SAYING GOODBYE TO SWAYZE

Patrick Swayze died today at the age of 57 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. Swayze always seemed like a stand up guy. He was married to his wife, Lisa Niemi for 34 years and by all accounts they were devoted to each other. Not only handsome and talented he was a passionate conservationist, spending time in Africa to draw attention to the devastation there caused by men’s greed and disregard for nature.

Patrick Swayze will probably be best remembered for the oft repeated line from the movie, Dirty Dancing, “nobody puts Baby in the corner.” Or the tear jerker pottery scene from Ghost, “I love you.” “Ditto.”

But I was more impressed with his performances in the movies, Next of Kin and Roadhouse with Sam Elliot where we were introduced to the musical genius of Jeff Healy, a blind blues and jazz guitarist who also died of cancer at the age of 41.

Swayze’s last gig was the dark drama on A & E, The Beast, but due to his declining health, it had to be cancelled. He maintained a positive outlook throughout his illness, but was ever cognizant that the odds were not with him.

"One thing I'm not gonna do is chase staying alive...You spend so much time chasing staying alive, you won't live."

"Now cracks a noble heart. Goodnight, sweet Prince.And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." -Horatio

Dinos and Darwinists

Dinosaurs and Darwinists

Capt. Fogg’s post about that Charlie Darwin movie’s travails leads me to offer a post of my own as an extended comment. Yes, I saw the article – the depths of ignorance on this issue are so profound as to invite comparisons to the Kantian sublime. One hears again and again from the fundamentalist crazies that eee-volushun is “only a theory.” Which statement of course proves they have no idea what the word “theory” means in a properly scientific context. They seem to think it means something like “a wild guess,” whereas by the time something sciency gets itself labelled a theory, it’s already been used to make medicines or send rocket ships to the moon. The details may be subject to revision, but in the main the theory will hold true.

What to make of the fact that despite this battle’s having been waged and won decisively by the supporters of science about a century and a half ago in Great Britain, we still see such poll numbers in our own country? Well, for one thing, they invalidate any notion of “progress” whatsoever – if in fact the notion still needed invalidating, which it really doesn’t thanks to a number of cataclysmic human events during the last century. But more interesting is that the continuing refusal to deal with the cosmic “facts of life” may stem from the inflection in uneducated minds of a struggle over one of the great human questions: how to live, or, more particularly, how to abide in this life with some purpose and at least guarded optimism. The question itself is entirely legitimate even if we reject any notions of the inner purposiveness of the cosmos, but its inflection in the minds of the ignorant is most unfortunate and has led to a decades-long pogrom against reason, science, and even sanity.

I put the matter this way because I am not sympathetic to today’s worshipers of reason and all things merely human: they reduce great questions to triviality, and miss altogether the moral eloquence and even beauty with which certain texts in Scripture address human suffering and aspirations. We have met with them before, along with our hopelessly misguided and sometimes vicious religious fanatics – the latter, I think, assisted by a fair number of tortured souls who don’t really believe in talking snakes and six-day ex nihilo creation extravaganzas but whose need to believe leads them to assert (with all the bitterness and ferocity of bad faith) the absolute and literal truth of statements they know, deep down, can’t be literally true. Comparatively few people, I suggest, are now capable of what Alfred Tennyson called the “simple faith” of their agrarian forebears, men and women who lived before the full development of modernity. Refusal to deal with the basic fact of evolution stems from an abnegation of the religious spirit as it has been articulated by intelligent people for many centuries now: was it not the devoutly Protestant John Milton who wrote, “I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue” and who railed at those who would impose censorship upon the free discussion of ideas? And doesn’t the Catholic Church now profess that it’s by no means impious to accept the scientific evidence in favor of evolution?

To rely solely upon the compulsory ignorance of others as one’s best defense against anything that might threaten faith is to dishonor oneself and one’s religion. If one wants to claim that a God has imbued humanity with some measure, however limited, of the divine intelligence and integrity, the willful stupidity that would ban a science textbook or a film dealing with evolution degrades that claim beyond recognition. Augustine and Aquinas tell us we can know God best by that which he is not – and one of the things we had better hope God is not is bloody stupid.

