Health care, .... not so much. More troops in Afghanistan....likely. Turkey for Thanksgiving....very likely. One question before I start cooking....why are we in Afghanistan and for what purpose and what is the end game?
If we can't answer those questions, it's time to come home. And why aren't the troops back from Iraq yet? Oh, wait, I have neighbors who are working for military contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they are making shitloads of money to send their kids to college, I guess. So, it's better to pay civilian contractors (the greedy SOB's who steal my tax dollars) to make money in US war zones....again, for what ultimate purpose? Greed? Power? Sigh. President Eisenhower was right.
Will they brine the turkeys they serve our troops? Will they be served with love or with greed? I vote greed.
Bring our sons, daughters, nephews, nieces, fathers, mothers, etc.home NOW.
I hope our military service members have a lovely Thanksgiving day and I hope to be able to give thanks again, when they are home.
My nephew will be there soon enough, and selfishly we pray for his safety.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Leo's turkey meatballs
- 1.5 lb ground turkey
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 cup bread crumbs
- 2 tbsp. hoisin sauce
- 2 small cans water chestnuts
- 1 tbsp soy sauce or to taste
- 1 tsp. sea salt or to taste
- 1/4 tsp. pepper
- 1 cup panko crumbs
- 1 bag drained, chopped spinach
- Mix all ingredients except panko crumbs.
- Form into balls. Refrigerate about 20 mins.
- Remove from refrigerator and roll meatballs in panko crumbs.
- Bake 400 degrees for 20 mins.
Leos Favorite Turkey Meatballs @ Group Recipes
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Thoughts on health care
Dearest family and friends,
I attended a rally for health care in Austin, last Saturday, at the First United Methodist Church. Speakers included Rev. Rigby (whose speech is in full below), Congressman Lloyd Doggett, Austin mayor Lee Leffingwell, Dr. Andrew Weary, and more.
I want to share this article because what Rev. Rigby said speaks to me in the voice of my father, the church of my childhood, and the values my parents instilled in me. After all, Jesus taught us to love and care for one another, didn't he? [Matthew 25:31-46]
I don't often get on my soap box and send things out to my family and friends. I accept whatever emails are sent to me as being sent in the spirit of thoughtfulness, even if I don't agree with them, and as I said, I usually don't comment. However, this issue is so important to me, that I had to send this. I believe that we, as a nation, need single payer healthcare.
Please take a few minutes of your time to read Rev. Jim Rigby's speech.
Sally
Published on Wednesday, September 2, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Why Is Universal Health Care ‘Un-American’?
by Rev. Jim Rigby
Last week supporters of health-care reform gathered around the country, including in Austin, TX, where 2,000 people crowded into a downtown church to hear speakers talk about different aspects of the issue. Asked to speak about the ethical dimensions of health care, I tried to go beyond short-term political strategizing and ask more basic questions. This is an edited version of what I said.
Is anyone else here having trouble with the fact that we are even having this conversation? Is anyone else having trouble believing this topic is really controversial? I have been asked to talk about the ethical dimension of health care. Here's one way to frame such a discussion:
If an infant is born to poor parents, would we be more ethical to give medicine to that child so he or she does not die prematurely of preventable diseases, or would we be more ethical if we let the child die screaming in his or her parent's arms so we can keep more of our money?
Or, let's say someone who worked for Enron, and now is penniless, contracted bone cancer. I've been asked to discuss whether we are more ethical if we provide such people medicine that lessens their pain. Or would we be more ethical to let them scream through the night in unbearable agony so we can pay lower taxes?
I can't believe I am standing today in a Christian church defending the proposition that we should lessen the suffering of those who cannot afford health care in an economic system that often treats the poor as prey for the rich. I cannot believe there are Christians around this nation who are shouting that message down and waving guns in the air because they don't want to hear it. But I learned along time ago that churches are strange places; charity is fine, but speaking of justice is heresy in many churches. The late Brazilian bishop Dom Hélder Câmara said it well: "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist." Too often today in the United States, if you talk about helping the poor, they call you Christian, but if you actually try to do something to help the poor, they call you a socialist.
