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Everyone should have health insurance? I say everyone should have health care. I'm not selling insurance.
—Dennis Kucinich (from Perceval Press)
I'm not so inexperienced as to think that it's enough to say "Everyone, keep yourself healthy!" Or so negative as to think that it's someone's fault if I get sick, or so naive as to think that doctors should know everything or so cynical as to think all doctors (hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, nursing agencies) are only in it for the money.
But seriously.
I'm very interested- personally as well as professionally- in how health care reaches people, and what people expect "health care" to be. How do I, a registered nurse, make available my knowledge, skills, and experience, if I'm not going to do it within the confines of a hospital system, the state/federal public health system, or an agency? Can I charge for it? Barter for goods or services? What risk do I assume? What risk does someone I work with assume?
On the larger scale, do we, as health care "consumers", have any obligation to stay as healthy as possible, to reduce the pressure on those who provide us with basic health care? When private industry takes over the municipal water supply or the garbage pick-up, how does a citizen ensure his or her neighborhood, town, city is safe and sanitary?
What is possible, at the overarching level of the State? How feasible is employer-based insurance? Insurance in general? What are the obligations of the individual-in terms of caring for oneself, for one's family, community, the organizations that provide care?
One of the things that came up at dinner tonight was that Kaiser Permanente has figured out that, with only 2 percent of medical students planning to go into primary care, it needs to take care of the primary care MDs it already has, since it "needs to make them last", as my friend put it. She is 63, had, 10 years ago, her own practice, which she had to give up when spiraling costs and sinking reimbursements made it impossible to continue and still pay off her medical school debt as well as care for her family.
You know what I'd like? If you would give me your experiences- good or bad, honest, I'm interested in all sides- with health care, lack of health care, health care access, health insurance (employer or government based, US or in another country)- how it's changed for you over time, or depending on your age, or status (student, military, married or not, employed or not, healthy or not, pre-existing condition or evolving condition). It feels to me like there's something in this- an article, or series of articles, at least, for one of the nursing magazines- and, in some paradise of enough time and energy and focus and luck, a book or two or three (perhaps one for nurses, one for the public, and those children's books I so want to write about being healthy, having a healthy community). But I can't write anything with only my own experience- so if you would be willing to share yours, or even point me in the direction of things you know or have experienced, but anonymously- I would appreciate it tremendously.
Of course, I would keep any confidences. That's my obligation as an RN- but more, it's my obligation to you as a person, one person to another.
And on that note... /ramble.
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have abut 80 pages of Native American Studies reading to finish by next Saturday. Means I must concentrate on this.
Car needs to be smogged (for my EU/UK friends- have its biennial government-mandated check-up and [pray] pass California's emissions standards). This is going to take a bit of finagling of both time (I can't get to work without a car) and money (please, please let it pass without needing major work, or worse).
I really have to not spend too much time with news of politics, the economy, and world events. It's too easy to fall from 'have to get the car taken care of' to 'I'll be homeless living on twigs' if I read from the debates to the bail-out to Zimbabwe. That's false reasoning (or no reasoning, really), doesn't illuminate anything, steals energy I need to do the actual problem-solving required to be a good citizen, and prevents me from having any real understanding of just how dire things are in other places, like Zimbabwe. Not that that couldn't happen here- history proves anything can happen anywhere, as the very good book for Native American Studies is proving (well-researched and well-written, Indians in American History by Hoxie and Iverson). But it's not happening right-this-minute. I do not need to buy up 50 gallons of water and 10 gallons of gasoline (all I have storage for, myself) and curse myself for not drying 100lbs of apples this fall and burying nuts for winter. That's insane.
So, not too much of the 'news' (or as it should be more accurately called, bread and circuses). Concentrate on finishing uni, on staying (getting more) healthy, on saving money for summer.
Back to the book while my girl is still sleeping. She continues to slowly slip; progressive diseases are unforgiving. But her family loves her, and I'm amazed that it's two years I've been working here with them. It's an honor.
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McCain’s Radical Agenda
By BOB HERBERT
Published: September 15, 2008 (thanks to ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) jassyskie for the heads-up)
Talk about a shock to the system. Has anyone bothered to notice the radical changes that John McCain and Sarah Palin are planning for the nation’s health insurance system?
These are changes that will set in motion nothing less than the dismantling of the employer-based coverage that protects most American families.
