Sunday, February 14, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Tying Abortion to Corporate Personhood
Conservative Cal Thomas says of the Supreme Court decision Citizens United v Federal Election Commission: "What makes the ruling and the march ironic is that the 1973 court...downgraded a human fetus to the level of nonperson, while the modern court has invested "personhood" in corporations. Does anyone else see a contradiction or at least a moral inconsistency in these two rulings?"
Thomas is a rare conservative to admit a problem; most say it's the greatest blow for freedom since Plessy v Ferguson. Thomas is also correct to suggest the decision is judicial overreach every bit as awful as he holds Roe v Wade to be.
The very name Citizens United is Orwellian doublespeak. The ruling culminates a decades-long campaign by conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation, corporate trade associations, and assorted right-wing think tanks. It is "grounded" in the 14th Amendment, which was specifically intended to establish the rights of former slaves.
And what of these corporate "persons?" For instance, when a person sells $40 billion of toxic waste that blows up the global economy, bets on who dies first, declares an emergency to accept government help, and amasses the world's largest fortune in the process, we generally hound them to the ends of the Earth and relieve them of their accounts. Yet this comic book supervillain has a name: Goldman-Sachs. The Supreme Court has announced this psychopathic "person" has the same rights accorded to me by the Constitution. Actually, it has more rights than we do: corporations quite literally get away with murder. Blackwater, too is now a "person."
This happy state of affairs comes courtesy of a movement Thomas has abetted his entire adult life. They said, 'be afraid of Big Brother!' while endowing little brothers with unelected and unaccountable power. To this end Thomas has said much of a "right to life;" but his movement has designed a world in which that right ends at birth, leaving us all on our own against the little brothers.
I find Cal Thomas to be a contradiction, or at least a moral inconsistency.
Adding: apologies for my lack of attention here lately. I've been busy.
Decision approaches in Uganda
The Ugandan Parliament now looks likely to pass the draconian anti-homosexuality law which has recently been widely discussed around the internet. According to Avaaz.org:
The bill proposes life imprisonment for anyone convicted of having same-sex relations and imposes the death penalty for “serial offenders”. NGOs working to prevent the spread of HIV could be imprisoned for up to 7 years for “promoting homosexuality”. Even members of the public face up to three years in jail if they fail to report homosexual activity to the police within 24 hours!
It is still possible that international condemnation could deter the Ugandan government from passing this. Avaaz's petition is here.
Thanks to DemWit for the information.
The bill proposes life imprisonment for anyone convicted of having same-sex relations and imposes the death penalty for “serial offenders”. NGOs working to prevent the spread of HIV could be imprisoned for up to 7 years for “promoting homosexuality”. Even members of the public face up to three years in jail if they fail to report homosexual activity to the police within 24 hours!
It is still possible that international condemnation could deter the Ugandan government from passing this. Avaaz's petition is here.
Thanks to DemWit for the information.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Tea-Partying, the Myth of Intellectual Progress, Bipartisanship, and Sister Sarah
What’s depressing about the Tea-Folk is how ahistorical they seem – in spite of all the Revolutionary War paraphernalia and symbolism, a lot of what I hear coming from them could only be the result of nearly total ignorance of American history, economics, and just about everything else. They evidently believe that their multidirectional ranting substitutes for genuine reflection. I call it what it is: fashionable cynicism spiked with jump-up-and-down-at-the-tinfoil-rally enthusiasm.
A contradiction at the heart of modern conservatism (allowing for some exceptions) is that the right almost invariably opposes any assertion of authority on the government’s part if it’s meant to help anybody, but they almost invariably support all assertions of authority on the government’s part so long as that authority is directed against the people. Provided that the feds are wiretapping or torturing or clandestinely imprisoning, they should be able to do it without having to deal with annoying chatter about rights or freedoms, but let someone propose to improve access to health care for ordinary citizens, and that’s a socialist projectile aimed at the heart our liberties. This contradiction renders much of what comes from the American right as incoherent in its articulation as it is pernicious and cruel in its tendencies. Libertarians may be naïve about the virtues of untrammeled capitalism, but at least they’re ideologically consistent; one can’t say the same about the Tea-Baggers.
