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As the health care debate goes forward in the Senate, it would be appropriate to reevaluate everything again.
We don’t have time for that.
Here is what we do know.. Insurance Companies take a big bite out of U.S. Commerce. Medical costs take a big bite out of our economy. Only inclusion of the public option will have any affect on changing America for the better.
The public option will create more jobs.
The public option will increase discretionary spending.
The public option will increase medical coverage to almost all citizens.
The public option will lower the national debt.
The public option will increase the healthiness of America’s citizens.
The public option will put downward pressure on prices.
The public option will decrease medical overbilling and fraud.
The public option will decrease amounts of time spent in doctors offices.
The public option will increase the amount of time doctors spend with patients, and decrease the amounts of time they have to quibble with insurance desk jockeys.
The public option will finally give every American a choice, so long denied them, on where they can get their healthcare, and how much they have to be taken for … to get it… Freedom of choice… what could be more Republican than that…… Americans should have a choice… Shame on those politicians and legislators who are so beholden to insurance companies that they are imposing limits on our right to choose… Shame.
….. and now Steve Newton of Delaware Libertarian is bowing out….
Forgive me for getting some out of order, but his name now goes up on the wall next to those of Dana Garrett, Mike Matthews, Jason Scott, Shirley Vandever, Dave Burris.
All gone, leaving only these few greats are still left: Nancy, Tommywonk, Kilroy, LiberalGeek, Pandora, David Anderson, & Hube.
The era over which these giants roamed was between the elections of 06 and 08. Some started earlier, but these few individuals were the only source of information during that time stamp.
Today, the News Journal has lost its paternalistic viewpoint touting the union of construction labor and developers formerly known as the Delaware Way, and is actually reporting news ahead of bloggers for a change. Likewise today, WDEL has both on its morning show with Al Mascitti and afternoon show with Rick Jensen, steered discussion away from the likes of (who?) Sean Hannity… and Al Loudell has kept us abreast of local politics in ways unheard of before bloggers began typing in their briefs…
So in a way, since these bloggers were successful back then, today they are not as vital as they once were… Many saw their blogs as the only way to get the truth past the News Journal censors, those higher ups who would not publish any truth that showed an elected official in bad light….
Those studying this phenomena will see that there was much agreement between bloggers on both sides of the aisle… It was very rare for this group to be divisive over the prime issues of this state’s business.. All of them were for Atkins removal. All of them were for beginning offshore wind in Delaware, … All of them were for the slowdown of work force housing… all of them were for the betterment of Delaware’s educational opportunities…
Of course we quibbled on who would become the next president, but that is to be expected… No family lives without arguing at least once…
There were rises and falls among each giant’s influence… But at the core of each individual was the feeling that each had a unique insight into the current problem staring us down, and wrote about it with an urgency that turned out usually to be correct… And usually, if agreement was not forthcoming by the first comment, by the end of the comment thread, some form of agreement among the blogger’s roundtable, was visible…
As politicians came to realize the News Journal wasn’t changing, they began contributing to these giant’s pages, giving substance in ways unheard of among those writing for the Community Board of the News Journal… Reading the blogs gave us a real time insight into the workings of our state government in Dover……
But it was the wind controversy that elevated the giants to their current stature… Only the blogs could get the message out that Delmarva was incredibly concerned about losing control of their monopoly, and that wind power for Delaware would by offering competition, lower our energy prices. And they did, so well, that the entire legislature at the end of their 2007 session, voted unanimously to approve of the landmark agreement between Bluewater Wind and Delmarva Power….
Some of us think that they, shaking in their boots, didn’t dare vote otherwise… For bloggers have long memories as well as does the public….
But these giants among men, did more than just push wind. They publicized the eminent domain controversy. They scoured local politics. They broke the work force housing pact apart. They clamored against Atkins, forcing him to resign. They dogged the SEU. They picked apart candidates so much that those who had flaws, couldn’t win. Dana Garrett could be heard almost weekly on WVUD.. Tommy Noyes, for a while was a weekly guest on Al Loudell’s award winning newscast. They OOGAcised the fight for open government, forcing one flustered legislator to call out for a prayer dedicated to just for the bloggers, asking for their salvation of their souls… Apparently those prayers were answered; for by their souls we have open government today….
But amongst the best, the very concept of government was debated back and forth, no doubt as it once was during the beginning of this nation during its infancy… Torture, domestic spying, gun ownership, thieving Vice Presidents, all had their day in court upon these pages….
