The Intellectual Mosquito

THE PIG FARM: YOUR U.S. CONGRESS IN ACTION ON HEALTHCARE REFORM

THINK CONGRESS CARES A FIG ABOUT YOU, ME OR ANY AVERAGE CITIZEN? WAKE UP, READ ON AND LEARN THE TRUTH.

Holy Crap! Where have I been? All these years I thought that gleaming white building on the hill in Washington, D.C.-- you know, the one with the elegant giant dome? I thought it was the Capitol Building. It was only recently that I discovered it's a pig farm! Imagine that. Who would have guessed?

I stumbled on to this while researching what I've come to call "The Mud Bowl", the showdown between the Democrats and Republicans over the Health Care Bill. For almost a year they've been playing something that resembles football without  rules. Senators and House Representatives with old-style leather helmets strapped on and each of them--men and women--are wearing vintage football uniforms.The Dem's have cream-colored  jerseys with dark blue shoulders and sleeves. The numerals are in dark blue as are the names on the back. The pants are camel with a dark blue stripe down each leg. The Repub's are dressed identically, except their highlight color is deep red.

This knockdown dragout is being fought on a slick  muddy field that has replaced the floor of the Capitol, and all members of Congress, men and women, young and old, duking it out. All of them are in the game as there is no player limit. Each side claims they are doing it for the good of the country. There are no first downs or time outs and there's no four-down rule.  As long as one side has the ball (which is as big as a prize watermelon and weighs as much) they can keep running all over the place, throwing it, catching it, kicking it. There is no scoring apparently, no such thing as a touchdown.

There are no unsportsmanlike penalties. No penalties, period. Both sides are throwing elbows, kicking shins, sticking out arms to make clothesline tackles, tripping opposing players and blocking from behind. The air is full of cussing like in real football games. It's crazy, I tell you.

HOW INSURANCE  AND DRUG COMPANIES FEED THE PIGS

Truthfully, this Pig Farm idea really did materialize while I was researching the neverending brawl on healthcare reform. I was on an intense Google search when the following headline posted on the Consumer Watchdog web site (March 9, 2009) snagged my attention:

"HEALTH INSURERS & DRUG COMPANIES CONTRIBUTED $5.5 MILLION

 to TOP 10 SENATE AND HOUSE RECIPIENTS SINCE 2005" 

According to the Watchdog, health insurance companies and big pharma doled out those millions over two election cycles, at a time not unlike today when health care reform was the dominant subject of political debate. The insurers gave $2.2 million to the top ten members of the Senate and House while the pharmaceutical giants kicked in $3.3 million to them.  

Altogether, health insurers and drug makers contributed $24,220,976 during the same period to all members of Congress. Here are the top ten, courtesy of Consumer Watchdog:  

    
Drift back to March of 2009 and slowly meander forward through those hot, muggy days of boisterous Town Hall Meetings where T-baggers congealed, ugly racist posters portrayed the president in whiteface and surrounded by swastikas, the hammer & sickle of  Stalinist Russia and scrawled handwriting dragged ugly words across posters made by bigots and people so ignorant and locked into their cockeyed beliefs they are beyond reasoning. Some carried slogans like "Leave My Medicare Alone" (Medicare is not an issue in reform),  "No Socialism in America" (By people who appear qualified to be receiving Medicare or Medicaid.), "No Government Takeover of Health Care" (Yeah. We're doing just fine with the insurance and drug companies running it.),"We Demand Our Rights!" (By people who couldn't tell you what the Bill of Rights is), "Leave the Constitution Alone" (No one's trying to change it.), and "No Redistribution of Wealth" (We're talking about spending our tax dollars wisely versus giving them to insurers and drug manufacturers.)

Yokels showed up at crowded presidential appearances and Town Hall Meetings wearing guns, no less, and hoisting signs crowing the time has come when "The Tree of Liberty Needs to Be Watered With Blood." Various Republican Senators and Representatives strolled  in to troll for votes, shaking hands, passing out pats on the backs of strangers and delivering phony speeches about how health care reform will wreck the nation and drive us  into bankruptcy faster than the Wall Street bankers did.

Lies abounded, unspeakable lies about "Death Panels" and "Pulling the plug on Grandma." They were flat out, baldface lies ardently spoken by elected officials before dozens of TV cameras and into banks of  microphones, fat  juicy lies fed to sweaty people sharing a lynch mob mentality. The  summer's events had the feel of a grainy black and white documentary on Southern fried hate and the Ku Klux Klan. I couldn't belive it was happening right here and now, and after all the tears, bloodshed and political misery we've been through in the last sixty years. It was a sickening picture, proof of the despicable possibilities that still exist in America.

 Now, take another look at that list above that shows how much those members of Congress have received from the bloated insurance companies and the gluttonous pharmaceutical makers whom we must pay whatever they demand or settle for excruciating pain or death. Ask yourself, can a Congressman who accepts this kind of money from any company be expected to vote his conscience?

 HOW  TAXPAYERS SLOP THE PIGS 

While all Republicans and a few Democrats are manning the barricades against healthcare reform, they hide the fact they are all awash in health insurance benefits that are paid for mainly by taxpayers. They have ten insurance plans to choose from, access to a nationwide network of doctors and HMOs that operate in their home states.

Our lawmakers get the red carpet treatment at Wasington's government run (but not socialist?) medical facilities. They don't even have to leave the Capitol to get medical care because they have a phalanx of doctors, nurses and medical technicians and a pharmacy conveniently on site. It's not entirely free, but for about $50 a month, it's one terrific deal.

Taxpayers picked up the tab of $15 billion in 2008 to insure 8.5 million federal workers and their dependents. The federal plans easily outstrip the coverages of normal policies while millions of Americans  go underinsured and between 35 and 40 million more have no health insurance. At the rate the insurers are hiking up their prices in retaliation for the threat of refiorm, millions more will shortly be uninsured.

