True war heroes

Many of us "Support the U.S. Troops" in the Middle East even though we have no idea what they are doing on a day to day basis. There is no significant news reporting from the areas where the soldiers do whatever they do, so many Americans fills this vacuum with hopeful imagination. I don't. I assume the worst. Sunshine is the best disinfectant, and there is no sunshine where the U.S. military is operating in the Middle East. At any time over the past ten years, you could read 100 consecutive days of most any local newspaper, and you wouldn't know anything about the day to day conduct of members of the U.S. military. You would barely know that we were at war. There have been no meaningful photos and no stories to advise us of what is really going on, where our heavily armed military encounters civilians. Nonetheless, in our ignorance, we declare ALL troops to be heroes, clapping for them at baseball games and other social events, having no idea what they are actually doing. Imagine honoring any other profession, not having any self-critical information with regard to that person's activities. "Ladies and Gentlemen, let me hear a round of applause for Joe, who is a great musician,"imagine everyone in the room clapping, even though none of them had ever heard of Joe, and none of them have heard him play even one note. Sometimes we do learn what a soldier has actually done, and sometimes it is a actually the story of a hero. Take the case of Hugh Thompson, who stepped up to do what was right, at his own risk:

Returning to the My Lai area at around 0900 after refueling, he noticed that the people he had marked were now dead. Out in a paddy field beside a dike 200 metres (660 ft) south of the village, he marked the location of a wounded young Vietnamese woman. Thompson and his crew watched from a low hover as Captain Ernest Medina (commanding officer of C Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment) came up to the woman, prodded her with his foot, and then shot and killed her. [More . . . ]

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Sarah Silverman talks to Jesus about abortion

According to Rolling Stone,

Sarah Silverman is not afraid to piss people off. Late last month, the comedian posted a video where she casually chats about abortion rights with Jesus over popcorn. It's part of her ongoing effort to inform people across the country about Republican-led efforts to limit women's access to abortion. She's teamed up with Lady Parts Justice and had been playing fundraisers for the group all over the country.

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La Crosse, Wisconsin: the town that is willing to talk about death

Excellent story by NPR. It's a long way from the Republican scare stories about "death panels":

People in La Crosse, Wisconsin are used to talking about death. In fact, 96 percent of people who die in this small, Midwestern city have specific directions laid out for when they pass. That number is astounding. Nationwide, it's more like 50 percent. In today's episode, we'll take you to a place where dying has become acceptable dinner conversation for teenagers and senior citizens alike. A place that also happens to have the lowest healthcare spending of any region in the country.
This piece reminds me that one of the main problems with the United States is that we cannot have meaningful conversations. This is refreshingly different. And important: One-quarter of health care spending occurs in the last year of life.

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Letter from Bernie Sanders

Today I received this mass-emailing from Bernie Sanders. This is as detailed as it is passionate. Sanders sees things more clearly than most politicians, and is one of the few to show a willingness to speak frankly: Thank you so much for the support that, over the years, you have given me. As Vermont's senator and the longest serving Independent in American congressional history I am helping to lead the fight in Congress to protect the middle class and working families of our country against the greed and recklessness of Big Money interests. In that struggle you have been with me step by step, battle after battle - and I appreciate all that you have done. In the midst of the most severe economic and political crisis in the modern history of our country, I am once again writing to ask for your political and financial support. The unprecedented struggle that we're engaged in now against the Billionaire Class is not just about preserving Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, or whether we create the millions of jobs our economy desperately needs. It's not merely about whether we raise the minimum wage, make college affordable, protect women's rights or take the bold initiatives we need to reverse climate change and save our planet. It's not just about creating a health care system which guarantees health care to all as a right, or addressing the abysmally high rate of childhood poverty. THE STRUGGLE THAT WE'RE ENGAGED IN RIGHT NOW IS MUCH MORE THAN ALL THAT. IT IS WHETHER WE CAN PREVENT THIS COUNTRY FROM MOVING TO AN OLIGARCHIC FORM OF SOCIETY IN WHICH VIRTUALLY ALL ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL POWER RESTS WITH A HANDFUL OF BILLIONAIRES. I know that some of you think I am exaggerating when I say that. I'm not. In my view, there are now three major political forces in this country. The Democratic Party, the Republican Party and the Koch brothers led Billionaire Party. As a result of the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court ruling which regards corporations as people and allows the super-rich to spend as much as they want on elections, the Billionaire Party (aligned with the Republicans) is now the major political force in the country. [More . . . . ]

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The failure of AA (Alcoholics Anonymous)

What would it seem like if ONLY those who successfully completed a program were featured in the media? What would we think about a school where 85 out of 100 students flunked, but only the graduates showed up to say how good the program was? That is the starting point for Dr. Lance Dodes and Zachary Dodes' article in Salon: "The pseudo-science of Alcoholics Anonymous: There’s a better way to treat addiction."

Rehab owns a special place in the American imagination. Our nation invented the “Cadillac” rehab, manifested in such widely celebrated brand names as Hazelden, Sierra Tucson, and the Betty Ford Center. . . . The fact that they are all extraordinarily expensive is almost beside the point: these rehabs are fighting the good fight, and they deserve every penny we’ve got. Unfortunately, nearly all these programs use an adaptation of the same AA approach that has been shown repeatedly to be highly ineffective. Where they deviate from traditional AA dogma is actually more alarming: many top rehab programs include extra features such as horseback riding, Reiki massage, and “adventure therapy” to help their clients exorcise the demons of addiction. . . . Why do we tolerate this industry? One reason may sound familiar: in rehab, one feels that one is doing something, taking on a life-changing intervention whose exorbitant expense ironically reinforces the impression that epochal changes must be just around the corner.
Who is studying the effectiveness of these programs? Not the programs themselves or, at least, they are not making their data open. That makes these authors suspicious:
Efforts by journalists to solicit data from rehabs have also been met with resistance, making an independent audit of their results almost impossible and leading to the inevitable conclusion that the rest of the programs either don’t study their own outcomes or refuse to publish what they find.
What is the solution? Rather than preach to addicts about a "Higher Power," the authors suggest that they need something far more personally empowering: sophisticated self-awareness."

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