Doctor Grandma

Shocking shooting at Fort Hood tonight. Here is what is known as of 8pm Thurs. night. A major in the Army and a psychiatrist treating people for Post traumatic stress syndrome, walked into a graduation ceremony at Fort Hood, TX and opened fire with 2 hand guns, killing 13 and wounding another 30 people. The shock wave of this event is riveting the news stations as I write this. He was American, Muslim, and his name was Nidal Malik Hasan. He was to be deployed to Iraq at the end of Nov. and had been stating openly that he did not want to go, that this was his worst fear! He also, ironically, graduated from Virginia Tech, the school that had its own mass shooting just s couple of yrs. ago. He had a master’s in mental health and a medical degree. Just an incredible story tonight.

What was he hearing in his counseling sessions from servicemen returning who were having mental problems? We know they are not receiving the mental health care they need, and their families need, to survive being deployed to some god forsaken rock country 3-4-5 times. The stress level on them and their families is unimaginable.

The army is grappling with a high number of suicides. What about that tonight? This man committed suicide but mass murder at the same time. He was killed by police, but he had to know he would not survive opening fire in a military establishment.

Someone else may have been shooting with him. There is no information coming out about that yet, that makes any sense. We have heard 2 were taken into custody, then released, and another 3rd man arrested. We don’t know what’s going on.

A press conference from the base has been delayed now for over an hour. They’re not letting any information out. It’s the military. The FBI is trying to get in on it, but it’s everybody’s guess who will get in, who will investigate, or what the hell is going on.

Meanwhile, the blatant hatred is coming out in Washington, with VERY high-level Republican leadership holding a rally, calling for “revolution” (their words) against the current government, reading the Declaration of Independence and calling it the Constitution, AND — THIS IS SO SHOCKING I CAN BARELY WRITE IT — Holding up a poster with some slogan against Socialist Medicine tied together with, literally, a horrific picture of bodies at the Nazi camp Dachau . . .

People are going nuts with hatred and greed, and loss of their power base. A medical doctor was ranting and raving at the podium. Some woman in Congress, Bachman, was calling for revolution. There was not a brown face in the entire 4000 people from what we see on camera. There is no doubt in my mind there is a backlash going on, born of ignorance and greed, and insidiously feeding on people’s patriotism in a way that is unconsciounable (sp?), terrifying and inexcusable. I don’t know what else to say tonight.

Dallas Police have been issuing tickets to drivers — not for breaking any traffic law, but for not speaking English. Now granted, they had to be pulled over for some other reason before the officer realized they could not speak English. But then the officers issued 2 tickets: 1 for the traffic violation and a 2nd one for not speaking English proficiently. The New York Times is denouncing it as the latest insult to injury provided to illegal immigrants.

The first point is, it is NOT against the law to drive without being able to speak English. They were mistaken. It must have caught on like wildfire, because over 200 tickets were issued until one woman finally decided to get a lawyer and challenge it. Of course, what do you do as an illegal immigrant? You have a right to a lawyer, but you’re not going to draw attention to your position of being here illegally by challenging the practice. The police say they got confused because of some statute that dropped down on their laptop menu, which applied to COMMERCIAL drivers only. But even that statute is not enforced. Somebody started it, and it caught on like hotcakes and was not challenged by other officers, administrative personnel reading their police reports, court room judges listening to their stories in court, OR those recv’g the tickets. These facts also highlight the fact that people are sheep. Nobody wants to challenge their peers, especially those in law enforcement or the military,  and we all just go along with standard practice. We blindly follow those who go before us.

What human rights do we believe in? Citizens’ rights vs. human rights. I think with the illegal immigrant issue, that’s what it comes down to.

Do we stop educating children of illegal immigrants, refuse them entry into school? CA voters had a referendum on this and said yes. However, it proved impossible to enforce.

Do we refuse them health care? Access to services? Think in terms of pregant mothers, whose children, when they are born in America, are Americans. Do we refuse the mothers health care, raising their chances of being born with defects and problems, requiring longer hospitalization time and more care afterwards? Just how far do we go with this?

These people are not criminals, they are not breaking the law except for one. They came in without waiting the years it would take to enter legally. We cannot realistically keep them all out. There are too many literal holes in our “fences” along the border. We can’t send them all home either. There are millions of them and they have fit right into our labor market like a glove on a hand. Businesses get off paying them cheap. They usually don’t take jobs that carry benefits and health insurance. If we forced all illegal immigrants to leave America tomorrow, our business world would collapse. They know it. They just don’t talk about it publically.

