Health Care
Click on this link to take you to a printable version of the chart below comparing Single Payer to the Public Option.
New Boss Same as the Old Boss?
Check out this excellent post by Nunly at Bad Habit. Stunning and grim list. And it still leaves so much out. Mountain top mining anyone?
Religion
I suppose this story will make some people angry. It just makes me incredibly sad that this woman felt so constricted by her religion and the commensurate shame that she was moved to act as she did. Two deaths. And for what?
Posted by Nunly on June 18, 2009 at 6:39 am
bluelyon- thanks for the link to my post, much appreciated. I can’t imagine that our Congress or President will give us much more than a watered down health bill that will either do little to help the situation or may even do more damage in the long run. I just don’t trust this administration to do anything right since they have totally botched the economy with their bailouts and TARP fiasco. Hell, most of them won’t even read the bill before they vote on it, they will just do what Obama tells them to do.
Regarding the story about the girl who killed her baby…I’m a little disconcerted that the story was aimed at blaming “Catholic religion” for the actions of this girl. I’ve seen story after story of women or girls who have babies and react the same way this girl did. In fact, in a suburb near me—a wealthy suburb, a woman had a baby and afterward just threw it in the bushes where someone found it, still alive, thank goodness. No where in that article did it blame the way the girl was raised. In fact, religion never entered it. Maybe she was an atheist. Could you imagine if a newspaper article said, “The woman was raised with no religion”? The public would be up in arms with anger because it would imply that she had no morals because she was not raised to be religious.
Many times young girls who become pregnant out of wedlock think the worst when they worry about how their parents would react to their situation. They are so sure that “my parents will kill me!” when in reality, they may yell and scream a bit out of the shock of it, but in the end, they accept it and help her move on. It’s obvious, this girl panicked and wasn’t thinking straight.
Posted by sister of ye on June 18, 2009 at 8:00 am
Having been raised Catholic, I also doubt it was Catholicism per say that kept this young woman so ignorant and led to her panic. Fanatically strict parents occur in many religious guises.
Giving your children information about sex and reproduction is not encouraging them to go out and immediately practice it. It does help then know what they’re doing and hopefully prevent pregnancy or contracting disease if they do. Not informing your children, particularly your daughters, too often leads to tragedies like this.
Nunly, read your excellent post, but differ in one thing – I am angry. Righteous anger is no sin if it fuels the quest to right wrongs and accomplish justice, rather than vindictive revenge.
Though there are days when, frustrated at the lack of justice, vindictive revenge sounds tempting, and I know it’s good that it’s beyond my means. Most I’d probably do is whap them around with my cane, anyway.
Posted by bluelyon on June 18, 2009 at 9:39 am
Nunly, I did not blame Catholicism per se, but the very conservative incarnation of it in her life. But this woman was indeed held prisoner by her fear of both her mother’s reaction and her superstition. And yes, she panicked.
For the record, I don’t for one minute believe that she didn’t realize she was pregnant. Surely she understood that the missed periods and swelling belly meant only one thing. Especially since she wasn’t 13 but 30 years of age.
Posted by Nunly on June 18, 2009 at 9:51 am
sister of ye- I agree with you, there is nothing wrong with being angry due to the frustration of the lack of justice in our government. I guess the message I was trying to get out (but badly) was that just because someone doesn’t think highly of Obama and won’t allow him to get away with the lies he tells, doesn’t mean that you are a “Crazed loony PUMA” (this is what I’m called on a regular basis). I guess it’s easier for those who drank the Kool Aid to insult those who saw through him from the start instead of admitting they were wrong in vilifying those who tried to get the message out.
Regarding the story about religion. I find it odd that the woman who killed her baby and sadly died herself, was 30 years old…hardly a child. She seemed to lack the maturity needed to deal with any kind of difficult situation. I mean, at this point, can her “strict Catholic” parents be blamed for her behavior at this age? It sounds to me that the writer of this story was using the “it’s all those Catholics fault!” angle instead of pointing out that the mother of this baby was obviously mentally unstable.
If this young mom had the baby and the parents killed the baby and their daughter…yeah, you could say the parents were over-the-top fanatics about their religion, just as anyone who thinks that murder “in the name of God” is ok (which it’s not!). Really, I think the writer of this story was way off base.
This woman was 30 years old…she couldn’t read a book about sex? Look it up on the Internet? She didn’t know that when you miss your period for a number of months after having sex that she “might” be pregnant?
Posted by bluelyon on June 18, 2009 at 11:17 am
This woman was 30 years old…she couldn’t read a book about sex? Look it up on the Internet? She didn’t know that when you miss your period for a number of months after having sex that she “might” be pregnant?
My point, exactly.
I do agree that there is WAAAY more here than mere religion, and I do see your point that that’s an ‘easy out’ just as it is an easy out when people blame ‘atheism’ for Stalin or Pol Pot.
In this case I do believe she felt constricted by her religion, but I do NOT blame her religion. I hope that makes sense. Indeed, she was a deeply troubled and, if the article is to be believed – though how are we to know, we’ve only got other people’s take on it, not her’s – she was incredibly naive and immature. “Sheltered” is the word the author used, IIRC. That is the part that I find so tragic.
And the other note is that any strict ideology, be it religious or otherwise, often attracts the weak of mind and can lead to tragic consequences.
Posted by Single Payer compared to Public Option | Nye - Gateway to Nevada's Rurals on June 18, 2009 at 5:42 pm
[...] Blue Lyon has done us a service. She has a chart on her blog which compares Single Payer healthcare vs Public Option healthcare. The chart was prepared for the League of Women Voters of Arizona. [...]