los anjalis to anjuquerque

(cross-posted at CureThis)

Last night, CNBC featured a segment on “Is Health care a right or a privilege?” and invited two speakers to debate the question.

One of the speakers was Dr Mai Pham, senior policy advisor at the National Physicians Alliance (NPA). The NPA fimly believes that health care is a human right and its campaigns and mission speak directly to that. The other speaker was Michael Cannon, director of health policy at the CATO Institute, a free-market, libertarian organization.

Make your own conclusions about some incendiary statements made in this debate, but I must highlight one here.

“Saying health care is a fundamental human right is one of those simplistic nonsense slogans” — Michael Cannon, CATO.

Unbelievable. No it’s not. Saying health care is a fundamental human right is an important statement that we must embrace fully as a society (and to an extent have already embraced).

As guerillamamamedicine recently blogged:

i do not deserve a good job, or a beautiful home, or health care because i went to school and got my degree. i deserve them because i am a human being. if i were to say that i deserve them because of how many years i spent in school, or how much money i paid to go to school, or the number of letters behind my name, then i am saying that i deserve basic human dignity because of my educational privilege.

- – - – -

I applaud Dr. Pham’s calm and composure in the debate. There is much to loearn from her regarding how to stay on point and how to debate an issue articulately.

In any case, it was a pleasant surprise to see this issue covered by CNBC; perhaps the station will cover such issues in the future.

(cross-posted at LAist and Cure This)

Photos by jbhangoo via flickr; graphic and videos from Students for Bhopal

Today marks the 24th anniversary of the world’s worst industrial disaster — one that has been called the “Hiroshima of the chemical industry” and that took place in Bhopal, India. Around midnight on December 3rd, 1984, a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal leaked 27 tons of the deadly gas methyl isocyanate. Safety systems were not operational and the gas spread through the city. Thousands died that night, more than 20,000 have died to date as a result of the effects of the exposure, and over 100,000 people still suffer from ailments caused by the exposure. From Bhopal.org, a harrowing account of the fateful night 24 years ago:

Shortly after midnight poison gas leaked from a factory in Bhopal, India, owned by the Union Carbide Corporation. There was no warning, none of the plant’s safety systems were working. In the city people were sleeping. They woke in darkness to the sound of screams with the gases burning their eyes, noses and mouths. They began retching and coughing up froth streaked with blood. Whole neighborhoods fled in panic, some were trampled, others convulsed and fell dead. People lost control of their bowels and bladders as they ran. Within hours thousands of dead bodies lay in the streets.

“We all live in Bhopal” is a common saying among the environmental justice movement, and it is relevant to LA residents too. We have no lack of potential and real environmental injustices, and no paucity of corporate crimes. Also of interest, the first ever nuclear accident actually occurred in Simi Valley in 1959, as noted in LAist previously:

We had no idea that Simi Valley was the site of America’s first nuclear accident (obviously we should watch more History Channel). At the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, a liquid sodium reactor had a partial meltdown in 1959; the facts weren’t made public until UCLA investigated 20 years later. Researchers speculate that the radiation released was as much as 240 times that of the Three Mile Island accident. Exactly what was contaminated in the area, and by how much, was never accurately measured. Yikes, just 30 miles from downtown LA.

More on the Bhopal tragedy:

“The site has never been properly cleaned up and it continues to poison the residents of Bhopal. In 1999, local groundwater and wellwater testing near the site of the accident revealed mercury at levels between 20,000 and 6 million times those expected. Cancer and brain-damage- and birth-defect-causing chemicals were found in the water; trichloroethene, a chemical that has been shown to impair fetal development, was found at levels 50 times higher than EPA safety limits. Testing published in a 2002 report revealed poisons such as 1,3,5 trichlorobenzene, dichloromethane, chloroform, lead and mercury in the breast milk of nursing women. In 2001, Michigan-based chemical corporation Dow Chemical purchased Union Carbide, thereby acquiring its assets and liabilities. However Dow Chemical has steadfastly refused to clean up the site, provide safe drinking water, compensate the victims, or disclose the composition of the gas leak, information that doctors could use to properly treat the victims.”

And if you have the stomach for this personal story, Aziza Sultan, a community health worker at the Sambhavna Clinic shares her personal account of that horrific night.

The pursuit of justice around the Bhopal tragedy is also a study in effective strategizing for positive change. The courageous residents of Bhopal, also known as Bhopalis, have captured the energies of social justice activists and students around the world. Bhopali women and children have performed numerous direct actions aimed at the most powerful leaders in India and America. The Bhopal Medical Appeal and the Sambhavna Trust Clinic were created to provide treatment and rehabilitation for victims and their families. And the activists’ relentlessness has finally paid off, and last month the government of India promised to create an Empowered Commission on Bhopal and take legal action on the criminal and civil liabilities of Union Carbide and Dow Chemical.

