Egads!

Had a visit today. Victor from a home security service. Looking into getting Mom a medical panic button – the whole I’ve-fallen-and-I-can’t-get-up fear factor. Victor told a story that is Egads! worthy and then some.

His father had a kidney transplant and is going through dialysis. Everything has been covered by Medicare. Last weekend he went into the doctor, found he’d contracted an infection and the doctor prescribed an antibiotic for immediate treatment. When he picked up his month’s supply, the pharmacist said the bill was $4,000!

He said he couldn’t pay that. He was then told that Medicare would only cover it if he were admitted to the hospital. SO, he was admitted – although he didn’t need to be – and got the medicine he needed. The $4,000 prescription turned into, what, at least $1,000 more – how much is a hospital room overnight?!

The system is broken – let’s start keeping score and see if we can get these things fixed!

Settling the Score…

Another day in the Libby case; another key witness contradicting Libby’s story. While we find out “what really happened” and how guilty Libby is, let’s not obscure the root of the problem. If Libby is the fall guy, let’s view the situation as such. Key factors: Cheney is being fingered as the perpetrator of the Plame rumor spreading. AND, witnesses and circumstantial evidence are claiming that the root cause is corruption of facts, particularly in Joe Wilson’s finding that Saddam Hussein was not soliciting Africa for Uranium. And there is still the matter of a forged letter held as a contradiction of Wilson’s report.

Piping to a different flautist. We need to listen - and help each other hear! What we need to say: Direct statements that are straightforward and don’t mince words. Vague is the oral form of beige - mindnumbing, Musak, asleep. Safe.

There’s a time for safe, but…In his response to Bush’s State of the Union address Tuesday, Sen. Jim Webb, D-VA, gave a hardhitting speech, including the following paragraph:

“With respect to foreign policy, this country has patiently endured a mismanaged war for nearly four years. Many, including myself, warned even before the war began that it was unnecessary, that it would take our energy and attention away from the larger war against terrorism, and that invading and occupying Iraq would leave us strategically vulnerable in the most violent and turbulent corner of the world.”

But please check out the rest - commenting about domestic issues, too.

THE SCOOTER LIBBY TRIAL UNCOVERS IMPORTANT TRUTHS

Last night on the NBC Evening News, I heard a report from the Libby trial in which key witnesses testified that misleading information was ordered by Dick Cheney to be dispersed by Libby to the media. We need to keep this as a prime discussion topic!! Instead of getting buried by other news, big and small, global and personal. If people in power don’t feel they’ll be held accountable for their actions, it makes it easy for people with private - and, in this case, criminal - agendas to gain and maintain the highest seats in the U.S. and manipulate politics to their ends. WE need to say, “No!” WE need to listen. WE need to keep this information from getting lost!

Suggestions for keeping the discussion alive - how about having monthly - or weekly - discussion groups, instead of book clubs? How about more blogging? How about letters to representatives, local and national? What else do you recommend?

Brownback says he’s ready for the Yellow Brick Road (perhaps a thinly disguised admission that he prefers the company of the heartless, dimwitted and cowardly?). Hillary says The Wizard of Oz is her favorite movie – shoe fetish or little girl lost in Senator’s cloths? And they’re all seeking the Emerald City – Baghdad’s alter ego. What’s it mean to you? The poppies are abundant in the fields next door…I just don’t see how the flying monkeys fit in. Maybe Hill’s looking to outfit the troops with ruby slippers to bring them back to the U.S. If so, got my vote.

AND THEN SOME…

Heard on the Colbert Report:
Stephen Colbert: Do you believe if Pres. Bush had fired Donald Rumsfeld before the election that you’d be Senator now?
Michael Steele (Maryland Republican, defeated in Nov. ‘06 run for Maryland Senate): Yes.

Per Variety Online: (RE: Oscar noms) It was a very good year for Paul Haggis, who racked up his third consecutive scripting nom, for “Iwo Jima” (after “Million Dollar Baby” and “Crash”). The last two pics won best film.

EGADS!: 1) Hmmmm….Eastwood 2007; 2) In all the organization nominations of the past week, only one Best Actress nom for Robin Wright Penn - the Spirit Awards. Sad!

Per NYT Online Headline: Bush Insists U.S. Must Not Fail in Iraq

EGADS!: Semantics, again. Semantics all over the place. We have to question what we mean by “failure” and “success.” If the U.S. gov’t sent soldiers to invade Iraq, without confirming and unequivocably varifying the existence of imminent danger to the United States, then we would define “failure” as the act of invasion. Bush failed when he ordered the invasion. “Success” on the whole is not in the equation - although, distant options could include “getting U.S. soldiers out alive.” It would seem that the president equates failure with leaving Iraq. He might say, “Failure is leaving Iraq without finishing our job.” HOWEVER: If the main objective of the invasion was actually to establish a firm presence in the Middle East, via Iraq, then the “job” would be to never leave.

