Contest Winner - "What if....? The G20 Summit"

One of my last real entries to this page was a brief one, a contest for someone out there to come up with a blog idea for my next post. It would look to the Multiply observer that no one had anything for me. Shame to, I thought the prize, a free month of gaming at Pogo, might be something worth winning. Thank goodness for RSS feeds however, because shortly after I posted here, the same entry came up on my Facebook page and I did get a suggestion, actually a few from the same person, Aaron, who I met through the radio show. Needless to say, Aaron therfore won the prize, but his suggestions were tough one's to blog about. That is when the comic book side of my brain kicked into gear. Marvel Comics used to do a series called "What if...?" and would take a significant event that played out within the Marvel Universe and tackled the notion of what might have happened if things were slightly different.

So what does that have to do with this entry you may ask. Well, one of the things that Aaron suggested was a blog about the upcoming G20 summit I have been reluctant to get into a lot of political blogging recently, and have very little interest in the G20, but with the yearly dismantling of the Pittsburgh Pirates franchise that happens right around the trading deadline, I thought I might be able to incorporate the two and ask the following Marvelous question.....

"What If the G20 Summit Was Run By Pittsburgh Pirates Management?"

Well first off, the top 12 nations would be lopped off, traded away to NATO or some other multinational organization for future prospects. 11 of open slots would then be filled with third world countries that show potential to someday maybe be able to crack the top 20, and the last member would be the winner of the reality show "America's Next Top Ally".

Next, the David L Lawrence Convention Center will have to be torn down, and a newer convention center will have to be built in order to host the summit. While the newer convention center will smaller than it's predecessor, it will be replete with more luxury boxes, so that Pittsburgh may someday be more competitive with other cities that host summits.

The Port Authority will pitch in by building a tunnel to the new convention center under the guise that eventually it will be a connector between the East and West Busways and therefore has to be built. The new tunnel will go down in the annals of Pittsburgh transportation, much like the Wasbash Tunnel, the Parkway North HOV lane and the Bridge to Nowhere.

In order to generate more revenue, Pirates management will of course sell the naming rights to the convention. Something along the lines of The UPMC G20 Summit sounds just about right.

To maintain interest in the summit, management will offer a variety of gimmicks to the visiting nations, such as an All You Can Eat section in the newly constructed convention center, world leader bobblehead dolls, and Pittsburgh's favorite, a fireworks night.

Entertainment for the convention will consist of concerts by The Clarks and Donny Iris and movies in which Pittsburgh was the film locale, such as Striking Distance and The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh.

Protestors at the summit will be brandished as nayasayers and as to not having the vision of seeing what it is management is trying to accomplish.

While he is merely a catcher for the Pirates and therefore will have no role in the summit whatsoever, nonetheless Ryan Doumit will still find a way to injure himself and end up on the disabled list.

The summit is to last three days, so expect at least the first two days to be losses, but never fear, management will be there to tell you that 5 years from now it will be worth it, unless of course Pittsburgh is again chosen to host the G20, in which case the above steps will be repeated.

Needless to say, regardless of what does or doesn't happen at the G20 here in Pittsburgh, rest assured that it can't be as bad as if Pirates management ran it.

Stolen Content - Citizen, heal thyself

What if Washington Were a Ghost Town?

What FDR and Nixon might say to their partisan heirs.

• By PEGGY NOONAN

If Franklin Delano Roosevelt, president of the United States through the Great Depression and World War II—if FDR, that canny old political operator, that shrewd judger of men, that merry spinner (“First thing we do is deny we were in Philadelphia!”) that cold calculator (he put in Joe Kennedy to head the first Securities and Exchange Commission, setting the fox among the foxes), that patient and knowing waiter-outer of events—if FDR were advising President Obama right now, what would he say?

He might look at the lay of the land and tell Mr. Obama something like this:

“My friend, you’re in a bit of a fix. Falling polls, decreasing support for health care. Beyond that, you’re stuck in a bit of a lose-lose. If you don’t get a bill along the lines you’ve announced, you’ll look ineffective and weak—a loser. If, on the other hand, you win, if you get what you asked for, it will all be a mess and all be on you. The system will be overwhelmed, the government won’t be able to execute properly, the costs will be huge. The new regime will thoroughly discombobulate things just in time for everyone’s complaints to reach a crescendo by Election Day 2010.

