Why?

Why her?

The question of the moment and basis of millions of bytes of conjecture is, “Why?” There is an assumption that Jared Loughner is a right-wing Tea Party wacko who took SP’s cross-hairs challenge to heart and decided to kill one of the people on her list, specifically Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. But the question is why? Why now? Why today? And why all the others, including a child? Is he, as his videos lead me to believe, just another sad crazy young man who slipped through the cracks?

There is currently a young woman tweeting up a storm that she was friends with him and last time she spoke with him, (a few years I think) he was a “lefty.” Please let that not be true. Jeez, what if it was one of the many totally pissed off progressives? Not likely given his talk about gold standards and such, but then how important is it really to the whole discussion to put him in a political slot?

Did this affect him?

We would all like to apportion blame. Could it be the Beck/Limbaugh/P***n hate spewing influence? That seems like the easiest explanation, though I fear it may be much more complex and dealing with it should be priority number one for Congress. But I am sure the finger pointing, political points counting and grand gesturing will stop them from confronting a growing risk to everyone from the deep divides in the country.

The other issue that must be faced is that this may just be one deeply disturbed man who should have gotten mental health help, but our country is not set up for that. And so the irony is, he shot a Congresswoman who has been fighting for health care for all, including the kind he needs the most.

If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities. — Voltaire

Selling The Bush Library

This arrived in my mail today.

Help President and Mrs. Bush advance the principles of freedom, opportunity, responsibility and compassion. Become a Charter Member of the George W. Bush Presidential Center today!

Really? Those are the principles the Bushes are trying to advance? Sure now that you screwed the pooch — the pooch being all of us here in this country you took down. So how do you get people to give you money for the requisite library that former presidents always build?

Just as an aside here, the etymology of screw the pooch follows: The term was first documented in the early “Mercury” days of the US space program. It came there from a Yale graduate named John Rawlings who helped design the astronauts’ space suits. The phrase is actually a bastardization of an earlier, “you are fucking the dog!” which was slang for doing something very much the wrong way. At Yale a friend of Rawlings’, the radio DJ Jack May (a.k.a. “Candied Yam Jackson”) amended this term to “screwing the pooch” which was simultaneously less vulgar and more pleasing to the ear. The term, however, did not enter the popular lexicon until Tom Wolfe used it in his book, The Right Stuff, where it was used to describe a supposed mistake by astronaut Gus Grissom.

Anyway, they begin with:

Dear Reader,

You called me dear. How sweet.

I don’t have to remind you how America was tested time and again-at home and abroad-during the eight defining years of the George W. Bush presidency.

You cannot argue with that statement. The nightly news is a grim reminder of all he did for America.

The difficult decisions President Bush made in the face of each challenge were rooted in the core principles he held throughout his years of public service-the fundamental values that have guided America since her founding: Freedom . . . Opportunity . . . Responsibility . . . Compassion.

Again, you aren’t lying there. He made difficult decisions. The wrong decisions based on his “core values.”

Now President and Mrs. Bush-with the support of many patriotic Americans like you-are taking on a new challenge. They are continuing their personal commitment to advancing these enduring principles through the George W. Bush Presidential Center.

How one might asks does a library advance principles? Are we going to see the transcripts of those energy meetings that were off limits to the public and screwed the energy pooch for your entire term of office and beyond?

The Center will uniquely integrate the records of a national archive, the thematic exhibits of a presidential museum, and the intellectual capital of a research-based policy institute to transform ideas into action.

Yes, they actually use the word intellectual in their sales pitch for a Bush Library. Is the “intellectual capital” tied to his former cronies Cheney, Rove, et al? Are they setting up an institute to try and keep all of W’s big ideas alive? And what are these ideas that they want to transform into action? Somehow they are conspicuously absent in this sales pitch.

The George W. Bush Presidential Center will continue to advance the ideals and core principles that shaped his presidency during a defining period in America’s history.

