Checking updates, I have been informed that one of the key critical battles in whether or not health care will benefit us people, or health insurance companies, will take place here in Delaware between our Senator Tom Carper’s two ears.

He is firmly lodged in bed with the insurance companies. It will take a monster truck with a 20 gauge chain to yank him out.

But such an event is being planned THIS Thursday, July 9th. TOMORROW.

Metaphorically we, Delaware’s citizens, will have to be the truck and chain. But should this event fizzle, his version of watered down version of health care will become another corporate joke.

Robust Rally for Robust Public Option
Sen. Thomas Carper’s District Office
1 Christina Center, 301 North Walnut Street, Suite 102L-1
Wilmington, DE 19801
Thursday, 9 Jul 2009, , 12:00 PM

What is at stake is whether or not we can afford health care in the near future. This is not a personal versus business conflict. All businesses in this nation today, desperately need a break from health care costs to remain viable.

Except for the insurance companies of course….. And they are the ones who have their chains attached to Tom Carper’s balls.

This, is our revolution. Tomorrow is our Lexington, our Concord… All eligible good men and women need to come to the aid of their country.

I chose to spend vacation away with a wonderful group of people who dedicate their spare time helping those who cannot afford to help themselves.

Our group is dedicated to the fixing of houses. My daughter has worked this for the past seven years and finally convince her parent to try it.

I think there is a lesson here for all.

One, what we accomplish is little; it is one house in a sea of broken dreams. But despite that, we provide hope, a shot in the arm, a realization that the impossible can occur… And upon reflection, that last bit provides deep insight into the nature of human psyche.

I may be criticized for helping far away when we have such need here. That may be valid for that is what I did. However, I cannot imagine the thoughts that went through that homeowner-who-we-helped”s head, who no doubt prayed many years for any miracle, only to have a team from Delaware descend onto their property and in a few short days, bring their property up to where it needed to be..

That must be a fantastic feeling.

I recommend such an outing to all. It is completely apolitical. The satisfaction upon returning I would say, is slightly better than the well being that comes from being indulged. The difference is: something good was accomplished. Small perhaps, but good was done.

I now understand that the salvation of this race of man, will not be accomplished by our inventions and technology, although I would be the last person to slight either of those… No, … whether we will survive or not as a species, will be determined more or less, by our willingness or unwillingness to help each other when our fellow humans cannot help themselves…

To that value system, our American society needs to return.

I certainly don’t want to steal Nancy’s thunder… and I don’t know if she’ll publish this, but I’m about to go underground again and I thought this must be aired so all know that all is not well…..

You can see her words here… It is pulled from a comment section of this blog, and it gives her account of her ride down to Washington DC.

But I wanted to point out the involvement of one Jennifer Hill, the new face in town, and a very pretty face I might add. I encourage more people to use this performance as a model when dealing with this human being who WAS ELECTED TO REPRESENT OUR INTERESTS… without further ado…..

“Sorry, I am in a better head space today. Yesterday I was on the ACORN bus to the DC health care rally.

We went to chat with Sen. Kaufman’s aide first. Ted is fully on board with an affordable, universal access plan for the health and security of the American people. Carper..not so much.

Traveling down the hall, I strode right up to newest DEM Sen. Spector and took his hand in greeting. ” Hi there DEM Senator! Nancy Willling from Delaware here”. He gave me a huge grin in response.

And later, after meeting with Tom Carper’s staffers….(Carper ducked in the door to lecture us..his secretary interrupting after a few minutes..”your next appointment is here”

Carper “I’ll be right there” and continues to blab when Jennifer Hill, SEIU spokesperson, interrupted Carper and boy, then he jumped down her throat saying please don’t interrupt me.

She shot right back saying that since he was evidently going to leave without hearing a single direct word from any of the two dozen Delawareans crammed into his conference room that she wanted to be sure that we were able to say a few words to him directly.

And he did let her get a few sentences in.

After that meeting concluded (and the presentation from the DE coalition was submitted) we gathered in the atrium hallway in front of his office doors. An organizer from Health Care For America Now was telling us some good future actions would be to keep the pressure on Carper and that Jay Rockefeller had just presented A REALLY GOOD bill to focus on and promote.

Right then, Jay himself, on crutches with a knee brace and an entourage of interns squeezed around our crowd and we all hailed him with cheers!!!!

