The Commentariat -- August 31, 2014
Danny Westneat of the Seattle Times: "Just when it seemed the right wing couldn't get any more divorced from reality around here, a local conservative group has launched a protest against what it sees as a pernicious cultural touchstone. Labor Day.... To the Freedom Foundation, a business-backed Olympia think tank, the day is evidence of the power of unions, which to members equals the decline of America. Rather than stoop to taking a union-backed day off, they plan to fight the power by ... working all day Monday instead!"
... Peter Baker of the New York Times: "If the world seems troubled by all manner of calamities these days, President Obama does not want Americans to worry too much. After all, he said Friday, 'The world has always been messy'; it is just more apparent because of social media. And, he added, today's geopolitical threats are far less perilous than those of the Cold War." ...
... Yeah, well, stories like this kinda grab the reader, Mr. President ...
... Mitchell Protero of McClatchy News: "Nearly half of Syria's population has been displaced either internally or externally as refugees in the worst humanitarian crisis to strike the Middle East in at least a century, according to new data released by the International Rescue Committee." (Emphasis added.) ...
... Secretary of State John Kerry, in a New York Times op-ed: "In a polarized region and a complicated world, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria presents a unifying threat to a broad array of countries, including the United States. What's needed to confront its nihilistic vision and genocidal agenda is a global coalition using political, humanitarian, economic, law enforcement and intelligence tools to support military force."
Pam Belluck of the New York Times: "Five years after it exploded into a political conflagration over 'death panels,' the issue of paying doctors to talk to patients about end-of-life care is making a comeback, and such sessions may be covered for the 50 million Americans on Medicare as early as next year.Bypassing the political process, private insurers have begun reimbursing doctors for these 'advance care planning' conversations as interest in them rises along with the number of aging Americans." ...
... CW: My experience is that Medicare is already covering end-of-life consultations. I had several long meetings with hospital staff, including doctors, plus extensive assistance from hospice providers during my husband's final days. Medicare covered his entire bill except for a small co-pay.
Nicholas Kristof: "... those of us in white America [should] wipe away any self-satisfaction about racial progress. Yes, the progress is real, but so are the challenges. The gaps demand a wrenching, soul-searching excavation of our national soul, and the first step is to acknowledge that the central race challenge in America today is not the suffering of whites."
Pinch Gets Hitched. Flash Presides. New York Times: "Gabrielle Elise Greene, a partner in an investment firm, and Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., the chairman and publisher of The New York Times, were married Saturday on Martha's Vineyard. The ceremony, at the Outermost Inn in Aquinnah, Mass., was led by Flash Wiley, a friend of the couple...."
Senate Races
Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "In black churches and on black talk radio, African-American civic leaders have begun invoking the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, along with conservative calls to impeach Mr. Obama, as they urge black voters to channel their anger by voting Democratic in the midterm elections, in which minority turnout is typically lower.... [Rep. John] Lewis is headlining efforts to mobilize black voters in several states with competitive Senate races, including Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina. The drive is being organized by the Congressional Black Caucus, in coordination with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Other steps, such as recruiting N.B.A. players to help register more African-Americans, are also underway."
Thursday, before Mitch McConnell's campaign chair Jesse Benton resigned his post (in a classic late-Friday-night-before-a-holiday-weekend announcement), Rachel Maddow aired this segment on the developing scandal:
... CW: This will be entertaining. I'm so sorry Benton didn't stick with Mitch a while longer. McConnell isn't talking, & apparently neither are Ron & Randy Paul. ...
... Joseph Gerth of the Louisville Courier-Journal: "... there has been no allegation of improprieties in the McConnell campaign. That and the fact that Benton quit quickly ought to help insulate McConnell from too much fallout.... The impact on Rand Paul, however, could be greater than any trouble McConnell might see." ...
... Martin Longman of the Washington Monthly reminds us: "Benton's motivation for joining up with McConnell was pretty transparently to help Rand Paul's career, and particularly his presidential ambitions. This became clear when a former aide to Ron Paul named Dennis Fusaro released a recorded phone conversation in which Benton said he was 'sort of holding my nose for two years' while he worked for McConnell 'because what we're doing here is going to be a big benefit for Rand in 2016.' ... McConnell's effort to cozy up to the Paul family has backfired. Benton's effort to 'hold his nose for two years' has failed."
... BUT. Joseph Gerth: "Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell has put a little more distance between him and his Democratic opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes, but the race remains within the margin of error, according to the atest Bluegrass Poll. The poll, conducted by SurveyUSA for The Courier-Journal and three other news outlets, found that McConnell holds a 46 percent to 42 percent lead among likely voters over Grimes. Libertarian David Patterson gets 5 percent of the vote, and 8 percent remain undecided. It's the third consecutive Bluegrass Poll that has found McConnell improving his chances for re-election in November." ...
