It's a hair-raising story: how Senate majority leader Harry Reid steered the ship of state through squalls and around rocks to cross the finish line with a health plan before Christmas.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-health-ticktock24-2009dec24,0,2438755.story
When others gave up, he continued to talk to both sides and work for some kind of compromise.
After reading this LA Times article, I'm very impressed with him--not a flashy Ted Kennedy but an unsung hero.
This story teaches me that no one is my enemy--everyone is a potential ally.
Even those whom I most disagree with will at some point hold a key that can open doors for me. I need to make sure that they are still my friends, no matter how much we disagree on some things.
Likewise, I may find myself in agreement with them on some things and eager or at least willing to work for one of their goals.
Maybe love makes the world go 'round, but tolerant good will has something to do with it too.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
All I Want for Christmas...
Not my two front teeth--a health care plan.
Even if it limits abortion and lacks a public option (enriching the insurance companies), I'll take whatever we can get for two reasons:
1) to do justice (see Micah 6:8)
2) to make sure my own twenty-something kids can get health care.
They're out of school and no longer covered by our insurance, so if COBRA runs out before they all have jobs with benefits, we will be as desperate as the family described in this article in today's LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-health-insurance23-2009dec23,0,757817.story
Even if it limits abortion and lacks a public option (enriching the insurance companies), I'll take whatever we can get for two reasons:
1) to do justice (see Micah 6:8)
2) to make sure my own twenty-something kids can get health care.
They're out of school and no longer covered by our insurance, so if COBRA runs out before they all have jobs with benefits, we will be as desperate as the family described in this article in today's LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-health-insurance23-2009dec23,0,757817.story
Neda and Ramin
Ben Bernanke made some key moves in 2009, but my vote for persons of the year goes to Neda Agha Soltan and Ramin Pourandarjani.
Neda--the young woman who was shot during demonstrations against last June's fraudulent election in Iran (and someone took and circulated a cell-phone video immediately afterward).
Ramin--the young doctor who refused to falsify the cause of death of three students beaten to death in prison in July in Tehran (see my comments on him yesterday).
These two for me symbolize the ongoing struggle between democracy and totalitarian rule in 2009.
Peace and justice--they stood for both, risking their lives, unwilling martyrs.
If the conflict between fundamental Islam and Western imperialism is the story of the decade, these two call us to the path of peaceful protest.
Peace and justice--they stood for both, risking their lives, unwilling martyrs.
Both Neda and Ramin were in their twenties, hoping for long life under a just government in Iran.
Instead their names are now torches lighting the way toward that goal.
As a mother, I grieve with their families and with the Grieving Mothers who now march each Sunday in Tehran, carrying photos of their murdered children, like the mothers still marching in Argentina.
Neda--the young woman who was shot during demonstrations against last June's fraudulent election in Iran (and someone took and circulated a cell-phone video immediately afterward).
Ramin--the young doctor who refused to falsify the cause of death of three students beaten to death in prison in July in Tehran (see my comments on him yesterday).
These two for me symbolize the ongoing struggle between democracy and totalitarian rule in 2009.
Peace and justice--they stood for both, risking their lives, unwilling martyrs.
If the conflict between fundamental Islam and Western imperialism is the story of the decade, these two call us to the path of peaceful protest.
Peace and justice--they stood for both, risking their lives, unwilling martyrs.
Both Neda and Ramin were in their twenties, hoping for long life under a just government in Iran.
Instead their names are now torches lighting the way toward that goal.
As a mother, I grieve with their families and with the Grieving Mothers who now march each Sunday in Tehran, carrying photos of their murdered children, like the mothers still marching in Argentina.
The Amazing History of "Ms."
The title "Ms." was suggested in 1901 in a short article in The Sunday Republican of Springfield, Massachusetts.
Thank you to NYT Magazine's Ben Zimmer, who searched out the amazing history of "Ms." and reported it in his column, "On Language" (Oct. 25, 2009).
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/magazine/25FOB-onlanguage-t.html?scp=1&sq=ben%20zimmer%20ms&st=cse
"There is a void in the English language which, with some diffidence, we undertake to fill," the anonymous writer began.
The proposal got some attention in 1901 and the term popped up in 1932 and was mentioned in 1949 in The Story of Language by Mario Pei, who attributed it to feminists.
"Simple etiquette and expediency" was the goal of the original writer in 1901, notes Zimmer.
