Prose and Thorn

GOP Health Care Bill Denies Election Lessons

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:57:00 +0000

The Republican version of the House Health Care bill that Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) announced this past week, demonstrates that even with the trouncing the GOP has taken in the last two Congressional election cycles, the "Party of No" has learned nothing about the political will of the American people.

With its generous offerings to insurance and pharmaceutical companies, the Republican bill is the same kind of charade that they put forth under the previous administration. In exchange for transparent promises of feigned altruism from corporate special interests, GOP lawmakers continue to insist that this vital financial engine of their political base will make it better for everyone, if only we give them billions of taxpayer dollars. They did it in 2003, with an energy bill that gave tax breaks to oil, gas and electrical corporations, and the did it in 2003 with billions to pharmaceutical companies to bring down prescription drug prices to seniors.

States' rights advocates seek to keep out federal health care plan

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:43:00 +0000

States' rights advocates seek to keep out federal health care plan

Posted using ShareThis

States' rights advocates seek to keep out federal health care plan

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:43:00 +0000

States' rights advocates seek to keep out federal health care plan

Posted using ShareThis

Remembering Ted Kennedy

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:56:00 +0000

"Edward M. Kennedy — the husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle we loved so deeply — died late Tuesday night at home in Hyannis Port. We've lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever. We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice, fairness and opportunity for all. He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it. He always believed that our best days were still ahead, but it's hard to imagine any of them without him." — Statement from the Kennedy family

The Associated Press has a list of highlights from remembrances of Sen. Kennedy from public figures.

On burying my father

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 03:20:00 +0000

My dear, sweet father...

I'm grateful, even briefly, to have ridden the wake of his spirit's breeze.

His spirit was always larger than his true presence, which easily overtook - but could not function without - his mortal soul. Swimming in the infinite flow was the way he showed me, without words... with just kavanah, sacred intention, and action.

If he were not my father, I might have given myself over to him as my guru, my rebbbe, but for the crashing together of the worlds of fathers and sons, a generation and oceans of time apart.

Yet, even in the clash, those lessons too often penetrated slowly, and more than wanted, too late. So, in that, my friends, I advise you thus:

- Should your good fortune include a parent's old wisdom, imported to you anew, relish it. Step out of your relationship with them as a parent and just be with it;
- In your relationships to your own children, remember that who you are is more important than what you say. To paraphrase someone much greater than I, be the person you want your children to be...

for our own individual evolution is a byproduct of our existence, but what holy Humanity strives for never changes:
Love, Peace, and the ability to melt back into creation (whatever that is to you).

Now, having lost my father, and my brother, Mark - perhaps my father's greatest and most humble protoge - I find myself alone, in a space I never knew existed... the space where one person stands between me and life's fulfillment - me. I stand between the place where I am, and the man I strive to be.

I love you all,
Perry

Immigration groups fear local law enforcement, ICE, racial profiling

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 18:14:00 +0000

Immigration groups fear local law enforcement, ICE, racial profiling

Posted using ShareThis

National commission report slams Bush ICE raids

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:05:00 +0000

National commission report slams Bush ICE raids

Posted using ShareThis

HIV rates rise with anti-gay rhetoric, study finds

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:53:00 +0000

HIV rates rise with anti-gay rhetoric, study finds

Posted using ShareThis

Atlanta Public Policy Examiner: The genius of Herbert York - bottling the nuclear genie

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Sun, 31 May 2009 04:26:00 +0000

Atlanta Public Policy Examiner: The genius of Herbert York - bottling the nuclear genie

Posted using ShareThis

Atlanta Public Policy Examiner: Cheney's tenacity - the bulldog on the Democrats' butt

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Sat, 23 May 2009 22:15:00 +0000

Atlanta Public Policy Examiner: Cheney's tenacity - the bulldog on the Democrats' butt

Posted using ShareThis

Atlanta Public Policy Examiner: Detainee disposition emboldens Congress, enrages Obama

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Fri, 22 May 2009 18:51:00 +0000

Atlanta Public Policy Examiner: Detainee disposition emboldens Congress, enrages Obama

Posted using ShareThis

Atlanta Public Policy Examiner: Bush officials' 'exposed flanks' fair game for war crimes wolves

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 03:20:00 +0000

Atlanta Public Policy Examiner: Bush officials' 'exposed flanks' fair game for war crimes wolves

Posted using ShareThis

Atlanta Public Policy Examiner: Where are the anti-anti-tax protesters?

