Friday, April 28, 2006
Blue Hearts 14.4.28.06
Hey all,
I wanted to get out this next blog asap because there are action items I'd like you to view before it's too late...
Please pay special attention to the article by Bill Moyers. If you can't get through anything else, it is a must read under general interest.
Happy reading.
Kristin
HUMOR
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It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and then -- just to loosen up.
Inevitably, though, one thought led to another, and soon I was more than just a social thinker.
I began to think alone -- "to relax," I told myself -- but I knew it wasn't true. Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I was thinking all the time.
That was when things began to sour at home. One evening I had turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent that night at her mother's.
I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and employment don't mix, but I couldn't stop myself.
I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, "What is it exactly we are doing here?"
One day the boss called me in. He said, "Listen, I like you, and it hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don't stop thinking on the job, you'll have to find another job."
This gave me a lot to think about. I came home early after my conversation with the boss. "Honey," I confess, "I've been thinking..."
"I know you've been thinking," She said, "and I want a divorce!"
"But Honey, surely it's not that serious."
"It is serious," she said, lower lip aquiver. "You think as much as college professors and college professors don't make any money, so if you keep on thinking, we won't have any money!"
"That's a faulty syllogism," I said impatiently. She exploded in tears of rage and frustration, but I was in no mood to deal with the emotional drama. "I'm going to the library," I snarled as I stomped out the door.
I headed for the library, in the mood for some Nietzsche. I roared into the parking lot with NPR on the radio and ran up to the big glass doors... They didn't open. The library was closed.
To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that night. Leaning on the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Zarathustra, a Poster caught my eye, "Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?" it asked.
You probably recognize that line. It comes from the standard Thinkers Anonymous poster. Which is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker.
I never miss a TA meeting. At each meeting we watch a non-educational video; last week it was "Porky's."
Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting. I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home. Life just seemed...easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking.
I think the road to recovery is nearly complete for me.
Today I made the final step, I registered to vote as a Republican.
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Subject: turn up your speakers...The Decider!
http://decider.cf.huffingtonpost.com/
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These are great!
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(I've put this one in before but, just in case you missed it... K)
Subject: OXYMORON: REPUBLICAN LOGIC
Things you have to believe to be a Republican today.....
Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.
Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him, and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.
Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is Communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.
The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.
A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.
The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches, while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.
If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.
A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our long-time allies, then demand their cooperation and money.
Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy, but providing health care to all Americans is socialism. HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.
Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.
A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense, but a president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.
Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.
The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's driving record is none of our business.
Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.
What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the '80s is irrelevant.
Friends don't let friends vote Republican
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GENERAL INTEREST:
(Here's your must-read article!!! K)
Insanity Now Mainstream, There Is No Tomorrow
By Bill Moyers
The Star Tribune
January 30, 2005
One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.
Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.
Remember James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony, he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back."
Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the country. They are the people who believe the Bible is literally true - one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate. In this past election several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in the rapture index.
That's right - the rapture index. Google it and you will find that the best-selling books in America today are the 12 volumes of the "Left Behind" series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious-right warrior Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans.
Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for adding to my own understanding): Once Israel has occupied the rest of its "biblical lands," legions of the antichrist will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon.
As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to Heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow.
I'm not making this up. Like Monbiot, I've read the literature. I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
That's why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations where four angels "which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man." A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed - an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the rapture index stood at 144 - just one point below the critical threshold when the whole thing will blow, the son of God will return, the righteous will enter Heaven and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire.
So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? Go to Grist to read a remarkable work of reporting by the journalist Glenn Scherer - "The Road to Environmental Apocalypse." http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2004/10/27/scherer-christian/ Read it and you will see how millions of Christian fundamentalists may believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed - even hastened - as a sign of the coming apocalypse.
As Grist makes clear, we're not talking about a handful of fringe lawmakers who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. Nearly half the U.S. Congress before the recent election - 231 legislators in total and more since the election - are backed by the religious right.
Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th Congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian right advocacy groups. They include Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Conference Chair Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Policy Chair Jon Kyl of Arizona, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Whip Roy Blunt. The only Democrat to score 100 percent with the Christian coalition was Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, who recently quoted from the biblical book of Amos on the Senate floor: "The days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land." He seemed to be relishing the thought.
And why not? There's a constituency for it. A 2002 Time-CNN poll found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the book of Revelations are going to come true. Nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the 9/11 attacks. Drive across the country with your radio tuned to the more than 1,600 Christian radio stations, or in the motel turn on some of the 250 Christian TV stations, and you can hear some of this end-time gospel. And you will come to understand why people under the spell of such potent prophecies cannot be expected, as Grist puts it, "to worry about the environment. Why care about the earth, when the droughts, floods, famine and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the Bible? Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued in the rapture? And why care about converting from oil to solar when the same God who performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes can whip up a few billion barrels of light crude with a word?"
Because these people believe that until Christ does return, the Lord will provide. One of their texts is a high school history book, "America's Providential History." You'll find there these words: "The secular or socialist has a limited-resource mentality and views the world as a pie ... that needs to be cut up so everyone can get a piece." However, "[t]he Christian knows that the potential in God is unlimited and that there is no shortage of resources in God's earth ... while many secularists view the world as overpopulated, Christians know that God has made the earth sufficiently large with plenty of resources to accommodate all of the people." No wonder Karl Rove goes around the White House whistling that militant hymn, "Onward Christian Soldiers." He turned out millions of the foot soldiers on Nov. 2, including many who have made the apocalypse a powerful driving force in modern American politics.
It is hard for the journalist to report a story like this with any credibility. So let me put it on a personal level. I myself don't know how to be in this world without expecting a confident future and getting up every morning to do what I can to bring it about. So I have always been an optimist. Now, however, I think of my friend on Wall Street whom I once asked: "What do you think of the market? "I'm optimistic," he answered. "Then why do you look so worried?" And he answered: "Because I am not sure my optimism is justified."
I'm not, either. Once upon a time I agreed with Eric Chivian and the Center for Health and the Global Environment that people will protect the natural environment when they realize its importance to their health and to the health and lives of their children. Now I am not so sure. It's not that I don't want to believe that - it's just that I read the news and connect the dots.
I read that the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has declared the election a mandate for President Bush on the environment. This for an administration:
a. That wants to rewrite the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act protecting rare plant and animal species and their habitats, as well as the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires the government to judge beforehand whether actions might damage natural resources.
b. That wants to relax pollution limits for ozone; eliminate vehicle tailpipe inspections, and ease pollution standards for cars, sport-utility vehicles and diesel-powered big trucks and heavy equipment.
c. That wants a new international audit law to allow corporations to keep certain information about environmental problems secret from the public.
d. That wants to drop all its new-source review suits against polluting, coal-fired power plants and weaken consent decrees reached earlier with coal companies.
e. That wants to open the Arctic [National] Wildlife Refuge to drilling and increase drilling in Padre Island National Seashore, the longest stretch of undeveloped barrier island in the world and the last great coastal wild land in America.
