The Personhood of Corporations

THE PERSONHOOD OF CORPORATIONS

This article by Mark Morford really is essentially what all of us are feeling today; Even those who don't possess the ability to really understand what is going on. Yup, the deathers, the birthers, the teabaggers and the townhallers ALL know that anyone of us on any given day can become a victim of the monster called "The Capitalist System". Please read the whole article to know what Mr. Morford is trying to tell us, especially those who are informationally challenged.
This is a difficult letter to write. by Mark Morford

But it may already be too late. When the Bush Supreme Court makes its decision on the “Personhood of Corporations”...

Links Here:

http://forum.colbertnation.com/tcr/board/message?board.id=politics&thread.id=12732

and

http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_speech/cu_v_fec_summary.php

WE WILL NO LONGER BE A DEMOCRACY! FASCISM HERE WE COME. (A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of STATE and BUSINESS leadership, together with belligerent nationalism.) thinkingblue.blogspot.com

PS: As frightening as becoming a victim of the Capitalist System is, there is even a more shocking event going on right now in the chambers of the Supreme Court. The Bush/Roberts Court is about to give to the greedy corporations the power to gobble up all our freedoms and become the omnipotent POWER over everything and everyone who inhabits this Earth. "The Corporate power to choose who will get elected here in the USA".

This is a difficult letter to write

Of course it will never happen to you. Until it does

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Stiff joints. Inexplicable pain. Kidney stones. Increased squinting at
the tiny type on the bottle of lubricant. Crow's feet. Too many
gray follicular protrusions. Acute increase in recovery time
required following three glasses of wine, a Martini and perhaps
some rather aerobic sexual escapades the night before. Heavier sighing.

Oh yes, also: dramatic upswing in complexity of personal
relationships, loves, emotional entanglements involving baggage
and exes and cash flow and who's going to sacrifice what for the
sake of a future you're not even sure is the best way to proceed
because no one ever told you it would be like this.

Sound familiar? If not, trust me: it will. Because all of these worldly
delights fall under one category; let's call them the
"unexpected expected" things, those sticky 'n' wicked
life happenstances where you get to say, "You know, I never
thought this would happen to me, not like this, even
though I knew it might happen, eventually. It all used to
seem so far off, so comfortably distant, and now,
well, here it all is. What the hell."

Easy enough, right? Just life, just the way it unfolds, same as it ever was.

Ah, but there's a catch: All the sighing delights I describe above?
Turns out those are the easy ones, the life circumstances you
just have to face down and shrug about before moving on. Because
it turns out there are far stranger, more difficult, more gnarled
and snarled unfoldings waiting for you, prickly life
entanglements that fall under a different category entirely.

Let's call these divine hellbeasts the unexpected unexpected
things, those wicked slaps to the face of your world you truly
never saw coming, mostly because you fully believed you were
immune, well protected, absolutely safe from the slings and
arrows of certain outrageous misfortune because, well, that's the
way you designed it. You thought you had at least a few things
under control, planned out, relatively settled. Right? How cute you are.

Examples? Plenty. Here's just two:

I recently helped a beautiful friend write a very unexpected
"hardship letter" to our very own U.S. government,
pleading with the murky PTB in charge of one of the Obama
administration's new, complicated assistance programs to please,
please, please help her figure out a way to stay in her tiny San
Francisco home, lest she sink far underwater and be foreclosed
upon and have nowhere left to turn.

Turns out my friend is but one of thousands about to be blown to
economic smithereens by what this very SF Chronicle just deemed
the "$30 billion time bomb" set to go off in
just a handful of months. In a nutshell, it involves a certain
kind of adjustable-rate mortgage, one that was set at a
comfortably low rate for many years and which is now set to
increase dramatically, and should it come to pass, will make it
absolutely impossible to afford.

Let me be clear: This is no snickering, "serves you right for
buying a home you couldn't afford" situation. This is not
the typical sub-prime, prey-upon-the-weak-and-the-stupid story.
My friend was not duped, she was not naive and she was not an
idiot. All was well-planned and mapped out, and there was more
than enough income to cover the rate for many years, at which
time the plan was to sell the home before the rate exploded -- a
plan which, even in a soft SF housing market, should've been a
relative snap. The danger was almost nil.

You know what happens next. Implosion, economic meltdown, housing
market collapse, a perfect storm of upheaval and economic shock
we've all been reading about for two years straight. What was
once a safe and well-directed path turned dark and treacherous.

Hence, my friend now finds herself in the bizarre, unwelcome position of
being forced to plead with faceless members of the government for
a bit of help from an obscure program that might, just might,
offer a temporary reprieve, if she can jump through roughly a
thousand bewildering hoops and ever-shifting regulations. What a thing.

Example two: Unbeknownst to most, I myself was felled by the ruthless SF
Chronicle layoff ax not a handful of months back, yet another
casualty of the newspaper industry collapse, laid off from this
very company rather suddenly, only to be immediately re-hired as
a freelancer (read: less pay, no benefits, set adrift after 12 years).