In a movement of solidarity, students at colleges and universities around the world have for years engaged in online actions, sent letters and faxes to the Indian government, and hosted thousands of events at their own campuses around the issues of the Bhopal tragedy.

Awareness about this disaster in Bhopal is important not only for its historical and present significance, but also because the battle to clean up the site of the power plant, compensate victims appropriately, and to stop completely preventable disasters like this around the world continues. December 3rd is noted as the Global Day of Action for Corporate Accountability, in memory of the Bhopal tragedy. From Bhopal.net:

Dow, the creator of Napalm, Agent Orange and responsible for Dioxin related deaths and diseases worldwide is not the only corporation that kills and maims people and causes irreparable damage to the planet. Wherever we may live, corporate greed and industrial poisons affect our lives and health through slow and silent Bhopals. Justice in Bhopal means justice for the poisoned everywhere.

Below is a poster that was distributed worldwide during the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster:

Links of interest:
International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal — Bhopal.net
The Bhopal Medical Appeal and Sambhavna Clinic — Bhopal.org
The worldwide student movement — Students for Bhopal

One of the most respected military figures of the Republican Party endorsed Obama yesterday. He spoke eloquently, and he systematically broke down every argument and tactic that the McCain campaign has used. Full transcript here. He talked about the politics of unity versus division, spoke about domestic policy issues and supreme court judges even though he’s a foreign policy person, and called out the anti-American smears for what they were. He also essentially said that McCain put campaign first, not country first, in choosing a completely unqualified vice presidential candidate.

Here’s an excerpt that I was especially thankful to hear:

Now, I understand what politics is all about. I know how you can go after one another, and that’s good. But I think this goes too far. And I think it has made the McCain campaign look a little narrow. It’s not what the American people are looking for. And I look at these kinds of approaches to the campaign and they trouble me. And the party has moved even further to the right, and Governor Palin has indicated a further rightward shift. I would have difficulty with two more conservative appointments to the Supreme Court, but that’s what we’d be looking at in a McCain administration. I’m also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, “Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.” Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he isàIs there something wrong with being a Muslim in this countryàThe answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be presidentàYet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, “He’s a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.” This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son’s grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards—Purple Heart, Bronze Star—showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn’t have a Christian cross, it didn’t have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life.

Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourself in this way. And John McCain is as nondiscriminatory as anyone I know. But I’m troubled about the fact that, within the party, we have these kinds of expressions.

Thank you Colin Powell, for your judgment, your timeliness, your thoughtfulness.

From BuzzFeed:

In response to Barack Obama’s calls for change, the Republican’s have unveiled their new “Change You Deserve” campaign for 2008. It turns out the slogan was also used to market the popular anti-depressant, Effexor. Sometimes those Republicans just get things so right.

Check out the link to the drug’s possible side effects! (akathisia, elevated blood pressure, memory loss, brain zaps, vertigo, nausea, wow! How telling, about the GOP’s proposed change we deserve…)

And here’s more information about the “Change You Deserve” intiative, from the republican house leader’s website. Make your own conclusions…

(cross-posted at Cure This)

15,000 feared dead. 44,000 missing. 1,000,000 homeless: Burma / Myanmar after the cyclone that hit on May 3rd.

And a CNN video report that I can’t embed into this post but will link to — “Death and Devastation in Myanmar” — extremely moving.

Last I heard earlier today, it looks like the Burmese authoritarian government is thwarting efforts for outside agencies (like the United Nations) and countries to deliver aid and disaster recovery strategy.

Doctors without Borders is already in the country doing other work, and they reported on the situation today:

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams have so far been able to assess all areas in the townships of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, and are in the process of trying to assess areas outside of Yangon that we suspect may have been harder hit. For humanitarian actors it is essential to have unrestricted and immediate access to all affected populations and regions in order to assess needs and react accordingly.”

Check out the rest of the post at Cure This. (by the way, thanks to my brother Nalin for the fresh new design of the Cure This website!)

There’s an “open thread” at Cure This, which means — add your thoughts. Add your thoughts on the situation, on organizations that folks can donate to, and on creative and strategic relief efforts (short-term, long-term).

And then pass it on.

“We need a new direction in this country. Everywhere I go, I meet Americans who can’t wait another day for change. They’re not just showing up to hear a speech – they need to know that politics can make a difference in their lives, that it’s not too late to reclaim the American Dream.

It’s a dream shared in big cities and small towns; across races, regions and religions – that if you work hard, you can support a family; that if you get sick, there will be health care you can afford; that you can retire with the dignity and security and respect that you have earned; that your kids can get a good education, and young people can go to college even if they’re not rich. That is our common hope. That is the American Dream.

It’s the dream of the father who goes to work before dawn and lies awake at night wondering how he’s going to pay the bills. He needs us to restore fairness to our economy by putting a tax cut into the pockets of working people, and seniors, and struggling homeowners.