I read the news just this week and learned how the Environmental Protection Agency had planned to spend $9 million - $2 million of it from the administration's friends at the American Chemistry Council - to pay poor families to continue to use pesticides in their homes. These pesticides have been linked to neurological damage in children, but instead of ordering an end to their use, the government and the industry were going to offer the families $970 each, as well as a camcorder and children's clothing, to serve as guinea pigs for the study.
I read all this in the news.
I read the news just last night and learned that the administration's friends at the International Policy Network, which is supported by Exxon Mobil and others of like mind, have issued a new report that climate change is "a myth, sea levels are not rising" [and] scientists who believe catastrophe is possible are "an embarrassment."
I not only read the news but the fine print of the recent appropriations bill passed by Congress, with the obscure (and obscene) riders attached to it: a clause removing all endangered species protections from pesticides; language prohibiting judicial review for a forest in Oregon; a waiver of environmental review for grazing permits on public lands; a rider pressed by developers to weaken protection for crucial habitats in California.
I read all this and look up at the pictures on my desk, next to the computer - pictures of my grandchildren. I see the future looking back at me from those photographs and I say, "Father, forgive us, for we know not what we do." And then I am stopped short by the thought: "That's not right. We do know what we are doing. We are stealing their future. Betraying their trust. Despoiling their world."
And I ask myself: Why? Is it because we don't care? Because we are greedy? Because we have lost our capacity for outrage, our ability to sustain indignation at injustice?
What has happened to our moral imagination?
On the heath Lear asks Gloucester: "How do you see the world?" And Gloucester, who is blind, answers: "I see it feelingly.'"
I see it feelingly.
The news is not good these days. I can tell you, though, that as a journalist I know the news is never the end of the story. The news can be the truth that sets us free - not only to feel but to fight for the future we want. And the will to fight is the antidote to despair, the cure for cynicism, and the answer to those faces looking back at me from those photographs on my desk. What we need is what the ancient Israelites called hochma - the science of the heart ... the capacity to see, to feel and then to act as if the future depended on you.
Believe me, it does.
Bill Moyers was host until recently of the weekly public affairs series "NOW with Bill Moyers" on PBS. This article is adapted from AlterNet, where it first appeared. The text is taken from Moyers' remarks upon receiving the Global Environmental Citizen Award from the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School.
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(Different from what I normally send your way but I thought it shows how many of us view ourselves, vs. those in the article above. K)
Christians - By Maya Angelou
When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not shouting "I'm clean livin'."
I'm whispering "I was lost,
Now I'm found and forgiven."
When I say... "I am a Christian"
I don't speak of this with pride.
I'm confessing that I stumble
and need Christ to be my guide.
When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not trying to be strong.
I'm professing that I'm weak
And need His strength to carry on.
When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not bragging of success.
I'm admitting I have failed
And need God to clean my mess.
When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not claiming to be perfect,
My flaws are far too visible
But, God believes I am worth it.
When I say... "I am a Christian"
I still feel the sting of pain.
I have my share of heartaches
So I call upon His name.
When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not holier than thou,
I'm just a simple sinner
Who received God's good grace, somehow!
Share this with somebody who already has this understanding, as reinforcement. But more importantly, share this with those who do not have a clear understanding of what it means to be a Christian, so that the myth that Christians think they are "perfect" or "better than others"can be dispelled.
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April 21, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
The Great Revulsion
By PAUL KRUGMAN
"I have a vision — maybe just a hope — of a great revulsion: a moment in which the American people look at what is happening, realize how their good will and patriotism have been abused, and put a stop to this drive to destroy much of what is best in our country."
I wrote those words three years ago in the introduction to my column collection, "The Great Unraveling." It seemed a remote prospect at the time: Baghdad had just fallen to U.S. troops, and President Bush had a 70 percent approval rating.
Now the great revulsion has arrived. The latest Fox News poll puts Mr. Bush's approval at only 33 percent. According to the polling firm Survey USA, there are only four states in which significantly more people approve of Mr. Bush's performance than disapprove: Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Nebraska. If we define red states as states where the public supports Mr. Bush, Red America now has a smaller population than New York City.
The proximate causes of Mr. Bush's plunge in the polls are familiar: the heck of a job he did responding to Katrina, the prescription drug debacle and, above all, the quagmire in Iraq.
But focusing too much on these proximate causes makes Mr. Bush's political fall from grace seem like an accident, or the result of specific missteps. That gets things backward. In fact, Mr. Bush's temporarily sky-high approval ratings were the aberration; the public never supported his real policy agenda.
Remember, in 2000 Mr. Bush got within hanging-chad and felon-purge distance of the White House only by pretending to be a moderate. In 2004 he ran on fear and smear, plus the pretense that victory in Iraq was just around the corner. (I've always thought that the turning point of the 2004 campaign was the September 2004 visit of the Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, a figurehead appointed by the Bush administration who rewarded his sponsors by presenting a falsely optimistic picture of the situation in Iraq.)
The real test of the conservative agenda came after the 2004 election, when Mr. Bush tried to sell the partial privatization of Social Security.
Social Security was for economic conservatives what Iraq was for the neocons, a soft target that they thought would pave the way for bigger conquests. And there couldn't have been a more favorable moment for privatization than the winter of 2004-2005: Mr. Bush loved to assert that he had a "mandate" from the election; Republicans held solid, disciplined majorities in both houses of Congress; and many prominent political pundits were in favor of private accounts.
Yet Mr. Bush's drive on Social Security ran into a solid wall of public opposition, and collapsed within a few months. And if Social Security couldn't be partly privatized under those conditions, the conservative dream of dismantling the welfare state is nothing but a fantasy.
So what's left of the conservative agenda? Not much.
That's not a prediction for the midterm elections. The Democrats will almost surely make gains, but the electoral system is rigged against them. The fewer than eight million residents of what's left of Red America are represented by eight U.S. senators; the more than eight million residents of New York City have to share two senators with the rest of New York State.
Meanwhile, a combination of accident and design has left likely Democratic voters bunched together — I'm tempted to say ghettoized — in a minority of Congressional districts, while likely Republican voters are more widely spread out. As a result, Democrats would need a landslide in the popular vote — something like an advantage of 8 to 10 percentage points over Republicans — to take control of the House of Representatives. That's a real possibility, given the current polls, but by no means a certainty.
And there is also, of course, the real prospect that Mr. Bush will change the subject by bombing Iran.
