Republicans and Cancer

If you support the Republicans this year, any Republicans, then I’d like to send you a message: I hope you get cancer.  I know.  This is a very, very cruel thing to wish on anyone.  I don’t make this wish lightly.  I make it being 8 months out from the devastating illness and death suffered my amazing, perfect and brilliant mom.  So, why would I say such a thing?  I say it because if you support anyone in the Republican Party, you are supporting a platform of complete denial of federal funds for research on human embryonic stem cells.  Why is this their platform?  Because besides denying a woman her right to determine what she can do with her body, they believe that some petri dish fertilized egg, which will never, ever have hope of being implanted or ever developing past a small mass of cells, is a person.  And that religiously derived belief is denying you, your parent, your spouse or your child the necessary treatments and perhaps cure that you or they need.  So, if you are that selfish, I hope you come to understand why that position is vile to me.  More vile than wishing you cancer. 

Having said this, I am pretty sure that if you, your parent, your spouse, or your child got sick, you would do everything within your power to make sure that a cure was being worked on with every spare dollar the U.S. government can devote.  But right now, you clearly don’t give a damn. 

In 1998, a report was written which specified the need to approve human embryonic stem cell research.  http://www.biolchem.ucla.edu/labs/Tim_Lane/login/StemCell_pdf%20files/Gearhart.html

In June of this year, The Guardian reported the devastating effects the anti-abortion movement in Europe could have on human embryonic stem cell research.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jun/15/stem-cell-scientists-human-embryo-research

There is general consensus among researchers and scientists that our best hope for the treatment of cancer, spinal cord injuries, diabetes, and a whole host of other illnesses is human embryonic stem cell research.   However, given the respect to accepted scientific findings that the Republican Party has given climate scientists, I expect that there will be a scientist or two that say that adult stem cells are just as good.  So here’s a question: if you were dealing with a cancer diagnosis would you want to rely upon what a couple of outlier scientists have opined as “just as good”?  Or would you want what the best research scientists in the world have determined as the best possible treatment that might cure you…or your child?  

There are a ton of reasons I have for not supporting this intellectually stunted party.  However, I have lived with a siege of cancer this year and in the past few years.  My mother, my father-in-law, my friend’s daughter, my best friend, all passed and a slew of family and friends living with cancer actively or in remission.  And now, our friends’ sweet 11 year old is suffering a battering treatment the very report of which makes my heart move into my stomach.  No parent should ever have to watch their child get beams of radiation to his head while his head is kept still in a mesh mask.  Does this upset you?  Does this make you cringe?  Wretch a little at the thought?  That’s how I feel when I think of religious zealot politicians legislating science to the detriment of all of us.  

Please.  Do not support a party who has summarily dismissed intelligence, education and science.  Vote your conscience.  Vote as if your life depended upon it.  Hell…vote as if your child’s life depended upon it.

MY LETTER TO 13 YEAR OLD GIRLS

Dear 13 Year Old Girls:

When dressing for a Bar Mitzvah, or a school dance, or some other event, here are some tips which might help you.  Please understand that this is not intended to be mean or to be a lecture.  I was a 13 year old girl, too, and I fought my mother to wear clothes that made me feel more grown up.  It’s normal. However, now that I am a grown-up who goes to these parties and stands with other grown-ups and hears what they say about you, I can tell you that the tips I offer below are really important and will save you, and your parents, embarrassment.

1.    Spandex clothing - You do not look cool or hot or anything but silly and very, very young when you wear spandex dresses which you cannot help but pull down and/or up every 10 seconds.  You might have a rocking body.  However, a great body at 13 years old is not an invitation to dress like Kim Kardashian.  It is simply not age appropriate.  You look ridiculous and every adult standing around and looking at you is thinking “Where was her mother?” and “Her father let her out of the house like that?”   They do not think you look hot.  In fact, they talk among themselves about how stupid you look. Right now, when you insist that your mother buy you that band-aid dress and she objects (and I hope to heaven she is objecting and not voluntarily dressing you like “Lolita”) keep this in mind: When you convince your mother to buy that dress, you are not only making a fool out of yourself, you are making a fool out of her.  One other thing, it is also more than likely that you do not have a rocking body, yet.  You just think you do because you are getting boobs and that makes you feel older and more mature.  However, know this, if you don’t have a great body, dressing in spandex does not make you look mature.  It makes you look like a stuffed sausage.  Not older, not hotter, just fatter.

