AARP Spots the Looney

AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, said brand-name drug prices have climbed 3.4 percent -- or three times the rate of inflation -- since December.

The jump was one of the sharpest quarterly spikes since 2000, the report said.

The findings follow another AARP report this year that showed prices for drugs used most by the elderly grew 6.9 percent in 2003. But the increase since President Bush signed the Medicare bill into law was even sharper, the AARP said Wednesday.

Whenever the general concept of socialism is raised, the people on the right of the conversation jerk their heads up with a condescending smile and opine that "communism is a great idea, but it would never work because it's run by people, and people are bad," and that's that. And yet they are more than happy to have low to no oversight over private companies running such things as the Medicare drug discount program. They are perfectly comfortable letting CEO's set the tone. I say, "The invisible hand of capitalism and the free market are wonderful ideas, but they will never work because they're run by people, and people are bad." But fortunately with me, that's not just that. We can still discuss and grow.

One Pink Nail

A local writer gave me permission to post a copy of this letter to my blog:

This was sent to the Oregonian 6/24/04, in response to
a welcome op-ed piece. Who knows if they'll print it,
however.


To the Editor:

First of all, my heartfelt sadness for the
Wessler family and their sacrifice. I, too, am
reminded of 1969 as we continue to see lies and
distortions, and there seems to be no end to the
avarice. My husband was 17 in 1969, and knows well
the fear of facing what no one ever really believes he
will be asked to do.go kill other human beings for
something you don't believe in. Now, between the two
of us, we have four sons and a daughter, ages 25, 22,
20, 17 and 13. And no, Mr. Wessler, we will NOT trade
any of these children, or their friends, for a Bronze
star, a folded flag, or even a "live" but
permanently-scarred-and
damaged-more-deeply-than-we-will-ever-know "survivor"
of a War for Money. So, if I may, I propose that in
honor of our sons and daughters, in memory of Dan
Wessler, and for the sake of all of our futures, we
whip a little resistance on 'em. I have painted one
fingernail on my left hand hot pink, and I will keep
it there until this nonsense STOPS! A grassroots
movement in the name of restoring some sort of sane
leadership. One Pink Nail. One=solidarity.
HotPink=the opposite of olive drab. Nail=We are
tough. We mean it. We mean to stand together to stop
these tired old men that we elected king. Join us. I
can't say it better than the Irish folk song: "What a
different world we'd have today/ if all the mothers
would simply say/ I didn't raise my son to be a
soldier."

PS Men are welcome, but only the very brave.!

Stand with us. Pass it on.

Enrons of the Future?

Enrons of the Future?

Bernard Wasow, Martha Paskoff
The Century Foundation, 6/18/04

An overlooked but important new study has uncovered yet another ingenious sleight-of-hand that top executives have been using to enrich themselves at the expense of their employees. The report by three economists—Daniel Bergstresser and Mihir Desai of the Harvard Business School and Joshua Rauh of MIT— provides evidence that CEOs systematically manipulate their employees' pension funds for their own personal gain.

http://tinyurl.com/ysqyf

Western drought worst in 500 years - Jun 18, 2004

CNN.com - Western drought worst in 500 years - Jun 18, 2004

My favorite part:

"The water managers, they just continue to pray for rain," said Owen Lammers, director of Living Rivers and Colorado Riverkeeper. "They just say, well, we hope that things change and we see rain."

"Planning ahead is like messing with God's plans, Michael. There's nothing we can do. Except profit in the short term."

Remembering to keep what is written down the same as the current party line . . .

JG posts a nice list of values, and keeps them updated. Somewhat primitive, but we can't all have that Stalinist revisionist excellence.*

http://tinyurl.com/2j35u


*Here's hoping it's going to keep getting more difficult with the growth of the blogosphere and other democratic information forums.

Herbert on Barbour's Reign in Mississippi

Mr. Herbert in the NYT alerts those of us sleeping through our watch elsewhere that the neo-con fascists are still happily about their work emulating the fatherland in its odious contempt and hatred for the weak and the different:

The 65,000 seniors and disabled individuals who will lose their Medicaid eligibility have incomes so low they effectively have no money to pay for their health care. The new law coldly reduces the maximum income allowed for an individual to receive Medicaid in Mississippi from an impecunious $12,569 per year to a beggarly $6,768.

--http://tinyurl.com/28et6

Hilarious Toles Cartoon

http://www.ucomics.com/tomtoles/2004/06/03/

Koppel at Berkeley Commencement on National Debate

What we will do after the next terrorist attack is not a conversation that should be deferred. The time for that national debate is now. As important as it may be to argue over the rights of Iraqi prisoners of war, those horrific photographs have largely obscured the context in which the abuses took place. The perceived need to obtain more and better intelligence in the face of a mounting Iraqi insurgency late last fall created the environment in which those human-rights abuses took place. It is quite extraordinary that so much attention is being focused on the culpability of a bunch of young military police when they in fact were clearly operating under guidelines that had been set much, much further up the command chain. [Applause] It is the legitimacy of those guidelines that require public discussion. And yet, what have we been debating for these past few months? The nature of George W. Bush's service in the Air National Guard more than 30 years ago, while he was working on a senatorial campaign in Alabama? The value of John Kerry's military service in Vietnam once he'd appeared at the same antiwar rally as Jane Fonda? What madness! Do we really believe we can rise to the great challenges that confront us by endlessly questioning one another's motives and patriotism? There are decisions that will be addressed or ignored over the next few months that will set the course of human and civil rights in this country for years to come. There is a direct correlation between the perception of threats to America's security and the contraction of our rights and freedoms. We need to critically examine the nature and scope of those threats, and where they exist we must be prepared to calibrate our rights, and even our freedoms. If we fail to do that now, in a time of relative sanity when it is still possible for voices of moderation to be heard, then we will have condemned ourselves to having those choices made in a climate of national hysteria.

--Ted Koppel, Speech at UC Berkeley Commencement

From
http://www.poynter.org/forum/?id=misc