Still, in the long run it may not matter that much. If the Democrats do gain control of either house of Congress, and with it the ability to issue subpoenas, a succession of scandals will be revealed in the final years of the Bush administration. But even if the Republicans hang on to their ability to stonewall, it's hard to see how they can resurrect their agenda.
In retrospect, then, the 2004 election looks like the high-water mark of a conservative tide that is now receding.
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(Thought it would help to have a reminder of our Buy Blue guidelines. In addition, check out the next article on Blue Hearts' own, Dr. Maria Kunstadter and Linda Eakes of Buying Influence Inc. K)
From: "Raven Brooks, BuyBlue.org"
Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006
What's New at BuyBlue? Issue 1
===============================
Greetings BuyBlue supporters! This email is the first in a new series of communications designed to keep everyone informed about the latest happenings at the site. In the past we've only sent out emails when significant events occur, but we felt we needed a regular communication to keep people informed. We realize everyone is busy and you may not have the time to visit the site regularly. The purpose of these emails is to quickly let you know what is going on so you can get involved if you'd like to. If you want to see something covered here as a regular feeature please let us know.
What's new?
-----------
Recent Blogs
++++++++++++
Wal-Mart has a change of heart? [http://www.buyblue.org/node/6184]
AOL Censors Email Tax Opponents [http://www.buyblue.org/node/6183]
Money in Politics [http://www.buyblue.org/node/6182]
Money's Going to Talk in 2008 [http://www.buyblue.org/node/6181]
Military-Style Rule at Home Depot [http://www.buyblue.org/node/6178]
Industry of the Week
++++++++++++++++++++
Visit our site to see how players in the Grocery [http://www.buyblue.org/directory/48] business stack up. If you see something not categorized appropriately please let us know [http://www.buyblue.org/contact]!
Be a BuyBlue Activist!
----------------------
- Send this email to a friend.
- Get 3 people signed up on our mailing list.
- Check out our downloads page [http://www.buyblue.org/download], add a graphic to your emails, blogs and forum signatures.
- Visit our web site and make a comment in one blog entry or forum topic, keep the discussion going!
-----------------------------------
Important BuyBlue.org Links:
Home Page: http://www.buyblue.org
A-Z Company Listing: http://www.buyblue.org/directory/alpha
Categorized Listing: http://www.buyblue.org/directory
Ranked Listing Listing: http://www.buyblue.org/company/ranking
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(Buying Influence article as mentioned above. Congratulations Maria and Linda!!!! K)
Subject: Re: Business Journal
Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 18:00:24 -0500
KC nonprofit ranks companies' treatment of women, minorities Kansas City Business Journal - 3:26 PM CDT Monday
Buying Influence Inc., a new nonprofit that ranks companies based on their policies toward women and minorities, will officially launch on Tuesday. The Kansas City-based nonprofit corporation's founder and CEO is Dr. Maria Kunstadter, a local dentist. The nonprofit's president and executive director is Linda Eakes. Eakes said Monday that Buying Influence is timing its launch to coincide with National Pay Equity Day on Tuesday, designated by the National Pay Equity Association.
Buying Influence ranks companies based on factors including pay equity for women and minorities and fair representation in the highest levels of management and on corporate boards. Eakes said that the nonprofit is operating on donations and that it plans to apply for governmental and private grants. She wouldn't disclose the organization's budget. Eakes, Kunstadter and a researcher constitute the organization's staff. Eakes is a co-founder of the Women's Business Center in 1999 and was its director from 2000-2004.
Buying Influence plans a news conference at 11:45 a.m. Tuesday in Helzberg Auditorium at the Kansas City Public Library's downtown branch. The nonprofit posts its company rankings on its Web site. http://buyinginfluence.com/
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(These next 2 articles are not under local issues because they speak to us all. But they do deal with local people. The first one is particularly apropos after our last Blue Hearts meeting at Stowers. K)
April 24, 2006
Democrats Hope to Divide G.O.P. Over Stem Cells
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
COLUMBIA, Mo., April 19 — Democrats are pressing their support for embryonic stem cell research in Congressional races around the country, seeking to move back to center stage an issue they believe resonates with voters and to exploit a division between conservatives who oppose the science and other Republicans more open to it.
The question of whether the government should support or limit stem cell research has cropped up in Senate races in Maryland and Missouri, and in House races in California, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin, especially in suburban swing districts.
"What Democrats want to do is gin up their turnout in the suburbs and divide Republicans, and right now they may do that," said Jennifer E. Duffy, who tracks Senate races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. "This is the first real wedge issue Democrats have had with Republicans."
The topic may not have the power of those frequently used by Republicans to rally their conservative base, like same-sex marriage and abortion. But it could help Democrats win voters who are pinning their hopes on the science for treatments and cures.
It may also influence voter turnout in some races, including here in Missouri, where a proposed constitutional amendment to protect stem cell research is making front-page news, and the incumbent Republican senator, Jim Talent, is facing a tough re-election challenge from the state auditor, Claire McCaskill, a Democrat.
On Tuesday, Ms. McCaskill appeared in the central Missouri town of Fayette, population 2,793, for a wine-and-cheese reception at an antiques shop and, later, for a dinner of roast beef and potatoes in the brightly lit social hall of St. Joseph's, a Roman Catholic church. A Catholic church is hardly the kind of place where most politicians would talk up embryonic stem cell studies — church leaders are fiercely opposed — but Ms. McCaskill did just that.
"There are people of principle who disagree with this form of research," Ms. McCaskill told her audience. "I respect their principles. But what I don't respect is someone dancing around science for political cover."
It was a pointed barb at Mr. Talent, a first-term Republican who has publicly wrestled with the stem cell issue and has avoided taking a stand on the proposed amendment. The initiative, destined for the November ballot if supporters gather enough signatures, is intended to beat back efforts to ban the research in Missouri. It would permit stem cell studies as long as they remain legal under federal law.
With the Talent-McCaskill race too close to call, the initiative has thrust Mr. Talent into a treacherous Republican crosscurrent. On one side are Christian conservatives, who gave Mr. Talent their strong support when he ran for office in 2002 and are threatening not to vote unless he takes a stand on the amendment.
On the other are business-minded Republicans, like Gov. Matt Blunt and John C. Danforth, a former United States senator, who back the initiative, saying the science holds promise not only for patients, but also for the economic health of the state.
Mr. Danforth, an Episcopal minister, and his brother, William, the chancellor emeritus of Washington University in St. Louis, have taken a prominent role in promoting the amendment.
"It's a hard issue for him," Mr. Danforth said, referring to Mr. Talent.
Although scientists see hope in embryonic stem cell research for treatments and cures, opponents view the studies as immoral because the cells are extracted from human embryos. Research can be conducted freely with private money, but whether the government should pay for it has been a vexing question for Republicans.
