The Remote Area Medical project will be held at the Fairground in Wise County Virginia this weekend.  My wife and I are members of the Lions Clubs International.  We will drive 8 hours tomorrow to be ready to go to work at 6 AM on friday.  Our District's (24D) Mobile Sight and Hearing Van, where I will give vision tests, will drive up from Chesapeake, VA.  Here are some stats frpm a previous year:

Total Patient Visits: 7917

Percentage of Children: 3.5%

Total Value of Care: $1,260,037.00

Total Volunteers: 1205

General Medical: 5379
-- Mammograms: 157

Dental: 1411

Vision: 970
--Glasses: 766

Look below to learn more about this project.

In the article: US slips down development index the BBC shows us to ourselves as they often do.  It is hard to find our own press willing to say it as bluntly.

Americans live shorter lives than citizens of almost every other developed nation, according to a report from several US charities.

 So now we are killing ourselves as well as so many others in the world!

The report found that the US ranked 42nd in the world for life expectancy despite spending more on health care per person than any other country.

Overall, the American Human Development Report ranked the world's richest country 12th for human development.

 But, we cry,  that is because we have better health care.  Ummmmm  then why are we dying more?  Let us examine this beneath the break.

From The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor

It's the birthday of the singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie, born in Okemah, Oklahoma (1913). He was one of the only American artists whose reputation never really suffered, though he was openly affiliated with the Communist Party.

Guthrie never finished high school, but he spent his spare time reading books at the local public library. He took occasional jobs as a sign painter and started playing music on a guitar he found in the street.

Texas was hit by the same drought that created the Dust Bowl in the mid-1930s, and Guthrie followed workers who were moving to California, where he began to write songs about the people who'd lost their farms and their homes.

Go to the Woody Guthrie Website and be greeted with lots of good stuff.  Meanwhile look below the break and I'll tell you a story.

The subtitle Why you can not understand 21st century politics with an 18th-century brain seems exceptionally appropriate in this case!  I know there has been much already written on this, but a careful analysis from Lakoff's perspective may help us sort through some of this stuff.  I'll give it a try.  I have been writing in parallel with Lakoff for some time now trying to recast some of his ideas in the context of complex systems theory applied to understanding the mind and how it operates in terms of world views.  There is much overlap between our ideas since much of what I have put together stems from the interplay of Lakoff's teachings and the complexity theory of Robert Rosen.  The best place to get a taste of Rosen's revolutionary approach is his book:Life Itself: A Comprehensive Inquiry into the Nature, Origin, and Fabrication of Life (Complexity in Ecological Systems) (Paperback) published by Columbia University Press in its "Complexity in Ecological Systems" series.  Look below the break and I will give you a quick synthesis and apply it to the infamous cartoon.

I was writing comments on the Raising Kaine blog (RK).  For those of you who do no know this blog it is a site for "Virginia's Progressive Community".  You can get to it from my Blogroll.  I was troll rated twice for the following comment

Now show us how prices are locked to that yearly progression. (0.00 / 2)
You don't seem to understand do you?  What is the time lag for your supply/demand theory?  what do you do when things do not correlate?  They often do not.  Please try to be a little more scientific when you spout such theories.

 Here's the rationale for the troll ratings:

Comments like "you don't seem to understand do you" or "spout such theories" are not going to get you very far on this website.  FYI, I worked for 17 1/2 years as an international oil markets analyst, and I think over those years I picked up a few things. I've also explained how this all works numerous times here at RK, and am not going to keep repeating myself.  At this point, if you don't understand how supply and demand work, I'd suggest you take a few basic economics courses.

Look below to see why this is ridiculous!

Bill Moyers is right on the mark again!  His article in In These Times entitled  "Is the Fourth Estate a Fifth Column?  Corporate media colludes with democracy’s demise." is telling it as it is.  He starts with this story:

I heard this story a long time ago, growing up in Choctaw County in Oklahoma before my family moved to Texas. A tribal elder was telling his grandson about the battle the old man was waging within himself. He said, "It is between two wolves, my son. One is an evil wolf: anger, envy, sorrow, greed, self-pity, guilt, resentment, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other is the good wolf: joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The boy took this in for a few minutes and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf won?"

The old Cherokee replied simply, "The one I feed."

Democracy is that way. The wolf that wins is the one we feed. And in our society, media provides the fodder.

