Reading Helps with the Spelling Too.

“I never presume to give advice on writing. I think the best way to learn to write is to read books and stories by good writers. It's a hard thing to preach about. As Thelonious Monk once said about his field, 'Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.' " 

 ~ Maureen Dowd, whose brother also has a decent piece in the paper today.

------------------------
Maureen is taking fashion advice from an Ugg-shod friend (he owns 9 pair, in black and bark) on how to find oneself a good, little black dress.  (and that's dress people; let's stop hearing non-existent dog whistles...)

I start to feel paranoid when my friend André offers a disquisition on how to identify a “good black” hue versus a “bad black” one, and which blacks don’t match. I’d assumed black was black.

“You don’t want a harsh black or a dead black that looks like an old bunker that’s been oxidized through years of neglect in a barren warehouse,” he says.

“A good black is an electrifying black. It should be about dreams of beauty.”

Cheers to that, then.

Here We Go... the Race Card Comes Out.

Racists allegations against Rush Limbaugh Cause a University. of Wisconsin Law Professor to Rethink her Political Support of President Obama.

Wow.
Just wow.
That's the headline for the day, it seems.
I won't bother linking, as I suspect she's trying to stir the pot to promote herself and her blog. 
But, for the sake of intellectual openness, permit a few honest questions?

1) If you've listened to entertainer Limbaugh for years,
you're just now noticing that some of his skits are misogynistic, anti-immigrant, and potentially racist?  The man isn't exactly a deep thinker, but if you like crude political humor, how can you cherry pick this segment or that to object to?

2)  Do you honestly think Rush Limbaugh in any way taints the Romney campaign with his entertainment schlock?  If I recall correctly, Limbaugh was in the subset that opposed Romney's primary nomination.  So now he's an ardent supporter, speaking on behalf of the campaign?

3) With all the important issues facing the country,
isn't crediting your Obama vote to a Rush Limbaugh skit a bit ... silly?  Like if you seriously voted against Romney, even if you supported his policies and business background, because once upon a time he took the dog on the family vacation, and you object to the seating arrangements?


Look:  I don't care a whit who people like that vote for...
I am, however, very wary of those who will play the race card so publicly in this election.  I honestly believe Mitt Romney is a man of integrity, who -- while you might not agree with his policy positions, or traditional background -- is not a racist hater.   Sorry, just do not believe that...

This female professor, in her early 60s, was raised in Delaware, in segregated schools, and attended a liberal Midwest university.  She married a fellow East Coaster, attended law school and began her family and legal career out East, and then relocated to the state university in Madison, Wisconsin to teach law.

People who think this woman in any way represents Midwestern values, or Midwestern thinking, are simply wrong.  Calling out as racist those who very legitimately do not support this current president, based only on something seen heard on the Rush Limbaugh show is simply so intellectually dishonest it beggars belief. 

If you can't handle Rush's brand of humor (or Howard Stern's, George Carlin's, Lenny Bruce's, etc.), don't listen to that kind of material.  Turn it off and choose something more to your liking.  But please don't be so fast to play the race card on this type of political entertainment, when you so easily are willing to overlook the misogynist humor comments, or the anti-gay, and anti-immigrant stuff he spews regulary in pursuit of ratings.

(It's my understanding Rush is ill-educated himself, but very wise in the ways of serving up red meat to those who wish to consume it.  If that's your regular diet though, how do you wake up one day and suddenly object to that type of humor, that you've helped promote all along?)

Finally, I have to ask:
if a black student in her classroom was being verbally bullied by others in the class (or teased, or simply maken fun of) would she reward that student with a higher grade, not performance-based, simply to ... show support for the black student she overheard being skewered by his offensive classmates?

Emotional thinking does that to the brain.
I suspect the professor knows that back in the day, in her segregated schools and childhood world, she received privileges that black children did not.  I think she was helped by being a woman in the days when female competition in law school and in the legal profession were not yet the norm.

For these reasons I think,
she now feels guilt at her elite societal positioning in the ivory tower,  and suddenly sees racial humor as representative of the Midwest conservatives who simply will not vote to re-elect this president based solely on his sorry, almost 4-year performance. 

She attributes such humor to the Romney campaign, and then implies he and his supporters share in Limbaugh's chuckles, as she once did the "femi-nazi" jokes aimed at women less socially conservative as herself...

Finally, when called on her emotional thinking and sudden change of heart, she pulls us all into the collective of emotional thinkers (not just women like herself) and snaps back with a bit of pop brain psychology:

"Here's a tip: Everyone votes emotionally. Your idea that you are completely rational is itself emotional. Your very rationality is itself a complex mix of emotion. I've read enough brain science to know that. Pretending that's not true only makes you naive. Resisting that fact is something that comes from emotion, not reason.
...
We are human beings, and our thoughts take place within our bodies, with our brains and nerves, and the ability to make decisions comes from feeling. We are not computers."

Like we teach children about self control,
people indeed have the ability to master their emotions and to learn to think with their rational parts, not their emotions.  I do not vote emotionally.  I do not need to personally "like" someone in order to support and respect him/her as my boss, my professor, my student, or my country's leader. 

In fact,
someone honest enough right now to talk about how, on the country's ledger sheet, the debits being made from the asset column are dwindling the overall balance and will bankrupt us if no actions are made soon to curtail the debit column ... is exactly what the country needs.

