Obama's Waterloo?

History is repeating itself. I refer to my previous blog. But the Republicans are making it even worse.
Now it is not just “Socialism or the Big Bad Government take-over. It is not even “growing huge deficits” or “tax and spend Democrats”. Now they are attacking a very personally popular President.
How smart is that?

(Let me again state I, lefty that I am, do not care for the Obama pragmatism before I go on here.)

Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, gave Mr. Obama an opening to do just that the other day, and the president took it. Mr. DeMint called health care a “Waterloo moment” that could break Mr. Obama. The president struck back, declaring, “This isn’t about me.” But if Mr. Obama extends that line of attack to Republicans more broadly, and rams a bill through without their support, any claim he may have to bipartisanship will quickly evaporate.

(NYTimes, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/us/politics/23obama.html?hp )

Maybe he should let go of that claim. They aren't really going to allow much bipartisanship anyway.
They are the party of “NO” too often.

Right-wing writer Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard told Republicans on his blog Monday that they need to resist the temptation to work with Democrats to find a solution to our health Care crisis. “This is no time to pull punches,” he wrote “Go for the kill.”

(from dscc.org email)

And a more direct quotation of DeMint from the same dscc.org email:

On Friday, Republican Sen. Jim DeMInt of South Carolina ginned up his troops with this line: “If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.”

I also read somewhere that “Newt the Scoot” was another instigator of this stuff.

Now several questions occur to me.
Do I want the support of these guys on any bill? I will wonder why they support anything.
Do they understand that this President is still very popular personally? Do they understand how many American's will support an underdog or a perceived personal attack on a popular President? Duh!
Many of us were stupid enough to support G.W., and still do. Because we don't like personal attacks on our Presidents even when they are true.

The same holds true for Blue Dog Democrats. Not to mention if all these so-called Democrats are worried about is getting reelected, they might consider how even I am thinking about donating to get rid of them. Just because they irritate me. See even a lefty can have selfish moments without saying, “Well, maybe they have a point.”

I know it is nice to have Democrats control two branches of the Government at once but the Blue Dogs are not true Democrats to me. I voted for one here but I am wondering why I did. Yes, I do really know -lessor of the evils. Also, Supreme Court Judges are what the long-term is really about here so their votes are needed for that. Let's just hope they don't start pulling stuff with that too.

It is this. There is a blog I follow and on which I sometimes comment where the same person just comments that all who disagree are stupid idiots and the like. Except it is “STUPID IDIOTS!!!”. It ends the conversations basically for a few hours but many just go elsewhere to research-so it backfires.

So here I will resist calling the “Waterloo” Republicans stupid idiots or worse because it backfires.

Health Care Plans Again

I am sorry but this is a long one.

Historically health care plans seemed doomed to fail. Will they again? I researched some history of previous attempts. I learned that no matter which period of time, or which party, the arguments against the plans sure sound similar. The arguments for health care plans are similar. It is just that as time progressed the costs and the problems grew. So put it off again and let's talk about the costs to our kids and grandkids.

"When on July 30, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicare into law at the Harry S. Truman library, he said that it "all started really with the man from Independence".**

*Poen, Monte M.,"National Health Insurance", in The Harry S. Truman Encyclopedia, ed. Richard S. Kirkendall (Boston: G.K. Hall & Co, 1989): 251 http://www.trumanlibrary.org/anniversaries/healthprogram.htm

The above website is excellent for research on former President Truman's views and ideas on health care in the U.S.

Here is the similar health care plan:

“The most controversial aspect of the plan was the proposed national health insurance plan. In the November 19th address, President Truman called for the creation of a national health insurance fund, to be run by the federal government. This fund would be open to all Americans, but would remain optional. Participants would pay monthly fees into the plan, which would cover the cost of any and all medical expenses that arose in a time of need. The government would pay for the cost of services rendered by any doctor who chose to join the program. In addition, the insurance plan would give a cash balance to the policy holder to replace wages lost due to illness or injury.”

Here is the similar argument against it. Just not the communist part. Now it is the we don't want to be European stuff.

“...The American Medical Association (AMA) launched a spirited attack against the bill, capitalizing on fears of Communism in the public mind. The AMA characterized the bill as "socialized medicine", and in a forerunner to the rhetoric of the McCarthy era, called Truman White House staffers "followers of the Moscow party line".* Organized labor, the main public advocate of the bill, had lost much of it's goodwill from the American people in a series of unpopular strikes. Following the outbreak of the Korean War, President Truman was finally forced to abandon the W-M-D Bill.” (same site)

Another piece of history:

“...Going as far back as pre-Revolutionary War America, virtually the only support for primary care services to the poor in the United States came via local government in the form of either payments to private physicians or the hiring of a nurse or part-time physician within the local public health department.”

