About Parenting: messed-up parenting

The blog has still moved to http://lynnsrants.com but as some still come here to read - I want to let you know about my newest e-book and contest.

You can buy it or enter a contest to win a copy.

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Read to bottom for contest and rules for winning a copy in the

Honor your tax deduction contest

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Can you mess up in your parenting and still have great kids?

Of course you can!

Parenting is not a science but if you know about child development and read this book - you'll realize you can do it with

less anxiety and much less guilt.

Buy online at e-junkie VIA PAYPAL

Only $9.97 [USD] for an instant pdf file download

99 pages packed with useful information

Buy it here:

FYI - you do not need a paypal account to use paypal

YOU CAN TOTALLY SCREW UP AS A MOM AND STILL RAISE GREAT KIDS

If I, a Developmental Psychologist with an expertise in early childhood, messed up – why should you expect to be perfect?

And while the title is directed at mommies; all I have to say here is meant for daddies too. In most homes still, yet, whatever; mommies are the major child caretakers.

This book was written to hopefully help alleviate the guilt that parents feel before during and after raising their child.

caveats - please be sure to read

If you are a person who thinks daddy or mommy is not to be questioned - do not buy this book - you will be offended..I also have a New York style sense of humor [sarcastic and odd] so if that offends you - please do not buy my book...you'll be unhappy.

Excerpts

From the Introduction

Another parenting book? Yup!

But this one is different – why? Because I am writing it and I have great ideas that I don’t mind sharing with anyone who asks and even with those who do not ask! And at 70 years of age I am entitled to say what I want .

I’ve long been a Dr. Seuss fan and love this:

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

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For those who don't know me, I have been in the field of Developmental Psychology since the early 60's when I entered graduate school. I was a college professor, wrote a few text books and edited a life span series. Now I want to get information out in a more readable and less paper intensive fashion so I am authoring e-books about psychological development.

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Conversation with my son

My son read the manuscript, of course, and so I asked him for comments.

First he said he did not remember all that I wrote about his early years but he was sure I was accurate about them...

What he did recall was that he felt I was unique because he had a say in decision-making and some of his friends seemed not to have that say. Not that we did as he suggested but that his voice was heard. I was not a totalitarian!

He still calls me his “parental unit” and said that while he is not all that keen on my writing about parenting him, “it’s my life and whether or not I like it, you were there too.”

Yes he has known this book was in the works and has hinted that he may comments to make if I do the parenting teen one.

[not so sure I want to hear those comments again ]

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This is an honest, thought provoking, informative, inspiring book!

The exercises are great for self-reflection/examination, and the writing is very accessible. This book will help many new and veteran parents better understand their children - even if you are not a parent this book will help you understand children and their worlds.

Well done! This is amazingly awesome :)

Rabbi Shai Specht

RabbiShai.com

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You can buy it here now

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from Chapter 1

Lynn’s take on family labels

I hate the term “broken” family. No family is broken. Families are all different. Broken implies a negative that may or may not be there – much as a family that stays married can be either a positive or negative environment. Marriage and divorce are not the biggest factors that define the quality of a family.

The same goes for adopted children – they dislike being asked about their “real” parents when one means the birth parents. The real parents are the ones raising them.

I felt this way before I had a child and I certainly came to dislike the labels more after his father and I divorced. We may have been dysfunctional – but we were not ‘broken.”

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It's excellent. I wish there'd been something like it when I was raising mine.

She pulls no punches. Straight to the point. Hope parents buy it.

She deserves to be heard.

Mara

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from Chapter 6 Behaving

To behavior “properly,” that is in accordance with the rules of one’s culture,
people need to know what the rules are. Then they can distinguish right
from wrong.

But, and as they say this is a big but, they also need to want to act in
the correct way and they need the ability to control themselves.

So ask – can young children even be considered as having morality or being
capable of behaving in the adult definition of these terms?

I think not.

The start of this process of moral development and behaving is the ability to
put yourself in the place of another - and that’s a high level cognitive
concept.

I’ve written before that cognitive growth is at the root, so to speak, of all
development – and here it is again. You need a certain amount of complex
cognitive ability to behave in what we call a moral fashion.

But being moral is not the same as being well behaved. In fact many of what
we call “well behaved” children are only behaving out of fear. An older study
indicated that scaring children into behaving as the adult wishes them to
behave tends to result in the behavior only happening when that adult is
around.

