One stop I left off my road-trip-to-Boston post was the USS Constitution, the oldest commissioned warship afloat in the world. She first set sail in 1797, and during a battle in the War of 1812, she earned her nickname “Old Ironsides” when cannonballs of a British ship bounced off her wooden sides as if they were made of iron.

When I was deciding on road-tripping to Boston, I was browsing the Freedom Trail website. I either didn’t know or had forgotten the Constitution was in Boston, so when I saw on the website I could tour the ship, I was sold on visiting Boston. One of the reasons for my excitement was that I remember in 1997 when she set sail under her own power for the first time in 116 years to mark her 200th anniversary.   Here’s a U.S. Navy photo of the event:

So when I was in Boston, I made certain I visited the ship.

She’s currently undergoing restorations and is missing her masts, hence the shortness:

The guns inside:

Sleeping quarters for the sailors:

The tour guides aboard the Constitution are members of the U.S. Navy.   Their uniforms, which I neglected to photograph, are similar to those worn in 1813.   This is the hat they wear:

The Freedom Trail and the USS Constitution:

Her bow:

The water line:

Aft:

The guns:

The ship, the city, and the sailors:

I will definitely return when the restorations are finished.   What a remarkable, living piece of American history.

This commercial debuted last week and is easily one of the funniest, most intelligent “This Is SportsCenter” commercials yet:

I probably wouldn’t have appreciated it as much had I not recently road-tripped to Boston and been at the Old North Church.

…and why health insurance reform must be coupled with health reform.   Bryan Walsh at TIME discusses the consequences of cheap food and a primary contributor to the problem: corn subsidies.

So what’s wrong with cheap food and cheap meat especially in a world in which more than 1 billion people go hungry? A lot. For one thing, not all food is equally inexpensive; fruits and vegetables don’t receive the same price supports as grains. A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that a dollar could buy 1,200 calories of potato chips or 875 calories of soda but just 250 calories of vegetables or 170 calories of fresh fruit. With the backing of the government, farmers are producing more calories some 500 more per person per day since the 1970s but too many are unhealthy calories. Given that, it’s no surprise we’re so fat; it simply costs too much to be thin.

Later:

How willing are consumers to rethink the way they shop for and eat food? For most people, price will remain the biggest obstacle. Organic food continues to cost on average several times more than its conventional counterparts, and no one goes to farmers’ markets for bargains. But not all costs can be measured by a price tag. Once you factor in crop subsidies, ecological damage and what we pay in health-care bills after our fatty, sugary diet makes us sick, conventionally produced food looks a lot pricier.

Corn subsidies aren’t only making Americans fat and unhealthy, they’re destroying the environment, as Walsh points out in his article.   The chemicals used to fertilize the corn fields in the Midwest wash down the Mississippi River and create what is know as the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone, where oxygen-depleted waters kill-off most or all marine life and drastically alter ecosystems.

Getting health insurance costs down aren’t enough to save us from ourselves.   We must also become better stewards for our health and the health of our planet if we really want reform.

Get your finger ready to scroll because this one’s long!

In keeping up with my master plan of taking a road trip each month, I traveled to Boston, MA for the first time this month. Given my enjoyment of American history, I decided to spend the day walking the Freedom Trail downtown. What a fantastic and historic journey.

View from Boston Common:

Park Street Church:

Massachusetts State House:

Granary Burying Ground:

…home of Samuel Adams:

…Paul Revere:

…and John Hancock:

Pennies were left at each of their graves, but I haven’t found a solid explanation of why:

Here’s Paul again:

The Old South Meeting House:

The Old State House, near the site of the Boston Massacre:

Paul Revere’s house:

The Old North Church, where the two one-if-by-land-two-if-by-sea lanterns were hung, and a statue of Paul “The British Are Coming” Revere:

Inside the church:

For a fee, you could take a guided tour of the Freedom Trail (I didn’t). The tour guides were dressed appropriately:

