Wed Jul 02, 2008 at 21:25:07 PM PDT
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| Let's roll with this knowledge, and dream of what can be.
Those of us who live in America know next to nothing about how other countries' health care systems operate. Not because we're stupid or ignorant, I'd like to think, but because we are not allowed opportunities through our mainstream media to learn about other countries, so myths created easily perpetuate. Many of us turn to alternative sources of media or the internet (or both), but still, there's generally so much policy jargon to sift through. THIS is partly why Michael Moore's documentary Sicko left so many in the American public stunned regarding the various types of health access and services that citizens of other nations receive.
NPR did a piece today on Germany's health care system, a system which by the way has existed for over 125 years. For some jaw-dropping action, read the whole article, it's not that long. What really struck out for me was a fundamental difference in the set of values we hold above all else, in both countries. What we tolerate or praise here would not be tolerated there. What we struggle with here in regards to access to healthcare, bankruptcy from medical bills, huge deductibles, time to see docs, are a non-issue there. Obviously there are problems in every system. Here's a glimpse, though, of some of the virtues of the German system we're not exposed to in most of our media sources. Some quotable quotes:
Germany on access to doctors at times of need:
On one particular night, Juergen was the doctor on call for the region. Any German who needs after-hours care can call a central number and get connected to a doctor.
On access to humane and intuitive support services after an operation, as told by a woman who had thyroid surgery:
"Then I came home to my little daughter, who I couldn't really lift up because of my neck having been cut open," Sabina says. "So I asked my doctor, 'What can I do?' And she said, 'Well, your health insurance will pay for someone to come help you in the house.'"
They also pay for support services and money to families who want to keep their elderly parents at home and out of nursing homes. Again, a fundamentally different set of values.
On coverage for everyone:
The health care system... is not funded by government taxes. But it is compulsory. All German workers pay about 8 percent of their gross income to a nonprofit insurance company called a sickness fund.
On SOLIDARITY:
Basing premiums on a percentage-of-salary means that the less people make, the less they have to pay. The more money they make, the more they pay. This principle is at the heart of the system. Germans call it "solidarity." The idea is that everybody's in it together, and nobody should be without health insurance.
This one really got me. I dream of the day (it is possible!) when Americans routinely use the word solidarity.
On the cost to employers:
The big difference is that U.S. employers pay far more, on average, than German employers do - 18 percent of each employee's gross income versus around 8 percent in Germany.
On humanity (FUCK DEDUCTIBLES!)
Moreover, German health insurance has more generous benefits than U.S. policies cover. There are never any deductibles, for instance, before coverage kicks in. And all Germans get the same coverage.
After mentioning they would NEVER move to America STRICTLY because of health care costs for their chronic problems, a couple also notes the embarassing statistic about bankruptcy due to medical costs in America. On DIGNITY:
"It's also the No. 1 reason in the United States that people personally go bankrupt," Sabina translates, "which would never happen here ... never!"
On family coverage:
Nicole pays a premium of $270 a month for insurance that covers her children, too. Nicole pays a single $15 copayment once every three months to see her primary-care doctor - and another $15 a quarter to see each specialist, as often as she wants. She pays no copayments for her children's care --and her insurance even covers her daughter's orthodontia bill.
If you're self-employed you have to buy insurance from a private for-profit company (not the non-profit sickness funds). This is also an option if you make more than a certain amount a year. Interestingly...
But most people don't opt out. Chris says that's because there's a fundamental difference in the way Germans view health care and the government's role - which, in Germany, means refereeing the system and making sure it's fair and affordable.
The German govt regulates the insurance companies, or in better terms, holds them accountable to a basic set of guidelines:
So Chris' insurer can't raise his rates if he gets sick or jack up his premiums too much as he gets older. The government also requires insurers to keep costs down so things don't get too expensive.
And again, on SOLIDARITY:
Germans really hate any hint of unfairness in health care. The fundamental idea is that everybody must be covered and, preferably, everybody should get equal treatment. So the fact that 10 percent or so can buy some perks is an irritant - something Germans complain about but manage to put up with.
I noted that the article didn't mention anything about the uninsured in Germany (those who are not employed or are not self-employed, or who are self-employed but cannot afford the monthly premium). And then I realized that NPR had done a piece on the uninsured in Germany. 0.2 of the population there is uninsured, there are only 8 free clinics in the country, and that's changing for the better as a new law was passed that would allow for the uninsured to be covered. Picking up my jaw again from the floor.