Some of the other speakers today have been asked to address what is possible in the current political climate. I have been asked to speak of our dreams. Let me ask a question. How many of you get really excited about tweaking the insurance system so we just get robbed a little less? (silence) How many of you want universal health care? (sustained applause) I realize that insurance reform is all that's on the table right now, and it can be important to choose the lesser of evils when that alone is within our power in the moment. But we also need to remember our dream. I believe the American dream is not about material success, not about being having the strongest military. The American dream is that every person might have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It's amazing to hear Christians who talk about the right to life as though it ends at birth. They believe every egg has a right to hatch, but as soon as you're born, it's dog eat dog. We may disagree on when life begins, but if the right to life means anything it means that every person (anyone who has finished the gestation period) has a right to life. And if there is a right to life there must be a right to the necessities of life. Like health care.
I believe the American dream was not about property rights, but human rights. Consider the words of this national hymn:
"O beautiful for patriot's dream that sees beyond the years. Thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears."
Doesn't that sound like someone cared about the poor? There are those who consider paying taxes an affront, but listen to these words:
"O Beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife, who more than self their country loved and mercy more than life."
"Mercy more than life" -- have you ever noticed those words before? Supporting universal health care does not make you socialist or even a liberal, it makes you a human being. And it makes you an ambassador for the American dream which, in the mind of Thomas Paine, was a dream for every human being, not just Americans. As we struggle to get health care to all people, we may have to settle for the lesser of two evils, but remember your dream -- the true American dream, a human dream. Whatever we win through reform is just first step toward a day when every human being has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The Rev. Jim Rigby is pastor of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Austin.
I attended a rally for health care in Austin, last Saturday, at the First United Methodist Church. Speakers included Rev. Rigby (whose speech is in full below), Congressman Lloyd Doggett, Austin mayor Lee Leffingwell, Dr. Andrew Weary, and more.
I want to share this article because what Rev. Rigby said speaks to me in the voice of my father, the church of my childhood, and the values my parents instilled in me. After all, Jesus taught us to love and care for one another, didn't he? [Matthew 25:31-46]
I don't often get on my soap box and send things out to my family and friends. I accept whatever emails are sent to me as being sent in the spirit of thoughtfulness, even if I don't agree with them, and as I said, I usually don't comment. However, this issue is so important to me, that I had to send this. I believe that we, as a nation, need single payer healthcare.
Please take a few minutes of your time to read Rev. Jim Rigby's speech.
Sally
Published on Wednesday, September 2, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Why Is Universal Health Care ‘Un-American’?
by Rev. Jim Rigby
Last week supporters of health-care reform gathered around the country, including in Austin, TX, where 2,000 people crowded into a downtown church to hear speakers talk about different aspects of the issue. Asked to speak about the ethical dimensions of health care, I tried to go beyond short-term political strategizing and ask more basic questions. This is an edited version of what I said.
Is anyone else here having trouble with the fact that we are even having this conversation? Is anyone else having trouble believing this topic is really controversial? I have been asked to talk about the ethical dimension of health care. Here's one way to frame such a discussion:
If an infant is born to poor parents, would we be more ethical to give medicine to that child so he or she does not die prematurely of preventable diseases, or would we be more ethical if we let the child die screaming in his or her parent's arms so we can keep more of our money?
Or, let's say someone who worked for Enron, and now is penniless, contracted bone cancer. I've been asked to discuss whether we are more ethical if we provide such people medicine that lessens their pain. Or would we be more ethical to let them scream through the night in unbearable agony so we can pay lower taxes?
I can't believe I am standing today in a Christian church defending the proposition that we should lessen the suffering of those who cannot afford health care in an economic system that often treats the poor as prey for the rich. I cannot believe there are Christians around this nation who are shouting that message down and waving guns in the air because they don't want to hear it. But I learned along time ago that churches are strange places; charity is fine, but speaking of justice is heresy in many churches. The late Brazilian bishop Dom Hélder Câmara said it well: "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist." Too often today in the United States, if you talk about helping the poor, they call you Christian, but if you actually try to do something to help the poor, they call you a socialist.
