| Number 37 | July 9, 1999 |
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This Week:
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Greetings, I don’t have enough room to include all of the things that I think merit comment this week, so I am copping out and sending out a separate E-mail entitled Nygaard Notes Extra! which contains an article that is being published today in Access Press, a monthly newspaper for people with disabilities. Many of you may prefer to read it in printed form in that fine newspaper. The number to call for a subscription to Access Press is 651-644- 2133. Even without that article, there’s still not enough space or time to comment on the related issues of health care, Social Security, and Clinton’s insane promise to “pay off the national debt by 2015,” all of which are being discussed endlessly in the media these days. So, maybe next week. I say that so often that it’s becoming kind of a motto: “Nygaard Notes, where there’s never enough space to say everything so you have to wait ‘til next week.” Not much of a motto, is it? I’ll have to work on that one. Nygaard |
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I am happy to report that this week’s Nygaard Notes contains the solution to a problem that has bothered me for many months. The problem is that I try to write in as conversational a style as possible, and my conversation includes many words that are considered “offensive” (a.k.a. profane, “bad,” uncouth; you get the idea.) This language I find especially appealing when attempting to describe the activities of the elites in our society, the behavior of whom I often find offensive (profane, bad, etc). I am aware that this language is inappropriate in published form, and not for any moral or legal reasons (as if the FCC would notice Nygaard Notes language violations). No, the real problem is that these words lose all impact and value for me when they appear without appropriate vocal inflection, volume, body language, and so on. They’re just no fun. The obvious solution to the problem is the time-honored cartoon technique of using miscellaneous keyboard characters in place of the desired language. Not only is this not offensive to most people (I would hope it’s not offensive, anyway, unless people are offended by what is in their own imaginations), but I find it quite amusing as well. I probably won’t even have the need for this too often, but it’s good to know that it’s there when the need arises, as it does today in paragraph Number 22. And, if you don’t think that this is a good solution, or if you think I have spent too much time discussing it, then that’s your own $#%&@# problem! |
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Every corporate (or “mainstream”) newspaper has a “Corrections” column, in which they tell you about some of the more obvious errors that they have made in previous editions. I think that these columns are objectionable, for two reasons. First, there are many published errors that never make it into the “Corrections” column, they are often the largest and most significant errors, and they are errors both of commission and errors of omission. An example of an error of commission would be the routinely-repeated statement that the Social Security system is going “broke” or “bankrupt.” This is factually false, as I have repeatedly pointed out, and I have yet to see this acknowledged in any column, “Corrections” or otherwise. An example of a major error of omission would be the failure to report the substance of the war crimes charges lodged against Bill Clinton in the complaint recently submitted to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. The second reason I don’t like Corrections columns is directly related to the first: Even though the largest errors rarely appear here (and errors of omission virtually never appear here) these columns nonetheless give the (desired) impression that anything that is in the paper and does not appear in the “Corrections” column must, obviously, be “correct.” This is dangerously deceptive, and I could give many pages of examples of uncorrected errors from any newspaper you care to name that would illustrate this point. This consideration does not only apply to the corporate media, of course. I encourage readers to read Nygaard Notes with the same active skepticism that you should use anywhere else. However, two weeks ago I did publish a factual error that merits comment. The First-Ever Nygaard Notes Official Correction I wrote in Nygaard Notes #35 that The Work Incentives Improvement Act “was passed into law.” That is not true. What is true is that the Senate, on June 16th, passed its version of the Act, S. 331, by a vote of 99-0. It’s also true that the companion bill in the House has over 200 co-sponsors, and it’s true that Clinton has promised to sign the bill if and when it passes. But the fact is that it has not passed yet. I was wrong, and I am filled with remorse. Having said that, I should point out that everything else you have ever read in Nygaard Notes is, of course, true. The next section tells you what this bill means, and tells you can do to help assure that this crucial bill does become law. |