The growth of ’Baggery as a movement shouldn’t surprise us. There is little or no progress in the history of ideas. It’s a mistake to suppose that any idea has ever been permanently consigned to the ash-heap of history: there’s always a new crop of people whose heads are as empty as a dry teapot and easily filled to the brim with the same old nonsense – in this case, the Randian myth of the absolute individual, the blockheaded assertion that all government is inherently evil and unnecessary, or the myth of the pure free market. The same stale rhetoric based upon outmoded ideas unmediated by historical experience is easily recycled for a new generation, and it works on millions since it hits them with the force of a newly articulated idea. How many of these guvmint-bashers and pro-marketeers do you suppose have ever heard of Adam Smith, much less knew that he was a moral philosopher or read his 1776 masterpiece, The Wealth of Nations?
Nothing could be more revealing about the Tea-Types than speaker Sarah’s use at the Convention of a line I think all of us have come to associate with Trollerei: to paraphrase, “So how’s that hope and change thing workin’ out for ya?” Since originally posting a version of this piece as a comment, I’ve read that the actual line was much better – “hopey changey.” That this woman is considered competent to run for national office by even a sizeable minority testifies to the poverty of our civic life and educational system. I have seen nothing in her performances that indicates comprehension or maturity beyond the level of a particularly unpleasant middle-school student. I don’t like writing in such terms about a public figure, but her repeated insults directed at the president – a man a hundred times her better in any number of ways -- compels me to call her conduct what it is: juvenile.
Finally, the same disdain goes out to the Republican Rogues’ Gallery in Congress. I wish President Obama would stop claiming to know that certain right-wing Republicans “love America.” Getting misty-eyed when the National Anthem is sung at a ball game isn’t enough: love of country demands genuine regard for your country’s institutions and for its actual inhabitants. The faction I’m referencing have made it clear by their conduct that they care nothing for the old woman who needs health care urgently, or the child whose future may depend on a decent education, or the consumer who’s been fleeced, or the worker who can’t find anything to do. The worst crime, as far as they are concerned, is not the excessive taxation they so often decry or the over-regulation they deplore, it’s to spend any of the vast wealth collected from millions of ordinary citizens on those same citizens or to try to keep corrupt monopolists from defrauding them.
The nation’s wounds, under such people’s tenure, would be declared the result of a pre-existing condition and denied Mr. Lincoln’s “binding up,” and the soldier’s “widow and his orphan” might as well pack their bags for the nether regions at once, for all the consideration they’re likely to get from such unconscionable, filibustering louts. I ask the president kindly to stop pretending that this gaggle of obstructionist buzzards are on our side or that they are even amenable to democratic process. Much more appropriate would be an FDR-style welcoming of their hatred and a determination to proceed on the mandate bestowed in 2008.
PS – this is an augmented version of a comment I made on Capt. Fogg’s recent post.
A contradiction at the heart of modern conservatism (allowing for some exceptions) is that the right almost invariably opposes any assertion of authority on the government’s part if it’s meant to help anybody, but they almost invariably support all assertions of authority on the government’s part so long as that authority is directed against the people. Provided that the feds are wiretapping or torturing or clandestinely imprisoning, they should be able to do it without having to deal with annoying chatter about rights or freedoms, but let someone propose to improve access to health care for ordinary citizens, and that’s a socialist projectile aimed at the heart our liberties. This contradiction renders much of what comes from the American right as incoherent in its articulation as it is pernicious and cruel in its tendencies. Libertarians may be naïve about the virtues of untrammeled capitalism, but at least they’re ideologically consistent; one can’t say the same about the Tea-Baggers.
The growth of ’Baggery as a movement shouldn’t surprise us. There is little or no progress in the history of ideas. It’s a mistake to suppose that any idea has ever been permanently consigned to the ash-heap of history: there’s always a new crop of people whose heads are as empty as a dry teapot and easily filled to the brim with the same old nonsense – in this case, the Randian myth of the absolute individual, the blockheaded assertion that all government is inherently evil and unnecessary, or the myth of the pure free market. The same stale rhetoric based upon outmoded ideas unmediated by historical experience is easily recycled for a new generation, and it works on millions since it hits them with the force of a newly articulated idea. How many of these guvmint-bashers and pro-marketeers do you suppose have ever heard of Adam Smith, much less knew that he was a moral philosopher or read his 1776 masterpiece, The Wealth of Nations?
