Recovering

View 712 Saturday, February 11, 2012

It’s Subscription Drive Time!

I woke up feeling as if I am recovering, but with no energy or ambition. All I wanted to do was stay in bad, so I did. That helped. I am pretty sure I am recovering now. Symptoms lessened, etc. Still no energy, and of course I now face an enormous pile of undone stuff, including errands for the house, taking care of Roberta – she’s two days behind me on this – paying the bills, shopping, and of course catching up with the mail here.

I have had KUSC turned of while I was sick – not easy to enjoy music when your head is pounding – but I wanted to lie down in the great hall, and silence doesn’t work well for me. I’ve had tinnitus or ringing in the ears since the radiation therapy, and it’s less annoying if there’s some real auditory input.

And of course I found that it’s Pledge Drive Week at KUSC, which means that it’s time for a Chaos Manor Subscription Drive. It’s an awkward time since I haven’t provided much content this week, but on the other hand that is what will happen if I don’t get subscriptions. I also want to thank all those who have recently renewed their subscriptions. I try not to spend a lot of time talking about money and subscriptions, and since this place runs on the same plan as the KUSC good music station – it’s free but if it doesn’t get subscribers it won’t stay open – it seems reasonable to bug you for money about as often as KUSC does. So, for the next few days, prepare to be bugged.

We have a really good renewal rate here. New subscriptions seldom come in except during the pledge drive weeks, which when you stop to think about it is what you’d expect since I don’t spend a lot of time hounding people for money any other time.

So if you have been watching this place for a while and like it, now’s a good time to subscribe. Of course if you just started looking here all you’ve been seeing is a series of excuses for not having much, so don’t make up your mind just yet..

I have been neglecting the mail lately, but in normal time I will contend that I have about the best mail section on the Internet. I got a lot of mail, select what I think is most interesting, write answers which may be short of long, and try to encourage rational discussion of a number of topics that don’t get much rational discussion. That will continue, and sometime this weekend I should catch up with a pile of good mail I have and have been neglecting.

Anyway: if you’ve been here a while and haven’t subscribed, this would be a good time to do it. And thanks to all those who keep this place open.

The big news of the week is President Obama’s breathtaking coup which delivers to him far more power than any President has ever had, and at least so far with minimum discussion.

First he discovered that Obamacare, a law passed at the last minute by the Democrat lame duck Congress, by one vote and that on a parliamentary technicality, allows him a power:

A provision of the 2010 healthcare reform law mandates that basic birth control services for women be included in as part of any employer-provided health insurance plan. Among the institutions that will feel the impact of this new rule are those affiliated with the Catholic Church—including its hospitals, charities, and universities. http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/peter-roff/2012/02/09/obamacare-birth-control-mandate-tramples-religious-liberty

His announcement mobilized opposition as nothing else has in years, and the effect was immediate: the President retreated, or said he did.

On Friday, after three weeks of controversy that pitted the nation’s Catholic bishops against the White House, Obama retreated. Instead of requiring employers to cover contraception, the policy would now require insurance companies to provide free birth control coverage in separate agreements with workers who want it. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-02-11/obama-birth-control-cpac/53046728/1

The position he “retreated” to allows him to mandate that insurance companies must now provide free contraception to anyone who asks for it. No copayment, no increase in premium: just free. Of course this is going to be challenged, but the President has just asserted a right to command private companies to give out entitlements. Women can demand The Pill. It’s not clear what men are entitled to. Nor is it clear what entitlements can be demanded for gays, lesbians, cross dressers, those desiring sex change operations, etc., but we may be sure that there are law offices preparing looking into the matter.

It’s obvious that neither the Framers of 1787 nor those who proposed nor those who ratified any Amendment to the Constitution intended any such power to be given to either Congress or the President. The President asserts that he has it. Some retreat.

I have been reading Charles Murray’s new book Coming Apart. It’s disturbing. More when I have finished it. We have sown the wind. What we will reap is not clear. Murray fears that what is coming is the end of the American experiment in self government.