Battle of Bunker Hill Monument (although technically the battle took place on Breed’s Hill):

294 steps up the monument gets you this view of Boston:

The monument again:

Many streets on the trail were lined with gas lamps. Here’s one with the Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge in the background:

One of things about the Freedom Trail I enjoyed was that the entire trail is marked by a continuous, two-row line of bricks. Following the bricks leads you to all the stops on the trail, and each stop is identified by a bronze marker:

Here, the trail is delineated from a bricked sidewalk:

And here, the trail crosses the road:

And here’s me following the red-brick trail:

I’ve you’ve been on the Freedom Trail, you will have noticed something is missing from my photo essay.   More on that missing something in the next installment.

I was curious where Senator Kennedy ranked on the longest-serving-senator list.   Lucky for me, the U.S. Senate website has a list of the top 25 longest-serving senators (as of 27 August).   He’s #3, but will in October be passed by Senator Inouye of Hawaii.

1. Robert C. Byrd (D-WV): Jan 3, 1959 to present (50 years, 7 months, 25 days)
2. Strom Thurmond (R-SC): Dec 24, 1954 to Apr 4, 1956 and Nov 7, 1956 to Jan 3, 2003 (47 years, 5 months, 17 days)
3. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA): Nov 7, 1962 to Aug 25, 2009 (46 years, 9 months, 19 days)
4. Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI): Jan 3, 1963 to present (46 years, 7 months, 25 days)
5. Carl T. Hayden (D-AZ): Mar 4, 1927 to Jan 3, 1969 (41 years, 9 months, 30 days)

President Obama’s eulogy of Senator Ted Kennedy was personal and poignant.   This mood was set forth from the start:

I, like so many others in the city where he worked for nearly half a century, knew him as a colleague, a mentor, and above all, a friend.

I expected a blend of personal remembrances of Kennedy and a passionate call to continue his work, but the president chose not to bring politics into his eulogy.   He spoke of the man, not the politician:

We cannot know for certain how long we have here. We cannot foresee the trials or misfortunes that will test us along the way. We cannot know God’s plan for us.

What we can do is to live out our lives as best we can with purpose, and love, and joy. We can use each day to show those who are closest to us how much we care about them, and treat others with the kindness and respect that we wish for ourselves. We can learn from our mistakes and grow from our failures. And we can strive at all costs to make a better world, so that someday, if we are blessed with the chance to look back on our time here, we can know that we spent it well; that we made a difference; that our fleeting presence had a lasting impact on the lives of other human beings.

This is how Ted Kennedy lived. This is his legacy. He once said of his brother Bobby that he need not be idealized or enlarged in death because what he was in life, and I imagine he would say the same about himself. The greatest expectations were placed upon Ted Kennedy’s shoulders because of who he was, but he surpassed them all because of who he became. We do not weep for him today because of the prestige attached to his name or his office. We weep because we loved this kind and tender hero who persevered through pain and tragedy not for the sake of ambition or vanity; not for wealth or power; but only for the people and the country that he loved.

Tom Schaller at FiveThirtyEight.com wrote about the big names that were in the U.S. Senate when Senator Ted Kennedy began his career there:

Last night Ted Kennedy left the Senate for good as its liberal lion. But his point of arrival tells us a lot about him, too, for he was trained by, learned from and found great company among a group of pretty amazing senators in Washington when he arrived as a young cub on the scene almost 47 years ago.

I’m watching coverage of Senator Ted Kennedy’s funeral right now, and this image intrigued me:

I don’t know the seating protocols (I’m sure they exist), but these four politicians sitting and talking together was striking to me.   Just a year and some months ago, these politicians were at war with each other, yet here they are together today to honor the senator.

I wasn’t alive during the 1960s when the triumphs and tragedies of the Kennedy family sparked an indelible mark of magic and mystique for the Kennedys on the American psyche.   Ted Kennedy was a link to that generation for my generation.   His death is not just a death of a senator, but an end of an era.

