March 2015 archive

Mar 26 2015

The Two Headed Coin

Cause…

Congress’ Medicare ‘Fix’ Could Leave Seniors Paying More

By David Dayen, The Fiscal Times

March 20, 2015

Washington perpetually laments the loss of bipartisanship in this polarized political environment. But ordinary Americans might want to fear one example of bipartisanship’s return, and what it could mean for their pocketbooks.

John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi have been locked in negotiations to clear two of the biggest hurdles facing Congress this year: the so-called “doc fix” for Medicare reimbursement rates, and an extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). We don’t have all the details, because the negotiations have taken place far from the public eye, with the release of the House and Senate budgets this week affording them cover.

…

The “doc fix” refers to the rate the government pays doctors who see Medicare patients. A 1997 law created something called the “sustainable growth rate” or SGR that governs the level of payments. Since Medicare spending consistently outstrips economic growth, this translates into large reimbursement cuts under the SGR formula. If nothing is done by April 1, the reimbursement rate will fall by 21 percent. More important, doctors claim they would react to pay cuts by prioritizing other patients, making it harder for Medicare beneficiaries to get treatment.

This 21 percent cut should always be accompanied by the phrase “in theory,” because every potentially large rate cut since 2002 has been patched; hence the phrase “doc fix.” On 17 different occasions, Congress has made sure Medicare doctors get their expected paycheck, sometimes even adding a small raise, and often finding money somewhere else in the budget to offset it.

…

Congress appears to want to stop having conversations with angry doctors every year, and have cast about for a permanent “doc fix” that would repeal and replace the old Medicare payment system. Doing this would cost $177 billion over the next decade, but the Boehner-Pelosi negotiations are looking at covering less than half this, around $70 billion in back-ended cuts, and letting the rest add to the budget deficits. To sweeten the pot for liberals, the emerging package would include a two-year, $30 billion extension of CHIP for 8 million children, at the boosted benefit levels under the Affordable Care Act. The tentative plan is for the House to vote next week, and throw it into the Senate’s lap just before the April 1 doc fix deadline.

It’s the other half of the cuts that get problematic. There would reportedly be more means-testing for Medicare beneficiaries, increasing premiums for seniors showing income over $133,000 and couples over $266,000. These seniors would have to pay 65 percent of their total costs under the new plan. This would go up at higher incomes. Means-testing historically dips lower and lower as budgeters try to get more out of beneficiaries, so this continues that ratcheting process for Medicare.

…

But this would raise out-of-pocket expenses on all 9 million seniors with a Medigap plan, including the 86 percent of these beneficiaries who have incomes under $40,000, and almost half with incomes below $20,000. So this cut hits those who can’t really afford it. (This idea, along with the means-testing, was in President Obama’s budget, incidentally.)

The proper term for this is cost-shifting, pushing funding for a public program onto those who get the benefits. Medigap was created to deal with cost-shifting in Medicare, and now Congress may look to shift costs within it as well. And like means-testing, cost-shifting is prime terrain for double-dipping over time.

…

All of this is being done to protect doctor salaries, which are among the highest in the industrialized world. Maybe Medicare doctors shouldn’t endure a 20 percent pay cut, but the idea that they wouldn’t see patients if the cut were 5 or 7 percent doesn’t pencil out. Plus, doctor payment rates are tied to Medicare premiums, as the Congressional Budget Office has explained: “Beneficiaries enrolled in Part B of Medicare pay premiums that offset about 25 percent of the costs of those benefits.” This means that any permanent change to a new doctor payment formula will likely result in a hike to Part B premiums.

Clearly everyone in Congress hates the messy process of annual “doc fix” patches, and the uproar from the hospital lobby that accompanies it. But nobody in Washington has raised the point that higher costs for ordinary patients might not be a great solution to the supposed problem of lower cash flow for doctors.

And Effect-

U.S. Voter Turnout is Low Because There’s Little to Vote For

by Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report

Wed, 03/25/2015

President Obama wants you to believe that the political map of the United States would be transformed – “completely changed,” he says – if citizens were required by law to vote. Obama told a town hall meeting in Cleveland that mandatory voting would “counteract” the influence of money in the U.S. electoral process. That’s a hell of a statement from the guy who wrecked the public campaign finance system by opting out of it in 2008, and outspent his Republican opponents in both of his runs for the presidency. Obama ought to have his picture on a million dollar bill.