President Bush tackled the topic in August 2001 by imposing strict limits on taxpayer financing of embryonic stem cell research. He has vowed to veto any measure that would loosen those restrictions. But the House defied the president last year in voting to do just that.
With the one-year anniversary of the House vote coming in May, backers of stem cell studies are planning a series of events intended to press the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist — who has broken with the president to support the House bill — into bringing the measure to a vote.
On Tuesday, the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, an advocacy group, plans to have a researcher brief lawmakers in Washington on his work.
Around the country, Democrats in seven House races are highlighting the stem cell issue with advertisements distributed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The advertisements spotlight Republicans like Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah and the former first lady Nancy Reagan who have been vocal supporters of the research.
"This is a personal issue because it holds out hope for a lot of people," said Ed Perlmutter, a Democrat running for Congress in suburban Denver. Mr. Perlmutter knows that firsthand: his daughter has epilepsy, and his in-laws have diabetes, disorders that may be helped by stem cell research.
The stem cell issue has also figured in the Maryland Senate race. Democrats there seized on a statement by the Republican candidate, Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, who opposes the destruction of embryos for research. In February, Mr. Steele likened such studies to Nazi experiments in a speech before a Jewish group. The wife of a leading Democratic contender for Senate, Representative Benjamin L. Cardin, was in the audience, and Mr. Steele later apologized.
But nowhere has the stem cell issue been more potent than here in the political bellwether state of Missouri, where Mr. Talent was elected to the Senate in 2002.
Through a spokesman, the senator declined to be interviewed, saying he had already articulated his views in a lengthy Senate speech. In it, he focused on a type of study that involves obtaining stem cells by cloning human embryos, calling for a government competition to spur scientists to find alternative methods.
But Mr. Talent also took his name off a sweeping anti-cloning bill, saying he feared the measure might preclude those alternatives. Many Christian conservatives and Catholic leaders were outraged.
"Most pro-life voters just feel he's turned his back on them," said Larry Weber, executive director of the Missouri Catholic Conference, who opposes embryonic stem cell research.
The big question in Missouri is whether those voters, who helped put Mr. Talent in office, will shun him now. Here in Columbia, a college town where life centers around the University of Missouri, Dennis Ballard, a patron at a downtown coffeehouse, said he wanted Mr. Talent to take a position on the ballot measure.
"I'll not vote for a Democrat," said Mr. Ballard, a retired medical administrator who voted for Mr. Talent in 2002. "But I'll hold the option of staying home and not voting for a Republican who won't take a position."
John Hancock, a consultant to the Talent campaign, said he doubted such sentiment would affect the race. "Senator Talent's very thoughtful position on stem cell, when it is clearly understood," Mr. Hancock said, "is going to be very well received by all Missourians."
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NY Times Editorial
April 22, 2006
Kiss-and-Tell No More
A federal judge in Kansas has dealt another blow to the crusade by the state's attorney general, Phill Kline, to restrict abortions under the phony banner of combating child abuse.
In February, the Kansas Supreme Court blocked Mr. Kline from invading the medical privacy of 90 women and girls who were treated at two abortion clinics. This week, a federal trial judge in Wichita killed Mr. Kline's daft idea to require doctors, school counselors and psychotherapists, among others, to report all sexual activity by people under 16, from kissing to sexual intercourse.
In 2003, Mr. Kline issued an advisory opinion that changed the interpretation of Kansas' law requiring the reporting of child abuse. It made mandatory the reporting of every instance of suspected consensual sex among teenagers of similar ages, including any pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease or request for contraception.
Doctors, nurses, therapists and sex educators sued, and the federal judge, Thomas Marten, held that Mr. Kline's opinion violated the actual language of the underlying state statute, which gives those treating adolescents discretion to decide whether illegal sexual activity amounts to actual child abuse. Kansas law prohibits intercourse, oral sex and lewd touching by anyone under 16.
Setting a potentially important constitutional precedent, Judge Marten also found that adolescents enjoy a limited right of informational privacy in their communications with health care workers.
Judge Marten said Mr. Kline's blunderbuss reporting requirement would jeopardize the physical and mental health of adolescents by deterring them from seeking testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, birth control and counseling. It would also hurt efforts to combat real child abuse by overwhelming social service officials.
It seems too much to hope that this will end the matter, since Mr. Kline is likely to appeal, and anti-abortion groups are eager to expand the use of child-abuse reporting laws. But for the moment, the thoughtful new ruling gives supporters of medical privacy and reproductive freedom a victory.
------------------------------------------------
(From Sandy Geduldig, Blue Heart and activist!)
400,000 Dead, 2.5 Million Displaced, 10,000 Dying Every Month
As Blue Hearts, as women, as mothers, we need to devote a few minutes to the crisis in Darfur. While our time and energy is fragmented, this is easy; sign a postcard telling Bush and Congress that you demand we have stronger, more effective response to the violence and atrocities. We’ll have them at the next Blue Hearts meeting, or you can electronically sign them at www.MillionVoicesForDarfur.org
Check out www.savedarfur.com to learn more about Darfur.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
=====================================
LOCAL INTEREST:
From: Boo Tyson
Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2006 10:14 AM
Subject: upcoming Mainstream Voices of Faith event; please pass along to your networks
Please mark your calendars, tell your friends and families and join us for:
A Call to Action: Reclaiming Our Faith
Mainstream Voices of Faith: Energized Neighbors United for Faith & Freedom (ENUFF)
Are you tired of the Religious Right being the “voice of faith”?
Are you concerned with an ever encroaching theocracy?
Do you sometimes feel like a lone voice in the wilderness?
If so, join together with others and let keynote speaker,
Dr. Bob Meneilly, empower you to be an alternative voice to the Religious Right.
Where:
St. Andrew Christian Church
13890 West 127th Street
Olathe, KS
When:
Sunday, May 7th
3:00 pm - 5:00 pm
www.mainstreamcoalition.com
----------------------------------------------------------------
(Here's something from the MO Dem Party. K)
Voter Id Proposal Would Put an Extra Million Dollars into Blunt’s Scandal Plagued Fee Office Scheme
http://www.marketvolt.com/custapp/cv.aspx?cm=16773242&x=67593065&c=866566
----------------------------------------------------------------
From: "State Rep John Burnett"
Subject: Robin Carnahan on the Voter ID Bill
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 09:37:10 -0500
Senate Bill 1014 would disenfranchise 200,000 mostly poor citizens. Robin Carnahan, Secretary of State spoke out on it:
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/editorialcommentary/story/55B23022F6BE23978625715A00810D83?OpenDocument
John Burnett - Missouri State Representative
"We do not have a money problem in America. we have a values and priorities problem."
Marion Wright Edelman - Founder and President of the Children's Defense Fund.
