Bleak Friday? Not this year....

Along with millions of Americans, I was out among the crowds at the mall yesterday, celebrating the nation's obsession with shopping on what is one of the biggest spending days of the year, the so called Black Friday. This is not in commemoration of the Black Widow Spider, who mates then kills off the evidence before he can kiss and tell. Black Friday refers to the legend that most retailers finally become solvent for the year on that day.

Although, come to think of it, the voracious appetite of consumers may have some similarities.... Thankfully, there were no reported deaths this year. I guess that's something, anyway.

While it may not be true that this is the first time they are solvent, there is no doubt that most retailers depend on the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas to pump their profits. They certainly depend on the sales from the holiday season to provide them with enough working capital to make it through the early months of the next year when shoppers, having gorged themselves on mostly superfluous merchandise, refuse to buy much more of it.

If you, like me, have no money, it makes the whole day a lot easier, since you do not have to rush out at 3 a.m. to get to the store to stand in line for the two items that you are looking for which are only available in the moments between 5:42 and 6:01 a.m. For which, it should be noted, you will then have to stand in line for an hour to pay.

I pretty much walked from store to store, looking at everything I not only cannot afford, but actually do not need, either, which is sort of an interesting realization. Being poor is, among other things, very clarifying, as you are forced to recognize the difference between needs and wants. That divide is crystal clear when the bank account is approaching zero.

I did notice this year that more shoppers were carrying bags and boxes, which should put a smile on the faces of stockholders receiving their dividend checks from the retailers who have survived this past year of belt tightening. Of course, the discounts were already deep, and the sales in full swing. Makes me wonder what will be left for the Saturday before Christmas, which is, in fact, the actual biggest shopping day of the year.

I have noticed the sales techniques have gotten a lot more innovative [mercenary] this year, as retailers work hard to induce customers to part with a little more of their precious cash. I saw a lot of sales tied to making a bigger purchase than originally intended; for example, buy one, get one for half price. It encourages you to buy two to get the sale price, the promise of savings working your subconscious like the massage therapists suddenly lining the mall hallways.

[Is it just me, or is it a little weird to be sitting in the mall getting your back rubbed and your teeth whitened in full view of the whole world? If I wanted people to see my gums, I would smile more.]

This is very creative marketing. The retailer has just gotten 150% on the sale, instead of simply marking each item down to 75% of the usual cost, which would land you in the same place if you bought two, but no one ever does.

Survival of the fittest, indeed. It is a jungle out there, and I am watching out for the teeth hidden behind the smiles of the cute little sales "associates" who are hawking the wares of their employers for $7.50 an hour. [Have you noticed how no one employs clerks any more? They are associates, partners, cast members - anything but sales clerks. Do they really think that, whatever you are calling them, sales people don't know a minimum wage job does not earn your name on the left side of the letterhead?]

One retailer I visited took that tactic a step further, requiring a purchase of two same priced items to get two free. I thought about it, because I really wanted one, but realized, ultimately, that I didn't need four, and didn't have the money to pay for two, either. [Actually, as it is a fairly spendy item to begin with, I didn't even really need one, so two was pretty much out of the question.]

Call it my little strike for the consumer, as I refused to play by the increasingly hardball rules of mega-corporations who want to part me from my money for baubles and trinkets no one, especially me, really needs. If only I had my own flag, we could start a facebook group and you could all be my fans. Of course, that assumes that you agree with me that it is a slippery slope, this whole buy one/get one trend.

Ultimately, I did come home with a few things that I really needed, including new shoes for work. (Buy one, get one 50% off, so naturally I bought two pair. Hey, they were on sale, so it was a real bargain, second pair almost free.) You have to look professional for these meetings, and I realized when dressing for the last one, that I am sorely in need. Seriously.

I bought a Christmas gift for my mom, which was at reduced price [once I renewed my discount card for the annual fee.]

I bought stamps for my Christmas cards. No sales there at all. On the contrary, I am surprised they didn't raise some extra funds by charging more for them. I guess they haven't thought of that yet. Rats. I should keep my mouth shut and not give them any ideas.

I bought a very expensive bag of dog food at the pet store, along with yet another cheap $2 toy that my Jack Russel Terrier will have fun destroying, just as soon as he gets his teeth on it. Call me Mommy Warbucks.

The best part of the day, for me, was spending the time with my lovely daughter, without whom life would be bleak indeed. Any day that includes spending time with her is a day that my life account is in the black with the only kind of capital that really matters.

