I can't believe what I just heard, my blood pressure must be sky high. If I go to the hospital tonight, please send my bill to Mitt Romney.
For years I have railed against draconian HMOs, health insurance bureaucracy, inefficient medical providers and inequities in a system far sicker than the patients it serves. I have watched politicians debate where changes should be made, where money should come from, and whether or not the government should be involved or not. I have fought my own personal battles to obtain proper health care for myself and my children, and listened to the stories of many others fighting similar battles. I have seen the results of families being shut out of health care because of "pre-exisiting conditions," "experiemtal treatmemts" and exorbitant cost. Unless you are fortunate enough to work for a company that helps defray the cost of health insurance, or pays you enough for you to shoulder the group premium yourself, you are out of luck. Work somewhere that health insurance isn't offered, you will most likely not be able to afford to buy insurance on your own, because the cost could be 1,000 a month and beyond. Work at a minimum wage job and even a group premium of 300 a month could be beyond your means. Possibly, if your wages are low enough, you may be able to get state-funded health insurance for your children, but if you, the breadwinner gets sick, you are out of luck. And I really thought that most politicians knew and accepted this, but only differed on how to solve the problem.
Tonight, Mitt Romney presented another view, and a view that I suddenly realize may be held in secret by many people in this country. According to Mitt, the 45 million Americans who do not have health insurance are simply refusing to pay their share and are expecting the taxpayer to foot the bill. 45 million are "refusing to play" with those who are. His answer was simple, pay for health insurance or pay your own way.
This is a dangerous attitude that shows a person, intending to lead this country, while being completely out of touch with how the common person is struggling today. It shows a person with no concept of how one illness or injury can devastate a family - yes, even those with so-called insurance. No, he thinks that 45 million pesky uninsured Americans are just refusing to be insured. I really expected to hear a version of Ebeneezer Scrooge's words "And if they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population!" come flying out of his mouth.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Concert, scholarship will honor De Carolis
A Big Band Benefit Concert to honor Mario "Chic" De Carolis and to fund the first music scholarship in East Brunswick is planned for 3-5 p.m. on Oct. 28 at East Brunswick High School, Cranbury Road.
De Carolis, who died in February, was a music teacher and bandleader at East Brunswick High School, Middle School and elementary schools for 30 years. He was especially well-known for founding the Indigos Dance Band, a 24-member jazz stage band made up of the high school's elite musicians, many of whom have become successful music teachers and/or professional musicians.
In honor of "Mr. D's" life and longstanding contributions to the community, his daughter, Yvonne Amalina De Carolis, his family and his former students including Steve Kaplan and Noreen Braman, have created the first music scholarship and benefit concert in his name.
The Mario "Chic" De Carolis Music Scholarship Concert will feature former Indigos Band alumni, musicians from Musicians Local No. 204-373 (of which De Carolis was president) and current students in the East Brunswick High School Jazz Band, under the direction of John Kish.
Former students and colleagues who wish to participate in the event or who cannot attend but wish to make a donation are invited to call Yvonne De Carolis at (609) 275-8474.
Concert donation is $10. All proceeds will benefit the scholarship fund.Thursday, April 26, 2007
Sticks and Stones and Names
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me!”
That was chant we learned in grammar school, the response we were taught, for bullies who were calling us names. It was supposed to give power to us and show the bullies they couldn’t get to us (not with words anyway).
Unfortunately, it was a false promise. Growing up taught us that the bullies COULD get to us, with sticks, with stones and with words. And sometimes, it is the words that inflict the most painful damage of all.
Don Imus was the playground bully, and the Rutgers women’s basketball team was his victim. The team held its head up high, got an apology and, for the time being at least, saw the silencing of a bully. However, the damage done by the words uttered by Imus is not so easily healed. Unlike most broken bones, which can heal in a matter of weeks or months, the wounds opened by words can remain raw for a long, long time. How long will it be before any mention of the Rutgers women’s basketball team will not conjure up an echo of the terrible names they were called?