For example – if a parent threatens or scares a child about crossing streets –
that child is more likely to look around for the parent – and NOT look at the
traffic. The same can be true for school behaviors. “Well behaved” children
tend to be loved by teachers but it does not mean the child is sitting there
learning academic material – they may be sitting there with all their thoughts
focused on keeping still because they were scared into thinking that was
“correct.” This behavior takes up a lot of mental energy – energy that is not
going toward learning school material.

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From Hayley in Perth

http://allthingswomen.blogspot.com/

You just never know where your words are going to end up!
I was on Twitter chatting with a friend and I told her about my daughter and something she had said when she was a young child. She'd drawn a picture of the family but her younger sister was missing from the picture. When asked where she was, she replied with a very serious face, "She's still in the pencil, silly." We all erupted in laughter because she was such a funny little thing.

Well, Dr Lynn Dorman Phd, an American Psychologist was in the process of writing her e-book, "You can totally screw up as a mom and still raise great kids!" She sent me a direct message asking if she could use that quote in her e-book.

Well, surprise, surprise, her e-book is finished and there is Sarah's quote on Page 84.

I love the thought that a 70 year old woman would take the time to share her wisdom with the younger generations. There is just something very special about our Elders and it touches my heart when they desire to reach out and pass on what they know.

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction
Chapter 1 Before We Talk Babies And Children Let’s Talk “Uniqueness”
Chapter 2 Okay Now Let’s Talk Babies
Chapter 3 Early Infancy
Chapter 4 Infancy 1-3
Chapter 5 Those Developmental Tasks
Chapter 6 Behaving - What On Earth Does That Mean?
Chapter 7 Putting It All Together And Taking It On The Road
Chapter 8 Those “Pesky” Other “Things” That Raise Your Children
Chapter 9 Conclusion

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You Can Buy the Book Right Here:

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Or you can enter the

Honor your tax deduction contest.

Win a free copy of You Can Totally Screw Up As A Mom And Still Raise Great Kids

How?

Write a short vignette about the ways in which you screwed up as a parent and how your kid came out okay anyway.

Or write a short vignette about how your own parents screwed up raising you and how you turned out fine.

All entries must be emailed to contest@parenting201.org and sent in by April 24^th at 9PM PDT

[This allows the last-minute tax doers to have time to write theirs]

By submitting an entry you are agreeing that what you write and submit can be posted on the website http://parenting201.org and possibly be used, with attribution, in other written formats.

A panel of judges will read all the entries and one daddy and one mommy winner will be chosen by Mother’s Day 2010 [May 9^th]

Go and have fun writing.

BLOG HAS MOVED

I have moved most of my blogs to WordPress and this one can be found at lynnsrants.com

If you were subscribed to this blog - you will need to re-subscribe [I think] after I set up all the plugins

Learning WordPress was not an easy task but enjoyed the exercise when I was not frustrated by all the possibilities and forgetting to click on a few thingies.

Laughing at Job Loss

It isn't just South Carolina and Minnesota that have Reps who keep us laughing - add Georgia to that fold.

That Gingrey finds it funny that 14,000 a day lose jobs [and health insurance] shows you exactly what these Republics think of anyone but themselves. See - it's the job loss that's funny and the FACT that your insurance goes along with your job is a secondary issue - not a main issue.

Why we ever tied insurance to jobs is a long story but it now needs to end - it's is a form of servitude.

Hate your job? Too bad! HA HA HA

Low wages but decent health insurance? We gotcha stuck here for life! HA HA HA

Got a health issue? Now you re really stuck because if you change jobs that's a pre-existing condition making you unrecoverable

Hey State of Georgia - you deserve better - fire this guy and find someone who doesn't laugh at your misfortunes.

Ted Kennedy; Boston and my political life

I moved to Boston in 1963 when Teddy Kennedy was a new Senator. Not having been very politically active in New York, I quickly jumped in the political frays of the '60s in large part due to my friend/professor Freda, who died in July. and the Kennedys who were my President and my Senator [although I remained a registered NYer for a while.] And I lived for years on Francis Street, near where Teddy's funeral mass was recently held.

Even after I left Massachusetts I continued to write to Ted Kennedy about political issues as I felt he truly represented ME! No other Senator or Representative since has come close to being "my" person in Congress and that is a sad commentary on the current crop of politicians. [But I have ranted about the state of being a DC insider elsewhere.]

