interrogation techniques on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed not provide us with key leads on bin Laden's courier, Abu Ahmed, it actually produced false and misleading information," McCain said.
In an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt on Tuesday, Santorum said McCain was wrong.
"Everything I've read shows that we would not have gotten this information as to who this man was if it had not been gotten information from people who were subject to enhanced interrogation," Santorum said. "And so this idea that we didn't ask that question while Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was being waterboarded, he (McCain) doesn't understand how enhanced interrogation works.
"I mean, you break somebody, and after they're broken, they become cooperative. And that's when we got this information. And one thing led to another, and led to another, and that's how we ended up with bin Laden," said Santorum.
He added: "Maybe McCain has better information than I do, but from what I've seen, it seems pretty clear that but for these cooperative witnesses who were cooperative as a result of enhanced interrogations, we would not have gotten bin Laden."
McCain, the 2008 Republican president nominee, said his information came from Panetta. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, backed up McCain's assessment that waterboarding of Mohammed did not produce the tip that led to bin Laden.
Brooke Buchanan, a spokeswoman for McCain, said Tuesday she would not dignify Santorum's comments with a response.
In the House, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., the chairman of the Intelligence committee, said the Justice Department should stop investigating CIA interrogators for alleged abuse of detainees under the Bush administration because their work was a "vital part of the chain" that led to the successful raid on bin Laden's hideout.
The Justice Department had no comment.
and so it goes:
WASHINGTON -- Former Sen. Rick Santorum said Tuesday that Sen. John McCain, who spent 5 1/2 years enduring brutal treatment at the hands of his North Vietnamese captors, doesn't know how effective waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques can be. The Republican presidential contender insisted the tactics led the United States to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a speech last week that waterboarding al-Qaida's No. 3 leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, did not provide information that led to bin Laden's compound in Pakistan.
McCain said he asked CIA Director Leon Panetta for the facts, and that the hunt for bin Laden did not begin with fresh information from Mohammed. In fact, the name of bin Laden's courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, came from a detainee held in another country.
"Not only did the use of enhanced interrogation techniques on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed not provide us with key leads on bin Laden's courier, Abu Ahmed, it actually produced false and misleading information," McCain said.
In an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt on Tuesday, Santorum said McCain was wrong.
"Everything I've read shows that we would not have gotten this information as to who this man was if it had not been gotten information from people who were subject to enhanced interrogation," Santorum said. "And so this idea that we didn't ask that question while Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was being waterboarded, he (McCain) doesn't understand how enhanced interrogation works.
"I mean, you break somebody, and after they're broken, they become cooperative. And that's when we got this information. And one thing led to another, and led to another, and that's how we ended up with bin Laden," said Santorum.
He added: "Maybe McCain has better information than I do, but from what I've seen, it seems pretty clear that but for these cooperative witnesses who were cooperative as a result of enhanced interrogations, we would not have gotten bin Laden."
McCain, the 2008 Republican president nominee, said his information came from Panetta. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, backed up McCain's assessment that waterboarding of Mohammed did not produce the tip that led to bin Laden.
Brooke Buchanan, a spokeswoman for McCain, said Tuesday she would not dignify Santorum's comments with a response.
In the House, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., the chairman of the Intelligence committee, said the Justice Department should stop investigating CIA interrogators for alleged abuse of detainees under the Bush administration because their work was a "vital part of the chain" that led to the successful raid on bin Laden's hideout.
The Justice Department had no comment.
and so it goes:
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
why are political "reporters" having these discussions
Because no one else is.
Considering the fact that today would be Buddy Zimmer's 71st birthday I thought it would be nice to acknowledge his greatest accomplishment. Photography. Happy Birthday Buddy, I still miss you.
And so it goes:
Considering the fact that today would be Buddy Zimmer's 71st birthday I thought it would be nice to acknowledge his greatest accomplishment. Photography. Happy Birthday Buddy, I still miss you.
And so it goes:
Sunday, May 15, 2011
It is NOT a business
Everything is not a business. We've been sold a bill of goods by business educators and businessmen these past two decades that has brainwashed all of us into believing that everything should be run like it were a business.
