Ramona | dagblog

Personal Information

Website

http://www.ramonasvoices.com

Favorite Quotes

"Leave safety behind. Put your body on the line. Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind - even if your voice shakes. When you least expect it, someone may actually listen to what you have to say. Well-aimed slingshots can topple giants. And do your homework." . Maggie Kuhn

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. Dorothy Parker

"Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow ... money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands" - Abraham Lincoln

It has always seemed strange to me... the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.-John Steinbeck

The moment you limit free speech it's not free speech. -Salman Rushdie

Biography

Ramona used to write nice feature pieces for newspapers and magazines, along with columns that, yes, got testy once in a while (Ronald Reagan was president. What could she do?) but were basically and overall nice.

But then. . .

. . .then came the hanky-panky and subsequent impeachment of Bill Clinton! Then Bush v. Gore! Hanging Chads! Katherine Harris! Supreme Court busy bodies! 9/11! War with Iraq! (Iraq??) The right wing! The religious right! The TEA PARTY, for God's sake!

Whatever she is today is the fault of all of the above. She is not to blame.

'Tis the Season to be Liberal

By Ramona on Fri, 12/25/2009 - 3:38pm |

It's Christmas morning, early, and we're lucky enough to have been awakened by the grandkids at 6 AM to see what Santa brought. This year Santa had to go easy, but the kids didn't seem to notice at all. They're...

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13 comments
1972 reads

In America: The Sick and Dying have to go Begging--in America

By Ramona on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 12:34am |

"Most of the people I met [at the Kansas City Free Health Clinic] were working people. Eighty-three percent of the people who come to these clinics are employed. But over and over and over, I heard about unaffordable junk...

Peace in Our Time Here on Our Shores

By Ramona on Thu, 12/10/2009 - 5:54pm |

They go by many monikers -- plutocrats, Fat Cats, moguls, tycoons, Big Cheeses, Moneybags, Wheeler-dealers, Head Honchos. . .and those are just the nice terms. (Some of them used to be called "Captains of Industry" but since that ship has sailed, they don't answer to that anymore.)

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21 comments
2038 reads

Another Requiem for Detroit

By Ramona on Wed, 12/02/2009 - 9:31pm |

Bob Herbert took a tour of Detroit's ruins and wrote an important piece about what he saw, but I hope he goes back sometime soon to take a look at the beauty of Detroit. There is still much to be said for that battered, bloodied but not totally bowed town.

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20 comments
2945 reads

To Hell with Hunger, Palin's got a book out

By Ramona on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 11:54pm |

When millions of able-bodied workers with practical skills and functioning brains are reduced to fighting for menial jobs that pay peanuts, under circumstances that not a one of us could have foreseen even 10 years ago, we have to finally admit that for most of us, life in America is not the recurring pleasant dream but the absolute nightmare.

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28 comments
2206 reads

Now, About Those Jobs. . .

By Ramona on Thu, 11/12/2009 - 7:02pm |

We can't go on like this. Unemployment has surpassed that magic number--a national average of over 10 percent. All hell was supposed to break loose if that ever happened, but of course it only affects the unemployed, so watching the stock market go up, even in the face of it, shouldn't surprise us. But could it at least infuriate us?

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39 comments
1824 reads

Islands of Good in a Sea of Hate

By Ramona on Mon, 11/02/2009 - 4:26pm |

The Coral Ridge Hour is the brainchild of Dr D. James Kennedy, a "minister" in name only. Dr. Kennedy has been dead for more than two years, but you wouldn't know if from his website or telecasts. The faithful are carrying on his message of hate and intolerance in a fashion that would make their founder proud. It was enough to make me sick.

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12 comments
1971 reads

Death to Traffickers in Children - and Nothing Less

By Ramona on Mon, 10/26/2009 - 10:56pm |

We owe it to the children rescued and to the pitiful children still lost to the child sex trade to become warriors in their name. We watch animals in the wild protecting their young and think nothing of it. It's the way of nature, after all. But where in the wild is exploitation? What other species of animal creates an environment where helpless, defenseless young are served up to the baser instincts of the most dangerous elements of their kind? None but humans.

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37 comments
1989 reads

No More Wind Energy Drying Devices for You!

