what is evil ?is evil an individual that does not have the wisdom to perceive his own life an individual that can not see the interconnection of all life .is evil greed anger and folly.

if we do not hold the bush administration accountable nothing will change in this nation. the rule of law must be upheld to everyone in society. this time in our history is very critical that we hold them accountable. if we truly want to create a peace world we must have the courage to face are mistakes.

brian a. hayes,

The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was just starting to point out that what we really have in this country is class discrimination. This was his "message" 41 years ago when he went to Memphis, TN to march in favor of the sanitation workers. Certain political elements in America couldn't deal with that. We're STILL dealing with that.

In response to the husband of the wife who had her hip replacement surgery done in ten days, I want to say that there is nothing new about surgeons who want to move quickly on surgeries that may not be needed. Her surgery may very well have been justified, but speedy surgeries don’t necessarily mean better care is being provided. It may have been irresponsible for the surgeon to provide a hip replacement so quickly.

I had a yoga/massage practice and I saved one of my clients from hip replacement surgery that Docs wanted to move on very quickly. I discovered her pain was coming not from her hip but from low back issues that was referring pain to her hip from unbalanced musculature. By helping her to strengthen and stretch pelvic and low back muscles, she didn’t need a hip replacement, but that took a bit of time to do. A speedy hip replacement would have prevented her from finding the real source of their pain.

Of course the caller's wife's surgery was probably helpful, but depending on insurance companies, surgeons often are indeed knife-happy. I was constantly having to say "Wait don’t let him talk you into surgery before you go and see this very good physical therapist, or until you try these exercises first." Surgeons make so much more money from procedures, rather than healing care at times. My client’s treatment cost the insurance company $200 rather than $20,000, although she had to be very disciplined about doing home care.

Reducing costs means more preventative care that might hopefully include more quality instruction in self-care from very good PT's, not just the knife-happy surgeons and the glorified gym operations that we see in many physical therapist's offices today.

In Portland, Oregon, Stewart Stark and Julie Gudmestead are two very gifted PTs who have genius knowledge of kinesiology and how tiny problems in muscle balance affect joints. They use their hands, not just machines to heal you! Stewart Stark is a respected expert on hip issues, too!

on 60 minutes they had a segment about this organization of doctors dentist eye doctor that go around the nation giving free health care.. in this segment was in a rural area. some the people had to be turn away. the people where poor whites. i just want the poor white class to understand that by holding racist ideas and embracing the republicans will do nothing but hurt you. as a nation it is not a problem of race but class

Quark -

... and I'm sure that Scarborough's reaction to that went something like -

"Ummmm - whut?"

:)

Thom,

Two bumper stickers I would like to see that relate to several of your topics:

"DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST ON BOARD"

"TAX HERE, TAX NOW!"

We need to take back the term. You know, "I was socialist before socialist was cool."

Keep it up!
West

It is commonly understood among economists that jobs are usually among the LAST indicators of economic conditions. This means that significant decreases in the unemployment numbers simply CANNOT be expected until MUCH LATER ON in the recovery cycle.

This is also true in a downturn - job losses don't start to become a major social issue until most of the other indicators are already in the toilet.

Another thing we NEVER hear from the "Obama's stimulus plan just ain't a-workin' " crowd is that only about 10% of the federal stimulus money has been distributed to date. Much of the money that has been distributed went to State Governments, who were supposed to use it for Medicaid payments and for those famous "Shovel-Ready" Infrastructure projects. However, many Red-State and Blue-Dog Governors have, instead, used the money to cancel outstanding state debt. Infrastructure projects DO create jobs - paying off old debts isn't necesarily a bad thing, but they don't create a single job!

Mugsy,

I define "evil" and "sin" as anything one does to DELIBERATELY HURT another human being.

If people only HELPED other human beings we wouldn't need the word "good" in this context.

to my white middle class and poor brothers and sisters that are republicans ,the republican party does nothing but play on your fears. the gop is nothing but a tool for corporations. they don't give a shit about the middle class and poor.

Thanks for the French news story, Thom. If we can't import French farmers to head our resistence groups, at least we can hear about French workers standing up for their rights!

let me make $200,000 a year and i pay my share in taxes for a public health-care plan. health-care should be a pat of the commons