SOME SPARE THOUGHTS

Why, suddenly, are some of our menfolk in the US, embarrassed to be searched before getting aboard a plane?  The man who said, "Don't touch my junk" must really have a problem with his body image.  Is he afraid he will get an erection and embarrass himself?  Is he homophobic?  Is he just a prude?  Should a whole plane load of people be sacrificed for any, or other, of those reasons should scanning be discontinued?


One of my favorite cartoons shows a herd of cattle talking to each other while cowboys circle into a group.  On cow is saying to another, "{I wish they would stop treating us like airline passengers."  Indeed, the comparison bears merit.  However, ultimately we all have a choice as to whether to fly or not...even if it means changing jobs.  That is surely not easy but everything in life is a choice.  You can choose to keep your traveling job and follow governmental procedures.  If you truly wish to change them, it should not ber at the expense of holding up all the rest of the passengers.

Profiling seems to be another 'bone of contention' for some.  Don't people realize that there is no one who escapes the great database of the 'databankers.'  Every time we go online our key strokes may we watched, sites we go to monitor, there are massive resources on almost every registered American.  Why dod people worry about their anonymity, then?  Do they blissfully assume the world is as it was forty years ago?  !984 may have come and gone but so much of 'Big Brother' (concept from the book 1984 by George Orwell) suggests he now is, indeed, watching us. seem to be truly current.  We just can't be careful enough, some people think.

It leaves me wondering whether the people, who complain the most, vote. They are also the same people, often, who pay no attention to candidates but complain later that the people in office are doing nothing.  I too would like to see some more competent politicians in office.  Now I just mope around wondering if our government will ever right itself while I'm still alive.....

IT'S ABOUT TIME !!!

Finally some tiny part of our government is beginning to have some compassion.  Medicare has finalized new rules to require visitation rights for all hospital patients.  "The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued new rules for Medicare-Medicaid participating hospitals that protect patients' rights to choose their own visitors during a hospital stay, including a visitor who is a same-sex domestic partner. 

 It was good to read this though, frankly I never heard it announced on any of the many 'news' programs I listen to and watch.  For more on this new rule, click here.   The US Government Health and Human Services gives out news releases for which one can subscribe on line.  

To choose to receive the areas of your interest, click here.

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EARMARKS WORKED FOR BOTH SIDES

 Earmarks are currency for both parties. They are bargaining chips for votes on a Bill and votes for election, depending on how much earmarked to their home state.  Sourcewatch writes:  "Earmarking" is the term used to refer to a provision in legislation that directs funds to be spent on specific projects. Typically, legislators seek to insert earmarks which direct a specified amount of money to a particular organization or project in his/her home state or district. This differs from the appropriation of money to a particular government agency, for in these cases the appropriate executive department can exercise discretion as to where and how the funds are spent. The use of earmarks in the U.S. Congress has expanded significantly over the past thirty years, and is presently the focus of much controversy."

 President Obama came into office with a pledge " to pass “an economic recovery plan that is free from earmarks and pet projects.” "  Michael Grabell and Christopher Weaver have have written this in an article on ProPublica titled:  In stimulus bills, earmarks by any other name..  To read the whole article, click here.
Despite that earlier pledge, the Republicans are only now deciding they have invented the notion and are bringing it out for consideration.  It seems that the Constitution had left some wiggle room for everyone to feel included as a voice. Unhappily, the tool has become a contest to see who can get more votes in their state for re-election by bringing the most 'bacon' back  their state.

From what I have gathered from the media, the practice of adding earmarks to a bill at the last minute so few legislators even get to see it has been added and totally irrelevant to the basis of the Bill.  It is a really sneaky way of doing things but, unfortunately, sneaky is the way things get done in Washington today..

OUR POLITICIANS THINK IT DOESN'[T HAPPEN HERE

Regardless of how much we can talk about how bad it is for so many here in the United States, many of our politicians live in their denial.  They would take away unemployment compensation to the already hungry struggling to keep a roof over their heads and their health to a pain tolerance level.  Recently an article with some statistics about hunger in the US was provided by Jeannine Sanford Deputy Director of Bread for the City in Washington, D.C.  "Almost 15% of US households experienced a food shortage at some point in 2009, a government report has found."

In the 30s, one didn't see pictures of hungry wives and children.  Men were responsible for their families and they went out to try to find food for them since few women worked for pay if married.  Today, there are many single parent families, more often mother and children.  Some senators, Neanderthals slightly more evolved,  think the woman's place is in the home.  They don't believe she should have an abortion even if raped and yet she should not be offered welfare, either.  How do so many get talked into voting for these throwbacks to the 19th C culture.

It must be that our elected officials never heard the phrase 'charity begins at home'. However, our politicians are not charitable to Americans if they are not the super rich.
 

