Entries for February 2009

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.

I'm not as thrilled with the O'budget on health care as on education. Nationalized health care has been a disaster for the middle class wherever it exists. Yes it gives access to the deeply impoverished, but at the expense of the middle class. The rich can always buy their way out of any health care system and get the best of care. Here's what the Obama administration will do:

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.

It's true: the O'budget redefines government as we know it. The idea of putting minor off-budget items (such as wars) back on-budget is brilliant. Keeping those costs hidden, a Bush concoction, was never anything but wicked wizardry. Making college more affordable and improving public schools, is among the most important things this president will do:

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.

Check out the cover of Forbes magazine, and its story on Wall Street women whacked in the downturn. The subhead asks:

After the scandals of the 1990s, didn't Investment Banks put sexist employment practices behind them? Evidently not.

All I can say is, it figures!

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

In case you watch Dr. Phil's show Thursday, you'll be privy to the second half of his interview with the now-infamous octuplets mother, the first half of which aired Wednesday.

The interview was pre-taped last week and since then Nadya Suleman has apparently been telephoning Dr. Phil McGraw on a regular basis. He told the Los Angeles Times she called him to say she now fears the "Suleman eight" may not be released to her when they are ready to leave the hospital. The infants are still in a neonatal care unit at the Kaiser Permanente hospital where they were born nine-and-a-half weeks prematurely.

Dr. Phil says Suleman believes the hospital won't release her children to her until, "she has a better living arrangement." On the one hand, who could blame the hospital given the following:

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.

More evangelical churches are pushing sex—in some cases, rather risqué sex, on married couples. The formerly straight-laced church is changing with the times and now promoting, even urging, married couples to have more varied sex and more of it. According to alternet.org, a progressive media website, "Christian sex shops, Christian sex advice columns, and Christian sex blogs" abound on the Internet.

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.

My USNews.com colleague Dan Gilgoff has revealed that President Obama has produced a presidential first: his public rallies and events will start with invocations that have been commissioned and vetted by the White House:

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.

I'm really bored with the gay marriage issue. How about you? I wish it would just go away. Why do some straight people care what gay people do? I care about my marriage, but not about anyone else's. Why should other straights care if the issue does not affect their own marriages? The issue comes up again as Rhode Island's state senate considers a bill to legalize gay marriage: