Well, That Explains It

Finally, proof positive:  The Republicans are full of crap.

For years they’ve galloped around ringing those bells and shooting those guns and hollering about the deficits! The deficits! The deficits! They demanded government cuts, cut ‘er to the bone because the deficits were too high and we’re all gonna die in the streets like dawgs!

So, they go into negotiations with the Dems, demanding more and more cuts and the President keeps seeing them and raising them (including tossing Social Security and Medicare into the “cut” pile) until they had on the table four trillion in cuts versus one trillion in higher taxes for the wealthiest Americans, as well as closed tax loopholes that aren’t helping the economy and certainly aren’t “creating any jobs.”

And the Republicans walked away. Four to one. Four to one! And they walked, willing to let the country go into default in order to further their own political careers and to protect their wealthy clients (what George Bush called “my base”).

Of course, the American people put all these extremist Tea Partiers and Republicans into office so they could drive America off the financial cliff rather than remove a tax break on rich folks’ second, vacation homes. This in a country where a good many people’s first and only homes are under water and another good chunk of people don’t have any homes any more.

Conservative columnist David Brooks, in a recent NY Times column, said he is beginning to believe that Republicans are not fit to rule.

He’s right.

Speaking of Unfit

Dan DeVaul is once again facing jail time for running a “sober living” Sunny Acres facility for homeless people by housing them in buildings that aren’t up to code and that the County feels are unsafe. And they aren’t up to code because, at this point, bringing them up to code would cost about $25,000 for the various building fees required to begin work.

And who could waive the fees so getting the upgrades done so the people living there now wouldn’t have to return to living in the creek? The Planning Commission. And have they done so? Not to my knowledge.

So, DeVaul may go to the hoosegow and the judge will decide on August 5th whether the people now living there must vacate the place entirely and go live in the creek (which everyone agrees is MORE unsafe, unsanitary, and illegal than Sunny Acres, but there you are) and the situation goes once more into an unsolved mess.

True, true, for the years this mess has gone on, both De Vaul and the County repeatedly had a chance to ask themselves: Do you want to be right or do you want to get something done? And they repeatedly wanted to be right, so here we are again at Stupid.

Let’s hope the County Planning Commission waives the fees. Then, perhaps a separate Board can be formed that would be co-administered by the Board and whatever County bureau oversees homeless issues, and subject to full audits. (I add that caveat because I think this has been a sick game for De Vaul and before anyone sends him or Sunny Acres a dime, I’d want a serious check on those donations.) Then a campaign to raise building and fix ‘er up money could be started so Sunny Acres can continue offering the homeless a sober-living place that may help solve some of their problems.

But I won’t hold my breath. In the game of rights fighting, sick, homeless people just become pawns. So, I’m betting on the creek at this point.

I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do.

The New York Times reports that Kody Brown, a polygamist from Utah (and who’s starring in the TV show, “Sister Wives,”) is planning on filing a lawsuit to challenge the polygamy law based on “the 2003 United States Supreme Court decision, Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down state sodomy laws as unconstitutional intrusions on the ‘intimate conduct’ of consenting adults. It will ask the federal courts to tell states that they cannot punish polygamists for their own “intimate conduct” so long as they are not breaking other laws, like those regarding child abuse, incest or seeking multiple marriage licenses. . . . Making polygamous unions illegal, they argue, violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment, as well as the free exercise, establishment, free speech and freedom of association clauses of the First Amendment.”

Well, bring it on, I say. If you support gay marriage, then can polygamy be far behind? Or polyandry? (Having spent Sunday shoveling out the garage and cleaning out all the gutters, soaking wet and scampering up and down ladders, the thought of having several husbands with their long Honey-Do lists began to look positively lovely along about 3 p.m. let me tell you!)

Mr. Brown, his four wives and 16 children and stepchildren are in for a battle, but the question remains: Why not? Adults are fee to live together now in whatever grouping they want to, providing they don’t violate zoning laws (too many people under one roof) and men and women regularly make babies all willy-nilly and all minus a marriage certificate. And blended families and so-called “serial marriages” result in some pretty confusing hers/his/ours homes.

So why not legitimize the ad-hoc arrangement, thereby allowing baby daddies to legally sign on to their offspring and legally give wives the civil protections of “marriage/civil unions,” rather than continue the muddled mess we have now?

True, there are serious issues in the minority of isolated Mormon fundamentalist groups of illegal child marriages and the stultifying fundamentalist culture of keeping the women subservient, pregnant and uneducated and tossing the excess young boys out of the fold, but those issues can be found in other wacky religious cults and other weird fundamentalist religions groups, all of which are protected under the first amendment. Plus, those issues don’t seem to be what Mr. Brown and his TV family are dealing with – being all well educated, modern and wealthy. And likely those issues wouldn’t be what a larger group of polygamists would be dealing with.

So, I say, bring it on. Time to have that public discussion: Just what is “marriage” anyway, and just what connection should the state have in deciding how we create (and un-create) our “families?” If the state’s reason for getting involved is based on protection of the young and vulnerable and in seeing to administering a set of laws can deal with property issues and financial responsibilities and rights of inheritance & etc, then all of those issues surely would aid a polygamous household even more than a monogamous one.

It’s About Time

President Obama is now sending condolence letters to the families of members of the military who have committed suicide. Good on him. It’s about time. And may be a sign that finally – FINALLY – the military is beginning to understand just how lethal PTSD and acute stress reactions can be to soldiers. (Or anybody else for that matter.)

