Haiyan Hell

Why when I say we MUST elect Democrats ALL over the nation I am not just waxing sensationally hysterical.

The Pacific typhoon (called a hurricane in the Atlantic) Haiyan is the worst of the worst of mother natures' scream against man's fossil ugly fuel warming and obliteration of earth's climate.  As my opinion yesterday stated correctly -- for those who do not just delete it -- it is just a matter of time before one of these monsters hits the US making Katrina and Sandy look like a sunny day at the beach.  

Last night before a half comatose me went to bed late the MSNBC and Huffington Post web sites had the possible death tole at 10,000!!  Yes, I post another story below hoping you spread the news to every adult and child who can understand it that SOMETHING must be done and done fast.

This story of typhoon Haiyan is unbelievable to say the least! Ultimately if climate change is not fixed and reversed (and it surely won't be fixed here with no operational government to fix it and a president who is obstructed in Tea Bag cement)  perhaps in our life time or shortly thereafter man will be an extinct species and mother earth will have had the last word as she kicks our overpoweringly violent, greedy and intellectually bankrupt species in its personal parts!  

See the headline below and the links to MSNBC here or http://www.nbcnews.com/ and Huffington:  here  or http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ .

HAIYAN HELL:
10,000 FEARED DEAD 

HOW TO HELP

-- 

A Matter of Time

Opinion: It's simply a matter of time before one of these (see story below) hits the US probably in the Gulf. It will make Katrina look like a day at the beach on a sunny day. As usual man especially in the lagging-behind-everyone now US is an ostrich putting its head in the sand. This woefully uninformed duped and religiously dogmatic nationalist nation sits watching Desperate Housewives or the NFL while Rome burns and the earth vies for man's extinction right under our noses.

But no the electorate must keep watching TV and let the powers that be build our empire, keep building bombs, and engaging in useless wars spending trillions on them killing hundreds of thousands, pulling the wool over the electorate's eyes that they are fighting for our "freedom" instead of us fighting against our specie's extinction and our planet's destruction via climate change. This dumbed down nation will do nothing. Keep tying yourselves and those you elect to corporate cronyism and oh yes, most especially, keep voting Repuglican that'll help.

Stick around long enough and you will get to see the extinction except it will not be dinosaurs this time. It will be man! And then God said weeping: "Back to the drawing board!"

Philippines Typhoon: Year's Strongest Storm Haiyan Turns Deadly

By OLIVER TEVES and TERESA CEROJANO 11/08/13 11:12 PM ET EST

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Typhoon Philippines, Haiyan Philippines, Philippines Typhoon 2013, Super Typhoon 2013,Super Typhoon Haiyan, Super Typhoon Philippines, Typhoon Haiyan, World News

MANILA, Philippines -- MANILA, Philippines (AP) — One of the strongest storms on record has killed more than 100 people and injured another 100 in the central Philippines before sweeping west toward Vietnam on Saturday, still packing destructive winds capable of blowing away houses and uprooting trees.

Capt. John Andrews, deputy director general of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, said he had received "reliable information" from his staff describing the death and destruction Typhoon Haiyan wrecked in Tacloban city on Leyte Island, about 580 kilometers (360 miles) southwest of Manila, where the storm made landfall Friday.

He told The Associated Press that more than 100 bodies were lying in the streets and another 100 were injured.

He said messages from civil aviation authorities in Tacloban to the capital, Manila, had to be relayed through another airport in the central Philippines once every five hours to conserve radio batteries.

The Philippine television station GMA reported its news team saw 11 bodies, including that of a child, washed ashore Friday and 20 more bodies at a pier in Tacloban hours after the typhoon ripped through the coastal city.

At least 20 more bodies were taken to a church in nearby Palo town that was used as an evacuation center but had to be abandoned when its roofs were blown away, the TV network reported. TV images showed howling winds peeling off tin roof sheets during heavy rain.

Ferocious winds felled large branches and snapped coconut trees. A man was shown carrying the body of his 6-year-old daughter who drowned, and another image showed vehicles piled up in debris.

Nearly 800,000 people were forced to flee their homes and damage was believed to be extensive.

Weather officials said Haiyan had sustained winds of 235 kph (147 mph) with gusts of 275 kph (170 mph) when it made landfall. By those measurements, Haiyan would be comparable to a strong Category 4 hurricane in the U.S., nearly in the top category, a 5.

Hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons are the same thing. They are just called different names in different parts of the world.

The typhoon's sustained winds weakened Saturday to 175 kph (109 mph) with gusts of up to 210 kph (131 mph) as it blew farther away from the Philippines toward Vietnam.

In Vietnam, state media reported that several central provinces began evacuating some 300,000 people from high risk areas. The typhoon was expected to make landfall in the central region early Sunday morning.

Because of cut-off communications in the Philippines, it was impossible to know the full extent of casualties and damage. Officially, four people were listed as dead as of Saturday morning, before the latest information from Tacloban came in.

Southern Leyte Gov. Roger Mercado said the typhoon ripped roofs off houses and triggered landslides that blocked roads.

The dense clouds and heavy rains made the day seem almost as dark as night, he said.

"When you're faced with such a scenario, you can only pray, and pray and pray," Mercado told The Associated Press by telephone, adding that mayors in the province had not called in to report any major damage.

"I hope that means they were spared and not the other way around," he said. "My worst fear is there will be massive loss of lives and property."

Eduardo del Rosario, head of the disaster response agency, said the speed at which the typhoon sliced through the central islands — 40 kph (25 mph) — helped prevent its 600-kilometer (375-mile) band of rain clouds from dumping enough of their load to overflow waterways. Flooding from heavy rains is often the main cause of deaths from typhoons.

