Some healthcare talking points for presidential candidates

More Americans have health insurance than ever before, but we’ve got a long way to go.

We need to expand Medicaid to reach all needy Americans and to reach Americans who are above the official poverty line but are barely making it. These are the working poor. They’re doing everything right but are struggling to make it.

We need to fix healthcare in rural America. We can’t allow any more hospitals to close. We need a health corps — young professionals to rotate through rural areas to bring them America’s fantastic treatments.

And we need more drug rehab facilities. So let’s start sending young Americans to school to become social workers, for instance, and let’s pay their tuition.

Of course, it’s long been time to bring down the costs of medication. Americans shouldn’t be rationing prescription drugs because they can’t afford it.

America is the greatest country on Earth, and we can have the best healthcare in the world again.

Perhaps President Trump could be my bête noire for March

I was looking to identify a source of annoyance for the month of March. President Donald Trump annoys me whenever I think about him. Of course, if I don’t think about him, he can’t annoy me. And even then, no one can annoy me. I own my emotions.

What’s happened is that I was researching U.S. policy concerning moving the Embassy to Jerusalem, the capital city of Israel, from Tel Aviv, the country’s most international city.
I took out a digital subscription to The Washington Post so that I could follow current events. No one tells me, though, to read anything that doesn’t pertain to the subject that I’m researching. However, President Trump surprised me by actually developing the project of moving the embassy and by placing this project into a time frame.

President Trump would join the ranks of pundit Bill Bennett and Professor Lorenzo Kamel.

My family’s illegal immigrants

My great grandfather and his family came into the U.S. without papers. This is my father’s father’s father, “Tatta Bouche” * Siegel. Tatta Bouche, Nosan Natte Siegel after whom I am named, was born in Romania, as was my great grandmother, Bubbe Kreintse. I remember her since I was about ten years old when she passed away. Tatta Bouche passed away before I was born.

They left Romania for Paris with their first born Yonah Leib (“Jean,” then “John”) around 1900. Romania and France were on good terms because France was a European advocate for Romanian nationalism against the Ottoman Empire.** On a personal level, the Romanian language is a Romance language like French.

After about ten years they left Paris for Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where my great grandmother had an immigrant sister and a brother-in-law. I can’t say whether my great grandparents arrived in Paris with papers or not, but I’m almost certain about the family tradition that they came to the U.S. without papers.

The family first appears in the 1920 United States Federal Census as living in Chicago. Even so, my Zeide (Grandfather) John does not appear to be living in the family home or anywhere else that I’ve found. Family tradition was that John was working at the Ford Motor Company in Michigan.

So how did my great grandparents enter the U.S.? I surmise that they entered through Canada. Perhaps it was relatively easy to enter Canada from France, at least the Francophone part of France.

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* Tatta – for grandfather, literally father in Yiddish.

* Zeide – grandfather in Yiddish.

* Bubbe – grandmother in Yiddish.

* la bouche – ‘mouth’ because of his luxuriant mustache. The family lost the French pronunciation /boosh/, it becoming /boozh/.

** See the subject of the “Eastern Question” – how the powers of Western Europe were supporting Greece, Serbia, Romania, and other countries in their independence from the Ottoman Turks.

Daylight Savings Time and the Oil Embargo of 1974

In about 1974, the U.S. Congress mandated that the entire country remain on a daylight savings clock all year long. The oil producing countries (OPEC) were holding back petroleum exports to the U.S. By retaining daylight savings time in the winter, our basic work and school days occurred during daylight hours. Offices didn’t need to turn on lights during the last hour or so of the 9-5 workday. Presumably, using less electricity during daylight savings time would reduce usage of petroleum.

K-12 schools were in session during daylight hours. However, people discovered that children were heading off to school while it was still dark. Young people who had after-school activities were also coming home in the dark. As a safety matter, parents didn’t like the idea that their children were between home and school in the dark. Parents who would not let their children ride bicycles at night found that they were in a position to decide whether the youngsters would take bicycles to and from school.

After one winter, Congress resumed the previous winter clock of standard time. Youngsters, for the most part, were again outside during daylight hours.

To cite examples for the northern tier of states, the sun rises in December, January, and February at about 7 – 7:15 AM. In terms of daylight savings time, the sun rises between 8 and 8:15 AM.

At the same time, in most of the southernmost states, the sun rises in December, January, and February at about 7 AM. In terms of daylight savings time, the sun rises a little before 8 AM except in January when the average is about 8:15 AM.

However, on Florida’s panhandle (in the eastern time zone) the winter sunrise is around 7:30 AM – 8:30 AM daylight time. A legislative discussion in Florida has been to enact daylight savings time all year long. As such, youngsters in Tallahassee, the state capital, would be heading to school in the dark during the winter.

It seems that legislators in Florida do not have the experience of winter 1974 at their fingertips. Some hadn’t yet been born; others wouldn’t remember, of course.