Here's what happens when humanity is abandoned:
By SHARON COHEN AP National Writer
updated 5/15/2011 11:09:55 AM ET
ROBBINS, Ill. — Rocky Clark sometimes dreams he's running track, racing around the oval as he once did, his heart pumping fast and his long legs a blur as he crossed the finish line.
Just thinking about it makes him smile.
Some nights, though, he has another recurring dream, this one pure fantasy. He sees himself in white shorts and track shoes, running again, then stopping, kneeling in prayer before a church door, somehow unable to make it inside.
When he awakens, Rocky Clark inhabits a world largely confined to four walls. Surrounding him are glass-encased autographed footballs and cherished memories of his glory days: Blue-and-gold ribbons. Trophies. And giant varsity letters from Eisenhower High School, his alma mater.
Clark can do little but swivel his head. He can't move his arms or legs. More than a decade ago, he was paralyzed from the neck down after being tackled in a high school football game. After nine months in rehab and a hospital bill approaching $1 million, he went home.
As a quadriplegic, his long-term prospects were slim. And over the years, there have been regular hospital stays and health scares — no surprise, considering Clark's fragile condition. He has just one working lung. His right lung is partially paralyzed; certain infections could kill him.
And yet Clark has endured. His doctor credits top-notch, round-the-clock home health care paid for by the school district's $5 million catastrophic health insurance policy. But that's run out, so the nurses and money are gone, replaced by his mother, growing financial pressures and a new sense of foreboding.
Rasul "Rocky" Clark beat the odds. And now he wonders if he's paying a price for his survival.
A bright future darkens in one tackle
A week before his injury, Rocky Clark vowed to his mother that he'd strike it rich as an athlete one day and buy her a house.
Annette Clark remembers her son as an acrobatic kid who mastered back flips at age 7, ran too fast for a spanking and was always throwing balls and rocks — the inspiration of his nickname, bestowed upon him by an uncle. He took up track, football and baseball and excelled at all three, collecting ribbons, trophies and medals.
"I love awards," he now says. "It's a need thing."
On a warm September night in 2000 just four plays into the game, Clark — a high school junior and running back for Eisenhower's Cardinals — was grabbed by the shoulder and tackled. His head hit the ground. At first, he recalls, there was silence.
"When I started coming around, I heard a bunch of ringing," he says. "My whole body was vibrating, like a spring. I felt cold air. I tried to get up, but I couldn't."
Clark's neck had been broken in two places.
He spent about nine months at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, wondering if his injury was some sort of cruel payback for something he had done in his 16 years.
"I said to myself ... 'Maybe there was something I said I shouldn't have said. Maybe there was something I did that I shouldn't have done,'" he recalls. "I didn't do anybody wrong. I didn't get in trouble. ... I prayed every day. I didn't go to church all the time ... but I was good."
"Then," he says, pausing for a breath, "I realized things happen. Life doesn't always give us what we expect. I've got a spinal-cord injury, but there's nothing wrong with my brain. I've got a strong spirit and courage. You've just got to learn to deal with it."
Clark finished high school, donning cap and gown and having a friend wheel him across the stage so he could accept his diploma. He took some college courses, but a full-time schedule proved too difficult. (He'd like to return, but can't afford it.) He became a volunteer coach at Eisenhower, attending games.
All of it was made possible by the care provided through the district's insurance policy. And Clark says when the $5 million policy ran out several months ago, he assumed it would be renewed.
But it was not.
"A limit on life? That's crazy," Clark says, his pencil-thin frame covered by a white sheet. "I thought I'd be being taken care of the rest of my life."
Rocky Clark, 27, thought his health insurance would pay for his care the rest of his life. The policy ran out this year.
His mother, Annette, who filed for bankruptcy because of financial problems, says they feel abandoned by the school. "They have a moral responsibility to take care of him," she says. "It depresses me and makes me angry. My son deserves better."
But the school district says both its new insurer and the one that held the $5 million policy refused its requests to obtain a new policy for Clark. "No one is going to sell us insurance for Rocky," says John Byrne, the school superintendent. "I feel kind of helpless."