This week, we saw another example of the terrible power of words, the damage of name calling. When Alec Baldwin left that message for his daughter, he may have been justified in his anger, but was he justified in calling his daughter a “pig?” Does being angry excuse telling a young child that she doesn’t have “the brains and the decency of a human being”?
There probably isn’t a parent who hasn’t said something to his or her child that was regrettable. There are things, I am sure, that most parents wish had been handled differently. I’m sure Alec Baldwin is feeling that way now.
This is something that should never have been played for the public. Yet, there is something we can learn. Not only from Alec Baldwin’s rant, but Don Imus’ cheap shot comments too.
Words are powerful. Words can hurt. Did my stepfather think he was inflicting long lasting pain on me each time he called me “the Brainless Wonder?” Probably not, but I still wince today, even to type the words. And so it will be for the Rutgers team, and for Alec Baldwin’s daughter. Every time those words are repeated, in public, in private or in print – those wounds will open up again.
It is not the pen that is mightier than the sword, but the word.
That was chant we learned in grammar school, the response we were taught, for bullies who were calling us names. It was supposed to give power to us and show the bullies they couldn’t get to us (not with words anyway).
Unfortunately, it was a false promise. Growing up taught us that the bullies COULD get to us, with sticks, with stones and with words. And sometimes, it is the words that inflict the most painful damage of all.
Don Imus was the playground bully, and the Rutgers women’s basketball team was his victim. The team held its head up high, got an apology and, for the time being at least, saw the silencing of a bully. However, the damage done by the words uttered by Imus is not so easily healed. Unlike most broken bones, which can heal in a matter of weeks or months, the wounds opened by words can remain raw for a long, long time. How long will it be before any mention of the Rutgers women’s basketball team will not conjure up an echo of the terrible names they were called?
This week, we saw another example of the terrible power of words, the damage of name calling. When Alec Baldwin left that message for his daughter, he may have been justified in his anger, but was he justified in calling his daughter a “pig?” Does being angry excuse telling a young child that she doesn’t have “the brains and the decency of a human being”?
There probably isn’t a parent who hasn’t said something to his or her child that was regrettable. There are things, I am sure, that most parents wish had been handled differently. I’m sure Alec Baldwin is feeling that way now.
This is something that should never have been played for the public. Yet, there is something we can learn. Not only from Alec Baldwin’s rant, but Don Imus’ cheap shot comments too.
Words are powerful. Words can hurt. Did my stepfather think he was inflicting long lasting pain on me each time he called me “the Brainless Wonder?” Probably not, but I still wince today, even to type the words. And so it will be for the Rutgers team, and for Alec Baldwin’s daughter. Every time those words are repeated, in public, in private or in print – those wounds will open up again.
It is not the pen that is mightier than the sword, but the word.
Friday, April 06, 2007
Earth Day, Babyboomers and Global Warming
Earth Day, 1970. To mark the event, a local radio station holds a writing contest, calling it the “Pollution Solution” contest. What can be done to clean up the environment, and especially the air?
I am in junior high school. On my bedroom wall is a chilling poster. A skeleton is driving a bulldozer, under which he is crushing animals, plants, rivers, flowers. Behind him is “progress” depicted as a smoky morass of skyscrapers, bridges and flaming factories the resemble the refineries along the turnpike in New Jersey, the state where I live. I am inspired to write something, anything, to voice my concern. The result is a poem that the judges pick for “special honors” because of my age, and the fact that it is more of a dire warning than a suggestion of actual solutions. I am invited to read the poem on the air, and a poster of it is hung in my school. The only other entry read on the air is the winning essay, which offers this surprising solution to our ecological problems – population control.
Earth Day, 1990. The same local radio station hosts a show looking back on what has changed since the first Earth Day. I’m a call-in guest on the show and asked if I have seen any positive improvements in twenty years. I cite the emission regulations for cars, the spreading recycling programs initiated in New Jersey and other states, even the ban on harmful aerosols. Smog, once the watchword of the environmental set, seems well on its way to being a thing of the past. And Rachel Carson’s predictions about a “Silent Spring” had not come to pass, thanks to the multitude of chemicals and pesticides that had been banned. In general, I feel optimistic. In my understanding of environmental issues, there is no talk of global climate changes or holes in the ozone layer.