I wanted to get out this next blog asap because there are action items I'd like you to view before it's too late...
Please pay special attention to the article by Bill Moyers. If you can't get through anything else, it is a must read under general interest.
Happy reading.
Kristin
HUMOR
------
It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and then -- just to loosen up.
Inevitably, though, one thought led to another, and soon I was more than just a social thinker.
I began to think alone -- "to relax," I told myself -- but I knew it wasn't true. Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I was thinking all the time.
That was when things began to sour at home. One evening I had turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent that night at her mother's.
I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and employment don't mix, but I couldn't stop myself.
I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, "What is it exactly we are doing here?"
One day the boss called me in. He said, "Listen, I like you, and it hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don't stop thinking on the job, you'll have to find another job."
This gave me a lot to think about. I came home early after my conversation with the boss. "Honey," I confess, "I've been thinking..."
"I know you've been thinking," She said, "and I want a divorce!"
"But Honey, surely it's not that serious."
"It is serious," she said, lower lip aquiver. "You think as much as college professors and college professors don't make any money, so if you keep on thinking, we won't have any money!"
"That's a faulty syllogism," I said impatiently. She exploded in tears of rage and frustration, but I was in no mood to deal with the emotional drama. "I'm going to the library," I snarled as I stomped out the door.
I headed for the library, in the mood for some Nietzsche. I roared into the parking lot with NPR on the radio and ran up to the big glass doors... They didn't open. The library was closed.
To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that night. Leaning on the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Zarathustra, a Poster caught my eye, "Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?" it asked.
You probably recognize that line. It comes from the standard Thinkers Anonymous poster. Which is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker.
I never miss a TA meeting. At each meeting we watch a non-educational video; last week it was "Porky's."
Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting. I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home. Life just seemed...easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking.
I think the road to recovery is nearly complete for me.
Today I made the final step, I registered to vote as a Republican.
----------------------------------------------
Subject: turn up your speakers...The Decider!
http://decider.cf.huffingtonpost.com/
-----------------------------------
These are great!
-------------------------------------------
(I've put this one in before but, just in case you missed it... K)
Subject: OXYMORON: REPUBLICAN LOGIC
Things you have to believe to be a Republican today.....
Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.
Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him, and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.
Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is Communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.
The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.
A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.
The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches, while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.
If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.
A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our long-time allies, then demand their cooperation and money.
Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy, but providing health care to all Americans is socialism. HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.
Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.
A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense, but a president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.
Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.
The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's driving record is none of our business.
Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.
What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the '80s is irrelevant.
Friends don't let friends vote Republican
=====================================================
GENERAL INTEREST:
(Here's your must-read article!!! K)
Insanity Now Mainstream, There Is No Tomorrow
By Bill Moyers
The Star Tribune
January 30, 2005
One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.
Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.
Remember James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony, he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back."
Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the country. They are the people who believe the Bible is literally true - one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate. In this past election several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in the rapture index.
That's right - the rapture index. Google it and you will find that the best-selling books in America today are the 12 volumes of the "Left Behind" series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious-right warrior Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans.
Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for adding to my own understanding): Once Israel has occupied the rest of its "biblical lands," legions of the antichrist will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon.
As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to Heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow.
I'm not making this up. Like Monbiot, I've read the literature. I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
That's why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations where four angels "which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man." A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed - an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the rapture index stood at 144 - just one point below the critical threshold when the whole thing will blow, the son of God will return, the righteous will enter Heaven and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire.
So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? Go to Grist to read a remarkable work of reporting by the journalist Glenn Scherer - "The Road to Environmental Apocalypse." http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2004/10/27/scherer-christian/ Read it and you will see how millions of Christian fundamentalists may believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed - even hastened - as a sign of the coming apocalypse.
As Grist makes clear, we're not talking about a handful of fringe lawmakers who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. Nearly half the U.S. Congress before the recent election - 231 legislators in total and more since the election - are backed by the religious right.
Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th Congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian right advocacy groups. They include Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Conference Chair Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Policy Chair Jon Kyl of Arizona, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Whip Roy Blunt. The only Democrat to score 100 percent with the Christian coalition was Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, who recently quoted from the biblical book of Amos on the Senate floor: "The days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land." He seemed to be relishing the thought.
And why not? There's a constituency for it. A 2002 Time-CNN poll found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the book of Revelations are going to come true. Nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the 9/11 attacks. Drive across the country with your radio tuned to the more than 1,600 Christian radio stations, or in the motel turn on some of the 250 Christian TV stations, and you can hear some of this end-time gospel. And you will come to understand why people under the spell of such potent prophecies cannot be expected, as Grist puts it, "to worry about the environment. Why care about the earth, when the droughts, floods, famine and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the Bible? Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued in the rapture? And why care about converting from oil to solar when the same God who performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes can whip up a few billion barrels of light crude with a word?"
Because these people believe that until Christ does return, the Lord will provide. One of their texts is a high school history book, "America's Providential History." You'll find there these words: "The secular or socialist has a limited-resource mentality and views the world as a pie ... that needs to be cut up so everyone can get a piece." However, "[t]he Christian knows that the potential in God is unlimited and that there is no shortage of resources in God's earth ... while many secularists view the world as overpopulated, Christians know that God has made the earth sufficiently large with plenty of resources to accommodate all of the people." No wonder Karl Rove goes around the White House whistling that militant hymn, "Onward Christian Soldiers." He turned out millions of the foot soldiers on Nov. 2, including many who have made the apocalypse a powerful driving force in modern American politics.
It is hard for the journalist to report a story like this with any credibility. So let me put it on a personal level. I myself don't know how to be in this world without expecting a confident future and getting up every morning to do what I can to bring it about. So I have always been an optimist. Now, however, I think of my friend on Wall Street whom I once asked: "What do you think of the market? "I'm optimistic," he answered. "Then why do you look so worried?" And he answered: "Because I am not sure my optimism is justified."
I'm not, either. Once upon a time I agreed with Eric Chivian and the Center for Health and the Global Environment that people will protect the natural environment when they realize its importance to their health and to the health and lives of their children. Now I am not so sure. It's not that I don't want to believe that - it's just that I read the news and connect the dots.
I read that the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has declared the election a mandate for President Bush on the environment. This for an administration:
a. That wants to rewrite the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act protecting rare plant and animal species and their habitats, as well as the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires the government to judge beforehand whether actions might damage natural resources.
b. That wants to relax pollution limits for ozone; eliminate vehicle tailpipe inspections, and ease pollution standards for cars, sport-utility vehicles and diesel-powered big trucks and heavy equipment.
c. That wants a new international audit law to allow corporations to keep certain information about environmental problems secret from the public.
d. That wants to drop all its new-source review suits against polluting, coal-fired power plants and weaken consent decrees reached earlier with coal companies.
e. That wants to open the Arctic [National] Wildlife Refuge to drilling and increase drilling in Padre Island National Seashore, the longest stretch of undeveloped barrier island in the world and the last great coastal wild land in America.