"It has helped that the typhoon blew very fast in terms of preventing lots of casualties," regional military commander Lt. Gen. Roy Deveraturda said. He said the massive evacuation of villagers before the storm also saved many lives.

Lebanon starts to vaccinate 750,000 against polio after Syria outbreak

Maybe our cries in the Internet wilderness are doing some good.  I HOPE so!

Friday, November 8, 2013

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Lebanon starts to vaccinate 750,000 against polio after Syria outbreak Lebanon launched a massive public health initiative on Friday to vaccinate all children under five against polio, following a confirmed outbreak of the crippling disease last month in neighboring war-torn Syria. The task is a daunting one in Lebanon, where more than 800,000 refugees are spread across the country in nearly 1,600 locations, including 400 informal tented settlements. Unlike Jordan and Turkey, which each host more than half a million Syrians, Lebanon has avoided establishing large-scale camps and many of the refugees are living among Lebanese. The vaccination plan in Lebanon is to go "house by house, tent by tent," said Annamaria Laurini, the UNICEF representative in Lebanon.

[Captioned Photo: A Syrian refugee girl helps her brother, who the family suspects has polio, to walk in a mosque compound in Shebaa area, southern Lebanon]
UN launches polio vaccination campaign in Mideast GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations says a massive campaign to vaccinate children in the Middle East against polio has begun after the first cases in 14 years were confirmed in northeastern Syria last week.

A response of a relative to "Syrian polio outbreak could spread to Europe, experts warn"

She said:

"Having just retired from working in our county's refugee clinic, I feel this report is vital to the health of our country.  We here in Palm Beach County have a very active immunization program which includes refugees as well as the general population.  The "vaccines for children" federal program ensures that all children regardless of income receive free vaccines.  The problem we face here is the growing population of parents who claim a "religious" exemption from vaccines, and these kids are then allowed in school.  Of course, if there is an outbreak they are excluded from school, but they are foolishly putting their children in jeopardy.  Thanks for sharing this very important information.  I have forwarded it to persons who are interested in the health of our community."  

On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 11:53 PM, Natalie Rosen <natalierosen@aol.com> wrote:

I post this in its entirety because I believe it to be that important for obvious reasons!

Syrian polio outbreak could spread to Europe, experts warn

Mohammad Zaatari / AP

Displaced Syrian children line up to receive vaccination against polio at one of the Syrian refugee camps in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, this week, following an outbreak of the crippling and highly communicable disease in neighboring Syria.

An outbreak of polio in eastern Syria that has paralyzed at least 10 children could spread to neighboring regions, including Europe — and in such a silent way that no one would know it for a year.

That’s a warning from two infectious disease experts in Germany, who say that large numbers of Syrian refugees now fleeing that conflict-torn country could settle in Europe, bringing the virus to places that have been polio-free for decades.

And it’s a worry echoed by U.S. polio experts, who say that countries around the world — including America — must be vigilant for signs of spread.

“The big issue is to assure that we have good surveillance to pick up polio as quickly as possible,” said. Dr. Walt Orenstein of Emory University, who has been working on eradicating polio for years. “As long as it circulates anywhere, it’s a risk everywhere.”

Because polio causes symptoms — including paralysis — in only about 1 of every 200 people infected, it has the potential to spread widely to others unnoticed, Dr. Martin Eichner of the University of Tubingen and Dr. Stefan Brockmann of the Reutlingen Regional Public Health Office in Germany wrote Thursday in a letter to the journal The Lancet.

“It might take … nearly 1 year of silent transmission before one acute flaccid paralysis case is identified and an outbreak is detected, although hundreds of individuals would carry the infection,” the experts wrote.

The situation will be exacerbated because most European countries, like the U.S., use inactivated polio vaccine, or IPV, rather than oral polio vaccine, or OPV, because the live-virus oral variety caused rare cases of paralysis in people who were vaccinated. While the IPV reduces transmission and protects well against paralysis, it only partially protects against infection, the experts warned.

In places with low vaccination coverage — including Bosnia, Herzegovina, Ukraine and Austria — there might not be enough widespread protection, known as “herd immunity," to prevent sustained transmission, they said.

“Vaccinating only Syrian refugees — as has been recommended by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control — must be judged as insufficient,” they wrote.

Only a handful of European member states allow use of OPV and none has a stockpile of the live vaccine, the authors note. The U.S. has used only IPV since 2000, after eradicating polio in America in 1979.

Polio is caused by a virus that spreads between people, but it can survive in water and sewage, too. The series of vaccines can protect people for life, but babies too young to have been vaccinated and children who don’t get the full dose can be infected.

The outbreak in Syria has paralyzed at least 10 children in the country’s Del al-Zour province. They’re all younger than 2 and may have gone unvaccinated because of the ongoing conflict that has now left half the population — an estimated 9 million people — homeless and starving.

It’s unclear how polio got back into Syria, which had eradicated the virus in 1999, though officials say this bout may have originated in Pakistan. Polio immunization rates fell from 91 percent in Syria in 2010 to 68 percent in 2012, largely because of the impact of conflict, the World Health Organization says.

Video: International health care workers are providing thousands of vaccinations to prevent polio from spreading any further among Syrians, many of whom are living in squalid refugee camps. And polio isn’t the only threat -- poor sanitation in the camps provides ripe conditions for the spread of other diseases. NBC’s Dr. Nancy Snyderman reports.

Vaccination efforts are focusing on more than 2 million children in Syria, as well as in seven neighboring countries: Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories and Egypt.

“Without a doubt, it can go wider, go beyond Syria’s borders,” said Sarah Crowe, spokeswoman for UNICEF. “Disease knows no borders.”

Hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled the country to seek help in neighboring regions – and Europe. The German disease experts are calling for increased surveillance of sewage in settlements.

