everything changes
from lack of light

tree trunks muted
become smoke

a thousand
black twigs
cut a royal sky
into a puzzle

frogs scream
geese wail

distant lamps
become stars
they poke holes in water

these things are not so rare
yet these things I want for you

People would want the government to step in.

Suppose one party said “we need to police this situation and get crime under control.”

And they spend a year developing a plan.

Meanwhile, the crime wave continues to grow.

The other party (who’s getting a huge kickback from the robbers) says, “We don’t want government intervention.  Let’s start over with the plan, and go slowly, step by step.”

The health insurance companies are the criminals, robbing Americans blind.

Welcome to health care reform in America.

Pitcher Jim Bunning

Senator Jim Bunning

There once was a pitcher from Kentucky,
A U.S. Senator, and quite plucky.
He found it funny
When families lacked money:
“Screw the unemployed.  They’re unlucky!”

makes me feel like barfing

I doubt it.  I’m guessing, if all the people who felt like barfing every time this lie was told actually barfed — the country would be swimming in barf.

This is because, while he endlessly repeats “Americans do not want this bill,” a lot of Americans in fact DO want this bill.

Wh0 are we, the Americans who want this bill?  Chopped liver?  And why does he keep saying we don’t want it, when we do.  Or does he not consider those who agree with him to be Americans?

And which bill do we not want?

That’s the problem.  The House and the Senate passed different bills — and nobody is completely happy with either.  So if they say we do not want “this bill,” they are technically right — since they haven’t defined what they’re talking about.

But most Americans DO want any damn bill that passes and begins to climb the country out of health insurance hell, introduces fair play, and moves us towards, ultimately, universal health care.

Certainly you’ve got polls that say the majority of Americans are against health care reform — because you’ve lied and distorted and scared the bejeezus out of people.

Well, here’s a poll for you:

In August of 2009, SurveyUSA asked 1200 adult Americans a question for NBC News and Wall Street Journal.  The question was “In any health care proposal, how important do you feel it is to give people a choice of both a public plan administered by the federal government and a private plan for their health insurance?  1) extremely important 2) quite important 3) not that important, or 4) not at all important?

77% said it was either Extremely Important or Quite Important.

So get real.  The American people want Congress to fix the broken system.  That’s why we elected Obama.  It’s the health insurance industry that’s against it, and they’ve spent $380 million buying your votes in Congress and moving those poll numbers for you guys — more money than was spent on the entire 2008 presidential campaign.

Importance of Public Option

I didn’t visit him the day he died.  It was the day we started Coffee News, and I was out delivering our first papers.  I did go by his house that day and looked in on him.  He was asleep.

Dad and Ikeybird

I did visit twice the day before.

Once, at lunch.  I was in the kitchen, eating some of his food, and talking with Tammy, his caregiver.  He walked in there, without the walker or wheelchair.  I looked up from the kitchen table and he was sitting across from me, breathing hard.

“You’re paying for that,” Tammy said.

Pulling for air, he nodded.

Later that night, I was at Port City Java, buying a cup of coffee for me and a piece of cheesecake for him.  He liked cheesecake enough to take a bite or two of it, towards the end, when he barely ate anything at all.

He called my cell phone to tell me that somebody good was on Larry King.  I wish I could remember who it was, but can’t.  I do remember it was somebody he knew was of special interest to me.  I went over and we watched the show together – something we did many nights.

After that, we watched a basketball game.

As I was leaving, he asked me if I would be back the following night to watch Wake Forest play.  He was a Carolina fan first, but he also loved Wake Forest out of sympathy for me (and because sending me there cost him a lot of money!)

Wake had a pretty bad team that year, and I think they were up against a much better team from Florida State.  I said, almost cruelly, that they were going to get killed and I didn’t want to see it.  Instead, I told him, I would watch American Idol with my daughter – and then visit after the show.

He died during American Idol (and he was a real one).

The picture here is from about 2003 or 2004, I think.  Taken in our house with an early PDA camera (fancy tech at the time).  Not great resolution, but a fun picture that I enjoy often.