2008 DNC convention tribute to Teddy:

Kennedy delivered the eulogy for his brother Bobby in 1968.   His words could easily be applied to him:

Almost caught-up with my road trip reports. In July, my parents and my dad’s parents came to visit. One of the days they were here, we took a road trip to Newport, RI. Here are a few snaps from the day:

Some Newport architecture:

This street was the first in the U.S. to be lit by gas lamps (according to the sign on the side of the building):

The main drag:

The weather was terrific for nautical activity:

We made our way over to the Cliff Walk, a walking path along the ocean:

On our way home, we stopped in Mystic, CT for dinner.   Looking up the river:

And where did we stop?   Of course our dinner stop had to be:

Looking across the river:

Mystic at dusk:

The tall ship and the church:

With all the talk lately about socialism and socialized medicine, I started thinking.

Thanks to “socialism,” government pays for such horrifically evil things like law-enforcement from the police, fire protection from the fire department, K-12 education from public school systems, higher education from state universities and colleges, Medicare and Social Security, workplace safety standards from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), regulations and highways to drive on from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), GPS satellites from the Department of Defense, public health protections from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), national parks and historical treasures from the National Park Service, aviation regulations from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), weather forecasts from the National Weather Service, technological advancement from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), food safety regulations from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), care and support for veterans from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and a mail service from the U.S. Postal Service.   Oh, and I almost forgot: national defense courtesy of the U.S. Navy, Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard.

But according to detractors, the government paying for a societal improvement like health care would suddenly spiral this nation into socialism.

One can argue the Obama campaign was almost flawless in its execution of message, presentation, and marketing.   They found their message early, stuck with it, and hammered away with it at rivals who often changed messages and strategies.   Then they get to the White House and are tasked with following through on one of their campaign promises: bringing real change to health care.

Now, one can argue that that message and marketing discipline of the campaign has evaporated and the Obama Administration has had difficulty selling their plan.   I suppose one can also argue they don’t have a concrete plan.   Instead, they have goals and have given Congress the job of drafting the plan on achieving those goals.   Surely this is a direct lesson learned from from President Clinton’s failed efforts to bring about health care reform in the 1990s.

But has the Obama Administration gone too far and been too hands-off in this process?   I suppose only history can know for sure.   All I know is that seeing the team that ran such a strong and successful campaign for president now run a seemingly-substandard and struggling campaign for policy change is strange.   During the campaign, every move by Obama seemed measured, calculated, and deliberate and often proved to be advantageous for him.   Is he playing the same game and biding his time?   Sacrificing some battles to win the war?   Perhaps.

I’m not the only one wondering this.   Jon Stewart talked about this this week (skip ahead to around the 3:05 mark for the meat of this):

Via AmericaBlog, I discovered this article on Daily Kos by George Lakoff, a professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley.   In the very long article, Lakoff discusses the missteps of the administration and offers some suggestions to win the war:

Insurance company plans have failed to care for our people. They profit from denying care. Americans care about one another. An American plan is both the moral and practical alternative to provide care for our people.

The insurance companies are doing their worst, spreading lies in an attempt to maintain their profits and keep Americans from getting the care they so desperately need. You, our citizens, must be the heroes. Stand up, and speak up, for an American plan.

Language

As for language, the term “public option” is boring. Yes, it is public, and yes, it is an option, but it does not get to the moral and inspiring idea. Call it the American Plan, because that’s what it really is.

The American Plan. Health care is a patriotic issue. It is what your countrymen are engaged in because Americans care about each other. The right wing understands this well. It’s got conservative veterans at Town Hall meeting shouting things like, “I fought for this country in Vietnam, and I’m fight for it here.” Progressives should be stressing the patriotic nature of having our nation guaranteeing care for our people.

A Health Care Emergency. Americans are suffering and dying because of the failure of insurance company health care. 50 million have no insurance at all, and millions of those who do are denied necessary care or lose their insurance. We can’t wait any longer. It’s an emergency. We have to act now to end the suffering and death.

