Tag Archives: America

An Outsider’s Perspective of US (and Us)

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Yesterday, I spent almost two hours talking with a friend who is a businessman from the Cayman Islands.  He is in New York on business.  Since his business is somewhat US-dependent, he makes it his business to keep up with the news in the States.  He is a Libertarian and a pragmatist.  I am Democrat and (I like to think) a pragmatist.  We agreed on many things, such as the need to compromise and get incremental reform because it is a matter of conscience that people have affordable access to health care.  And I agreed with him that the public option will not pay for itself and should be phased in later if other measures don’t rein in the insurance companies.  We simply cannot afford to institute this option at this point, given the deficit.

We disagreed on two points.  The points of disagreement fascinate me. 

First, he thought that death panels could be read into the legislation because it was not expressly disclaimed.  My friend is an intelligent, well-read man; he is not Todd Palin.  So I had to think about this more.  Here is what I have deduced:

  • if a person distrusts “government” enough to believe that it would kill its own citizens, well, then you can make that argument. 
  • if a person doesn’t believe that our government would kill its own citizens, you might argue that the panel of experts represented a disguised government take-over of health care. 
  • if a person believes that our government is not trying to kill us and trying to cut down on defensive medicine by setting forth safe harbor protocols, then you think the concern is ill-conceived and politically motivated. 

I guess what I am learning is while I am firmly in the third camp, not all of the concern may be politically motivated.  Sarah Palin must have hit a chord with many, many people who have a deep, abiding distrust of government.  Hey, I was scared of government under Bush/Cheney, so I guess I have to be more open to the fear that this legislation unleashed.  Interestingly, it took my Cayman Islands friend — an outsider —  to help me start to understand the perspective of  blog commenter “Jordana”.  We still disagree, but now I understand that we may not be starting from the same point of trust.  That changes the dynamics of the conversation considerably. 

The other point was related to torture.  Some torture is understandable under some circumstances.  I have never met someone who held that view.  While I can see not prosecuting the CIA, I believe that torture is not understandable under any circumstances.  I don’t want to be tortured and I would probably make stuff up just to make it stop. So, I don’t see how it helps get to the truth.

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Could it be 8 years already?

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Tomorrow is September 11, 2009.  Eight years since the attack on our nation.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, we were strong, we were scared, we were compassionate.  The world rallied to our side.

Then came the anger, the blood lust for revenge, the ramp up to war that stoked our desire to strike back at the aggressors, the use of 9/11 as a political tool to divide us just when we needed unity most.

We hit back blindly — at the wrong despot and at each other.  We lost our way.

Eight years later, the question remains:   how do we move forward as a nation, united and committed to making sure this doesn’t happen again for us and for any nation?

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Say it ain’t so, Joe

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Joe Wilson, GOP Congressman from South Carolina, broke protocol by yelling at the President, “you lie!” when the President was giving his address to Congress last night.  Of course, this is the same guy who supports Sarah Palin’s assertions about death panels that will decide care for elderly.  

Look, I wish some people called out Bush on the false claims of Iraq’s buying WMDs and plutoniun from Niger in his speech to Congress, so maybe protocol breaches are ok every now and then.

The problem with Wilson’s outburst is what it lays bare for all to see: 

  1. the discussion of health care reform has become an exercise in name-calling and fear mongering;
  2. there can be no debate while people are screaming to score points with constituents; and
  3. the ideologues (on either side of the issue) will not bend to acknowledge the facts and realities “on the ground”. 

Ideology without common sense (and some sinister malfeasance, thank you, Dick Cheney) got us in the guagmire known as the Iraq War, where debate was stifled by fear-mongering and name-calling (“unpatriotic” was often used) and people afraid to be unpopular with constituencies that just wanted revenge (as in “round up the usual suspects”).

Trying to bring the likes of Joe Wilson into the bipartisan tent is a fool’s errand.  Similarly, if bringing in armchair “Progressives” into the bipartisan tent means clinging onto a public option come hell or high water, then close the tent flaps to them, too. 

Actually, let’s have both sides of the extreme ideologies in an arena and let them scream at each other.  We’ll sell tickets, televise it (and get advertising revenue) and the proceeds will help pay for health care reform.  We’ll call the show “Extreme Dysfunction”.

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We are a nation of crybabies. Grow UP!

