Thanks on Thanksgiving Day?

Happy Thanksgiving Day or Thanksgiving Weekend to all; we usually have the Friday off also making a great weekend to work or relax – I do both. Had a great meal as always, love that turkey, mashed potatoes and especially the gravy! It’s great to have the family around on yet another “traditional” holiday.

We have a lot to be “thankful” for; many have a lot less than we do and I mean not only money and possessions but also basic “happiness”.

My wife uncharacteristically, offered a “grace” before the Thanksgiving meal. She offered thanks for our family’s health and well being and wished for the safe-keeping of our troops fighting in a war no one believes in.

After the dinner I asked to whom was she praying if it was that what she was doing or was she just thanking someone, but whom? She merely said she was addressing a higher power.

She is spiritual without being necessarily religious but the whole affair raised some interesting question(s): whom do you thank when you offer thanks for your happiness?

The Thanksgiving tradition is kind of muddled but we are taught that it celebrated the Pilgrim’s first harvest in the New World and now we celebrate all our harvests since then. Others point to Lincoln’s proclamation of having a national Thanksgiving Day after the Battle of Gettysburg for victory or something else? Anyway, it was definitely intended to thank a god or some supernatural being.

So whom do secularists thank for their well being, themselves? That seems kind of inane!

If you were a secular farmer with a great harvest you couldn’t just thank yourself since a good harvest also depends on the weather and other factors that you do not control. Would you thank Mother Nature or just your very good luck?

My point is that you can definitely just celebrate your good fortune on Thanksgiving Day without thanking anybody or any thing but I feel we humans have a certain “need” to thank a higher power that we “feel” must be somehow involved in the higher scheme of things even if we have no possible idea how or maybe eating too much turkey affects the brain in silly ways.

Healthcare Reform #3: Universal Coverage

In healthcare reform one of the key provisions must be, in my opinion, universal coverage. That means, you MUST have health insurance; it is not an option, penalties to be worked out later.

Right now Hillary and Edwards agree, Obama says mandate it only for kids the rest voluntarily. On the Republican side, none of them are for universal coverage with McCain being the most vocal AGAINST mandated coverage. Mitt Romney, while governor of Massachusetts, established mandatory coverage but now is against his own plan?

One of the main reasons for having universal coverage is to eliminate the “uninsured”. The uninsured are the people most responsible for the dramatic rise in health care costs. Because hospitals are mandated by law to treat the uninsured (pro bono) they jack up the prices for their medical services to those of us with insurance and in so doing, allow us to pay the uninsured person’s medical bills.

It stands to reason that if we eliminated the uninsured medical facilities would not need to keep raising their costs; they are no longer treating people for free – get it?

You may ask who are the uninsured (40+ million) and how will they be able to buy insurance?

As to who they are is a complicated question but there are surveys available. Many are young people (men) that think they will never get sick, others would rather get free coverage at the ER and some are working poor that don’t qualify for Medicaid but cannot afford the expensive policies available to them currently.

One obvious answer is to make available many insurance policies, prices according to the extent of coverage and co-pays. This will enable the young guy to buy just catastrophic coverage for cheap. Right now, states like Michigan mandate what an insurance policy MUST cover and since they MUST cover basically everything, their cost is astronomical and therefore out of reach to the working poor. The absurdity of such laws becomes apparent when the 19 year old single male has to have a policy covering maternity services.

Subsidies will be available for people needing help with their premiums. I mentioned that employers not offering healthcare coverage would pay into a pool or trust fund that would use that money for subsidizing the working poor. Remember I am only talking about the current uninsured; the poor will continue to have Medicaid and the elderly Medicare.

The Republicans are saying that forcing people to get health coverage is a little un-American but they don’t mind forcing people to have auto coverage? What’s the difference? Obviously you cannot depend on people to do the right thing so you force them Herr Hoffmann!!!

Healthcare #2 - Employers.

Today’s paper carried articles on healthcare reform and the fact that it is the second biggest issue that concerns voters right now; the Iraq War is the first issue.

I will be going over some of the plans that Democrats and republicans are promoting but I will limit the discussion to specific points per blog to keep it short and readable.

I mentioned before that “socialized medicine” plans are not on the table at either party.

