The Outer Limits……. and Bears…….

“For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to… The Outer Limits.”

“The Outer Limits” was a respected, but short-lived, science fiction television program from the early Sixties.  Most episodes featured a “bear,” a monster of some sort, that provided the focal point for the show.

Our current political/social landscape has it’s own elements of “the Outer Limits.” Both sides, Right and Left, create their own “bears” to drive their ideological agendas. For the GOP, Tea Baggers and Libertarians the “bear” is the Federal Government. For Democrats and progressives, the “bear” is largely Corporations and Christian-driven social agendas.

Granted, the previous statement is a gross over-simplification, but the point is made.  There are elements on all sides that push the limits by demonizing the institution or ideology that fuels their ire.

Currently, their is a war within the Republican Party that threatens to purge even slightly moderate members and to be seen even in the least bit willing to work with Democrats is a virtual death warrant.

To their credit, Democrats are much less ideologically driven, but we have our own “lunatic fringe” that can’t support any semblance of compromise. To be sure, some issues, Gay Rights for example, have no room for compromise, but not all issues are quite so clearly defined.

“Politics is a process by which groups of people make  collective decisions.”

The above is the definition of politics from Wiki.

Well, do you see room for compromise on some issues, if so, what are they? Do you have your own personal “bear” or “bears” and what are they?

William Stephenson Clark

Jim Hightower ~ A REAL Populist

I say Jim is a real populist, because right now, the right wingers have attempted to hijack the populist image. Beck, Palin and the Tea Party in particular. Let’s be clear. A populist is in this game to improve the lot of the average person. Beck, Palin, and the Tea Party are in this to FATTEN THEIR WALLETS!

OPEN THREAD DAAA DA! Saturday 01-23 and the first day of the rest of your life!

Went on a job interview yesterday, looks like I maybe getting back into security.

Law enforcement seems to think I am older then I think I am.

And no one else seems interested in a 52 y.o. who piddle his younger year away and had not decided what he wanted to be when he grew up….. I really need to decided that one of these days!

Wendell Berry and the “Inverting of the Economic Order”

Wendell Berry has written one very powerful message for the The Progressive (Sept., 2009)  magazine. This article by Berry ( a farmer and writer in Kentucky)  is one that provides unusual clarity into the practical, but also the moral, problems with our economy.  I usually have an aversion to copying material like this, but the message so deserves to be disseminated, I will do it, just this one time…

Read more here.

Which side are you on: What labor day is all about.

The Iggy Donnelly Disease: Socialistic Capitalism

Iggy Donnelly and Son practicing "Here comes the Sun" by Geo. Harrison

On Monday morning, NPR broadcast a story about how the U.S. Economy is drifting toward European styled socialism.  NPR interviewed a German couple, the wife/mom from New York had married a German man and the couple now live in Germany.  The couple have a five month old child for whom the family receives from the German government two-thirds of the mom’s salary for one year after the child’s birth.  Like the U.S., Germany has an aging population, and thus they are interested in incentifizing the birth of babies.  The tax rate reflects the generous German program – the couple pay about half of their income in taxes. I had an email friend who lived in Germany who worked for a community college that offered all types of education absolutely free.  This program sounded like a for real “free university”.

Revealing my potential biases, I work in, and have for several years, a health care  field that is heavily subsidized by the U.S. Government.  Even though he had some distracters ( See: Amity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man), I believe that FDR was able to leverage the power of the U.S. Government to reverse a crushing economic depression in the 1930’s.  I think there were academic and artistic advances in the 1930’s that would have been impossible without the New Deal.

Regarding the points that he U.S. Economy may be moving toward European socialism, a bigger safety net sounds good to me.  So does greater regulation that protects the public from the reckless capitalism that hurt people who did not contribute to the problem, nor had any way of benefiting from the risks.  But as we have seen from the very end of the Bush administration, these same marginalized people had much to lose from the reckless speculating of the wealthy.

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet SENATOR Al Franken!

What a great day for liberals and progressives everywhere. The man the GOP couldn’t stop, and the man they swore would never be seated, SENATOR Al Franken was sworn into office today as the 100th member of the U.S. Senate.

