Dr. Marvin, guess what? Ahoy, I sail, I'm a sailor, I sail!

What About Bob clip
I hadn't been on a sailboat in twenty years until this Saturday. What a great day, which was even better since it was to support the youth program at First Presbyterian of Annapolis. Every Fall, we have an auction to raise money to support the youth program. Last year one of the items that was donated was an afternoon of sailing out on the Chesapeake Bay. Our congregation really gets into the auction and is incredibly generous with their bids and donations. When the sailing item came up my friend Craig and I decided to pool our resources and go in together for it and we were successful.

The plan was to go out in the Spring, but it took until this weekend to find a suitable time that Craig, Jen, Vern, me and the boat were all available and in good health simultaneously. It was well worth the wait. Despite a so-so forecast and a gray morning we had a gorgeous sunny day and a nice breeze for most of the five hours we were out on the water. Vern let each of us take turns at the helm and I was fortunate enough to have my turn through the best winds of the day.

Our top speed was around 5.5 knots. For those of you familiar with the Bay, Vern lives in Amberly so we came out of Whitehall Creek into the Chesapeake just south of the Bay Bridge. We sailed down along the west side past Annapolis, Bay Ridge and Arundel on the Bay. We tacked east before we got all the way to Thomas Point and shot over towards Kent Island. We came about again and managed to take a single line from the east side of the Bay all the way into the mouth of the Severn. We turned around just off of the Naval Academy sea wall and headed back up the west side of the Bay to Whitehall Creek.

A fabulous day with great company spent out on the water. It doesn't get much better than that.

FYI - The boat Vern has is a Sabre 28. I also found this review which has some interest info about this boat that is no longer made and is almost as old as I am.

Amen Mr. President

We cannot know for certain how long we have here. We cannot foresee the trials or misfortunes that will test us along the way. We cannot know God's plan for us.

What we can do is to live out our lives as best we can with purpose, and love, and joy. We can use each day to show those who are closest to us how much we care about them, and treat others with the kindness and respect that we wish for ourselves. We can learn from our mistakes and grow from our failures. And we can strive at all costs to make a better world, so that someday, if we are blessed with the chance to look back on our time here, we can know that we spent it well; that we made a difference; that our fleeting presence had a lasting impact on the lives of other human beings.

President Barack Obama's words from the eulogy for Sen. Kennedy.

Beware the OLIGARHY!

Is there a "C", Pat??

Glenn Beck is a comic genius. I am becoming more and more convinced that he and Orly Taitz are characters created by Sacha Baron Cohen. Only instead of playing them himself as he did with Borat, Bruno and Ali G, Cohen has enlisted the help of some truly gifted improv performers since he is now so recognizable.


YouTube - Glenn Beck Can't Spell (Shared via AddThis)

Hilarious/horrifying post detailing more of Beck's rantings. Did you know that President Obama is creating a Secret Army? They are organizing via Twitter.

His ramped up hysteria is mostly in response to a campaign to have sponsors boycott his program because he called the President a "racist" with a "deep seeded hatred of white people."
The campaign has been pretty successful (at last count 39 companies had pulled their ads) and folks are speculating that the end may be near for him on FoxNews. A recent monologue he gave seems to indicate he may think that's the case too.

I am making light of this, but in reality I think that this is pretty reprehensible. He acts as if this is about First Amendment Rights, but whipping people into a frenzy the way he is attempting to do with his show is akin to yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater. Sooner or later someone is going to get trampled and that isn't going to be the least bit funny.

47 Years in the Senate and 15,235 votes cast

The video tribute above was produced by ThinkProgress’ Victor Zapanta.


In addition to this "Day in 100 Seconds" piece, Talking Points Memo has a collection of videos with the statements by President Obama, Vice President Biden, former President Carter, Senator John McCain and many others. Perhaps the most poignant of all of them is actually from last year. It is a video of Senator Byrd reading a statement into the Senate record after hearing the news of Kennedy's brain cancer diagnosis.

Senator Kennedy's family set up this web site in his honor and you can peruse his many accomplishments, read and/or watch his speeches, look at pictures, share memories and send sympathies to his family.

"Every American should have the opportunity to receive a quality education, a job that respects their dignity and protects their safety, and health care that does not condemn those whose health is impaired to a lifetime of poverty and lost opportunity." - Edward M. Kennedy

They were for "death panels" before they were against them

Does anyone remember the Terri Schiavo Debacle? It was the Florida case between a husband and his in-laws that made it into the Capitol Building and onto every TV channel. They were fighting about what to do with the poor woman in a vegetative state who could no longer speak for herself. Unfortunately she had not put in writing any definitive answers regarding what her wishes were in the event that she ended up like she did.

Someone obviously does remember because they wanted to make sure that Health Care Reform addressed the issue. This would be the now infamous section on page 424 of HR 3200 that according to some creates "death panels" or encourages suicide. It expands Medicare coverage to pay for folks to voluntarily have a conversation with their doctor about "advance directives."