I read the news just this week and learned how the Environmental Protection Agency had planned to spend $9 million - $2 million of it from the administration's friends at the American Chemistry Council - to pay poor families to continue to use pesticides in their homes. These pesticides have been linked to neurological damage in children, but instead of ordering an end to their use, the government and the industry were going to offer the families $970 each, as well as a camcorder and children's clothing, to serve as guinea pigs for the study.
I read all this in the news.
I read the news just last night and learned that the administration's friends at the International Policy Network, which is supported by Exxon Mobil and others of like mind, have issued a new report that climate change is "a myth, sea levels are not rising" [and] scientists who believe catastrophe is possible are "an embarrassment."
I not only read the news but the fine print of the recent appropriations bill passed by Congress, with the obscure (and obscene) riders attached to it: a clause removing all endangered species protections from pesticides; language prohibiting judicial review for a forest in Oregon; a waiver of environmental review for grazing permits on public lands; a rider pressed by developers to weaken protection for crucial habitats in California.
I read all this and look up at the pictures on my desk, next to the computer - pictures of my grandchildren. I see the future looking back at me from those photographs and I say, "Father, forgive us, for we know not what we do." And then I am stopped short by the thought: "That's not right. We do know what we are doing. We are stealing their future. Betraying their trust. Despoiling their world."
And I ask myself: Why? Is it because we don't care? Because we are greedy? Because we have lost our capacity for outrage, our ability to sustain indignation at injustice?
What has happened to our moral imagination?
On the heath Lear asks Gloucester: "How do you see the world?" And Gloucester, who is blind, answers: "I see it feelingly.'"
I see it feelingly.
The news is not good these days. I can tell you, though, that as a journalist I know the news is never the end of the story. The news can be the truth that sets us free - not only to feel but to fight for the future we want. And the will to fight is the antidote to despair, the cure for cynicism, and the answer to those faces looking back at me from those photographs on my desk. What we need is what the ancient Israelites called hochma - the science of the heart ... the capacity to see, to feel and then to act as if the future depended on you.
Believe me, it does.
Bill Moyers was host until recently of the weekly public affairs series "NOW with Bill Moyers" on PBS. This article is adapted from AlterNet, where it first appeared. The text is taken from Moyers' remarks upon receiving the Global Environmental Citizen Award from the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School.
---------------------------------------------------
(Different from what I normally send your way but I thought it shows how many of us view ourselves, vs. those in the article above. K)
Christians - By Maya Angelou
When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not shouting "I'm clean livin'."
I'm whispering "I was lost,
Now I'm found and forgiven."
When I say... "I am a Christian"
I don't speak of this with pride.
I'm confessing that I stumble
and need Christ to be my guide.
When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not trying to be strong.
I'm professing that I'm weak
And need His strength to carry on.
When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not bragging of success.
I'm admitting I have failed
And need God to clean my mess.
When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not claiming to be perfect,
My flaws are far too visible
But, God believes I am worth it.
When I say... "I am a Christian"
I still feel the sting of pain.
I have my share of heartaches
So I call upon His name.
When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not holier than thou,
I'm just a simple sinner
Who received God's good grace, somehow!
Share this with somebody who already has this understanding, as reinforcement. But more importantly, share this with those who do not have a clear understanding of what it means to be a Christian, so that the myth that Christians think they are "perfect" or "better than others"can be dispelled.
--------------------------------------------
April 21, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
The Great Revulsion
By PAUL KRUGMAN
"I have a vision — maybe just a hope — of a great revulsion: a moment in which the American people look at what is happening, realize how their good will and patriotism have been abused, and put a stop to this drive to destroy much of what is best in our country."
I wrote those words three years ago in the introduction to my column collection, "The Great Unraveling." It seemed a remote prospect at the time: Baghdad had just fallen to U.S. troops, and President Bush had a 70 percent approval rating.
Now the great revulsion has arrived. The latest Fox News poll puts Mr. Bush's approval at only 33 percent. According to the polling firm Survey USA, there are only four states in which significantly more people approve of Mr. Bush's performance than disapprove: Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Nebraska. If we define red states as states where the public supports Mr. Bush, Red America now has a smaller population than New York City.
The proximate causes of Mr. Bush's plunge in the polls are familiar: the heck of a job he did responding to Katrina, the prescription drug debacle and, above all, the quagmire in Iraq.
But focusing too much on these proximate causes makes Mr. Bush's political fall from grace seem like an accident, or the result of specific missteps. That gets things backward. In fact, Mr. Bush's temporarily sky-high approval ratings were the aberration; the public never supported his real policy agenda.
Remember, in 2000 Mr. Bush got within hanging-chad and felon-purge distance of the White House only by pretending to be a moderate. In 2004 he ran on fear and smear, plus the pretense that victory in Iraq was just around the corner. (I've always thought that the turning point of the 2004 campaign was the September 2004 visit of the Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, a figurehead appointed by the Bush administration who rewarded his sponsors by presenting a falsely optimistic picture of the situation in Iraq.)
The real test of the conservative agenda came after the 2004 election, when Mr. Bush tried to sell the partial privatization of Social Security.
Social Security was for economic conservatives what Iraq was for the neocons, a soft target that they thought would pave the way for bigger conquests. And there couldn't have been a more favorable moment for privatization than the winter of 2004-2005: Mr. Bush loved to assert that he had a "mandate" from the election; Republicans held solid, disciplined majorities in both houses of Congress; and many prominent political pundits were in favor of private accounts.
Yet Mr. Bush's drive on Social Security ran into a solid wall of public opposition, and collapsed within a few months. And if Social Security couldn't be partly privatized under those conditions, the conservative dream of dismantling the welfare state is nothing but a fantasy.
So what's left of the conservative agenda? Not much.
That's not a prediction for the midterm elections. The Democrats will almost surely make gains, but the electoral system is rigged against them. The fewer than eight million residents of what's left of Red America are represented by eight U.S. senators; the more than eight million residents of New York City have to share two senators with the rest of New York State.
Meanwhile, a combination of accident and design has left likely Democratic voters bunched together — I'm tempted to say ghettoized — in a minority of Congressional districts, while likely Republican voters are more widely spread out. As a result, Democrats would need a landslide in the popular vote — something like an advantage of 8 to 10 percentage points over Republicans — to take control of the House of Representatives. That's a real possibility, given the current polls, but by no means a certainty.
And there is also, of course, the real prospect that Mr. Bush will change the subject by bombing Iran.