Someone with a proven background of making strategic budget cuts that indeed are painful but necessary for the overall company to survive is what we need in leadership today of our country.  Someone with a history of thinking rationally, not emotionally, is needed.  Doesn't matter if you personally like him or his family or not if he can get the job done.

I go back to the example above, of how this professor would approach grading a black student regularly turning in mediocre work*, if she had ... feelings of sympathy (or guilt) toward his treatment by the class clown entertainers.  Stop the bullying sure (in this case -- simply turn your radio off to Limbaugh's show, as he's a First Amendment right to spew such crude humor directed at anyone he likes, or doesn't in this case...).

But do you vote to up the black student's grade -- pass him onto the next level -- because you're disgusted by what you've overheard and presumed to be racial joking?  Can you overcome your feelings of disgust, your emotional self to maintain a poise of intellectual honesty in distributing the grades?

Those of us who came up in mixed schools, with white ethnics and racial diversity, would not allow our feelings of sympathy to overcome our rational understandings of who has the best skills to lead the team.  We understand our country's history and the ugly episodes, but we also see first hand that not everyone seizes the opportunities currently available for intellectual advancement.

We don't reward those who would play on our emotions of the racism of past years, nor do we approve of those playing the race card -- black, or elitist white.

I do thank the professor however for so fully revealing what some of us have observed firsthand:  the inconsistency, the emotionalism, and the offensive way that dominates her thinking patterns.

Myself?  I suspect back in the day, she was the girl who wanted to gain popularity** by always going home after the game in the car of the winning quarterback. Sometimes waiting until late in the 4th quarter of the game to see exactly which winning male that would be... 

Lotsa competition on those crowded bandwagons, afterall.
---------------

Plus: The backtracking begins...

"Minds are being affected now. I'm sending an alarm, but then I'm hearing denial, not from you, Ken, but from so many others here. They don't want to believe the effect it has on undecided-type votes and people who are sensitive about below-the-surface racism, so they're just saying it's crazy/stupid/shut up."
...
"Democrats don't care. They're happy to reap the votes of social liberals who would prefer conservative economics but see the GOP as toxic."

Myself, I'm an economic conservative who would prefer to see more socially liberal policies (on some issues), but who sees the current Democratic party as pandering to racism, sexism, and elitism.

I am sacrificing personally, investing my votes in economically conservative candidates. Funny thing is, I suspect the professor is in a better place than me, financially and socially, to make such a sacrifice.

But then again,
she will not be affected personally by a change in the president and his policies. The familiar Boomer trope: "I got mine".

Btw, I won't link to their material, but here are photos of what these two women taking such a brave stand against racism look like. Notice any similarities?

Old News you might have missed...

President Obama Signs US-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act

July 27, 2012 | 3:23 | Public Domain
President Obama signs the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012, which strengthens Israel’s qualitative military edge and support for Administration initiatives that deepen U.S. defense and security cooperation with Israel.

"I’m also very pleased that this week we are going to be able to announce $70 million in additional spending -- $70 billion [million]*, excuse me, in additional spending for Iron Dome." ~President Obama.

Lotsa talk online about Obama "standing up" to Netanyahu by skipping his calls and meeting to go chat with Whoopie and the girls on The View.

That's all for show, you must understand.

One commentor, ripping into candidate Romney, said she was glad Obama had stiffed Netanyahu. Snubbed, not stiffed. Take a look at that check-signing photo again.

When I worked as a claims adjuster at State Farm, they taught us in negotiating with policyholders to settle their claims that we ought to go by the four corners of the policy. That is, not to be bullied by demanding claimants to get more than they had contracted for in their loss.

"You have the bargaining power. You're signing the check," they told us.

So long as we fully and faithfully paid out what was promised as determined by the contract, they wanted us to understand the balance of power and not undercut the company's strength and integrity by essentially being bullied into special deals just for pushy people, backing down and giving in to pressure because this one or that one thinks they have more coming...

(You see this a lot in some experienced travelers too.  Their problems, emergencies, and unplanned for stresses suddenly become an opportunity to cash in if only they verbally moan and bother you long enough you give in to their demands simply to get them out of your presence.)

In short, actions speak much louder than words.
Do you like how -- over the past 4 years, while he has held presidential power -- Obama negotiated with and addressed Israel?  Do you, like Mitt Romney, understand that it's perfectly appropriate to attach conditions to the taxpayer money being transferred?   Perhaps you're a literal Old and NewTestament believer, who honestly thinks Israel will be ground zero for the end times, and we've got to keep funding the little State in order to fulfill the Book?  Maybe you just annually vacation in Tel aviv?

Either way, let's not falsely pretend that Obama has "stood up" to Israel or affected change via our dollar transfers in any significant way.  Let's not reward that, or believe the next 4 years would be any different.

Why not try Romney's approach?  We have nothing to lose, afterall.  The money is being spent, the power parity way out of whack, and truth be told?

Instead of imitating Israel's outrageously overreaching -- and so often deadly -- security measures, the US ought to have been teaching our little buddy something about 200-year old Constitution and the concept of due process (not taking out the family house as punishment for a suicide bomber, not locking up suspects indefinitely without trial, not treating some of your citizens differently than others based on ethnicity, religion or bloodlines...).


Because afterall, enough time has passed and the results are in:  have these actions made Israel more secure?  Did might triumph?  Can we bomb, and kill, and imprison our way to security? Is our own country more or less powerful in the world by embracing drones and pre-emptive strikes and violently taking out those world leaders as we see fit?

