Democratic Central - Recent Comments

Most judges, legislators, etc., have no idea...

route66 — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:30:27 GMT

Actually, the judges and legislators face alcoholics more than is acknowledged. The meeting places for them are called "country clubs," and therein they sit around with drink after drink, lying about their golf scores and their recent scores in the female dept, laughing about those poor devils who resort to booze and laziness while they, the "chosen," imbibe of cocktails and leisure, to their hearts' content, while laughing at our struggles.

Yet, these people DO believe in a higher power, higher than the police, higher than the Supreme Court: they believe in George W. Bush, the highest power there is, who brought them tax cuts beyond imagination, profits, capital gains, interest, dividends--all passed from that higher power's beneficance to the BMW parked on the country club lawn.

The drunks who stand before them are their fellow country club members, mostly above the law, who are drunk on Pimms Cups, margaritas, exotic rum drinks and martini forms, and they do not have to attend AA meetings when caught with a .02 reading by some cop who didn't know better than to arrest them.

There is money enough to rebuild every anthill of sand in Iraq, every mound, but here we'll starve for any social welfare funds. THe only OCOA program they'll start is the "Onward Criminalization of America" program, where every last cent goes to programs that benefit the wealthy (as recent events bear out); but the other programs--forget them.

The only people of real faith are Gordies, but this administration would drown every Gordie it could lay its hand on--Kill Mitch Snyder! Even the church people (DC Catholics) agreed with that sentiment, as we saw on TV, so what then is there to do? Better Duck!

ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease)

DonInVA — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:30:14 GMT

Thank you, Lloyd, for this fine recounting of Lou Gehrig's story. I have a special, personal interest in this subject, because my mother died of ALS in 1969, at age 51. Her case was absolutely standard in all respects as far as I know: she was diagnosed at a typical age for ALS, had a typical duration from symptoms to death (3-4 years), and (as is usual for ALS) her mind was essentially unaffected even as her power to speak and move was progressively completely destroyed. I was married in 1968, about a year before her death, and she appears in the wedding pictures in a wheelchair. Already by then she was almost incommunicado. There are so many adult conversations that I wish that I could have had with her in those final years, but ALS made them impossible.

In your Lou Gehrig diary you note that he went to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota to confirm his diagnosis. Well, my father, who was a serious baseball fan, and who was 28 years old in 1939 and surely read of the events of 1939-07-04 and probably saw Gehrig's
speech on movie newsreels (equivalent to CNN today), took my mother to the Mayo Clinic to confirm the diagnosis of my mother's condition.

My mother was an educated woman who knew how to use a library. When she heard the precise name of the diagnosis, she went to some library, found a properly technical medical reference source and read what it said: no known cause, no cure, expect death in 3-5 years. So she knew early on exactly what to expect.

Today, even after decades and decades of research worldwide, it is still true that the cause of the vast majority of ALS cases is unknown (about 10% of the cases are 'familial', and about 2-3% are known to be a caused by a specific genetic defect). In general, we still don't know what causes ALS. Also, there is still no cure, although there is now one drug that can slow the progress of the disease -- but can't stop it: the victims still die. It is true that today we know quite a lot about the physiological mechanisms of the disease, so some progress has been made, but the hard bitter fact is that ALS is still mostly in the "etiology unknown" category and definitely still in the "incurable" category. Uggggh.

For more technical details on ALS, see "What is ALS" (ALS Association), "Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Fact Sheet" (NINDS = Nat Inst of Neurological Disorders and Stroke), and Wikipedia (a fine historical overview with good URLs).

In the 1970s, only a few years after my mother died, I went into the stacks of a medical school library, and read selected relevant books on ALS. This was before the modern research which has identified the relevant chemical responsible for the disease, and has identified several genetic defects that cause the disease in a small number of cases (the chemicals and genes are huge hints for research workers). So I was reading the summary of the literature for the first century of ALS research. What I remember most was the strange case of the island of Guam. Normally ALS occurs in roughly 1 per 1000 people (0.1%), but on the island of Guam after WW-II its incidence rose to about 1 in 10 (10%)!! There was a similar high incidence on a particular peninsula of the island of Honshu in Japan. This high incidence caused medical research people to descend on these places and conduct vast campaigns to try to discover whether something in the environment was causing the incidence. They failed. Later, to everybody's surprise, the incidence declined. Why?!? This mystery still remains, and is still studied: Google finds a 2002 paper titled "Cycad neurotoxin, consumption of flying foxes, and ALS/PDC disease in Guam".

