Today marks the 45th anniversary of the passage of Medicare. For some, that’s a day to celebrate the existence of Medicare; for others, it’s a day to argue all the more vociferously against ‘entitlements’ such as Medicare. Which do you choose today? And does your choice have to do with receiving Medicare, and would you refuse it if you don’t believe in it (Ayn Rand chose to accept Medicare after arguing against it).
Some news is fake news. Some news is not. The entire state of Texas has been declared a natural disaster.
Obama announced a plan to remove 10,000 soldiers from Afghanistan by the end of 2011, and more than 30,000 troops by summer 2012. I welcome that news, and would have welcomed it many years ago. Obama campaigned against the Iraq war, but for the war in Afghanistan and the mysterious War on Terror, so our deployment and withdrawal of troops is not surprising. What is disappointing is that at the end of the 2012 withdrawal, about twice as many troops will be in Afghanistan as there were when Obama was inaugurated.
Happy Honey Moon Month on a Midsummer’s night! “The first (or only) full moon in June is called the Honey Moon. Tradition holds that this is the best time to harvest honey from the hives. This time of year, between the planting and harvesting of the crops, was the traditional month for weddings. This is because many ancient peoples believed that the “grand [sexual] union” of the Goddess and God occurred in early May at Beltaine.” It was unlucky to compete with the Gods, and many people delayed weddings until June.
Among the many interesting customs:
- Ancient Gaul: The Midsummer celebration was called Feast of Epona, named after a mare goddess who personified fertility, sovereignty and agriculture. She was portrayed as a woman riding a mare.
- Ancient Sweden: A Midsummer tree was set up and decorated in each town. The villagers danced around it. Women and girls would customarily bathe in the local river. This was a magical ritual, intended to bring rain for the crops.
- Essenes: This was a Jewish religious group active in Palestine during the 1st century CE. It was one of about 24 Jewish groups in the country — the only one that used a solar calendar. Other Jewish groups at the time included the Sadducees, Pharisees, Zealots, followers of John, and followers of Yeshua (Jesus). Archaeologists have found that the largest room of the ruins at Qumran (location of the Dead Sea Scrolls) appears to be a sun temple. The room had been considered a dining room by earlier investigators, in spite of the presence of two altars at its eastern end. At the time of the summer solstice, the rays of the setting sun shine at 286 degrees along the building’s longitudinal axis, and illuminate the eastern wall. The room is oriented at exactly the same angle as the Egyptian shrines dedicated to the sun. Two ancient authorities — the historian Josephus and the philosopher Filon of Alexandria — had written that the Essenes were sun worshipers. Until recently, their opinion had been rejected by modern historians.
In the past four or five weeks I have read three novels by Dickens: The Pickwick Papers, Little Dorrit, and The Old Curiosity Shop. It seems that the best authors are often British, and Dickens was one of the best British authors. His ability to create characters and use symbols to expand upon his characters and novels (fog in Bleak House, prison – representing society – in Little Dorrit) is a testament to literary genius. Beyond that, Dickens was a commentator on society, and a natural advocate for the poor, hungry, and forgotten. Like many authors before and after him, Dickens wrote about the world he knew, and the world he knew was influenced by his father’s brief stay in prison. I think it was the debtor’s prison, and Little Dorrit centers around the real British Debtor’s Prison of Marshalsea.
What I’m writing about isn’t well-crafted fiction, or a book review. It was necessary to expand upon Dickens to recall that there was once the Marshalsea, and advocacy by Dickens and changes in acceptable social proceedings led to the end of the Marshalsea. His fiction was based upon fact, and his introduction to Little Dorrit shows rejoice in its removal. However, if we thought it good that debtors had some recourse besides prison, and there have been positive changes in society, we seem to be regressing.
Kelly Wiedemer of Westminster, Col., spent four nights in jail this month because she hasn’t paid fines and restitution she owes from a car accident that happened nearly two years ago….
As the cost of Wiedemer’s penalty increased, her ability to pay it decreased. She says she missed a payment while recovering from an emergency hysterectomy in October 2009. When her unemployment benefits ran out in May 2010, she stopped paying altogether.
She’s unemployed, like many of us. She’s not particularly uneducated; she has a BS and more than ten years experience, and it does her no good. There is no room for making mistakes, much less accidents. There is now a world where those who pursue and education and do not have a job (generally through no fault of their own) are punished for misfortunes of car accidents. This is a world that defies its own laws:
It’s unconstitutional to lock people up for being poor, and most states abolished debtors’ prisons before the Civil War, but many municipalities these days have been jailing people for defaulting on legal financial obligations, or LFOs, in what the American Civil Liberties Union has called “the rise of America’s new debtors’ prisons.”