U.S. citizens are afraid of the word “Failure.” The president uses it knowingly. But just as it’s vital that we question the government’s actions and don’t submit to national decisions blindly, it’s also very important to understand and act upon the idea that the president’s failure is not always the same as the nation’s failure.

Of course, we’re in a horrible situation - a no-win position, like standing on a landmine. If we move, we die; if we stand still we die. If we leave Iraq it’s predicted that the civil war will implode - a civil war that we triggered (making us, ultimately, the imminent danger to Iraq). But if we stay, our troops will continue to become casualities in a war between foreign factions. Is this the president’s responsibility? Yes. Is it the troops’? No - Acting as a protective force is their job, not their sentence.

As 2007 begins, so begins Egads! A bit bumpy, erratic, challenging. Let’s hope everything and everyone repairs and regulates soon….

Tonight saw two Spirit Award noms - For Your Consideration (underwhelming, but ok) and The Lives of Others (stunning - my favorite of the 10 or so films I’ve viewed so far). It’s a German film up for best foreign film. It was also on the Golden Globe’s Foreign Language film list (awarded to Eastwood’s Letters to Iwo Jima). My guess is that Lives will be on the Oscar list and might score, without the homeboy competition. It’s a psychological thriller about the end of Eastern Germany. Fantastic script, acting, direction. A must see!

We’re hearing horror stories - not the thriller, flash-action newsmakers, but the creeping intrusion of social behavior that has dire consequences to our lives. For instance - doctors who only treat people with a healthy dose of the “right kind” of insurance; individuals finding that they can’t get a check-up without having insurance, even if there’s enough money to pay.

What have you found? Do you have health insurance - individual, through a company? What’s it like for you to make a doctor’s appointment? What’s it like when you get there? What’s your take on the Schwarzenegger health insurance coverage?

Please comment here. Looking forward to your responses.

Tonight begins the 2007 awards season with the Golden Globes. So far, I think I’ve seen none of the major nominees…

However, I’ve been watching the nominated films from the Independent Spirit awards. The only one I would highly recommend so far is Little Miss Sunshine. Well…then there’s Sorry, Haters.

Riveting. Robin Wright Penn is nom’ed for Best Actress and her performance was stellar. The part was dynamic and could have easily been ruined by a slightly less deft actor. It was a WOW…I thought the script was intelligent and well-written, but it ranks as one of the most disturbing films (maybe the most) I’ve ever seen - think Amore Perros. So, if you have a stomach for twistedness and feeling like you got punched in the stomach at the end…I highly recommend it.

As heavenly as we might consider our Eastern Missouri hub, AP says it’s St. Louis - not Saint Louis.

So, in answer to the country’s overwhelming protest against our presence in Iraq, the president devised a plan to send over more than 20,000 troops. Let’s do something a bit novel, a bit renegade for the last five years…let’s think about this.

Concept association quiz:

Going to flight school without learning how to land

is like

Going to “war” without a plan to ____________ ?

When is a a war not a war? When it’s an invasion. Let’s stop with the neocoined semantics already. A “war,” no matter how unconventional the participants, begins by being provoked, attacked or imminently threatened. Why was it clear to millions of people in the world in 2003, including hundreds of thousands of Americans, that invading Iraq was a bad idea as a defensive gesture and yet the handful of legislators voted to handover the power to invade to someone with obvious ulterior motives? (See www.newamericancentury.org) Just asking. “War?” Sorry, no can say.

Perhaps a clue: Biggest disappointment of the week was in our own backyard. Nancy Boyda, the Democratic congresswoman for Kansas’s 2nd congressional, ran on a “get out of Iraq” stance. When asked by ABC News’ Charlie Gibson last week if she would support Bush’s troop increase in light of the public’s clear vote to change course in Iraq, she responded: “They should have thought about that before they voted for President Bush not once, but twice.” This week Boyda’s apologizing for “first week jitters.” More in the Topeka-Capitol Journal.

In other news: Steve Jobs came out with a new plan, too. iPhone and iTV. Looks cool - but we’re hearing reviews of slow connections and steep, out-of-the-gate price tags. Can’t wait for the kinks to get fixed and the price to drop! What have you heard? What do you think? Do you care? Anyone? Bueller?