No swine flu shots for 47 million Americans puts everyone at risk

If ever there was a reason for universal health care and a public option,  it is the potential in this country for a swine flu epidemic.

Today my local newspaper, The Citizen, published an announcement that the one and only health clinic in this area will be offering flu shots for $50. The announcement included the alarming “reassurance” that “many insurance plans will cover a flu shot.”

Guess what? There are some 47 million people in this country who do not have health insurance, so flu shots will not be covered. And if they become seriously ill, their medical care will also not be covered.

Here’s what those turncoat Democrats and the entire clan of GOP Dittoheads fail to grasp: they are in danger of “dying quickly” themselves if the uninsured do not get swine flu shots. Eventually, the epidemic will reach even the gated communities where those legislators and their families live.

Some might call that poetic justice. I call it stupid.

Give peace a chance? Hell, No! says Raymond, NH

As much as I love New Hampshire, living in the “Live Free or Die” state can sometimes be frustrating.

Case in point: in the conservative hamlet of Raymond, New Hampshire, just on the outskirts of our largest city, Manchester, the town’s selectman turned down a request to have a peace rally on the town commons to support the UN’s International Day of Peace.

“What kind of crowd is this going to gather? This is a peace group, we are at war and I wonder if this is going to bring a crowd of people into town on both sides of the issues and whether we need police down there,” selectman Jack Barnes said.

Anyone who knows these old-timers could have predicted that anything associated with the United Nations didn’t stand a chance of being approved. Many people in this state still believe the UN is a Communist plot to take over the government.

As details of the subversive event came to light, it was clear that there were other sinister, terrorist overtones to this so-called peace rally.

Resident Molly Schlangen sent a letter to the board requesting use of the town common for a brief gathering with complimentary yoga classes to “promote peace in our community and in our world.” Schlangen, a local yoga instructor and formerly the school nurse at Lamprey River Elementary School, held the same event last year. About 20 people attended and took part in a 45-minute outdoor yoga class.

Imagine: a yoga class in public to support peace! It’s pretty obvious that those 20 people in tights doing the Warrior pose would be sending signals to Al-Qaeda operatives across the U.S.

Perhaps more amusing than the reaction of the town fathers (the town mothers, in the minority, voted in favor of peace),  is the reaction of local cheerleaders to the ruling. Here’s a taste taken from the comments section of the Union Leader article:

“Peace” rallies have been violent in the last few years, just look at Code Pink. They’re also populated by pot smokers.”
- Jason Entres, Hollis

We don’t need people out there not supporting our troops in public. it sends the wrong message to them and they are fighting to keep us safe from terrorists. Terrorists do yoga in iran an iraq, not in america.
- HunterMike, Raymond

Please….since when does the UN actually promote peace? It’s comprised up of some the worst civil rights abusing countries. It’s a total façade. You want to promote peace – more power to you. Just stop promoting the UN fallacy. It’s time the U.S. pulled out the one-world-government UN / World Bank. UN treaties are a dangerous threat to our national sovereignty and our Constitution – stop selling us down the road to the New World Order government. Do our own research on this subject, the lasting they actual want is peace.
- Mac Wade, Newmarket

In all fairness to my home state, many people commented in support of the rally. Maybe there’s hope, after all.

Spanking children causes long-term permanent damage

This is what child abuse looks like.

My friend, Rake Morgan, has written for many years about the shameful practice in this and other countries of using physical discipline to “control” our children. To Rake’s thinking, all physical discipline is a form of abuse. I agree with him.

Now Rake has noted a new study published recently in the Journal of Child Development that shows that spanking young children causes long-term, permanent behavioral and psychological damage. Here’s Rake’s post:

For years I have been belaboring a point that some adults refuse to accept: any kind of physical discipline of children is a form of abuse. Worse, what starts out as “harmless” spanking escalates over time into serious emotional and physical injury to the child.

Now a new study of toddlers shows that even spanking kids at that early age can have long-lasting consequences.  According to CNN, the study from the Journal of Child Development shows –

Children who were spanked as 1-year-olds tended to behave more aggressively at age 2, and did not perform as well as other children on a test measuring thinking skills at age 3. . . . Spanking, moreover, reinforces negative memories in the child’s mind. Parents should aim instead to build “prominent, happy memories” of childhood for their kids.

The study also concludes that parents who spank are more likely to be younger, less educated, single, and/or depressed and stressed.

Susan Newman, social psychologist and author of “Little Things Long Remembered: Making Your Children Feel Special Every Day,” said parents should discourage bad behaviors by taking away privileges such as dessert, or setting an earlier bedtime. Newman believes that children are too young to understand when parenting behavior is wrong, even at the level of abuse.

Physical violence, Newman says, gets passed down in families because the only parenting skills people know are the behaviors that they saw at home. So, if you want your children to abuse their children, keep hitting them. Your grandchildren will thank you for it!

Here’s another post on the topic by Rake. It gives one of the best explanations I’ve read about the connection between physical discipline at child abuse: Are Your Kids Out of Control? Try Tying Them to a Tree!