For any of you who have followed me on Twitter, much of this posting will be old news. I started out my sabbatical by taking advantage of the snowy March and skiing 7 days: 4 in Vermont and 3 at Jackson Hole. Lots of powder and I had a great time finding the steepest terrain that I felt I could go down safely. That was great for the 1st 6 days out. Unfortunately, the last day out at Mad River Glen, I did not have my weight sufficiently back on the Paradise Waterfall and I managed to pitch forward down the cliff landing on my left front shoulder, bouncing onto my back and sliding headfirst down the fall line between a couple of trees. While the vision of sliding headfirst into a tree and wondering if my helmet would suffice went through my brain, I realized my skis were still on and I needed to get them downhill. I managed to do this and stop after sliding about 100 feet on the steep pitch. Needless to say, my ski season was done and I carefully skied to the bottom after collecting my pole that I left at the spot of the initial landing.
The next day I went to a walk-in medical care facility and determined that my clavicle was slightly separated and that rest was the best immediate care followed by physical therapy. With that diagnosis, my better half and I went off to Portugal for almost two weeks. Sun, heat and lots of walking while we learned about Portugese food, wine and history. Found two very worthwhile ancient spots. The 1000 year old Moorish Castle in Sintra and 2000 year old Roman Ruins in Conimbriga, near Coimbra. Porto was my favorite city and the best food was found at Manifesto in Lisbon. If you ever go to Porto, stay in the Duoro Guest House, the best B&B we have ever stayed at. I do not consider the Inn at Little Washington a B&B because they serve dinner. Here are the pictures from Portugal.
(technical glitch, they are up on mobile me but I need to figure out how to link them)
Upon our return to the U.S., most of my energy has been aimed at getting exercise to maintain my weight loss program and organizing my part of the upcoming downsizing when we return to being full time NY residents.
The aim of this blog most of the time will be to update friends on travel and comment on partisan absurdities that I see out in the world.
Anyway, I cannot let health care reform go without a comment since the Republicans decided to use a voucher system to control health care costs at a macro level once 55 year olds reach 65 and leave everyone younger to see what happens to the balance between affording medical care and paying for the basics. There is no question that Medicare and Medicaid need to have their costs controlled urgently, but is setting up the system so that we return to a society where the poor must choose between a roof, food, and health care really where we want to be as a nation. Do we want to be a land of Tiny Tim's and Scrooges? That is where I believe vouchers will take us. Shouldn't we at least make an effort to control health care costs first as the Health Care Reform Bill attempts? The thing breaking Medicare is spending on the last 40 days of life, but the Republicans' belittlement of Health Care Reform with the Claim of Death Panels has taken that off the table. Education on how to die balancing opportunity to continue living with reality is absolutely necessary. It should be a family decision, but the Republican Plan would turn it back over to the Insurance Companies and they do not do a good job. Actually, at this time, no category does a good job.
And while we are at balancing the budget, shouldn't we start to pay for the War on Terror with some tax increases? This is the 1st war the U.S. has ever tried to conduct without raising taxes. For sure, tax simplification would be a good 1st step over raising the tax rates and ending corporate subsidies while cutting the corporate tax rate would be a good 2nd step. However, the one certainty is that a balanced budget requires both cutting spending and raising revenue as the Deficit Reduction Committee recommended. The sooner the national dialogue gets there the better.
These will be shorter in the future.
RedStateVT says that you cannot demagogue Republicans for bringing up "death panels" and then turn around and say they want to punish the poor. If one statement is painted with too broad a brush, then so is the other. The Left has NEVER given a credible answer to the following question: What makes anyone think the government can do a better job of managing health care. Fix Amtrak or the USPS and then we'll talk about health care.
ReplyDeleteRed state types should shut up and elect their candidates to get what they want. The people that we elected are the ones who have put the Hated Programs and Hated Subsidies in place.
ReplyDeleteDo you hate the subsidies to Big Oil and Big Pharma?
Tom points out that Reagan and the modern GOP taught the Americans that they can have anything they want, or fight any war, on the Chase Credit Card. No need to pay now in the form of taxes. The dogma that says that taxes are evil is the root cause of the national debt.
ReplyDelete