Rocky Clark's injury is unusual, but his predicament is not.
A 2009 study estimated that 20,000 to 25,000 people in the U.S. reached the limits of their catastrophic health insurance. Many find themselves in dire straits — critically ill, facing crushing medical bills, struggling to remain in their homes, according to the state insurance commissioner.
"They're facing unenviable decisions that balance life, death, financial security and poverty — meaning the choice they make is a choice no person ever wants to make,'" says Michael McRaith, director of the Illinois Department of Insurance.
Annual limits are being phased out and lifetime caps ended last September as part of the new health reform law, so the ranks of those exhausting their policies will drop sharply over the coming years, and will totally be eliminated by 2014, McRaith says.
That doesn't help Clark, whose insurance has been so critical, according to Dr. Charles Beck, who has cared for him the past eight years. He wrote a letter to the school and insurance company, claiming "the loss of these benefits eventually is going to lead to his demise."
In recent weeks, Clark's mother, along with an array of supporters — some new, others longtime boosters — have drummed up attention with news stories, fundraisers, a letter-writing campaign to the school and two new websites. Their theory is simple: If they can keep his cause alive, they can keep him alive
Denise King, whose husband is an associate pastor at a church in Chicago's Loop, knew about Clark and when she heard of his latest troubles, she couldn't sleep. "I thought this must be God telling me to do something," she says. The church hosted a small fundraiser in May.
This spotlight has helped: Dozens of people have donated money, supplies, even a water cooler.
They join others, notably the Chicago Bears, who've been generous supporters over the years, donating, among other things, more than $100,000 to make the Clark house in this southern Chicago suburb wheelchair accessible, according to Don Grossnickle, a deacon who heads Gridiron Alliance. The group helps disabled high school football players in the state and tries to draw attention to safety issues.
Clark's chances of surviving a decade or more were only about 10 percent, according to Beck. He credits Annette Clark — who receives government aid as a caregiver — and top-flight nurses with doing "an absolutely remarkable job," of protecting him from potentially fatal infections and illnesses.
He also praises the resilience of mother and son: "They don't fold," Beck says.
But Beck believes that Medicaid and other state support Clark now relies on aren't enough to provide the necessary supplies, medicine, breathing equipment and 24-hour specialized care. And moving him, Beck says, isn't a good option.
"If he had been living in a nursing home, he would have been dead five years ago," Beck says, and if he's sent to one now, "I would say goodbye to him. He would go to God. ... He requires more care than any nursing facility I am familiar with."
Insurance is a business, and Beck says he knows that. But he also believes that defying medical expectations has somehow become almost a punishment.
"It's confusing to me why their responsibility ends when that $5 million is gone ...," he says. "If he happened to outlive the actual projection ... does he suffer now because his care was good enough ... and he was lucky enough? I don't understand it."
From 'muscle to nothing'
At 27, the sculpted biceps that once filled the No. 21 red-and-white jersey have long since withered beneath a husk of skin and bones.
As Clark has grown from teen to a man, he's learned to adjust to a life where someone else has to brush his teeth or scratch an itch.
Before becoming paralyzed, Rocky Clark used to enjoy drawing and sketching, such as this self-portrait, which is displayed in his bedroom.
He misses using his hands: He liked to sketch as a teen — his walls are adorned with pencil drawings of people and dogs that show raw promise. And he wonders how far he could have gone as an athlete. "To have so much talent and never reach my full potential ...," he says, his raspy voice trailing off in a whisper.
But Clark tries to focus on what he has, not what he's lost. An iron will. Drive. And pride. "People tell me how inspirational I am," he says. "I've always been a motivator."
He relies on faith, too: "I leave it in God's hands." And he says it's pointless to be bitter.
"There's always someone who's got it worse than you," he says. And yet, he adds: "There are people who are not in my situation and they take life for granted. They have no determination. They don't know things can take a turn for the worse in the blink of an eye."
Annette Clark is her son's constant companion. She feeds him, washes him and sleeps on a recliner in the living room so she can hear him when he wakes at night. It's a punishing pace.
