We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
For those who actually want to do something other than make noise, there is no shortage of challenges. Chinese-sponsored gangs, well armed with heavy rifles and automatic weapons, are presently killing elephant at an unprecedented rate. Recently, elephant-rich areas of Tanzania, Mozambique, and Zambia have been all but wiped out. The demand for lion and leopard bones from the Far East is at an all-time high, putting a premium on big cats. Meat hunters are wiping out the antelope and buffalo herds throughout Africa. For many of these animals the safari hunters were their only hope.
“Indeed, a major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it… gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”
. . . when you repeatedly use the term “provider” to describe those professionals in the caring arts—and yes, on our best days, the healing arts—it becomes an eloquently sad commentary on the state of medical care . . . the term “provider” for clinical caregivers, like the term “client” for patients, depersonalizes and commodifies that which is neither and [is] so very much more.
Mental health care and treatment in America is a hodge-podge of state, federal, charitable, and private programs. That is not a bad thing that there is no "system," because caring can not be a "system" and because there are no cures for the most severe ailments like autism, schizophrenia, dementia, and so forth. That's why mental health care is not a problem in America any more than it is everywhere on the planet.
There is no better place on earth for those with manageable problems under the mental health umbrella than in the US. Perfection is unobtainable, because it can not be defined, and some people will always be beyond effective help if only because they refuse it.
Because so many problems lack cures, and so many patients resist possibly positive amelioration, what people lobby for are governmental and private "services," not utopian fixes. As always with medical issues, lobbyists lobby for their fad interests and fad approaches.
There is no "mental health industry." I do not necessarily agree with the premises of the article, but I do agree with this: "Congress needs to understand that throwing money at mental health is not the same as delivering effective treatment to the seriously ill." Caring, like education, is not intrinsically expensive.
More
Green Cards in 10 Years Than Population of Iowa, New Hampshire, and
South Carolina Combined - See more at:
http://moonbattery.com/?p=61492#sthash.HQShWIRR.dpuf
Ten here, but there lots more. Just use your imagination.
Most can be learned in trade schools or ideally via apprenticeship: carpenter, cabinetmaker, gunsmith, programmer, video game inventor, professional lifeguard, medical marijuana dealer, hunting and fishing guide, writer, musician, gambler, office assistant, receptionist, illustrator, Uber driver, 16-wheeler truck driver, mechanic, train conductor, gardener, cook or chef, air traffic controller, retail manager or sales, landscape designer, entrepreneur of anything - the list is endless but you have to know how to do something useful.
The arc of progressivism is on the wrong side of history when it comes to the disruptive technologies that benefit the middle class that progressives love to defend. Whether conservative and libertarian-leaning leaders can offer an alternative vision remains to be seen, but the progressive tendency to stand athwart history on these matters has given them an open door to try.
Do we really believe that many thousands of local children growing up in fractured and often chaotic families can do as well academically, on average, as other kids growing up in much more stable homes? Honestly? …
Even people who hate vegetables find pickled vegetables to be a treat. You can pickle anything - onions, summer squash, cauliflower, peas, beans, peppers, beets, carrots, turnips, cabbage, peaches - you name it. People will eat it before it is fully pickled because it tastes good. Here's Perpetual Pickles for you with gardens.
Vegetables (like fruit) are nutritionally borderline-useless, but they can be made to be tasty. Thus far this summer I have produced many half-pints and a couple of quart jars of hot pepper jelly, and about 12 quarts of dilly beans. Waiting for my peaches to ripen to make Peach Chutney. I did not grow cucumbers this year. I forget why.
We mix and match courses with our Great Courses friends in the neighborhood. Get rid of your cable and use your boob tube for their DVDs. Your entire quality of life will be improved.
A pal has been traveling across the US with family in an antique camper. He reports that they had possibly the best dinner they have ever had in the US at The Windsor Hotel in Del Norte, Colorado. Not likely that you would be passing through there, though.
51:1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
51:2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
51:3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
51:4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.
51:5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.
51:6 You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
51:7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
51:8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
51:9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
51:11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.
51:12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.
The ideal fitness program for those over 35 is 2-3 days of an hour of varied, intense resistance work and 2-3 days of 25-40 minutes of focused cardio/endurance work. That's all it takes. This will keep you going strong and looking good until everything finally breaks down and you throw in the towel on vigorous life and write your wills, get a trust and estates lawyer, and set things up to await the grim reaper.
Plus, of course, your usual sports activities and Yoga, shopping, work, hiking, jogging, casual bicycling, swimming, sex, whatever which are fun but of no health benefit. (People with physical jobs don't necessarily need this stuff.)
We mentioned in the past that, except for the elderly (over 78-80 in the US these days) or those with serious cardiac or pulmonary problems, walking, fast walking, comfortable elliptical or biking, do nothing at all to improve fitness or to burn fat. For the otherwise healthy, I consider those to be little more than anorectic rituals or wholesome entertainment.
Cardio can be boring as heck. My cardio exercises use intervals to keep it interesting. Here's an interval program that even cardio-hating people can stick with because it mixes variety with challenges: A Way to Get Fit and Also Have Fun:
The essentials of 10-20-30 training are simple. Run, ride or perhaps row on a rowing machine gently for 30 seconds, accelerate to a moderate pace for 20 seconds, then sprint as hard as you can for 10 seconds. (It should be called 30-20-10 training, obviously, but that is not as catchy.) Repeat.
Their research showed that many do not stick with a prescribed program, making it all useless. Lazy does not work. To add interest, I rotate this sort of thing from bike to elliptical to rower with minimal rest in between. Depending on my free time, I quit it all after 30-40 minutes.
USDA reported in 2012 that 43 percent of the 571 samples of “organic” produce that were tested contained prohibited pesticide residues, and that “the findings suggest that some of the samples in violation were mislabeled conventional products, while others were organic products that hadn’t been adequately protected from prohibited pesticides.”
She’s just a classic, corporate exec or bureaucrat type who would prefer to be at her desk behind closed doors, imposing her power schemes on the proletariat.
I'm sure she calls us plebes, not proles. I know her type.
I was the shadow of the waxwing slain By the false azure in the windowpane I was the smudge of ashen fluff--and I Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky, And from the inside, too, I'd duplicate Myself, my lamp, an apple on a plate: Uncurtaining the night, I'd let dark glass Hang all the furniture above the grass, And how delightful when a fall of snow Covered my glimpse of lawn and reached up so As to make chair and bed exactly stand Upon that snow, out in that crystal land!
The remainder of the 4-Canto poem below the fold, with some interesting links about it at the end
FDA Report Finds Food 
Image
The ideal fitness program for those over 35 is 2-3 days of an hour of varied, intense resistance work and 2-3 days of 25-40 minutes of focused cardio/endurance work. That's all it takes. This will keep you going strong and looking good until everything finally breaks down and you throw in the towel on vigorous life and write your wills, get a trust and estates lawyer, and set things up to await the grim reaper.
Photo of the new American rural landscape 
Pale Fire (from his 1962 novel