Doctor-Patient care. This is what the public plan is really about. Call it that. You have said it, buried in PolicySpeak. Use the slogan. Repeat it. Have every spokesperson repeat it.

Coverage is not care. You think you’re insured. You very well may not be, because insurance companies make money by denying you care.

Deny you care… Use the words. That’s what all the paperwork and administrative costs of insurance companies are about – denying you care if they can.
Insurance company profit-based plans. The bottom line is the bottom line for insurance companies. Say it.

Private Taxation. Insurance companies have the power to tax and they tax the public mightily. When 20% – 30% of payments do not go to health care, but to denying care and profiting from it, that constitutes a tax on the 96% of voters that have health care. But the tax does not go to benefit those who are taxed; it benefits managers and investors. And the people taxed have no representation. Insurance company health care is a huge example of taxation without representation. And you can’t vote out the people who have taxed you. The American Plan offers an alternative to private taxation.

Is it time for progressive tea parties at insurance company offices?

Doctors care; insurance companies don’t. A public plan aims to put care back into the hands of doctors.

Insurance company bureaucrats.   Obama mentions them, but there is no consistent uproar about them. The term needs to come into common parlance.

Insurance companies ration care. Say it and ask the right questions: Have you ever had to wait more than a week for an authorization? Have you ever had an authorization turned down? Have you had to wait months to see a specialist? Does you primary care physician have to rush you through? Have your out-of-pocket costs gone up? Ask these questions. You know the answers. It’s because insurance companies have been rationing care. Say it.

Insurance companies are inefficient and wasteful. A large chunk of your health care dollar is not going for health care when you buy from insurance companies.
Insurance companies govern your lives. They have more power over you than even governments have. They make life and death decisions. And they are accountable only to profit, not to citizens.

The health care failure is an insurance company failure. Why keep a failing system? Augment it. Give an alternative.

The debate in the coming months after Congress returns from its recess should be very interesting.   The question remains, though: will the Obama Administration return to its campaign roots and commandingly drive home its message of health care reform?   Or will they allow others to drive the message and derail the entire process again?   Obama the candidate would know what to do.   Will Obama the president?

This isn’t new, but I think it’s brilliant. Jonathan Jarvis is responsible for this tremendous motion graphics information graphic titled “The Crisis of Credit” in which he explains the underlying reasons for the credit crisis with simple, slick, and stunning visuals and animations. He writes:

The goal of giving form to a complex situation like the credit crisis is to quickly supply the essence of the situation to those unfamiliar and uninitiated. This project was completed as part of my thesis work in the Media Design Program, a graduate studio at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

“The Short and Simple Story of the Credit Crisis”:

Here’s another fantastic motion graphics piece by Jarvis:

The New Mediators is a design practice that helps to clarify complicated situations. By designing graphic language systems that function across print, video, interactive and performance formats, it proposes a new role for designers and a new approach to transparency in an increasingly complex world.

New Mediators are practitioners who combine methods from design, journalism, and narrative analysis. The result is designed transparency information that is not only made available, but accessible, relevant and beautiful.

This introductory animation attempts the method advocated by the New Mediators to explain the project itself.

The New Mediators:

A central problem with the debate about health care reform is the many, many misinformed or under-informed people that are leading the charge against any civilized debate about the matter.   Likely in response to a story like this:

In other pockets of the state, the reaction to Democratic proposals has been strong, too. At a recent town-hall meeting in suburban Simpsonville, a man stood up and told Rep. Robert Inglis (R-S.C.) to “keep your government hands off my Medicare.”

“I had to politely explain that, ‘Actually, sir, your health care is being provided by the government,’ ” Inglis recalled. “But he wasn’t having any of it.”

…Public Policy Polling recently released a poll [PDF] that included this question:

Do you think the government
should stay out of Medicare?

The response?