2.    Sky High Heels - There are some things that simply need to be left to adulthood.  Sky high heels are one of them.  It takes years of practice on an ever increasing grade of heel in order to perfect your walk in high heels.  Most mature women have not yet mastered this (just spend a day in NYC and watch).  When you clomp around, teetering like some pubescent Tower of Pisa, those of us who took the time to learn to walk in heels cannot help but laugh at you.  We think you look stupid.

3.    Black - This goes with spandex.  Do you know why women wear black?  Because it is slimming, elegant, and not overly attention getting.  When you are 13, there is simply no reason to wear an all black dress.   You don’t look older.  Again, you look like you’re trying to look older.  This is the one time in your life when you can wear colors and not be accused of being a show off and trying to draw attention to yourself.  Enjoy it!

4.    iPhones - When you stand in a group on the dance floor holding your iPhones and pretending to dance on the high heels in which you can barely stand, you look...say it with me...stupid. There is simply not one reason in the world why, when you are with all of your friends, that you need your phone in your hand at all times.  Unless of course, you think you may need help.  Which brings us to #5...

5.    Boys - No 13 year old boy is looking at you when you dress in spandex and high heels.  Do you know why?  Because they are completely intimidated by you.  13 year old boys are not mature enough to know how to deal with their own burgeoning sexuality, let alone know how to deal with you dressed as a 20 year old.  So, if they are not looking at you, who is?  Well, if you get away with it and don’t look like a 13 year old prostitute, the 24 year old cousin drinking at the bar is looking at you.  He doesn’t know you’re 13.  And he has plenty of ideas of what to do with a girl who dresses like you.  Plenty.

I hope that this resonates with you because, quite frankly, I am embarrassed for you.  I stand there and look at you and listen to what my friends are saying about you, your parents, their judgment, your judgment, etc., and it makes me cringe.  It’s like watching a train wreck.  There is no reason why, at 13, you should be marked as “one of those girls” simply because your parents were too weak to say no.  There is no reason why someone should say “what was (insert name here) thinking dressing her chubby little girl in a spandex mini-skirt with a zipper up the front?”  None.  And if you don’t have enough respect for yourself, have some for your parents, because it is their friends laughing at them behind their backs – and we all know how horrible that can be.

Outrage-ous

I was recently at the gym and looked up at one of the television screens which was tuned to FoxNews.  What I saw was a former Shell Oil executive expressing his outrage at the 2010 comments of a regional administrator of the EPA who stated that his office's way of dealing with oil and gas companies who fail to follow the EPA regulations, was to make examples of them. The words the administrator chose to express the way his office handled these noncompliance companies was to "crucify them." 

There is no question that the statement was a posturing, self-aggrandizing statement made by one guy who, by no means, makes the policy for the Obama administration. And, the Obama administration made it clear that this is not their policy within the EPA.  However, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma decided to make this stupid two year old statement of one low level administrator an example of the "general philosophy" of the Obama administration.  He contends that the President  wants to "increase the price of gas and electricity," as if President Obama sits up at night twirling his mustache and thinking of new ways to screw American citizens. 

The picture of the Shell Oil executive taking umbrage with this statement and making it a referendum on the President's energy policy seemed so ludicrous, I couldn't hold back my laughter. I mean, really, Sen. Inhofe?  You vote against repealing billions of dollars in subsidies to oil companies and this is thing with which you take issue?  And can we really take the word of the guy whose company gets all those subsidies and pays Sen. Inhofe to raise this stupid non-issue?

