The Rational Psychic

First, here’s a link to the interview in question. It’s labeled “Huckabee Rips Moore.”

This is my response to that video:

I wanted to make a complaint regarding the way in which Mike Huckabee was interviewed regarding his mention of Michael Moore’s weight.

Although the first point made by Miles ____ regarding the former Gov.’s identity as a minister and whether or not making a comment about a guy’s weight is appropriate for him to do was worth stating.

However, the segment was five minutes long and the interviewer went nowhere else with the line of questioning even when the former Gov. gave him openings about facts and policy which could be challenged.

How long do the Canadians actually wait for health care? Elective procedures? What is the Gov.’s source of information.

Gov. Huckabee said, “The French pay more for their health care because they pay a LOT more in taxes.” Is this true? How MUCH more do they pay for the services they get? Give me a menu to compare services so I can see which system is better for me as a consumer! And, again, what source does the Gov. go to for his information?

These are the questions that need to be answered. It’s great to have “Sicko” presented to us, but it’s a lost opportunity of the media is unwilling to take up the questions that are out there and ask them of the people who are lining their pockets with insurance dollars and HMOs are making huge profits if the system is left unaltered. How much do THEY spend each year on PR?

Thanks for your time,
rationalpsychic.wordpress.net

I welcome any comments or ideas about what I addressed regarding the video and what things I could have addressed but which you think that I missed. I am thinking health care is going to rise as a larger issue if we just push a little. Yes, the Iraq war looms huge, but so does the need to provide health care for our returning veterans. I think the fate of their health care is tied to the fortunes of the subject of providing health care to the rest of the public.

I read this post on Crooks and Liars and had to throw my itty bitty bit into a sea of over 300 responses. Why? Because it just galls me that both sides get distracted and want to lionize or demonize Moore and then do very little to take a look at what we have and what we need in terms of health care.

Currently, I’m ready to throw my lot in with those who want to get nationalized medical coverage for us. Beyond that–I haven’t a clue what it should look like. Right now the important thing seems to me to be that we need to tell Congress that we want a drastic change that removes the profit motive from our medical care. “Entrepreneurial freedom” and “free market” are of little help to me as a patient.

I saw “Sicko” and I saw video of the Blitzer attempt to get info out of Moore. I thought the movie was great. I think he makes a lot of great points and has got the right prinicple in mind: get decent coverage for everyone in the US.

I do wish he would have set aside his anger over being jabbed by Blitzer after about 3-4 minutes. He had reason and he avoided calling Blitzer something that had to be bleeped. But, I think he wasted some opportunities to explain his views, his movie and what solutions are most likely to be workable within our society.

Whatever people want to argue about the state of our healthcare and how awful the service and breadth of procedures available to citizens in other country there is one shameful fact that is not addressed. If you were to go to a site Child Health USA 2005, you would find how poor our rate of infant mortality is in relation to the rest of the developed world. We are 28th of 30 nations listed.

This tells me that whatever people want to do about abortion rates in the US–by legislating it away (wishful thinking)–we are willing to sit by as a society and allow babies to die at a rate almost three times that of Sweden. I grew up believing the US was a more privileged place to live in than Sweden. And it still can be. But we have to make an effort to change this and let our representatives in Congress know that we believe the health of newborns is more important than whether or not Paris H. found God in her abbreviated jail time.

Oh, yes. And what was the source of those infant mortality statistics? Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. Health, United States, 2005. Hyattsville, MD: 2005

There have been some events in the news in the past few days that are so interesting as to be positively disturbing.

President Bush’s commutation of Lewis “Scooter” Libby. Cutting federal sentencing guidelines off at the knees or reassurance that there is still room for mercy in heart of our President? However you come down on said issue, the Chicago Tribune conducted a poll and published the results.

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Here’s an interesting note from a site called Let’s Roll! 9/11 Made Simple. Former Senator Rick Santorum is being quoted from an interview given recently in which he insinuates that there’s a lot that could happen between now and November, 2008. Another terrorist attack on US soil, perhaps?

Santorum Suggest New Terror Attacks Will Change View Of War
Senator predicts “unfortunate events” within a year that will alter perceptions
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Saturday, July 7, 2007

In an alarming display of fearmongering, Republican Senator Rick Santorum has suggested that a series of “unfortunate events,” namely terrorist attacks, will occur within the next year and change American citizen’s perception of the war.

Appearing on the Hugh Hewitt radio show, Santorum also hyped the necessity of “confronting Iran in the Middle East,” and predicted that Giuliani, Romney and Tommy Thompson would be the three surviving Republican candidates who would go head to head in the race for the nomination.

Santorum went on to clearly imply that terror attacks will occur inside America which will alter the body politic and lead to a reversal of the anti-war sentiment now dominating the country.

“Between now and November, a lot of things are going to happen, and I believe that by this time next year, the American public’s going to have a very different view of this war, and it will be because, I think, of some unfortunate events, that like we’re seeing unfold in the UK. But I think the American public’s going to have a very different view,” said the senator from Pennsylvania.