Verily, it was a shock to my system for many reasons, not the least of
which is the fact that I, after all these years and like millions
of Americans of all genders, races and political affiliations,
will soon find myself face to face with the very same merciless,
unaffordable health insurance industry my president is attempting
to make slightly less merciless and unaffordable, right this minute.

In other words, I now find myself in a similar, and similarly
unwanted/unexpected, position as my friend, about to apply to
another government assistance program, a temporary subsidy plan
that could help co-pay some of my COBRA insurance premiums for a
short while, as I try to figure out how to increase my income or
become a drug mule for Mexican cartels or find a full-time
writing gig elsewhere -- which should be a snap, really, given
how wonderfully healthy and wealthy the media world is right now. Ahem.

It all points to the big, obvious, but easily disregarded lesson:
You are not immune. I am not immune. Not merely from the usual
array of funhouse mirrors like aging, cellular degeneration, the
vagaries of time and emotional complication and car payment. That
much you already know. That's the easy stuff.

The real truth is, we are not immune to those very things we were
essentially convinced we were immune from. It's the lesson we try
to avoid at all costs: the more you think you can control even a
fraction of the system and the more you try to block out at least
a few of the potential calamities, the more the system reveals
that it's no system at all, and is actually a slapdash madhouse
tinderbox of careening laws and makeshift rules and barely
controlled chaos no one really understands. Neat!

No matter. We do it anyway. We carefully set up all these
mechanisms, all these banking systems and savings plans and
financial strategies, all these cartoonish religious beliefs and
social contracts and ridiculous tribal allegiances, all to give
us the illusion of stability, the false sense of security and
place. How cute we are.

And we grip these illusions more and more tightly, absolutely
refusing to believe what we already know, deep down: that when
you finally open up your hand, there's actually nothing there.
Ain't it grand?

THE CORPORATION

See all segment of THE CORPORATION here

Let's keep our heads, while we continue to
watch THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!! thinkingblue

Hey America, There are still WARS going on!

Hey America, There are still WARS going on!

A comment on a clipmark of mine stated:

You want to talk about preventable deaths? How about drinking and driving? How about smoking? How about obesity? Heart disease, lung disease, cancer, death by murder, suicide, etc....?

Not sure what the clipper was getting at, citing these societal ills; calling
them preventable? Anyway, it occurred to me… what about WAR;
shouldn't that be at the top of this woeful list?

The Bush/Cheneyadministration, wanted WAR so badly, they started TWO OF THEM! Of course, they could, 9/11, HAPPENED! (I’m still not convinced the attack occurred without A WINK & A NOD.) Now 8 years later and still young people are dying because of that infamous day. We can’t blame Bush/Cheney any longer, so who should we blame, who should bear the brunt of accountability for the bloodletting?

Barack Obama won the election, partly due to his stance against war and now he’s ratcheting up troop levels assuring its longevity?

If he continues to act like Bush/Cheney when it comes to WAR; He has not only misled us, he's FUCKED us royally! And although I’m charmed by his eloquence, it can’t last… We, who consider ourselves, WAR PROTESTERS, won’t keep looking the other way while he sends so many of our brave young men and women, to die… AND OVER WHAT? thinkingblue.blogspot.com

PS: Check out Op-Ed Columnist - Reliving the Past

It hurts me badly that the wars Bush had started are not number one on America's hit parade... Wouldn't it be a wonderful life if the TOWNHALLERS were acting insane because they wanted the wars to end... No, they act crazy because they want Obama to end. I clipmarked this article ( I love Bob Herbert) today...You'll find it here: HEY AMERICA, THERE ARE STILL WARS GOING ON! Thanks, Bob Herbert, for waking me up... I have been... (along with everyone
else) acting as though the American wars don't exist. tb

Op-Ed Columnist

Reliving the Past

The president should listen to Joe Biden.

Bob Herbert

Mr. Biden has been a voice of reason, warning the administration
of the dangers of increasing our military involvement in
Afghanistan. President Obama has not been inclined to heed his
advice, which is worse than a shame. It’s tragic.

Watching the American escalation of the war in Afghanistan is
like watching helplessly as someone you love climbs into a car
while intoxicated and drives off toward a busy highway. No good
can come of it.

The war, hopelessly botched by the Bush crowd, has now lasted
nearly eight long years, longer than our involvement in World
Wars I and II combined. There is nothing even remotely resembling
a light at the end of the tunnel. The war is going badly and
becoming deadlier. July and August were the two deadliest months
for U.S. troops since the American invasion in October 2001.

Nevertheless, with public support for the war dwindling, and with
the military exhausted and stretched to the breaking point
physically and psychologically after so many years of combat in
Afghanistan and Iraq, the president is ratcheting the war up
instead of winding it down.