So Teddy's funeral marked a weird kind of ending in my life. My political gurus and motivators both died this summer and I am left to wonder who will take their places for the up and coming generations ready and willing to jump into a fray.

Yes we have the ideologues ready to feed lies to a new generation and teach them to yell and scream louder than anyone else - but that's not a way to solve problems; only a way to create more. We have alleged liberals who sell their souls for corporate donations and vote for legislation that their Masters wish for.

Hopefully some energized people will come into politics and become the "new" progressives.

Guns, Guns and More Guns

After living in D.C. for a long time I grew to hate guns. They give their "owners" a sense of superiority in that they seem to think the gun in and of itself gives them power and makes what they say more "right" and what people like me say more "wrong." A gun does not have that power; but to hear the gun totters - might does make right - true in the sense that it's making the rabid right wingers more right [wing - not correct.]

Frank Rich has a great column today called The Guns of August. He says and quotes:

... the biggest contributor to this resurgence of radicalism remains panic in some precincts about a new era of cultural and demographic change. As the sociologist Daniel Bell put it, “What the right as a whole fears is the erosion of its own social position, the collapse of its power, the increasing incomprehensibility of a world — now overwhelmingly technical and complex — that has changed so drastically within a lifetime.”

Bell write that in 1962 - but the Republican party today is in more dire straits - it's become a white southern group of scared persons who do not value public or liberal arts education and who refuse to listen. All they know is how to cause fear and to out shout reason - and the ones who represent them in congress go along with this and give them credence.

Why I was not here

A few days after my last post a good friend [actually my best friend] had a leg amputated due to gangrene. She seemed to re doing fine by the weekend and then went downhill rapidly and died on July 20th.

I then helped, with several others, to call mutual friends and tell them about her death and 2 planned memorial services. It was hard as I was re-connecting with other old friends with whom I lost contact over my last 2 moves and we had long conversations about past present and future.

Why does it usually take a death to make people who like each other re-connect? And now I am planning a trip to visit these old friends.

Of course nothing is normal weather wise this year so we in Portland where 90 is a rare event had a 10 day stretch of a brutal heat wave and I get heat exhaustion...and during those days me, the dog, cat and computer were all laying low and being very still. I don't have AC - very few in the Pacific Northwest do. Hard for me to get my political brain working under the conditions of grief and heat...

Stay tuned - I will resume as there is so much to say!

MoveOn Energy Sticker

Want a free sticker to support clean energy? It's designed by Shepard Fairey, the acclaimed artist who created the iconic Obama 'HOPE' poster. And MoveOn's giving them away totally free--even the shipping's free.

I just got mine. Click this link to get your free sticker:

http://pol.moveon.org/energystickers/?id=-4096028-XO3oB6x&rc=paste.orig_email

Thanks!

The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies

Note: I have posted this for the last few years and this year a different section is red because we have a new President. We need to remind President Obama and the persons in Congress about this year's red section.

I know this is not the Constitution but it is one of the founding documents upon which we all place so much reliance!

All are created equal [all colors, races, sexes and sexual preferences] and we all have rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

For me and many others - all means all - all does not mean some !! And those right? Life liberty and the pursuit of happiness ? By my accounting it includes the right to health and health care because without that - one does not have life or happiness - and it means a livable wage - again with out that one can not pursue happiness.

Yes the Supreme Court has ruled corporations are persons - but no where does that give them more and more of our resources [including human resources] and the "right" to make obscene profits at the expense of the people! If they want to be considered as persons, they need to join in humanity and help the country - not just help their CEOS and shareholders!

Enough ranting - enjoy your day and go out and save the world [or just your little corner of it]

The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies

In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
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.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:
New Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts
John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

More Beef Recalls due to E.coli

CHICAGO (Reuters) – A Colorado meat company is expanding a recall of beef due to possible contamination by E.coli O157:H7 bacteria after an investigation found 18 illnesses may be linked to the meat, the company and the U.S. Agriculture Department said on Sunday.

Greeley, Colorado-based JBS-Swift Beef Co is voluntarily expanding its June 24 recall to include about 380,000 lbs of assorted beef products, for a total recall of about 421,000 lbs, USDA and the company said.

Full article: http://bit.ly/Q35sr

Will we ever again have a period of time without some food being recalled for some contamination? I'm old enough to remember the days before big agra when you knew where your food came from and what was in it. Today? One takes ones chances when buying food.