Lou Gehrig is not the only famous person to have ALS. There is an impressive list of people near the end of the Wikipedia article linked above. For me, as a physical scientist, an especially poignant case is Stephen Hawking. Hawking's ALS case is unusual, in that he contracted the disease early and it has progressed slowly. Although most ALS cases result in death in less than 5 years, some of the cases go more slowly, and some very slowly, as in Hawking's case.

Democratic Central is a political blog, so some sort of political reference is almost required in postings to this blog. ALS definitely has a political aspect, in the form of the perennial assisted-suicide debate in the USA. The horrible manner in which death comes for ALS victims, trapped in a dysfunctional body with a fully operational mind, able to see and hear but not to speak or gesture, effectively helpless and incommunicado, is often cited as the single strongest justification for assisted-suicide.

Is there a Misunderstanding of AA Here?

Gordie — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:30:47 GMT

The true AA program has nothing to do with faith based programs and in no way depends on any funds from any organization. Let me do a little correction on that statement, Plenty of AA programs rely on organizations for a place to meet. That is the sole help any good AA program depends on Faith Based organizations.

The concept of a higher power has nothing to do with being a Christian or the belief in GOD. The concept of a higher power is solely for the purpose of believing in a source greater then ones self. The higher power can be anything which is stronger then ones self. That could be a car, a tree, the ocean, a tornado, a hurricaine or a force in the Universe. A force that when you are right with it, it is right with you. To most alcoholics don't even mention GOD or being a Christian. They will argue right back, they have asked for help and never received it. It usually takes a while to move beyond using the words Higher Power and replacing it with GOD, BUT most Alcoholics know their GOD is not the one taught by organized religion or faith based organizations. Those organizations throw out the word "Prayer" very loosely. For every Prayer, there has to be meditation.
Prayer: expressing the individuals needs.(Note that is needs, not wants)
Meditation: listening for the answers. (note; that answer comes in many forms and differant ways)

The true AA program is one of support for others suffering from the same disease and proving to them that there is help from others with the same disease. It is a stand alone self help progam run by alcoholics for alcoholics.

People that do not have the disease will never understand what keeps those with the disease sober. One stays sober by being with those who have the disease and still practicing their addiction. Over time and being sober for a length of time most alcoholics have discovered the principle of NO. Training ones brain that when the thoughts of drinking enter the mind, "Just say No" or repeating in ones mind, Grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference

For the alcoholic, that soberiety may be 10, 20, 30 years, but the next drunk could be now. Clinging to the thought, the torment could be now, keeps one sober for another day.

In my opinion, most judges, legislators and those administering the needs of those with the disease have no ideal of what they are doing. All any of them can think of is taking the diseased persons money by fines and putting them in jails which are filled with drugs and alcohol. A good judge and legislator will know all the AA meetings in their community and direct them to those programs.

I bet not a single judge has every thought of the ideal of creating an AA program using the people who stand before him as the AA meeting. All any judge needs is a good book and study the principles and the 12 steps. Put them all in a room with ash trays and a pot of coffee and let them talk about their addiction and experiences. And while they are at it they could start a program called ACOA. "Adult Children of Alcoholics". Remembering every alcoholic affects more then 10 people in their lives and those people need help also.

Support for faith-based programs...

cvllelaw — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:09:20 GMT

is not a clear issue one way or the other.

I have not read Barack's comments -- I am on vacation in Montana, and this is the first time in a few days that I've looked in.

But although I usually agree with Barry Lynn -- and am almost always in agreement with him on matters of principle -- I have come in recent years to the conclusion that there are some programs that we as a society should encourage and fund that are administered by faith-based organizations.