Some of the other speakers today have been asked to address what is possible in the current political climate. I have been asked to speak of our dreams. Let me ask a question. How many of you get really excited about tweaking the insurance system so we just get robbed a little less? (silence) How many of you want universal health care? (sustained applause) I realize that insurance reform is all that's on the table right now, and it can be important to choose the lesser of evils when that alone is within our power in the moment. But we also need to remember our dream. I believe the American dream is not about material success, not about being having the strongest military. The American dream is that every person might have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It's amazing to hear Christians who talk about the right to life as though it ends at birth. They believe every egg has a right to hatch, but as soon as you're born, it's dog eat dog. We may disagree on when life begins, but if the right to life means anything it means that every person (anyone who has finished the gestation period) has a right to life. And if there is a right to life there must be a right to the necessities of life. Like health care.
I believe the American dream was not about property rights, but human rights. Consider the words of this national hymn:
"O beautiful for patriot's dream that sees beyond the years. Thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears."
Doesn't that sound like someone cared about the poor? There are those who consider paying taxes an affront, but listen to these words:
"O Beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife, who more than self their country loved and mercy more than life."
"Mercy more than life" -- have you ever noticed those words before? Supporting universal health care does not make you socialist or even a liberal, it makes you a human being. And it makes you an ambassador for the American dream which, in the mind of Thomas Paine, was a dream for every human being, not just Americans. As we struggle to get health care to all people, we may have to settle for the lesser of two evils, but remember your dream -- the true American dream, a human dream. Whatever we win through reform is just first step toward a day when every human being has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The Rev. Jim Rigby is pastor of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Austin.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
119 Million Americans Must be Wrong (about health care)
119 Million Americans Must Be Wrong
By Robert Parry
June 5, 2009
We know we won't get single payer unless we work for it.
By Robert Parry
June 5, 2009
The peculiar argument that 119 million Americans must be denied the public option that they prefer has been made most notably by Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which is one of two panels that has jurisdiction over the health insurance bill.
"As many as 119 million Americans would shift from private coverage to the government plan," Grassley wrote in a column for Politico.com. That migration, Grassley said, would "put America on the path toward a completely government-run health care system. … Eventually, the government plan would overtake the entire market."
Grassley's logic is that so many Americans would prefer a government-run plan that the private health insurance industry would collapse or become a shadow of its current self. That, in turn, would lead even more Americans entering the government plan, making private insurance even less viable.
Rarely has an argument more dramatically highlighted the philosophical question of whether in a democracy, the government should represent the people's interests or an industry's.link
We know we won't get single payer unless we work for it.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
My first knitted sock,
Complete with many screw ups, but I'll go a bit farther and finish the heel gusset shaping, then I'll frog it down to the end of the cuff and start over. By then I should have learned by all my mistakes and a good sock should result.
Crossing my fingers!
Sunday, March 29, 2009
The Big Take Over
Link, The Big Take Over
The entire article is worth reading. Comments in this article in the Rolling Stone include:
The entire article is worth reading. Comments in this article in the Rolling Stone include:
People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they're not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d'état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.
The crisis was the coup de grâce: Given virtually free rein over the economy, these same insiders first wrecked the financial world, then cunningly granted themselves nearly unlimited emergency powers to clean up their own mess. And so the gambling-addict leaders of companies like AIG end up not penniless and in jail, but with an Alien-style death grip on the Treasury and the Federal Reserve — "our partners in the government," as Liddy put it with a shockingly casual matter-of-factness after the most recent bailout.
The mistake most people make in looking at the financial crisis is thinking of it in terms of money, a habit that might lead you to look at the unfolding mess as a huge bonus-killing downer for the Wall Street class. But if you look at it in purely Machiavellian terms, what you see is a colossal power grab that threatens to turn the federal government into a kind of giant Enron — a huge, impenetrable black box filled with self-dealing insiders whose scheme is the securing of individual profits at the expense of an ocean of unwitting involuntary shareholders, previously known as taxpayers.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Monday, March 09, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Feb. 19th already
Wow, not prepared for the year to go by so quickly. I am knitting a sock. If am luck it will be 2 socks. I really am slow at it, so maybe by mid spring one sock will be done??
Friday, February 06, 2009
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Got some extra time and a few extra pennies?
I know that I have some free time since the election is over and I wondered what I could do, well here are some ideas I have come up with, anybody else have additions?
Some things you can do:
Donate and/or volunteer at a foodbank. Not sure where Boerne's is located, but here is the San Antonio foodbank which serves our area, it appears.
link
Perhaps we could hold a food drive?