He’s also the man Fux News was sure would turn the good ol’ boys club into a strip club, the man they said would defile the dignity of the senate with his very presence, and the man who never gave up on Minnesota or the democratic process.   SENATOR Al Franken, finally made it all the way to the big house today.

And he was sworn in using Paul Wellstone’s family bible.

Like everything Franken has done since November, that gesture alone reeks of class and respect. It was understated and subtle. Something many people never thought they’d see from Stuart, er, SENATOR Al Franken.

And Paul Krugman wrote this weekend that Franken’s dirty little secret isnt diapers. a wide stance, or financial impropriety. SENATOR Al Franken’s dirty little secret is that he is a true policy wonk in the tradition of Hillary Clinton. A guy who loves the detail of policy and the nuances of the legislative process. Imagine. He’s a serious public servant.

I think the thing I love about SENATOR Al Franken is how he’s conducted himself throughout this process. You know he could have unsheathed that rapier wit at many points. He could have eviscerated the opposition with only a smirk, a few words and a raised eyebrow. He could have gone for the laughs, mugged for the cameras, brought the house down with laughter, and made a mockery of the serious problems facing our nation.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he set an example of how grown ups act when presented with the awesome responsibilty of leadership. He’s shown dignity and grace under fire, and he’s shown compassion to his bozo of an opponent.

I’m reminded of what Vince Lombardi said. “When you get to the end zone, act like you’ve been there before.”  SENATOR Al Franken acts as though he’s not only “been there before”, but he also acts like he intends to stay a long time. And that has got to be good for America.

He’s made me proud, and I’ve never even visited Minnesota. Good on ya Al. I mean SENATOR Al Franken.

Paul Wellstone will finally rest in peace tonight. For once, the good guy won.

prairiepond

Hemispheric Asymmetries and Political Positions

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard brain scientist writes of her stroke that she had when she was 37 years of age.  Her stroke resulted from a brain hemorrhage that damaged the left side of her brain.  She’s a neuroanatomist by training.  Prior to describing her stroke and recovery she provides a chapter on brain “hemispheric asymmetries”.

Just as a cautionary note, we all use both sides of our brains.  The right and left hemisheres should be thought of as complimentary halves of a whole and not as seperate brains.  They do have differing specializations, however.

The right side of the brain allows us to:  remember isolated moments with uncanny clarity; recognize faces; the present moment is the only time period that is recognized; there is no defined rules about the correct way of doing things; intuition and empathy are processed on the right side of the brain. From the book: “The present moment is a time when everything and everyone are connected together as one.  As a result, our right mind perceives each of us as equal members of the human family” (p. 30).

Our left hemisphere  is organized around language.  Language is understood and produced in the left hemisphere. The left side of our brain thrives on facts and details.  There is a constant flow of brain chatter that comes from the left mind.  The left side defines our sense of self.  Time is organized and sequential.  Academic skills are processed on the left side our brains.

After reading the book, and I highly recommend it, I had thoughts that perhaps conservatives have some degree of right hemispheric dysfunction.  Not having empathy, not seeing interinconnections amongst us all, etc. would be clues to this possiblity.

What do you bloggers think of this latter “insight”?  Is it delusion or possibility?

iggy donnelly

Supreme Court: Strip-Search of 13 Year-Old Girl, Improper

 

 The only “non’-‘duh” moment of this opinion came from Supreme Court Justice Thomas Clarence when he departed from the 8-1 majority and indicated:

“. . . the court’s ruling put school officials in an ‘impossible spot’ because it did not make clear what kinds of rule infractions would justify a more intrusive search. ”

Read more here.