Yes: 39%
No: 46%
Not sure: 15%

A staggering 54% of respondents were unable to accurately identify the question as something of a farce.   But because of this either misinformation or under-information, an intellectual debate over health care reform cannot take place.   In this factual-information vacuum, the White House should be leading the charge to educate the masses, but that leadership seems lacking as of late.

(Nod: ThinkProgress)

(Nod: DA)

A very slick motion graphics piece by Fairly Painless Advertising and Imaginary Forces for careers at Herman Miller:

(Nod: Motionographer)

Wired this week reported this interesting story:

Premier Election Solutions, formerly Diebold, has patched a serious security weakness in its election tabulation software used in the majority of states, according to a lab that tested the new version and a federal commission that certified it.

The flaw in the tabulation software was discovered by Wired.com earlier this year, and involved the program’s auditing logs. The logs failed to record significant events occurring on a computer running the software, including the act of someone deleting votes during or after an election. The logs also failed to record who performed an action on the system, and listed some events with the wrong date and timestamps.

A new version of the software does record such events, and includes other security safeguards that would prevent the system from operating if the event log were somehow shut down, according to iBeta Quality Assurance, the Colorado testing lab that examined the software for the federal government.

I am continuously baffled as to why Direct Electronic Recording (DRE) machines aka electronic voting machines are permitted for use in elections.   Their track record is awful.   Read this nice Wikipedia summary of security issues regarding Diebold’s Premier Election Solutions’s machines.

If you’re really up for some reading, check out these reports that all clearly illustrate why electronic voting machines should not be used until overhauls can be made to these machines’ glaring security issues:

• the Hopkins report from July 2003: http://avirubin.com/vote.pdf
• the State-of-Maryland-commissioned RABA report from January 2004: http://mlis.state.md.us/other/voting_system/Trusted_Agent_Report.pdf
• the State-of-California-commissioned report from February 2006: http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/voting_systems/security_analysis_of_the_diebold_accubasic_interpreter.pdf
• the Princeton report from September 2006: http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/ts-paper.pdf
• the State-of-Ohio-commissioned EVEREST report from December 2007: http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/upload/everest/00-SecretarysEVERESTExecutiveReport.pdf

I guarantee you will be disgusted after reading those reports.   Manufacturers of these machines as well as the complicit federal government seem not to care that results of elections can be so easily hacked and stolen.

The idea of electronic voting machines is great.   We live in the digital age.   We live by digital devices every day, from cell phones, to computers, to ATMs.   Yet we can’t perfect a device that, if it fails, has the capacity to a) change the course of history, b) render the democratic process moot, and c) undermine citizenry trust of the entire system of government if indeed an election is hacked and stolen.

Perhaps I’m missing something, but the solution seems incredibly simple.   First, these machines should be built exactly to specifications defined by the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), established in 2002 by the Help America Vote Act after the infamous Florida recount debacle, and a team of voting and IT security experts.   Much like the Pentagon orders Boeing or Lockheed Martin to build fighter jets to exact specifications, the EAC should dictate how machines are designed and built and how they function.

Second, testing should be paid for by the EAC, not the manufacturers of the devices.   Currently, the devices are sent to private testing labs, and the manufacturers foot the bill.   Does this not seem like a potential conflict of interest to anyone else?

Third, they must, must, must have a verifiable paper trail.   You use an ATM, you get a receipt.   You pay a bill online, you get a receipt.   You use an electronic voting machine, you likely don’t get anything to verify what just happened.   In the event of irregularities, without a verifiable paper trail, there is no mechanism to check the results of the election, so what happened happened.   Period.   End of story.

The flagrant disregard for adequate premier security standards is a punch in the gut and a stab in the back to the democratic process by private corporations more interested in making money and a federal government more interested in looking the other way.   Progress is being made, but not nearly as quickly and as comprehensively as it should.