It’s the dream of the woman who told me she works the night shift after a full day of college and still can’t afford health care for a sister who’s ill. She needs us to finally come together to make health care affordable and available for every American.

It’s the dream of the senior I met who lost his pension when the company he gave his life to went bankrupt. He doesn’t need bankruptcy laws that protect banks and big lenders. He needs us to protect pensions, not CEO bonuses; and to do what it takes to make sure that the American people can count on Social Security today, tomorrow and forever.

It’s the dream of the teacher who works at Dunkin Donuts after school just to make ends meet. She needs better pay, and more support, and the freedom to do more than just teach to the test. And if her students want to go on to college, they shouldn’t fear decades of debt. That’s why I’ll make college affordable with an annual $4,000 tax credit if you’re willing to do community service, or national service. We will invest in you, but we’ll ask you to invest in your country.

That is our calling in this campaign. To reaffirm that fundamental belief – I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper – that makes us one people, and one nation. It’s time to stand up and reach for what’s possible, because together, people who love their country can change it.

Now when I start talking like this, some folks tell me that I’ve got my head in the clouds. That I need a reality check. That we’re still offering false hope. But my own story tells me that in the United States of America, there has never been anything false about hope.

I should not be here today. I was not born into money or status. I was born to a teenage mom in Hawaii, and my dad left us when I was two. But my family gave me love, they gave me education, and most of all they gave me hope – hope that in America, no dream is beyond our grasp if we reach for it, and fight for it, and work for it.

Because hope is not blind optimism. I know how hard it will be to make these changes. I know this because I fought on the streets of Chicago as a community organizer to bring jobs to the jobless in the shadow of a shuttered steel plant. I’ve fought in the courts as a civil rights lawyer to make sure people weren’t denied their rights because of what they looked like or where they came from. I’ve fought in the legislature to take power away from lobbyists. I’ve won some of those fights, but I’ve lost some of them too. I’ve seen good legislation die because good intentions weren’t backed by a mandate for change.

The politics of hope does not mean hoping things come easy. Because nothing worthwhile in this country has ever happened unless somebody, somewhere stood up when it was hard; stood up when they were told – no you can’t, and said yes we can.

And where better to affirm our ideals than here in Wisconsin, where a century ago the progressive movement was born. It was rooted in the principle that the voices of the people can speak louder than special interests; that citizens can be connected to their government and to one another; and that all of us share a common destiny, an American Dream.

Yes we can reclaim that dream.

Yes we can heal this nation.

The voices of the American people have carried us a great distance on this improbable journey, but we have much further to go. Now we carry our message to farms and factories across this state, and to the cities and small towns of Ohio, to the open plains deep in the heart of Texas, and all the way to Democratic National Convention in Denver; it’s the same message we had when we were up, and when were down; that out of many, we are one; that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us; and that we can cast off our doubts and fears and cynicism because our dream will not be deferred; our future will not be denied; and our time for change has come.”

The video’s a 3 minute excerpt of Obama’s victory speech in Madison, Wisconsin tonight (he won Virginia, DC, and Maryland in the Dem primaries!), and the transcript is a partly overlapping excerpt of the full transcript of his speech.

Check out what’s even MORE heartening:

Barack Obama didn’t just beat Hillary in Virginia. He didn’t just get more votes than John McCain. In “red” Virginia, Obama got 142,000 more votes than all the Republicans put together. And that was with Hillary Clinton taking 100,000 more votes than John McCain.

He kicked butt, took names, and did it with both hands tied behind his back.

Oh, and in Maryland, with 40% of the vote in, Hillary is beating all Republicans put together while losing by 27%. You could probably limit Democrats to only left-handed voters, or red-haired voters, or left-handed red-haired voters whose names start with ‘Q,’ and the Republicans would still be in trouble.

holy bejeezus, the time has COME for the progressive majority!

Woohoo! Doctors for John Edwards!

A physician posted a diary over at Daily Kos entitled “A Physician’s View of John Edwards” and has received quite a warm crowd of positive responses from other physicians who feel as passionately about Edwards. A few months ago, two friends and I thought it would be super rad to create an informal Docs for Edwards group, to put some weight of support behind Edwards from what others might initially think was an unlikely group of supporters given his work in medical malpractice. Physicians too often have a knee-jerk negative reaction to Edwards, because of his previous work. But that work was directly supporting patients who had been wrongly treated, and for those who like to think more broadly about presidential candidates, Edwards really has something to deliver on universal health care, labor/trade issues, medical review boards, economic justice, and other truly important issues. Plus, check out who taketh the money:

Do you know which two United States senators took in the most money from HMOs this current cycle?