DEATH, TAXES AND DEBT COLLECTORS – by Jim Hightower

We have several PrariePops Authors gone into meatspace right now, so bare with sekan while we try to get through this. I know I’m not that entertaining. Rest assured that Iggy, fnord and others will be back! ~sekanblogger

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 These are hard times for debt collectors. After all, who can pay their bills these days? Not Wall Street, Detroit, millions of homeowners, the rising number of jobless folks – not even several states and cities.
But, wait – here are some lively prospects for debt collectors: the dead. Yes, there’s a boom in dunning the deceased!
We’re not talking about collecting from big time debtors who still owe several hundred thousand dollars on their yacht. No, these are workaday people who died while still owing maybe a couple of hundred bucks on their bank credit card, health insurance, or utility payment. It’s not possible, of course, to squeeze money out of a corpse, so the target becomes the bereaved next of kin. “Hello, I’m very sorry for your loss, but there’s this $211.36 balance on your mother’s Visa, and we wondered who will be covering this?”
By the way, there is no legal requirement whatsoever that the debt of those who’ve passed on must be paid by relatives out of their own pockets. Thus, what the industry calls “deceased collections” requires a delicate dance to cajole money out of the family without actually demanding it. The industry actually rationalizes its work as a service to those who have departed. As one insider  asserts: “We want the dead to rest easy, knowing their obligations are taken care of.” How benevolent.
The actual work is done by a corps of specially trained agents working from cubicles in companies that specialize in this rather macabre fishing for cash. The job is so distasteful that about half of those hired quit within three months. Those who stick it out get such on-the-job stress relievers as yoga sessions, foosball games, free snacks and neck massages.
They tell us that we can’t escape death and taxes, but it appears that one more thing we can’t escape are debt collectors.
–minutemanmedia.org

THRIFT, NOT CONSUMERISM, IS THE ANSWER – by Alicia Gravitz

My grandparents married during the Great Depression and began raising their young family during World War II. 

My grandmother would tell me stories about those times with pride. She couldn’t buy a car or nylon stockings. But she did save every bit of aluminum for the war effort, mended socks, and planted a victory garden. Though they had very little, when they could save ten cents, she would get another stamp for her war bond book.  

As tough as those times were, my grandmother felt that what she did every day mattered for the country and her children’s future. Families across the nation took these same actions, and, together, they did indeed make all the difference. The victory gardens, the recycling, the $185 billion in war bonds raised by 85 million cash-strapped Americans (nearly $2 trillion in today’s dollars), and the retooling of Detroit for tanks and planes provided our country with the resources and capacity for the war effort. 

Taken together, these actions gave the economy a whole new set of  priorities—moving from a failing consumer-based economy to an economy focused on providing for the country’s future.  

As a nation, we are again at this kind of pivotal time. We can choose to reprioritize the economy. And we know how to do it — we did it during World War II.  

The steps this time around will look familiar to those who experienced these days. We need to embrace thrift as a fundamental value, and collectively shift our economy from one depending on consumerism, debt, and speculation, to one that spends its precious resources on what sustains health and well-being for people and the planet. 

Like the economy my grandmother experienced during World War II, the consumer sector can no longer be the economy’s driver. But instead of a war effort, the priority now needs be to on economic activity and jobs that bring about a sustainable future—from energy efficiency, mass transit, and sustainable agriculture to education, health, and building resilient communities, that make sure no one is left behind. 

I am Rooting For the Criminal in this Story!

 

This man and maybe an accomplice have been responsible for robbing a number of payday loan businesses.  This dude even hit the same payday loan business twice;  a week apart.  In my view, this is just one of those beautiful ironies of life – sometimes criminals steal from other criminals – I just can’t feel unhappy about it.

Payday loan businesses can charge interest in excess of 30% in Kansas.  They can charge as much as 70% interest in Wyoming.  These businesses target poor and working poor individuals.  Their prevelence across the country rose steeply after welfare reform.  In fact, a Clinton era figure started a payday loan business – “Advance America – Cash Advance”.

As nutjobs on the BTSNBN used to tell me, “Donnelly, don’t like payday loans: Don’t get one.”  These robberies are really a free-market correction those clowns over there like so much.  May this robber practice his trade with a vengence, and may he roam free for a very long time.

I am going to have to figure out why these types of business piss me off so much.

The Eagle story about this noble robber.

