Owl mythology

At left: On Sunday, I saw this owl on the Swamp Rabbit Trail, maybe 90 minutes before dusk.




He flew from tree to tree about 100 yards in front of me, which is when I first noticed him. He had an enormous wing span. I was walking in his direction, so when I arrived below the tree where he was, I spoke to him. He looked right at me and seemed to be listening. I suddenly understood all the stories about owls being "wise"--they do seem to be smart and attentive, with their immense, intense eyes.

Watching him for a few minutes, I realized he was carefully watching me too, looking me up and down. Very large black eyes; a creepy feeling, as if sizing me up to determine if I could be eaten.

I stood there awhile, sort of communing with the owl. I asked him a couple of spiritually-oriented questions that I won't repeat here. As I said, he seemed to be listening, so why not? The swamp is so, so hushed and quiet. It seemed appropriate to break the silence and say hello.

I then pointed him out to the next couple of cyclists as they whizzed by; these two expensively-sports-attired young fellows ignored me as if I was a crazy old woman (uh-oh). But the next two middle-aged women cyclists stopped and cooed appreciatively at him, taking photos also. A nice Baptist-looking family of cyclists also stopped, their teenage son especially impressed, exclaiming he had never been so close to an owl that was not caged.

On my way home, I idly considered the Lakota legend concerning the sighting of owls in the daytime (portent of death) and wondered if Lakota legends 1) applied to non-Lakota, and 2) applied in Carolina. (Wouldn't Cherokee or Catawba legends apply here instead?) And then I promptly forgot about the owl... until I dreamed about him.

He was answering my questions. He answered them very clearly, but not in "language." They were answers that formed in my mind, and when I woke up, I knew what I should do and what was going to happen.

So, I realize now that the owls are magic.

I posted the owl's photo on Facebook and received a couple of warnings about bad luck. And so I looked up some of the mythology and omens connected with owls. I discovered that throughout the world, they are regarded as signs of both good and bad luck. Also, I learned that the concept of owls being "sisters" originally comes from the indigenous people of Australia (see list below), which I hadn't known. There is a national women's organization called OWL (Older Women's League), which (as far as I know) has mostly regrouped into smaller, local chapters. I always wondered why they chose that particular name; I assumed it was a reference to the wisdom of age. I realize now that the connection of owls/women is part of the world's mythology.

The Owl Pages offers everything you ever wanted to know about owls. I discovered his species: Barred Owl, although many southerners call them Rain Owls, which is certainly an interesting (and appropriate!) name, since we have had so much rain lately.

From the Owl Pages, I found a list of fascinating world-legends and mythology about owls.

Here are some of my favorites:

Africa, Central: the Owl is the familiar of wizards to the Bantu.

Africa, Southern: Zulus know the Owl as the sorcerers' bird.

Africa, West: the messenger of wizards and witches, the Owl's cry presages evil.

Algeria: place the right eye of an Eagle Owl in the hand of a sleeping woman and she will tell all.

Arabia: the Owl is a bird of ill omen, the embodiment of evil spirits that carries off children at night. According to an ancient Arabic treatise, from each female Owl supposedly came two eggs, one held the power to cause hair to fall out and one held the power to restore it. Arabs once believed that the spirit of a murdered man continues to wail and weep until his death is avenged. They believed that a bird that they called "al Sada" (or the death-owl) would continue to hoot over the grave of a slain man whose death had not been avenged. The bird would continue to hoot endlessly until the slain man's death was avenged.

Arctic Circle: a little girl was turned into a bird with a long beak by magic, but was so frightened she flapped about madly and flew into a wall, flattening her face and beak. So the Owl was created.

Australia: Aborigines believe bats represent the souls of men and Owls the souls of women. Owls are therefore sacred, because your sister is an Owl - and the Owl is your sister.

Borneo: the Supreme Being turned his wife into an Owl after she told secrets to mortals.

Brittany: an Owl seen on the way to the harvest is the sign of a good yield.

Burma: during a quarrel among the birds, the Owl was jumped upon and so his face was flattened.

Cameroon: too evil to name, the Owl is known only as "the bird that makes you afraid".

