Friday, August 21, 2009
Pull the Plug on ObamaCare
It's the best cure for what ails the Obama presidency.
By PEGGY NOONAN
Looking back, this must have been the White House health-care strategy:
Health care as a subject is extraordinarily sticky, messy and confusing. It's inherently complicated, and it's personal. There are land mines all over the place. Don't make the mistake the Clintons made and create a plan that gets picked apart, shot down, and injures the standing of the president. Instead, push it off on Congress. Let them come up with a dozen plans. It will keep them busy. It will convince them yet again of their importance and autonomy. It will allow them to vent, and perhaps even exhaust, their animal spirits. Various items and elements within each bill will get picked off by the public. Fine, that's to be expected. The bills may in fact yield a target-rich environment. Fine again. Maybe health care's foes will get lost in the din and run out of ammo. Maybe they'll exhaust their animal spirits, too.
Summer will pass, the fight confined to the public versus Congress. And at the end, in the fall, the beauty part: The president swoops in and saves the day, forcing together an ultimate and more moderate plan that doesn't contain the more controversial elements but does constitute a successful first step toward universal health care.
That's not what happened.
It all got hotter, quicker than the White House expected. The many plans of Congress congealed in the public mind into one plan, and the one plan became a poison pool. The president is now immersed in it.
Associated Press
President John F. Kennedy walks with humility after his Bay of Pigs fiasco.
***
Here's another thing that didn't work. (I write as if health-care reform or insurance reform or whatever it's called this week is already a loss, a historic botch, because it is. Even if the White House wins, they lose, because the cost in terms of public trust and faith was too high.)
Every big idea that works is marked by simplicity, by clarity. You can understand it when you hear it, and you can explain it to people. Social Security: Retired workers receive a public pension to help them through old age. Medicare: People over 65 can receive taxpayer-funded health care. Welfare: If you have no money and cannot support yourself, we will help as you get back on your feet.
These things are clear. I understand them. You understand them. The president's health-care plan is not clear, and I mean that not only in the sense of "he hasn't told us his plan." I mean it in terms of the voodoo phrases, this gobbledygook, this secret language of government that no one understands—"single payer," "public option," "insurance marketplace exchange." No one understands what this stuff means, nobody normal.
And when normal people don't know what the words mean, they don't say to themselves, "I may not understand, but my trusty government surely does, and will treat me and mine with respect." They think, "I can't get what these people are talking about. They must be trying to get one past me. So I'll vote no."
***
In a more beautiful world, the whole health-care chapter could become, for the president, that helpful thing, the teachable moment. The president the past month has been taught a lot by the American people. It's all there in the polls. He could still step back, rethink, say it didn't work, promise to return with something better.
When presidents make clear, with modesty and even some chagrin, that they have made a mistake but that they've learned a lesson and won't be making it again, the American people tend to respond with sympathy. It is our tradition and our impulse.
Such admissions are not a sign of weakness. John F. Kennedy knew this after the Bay of Pigs. He didn't blame his Republican predecessor, Dwight Eisenhower, or the agencies that had begun the invasion's tentative planning under Ike. JFK made it clear he'd learned a great deal, which increased confidence in his leadership. His personal popularity rose so high that he later wryly noted that the more mistakes he made, the more popular he became.
I suspect the American people would appreciate seeing Barack Obama learn from this, and keep going. He's their president. He will be for the next few difficult years, which will no doubt contain moments he will have to lead us through. They also probably wouldn't mind seeing a wry, modest, very human and self-critical stance from a new president who doesn't strut and doesn't swagger but does have a level of 1950s cool, Old Vegas cool, of supreme and confident smoothness that one wouldn't mind seeing ruffled a bit by that old ruffler, reality. Critics of George W. Bush will say here, "Did he ever show wry self-criticism?" No, he didn't. And that's why it ended so well for him.
Modern presidents are always afraid to show anything so human as modesty or doubt. They're afraid of the endless cable-news loop of "I think I was wrong, I think I misjudged, I didn't get it right." They're afraid of death by soundbite. Which is understandable. But they should get over it, especially when it comes to a bit of self-criticism, and even a bit of self-doubt. Modesty is one of the prevailing moods of the moment, it's part of where the American people are and have been since at least a year ago when the economy tanked. We all lived through the abundance, made investments, not only financial ones, that turned out good or bad, made mistakes of judgment, and are wondering about the past decade, and its mistakes, and our part in its mistakes.
It shouldn't become a wallow, but there's nothing wrong with self-reflection and trying to learn from everything we did that was wrong, and right. It wouldn't be so bad to see a president echo this.
***
A final factor contributed to the mess of the health-care debate, and that the White House might ponder it. Looking back, what a lucky man President Clinton was to have—to help bring about after his own health-care fiasco—a Congress controlled by the opposite party. What a great and historic team Mr. Clinton and Newt Gingrich were, a popular Democratic president and a determined GOP leader with a solid majority. Welfare reform, a balanced budget, and a sense the public could have that not much crazy would happen and some serious progress might be made. If Mr. Clinton pressed too hard, Mr. Gingrich would push back. If Mr. Gingrich pressed too hard Mr. Clinton pushed back. Two gifted, often perplexing and always controversial Boomers who didn't even like each other, and yet you look back now and realize: Good things happened there.