A study coming out Tuesday from scholars at Columbia, Harvard, Purdue and Michigan projects that 20 million Americans who have employment-based health insurance would lose it under the McCain plan.
There is nothing secret about Senator McCain’s far-reaching proposals, but they haven’t gotten much attention because the chatter in this campaign has mostly been about nonsense — lipstick, celebrities and “Drill, baby, drill!”
For starters, the McCain health plan would treat employer-paid health benefits as income that employees would have to pay taxes on.
“It means your employer is going to have to make an estimate on how much the employer is paying for health insurance on your behalf, and you are going to have to pay taxes on that money,” said Sherry Glied, an economist who chairs the Department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
Ms. Glied is one of the four scholars who have just completed an independent joint study of the plan. Their findings are being published on the Web site of the policy journal, Health Affairs.
According to the study: “The McCain plan will force millions of Americans into the weakest segment of the private insurance system — the nongroup market — where cost-sharing is high, covered services are limited and people will lose access to benefits they have now.”
The net effect of the plan, the study said, “almost certainly will be to increase family costs for medical care.”
Under the McCain plan (now the McCain-Palin plan) employees who continue to receive employer-paid health benefits would look at their pay stubs each week or each month and find that additional money had been withheld to cover the taxes on the value of their benefits.
While there might be less money in the paycheck, that would not be anything to worry about, according to Senator McCain. That’s because the government would be offering all taxpayers a refundable tax credit — $2,500 for a single worker and $5,000 per family — to be used “to help pay for your health care.”
You may think this is a good move or a bad one — but it’s a monumental change in the way health coverage would be provided to scores of millions of Americans. Why not more attention?
The whole idea of the McCain plan is to get families out of employer-paid health coverage and into the health insurance marketplace, where naked competition is supposed to take care of all ills. (We’re seeing in the Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch fiascos just how well the unfettered marketplace has been working.)
Taxing employer-paid health benefits is the first step in this transition, the equivalent of injecting poison into the system. It’s the beginning of the end.
When younger, healthier workers start seeing additional taxes taken out of their paychecks, some (perhaps many) will opt out of the employer-based plans — either to buy cheaper insurance on their own or to go without coverage.
That will leave employers with a pool of older, less healthy workers to cover. That coverage will necessarily be more expensive, which will encourage more and more employers to give up on the idea of providing coverage at all.
The upshot is that many more Americans — millions more — will find themselves on their own in the bewildering and often treacherous health insurance marketplace. As Senator McCain has said: “I believe the key to real reform is to restore control over our health care system to the patients themselves.”
Yet another radical element of McCain’s plan is his proposal to undermine state health insurance regulations by allowing consumers to buy insurance from sellers anywhere in the country. So a requirement in one state that insurers cover, for example, vaccinations, or annual physicals, or breast examinations, would essentially be meaningless.
In a refrain we’ve heard many times in recent years, Mr. McCain said he is committed to ridding the market of these “needless and costly” insurance regulations.
This entire McCain health insurance transformation is right out of the right-wing Republicans’ ideological playbook: fewer regulations; let the market decide; and send unsophisticated consumers into the crucible alone.
You would think that with some of the most venerable houses on Wall Street crumbling like sand castles right before our eyes, we’d be a little wary about spreading this toxic formula even further into the health care system.
But we’re not even paying much attention.
Direct link to op-ed piece
Ronald Reagan, in 1967, as Governor of California, dismantled much of the state mental health system. Now, it had its definite problems, and could have used a serious overhaul. But all he did was take it apart, without funding or putting into place the community-based systems that were supposed to take over. Now we have prisons full of people who need mental health care and a huge homeless population of mentally ill, but no community-based mental health care. That same term in office, Reagan said 'If you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all," and opened the door to clear-cutting in the state forests. Trees that were 500, 800, 1200 years old cut down to make picnic tables.
Since those two events I've never really trusted a Republican to understand things at ground level, down here among the people. Now McCain shows that he's just as unaware as Reagan was.
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So the deadline for the HHS resolution about changing access to birth control/abortion by changing the rules re: requiring providers to prescribe/dispense comes up on September 25th. That means there are only a few more days to contact your Congress or Senate people, or contact Health and Human Services yourself, and make your point of view known.