I eat kosher meat as it is least likely to be "bad." I also try to buy as local as I can so as to help independent farms and the businesses that carry their foods. Here in Portland we are lucky that we have such places - coops, farmers markets and stores that carry locally produced food. We can also go directly to some growers to pick our own or buy directly.

Big agra does not want us to know what is in our food or where it comes from - because we would gag! It's not food anymore - it's engineered "stuff."

It's bad enough that we killed the soil and food is less nutritious than it ever was - but we contaminate it with fertilizer and who-know-what and it's literally killing us.

From Color of Change

Color of Change website: http://www.colorofchange.org

Dear Friends,

President Obama is trying to reform our broken health care system, which has left more than 45 million Americans uninsured^[1] and millions more with insurance that won't provide the treatment they need.^[2]

Some in Congress are with Obama. But the insurance industry, with help from Republicans^[3] and so-called centrist Democrats,^[4] is leading the charge to kill a key part of his plan -- a government-run insurance plan that would increase the number of Americans covered, called the "public option." Industry groups are spending millions -- $35 million in lobbying costs alone^[5] -- to convince people that they won't be able to choose their doctor, that government will be making their medical decisions, that they'd be forced to take the government's plan, and that the plan is part of some socialist plot -- all lies. In reality, the insurance industry is trying to protect its enormous profits on the backs of everyday people.

For Black folks, the stakes couldn't be higher: we are twice as likely as Whites to be uninsured, we have more than double the rate of infant mortality, we face more than twice the rate of diabetes-related deaths than Whites -- and the list goes on.^[6]

While the fight rages in Washington, our voices are simply not at the table. That's why I've joined ColorOfChange.org in telling Congress that every person in this country should have equal access to affordable health care, regardless of race, income, or any other factor. Will you join me? It only takes a moment:

http://www.colorofchange.org/health/?id=1649-602884

Americans understand the idea of the public option and overwhelmingly support it -- three out of four people want the federal government to offer insurance coverage.^[7,8] But powerful lobbying groups like America's Health Insurance Plans, Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America, and the American Medical Association -- representing the insurance industry, the drug industry, and doctors -- are doing everything in their power to maintain the status quo.^[9]

Several organizations have pushed back, including MoveOn.org -- a key partner of ours in this fight -- but it will take all of us standing up if we want to win.

A public option makes sense for the country as a whole, and it makes particularly good sense for Black folks. Many of us make too much to qualify for Medicaid but either aren't eligible for or aren't adequately covered by private, employer-based plans. Overall, 21% of Blacks are uninsured, compared to 12% of Whites.^[10]

We need a public insurance option, but that's not the only thing we should be fighting for. We need to push for equity in all aspects of our approach to health care. Every community deserves quality medical treatment, research and resources. That's not what we're getting now, and the numbers prove it:

• 22% of Black women say cost keeps them away from the doctor's office, compared to 15% of White women ^[11]
  
• Black women have the highest rates of new AIDS cases, cancer mortality, obesity and low-weight infants of any ethnic or racial group ^[12]
  
• There are 13.6 Black infant deaths per 1,000 live births, compared to 5.7 White infant deaths per 1,000 live births ^[13]
  
• There are 47 Black deaths from diabetes-related illness per 100,000 people, compared to 22.5 White deaths per 100,000 people ^[14]
  
• There are 60.1 new AIDS cases per 100,000 people among Blacks, compared to 6.7 new cases per 100,000 people among Whites ^[15]

Our opportunity to address the disparities that keep too many of us from enjoying long, healthy lives is now.

Please join me in telling our lawmakers that the first step toward improving our health care system is including a public plan that makes good health something everyone can afford:

http://www.colorofchange.org/health/?id=1649-602884

Thanks.

References:

1. http://www.kff.org/uninsured/7806.cfm
2. http://tinyurl.com/n2f3k7
3. http://tinyurl.com/l4ndwv
4. http://tinyurl.com/m5h8y7
5. http://tinyurl.com/m59ur5
6. http://www.kff.org/minorityhealth/upload/7633-02.pdf
7. http://tinyurl.com/mpo97j
8. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/06/19/opinion/polls/main5098517.shtml
9. http://tinyurl.com/lxpm3v
10. See #6
11. http://www.kff.org/minorityhealth/upload/7886ES.pdf
12. Ibid.
13. See #6
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.