Many Hispanics in America are LEGAL. We annexed in about 1/3 of Mexico as a country, with the Treaty of Guadalupe at the end of the Mexican-American war. Most of CA, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and other states were Mexico. They speak Spanish because they were Mexicans living in their country, and then found themselves annexed into America.

There are many other Hispanic groups in America, from Central and South American, to Cubans, the most assisted group to immigrate into America in our history. They were provided money and jobs, when they left Castro’s Cuba and today, you have to speak Spanish to live in Miami.

American tourists in France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and many other countries drive cars and cannot read the road signs. It’s a little more difficult to figure out where you are, but it’s not illegal.

It is a complicated issue. What’s the answer? Well it certainly is not the answer to issue tickets for laws that do not exist. That, we call discrimination.

Story in the news for SC this week: There is evidently a cemetery which is frequented, during the DAYtime and in the evening, by people hooking up for sex. Today the police decided to crack down on it. They went up to a car where an older man was engaged in sexual behavior with an 18-yr-old girl who works at a strip club, found viagra and sex toys in the car. Turns out, the older man flashed a work badge which identified him as a Republican high-profile employee of the State Atty General’s office. The police officer investigating has a wife who happened to work FOR the Atty Genl’s office, so he calls her to confirm. Yes, that man worked there. As of tonight, he is unemployed. He was fired.

This raises a number of intriguing questions.

1. Was he doing anything illegal? (No.) She was not a prostitute. (I wonder if it will come out later that he was paying her some money. Why else would an 18-yr-old girl be in a car having sex with a man in his 60s on viagra? If he was paying her money, what then? Will she be arrested for prostitution? Will they also press charges on the man engaging with a prostitute?)

2. If he was not doing anything illegal then why is he fired? According to a representative, “because he was engaging in behavior not suitable for a person of this position”. That’s a real judgement call. Isn’t it interesting how someone can be fired for engaging in behavior with another consenting adult, even when it is not illegal? (He may have ruined his marriage, but that’s another issue.)

3. Was it necessary to announce on television news that viagra was on the scene?

4. What’s the deal with this cemetery? Is it regularly patrolled? If it is “known” as the place to go, even during the day, then it’s been allowed to happen on a regular basis. Did this just come out in the news because someone realized it was some kind of high position politician this time, or a company car of some kind?

5. Did this man flash his identity card, thinking they would then leave him alone?  (That didn’t work.) We know that money and power talk in this country. But not in this case, evidently.

6. Is this man one of those Republicans who has come down on the moral depravity of Democratic politicians in the past, yet engages in this same behavior himself? We have seen this over & over again the past few years (since Clinton).

7. Does any man doing this stuff, who also has a wife and kids EVER think about how his behavior might affect his family if his behavior becomes public? It was in the middle of the day for crying out loud. Use your BRAIN instead of thinking with another body part sometimes.

“A rectitude of conduct, an abiding sense of undeviating justice, unobscured by the demoralizing influences which a corruption-ridden political life so strikingly manifests; a chaste, pure, and holy life, unsullied and unclouded by the indecencies, the vices, the false standards, which an inherently deficient moral code tolerates, perpetuates, and fosters; a fraternity freed from that cancerous growth of racial prejudice, which is eating into the vitals of an already debilitated society — these are the ideals which the American believers must, from now on, individually and through concerted action, strive to promote, in both their private and public lives, ideals which are the chief propelling forces that can most effectively accelerate the march of their institutions, plans, and enterprises, that can guard the honor and integrity of their Faith, and subdue any obstacles that may confront it in the future.

 (Shoghi Effendi, The Advent of Divine Justice, p. 22)

CNN reports tonight that President Obama plans to cut salaries of these bank execs. who keep paying each other billions of dollars while crying that their companies are bankrupt. In some cases, he will cut their pay by 90%. That’s because they are paying themselves over $90 million per year!!

I can’t even waste time beginning to explain the culture of greed that we all have been living under in America. They are despicable. The funny thing is, they probably even think they deserve it. 9/10th of America would like to give them what they deserve, and it ain’t a bonus.

From teaching sociology, the little I know is that American CEOs are paid by FAR–FAR FAR AND ABOVE what other countries pay their CEOs. WAY far and beyond. Our avg. CEO pay according to one textbook is $11M. That is not counting “bonuses” and other fringe benefits which far outweigh just their general salaries.

Then there is the wage “gap”. The avg. CEO makes 400 times what the avg. general worker makes. And that number, or gap, is growing. The gap is not as large in any European country you can think of. Ours is outrageous.

