By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/
There is no denying that Ms. Pelosi is very, very unpopular. This is old news, and relatively boring stuff.
What is more interesting is exploring how Ms. Pelosi became one of the least-like politicians in America.
More below.
I am not anti-vaccine and just want to make that very clear from the get-go.
What I am is dubious about the safety of new vaccines and I’d like to explain my reasons and would like to ask for anyone who reads this to read it with an open-mind.
I’m very open to being told that I am wrong, btw.
Years ago, when I was in my early-30s, and this was way before the Internet and home PCs, I decided to research Hormone Replacement Therapy to try to make an informed decision of whether or not I would do HRT upon hitting menopause.
I worked for a large corporation and worked with lots of women.
Frequently I heard complaints from women both from work and in my social sphere about HRT and their regrets at ever starting on them.
Besides the weight-gain, there were other problems in which the women just didn’t “feel right” or “feel like themselves” and that’s what prompted me to research libraries and book stores about the subject.
To be fair, there were a few women, very few, who absolutely loved HRT as it stopped the dreaded HOT FLASHES.
The thing for women who despised HRT was that they were not easy to quit.
There was a weaning off of the hormones and the weaning off was difficult and made those who tried feel crazy.
There were warnings back in them days about cancer, but more, there was the promotion about HRT preventing bone loss or osteoporosis.
After researching HRT, I decided that I would refuse hormone therapy when the time came, and little did I know that the time came rather early for me – in my mid-30’s.
The doctors at my HMO were relentless in pushing HRT onto me, but I stood firm in my convictions.
I had doctors yell at me for my stupidity, but I was not cowed.
Roughly 10 years into the ‘change’, doctors did an about turn because HRT was found to cause cancers of the breasts and uterus, and the positives from preventing osteoporosis was minimal.
Suddenly, HRT was frowned upon and my doctors would ask me if I was on HRT and when I replied “no” they said good because I wouldn’t have to go through the misery of weaning off them.
Now, things are changing again, so I’ve read online, because the pharmaceutical companies are losing millions of dollars, so doctors are once again pushing HRT onto women.
In my research all those years ago, one of the things that stood out for me was when actual doctors and clinical researchers who authored the books stated that women were being used as guinea pigs when it came to HRT.
And that leads me to HPV and my wondering about that new vaccine.
Do they know the side-effects or actual results for say ten, twenty years down the line?
Or are young girls and women simply being used as guinea pigs once again?
The HPV vaccine does not affect me at all, but if I was younger and had a 12 year old daughter, I think that I’d research the HPV vaccines before having my child immunized.
Am I wrong?
Fun stuff, but nothing that’s quite a diary in and of itself, so hey…add what you’ve found!
First up is an action item from Seeta’s blog. That, by the way, is the new home of Soothsayer’s Criminal Injustice series. Wednesdays.
Tomorrow is a global day of action to stop the unconstitutional and unethical execution of Troy Davis.
Run and tell that!
As I have passed from my thirties into my early and middle forties, it has become easy to accept the damage to my body from many years in the Navy. Maybe this is just a consequence of growing older and accepting these limitations. Or maybe I’ve just grown accustomed to the symphony of pains and creaks that my body plays every morning. (Motrin has been an able Conductor).
Either way, the small monthly checks that I receive from the VA every month for these problems means that the US Government and I have been on the same page for many years. My military medical record is very thick and is littered with injuries, and the surgeries that resulted from them. It’s there in black and white. None of these physical issues has ever been in dispute.
First thing I wanna know is, where’s the beer?
Scond thing I wanna know is, where are the bathrooms?
Is there a smoking lounge?
There aren’t any obnoxious noise regulations around here, are there?
Loud music ok?
MOOOOOOOSE! I’ll stop beginning my posts like this when I get over being so happy to be here.
A meme is “an idea, behaviour or style that spreads from person to person within a culture.
A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate and respond to selective pressures
Namaste Friends! This will be the beginning of a continuing series I’ll conduct on Thursdays. The goal of the series will be to examine and learn to deconstruct ideas being used against the President and Democratic Party.
This is going to be an exercise where I’m going to ask for participation from the audience. I’m going to request assistance uncovering the next idea, and I’m going to request analytical help from TPV in assessing whether the counters and explanations presented will be effective.
Sound like fun? Let’s begin!
I took the day off from work today. I went to a baseball game with a co-worker and another colleague. Had a great time: took the train, watched the game, talked to each other, talked to strangers. It was nice, you know? A break from routine. Anyhoo, upon rolling home (and showering my three year old with souvenirs), I popped open the Moose to give Jsfox’s front-paged post a thorough read. I’d spied it earlier today, trying to peek occasionally via the smart phone, but you know how it is – I was at a ballgame for gad’s sake. So I finally read it once I was settled at home tonight.
Now that I’ve digested it, I’m going to share some of my disjointed thoughts. Freestyle. Actually, I’m likely to rant a bit. If you’re not down with that, don’t click though.