ALSO check out the interactive international health care comparison chart at the NPR site -- you can do head to head comparisons of US vs Germany, Britain vs Germany, Switzerland vs Japan, and other such permutations. It's pretty interesting.
Thoughts on all of this? Let's roll with this knowledge, this new perspective, and dream of what can be. Cmon, pick your jaw up already! |
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Wed Jul 02, 2008 at 21:00:08 PM PDT
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| I attended the United States Social Forum last year in Atlanta, where 10,000 activists from the US and abroad gathered to discuss problems and strategize about solutions, inspire each other, and network. It was awesome. But there I noticed twice, times at which dirty looks were given to a mom in the room with her baby, when her baby started making any noise. I don't think it was intended, but it was still a clear sign that they weren't welcome.
Anyway, I was reminded of this when I saw Noemi's latest post at Hermana Resist, where she notes some suggestions for involving/including parents and single parents. These apply even more so to the local level with community-building efforts than to a gathering like the USSF. They're quite good suggestions, here are a few:
* realize that parents are people. Realize that parents are people. Realize that parents are the same people you knew before.
* realize that parents can be activists. but they are also parents. they have different things on their mind. Single parents often have things such as food, rent, money, health on their mind. Unlike the single person, they are usually thinking of their child(ren) when they think about these things. Sometimes a single parent (take me for example) cannot concentrate on the latest protest, though important as it may be, because I may be thinking of what will my next job be, and the addition of subtraction of money in my head.
* to build a community, parents and children should be welcome and not feel they can't attend a meeting/event because of their baby(ies).
* don't roll your eyes when someone brings up childcare.
* realize the different situations of a single parent and a family that has 2 parents. If you don't realize the difference, start asking questions.
* since when does your communty involvement only concern the childless, or those that can leave their kids with someone else, the other parent, a spouse/ or friend. Yes, in theory, the children can be left with babysitters. Who need to be paid.
* ever think why parents stop being involved in community events and meetings?
* if single parents don't feel you or the community cares about what it means to be a parent, a single parent, they won't seek you out for help. This is not community. This is not a welcomed community.
thoughts? |
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Wed Jul 02, 2008 at 17:48:14 PM PDT
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| Bhopal, India, 1984, the largest man-made catastrophe to date, killing thousands instantly and still having effects on families' health, wellbeing (not to mention the fact that gas spill is STILL affecting the groundwater and the corporations responsible have shirked responsibility. The movement-makers in this struggle have been strategic and passionate about their direct actions, appeals, and community-organized work in Bhopal. And they've become experts in strategizing for online activism to complement and strengthen their offline actions.
The first major hunger strike was coordinated in March 2007, and the strikers and the community really drummed up support and pressure by international supporters. I wrote about the hunger strike at our previous blog -- To the Teeth. (post titled Support the Bhopalis Right to Live). Amazingly, Satinath Sarangi, a legendary figure in the struggle for Bhopali rights and one of the folks on the hunger strike, wrote a COMMENT on the post, days into the hunger strike while weak and weary, thanking us for supporting the movement. Talk about passion, talk about "connectivity" online!
I've been wanting to write about this earlier, but there's been a hunger strike going on again, right now, and I'll share a press release from the campaign and intense photos from successful direct actions and the hunger strike. Below is their press release from today, and the photos and stories (must check out!) can be read at Bhopal.net.
And let me mention, Students for Bhopal has always been, and still is, one of THE COOLEST action groups in the US and abroad, and has been integral to the success of actions by the folks on the ground. They're doing a lot of the work connecting young activists around the world online with the movement on the ground. Love them, check out their site too!
Here's the press release:
Bhopal Nine End Fast; 10 Others Take on Baton
3 July, 2008. NEW DELHI -- Marking 22 days of their hunger strike, the nine Bhopalis, including 7 who are survivors of the 1984 gas disaster and/or victims of water contamination, ended their fast at 2 p.m. on 2 July. Meanwhile, 10 people took on the baton announcing that the indefinite fast to break the Government's silence on the Bhopal demands. The 10 people include 21-year old Suresh Pal, who was beaten and jailed for his peaceful demonstration outside the Prime Minister's Office, Hakam Singh, an ailing gas victim, and Piyush Sethia, a supporter of the Bhopal campaign from Salem, Tamilnadu. The Bhopal nine broke their fast under medical advice after the doctor declared at least three people - Irshaad Khan, Meera More and Iqbal Khan Khokhar - to be in danger due to their abnormally low pulse rates and blood pressure. All three are gas-affected people; 20-year old Irshaad was born to gas-affected parents. Two of the Bhopal supporters - Texas-based Diane Wilson, and Chennai-based Shweta Narayan - have also ended their fast. Both said they will continue to mobilize public opinion in their respective areas to increase pressure on the Government to act urgently.
