by Last Night in Little Rock

Get the creeps when you walk into a Wal-Mart store? I do. It feels un-American to buy there, and I'll tell you why.

Wal-Mart is the biggest corporation to have been created in the U.S., making it by sheer growth. Even with Exxon/Mobil's price gouging during Katrina, Wal-Mart still came out on top of the Fortune 500 list this year. Wal-Mart pays cash for everything it buys: Products, land, construction of buildings and stores. It is flush with cash. Far more than the normal American can even imagine.

Today, we see Wal-Mart apologize, noted here on TalkLeft, for some minor employee linking "Planet of the Apes" DVDs with "black oriented" movies. Just stupidity, or is it the air in Bentonville, Arkansas? Sam Walton should be spinning in his grave.

As more and more of us find ourselves with parents in need of skilled nursing facilities, articles like this are our biggest nightmare. First, the names of the facilities: the Jennifer Matthew Nursing Home in Rochester, NY and the Northwoods Nursing Home in Cortland, NY.

Hidden cameras recorded nursing-home patients being left in their own waste while staffers watched movies, and 19 workers at two facilities have been arrested, prosecutors said Thursday.....Videotape from that facility, the Jennifer Matthew Nursing Home in Rochester, showed a patient and other residents who hadn't been repositioned to avoid bed sores and were often left for hours to lie in their own urine and waste, Spitzer said. Medications and treatments were not provided as prescribed, he said.

Staff had moved call bells away from patients and stopped doing their rounds so they could socialize, watch movies, sleep or leave the building, Spitzer said. Some employees were also accused of falsely filing records that claimed they provided required care.

If you are looking for a great holiday story (that has nothing to do with New Years or crime but a lot to do with social injustice) with a fabulously happy ending, look no further than Memories Shrouded in Doubt in today's LA Times about two women, Regina Louise and Jeanne Kerr Taylor. I could not stop reading it, but clearly, I'm not alone. Not only is it today's most e-mailed article on the LA Times website, but yesterday, Regina Louise's 2003 memoir, Somebody's Someone, was #171,759 on Amazon. Today it is # 5,046. From a book review:

Regina Louise was poor, black, illegitimate, and abandoned by her mother to the care of an elderly woman, Big Mama, more concerned with getting to heaven than the health and welfare of her charge. Writing in the idiomatic voice of her childhood self, the author brings her fear, pain, stubbornness, and intelligence up close as she describes her struggles to find someone to love who will love her back. After a brutal beating at the hands of Big Mama's grown foster child, Regina is shuffled from one home to another, angry, uncooperative, vulnerable, finding solace first in fantasies that her mother will rescue her, then in the dream that she will be taken in by a family like those she sees on television.

It's supremely ironic that the woman who truly loves her happens to be white and is barred from fostering her. This is a harsh, often brutal, but always compelling memoir, and its very existence is proof of the author's personal triumph in the face of enormous odds.

Now read the LA Times' article for the happy ending, one that occurred after the book was published.

I know I've already written about how Dick Cheney knocked the crutches out from under Tiny Tim with his tie-breaking vote on the budget bill, but I've only just begun to fight. The bill now goes to the Senate House. That means there's time for you to contact your Representatives and urge them to vote against it. The New York Times has this summary of what's in it.

• States would have sweeping new authority to impose premiums and co-payments on millions of low-income people covered by Medicaid. States can also scale back benefits for many recipients.

• For the elderly, it would be more difficult to qualify for Medicaid coverage for nursing home care if they transfer assets to their children or other relatives for less than fair market value.

• Medicare would freeze payments for home health services and reduce payments for medical imaging.

by TChris

The war against Christmas has been waged so clandestinely that only Bill O'Reilly and John Gibson seem to be aware of it. If that undynamic duo were less shrill about their pet peeve, the vast liberal plot to assist the Grinch might go unnoticed.

O'Reilly, Gibson, and the rest of them are supposedly all upset because some people are calling a Christmas tree a holiday tree, some stores aren't mentioning the word Christmas in their advertising, and some people are saying, "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." So apparently, the essence of Christmas is, one, making sure a Christmas tree is called a Christmas tree instead of a holiday tree; two, saying Merry Christmas to people as opposed to Happy Holidays; and three, ensuring that advertisements use the word "Christmas."

Wouldn't it be fair to say that never on behalf of so large and all-powerful a majority has such a frivolous complaint been raised?

A bit of perspective:

by TChris

It's good to see a mainstream news source like the Washington Post calling attention to hypocrisy among right-wing religious extremists:

Why in recent years have conservative Christians asserted their influence on efforts to relieve Third World debt, AIDS in Africa, strife in Sudan and international sex trafficking -- but remained on the sidelines while liberal Christians protest domestic spending cuts?

The answer: religious leaders on the extreme right are making deals with the devils in the Republican Party leadership.

Susie at Suburban Guerilla:

Growing student debt, fast-shrinking student aid and few well-paying jobs upon graduation – why are we urging kids to go to college?

Say hello to the new debtor class:

The average student now graduates with three and a half times more debt than ten years ago, but still Washington wants to cut even more student aid.

I wonder if Congress has a stereo system in its chambers. I'd love for someone to put on Grace Slick singing "Feed Your Head."

It's Wal-Mart day at Huffington Post. My entry is Wal-Mart: Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor.....

I hope you will read them all....and see the movie.

by TChris

A public university cannot train teachers to teach only white Christian kids. Teachers must be equipped to teach a diverse student population. A university might therefore legitimately be troubled when a student in its education program insists that “diversity is perversity.”

Ed Swan thinks the College of Education at Washington State is discriminating against him because of his political views. Swan was told to complete diversity training if he wanted to remain in the program. If he is correct that WSU is trying to force him to change his fundamental beliefs about abortion or gay marriage, he has a valid gripe. But WSU has a legitimate interest in producing teachers who do not favor students of a particular race or background, and diversity training is a reasonable vehicle for achieving that goal.

"We want prospective teachers to realize they are going to be teaching all children," said Judy Mitchell, dean of education. "We want to make sure a teacher appreciates and values human diversity and others' varied talents and perspectives."

Rosa Parks died today at 92.

Parks inspired the civil rights movement when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama, in December 1955.

Her arrest triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus system by blacks that was organized by a young Baptist preacher, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and led to a court ruling desegregating public transportation in Montgomery.

Crooks and Liars has the details from this Arizona Star article of a rape victim who spent three days trying to get the morning after pill.

C & L says,

Looks like we have another Target on our hands. John has more on them. I thought these Circus Clowns believed abortion was fine if it involved rape?

by TChris

Here's a good reason to buy your niece or daughter (or maybe your boss) a doll from American Girl this holiday season:

The maker of the highly popular American Girl line of dolls has become the target of conservative activists threatening a boycott unless it cuts off contributions to a youth organization that supports abortion rights and acceptance of lesbians.

American Girl supports Girls Inc. programs that help girls develop self-esteem by improving math and science skills, encouraging athletic participation, and nurturing leadership ability. Some right wing groups contend that Girls Inc. deserves no support because it also opposes abstinence-only education and "condones lesbianism." In other words, Girls Inc. supports tolerance and wants children to have the information they'll need to make smart decisions as they mature.