And today, there are new names who in the years ahead might be considered to be the giants of this contemporary time zone..
Deldem, RSmitty, El “S”, Donviti, Cassandra, all came into prominence after the defining moment of passing the wind act…. As well as Sussex Green, Red Water Lily, Mourning Constitution,… all of which became big as the 2008 election season came upon us….
And from the ranks of commentators came a Sussex County Councilwomen, a candidate for a House seat, as well as a last minute candidate who took on Mr. Pam Scott, and began nailing his shoes to the floor…. Miro had a contender for once; that commentator speaks up often…
Steve Newton will be missed.
With his passing is the last of the great thinkers… Today, we have bullets fed to us… But Steve took on all other blogs, all other commentators and wrote posts about them… Steve looked at everything with fresh eyes…. Giants can do that, since they see things from way up…….
I won’t go in to praising Steve… for I’m here to call attention to the passing of a era. Perhaps those times when benevolent giants roamed our state, will be considered by us dying men and women, to be the glory times we hark back to, the second we close our eyes for their last time…..
For when you look back as what we’ve done, the word “giants” is not really a bad moniker….
Those of you waking up and checking here first, expect a rough day in the financial world this morning…. Stability if obtained by mid day, could show profits in the later half as cash sops up stocks at bargain prices… If still free falling after 12:00, it will be ugly; there is no backstop left barring Chinese intervention, which is rather unlikely.
Perhaps today we give another new meaning to the term Black Friday.
Blame can be placed Dubai World, for instigating the panic…..
Today I woke up above ground.
If we are able to keep him/her hidden and alive before we go public, we think we have the opportunity to bring forth that crack dealer supplying those who are against the public option, both the Blue Dogs and Republicans of Congress! … Stay tuned… It’s keeping us pretty busy so that’s all I can say here…
Bottom Line.
Valero did not reinvest in its plant during the time gasoline reached up to $4.25 a gallon. It needed to. That was wrong.
Charlie Copeland apparently by his own statement, agrees with the philosophy and tactics taken by Valero… That is wrong.
There may be others out there who also agree with Charlie. They are wrong.
Personally, I’m excited that this motherfucking monstrosity will be torn down.. I’m excited by all the jobs that such a demolition will bring, and by all the construction jobs created by whatever institution rebuilds on that site… Far more than jobs will be had by its destruction, than than would ever be realized by its continuation, not even factoring in the cost caused by its legalized killing off of Delaware’s infants, old, and infirm.
This IS a good thing for Delaware.
There were seven fights today at Shue-Medill Middle School on Kirkwood Highway. The Christina School District is responsible for that location…
Due to privacy restrictions details are sketchy, but this is what we do know…
Seven Fights in one school of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders… Why? Report cards went out last Friday. The physical parental responses to some of them, no doubt pushed these kids over the edge.
One took place in a math class. The math teacher (female) at great harm to herself, stepped in, broke it up, ending it by dragging the 7th grade perpetrator, a known bully, in a headlock down the hall… Hopefully after turning the corner, out of sight, she body-slammed his head three or four times into the one of the concrete walls..
But the most disgraceful, took place in the cafeteria, at a special event honoring those students who made the honor roll this past marking period… Into the event walks a previously suspended student, who previously had to be pulled off a school bus for threatening to kill the bus driver… Yes, seventh grade… Honor roll? Not even close…
She walks up to a seventh grade female student, and says… (of course) “You’re sitting in my seat.” Now this entire event could have been prevented had the girl gotten up from sitting with her friends who she had handpicked to have around her, and moved to another spot. Instead, she politely said… “Sorry, no thanks. I’m sitting here..” The bully says: “I going to fucking strangle you. I’m going to beat the shit out of you!” Without warning, she slams her little seventh grade face into the table, grabs her long auburn hair, pulls her backwards off the bench on to the floor and begins stomping the body. She stomps the body from one end to the other, ending at the face… The screams of the victim are horrendous. Innocent mouths are frozen open while the violence takes place. No adult yet moves to interfere. Knowing that she has more time, the bully jumps up, bends her knees, and drops her entire body weight onto the, by now, whimpering body laying listless on the floor. With fists one fourth the size of her victim’s small head, she begins pounding all her force into the facial regions… By now there is no resistance.. The beating continues unabated for quite a few minutes. After eternity, with only icy silence responding to each bone breaking blow, the bully grabs the hair and begins dragging the body down the floor between the tables… Showing off her trophy…. The victim was reported to have blood flowing out of both her eyes.