“I would agree with them, it is important to develop more use of environmental surveillance,” said Orenstein, the U.S. expert who spearheaded a global declaration by more than 400 scientists that an end to polio is possible.

In the U.S., imported cases of measles have sparked recent outbreaks of the disease, particularly in pockets of un-vaccinated children, raising the very real possibility that other infections could spread as well. 

"Measles is your canary in the coal mine," Orenstein said. "It's much more contagious than polio. With polio, we have been fortunate, so far."

Syrian polio outbreak could spread to Europe, experts warn

I post this in its entirety because I believe it to be that important for obvious reasons!

Syrian polio outbreak could spread to Europe, experts warn

JoNel AlecciaNBC News

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5 hours ago

Mohammad Zaatari / AP

Displaced Syrian children line up to receive vaccination against polio at one of the Syrian refugee camps in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, this week, following an outbreak of the crippling and highly communicable disease in neighboring Syria.

An outbreak of polio in eastern Syria that has paralyzed at least 10 children could spread to neighboring regions, including Europe — and in such a silent way that no one would know it for a year.

That’s a warning from two infectious disease experts in Germany, who say that large numbers of Syrian refugees now fleeing that conflict-torn country could settle in Europe, bringing the virus to places that have been polio-free for decades.

And it’s a worry echoed by U.S. polio experts, who say that countries around the world — including America — must be vigilant for signs of spread.

“The big issue is to assure that we have good surveillance to pick up polio as quickly as possible,” said. Dr. Walt Orenstein of Emory University, who has been working on eradicating polio for years. “As long as it circulates anywhere, it’s a risk everywhere.”

Because polio causes symptoms — including paralysis — in only about 1 of every 200 people infected, it has the potential to spread widely to others unnoticed, Dr. Martin Eichner of the University of Tubingen and Dr. Stefan Brockmann of the Reutlingen Regional Public Health Office in Germany wrote Thursday in a letter to the journal The Lancet.

“It might take … nearly 1 year of silent transmission before one acute flaccid paralysis case is identified and an outbreak is detected, although hundreds of individuals would carry the infection,” the experts wrote.

The situation will be exacerbated because most European countries, like the U.S., use inactivated polio vaccine, or IPV, rather than oral polio vaccine, or OPV, because the live-virus oral variety caused rare cases of paralysis in people who were vaccinated. While the IPV reduces transmission and protects well against paralysis, it only partially protects against infection, the experts warned.

In places with low vaccination coverage — including Bosnia, Herzegovina, Ukraine and Austria — there might not be enough widespread protection, known as “herd immunity," to prevent sustained transmission, they said.

“Vaccinating only Syrian refugees — as has been recommended by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control — must be judged as insufficient,” they wrote.

Only a handful of European member states allow use of OPV and none has a stockpile of the live vaccine, the authors note. The U.S. has used only IPV since 2000, after eradicating polio in America in 1979.

Polio is caused by a virus that spreads between people, but it can survive in water and sewage, too. The series of vaccines can protect people for life, but babies too young to have been vaccinated and children who don’t get the full dose can be infected.

The outbreak in Syria has paralyzed at least 10 children in the country’s Del al-Zour province. They’re all younger than 2 and may have gone unvaccinated because of the ongoing conflict that has now left half the population — an estimated 9 million people — homeless and starving.

It’s unclear how polio got back into Syria, which had eradicated the virus in 1999, though officials say this bout may have originated in Pakistan. Polio immunization rates fell from 91 percent in Syria in 2010 to 68 percent in 2012, largely because of the impact of conflict, the World Health Organization says.

Video: International health care workers are providing thousands of vaccinations to prevent polio from spreading any further among Syrians, many of whom are living in squalid refugee camps. And polio isn’t the only threat -- poor sanitation in the camps provides ripe conditions for the spread of other diseases. NBC’s Dr. Nancy Snyderman reports.

Vaccination efforts are focusing on more than 2 million children in Syria, as well as in seven neighboring countries: Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories and Egypt.

“Without a doubt, it can go wider, go beyond Syria’s borders,” said Sarah Crowe, spokeswoman for UNICEF. “Disease knows no borders.”

Hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled the country to seek help in neighboring regions – and Europe. The German disease experts are calling for increased surveillance of sewage in settlements.

“I would agree with them, it is important to develop more use of environmental surveillance,” said Orenstein, the U.S. expert who spearheaded a global declaration by more than 400 scientists that an end to polio is possible.

In the U.S., imported cases of measles have sparked recent outbreaks of the disease, particularly in pockets of un-vaccinated children, raising the very real possibility that other infections could spread as well. 

"Measles is your canary in the coal mine," Orenstein said. "It's much more contagious than polio. With polio, we have been fortunate, so far."

Taking the Christ out of Christie

I was feeling particularly satisfied as Tea Baggers went down in Virginia no matter how close these elections were.  Those know nothing dastardly doers of rancid policy especially toward women in Virginia are not going to wield their toxicity this time and perhaps, the Tea Baggers were sent a lesson.  What is the lesson?  To win a national presidential and even senatorial election in this country one cannot be an extremist of either the left or the right.  We have seen Tea Baggers lose the Republican Party seats which cost them the majority in 2012 and could have helped that party take the Senate.  Tea Baggers though ideological and radical will still not be deterred from running, turn their backs on the loyal opposition, refuse to even congratulate those who oppose them hence the “war” in the Republican Party between the moderate old guard and the radical uber right nationalists is raging.  The nationalists will never get the Republican Party the presidency or even win the Senate and perhaps, HOPEFULLY, even lose the House in 2014.