I know what the Constitution here, and the New Testament teaches, but again, you can evaluate yourself just based on world results.  Look around and ask:  are we really safer or more secure in this country now, or did our tradeoff of freedoms really weaken us here at home?

If you like this,
the way things are continuing to go under Obama as under Bush, reward the lobbyists then and re-elect the man who has brought us thus far.  But please, don't confuse snubbed with stiffed.

Words still do have meaning to some of us.

Four More?

Jake Tapper* continues tracking the administration's crafty response to the dead Americans killed in Libya on September 11. (Btw, today the alleged filmmaker behind all this overseas mess was arrested and surely will be brought to justice: "We got him." *thump, thump, thump.*)

Campaigning in Virginia Beach today, President Obama seemed eager to paint the terrorist threat as waning. “Al Qaeda’s on the path to defeat,” he said. “Bin Laden is dead.”

But the Daily Beast’s Eli Lake on Wednesday reported that intelligence officials said “the early information was enough to show that the attack was planned and the work of al Qaeda affiliates operating in Eastern Libya.” “There was very good information on this in the first 24 hours,” one of the officials told Lake.
...
It’s certainly possible that intelligence officials wouldn’t want the terrorists to know that the U.S. knew about them, but that does beg the question as to why White House officials seemed to strongly suggest the attack was merely the work of an unruly mob.

I'm going to take an educated guess here, Jake:
The President is prioritizing, putting campaign politics in play before his presidential work. Why, look at the way the press initially bought in: they condemned Romney, the not-yet president, a mere campaigner himself, for his initial response, while once again giving the president a free pass...

President Obama has repeatedly said the investigation is on to find the killers and bring them to justice. But as first reported by CNN, ABC news has learned that the FBI — which has been dispatched to Libya to take the lead in the investigation — has not even reached Benghazi yet.

(I'm gonna take a pass at noting the comparison to OJ Simpson's hunt for justice for Nicole and Ron's killer... that'd be racist, right? Even if the link is not the color of the two mens' skin, but rather the funny way that one was worded. Sorry, just jumped out at me.)

A spokeswoman for Ambassador Rice, Erin Pelton, issued a statement to ABC News regarding her appearances on THIS WEEK and other Sunday shows on September 16, saying Ambassador Rice’s comments in those interviews “were prefaced at every turn with a clear statement that an FBI investigation was underway that would provide the definitive accounting of the events that took place in Benghazi. At every turn Ambassador Rice provided — and said she was providing — the best information and the best assessment that the Administration had at the time, based on what was provided to Ambassador Rice and other senior U.S. officials by the U.S. intelligence community.”

OK, so candidate Romney's response was initially more correct then, because he himself had better information or instincts already about the situation. I'm sure the press can find some way to spin that one into a negative too, if they only put their collective minds together and get working on it already...

----------------
* Aside, did you know Monica Lewinsky dated Tapper before she started dating President Clinton? Bad choice there, Monica. (cite: Monica's Story. Not a recent read; Jake's name just jogged my memory...)

Fear of a Blank President, Indeed.

Krauthammer wants Romney to connect the dots, and fill in some of those blanks missing these past 4 years. We really can't afford to lose another one, and we'll all pay the price in the end rewarding incompetence (the younger more than the older). Enough chest-thumping weakness ("Hey... I killed Osama." *thump, thump, thump*), let's go for true strength again.

In mid-September 2008, Lehman Brothers collapsed and the bottom fell out of the financial system. Barack Obama handled it coolly. John McCain did not. Obama won the presidency. (Given the country’s condition, he would have won anyway. But this sealed it.)

Four years later, mid-September 2012, the U.S. mission in Benghazi went up in flames, as did Obama’s entire Middle East policy of apology and accommodation. Obama once again played it cool, effectively ignoring the attack and the region-wide American humiliation. “Bumps in the road,” he said. Nodding tamely were the mainstream media, who would have rained a week of vitriol on Mitt Romney had he so casually dismissed the murder of a U.S. ambassador, the raising of the black Salafist flag over four U.S. embassies and the epidemic of virulent anti-American demonstrations from Tunisia to Sri Lanka (!) to Indonesia.

Obama seems not even to understand what happened. He responded with a groveling address to the U.N. General Assembly that contained no less than six denunciations of a crackpot video, while offering cringe-worthy platitudes about the need for governments to live up to the ideals of the United Nations.

...
Yet Romney totally fumbled away the opportunity. Here was a chance to make the straightforward case about where Obama’s feckless approach to the region’s tyrants has brought us, connecting the dots of the disparate attacks as a natural response of the more virulent Islamist elements to a once-hegemonic power in retreat. Instead, Romney did two things:

He issued a two-sentence critique of the initial statement issued by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo on the day the mob attacked. The critique was not only correct but vindicated when the State Department disavowed the embassy statement.
...
Make the case. Go large. About a foreign policy in ruins. About an archaic, 20th-century welfare state model that guarantees 21st-century insolvency. And about an alternate vision of an unapologetically assertive America abroad unafraid of fundamental structural change at home.

It might just work. And it’s not too late.

Whose World?

Netanyahu: 'Future of world at stake over Iran'...


It seems simple enough to me.
If Israel wants to potentially disarm their rivals in the region, they ought to offer themselves up first.