Right now Mr. Obama's gift is his curse, a Congress dominated by his party. While the country worries about the economy and two wars, the Democrats of Congress are preoccupied with the idea that this is their moment, now is their time, health care now, "Never let a good crisis go to waste," the only blazingly memorable phrase to be uttered in the new era.
It's not especially pleasurable to see history held hostage to ideological vanity, but it's not the first time. And if they keep it up, they'll help solve the president's problem. He'll have a Republican congress soon enough.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
hummmm
Okla. City fire station catches fire
The fire, which primarily affected the station's living area and kitchen, started about 3:20 p.m. Several pieces of equipment was pulled from the building, but it does not appear any fire trucks caught ...
borrowed from Heather.... Andrew and Madison... heading off to school...
First Day of School!!
After three shoe changes this morning so that her flower on her big toes showed we ended up in sandles, I was praying that she did not want to change clothes :)Well I thought I was going to be ok about taking my little baby to PreK, boy was I wrong I did just find until I got to the car and then lost it...She was very excited and then nervous when we got there. I have better pictures on the camera these I snapped with my phone waiting to get in the school. Hoping I get no calls today from the school...
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Hank Williams Jr. Visits Old Ghosts at '127 Rose Avenue'
Since the mid-1960s, Hank Williams Jr.'s musical output has comprised some 50 studio albums and several career-spanning compilations. But according to Hank, his most recent disc, '127 Rose Avenue,' is also "one of the most special albums I've ever made" -- and one of the easiest to put together.
"A lot of the songs got written when I was out with my two Labradors and a hickory stick at 7:30 in the morning," says the legendary performer. "I don't think I've ever had a whole album where it came together this well and this quickly. It was, 'Here's the melody, here are the words -- bam! There it is.' There's a lot of magic here."
In addition to the topical single, 'Red, White and Pink-Slip Blues,' the disc features a collaboration with bluegrass band the Grascals on 'All the Roads.' Hank also reflects on his musical heroes and family legacy with songs such as 'Mighty Oak Trees' and 'Last Driftin' Cowboy,' a tune dedicated to the late musician Don Helms, best known as the steel guitar player in Hank Williams Sr.'s Drifting Cowboys band.
The album's ghostly title track is a reference to the boyhood home of Hank Sr., in Georgiana, Ala. -- although it's actually on Rose Street. Open to tourists, there are a number of the country legend's personal items on display. The town also hosts an annual festival at the Hank Williams Music Park, with Hank Sr.'s daughter, Jett Williams among the performers this year.
And speaking of daughters, on the same day Hank Jr. released his album, his daughter, Holly Williams released her latest, titled 'Here with Me.' And in August, Holly's half-brother Hank Williams III will unleash the latest album from his band Assjack.
"A lot of the songs got written when I was out with my two Labradors and a hickory stick at 7:30 in the morning," says the legendary performer. "I don't think I've ever had a whole album where it came together this well and this quickly. It was, 'Here's the melody, here are the words -- bam! There it is.' There's a lot of magic here."
In addition to the topical single, 'Red, White and Pink-Slip Blues,' the disc features a collaboration with bluegrass band the Grascals on 'All the Roads.' Hank also reflects on his musical heroes and family legacy with songs such as 'Mighty Oak Trees' and 'Last Driftin' Cowboy,' a tune dedicated to the late musician Don Helms, best known as the steel guitar player in Hank Williams Sr.'s Drifting Cowboys band.
The album's ghostly title track is a reference to the boyhood home of Hank Sr., in Georgiana, Ala. -- although it's actually on Rose Street. Open to tourists, there are a number of the country legend's personal items on display. The town also hosts an annual festival at the Hank Williams Music Park, with Hank Sr.'s daughter, Jett Williams among the performers this year.
And speaking of daughters, on the same day Hank Jr. released his album, his daughter, Holly Williams released her latest, titled 'Here with Me.' And in August, Holly's half-brother Hank Williams III will unleash the latest album from his band Assjack.
Obama Goes Postal, Lands in Dead-Letter Office: Caroline Baum
Aug. 18 (Bloomberg) -- “UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.” -- Barack Obama, Aug. 11, 2009
No institution has been the butt of more government- inefficiency jokes than the U.S. Postal Service. Maybe the Department of Motor Vehicles.
The only way the post office can stay in business is its government subsidy. The USPS lost $2.4 billion in the quarter ended in June and projects a net loss of $7 billion in fiscal 2009, outstanding debt of more than $10 billion and a cash shortfall of $1 billion. It was moved to intensive care -- the Government Accountability Office’s list of “high risk” cases - - last month and told to shape up. (It must be the only entity that hasn’t cashed in on TARP!)
That didn’t stop President Barack Obama from holding up the post office as an example at a town hall meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, last week.
When Obama compared the post office to UPS and FedEx, he was clearly hoping to assuage voter concerns about a public health-care option undercutting and eliminating private insurance.
What he did instead was conjure up visions of long lines and interminable waits. Why do we need or want a health-care system that works like the post office?
What’s more, if the USPS is struggling to compete with private companies, as Obama implied, why introduce a government health-care option that would operate at the same disadvantage?
Obama Unscripted
These are just two of the questions someone listening to the president’s health-insurance reform roadshow might want to ask.
Impromptu Obamanomics is getting scarier by the day. For all the president’s touted intelligence, his un-teleprompted comments reveal a basic misunderstanding of capitalist principles.
