They don’t care who they take down
I can’t remember ever seeing things this bad. The people in power are making grabs I’d never have imagined, even […]
Ignoring the constituency
Again and again, Republicans are ignoring what the voters sent them to do: create jobs, help people who’ve been harmed by the Great Recession, fix public infrastructure, strengthen the public safety net …
Instead, at state and federal levels, they do just the opposite, catering to the big corporate money that got them there. They seem intent on creating a permanent underclass to serve the super-wealthy, who keep getting wealthier under these policies. Even worse, they’re blackmailing the president and governors to accept their draconioan budgets or they’ll drive the country off a cliff.
The immorality of ‘optional’ care
I read in the newspaper this morning that the NC Senate is considering cutting “optional” Medicaid services as the costs rise.
Sounds reasonable, right? That’s until you hear what’s optional. The place where my friend Stacie and her best friend, Ashley, live is optional.
Stacie and Ashley have lived together since they were small children; they’re in their mid-20s now, living at one of three residences at the Irene Wortham Center.
Black tag of courage or a Liberal learns about war
I was a Paramedic in the Air Force in the early 90’s. Joining the military was one of the better decisions I have made in my almost 50 years and even at the old age of 27, the training I went through gave me a wealth of discipline I previously did not have. There’s a plethora that I completely disagree with in how our military personal are utilized, but I was lucky, to be at their disposal before the right wing, corporate quest for empire began to pick up speed in earnest. Pretending to assist the wounded and pick up the dead soldiers on the battlefield is all very fun until it really happens.
The Air Force Medical Core / Paramedic training was (at that time) conducted at Shepard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas. I love Wichita Falls, but that’s another post. We slept in tents, ate MRE (Meals Ready to Eat) out of plastic pouches plucked out of 55 gal. drums of boiling water, rescued the pilots of a long forgotten war from their rusting C-2 Greyhound and learned about triage. The pic to the left was taken during my time at the Med Red (Medical Readiness) training grounds somewhere near or on Shepard Air force Base.
At least the left apologizes
I’m a big Ed Schultz fan; I have been ever since he kept health reform alive and on the radar after most everyone else had given up. Ed just kept talking about it and talking about it.
Ed came to an informal Congressional hearing on the day after a huge health care rally in Washington, and he wept as he listened to the stories. These were not crocodile tears; Ed Schultz is a real mush, and injustice and lies fire him up — sometimes a little too much.
I heard him call Laura Ingraham a “right-wing slut” on his show and I knew this would be trouble. It was a case of open-mouth-insert-foot. This time, though, he seemed to have gotten both feet in there.
Seasons
So I was thinking about the rapture myth today and not just because of all the recent hoopla or non hoopla. I’ve long been fascinated by this concept and people who really believe in its literal translation. I like a little give and take, but seriously, if there’s not some room in this story for the metaphorical then all I can say is “wow”.
I don’t mean to bash people who believe this is actually going to happen, literally, exactly like it says in the Bible. I really don’t (conservatives don’t wast your time on this point). I do however marvel at the lack of desire to just simply and naturally expand one’s consciousness a little, forget thinking completely outside the box. There was a study a week or two ago that said conservatives and liberals are just wired different. Sorry I don’t have the link to that story… feel free to Google it. Is this divide between left and right all in the hardware? I don’t know about that, but I do know it’s definitely in the stuff we can’t measure. The consciousness, the Soul, the essence, the life force, the spirit… the whatever. Not being able to grasp the symbolism and simply choose to learn from it right now, combined with the delusion that hard working patriots just naturally need larger sexual arenas, It all just screams second chakra to me. Look, we all have our baser natures, but the idea is not to use the fires of hell and the rapture story to keep other people in line while you party like it’s fucking 1999.
Social justice isn’t news anymore
During most of my nearly three decades as a newspaper reporter, I covered social justice issues, religion and nonprofits.
I wrote stories about domestic violence, living wage campaigns, poverty issues, disabilities, and state and federal programs that weren’t doing their jobs.
That social issues/nonprofits beat is going away at the Asheville Citizen-Times as of this week, when one-third of what’s left of the newsroom staff gets the ax.
Looks like we’re all still here
OK, so I never took the whole Rapture thing seriously. I even made plans for after 6 p.m. yesterday: I went to a ballgame.
Unlike many of my more liberal friends, I know all about the fundamentalist theology, so I knew this Harold Camping character was wrong. For one thing, only God is supposed to know. Jesus is quoted as saying even he doesn’t know when the end will come.
Presenting our ideas
I don’t like “visioning.” My experiences with it up to now have been disappointing at best. I much prefer brainstorming, and it needs to be with people who are open to ideas.
The process I went through in the last two days with Children First/Communities in Schools was very much a brainstorming session with a ton of positive energy and people from a variety of backgrounds.
I’ve been involved too many times with groups of people who want to help “those poor people,” whose intentions are good but who have no experience living in poverty. I encountered a lot of them when my kids were little and I was poor. I had to subscribe to their ideas or I was a problem mom.
What does it look like to you?
I was at an anti-poverty summit today, sponsored by Children First/Communities in Schools of Buncombe County.
The activities centered around how we could eliminate poverty in a county where nearly one in four children lives below the national poverty level, an income of $22,050 for a family of four. In reality, it takes double that to be able to make ends meet here.
Parents struggle with unsafe housing, low wages, few good food choices, little or no health care for themselves, inadequate child care and a social services system that’s confusing, seemingly uncaring and traps them in poverty.