So, while the interview with Carper was VERY disappointing, the rally was great and the coalition intends to move ahead.

(of note: Carper’s staffers were polite but firm that the bill had to be bipartisan and when Jennifer said that we only would need 51 they fell out. A sore point. They said nooooooooooooo that most of the items under consideration would not be appropriate under the reconciliation rules.

Once again, Jennifer didn’t hesitate to say that the most important piece was the financial piece which certainly did fit under reconciliation rules. The staffers were none too pleased.”

Republicans have been slammed lately.

Nothing is going right for them. You say the name of their party and the room you’re in erupts with laughter.

They have become the butt of all jokes.

“Say, did you hear about the Republican who had a case of diarrhea?” ” No?” “He got sick after drinking the twelfth bottle….”

Remember that guy who held up the entire class because he was so stupid, and it pissed you off so much you just wanted to slam his face into a wall?

Well, that is the Republican party today…

Every one who calls himself a Republican should bend over and prepare to get kicked unmercifully.

But guess what?

There is someone worse… and they actually call themselves Democrats.

Mr. Pam Scott, president of New Castle County and District 3 Councilman George Smiley, both guilty of selling out their constituents to developers, are far worse.

Read Down With Absolutes factual account of Tuesday’s Council Meeting, and join me in wishing to slam some Councilpersons faces into the New Castle County Chambers wall.

1) This was stupid.

2) Impeachment options must now be explored (a lawsuit would be as effective).

3) When you need help in Delaware against corruption in its most virulent form, you turn for help, to blogs. Everyone else is bought out.

Any Republican wishing to run against these two idiots who continue to consume a case of diarrhea just because they don’t know better, has my support. At the very moment when Republicans looked like they had no shot in hell, a light shines down from above..

If you are not absolutely disgusted with the behavior of the New Castle Democratic County Council leadership, you need to move overseas to New Jersey. Right Now.

If the following statement is true,

“Choose your enemies carefully, for they will define you”

then no matter how much I protest: I am defined by Thurman Adams.

Often those who fought against the will of the one passing, are banned from that person’s parting rites, as well they should be. However, it is those very ones who are one’s adversary, who like two snipers dueling across no-mans land, probably know best how the other person thinks…

Thurman did provided us OOGA people an attractive lighting rod because of his opposition of open government. His use of his desk drawer to table legislation that would have otherwise passed, made him the stuff from which legends are spawned. He provided us both the symbol and the actual visual of someone stuffing bills into a drawer and never pulling them out again. …. a visual which I used over and over again unmercifully against him. He got clobbered with it, excessively.

But I have learned over time that one must separate the man himself, … from what he does. As is common, amateurs tend to get angry at each other… High school kids on opposite benches fill the playing fields with arms flailing when tensions get too high..

However professionals know that their opponents like themselves, also have a duty to their owners. They have the duty to fight for their team’s side just as hard as you would fight for your team’s side…. Real seasoned professionals understand that the teams can change their players, but the actual person playing inside the suit, will always, always remain the same. And that … when the game is finally over, it’s best to shake hands, drop the game face, and give each other sporty man-hugs.

Thurman Adams was actually an amazing man. Even In this democracy he was able to assemble out of a crowd of legislators who were too chicken to challenge him, .. a block of votes that would kill legislation of which he did not approve… Very little could be passed without his blessing. And to be honest, sometimes on the most frustrating of days, I too wish I had that much power at my disposal….

If you think what he did is easy to accomplish: try it. I have and even though I’m a young jedi, I sit in awe of how easy Thurman made it look…..

But what I want to comment most is his resolve and deep seated beliefs on homosexuality. I respect his view point. To be clear it is different from mine, and I spared no bullets in bringing that to light everywhere in our state’s public opinion…. But also a little like me, Thurman felt he was fighting God’s war and that he, as one of God’s soldiers, had to pull all stops to minimize the spread of something his deep set beliefs told him was very wrong…

At one point in my life I would have honored him as a hero for doing so… but events showed that similar to Governor George Wallace of Alabama, Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Ernest Hollins from South Carolina, Trent Lott from Mississippi all of which came to realize that some of their views were morally antithetical to the constitutional principles they were sworn to uphold… i too was given insight into realizing that certain people should not be disrespected for things they cannot change….