The term was recommended in Practicial Business Writing (Fraily and Schnell, 1952) and Business Executive's Handbook (Doris, 1954).
Sheila Michaels, a civil rights activist, found it in 1961 and campaigned for it, but it wasn't until the feminist movement got started that she was able to get publicity and interest in the term.
Hooray for Anonymous, Mario Pei, Fraily and Schnell, Doris, Sheila Michaels, and Gloria Steinem!
They gave me "Ms.", Ben Zimmer gave me this amazing history, and my spouse left the October 25 NYT Magazine on the dining room table last night.
Note: German and other languages are making changes like this as well.
Thank you to NYT Magazine's Ben Zimmer, who searched out the amazing history of "Ms." and reported it in his column, "On Language" (Oct. 25, 2009).
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/magazine/25FOB-onlanguage-t.html?scp=1&sq=ben%20zimmer%20ms&st=cse
"There is a void in the English language which, with some diffidence, we undertake to fill," the anonymous writer began.
The proposal got some attention in 1901 and the term popped up in 1932 and was mentioned in 1949 in The Story of Language by Mario Pei, who attributed it to feminists.
"Simple etiquette and expediency" was the goal of the original writer in 1901, notes Zimmer.
The term was recommended in Practicial Business Writing (Fraily and Schnell, 1952) and Business Executive's Handbook (Doris, 1954).
Sheila Michaels, a civil rights activist, found it in 1961 and campaigned for it, but it wasn't until the feminist movement got started that she was able to get publicity and interest in the term.
Hooray for Anonymous, Mario Pei, Fraily and Schnell, Doris, Sheila Michaels, and Gloria Steinem!
They gave me "Ms.", Ben Zimmer gave me this amazing history, and my spouse left the October 25 NYT Magazine on the dining room table last night.
Note: German and other languages are making changes like this as well.
Monday, December 21, 2009
"Our Ramin is not dead"
He was only 26 years old--a year younger than my oldest daughter.
Take time to read his story in the Wall Street Journal, written by Farnaz Fassihi:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126118381849697953.html
Born in 1983 in Tabriz, Iran, to a schoolteacher and a merchant in a traditional bazaar.
Named for a legendary hero who fights against unjust rulers.
Reading and writing by age 3.
Entering a school for gifted and talented children at age 11.
Winner of a national poetry contest at age 13.
Starting at Tabriz Medical University at 18 in 2001.
Graduating at the top of his class as a doctor in 2008.
Delivering the valedictory address and quoting a poem:
The person whose heart is filled with love will never die.
Our perseverance is recorded in the book of time.
Assigned to a clinic in Tehran responsible for a rundown detention center (work that would count as military service).
Tending the 140 students detained there on July 9 after a large demonstration protesting the rigged election in June--students raped and beaten in the prison.
Asked to sign death certificates saying that three of them had died of meningitis.
Recording the true cause: "Physical stress, multiple blows to the head and chest, severe injuries."
Ordered to revise the cause of death to "Meningitis."
Testifying to the parliamentary committee assigned to investigate.
Being arrested, warned, and threatened.
Released on bail, making plans to study abroad in April, 2010, when his military service ended.
Telling his parents he feared for his life because he refused to cover up the murders.
Going to Iran's Parliament to ask for help.
Poisoned by a meal at his clinic.
Honored by hundreds at the memorial service on the fortieth day after his death.
Revered alongside Neda Agha Soltan as another martyr, courageously standing up for truth.
The crowds shout:
Our Neda is not dead.
Our Ramin is not dead.
It's the Supreme Leader who is dead.
Postscript:
The Iranian government has admitted the violent deaths of three students.
The committee that covered up the cause of Ramin's death is being forced to look into his murder and that of others.
Huge demonstrations took place today at the funeral of elderly Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who had been denouncing the violence at Kahrizak prison as well as the fraudulent election last June.
See also these reports:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126129141238099009.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/world/middleeast/20iran.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/world/middleeast/22cleric.html?_r=1&ref=world
Take time to read his story in the Wall Street Journal, written by Farnaz Fassihi:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126118381849697953.html
Born in 1983 in Tabriz, Iran, to a schoolteacher and a merchant in a traditional bazaar.
Named for a legendary hero who fights against unjust rulers.
Reading and writing by age 3.
Entering a school for gifted and talented children at age 11.
Winner of a national poetry contest at age 13.
Starting at Tabriz Medical University at 18 in 2001.
