Our long Kansas City nightmare is over.  Carl Peterson has resigned, and the angels are singing.  Certain offices in this town with a strong Red Friday tradition may as well cancel all appointments for tomorrow morning, because there ain’t nobody showing up on time after they close down 810 Zone tonight.  

Let the Boulevard flow and the celebration begin!

Events are pretty sparse this time of year, but there’s still some good stuff going on, especially for those who like Fair Trade Shopping.  For those who do, here’s a cool Human’s Rights buyer’s guide from Bill Ramsey of the Instead of War Coalition and Human Rights Action Network.  And if you haven’t already, don’t forget to email me if you know of good local politics blogs.  

This week’s events:

All week, the Academy of Contemporary arts is hosting a greeting card drive for members of the military.  They’re asking for people to hand-make or decorate greeting cards to send to members of the military and then drop them off at the YMCA of Greater St. Louis.  More info is at this link.

Monday, Deb. 15. The St. Louis Community Arts and Media Project hosts “Intercambio,” an IFCLA program that puts English and Spanish speakers in contact with one another.  Half of the conversation is in English, and the other half is in Spanish.  Intercambio starts at 7:30 at the CAMP building on the corner of Minnesota and Cherokee, and you can find out more at the CAMP calendar.

Tuesday, Dec. 16.  IFCLA Night at Plowsharing Crafts on the Loop! From 6 to 9 PM, when you buy goods from Plowsharing Crafts, part of the proceeds go to the Interfaith Committee on Latin America.  For more info about the event, go here and for more info about Plowsharing Crafts in general, go here.

Also Tuesday, the Webster Film series continues its always great selections of movies with Dhamma Brothers, a documentary about inmates at a maximum security prison whose lives were turned around through an ancient mediation practice.  Find out more at the film series calendar.  The movie is at 7 PM at the Winifred Moore Auditorium at Webster University, and it’s FREE!

Wednesday, Dec. 17.  Claire McCaskill is hosting a “Kitchen Table Talk”  in the Performing Arts Theater at Forest Park Community College on 5600 Oakland Avenue.  The event is at 1:30.   Maybe someone can ask her why she voted for a $700 billion dollar bailout for banks that had virtually no oversight but said she would vote against the bill to save the auto-industry.  Just a thought. (to be fair, she is now working on a bill to provide oversight to the original bailout)  Amended: see Clark’s comment below.

Also Wednesday, another great shopping opportunity at Plowsharing Crafts, this time for the Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition and at the Kirkwood location of Plowsharing crafts at 137 W. Jefferson.  The event is from 6 to 9 PM, and you can see the flier at this link .  Thursday the same event will be at the Loop location.  You can join the Pro-Vote facebook group here.

Also Wednesday, a message from the Culver Way Cohousing project:

“On Weds Dec 17, we will gather for the First “Cohousing Cafe!! Time: 6-9 pm, potluck dinner at 6 pm.  Bring your “stuff” you wish to exchange, give away, sell or barter!  You may list services for exchange as well.  You may donate, or request money for yourself, or contribute money to not-for-profits (Paneurhythmy: Circle of Joy) or to the Cohousing project. Bring Christmas/Holiday stuff if you like. The plan is to have these gatherings each month. A community response to “challenging times.  Email braford@sbcglobal.net for directions.”

Thursday, Dec. 18.  Shopping, for Pro-Vote, this time at the Loop location from 6 to 9 PM: More info here .  

Also Thursday, Winslow’s Home is hosting a fundraiser for the “Food Outreach” program that serves those in need.  It’s from 6 to 9 P at 7211 Delmar, and you can get more info at this link.

Also Thursday, some of the amazing poetry of Rumi will be read accompanied by Native American flute at St. Francis Xavier Church, 3628 Lindell Blvd from 7:30 to 8:30.  More info is here.

Friday, Dec. 19.  I can’t find any events for this day, but there are a couple interesting human rights-related art exhibits in town that would be worth checking out.  First, the Holocaust Museum and Learning Center is hosting “Images of the Holocaust and Other Genocides”.  The exhibit is open from 10 AM to 3 PM, at 12 Millstone Campus Drive.  More info is here.  And the Center for Survivors of Torture and War Trauma are holding an exhibit “Point-of-View” that shows images of teenage boys from some of the countries the program works with.  The exhibit is on the 3rd Floor of the Social Sciences Building at UMSL, and you can get more info at the artszipper calendar.

Saturday, Dec. 20.  A group of locals interested in establishing a citizens group to improve the connections between Downtown St. Louis and the riverfront and Arch areas will be convening this Saturday at 3 PM at the Landmarks Association of St. Louis, 911 Washington Ave, Suite # 170.  If you have any questions, or would like to be added to the email list, send an email to Rick Bonasch at rbonasch@sbcglobal.net.  

Have a merry and meaningful week,

Adam

In the RNC’s quest to set new levels of ridiculousness, they have compiled a three-minute web video that is, apparently, intended to be a scathing indictment of Barack Obama because he (gasp!) knows Rod Blagojevich.  

How unseemly!  A Democratic United States Senator from Illinois has met and spoken with the Democratic Governor of the state he represented!  

Actually, the video is most likely the piece de resistance of RNC chair Mike Duncan’s bid to keep his gig, and to do so he has some pretty stiff competition to out-wingnut.  The field of candidates seeking the chairmanship is a bumper-crop of utterly ludicrous frothing f*ckwittery.  