I think spending time with your female relatives is the most compelling reason for Black Friday, and a lot of other people must agree, if the matching faces I saw walking the mall were any indication. It is always entertaining to see the same faces, youthful and maturing, and to know that the generations continue to find ways to connect, even if it's hunting for just the right pair of shoes, instead of hunting for food or shelter.

By the victorious smiles on many of the faces, and the bags swinging from arms on all sides, I think Black Friday was, indeed, a success this year. Whether you are shopping for presents, or groceries, or just spending time with your family doing traditional activities, I wish you the remaining holiday weekend hours to be spent in the joy of your family, doing whatever your own traditions lead you to do.

Happy holidays to each one of my faithful readers. I am thankful for each one who encourages me in my pursuit of perfect prose - it is very important to me, and has often propelled me to write my weekly post when I otherwise would not have done so. For each one who has asked me to publish my better offerings in a book, I thank you for the delicious compliment. However, unless my blog goes viral, there is a pretty limited audience for my collected wisdom, such as it is, so don't be looking for it on a store shelf near you any time soon! [Dollar Tree, anyone?!]

Happy Black Weekend, and here's hoping that whatever bleak things you are holding in your heart will be washed away with the joy of the holiday season now underway. I will leave you with one of my favorite verses from the Word of the Lord and Saviour I celebrate in the Holy Season of Christmas: " The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace." Numbers 6:24-26. NIV

Happy birthday, Mother of all Mothers....

Do you remember a few years ago, when the phrase, "Mother of all [fill in the blank with your own grandiose phrase,]" was so popular? We had the Mother of all wars. We had the Mother of all battles. We had the Mother of all bombs. Personally, speaking on behalf of mothers everywhere, I resent the association of motherhood with violence and destruction, since most of us spend our lives trying to achieve the opposite, at least within our own homes. However, today I find I must resurrect the phrase on behalf of my own mother, who is the Mother of all Mothers.

Today is her birthday, and I am celebrating with her, albeit from 425 miles away, the anniversary of the day that she graced the world with her presence. I don't know how you feel about your mom, but I love mine more than I can express, and I celebrate this day with great joy, because my mom is the best mom on earth.

Of course, as the offspring of child number five in her family of six, I have also had the opportunity to hear a few humorous stories that knock her right off that pedestal my brother has her on. [He always was her favorite, the suck up.]

My mother's family lived a relatively poor farming life, as most of the population did back in the days of The Great Depression, and they learned to make do or do without. They didn't starve, but they didn't have much spare change, either, so they were not awash in useless gewgaws like children today.

My mother learned to share from her earliest days, because she and her younger sister, child number six, were only 18 months apart. They shared a bed, they shared their toys, they shared their clothes, and they shared their friends. They even shared the family looks, as people have often mixed them up over the years.

My particular favorite sharing story is that they each had one "good" dress, which they would trade off wearing, so they would both feel like they had two. Given the closet full of clothes that most teenagers have now, it is hard to imagine only having two good dresses to wear. But I suspect they were happier to have their one apiece than most girls today are to have all their finery.

Another shared item that has given me some amusement over the years are the shared roller skates. They had one pair of skates between them, so they would either have to go one at a time, or, as I have heard it told, they would each wear one, hold hands, and skate together. I have a feeling that is why my aunt can always finish my mother's thoughts, even when Mom hasn't said a word.

My mom and my aunt also shared that most precious of toys in a little girl's world, a baby doll. When I was growing up, I got a doll almost every Christmas, which must have seemed like an embarrassment of riches to someone who only had half a doll to her name for a whole childhood.

Although money was tight, she made me a whole wardrobe of clothes for my dolls; little knitted Barbie dresses and ski outfits and long gowns with hand stitching, and baby doll capes and blouses and little skirts with adorable suspenders. The poverty of her youth inspired the creativity of her adulthood, and I was the fortunate recipient of her largess.

I didn't fully appreciate any of it at the time, of course, but I now cherish and hold every piece dear to my heart. Every stitch was filled with the love of giving her daughter something she never had, and I feel her love for me just holding the pieces in my hand. They are heirlooms to me, something that I will look forward to passing down to my grandchildren someday. I hope they will be a tangible reminder of the wealth of love that is to be found within their family circle, even if the woman who made them is no longer here to enjoy their delight.

My mom is perhaps the quietest of her siblings, some of whom are pretty chatty. Even now, in their 80's and 90's, I will occasionally see frustration written on her face as she tries to get a word in edgewise, usually without much success. I have been told by several aunts and uncles that my mom was daddy's girl, her father's favorite, and that she used to sit in his lap after supper almost every evening. I suspect that her talkative father appreciated the child who never had anything to say, and she was rewarded for always letting him have the last word with his special favor.