When one state skirts the "rules" of nuclear proliferation, surely we can't be too surprised when others want the same special privileges. The Mommy UN ought to let the kids work this one out themselves.

Because really?
The whole world isn't at stake. Some of us have learned, over time, to disagree peacefully with our neighbors, without having to threaten violence or arm ourselves out of fear of that hatred.

I'm confident there's nothing in the Israelis' DNA to prevent such growth from happening there too. But first, you really do have to respect your enemies and neighbors, and understand you can't bully your way to a "win". (and then go whining about how we're all at risk/the old all-in-this-together line, when your strongarming tactics fail, and you're looking to the UN... of all places, to protect you from the results of your own actions.)

Hope the lesson is learned sooner, rather than later.
(You'd hate to see another costly world war lift us out of this economic depression/recession, wouldn't you? )
------------

PLUS: You know what the video of the unconscious/perhaps already dead Ambassadon Stevens being hustled through the streets by the mob reminded me of?

The last minutes of Ghaddafy's life*. We cheered the quick justice. Remember?

We engineered that show, then we're surprised when such violent tactics backfire on our "diplomacy" efforts? The only difference is which team the soon-to-be dead man was playing for...

If he was one of ours, a horrible crime. Tragedy. Senseless death.
Thing is: to the other team? We're just getting back some, what we done to others in meddling in their country's internal revolution, and then thinking our dollars could somehow buy back peace, trust and true diplomacy.

I think Ms. Hillary and Ms. Rice and the gals might be new to this game. Unexpected? Hardly...

That's why -- once the media gets done with the fluffy political coverage and eventually gets into truly covering this PR fiasco of a story** (exactly what happened over there and when, not swallowing the initial "blame it on the movie" spin), we might learn which strategic genius underestimated the risk and left the embassy essentially unsecured.

Sounds like the ambassador had concerns.
Truth will tell, in time...

---------------------------

* "The mission was strictly to protect civilians, but it turned out that there was a hunt, a brutal hunt, of Gaddafi and his family," Mugabe said. "In a very dishonest manner we saw ... Chapter 7 being used now as a weapon to rout a whole family."

Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter allows the U.N. Security Council to authorize actions ranging from diplomatic and economic sanctions to military intervention.

"Bombs were ... thrown about in a callous manner and quite a good many civilians died. Was that the protection that they had sought under Chapter 7 of the Charter?

"So the death of Gaddafi must be seen in the same tragic manner as the death of Chris Stevens. We condemn both of them."


** Any other readers missing Anthony Shadid these days?

Power of Positivity.

If you remember this kid's performance on the basketball court a few years back, you remember how contagious his winning attitude was.

Today, you have to get down and dirty to duel, it seems, and the sneering pundits rule the day.

There's no forgetting this kid though; he's the face of our future...

"This was a great experience -- hardest thing I've ever done," McElwain told the Democrat and Chronicle. "I was struggling from [mile] 18 to 21, but then when I got to about 25 I looked at my watch. I saw 2:58 at the 200-meter mark. I just gave it everything I have.

"Just get there. Just get there. That's all I wanted to do was just get there. I trained for a year and it's all paid off."

From the mid-week inbox...

The light turned yellow, just in front of him. He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.

The tailgating woman was furious and honked her horn, screaming in frustration, as she missed her chance to get through the intersection, dropping her cell phone and makeup.As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer.

The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up.He took her to the police station where she was searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a holding cell.After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects.

He said, "I'm very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the 'What Would Jesus Do' bumper sticker, the 'Choose Life' license plate holder, the 'Follow Me to Sunday-School' bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk, so naturally....I assumed you had stolen the car."
----------------------
Heh.
Make it a great Thursday out there...
Remember: it's in your power.

This Is It.

So While You're Here, Enjoy the View...
Keep On Doing What You Do...
Hold On Tight, We'll Muddle Through
One Day at a Time...

So Up on Your Feet...
Somewhere There's Music Playing.
Don't You Worry None,
We'll Just Take It Like It Comes...

Best to Bonnie Franklin, aka Annie Romano, and her family as she announces her diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.

Heh.

Michael Tanier:

Woman just entered the coffee shop holding her baby. I patted the baby on the head. A replacement official just awarded me custody.

One nice thing about turning in early... you miss all the drama.

So you think you can tell...

Heaven from Hell?

An old cowboy was riding his trusty horse followed by his faithful dog along an unfamiliar road. The man was enjoying the new scenery, when he suddenly remembered dying, and realized that the dog beside him had been dead for years, as had his horse.
Confused, he wondered what was happening, and where the trail was leading them.

After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall that looked like fine marble. At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch topped by a golden letter "H" that glowed in the sunlight.

Standing before it, he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like gold.

He rode toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side. Parched and tired out by his journey, he called out, 'Excuse me, where are we?'

'This is Heaven, sir,' the man answered.

'Wow! Would you happen to have some water?'

'Of course, sir. Come right in, and I'll have some ice water brought right up.'

As the gate began to open, the cowboy asked, 'Can I bring my partners, too?'

'I'm sorry, sir, but we don't accept pets.'

The cowboy thought for a moment, then turned back to the road and continued riding, his dog trotting by his side.

After another long ride, at the top of another hill, he came to a dirt road leading through a ranch gate that looked as if it had never been closed. As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book.
'Excuse me,' he called to the man. 'Do you have any water?'

'Sure, there's a pump right over there. Help yourself.'

'How about my friends here?' the traveler gestured to the dog and his horse.