Despite the fact that the creation of "death panels" has been thoroughly debunked, opponents of Health Care Reform continue to push this nonsense into the debate. Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich are front and center on this issue (having been backed up by Rush Limbaugh, Michael Steele, and Senator Grassley).

How inconvenient for both Palin and Gingrich to have Think Progress uncover them supporting these same consultations in the very recent past.

When then-Governor Palin endorsed "Healthcare Decisions Day" on April 16, 2008 she "urged public facilities to provide better information about advance directives, and made it clear that it is critical for seniors to be informed of such options."

In April of this year Mr. Gingrich praised a hospital in Wisconson for their use of "advance directives" as being extremely cost effective and more efficient. He even goes on to say that their "approach empowers patients and families to control and direct their care."

So why are they both now opposed to a section in proposed legislation that would encourage the very thing that they are both obviously in favor of?

Why is something that made so much sense to them now so scary and nefarious?

Someone should ask them.




Talking Points Memo now has a handy run down on the entire "death panel" meme.

Reform, In A Nutshell

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning Economist -

"The essence is really quite simple: regulation of insurers, so that they can't cherry-pick only the healthy, and subsidies, so that all Americans can afford insurance," Krugman said. He added, "[W]hat it means for the individual will be that insurers can't reject you, and if your income is relatively low, the government will help pay your premiums."

Our President -

"For all the chatter and the yelling and the shouting and the noise, what you need to know is this: If you don't have health insurance, you will finally have quality, affordable options, once we pass reform. If you do have health insurance, we will make sure that no insurance company, or a government bureaucrat, gets between you and the care that you need. And we will do this without adding to our deficit over the next decade"

And from Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly (title to this post borrowed from his)-

"Three sentences.

If you don't have coverage, you'll get coverage.
If you have coverage, insurers won't be able to screw you over.
And we can achieve this without increasing the deficit.

Everything else relates to mechanical details to get us from here to there."

Lather, rinse, repeat......

Health Care Reform

I've been following the side show that is happening in the place of an actual debate about Health Care Reform and am at a loss. Those opposing reform have tapped into the fear, distrust and anger of many among us and are using it to derail any chance of a real discussion about the pending legislation. There are plenty of actual issues that we could be discussing such as the public option, single payer, or mandates but instead we are talking about "death panels", "socialism", "being un-American", and "turning in your neighbor."

Its a damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of situation. Not addressing these issues is seen as a concession to their validity and addressing them takes the debate down a tangent and away from the actual topic at hand. I think that is precisely what those who oppose reform want and it has quickly spread out of the individual town hall meetings and into the media, blogosphere, and social networking sites. I'm not suggesting that there aren't actual citizens who are showing up at the meetings, writing emails and taking a stand against reform. There are. Unfortunately many of them are misinformed, they are getting angrier, the confrontations are getting violent and there have been at least three (1 2 3) instances of guns being brought to rallies.

I think we desperately need to find a way to engage each other in a meaningful way so that we can deal with this issue that almost everyone agrees must be addressed. David Frum, who was a speech writer for President Bush, is someone who I usually do not agree with on just about anything. However, like Andrew Sullivan I find myself agreeing with Frum. Last week he wrote a piece ruminating on the "cost" of winning . i.e. -- "beat back the president’s proposals, defeat the House bill, stand back and wait for 1994 to repeat itself."

The problem is that if we do that… we’ll still have the present healthcare system. Meaning that we’ll have (1) flat-lining wages, (2) exploding Medicaid and Medicare costs and thus immense pressure for future tax increases, (3) small businesses and self-employed individuals priced out of the insurance market, and (4) a lot of uninsured or underinsured people imposing costs on hospitals and local governments.

We’ll have entrenched and perpetuated some of the most irrational features of a hugely costly and under-performing system, at the expense of entrepreneurs and risk-takers, exactly the people the Republican party exists to champion.

Not a good outcome.

There is a really good diary over at Talking Points Memo called "I Don't Trust Your Side, and My Side Sickens Me" that captures the difficulties of this situation quite well. The author is a liberal woman who has in her family and circle of friends many people on the other side of the debate. Her post details her frustration with the situation and her attempts to have a civil dialogue with her friends and family. I am most impressed by her desire which is not just to debate her side of the issue, but to view the opposition with compassion and attempt to understand where they are coming from in the hopes of a meaningful dialogue. She writes -

And I think the final answer is this:

I reached out to conservative family and friends with affection and respect.

They responded in kind.

In the final analysis, I don't think we're going to see much meeting of minds in rage-infested town halls or plaquard-bearing public venues of any kind.

Maybe not in private e-mail exchanges, either.

But if we are going to find some sort of way to tackle the gigantic problems that this country faces, then we are going to have to do it one on one, as I did, with the people who know us, love us, and trust us--at least, on matters unrelated to politics.

Maybe, in that way, we can begin to put some sort of salve on the open burning wounds of hate-rhetoric that flies around both sides of the aisle.

