I agree that a post at the US Supreme Court is a very important post. I understand that service is lifelong. But to use health as criteria is, quite frankly, a form of prejudice.
People with Type 1 Diabetes have as much a right to hold high office as those without Type 1 Diabetes.
What if she developed the disease after being sworn in? No longer useful? Less able or capable because of it? I doubt it.
As a country we should be enlightened enough to take a chance on people whose health may not be 100% since, after all, nobody's health is 100% at any one time.
As a species, we start dying from the minute we are born. I think we should be able to look beyond the physical and concentrate on the intellectual.
Sonia Sotomayor should not be disqualified for suffering from a human condition.
I love this show. I wish I could be a part of it someday. Don't ask, it is just a wish. But it so rocks! The Daily Show is an American satiric program (or programme if you are British) much in the vein of SNL...only it packs a bigger punch, which is shown on Comedy Central, home of South Park which I also worship.
I have seen many of its segments when I was in London, and I can honestly say to anyone who thinks there is no opposition in the US, or a free press, to have a look.
And speaking of...here's a small clip which I wish to share with my reader (s).
It is worth watching until the end of the clip, if for no other reason than to watch somebody who thinks he is no longer gay just because he is married with children. I decline to comment and choose instead to respect his choices in spite of what I may think about them. We all have a right to make mistakes. That goes for me too.
However I will say that study after study says that there is a very high suicide rate amongst people who try to reorient their sexuality, aside from a huge rate of failure. Nonetheless, many choose to believe this is something which can be achieved.
One of the things that strike me most about livig in Spain, is the amount of old people on the streets. Used as I was to seeing a few OAPs (Old Age Pensioners for those of you not British) in London here and there, mostly in Post Offices, or at the corner shop, in Spain, you come accross hundreds of older people at all times and in all places. many of them work. Yes, some old people in the UK also work, but here, some of them run shops, or drive taxis, or work as waiters, well into their old age.
When you walk the streets, there they are, hand in hand the women, side by side the men. When you take the underground (subway), the bus, when you take a stroll. They are everywhere I go. Their lives don't just end in Spain. They don't hide and wait for the end. Like little ants they scurry forth, at their pace, probaly as they always did. I guess in Spain you are always you well into old age. Perhaps they don't realise they are old? And by this I mean that compared to other countries, the elderly strolling the streets appear to be very energetic.
They also appear to have a devil-may-care attitude. I am not saying they are aggressive, but most (certainly not all) do appear to be quite able to tell you off should you cross them. Perhaps it is defensive.
The kind old lady stereotype is a little bit harder to find in Spain. Of course, there are kind old ladies in Spain. I would venture that most are kind. But their number is certainly challenged by very straightforward ladies who will -sometimes- tell you to get off your seat on the bus and let them use it. Some will just look at you hoping you'll get up.
Others, and remember that animals work best in packs, will, if with a friend, start to tell their friend in a loud voice that some people today have no manners; that it is incredible how some people are rude enough to occupy a seat; etcetera. Sometimes it works. Sometimes the person they are alluding to wil get up and apologise, then the old ladies will apologise too and one of two things may happen, they will sit down (if there are two of them they will have a small argument over who should take the seat) or they will remain standing because they are either getting off at the next stop, or for some other reason. Perhaps pride. I think this is what keeps the running. Pride.
But not only old people roam the streets of Spain. Everyone roams here. I have seen more blind people walking the streets than anywhere else in the world I have visited. Of course in Spain there is an organisation called ONCE which provides many blind people with jobs, and they have a weekly lottery which provides them with funds. The blind are also very likely to appear on television. Participating in game shows, or very often, in the news. Not as newsreaders, but to illustrate their plight. And this is not an infrequent affair.
Not a day goes by that I don't see somebody with a deformity, or in a wheelchair, or in crutches, or with a medical condition they choose not to hide, or missing a limb (well, these are a bit rarer but they do exist), out in the open, living life to the fullest. They do not get hidden away as perhaps they do elsewhere. They seem to have an abundance of spirit in this country that permeates most everywhere and affects most everyone. And everyone is polite to each other when they take public transport. And if you are pregnant, all the seats are yours! Everyone gets up.
Of course, I am sure that many people in Spain do get hidden away. You hear stories about people being locked up for years. But you wouldn't know it by just walking up and down the streets in any Spanish city.
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