“But I have an idea, and hear me out. You already have Medicare, a single-payer national health-care system for those 65 and older. Little Harry Truman was the first American to get a Medicare card in 1965, did you know that? LBJ hauled him in for a ceremony. Anyway, Americans like Medicare. So here’s the plan. From here on in, every day, start talking about it: ‘Medicare this, Medicare that, Medicare.’ Get your people in Congress to focus on making the system ‘healthier.’ It’s rife with waste, fraud and abuse, everyone knows that. And there’s the demographic time bomb. Come together in a great show of bipartisan feeling with our Republican friends and announce some serious cost-saving measures that are both legitimate and farsighted. Be Dr. Save the System. On thorny issues like end-of-life care, put together a bipartisan commission, show you’re open to Republican suggestions.

“Then, at the end, get your Democratic majorities to make one little change in the program—it’s now open to all. You don’t have to be 65. The uninsured can enroll. Do it in the dead of night if you have to, you’ve got the votes.

“And then, and only because you’ve all made so many institutional and structural changes, you’ll have to give Medicare a new name. I’d suggest ‘The National Health Service.’

“Voilà. You now have the single-payer system you wanted.

“Everybody wins. You get expansion, Republicans get cost control, the system is made more secure, and the public for once isn’t ­terrified.

“Republicans of course will say they won—they defeated a brand new boondoggle nationalized health system. Fine. But people will start referring to the National Health Service every day, and they’ll believe they have one, and they’ll believe you gave it to them. And you can run in ’12 saying you did. That’s what I’d do!”

Before departing in a cloud of cigarette smoke and martini fumes, FDR just might add, “A second option, though lacking that special spark of deviousness, is the Wyden-Bennett bill. It’s cost-neutral, it’s not single-payer, but everyone gets coverage. And that was the point, wasn’t it? You can brag about health care for all and fiscal prudence. Not bad!”

***

If Richard Nixon—one of the great vote counters, a man who loved policy more than politics but was very good at the latter until he wasn’t anymore, a man who acted so very tough because his heart had been broken, not only by Watergate but by other things (he was right about Alger Hiss and still they wouldn’t honor him; he gave liberals everything in terms of domestic programs and still they wouldn’t love him)—if he met in Washington with the national Republicans of 2009, he might, just might, say something like this:

“Men, and a few ladies, and it’s wonderful to have you here, you’re in a good position and a bad one. Good: The American people are peeling off from nationalized medicine or socialized medicine or whatever you call it. Bad: I’m not sure the peeling off has anything to do with you. There’s something going on that I never foresaw, and it’s the fact that you don’t seem anymore to be the face of the party or of the movements within it. People with TV and radio shows do. Media people! There’s a plus to this but a minus, too. They’re sucking all the oxygen out of the room. You think they’re supporting you, but they’re really supplanting you! You’ve got to figure out how to come to the fore more and break through. But that’s small beer. Big thing is the current debate.

“You still haven’t given the American people coherent alternatives and arguments, or not so the people have noticed. You’ve got to have a strategy, and you’ve got to be serious. Put all internal jockeying aside and remember your philosophy, the thing that made you be a Republican and not a Dem.

“They’re calling you all Dr. No, but that’s not really taking off, so don’t worry about it. But they are tagging you as guys who think this is all just about politics. Remember, the majority of the American people don’t care at all about your political prospects. Why should they? Unlike everyone in Washington and the media, they’re not political obsessives. They actually have lives. They care about what happens to them when they’re sick. So stop the ‘Obama’s Waterloo’ stuff—what a mistake that was, to make yourselves look cynical and purely partisan!—and refocus. Come back to first principles and prudent warnings, but always within a context of clear patriotism. At the end of the day, America needs a successful president. It’s dangerous to have a wounded duck six months into a presidency in a dangerous world. So help him by gently instructing him. He’ll hate that, because in his mind he’s the teacher and you’re the student. Point out that there’s a lot the president doesn’t understand, come forward every day with your ideas, talk them up, get them out there.

