jabmyeyes.com

There is evidence that a student of Aristotle noticed and documented how human activities disrupted the climate back in 300 BC. Now, I’m not sure how anyone is sure about what was said in 300 BC, but, I am sure that my fifth grade teacher taught us (many years ago) how human activity disrupts the climate.

I wasn’t a student as long ago as Aristotle, but, science has recognized and studied the problem for long enough. My weekly reader explained the effects burning coal and petroleum has on the atmosphere. I was apparently dismayed by this information because I remember it vividly. I remember feeling worried.

In 1965 U.S. President Lyndon Johnson told Congress: “This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through…a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.”

We know that this planet is pretty small as far as planets go and extremely unique as far as being inhabitable. Since we know good planets are hard to find, you would think the world would find that taking care of this one is much more important than pretty much anything else. Why then would senators boycott a meeting designed to protect the climate of our planet.

We heeded the advice of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher after she explained to the United Nations: “The problem of global climate change is one that affects us all and action will only be effective if it is taken at the international level. It is no good squabbling over who is responsible or who should pay;” The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was created in 1995.   They concluded that humans are causing global warming, saying: “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.”

The world is finally deciding we need to do something and our senators are boycotting meetings. Why!!

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee tried to overcome a Republican boycott of a major climate bill. Only one Republican senator even showed up for the meeting, and he stayed just long enough to ask for a five-week delay and more study. (I won’t go as far back as Aristotle, but, it’s been studied) Senator Bernie Sanders lamented the obstruction tactics by what he called “the party of no.” The stalling strategy has so far blocked action on critical issues ranging from health care to global warming. The country, Sanders added, has gone from electing a new president one year ago whose uplifting promise was “yes we can” to the spectacle of a small but stubborn rump group of senators whose motto is “no we won’t.”

http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/photos/gallery/?id=b862022d-95b1-4625-963d-34a3a69ac839

So in 2009 our President, along with the other – Group of Eight leaders agreed industrialized nations should cut emissions on average by 80 percent by 2050 and limit warming to a maximum of 2 Celsius above pre-industrial times. The 8 leaders went home to their various congresses and parliaments so we could get it together for our unique planet.

Our senators are so busy disliking our President that they are forgetting what their job is. I guess the citizens who vote for these senators are so busy disliking our President that they are ignoring scientific facts. I just want to jab my eyes out when I read about crap like this! What would happen to you or me if we didn’t go to work because we didn’t like our boss.  Come to think of it the American public is their boss and we should be outraged.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23522703@N06/3896163201/

If you go to this website and read the comments on President Obama’s planned speech to the kids of America you might laugh.  I did.  You can also read the President’s planned speech.  These are some of my favorite parts…

…at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.
Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, “I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

…you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/07/obama-speech-to-schoolchi_n_278763.html

An example of some of the comments…

But I’m sorry he is still the “other” guy. I would oppose anything he says.  (what makes him an “other”?  his blackness or his intelligence?)

Yet they lost. (right-wingers) And, inexplicably, continue to wallow in their loserosity

“Loserosity” what a great word.

I don’t want a crack head talking my kids.  (I think he meant “to” my kids)

Then don’t.

Geo.Bush isn’t giving the talk,  Ha

Well then put the pipe down and get into rehab ASAP.  Double Ha

Everyone in the United States gets educated whether or not they want to be, by law, and by the generosity of U. S.  taxpayers.  We aren’t always happy with public education so some of us pay for private education or we educate our kids ourselves with home schooling.  The folks who participate in private education and home schooling still pay in to the public system.  Should it be abolished?  Because it is socialized education?

I guess I feel the same way about health care.  I think everyone should have access to public health care.  I think that when I was a poor single mom raising my two gorgeous and healthy children that I should have been rewarded with some health care (at least).  I thank God that I never broke a bone or had a kidney stone.  My kids and I would have suffered as many do when a health tragedy strikes.  If I had not been able to work and go to school because of an illness or accident, I would have lost my jobs and been kicked out of the nursing program. I was really, really lucky and that is all.

This is America.  Many claim we are the most powerful and wealthy country in the world and yet we have “indigents”.  We set up free clinics for them because they don’t have insurance and their children are hungry.  Other countries ie: England, Japan, France, Switzerland, Germany; have systems where there are no health care indigents.  Everyone qualifies for health care.  Why are we so opposed to this? — the cost?

OK, so, lets define “indigent” deficient in what is requisite.  Lacking food, clothing, and other necessities of life because of poverty; needy; poor; impoverished.  (I looked it up on dictionary.reference.com)

They are really, really unlucky.  I wasn’t exactly indigent, but, damn close and if any kind of physical anomaly had befallen me, believe me, I’d have fit the description.  My nursing program required us to volunteer.  I chose the Salvation Army. We provided health care for the homeless with a retired cardiac surgeon.  We did good things for a lot of people and sometimes they were grateful and sometimes they were just wanting the free socks we gave them.  Some of these people were alcoholics or drug abusers and some were just really, really unlucky.  One fellow had a broken ankle.  We gave him a prescription to get an x-ray and have an orthopedic surgeon look at it at the county hospital ER.  He had no way of getting to the hospital to get this done.  I’m not sure the hospital would have done it after he got there.  Free clinics can only do so much.

So, then we have to define “requisite” essential, necessity, requirement.

What are the essential requirements of an American life? Food, shelter, clothing, good health and an education.  Some might add a car that runs vs. a sweet ride, a cell phone vs. an I-phone, a PC vs. a Mac — well, you see what I’m getting at.  Some of us think that access to health care is as essential as access to an education.  Some do not.

I’m doing OK now, I am able to afford insurance, and my children are insured.  I have a lovely home, a nice car, my children are adults and still gorgeous and healthy, and I have an income that provides for essential needs.

(Aren’t they gorgeous kids?  The best thing I’ve ever done in this life)

I whine like everyone else that the more I make the more they take. Who are they?  What are they doing with my money after they take it?  Isn’t that what we all piss and moan about?  What is this going to cost me?  I do not like it that my money was  spent killing Iraqi people, some don’t like the idea of their money being spent on a revised American health care system.  I believe that health care and the health of this planet is more important that killing people in other countries.  Our current President seems to agree.   I feel a little better about where my hard earned money is going.

The current health care system isn’t a system; it is a cluster –.  Don’t get me wrong the people at the bedside and sitting on the stools checking us out are (for the most part) wonderful, caring and smart.  I work with them, I know them, most of them care and educate themselves to be better.

What angers me is the corporate minds that sit around figuring out ways to make money off of our misfortunes.  There are boardrooms full of people trying to figure out how to pocket some cash.  I call them clipboard carriers.  Administrators are rewarded for making money rather than  for providing amazing results for the health of a community.

I worked with an occupational therapist who was so inspiring to me and others as we watched her bring smiles to the depressed and life to those ready to give up.  She was let go because she didn’t generate enough income for the little rural hospital.  Hospitals are not factories.  They don’t have assembly lines.  Hospitals are full of real people with real problems and sometimes fixing those problems just doesn’t make anyone any money.