Quote of the week: People wonder about living a sacred life. What is it they can do? Give thanks when you wake up in the morning and make it a point to do something for someone else. It need not get any more complicated than that to begin a journey down a sacred path. From Walking With God, Bruce Weik.
None of the current candidates for President, or the current President for that matter, have an adequate answer for the health care crisis. As more and more people become uninsured, services become less, managed care companies control doctors, and nurses rapidly become extinct as direct-care givers, all of their answers are piecemeal, or what today is being referred to as the practice of incremental reform. Incremental reform translates into an unwillingness by politicians to support services that would make their corporate campaign contributors unhappy. In the midst of a total disintegration of the health care system, nurses are rapidly becoming disenfranchised and disenchanted with what is going on. Most nurses went into the profession to help care for persons who are suffering and in distress. Because of the current conditions that dictate the patient to get the least amount of services in the fastest amount of time, nurses are leaving the field and nursing schools are seeing severe shortages of students. Hospital restructuring and downsizing have slashed bedside nursing staff, replacing them with poorly trained nursing assistants. As we stand by proclaiming our health care system to be the best in the world, fewer and fewer people get the services they need by more and more untrained personnel. This is another of the great American jokes being perpetuated by a health care system more enamored with profit than with healing. Universal health care is the only answer, not just for kids, but for everyone.
Gov. Ryan suspends any further executions until the legal system can get its act together. I'm anticipating that will be never, what with the tremendous mess it's in. The system is so far out of balance its pathetic. We've released 13 prisoners from death row and executed 12. In almost every instance, an outside source looked into the innocence of the people, not the legal system. How many of the 12 executed may have been innocent is anyone's guess. Prosecutors love the death penalty, it gets them re-elected. Since the country has slid to the right, upwards of 70 percent of the population are said to support killing killers to teach them a lesson. And you can bet Illinois is not the only state with such a pathetic mess. Texas is the leading state to execute prisoners. Texas, who has a long history of jailing any minority person who may have been within a mile radius of a crime scene. If any Texas newspaper had the guts to do an exposé like the Chicago Tribune did here in Illinois, the entire legal system in Texas would probably need to be suspended. And there are many other states just as lax as Texas and Illinois in prosecuting presumed criminals. Today, it's guilty until you can prove yourself innocent. After all, the show must go on.
By the year 2025, the military will insist on reinstituting the draft due to lack of interest. If anyone near intelligent is in charge, which is not very likely, they will institute a peace-time corps of people who would work on public projects, like cleaning parks, building low-income housing, working at hospitals, etc. Doing two years for your country is not a bad idea, so long as it has nothing to do with guns and generals. Should something come up where we need a fighting force, all politicians, military officers, and heads of corporations should be utilized on the front lines. After all, what's fair is fair. It's about time the rest of us got to see just how good these guys really are.
Fifteen things men know about women:
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Here's a few good sermons for you right-wing ministers out there:--
On capital punishment: Fry A Killer For Christ.--
On evolution: Don't Buy Any of that Monkey Business.--
On gun control: Jesus Could Have Fought Back With An M-14.--
On homosexuals: The Road to Heaven is Straight.--
On racism: On the Sixth Day, God Created White Man, Then Should Have Rested.--
On diversity: Look Around You, What's Wrong With Being the Same?--
On abortion: Women Should be Happy We Gave Them the Right to Vote.--
On other religions: He Came, We Conquered.
New Illinois State Motto: Land of the voting dead.