This week's stories include: health care; higher education; Sunday's talking heads; cancer; North Korea; climate change and immigration; connecting the dots; demographics and economics; day time TV podcasts; finally, moose on the loose.

ACA Republican-style. Long ago the Republicans used the label "Obama-care" for the ACA, hoping the public would forget that the first "A" was for "Affordable." Question #1: Can/should you really expect that any health care system using for-profit corporations would have your best interests as the primary goal? Question #2: Would you not be amazed if the corporate bottom line (profit) was not all the corporations' first and most important consideration? Question #3: Would you not like to be able to sign up for the same health care available to your US representative and senators? At the same price?
     I have emailed Representative DeGette (D, CO 1) and Senators Bennett (D) and Gardner (R)  that I would like to sign up for their plan. To date there have been no instructions how to accomplish that task. Gardner says he is concerned about those medicaid-eligible constituents who were able to sign up under ACA. It remains to be seen if he has the cajones for the impending fight.
     The president's pronouncements about a "beautiful," "wonderful" system are so much smoke-blowing political poppycock. Rest assured that whatever plan lands on the president''s Oval Office desk will most certainly have been examined bottom-line first.
     A not knowledgeable friend observed that people he had talked to did not realize that repealing "Obama Care," actually meant repealing the ACA. Words do have meaning.
     Newt Gingrich on replacing the ACA. While you may not agree with Newt, he is by far on the brightest bulbs in Fox's hen house. A carefully planned health care is important because, he alleges, it accounts for 20% of the US economy.

George Will on university diversity. Will often takes higher learning to task for its intellectual rigidity, sclerosis of the brain, abetted by our progressive era.   He notes "[s]omething Woodrow Wilson actually got right...that a university should be an 'organ of recollection' and a 'seat of vital memory,' lest we “become infantile in every generation.” He goes on to talk about Arizona State University’s School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership.

Face the Nation et. al. Sunday's program with John Dickerson's provided as good an example as any of the problems with this short of show. Not wanting to "cut themselves off" from future guests, these hosts (1) do not ask short, blunt, pointed questions; (2) refuse to follow up evasive, non-answers with more repeated sharp questions. I have suggested to my representatives and senators that they not waste their time on TV. I will read their emails and ask my own follow up pointed questions. Questions for which, by the way, they, too, usually provide evasive answers and do not reference specific programs and their reasons for supporting/opposing said legislation.

Cancer. CBS's past Sunday Morning program was devoted entirely to cancer, its past and present research projects. It is well worth a look, especially if you are, or know,  a survivor. Amazing progress in certain areas.

North Korea. This may be the President's first and scariest crisis. A young, inexperienced leader of nation with little to loose facing an older, equally inexperienced leader of a nation with much to loose. Whether it was with or without outside assistance, Kim Jong Un recently watched as his military simultaneously salvoed four missiles into the Sea of Japan. President Trump's response? Hastening the deployment in South Korea of THAAD, our most advanced anti-missile defense system.
     This is no longer about a lonely dictator crying for attention or demanding negotiations,” said Victor Cha, a former adviser on North Korea to the Bush administration and the Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. “This is now a military testing program to acquire a proven capability.

Climate and immigration. This article from the High Country News discusses the impact of a warming climate on migration patterns worldwide.
 
Connections. McDowell County, WV, has many poor, sick residents who have what medical care they can get because of the ACA. Nevertheless, they voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump. What medical care will they be able to get if the ACA is replaced with what the Republicans are offering? Not wanting to sound like a presidential tweet, but "Hard to tell. Sad." might be their best guess. 

Demographics, culture, and economics. This article looks at how American society is being re-shaped as it grows, changed by birth rates, economics, and immigration. Iowa Republican US Representative Steve King recently wrote, “[The nationalist Dutch politician] Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny...We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies." King's exact definition of "our civilization" and "somebody else's" babies is not spelled out. (emphasis added)
     The article continues, "The idea that national identity and racial identity overlap entirely is the crux of white nationalism; King’s formulation above toes close to that line, if it doesn’t cross." One wonders, though, "What did Representative King really mean to say?" King's other remarks on a MSNBC program mentioned the "footprint of Christianity [that] settled the world" and "all of Western civilization.” He also tweeted that “Cultural suicide by demographic transformation must end.” He conveniently forgot Christianity's Dark Ages, when western civilization's enlightenment was firmly rooted in the Moslem world. Then, too, there were those dastardly Chinese in the Far East.
     Americans of King's ilk must simply begin to have much larger families!

Daytime TV. Care to guess which day time podcast is reportedly more watched than either "General Hospital" or "The Bold and the Beautiful?" None other than Sean Spicer's daily White House press briefing.

Loose moose. The video clips of moose hustling down a ski run at Breckenridge has gone viral. One young videographer can be heard shouting she "doesn't know what to do!" The advice of most who've read about/seen/encountered moose in the wild: get as deep into the trees as possible, climb up if need be, never get between a mother and her calf, and know that you cannot possibly outrun a moose. Also, to any moose any dog is a wolf, take Fido out with care if moose are in the area.

Thank you for reading. Enjoy St. Pat's Day sensibly and the first day of Spring.