Friday--March 24

Hoping that the temperature rises as expected into the 70s. I have a lot of outside work to get done with the planned reconfiguration and the retirement of three large containers. I saw marigold seedlings breaking through in the pots upstairs.

Yesterday Mom was reading a piece in which one interviewee asked why she and her (healthy) husband, who have taken good care of themselves, should have to pay to provide health insurance for others who couldn't be bothered to do the same. She obviously felt she and her spouse were being rewarded for living their "virtuous" lives with good health and others simply weren't being that "virtuous" and were receiving their just rewards for their "sins." My thoughts on those sentiments include: 1) you self-righteous bitch, 2) you are damned lucky not to have had an auto accident that left you needing expensive care or an accident at work requiring the same, or an unexpected serious illness that also required expensive care, 3) and you are a selfish bitch who like most of the Repthuglican party needs a brain transplant (because you can't think beyond your own comfortable circumstances and precious self) and a heart transplant (because yours--if you have one--missed the compassion function). Perhaps you think I am being unreasonably harsh and judgmental. However, her argument assumes that people who need help paying for medical care (or the insurance that provides some access to that care) have somehow caused their own circumstances of their own volition. And it assumes that all medical conditions can be prevented if only people lived rightly, ate properly, whatever. And it mistakes being damned lucky for being virtuous. As this article shows we don't know what causes two-thirds of cancers. I knew a family a long time ago whose father was stricken at a fairly early age by Parkinson's. They didn't know then that the condition is heritable and was present in his family because the relatives refused to talk about it because OMG it involved SEX. There was nothing they could have done to prevent the disease and no amount of right living would have helped. I remember a young girl from my junior high school days who had contracted polio before the vaccine because widely available often at a much reduced cost to those who couldn't afford the treatment on their own. No amount of right living or money would have saved those who came of age before the vaccine.