Earth Day, 2007. The spectre of Global Warming now hangs over our heads. In a recent article in the Rutgers Daily Targum, writer Patrick McKnight goes so far as to blame it on the babyboomer generation – that somehow everyone born between 1945 and 1965 is impeding solutions to this problem. He states, “But now, at a time when we need similar social change more than ever, it is the baby boom generation in power who are stifling our progress.” Yet, who has garnered the most attention about this subject, bringing discussion of it to dinner tables around the nation? Babyboomer Al Gore. And I would say with some certainty, that it is not just those identified as Gen X or Gen Y who are paying close attention to this and are doing what they can to change things. In fact, I would guess that plenty of Gen X and Gen Y people, along with Babyboomers and beyond are out there driving gas guzzlers and tossing the spent batteries from all their electronic gadgets into landfills. Yes, there is a culture of rampant comsumerism in today’s United States – but it involves all ages, all generations – everyone. Putting the brakes on our appetite for oil, electricity, gas and other resources is the responsibility of all. Babyboomers felt as if their parents left them a polluted, tainted world, and out of that came much positive work and change. The job is not done, the job may never be done. The one thing that will impede progress however, is wasting time pointing fingers.
I am in junior high school. On my bedroom wall is a chilling poster. A skeleton is driving a bulldozer, under which he is crushing animals, plants, rivers, flowers. Behind him is “progress” depicted as a smoky morass of skyscrapers, bridges and flaming factories the resemble the refineries along the turnpike in New Jersey, the state where I live. I am inspired to write something, anything, to voice my concern. The result is a poem that the judges pick for “special honors” because of my age, and the fact that it is more of a dire warning than a suggestion of actual solutions. I am invited to read the poem on the air, and a poster of it is hung in my school. The only other entry read on the air is the winning essay, which offers this surprising solution to our ecological problems – population control.
Earth Day, 1990. The same local radio station hosts a show looking back on what has changed since the first Earth Day. I’m a call-in guest on the show and asked if I have seen any positive improvements in twenty years. I cite the emission regulations for cars, the spreading recycling programs initiated in New Jersey and other states, even the ban on harmful aerosols. Smog, once the watchword of the environmental set, seems well on its way to being a thing of the past. And Rachel Carson’s predictions about a “Silent Spring” had not come to pass, thanks to the multitude of chemicals and pesticides that had been banned. In general, I feel optimistic. In my understanding of environmental issues, there is no talk of global climate changes or holes in the ozone layer.
Earth Day, 2007. The spectre of Global Warming now hangs over our heads. In a recent article in the Rutgers Daily Targum, writer Patrick McKnight goes so far as to blame it on the babyboomer generation – that somehow everyone born between 1945 and 1965 is impeding solutions to this problem. He states, “But now, at a time when we need similar social change more than ever, it is the baby boom generation in power who are stifling our progress.” Yet, who has garnered the most attention about this subject, bringing discussion of it to dinner tables around the nation? Babyboomer Al Gore. And I would say with some certainty, that it is not just those identified as Gen X or Gen Y who are paying close attention to this and are doing what they can to change things. In fact, I would guess that plenty of Gen X and Gen Y people, along with Babyboomers and beyond are out there driving gas guzzlers and tossing the spent batteries from all their electronic gadgets into landfills. Yes, there is a culture of rampant comsumerism in today’s United States – but it involves all ages, all generations – everyone. Putting the brakes on our appetite for oil, electricity, gas and other resources is the responsibility of all. Babyboomers felt as if their parents left them a polluted, tainted world, and out of that came much positive work and change. The job is not done, the job may never be done. The one thing that will impede progress however, is wasting time pointing fingers.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
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