Additional resources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/us/politics/14cong.html?_r=1
http://www.slate.com/id/2220534/pagenum/all/

Iran, USA and Twitter

In the past weeks much has happened on Twitter with and about the Iranian elections.

if Many of us greened our avatars in support of Iranians and we also commented on what might have happened if Twitter had existed in 2000 or 2004. Imagine the outpouring of tweets about the stolen election in Florida, the lack of backbones in democrats who refused to stand up to boss bush and his legal threat team in Florida.

If we had had more support and a way to communicate quickly - maybe the world would be very different right now [or maybe not] - we'll never know.

And 2004 - what if we had been able to tweet about Ohio all day - the election problems there - missing ballots, early closing, lack of machines when it was known they would be needed, long lines and hacked black boxes - with UberRepug Ken Blackwell in charge of the Ohio voting!

We would not have wanted interference from other countries - but we would have welcomed the emotional support and proxies had the bush admin shut down some ISPs or whatever it is the Iranian government is doing!

We could have take the the streets and still been in touch via our cell phones - limited as they were back then.

So why is Iran happening? I think the citizens there saw what happened here with 8 years of bush corruption, cronyism and lack of oversight of anything.

They saw the havoc that bush wrought with his additional 4 stolen years and they don't want 4 more years of Ahmadinejad...

The USA serves as an example of what happen you calmly accept fraudulent elections and allow corruption and illegality to go on unabated. Negative examples are as powerful learning tools as positive ones.

The world is still paying for our 8 years and Iranians look at us and do not wish to add to the mess in the world.

Comments?

Sen. Pat Leahy at UDC School of Law

Sen. Pat Leahy is giving this year's Joseph L Rauh, Jr. Lecture at the UDC School of Law.

The lecture is Tuesday June 16th at 9:30 AM [breakfast at 8:30 AM]

Window Room Building 38
4200 Connecticut Ave. NW

Metro Red Line

RSVP 202-274-7349

Or - you can register online until June 14th http://www.law.udc.edu/events/event_details.asp?id=63526

Traditional Marriage

History of traditional marriage:

[warning - don't drink coffee or anything while watching or protect your keyboard:D]

In D.C. On June 16th? You are invited!

Please Join us for the 17th Annual

Joseph L. Rauh, Jr. Lecture by

Sen. Pat Leahy

  

 Chair, U.S. Senate Judiciary

 Committee

Introduction by Wade Henderson, President,

Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and

Rauh Professor of Public Interest Law. 

 

Tuesday, June 16

8:30 am Breakfast; 9:30 am Program

Admission is free 

 UDC David A. Clarke School of Law

Window Room, Building 38, 2nd Floor

 4200 Connecticut Avenue, NW

 

Underground Parking off Van Ness St.

Metro Red Line: Van Ness/UDC

R.S.V.P. 202-274-7349 or at

http://www.law.udc.edu/event/RauhLecture2009

Home Grown Terrorism

During the 8 years of the bush/cheney fear mongering about Al Qaeda and Iraq - we took our eyes off the home grown terrorists. Why? Because they are of the same ilk as bush/cheney and so were not looked at as serious threats - besides the home grown terrorists had allies in the white house and congress.

Now that Obama is President - the American terrorists feel free to terrorize. They inhabit spaces like twitter and send out nasty comments on sites and blogs. They feel very free to spew their terror - which basically is to threaten to maim and kill anyone who disagrees with them. And yesterday one of these terrorists assassinated a physician in Kansas.

These terrorists need to be called terrorists because that's what they are. Yesterday and today they are cheering the fact that Tiller was assassinated - this from terrorists who call themselves "pro-life." What gall.

The terrorists who don't understand that we still have separation of church and state would have us all follow their version of religion - distorted as it is with ideas that killing is pro-life.

Sorry but you can not force your religious views on me or on any one else....You, of course, are entitled to your own religious views - but your freedom to follow as you choose stops where my freedom to chose my own views begins. We can differ and discuss - but only if you are willing to do so.

Assassinating people who disagree with you makes you a terrorist like the Taliban and Al Qaeda - who by the way, like you, use terror to force people to their religious and political points of view.

Lastly - In spite of your choice of words there is no such thing as an abortion doctor. There are health providers who perform abortions and they do so for medical reasons. And IT IS LEGAL!

Maybe you all ought to go to Guantanamo since you seem to think it's such a neat place to be.

