"Resolve: To be true to your own particular summer and dredge
its essence, never trying to turn copper into gold, silver into
crystal."
Since I
found this quote by someone named Barrett, I have treasured it as a
resolution I could actually keep.
There
was a time when summer meant swimming in cold mountain-spring water,
or tennis and baseball at the park down the street, with very hot
days passed playing board-game tournaments in my parents' cool
basement.
Later,
it meant volunteering to teach swimming at a Navy base pool, then
actually getting paid for lifeguarding at Danvers' Sandy Beach in my
short-lived "public employee period."
Later
still, summer was spent working in an air-conditioned office during
the week and catching up with chores on the weekend, with just an
occasional travel vacation. Still, it was wonderful getting off the
train at Wonderland at sunset and catching the ocean breeze when I
reached Swampscott.
Now, in
my golden years, with silver hair, I perform a kind of reverse
Rumpelstiltskin magic by turning copper beaches and crystal mountain
lakes into the cotton-blend webbing of my hammock. This is an
essence to which I can be true for the rest of my life, as long as I
have a good book and a thermos of iced light lemonade.
Of
course, a political activist is never completely at rest. Even when
it looks as if I am doing nothing, I am fighting the
sales-tax/meals-tax increase by loafing instead of shopping, while
eating at home. I resolved not to buy anything with a sales tax this
month, and I've mostly kept that resolution except for cat food —
Gilly doesn't care about politics — and the buffet at the Gourmet
Garden where a friend and I celebrate our common birthday-and-a-half
every August. I also admit to getting ice cream at Puleo's in Salem
with Chip.
My
anti-sales-tax diet was working pretty well, but now I have to get
lunch from the buffet/pizza counter at Whole Foods in Vinnin Square
to protest a national boycott against its CEO.
John
Mackey recently wrote
a column in the Wall Street Journal outlining a better health
care reform plan than the single-payer one that is the eventual goal
of President Obama and other liberals.
Mr.
Mackey gives his own employees excellent insurance, but is opposed
to single-payer government insurance. Good for him.
His
enemies should know about a recent example of government health care
— a VA center in Tennessee didn't sterilize equipment used for
routine colonoscopies between patients, and thousands of veterans
have been exposed to HIV and hepatitis.
Speaking
of HIV, The New York Times reports that public-health officials are
considering promoting routine circumcision for all baby boys, and
possibly adult heterosexual men, to reduce its spread. Note: The
government that wants to run our health care system thinks that AIDS
is caused by a lack of circumcision for straight men.
By the
way, I learned during my annual physical this month that my Medicare
Advantage Plan will pay for my examination, though traditional
Medicare pays for just one physical when seniors sign up at age 65.
My plan is the one that Obama recently attacked as wasteful, while
failing to acknowledge that the Advantage plans, which are run by
private insurance companies, are officially part of the Medicare
system.
I'm told
by a local billing office that an annual physical costs about $500.
Obama would make the patient pay for this preventive care, instead
of allowing those "greedy" private insurance companies to pay.
Why do I
keep hearing that those who oppose single-payer have no ideas of
their own for health care reform? Alternative plans are everywhere.
Along with what's available on the Internet, I have a paper stack of
analyses that I've been reading in my hammock from the
Heritage Foundation, the
Heartland Institute and the
Cato Institute,
along with a series of columns by economist
Thomas Sowell that you can find on his Web site along with his
photo, which may reassure those who are afraid of being called
racist if they don't support Obamacare.
I plan
to write a column noting some of their suggestions for my own "Oh!BarbaraCare"
proposal, after I have a chance to hear from local citizens at
congressional
candidate Bill Hudak's forum this Saturday (Aug. 29) at 1 p.m.
at the Sheraton Ferncroft in Danvers.
I am on
Congressman Tierney's e-mail list, so I did receive an invitation to
participate in a phone forum on this issue. Though I doubt that many
concerned constituents can adequately express their concerns in this
format, I'll give it a try.
Even
though on vacation, I was
interviewed by Fox about the idiotic state law that doesn't let
merchants pay the sales-tax hike for their customers to keep them
from shopping in New Hampshire. I said that "consumers should just
vote out the incumbents who voted for the increase."
At least
I'm not quoted from Martha's Vineyard where one woman gushed, "I'm
so honored to be walking on the same soil as Obama."
If I
ever say that about any celebrity, especially a politician, you can
skip the alleged Obamacare "death panel" and just give me that
"God-take-me-now" pill with my iced lemonade.