You Think Healthcare Ain't Broke?

During coffee break time, some folks at the office have been arguing that health care reform isn't necessary, that we have the best health system in the world, and that we really don't dare trust the government to guide health care reform.

These are folks who are all perfectly healthy.

Let me tell you a little story about our perfect health care system.

Five weeks ago a friend of ours, who religiously goes for health checkups twice a year, went to the doctor for a cough that had turned into pneumonia. She belongs to one of the major health care organizations in this area.

One thing lead to another, and within three days, she was told that she had cancer virtually everywhere in her body--bones, brain, liver, lungs.

"How could this happen?" she asked. "Three months ago you told me I was in pefect health."

The answer was, effectively, a shrug. "These things happen." This even while they acknowledged that such widespread cancer was almost certainly brewing for several years. However, some of the test that would reveal cancer are expensive, after all, and doctors receive bad marks from insurance companies if they ask for too many tests.

In the weeks since, she has undergone brain surgery to relieve pressure, but has been told not to really hope for a cure. The twenty-four-hour a day nursing care she requires will not be paid by her health insurance, unless she is first destitute. Nor can she go to a nursing home for care, unless she first liquidates every asset she owns. So she goes home, where friends and relatives care for as they can, until things get critical and she must go back to the hospital for IV treatments until she stabilizes enough to go home again. Mind you, the cost of hospital care is infinitely greater than it would be to have the nurse visit her at home, but this really isn't possible under her insurance plan.

Hospice care is an option, but again, this really isn't possible unless she surrenders completely and gives up all payment from her insurance company. Her health insurance offers nothing resembling hospice care.

So the "finest health system" in world failed to find cancer that had to have been developing for several years, even though they have done physical exams twice a year for decades. Then, the health system cannot really offer any help whatsoever to someone wishing to quietly fight their terminal disease at home.

We have the finest health care system in the world. Provided you are perfectly healthy.

Strange Bedfellows....Or Perhaps Not So Strange

This is an interesting development. Certain conservative Republicans have recently begun using language that associates the Obama administration with Nazi philosophy. Their attempt, of course, was to use old loathing for Nazis to somehow gain support for their own opposition to Obama's efforts. Hence, a government that actually legislates in an effort to do what's best for all citizens is being portrayed as Nazi social control. Sara Palin created the preposterous myth of "death panels" precisely to try and paint liberals with a nazi paint brush.

This is surely ironic, because there has never in American history been such a clear demonstration of propaganda. Lie often enough, the right wing seems to think, and people will surely take it as truth. They're banking on the assumption that George Bush's strategies are still applicable. The old mantra "WMD, WMD, WMD," has now been replaced by "Obama is Hitler, Obama is Hitler."

I doubt that the Republican intent was to actually gather modern nazi sympathizers into their own fold, but that seems to be what's occurring. Suddenly, swastikas are sprouting up all over, and they are being used under the ruse of being demonstrations against health care reform. Who spraypaints swastikas on the office signs of liberal senators? Why, modern nazis, of course, who now have sponsors like Newt Gringrich.

With some glee, the folks who delight in Nazi symbolism have begun spray-painting hate messages in the context of fighting health-care reform. AFter all, it's not the folks holding civilized town hall meetings that behave like nazis, but those shouting them down right and left.

Neo nazis are coming out of the woodwork, having found their rightful place, at last, in the company of Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. You can see the skinhead relief, their joy, at finally being welcomed by a major political party. At some point soon, we're likely to see the Republicans begin to disavow their new allies. Perhaps Sara Palin, in moment of uncharacteristic insight, was sensing this perhaps when she backed away from her "death panel" metaphor.

Then again, the Republicans need all the help they can get. The modern nazi conservative may be a more significant voting block than we think.

We Have Met the Nuts...And They is RIGHT there.

I used to think that crackpot-ism was a not ideological phenomenon—that there were just as many liberal crackpots as conservatives.

But an objective look at the current news is beginning to say otherwise. The silly nonsense——or outright lies——being spread around by conservatives regarding Barrack Obama's birth origin, and the conspiracy theories being spun about the dangers of the new health care proposals, have reached new levels of sheer idiocy.

It's not so much that there are crackpots out there shrieking this nonsense that is shocking. What's truly mind-boggling is that this extremist stuff is coming from folks who ought to be mainstream conservatives. YOu have Lou Dobbs on CNN giving credence to the folks concocting elaborate plots by Obama's mother to pave the way, 48 years ago, for her son to one day become president. YOu have members of congress (Michelle Bachmann, to be precise) spinning loony-tunes conspiracy theories over one-world-government use of US census information. Some of these pundits are convincing senior citizens that Barrack Obama wants to force them to commit suicide so that there will be more money to pay publicly for abortions.