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 05:19:00 +0000

Atlanta Public Policy Examiner: Where are the anti-anti-tax protesters?

Posted using ShareThis

Atlanta Public Policy Examiner: Pewing the POTUS - believers battle to bench Obama

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 02:49:00 +0000

Atlanta Public Policy Examiner: Pewing the POTUS - believers battle to bench Obama

Posted using ShareThis

Atlanta Public Policy Examiner: G20: a failure in the 'long-term project to reform capitalism'

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 05:05:00 +0000

Atlanta Public Policy Examiner: G20: a failure in the 'long-term project to reform capitalism'

Posted using ShareThis

Atlanta Public Policy Examiner: Partisans, presidents and the politics of pope

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 23:44:00 +0000

Atlanta Public Policy Examiner: Partisans, presidents and the politics of pope

Posted using ShareThis

Atlanta Public Policy Examiner: Vilifying the bourgeoisie - populism and the new middle class

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 06:02:00 +0000

Atlanta Public Policy Examiner: Vilifying the bourgeoisie - populism and the new middle class

Posted using ShareThis

Georgia thumbs its nose at Obama stem cell decision

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:45:00 +0000

From my examiner.com page:

"SB 169 would recognize all human embryos as having the legal right to life and legal protection under the laws of the state of Georgia." - Georgia Right to Life

The State Senate of Georgia took a bill they had conceived to regulate in-vitro fertilization - in the wake of California's "octo-mom" controversy - and made it an anti-embryonic stem cell research bill.

The move goes farther than just negating President Obama's lifting of the Bush era federal funding ban. The bill, which moved out of the 13 member Senate Health and Human Services Committee with a 7 to 6 vote, decrees that a fertilized embryo is a person, and thus subject to the full protection of a person under the law.

"A living in vitro human embryo is a biological human being who is not the property of any person or entity," says the bill, SB169, entitled the Ethical Treatment of Human Embryos Act.

The bill goes on to say, "The in vitro human embryo shall not be intentionally destroyed for any purpose by any person or entity or through the actions of such person or entity."

To insure that the fertilized embryos are only used for reproductive applications, the bill includes language that would keep the embryos out of the hands of pure research scientists:

"A person who engages in the creation of in vitro human embryos shall be qualified as a medical doctor licensed to practice medicine in this state and shall possess specialized training and skill in artificial reproductive technology."

This is bad news for some of Georgia's colleges and universities, where researches were looking forward to the opportunity to “push their research toward the most promising technologies rather than the most politically expedient technologies,” Aaron Levine, a Georgia Tech public policy professor, said in an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution prior to the Monday's news from Georgia's capitol.

Emory University, in Atlanta, also expressed some excitement about how Obama's move could impact cancer research.

SB 169 could come to the floor as soon as Thursday for a vote.

Moving the pile - capitalism, socialism and liberation

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 04:06:00 +0000

A commentary from my examiner.com page:

I have a pile of small, white stones that have washed down the walkway beside my house and now cover, quite completely, the drain we installed to carry the rainwater under the yard and out to the creek.

Mr. Obama, move these stones! (PBG)

One day, I'll have to move that pile and liberate the square grid of black plastic that filters the water into the drain. Only then will the water flow where it's supposed to, instead of gurgling over the stones and turning the backyard into a swamp.

Barack Obama is doing to the government what I need to do to that pile of stones. He is pushing against the pile, trying to get the money flowing again. For him, the task is sisyphean, because the harder he tries to move the mountain of stones, the higher the bulwark of dirt the special interests and lobbyists throw against the pile to try to keep it just where it is.

