Sunday, August 16, 2009

I just read that the White House is ready to drop the "public option" in order to get a health care bill passed. Without a public option there is no health care reform. Why would the private insurance industry change if it isn't forced to? And how would health care become affordable or accountable if left to the private insurers discretion? Why would we expect sociopaths to become responsible human beings if not forced into that behavior?

Why are we giving in to Republican senators who have exhibited behavior verging on the criminal? Baucus, Grassley, the whole pack, are unethical, immoral and disgusting. You only have to look at their lists of big money donors to know how scummy they are.

So we shall continue to allow people to suffer and die so private insurers can enjoy huge profits. I call that murder by omission and in the case of the Congress people, murder by lies.

The only consolation in any of this is that all the leading Republican senators claim to be Christians (although they exhibit little of what I thought was Christian behavior) and that means that for all eternity these creeps will be roasting and broiling. And the Blue Dog Dems will be right there with them. And Sarah, too!

Monday, August 10, 2009

The John Tree

Sunday morning I heard a toddler whooping in excitement somewhere in the neighborhood. Looking out a south-facing window I saw a child in a swing, being pushed by an adult.

The swing hangs in what my mother called "The John Tree." She and my stepfather, both dead now, once owned the house in front of my current house, as well as a very small house next door. Sadly, the small house has veen demolished and replaced by a modest starter mansion (only 2600 sf).

When I returned to Nevada in 1977 I moved into the small house and eventually acquired roommates. One of them, John, observed my mother digging up a small elm tree and volunteered to help.

He dug up the tree, then transplanted it in front of her east-facing bedroom window. Thirty some years later it stands 20 feet tall, shading that part of the house and holding a small child's swing.

Life is good.