But, why does the United States have the lowest voter turnout in the industrialized world, including Russia? It’s not because Americans are happier with the way they’re living than the rest of humanity. The U.S. ranks 17th on the global Happiness index and 23rd on the Satisfaction with Life scale. And, although racial exclusion in voting is very important when comparing Black voter turnout with whites, white Americans also vote in numbers far below almost all of the rest of the developed world.

Americans don’t vote because both major political parties are answerable to the same people: the moneyed classes, the power structures that determine the issues that will be on the political agenda long before the party primaries begin. This is called the hegemony of the bourgeoisie, the rule of the rich.

The corporations and bankers choose the menu; the only option citizens have is whether to select from the pre-packaged list of candidates, or stay home. Almost two out of three chose not to vote in 2014. They were not behaving irrationally. Since both major parties are controlled by the rich, only the most minor tinkering with the way the country is actually run, is tolerated. No matter how many people vote, very little changes, because the U.S. offers the narrowest spectrum of electoral choices in the industrial world – which is why it has the lowest voter turnout.

The Democrats want to keep their lock on the Black vote, but they have no interest in Black people voting their own political agenda, for the simple reason that Blacks are the most left-wing constituency in the country and must, therefore, be kept in check by the Democratic Party machinery. It is the Democrats who have for decades sought to break up concentrations of Black voters, spreading them out across a number of districts. This gives the Democratic Party a better chance to win seats in more districts, but it means that only those Black candidates that can appeal to a substantial segment of white voters can win election. The Black political conversation is left in a state of arrested development. Ultimately, even the Black political landscape turns into a desert, and rational Black people choose not to vote.

What’s so hard to understand about why Congressional approval, indeed our satisfaction with all elected officials from President to Dog Catcher, is in the toilet?

It’s because they toady to the wealthy and not to the voters.

Mar 26 2015

Cartnoon

Cause…

Congress’ Medicare ‘Fix’ Could Leave Seniors Paying More

By David Dayen, The Fiscal Times

March 20, 2015

Washington perpetually laments the loss of bipartisanship in this polarized political environment. But ordinary Americans might want to fear one example of bipartisanship’s return, and what it could mean for their pocketbooks.

John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi have been locked in negotiations to clear two of the biggest hurdles facing Congress this year: the so-called “doc fix” for Medicare reimbursement rates, and an extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). We don’t have all the details, because the negotiations have taken place far from the public eye, with the release of the House and Senate budgets this week affording them cover.

…

The “doc fix” refers to the rate the government pays doctors who see Medicare patients. A 1997 law created something called the “sustainable growth rate” or SGR that governs the level of payments. Since Medicare spending consistently outstrips economic growth, this translates into large reimbursement cuts under the SGR formula. If nothing is done by April 1, the reimbursement rate will fall by 21 percent. More important, doctors claim they would react to pay cuts by prioritizing other patients, making it harder for Medicare beneficiaries to get treatment.

This 21 percent cut should always be accompanied by the phrase “in theory,” because every potentially large rate cut since 2002 has been patched; hence the phrase “doc fix.” On 17 different occasions, Congress has made sure Medicare doctors get their expected paycheck, sometimes even adding a small raise, and often finding money somewhere else in the budget to offset it.

…

Congress appears to want to stop having conversations with angry doctors every year, and have cast about for a permanent “doc fix” that would repeal and replace the old Medicare payment system. Doing this would cost $177 billion over the next decade, but the Boehner-Pelosi negotiations are looking at covering less than half this, around $70 billion in back-ended cuts, and letting the rest add to the budget deficits. To sweeten the pot for liberals, the emerging package would include a two-year, $30 billion extension of CHIP for 8 million children, at the boosted benefit levels under the Affordable Care Act. The tentative plan is for the House to vote next week, and throw it into the Senate’s lap just before the April 1 doc fix deadline.

It’s the other half of the cuts that get problematic. There would reportedly be more means-testing for Medicare beneficiaries, increasing premiums for seniors showing income over $133,000 and couples over $266,000. These seniors would have to pay 65 percent of their total costs under the new plan. This would go up at higher incomes. Means-testing historically dips lower and lower as budgeters try to get more out of beneficiaries, so this continues that ratcheting process for Medicare.

