one blog glory

A straight reading of the guv’s letter laments “the fact that major issues are overlooked while many unnecessary bills come to me for consideration,” and concludes, “I believe it is unnecessary to sign this measure at this time.”

But a vertical read of the far-left-hand letters in each of the missive’s eight lines offers a more blunt explanation: “I f- you.”

Schwarzenegger’s press secretary, Aaron McLear, insisted Tuesday it was simply a “weird coincidence.” He sent us veto messages the governor sent out in the past with linguistic lineups such as “soap” and “poet,” which he said were also unintended.

Richard Heene is the inevitable product of this reigning culture, where “news,” “reality” television and reality itself are hopelessly scrambled and the warp-speed imperatives of cable-Internet competition allow no time for fact checking. Norman Lear, about the only prominent American to express any empathy for little Falcon’s father, vented on The Huffington Post, calling out CNN, MSNBC, Fox, NBC, ABC and CBS alike for their role in “creating a climate that mistakes entertainment for news.” This climate, he argued, “all but seduces a Richard and Mayumi Heene into believing they are — even if what they dream up to qualify is a hoax — entitled to their 15 minutes.”

None of this absolves Heene of blame for the damage he may have inflicted on the children he grotesquely used as a supporting cast in his schemes. But stupid he’s not. He knew how easy it would be to float “balloon boy” when the demarcation between truth and fiction has been obliterated.

A 38-year-old woman in Ithaca, N.Y., said she was raped last year and then penalized by insurers because in giving her medical history she mentioned an assault she suffered in college 17 years earlier. The woman, Kimberly Fallon, told a nurse about the previous attack and months later, her doctor’s office sent her a bill for treatment. She said she was informed by a nurse and, later, the hospital’s billing department that her health insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shield, not only had declined payment for the rape exam, but also would not pay for therapy or medication for trauma because she “had been raped before.”

…

“That might not be a discriminatory action, but it certainly would seem to have a discriminatory impact,” said Sandra Park, staff attorney at the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union. “Insurance discrimination against rape victims will only further discourage them from coming forward to law enforcement and seeking medical help.”

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Some therapists and patients said the managed care companies have cut off necessary treatment for sexual assault victims in the name of cost containment. “The companies are peppering them with questions about their symptoms, and about their histories, and asking, ‘Well, are you sure you really need therapy?’” said Jeffrey Axelbank, a New Jersey psychologist. “For someone who has been traumatized, it can feel like another trauma, and it makes the therapy less effective.”

Members of the media were still stationed around campus, though their presence had diminished. As one man left the Amistad facility and was rapidly approached by a camera man, he shouted expletives that could be heard across the street.

“You better write that down,” he instructed the camera man, referring to the obscenities. “’Cause that’s all you’re going to get.”