The next concocted "outrage" reported on Fox News that morning was in response to moveon.org's suggestion that use of the word "illegal" in connection with immigrants is a hate crime.  I must be honest, I haven't given this one much thought and I am smart enough not to have a knee-jerk reaction to stuff like this until I have a chance to fully understand the issue (unlike the folks at Fox News who knee-jerk everything no matter how trivial).  What struck me was not the vitriol with which every story they cover is encased, but the fact that this relative minutiae is what they are covering while they completely ignore the fact that in approx. 21 states in this country the Republican controlled legislatures and governors' offices are systematically and in coordinated fashion, destroying democracy.

I'm sure those of you who get your news from Fox only have no idea of this.  In fact, this story is also not being adequately covered in the main stream media, either.  However, if you pay attention to one thing and one thing only, you might want to know what is going on in Michigan.  

In Republican led Michigan, in a purported effort to help cities and municipalities (the majority's of which are primarily African-American and lower income areas) which are having economic problems, the state government has passed a law which allows the state to come in and dismiss all elected officials and install "emergency managers" to come in and take over all decision making for those municipalities.  These emergency managers come in, terminate police officers,  fire, and other public employees, eliminate unions and overall destroy the local communities.  Their reasoning is that these local governments are just not effectively handling the economic issues and need the brilliant guidance of Republican surrogates who know better how to fix things.  Unfortunately, what they are doing is completely decimating these cities and depriving their citizens of a say in their own governance. They are, in effect, creating small dictatorships where the residents of cities must comply with the desires of the big ruling party in the State house and with no ability to vote out those who are ruling at the local level.  http://www.freep.com/article/20120425/NEWS05/204250386/Ex-Pontiac-emergency-manager-Law-is-a-quick-fix-destined-to-fail  

This is a destruction of democracy in its worst form. And where is the Fox News outrage?  Moreover, where is the public outrage about the erosion of democracy?

The fact is, the problem with these municipalities is not that they have been horribly mismanaged.  These municipalities cannot financially survive because the federal government has not been able to provide economic assistance needed  due to the GOP insistence of austerity.  Once the federal dollars are cut off from the state and local governments, how could a local municipality whose population has decreased because of a significant foreclosure  rate, rebuild?  When people leave their homes, they do not pay the taxes that are necessary to provide the services that are desperately needed.  When a town's population is decimated, no business will want to bring their businesses into that municipality.   Thus, further destroying the economic feasibility of a successful rebuild. This isn't rocket science. It's simple common sense. 

If you want to be truly outraged by something, how about being outraged by the fact that  deregulation and disastrous economic policy of the prior administration  caused the housing market in these poorer areas completely tank?  How about being outraged by the fact that for the people in these communities, the state government is effectively telling them "democracy isn't working here, so we'll try a dictatorship"? 

There is a lot about which you can be outraged.  However, none of it is going to be covered by Fox. Maybe that's reason enough to turn the channel?

Brinksmanship

I’m tired.  I’m absolutely exhausted.  Every media outlet, in an effort to seem “fair and balanced” has taken the position that Washington is broken and what just happened with the debt ceiling debate is the fault of both parties.  This is simply not true and we have to stop pretending that it is.

The debt ceiling has been raised 89 times since its institution.  It is, as stated by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (R) when he was Bush's Budget Director, a "housekeeping matter." http://bit.ly/qAEQL2   The Constitution requires that we honor our debts.  That should be enough to inspire our legislators to vote up the debt ceiling, which is simply the authority to borrow enough money to pay our already incurred debt.  However, we have a new brand of Republican in Congress.  And this new brand is willing, nay wanting, to take down the full faith and credit of the United States if they do not get their way.  Never mind that they are a minority of the majority party in one half of Congress.  Never mind that a majority of the people of this country elected Democrats, in majority, to govern.  Never mind that every poll shows that the majority of Americans want compromise and want taxes increased for the wealthy.  None of this matters.  Not if you are willing to throw America off a cliff.  And that is what happened.  And it was the entire fault of one party.

The S&P downgraded our rating, not because of the failure of the government to compromise, but because of the “political brinksmanship” of the process.  Rep. Boehner said he got 98% of what he wanted.  Why do you suppose that is?  Does that sound like a fair negotiation to you?

