Friday Fish Wrap: January 21. 2010
Friday, January 21, 2011 at 19:35 Rep. Gabby Giffords rocks. That woman must be made of sterner stuff than any of us can quite imagine. She’s been transferred to Houston, and the most excellent Memorial Hermann Hospital for her rehabilitation and recovery. Yea! Boo-rah! Go Texas Medical Center! Yes, I have a bias about that place. My life got saved there.
The Texas Medical Center is the largest medical center in the world. Period. Really. If you look the wrong way out the hotel room window, you could mistake the medical center for downtown Houston. My mother did that while I was being treated for cancer at the University of Texas, M D Anderson Cancer Center at the TMC.
Take a tour of the Texas Medical Center right here:
Welcome to Houston: The Home of the largest Medical Center. from Texas Medical Center on Vimeo.
The Center is comprised of 14 hospitals, 21 academic institutions, 6 schools of nursing and 3 medical schools. If they haven’t seen it or done it there, it ain’t been seen or done anywhere.
Memorial Hermann has been ranked as one of America’s 50 best hospitals. They have been treating traumatic brain injuries since 1959.
Gabby is in the best possible hands. I wish her the very best.
Well, the GOP has locked arms and is steadily marching … backwards, it seems. The ridiculous ‘vote’ to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) was largely symbolic but highly predictive of the GOP state of mind for the coming two years. They’re not planning to do anything positive or constructive. They’re going to bitch, whine and unravel any piece of legislation they can get their hands on.
That’ll move the country forward. Not.
So, while they’ll leave some troops to think up ways to defund the PPACA, the big guns are moving on the dismantle the Clean Air Act. WTF? you say? Yup. Here is where the Citizens United decision rubber meets the road to dirtier air. This is pay-off. A big ‘Thank You’ kiss for coal and oil, better known as campaign contributors like the right-wing billionaire Koch brothers and Tesoro Oil.
Here’s what Wikipedia says about Tesoro:
“Researchers at the Political Economy Research Institute have identified Tesoro as the 24th-largest corporate producer of air pollution in the United States, releasing roughly 3.74 million pounds of toxic chemicals annually into the air.[4] Major pollutants emitted annually by the corporation include more than 2 million pounds of sulfuric acid[5] The Environmental Protection Agency has named Tesoro a potentially responsible party for at least four Superfund toxic waste sites.[6] Tesoro has settled and/or closed each of the superfund sites for which it has been named as a one of many responsible parties. Tesoro was listed as a de minimis contributor to a superfund site in Abbeville, LA and the site has since been closed by the EPA.
Tesoro is also the recipient of several Legacy Awards for its environmental record.[7] In its Anacortes refinery, the company voluntarily has used scrubbing technology which costs twice as much as the required techniques to only remove particulate matter.[8]
Tesoro has given over $1 million in support of California Proposition 23 which aims to suspend the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006”
On April 2, 2010, there was an explosion at the Anacortes, Washington, refinery with seven deaths.
Whoops.
Don’t worry bubbie, we’ll stop those nasty people at the EPA from bothering you! That’s what this is all about, unless you really thought these people were actually worried - like the Tea Party - about the slippery slope to abortion, gay marriage, prayer in the schools, creation science, middle class taxes, the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell’ et al.
Like everybody else, I was horrified by the news story out of Philadelphia about the ‘doctor’ - Kermit Gosnell - who was performing late term abortions and hoarding the fetuses. I can see this setting up to be a series of mis-spelled signs at the next anti-abortion rally by idiots that can’t seem to connect the dots.
Let me do it for them.
First of all, the ultimate FAIL here has to lie at the steps of whoever is posing as the regulator of such services in Philly. These people need to be kicked out on the street, sans job or benefits. But more importantly, thanks to the religiously anti-abortion zealot faction, the lack of legitimate medical coverage ( think Stupak Amendment ) for abortion has actually caused a situation like this to happen.
When desperate low income and minority woman - most often without ‘pay to play’ medical coverage - are forced out of the mainstream medical system, they end up at the dirty coat hangar shop of last resort. Having little access to rational reproductive education and information, they end up there too damn late. This is criminal in more ways than one. The right wing anti-abortion movement has successfully erected the financial, governmental and societal barriers to humane, safe medical services that caused this. Some lazy idiots in the Philadelphia department that ‘regulates’ these services enabled it.
The anti-abortion people should come pick up the dead babies they ‘worry’ so much about. They caused this.
Now, ironically, states across the country are beginning to talk about restricting abortion even more, supposedly to prevent this from happening elsewhere. The fact that such restrictions have NEVER stopped abortion, and merely driven it underground to enrich criminals, still seems to be lost on them.
In the continuing GOP march backwards to the dark days of back alley abortions - only back alley for the poor. The rich went ‘abroad’ on ‘vacation’ - Rep. John Boehner and his wrecking crew have introduced H.R. 3, No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act. This is Stupak on steroids. Bravo, John! What will you do with the mess that comes out of more abortion mills?
The man obviously hates women. So too, the clown who has his name on H.R. 3, Rep. Chris Smith, R-NJ. Here’s his website. And, to really cap things off, read Smith’s opening statement for H. R. 3 in the Congressional Record. He’s ever so careful not to sound like he’s blaming the victim, but proceeds to cherry-pick his ‘facts’ carefully and embed them in highly emotional language that the right loves, but ultimately dodges the real issues. The man says that abortion isn’t health care, so you know where he stands. Buy your daughters lots of condoms and a forever prescription for birth control … and have the talk as often as you need to. Their right to reproductive health care could be at stake.
Sigh.
I saw an article the other day about America’s belief in its own exceptionalism. The Tea Party still believes this, of course, despite the fact that the country still can’t seem to understand the metric system. It’s just too hard.
My knee is doing much better today. It’s been a case of three steps forward and one step back. I’ve been to physical therapy twice with my P.T. friend Denise, and also been exercising it every day this week. The Pilates Tower I built a while back to use with the exercise therapy bands has proven worth its weight in gold. I think my knee - and the rest of me - is actually in better shape now than before my accident. I’m almost able to completely straighten the knee today, and was walking with an almost imperceptible limp.
If things keep going like they are, I should be able to ski again next week some time. In spring conditions from what the weather forecasters are predicting. Yikes, temps in the high 50’s. Talk about corn snow.
Tomorrow evening, a bunch of us are going to a MeetUp at Sierra Gold on South Meadows Parkway at 7:00 p.m. for the Reno Skeptics group. If you can, drop in and say hello. Due to the noise levels there, I’m not sure there will be much group discussion, but at least we’ll be able to attach faces to names and get to know each other.
I’m looking forward to it.
Have a great weekend. Stay healthy. Stay in touch.
-maven
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