The Blue Dogs of Summer

Thanks to the Democratic Underground, who thanks the OpenSecrets and OnTheIssues web sites, here is a list of the Blue Dog Democrats who are on record as being opposed to the public option in the current health care reform legislation. You know what to do.


Senator Max Baucus (D-MT)
Web contact: http://baucus.senate.gov/contact/emailForm.cfm?subj=iss...
Phone: (202) 224-6361
Contributions summary: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=...
Issue Ratings: http://senate.ontheissues.org/Senate/max_Baucus.htm


Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN)
Web contact: http://bayh.senate.gov/contact/email /
Phone: (202) 224-5623
Contributions summary: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=...
Issue Ratings: http://senate.ontheissues.org/Senate/Evan_Bayh.htm


Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
Web contact: http://cantwell.senate.gov/contact /
Phone: (202) 224-3441
Contributions summary: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=...
Issue Ratings: http://senate.ontheissues.org/Senate/Maria_Cantwell.htm


Senator Tom Carper (D-DE)
Web contact: http://carper.senate.gov/contact /
Phone: (202) 224-2441
Contributions summary: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=...
Issue Ratings: http://senate.ontheissues.org/Senate/Tom_Carper.htm


Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND)
Web contact: http://conrad.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm
Phone: (202) 224-2043
Contributions summary: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=...
Issue Ratings: http://senate.ontheissues.org/Senate/Kent_Conrad.htm


Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
Web contact: http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction...
Phone: (202) 224-3841
Contributions summary: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=...
Issue Ratings: http://senate.ontheissues.org/Senate/Dianne_Feinstein.h...


Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
Web contact: http://landrieu.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
Phone: (202) 224-5824
Contributions summary: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=...
Issue Ratings: http://senate.ontheissues.org/Senate/Mary_Landrieu.htm


Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT)
Web contact: http://lieberman.senate.gov/contact /
Phone: (202) 224-4041
Contributions summary: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=...
Issue Ratings: http://senate.ontheissues.org/Senate/Joe_Lieberman.htm


Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
Web contact: http://lincoln.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm
Phone: (202) 224-4814
Contributions summary: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=...
Issue Ratings: http://senate.ontheissues.org/Senate/Blanche_Lambert_Li...


Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL)
Web contact: http://billnelson.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
Phone: (202) 224-6551
Contributions summary: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=...
Issue Ratings: http://senate.ontheissues.org/Senate/Bill_Nelson.htm


Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE)
Web contact: http://bennelson.senate.gov/contact-me.cfm
Phone: (202) 224-5274
Contributions summary: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=...
Issue Ratings: http://senate.ontheissues.org/Senate/Ben_Nelson.htm


Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR)
Web contact: http://pryor.senate.gov/contact /
Phone: (202) 224-2353
Contributions summary: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=...
Issue Ratings: http://senate.ontheissues.org/Senate/Mark_Pryor.htm


Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR)
Web contact: http://wyden.senate.gov/contact /
Phone: (202) 224-5244
Contributions summary: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=...
Issue Ratings: http://senate.ontheissues.org/Senate/Ron_Wyden.htm

The Public Option Is Dead -- Long Live the Public Option!

If you like your health care plan, you keep your health care plan. Nobody's going to force you to leave your health care plan. If you like your doctor, you keep seeing your doctor. I don't want government bureaucrats meddling in your health care. But the point is I don't want insurance company bureaucrats meddling in your health care either.

--Barack Obama

I am not interested in passing health care reform in name only. Without a public option, I don’t see how we will bring real change to a system that has made good health care a privilege for those who can afford it.

--Senator Russ Feingold

The headlines proclaim that the public option is dead, and the White House seems to be making noises about its willingness to back down on the need for a public option. At this point, if you believe that the public option is essential for health care reform, your stomach may do a loopdee-loo and then bottom out somewhere near the area of your feet. But it's not time to despair. Really. Trust me on this. The public option is not dead.

The contortions the public option is going through amount to what Howard Dean calls "nothing more than politics." In other words, there's some political strategy at work here. Yesterday on Morning Joe, Dean explained:

The president knows very well that you aren't really going to have health care reform without a public option. But he also knows he has to get this out of the Senate. And he's got a very important member of the finance committee, Kent Conrad [D-North Dakota], who doesn't want to vote for this bill if it's got a public option in it. And he knows he's not going to get any Republican votes of any kind. So at the end of the day, this bill is going to be written by Democrats, it's gotta get out of the Senate, you only need a few Democrats to take out the public option.