Federal employees love Blue Cross Blue Shield's generous plan which covers a family for about $1,120 a month. Our taxes pay $700 of that monthlypremium. The annual deductible is $300 per person and $600 per family. There is no waiting period, no pre-existing conditions and no coverage limit.

Doctor co-pays are $20, generic prescriptions $10, a routine physical is $20 for the doctor while all screening tests are paid by insurance if a preferred provider is used. 

How are Congressmen and federal employees able to get this great insurance for such surprisingly low premiums? The same way the Health Care Reform Bill (that so-called "government takeover" of healthcare that is similar to Medicare but Republicans are carping about anyway) will make it available to all Americans.

Why is the government going to be able to get such great rates for non-federal employees? For the same reason they get for its 8.5 million employees. Because of the immense size and market power of  80 million or more potential customers and the billions of dollars in premiums to be had, insurers will be fighting like hell among themselves to get a slice of the big, new pie and to scarf up those people who prefer to buy private insurers. Premiums for the latter group will drop like rocks.

WHY NO SENATOR OR REPRESENTATIVE SHOULD

VOTE AGAINST  HEALTH CARE REFORM

Our Senators and Representatives enjoy the benefits of  health insurance  that not only far surpasses what millions of Americans can afford, but they get it at going-out-of-business prices. The base salaries for Senators and Representatives is $174,000 a year. The Speaker of the House gets $223,500 and the majority and minority leaders in both legislative chambers receive $193,400 as does the Senate president pro tem.

A member is eligible for retirement benefits from Congress at age 62 with a mere five years of service. With ten years in they can retire at 60. Twenty years in service allows retirement at 50. All members are given an Expense Allowance to cover domestic travel, stationery, newsletters, overseas postage, telephone and telegraph service and other expenses incurred whether in Washington or back home in their districts. Foreign travel is paid from public and private sources so long as it's to conduct government business.

Included in a Representatives office expensess is a minimum amount of $9,700 (2003), with additional funding based on a formula that uses the mileage between Washington and the farthest point in the member's district. A Senator's Expense Allowance is based upon a combination of his state's population, the distance from the capitol city and includes travel money.

TURNING  A SILK PURSE INTO A SOW'S EAR

Our country has millions of uninsured and underinsured people and families. Their ranks are getting fuller each day as thousands more are laid off, run out of savings or retirement funds or their unemployment compensation peters out. Millions of the employed are soldiering on, paying too much for insurance they can't afford to lose, doing without needed prescriptions or, fearing a health crisis and death, hand over money they could use for rent, food, utilities and other basic needs: dental treatment, gas, clothing, shoes, and the list goes on and on.  

Herman Melville observed that the well-housed, well-warmed and well-fed often judge those of us who happen to be less well-situated harshly and inhumanely. Congress is facing a choice. In view of all the benevolence life and lucky breaks have handed them, will they vote for Healthcare Reform, or against it? Those who say "Nay" are no better than swine. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arrivederci, Rome, N.Y. . . . and Goodbye My Heart

We lived in a dream world, a bustling little town nestled into the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains that climb north from central New York into Canada. We grew up there in Rome, population 53,000, probably half of whom were Italian Americans. It was a Golden Age that began its ascent shortly after the atomic bomb brought World War II to an end.

During the l950's the construction of Giffiss Air Force Base, which began during the pre-war years, was ramped up for the challenge of the Cold War. In ten years Griffiss swelled into a giant Strategic Air Command center responsible for keeping huge Globemaster aircraft circling the earth 24 hours a day,on the prowl for a sneak attack by the Russians.

The air base became the area's largest employer and the creator of thousands of affluent new consumers. 

On the east side of town the faded two-story houses of the old Italian neighborhood blossomed anew with fresh paint, aluminum and   wood siding and varied styles   of wrought iron fences. Grape arbors turned into summertime kitchens and gathering places for families. Shiny new cars, symbols of wealth,were parked in the narrow driveways between homes. 

Life was good. The business district welcomed new and refurbished stores, restaurants, bistros, pizza shops and bakeries. The old-timers liked things as they were and so the ethnic fruit and vegetable stands kept their rustic look as did the traditional markets. Most were family businesses and old or new, they prospered.

As the engine of the economy, Griffiss Air Base powered the city into the nationwide post war boom that grew a middle class of previously unknown size and wealth. Oddly, a sign of imminent world peace signaled the city's heydays were coming to a close.The Berlin Wall fell.The Cold War ended. Then Griffiss Air Force Base was shuttered up, portions of it sold off and Rome drifted back into the past.

Below is a letter from my good friend John DellaContrada. John grew up in the old Italian neighborhood and reveled in it's ethnicity. After high school he went off   to Ithaca College where he graduated with a degree in elementary school education. His love of family and the city drew him back to Rome where he taught fifth grade,  became an elementary school principal and then, after nearly four decades, took a well-earned retirement. John and his wife Rita raised their family of six children in Rome. The letter contains John's impressions of the city and his old neighborhood upon returning home after a winter's sojourn in south Florida.

    
 
 Tony,

As you can surmise we are back in Rome. When you are absent for a long period you see the eyesores you didn't notice while here. The most disappointing to me is East Rome. The once proud hub of Italian culture and pride is now a haven for low rent transients. Gone are the vegetables in every yard.  Gone are the flowers that fronted each house. Gone are the sounds of a loving culture--bocce balls clanging against each other, and excited, passionate Italians arguing every point. Gone are the immigrant women bragging about their children's accomplishments while hanging the sheets on the line that ran from the house to the pear tree. Gone are the smells of the Italian 
neighborhood: Italian sausages and peppers cooking, the smell of homemade wine fermenting in the celler, the sweet, tangy smell of the tomato sauce cooking all day, the smell of the homemade bread baking, and finally, the smell of contentment because if you had loving family, you had it all.