Graduating at the top of his class as a doctor in 2008.
Delivering the valedictory address and quoting a poem:
The person whose heart is filled with love will never die.
Our perseverance is recorded in the book of time.
Assigned to a clinic in Tehran responsible for a rundown detention center (work that would count as military service).
Tending the 140 students detained there on July 9 after a large demonstration protesting the rigged election in June--students raped and beaten in the prison.
Asked to sign death certificates saying that three of them had died of meningitis.
Recording the true cause: "Physical stress, multiple blows to the head and chest, severe injuries."
Ordered to revise the cause of death to "Meningitis."
Testifying to the parliamentary committee assigned to investigate.
Being arrested, warned, and threatened.
Released on bail, making plans to study abroad in April, 2010, when his military service ended.
Telling his parents he feared for his life because he refused to cover up the murders.
Going to Iran's Parliament to ask for help.
Poisoned by a meal at his clinic.
Honored by hundreds at the memorial service on the fortieth day after his death.
Revered alongside Neda Agha Soltan as another martyr, courageously standing up for truth.
The crowds shout:
Our Neda is not dead.
Our Ramin is not dead.
It's the Supreme Leader who is dead.
Postscript:
The Iranian government has admitted the violent deaths of three students.
The committee that covered up the cause of Ramin's death is being forced to look into his murder and that of others.
Huge demonstrations took place today at the funeral of elderly Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who had been denouncing the violence at Kahrizak prison as well as the fraudulent election last June.
See also these reports:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126129141238099009.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/world/middleeast/20iran.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/world/middleeast/22cleric.html?_r=1&ref=world
Friday, December 18, 2009
30 Years of Refusing Equality
CEDAW turned 30 years old today--and the US still refuses to ratify the UN treaty.
Thank you to Linda Tarr-Whelan and Women's eNews for pointing out this anniversary.
http://www.womensenews.org/story/commentary/091217/time-us-senate-act-un-womens-treaty
You wouldn't think that approving a Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women would be so hard for the US House and Senate to pass.
Ukraine, Nepal, and Thailand have all passed it and found it useful to reduce sex-trafficking, Tarr-Whelan reports.
Only Sudan, Iran, Somalia, and a few small island nations are holding out, along with the USA.
Thank you to Linda Tarr-Whelan and Women's eNews for pointing out this anniversary.
http://www.womensenews.org/story/commentary/091217/time-us-senate-act-un-womens-treaty
You wouldn't think that approving a Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women would be so hard for the US House and Senate to pass.
Ukraine, Nepal, and Thailand have all passed it and found it useful to reduce sex-trafficking, Tarr-Whelan reports.
Only Sudan, Iran, Somalia, and a few small island nations are holding out, along with the USA.
"This international agreement was Eleanor Roosevelt's dream and is one of the pillars of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," she reports, noting the rush of nations to sign the CEDAW in 1979.
"In those heady days, I was deputy assistant to President Jimmy Carter for women's concerns. We expected speedy action after he sent the treaty to the Senate," she reveals.
We were so hopeful in1979, also still expecting 38 states to approve the Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution.
Instead, we continue to live in disillusionment and accommodation.
Here's what Langston Hughes said about a dream deferred:
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Guilt-tripping of raped women
Thank you to Letha Dawson Scanzoni and Feministing.com, a young women's online feminist community, for alerting me to this report on the Reproductive Health Reality Check website.
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2009/12/17/raped%C2%A0human-life-alliance-says-birthing-your-attackers-child-only-way-heal.
In a nutshell, the "Human Life" (sic) Alliance is saying that women who are raped, whether by strangers, acquaintances, or family members/incest, should not choose abortion. It will only "make matters worse."
Sheesh! Please let us each retain the right to decide if carrying a rapist's baby to term will make things better or worse--as US law now allows us to do.
Don't decide for us.
And don't tell us we are murderers if we don't want to take a year out of our lives to bear a child that we then either have to raise or place up for adoption, hoping it will find a good home.
Note: take time to join the RH Reality Check website. If it had 310 million members, maybe this anti-choice nonsense would go away.
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2009/12/17/raped%C2%A0human-life-alliance-says-birthing-your-attackers-child-only-way-heal.
In a nutshell, the "Human Life" (sic) Alliance is saying that women who are raped, whether by strangers, acquaintances, or family members/incest, should not choose abortion. It will only "make matters worse."