My mother was, and still is, a beautiful woman. It is sort of disconcerting to see pictures of her when she was young, and realize just how striking she was. Her black hair and red lipstick always remind me of a hard scrabble Snow White, a farm house for her castle, and a farmer her Prince Charming. She didn't have the money to dress to the height of fashion, but she always made whatever she wore look stylish and fashionable, just by putting it on.

My mother put the capital T in thrifty, and she worked hard to instill that same quality in her children. Apparently my brother was a better student, which might have something to do with that whole favorite thing, although my recent crash course may make her proud of me, yet.

She saves pretty much everything worth saving, and a whole lot of stuff that most people wouldn't, just in case. After all, you never know what you are going to need until you need it. I am sure this proclivity is partly from growing up on a farm in rural America, where you did for yourself or you did without, and partly from being a child of The Great Depression, where everyone did without, and they never want to do so again.

I have giggled more than once over the years about walking into her kitchen and seeing plastic bread bags hanging over the faucet to dry. She has the world's largest collection of twist ties, and more paper clips than she will use in a lifetime. She has every single pen that has ever come into her possession, whether they work or not. Some of those pens are probably collector's items by now, come to think of it, so perhaps she was not so silly after all!

My mother was born many years before John F. Kennedy was assassinated, but for most people, this day, November 22, will forever be the day that the world stopped and mourned the death of an American president. But for me, this is one of the happiest days of the year, because it is the day to celebrate a woman without whom my life would not be.

Her lasting legacy to me will not be riches or fame or material goods. [Although there is a certain rocking chair that has my name on it, whenever she is ready to give it up.] Instead, she will leave me with the extravagant love of a mother who has walked hand in hand with me when I wanted to quit, knows my mistakes and loves me anyway, and who unfailingly supports me, encourages me, and believes in me, even when I have given up on myself. She has given me the road map to be the best mother I can be, a gift I hope I have passed on to my children, as well.

Happy birthday, Mom of moms. You are, and will always be, the Mother of all mothers. I am thankful to call you my own, and I wish you many more to come. <3

If cleanliness is next to Godliness, I'm in big trouble....

I have come to believe, as I grow to maturity, that house cleaning is something that is less important to each generation. I find that rather ironic, since people with dirt floors presumably had a harder time keeping up with the cleaning than those of us with hardwoods and carpeting. But I can't lie - I wouldn't bet against the dirt floor being cleaner than my living room wall to wall.

It amuses me to hear my mother sigh occasionally, and lament that her mother was so much better of a housekeeper than she is. Naturally, my mother, a paragon of virtues if ever there was one, is a far more diligent housekeeper than I ever have been or could be. My recollection, from growing up with her, is that she spent her entire life cleaning and cooking, and had no fun whatsoever.

I suspect she would disagree with that characterization, since she occasionally remarks that she cannot keep up with the housework now, and she lives alone. Surely the house was messier than I remember it, back when I was young.

I know one thing for sure, I haven't got a chance of keeping up with two kids, a multitude of friends, two dogs, a cat and the messiest pets of all, a rabbit and a bird. You have to wonder if making a mess is their way of getting back at us for confining them to a lifetime of living in a cage.

In all fairness, I should probably mention that my own mother had to cope with two kids, a multitude of friends, two dogs in the house, a cat, and a bird. Um, ya, moving on....

Every so often, I get inspired to clean up the house, and I will go into a frenzy of efficiency, washing and vacuuming and dusting and sweeping, until we scarcely recognize the place. This is soon replaced by an exhausted me, laid out on the sofa, complaining bitterly about the futility of it all, and snacking on chocolate.

I have identified one major source of my problem to be my beloved, but rather neatness challenged, daughter. She has no real love of a clean house, and mess does not seem to disturb her, as long as it isn't in her own room, which she keeps immaculate. This miracle is primarily achieved by moving everything that would clutter up her room into some other room in the house, thereby foisting her disarray onto everyone else.

I can't argue with the success of her strategy - her room is, in fact, the neatest spot in the house by a long ways. On the other hand, it does create quite the challenge for the rest of us keeping things neat and put away when they are located everywhere other than where they belong.

It will be most interesting to see what happens next fall, when my lovely little girl will leave home and I will have the house all to myself. [And the aforementioned two dogs, cat, bird, and rabbit, of course.] I wonder, will I find myself with a neat space all the time? Will it be much easier to keep up with the cleaning, and the vacuuming, and the other housework that I currently find so abhorrent?