The sights that I miss most are wonderful people in the Italian neighborhood. Those wonderful nuns dressed in those mysterious black and white habits. We boys used to speculate what their hair was like  under those regal cowls. The theory we most favored was that under those holy crowns was glorious long hair wound in circles, as the nuns never cut their hair. Of this we were sure because no one ever saw a nun get their hair cut. And no one ever saw a nun in a beauty shop (as they were called back then). So we guessed that when the nuns were at the convent at night they let their hair down and it would drag silently along the floor as they walked. This is why we were sure their floors were shinier than those of any house we'd ever been in.

I miss seeing all those Italian fathers dressed every day in a wool shirt, tie and fedora.  They were proud! I miss seeing all those widows wearing their black mourning dress for exactly one year after   their husband's death. I miss seeing Italian men sitting under their grape arbors smoking a pipe after dinner. I miss hearing their daughters giggling together about their latest beaus. Love was exciting then and not public. 

I remember active, alive streets and neighborhoods. We loved to watch the shiny cars that few proud owners drove as if they were chariots of the Gods. We would challenge each other to identify the make and models of the cars. It was not too difficult because there were only about six different makes. And the cry of the peddlers selling fruits and vegetables, the umbrella man asking everyone to bring their umbrellas to him to fix right there on the spot. The clip-clop of the horse and carriage going by as the ragman called out asking to buy your rags.  The bang of the steel cans on the sidewalks as the "ash men" emptied the ashes from our coal and wood furnaces. The kids hanging on the back of the iceman's truck stealing little pieces of  ice chips. Everybody was on the streets talking and laughing. The streets were alive with a happy people who knew each neighbor. Even the insurance man came each week to collect nickels and dimes to pay for those small policies. We also had an egg lady who delivered eggs and homemade butter each week.

And of course, many kids outside playing games in the streets and empty lots. In the summer we played from morning to night and during those dreaded school days from after school to dark and beyond. On each street you could hear mothers calling to their children to come home. (When was the  last time you heard a mother calling a child to come home to dinner?) Nobody was at home on computers and video games! Our parents didn't buy us games; we played games passed down from generation to generation. We played baseball on dirt lots with thin leather gloves.

My mother bought that leather glove from the Trading Post on North James Street. She paid $1.00 for it. Considering that both my brothers and I used that glove for about twenty years, it was a good  
investment. My brothers, the twins, were 10 years older than I and they put that glove to good use before they handed it over to me. I remember my mother saying to me, "You want a new baseball glove? I just bought you one." Sports equipment was not a priority in the budget of a family of 10.

Because the leather was so thin, I put my handkerchief in it for padding. In those days boys carried the same one in their pockets for at leaast 13 weeks. I think that is why we had such immune systems. We carried an entire laboratory of bacteria in our pants pockets. The only way that handkerchief  saw the machine was if you left it in your pocket and your mother washed your pants.

I remember the Catholic Church was such a big part of Italian family lives. This, of course, led to the politics of confession. A young boy had to handle that Saturday afternoon at St. John's very carefully. Although no one could hear your confession, everyone could SEE how that confession went. If you were in the confessional a long time they all speculated what a depraved boy you were. So you had to rush through your confession in no more than 30 seconds. Those judgmental  
eyes could also watch you at the altar rail saying your penance and if you were there a long time it meant you were a sinner. Now depending on who you went to confession with determined how long you stayed there. For example, if you went with your older sister you said a couple of quick Hail Mary's and walked piously back to the pew to wait for her and told God, "I owe you 3 Our Father's, an Act of Contrition and 1 mystery of the rosary." The fastest penance was if your girlfriend's mother was there. In that case your knee barely hit the altar rail and you were out of there. Now if you went with your buddies you had to spend considerable time at the altar rail, lest they think you were a wimp or were telling lies about the girls in your life.

The most important memory of growing up Italian was that we knew all our neighbors and we cared about them. We watched over each other. We celebrated the good times and cried at their misfortunes. And no matter how little your family had you shared it with them when they needed help. Of course, with the legendary Italian pride, you would never say you needed help. They just knew it because they knew you.

John DellaContrada

  
 
  
 



 
  








 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

 

 

 

On Tobago

For the first week he lay around,

drying out,

soaking up the sun

sleeping under the palms

opening a coconut or two

catching fish with twine and a pin

wallowing in leisure and blessed

simplicity

On the eighth day he sculled

to the reef and tilted wreck.

cut canvas for clothes

then more for shelter

and, anxious now,

some for repairs

Next day he

brought back flour

huge bloody bags of the stuff

more flour than a man

could use in a lifetime and,

struck by a thought as he ate

from a calabash bowl

went back next day

for a knife and fork, spoons,

a plate or two from the galley

and came back loaded down

Not with the cracked stained pieces from the galley

but the skipper's prized silver and china

kept behind glass in his cabin.

Also a plush lined chair that could have been built for him

a tricorn hat

and as an afterthought

some golden coins from the desk.

You never knew.

On the next day,

which turned out to be

the last one.

he found where the rum

was stored

The barrels floated placidly before him to the shore.

The gentle surf nudged them up the beach

Later

seated in the plush chair,

Crusoe cracked one open

and toasted the setting sun

by Ron Baynes

Copyright 2009

Ron is a freelance writer from Ottawa, ON. The semi-retired public relations executive is President of Baynes Communications there and when not writing poetry, he's heavily involved in short story writing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE RIGHT TO DIE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am not suicidal. But at 67, I think about dying a lot more than I did ten years ago.  What I think about the most is how I'm going to cross that last threshhold. I've even checked out my "healthy life expectancy" using Mortality Tables relied on by insurance companies and the federal government.  "Healthy life expectancy " is the number of years a person might expect to live free of serious illness or disability. For me, when your healthy life expectancy runs out, it's good to know what you're going to do next. You need to have a plan.