I am thinking in particular of drug treatment programs like Alcoholics Anonymous. An organization like AA, which has as a part of its program the acknowledgment of a higher power, or (in the Charlottesville area) the Bridge Ministry, which is frank in its reliance on acceptance of a fundamentalist Christian view of an addict's relationship to the rest of the world, do good work in helping drug addicts change their behaviors.

I have had judges say, "I know that your client would benefit, and the state would benefit, from my ordering him into a faith-based program, and there are non-faith-based programs that are funded that aren't as effective that I could put him into. But there is no funding available for the faith-based program that would work best for him."

I was never comfortable with George W. Bush's initiatives on faith-based programs, but an absolutist view like Barry Lynn's is causing some good programs to go unfunded, and some people going unhelped.

Truth About MSNBC

Gordie — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:27:40 GMT

It's become pretty clear that journalists love John McCain. We're his base MSNBC host Chris Matthews famously said.

Now everyone should know why MSNBC bashed Hillary. They did not want Barack Obama. They thought they would get rid of Hillary and Barack will be the easier candidate to run against.

Barack better pick Hillary, just to jam it down MSNBC's throat.

Voter Registration Forms

Gordie — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:16:04 GMT

Today I received word that as of today the old Voter Regestration form are obsolete.

There is a new form and it has some type of receipt to give the newly registered voter.

Who's Going To Monitor?

route66 — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:21:26 GMT

Why, the people in charge of the groups, whether a chairman, a committee charged with monitoring, or an outside watchdog. After all, the system is currently working. I know of no "Hymie" group or "Raghead" group getting such dollars currently; our President has ensured that by the makeup of his creation. So some watchdogs ARE doing their work.

Now Obama wants to build on Bush's great tradition, to provide charity to the needy, using our dough, whether we want to give or not. Well, I'd ask Barry Lynn about that--what's wrong with that, Barry?--but he's obviously no Christian, so why would I trust his answer?

Yet, how does a Jew feel when he has an uncomfortable suspicion that some of his/her taxes are being sent to groups espousing as their tenet either "the Rapture," wherein all Jews are shafted (but, in mitigation at least the betterment of Christians is assured), or to Muslims who may preach, when no one's around, how some of the $ can be sent to Hamas.

Good work, Pander Barry.

If this move isn't a can of worms, then I don't know...

Judy — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:38:56 GMT

what would be. My first question is who's going to monitor the religious organizations to ensure that there is no discrimination and proselytizing? Barry Lynn is right -- giving public funds to religious organizations is wrong.

Another step back (and a pander, IMO.)

Once again Senator Webb impresses with his ability

Catzmaw — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:46:30 GMT

to get the job done no matter what it takes. He nursed this thing through the bad times and worked it so it would be impossible for the White House to say no. It's a tour de force.

Today I met a young lieutenant from the 82nd Airborne, back only three months from Iraq. I was performing his marriage. His parents and her parents were there for a quiet little outside ceremony. I asked what they thought of the GI Bill and the whole family lit up - the young man's father was ecstatic about his son's opportunity to advance his education when he gets out, and his mother was misty-eyed as she talked of how wonderful it was that someone was thinking of our soldiers' welfare. The bride's parents beamed and spoke of how happy they were that their daughter's new husband would be able to continue his schooling. We even discussed law school as an option. I could not think of a more glowing endorsement of the new G.I. Bill.

Thank you, Jim Webb.

Perriello Campaign, "We Did It"

Gordie — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:45:16 GMT

I am thrilled to announce that, because of your help, we reached our $900,000 fundraising goal! For the second straight quarter, it was online donations that got us across the finish line with less than 2 hours to spare. That means we have broken district fundraising records for four straight quarters. Simply amazing. I am truly touched by so many of you digging deep to make this happen.
Pundits told us that a first-time candidate would never be able to compete with a six-time incumbent on the Appropriations Committee. Pundits told us we would never be able to raise enough money. Pundits told us that the 5th District was just too big for a new campaign. But clearly they underestimated the power of you, our amazing grassroots network.
Soon we will launch our economic revival tour throughout Southside. Your support will allow us to reach every county in the district to meet voters and get our message out. There is a tremendous hunger everywhere we go: people want leaders who will shake things up in Washington and fight for them everyday.

http://www.perrielloforcongres...