An amusing anecdote from my own past says perhaps it will be, just a little. When I went away to college, my own mother, a single mom since my father's death a few years earlier, lived alone for the first time in her life. She was sad, and missed me greatly [she did, she told me so,] especially during the first few months of adjustment.

Evidently, she even started to miss my mess. I know this, because she informed me, in one of the sweeter letters I've ever received, that she actually went to my room to get some of my things, then laid them around the house to remind her of me. That, my friends, is when you know you are truly loved.

I have a hard time imagining myself doing that - I have complained about the mess for approximately 17 years now. But perhaps, in another goofy twist of fate, I too, will find myself laying about little reminders of the life I once led and didn't adequately appreciate until it was over. You never know. Quite often the impossible becomes possible, with the right incentive. And loneliness is powerful incentive.

My grandmother, mother of six, farm wife, and obviously a hard worker, [and, I'm told, one of the sweetest people who ever walked the earth, although I never met her, since she died long before I was born,] kept her house and children in excellent order most of the time. But once a year, in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, she exceeded even her usual high standards. The harbinger of change was when she took down every curtain in the house right after Thanksgiving, a signal that it was time for the annual fall housecleaning.

Now, when I say cleaning, I mean just that - she Cleaned. She washed floors. She flipped mattresses. She washed the mop boards, washed the curtains, washed all the bedding and the tablecloths and everything else in the house that didn't move, along with quite a bit of it that did. By Christmas Eve, the house was spotless, spic and span down to the last doorknob and floor plank, and then she would reconstruct the house again in time for the festivities.

My mother has a particularly fond memory of her mother pulling a brand new tablecloth from the package, the final touch in refreshing their home for the sacred celebration. She remembers helping her mother with the cleaning and preparations, and also the fun of seeing everything put back into place, everything old and yet once again new, their home in readiness for the new year to come.

My mom made a valiant effort for many years to follow the same tradition, but somewhere along the line, she learned some short cuts. I do recollect, quite clearly, her stretcher frame set up in the dining room, with the freshly washed curtains stretched out on it to dry, so they wouldn't shrink. But I don't recall them being off the windows for a month, so I'm pretty sure they got replaced well before Christmas Eve.

Come to think of it, I haven't seen that stretcher frame in years.

My own Thanksgiving traditions have little to do with cleaning, although they do involve a massive effort on my part. After I get the turkey into the oven, I get my Christmas cards in the mail. [I set a rule for myself many years ago which has served me well - I will not allow myself to put up a single Christmas decoration until the cards have been mailed.] Once the cards are in the mail, and driving to the post office to throw them into the box on Thanksgiving Day is a cherished tradition in my family, I can heave a sigh of relief, and go home to decorate for the holiday season looming over me.

There is no time for cleaning, it is a race to the finish line as we all frantically throw our decorations in their traditional place, and then spend the rest of the month tearing around to open houses and office parties. We go on a spree of gift buying that determines whether most retail stores will end the year in the black or the red, and if they will survive for another year. Not to mention our own financial status, but we are not supposed to worry now about how we can pay for it all later, because shopping is the American Way to prosperity, even if it causes us to go bankrupt. I suspect my grandmother would have been most confused at our interpretation of what the Christmas holiday has become, with the hustle and bustle of materialism all but eclipsing the Savior whose birth we are ostensibly celebrating.

Instead of hysterical shopping on Black Friday, my grandmother engaged in her frenzy of cleaning. I have developed my own post-Thanksgiving cleaning traditions, which complement those of my mother and grandmother. [This is what I tell myself, to justify my own lack of preparedness for the holiday that comes around every 365 days like calendar work, but which still manages to take me by surprise every single time.]

I wait for my mother, who lives in Minnesota, to arrive for her annual two week visit, and then assign her the task of trying to get my filthy house clean enough to pass for holiday ready. I would posit that she needs to keep busy, or she gets bored, but of course, I don't think it would shock her to learn I simply don't have time to get it done in my hectic life.

I think it's safe to say, now that I am almost middle aged, that I do not keep the kind of house that my own mother did, to say nothing of my grandmother. I have other priorities, like working. [Of course, the nagging voice in my head reminds me that my mother also worked, and still managed to keep the house cleaner than I do. But I don't listen to little voices in my head, because that would make me crazy, right?]

I would love to have the time to tear my entire house apart and do a thorough cleaning, from floor to rafters. Instead, I shove my Swiffer WetJet around the kitchen floor in a frantic effort to pretend I really care, in between baking cookies and buying gifts, hoping that the memories we are making will count for more than a clean floor or washed walls. I wonder what Grandma would have thought of a Swiffer? I have a feeling she would have felt the same way I feel about spell check - it's nice to have, but it makes us lazy, and I don't think she would have approved.

