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Notebook

DumbAss!

Your Political Horoscope

Haiku Corner – Connie Wang

Healthcare Bonanza!

Don’t think of a healthcare system – David English

A few years ago, UC Berkeley professor and progressive thinker George Lakoff wrote a book, centered on the constructive—and sometimes destructive—uses of language in politics. The title of his book, Don’t Think of an Elephant, comes from an exercise he uses in a course he teaches. On the first day, he simply says: “Don’t think of an elephant.” And of course, what happens? The students think of an elephant. [more]

Is health care its own biggest problem? – Janice Lee

Being sick in California is like being in a car accident: everyone hopes that the damage will be minimal enough so that they won’t have to report to the dreaded insurance company, where it will forever send your rates several brackets higher. That is, of course, if you have health insurance at all; otherwise you treat your illness with a nice dose of denial—and maybe some Tylenol. [more]

Canada’s Secret to Great Health Care – Julia Piper

A wise man once said that Canada is like a loft apartment over a really great party. We’re big, we’re loud, we’re obnoxious. We buy things we can’t afford, we assume things we don’t know, and in a drunken stupor we tread over others and break things we can’t fix, just to wake up the next morning, bleary-eyed and blissfully virtuous, until we hear the neighbors banging on our door, waving bills for broken windows and falsified testimonies in our bloated faces. Then we swear to ourselves we won’t do it again, but Saturday night comes, and forethought and investment are lost to the sensations of the moment, money for social security and health care lost to tax cuts for the rich and political jihads. In response to such blunders on the part of the rowdy renters downstairs, many of our neighbors to the north silently shake their heads, wondering, among other things, why Canada has had some form of universal health care for the past 40 years, when 15.7 percent of the population the richest country in the world is completely uninsured. [more]

In Washington

2008: America’s Sweetheart, or the Working Class Hero?

Young, good-looking, full of eager potential for the future. Men want to be him, women want to be with him. When he visited the area recently, he found crowds of fans cheering him on. And he’s going to be our next president. The question is, are we talking about Edwards or Obama?

• Barack Obama – Melissa Corner and Katie McDonald
• John Edwards – Nam Nguyen

Oh, Nancy: Lady Speaker in Action – Nicole Thomas

With two losses of the presidency, thousands of troops stuck in Iraq, a growing deficit, cuts in important programs, and Bush still in the White House, the Democrats needed a strong Speaker of the House when they won back Congress last November. Nancy Pelosi was the perfect woman for the job. [more]

More Problems Than Solutions in Iraq – Marshall Geck

Over 3,000 American soldiers and an inestimable number of Iraqis dead, a severely tarnished world image, and a $200 million daily addition to an already skyrocketing national budget; there’s no question about it, the Iraq war has become a drain on American energy and resources. Republicans and Democrats alike are beginning to realize that any idealistic purposes or rhetorical justification for the war on Iraq cannot balance the price tag. So now the big question looms: How do we get out? [more]

Perspective

Inside the Conservative Mind – Nathan Schneider

In the last issue, I described some of the foundational principles for the conservative worldview. These are used all the time, often unconsciously, by conservatives in their reasoning, but may seem quite strange to progressives. [more]