Mind droppings

I once counted up to 5000 walking to the babysitter's after school one day. I also used to hum a tune in my head that would remind me of what her address was. To this day I haven't forgotten it. I also used to run my ass off whenever it looked like strange cars were pulling up to me. My parents trained me well. I used to hide my bad grades from my parents, too. I had a C on a report card in 4th grade and was too afraid to bring home to have signed. Got in a lot of trouble for that, as I repeatedly lied to them about the whereabouts of my report card. I think dad assigned me 100 lines of "I will not lie to my parents". Fat fucking chance that worked. I now hate lying and liars, but for years after that I continued to try bullshitting my way out of the most mundane things. I'm saying all of this to get to a point. The reason why I loathe Sarah Palin is that she's getting away with something at age 40+ that I wasn't able to get away with at age 9 over matters far more serious than a shit report care grade.

-RL

The Palin Chronic(les)

Disclaimer: I have not read and have no intention of reading Sarah Palin's "book". Based upon every review I've read and my own personal dislike of the former Republican Vice Presidential hopeful, my time would be better spent rubbing Purell in my eyes while gargle-singing the Star-Spangled Banner.

With that being said, I did happen upon a particularly strong and stinging review of the "book" that made me alternate between chuckling and crying. ginandtacos.com >>> GOING ROGUE.

If the "book" is even remotely close to this reviewer's presentation of it, there needn't anything else be said. Between Palin's crying foul over this week's cover of Newsweek being "sexist" and Andrew Sullivan's chronicling the odd lies of the former governor, I feel assured that the "book" is nothing more than a hubristic recounting of a political career built on preying upon the fears of the public and relying upon the unwillingness of the large media to call her out.

I wish there was some certainty within me to say that the circus will soon be over. But I have more than a sneaking suspicion that we're only in the beginning of a long and drawn-out Palin period.

-rl

New layout

As my 2 loyal readers know, I've been posting with less and less frequency since the election of President Obama. This isn't because I've grown dissatisfied with him, as I feel quite to the contrary. Blogging (writing more generally) used to be a fervent passion of mine and still does arouse my passions from time to time. However, with my work schedule being how it is, I find it increasingly difficult to read and research many of the nuclei which become an entire post.

I'm trying to avoid claiming that this a tremendously serious endeavor for me, as it has always been more of a hobby. But this hobby of mine has become harder to pursue, owing to time constraints and an increasingly firm unwillingness to say or do anything that will put my employment in jeopardy.

Does this mean that this is it? Bloggin Ryan is saying arrivederci to the blogosphere? Of course not. I mean, I just tried to clean out my template a bit. That shows some willingness to keep face and keep pressing on, yeah?

What it does mean is that the infrequent posting will remain as such for the foreseeable future... (with some spurts, undoubtedly).

Moving on.

November is National Novel Writing Month and the good people at the aforelinked NaNoWriMo encourage writers of all stripes to put down pages, unedited, for the entire month of November. It sounds like a brilliant good time and personally, I'm going to try to cobble together some pages to submit.

That's pretty much all for now, my dear 2 readers. Have a safe Halloween weekend!

-rl

New Yorkers to Obama: We'll Throw Our Own Bums Out, Thank You

A poll by Marist College in New York suggests that voters of all stripes think that President Obama overstepped when urging Governor David Paterson to not run for election in 2010. New Yorkers apparently aren't afraid to tell the Gov himself to take a hike, with 63% of all voters (D, R, and non-affiliated) believing Paterson should not seek the office in his own right.

Important takeaway: 65% of Dems, 1% more than Repubs, believe Paterson should not seek election.

(HT to TPM)

You lie! and other media notes.

While the media and talking heads are continuing to gnash about the outburst of Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), they are failing to meet a critical end of journalism: telling the truth. While Rep. Wilson's outburst gets played over and over, no member of the networks, broadcast or cable, is seeming to step up to the plate and call Wilson's outburst what it is: a lie itself.

Through emails and other newer versions of gossip, the lie that the President's and Democratic proposal will cover illegal immigrants continues to fester, in spite of the work of enterprising journalists and people just generally interested in the facts. So while the truth is that illegal immigrants would not be given cover under the bill as proposed, the mainstream media has no quarter for truth in their continued pursuit of "gotcha" moments and personality-driven infotainment.

