Autumn Meditations
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009We’re now officially in the autumn season. It’ll get colder despite global warming. Maybe an early snowfall in late November or early December. And of course Thanksgiving.
I learned today that a tax is not a tax. So went the words of the Anointed One on the ABC Sunday Program with George Stephanopolis. The A.O. once said that words count. How about counting the dollars that will be taken from us by the non-tax?
It seems that the National Endowment for the Arts(NEA), a non-profit supported by tax dollars has become the official appendage of the Obama White House. It’s becoming just like Acorn. What’s happened to our country? You don’t believe this? The link to it for anyone interested is entitled NEA, Acorn.
The Philadelphia Eagles are off to a bad start––– “chaos city.” My prediction: six wins and 10 losses. Andy Reid and Donovan McNabb will be gone when the season ends, and the “Dog Killer” (Michael Vick) becomes the first string quarterback. Oh my, what’s become of football?
But before I close, I’d like to tell you about something amazing! From the New York Times no less. The Science Times section of the NYT(9/22) reported that The United States has been put at the bottom of international health scorecards because of uninsured citizens and its relatively low life expectancy. But Dr. Samuel H. Preston found that the U.S.healthcare system provides superior treatment even when the uninsured are included in his analysis. Dr. Preston’s work indicates that The U.S. actually does a quite satisfactory job of identifying and treating major diseases. The longevity gap, Dr. Preston indicates, is mostly due to the relatively high rates of illness and death among middle-aged Americans, primarily from heart disease and cancer. Those deaths have been blamed on the healthcare system, a convenient target for those who are pushing for “Healthcare Reform” and a single payer government program as found in Canada and Europe. But, perhaps what we are dealing with is a societal problem, a demographic problem, that is unrelated to the medical care system itself. Will anybody listen. Not likely.