Article: the AMA Faces Down FDR and Wins Physician Executive, Jan-Feb, 1993 by Norbert Goldfield

found here http://www.bnet.com

Very good articles from Norbert Goldfield on health care. I recommend you read them all. In another I found this synopsis on Eisenhower's plan.

In particular, Eisenhower recommended the "establishment of a limited federal reinsurance service to encourage private and not-for-profit health insurance organizations to offer broader health protection to more families.

...It indicates why the President of the AMA warned in his annual address to the House of Delegates that "our economic problems are not solved....As a matter of fact, these problems have increased. The socialistic trend and government intrusion into the business and affairs of the people have shown little evidence of change. The greatest battle for the preservation of democracy is yet to come.

For another, easier way to follow basic history of attempts to have any kind of health care insurance whether government or the business sector try this site: http://www.pbs.org/healthcarecrisis/history.htm

I refer again to Norbert Goldfield writing in another history of health care article in 1992. On Nixon's attempt to reform health care:

“Nixon's proposal, Family Health Insurance Plan (FHIP), called for a subsidized program for basic private insurance for low-income families and for all employers to provide private health insurance for employees and dependents. Nixon's employer mandate proposal may sound familiar, as it is very similar to Senator Edward Kennedy's current legislative proposal. When asked about this odd juxtaposition, Kennedy stated that he simply wants some form of health care legislation enacted into law.”

According to Mr. Goldfield's historical health care articles Nixon actually left much of his domestic policy to others as he felt foreign affairs were his strong suit.

The same old socialized medicine arguments came up along with others.

Health care became an issue for Reagan by the time he ran for President. Read debates with Pres. Carter for some. He was at one time hired to read a script for the AMA against Medicare and Medicaid. President Reagan did make cuts to the Carter health care budget. I found that somewhere. President Reagan is hard to research-his acting gets in the way.

So now I think I see that no matter how much the “middle-class” wants health care for all and is even willing to pay for it not much gets done. Mr. Goldfield discusses the reasons using the book, Thinking in Time; the Uses of History for Decision makers, by Richard Neustadt and Ernest May. Go to the 1992 article on Nixon and health care to get an overview of some of the book and the theories and recommendations. http://www.bnet.com

The way I see it this is like putting off so many things. Maybe like not weatherproofing or not putting in a new furnace. I could go on but let's use the example of a needing a new roof for a house for many years.

If you had done it when you first knew there was a problem (let's say 15 yrs.) it would have cost $6000 for the whole roof. You were probably better able to afford it then. Now, it will cost $6000 for ½ of the roof and the $6000 is very hard to come by. At least it would be for me. In the meantime, you lived with leaks and a yearly do it yourself sort-of fix. A ceiling may be partially ruined and you probably have mold hiding somewhere.

If you still don't fix it, your investment is going to drop even more than it has and your kid, the one that inherits, is at best ending up with less. At best he/she will end up spending more money than they can get back.

How is that for a scenario of “put off 'till tomorrow what you could do today” and the costs. So think about that scenario when you hear about the costs to future generations. And remember the “socialist” argument has been around forever in one flavor or another. It used to be called communistic now that isn't useful so it is just the dreaded socialism. And costs go up and profits go up and fewer people get health care.

Your insurance company, if you have one, is already telling you and your doctor what procedures you can or can not have. Sometimes you are the one paying them to tell you. The drug insurance, if you have it, is telling you and your doctor what drugs you must “try” first before you can take what you and your doctor have decided is the best for your body. Your doctor, if he or she is a decent one, is putting up with insurance companies not paying them for weeks. Your doctor, if he or she is not so decent, is charging more to make up for that and more. If you live in a rural or outlying area you don't always have good access to health care because there aren't enough of you to make it pay or you don't have the facilities and equipment.

Growing Up and Looking Back

You know when I start thinking about my happy childhood I wonder why it was so happy-partly because of the extended family all around. Never any doubt in my mind I belonged. After moving out of the neighborhood, I had no trouble with fitting-in. I think being so happy for those first years of my life made me comfortable with self for years. Later, I felt inferior for some reason but some of that was normal and some was the town where we moved. That town had quite a “class system”. ( Now I know it wasn't just that particular town.)