And that is the scariest sentence of all. Why would anyone left or right want that? The Republicans have tried their damnedest to distance themselves from him. Who are these Friends of Bush? Are there people out there who actually think that he could contribute anything of value to the world at this point? I’d feel sorry for him, if I didn’t despise him so much.

They Want their Country Back

I was watching this really good but scary video about the 9/12 march in Washington and it hit me, what the people here were talking about. They want their country back. Don’t they realize that we have elections and that is when you get your country back? We all had the chance to vote. You lost. Get over it. Go out and find a candidate that you think can win and do what you want, but stop belly aching. Stop lying about things. Find out the truth for yourselves. Read some history. Do some research and that doesn’t mean turn on Glenn Beck.

This video nails so many points about the level of delusional thinking.

And who do you want your country back from? Who has taken it? The Democratic Party that won the elections? The government? Obama in particular? Where were you all the last 8 years? Were you happy with Bush inflating the deficit to historic highs with an unnecessary war and tax cuts for the wealthy?

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

What in the hell is going on in this country when the people on the right feel free to show utter disrespect for the office of the President of the United States. First they say that the President should not be talking to the students of America without their parents permission.

Rep. Joe Wilson thinks he is in Parliament.

Since when did the President need permission to make a public address calling on children to work hard and be responsible? Then we have a congressman yelling “You lie!” at the President in the Senate chamber during a joint session of Congress. As much as I hated Bush, I would never have the gall to tell him when he could talk and to whom. Or to call him a liar as he is talking to the rest of Congress. (Sure, in my dreams, and I did yell from my couch, but in Congress? No, I would not.) It is not only disrespectful to him, but to the institution of the Congress. And what was he calling the President a liar for? For saying that the health care bill will not cover illegal aliens. Now, did this guy know for sure that the President wants to give health care free to illegals? No. Is it in a bill now written? No. Was it a knee jerk reaction to the hateful lies being thrown all over the place by people who actually know better? Probably.

 

Seems that the Right feels nothing holding them back from calling him a liar, as they in the same breath lie until they are blue in the face. Lying hypocrites! And they are legion. I get so angry. Here’s my enemies list. The Biggest Liars Club.

I wish there were laws about lying. Libel and slander do not apply here for some reason. I wish the President could sue the liars and make them come clean, that they are only saying what they are saying because they get money from insurance companies, or they just don’t want him to succeed for whatever political reason.

I listened to President Obama’s speech and to the Republican rebuttal. Seems to me they didn’t listen to him at all. They decided before he gave the speech which parts they would hear and which they would just ignore. No matter what he said they were going to cling to the lies. What is wrong with those people?

The Kennedy Funeral

I was just looking at the photos from Teddy Kennedy’s funeral and came across this. Sure, there are lots of political celebrities there, but Jack Nicholson? What is that about? Did he and Teddy have a relationship? Go out, have a few drinks, pick up chick together? Or was Jack in Boston and decided to just show up for the free publicity? Is he going to try and get Ted’s seat? There has to be more to this. Anyone know?

Grasping at straws

This from the latest Human Events.

If ObamaCare passes, you can kiss your private health insurance goodbye… maybe your doctor, too… and you can certainly say adios to the best health care system the world has ever known.

What country are they living in?

The other day I asked my mother about what kind of health coverage she and dad had to cover us when we were children. Nothing. Nada. Four children. Dad had a steady job with the same company through my childhood (in the 60s) and the company didn’t cover anything, yet the out of pocket expenses of keeping a family of 6 healthy did not kill them. I had my adenoids out. Mom had 5 kids and stayed in the hospital more than a day, and there was no worry about where the money would come from or what would be covered. They paid for it out of my father the salesman’s salary. Plenty of dental, eye care, regular check ups, we had it all. There was never any question about whether we could afford medical care. One salary, no insurance. And I don’t think we were unusual.

