Babies

I’m getting that sense of hopelessness again. Obama caved to conservatives regarding the part of the stimulus package aimed at family planning. Conservatives wanted to know what family planning has to do with our economy.

This is either totally disingenuous or outright stupid. Unwanted babies are costing us all a fortune on many levels. We have an epidemic of babies having babies and it could stop if we lived in a culture of awareness.

My friend Tom and I were arguing about this last night. He insisted we had the resources to sustain unlimited population growth. I believe we’d be living in Utopia if there were fewer of us.

It’s like the idea that humans couldn’t possibly have an impact on the environment of this great big planet. We actually live in a small bubble of atmosphere. Space is only 60 miles straight up. Think about it.

The woman that just had the octuplets in California already had 6 kids. She lives with her parents and filed for bankruptcy last year. The doctor that gave her fertility treatments should be arrested.

A friend of ours had a condition where her eggs became implanted on her fallopian tubes. It threatened her health but she kept trying. She got fertility treatments and finally had twins. Both the boys have serious problems. It’s heartbreaking and really none of my damn business but I wish we lived in a culture that didn’t make women feel incomplete if they don’t have children.

I’m not saying we should have laws like China but we need to know that reproduction isn’t a mandate from God.

Evolution

I saw a great bumper sticker the other day that read, “Evolution is only a theory- kind of like gravity.”

People seem to have a predisposition against science. Unlike religion, science encourages doubt. Science is looking for the truth and isn’t afraid to be disproved.

Evolution has only been reinforced with time. I know people who come right out and say they don’t believe in evolution. How can you have an opinion if you refuse to look at the evidence?

When you say you don’t respect an idea because it’s merely a theory you disregard every technological advance we’ve made in the last 200 years. We can not prove the science that gives us flight, TV, MRIs, fission, fusion, transistors, etc. These things are a result of theories. Ideas we have that do their best to explain reality. The ideas come before the inventions. The inventions wouldn’t be possible without theoretical maps.

I remember a piece of graffiti on the bathroom wall of the Broadway Oyster Bar that read, “If the mind were simple enough to understand, we’d be too simple to understand it.”

We don’t have to be afraid of the unknown. It’s human to search. If there is a God why would he condemn us to Hell for reasoning that he doesn’t exist? Thinking is not evil!

Breast Cancer

I’ve been hearing people call local talk radio complaining that the House and Senate S-CHIP bill (State Children's Health Insurance Program) that Obama would sign is just one step closer to single payer health care.

I hope to God it is!

It blows my mind how brain washed people have become about universal health care.

I pointed out to my ex that doctors are angered by the expense and hassle insurance companies make them go through. She said that people would lose jobs if it weren’t for the administration of these ridiculous policies.

The public has been duped by lobbyists that use the threat of socialism and anything else they can think of.

Right now women with breast cancer have to drive home groggy with anesthesia after a mastectomy. Insurance companies won’t pay for their hospital stay. This is in spite of objections from  doctors.

A bill called “The breast cancer patient protection act” is before Congress that would require insurance companies to cover 48 hours of hospital stay. Lifetime Television has a petition we should all sign. Please click on the link, it's very short.

www.mylifetime.com/my-lifetime-commitment/breast-cancer/petition/breast-cancer-petition

Choice

Abortion is an issue where I begin to lose friends.

I asked an attorney I was working for why it was the U.S. refused to pay U.N. dues because republicans objected to the abortion policies of some countries. After all, it’s the law of the land here. He said slavery was legal here once. I hear this response a lot when people object to a law.

I was stopped in the lobby of my ex’s church by a woman trying to raise money for a rally outside an abortion clinic in Florida. I told her I believed in a woman’s right to choose. She looked at my 4 year old son and said, “It’s lucky for you your folks didn’t murder you.”

I was getting drunk at the Cat’s Meow in Soulard with my friend Margaret. Somehow we started talking politics. I’d known her for years and this was the first time we did. Man, you never know.

She said abortion was totally unacceptable. I told her it wasn’t black and white. There were circumstances where it might be necessary and it wasn’t up to the rest of us to decide for an individual. She assured me it was black and white. This was a couple of years ago and we haven’t really spoken since. I’m sad about that because we were close once.

A fetus doesn’t experience pain or have self awareness for the first trimester. The brain and central nervous system haven’t developed yet. This has been determined. The horror people have of abortion at this stage is because they believe in a human soul. Potential life isn’t realized life. Of course once the child has developed we’re prejudiced and can’t remove the child’s personality.

People that get their ya ya’s off shooting animals in the woods are killing beings with a far greater developed level of consciousness. I bet the majority of these people are pro life. I bet they were behind this stupid war, too.

I’m pro life too but I believe in contraception. It would be great if abortion was eliminated with education. Teaching abstinence only to a 14 year old is ridiculous.

The elephant in the room is overpopulation.

Two German scientists developed a process for the manufacture of ammonia in W.W.I. After the war this process led to the development of nitrogen fertilizer. Food production increased dramatically. I read somewhere that without this process world population would be about 2 1/2 billion. We’ll be at 9 billion by 2050. Our population has tripled in my lifetime.

When people bring up overpopulation on the radio there’s always some idiot talking about their God given right to reproduce. I think this is incredibly selfish and arrogant. We need to limit our reproduction. Education is viewed with suspicion. Maybe Obama can change this perception. At least he talks a good game.

I’m pro choice and you can’t choose if you’re ignorant.

Credit Cards

A couple of years ago when I got divorced and moved out of my house, I had to get used to a new bill paying paradigm. Once I put together a spread-sheet of my debts I was okay. For the first couple of months I wasn’t quite right with payment schedules.

I paid an account I had with Chase Bank late twice. My interest rate jumped from 13%to 24%.

I called them and they told me if I paid on time for 6 months the rate would go back down. 8 months later I remembered this and checked my account. It had jumped to 33%. When I called they said if I let them automatically access my bank account they would drop it to 24%. I told them I wasn’t sure how much I’d pay every month and declined.

I asked how they could operate this way in good conscience. Their rep assured me they could.

This behavior is part of a culture of deregulation that has pervaded corporate America.

A Supreme Court decision in 1978, Marquette vs. First Omaha Service Corp, made it possible for usury laws from the issuing state to be the rule. It didn’t matter what the rules were for the customer’s state. The big banks all moved to South Dakota and Delaware and here we are.

During this financial crisis the banks are going through, I heard one banker state that the interest they could charge each other could hit 10%. He likened this to the days of loan sharks. This is a total disconnect as far as I’m concerned when they’re charging me 33%!

You can’t blame the banks. Their sole purpose is making money, not being good corporate citizens. We have to impose regulations. They need laws as much as the rest of us. Greed is not capable of policing itself.

I’ve always found politics a distraction from the real issues in my life. Unfortunately we all have to start paying attention and start doing a little homework.

The banks only pay 1-3% for the money they lend. Even if you call and get them to drop your rates from 20 to 15% it’s a rip off. We need to get away from them. I read somewhere on line that if 10% of us would change our credit habits, the banks would really feel it and respond. Who knows?