I'm not crazy. Just determined I'm not going to float around in a nether world somewhere below the surface of being the conscious, mobile and thinking person I am. I do not want to morph into a drooling, unmanageable caricature of myself in a diaper. Nor do I want to rot away, festooned with tubes and monitor lines running in and out of my body, as I lie in bed praying to die. The following story led me to seriously consider my "check out time."

Last July, Sir Edward Downes, 85, and his 74-year old wife Joan traveled from Britain to Zurich, Switzerland. Their fifty-four year marriage has been described as "an enduring love story". He was the principal conductor of the BBC Philharmonic for over fifty years. She was a former ballet dancer and choreographer who, in her later years, chose to become her husband's personal assistant.

Lady Downes was suffering from terminal cancer of the liver and pancreas. Sir Edward, although not ill, was nearly blind and deaf. In Zurich they entered a clinic where, after drinking a cocktail laced with barbituates, they laid down side by side and while holding hands, fell alseep. Minutes later they died peacefully.   

What led to their mutual deaths wasn't so much the fact that  Sir Edward wouldn't have been able to care for himself without Lady Downes, but that he didn't care to live without her.  Friends said,"They were inseparable." And, "It was a real love match."

The assisted suicide of the Downeses intensified the heated debate about the morality of suicide and whether we have the right to end our lives as we choose,  particularly that time when age, infirmity or illness carries us beyond meaningful life and leaves us in Death's waiting room.

Do we have the Right to Die, to decide while still mentally competent, that we are through with being held captive to sickness and pain? Shouldn't we be able when virtually blind and deaf, to declare that, for us, life is no longer worth living? Doesn't a time come when we are so diminished by age or illness that society loses dominion over us and we are free to do with ourselves as we please?Who, other than each of us, should have the right to decide when, where and how we shall die?

It is  foolish and irresponsible to avoid thinking about life's last big event. Leaving end of life decisions to family or friends, those who always pray for our miraculous recovery, not only places a heavy burden on them, but it can ignite conflict and resentment among them. And, as you lie there helplessly, you may find yourself being driven down roads you'd rather not go.

For instance, in their desperation to prolong or save your life, your family could decide to place you in a promising but tortuous experimental drug  program. Alternately, they could choose to have you undergo painful and highly expensive cutting-edge surgery which, while extremely risky, is worth the gamble to them if it holds out a chance of extending your life.

While such scenarios are extreme and unlikely, they're certainly not out of the realm of possibility. The most common situation has children faced with putting dear old Mom or Dad in a nice nursing home. There, families feel a parent will have the benefit of 24/7 medical attention.

Unfortunately, I've visited plentyof nursing homes. In my mind, none came even close to being nice. To be fair, it's more honest to say that I've never come across one I would choose to live in rather than die. To me they all smell alike--a malordous composition of urine, disinfectant, unattended bedside commodes and cooking fumes, all of it tinged with the sweet scent of gladiolas which, unfairly or not, I associate with funeral homes.

Scattered through the hallways are people slumped over in wheelchairs, most with their heads hanging down. It's impossible to tell if they're asleep or too weak to hold them up. The alert residents capable of standing, if unable to walk, shuffle-walk, wandering aimlessly hoping to find a friend or the affection of a warm, "Hi, how are you today?"  Smile and a few smile back. Often you see eyes brimming with sadness and loneliness. Some have no reaction, but stare vacantly through you.    

Nursing assistants (CNA's) are grossly underpaid and typically assigned more patients than they can possibly attend to, let alone stop to converse or hold a hand and listen. Some aids are surprisingly energetic, vibrant and openly caring towards their charges. They are the few, the only "regulars" who carry sunshine into the lives of the residents on a daily basis.     

Many CNA's are sullen, obviously resentful of being stuck in a low-paying, tough, dead end job that demands heavy lifting, mopping up urine and washing feces off the floor and patients. They know the job they have is likely the best paying one they'll ever have. Like the residents, they are trapped in a hell hole and hate it.

As you walk the hallways you hear television noises coming from the rooms, people calling out for someone or something, frequently making no sense at all or worse, wrestling with pain. Almost always the air carries the sounds of people crying, moaning or laughing out loud to themselves.

There are nursing homes you might call "more livable". At least they try with bright colored curtains, plush carpeting, pleasant pictures on the walls, big windows to let daylight stream in, comfortable nooks for visiting and attractive dining rooms. The food looks better than it does in the typical nursing home, but that doesn't mean it's good.

Study these "nice" homes and you'll see that the homey touches are mere window dressing. The ambience is intended to camouflage the smells, the sights of demented residents and the odd noises of patients and blaring televisions back in their rooms. The nicer homes mute the horror of life in any instituional setting, but as I see it, they're not much of a step up from the less expensive facilities.

None of them, no matter the price tag, is a place where anyone full of life would choose to exist. These so-called homes are the last stop before the funeral parlor. I will never, ever allow myself to be placed in any of them.

STAND BY OUR STREET MUSICIANS

         
       
  Some of the greatest performers, with stories we'll never know, sing and play their hearts out on the streets of cities all over the world. I've heard them in San Francisco, Boston, Miami, Paris and many others. Some are self-taught, others have had formal training. Either way, their talents and exacting performances are often inspiring and amazing.

I am given to pause and ask myself, "Why is this gifted person out on the street?" Always, I wonder, "Why aren't people like this performing in respectable local clubs where they can make some decent money, get off the heartless streets and be safe? As a person who was a musician years ago, I cannot pass one of them without putting something in their open guitar case or tip jar.