Then it all changed. It was thanks to Nixon and the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973. To be fair, the left pushed for it because it seemed like a good idea to pool resources for good care. Unfortunately, it was another lesson in no regulation running amok. The insurance companies that were supposed to make care cheaper used their profits to invest in real estate in the 80s and then when the market tanked, they had to make up the difference, first by starting to deny care, then by raising rates. Then pharmaceutical companies, hospital corporations and medical device manufacturers got in line for the big profits. And so we are where we are now. With what the Republicans are saying is ” best health care system the world has ever known.”

And their solution is…? Still waiting.

Popular Delusions

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one!”

Many years ago I bought a book called Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Written in 1841 by Charles Mackay, it examines times throughout history where large groups of people have been led to believe in falsehoods and what has been the fallout of those beliefs. I have thought of this book many times recently when reading about the financial follies of Wall Street and Madoff’s scheme. What caused so many smart people to “believe” that things were working just fine? From the book, it is clear that people are easily led to believe in schemes that promise them wealth even when on the face of it, it makes no sense.

In the 17th century, wealthy Europeans were throwing their fortunes into tulip bulbs only to lose bundles when the prices fell to rational levels! In the 18th century, the South Sea bubble was more like our current mess though. But at after it all fell apart, at least “the estates of the directors of the company were confiscated and used to relieve the suffering of the victims.” I am appalled that the CEOs, CFOs, and others who were at the helm when everything fell apart are still getting their huge salaries and even bemoaning the losses of their bonuses. Why can’t we take their estates and spread it around for the victims.

Sarah, you were so misunderstood

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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Not a big Conan fan, but I love William Shatner. Who knew it was poetry? If only she’d had bongos.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

Today was a unique experience to me, but one that could be played out all over this country. I knew my ancestors had slaves, but today I met my cousins, the descendants of those slaves at a reunion of the Carson family held at the Carson House in Marion, NC. Seems great-great-great-great grandpa had two full sets of children with two women, just across the creek from each other, each in their own house. The black slave woman with whom he had 12 children was named Kadella. She was considered a princess, perhaps the daughter of an African king and did no work except for making beautiful quilts and exquisite hand sewn clothing.

My new long lost Carson cousins - Preston & Ken

That and having kids all the time. They say she never walked anywhere and was carried around by the other slaves on a palanquin. An interesting note to this story was that Master John Carson sent the children (update – make that just the boys) he had with Kadella to the north as soon as they turned 14 so they did not become slaves themselves, except for the last two who probably turned 14 after his death. (Another version of the story is they were sent away because of their “shameful likeness” to their father.) I could not find whether any of the people at the reunion were related to those children who went north. Lots of the history is a bit fuzzy for obvious reasons. Names came up again and again. My great great grandfather William Carson was the son of the original John Carson. There were several Will and William Carsons there. People came from NY, NJ and Texas. Many others from NC, Hickory, Statesville, Morganton, Marion, stayed close to home.

My family on Mom’s side is so small, it was fun to be among this large extended family. Sure, at best we are probably 6th or 7th cousins, but blood is blood.

Where it all began

There is a moment in history where we were joined. It is a strange history, a bitter one, and I was ambivalent about one of the other white relatives who gave a short talk and apologized to all the black Carsons. Should we be sorry that we are all here today together? That our common ancestor was the man he was? Isn’t it presumptuous to apologize for their own progenitor as if we as 21st century white people bear more responsibility for his actions than they do? We are all his descendants. I am sorry that it happened, but can only do what I can do in this life to see that the wrongs of society are addressed in the here and now.

One of the other black Carsons (could not find him after he talked to get his name) got up and led with the line,”Guess who’s coming to dinner” which got a great laugh and applause.
He went on to say, “This is where it started. Our Chicken George, our Kunta Kinte. We built this house. And today, nobody came in the back door.” Earlier when he was sitting beside me he mentioned the family resemblances and pointed to his little boy, “see that nose?” And sure enough, looking at my Mom, that was a Carson nose.