Center stage Chris Christie billed as a moderate Republican centrist who can work well with kids on the other side of the isle after all his hand shaking and arms around the president which by a party and admission of one Tea Bagger that cannot even look at the president let alone put arms around him is proof of his Christie’s moderate stance.  Christie would have the nation believe he is not one of those Baggers but a different Republican who can take center stage in his obvious catapult to the 2016 presidential nomination.  He is now the chair of the Republican Governor’s Association which will pay for and take him to states all around the nation.  I suspect he will get some exposure from that and not pay a personal dime.  Christie is good at that after all.  Christie is an act and the act will be exposed.

Chris Hayes of MSNBC had a wonderful exposure of the true Christie and urge you to Google his Wednesday evening show to listen why.  Among many things of which Christie will have to account when running for national office is his less-than-Christian transparency about money not to mention his unwillingness when vetted by Romney for the VP slot to talk about his health according to John Heilman and Mark Halpern (in his new book and expose of the 2012 campaign entitled “Double Down”.)

Moreover, Chris Hayes showed how 1.2 billion of federal aid for Sandy relief for the state of New Jersey has never been received by lower and middle income people who were told they would get it as they filed the appropriate papers but a year later are living still in trailers.  Hayes backed his assertions up by interviewing a woman expering just that and she is one of thousands!  Christie has been less than transparent with the 1.2 billion Federal money for Sandy relief and worse no one really knows where all that money went.   Where did it go?  Christie will not tell.  He managed though to get 15 million of it to build the deck that recently caught fire as the optics were oh so good on the national news doncha know.  Add to Christie’s unpreparedness for in-state disasters and one wonders how he can now ride the ascending star on super storm Sandy to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, White House, Washington D.C.  

25 million of Sandy relief money we know went for TV advertising showing Christie with nuclear family in tow touting how great he was getting people together in a hug circle except that another advertisement that could have been used that was 40% cheaper but was not used.  Curiously, the cheaper advertisement did NOT include the governor and his family.  If Governor Christie is in fact going to run for the presidency he's going to have a lot of splainin to do. 

Chris Christie is not a different Republican he is the same old Tea Bag recycled Republican.  Simply look at his record on the politically revelatory social issues.  He is anti-choice and he is against marriage equality.  According to the November 5, 2013 Los Angeles Times “Christie holds views on social issues that may isolate him from Democrats. He opposes abortion and has vetoed bills that would fund family-planning groups such as Planned Parenthood.  His frequent vetoes of funding for family planning have led facilities to close, women’s groups say.” “Chris Christie likes playing a moderate on TV, but when one looks at what he’s actually done during his time in office it is clear that it is all just an act. He has targeted services New Jersey women and families rely on time and time again, and he’s proven he’s no less extreme than any of his fellow Republicans. You can only play a role for so long before people start catching on,” said Marcy Stech, a spokeswoman for Emily’s List.”

I thought the essence of being a good Christian, which Christie claims to be, is as enunciated by Pope Francis and that is to embrace a faith whose main emphasis should be as Christ instructed -- feeding the poor and caring for the least of those among us.  Christie’s program of austerity and cuts for aid to the poor and education union busting have done nothing for the very groups about which Christianity is supposed to be.  The economics of his state paint a dismal picture of Chris Christie’s leadership as governor.

I say take the Christ OUT of Chris Christie as he has the unmitigated gall to call himself something he is not!

WHEN I TELL YOU IT IS A MUST TO GET THIS RADICAL RIGHT WING ALBATROSS OFF OUR NECKS I AM NOT KIDDING.  GET DEMOCRATS ELECTED IN 2014 AND KEEP THE SENATE. ANYTHING ELSE IS UNACCEPTABLE!

A Good Night -- The Beat Goes On--A bell-weather--2013 elections

I was happy last night. The biggest bell weather state and Democratic win was the Virginia race. Putrid Tea Bagger incumbent who wanted to outlaw contraception, Ken Cuccinelli, LOST the gubernatorial to the Dem Terry McAulliffe-- that was my happiest moment but there was other good news out of VA. Democrats won the Lt. Governor race decidedly against a truly dumb, hell fire and brimstone fundamentalist preacher. Now as some news site (I know not which) reported "The Virginia attorney general’s race was a virtual dead heat and headed for a recount early Wednesday morning, with Democratic State Sen. Mark Herring clinging to a 541-vote lead over Republican State Sen. Mark D. Obenshain with 2.2 million ballots cast, according to unofficial results posted by the state board of elections." Herring was losing when I went to bed last evening so I was pleasantly surprised this a.m. by a Herring's possible win by a smidgen. A win is a win. This COULD be a Democratic sweep unless the recount proves otherwise. This is also an important office and not to pat myself on the back but I am one of the few in my circle who knew anything or cared about the VA race and how important a bell-weather it is and a kick-in-the-posterior of the Tea Bags. There will be a recount because the Attorney General race is so close but I hope and I think Herring will prevail which will make it a Democratic sweep!!Second happiest moment:

I LOVE my Mayor of NYC Bill DeBlasio. He loves his wife so I can't marry him! He won with a whopping 73% of the vote!!! First Democrat to win NYC since the 1980's.

In other news Boston has a new mayor, Martin Walsh. Ashamedly, I did not pay much attention as only in Massachusetts could two Democrats be competing for that job and no Republicrats. I love my state! I am hearing Walsh is the better of the two and a huge supporter of unions as I am. Unions are the only entity where Democrats can collect big money UNFORTUNATELY needed in politics today.

I won't give a rundown as you can get that from here or the link below.
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/2013/results. It was a good night for those of us committed to progressive politics. Even secession failed, gay marriage will be if it is not already signed into law in Illinois and in Portland, Maine there was this headline: "Portland, Maine legalizes recreational marijuana" (must say I do not care about marijuana as I use no drugs or even alcohol but I do care that anyone on this planet is imprisoned -- especially in private profit prisons stuffed to the gills with people who should not be there -- for marijuana when alcohol truly can kill.) 