"Industries from health care to agribusiness to mining that stand to lose under President Barack Obama's policy agenda are ramping up lobbying campaigns to derail or modify his plans," wrote the Wall Street Journal, Thursday.

The WSJ article goes on to cite several groups that are gearing up to lobby Congress to their way of seeing things (boldface type is mine):

"...the former chief executive of HCA Inc. [Hospital Corporation of America] unveiled a $20 million campaign to pressure Democrats to enact health-care legislation based on free-market principles."

" 'We were surprised President Obama included farm payments in his speech [Tuesday],' said Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation. "But it is Congress where the rubber meets the road.' "

"...an alliance of electric utilities, coal and mining companies said it will spend as much as $40 million to make sure Congress approves a global-warming plan with funding for technology to reduce emissions that includes carbon capture and storage at coal-fired plants."

"The Aerospace Industries Association of America has spent $2 million so far on an ad campaign urging that defense spending shouldn't be slashed to offset shortfalls in other areas."

In his Saturday radio address, however, President Obama said he was up to the challenge. He said that the budget he submitted to Congress "is the change the American people voted for in November."

He also was assertive in his defense of ending subsidies and tax breaks for farmers, the energy industry and the medical insurance companies:

"I know these steps won’t sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they’re gearing up for a fight as we speak. My message to them is this: So am I."

The president knows that the pile of stones is no pushover. "The system we have now might work for the powerful and well-connected interests that have run Washington for far too long," he said, adding, "but I don’t."

What he has to do, what he finds necessary to do, is to start skimming off the top layers of the pile in order for the water that was not reaching the stones on the bottom through trickle-down, to saturate them directly. Only then, he believes, will the water flow through the system properly.

"...that is the change I’ll be fighting for in the weeks ahead," the president concluded, "change that will grow our economy, expand our middle-class, and keep the American Dream alive for all those men and women who have believed in this journey from the day it began."

To me, it seems clear that those who defend the status quo as capitalism are the same people who condemn the president's vow of "change" as socialism. They want to keep the pile of rocks tall and top heavy. They see letting anything flow to the middle and former middle class as entitlements and socialism.

What they may not realize is that they ought to be grateful President Obama is taking this on for them, because otherwise, our decades of apathy will turn into anarchy, and then there will be no one left to pick up the pieces.

By the way, if you're looking for me next week, I'll be out in my backyard moving rocks.

Too big to fail: feudalism, socialism and other demons of capitalism

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 03:19:00 +0000

(From my examiner.com column)

There is a lot of talk these days about how the $700 billion bank bailout that passed in 2008 was a step toward socialism, that we were effectively nationalizing the banks. The "big bad" government would own our savings and our mortgages.

In fact, at the end of last year, according to Fox News, RNC Vice Chairman James Bopp, Jr., tried to get Republicans to sign on to a resolution that said, in part, that bailouts and other federally funded stimuli are:

"...moving our free-market based economy another dangerous step closer toward socialism."

(The GOP continues to find endorsers of the pending resolution. It is scheduled to be voted on next week by party delegates attending the RNC Winter Meetings in Washington, DC.)

But to move toward socialism in this country would take a lot more than having some ownership in banks and automobile companies. It seems to me that it is easier to view last year's final money grab by the outgoing administration as a slide back to feudalism, rather than a leap ahead to socialism.

Here's why I say that.

When, in the course of human events, our forebears revolted and evolved the radically progressive democratic republic we call home, they only sidestepped the troubling system of King George and the lords who supported and served him. Rather than allow a ruler to disseminate what was his will, the United States of America was to be a nation that was run according to the will of the people. To insure that no one branch of government superseded the other, the Founding Fathers intelligently installed a system of checks and balances.

We do not work to serve the king. We do not work to serve the lord of the manor. We work to better our own lives and the lives of our neighbors.

Let me take you back to that time, though, when the king counted on his loyal lords to give tributes and defend his lands. In return, the king ensured that those who supported him were all in alliance. If one of the fiefdoms chose to no longer support the king, His Royal Highness could entreat neighboring lords to subdue the free lance, in exchange for treasures and more land to call their own.

