Ebola Czar and quarantines?

MoonHowler

hazmat 2

New York Times:

DALLAS — President Obama raised the possibility on Thursday that he might appoint an “Ebola czar” to manage the government’s response to the deadly virus as anxiety grew over the air travel of an infected nurse.

Schools closed in two states, hospitals and airlines kept employees home from work, and Americans debated how much they should worry about a disease that has captured national attention but has so far infected only three people here.

A federal official said that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had broadened its search for contacts of Amber Joy Vinson, the second nurse infected with Ebola at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital here, after interviewing family members who gave a different version of events from Ms. Vinson’s. The nurse had said she had a slight fever before boarding a flight from Cleveland to Dallas on Monday. But family members said she had appeared remote and unwell during her trip to Ohio over the weekend.

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We don’t have a Surgeon General because…?

MoonHowler

surgeon general The United States has been without a Surgeon General since July, 2013.   The acting Surgeon General is Rear Admiral Boris Lushniak,   Why is this position temporary?  The Senate has refused to push through President Obama’s nominee for the position. While the Surgeon General cannot enact laws, this person can influence policy by discussion and is the national spokesperson for health related issues.   Think back to comments from people serving in this position over smoking cigarettes, AIDS, and teen sex.  Many folks just don’t want to have any discussion at all.  This time, the NRA is leading the charge.  Apparently, it fears any talk about gun violence or suicide.  I can’t imagine a doctor worth his or her salt not talking about the importance of gun safety.  Maybe we just won’t find a Surgeon General. Let’s examine what the problem seems to be, according to Billmoyers.com:

[T]he NRA has tried to bar pediatricians from counseling parents about the risks of keeping guns at home. The American Association of Pediatrics recommends that doctors begin to talk to parents about gun safety even before their baby is born and continue the conversation yearly, just as doctors talk to parents about the dangers of swimming pools and the importance of bicycle helmets. Florida passed a gag law in 2011; crafted by an NRA lobbyist, the bill forbids doctors from “making written inquiry or asking questions concerning the ownership of a firearm or ammunition by the patient or by a family member of the patient.” A district court ruled the following year that the law restricted physicians’ rights to free speech and the case is now in the appeals process. Murthy’s opposition to pediatrician gag laws was one of the reasons cited by the NRA and Rand Paul in their attempt to disqualify him.

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After Ray Rice: What’s the new standard

MoonHowler

There are all sorts of defining moments where the rules all change.  The press will never turn the other way after the Senator Hart and the Monkey Business.  Behavior between men and women in the work place will be forever changed after Anita Hill.  Lots of things changed post Watergate.  Sports figures will never get by with domestic violence after Ray Rice was banished from football after a video was released of him coldcocking his soon-to-be wife in a elevator, knocking her unconscious.

Many folks were already upset that the NFL had such lightweight sanctions on players who were involved in violent acts against others.  Penalties were longer for those who were arrested for drug use than for beating one’s wife to a bloody pulp.  All that is going to change now and it should.

Hopefully these kinds of sanctions will carry over to other sports and to other career fields.  Domestic violence has to have sanctions. Now, here is the question.  Would we feel differently if the roles were reversed?  What if the perpetrator was not a well-know athlete?  Would we have the same abhorrent reaction?  Is this about size difference?  Gender?  Would we be as upset if a wife or girl friend flew into a rage and pummeled an athlete?  No one seemed to care that Mrs. Woods broke up tiger’s golf clubs. Speak to the issue of domestic violence please and do we cut slack to women to beat on their husbands?

Enshrining radical feminism?

MoonHowler

Is Michele Bachmann getting stranger and dumber?    An ideological shrine to abortion?  Give me a break.

HR863  sounds like a bill to pass.  It authorizes a study on how to move forward with the women’s museum initiative.  Why shouldn’t there be a museum dedicated to the accomplishments of women in this country?  According to rawstory.com:

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on Wednesday opposed the National Women’s History Museum by connecting it to “eugenics” and same-sex marriage.