We MUST take these victories and forge onward to CRUSH Republicans most especially in the Congressional House in 2014 which is without a doubt the most obstructionist, know nothing, racist composition of idiots who almost sunk this nation and closed it down. They MUST PAY and pay big by Democrats taking back the House, keeping the Senate and -- fate willing -- keeping the presidency as Chris Christie is NOT good and has been less so in New Jersey. He may be charismatic but in policy he will be muddied by a microscopic lens on him if he runs in 2016 -- RUN HILLARY RUN! My dream ticket going future forward: Hillary Clinton/Corey Booker and way in the future forward a ticket of Corey Booker/Bill DeBlasio. Okay, I can dream. I'm savoring last evening! It was, I think, a good night!

WHY IT IS SO IMPORTANT TO ELECT DEMOCRATS ACROSS THE NATION AND I BELIEVE THIS ELECTION GAVE US SOME WIND AT OUR BACKS. GO OUT AND WORK AND CONTRIBUTE TO DEMOCRATIC VICTORIES EVERYWHERE AND SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT'S BESIEGED AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE ACT!!

DeBlasio for Mayor and More!

My opinion posted to the NYTimes.
I LOVE Bill DeBlasio and cannot believe what good fortune shone on him and NYC. He is an honest, smart, and excellent candidate with profoundly good values. I am not from NYC but today I surely wish I were and that is coming from a Bostonian! Does not matter. One recognizes greatness when one sees it and Bill DeBalsio is it. 

Future Mayor DeBlasio, run NYC for awhile then step onto the national stage and take the White House. It is early I know but that is my wish. My perfection ticket: Corey Booker/Bill DeBlasio for two terms and then DeBlasio for president. It makes me want to live another day! I WILL work for you if it comes to that. I can dream.

Good luck, Mr. future Mayor. There is a woman in Boston who loves you!

Excellence in Truth -- "12 Years a Slave"

This weekend I had the grim opportunity to see "12 Years a Slave" based on the true story and written work of a free African, Solomon Northup, in 1841. Northup, a great African American violinist and musical talent living as a freeman in the north, gets apprehended by thugs and sent back into slavery in the 1841 south. If one sees that film, which I HIGHLY encourage, and really understands it one will be guaranteed a true perspective on the etiology of our nation's historical white racist albatross. The old Confederacy is dead BUT the white Tea Bag Republican Party is determined to keep its malevolent heart beating and the major Republican Party is more than willing to use these know nothing Tea Baggers to attain power for the rich who so desperately want it.

If one sees this film one will know why, if you do not already, our first African American president is disrespected and pilloried attempting to crush everything he proposes whether his nomination of judges or his signature legislation the Affordable Healthcare Act by those who wave the Confederate flag proudly and those rich white men within the Republican Party echelons of power who allow these malevolent malcontents within their ranks to exist undeterred.

This film is a window into the American soul. The nation armed with its document of freedom and egalitarian treatment for all can reduce this precious document to refuse. It is impossible to understand how African Americans could even survive the onslaught of a system that degraded and reduced their status to beasts of burden; property that whites could kill or use at will. One sees, through this film, man's inhumanity to man EVEN in a country which purports to know better. The hypocrisy is endless and the cruelty of white masters toward their black property knows no boundaries.

It mattered not whether one was a black man or a black woman as each were treated with unfathomable cruelty in his/her own uniquely vulnerable way. Both sexes endured the lash but the female had to endure the lash and the humiliation of loveless, brutal and savage rape by her white master and could do not a thing about it. It can be said and Todd Aiken who made the preposterous statement that a woman can shut down a pregnancy if she is raped that unequivocally biology knows no difference between impregnation by love or by rape as the many light-skinned blacks of that era could attest.

This is what it is like when men because of who they are have no rights and where other men can lord over them, strip them of rights, strip them of the vote and strip them of the humanity of human dignity based solely on who they were born.

The film has great relevance to our day. Republican whites, as in the era of Jim Crow, try their best to deny, by any means necessary, the vote to those blacks and others who would attempt to vote those into office who would have their interests at heart.

This film instructs us today NOT to let racists within our ranks gain traction and win electorally through rancid policy that which they could not win through a Civil War that crushed them two centuries ago. The Old Confederacy has morphed into a new and ugly monster that will rise again ONLY if we of egalitarian principle let it. WE WILL NOT LET IT RISE AGAIN NOT THIS TIME and take us back as they did Solomon Nothrup to the bestial era of the 1841 south.

They must be roundly defeated not only for persons of color but for all of us including women whose power WILL be nullified by right wing extremists who have only hate and religious dogma in their hearts. They will take us back to the 19th century and even, as one Nevada know nothing legislator said, vote to take us back to slavery if the public wants it. According to the Las Vegas Sun, Jim Wheeler of Gardnerville, NV was speaking to the Storey County Republican Party when he made the remarks. That remark says it all as does the remark in the film of Brad Pitt abolitionist white plantation worker when he says of the corrupt and bestial slave system: "Thou devil, sooner or later, somewhere in the course of eternal justice, thou shalt answer for this sin!'" And so they have but, in my opinion, not nearly enough!

Polio--Coming to a Theater Near You?

Yet another headline: "Syria polio outbreak a heartbreaking setback in struggle against merciless virus"-- and another story here or below: Opinion: This is what happens when your nation has a never ending civil war that COULD come to a theater near you. Nations that have a semblance of stable government should think long and hard about maintaining it!!

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/syria-polio-outbreak-heartbreaking-setback-struggle-against-merciless-virus-8C11511637

The Littlest Strawberry

Yesterday was Halloween as most of us know. It was a time when, as a child, I viewed it as great fun anticipating all the "loot" I would collect when calories did not matter. It gave me the opportunity to dress up as the favorite characters of my childhood from Superman to my cowboy hero The Lone Ranger. I could go to familiar homes and greet neighbors I knew so well with whom I ate lunches and dinners sometimes more than I had in my own only-child home. It was a different time.

