Overdue notes

As has been noted elsewhere, my good friend Pia Savage is now a writer for Psychology Today. Her first piece is here, and it comes with my recommendation. Ms. Savage is welcome to test how much money one must add to that to pay for a cup of coffee.

What's remarkable about Pia's case is that despite having been raised in a family with the means to pay for mental health issues, it was only very recently that she had a diagnosis to go with her problems. A sign of the times, sure, but while medical world has made leaps and bounds in understanding mental health, how have the rest of us been doing? 

This is the point in the post where I make an uncomfortable logical step between someone I love and respect and a deranged madman. Please mind the handrails.

Four years ago I had this to say about the response by some to the classification of  Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho as a victim. Or even, more mildly, as someone who fell through the cracks. These days I don't listen to talk radio even by accident, so I don't know how similar remarks about Jared Loughner have been taken, but I've gotten the general sense that the loudmouth morons haven't been pushing back on the mental illness angle this time around, save with the facile supposition that mental illness is in and of itself an explanation for violence. It pretty evidently isn't.

Clearly we need to do better by our more vulnerable citizens, including the mentally infirm, but unless we're aggressive in dismantling outdated notions and misconceptions regarding mental health, those efforts are in danger of taking the shape of "how can we protect ourselves from the mentally ill" rather than "how can we, as a nation, become more mentally healthy?"

The political climate that many-- myself included--  have claimed made the Tuscon shooting more likely may have a silver lining. The pushback against any sense of responsibility amongst political figures for the potential impact of their political rhetoric has satisfied the Right's need for knee-jerk bloodlust, and in an attempt to cover their own asses, have admitted that we have a mental health problem in this country.

That's a first step.  Pia is now helping us out with the second: understanding that the nature of that problem doesn't solely extend to the lack of support structure for the mentally ill. Our society as a whole needs to change its attitude, and stop treating mental health as the concern for "other" people.

Bravo, Pia..

For tonight:

There have been many guides circulating on the Interwebs suggesting State of the Union drinking game rules.  My construction is rather simple:  Drink once on every fifth applause line,  twice on every use of rhetorical balancers (eg "keep employment high and taxes low"), twice on every metaphorical use of the word "call," and drink thrice if anyone heckles. Rules can be added mid-speech provided that a consensus exists. Each player has ten exemptions, and the last person to run out of them (or run out of coordination or consciousness) wins.

For this speech in particular, drain your cup when Obama says the word "Sputnik"

A note here: When I say "drink," I don't mean, "take a shot." There were over a hundred applause lines last SotU, and I'm inclined to believe that this one will have more. Keep that in mind when altering this framework for your own purposes, and when deciding what it is you're going to fill your cup with.

Also, I hope the Disqus comment boards work for everyone.  It scored over other options, including the default blogger, in that it integrated well with my template, it allows for non-Google registered commenters, and that it didn't charge me to set it up.

Enjoy

The Shape of Things to Come

I'd like to plug my friend David Harewood, who has written today's featured article over at InformedPlanet.com.  Check him out.

So as it turns out,  I was right when I predicted a 53-47 split in the Senate (not in any way that was recorded, so I guess you'll have to trust me.  Or not.  Whatever.)  I didn't make a prediction for the House, but if I had, it would have been wrong.  Not that I was particularly surprised.  History dictates big wins for the opposition the first midterm election following a new President's inauguration, as well as during hard economic times.

But consider this:

In the past two years, under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi, House Democrats passed a truly astounding amount of legislation-- including major reforms such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Credit CARD Act, and  the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.  Not to mention the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which just today I discovered was being put to use to repair a stretch Cambridge Street in Somerville, MA that had fallen into such disrepair that its potholes have cost me a bike tire, a wheel and a brake cable.

But I guess John Boehner doesn't want me to have a bike.

In any case, Nancy Pelosi has been regarded by historians as one of the best Speakers of the House in the past hundred years.  In addition to those specific bills I mentioned, she passed 430 bills through the House, all of which had majority support in the Senate, and yet none of which passed.  Because Senate Democrats were too scared to make Republicans own up to their obstructionism and actually read from the phone books to stop them from passing bills covering, among other things, infant nutrition.

The Public Option, which 50% of Republicans supported, died in the Senate.  As did a significant portion of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which it is now abundantly clear wasn't enough.  Unemployment benefit extensions, small business tax credits, a repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and additional infrastructure programs all languished due to the Democrats' unwillingness to challenge the notion that requiring 60% of the Senate to pass anything was normal.

And yet?  It's Speaker Pelosi who loses her job title in January, whilst  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid keeps his gavel.

Whiskey.

Tango.

Foxtrot.

So what now?

We have divided government yet again, but unlike in 1994, the Senate remains in Democratic hands.  With the House controlled by the opposition and the Senate still incapable of action, Democrats aren't going to be able to have any kind of a legislative agenda unless the filibuster gets changed.  As luck would have it, the rule's two greatest defenders (Chris Dodd of CT and the late Robert Byrd of WV) are no longer in the Senate.  Evan Bayh, who was the first Senator to ever threaten to filibuster his own party's bill, and indeed was the first to do so before the bill made it to the floor for debate, is also gone, though he seems to have had a deathbed conversion vis a vis autocratic obstructionism.

So where does that leave us?

It takes 50+1 to change Senate rules upon the convening of a new Congress.  And of those in the current Senate, Joe Lieberman, Mary Landrieu, Jay Rockefeller, Mark Pryor, Dianne Feinstein, Daniel Akaka, Carl Levin, and Jon Tester are going to need convincing.  Four of them need to vote yes in order for a change to be made.

It's going to be an interesting first session, I tells you.

After that, my advice to Democrats is to pass jobs bill after jobs bill in the Senate.  Simple pieces of legislation whose impact on employment can be easily quantified.  And keep a running tally of the number of jobs that would be added to the economy had it not been for Republicans refusal to move on legislation simply because it was passed by Democrats.  Run three-second TV spots featuring the number and a URL with the details and phone numbers for local Senators and Representatives.  Either something will give, or the American People will know why it didn't.