Nothing could be more revealing about the Tea-Types than speaker Sarah’s use at the Convention of a line I think all of us have come to associate with Trollerei: to paraphrase, “So how’s that hope and change thing workin’ out for ya?” Since originally posting a version of this piece as a comment, I’ve read that the actual line was much better – “hopey changey.” That this woman is considered competent to run for national office by even a sizeable minority testifies to the poverty of our civic life and educational system. I have seen nothing in her performances that indicates comprehension or maturity beyond the level of a particularly unpleasant middle-school student. I don’t like writing in such terms about a public figure, but her repeated insults directed at the president – a man a hundred times her better in any number of ways -- compels me to call her conduct what it is: juvenile.
Finally, the same disdain goes out to the Republican Rogues’ Gallery in Congress. I wish President Obama would stop claiming to know that certain right-wing Republicans “love America.” Getting misty-eyed when the National Anthem is sung at a ball game isn’t enough: love of country demands genuine regard for your country’s institutions and for its actual inhabitants. The faction I’m referencing have made it clear by their conduct that they care nothing for the old woman who needs health care urgently, or the child whose future may depend on a decent education, or the consumer who’s been fleeced, or the worker who can’t find anything to do. The worst crime, as far as they are concerned, is not the excessive taxation they so often decry or the over-regulation they deplore, it’s to spend any of the vast wealth collected from millions of ordinary citizens on those same citizens or to try to keep corrupt monopolists from defrauding them.
The nation’s wounds, under such people’s tenure, would be declared the result of a pre-existing condition and denied Mr. Lincoln’s “binding up,” and the soldier’s “widow and his orphan” might as well pack their bags for the nether regions at once, for all the consideration they’re likely to get from such unconscionable, filibustering louts. I ask the president kindly to stop pretending that this gaggle of obstructionist buzzards are on our side or that they are even amenable to democratic process. Much more appropriate would be an FDR-style welcoming of their hatred and a determination to proceed on the mandate bestowed in 2008.
PS – this is an augmented version of a comment I made on Capt. Fogg’s recent post.
Hopey Changey
Can you believe there's a website called teleprompterpresident.com? The local trailer parks echo with teleprompter jokes, there are more teleprompter jokes clogging up blog comments than there are clumps of fat in Rush Limbaugh's arteries and that chattering little chipmunk Palin just can't let go of that chewy chestnut. I wonder was Abe Lincoln only a charismatic guy with some scrap paper? Yes, he was to be sure, but not only and the Small Government Conservatives slandered and murdered him anyway.
But of course the mini-skirt Moose Mom doesn't know, and doesn't care that you might know that the first time the electric note cards were used was at the 1952 Republican Convention by former President Herbert Hoover. It was the first one ever televised of course and he did it again in 1956. Whether he was charismatic or not I will leave to you and to Sarah Snickers, but Eisenhower used one from 1952 and virtually every other president, candidate
and TV talking head pundit has used one too at various levels of charisma.
That's right, George W. Bush used a Teleprompter, there he is in the picture, although I'm told "that's different" by the snarksters and flim-flam bloggers and if you remember the TV Debates, Bush even wore some kind of device worn on his back. So it's hard to know what Governor Barbie had in mind, but it's clear she doesn't feel threatened by anyone who knows more than she does -- which is most of us -- because like most irresponsible pseudo-conservative snarko-terrorists, she's always surrounded by the like-mindless who think she's a genius.
Maybe if George had used one more often or had been able to read along with the moving words, he wouldn't have given us such delights as "the childrens is learning" but we'd be so much poorer without such things as part of our culture, or whatever remains of one.
So, yes The president is a charismatic man, which of course is required for political success in the age of Television, but that's a bit like saying he's a man who wears shoes. Compared to the most educated of recent Republican candidates he's a bit more than Charismatic and of course note cards or not , when he speaks he says something -- and in respectable English as well.