…

But this would raise out-of-pocket expenses on all 9 million seniors with a Medigap plan, including the 86 percent of these beneficiaries who have incomes under $40,000, and almost half with incomes below $20,000. So this cut hits those who can’t really afford it. (This idea, along with the means-testing, was in President Obama’s budget, incidentally.)

The proper term for this is cost-shifting, pushing funding for a public program onto those who get the benefits. Medigap was created to deal with cost-shifting in Medicare, and now Congress may look to shift costs within it as well. And like means-testing, cost-shifting is prime terrain for double-dipping over time.

…

All of this is being done to protect doctor salaries, which are among the highest in the industrialized world. Maybe Medicare doctors shouldn’t endure a 20 percent pay cut, but the idea that they wouldn’t see patients if the cut were 5 or 7 percent doesn’t pencil out. Plus, doctor payment rates are tied to Medicare premiums, as the Congressional Budget Office has explained: “Beneficiaries enrolled in Part B of Medicare pay premiums that offset about 25 percent of the costs of those benefits.” This means that any permanent change to a new doctor payment formula will likely result in a hike to Part B premiums.

Clearly everyone in Congress hates the messy process of annual “doc fix” patches, and the uproar from the hospital lobby that accompanies it. But nobody in Washington has raised the point that higher costs for ordinary patients might not be a great solution to the supposed problem of lower cash flow for doctors.

And Effect-

U.S. Voter Turnout is Low Because There’s Little to Vote For

by Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report

Wed, 03/25/2015

President Obama wants you to believe that the political map of the United States would be transformed – “completely changed,” he says – if citizens were required by law to vote. Obama told a town hall meeting in Cleveland that mandatory voting would “counteract” the influence of money in the U.S. electoral process. That’s a hell of a statement from the guy who wrecked the public campaign finance system by opting out of it in 2008, and outspent his Republican opponents in both of his runs for the presidency. Obama ought to have his picture on a million dollar bill.

But, why does the United States have the lowest voter turnout in the industrialized world, including Russia? It’s not because Americans are happier with the way they’re living than the rest of humanity. The U.S. ranks 17th on the global Happiness index and 23rd on the Satisfaction with Life scale. And, although racial exclusion in voting is very important when comparing Black voter turnout with whites, white Americans also vote in numbers far below almost all of the rest of the developed world.

Americans don’t vote because both major political parties are answerable to the same people: the moneyed classes, the power structures that determine the issues that will be on the political agenda long before the party primaries begin. This is called the hegemony of the bourgeoisie, the rule of the rich.

The corporations and bankers choose the menu; the only option citizens have is whether to select from the pre-packaged list of candidates, or stay home. Almost two out of three chose not to vote in 2014. They were not behaving irrationally. Since both major parties are controlled by the rich, only the most minor tinkering with the way the country is actually run, is tolerated. No matter how many people vote, very little changes, because the U.S. offers the narrowest spectrum of electoral choices in the industrial world – which is why it has the lowest voter turnout.

The Democrats want to keep their lock on the Black vote, but they have no interest in Black people voting their own political agenda, for the simple reason that Blacks are the most left-wing constituency in the country and must, therefore, be kept in check by the Democratic Party machinery. It is the Democrats who have for decades sought to break up concentrations of Black voters, spreading them out across a number of districts. This gives the Democratic Party a better chance to win seats in more districts, but it means that only those Black candidates that can appeal to a substantial segment of white voters can win election. The Black political conversation is left in a state of arrested development. Ultimately, even the Black political landscape turns into a desert, and rational Black people choose not to vote.

What’s so hard to understand about why Congressional approval, indeed our satisfaction with all elected officials from President to Dog Catcher, is in the toilet?

It’s because they toady to the wealthy and not to the voters.

Mar 26 2015

The Intellectual Bankruptcy of the Center-Left

The First Domino

Kenneth Storey

Feb 2, 2015

The Rise of Podemos

Transcript

Transcript

Transcript

What is Behind the Collapse of the Centre Left Parties in Europe?

The NeoLib Experiment has failed.  They’re not even good at lying anymore.

Mar 26 2015

On This Day In History March 26

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

Click on image to enlarge

May 26 is the 146th day of the year (147th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 219 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1637, an allied Puritan and Mohegan force under English Captain John Mason attacks a Pequot village in Connecticut, burning or massacring some 500 Indian women, men, and children.