He has already ordered an increase of 21,000 troops, which will
bring the American total to 68,000, and will be considering a
request for more troops that is about to come from Gen. Stanley
McChrystal, the commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan. More Here

Anti War Demostration Jan 27, 2007

Bill Moyers Voice of Reason

Another Voice of Reason Janeane Garofalo

I've included Janeane Garofalo in my Voices Of Reason videos because besides being a humorous comedian she can also see the nutty side of life through objectivity. In other words... She questions. She's a delight and she makes you THINK! ttb

Let's keep our heads, while we continue to
watch THE

THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!! thinkingblue

America - The Greatest Show On Earth

AMERICA - THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH
Bill Moyers offers a PULL NO PUNCHES explanation on why our country is... THE GREATEST "SHOW" ON EARTH. Sit back and watch
THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD! thinkingblue

TRANSCRIPT HERE:

Watch it on PBS

Rachel Maddow, Another voice of REASON:

Let's keep our heads, while we continue to
watch THE

THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!! thinkingblue

A Startling Reason Why We Need Health Care Reform

Startling Reason Why We Need Health Care Reform

(It was a heroic story, but to me, it was also deeply unsettling. How was it possible that Pronovost needed to beg hospitals to adopt an essentially cost-free idea that saved so many lives? Here’s an industry that loudly protests the high cost of liability insurance and the injustice of our tort system and yet needs extensive lobbying to embrace a simple technique to save up to 100,000 people.) Excerpt from this link

An alarming article; in my own experience I can count family and friends who have died or almost died due to hospital irresponsibility and negligence. My father developed the clot that killed him while in a hospital. My mother died of the mastectomy before she could die of the cancer. My father-in-law died after hospital staff yanked out his lung and put him in regular care instead of an ICU.. A friend died in child birth because the hospital anaesthesiologist did not realize she was regurgitating and put her under while she was drowning in her own vomit. I wonder, is this sad/bad enough to make the townhallers come to their senses? I THINK NOT!
AND THAT'S SADDEST OF ALL! Please read the beginning of this enlightening article below. thinkingblue.blogspot.com

How American Health Care Killed My Father

Almost two years ago, my father was killed by a hospital-borne
infection in the intensive-care unit of a well-regarded nonprofit
hospital in New York City. Dad had just turned 83, and he had a
variety of the ailments common to men of his age. But he was
still working on the day he walked into the hospital with
pneumonia. Within 36 hours, he had developed sepsis. Over the
next five weeks in the ICU, a wave of secondary infections, also
acquired in the hospital, overwhelmed his defenses. My dad became
a statistic—merely one of the roughly 100,000 Americans
whose deaths are caused or influenced by infections picked up in
hospitals. One hundred thousand deaths: more than double the
number of people killed in car crashes, five times the number
killed in homicides, 20 times the total number of our armed
forces killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another victim in a
building American tragedy.

About a week after my father’s death, The New Yorker ran an
article by Atul Gawande profiling the efforts of Dr. Peter
Pronovost to reduce the incidence of fatal hospital-borne
infections. Pronovost’s solution? A simple checklist of ICU
protocols governing physician hand-washing and other basic
sterilization procedures. Hospitals implementing Pronovost’s
checklist had enjoyed almost instantaneous success, reducing
hospital-infection rates by two-thirds within the first three
months of its adoption.But many physicians rejected the checklist
as an unnecessary and belittling bureaucratic intrusion, and many
hospital executives were reluctant to push it on them. The story
chronicled Pronovost’s travels around the country as he
struggled to persuade hospitals to embrace his reform.

It was a heroic story, but to me, it was also deeply unsettling.
How was it possible that Pronovost needed to beg hospitals to
adopt an essentially cost-free idea that saved so many lives?
Here’s an industry that loudly protests the high cost of
liability insurance and the injustice of our tort system and yet
needs extensive lobbying to embrace a simple technique to save up
to 100,000 people.

And what about us—the patients? How does a nation that might
close down a business for a single illness from a suspicious
hamburger tolerate the carnage inflicted by our hospitals? And
not just those 100,000 deaths. In April, a Wall Street Journal
story suggested that blood clots following surgery or illness,
the leading cause of preventable hospital deaths in the U.S., may
kill nearly 200,000 patients per year. How did Americans learn to
accept hundreds of thousands of deaths from minor medical
mistakes as an inevitability?

My survivor’s grief has taken the form of an obsession with
our health-care system. For more than a year, I’ve been
reading as much as I can get my hands on, talking to doctors and
patients, and asking a lot of questions.

Keeping Dad company in the hospital for five weeks had left me
befuddled. How can a facility featuring state-of-the-art
diagnostic equipment use less-sophisticated information
technology than my local sushi bar? How can the ICU stress the
importance of sterility when its trash is picked up once daily,
and only after flowing onto the floor of a patient’s room?
Considering the importance of a patient’s frame of mind to
recovery, why are the rooms so cheerless and uncomfortable? In
whose interest is the bizarre scheduling of hospital shifts, so
that a five-week stay brings an endless string of new personnel
assigned to a patient’s care? Why, in other words, has this
technologically advanced hospital missed out on the revolution in
quality control and customer service that has swept all other
consumer-facing industries in the past two generations?

I’m a businessman, and in no sense a health-care expert. But
the persistence of bad industry practices—from long lines at
the doctor’s office to ever-rising prices to astonishing
numbers of preventable deaths—seems beyond all normal logic,
and must have an underlying cause. There needs to be a business
reason why an industry, year in and year out, would be able to
get away with poor customer service, unaffordable prices, and
uneven results—a reason my father and so many others are
unnecessarily killed.

