Aloha Politics

When people hear there is a state-by-state report on happiness, they want to know a few things. Who’s number one? It’s Hawaii. Who changed the most since last year? Alaska took a turn for the worse, and Delaware improved significantly. How did my state do? You can find out here. But anyone who looks at the map above is likely to wonder: why is that cluster of red states so unhappy?

Gallup and Healthways do not offer specific explanations for their results, but it is easy to see how a poor score in one category might correlate with others. Poor access to quality food and healthcare, for example, could lead to poor physical or emotional health. One Healthways researcher suggested lifestyle choices as a contributing factor, emphasizing the likelihood that different categories contribute to and compound on one another. Many potential explanations boil down a lack of adequate resources.

For the full story: America’s “Sadness Belt”: Appalachian States Worst in U.S. for Health and Happiness

La Repubblica: Pope Resigned After Inquiry Discovered Gay Vatican Network

And finally, New Rule: Since President Obama seems to be having so much trouble defending his record on the economy, the next debate must be held in a mall. Any mall. It doesn’t matter. They’re all packed. There’s one not 100 yards from this studio, with dancing waters and a choo-choo train, and a shirtless gay kid out in front of Abercrombie & Fitch. The parking garage is always full, the Cheesecake Factory is working overtime, and Lady Gaga’s new perfume — with its delightful scent of blood and semen — is flying off the shelves at Nordstrom’s.

What I’m saying is, I know it’s campaign season, but can we all stop acting like the American economy is in complete shambles, where no one has a job or a place to live, and we’re all doing our laundry in the river? (wild audience applause)

Thank you. I mean, folks, I travel this country constantly, all four corners of it. And everywhere I go, I’m always standing in line for 20 minutes to buy hair gel, or batteries, or nipple moisturizer. Traffic is a bitch everywhere. Yes, there are people sleeping on the sidewalk, but that’s to buy an iPhone just like the one they already have! (audience applause)

It just doesn’t feel like Obama has ruined America. Republicans, you know, they used to talk a lot about this thing called the stock market, and how it helped not just the rich, but middle class folks, whose pensions and 401(k)’s depended on it. Well, now they never seem to mention the stock market. Perhaps, because under President Blackenstein, the Dow has doubled. Or as Republicans call it, “devastating economic news”. (audience applause)

Now, there certainly still is poverty in our country, but it’s obviously among the underclass that you don’t see — the very people that today’s Republicans couldn’t give a shit about! So I don’t understand why they’re all so upset about the economy. Except, of course, it’s their big issue. So they have to pretend that America is a rotting compost heap where people are eating cat food and wiping their ass with the pennysaver. (audience applause)

And weirdly, Obama kinda has to pretend that too. Because if he doesn’t, then he’s “out of touch”. So we all wind up living with this fictional picture of America that actually would be more appropriate for the year before Obama took office. Remember 2008? (audience applause) Yeah, I do.

That’s when Lehman Brothers collapsed, and the markets froze, and they were measuring GM for a pumpkin lot. And when you opened your bank statement, you saw the drowned Japanese girl from The Ring, and then you died.

And yes, I am saying we can keep blaming Bush for that. It’s the same as blaming rats for the Black Plague. Just because you’re sick of hearing historians say it, doesn’t mean it stopped being true. (wild audience applause)

George Bush left a flaming pile of dog shit on the White House steps, and now it’s gone, and Mitt Romney has a hell of a nerve running on the idea that “I’m going to fix the economy by restoring the policies of the party that destroyed it”.

12 million jobs. That’s what Mitt Romney promises. 12 million. A number that’s just… waaaaay up there. (reaches into ass to pull it out) Oh, there it is, wow! There it is, 12 million! (wild audience applause) Way up there! Hoo, boy, I feel better.

And about 45% of American voters hear that and say, “I like. Me want good now.”

People are disappointed in the economy? Sorry. I was disappointed in Prometheus. You don’t like the way the stewardess landed the plane after werewolves ate the flight crew? Stop electing werewolves.

That’s our show!

Paul Gilding, the Australian environmentalist and author of the book “The Great Disruption,” argues that these demonstrations are a sign that the current growth-obsessed capitalist system is reaching its financial and ecological limits. “I look at the world as an integrated system, so I don’t see these protests, or the debt crisis, or inequality, or the economy, or the climate going weird, in isolation — I see our system in the painful process of breaking down,”

Go here to read the whole story: Something’s Happening Here

Full Story here: Updated – My Call to Senator Kerry – Not Reassuring
This is what

I identified myself as a resident of Massachusetts. I told the woman who answered the phone that there should be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. She then read me a script saying that revenues have to be part of the package and that we have to make sure that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are solvent, and that there was a coming demographic problem with the aging of the baby boomers. So I told her that there was no problem with Social Security, and that Social Security was solvent until 2037. She then said that there was a problem with Social Security after that. Then I told her that this projection was based on an extremely pessimistic view of the US economy – that it would grow more slowly than it has every grown in the last century, including during the Great Depression. At this point, she decided that she couldn’t talk to me any more since she had nine other callers on hold. This, in spite of the fact that she answered my call on the second ring. She said I should send an email to Senator Kerry. I pointed out that Kerry limited the size of the emails he would receive, and she said that I could attach anything I wanted to the email. I told her that I had more to say and that she needed to listen to me. Then she hung up on me.

I was going to tell her the following:

1. Social Security is solvent.

2. Medicare and Medicaid would save enormous amounts of money if we had Medicare for all and could negotiate with drug companies on prices of drugs.

3. The top 1% of earners (over $450,000 per year) used to have about 8% of the total income in the 1970s. Now they have nearly 24% of the total income, and the top 0.1% has 11% of the total income. This is where the money needs to come from, as well as from increased corporate taxes.

4. I was also going to refer her to the comprehensive reports on Social Security and health care on the web site of the Sudbury Democratic Town Committee (sudburydemocrats.org). I even mentioned the web site before she hung up.

Go Here for the full essay on historical background about the festival we call Christmas that the below was taken from.

In a Manner of Speaking, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus

The modern perception of Santa Claus – are there really elves in Christian theology? – also took root during this time, and though the story is often told that it was Coca-Cola that made him a part of our “traditional” Christmas (something about Santa’s- and Coke’s trademark colors being the same), it appears that this may be an urban legend.  There’s no doubt that Depression-Era Coke artist Haddon Sundblom helped to cement the popular image, but Santa as a bewhiskered, red-suit-with-white-fur-trim-wearing, jolly old elf was firmly a part of American culture by the 1920s, if not earlier.

The story of Santa the non-elf goes back much, much further – to the Roman town of Myra (now called Demre), in what’s now Turkey.  It was there, around the year 270 CE, that the man who would go on to be canonized at Saint Nicholas (and made the patron saint of Amsterdam, Moscow, all of Greece, and sailors, among several other things and places) was born, and it was there that he earned his reputation as a gift-giver.  Early stories have him putting coins in shoes of children that were left outside their houses at night, sometimes in exchange for hay or carrots provided for Nicholas’ horses; a later one has him provided the dowries for three young women so that they would not be obligated to take up a life of prostitution.  As he was the bishop of Myra, he wore the red cloak of his office when he made his nocturnal visits, and some stories have him assisted in his treat delivery by a small orphan boy.