   Street musicians don't expect every passerby to leave them a dollar or two, though they really could use it. They love it if you just stand by and listen, watch their performance and show your appreciation with a smile and brief applause. All of us need approval from time to time, to feel like we're a genuine member of the amorphous family of man.  

The next time you come upon a street musician, even if you don't have a quarter  to spare,  stop just the same to listen a while, to say a kind word, look them in the eye and smile. If you have a couple of dollars, especially if you've been a musician, and you leave nothing, you lose a  wonderful way to reconnect with your musical past. And, as you walk away, maybe you have just filched someone else's music.   

Right now you can see and hear street musicians from around the world perform together as they play and sing "Stand By Me." It's an exceptional video, the brainchild of producer  Mark Johnson. The story behind it started one day as Johnson was walking around the streets of Santa Monica, California. He could hear a voice singing "Stand By Me." A block or so away, Johnson was drawn to the music and followed it to its source, street musician Roger Ridley (shown above right). the first person who appears in the video. The meeting of the two sparked an idea that led to Johnson's traveling the world to record and film the various street musicians who appear in the video.

Each was filmed in their native country and their collaboration on the music and video is the fruit of judicious editing which creates the effect of a single, wondrous and magical performance. It   is an emotional and inspiring vision you will want to share. To see the video free go to www.collegehumor.com/video:1909711 . If you'd like to get it, the video is easily found on the internet   where, depending on your luck, it can be downloaded free or for about $1.50. Type the words "Stand By Me/Playing For Change" into Google. To find out more about the Playing For Change Foundation, visit www.playingforchange.org and you'll learn how Mark Johnson's inspiration has led to a worldwide movement dedicated to building schools in some of the neediest corners of the globe.

 

 

 

 

THE MIDDLE CLASS SHRINKS: IS THE AMERICAN DREAM DEAD?

                                                                                     
        The danger this country faces today is no less threatening than that created by the Attack on Pearl Harbor or the Nazi's swift conquest of Europe. It is a danger that pre-existed the 9/11 terrorist attack and gave rise to our national fear of  a second, similarly horrifying event such as a maniacal Jihadist carrying an anthrax bomb into a Manhattan subway station. The danger in this instance  comes from America's monied aristocracy, people who are as passionate their desire for money and power as Islamist terrorists are to bring down Western society.

       They are wealthy businessmen, investment giants, bankers and corporate moguls whom I regard as Upper Class sociopaths. The worst of them are Wall Street bankers who cooked up the greatest fraud in history and promoted it worldwide.  In the U.S. it surfaced as the "housing mortgage" crisis that turned neighborhoods, teeming with families, into three-bedroom ghost   towns throughout the country. The scheme was so far flung, it rocked the national and global economies and plunged us all into a deep Recession, which may yet become a Depression.  

      The irony is that the giant investment firms that emerged from this self-made mess were considered "Too Big To Fail," meaning that if they went down, the country would go with them.  There was no choice for President Obama but to feed the wolves in order to save the flock. That's why the government was compelled to put billions of dollars in bailout money into the dirty hands of Wall Street bankers. The money was intended to be put to immediate use by lending it to failing businesses. If we could save the businesses, so the thinking went, we'd also save millions of jobs.

      Once the money arrived the bankers lost their  interest in making loans, at least they didn't want to do that right away. They noticed, however, that the government's bailout contracts had no small print prohibiting it, so they seized the moment and paid themselves millions of dollars in bonuses! Then, instead of moving quickly to using the money to pull thousands of businesses back from the edge, they sat on it. There is no memorable explanation for their delay.

     As time stretched out, the money accrued enormous amounts of interest. When billions of dollars are involved, even piddling interest rates yield millions of dollars. Hence, the banks had gone into a four-corner offense or stall, like  basketball teams do when trying to run out a game clock. The money grew interest as fast as a newly sodded lawn grows grass. When they finally swung into action, the first thing the bankers did was skim the millions of dollars in interest off the top and declare it profit!

     The story has the feel of a bad imitation of Hollywood's 1987 hit movie "Wall Street". But this  was a true-life blockbuster with much more evil and many more victims in it than the movie had. It remains incomprehensible and nightmarish: Rich and influential bankers smoking cigars and   having drinks while thousands of businesses and millions of jobs were being swept away.

      The events of the past eighteen months have outraged people and focused their anger on business, financial and corporate leaders. However, the Middle Class, the ones who absorb the brunt of these economic beat downs, never seem to make this connection:        

        wealth=class=business=politics=power                                                            

They fail to see periodic financial chaos as part of an on-going depletion of theMiddle Class by the alliance of Big Money and the Republican party.The failure to this relationship is disturbing.  
What has been eroding the number of the Middlde Class families is nothing less than economic and political warfare waged by the minority of the rich and powerful against the majority: people who believe that playing by the rules and working hard, might not get them rich, but at least they could provide food, clothing, shelter, education and health care for their families. That  was the promise America held for every citizen, it was the foundation of the social contract between working people and capitalists called The American Dream. 

      With the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, Republicans unleashed a highly successful political and legislative campaign that, beginning with the firing of all striking PATCO air traffic controllers, broke the  labor unions. The  intervening eight-year Clinton administration did nothing to slow anti-union efforts in Congress. By the mid-1990's the labor movement was in shambles. In fairness, however, it must be said that the unions themselves had a hand in their  demise. Between 1960 and 1975 the corruption of various labor leaders and their persistent, overreaching demands on employers turned public opinion staunchly against them and even alienated their members.