For example, asked at the Portsmouth town hall how private insurance companies can compete with the government, the president said the following:
“If the private insurance companies are providing a good bargain, and if the public option has to be self-sustaining -- meaning taxpayers aren’t subsidizing it, but it has to run on charging premiums and providing good services and a good network of doctors, just like any other private insurer would do -- then I think private insurers should be able to compete.”
Self-sustaining? The public option? What has Obama been doing during those daily 40-minute economic briefings coordinated by uber-economic-adviser,Larry Summers?
Capitalism Explained
Government programs aren’t self-sustaining by definition. They’re subsidized by the taxpayer. If they were self-financed, we’d be off the hook.
Llewellyn Rockwell Jr., chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, and editor of LewRockwell.com, put it this way in an Aug. 13 commentary on Mises.org:
“The only reason for a government service is precisely to provide financial support for an operation that is otherwise unsustainable, or else there would be no point in the government’s involvement at all.”
Rockwell sees no “economic reason for a government postal system” and would abolish it.
Of course, there’s the small matter of the U.S. Constitution. Article 1, Section 8, grants Congress the power “to establish Post Offices and Post Roads.” A series of subsequent statutes gave the USPS a monopoly in the delivery of first-class mail. Congress thought that without such protection, private carriers would cherry-pick the high-profit routes and leave money-losing deliveries in remote areas to the post office. (In those days, the USPS covered most of its expenses with revenue.)
Less Bad Option
It was only through exemptions in the law that private carriers, such as UPSand FedEx, were allowed to compete in the delivery of overnight mail.
Short of a constitutional amendment or a waiver from Congress, we are stuck with the USPS.
But back to our storyline. Everyone makes a mistake or flubs a line when asked questions on the spot, including the president of the United States. We can overlook run-on sentences, subject and verb tense disagreement, even a memory lapse when it comes to facts and figures.
The proliferation of Obama’s gaffes and non sequiturs on health care has exceeded the allowable limit. He has failed repeatedly to explain how the government will provide more (health care) for less (money). He has failed to explain why increased demand for medical services without a concomitant increase in supply won’t lead to rationing by government bureaucrats as opposed to the market. And he has failed to explain why a Medicare-like model is desirable when Medicare itself is going broke.
The public is left with one of two unsettling conclusions: Either the president doesn’t understand the health-insurance reform plans working their way through Congress, or he understands both the plans and the implications and is being untruthful about the impact.
Neither option is good; ignorance is clearly preferable to the alternative.
(Caroline Baum, author of “Just What I Said,” is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)
To contact the writer of this column: Caroline Baum in New York atcabaum@bloomberg.net.
August 19, 2009
Mr. Stan and Ann Moffat
3333 East 68th
Stillwater, Oklahoma 74074
Dear Mr. Moffat,
Thank you for your email regarding the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454). Rest assured I strongly oppose H.R. 2454, and I appreciate you taking the time to share how this legislation will impact small business and farming.
Climate change legislation represents a major loss of liberty, and a vast expansion of the federal government. It would concentrate power and authority in the Administrator of the EPA and related climate change boards based in Washington, DC, in what would amount to the most dramatic shift towards centralized economic planning in our history. Assuming the most conservative estimate, the system proposed in the last Congress would have transferred $7 trillion into the hands of the Administrator of the EPA, who would have immediately assumed a position of tremendous influence in our economy.
I am gravely concerned with the direction and leadership of our country in general. Our government continues to expand - wielding more power and proposing more arbitrary regulations on business and individuals. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in particular often poses an enormous threat to our basic freedoms, especially in regards to its authority to regulate "greenhouse gases." EPA's increasing thirst for arbitrary regulatory authority in the name of saving the environment is growing at an exponential pace and must be stopped.
The economic well-being of Americans and the well-being of our environment are tied together; policies that do not recognize this fact are neither sustainable nor effective. The policies we create today establish a precedence that will continue to impact our lives and economy, thus it is imperative that we consider real science as we continue to debate environment issues.
We must do everything we can to protect our natural environment, but we must make sure these policies are actually necessary, effective, and within our constitutional authority. Cap and trade legislation will place an unbearable financial burden on consumers (much as it has in Europe) all based on a theory that is far from settled. While it is important to reduce harmful pollutants, it is not prudent to create far-reaching measures without scientific data that fully proves the dangers of global warming, especially if they have potentially disastrous economic consequences.
Though the debate on global climate change still rages on, the tide of sensationalistic global warming theories is actually beginning to turn as many scientists have spoken out against these scare tactics. In fact, many reports have claimed global cooling may be a greater concern. Although environmental extremists continue to claim imminent consequences if we do not quickly impose regulations, I am confident that science will disprove the idea that we must suffocate carbon-based industries.
Rest assured, under no circumstance will I support such a vast overreach of the federal government.
Thank you for sharing your concerns with me. Please stay in touch.
Sincerely, A
Tom A. Coburn, M.D.
United States Senator
Monday, August 17, 2009
San Jose Mercury News: Boxer could face re-election fight of her career against Fiorina
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Boxer could face re-election fight of her career against Fiorina -
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Brian Stoner working on a preservation project to preserve the American Native language in song so youngsters can learn the old songs
of the Ponca Tribe. This is a wonderful idea. Hopefully this will catch on and more will do it regardless of nationality or race... much is being lost as time rolls on...