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Here’s when you say to people, “SHUT UP!!”  What a nation of crybabies.  What is wrong with the President talking with young Americans?  If you don’t want to watch it, don’t turn on the video. 

YOU WILL LET YOUR CHILDREN WATCH VIOLENCE ON TV, BUT THEY CAN’T LISTEN TO THE PRESIDENT TALK ABOUT EDUCATION?

This backlash against the President is becoming ludicrous.  Every little thing is a problem.  No one got incensed when Ronald Reagan or George Bush gave speeches directed at school-aged children. 

SHAME ON THE RIGHT FOR USING KIDS AS FODDER IN THE CULTURE WAR.

All of you who need to harp on every last thing as if it were a devastating blow to our nation, please, please, secede from the Union.  But, before  you do, remember all of the government sponsored benefits you will be giving up.  And, remember, when you secede, you will have no one but you to blame for all of your problems.  Enjoy.

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From YAHOO

On September 8, in what the Department of Education is touting as a “historic” speech, President Obama will be talking directly to students across the U.S., live on the White House website. But some parents and conservatives are blasting the president, calling the speech an excuse to brainwash American children.

[paragraph deleted]

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sent a letter to the nation’s principals, inviting schools to watch the speech and included suggested classroom activities. But Jim Greer, the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, came out swinging against the planned speech. An excerpt from his statement:

“The address scheduled for September 8, 2009, does not allow for healthy debate on the President’s agenda, but rather obligates the youngest children in our public school system to agree with our President’s initiatives or be ostracized by their teachers and classmates.”

[paragraph deleted]

The Cato Institute, a public-policy research foundation, issued a press release entitled “Hey Obama, Leave Those Kids Alone,” criticizing the “troubling buzzwords” in the lesson plans:

“It’s one thing for a president to encourage all kids to work hard and stay in school – that’s a reasonable use of the bully pulpit. It’s another thing entirely, however, to have the U.S. Department of Education send detailed instructions to public schools nationwide on how to glorify the president and the presidency, and push them to drive social change.”

Across the blogosphere, comments covered the spectrum, from critical to supportive, and from one student, a little anger:

“I sent my children to school to be educated NOT indoctrinated.” — justamom

“The fact that people want to keep their kids from hearing the President of the United States encourage them to do well in school shows a true level of ignorance.” — Firefey

“As an [sic] 9th grade student, I’d like to say that 1. I’m not sure why everyone is so scared that we’ll all be brainwashed by the President … 2. My school is one that is not allowing us to watch the speech, and quite frankly, I’m pissed.” — Willbw

Both Presidents George Bush and Ronald Reagan both gave speeches aimed specifically at students that were nationally televised. In 1989, Bush delivered a televised anti-drug speech, and Reagan’s 1986 commencement speech and Q&A session was “beamed over public television into 171 school districts,” according to the L.A. Times.

It’s worth noting that schools are, encouraged, not required, to air the speech. The Houston Chronicle reports that one Dallas school district is leaving the decision to individual teachers. Susan Dacus, spokeswoman for the Wylie school district, says parents who don’t want their children to see it can opt out.

In an ironic twist, one Missouri school won’t be airing the speech because of a lack of funding. Michelle Baumstark, spokeswoman for Columbia public schools, told the Columbia Daily Tribune, “We don’t have the funding or the equipment to support that type of broadcasting.”

 — Lili Ladaga

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Stop fighting and start compromising

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Don’t blame President Obama for our nation’s war fatigue.  Iraq was unnecessary and we ignored the problem in Afghanistan for too long.  And before the 2004 elections, Tom Ridge raised the terror warning to scare the nation into electing Bush.  President Obama was given a mess.

Also, as a gay American, I would love for President Obama to come out more strongly in support of same-sex marriage rights.  I also want him to stop enforcement of don’t ask, don’t tell.  But I have no interest in diverting attention from getting health care and economic reform accomplished now.

And liberals and conservatives:  get off your soap boxes and compromise.  Our nation needs more action and less talk. 

Progressives and liberals: you will lose my vote if you lose sight of the importance of incremental victories. 

And Barack Obama is the President of the United States of America, and that includes conservatives, liberals, progressives, communists, fascists, socialists, agnostics, fundamentalists and idiots. So, everyone stop your whining that he is selling out.

Bush had 8 years to destroy this nation.  Let’s give President Obama more than 6 months to try to fix it.