Adams apparently didn’t see that billboard alongside of the political highway.

And his steadfast refusal to open the desk drawer and put the open government bill on the table, was primarily rooted out of his distaste for homosexual unions. For if all sessions were open, this bill would be voted into law simply because not enough votes would be be willing to stand up against it and say no….

But one part of the Adams legend is worth hearing again. And that is his propensity for keeping his word… I can’t even do that. I hope one day to learn…. lol

But Adams accomplished one of the most difficult pieces of human engineering. He “almost” always kept his word…

It is sad but fitting that his passing marks the end of an era. I can still remember the blogger’s comment deriding Adams for not being present when one of the important votes were taken. Someone said he called in sick.. We now know it was true. He was sick, very much so.

It is interesting that these two events happened at the same time. Those positions languishing as bills in the drawer for years, finally slipped out and became law…

The symbolism is not lost upon us that once escaped, the old man felt hanging on was no longer necessary…

So I wish the family of Thurman Adams well, I pray for their loss for it has bothered me considerably as well… The world, my world, is quite empty without him…. Now I have to struggle to find a center, a core upon which to focus…

I have heard comments that so very few people are saying much good about Thurman Adams and some are interpreting that to mean he had few friends.

Well, I am one of those who will praise him.. Studying him in order to anticipate his counter strikes, has made him into someone I most deeply respect. He was able to surprised me multiple times (which is hard to do) and each of those times of being caught off guard, impressed me with his ability to scramble.

His tactics became my tactics.

In a sense, he was very little different from myself… Very little. His only sin was relatively minor: he just was on the other side.

So Thurman Adams, may you rest in peace. May the state and area you loved so much, always come to honor you..

Sleep well, my former foe. Sleep well.

There is little argument.

We need someone who has experience, but is far enough removed from the old way of doing things that they will not be trapped by the inertia from their own past…

“We’ve always done it that way” are the worst words ever uttered. The environment we live in today is one fraught with new challenges. The old school of how things went down during the Carper years, of Cordroy, Sharp, Minner, Roy, George, DeLuca have shot their wad… Now all we are left with, is their mess.

“How can we maximise this opportunity” are the best words ever uttered. Following Karen Peterson’s fight for open government over the years has shown us that she utilises her opponents for her advantage.

We need a Senate Leader like that. It’s time for her supporters to come out of the woodwork of General Assembly and begin to demand that change, the change we must have if we are to remain economically viable against our neighbours, begins today.

If you don’t say it, we’re stuck with DeLuca… His argument for continuity will have no antithesis. The counter argument must begin today. It must start with “now”..

Lobbyists, as much as we bash them here sometimes, … serve a valuable purpose… Anyone in either chamber can inform you of that…. But, they don’t elect… Real Live people do…

So to continue to put the wishes of lobbyists over real live people, can be argued as being un democratic, un Constitutional, and un American.

And the very last thing Delaware needs, is an undemocratic, unconstitutional, and un-American in charge of the Senate.

Apparently.

And it starts…
Sometime around midnight
Or at least that’s when
You lose yourself
For a minute or two

As you stand…
Under the barlights
And the band plays some song
About forgetting yourself for a while
And the piano’s this melancholy soundcheck
To her smile
And that white dress she’s wearing
You haven’t seen her
For a while

But you know…
That she’s watching
She’s laughing, she’s turning
She’s holding her tonic like a crux
The room suddenly spinning
She walks up and asks how you are
So you can smell her perfume
You can see her lying naked in your arms

And so there’s a change…
In your emotions
And all of these memories come rushing
Like feral waves to your mind
Of the curl of your bodies
Like two perfect circles entwined
And you feel hopeless, and homeless
And lost in the haze
Of the wine

And she leaves…
With someone you don’t know
But she makes sure you saw her
She looks right at you and bolts
As she walks out the door
Your blood boiling
Your stomach in ropes
And when your friends say what is it
You look like you’ve seen a ghost

And you walk…
Under the streetlights
And you’re too drunk to notice
That everyone is staring at you
And you so care what you look like
The world is falling
Around you

You just have to see her
You just have to see her
You just have to see her
You just have to see her
You just have to see her

And you know that she’ll break you
In two

Courtesy of ATE