Carthage: the city was captured by Agathocles of Syracuse (Southern Italy) in 310 BC. Afterward, he released Owls over his troops and they settled on their shields and helmets, signifying victory in battle.

Celtic: the Owl was a sign of the underworld.

China: the Owl is associated with lightning (because it brightens the night) and with the drum (because it breaks the silence). Placing Owl effigies in each corner of the home protect it against lightning. The Owl is regarded as a symbol of too much Yang (positive, masculine, bright, active energy).

France: when a pregnant woman hears an Owl it is an omen that her child will be a girl.

Germany: if an Owl hoots as a child is born, the infant will have an unhappy life.

India: The Barn owl is the "vahana" (transport/vehicle/mount) of the Hindu goddess of wisdom, Lakshmi. As such, the owl is held as a symbol of wisdom and learning. The eagle owls, especially the rock eagle owl [Bubo bengalensis] and the brown fish owl [Bubo zeylonensis] are called " ullu" in Hindi and the word is also used as a synonym for "idiot" or "imbecile". The most chilling sound during the quiet and cold winter nights in the plains of Bengal is perhaps the call of the " kaal penchaa", the Brown Hawk Owl. The rhythmic "kuk - kuk - kuk" is believed to be a foreboding of impending death.

Indonesia: Around Manado, on the isle of Sulawesi, People consider Owls very wise. They call them Burung Manguni. Every time someone wants to travel, they listen to the owls. The owls make two different sounds; the first means it is safe to go, and the second means it's better to stay at home. The Minahasa, people around Manado, take those warnings very seriously.

Iran: In Farsi the Little Owl (Athene Noctua) is called "Joghde-kochek". It is said that this bird brings bad luck. In Islam, it's forbidden (Haram) to eat.

Ireland: An Owl that enters the house must be killed at once, for if it flies away it will take the luck of the house with it.

Israel: in Hebrew lore the Owl represents blindness and desolation and is unclean.

At left: the swamp itself, which is much more ominous after heavy rains. I love love love it, except for the mosquitoes, which are humongous and always-starving. It is also home to the largest snake I have EVER seen that wasn't under glass in a zoo.

~*~





Japan: Among the Ainu people the Eagle Owl is revered as a messenger of the gods or a divine ancestor. They would drink a toast to the Eagle Owl before a hunting expedition. The Screech Owl warns against danger, although they believe the Barn Owl and Horned Owl are demonic. They would nail wooden images of owls to their houses in times of famine or pestilence.

Latvia: when Christian soldiers entered his temple, the local pagan god flew away as an Owl.

Lorraine: spinsters go to the woods and call to the Owl to help them find a husband.

Madagascar: Owls join witches to dance on the graves of the dead.

Malawi: the Owl carries messages for witches.

Mexico: the Owl makes the cold North wind (the gentle South wind is made by the butterfly). The Little Owl was called "messenger of the lord of the land of the dead", and flew between the land of the living and the dead.

Newfoundland: the hoot of the Horned Owl signals the approach of bad weather.

Poland: Polish folklore links Owls with death. Girls who die unmarried turn into doves; girls who are married when they die turn into Owls. An owl cry heard in or near a home usually meant impending death, sickness, or other misfortune. An old story tells how the Owl does not come out at during the day because it is too beautiful, and would be mobbed by other, jealous birds.

Puerto Rico: The Owl is called "Mucaro". Back in the 1800s, the people from the mountain coffee plantations used to blame the little mucaro for the loss of coffee grains. The belief was that the coffee was part of the owls' diet, and many owls were killed. There are old folklore songs on the subject, one goes like this:

Poor Mucaro, you're a gentleman
you just want to eat a rat
then the rat
set up a trap
he eats the coffee grains
and people blame you.

Romania: the souls of repentant sinners flew to heaven in the guise of a Snowy Owl.

Russia: hunters carry Owl claws so that, if they are killed, their souls can use them to climb up to Heaven. It is said that Tartar shaman of Central Russia could assume Owl shapes. Kalmyks hold the Owl to be sacred because one once saved the life of Genghis Khan.

Samoa: the people are descended from an Owl.

Siberia: the Owl is a helpful spirit.

Spain: legend has it that the Owl was once the sweetest of singers, until it saw Jesus crucified. Ever since it has shunned daylight and only repeats the words 'cruz, cruz' ('cross, cross').

