PEOPLE WHO CAN'T SEE COMNSEQUENCES BEYOND WHAT IS BEFORE THEIR EYES THIS MOMENT ARE DANGEROUS.

MSNBC's Ed Schultz is someone I have admired who has now twice disappointed me.  The first time was when he made a several night cry for Obama to keep his campaign promise and go march in Wisconsin with the protesters, early this year.  He seemed not to have any awareness that the President is bound by what his security people will allow. Clearly, the President of the richest country in the world should not be a sitting target for all the people the NRA is allowing to carry weapons, concealed and otherwise.

The second time I've heard him be without consideration to collateral damage was tonight.  He has pleaded for Penn State University to kill their football program immediately because of the current flap about the pedophyllic assaults  For someone who usually champions the middle class and others unfairly treated, he seems to have forgotten the punishment this would be to those scholarship athletes, and those who are looking to excel (as this team has this year) to possibly make it big in the PROs after graduation.  With anyone who has a conscience, he should realize that those innocents deserve their right to complete their career choices rather than give them up because the powers at the university acted as badly as the Catholic Church.  The Catholic Church didn't close their doors and stop preaching religion nor stop having altar boys.

JOE WALSH: IF HE IS REPRESENTATIVE OF THE TEAPARTIERS, WE'RE IN SERIOUS TROUBLE

Representative Joe Walsh who recently won an award for his position on families (while being a 'dead beat dad' who owes his children $117,000 in back child care payments), appears on video speaking to a constituent who works for the post office, Melissa Rakestraw.  To watch the video, click here.

Representative Walsh was voted in as a Teapartie4r but is now apparently considered a Teapublican. Little did we know that the Teaparty, as they were forming and and making promises, would change their minds on goals once they got to their job in Washington.  The wishes of their constituents appears no longer as a high priority for Mr. Walsh.  When postal delivery person, Melissa Rakeshaw, challenged him about shutting down the Postal
Service which exists because it is written to do so in the Constitution and told him it threatens 200,000 jobs, he said  'I don't care about them' ..The ' I ' in that sentence says it all, especially since he said it to one of his constituents.  After hearing her interviewed the day after this exchange, it seems highly likely that Mr. Walsh need not try to campaign to her as it  seems equally unlikely that he will get her vote.

Just as the vows of marriage meant nothing to Mr. Walsh, neither does his oath of office.  Judging from all his votes, he is also a Norquist pledge signer.  Since he cannot be loyal to his family, nor his country, we need to take a better look at the people who think they can make decisions that profoundly effect the rest of us.

THERE'S HOPE! THE RECENT LOCAL REPUBLICAN ACTIVITIES HAVE GIVEN IT TO US.

The elections on on 11/8 didn't make earth shattering change but it indicates there are people who feel differently than when they last voted.  The general discussion on the media today was that voters felt the
Republicans had pushed too far.  I've noticed that the media has not commented for several days on the Occupied sites around the country and then world.

As in Mississippi, the Governor about to leave office due to term limits says he really didn't agree with the bill but voted for it anyway. It suggests that elected officials are no longer voting their conscience but are conditioned to vote against it to vote the party line.


Cain and Perry seem to have shot themselves in the foot and we will watch the twitching death of their campaigns for, perhaps, a little longer to watch the slow demise

THERE'S HOPE!

Issue 2 (SB5) in Ohio went down to the joy and cheering of the working class.  This decision means different things to different people.  However, regardless of the problems which exist in some unions, stripping .them of any of the power given to them to do good for working people is no answer.  It is as effective as doctors bleeding patients of the 'poison' in their bodies in the 19th C leaving them anemic and unable to fight illnesses. After hearing of the loss, Governor Kasich said:  "Though I would have preferred a different outcome tonight, the people of Ohio have spoken and I respect their decision."  Read more.  This is Kasich, in essence, pleading for his job.  The message the crowd kept repeating, hoping that Boehner would hear it, "We need jobs, jobs, jobs."

Mississippi's Initiative26, calling a fertilized egg as human being has been voted down..    It is obvious that the people of Mississippi are much more rational than the elected officials in the state.  Those citizens who bravely voted such an absurd measure down raise the possibility for hope as did the citizens of Ohio.  It frightens me to think of the misogynists running that state.  The notion that a fertilized egg is a human being is as ridiculous as saying a seed is a plant.  Someone lost the concept of potential in that equation.

While we are hearing about what is happening in states.  We cannot be fooled that it is contained locally.  These are National issues.

 

CALLING COMCAST FOR SERVICE

This morning I received a phone call and hung up when the call was over.   An hour later, my house phones were no longer working.  I looked through the useless mass of paper info from Comcast for a number to call for service and couldn't find anything other than the 1-800-Call Comcast.  My cell phone only for emergencies gives a mere 100 units a year, which has for years been more than adequate..  By the time I fired up my cell, which does not work too well in my house, I had discovered my Internet was also not working.  Since there was no other way to make a call, I got one of those robotic 'never-have-what-you-want' menus.  Meanwhile, tortured with the 'elevator' music' far too long, I heard every few seconds: 'Your call is important to us.  All our representatives are busy with other callers, please hold the line'...which I did for more than 15 minutes." 

