Ok everybody, by a show of hands, how many of you have had it up to here (I'm holding my outstretched hand level with my eyebrows...eyebrow actually 'cause I've got that monobrow thing going on) anyways, who's sick and tired of all this stuff going on with health care reform? I'm not saying it isn't an important issue but Holy Cow, enough already!! Let's get this thing handled.
I got up early this morning because I'm in the midst of a job hunt and had an interview scheduled in the city. Equipped with coffee and map I hopped into the car and headed towards the expressway. When I got onto the main road I switched on the radio which was set to NPR(National Public Radio) and what do you think the topic being discussed was? You got it, health care reform. Now, like I said a second ago, I understand the importance of this issue. In fact, because I'm quickly approaching the age of 50, health insurance and the details thereof are extremely relevant to me. Just the other day my young and loving son poked his forefinger into my growing belly making unnecessary comments about my slight gain in weight and the health implications along with it. That said, it was six fifteen in the morning and my hair wasn't even awake yet. At that hour of the morning I have the comprehension skills of a small rock and probably shouldn't be behind the wheel of anything more powerful than a stroller. And because the discussion on the radio sounded like nothing more than gibberish, I switched the channel to the next preset which happened to be WLS AM radio.
If you haven't picked up that I live near the city of Chicago, I do and WLS used to be huge around here. It's still pretty big but to a different audience and to a lesser extent. As a matter of fact they call themselves the "50,000 Watt Blowtorch" referring to the power behind their transmitter. So powerful in fact that they are capable of transmitting a clear signal as far away as Florida to the south and Arizona to the west. WLS was the 'top 40s' station for pop music back when I was a kid however it changed it's format to conservative 'talk radio' in 1989 and has remained that way ever since. Now they carry syndicated shows with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and other high profile conservative talk show hosts. The call letters stand for "World's Largest Store" because it was owned by Sears Roebuck but it's since been sold to some other corporate behemoth. I used to listen to them exclusively well into the years of their talk format but unfortunately they've gotten so commercialized that I just couldn't handle the lack of content. I mean for every hour they broadcast, forty minutes are eaten up with commercials and other fillers. On a good day you might get to listen to the host for seven minutes before being interrupted for five minutes of ads followed by another thirty seconds of them blasting their call letters at you. Tie a bow on that with a weather or traffic report and you find that you've just sat through eight minutes of useless noise before the cycle repeats itself. Odds are, if you tune into that station, the first thing you'll hear is a commercial. But hey...they're obviously successful so God Bless and keep on truckin' but those are the reasons I usually listen to NPR. NPR gets much of its money from grants, donations and fund raising which allows them to keep commercial advertising to a minimum. In spite of the above rant I flipped over to WLS but like NPR, the topic of discussion were the latest developments in health care reform.
I guess it would've been easy enough to have opted for music but for reasons I don't even understand, I wanted to listen to somebody talking just as long as it wasn't about health care reform(I could also do without those ads for male enhancements). No more health care talk, Not now or not ever would be even better but probably as likely as getting to skip seeing my neighbor picking up his pets droppings in my lawn. And so I decided to tune into this next station( it isn't one of my presets) because I never want to accidently end up on this one. It's called Air America, goes by the call letters WCPT AM and it's the politcally left's answer to conservative talk radio.
I figured that as long as I wanted to listen to talk radio and chances were good that whatever station I chose would be discussing health care reform, I might as well listen to a different point of view than what I've been hearing. Air America is populated with a handful of Democratic rabble rousers and, if nothing else, have some interesting perspectives which they freely share. Each one of the above named radio stations are quite a bit different from each other and if you had the time or interest to listen to one after the other, my point would be made clear. From my perspective their political biases go like this:
WLS
NPR
They have been described at one time or another as favoring both sides of the fence. I'm of the opinion that their opinions are slanted more to the left which equates to a more Liberal viewpoint however after doing a bit of reading and listening I can see how some might call them centered. So I'm putting them in the middle.
Air America (WCPT AM)
Democratic
Liberalism
Politcally Left
Now I realize that I'm way out of my intellectual league here and what I'm about to say may be way out in "right" field but this is what I do. My understanding about what the right wingers(Republicans), are all about is basically smaller government. Less government intervention, more reliance on ourselves as individuals, the free market and free enterprise to sort everything out. They believe that, left to it's own devices, the free enterprise system is the embodiment of freedom and if the government would let it run on it's own merits, this country and it's people would be a lot better off.(and just by the way, I kind of go along with this line of thought)
On the other side of the coin, you've got the Democrats and Liberalism. From what I can tell they believe in a government by the people, for the people. They see the government as a vehicle to serve its people in ways that might be too difficult for the individual to accomplish on their own and that, if we serve the government, the government will be better able to serve the society that built it.
Without getting too deep here, I think both sides have their good points. Personally I think I've got a better shot at success when I'm allowed to make my own decisions without the government's involvement and so I guess that means I lean more to the right. It just seems that whenever the government gets involved in anything except perhaps the military, things usually get more expensive and complicated...and slow. I don't think the powers-that-be intended for this to happen. One thing is for sure though; when you're dealing with anything on such a large scale it's almost always bound to be cumbersome and inefficient. Which brings me back to the topic of health care reform.
This issue has been going on non-stop, ad nauseum, almost since President Obama's first day in office. The House, the Senate, insurance companies, their lawyers, lobbiests, the Vatican, talk show hosts, millions of others and now me have been riding this pony and beating the crap out of it ever since. I guess, putting my personal feelings aside, it's a good thing that the issue of how we're going to pay for our health care is moving as slowly as it is. It's a big deal, maybe one of the biggest and it effects you, me and everyone in between from now until who knows. I guess it deserves, the attention it's garnering. If you think about it, this is probably exactly what the boys had in mind when they drew up the Constitution. Checks and balances, the ying and the yang and all the rest of that happy junk. It's our government and the two party system fighting it out right under our noses. Do you think this what they call 'transparency'? Probably not but it's in the ball park.
As for me..I guess I'll just have to find another form of entertainment because I can't take much more. Maybe I'll give writing a shot.
As always, thanks for stopping by. Please feel free to leave you thoughts and criticisms. I always look forward to hearing from you. In the meantime best wishes and good luck with your life's pursuits. I hope this finds you well.
The Born Loser
