England has provided government run health care since 1948. For the most part, it seems that people like it over there. Only 8% of the population has private health insurance.
If Stephen Hawking were an American he'd be a dead nobody. He wouldn't have earned a Ph.D. in physics. He wouldn't have been able to achieve it, even if he would have been allowed. Whatever insurance he had when he diagnosed with ALS would have dumped him, sooner rather than later. Disability health care would have fought him in court. He would get medicaid and social security disability. It's doubtful his disease would have gone into remission with the disparity in and availability of treatment here, as opposed to there.
What a loss to the world that would have been. How many others have we lost? Does any one out there really want another human being to suffer and die needlessly?
I know, and we do have to pay for it somehow. Here's the perfect solution. Legalize pot. Strictly limit who can grow it - land and loans to the chronically unemployed will be paid back ten fold in taxes. Then there's all the job growth. Entire industries will spring up. Stores to sell, chefs to cook it up, waiters to serve it. The taxi industry will be thriving. Restaurants can have smoking rooms, thereby greatly increasing their food sales. We'd be out of debt in no time.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Wisdom Keeper
I'm writing a story that incorporates much of the ancient wisdom so prevalent in my part of the world. Ancient Native American, Celtic, African and other teachings came together here and worked to help the people survive. More than religion, these ancient customs joined people not just to one another, but to all of their ancestors through time immemorial.
I read and collected the wonderful Foxfire books produced by students in the 1970s. I still feel a sadness to know now the price so many of the children paid in the production. The teacher was honored with much recognition for his achievements, but ultimately spends the remainder of his life isolated alone in a prison cell for crimes he committed against his students. He is but one of the many sad reminders of other legacies this land of isolation and poverty foments.
For that reason, my research strayed away from those reliable sources of the old ways. Besides, I wanted older, weirder ways for my stories. I wandered into several local libraries and started conversations with the ladies there. Having been directed to a particular area with a number of potential references, I settled at a desk and began perusing.
"Excuse me," a tiny little voice whispered. I looked up, shaking myself from the delight of the reading material. It seems someone in Gilmer County once upon a time found half of a petrified woman's body. I was eager to learn what became of it, where was the other half, which half was it? I was riveted and a bit consternatious for having been interrupted.
A small, well aged woman stood before me. She had sparkling eyes. She could have passed for Betty White. In a look alike contest, I would have picked her.
"Are you the lady looking for the old stories," she asked?
"I am."
"I have some you might want. I've been collecting them my whole life and just haven't really known what to do with them. My children could care less."
As it turns out, she is what she calls the local Wisdom Keeper. Her mothers before her were the healers, the story tellers, the conjure women of days of old. From the time she could read and write, she followed her mother, grandmother and great grandmother around the mountains while they gathered, prepared, healed and conjured. Whatever they did, she wrote down in her little book. Whenever she could get them to explain the logic behind it, she wrote that down too.
"Would you like to have them?"
Holy hallelujah, would I? Shezam! I just hit the mother lode. The next day, I followed her carefully written directions to a quaint cabin. Her notebooks had been kept safe and tidy, if not a little faded and damp in placed. I am only now taking a break from my reading. Now I know what to do just in case a haint follows me home. I can call the wind. Dance in the rain and smoke it away any time I like. I know what the birds really mean when they appear to just be doing ordinary every day bird things.
For the honor of this gift, I had to agree to certain things. I am not allowed to reveal the identity of this woman to anyone ever. "Lord, God, the folks at my church would burn me at the stake if they knew I was an old conjure woman!" I can do that. I am not allowed to use any of the spells to harm any living thing - only to heal. I doubt I'll use the spells at all, since they seem primarily silly to me so far, except for the ones about sending away death and ending floods, droughts and tornadoes, which still seem a little silly, but what the hey. Also, I must find some young girl to whom I must pass on the ancient wisdom (I'm taking nominations). Finally, I must visit my new friend to let her know how my learning is going and to let her answer any questions I may have. Consider it done.
I read and collected the wonderful Foxfire books produced by students in the 1970s. I still feel a sadness to know now the price so many of the children paid in the production. The teacher was honored with much recognition for his achievements, but ultimately spends the remainder of his life isolated alone in a prison cell for crimes he committed against his students. He is but one of the many sad reminders of other legacies this land of isolation and poverty foments.
For that reason, my research strayed away from those reliable sources of the old ways. Besides, I wanted older, weirder ways for my stories. I wandered into several local libraries and started conversations with the ladies there. Having been directed to a particular area with a number of potential references, I settled at a desk and began perusing.