Tiahrt Introduces Plan to Stimulate Next Great Depression

Any Todd Fans out there? I can’t hear you! ~sekanblogger

The $787 billion stimulus is not nearly enough – Paul Krugman, professor of economics at Princeton University and Nobel Prize winner.

OBAMA HAS SLOWED THE ECONOMIC BLEEDING – by Donald Kaul

There was a headline in “The New York Times” the other day that illustrates the kind of Catch 22 economy we’re in. “Rising Gas Prices Threaten to Slow a Recovery,” it said. 

Bad news, right? We don’t want the economy to slow down any more than it’s already slowed. 

On the other hand, we are basing our hopes for saving our collapsing car industry on a universal switch to cleaner cars that get better gas mileage. We also want to stimulate mass transit in our cities in order to get people out of cars entirely. (I won’t mention global warming because it drives a lot of people crazy.) 

But to achieve those things, we have to have higher, not lower, gas and energy prices. People will not give up their big, honking cars and trucks in favor of matchboxes on wheels; even less will they walk to their corner bus stop, unless they can’t afford to do otherwise. On this I will stake my reputation as a soothsayer.

The sad truth is that we will continue to be at the mercy of oil producers so long as we are unwilling to go through the painful transition to a society that does not see the auto as a necessity for work, play, status and raising children. And the even sadder truth is that the pain of the transition to green transportation (widespread unemployment, a spike in the suicide rate, higher taxes, walking) may be more than the American people can bear. 

The problem is so vexing that even a wise Latina woman would have trouble figuring it out. But that’s not the only problem facing Mr. Obama and Capitol Hill’s Gang That Couldn’t Talk Straight. 

You may not have noticed but the economy fell off a cliff last fall. One minute prosperity was there beside us, laughing and talking, telling jokes; the next it was gone—disappeared. 

When we looked over the side of the cliff we were walking on, there it was, tumbling toward the bottomless abyss, a fate so terrible that we only refer to it as “the D word.” 

BIG BROTHER IN REVERSE? ~sekanblogger

  Did you ever think it was silly when you hear people say, WE’RE WITNESSING HISTORY! My first thought was always, “GEE, isn’t every waking moment ‘witnessing history’?” I know, I’m just parsing words. What they surely mean is that we are witnessing milestones, tipping points if you will.

Remember the good ol’ days of the internet, say 8-10 years ago in ancient internet times? We had these quaint things called ‘chat rooms’ and ‘message boards’? I thought that was so cool. Leaving a message that somebody on another continent could read. Wow. Not quite what Kubrick envisioned in 2001 A Space Odyssey. But to me, very cool. My Aunt and Uncle were Kansas dairy farmers who just got electricity and plumbing in the mid 1950’s.

So what’s the big milestone? The Iranian (so-called) election, or rather the way it is being exposed! A phony rigged election in a theocracy, I have no doubt that will happen again. The milestone is that we have reached the age of super-connectivity. An exponential proliferation of connectivity, made possible by; Emails, Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, Digg this!, Linkedin, Reddit and RSS feeds.

Not to mention the old fashioned thing you’re reading now, a blog post. Many blogs are networked to ALL of these, making them accessible practically everywhere. And, here’s the Big Brother part, the proliferation of cheap mobile devices that access any or all of these in virtually real-time.

No longer can an oppressive nation publish strictly controlled press releases and suppress the truth for any period of time. Even though the Iranian govt has tried, the networks have just become overwhelming! Just as electrical grids are re-routed when one connection fails, modern networking has proved to resistant to attempts to block and disrupt the flow! I believe that the 2009 Iranian farce elections should be held as an epic moment, just as Tienamen Square is now.

The Iranian people were not allowed to be counted in their own country, dismissed as mere ‘motes of dust’. They will not be dust to the rest of the world. Their voices have become a swarm on every network possible. The age of governments hiding their deeds behind ‘iron curtains’ is over. We, the citizens of the world can be the antithesis of the Owellian Big Brother. Let North Korea’s people be heard next!

WHO'S WATCHING WHO?

Okay, enough playing politics for NOW. For more about networks –