"Eventually, she'll break down," Beck says. "She has no ability to get a night's sleep. It's just a matter of time."
There's also sadness in her routine.
"It hurts for me to see him go down from muscle to nothing," she says. "It hurts for me when I have to turn him. It really hurts my heart. ... I have moments when I feel like throwing my hands up. I want to ask why. ... I have my moments when I want to run away."
Instead, she soldiers on, always
From mid-April through early May, Rocky Clark was hospitalized with a blood clot in his paralyzed right lung.
The morning after he was admitted, at 1 a.m., Annette Clark says her son looked at her and declared: "'I'm tired of being sick.'"
"What are you telling me?" she asked. Then, sensing he might be giving up, she warned: "Don't say that to me anymore,"
She walked out into the hall and cried.
When she returned, he was asleep, and she wiped a tear running down his face.
And so it goes:
And the GOP wants us all to believe that death panels will be CREATED by Obamacare, as if they don't already exist...assholes.
Here's what happens when humanity is abandoned:
By SHARON COHEN AP National Writer
updated 5/15/2011 11:09:55 AM ET
ROBBINS, Ill. — Rocky Clark sometimes dreams he's running track, racing around the oval as he once did, his heart pumping fast and his long legs a blur as he crossed the finish line.
Just thinking about it makes him smile.
Some nights, though, he has another recurring dream, this one pure fantasy. He sees himself in white shorts and track shoes, running again, then stopping, kneeling in prayer before a church door, somehow unable to make it inside.
When he awakens, Rocky Clark inhabits a world largely confined to four walls. Surrounding him are glass-encased autographed footballs and cherished memories of his glory days: Blue-and-gold ribbons. Trophies. And giant varsity letters from Eisenhower High School, his alma mater.
Clark can do little but swivel his head. He can't move his arms or legs. More than a decade ago, he was paralyzed from the neck down after being tackled in a high school football game. After nine months in rehab and a hospital bill approaching $1 million, he went home.
As a quadriplegic, his long-term prospects were slim. And over the years, there have been regular hospital stays and health scares — no surprise, considering Clark's fragile condition. He has just one working lung. His right lung is partially paralyzed; certain infections could kill him.
And yet Clark has endured. His doctor credits top-notch, round-the-clock home health care paid for by the school district's $5 million catastrophic health insurance policy. But that's run out, so the nurses and money are gone, replaced by his mother, growing financial pressures and a new sense of foreboding.
Rasul "Rocky" Clark beat the odds. And now he wonders if he's paying a price for his survival.
A bright future darkens in one tackle
A week before his injury, Rocky Clark vowed to his mother that he'd strike it rich as an athlete one day and buy her a house.
Annette Clark remembers her son as an acrobatic kid who mastered back flips at age 7, ran too fast for a spanking and was always throwing balls and rocks — the inspiration of his nickname, bestowed upon him by an uncle. He took up track, football and baseball and excelled at all three, collecting ribbons, trophies and medals.
"I love awards," he now says. "It's a need thing."
On a warm September night in 2000 just four plays into the game, Clark — a high school junior and running back for Eisenhower's Cardinals — was grabbed by the shoulder and tackled. His head hit the ground. At first, he recalls, there was silence.
"When I started coming around, I heard a bunch of ringing," he says. "My whole body was vibrating, like a spring. I felt cold air. I tried to get up, but I couldn't."
Clark's neck had been broken in two places.
He spent about nine months at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, wondering if his injury was some sort of cruel payback for something he had done in his 16 years.
"I said to myself ... 'Maybe there was something I said I shouldn't have said. Maybe there was something I did that I shouldn't have done,'" he recalls. "I didn't do anybody wrong. I didn't get in trouble. ... I prayed every day. I didn't go to church all the time ... but I was good."
"Then," he says, pausing for a breath, "I realized things happen. Life doesn't always give us what we expect. I've got a spinal-cord injury, but there's nothing wrong with my brain. I've got a strong spirit and courage. You've just got to learn to deal with it."
Clark finished high school, donning cap and gown and having a friend wheel him across the stage so he could accept his diploma. He took some college courses, but a full-time schedule proved too difficult. (He'd like to return, but can't afford it.) He became a volunteer coach at Eisenhower, attending games.