"Excuse me," a tiny little voice whispered. I looked up, shaking myself from the delight of the reading material. It seems someone in Gilmer County once upon a time found half of a petrified woman's body. I was eager to learn what became of it, where was the other half, which half was it? I was riveted and a bit consternatious for having been interrupted.
A small, well aged woman stood before me. She had sparkling eyes. She could have passed for Betty White. In a look alike contest, I would have picked her.
"Are you the lady looking for the old stories," she asked?
"I am."
"I have some you might want. I've been collecting them my whole life and just haven't really known what to do with them. My children could care less."
As it turns out, she is what she calls the local Wisdom Keeper. Her mothers before her were the healers, the story tellers, the conjure women of days of old. From the time she could read and write, she followed her mother, grandmother and great grandmother around the mountains while they gathered, prepared, healed and conjured. Whatever they did, she wrote down in her little book. Whenever she could get them to explain the logic behind it, she wrote that down too.
"Would you like to have them?"
Holy hallelujah, would I? Shezam! I just hit the mother lode. The next day, I followed her carefully written directions to a quaint cabin. Her notebooks had been kept safe and tidy, if not a little faded and damp in placed. I am only now taking a break from my reading. Now I know what to do just in case a haint follows me home. I can call the wind. Dance in the rain and smoke it away any time I like. I know what the birds really mean when they appear to just be doing ordinary every day bird things.
For the honor of this gift, I had to agree to certain things. I am not allowed to reveal the identity of this woman to anyone ever. "Lord, God, the folks at my church would burn me at the stake if they knew I was an old conjure woman!" I can do that. I am not allowed to use any of the spells to harm any living thing - only to heal. I doubt I'll use the spells at all, since they seem primarily silly to me so far, except for the ones about sending away death and ending floods, droughts and tornadoes, which still seem a little silly, but what the hey. Also, I must find some young girl to whom I must pass on the ancient wisdom (I'm taking nominations). Finally, I must visit my new friend to let her know how my learning is going and to let her answer any questions I may have. Consider it done.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Think For Yourself
I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I can't help myself today. This week's political insanity has me reeling. What is the purpose of government anyway? Government serves the public good. In order to do that, government must deal in probabilities, not possibilities. That which is likely to happen that would harm innocent people.
It's easy to see that if a fire starts at my house, then the fire could spread to other houses. Other lives will then be put at risk. Maybe it won't. Maybe it will. Let's not wait and see. Let's all put out the fire. Government is good at that. Private enterprise is not. I don't want to be waiting next door while the fire department attempts to run the credit card. I want to be safe.
Likewise, I don't want to be walking down the street among people who are sick with horrible disease. I want them to get health care. I want them to live, be well, happy, healthy. I don't want to be waiting next door while the health care business runs the insurance and credit card. I want to be safe.
In all good altruism, I want you to be healthy. I want to be healthy. I want less stress and drama in my world. Private enterprise health care is not working. Tort reform won't fix it. Requiring me to buy into insurance run health care is not working. I don't want an insurance company telling me what health care I need. I want a physician telling me that. But I do want a ticket to the physician.
There are no jobs. The money has all been stolen and most of America is scraping by on a wing and prayer. Sure, we'll make it. If we live long enough. If we don't get sick. If we don't get hit by an uninsured motorist. If we don't get apoplexy from listening to all the health care debate.
It's easy to see that if a fire starts at my house, then the fire could spread to other houses. Other lives will then be put at risk. Maybe it won't. Maybe it will. Let's not wait and see. Let's all put out the fire. Government is good at that. Private enterprise is not. I don't want to be waiting next door while the fire department attempts to run the credit card. I want to be safe.
Likewise, I don't want to be walking down the street among people who are sick with horrible disease. I want them to get health care. I want them to live, be well, happy, healthy. I don't want to be waiting next door while the health care business runs the insurance and credit card. I want to be safe.
In all good altruism, I want you to be healthy. I want to be healthy. I want less stress and drama in my world. Private enterprise health care is not working. Tort reform won't fix it. Requiring me to buy into insurance run health care is not working. I don't want an insurance company telling me what health care I need. I want a physician telling me that. But I do want a ticket to the physician.
There are no jobs. The money has all been stolen and most of America is scraping by on a wing and prayer. Sure, we'll make it. If we live long enough. If we don't get sick. If we don't get hit by an uninsured motorist. If we don't get apoplexy from listening to all the health care debate.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
What's Your Passion?
