Oct 27 08

I need to start by apologizing to Pam. I created this blog and chose the content without getting any feedback from her. She finds some of what I have posted offensive and doesn't care to be associated with it. I am removing her and George's names to reflect that the information and, perhaps, misinformation, presented here are my own and do should not reflect on either of them. I apologize for being so inconsiderate. So, feel free to blast me if you like, but don't blame my poor choices on anyone else. Bob ********************************* Gotta love this: The Nation magazine says good-bye to a scurvy dog! I don't know who can afford to go but I like the sentiment. Bub *************** Rest in Peace! Tony Hillerman, one of my favorite authors, died this weekend. He was a keen observer of traditional Navajo ways and wrote captivating mystery novels about life on the Navajo reservation and the conflicts within the tribal nation and its interactions with the larger surrounding world. He is credited by the Navajo with saving much traditional religious wisdom by incorporating it into his novels. Below is an excerpt from an online obituary on Yahoo.com. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/obit_tony_hillerman "Born May 27, 1925, in Sacred Heart, Okla., population 50, Tony Hillerman was the son of August and Lucy Grove Hillerman. They were farmers who also ran a small store. It was there that young Tony listened spellbound to locals who gathered to tell their stories. The teacher at Sacred Heart's one-room school house was rumored to be a member of the Ku Klux Klan, so Tony's parents sent him and his brother, Barney, to St. Mary's Academy, a school for Potawatomie Indian girls near Asher, Okla. It was at St. Mary's that he developed a lifelong respect for Indian culture — and an appreciation of what it means to be an outsider in your own land. In 1943, he interrupted his education at the University of Oklahoma to join the Army. He lugged his mortar ashore at D-Day with the 103rd Infantry Division and was severely wounded in battle at Alsace, France. He returned from Europe a genuine war hero with a Silver Star with Oak Leaf Cluster, temporary blindness and two shattered legs that never stopped causing him pain. He returned to the university for his degree and, in 1948, married Marie Unzer. Together, they raised six children, five of them adopted." Very interesting fellow indeed. ****************************** Subject: What If? What if the Obama's had paraded five children across the stage, including a three-month-old special needs infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter? What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class? What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was the divorced candidate? What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his standards? What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married? What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to painkillers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable organization? What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five? (The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980's and early1990's.) What if Obama couldn't read from a TelePrompTer? What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes? And was never given a command position. What if Obama was the one known to display publicly, on many occasions, a serious anger management problem? What if Michelle Obama's family had made their money from beer distribution? What if the Obamas had adopted a white child? *This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference. *Educational Background of the Candidates: * Barack Obama Columbia University - B. A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations Harvard - (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude *Joseph Biden:* University of Delaware- B. A. in History and B. A. in Political Science. Syracuse University College of Law – Juris Doctor (J. D.) *VS.* *John McCain:* United States Naval Academy – Class Rank: 894 of 900 *Sarah Palin:* Hawaii Pacific University – 1 semester North Idaho College – 2 semesters – general study University of Idaho – 2 semesters – journalism Matanuska-Susitna College – 1 semester University of Idaho – 3 semesters – B. A. in Journalism *Education isn't everything, but this is about the two highest offices in the land as well as our standing in the world. * "Debate and Disagreement are the Heart and Soul of Democracy." Obama 2008 ******************************** As my friend Les says, she is just gussied up trailer trash. NY Local has our city covered from Co-op City to Coney Island Palin's pricey fashions A good Republican cloth coat? The Republican National Committee spent $150,000 on clothing and accessories for Sarah Palin and her family since early September, according to a report by the Politico Web site. Above, the Republican vice presidential nominee, with Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, in Bangor, Maine, Oct. 16. Credits: