Fear and Loathing Over Obamacare

Once again we see the loathsome "Obamacare" under fire with huge amounts of money being spent to fight it by conservative groups. Kaiser Health News reports that negative ads outnumber positive ads five to one, and an estimated $1 billion will be spend on advertising in the year leading up to the midterm elections as the Republicans once again plan to make an "issue" out of it.

Of course, it didn't help matters that the Obama administration chose to defer mandates another year, ostensibly to avoid making it an issue in the midterms. The news media pounced all over this, with many sources questioning the "Constitutionality" of the deferment. But, I think it is just an attempt to move away from the overhyped Snowden affair onto another hot button issue, as the Obama administration is perfectly within its rights to delay the mandates, especially if they found holes in the system, which they claim they did.

It seems the GOP will never accept the Affordable Care Act, with many "red states" continuing to fight it, leaving potentially millions of Americans out of the loop. All that money and effort would be better spent trying to clean up the Act so that it is more comprehensive and can't get so easily abused. But, until it fully kicks in, which won't be until 2015 now, there is no way of really knowing how effective the ACA will be.

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O Pioneers!

It is hard not to think of Nebraska without thinking of its greatest writer. Here is a marvelous piece by Capote, Remembering Willa Cather . I remember seeing a stage production of O Pioneers! and being deeply moved by its raw emotions. I had read My Antonia before, and soon found myself hooked, like Capote was by the simple elegance of her prose and the way she was able to evoke so many feelings through her characters. Much of it came from the fact that she had lived those experiences herself. Her father dragged the family from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883, when it was still a young state, settling in the town of Red Cloud. named after one of the great Oglala chiefs. Red Cloud was still alive at the time, living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, in the aftermath of the "Great Sioux Wars" of 1876-77. I don't know whether Cather took any interest in the famous chief, although it is hard to imagine not. Upon his death in 1909, he was eulogi

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Colonel

Now with Colonel Roosevelt , the magnum opus is complete. And it deserves to stand as the definitive study of its restless, mutable, ever-boyish, erudite and tirelessly energetic subject. Mr. Morris has addressed the toughest and most frustrating part of Roosevelt’s life with the same care and precision that he brought to the two earlier installments. And if this story of a lifetime is his own life’s work, he has reason to be immensely proud. -- Janet Maslin -- NY Times . Let the discussion begin!

Dispatches from Vilnius

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