Sometimes I miss the “clan” so. Especially I miss my mother. She was my guidance counselor and wise about most everything. I called her from wherever I lived for advice and wisdom until just a while before she died. I still talk to her often but the answers don't come. I feel so lost at times.

And yet, as the mother of a friend said when her last parent died, “Now we are the old-folks.” Yuk.
So I guess I am wanting to go back again to the happiest carefree days of my life: to the days of smoky, belching trains running by the house, to the huge yard, to the dirt of the yard, to the fights with my little brother, to the chores I thought I hated, to the paper dolls, to the hand-me downs from my big sister, and even to the trouble-maker big brother.

I miss the little red platform rocker and the old records my mother let me play over and over. I miss the Saturday night baths in front of the only heat in the house. I miss the most wonderful teachers and school administrators. I miss the janitor that played with us kids and made us feel even more special.
I miss the chat piles, our pet crows we raised from babies, the plum tree in the back yard and yes I miss the mulberry tree. I miss the rabbits dad raised back of the house. I really miss eating them. My mother could fix them so-o-o good. I know some are bothered by the thought but they were not pets, never were.
They were meat on the table and a little money for the family. We were glad to get both.

Those days were the “good ol' days”. Yes, they were hard but they were fun at that innocent age. I never knew we were from the wrong side of the tracks until many years later in my life. No shame for where I grew up just wonderful memories.

I just hope my son and yours kids have wonderful, happy memories like I do. I am sure they will but they will be their memories. Memories of their generation and they will someday sit and think of their “good ol' days” too.

Thanks to my husband for the picture of the wren.

Writing for Kids

Years ago I wrote a series of children's stories. I wrote them for storytelling and reading together with children. By today's readability tests, on each paragraph, the story parts are for about the 5^th grade. The narrator parts are about grade level 10-11. They include little sections to stimulate conversation and exploration of the happenings in the stories. At the time I was doing parties for a small school class of very bright kids, so I became for a while a scarecrow who couldn't scare crows. Instead “Friend Lee Scarecrow” became a “traveling teller of tales.” Hey, the kids liked it and the teachers liked it.

These are stories with morals and hopefully educational in other ways too. When I sent them, with illustrations, to a few publishers, I got a couple of handwritten rejection notices. I have since read that receiving a handwritten rejection was pretty good.

I was also told, remember this was years ago, that they were too moralistic.

So maybe the time has come to try again. How does one go about getting published these days? Now there are so many new ways. E-publishing, web-zines, self-publishing are a few of the new ways.

Since our society is not reading “Hard Copies” or real books, I am trying to educate myself about these newer ways.

Then I wonder why I still want to try it at all. I went back over the stories and they are pretty good but I don't think I can rely on myself for a fair critic. So I include here an introduction to the series: Seasonal Tales for Telling and Sharing and chapter one of Snow in Summer. Let me know what you think. I will take suggestions too on getting them published if you have any.

Narator:

Hello everybody. My name is Friend Lee Scarecrow.

I am a teller of tales.

There are good reasons I choose to tell tales instead of silently standing in the garden all day. I tried to scare the crows away, I really did. I just wasn't any good at it. When a scarecrow is not good at scaring crows, there are more problems than just the loss of part of the garden. Can you think of some?

There is a good thing about not being a good scarecrow too. I get company stopping by.

The crows actually use me as a place to perch, which is how birds rest, while they look for the best corn or other seeds to snatch and enjoy. The first time the crows came they were cautious and for some time they were quiet. Then they started. The arguing and the yammering would make your head hurt. It did mine.

These crows argued over everything. They tormented each other over things like one being bigger than another. The quarrels might be about being too old, or about being too young. They might just be bored so they would start something. By now you get the picture, don't you?

After some thought, and trying to reason with my visitors, I found that telling them tales would settle them down and I enjoyed it too. So now when not required in the garden, I, Friend Lee Scarecrow, am a traveling teller of tales.

Glad to Meet You!

Excerpt from Snow in Summer

Imagination (pictures in your mind of what is not actually around you) is a very useful tool. I am not a hot weather person so I look out the window on a hot, bright, summer day and imagine winter. Maybe this is a strange way for a scarecrow to feel about the growing season but there it is.

Before I imagine winter everything is beautiful and green, but too hot for me. Don't you think it would be a great imagining to combine the seasons of summer and winter. Since I'm only picturing hearing, smelling, and touching in my mind; it won't upset the summer-lovers or nature.

What if (powerful words, "what if") someone imagined so hard that the two seasons actually did get together? Here is a tale about some things I thought might happen.

