I too left the Catholic Church as a result of Humanae Vitae. After 12 years of a wonderful Catholic school education for which I am grateful every day, I finally became fed up one Sunday morning. Listening to a parish priest rant on and on about birth control, while we all sat within a lily-white congregation in a very segregated Brooklyn neighborhood, that the Church actively enabled to stay that way, was the last straw for me.
I continued to go to church for a few more months while I lived under my parents roof but when I moved to California, the Catholic Church and I were done.
It still saddens me to watch the continued conservative backlash to Vatican II. Millions of liberal Catholics left with Paul VI and especially John Paul II.

I’d like to suggest that whomever calls leaves a message on voicemail if that’s what you get. I’d love to talk if I knew you called and I wasn’t here or I may just be lurking in the background so I don’t have to talk to another Obama volunteer.

With me,they didn’t even need the fraud loophole to deny paying for preventive care. They just sent me a letter informing me that my policy was “grandfathered in” because it pre-dated the bill and therefore none of it’s terms would apply to me. And then they congratulated themselves and me that there would be no changes, since, after all, the President had said that most people were happy with the insurance that they had and didn’t want it to change.

Consider contacting the Santa Barbara Film Festival. The festival is at the end of January each year and has an amazing array of documentaries each year. Because of our proximity to LA, we also attract a lot of the PTB in Hollywood- that’s not necessarily a good thing for the locals but it would be for a film maker.

Will this movie be playing outside of the NYC area either in theaters or on the cable networks -Premium movie station or the Documentary channel on Direct TV? I would love to see it.

Daniel, I’m so sorry to hear about this. While I haven’t lived in Brooklyn since 1969, I went to high school at Bishop McDonnell’s on Eastern Parkway on the eastern end of the Botanic Gardens. (It’s now a school for the deaf)
Can you tell me if taxpayer dollars are being used to give another sport’s team a brand new stadium?
My sister, who lives north of the City, told me about the new Mets stadium and how ticket prices are so expensive only corporations can still afford to purchase them.

If this stands, welcome socalmonk to your new district. While I dislike the idea of giving Gallegy a safe district, the new lines makes much more sense for Califonia 23 than the previously one which gave Gallegy the Santa Ynez Valley just over the mountain pass from Santa Barbara.
Since most of the people in Santa Ynez work in Santa Barbara and Santa Ynez is the place where Santa Barbarians move when they get sick of the “big” city, it essentially disenfranchised the SYV making it impossible for them to have a Congressperson who truly represented them. Giving Gallegy the SYV was part of the attempt to open up this section of Santa Barbara county to developers and also continued the myth that Santa Barbara County is “Reagan Country”
With this redistricting, all of SB County west of the Central Valley is in the same district again plus San Luis Obispo County and the northern coastal areas of Ventura County. I think this actually will give us a better chance of electing a more progressive rep than Lois Capps, who is a nice person but a “New Democrat” too much in the Clinton camp.

As someone who had the misfortune to live in Michael Huffington’s District and had my own personal brush with Arianna before he even announced he was running—-What eurogirl said!
The only thing to add is that Arianna was happy to be a conservative while Bill Maher had Politically Incorrect and put her on the air constantly. When he was kicked off for being politically incorrect, she found that the conservatives wouldn’t put her on television, she reinvented herself as a liberal and created Huffington Post.
Arianna is an opportunist-end of story!

Small correction, earl, from those of us in Santa Barbara- Reagan was never from Santa Barbara,he was from Bel Air. The ranch was purchased after his turn as California’s Governor, and only became the “Western White House” because the Secret Service decided that his house in Bel Air was a security risk. Because there was no land around it to secure the perimeter, it was sold.
After his Presidency, the ranch was also put up for sale. It sat on the market for almost 2 years. No one wanted it. Unfortunately, it gave the St Ronnie worshipers time to think. One of the worse, the odious Floyd Brown of the infamous Willie Horton ad, created a front organization that raised the funds to purchase it and turn it into an indoctrination camp for Reagan youth.
We were stupid to not foresee this and create a way to purchase it and turn it into a nature preserve or a left wing think tank – or anything that would have prevented a continuing Reagan presence,however small, in our community.
It is not an accident that the Reagan Library is not in Santa Barbara County. We never supported or voted for him here either as Governor or President. The Reagan Library is in Ventura County, Simi Valley, the bedroom community that, at the time, was mostly occupied by members of the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department.

I’m a Blue Shield customer in California in the Individual Market. The only person on my policy is myself. I have never had a surgery, a broken bone or a hospital stay in 61 years (if you don’t count the fact that I was born in a hospital). I haven’t had a chronic illness and am on no medications. I’ve been to the emergency room only 3 times in my life. The most serious of the three was a nose bleed that wouldn’t stop.
In November ’09, I switched policies within Blue Shield to lower the premium from the $647 that it was scheduled to become when I turned 60 in Jan ’10. The premium was lowered to $314 by doubling my deductible which I, of course, have never met even when it was $2500.
In Feb ’10 my premium increased $94-rationale- significant birthday.
In Aug ’10-my premium increased $54
In Jan’ 11-my premium increased $31-this info was included in the giant
packet that was delivered at the beginning of December and which
I now force myself to read
Before I even read the giant packet to find out about the $31
increase, I received a letter informing me that the premium would
In March ’11 be going up an additional $45 due to increased costs to Blue Shield in hospital, drug and physicians costs, including those “anticipated” to come in 2011.
That’s 4 premium increases in 13 months! Up until December ’10, I hadn’t seen a single Dr or medical professional for anything in 2010 because I couldn’t afford to do so. Finally, I made an appt for the eye Doctor because I desparately needed new eyeglasses. Of course, nothing is covered by my insurance.
But the kicker in the whole thing, is that within the giant packet was the information that because I have had my policy since before March 2010, the policy was to be considered “grandfathered” and therefore NONE of the Healthcare bills provisions that are coming into effect, including paying for preventive care, would apply to my policy. Then they quote Obama’s statement about how people who liked their insurance would not be forced to change policies.
And that, my friends, is the giant loophole that Blue Shield was allowed to drive through in order to not have the only good things in the Health Insurance Bill not apply to, probably, 90% of their customers.

I think you are talking about “mortgage insurance” not title insurance.
Mortgage insurance was what you use to be required to get if your down payment was not sufficient. When your equity increased you could drop it.
Instead,now mortgages without 20% were given 2nd mortgages which gave the banks another opportunity to collect interest-most seconds have APR which are higher than the first mortgage.
Title Insurance, as I understand it, is insurance that guarantees that the title to the property that you bought actually belonged to the person or entity that sold it to you and therefore you will not be bit on the ass at a later date by someone else coming along and claiming that your house belongs to them. Everyone has to have title insurance(at least here in California)It is part of the escrow process even if you pay cash for your house. Not everyone needed mortgage insurance– only those with less than 20% down. Depending on the downpayment your first mortgage could be for 80%,85% or even 90%.
We had mortgage insurance on our first house in the 80′s. Within 2 years the house appreciated enough that we could drop it. The payment was around 350/month.