Outlining their future course of action, the Bhopal organizations said that the coming weeks will see more direct actions both in Bhopal and New Delhi. "We are putting out wall posters in Bhopal inviting people who are prepared to get arrested to come to Delhi for a series of civil disobedience actions. This is the end-game, and we will see it to its logical conclusion," the organizations said. The groups will also hold a series of press conferences and public events in Bhopal to expose the BJP Government's role in prolonging the misery of Union Carbide's victims, and highlight Gas Relief Minister Babu Lal Gaur's complicity with Union Carbide since 1981. International supporters too have promised to take action outside Indian embassies and consulates, and confront Indian politicians and officials during their visits abroad.
The global relay hunger strike, meanwhile, has attracted nearly 800 people from several countries who have signed up online to fast for a day or longer in solidarity with the Bhopalis.
"Various members of the Group of Ministers of Bhopal have assured us that the GoM's recommendations closely reflect our demands. We also know that the Bhopal files are being moved at a unprecedented pace. We are now free to focus pressure on the Madhya Pradesh Government which is standing in the way of the Commission," said Satinath Sarangi, one of the 22-day fasters.
(Bold emphasis above is mine).
This is obviously a struggle to support, and also a movement to learn from as we strategize, build community, and broaden our audience in our various campaigns. |
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Wed Jul 02, 2008 at 08:18:10 AM PDT
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| I'll be participating in this, you do it too!
Subject: Summer of Our Lorde: Transformative Summer Reading
Because it is better to READ!
This Summer BrokenBeautiful Press presents Summer of Our Lorde: Radical Study and Intentional Healing.
Summer of our Lorde is a study group/community building project inspired by the work of black lesbian feminist mother warrior poet Audre Lorde. |
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Wed Jul 02, 2008 at 06:25:11 AM PDT
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| Who are the Empowered Fe Fes?
Good question!
The Empowered Fe Fes is a support and action group of young women with disabilities ages 13 to 24. We have all different kinds of disabilities and come from different racial and ethnic communities. We live all over Chicago. We give respect and we better get it in return!
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Tue Jul 01, 2008 at 21:30:58 PM PDT
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If you happen to get sick this summer in Southern California and you wind up at my hospital, you can expect to find a gaggle of eager, intelligent, competent and caring new, young doctors (we like to call them 'interns') ready to listen intently to your story, as well as your heart and lungs of course. They may be 'green' but they certainly aren't dangerous so long as they're armed with 2 important tools: supervision & sleep.
The former seems blatantly lacking in the story quoted below.
Every neophyte is owed the opportunity to be taught so long as the teacher recognizes her imperative to teach. Especially in a hospital in July.
New Docs on the Block
According to medical lore, July is the worst time to be hospitalized because that's when inexperienced med students start clinical training. But is summer really riskier for patients?
A month into Sandeep Jauhar's medical internship at a prominent teaching hospital in New York City, he was asked to drain fluid from the belly of a patient who was HIV-positive. "I was trying to get out of the hospital to keep a dinner appointment," he recalls. "I was sort of rushing. I heard a snap and there was all this fluid leaking all over the floor." Jauher's gloves were too small, he hadn't assembled the tubes for the blood correctly, he was new, he was inexperienced and nobody was watching. "[The patient] was totally oblivious to the disaster, but it was a mess," he says. "These are the mistakes that new, green interns can make."
According to conventional wisdom, a patient's chances of encountering a mistake-prone rookie like Jauhar go way up in the summer. That's because July 1 is the start of the academic year for medical schools: In teaching hospitals around the country, medical students will replace interns, interns will replace residents and residents will move on to fellowships or to become full doctors.