I don't really care for having the government- any government, be it local, state, or federal- in my business. I'd much rather practices affecting the common health be made by the commonwealth- by the educated, practiced judgment of my fellow citizens and peers.
But this decision relates to collected, pooled tax money that is used to pay for and support our collective, pooled health- and it's being proposed without the kind of large-scale, in-depth, educated national conversation that I feel is crucial to maintaining a healthy nation.
Maybe it's true. Maybe abstinence is the best method of birth control, taking into account physical, emotional, and spiritual health of all concerned. Then in that case, isn't the conversation about why everyone- everyone- should be practicing abstinence if they're not up for supporting and raising (well) the child of any act of intercourse that leads to conception?
I can never quite get my thoughts to go in a straight enough line to have this all make sense in a post- but I do feel it's a hugely important subject, one that gets a lot of inflammatory energy thrown at it but not much deep, reasoned, compassionate thought.
Which, now, I'm going to go and try to give it more of, while I do my coursework for Native American Studies (in which I finally nail down the shameful role of some Quakers in the destruction of Native American family life through boarding schools, and find my shame is not deep enough, yet, to help me formulate some action that can, in some way, help me try to put things right at this late hour).
Blessings on your heads.
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Can't get into email on this computer. *sigh*
On the upside though: Bus ride down was good! read two more chapters in my Chicano/Latino Cinema studies book. (msilverstar I can lend you this once this semester is over for teenboy and Ed... it is VERY good about the white guy/other stuff). Small Will rode in the window (he is the charming pocket-size turquoise bear I found waiting for me in Germany this summer :-)).
Got off the bus in Unitied Nations Plaza and immediately found a silver ring with large oval red stone, possibly cinnabar, that fits perfectly. Middle finger, left hand. *glee*
Then met up with son, mom, and sister, and walked over to City Hall to see the Harvey Milk bust. First though we walked through the Victory Garden which is blooming and fruiting like MAD; picked some beans (fresh, sweet, easy to eat!) and a lemon cucumber rolled off its embankment to me so I picked it up and tucked it in my pocket. All the food goes to the San Francisco Food Bank. V. V. cool.
Then finally I got to see the Harvey Milk bust in SF City Hall. While we were there we saw three gay weddings performed. *more glee*. Also a wonderful photo exhibit by a photographer whose name escapes me at the moment but I will track it down, because he has asked the same questions of people all over the world for 20 years, and it is fascinating to see what they answer and how they looked when they answered. We did get to see two of the Cool Globes out in front of City Hall.
Then it was on to 826 Valencia and the Pirate Store where we spent a good hour seeing the fish fed, opening the drawers of supplies, swag, and mysteries, and looking through the yearbooks of the writing students there. Mom loved it. Son and sis walked up the street to see her old apartment from 32 years ago. ETA Picked up, at the Pirate Store, a card for a photo exhibition called "The Invisible Age: self-portraits of women aged 50-65" at Rayko Photo. Can't go this time, might come back down for it if I get the chance. Then, just down the street from the Pirate Store, I found, in the $1.00 book bin, The Wild Swan: The Life and Times of Hans Christian Andersen by Monica Stirling, about whom I would now dearly like to know more, and read more by her.
Then we walked to a really good Vietnamese restaurant and chowed down on various fabulous mostly-vegetarian/seafood dishes.
After a brief respite for phone calls, naps, and so on, we went down to Aquatic Park (virtual tour here). Walked in the sand, along Hyde Street Pier; didn't go on the ships though- it was cold, I've been on them all before when son was a volunteer at the Pier, and he's worked on all of them (we got to sleep-over on the Balclutha at one point- so.much.fun). Instead (after buying a few postcards) we walked on and found a lovely little bakery/cappuccino place, sat inside and had good coffee and got warm.
Then home again for a bit, until out to dinner for Japanese food. I had a huge Domburi (cast-iron soup-bowl of broth, udon, and seafood, with vegetables- JUST what I needed/wanted).
Sleep as always when working nights was odd- enough to get by on, but I will be glad to crash after class this afternoon.
Today we will head out to the De Young Museum (which I have not been to in this incarnation, which means I have not been to it since the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989- where DOES the time go?) to see the Chihuly exhibit. Mom and sis have seen his stuff before- mom over the last 20 years or so- because he's local to them, up in Washington- but I've only seen the two pieces glimpsed at the Palace of the Legion of Honor on my way out the door to Europe in May, and I'm excited to see these.
