I’ve got to say, she’s a pretty good speaker in her own right. Completely separated from her husband, I could still very easily picture her as a successful politician. She stammered over some lines, but she really knows how to invest in her words. There was nothing phony or plastic about the way in which she told her story. It felt almost conversational at times. She wasn’t just addressing a faceless crowd, she was addressing each individual in that crowd. The speech itself displayed the intelligence and savvy we’ve come to expect from this campaign. Tying the women’s suffrage movement with Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and borrowing Senator Clinton’s line about the glass ceiling with “18 million cracks” in it was an elegant and beautiful way to reach out and salve the wounds of those supporters still feeling the sting of a bitter primary battle.

(And how cute was it when little Sasha said an unscripted hello to the Girardeaus family?)

Despite Michelle Obama’s impressive performance, the real hero of the night to me was Ted Kennedy who as the greatest symbol of the old vanguard of the party, passed the torch on to the next generation. The Kennedys have represented the very best of our party for forty years now, and Senator Kennedy has done a marvelous job at carrying on the legacy of his brothers with the idealism and respect that they deserved. And I must say I more than a little happy to see him ready for one last fight. As he made clear in his speech, Kennedy is deadly serious about passing a health care bill, calling it “the cause of my life.” There is a measure of sadness in this in as much as it is the last hurrah for America’s first family, but as legacies go, universal health care would be a towering achievement. There is no way any Democrat could ever adequately thank the Massachusetts Senator for his lifetime of public service.

God bless you, Ted Kennedy. God bless you.

She lastly addressed the cynical and GOP bigwig John McCain. She addressed the manipulative ad that his campaign started airing that included clips of her attacks on Obama.

Even though I agree with those critiques (because they are true) the GOP is making me sick with their same old tactic. The GOP should try to refresh their strategies to win an election besides frying your opponent to a crisp with vindictive ads. Hillary responded by saying "I'm Hillary Clinton, and I do not approve that message." I think that explains why Americans should love Hillary.

Some women wait to seek cancer treatment because they're hoping the problem will go away or because they think nothing can be done. "Our population feels that cancer equals death," said Ramirez, who works on cancer education and outreach projects.

I don't think that this fear is something that is particular to the Latin@ community-but at the same time, I know that I personally waited to see a doctor for three months after I discovered a lump under my armpit. It turned out to be connected to chronic muscle problems I'd been having in that arm, but still. The only reason I got it checked out was because I felt I better begin preparations for my death, rather than simply waiting to keel over.

I wonder what we can do as a community to help each other get out to the clinic or the doctor before we come to crisis moments in our health?

via/AMNews

With health care costs escalating four times faster than wages, it’s no surprise that both ends of the political spectrum concur that affordable health care is an important goal.

I am currently looking for a new job because my current occupation is not as productive as I would like it to be, but talking to my friends about the healthcare issue, I often bring up the story about my $200 a month premium I used to pay for my own health insurance in Massachusetts working for a health care company. If I paid that much, I can’t imagine what the ordinary American is paying…  The problem is how do we achieve affordable healthcare? This is where the politics diverges and we have freedom of choice on one hand with some people losing out or covering everyone without freedom of choice on the other hand. The CFAP has an excellent counterpoint table for common conservative statements:

Please do read the whole article because the need for affordable healthcare is well argued and if the issue is not addressed, it will only worsen in the next administration.

My first occurrence of breast cancer happened back in July ‘04; I had surgery, then chemo started the day after Kerry/Edwards lost to Bush II. What a gloomy day in the chemo lounge at UC San Francisco! The next day Elizabeth Edwards announced she, too had breast cancer. My own surgeon appeared on the local news, explaining Mrs. Edwards' treatment. My heart went out to Elizabeth Edwards as we coped with chemo at the same time.

Readers know that I applied to grad school while in chemo, got in, finished chemo, and spent two glorious years studying for an MFA in fiction, while raising my children and loving my husband. In March 2007, just before I graduated, Elizabeth announced her terrible news… news I hoped I would never have to hear for myself. I tried not to read too much about her disease and treatment. I was busy juggling family life while preparing to teach college English in the fall of 2007.

One month into my first semester of teaching, I got the same news Elizabeth had received not long before. Metastatic - spread to the spine, lung and most troubling, the liver. Like Elizabeth, I was put on hormone treatment. I looked healthy still, 45 years old, fit, lots of hair. A little overweight from cancer treatment & hormone therapy, but the metastasis took care of that!

Unlike Elizabeth, I couldn't stay on Femara. It didn't work for me, and I started intensive chemo in November 2007. That seems so long ago. I've been getting chemo once a week - three weeks on, one week off - for ten cycles now. For a long time my doctor kept telling me — more chemo. Just keep getting chemo.

Today my doctor decided, without much warning, that I get to go off chemo after this next 4 week cycle, and go on an aromatase inhibitor. This means so much for my quality of life, you cannot imagine. My hair will grow back, and I won't feel tired and draggy from the cytotoxins in my system every week.