Mock around the clock

Obama is a man of parts, more parts than I can keep track of and the number of parts grows every day - every hour if you inhabit the Republican loonysphere or have friends that love to put you on wingnut mailing lists.

He's a terrorist, a pied piper leading our children to Maoism and Sharia Law, a guy who murdered his grandmother and wants to murder yours. He was born in Indonesia and Kenya and went to a terrorist indoctrination school.

He's listed in the Book of Revelation by name as the Anti-Christ.

He's a Marxist and he's a Nazi who nonetheless wants to disband or weaken the army to the point where the communists take over - or maybe the "Muslins" as a sign waver tells us. He's a child molester who parties with homosexual child molesters on the White House lawn. He hates white people. He wants to remake the country in the mold of "European Socialism." He wants to confiscate your guns and declare martial law and send Republicans off to "camps." He murdered and raped a young girl in 1990. He hates "white culture." He's a man in the mold of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and perhaps Mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria.

He wants to ban all religious broadcasting in the US. He hates Christians, he was raised by a racist Christian minister. He had Chrysler dealerships owned by Republicans closed. The "Obama Tribe" was behind the recent political unrest in Kenya. He plans to bring his Kenyan family here illegally. He wants to give illegal aliens free medical care at taxpayer expense. He wants to make Capitalism illegal. He refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. He supports infanticide for unwanted newborns.

He lies. He lies about everything. He's gay too, but this only a taste of the vast shit salad being offered up at the loonyville diner. I'm sure you can find more if you try, but if you do, don't tell me. With all this mindless, immoral mockery, I'm starting to think that maybe the guy really is the Messiah.

Censorship in America

Anyone still clinging to the excuse that religion is a source, or the source of morality should examine the foetid depths of moral emptiness to which religious authorities will descend in defense of something demonstrably false and viciously idiotic. Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish informs us that:

"A celebrated new movie about one the world's greatest scientists cannot find a distributor in the US."

Although Darwinism thoroughly proves the idea that complexity and organization do arise and evolve over time as a result of mindless algorithms, most Americans, with the help and censorship of the Christian establishment, not only are totally ignorant of the evidence, ignorant of the principle, but are unaware of just how much Darwin's dangerous idea has revolutionized such diverse things as the development of the digital computer and epidemiology.

The Christian establishment has of course tried to satanize everything from the telescope to the ratio Pi to the barometer over the centuries and of course has punished science and scientists heavily, but such things now go on mostly in the United States. Contrary to George W. Bush's assertions, the jury is not out on Evolution any more than it's out on the Pythagorean Theorem, the Speed of Light or the age of the universe. But far worse than the pathological denials of fact are the immoral, dishonest and dangerous attacks on Darwinian science as a source of extremism. A "Christian" website thatpre -judges movies for the believers has launched into an attack on Creation so viciously dishonest that it has succeeded in censoring it so that cannot be shown in the US.

It's easy for someone with little education and a superstitious mind to buy the slander that the philosophy of science founded by Charles Darwin leads to eugenics and that Darwin himself was

"a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder". His "half-baked theory" directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to "atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering."

But of course we're not told how little the real Darwinism has to do with the "survival of the fittest" interpretation cooked up by others. One might as well blame Louis Pasteur for biological warfare. One might as well blame Nietzsche's hatred of anti-Semitism for Hitler. One might as well blame Jesus for the Crusades, the Inquisition and the dangerous lies of the American religious right. That less than 40% of Americans "believe" in evolution shows the cultivated and stultifying ignorance that lubricates our downward slide, that produces the enthusiastic gullibility that produces sign waving mobs and demented political displays.

Of course the Christian jihad against science and scientific method and scientific epistemology is part of a larger Church led war against Democracy. The concept of heresy, the freedom of opinion, is a grave offense but the backbone of autocracy and the greatest impediment to Democracy in history has been religious orthodoxy. So far they've kept that movie out of our country and our survival depends on their failure to maintain our ignorance.

