Are you sick of the GOP?

They talk of things like family values. They sing the praises of those who defend the righteous way of life as espoused by the so-called Christian church. Then they try to withhold insurance coverage from cancer patients. 

Yes it happened yesterday as a GOP representative tried in vain to get a bill passed that would allow business not to have to cover workers with cancer in their insurance plans. Really?  Cancer?

Excuse me you are sick with cancer…fuck off…we don’t have room for you in the Republican agenda. We want white, blonde hair, blue-eyed Arians marching to our meter. We don’t want the sick and the infirmed.

I wonder if Christ came back today and listened to the GOP, if he would even recognize family values and human concern in their platform? It is interesting that Jesus hung out with prostitutes, tax men: he called out for murders and fishermen to follow him and establish his church based on Loving God first and others second. Others…not the other 1% but all others.  Help the poor, dress the naked, feed the hungry and take of orphans and widows. Love your neighbors…and not just the ones in the McMansions next door to you, but all neighbors. Even the sick and the poor.

The GOP is a far, far distance from this philosophy. 

So, I wonder why the church in the US is so damn tied at the hips with this renegade bunch of hooligans. They certainly don’t care for the poor, the ill, the hungry or any other people who can’t give them money and extend their power.

Family values…the GOP preaches it…they just don’t act on it.

Dad's day.

It is father’s day. The day we substitute our devotion and love for mom to dad for 24 hours, just so we can get the keys to the car and a shot at the ATM card.  Just kidding of course.

Dad’s are important.   

Vital, say some researchers.  Kids that grow up in a two parent home with an engaged father present have a 70% better chance of graduating on time and fitting into society as a whole. A higher percentage of them will avoid a life of crime, jail time and even unemployment – not sure how that one works, but according to research it does.

Seventy percent. Odds like that would make even Vegas sit up and take notice. 

the role that dad assumes is that of cop, teacher, judge and slow pitch coach. He is a critic and healer and the chauffeur when mom is too busy to drive. he is a provider and a defender and when it is late at night, he is a good story teller...especially of really scary stories that make moms around the world shout, "Dear that's enough of that!" So to all the fathers out there who work everyday and come home and get plugged into their children’s lives, I want to thank you. A dad’s role is so very important. Not just as a disciplinarian, but as a source of love and nurture.

Mom’s are special too…don’t get me wrong, but today, a salute to Pops. Remember, anyone can father a child. But it takes a real man to be a father.

So dads out there, hoist a beer, a glass of wine, a coke or just a glass of ice-cold water and have one on me.  Cheers, dads. You’re the best.

Heroes Under Fire

So today I was watching the news about the fires in New Mexico and Colorado. I have a real interest in these fires because my new novella, Stuff, will be coming out in the next few weeks and it is based on the Bastrop, Texas fires of last year.

I began to wonder what it would be like to be a forest fire fighter on the ground as one of these giant monsters turned on you and you found yourself inside the inferno’s engine, with little way out. That’s when I realized what heroes these guys truly are.  They don’t get to carry guns and shoot at an enemy– they carry shovels and picks and occasionally a small canister of fire retardant.

That takes guts. They, like the soldiers overseas, do get air support, but the red flame retardant dropped from the planes and helicopters is far less efficient than the smart bombs launched from drones high overhead in a war zone. And make no mistake about it, fighting a fire such as these, is every bit like being in a war zone.

In preparing for my book, I interviewed several firefighters. One, who had been in the front lines of battling the fires last summer, when the wind changed and started heading in his direction, was Lee Anderson. Here are some excerpts from my interview with Lee. “We were northwest of the blaze, knocking back hot spots, when suddenly the wind shifted and the orange line started moving directly at us. We had precious little time to escape. I have always heard people talk about your life flashing before your eyes, well it some ways mine did. As the fire got close and the heat rose, I thought I might not see my wife and kids again. There was that fear. (…) but fear itself, raises adrenaline and you do things you are not aware you could do before. My partner and I quickly dug a dirt and rock barrier line and buried ourselves behind it, waiting for the flames to approach. Our hope was the wind would push the fire so fast, that it would burn over the top of us and go past without hurting us. Lucky for us, it stopped and retraced its path twenty feet from where we hid.”

