As Bob Cesca states in his assessment of Sarah Palins sudden conversion: “There’s no concern for consistency or hypocrisy. The platform is very simply: we believe the opposite of anything the president, the Democrats and the progressives say, regardless of whether it’s contradictory, crazy or stupid.”

And Sarah Palin is crazy like a fox in a hen house.

Sarah Palin’s sudden appreciation for government regulation has little to do with holding BP accountable or protecting the people and ecosystems impacted by the spill. In fact, I suspect that her flip-flop on this issue has less to do with opposing the President as it does with protecting the long-term interests of off-shore drilling proponents. After all, lack of regulation has never really been the problem. The problem is that the regulations already in place to protect the public from the corporations are never enforced. So why not let the government pass a few more regulations to appease the masses as long as it doesn’t stand in the way of letting Sarah and her friends “drill baby drill.”
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

A recent visit to an emergency room with my mother and her subsequent hospital stay have absolutely convinced me that many of our young health professionals and, in general, the US hospital system view the health care needs of senior citizens with disdain if not outright contempt.

Democrats/Liberals/Progressives, this is what you need to understand. Many senior citizens are simply afraid of our health care system, and rightfully so.

When seeking medical care, all too often, the legitimate complaints of the elderly are dismissed as senile rantings. Even when a family member or caregiver is acting as an advocate for an elderly person, their voice is often ignored. And let’s face it, most caregivers are women. In fact, since women generally outlive men, most senior citizens are probably women. Is a picture emerging?

As I’ve shared bits of my family’s story over the past week, I’ve heard numerous equally horrific examples of disrespect, callous treatment and in some cases probable medical malpractice. It is enough to make you very afraid to grow old.

Briefly here is what we experienced.

My mother was taken via ambulance to the emergency room of a local hospital at 5 pm on Tuesday, February 16, 2010. I advised both the paramedics and the attending in the ER that my mother was diagnosed with NPH (normal pressure hydrocephalus) in 2005 but recently she had been experiencing a drastic decline in mobility. She had also been complaining of pain in her right ankle, knee and wrist which might be the result of a fracture sustained during a recent fall. In addition, and not in any way related to a diagnosis of NPH, a large unknown mass had appeared on her abdomen

At approximately 1 am, Wednesday February 16, 2010, we were still in the emergency room and I had to repeat the same detailed information again to the admitting resident.

Finally, at 3:30 am, after 11 hours in the ER, my mother was taken to a room. Once again, I provided the nurse with a full description of my Mom’s condition.

Later on Wednesday my mother was seen by a neurologist. In fact, I was able to have a wonderful discussion with him when I visited my mother later that afternoon. So far all was going well. I was very troubled that my mother had had very, very little sleep in over 36 hours but I believed that she was receiving the care that she needed.

I won’t bore you with all of the details so I’ll just skip to 11 am Thursday, February 18. While attempting to determine just who in the hospital was coordinating my mother’s care, I was advised that the attending intern/resident in the ER had failed to note anything on her chart about the abdominal mass or my concerns that my mother may have sustained stress fractures during her last fall. In fact, I have good reason to believe that it was not until I brought the non-NPH issues to the attention of the admitting physician on Thursday that X-Rays of her limbs and a MRI of the abdomen had never been ordered. Needless to say, I was not a happy camper. However, at least now everyone was on the same page and all of my mother’s health concerns would be properly addressed. Or so I thought.

Since the hospital was well aware that my mother suffers from NPH, a disease which affects memory and mobility function, I thought certain that they would contact me on Friday morning with her tests results. Unfortunately, not only did the hospital fail to contact me with my mother’s test results, a doctor making his rounds on Friday morning told my mother (not I) that she was being released that day. My mother called me at home at 2pm on Friday and informed me that she was being released. After confirming this with the nurses’ station, I contacted the hospital’s social services office and, in a very forceful manner, asked that they make arrangements to have an ambulance taken out of their establishment asap. Yes, I ranted and now, of course, those rantings are being chalked up to caregiver burnout.

My mother’s discharge papers simply read:

Discharge Diagnosis: Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus
Follow up with your office in one week
Activity: as tolerated:
Diet: regular
Discharge to: Home

There is no mention of any other condition.

Friends, this caregiver may have been tired before last week but if I’m burned out now it’s because the health care system poured the gasoline and lit the match. Sadly, I am learning this this experience is not at all unusual.

Now this Northeastern, college educated, middle aged, liberal understands why it was so easy for the GOP to sell the myth of “death panels” during last summer’s health care reform debate. And I understand why town hall meetings turned into screaming matches.

