2015

Posted by TomCat at 8:41 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 082015

On Monday afternoon, I started to experience severe congestion. I think I may have continued to treat myself with Ipratropium Bromide/Albuterol Sulfate longer than I needed to and dried myself out. For over 24 hours, I was unable to cough up the junk that collects in my chest, and I could not lie down without severe coughing, so I could not sleep. I called my helper friend. She came, did the most hated task, helped me get to the shower, fed me and applied hot compresses to my chest and back. I thought about going to the emergency room, but decided not to, because I was not actually running a fever and my pulse oximeter read 95%, so I knew my lungs were not seriously compromised, as they would be if I had pneumonia. I was finally able to cough up the gunk at around 3 PM yesterday, and I slept ten out of the next twelve hours. I’m still feeling week and tired. Pardon my brevity.

Jig Zone Puzzles:

Yesterday’s took me 3:44 (average 5:19). To do it, click here. Today’s took me 3:19 (average 4:44). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Fantasy Football Recruiting:

We still need one or two new player for Lefty Blog Friends, our fantasy football league. Viv and her Hillbilly Lefties are now onboard. How about you? For more information, click here.

Short Takes:

From Alternet: John Oliver was off for the weekend of Fourth of July, or the “annual American tradition of reminding the sky who runs shit,” as the “Last Week Tonight” host more aptly called it. But that didn’t stop him from uploading a brief — emphasis on brief, because we’ll come back to that — web exclusive in the show’s absence.

It’s not uncommon for HBO to upload web exclusives to tide viewers over until the following week. What is uncommon: Oliver decided to cover 15 topics (“15 shallow dives”) in one minute instead of his usual 15-minute deep-dive.

Pure entertainment and a welcome break.

From Daily Kos: At the Washington Post, Prof. James Loewen writes that the reason so many people believe false things about the Civil War and the Confederacy is because many of our textbooks teach those wrong things to this day.

Teaching or implying that the Confederate states seceded for states’ rights is not accurate history. It is white, Confederate-apologist history. It bends — even breaks — the facts of what happened. Like other U.S. history textbooks, “Journey” needs to be de-Confederatized. So does the history test we give to immigrants who want to become U.S. citizens. Item 74 asks, “Name one problem that led to the Civil War.” It then gives three acceptable answers: “slavery, economic reasons, and states’ rights.” If by “economic reasons” it means issues about tariffs and taxes, which most people infer, then two of its three “correct answers” are wrong! No other question on this 100-item test has more than one “right” answer. The reason is not because the history is unclear, but because neo-Confederates still wielded considerable influence in our culture and our Congress until quite recently, when a mass of politicians rushed to declare the Confederate flag unsuitable for display on government grounds.

Loewen also reiterates a point that cannot be made often enough: Modern notions that the Civil War was fought over ephemeral notions of "states’ rights" or other high-minded considerations, as opposed to an unapologetic battle for the right to keep human slaves, is a product of segregationist forces in the civil rights era. It’s hardly a coincidence that so many memorials of the war date conspicuously to the days of George Wallace, rather than Jefferson Davis.

We study history to learn from the past and avoid making the same mistakes. Republicans distort history, because they know they are making the same mistakes, don’t care, and want to keep others from knowing.

From NY Times: From environmental and work force regulations to health care and contraception, congressional Republicans are using spending bills to try to dismantle President Obama’s policies, setting up a fiscal feud this fall that could lead to a government shutdown…

…The House and Senate appropriations committees are churning out annual spending bills, dropping the bipartisanship that has long characterized the committees. The bills adhere to strict overall spending limits imposed in 2011 that Mr. Obama has already said he will not accept.

Here we go again. Am I the only one reminded of a broken record?

Cartoon:

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