#1. Hillary Clinton
#2. Barack Obama

First and second place– out of all 100 senators, Republican and Democrat. (from Open Secrets)

Health Services/HMOs: Money to Congress, Election cycle: 2008

1) Clinton, Hillary (D) — $246,480

2) Obama, Barack (D) — $175,093

John Edwards was completely right– the Clintons had all three branches of government, and they didn’t get anything passed that remotely resembled Universal Health Care. Regardless of their true intentions, that’s what “sitting at the table” gets you.

John has a history of taking on big HMOs for the little guy and winning. He and Elizabeth are now fighting to bring good health care coverage inexpensively to everyone.

Just like they’re fighting to end global warming and our dependence on non-renewable energy.

Just like they’re fighting to redeploy the combat troops from Iraq, and bring most of them home to their families.

I can’t speak for all physicians, but this physician trusts John Edwards to do the right thing.

Corporate control of congress must come to an end– now.

We deserve a President who is bought and paid for by the American people.

Oooh I like that — we deserve a president who is bought and paid for by the American people! Edwards repeatedly talks about the corporate interests in medicine, something that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama omit from their discussions (for reasons stated above, perhaps?) And I recall Edwards saying, “when i’m president, dissent will once again be patriotic”.

(yes, it’s true, Kucinich has the MOST progressive platform of ANY democratic candidate, by a landslide. But it’s a discussion for another time — why I’d vote for Edwards over Kucinich right now, when it’s SO imperative that we have a dem win in 2008. though i did hear on KPFK FM this morning that Kucinich is risin’ up in the polls for the Iowa primaries, and that’s SUPER rad).

Matt Compton says so very much, in his post “Jena and the Internet”:

When the Jena 6 does make an appearance on progressive blogs today, it’s little more than a passing nod. Huffington Post has a blog post buried below the fold; ThinkProgress gives it a two-sentence news brief.Now, in the wake of the protests, the bloggers are a bit more talkative about Jena, and Ezra Klein is one of those who commented on the late-developing coverage, saying: “[The silence] is telling as to the tenuous relationship between the online left and what’s more traditionally been the left.”

But outside the major blogs, the Internet hasn’t been silent on this issue. On Facebook, there are more than 500 groups, with thousands of members, which reference Jena. On YouTube, there are more than 1,600 videos that mention the town, including this one — which has been seen more than 1 million times. A Google Blog Search today yielded nearly 40,000 results. The Wikipedia entry is 2 months old, 3,000 words long, and contains 39 footnotes. In the progressive Christian community, the blogs are all over this. Obviously, Jena has been a lead topic on the African-American blogosphere (on sites that cover everything from politics to hip-hop) for months.

So why did the big progressive sites take so long to focus on Jena? Ezra’s take that this was an “issue of the traditional left” is off-target. The big-name civil rights figures had to scramble to catch up with Jena. There wasn’t a central planning committee directing yesterday’s protests — the organization came together from the bottom up. The protests in Jena were the result of conversation and debate on the social networks, in blogs, over message boards, through email, and on African-American radio shows. It looked like a true, decentralized, “people-powered” movement.

The big progressive blogs missed the story initially for a variety of reasons, including their and their readership’s demographics, but also because of their focus on developments in Washington and in electoral politics. As the Jena story reached a critical point last week, most blogs were overwhelmingly focused on the Kabuki theater of the Senate debate on Iraq and MoveOn.

Ten thousand people marching on Jena is pretty substantive proof that the online left is bigger and more diverse than readers of Daily Kos. In fact, it extends beyond blogs altogether, as illustrated by the role of social networks in creating and channeling energy towards the Jena protests. The Rev. Al Sharpton said that the protests marked the start of a 21st century civil rights movement. Jena might also mark the start of a new phase in online progressive politics as well.

VERY interesting that 1) most of the nationwide organizing around the Jena 6 was done online and was done through bottom-up organizing (instead of top-down). And 2) most of the major (shall i say mainstream?) progressive blogs did not cover the issue like the mass mobilization movement it was.

There’s a similar post about this issue on DailyKos, and the comments to that post are VERY telling. Seems like people of color and whites see issues quite differently.

On another but similar note, BFP wrote a post entitled “The ‘Nobody’ posting about the Jersey political prisoners” and goes on to share a number of blogs that have written about the queer women of color in Newark, NJ who were targeted for hate crimes when they were actually ATTACKED as part of a hate crime (similarities to the Jena 6). Looks like it’s mostly people of color who have blogged about it, mobilized around it. Apparently it must have been stated somewhere that nobody was writing about this issue. BFP responds with:

The erasure of work through the creation of “nobody” discourse = the continued marginalization of the worker.
Or: It’s funny how “nobody” is always so damn colored.

Reminds me also of the question that arises every few months, predictably, in the progressive blogosphere — “Where are the women of color bloggers?” and “Where are the people of color bloggers?”