'Of course! They look thirsty, too,' said the man.

The trio went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old-fashioned hand pump with buckets beside it. The traveler filled a cup and the buckets with wonderfully cool water and took a long drink, as did his horse and dog.

When they were full, he walked back to the man who was still standing by the tree, reading. 'What do you call this place?' the traveler asked.

'This is Heaven,' he answered.

'That's confusing,' the traveler said. 'The man down the road said that was Heaven, too.'

'Oh, you mean the place with the glitzy, gold street and fake pearly gates? That's hell.'

'Doesn't it make you angry when they use your name like that?'

'Not at all. Actually, we're happy they screen out the folks who would leave their best friends behind.'

So you think you can tell...

Hat tip: Mom.
Musical reference: Floyd.

-----------------------------

Cold here, an indoors first day of autumn for me. Cleaning, cooking, staying home, being domestic...

Thanks John Roberts.

For fixing the game to get the "correct" result on the scoreboard.  Too big to fail, govenment-policy style...

Mitch McConnell, meanwhile, gets the balance better, understands the political game better than the Chief Justice, as he should:

“For years, the president and his Democrat allies in Congress have sworn up and down that failing to comply with the individual mandate did not result in a tax on individuals or families,” the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell (R) of Kentucky, said in a statement.

“And the reason was obvious: if Americans knew that failure to comply resulted in a tax hike, it never would have passed.”

In trying to "help" the legislation survive, Chief Justice Roberts had to invent the tax loophole. Where the administration consistently denied it was a tax, Roberts the magician suddenly changed the rules of the game: if it was a penalty, it was unconstitutional...

But if you twisted things this way and that, disregarded the people's political posturing -- which takes place in the House and the Senate, not on the Court -- then magically, the mandate was a tax.

A tax on those who don't consume medical services and then not pay for them, but oddly are punished for having better health than their neighbor.

Remember:
We're all in this together, even if we're collectively sinking under our own weight.

------------------------

Here's some clearly mistaken spin:

"This (analysis) doesn't change the basic fact that the individual responsibility policy will only affect people who can afford health care but choose not to buy it," said Erin Shields Britt of the Health and Human Services Department. "We're no longer going to subsidize the care of those who can afford to buy insurance but make a choice not to buy it."

Why not make that the policy then? No subsidizing THE CARE. Those who would consume medical care without a realistic plan for paying for it. Stop "taking all comers" at the ERs and doctors' offices then.

Making irrelevant those who do not participate in the system in any meaningful way, who don't run up big bills and then skip out on them. Don't scapegoat as "irresponsible" the strong and healthy not in need of annual medical services, procedures, prescriptions or contraceptives.

One justice pointed out -- if you promise unlimited care, somebody will eventually be asked to pick up the tab. Who? The millions of uninsured who don't treat, don't cost the system money, and who wish to retain this simple option of opting out.

aka,
Enjoy your own legally provided for contraceptives, people.
But don't ask uninvolved others to pick up your tab. You choose, you pay. Get a charity to provide it free, if you can...

But don't rely on the government to fund your freedoms.
It collapses when the branches collude, individual freedoms are taken from the people for the good of the majority (where have we heard that before?), and we shift the costs from the consumers/advocates to uninvolved others.

Don't punish those who do not participate in the system in any meaningful way, who don't run up big bills and then skip out on them.

The medical field is not immune from the same rules that govern every other business -- even a well-meaning Supreme Court justice can't change that.

Wait and see...

If John Roberts had simply done his job, with no nod to history or anyone's personal legacy, perhaps this temporary "fix" of Obamacare might have died a dignified death, on the table. Instead, I suspect we've simply prolonged the years of pain, with no significant fix to the underlying issues ailing the medical-profit/government-muddled system.

We'll be back here again, I predict -- debating the root causes of healthcare's systemic problems, and lamenting in retrospect how the policy "fix" simply helped mask the symptoms and let us turn our eyes away for a time, while the underlying rot of soaring medical costs continued to grow unimpeded.

Country Morning.

City people sometimes mistakenly believe their intellectual development will become stunted in the country.  The isolation, the conformity, being away from the creative community...

Not true necessarily.

As a reader, in these times, with an eye out always for "on sale" reading materials from second-hand stores, estate auctions, and library backrooms, you come upon some interesting old things that country people have preserved over the decades.

Not just the seemingly valuable stuff -- Woodrow Wilson's hardset series of U.S. history, or Source Records from the Great War -- but the earlier paperbacks and instructional non-fiction back when reading was still the primary entertainment, a source for independent education.

When I find that camera, (I think Mal's got it)
I'll show you some day what I've been delving into recently. 
In some ways, not being paid to research, or being a more categorical, allegedly disciplined reader has worked to my advantage, I'd say. 

My interests are broad, and my instincts confirmed over time:  writers simply wrote better, conveyed more, treated readers with more respect, back when it was a more relevant trade.
--------------------------------------------
This morning, my travels took me off the paved roads, to deliver an older gentleman to therapy at the aptly named Nature's Edge, right outside of Rice Lake.  The cooler morning meant fog, as the earth exhales into the open air. 

Then I came home, read this, and knew why right now*, this home is the place I need to be...