Likewise, if the kingdom was losing land to an invader, and his own lords were failing in their common defense, he would send the King's Army out to help them. If the fight was really desperate, the king would send an emissary to another kingdom, to ask for their help with men and money. In this way, wars were fought in feudal Europe for hundreds of years.

The patronage period of the Renaissance was only a different form of the same thing. The merchant republics that gave birth to the Italian Renaissance were little more than oligarchies, an early, quite undemocratic, form of capitalism. Someone with money made your life possible, but it was still a class society where nobility got ahead and the peasants suffered.

Indeed, according to Wikipedia's entry for Renaissance/Historiography, "many historians now point out that most of the negative social factors popularly associated with the 'medieval' period – poverty, warfare, religious and political persecution, for example – seem to have worsened in [the Renaissance] era."

The royal courts of Europe in the closing centuries of the last millennium were just an extension of that oligarchy. The royalty of the time was so puffed up about the Renaissance that their ancestors created, that they did not notice the seething peasantry they were crushing under their pointy shoes. They told them to "eat cake."

Even today, there are those who argue that in order to get Americans working, you have to make sure the companies that employ them get all kinds of breaks, like offshore tax shelters, like not having to pay them their employees a living wage. The trickle-downers basically echo that old capitalist chestnut, "What's good for GM is good for America."

Companies that are "too big to fail" are just modern day fiefdoms. Giving them our tax dollars, and the money we have gone to China to borrow, is just a new way for the king to save his realm. It is not socialism. It's just a perpetuation of the status quo.

-PBG

Chambliss - the accidental GOP poster boy

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:11:00 +0000

Republicans may be celebrating the victory of Sen. Saxby Chambliss in the Georgia runoff, and because of the attention this race has received, observers may get the idea that the soon-to-be two term Senator is the next great hope of the GOP.

Nothing could be further from the truth. That is, if Saxby is the GOP's future, then the last two election cycles have not taught the party of Lincoln a thing.

Around the country, Republican seats in the House and Senate have gone from red to blue - except in Georgia. Around the country, states that have not voted for a Democrat in a presidential election in decades went for Barack Obama in 2008 - except for Georgia.

The GOP hopes the rest of the country becomes more like Georgia. After all, if we can elect old-school Republicans, then, they believe, they should be more like old-school Republicans.

Chambliss told his supporters Wednesday morning, as they dismantled his campaign headquarters, that his victory is a "model" for the 2010 election cycle.

The Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Mike Duncan, who was in Atlanta for Chambliss' Tuesday night victory, said that night's "result sends a strong and confident message to those committed to electing candidates who stand by the core principles upon which our Party was founded.”

Those principles, according to Chambliss, include "smaller government, fiscal responsibility, more individual rights (read as 'gun rights') and lower taxes.” Though that rhetoric resonated enough with Georgia Republicans to get them to the polls for the runoff, it is a huge leap to try to apply such ideals to Republicans around the country. It is, in fact, perceived as disingenuous by a majority of voters, even Republicans, who have heard such talk in every election cycle but are not blind to what their party did when they were in control of Congress.

It is not so much that Georgians have embraced Chambliss; it is that this state of the Old South is always going to be the last to give in to change. Georgia is more like the last bastion of conservatism in a changing world, and Republicans would be foolish to make the politics here be the future of the GOP everywhere.

Memories of Mumbai

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 20:32:00 +0000

It was 1990. I was exhausted. I had just landed in India after a long trip from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, to London, to Nairobi, to Delhi, to Mumbai (Bombay, back then). The jet lag was debilitating. Still, my girlfriend and I decided to walk around the town and see some of the sites.

One of the first places we went was the Gateway to India, an arched structure that overlooks Mumbai Harbor, on the tip of the city's southern peninsula. The barge-like concrete spit, that holds the monument, extends from a square, beneath the looming, ornate, wall of the Taj Hotel.