Most Needed Food Items
Peanut Butter
Chili
Canned Stews
Canned Soups
Canned Luncheon Meats
Full Meals in a Can/Box
Tuna
Beans & Rice
Macaroni and Cheese
"Pop Top" Food Items
Full Meals in a Can/Box
Questions?
Contact
Monica Borrego
Food and Fund Drive Coordinator
210-431-8310
mborrego@safoodbank.org
I also found this, but perhaps our librarian can find a local group that does this? This group is in Colorado, website is:
Knitting for Our Troops (K*4*O*T) Caps Project 2009
Pattern Sponsors
We're still counting but so far 5,333 helmet liner hats have been knitted and donated to the Rocky Mountain USO!
Keep checking back this week for official marathon results.
Join the Knitting for Our Troops Project and help reach our goal. We want to send 5280 hand knitted hats from the Mile High City to our soldiers overseas.
Thanks to everyone who participated in our Knitting for Our Troops Marathon on January 23 & 24! Learn more about the marathon (PDF).
Knitting for Our Troops Project - We want you as a new recruit! Denver library
Some things you can do:
Donate and/or volunteer at a foodbank. Not sure where Boerne's is located, but here is the San Antonio foodbank which serves our area, it appears.
linkPerhaps we could hold a food drive?
Most Needed Food Items
Peanut Butter
Chili
Canned Stews
Canned Soups
Canned Luncheon Meats
Full Meals in a Can/Box
Tuna
Beans & Rice
Macaroni and Cheese
"Pop Top" Food Items
Full Meals in a Can/Box
Questions?
Contact
Monica Borrego
Food and Fund Drive Coordinator
210-431-8310
mborrego@safoodbank.org
I also found this, but perhaps our librarian can find a local group that does this? This group is in Colorado, website is:
Knitting for Our Troops (K*4*O*T) Caps Project 2009
Pattern Sponsors
We're still counting but so far 5,333 helmet liner hats have been knitted and donated to the Rocky Mountain USO!
Keep checking back this week for official marathon results.
Join the Knitting for Our Troops Project and help reach our goal. We want to send 5280 hand knitted hats from the Mile High City to our soldiers overseas.
Thanks to everyone who participated in our Knitting for Our Troops Marathon on January 23 & 24! Learn more about the marathon (PDF).
Knitting for Our Troops Project - We want you as a new recruit! Denver library
Monday, January 26, 2009
Food for thought
Randi Rhodes' homework, a valuable resource for all of us. Some items include:
Weasels: Former Lehman CEO sells $13 Million Dollar mansion to wife....for $10
They raped our economy to get rich. They should be facing prison. Instead, former shark CEOs are still playing little games to keep their ill gotten goods
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/business/26fuld.html?_r=1&hp
Euro-trouble
The EC's powerful supereconomy is in deep trouble, with the vaunted euro at risk
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/23/AR2009012304172.html
The Foreclosure Tourniquette
Obama works fast to stem the bleeding
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-housing26-2009jan26,0,5664777.story
Venice, Calif: The RV Refugees
No, these aren't just hippies and college kids living in their RVs in this beach town....they're families with kids who go to local schools. Welcome back to The Grapes Of Wrath.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laland/2009/01/venice-resident.html
For more info, check Randi Rhodes daily on the radio and her website as well: therandhirhodesshow.com
Weasels: Former Lehman CEO sells $13 Million Dollar mansion to wife....for $10
They raped our economy to get rich. They should be facing prison. Instead, former shark CEOs are still playing little games to keep their ill gotten goods
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/business/26fuld.html?_r=1&hp
Euro-trouble
The EC's powerful supereconomy is in deep trouble, with the vaunted euro at risk
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/23/AR2009012304172.html
The Foreclosure Tourniquette
Obama works fast to stem the bleeding
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-housing26-2009jan26,0,5664777.story
Venice, Calif: The RV Refugees
No, these aren't just hippies and college kids living in their RVs in this beach town....they're families with kids who go to local schools. Welcome back to The Grapes Of Wrath.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laland/2009/01/venice-resident.html
For more info, check Randi Rhodes daily on the radio and her website as well: therandhirhodesshow.com
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