“Imprisoning those who fail to pay fines and court costs is a relatively recent and growing phenomenon,” says an October report by the ACLU. “States and counties, hard-pressed to find revenue to shore up failing budgets, see a ready source of funds in defendants who can be assessed LFOs that must be repaid on pain of imprisonment, and have grown more aggressive in their collection efforts.”
“This whole unemployment thing –- it destroys people,” [Wiedemer] says.
In addition to a ‘To Do’ list I keep an unofficial, constantly changing, ‘Things Not To Do’ list. That list includes such brilliant things as not being run over, not going sleep-deprived, not being injured, and all sorts of other Things Not To Do. Here’s another Thing Not To Do:
John McGee, a four-term Republican state senator from Idaho, was arrested early Sunday morning on charges of grand theft and for driving under the influence.
Do not be arrested while in charge of the Transportation Committee and the “Regional Substance Abuse Authority Legislative Committee.” The article, and the representative’s website, do not describe what the “Substance Abuse Authority Legislative Committee” does, but it might include not drunk driving and grand larceny.
Things Not To Do.
It is so easy, when traveling to another country, to fall into the habit of speaking English. I remember using English with a Hungarian in France, and English in Israel, and English all day long. I spoke English in China – more Chinese speak English than do Americans – until the street merchants, noticing Americans, encouraged us in English to buy their goods, at which time we switched to French. However…
That’s about the extent of my semi-fluent linguistic abilities, and I’m losing even that. I last studied French in high school, which has been a good seven years. I’m trying to read Le Vimomte de Bragelonne, byDumas; you can guess by the title that I’m reading it in French. I recognize the words, but gathering a real meaning is difficult, at best. It has been too long since I studied French, and the intricacies of the book are being lost on me.
I’m no Colonel Chamberlain (yes, I know he was a brevet major general) – he spoke Greek, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Arabic, Hebrew, and Syriac fluently, not to mention English – few of us are, but it is disappointing to contemplate my (our?) lack of linguistic ability. I know a few scattered words in many languages fairly well – French, Spanish, Yiddish, Hebrew, Norwegian, Dutch, Chinese, Arabic, and Farsi – but I have not learned any of these languages well. The closest I have come is French, which my attempt to read Dumas proves I’m losing.
My grandfather immigrated to the U.S. at around age ten, fluent in five languages. This is a normal state of affairs for Europeans, and unheard of for Americans. Americans are in a hard position, linguistically. Besides those who are stubbornly xenophobic and think that only American English should be spoken in America it is hard to know what language to learn. When I chose to study French in high school, I was in school in Southern California, which, beyond all stereotypes, really is a place where Spanish is more useful than French. I wasn’t going for useful, though; I just picked a course to study and stuck with it. However, what language do we Americans really pursue? Besides the Spanish that’s useful in much of the South-Southwest, we don’t have much use for ‘foreign’ languages. To develop respect for other cultures, we have to learn other languages, and to learn other languages we have to be interested in other cultures.
I’m sorry that Congressman Weiner resigned today because of, well, weiner problems. And pretty minor ones at that. But it may be a case of ‘I resign, you resign, we all resign.’ Not only were several Republicans with much worse sex scandals on their record encouraging Weiner to resign, several Democrats wanted a resignation as well. However, if every elected official resigned because of errors in judgment, we’d have no elected officials left. If the media seriously pursued this story about Anthony Weiner, I hope they seriously pursue the story about House Speaker Boehner.
Boehner has been involved in extramarital affairs with at least two women, according to a new report in the National Enquirer.
I agree with the author, Roger Shuler, that The Enquirer is not my first source of news. In fact, The Enquirer doesn’t even make my list of news sources at all. But they are excellent at revealing scandals. Unusually for ‘real’ news sources, The Enquirer also listed real facts with real names.
Will the same people who encouraged Weiner to resign encourage Boehner to leave office?
Today’s headlines include “Mitt Romney Says Nation Undergoing ‘Agonizing Reappraisal’ Of Obama” and (just beneath that article), “GOP Cuts Food Assistance For Low-Income Families”. I’m not sure what kind of post-reality world Mitt Romney lives in, but apparently he is so dissatisfied his own idea of providing health care for people that he is no longer in favor of his own idea.
Generally, people appraise and reappraise situations they find themselves surrounded with. This includes houses, relationships, driving down the road,conversations; in short, politics. It should be no surprise that we appraise and reappraise our elected and unelected officials. I think only those who lost food assistance will agonizingly reappraise those officials, and if they have access to the news, or want to take a shot-in-the-dark guess, they might know who to agonizingly reappraise.
The Dole Blog 