Barbara Ehrenreich has a piece in today’s Huffington Post (“Health Care vs the Profit Principle”) on the debate over expansion of health insurance for children (S-CHIP or the State Health Insurance Program). In the midst of the movie SiCKO’s popularity, and in the midst of Americans building ever more energy around health care issues, the Bush administration has boldy gone where no administration has gone before, to make this yet again an ideological battle. Barbara Ehrenreich on the matter:

It’s always nice to see the President take a principled stand on something. The man formerly known as “43,” and now perhaps better named “29″ for his record-breaking approval rating, is promising to battle any expansion of government health insurance for children — and not because he hates children or refuses to cough up the funds. No, this is a battle over principle: private health care vs. government-provided health care. Speaking in Cleveland this week, Bush boldly asserted:

‘I strongly object to the government providing incentives for people to leave private medicine, private health care to the public sector. And I think it’s wrong and I think it’s a mistake. And therefore, I will resist Congress’s attempt … to federalize medicine…In my judgment that would be — it would lead to not better medicine, but worse medicine. It would lead to not more innovation, but less innovation.’

Ehrenreich finishes off with a bang:

If government insurance for children (S-CHIP) isn’t expanded to all the families that need it, there is no question but that some children will die — painfully perhaps and certainly unnecessarily. But at least they will have died for a principle.

Yes. This is how we must frame health care issues. It’s the way we have to, especially when republicans are also talking smack like this:

John Hart, a spokesman for Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, said Mr. Coburn saw the Democratic plan as “part of an effort to bring everyone into a socialized health care system, a clarion call for Hillary Care, part two,” referring to the Clinton administration plan for universal coverage. Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, shared that view.

HillaryCare! Boo! Scared, yet?

Let’s not forget to mention that Senator Tom Coburn is a doctor. Who elected the doctor who wants to limit health care for children?

Lastly, we know there is no accountability to our government when the very people we elect (and the people they appoint) are anti-government themselves. A few regional directors at the Department of Health and Human Services sent “letters to newspapers, warning against ‘a government takeover of the health care marketplace‘”. This is a prime example of the government flushing the government down the toilet. And what’s a department of health and human services doing playing partisan politics (letters to the media!) on childrens’ access to health?

So back to the framing. We need to improve our framing of these important issues. If the opposition can bring back “HillaryCare”, we can be creative (and true) too. So, let’s say it all together now — Bush hates children. Republicans who are against expanding health insurance for children hate children. Any other ideas for framing this issue? I’m in favor of gathering together a list of congresspeople who eventually vote against this bill and figuring out how to affect their re-election based on their hatred of kids. You know, holding elected officials accountable to their decisions. And let’s strip the Republicans of the ownership of the term “family values”.
And what can we do? Families USA has a nicely organized education and action campaign in place, check it out (i’m sure other organizations do too). The issue is being decided upon this week. Let’s get to it.

(cross-posted at Cure This)

I realize that I mentioned Cure This on this site recently but made no mention of what it was and why. Here’s a quick description:

For two and a half years, “Cure This” was a pipe dream shared by just a handful of us. We envisioned a grand goal: to create an online space to discuss health in its broadest sense, share personal stories, creatively make positive change, and build an online community along the way — connecting us locally, nationally, and perhaps internationally. We envisioned a humble beginning: here and now.

Cure This has now transformed into a reality, and we’re excited beyond words. We welcome it into this world with a loving, gentle nudge and an encouraging whisper in its ear. Let the beautiful journey begin.

Yes! We have 25 users so far and quite a few posts. Lively discussion has begun on the site. We hope it may be a “home” of sorts for important discussion of broad health issues, and a place where stories can be shared and strategy discussed. We hope to feed people to organizations that are doing amazing work, and possibly connect smaller groups who thought that nobody else in the world was doing similar work :>

New features are being implemented daily, thanks to my wonderful, wonderful brother Nalin, who’s doing all the programming and creative design for the site. We’re rolling out a “recommended diaries” section where the most highly voted posts will hang out. We’re rolling out profiles for users (so others can understand some of the context of where they’re coming from, and which will serve as a mechanism for folks to network with each other). A few “how-to’s” will also be posted, for those wondering how to write posts, how to navigate around the site, etc. We’re also down with any suggestions you may have.

I shared the website and the idea with quite a few people at the United States Social Forum last weekend, and the response was total excitement. sweet…

Please check out Cure This and feel free to create a free user account and comment or post as you’d like, on issues of health, activism, SICKO, well-being, neighborhoods, etc. it’s free reign for now! Organic evolution!

I agree with this part of Liza’s post:

I have to say that John Edwards may be the hardest working candidate from the whole crop of presidential hopefuls on both ends of the political spectrum. It’s not just the fact that he is the only one who continues to put out the most policy proposals on a regular basis. It’s the fact that he started earlier and with a clearly long-term strategy represented by the community platform his developed under for JohnEdwards.com.