For more look below:

The Nation has a fine article by E. L. Doctorow entitled The White Whale.  It is his keynote address to the April 2007  joint meeting in Washington  of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society on the theme of "The Public Good: Knowledge as the Foundation for a Democratic Society."  This theme is at the center of the failure of a significant portion of our society to recognize the bankruptcy of the Bush administration as far as ideas are concerned.  There is a deep side to this and Doctorow is one of the only people I know about who sees it so clearly. Look beyond the break and see what he has understood so well.

George Lakoff is someone who I think has much to contribute to the political strategy arena.  He is going to be far more effective than Karl Rove in the long term.  His blog on The Huffington Post:  The Mind and the Obama Magic is very helpful as we see Obama become an increasingly controversial candidate here in our own ranks as well as elsewhere.  In my own work, I rely heavily on Lakoff's ideas so I would like to discuss this piece in some detail below the break

Our nation is in need of being reborn.  The spirit of '76 is no longer with us.  The fireworks will not do it.  I can't get that feeling back about this country anymore.  I spent the day in the presence of a wonderful group of young people from all over the world.  I am a Lion and we sponsor a Youth Exchange every year at this time.  My wife and I are hosting two wonderful young women, one from Algeria and the other from Croatia.  They have been here for a little over a week.  The District 24D Lions  had a picnic and it was the first time the entire group of students were together in one place.  It was refreshing to see this miniature United Nations having fun together.  By the way, did you know that The  Lions Clubs International are the only service organization that has its flag flying among those from all the Nations at the UN?  That is because the Lions were instrumental in helping the UN get organized.  Later , at dark, we came back to Mathews County to watch the fireworks.  Let me share my thoughts about all this with you below the break.

Well it has been 232 years!  Actually things went sour quite a while ago, but that is the time from then until now.  The last really strong thoughts I had about a new American revolution were during the Vietnam War.  I wasn't alone.  Not at all.  I just reached over to my bookshelf to pull out my copy of the book that sums that all up.  It is entitled: The Movement Toward a New America: The Beginnings of a Long Revolution  Assembled by Mitchell Goodman, A Charter Member of the Great Conspiracy, in behalf of the movement.  It is 752 pages long and the size of a big city phone book.  Here's how it starts:

WHAT IT IS

This is not a book of the mind alone.  There are minds here - some of the best in America.  The Movement is not mindless.  It is a book of bodies, souls, minds - inseperable.

It is a book of the Movement experience; ideas, theories, analysis are set inthe experiential context.  It is a book of acts, of voices, plans, hopes - of how to live, what to do.

 It may seem funny that we have such a document.  I'll bet almost no one has seen it.  Look beyond the break and allow me to share some things with you.  I think they matter very much right now.

Suddenly I am besieged with questions from family and friends.  What is happening to Obama?  Why is he doing this and that and that?  Did I read the article in The Nation, Surveillance Protest Group Tops Obama Website .  Then today's Huffington Post Obama's Faith-Based Plan by Jim Wallis.  Well folks, I'm more than a bit confused.  maybe you can help me understand?  Look below and I'll explain myself and also tell you what I think is happening.  Then I hope you will try to straighten me out.

According to what Seymour Hersh told us during Fresh Air on NPR today, the war with Iran has already begun.  Our democratic leadership has funded it.  Meanwhile, life goes on as usual.  I'm not really able to comprehend people any more.  Does everyone think it is not happening?  Do they not understand the magnitude of what is going on?  Hersh made it clear that the caving in by North Korea was the final step in paving the way for Bush to go ahead.  Why are we just going about business as usual?  Will it matter who wins the election (IF there is one)?  Maybe I have lost my sense of perspective.  I think not.  Here is Hersh's New Yorker article: Preparing the Battlefield: The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran.  Hersh is reasonbly sure that the operations are already being carried out and that the funding is flowing for them.  Look below the break for more.

First of all it was a good read!  At 72 I have been reading about politics for a long time.  Sirota's book was a breath of fresh air for it has been a while since I have seen anything that takes what I learned during the Vietnam era and carries that spirit forward to the very different milleau of today's strange politics.  That may sound strange to some the younger members of our group and it may sound pretentious to my contemporaries.  I'm speaking now as one of the people we called "the walking wounded" half with respect and half with derision as we let our own young juices drive us during that phase of American politics.  What do we old codgers have to offer now?  Had we done our job better we would not be in the mess we are in now.  It certainly is not because we did not try.  So why are we here?  What did we learn?  How did we fail? And what does it have to do with Sirota's book?  Come and look below the break and I'll explain.