Sheesh! Please let us each retain the right to decide if carrying a rapist's baby to term will make things better or worse--as US law now allows us to do.
Don't decide for us.
And don't tell us we are murderers if we don't want to take a year out of our lives to bear a child that we then either have to raise or place up for adoption, hoping it will find a good home.
Note: take time to join the RH Reality Check website. If it had 310 million members, maybe this anti-choice nonsense would go away.
Death Threats to Obama
"Appalling"--that was the only comment of Ginny Hearn, who forwarded to me this commentary by Cathleen Falsani, written as a "special to USA Today."
I can't find it on the USA Today website, nor on Falsani's, so I will just reprint it here without a link.
A crop of bumper stickers and T-shirts emblazoned with that call to prayer for the president have appeared for sale recently online through make-it-yourself outlets such as Zazzle.com and CafePress.com. And most of the "Pray for Obama" slogans are accompanied by a scripture reference: "Psalm 109:8."
http://gawker.com/5407568/christian-conservatives-praying-for-god-to-kill-obama
I can't find it on the USA Today website, nor on Falsani's, so I will just reprint it here without a link.
Psalm 109:8 bumper stickers -- a wrong-hearted prayer for President Obama?
A kind and generous statement.
Or is it?
By Pool, Getty Images
In the New International Version translations, that verse reads;
May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership.
So, they're praying for Obama's tenure to be a short one. Fair enough. But what does that really mean?
A clue may be in the verses of the 109th Psalm that follow verse 8:
May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes.
May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children.
May his descendants be cut off, their names blotted out from the next generation.
May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord; may the sin of his mother never be blotted out.
May their sins always remain before the Lord, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.
In that context, are these folks actually urging us to pray for Obama's death?
(The crashing sound you just heard may have been Jesus hurling his stapler across the office in frustration.)
However, . . .
There are "Pray for Obama" slogan products that bear an alternative scripture reference: 1 Timothy 2:1-2, which reads in the NIV:
I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone
For kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.
Do you pray for Obama? If so, what do you pray, and how?
-- By Cathleen Falsani, Special for USA TODAY
http://gawker.com/5407568/christian-conservatives-praying-for-god-to-kill-obama
Just War?
Thank you to T. Christian Miller, Propublica, and the LA Times for this eye-opening report on wounded and killed translators in Iraq and Iran:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-interpreters18-2009dec18,0,1870828.story
Last week I listened to President Obama's speech to the Nobel Committee arguing that US fighting in Afghanistan should be considered a just war.
Here's my question after reading this article:
Is a just war still just if the interpreters and others hired to fight it are treated unjustly?
I include our own soldiers in the category of those hired to fight, as well as all contracted workers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Along the lines of How much wood... :
Is a just war just
if the those paid to help
are just not treated justly?
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-interpreters18-2009dec18,0,1870828.story
Last week I listened to President Obama's speech to the Nobel Committee arguing that US fighting in Afghanistan should be considered a just war.
Here's my question after reading this article:
Is a just war still just if the interpreters and others hired to fight it are treated unjustly?
I include our own soldiers in the category of those hired to fight, as well as all contracted workers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Along the lines of How much wood... :
Is a just war just
if the those paid to help
are just not treated justly?
Monday, December 14, 2009
To the men I love...
My kids say, "Mom hates men."
The marriage therapist, Dr. Richard Friedman, asks, "Do you have a problem with men?"
My answer: No.
I have a keen appreciation of the effects of men's control of human government and institutions over the past several millennia.
I have a radar that alerts me to patriarchal males on my horizon. That is, I notice statements and behaviors that indicate a man wants to control women or does not consider them his equal.
Finally, I have an inclination to speak and act on what I notice. With the authority of 61 years on the face of this earth, I am no longer intimidated by propriety.
"Life doesn't frighten me at all," as Maya Angelou says in her poem.
The marriage therapist, Dr. Richard Friedman, asks, "Do you have a problem with men?"
My answer: No.
I have a keen appreciation of the effects of men's control of human government and institutions over the past several millennia.
I have a radar that alerts me to patriarchal males on my horizon. That is, I notice statements and behaviors that indicate a man wants to control women or does not consider them his equal.
Finally, I have an inclination to speak and act on what I notice. With the authority of 61 years on the face of this earth, I am no longer intimidated by propriety.
"Life doesn't frighten me at all," as Maya Angelou says in her poem.
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