do it for mom

My mother died four years ago this week.   She battled brain tumors for a decade, and with some help and hand wringing had the coverage she needed to undergo nine brain surgeries. 

When she died she was 54.

It is this about this time every year when I try and write about her.  It's tough.  I have so many ideas and memories and I struggle to get them all in one functional place, the page.  This year it's been more difficult than ever because I'm bothered.  I shouldn't get this way.  I should be above the fray, but the so-called debate over health care reform has me outraged.  Or maybe sad, I can't tell.  Regardless, after what my mom went through, it's hard to see people who will no doubt have loved ones endure similar battles buy the story that a public option has anything to do with Socialism, or that encouraging people to get living wills is even close to the mythical "death panels".

First, please let me apologize to my mom.  I have great stories to share about you, and I will, but right now I've got to cover a brief history of the smear campaign.  If you remember mom, we spoke of this when I suckered you into helping me with my 2004 political action committee HELP, or Help Evict this Lousy President.  If that's any consolation to you...or, really, me.

Invoking socialism into fight over health care reform is the equivalent of calling our military, with their health care covered by taxpayer money, Socialist.  And what about the 80 million Americans who depend on government subsidies for their care?  Socialists.  And the Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney who mandated everyone in the state of Massachusetts have health care?  Socialist.  Or, even better, wouldn't the bankers who were bailed out by taxpayer money be engaged in Socialism?   The argument is futile.  It’s only an emotional button to motivate a reaction.  From a political stand point it works, but what a smear campaign really does is further exhaust a nation already weary of recession and war.  Instead of working towards a solution with an honest debate, we’re lead around by scoundrels with bad intentions.

To show exactly where these smear tactics have taken us, please let me offer some recent public melees and their results.

In the 2000 Republican Primary evangelicals for George W. Bush call conservative voters and suggest Bush opponent John McCain has had a black child out of wedlock.  In 2001 Treasury Secretary Paul O’ Neill cites a survey saying tax cuts will drive the nation into debt.  He is fired and characterized as an unstable man with a grudge.  In 2003 people who question the need for a war in Iraq are painted as unpatriotic and anti-troop.   In 2004 George W. Bush buddy and billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens funds the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to attack John Kerry about the validity of his Vietnam medals. 

And what happened in all of these cases? 

• The black child of McCain’s turned out to be a Bangladeshi girl he and his wife had adopted from Mother Theresa’s orphanage (that’s got to a direct shot to Hades.) 
• While Paul O’ Neill’s character was attacked, taxes were cut, America slid into debt and important mandates went unfunded. 
• The war in Iraq commenced with America’s media so focused on the question of patriotism that today American military generals have criticized news organization for not properly reporting the consequences of the invasion. 
• Veterans included in the swift boat attack ads eventually apologized for being a part of it.  Even John McCain, already familiar with smears, called the swift boat ads “dishonorable and dishonest” and asked the Bush administration to call an end to it. 

Pickens eventually invested in wind energy. 

The point of a smear campaign is to distract.  It’s a coordinated plan to change the argument.  Right now America needs a serious discussion about health care, but desperate politicians supported by millions in insurance and pharmaceutical money have taken the conversation to dark alley for a fistfight.  There will be no enlightenment here, as instead of talking about how to make our health care system better, we’re bickering over Socialism.

Health care reform is about people.  It's about happy kids, content retirees and the well being of everybody in between.  It's also about money, and with the average premium skyrocketing 80% over the past nine years, it's about time.  Unfortunately, however, many of the same men and women who tout America for its opportunity and its freedoms, its wealth and its power, are holding our health hostage with a despicable debate trick.

But perhaps it's not entirely the fault of those who have altered the argument to meaningless epithets and baseless fear mongering.  Maybe it's those who are sitting on their hands and only waiting for something better for the American people.  Because it isn’t just politicians and lobbyists who can change the argument.  We can too. 

In 2004, when my mom was being wheeled away for her ninth brain surgery, a nurse jokingly said, "Wow, you must know somebody!"

Will you?

You're Right Dude Shouting at Town Hall Meeting

These guys should keep running our health care:

Drug giant Pfizer to pay record $2.3B fine

"Officials from the Justice Department and the Department of Health and Human Services said the world's largest drug company promoted four drugs for use on certain ailments or at dosages that were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

The Justice Department said Pfizer sales people created sham requests from physicians asking for information about unapproved uses of certain drugs. The information was then mailed to doctors. Officials said Pfizer also entertained doctors at resorts and encouraged them to prescribe its drugs.

The Justice Department also said the pharmaceutical giant provided kickbacks to health-care providers to encourage them to prescribe other drugs, including Lipitor, Viagra and Zoloft."