I find myself pondering with interest what kind of housekeeper my daughter will be. Since the standards seem to fall with each generation, I fear my grandchildren will recognize hand sanitizer, but not know what a mop is. But then again, that would mean they would think my standards were impossibly high. It's all about perspective, and that is one I can live with.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Senate speak

As an insurance agent who works in the field of health insurance, among other things, I get asked quite frequently what I think of the current health reform proposals being bandied about by Congress, and the general public. I don't generally give an answer; after all, as an agent, I do have my responsibilities to the companies I represent, as well as needing the job, and not really anxious to lose my license.

However, speaking only for myself, on a personal level, I have found the new arena for the health care debate, the US Senate, to have an interesting language all it's own. [Disclaimer here - I am speaking ONLY on behalf of myself. My views do not represent those of my boss, any of the insurance companies I currently represent, or probably a fair number of my clients. I am speaking as a private citizen with a constitutional right to my own opinion, with no special inside information or insight. I know exactly what every other citizen does; what is on the news.]

$127 billion dollar savings: Over ten years, they are saying that their plan will save $127 billion dollars to the US economy. I could be wrong here, but my understanding is that this is new spending by the government, not a shift from current expenditures. Leaving out the fact that, last I heard, they have included no cost increases in any goods or services rendered during that ten year period for their own plan, while estimating those costs as worst case scenario for the existing situation, I have never been able to wrap my mind around the government contention that spending money somehow equates to savings, as long as they didn't spend as much as they could have.

I find that sort of accounting fascinating, especially given my own recent IRS audit, in which, if everything didn't work out to the penny, I was on the hook for whatever they said I should have claimed as income. I should have tried out the argument that I was amortizing over ten years, just like the US Congress. On the other hand, had I done that, I might be writing this from jail, so perhaps it's just as well I didn't try.

31 million new insureds: Doing some oversimplified math, it seems we are spending $837 billion to insure 31 million current uninsureds. That works out to roughly $27,387 per uninsured person. I'm wondering whether or not this is a good use of our tax dollars. I think it's a question worth asking, at least.

Taxing so called Cadillac plans to raise money to pay for this: Hm, presumably those currently enjoying the Cadillac plans have developed some type of intelligence to put themselves in a position where they can afford such plans. I'm thinking that as soon as they are penalized for providing them, they will be smart enough to stop providing them, and will ensure that their new plan falls just under the guideline. And poof, the whole however many billion dollars that they are counting on to fund this plan from this source will be gone. Then what? I wonder who they will tax to make up the difference?

Of course, that is not to even mention that most of those high cost plans are a result of medical rating on a group, and if they are no longer taking medical conditions into account, those rates will no longer exist. But perhaps I shouldn't have noticed that, either, since the insurance companies have been cast as the villian of the piece.

Penalizing employers for not providing insurance: The most recent figures I saw were that employers would be penalized to the tune of about $750 per employee for not providing a minimal insurance plan. Have they ever talked to any employer, insurance agent, or insurer? Because that is still going to be less than the cost of providing an insurance plan for their employees, especially if they remove the tax deduction at the same time, which is an idea I have seen floating around out there.

The other brilliant scheme I have seen is allowing the employer to keep the tax deduction, but then taxing the employee for the cost of the benefit provided. Brilliant way to ensure that even less people will be insured, since employees will then have to pay out of pocket for something that is already provided tax free, and they already have a hard time affording it. All I have to say is, huh?

Penalizing people for not carrying insurance: The penalty I have seen was $350. If you are a family, that is probably one month's worth of premium. Do the math. Again, huh? And as to the argument that it works for auto insurance (which, in fact, it doesn't, there are still a fair number of people who take their chances and go without, but I digress,) you have a choice about whether or not you want to own and or drive a car. You don't really have a choice about being alive, and if you are ill, you need health care. I don't really care to have my health care needs compared to an auto, thanks anyway.

Insurance exchanges: Um, speaking for independent agents everywhere, that is what I already do for my clients, every single time. I look at what is available from all the companies we represent, and I give them the advantages of each plan, thereby giving them the information they need to make the best decision for themselves. The assumption that cheapest is always best is flawed, to put it nicely. Race to the bottom, anyone?

High risk pools: The federal government is currently touting the creation of high risk pools for the uninsured. Would this be sort of like the high risk pools that already exist in every state for the uninsurable under regular individual plans (those covered under group plans already cannot be denied for health reasons)? Perhaps, if we just subsidize what already exists, we could get what we are after for less money? Just thinking out loud, but do we really think the federal government can reinvent the wheel better than the states?