Memorial Day

It's been too long since I have posted here but that does not mean the brain has shut down. In fact it's been busy on other writing projects and I have learned that I can't finish all at the same time...my brain just is not like that...and so politics took a back seat to psychology.

What got my brain back to politics was a torrent of tears last night as I watched the Memorial Day concert from D.C. The story of the family whose son lost most of his brain got me and from that point to the end I sobbed.
When we lived in D.C., my son and I, along with friends, always went to the Memorial Day concert - ditto the 4th of July and Labor Day concerts. They were picnics on the lawn, kids climbing trees, music and good food.

We left D.C. in '96 and things have changed since then and last night's concert was certainly an example of that. It was more somber than any I have seen on tv since I left D.C. and also in that period of time I was a military mommy for 8 years.

I think all women and most men cry at the loss of a child - it happened in the 40's 50's 60's and 70's during WWII, Korea and Vietnam - and it still happens. I have been weeping for those lost in war and other conflicts since WWII when my dad was in the military. Both my dad and son were fine and were never in harms way - for which I was/am selfishly happy. But I had a stomach ache/ongoing worry for 8 years when my son was in and wondered on a daily basis if he'd be sent into war - especially after Sept 11, 2001. We, as parents, are never supposed to outlive our babies - it's not part of our psyches.

And so last night and still today - I weep for those mommies and daddies who have lost their children and for those children who have lost their mommies and daddies...and for those who lost husbands, wives and partners.

I hate that those who never served are so fast to send other people's children off to die in undeclared wars. This has been true since WWII - the last war that was actually declared by Congress. And not only did they never serve - death personified cheney got many deferrals - he really really actively did not want to go...but he's still making the media rounds with his war mongering.

To quote George McGovern: "I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in."

Do not spend the day celebrating war or conflict - spend it in sober reflection about those who died and those who are wounded....and hug your kids.

Two must watch videos: Obama and Sykes

These are from the 2009 White House Correspondents' Dinner via C-Span [thank you thank you]

PRESIDENT Barack Obama http://cli.gs/SR7A01

Comic Wanda Sykes http://cli.gs/HYZ6m2

Save the links - you'll want to listen to Sykes again and again

How nice to have a president with a real sense of humor - who can poke fun at himself, his staff and at Republics :D

And kudos to Wanda Sykes - who hits it out of the park with her edginess!

Mustard Lovers - Unite!

I can not believe the amount of nonsensical blabbering the wingnuts are dong about Obama's preference for Dijon mustard instead of ketchup.

My guess is that with Obama's ratings so high they need to invent faux news for their faux noise network in an attempt to keep a frenzy going among the wingnuts.

But seriously people - mustard ? ketchup? get a life....go do something useful.

These fundits support a group of white christian men who can only look backwards - so they latch on to any trivial excuse to knock Obama and his supporters. They remind me of the ugly American tourist who thinks that by screaming English at someone who does not understand the language is the way to make them understand the language. I once saw this in action in Mexico and I see it now with the wingnuts. They say the group is not conservative enough, the tax cuts for the wealthy were not big enough and that if they yell longer and louder for their principles - all American will come to understand what they are saying - mustard and all :D

Hey wingnuts - we had an election about those ideas you look back upon YOU LOST ! [and you'll lose the mustard war too]

Belated opining on non-dialogues

My last post was the day before "teabagger" day. I think the rhetoric I saw and read that day turned me off and made me ponder if there was any reason to post what was in my mind.

It usually doesn't take much for me to speak or write my mind but I was trying to give more serious thought about the non-dialogue between most Republicans and the rest of us. I am still conjuring and writing that essay on my computer and want to do more work on it before posting it here. I want to choose my words more carefully than do the teabag crowd...

To be continued...

Unfair and Unbalanced - Definitely

Saw this on DailyKos and decided it needed posting here - not just because it shows Faux Noise at their most feverish "hate President Obama" pitch - but in watching a few times - I've noticed the "looks" on the face of Beck...[and well the stupidity of Gingrich which he just keeps documenting]

Either he is auditioning to be the clown of Faux Noise and competing with Falafa Man for something - or he is having some mental issues - or maybe both?

It is worrisome that at least a portion of people still think this is "news" and that it is correct news.... they won't admit to the possibility that they are being lied to and used - more serious mental issues here?

[disclaimer - I am not a licensed professional and am only stating a personal opinion] :D