I wonder where we are going with such disparity in the world that 40% of the world live on what is comparable to $2.00/day here in the US. $2.00 per day. Try living on that for a week. You can’t do it. But 40 percent of the world does it. And we go through our days without thinking of them. How is the world set up so that this can happen? How soon before the world closes in on us? How soon before the US is hit with a massive backlash. I see a world caving in on itself, crumbling under the weight of massive materialism, ignorance, apathy and greed, all at the same time. The rest of the world is out there people, and they’re tired of watching their babies die and nobody gives 2 cents. They’re not in CNN every day because we really don’t want ot think about them. We don’t want to see starvation, hunger, disease and suffering on our nightly news. We’d rather see the latest Martha Stewart creation of how to make pretty pictures with glittery paint. (I saw this on Jay Leno last night, believe it or not.)

O CHILDREN OF DUST!
Tell the rich of the midnight sighing of the poor, lest heedlessness lead them into the path of destruction, and deprive them of the Tree of Wealth. To give and to be generous are attributes of Mine; well is it with him that adorneth himself with My virtues.

 (Baha’u’llah, The Persian Hidden Words)

Some crackpot “guru” who stupid people paid thousands of dollars to take them on a “spiritual journey” to find themselves held his own version of a sweat, where he put 50-60 people inside a sweatlodge and heated up the place. 3 people died.

First of all, why are people such idiots? The guy is so close to a Jim Jones or David Koresch, it seems so obvious. Give me your money, no I’m not Indian and have not involved them in the process at all, this is just a money-making scheme if you haven’t yet figured that out….

Native Americans interviewed said it was disrespectful of their culture for it to be called a sweat lodge, because that’s not what it was. You don’t put 50 people in an enclosed tent, heat up rocks and pour water over them, while chanting some fake Indian chant that has nothing to do with their actual culture.

I don’t know, people will do anything some leader-type figure tells them. I guess we should be well aware of this after WWII.  

I asked my students tonight if they had seen this story in the news, since it’s been on CNN for the past week. Not one had seen it. Go figure.

President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace prize. The point they keep making in the news is that the committee (whoever they are) had to make this decision in the very first weeks of his Presidency.

What are the political implications of this decision? How can we make sense out of this? Some people want to be hateful about it and say he should return it. They are screaming their heads off as usual. It’s a sham! Send it back! This is politically motivated! He doesn’t deserve it!

What are they mad about? Do they think this is the first time the awarding of the Nobel Peace prize is politically motivated? Are they mad George Bush never rec’d it? Well let me tell ya, that is one man who would never get it, by any committee. That’s because he did so much in the opposite direction, he set us back a few hundred years in time. Not only did he start the Iraq war for his own political and monetary gain, he ended US involvement in the reduction of nuclear arms, in protection and improvement of the environment and ending pollution of our oceans. He refused to participate in the promotion of advancement of women and ending of the violence and lack of education most women of the world face— causes for which the rest of Europe has backed for decades, causes for which there are global conferences which, under Bush, we did not participate in. He refused to attend.

I think this award has more to do with a statement against BUSH than a statement of Obama’s accomplishments. But they knew the direction Obama was going. They believed in his continued support for those directions, and they knew he would live up to his promises. This vote is also a statement of warning to Obama: you’d better do it now. You better keep going, because we’ve given you this award. We expect you to live up to it.

All in all, I’m okay with it. I think it is rather embarrassing for him. And he said so himself. But he should keep it. Because when it’s all said and done, he will have brought us so, SO much closer to world peace than we’ve been near to it for the past 30 years, since Reagan came in. This is a statement that the rest of our “peers” around the globe see Obama as THE man of hope, the cause of renewed vision, where it was utterly lacking before him. They hope that America will now mature enough to stand together with them to take a stand on world poverty, take a stand on reducing the horrific and senseless nuclear arms that have proliferated and put us all at risk of extinction, take a stand on reducing the unthinkable pollution we are emptying into our air and oceans. Let’s turn this world around. Turn our course, baby, we’re behind you.

What’s in the news? Jon wants Kate +8 off the air. Who doesn’t?

David Letterman had sex. With someone at the office. Hmm. Who cares? But the guy must have been really unstable when he asked Dave to write a $2M check as a bribe?? He is a tv producer of a successful show, & is destitute for money, pays his ex $7000./mo. in child support….. I can’t relate. More and more rich guys are going bonkers over losing millions, while most of us at the bottom just can’t go out to eat anymore.

The young babysitter is guilty as heck and they all look like they crawled out of a cave. She looks about 14. Who suffers? The children, the innocent, always.