Eventually a male voice answered with his rushed, canned greeting in a heavy Indian accent.
The phone connection sounded as though he was speaking from the bottom of the ocean in swirling water, I didn't catch a word of it. He repeated something so, assuming he was asking me what my problem was, I told him.   He had me check the modem, which required me standing on my head to find the reset 'button'. (which is actually in a hole within which is an invisible button pushed only by a very slim object) It reset.  Nothing positive happened.  Finally watching LEDs blink he said the modem wasn't working. 

As we were setting up a time for a service call, he suggested I disconnect the co-axial cable.  This required time to find pliers, stand on my head again, and another prolonged groan and effort with eventual success, now holding  a dangling cable.  Meanwhile he was busy setting up a service call for the next day. I told him I had finally managed to disconnect the cable.  He told me to wait five minutes then reconnect the cable. More than the five minutes elapsed As I had time to almost complete my breakfast and gain another two pounds.  Suddenly, lights stopped blinking and stayed on!  He had me hold for another minute, continuing to age rapidly while he canceled the service call.  Total telephone minutes, 35, proof that service from an Asian in Newfoundland can work well.   Can someone tell me why this service couldn't be done from the US even if the CEO of Comcast earns a million dollars less in bonus this year?  Think of how many American jobs it would save; money for the currently unemployed.and other services to starving families going to the government instead of into the pockets of the already fat cats.

ABC News had a new article under the headline:  For Campaign 2012, Anger May Be the New Hope.  What has gotten into people these days that everyone wants to see or hear other people's emotional responses while hiding their own?   We have created 'experts' at reading emotion in courts, reading the jurors and the accused on trial.  So often, it seems that the media has decided and reported on camera whether they believe a person is guilty on the basis of the lack of showing remorse.

Mikes and cameras are shoved in the face of people at the scene of an accident or tragic death  The reporters seem to feel successful if they can ask enough questions to have the one being interviewed become tearful.

Violently sobbing, unable to talk, is like scoring a home run for the interviewer.  One can only assume that these reporters are so desperate to fill space while lacking skills or personal creativity, and with little capacity to speak if the script is not there for them to read,

On the other hand, we often criticize people who emote as trying to manipulate.  It is a typical double bind.  If you don't emote, you  are heartless, unrepentant and therefore guilty (even though you may be innocent); if you do share your feelings publicly, you are being manipulative and trying to sway people your way by using tears or deep sadness..

One of the biggest problems we face in our society and in our politics is:  'You are damned if you do and damned if you don't'. For many, it can never be enough or right .  To be empathic and objective, at the same time, seems to be an extinct concept.  Anger and fear seem to be the two emotions best understood in our lives today.  We heard that, to run for Pre4sident, you have to have 'fire in the belly', unfortunately interpreted by too many is that you have to be angry and demonstrate it clearly that you are.

MORE 'RIGHT TO LIFE' HYPOCRISY

There are reported to be almost two million children being raised by LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual ,or transgender)  parents.  As long as the current attitudes, especially of some religious spokespersons and the political far Right,   For anyone wishing to better understand their issues of inequality today, take a few moments and check out this enlightening site.  An article on it says: "Children of gay and lesbian parents live in 96% of U.S. counties—and decades of research shows that those children grow up as happy, healthy and well-adjusted as their peers."  It further writes: "Current laws deny loving, forever homes to the 115,000 children awaiting adoption. They deny children of LGBT families legal ties to both their parents, meaning that families live in fear due to uncertain family ties. They can wrongly separate children from their parents in cases of divorce or the death of a parent. They deny basic government aid and safety net programs to children of LGBT parents simply because their family doesn’t meet a legal definition of family in a particular state. They can deny access to parents’ health insurance coverage, quality child care and early childhood education programs, Social Security Survivor benefits, inheritance, and more."


Restrictive laws in many states, written by politicians based on ignorance and religious pressure, make it most difficult for both parents and children in a most cruel way.  Families do not enjoy the legal right given to families, even divorced or separated heterosexual couples, though they live together, nurture their children, and raise them to be fine citizens as decades of research has demonstrated


We must return to the questions often asked, "Do the 'right-to-life' people care for anything other than the fertilized ovum?"  "Does the concept of life stop there or does it continue as long as the person has a beating heart?"."How long must we be a backward country as far as recognizing the needs of all our citizens?"  "Or, more to the point, how long will this country allow people to make laws that violate our over-two hundred year working Constitution, based on their own misconceptions, prejudices, biases, destructive personal values wished  on everyone?"