It happened this afternoon…
The previous incident involving this bully, involved this same girl beating up three Hispanic children on a schoolbus, causing the bus to stop, a school crises official to arrive, and only because of an outside concerned parents call, were the police called… The police quickly resolved the issue, putting the girl in handcuffs and taking her away.
So why was she allowed back in school?
So why was no adult monitoring the honor student event?
So why did seven fights take place in one day at Shue- Medill Middle School: a school of only sixth, seventh, and eighth graders?
There is only one omnipresent reason….
Yes, yes… I know there will be some out there who say it’s the schools fault… After all, they are the most easily sued to reclaim damages…. But anyone working, visiting, or who happens to assist as a family member in that school, cannot without putting superglue on their tongue, forever adhering it to the inside of their cheek, say that school officials are at fault… Today was an aberration; one day out of almost fifty school days so far. Forty nine of those days they got things right….. We have to remember that fact as our blood boils over…. Forty nine days they got things right…
Yes, yes… I know there will be those, especially who deal with school kids on a daily basis, who say it’s the parents fault… They have a lot going for their argument. You can’t teach a hungry kid. You can’t teach an emotionally disturbed kid. You can’t teach a drug addicted kid. You can’t teach a kid who never receives love from a parent… You just can’t do it in a classroom setting…
In going down the road of public education, we decided that our society as a whole benefited better from giving everyone opportunity to better themselves, instead of limiting that opportunity to just a few children with wealthy parents.. If you look at the large picture, that was probably the proper avenue to take. Of course when you buy apples by the bag instead of the hand picking ones off the display, you will most likely encounter a couple of rotten ones… And what do you do with a rotten apple? Put it back in the sun to ripen?
Ah, yes, yes, there will be those who will blame the system. They say it’s our school system, our Department of Education, or lack of it that drove us down this path… Segregation and its subsequent desegregation policies ruined New Castle County schools above the canal. That is fact. Those of us growing up through neighborhood schools, can certainly sense the futility a very young child must feel to be abandoned on a bus and shipped fifteen miles away, far from the reach of anyone whom he could call for help if subject to something say like ….. the threats of a bully. Also cutting back the amount of money spent on education so the state could buy up Garrison Lake Golf course or the MBNA buildings in downtown Wilmington a few years back, certainly didn’t help… Who knows? One extra dollar at the proper time could have changed that one bully’s perspective at an earlier point in life, making them choose to venture down a different path…. but then again, perhaps it couldn’t: one never knows for sure……However anyone with common sense knows that a system that dumbs down education to it’s lowest level in order to maximize the numbers of those that “get it”, unfortunately has some dumb people roaming its halls. Shouldn’t we be focused on educating our brightest to compete in a global economy, instead of holding them to the standards we adopted to get the most people through our doors with a diploma? There is a lot of credence to saying it’s the system’s fault…
So of the three, whose fault is it?
It is to some extent, yours. But most of all, it is mine…
I never realized it until today… For until everybody cares, the same stuff will go on… Everyone involved in today’s educational environment, is just simply trying to survive. Sticking their head out, is dangerous to their careers. And you and I put them out there with no support, no backing, and most of all when they flounder, we yell at them, especially if it is not their fault!… The most we ever do is mutter a “tsk tsk.”, call for a firing, yell silly slogans at a school board meeting, or post our outrage for public perusal… But none of us take any direct responsibility… Myself included… Today I’m sick I didn’t intervene a month ago. I had the means; but not the will. It seemed like overkill then.
Today’s event could have been prevented… In fact, with appropriate action, most of today’s school violence COULD be prevented… Not however by enforcing the law… but by handling such situation, outside the law… It’s time to rethink our values here.
99.99% of school bullying is caused by students who are abused by their parents… Yeah. 99.99% of you reading this had decent parents. You don’t know what it feels like at age 7 to take the full brunt of punches from your drunken father.. You don’t know what having to perform oral sex on a family member does to your value system. You don’t know now, do you? Fortunately I don’t either. But one can see that anyone coming from this environment has nothing to fear from walking into a crowded room and beating the shit out of a random target. One can see, that brutalizing a tiny little girl, can be seen as the preferable course of action, especially if it’s parental approval staves off one beating that week, when one gets home….
How can we blame a little kid who comes from such an environment? Even as enlightened as we think we are, as a society we are pretty stupid when it comes to such handling of real life situations…
Here is how our own national history shows us how it can be fixed….