      Despite anti-labor sentiment, by 2008 the value of the output of an average worker, adjusted for inflation, was almost 50% higher than in 1973. Workers, however, have not shared in the economic gains they helped create. If gains in productivity were were evenly shared across the workforce, workers income would be roughly 35% higher than in 1973. Instead, there has been an upward redistribution of wealth where today the top 1% of American have  incomes five to seven times greater than they did in 1973. Durin  g this period, the rising cost of living led huge numbers of women to enter the workforce, creating a nation of two-income households. Even so, median household income, adjusted for inflation, has grown only 16% since 1973. The wages of men ages 35 to 44, adjusted for inflation, are a shocking 12% lower than they were in 1973! (Paul Krugman,  The Conscience of A Liberal  [W.W. Norton & Company, 2009], 234-241)

Steroids For Rookie Poets

    The first time a new swimmer confidently slides into the waters of Lake Poetry, truth greets him. He learns that below the still blue surface is a quagmire of poetic failures: dead first lines, stunted themes, gnarled thoughts and decayed ideas wrenched into bad poems. Not  knowing the rudiments of gliding along smoothly with words, imagery, color, sound, and rythm,the swimmer loses energy, flails away madly until exhausted and broken, he sinks.

    Samuel Taylor Coleridge made it sound so easy. Writing good poetry, he said, is a matter of  Putting the Best Words in the Best Order. Any literate person can do that, right? But ever since Coleridge stated his maxim, untold numbers of  bright, well-read and highly educated people have tried to apply it to their work, with dismal results. Failed poets account for all the discarded notebooks and black turtleneck sweaters found in trash cans.

    Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words by poet and teacher Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge is the equivalent of steroids for rookie poets. If  it was a body building book for poets, I'd be telling you, "It will show you how to add fifteen pounds of writers muscle to your body in just six weeks!"  That's my estimate of how long it takes a legitimate prospect to mine all the gold that's in Poemcrazy. 

    While 208 pages long, Poemcrazy is not a book you can rip through in two or three days. To reap the full benefit of what I regard as the best book available for freshmen poets, you have to dedicate yourself to not merely reading it, but also to discipline yourself to following through on the exercises Wooldbridge (shown at right) prescribes. Follow my advice and when you're done, you'll be  exhilirated  by the realization that you possess genuine knowledge about how to create poetry. You will be free to write your heart out.

    Wooldridge's book works beautifully because she's been poem crazy since she was 14. Her enthusiasm flies off the page and seemingly transmits poetic smarts to your brain instantly. Her secret is to open a writer's eyes and ears to the untapped and most powerful element of poetry which is too often taken for granted: words themselves.

     She reawakens us to the vitality of words: magnolias, sidewinder, bamboo, jackhammer.  And the sounds of words we don't hear because we are not conditioned to listen to language with the ears of a poet: Nasturtiums, catalpa, malevolent, cantankerous, gnome. There are insects that entomologists have christened with names that are images as well as labels: firebrat, jumping bristletail, slantfaced grasshopper, Aztec dancer, keeled treehopper

     Wooldbridge offers a way to link ordinarywords together with imaginative results: tumbleweed sadness, moon flickers, peach fandango, luminosity probe, phantom wombats. Another of her tips is to give color to ideas and abstractions and brew originality: blue love, chartreuse agreements, yellow deliberation, vermilion regret.     Wooldridge says, "I think we naturally see things metaphorically." For example, a hairpin turn on a mountain road looks like a hairpin. Cattails weaving in the wind look like cats' tails. Rethink names, for new ways to see things: licorice whips, horseradish, buttercups, Queen Anne's lace. She reminds us that plant life is loaded with fresh possibilities: fiddle neck, butter and eggs, popcorn flower, owls clover and checkerberry.Why be tied to red, yellow, blue, etc. when you can go to a store and get free paint chips for use in giving worn-out colors radiant new names: hollyhock green, tin roof grey, Chinese lantern, beach umbrella  yellow, blue phosphorous ?

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF AMERICA (1950-2010)

         

    It's looking more and more like the last days of Pompeii, the sin city of Italy that was smothered in the thick, broiling lava of Mt.Vesuvius over 1900 years ago.There's a Big Money orgy going on in our country right now that nobody seems to have a clue about. Maybe I'm wrong, but here's what I think is happening.

    The Wall Street thieves are bailing out, sending footlockers stuffed with cash overseas to exotic places with great beaches and no extradition treaties with the U.S.. Former CEO's and other tin horn "Captains of Industry" are vacuuming the last pennies out of the corners of their shuttered factories while the little lady is at home helping the help pack the luggage. Our used-to-be automotive geniuses are in China,   being chauffeured around in limos while they shop for prime real estate on which to build their retirement palaces. In between stops they're asking their drivers about "safe" banks with friends in high places in Beijing. Back home in just-been-raped- again America, the Boards of Directors for the Health Care monopolies and Big Pharma are having a joint session, synchronizing their Rolexes and crossing checking calendars while  computing exactly how many more billions they can safely suck out of this country before the volcano blows.

    Everybody is screwing everybody else and it's impossible to tell who's with whom. It's the drunken billionaires' last big blowout before the ship departs. If you're a Republican national office holder or lobbyist, you don't need an invitation or your credit cards. "Come on all ready, buddy!" one of them shouts to one of the lobbyists. "It's our turn to take care of you. Come on, come on, Lieberman, you too!" 

    It's happening right before our eyes and not an single ordinary Joe is out in the street throwing Molotov cocktails and screaming bloody murder at the bastards. We're all walking around like everything's going to be all right. The Democrats said so, right? And after eight years of being bullshitted, ripped off and screwed over by the Bush-Cheney regime, we believe them. Where are the Democrats , anyway?

CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALIST TERRORISM: MURDER IN CHURCH

There was a sudden jolt of the Breaking News fanfare, a flurry of cable babble and the morning papers screaming their headlines about Dr. George Tiller's shooting. And then it was over. The event faded from view  so rapidly  that it occurred to me that we've become accustomed to frenzied anti-abortionists shooting doctors. We no longer recoil from these killings. After each one we pause, but ever so briefly. It's like driving up on a horrific accident. We get a dose of anxiety and  a  glimpse of the carnage as we slow to look. Seconds later we're back to normal speed and a quarter mile down the road. Show's over.

