KPBS: "How Does Stress Of War Affect Military Families?"

September 23, 2009

MAUREEN CAVANAUGH (Host): I'm Maureen Cavanaugh, and you're listening to These Days on KPBS. When the tour of duty is over, some veterans find the battle to regain their normal lives has just begun. This morning, the KPBS series “War Comes Home,” focuses on the challenges that face veterans and their families as these former warriors transition into civilian life. Some vets are dealing with invisible wounds. Traumatic brain injury has been called the signature combat injury of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And, post traumatic stress disorder, if not treated, can last for years and tear relationships apart. The good news is there is a lot of help available for returning veterans and their families. And, we're about to speak to several guests who know both the challenges and the support that exists for military families. I’d like to welcome my guests. Benjamin Karney is associate professor of psychology at UCLA, and an adjunct behavioral scientist at the Rand Corporation. Ben, welcome to These Days....>>>>rest of Audio Transcript found here of show in player below, also can be heard at site.

War Comes Home: San Diego Military Families

September 25, 2009, Above: KPBS Reporter Alison St John, who produced the series "War Comes Home", talks about special challenges faced by military families in San Diego. Transcript for Video.

$3,000 Immediate Checks to be Handed (literally)

This is gonna be short but Real Sweet!!

I want you to go over to VetVoice and visit a post Richard Smith just placed with all the good news of How This New Veterans Administration, under the Obama Administration, Really Works!!

Richard starts the long subject title with what I've got in mine, then leads into this:

To Vet Students Who Haven't Received Benefits

Leading in with this:

Hopefully, that is the first of many headlines we'll see like that, which I can't imagine seeing in the last Administration....Read the Rest Here

Richard Smith, the OIF/OEF Vet who posted the above I'm linking back to, at VetVoice, added another post explaining further the lead up to this decision by the VA.

Now the Veterans administration, and congressional committee's have been coming out with a flurry of announcements, especially once Shinseki was seated.

Go take a visit and read about the above, and to just make this abit longer here's some other news:

VA praises Phila. nursing home after 2008 problems

Slowly correcting the extreme foulups of the previous administration and that incompetent corrupt leadership, especially as to the VA while they started and waged two occupations!!

Seven months after a devastating report detailing degrading and dangerous conditions at the Philadelphia veterans nursing home, an unannounced inspection by regional VA officials found "dramatic improvements."

Michael E. Moreland, network director for the Department of Veterans Affairs region, said his team had talked to every resident and many families, checked medical charts, and examined residents during an inspection in May....>>>Read Rest Here

And this:

Valley Va Hospital

Veterans making another push for Valley VA hospital

Doctors were still digging shrapnel out of Ramiro Galvan’s legs nearly 30 years after he was hit by a mortar blast in Vietnam.

The mortar blew off his calf and sent Galvan in and out of service hospitals for several months before he was discharged in 1970.

The 63-year-old San Benito resident returned home to Cameron County, where he has counted his blessings ever since that his injuries weren’t much worse.....>>>>

Lets All give them a Hand, Especially if you're in Texas, they didn't March earlier this year for Nothing, and Texans you can vote on helping them get this Long Needed Facility!!!

William Rivers Pitt | The Mess Left Behind

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald

Text at Truthout Perspective

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: "War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know" and "The Greatest Sedition Is Silence." His newest book, "House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation," is now available from PoliPointPress.

North Carolina ACORN, or Anywhere USA

This is coming out of McClatchy today and has been reported on the local News programs this morning, the latter leaving out some finer points.

North Carolina ACORN branch feels impact from national scandal

North Carolina's ACORN office has had to lay off all eight of its employees in the wake of a scandal that has rocked the national office of the grass-roots organizing group....>>>

Now what really is ACORN or for that matter any legitimate organization registered and trying to follow their own internal rules and regulations as well as any government regulations to keep them honest and above board, the latter is same for the banking/investment industries etc. etc. etc..

What has been left out of the talking heads reporting is this:

What ACORN really is made of:

Yet many workers have continued the past three weeks as unpaid volunteers for the nonprofit organization, reaching out to low- and moderate-income workers who might need help with issues ranging from landlord fights to high-priced mortgages.

Now I'll just bet that with what has been going on and everybody jumping ship from the ACORN support boat that if you look around the Country you'll find similar reactions by the under paid already ACORN workers, maybe not all, but far many then anyone will tell you unless you investigate yourselves!

That's what ACORN, or any real similar organization is made of, even some, not all, that the previous administration gave a seat to in the Oval office as well as funding from us.

Episode Six: No Longer a Monster

This is Where We Take Our Stand Final Episode

"No one could hear our stories and still support this s***!" -- Geoff Millard

No Longer a Monster from Displaced Films on Vimeo.

No Longer a Monster: "There are no more authoritative voices to speak out about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than the people who have been there under fire," declares singer Tom Morello (The Nightwatchman, Rage Against the Machine), as he leads a raucous celebration of three days of intense, painful, and liberating testimony. And while James Gilligan reveals the deep similarities between the "bad war" (Iraq) and the "good war" (Afghanistan), Jon Turner declares for all, "I am sorry for the things that I did, I am no longer the monster that I once was."

This is Where We Take Our Stand, the series that tells the riveting and timely story of the hundreds of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who testified at last year's Winter Soldier investigation, continues today. Watch episode five, tell friends, forward this email, spread the word and fan the debate. These stories must be heard.

Children of Military Families

This is to be streamed live on Thursday, 9.24.09, at noon to two pm, 12:00 to 2:00pm pt.