Stress and trauma are killers – literally. The toll they take on the physical body is as deadly as cancer or heart disease. This isn’t a matter of some “psychology,” it’s biological and totally beyond the control of the victims. Fight, flight, freeze are governed by the amygdala and operate without volition. And those biochemical actions constantly bathe the person in a bath of adrenaline and other chemicals that, if repeated and repeated, have serious physical consequences.

The term Wounded Warrior fits any soldier who has served in any capacity in any theatre of war, anywhere. And untreated PSTD is a combat wound as lethal as any other.

And I’m glad the President and the military are finally getting around to understanding that. Now I can only hope the military’s resources can be brought to bear on the problem. Great strides have been made in treating the horrible wounds our new wars are inflicting on our soldiers. Now we need great strides to be made in effectively treating the insidious and too-often ignored dangers of pre, ongoing and post-traumatic stress, because it’s a killer.

Head For The Hills, Sam, The GAY Is Coming!

So is our own Assemblyman, Sam Blakeslee, got his eye on running for State Senator? Casting an eye on his “base,” fixin’ for ta’ fire ‘em up, fixin’ fer a run?

According to an Oct 18 Tribune story by Bob Cuddy, Sam sent a memo to his fellow Republicans just dissing Governor Schwarzenegger all over the place, attacking several pieces of health care legislation that Sam thinks are really bad. Seems Sam thought it was reeeeelly, reeeelly awful to have a law that outlawed “gender discrimination in health care and prohibit health insurers from dropping clients who run up large bills within two years of signing up.” (Uh, wasn’t that a key issues in the federal “reform,” making sure insurance companies can’t dump people who cost them money? As for gender discrimination in health care? Sam’s FOR gender discrimination in health care and opposed to a bill that would eliminate that? Huh?)

Also on Blakeslee’s top 10 list of WORST legislation is recognizing out-of-state gay marriage [you know, complying with the Federal full faith and credit clause] and “declaring May 22 ‘Harvey Milk Day,” which Blakeslee said ‘champions (the) homosexual political agenda.”

So Sam’s four-square behind creating two classes of California citizens; those who have full civil rights and can marry and have those marriages done in another state be legit in this state, and those who almost have full civil rights, except their perfectly legal out-of-state marriage is bupkis. And, Awww Mah Gawd. Hide the children, it’s the dreaded “Homosexual political agenda.” (Does that differ from the standard, plain vanilla, white-bread, run-of-the-mill “Homosexual agenda?”) Yikes, sounds like Sam’s cranking up his Feed The Base It’s The Dreaded GAY! playbook.

Cuddy’s story also notes, “As the Republican leader in the Assembly, Blakeslee is one of the so-called Big Five who have significant input into how the state is run.” All you second-class citizens need to keep that in mind. Sam’s moving on up. He signed a blood oath to Grover Norquist and was willing to see this state go off a cliff rather than make some sensible tax compromises and for his party loyalty he was given a seat at the Big Boy table. (Senator Maldonado modestly compromised and was punished for his loyalty to the state as a whole and loyalty to the people of the state. In Grover Norquist Land, there is only one loyalty and it isn’t to the constitution or the people of the state; it is to the Republican Party.)

Thank You Doctor Foreman

In the Trib’s Oct 18 series on health care, “Can We Heal The System?” there’s a brief story on Dr. Larry Foreman, an emergency room physician from Arroyo Grande. Dr. Larry sensibly notes that even though we are supposedly “reforming health care,” what we really are doing is simply reforming health INSURANCE, which still doesn’t solve the problem.

“We can do it now, or we can do it later,” Foreman says of universal health care. The current system is destined to ‘implode,’ he says. ‘It’s not sustainable.’
“Demographics are not reassuring, he says,” to which I can only add, “I’ll say!”

“The ideal system, Foreman says, would provide ‘the best result with the least amount of money being spent,’ as opposed to the market deciding, which he believes is the way health care delivery works today.

“As to spending less money, many reforms are needed, including making sure pharmaceutical companies spend their research and development money on research and development and not on salaries and advertising.

“Foreman also stresses the need for preventive medicine.”

Indeed so, Dr. Foreman. We actually need a system that’s focused on coordinating patient care -- the so-called Mayo Clinic method – add in known “best practices” care and aggressive preventative care early on, and maybe we’d have a shot at actually improving our medical health. Plus, figuring out a way to get the American public to grow up and begin to take some responsibility for their own health.

Round ‘em UP, Head ‘em Out

That loud sucking sound you heard east of town was Cal Poly President,Warren Baker trying to ‘splain why he capitulated and forced a guest speaker (author and agribusiness critic) Michael Pollan to share his (formerly) solo podium with speakers from agribusiness so he wouldn’t lose Harris Beef Ranch Co’s promised donation to the university. Suss out on academic freedom or lose the big cow bucks, said Harris. And Baker said? Well, in the Tribune he had an “explanation” that went, Blah, Blah, Blah, our students need to be exposed to diverse viewpoints, Blah, Blah, Blah, “Alumni – or for that manner any special interest groups including donors – do not dictate classroom content and they do not dictate who will come to this campus and who won’t.” Blah, Blah, Blah. . . .

Well, that’s sure good news; no classroom content “dictation” BUT, apparently donors WILL dictate what kind of forum certain speakers will get when they do come to speak. Which means a solo speaker can get a solo podium BUT NOT if a wealthy donor demands that he be given a “panel” with “opposing views.”

Then he’ll get a panel or he’ll be given the bum’s rush.

Said Pollan, who is a journalism professor at UC Berkley, “. . . Wood’s threat constituted an attack on academic freedom, adding that bullying has no place at a university.”

You may laugh now.