It should be news to nobody that our health care system is broken.  I am no expert and I don't have the statistics to make a dissertation out of this (I will leave that to others), but the fact that things need to change is without question.  The president and congress are debating health care "reform".  It certainly appears that something is going to happen.  Don't get your hopes up for meaningful reform, though.  Our lawmakers don't have the backbone for true reform.  Until profit is taken out of our health care system, costs will continue to rise out of control.  The availability of care will be unevenly distributed among the people not to mention the fact that like any other important service, the quality of available care will certainly be poorer for the poor of our country. 

Our government's insistence that the market can work out problems for itself is a fallacy.  If the free market were so perfect, we wouldn't have to have non-profit community health centers all around the country that are understaffed and underfunded.  But heaven forbid our lawmakers tamper with the lucrative health care industry.  Heaven forbid that we go down the commie path of single-payer health care (I understand that there were no people at President Obama's panel studying health care reform that represented a single-payer option) .  "Jobs!" they will scream.  If you dismantle our for-profit health care system, it'll cost people their great jobs.  "Money!"  It'll cost too much and we'll have to raise those evil, evil taxes.  In these dark economic times, we can not afford to start a whole new governmental bureaucracy. 

Spineless bastards.  Maybe when the welfare of the people is at the top of the minds of our lawmakers, we will have some meaningful change.  If you want any proof that perhaps the people aren't being heard, take a look at the pictures in this link.  It is a picture of a room in the Senate Office Building where Senators were working on their "reform" bill.  The picture isn't of the senators, but of the lobbyists in the room.  When our lawmakers are bombarded by industry groups that spend millions of dollars each year to influence legislation, do the people have any hope of getting a law that benefits them?  I doubt it.

Don't hold your breath for any meaningful change, friends.  Yes, something is going to change, but when prices don't stop going through the roof and people still go bankrupt because they can't pay for their medical bills don't think that quite a few of our lawmakers aren't going to point their fingers at this attempt at "reform" and conclude that if this reform didn't work, that nothing will work.

Meanwhile, let's go marching on with a smile on our face knowing that the poor will continue to get the shaft, and that hard-working families will still have to weigh health care bills or food. 

While we were watching returns come in over at Joe's, we were learning about some of the headlines from newspapers and news services in other countries. 

From the BBC: 
Obama Wins Historic Election
Democratic Senator Barack Obama says "change has come to America", after being elected the first black president of the United States.

Sure, that's pretty standard.  How about the French?

From Le Monde out of Paris:
Barack Obama elu president: "Le changement est la!" (insert accent marks where appropriate)

I'm sure what they wrote in their article is great, but my French is less than good, so I'll pass on having more to do with that article since it would be a pointless exercise.  I'd be willing to bet that it isn't appreciably different from the BBC article.  How about an article from someplace that is a little different than western Europe.

From Al Arabia out of Dubai:
Obama Wins U.S. Election
Democrat Barack Obama became the 44th American President as his Republican opponent John McCain conceded in a speech that highlighted the historic election of the first African-American president of the United States.

Yawn.  No.  Let's go someplace totally crazy... Russia!

These are from Pravda, and are priceless.

Eight Years of Hell are Over
The US presidential race, the grand American soap opera that continued for almost two years, became the most scandalous, dramatic, unpredictable and the most expensive campaign in US history. The candidates have spent about $2.4 billion on their fight for the White House despite the global economic crisis at the time, when hundreds of thousands of US voters were losing their jobs and homes

Good, good.  Is there more?  Sure is!

An opinion article:
A Change for the Better
Only Satan would have been worse than the Bush regime. Therefore it could be argued that the new administration in the USA could never be worse than the one which divorced the hearts and minds of Americans from their brothers in the international community, which appalled the rest of the world with shock and awe tactics that included concentration camps, torture, mass murder and utter disrespect for international law. Yet in choosing Obama, the people of America have opted to come back into the international fold. Welcome back, friends!

I don't think there's much that I need to say about that.  It kind of speaks for itself.  Now it's late and I'm tired.  Good night.

Simple pleasure - being happy seeing my second choice presidential candidate win
Peace

I am sitting in Birchwood Cafe with my free cup of coffee and a couple remaining bites of an excellent pumpkin apple muffin.  Thank you Birchwood for the free coffee for voters.  While paying for my muffin I saw that Birchwood has Beer and Burgers night on Sunday nights.  Good:  Surley beer.  Better:  They have happy beef (or at least less unhappy) jucy lucies!  Oh oh oh oh oh!  I think I know where I want to be on Sunday evening.

I arrived at my polling place at 6:55 behind about 150 people standing in line.  The tiny fellowship hall of this church was absolutely packed with people and lines snaked around.  Despite all the people and limited space, though, things went fairly smoothly, and I submitted my ballot at 7:35.