Looking north before I jumped in truck and headed home... sigh.. winds to 65 knocked down power lines in Stillwater and a friend of mine had 4 ft. dia
trees blown down along with the huge hi line poles that feed Stillwater from the east...
Friday, August 14, 2009
From a friend....
I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books in six languages, and have studied history all my life. I think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is just a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes, these exist but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus.
Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about 10 - 15 years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.
We demanded and then codified into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people whom we knew could never pay back? Why? We learned recently that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has "loaned" two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, **but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine. And that is three times the $700B we all argued about so strenuously just this past September.
Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of "We the People," who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.
We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy. Why?
We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why?
We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (now violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it wants marriage to remain between one man and one woman. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?). We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic. To what purpose?
Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, Social Security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare and our entire government. Our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and know precisely what I am talking about.) The list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth. It is potentially 1929 x 10. And we are at war with an enemy we cannot name for fear of offending people of the same religion who cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.
And now we have elected a man no one knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla , Alaska . All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary (Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our borders? No? Oh, of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it. Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe is more important.)
Mr. Obama's winning platform can be boiled down to one word:Change...radical change. Why?
I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now. This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.
And that is only the beginning.
I thought I would never be able to experience what the ordinary, moral German felt in the mid-1930s. In those times, the savior was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they did know was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory and promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his "brown shirts" would bully them into submission.
And then he was duly elected to office, with a full-throttled economic crisis at hand [the Great Depression]. Slowly but surely he seized the controls of government power, department by department, person by person, bureaucracy by bureaucracy.
The kids joined a Youth Movement in his name, where they were taught what to think. How did he get the people on his side? He did it promising jobs to the jobless, money to the moneyless, and goodies for the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe , and across the world.
He did it with a compliant media - Did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and...change. And the people surely got what they voted for. (Look it up if you think I am exaggerating.) Read your history books. Many people objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and made fun of. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though.
Don't forget that Germany was the most educated, cultured country in Europe . It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. And in less than six years - a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency - it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors. All with the best of intentions, of course. The road to Hell is paved with them.
As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong, close my eyes, have another latte and ignore what is transpiring around me.
Some people scoff at me; others laugh or think I am foolish, naive, or both. Perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe - and why I believe it. I pray I am wrong. But, I do not think I am.
About the author via Google...
Pamela "Atlas" Geller began her publishing career at The New York Daily News and subsequently took over operation of The New York Observer as Associate Publisher. She left The Observer after the birth of her fourth child, but remained involved in various projects including American Associates, Ben Gurion University and being Senior Vice-President Strategic Planning and Performance Evaluation at The Brandeis School.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Jeff Salantai is the first person living with hemophilia to summit Mount Rainier.
This is the real deal...Jeff Salantai (in photo with RED COAT on Mt. Rainer) and I set out with a mission to climb Mt. Rainier. For those of you who don’t know Jeff he is an account manager for us living in Austin Tx. Jeff works with BioRx’s hemophilia group. After more than 7 months of training and prep work we attempted to summit the mountain this past week. In fact we got home late last night.
We received tons of thoughts and prayers from many of you and we just wanted to say thank you to everyone who called or wrote wishing us luck.
We summited the mountain at 7:20am on Saturday at 14,410 feet….so wiped out we could barely function (only to realize we had about 7 more hours of continuous trekking to get back down) but we did it.
I’ve attached three pictures and below are some snippets about what we did if you are interested.
1^st picture (047) – this is a picture of the sunrise we took from the side of the mountain at about 12,500 feet. It was taken around 5am (although I’m not sure exactly when it was). At this point we had been on the mountain for about 21 hours (we started at about 8 or 9 the previous morning) with just one rest brake at 10,000 feet to grab a couple hours of sleep. It was breathtaking (literally) being above the clouds looking down at huge peaks below us and seeing the sun pop through the clouds. It was my favorite moment. At this point I would say we were both thinking “holy crap we still have 2 more hours to go and 2,000 feet of vertical elevation to the top…the hard work is still ahead of us!”.
2^nd picture (050) – this picture was taken from about 13,600 feet near the top of Emman’s glacier. We were about 1 hour from the top. You can see the peaks and other mountains around us more clearly and the cloud layer that was thousands of feet below us. In the bottom left of the picture you can see a climber heading back down and a little bit of the ice trail. By now we are having to force food into our body. I was feeling sick and trying to eat frozen energy gels, power bars or anything was horribly nauseating to me but our guides were berating us to eat. We were both wiped out by this time and were sort of on auto-pilot. I think we knew that by now with only 1 hour to the top we were going to make it. Everyone who was going to wash-out of the climb had already been taken off the mountain by guides.
3^rd picture – (065) This is a picture of Jeff and myself along with our lead guide, Dave Hahn. This picture was taken on Columbia Crest at 14,410 feet…the summit…the glory shot!. Jeff is in the red coat on the right, Dave is in the middle and I’m on the left. As it turns out our guide is a famous mountaineer legend who has summated Mt. Everest 11 times and still counting. He has summated Rainier 252 times. He has led expeditions to find the bodies of some of the early climbers on Mt. Everest and has filmed and been in numerous TV documentary’s about it. He guides Rainer trips now once or twice a summer for fun and we drew the lucky straw. The banner we are holding is a summit flag that Jeff had made. It has the BioRx logo on it and says “Summit for Someone” which is the charity we were raising money for. We got to rest for about 20 more minutes after this picture was taken before starting back down.