This crucial and sometimes perilous training period can be incredibly difficult for medical students. As Jauhar writes in his recent book, "Intern, A Doctor's Initiation," incoming doctors are not only practicing on patients for the first time, they're also learning the often Byzantine workings of their respective hospitals, new technical language, new procedures and the tedious, yet critical, ways to fill out paperwork. All this learning is packed into 80-hour workweeks and overnight shifts in a busy hospital environment-a far cry from the academic environment they might be coming from. But is it really riskier to go into a teaching hospital during those first few weeks of intern training? Or is the "July phenomenon" a medical myth?
Finish reading at New Docs on the Block (Newsweek)
~casey
(cross-posted at NPA Blog) |
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Tue Jul 01, 2008 at 18:53:45 PM PDT
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| I had a small thought as I was walking down memory lane today, remembering the olden days when I got all hot and bothered for hard rock/heavy metal bands.
As I've said many times, I've always been feminist inclined but didn't really get "radical" until I got into the University. But being in the middle of Religious Midwest, being feminist inclined meant radical.
So a LOT of friends had a real hard time reconciling the fact that I really dug the epitome of sexist nastiness: Hard rock/heavy metal bands. I mean, what could possibly get more misogynistic than "She's my Cherry Pie" or "Girls Girls Girls"?
But as I was watching videos from the olden days (here and here), I realized that a large part of the attraction I had to these bands was the women rather than the men. In the middle of the 80's, in the middle of hyper strict religious town, in the middle of "no such thing as queer=good," the only place I could ever see women expressing sexuality at all was in the videos I was not supposed to be watching--the only place where even imagining making love to a woman was possible was at concerts where women "explored" their sexuality by showing their tits (because that's what rock girls did.) |
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Mon Jun 30, 2008 at 22:51:01 PM PDT
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| Cuz fiction's good for us. I keep veering away from fiction because there's too much non-fiction and current events and medicine to read, but fiction really is grounding (and therapeutic).
So, how many of these New Classics have you read? (keep in mind this list was compiled by Entertainment Weekly, but on quick glance it looks like a pretty cool list).
Yes, fiction as therapy.
It would make sense too then, that writing fiction would be therapeutic too. Ayjay explains it:
Ever wanted to kill someone and get away with it? You can. Ever wanted to commit suicide but still show up for work tomorrow? You can. Ever wanted to have a hot steamy inappropriate sexual tryst with that luscious co-worker or the barista at Starbucks who is 20 years your junior? You can. You can write the scenario, you can script your life, you can control the emotional pain and the wild fantasies that if acted on would have consequences.
And then ayjay goes on to challenge us with an exercise in fiction-writing. But wait there's more. Ayjay's got a series of posts and exercises in healing through fiction-writing.
Those of us here who actually DO write fiction (not me, yet!), any other thoughts? |
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Mon Jun 30, 2008 at 18:59:29 PM PDT
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I'm often exhausted after a long day at work and as my closer friends know, I often default to take-out or even sometimes gasp comfort fast-food. My thinking includes (er, my excuses include) not having enough time or enough variety of ingredients in the fridge to cook, and I often block out the nutritional value or lack of value inherent in these meals. I've been changin' that attitude up a bit lately, along with a bit of an exercise schedule. And I found this excerpt of a Q&A between Tara Parker Pope of NYTimes "Well" series and Mark Bitten (NYTimes food writer) reassuring and hopeful for folks in my line of thinking (that might include you):
Q: For me the worst part of cooking is shopping for groceries and figuring what ingredients I need for a meal.
A: These days I cook a lot of things that are already in the house. I eat a lot of eggs, vegetables, beans and pasta. A lot of people think cooking is complicated. But this is the thing. Once you learn what you're doing you realize it's not. As I said, I woke up yesterday and made beans. Even if you take a can of beans and throw it in a pot with cherry tomatoes (you don't even have to cut them up), some garlic and olive oil - there's nothing wrong with that. Broil a piece of fish, wash some lettuce, and you have a fine meal. If your kids don't like fish, then use shrimp or a piece of meat. I've gotten so used to cooking simply I almost never do anything else. Even when people come over for dinner - they get the same things I cook for myself. If I made what I just described to you and you were coming over for dinner, you'd probably think, "He cooked. How nice.'' People worry about this too much.
Q: When you are cooking, do you ask yourself whether it's healthy, or do you just want it to taste good?
A: I always thought if you were aware of what you were putting in your mouth you're not going to eat badly. Nobody can cook what they cook in fast-food joints and restaurants, in general, because you just don't have the same ingredients. But if you looked at what it means to put a half a cup of butter in a dish, you would just look and say, "I'm going to use less.'' When you cook yourself, you just don't put the same kind of crappy things in there that people put in food that is prepared for you.
