Thanks Be To God!

My grandson was accepted into the high school of his choice, the school that his older brother attends. He's taking the separation of his parents quite hard, and, had he not been accepted, it would have been a terrible blow to him. Normally, I don't have much patience with the mentality that not getting into the right school will ruin a young person's life, but, in this case, my grandson didn't need another big disappointment coming right at this time.

What Do You Think?

From Lance, who laughs his way through his pain, with the following message:

Best scarf of 2009......you would look SO good in one of these! So toasty and warm.....AND attractive!

Perhaps for my visit to that cold place?

In The Mail

 

My shiny new passport arrived in the mail yesterday. I let my old one expire, because, due to embarrassment, I did not plan to leave the country while Bush was in office. I didn't want to wander the world saying, "I don't like him, either". Many thought me silly, but I simply could not go. Here in the US, we were all in the mess together.

In exactly one month, I will leave for England, and I can't wait. My woolly socks shipped the other day. I usually can't wear wool against my skin, but I tried out the socks yesterday, and they seem fine on my feet and legs. As of now, I plan to leave my long wool coat at home and take an all-weather coat. Mine doesn't have a zip-in liner, but with enough layering, the all-weather should do. Plus, it's waterproof, and I see that the sun peeps out only occasionally, interspersed with lotsa rainy days. The humidity and I should get along quite well, because living in south Louisiana, I will be already acclimated. I'll look at the extended weather forecast right before I leave, and I may change my mind if cold weather extremes are in the offing. Here's a link to the average temperatures in Leeds in March.

Durham Cathedral is on my list of places that I want to visit. I hope that the picture below wasn't taken in March. I don't usually pray about the weather, but I may change my mind.


Picture from Wiki.

Please Pray For Lance

I had an accident with my table saw Monday evening. Spent night in hospital and had surgery 1st thing Tuesday morning to repair left hand. I have cuts on 4 of 5 fingers. repaired severe damage to middle finger. I have a pin in middle finger. This shit hurts------------- My left arm is in a cast--cannot type...

Lance, who lives in a town nearby, found me through my blog. We haven't met yet, but we will. I've seen pictures of him, his lovely wife, and his two beautiful children. I just talked to him on the phone. His middle finger was hanging after the accident, but the doctors put it back together, and the blood flow is good. They say his fingers will be fine. Good thing. We all need the functioning middle finger for those special times when nothing but sign language works.

UPDATE FROM LANCE: I just read the comments your friends wrote of me. Thank you and please thank them. Seems like a nice fan base you have.

You are quite a nice fan base, my friends. Thank you.

"That's Too Bad"

From the Times-Picayune:

A national organization of scientists has informed Gov. Bobby Jindal it will not hold its annual convention in Louisiana as long as the recently adopted Science Education Act remains on the books.

The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology told Jindal in a recent letter that its executive committee chose Salt Lake City for its 2011 convention over New Orleans "in large part" because of the legislation.

To Gov. Jindal and the Louisiana Legislature: New Orleans thanks you. The hotel and restaurant owners thank you. I thank you. This was bound to happen.

"That's too bad," Jindal spokesman Kyle Plotkin said of the group's decision. "New Orleans is a first-class city for a convention." Plotkin said the governor did not respond to Satterlie's letter.

Too bad the governor and the legislature don't have first-class minds, or they would never have passed the stupid law. New Orleans badly needs the business, but the city must pay the price for the ignorance of the political leaders of the state.

Many scientific groups, both in Louisiana and nationally, urged the governor to veto the bill. They cast the act, sponsored by Sen. Ben Nevers, D-Bogalusa, as a back-door attempt to allow Judeo-Christian creation theology or "intelligent design" -- the concept that biological life forms are the result of an intelligent being -- to be taught as part of science class.
....

"It is the firm opinion of SICB's leadership that this law undermines the integrity of science and science education in Louisiana," Satterlie wrote.

Of course, it does. The law will likely be struck down as unconstitutional, as was the previous law passed in the 1980s, the "Creationism Act", after a long and expensive legal battle all the way to the Supreme Court.

Roseann - Believe The Unbelievable

Dear Mimi,

I just spoke with Roseann, and she told me the tumor in the stomach is benign, and the doctors now believe her problems are caused by anxiety, and plan to treat her accordingly. She did use a sleeping pill last night and finally got some sleep. However this morning after her shower (which is not in her room) she fell in the hallway in front of a bunch of nurses, and now has a compression fracture of the hip. She is in excruciating pain. What more can go wrong??

She asked me to pass on the news.

Blessings to the OCICBW bloggers for all of their attention.

Sue

Thanks be to God that the tumor is benign. May Roseann's pain from the fracture of her hip and from the anxiety ease. Lord, have mercy!

An Alleluia For Doxy!

do I hear an alleluia?

PJ has left a new comment on your post
FRIEND IN A DARK PLACE:

GOOD NEWS!

Ms. Doxy has updated her Facebook page from afar, and has authorized me to let you know that all is well. She says:

Digital mammogram, with results read on-site. All is clear. Thanks be to God! (and to all you wonderful people...)

Thanks be to God, indeed.

Posted by MadPriest.

Alleluia!

What About Dover?

From John Soltz at The Huffington Post:

Christina Bellantoni, writing in the Washington Times today, details President Obama's first experiences writing letters of condolence to families of the fallen. According to the story, the president is taking the time to write each letter himself, signing it simply "Barack." As the president writes these letters, and feels the weight of Americans dying in war under his administration, he should also consider how the human cost of war has partially been hidden from the public, and reverse that policy.