But when one really can't be described as anything more than political junk food, and that's the kindest thing I can say about Sarah Palin the human Twinkie; when you're a tasteless confection of sugar, oil and starch with no ability to do anyone any good, the best you can do is just what she does. Well never mind about the hope and change -- you're hopeless and intransigent. You abandoned Alaska leaving them with record debt and some incoherent story, but it was all about a better offer, wasn't it? So isn't that all you are -- a mendacious mediocrity and charismatic candidate for What Not To Wear -- with notes scribbled on your palm?
So hows that wiggly giggly thing working out for ya, Sarah?
But of course the mini-skirt Moose Mom doesn't know, and doesn't care that you might know that the first time the electric note cards were used was at the 1952 Republican Convention by former President Herbert Hoover. It was the first one ever televised of course and he did it again in 1956. Whether he was charismatic or not I will leave to you and to Sarah Snickers, but Eisenhower used one from 1952 and virtually every other president, candidate
and TV talking head pundit has used one too at various levels of charisma.That's right, George W. Bush used a Teleprompter, there he is in the picture, although I'm told "that's different" by the snarksters and flim-flam bloggers and if you remember the TV Debates, Bush even wore some kind of device worn on his back. So it's hard to know what Governor Barbie had in mind, but it's clear she doesn't feel threatened by anyone who knows more than she does -- which is most of us -- because like most irresponsible pseudo-conservative snarko-terrorists, she's always surrounded by the like-mindless who think she's a genius.
Maybe if George had used one more often or had been able to read along with the moving words, he wouldn't have given us such delights as "the childrens is learning" but we'd be so much poorer without such things as part of our culture, or whatever remains of one.
So, yes The president is a charismatic man, which of course is required for political success in the age of Television, but that's a bit like saying he's a man who wears shoes. Compared to the most educated of recent Republican candidates he's a bit more than Charismatic and of course note cards or not , when he speaks he says something -- and in respectable English as well.
But when one really can't be described as anything more than political junk food, and that's the kindest thing I can say about Sarah Palin the human Twinkie; when you're a tasteless confection of sugar, oil and starch with no ability to do anyone any good, the best you can do is just what she does. Well never mind about the hope and change -- you're hopeless and intransigent. You abandoned Alaska leaving them with record debt and some incoherent story, but it was all about a better offer, wasn't it? So isn't that all you are -- a mendacious mediocrity and charismatic candidate for What Not To Wear -- with notes scribbled on your palm?
So hows that wiggly giggly thing working out for ya, Sarah?
CHAMPIONING THE CAUSE OF NETIQUETTE IN THE FACE OF RIGHTWING HACK ATTACKS
Sorry folks. This has been a trying time. It is very difficult trying to argue the cause of Internet civility while running into a wall of relentless rightwing attacks. Here is a link to an open conversation currently in progress at Pamela’s weblog … and here is my response to those who despoil the effort (this post is self-explanatory):
(Had to get this off my chest ink the aquarium)
(Comment addressed to certain of Pam's readers)
My oldest daughter serves in the U.S. Army. She is a Major (and soon to be Lt. Colonel) assigned to the Pentagon. She served in the first Gulf War (@ KKMC), in Korea, 22 months in Kuwait, and THREE deployments in Iraq. She was awarded two Bronze Stars and 7 distinguished service citations for her effort.
During her second deployment in Iraq, her convoy was hit by a roadside IED device and attacked by insurgents. Yes, she drew her weapon and returned fire. Yes, she saw colleagues blown to bits, body parts flying everywhere, and she had PTSD for several months after her return.
DON’T TELL ME YOU HAVE A MONOPOLY ON SERVICE TO OUR COUNTRY OR A PERSONAL CLAIM OF SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS.
The families of solders serving overseas make many sacrifices. Duty has kept my daughter away from every major holiday and every family milestone, including births and funerals, for the past eight (8) years. Always the missing person at the holiday dinner table, families make plenty of damn sacrifices too.
SO DON’T TELL ME YOU HAVE A MONOPOLY ON SERVICE TO OUR COUNTRY OR A PERSONAL CLAIM OF SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS.
If my daughter chooses a political career after military service, will rightwing political assassins such as yourselves debunk her accomplishments and demean her character?
