operation: market to the vulnerable

Starting on Saturday, millions of Medicare beneficiaries will be flooded with advertising and solicitations from insurance companies inviting them to sign up for dozens of prescription drug plans with different premiums and benefits. More than 40 options will be available in almost every state, the Bush administration said Friday.
Beneficiaries will soon be deluged with marketing material and application forms. Advertisements will run in newspapers and magazines and on radio, television, billboards, posters and the Internet. Many beneficiaries will also receive telephone calls, offering drug coverage and other health-related products.

my clients are low-income people who are elderly and/or disabled, and, thus, on medicare. my job is to figure this out for them and to leave flaming piles of feces on the doorsteps of those who try to screw over my clients. let the shit-storm begin!!!

sexploitation. it's the law.

this past thursday evening, peruvian dignitaries were treated to some fine entertainment. santa monica women's prison organized and arranged a beauty pageant for the female inmates.

"Sex appeal is important but it is not as if we are seeking just the physical aspect but rather the value as a woman, the value of the person is the essence of all of this," said Maria Jaen, director of the prison.

well, now, that's just beautiful, isn't it? take a bunch of women, many or most of whom have gotten to where they are because of manipulation and exploitation by the men who had power in their lives, and then parade them around on stage for the pleasure of yet more men with power.
everybody wins! oh - wait...that's not true.

his own worst enema

why have the democratic leaders been relatively quiet on the delay indictment? why waste your breath when he's making their arguments for them?

apparently, tom delay has an extremely severe case of verbal diarrhea. (via thinkprogress)

eyes over new orleans

not cool, wisconsin, not cool.

the state of wisconsin is really on a roll with enacting legislation to regulate reproductive freedoms and scientific advances. there is way too much info for me to post it all here, but, suffice to say, in the past two days, the state senate has approved 4 bills, all of which threaten to impede science and/or public health: (1) banning "human cloning", (2) requiring docs to tell women seeking abortions about "fetal pain", (3) expanding conscience clause protections to include more procedures that a provider can refuse to perform, (4) requiring public schools to spend more time teaching about abstinence than birth control.

there was a fifth bill they approved as well, which would require providers to inform pregnant women they can donate umbilical cord blood to blood banks to harvest stem cells for research. (gotta try to be fair and balanced here, and include the non-rights-eroding stuff they do too. but really, it's 4 to 1 here, and i am not impressed, wisconsin.)

for more info on the specific bills, go here.

the fall

it just all slips away
so slowly
you don't even notice
till you've lost a lot

yes, the dea has a museum.

within which, there is an exhibit that tries to convince you that if you take part in any drug use, you're basically a terrorist. awesome.




and apparently, if you don't do drugs, you turn into a white yuppie family from a vacation brochure.

red white and blue

america

concerned about ec

I've heard a lot of arguments against making Plan B, or emergency contraception, available over the counter. Coming to the situation already believing it should be available OTC so long as it meets the scientific safety standards for making a drug OTC, I find most of the arguments unpersuasive. But, today, I heard the strangest, and possibly weakest, argument yet. A woman who appeared on Nightline representing the "Concerned Women for America" said that she would worry about a 40-year-old man buying EC and giving it to a 14-year-old girl to cover up the fact that he is sexually abusing her. This confuses me. Obviously, an adult abusing a child and using a medication to cover his tracks is not something one would desire. But, is her argument then that it is preferable for the girl to become pregnant and either have a baby that is the product of rape and for whom she cannot care or have an abortion? Maybe I just don't get it. Or maybe the argument makes no real-world sense.

i heard this on my drive home today, and thought it was an interesting discussion of poverty and the way that its perpetuation serves certain groups' needs. take a listen...
Marcellus Andrews on Poverty

I'll let you be in my dreams
if I can be in yours

good on you, george.

The Open Society Institute (funded by George Soros), along with its affiliate the Alliance for Open Society International, filed a lawsuit against USAID to challenge its unconstitutional and dangerous policy of requiring grantees to sign a pledge opposing prostitution. Failure to endorse this loyalty oath means health workers across the world striving to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS could lose funding and be forced to abandon life-saving programs.
The USAID pledge requirement undermines efforts to provide life-saving services and information to sex workers, who are at significant risk of infection and can also transmit HIV to others. In many countries, the epidemic is concentrated among sex workers and reaching them with prevention services will help avert a wider epidemic.
The AOSI and OSI lawsuit charges that the pledge requirement is unconstitutional, under well established Supreme Court case law, because it requires private organizations to adopt the government’s point of view in order to receive funding. The suit also alleges that the pledge requirement is unconstitutionally vague and therefore allows the law to be applied arbitrarily. It is unclear how organizations are supposed to “oppose prostitution,” and the uncertainty created by this provision creates a chilling effect on efforts to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.

i didn't take this picture, but i saw it on the world wide internets somewhere and thought, "right on, right on, right on."

The Ministry of Truth -- Minitrue, in Newspeak -- was startlingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, 300 metres into the air. From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

george orwell, 1984

just say no

check out this impressive list of organizations who are expressing their opposition to the confirmation of john roberts. pretty much all the big players in the world of the good guys...

sorry, i don't believe in penicillin.

On Oct. 5, the Wyoming State Board of Pharmacy is scheduled to consider a set of amended rules that includes a provision that would allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions based on personal beliefs as long as they tell patients where they could have their prescriptions filled. State pharmacy board Executive Director Jim Carder said the board wants to give a pharmacist the right to not fill a prescription but still "protect the patient" by requiring the pharmacist to say where the prescription could be filled. "Personal ideas come into what you do," Carder said, adding, "That's just the way life is."

hmm. . .how about this - if you don't "believe in" trusted, proven medical science, don't become a pharmacist. just a thought.

blue night

We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.
-neruda

ill-advised laws are even more fun when abused!