One other tidbit, just in case you weren't aware of this, [the people in Congress certainly don't seem to be,] the current system requires the insurance companies that do business in the state to pay a premium based on their profits in the state into the pool to help defray the costs, so they are already bearing at least part of the costs of helping to insure those they don't accept under a regular plan. So evidently now the fed is going to take on the entire cost? I have never been good at math, but once I again, I don't get how this puts us ahead.

Health care as a right, as opposed to a privilege: As an insurance agent, it is fascinating to me how quickly people change their mind on this when they lose their own insurance, and suddenly cannot get it on the private market for one reason or another. Do I believe everyone should have it? Yes. Do I believe you can force it upon people? No, especially at such a high cost. Does the system require overhaul? Absolutely, because it is unsustainable as is.

Do I want the federal government in charge? Not really, because the moment that a new administration is in power, the whole focus will shift, and then where will we be? Guaranteed we will drop to the lowest common denominator, which is pretty low. For example, pre-existing conditions are currently excluded from new coverage under Kansas law for 90 days, in Texas, that maximum is 24 months. I'll stay in Kansas, thank you. Not to mention the fact that I don't trust the fed to get much of anything right, much less something this important. I don't think health care should be a political football, it should be a human right.

Tax now, spend later: I love how the government works. They are going to start making us pay now, so that we can have what they have promised us two election cycles from now. How do you like the chances that what you think you are paying for now will still look the same in 2013 and 2014?

Cutting waste to pay for the programs: If there is so much waste, why are we not cutting immediately, instead of tying it to some future program? If it is unnecessary, then stop spending our hard earned money on it. Period.

I have openly admitted I can't even run my own life effectively, so I certainly don't have the answers on solving a problem as enormous as the health care crisis in the US. But I don't like our chances with the federal government in charge, because from my observation, call me a cynic, but I don't think they do much well.

While some people have said you can't compare the post office to the health care situation, I think it's a pretty apropos comparison. The cost of a stamp is only 44 cents, genuinely a ridiculous bargain, even with all the confusing rules and regulations. But they have lost billions of dollars, and the bleeding shows no signs of stopping any time soon. Meanwhile, UPS and Fed Ex continue to run as successful businesses.

Why is that? The USPS cannot figure out what the real cost is to mail a letter, thus continuing to undercharge, until the whole system will eventually fail. Fed Ex and UPS have figured out what it actually costs, and with a modest profit, they are charging that amount. The results speak for themselves.

In a very familiar pattern, the current government run program, Medicare, underpays their vendors on a legendary basis, thus resulting in physicians who limit the number of Medicare patients, because they cannot sustain their business with too many of those patients underpaying them. (Current reimbursement rates are so far below actual costs, that any physician that tried to serve Medicare patients only would rapidly be out of business.) Private insurers are currently subsidizing the Medicare underpayments, along with the uninsured, who are subsidizing everyone with the highest rates of all.

So, let's review. The federal government sets rates that are below sustainable payments, thus requiring subsidization of private companies and the uninsured. When the private companies and uninsured are no longer available to subsidize the underpayments, then what?

Cutting Medicare to pay for this: If they cut out subsidies to private insurers to pay for the Advantage plans, the private insurers will simply stop providing them. Then the elderly will have to pick up the cost of their own supplemental policies. If anyone wants my opinion, this looks more like cost shifting, than cost savings, as the elderly will be paying, instead of the government, but it is still getting paid.

And here's another interesting question. If Medicare is such a great system, how come the elderly need supplemental plans? If you didn't know that, you should, because it's a huge business for the private insurers, who cover everything that Medicare doesn't. Some of those "frill" coverages include, but are not limited to, elements of annual exams such as mammograms, pap smears and PSA testing, drug coverage that covers where the Medicare plans drop out, leaving the elderly seriously exposed when they can least afford it, hospital coverage, nursing home care, and home health coverage, as well as some end of life services.

All I can say is, if the government is in charge of our health care, then we can kiss our privacy goodbye. We can assume that our coverage will be stripped down to the lowest common denominator. And we can count on that coverage costing us more than they ever predicted it would, until, by the time all is said and done, we will be spending more than ever to have pretty much what we have now - an inadequate system that has a lot of holes.

Personally, I'm tired of the Republican versus Democratic debate, because again, I will reiterate, it's not a political hot potato, it's the health and well being of our citizens. I am not a Democrat or a Republican, I am an American, and I want affordable health care for all by right of being an American. I am not too hopeful we will have that any time soon.