I had fun today.  I gave a talk at the Math Science Innovation Center in Mechanicsville Virginia.    It was part of a conference on

Fractals: A New Lens on the Natural World
A Conference for 6-12 Science Teachers

 My talk was not on fractals but was entitled: TEACHING  SCIENCE THAT MATTERS: REFRAMING THE QUESTION IN SCIENCE, and can be viewed from my webpage.
 I was dealing with  issues that may reflect back on the way science is being taught.  The three examples I was using for them were

Global warming and climate change
Evolution vs. creation ("Intelligent" Design)
Determining when something is "alive"

 I thought some of you might be interested in what Complexity Science has to say about these issues and their relationship to "standard" science.  Look below the break if this is of interest to you.  I'll suggest that there is relevance to this election in what I had to say

In today's Washington Post there is the following article: A New Social Contract  By Michael Kazin professor of history at Georgetown University and  Julian E. Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. They state:

For the first time since 1964, Democrats have a good chance not just to win the White House and a majority in Congress but to enact a sweeping new liberal agenda. Conservative ideas are widely discredited, as is the Republican Party that the right has controlled since Ronald Reagan was elected. The war in Iraq has undermined the conservative case for unilateral military intervention and U.S. omnipotence. Economic insecurity has led Americans to question the rhetoric about "big" government, while President Bush's embrace of new federal programs has undermined GOP promises to cut spending.

 That is one way of seeing why we are at this threshold.  There are others.  Look beyond the break and see what I am getting at.

Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac celebrates the birthday of one of my all time "heros" today:

It's the birthday of Jean-Paul Sartre, born in Paris, France (1905). His father died when he was 15 months old. When he was eight, he started writing plays, which he performed with hand puppets in the bathroom. In college, he fell in love with philosophy and literature. He kept a portrait of James Joyce on his dorm room wall. He met Simone de Beauvoir there, who became the love of his life. They promised never to tell each other lies, and also agreed that if they wanted they could take other lovers.

Sartre became a teacher. At a time when the European teaching style was lecturing from a distance, he drank with his students at local bars, played cards and ping-pong with them, and joined them for picnics on the beach. In his spare time he began to write a novel called Nausea (1938). The book was his first major success, and it made him famous. People called him the French Kafka. He went on to write Being and Nothingness (1943), about the meaning of freedom. He wrote, "Hell is other people." And, "If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company."

Look beyond the break for his opinion of America.

Today is not the kind of day that makes me optimistic about the political realities in this country.  The one bright spot was the 25 Obama bumper stickers that arrived.  I ran out and pasted one on on my pickup truck.  No not a hybrid a 2000 Toyota Tacoma.  I put about 1,500 miles a year on it so I'm not even going to blink an eye at any self-righteous comments.  How's this for a headline?  SENATORS WARNER AND WEBB INTRODUCE NATURAL-GAS EXPLORATION BILL.  Interesting rationale:

Senator John Warner (R-Va.) and Senator Jim Webb (D-Va.) introduced legislation today that would allow the Commonwealth of Virginia to explore for natural gas off its shores, empowering Virginia – not Washington – to make decisions regarding its own coastline.

 That's just one of the things that got to me today.  I keep looking for signs of coming change, but...well look below and I'll explain.

How much more do we need?  Do you see the stakes being raised as this goes on?  It is going to be harder and harder to explain to future generations why we let them get away with it.  I was born in 1936.  I saw the news reels of the American forces entering the concentration camps at the end of the war.  I'll never forget seeing the human skeletons expressing joy as they realized it was over.  But was it?  Their children and grandchildren had to go through some pretty rough times living with them.  The damage was huge and lasting.  Things like that do not just go away.  The Effects of the Holocaust on the Children of Survivors

According to studies, the long-term effects of the Holocaust on the children of survivors suggest a "psychological profile." Their parents’ suffering may have [led to]a second generation 'complex' characterized by processes that affect identity, self-esteem, interpersonal interactions and worldview.

 Why is it necessary to point this out in the context of the present day attrocities?  Look below the break to find out.