Then when it's time (too early! always) son will very graciously drive me back up home so I can grab up my school stuff and run over to uni for more Chicano/Latino Film studies.
After which I will check email, take a bath, and crash. I hope.
That's my story for the day- what's yours?
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Oops, missed yesterday.
Otoh sleep is good.
So, the upside of no laptop at work is- am getting uni reading done.
Downside of no laptop at home is- no internets in bed. woe. lol.
Tonight off so that I can go to San Francisco tomorrow and meet up with Mom and Sister who are staying at son's. They took the train into town- how fun is that? I'll take the bus down, get a ride back up on Tues.
Then back to it on Tuesday- Chicano/Latino Cinema Tues, Native American Studies and work on Wed.
Am really enjoying the texts for these classes, which is such a lovely change. A well written text is a joy.
Write to your congresspeople about the HHS proposed changes. Even if what we need (and we might, we might, I dunno) is something that allows practitioners to opt out of prescribing birth control, redefining birth control as abortion is not the way to go about it.
With that, back to bed. Sleeping in my own bed, in the dark and quiet night: priceless.
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Register here for November Vote
I may sometimes find Michael Moore abrasive, but his activism is energizing.
I'm more progressive than not. More optimistic than not. But damn, even if you plan to vote McCain/Palin, work to get out the WHOLE vote where you live, willya? everyone. People who agree with you, people who don't.
Work the polls. Yeah, I know it most likely only pays a fraction of what you earn in your workday but come on- it's part of your right to a representative government to make getting that representation ("Hiring your representatives") happen. [California polls information.]
Anyway.
Don't let CNN and NPR be your only sources of news. Get the facts. Dig. Read the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Go to your State's website and learn about election processes in your state. Get involved.
(and for my non-US friends, please, urge your US friends to get involved. Please, please please do not be among the good people who let bad shit happen. "Fight, fight, against the dying of the light...")
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Slept well again last night. Not that I couldn't use ANOTHER 12 hours, but that's not going to happen today. Class, study, work. Still, sleep is good, and getting caught up on uni reading is good.
Now on to the not-so-personal things.
There are a number of things going on in US politics and in US public policy that, frankly, make me frightened, furious, and ready to take action. I keep meaning to post about them, and then finding myself so tired that I am afraid I cannot do them justice. Let me try now.
First is the draft paper before Health and Human Services that will redefine any kind of birth control as abortion. This takes my mind from one place to another, living as I have from the time of the thalidomide scandal through the introduction of The Pill, Planned Parenthood, and legal abortion and Women's Studies as a legitimate field of scholarship.( somewhat rambling pursuit of truth follows )
For a more forceful, more focused, and (probably) more useful presentation of the issues surrounding the HHS paper and what (if you are so moved) you can do about it, tammy212 has put together three well-written posts about it.
And now we have Sarah Palin as vice-presidential nominee. Which is several kettles of fish, most of which smell already. And I need to go to class. So confused sorting out of that will need to be a post for another day.
This post brought to you by the letters X and Y and the gratitude for a forum for my thoughts and the education to at least partially think this through and be able to do research and present it for discussion.
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Ok. I have been studying Marshall Rosenberg's theory and practice of Nonviolent Communication for a number of years now, and YAY! for YouTube: he's on it. I cannot recommend this enough- I hope the vids are enough to whet your appetites for being treated kindly, with respect and dignity, and the expectation that what you want most from life is to be alive every minute.
Nonviolent Communication
part 1 9 mins 35 sec.
part 2 5 mins 47 sec. (particularly helpful about depression)
part 3 4 mins 25 sec.
Nonviolent Communication and Corporations
part 1 28 mins 32 sec.
part 2 28 mins 58 sec.
part 3 26 mins 32 sec.
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| 2008-03-15 13:51 |
| Ethics, politics, the world, fanfic, and music |
| Public |
| despair-work, fandom, fic, music, peace-work, politics, reccies |
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the first three can be summed up here: Monks Protest in Tibet and Nepal. Candles vs. automatic weapons; bare arms and heads against full body armor; the search for compassion, connection, and peace vs. fear, loneliness, and hate.
and the second? Idaho Mortensen and the Obelisk of Osiris. As the author says, It's funny, it's cheesy, it's even work-safe.