“For instance: As you know, doctors keep fees up and order expensive tests because they’re afraid of malpractice suits. They pay terrible insurance premiums. We have to reform that. Stop calling it “tort reform”; normal people think a tort is something you eat for dessert. Call it the Limiting Lawyers’ Windfalls bill. No one likes lawyers anymore, Perry Mason’s dead. And make it real when you talk. Here you can pinpoint an Obama weakness that you’re not even exploiting. He won’t go near legal reform because his biggest backers and contributors are the trial lawyer’s lobby. He talks about the common good—give me a break. As Jack Kennedy used to say, and so eloquently, here you can really stick it to him and break it off.

And speaking of JFK, try to seize back a bit of the issue of health in general. Remember physical fitness and vigor and 50 mile hikes on the C&O Canal? Completely captured the public imagination. JFK himself didn’t do it, he wasn’t insane, and he had the bad back. He sent Bobby and that fat Pierre Salinger. Anyway, go with that: personal responsibility, strength, health. Steal it from the Dems. But don’t imitate their censorious tone: ‘Ya can’t smoke, put down that doughnut.’ Let me tell you, doughnut eaters are the largest growing demographic in America. Don’t get crossways with them!”

Stolen Content - See, there is a God

Wis. jury: Father guilty in prayer death case

By ROBERT IMRIE, Associated Press Writer Robert Imrie, Associated Press Writer 1 hr 22 mins ago

 

WAUSAU, Wis. – A central Wisconsin man accused of killing his 11-year-old daughter by praying instead of seeking medical care was found guilty Saturday of second-degree reckless homicide.

Dale Neumann, 47, was convicted in the March 23, 2008, death of his daughter, Madeline, from undiagnosed diabetes. Prosecutors contended he should have rushed the girl to a hospital because she couldn't walk, talk, eat or drink. Instead, Madeline died on the floor of the family's rural Weston home as people surrounded her and prayed. Someone called 911 when she stopped breathing.

Sitting straight in his chair, Neumann stared at the jury as the verdict in a nearly empty courtroom was read. He declined comment as he left the courthouse.

Defense attorney Jay Kronenwetter said the verdict would be appealed. He declined further comment.

Prosecutors also declined comment, citing a gag order.

Leilani Neumann, 41, was convicted on the same charge in the spring. Marathon County Circuit Judge Vincent Howard set Oct. 6 for sentencing for both parents, who face up to 25 years in prison.

Their case is believed to be the first in Wisconsin involving faith healing in which someone died and another person was charged with a homicide.

Last month, an Oregon jury convicted a man of misdemeanor criminal mistreatment for relying on prayer instead of seeking medical care for his 15-month-old daughter who died of pneumonia and a blood infection in March 2008. Both of the girl's parents were acquitted of a more serious manslaughter charge.

Neumann's jury — six men and six women — deliberated about 15 hours over two days before convicting him. At one point, jurors asked the judge whether Neumann's belief in faith healing made him "not liable" for not taking his daughter to the hospital even if he knew she wasn't feeling well.

Neumann, who once studied to be a Pentecostal minister, testified Thursday that he believed God would heal his daughter and he never expected her to die. God promises in the Bible to heal, he said.

"If I go to the doctor, I am putting the doctor before God," Neumann testified. "I am not believing what he said he would do."

The father testified that he thought Madeline had the flu or a fever, and several relatives and family friends said they also did not realize how sick she was.

Assistant District Attorney LaMont Jacobson told jurors in closing arguments Friday that Neumann was "overwhelmed by pride" in his interpretation of the Bible and selfishly let Madeline die as a test of faith.

Neumann knew he should have taken his daughter to a doctor and minimized her illness when speaking with investigators, Jacobson said, calling Neumann no different than a drunken driver who remarks he only had a couple of beers.

Doctors testified that Madeline would have had a good chance of survival if she had received medical care, including insulin and fluids, before she stopped breathing.

Kronenwetter told the jury that Neumann sincerely believed praying would heal his daughter and he did nothing criminally wrong.

"Dale Neumann was doing what he thought would work for his daughter," Kronenwetter said. "He was administering faith healing. He thought it was working."

(This version CORRECTS Corrects year from 2003 to 2008 in 2nd graf)