It's enough to make you sick, but in a good way. . . .

Around here in the Klamath Basin, it just feels like another beautiful fall day, a Sunday; not much is changing except the weather, which is mixing in more cold and wet days, and next week we should have our first real snow, though not a big one will be my guess. It's so quiet you might think you were deep in the woods and there wasn't another living person within miles.

But really, it’s quite an extraordinary Sunday since last night the house passed health-care reform legislation. Let’s call it landmark. Even one Republican crossed over to vote for it.

From the little I know, it’s not perfect. We should be moving away from employer-provided health care since it puts a burden on American companies when trying to compete with foreign companies from countries where health care isn’t connected to the workplace. Still, a lot will be worked out over the next few years. For now, history has been made which should have been made a generation ago.

Now the Senate has to pass its own version, and a lot could still go wrong there. From what I’m reading and hearing, though, Obama will have a bill on his desk to sign, maybe by Thanksgiving. How appropriate.

Wednesday on PBS, Frontline is rerunning its program “Sick Around the World,” which originally got me thinking so much about all this over a year ago. I hope all our Senators will watch it as they prepare to debate and vote on their package. And I hope even Republicans, elected and not, will watch it. They may react the same way I did, which is to be struck with how uncomplicated reform might be and with how badly we need to do it now.

They might come to understand that full-coverage healthcare with a public option and even a single payer is the moderate position. Socialized medicine means every hospital and clinic belongs to the government and every health care worker, from doctors to LPNs, is a government employee. Socialized medicine works well in some countries, though it probably wouldn’t be a good choice for us, nor is it one that would ever be considered here for a very long time to come. But look to a time in the not-too-distant-future when the teabaggers and other assorted wing-nut loonies are still railing against socialized medicine while they and their families are fully enjoying its benefits.

I wonder if this will be seen as Obama’s great achievement or if he will be seen as having been aloof from the process and mostly an observer.

I just can't watch. . . .

“But barring astoundingly self-defeating behavior by Democrats, a decent bill will get to Obama's desk." So said E.J. Dionne a few days ago predicting a health-care reform bill would pass, and so quoted I a few entries back. But, I added, never underestimate the ability of the Democrats to engage in astoundingly self-defeating behavior.

Which, of course, is exactly what they're doing. Republicans have completely opted out of any discussion, so if the crazies want to get heard, they have to find forty or so blue-dog Democrats who have nothing better to do than to howl at the moon and call it music. In this case, they have two demands: no federal health-care dollars can go to illegal immigrants, and no tax dollars can go toward abortion.

Simple enough. Write that into the bill, but then exactly how are you going to enforce it? The Blue Dems don’t say, except basically anything you can come up with isn’t good enough. Simply writing these restrictions into the bill doesn’t even start to cover it. How do we know Jose’ is really a citizen, even if he was born in Pasadena and went to Harvard? The looney right doesn’t even believe the President is a citizen since his father was born in Kenya and he was born in Hawaii.

This only makes him a citizen of Kenyawaii.

And it’s not enough to say any public-option plan can’t cover abortions; any private health plan that has any publicly subsidized enrollees can’t either.

Why stop there? Why not prohibit private individuals from paying for their own abortions if they are unemployed and collecting insurance, or getting disability, or in the military, or working for an agency that has a government contract? Those are tax dollars they’re spending, and if they want to spend them to kill babies, they need to give them back and start standing at the exit to Wal-Mart with a “Need abortion, Please help” sign.

Or they could just get a job at Wal-Mart, since they probably won’t ever get health coverage there either.

Despite all this craziness, the Dems still probably have the votes to pass a bill this weekend, especially if Obama will come on down to the hill and meet with some Dems who are still sitting on the fence. Which is exactly what he was going to do until the tragic shootings at Food Hood, Texas, so now he’s not.

Huh?

Huh?!

Really, I just can’t watch anymore. I’m going back to my cartoons. Let me know how it all turns out.

Bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu

Nation,

I’m no fan of South Park, but when a cartoon show for twenty-somethings devotes an entire episode to bashing Harley riders, I have to say “Tip of the Hat.”

You can see it here:

http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/251889/

(btw, I don't know why blogger isn't letting me paste in hot links anymore, but it's not. You can, of course, get there from here by copying the link and pasting it into your browser. Meanwhile, I'll have my crack team of tech-savvy interns get on this problem.)

(Next) Monday night at the movies

Here's the announcement for the next Monday Night at the Movies film at the local Ross Ragland Theater. I like the note at the end about submitting questions in advance, which at first seems rather ridiculous but then you have to consider some of the questions you get otherwise. I'll probably go.

Skye Borgman is yet another Klamath Falls native who is making it in da movies. Prior guests included directors James Ivory and Chris Eyre. There's no accounting for a jerkwater town like this producing such talent. Unless there is.

("Jerkwater": adj. Informal
1. Remote, small, and insignificant: a jerkwater town.
2. Contemptibly trivial: jerkwater notions.

From jerkwater, a branch-line train, so called because its small boiler had to be refilled often, requiring train crews to "jerk" or draw water from streams.]

**********

Monday Night at the Movies Presents Junk Dreams
With Cinematographer Skye Borgman
Monday, November 9th, at 7 p.m.
Click here to watch the film trailer!

The Ragland presents Junk Dreams, with introduction and lecture by Cinematographer Skye Borgman, Monday, November 9th, at 7 p.m., as part of the theater's Monday Night At The Movies free film series.

Junk Dreams is a documentary adventure that chronicles one magical journey of two ageless brothers. Ernie and Charlie Borgman board a 29 foot Chinese Junk and set sail for a 1,500 mile journey from Port Hadlock, Washington to Valdez, Alaska. The two and a half month adventure takes them along the Canadian and Alaskan coast and into the icy waters of the Gulf of Alaska. Through torrents of rain and raging waters, engine troubles and broken masts ... the two men come face to face with adventure, their true fountain of youth. This is a documentary about family. It is a story of passing along the passion for life for our children. It is a story of aging but never growing old.

Skye Borgman was born in Alaska, raised in Oregon and is a Klamath Union High School graduate. She moved to Los Angeles in 2000 with the intention of fusing photography, travel and momentum. She received her MFA from USC's Film Production program and has been working as a cinematographer, on both narrative and documentary films, ever since.

To help The Ragland shape and define the pre-screening lecture and post-screening question and answer session, please submit your questions and comments on the following film topics and themes to media@rrtheater.org before the screening on November 9th.

1. Family bonds
2. Passing along passion for life to our children
3. Aging but never growing old

Another thing I never thought I'd see in my lifetime, except for awhile there

Predictions about the chances for health-care reform have all been mostly off the mark for the last few months or so, which is one reason why I haven’t had anything to say about it recently. But E. J. Dionne today makes a remarkably sure prediction:

“But barring astoundingly self-defeating behavior by Democrats, a decent bill will get to Obama's desk. He and his party will then own the most sweeping reform of the American social safety net since the passage of Medicare in the 1960s and, arguably, Social Security in the 1930s.” He goes on to list all of the immediate benefits that will be implemented, as well as the more sweeping reforms that will begin in 2013.

You can read him here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/01/AR2009110101703.html?wpisrc=newsletter

You can never count out astoundingly self-defeating behavior by Democrats, but the momentum favors Dionne’s prediction, and if he’s right, my head will probably explode. Imagine: The United States might finally rise to the level of, say, Cuba, in its availability of good-quality and affordable health care for everyone.

As Ma says in the Faulkner novel As I Lay Dying, “Thy will be done. Now I can get them teeth.”