Me? I've finished vacuuming the Mail program on the big computer. I've been swimming. I've prayed for my fandom. I've talked with friends about my trip to Europe.
And now I'm going to bed. Blessings on your heads, each and every one of you.
Ah. And, courtesy of poetic_self: Ray LaMontagne, Till the Sun Turns Black.
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Because I will be taking Political Science, and Critical Thinking this Spring Term, some things in my FL and around and about. (Sorry, no lj-cut today ;))
1) The gay rights meme: I dislike the wording of it [posted it last year, and had the wording pointed out to me then- a lot to think about since then]. Suffice to say my son's gay, and I do worry about his rights being restricted because of that.
2) Rudeness in LJ and other places: reading someone's journal is like anything else voluntary: You're free to leave, anytime. No need to flame them, email rude things, or start a brawl in comments. Save your sanity, and just leave.
3) notes from all over:
About the US elections:
from ithiliana13: Gloria Steinem and Melissa Harris-Lacewell on race and gender in presidential politics. Ithiliana says: "Steinem has not done enough to think about racism and intersectional theory, and it shows."
from ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif) dark_christian: Mike Huckabee, the Constitution, and 'God's Standards' "(excerpt)[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it's a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards," Huckabee said, referring to the need for a constitutional human life amendment and an amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. (thanks to zorya_speaks) from The New York Times : Dennis Kucinich battles for your right to hear all the candidates, so you can make up your own mind. about US policyUS Joint Chief of Staff would like to see Guantánamo shut down (thanks to nverland and she_gollum for surfacing the story and for keeping Gitmo front and center in my thinking). About thinking:from circe_tigana: A discussion (not stated truths) about the Cassie Edwards/Signet Publishing plagiarism situation, and secondarily, as Circe says, "a case study in the evolution of a created newstory in the internet age i[which] can't be beat." (linked with permission). The Fallacy of NeutralityPlagiarism is a Community IssueThe New P&P: Professionalism and Plagiarism, a not so classic tale of romance. [A woman who, oh, 35 years ago, I took care of in daycare (and am still in contact with), is now a romance and sci-fi writer (among many, many other things), so I'm following this with particular interest because it is close to home.] About writing:from penknife: prompts at the potcfest as well as other ficathons are still available!from dorrie6 ! axial_tilt multifandom pg fanfic exchange- today is last day to sign up</a> Movies I recommend, or want to see, and what I'm reading about movies: Alex Gibney's Taxi to the Dark Side; Wonders are Many by Jon Else; Black Light/White Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by Steven Okazaki; Sweeney Todd; Comanche Moon; Women in Film by Jeannie Rose. And what is a long, link-filled post without a present or two? Ocean Surf: timeless and sublime by Dan Gibson (will reupload on yousendit soon); and Kindness, by Naomi Shihab Nye.
Kindness
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.
~ Naomi Shihab Nye ~
(Words From Under the Words: Selected Poems)blessings on your heads. all of you.
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on a better note: Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness
Washington, DC
March 20-23, 2008
Split This Rock
info@splitthisrock.org
Split This Rock Poetry Festival calls poets to a greater role in public life and fosters a national network of activist poets. Building the audience for poetry of provocation and witness from our home in the nation's capital, we celebrate poetic diversity and the transformative power of the imagination. Featuring readings, workshops, panels, contests, walking tours, film, parties, and activism! See the website for the incredible line-up of poets, including Lucille Clifton, Mark Doty, Martín Espada, Sam Hamill, Galway Kinnell, Naomi Shihab Nye, Sonia Sanchez, and many more. Split This Rock is cosponsored by DC Poets Against the War, Sol & Soul, Busboys and Poets, and the Institute for Policy Studies. Split This Rock
Poetry Contest – January 15 Deadline: The contest benefits Split This Rock Poetry Festival. $1,000 awarded for poems of provocation & witness; Kyle G. Dargan will judge. $500 for 1st, $300 for 2 nd, and $200 for 3rd place. 1st place winner will read the winning poem at the festival. The poem will also be published on the festival website at www.SplitThisRock.org. All winners receive free festival admission. $20 entry fee benefits the festival. Postmark Deadline: January 15, 2008. Guidelines for entry: Guidelines for Contests.