Sri Lanka: the Owl is married to the bat.

Sumeria: The goddess of death, Lilith, was attended by Owls.

Sweden: the Owl is associated with witches.

~*~

And so we see, Owls are often connected with women, and with spirituality... or both.

Since my dream, I choose to see my owl as a good omen. But I also realize that life IS impermanence, and what is regarded as "good" right now, may well be considered "bad" in the future.

Perhaps that is the lesson of the owl. Live completely in the present.

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Latest in Nuke News

Last week, we interviewed Mary Olsen (of Nuclear Information and Resource Service) on Occupy the Microphone. (For the best in recent nuke news, check out NIRS.org)



Some of the news Mary shared with us:

[] In March, the NRC denied a third reactor to Calvert Cliffs nuke in Maryland:

The five-member commission [that oversees the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission] upheld an earlier Atomic Safety and Licensing Board ruling on the Calvert Cliffs 3 new nuclear reactor application, which had denied UniStar Nuclear Energy LLC’s application because of its failure to meet NRC foreign ownership requirements for US power reactors.

On Aug. 31, the three-judge ASLB denied a license for the proposed Calvert Cliffs unit 3 project because UniStar was bought out by Electricite de France in November 2010, resulting in 100-percent French ownership of UniStar.

[] In April, the Crystal River nuke in Florida was permanently shut down due to cracks in the containment dome and other problems; it has been offline since 2009 and has been a long-term headache for Duke Energy ever since:

The Crystal River plant in Citrus County, Florida, is operated by Progress Energy Florida. A failed repair to its thick reactor containment building led to repeated problems with cracking concrete in the structure.

Duke cited differences with merger partner Progress Energy last year over Crystal River’s condition. Progress CEO Bill Johnson, who was fired as chief executive of the combined companies, had favored repairing the 36-year-old plant.

But a Duke-commissioned engineering report late last year concluded that, while repairs were feasible, they could cost up to $3.4 billion in a worst-case scenario.

[] In May, the Kewaunee nuke in Wisconsin was permanently shut down:

The Kewaunee plant, which opened in 1974, was sold in 2005 to Dominion, based in Richmond, Va., by its owners, the Wisconsin Public Service Corporation and Wisconsin Power and Light. In the past, the lengthy decommissioning process that nuclear power requires was in the hands of local companies, which have had the option to go to a public service commission and ask for a rate increase to pay for the job if it proved unexpectedly difficult.

But Kewaunee was a “merchant” plant, a sort of free agent on the grid, selling its electricity on contract, at a price set by the market, not by the government.

...

Earlier this year, [Rep. Edward Markey] pointed out, the owners of the Crystal River 3 plant in Florida decided to retire it rather than repair its containment structure, because of unfavorable economics. Industry experts say that several reactors are operating at a loss while their owners wait for the glut of natural gas to disappear. How long that will be, and how many will last, is not clear.

“Once these old nuclear reactors shut down — as we’re seeing now — it will take 60 years and hundreds of millions of dollars to decontaminate them,” Mr. Markey said in a statement. “Taxpayers should have assurances that these nuclear relics don’t outlive their corporate owners and their ability to fund nuclear cleanup costs, leaving ordinary Americans to foot the bill.”

[] The NRC denied a license to Nuclear Innovation North America LLC for their proposed South Texas 3 & 4 Project (a joint venture between NRG Energy and Toshiba) because Toshiba owns a controlling interest in the nuclear reactors, in violation of US law:

The federal regulator denied the application of Nuclear Innovation North America LLC for a license to build the reactors, noting that Toshiba’s ownership stake in and “overwhelming financial contributions” to the project afford it a degree of control over the nuclear power plant that exceeds the limits of the Atomic Energy Act.

“The staff has determined that Toshiba, a Japanese corporation, through Toshiba American Nuclear Energy Corp. … its American subsidiary, is the sole source of financing for NINA,” the commission said in a letter denying the license.

[] Nuclear plant San Onofre 2 & 3 in California, has been shut down permanently, due to one disaster after another:

[The] nuke plant’s two operating reactors had already been shut down since January 2012. Southern California Edison’s decision to give up the ghost can be traced to its pattern of extreme mismanagement of plant operations, consequent huge financial losses, and the tenacious opposition that rallied local communities to take action to keep the unsafe plant shut down.

