Saturday, April 4, 2009
Toledo's Ivory Tower Mayor
I'm being kind by only accusing Carlton S. Finkbeiner of residing in an ivory tower; I've said much worse about him in the past. There is a long, tattered, stained and torn list that I could roll out about this Grand Poobah character, but I have neither the time nor the energy to rehash the sordid history of this man.
Here's the latest. The city of Toledo is in free-fall, skidding to the depths of economic abyss. Jobs, industry, businesses are vanishing at a record rate. So are tax revenues, of course. Streets filled with ever-deepening potholes, sewers caving in, flooded basements, snow plowing and leaf collection nearly halted, people fleeing the city like rats on a ship. Millions of dollars shortfall in the budget, police and fire layoffs impending, a City Council that cannot speak to the mayor, red ink as far as one can see. Today it was revealed that there is no money this year for residential street repaving.
Yet, the hapless mayor has entered this city in a contest for outstanding city in the America! Yes, you read that correctly. Mayor Carleton S. Finkbeiner is going to Tampa, Florida with a contingent of city 'leaders' to proclaim Toledo Ohio as one of the finest All American Cities.
A competition for the All-America City Award. Yes, I know, but he doesn't.
Here's the latest. The city of Toledo is in free-fall, skidding to the depths of economic abyss. Jobs, industry, businesses are vanishing at a record rate. So are tax revenues, of course. Streets filled with ever-deepening potholes, sewers caving in, flooded basements, snow plowing and leaf collection nearly halted, people fleeing the city like rats on a ship. Millions of dollars shortfall in the budget, police and fire layoffs impending, a City Council that cannot speak to the mayor, red ink as far as one can see. Today it was revealed that there is no money this year for residential street repaving.
Yet, the hapless mayor has entered this city in a contest for outstanding city in the America! Yes, you read that correctly. Mayor Carleton S. Finkbeiner is going to Tampa, Florida with a contingent of city 'leaders' to proclaim Toledo Ohio as one of the finest All American Cities.
A competition for the All-America City Award. Yes, I know, but he doesn't.
Congenially Anthropomorphic
I plagerized this phrase from the Atheist Camel blog; hope you don't mind, Hump. Christian communities throughout the world are in a heightened state of anticipation this week and next as they prepare to celebrate the Easter mystery.
In Greek mythology, Demeter and Persephone convey the idea of a goddess returning seasonally from the 'nether regions' to the light of the day. This occurs, of course, with the vernal equinox, March 21, when nature is in 'resurrection' after the winter.
Spring, the season of rejuvenation, rejoicing and renewal and a 'basketful' of new promises and gifts. Nature, at last, discards its weary, gray cover to don a 'brand new outfit.' The shining sun warms the land and our hearts and minds after that dreadful death of winter. The brook comes alive once again and babbles playfully while the flowers press out of their wintry graves. Mother Nature,at last, smiles once again after 'testing' whether her creation was able to endure her annual near-death punishment.
Is Mother Nature bipolar? A sadist? An unfit mother? Why, do you suppose, she abuses her 'children' so? For me, this past winter was especially grim. Perhaps I'm getting too old to endure this annual 'joke' or rather punishment from Mother Nature. Haven't I been tested enough over the past 6 decades? Have I yet more punishment to endure for the indiscretions of my youth? Will I be tormented for endless winters yet to unfold until I, too, am frozen still beneath the cold earth for eternity?
The Illness: Conservative Media
One can listen and watch only so long before there is an innate human trigger-response that pulls one away: the need to vomit. Yet, this built-in reflex seems to be missing or somehow malfunctioning in certain Americans. Apparently they have lost that stimulus-response mechanism and can tolerate the babble and blather endlessly with seemingly no physical effects.
Charles Blow, columnist for the NYT penned an OpEd yesterday curiously titled, Pitchforks and Pistols. His opening paragraph:
Lately I’ve been consuming as much conservative media as possible (interspersed with shots of Pepto-Bismol) to get a better sense of the mind and mood of the right. My read: They’re apocalyptic. They feel isolated, angry, betrayed and besieged. And some of their “leaders” seem to be trying to mold them into militias.
Further into the article, Blow quotes Chuck Norris- yes THAT Chuck Norris:
“How much more will Americans take? When will enough be enough? And, when that time comes, will our leaders finally listen or will history need to record a second American Revolution?”
Many of my posts here on this blog over the past 8 years contained nearly the same thought. The Patriot Act, torture, Guantanamo, the preemptive War on Iraq, Abu Ghraib, warrantless wiretapping, spying on peace groups caused me to wonder where the democracy of our Founding Fathers had gone. I, too, called for a second American Revolution.
I wonder what stoked Norris's fire? After all, Bush, Cheney, Gonzales and Rumsfeld are all gone.
