The Sound of Silence

Work life has a way of eating at the soul of your other more important existence. 12 hour days can make me want nothing more than to sink into my couch and watch a baseball game on TV, especially as I've spent a good part of my day writing for my day job, not to mention bouncing from meeting to phone calls to production process massages. No, not the good kind of massages.

But I've made a pledge to reform the way I spend my extra-curricular hours.

Reform, ah yes, a segue. Reform, from the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary: to put or change into an improved form or condition; to amend or improve by change of form or removal of faults or abuses. My abuses of late have been too little exercise for a guy who was in marathon shape at the beginning of the summer and too much fast food (and maybe an alcoholic drink or two too many here and there). I'm still in pretty decent shape, so it won't take me long to get - ahem - back in the stride of things.

There's nothing like good old exercise to ward off stress. Less stress means a happier, healthier person. I like happy, and in this economy and growing national deficit, I figure living a healthy life is the best choice to enable me to remain in working shape well into my 70s so I can continue eating, another of life's pleasures I've grown accustomed to.

And, yes, I think you know in what direction I'm headed. This meandering essay brings us to the thème du jour ... health care.

Let me predicate this by stating that I'm NOT 100% sold on ObamaCare, as there are some very, very big loose ends. I actually found myself chuckling during the President's speech to the joint sessions of Congress two weeks ago when he admitted as much.

Now, let the record also show that I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican, but the Republicans consistently speak of this as a health care revolution. Maybe they think it might as well be one, as reform is a bad word to the conservative right. But that's not what reform means. Still, I constantly hear and read others' distortion of the truth, (at best), when they say Americans don't favor health care reform. They in fact do, in some way, shape or form. The figures being cited in the media, blogs, the supermarket check out line like to confuse the latest poll numbers of American support/disapproval of the current Democratic plan with actual support of doing the right thing to make health insurance more affordable, regulate the insurance companies from dropping coverage with no reason, reform malpractice insurance, etc.

Americans, at least the ones I know, very much favor health care REFORM but want to make sure Congress gets it right (or as close as possible by these morons) because such a law will be PERMANENT. There won't be any rolling back. Ask any one if we need to find a solution to health costs that are spiraling out of control and you'll hear a hearty "Amen." I have health care and, hell no, I don't want to lose it ... but do I think it can be better? Hell yes. I welcome constructive change to a $45 co-pay on every doctor's visit (and I have a PPO plan that more and more is looking and acting like an HMO). If you don't think that such high costs incurred just in walking in the office door don't keep sick (and poor) people away, I have a boat load of tea in Boston Harbor to sell ya.

Reform is very much needed, so for Rep. Boehner and his Republican cronies to say Americans don't want reform shows how out of touch the party remains with the American people, or at least how manipulative they can be. I'm the first to admit I don't have the answers, but I do know that a comprehensive bill that makes sense is mandatory... I'm not sure sure that's ObamaCare. In fact I'm quite skeptical of a plan that promises to not raise taxes yet shares no specifics how it would work aside from health care rationing, which is even worse than what we have now. But I do know that the Republicans haven't brought to the table one viable solution. How can they when they don't favor reform in the first place?

And here we are stuck in a world of white noise. It might as well be silence, which is not always golden. It wouldn't be so bad if such condition didn't indicate to me that I might be losing my hearing. That would require another trip to the doctor. Here's hoping I can pay for it.