I'm tired of this expression, this use of the word 'passion'. Whenever I'm asked "What's your passion?" I'm tempted - profoundly, deeply, shall I say it - oh yes - PASSIONATELY - inclined to respond "Well, I like a strapping young cowboy and wild crazy monkey sex in a barn with the cows and pigs watching me this time." I don't say it. But every fiber of my being cries out to do so. I want to see the shocked expressions on those faces. I want to drive home the fact that passion is not something so commonplace that everybody has one they can publicly expound upon while chatting at Starbucks.
For example, I love tulips. I would have a gazillion tulips sprouting in my yard, in vases around the house, in my car, in my hair. This is not a passion. I do not suffer, endure, stake my very life and being on tulips. Even if I did indulge my desire for everything tulip, it would only be, at best, an obsession, at worst OCD. Never would it arise to the level of a passion. Bubba Tyrone, who wistfully shares that he has a 'passion for music' is misguided - listening to everything Cher is merely an obsession.
Passion is something more. According to Merriam-Webster, passion is a state of being acted upon by external forces, it is ungovernable emotion, an intense, overmastering conviction. Passion takes to you the very heights - and depths - of all that makes life glorious and sacred. Beethoven, writing symphonies while his own ears couldn't hear the notes, had a passion. Mother Teresa, slogging through the disease and pathetic prejudice of a caste system in order to bring comfort and love to those deemed universally vile, had a passion. Anyone willing to risk suffering the depths of pain and despair to bring love and beauty to an otherwise cruel and vicious world has passion.
For those of us who are rationally compelled to anger and joy in the realms of politics, fashion, music, charity, religion, and, yes, sex, these are - for most of us - merely interests. However motivated we may feel, we rarely rise (or sink) to the extreme levels of passion. I exhort us all to delve into those various interests and to give them our all when necessary. But I must caution us all to avoid like the plague the extremes of passion - of being controlled by some uncontrollable emotion so fierce it might take all we hold dear.
I don't know how we got to the place where everyone must have a passion and is thereby compelled to discuss them over cocktails, coffee or on early morning newsertainment shows. Perhaps we just don't want to feel that we are run of the mill. We want to feel special, to highlight that which defines and motivates us. To hold ourselves out as something more than the every day, with qualities that are unique and special. In doing so, we only manage to express our similarities.
Similarities are still good things. A friend who lay dying expressed that it wasn't the glories of her life that she would miss. It wasn't the celebrity parties, the best seller lists, the hobbnobbing with the great and the wannabes. It was the every day, the little moments listening to her children fight, her husband grumble, the sunlight through the kitchen window while the coffee brewed. To which I say, touche. Go forth, people. Dare to be ordinary.
For example, I love tulips. I would have a gazillion tulips sprouting in my yard, in vases around the house, in my car, in my hair. This is not a passion. I do not suffer, endure, stake my very life and being on tulips. Even if I did indulge my desire for everything tulip, it would only be, at best, an obsession, at worst OCD. Never would it arise to the level of a passion. Bubba Tyrone, who wistfully shares that he has a 'passion for music' is misguided - listening to everything Cher is merely an obsession.
Passion is something more. According to Merriam-Webster, passion is a state of being acted upon by external forces, it is ungovernable emotion, an intense, overmastering conviction. Passion takes to you the very heights - and depths - of all that makes life glorious and sacred. Beethoven, writing symphonies while his own ears couldn't hear the notes, had a passion. Mother Teresa, slogging through the disease and pathetic prejudice of a caste system in order to bring comfort and love to those deemed universally vile, had a passion. Anyone willing to risk suffering the depths of pain and despair to bring love and beauty to an otherwise cruel and vicious world has passion.
For those of us who are rationally compelled to anger and joy in the realms of politics, fashion, music, charity, religion, and, yes, sex, these are - for most of us - merely interests. However motivated we may feel, we rarely rise (or sink) to the extreme levels of passion. I exhort us all to delve into those various interests and to give them our all when necessary. But I must caution us all to avoid like the plague the extremes of passion - of being controlled by some uncontrollable emotion so fierce it might take all we hold dear.
I don't know how we got to the place where everyone must have a passion and is thereby compelled to discuss them over cocktails, coffee or on early morning newsertainment shows. Perhaps we just don't want to feel that we are run of the mill. We want to feel special, to highlight that which defines and motivates us. To hold ourselves out as something more than the every day, with qualities that are unique and special. In doing so, we only manage to express our similarities.
