I haven't posted recently. I've been too busy teaching a seminar in Dallas, mowing our three acres on Whidbey Island (way, way too early -- thanks to the warm winter), and generally pursuing retiree activities. It's amazing how the hours fill up when you're not working!But, of course, I have not been immune from the nasty palaver going on about health care reform. It's not possible to escape it in newspapers and on television, radio and the Internet. It almost sounds like we're headed for a second Civil War. The rhetoric is merciless and beyond hateful. Are we really citizens of the same country? Doesn't sound like it when we hurl epithets worse than we used to hurl at (real) Nazis, toss bricks through political office windows and sever propane lines into homes of relatives of those who voted for The Bill We Wanted To Kill.
Maybe we should let Texas secede. And throw in Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee while we're at it. Let 'em pay for their own health care, their own military and their own Social Security. Or maybe we should let states opt out of the mandate that all of us should have to pay something for health care. As I remember my U.S. history, that's called state nullification -- a concept that was first refused by Andrew Jackson in 1832 and finally killed (I thought) by the Civil War.
Or maybe we should all just have a piece of pie and a cup of coffee and talk this over. If we are who we say we are -- peaceful citizens living in a democracy, abiding by the law and accepting majority rule and minority rights -- then we ought to be able to talk with each other, not at each other. If Democrats are Socialists, Communists and Fascists (all at the same time), and Republicans are Corporate Fat Cats and Gun-Toting Loonies Who Wear Teabag Earrings, then we can't enjoy each others' company, can we?
But, as I see it, we're all in this together, weathering tough times, anxious about our country, fed up with selfishness and greed, watching our standard of living decline, worried about the future. So maybe we can still figure out where our common ground is. Remember that our parents did, as did their parents and their parents' parents.
So come on over, the coffee's on and the pie just came out of the oven. Here are some lyrics written by Irving Berlin in 1930 that say it well:
Just around the corner
There's a rainbow in the sky.
So let's have another cup of coffee,
And let's have another piece of pie.
Trouble's like a bubble,
And the clouds will soon roll by
So let's have another cup of coffee
And let's have another piece of pie.
Let a smile be your umbrella
For it's just an April shower,
Even John D. Rockefeller
is looking for the silver lining!
Mr. Herbert Hoover
Says that now's the time to buy.
So let's have another cup of coffee.
And let's have another piece of pie!