Blow reminds us that 'strong language can poison weak minds, as it did in the case of Timothy McVeigh. (We sometimes forget that not all dangerous men are trained by Al Qaeda.)'
Blow states this ominous fact in his conclusion: According to the F.B.I., there have been 1.2 million more requests for background checks of potential gun buyers from November to February than there were in the same four months last year.
Pitchforks and Pistols, he titled his piece. I think I got it just now. The recent rash of madmen gunning down a dozen or more fellow citizens does raise an eyebrow or two- on those who have been paying attention.
Charles Blow, columnist for the NYT penned an OpEd yesterday curiously titled, Pitchforks and Pistols. His opening paragraph:
Lately I’ve been consuming as much conservative media as possible (interspersed with shots of Pepto-Bismol) to get a better sense of the mind and mood of the right. My read: They’re apocalyptic. They feel isolated, angry, betrayed and besieged. And some of their “leaders” seem to be trying to mold them into militias.
Further into the article, Blow quotes Chuck Norris- yes THAT Chuck Norris:
“How much more will Americans take? When will enough be enough? And, when that time comes, will our leaders finally listen or will history need to record a second American Revolution?”
Many of my posts here on this blog over the past 8 years contained nearly the same thought. The Patriot Act, torture, Guantanamo, the preemptive War on Iraq, Abu Ghraib, warrantless wiretapping, spying on peace groups caused me to wonder where the democracy of our Founding Fathers had gone. I, too, called for a second American Revolution.
I wonder what stoked Norris's fire? After all, Bush, Cheney, Gonzales and Rumsfeld are all gone.
Blow reminds us that 'strong language can poison weak minds, as it did in the case of Timothy McVeigh. (We sometimes forget that not all dangerous men are trained by Al Qaeda.)'
Blow states this ominous fact in his conclusion: According to the F.B.I., there have been 1.2 million more requests for background checks of potential gun buyers from November to February than there were in the same four months last year.
Pitchforks and Pistols, he titled his piece. I think I got it just now. The recent rash of madmen gunning down a dozen or more fellow citizens does raise an eyebrow or two- on those who have been paying attention.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Iowa high court strikes down same-sex marriage ban
(CNN) -- The Iowa Supreme Court struck down a state law Friday that banned same-sex marriage in the state, plaintiff's attorneys said.
Well, well, the Christian Taliban has failed once again to inflict their homophobic religious beliefs on the citizens of yet another state.
Speaking of the Muslim Taliban, did you read that Afghanistan now has a law permitting a man to rape his wife? Good old Bush-pal, Hamid Karazi, pushed the legislation into law. Recall that Karazi was the shining example of the Bush Doctrine- 'bring'n freedom and democracy to the world.
American Christian Taliban or Afghanistan Muslim Taliban. Quelle différence ?
Well, well, the Christian Taliban has failed once again to inflict their homophobic religious beliefs on the citizens of yet another state.
Speaking of the Muslim Taliban, did you read that Afghanistan now has a law permitting a man to rape his wife? Good old Bush-pal, Hamid Karazi, pushed the legislation into law. Recall that Karazi was the shining example of the Bush Doctrine- 'bring'n freedom and democracy to the world.
American Christian Taliban or Afghanistan Muslim Taliban. Quelle différence ?
A Grandfather's Wisdom
At a townhall gathering in Strasbourg, France today, President Obama lamented the fact that, unlike the social safety net of France and the rest of the EU, " an illness in America could cost the person his job and house."
What is it about older nations like France or Germany? They seem to 'get it' way before we do. Neither nation, for example, joined George Bush's dog and pony show, the Coalition of the Willing. Even today, neither nation is willing to send more troops to Afghanistan. Sarkozy, just today, told Obama directly at a news conference: no more troops to Afghanistan. No doubt Angela Merkel will say it later today.
The wisdom of the ages.
Why is it that here, in the home of the free and the land of the brave, we are often unwise? Even after 230 years, we seem to be novices at the 'how to run a country' concept. We give permission to presidents to send our troops anywhere they please, often after misleading the citizens into believing that the cause is 'just.' We nod like bobbleheads, only to learn months or years later that we were bamboozled, lied-to.
The health care issue raises its head cautiously once again. I wonder what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was thinking as she heard Obama, in embarrassment, tell the Europeans that we lack a national health care system? They must surely think that we Americans are a bunch of frontiersmen, still trying to create a nation of our own.
Shortly after the Great Depression, my grandfather wrote a letter to his relatives back in Germany. He was dumbfounded in that January letter in 1931. He wrote:
What is it about older nations like France or Germany? They seem to 'get it' way before we do. Neither nation, for example, joined George Bush's dog and pony show, the Coalition of the Willing. Even today, neither nation is willing to send more troops to Afghanistan. Sarkozy, just today, told Obama directly at a news conference: no more troops to Afghanistan. No doubt Angela Merkel will say it later today.
