Issue of the Week: Health Care Reform

Plus Heroes and Jerks of the Week

Oct. 23, 2008

midnight

Health care reform continues to be a major issue in the presidentialcampaign even as economic problems dominate the headlines. Voters wanta better and more secure system of health insurance. The interestingfact is that the health care debate is no longer between those who wantto reform the system and those who are satisfied with the status quo.Now the issue isn’t “should we,” but “how.” McCain’s approach is toprovide a tax credit, $2,500 for an individual and $5,000 for a family,to purchase health insurance and to tax the current health carebenefits provided by employers. It is a radical approach that even hasthe U.S. Chamber of Commerce saying that McCain’s plan is a dangerousproposal that would unravel the employer-based health insurance system.

Obama wantsto enable the employer-based approach to continue where it is workingand also proposes to create both a large public health insurance planplus a regulated private insurance plan that could not exclude peoplewith pre-existing conditions. Ironically, the debate is now betweenthose who want bold reform (Obama) and those who want very radicalreform (McCain).

Hero of the Week: Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner

In2004, Republican operatives at the Ohio state- and county-level lost,miscounted or discarded some 350,000 votes, effectively handing asecond illegitimate term to President George Bush. The records weresubsequently destroyed when they became the subject of a criminalinvestigation. In an attempt to make the polls accessible to all, Ohio,under new Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, now allows residents tovote absentee in advance without proving justification. Brunnerwas sued by the Ohio Republican Party, which feared massive earlyvoting by low-income voters who might not be able to make it to pollingplaces on Election Day. The suit by the Republican Party was thrown outOct. 17 by the U.S. Supreme Court. Of the latest attempts at votersuppression, Secretary Brunner said, “It is unfortunate that a small,but vocal, group of Republican leaders continues to inject confusionand chaos in our elections.”

Jerk of the Week: State Sen. Scott Fitzgerald

StateSenate Republican Leader Scott Fitzgerald needs to spend his timetrying to deal with the state budget shortfall instead of ducking hisresponsibilities with silly explanations. Gov. Jim Doyle’s announcementlast week that the state may be facing a $3 billion deficit in the2009-’11 budget was grim tidings indeed, portending many long hours forthe state Legislature in the months to come. While most lawmakersimmediately realized that tough decisions would have to be made,Fitzgerald put a shaky finger to the wind and concluded that theunfortunate numbers were released in order to elect Barack Obama. We’renot sure how a $3 billion shortfall under a Democratic governor worksto Obama’s benefit, but Fitzgerald claims that the news will “solidify”the candidate’s chances in Wisconsin. One can only hope that after thebogeyman has passed, Fitzgerald will emerge from his happy place andaccept the responsibilities of his position.

Blog of the Week: Brew City Brawlerhttp://brewcitybrawler.typepad.com/

Republican Party of Wisconsin Enlisting Vote Suppression Goons

The Washington Post [reportsthat] the Republican Party of Wisconsin (RPW) [is] seeking tough men towatch the polls in “intimidating” inner-city Milwaukee: “JonathanWaclawski, the party’s Election Day operations [director], wrote in aSept. 8 e-mail that he needed contact information for people ‘who wouldpotentially be willing to volunteer…at inner-city (more intimidating)polling places. Particularly, I am interested in names ofMilwaukee-area veterans, policemen, security personnel, firefighters,etc. … If you have any connections with such organizations, please passthat information on.’”

What will they be doing? Well, if RPW dirtytricks during the 2004 election are any indication, we can expect themto help mount spurious charges against voters, offer misleadinginstructions to voters and generally do all they can to sow confusionand create long lines that may dissuade folks from casting their ballot.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Becauseof his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of hiscampaign, because he is reaching out all across America…he has met thestandard of being a successful president, being an exceptionalpresident. I think he is a transformational figure. He is a newgeneration coming into the worldonto the world stage, and on theAmerican stage, and for that reason I’ll be voting for Sen. BarackObama.” Gen. Colin Powell, former secretary of state in the Bushadministration, endorsing Sen. Obama for president.

PHOTO OF THE WEEK: Economic Hard Times by Senator Dingdong

"Even the gulls that crap on my car are packing lunches."

Friends of the Shepherd

Help support Milwaukee's locally owned free weekly magazine.

LEARN MORE

Comments (4)

Comment Feed

"The argument doesn't quite hold water."---I'm not...