About motorcycles

The November Harper’s Magazine has an interesting memoir by poet Frederick Seidel entitled “About Motorcycles.” Identified as a “Memoir,” I had trouble believing it was entirely or even mostly true. I thought it might be some kind of rider’s fantasy disguised as autobiography. Among other things, Seidel claims that two different factories, MV Agusta and Ducati, prepared one-off street legal versions of their Moto-GP race bikes for his personal collection. Completely unlikely, especially since he describes the Agusta as a shaft drive for some reason. So far as I know, only BMW ever fielded shaft drive racing motorcycles.

Also dubious is the list of who’s who in motorcycle racing that he describes as personal friends or close acquaintences, including Agusta’s and Ducati’s factory owners, top designers, and team managers. Plus a couple of the world’s most beautiful movie stars.

But it seems likely the whole thing is true. Wikipedia provides this bit of information: “Seidel is independently wealthy-- that is to say, he inherited rather than earned his personal fortune-- and is fascinated by Ducati motorcycles, of which he owns four.”

As a reminiscence about a lifelong love of motorcycles, I don’t find it to be all that compelling and would recommend instead The Perfect Vehicle: What It is about Motorcycles by Melissa Holbrook Pierson. A girl who loves her MotoGuzzi: talk about unlikely!

Still, if you’re a rider and have an extra $6.95, you should probably pick up the November Harper’s, or just stop by and borrow mine.

Funny numbers

Conservative columnist and Weekly Standard editor William Kristol (who is now going as Bill) should not be confused with comedian Billy Crystal, even though they look a lot alike.


Bill


Billy







What are these guys, twins?

Kristol (the conservative) takes comfort in some recent poll numbers: “The Gallup poll released Monday shows the public's conservatism at a high-water mark. Some 40 percent of Americans call themselves conservative, compared with 36 percent who self-describe as moderates and 20 percent as liberals.”

So you might see this as an indication that Republicans will enjoy twice the support in coming elections that Democrats will, until you think for a minute about the 36 percent who self-describe as moderate. How much room for them is there in today’s Republican party?

Not much. Maybe not any. In what would otherwise be an obscure little congressional special election in New York, a moderate Republican actually managed to win the primary, which has now resulted in a Conservative Party challenger who has the backing of Sarah Palin, among other Republican notables. Kristol seems to things that’s okay: “A liberal Republican anointed by the GOP establishment for the special congressional election in Upstate New York will probably run third, behind the conservative Republican running on the Conservative Party line, who may in fact win.”

But if I were the non-comedian Bill, I think I’d be less comfortable with my own numbers and observations. “When asked how much confidence they had in congressional Republicans to make the right decisions for the country's future, only 19 percent of respondents expressed much confidence in the GOP -- well behind the confidence levels in congressional Democrats (34 percent) and Obama (49 percent).”

And I’d be downright worried about the cast of characters serious Bill points to as the leaders and worker bees of the New Republican Party: “The center of gravity, I suspect, will instead lie with individuals such as Palin and Huckabee and Gingrich, media personalities like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, and activists at town halls and tea parties. Some will lament this -- but over the past year, as those voices have dominated, conservatism has done pretty well in the body politic, and Republicans have narrowed the gap with Democrats in test ballots.”

Expect Republicans to pick up seats in the off-year congressional elections, as the minority party always does. How many they pick up will probably depend on how far they can reach beyond their base and draw in moderate voters.

If Kristol’s observations are correct, it might not be good news for the Grand Old Party and no laughing matter for moderate Republicans.

For a good laugh, I'd recommend Billy's When Harry Met Sally and especially City Slickers.

RIP Soupy Sales

"Soupy Sales (January 8, 1926 – October 22, 2009)[2] was an American comedian, actor, radio-TV personality and host, and jazz aficionado."

(Wikipedia)

Even his Wikipedia entry is good for some laughs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soupy_Sales

As noted, he was also a jazz aficionado and worked a lot of music into his shows.