The wisdom of the ages.
Why is it that here, in the home of the free and the land of the brave, we are often unwise? Even after 230 years, we seem to be novices at the 'how to run a country' concept. We give permission to presidents to send our troops anywhere they please, often after misleading the citizens into believing that the cause is 'just.' We nod like bobbleheads, only to learn months or years later that we were bamboozled, lied-to.
The health care issue raises its head cautiously once again. I wonder what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was thinking as she heard Obama, in embarrassment, tell the Europeans that we lack a national health care system? They must surely think that we Americans are a bunch of frontiersmen, still trying to create a nation of our own.
Shortly after the Great Depression, my grandfather wrote a letter to his relatives back in Germany. He was dumbfounded in that January letter in 1931. He wrote:
Therefore I come on a subject where I almost know nothing; where I should begin?
It concerns is the condition in which America, which ended up the richest country of the world, the country of cable transmitter, of the millionaire, the country of unlimited possibilities, the country of inexhaustible sources of help and raw material, with its highly developed railway system, its all-outstanding industry and machines, its abundance at meat and grain of its decided industries and industrious population contains 5 million unemployed person since November 1929, to which in the finance battle yet a further million have joined since February 1930.
He goes on:
Middle and small business close by the thousands with bankruptcy. In the business parts of the city each 7 of 8 shops stand empty for one year. Therefore managers and department chiefs, lawyers, accountants, bookkeepers, salesclerks, agents, office assistants of all degrees have increasingly traveled in the army of the unemployed persons of the factories and industries. Many stand around lasting for days before the working door for emergency constructions,which the towns are obliged to introduce; the unemployed person gets one or 2 days of working wage to a week.
He gets to the point of my posting today when he writes,
We do not have like other civilized countries such things as like old-age pension, state sick person's relief funds, or unemployment compensation. We do not even have statistic offices for the unemployed person as all such legislation has prevented it by the big capitalists. Not even national support for soup kitchens, so extremely necessarily in each city, winter and summer for two years and so insufficient against hunger death for women and children. We would have houses enough against housing shortage. The building swindle however has our children, which smears next generation the purchase of the houses with monthly pension with highest price and heights wages, now as the prices pleases, but the taxes on it are and become ever higher and exorbitant.
Yes, grandfather, you had it correct, sad to say, and surely you now know, sitting in your golden room above, that little has changed since you wrote that letter, just before you died.
When will America ever learn?
It concerns is the condition in which America, which ended up the richest country of the world, the country of cable transmitter, of the millionaire, the country of unlimited possibilities, the country of inexhaustible sources of help and raw material, with its highly developed railway system, its all-outstanding industry and machines, its abundance at meat and grain of its decided industries and industrious population contains 5 million unemployed person since November 1929, to which in the finance battle yet a further million have joined since February 1930.
He goes on:
Middle and small business close by the thousands with bankruptcy. In the business parts of the city each 7 of 8 shops stand empty for one year. Therefore managers and department chiefs, lawyers, accountants, bookkeepers, salesclerks, agents, office assistants of all degrees have increasingly traveled in the army of the unemployed persons of the factories and industries. Many stand around lasting for days before the working door for emergency constructions,which the towns are obliged to introduce; the unemployed person gets one or 2 days of working wage to a week.
He gets to the point of my posting today when he writes,
We do not have like other civilized countries such things as like old-age pension, state sick person's relief funds, or unemployment compensation. We do not even have statistic offices for the unemployed person as all such legislation has prevented it by the big capitalists. Not even national support for soup kitchens, so extremely necessarily in each city, winter and summer for two years and so insufficient against hunger death for women and children. We would have houses enough against housing shortage. The building swindle however has our children, which smears next generation the purchase of the houses with monthly pension with highest price and heights wages, now as the prices pleases, but the taxes on it are and become ever higher and exorbitant.
Yes, grandfather, you had it correct, sad to say, and surely you now know, sitting in your golden room above, that little has changed since you wrote that letter, just before you died.
When will America ever learn?
Nada, Again
Nada single House Republican voted for the Obama budget. Do you suspect that an electrictian ought to be called in to check the electronic voting devices to see if the 'yes' wires are disconnected? Or a brain surgeon?
"Too much spending!" "Not enough tax cuts for corporate America!" ""Tax cuts for the rich missing!"
Lock-step, ditto-head, gang mentality. Not one Republican had the courage to vote 'yes.' Not one.