One hot July day Ricky sat looking out his window. The hayfield, even after the first cutting of a few weeks ago, was tall and green. The woods on the other side of the house were green. The trees there were mostly mixed deciduous and evergreen. Because of the mixture of trees and other summer plants, Ricky saw yellow-greens, blue greens and lots of in-between greens.

In the flower garden, Ricky could see yellows, oranges, and some whites. Even though the flowers were a welcome break from all the greens, they made him itchy and hot. (No, Ricky wasn't allergic.) He remembered the chiggers and the scratchy stems from the times he helped cut flowers for the table in the front hall. That was almost as itchy as pickin' green beans and corn. (His mom always let him help her "put-by", freeze and can, for winter.)

Ricky thought how strange his feelings were about the heat of the sun. In the winter, he loved the warmth of the sun as he used his sled on the snowy hillside. Yet in the summer, he wished for a little less warmth from that white-hot circle in the sky.

Ricky smiled and thought a lacy snow just on the cedar at the edge of the yard. The mother cardinal dropped her seed in mid-air and flew straight back to her nest. She tried to cover her too-large fledglings. All the while she was calling angrily. Ricky thought she looked pretty silly. Her babies were almost as big as she. Heads and beaks, feathers, legs and tails, stuck out from under her.

The boy now turned his attention to the hayfield. Suppose the itchy biting insects in the hayfield had to leave. He dropped a light blanket of snow over them. Ricky hadn't realized how many critters lived in that hayfield. The grasshoppers came hopping out. The caterpillars inched out. The beetles came flying out. There were young rabbits, mice, quail, and doves hopping, crawling,and flying out too. The large farm black snake slithered out, not paying a bit of attention to what would normally be his dinner.

When Ricky was called to dinner he lost his snowy pictures, but the next hot afternoon he made it snow in spots. Ricky had fun snowing small circles here and there. Ricky did not know it but a little bug was sitting in the corner of his room. The little bug watched with interest as Ricky made his snow spots. After a while Ricky got a little bored and went to find something else to do. As soon he turned from the window, the spots quickly melted. The little bug crawled out a small hole in the window screen.

(end of chapter one)

More on Mulberries and Worms

What a dirty trick. Or was it?

In doing further research on mulberries I found an interesting note. (see yahoo link below) It claimed that what my dad did with the cup of cold water was something done to keep kids from eating the fruit to be used for the household. Well, that wasn't this case. I don't remember my mother making mulberry jam or cobblers. But my dad could do some pretty interesting things in the name of humor or teaching lessons. (Like the time he "let" me try to ride our nanny goat.)
The note further claimed that those weren't really worms. They were left-over parts of the flower. There is a good picture of the female flower on the wikipedia site.
According to what I could find, worms that hang out specifically on mulberry trees are silkworms and that is only on the white mulberry tree. They eat the leaves.
There are other larvae that use the mulberry tree as a food source but not maybe not as we were led to believe.
The "worms" I remember were not brown and there was wriggling. So I still am not so certain.
What do you think-worms or not?

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulberry or http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090613223538AAIjTcN

Mulberries, Big Sisters, and Lessons Learned

Help! Something is wrong with my mulberries. No, not birds eating them all. Not this year anyway.

I went out today to gather some mulberries for a cobbler. I brought them in and promptly placed them in a bowl of cold water. I quickly called my sister to tell her my mulberries are broken...

Now why would I call long distance to tell her such a thing? Ah, a short story to tell.

When we were kids we ate green apples off a tree. We ate plums off a tree. And...we often reached up and took a few mulberries off a tree and ate them. Once when my dad was home, he drove a truck at that time so he was gone quite a bit and for long periods of time we kids had eaten some mulberries off the tree. We then went out into the open part of the yard to play. Dad went inside the house and came back out with a cup of water whereupon he called us over to the tree.

He said he wanted to show us something about mulberries. He pulled a few off the tree and dropped them into the cup of water and lowered it for us to see. I don't know about the others but what I saw was cool, as we used to say. These little green worms came boiling out of those mulberries. I mean lots of them. They looked an awful lot like the little green stems of the fruit. I thought that was fascinating. But we were discouraged somewhat from eating mulberries straight off the tree at least for a while. One of us apparently were more discouraged than others. That must have been around 58 years ago and yet there is more to this story. Just yesterday I learned something else about that lesson.

