June 5, 2014

Emer O'Toole to the Irish Bishops: Tell us where the rest of the bodies are.

The bodies of 796 children, between the ages of two days and nine years old, have been found in a disused sewage tank in Tuam, County Galway. They died between 1925 and 1961 in a mother and baby home under the care of the Bon Secours nuns.

Locals have known about the grave since 1975, when two little boys, playing, broke apart the concrete slab covering it and discovered a tomb filled with small skeletons. A parish priest said prayers at the site, and it was sealed once more, the number of bodies below unknown, their names forgotten.

The Tuam historian Catherine Corless discovered the extent of the mass grave when she requested records of children's deaths in the home. The registrar in Galway gave her almost 800. Shocked, she checked 100 of these against graveyard burials, and found only one little boy who had been returned to a family plot. The vast majority of the children's remains, it seemed, were in the septic tank. Corless and a committee have been working tirelessly to raise money for a memorial that includes a plaque bearing each child's name.

For those of you unfamiliar with how, until the 1990s, Ireland dealt with unmarried mothers and their children, here it is: the women were incarcerated in state-funded, church-run institutions called mother and baby homes or Magdalene asylums, where they worked to atone for their sins. Their children were taken from them.

According to Corless, death rates for children in the Tuam mother and baby home, and in similar institutions, were four to five times that of the general population. A health board report from 1944 on the Tuam home describes emaciated, potbellied children, mentally unwell mothers and appalling overcrowding. But, as Corless points out, this was no different to other homes in Ireland. They all had the same mentality: that these women and children should be punished.

Ireland knows all this. We know about the abuse women and children suffered at the hands of the clergy, abuse funded by a theocratic Irish state. What we didn't know is that they threw dead children into unmarked mass graves. But we're inured to these revelations by now.

Corless expresses surprise that the media were so slow to report her story, that people didn't seem to care. If two children were found in an unmarked grave, she observes, it would be news; what about 800? But what is the difference between the wall of lies, denial and secrecy the church constructed to protect its paedophile priests and a concrete slab over the bodies of 796 children neglected to death by nuns? Good people unearth these evil truths, but the church always survives.

The archbishop of Tuam and the head of the Irish Bon Secours sisters will soon meet to discuss the memorial and service planned at the site. The Bon Secours sisters have donated what the Irish TV station RTÉ describes as "a small sum" to the children's graveyard committee.

Father Fintan Monaghan, secretary of the Tuam archediocese, says: "I suppose we can't really judge the past from our point of view, from our lens. All we can do is mark it appropriately and make sure there is a suitable place here where people can come and remember the babies that died."

Let's not judge the past on our morals, then, but on the morals of the time. Was it OK, in mid-20th century Ireland, to throw the bodies of dead children into sewage tanks? Monaghan is really saying: "don't judge the past at all". But we must judge the past, because that is how we learn from it.

Monaghan is correct that we need to mark history appropriately. That's why I am offering the following suggestions as to what the church should do to in response:

Do not say Catholic prayers over these dead children. Don't insult those who were in life despised and abused by you. Instead, tell us where the rest of the bodies are. There were homes throughout Ireland, outrageous child mortality rates in each. Were the Tuam Bon Secours sisters an anomalous, rebellious sect? Or were church practices much the same the country over? If so, how many died in each of these homes? What are their names? Where are their graves? We don't need more platitudinous damage control, but the truth about our history.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/04/children-galway-mass-graves-ireland-catholic-church

June 5, 2014

The documented, yet ignored horrors of Ireland's baby homes.

Adoption Rights Alliance Co-Founder, Susan Lohan said that the Tuam scandal is not isolated and that mother-and-baby homes in Ireland were known to have high mortality rates.

In his 1989 book To Cure and To Care — Memoirs of a Chief Medical Officer, former Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Health James Deeny spoke of his concerns at the inordinately high child death rates at Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in Cork.

He estimated that 100 out of 180 babies born at the home for unmarried mothers, run by the Sisters of the Sacred Heart, died in one year.

“Dr Deeny was so concerned that he travelled to Cork to visit the home,” said Ms Lohan. “Initially he couldn’t see any reason for the high death rate but then asked one of the nuns if he could look at the babies’ nappies.

“When the nappies were opened, it emerged the babies and toddlers were sitting in putrefying diarrhoea that was being ignored and the nuns wanted it all covered up.”

Ms Lohan said it is widely believed that many children who died in the homes had health and disability needs that were not addressed, or suffered generalised neglect.


http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/call-for-mother-and-baby-home-inquiry-270865.html

June 5, 2014

Police Sergeant Whelan found nothing suspicious about the mass grave of 800 children.

(CNN) -- Outrage over the reported discovery of the bodies of almost 800 children at a former home for unmarried mothers run by nuns in Ireland prompted calls Wednesday for a full investigation.

The children whose remains have apparently been found in Tuam, in County Galway, are believed to have died between 1925 and 1961, according to local media reports.

The grim discovery was highlighted in a front-page report in the Irish Mail on Sunday, which cited the efforts of local historian Catherine Corless to research the burial sites of 796 children listed as having died at the home, which was run by the Sisters of Bon Secours.

According to the newspaper, Corless believes their remains are all buried in the unmarked mass grave next to the place where the home once stood. Local children stumbled upon the grave in the 1970s, local media reported, but the site was never examined afterward.

The revelation has sparked calls for an investigation and renewed questions about the treatment of unmarried mothers and their children by the Catholic Church and institutions associated with it.