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The Hatfields and the McCoys and the Clampetts?

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Feuding families cause riot in  Marion, Alabama

About 4% of the population of Marion rioted over a family feud.  4% of a town belongs to one or another family?  Let’s think about the evolutionary implications for a “tight-knit” community. 

EEeeeeewwww.  EEEEeeeewww.  Ok, on further reflection, let’s not.   

AND, Michael Jackson is seeming less freakish by the day. 

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Associated Press  Monday, August 24, 2009

MARION, Ala. – Two Alabama families that had been fighting for years turned their feud into a full-scale riot Monday outside a small-town city hall, with up to 150 screaming people hurling tire irons and wielding baseball bats. The town’s police chief was hit in the head with a crowbar but was OK.

The two- or three-year-old feud apparently prompted a fight earlier in the day at a high school, after a window was shot out of a home Sunday night. Then, “all hell broke loose” later in the day, said Sgt. Carlton Hogue of the Perry County Sheriff’s Department.

“It was a full-scale riot is what it was,” said Tony Long, mayor of the town of 3,300 about 85 miles west of Montgomery.

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My very own urban jungle and I don’t mean the Bronx Zoo

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Last night, my partner and I were exhausted.  We had just put our son to bed after dinner out to celebrate the end of camp and the start of our one-week family vacation at the beach.  We had gone back and forth about whether a staycation was more wise financially and, as you will read, I am grateful for the splurge.

As background, a few weeks ago, there was a mouse in our bedroom.  It is an old, pre-war building and there has been much renovation in the various apartments around ours.  Also, until the mouse sighting, we had kept gobs and gobs of health food in my bedside table drawer.   

Instead of moving out and selling the apartment (a non-starter, according to my partner) or setting traps (barbaric), we immediately discontinue our health regimen (what other people might call chocolate bars of a wide variety and satisfaction level) and I get those sound wave machines that emit a piercing sound intolerable to mice, gerbils and dare-I-utter-the-word-in-the-urban-jungle-rat.  Oh, and we will be getting a terrier dog next year when our son is 8.  A mere coincidence.

So, back to last night, we are now comfy-cozy, reading in our bed.  Ok, I exaggerate, the air was hot and still and my partner, ever-loving, knows I hate the sound of the air conditioner.  She falls asleep.  I do not.  Being a restless sleeper in all cases, and not being able to put work out of my head in this particular case, I go to the living room and lie on the couch trying to clear my head.  THUUUUDDD.  I look over on the window sill of the dining room and I see a mouse.  (G-d, I hope it was a mouse.)  It must have been living in the crevice between our bookshelves and the ceiling (note to self: write a comment about that carpenter on Angie’s List).

I run screaming into the bedroom, waking up our son in the process, who didn’t really care about the commotion because the tooth fairy had left him $5 for a lower front tooth.  Thank G-d for the priorities of children.  (Two top front teeth cost $10 a piece; and on the Upper EAST Side, that same front tooth can run a parent $20.) 

My partner comforts me and is supportive as I resolve to get me a rifle like Jed Clampett and shoot me something to put into Granny’s soup.  I had tried to be nice, but I will not be toyed with by .  .  . varmints.  And this mouse wasn’t scared or, if it was, it was too well-fed to move very fast.  I cannot tell you how fastidious we are about taking out garbage and cleaning the kitchen every night, so we are VERY freaked out.

We lie down again in bed and my partner puts her hand gently on mine to comfort me.  Then, she grips my hand and shrieks.  There is a bird or a bat in our bedroom!! Our housekeeper sometimes opens the windows without putting in screens and some aerial varmint must have gotten caught in our apartment. 

It is swooping all around — high and low — and we are both screaming.  Our son yells, “what is going on?” and I want to yell, “the tooth fairy is shaking us down for all the cash your teeth cost!!” but even in these trying times, I am a good mother.  So, I yell, “nothing sweetie, go to sleep now” as if on any given day at midnight my partner and I are shrieking in utter terror.

I am living in the movie that is the fusion of two classic horror flicks and it is called “Willard and The Birds“.  I also star as the Wife of Chucky ready with knives to throw at mice and avian intruders. 

The flying varmint hides in the crevice between the top of one of our bedroom bookcases and the ceiling.  A pattern emerges.  Jimmy Hoffa may be buried up there.  Even the word crevice is starting to freak me out. 