During a House debate on whether or not Congress should appoint a commission to study how to move forward with building the National Women’s History Museum, Bachmann stood up and urged her colleagues to vote against the measure.

“I rise today in opposition to this bill because I believe ultimately this museum — that will be built on the National Mall on federal land — will enshrine the radical feminist movement that stands against the pro-life movement, the pro-family movement and the pro-traditional marriage movement,” she announced.

 

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Black student group challenges practices of Washington Lee University

MoonHowler

lee chapel

A small group of black students at Washington and Lee University took school administrators by surprise with a list of demands that included renouncing Robert E. Lee for his racism.  The students, who do not represent all African American students at Washington and Lee,  call themselves The Committee.  The Committee has threated civil disobedience if W & L officials administrators do not meet their demands.

Washingtonpost.com:

A group of black law students at Washington and Lee University is urging administrators to atone for its Confederate heritage and what they call the “dishonorable conduct” of namesake Robert E. Lee. The movement has struck a racial divide on the bucolic campus in Lexington, Va., where black students make up about 3.5 percent of the total student population. Third-year law student Dominik Taylor, a descendent of slaves on his father’s side, said he felt betrayed by admissions representatives who touted the school’s diversity. “They assured me it was a welcoming environment where everyone sticks together as a community,” Taylor said. “Then I came here and felt ostracized and alienated.” Read More

Moonhowler goes prude: Just some things to think about

MoonHowler

We can’t regulate what’s on SNL.  It’s on late and we have choices about what we watch.  We can turn it off if we don’t like it.

What demographic does Lady Gaga appeal to when she isn’t on SNL? Girls and teens?  Is this video what you want your 15 year old watching?  Wasn’t R. Kelly convicted of battery, and other disturbances?  His rap sheet is not short.  He also married a 15 year old girl.  The marriage was annulled.  Then there were the charges about pornography with underage girls.  He was aquitted.  Regardless, he has role model issues.

While some people, in particular, Republicans, spend a great deal of energy trying to set down moral codes about this, that and the other, from abortion to gay rights, from sex ed to contraception, it seems to me that the obvious is being overlooked.

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Morris Davis: The Military’s Sexual Assault Problem: Avoiding Déjà Vu Again, Again

MoonHowler

Moe Davis

Disclaimer: All guest posts are the opinion of the poster and do not necessarily represent the views of moonhowlings.net administration.

M-H

Guest Post:  Colonel Morris Davis, (retired)

At a White House press conference on May 7, President Barack Obama said members of the U.S. military who commit sexual assaults will be “prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court-martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged.  Period.”  Clearly the president intended to send a laudable message that sexual assaults are a serious problem and perpetrators will face serious consequences, but good intentions can have unintended consequences.

On June 13, Military Judge Marcus Fulton found that the president’s remarks constituted unlawful command influence in two on-going courts-martial.  As a result, two service members accused of sexual assaults will not be subject to punitive discharge from the service if they are found guilty.  Judge Fulton’s decision was clearly intended to send a message that no one, not even the commander-in-chief, can put a finger on the scales of military justice.

 

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Kentucky Derby: 138th Run for the Roses

MoonHowler

This Saturday, May 5 will be the annual 138th Kentucky Derby.   No charming horse stories jump out at us this year.  That might happen post race.   The slight favorite this year is a horse named Bodemeister.  Why that almost sounds like Blogmeister!

Every year I go out with friends and play our dollar bets on the each race of the Triple Crown.  It sounds silly but it is a rite of spring for us. 

To view the horses for this race, go to the Washington Post section.  CLICK HERE . 