This morning on This Week with George Stephanopolous, John McCain seemed to roll his eyes at the inanity of the RNCs rally toward ridiculousness and permanent minority status.  

STEPHANOPOULOS: The chairman of the Republican National Committee, Mike Duncan, has been highly critical of the way President- elect Obama has dealt with this. He’s had a statement every single day, saying that the Obama team should reveal all contacts they’ve had with Governor Blagojevich. He says that Obama’s promise of transparency to the American people is now being tested. Do you agree with that?

MCCAIN: I think that the Obama campaign should and will give all information necessary. You know, in all due respect to the Republican National Committee and anybody — right now, I think we should try to be working constructively together, not only on an issue such as this, but on the economy stimulus package, reforms that are necessary. And so, I don’t know all the details of the relationship between President-elect Obama’s campaign or his people and the governor of Illinois, but I have some confidence that all the information will come out. It always does, it seems to me.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me pick up on what you’re just saying there, because I remember well back after Bill Clinton won in 1992, Senator Bob Dole said it was his job in the Senate to represent the 57 percent of the country who didn’t vote for Bill Clinton. How do you define your role now as President-elect Obama heads to the White House and you’re in the Senate?

MCCAIN: I think my job is, of course, to be a part of and hopefully exert some leadership in the loyal opposition. But I emphasize the word loyal. We haven’t seen economic times like this in my lifetime. We haven’t seen challenges abroad at the level that we are experiencing, certainly since the end of the Cold War, and you could argue in some respects that they’re certainly more complex, many of these challenges. So let’s have our first priority where we can work together, where we can — I don’t think the average citizen, who has either lost their home or is in danger of losing their home, lost their job or in danger of losing their job, cares much about party labels right now. What they care about, I think — I know, I know, because I spent too much time on the campaign trail — for us to sit down and work together. Will there be areas of disagreement? Of course. We are different parties and different philosophy. But the nation wants us to unite and work together.  

He sounded a lot like the John McCain I used to respect and have more than a little admiration for in that exchange, and he pointed out that corruption doesn’t follow party lines.  We’ll see your Abramoff and raise you a “Dollar Bill” Jefferson.  Likewise, you can counter our Blagojevich with a Duke Cunningham.  Plenty of perfidy to go around in both parties.   Neither party owns purity and integrity, but neither does either party get to lay claim to every last crook.  As long as human beings are involved their will be instances of shocking, infuriating, contemptible wrongdoing.  People will be shocked and outraged, jail sentences will be handed down, vows of never again will be made, laws will be passed…and then the cycle will start all over again.  Until our robot overlords show up and take over administering the government for us, that is how it is going to be.  

So can we please put a cork in it and stop feigning outrage and fabricating tenuous connections and get our collective act together and start pulling together to get out of this frickin’ ditch we’re in?  (I know – I must be hopped up on sugar or something to even let myself think such a thing. )  I learned a long time ago that saving the life of the patient  is paramount, and it doesn’t matter what political philosophy the various members of the triage and trauma teams subscribe to, we work together with a mission in mind.  Well, the patient in the bay right now is the republic itself, and any worthless f*cking resident who impedes the mission needs to be removed from the room.  

Subject: This Weekend: Speak out for Single Payer

From: afd@thealliancefordemocracy.org

Reply to: Ricklmafd@earthlink.net for info on HR676 singlepayer or about the Alliance

Read Justice Rising, our quarterly journal

We want to let you know about a unique opportunity to promote single payer health care this weekend, December 13 and 14 at the Obama Transition Team  “Change is Coming” house parties nationwide. To find the one closest to you, go to http://my.barackobama.com/page…

These meetings are an opportunity to meet with concerned neighbors, pass on information on single-payer, and dispell some of the myths of this form of universal coverage, and we join several pro-single payer groups in urging you to attend one. For talking points see our brochure, “Health Care: Truths and Myths,” developed by AfD secretary Dr. Peter Mott and available online here   http://www.thealliancefordermocracy.org  .

Physicians for a National Health Program’s website is also a great resource for information at  http://www.pnhp.org  .

And if you sign up on the Obama website, you can also create your own “blog” with which you can talk to other people who’ve registered on the site about the topics that interest you. It’s a good way to help spread the facts on single payer health care.

To get you started, here are a few quick reasons why mandate plans won’t work, and why single payer “Medicare for All” is what we need, from the NYMetro chapter of PNHP.

1. Premiums for insurance keep going up, and health emergencies are a major cause of bankruptcy in the US.

2. When health insurance is a job benefit, economic downturns leave many without coverage, either because benefits are cut or because of unemployment. 

3. A majority of physicians (59 percent) and an even higher proportion of Americans (62 percent or more) support single-payer national health insurance or “Medicare for All.” In spite of this, all we are hearing about today are mandate plans that would require everyone to buy the same private insurance that is already failing us.

4. Mandate programs don’t regulate insurance premiums, they don’t keep the insurance companies from refusing to pay many of our bills, and they don’t improve the insurance we now have. Plans like these have been tried in many states over the past two decades (Massachusetts, Tennessee, Washington State, Oregon, Minnesota, Vermont, Maine). They have all failed to reduce the number of uninsured or to contain costs.

6. Every other industrialized country has some form of universal health care. None uses profitmaking, investor-owned insurance companies like ours to provide health care for all their people.

The Alliance will be making health care a major focus of action in 2009. We welcome your involvement and thank you for taking action! And we’d welcome hearing about your experiences; just email afd@thealliancefordemocracy.org.