Like every grieving family member, I looked for someone to blame
for my father’s death. But my dad’s doctors
weren’t incompetent—on the contrary, his hospital
physicians were smart, thoughtful, and hard-working. Nor is he
dead because of indifferent nursing—without exception, his
nurses were dedicated and compassionate. Nor from financial
limitations—he was a Medicare patient, and the issue of
expense was never once raised. There were no greedy
pharmaceutical companies, evil health insurers, or other popular
villains in his particular tragedy.

Indeed, I suspect that our collective search for
villains—for someone to blame—has distracted us and our
political leaders from addressing the fundamental causes of our
nation’s health-care crisis. All of the actors in health
care—from doctors to insurers to pharmaceutical
companies—work in a heavily regulated, massively subsidized
industry full of structural distortions. They all want to serve
patients well. But they also all behave rationally in response to
the economic incentives those distortions create. Accidentally,
but relentlessly, America has built a health-care system with
incentives that inexorably generate terrible and perverse
results. Incentives that emphasize health care over any other
aspect of health and well-being. That emphasize treatment over
prevention. That disguise true costs. That favor complexity, and
discourage transparent competition based on price or quality.
That result in a generational pyramid scheme rather than
sustainable financing. And that—most important—remove
consumers from our irreplaceable role as the ultimate ensurer of value.

These are the impersonal forces, I’ve come to believe, that
explain why things have gone so badly wrong in health care,
producing the national dilemma of runaway costs and poorly
covered millions. The problems I’ve explored in the past
year hardly count as breakthrough discoveries—health-care
experts undoubtedly view all of them as old news. But some
experts, it seems, have come to see many of these problems as
inevitable in any health-care system—as conditions to be
patched up, papered over, or worked around, but not problems to be solved.

That’s the premise behind today’s incremental approach
to health-care reform. Though details of the legislation are
still being negotiated, its principles are a reprise of previous
reforms—addressing access to health care by expanding
government aid to those without adequate insurance, while
attempting to control rising costs through centrally administered
initiatives. Some of the ideas now on the table may well be
sensible in the context of our current system. But fundamentally,
the “comprehensive” reform being contemplated merely
cements in place the current system—insurance-based,
employment-centered, administratively complex. It addresses the
underlying causes of our health-care crisis only obliquely, if at
all; indeed, by extending the current system to more people, it
will likely increase the ultimate cost of true reform.

I’m a Democrat, and have long been concerned about
America’s lack of a health safety net. But based on my own
work experience, I also believe that unless we fix the problems
at the foundation of our health system—largely problems of
incentives—our reforms won’t do much good, and may do
harm. To achieve maximum coverage at acceptable cost with
acceptable quality, health care will need to become subject to
the same forces that have boosted efficiency and value throughout
the economy. We will need to reduce, rather than expand, the role
of insurance; focus the government’s role exclusively on
things that only government can do (protect the poor, cover us
against true catastrophe, enforce safety standards, and ensure
provider competition); overcome our addiction to Ponzi-scheme
financing, hidden subsidies, manipulated prices, and undisclosed
results; and rely more on ourselves, the consumers, as the
ultimate guarantors of good service, reasonable prices, and
sensible trade-offs between health-care spending and spending on
all the other good things money can buy.

These ideas stand well outside the emerging political consensus
about reform. So before exploring alternative policies,
let’s reexamine our basic assumptions about health
care—what it actually is, how it’s financed, its
accountability to patients, and finally its relationship to the
eternal laws of supply and demand. Everyone I know has at least
one personal story about how screwed up our health-care system
is; before spending (another) $1trillion or so on reform, we need
a much clearer understanding of the causes of the problems we all
experience. MORE HERE

Let's keep our heads, while we continue to watch THE

THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!! thinkingblue

Glenn Beck Hate 911 Victims, Calls Katrina Victims SCUMBAGS!

Here is a statement made by the Hateful Bigot, Glenn Beck -

"You know, it took me about a year to
start hating the 9/11 victims' families. It took me about a year.
Um, and I had such compassion for them and I really, you know, I
wanted to help them, and I was behind -- let's give them money,
let's get them started, and all of this stuff. And I really
didn't -- all the 3,000 victims' families, I don't hate all of
them, I hate about, probably about ten of them. But when I see
9/11 victim family, you know, on television, or whatever, I'm
just like, 'Oh, shut up.' I'm so sick of them. Because they're
always complaining. And we did our best for them." - Glenn Beck

Now get your puke bucket ready and watch Glenn Beck Yip-Yap these hateful words on video.thinkingblue

Glenn Beck Hates 9/11 Victims Families and Calls Katrina Victims, SCUMBAGS!

When I heard that the joker Glenn Beck was acting as though he was trying to unite WE THE PEOPLE... It made me sick to the degree of needing a puke bucket. Who the hell is this idiot trying to flimflam? We, who have a bit more marbles than the average Fox (you call that NEWS?) viewer... have heard all Beck’s noxious hyperbole, (that spews almost visibly, like foul breath from this guy’s pie-hole) before and can’t be proselytized by his insanity now!

