My respect for Bill Clinton continues his decline ...

Bill Clinton Hopes Democrats Don’t Use NY-26 Win “As an Excuse to Do Nothing” on Deficit

I was impressed with Clinton for refusing to let the ReThugs drive him from office and at the time I thought he wasn't a bad President. But I've changed my mind. It's clear now that Clinton did a lot of damage. As with Obama, Clinton is just so entrenched in the corporate/political corruption destroying this country that it's difficult to imagine there's even one uncorrupted brain cell in his head.

Today's quote is, uh, "Money is not real." ...

... Money is not real. It is a conscious agreement on measuring abstract value. Unhealthy societies often become mesmerized by money and treat it as if it were something concrete. The effect is to destroy the currency’s practical value.

-- from The Doubter's Companion via digby.

It's been apparent for awhile that our society is not healthy and that money is the only value that is valued by the self-defined valuable-people. All else is 'on the table.'

Authoritarianism, Binge Drinking and the French ...

BBC Global News podcast

GlobalNews: 11 Mar 09 AM Africa IMF/Madoff plea/Afghanistan heroin/France binge drinking
Duration: 26mins

refers to a binge drinking problem that has developed in France, mostly among the young I gather. There are open bars in France, like all-you-can-eat specials here in the US.

Looking at this from the out side and from across the ocean and with only the BBC blurb to guide me, it appears that the French reaction to alcohol abuse is much like that of the US. The authorities see a problem (real or perceived doesn't matter), legislate making an activity or organization illegal and as a result, drive a real problem under ground and/or create a new hidden problem. Here, I thought the French understood 'life, the universe and everything' better than we did. Or at least I thought they thought they did. Oh well, at least one of us was wrong.

The BBC broadcast didn't indicate if there are any ideas why the French youngsters are indulging in binge drinking in a country with a reputation for more responsible use of alcohol than most.

I however, am interested in the causes. Binge drinking is being reported as a big problem here in the US and now as a new problem in France. Binge drinking always existed. Is it really increasing, that is increasing at a higher rate than the population and is it really a new problem among the young in France. If so and if I were an 'authority' I would look into what factors may contribute to this development. Driving another problem underground seems self destructive, not that the most expensive, self destructive approach is not humankind's usual choice.

This can't be written off as bad judgement only ...

The US is struggling with changing mores; changing modes of social communication; regression in attempts at social fairness; and an almost complete corruption of the justice system.

Facebook leads to CMS firing

Inedible Tucson Tidbits ...

Tucson economic misery stressing relief agencies by Patty Machelor

• When [Susan Jean] can, the retired Tucsonan hangs a small bag of food on a fencepost near her home at East Grant and North Country Club roads. Within an hour or two, she said, the bag is gone.
• "I've been involved in food banking for 16 years and I've never seen anything like this, outside of a natural disaster like (hurricanes) Katrina or Rita." --William Carnegie, CEO, Tucson Community Food Bank
• Lines have been so long at the Tucson Community Food Bank that CEO William Carnegie said that if he squints and imagines a black-and-white image, it could be a Great Depression photo.
• Some elderly residents are living in cold houses as they struggle to stretch limited funds, while their younger neighbors search for jobs.
• "Even though I was a little girl, I still got the feeling that people really wanted to help each other, but I don't get that feeling now, that feeling of togetherness, of people really coming together to help people," she said.
• "People have very, very tough decisions to make," she said. "Do I buy food, or do I pay my property taxes?"
• Montaño, 33, said that though her husband has a good job in construction, it doesn't pay enough now to cover food, gasoline and the mortgage on their Southwest Side home for two adults and five children.
• ... this year One Stop is seeing a lot more professionals who can't find work.
• "People are scared. [...] "I know people who have not taken any kind of hit, so to speak, and they're looking out their windows and saying, 'There, but for the grace of God, go I.' "
• "On any given day, there are 50 to 100 people waiting outside for our doors to open," [...] I've been involved in food banking for 16 years and I've never seen anything like this outside of a natural disaster like (hurricanes) Katrina or Rita."
• Beginning in 2009, it will distribute one instead of two emergency food boxes each month. About 5,000 families rely on the second box, he said, but the Food Bank is operating at capacity and expects another increase in demand in January, February and March. -- It also will not distribute holiday food boxes this year, which should save it close to $300,000. Last year, it gave out 20,000 holiday boxes in November and December.
• He said some of the people who come by for coffee between 6:30 and 8 a.m. have been awake since 3 a.m., when they again tried and failed to get a day-labor job.
• "Last year at this time, we were feeding about 500 people a week, and this year we're feeding more than 1,000," she said. "If regular people are feeling this, you can imagine how it is for people who have been poor all along." -- The hardest thing, she said, is turning away people who are hungry. -- "You should see them," said Wright, who has been running this program for 20 years. "I can't even look at their faces."