San Onofre is the largest nuclear power plant to be shut down in the US. One reactor was retired in 1992. The other two, just cut loose, formerly generated 2200 Megawatts of electricity to 1.5 million households. Located between San Diego and Los Angeles, the plant supplied power to 1.5 million households. 8.7 million people live within 50 miles of it. The two reactors at San Onofre had been scheduled to operate until 2022.

...

Long before Fukushima, San Onofre had already been having its own problems.
Reactor Unit 1, started up in 1968, had to be shut down in 1992 after problems with equipment that came back to haunt Edison with a vengeance in recent years at its other reactors.

In 2006 workers found radioactive water under Unit 1 that was 16 times more radioactive than EPA permitted levels for its presence in drinking water. And this was 14 years after that reactor had been shut down.
In August 2008 the Los Angeles Times reported “Injury rates at San Onofre put it dead last among US nuclear plants when it comes to industrial safety.” Later that year it emerged that a battery system, key to providing backup power to pump water to flood Unit 2’s reactor in case of a potential meltdown “was inoperable between 2004 and 2008 because of loose electrical connection,” the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported.

And also in 2008, the Radiation and Public Health Project reported, in the European Journal of Cancer Care, that the counties nearest San Onofre, had the highest child leukemia mortality rates, of counties near nuclear power plants studied for the years 1974-2004.

...

All this led to 2009 and 2010, when Edison found it necessary to replace the four massive steam generators in San Onofre’s units 2 and 3. The original steam generators lasted over a quarter century, though they were supposed to last for the life of the reactors, 40 years. Steam generators facilitate the creation of steam to turn turbines to generate electricity in the type of nuclear plants most common in the US. Water pipes run through reactors and are heated by nuclear fuel. But this water also picks up lots of radioactivity. The steam generators have tubes that pass on the heat to another set up pipes that make the steam, while not passing on the radioactivity, which otherwise would escape into the environment and contaminate it. Thus the steam generators are key to keeping these nuclear plants running safely. Edison reportedly spent $680 million on the replacement steam generators. Since the plant was not originally designed to need replacements, the utility had to cut huge holes in buildings to get them inside.

And then they turned to junk in just a few years.

In a March 2012 report , Arne Grundersen, of Vermont’s Fairewind’s Associates, a former nuclear industry engineer, described the decisive moments when San Onofre’s shut down began in January 2012: “Unit 3 was operating at full power and experienced a complete perforation of one [steam generator] tube that allowed highly radioactive water from inside the reactor to mix with non-radioactive water that was turning the turbine. As a consequence, an uncontrolled release of radiation ensued, and San Onofre was forced to shut down due to steam generator failure.”

[] And finally, Warren Buffett's MidAmerican Energy has shelved all plans for a nuclear reactor in Iowa, opting for wind turbines instead:

MidAmerican Energy has scrapped plans for Iowa’s second nuclear plant and will refund $8.8 million ratepayers paid for a now-finished feasibility study, utility officials said Monday.

The utility has decided against building any major power plant: “We opted for what was in the best interest of our customers,” MidAmerican vice president for regulatory affairs Dean Crist told The Des Moines Register.

Mid­American will focus on its plan to build up to 656 wind turbines in a $1.9 billion project across Iowa, which also will trim power bills by saving fuel costs.

Thanks to Mary for coming on our show; she will be revisiting us soon.

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Oconee Nuclear Station unsafe

At left: The Oconee Nuclear Station is right around the proverbial corner from me, so now I am damn nervous.

There is also the fact Duke Energy is run by money-grubbing liars and it is therefore impossible to trust anything they say. (This has been true since... well, when HASN'T it been true?)

In a report on Huffington Post, the vulnerability and instability of the Oconee plant has been outlined, thanks to a letter from whistleblower Richard Perkins, an engineer. Perkins was one of the authors of a report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, detailing the problems at Oconee and similar plants.

Oconee was singled out as particularly vulnerable.