We, most of us, knew each other from those in the homes at the top of the street to those in the homes at the bottom. I played with and knew everyone and everyone knew everyone else too. No one feared going out even at night alone. It was a different time.

In our time it has become apparent, at least to me, that few of us know each other who live sometimes across the street. In fact, most on my street I do not know at all. Homes have been constructed at the very top of the street but those homes may as well have been constructed in the next town where I would not know anyone at all. It is a different time.

I am sad that this is so as this nation seems to have contracted into respective tribal camps. There used to be a sense of us instead of a sense of them. It is, indeed, sadly, a different time.

And this brings me to my final thought. The doorbell rang yet again on Halloween and this time I was visited by the most adorable two year old little girl with big dark soulful eyes. When I asked what she was dressed as she said in a tiny voice "A strawberry." A strawberry? I asked surprised and examined her costume. Yes, indeed, she was the cutest little strawberry I have ever seen. I asked her mother where she lives and she said she lived close to my house across the street. I lamented that fact of how sad it was that on the same street where I used to know everyone I know so few today. Her lovely mother, who was just as nice as the littlest strawberry she had in tow, agreed. 

Yes, it is a different time and lamentably so. Maybe we all must work a little harder to get to know one another even if our tribal allegiances are different. When we know one another the impetus to see each other as different transcends a bridge to our common humanity. We are after all simply human and, yes, we are all in this together. The utterly adorable littlest strawberry brought these very big thoughts to my mind.

I hope when she grows up our worlds will not be so different from one another’s. I hope she will be able to see the common humanity that will keep us together to tolerate and transcend the smaller differences that keep us a world apart!


Why we must elect Democrats and even reach out to Republicans who are reachable to join our side to prevent those who would keep us separate, divided and apart!

The Ugly "American" -- A Letter to Extremist Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz, you immoral, narcissistic, demagogic charlatan, tell the people the WHOLE truth of what you attempted to do to our country and failed. You attempted to treasonously bring down the government and world economies with it. You, an American Senator who is Canadian born, tried to reach into our homeland, get elected to our Senate from Texas by those who know no better, to subvert the nation. God only hopes when the time comes that you suffer the loss of your Senate seat and God hopes that you never do damage like that to our nation, attempting to wound it beyond repair to hurt the people and their president, again.

Tell the American people who and what you really are about – YOU – and no one else. You are mean, you are cruel and you were truly NOT even born here UNlike our president who was! You will, of course, NEVER be president and would not be president even if you were native born.

The Republican majority in the House and in the state houses everywhere is GOING DOWN and we the true patriots, for love of country, WILL see to it that they do. Shame on you, Mr. Cruz. You are truly a mendacious, depraved and ugly man inside and out!

TED CRUZ AND THOSE LIKE HIM ARE PROOF POSITIVE, AS IF WE NEEDED ANY MORE, WHY REPUBLICANS MUST BE ELECTORALLY CRUSHED IN 2014 IN THE CONGRESSIONAL HOUSE AND IN STATE HOUSES ALL OVER THE NATION. REPUBLICANS HAVE BANKRUPTED THEIR STATES, ENACTED LAWS AGAINST WOMEN, AND MOST REPULSIVELY SUPPRESSED THE VOTE OF THOSE WHO WOULD VOTE AGAINST THEM. THEY WILL LIE, STEAL AND CHEAT THE SYSTEM DEPRIVING AMERICANS OF THE DEMOCRACY WE RIGHTFULLY SHOULD HAVE. WORK TO OVERTHROW REPUBLICAN POWER -- LEGALLY -- BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY!

Polio Outbreak

The chilling and anger provoking ugly Middle East story of polio break out in war demolished Syria with NO medical facilities or help. Can you imagine this nearly-eradicated-from-the face-of-the-earth viral disease making a comeback? This is what war provokes as no sewage or sanitation facilities exist spreading the disease as societies break down. This is why war must not, cannot and should not ever be used as a tool for change.

If anyone can imagine this I surely can. Do I thank fate for Children's Hospital in Boston and for having been born in this country where I attained superb care as a child unlucky enough to have been born before the 1955 Salk vaccine? A resounding YES!

The story is here or below.


http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/29/us-syria-crisis-polio-idUSBRE99S0FI20131029

We here in Boston are DELIRIOUS with Sox happiness. It is a story book ending to a year filled with grief for the city.

I LOVE my city, love my state and love my country (when Democrats are in power.) We MUST defeat the Republican Party that brings revelry for ONLY the top 2%. It brings death and destruction to everyone else.

The Red Sox did it and won. So must the rest of us.

VOTE DEMOCRAT WHEREVER YOU MAY BE. REPUBLICANS MUST NEVER BE ALLOWED TO ATTAIN POWER AGAIN SIMPLY LOOK AT WHAT THEY HAVE DONE. IT IS SURELY MORE EGREGIOUS THAN PROBLEMS WITH A WEB SITE. REPUBLICANS ALMOST TOOK DOWN A NATION, HAVE KILLED THOUSANDS, HURT MILLIONS AND WILL HURT MILLIONS MORE IF THEY GET A CHANCE. NOTHING SHORT OF A DEMOCRATIC TAKEOVER OF THE HOUSE AND STATE GOVERNMENTS ALL OVER THE NATION IS MANDATORY!

PASS THIS ON TO ANYONE AND EVERYONE YOU KNOW!

OUT OF THE PARK--The President's Speech in Boston

My email to NBC News:

Brian Williams, if you report anything but the fact that the President HIT THIS SPEECH IN BOSTON OUT  OF THE PARK THEN YOU WILL LOSE ME AS A VIEWER!  The president's speech on healthcare was MAGNIFICENT and to report it as anything but is simply WRONG and immoral.