Now i'm off to fix me an easy-to-make and nutritious dinner. |
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Sun Jun 29, 2008 at 18:30:21 PM PDT
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Lyrics below the cut |
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Sun Jun 29, 2008 at 17:23:15 PM PDT
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| I've decided that now is the time.
I will live.
I just need to figure out how to do it. |
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Sat Jun 28, 2008 at 01:06:01 AM PDT
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Melissa Harris-Lacewell, well-known political commentator and Professor of Politics and African-American Studies at Princeton University, recently said goodbye to her uterus:
It is a tough goodbye. I really like my uterus. I don't have personal relationships with all of my internal organs, but this one was special. She protected and carried my lovely daughter for nine months. She was with me every step of the way in a 12-hour, natural delivery. My uterus and I did not take so much as a Tylenol while birthing that seven-pound baby. We are very proud of ourselves.
She had symptomatic fibroids -- benign masses in her uterus that caused significant bleeding. More than 25% of white and more than 50% of black americans have fibroids. Lacewell breaks some of the silence around fibroids, especially among the black american community:
"Woman troubles" are not polite conversation. Fibroid symptoms can be degrading and embarrassing. The possibility of losing our reproductive capacity makes fibroids hard to confront. But our silence has real consequences. Because we don't talk about it in families, we often don't know that our own mothers, grandmothers and sisters have battled fibroids. Because we don't tell our friends, we are not there to support one another or to share alternatives for treatment, good doctors to see, useful books to read and horrifying Web sites to avoid. Because we don't talk about it in public, there is little pressure from black communities on the medical establishment to find better alternatives for alleviating our suffering.
Just a few decades ago, breast cancer was also shrouded in silence and suffering from neglect in the medical field... But women turned the reality of breast cancer around by making it a top priority public health issue...
I want the same thing for black women and our uteruses. I want everyone to read Dorothy Roberts' Killing the Black Body to learn the shameful history of racist reproductive control that black women have endured. I want everyone to read Medical Apartheid for a fuller appreciation of the frightening medical terrain black women must navigate as they try to find healing. Then I want a ribbon, an awareness month, a survivors' circle and a marathon. I want medical research to find alternatives to surgical intervention for uterine fibroids. I want my nieces, friends and daughter to face more choices if they ever find they must.
Right on. Thoughts?
[Coincidentally, my brother just bought Medical Apartheid, I'm looking forward to reading it.]
Quick hit resources on fibroids:
Wikipedia -- because we love wikipedia
WomensHealth.gov
ACOG Educational Pamphlet |
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Thu Jun 26, 2008 at 01:21:54 AM PDT
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| Join a ton of optimists, fighters, crazies, and beautiful people (none of these categories are obviously mutually exclusive), at the Los Angeles Social Forum this weekend!
Cure This is representin' this weekend, at the Los Angeles Social Forum! We're honored to be collaborating with some rad folks in Los Angeles on a workshop. Come share your thoughts, and let's build together. Here are the details:
"Media, Action, and Social Justice: Let's Talk!"
Presented by the Downtown Women's Action Coalition, make/shift magazine, LOUDmouth zine, and CureThis.
Join us to talk about the relationship between social-justice-oriented independent media and grassroots action. This participatory discussion will be a space to explore together how media makers and other community workers collaborate toward social justice. What works well? What's hard? How can we collaborate better? Bring your experiences, questions, and ideas. This workshop will center the voices and work of women and trans people of color who are active in local, volunteer-centered media and action. All are welcome to attend and participate.
When: Sat, June 28, 2008
Session: W3 4:00-6:00pm Room: THH 213, University of Southern California
OF NOTE -- there is an equally awesome workshop going on at the same time -- The Real Cost of the War in Iraq -- featuring inspiring doctor activists and peace workers and bringing the global down to the local (all the way down to the health care crisis in LA County). I wish I could be present for both workshops but I cannot. I'd highly recommend either, I know, I'm biased.
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This weekend marks the long-awaited Los Angeles Social Forum, a unique opportunity where students, activists, local media-makers, and other Los Angelenos will converge upon the USC campus to learn from each other and build together in regards to local and global social justice issues.