What’s missing in Manhattan is a seasonal fog, the kind that foretells autumn. This is the time of year when cool air begins to run downhill, gathering in the hollows and turning to ground fog. At dusk and just after, it drifts in narrow banners, head-high, across the low spots in the country north of the city. It comes out of the cattails and emanates from the hemlocks. Wherever it crosses the highway, it looks solid in the headlights — a dense silver stream — and then it turns insubstantial. Now and then it turns out not to be fog at all, but a low slip of wood-smoke from an early stove.

Surely there were ground fogs in Manhattan once, when everything north of Canal Street was still woods and meadows, when the island still kept its natural contours, the rise and fall of a rocky island. And surely there would have been wood-smoke mingling with those fogs until the breeze blew them out over the water. Sometimes, still, you can find tree-clinging fogs in Central Park. But it would be pleasant, even now, to step outdoors and see a low mist crossing Broadway or wandering down Lexington Avenue like ghostly pedestrians just before dawn, announcing the coming of autumn.

-----------------------------
* For the heightened sensual development.

Get out there and make it another good weekend, you too.

Lest We Forget...

Some sobering statistics from the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) approximating who will be responsible* in paying the penalty/taxes for failing to obtain qualifying health insurance in 2016 should Obamacare proceed as planned.

CBO: Six Million People to Pay Individual Mandate Penalty Tax in 2016
Jonathan H. Adler • September 19, 2012

The Congressional Budget Office has just released new estimates of the number of people who will be subject to the individual mandate penalty tax for failing to obtain qualifying health insurance in 2016. According to CBO’s new analysis, the penalty tax will be paid by six million people. The penalty tax will generate an estimated $7 billion for the U.S. treasury and 80 percent of those paying the penalty tax will earn less than 500 percent of the poverty level. (For reference, the poverty line for a family of four is $23,050 in 2012, according to HHS.) The estimated number of people who will have to pay the penalty tax is approximately 50 percent higher than the CBO’s 2010 estimate, but the CBO only attributes a small portion of the increase to potential state decisions to opt out of the Medicaid expansion as allowed by NFIB v. Sebelius. According to the CBO, 30 million Americans will remain uninsured in 2016.

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Added: *Or will they?

“We will not use levies, liens or criminal prosecutions if taxpayers have unpaid amounts related to the individual-coverage provision,” Steven Miller, an IRS deputy commissioner, said Tuesday at a House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing. “There will not be revenue agents involved in this. These will not be audits.”

Miller also said the IRS will match what is reported on a tax return with the information reported by insurers. The agency will then follow up by letter with taxpayers “who appear to have overpaid, underpaid and/or were not eligible for an exemption.”

He made the statement before members of the Republican-controlled House, who, with other party members, have expressed concerns that the IRS will be filling its ranks to go after those who fail to buy the insurance.

Though the IRS will not garnish wages, the agency intends to send out notices informing Americans that they failed to purchase insurance and it could still dock tax returns.

The law states that Americans who fail to buy the insurance must pay the federal government either $95 or 1 percent of their taxable household income annual in the first year.

The relatively low penalty has sparked concern that Americans will opt to pay that cost instead of buying the insurance.

However, the penalty gradually increases to $695 a person by 2016, with the maximum amount being the greater of either $2,085 per household or 2.5 percent of the household’s income, according to the Congressional Research Service.

*The Boca Video Does Not Bother Me...

Does Your Conscience Bother You?
(Tell the truth...)

------------------

* Turn It Up...

A Damning Indictment...

 as they say:

Scandal Dulls Athletic Pride at Harvard

“I have foreign roommates who come from university systems where there is no role for athletics,” Patrick Lane, a Harvard senior from Beverly, Mass., said as he stood in Harvard Yard. “So when they see athletes cutting corners like this, their response is to say, ‘Good riddance.’

“And they are not the only students troubled. Some athletes are here working hard, but others avoid academic challenges. You know you won’t find them in a deductive logic course, but you will find them in a much less taxing sociology course. They sometimes exist apart, and collectively gravitate to the same majors, like sociology or government. It’s known.”

In the In Box Today...

*Hat Tip: Mal

Waking up to the Headlines...

Protesters storm US Embassy in Yemen

By AHMED AL-HAJ | Associated Press – 14 mins ago

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Protesters angered by an anti-Islam film have stormed the U.S. Embassy compound in Yemen's capital, Sanaa.

The protesters were on the embassy's grounds but did not enter the building housing the offices.

Before storming the embassy compound on Thursday, the demonstrators removed the embassy's sign on the outer wall and set tires ablaze. Once inside the compound, they brought down the U.S. flag and burned it.

Yemen is home to al-Qaida's most active branch and the United States is the main foreign supporter of the Yemeni government's counterterrorism campaign. The government on Tuesday announced that al-Qaida's No. 2 leader in Yemen was killed in an apparent U.S. airstrike, a major blow to the terror network.

Interesting contrast in the first and last sentence there.

From the In Box...

I have been in many places, but I've never been in Cahoots. Apparently, you can't go alone. You have to be in Cahoots with someone.

  

I've also never been in Cognito. I hear no one recognizes you there...

I have, however, been in Sane:  they don't have an airport; you have to be driven there. I have made several trips there, thanks to my friends, family and work.

I would like to go to Conclusions, but you have to jump, and I'm not too much on physical activity anymore.

  

I have also been in Doubt. That is a sad place to go, and I try not to visit there too often...

I've been in Flexible, but only when it was very important to stand firm.

I may have been in Continent, but I don't remember what country I was in. (It's an age thing...)