This current batch is so unbalanced that Ann Coulter——Ann Coulter!——is now beginning to disavow them.

Used to be, these people lived on the fringe. Now, the fringe has moved to the right side of Mainstreet USA.

For those interested, some interesting and objective debunking of this stuff can be found on factcheck.org.

Zen & the Art of Rotten Mood

A good friend called the other day, a bit discouraged because she'd been visited by a couple of days of Rotten Mood, after having enjoyed a month's worth of Good Vibration. Although she didn't say so directly, I had the feeling that she was interpreting the Rotten Mood as a bit of personal failure, as perhaps an indication that her recent good stretch had been canceled. The good stretch had made her feel like she'd turned the corner in some way, so the return of Rotten Mood perhaps hinted at some sort of failure on her part——perhaps an indictment that her recent life changes weren't as valid as she hoped.

This got me to thinking about the role of Rotten Mood in my own life. LIke most people, I am periodically visited by Rotten Mood myself, so here are some personal reflections on my own reactions to it.

First, I don't think it makes sense to simply blow off Rotten Mood as inconsequential or meaningless, tempting though it may be. Rotten Mood that repeats frequently, or comes and stays for a long period of time, is called clinical depression, and this isn't something you can pretend doesn't exist. Rotten Mood seems to me like a natural form of pain response. Just as the burn impulse causes you to recoil from a hot stove, Rotten Mood needs to be acknowledged as a subtle form of pain. It exists as a natural response to some previous conditions, and basic intelligence dictates that we pay attention and learn from it. Rotten Mood, for example, may exist because we have worked ourselves into a state of exhaustion, and we need to cut it out. Or, it may exist because our brain is starved for some kind of nutrient it needs. Sometimes a handful of peanuts or a bit of Prozac might be in order. Rotten mood sometimes visits me after I drink wheat-based beer, for example, which is a signal for me to stop ingesting allergens. On even more subtle levels, Rotten Mood may be the result of a mental delusion or wrong belief. I've known those causes, too. Rotten Mood, like everything, has its causes.

It's also true, though, that Rotten Mood is only that——a mood. It has no particular concrete or permanent reality, and its entry in the encyclopedia doesn't have a photo attached to it, because there is nothing to point to. In very many instances Rotten Mood simply needs to be accepted for a short while until it decomposes and becomes resurrected in some other form——such as bemusement or even Good Vibration. I've noticed a somewhat paradoxical thing: fighting Bad Mood often seems to prolong it, while bland acceptance causes it to get bored. I viewed Rotten Mood as my own tragic failure for many years, which seemed to encourage it to sleep next to my bed, longing to be recognized.Once I gave it its own space, Rotten Mood no longer yells in quite the same way, but is fairly willing to yawn and stretch occasionally and watch TV in the den.

I Stand Corrected

A few years ago, the new federal courthouse building in towntown Minneapolis commissioned a renowned landscape architect, Martha Swartz, to create a public plaza between the courthouse and city hall.

It was a peculiar-looking thing, extremely avante guarde to my way of thinking. I pretty much hated it, as I prefer natural-looking landscapes, and this was one was strange, to say the least. The concrete plaza was interrupted with tear-drop shaped mounds of dirt and grass, placed at a steep pitch, arranged diagonally across the plaza. Concrete cast logs served as benches, with other wire mesh benches also placed in diagonal patterns. Crossing the plaza was an exercise in zig-zagging among the mounds of grass, the concrete logs, the benches.

The arrangment was in large part done this way as a hindrance to potential terrorist attack, as the plaza was rendered virtually impossible for a truck loaded with explosives to cross. No Oklahoma City potential here. This was partially the reason for my distain, since capitulation to this kind of paranoia always annoys me.



Some years later, this plaza is the place where I wait for my commuter bus home from the office, and it has become one of my favorite parts of the downtown landscape. By late afternoon, nearby buildings have blocked the sun, throwing a cool, comfortable shade across the plaza. The grassy knolls undulate gently in the wind, and the jack pines planted in them not only cast shade, but give the plaza a pleasant pine-needle aroma. Waiting for a bus here is among the most pleasant things imaginable, and I have been known to leave work early, or let the first bus line go through, simply in order to spend some extra time here.

Martha Swartz, I stand corrected. I've even looked up your web site, and in the future will visit other public landscapes you've designed.