Over 70 workshops on topics from local media to healthcare to electoral reform to prison reform to local immigration issues to global issues will be presented by an amazing array of local organizations and leaders. More than 50 local organizations from the Los Angeles area have sponsored the social forum, and folks are driving in from all over Southern California to listen, learn, participate. The events begin at 6pm on Friday, June 27th and end on Sunday, June 29th.
The theme of social forums around the world is simple and beautiful: "Another World is Possible". The first ever World Social Forum was held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in January 2001. A whopping 20,000 people attended it. The most recent World Social Forum was held in Nairobi, Kenya, with an attendance of over 70,000. Most recently, a United States Social Forum took place in Atlanta, Georgia in 2007, and local state and city-wide social forums have been organized in various locations around the United States in 2007 and 2008.
Photo from World Social Forum (Nairobi) by Anjali Taneja (aka Los Anjalis) on Flickr |
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Wed Jun 11, 2008 at 21:58:58 PM PDT
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| This is not the first, nor will it be the last, of the many uses of video and internet technology to present health issues at stake in this US Presidential Election. But as always, we are so supremely peeing-in-our-pants excited that these technologies are being utilized among the campaigns to present the issues and what-if situations.
Check out these three videos from the infamous Brave New Films group. These videos and others are from The Real McCain website, put together by the folks at Brave New Films. What do you think? Effective? Interesting? Boring? Scary? Yawn? Share your thoughts.
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Fri Jun 06, 2008 at 22:34:19 PM PDT
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| As performed by Saul Williams. (original words from Not in Our Name's Pledge of Resistance)
We believe that as people living in the United States it is our responsibility
to resist the injustices done by our government,
in our names
Not in our name
will you wage endless war there can be no more deaths
no more transfusions of blood for oil
Not in our name
will you invade countries bomb civilians, kill more children
letting history take its course over the graves of the nameless
Not in our name
will you erode the very freedoms you have claimed to fight for
Not by our hands
will we supply weapons and funding for the annihilation of families on foreign soil
Not by our mouths
will we let fear silence us
Not by our hearts
will we allow whole peoples or countries to be deemed evil
Not by our will
and Not in our name
We pledge resistance
We pledge alliance with those who have come under attack
for voicing opposition to the war or for their religion or ethnicity
We pledge to make common cause with the people of the world
to bring about justice, freedom and peace
Another world is possible
and we pledge to make it real. |
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Tue Jun 03, 2008 at 01:01:02 AM PDT
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Dr Lloyd at WebMD wrote about Senator Ted Kennedy's brain surgery yesterday. Check out the post, it's pretty fascinating. The most interesting part was his explanation of why a patient is woken up during brain surgery:
Brain tissue is extraordinarily delicate and responsible for so many critical life functions - everything from vision to memories and everything else in between. The goal of Senator Kennedy's operation was to remove as much tumor as possible while sacrificing as little healthy brain tissue as possible. To accurately guide the neurosurgical team the patient performs a variety of wide-awake skills in the operating room: speech, movements, vision, cognition, etc. The surgeons know what activities correspond with various areas of brain anatomy. If a patient's response falters the surgeons know they are very close to a critical region and tend to back-off. Remember, the patient experiences no discomfort whatsoever.
Woah. Our best wishes to Senator Ted Kennedy, a man who has done so very very much for health care in this country. Here's to dreaming and resolving and taking action to ensure that all humans will soon have such quality access to care. |
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Sun Jun 01, 2008 at 07:00:24 AM PDT
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On May 15, John McCain delivered a speech in Columbus OH in which he fantasized about what the USA would be like after his hoped-for first term as President. Later that week, Barack Obama addressed supporters in Portland OR on his plans for retirement security. I conjured up a couple of campaign songs for the candidates based on the underlying principles they champion.
You're on Your Own (YOYO)
(sung by McCain to the tune of To Each His Own)
So, to those who disdain and won't vote for McCain:
BushCo's lovely promise has come true.
You're on your own. You're on your own.
And, we now own you.
We're in This Together (WITT)
(sung by Obama to the tune of So Happy Together)
Imagine me and you. I do.
We'll stick together day and night. It's only right,
To care about the world we love, yo use our might.
We're in this together.
Complete songs below the fold... |
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Fri May 30, 2008 at 22:18:58 PM PDT
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| Frank Sinatra and Doris Day are an unlikely couple in the 1954 romantic musical drama Young at Heart. Sinatra is the cynical Barney Sloan who falls in love with the sunny Laurie Tuttle, played by Day. They wed, but Barney's dark outlook on life continues, eventually leading him to attempt suicide in his friend's car. In the dramatic final scenes of the film, a depressed and dying Barney is healed - body and soul - through music, medicine, and Laurie's love.