Still, in the long run it may not matter that much. If the Democrats do gain control of either house of Congress, and with it the ability to issue subpoenas, a succession of scandals will be revealed in the final years of the Bush administration. But even if the Republicans hang on to their ability to stonewall, it's hard to see how they can resurrect their agenda.
In retrospect, then, the 2004 election looks like the high-water mark of a conservative tide that is now receding.
--------------------------------------------------
(Thought it would help to have a reminder of our Buy Blue guidelines. In addition, check out the next article on Blue Hearts' own, Dr. Maria Kunstadter and Linda Eakes of Buying Influence Inc. K)
From: "Raven Brooks, BuyBlue.org"
Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006
What's New at BuyBlue? Issue 1
===============================
Greetings BuyBlue supporters! This email is the first in a new series of communications designed to keep everyone informed about the latest happenings at the site. In the past we've only sent out emails when significant events occur, but we felt we needed a regular communication to keep people informed. We realize everyone is busy and you may not have the time to visit the site regularly. The purpose of these emails is to quickly let you know what is going on so you can get involved if you'd like to. If you want to see something covered here as a regular feeature please let us know.
What's new?
-----------
Recent Blogs
++++++++++++
Wal-Mart has a change of heart? [http://www.buyblue.org/node/6184]
AOL Censors Email Tax Opponents [http://www.buyblue.org/node/6183]
Money in Politics [http://www.buyblue.org/node/6182]
Money's Going to Talk in 2008 [http://www.buyblue.org/node/6181]
Military-Style Rule at Home Depot [http://www.buyblue.org/node/6178]
Industry of the Week
++++++++++++++++++++
Visit our site to see how players in the Grocery [http://www.buyblue.org/directory/48] business stack up. If you see something not categorized appropriately please let us know [http://www.buyblue.org/contact]!
Be a BuyBlue Activist!
----------------------
- Send this email to a friend.
- Get 3 people signed up on our mailing list.
- Check out our downloads page [http://www.buyblue.org/download], add a graphic to your emails, blogs and forum signatures.
- Visit our web site and make a comment in one blog entry or forum topic, keep the discussion going!
-----------------------------------
Important BuyBlue.org Links:
Home Page: http://www.buyblue.org
A-Z Company Listing: http://www.buyblue.org/directory/alpha
Categorized Listing: http://www.buyblue.org/directory
Ranked Listing Listing: http://www.buyblue.org/company/ranking
------------------------------------------------
(Buying Influence article as mentioned above. Congratulations Maria and Linda!!!! K)
Subject: Re: Business Journal
Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 18:00:24 -0500
KC nonprofit ranks companies' treatment of women, minorities Kansas City Business Journal - 3:26 PM CDT Monday
Buying Influence Inc., a new nonprofit that ranks companies based on their policies toward women and minorities, will officially launch on Tuesday. The Kansas City-based nonprofit corporation's founder and CEO is Dr. Maria Kunstadter, a local dentist. The nonprofit's president and executive director is Linda Eakes. Eakes said Monday that Buying Influence is timing its launch to coincide with National Pay Equity Day on Tuesday, designated by the National Pay Equity Association.
Buying Influence ranks companies based on factors including pay equity for women and minorities and fair representation in the highest levels of management and on corporate boards. Eakes said that the nonprofit is operating on donations and that it plans to apply for governmental and private grants. She wouldn't disclose the organization's budget. Eakes, Kunstadter and a researcher constitute the organization's staff. Eakes is a co-founder of the Women's Business Center in 1999 and was its director from 2000-2004.
Buying Influence plans a news conference at 11:45 a.m. Tuesday in Helzberg Auditorium at the Kansas City Public Library's downtown branch. The nonprofit posts its company rankings on its Web site. http://buyinginfluence.com/
-----------------------------------------------------
(These next 2 articles are not under local issues because they speak to us all. But they do deal with local people. The first one is particularly apropos after our last Blue Hearts meeting at Stowers. K)
April 24, 2006
Democrats Hope to Divide G.O.P. Over Stem Cells
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
COLUMBIA, Mo., April 19 — Democrats are pressing their support for embryonic stem cell research in Congressional races around the country, seeking to move back to center stage an issue they believe resonates with voters and to exploit a division between conservatives who oppose the science and other Republicans more open to it.
The question of whether the government should support or limit stem cell research has cropped up in Senate races in Maryland and Missouri, and in House races in California, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin, especially in suburban swing districts.
"What Democrats want to do is gin up their turnout in the suburbs and divide Republicans, and right now they may do that," said Jennifer E. Duffy, who tracks Senate races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. "This is the first real wedge issue Democrats have had with Republicans."
The topic may not have the power of those frequently used by Republicans to rally their conservative base, like same-sex marriage and abortion. But it could help Democrats win voters who are pinning their hopes on the science for treatments and cures.
It may also influence voter turnout in some races, including here in Missouri, where a proposed constitutional amendment to protect stem cell research is making front-page news, and the incumbent Republican senator, Jim Talent, is facing a tough re-election challenge from the state auditor, Claire McCaskill, a Democrat.
On Tuesday, Ms. McCaskill appeared in the central Missouri town of Fayette, population 2,793, for a wine-and-cheese reception at an antiques shop and, later, for a dinner of roast beef and potatoes in the brightly lit social hall of St. Joseph's, a Roman Catholic church. A Catholic church is hardly the kind of place where most politicians would talk up embryonic stem cell studies — church leaders are fiercely opposed — but Ms. McCaskill did just that.
"There are people of principle who disagree with this form of research," Ms. McCaskill told her audience. "I respect their principles. But what I don't respect is someone dancing around science for political cover."
It was a pointed barb at Mr. Talent, a first-term Republican who has publicly wrestled with the stem cell issue and has avoided taking a stand on the proposed amendment. The initiative, destined for the November ballot if supporters gather enough signatures, is intended to beat back efforts to ban the research in Missouri. It would permit stem cell studies as long as they remain legal under federal law.
With the Talent-McCaskill race too close to call, the initiative has thrust Mr. Talent into a treacherous Republican crosscurrent. On one side are Christian conservatives, who gave Mr. Talent their strong support when he ran for office in 2002 and are threatening not to vote unless he takes a stand on the amendment.
On the other are business-minded Republicans, like Gov. Matt Blunt and John C. Danforth, a former United States senator, who back the initiative, saying the science holds promise not only for patients, but also for the economic health of the state.
Mr. Danforth, an Episcopal minister, and his brother, William, the chancellor emeritus of Washington University in St. Louis, have taken a prominent role in promoting the amendment.
"It's a hard issue for him," Mr. Danforth said, referring to Mr. Talent.
Although scientists see hope in embryonic stem cell research for treatments and cures, opponents view the studies as immoral because the cells are extracted from human embryos. Research can be conducted freely with private money, but whether the government should pay for it has been a vexing question for Republicans.