Now I will sit here enjoying my coffee, take a few moments to look over a little of the HUGE pile of free resources I got from Glencoe (more to come on this later), and then it's off to school.  Tonight, election returns party at Joe's.  It'll be a rough morning tomorrow if things aren't wrapped up by one in the morning or so.

Simple pleasure - unseasonably warm, yet wonderful, fall morning
Peace

I've avoided writing much about politics here.  In part this is because there are plenty of other blogs that do it much better than I ever could, and also because i order for me to put together a post that I would be satisfied with would probably take more serious investigation than I have patience for right now.  Well, I finally got around to it earlier and then I lost it.

I got about half way through a long post earlier this evening detailing the link between big business and campaign funding using a pile of data from the Federal Election Commission.  I talked about how the two party system has set itself up to exclude any others, thus not actually promoting representative democracy.  My brain was ADDing though, and couldn't get myself to coherently finish the deal.  I meant to come back to it a little later, but now it seems to be gone.

So I'd just say this.  Take a look at the Ten Key Values of the Green Party.  These values are at the heart of what it means to be Green.

1. Grassroots Democracy
2. Social Justice and Equal Opportunity
3. Ecological Wisdom
4. Non-Violence
5. Decentralization
6. Community-Based Economics and Economic Justice
7. Feminism and Gender Equity
8. Respect for Diversity
9. Personal and Global Responsibility
10. Future Focus and Sustainablility

The two-party system is broken.  When it comes to bringing about serious change, neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have the spine to do what needs to be done.  Make a statement.  Vote for a candidate that actually represents what you believe, not simply for a reasonable approximation of your beliefs.  Whether you're Green, Libertarian, Independence, or anything, make your voice heard.  Show the two institutional parties that you're not satisfied with their choke hold on power and that their refusal to stand up to corporate interests can not stand.  Show them that we don't all fit neatly into red or blue categories.  No, those that identify with third parties may not be a large part of the population, but they must know that we're here... and we're pissed off.  We're constituents and though I may be a socialist, I am still an American and deserve to be represented, or at the very least considered.


Learn.  Speak.  Agitate.  Vote.

see Sarah Palin pictures

This evening I went to a forum with the two candidates for the open judge position in Minnesota's second judicial district.  I went in recognizing the names of the two candidates, but knowing absolutely nothing about them.  Too many times in the past (actually, probably every time in the past) when it came to judges on the ballot, I was clueless or had armed myself with the knowledge gained from reading a paragraph on them at startribune.com.  When I saw there was going to be a forum with the two candidates, I decided it was time to get me some learnin'.

Honestly, would I find myself in a courtroom, I don't think I could be happier seeing either candidate on the bench.  Both seem very qualified and wise even though they come from very different places.  Howard Orenstein has practiced law for a long time and has been involved in a wide range of legal cases and has served several terms as a state legislature.  Gail Chang Bohr had a long tenure as a social worker and has spent a fair amount of time leading the Children's Law Center of Minnesota.  They both talked about restorative justice, and balancing punishment with rehabilitation and involving the community.  There wasn't one thing that made me think less of one than the other, qualification or philosophy-wise.

After the event was over, I turned around to a man who was sitting behind me whom I had noticed was taking many notes the whole evening.  I asked him what his thoughts were.  Well, it turns out that he's the member of the St. Paul School Board and had much to say.  Basically, he reinforced my idea that both candidates were very strong, but that Chang Bohr's closer connections to the community and more specifically the disadvantaged and minority communities is worth quite a bit.  He then went on to say that there are disproportionately more minority youth that appear in the judicial system than the rest of the population and for them to see a woman that looks like them (let alone her past experience with people like them) and having her, instead of an aging white man, telling them that they did wrong can only help.

Far be it for me to tell people how to vote.  I have to say, though, that I was very happy that I went and got a chance to learn about these candidates.  I'd highly recommend that you take the time to learn about judicial candidates that will be on your ballot.  It's not as easy to do as to learn about senators, and the like, but no less important.

Simple pleasure - fuzzy pants
Peace

I'm done with the debate for tonight.  It is so coached and rehearsed.  There is nothing there that can't be heard on the news or read in a newspaper.  I'm not interested in listening to them list selected statistics taken out of context.  It's just a show  I'll  be better in the long run finishing up my book rather than listening to that drivel.

It is because of people who think like this that we have had to deal with 8 years of Bush and are so backwards a country.

Dear RNC,
Get out of my city, and take your fucking fascist thought police with you.  Feel free to not come back.

There's a billboard on 494 very near the airport from The Daily Show that says, "Welcome, rich white oligarchs."

It makes me laugh.