THE BUSH ECONOMIC LEGACY

(Double-click on the image to enlarge for readability)

"Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

- Shelley -

The U.S. Census Bureau just released this report on income, poverty, and access to health care. The report is a damning indictment of the Bush/Cheney years. Not just one Bush presidency, but the unholy trinity of the father, the son, and the ghost of Reagan … a veritable one-two-three-punch right in the economic gut of Middle America. On every major measurement, the report shows the country losing ground: Median household income declined, poverty increased, and the number of Americans without health insurance skyrocketing.

Compare the economic performance of the Bush years with those of Bill Clinton: The condition of the country improved on all indices during the Clinton years, often considerably. In fact, the Bush economic record wipes out 20 years of economic progress. Indeed, I look upon these mighty Bush works and find myself in deep, deep despair.

UPDATE: This article by Dylan Ratigan, Americans Have Been Taken Hostage, deserves a mention within the context of this post:

The American people have been taken hostage to a broken system. It is a system that remains in place to this day. A system where bank lobbyists have been spending in record numbers to make sure it stays that way.

A system that corrupts the most basic principles of competition and fair play, principles upon which this country was built.

It is a system that so far has forced the taxpayer to provide the banks with the use of $14 trillion from the Federal Reserve, much of the $7 trillion outstanding at the US Treasury and $2.3 trillion at the FDIC.

A system partially built by the very people who currently advise our President, run our Treasury Department and are charged with its reform.

And most stunningly -- it is a system that no one in our government has yet made any effort to fundamentally change.

Like health care, this is a referendum on our government's ability to function on behalf of the American people. Ask yourself how long you are willing to be held hostage? How long will you let our elected officials be the agents of those whose business it is to exploit our government and the American people at any cost?

SECOND UPDATE: James' Muse has a lively discussion on supply-side economics here.

Bye Bye Norma Rae

You remember Norma Rae, although her name was Crystal Lee. Sally Field played the Union Organizer from Burlington North Carolina in 1979 and won an academy award for the performance. Ms. Field who presumably is financially secure, is still with us but Crystal Lee, who wasn't, isn't. She got brain cancer she couldn't afford to treat, she had to battle her insurance company to live up to its contractual obligation, they stalled and she died Last Friday.

Sarah Palin is right, Death Panels are real and the Health Insurance companies all have them, practicing 'delay and deny' tactics that resulted -- intentionally -- in the death of the 68 year old Crystal Lee Sutton. Her insurance company interfered between her and her doctor, she couldn't afford Chemo on her own and some employee likely got a bonus for saving the company money.

Like Most Republican arguments, the Death Panel idea illustrates the principle of projective accusation. if your president was guilty of more lies than any other in history, you start accusing the opposition of lying and if you're lucky you can find a mote in his eye and gleefully use it to deny the giant sequoia in your own. Thus to protect the insurance companies that profit by interfering in the doctor-patient relationship, dictate and deny treatment and let people die unnecessarily they accuse a system designed to stop it of doing the same thing. Americans are stupid enough to buy it.

Death Panels are real and death panels are inevitable because corporations are beholden to their stockholders, not to their insured clients. Actual panels of actual people get salaries and bonuses for obfuscating and delaying claims until it's too late, or for scouring your life for some unreported case of acne or the flu to justify denying your cancer claim. A large part of your premiums go, in fact, to pay for these Death Panels and to keep the stockholders happy.

Perhaps someone will chime in here and deny it. I hope so because I'm dying to say You Lie! I can't wait to tell the inevitable troll who will insist that just like Public Schools, Public Libraries, National parks and the National Guard, Government claims administration is Socialism! You lie!

Plan 9 from Outer Space

Mention ACORN to a Republican and watch him start to hiss and twitch. Some are still telling me that because a few ACORN workers registered fake names like Micky Mouse, the will of the majority was overturned and Obama managed to sneak in the door. Of course Micky never actually showed up at the polls -- for obvious reasons -- and Obama won by 10 million votes, but reality never has stood in the way of any Republican belief system. They're still out in the streets with signs shrieking about Obama and corruption and ACORN. They have to, since the Marxism thing, the Birth certificate thing: the death panels, the death book and the other accusations have succeeded at best at looking like the ad hoc plot of an Ed Wood movie.