We leave the windows wide open, hoping that, at day break, the Thing in Our Crevice will fly out.  But there are fierce lighting and thunder showers through the night, so we were all staying as roomies.  Finally, exhaustion causes us to fall asleep, although I did think about wearing my sunglasses in case the bird was really from a Hitchcock movie. 

Morning comes.  I call my sister, who is doing spectacular acts of kindness (see other blogs) as soon as I think she is home from taking a sick former colleague to the airport.  My sister is groggy and emotionally spent and I tell her I need her husband the bird nerd to rescue us from The Thing in the Crevice.  eeeeewww.  eeeeeeeeww.

She says that she’ll come over and help and then adds, helpfully, we’ll be like Ethel and Lucy.  Ok, ok, ok, ok, ok, ok, my sister is thinking comedy and I am living a horror movie.  I call my brother-in-law on his cell and ask him to come by after his errands even though we will be long gone, seeking refuge in a beach house.  He is such a great guy.  He is so willing to help and he will bring my sister along and I think, oh, good, now it will be Ricky and Lucy looking for The Thing in the Crevice.  One person’s comedy is another’s tragedy.

They call my partner’s cell while we are on the road (I am the designated driver) to give us updates.  My sister really wants if I will blog about this.  Does she know me?

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Kiss today goodbye

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Today:

in 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act.  This was a day of celebration for my grandfather who grew up in Czarist Russia and came of age during the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

In 1945, Japan surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, ending World War II.

In 1980, Lech Walesa led workers on a strike at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, Poland, leading to the creation of the Solidarity labor movement.

In 2009, Barack Obama, our President, goes to Montana to fight for affordable health care.

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Lynette Squeaky Fromme

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The only reason to feel sorry for this Charles Manson follower and would-be assassinator of our then President Ford, is that she is 60 years old and STILL she is called Squeaky.  Is Lynette such a bad name?

Do you think she is different now?  It is hard to imagine a 60 year-old Manson follower.  It is like imagining your grandparents’ having sex.  But not as gross.  Eeewww.   Eeeeewwww.  I need to stop now.

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Faith groups launch campaign in favor of health care reform

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Would it be redundant to say, “Thank G-d”? 

I would also like to note that Rabbi David Saperstein gave my brother a job right out of college about 28 years ago in an organization with a mandate for social justice.  Rabbi, you have been at it all these years.  Thank you.

From CNN, August 11, 2009

Religious groups in favor of health care reform have launched a national campaign to offset the loud opposition to President Obama’s plan to overhaul the nation’s health care system, organizers announced.

“This is as much a crisis of faith as it is a crisis of health care,” said the Rev. John Hay Jr., senior pastor of West Morris Street Free Methodist Church in Indianapolis, Indiana.

“We just believe there is a better way.”

He and others spoke in a telephone news conference Monday announcing the campaign.

“As a pastor, I believe access to health care is a profoundly moral issue,” said the Rev. Stevie Wakes of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Kansas City, Kansas.

The campaign, called “40 days for Health Reform,” includes a national television advertisement, a “sermon weekend,” prayer meetings and a nationwide call-in with Obama on August 19, organizers said.

Prayer meetings emphasizing health care as a moral issue were taking place Tuesday in 45 cities across 18 states, organizers said. They expected about 4,000 people to participate.

“Healing and health are fundamental religious issues,” said the Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners, one of the sponsors of the campaign along with PICO National Network, Faith in Public Life, Faithful America and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.

Wallis stressed that participants in the campaign are not going to weigh in on particular policy questions. “It isn’t political in a partisan way,” he said. “This is a fundamental moral issue. … You’re going to hear the moral drumbeat of the faith community.”

Rabbi David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, who also spoke on the conference call, said the current system “doesn’t work for everyone.”

Other groups, such as the Christian Coalition of America and the Family Research Council, are strongly opposed to Democratic proposals to overhaul the health care system, saying, among other things, that they would lead to government-funded abortion.

“We don’t want abortion to enter this debate and sabotage health care reform,” Wallis said. He noted the legislation now being discussed on Capitol Hill is far from a final version.

Opponents of health care reform proposals have confronted U.S. lawmakers at town hall meetings in recent days, drawing heavy media attention with their boisterous protests.

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