Monthly Archives: September 2013

An American Parliamentary Republic? Why not?

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Here is an idea for debate. Why not pitch our flawed constitution overboard? Replace it with one that supports a parliamentary form of government rather than the fractious, unworkable presidential system we have now. Who else in the world uses this system of government? Why is it that most other forms of government in the world are parliamentary in structure?

Make the US government more responsive to the citizenry by rendering the election cycle time dependent on confidence in the leadership.

The US constitution needs a rewrite. Among the distortions in the constitution-

  1. The metaphysical equation of money with speech.
  2. The foggy language of the 2nd amendment that engenders armed fanaticism
  3. The indistinct barrier between the secular and theocratic civic influences. Keep religion and other magical thinking out of governance. Preserve freedom from religion.
  4. The near impossibility of getting a bad president or governor out of office.
  5. Clearer language is needed on what is actually meant by the right to petition congress. Currently this has lead to an intractable cancer of corruption between government and the movers of wealth. (Consider the F-35 strike fighter or the lack of tight control over Wall Street investment banks)
  6. Apparently the rules for the waging of foreign wars are indistinct because current constitution or presidential structure seems to allow the US much flexibility and low accountability with invasions and sending ordinance across borders.

There are more problems with the constitution. Maybe the reader has thoughts on this? The problems of presidential systems have been studied and this Slate article summarizing the issues is worth reading.

The Squamous Chronicles. Just pissin’ and moanin’.

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It’s been 16 days since radiation ended. My throat (oropharanx) seems better though the internal blistering has not totally subsided. Fatigue and boredom grind the soul like a rock in my shoe. I’ve collected new books on poetry and science but to no avail. Concentration remains elusive.

Eating is tedious. The g-tube pump is slow and I am not tolerating the nutrient fluid (i.e., “food”) all that well. Food tastes awful and swallowing is problematic.

My other cancer- prostate- is next on the firing line. I won the cancer lottery with an aggressive form that has spread to a lymph node but not to any bones according to the Tc bone scan.  I am under hormone ablation therapy which slows down the spread for a few years anyway. We may start radiation in January. The docs won’t say anything about life expectancy. The urologist is disinclined to treat it surgically. At the UC hospital, they have a tumor board meeting every Tuesday where they discuss cases. It’s nice to know that multiple folks are looking at it.