Has the murder of abortion doctors become just another bump on the road in American life?  Where has it taken us? Where has it led the crazed Fundamentalist Christians?

I'm a hopeless news junkie. Before I began blogging, my weeknights were spent flopped down in my recliner, watching one news show after another. During commercials I'd surf through two or three other news programs to keep my fix going. Sensing the commercials were over, I'd click back to the first show. After that, I'd watch  news I had seen earlier again  when the late evening reruns came on. When they were over, I'd be back to working my remote, hungrily searching for late-breaking news. News from anywhere, even the Weather Channel.

Dr. Tiller's murder came and went like a hard summer rain storm. The news cycle felt like it lasted less than a day. I knew it hadn't, but it felt like it.

This latest  of  assassinations by Christian extremists sickened me. Even the newshound in me could not be lured into tuning back in to the doctor's killing.   I avoided the continuing coverage, blocked it from seeping into my brain where I knew I would dwell on it for days, as with other tragic events.

I still see the alleged murderer, Scott Roeder, in the cheap orange jump suit he wore as he made his first court appearance via closed circuit TV. He  didn't look nervous, shaken or the slightest  bit repentant. He  looked nothing like I expected a man who, just hours earlier, shot another man in the head to look.

Roeder was the perfect choice for the Christian zealots who needed someone to do their dirty work. As reported by James Ridgeway in "A Brief History of the Radical Right,"  www.motherjones.com, (June 9, 2009), during the 1980's Roeder was nurturing his hate in an anti-government, white separatist group known as the Montana Freemen. His Freemen experiences launched him into a weird, unorthodox life style that should have earned him a bed in a state mental hospital.

In 1996 he was cruising through Kansas when sheriff's deputies stopped and arrested him in Topeka for driving his car with an unauthorized license tag. The homemade tag read "Sovereign and Immune from State Law." Strange enough. But a search of Roeder's vehicle turned up bomb making materials in the trunk. Stranger yet. Strangest of all, neither his  bizarre homemade license tag nor the explosives in his car caused any legal trouble for Roeder beyond  a mere traffic fine.

Roeder and the Freemen delight in their being regarded as "Christian Patriots", a deliberate contradiction given their known history of violence and the fact  that their ranks include former Ku Klux Klan members, Neo-Nazis and  skinheads.They call themselves "white sovereigns" and believe Afro-Americans, Jews and other minorities are inferior and not entitled to the same rights they have. They preach that God gave this land called America to white Anglo Saxons only and made them it's "true sovereigns." 

Armed militants claiming 1.2 million members, the Freemen are believed to have been part of another anti-government movement of the 1980's known as the "Posse Comitatus" or "Posse."

Pump Up Your Intellect: Live Dangerously With Classical Music

 
 
   If you haven't basked in the full-throated burst of sound from a symphony orchestra or heard the verve and zest of a Mozart piano quintet fill up a room, then a full, lush life is escaping you.

You don't like classical music? No, you just think you don't like it. Okay, if you've been force fed modern classical, then I understand -- you hate classical music.

Yet you love music! There isn't a moment of the day when you're not listening to it, if you can help it.But like me, you've been hooked on rock, rythm and blues, country and other forms of popular music since you were what -- "Almost thirteen"?

That deep and abiding love for music, my friend, is a sign that the seeds have been sown. Now, it's time to step up and live life on the musical edge,to expand your intellectual muscle. Do it by giving yourself a real shot at finding out whether there can more to your musical life, something you never knew you'd like.

Do this: set aside an hour or two and listen to the pieces I've set out for musical risk-takers at the end of this post. There's a chance you have a friend or two who owns them or you can get them on loan at a public library. You probably won't have to spend a dime. But if you do, some of the music I've listed can be downloaded inexpensively from the internet. Or, you can buy used CD's for $2.00 or less and new ones for $5.00 or less.

Even though I'm giving you some artists' names, don't worry about finding their recordings. Any professional artist or orchestra that's been promoted by a recording company is in the classical big leagues. So they're all very good musicians.The best performing artists are out-of-sight good.

1) Mendelssohn, Piano Concerto No.1 in G Minor, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, pianist.

2) Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No.2, Evgeny Kissin, pianist.      

3)Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No.2.

4)Bach, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, Virgil Fox, organist.

5)Beethoven, Piano Sonata No.14 (Moonlight) [The third movement is incredible!]

6)Beethoven, Piano Concerto No.5, Murray Perahia, pianist.

7)Mozart, Symphony No. 40 in G Minor.

8) Mozart, Quintet for Piano, and Woodwinds in E-flat Major, K.452

Choose any four or five, and if your interest isn't piqued, at least you will have made an honest effort, right? And just maybe the next time you're at a highbrow cocktail party and perchance classical music comes up in conversation, at least you'll be able to make yourself look good with a couple of well-edited comments.

 If your interest is stoked, email me and I'll send  you list of what I've been enjoying for years. And yes, I'm still into rock! 

                                              

 

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Health Care Reform's Public Option: A Culture War, Plain & Simple

Mitch Albom wrote the best-seller about the five people you will meet in heaven. I'm working on a sequel: All the Republicans You Will Meet In Hell.

I used to simply regard most Republicans as the servants of big business. Now, after months of  watching them use flat-out lies and fear in their attempt to defeat health care reform and the "public option" in particular, I see them   for   what they are: amoral and souless. Now I know they are  an evil force, up to their armpits in our country's social and economic plight, not to help, but to climb back in to power.They ignore  decency and morality, choosing instead to court favor with the mega rich and to fulfill the wishes of Wall Street and big business, the people whose money pays the way to election, re-election, wealth and power.