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In the midst of our “booming” economy, the unemployment rate among people with disabilities continues to hover around an unbelievable 70%. While there are many reasons for this, one of the most obvious is that there is a serious barrier to employment built into “the system” within which people with disabilities (and all of us) live. Many people with disabilities (PWDs) require ongoing support to deal with daily living or to maintain their health. This may be in the form of Personal Care Attendant (PCA) services, or it may be ongoing doses of prescription drugs, or needs for certain adaptive equipment, or any number of things. All of these things cost money. The cost of these health- or function-related things is far too high to be paid for out-of-pocket by any but the most wealthy among us. That is why a large number of PWDs must have these goods and/or services paid for by some sort of public money, quite often Medicaid, the federal program that pays for health care for people at or near the poverty level. And there’s the problem: You have to be at or near the poverty level to be eligible for Medicaid. To make a long story short, up to now its been true that pretty much any PWD who gets a job ends up making too much money to qualify for Medicaid. However, very few jobs, and almost no jobs at the entry level, pay enough to allow the worker to pay for PCA services (for example). As a result, it is literally the case that many PWDs cannot afford to have a job. Crazy, but true. The Work Incentives Improvement Act (WIIA) addresses this problem directly by allowing PWDs to keep their Medicaid after they get a job. It does some other good things, too, but the removal of this fundamental barrier to work is the essence of the bill. What can you do? As I mentioned, the bill has passed in the Senate, but the House is dragging it’s feet. A coalition of disability groups has designated next Tuesday, July 13th, as “Call your Representative Day.” I encourage Nygaard Notes readers to get on the phone. Here is the text of their call to action:
How do you get the phone number for your representative? Call the CAPITOL SWITCHBOARD PHONE at 202-224-3121, or visit the website for the US House of Representatives at www.house.gov Click on either “House Directory” or “Member Offices.” For all you Minnesota readers, here are the Representatives that have already co-sponsored the bill: David Minge, Jim Ramstad, Bruce Vento, Martin Sabo, Bill Luther, James Oberstar, and Collin Peterson. Congratulate and encourage them. The only MN rep not to have co-sponsored this bill, which should be a no-brainer for people from any political party, is Republican Gil Gutknecht. Call him on Tuesday and tell him what’s up. The Real Issue: National Health Care Do not let anything in the above paragraphs distract you from the real problem here, which is our private, fragmented, for-profit health care system in the United States. If we had a national system of universal health care in this country, like every socialist country and every other wealthy capitalist country in the world does, there would be no need for a Work Incentives Improvement Act, a Patient’s Bill of Rights, increased monitoring of Medicare HMOs, or any of the other #!!%#@&* legislation that we are currently talking about. In the very near future Nygaard Notes will give out some information on groups that are working toward the goal of universal health care, so you can volunteer some time or donate some money to help our great nation move into the 20th century before we are too far into the 21st. |
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I mentioned earlier that our President’s name has been submitted to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for indictment as a war criminal. This is a serious charge, and the President is not the only one named. The names of Madeleine Albright, Javier Solana, Jamie Shea, Jean Chretien, Art Eggleton, Lloyd Axworthy and 60 other heads of state and government, foreign ministers, defense ministers and NATO officials, have been submitted due to their association with war crimes committed in NATO’s recent bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. The complaint accuses NATO of such things as "willful killing, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, extensive destruction of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly, employment of poisonous weapons or other weapons to cause unnecessary suffering, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity, attack, or bombardment, by whatever means, of undefended towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings, destruction or willful damage done to institutions dedicated to religion, charity and education, the arts and sciences, historic monuments and works of art and science.” Most of these alleged actions have been widely reported, although the idea that such things might violate the United Nations Charter, the NATO treaty itself, the Geneva Conventions and the Principles of International Law Recognized by the Nüremberg Tribunal have been, shall we say, less widely reported. You can find a copy of the press release that accompanied the filing of the complaint on the Counterpunch website, at http://www.counterpunch.org/natocrimespr.html. The entire text of the complaint is pretty darned interesting reading as well, and is also on the Counterpunch website, at http://www.counterpunch.org/complaint.html. A computer search reveals that this story was reported in the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!) in a single story on June 10, but nothing has been said about it since. I’m not sure if the New York Times reported it at all; my search shows that it never appeared in a headline, in any case. |