---

---

Today's QUOTES:

... In other words, there ought to be even more criticism of the probable Brennan selection, but much less gasping in surprise and asking, “How could Obama do that?” --Paying A Price by Daniel Larison, The American Conservative

---

---

Bush the Destroyer's death count just keeps rising ...

... despite new evidence that many employers are ignoring child labor laws. U.S. Department of Labor investigations have dropped by nearly half since fiscal year 2000.
... On a typical day, more than 400 juvenile workers are injured on the job. Once every 10 days, on average, a worker under the age of 18 is killed ...

---

---

Today's QUOTES: Bi-partisanship, anyone? Think about that. The second highest ranking Republican [Arizona's Jon Kyl] in the Senate, just a few days after the election, is already talking about blocking Supreme Court nominations that haven't been named, in response to Supreme Court vacancies that don't exist. I'd add, by the way, that Kyl was one of the conservative Republicans who, in 2005, supported the "nuclear option," which would have declared that filibustering a judicial nominee was against congressional rules. That, of course, was when Bush nominees were in jeopardy. --AN ADVANCE LOOK AT THE REPUBLICAN OPPOSITION.... by Steve Benen at Political Animal, Washington Monthly

---

---

Yesterdays' QUOTES ...

Yet even as they obsess over Barack Obama and Bill Ayers -- just as the McCain campaign tells them to --the news media have all but ignored John McCain's close ties to Gordon Liddy. A Nexis search** finds fewer than 100 news reports that have mentioned McCain and Liddy this year.

The idea that truth is merely a social construct, that it's subjective, in other words, first appeared in academia as a corruption of post-modernism, but it’s taken root in our culture without our really realizing it or understanding its implications.

[ ... ]

Although this kind of thinking, relativism and constructivism, started on the left, many conservatives now feel empowered by it, too, and some of them have embraced it with a vengeance on issues ranging from global warming and evolution to the war in Iraq.

We then try to explain to them why the outer shell color of people matters so much on this planet and why those individuals who can lay eggs (sorta) are regarded as second-class quality essentially everywhere while the egg-laying ability itself is lauded to high heavens. The aliens then roll all their eight eyeballs and decide to vacation on Alpha Centaur next time.

Not being "the other" has some great advantages. For instance, when John McCain or Joe Biden do something stupid they only affect their own reputations, because white men are not "the other". They are individuals. When Barack Obama or Sarah Palin do something stupid they affect the reputations of African-Americans or women respectively (at least among all racists and sexists). They serve as embodiments of the groups they represent. This is the case as long as Firsts are necessary, as long as we only have a handful of individuals on which to base our group assessments.

Money really is the 'root of all evil,' isn't it? ...

From Wikipedia: "Money is the root of all evil" is misattributed to Jesus Christ (actually stated as "the love of money" by Paul the Apostle in his letter to Timothy the Apostle: 1 Timothy 6:10)

OK, let's say the love of money is the root of all evil is more accurate. But sometimes the evil begins with an attempt at survival or from getting caught up in events beyond one's control. Was stealing that loaf of bread evil or did it make Jean Valjean evil?

Yet we have created an absurd 'war on drugs' where we encourage the very thing we claim we want to stop. And it will never stop until we remove the huge financial incentives involved in dealing in illicit drugs. In my opinion, we can only begin to correct the damage we have dome by removing money's corrupting influence and reversing the 'war' approach to this social problem. An approach more along the lines of the way we deal with alcohol would be my suggestion.

Large pot grow found south of Flagstaff by LARRY HENDRICKS, Assistant City Editor, Monday, July 21, 2008

Authorities raided a marijuana growing operation about 25 miles south of Flagstaff last week and seized more than 4,000 plants with an estimated value of $1.5 million.

No arrests were made. According to information from the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office, officers from several local, state and federal agencies descended on the grow Wednesday. It was located in the Coconino National Forest at the bottom of Woods Canyon, which is about two miles south of Schnebly Hill Road and near the Fox Ranch Road exit.

Two hikers had stumbled onto the grow on July 7 and contacted the Metro anti-narcotics task force.