Similarities are still good things. A friend who lay dying expressed that it wasn't the glories of her life that she would miss. It wasn't the celebrity parties, the best seller lists, the hobbnobbing with the great and the wannabes. It was the every day, the little moments listening to her children fight, her husband grumble, the sunlight through the kitchen window while the coffee brewed. To which I say, touche. Go forth, people. Dare to be ordinary.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Republicans Support Abortion
Okay, I know that's a bit of a stretch, but work with me here. RNC Chairman Michael Steele is quoted as saying "Republicans oppose any new government entity overruling a doctor's decision about how to treat his or her patient." I found this quote while snarking around on GOP.com. For those who have never actually read Roe v. Wade, the ultimate basis for the Court's opinion that a woman has a right to choose to have an abortion is the right to privacy that a patient has in making important medical decisions with her physician.
This illustrates my fundamental difficulty with Republican discourse. Statements are made without thought or reason. There is a failure to follow thought to its logical conclusion. What is essentially the basis of democratic principles is turned into a rhetorical malapropism.
No one, American, Republican or Iranian wants a doctor's decision about how to treat a patient to be sacred. My doctor doesn't get to decide what is done to me. My doctor gets to tell me what the problem is and what options are available to fix it and what the likely consequences of failure to fix it will be. I get to decide how I will be treated.
Oops. No, I don't. I don't have health insurance. I don't get to decide diddly squat. A physician would likely treat me except that our government allows corporations to only guard the bottom line. Because the law requires corporations to only make money, and not engage in things like free services to the indigent, the government's policy stands between me and my physician's decisions on how I should be treated.
Damn. Does this mean I'm a Republican?
This illustrates my fundamental difficulty with Republican discourse. Statements are made without thought or reason. There is a failure to follow thought to its logical conclusion. What is essentially the basis of democratic principles is turned into a rhetorical malapropism.
No one, American, Republican or Iranian wants a doctor's decision about how to treat a patient to be sacred. My doctor doesn't get to decide what is done to me. My doctor gets to tell me what the problem is and what options are available to fix it and what the likely consequences of failure to fix it will be. I get to decide how I will be treated.
Oops. No, I don't. I don't have health insurance. I don't get to decide diddly squat. A physician would likely treat me except that our government allows corporations to only guard the bottom line. Because the law requires corporations to only make money, and not engage in things like free services to the indigent, the government's policy stands between me and my physician's decisions on how I should be treated.
Damn. Does this mean I'm a Republican?
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Valentine's Day
I don't like Valentine's Day. Never have. Being a lifelong commitment phobe, it's just one of those days that does not relate to me any way, shape or form. It occurred to me last night that I'm basically just jealous. It's something in which I can't participate. It's silly (and lots of even ruder things) to resent the celebration of romantic love by others. I'm notoriously silly.
VD has its roots in ancient times, as do most of our celebrations, in the holiday of Lupercalia. It is alleged that ancient Romans slaughtered goats, dipped strips of goat skin in blood and then whipped women with the strips to guarantee fertility. One web site went so far as to state emphatically that women liked this. The rest of the history I found was speculative and boring. Suffice it say that this festival has been around for a very long time and likely has its roots in laws of nature. Spring is coming and with all that reproduction in the air, we are all prone to succomb. Might as well secure that partnership now, especially when it's so cold and a good time to snuggle.
Romantic love didn't really come into fashion until the Victorian era. Prior to that, most marriages were either arranged or the result of capture during tribal raids. The most ancient formal marriages I know of are jewish, the requirement being an actual written contract (which for the most part, all the husband need do to end it is tear it up). Over time, customs became laws and laws became money delivery systems to lawyers. If that isn't the death of romantic love, I don't know what is.
Once upon a time, it did bother me to not get flowers delivered to the office so all my world would know that someone considered me important. Not having that candlelit dinner at my favorite restaurant was a drag, as was no one with whom to cuddle, snuggle and be silly. After living quite some time and seeing my friends marry, divorce, remarry, redivorce, reremarry, and so on, I think I'm starting to get over it. I may have missed some of the public recognition once a year, but I certainly had my share of candlelight, flowers, chocolates and cuddles. So, I'll just learn to be grateful on this day that there is no one to fight with.
VD has its roots in ancient times, as do most of our celebrations, in the holiday of Lupercalia. It is alleged that ancient Romans slaughtered goats, dipped strips of goat skin in blood and then whipped women with the strips to guarantee fertility. One web site went so far as to state emphatically that women liked this. The rest of the history I found was speculative and boring. Suffice it say that this festival has been around for a very long time and likely has its roots in laws of nature. Spring is coming and with all that reproduction in the air, we are all prone to succomb. Might as well secure that partnership now, especially when it's so cold and a good time to snuggle.
