deja vu all over again

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So, I always wondered about that...I guess history does repeat itself!

really?

Do you really think we'll willingly

 go back to the dark ages?

Sigh.

pardon me while I climb back up on my soap box

I'm mad as hell.
This is my 200th post on Buenos Burritos, and I had planned to write something witty or funny for the occasion. Not today, amigos.

The issue of health care reform has got me seeing red. The American people are being bamboozled by insurance companies and the bozos we elected. And it's happening out in the open, not in hushed chambers or back rooms. What's that, you say, Mr. Baucus? It's totally legal for you to take money from drug and health insurance companies and lobbyists and then use your position on the Senate Finance Committee to craft bills in their favor, all while pretending to be a champion of health care reform?

(click on chart to enlarge)

This is just completely and utterly insane. We can never hope to have reform of any kind until we remove the bribes and incentives from our elected officials' pockets.

Read this letter by Rita Batchley, a nurse from Ventura, California about the need for a single-payer system of health care. Her impassioned and eloquent letter comes from someone who works in our broken medical system every day, and sees firsthand the effects lobbyists and corporate interests have on ordinary people. Health care in this country is already rationed. Those who have the most money and power get the lion's share and control how the rest is meted out.

Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Pfizer, Merck and Aetna have no stake in keeping us healthy. Preventive care would eat into their profits. The health care industry spends millions of dollars every year on advertising enticing us to buy the new miracle drug of the month, (hello? viagra?) and millions more to defeat true reform.

Maybe the problem is that we even have a health care industry at all. We've made treating sick people into just another money making proposition, and the result is that sick people have more value than healthy ones in the current scenario.

This year we've come closer to making changes that count than we ever have before. We finally have a president with the guts to implement them, but he can't do it himself. Baby steps are not necessary. America is all grown up, and now is the time to make great strides forward. Your elected officials need to hear from you.

Tell them you're as mad as hell, and you're not going to take it anymore.

Click here to find your Congressperson.

cawfee tawk

A little Sunday morning randomness...
I got up early this morning, responding to an overzealous canine security guard barking his fool head off downstairs. By the time I stumbled groggily down to the first floor, tripped over three cats and wandered blindly into the living room, he was curled up on the sofa yawning and blinking sleepily at me as if to insinuate that I had disturbed his sleep. So much for the Camp Cactus alarm system...I guess it works well enough, if you count announcing the newspaper carrier at 6 am, the mail carrier at 10 am, and squirrel alerts every ten minutes throughout the day as important security updates. 

I must admit, I've been a little jumpy lately.  The news has not been so good the past few weeks. Maybe I've spent too much time online reading about politics, the looming financial crisis, the war(s), and the rapid disintegration of the American Dream as we know it. Let's face it: things are not exactly hunky dory out there, people. 

Add to that the discovery that we now have coyotes roaming the streets of NE Portland, and it seems like things are really getting out of hand.  

coyote on MAX train photo by Dennis Maxwell/AP

Wildlife in the city is certainly not a new development. Raccoons, possums, rats, squirrels, crows, hawks, and the occasional owl populate the area where I live. As a matter of fact, while I was typing this post, a giant heron flew past the dining room window, heading east down the street. You don't see that too often when you live in the city. But, back to the coyote issue. Things must be bad all over for them to be wandering unafraid into such densely populated human territory. One of my neighbors told me he hates them. That he thinks they're no better than rodents. I'm familiar with this attitude. An old friend of ours who, until recently, raised sheep in Central Oregon, once described how he'd stand out on his deck and pick off the coyotes in the pasture with a high powered rifle, and then leave the carcasses out for the birds to clean up. I kind of have a hard time with that attitude. I'm not a vegetarian (yet), but I certainly believe that all creatures on this planet are sentient beings, and that we we should treat each other with respect and  compassion, especially if and when we overlap each other's territory. 

It doesn't seem to be a view that's widely shared these days. Can't we just make an effort to get along, people?

So, today, to quote Mike Meyers' character Linda Richman, the host of Coffee Talk:

"Talk amongst yourselves."

 I'll give you a topic: How will America's current monetary crisis affect our position in the global economic food chain? Discuss.

Your comments are like buttah.