A Boulder City woman who pleaded no contest to possession of six marijuana plants could lose her house over the case.

Officials in the small town, which prides itself on being the only community in the state that doesn't allow gambling, said their move to seize Cynthia Warren's home is intended to send a message that drugs won't be tolerated in Boulder City.

"In the drug world, this thing is probably nothing," said City Attorney Dave Olsen. "But in a town of 15,000 people where we have one or two children die every year because of controlled substances, it is a big deal to us."

Olsen, who pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor drunken driving charge in 2004, further defended the attempt to take Warren's residence using drug seizure laws, saying police suspected the home was being used for drug dealing.

However, the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada said the attempted seizure is disturbing. "The police ... get to eat what they kill," said Allen Lichtenstein, an ACLU attorney. "They have an incentive to fund themselves through these seizures, and it can be very disproportionate (to the crime). A misdemeanor, yet a fine that takes away the entire property?"

republican jew

W. speechified today in front of the Republican Jewish Coalition. Umm...ok. My favorite part of his speech (other than this picture) was his amazing transition from Katrina to the "war on terra."

"You know, something we -- I've been thinking a lot about how America has responded, and it's clear to me that Americans value human life, and value every person as important. And that stands in stark contrast, by the way, to the terrorists we have to deal with. You see, we look at the destruction caused by Katrina, and our hearts break. They're the kind of people who look at Katrina and wish they had caused it. We're in a war against these people. It's a war on terror. These are evil men who target the suffering. They killed 3,000 people on September the 11th, 2001. And they've continued to kill. See, sometimes we forget about the evil deeds of these people."

Well, W., you really make it so easy not to think about 9/11 since you never ever mention it. Especially not in situations in which it has absolutely no relevance. Or...umm...in every situation.

fade out

update

a federal district judge has issued a preliminary injunction in the case involving the constitutionality of the law in missouri that i wrote about the other day. this means that the law will not go into effect while the courts are determining its legality. so that's a good thing. let's hope the judges get it right this time...stay tuned.

sprawl-mart. . .breakin the law.

homer simpson loves his sprawl-mart in springfield because they have "so many things and so many things of each thing!" but next time you think about where you wanna get your 87 rolls of toilet paper or your 3 gallon bottle of shampoo, take a second to remember this and all the other walmart worker attrocities that help make that 400-pack of fritos so cheap.

absolutely disgusting

after seeing this on the daily show, i decided to do a bit more investigation...
apparently, this dude who runs a website is getting homeless people to attach advertisements for his site to their signs asking for food or money or other assistance. he eloquently calls this practice "bumvertising." and he seems to think it is a great idea.
shame on him.

something to consider...

Researchers show that 61% of Medicare's new prescription drug subsidy will go to big pharma in a windfall of profit.

a pome.

IRON

Guns,
Long, steel guns,
Pointed from the war ships
In the name of the war god.

Straight, shining, polished guns,
Clambered over with jackies in white blouses,
Glory of tan faces, tousled hair, white teeth,
Laughing lithe jackies in white blouses,
Sitting on the guns singing war songs, war chanties.

Shovels,
Broad, iron shovels,
Scooping out oblong vaults,
Loosening turf and leveling sod.

I ask you
To witness--
The shovel is brother to the gun

carl sandburg, 1914

signs o' the times. . .

this is a sign that was posted at the audubon zoo in new orleans when I visited several years ago. it made me giggle. i imagine now it is no longer there. i hope they put it back.

i mean, if cheney can get that pipeline pumping fuel up to the northeast before the hospitals get their lights back on, surely my sign should be somewhere near the top of the priority list. 'cos the people down there certainly aren't.

Missouri Law Shuts Down Abortion Services at Only Abortion Clinic in Southwest Missouri

New York September 15, 2005
New York, NY—Today, the Center for Reproductive Rights filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri against a new law that will force the only abortion clinic in southwest Missouri to stop providing abortions. The law requires physicians performing abortion procedures to obtain privileges at a local hospital. Because the doctor in Springfield Healthcare Center Inc. does not have these privileges and it is unclear when he will receive them, the facility may have to shut down its abortion services.
According to the lawsuit, the new law imposes the additional and unnecessary requirement that says the facility’s doctor must have admitting privileges to a hospital within 30 miles. Abortions are the only procedure performed at ambulatory surgical facilities in Missouri that are subject to this additional requirement. Yet, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a non-partisan research organization, abortion is one of the safest surgical procedures for women.
In addition, women in the southwest part of the state will be forced to travel six to eight hours roundtrip to obtain an abortion at the nearest clinic in Columbia, Missouri. As the suit claims, such a trip will be particularly burdensome for women with limited financial resources and childcare needs, women without access to transportation, and women in abusive relationships.

well, yeah, but they're poor. i thought the big perk of being a legislator was that you got to be part of the machine that denies po' folk their rights...if this job is gonna entitle "logic" and "compassion," i want out.

a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. . .

first things first

so, welcome to my blog. my goal for this venture is to have a venue for my expression and my musings on whatever moves me at a given moment. i tend to write about my take on the political and (in)justice related goings-on of the day, but also feel like i'll be using this blog as a place for some artistic and emotive indulgence as well. mostly i s'pose these things are exercises in self-indulgence and self-absorption anyway, so as long as i like doin this, i'm gonna keep on keepin' on. and if someone else happens to think it is interesting or funny or thought-provoking or just a good way to kill some time, that'll be cool. that's all for right now, but expect to see some rants, raves, random commentary, photos, quotes, and, well, really whatever i come across or floats through my mind and ends up on this here thingie.