The Pequot War was an armed conflict in 1634-1638 between the Pequot tribe against an alliance of the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Saybrook colonies with American Indian allies (the Narragansett and Mohegan tribes). Hundreds were killed; hundreds more were captured and sold into slavery to the West Indies. Other survivors were dispersed. At the end of the war, about seven hundred Pequots had been killed or taken into captivity. The result was the elimination of the Pequot as a viable polity in what is present-day Southern New England. It would take the Pequot more than three and a half centuries to regain political and economic power in their traditional homeland region along the Pequot (present-day Thames) and Mystic rivers in what is now southeastern Connecticut.

The Mystic massacre

Believing that the English had returned to Boston, the Pequot sachem Sassacus took several hundred of his warriors to make another raid on Hartford. Mason had visited and recruited the Narragansett, who joined him with several hundred warriors. Several allied Niantic warriors also joined Mason’s group. On May 26, 1637, with a force up to about 400 fighting men, Mason attacked Misistuck by surprise. He estimated that “six or seven Hundred” Pequot were there when his forces assaulted the palisade. As some 150 warriors had accompanied Sassacus to Hartford, so the inhabitants remaining were largely Pequot women and children, and older men. Mason ordered that the enclosure be set on fire. Justifying his conduct later, Mason declared that the attack against the Pequot was the act of a God who “laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to scorn making [the Pequot] as a fiery Oven . . . Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling [Mystic] with dead Bodies.”  Mason insisted that any Pequot attempting to escape the flames should be killed. Of the estimated 600 to 700 Pequot resident at Mystic that day, only seven survived to be taken prisoner, while another seven escaped to the woods.

The Narragansett and Mohegan warriors with Mason and Underhill’s colonial militia were horrified by the actions and “manner of the Englishmen’s fight . . . because it is too furious, and slays too many men.” The Narragansett left the warfare and returned home.

Believing the mission accomplished, Mason set out for home. Becoming temporarily lost, his militia narrowly missed returning Pequot warriors. After seeing the destruction of Mystic, they gave chase to the English forces, but to little avail.

Mar 26 2015

The Breakfast Club (Steve and Kermit)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

photo 807561379_e6771a7c8e_zps7668d00e.jpg

Breakfast Tune: Steve Martin and Kermit the Frog in “Dueling Banjos”

Today in History


Highlights of this day in history: Israel and Egypt sign a peace treaty; Bodies of Heaven’s Gate cult members are found in Calif.; The first U.S. team to win hockey’s Stanley Cup; ‘Funny Girl’ opens on Broadway; Singer Diana Ross born. (March 26)

Breakfast News & Blogs Below

Mar 26 2015

The Daily/Nightly Show (Violence Against Women)

Yobama

Tonight the Twitter comes through again (h/t TMC).  Our topic is Slut Shaming and our panelists are Shenaz Treasury (regular), Regina King (the voice of Huey and Riley Freeman), Sabrina Jalees (CBC personality), and Jordan Carlos (Stephen Colbert’s ‘Black Friend’).

Continuity

The Jetsons

This Week’s Guests-

Amy Ziering is the producer and Kirby Dick is the director of The Hunting Ground, a documentary about college campus rape and rape culture that opened last Friday in wide distribution (well, as wide as documentaries generally get) after debuting at Sundance to great critical and audience acclaim.  After its theatical run it will be shown on CNN.

In a way this is a follow up to their 2012 film The Invisible War which was about rape and rape culture in the military.

The documentary focuses on the claim that 20% of women in colleges in the United States are sexually assaulted, and that disciplinary action only occurs in a small fraction of alleged assaults. It also claims that students are rarely expelled for rape.

There are several students who are interviewed in the film about their experiences being sexually assaulted at their college campus. They spoke about college administrators who ignore them or make them jump through hoops because they are more concerned about keeping rape statistics low.

Two of the film’s main targets were Harvard and the University of North Carolina, but they also report about fraternities such as Sigma Alpha Epsilon.

In addition, there is a section of the film about Jameis Winston (a quarterback for Florida State University) and the multiple accusations of sexual assault against him. His alleged victim Erica Kinsman publicly speaks about the incident at length for the first time.

The principal protagonists are Andrea Pino and Annie E. Clark, two former students of the University of North Carolina who were raped on campus.

Jon Ronson’s web exclusive extended interview and the real news below.

Mar 25 2015

As the Crow Flies

How do you get a government agency to fix a rule that isn’t working? Simple. Get Jon Stewart to do a funny, but factually accurate, segment that highlights the flaw and, bingo, less then 24 hours situation remedied.