One would think a distinguished military career should be beyond reach of mudslinging. Did you speak out against the shameless swift boat ads that demeaned John Kerry’s character and military record?
Did you speak out when the last administration smeared former Senator Max Cleland, a war hero who lost both legs in Vietnam?
Did you speak out when Tammy Duckworth, who lost both legs in Iraq, was smeared during her run for Congress as a Democrat?
Did you speak out? Where the hell were you? In your view, are there two kinds veterans? Are Conservatives and Republicans honored for their military service, while Liberals and Democrats, including the wounded and the dead, get bashed and trashed?
What hypocrites you are!
In this post, Truth101 was trying to make the same point. Did you bother to read it? Did you bother to read this:
The man has three Purple Hearts. Yet these right wing hatemongers told us he didn't deserve them. One lady even wrote a letter to my local paper attacking him for chasing a Viet Cong through the jungle and shooting him. She said it was cowardly (…) My Dad was awarded the Purple Heart. My Mom served in the U.S. Navy in WWII. People that disrespect the valor of Purple Heart recipients don't deserve respectful discourse and a patient ear.
Obviously, you did not read what Truth101 had to say or else you might have refrained from calling him a CLASSLESS SCUMBAG!
Every time you enter Pamela’s comment thread, you turn it into your own personal soapbox. You don’t read. You don’t listen. You don’t respect others.
Your constant belligerent and bellicose rants offend me. You are juvenile, loud-mouthed hooligans with a constant anger-management problem. This post by Pamela was supposed to be about civility. You defiled it.
(Had to get this off my chest ink the aquarium)
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
The Untold Story of Rising Populism on the Left
While we are bombarded with stories about Tea Partiers and the rise of Palinism (not surprising, in a way, as the most outrageously squeaky wheel gets the most media grease), here is something that we are not being informed about.
By Alan Grayson, via HuffPo
The story that everyone wants to tell is that the Democratic Party is disheartened and disintegrating. Teabagger Republicans are juiced up and on top. Or so the media says, over and over again.
But the House candidate who raised the most money in the entire country during the last FEC reporting period -- $860,000 in three months -- is not a teabagger. He is not boosted relentlessly by Fox News. He's not even a Republican. He doesn't think that the Earth was created 6000 years ago, that President Obama was born in Kenya, or that global warming is a hoax.
This House candidate also, remarkably, had the largest number of contributors. Over 15,000 individuals contributed, many of whom have given time after time, whatever they could. The House candidate who raised the most money did so without French-kissing lobbyists, without flattering the idle rich, and without reaching into his own pocket.
The House candidate who raised the most money, from the most people, is an outspoken populist who tells it like it is on the war, on jobs, and on health care. His website is called CongressmanWithGuts.com. In the 100,000 e-mails that he has received this year, the most common refrain is, "You are saying what I've been thinking."
I know who he is. Because he's me.
But no one has reported that the House candidate who raised the most money, from the most people, is a proud Democratic populist. No one.
Continue.
Cross-posted at The Middle of Nowhere.
By Alan Grayson, via HuffPo
The story that everyone wants to tell is that the Democratic Party is disheartened and disintegrating. Teabagger Republicans are juiced up and on top. Or so the media says, over and over again.
But the House candidate who raised the most money in the entire country during the last FEC reporting period -- $860,000 in three months -- is not a teabagger. He is not boosted relentlessly by Fox News. He's not even a Republican. He doesn't think that the Earth was created 6000 years ago, that President Obama was born in Kenya, or that global warming is a hoax.
This House candidate also, remarkably, had the largest number of contributors. Over 15,000 individuals contributed, many of whom have given time after time, whatever they could. The House candidate who raised the most money did so without French-kissing lobbyists, without flattering the idle rich, and without reaching into his own pocket.
The House candidate who raised the most money, from the most people, is an outspoken populist who tells it like it is on the war, on jobs, and on health care. His website is called CongressmanWithGuts.com. In the 100,000 e-mails that he has received this year, the most common refrain is, "You are saying what I've been thinking."
I know who he is. Because he's me.
But no one has reported that the House candidate who raised the most money, from the most people, is a proud Democratic populist. No one.
Continue.
Cross-posted at The Middle of Nowhere.