Is Santorum expressing foreknowledge of some coming atrocity or is he merely using a tactic familiar to the leadership of his party - exploiting the fear of terror for the purposes of political rhetoric?

Last month, the new chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party Dennis Milligan said that there needed to be more attacks on American soil for President Bush to regain popular approval.

“At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001],” Milligan told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, “And the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country,” he concluded.

Yearning for new mass casualty terror attacks for political gain is a GOP strategy - Milligan is merely parroting what was written in a leaked confidential memo that was circulated among senior Republican leaders in late 2005.

“A confidential memo circulating among senior Republican leaders suggests that a new attack by terrorists on U.S. soil could reverse the sagging fortunes of President George W. Bush as well as the GOP and “restore his image as a leader of the American people,” reported Capitol Hill Blue on November 12, 2005.

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I don’t know why, but I’m most disheartened by the President’s request and subsequent obedience by Harriet Miers and Sara Taylor to refrain from giving testimony before Congress. How can you do that, no matter what side of the fence you fall on? When Congress calls, you give your sworn testimony. Their subpoena power is valid. And if the President hadn’t abused his right to invoke executive privilege so often before now, this one might just slide by.

Oh, and did you hear the one about the Vice President who stated that he doesn’t belong to the Executive Branch of the US government? Damn. How much can this Administration pervert the Constitution and federal law before we all scream for them to just stop it!?

I know that a lot of good bloggers like to riff on political news items. Usually, I hate to use this space to do that. But these items have really gotten under my skin in the last week.

I haven’t used a link before as the core of my post. However, I feel that there is so much happening in terms of political issues that they need to be highlighted more often–even on a blog like mine which I wouldn’t classify as being overtly political.

I think that there is also such a lack of discussion by anyone to the left of Sam Brownback on the formation and expression of opinion. Even with such a large, well-publicized issue as global warming there is really so much work to do. What’s been decided? Global warming = bad? The scientific evidence is becoming more and more available. The question is, what do we do with it? How do we respond? What set of values will we consider as a basis for our response?

I’m including this YouTube file with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. talking at a Live Earth event because I like his message that we have to get past the “false choice” we’re being sold by the Bush Administration that we have to choose between a viable, ecologically sound future and an economy that allows us to live above a subsistence level.

Maybe there are many of you out there who far ahead of me on this issue. That’s OK. I think that there are such a great bunch of folks who stop by here that I’d like to hear a little from you in reaction to the rhetoric presented in the video. I think his message is helpful because it takes me beyond the headlines in the newspaper and what I’m presented by the talking heads on network TV.

We need to change the focus of this society and slow things down a bit. What if it weren’t just a pipe dream to start thinking seven generations ahead? What if we thought two or even one generation ahead? It’s possible. We can write a few more e-mails and make some calls that will turn up the heat under some tushes that are beholden to interests besides our own.

Please comment and share the video if you think it’s worth the 6 minutes of your time.

“Today is the day I start my novel.”

That’ s the first line of this blog and the first line of my novel. I’m calling it a novel because that’s what it feels like it’s going to be in the end. The great thing about writing a novel is that it can be said that you have a long-term project going and that always sounds like something productive. If you’re going to be an “artist” of some kind and produce work which is pleasing to you the novel is the most wholesome and all-American form going. Even if the novel did get its start in Spain in 1605 with the publication of Don Quijote.

Until now, I’ve generally thought of myself as someone who writes poetry. These blogs have been the longest bits of prose I’ve ever written with the exception of the odd paper for an English undergrad class. I’ve always liked poetry because you can get away with lyrical approaches, say foolish things in the name of love or truth and they are short, quick and are capable of decent mileage (memorable, that is, again due to their shorter length and play with language).

Then again, I’m over forty and it’s time to face facts: very few buy a book of poetry in their entire lives while many more buy at least one novel. I’m really in love with the fact that I get to hear my own voice and thoughts rolling around in a novel in ways that are impossible with a poem.

In poems, I follow the language. In a novel, I imagine I’ll follow the ideas and the characters with some kind of plotline being my savior to pull me out of dead ends.

I’ve decided that since I’m a beginner and distrust my own experience as the stuff that could make great reading I will base my book upon the skeletons and carcasses of other great works of fiction. I’m starting with the idea of Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. I’ve read the book more than twice and enjoy the ways in which history and the fantastic–or science fiction–are held together with baling wire and good wishes. Then I’m adding in what I’m beginning to read and understand from “Diary of a Madman” by Nikolai Gogol. I like epistolary texts to begin with (ever read The Collector, by John Fowles?) and who can resist saying, “Gogol” especially when we’re all tired of hearing about “Google”?

I’m also going to try and include some Marcus Aurelius, not because of how well I know his works (I went to a state university, after all), but because I want to get to know them and because any material recommending balance and moderation seems to be missing from our times. Montaigne will find his way in there as well for the same reason.