So, making the short story long, as I usually do, that's how I really feel. Stay healthy!

The past is now....

This morning, I was looking through the news online, and realized that the word, news, no longer has the same meaning that it did ten or twenty years ago.

Back in the dark ages of broadcasting, when everything wasn't condensed into a ten second sound bite, you learned about important world events on the news. The weighty subject matter was delivered by serious reporters like Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow, who understood the importance of the information they were imparting, and took their position in the eye of the nation seriously. They researched and covered their stories from the start to the finish, and when Walter told us, "And that's the way it is," we knew it was. They were not there to entertain us - they left that job to Bob Hope and Lucille Ball.

There was this thing called "In Depth Reporting," where they dug into the issues of the story, found out the basic questions that were vital to our understanding, and then presented it to the public. They weren't necessarily the first to report it, but that seemed to matter less than whether or not they had the facts and the important information, so that when they were done, the public had been fully informed. The news was filled with stories that we, the people, needed to know to create a more perfect union. Or something like that.

A very famous Truman moment aside, I think Watergate was the first time, at least in my recollection, when being first truly began to trump being accurate. It was a slippery slope, the intoxicating need to be first at all costs, but we didn't fling ourselves down into the abyss with reckless abandon, at least at first.

It was more of a slow and mushy slide, like when it's 42 degrees, and the snow is melting, all sloppy and sticky, until today we are drowning in irrelevancy. Being first is the only thing that counts. It no longer seems to matter if the content is even interesting, to say nothing of important, so long as they said it or did it or wrote it or experienced it first.

Maybe I am just crabby, but these days, it seems like the news is a poorly disguised imitation of a gossip column, filled with innuendo and hearsay, but containing very little in the way of hard facts. We look down upon the medieval period as the Dark Ages, but I'm not so sure we aren't in our own intellectual desert today.

This morning, as I was perusing the headlines, I was astonished to discover that among other critical matters, I could see photos of the backsides of roughly 40 actresses, and it was my job to guess to whom they belonged. I was so fascinated at the idea that someone would actually consider this worthy of notice, sort of like being drawn to stare at a car accident even though you don't really want to see it, that I couldn't help myself. I had to look.

Of course, I didn't recognize half the names, to begin with. I am not exactly what my younger friends would call up-to-date. And I am thankful to report I didn't recognize a single butt cheek or crack hanging out of what currently passes for a swimsuit. [Seriously, someone should take these girls aside and explain to them the concept of mystery and imagination.] The only thing the story left uncovered [*ahem] was why I needed that information in the first place.

I am genuinely appalled to report that CNN expended less words on the massive health care overhaul bill passed by the United States House of Representatives last night than they did on a review of a bad movie starring George Clooney, the point of which seems to be that it doesn't have one. We are looking at a situation in which every American could be forced, under penalty of fines and jail time, no less, to purchase health insurance, whether we want it or not, whether we can afford it or not, and all that the news outlets can think to discuss is George Clooney's relationship with a goat?

There is a pandemic of H1N1 currently striking people down all over the world, but most Americans couldn't define pandemic to save their lives. Call me old fashioned, but I think we should at least be able to explain a thing before we panic about it. Perhaps if we were more literate, we would be less likely to be driven by the whims of the mass media.

While Brad and Angelina flit around the world with the paparazzi chronicling their every move, we know literally nothing about what is going on in the People's Republic of China, the largest, most populous nation on the planet.

Is Malawi important because Madonna went there? Or did Madonna go to Malawi because it is important? Why does Malawi even matter to us? We don't know, because the only thing the media told us is that the Material Girl is adopting another unfortunate child whose parents cannot afford to feed it.

That is not a knock against Madonna. On the contrary, at least she took the problem seriously enough to go and see for herself. Which sadly, is what is required if you really want to know about something in these days of 24/7 news cycles.

Shouldn't we be asking why there are so many orphans and abandoned children in Africa? Shouldn't we want to understand what is behind the sound bite that makes it important enough to bring to the attention of the world populace? Isn't there a reason that movie stars are going to Africa to adopt a child every other day? Call me crazy, but I happen to think that is the real story, one to which we don't have the answers.

Sadly, I think Madonna might agree. But she will never have the chance to get her message out, because the media, driven by the consumer, is only interested in whether or not her divorce from Guy Ritchie is final, or if she had an opportunity to work out so she can keep her 20 year old figure on her 50 something body in one of the poorest places on the planet.

That seems to be the current definition of the news you need to know. Count me out.