The conversation continues the explanation, which, if I understand it correctly, essentially amounts to this:

The Senate needs 60 votes to pass the initial version of its health care reform bill. That version will need to have the blue dogs on board, so it may not include the public option.

Meanwhile, the House will pass its version of health care reform, only its version will retain the public option.

Then in October, the bill will go through the reconciliation process. For that version to pass in the Senate, it will need only 50 votes. The blue dogs can cool their heels out in the hall and it is still likely to pass.

If you haven't done it already, contact your senators and representative and tell them that you vehemently support health care reform that includes the public option.

The public option is not dead. Long live the public option!

We Need a New Bottom Line

Andrew Weil is right: Even if health care reform with a public option sails right through Congress without a hiccup, it won't begin to approach an accurate or useful diagnosis when it comes to the United States and health care. According to Weil,

What's missing, tragically, is a diagnosis of the real, far more fundamental problem, which is that what's even worse than its stratospheric cost is the fact that American health care doesn't fulfill its prime directive -- it does not help people become or stay healthy. It's not a health care system at all; it's a disease management system, and making the current system cheaper and more accessible will just spread the dysfunction more broadly.

I would go further. The problem with the current system is that it is driven not by the need to provide care and promote health but by the need to make a profit. That's not to say that the people who participate in the system hold this value, but the system itself is designed to promote profit for its stakeholders. That some people may be helped in the process is incidental to the drive for an attractive bottom line.

Fundamentally, at the very heart of what troubles us as a nation is that we have placed the drive for profits way ahead of the well-being of ordinary people. The people decrying health care reform are defending not the needs of people but the needs of corporations. Our agriculture and food systems value profits to the exclusion of the well-being of people and the planet.

The corporations that continue devouring each other and the people and communities who get in their way are absurdly wealthy. They are like a gaping black hole that must be fed regardless of the consequences to the nation and the planet.

Look at the term "bottom line": its original meaning was "the essential or salient point," but now it has come to mean "financial considerations." When are we going to learn to make the well-being of people, families, and communities our national bottom line?

Weil ends his blog as follows:

Washington needs to take a step back and re-examine the entire task with an eye toward achieving the most effective solution, not the cheapest and most expeditious.

Actually, way before Washington steps back, we the people must step back and take a long, hard look at ourselves and what we value. Are we willing, at long last, to put people before profits?

All the loony right-wing scare tactics about "death panels" don't compare with the nightmare that is the current system. Do you really want a corporate bottom-line driving whether your child is able to get a life-saving surgery? Why would a profit-driven entity be more trustworthy than the United States government, which at the very least has the potential for accountability and reform.

Are we ready to turn the corner, to turn off the spigot that dumps all of our hopes and dreams into the endlessly greedy profit-driven black hole? Are we ready to make the well-being of our families, our neighbors, our communities, our nation, the world, and the planet our new bottom line, regardless of how our efforts affect corporate profit margins?

Tear Down This Wall

Paul Krugman today: "The driving force behind the town hall mobs is probably the same cultural and racial anxiety that’s behind the 'birther' movement.... Voters who can be swayed by appeals to cultural and racial fear are a declining share of the electorate."

The belligerence of the minority that constitutes the birthers and the town hall mobs is an indication of their desperation. They cannot accept that the country is disassembling--however slowly and tentatively--the wall of quiet, under-the-radar racism and white privilege. Many of them may not even be aware of the underlying racism that is driving their fear. That is the nature of fear. It does not want to be brought out into the light.

These fearful people are not only alarmed to have a black man in the oval office, but they are terrified that he will actually succeed. In their minds, it is much worse to have a successful black president than a weak, ineffectual one, because the death knell of white privilege rings louder and louder with each step of progress Obama's administration makes.

Not surprisingly, the flames of desperation and fear are being happily fanned, yet again, by those who stand to benefit from the death of health care reform, a very, very small minority indeed. Those flames are being fanned with no regard for the likelihood of violent consequences. They know exactly what they're doing, and consequences--and the country--be damned.