Bukaty/AP Published: 10/22/2008 01:31:04 Email ************************* A tip of the fedora to mi amigo, Eduardo, for the following: May your troubles be less, May your blessings be more, And may nothing but happiness Come through your door! **************** Getting Older? (aren't we all?) From The Nation online with thanks to Jay: Senior Rights and Wrongs By Harper Jean Tobin This article appeared in the November 3, 2008 edition of The Nation. October 16, 2008 A wave of federal court decisions in recent years has made it difficult and sometimes impossible for older Americans to enforce important rights, such as hard-earned pension benefits, freedom from age discrimination, access to long-term care, compensation for injuries caused by faulty medical devices and decent treatment in nursing homes. These decisions are often densely reasoned, relying on abstract notions like national uniformity, efficiency and respect for state governments. Many are motivated, explicitly or implicitly, by a desire to lighten the dockets of overburdened federal courts. The common thread connecting them all is lack of attention to the goals of Congress and the real problems facing older Americans. Hard Knocks in the Workplace Supreme Court Eric Schnapper: The rights of workers get little attention from the court, and employers know they can violate those rights with impunity. Debtor Nation Supreme Court Robert M. Lawless: The Supreme Court has done little to protect a nation of debtors from predatory lending practices. Senior Rights & Wrongs Supreme Court Health For example, the Supreme Court has turned the federal pension law on its head, eliminating virtually all remedies when employers deny benefits in bad faith. Since the Court has given them virtual immunity, employers are encouraged to play fast and loose with the law. Last December, the Supreme Court denied review in Eichorn v. AT&T Corp., a case in which the telecom giant engineered the sale of a subsidiary to eliminate the pension rights of more than 1,000 employees. While employees had the right under their pension plan to transfer to other divisions of AT&T and retain their benefits, AT&T effectively canceled those rights by promising its buyer not to rehire them. A federal appeals court acknowledged that the evidence showed a large-scale, intentional violation of law, but it nevertheless threw the case out, ruling that the law provided no remedies for the employees. To make matters worse, the Supreme Court's ruling this January in Stoneridge Investment Partners v. Scientific-Atlanta Inc. left public and private pensions more vulnerable than ever to securities fraud. When Enron tanked, pension funds lost tens of millions, yet Enron itself was judgment-proof. The Court shielded Enron's equally culpable corporate collaborators from suit, cutting off the only realistic source of compensation. With their assets depleted by escalating medical needs, a growing number of formerly middle-class seniors are turning to Medicaid, which now pays for 60 percent of all nursing home care. Yet federal appeals courts have increasingly ruled that key protections in the Medicaid Act can't be enforced in court. For example, in 2005 a federal appeals court refused to allow seniors to challenge an Oregon rule that, for purely budgetary reasons, deemed some seniors "not sick enough" for home healthcare services; the rule was probably illegal under a provision of the act requiring eligibility standards to be reasonable. According to the General Accounting Office, one in five nursing homes was cited last year for putting residents' safety at risk. Yet in a series of decisions, the Supreme Court has rendered seniors more vulnerable by turning the eighty-year-old Federal Arbitration Act, meant for voluntarily resolving disputes between businesses, into a tool for nursing homes and other businesses to force seniors, consumers, workers and others to sign away their right to go to court. By including arbitration clauses in contracts before a dispute arises, companies get an arbitration system that lets them handpick the arbitrators and the rules to be applied, is tilted against consumers, forces families to travel hundreds of miles, hides abuses from the public eye and strictly limits damages. There is no public record, and no appeal. In June David Kurth testified at a Senate hearing that his father died of infected bedsores in a Wisconsin nursing home. When the family sued the facility owner, it used a boilerplate arbitration clause in its admission agreement to force the case out of court and into the industry-controlled arbitration system. Congressional leaders have called for legislation to restore rights to older Americans in some of these areas, and a bill to ban predispute arbitration clauses in nursing home admission agreements gained some traction, but no action is expected in this Congress. Older Americans should look to the upcoming election and demand leaders who will undo the damage the courts have done--and appoint judges who won't continue to strip away their rights.