POLITICS: Republican takes Kennedy's Senate Seat

Martha Coakley lost a Senate seat from Massachusetts that has been in Democratic hands (Ted Kennedy) for over 46 years, why?

Many are saying that independents in the blue state are sending a message to Obama and Democrats in general that they don’t like what is going on and want a change; ironic that Obama ran on a “change” platform.

How quickly people forget how bad it was under Bush and the Republicans and now they want to go back?

A big factor in the Democratic loss (I think) was the candidate Martha Coakley; she was a bad candidate.

I have grown very leery of government prosecutors whether state or federal. They are a breed of attorney that has higher office in mind and thus they will do anything to attain that office even if they have to compromise on justice. For them winning big cases gets them closer to that higher office and they will win them by hook or by crook.

In our state of Michigan we have had many of this type including David Gorcyca who tried to railroad a young male school teacher on sexual molestation charges. He nearly succeeded until a smart defense attorney revealed how certain evidence that could exonerate her client was being hidden; Gorcyca is not running for higher office any more. There are many more examples of these unscrupulous people in power all over the country.

Martha Coakley, in my mind, is another Gorcyca. She was involved in the famous Amirault Family Fells Acres Day Care sexual molestation case. This was at the height of the day care sex abuse scare where children were goaded into revealing the most prurient deeds which on closer examination were just that, ideas placed in children’s heads by prosecutors that wanted to win a sensational case no matter what the truth actually revealed.

This total disregard for the truth and basic justice has turned me against prosecutors and unfortunately I am skeptical about even the goods ones since some good ones must exist.

Talking to some business associates from Boston who flew in today after the election, they said that as bad as Coakley’s character is, her loss let in a fundamentalist, conservative Bush nut that we already have way too many of in Congress. I guess the people of Massachusetts picked between two evils and gave their nod to the Republican. Were they wrong? Only time will tell.

HAITI: Where are the Americans?

The scenes from Haiti on the evening news are pretty gruesome. It is hard for me to understand how come it is taking so much time for basic supplies like food and water to reach the people that desperately need them when the news networks keep showing supplies coming in the tons, plane after plane, but not making it off the airport tarmac; something is amiss.

The past two nights, the networks were showing doctors using garage saws to cut off limbs and rum to sterilize those saws; where are the medical supplies?

Last night, ABC News showed a field hospital from Israel. They came the night before, set up and started treating patients – huh?

Not only was this a field hospital, it had specialty tents; one for pediatrics, a maternity tent, an orthopedic tent and even an ICU (Intensive Care Unit). Where in the hell was the American field hospital?

I was trained as a medic during Vietnam and we were trained to practice field medicine. Field hospitals were organized in a triage mode where you treated those that could be treated and passed on those that were too badly hurt; remember MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) on TV from the Korean War?

During the Iraq war, the field hospitals basically saved everyone no matter how critical; we got that good at field medicine so where are we in Haiti? Maybe we are so thinly stretched by Iraq and Afghanistan that we don’t have any more field hospital units left; look how we handled Katrina on our own soil.

The French unit “Doctors Without Borders” were in Haiti and the French government was sending a complete field hospital and the Israelis were there as seen on the news but the only American doctor I saw on the news was Richard Besser, the ABC medical correspondent who couldn’t help anyone because he was just reporting and trying to look hunky for the cameras.

I guess I am just disappointed in our effort so far. All I see is Bill Clinton walking about, highly paid reporters and news anchors walking about trying to show compassion and next will come the politicians from around the world trying to personally asses the situation on the ground – what happened to passing out bottles of water?

Everyone is collecting money for Haiti, staging all sorts of money making events for the victims in Haiti. Yes, in the long run there will be a big need for money to build up the city and country again but right now it is as simple as getting the supplies off the airport tarmac and into people’s hands; we will rebuild later.

I would be very careful where I donate my relief funds since there are many shysters out there that sound very legitimate; I don’t even trust the Red Cross which has been known to use money donated for a specific cause like Haiti relief, for other Red Cross needs such as administrative costs.

There will be a need for housing; a lot of housing to shelter the people before serious rebuilding can be undertaken and lots of food and water for a very long time – now that will take some money.

HAITI: A religious issue?

I was waiting for some religious nutcase to link the Haiti disaster to a punishment by God and Pat Robertson, a certified nutcase, did not waste any time.

It is true that the island of Hispaniola is divided into Haiti on the left (West) and Dominican Republic on the right (East) and yes, the Dominican Republic has resorts like Punta Cana (loved our vacation there) and Haiti, on the other hand has nothing but poverty, corruption, squalor and now massive destruction and death.

Both countries are poor (we went off the resort to visit the countryside and it was pretty bleak) but Haiti is especially poor and the reasons for that poverty can easily be explained by their type of corrupt, non-functioning government and that the few rich, dominate and exploit the poor, just like in colonial slave days.

Pat Robertson seems to know something about history since he blamed Haiti’s plight on a historic rumor of a pact made with the devil to help them overthrow their French masters, how else could they have overthrown the Christian French; their Voodoo religion is obviously a satanic religion.

This historic myth, long discredited by historians, was promoted and spread by Christian colonial powers and colonists to explain how this could have possibly happened. Those same powers then blockaded the new country, plunging it into chaos and poverty.

The point here is not what really happened in history; it is that a supposedly educated American could possibly have equated the Haiti disaster to a punishment by God. Well, all disasters have been equated the same way, remember 9/11 was for us allowing abortions and Katrina was for us allowing gay marriage. So what does this tell us about fundamentalist Christian leaders and the masses of followers that they control. To me, these people are regressing to a time when such stupid notions were taken as fact and I will throw in the never disappearing stain of racism that some people cannot and will never wash out of their being.

How does this make us look on the world stage; as religious cave men living in the richest nation on earth?

Also, did you notice all the Christian missionaries in that country – what gives? Why are they trying to convert all those people to Christianity – what good will that do them – the Christian God brings disasters on Christians – lots of them – so what good is it to become a Christian?

Brit Hume of FOX NEWS told Tiger Woods that he needs to convert to Christianity from his Buddhist faith if he wants forgiveness for his misdeeds and a chance at heaven. This is a highly educated, very rich man and he is spouting off such nonsense? Do people loose their rationale minds when they become Christians?

I am not down on Christians, I am down on religion which is preventing this world from becoming a human world with all humans as brothers and sisters of earth, willing to help each other because they are fellow humans and not because their respective gods tell them that that is what they should do to enter into heaven.