Circadian

Immersed myself in Woodstock today. Watched the two hour long documentary on looking back at Woodstock after 40 years (while tripping on Benadryl), and then listened to classic rock all afternoon.

The really wonderful things that happened there – the Hog Farm feeding everyone, Abbie Hoffman taking charge and making sure that the medical center was running well, the Bad Trip tent where people were taken care of while they were in a bad space and then put in charge of helping others in the same state – make me wish I could have been there. And yet, I’m not entirely sure I would have been, had I even been alive at the time. Had my parents not been 34 and 39 at the time, I could have been conceived there, but not really attended.

I do also wish that we could ever experience something similar today. And yet, it was so spontaneous that if you try (*cough*Woodstock 1999*cough*) today, you’d just get people taking advantage of everyone instead of being cool to one another.

As Wavy Gravy said – “This must be heaven” – and we’ll never see the like on earth again.

Like most issues, when the Right can’t come up with any reasonable reasons against something, they go with their old standby – shouting lies loudly enough and often enough that some critical mass of people comes to believe that they’re true.

Healthcare is one of those issues. When you get right down to it, the reasons that the Right are against any sort of change to the current system of health insurance and little coverage for the average guy comes down to money. The insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies are making money hand over fist, with enough in the coffers to line the pockets of every politician in Washington. If reform happens, they might have to make a few hundred billion fewer dollars a year from the businesses who choose to maintain the health of their employees.

Add to that the prospect of a public option – a government run competetor for the insurance companies and they really start to howl. Saturday, they were howling outside of the King Soopers grocery store where I shop. Our congressman, Ed Perlmutter, was having a confab there, and the loonies came out of the woodwork to picket and shout and generally make civilized discourse impossible to have. I know this because, foolishly, I tried to shop there an hour after the even started, and the crowd of picketers were still milling about outside.

Insult to injury, no lesser pinhead than Sarah Palin is promulgating the blatant falsehood that the reformed system would set up some sort of committee to enforce policies of forced euthanasia, claiming that she would have had to go before one of these committees to determine whether or not her special needs child would be given any sort of medical attention. Puh-leez. How can you go on about us “Bleeding Heart” liberals, and then imply that we would have anything but support for a woman and her special needs child?

I just thank the powers that be that Howard Dean is around – you know Howard, head of the DNC, physician, former presidential candidate? – to smack her down, on national television, for her rampant stupidity.

It’s time for us to fix this broken health-care system, come hell, high water, or the selfish/ignorant wings of the Republican party.

Do you think that when an ADT salesperson comes to your home, and you opt not to go with their service, they sell the information the gathered on what windows were most accessible, which doors stayed unlocked, and how best to enter and leave quietly to the highest bidder?

It seems like a good way to get more business, after all. Who isn’t going to call a security company back when, just a few short weeks, maybe just days, after the turned down an offer for “free installation” they were robbed themselves. And there’s a certain vengeance angle to be considered as well.