This all brings me to a second point.

Earlier this week, reporters and former Presidents came together to honor the man who was at the vanguard of journalism for two decades, Walter Cronkite. The man who was, in President Obama's words, "a voice of certainty in a world that was growing more and more uncertain." This voice of certainty in uncertain times is something that is missing, because rather than give us solid answers free of bias, these so-called newsmen that we have today feed the fires of uncertainty and weigh us over with bias while claiming to be fair, balanced, and unbiased.

Between financial issues in the print media and the generally sad and sordid state of affairs in broadcast journalism, I find it to be little wonder that Americans as a whole are cynical regarding the state of affairs in this country.

Journalism needs to be rebuilt from the ground level. Frequently it is people whose only business in journalism is business that are making the decisions as to what can and should be reported and what can't and shouldn't be. Why not devolve the power of editorial to journalists and their cohorts instead of a corporate board of directors whose interest may be self-serving instead of serving the public interest?

I can't provide any answers... but maybe one day we can have a solution.

-rl

The 26 lies about health care reform that might be in your inbox.

FactCheck, as usual, does a brilliant job at digging through a widely-circulated email about the proposed health care reform in HR 3200.

Twenty-six Lies About H.R. 3200

Health care reform opponents frequently cite this email and the misinformation it contains as the basis of their opposition to what they call the socialization/communization of the country. Of course, if you feel compelled to read the bill yourself, you'll find very little in that email is valid.

Sanity from a Republican: Johnny Isakson on the "Death Panel" Lies

Senator Johnny Isakson, Republican from Georgia, talks common sense with Ezra Klein about the progress of health care reform in the Senate and debunks co-partisan Palin's outright lie about "death panels".

I'm going to copy and paste the interview in here for people on Facebook. Posting of this interview on this blog does not constitute a claim of ownership or authorship.


Is the Government Going to Euthanize your Grandmother? An Interview With Sen. Johnny Isakson.
Sarah Palin's belief that the House health-care reform bill would create "death panels" might be particularly extreme, but she's hardly the only person to wildly misunderstand the section of the bill ordering Medicare to cover voluntary end-of-life counseling sessions between doctors and their patients.

One of the foremost advocates of expanding Medicare end-of-life planning coverage is Johnny Isakson, a Republican Senator from Georgia. He co-sponsored 2007's Medicare End-of-Life Planning Act and proposed an amendment similar to the House bill's Section 1233 during the Senate HELP Committee's mark-up of its health care bill. I reached Sen. Isakson at his office this afternoon. He was befuddled that this had become a question of euthanasia, termed Palin's interpretation "nuts," and emphasized that all 50 states currently have some legislation allowing end-of-life directives. A transcript of our conversation follows.

Is this bill going to euthanize my grandmother? What are we talking about here?

In the health-care debate mark-up, one of the things I talked about was that the most money spent on anyone is spent usually in the last 60 days of life and that's because an individual is not in a capacity to make decisions for themselves. So rather than getting into a situation where the government makes those decisions, if everyone had an end-of-life directive or what we call in Georgia "durable power of attorney," you could instruct at a time of sound mind and body what you want to happen in an event where you were in difficult circumstances where you're unable to make those decisions.

This has been an issue for 35 years. All 50 states now have either durable powers of attorney or end-of-life directives and it's to protect children or a spouse from being put into a situation where they have to make a terrible decision as well as physicians from being put into a position where they have to practice defensive medicine because of the trial lawyers. It's just better for an individual to be able to clearly delineate what they want done in various sets of circumstances at the end of their life.

How did this become a question of euthanasia?

I have no idea. I understand -- and you have to check this out -- I just had a phone call where someone said Sarah Palin's web site had talked about the House bill having death panels on it where people would be euthanized. How someone could take an end of life directive or a living will as that is nuts. You're putting the authority in the individual rather than the government. I don't know how that got so mixed up.

You're saying that this is not a question of government. It's for individuals.