On Monday night Jon mocked the Veterans Administration’s Choice Program which was put in place to speed up medical care for veterans who lived far from a VA facility. The problem was that to be eligible the vet must live forty miles from the nearest facility. The rule was worded like that to keep down the cost of the program. But that distance was measured by “as the crow flies,” because, as Jon put it, “that is the least-meaningful way to judge how hard it is to get somewhere for non-crows.”

Then low and behold, less than 24 hours later the VA announced that they were “relaxing the rule” that made it difficult for veterans living in rural areas to prove they live 40 miles from the nearest VA facility.

The change comes amid complaints from lawmakers and advocates who say the VA’s current policy has prevented thousands of veterans from taking advantage of a new law intended to allow veterans in remote areas to gain access to federally paid medical care from local doctors. [..]

The VA said it will now measure the 40-mile trip by driving miles as calculated by Google maps or other sites, rather than as the crow flies, as currently interpreted. The rule change is expected to roughly double the number of eligible veterans. [..]

Under the new interpretation, the distance veterans must travel will be calculated through commercial products such as Google maps or other websites, rather than a straight line.

Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., hailed the rule change but said it did not go far enough. The VA policy applies to any VA medical facility within 40 miles of a veteran’s home, even if the veteran needs specialized care that is farther away.

While this change will help a good many veterans, congress still will need to tweak the program for those requiring special care.

Thank you, Jon, for your “damning piece of investigative joke-a-lism.” We will miss you when you’re gone.

Mar 25 2015

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Susan Greenbaum: GOP’s plan to shred the safety net in 2016

Republicans intend to inflict more painful austerity on those who can least withstand it

The GOP majorities in both chambers of Congress have crafted their 2016 budget proposals, newly confident about fulfilling promises to cut spending, reduce taxes and shrink the government. Although inequality has reached Gilded Age levels, austerity continues to dominate their internal debates. Never mind that drastic spending cuts have harmed, not helped, the struggling economies of the eurozone, where mounting evidence eviscerates the theory that austerity can spur growth.

The latest tax reform proposal from Sens. Marco Rubio and Mike Lee is a full-blown version of supply-side economics, to the tune of $4 trillion in revenue loss over a decade that would have to be offset by spending cuts. The plan targets programs that benefit the poor the most: Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps). On all sides and in both chambers, the Republicans appear determined to inflict more painful austerity on those who can least withstand it.

Winnie Byanyima: Another World Is Possible, Without the 1%

Activists from around the world will defy the terrorists to attend the World Social Forum in Tunis on March 25, determined to make the occasion a beacon for free speech, justice and equality. I am proud to join the leaders of Greenpeace, ActionAid, Civicus and the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) in highlighting the urgent need to tackle the vested interests of the 1 percent, in order to build a better world for all of humanity.

If you are in the top 1 percent of the global wealth stakes, our economic system works exceptionally well. Since the financial crisis in 2008, most of the wealth created in the world has ended up in your bank accounts. By next year, you could own more wealth than the rest of the world put together.

This is not just a global phenomenon. The growing gap between rich and poor is a reality for seven out of ten people on the planet. Last week the World Bank calculated that ten Africans own more wealth than half the continent. Statistics like these are actually a cold shower on people’s natural, positive aspirations to improve their lot – they’re telling us the 99 percent won’t get there, or anywhere close.

Amanda Marcotte: Political Lobby for Frats Wants to Make It Harder to Enforce Title IX

The political arm of the national fraternity system-known as the Fraternity & Sorority Political Action Committee (FratPAC)-is getting involved in the campus rape debate. Sadly, it seems they want to make it as hard as possible for schools to discipline students who sexually abuse or harass each other. [..]

The sentiment may sound fair-minded; it’s anything but. FratPAC is singling out sexual assault as the only crime they want universities to handle in this way. Underage drinking, drug dealing, burglary, assault-all of these actions break both school rules and the law, but FratPAC is not asking universities to wait for the criminal courts to adjudicate these crimes before punishing the students for breaking their corresponding school rules. In the situation they’re proposing, a school could punish a student for stealing from another student without waiting for the courts to adjudicate the matter; but if a student rapes another student, the school couldn’t act.