One thing I’d like to accomplish as a goal is to create an apocalyptic story device as brilliant and simple as Vonnegut’s Ice-9 from Cat’s Cradle. Another goal is to create a great character name such as Billy Pilgrim or Candide which can give me a grounding or a directional beacon like a piece of lodestone. It may sound superficial, but I think that great character names serve to pull things along and would give me confidence, as a writer, that I knew where the storyline is headed.

Please think good thoughts about my project. If you have any ideas about how to get a grant to buy some writing time, please let me know. Any ideas for plots, characters, settings, etc., that you’ve always wanted to see in a novel, please let me know. I am a fan of pastiche as well. If you have any horror stories, I’m always willing to listen and try to learn from others.

I hope all of you folks are well.

Is the essence of snobbery when you notice that one thing is better than another and you prefer that one thing? Or are snobs only those people who prefer to associate only with those who with the same preferences?

Keep in mind that in a spiritual sense, I love you all. Yet, if you invite me over to drink Bud Light that spiritual love will be just enough to keep me from wishing upon you some physical hurt. During our visit, I will spend much of my attention and effort on smiling and making conversation as I choke down the swillacious bottled water you’ve given me. I will see your lips moving but won’t be able to make out your words. If I’ve been having a good day up to this point I’ll be able to remind myself that most folks don’t like to hear that drinking their beer is an experience much like drinking warm spit.

Of course, there are other consumables to have an opinion about. Even more than beer, I have an opinion on single malt whiskies. Since I’m part Scottish and I saw myself as an inexperienced drinker during college I decided I had to try Scotch and see what the fuss was all about.

I found out that developing a taste for something like straight hard liquor is a developmental task. You’re not likely to be successful the first time you seek to look down your nose at others who don’t have the refined tastes you aspire to. The first thing I learned is Scotch burned and made me shudder as my body struggled to allow the poison down the back of my throat.

To fight the burn I next tried scotch over ice and realized that there was a taste but the cold ice was killing it. I think it was my third or fourth time drinking it before I realized that I could drink the stuff straight and could tell the difference between Johnny Walker Red and J & B. Then I tried everybody’s “starter” single malt Scotch, Glenlivet, and the rest is a pleasant-tasting history of neuron-killing toxins. Two favorites that I wish I had the money for today are the Glenmorangie 12-yr. Port Wood and the Balvenie 12-yr. DoubleWood

In looking up these whiskies online I ran across some decent prices and was tempted to pull out my debit card.

Even better that the true “snobbist” pleasures, like Djarum clove cigarettes, are some of the anti-snob favorites, like smoking a Swisher Sweet with your chums on the night of high school graduation. This produces a pleasant buzz and sense of camaraderie that is only broken by having your stomach do the flip and flop for hours the next morning while you sweat and wish to God, Jesus and every blessed saint that you could somehow vomit the burning rock out of your stomach.

Other blue-collar tastes are really the best of all worlds. Cheap, readily available, and the taste, smell or just the words send you on a nostalgia trip that has its own reward beyond the sensory. Dairy Queen ice milk is one such item. The vanilla is the best though sometimes I don’t want to miss out on anything and I get a twist cone.

There are not a lot of things that my mom gave me as cooking memories to treasure (ever have leftover mashed potatoes made into fried patties?), but I would love to eat her liver and onions again. There is something sweet and pungent about that meat and even the soft, chewy texture that brings me back to when I was eight or nine and in the safe cocoon of my family–even if they weren’t as young as David Felstul’s parents, who actually had a couple of ABBA albums.

The last nostalgic snobbism I’ll rave about is Nitzie’s. Mr. Nitzkowski owned the candy/convenience store on the corner of our block. He sold a little of everything from the front room of his house. All I remember, clearly, is the candy counter he had. It had every candy I could imagine existing at the time. My sister’s favorites were the Pixie Stix and the multi-colored candy necklaces with hard candy disks on an elastic string. As she sucked on them and turned the necklace around, she would get an acid rainbow of colors banded around her neck, hair stuck to it, attracting dirt until she looked like what my mom called an “urchin.”

I went for the half-penny candy (yes, kids, there really was half-penny candy). They were red coins with the liberty bell molded in relief on them. And they were gummy and chewier than any bears or fish or worms that folks want to sell you now. As you chewed, you could lose a tooth if one of them was loose. And it would stick in the coin so you didn’t end up swallowing it and losing it.

My dad has always had his own “Occam’s Razor”: do you want that or do you need it? To someone else, snobbery is always about wanting something, not needing it. But just watch for it in your own kids. Skittles or Starburst? Kool-aid or Gatorade? The Sprite you’re willing to get them out of expediency or the suicide mix they want to create on their own? Oh, yes, many of us have little snobs in the making.

The next time my son sees me drinking 12-year-old Macallan, I’ve got to remember to make a very sour face. Gummy coins and Pixie Stix are enough for any nine-year-old.