Mary Shaw

President Obama has nominated Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.

In addition to the other challenges that Sebelius will face in this new role, I hope she will be able to implement the affordable health care for all which Obama has promised us. To that end, Sebelius will be working closely with Nancy-Ann Deparle, who will direct the White House Office for Health Reform.

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Sheila Samples

Sometimes it's hard to come to grips with the truth -- especially if that truth is about our own country, and is in direct opposition to everything we've been taught since childhood. Patriotism is in our genes, and through the years it has been a national conviction that, if our country needed us, serving in the military to protect our freedom was not only the right thing to do, but the only thing to do. We still believe that. We still leap to our feet at the first beat of a drum at a military parade, clutch our hearts at the sight of the Stars and Stripes, weep at the refrain of the National Anthem. However, far too many of us succumb to the pomp and pageantry of war -- of mission accomplished -- with little concern for the human beings who made that possible -- what they went through, what they're still going through -- so we can maintain our arrogant national pride.

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