"The argument doesn't quite hold water."---I'm not so sure it doesn't. "Tell me again why is Radiohead's Kid A the last album...?" ---The Pitchfork critique doesn't say that it's the last album, it says that it's the last album of its kind--with a cohesive structure that, albeit innovative in the nature of its aural fabric (that idiosyncratic, or, to use a term you appropriated, "alien," sound), is, according to the Pitchfork writer, quite reminiscent of concept albums like Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon"--so, for integrity, let your argument be specific to what it is the piece actually says. That being said, what can be said about "Glow" or "Funeral" in relation to what the article says about Kid A? "And didn't CD sales continue to boom for years after Kid A?"---This is true but what the critique is saying, in particular, about Kid A is that, well, re-read: "From then on, albums have persisted [see, again, it doesn't say that Kid A was the last album], sure, but they're increasingly marginalized or stripped for parts..."---That, according to this Pitchfork staff writer, is the point of distinction to be understood about the difference between the music world before Kid A, the late great apotheosis of a coherent, structurally-taut, concept album, and after. "And aren't there, even now, more listen-to-them-from-start-to-finish concept albums than ever before?"---Well? Do you have any examples yourself? I might say sure there are but I would again defend the Pitchfork article because it doesn't say that there aren't.

For me, Kid A is a lush, hermeneutical garden of rich, idiosyncratic sounds; its so-called concept is mightily perplexing but, with an assiduous, medium-specific analysis, it proves to be coherent and reflexive. From the promise, the rhetorical thesis statement, that is its trance-inducing, albeit, by the case of the resonance and repetition of the same lines ensconced in eccentric digital affectations, characteristically detached opener, "Everything in its Right Place," to the album's mid-way mark of "How to Disappear Completely," where, as the pitchfork staff-writer keenly observes elsewhere in the review, for the first time in acoustic, Yorke says, "that, there, that's not me"--the album is constantly referring to itself and the world that surrounds and defines it. (Pardon the Faulkernian, prepositionally-fraught, and, perhaps, sometimes tangential, structure and outrageous length of that... :s To sum it all up, Kid A is aptly described by the Pitchfork writer who is considering, above everything else, the culture that preceded and succeeded it, especially in terms of a contemporaneous inception of a trend of music listeners to comb through an album selectively rather than to permit to the intended structure and order of its author. That being said, I think Radiohead, like no other band, is conscious of such a trend and not necessarily as weary about it as the staff at Pitchfork -- for them, the canonization of the artists and their works is key, but for Radiohead, endowing the listener with the responsibilities of authorship is what is truly their strongest and most realized agenda)

Anonymous more than 13 years ago

And that's why Pitchfork's reviews are often garba...

And that's why Pitchfork's reviews are often garbage. :)

I joke that Kid A was an Aphex Twin ripoff, but I think you're right in that it influenced a lot of bands to dabble in electronica. It really is one of the best albums of this lackluster decade of music (at least compared to the 90s).

Adam more than 15 years ago

Janine, I guess in a perfect world, the physicians...

Janine, I guess in a perfect world, the physicians, who have, by the way, spent LOTS of money on their own education, have spent LONG hours working to become a Doctor who people will place their faith in and trust their children to their care ... in a perfect world, those Doctors would be paid their worth, and the community would receive great medical care. I don't know the answers. I would imagine the first step would be to eliminate the "middle man", or the Insurance companies (always seemed so VERY stupid that an unqualified clerk could sit behind an isurance compnay desk and override my educated, degreed physician's order), but then what happens to those 10s of 1000s of people who are put out of work? Well, at least they will have health insurance.

imtoosexyformy more than 16 years ago

I think that doctors and hospitals should be made ...

I think that doctors and hospitals should be made to take what the health insurance companies pay and write off the rest of what is owed because te majority of the working class and retired alike can't afford to pay the balance without cutting there throats and going with out paying something else. It is ridiculous that our credit is being ruined by outstanding medical bills, and it is my understanding that the doctors and hospitals alike get tax wirte offs any way to off set the loss in revenue from unpaid bills from patients, and they wonder why most of us refuse to go and seek treatment for our illnesses, it is because we now that we are going to be hit with medical bills we can't afford to pay. If anyone nows of a way that we can make the medical professionals stop coming after us for the excess that the insurance doesn't pay I would like to know.

Janine Truppner more than 16 years ago