june 2011

book ideas: belly of the beast and the wolves at the door by judy pearson



courage:

courage is doing what you're afraid to do. there can be no courage unless you're scared -- edward vernon rickenbacker

it is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare -- twain

when we are afraid we ought not to occupy ourselves with endeavoring to prove that there is no danger, but in strengthening ourselves to go on in spite of the danger -- mark rutherford

courage is the power to let go of the familiar -- raymond lindquist

courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear --ambrose redmoon

each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing -- eleanor roosevelt


read about a newish game called pickleball in the natural awakenings magazine. sounds interesting--wonder who plays? invented in '65 by congressman joel pritchard supposedly. recently added to senior olympics. start with underhand serve diagonally, games go to 11 pts, played on badminton court, net at 3ft, play closer to net, wooden paddles and a wiffleball.

from the may 9 2011 issue of nation, p 6: article "Teachers Aren't the Enemy"
"The attack has diverse roots, and comes not only from Republicans. Groups like Democrats for Education Reform have dedicated substantial resources to undermining teachers unions. With Race to the Top, the Obama administration has put its weight behind a reform agenda featuring charter schools, which employ mostly nonunion labor as its centerpiece. A disturbing bipartisan consensus is emerging that favors a market model for public schools that would abandon America's historic commitment to providing education to all children as a civil right. This model would make opportunities available largely to those motivated and able to leave local schools; treat parents as consumers and children as disposable commodities that can be judged by their test scores; and unravel collective bargaining agreements so that experienced teachers can be replaced with fungible itinerant workers who have little training, less experience and no long-term commitment to the profession." Authors are from New York U and U of New York.

same issue p 4 on policing pregnancy: women being jailed when unborn child died, several interesting cases cited

onearth summer 2011 issue:' ABC/Washington Post poll last June found 71% of respondents believed the federal gov should curb carbon dioxide pollution from cars and power plants". where then the politicians who used to support that view but now do not? the article suggests . . "reversals look to be nothing other than a stampede to endear themselves to Tea Party hard-liners whose extremist agenda included last spring's attempts in Congress to cripple the EPA, an agency created 4 decades ago by overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress and signed by Nixon."

US Chamber of Commerce told the EPA in a recent filing that there's no need to worry because "populations can acclimatize to warmer climates via a range of behavioral, physiological, and technological adaptations". p23

same issue p. 44: article The Corn Mob discusses benefits to corn growers and ethanol blenders when corn goes into ethanol which gets a tax credit of 45 cents for every gallon they mix with
gasoline. i think this was either eliminated or is in discussion about eliminating credits--unhappy people will result. ..."although corn growers don't receive subsidies directly, the ethanol industry is a reliable and expanding market, with higher demand translating into higher prices"

the corn for ethanol is not the corn people eat. . an increased demand for feed corn drives up the cost of business, dairy, meat and poultry producers. . . ditto prices for chain restaurants like for nuggets and big macs. see http://switchboard.nrdc.org

The Progressive Populist June 15, 2011: p. 3 Chevron's CEO "I don't think people want shared sacrifice from oil corporations. I think they want shared prosperity."

about requests for all emails with certain words like scott walker, madison, rachel maddow, etc from the machinac center -- 3 profs at 3 different michigan universities -- check names koch, devos, princes and walton who are funding many right wing people and so called think tanks.

p 7 GOP chokes on own Medicare Kool-Aid: Obama's words: The GOP roadmap "asks Americans to accept that even though we can't afford to care for seniors and poor children, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy."


p. 9 Feds to States: 'Drop Dead'--suggestion here to take our deposits out of wall street banks and put the $ in state-owned banks = sounds like a good idea. or use a local credit union.

p. 13 Deconstructing a Paul Ryan Sound Bite: "taxpayers at america's tippy top--taxpayers with the nations' 400 highest incomes--have seen the share of income they pay in federal income tax drop from 51.2% of their income in 1955 to 18.1% in 2008".

research Philip morris international (altria) -- owns 7 of the world's top 15 cigarette brands under auspices of Kraft Foods, non tobacco holdings are cookies, cool whip, coffee, cadbury. . . see kraftfoodscompany.com and search for brands.


loved (hms pinafore):

I always voted at my party's call
and i never thought of thinking for myself at all

the june atlas meeting again fit the monday night baseball, friday night fights and a 3 ring circus moniker. they voted to continue membership in the township/municipal organization and pay the extra for insurance and then heard a surprise letter read by the clerk from wendall kelly naming 4 people who should not be on the police funding board. the chair they did not want--he went to the state board because he didn't believe he should have to pay the police assessment the board imposed. he crossed them? wow. read the principles of a trustee (i read these to the board in 2008 when the new supervisor took office--they don't like her--but they like ammon i guess (issues with destroyed hard drive ignored--rumor has it they all knew about it anyway. similar event recently in goodrich city. how suspect is that--coincidence?) need to write what to say at the july meeting about these "cons"

july 2011 sojourners p 17-21: "A Web of Power" summarizes the use of online tools to transform social change.

