Yesterday I caught up on replying to comments before going to do volunteer work at Oregon State Penitentiary. There I spoke to around one hundred prisoners on domestic violence, how it leads to more crime, and how we are not at fault for the conditions in our childhoods and the damages they caused to our ability to lead fulfilled lives. But the point I made is that, although we may not be at fault for our mental and emotional backgrounds, we are responsible for repairing them, because they won’t be fixed until we make an unqualified commitment to do whatever it takes to change. That’s the short version. In any case, I did not het home until after I normally wake up to start my nightly research, so I did just enough for this Open Thread, and barring something breaking, this will be my only article for Friday, and when it’s up, I’m dragging my exhausted butt to bed.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today it took me 3:23 (average 4:22). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Minneapolis Star Tribune: Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek on Thursday denied reports that he agreed to drop out of the Floridaa Senate race under pressure from former President Bill Clinton.
Clinton last week while campaigning in Florida tried to talk Meek into quitting, and the congressman agreed twice to drop out and endorse independent candidate Gov. Charlie Crist, Clinton spokesman Matt McKenna confirmed.
I disagree. Although I’d hard time voting for him In good conscience. I think Meek should stay in the race. Helping Crist would not be worth it, because, even if he did caucus with the Democrats, he’d be another LIEberman. A Meek withdrawal would hurt Alex Sink’s excellent chance to win the race for Governor. Do we really want Republicans in charge of counting Florida ballots in 2012?
From NY Times: On Thursday, a government investigation panel said that Halliburton might have played an important role in the April explosion of the Deepwater Horizon platform in the Gulf of Mexico by supplying cement that the company knew was unstable to BP, which used it to seal the well. Halliburton has repeatedly blamed BP, the owner of the well, of failing to test the cement and making other errors that led to the accident, which killed 11 people and spewed millions of barrels of crude oil into the gulf.
I predicted at the time that Halliburton, that still represents the Cheney legacy, would be to blame for much of this. But I repeat that there should be no more deep water drilling until we fully understand how it happened and how to keep it from happening again.
From Common Dreams: US companies are hoarding nearly one trillion dollars of cash that they are unlikely to use for expansion amid a muddled outlook on economic recovery, rating agency Moody’s said Wednesday.
Companies are not expanding production, because US consumers can’t afford to spend, because too few have jobs, because companies are not expanding production, because… How do you spell S-T-I-M-U-L-U-S?!!? 🙄
Cartoon:
TGIF!!
Vote!
17 Responses to “Open Thread – 10/29/2010”
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companies have a new hiring model–20=30 hours per week no benefits, no paid time off. It is cheaper to hire three that way than it is to hire 1 with benefits. We need a divirce from health care and industry, until that happens with a single payer system nothing will get better except for the 2% er’s
Mark, I fully agree. Medicare for all!
TomCat,
You are a great man and an upstanding citizen to do the volunteer work at the peniteniiary as you do. Teabaggers and Republicans could both learn a lot from your selfless example.
Thank you Jack. I’s like to think it’s the difference between autrhentic Christianity and Supply Side Christianity.
TC: You do good and valuable work with the prisoners. I hope they heed your words of wisdom on domestic violence. Unfortunately, the recidivism rate is a whopping 85 percent.
My girls were young, around eight or so, and we were all participating in ballet classes. This was at a time when I was seriously contemplating leaving their abusive father and was doing my usual deep digging research on domestic violence. A Denver psychologist had an organization that’s goal was to treat male abusers and help them to learn more appropriate “behavior.”
He had about seven of them take ballet at our studio as part of therapy. Being a victim of abuse I wasn’t too thrilled about doing plies with abusers but, as it turned out, we grew very fond of them. There was one who looked like a Greek god and seemed especially nice, albeit it very shy. He wasn’t a hunk, just damn good looking in a classic sense.
They rehearsed for and danced in our performance of Cinderella. None of them had a lick of talent but they were good sports and actually took their roles very seriously – even helping to make their own costumes. Even our own male dancers enjoyed them. Several months after the performance and after they had left the program, we learned that the Greek god had gone to jail for murdering his wife. It left me with the chilling reminder that, even though someone may appear to be rehabilitated and appear to be “nice,” all too often, especially in cases of abuse, some unknown force just causes them to snap and they can’t control their rage.
Still, I sincerely applaud what you are doing and hope you keep doing it. I firmly believe that at least some can be rehabilitated, rewarding your efforts with positive results.
Thank you, Leslie. Actually nationwide, the recidivism rate is about 65%, but it;s still way too high. The men that we have worked with have a 12 1/2% recidivism rate and they were short term returns for relatively minor violations. All are back out and hanging in.