Considering their devasting defeat at the polls last November, it's remarkable that the Republicans haven't gotten the message. What's  their rescue plan for all  the families that got scammed in the "now-you-see-it-now-you-don't" mortgage circus of '08? Yet they're  stressed  out over the future of the health insurance companies. They don't waste time worrying about the welfare of the average family, so you can write off the homeless. Right now they're hotly focused on bringing down President Obama and his Campaign for Change, the centerpiece of which was his promise for health care reform.

If they can cause Obama to fail, which they and right-wing radio comedians like Rush Limbaugh have flatly stated they hope he does, Republicans see a chance to seize  long term  political dominance. They believe that would give them the needed time and control of Congress to turn the nation into their vision of what kind of country we shall have, and whose country it will be.

As commoners, low income and middle class Americans  will  have no meaningful role  in their utopian society, one under control of  the supremely rich. The America they imagine is free from  all  fear of  the  unwashed masses. What causes them night terrors  is the Power of the Vote. Without the ability to subvert, dilute or minimize our votes,  the wealthy see us as a threat to their indulgent way of life. As the  financiers of the GOP, their interests are much better served with the legislative power to ignore demands for a living wage, affordable health care, access to higher education, tight oversight of predatory moneylenders and new laws regulating large employers who are currently free to jerk employees around as if they were a subhuman form of species bred only to meet their labor needs.  

The defenders of health insurance companies have finally been forced to stop falsely crowing about our having the Number One health care system in the world. We are not Number 1. We are  Number 37 according a study by the World Health Organization. It is true that we're first in the amount we spend on health care, but we're only thirty-seventh in the quality of care. Clearly, we are not getting our money's worth under a system insulated from change by the Republicans and ruled by companies who act as the official Keepers of the Health Care Treasury. Here are  the facts according to the September 21st issue of  Newsweek:

     1) About 22,000 Americans die annually of treatable diseases because they can't afford insurance and earn too much to qualify for Medicaid. They fall through the cracks and into early graves. We are the only industrialized democracy where this occurs.

     2) We have 46 million citizens without health insurance while virtually every western European nation provides universal coverage. Britain, Spain, Italy, France,  Austria and Germany see health care as a moral obligation of the government to its people. So does Japan. And the European Union has a "right to medical care" embedded in its Charter of Fundamental Rights.

     3)  No one in Canada files bankruptcy due to medical bills. In the U.S., 700,000 people do so annually.

     4) In the U.S., health insurance is not available to you and me in a competitive market  where we can shop for the best coverage at the best price. In many states, a single company is the provider and may operate under two or three business names, giving the appearance of competition, when they actually have a monoply. In states with two or three  insurance providers, the companies have a captive market and operate as a cartel, or price-fixing syndicate. The differences in coverages and costs among their policies is similar to studying varying shades of gray.

 A poll quoted in a recent issue of Time says, many people are "very or somewhat" satisfied with their health insurance, "more or less." If the quotations are from the poll, it tells us nothing. 

Most people I know are either resigned to paying  the ripoff premiums, deductibles  co-pays, non-covereds, etc. or loudly dissatisfied. People especially hate HMO's. They don't like being told which doctors they can and cannot see; they don't want to be limited to certain hospitals because even if the designated hospital is conveniently located, the restriction  limits the patient's choice of physician; people dislike insurers dictating what medicines they will or will not pay for. They despise being denied  seeking a specialist without getting the blessings of The Insurance Gods.

 Unless someone else is paying for your coverage, you know that rates continue to grow at about 11 to 13 % a year, benefits shrink and options are taken off the table at will under threat of huge hikes in premiums. Since 1999 insurance rates have increased 131% while workers' wages increased only 38%. An average family of four pays $13,400 a year for health insurance.

The people I know aren't "somewhat satisfied" with their insurance. They are concerned about how much longer they can keep paying the vigorish.  They worry about whether they will be able to afford coverage for the whole family, or just the member who most  needs it. Many are counting the months until they can  at last  cross the finish line to Medicare. Others dislike having to buy "gap" insurance to cover the cost of suspiciously expensive prescription medicines. They worry about financing their way through the "donut hole"--that annual cut-off point where insurers quit paying for medicines altogether until the insured coughs up  about $2,500 out-of-pocket expenses before reaching the other side of the hole where insurance benefits kick in again.

Insurance companies act as if the payment of patient claims is proof of their benevolence versus   a response to their contractual obligation for benefits bought and paid for. 

Many taxpayers are rightly concerned about the rapidly mounting and overwhelming national debt. But this chaos was created by the Republicans and the Bush White House whose leadership brought us to the edge of ruin and left the Democrats having to fix their financial damage, including health care, or send the country into a second Depression.

In 2003 the Republican dominated Congress passed the "Medicare Modernization Plan". Under this law, insurance companies were given more than $100 billion in unwarranted federal subsidies while raking in billions more in profits. The legislation that made it possible was flown in below the public radar or it surely would not have become law. Only the Republicans can see where it makes sense to subsidize a greedy business all ready glutted with money.

Under the proposed Health Care Reform Act, those billions in subsidies formerly  stuffed into corporate pockets will go to providing health care for millions of people and holding down taxes.

Another absurdity of the Republican's "Medicare Modernization" prohibited Medicare from using its buying power to wrangle the best possible prices out of pharmaceutical companies. Knowing a business deprived of its ability to wheel and deal with suppliers cannot avoid over-spending and inefficiency, the Republicans nevertheless approved this waste of taxpayer money.

 The fight for health care reform that has embedded in it the right for people  to choose who they want to buy their insurance from, is a major one. But it is also part of an even bigger struggle. That bigger is to strip the power to decide for all of us away from the minority of the  rich who always choose only for themselves. Next, we must throw those politicians (Democrat or Repbulican)  who serve them out of office. Only in accomplishing that will we truly be a country of the people, by the people and for the people.