This works as well as any other theory

I'm thinking that letting the Bush tax cuts die for the rich (not to mention taxing them at an even higher rate) might actually help get the economy moving. I mean these people can live on the interest on their money even when the interest is one percent, but maybe if they have to pay more taxes, they'll be inspired to make risky investments in order to earn more money on their money. I haven't read this anywhere but doesn't it make sense, despite its counter-intuitive (because raising their taxes is supposed to make them stop spending, as lowering their taxes is supposed to make them spend more--all utter nonsense) quality? I mean they're the people who have money to play around with, but no need to bother if they can just sit back and rake it in.

Scanners v. Full-Body Searches

Could this be the spark that re-ignites American outrage? Torture, ok; wiretapping, ho-hum; forced to pay for Insurance CEOs' giant salaries, it was the only way we could get any health insurance; but the government's hands on our bodies? Maybe that will work. I'm hoping if not hopeful.

But I can say this--I sure don't want to fly into or in the US while this is going on. And I fear for my son and his novia on their way to Mexico in February, so hope it's cleared up by then.

This time it's the Washington Post

David Broder, a Post columnist, in the course of suggesting that Obama start a war with Iran as a way of winning his second term (and rescuing us from Depression), mentions the following: "Iran is the greatest threat to the world in the young century." What are these people on? Does it ever occur to them that it's the US that has killed and/or just-old caused the death of maybe millions of people? I mean it's happened before their very eyes. Why don't they get it?

Congratulations. You have not burned a Koran today.

Must we be congratulating Terry Jones, pastor of some godforsaken church in Florida, for NOT burning Korans this weekend? I'm not burning them either, which is the position of millions of people all over the world. Are we being congratulated? Roger Cohen quotes Heinrich Heine saying in the 19th century, "If they burn books, they will also burn people." How prescient he was. That could have been Terry Jones's next step, too. Would anyone put it past him?

The news media is only too happy to make a disgusting circus of all of this. How Jews (the Anti-Defamation League, for example) could possibly join in this anti-muslim fray is just totally beyond me. The ADL says it's okay to build the mosque center, just not where the group that's doing it wants to build it. Do they realize they are contributing to a miasma that may well have little muslim children in NYC right now feeling exactly the way little jewish children felt in Germany in the 30s? Never Again--was that supposed to be just about Jews?

For once, I must say Thank you, NY Times, for today's paper. It included a speculation on why Terry Jones gets so much ink (a bit of a mea culpa, in fact) and at long last an actual story about the Muslim widow and children of an actual Muslim who had been killed in the World Trade Center. Ultimo!

The trouble with "Liberals"

They will not stop demonizing their fellow citizens, will they? I mean some progressives, who cannot understand how Americans can be SO stupid as to support the Republican party in the upcoming election. Well, they voted the Dems in, didn't they? And what did it get them? Worse unemployment, a commission apparently created to end social security, a very bad health reform bill that will require us to pay the scandalously high salaries of insurance co. CEOs, and the loss of more and more houses to foreclosure. No advance on unions, no improvement in privacy, no prosecution of torturers, and... Military Commissions! There are I suppose some good things that the Democrats did; they are not nearly as bad as the Repugs even at their worst, but who knows about them? The Dems seem almost to hope that nobody important (read rich) knows if they've done something for the "lesser people" (vide Alan Simpson, meaning anyone who isn't a Fat Cat). Secretly, I have to feel, they just want to be accepted by the Establishment (a word I haven't heard in a long time) so they'll get a lot of money for their campaigns (plus it's so much more elegant to pal around with the elite).

So who are the masses supposed to vote for? There are only two parties and that doesn't give them much choice right now. How do they express their displeasure with the Dems? By voting for them again? I don't think so. And most people are not quite up to starting new parties or new movements, oddly. So all they can do is vote for the Other Guy--the repugs, god help us all.

a poem about my husband when he was dying

Remember, no, Forget


Remember the moments when we were together
In a white room. Remember no forget the rest that came afterward.
The rest--your rest is what we’re talking about, but
I meant everything, the rest of it, that came later,
Everything after you died in the room. Everything up to now.
No, I know.
You really died in some other room where they were scanning your body. I don’t know why. I know that then,
You were alive, drugged, happy in a way, smiling, and then we (Laura and I) went out to dinner and
You were dead. Even though the machines kept you breathing for awhile.

But remember the moments before, way before, the day before,
The week before, the years before. Sleeping side by side, your hands on my breasts. Embracing until we were exhausted. Almost too tired to get up. You got up so early.
The moments in the living room
Before dinner. Drinking vodka, talking, kissing, laughing about what happened
That day or last year or whenever. Planning what to do on our next trip.

Remember the awful moments and also the one happy moment in the white room
When you said, “Where have you been all day?” When you finally smiled.
They finally decided to give you something to stop the pain. Finally.
Waiting, waiting, I waited all day long for that moment that I thought would come
As soon as we got to the hospital. But didn’t. It was just pain and
Pain and pain and pain until that one moment in the white room. They all said things like
“Dad, how are you?” I said, “I was right here.” I embraced you.

That was the last time.

To the New York Times (which will never publish it) today

Your August 5th story, "Law Will Extend Medicare Fund, Report Says," repeats the same old chestnut about Social Security that we've heard or seen millions of times: ... "After that, the program will have to draw down the Social Security trust fund, which is not an actual reserve of money but an accounting device tracking the accumulated surplus. " I have never understood what this means, but I would like to. Aren't all such institutions merely accounting devices by this measure? I mean, is a bank an actual reserve of money or merely an accounting device? Surely banks do not have all the billions or millions of dollars they list as assets in little piles in a back room. Surely even Goldman Sachs and the companies that issue all the stocks they sell are also "just accounting devices." Is there something I don't understand here? If so, I would appreciate an explanation OR I would appreciate your discontinuance of this phrase, which seems only to be of use to those who would denigrate Social Security.
Thank you.
Carol Wheeler

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