Twenty feet! That’s the width of the studio in which I sit writing this piece this morning.  Twenty feet! Real life drama. These guys live it everyday. They are the very fabric of heroes in my eyes. Out there protecting total strangers’ property, people they do not know or may never see. Putting their lives on the line against an all consuming monster.

They are doing it this summer in Colorado and in New Mexico. I am sure with the rains we have had in Texas and the growth of underbrush, we will see some later in the years as well.  And you can never count out California for a few huge fires, either. So today, my tip of the hat goes to the firefighters who battle the big blazes in the wilderness – to keep them from coming into our neighborhoods and destroying our homes.

Well done, ladies and gentlemen. Very well done.

The Scum of the House.

The House of Representatives (Controlled by the GOP) has blocked contraception and abortion for raped female soldiers who are in our nation’s service. And they say there is not a war on women.

From a wire service dispatch yesterday:

            Republican leaders like to talk big about supporting our troops, but sometimes actions speak much louder than words – especially when those actions are frankly horrific:
Republican Senators John McCain, Scott Brown, and Susan Collins all support an effort by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire, to expand abortion access for military women who are raped. But despite bipartisan support in the Senate, Shaheen's proposal may not make it into the final version of the 2013 defense authorization bill—because House Republicans oppose it...
Under current law, if a State Department employee is raped, her government health insurance plan will pay for an abortion if she wants one. But if an Army medic serving in Afghanistan is raped and becomes pregnant, she can't use her military health plan to pay for an abortion. If she does decide to get an abortion, she will have to pay for it with her own money. And if she can't prove she was raped—which is difficult before an investigation is completed—she may have to look for services off base, which can be dangerous or impossible in many parts of the world. (source: Mother Jones)
This is beyond outrageous. And tragically, the problem is all too real. The military reported 471 rapes in 2011, and yet the true number might be much higher, given it’s estimated that only 13.5% of rapes and sexual assaults in the military are actually reported (source).

Let’s examine that:

1.     These women were fighting for our liberties.

2.     The law of the land is that abortions are NOT illegal.

3.     They were raped while in the service of our country.

4.     They are going to have to carry the child of some sexual attacker because of the callus and inhumane attitudes of the “Christian Right” members of the House.

5.     It is incredibly dangerous to try and get an abortion in a war zone.

I for one denounce the Church, the members of Congress and all those who side with this as being godless devil worshipers. You do not deserve to be called Americans any more. You are the worst plague ever inflicted upon a people.

You are evil and scum. Oh yes, you are also Republicans.

There is a war on women going on in our country and it is being waged by the Republican party.  It is time to vote them out of office at every level.  Send the GOP a message, quite siding with the radical religious right, or you will not exists as a political party in America.

Look for my new book, Stuff, coming to an eRetailer near you soon.

Taking care of others = good business

A hailstorm moved through here the other night causing all kinds of destruction and mayhem. Car windows were shattered, bodywork was pummeled and roofs were bashed and dented. But I know of two insurance companies that set up immediate response centers to help their clients. State Farm and Geico were up and running emergency response teams even while the storm was still clearing the suburbs in our city.

So why is that important?  It shows that caring and providing good service and giving a damn can be good business. Being a good citizen is possibly good for the bottom line. Putting others first, will eventually pay off.

These lessons are a far cry from the attitude the current GOP and its Presidential candidate, Mitt (I’m going to take down health insurance) Romney is preaching. In fact the GOP seems hell bent on being vindictive and angry. (Women take notice…a lot of that anger and revenge is leveled at you.)

I think it is time we got rid of the Republican Party by voting them into submission. It won’t happen, because there are still nitwits who believe what they and their mouthpiece, Rush Limbaugh, preach on a daily basis. It is vile and pointedly destructive.

Just yesterday, Romney said he was not going to have health insurance that would cover pre-existing needs. Why? Too costly for the insurance companies. (Note the insurance companies have not asked for this…it is a sticking point with the big elephant machine.)

Funny, we have corporations helping Texans out in a time of crisis, just as they did when the tornados came roaring through a few months ago. But make it policy and the GOP cries socialism.  Well, Republicans, sometimes you have to make it policy to get the other deadbeat companies, the ones Mitt and his fellow snobs, run to do what they are supposed to.

America, you do not want this man as your President. And if you elect him…good luck.

The health care argument makes me ill.

