When terrible things happen, it's natural for people to turn their attention to the problems, evaluate the situations and figure out what needs to be done in order to make things better.

"For me, an area of moral clarity is: you're in front of someone who's suffering and you have the tools at your disposal to alleviate that suffering or even eradicate it, and you act." - Paul Farmer

Not everyone reacts with the same amount of compassion or willingness to help. In some situations, some people are repulsed or made uneasy by the pain and suffering of others. People can turn away and avoid involvement or the feelings of uneasiness by blaming or fearing the victims.

Did biases towards the victims prevent effective life-saving responses to the Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans? Could the same thing happen in Haiti? Under what circumstances do people sometimes blame and criticize victims, deeming them unworthy of help?

When assessing the amount of help someone needs, people's perceptions can be skewed by their racial biases, according to a recent Kansas State University study.

What do you think of when you imagine an American living in exile, unable to return home? This is a profile of two Americans living in Canada who can't return to the US because of the unequal and unfair way our so-called healthcare system is set up here. They cannot return home because, although they are not poor, they are still unable to get health coverage. Why? Because the insurance industry does not sell coverage to those who have pre-existing diagnoses. Why not? Because we don't have a fair system.

We need a single payer system just like Canada's. It's the right thing to do.

By opposing Obama's priorities, the protesters yesterday were, in essence, saying that they want to continue to pay for war overseas, but not for food or healthcare here at home. (Shame on them.)

We know that the federal government collects taxes in order to finance various public services. We know that the highest spending occurred during the Bush administration. All that is occurring now is a shift of priorities. An honest discussion of fiscal policy begins with an understanding of not only who is paying the taxes, but also where the revenues go.

Chants like "Give me liberty, not debt" and "Our kids can't afford you" mean very little really. The protesters at their so-called TEA parties yesterday aren't looking at reality. Are they really that uninformed or do they just get their news from FOX and simply don't ask the hard questions? Well. Let's look at the facts...

Lower incomes lead to less spending, which leads to less employment, which leads to lower incomes.... These are not processes that are self-correcting.

I have to tell you that Summers' speech went a long way towards reviving my confidence in Obama's economic team. I watched it on C-SPAN and hung on every word. I was intent on hearing what Summers had to say since recently I've had become so discouraged by Tim Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury, Obama's other economic leader. Prior to joining Obama's administration, Geithner had served on Wall Street, as a regulator for the Fed under the Bush administration. He lost my confidence earlier this week when he said of our financial meltdown that he "didn't see it coming." I don't buy that. Even I saw it coming, years ago when we first started shipping jobs overseas. With American incomes plummeting, we wouldn't be able to afford our consumption or our mortgages. The decline was inevitable.

Yesterday, Larry Summers restored my faith. He agrees with me that our government let us down. My faith was so renewed by Summer's words that I decided to share the entire speech with everyone here...

The World Health Organization has estimated that over 151,000 Iraqi citizens have died violent deaths since 2003 when George Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq (here and here). This weekend, just six weeks before he hands over power to Barack Obama, George Bush flew into occupied Iraq and told the Iraqi people that his "war" in Iraq is not over.

Is it any surprise that his visit and his words would not be well received? An Iraqi man, Mr. Muntadar al-Zaidi, stood and said in Arabic after pitching his first shoe towards George Bush's head, "This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog."

A 22-year-old, like al-Zaidi would have come of age during the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The dreams of many young Iraqi men have been destroyed just as their lives were barely beginning. At an age when young men like him should be able to reach with hope for their futures, instead, these young Iraqis have been forced to watch their country be obliterated by bombs falling from the skies above their homes. The huge numbers of refugees and deaths show us that most Iraqis, like al-Zaidi, have watched numerous friends, family members and neighbors flee, disappear, suffer or die. These very real human tragedies are daily occurrences. Life has gotten worse, not better. Young people like al-Zaidi have been shocked and awed...

"I have a temper, to state the obvious, which I have tried to control with varying degrees of success because it does not always serve my interest or the public's." - John McCain

Michigan is a state that has endured enormous job losses due to the moving of manufacturing overseas. I remember during the primaries earlier this year when John McCain took his "straight talk" campaign to that state. Apparently, McCain thought that the residents of Michigan were in some sort of denial about their loss of jobs and their economic predicament. Essentially, his campaign pitch to the Michiganders went something like this, "My friends, I'm going to tell you the truth. Those jobs you lost are not coming back."

It's no wonder Mitt Romney won Michigan. Fast forward the clock to September 2008. John McCain is in trouble with those Michigan workers again. It's not just his cavalier attitude about their loss of jobs that has gotten him crosswise this time, it's that the "straight talker" has some trouble talking straight. It seems that John McCain has told some lies and the auto workers aren't happy about it.

Today, I listened in on a conference call hosted by United Auto Workers (UAW) President Ron Gettelfinger. Here's what the UAW President had to say today in response to the latest news of John McCain not being straight with working families...