If you are interested here are a couple of snippets about what we did.
1. Mt Rainier is the tallest mountain in the lower 49 states (only
Alaska has a higher mountain). It is located just outside of
Ashford, WA..
2. About 30% (5 of 18) of the group that started with us did not make it
3. Jeff and I raised about $9,500 for at-risk youth in a program
called Summit for Someone. We additionally raised some money (we
don’t know how much yet) for Save One Life which provides factor
and financial support to people with bleeding disorders in 3^rd
world countries. BioRx is going to match the funds for Save One Life.
4. We both agreed that this is the hardest thing we’ve ever done.
I’ve run a marathon, done 4 more 23 mile runs, completed 5 Olympic
length triathlons, climbed 2 other 14ft mountains (no glaciers)
and raced in 100k road bike races Jeff likewise has done some
pretty spectacular physical challenges like climbing the 2^nd and
third largest mountains in the US, rock climbed some amazing
cliffs, and competing in 100mile bike races on a routine basis. We
both agreed that they all paled in comparison to the effort and
mental trial of this experience.
5. We were blessed with good support, great guides, lots of friend
and family like you wishing us the best.
Most spectacularly – we are 99% sure that Jeff is the first person living with hemophilia to summit Mount Rainier. There are certainly other higher mountains (Denali, K2, Everest) but Jeff is in a very elite group and who knows he may now hold a record for the highest summit in the world by someone with hemophilia …who knows….he almost certainly is the first to summit Rainer. We are going to try to fact check this and if we can confirm it we’ll publicize that fact. We know of one other hemophiliac who attempted Rainier two years ago but was taken off the mountain at 12,500 feet in an unsuccessful bid.
Thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers. This was a great experience that we’ll never forget and something I’m proud that our company participated in.
*Eric Hill*
We received tons of thoughts and prayers from many of you and we just wanted to say thank you to everyone who called or wrote wishing us luck.
We summited the mountain at 7:20am on Saturday at 14,410 feet….so wiped out we could barely function (only to realize we had about 7 more hours of continuous trekking to get back down) but we did it.
I’ve attached three pictures and below are some snippets about what we did if you are interested.
1^st picture (047) – this is a picture of the sunrise we took from the side of the mountain at about 12,500 feet. It was taken around 5am (although I’m not sure exactly when it was). At this point we had been on the mountain for about 21 hours (we started at about 8 or 9 the previous morning) with just one rest brake at 10,000 feet to grab a couple hours of sleep. It was breathtaking (literally) being above the clouds looking down at huge peaks below us and seeing the sun pop through the clouds. It was my favorite moment. At this point I would say we were both thinking “holy crap we still have 2 more hours to go and 2,000 feet of vertical elevation to the top…the hard work is still ahead of us!”.
2^nd picture (050) – this picture was taken from about 13,600 feet near the top of Emman’s glacier. We were about 1 hour from the top. You can see the peaks and other mountains around us more clearly and the cloud layer that was thousands of feet below us. In the bottom left of the picture you can see a climber heading back down and a little bit of the ice trail. By now we are having to force food into our body. I was feeling sick and trying to eat frozen energy gels, power bars or anything was horribly nauseating to me but our guides were berating us to eat. We were both wiped out by this time and were sort of on auto-pilot. I think we knew that by now with only 1 hour to the top we were going to make it. Everyone who was going to wash-out of the climb had already been taken off the mountain by guides.
3^rd picture – (065) This is a picture of Jeff and myself along with our lead guide, Dave Hahn. This picture was taken on Columbia Crest at 14,410 feet…the summit…the glory shot!. Jeff is in the red coat on the right, Dave is in the middle and I’m on the left. As it turns out our guide is a famous mountaineer legend who has summated Mt. Everest 11 times and still counting. He has summated Rainier 252 times. He has led expeditions to find the bodies of some of the early climbers on Mt. Everest and has filmed and been in numerous TV documentary’s about it. He guides Rainer trips now once or twice a summer for fun and we drew the lucky straw. The banner we are holding is a summit flag that Jeff had made. It has the BioRx logo on it and says “Summit for Someone” which is the charity we were raising money for. We got to rest for about 20 more minutes after this picture was taken before starting back down.
If you are interested here are a couple of snippets about what we did.
1. Mt Rainier is the tallest mountain in the lower 49 states (only
Alaska has a higher mountain). It is located just outside of
Ashford, WA..
2. About 30% (5 of 18) of the group that started with us did not make it
3. Jeff and I raised about $9,500 for at-risk youth in a program
called Summit for Someone. We additionally raised some money (we
don’t know how much yet) for Save One Life which provides factor
and financial support to people with bleeding disorders in 3^rd
world countries. BioRx is going to match the funds for Save One Life.
4. We both agreed that this is the hardest thing we’ve ever done.
I’ve run a marathon, done 4 more 23 mile runs, completed 5 Olympic
length triathlons, climbed 2 other 14ft mountains (no glaciers)
and raced in 100k road bike races Jeff likewise has done some
pretty spectacular physical challenges like climbing the 2^nd and
third largest mountains in the US, rock climbed some amazing
cliffs, and competing in 100mile bike races on a routine basis. We
both agreed that they all paled in comparison to the effort and
mental trial of this experience.
5. We were blessed with good support, great guides, lots of friend
and family like you wishing us the best.