Whereas Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton have created sites to support their candidacies money making strategies, Edwards site was founded as a platform for communications, strategy deployment and community building before it became a source for his presidential fundraising.

You can tell by perusing John Edwards’s site that he has a well developed and strategized use of blogs, forums, chatrooms and other new media tools. The feel and tone of his site is head and shoulders above the Obama and Clinton sites as far as full civic engagement that goes beyond his candidacy.

Around the country, ultrasound bills are all the rage. Most of them require clinics to offer each woman an ultrasound view of her fetus. Mississippi enacted a law on March 22. Idaho followed April 3. Georgia’s legislature passed a bill a week ago; South Carolina’s is about to do the same…

Are ultrasound pushers trying to bias your decision? Of course. But of all the things they do to “inform” your decision, this is the least twisted. Look at the Senate’s “Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act.” It would order your doctor to deliver a 193-word script full of bogus congressional findings about your “pain-capable unborn child.” Ultrasound cuts through that kind of garbage. The image on the monitor may look like a blob, a baby, or neither. It certainly won’t follow some senator’s script. All it will show you is the truth.

If I were a legislator, I’d offer four amendments to any ultrasound bill. First, the government should pick up the tab. Second, the woman should also be offered a six-hour videotape of a screaming 1-year-old. Third, any juror deliberating whether to issue a death sentence should be offered the chance to view an execution. Fourth, anyone buying meat should be offered the chance to watch video from a slaughterhouse. If my first amendment passed but the others failed, I’d still vote for the bill.

From William Saletan’s “Sex, Life and Videotape: Ultrasound and the Future of Abortion“, April 28, 2007, Slate Magazine.

…or “the tale of an unlucky appendix at the hands of the daughters of charity, in the city of angels.”

Robert Issai

President and CEO
Daughters of Charity Health System
26000 Altamont Rd.
Los Altos Hills, CA 94022-4317

Dear Mr. Issai:

I recently suffered from appendicitis, and was admitted to the emergency room at Saint Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles on November 10 of last year. I underwent an appendectomy and was released from the hospital on the morning of November 12. I have no complaints about the quality of my care. My surgeon, Dr. Charles Hunter, was excellent, and with very few exceptions all of my encounters with hospital staff were as pleasant as they could be under the circumstances. But I received a profound and unpleasant shock shortly after returning home. The bill arrive, account number XXXX, if you’re curious.

I was charged — am being charged, I should say, as I have not yet paid — $15,833 for the care I received during the 40-odd hours I spent at Saint Vincent. I then received additional bills from the surgeon, the anesthesiologist, and the emergency room physician for their respective services. (The latter is asking for more than $800 for the approximately three minutes he spent at my side.) I am a freelance journalist, and I am fortunate enough to have health insurance at the moment. Blue Cross covered $12463 of your bill. But $3370 is still a considerable sum of money, so I telephoned the billing office and asked for an itemized account of the charges.

I hardly know where to begin. Perhaps with the $21 I was charged for each of ten 10 ml saline IV flushes. I do not know the going rate for a 500 ml bottle of saline solution at CVS, but considerably less than $105, I am sure. I was charged $80 for each of three 50 cc doses of .9% sodium chloride, a few spoonfuls of table salt, and $154 for each of twelve one-liter bags of sugar water. For my pajama pants — of such flimsiness that I would be hard-pressed to find their equivalent at a 99-cent store — I was charged $35. Given such absurdities, it seems hardly worth mentioning that I was charged $982 for an hour and three quarters spent unconscious on a gurney in the Recovery Room and $1768 for each night of room and board. Rents are high in Los Angeles I know, but that is nothing less than an outrage.

A few weeks later, I was doing a little research to find out where to send a friend who had broken her ankle in New Mexico and needed surgery in Los Angeles. One of your own orthopedic surgeons advised me to use another hospital. “Saint Vincent is notorious for overcharging its patients,” he said. This was not news to me. Another example: my friend was charged $1.05 for a 2 ml dosage of fentanyl at the ER in Albuquerque. At Saint Vincent I was charged $71 for a 250 mcg injection of the same. Assuming a standard 50 mcg/ml concentration, you overcharged me by a factor of approximately 28. I can only congratulate you for your chutzpah.

Mr. Issei, if you were in any other line of work, no one would hesitate to call you a thief. I understand the complexities of our healthcare system better than most do, but this is inexcusable, and all the more so in an institution that masks itself with the gospel of charity. Medicine is a noble profession. You render it shameful. I am sure you have better insurance than I do. I wish you good health, and poor sleep.