President Bush tackled the topic in August 2001 by imposing strict limits on taxpayer financing of embryonic stem cell research. He has vowed to veto any measure that would loosen those restrictions. But the House defied the president last year in voting to do just that.
With the one-year anniversary of the House vote coming in May, backers of stem cell studies are planning a series of events intended to press the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist — who has broken with the president to support the House bill — into bringing the measure to a vote.
On Tuesday, the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, an advocacy group, plans to have a researcher brief lawmakers in Washington on his work.
Around the country, Democrats in seven House races are highlighting the stem cell issue with advertisements distributed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The advertisements spotlight Republicans like Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah and the former first lady Nancy Reagan who have been vocal supporters of the research.
"This is a personal issue because it holds out hope for a lot of people," said Ed Perlmutter, a Democrat running for Congress in suburban Denver. Mr. Perlmutter knows that firsthand: his daughter has epilepsy, and his in-laws have diabetes, disorders that may be helped by stem cell research.
The stem cell issue has also figured in the Maryland Senate race. Democrats there seized on a statement by the Republican candidate, Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, who opposes the destruction of embryos for research. In February, Mr. Steele likened such studies to Nazi experiments in a speech before a Jewish group. The wife of a leading Democratic contender for Senate, Representative Benjamin L. Cardin, was in the audience, and Mr. Steele later apologized.
But nowhere has the stem cell issue been more potent than here in the political bellwether state of Missouri, where Mr. Talent was elected to the Senate in 2002.
Through a spokesman, the senator declined to be interviewed, saying he had already articulated his views in a lengthy Senate speech. In it, he focused on a type of study that involves obtaining stem cells by cloning human embryos, calling for a government competition to spur scientists to find alternative methods.
But Mr. Talent also took his name off a sweeping anti-cloning bill, saying he feared the measure might preclude those alternatives. Many Christian conservatives and Catholic leaders were outraged.
"Most pro-life voters just feel he's turned his back on them," said Larry Weber, executive director of the Missouri Catholic Conference, who opposes embryonic stem cell research.
The big question in Missouri is whether those voters, who helped put Mr. Talent in office, will shun him now. Here in Columbia, a college town where life centers around the University of Missouri, Dennis Ballard, a patron at a downtown coffeehouse, said he wanted Mr. Talent to take a position on the ballot measure.
"I'll not vote for a Democrat," said Mr. Ballard, a retired medical administrator who voted for Mr. Talent in 2002. "But I'll hold the option of staying home and not voting for a Republican who won't take a position."
John Hancock, a consultant to the Talent campaign, said he doubted such sentiment would affect the race. "Senator Talent's very thoughtful position on stem cell, when it is clearly understood," Mr. Hancock said, "is going to be very well received by all Missourians."
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NY Times Editorial
April 22, 2006
Kiss-and-Tell No More
A federal judge in Kansas has dealt another blow to the crusade by the state's attorney general, Phill Kline, to restrict abortions under the phony banner of combating child abuse.
In February, the Kansas Supreme Court blocked Mr. Kline from invading the medical privacy of 90 women and girls who were treated at two abortion clinics. This week, a federal trial judge in Wichita killed Mr. Kline's daft idea to require doctors, school counselors and psychotherapists, among others, to report all sexual activity by people under 16, from kissing to sexual intercourse.
In 2003, Mr. Kline issued an advisory opinion that changed the interpretation of Kansas' law requiring the reporting of child abuse. It made mandatory the reporting of every instance of suspected consensual sex among teenagers of similar ages, including any pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease or request for contraception.
Doctors, nurses, therapists and sex educators sued, and the federal judge, Thomas Marten, held that Mr. Kline's opinion violated the actual language of the underlying state statute, which gives those treating adolescents discretion to decide whether illegal sexual activity amounts to actual child abuse. Kansas law prohibits intercourse, oral sex and lewd touching by anyone under 16.
Setting a potentially important constitutional precedent, Judge Marten also found that adolescents enjoy a limited right of informational privacy in their communications with health care workers.
Judge Marten said Mr. Kline's blunderbuss reporting requirement would jeopardize the physical and mental health of adolescents by deterring them from seeking testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, birth control and counseling. It would also hurt efforts to combat real child abuse by overwhelming social service officials.
It seems too much to hope that this will end the matter, since Mr. Kline is likely to appeal, and anti-abortion groups are eager to expand the use of child-abuse reporting laws. But for the moment, the thoughtful new ruling gives supporters of medical privacy and reproductive freedom a victory.
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(From Sandy Geduldig, Blue Heart and activist!)
400,000 Dead, 2.5 Million Displaced, 10,000 Dying Every Month
As Blue Hearts, as women, as mothers, we need to devote a few minutes to the crisis in Darfur. While our time and energy is fragmented, this is easy; sign a postcard telling Bush and Congress that you demand we have stronger, more effective response to the violence and atrocities. We’ll have them at the next Blue Hearts meeting, or you can electronically sign them at www.MillionVoicesForDarfur.org
Check out www.savedarfur.com to learn more about Darfur.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
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LOCAL INTEREST:
From: Boo Tyson
Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2006 10:14 AM
Subject: upcoming Mainstream Voices of Faith event; please pass along to your networks
Please mark your calendars, tell your friends and families and join us for:
A Call to Action: Reclaiming Our Faith
Mainstream Voices of Faith: Energized Neighbors United for Faith & Freedom (ENUFF)
Are you tired of the Religious Right being the “voice of faith”?
Are you concerned with an ever encroaching theocracy?
Do you sometimes feel like a lone voice in the wilderness?
If so, join together with others and let keynote speaker,
Dr. Bob Meneilly, empower you to be an alternative voice to the Religious Right.
Where:
St. Andrew Christian Church
13890 West 127th Street
Olathe, KS
When:
Sunday, May 7th
3:00 pm - 5:00 pm
www.mainstreamcoalition.com
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(Here's something from the MO Dem Party. K)
Voter Id Proposal Would Put an Extra Million Dollars into Blunt’s Scandal Plagued Fee Office Scheme
http://www.marketvolt.com/custapp/cv.aspx?cm=16773242&x=67593065&c=866566
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From: "State Rep John Burnett"
Subject: Robin Carnahan on the Voter ID Bill
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 09:37:10 -0500
Senate Bill 1014 would disenfranchise 200,000 mostly poor citizens. Robin Carnahan, Secretary of State spoke out on it:
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/editorialcommentary/story/55B23022F6BE23978625715A00810D83?OpenDocument
John Burnett - Missouri State Representative
"We do not have a money problem in America. we have a values and priorities problem."
Marion Wright Edelman - Founder and President of the Children's Defense Fund.