My older sister cannot bring herself to eat mulberries at all since that day. I was shocked when she told me. She is not usually one to be affected in that way. We discussed it further. I explained to her that if you just soak them you will get most of the worms out. Most of them. Nope, she knows it but she was having none of it. But,But...I explained to her that the berries would be cooked. Nope, doesn't matter she is just not going there. We discussed how many of the cereals and grains we eat are full of eggs of bugs and “millers” as I call them. She is not one to be overly sensitive by any means. She is not a cleanliness freak. Yes, she knows all these things but it doesn't matter she just can't eat mulberries since that day all those years ago.

All I can figure is she must have been in one of the many wonderful stages of childhood where you can have fears you never had before-like I did once about trains near our house. Those trains had been running near-by all along but one night that sound I had loved so, and do again, scared me. For some period of time I can't remember, I was afraid, only at night though. I can't remember all the childhood phases like this for kids but I know there are a lot. For instance the “fear of strangers” phase in babies. All of a sudden that baby that smiles at everyone and lets most anyone hold him/her will one day decide that that cousin or aunt or whomever, is a really strange monster to be feared. It is like someone flipped a switch. Then there is the fear of not breathing, especially at night. You must stay awake to be sure you breathe. Or the fear of starvation if you don't have access to food through the night, or maybe it is water so you don't die of thirst....

But my “big” sister?? Never. She was never a fearful person. She, the caretaker, afraid? The person who gave me her clothes? My protector? It CANNOT be. NO! What will happen to the world? Maybe someone else's big sister but never, no way, no how, not mine!

Yep. Big sisters, and maybe big brothers, can and do have fears. They may be tough. They may be the one who will stand up for you or punch someone for pickin' on you but shock of shock... Big Sister's have fears and they really can be “grossed out”, even if they don't let, sometimes daren't, let anybody know.

So the reason I called her...my mulberries had no worms.

Well, the mulberries were good, and the cobbler was good, and I am so very sorry for my big sister that she was in a “gross-out” phase when we got to see all those “Billions” of worms come out of those few berries in that cup of water. Lesson more than learned.

Happy Birthday Big Sister.

Health Care Plans

Health Care Plan, Health Care Reform, articles abound this week.
Reading the articles, the editorials, and the comments of the readers is a feat in itself.
This is really a topic of interest to a lot of people. Many doctors write articles, editorials, and comments. Many politicians have much to say. The President is on the trail, holding town hall meetings. So you know I couldn't resist my two cents. Below is a comment I sent to the NY Times.


I guess I am just stupid or naive.
Why are the costs for health care so high in the first place? I doubt it is all about technology. Why are we, the government, going through this insurance mess in the first place? Why not just get drug companies to get realistic, get hospitals to look at their vendors and their yen for profit, get doctors to set their charges realistically. Why not get the patients to be responsible.
We all know those with insurance pay for those without in many ways. We all know about really “frivolous lawsuits”. We all know drug manufacturers are charging US consumers much too much. (no it is not their research costs-it is their advertising costs) We all know the population is not healthy and expects a drug or a procedure to instantly fix our bad habits. We all know that many if not most hospitals have brought in business managers to get profits up. We all know the problems with population demographics changing-more retired than workers.
I am for health care for all but why are we so worried about insurance companies. They have been around for as long as I can remember and they will probably not disappear. They will find a way.
I worked for a hospital years ago as a secretary. I remember my shock at what a little restaurant packet of ketchup cost then. We have all read or heard tales of the cost of a band aid in a hospital. We all are aware of errors in diagnosis or treatment do happen leaving some with a lifetime of pain or suffering or the inability to earn a living. Even worse we all are aware of , God forbid, deaths from these mistakes.
I see what insurance companies do “for me” when they negotiate for a visit to my doctor. My doctor in essence gives the insurance company a loan for months sometimes while they wait on payment. My doctor charges more because he knows that he will get less. The insurance company negotiates so that my deductible is rarely met. The drug plan is another tale. They send me letters to encourage me to take an “opportunity” to save money. They negotiate with the drug manufacturers to get the best price for the plan sponsor and themselves. Fine. But they turn down my doctors prescriptions because I didn't take advantage of the “opportunity”. So my choice is take the drug they want me to take or go pay 3 to 4 times as much.
I think this is all craziness. Capitalism at its best?
I don't mind businesses making a profit. I don't mind health care professionals making money. However, isn't this just about the same as the “Wall Street” greed we are seeing lately? Shouldn't we all; corporate America, doctor, hospital, drug supplier, drug manufacturers, and yes, the public change our ways and our expectations?


Posted as comment on NYTimes.

There is a big long on-going story behind my comments but it would be too long to post here.
PS After rereading the comment to the Times, I realized the whole thing relates to the April 25th blog post.