Soap box rant

All things considered, these are hard days. But then, in how many eras has that maxim been spoke? I cannot think the Trojans thought they were in for a good time when Achaeans landed on their shores. Same for the Egyptians when they saw the French and then the British sailing up the Nile. I say this only because I caught myself thinking today how things seem worse than ever in the World. But that is pretty foolish. I’m just having a Howard Beale kind of week:

Edward George Ruddy died and woe is us!

But, most likely, the world has always been a pressure cooker for ‘civilization’ with fantastic pressures through war and alienation. This was probably as true now as it was during the Peloponnesian War, it is why the Dao was written, and why we are in a constant state of war today. Maybe I am reading too many of the classics (The Odyssey, The Aneid, Trojan Women) but the news seems to be unusually brutal these days. Maybe it is this sad business with the Roma in Belgrade. I know the context is different, and the violence of a much lower magnitude, but is the destruction of Gazela not, as an action, similar to the destruction of Palestine? An unwelcome people in a prestigious location. It is all I can think of when I see that image on B92 of the Bulldozer.

I am alienated from the health care debate raging in this country. Really? Let us not get a national health service say the same people who also agree that the current system is busted. So they oppose a ‘universal’ system that would guarantee a basic coverage for all the un- and under-insured people, while everyone else can keep their private insurance. Its not even supposed to affect Medicare / Medicaide. Instead they would rather just keep moving towards privatization. Are they afraid of something? Maybe that people will drop the insurance companies? If we lose the health care struggle, then woe is us.