In my opinion the “employer provided” health plans should be abolished and individuals should be required to buy their own plans. Many plans should be offered so that you can buy as little or as much health coverage as you want or can afford. Those who need help in paying for health coverage because of low income, etc. would be able to apply for a subsidy from our government.

The reason I favored doing away with “employer provided” health coverage is because people look at that coverage as “free” and often misuse it and also because they don’t pay for it they don’t see any reason to lead a healthy life-style.

If people had to pay for their healthcare they would make sure they did everything possible to remain healthy.

Anyway, the plans being promoted by our presidential candidates keep “employer provided” health benefits but for employers that do not provide any medical coverage, the plans call for them to contribute to a general medical coverage pool that would be used to subsidize those people that need help buying their own insurance.

Another problem with keeping “employer provided” medical coverage is that if an employer has been providing generous benefits sees that he can cut his expenses by paying into that mandated medical coverage pool, he will and the workers would lose out at this point.

California seems to be on the threshold of bringing out such a plan and it will be interesting to see what happens. It will be closely watched as a potential plan for the whole nation. Massachusetts already has a similar plan.

The "Surge" is not really working dude!

Just a very quick note on Iraq less you thinks I have forgotten about it. Bush is being congratulated on the success of his “surge” tactic but he knows better.

I have maintained from the beginning that the only way top end this stupid war was to split Iraq into three (3): Sunni, Shia and Kurd.

The reason that the so called “surge” appears to be working is because Iraq is now de facto segregated along ethnic lines: Sunni, Shia and Kurd. The fact that they are segregated means they are not killing each other on a daily basis.

Once we leave, all hell breaks loose and that is why only a formal division of the country will work; each with its own government but with a federal agency to split oil revenues between the groups.

So you see the “surge” hasn’t done shit but Bush will lie and say it did and he was right all along!

Healthcare Reform #1

I know the subject of healthcare is boring to many people but it is an issue which I think many of us realize must be addressed and acted upon. We need to listen carefully to the plans the presidential candidates are promoting and how each plan will impact us as individuals, as families, as states and as a country.

Now there are right and wrong ways to reform our healthcare system and I have written about the many ways it can be reformed without resorting to “socialized medicine” which is NOT an option as far as I am concerned.

The best way to discuss the subject is to explore why and how we got to this untenable position with our healthcare system. This will also help me get it straight in my own head so please humor me.

Employers started offering health care benefits to their employees during WWII. During the war wages were frozen at a certain level and the only way one employer could persuade an employee to work for him instead of another employer was by giving paid health benefits.

Previous to that people paid their medical bills in cash to the doctor or in chickens depending where you lived. Some insurance was available as early as 1910. Blue Cross began to offer hospital insurance in the 1930s. Truman proposed a national health program and was called a communist.

Medicare and Medicaid were introduced by Johnson in the 1960s and covered the health of the very poor and the over 65 elderly. There were over 700 health insurance companies in the country at that time. Nixon once proposed a national health insurance program and was shot down.

Hillary tried to push a socialized medicine plan during the Clinton years and was really shot down. She has since realized that this country does not want and will not stand for a socialized medicine plan.

The dilemma we are facing now is that healthcare expenses / costs have sky rocketed and many employers are dropping medical coverage or requiring the employees to pay more and more of the monthly premium (in my company a family plan is now over $1,000/month).

Individual states have mandated what medical insurance policies must cover making those policies very expensive and unaffordable to many who then opt to remain uninsured. The uninsured use the services of hospital emergency rooms which are very expensive and since the uninsured usually cannot pay, the insured get charged a surcharge when they seek medical services.

The uninsured are usually identified as young males with jobs. They do not want to spend their beer money on insurance when they are convinced they will not get sick or injured – hence the large ER bills.

Also, look at the tax implications. Employers get a tax break for offering health insurance. Individuals that are covered by an employer’s health plans also get a tax break because the health insurance amount is not counted as part of the individual’s compensation so it is a tax free benefit.

Individuals who have to buy their own health insurance do not get a tax break; they can deduct their medical expenses up to a percentage of their salary though.

Individuals that are covered by their employer see it as a free gift to misuse as often as they want – after all they don’t have to pay for it – right?