...

If we hadn't made war on drugs such big business with the potential of gigantic monetary rewards both to the criminal and the 'law' enforcement segments of our country (and other countries as well) the criminal element would not be destroying our national parks to grow marijuana (destroying the parks would be the sole province of the Bush gang instead). If we hadn't made war on drugs such a big business we might be able to focus on our fellow human beings who have addictions and begin to address these problems constructively. Warehousing addicts in prisons may provide jobs for low paid guards and much profit for private prison firms but it has a negative impact on our society. But, of course, the present day robber barons and religious fanatics like this medieval world they're creating.

[Note: this post was edited for spelling and sentence construction, not that it helps much.]

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

Is there a definition for journalistic integrity? Media organizations simply ignore — collectively blackout — any stories that expose major corruption in their news reporting ...

It has become harder, Geoghegan says, to use a term like “us” to describe us as a country. “In no other developed country, at no other time in history,” Geoghegan writes, “has there ever been such a steady increase in inequality as there has been in the United States.”

Bush partisans scoffed at critics who worried these new spy powers might be used for nefarious political purposes. After all, that hasn’t happened since the ’70s — during the last ill-fated war (Vietnam) waged by a criminally inclined Republican president (Nixon) — and the ’80s — during the last illegal war (Central America) waged by a morally challenged Republican president (Reagan).

At this rather late stage in life, I'm realizing that the solid America I thought I knew may never have existed. Running very close, under the surface, was a frightened, somewhat hysterical culture that could lose its civilized moorings all at once. I had naively thought that there were some things that Americans would find unthinkable --- torture was one of them.

... the US Ambassador to Canada told her the legal changes wrought in New Orleans will not be put before the three national Congresses for a vote. “We don’t want to open up another NAFTA.” So, they’ll skip the voting stuff. Democracy is so, like, 20th Century.

Torture is always immoral. End of discussion.

When people are in this mode [Us-versus-Them], ideology and fear carry every decision. Those who want to discuss other worldviews or see a wider range of possibilities are considered traitors; and this forecloses almost all creative responses to problems. Furthermore, every resource the culture has must be diverted to winning the battle at hand, without regard for the future costs. Over time, relying on the Us-versus-Them archetype drives societies to eat their seed corn, leaving them bankrupt on every possible front. Still, this is the worldview that defines conservatism.

I went away last weekend and returned to a world of pus dripping stupidity. On Monday morning, wanting to catch up, I tried to sort out who was bitter, elitist, who betrayed their elitism by decrying elitist allegations of bitterness… and then I went to find a bottle of soda, Pop Rocks, and a trampoline.

One would suppose that self protection ...

... would be reason enough to work towards a just society with a fair and wide ranging distribution of resources:

Schizophrenia afflicts about 1% of the overall population, but a much higher proportion of homeless people and prison inmates.

By adding the stress of poor or no jobs as well as the lack of health care and other service for those in need we ensure that illness, both mental and physical, will afflict these groups at increasing levels and that those same people will be further punished for our failure, and in turn they will pay society back for their increasing hardships in crime and other forms of destruction.

This type of societal structure is as illogical and self-destructive as invading a sovereign country and then calling the citizens of that country insurgents when they fight back! (Or are we under some impression that we would not fight back if some foreign military power occupied the United States? I don't think so. Many of us can't even fathom nor accept that non-military individuals seeking survival attempt to enter unnoticed.)

Tax and spend, a concept whose time has come ...

I concure, taxing wealth and spending on society is way past due:

Tax and Spend? Hell, Yeah! by Susan J. Douglas

Arizona, the best ...

... at detecting baby-killers (in our own back yard, not in Iraq).

Arizona ranks best in nation at detecting infant homicides by Thomas Hargrove and John Hall

What disturbs me about this article, besides the fact that some parents can and do kill their own child, is the self congratulatory nature of article about Arizona being just soooo gooood at identifying infant homicides but not one thought about what could be done to reduce the number of such homicides in the first place.

Society needs to provide training and help in raising the next generations. With the demise of the extended family (still around in some cultures) there is little for stressed and ignorant parents to fall back on. There's little or no relief at all for those without sufficient funds. The same steps that would reduce these homicides should be the same steps that would reduce child abuse in general.

Detection after the fact is not the only answer.

The really sad part of this is that we appear to be headed toward a society where more and more stress will be applied and fewer options made available.

Solving the puzzle is commendable but not if you helped set up the scenario in the first place.