A band of thirty, to a hundred concerned masked Shue-Medill parents, each carrying AK-47′s, handguns, shotguns, grenades, knives, or anything else protected under the second amendment, all show up armed to the teeth at the house of the parents of this bully… Using some old one by fours, sprinkled with kerosene, they construct a structure in the shape of an apple ( for teachers) and ignite it… Armed roadblocks are set up around the perimeter to keep local police informed so they stay away.
The spokesman then calls the parent out for a conversation… The parent always comes out, choosing whether to come before or after he is given the option of having his house set afire. The parent is allowed a short time to persuade the rabble that he will personally insure that his kid does not beat up another single person. The parent is given a short time to comprehend the consequences of what will happen to him or her if their child does not follow directions… The listening rabble then makes a collective decision that has a life-or-death consequence for that parent…
THAT is an “effective” solution.. THAT fixes the problem… THAT should have been done the first time this bully made her first mark. So who were those masked people who broke the law? Hmmmm. No one seems to know …….. Guess they can’t be prosecuted then….
Yes, there are other methods to be considered. Walking up behind the unsuspecting parent and slamming a baseball bat into the back of his medulla… Driving by their house and emptying thirty five rounds…. Pouring gasoline and setting a match to their car…. However, these are only effective if a direct correlation gets be made between the compensatory violence, and the action taken by that parent upon their child… But each of these alternatives, lacks the chill of realizing just how perverted our society sees that parent’s actions.. Each of these minor alternatives yields to a “tit for tat”, and instead stopping the violence they almost justify the escalation of it, simply because the parent himself (who has always thought he’s above the law anyway), now feels he has become the victim….
The idea is to stop parents from beating their children… To be clear, I’m not talking about spanking. I’m talking about leaving a child unconscious on the floor. Our government is stymied and under current law, cannot be effective at prevention.. It is effective prosecuting the death of the child.. As citizens, by taking direct action like the one mentioned above, by going beyond the incapacity of the law, we can get results …
Does it work?
The effectiveness of such actions can be seen anytime police investigate crimes between 4th and 30th Streets in Wilmington…The criminal element uses these tactics effectively to suppress tattling. No one ever sees anything up there… Must have more fog than London….
So if we impose a tremendous and costly price for beating or molesting a child, then begin to take effective steps to stop that action. And if that action stops, then those children do not have to take their suppressed rage on unsuspecting kids who always happen to be much smaller than themselves….
Are you mad? Then ask yourself what you have done lately? Nothing? How then can you blame others when you yourself have not raised a little finger?
Like me, you are the problem… Today we wake up. It’s time we do something.
Pray for us.
As expected the House Health Care Bill passed with a smaller margin than expected… But it won, and now (after a much needed rest) we move forward.
Again, as expected, the real debate is in the Senate…
The Constitution is a marvelous document… One chamber is designed to move fast… that is why it is limited to two year terms… The other is designed to move slow… That of course is why six year terms are standard…
Those of us who drive, know a car needs a good engine and good brakes… Yes, sometimes the brakes lock up, such as when a caliper freezes shut… Had we dealt with slavery in the 1820′s we might never have fought a Civil War… (Actually it was a very uncivil war, as i can joke about it almost exactly 150 years later).
Had we dealt with segregation in the 1870′s, we might have experienced some peaceful summers of experimental love during the sixties. Instead we rode buses through Mississippi….
Had we taxed the wealthy during the Roaring Twenties, we may have skipped that chapter in our history called the Great Depression….
But we didn’t… Instead, in each circumstance, we compromised. In thinking that by making a working agreement and solidifying it on paper, our ancestors assumed the immorality underlying certain acts, could be ignored and if invisible, would simply go away…
It didn’t..
Slavery was still a mockery of “land of the free.” Segregation was still a mockery of “everyman has an equal chance.” And the wealthy as they became wealthier, just became “more sorry’er son’s of bitches”…
We could make the same mistake with Health Care… As with slavery, the future is absolutely clear. The Public option towards health-care is a necessity. And as with slavery, segregation, finance regulation, and even cancerous tobacco, despite all the writing on the wall, despite all the clarity of how it must end, … those private interests who personal welfare is diametrically opposed to what is best for our country, are once again instigating measures that delay, postpone, and stymie the ultimate outcome… The cost to the rest of us…. of doing so …. is astronomical.