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Father and friend report social services unresponsive

MoonHowler

The dreadful story of the neglected children in Bristow continues.  Interviews with the father of the first set of neglected kids reveal even more information.  Apparently the mother, Christina Dawn Moore, does have visitation with the twins who were found wandering in diapers at a junk yard  when they were toddlers.  Their father is Daniel Tinchard who now has custody of his children.  He reported that he has made several calls regarding abuse and neglect,

According to News and Messenger:

In the past few years, Tincher estimates he made three or four complaints to Social Services – including one alleging physical abuse – regarding his twin boys. The boys live with their father in Bealeton but go to Moore’s house on selected weekends due to a visitation agreement.

A friend of the family has also made numerous complaints. 

The family friend, who attended Brentsville High School with Moore in the early 2000s, said she made close to 10 calls from 2007 to 2010 to the Prince William and Fauquier Social Services departments regarding the situation. She said she heard nothing from anyone other than a brief phone conversation with a social worker.

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Checking out the legality of polygamy–Post Big Love

MoonHowler

I never understood the difference in bigamy and polygamy until I went to Utah for the first time about 15 years ago.  I was reading the paper and saw that some man had been arrested for having 2 wives.  Then on the front page there was so big arrest made to a polygamist but it was for beating his daughter.  So naturally I had to give up all my pride and ask my hosts.

And yes, my hosts were all Mormons, but maybe not practicing ones.  After they laughed and carried on over my ignorance, they explained it.  Polygamist only have one state marriage as we saw in Big Love.  Barb was the legal wife.  The others, Margene and Nikki, were ecclesiastical wives.  That is not illegal.  It is taboo, however, in the official Mormon Church, otherwise known as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.   Barb has been excommunicated because she was living in polygamy.  Bill, Nikki and Margene  had never been in the mainstream Mormon Church so they were  not excommunicated. 

So I got an email from a friends asking me what was the difference in living together and polygamy.  I would say there is none legally.  The legal problems of polygamy center around child abuse and statutory rape.  Amongst consenting adults,  what is the problem?   There has also been a problem with many of the polygamist men not supporting their children and costing the state lots of welfare money.  The Juniper Creek class polygamists ran in their own little world and lived by their own laws.  However, if people are living like the Hendricksons or those seen on the reality show Sister Wives, why does it concern us?

Any opinions or comments?

Huck rips Natalie Portman over pregnancy

MoonHowler

Politico:

Mike Huckabee laced into Oscar winner Natalie Portman for her “out-of-wedlock” pregnancy, saying the expecting star is helping to “glamorize” single motherhood.

Huckabee made the comments on conservative commentator Michael Medved’s radio show this week, after Portman accepted her golden trophy and in her speech thanked her fiance, Benjamin Millepied, for giving her “my most important role of my life.”

Medved led the way on the question, saying the “most wonderful gift” Millepied could have given the diminutive Black Swan star “would be a wedding ring! And it just seems to me that sending that kind of message is problematic.”

 

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A Moral Dilemma: North Korea

MoonHowler

A starving North Korea is begging for food from foreign nations.  Flood, a brutal winter, and livestock disease has made the situation worse in a country where malnutrition is already a way of life.  The North Korean government has ordered its embassy personnel to basically beg.  It is currently betting from Japan, a country that North Korea usually threatens.

The United States cut off food aid several years ago over concerns about nuclear transparency.  It has said it has no plans to start up again.   The UN Food Program has said it will only contribute food for another month.

According to the Washington Post:

The request has put the United States and other Western countries in the uncomfortable position of having to decide whether to ignore the pleas of a starving country or pump food into a corrupt distribution system that often gives food to those who need it least.

We have always been a generous nation, even with our enemies, at least in the 20th century.  North Korea is simply too much of a problem to start giving hand outs.   A country that won’t play by the rules and issues threats all the time is in no position to be asking favors.  On the other hand, there are starving people.  The question we must ask ourselves is, would the starving  people even get the food?  I would give food only if I could distribtute it to those in need.  If our troops went anywhere near there to give food, they would probably fire on them.

What do you think we should do?