Most spectacularly – we are 99% sure that Jeff is the first person living with hemophilia to summit Mount Rainier. There are certainly other higher mountains (Denali, K2, Everest) but Jeff is in a very elite group and who knows he may now hold a record for the highest summit in the world by someone with hemophilia …who knows….he almost certainly is the first to summit Rainer. We are going to try to fact check this and if we can confirm it we’ll publicize that fact. We know of one other hemophiliac who attempted Rainier two years ago but was taken off the mountain at 12,500 feet in an unsuccessful bid.
Thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers. This was a great experience that we’ll never forget and something I’m proud that our company participated in.
*Eric Hill*
Uncle David tried to cut off his finger Monday...
Uncle Dave was working on fixing a flat tire at his business early in am on Monday, when something did not work as planned and he said he thought there might be a problem after his finger started hurting and he looked and it was hanging on by the skin... got 'er sewn back on and will know today if it is going to work or not..
just fyi... Ann knows more I am sure.. just wanted everyone to know..
later.. s
just fyi... Ann knows more I am sure.. just wanted everyone to know..
later.. s
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Obama's healthcare horror
Heads should roll -- beginning with Nancy Pelosi's!By Camille Paglia
Aug. 12, 2009 |
Buyer's remorse? Not me. At the North American summit in Guadalajara this week, President Obama resumed the role he is best at -- representing the U.S. with dignity and authority abroad. This is why I, for one, voted for Obama and continue to support him. The damage done to U.S. prestige by the feckless, buffoonish George W. Bush will take years to repair. Obama has barely begun the crucial mission that he was elected to do.
Having said that, I must confess my dismay bordering on horror at the amateurism of the White House apparatus for domestic policy. When will heads start to roll? I was glad to see the White House counsel booted, as well as Michelle Obama's chief of staff, and hope it's a harbinger of things to come. Except for that wily fox, David Axelrod, who could charm gold threads out of moonbeams, Obama seems to be surrounded by juvenile tinhorns, bumbling mediocrities and crass bully boys.
Case in point: the administration's grotesque mishandling of healthcare reform, one of the most vital issues facing the nation. Ever since Hillary Clinton's megalomaniacal annihilation of our last best chance at reform in 1993 (all of which was suppressed by the mainstream media when she was running for president), Democrats have been longing for that happy day when this issue would once again be front and center.
But who would have thought that the sober, deliberative Barack Obama would have nothing to propose but vague and slippery promises -- or that he would so easily cede the leadership clout of the executive branch to a chaotic, rapacious, solipsistic Congress? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom I used to admire for her smooth aplomb under pressure, has clearly gone off the deep end with her bizarre rants about legitimate town-hall protests by American citizens. She is doing grievous damage to the party and should immediately step down.
There is plenty of blame to go around. Obama's aggressive endorsement of a healthcare plan that does not even exist yet, except in five competing, fluctuating drafts, makes Washington seem like Cloud Cuckoo Land. The president is promoting the most colossal, brazen bait-and-switch operation since the Bush administration snookered the country into invading Iraq with apocalyptic visions of mushroom clouds over American cities.
You can keep your doctor; you can keep your insurance, if you're happy with it, Obama keeps assuring us in soothing, lullaby tones. Oh, really? And what if my doctor is not the one appointed by the new government medical boards for ruling on my access to tests and specialists? And what if my insurance company goes belly up because of undercutting by its government-bankrolled competitor? Face it: Virtually all nationalized health systems, neither nourished nor updated by profit-driven private investment, eventually lead to rationing.
I just don't get it. Why the insane rush to pass a bill, any bill, in three weeks? And why such an abject failure by the Obama administration to present the issues to the public in a rational, detailed, informational way? The U.S. is gigantic; many of our states are bigger than whole European nations. The bureaucracy required to institute and manage a nationalized health system here would be Byzantine beyond belief and would vampirically absorb whatever savings Obama thinks could be made. And the transition period would be a nightmare of red tape and mammoth screw-ups, which we can ill afford with a faltering economy.
As with the massive boondoggle of the stimulus package, which Obama foolishly let Congress turn into a pork rut, too much has been attempted all at once; focused, targeted initiatives would, instead, have won wide public support. How is it possible that Democrats, through their own clumsiness and arrogance, have sabotaged healthcare reform yet again? Blaming obstructionist Republicans is nonsensical because Democrats control all three branches of government. It isn't conservative rumors or lies that are stopping healthcare legislation; it's the justifiable alarm of an electorate that has been cut out of the loop and is watching its representatives construct a tangled labyrinth for others but not for themselves. No, the airheads of Congress will keep their own plush healthcare plan -- it's the rest of us guinea pigs who will be thrown to the wolves.
With the Republican party leaderless and in backbiting disarray following its destruction by the ideologically incoherent George W. Bush, Democrats are apparently eager to join the hara-kiri brigade. What looked like smooth coasting to the 2010 election has now become a nail-biter. Both major parties have become a rats' nest of hypocrisy and incompetence. That, combined with our stratospheric, near-criminal indebtedness to China (which could destroy the dollar overnight), should raise signal flags. Are we like late Rome, infatuated with past glories, ruled by a complacent, greedy elite, and hopelessly powerless to respond to changing conditions?