It empowers you to be able to make decisions at a difficult time rather than having the government making them for you.

The policy here as I understand it is that Medicare would cover a counseling session with your doctor on end-of-life options.

Correct. And it's a voluntary deal.

It seems to me we're having trouble conducting an adult conversation about death. We pay a lot of money not to face these questions. We prefer to experience the health-care system as something that just saves you, and if it doesn't, something has gone wrong.

Over the last three-and-a-half decades, this legislation has been passed state-by-state, in part because of the tort issue and in part because of many other things. It's important for an individual to make those determinations while they're of sound mind and body rather than no one making those decisions at all. But this discussion has been going on for three decades.

And the only change we'd see is that individuals would have a counseling session with their doctor?

Uh-huh. When they become eligible for Medicare.

Are there other costs? Parts of it I'm missing?

No. The problem you got is that there's so much swirling around about health care and people are taking bits and pieces out of this. This was thoroughly debated in the Senate committee. It's voluntary. Every state in America has an end of life directive or durable power of attorney provision. For the peace of mind of your children and your spouse as well as the comfort of knowing the government won't make these decisions, it's a very popular thing. Just not everybody's aware of it.

What got you interested in this subject?

I've seen the pain and suffering in families with a loved one with a traumatic brain injury or a crippling degenerative disease become incapacitated and be kept alive under very difficult circumstances when if they'd have had the chance to make the decision themself they'd have given another directive and I've seen the damage financially that's been done to families and if there's a way to prevent that by you giving advance directives it's both for the sanity of the family and what savings the family has it's the right decision, certainly more than turning it to the government or a trial lawyer.

Green (!) Revolution and reminders of why the American system works.

While I haven't been reading any primary sources about the nascent rebellion amongst Mousavi supporters in Iran, Andrew Sullivan, Justin Gardner at Donklephant and Josh Marshall/TPM have been doing an admirable job following the tweets and reports coming out of Tehran and elsewhere in Iran.

Based upon all that information, it seems something is brewing Iran. Frustration over Ahmadinejad's isolating tendencies and crippling economic policies have boiled over following the purported outcome of the election - the Iranian authorities first having told Mousavi that he was victorious then only to announce that Ahmadinejad had trounced all takers, winning over 63% of votes cast.

People in and from Iran have been twittering allegations of fraud that appear extraordinarily consistent: ballot boxes stolen and burned, government clampdown on media during the final hours of the election, brute violence, et cetera. Now Mousavi's supporters have taken to the streets and are protesting the election, clashing with police and an internal group called Ansar-e Hezbollah. It appears, based on Sullivan's posting of tweets, that Ansar-e Hezbollah has been targeting college and university students and brutally attacking them.

Could you imagine that in the United States?

I can't.

Here's a link to English-language twitter feeds that Sullivan compiled: Following the Revolution in Iran.

Please discuss.

-rl

What if the left-wing had done this to the right-wing?

CNN is reporting that there has been a shooting at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. Certain sources are also claiming that the shooter was/is an 87 year-old white male with a history of anti-semitic/anti-Jewish writings and ties to white supremacists. Just last weekend, a radical right-wing man with a gun shot and killed a woman's health specialist (read: abortion provider) in a church for his providing women with abortions.

In less than two weeks time, there have been two instances of right-wing people perpetrating acts of violence against objects/people with perceived liberal/left-wing tendencies.

Tell me, when is the last time you heard about a left-wing fanatic attack and kill people in this country? Yes, I will freely admit it has happened. Remember, Sarah Palin says our President pals around with terrorists (Bill Ayers). But when in the last two decades has this happened?

Please. I want to know.

Food for thought and other bits of lead plumbing

For all the hemming and hawing that certain right-wing organizations do comparing the downfall of the United States, due to its lack of Christocity, to that of the Roman Empire, we must remember that they are wrong. Why are they wrong?

Christianity was adopted as the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380 AD by Theodosius I, well before the sack of Rome in 476 AD by Odoacer. Remember that correlation is not causation and I do not mean to imply that Christianity hastened the fall of the Western Roman Empire, but rather I simply wish call out those certain right-wing organizations for the lack of fact-checking.