"Stranger in a Strange Land" p 26-29 about work of intelligence people especially in iraq. "According to news reports, Manning had a transformative conscientious awakening when he found himself responsible for the unjust imprisonment of 15 Iraqi activists. When he determined that the pamphlets they were distributing were not terrorist tracts, but instead highlighted corruption in the al-Maliki government, Manning took the info directly to his commanding officer. . .Manning also allegedly discovered classified footage taken from Army Apache helicopters during 2007 air to ground attack near Baghdad that killed 2 Reuters correspondents and at least 10 others and wounded 2 children. . . (Evan Knappenberger, WA)

film REJOICE AND SHOUT the story of gospel music
Submarine
Project Nim
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

p40 "The Ayn Rand Makeover": "Anyone who has so far managed to avoid Rand's work or her disciples should know that in her novels and essays Rand expounded a world view dubbed Objectivism that can be summed up as a pastiche of free-market libertarianism and cartoon Nietzscheanism. To the Randian, there is no God but self, and self will and pursuit of self interest is the only virtue."

p. 9 Last year, Manhattan hedge fund manager John Paulson took home $.9 billion in pay. Before the crash, Paulson helped inflate the housing bubble by designing junk mortgage-backed securities for Goldman Sachs--and then profited from the pop by betting that those very securities would fail. Yet instead of being run out of business, last year he made about $1.5 billion more than the federal food stamp program spent in all of New York City. p.9 July 2011 Sojourners "The Safety Net Frays" p8-9

books to read: Indignez-vous by stephane hessel available in french or english and Cultures of war by john dower



from the Nation p 5 april 11. 2011 Michigan Monarchy by John Nichols: Jefferson outlined the most egregious acts of King George III "For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever" Jefferson argued in the Declaration of Independence, the king was engaged in "the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States." Under the mid-March law passed in MI, the governor "essentially has financial martial-law powers. If he determines that a city or school district is experiencing financial difficulties he can replace its elected officials with managers who are permitted under the law to assume all their powers." They "can be private individuals allied with the governor or even corporations with consulting contracts. They can cancel local labor contracts, cut or eliminate social services and even begin processes of dissolving existing units of government and forcing mergers of cities and school districts". Would you not assume that Snyder has assumed the powers of a monarch?

any reason the NFL doesn't want the players to see the league's financial records? is this what the lockout is really about? wouldn't surprise anyone. "The owners refused to open the books, offering instead "a single sheet of paper with 2 numbers on it". This single sheet would be available to the union only after being vetted by an independent 3rd party". p 6 the Nation april 11, 2011 Players are also asking to choose their own doctors--

the Nation p 11-15 How Wall Street Crooks Get Out of Jail Free
The article points out the lack of government interest/desire to prosecute Wall Street and the resulting surmise that big business/Wall Street can get away with fraud with no repercussions. "The technical difficulties in making a case for criminal prosecutions are real enough, given the complexities of modern finance. But the government's lack of response to enormous wrongdoing reflects a deeper conflict of values. Will society's sense of right and wrong prevail, or will corporate capitalism's amoral need to maximize profit. So fare the marketplace appears to be winning. Deferring prosecution was made standard practice by George W Bush's Justice Department, which over eight years deferred or canceled some 108 prosecutions. Important corporations that have settled without a public trial include Boeing, AIG, AOL, Halliburton, BP, Health South, Daimler Chrysler, Wachovia, Merrill Lynch, Pfizer, UBS and Barclays Bank.

When NJ Gov Chris Christie was a US Attorney, he approved a series of deferred prosecution agreements and handed out sinecures to political pals--a lucrative lawyer's job of monitoring corporations. In one settlement Christie ordered Bristol-Myers-Squibb to finance an endowed chair at Seton Hall law school, Christie's alma mater.

The confusion of values starts with the fictitious premise that the corporation is a person, for purposes of law. . . But corporations are not mortal beings, of course, and unlike people, they can live forever. The language of 'corporate person-hood' is really a slick way of saying property rights come before people's rights. . . for many years people have been led to believe that corporate good fortune is synonymous with general prosperity. As broadly shared prosperity is steadily withdrawn, people may rise up and demand serious reforms." but i'm not holding my breath.


Taking Aim at the Pentagon Budget p, 22-30:
the so called Iron Triangle = pentagon, military contractors and lobbyists, and hawks on the congressional armed services committees

"the biggest chunk of the military budget is for administration, overhead, salaries and benefits which make up about 42%. Tricare=insurance/health care. "Tricare absorbs about 1/10 of all pentagon spending and its costs gave skyrocketed from 19 billion 10 years ago to 53 billion today". wow

june 26--day of tandem skydive at ray mi. supposed to go fri but rainy. sun was a great day, warm but not hot. 13,000 ft and free fall to about 10,000; free fall of about 167ft/sec, great view of land. everyone should try it but . . . nick on plane w/me; i think he was on 1st flight by self but had an accompanying diver. same with the other guy, 2nd by self maybe.

JustAnswer.com -- site where you can pose a question, get a reply, pay answering attorney.

high end shopping = onekingslane.com, jossandmain.com, ruelala.com, giltgroup.com

shoedazzle.com
theoutnet.com

insurance helps: having financial problems, contact the patient advocate foundation (copays.org) and cancercare (cancercare.org)
if claims are denied, don't give up. speak to a supervisor, get doctor help, patient representatives at hospitals, read the book i mentioned in an earlier post, get a friend to go with you to help take notes at appointments, meetings, etc

who knew bird nests are protected? hobby farm home sept-oct 2011, p84, had an article about having a nest in your possession. Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, "it's illegal to disturb the next of any native bird without a permit. It's also illegal to collect or have in your possession live native birds (adults or young), bird feathers, nests or eggs; to incubate wild-bird eggs; to keep nests or eggs, even for "show and tell" purposes; or to have road-killed birds in your possession without a permit". The law also applies to transporting, trapping or killing other birds that may be nuisances like chickadees and doves; non native birds and exotics are exempted--like canadian geese, house sparrow, starlings, domestic pigeons, etc. It's also illegal to move an active nest without a permit from the US Fish and Wildlife Service and sometimes from your state. No permit needed to scare or herd migratory birds other than endangered or protected ones; fines up to 6 mos in jail and fine up to 15,000.