According to the above-linked Huffington Post piece:

[The] vulnerability at one plant in particular -- the three-reactor Oconee Nuclear Station near Seneca, S.C. -- put it at risk of a flood and subsequent systems failure, should an upstream dam completely fail, that would be similar to the tsunami that hobbled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility in Japan last year. That event caused multiple reactor meltdowns.

In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Huffington Post, Richard H. Perkins, a reliability and risk engineer with the agency's division of risk analysis, alleged that NRC officials falsely invoked security concerns in redacting large portions of a report detailing the agency's preliminary investigation into the potential for dangerous and damaging flooding at U.S. nuclear power plants due to upstream dam failure.

Perkins, along with at least one other employee inside NRC, also an engineer, suggested that the real motive for redacting certain information was to prevent the public from learning the full extent of these vulnerabilities, and to obscure just how much the NRC has known about the problem, and for how long.

"What I've seen," Perkins said in a phone call, "is that the NRC is really struggling to come up with logic that allows this information to be withheld."

Perkins was the lead author of the report, which was completed in July of 2011 -- roughly four months after an earthquake and subsequent tsunami flooded the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, cut off electric power to the facility and disabled all of its backup power systems, eliminating the ability to keep the reactors cool and leading to a meltdown.

In addition to the Oconee facility, the report examined similar vulnerabilities at the Ft. Calhoun station in Nebraska, the Prairie Island facility in Minnesota and the Watts Bar plant in Tennessee, among others.

According to the report, dam-failure occurring upstream from these plants "may result in flood levels at a site that render essential safety systems inoperable." All power sources (including backup batteries, generators and grid power) could be compromised by high floodwaters.

In response to the report, the NRC launched an expanded investigation, which is ongoing. It also folded the dam failure issue into the slate of post-Fukushima improvements recommended by a special task force formed in the aftermath of that disaster. But in a press release dated March 6 of this year, the agency said the report "did not identify any immediate safety concerns."

The NRC made a heavily redacted copy of the report publicly available on the NRC website the same day.

"Nuclear power plant designs include protection against serious but very rare flooding events, including flooding from dam failure scenarios," the agency release noted.

Very rare events! Nothing to worry about!

And where have we heard THAT before?

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff may be motivated to prevent the disclosure of this safety information to the public because it will embarrass the agency," Perkins wrote in his letter. "The redacted information includes discussion of, and excerpts from, NRC official agency records that show the NRC has been in possession of relevant, notable, and derogatory safety information for an extended period but failed to properly act on it. Concurrently, the NRC concealed the information from the public."

In a conversation with The Huffington Post, Perkins elaborated on the redacted material. "My estimation is that if people saw the information that we have, and if they knew for how long we've had it, some might be disappointed at how long it's taken to act, and some might be disappointed that, to date, we haven't really acted at all."

What is darkly humorous is how many rich people live up on Lake Keowee. Maybe THAT will force them to act? They are right in the line of this possible future-disaster.

At the least, their property values have just plummeted.

Will their GREED railroad the NRC into action, if nothing else? Will property-owners and real-estate developers succeed where other mere humans (and concerned engineers) have failed?

Meanwhile, [Perkins] is among several nuclear experts who remain particularly concerned about the Oconee plant in South Carolina, which sits on Lake Keowee, 11 miles downstream from the Jocassee Reservoir. Among the redacted findings in the July 2011 report -- and what has been known at the NRC for years, the engineer said -- is that the Oconee facility, which is operated by Duke Energy, would suffer almost certain core damage if the Jocassee dam were to fail. And the odds of it failing sometime over the next 20 years, the engineer said, are far greater than the odds of a freak tsunami taking out the defenses of a nuclear plant in Japan.

"The probability of Jocassee Dam catastrophically failing is hundreds of times greater than a 51 foot wall of water hitting Fukushima Daiichi," the engineer said. "And, like the tsunami in Japan, the man‐made 'tsunami' resulting from the failure of the Jocassee Dam will –- with absolute certainty –- result in the failure of three reactor plants along with their containment structures.

"Although it is not a given that Jocassee Dam will fail in the next 20 years," the engineer added, "it is a given that if it does fail, the three reactor plants will melt down and release their radionuclides into the environment."

