Pardon a break from the candidate diaries...

The House has passed the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act!

I'd urge everyone to click on the link to learn more about the act and continue to read the Wellstone Action site to find out what else needs to be done to make sure this becomes law.

Just because we're having a heated primary fight does not mean we need to damage our community. Both sides need to get over their candidate and realize that the other one won't destroy the party/country. Either of these people can rescue the Supreme Court. You get the idea.  

For anyone who can stand listening to the commentary on CNN/MSNBC, I thought this might make it fun. I'm not even going to touch Fox.

Disclaimer: It may not be a good idea to enforce all of the following rules if you have to work the next morning. Pick your favorites and if you have other rules, please share. I tried to make them friendly to those who casually follow politics.

Food Banks, in a Squeeze, Tighten Belts

There is a critical shortage in America's food banks, and after reading the above article, it became clear that I should make a donation to a food bank this season...and so should you! (If you haven't already)

Food bank locator:
http://www.secondharvest.org/...

How enviable a quiet death by lethal injection.

-Antonin Scalia

I'd like to take a moment and direct your attention to Elizabeth Weil's superb article on the issues surrounding lethal injection which appears in this week's NY Times magazine. As an aspiring health professional, this issue has often grabbed my attention. Yet until now it's been difficult for me to find a good summary of the relevant history and viewpoints. It's a mere 5 pages on the web, but I'll try to give a sum up of the sum up.

A cookie to whoever's the first to accuse me of being Hillary's paid blogger for posting this, and yes, I'm going to disclaimer it with the fact that I don't support her.

At the same time, I find that a ton of my comments are defending her against baseless attacks. I don't particularly enjoy this because I believe she has a lot to explain and I support vigorously challenging her in this primary, but she is not Republican lite nor does she exhibit Joementum-like behavior.

People who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 (especially in FL) were part of the problem and if you want to vote for him again or stay home if Hillary is the nominee, you are also part of the problem.

I'm sure many of you have read Lies my teacher told me and many could provide more insightful commentary than I, but I'd like to share some of my reactions to this book. The author has helped me put many of our current political struggles into a historical context and  convinced me that history education may be one of the best ways to prevent the next George W Bush.

Published in 1995, The author mainly debunks the traditional American History textbook, makes swiss cheese out of its narratives and exposes the motives behind them. Most of my sociopolitical education came after the age of 15 so I remained generally unaware of how rosy and full of lies high school history texts are. This evoked a nice simmering anger until I read the following:

By downplaying covert and illegal acts by the government, textbook authors narcotize students from thinking about such issues as the increasing dominance of the executive branch...Thus our American history textbooks minimize the potential power of the people and, despite their best patriotic efforts, take a stance that is overtly antidemocratic.

And my face contorted in unnatural and unsightly ways...