And if all we do, in the long run, is agree to disagree, then if it is done with love and respect, then maybe that is one less Democrat for them to hate or one less Republican for us to hate.

And if that's not civil discourse, I don't know what is.

I pray that we get the insurance reform that we need so badly, but even more so that we can learn to treat each other with love and respect even when we passionately disagree.

Now I'll Never Be President....

A Long July

My apologies for how "quiet" my blog has been recently. July was a long difficult month. It feels like a lifetime ago that I returned from the youth mission trip. July started out with a busy week sandwiched between the mission trip and my family vacation. A week spent doing testing for the workers compensation process, several work items, saying goodbye to my good friend Dan who will be studying in Ireland for at least the next year, and preparing for being away from home for another week. The kennels that I prefer were all booked on the 4th of July, so I couldn't leave until Sunday morning. I missed the first night at the lake with the family, but met up with everyone at my cousin Brad's high school graduation party outside of Pittsburgh. It was great to see my aunts, uncles and cousins. We had a really nice day, ate tons of delicious food and I spent a good bit of time drooling over cousin Steven's new Harley.

Our week at the lake was really nice except for the fact that most of us were fighting a summer cold for at least part of the week. I actually spent one whole day in bed with chills, a sore throat and a horrible headache. We still had a really nice time and it was very relaxing, but there ought to be some sort of law against being sick on vacation. It was also my first vacation in fifteen years without Danielle, so that added a strange dimension to the week for me. Luckily swimming, boating, tubing, fishing and being with my family were way too much fun to allow either the cold or the lack of my spouse to overshadow them.

I returned from vacation to a very busy week at the church. On Sunday the 12th our youth group, along with the Anglican youth group down the street and two young ladies from the Czech Republic (visiting our church for 6 weeks), went to Quiet Waters Park and rented kayaks, canoes, and peddle boats for an afternoon on the water. Monday through Friday that week our church was a buzz with over 65 kids for Vacation Bible School. Many of the teens from our youth group and St. Anne's group help shepherd the little ones around and I lead worship in the style of Taizé on Thursday. Its always a lot of fun and quite exhausting. Five groups rotate through in 30 minute intervals with barely a chance to catch your breath. At the end of the week Miss, my good friend and the Director of Childrens Ministry, and I took the 20 teen helpers out for pizza. On Saturday the 18th we had a great turn out of current youth and some college students home for the summer at Sweat Equity to work on our church campus.

The workers compensation process has taken a few bizarre turns this past month. After the function evaluation was completed, I met with my vocational counselor again and we reviewed a rough draft of the plan he has drawn up. As he had told me previously, my plans for seminary are too far down the road to incorporate into their vocational plan, so they are recommending I go back into mortgages or some other similar office based occupation for the time being. He said that since I have a college degree and a prior career that was not physical there wasn't much that they would do for me other than provide leads and monitor my job search. I was advised that perhaps it would make more sense for me to investigate the possibility of a permanency award since I am now considered to be permanently partially disabled, and handle the job search on my own. Unfortunately I have run into several dead ends attempting to get answers regarding a permanent award. While trying to get answers and navigate this maze of bureaucracy a new adjuster took over my file. She "discovered" that I have been working my youth job part time while receiving disability checks for my facility job and feels that I have been overpaid for the last year and a half. She stopped authorizing my disability checks and has been in the process of recalculating my benefits for the last two weeks. I put discovered in quotes because this has been very much out in the open from the very beginning. I am awaiting something formal in writing so that I can appeal to the state Workers' Compensation Commission and have contacted an attorney since this has suddenly gotten very complicated.

Where the beginning of this month was chocked full of activity, the end of the month was way too empty leaving what felt like far too much time to dwell on the problems with my disability claim, the passing of my first wedding anniversary since my wife left me, and the first time in over 16 months without doctor appointments or physical therapy. I have very much been "in the thick of it" for the last 16 months. This lull was no fun, but I realize that it was a very necessary step in my healing process. I needed the down time to reflect, digest and experience a lot of the emotions that got pushed aside while I was in crisis mode.

The end of July also included my 39th birthday. I celebrated with my family at my parents' house on the 23rd and then enjoyed a concert on the 24th featuring two of my favorite artists. I finally got to see Willie Nelson live, although he was chased off of the stage by a lightening storm after only 4 or 5 songs. The best performance of the night was by the artist who interested me the least going in. John Mellencamp put on quite a show and had everyone dancing and singing along. The headliner for the tour was the one and only Bob Dylan who unfortunately was not in the mood to enunciate (even more than usual). Luckily I've seen him previously and I know he can put on a great live show, because this was not an inspired performance, although the song selection was great and the band was fabulous.

Last month had its highlights and the good definitely outweighed the bad, but I must say I am glad that July is behind us. I'm looking forward to making progress on the Workers' Compensation issues this month, gearing up for the beginning of the program year with the youth group, getting back to work on a full time basis and making some headway on my investigation of seminaries.