Programs of the type you mentioned are well intended and beneficial in developing empathy, but only as an adjunct to more intensive therapy. Such individuals need to learn to understand their cycle of abuse, recognize their triggers, unlearn thinking errors to replace them with pro social thinking, learn to manage stress, and learn intervention strategies to derail their cycle of abuse long before it reaches the violent stage.
Abusers of all types who invest a year or more to complete such a progtam have a recidivism raqte of under 5%.
Leslie – I am glad you got out of your domestic situation so you didn’t wind up like that poor woman did. My father (may he rot in hell) was an abuser as well. My first clear memory as a child (I was probably a little over two) was waking up, hearing my father screaming at my mother and throwing plates at her, while she was pregnant. If she hadn’t left when she did (I was 3 and my sister was 6 mos.), I’m sure we’d all be dead.
TC – Good for you to talk to the prisoners about domestic violence, especially in light of recent news. I applaud your dedication to helping these prisoners rehabilitate themselves. It’s a big sacrifice for you, but you are doing God’s work, unlike those fake “Christians”.
I don’t think that Crist would caucus with the Repubs – he sees how nutty they are and he seems like a reasonable man. I also don’t think he would be another Lieberdouche; no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t be THAT bad. And again, he doesn’t seem like the backstabbing type. I’m pretty good at calling personality disorders, and I don’t think he has it in him. But I can so see the Big Dog doing something like that. I love the man, but he can’t be trusted and he’s just slimy. He needs a leash. 😉
I agree with you on both points – no more drilling until we figure out what went wrong and I knew that Halliburton had done something wrong. Not that BP didn’t fuck up massively, but Halliburton is not known for it’s quality work (electrocuting soldiers anyone?). I do hope that Transocean will get dragged into this as well – after all, they owned the damned rig. Time to short BP and Halliburton and make some money off their demise. 👿 I made a bundle when the rig blew; I’d never buy a share of their stock, but I LOVE naked shorts on them. 😈
Obama is foolishly giving corporations a tax break on capital expenditures for a year; in his mind, if they buy more equipment, they’ll need more people to run it. I’d bet you a million dollars that they’ll buy the equipment and FIRE more workers because now they can totally automate their plant. Who’s with me on that? If it were up to me, I’d tax the fuckers for hoarding all that cash, say at 90%, but I’m just mean like that. 👿 That’ll get those companies asses in gear.
That cartoon is a little too close to reality. Hairdressers, car washers and any other person who was breathing and totally not qualified to sign off on those foreclosures, were the ones who did it. I hope someone sues their asses into bankruptcy. Move your money to a credit union – I did in February (from Chase whom I had banked with for 25 years) and I couldn’t be happier with their service, friendliness and helpfulness in any situation. They processed a car loan for me and in 15 minutes I was approved. Chase can bite me and every time I drive past the branch, I flip them off for good measure. 😆 I’ve made more money on my checking interest in a month than I did in my money market account for the whole year – and there was a lot of money in there. My interest rate at Chase on the MM was .001%. I didn’t even get a tax statement, because my interest for last year was under $10. Ridiculous. They wanted to know how they could retain my business and I told them to fire Jaime Dimon. 👿 He said he really couldn’t do that. 🙄
See what happens when you only have one post – I blabber on FOREVER. Sorry, it didn’t look that long when I re-read it. Oops. 😳
Lisa, the day you decide to stop running off at the yap, please reconsider. We love you just the way you are.
5:00 You may have been exhausted, but you still had enough energy to beat my butt. Of course the way I have been solving the jigsaw puzzles lately, maybe it does not take much energy.
Jerry, I think you are over thinking the puzzles, but then, I’ve never done one because a) I hate those things and b) working against a clock makes me just f up even more. It would probably take me 2 hours to solve one.
Lisa G, You are probably correct, but believe it or not, I do enjoy doing them even though TomCat keeps beating my ass.
Jerry, you might want to keep in mind that I started doing Jig Zone puzzles in 2002, and except for a couple stints when I had to ne offline for a while, have been doing them daily since. You do remarkably well.
Gee, US corporations hording money. What a surprise! This also shows you that giving more money to corporations is NOT the way to create jobs. Do you want to give corporations incentive? Instead of giving them the money, give it to consumers of their products. When corporations see demand for their products go up, they will rush to create jobs to supply those products. Until then, they will either sit on it or give it away to their executives and stockholders — but will NOT create jobs with it.
Jerry, that’s exactly the point I was making. Thanks for clarifying it.
I voted a week ago and I have to admit I am very curious to follow every state every race.
So am I, my friend. I just hope that doing it doesn’t land me in a rubber room. 😉