The fanners don't care, so long as the corporations in which they hold a stake continue to make over-the-top profits for substandard health care. They don't care that those profits come at a crippling expense not only to millions of individuals and families but to the entire nation. They don't care that they are further entrenching those who hide behind the wall of white privilege and inciting them not only to do all they can to undermine health care reform but also to unleash the violence of their fear.


It's time for the supporters of health care reform--not to mention the supporters of civil liberties, free speech, and human dignity--to raise our voices, not in anger and hatred, but in determination and resolve. We need health care reform. It's long past overdue. And we need to move on from the era of white privilege to an era of multi: multicultural multiracial multiorientation multigenerational progress.


We need not only to contact our representatives and let them know how fervently we support health care reform, but to organize and mobilize and use all the resources available to us to counter the cynical manipulators selfishly inciting racial violence in our midst.

Remember the famous line "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall"? In the United States we have been living with worse than the Berlin Wall for as long as we have been a nation. The wall of white privilege causes all of us to suffer, on both sides of the wall. It's time. It's long past time. Tear it down.

Grateful Reflections at 53

I am happy.

I have a wonderful husband who is my best friend, whom I trust implicitly, and whose humor, wisdom, and good judgment I treasure. He is the kindest and most supportive person I have ever met. The fact that he's awesomely handsome doesn't hurt either.

I get to sing my heart out. And play the guitar. This is something I've been doing more lately. I'm delving into the work of some of the great treasures of folk music: Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Malvina Reynolds. I keep fantasizing about regularly having sing-alongs with my friends and community. I think maybe soon the fantasy will become a reality. With the economy and the country in the shape they are in, we need to sing. A lot. Singing together bolsters us and builds community as nothing else can.

I am so grateful for my awesome friends:

• My family. You're crazy and whacked out sometimes, and fierce and loyal and loving too. I am one of you all the way.
  
• My church family, which is the Hispanic ministry at Grace Episcopal Church in downtown Madison. Through these good people I have learned to see myself and my culture in a new light. I understand that I am rich -- materially as well as spiritually and socially. Through these friends I have learned that I am indeed privileged and that I can use my privilege for good, to build bridges to surmount the obstacles and fears that divide us. Through these friends I have learned much about my own experience of marginalization as a woman of size.
• My gordita friends: large, glorious, gorgeous, raucous, unapologetic fat women who regularly hold a mirror up to my face and make me glad to be me. All of my life I have struggled with my relationship with food and with my body. These awesome women keep me grounded in the knowledge that my body is a beautiful treasure and nothing to be ashamed of or to struggle against. The struggle, rather, is against a myopic, weight-obsessed, profit-driven culture; and with these good women I am proud to engage in and even enjoy the struggle.
• My online friends: I never dreamed that I would make real friends just by dinking around on Facebook, but I have made friends all over the world whose dreams and visions and experiences thrill and inspire me and whose presence in my life I treasure. I am in awe of their wisdom and humor, their outrage and their insight, and I'm grateful that we've found this powerful way to connect, not only with each other but with the larger world, to effect change and plant the seeds of progress.

So my most excellent husband, Tom, is still fighting, the union right alongside him, to get his job back. But oddly enough this has turned out to be a wonderful opportunity to spend more time together and to close ranks in the face of what for us is unprecedented hostility. We are, of course, being much more careful and frugal with our money, but with no reduction in the quality of our life. We are learning that we are strong, we are up to the challenge, and we are not bitter. We are more determined than ever.

I love my work. I get to muck about in the minutiae of language, one of my favorite playgrounds. My work is flexible and stimulating and varied, and I get to do it in the comfort of my home, on whatever schedule or nonschedule I choose, in the sunniest spot in the house.

I am making great progress in surmounting some physical challenges that have been very daunting to me over the last few years. I think my hormones are finally leveling out after several years of peri-menopausal upheaval. I have altered my schedule so that I get up earlier and get more daylight, and that has been the key to overcoming seasonal affective disorder. I have quit eating dairy products, which is reducing the inflammation in my joints and is making moving more comfortable for me (not to mention lessening my psoriasis and eliminating my acid reflux). I'm feeling better all the time. I hope soon to be able to hike in the woods again. This takes patience, because the progress is not quick, but the steady improvement over the last few months is giving me the kind of hope that bubbles up from my stomach and catches in my throat sometimes.

