The Smithian

May 15th, 2013

thesmithian

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Time.

May 7th, 2013

thesmithian

‘…think what America would look like without its mostly Southern states…’

…Universal health care. No guns. Strong unions. A humane minimum wage. A humane immigration policy. High revenues from a fair tax structure. A massive public-works program. Legal gay marriage. A ban on carbon emissions. Electric cars. Stronger workplace protections. Extended family leave from work in case of pregnancy or illness. Longer unemployment benefits. In short, a society on a par with most of the rest of the industrialized world—a place whose politics have finally caught up with its social and economic realities.

…a sundering of the union would make the other half of America equally fulfilled. The red-state republic could…establish a theocracy in which the fundamentalist Christian church would legislate all the important aspects of civic life…It could, taking the lead from the pioneering Kansas legislature, abolish the income tax, raising revenue from, for example, a “pay to work” program. It could ban abortion in all instances, including rape and incest, and use the growing population of orphans to establish an impressive standing army.

more.

May 7th, 2013

thesmithian

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey…underwent secret weight-loss surgery three months ago…

more.

May 5th, 2013

thesmithian

When my daughter was born the hospital put black on all of her documents (immunizations etc). I am black and my hubby is white, I thought it was a little weird that they should ignore the fact that my child is bi-racial. The nurses told me, (a little condescendingly mind you) that ALL government docs default to the race of the birth mother. So I had a question for the white mothers with bi-racial children with black fathers, did they put white on your child’s documents? Or was this some backwards thing they do just to black mothers?

Carmen, a mother

May 1st, 2013

thesmithian

…makes the case that rationing—in areas such as food, water, energy, and health care—is a necessary element of humanity’s future. It’s not a message that those who value a free market and an ever-growing economy want to hear.

more, and an interview with the author here.

…makes the case that rationing—in areas such as food, water, energy, and health care—is a necessary element of humanity’s future. It’s not a message that those who value a free market and an ever-growing economy want to hear.

more, and an interview with the author here.

April 29th, 2013

thesmithian

‘The nonsense about what it takes for a president to win a victory in Congress has reached ridiculous dimensions.’

…The fact that Barack Obama failed to win legislation to place further curbs on the purchase of guns—even after the horror of Newtown, Connecticut—has made people who ought to know better decide that he’s not an “arm-twister.” Ever since Obama took office, others have been certain about how he should handle the job and that he wasn’t doing it right. Yet if the health care law is allowed to work, despite continuing Republican efforts to try to make sure that it doesn’t, and if we take into account some other victories—the Lilly Ledbetter Act, the stimulus that was as large as the political market would bear, the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill, the largest since the New Deal if Congress will let it be implemented—his presidency could go down as a time of historic achievement. Nevertheless, when an insufficient number of senators was available to kill a hypothetical filibuster of the gun bill—a watered-down measure to expand background checks for gun sales (while opening gaping loopholes)—suddenly the word went out that the president is hopeless as an arm-twister; the assumption of course was that being a good arm-twister was critical for a successful presidency. Wait a minute.

more.

April 27th, 2013

thesmithian

'Spending is down to what it was before the recession, and also significantly lower than it was under Reagan. Bear in mind that in the years since the recession began we’ve seen a significant number of boomers reach retirement age, which would ordinarily have led to rising spending, not to mention the effects of rising health care costs. Bear in mind also that the private sector is still deleveraging, which means that government should be spending more to help sustain the economy. So this is actually...very bad policy.'

April 26th, 2013

thesmithian

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the New York Times Magazine.

April 24th, 2013

thesmithian

Immigrant women in Texas tell us that accessing birth control, cervical cancer screenings, and other reproductive care is so difficult here in the United States, they’re forced to cross into Mexico in order to get the care they need…One woman told us about how she literally swam across the Rio Grande to get access to reproductive care.

Kimberly Inez McGuire,

Associate Director of Government Relations and Public Affairs at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health.

April 17th, 2013

thesmithian

Ten years of war have brought details of attacks like these to our towns through news, images, and the soldiers who saw and encountered them. Almost every hospital has a surgeon or nurse or medic with battlefield experience, sometimes several. Many also had trauma personnel who deployed to Haiti after the earthquake, Banda Aceh after the tsunami, and elsewhere. Disaster response has become an area of wide interest and study.

Atul Gawande, at the New Yorker.

April 17th, 2013

thesmithian

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Is it the future of the motorized wheelchair?

Is it the future of the motorized wheelchair?

April 4th, 2013

thesmithian

This isn’t a plan to ‘replace Obamacare.’ It’s a plan to do the opposite of replacing Obamacare. It’s as if I said I had a plan to fix the house by replacing the leaky roof, and you said you had a plan to fix the house by getting rid of the roof…Obamacare is, at its heart, a policy to make sure most every legal resident of the United States has access to comprehensive, affordable health care. In order to achieve that goal, it helps poorer Americans pay for insurance and regulates the products offered by insurers to make sure they’re worth paying for. The eight-point program [the Republican] Domenech lays out is not an alternative approach to achieving the same goal. It’s actually an effort to achieve an almost perfectly opposite goal.

Ezra Klein at the Washington Post

April 3rd, 2013

thesmithian

'Any delays in instituting the law can—and likely will—be magnified into a media narrative about the administration’s broken promises; but it shouldn’t bare the brunt of the blame. The orchestrated Republican effort to deny ACA’s health care benefits is largely responsible. The GOP may have failed in its effort to repeal Obamacare in Congress, lost at the Supreme Court in June and the ballot box in November, but the party isn’t backing down from trying to dismantle or delay the law.'

April 2nd, 2013

thesmithian

This is the new face of American sadism: the unconcealed burst of joy at the thought that pain is going to be inflicted on someone weak and helpless. Its viciousness, I believe, is symptomatic of the way our society is changing. Everything from the healthcare industry, payday loans, and for-profit prisons to the trading in so-called derivatives, privatization of public education, outsourcing of jobs, war profiteering, and hundreds of other ongoing rackets all have that same predatory quality. It’s as if this were not their own country, but some place they’ve invaded in order to loot its wealth and fleece its population without caring what happens to that population tomorrow. The only interest these profit-seekers have in us is as cheap labor, cannon fodder for wars, and suckers to be parted with our money. If we ever have a police state here, I’ve been thinking, it won’t be because we’ve become fascists overnight, but because rounding up people and locking them up will be seen as just another way to get rich.

Charles Simic