Sarah Palin is a lying sack of shit
Why pull any punches? Ms. Hopey - Changey may have the IQ of a Barbie doll, but is just bright enough to know, if she bothered to think at all, that she's lying like the devil about her portrayal of the year old Obama presidency and the letter and spirit of constitutional law.
Why fool around, why worry about any one's "sensitivities?" She's a damned malicious liar and it's made no more palatable by her giggling, faux-adolescent presentation. Addressing the Tea Party Rebellion Saturday, she insisted that the administration has unconstitutionally given the right to a fair trial to a "terrorist" because apparently the presumption of innocence doesn't apply to any one of a group Sarah selects. The supreme court disagrees with Palin however, and with the Bush administration and I'll bet some of them have actually read the damned thing.
In 2008, the court ruled that you can't arbitrarily deprive anyone of a trial, dispense with the presumption of innocence and remove Habeas Corpus by crying War over and over and of course Sarah, in denial of the truth accused the president of "politicizing" the Christmas attempt by not crying war nearly enough -- which by the logic of stupidity means not politicizing an act is politicizing it. Don't worry, if that doesn't make sense you're probably not stupid.
Prattling on in full lying sack of shit mode, that "Paliney" thing on the podium continued to prevaricate by criticizing the treatment of Christmas bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who according to her wasn't properly questioned because he "lawyered up" and wasn't cooperating. The facts are quite dramatically otherwise of course. Umar has been gushing facts and giving up names like an open faucet and without any unlawful means of interrogation, but worse than being a damned liar, Sarah Palin is actively engaged in undermining the foundations of American justice by promoting the idea that justice can be waived by using the magic word "war" and that a fair trial gets in the way of justice.
How, in the name of God is there anyone left anywhere who doesn't see the horns and cloven hooves and smell the sulphur? What's to prevent someone from characterizing her assault on truth, justice and due process, her campaign against the government and against the Constitution as a war? What's to prevent her or us from torture, rendition, secret and indefinite imprisonment if some ambitious president declares he an enemy combatant?
Even Fox is showing signs that they're becoming frightened by the monster they've produced and should we be any less fearful of the beast?
Why fool around, why worry about any one's "sensitivities?" She's a damned malicious liar and it's made no more palatable by her giggling, faux-adolescent presentation. Addressing the Tea Party Rebellion Saturday, she insisted that the administration has unconstitutionally given the right to a fair trial to a "terrorist" because apparently the presumption of innocence doesn't apply to any one of a group Sarah selects. The supreme court disagrees with Palin however, and with the Bush administration and I'll bet some of them have actually read the damned thing.
In 2008, the court ruled that you can't arbitrarily deprive anyone of a trial, dispense with the presumption of innocence and remove Habeas Corpus by crying War over and over and of course Sarah, in denial of the truth accused the president of "politicizing" the Christmas attempt by not crying war nearly enough -- which by the logic of stupidity means not politicizing an act is politicizing it. Don't worry, if that doesn't make sense you're probably not stupid.
Prattling on in full lying sack of shit mode, that "Paliney" thing on the podium continued to prevaricate by criticizing the treatment of Christmas bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who according to her wasn't properly questioned because he "lawyered up" and wasn't cooperating. The facts are quite dramatically otherwise of course. Umar has been gushing facts and giving up names like an open faucet and without any unlawful means of interrogation, but worse than being a damned liar, Sarah Palin is actively engaged in undermining the foundations of American justice by promoting the idea that justice can be waived by using the magic word "war" and that a fair trial gets in the way of justice.
How, in the name of God is there anyone left anywhere who doesn't see the horns and cloven hooves and smell the sulphur? What's to prevent someone from characterizing her assault on truth, justice and due process, her campaign against the government and against the Constitution as a war? What's to prevent her or us from torture, rendition, secret and indefinite imprisonment if some ambitious president declares he an enemy combatant?
Even Fox is showing signs that they're becoming frightened by the monster they've produced and should we be any less fearful of the beast?