I am happy. I love my husband, my friends, my family, my community, my life. I love my computer, because it connects me with the wide world in a way that even an introvert like me can be comfortable with. I love my comfortable home and my always-eager feline companion, Smudgie. I love my kitchen, where more and more magical things are happening all the time.

I love my life. I am a very, very blessed woman. I am happy.

Coming Late to the Controversy: Why I Love the Da Vinci Code

Last night I watched The Da Vinci Code on television—again. I've done this a couple of times now. First, I read the book not long after it was published. It was a good, rip-roaring romp with some intriguing ideas. Not that it's great literature. Mostly, it's just fun. And the controversy surrounding it makes it seem a little naughty. All the better.

Tom and I went to see the movie—yes, in a movie theater—when it first came out. (This would be unremarkable except that we do it so rarely. We love the comfort, flexibility, and flat rate of Netflix.) Liked the movie better than the book. Fun, fun, fun. And very satisfying.

I read some of what I came across about the book and film and watched the History Channel try to tease apart fact from fiction. For some, the story impugns the honor of Christianity and, more specifically, the Catholic Church. There seemed to be concern that the story would cause some to falter in their faith. Can I just say that faith that is shaky enough to be rocked by a fictional romp needs to be shaken—and reexamined—at length.

So that you know where I'm coming from: I'm an eclectic Episcopalian and a former evangelical. I find much to be admired in other spiritual practices and occasionally do a little borrowing, but mostly I believe in the full divinity and full humanity of Jesus the Messiah. I hold my faith both fiercely and lightly, depending on the context.

My understanding of Christian orthodoxy is that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. Why or how would his life or mission on earth be diminished if it turned out that he was married to Mary Magdalene? I just don't get that. Maybe being a little more human makes his divinity less certain? How, exactly?

Of course, when discussing Christianity, reason doesn't offer much assistance. Fully human while fully divine is a mind-blowing proposition in any context, at least if you really think about it. And yet incarnation is at the heart of Christianity. So reason can only take you so far.

So what is it about The Da Vinci Code that makes it so threatening to some people? Maybe for those who focus on his divinity, it's the possibility of Jesus being more fully human. But the Church teaches that Jesus is fully human, so this threat is hardly a new one.

Of course there is the obvious insinuation that the church has been involved in a centuries-old cover-up. But given the history of the church, that's probably not the worst accusation that's been hurled at it. And even if it were true, it wouldn't even be the worst thing that has been done in God's name. And although the church is presumably God's community on earth, it is a human institution, full of political intrigue and the ebb and flow of human power and connivance. No surprise there.

I think one of the main reasons for the controversy is the same reason that watching the movie, even in reruns, is so satisfying for me, a practicing Episcopalian. It chastises the church for its treatment of women. Let me say that again:

It chastises the church for its treatment of women.

Just writing that is cathartic for me. Regardless of the fictional nature of many of the book/film's assertions, there's little question that the church has seldom been a friend to women. Jesus himself clearly valued women, in ways that were sometimes shocking to his contemporaries. His conversation with the woman at the well comes to mind: the disciples were amazed to find Jesus deep in conversation with a Samaritan woman. It wasn't only the fact that she was a Samaritan that was shocking to them. It was that he was engaged in conversation with a woman in public. Rockin'.

But the church, on the other hand, has a long history of devaluing and dismissing women. One example, cited in the book/film, is the publication of the fifteenth-century misogynist tome The Malleus Maleficarum [the hammer against witches]. But there are many, many more examples that could be cited. At last, some inroads are being made to advance the status of women in the church. I'm proud that the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church is a woman, a remarkable woman. And that my priest is also a remarkable woman.

Yes, those are good things. And there are a few other glimmers of hope. But the centuries of misogyny and patriarchy still weigh heavily on the church and play out in myriads of ways. Dan Brown may have played fast and loose with many facts in The Da Vinci Code, but the point he makes about the sacredness of femininity is spot on. If the church wants to flourish in the twenty-first century and beyond, it needs to pay heed and work diligently to elevate its valuation of women and of the feminine.

Hero Update

Here's a photo of Tom marching yesterday in the May Day Rally in downtown Madison. He's the one to the left of the "Union Yes" sign, appropriately enough, with the beard and cap.


Tonight we're going to the May Day Sing-Along with Vicki Guzman. Nothing we'd rather sing right now than "Oh, you can't scare me, I'm stickin' to the union..."