The Republic of Chad

It was about 1:15 p.m. on Super Tuesday as I drove back to the office, my “I Voted 2008” sticker in hand. And I was incensed.
A four- (and a half) year college graduate, I’m generally an intelligent person. But it took me months to figure out how I’d vote in this year’s presidential primary. I knew precisely for whom I wanted to vote, as an earlier blog explains, but I wasn’t precisely sure how I’d do it. I reiterate that I’m a fairly smart man.
The confusion arose over my preferred political affiliation. Having learned a thing or two at university, I’ve been a proud GDI – or God Damn Independent – for most of my adult life. Having shunned the Greek system, I’ve so far turned up my nose at the Republicans and Democrats.
But the way our voting system works, if you’re non-affiliated, at least for the first couple years – or in this case elections – you’re basically a loser. Luckily I did my homework and discovered I could request a crossover ballot and vote for a Democrat, but countless others in Los Angeles County weren’t quite as lucky.
Or smart. And it’s not entirely their fault.
I was still fuming on my commute back to the rock quarry because I had to make a minor scene at my polling place due to confusion from the workers over my right to vote someone else besides another non-affiliated candidate. It was shades of freshman year in college all over again.
Los Angeles County has a rule that allows us non-affiliates to cross the party lines to Democrat, but it seems you have to explicitly ask permission. So much for our inalienable rights, as long as you say “pretty please.”
My situation turned out OK, but I must wonder about the other 780,000 un-affiliated voters in Los Angeles County alone. Were they able to decipher the madness?
It’s pretty bad when Dean Logan, the acting county registrar, doesn’t even have a clue what’s going on. As I still muttered under my breath the ridiculous situation I just found myself in, Logan himself told journalist Warren Olney on KCRW’s “To the Point” radio show that his office had issued several PSAs in recent weeks to inform voters of the situation. I’m a fairly discerning citizen, a journalist myself, who stays abreast of such things. Granted, I don’t watch much TV, but I never once heard a whisper of such ads. My bad for not watching “American Idol.”
So there I sat in traffic as I listened to Logan hem and haw his way through the interview, as other panelists voiced their concern over Los Angeles’ system. Logan told Olney that the registrar's office had forecasted that the unaffiliated voter fiasco wouldn’t be an issue and that polling place staffers had been extensively trained to deal with the issue. Oh really?
Then two of the other interviewees corrected him with their own assertions that it could very well affect the Democratic primary. One even brought up the 780,000 unaffiliated voters who could be affected. Olney asked Logan if this number sounded right.
A long pause ensued. Logan responded that such a figure wasn’t at his immediate disposal, only to be answered by another interview subject that indeed the number was correct, taken straight from the state registrar’s web page. A simple Google search will turn up some 3 million voters statewide who are also unaffiliated. I’m so glad we have someone in charge who knows what he’s talking about. Or not. But isn’t that apropos with G.W. Bush still in the Oval Office? He, after all, got there (twice) amid shady happening in the polling booth.
And you think our country’s messed up voting system is only confined to Florida and Ohio?

New Hampshire Dreams

Like Ma Bell I've got the ill communication. The hook from rap group A Tribe Called Quest should be the tag line for the national press covering the presidential election process this winter, or at least the official campaign theme song. Because it's starting to make me sick.
Why can't it just be over, already?
Except for perhaps the ongoing Roger Clemens "did he or didn't he?" steroid saga, no other news story this side of Britney Spear's meltdown has the nation, the world even, as riveted as who will be the next leader of the free world. It really doesn't matter who I would prefer, though I will admit he's half-black and, I believe, the embodiment for the causation of real change in Washington, D.C. But that's beside the point.
I've never been a Johnny-Come-Lately when it comes to most anything, especially politics. For some reason, call it a premonition, but I have the uncanny knack of calling it like I see it early on in a race. Later I sit back and say "I told you so." It's like my personal "Inland Empire."
It happened with Bush 43 and can be traced as far back as Jimmy Carter's upstart defeat of President Gerald Ford in 1976. Not to say there was a lot of drama remaining before the fat lady sang.
Proof in point: New Hampshire. The second primary state following Iowa as the national dipstick for gauging who the finalists could be. The winners would have all the momentum for the next battle in South Carolina. John McCain took the GOP side, and the Hillary Clinton took the Dems race.
But what pisses me off to no end is that the media failed to report that despite taking a slight majority of votes, Clinton and Obama share the same number of delegates. Actually Obama has a slight lead. A true look at the current delegate race does show Hillary with a big lead, but that's due to the number of government officials who have given her their support. There's still some 2,500 points out there to be grabbed.
So what did she win, really?
And really, besides my horse, and mine is really the only one that counts -- hey, you can get your own blog and don't you dare get racial on me -- what other options do we really have this go-round?
A two-bit actor who has about as much substance as a cracker, forgive the pun. A lot was made of Fred Thompson's entry into the GOP race over the summer, but thankfully he never quite caught on. Then there's Arkansas' Mike Huckabee, another backwoods hick -- and I can say that because my family hails from Tennesee -- who honestly, at least in public circles, believes in the Adam and Eve story of creation over rational and proven scientific fact. Where's Finn to this Huck when you need him?
Then we have a Mormon and a thrice-married, cross-dresser. And don't forget the old man who took New Hampshire or that wacky Ron Paul, who's a great salesman but has yet to pack the punch of substance necessary to pull votes. And Dennis Kucinich is just plane mad.
On to the Dems, with their great white woman hope. Sorry Hillary but you're no Bill. John Edwards is intriguing and could actually find his way into the vice presidential office this second time around. Bill Richardson is just too far out there in the Badlands.
So who are you going to choose?
Sure, Barack Obama is a feel-good story but with limited experience. Much has been made about the lack of international chops from the junior senator from Illinois. Lest you forget, George Bush had merely his daddy's name, less than two terms as the governor of Texas, and don't forget ownership of the Texas Rangers, on his resume.
And look how good that's turned out.