If the US health care system already treats insured senior citizens so badly, it isn’t a great stretch to believe that someone, somewhere, in the name of saving a dollar, wants to see them dead. It’s not true of course, but …..

originally posted on Pam’s Coffee Conversation

From “Baker’s Dozen About Obama” by Ellen Keim

Here are thirteen of my “Obamic” impressions, for what they’re worth:

First of all, I hope people can separate what they think of Obama–either his track record or the man himself–from the historical fact of his presidency.

Second, I can’t even imagine how much pressure he feels to be the best for fear that he may ruin the chances for another black candidate.

Third, I never thought he was the “Messiah” as some did, so I never expected him to be super-human. Some people are getting disenchanted because they expected perfection and instant gratification.

Fourth, I don’t think people are giving him enough credit for what he has done, either because they don’t agree with it or because it isn’t their pet project.

Fifth, he hasn’t been President for all that long. Considering the messes he inherited, we should expect fixes to take longer than a year.

Sixth, I don’t think we have seen the positive effects yet of the way he has reached out to the Muslim community around the world.

From Marcia G Yerman, “Thoughts for a New Decade: What I Wish for Women“

As we move into a new decade, I can’t help looking over my shoulder at all the things I would like to leave behind.

VIOLENCE: Number One – Violence perpetrated against the female gender. Whether it is domestic violence behind closed doors in the United States, acid being thrown in the faces of young girls in Afghanistan trying to attend school, or rampant rape as a tool of war…It must end.

DYSFUNCTIONAL HEALTH CARE: I would like to discard health care that doesn’t take into account the needs of women, and policies that don’t speak to the disparities in care for all members of the female community at the local, state, and national levels.

UNEQUAL CHANGE: I would welcome a roll back on the wage disparities between a woman’s paycheck and a man’s, taking into account a gap that is even larger for women of color. Moving forward, I would like more support for women working in the services sector, where wages are lower and benefits are commonly non-existent. More legislated awareness for the work/life balance issues that often drive women to choices based on the need for flexibility, as they seek to mesh family responsibilities with a career agenda, would be helpful.

From Margaret, “Free Speech and Corporations“:

Over the weekend, I posted a link on my Facebook page to a Keith Olbermann commentary on the SCOTUS decision that was issued on January 21, 2010. Now, I’m not a fan of Olbermann as a general rule, but I found what he had to say pretty much nailed what has me concerned about this decision. I don’t often publish anything on Facebook that is politically oriented, but I feel as if this decision has such far-reaching implications that it transcends “politics” and really has the potential to impact my daily life. In short, it scares the living crap out of me.

And from Onedia Hayes Sylvest, “Lifting the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Policy — Those Arguments Against Sound Familiar“:

I am a retired navy commander. I retired in 1994 just after the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy was begun. I thought it was insufficient then and I thought the reasons for taking such a half-baked (read another word there) stand was a little brass short of what it should have been. I also heard lots of reasons (and some of those are being repeated now by such people as John McCain) that sounded remarkably familiar.

When I first entered the Navy women did not have pants in their uniforms, they had to leave the service if pregnant, their husbands could not be claimed as “dependents” without proof that the navy woman provided at least 51% of his monetary support. We did not have top ranks or positions, there were no women with stars on their shoulders and we were denied access to many jobs/skill areas solely because of our gender. Women could not serve on ships or on aircraft and the primary reasons offered sounded almost identical to those I heard in 1993 and that I am hearing now.

I know that I served with gays and lesbians in the navy. Most were talented and dedicate. Some were not or even disruptive. However, neither the talent and dedication nor the poor performance and disruptive behavior were caused by their sexual preferences. The same traits and performance were equally present in both heterosexual and homosexual service people. In those days if you wanted to get someone eyeballed by the chain of command then feed the rumor of homosexuality. In my early days many people even assumed that women in the military were probably lesbians and if not they were either looking for a husband or were not of good moral character. The environment bred, I think deliberately, some level of hostility to any who did not fit the accepted image of what a sailor, CPO or officer should be. In the 70′ the primary targets were women and homosexuals.

This is just a sampling of what women are saying.

Want to read more? Why not join us and make your voice heard.

Have you ever wondered why:

• So few women run companies around the world
• Even fewer American companies are run by Japanese men
• There are more tall male leaders than short male leaders
• Pakistani leadership is filled with cricket fans but not racquetball players

Chances are it has nothing to do with outright bias or intentional discrimination. So what happens?