In this last ten months of chemotherapy, I have managed to travel a little, give four parties, finish teaching that college semester, give a talk at my graduate school, write 200 pages of my novel, blog like crazy, read books and attend my writers' group, and attend movies, dinners, parties and school functions with my children. I've baked cakes, cooked soups, crafted artisan bread. (Cooking is my hobby). I've prayed, meditated, tried a little yoga, hiked in the redwoods. I can do almost two miles at a time.

Every week I take the bus in to San Francisco for chemo, because I like the independence of commuting in. People don't know I'm a cancer patient - if it comes up and I mention it, folks are staggered. One guy was complimenting my hairdo and clearly chatting me up - I had to tell him I am actually bald, it's a wig, and I am on my way to cancer treatment. My husband tells me I still look hot, and I am pretty sure he means it.

I do not look the way I did a year ago. I don't feel the way I did a year ago. But I am very much alive. In some ways I am MORE alive, because I have shed many of the resentments and obsessions that keep me from enjoying this moment. And when they arise again, I take them less seriously.

I'm a more patient and present mother. I want the boys to remember me at my best. I still make mistakes but I practice a lot more kindness and good communication, with them and with my husband.

Now about Elizabeth Edwards. Press coverage of her often includes comments that “she's dying.” Or they talk about how bad her prognosis is.

Fiddlesticks.

Elizabeth Edwards is living. First of all, I have been on Femara, which seems to be what EE is taking based on the Vanity Fair profile; my experience is that it's very easy to tolerate. You take a pill every day. Big deal. Elizabeth's cancer is not spreading and she is doing what she wants to do. She has problems. But she is living her life. And so am I.

I meet women all the time in the chemo ward who have been living with metastatic breast cancer for YEARS. One lady has had it for twelve years.

I am LIVING with cancer, and so is Elizabeth Edwards. Don't write us off.

Nobody, including her doctor, knows how long Elizabeth Edwards has, and nobody knows how long YOU have. I have already, sadly, outlived one of my glorious, beautiful, healthy friends who grieved with me when I was first diagnosed. So enjoy this moment. It's all you've got. It's all I've got.

I am so glad to be alive here, at sunset in Oakland, CA, on this green and spinning planet, along with Elizabeth Edwards and millions of other brave cancer patients LIVING with this disease.

SciDev.Net's conference blog reports that:

“An issue widely discussed in the AIDS 2008 conference is the fact that several countries deny the entry, stay or residence of HIV-positive people because of their HIV status.

According to the publication Entry denied, published by UNAIDS in partnership with other organisations and distributed at the conference, at least 67 countries are on the list of those that deny the entry to people living with HIV/AIDS.”

Mexico, where AIDS 2008 was held, has no traveling restrictions for people with HIV/AIDS, but 65 or so other nations enforce some degree of restriction on the estimated 33 million people living with HIV globally. Seven nations, according to the European AIDS Treatment Group, impose a complete entry ban on HIV-positive people: Brunei, Oman, Qatar, Sudan, South Korea, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Countries with such restrictions often argue that it helps protect public health and avoid costs associated with treating HIV-positive people from other nations.

David Cozac, who blogged about the human rights sessions at AIDS 2008, says that experts disagreed with such arguments.

“During a session on travel restrictions for people living with HIV, participants decried the fact that although there is no evidence that travel restrictions have a positive public health impact, 67 countries still have restrictions in place.”

One of the countries with such restrictions is China. Despite hopes that China would lift its HIV-related traveling restrictions before the Olympics, the country has maintained them, even during the games. Under their current regulations, tourists and short-term visitors must declare their HIV status, and those planning to stay long-term must undergo a blood test; if found to be HIV-positive, they are refused entry.

Denise Patterson, blogging from Thailand, comments on China's ban of visitors with AIDS and other health conditions during the Olympics:

” A ban on people with mental illnesses or sexually transmitted diseases? That is very amusing. If the Chinese government believes they can control every aspect of the Olympics, they are sadly mistaken…

… According to 2007 statistics, published by the World Health Organization, the HIV/AIDS rate in China is 2.9% of the population. The ‘ban' doesn't seem to be working.”

However, China may be responding to the pressure. China Daily reports that Hao Yang, deputy director of the ministry's disease control and prevention bureau, told the publication at AIDS 2008 that the two-decade-old HIV/AIDS travel ban will likely be lifted in 2009.

China may be following America's lead for change. In July U.S. President George W. Bush signed legislation to repeal the statutory ban on entry into the U.S. for HIV-positive tourists, students, and immigrants, taking the first step needed to eliminate the ban. However, for the ban to be completely lifted, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) must now remove HIV from a list of diseases that prevent people from entering the U.S. HIV is currently still on the list.

Kevinf, posting on ToTheCenter.com, writes about the positive reaction to this repeal.

“Many AIDS experts and rights activists find the new legislation to be a cause for celebration. Previously, travel restrictions could cause more trouble than they prevented, causing people with HIV to lie about their condition. It was discriminatory and would also lead to many of the infected to lie.”