What is most disturbing to me is that even when the media makes the attempt to bring a serious story to us, they miss the facts and go for the fluff. In a story about the psychiatrist who shot dozens of people at Fort Hood, today's offering was a statement from a relative in Palestine, who apparently hasn't seen him in 15 years, although that particular fact was buried in the very fine print deep in the article, and whose offering, boiled down in a paraphrase, amounted to, "Who knows?"

I, for one, do not consider that newsworthy, and if that is all you have, don't even bother. Save the story until you have something solid, something concrete, something that will inform or enlighten or at least lead us forward. I don't want speculation, third and fourth hand non-witnesses describing what the suspect had for breakfast that morning.

I don't care what was in his stomach, I care what was in his mind. What could have led him to a mental perspective where shooting dozens of people on a military base seemed like a reasonable objective? And are there others out there like him? As far as I am concerned, the most important thing about this story is how we can learn from it so it won't happen again.

That is not to say that I am uninterested in the human interest story, the lighthearted anecdote, the chuckle. But don't call it news. And don't devote 24 hours a day to it, because you have nothing else to talk about.

I swear I am not just getting old and cranky, Andy Rooney in panties. I feel that it is to our extreme detriment, indeed, even our peril, that Americans, in particular, remain so ignorant of world events, and their significance.

While we obsess about Kate and A-Rod house hunting together, our military men and women are fighting a war in Afghanistan against not just long odds, but historically significant odds. How many Americans have any knowledge of the long history that is found there? Or how that history may affect the outcome of a battle today?

Although we may recognize the name Genghis Khan, do we know whether or not he ever invaded Afghanistan? Do we understand the ramifications of the Cold War on the region? Or the outcome of the war the Soviet Union fought there a couple of decades ago? How did Osama bin Laden come to be in Afghanistan? Have they ever been our allies? What was our part in bringing them to where they are today?

These are all important considerations to understanding the Afghanistan of the here and now. It's not a simple matter of right and wrong, win or lose. It is a very complex region with a long and complicated history, which cannot be reduced to a twenty second sound bite.

Our demands for instant gratification will not win the day, or the war, in a region that measures its history in millennia instead of a couple hundred years. And the prosecution of that war certainly should not be driven by polls taken amongst people who can't even locate the country on a map.

I love the internet for everything it brings to my life. It allows me to talk to people hundreds of miles away as if I'm having a conversation, a sentence or two at a time. It brings information, if only I am interested enough to look for it, into my living room at the click of a mouse. It allows me to work from my own home office, because everything I need to do my job effectively is available online 24 hours a day.

But the downside of the cyberworld is the sense of false urgency it creates. The constant need for updates, for something more, for the media to produce scoop after scoop, has also created an artificial need for information that has vastly outpaced our human ability to make sense of events. The incessant drive for something else has spilled over into every aspect of our lives, and the pressure we are all under on a constant basis is almost intolerable to me.

It is that climate which makes someone with no talent and no real achievements a celebrity. The rich and famous of today are not known because of their accomplishments, but because they are the quickest at thinking up new ways to draw the camera's eye towards themselves. Call me a cynic, but it is hard to imagine Ashlee Simpson or The Real Desperate Housewives of Wherever They are From leading us into a better future.

For those whose interest has been piqued, Genghis Khan and his army of Mongol warriors invaded the area now known as Afghanistan in the 13th century in a grab for the riches of the region, which they needed to support their growing power base. He directed the murder of thousands of people in his effort to subdue them, in some cases, wiping out every living thing, plant, animal and human, for hundreds of square miles.

His soldiers destroyed property, including a massive irrigation system which had allowed the area to be one of the most productive in that region of Asia, leaving devastation and destruction in their wake. He ruled with little regard for the indigenous people, which created his deserved reputation for barbarism and cruelty. The Mongols ruled ruthlessly during Khan's lifetime and beyond, as his kingdom was split apart into khanates.

And yet, despite his most strenuous efforts, he was unable to eliminate the spread of Islam, which had already taken root, and was flourishing there. When the Mongol dynasty had been overtaken by the next band of marauding tyrants, and Genghis Khan and his descendants were just a part of history, Islam remained, as it does to this day. Their faith is the foundation of their very lives, stretching back for a millennium. I don't know about you, but that certainly puts things in a different perspective for me.

News is not measured in moments, it is measured in decades and centuries. In the end, the wise will prevail, and the stupid will fail. From where I am sitting, the wisest nations worry less about celebrity than they do about history, because those who do not understand where others have gone awry are doomed to repeat the failures.

It's not as fun as "News of the Weird," but it's probably the news we need to hear. And that's the way it is.