I was a huge fan of Soupy as a kid. It saddens me to learn he's no longer with us. I'm moving this to the top of my Netflix queue:

http://www.netflix.com/Search?v1=The%20Soupy%20Sales%20Collection&lnkce=acsEnhCk

And now, a pie in the face for God.

Last ride

On Friday, I leave for my motorcycle club’s annual Hardy Souls campout, held outside the town of Seneca in the Northeast mountains of Oregon. Seneca has the distinction of having the lowest temperature ever recorded in Oregon, minus 54 degrees in February, 1933. This is late October, not February, and by all the old-timers’ accounts, the winters just aren’t what they used to be. Still, in past events we’ve seen morning temperatures in the low teens, and it’s one thing to stiffly crawl out of a tent when the very ground around you is frozen hard; it’s quite another to pull on freezing clothes, get on a motorcycle, and start the long ride back home, never mind the frost on the road.

Still, it’s a grand event and one I wouldn’t miss, not just yet anyway. Last year, I was only a few weeks out of prostrate surgery, so I made the concession of going by car, for which I was richly ridiculed. This year I’ll be on my new-to-me 2006 Suzuki V-Strom, a bike built more for comfort than for speed and itself a concession to age and comfort I wouldn’t have considered even a few years ago.

But temperatures are forecast to fall only into the upper twenties with daytime temperatures approaching sixty, and already I’m making a mental list of the things I’ll take along for comfort. With the increased luggage capacity of the new bike, I’ll include a small French press and a bag of Starbuck’s so I won’t have to go from tent to tent with my begging mug and rely on the kindness of friends I’ve known for over twenty years.

Fresh hot coffee and a new bike aren’t the only concessions I’ll make for comfort. You learn a lot from experience when you travel by motorcycle for twenty-five years. In cold weather, I carry two sleeping bags, and depending on temperature, I’ll nest one inside the other or use one as a comforter. It gets cold enough inside the tent for your breath to freeze on the inside, but as long as I stay covered up, I’m deliciously warm.

For years, all my bikes have had electric grips, which keep hands from going numb and even developing frostbite, if not exactly warm and comfy. Also, I wear an electric vest which plugs into the bike’s electrical system. Again, when it’s below freezing there’s no sensation of actual warmth with these, just suffienct heat to keep your core warm enough to ward off hypothermia. The not-too recent development of toe warmers, little charcoal bags that somehow react to oxygen and toe jam, provide enough heat that toes only get cold and not downright painful.

Imagine sitting on a seat hard as a board, in twenty-degree weather and with a 70 mile-per-hour wind, and you can see that the best that can be hoped for is to be able to keep riding.

So why bother going out when I know the best I can do is to somewhat mitigate my misery? That’s hard to explain to people who don’t ride, but there’s something that-much-more exciting about beating the elements and heading out on a trip long after most riders have winterized their bikes and are home watching NASCAR. And life in camp is good. Our hosts Ed and Ellen Barton bring their truck with a hefty load of firewood and the makings of Ellen’s famous freeze-ass chili. Bjorn Klingenberg brings his vintage hand-cranked Victrola and a stack of rare and wonderful 78s featuring original recordings of World War Two-era big bands. And I get to meet and joke around with this eclectic mix of friends I’ve known for over two decades, many of them at least a few years older than me and, like me, determined to scratch out one more ride in the beautiful fall colors of the Oregon high country before the snow settles in and we have to settle for spiced cider around the fire at home.

So I can’t wait for Friday morning. When the sun gets high enough and temperatures rise into the forties and even fifties, there's no better feeling than riding fast through some of the most beautiful scenery in the West.

I think a lot recently about how much longer I’ll be able to do this. I have many friends who still ride in their sixties. Only a few still ride in their seventies, so sometime over the next few years, I’ll likely reach a point where age and good sense tell me that this part of my life is over, that this pleasure belongs to younger men. Anticipatory grief, my friend John calls it. John's a psychologist and knows about these things.

For now and for as many more years as I can still throw a leg over, I plan to keep the real grief at bay.