Now THIS is good news!   The much-anticipated and much-needed Facebook 3.0 iPhone app has been submitted to Apple by developer Joe Hewitt.   TechCrunch notes:

Facebook has submitted v. 3.0 of their iPhone application to Apple, Joe Hewitt says via Twitter: “Just uploaded Facebook for iPhone 3.0 to the App Store for review. :)”

Hewitt also says he’ll post screen shots and more detais on this Facebook page for the iPhone app next week, and that he’s looking forward to getting started on v. 3.1 tomorrow.

Previously, TechCrunch reported Hewitt posted this list of new features:

1. The “new” News Feed
2. Like
3. Events (including the ability to RSVP)
4. Notes
5. Pages
6. Create new photo albums
7. Upload photos to any album
8. Zoom into photos
9. Easier photo tagging
10. Profile Pictures albums
11. A new home screen for easy access to all your stuff, search, and notifications
12. Add your favorite profiles and pages to the home screen
13. Better Notifications (they link to the comments so you can reply)
14. Quickly call or text people right from the Friends page
15. Messages you are typing will be restored if you quit or are interrupted by a phone call

For avid users of Facebook (Joe = guilty), having features currently available on the web-version of the site soon-to-be-available on the iPhone-version of the site is a huge victory for usability and consistency.   Woo!

(Nod: Just Another iPhone Blog)

I’m a few months behind on posting photos from my monthly road trips.   To start the getting-up-to-date process, here are some photos from my road trip in May to Hartford, Connecticut’s capital city. Since I moved to CT last April, I had never visited Hartford, so in May I decided to take the 15-minute drive and walk around the city.

The Connecticut State House:

A city dweller in Bushnell Park:

The Bushnell Carousel:

Pollinating:

State house dome:

The Travelers Tower in reflection:

A grandchild of the original Charter Oak, which you’ve likely seen on the reverse of the CT state quarter:

Along the Connecticut River is the River Walk, a nice walking path:

The Founders Bridge is one of the bridges that go over the path:

The trees were producing tree fluff:

Looking back on the city:

Just as I was returning to my car, the clouds started precipitating:

The OpenCongress blog has a terrific post on debunking five lies concerning the health care legislation moving through Congress.   In this all-out war being waged by opponents of health care reform, knowing the facts and fighting lies with truth is imperative.   Here’s one on their list:

Lie #1: The Health Care bill would set up government death panels

This lie has been widely circulated over email and in blog posts, recently and most prominently by Sarah Palin, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and others. Their claim is that language in the bill relating to “advance care planning consultations” would set up mandatory meetings in which government “death panels” would force senior citizens and others to sign some sort of early death pact. In reality, the bill language seeks to require Medicare to cover the cost of counseling sessions with doctors on end-of-life issues if a person chooses to have one. Currently, these kinds of sessions aren’t covered by Medicare, and people without extra money often can’t afford to have them.

Read the actual provision on end-of-life counseling in the official bill text

Here’s an interview with Republican Sen. John Isakson of Georgia, the lawmaker who has been pushing hardest over the years to get this passed. He calls Palin’s comment “nuts” that her “baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s death panel,” and says the provision is about giving people the authority to decide if they want an end-of-life consultation. “It empowers you to be able to make decisions at a difficult time rather than having the government making them for you.”

Unfortunately for those who would benefit from this provision, it has been dropped by the Senate Finance Committee who no doubt caved to the venomous misinformation.

Check out this terrific set of motion graphics pieces for Toshiba.

(Nod: Motionographer)

ComingSoon.net is reporting Warner Bros. is developing a Lego movie:

Dan and Kevin Hageman are writing the script for the family comedy that will mix live action and animation. The studio is keeping the plot tightly under wraps, but it’s described as an action adventure set in a LEGO world.

Interesting.   Who said Hollywood is running out of ideas?

And here’s this, just because:

A nice illustration/animation piece with an interesting message (check the subtitles):

(Nod: Motionographer)

The so-called “debate” about health care reform is not a debate, and is not anything like a debate.   A debate is:

a discussion, as of a public question in an assembly, involving opposing viewpoints

What we’ve been seeing are no discussions.   Instead, what we’ve been seeing are near-riots incited by smear-and-fear politics aimed not at achieving a particular type of health care reform but instead absolutely no health care reform.