Beck’s 9/12 project of Preaching 9 Principles and 12 Values that he says have been lost in the USA today… (I could just imagine this crackpot sitting at his Fox Desk, scribbling this crap onto paper trying to make up this slaphappy list ... http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/912-project-glenn-beck-preaches-9-principles-and-12-values ) … It’s bona fide BULLSHIT to the smelliest degree.

Like I asked before, WHO THE FLYING IS HE TRYING TO HOODWINK?

Anyone who supports, advertises on Fox (you call that NEWS?) or empowers Glenn Beck in any way, should be totally ashamed. But since
it’s either greed or insanity that motivates the Beck Lovers, they will keep on… keeping on! thinkingblue

Glenn Beck's Hypocrisy is Rad Ad Nauseam

Don't Tell Me What 9/12 Means, Glenn Beck

Let's keep our heads, while we continue to
watch THE
THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!! thinkingblue

Joe Wilson Thought He Was At A "Mob Rule" TownHall

Joe "YOU LIE" Wilson Thought He Was At A Mob Ruled,
TownHall Meeting.

Under the heading "No Federal Payment for Undocumented
Aliens," the House bill, H.R. 3200, says: "Nothing in
this title shall allow federal payments for affordability credits
on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the
United States." More Here

~~~~~~~

"This evening I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the President’s remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill. While I disagree with the President’s statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the President for this lack of civility.” – Republican US Representative from South Carolina, Joe (YOU LIE) Wilson.

Hmmm,the other day I was pondering about the brainlessness within the Republican base and I have come to a conclusion about it.

Some, especially media, have been giving these fools a break, acting as though they’re just normal “PASSIONATE” Americans, taking leave of their senses because they are so befuddled due to the fear of losing something
that’s precious to them.

BULLSHIT!

Oh they’re frightened, that's for sure, but it’s not passion they’re expressing its pure unadulterated HATE! Worse than that! It’s BIGOTRY! They hate because never, NOT EVER, within their pea-pickin sized brains, did they fathom a black man as president of the USA... Not just that... "THE" leader of their intolerant America!

Yes, there are two Americas’ Virginia, they exist as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist. One tolerant and broadminded, the other intolerant and narrow-minded!

Sincerely, thinkingblue, from the TOLERANT AND BROADMINDED USA

PS: Joe (You Lie) Wison, resides in the other America!

Joe "You Lie" Wilson, worse person in the world.

Let's keep our heads, while we continue to
watch THE

THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!! thinkingblue

Steve Russell (R) Unmitigated audacity (BALLS).

“As far as I am concerned, this is not civics education — it gives the appearance of creating a cult of personality. This is something you’d expect to see in NORTH KOREA or in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq,” - Republican Senator Steve Russell said of ...

Obama’s speech to students

http://www.ardmoreite.com/news/x1595419495/Obamas-speech-to-students-causes-public-outcry?view=print

NORTH KOREA? WTF! I can't believe this Horse's Patootie (F**KFACE) has the unmitigated audacity (BALLS) to compare President Barack Obama to North Korea’s Kim Jong Il who has no empathy, sympathy or mercy for his fellow man.

(There are over 20 million North Koreans living a horrible existence. Some starve to death every day. Others are either outright killed by the government or die from the abuse of torture and are being kept in horrible prisons.)

Someone ought to string this Horse’s Patootie (F**KFACE) up by his unmitigated audacity (BALLS). Hey, I'm angry that a SENATOR (elected by we the people) would spout and sputter such hatefule words. thinkingblue


Obama's speech to students causes public outcry
By Jennifer Lindsey, Education Reporter
The Daily Ardmoreite
Posted Sep 04, 2009 @ 12:21 AM
Ardmore, OK —

President Barack Obama will address students across the nation at 11 a.m. on Tuesday.

“During this special address, the president will speak directly to the nation’s children and youth about persisting and succeeding in school. The president will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning,” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan wrote in a letter to school principals.

The appropriateness of the speech is being debated by lawmakers, parents and educators across the country.

Local response has also been divided. Parents have begun to contact their school officials about the speech.

“The parents that I heard from did not want their child to watch,” Plainview High School principal Wayne Moore said.

“The majority are wanting to know if every child will get the opportunity to watch it,” said Sabra Emde, Ardmore City Schools public relations consultant.
ACS assistant principal Geneva Matlack said that watching the speech is not a partisan issue for some parents.

“You’ve got parents that are cautious and would rather watch it with their child,” she said.
According to Duncan’s letter, the Department of Education has provided suggestions for class activities “to help engage students in the address and stimulate classroom discussions about the importance of education.”

Teachers in both districts are still working on the exact plans for how the speech will be watched and discussed.

Letters are being sent home about the speech with ACS students today.

“We’re not going to make a big deal about it. We always let the parents know when we are doing something different during the school day,” Matlack said.

Matlack stressed the need to work with parents on issues.

“I just feel we have to follow the lead of the parents about their child,” Matlack said.

The letters can be signed and returned with students on Tuesday for them to be excused from watching the speech.

Plainview High School students can also be excused from watching the speech.

“If a student has written notification from parents, we will honor that certainly,” Moore said.