Life can be a pretty lonely thing for a human being. It’s hard to be alive and not yearn for a sense of belonging: somewhere we can feel welcome and safe and valued. Not just for what we have, or what we have done, but simply for who we are, just as we are.
I’ve known many people who appear to have found this in their lives, and are, for the most part, content and secure and as happy as people can get.
But I’ve known many, many more, when the truth is known, who are still wandering about this world, looking for somewhere they “belong”. I was one of them for most of my life, before I realized that for me, it just wasn’t going to happen.
Years of wondering about all of this have led me to my current perceptions, which of course, might change tomorrow, even at this late date.
So much of how life will unfold depends on the times and culture into which we are born and how well we can conform and adapt to it. Those whose skin and gender and class and abilities match up with the ruling majority find an even playing field on which to play the games already in process. Games chosen by the majority, played according to rules and norms set and enforced by those who have risen to the top of the ruling majority. This power elite, of course, in this country has always been powerful heterosexual white men. (I am still pinching myself to see if I am dreaming or not: did a black man actually make it into the White House?!)
Anyway, for those born into this structure who don’t happen to match up the majority population, like women, people of color, gays, and those who choose to come here from other cultures, it most certainly is NOT a level playing field.
I was well aware by the time I was ten years old that I would never be allowed on this playing field at all. I was a girl. A mouthy, sassy, rebellious little white girl that wanted to play football and hated dolls and starched, ruffled pinafores, born into a 1940’s super religious, totally sexist, all white, ultra conservative world. I spent 40 years in that world, doing everything possible to fold, staple and mutilate myself into some acceptable shape, and all it got me was a near death experience from end stage alcoholism. The good part of it is my two beautiful, powerful daughters. But I never knew a moments sense of “belonging” in that world. Not one.
I did get a taste of “belonging” in early recovery, when I finally left that behind, and ended up close to homeless on the streets of a big
scary city. It was the urban Native American Recovery Community who held out their arms and gave me shelter and love and hope. I bless you every day, dear Sisters and Brothers, for teaching me what life is supposed to be.
When I see the desperation with which some (not all, by any means) need to band together at dkos, and in other all white spaces, in defense of the status quo, I have to wonder how much fear is behind that. Fear of change: fear of losing something precious. Fear of losing a space where they have found “belonging”.
I dunno. I do know when I think about it from that perspective, I don’t feel so angry. I know what fear feels like, and how it can disguise itself as anger, even hatred of others. Been there, done that. Didn’t work out so well.
Well, enough meandering in Mooseville for now. 🙂
The thing that frustrates me the most about Ron Paul is the support he gets from some I would consider on the left otherwise. I have some close friends that I’ve just had to agree to disagree about Paul, and we just don’t discuss it. In the days of my youth I flirted with the idea of being a libertarian. I mean hey, repealing drug laws is very appealing when your a young pothead, and I’ve always been for ending the MIC and american empire. That flirtation lasted about five minutes when I discovered the extent libertarians would limit the government. There are most definitely libertarians who would shutter agencies like the USDA and the FDA, Paul may be one of them. Now I don’t relish the idea of putting relish tainted with botulism on my hot dog or my hot dog being tainted with ecoli or taking a pill for my headache that gives me a heart attack, so yeah being a libertarian was pretty much a non-starter for me. I try to point out such things to my Paul supporting friends and how dangerous such proposals are and they honestly don’t think he shares such ideologies. So the other night at their latest contest to figure out who has the most extreme bad ideas for America when Paul was asked by Blitzer the hypothetical what if a young healthy man without insurance suddenly falls ill and Paul answered:
That’s what freedom is all about: taking your own risks. This whole idea that you have to take care of everybody…
He couldn’t finish through the thunderous applause. Blitzer continued asking Paul if he thought society should let the young man die and Paul blathered on something about churches, but it’s pretty clear that yes Paul thinks that our society should let him die. I emailed my friends pointing out that they couldn’t possibly support that stance, and they agreed but still support Paul. So when I read this today:
http://gawker.com/5840024/ron-…
at Gawker I was pretty taken aback. This wasn’t a hypothetical question for Paul.
Back in 2008, Kent Snyder – Paul’s former campaign chairman – died of complications from pneumonia.
So the guy who pretty much single handedly put Paul back on the national radar died from complications from pneumonia because he did not have nor could he afford insurance. Needless to say a fresh round of emails went out today, and for Paul to stand there and say what he said with no reflection proves to me he is a cold hearted SOB.
Also the sky is blue and the sun rises in the East.
MOOOOOOOOSE!
Namaste friends. I have the vast honor of calling this gentleman an acquaintance and correspondent. He is one of my heroes.
If you haven’t heard about Abraham Bolden during Black History month, it’s because after helping to prevent JFK’s assassination in the weeks before Dallas, Bolden was arrested on the very day he went to Washington to tell the Warren Commission about those attempts. Caught in a maze of National Security concerns that only became clear after four million pages of JFK files were released in the 1990s, Bolden was sentenced to six years in prison, becoming America’s first national security whistle blower.