In every negotiation there is a give and a take.  You have a list of the things you want and a list of things you will sacrifice to get the most important things you want.  Inevitably, depending upon the leverage you have, you get some of the things you wanted and give up some.  Here, although in the majority with a mandate from the people, the Democrats felt it necessary to give up an increase in revenues by taxing the wealthy and closing loopholes and instead, to give the Republicans 98% of what they wanted.  Is it that the GOP had that kind of leverage?  What would give them that kind of leverage?  Insanity.  That’s what.  These elected officials not only used the full faith and credit of our country as a hostage, but yelled as loud as they could to anyone who would listen, that they would take the country down, in violation of the Constitution (a document they claim to revere) if they didn’t get what they wanted.

The Democrats gave everything to make sure we did the responsible thing as a country.  They would have preferred an up or down vote and would have agreed to address the deficit separately.  This did not have to happen.  It is a crisis manufactured by the GOP.  It could have been handled responsibly.  In his September 26, 1987 radio address, Pres. Reagan said:

    Congress consistently brings the Government to the edge of default before facing its responsibility. This brinkmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits. Interest rates would skyrocket, instability would occur in financial markets, and the Federal deficit would soar. The United States has a special responsibility to itself and the world to meet its obligations. It means we have a well-earned reputation for reliability and credibility – two things that set us apart from much of the world.

However now, in direct opposition to the man they claim as a god, the GOP insists they will continue to govern in this way.  As Senate Minority leader McConnell said: “I think some of our members may have thought the default issue was a hostage you might take a chance at shooting,” he said. “Most of us didn’t think that. What we did learn is this — it’s a hostage that’s worth ransoming.” 

What the GOP did is not negotiation.  This is not a situation which is the fault of “both parties.”  This is terrorism and we are the victims.

The Hypocrisy of Gov. Christie

My first blog post should probably be some sort of introduction to why I decided to start writing my opinions down on paper.  However, I really just want to get to the point.  Basically, we can chalk it up to sheer aggravation.  So here I go...

Yesterday, on my way home from work, listening to local news on the radio, the reporter played a clip of a quote from Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) regarding his opinion of creationism vs. evolution.  Turns out, at a recent town hall meeting, Gov. Christie was asked whether he believed that creationism should be taught in public schools.  His answer was: “Evolution is required teaching, if there’s a certain school district that also wants to teach creationism, that’s not something we should decide in Trenton.”  He then went on to say that local school boards “should be making those decisions about what curriculum is being taught in your schools.”  To follow this up, when he was then asked if he believed in creationism or evolution, his response was: “That’s none of your business. . .”

The press and specifically Fox News make a big deal about Chris Christie the plain talker, the guy who speaks his mind without regard for politics or ramifications.  They rant about how he is a refreshing change and how he is real and not like other politicians.  My problem with this is: Who the hell cares what he thinks?  He’s an idiot!  He doesn’t know that the local school boards cannot decide to teach creationism as part of the curriculum of a public school because that would violate the Constitution?  Really?  And he’s a Governor?  And the GOP keeps talking about having him run for President?  Not for nothing, but I prefer my leaders to have a clue about the document upon which our nation was founded.

Moreover, it is exactly the business of the citizens of New Jersey (and the U.S., if he plans on representing the rest of the country) as to whether he believes in a theory that the world’s scientific community has accepted as fact (“theory” being a wishy-washy term for that which is scientifically universally accepted) or a story told by faith (i.e., the belief in something which cannot be proven) which is utterly disproven by fact (e.g., dinosaurs did not live on this earth with human beings 3000 years ago.)  If, by chance, Gov. Christie believes in creationism and does not believe in evolution, it is our business. We should know if the party the GOP plans to one day push into the presidential sphere is a religious zealot with no regard for science.  I, for one, do not wish to see our country move backwards to the dark ages.  What about you, Gov. Christie?  Or do you want to go back there so you can see the dinosaurs in person?