Trying to be on a hiatus from much of the internet in general but I really want to comment on the whole healthcare reform thing.

As I write this, My Mother is in a hospital in England having broken her hip and had it replaced. Those of you that know me will know that she has also been living with Alzheimer’s disease for several years. If she lived in this country (the US) she’d be subject to possibly the worst and least people friendly healthcare “system” that exists in any industrialized nation. Because she lives in the UK her needed hip replacement was done in less than 24 hrs and was not billed to her. No co-pay.. no “who is your insurer?” It was done expediently and without demand on her. In fact the surgeon that I talked to said that it’s a national “imperative”  to make sure that people who need emergency hip replacements are treated in 24 hours or less.

Meanwhile in the US. our so called representatives who are many of them owned by the insurance companies, continue to drag their feet on passing any kind of reform bill. They’d rather be owned by the corporations that run the system than represent the people they were elected by.

Additionally the ill informed republican base, (and honestly some democrats) who continue to pretend that it’s not about race re President Obama, it’s really all about “where he was born”, are against any kind of change in healthcare because somehow they are convinced that the system that throws thousands of people per year into penurious bankruptcy for the crime of being sick, is somehow “the best in the world”. I am calling bullshit on this.. Our nonsystem  is in fact the most broken and most corporate friendly  in existence. Billions of dollars flow through it. Most of those dollars end up in the pockets of either corporate CEOs or the dishonest, self serving so called public servants who DO benefit from a government run medical system that takes care of them without question and without exception. Senators will never have their insurance rescinded because they had a yeast infection 20 years ago.. The people who elect them, can and will.

If you want …we’ll let it persist.

On Tuesday our president will be innaugurated.. Conservative pundits are hailing him as a failure already.. and are calling the current recession “the Obama Recession”. I suspect that it’s important if you espoused an uncaring failed ideology to hope and indeed “pray” that our country fails because like it or not, if you want President Obama to fail it means you want US to fail. That means the disintegration of the republic.. the failure of “democracy” and the end of the “last superpower” . All cool with me but I doubt that it is with the wingnuts like Limbaugh who are dependent on the pre existing economic model for their livelihood.

Tuesday is us moving forward. If you want us to fail, I’d like some kind of logical justification. If you can’t justify it at least try and explain it.

Love

Me

Although of course RD is not a physicist…..

A new year is just around the corner..If your year was crappy, I hope that 2009 is a vast improvement. I am looking forward to it immensely. I’d like to challenge my Christian friends (of which I have a few)  to watch the video below and then consider what it says. My hope (albeit a vain one, I am sure) is that you will use the conclusion that you come to as a way forward in the new year.

Watch and enjoy

About a year ago… I started conversing with someone. Someone that initially I had (I thought)reason to either dislike or at least distrust. Naturally.. as with almost anything, I was wrong.

During the ensuing year, my new chum told me stuff like: “you are very judgemental”… “you are wrong”..” we can’t all be geniuses”. It’s stuff that most people wouldn’t say to me.

It’s not that I am fearsome or hard to talk to (I hope), It’s mostly  that not everyone can say that stuff without fear of offending.. I don’t mean just me but anyone. It’s the hardest thing to be honest enough to have an effect but not to worry that the effect you have will be a shut out.

Anyway , to conclude.. this chum has made me self edit..and I think that I am somewhat the better person for doing that..

er yeah.. thanks nameless internet chum.

I don’t have a vast coterie of friends. I’m not that great at making new ones and I tend to lean on the ones that I do have. Some of that leaning includes my own special brand of “intellect” which is really just me saying things I think are true in a loud angry voice.

Fortunately my friends are very tolerant. They put up with my yelling in their houses and on their blogs. They put up with my far from reasonable behaviour on the front steps of my house. They put up with me being much less civilized than I like to imagine I am.

I am always amazed that people continue to talk to me after any length of time. This is mostly because I am so intolerant and inflexible myself that I know that there is no way I’d cultivate my own friendship if I had just met me.

This is a testament to them.. To you. I cannot fully express how important you all are to me and how much I appreciate your friendship. Your love makes me a better person…..albeit verrrrry slowly. To all of you…The brave..the proud..the few and the tenacious, I send you my love and a good hard clasping to my manbosom.

Peace

/me blows nose loudly

oh and by the way… no  comments please..just shut the fuck up

Oh pleeeease o please oh pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze

Video by thunderfoot..