Let’s start with the video.   From CBS News:

Here’s Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL) trying to hold a town hall forum in Tampa:

Another angle:

Here’s Rep. John Dingle (D-MI) trying to hold a town hall forum in Troy:

As Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) was trying to speak with constituents, a mob followed him around yelling “just say no”:

Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY) had to be escorted to his car by police after protesters got out of control.

Protesters hung an effigy of Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-MD) outside his district office.

An attendee at a town hall of Rep. Gabrielle Gifford (D-AZ) dropped a gun and the police were called for safety concerns.

Some protesters have brought Nazi references to protests.

If left unchecked, this level of hatred brewing has the potential to boil over and produce despicable consequences.

Is this a true grassroots opposition to health care reform?   No.   Rachel Maddow explains:

In the end, a few things seem clear to me:

There is no proposed “government takeover” of health care. There is merely a government-run public option being proposed to compete against the established health care insurance corporations.   You like your health care option you have now?   Great!   Keep it!   You want another option that may cost less and allow you to be covered even with pre-existing conditions?   Great!   There would be an option for that, too.   This is the debate: having options, having choices, saving money, saving lives.

Those who argue a government bureaucrat will stand between them and their doctor miss the point and the irony of their argument.   There already is a bureaucrat between them and their doctor: an insurance corporation. The difference between the two, though, is that the insurance corporation bureaucrat cares more about turning a profit than he does making sure you get the care you need at affordable prices.   Corporations are out for profit.   That’s what they do.

Government already runs health care. It’s called Medicare.   You don’t hear anyone demonizing Medicare.   Why?   Because it’s popular.   Seems to me, then, we have a working, satisfying government-run health care program already.

The health care problem is about three types of people: those without health care insurance, those with coverage but are under-insured, and those who cannot sustain the financial costs of their insurance plans.   Real health care reform must cover all three groups.

Those who argue people who have no health insurance still have access to health care via an emergency room overlook the cost and, again, the irony. The costs of emergency room visits are exorbitantly higher than the costs of long-term preventative care through regular visits to doctors.   The irony comes in because this, like Medicare, is also socialized medicine because the public foots the bill for those who can’t afford to pay for their emergency room visits (fact sheet from the National Coalition on Health Care).

People in states that are net beneficiaries of the federal government and receive more federal money than what they pay should think twice about castigating the federal government for not being able to do something right.   If these people find so much fault with the federal government that they think it couldn’t run a health care insurance option, perhaps they should lobby their politicians to stop allowing their state to accept federal dollars.   According to the Tax Foundation in 2005 (most recent available data), Mississippi received $2.02 in federal spending for every $1.00 of federal taxes spent.   The liberal elite in Connecticut, though, received $0.69 for every $1.00 spent.   Curious that states with higher populations of people that argue for a smaller federal government are those that need the federal government more. (Thanks, Charlie, for pointing this out to me).

Finally, those who call themselves Christians should must believe providing health care for all is a moral imperative.   Jesus taught Christians to love their neighbors as themselves.   Isn’t ensuring everyone has adequate coverage doing what Jesus would have done?   Caring for the sick and the poor?   So if any of you protesters call yourselves Christians, think about what it means before you argue against health care for all.

My point is this: health care is a serious issue we face today.   Costs keep rising; people can’t afford coverage or are denied or dropped because of so-called pre-existing conditions.   What we need is real debate: how do we cover everyone, how do we pay for it, etc.   Instead of these intellectual conversations, the health care debate has devolved into a neanderthalistic competition on who can shout-down and disrupt the most number of democracy-serving town hall meetings that aim to spur information sharing and gathering.

These organized riots are as sick as the current unsustainable health care situation in this country.   We can do better.   And we must do better.