Children of Military Families -- Helping Them Cope With Deployment and Trauma - UCTV

University of California Television provides informational, educational, and enrichment television programming to the public and draws upon the vast intellectual, scientific, and creative talents of the University of California.

Dr. Lieberman will explore in depth the considerable impacts on children of various ages at all stages of deployment, especially reintegration. She will explore how we can support and encourage their well being and resilience and the health of their parents and families.

Join us in person or online for this informative 2 hour training on a matter of crucial importance for all mental health professionals and all those serving our military families.

Citizens for Global Solutions:

Let the 6th Annual Citizens for Global Solutions Multimedia Contest Begin!

$4,000 is up for grabs!

Citizens for Global Solutions is once again holding a contest for artists, webmasters, graphic designers, poets, video artists and creative activists who are interested in creating some unique digital art on the Web!

This year's theme:
"Choose Your Global Solution"

The top entries will be published on our website and the winners will get cold hard cash!

The basic idea behind this year's competition is called Interactive storytelling. It's actually been around for a long time. All interactive fiction has a couple of commonalities: 1) The stories or games must branch at a couple of points in the story, and 2) your viewer/player gets to make choices about which direction to go.

That's it. That's the concept (don't be afraid, it's not as hard as it sounds!).

Waging Peace:

From Voices Education

Waging Peace Now Available
It's International Peace Day and to commemorate it, we've produced an online book, Waging Peace.

The poems, narrative and artwork were contributed by you, our members!

Take a look at Waging Peace online or you can go to Lulu.com and purchase a hard copy of the book.

As noted in the introduction of Waging Peace, contributors are amateur and professional, young and older, representing multiple religions, ethnicities and geographic origins. This is our first venture in producing a collective work and we are thrilled with the response we have received, both from our contributors and from our members.

September 21st (since 1982): International Day of Peace

The International Day of Peace was established by United Nations resolution in 1981 and first celebrated in 1982 (then as the 3rd tuesday of the month).

Events are planned all over the world to promote peace and make it more visible.....>>>>Rest Here with 24 hour stream on many issues of Peace.

Unity Foundation, Pathways To Peace, PeacePortal.mobi and Getzooks welcomes you to the PEACE DAY 24-Hour World Peace Celebration and Global Broadcast commemorating the 27th Annual United Nations’ International Day of Peace on September 21, 2009. This broadcast highlights the vitally important work of the United Nations and its humanitarian agencies, as well as organizations and individuals...>>>>>

If having trouble with above link Try this one for Stream and info.

Dick Armey and "His" Tax-Supported Healthcare

If you missed this on friday, The Bill Moyers Journal you may want to at least catch his essay for this week. The rest of the show would do well to watch as well, on the Death of Conservatism, the State of Unions and a read of 'Young Workers: a Lost Decade'.

September 18, 2009
A Bill Moyers essay on the protests in Washington, D.C. and whose funding opposition to health care reform.

Bill Moyers Essay Sept 18th

Gingrich became Speaker of the House and Armey the House Majority Leader.

But they did nothing about health care except let its costs soar while their corporate backers reaped huge profits. Since then costs have more than doubled and are escalating now at twice the rate of inflation. There were around 39 million americans without health care coverage then. There are more than 46 million now.

And Dick Armey? He retired from his government job to lead an advocacy group called FreedomWorks, which aims to torpedo healthcare reform once again. Curiously, they refuse to disclose their corporate donors. They say they want to protect against "aggressive attacks on companies who people have claimed are donors but aren't even donors." Got that?

But here's the catch. Something these marchers who came to Washington at Armey's urging could hardly be expected to know. For most of his adult life, their leader has benefited from just the kind of government, tax-supported healthcare he's fighting to keep them from having, too.

When Dick Armey taught economics at the University of North Texas for 13 years his health insurance was administered by the state and supplemented by the taxpayers.

When he was elected to Congress, he was covered by the federal employees' health benefit plan. And when he retired from Congress eighteen years later, he was insured by that plan until he turned 66 and Medicare, another government program, kicked in. All the time he's been making some half a million dollars a year working for FreedomWorks and raking in lobbyist fees amounting to what he recently called "a darned handsome pile of dough."

You can't blame him for keeping his government health plan. It's great. It gave him a lot of options, dozens of private insurers to choose from, and with eight million members in it, the federal government's got the muscle to negotiate some of the best premiums and drug prices in the country. That's not all. Taxpayers subsidize these federal health insurance plans by as much as 75% of the premium cost. Beneficiaries -- including members and retired members of congress like armey -- pay their share of the premiums with pre-tax dollars.

Not bad.

Now get this: Dick Armey thought so much of that federal health plan - the cadillac of coverage --that he tried to keep it as his primary carrier, instead of that other federal program, medicare.

Mr. Armey wanted an option. A government option. How about that?

But he couldn't get out of medicare without losing his Social Security (they're hitched together -- you give up one, you give up both), so he's suing to divorce the two ... And now he says he's happy to buy his health insurance on his own - and why not? He's got that pile of dough. And there's the rub.

Dick Armey is the epitome of those people with power and privilege who are insured against the vicissitudes of life, and want no government assistance for any suffering ... Except their own.

And all those members of congress sitting there during the president's speech last week? Joe Wilson, included. They; too have Cadillac federal coverage subsidized by tax dollars.

That's no lie.

The pure hypocrisy of many, Armey, entertainers like Beck and much of FOX and others, who are rallying the citizen to oppose anything and everything should not even be brought into the public discussion, let alone on the public airways, it's not debate, it's propaganda!