All of it was made possible by the care provided through the district's insurance policy. And Clark says when the $5 million policy ran out several months ago, he assumed it would be renewed.
But it was not.
"A limit on life? That's crazy," Clark says, his pencil-thin frame covered by a white sheet. "I thought I'd be being taken care of the rest of my life."
Rocky Clark, 27, thought his health insurance would pay for his care the rest of his life. The policy ran out this year.
His mother, Annette, who filed for bankruptcy because of financial problems, says they feel abandoned by the school. "They have a moral responsibility to take care of him," she says. "It depresses me and makes me angry. My son deserves better."
But the school district says both its new insurer and the one that held the $5 million policy refused its requests to obtain a new policy for Clark. "No one is going to sell us insurance for Rocky," says John Byrne, the school superintendent. "I feel kind of helpless."
Rocky Clark's injury is unusual, but his predicament is not.
A 2009 study estimated that 20,000 to 25,000 people in the U.S. reached the limits of their catastrophic health insurance. Many find themselves in dire straits — critically ill, facing crushing medical bills, struggling to remain in their homes, according to the state insurance commissioner.
"They're facing unenviable decisions that balance life, death, financial security and poverty — meaning the choice they make is a choice no person ever wants to make,'" says Michael McRaith, director of the Illinois Department of Insurance.
Annual limits are being phased out and lifetime caps ended last September as part of the new health reform law, so the ranks of those exhausting their policies will drop sharply over the coming years, and will totally be eliminated by 2014, McRaith says.
That doesn't help Clark, whose insurance has been so critical, according to Dr. Charles Beck, who has cared for him the past eight years. He wrote a letter to the school and insurance company, claiming "the loss of these benefits eventually is going to lead to his demise."
In recent weeks, Clark's mother, along with an array of supporters — some new, others longtime boosters — have drummed up attention with news stories, fundraisers, a letter-writing campaign to the school and two new websites. Their theory is simple: If they can keep his cause alive, they can keep him alive
Denise King, whose husband is an associate pastor at a church in Chicago's Loop, knew about Clark and when she heard of his latest troubles, she couldn't sleep. "I thought this must be God telling me to do something," she says. The church hosted a small fundraiser in May.
This spotlight has helped: Dozens of people have donated money, supplies, even a water cooler.
They join others, notably the Chicago Bears, who've been generous supporters over the years, donating, among other things, more than $100,000 to make the Clark house in this southern Chicago suburb wheelchair accessible, according to Don Grossnickle, a deacon who heads Gridiron Alliance. The group helps disabled high school football players in the state and tries to draw attention to safety issues.
Clark's chances of surviving a decade or more were only about 10 percent, according to Beck. He credits Annette Clark — who receives government aid as a caregiver — and top-flight nurses with doing "an absolutely remarkable job," of protecting him from potentially fatal infections and illnesses.
He also praises the resilience of mother and son: "They don't fold," Beck says.
But Beck believes that Medicaid and other state support Clark now relies on aren't enough to provide the necessary supplies, medicine, breathing equipment and 24-hour specialized care. And moving him, Beck says, isn't a good option.
"If he had been living in a nursing home, he would have been dead five years ago," Beck says, and if he's sent to one now, "I would say goodbye to him. He would go to God. ... He requires more care than any nursing facility I am familiar with."
Insurance is a business, and Beck says he knows that. But he also believes that defying medical expectations has somehow become almost a punishment.
"It's confusing to me why their responsibility ends when that $5 million is gone ...," he says. "If he happened to outlive the actual projection ... does he suffer now because his care was good enough ... and he was lucky enough? I don't understand it."
From 'muscle to nothing'
At 27, the sculpted biceps that once filled the No. 21 red-and-white jersey have long since withered beneath a husk of skin and bones.
As Clark has grown from teen to a man, he's learned to adjust to a life where someone else has to brush his teeth or scratch an itch.
Before becoming paralyzed, Rocky Clark used to enjoy drawing and sketching, such as this self-portrait, which is displayed in his bedroom.