Oklahoma legislators are also weighing in on the president’s decision to address students.

“As an American citizen who fought for the freedoms we hold so dear, I find this approach to be alarming, and it certainly appears to have been coordinated with great care,” Republican Sen. Steve Russell said. “The President should address voters, not their children. He could encourage parents to highlight the things that find common ground in the American ideals we hold dear. His role should not be to bypass parents in the educational discussion by going directly to classrooms.”

Russell urged parents to contact their lawmakers and school officials about their objections to the speech.

“As far as I am concerned, this is not civics education — it gives the appearance of creating a cult of personality. This is something you’d expect to see in North Korea or in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq,” he said.

Democrat Rep. Joe Dorman released a statement describing the Republican legislators comments as partisan.

“I personally don’t understand how my colleagues can be passing their dissent off as non-partisan,” he said. “They would never have brought up these issues if George W. Bush orJohn McCain had wanted to speak to schoolchildren about citizenship.”

Dorman added that he believes Republican Rep. Sally Kern is creating a double-standard by her opposition of the speech.

“When a Republican state legislator visits a classroom, Sally Kern will lead the program. But a sitting President, who happens to be a Democrat, wants to talk to children about personal responsibility and staying in school, Kern is one of the first to cry foul,” he said. “Anytime an elected official wants to encourage the youth of our nation to pay attention to the process and make their own decisions, I’m all for it.”

The practice of a president speaking to students is not unprecedented. President George Bush gave a televised anti-drug speech in 1989 and President Ronald Reagan spoke to and answered questions from junior high students that was televised nationally in 1988.

Duncan’s letter, as well as links to the suggested activities can be found online at http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/academic/bts.html.

This isn't about Labor Day It's About Starlings, Cute and Nasty

Shock and caw: Pesky starlings still overwhelm - I have to admit, I love birds. Especially since moving to a rural area where you can go outside your home and see and hear these wild creatures going about their daily tasks of survival. And they are quite fastidious as well as genius at endurance (we humans should possess such astuteness at survival) So when I see an article about birds I can't help but open it to a read. Thus, the reason for today's blog.

As much as I enjoy these small darlings who share the Earth with us, there are people who have quite opposite feelings. As a matter of fact they hate the little buggers.

How can this be?

Well it all boils down to money again... So much of this world's tribulations can be directly traced back to the almighty buck. It seems these supercilious, masters of survival, can do damage to industry. Yikes, are these poor tiny beasts, in for it now.

The capitalist motto: You don't mess with business; business messes with you. So little starling you've been targeted. But this is one infinitesimal enemy of the Private Enterprise System that won't go down too easily. Because no matter the weapon devised by the Capitalists these birdies regroup and come back stronger.

Now I know there will be those who will retort my adoration for these animals by telling me I'm nuts, because they’re vermin and cause disease... I have only one comeback for those naysayers on THEY CAUSE DISEASE... SO DO WE BUB! thinkingblue

Talking bird starling (Weewoo)

Shock and caw: Pesky starlings still overwhelm

By MIKE STARK, Associated Press Writer Mike Stark, Associated Press Writer – Sun Sep 6, 4:36 pm ET

SALT LAKE CITY – The next time the sky darkens with a flock of noisy unwelcome starlings, blame Shakespeare — or, better yet, a few of his strangest fans.

Had the Bard not mentioned the starling in the third scene of
"Henry IV," arguably the most hated bird in North America might never have arrived. In the early 1890s, about 100 European starlings were released in New York City's Central Park by a group dedicated to bringing to America every bird ever mentioned by Shakespeare.

Today, it's more like Hitchcock.

Some 200 million shiny black European starlings crowd North
America, from the cool climes of Alaska to the balmy reaches of Mexico's Baja peninsula. The enormous flocks endanger air travel, mob cattle operations, chase off native songbirds, roost on city blocks, leaving behind corrosive, foul-smelling droppings and hundreds of millions of dollars of damage each year.

And getting rid of them is near impossible. MORE HERE

(Below is a printkey I took from a business website that guarantees to help indurstry rid itself of the Starling and Grackle.(Called Bird Busters of all things) Notice the fear tactics (underlined in red) they use to create a picture of disgust towards one of our Earth's species... Talk about DISGUST! tb)

PS: It's Labor Day and I have a little story to tell about this day, long ago, in my life. It was 1959, I was forced to quit school (because I was one of 5 kids in a low income family) and work in a factory. It was a textile factory and most of the minimum wage employees there were older woman. I was the youngest at age 16. I remember one Labor Day when everyone was eager for the day to end, so they could look forward to their holiday. I thought about this so called "holiday" and how my paycheck would be short a day's pay because the owners of this factory did not pay employees for holidays. They also were vigilant at keeping Unions from forming by firing anyone who attempted to start one. As we were cleaning up, getting ready for the loud buzzer that would signify our workday was over. I thought out-loud unhappily, "This isn't Labor Day for us it's Layoff Day." Others heard my disgruntled mutterings and as we left they all said to one another as they bid goodbye, "HAPPY LAYOFF DAY." Hmmm, I wonder if the bosses ever knew who started that?