I created a contemporary version of this story. The Tones, a musician and a housewife, have no health insurance. Barney and Laurie are wildly happy until Barney is in a terrible car accident. He almost dies because the hospital demands cash before treating him. He survives, but the Tones lose everything. In a bad economy, they must work as live-ins for room and board and get second jobs to pay the medical bills. Barney becomes a bar entertainer and Laurie becomes a prostitute.
Scary tales can come true. It can happen to you,
'Cuz they've got no heart.
Oh no! Things don't look good for Old Blue Eyes and Clara Bixby... |
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Wed May 28, 2008 at 23:09:46 PM PDT
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Percentage change since last year in the number of people receiving assistance from U.S. food banks: +20
Percentage change since then in the amount of food that the federal government has donated to the banks: -9
Number of poor Oregonians who have entered the state's health-care lottery system: 91,675
Chance that each entrant has of winning insurance this year: 1 in 9
Number of nations that do not legally guarantee women any paid maternity leave: 4
Average annual per-capita income in the three other than the United States: $1,226.
From Harper's Index statistics, in Harper's Magazine, June 2008. |
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Tue May 27, 2008 at 22:08:51 PM PDT
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This morning on National Public Radio, I listened as a broadcaster recited a 40 second news blurb on sexual abuse by humanitarian aid workers against CHILDREN. This is part of it:
U.N. Vows To Intensify Investigation Of Alleged Abuse
U.N. officials said Tuesday will take steps to ensure the safety of children after a new report revealed youngsters are frequently sexually abused by peacekeepers and international aid workers.
Save the Children United Kingdom said more than half the children interviewed in war zones and disaster areas knew of cases of coerced sex and improper sexual touching.
In many cases, the children interviewed in southern Sudan, Haiti and the Ivory Coast said they were too afraid to report sexual abuse, the report stated.
Jane Holl Lute, assistant secretary-general for U.N. peacekeeping operations, said improvements must be made in strengthening the complaint mechanism and follow-ups. She vowed to intensify efforts to investigate sexual abuse by peacekeepers.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement that the U.N. will make certain its personnel are trained and maintain the highest standards of conduct.
The news reporter mentioned something about aid workers in some instances trading food for sex. And then the news reporter went right on to talk about the next 40 second news clip. And I wanted to vomit.
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I just took a look at the Save the Children United Kingdom site, where I found this very well compiled report:
"No One to Turn To: The under-reporting of child sexual exploitation and abuse by aid workers and peacekeepers".
Check it out if you get a chance. The report was compiled after numerous focus groups were conducted. (from the report):
• 38 focus group discussions with a total of 341 people living in chronic emergencies in three countries.This included 129 girls and 121 boys aged between 10 and 17 years, as well as 36 men and 54 women.We also conducted individual in-depth interviews with several of these people
• Meetings with 30 humanitarian, peace and security professionals working at national, regional and international levels.These included staff from within Save the Children UK, other international and national non-governmental organisations (NGOs), governments, and several United Nations (UN) agencies
• Desk-based research on a cross-section of humanitarian, peace and security organisations to understand their policies and procedures and their effectiveness, as well as on the prevalence of allegations and how they are handled
• Desk-based research into existing models of independent performance monitoring and enforcement, and complaints mechanisms from the humanitarian, peace and security, and public service sectors.
And the following questions were asked in the focus groups and meetings:
1. How many times have you seen, heard about, or experienced different kinds of sexual exploitation and abuse of children by peacekeepers or aid workers in your community?
2. Which children are most vulnerable to this abuse?
3. Which humanitarian, peace or security organisations are the perpetrators of abuse most likely to come from?
4. Have you ever reported an abuse or have you heard of others in the community doing so?
5. How would you report an abuse?
6. What other action might you take in response to a case of abuse?
7. What are the reasons why someone in your community might not report an abuse?
8. What can be done to encourage people in your community to report an abuse?
9. What other action should be taken to stop this abuse from happening?
The recommendations are bold, add a good amount of accountability to tough situations, and are well appreciated. But with any issue of this caliber, not only would these recs be a challenge to carry out, the power differential in such situations is hard to overcome.
A note of caution, the report is REALLY tough to read. |
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