Sgt. Brian Whelan, in the press office of Garda, Ireland's national police, told CNN there was nothing to suggest any impropriety and that police are not investigating the matter.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/04/world/europe/ireland-children-bodies-tuam/

June 4, 2014

SF Muni sickout continues for 2nd day

NOTE: This is really bad timing as I'm recovering from acute bronchitis and still cannot walk very far.

It was another tumultuous day for San Francisco commuters, as half the 600 drivers of buses and trains who usually show up for work called in sick Tuesday, the outgrowth of an impasse in contract negotiations between management and labor.

The public transit system's worst labor disruption in decades could continue on Wednesday - even though an unusually combative Mayor Ed Lee has directed the city's Human Resources Department to investigate each worker who has called in sick.

The mass absence flouts a law that bans Muni employees from striking. But since it's a wildcat action, union leaders are emphatic in saying that they had nothing to do with making it happen and, therefore, cannot call it off.

"The union has no part in what's going on," said Eric Williams, president of Local 250-A of the Transport Workers Union, which represents 2,000 Muni employees. "Our members are truly frustrated at being treated like they don't matter."

The situation on city streets was better Tuesday than Monday, but not by much. Many commuters complained of at least hour-long waits to board sporadically arriving buses and trains. Tourists, meanwhile, could only look forlornly at empty cable car turnarounds again, with the service completely shut down for another day. Shuttle buses were available, but it's not the same.


http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Muni-sickout-continues-for-2nd-day-5524556.php

June 4, 2014

Tea Bagger McDanial just edged past Cochran again.

The nutcase is now ahead of Thad Cochran with about 80% of the votes in. I guess crazy knows no bounds in MS.


http://www.clarionledger.com/longform/news/2014/06/03/mississippi-congressional-election-results/9925563/

June 3, 2014

Transit sickout causing delays across San Francisco

As San Francisco commuters slogged their way home Monday on a transit system hobbled by the unscheduled absences of most of its operators, city transportation officials moved to stop the apparent sickout from moving into a second day. A memo e-mailed to employees and posted in yards warned workers who had called in sick that they'll need doctors' notes to get paid.

"Operators claiming to be sick today, or in connection with any future 'sickout,' will be required to submit adequate verification from their health care provider in order to be eligible to receive paid sick leave," said a memo from Alicia John-Baptiste, the Metropolitan Transportation Agency's chief of staff.

Muni did not provide specific figures on the number of operators who called in sick for their scheduled Monday shifts, but MTA spokesman Paul Rose said 400 of the 600 Muni vehicles normally on the streets were not in service during both the morning and evening commutes.

It was not clear Monday evening whether the protest, which was not officially organized or sanctioned by the operators' union, Transport Workers Local 250-A, would continue into a second day. Rose said Muni wasn't likely to know until early Tuesday morning.

During the evening commute, Muni deployed most of its depleted fleet downtown in an effort to clear out the busy Market Street corridor, where typically crowded stops, buses and rail cars were overwhelmed with frustrated commuters both in the subway and above ground.


http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Muni-sickout-causing-delays-across-city-5522044.php

June 3, 2014

WTF is wrong with you, Republicans?

All my life I listen to your bullshit about supporting the troops. How many times have I seen a group of beer-hype 20-something Republican males who never served in uniform repeat military lingo verbatim, including about always "returning for your buddy". Now that President OBAMA freed a POW, there's somehow something wrong with the soldier, himself. What a coincidence. Bunch of GI Joe-playing hypocrites.

June 2, 2014

ACA: How Republicans unwittingly encouraged growth of the Federal Option

HealthCare.gov was originally conceived as a just-in-case alternative that would kick in if a state could not or would not build its own health reform enrollment system. The law didn’t even set aside money to build the federal site, let alone operate it indefinitely. Even when red states shunned a role in running Obamacare and a handful of blue states also turned to Washington, the federal system was still seen as a short-term bridge to a state-based system.

Not anymore. After its fiasco of a start, HealthCare.gov is working. No one is pushing states with successful programs, like California and New York, to switch. But there are only a few of those. Most of the other states are in HealthCare.gov. And they‘re staying put rather than start their own exchange.

“Why would any governor or legislature in their right mind step forward at this point and say maybe…that’s a good idea?” wondered John McDonough, a former aide to Sen. Ted Kennedy who worked on health reform in both Washington and Massachusetts.

In theory, states can still tap into virtually unlimited funding to create exchanges. But a number of state officials say the administration has signaled that it doesn’t want to keep pouring millions into broken state systems. A spokesman for CMS, which oversees Obamacare exchanges, said only that states should choose whatever path “that they believe best meets the needs of their consumers and insurance market.”


http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/republicans-obamacare-states-healthcare-gov-107290.html#ixzz33T0j6MDv

June 2, 2014

Alice Cooper - Hello Hooray (VIDEO)

June 1, 2014

In praise of a "government doctor".

Last night I felt so crappy (with what turns out to be bronchitis) that I broke down made an Urgent Care appointment this morning. I won't name the health provider but I can say I was expecting the usual runaround of a quick look in my nose and ears, pat on the back and "go home, take fluids and get plenty of rest" (rest when you have an 8-year old kid?). But that didn't happen. This doctor actually looked me in the eyes, took time to check my record from the last few years, asked a multitude of question and thoroughly checked me out. Then he made is diagnosis and prescribed an aggressive treatment regiment to head off any potentinal pneumonia. I was so impressed by his demeanor and thoroughness that I asked if I could take him on my general practitioner. Unfortunately, I couldn't. He was just there for the day for urgent care and his regular job is with the San Francisco Department of Public Health. He's a "government doctor", and the best I've met since I moved to California. Go figure.