All hippie-fied after months of Third World travel, we plodded into the lobby of the Taj, in our cargo pants and loose cotton tops, and sat down in a restaurant for a fine, light and expensive (for us) lunch.

It seems trite, today, to talk about the anxiety I felt when I realized that a young shoeshine boy at the Gateway had stolen my wallet. I ran to the Gateway. I ran back inside the restaurant at the Taj. I was really in panic mode. Again, very trite, especially with what has been going on the past few days in India.

So this story has to have a point, besides, "Hey, I was there once, and got my wallet stolen."

Frankly, I am not sure it does, except to say that in the country of India, where spiritual connections spark the air like fireflies on a summer night, I see my younger self standing there beneath the Taj, and I feel the anxiety of my experience disappear in the harrowing flames and rain of explosions and the cries of the scores of souls who have been ripped from this life. I realize how much energy we all waste in our own little panic modes.

Panic may be a vestige of out prehistoric selves, to get our adrenaline going so we could fight and flee, but these little anxiety attacks seem pointless to this city boy, when held up to the light of the challenges presented to those who fight and die, and those who pray for their souls.

We Stood Up!

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 04:35:00 +0000

Now it's time to march!

When I started this blog in 2005, one of the first comments I made was that we needed to stand up in order to get the one party government Republicans to stand down.

In 2006, when we actually started to make some gains, and became the majority party in Congress, it appeared we were on the right track. I was bitter, to be sure, about the South's unwillingness to catch up to the changes the rest of the country appeared to be going through.

Tonight, though the Electoral map shows that the last factor has not really shifted much, most of the rest of the country is heeding the call for change. Democrats, Independents, minorities, the young voters, the old, all stood up. Even the South has begun to shift, with Virginia, North Carolina and Florida choosing the man for the times rather than holding on to old time values.

We still have a long way to go, for it was (arguably) only the darkness of the last eight years that brought us to this new morning. But now that we have woken up, though some still slumber, we must take on our new challenges and not let up. Now that we are awake we must work. We must march. We must continue to fight and hold on to what we have gained. Stand up for what we believe in and work to make it so.

What can you do to help President-elect Barack Obama?

-PBG

Obama Baby Video

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:00:00 +0000

This video demonstrates Barack Obama's appeal to young voters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWrThVhwBwg

This video was written and directed by Bruce Kay.

Editing and graphics by yours truly.

-PBG

Post Traumatic Bush Disorder

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 05:08:00 +0000

How John McCain was screwed twice by the 43rd President of the United States

The experts say that the condition known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) shows up three to seven years after a veteran's return from war. Five-and-a-half years since the beginning of the Iraq War, seven years since the abuses at Enron and the shock of September 11, could the stock market's crash last week and the country's humongous deficit be symptoms of a serious national psychiatric disorder, a dysfunction that happens to a country when its leaders choose to ignore the stress potential of our looming housing and credit crisis? In other words, my friends, our economy - and maybe our entire country - could be suffering from a collective case of PTSD.

We have already stopped listening to the words of calm the president and his minions offer up as as if it were a narcotic salve for our economy's ills. Wall Street itself has begged the administration to just shut the heck up. As the NY Daily News put it in an October 10 report:

"Just as he did on Monday and Tuesday - and three other times last week -Bush told the country he was on top of the growing crisis. Each time,the market tanked."

If the trauma inflicted by George W. Bush has had this kind of effect on us, pity poor John McCain. Bush's shortcut to the White House in 2000 ran right over him, before body checking Al Gore, and systematically dismantling the financial infrastructure of our country for the benefit of his cronies. Now the actions of the lame duck Bush administration have put their Haliburton supplied truck in reverse to run over him again. They must have something against him. I bet that's the way McCain feels.

What must it be like to be locked in a Viet Cong prison more than thirty years after you were physically released? This is an idea that came from one of my friends who does counseling: John McCain suffers from PTSD. Really, it would explain a lot about his legendary rages and his manipulability at the hands of his masters - I mean campaign staff.