David Lochbaum, a nuclear expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said a key concern was that the NRC has failed to appreciate and tackle this risk for so long. "NRC can, or may, resolve the flooding issues," Lochbaum said. "But if it doesn't step back and review when those problems could have been exposed sooner, it won't make the programmatic fixes needed to become a more effective regulator.

I've been sleeping well lately, but tonight? Don't know if I will.

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It's enough to make you sick

Last evening, Occupy Greenville sponsored a Teach-In featuring a showing of Sick Around the World, followed by a spirited and lively discussion. There were maybe a dozen of us in attendance.

This follows our showing of Sick Around America last week--both shows produced by PBS Frontline.

It's a depressing situation: how did this country's health care system get so messed up? Can we fix it? Will 'Obamacare' make it better or stretch our existing makeshift solutions to the breaking point?

Sick Around the World profiled five rich, capitalist, Western countries, and how they have managed health care for their citizens: Taiwan, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, and the UK. All systems are far superior to ours, and running on less.

From the transcript of "Sick Around the World"--some highlights:

T.R. REID: [voice-over] Here's something else that's different. Japanese patients have much longer hospital stays than Americans, and they love technology, like scans. They have nearly twice as many MRIs per capita as Americans, eight times as many as the Brits.

So how do they keep costs under control? Well, it turns out the Japanese health ministry tightly controls the price of health care, right down to the smallest detail. Every two years, the physicians and the health ministry negotiate a fixed price for every single procedure and drug. Like the items in this sushi bar, everything from open heart surgery to a routine check-up has a standard price, and this price is the same everywhere in Japan.

If a doctor tries to boost his income by increasing the number of procedures, well, then, guess what? At the next negotiation, the government lowers the price. That's what happened with MRIs, which are incredibly cheap in Japan. I asked the country's top health economist, Professor Naoki Ikegami, to tell us how that happened.

[on camera] In Denver, where I live, if you get an MRI of your neck region, it's $1,200, and the doctor we visited in Japan says he gets $98 for an MRI. So how do you do that?

Prof. NAOKI IKEGAMI, School of Medicine, Keio Univ.: Well, in 2002, the government says that the MRIs, "We are paying too much. So in order to be within the total budget, we will cut them by 35 percent."

T.R. REID: So, if I'm a doctor, why don't I say, "Well, I'm not going to do them, then. It's not enough money"?

Prof. NAOKI IKEGAMI: You forgot that we have only one payment system. So if you want to do your MRIs, unless you can get private-pay patients, which is almost impossible in Japan, you go out of business.

T.R. REID: [voice-over] So that shafts the medical device makers and must limit innovation, right? Well, no. Japanese manufacturers of scanning equipment, like Toshiba, found ways to make inexpensive machines they could sell to doctors. And guess what? Now they're exporting those machines all over the world.

The whole show was like this, a series of PRICE REGULATING realizations that blew my little mind. (Why do we accept the AMA's flimsy-ass excuses for everything?)

In Taiwan, everybody must opt into the system, and they issue a standard government health care card that you just pop into a slot, like paying to park: Zip. All I could think, watching them flip that wonderful little card in and out of various slots, was how these rabidly-anti-government guys around here (waves to my radio-show callers!) would never go along with something like that: galdurnit, I won't get a guvmint ID card! I can hear it now--echoes of last week's Ron Paul rally dancing in my head.

What is interesting is that once they finally get it established, even conservatives in these countries appreciate (and want to continue) universal health care for all of their citizens. And at that point, it becomes another political football, as liberal politicians threaten the populace that conservatives want to cut benefits. (Could that actually happen here?)

In Switzerland, their system was a wreck as late as 1994. It took a lot of political will to change it. Their administrative costs are now 5% of their medical budget, compared to our whopping 22%. From the transcript:

[on camera] One of the problems we have in America is that many people -- it's a huge number of people -- go bankrupt because of medical bills. Some studies say 700,000 people a year. How many people in Switzerland go bankrupt because of medical bills?

President PASCAL COUCHEPIN: Nobody. It doesn't happen. It would be a huge scandal if it happens.

T.R. REID: [voice-over] But here's Switzerland's challenge. Having achieved universal health care, it has to decide how much citizens are willing to pay. Today, an average monthly premium for a Swiss family is about $750. But there's pressure to raise the premiums. And it's already the second most expensive health care system in the world, although still much cheaper than ours.