Oh, you say, why should they? Just look at that blooooooated budget- $3.6 trillion! That's 'T' trillion. "We're spending so much that it compromises our grandchildren's future!" they say.
"T" trillion, you say? As in the 2009 Bush Budget of $3.1 trillion? The 'budget' without the Iraq and Afghanistan War 'supplementals' that were added on later, out of sight? Oh, THAT budget.
But this is different altogether, isn't it? After all, it's a budget from a DEMOCRAT in the White House. Yes, very different.
Nada single Republican.
Gangsters!
"Too much spending!" "Not enough tax cuts for corporate America!" ""Tax cuts for the rich missing!"
Lock-step, ditto-head, gang mentality. Not one Republican had the courage to vote 'yes.' Not one.
Oh, you say, why should they? Just look at that blooooooated budget- $3.6 trillion! That's 'T' trillion. "We're spending so much that it compromises our grandchildren's future!" they say.
"T" trillion, you say? As in the 2009 Bush Budget of $3.1 trillion? The 'budget' without the Iraq and Afghanistan War 'supplementals' that were added on later, out of sight? Oh, THAT budget.
But this is different altogether, isn't it? After all, it's a budget from a DEMOCRAT in the White House. Yes, very different.
Nada single Republican.
Gangsters!
No More Eating Freedom Fries
Remember those dopy right-wing Republicans who forced the House Cafeteria to re-label French Fries as Freedom Fries? Ah, those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end! Are those dopes still House members or did their constituents toss those ignorant asses out on their ear?
Enemies all around us! Can't trust anyone these days. Be careful, orange alert! Donald Rumsfeld speaking Rumsfeldian. Dick Cheney in an undisclosed bunker. George Bush strutting across the deck of a warship.
Horrible memories, frightening images. A nation drifting on a rudderless ship with a do-it-alone mentality.
Today President Obama stood on the same stage with French President Sarkozy. Can you imagine that? I was stunned at the scene; it took my breath away. It was hard to get my mind around the reality that in 8 short years, France has emerged from its dark-age status and I can order French fries at McDonald's without wearing my sunglasses.
Time flies by.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Fevers in Autistic Children- A Clue?
"On a positive note, we are talking about a brain region that is not irrevocably altered. It gives us hope that, with novel therapies, we will eventually be able to help people with autism," says theory co-author Mark F. Mehler, M.D., chairman of neurology and director of the Institute for Brain Disorders and Neural Regeneration at Einstein.
---------------------------------------------
Naturally, red lights lit at the thought of causing fever-like conditions in children in order to ameliorate their autistic characteristics. Nonetheless, this finding at least seems to pinpoint the area of concern- the brainstem, specifically the locus coeruleus. It is the locus coeruleus that has widespread connections to brain regions that process sensory information. The article states: It secretes most of the brain's noradrenaline, a neurotransmitter that plays a key role in arousal mechanisms, such as the "fight or flight" response. It is also involved in a variety of complex behaviors, such as attentional focusing (the ability to concentrate attention on environmental cues relevant to the task in hand, or to switch attention from one task to another). Poor attentional focusing is a defining characteristic of autism.
"If the locus coeruleus is impaired in autism, it is probably because tens or hundreds, maybe even thousands, of genes are dysregulated in subtle and complex ways," says Dr. Mehler. "The only way you can reverse this process is with epigenetic therapies, which, we are beginning to learn, have the ability to coordinate very large integrated gene networks."
Until then, the parents and the child remain captive in a cruel, sad, and unending bubble of cruelty.
GOP Budget- April Fools
Round II of the unveiling of the GOP Budget was held, appropriately yesterday, April Fools Day. You may recall the out-take rehearsal last week when man-tanned John Boehner pretended to unveil the GOP Budget. That was good for a laugh.
Yesterday the all-white GOP House members stood on the steps of the U.S. Capital in a group photo- sort of share the blame for the last 8 years- while their 'leaders' ballyhooed this [actual] budget. Man-tanned is seen just behind Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell - escapee from Madame Toussaint's Wax Museum.
Oh, we all wondered, what would be inside the blue cover of that document. Would it actually contain numbers this time? And how would it address the current financial fiasco that resulted from the actions and policies of this knot of GOP insolents?
The answers were clear:
1. yes, it had numbers;
2. nada- as in nada bit different.
Tax cuts for the rich and for corporations were the key highlights of the GOP Blueprint for Disaster, version 2.0. The Stimulus Bill? CUT! Who needs that, anyway? Just more socialism!
When will they ever learn? America rejected their failed policies big time in the fall of 2008, yet, here they are once again, peddling the same snake oil as last time- just in a different bottle.
Purge! Purge the Republican Party of its 'leaders' and allow it to become the once Great Old Party again. Until then, it appears that America will remain a one-party nation.
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