Bastion of Civilized Values

Hello readers, if any --

No apologies for the long "radio silence." I was on the road from May 21 to July 20, pretty much non-stop. Up the East Coast in my Smart car (a really fun ride, 980 miles in one day!), three days at my college reunion (including a stint as the most out-of-shape duffer in a racing four with coxswain, my hands shredded after 6 miles at the oar), four and a half weeks traveling around China, then a drive back down the East Coast (with three suitcases, two small bags, two carry bags, a cooler, 13 rolls of wrapping paper and a few more miscellaneous items, plus myself, successfully stowed in my Smart car such that I could still see out the rear-view mirror, a miracle), and then after a few days' respite another two days in airplanes so I could be in Lisbon, Portugal with my beloved to help him celebrate a big birthday. (He had just finished a conference there.)

I'm also cranking madly away at my book manuscript, which I must complete by October 6. That's when I hit the road again, to visit my in-laws, chauffeur my mother around Germany to see her family and friends, and then, only a day after my return home, to go to Disney (yes, I know, but it's fun for kids) with two 10-year-old girls. It's a tradition for us to take our goddess-kids to the Magic Kingdom when they turn 10, if their parents don't take them there first. After these two, there's only one more to go, three years from now.

I had to pipe up at least briefly, however, in response to the current brouhaha, which is in my opinion only peripherally about health care. The gross and cynical way in which the Republicans and the corporate interests are conniving to use frightened, uninformed, and hysterical people to disrupt public debate and try to bring down any attempt to make health care available to all Americans is beyond disgusting. This is where we who are not susceptible to being buffaloed have to stand up and create what is referred to in one of my favorite books, "Murder at the MLA," as a Bastion of Civilized Values. I don't care how busy you are. Turn on your TV and make yourself watch Rachel Maddow (9 p.m., MSNBC, Mon to Fri) or Keith Olbermann (8 p.m., MSNBC, Mon to Fri). You'll find it's not a penance, especially, in my opinion, Rachel, who totally rocks. Read a newspaper, online if not in print. This will tell you what's going on and who the chief sleazebags are. Then get on the Internet or write a piece of snail-mail to your own Congressperson and Senators, letting them know that you support the public option and health care reform and you intend not to vote for anyone who doesn't. I also exhort you to contact at least one of the so-called "blue dog" Democrats, who are playing repugnant footsie with the Republicans and the corporate profit-grubbers on this issue, and make it clear that you know who they are and you are revolted by their selling out of their constituents for the almighty lobbyist dollar.

I just did so in the case of Claire McCaskill, who I'm sorry to say I gave money to for her 2008 campaign. Blanche Lincoln of Nebraska is another case in point. Women who are putting the health care industries' (insurers, nursing homes, for-profit hospitals, etc.) dollars before the welfare of American citizens. Ugh. As though the men weren't bad enough.

Anyway, if we don't stand up and make ourselves heard now, we will be stuck with this disgrace, this shameful mess of a health care "system" (it's not a system, it's a maze) for the rest of at least my natural life. While the rest of the industrialized world manages to provide good, sensible care to all their citizens, we would go on letting millions of children go without regular medical checkups, letting family after family go bankrupt because of catastrophic illness. I remember all too well watching a dear friend die of brain cancer, unable to focus on spending what little time she had left with her family because she was worrying about the debts she would be leaving them. This is awful, reprehensible, and beneath us and it has to stop. IMMEDIATELY. Health care for profit is something we all know in our guts is morally wrong. It's the absolute contrary of a caring community, a society that is healthy in every way that counts.

ENOUGH. Fight!