Notice North Korea at night.  The people have no electricity:

The Gretch Who Saved the War on Christmas

MoonHowler

Christmas is a goner. Just ask Gretchen the Grinch. Jon Stewart brings reality back. He reminds us all that Christmas survived the Rome Empire.  Totally great cartoon. 

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
The Gretch Who Saved the War on Christmas
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor The Daily Show on Facebook

 

Does it matter that cards we receive say Seasons Greetings?  Does it matter that sales clerks we don’t know tell us to have a great holiday instead of Merry Christmas?   Is it something to be paranoid over?  Is there really a war on Christmas? 

Sarah Palin Doesn’t Just Hunt Moose

MoonHowler

Sarah Palin also hunts American icons.  Now Palin is after JFK.  Why is she targetting all the American icons?  Let’s see:  Reagan, Daddy and Mrs. Bush, W. Bush, and now none other than JFK.  What has he done? 

Back in the summer we ran a post celebrating the 50th anniversary of JFK’s speech to the ministers of Houston on the importance of the wall of separation between church and state.   That speech was considered to be one of Kennedy’s most important.  To this day, he is the only Roman Catholic to be elected President of the United States. 

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend has addressed Palin’s erroneous thinking in an opinion piece in the Washington Post   Saturday:

In her new book, “America by Heart,” Palin objects to my uncle’s famous 1960 speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, in which he challenged the ministers – and the country – to judge him, a Catholic presidential candidate, by his views rather than his faith. “Contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for president,” Kennedy said. “I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for president who happens also to be a Catholic.”

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Fimian, Pharmacies and Birth Control

MoonHowler

For the past several days I have been seeing and hearing a Gerry Connolly campaign commercial that paints Candidate Keith Fimian as an extremist.  Most campaign ads are background noise to me so it went in one ear and out the other.  Besides, most campaign ads are full of hyperbole and exaggeration.  Then I perked up my ears.  The ad said that Fimian supported the rights of pharmacists to not dispense contraception.  Now THAT IS extremist. 

I have tried researching this allegation, without much luck.  I even went to the  Legatuswebsite.  Fimian is a member of Legatus, which is a Catholic organization, founded by Dominos Pizza Magnet Tom Monaghan for very wealthy Catholic business folks and their spouses.  I didn’t find out much there either.  Maybe it’s me.  However, I haven’t heard anything which disputes this claim.  This makes me nervous. 

There has been somewhat of an uproar the past several years about pharmacists with religious objections being forced to dispense contraception, in particular, the morning after pill.  NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia  has this to say:

In addition to lack of contraceptive equity, Virginia’s so-called “conscience clause” allows pharmacists to decide which prescriptions they will and will not provide. This means that a pharmacist could legally refuse to fill a doctor’s prescription for birth control or stock or distribute emergency contraception. Since when do pharmacists get to step inside the doctor-patient relationship and refuse to fill necessary prescriptions?

 

Conscience Clause?  Where did that come from?  Someone slipped that one by me.  The more I google, the more I unearth and the angrier I get.  This thread needs to be a work in progress.  First of all, anyone who has knowledge of Fimian’s position on allowing pharmacists to cherry pick what prescriptions they will fill, please let us know.  I don’t have a bone to pick with private pharmacies who post, in clear view on their door that they do not sell or dispense contraception.  However, other stores open to the public without disclaimers should really not be involved in type of exclusionary behavior.  I consider it equivalent to the Muslim cab driver who wouldn’t let bottles of liquor in his cab.  Find another job. 

Secondly, what kinds of legislation have been passed that allow ‘conscience clauses and require pharmacist counselling?  How offensive.  If one works for a pharmacy, the job is to fill prescriptions, not chime in with a moral opinion.  If that is an issue, go work for a private religious hospital or pharmacy. 

I would especially welcome and appreciate word from the Fimian campaign that this information is indeed false.  This is the year 2010, in the United States of America.  Griswald was decided 45 years ago.