Romantic love didn't really come into fashion until the Victorian era. Prior to that, most marriages were either arranged or the result of capture during tribal raids. The most ancient formal marriages I know of are jewish, the requirement being an actual written contract (which for the most part, all the husband need do to end it is tear it up). Over time, customs became laws and laws became money delivery systems to lawyers. If that isn't the death of romantic love, I don't know what is.
Once upon a time, it did bother me to not get flowers delivered to the office so all my world would know that someone considered me important. Not having that candlelit dinner at my favorite restaurant was a drag, as was no one with whom to cuddle, snuggle and be silly. After living quite some time and seeing my friends marry, divorce, remarry, redivorce, reremarry, and so on, I think I'm starting to get over it. I may have missed some of the public recognition once a year, but I certainly had my share of candlelight, flowers, chocolates and cuddles. So, I'll just learn to be grateful on this day that there is no one to fight with.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Crimes and Punishments
Why are people (Republicans) arguing that Obama should be holding a military trial for the panties bomber? Does anyone know the reason behind this argument? I'd ask for the rationality of this argument but they're republicans, ergo, not rational.
What benefit is obtained by conducting a military trial over a civilian trial? Well, there aren’t any of those pesky little civil rights thingies to worry about. No lawyer, no grand jury, no right to not incriminate yourself, etc., etc., etc. Not much of a right to appeal. Just enough to get it over turned in case you aren’t an enemy engaged in warfare.
Why is a civilian trial is mandated by American law? Well, there are those pesky little civil rights thingies, various statutes, countless Supreme Court opinions and The Posse Comitatus Act (1987) all of which forbid assertion of military jurisdiction over a civilian. Even in war zones. Even on military property. And, yes, even on military property in a war zone.
But, you may ask, is the panties bomber a civilian? Indubitably. Only Congress can declare war. After 9/11, Congress only enacted an Authorization for Military Use of Force. It did not enact a Declaration of War. Without a Declaration of War, a person (even an ‘enemy combatant’) can’t be tried in a military court, because military jurisdiction only attaches upon a violation of any rule of war. No war, no rules. No rules, no violation. Without a war declared by Congress, we have no enemies.
Men and women are being killed and maimed to protect the very right – civilian trial by jury of our peers – that Republicans are now viciously attacking. Now, I’m not shy about my criticisms of the American system of justice. I have many. They are legion. That being said, I am fairly confident that a man who tries to set off a bomb in his underwear on a plane in front of 200 eyewitnesses is likely to be convicted, even if he is afforded each and every constitutional right imagined by the leftest, hippiest, socialistest, commie pinko fag of all time. Besides, what's life in prison, or even the death sentence, compared this: the dude set his dick on fire. Even a military tribunal can’t do that.
What benefit is obtained by conducting a military trial over a civilian trial? Well, there aren’t any of those pesky little civil rights thingies to worry about. No lawyer, no grand jury, no right to not incriminate yourself, etc., etc., etc. Not much of a right to appeal. Just enough to get it over turned in case you aren’t an enemy engaged in warfare.
Why is a civilian trial is mandated by American law? Well, there are those pesky little civil rights thingies, various statutes, countless Supreme Court opinions and The Posse Comitatus Act (1987) all of which forbid assertion of military jurisdiction over a civilian. Even in war zones. Even on military property. And, yes, even on military property in a war zone.
But, you may ask, is the panties bomber a civilian? Indubitably. Only Congress can declare war. After 9/11, Congress only enacted an Authorization for Military Use of Force. It did not enact a Declaration of War. Without a Declaration of War, a person (even an ‘enemy combatant’) can’t be tried in a military court, because military jurisdiction only attaches upon a violation of any rule of war. No war, no rules. No rules, no violation. Without a war declared by Congress, we have no enemies.
Men and women are being killed and maimed to protect the very right – civilian trial by jury of our peers – that Republicans are now viciously attacking. Now, I’m not shy about my criticisms of the American system of justice. I have many. They are legion. That being said, I am fairly confident that a man who tries to set off a bomb in his underwear on a plane in front of 200 eyewitnesses is likely to be convicted, even if he is afforded each and every constitutional right imagined by the leftest, hippiest, socialistest, commie pinko fag of all time. Besides, what's life in prison, or even the death sentence, compared this: the dude set his dick on fire. Even a military tribunal can’t do that.
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