The silly symphony probably won't drop the theme now that the Government has decided not to use that organization to collect census data in the interest of avoiding the appearance of impropriety. They'll take it as an admission that the Pod people from planet Zorchtron did indeed rig the election, but maybe it will weaken the inevitable claim that the government is using the census to round up Republicans to feed them to brain eating zombies in a secret cave underneath Philadelphia. Maybe not. The chances of someone leaving a comment arguing that there are insane Democrats, that I've rewritten the popular vote margins (like all lefties do) or that any mention of the unprecedented, gun toting madness out in the streets is all part of plan 9 from outer space to smear the sacred name of George W. Bush.

Wait for it.

The dogs do bark

"This is not some kind of radical right-wing group,”

said Senator Jim DeMint, to the Times today.

Sure it is, although to DeMint the definition of radical right might be a bit idiosyncratic. Thousands Rally in Capitol reads the headline although the picture shows at most a couple of hundred white, middle aged people carrying all sorts of signs ranging from the inexplicable to the ridiculous. A huge photo of Nancy Pelosi with a thought bubble saying "Nazis" has the word Astroturf!!! under it. Another claiming that

"Jesus Christ is the messiah and not Obama"

is there to reinforce the idiotic idea that Obama supporters think he's chosen of God and perhaps to help us forget the glaring fact that Bush was widely portrayed as God's right hand.

"Just say no to Chicago Style Politics"

brays another, doubtless setting off thousands of WTF alarms in the Windy City - often referred to as the city that works.

"Obama's nuts, that's why he's involved with ACORN"

reflects the inexplicable obsession with that organization the less mentally organized Republicans seem possessed of.

"Trade freedom for security. . . you will have neither"

says a large sign approximating a Ben Franklin quote that would have been very much appropriate for the previous administration: so appropriate to the gang who gave us the Patriot Act, ignored the law and told us blowing up Iraq was necessary to preserve "our freedoms."

In fact, the fact that not only were these marionettes not in display in Washington a year ago but also that the Bush administration routinely bussed protesters out to remote and fenced-in enclosures while Bill O'Reilly called them "loonies" certainly speaks better for Obama and worse for Republicans than anything else. It certainly doesn't speak well of the silly people, the stupid people, the petty people who see these choreographed parades as anything but bought and payed for advertising: bought and payed for with our country's future.

BILLIONAIRES FOR WEALTH CARE: IF YOU CAN’T BEAT ‘EM, JOIN ‘EM

Have we no sense of humor? Do we take Tea Baggers, Birthers, and Deathers too seriously every time we take them too seriously? Must we always be confrontational? Why can’t we be friends? Here is a new website called, Billionaires for Wealthcare, that shows how to make friends with your friendly neighborhood Tea Baggers (while making a point better than any rant can):



Go to a Tea Bagger rally in your block-long stretch limo. Step out wearing your black tux and monocle. Women wear furs, diamonds, opera gloves, and a $1,000 Dior gown. Outclass Rush Limbaugh by smoking a Gurkha Black Dragon cigar. Have legions of camera-flashing paparazzi follow you. Tea Baggers will adore you and worship the ground where your dog squats. Finally, don’t forget your own Palm Court ensemble performing this theme song:

“This Healthcare Plan Must Die”
(To the tune of “Battle Hymn Of The Republic”)

Rejoice and let us glory in the profits that we gain
By rationing the remedies for suffering and pain.
We will not let you regulate our budgetary drain.
This healthcare plan must die! (Chorus)

We bought a bunch of senators and congresspeople too.
They serve our corporate interests and we tell them what to do.
This gravy train will stop the day a healthcare bill gets through.
This healthcare plan must die! (Chorus)

Our PR team is crackerjack. We’re framing the debate!
We’re spreading lots of lies and we’re unleashing lots of hate.
We’ll drive a stake into the bill the day it leaves the gate.
This healthcare plan must die! (Chorus)

And finally, don’t forget to bring your placards (as gauche as it may seem, every tea bagger is a sucker for one of these):


Nothing like a little satire to soothe the savage beasts.

WHAT HE SAID

Perhaps I should expand this title to “…AND WHAT HE DIDN’T SAY.” I think most people would agree, our President is a pretty darn good orator. He says the things his supporters want to hear, or at least appears to. He has the power to call out his detractors and calm others.