HAPPY LABOR DAY ALL. thinkingblue

Let's keep our heads, while we continue to
watch THE

THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!! thinkingblue

Franken Talks Down Angry (Townhall) Mob

Wow, Al Franken talks to a townhall type crowd and encourages them to listen to reason... There were the usual disapproving eye rolls and head shakes, you know those child-like gestures that have gone rabid along with the hootin an a hollerin at other town-hall meetings. But and I mean a BIG BUT, he made so much sense talking reason in a calm collected manner they couldn't help but allow some of that rationale penetrate their closed minds. Let’s give a loud hurrah for our guy Al Franken. Everyone should watch this video, it may be hard to hear because of the background noise but this proves that reason and sanity cannot be drowned out! thinkingblue

clipped from www.thethinkingblue.com Let's keep our heads, while we continue to watch THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!! thinkingblue

Are Bill O'Rielly and Fox (News?) Screwing You? You Bet!

They are not only screwing you, they are encouraging you to MURDER!

This dialog came from this site: http://letters.mobile.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/06/29/family_values/view/index.html

It says it all concerning conservative wingnuts such as Fox (You Call That News?)!

Q: How many conservative wingnuts does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: There will be no screwing ...unless their name is Craig, Vitter, Sanford, Foley or Ensig

...Perhaps (right) wingnuts should try being human... That's the core issue here, conservative policies are INHUMANE, war, plundered economy and constitutional rights, laws that let corp. scam artists run amok... (pro-choice hate mongering)

If the question was asked ... what kind of policy do Americans support without context to politics, the majority of people's answers would be "liberal" and "moderate" on issues such as job security, regulations of financial institutions, universal health coverage, education and social security.
F**k (Right) wingnuts...and I don't mean screw or sex!

Host Knows He Loaded Killer’s Gun
By Mary Alice Carr - NARAL Pro-Choice New York

The first time I appeared on “The O’Reilly Factor,” in 2004, I sat across from Bill O’Reilly in awkward silence while he shuffled papers and took notes.

Finally, he glanced up and acknowledged my existence. “Thank you for coming on,” he said. “Most people don’t have the guts.”

I said, “Well, you are one of the most-watched new shows on cable.”

He swiftly retorted, “THE most-watched new show on cable TV.”

Let’s face it: Bill O’Reilly is not only aware of his power and his reach, he’s damn proud of them.

So I went on his show, time and again, even though many other progressives discouraged me. I went because I know what O’Reilly knows: It’s the most-watched show, and I thought it was imperative that his audience also hear our viewpoint.

I also know that when you have a bully pulpit, you need to be held accountable for what you preach.

O’Reilly is being incredibly disingenuous when he claims that he bears no responsibility for others’ actions in the killing of Dr. George Tiller on Sunday. When you tell an audience of millions over and over again that someone is an executioner, you cannot feign surprise when someone executes that person.

You cannot claim to hold no responsibility for what other people do when you call for people to besiege Tiller’s clinic, as O’Reilly did in January 2008. And this was after Tiller had been shot in both arms and after his clinic had been bombed.

O’Reilly knew that people wanted Tiller dead, and he knew full well that many of those people were avid viewers of his show. Still, he fanned the flames. Every time I appeared on his show, I received vitriolic and hatefilled e-mails. And if I received those messages directly, I can only imagine what type of feedback O’Reilly receives. He knows that his words incite violence.

That is why I made a personal pledge to no longer sit across from him after he called for people to converge on Tiller’s clinic. I realized that appearing on the show with him would only legitimize his speech and that no good would come of my efforts.

So on Tuesday morning, when an O’Reilly producer called and asked me to come on the show to “discuss the reasons why women have lateterm abortions,” I held fast to my pledge. I told his producer what I thought: that I had had that conversation on air with O’Reilly five years earlier and that he agreed with me at the time that the decision was between a woman and her doctor. That O’Reilly then went on to pretend we had never talked about it and continued condemning women and doctors. That the nation and those of us in the prochoice community are reeling from the murder of a doctor who helped women. That we hold O’Reilly responsible for helping to create a climate in which hate was allowed to fester. That I refused to dignify his irresponsible behavior, not to mention his deplorable reaction to Tiller’s shooting.

O’Reilly had the opportunity to apologize for his words, and he didn’t. He had the opportunity to say that this tragic outcome was something about which he felt sorry. He didn’t. When restraint and perspective were called for, he fanned the flames higher. In fact, on his June 1 “Talking Points,” he played the martyr, saying his critics were seeking to stifle any criticism of “people like Tiller — that and hating Fox News is the real agenda here.” On his show the next day — the show I declined to appear on — he again called a murdered man “Dr. Killer.”

I admit that after the call from the producer, I hesitated. What an opportunity, I thought, to sit across from O’Reilly and call him out for what he has done and where his responsibility lies. To speak for everyone in America who is hurt and scared and angry. I have never been a Fox News hater; clearly, I’ve used the show for the benefit of my movement and my organization, and I’ve answered his questions on some of the toughest issues around. Didn’t I have the right to also call him out for his speech?