Hat Tip:  Mom.

My September 11.

The camera is still M.I.A.
(Just kidding:  I have not yet begun to look...)

But here is a wrapup of my own personal 9/11: 
After working, I went to Clear Lake Park, with Buddy and swam.  Twice.  Cold, until you are fully submerged, then ... good feeling.

It's one of my favorite places.  Where I spent my last birthday, I think....

Hope you too celebrated freedom a bit today.  It's a reminder to swim while we still can, I guess...

See you tomorrow.

George Carlin is Dead.

But in his own way, he beats the terrorists single-handedly...

Never forget.

Because You Really Can't Have It All...

it pays to be happy in the end, with the choices you do make for yourself. 

Had things worked out differently, Mario Ancic, the Croatian lawyer, would have spent the past two weeks grinding it out on the hardcourts at the United States Open. Instead, he has been holed up in the Columbia law library, poring over his contracts casebook.
...
“I had to retire early and that’s life,” he said. “You try to deal with it and fight through it, but at some point you need to turn the page and move on to something else.”
...
“There are a bunch of guys like Roger who are older than me and still playing at a championship level,” Ancic said. “But everyone has their own story, and I’m really happy with mine.”

Learning On the Job.

Sounds like Chicago's new mayor was shamed into knowing his role:

Emanuel, facing criticism from Republicans, on Monday cancelled a planned appearance at a Chicago fundraiser for a super PAC backing Democratic house candidates and suspended his fundraising on behalf of Priorities USA Action, the super PAC supporting President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign.

“Everything is on hold at this moment,” Tom Bowen, head of Emanuel’s political operation, told POLITICO in an email.

There are “no plans at this time” to reschedule his scheduled appearance for House Majority PAC, said Andy Stone, a spokesman for the super PAC. The fundraiser, reported last week by POLITICO, will proceed Monday at a Chicago steakhouse without Emanuel, Stone said.
...
“Chicago families deserve the mayor’s complete attention this week,” Illinois Republican Party Chairman Pat Brady said in a statement. “Mayor Emanuel should put aside his Obama Super PAC fundraising work and put Chicago issues first.”

The funny thing is,
I suspect many of us believe Barack Obama -- with his multi-racial background and community organizing skills, plus his dedicated wife --  might have made a perfectly effective Chicago mayor in the post-Daley era. 

Where better to tackle the crime, education, health and welfare issues on a smaller scale, rather than the nation-building/foreign policy package which has so eluded the president's people?  (Yes, I include Hillary here.  Nevermind her boosters, aside from the hairstyle changes and worldwide carrot/dollars delivery, what exactly has she accomplished abroad again?  For the country, not in building her own career, I mean...)

But when the political games ended,
Chief of Staff Daley was out a job;  Mayor Emanuel sits on Chicago's golden throne; and the president is fighting to keep his job.

If competition is key to these folks,
why not consider a run for local office, if nationally the voters decide such progressivism is not a good fit for the country as a whole?  Mayor Emanuel v. former President Obama for the right to decide Chicago's future.

Is the job not big enough, or the people not important enough, to risk working in a smaller setting?  If so, that seems a shame.  Instead of manipulating the system, it would be nice to see these allegedly skillful political players compete against one another to produce something long-lasting for the people they claim to want to empower.

Education is key, and crime is something that must be addressed, not simply "contained" to gang-infested neighborhoods.  It's a huge job, sure, but once you get past the message manipulating, the fundraising "work" and the high-pressure tactics of running a successful election campaign, surely you'd want to put your skills to use to actually accomplish something for the good of the people?

(and no, I don't count forcing insurance on the formerly uninsured -- plenty by choice --as some grand accomplishment for the good of the people...)

Chicago Teachers Strike.

Years ago, this was a common post-Labor Day occurence. 
I went to a south suburban high school, wasn't directly affected, just observed that the city parents who cared enough about their children's education often got their kids in using an auntie or grandparents' address within our district boundaries. 
Sometimes these fellow students lived with their new guardians; sometimes they took the bus south in the morning and got dropped off at the RTA stop down the street from the school. 

You hope the city leaders get it figured out soon.   Put the kids first and all...

Working as a summer reporter at the Daily Calumet/Southtown Economist Lansing bureau in '88, we ran a front-page picture of a young man sweating in his seat at CVS -- Chicago Vocational School -- alongside my story of the kids broasting in un-air-conditioned classrooms in the middle of June, making up for the month (19 days) missed because of striking teachers in the fall of the school year...

I'm sure I still have it with my clippings.  He was a heavyset fellow, and you could kind of boil down the whole miserable affair -- the power play of bucks and pride -- to that one representative face.

I don't know if newspapers still cover stories like that -- if anyone leaves the office anymore and looks to see how real, unknown everyday people are affected.  You hope the city leaders can get this thing re-solved soon...

Maybe pull a big Reagan/TSA move,
let the striking teachers go like he did the air traffic controllers, and bring in eager young replacements -- freshly minted teachers out of work with their ideals still intact enough to cross the picket lines?

The mayor has recently taken on a temp job doing PAC fundraising for the presidential election, but I'm confident he understands that doing the job -- not just winning the right to serve as the leader responsible for getting the job done -- matters now more than ever.

Even if more and more schools are air-conditioned now...

