Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), appearing on Amy Goodman's DemocracyNow, discusses President Obama's mistake in attempting to escalate the American military presence in Afghanistan. A leading advocate for a single-payer healthcare system and a physician, McDermott also discusses the "medical-Industrial complex," which he considers to be bigger than the "military-industrial complex."
Finally, McDermott discusses the danger that someday, in light of the collapses of many newspapers, there might not be meaningful investigative journalism sufficient to sustain our democracy.
I just learned that there is a site called Patients Like Me, where people fighting diseases can share symptoms and treatment experiences. This is another wonderful benefit of being able to network using the Internet. It might even be a life-saver. Here's how the site describes itself:
Whether you’re depressed, bipolar, anxious, obsessive-compulsive, or simply want to monitor your mood fluctuations, this is the online community for you. By sharing your symptoms, treatments and mood charts, you can gain insight into what affects your mood while helping others learn from your experiences. Create a profile today to begin taking control of your health. Imagine knowing every medication, supplement, or device used to treat your disease. Imagine knowing what treatments work for people just like you — and having the ability to easily connect with those people. That’s what makes PatientsLikeMe different. Patients share their treatments and outcomes not just to help themselves, but to help others. Become part of making a difference for everyone with mood conditions today.
The site has special categories for neurological disorders, mood disorders and immune conditions. It's wonderful that patients can have information above and beyond their own health care providers--the opportunity to be a member of a larger community of like-minded people sharing ideas and encouragement.
Maher and guests (Salman Rushdie, Christopher Hitchens and Mos Def) had an honest conversation about marijuana, politics and prohibition. Compare this honesty to Obama's recent concocted statement, which was carefully designed to keep him safe from Republican character attacks. This topic of the legalization of marijuana needs more honest discussion, or else we will continue tossing 800,000 victimless "criminals" into the justice system every year. I'm not promoting the use of marijuana or any other mind-altering drug; I would prefer that everyone stay sober and naturally high on life. The current system is insanity, however, and I don't see any hope for the honest public conversations we need to have.
On a related note, Huffpo reports that the violent big-time sellers of illegal drugs are thrilled to hear that we are going to continue our violence-inducing and generally counter-productive "drug war":
Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, reported head of the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, ranked 701st on Forbes' yearly report of the wealthiest men alive, and worth an estimated $1 billion, today officially thanked United States politicians for making sure that drugs remain illegal. According to one of his closest confidants, he said, "I couldn't have gotten so stinking rich without George Bush, George Bush Jr., Ronald Reagan, even El Presidente Obama, none of them have the cajones to stand up to all the big money that wants to keep this stuff illegal. From the bottom of my heart, I want to say, Gracias amigos, I owe my whole empire to you."
Highly religious people should be more willing to say goodbye to the material world, right? It turns out that devout believers cling ferociously to Earthly life. That's the finding of a new study reported by the Center for Inquiry:
[T]erminal cancer patients who reported drawing comfort from religion were significantly more likely to demand heroic care during their final week of life than those less attached to faith. Strong believers were also significantly less likely to engage in advance-care planning activities like making a living will, signing a do-not-resuscitate order, or naming a health-care proxy.
The difference between religious and non-religious was not trivial:
Only 3.6 percent of the least religious received mechanical ventilation during the final week of life, compared to 11.3 percent of the most religious.
Here is a beat poem that first appeared on YouTube as a concert bootleg with subtitles about a month ago. The artist quickly had the bootleg taken down. And then received a Storm of protests, requests to post it again. Finally, he put it up himself. Sans subtitles, or even video. So listen well to a rational rant that many of us would love to be capable of delivering.
Storm, by Tim Minchin
I've seen those warning eyes from both my wives, and held my piece for a while. But the temptation is great to emulate this artists storm of bile.
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