Beyond the Beltway
Florida's Alternative to ObamaCare: Pet Insurance. Tom Boggioni of the Raw Story: "Six months after the launch of a $900,000 alternative to the Affordable Care Act, Florida's Health Choices program has only signed up 30 subscribers and administrators say they are considering offering pet insurance if it will help draw more customers.... During that same period, nearly 984,000 Floridians have enrolled in private coverage under Obamacare, leaving nearly 764,000 Floridians who are too poor to afford subsidized plans and unable to qualify for Medicaid...." The state legislature has refused to adopt the ACA's Medicaid expansion. ...
... The Tampa Bay Times story, by Tia Mitchell, is here.
God News
Frank Bruni: "Mightn't religion be piggybacking on the pre-existing condition of spirituality, a lexicon grafted onto it, a narrative constructed to explain states of consciousness that have nothing to do with any covenant or creed?"
Valerie Tarico of AlterNet: "Did the historical Jesus exist? A growing number of scholars don't think so."
Kim Archer of the Tulsa World: "Oklahoma County District Court Judge Bernard Jones has ruled unconstitutional a portion of a law that allows the use of public funds to send special-needs students to private religious schools. State Attorney General Scott Pruitt said he would appeal the ruling.... The judge's order has been stayed pending appeal.... Jones is the second district court judge to strike down the law as unconstitutional." Oklahoma's constitution prohibits "the use of public funds for private religious institutions." Via Hemant Mehta of the Friendly Atheist.
Coming This November. Charles Pierce: Former child teevee star & current "godbothering nuisance" Kirk Cameron has made a movie about the War on Christmas "aimed at Bible-banging shut-ins and fringe Christianists loop-de-loops...." According to the Blaze (Glenn Beck's journoblog),
'Saving Christmas' [is] ... a comedic narrative that weaves together educational elements that, through a character-driven storyline, address these common complaints and critiques.
... CW: Oh, I'll bet it's "comedic." Here's the trailer:
News Ledes
New York Times: "Israel laid claim on Sunday to nearly 1,000 acres of West Bank land in a Jewish settlement bloc near Bethlehem -- a step that could herald significant Israeli construction in the area -- defying Palestinian demands for a halt in settlement expansion."
New York Times: "President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia called on Ukraine on Sunday to begin talks on 'the statehood' of that country's rebellious southeast, a vague and provocative turn of phrase he used while demanding that the Ukrainian government negotiate directly with pro-Russian separatists."
Share Article
Reader Comments (5)
I'm impressed that Cameron has so energetically satirized his own cause. The first half of the clip is just boring, but the second half is the sort of material that would cause the Christianists to get up in arms if it weren't trying to be sincere.
As our friends in Washington are doing, let's put the Labor back in Labor Day.
Oh, and speaking of godlessness, here's my comment on Bruni's column: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/31/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-between-godliness-and-godlessness.html?comments#permid=12693309
Re: End of life counseling: The VA has a program called Palliative Care, which isn't Hospice, which I recently entered. On our first visit, my wife and I had a long conversation with my doctors about my wishes for end-of-life care. (Since the VA doctors are salaried, they don't worry about reimbursement.) When you have ALS, you don't have a lot of time left. Stephen Hawking is an extreme outlier; most get 3-5 years.
We had already written advance directives in our 40's, but some things were out of date. Any person, no matter how young, who doesn't make their wishes known to their family about end-of-life is a fool. Nobody is guaranteed even one more hour of life, nobody.
We'll have a followup on our next visit. This has been most enlightening for both of us.
The State Medical Society of Wisconsin is sponsoring a program originallly developed in Minnesota in which trained facilitators meet with a patient and the person who will be making decisions for hhim/her if he/she is no longer able to do so. The discussions are quite in-depth and often take more than one session.
AAt the UW Hospital and Clinics, social workers, chaplains, and other interested people are trained as facilitators (I am one of them). After a pilot project in the Geriatrics Clinic, the program (Advance Care Planning) is being introduceed to other clinics. The biggest obstacle has been convincing providers to spend approximately three minutes introducing the program and providing a brochure.
Patients are not charged for these visits, but of course the facilitators must have the ssupport of the institution to perform this function as part of their jobs.
Every single patient who has gone through tthis process has expressed appreciation for the opportunity.
Barbarossa, I'm glad you found a similar process helpful, and wish you the best.
Barbarossa: just to say I appreciated your post about the importance of end of life instructions, which spurs me to review mine. May I add that your whole "eyes open," uncomplaining attitude strikes me as rather wonderful.
On another note, I totally agree with Jack Mahoney's post about the unintentional irony in the trailer. I thought it was hilarious - though not for the reasons Cameron no doubt wanted.
The chip on the shoulder attitude of some Christians seems to go with the same sense of victimization of some white people. In either case, it's unwarranted and unbecoming.
Re: End of life planning. Something that a lot of people don't know
is that an unmarried man, or woman, cannot request cremation
in a number of states (mine is Michigan) without the consent of wife or husband. I have neither, so consent must be given in
writing by other family members. Fortunately, I have a sister who
agreed to it. Same sex marriage would solve a lot of life's little
conundrums.