The black Carson relatives have been having reunions for years, but this is the first time they came to the Carson House where it began. And the first that the white side was invited, kind of. Mom saw something about it in the newspaper. It said all relatives were welcome. We were a tiny minority, but I am glad I went, though I would be interested to meet more relatives on any side. There are so many intertwined stories there. It would make a great book, or movie or miniseries. The sensibility now would be very different from the days of Roots when it would not have been p.c. to explore the depths of the love John Carson had for his slave wife and children. Or to talk about the intermarriages of his sons with the slave women as well as the indigenous Cherokee.


There was another quilter in the house, a woman named Fatima. Her story could be yet another thread in the saga. She claimed to be of noble blood and claimed to be able to read and write though her writing was illegible to anyone in the house, until a traveling preacher who had been in Africa as a missionary came through and recognized her writing as Arabic. It also explained that she had brothers named Mohammed and that she was a Muslim. She was also apparently very tough to deal with and was traded after being there for a short time. I would love to know her whole story.

The slave records had been transcribed for this event and there were lists with names and ages. It was interesting to see that there were a number of people 60 and older who were just listed as invalids, taken care of when they could no longer work. I wish there were time machines to go back and see how it really was. No doubt, it would sicken me a lot of the time, but I know it would be very different from our pictures of the life, since there are no real histories, only fragments of what the educated thought should be written – their version of the story, leaving out the majority of the people – slaves, women, the Cherokee.

At the Carson Plantation, during the Civil War, when the Yankees came through on Stoneman’s Raid, the slaves put mud on faces of the master’s children and hid them and their mother and fed them from their own meager stores of food. Many of the slaves stayed on with the family long after the war ended and they were freed. I think that these families in the isolation of the western mountains had become close. There are stories of slave-master children marrying into the families of the locals and in the end, the ancestry is so mixed as to be indistinguishable. When we arrived, one woman who spoke with me early on was a white woman whose great-great grandfather had a child with a slave woman who was her great grandmother. I would love to see a family tree and I am hoping that some of the people I talked with and traded email addresses with will be able to help with the other (until now unknown) side of the family. I hope this is just the beginning of a beautiful kinship.

How did we get to this place with Health Care?

Triage medicine in the Cocke County Gymnasium

I got out of bed early today and took a ride over to Tennessee with a friend to see what is happening out there for the common American when it comes to health care. An organization called Remote Area Medical (RAM) out of Knoxville was conducting a free medical clinic in the Cocke County High School for all comers. When we arrived around 8:45 they were still letting people in. By 9:00 they were turning people away, telling them to come back tomorrow. People who began arriving 2 days ago were already inside availing themselves of free dentistry, eye exams, glasses and medicals. Walking through the parking lot on the way in, we saw signs that people had been and were still sleeping in their cars. Doctors, dentist, and nurses from all over the US donate their time through this organization to give care where it is needed to folks who would otherwise get none. When I asked about volunteering, they said that they were full up for next weekend, which I take as a good sign. People are willing to take care of each other.

The dentists’ nurse told me that the majority of their cases are pulling teeth. In other words, people are not getting preventive care, just coming in when they are in pain. A young mother with one child in a stroller and five more at home was there with her husband who does not have a job or insurance. Her school bus driver job covers only her and if they wanted to cover the whole family it would be $1000 they don’t have.

One of the nurses I met there was from Canada, though she works in the US, and laughed about the notion that socialized medicine was the bugaboo it has been made out to be. She and some of the other nurses have treated the Mountain Dew kids in Appalachia and are totally behind a real reform of the medical system here. Of course they are; they see people at their most vulnerable, the ones who have no insurance, the ones who fell through the cracks, the children who may not get the nutrition they need to form a great brain because they are dirt poor, the out of work and no insurance people like me. I could find myself there but for the grace of God and a mom with a checkbook.

I have no doubt that free clinics like this one are seeing more and more people these days and that is a scary proposition. It had the feeling of a M*A*S*H unit. One of the volunteers said they would treat about 480 people today and half again as many tomorrow because of church and the doctors’ schedules. This was a small town. And they will have treated about 700 people in 2 days. Extrapolated out, how many people in the country are in need of basic health care and are not getting any?

From the local paper Sunday
Article about upcoming event.