Monday, February 19, 2018

Presidents Day




26 comments:

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    1. I just now wrote a letter to the Editor of the Fresno Bee:

      "It is SO very heartwarming to read about elected officeholders once again offering their prayers and condolences to the victims of the latest school massacre. I am old enough to remember when prayers, condolences and a dime would buy a cup of coffee; nowadays prayers, condolences and a couple bucks might buy a cup of coffee. Since mass shootings have gone up with the price of coffee, I suppose they could be eliminated by lowering the retail price of coffee (which would be popular with voters); certainly shootings couldn't be reduced by limiting access to firearms or ammunition! I can't say as I am particularly thrilled by either of the two leading candidates for Governor, but I read in The Bee that Mr. Villaraigosa actively opposed background checks for ammunition purchases; Mr. Newsom actively favored them. That is probably reason enough for me to vote for Newsom."

      --Alan

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  2. The GoFundMe account for the Parkland students' "March For Our Lives" is coming along nicely.

    Alan

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  3. [Click] WTF?!?

    Nice writeup in the NYT about Beto O’Rourk’s campaign, seemingly a little tainted by typical NYT snootiness.[Click] The question that comes to my mind is whether Beto has been endorsed by Jim Hightower or Kinky Friedman…

    —Alan

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    1. Wow! The rules really do not apply to the dumps, do they? Plus Junior is every bit as stupid as Daddy and I can't see where he has any business giving a foreign policy speech since he is not an elected official.

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    2. What? You want them to play by the rules? The rules are for everybody else, not for them.

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  4. From the NYT: Coal’s Continuing Decline[Click] Among other things, it mentions a recent severe increase in black lung disease (the most serious variant, combined with silicosis).

    —Alan

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  5. Susan, I understand what you're saying. On the other hand, there's pro-life and pro-life. I'm very firmly pro-life. Thing is, I happen to believe that being pro-life entails a great deal more than merely being anti-abortion. Hell, I'm even anti-abortion. But we have separation of church and state in this country and the right to an abortion - that is safe for the mother - is a constitutionally guaranteed right. So to me being anti-abortion does not mean restricting access to abortion to the point of being emotionally abusive or verbally, much less physically abusing Planned Parenthood patients but rather working to ameliorate the conditions that lead women to the terrible decision to seek an abortion... which goes back to the larger question of being pro-life.

    Seems to me, Kucinich is Catholic, isn't he? I'm Catholic. So, like him, I believe that abortion is wrong. Since it is wrong, we must work to make it as rare as possible. I can't see where that violates the separation between church and state as long as we also uphold the constitutional rights of the citizen.

    I can't recall ever hearing Kucinich speak about abortion, so I don't know where he stands, whether he is a moderate or more extreme. If he believes that abortion must never be permitted under any circumstances and seeks to impose this belief on civil society, that would be troubling. If he feels that society needs to work to reduce the number of abortions that are performed, then I agree with that completely.

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    1. According to what I've found he only VERY recently switched over to pro-choice. Seems like more of a convenience than a conviction. Society is ALREADY working to reduce the number of abortions by closing clinics everywhere they can. I am strongly pro-choice as I don't believe we have the right to tell another woman what she must do. Also far too many who are "pro-life" are actually just "pro-birth" - not for concern for the birth of a baby, but as a control measure on the woman. It's only men who are making laws about female reproduction and one of them actually thought a woman could feed her fetus by eating food that would then somehow trickle down to the fetus. I'd be willing to bet that most of them could not name the parts of women's genitalia, and too many of them haven't even SEEN any. Sorry, I get really worked up on this subject. If they REALLY cared about life we wouldn't have children murdered in their classrooms, or in neighborhood with food deserts going hungry, or A-holes like Cheetolini with his "Harvest Box" bullshit choosing what poor people get to eat. I know it's not true here at HEP, but there is entirely too much greed and selfishness in this world. I am constantly seeing comments on FB by people angry that somebody else is getting help as if that help comes at THEIR expense.

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    2. I agree with you completely. That's what I mean by being pro-life. We must make a world that is nurturing of life, all life, not just billionaires in their gated communities. We have to care for this planet we've been given. We have to care for the people around us, practicing love not hate, generosity not greed. People have to have decent housing, decent work providing a living wage, meaningful education in school buildings that are safe and well-maintained and well stocked. And people need to know they are safe in their homes, schools, houses of worship and places of entertainment.