WHAT DOES BBC'S MARKI MARDELL KNOW THAT WE HAVEN'T HEARD?

It seems that foreign reporters are permitted more objectivity and freedom of speech than those owned by their papers or stations here in the US.  I'm always surprised at the paucity of full coverage as to what is actually happening to us, American citizens..  As a citizen I would like to know where the money is behind some of the strange directions our politicians seem to take.  For example, what could possibly have frightened the politician who apologized the the CEO of BP because our president demanded some restitution to the people whose jobs and incomes were devastated by the spill.

Another mystery is how the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court could possibly change a legal decision that stood for a hundred years to allow corporations to be viewed as a single person and permitted to donate to American political campaigns from outside this country.  Non-Americans are now finally able to influence American elections.  How could Justice Alito be allowed to be main speaker at an RNC fund raising dinner where plates went from $250 to $25,000?  This, by Alito,  was ignored while Keith Olbermann, availed himself of his privilege as a citizen to donate to the party of his choice and was suspended.  Double standard once referred to what was acceptable for men and not for women.  Like a pregnant woman's derriere, the definition .has expanded to far greater proportion.  Read more here.

Mark Wardell of BBC warns of imminent likelihood of an American Civil War.  This is fascinating as I try to think of the clear difference between the North and the South in the last Civil War.  Would this be between Democrats and Republicans?  How would the enemy be recognized?  During the Revolutionary war (everyone had a chimney) the black stripe painted on one's chimney identified their political leanings.  How would we do it now?  What will happen to Independents?  I can't quite visualize the Civil War, though a Revolutionary war attacks directly against the government and military, would seem more what the rumbles have suggested.  What a lovely tactic to keep American people on the defensive and terrified.

Withe Representatives to the House and Senators spending disproportionately between the task of working for the voters who sent them there or assuring themselves of re=election, I fear it suggests the job is too good for them to give up and they can act like the no-show relatives and friends in Massachusetts, appointed by the nepotism of those who finally made it to the State House.

WHAT DO PEOPLE MEAN WHEN THEY SAY RELATIONSHIP

As I have often written, I detest the concept of 'one-size-fits-all' and that goes for the generic term relationship as it gets so widely applied.  Most people think fo the definition as:  a state of connectedness between people (especially an emotional connection);  However, it also means something much less emotional, as:  a state involving mutual dealings between people or parties or countries.  It also implies kinship, as:  (anthropology) relatedness or connection by blood or marriage or adoption.  Thus, should be clear to anyone in any of those three situations that relationship is somewhat a ubiquitous word thrown out at almost any human connectedness.

What has been left out of those definitions is 'perception'. Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so a relationship is defined by the person who fantasies it to be what is wished.  'New' emotional (love) which may be energy flowing from one side only. Relationships are like a picture puzzle with only a few pieces visible.  As the pieces are eventually seen, they often differ from the image's hoped-for pictures.  That is when the positive elements begin to get shaky.  In a marriage, divorce is brought up when people assume they can untangle themselves by amputating 'relationship'.  In diplomatic terms, when the relationship goes sour, war may result.  In family ties, relationships by blood are more difficult to sever.  We all know we cannot choose our relatives but we can choose our friends.  However, no one need tolerate intolerable relatives either, and, sad though it may be, families sometimes set boundaries and even physical distance which others in the family may not cross..

Other relationships,  'partnerships', for instance, as in the armed forces,  law enforcement, athletic teams, etc., where the relationship is based on trust, dependence, reliance, commonality of  the goal of survival or success, even of interests.  This is often as powerful as any relationship can get.  Best friends, as well, can be counted in such relationships and they are rarely without emotional commitment.

So we come to another word not usually mentioned in defining relationships and that is 'commitment'.  One can never promise to feel something, as feelings are beyond our control in such situations. However, 'actions', which are far more likely to be within our control, must also be inserted into the defining equation.

We must be vigilant to not accept simple definitions, even from dictionaries, as the be-all; end-all of last words.  I caution you, my readers, to look outside the box and see other layers of a situation that are not always visible to the naked eye or ear.  Trust yourself to question further as to what, exactly, something means...not in words, but in practice.  If we act a certain way, where will the action take us?  If no one notes it, the affect wil possibly be different than if the action is observed and has a reaction.  The depth of a relationship grows.as people know each other more completely and can trust one another more.

Even if one follows all the rules; is moral, full of integrity, honest, faithful, and everything good and lovable, it will not guarantee the other is being honest and seeks the same reward for it.  A basic law of humans if that all want to be loved and to be lovable.  These are the greatest anxieties we humans have amongst other humans.  Most all human imbalance in relationships when either of these two principles is challenged.