inkpool, posts by tag: meaning bloodsuckers - LiveJournal

It was the first election for which I was eligible to vote! ...and I didn't. Because I am stupid and registered in Georgia rather than Illinois where, you know, there were actually competitive races. (I live in Newt Gingrich's old district. Yes.)

I hope you voted, though, even though I am a terrible person who has failed in doing my civic duty.

also, I mourn Russ Feingold. >:

Eight ways to pass health care reform. Some more plausible than others, but funny, clever, and the winner is absolutely perfect.

Eighth runner-up: Bruce Miller, Grand Ledge, Mich.:
Invent a time machine. Go back to 1974 and tell Ted Kennedy to take the health reform deal Nixon offered. Inventing the time machine is the hard part, but it is likely easier than getting this bill passed. I mourn for the millions of folks who stood to get help under this bill and am ashamed of our country for kicking them to the curb.

Reasons Not to Kill the Senate Health Care Bill

On the whole, Hamsher is right to argue that the Senate bill is a deeply flawed piece of legislation which, as Paul Krugman observes, “we’ll spend years if not decades fixing it.” In fact, “with few exceptions, sweeping initiatives in the U.S. system start small, are often flawed, and then are expanded, sometimes improved, sometimes not.” Medicare began as smaller program that was expanded to cover “hospice benefits, mammograms and pap smears to detect cancer, and most recently, under the Republicans, prescription drugs.”

Obama, at the end of the day.

There have definitely been compromises, and there have been letdowns. There have been mistakes, and there have been broken promises. I’m not thrilled with the slow pace of Gitmo, I’m not thrilled about any number of things, but I see slow progress. But there have also been unrealistic expectations- Obama was always a risk averse, cautious, careful person- I remember the many discussions we had here regarding Obama as poker player versus John McCain and his reckless love of roulette, and we used to agree that a cautious poker player who studies the opposition and thinks long ball and treats us like adults was desirable.

There are no poor white people.

The charitable interpretation rests on the invisibility of white suffering. It rests on the erasure of Clay County. It rests on the notion that the white poor are not merely the white poor, but white trash. It's a formula makes an anchor of black America, straps it to a larger population of poor white Americans and then drops them in the Mississippi. It's a con that asks large swaths of white folks to suffer poverty in shame and silence.

And now for something entirely different: Seven Reasons for Atheists to Celebrate the Holidays.

But some of us love the holidays. We love the parties, the decorations, the smell of pine trees in people's houses, the excuse to eat ourselves sick, the reminder that we do in fact love our family and friends. We're cognizant of the shameless twisting and mawkish piety and whatnot -- but we can deal with it. It's worth it for an excuse to drink eggnog with our loved ones and bellow out "Angels We Have Heard On High" in half-assed four-part harmony. (In fact, when it comes to the holidays, atheists are in something of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" position. If we scorn them, we get called Scroogy killjoys... but if we embrace them, we get called hypocrites. Oh, well. Whaddya gonna do.)

Ta-Nehisi Coates on minority representation in TV. I love Coates because he feels relateable--not necessarily someone who is knowledgeable about a lot of topics, but someone who always tries to process and understand and figure it out. And he has a lot of really interesting things to say, as do (gasp!) the commentors on his blog. This is the one time I always try to read all the comments.

And then I watch something like Community, where they're clearly aware of race, but not race-obsessed, Pierce is hot for Shirley, and Annie is hot for Troy, and I can almost see my kid, or my grandkid throwing it all off and walking into this world where we've settled our accounts. I watched "Home Economics" and I was envious, like I'm envious when I walk down Broadway and see the interracial couples hand in hand. And it's so incredibly common, now. I'm not envious because I hate Harlem, or because I regret Howard, or Mondawmin or banging Malcolm's "Message To The Grassroots." I'm envious because I never thought I had a choice. Nationalism wasn't in my blood--but, without religion, it was the only thing that made the world make sense.

Palin wants to have it both ways. It's something I've been thinking a lot about lately. There is a certain kind of indulgence, almost paternalism, in the way men treat women, and I think there are some women who don't want to give that up because it does afford us certain advantages. (Not having to pay for dinner? [grin]) But the price of that is that we won't be taken seriously as long as we continue to accept living within that framework.

You simply can't have it both ways – it's ridiculous to be upset about being treated differently by the public because you're a woman and a mother, while demanding the same biased treatment when it might give you the edge in an interview. Hers is a gender politics of convenience, one that insults all women in politics.

The other lesson of Fort Hood.

The rest of his team were brought to Bagram as well. They were very adamant that they be the ones to escort the fallen brother to the C17. Although dirty and disheveled from their encounter, I agreed as I am certain their brother would have had it no other way. To a man, they wanted me to know one essential fact about him: he was Muslim.

Five down.

Forty-five to go.



One day. (also dear god do I fail at hiatus)

Yes, scientific innovation offers us the chance to achieve prosperity. It has offered us benefits that have improved our health and our lives – often improvements we take too easily for granted. But it also gives us something more.

At root, science forces us to reckon with the truth as best as we can ascertain it. Some truths fill us with awe. Others force us to question long held views. Science cannot answer every question; indeed, it seems at times the more we plumb the mysteries of the physical world, the more humble we must be. Science cannot supplant our ethics, our values, our principles, or our faith, but science can inform those things, and help put these values, these moral sentiments, that faith, to work – to feed a child, to heal the sick, to be good stewards of this earth.

We are reminded that with each new discovery and the new power it brings, comes new responsibility; that the fragility and the sheer specialness of life requires us to move past our differences, to address our common problems, to endure and continue humanity's strivings for a better world.

ilu Obama. (Although the whole 'faith is necessary to life' spiel doesn't make me roll my eyes any less when he says it.)

...

I'M DOING WORK I PROMISE. shh.

So today the Iowa Supreme Court legalized gay marriage. (Or they struck down a gay marriage ban, I should really say--but I'll get to that later.)

Naturally (AS ANYONE WHO KNOWS ANYTHING ABOUT ME CAN PROBABLY GUESS) I'm happy about this. And surprised--I really didn't see it coming. And I'm really glad this day came, and for all the couples who are finally getting something they should have had all along.

But that's not really what I wanted to talk about.

( Collapse )

PPS: "gay marriage Mecca"? Seriously? What are these people smoking?

Edited to include a link to some Iowa Supreme Court decisions, since we ARE talking about them here and they have a pretty awesome civil rights record. Also read their decision (or the summary thereof) on this case if you have time, guys, they said everything I did here only...better. XD

President Barack Obama.

Say that. Say that out loud.




Is that not weird?

ps: hiatus until Friday, possibly Saturday. Paying for my bad decisions, sigh. IF YOU SEE ME ON. KICK ME OFF.

FST.

I AM SO FUCKING GLAD I FINALLY GOT THAT DONE.

maybe I'll work on a Cat Street FST next.


ETA: "The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, who became the Episcopal Church’s first openly gay bishop in 2003 and last year entered into a civil union with his gay partner, will deliver the invocation for Sunday’s kickoff inaugural event on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, with President-elect Obama in attendance. The event is free and open to the public. An Obama source: “Robinson was in the plans before the complaints about Rick Warren. Many skeptics will read this as a direct reaction to the Warren criticism – but it’s just not so.” Robinson has been referred to as “the most controversial Christian in the world.”"

Via Politico; THIS IS AWESOME.