Only Southern California seems to have an advantage over most other populous regions of the country by about fifteen minutes, though.

Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

Literally turned upside down

An interviewee on television said, “At that point, my life was literally turned upside down.”

Literally? Really?

The United States May Really Move Its Embassy to Jerusalem

A U.S. Department of State spokesperson announced on February 23rd, according to The Washington Post, that the United States will move its embassy to Jerusalem in May 2018.

You can view this article in The Washington Post, “National Security,” February 23rd, 2018.

Also, see the actual press statement from the U.S. State Department.

My earlier post expressed skepticism about a move of the embassy to Israel’s capital city.

Waiting to see …

The Arizona desert and attitude

“Everything in this desert has an attitude.”

My nephew, J.

Plants have thorns. Thorns have irritants. Snakes bite. Coyotes fight and howl (at night). *

* The rhyming was accidental / unintentional.

Vice President Mike Pence tells Israel’s Knesset, “the U.S. will support a two-state solution”

Remarks | Foreign Policy

Issued on: January 22, 2018

The Knesset – Israel’s parliament
Jerusalem, Israel *

“And President Trump reaffirmed that, if both sides agree, the United States of America will support a two-state solution.”

Arabs rejected the two-state proposal in 1948-49 when the Arab Legion invaded Palestine just before the British Mandate ended. Then, the Kingdom of Jordan annexed the West Bank, Eastern Jerusalem, and the walled Old City of Jerusalem.

The “two-state solution” became the State of Israel and the Kingdom of Jordan by default. (Jordan was the eastern reach of Mandated Palestine.) Everything since then has been bluster by Arabs before they drive all Jews into the sea.

Driving Jews into the sea – the Mediterranean – may be literal. On the other hand, it seems to hearken back to the days of Salah ad-Din  (Saladin) who drove Crusaders “into the sea” – back to Europe. This subtlety seems to be lost on literal-minded Arabs who don’t want to see Jews when they look out their windows.

Pence addresses Israel’s Knesset – video from The Washington Post

The White House’s text of Mr. Pence’s speech

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* Jerusalem – Israel’s capital since 1948

• The links to the White House will cease to work when the administration changes. The new president has ownership of WhiteHouse.gov.

Wait, Wait . . .

. . . don’t tell me!

Governments are supposed to make jobs.

If that’s the case, then government bureaucracies are good. Let governments hire a few more people, then a few more.

Taxes are good since they can be spent on salaries for civil servants.

I’m going to reread the U.S. Constitution. Perhaps I missed this clause. Maybe it’s an amendment.

Islamophia

Radio talk host Alex Jones is confused about what a burqa is and what a hijab is.

If there is a Muslim woman in North America or in Europe who has her face covered by a burqa – a full covering except for her eyes – she is unusual. Essentially, a burqa covering is so extreme that it is not even worn in Saudi Arabia or in Iran.

If a Christian nun is still wearing a habit, she is probably covering her neck and ears in addition to her hair just like many Muslim women. This is called a hijab in Arabic.

A somewhat more conservative head covering than a hijab is a niqab. A woman wraps longer fabric over her mouth and nostrils (sometimes a little higher on the nose).

I almost dressed like that today when I went outside. Here in Kansas City, the midday temperature (as I write this) is 18° (Fahrenheit). Besides a ski cap over my ears, I would have covered even my my mouth. But, for this former Chicagoan, 18° and no wind is fine.

The temperature now in Chicago, though, is 12°. If I were standing on an El platform waiting for a train, it’s not unlikely for me to pull up my scarf over my mouth. Some platforms – especially where I used to commute from – are entirely exposed to bitterly cold wind. So at times I protect my face with a ‘niqab’.

How do I know what I’m talking about? I would often sit in a study area at the University of Missouri – Kansas City that was popular with Muslim young people. So, I checked that what the young women were wearing were hijabs.

One time I was sitting across from a young lady who was wearing a hijab, and I asked her what a niqab was. She lifted a longer end of her hijab over her mouth thereby showing me a niqab. So I speak with authority.

Interestingly enough, it came up in conversation that she was from Saudi Arabia. In my nosy way, I told her that I was surprised to see that she was alone. In truth, she told me that she had come with a brother, but he had already finished his studies and had returned to Saudi Arabia. “My parents trust me,” she said. “It would be sad if they didn’t.”

I believe that G-d trusts us. It would be sad if he didn’t.

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* I sometimes listen to Alex Jones (carried on radio here) so that you don’t have to. It’s possible that he will be my bête noire for March.

* a study area that was popular with young Muslims. The women wearing hijabs is one give-away. The other clue was that several were speaking Arabic. I don’t speak Arabic, but I recognize it. I can be an amateur linguist since I’ve heard plenty of Arabic in Israel.