Yes. So long as the policy change is sensitive to and respectful of the privacy of the families of the fallen, change must come. US citizens, along with the families of those who have died, need to know the true costs of war. Several years ago, a video (illegal?) which showed the dignified and respectful treatment by the military of the remains of those who died in the wars made the rounds. It's something we should all see.

In the end, those of us who served swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Part of that Constitution is freedom of the press, to promote the ability of the public to have as much information as possible -- even when that information is not comfortable for those decision-makers in power.

The return of our war dead certainly falls into that category. The policy should be changed.

A veteran speaks.

Picture from The Memory Hole.

UPDATE: I added the picture.

Career Change

A gynecologist had become fed up with malpractice insurance and HMOs and a medical center who did not pay him what he was worth. Hoping to try another career where skillful hands would be beneficial and he could write his own ticket, he decided to become a mechanic.

He went to the local technical college, signed up for evening classes, attended diligently, and learned all he could.

When the time for the practical exam approached, the doc prepared carefully for weeks and completed the exam with tremendous skill.

When the results came back, he was surprised to find that he had obtained a score of 150%.

Fearing an error, he called the instructor, saying, "I don't want to appear ungrateful for such an outstanding result, but I wonder if there is an error in the grade."

The instructor said, "During the exam, you took the engine apart perfectly, which was worth 50% of the total mark. "You put the engine back together again perfectly, which is also worth 50% of the mark."

After a pause, the instructor added, "I gave you an extra 50% because you did it all through the muffler, which I've never seen done in my entire career."

Don't blame me. Blame Doug.

David Brooks' Beltway Wisdom

From Glenn Greenwald at Salon:

The New York Times' David Brooks and Gail Collins had an online "conversation" with one another this week, and Brooks did an excellent job of explicitly demonstrating most everything that is relevant -- and destructive -- about the mentality of the standard Beltway journalist (h/t reader jm). In fact, much of what Brooks wrote about what he believes tracks almost completely the discussion I had with Jay Rosen on Bill Moyers' show last week regarding the rot of the American political press. First, there's this from Brooks:

What I’m really annoyed by, though, is the withdrawal of Tom Daschle. What are we, a nation of virgins? . . .

Of course, Obama asked for all this with his cynical promise to ban lobbyists from his administration. There’s a word for lobbyists: experts. Some are sleazy and many are quite admirable, but the idea of trying to run Washington without them is absurd.

To David Brooks, lobbyists are nothing more than "experts" who provide important and helpful insight to legislators as they earnestly try to craft laws in the public interest. Not only are lobbyists a positive influence, but they're actually indispensable. The fact that these so-called "experts" are paid by the wealthiest corporate factions to ensure that the laws Congress passes are designed to serve their narrow, insular interests -- and that this is accomplished by pouring money into the coffers of the very people who write the laws so that they're writing the laws that serve these interests -- never makes it into Brooks' understanding of this process. Thus, he is baffled that anyone would find lobbyist-domination of our political process to be at all objectionable.

David Brooks is no favorite of mine. He's never been. Often, his columns seem incoherent to me, and trying to make sense of them turns my brain into mush. I stopped reading him a long time ago. But he's clear enough in his idiotic description of corporate lobbyists as "experts". Experts in what? In getting legislation passed that will benefit their clients who pay them money. That's where their expertise lies. They may very well know a good deal about the subject of the legislation, but their loyalty is to the clients who pay them.

When former lobbyists serve in the administration of an elected official, how easy is it to completely break away from loyalty to former clients and serve the best interests of the the citizens of the country? I'd wager that it's not easy.

Obama works against the culture of the Beltway. The culture embraces the elected officials, the corporate lobbyists, and the top tier DC press and pundits in a cozy circle. They attend the same dinner and cocktail parties and exchange insider gossip. I doubt that group of press people could function outside the circle, because they've long forgotten how to, you know, gather news. They're well paid, most certainly not of the hungry-reporter species.

My main objection to Tom Daschle was not the tax problem. That can happen to anyone, right? Except if one the little people make a "mistake" of a couple of hundred dollars, the IRS could be on them rather quickly. It's his being part of the corporate lobby culture of cars with drivers, salaries in the millions, etc. that caused me to want him gone. That he actually lobbied for the health care industry seemed significant to me. We must believe him capable of quickly shedding the lobbyist skin and donning the skin of a fierce advocate of ordinary people, who so badly need a fix for health care in the US.

Are we to believe that lobbyists are the only folks with expertise?

Greenwald appeared with Jay Rosen on Bill Moyers Journal. He quotes Rosen:

JAY ROSEN: Well, what doesn't get considered, Bill, is that there could be anything radically wrong with Washington. That the entire institution could be broken. That there are new rules necessary. That idea, that the institutions of Washington have failed and need to be changed, doesn't really occur to the press, because as Glenn said, they're one of those institutions. And they're one of the ones that failed.

Yes.

Read the conversation between David Brooks and Gail Collins at the link. There Brooks exposes the weakness of his brain function from which come the incoherent columns. Obama ruined his honeymoon, folks. Shall we all send him sympathy cards?

I'm grinding my teeth as I write. I'd best end the post while my teeth are intact.

UPDATE: Post edited to clarify that I referred to corporate lobbyists in the post. Thanks to Bruce C, who works for the American Library Association, for reminding me in the comments that not all lobbying is a bad thing.