These are some thoughts about our current non-system. Next we will see what can be done to actually create a workable system.

Please God make it rain!

Recently the governor of Georgia, a fellow named Sonny Perdue (is that a Southern name or what) gathered a bunch of politicos at the state Capitol in Atlanta to pray for rain for his drought-stricken state.

Quote: “It is time to appeal to HIM who can and will make a difference”. A choir sang a hymn in the background.

The next day, rain fell but of course weathermen were predicting rain for that day a week ago.

I could not let this event take place without making some comments!!!

Praying for rain is as old as the earliest civilizations; it just makes sense. Pagans had their rain gods, our American Indians did a rain dance around the fire to bring on rain, hell I think every civilization through the ages had a rain god and a ritual to inspire the gods to make rain.

The only protestors at the “pray-in” were members of the Atlanta Freethought Society which objected to holding a “religious service” on government property; remember separation of church and state.

Anyway, my initial reaction was to remind those who prayed that they are no different than the pagans of old in their prayers to a superior power to help them overcome their dilemma; they may pray to different gods but since no one has ever proven the existence of any god, they are praying to the same invented delusion that they all hoped and hope actually exists.

On a more philosophical level we have the issue of an all powerful and all good god that allows bad things like tsunamis to kill thousands, hurricanes, tornados, floods, disease and drought to occur even when he can stop them? How can he be all good?

On another level, what if he has sent the drought to punish those who live in Atlanta? Should they repent like the Jews did for thousands of years until they figured out that their god just didn’t give a shit about them and probably did not exist so if you don’t take care of yourself, no one else, including god, will.

Stick to spiritual matters bishops!

To: The Detroit News
Re: “Bishops: Catholic voters must follow church”, Nov. 15.


Catholic bishops have told their flock to vote as they say or risk their own eternal salvation. It is comforting to know that surveys indicate most Catholics pay no mind to the bishops when in the voting booth; an indication that the bishops really need to stick to spiritual matters and leave earthly matters like politics to those of us directly affected by them.

Catholics should heed the church when voting!

To: The Detroit Free Press
Re: “Catholics urged: Heed church at the polls”, Nov. 15.


Catholic bishops have issued a directive that Catholics voting in 2008 must heed church teachings when making their voting decisions. They obviously feel that they know what is good and proper for our well being as well as for the well being of the whole country. May I respectfully suggest that these bishops concentrate on getting their own house in order before they start issuing instructions as to how we should think and behave!

THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS UNDER FIRE?

Our Supreme Court is about to tackle another Constitutional question, one that has been argued about for a very long time. The issue is the 2nd Amendment and our right to bear arms. The Court has not had a case involving this issue for over 70 years.

The case is a Washington, D.C. ban on owning handguns; the ban has been in place for 31 years and is now being challenged as unconstitutional since the 2nd Amendment guarantees our right to bear arms or not – that is the issue!

The wording of the 2nd Amendment: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed” (1787).

Here we have a problem with two words that are used in the sentence: militia and the right of the people; is it individual or collective.

To get closer to what the authors in 1787 had in mind we must look at the debate that produced the 2nd Amendment.

The debate was between the Federalists (for the Constitution) and the anti-Federalists (against the Constitution). One side believed in a strong federal government, the other side feared a strong central government based on the history they knew.

The history included the Revolutionary War and Britain’s attempt to control the colonists. The French Revolution was stirring with “the People” against the “Monarchy”; the principle being the right of the people to defend themselves against a tyrannical government.

In their minds, if the government wanted to impose its will on the people with the force of a standing army, the armed people of the state could gather as a “militia” to oppose the government and its standing army. Please imagine muskets against muskets and not tanks against hunting rifles.

Historically, a militia was a military organization composed of armed civilians and used, usually, in times of emergency / attack.

Congress played with the wording of the 2nd Amendment and the fact that they insisted on the words “well regulated” meant they did not want an armed mob running around or for that matter, armed individuals; they wanted a formal military organization composed of civilian citizens able to bear arms.

You can visualize the scenario when a call to arms horn sounds and men either reaching under their beds for their muskets or running to the local armory to get their muskets and assembling in the town square for further orders.

The intent of the Amendment seems to be clearly the collective right to bear arms for specifically the defense of the state and not for individual use.