By Ramona on Mon, 10/19/2009 - 8:53pm |

Homeowner's Associations across the country are warning residents that clotheslines and all the attendant paraphernalia, like clothespins and clothespin bags and laundry baskets and actual laundry will not be tolerated in plain sight of other humans.

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59 comments
1903 reads

Americans At War over the Peace Prize: Go Figure

By Ramona on Tue, 10/13/2009 - 12:46pm |

We've been looking for a way to salvage our history, our heritage, our worldview and, maybe especially, our dignity. We may just have found it in the Nobel Peace Prize. So can we please let's work at keeping the shine on that medal?

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1 comment
2845 reads

This Wretched, Reckless Approach to Health Care: It's Killing Us

By Ramona on Sun, 10/04/2009 - 11:30pm |

What matters is this: We, the citizens and taxpayers, may win a skirmish or two, but in the end Big Business will win the battle. They owned us yesterday, they own us today, and unless we finally get wise and get tough, they'll own us tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

The Danger in Underestimating the Right Wing

By Ramona on Sat, 09/19/2009 - 2:03pm |

I'm not about to carry a gun to get my message across. All I have are words, and in this present atmosphere, they're pretty puny. But I see what's happening--this all-out hatred, this increasing call to violence--as wholly un-American. This is NOT who we are. This is NOT who we were meant to be. Generations of Americans didn't work their asses off to bring us to this. This is not a vast Right Wing conspiracy, it's Right Wingers out in the open, advocating anarchy, threatening to "take back" a country they've never understood, never nurtured, never respected.

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106 comments
2109 reads

Who Loves Ya, Labor?

By Ramona on Wed, 09/16/2009 - 10:37pm |

On Tuesday two emails appeared in my box, one after the other, both asking me for help in doing something about the sorry state of labor in this country. One was from John Sweeney, the outgoing AFL-CIO president. This is...

For Labor: A Pat on the Back, a Hail and Farewell

By Ramona on Mon, 09/07/2009 - 12:36pm |

"Less than a century ago the laborer had no rights, little or no respect, and led a life which was socially submerged and barren....American industry organized misery into sweatshops and proclaimed the right of capital to act without restraints and...

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14 comments
1731 reads

Health Care - A Condition, not a Commodity

By Ramona on Sat, 09/05/2009 - 10:28pm |

Bill Moyers has been tireless in his efforts to get through to the President the importance of universal, equitable health care. This isn't something he--or we--can afford to put off. Millions are without health care, millions are without jobs, millions are without homes, millions are without money. If this isn't the time to push for health care as an inalienable right for all Americans, I don't know when that will be.

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20 comments
1795 reads

Josh, who is SG and why no link to this fine blog??

By Ramona on Thu, 09/03/2009 - 12:08pm |

Josh, at this moment there are 610 recs to your blog yesterday about "TPM reader SG's lament", but no link and of course no place to comment. It was an excellent post, as you well know, or you wouldn't have...

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10 comments
1972 reads

Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes

By Ramona on Mon, 08/31/2009 - 12:35pm |

I've been following the dismissive and sometimes ugly posts and comments about the quantity and quality of writings in the TPMCafe. I've had a chance to sleep on it now. I don't really care about the origins of the posts...

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119 comments
1810 reads

Can we please, finally, forgive Ted Kennedy?

By Ramona on Wed, 08/26/2009 - 1:00pm |

For more than 40 years he has consistently been on the side of the people without power. As former senator Bob Kerry said on "Morning Joe" today, "If you're getting the shaft, you ought to be weeping today because Ted Kennedy was your best friend.

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70 comments
2250 reads

Calling All Dems: Time for an Intervention

By Ramona on Fri, 08/21/2009 - 9:51pm |

We don't need a new party. We already have one of the historically great ones. This may cause some heads to snap, but we were the greatest when we were the most liberal. We lost whatever moral standing we had when we shut the door on being our brother's keeper and got in bed instead with the powermongers who would just as soon screw us as look at us.

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39 comments
2764 reads

The Morality and the Reality of Public Health Care - Ed Schultz Hits it Out of the Park

By Ramona on Thu, 08/20/2009 - 1:04am |

How is it that we've rewarded those hateful charlatans with fame and fortune while effectively shunning those who actually minister to real people with real problems? Maybe now that change is in the air, now that unprecedented numbers of our citizens need an unprecedented amount of help, we'll look to the real churches for real help.