From CNN.com

Why You Don't Like the Olympics

The Olympics are on too often.  Remember when it was every four years?  It was an event.  That trumpet fanfare would kick on and the whole house would freak out.  Immediately the kids were gymnasts, mom would get into swimming and this time swear to "keep it off," and dad would pretend to know a lot about fencing.  And the Olympics made stars out of people we'd never heard of before.  One day Mary Lou Retton was just another teenage girl singing along with Tiffany in her bedroom mirror; the next she spring boarded into our hearts.  Today, however, we know too much about the athletes.   We hear about their sordid pasts, their DUIs and all their personal affairs.  We even know what's in their URINE.  That's a relationship moving a little too fast for me.  I've been married to my wife for six years and I still don't like it when she tells me about the asparagus.  But now you read and hear about all of the athletes all of the time.  Many of them are the same professional superstars in the news everyday.  It's kind of like grandma visiting.  Once and awhile is OK.  You get a gift, endure a kiss, but too many visits and the house starts smelling like pickles, and there's a chance you'll see her with her wig off.  My grandma had this bun on the top of her head.  I was amazed she took the time to thread her hair into such an immaculate style.  But one day I saw her take it off and put it on the table.  It wasn't her hair.  It was someone else's balled up on her head.  It was awful.  It was like a kid seeing a head roll off a mascot.  I won't even mention the time I walked in on her nude.  All I'll say is after that I wasn't as eager to get to second base as the other seventh graders.  And that's the Olympics.  On too much with the same old people revealing everything you never wanted to know about them.  They need to get rid of the professionals, the endorsements and the drug tests.  We've already seen that performance enhancement technology moves much faster than the whizzes at the lab.  So, yes, we'll have cheaters at the Olympics.  But we'll also have cougars and lions, too.  It'll add some necessary excitement to this incessant two-year cycle.

Something’s Happening Here. And It’s Not Good.

I heard Van Halen on the Oldies station. Van Halen isn’t young, but they’re not “Oldies”! To me, Oldies is what my mom listened to. She wore a poodle skirt and passed out at the mention of Pat Boone. Oldies is Buddy Holly in horn-rimmed glasses, and groups like the Three Lettermen, and the Four Preps and the Five Aryans. Those are oldies. Not Van Halen. I don’t even want to hear the term “old” or “oldie” or any derivation of “elderly” associated with any person who wears pink tights. It’s not a pretty picture. But worse, it means that I’m old. And that’s just chronologically inaccurate.

The song I heard on the Oldies station was Jump. That’s from Van Halen’s album 1984. It was in 1984 when, at the very young age of ten, I joined a tape club. Do you remember tape clubs? You got twelve tapes for a penny, but then you were their indentured servant for the remainder of your childhood, buying tapes at regular club price with their added expense of shipping and handling.

It took four dollars and ninety-five cents to have 1984 shipped and handled to me. Oldies would have only cost a nickel. Everything cost a nickel in the Oldie days. Besides, when you think of 1984, you don’t think of Oldies, but Madonna. Once she starts shilling Metamucil on TV, then I’ll concede she’s an Oldie. But right now she’s only getting old in a different way. Her Like a Virgin is one of the tapes I got in my tape club. I sat in the back of the bus and stared at the young pop singer in her underwear. Oldies never posed mostly nude on their albums. I just tried to picture the Mamas and the Papas in their skivvies and it was a mistake. Van Halen had an infant angel smoking cigarettes on the cover of 1984. That would only be Oldie material if Lucky Strikes advertised its healthful benefits to children.

So, please, Oldies station, you’ve got to stop. Oldies aren’t Hot for Teacher. They’re keen on crew cuts and finger snapping. If you’re low on music I’ll bring you my Beach Boys box set. Maybe I can get you some tickets to Branson so you can brush up on oldness. Otherwise, that’s my very recent childhood you’re messing with.

General David Patraeus, Life Coach

I'm sure you've all heard about or seen footage of General David Patraeus' testimony on progress in Iraq.  If you don't know, Patraeus oversees all multi-national forces (Americans, Brits, Polish, Jedi Knights, and the one Kuwaiti troop).  Anyway, as part of a deal to get the White House to be more responsible to the public wondering what happened to that quick 6-week, 50 billion dollar (at most!) victory we were promised, he has to sit in front of cameras and be grilled by angry Democrats.  It makes the Dems feel important and Fox News has footage for weeks.

Unfortunately, Patraeus should not be a military general.  He's more suited to be a life coach, or a motivational speaker.  

When I think of military commanders I get a black and white film strip of some grisly dude who chews on a cigar and says real open and honest things like, "I'd piss on a spark plug if it would do any good" and "I'll put my foot so far up your ass you'll taste the water on my knee."  Yes, my general suffers from mild dementia and it takes him a week to pee, but he's been through the "shit" and has come out the other side tougher and meaner.  His kids are screwed up and his wife is a lonely alcoholic who spends all day shining her husband's war trophies whilst pining  for romantic company in their huge, Victorian house.  

My general went to a week of high school before lying about his age because he no longer could hide his hankering for killing things.

General Patraeus, like Rumsfeld, are not my generals.  They are college-educated salesmen. They're slick politicians who could convince Rosie she's in great shape.  And that's why they're in the wrong position.

Patraeus reported to the nation that things in Iraq are progressing, but "uneven" and that all our gains were unstable.  Are those truly gains?  I mean, if someone gives you a dollar, but threatens to kill you if you spend it, have you really gained a dollar?   But it sounded good.  His use of "uneven" is my favorite.  I see a wild, seismic line scrawled across the paper and if you averaged the peaks and valleys you'd find that "uneven" means "backwards" or "deeper than ever before."   

But Patraeus knows we don't need to know all of those details.  When his new book The Truth About You! becomes a bestseller, he can appear on Oprah and use the same lines on women with ten kids they can't feed.  "You show great commons sense, unstable common sense, but common sense it is!"  And for the sweaty dude with mustard on his tank top, "You beat your wife with an uneven pacifism, but it's pacifism nonetheless!"

And the crowd will cheer and all get free food processors.  

So I don't know how long Patraues will last as general overlord of everything Iraq, but ahead of him he has a career in making people feel better.  There's a whole country of frustrated Americans that could use it.