Just as one must add the cost of the Civil War to the balance sheet of determining the economics of slavery, just as one must add the cost of lost purchasing power to the balance sheet of determining the Southern white’s benefits to Southern segregation, just as one must add the cost of the Great Depression when determining the benefits of deregulating the Roaring Twenties, ONE MUST ADD THE COST OF UNAFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE FOR CITIZENS AND BUSINESSES, AGAINST THE PROFITS OF THIS NATION’S MEDICAL CORPORATIONS…. and that cost is high… and keeps climbing minute by minute…
Delaying meaningful Health Care Reform to keep corporate profits arbitrarily higher, is actually treasonous to our national interest…. It is at it’s most simple: treasonous.
But since such has become the accepted practice over the past 8 years, it will take an outraged public to reshape the debate… Bending over backward for any insurance, medical, or pharmaceutical company will in the end, be judged to be in the same category as a vote for slavery, a vote for segregation, or a vote for deregulating Wall Street.
Such a vote, is detrimental to the well being of this country.
All I hear is negativity… whether from the right (as always) or left… Therefore in this caustic environment, it was reassuring to hear the man who personifies our national ideals discuss openness and the principals of communication with Chinese students…
You reading this are savvy. You already know that was a hand picked audience, that little of that exchange got out to 1/5 of the globe’s population, that footage was screened before it was released to media outlets…
That’s beside the point…
What is important is that in the world’s eyes, the words United States of America means something again… In fact, if you took the key words from any republican’s address; “principals”, “standing up”, “freedom”, “rights of expression”, “truth”, …. those values were visible to the world’s population during Obama’s exchange … Not only did the world hear them, they saw them in action…
It made this American proud to see our generation’s equivalent of George Washington, setting the example for the world to follow…
It reminded me of what we used to hear on the campaign trail…
So we need to celebrate what has been accomplished over the past year… One, we have postponed or quite possibly removed the option of completely crashing our financial life-system… Much credit goes to Obama’s former successor… I said it before and it doesn’t hurt to remind all again… History will judge Mr. Bush’s crowning moment to have occurred when he flipped from being a neocon to a socialist in twenty minutes. That flip saved the world…. Hearing the current Republicans wail and moan and cry and gnash their teeth over a silly word called “socialism”, only goes to show what tremendous courage and intelligence that man showed as a republican by pivoting in a few short minutes and becoming the worlds premiere socialist. Keynesian policy and the actions subsequently taken… saved the world…
We have far less people out of work, because of our government spending… We have great investments and ownership of most of America’s capitalist system. Some cry over the banks making profit, but the more they make, the less debt we carry when the time comes to cash out our chips… In fact, since we bought in at 2 cents on the dollar, we can eliminate nearly all our debt if the totals reach their pre-depression levels… The future is rather hopeful…
Despite a looming catastrophe that dwarfs that experience during the 1930′s, we still have 90% of Americans still working… Mostly because we had experts of the Great Depression handling our financial manipulations during the crises, we prevented the possibility of having only 75% of our nation working, with 25% unemployed…
We have leadership that is using this opportunity to increase renewable energy development. Instead of looking back like the Cheney-run energy program did, and instead of legalizing theft on a massive scale, we are looking at ways and creating an environment that cheapens our energy costs… not one that sends them soaring.
We have leadership that is using this opportunity to lower our health care costs, that albatross draped around the neck of every American business… Instead of seeking ways to make us pay more out of pocket, this current leader is seeking to pass a Health Care Reform bill that helps us pay less out of pocket… “Tis a consummation, devoutly to be wished”…
Essentially we have a leader who acts like we wish our corporate bosses would… He gathers a wide option of information, has a wide range of counsel that can dispute problems from both sides, has no prejudgemental bias, and is prone to listen intently. If our bosses would only resort to similar methods, our lives would be far more lucrative. Like our first president George Washington, this leader is conscious of being watched. He is conscious that this actions will set precedents for centuries to come… He is aware that as the first president of color, his actions must always be deemed to be judged correctly by history, and that he has little room for error. For that reason, with the sound council of those around him, his decisions have to be precise and correct… So dead-on, that if in the end, one says one still can’t stand him, it will be obvious to all that it is only because of one’s distaste for color….
Watching Obama interact with citizens of our biggest competitor, gave America a sense of pride… For once again we have someone who represents the best of America.. Someone who shows the world that over here, being a minority truly doesn’t matter…. Only hard work and ability matter.
Of course there will be some who always hate minorities.. They are our national problem. Not the great man who represents what is truly the best of America…..
Our openness…