What's interesting about Switzerland is that after LAMal's success, people in this proud capitalist country see limits now to the free market.

[on camera] Could a 100 percent free market system work in health care?

Pres. PASCAL COUCHEPIN: No, I don't think that. If you do that, you will lose solidarity and equal access for everybody.

In conclusion, there appears to be three major factors to make universal health care work:

These capitalist countries don't trust health care entirely to the free market. They all impose limits.

There are three big ones. First, insurance companies must accept everyone and can't make a profit on basic care. Second, everybody's mandated to buy insurance, and the government pays the premium for the poor. Third, doctors and hospitals have to accept one standard set of fixed prices.

Can Americans accept ideas like that?

Well, the fact is these foreign health care ideas aren't really so foreign to us. For American veterans, health care is just like Britain's NHS. For seniors on Medicare, we're Taiwan. For working Americans with insurance, we're Germany. And for the tens of million without health insurance, we're just another poor country.

But almost all of us can agree that this fragmented health care mess cannot be ignored. The longer we leave it, the sicker it becomes, and the more expensive the cure.

I'll repeat the question here: Can Americans accept these ideas, do you think?

~*~

Update: Walkupy's recent bust in Madison County, Georgia, did not dim the hardy spirits of our Occupiers! We tweeted news of the arrest to the world and the Madison County Sheriff's Office was bombarded with phone calls from all manner of lefty busybodies such as your humble narrator. The Powers-That-Be responded by setting them free with all charges dropped--WOOT! Very happy about that, as one of our local Greenville Occupiers has joined up with Walkupy for a stint. (We love you, Lynne!)

From the Anderson Independent Mail, here are some very nice pictures of Walkupy on the roads.

~*~

At left: Daisy and the dangerous sign-carrier. (Would this man hit anybody with a sign?)



Speaking of busts, the official consiglieri/producer of the DAISY DEADHEAD SHOW, Gregg Jocoy, was cited for having a sign that was TOO BIG, outside the federal courthouse last week, during the Occupy the Courts action. Yes, there is some dopey Greenville County ordinance about the size of signs.

And what about Newt's enormous signs all over the county (that still haven't been taken down by his lazy supporters)? Well, they don't count, since it's a PICKETING ordinance! Big signs are okay, but not if you are walking around with it... I guess he might hit somebody with it? He'll poke his eye out!

So, an expensive citation, which I suspect was really because he was out there yelling about the courts. Occupy the Courts was a national succcess, if (as usual) receiving little media coverage.

I love seeing the Occupy movement stretch out in all directions!

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Oh no, there goes Tokyo

We have a giant Godzilla poster hanging on our wall, which will probably not surprise anyone.

History shows again and again how nature points up the folly of man.

~*~

Blue Oyster Cult - Godzilla

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National Museum of the Pacific War

Back from Texas! And my internet was down upon my return, so a bit late in checking in. Sorry about that, sports fans!


Below, photos of the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas, birthplace of Admiral Nimitz.

Some of the displays can make you cry. :( The Pearl Harbor segment is loud and unnerving in the extreme, imitating what it might have been like for the residents that day.

Most photos are self-explanatory, but for the historically-challenged, photo #5 was a short film about the Rape of Nanking, too horrific for words, reducing our plucky narrator to sobs. Photo #8 was an account of the Battle of Midway, where we settled some hash.

Photo #6 is actually rather amusing now, especially when you are standing amidst all the artillery and gun-fetishism of central Texas. Really General Kanji, I hardly think so.

The next-to-last photo is of the SACO flag. And similarly, there were oodles of uniforms, flight jackets and other wartime paraphernalia, but unfortunately, those photos didn't turn out so well. (I don't know the makes and models of those fighter-planes, but if you do, speak up!)

Daisy concludes: War is bad.

Truthfully, I came to that conclusion before I ever went in.

~*~

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Random complaining

I don't like:

...people who live in apartments and insist upon owning gigantic dogs that can't be exercised on a damn patio, so they bark all day long from boredom.

...southerners who claim various pot-luck offerings are vegetarian, but when pressed, admit said vegetable was fried in bacon grease.

