Politics
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Three Cups of Tea
A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. ~ Margaret Mead In 1993 Greg Mortenson was the exhausted survivor of a failed attempt to ascend K2, an American climbing bum wandering emaciated and lost through Pakistan’s Karakoram Himalaya. After he was taken in and nursed back to health by the people of an impoverished Pakistani village, Mortenson promised to return one day and build them a school. From that rash, earnest promise grew one of the most incredible humanitarian campaigns of our time — Greg Mortenson’s one-man mission to counteract extremism by building schools, especially for girls, throughout the breeding…
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Strange Fruit
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs[/youtube] Strange Fruit Southern trees bear strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black body swinging in the Southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. Pastoral scene of the gallant South, The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth, Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh, Then the sudden smell of burning flesh! Here is fruit for the crows to pluck, For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck, For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop, Here is a strange and bitter crop. I had never heard this song before, nor did I know the story behind it. I was listening…
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Who Will Save the Insurance Executives????
Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell
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Health Care food for thought…
I have a Facebook friend who I sort of knew via High School. He was a really great guy, and we had several friends in common, but he was a few years ahead of me, and he graduated before I started HS. Anyway, through common friends, we became Facebook buddies. He’s been talking once in awhile about the Health Care issue, one that he clearly feels passionately about, as do many people on both sides of the argument. I’ve made my admittedly emotional points already, but since A doesn’t have a blog, I thought I’d let him guest post here. He sent me several emails full of his thoughts on…
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Love is the Answer
(graphic found here) Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold. ~ Zelda Fitzgerald Ted and I watched a very interesting episode of Bill Moyers Journal (you can watch the entire episode by following the link…it’s about an hour) the other day, one which dealt with Faith and Social Justice. The panelists were Cornel West, Serene Jones, and Gary Dorrien, three heavy hitting scholars and members of the social gospel movement. They were discussing what our ethics and values say about our society, most specifically how our system encourages greed and immoral conduct, and the culture of indifference in which we find ourselves. They argued…
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Single Payer Health Care
I happen to think that the best way for the U.S. to go is toward a Single Payer health plan. The idea that people go bankrupt over health care costs, that people die because their insurance will not pay for the treatment that they need, irks the hell out of me. And both have happened within my own family. Also, the limitations of only being able to see doctors within your own health plan (ala Kaiser) is beyond stupid. If everyone in the United States were automatically covered, just by virtue of being a citizen, then I am sure that we could bring costs down, that yes, our taxes would…
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Nationalizing Risk, Privatizing Wealth
The whole AIG thing is bugging, you know? I know that it’s important to retain your top talent when you’re a huge company with fingers in every pie in the U.S., such as AIG is. I do understand that. If they should fail even worse than they already have, we’re all screwed even farther than we already are. But it pisses me off that anyone in the WORLD thinks they’re worth this much money, let alone taxpayer money. No one is worth this much. No one. But people who took huge chances that resulted in the collapse of our economy, resulting in this huge loss of jobs, why should they…
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At Last…
“What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and…
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Throw One Shoe…
Ted mentioned the other day that our economic situation is so bad, that even if every American man, woman, and child were to chip in $1 or $5, it wouldn’t really help anything. I thought, but what if every American man, woman, and child were to throw one shoe at George W. Bush? Heck, even if every man, woman, and child in DC next Tuesday threw a shoe, surely at least one would hit him. THAT’S a movement I could get behind. You have at least one extra shoe lying around, don’t you? That you’d be willing to donate to the cause? A girl can dream, right?
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Do Unto Others…
As you would have them do unto you. If you believe that California voters went too far on November 4th when they took the right of marriage away from gays and lesbians, you can share your frustration at a local protest (click for times and locations…they are all over the country) today.  I’ve heard so much about this issue in the last week and a half. Much more than I heard before the vote. I think the passage of Prop 8 took many of us here in California by surprise. I know I didn’t really think it had a chance. Not that I think California is the most progressive place…
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Change
President Elect Obama’s campaign (dang, it felt GREAT to write that…President Elect Obama) was run on the theme of change. And change is what we need in this country, though not just change for the sake of change, not just change to be not-Bush. We need change to fix our place in the world, change to repair our tattered Constitution, change to improve our torn economy, change to make us all proud of being American again. I do know that many followers of Bush/Cheney, McCain/Palin are proud of their country. And there is much to be proud of. But I want to be proud not only of my country, but…
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If I could tell the newly elected President one thing…
It would be, do your damndest to fix health care in this country. There are too many stories out there of people truly suffering, losing their houses, losing their livelihoods, due to medical bills. My mom, for example. Back in 2004-2005, she had an ongoing medical condition, and found herself hemorrhaging all the time. She had it treated, it lasted awhile, and then it would start up again. Months and months. Actually, on and off problems for perhaps two years. Try to imagine the stress losing that much blood puts on your body. She was very ill. Finally, the doctor decided that she needed to have a hysterectomy. Due…
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YAY!!!!!
That’s the end of my gloating. But after having my heart broken in 2000 and 2004, I’m thrilled. And having not just any not-Bush, but a man who I feel like I can truly get behind, a man I respect and admire, win the White House…..well, this is an amazing day indeed. I’ve said this before, but this is the first election in my life where I have had the opportunity to vote for someone I could truly believe in. I go to sleep happy indeed.
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No on Prop 8
My friend John wrote an interesting post the other day about the Christian response to Proposition 8, which is the ballot initiative in California that seeks to outlaw same sex marriage. I say the Christian response, but that’s not accurate, because of course not all Christians think or vote the same, any more than any other group that you can classify and lump together and generalize about. Anyway, go check it out. I must say that I’m impressed by the quality of comments he receives. Whichever way they go on an issue, there’s not much (if any) knee jerk reaction, and they spend some time to explain their positions. Really…
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Personhood vs. Parenthood
I heard the other day about an amendment on the Colorado ballot that would define Personhood as beginning at the moment of conception. This is clearly a pro-life effort, working to determine a concrete definition of when life begins, which would eventually lead to outlawing abortion by defining abortion as the murder of an unborn child. I’m not willing to go so far as to use the word murder, but at the same time, I’m not willing to say that a fetus isn’t a living being either. And really, what this all comes down to is parsing words in a battle over rights. The rights of the unborn child vs.…