29 July 2009

Got Health Care?

I haven't been too vocal on the Obama Health Care initiative mostly because it's so boring and I get feverish chills looking a insurance jargon. But I do know that what we have now in this country is a mess and it needs fixing. I have pretty good coverage at my place of work, but I also feel trapped in a dead-end job in hostile work-environment. If I could take my coverage with me for the price of my premium I'd do it. I think we should take the best parts of Kaiser and of the VA and Medicare and make a system that works for everyone to receive basic care. We could tax the elective surgeries to help pay for basic care. I see a whole lot of possibilities. But sitting around complaining and doing nothing to change the system is just plain wrong and un-American.

I believe it is the insurance industry and the drug companies which are fueling the opposition. It's not those overwhelming majority that voted for Obama, many for the very reason of changing the health-care system in this country.

I remember a day, before the inundation of television commercials and magazine ads for various drugs and medications, that you went to a doctor and a doctor prescribed the appropriate medication after evaluating your symptoms. Now the drug companies want us to go and ask our doctor for the drugs. Seems back-ass-wards to me.

I propose that we curtail all drug advertising for the next ten years and put all that money that they would have spent on advertising into the health-care reform effort. Provide free or reduced cost drugs to those who need them, the young and the infirm. Who in their right-winged mind would deny medicine to those in need?

Which brings me to another topic on the top of my mind today. There are so many mixed messages on drugs these days. I mean on the one-hand we have so many commercials about prescription drugs and every kind of pill for what ails you; Just don't get hooked or dependent on those drugs. And any time there is a high-profile celebrity over-dose, people will often, in a knee-jerk response quickly blame the doctors that prescribed the medicines. And they have always blamed and shamed the patient for their weakness, should they become addicted.

I dream of a day when drug companies and insurance companies will put the welfare and well-being of the people ahead of their profits and shareholders. Because shareholders get sick too.


Yeah, Man that's cool

Shatner does Palin

10 July 2009

T.G.I.F.




THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY by Joseph Messick

Monday comes and it’s back to work,
And oh I feel so blue.
Why can’t it be Friday at five,
Oh I wish that it were true.
Tuesday comes and I’m so tired,
I think that I’m depressed.
Oh well I’ll make it some how,
At least I’ll do my best.
Wednesday comes and I see some light,
After Wednesday it’s a downhill grade.
Only two more days till Friday,
And then I’ll have it made.
Thursday comes it’s getting close,
I feel better yes I do.
Tomorrow will be Friday,
Oh Friday I love you.
Thank God it’s Friday,
only eight more hours to go.
Oh thank God it’s Friday,
I believe that clock is slow.
Thank God its five o’clock Friday,
Oh joy, oh bliss divine.
No more work for two whole day’s,
Oh isn’t it sublime

Take this job...please



This should pretty much sum up my week for y'all. Have a good weekend dear readers.

06 July 2009

Michael Jackson ~ Dirty Diana



I have long thought this was Michael Jackson's best rock song. And just as I posted this video as my selection for Music Monday, I note that Dirty Diana is a trending topic on Twitter. I tried to find the version with Jennifer Batten on guitar to no avail. Jennifer Batten rocks.

My very first LP record was the Jackson Five's Greatest Hits. My Memaw bought it for me. She was a Southern Baptist woman from Virginia, so it sort of shocked my ten year old self that she would even agree to it. But obviously, she loved me. I won't say she was racist, I don't believe she was, but she was raised in an area and a time when people of different races did not mix. I still have the record although it is so badly worn that my audiophile husband won't allow it on his turntable. I loved that record.

Through the years, as Michael's public persona went though it's many changes, my interest waned, although I would still make a point to check out his latest new video whenever I had MTV. And he never failed to fascinate.

I watched in equal fascination his trial on child molestation charges. I believe, in my heart of hearts, that the jury was correct in its acquittal. I think the most he was guilty of was very poor judgment and of having weak handlers. I don't believe he had the heart to ever hurt a child. But he left himself open to much criticism and accusation. The Bashir interview was a major mistake. Power and naiveté are a dangerous combination. I wish his advisors would have had the cajoñes necessary to tell him "no" more often, if ever.

I have wondered if he allowed himself, possibly subconsciously, to be put in the position of being accused in order to throw light on the fact that he felt he was abused. Victims of abuse are often conflicted when they love their abuser as in the case of a parent and it can give cause for life-long inner turmoil. But I leave that supposition to the psychologists and fiction writers.

Michael Jackson was a controversial figure in life and his untimely, unfortunate death is no different. I just hope that they get him in the ground soon so he can rest in peace, if peace is even possible. I hope so for his survivors' sakes.

03 July 2009

Brian Jones RIP 1942-1969

Forty years ago we lost another dear sensitive soul.



For once Billo gets it right.

Brian Lewis Hopkins Jones



Taken from us far too soon. Repose en paix, Brian.

Give All to Love~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Give all to love;
Obey thy heart;
Friends, kindred, days,
Estate, good-fame,
Plans, credit and the Muse,
Nothing refuse.

'T is a brave master;
Let it have scope:
Follow it utterly,
Hope beyond hope:
High and more high
It dives into noon,
With wing unspent,
Untold intent;
But it is a god,
Knows its own path
And the outlets of the sky.

It was never for the mean;
It requireth courage stout.
Souls above doubt,
Valor unbending,
It will reward,
They shall return
More than they were,
And ever ascending.

Leave all for love;
Yet, hear me, yet,
One word more thy heart behoved,
One pulse more of firm endeavor,
Keep thee to-day,
To-morrow, forever,
Free as an Arab
Of thy beloved.

Cling with life to the maid;
But when the surprise,
First vague shadow of surmise
Flits across her bosom young,
Of a joy apart from thee,
Free be she, fancy-free;
Nor thou detain her vesture's hem,
Nor the palest rose she flung
From her summer diadem.

Though thou loved her as thyself,
As a self of purer clay,
Though her parting dims the day,
Stealing grace from all alive;
Heartily know,
When half-gods go
The gods arrive.