Today the Dallas Morning News reported that one in four Texans do NOT have health insurance. And even closer to home, in Dallas County, one in three do NOT. They also reported that the Republican governor, Rick (I’m wanna be the big cheese President) Perry and the GOP stuffed legislature have done nothing to implement the new standards from the Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare) for Texans. In fact, they have stood in the way of it being implemented in the Lone Star State.

We also have learned that several major health insurance companies are saying they will stay with the new standards even if the less than Supreme Court rules it to be unconstitutional. That is because these insurance companies can see that it is (a) profitable and (b) working for their customers in providing easy access to a wide-field of medical options.

That being said, I don’t want to here the “socialist” moniker placed on this program any more. It is a capitalistic approach to providing decent coverage for every American…but only if the mandate stays in place. (A Republican idea, by the way.)

Here’s why the act is constitutional. Government, state or federal (even local for that matter) can require citizens to do certain things. You want to leave and then re-enter the country, you must obtain and have on your person a valid passport.  You want to dive a car. Get insurance. It is mandatory. Put on a seatbelt. Again mandatory – and backed by federal law, else states not enforcing it lose federal highway funds. In Dallas, you want to ride a bike on public streets and sidewalks, got to have a helmet. So all this hoop-la about the mandate is a bit specious. Want to be a citizen and have an income, got to pay taxes. Want health care? You have to be enrolled in a health care coverage plan. Very simple. Didn’t take any of your freedoms away, but it did give you coverage. So why all the nashing of teeth and fear we are becoming the next soviet Union? It is because the Republicans can work up their base with less-than-truth’s like these.

What Obamacare does, is insure that the one out of three folks in Dallas County…or the one out of four in Texas will have access to universal coverage. It removes a huge burden from country tax payers in treating indigent patients at our hospitals.

Now if we could get our dim-witted governor to act on this, we’d move the state a step closer to getting into the 21^st century. We could streamline our health care mess and actually lower costs. (Image that!)

As for the less than Supreme Court, they had better get this one right– they had better ignore the huge money they get from conservative groups for speaking and voting the way they have…and this time, put Americans first. (I doubt they will. There is too much riding on this for them to do the right thing.)

It is time we recognize that the extreme right doesn’t want universal coverage, not because they are against the idea. They are just against it coming from this President at this time. Let Romney get elected and re-introduce it as he did in Massachusetts and it will fly through like a hot knife in butter. And the GOP will take credit for it as fast as the cowboys disappear in the post season every year.

And this is exactly why American is in such trouble today. (The rancor…not the Cowboys.)

By the way, my daughter was one of those not covered by insurance until Obamacare came along. She didn’t have a job, was graduated from college, with pre-existing needs. But with this national mandate, she got insurance and can live a life without fear of getting ill.

Now GOP friends, you take that away from her and who do you think she is going to vote for the rest of her life?  It ain’t going to be the big fat elephant…that’s for sure.

Why do you do that vodoo you do so well?

We walk a thin line everyday of our lives. On side of the line is that of human beings following the laws and mores of society. The other side is the animal instinct of fight or flight, kill to survive and survival of the fittest. With good dexterity and perfect balance, we walk this line in harmony as we move thorough life. We walk it without even thinking about it.

The things we do, things we say, the way we respond to each other – it all part of the fabric of that line. But then there are times we slip. We falter. We go too far to one side over the other (Usually to the animal side).

Theologians say the way we choose to straddle that thin line is determined by free will. I would like to think they are right. But a recent set of studies, one in Germany and one in California (I know you can’t trust it if it came from the Left Coast…but keep and open mind here) showed that DNA and the coding of an individuals personality has a lot more to do with their decision making ability and the choices they make than nurture or teaching or exposure to society’s rights and wrongs.

I am not sure if these two studies are the definitive answer to what makes people do what they do, but it totally reshapes the argument for the death penalty if they are, in fact, correct.

The placement of amino acids and proteins along a thin line and then twisted around itself, is a small thing. Infinitesimally small. But it is huge, if it is the controlling factor in the way humans interact with one another and carry on about the business of daily life. Don’t know the answers here yet, just posing an interesting question.

What made you bully that kid?  Why did you pick chocolate ice cream? Why did you kill your neighbor’s wife after lusting for her?

DNA. It may do more than solve crimes in the future. It may prevent them from ever happening.