What does either party stand for these days? Republican politicians, with their endless scandals, are hardly exemplars of traditional moral values. Nor have they generated new ideas for healthcare, except for medical savings accounts, which would be pathetically inadequate in a major crisis for anyone earning at or below a median income.
And what do Democrats stand for, if they are so ready to defame concerned citizens as the "mob" -- a word betraying a Marie Antoinette delusion of superiority to ordinary mortals. I thought my party was populist, attentive to the needs and wishes of those outside the power structure. And as a product of the 1960s, I thought the Democratic party was passionately committed to freedom of thought and speech.
But somehow liberals have drifted into a strange servility toward big government, which they revere as a godlike foster father-mother who can dispense all bounty and magically heal all ills. The ethical collapse of the left was nowhere more evident than in the near total silence of liberal media and Web sites at the Obama administration's outrageous solicitation to private citizens to report unacceptable "casual conversations" to the White House. If Republicans had done this, there would have been an angry explosion by Democrats from coast to coast. I was stunned at the failure of liberals to see the blatant totalitarianism in this incident, which the president should have immediately denounced. His failure to do so implicates him in it.
As a libertarian and refugee from the authoritarian Roman Catholic church of my youth, I simply do not understand the drift of my party toward a soulless collectivism. This is in fact what Sarah Palin hit on in her shocking image of a "death panel" under Obamacare that would make irrevocable decisions about the disabled and elderly. When I first saw that phrase, headlined on the Drudge Report, I burst out laughing. It seemed so over the top! But on reflection, I realized that Palin's shrewdly timed metaphor spoke directly to the electorate's unease with the prospect of shadowy, unelected government figures controlling our lives. A death panel not only has the power of life and death but is itself a symptom of a Kafkaesque brave new world where authority has become remote, arbitrary and spectral. And as in the Spanish Inquisition, dissidence is heresy, persecuted and punished.
Surely, the basic rule in comprehensive legislation should be: First, do no harm. The present proposals are full of noble aims, but the biggest danger always comes from unforeseen and unintended consequences. Example: the American incursion into Iraq, which destabilized the region by neutralizing Iran's rival and thus enormously enhancing Iran's power and nuclear ambitions.
What was needed for reform was an in-depth analysis, buttressed by documentary evidence, of waste, fraud and profiteering in the healthcare, pharmaceutical and insurance industries. Instead what we've gotten is a series of facile, vulgar innuendos about how doctors conduct their practice, as if their primary motive is money. Quite frankly, the president gives little sense of direct knowledge of medical protocols; it's as if his views are a tissue of hearsay and scattershot worst-case scenarios.
Of course, it didn't help matters that, just when he needed maximum momentum on healthcare, Obama made the terrible gaffe of declaring that, even without his knowing the full facts, Cambridge, Mass., police had acted "stupidly" in arresting a friend of his, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. Obama's automatic identification with the pampered Harvard elite (wildly unpopular with most sensible people), as well as his insulting condescension toward an officer doing his often dangerous duty, did serious and perhaps irreparable damage to the president's standing. The strained, prissy beer summit in the White House garden afterward didn't help. Is that the Obama notion of hospitality? Another staff breakdown.
Both Gates and Obama mistakenly assumed that the original incident at Gates' house was about race, when it was about class. It was the wealthy, lordly Gates who committed the first offense by instantly and evidently hysterically defaming the character of the officer who arrived at his door to investigate the report of a break-in. There was no excuse for Gates' loud and cheap charges of racism, which he should have immediately apologized for the next day, instead of threatening lawsuits and self-aggrandizing television exposés. On the other hand, given that Cambridge is virtually a company town, perhaps police headquarters should have dispatched a moderator to the tumultuous scene before a small, disabled Harvard professor was clapped in handcuffs and marched off to jail. But why should an Ivy League panjandrum be treated any differently from the rest of us hoi polloi?
Class rarely receives honest attention in the American media, as demonstrated by the reporting on a June incident at a swimming pool in the Philadelphia suburbs. When the director of the Valley Swim Club in Montgomery County cancelled its agreement with several urban day camps to use its private pool, the controversy was portrayed entirely in racial terms. There were uninvestigated allegations of remarks about "black kids" made by white mothers who ordered their children out of the pool, and the racial theme was intensified by the director's inept description of the "complexion" of the pool having been changed -- which may simply have been a whopper of a Freudian slip.
Having followed the coverage in the Philadelphia media, I have lingering questions about how much of that incident was race and how much was social class. Urban working-class and suburban middle-class children often have quite different styles of play -- as I know from present observation as well as from my Syracuse youth, when I regularly biked to the public pool in Thornden Park. Kids of all races from downtown Syracuse neighborhoods were much rougher and tougher, and for self-preservation you had to stay out of their way! Otherwise, you'd get knocked to the concrete or dunked when they heedlessly jumped off the diving board onto our heads in the crowded pool.
In general, middle-class children today are more closely supervised at pools because the family can afford to have a non-working parent at home -- a luxury that working-class kids rarely have. What happened at the Valley Swim Club, whose safety infrastructure was evidently also overwhelmed by too many visiting kids who were non-swimmers, may have been a clash of classes rather than races. Were the mothers who pulled their kids out of the pool that day really reacting to skin color or what they, accurately or not, perceived to be an overcrowded, dangerous disorder? The incontrovertible offense in all this, which went unmentioned in the national media, was the closure for budgetary reasons by the city of Philadelphia this summer of 27 of its 73 public pools. There is no excuse for that kind of draconian curtailment of basic recreational facilities for working-class families, sweltering in the urban summer heat.