Sarah Palin was just another emotional outburst for Johnny Mac. Now that the zealots her rhetoric has inflamed are talking about anger and violence, Senator McCain is doing a little anger management style calming, deflecting their rage as he has learned to deflect his own.

Back in May, 2008, when the McCain campaign released the candidate's medical records, it was only since 2000, and did not "speak directly to the [psychological] effects of his years as a prisoner of war," according to several articles published at the time.

But these accusations are not new to McCain. According to a May 2008 article on salon.com:

"During McCain's first White House run, his unsuccessful battle with George Bush for the Republican presidential nomination in 1999 and 2000, he faced a whispering campaign from rivals that suggested his Vietnam ordeal had permanently damaged his psyche -- specifically, that his famed outbursts of temper might be a sign of something serious, like post-traumatic stress disorder."

While I do not subscribe to a "whispering campaign" tactic, especially one prosecuted by the likes of Karl Rove (whose 2000 "dirty tricks" may have actually contributed to McCain's current condition), there are questions that need to be answered.

It is hard to imagine what McCain's five-and-a-half years of deprivation, torture and broken bones in the Hanoi Hilton may have done to the senator's young mind. It is also hard to imagine that every time he tries to raise his damaged shoulders, he is not reminded of his time in captivity and his two suicide attempts.

The McCain campaign assured the Washington Pos t that their candidate "has never received a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder," even though salon.com points out that "they failed to note that it would have been impossible for McCain to receive such a diagnosis -- since the term 'post-traumatic stress disorder' was not in use until seven years after McCain's release from captivity."

That is something left out of the Washington Post's pre-analysis of McCain's May release of medical records. They cite research from the Robert E. Mitchell Center for Prisoner of War Studies, which follows its mission, "to aid, comfort, and ease the repatriation of past and future prisoners of war by means of lessons learned from the evaluation of former prisoners of war." The Post story says that the Pensacola based the Navy research center found that Vietnam fliers were somehow different:

"The naval aviators who were imprisoned in Vietnam are in their 60s and 70s. Both now and in the years immediately after their release, they have seemed unusually resistant to psychological damage from the experience.
"The lifetime prevalence of PTSD in all the Pensacola POW studies [since World War II] is 24 percent. In the naval aviators, however, it was 4 percent from 1979 to 1983, when the disorder was most likely to appear."

They go on to say that the center has found an anomoly in officer POWs as a whole. "Research on World War II prisoners found that officers as a group had far less psychological trauma than enlisted men."

This exception may have been what Cindy McCain was referring to in a recent interview with Fox News reporter Marie Claire. In response to a question about her husband's POW related trauma, whether or not he had "night sweats," the senator's wife said, "The guys who had the trouble were the 18-year-olds who were drafted. He was trained, he went to the Naval Academy, he was a trained United States naval officer, and so he knew what he was doing."

Other researchers, however, have found that while PTSD may not be prevalent, they were able to "identify something called 'late-onset stress symptomatology' or LOSS, which came to light after 562 combat veterans -- about 300 of them POWs -- answered a long questionnaire. The syndrome involves the return of troubling memories late in life, along with emotional anguish and guilt, often triggered by retirement and friends' deaths."

A 2007 study by Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry, and National Center for PTSD at Boston University describes LOSS as:

"a phenomenon observed in aging combat veterans who (a) were exposed to highly stressful combat events in their early adult years, (b) have functioned successfully throughout midlife with no history of chronic stress-related disorders, but (c) begin to register increased combat-related thoughts, feelings, and reminiscences commensurate with the changes and challenges of aging."

So is John McCain suffering from PTSD? It is difficult to say, however it is entirely possible that he has shown, is showing or will show signs that he is suffering from LOSS as he ages and encounters "the challenges of aging." Perhaps his scrapes with the politics and policies of George W. Bush present the Republican nominee wityh just such a challenge.

One can only hope that when we are a lifetime away from this presidency, that we are further along in our recovery than the soldiers who have been traumatized by the wars they fought when they were young.

-PBG