Monday, February 8, 2010
Gagging the Fox
A friend at the Field Museum in Chicago once attributed the phrase "rotten enough to gag a maggot" to a staff taxidermist presented with a reeking and putrefying elephant hide. I can't confirm or deny it, but it's a useful concept and it came to mind when Fox News Host Brian Kilmeade dared this morning to say that Sarah Palin had gone beyond the snark limit in dismissing President Obama as a "charismatic guy with a teleprompter." Of course saying that while reading from notes written on her palm and bellowing to a snarling crowd seemingly taken right out of some medieval painting of Jesus in torment might just be expected to make even a Foxman gag at her unrestrained roguery. Was his stomach already upset at her dishonest hypocrisy evident in damning Rahm Emanuel and Excusing Rush Limbaugh for using the word "retard" as a noun?
Kilmeade evoked the Fox of the previous administration in saying
Can it be that Palin has become an embarrassment to Fox as well as to the human race or is this just the view of one talking head whose gag reflex has been triggered? It will be interesting to watch this develop.
Kilmeade evoked the Fox of the previous administration in saying
"The only thing I was uncomfortable with [was] when she said it is bigger than any guy with charisma and a teleprompter. That guy is still president. I think you got to -- you got to -- you're no longer the candidate. He's not the guy you're running against. I think you got to give that title its due even if you don't respect the policies."Indeed, although the Fox of today isn't noted for recognizing the similarity or often the identity of Bush Vs. Obama policies, the Fox of the previous administration was fond of criticizing Bush's critics for questioning his wars, questioning his unconstitutional acts and policies, or the state of the economy or anything else for that matter. Remember when the FOX theme of the day was that the economy was robust and "Liberals" were only pretending otherwise? Well we won't get an apology for that one, but it seems at least one Foxer remembers the idea of respecting the President at some basic level, remembers their taunts that disrespecting the president was "hating America."
Can it be that Palin has become an embarrassment to Fox as well as to the human race or is this just the view of one talking head whose gag reflex has been triggered? It will be interesting to watch this develop.
HELA CELLS WHO?
Since February is Black History Month, I wanted to call attention to some of the lesser known figures in American history whose contributions have helped shape our nation or some aspect of our society.By happy accident I found out about a book being launched this month that addresses some issues concerning the medical and research fields as well as tells a surprising story. More on this in a moment.
First, though, we need to explore the background of HeLa cells and their purpose. HeLa cells are an “immortal” line of cells used in research. They are called immortal due to their ability to divide and grow indefinitely as long as they were kept in culture medium conductive to cell growth.
In 1951 when the original cells were obtained, cancer research was in its infancy and a researcher named Dr.George Gey was having trouble finding suitable cells to work with. All that changed when a doctor a John Hopkins Hospital provided him with a tissue biopsy from a malignant cervical tumor of a rare glandular type that the physician had never seen before.
These cells proved to be faster growing and more prolific than any cell line then or since. HeLa cells have been the mainstay of cancer research as well as providing detailed studies of how cells work. They were also crucial in developing vaccines and treatments for polio, Parkinson’s, HIV and a host of other diseases.
There is a reason they are called HeLa cells; it is in honor of the young black woman from Baltimore, wife and mother of five who unknowingly provided the tissue sample. Her name was Henrietta Lacks and she would die only a few months later at the age of 31 from the very tumor that has indirectly saved the lives of millions.Henrietta came from a little burg in Virginia called Clover that no longer exists. Neither she nor her family were aware of her valuable contribution until 20+ years after her death. For her family the notion that something of Henrietta lived on was a difficult concept and they struggled to understand the complexity of cell propagation and research.
Seems like there might be an ethical issue here, but today as back then, there is no requirement for medical personnel to get permission to use any discarded material from surgery, diagnosis or therapy. The material is deemed to belong to the physician and the medical facility.
Henrietta might have passed through history and disappeared entirely, remembered erroneously throughout the years as either Helen Lane or Helen Larsen; aliases used by the medical community to mask her true identity. But enter science journalist, Rebecca Skloot who became interested in the back story about HeLa cells. Skloot has written a book called “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” that tells the story not only of the amazing HeLa cells but also of Henrietta then and her family’s journey after her death.
Most of us probably owe her or have a loved one who owes Henrietta their life. And now, through this book,Henrietta herself will be as immortal as her cells.
Henrietta is a part of all of us; may her memory live forever.
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