He misses using his hands: He liked to sketch as a teen — his walls are adorned with pencil drawings of people and dogs that show raw promise. And he wonders how far he could have gone as an athlete. "To have so much talent and never reach my full potential ...," he says, his raspy voice trailing off in a whisper.
But Clark tries to focus on what he has, not what he's lost. An iron will. Drive. And pride. "People tell me how inspirational I am," he says. "I've always been a motivator."
He relies on faith, too: "I leave it in God's hands." And he says it's pointless to be bitter.
"There's always someone who's got it worse than you," he says. And yet, he adds: "There are people who are not in my situation and they take life for granted. They have no determination. They don't know things can take a turn for the worse in the blink of an eye."
Annette Clark is her son's constant companion. She feeds him, washes him and sleeps on a recliner in the living room so she can hear him when he wakes at night. It's a punishing pace.
"Eventually, she'll break down," Beck says. "She has no ability to get a night's sleep. It's just a matter of time."
There's also sadness in her routine.
"It hurts for me to see him go down from muscle to nothing," she says. "It hurts for me when I have to turn him. It really hurts my heart. ... I have moments when I feel like throwing my hands up. I want to ask why. ... I have my moments when I want to run away."
Instead, she soldiers on, always
From mid-April through early May, Rocky Clark was hospitalized with a blood clot in his paralyzed right lung.
The morning after he was admitted, at 1 a.m., Annette Clark says her son looked at her and declared: "'I'm tired of being sick.'"
"What are you telling me?" she asked. Then, sensing he might be giving up, she warned: "Don't say that to me anymore,"
She walked out into the hall and cried.
When she returned, he was asleep, and she wiped a tear running down his face.
And so it goes:
And the GOP wants us all to believe that death panels will be CREATED by Obamacare, as if they don't already exist...assholes.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
U.S. Senate I love you
I fall in love every day, but today is special because I fell in love with the United States Senate.
here's a link to the source of my affection:
http://sanders.senate.gov/files/TAM11019_xml.pdf
We know these things, we know that health care costs are rising and wil continue to do so under the current corporate run system. We know that insurance companies are deciding what care we receive without medical degrees. We know that we do not know what effect single-payer will have. All we know about it is what a bunch of people with interests other than ours tell us in effort to scare us into keeping things on the ruinous and disastrous track they're currently on.
we have nothing to lose, because we're headed right off the rails as we are. And everything to gain.
And remember I'm a socialist, so i love this kind of shit.
And so it goes:
here's a link to the source of my affection:
http://sanders.senate.gov/files/TAM11019_xml.pdf
We know these things, we know that health care costs are rising and wil continue to do so under the current corporate run system. We know that insurance companies are deciding what care we receive without medical degrees. We know that we do not know what effect single-payer will have. All we know about it is what a bunch of people with interests other than ours tell us in effort to scare us into keeping things on the ruinous and disastrous track they're currently on.
we have nothing to lose, because we're headed right off the rails as we are. And everything to gain.
And remember I'm a socialist, so i love this kind of shit.
And so it goes:
OMG
It's amazing how easily and willingly people can distort history to their own ends. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, it's been happening since time began.
Like I said last month posts may be spotty until I'm settled in a new place.
And so it goes:
Like I said last month posts may be spotty until I'm settled in a new place.
And so it goes:
Monday, May 9, 2011
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Thursday, May 5, 2011
dancing with myself
tough choices to make soon. do i stay or do i go? never an easy decision to leave one's comfort zone and take a risk on the unknown. But it seems more and more likely.
Less and less rewards from this quarter.
And so it goes:
Less and less rewards from this quarter.
And so it goes:
Monday, May 2, 2011
Mission Accomplished?
Not sure how I feel about Osama Bin Laden's murder. I realize most Americans thought it necessary, but I'm not sure what it really accomplished. There will be no shortage of people to take his place.
At any rate he's dead, that much has been ticked off our terrorism to do list. Now maybe we can learn to stop being mean to each other.
And so it goes:
At any rate he's dead, that much has been ticked off our terrorism to do list. Now maybe we can learn to stop being mean to each other.
And so it goes:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)