If NBC continues to skew the news to the right you will lose me as a viewer entirely.  The president was BRILLIANT.  Give him credit for that.

Mr. President, you hit a grand slam, as we hope the Red Sox do tonight, now let's see the media admit it!!!

Healthcare.gov

I simply wanted to see if I could get connected to Healthcare.gov and I did in seconds. You may if you like use this statement as proof positive that if one comes from a state that is not in obstructive opposition to the ACA that one can easily be connected. Those who are screaming the most often come from the reddest states and if conservative government rules those states than obstruction of the president is the rule. 

I believe the positive stories MUST be told as those malevolent toward the president will do anything to subvert him. We MUST support this ACA act.

I want support for this president's supreme signature legislation to work you may use my email to prove that there are many out there for whom the ACA works and works well one simply must come from a state that is receptive to it!!

Why we MUST elect Democrats in 2014 all over the nation. Republicans have NOTHING absolutely NOTHING with which to replace the Affordable Health Care Act. They can criticize it to be sure but have NOTHING to offer. Another reason as if we needed one to work for Democrats within the Democratic Party!

I Spy--The Rules We Live By

I am NOT thrilled with the scope of NSA spying. The NSA is a gargantuan agency. When something is that huge it becomes uncontrollable missing the needles that threaten us in a very huge haystack. I think it is possible the president did not know of spying on Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel because the NSA has become a power in and of itself. President Dwight Eisenhower predicted in his farewell address the scope of what he called then “the military industrial complex.” It is, perhaps now, the Fifth Estate.

Having said that I am a pragmatic realist who rather enjoys breathing. Without Snowden's treachery, putting his own nation and those in it at risk, we probably would not know about the tapping of Angela's Merkel’s phone and who among really does care? Do I think spying on Merkel was fruitless and unnecessary? Yes, I do. However, it cannot be emphasized enough, the world we live in is a rough place. Who can you trust? A nation, we have seen before, EVEN one's ally could try to gain God knows what in God knows what ways. Countless incidents of espionage all over the world take place every day, I am convinced, even against friends. Who knows what leaders will say to one another, even friendly ones, when no one is looking? Most in the NSA, I would aver, think trust around the globe is in small supply and often for good reason. It is, I think, too, in man's survivalist DNA to be always vigilant even among friends.

We are not involved in a sports game. The stakes for our nation’s survival are much grander. This is, 9/11 showed for whatever rationales it was perpetrated, an existential struggle. Modern weaponry can travel all over the globe and present the possibility of eternal destruction. We understood this to be true when the first atomic bomb was tested and then dropped. Robert Oppenheimer who helped create the atomic bomb through Roosevelt’s Manhattan Project said when he was asked upon a visit to Japan in 1960 his thoughts about the destructive weapon he helped create: 

We knew the world would not be the same. Few people laughed, few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.

The hardest part we now, I believe, face as a nation, is how to balance our Constitutional founding civil libertarian principles with the cold realities of securing the homeland in an unkind world. Our Post 9/11 policy is still a work in progress while life and the creation of world-ending destructive weaponry goes on around the globe. 

That weaponry both here and around the world must, at all costs –yes, even sometimes by spying on friends—be secured never to be used by those who seek to destroy us. It is indeed a brave new world and a fact of life in our modern era that none of our 18th century Founding Fathers could have predicted the rules we must live by today when they wrote the rules to live by in 1776.

Pensions anyone? Vigilance

I love the Democratic Party but vigilance of all things between money and things political is a necessity! An article by David Sirota is of interest. Scroll down to read the article or go to the web page for more links. here or 

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/23/wall_streets_favorite_democrat_wants_your_pension/?source=newsletter :

Wall Street’s favorite Democrat wants your pension

The financial services industry hopes to gain even more control over workers' retirement savings

BY DAVID SIROTA  

Gina Raimondo (Credit: AP/Steven Senne)

Less than a year ago, the Wall Street Journal alerted its national readership to what was happening in the tiny state of Rhode Island. In a story headlined “Small State Gets Big Pension Push,” the paper noted that the state’s “rollback of public-employee retirement benefits has turned (it) into a national battleground over pensions.” With the help of billionaire former Enron trader John Arnold and his partnership with the Pew Charitable Trusts, conservative ideologues and Wall Street profiteers who engineered Rhode Island’s big pension cuts were looking to export those “reforms” to other states. Now, after two huge revelations in the last few days, we know more about what that means in practice — we know the kind of corruption and damage the “reforms” mean for taxpayers and retirees, and we know what kind of new muscle is behind the effort to bring that corruption and destruction to other states.

The first set of revelations comes from a detailed forensic analysis of Rhode Island’s pension system by Forbes columnist and former SEC investigator Edward Siedle. Commissioned by groups representing public pensioners in the Ocean State, the data-driven analysis ends up reading like a criminal indictment of the speculator-turned-State-Treasurer Gina Raimondo (D), who is now cheerily touted by the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party as a rising star. Raimondo has received such billing from corporatist Democrats in no small part because of her role in helping turn her state’s pension fund into a private profit center. Indeed, in 2012, this Wall Street-funded Democrat joined with Arnold to champion specific pension reforms that simultaneously slash guaranteed retirement income and give a disproportionate amount of retiree money to the hedge fund industry, thus enriching Raimondo’s old pals in the financial industry. According to Siedle’s report, they also potentially enrich Raimondo personally. Here are just some of his report’s key findings:

• “A sinister pall of secrecy”: The report documents “a sinister pall of secrecy” about the pension fund’s new investments in hedge funds — a pall “orchestrated by state officials and aided by key investment services providers.” Siedle reports that “the overwhelming majority of the information … requested for this review (has) been withheld in apparent violation of state law.” As Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi and I noted in our recent San Francisco Chronicle report, such secrecy is now the norm in states, as “reformers” have changed the law to prevent retirees from even seeing how much of their money is being handed over to hedge fund billionaires.