Now on to art and pop. Highlight of the month for me was definitely a recent performance by Alo Brasil, a local Brazilian music and dance ensemble, at Philadelphia's World Cafe Live. I positioned myself smack in front of the stage to bathe in the magnificent, hypnotic drumming, a Bahian style with West African roots that takes one into another reality -- sublime and trans-historical. Of course, then there was the sensory overload of the beautiful, nimble, long-legged samba dancers in their jeweled bikinis and high heels! But all the dancers of Alo Brasil, male and female, are absolutely brilliant -- it was mind-blowing. Anyone born and raised in Bahia (such as Daniela Mercury) has obviously been immersed in these rhythms from earliest childhood. They are surely profoundly transformative, reshaping the neural synapses and opening the mind toward ecstatic group communication. To be continued!
Our pop medley for this column begins with the Algeria-born Etienne Daho, whose three-disc set, "Dans la Peau de Daho" (2002), I have been working my way through. Last year, I posted two other videos featuring Daho -- his quietly compelling duet with Charlotte Gainsbourg and his moving tribute to Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick. This song, "Paris le Flore," is a hauntingly atmospheric ode to random encounters in the streets and cafés of Paris. In the narrative superimposed by the video, two notable French performers do their thing -- Virginie Ledoyen (who appeared with Catherine Deneuve in "8 Women" and with Leonardo DiCaprio in "The Beach") and singer/actor Benjamin Biolay, ex-husband of Chiara Mastroianni, the daughter of Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni. I love the way Daho's shimmery song re-creates the meditative mystique of French eroticism, shown in a thousand films. And that liquid, stuttering bass line -- divine! (Hey, Salon readers, if you don't have good speakers on your computer, you're missing the cultural riches of the Web.)
Next on the docket is Sharon Stone, exploding in all her topless glory on the cover of Paris Match. Now there's a gal who knows how to work the gym while still keeping the sacred flame of sexiness alive! Yes, you know who the Big Bad Example is of obsessive gym culture gone to seed -- that increasingly artificial construction of paraffin and chicken wire, our Madonna of the Shallows. Jesus Luz must be blessedly myopic. (Cue the Contours' 1965 R&B hit, "First I Look at the Purse.")
Caught HBO's 1998 movie "Gia" for the umpteenth time on cable the other day. My admiration remains boundless for the 22-year-old Angelina Jolie's bravura performance as the Philadelphia-born fashion model Gia Carangi, a heroin addict who died of AIDS in 1986. I've often recommended Stephen Fried's excellent 1993 biography, "Thing of Beauty: The Tragedy of Supermodel Gia," but this time I hit the Web to see what else I could dig up.
Mother lode! I found Gia's original nude fence photos, shown in the movie being shot by the perverse fashionista Chris von Wangenheim. I was startled to learn that Wangenheim was killed in a car accident in 1981, another blow for Gia. In trying to find his obit, I discovered that New York Times files of the World War One era are filled with references to his noble German ancestors, many of whom were barons killed in battle. Another German decadent artiste, like the incomparable Helmut Newton.
Here are some wonderful photos of Wilhelmina (stylishly played in the movie by Faye Dunaway), the Dutch fashion model veteran of 300 covers who founded an agency that hired the scrappy Gia but who then tragically died of cancer at age 40 in 1980, leaving Gia bereft. And here's Gia's ever-patient, real-life girlfriend, Sandy Linter, who turns out to be a more in-your-face urban type of the Deborah Harry school than she was portrayed in the movie.
Interested parties should check out this pastiche of clips, with a great song, which ingeniously conflate Gia with Patricia Charbonneau in that lesbo classic "Desert Hearts" (1985). This is a good chance to appreciate anew the charming eroticism of the car-in-the-rain first kiss between Charbonneau and Helen Shaver, which proves the point I made in my last column about the best lesbian scenes on film having ironically been performed by straight women. Finally, here is Gia herself -- a late clip showing her in surly, rambling butch mode, with druggy speech and tics, and then a dazzling collection of her peak high fashion images, which whiz by too fast but still reveal what an astonishing, almost supernormal presence she was.
Oh, one last note. Gay trivia: The 17-year-old hustler who in 1975 murdered the gay film director Pier Paolo Pasolini by repeatedly running him over with his own car on an Italian beach was named Giuseppe Pelosi. Hmm ... Hustling must run in the family.
Camille Paglia's column appears on the second Wednesday of each month. Every third column is devoted to reader letters. Please send questions for her next letters column to this mailbox. Your name and town will be published unless you request anonymity.
Hey Cowboys fans,
Hey Cowboys fans,
Enter the College Colors Day fan photo contest by Friday, August 21st for a chance to win one of the following prizes from Champs Sports:
$250 Champs Sports Gift Card
$150 Champs Sports Gift Card
$100 Champs Sports Gift Card
Enter the Contest!
Good luck and Go Cowboys!
-The FanSection Team
Enter the College Colors Day fan photo contest by Friday, August 21st for a chance to win one of the following prizes from Champs Sports:
$250 Champs Sports Gift Card
$150 Champs Sports Gift Card
$100 Champs Sports Gift Card
Enter the Contest!
Good luck and Go Cowboys!
-The FanSection Team
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