In 1903 Congress passed the Militia Act which did away with the old militia and established a National Guard for each state. The National Guard obtained its weapons from the national government and did not own them individually.




In my mind the 2nd Amendment as written is basically an amendment without any application to our time since state militias have been replaced by the National Guard.

Our current Supreme Court has some Bush appointees who are very conservative but usually conservatives stick to a very tight interpretation of the Constitution meaning that they stick close to what the authors of the Constitution really meant. If they stick to their pattern they will have to find that the 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with individual rights to bear arms but refer only to states and their rights to have militias.

The bottom line is that the 2nd Amendment does NOT guarantee that individuals have the Constitutional right to bear arms.

The NRA (National Rifle Association) is very rich and therefore very powerful. They are also made up of conservative Republicans and conservative Democrats who believe it is their sacred right to bear arms and fight ANY actions intended to somehow abridge that right.

What it boils down to is the fact that our Constitution does not guarantee the right of individuals to own and use guns BUT it also does not prohibit the owning and use of guns. Our tradition is that IF the Constitution does not specifically prohibit something then the states take on the responsibility of either allowing or prohibiting and also of regulating that something.

Washington, D.C. is not a state but rather a city/state so I don’t know the laws governing that particular entity buy regular states like Michigan, I suppose, could either legislate gun control or put it up for a vote but I know that the supporters of a “Constitutional Right” to bear arms will not want to put their right at risk by putting it up for a vote of the people.

This should be quite interesting and I will follow this case quite closely. More as it develops…

LETHAL INJECTION - too uncomfortable?

Our Supreme Court has, for now, stopped all executions by lethal injection due to a belief by some, that lethal injection represents cruel and unusual punishment, something our Constitution (8th Amendment)(1791) prohibits.

The wording of the 8th Amendment leaves a lot open to interpretation as well as to relativism; what was cruel in 1791 may be different from what we think is cruel in 2007.

A quick note before we go on; I used to be unequivocally for capital punishment until I found out that our prosecutors are not to be trusted and that they will and have sent people to their deaths on questionable evidence just to say they have won / closed a case. DNA evidence has proven many innocent and I would only vote for death if the evidence supported guilt 100%.

But what interests me is the finding of specifically “lethal injection” as cruel and unusual. The cases that are cited in this argument have to do with trouble finding a suitable vein for injection, possible localized burning sensation at site of injection and the possibility that the condemned actually “feels” pain.

The procedure for lethal injection is to start a intravenous (IV) “drip” of saline (salt water). Next inject a barbiturate like Sodium Thiopental that would make the condemned unconscious, followed by a muscle paralyzer like Tubocurarine (curare) and finally Potassium Chloride to stop the heart.

In theory, the person should only feel the insertion of the IV needle. In my hospital days I did a lot of “sticking” and know that it CAN hurt. Many prisoners are also drug addicts and their veins are pretty bad so for them it can be an ordeal.

My question here is why are we trying to spare the condemned from any pain when he or she has caused so much pain to others?

Is there a method that would not cause any pain? The arguments against lethal injection usually state that the prisoner “appeared to be in some type of discomfort”.

How about asking Jack Kevorkian? He seemed to have a pretty painless method. How about asking the Dutch that have legal euthanasia for their method.

Why are we so stupid?

The question of Capital Punishment itself is quite another matter and subject for a future blog.

GIULIANI AND ROBERTSON - WHAT A PAIR?

I was a little surprised to read that Pat Robertson, the right wind ultra Christian that thinks he speaks for God, endorsed Rudy Giuliani for President.

Remember that ole’ Rudy is pro-choice and pro gay rights which are anathema to fervent Christians in the U.S. So what gives?

To show you how extraordinary it is for Robertson to endorse Rudy you just have to remember that Robertson said the attack of 9/11 was God’s way of punishing America for allowing abortions and gay marriages – wow!

So has ole’ Pat flipped out? He is 77 and has been making ridiculous statements for some time now; most absurd are when he tells the country that he talks to God so maybe his endorsement is not that important if most consider him a loony.

But the loony may actually have a plan. The Christian Right is absolutely split as to which Republican candidate to endorse. Some were threatening to put up a third party candidate which would guarantee a Republican defeat.