Yours sincerely,

Ben Ehrenreich

Source: “Medical Larceny” by Barbara Ehrenreich, in the Huffington Post.
Mr. Ehrenreich is author Barbara Ehrenreich’s son. She says this about the issue:

The odd thing is that many politicians and pundits believe that the only way to control health costs is to get consumers to limit their consumption of health care – as if an appendectomy, for example, was a kind of self-indulgence. In my son’s case, we have someone who is vividly aware of his health care costs, if only because he bears so much of them. His letter is not only an individual complaint but an act of good citizenship. We all need to be prepared to blow the whistle on medical larceny.

There are some interesting comments and perspectives written by readers of the post, at the link above. Imagine what kind of discourse and building and action could grow from folks around the country sharing these stories? What’s your story?

(cross-posted at To the Teeth)

I saw this artwork on Down on the Brown Side and had to share it:

Sweet! I love it! Where did you get it from, rage? It’s got the right mix of nerd chemistry and power politics in it. :>

[Update]: Rage (who first posted this photo) wrote in the comments that it was taken from a chemistry teacher’s website. fascinating! check out the rest of the artwork here, some exciting messages for those of you who dig conservation of mass and erlenmeyer flasks (don’t act like you don’t!)

I wish I had known about the Web of Change conference earlier — I’d be there in a second. I’m not a techy much myself (although in my circle of like-minded doctor folk, I come off as one, because I know what a “blog” is and because I’m psychotically fascinated by how the internet and “web 2.0″ can help facilitate community building and power building. And I do enjoy discussing the similarities among peanut butter and jelly, the web 2.0, and health justice).

My friend Adrienne Marie Brown, an absolutely wonderful woman and the current Executive Director of the Ruckus Society, gave a session at this conference. I’m reposting Kate Milberry’s reportback from that session (and a link to it, on the web of change website is here). It’s beautiful (and where things are bolded, emphasis is mine):

Titilating Technology
Submitted by Kate Milberry on Thu, 2006-09-21 14:09.

Maybe you know Ruckus Society, maybe you don’t. But for those of us who didn’t know Adrienne Maree Brown before today’s session, we won’t be forgetting her any time soon. For starters, she made us sing. I was fine with that but, not being a singer (in fact, being almost tone deaf) I didn’t know this meant standing up. One gets lazy once one has parked one’s ass on the floor.

So, we all sang a note (which one, I couldn’t say) and it reminded me of church. I’ve not been in a long time, but still, the music (when not in Catholic mass – unless midnite mass on xmas eve) is typically uplifting. And in fact, it set the tone for Adrienne’s talk, which ended with her calling our geek work divne, and the geeks among us holy! Holy @%!*; that’s a nice compliment.

Adrienne started her talk as she ended it – on a tributory note. She said that geeks are key to the survival of folks like her – activists involved in the non-profit sector working for progressive social change. The work of geeks – their various tools, programs, apps, whatever – acts as a conduit for the things social justice activists are dreaming of, imagining and planning for.

One of her central points, and an underlying theme of her talk was this: technology only works if there’s a huge loving idea behind it. The problem, or sticking point, is that geeks don’t think of it this when actually developing the stuff. Adrienne’s message: don’t sell yourself short – you are the Justice League!

I thought it charming and refreshing that this self-described “wannabe geek” was throwing down w/some who are arguably hard core techs. Her presentation was lo-tech – no power point (or mac alt) but notes in a “cool” book that she referred to on occasion to ensure she wasn’t rambling. But even if (or when) she did ramble – it was highly entertaining. That girl is fun-ny! Even her invocation of Jesus was a yuk, surprisingly.

Another main idea of Adrienne’s talk was the need for integration (or interoperability?)- of social change software in the non-profit sector, in order for the sustainability of progressive organizing. So, techs, stop function in “silos” and start talking to each other.

One of the most resonant points of Adrienne’s talk, however, was the need for a theory of how change actually happens. We need to have one. And in thinking about this, organizers need to consider some crucial points:

1. Impacted communities are the ones who create change. Often social change activists are “do gooders” – we put ourselves in the position where we try to do good for impacted communities. BUT revolution is a personal thing that happens in your heart; people come together when something big happens, and people are deeply affected.

2. Invest in people not necessarily resources. It’s about moving people from a state of lack to a state of abundance, from needing to doing, from aloofness to leadership .

Despite the term “open source”, things aren’t always so open. Free software philosophy is not always practiced – we need to practice the change we want to see in the world. Share.

A closing point Adrienne made was this: We can’t expect to use the tools of the oppressor and expect a different outcome; that’s just dumb (her words)!! So what does this mean for techs? Build a new world through building a new technology. Developers are creating the systems by which we interact w/each other – this is powerful – let’s make something new! Not just a single killer app, but an integrated, holistic system that changes power dynamics, social relations – the whole thang.

Check out the rest of the posts on the Web of Change site — there are numerous interesting reportbacks on the site currently.