• A transfer of retirement income to Wall Street, potentially costing taxpayers big money: The report documents a “staggering, almost 700 percent planned increase in (pension) investment expenses from $11 million to an estimated $70 million—fees paid to Wall Street hedge fund and other alternative managers” who control the so-called alternative investments in hedge funds. In total, Siedle estimates that “the projected cost to (the pension fund) of the Treasurer’s $2 billion alternative investments gamble over the next 20 years amounts to in excess of $3 billion.” That’s more than the total savings of the retirement benefit cuts, meaning those cuts aren’t saving taxpayers’ money — they are being used to finance a new Wall Street handout.

• “Profiting at the expense of the state”: Raimondo came to the Treasurer’s office from a financial firm backed by billionaire hedge funder Paul Tudor Jones. According to the report, “A significant portion of (her) wealth and income relates to shares she owns in two illiquid, opaque venture capital partnerships she formerly managed” at that firm — “one of which she convinced the state (pension fund) to invest in.” Siedle notes that during Raimondo’s time in office running the state’s pension system, the fees Rhode Island is paying to the fund she has an ownership stake in “are significantly higher than the venture capital industry.” As the report concludes, all of this means that “the Treasurer may literally be profiting at the expense of the state.”

• Worse returns that damage the pension fund even further: If all this graft was delivering better returns to the state’s pension system, it might be written off as merely a necessary cost of doing business and protecting taxpayers. But as Siedle documents, at the very moment Raimondo has handed over more retiree money to her hedge fund pals, “The investment performance of the Fund has lagged behind its peers, earning a mere 11.07 percent versus 12.43 percent for the median public-sector pension.” In total, the New York Times notes that for all of Raimondo’s insistence that giving Wall Street more taxpayer cash will generate better returns, neither set of hedge funds she has put state money into beat the returns of simply investing the cash in a simple S&P index fund — one that doesn’t incur massive fees paid to the financial industry that bankrolls Raimondo’s election campaigns.

Siedle’s report is worth reading in its entirety to understand what your state legislators actually mean when they start throwing around the Orwellian phrase “pension reform” — and thanks to the second piece of news this week, we know that state legislators everywhere will almost certainly be throwing that seemingly innocuous phrase around. That news came from the St. Louis Beacon, which reports that none other than the American Legislative Exchange Council has decided to make cutting pension benefits one of its top goals in the 2014 state legislative sessions. They will be pushing to replicate Raimondo’s much-hyped “reforms” in legislatures throughout the country.

It is difficult to overstate the influence of ALEC in state policymaking. Bringing together the largest corporations, best-connected lobbyists, and most powerful state legislators, it calls the shots when it comes to state economic policymaking. So it is huge news that it is prioritizing thePlot Against Pensions — and not surprisingly, its renewed involvement in the plot is connected to Enron John Arnold. That connection can be seen in the author of ALEC’s new report urging state legislators to convert traditional defined-benefit pension plans into 401(k) style schemes and consequently reduce pensioners’ guaranteed retirement benefits. It is written by none other than Utah state Sen. Dan Liljenquist (R), who was not only the failed Tea Party primary challenger against U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R), but more important, a paid pension “reform”consultant for John Arnold’s foundation.

Like Siedle’s analysis, the ALEC report is worth perusing — but for different reasons. While Siedle’s report is all about indisputable data and numbers, ALEC’s is all about a kind of misinformation so dishonest it’s hard to believe even the most shameless propagandists could even think it, much less publish it. As just one example, notice the section of the ALEC report telling legislators to lie to public employees by telling them “that pension reform will increase take home pay and benefits” and then citing that claim as rationale to entitle pension-slashing legislation a “wage liberation act.” Of course, in almost every state that has experienced pension “reform,” retirement benefits have been cut, giving a far different meaning to “wage liberation.” Workers’ wages haven’t been liberated to make higher wages — workers themselves have been liberated from their wages.

Why would ALEC involve itself in the effort to cut retirement benefits and replace cost-effectiveeconomically stimulative defined-benefit pensions with “alternative investments” and 401(k)-style systems? Part of it probably has to do with its connections to the financial industry which, as Rhode Island proves, sees huge profit potential in “reforms” that let them raid public pension funds and bilk them with private investment fees.

The other part, no doubt, is about protecting the corporate welfare on which many of ALEC’s corporate members rely. By pushing to balance state budgets exclusively through cuts to pension benefits, ALEC helps create a budget discourse that solely blames public employees for state budget shortfalls, and thus leaves corporate subsidies off the chopping block. Ultimately, pension shortfalls become the boogeyman, even though the corporate subsidies that benefit ALEC members (but that often don’t create jobs) are far larger than those pension gaps.

None of this should be particularly surprising; in a pay-to-play political system, where there is cash under the control of industry-bankrolled public officials, there will always be the potential for graft and corruption. And where there is the potential to use state legislation to institutionalize graft and corruption, there has always been ALEC. What’s different here is scale. Public pension funds are collectively worth almost $3 trillion. Though that is supposed to be money to fulfill sacred retirement promises to public workers, a coalition of right-wing ideologues, billionaire political activists, Wall Street profiteers and bankrolled politicians sees that nest egg as a lucrative private profit center. If they are successful in hiding their rip-off schemes in the argot of “reform,” they will have accomplished one of the biggest heists in American history.

David Sirota is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, magazine journalist and the best-selling author of the books "Hostile Takeover," "The Uprising" and "Back to Our Future." E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com, follow him on Twitter @davidsirota or visit his website