Joan Walsh: GOP innovation paralysis: How Jeb Bush sucks the oxygen out of Republican “reform”

While some governors practice genuine policy innovation, Bush’s fundraising juggernaut keeps them on the sidelines

I feel for Ohio Gov. John Kasich. He can’t get traction as a potential 2016 GOP presidential nominee with anyone so far – except political journalists. He sits around 1 percent in polls (that bother to mention him) and yet he’s been the focus of two long, laudatory profiles, touting his potential presidential appeal, in the last 18 months.

The New York Times’s Trip Gabriel found Kasich to be a maverick who “defies GOP with defense of safety net.” Now Yahoo Politics’s Andrew Romano asks if he could be “the GOP’s secret weapon in 2016?” He answers, archly, “John Kasich thinks so,” but the sympathetic profile suggests Romano agrees. Kasich seems eternally poised on the brink of defining a new way for the GOP – Compassionate Conservatism 2.0 – but is stymied by his inability to a) raise big money and b) get taken seriously (beyond Ohio and the national media), at least partly because he seems a tiny bit loopy and c) get past the boys of the Bush dynasty. [..]

The moderate establishment wing of the GOP, by contrast, seems content to let Jeb Bush be its standard bearer, charged with figuring out how much to cave to his party’s far-right base during the primaries, while trusting him to course correct in time for the general election. The campaign is unlikely to feature a genuine debate about a GOP economic growth agenda – a debate that a Kasich candidacy might catalyze. That’s a loss not just for Kasich, if indeed he skips a run, but for the country.

Julia Harumi Mass: FBI Ordered to Disclose its Surveillance Tactics on Communities

On Monday, a federal district court in San Francisco issued an important ruling for government transparency and accountability. Judge Richard Seeborg disallowed the FBI’s attempt to use a “law enforcement exemption” in the Freedom of Information Act to shield from public disclosure details of the agency’s surveillance programs. [..]

This ruling well upholds the purpose of the Freedom of Information Act and its limited law enforcement exemption. As the FBI has expanded its activities to include generalized monitoring and surveillance, unconnected to any suspected criminal activity, it is critical that records related to those broad surveillance programs be available for public scrutiny.

Mar 25 2015

Dispatches From Hellpeckersville-Going To School

Tomorrow me and Cleetus are headed into Dan’s school to make gummies with his class. There’s only six students, so I have plenty of molds and ingredients and all that, but I’ve never been that mom who’s at school volunteering for things left and right. I’m kind of tied up here at home taking care of my mom. But this year Dan’s class has this star student of the month thing, where every week a different thing revolves around him and on the last week, if possible, the parents come in to do a favorite activity with the class. I’m a little nervous.

It’s not that I’m not good with kids, for twenty years before I had any I was the fun aunt. I was also the friend who if I had any sort of demonstration or home party, yeah, bring your kids, I can have an activity all set up for them. You want to decorate a fancy bag, kids? here ya go, stickers, glitter glue, foam shapes, whatever you need. I like kids, I like doing crafts with kids. And if it’s a craft that’s new to them or even just new supplies–oh, it’s almost like magic. I’ve had a table full of kids making bags, jewelry, puppets, all kinds of things, too many times to count. So why am I nervous?

Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve done it with any kids other than my two boys, but I’m pretty sure it’s like riding a bike, so I shouldn’t be nervous about that. Is it because they’re special needs? Nah. My niece used to bring her adult clients from the local workshop over and when Barb wanted to make a dreamcatcher, I said, okay, let’s make one, and out came the supplies. I believe that dreamcatcher hung in her room until the day she died. I don’t have a problem working with any kind of special needs. I think it’s the whole going into the school thing.

I just associate school with authority. It makes me uncomfortable. I have a difficult time reconciling school and fun together in my mind. And this thing not taking place at my house, my OCD-ish nature keeps making me sure that I’ll forget something that will turn the whole thing into a fiasco and Dan will be humiliated in front of his friends. I know that’s not reasonable, but that doesn’t stop me.

Anyway, wish me luck for tomorrow, I have to go check my supplies again, it’s been over an hour and some may have escaped.

Mar 25 2015

The Breakfast Club (Chain Of Fools)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

photo 807561379_e6771a7c8e_zps7668d00e.jpg

This Day in History

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led 25,000 marchers to the state capitol in Montgomery, Ala. 146 people were killed when fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. in New York. Aretha Franklin, Elton John born

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

Music has healing power. It has the ability to take people out of themselves for a few hours.

Elton John

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