I’m excited about all this in so many ways, and this is personal, too, as I’m involved in two current projects (minus the pipe dreams in my head) related to health/medicine and health justice. I’m currently working with others on a subcommittee on web/technology for the wonderful National Physicians Alliance, and we’re trying to revamp the current site to become more interactive, more democratic/two-way, and more fun for those passionate about the issues that the NPA works on. That’s going to take up a bulk of my time in the coming months. The other project has moved officially from the “pipe dream” category to the “this is going to happen damnit, real soon, real soon…” category and involves a huge community of health justice folks. Both projects involve loving ideas and loving people behind them (see? project number two can’t still be a pipe dream if there are others working on it too!)

(this post cross-posted on To the Teeth)

Chris Townsend, the Political Action Director of the United Electrical Workers Union, wrote an important piece on the upcoming elections, calling out the DCCC (the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee), discussing two hits labor unions have taken recently, and bring it back to accountability, whether Dems win or not in the elections. I’m currently reading Crashing the Gate by Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitskas, founders of MyDD and DailyKos, two of the largest political blogs in existence, and the book has increased my understanding of the DCCC’s insider politics, bumbling of good campaigns, and squander-ation (I made up a new word) of money. Here’s some of Townsend’s commentary:

The Foley events have finally stirred the slumbering Democratic Party election machinery. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has been bumped out of its paralysis by an apparent barrage of phone calls from Democratic Party consultants eager to expand the number of “viable” races. These paid-by-the-job operators sense big consulting fees to be earned in the remaining weeks. This self-serving crowd — the folks who really run the Democratic “Party” — smell some super-profits of their own. One can only imagine the frantic back-and-forth between the DCCC and the consultant crowd over the past weeks, as both try to figure out who their own candidates are out in the various races now deemed “competitive.” The Democratic candidates who have suddenly seen their phone calls returned are relieved. They have been accepted as real candidates by the DCCC know-it-alls.

The DCCC has, until now, pronounced its interest in supporting a grand total of 44 Democratic challengers as part of their high-priced “Red to Blue” project. The Foley uproar has led to the sudden discovery of 17 additional candidates that apparently deserve some support from the DCCC, described as “Emerging Races” by DCCC staffers. Scraped together, this amounts to 61 Democrats in House races who will get at least tacit support from the DCCC in the waning days before the election. That still leaves more than 150 Democratic House candidates with no support whatsoever from their own party structure, since some unknown consultant in Washington, D.C. deemed their race as “unwinnable” more than a year ago…

With several weeks to go, and with Republicans coming unglued on several fronts, there is no question that Democrats have gained the late momentum, if only due to Republican gaffes and stumbles. But, given the pitiful job of the Democratic Party structures in recruiting and supporting their own candidates, it is improbable that last-minute jiggering by the DCCC will be of much consequence. If nothing else, however, the DCCC and its stable of house consultants have positioned themselves to claim victory should voters provide a Democratic House majority in just a few weeks. The DCCC staff and inner circle of advisors are ready to take credit for whatever gains are made and promptly blame someone else for any losses or shortcomings.
Welcome to the world of the inside-the-beltway political “industry.”

As for working people and union members, we are in need of some immediate political relief like never before…

He goes on to describe how the “Pensions Protection Act” (what an awful name) has been passed recently, under our noses, and how the “Kentucky River” decision (I wrote about this issue previously on Los Anjalis) was also passed — which kicked tons of people out of any union representation because in their jobs they acted for some or all the time as “supervisors” (any nurses who spend even 5 minutes a day supervising other folks are out, out, out). And then he brings this whole damn thing back to accountability:

Will Democrats regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives on Election Day? They might. Their odds are improving in spite of themselves. I’m rooting for them, because I look forward to getting a break from the Republican punches, if just until the next Congress is installed and we (hopefully) confront the Democratic version of the same fight.

Accountability, accountability, accountability. Our work begins after the election, to hold every congressperson to their word, and to our ideals. No more Dems (even Republicans) signing torture bills that place us squarely behind the year 1252 (magna carta), no more medicare “modernization” acts passed in the middle of the night with bribes left and right, to have serious long-term detrimental consequences for Americans, and no more hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed as we watch.

Reverend Jim Rigby on our desire for heroes and demons — and how liberals need to stop relying on them:

The flipside of not having heroes is not having demons either. Liberals must stop fixating on George Bush. Corporations took over America using politicians as sock puppets. It certainly makes a difference who sits in office, but we have not solved our problems if we impeach one of the socks. We must change the system. And the way to do that is from the bottom up…

Bertold Brecht in “The Life of Galileo” has a character say, “Unhappy is a land that breeds no heroes,” to which Galileo responds “Unhappy is a land that needs heroes.” It is a truism of history that heroes usually lead to war whereas peace and democracy are preserved by an informed and involved citizenry. There is no question about it, America will grow tired of the cruelty and ignorance of the current administration. The only question is whether liberals will be at their posts when she does.

Word. Read the rest of his piece here.