Robertson maybe trying to at least give the Republican Party a better chance of winning the Presidency since Giuliani has support from both parties while the rest of the bunch do not.

Robertson calls Giuliani an “acceptable” candidate, not the best candidate so maybe the message to his fellow Christian radicals is that at least with Giuliani you have a chance and he at least promised to appoint conservative judges.

I like Giuliani mainly because he is a realist and a relativist with no overriding ideology and also, he will not kiss the Religious Right’s ass – what a man!

FIRST AMENDMENT - what do it mean?

To: The Detroit News
Re: “Should Berkley restore crèche to City Hall?”


Richard Thompson argues that the First Amendment to our Constitution does not demand a wall of separation between church and state and cites legal rulings to make his point. I find it ironic and disquieting that current legal professionals would try to confuse the public about what the writers of our Constitution actually meant when they wrote the words to the First Amendment.

Thomas Jefferson, one of the authors of the Constitution, in a reply to a query by some Baptist Ministers explained to them clearly that the First Amendment was in effect, “building a wall of separation between church and state”.

Are Mr. Thompson and his like minded cronies saying that the authors of the First Amendment don’t know what the words they wrote mean but he and his pals do?

More on Homosexuality...

Let me just add this to my last blog on male homosexuality – it is not normal. The evolutionary process would have naturally doomed homosexuality due to the inability to procreate. Millions of species that once existed have vanished due to their inability to survive, only the species that were able to adapt survived.

Mother Nature constantly makes mistakes. I get a kick out of people that push their “intelligent design” theories against evolution. If they knew how many times their god fucked up in creating, they would not call him intelligent at all.

Homosexuals are able to survive without being able to procreate because they are produced by heterosexual couples as”accidents” of nature, at least as we understand it currently. With more study we may be able to add more information as to how this actually occurs in the human genome system.

As to male “homosexuality” through the ages; it is a fascinating study, one which I am still exploring. A few months ago, I wrote a blog about a history lecture I heard where this subject was addressed.

The professor stated quite plainly that our modern understanding of homosexuality was not the same as it was understood in history. Our understanding, at least mine, is that homosexuals are born with a genetic makeup that predisposes them to be attracted sexually to their own gender. This is hard-wired into their genes so even if they want to deny it and live heterosexually, the predisposition is still there and probably manifests itself in many other ways: style of dress, mannerisms, etc. – they are a mixture of male and female – a separate human entity.

Anyway, back to history. Yes, homosexuals existed then as always but society was very different then.

The predominating view was that females were inferior because they were seen as undeveloped or unformed males, i.e. no penis, no body hair, high voices, no muscles, weaker, etc. They saw creation as a straight line from left (dirt, rocks, animals…) till they came to females and then males who were the closest to god(s). They did not see females as a separate gender.

I know this is a hard concept to grasp but actually, I feel the concept still exists if you look at various religions where women are treated differently (Judaism, Islam…) and societies where men are prized much more than women (China, India…) to the point where girls are aborted on purpose just because a boy is what is wanted.

This is seriously messing with Mother Nature to the point where women are so scarce in these cultures that existing females are kidnapped because there are not enough of them for every male to marry – dumb shits.

Back to history; let’s take the ancient Greeks for example. Their social model accepted homosexual behavior but in a strict way. They could have sex with boys (unformed adult males) (pederasty) but not with other adult males – that was taboo – interesting?

These same adult males could have sex with adult male slaves but that was due to the “domination principle” which basically meant that the strong and powerful dominated the weak; the penetrators and the penetrated.
It was a custom on the battlefield that the victors did the vanquished; the ultimate conquest and insult.

Homosexual acts occurred as you can see but social condemnation was always against an adult male that allowed himself to be penetrated never against the penetrators.

Did homosexuals exist then – of course? Did they know they were homosexuals; I think they knew they liked men but married women as was the custom and had children. Did they meet other gays for sex – probably but I don’t know much about that – still learning.

I have not read anywhere about evidence that ancients thought of homosexuals as a distinct group of men; they were probably just married men that liked other men and were either in the closet or practicing but without condemnation.

I think the condemnation and the view we have today is a product of good ole’ Christianity and I will have something to say about that later…