...people who say the radiation in Japan is waaaay over there, so don't you worry yourself over it. The earth doesn't turn and the air never blows and water all stays in one place, so there's no way radiation can spread... oh, wait.

...de-clawing kitties. DON'T DO THAT. And I have the torn-up couches to prove that I don't believe in it. But I can also attest that torn-up couches are a small price to pay for well-mannered, happy felines.

...the way Farmville is always trying to separate you from your credit card, to purchase much-ballyhooed "Farm Cash"--with which you can buy cartoon lakes and donkeys and other dopey shit you don't need... hey, it's just like REAL LIFE!

...And finally...(((drum roll))

Male "enhancement" ads, like the endless infomercial I am listening to right now, wherein a dynamite sex-supplement promises to make you BIGGER and BETTER. It's probably just L-Arginine, an amino acid that can be taken by itself in large doses; up to 3 grams safely. (Works on women too! :D ) And it's lots cheaper than these TV-boosted supplements, which likely include Yohimbe, something that can adversely affect men with hypertension. (The difference between simple L-Arginine and these hotshot supplements can be as much as 100 bucks, so buyer beware.) I also hate the Viagra commercials for using the legendary and fabulous song "Spoonful" in the ads. The not-so-subtle racism of using a well-known black blues song directed at suburban white men with nice cars (not to mention the comprehensive medical insurance that covers these pricey Rx drugs; some insurers don't) seems a little obvious: If you take Viagra/Cialis/etc, you will be as sexy as black men, seems to be the significance of the blues-man message. And then there is the additional subtlety of the title and concept: you only need a spoonful of Viagra.

But even without music, all the winky-winky stuff in the ads (any moment can turn into a Cialis moment!) is offensive and junior high school. Yes, we all know how we get horny just by hammering nails (think about the Freudian implications of that for a second) and hanging out with the mister, as he does his manly household tasks. And then, a knowing look is exchanged, pecks on the mouth, and they leave the room together, arm in arm. We all know that our sexual experiences are EXACTLY like that, now don't we? (((rolls eyes)))

I do appreciate that the women in the ads are the same age as the men. In fact, these ads might be the only place on TV that this is true! Mostly, hot new actresses are paired with older, non-hotties. (Think about LAW AND ORDER and the age disparities.. gray hair and such are standard, but the women are all young.) This is true in movies as well. What can we surmise from this?: That BigPharma is aware they should try to be realistic in these ads--no Lolitas anywhere. And besides, maybe that is intimidating to older men? Or do they (as I suspect) just find the idea silly? (All they want is some familiar intimacy with the wife, not the babysitter.)

The CARS in the ads, and the fact that Viagra now sponsors NASCAR, well, that shouldn't be surprising. PERFORMANCE is a big word in all advertising related to men: Stereos, cell phones, cars, musical instruments, razor blades, athletic shoes, all promise various wonderful levels of PERFORMANCE, a word you rarely hear in commercials for women's products.

Now, I wonder why that is.

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Some more good news

So much is going on in the world, I hardly know where to begin. Alternative medicine suppliers have had an unexpected nationwide-run on all types of iodine, in anticipation of radiation poisoning. The failure of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuke took us totally by surprise and has freaked everyone out. This has been the unexpected catalyst of the sudden requests; we never expected it and didn't plan for it. For my part, I've been reminding everyone of how right I was in opposing nuclear power back in the wayward 70s, and loading up on nori. I figure it can't hurt.

And I've been talking to my customers, as always.

I guess you all know that the Left Behinders are out in force, what with wars and revolutions and rebellions all over the Mideast, as well as probable-meltdowns and the infamous year 2012 approaching. It's the end of the world as we know it.

Along these lines, I thought yall might like to see the First of the Four Horsemen, spotted in Egypt (on European television), whilst bored newsreaders jabbered on. I guess they didn't see it? (One wonders how anyone could miss video of the imminent apocalypse.)

Go to 1:25; they helpfully rerun it in slow-mo a few times, for your edification.



Now, see, if it hadn't been a WHITE horse, nobody would have noticed.

There are many explanations of this video, with copious details about glare and lens-reflection, etc... but of course, many people have their own explanations. And I get to hear all about it. But you know what?

I feel fine. :)

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