But then I realized I just couldn’t. Because if the murder of a man in a house of worship wasn’t enough to make Bill O’Reilly repent, what hope did I have?

Let's keep our heads, while we continue to
watch THE

THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!! thinkingblue

Where in the world can you go to be happy?

This headline caught my eye because I must honestly say; I did not believe the good ole USA would make that list. I was wrong. Although no US cities ranked among the top 5, we did make it to 7. Guess what? It's San Francisco! Hey, when I think Frisco I think fun. That's what this survey was about, Perception not Reality. We all want happiness but it’s mainly out of reach for most... I'm talking about the average bloke, not the rich
buggers who look down their noses at the rest of us. Our only purpose to these guys... is to wait on them hand and foot. But I digress; Happiness is elusive to us in the states because, We’re too busy scrapping with one another! And if that’s not bad enough? We’re encouraged to do so by those we elect as leaders. How sad is this? As Rodney King (A victim of police brutality.) had asked so long ago, WHY CAN'T WE JUST GET ALONG? Sorry to say, we can’t! Americans rather Brawl not Party. Too bleak for me;

See You in Rio! thinkingblue.blogspot.com

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The world's happiest cities

by Forbes.com, on Wed Sep 2, 2009 by Zack O'Malley Greenburg

Ten urban centers closely associated with unmitigated joy.

Ever since Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers appeared in the 1933
film Flying Down to Rio, the world has been fascinated with Rio
de Janeiro. Popular perception of the city is infused with images
of starry-eyed youngsters dancing into the dusk, backed by
imposing mountains and dark sea.

That view has propelled Rio to the top of our list of the world's
happiest cities. Famous for its annual Carnaval festival
(starting Feb. 13 next year), the second-largest metropolis in
South America finished first among 50 cities in a recent survey
conducted by Simon Anholt, an author and policy adviser.

"Brazil is associated with all these qualities of good humor
and good living and Carnaval," says Anholt. "Carnaval
is very important--it's the classic image that people have of
Rio, and it's an image of happiness."

Next on the list is the top city from Down Under: Sydney,
Australia. Known for balmy weather, friendly locals and an iconic
opera house, Sydney fared well in Anholt's survey because of its
association with a popular brand--Australia.

"It's where everybody would like to go," he says.
"Everybody thinks they know Australia because they've seen
Crocodile Dundee. There's this image of this nation of people who
basically sit around having barbecues."

Rounding out the top five are third-ranked Barcelona, Spain,
which Anholt calls "the classic Mediterranean city";
fourth-ranked Amsterdam, Netherlands, because Anholt's young
respondents "know you can smoke dope in the bars"; and
Melbourne, Australia, which makes the list simply because it's in Australia.

"People know it's in Australia, and that it's full of
Australians," says Anholt. "Therefore, it must be fun."

Behind the Numbers

The data Anholt provided for our list is part of his Nation
Brands Index, which he developed in 2005. The latest incarnation,
the 2009 Anholt-GfK Roper City Brands Index, was released in
June. The data was compiled from online interviews with 10,000
respondents in 20 countries.

Happiness is difficult to quantify, and Anholt acknowledges that
his data is less an indicator of where local populations are
happiest than a reflection of respondents' thinking about where
they could imagine themselves happy.

"This is a survey of perception, not a survey of
reality," he says. "People write me all the time and
say 'that's not true.' It probably isn't true, but it's what
people think. The gap between perception and reality is what
interests city governments."

The French historian Fernand Braudel wrote that "Happiness,
whether in business or private life, leaves very little trace in
history." But a perception of happiness leaves a strong
trace on the balance sheets of cities that depend on conventions,
tourism and an influx of talent.

The Pursuit of Happiness

Anholt notes that the results of his survey reflect the
longstanding reputation of Mediterranean and Latin American
cities as non-stop party locales.

"It's pretty much the expected bunch," says Anholt.
"Though I'm a little surprised about Spain outdoing Italy.
It's interesting that the Spanish are perceived as being happier
than the Italians--I find the Spanish rather gloomy."

Still, Barcelona--Spain's highest-ranked city--has plenty of
supporters.

"The beauty of the city and its environs, along with
affordable housing and business opportunities, is the fantastic
lifestyle," says Michelle Finkelstein, a vice president at
travel agency Our Personal Guest. "There's not the stress of
getting a child into the best preschool--the public ones are good
and close by. And they have the top soccer team and some of the
best weather in Europe."

Other places in the world that lack the metropolitan flair of the
cities on this list are often identified with the notion of
happiness. "Anyone lucky enough to visit the magical
Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan would know that there is no
competition: There can be no happier place," says Patricia
Schultz, author of 1,000 Places to See Before You Die. "This
small Buddhist nation of incredibly stunning beauty follows a
unique guiding philosophy of GNH--Gross National Happiness. You
can see it in their open faces--they smile from the heart.
Barcelona has nothing on them."

Global rivalries notwithstanding, Anholt notes that his findings
more or less support historical trends, with one notable exception.

"The cities on this list would probably be the same if I'd
been running this survey in 1890, aside from Sydney and
Melbourne," he says. "Australia is kind of a branding miracle."

Not bad for a former penal colony.

Let's keep our heads, while we continue to
watch THE

THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!! thinkingblue