David Munar posts this video of Rev. Christo Greyling of World Vision International, where he discusses why such travel bans are detrimental and raises questions about the U.S. repeal.

LauraK, blogging for AIDS 2008's youth site, warns that the U.S. repeal is a major step, but not the final one.

“It is now up to the Secretary of Health to change regulations to reflect the new legislation. HIV must be taken off of the list of diseases that mean inadmissibility to the United States, but Congresswoman [Barbara] Lee is confident that this will happen soon.”

She goes on to share how such travel restrictions have impacted those with HIV, as she witnessed at an AIDS 2008 questioning period.

“One man came forward to express the sense of betrayal felt by those forced out by the restrictions, he had personal experience as a US citizen living in Canada with a partner who is HIV-positive. He still loved his country, he told the panel, but he was ashamed and angry with his government for initiating the repressive legislation that forced him to choose between his country and his partner, as well as for taking 20 years to address it.”

Photo of Red Traveling Suitcase by tofutti break on Flickr.

1. Germany’s version of universal healthcare has existed for 125 years
2. The majority of German patients are happy with the healthcare system the way it is
3. The system is financed not by the Government but by the workers and their employers
4. Germany has a 99.8% coverage of its 82.3 million people
5. Children are completely covered until they are 18

The first part of the German series is just under 9 minutes long so please do go to NPR to listen to it because as soon as I listen to the other recordings, I will post the relevant data here. One of the biggest arguments I have heard against universal healthcare in the USA is that any such system might cause huge waits and a shortage of doctors however this is apparently another conservative rumor because according to the OECD: Germany and the USA have the same number of doctors per 1000 people. Germany beats the USA in specialists with 2.4 per 1000 people compared to the USA’s 1.7.

NPR have also developed a nifty health comparison tool which allows anyone to compare the health system in the USA to other European countries. The fact is that the healthcare system in the United States is in trouble and the best way to fix that system would be to learn from countries like Germany who have been using universal healthcare for the last 125 years and made it work.

The last major argument is about freedom of choice, the German’s have a great term for their support of universal healthcare called Solidarität (solidarity). In America we have a phrase: ” United we stand.” Why does that phrase only extend to national security? Why not healthcare? German society has stood together to support every person for the benefit of the entire country why is that impossible in America? I would like to believe it is not impossible and with an Obama presidency, it can be done.

Unfortunately, Martinez has been using the social security number of a deceased person since she's lived in the U.S. It's her use of the social security number that has got her in all sorts of trouble now, even though she may not have even known that her number was not hers:

Martinez, who was arrested in the library, is charged with four federal felonies, all related to what authorities say was her use of a dead person's Social Security number. If found guilty, she would face several years in prison before being deported.

Post extendido - Leer más 'Using Private Health Information to Target Workers'...

interview the most certain act in the fight against AIDS is to maintain monogamous relationships. The advice was seen as seen as ironic coming from a former President who was impeached by the House of Representatives (and later acquitted by the Senate) for perjury and obstruction of justice involving an extra-marital affair he was having with a 22-year-old White House intern.

Speaking of politics, the former President later failed to admit that Barack Obama was ready for the highest office of the United States. This has fueled reports that Clinton is still angry over Obama defeating Hillary Clinton to become the Democratic nominee for the presidency of the United States.

Win or lose, Obama will find himself most often compared to Bill Clinton, the country’s last Democratic President. In Israel, Aron’s Israel Peace Weblog noticed something familiar when Obama recently sat down for an interview with the conservative paper, the Jerusalem Post.

No one in my quadrant of the political spectrum is ever going to be elected President. So my key criteria for a “good” President are: compassion, worldliness, intelligence and political savvy. Obama seems to have all of these in abundance. Although I don't agree with many of the details of his positions, the more I hear him speak the more impressed I am. He is the savviest and most intelligent politician the Democratic party has produced since Bill Clinton, and I mean that as a compliment. He may not be super progressive, but he seems to be on the correct side of the fence on all important issues. And the more I see him, the more I feel he has the same human empathy and care for people that Clinton did.

Finally, Clinton’s policies against Osama bin Laden have again made waves. Saisi Duni, from Kenya, reports that a new book by the journalist Lawrence Wright claims that the U.S. military strikes to hoping to cripple the Al-Qaeda network in east Africa after the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania had the opposite effect.

The Clinton administration’s failure to strike back effectively in 1998 helped make it possible for al Qaeda to carry out the massive attacks on New York and Washington three years later, says the book titled The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. Wright describes as “ineffectual” the US retaliation for the August 7, 1998, bombings of its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Less than two weeks later, 13 cruise missiles were fired at a factory in Khartoum that the United States believed was being used to develop poison gas for use by al Qaeda. Simultaneously, 66 cruise missiles were launched from US warships in the Arabian Sea. Their targets were al Qaeda training camps near Khost in eastern Afghanistan. The twin missile attacks were given the code name “Operation Infinite Reach.”