      This to me is being pro-life. Advocating gun control is pro-life. Advocating a living wage and the freedom to unionize is being pro-life. seeing to it that people have housing and clothing and nutritious food is pro-life. And supporting programs like Social Security, Welfare, and MEDICARE/MEDICAID is being pro-life. It has always seemed to me that even with its support of abortion rights, the Democratic Party is far more pro-life far more in line with Jesus' teachings, than the Republican Party. We want to help and care for everybody, especially the least among us, while they only want to help the rich. That's why I don't understand why ordinary people vote Republican; it's totally against their own interests. But that's another discussion.

      I have only contempt for those who think being pro-life means nothing more nor less than screaming "Don't kill your baby!" at a woman who is in a situation they cannot begin to imagine. Such individuals are only interested in fetuses, they don't care about babies, about children, about living people and their problems and struggles and living conditions. All they care about is fetuses. And, I agree with you, such individuals are vial, subhuman creatures. If you want to reduce the number of abortions, improve women's lives, change the desperate conditions that force them to make such a terrible choice. Then and only then you can call yourself "pro-life."

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    3. Being pro-life only up to the point of birth is ignoble, certainly.

      Here is a historical item I found quite interesting. Analysis of pre-modern Japanese birth registrations strongly indicates infanticide to maintain the relative proportions of the sexes. The second child was disproportionately the opposite sex of the first, among other things. Those cute little kokeshi dolls were originally in memory of the children who did not live. But before becoming too judgmental, consider that before industrialization Japan was at the malthusian limit--food was barely enough to maintain the population, when times were good. And women were valued highly; if a marriage didn't work out, the wife was usually welcome to return to her family, particularly in the countryside, because she was clearly an economic asset. Unlike Europe, in Japan the groundwork for modern industrialization took place in the countryside, not in the cities.

      Alan

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  6. So I got back from Capricon late yesterday afternoon. I was on five panels and attended two more plus a book discussion. But I spent a lot of time at the table promoting this year's Worldcon. Sitting table is quite enjoyable, since it gives you a chance to see all your friends and to talk to people who aren't friends yet.

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    1. Out of idle curiosity, what do goats have to do with science fiction? I know what they have to do with taxicabs, but looking at the Capricon web site is not informative.

      Alan

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    2. Glad you had a good time, Bill, and glad you're back. How's the leg?

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    3. What Cat said.

      Alan

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    4. I see the doctor tomorrow. My assumption is that the leg will be declared healed. (Can't see it myself due to the compression bandage.)

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  7. Not lookin’ good for the GOP…

    “These races are like canaries in the coal mine. For Republicans, the canaries are dying.”
    — Former Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), quoted by Vanity Fair, on GOP losses in state legislative races across the country.

    A grand jury indictment unsealed Monday accuses Rhode Island state Sen. Nicholas Kettle (R) of extorting sex from a page in the Senate’s page program, the AP reports.

    Nate Cohn: “Perhaps no event will do more to reshape the fight for control of the House than the new congressional map just released by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.”
    “Democrats couldn’t have asked for much more from the new map.”

    Rep. Tom Rooney (R-FL) announced he will not seek reelection…
    Donald Trump won the district by 27 points in 2016.

    Mueller’s Interest In Kushner Grows[Click]

    —Alan

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    1. Extorting sex from a page, eh? *scratches head* Extorting sex sort of soundslike rape or at the least non-concentual sex. Also, pages are quite often minors, aren't they? So, doesn't this translate to aggravated statutory rape?

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    2. Typical Republican scum. Repulsive! Sounds like his friend in New Hampshire is cut out of the same bolt of cloth.

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    1. It would have been nice to be able to blame the Russians. Oh, well.

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  9. Hey all. I wasn't around tonight as I wasn't in a social media space. We have learned that a childhood friend died on Saturday night. He grew up with Wil and we all graduated high school together. He was best man at our wedding. After that he managed to make shipwreck of his life, except that he has a really nice son, whom we are trying to be very supportive of. Our friend was 62, and died of complications of a bad fall he took on ice in late December. His inherited heart disease had the final say, with several brain surgeries and several strokes since December. Very sad. But he did manage to live longer than either of his parents. His father died suddenly in his 40's of a heart attack, not long after we graduated high school, and his mother died a few years later when an unknown aneurysm burst.

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    1. Oh, wow. When things go badly for gradeschool classmates, it hurts unusually bad. Sorry to hear, listener.

      Alan

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    2. Thanks, Alan. He's the second (that I know of) from our class to die. The first was a decade ago, from cancer. We expect this to become a regular thing this decade. Sigh.

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