I needed time to allow the emotional reaction to fade so I could study just what the President did and did not say before firing off yet another email to my representatives on Capitol Hill and the White House.

I know I said in an earlier post I was going to leave the speech analysis to more knowledgeable minds than I, but I just can’t help myself – I must add my two cents! I have included here excerpts from the President's speech along with what I see and what I don't. I look forward to your feedback.

“Since health care represents one-sixth of our economy, I believe it makes more sense to build on what works and fix what doesn't, rather than try to build an entirely new system from scratch.”

So this is where a single payer system gets tossed away. Chalk one up for the insurance companies who represent a big chunk for that 1/6 of our economy.

“The plan I'm announcing tonight would meet three basic goals. It will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance. It will provide insurance for those who don't. And it will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government.”

Here is the promise we have all been waiting for but will he deliver?

“Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a preexisting condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it the most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or in a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick. And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies.”

Sounds good so far – aren’t these the very points we have been arguing endlessly about on the blogs?

“Now, if you're one of the tens of millions of Americans who don't currently have health insurance, the second part of this plan will finally offer you quality, affordable choices…We'll do this by creating a new insurance exchange -- a marketplace where individuals and small businesses will be able to shop for health insurance at competitive prices. Insurance companies will have an incentive to participate in this exchange because it lets them compete for millions of new customers. As one big group, these customers will have greater leverage to bargain with the insurance companies for better prices and quality coverage. This is how large companies and government employees get affordable insurance. It's how everyone in this Congress gets affordable insurance. And it's time to give every American the same opportunity that we give ourselves…And all insurance companies that want access to this new marketplace will have to abide by the consumer protections I already mentioned. And that's why under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance -- just as most states require you to carry auto insurance.”

This is a long bit of quote and I just picked portions out of the longer version for the sake of space. Nothing I omitted changes the message and anyone who wants to read the speech in its entirety can do so just by googling it but there is something here I want to point out – While insurance companies will have to play by the rules in order to get MILLIONS OF NEW CUSTOMERS (hostages), no where in all this grand verbiage do I see where, unlike said car insurance companies and public utilities, THERE WILL BE A GOVERNMENT REGULATED CAP ON THE PREMIUMS INSURANCE COMPANIES CAN CHARGE!
It gets worse – read on…

“But an additional step we can take to keep insurance companies honest is by making a not-for-profit public option available in the insurance exchange… the insurance companies and their allies don't like this idea. They argue that these private companies can't fairly compete with the government. And they'd be right if taxpayers were subsidizing this public insurance option. But they won't be. I've insisted that like any private insurance company, the public insurance option would have to be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects.”

A government backed public option? No so fast. This ambiguous passage calls for what is being touted as a “public option”, but the wording simply states a not-for-profit option. This is NOT the same thing!

It is time to put in the effort to write, call or email your representatives and demand they ONLY back:

* A single payer plan or, at the very LEAST, a government supported public option. Without a government sponsored plan, millions will STILL be left without health insurance and that is unacceptable.

* Along with that government mandate for health insurance coverage, they also include government regulation and caps on insurance premiums – if utilities and car insurance can be capped because they are considered essential services, then health insurance certainly can be!

* Lastly, remind them, strongly, just who they are working for and that the cost
of betraying the public trust will be a sound defeat in the voting booth!

This is too important to all of us to sit back and wait to see what happens. If you need links to contact your government representatives, I’m providing them here and asking everyone to stand up and be counted now!

For the White House:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/

For Senators:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

For State Representatives:

http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/index.html

UPDATE:

w-dervish has left a comment bringing up yet another negative aspect of the President's plan:

"This will still leave millions (not sure how many exactly, but I confidently guesstimate it will be millions) uninsured. And showing up in emergency rooms with health problems they should have had treated a lot earlier. And it means people will still die due to lack of insurance."

I quite agree with this assessment and think it should also be a bullet point for representative correspondence so I have added it above.

H/T to w-dervish for this additional information. His excellent post on the speech can be found at his blog "Sleeping With The Devil" HERE.

H/T to Elizabeth from The Middle Of Nowhere who provided a link to a call-in campaign (to your congressman) being spearheaded by Firedoglake which you can access HERE.