Category: Uncategorized

Football Follies

 My stepson Ross is an avowed NY Giants fan and I’m a diehard Patriots zealot and our day is going to be rough. The fun thing is that we’re both busy imagining the ways our respective teams may lose– which is of course the preferred position of the true fan (who remembers with galling exactitude every miserable setback he’s ever witnessed, the fumbles, missed kicks, interceptions, O god it’s a nearly endless and cruel trick of memory we endure). 

We are trying to imagine ways that we can be kind to each other. This is a sweet inter-personal delusion that we will maintain up til game time and then, well, it will be blood and feathers I’m afraid. 

Years ago, when I was a college student I went to a bar in Geneva, NY, and it was early afternoon and a man walked in and put a paper sack on the bar and said: “Frank was one helluva a cock!”  

He then pulled out old Frank!s legs, still tufted with ragged feathers and he stood them on the bar. 

Alas, one of us is going to stand the old legs on the bar when it’s all over. 

“Yep,” he said. “Frank was one helluva chicken!”

Go Patriots! 

 NCOA: House Vote To Repeal CLASS Shows Congress Is Out Of Touch

(National Council on Aging)
February 2, 2012

WASHINGTON, DC– [Excerpt provided by Inclusion Daily Express)] The U.S. House of Representatives voted today to repeal the CLASS program, without offering any alternative to address the growing long-term care crisis among middle-class Americans.

CLASS, or the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program is a voluntary, fiscally responsible, long-term care insurance program that would help address the serious, growing long-term care needs of seniors, individuals with disabilities, caregivers, and families. CLASS was signed into law as part of the health reform Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Millions of Americans are faced with a broken system that requires them to spend down their life savings into poverty before receiving needed long-term coverage, forces them prematurely into expensive nursing homes, and imposes enormous financial, emotional, and physical burdens on family caregivers, particularly women. The urgency to address these issues is growing, as almost 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 every day, and the fastest-growing segment of our population — those over age 85 — have the greatest need for these services.

For over two decades, Congress debated how to address long-term care before passing the CLASS Act last year. CLASS would encourage personal responsibility by providing a cash benefit to people needing care at home through voluntary premiums and, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), would save Medicaid dollars.

Entire article:
House Vote to Repeal CLASS Shows Congress is Out of Touch with the Struggles of Middle-Class Americans
http://tinyurl.com/ide0202121a
Related:
Rep. Dennis Kucinich: “Protecting Our Seniors Should Be Our First Priority” (Huffington Post)
http://tinyurl.com/ide0202121b
Sen. Jay Rockefeller: “CLASS Act repeal would help no one” (Politico)
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/72343.html
CLASS Act (FactCheck.org)
http://www.factcheck.org/2010/06/class-act/

Santorum Tells Sick Kid Not To Complain About $1 Million Drug Costs Because People Pay $900 For An iPad

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/02/03/417657/santorum-tells-sick-kid-not-to-complain-about-1-million-drug-costs-because-people-pay-900-for-an-ipad/

Stephen Kuusisto
Director
The Renee Crown University Honors Program
University Professor
Syracuse University

Essay: Walking with Miss Nira

 We circle the neighborhood, mid winter, withered leaves madcap, flying around the gutters. We hear the old ocean. Mine is just a sea journey comprising sacrifices and tears at the gangway. But Nira, a yellow Labrador hears from afar an invitation to rise up on her hind legs and dance the canine horn pipe. The leaves and black trees re-enter their stillness once we’ve passed by. And the blue ocean is steady, waiting.

Essay: Minimal Crow

Corvus, small as an eyelash. The leaves of winter scatter on the wind. I can’t call my mother because the gates of heaven are so far from this house.  

& the crow, small as a bitten fingernail, flies through my torso. 

It goes without saying: no one else sees a thing.

& yes, the day’s geography is before me, the long day.

& I will be walking around with this micro crow deep inside.