ADDED:
Apparently they're keeping the school buildings open to feed and shelter the children.  Here's a precious statement, so real it's kind of sad:

“They’re not hurting the teachers, they’re hurting us,” said Ta’Shara Edwards, a 16-year-old student at Robeson High School on the city’s South Side. She said her mother made her come to class to do homework because so she “wouldn’t suck up her light bill.”

"And I Will Raise You Up..."

on Eagle's Wings...

(Reuters) - A Pakistani military helicopter plucked a young Christian girl accused of blasphemy from a prison yard on Saturday and flew her to a secret location after she was granted bail.

Live broadcasts showed heavily-armed police surrounding Rimsha Masih, believed to be no older than 14, covering her face with a green scarf as she walked to the helicopter.

A judge granted Masih bail on Friday and her lawyers are applying to have charges that she burned pages from the Koran dismissed after a local cleric was detained on suspicion of planting false evidence to stir resentment against Christians.

Even before that arrest, Masih's case provoked international concern as she could face execution under Pakistan's blasphemy law despite her young age and reported mental problems.

The dramatic nature of Masih's release underlined the fear for her life.

The lawyer prosecuting her suggested she could be lynched if found not guilty. Blasphemy charges are frequently followed by deadly riots against minority communities. 

...

Bear you on the breath of dawn...
Make you to shine like the sun...
and hold you in the palm of His hand...


Added:   Actually, I like this version better...
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Sorry, too much work here to shoot any photos this weekend.  Soon though...

Make it a great Monday and follow-up week.

Saturday.

Harvest season, with mornings in the 50s and 60s, and the early spring this year plus dry summer leading to an early autumn.

The mother of a child down the street, who'll be celebrating her golden birthday on Oct. 5, told me the girl thinks the big day is coming soon. When the pumpkins are out, and the patches producing already, she thinks it's time.

Even if the calendar still says early September...

---------------

Yesterday, I was in Duluth. Caught some rain showers coming and going (hey -- cleaned the dusty car) and I wished I'd brought my camera for the view of the harbor from above. It was a part-time volunteer position -- they pay mileage -- on a blue-sky day.

Today, I'll try to dig up the camera and get out there snapping. But I always say: less here means Real Life is coming in first...

It really is the most wonderful time of the year:
Autumn, with the apples, honey and pumpkins. (Onions and garlic too.)  Just less commercialized.

Make it a good one, you too.

Wait... There's More.

Alexandra Petri, again:

I’ve never seen someone deliver a filibuster at a convention before.

On Wednesday night, Bill Clinton spoke at the Democratic National Convention. And spoke. And spoke.

His speech went on for 50 minutes. It was like Return of the King, except that you kept thinking Return of the King was about to end, and the longer Clinton spoke, the more convinced you became that his speech wouldn’t.

Sensing that the speech was going to take a while, I got up, made myself a sandwich, sat down, picked up Ulysses, read it from start to finish, raised three beautiful children, and darted back to the television just in time to see him flip to the fourth page.

"Ah Did Not Have Sex with That Woman..."

Personally, I think plenty of Dems will stay home, or uniformally vote out the incumbents.

All the words in the world mean little when you've lost voters' basic trust. And that finger wagging? Remains to be seen how effective this message is, when we all remembered how true that other full-throated passionate denial turned out to be...

In a way,
Bill Clinton's escapades begat a President George W. Bush. (The media might forget the disgust of those days; plenty of people, I suspect, don't.) And President Bush's performance was so low, voters gambled on an unknown, simply to again clean house. This one promised to bring us back home again, but his people pretty much followed President Bush's miserable lead.

Here we are again then. The pretty talk, the promises, the denial.

Will it work? Are voters maturing in their old age, and the kids of today cynical enough not to fall for the simple seduction?

We shall see. It's game on in this new media world, with the traditional opinion-makers holding less sway, and the playing board on past promises pretty much wiped clean.

Like an etch-a-sketch, come to think of it...

"Ah, Sugar Sugar..."

The new young kid* writing a humor blog for WaPo (no, not Ezra's funnny-charts-and-numbers Journolist schtick) watched tv last night, consuming the hype so we don't have to...

If there was a single point in Michelle Obama’s speech that anyone would be willing to disagree with, I’ll eat one of those ubiquitous convention cowboy hats. That is the whole point of First Lady speeches.

She began by talking about the sacrifice of military families, hardly a controversial topic, before segueing into her inspiring family story, life with Barack, and her hopes for her daughters.

You couldn’t find anything to critique, If you sat down intending to shout angrily at the television the best you could do was point out timidly that you stood at the altar “with whom you love,” not “with who you love.” And that seemed petty.

It offered, at times, an unsubtle contrast with Romney, stressing that “data” and “numbers” were no way to solve things that came across the President’s desk. No, Michelle said, at times like that, it mattered that Barack Obama was Like You and understood your story — Really Understood, not just in the theoretical way that you understand the American story if your governess read you numerous Horatio Alger novels. It was brutal.

It was a delicious speech. I ate it up.

Its contents were nil, but, as the Internet murmured in unison, what more does one expect from a first lady’s speech?
Substance?
No. Of course not.

For someone famously associated with broccoli, this speech was heavy on the spun sugar and light on the iron. But it was sweet indeed.

By Alexandra Petri  |  03:32 AM ET, 09/05/2012

*Fresh outta Hahvahd, she's a Wisconsin gal educated in DC because Dad's a Fond du Lac Dem. Republican Rep. (thanks for spoiling the alliteration rhythm, dad.)