Where is the diversity? Businesses around the world have had diversity as a “must do” in their mission statements for years, in some cases for a decade or more. Multinational companies swear by diversity but behind the scenes swear at it. “Diversity is no longer a nice to have — it is a need to have” say many annual reports which are filled with diverse people smiling out from the pages. In my new book The Loudest Duck: Moving Beyond Diversity I call that the Noah’s Ark theory of diversity — if we could just get two of each in the Ark, we will have accomplished our goal of diversity! Unfortunately, the results are not promising; diversity has not actually truly happened after all this time, after all the effort and money spent.

What makes it hard for diverse companies to become, well, diverse? I saw a slogan that read “We hire for difference and fire because they are not the same.”

In The Loudest Duck I explain why diversity in reality is a lot harder to accomplish than many in management think and why the sea level on diversity has not risen by much. I have worked on leadership and diversity issues for many years — studied it, spoken about it, researched it and ran organizations. Why is Noah’s Ark so hard to really make work? Because the giraffe unconsciously looks at the zebra and thinks “He is funny looking with that stupid short neck and silly black and white stripes. I, the giraffe, am much more capable with my long neck and beautiful brown and white spots.”

The argument is not that diversity and heterogeneity are not worthwhile and extremely valuable for competing and getting the best, most creative ideas. It is that to create a true meritocracy and a place where all diverse ideas are heard and diverse people promoted fairly requires much more consciousness of what we think about others and how we react to them, especially if they are different from us. Diversity requires leaders to have more tools in their toolbox than if they were managing a homogeneous workforce.

In The Loudest Duck I talk about how we all bring Grandma to work with us. Who is Grandma? She is the accumulation of everything we learn about ourselves and others. We learn from our parents, peers, teachers, the media, religion, experience, toys, history, myths and legends. We are all taught from Day 1 about the world and that “learning” seeps unconsciously into our brains and it determines how we see the world and others, particularly others who are different than we are.

Grandma teaches American men that it is okay to brag, to trumpet their successes at work. For them, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Grandma teaches women around the world that there is a social penalty for doing that. (She’s too ambitious or pushy.) Grandma teaches the Chinese to be modest. They are taught from early on that “the Loudest Duck gets shot.” In a diverse American company, the American male manager hears the wheel and not the duck. He hears other American men bragging but hears nothing from the woman or the Chinese man and unconsciously leans toward the American man for the promotion, the pay raise, the better assignments.

Or the boss is an avid cricket fan. That is not a problem if the people who work for him are too. They get together, watch games, talk about the teams and the boss gets comfortable with those people who work for him. But in a diverse company not everyone is a cricket lover. The non-cricket aficionado is put just slightly at a disadvantage because he has less access and familiarity with his manager. The manager, a good person, brings Grandma to work with him and slightly, unconsciously favors the cricket fans.

My book explains why companies have to be far more thoughtful about their diverse workforce and how they are perceived in order to create a level playing field for all. It is not the diversity that is the challenge; it is how we handle the diversity that speeds some people’s careers up and slows others down. And usually it can be seen in the phenomenon of like being comfortable and looking favorably on others who are like them. The Loudest Duck explores the dynamics of dominant groups and non-dominant groups in organizations and the subtle advantage that goes to those in the former category and the subtle disadvantage that accrues to those who don’t look like the dominant group.

No one ever got to the top of the organization by saying “The reason I made it to the top is that I was subtly advantaged. I got to the top because the company is fair and meritocratic.” In a diverse company that is most likely completely untrue. As Malcolm Gladwell writes in his book, Blink 16% of men in the United States are 6′ 2″ or taller but 57% of Fortune 500 male leaders are 6’2″ or taller. We bring unconscious archetypes and beliefs about the attributes of tall versus short into our diverse workplace.

Diverse companies can be much better and more creative, much more profitable and able to succeed globally ONLY if they are aware and conscious of all we bring in preconceived notions of who others are. Leaders become aware that their experiences at work are NOT the same as others’ in Noah’s Ark. The tall white man at the top of the organization may think the world happens to others as it happens to him. It does not.

The Loudest Duck provides leaders and employees tools to make sure that diversity actually works to the benefit of all.

BlogHer contributing editor Mata posted on this today – Is it a joke, or is it hatred disguised in Biblical language?

She quotes Frank Schaeffer who appeared on the Rachel Maddow show last night. Here is a video clip (you need to get about 50 seconds in)…

This is beyond disturbing, it’s down right scary.

I’m interested in knowing what others in this community think about this extreme hatred toward our president. Is it going too far? Let us know what you think in comments.