[Thanks to the generosity and superior searching skills of Crystal Holmberg, I now remember Larry's guest that night.  I had already tried, but Crystal successfully located that night's transcript.  Larry's guest on Feb. 27, 2006, was Jon Stewart -- certainly my very favorite, as Dad knew].

1. I love breathing.
2. I love stretching.
3. I love doing stuff when it’s quiet, with my eyes closed.
3. I like standing on my head (and love the energy I get from standing on my head).
4. I like the feeling of being lubricated, so I can reach for stuff and turn my head, when i need to, while driving.
6. I like being able to go up and down stairs easily.
7. I love peace.
8. I like being prepared to meditate.
9. Love the vibes.
10. I love something else about it that can’t be put into words.

Mom, 2/24/10

Normally, it might not seem so normal for a 53 year old man to post pictures of his mother on his blog.

But Mom has lived a public life, and some of my friends see this blog and will enjoy seeing this picture.

We were in the kitchen, at Mom’s house, and Kathy Chaffin was talking about having to get up very early and ride a school bus.  She’s writing a story about school bus drivers.  She mentioned that a photographer was going also.

Mom has always liked to brag about me.  Her criticism could be harsh also, but the motherly praise often fell into the “his  _____ don’t stink” category.

Alzheimer’s is a brutal disease that robs memory and leaves a person, at a certain stage, stuck with only a momentary, fleeting wisp of a thought — at best.

In this case, the word “photographer” prompted Mom to demand Kathy’s attention in order to tell her that “Sammy is a wonderful photographer.”

In high school, when I took grainy, barely visible, no-contrast pictures for the school newspaper, I established the fact that I’m not much of a photographer.  But this was just the convergence of a word and a person and a feeling that prompted such a coherent — if not accurate — remark.

Thanks to camera phones, I decided to make an effort to instantly validate her claim by requesting a smile for a picture.  Maybe not a “wonderful” photographer, but a photographer nonetheless.

Alzheimer’s robs memory.  It doesn’t necessarily rob a person’s capacity for joy — as you can see here.

Is there job shortage?  Absolutely.

Are workers on strike?  Oddly enough, yes.

I thought the Republicans in Congress wanted to quit talking about health care and focus on jobs.

That’s all we heard for months.

Then why did 29 of them vote not to allow debate on a jobs bill?

upside down

And why did six of them not vote?

And this was for a bill that everybody says is only a fraction of what’s needed.

And this was for a bill that includes mostly tax cuts.

Call it strategy.

I call it a deficit.  Not a budget deficit, but a deficit of ideas, cooperation, good will, and work.

Republicans are not known for being fans of collective bargaining — but it appears they’ve gone on strike.

You say that the Congress is full of good people, but that the ’system is dysfunctional.

Might I suggest the opposite is true? The system is good and some of the people are dysfunctional.

If your wife works for the health insurance lobby and you stand with her rather than with people in need — then who or what is not functioning?

Senator Evan Bayh

If you begin — right after Obama’s election — to throw the Democrats under the bus every chance you get by joining Republicans in speaking trash about programs that are desperately needed by the American people, then who is not functioning?

Were you hoping he would pick you for Vice-President?  Disappointed?  Just asking.

If you raise $13 million for a Senate re-election campaign and then wait until the last second to announce you will not run again, thereby preventing anyone else in your party from preparing for such a campaign, who is not functioning?

The Republicans in Congress appear to be the ones who are not functioning, and you’ve helped them not function. One minute they say what the party tells them to say. Another minute they say what lobbyists tell them to say. One minute they sponsor a bill. The next minute they are against the same bill. One minute they vote against spending and rail against it. The next minute they rejoice in the money it provides. The next minute they rail against it again. One minute they want to help people in their district in hard times. The next minute they vote against health care for all Americans.

The system may need some tweaking, but it’s been around a lot longer than you.  But it’s the current Republican leaders in Congress who have been dysfunctional — INTENTIONALLY!  It is their strategy not to function.  And, like you, they are paid by big business to be dysfunctional.  And you’ve given them a helping hand.

Sam

P.S. I really liked your father.