¡Fiesta más fina!

PBS just ran a two-hour special, Latin Music USA, that was very informative but pretty much doomed by the broad topic and brief run-time. In two hours, the most they could do was introduce a few leading characters and offer only the briefest clips of their music. Thus, Dizzy Gillespie gets his rightful mention but we only hear him play a few notes. His Cuban protégé Arturo Sandoval gets considerably more time talking about what a great influence Dizzy was.

Too bad. When he was on, no one could play trumpet like Diz. No one.

Still, it’s a show worth watching if you love Latin music as I do, and I’m sure it will repeat.

And now, coming up tomorrow night (Thursday) also on PBS, a broadcast of the White House concert in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, a “Fiesta Latina.” Marc Anthony headlines, with appearances by Los Lobos, Jose Feliciano, and many more.

I first saw Anthony in a Paul Simon tribute concert when he sang Simon’s Latin-infused hit “Late in the Evening”:

“Then I learned to play some lead guitar, I was underage in this funky bar
And I stepped outside to smoke myself a j.
When I come back to the room, everybody just seemed to move
And I turned my amp up loud and I began to play.

It was late in the evening, and I blew that room away.”

And did he ever. Then I saw him in El Cantante, the Hector Lavoe bio-pic where he proved that he could act as well.

A highlight from the White House concert, previewed on Youtube clips, is the First Family all dancing on stage. I guess they got the idea from Tom Delay doing the cha-cha on Dancing with the Stars. The President has the better moves and looks way less gay.

This should be a terrific concert.

Curious George

George Will today heaps scorn on Michelle and Barack Obama, not for going to Copenhagen to promote Chicago for the Olympics, but for talking too much about themselves and for using cliches. He counts the number of personal pronouns in each speech, gives an example or two of a tired chestnut, and declares, "Their separate speeches to the International Olympic Committee were so dreadful, and in such a characteristic way, that they might be symptomatic of something that has serious implications for American governance." His stunning conclusion: The president is vain.

In his short speech, Obama begins with a little personal narrative about how he came to Chicago. He continues:

"Chicago is a place where we strive to celebrate what makes us different just as we celebrate what we have in common. It's a place where our unity is on colorful display at so many festivals and parades, and especially sporting events, where perfect strangers become fast friends just because they're wearing the same jersey. It's a city that works -- from its first World's Fair more than a century ago to the World Cup we hosted in the nineties, we know how to put on big events. And scores of visitors and spectators will tell you that we do it well.

"Chicago is a city where the practical and the inspirational exist in harmony; where visionaries who made no small plans rebuilt after a great fire and taught the world to reach new heights. It's a bustling metropolis with the warmth of a small town; where the world already comes together every day to live and work and reach for a dream -- a dream that no matter who we are, where we come from; no matter what we look like or what hand life has dealt us; with hard work, and discipline, and dedication, we can make it if we try.

"That's not just the American Dream. That is the Olympic spirit. It's the essence of the Olympic spirit. That's why we see so much of ourselves in these Games. That's why we want them in Chicago. That's why we want them in America."

Not a bad pitch, I'd say. Not a single personal pronoun for three paragraphs. But what about the cliche's? Obama, Will says, makes use of "the foggy sentimentalism of standard Olympics blather." Best to stay clear of any mention of the Olympic spirit or the character-building properties of sport.

So Will's two charges are that the president is vain and uses cliches. The horror! When can we get back to the humble presidents who have led and defined America, and who invariably spoke in strikingly original language about our values, destiny, and national character?

Will has an extended list of just those very presidents, let's see, around here somewhere, but he doesn't happen to mention any just now. And failing to give credit where credit's due, he doesn't even mention that the president was not wearing blue jeans.

Anyway, I'm on the Olympic Committee and I'm looking at Chicago/Rio... Chicago/ Rio... Chicago/Rio...

Hmmmm. . .

Ya know, I think we're going to Rio!