Call for Poetry Films – January 30 Deadline: Seeking artistic, experimental, and challenging interpretations of poetry that explore critical social issues. Films up to 15 minutes. Entry fee: $15. Selected films and videos will be screened during the festival's film program. For full guidelines and required entry form: http://splitthisrock.org/film.html
Support Split This Rock, the historic gathering of activist poets: Every dollar you give is tax-deductible through our fiscal sponsor, the Institute for Policy Studies. Just click here: Secure Donations keyand be sure to designate "Split This Rock" as the project you'd like to support. Or send a check payable to "IPS/Split This Rock" to: IPS, 1112 16 th Street, NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20036. Many thanks! Your contribution will make a tremendous difference.
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from Perceval Press: We wish our brother Floyd Red Crow Westerman a Continued Good Journey,
and thank him for making our own journeys better by his dignified and wise example. Pilamaya Kola!
Floyd Red Crow Westerman's activism, movie work, and musicianship. Thank you, Floyd, for carrying the fire.
"And I told them not to dig for uranium, for if they did, the children would die. They didn't listen, they didn't listen, they didn't listen to me. And I told them if the children die, there would be no keepers of the land. They didn't listen. And I told them if they destroy the sky, machines would come and soon destroy the land. They didn't listen... And I told them if they destroy the land, man would have to move into the sea. They didn't listen... And I told them if they destroy the sea -- they didn't listen..." -From the Floyd Westerman song "They Didn't Listen" as Westerman recited the lyric concluding his testimony in 1992 at the World Uranium Hearings in Salzburg, Austria. [from Wikipedia]
~~
"...significant portions of the testimony..." from the World Uranium Hearings.
~~
Floyd Westerman on Internet Radio
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| 2007-10-16 18:08 |
| PSAs |
| Public |
| between here and a nap |
| content |
| how to save a life/live sessions @aol/the fray |
| burma, charity, ecology, economics, fun, health, history, hope, kindness, philosophy, poetry, politics, psychology |
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No cuts. Not today.
The redemption of Cutler Beckett or Tom Hollander's charities.
Orlando Bloom and others design cards for Epidermolysis Bullosa charity
redscorner's Fight to earn enough to pay for brain surgery: quoted from verisimilitant. redscorner is currently suffering from two serious neurological conditions which require surgery, but she is unemployed, without health care, and unable to qualify for Medicaid. However, megaupload has this 'rewards program' where, if she can secure 5 million downloads, they will give her 10,000 dollars. She has until the end of November to do this. You can download once every day and each download helps. The files are txt documents that give more details about her situation. They are spyware, malware, and virus free and really only take a second to download. Help this girl out and, if you feel so inclined, post this in your own journal to help spread the cause.
1. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5QBOA940
2. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7LPXMESC
3. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0O8AYRES
Proof links are virus-free
Via rocketbalm
[My dad worked at RAND corporation in the 50's. I thought everyone had discussions like this at the dinner table and beach-side barbecues. Guess not, hunh. This is so well done.]
Please support something, anything, for the people of Burma. The US Campaign For Burma will take immediate donations, or you can buy The CD 'For the Lady' or one of the beautiful WEAVE scarves. Similar site is Burmacampaign.UK.
Do something for yourself. Make a journey into The Depths of Money and start saving yourself from drowning in debt, stuff, or need.
Be excellent to one another. Watch a good movie, take a good walk, read a good book, cook a good meal, have a good bath. Recognize the good and sacred in each thing, place, person, idea that crosses your path.
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.
- Walt Whitman
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|
| 2007-09-18 00:09 |
| Sometimes, their hearing's troubled... |
| Public |
| uni lab |
| somber |
| batanga cubanismo |
| poetry, politics |
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But The Wise Perceive Things About To Happen
For the gods perceive things in the future,
ordinary people things in the present,
but the wise perceive things about to happen.
Philostratos,
Life of Apollonios of Tyana, viii, 7
Ordinary mortals know what's happening now,
the gods know what the future holds
because they alone are totally enlightened.
Wise men are aware of future things
just about to happen.
Sometimes during moments of intense study
their hearing's troubled: the hidden sound
of things approaching reaches them,
and they listen reverently, while in the street outside
the people hear nothing whatsoever.
Constantine P. Cavafy
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