"And the other thing that we do want to do — now, this is controversial, and I understand some people are worried about this — we do think that it makes sense to have a public option alongside the private option. So you could still choose a private insurer, but we’d also have a public plan that you could choose from that would be non-for-profit, wouldn’t have, hopefully, some of the same high administrative costs, and would be potentially more responsive to your needs at a lower cost. I think that helps keep the insurance companies honest because now they have somebody to compete with.
And I have to say, the reason this has been controversial is a lot of people have heard this phrase "socialized medicine" and they say, we don’t want government-run health care; we don’t want a Canadian-style plan. Nobody is talking about that. We’re saying, let’s give you a choice. You can choose the private marketplace, or this other approach.
And I got a letter the other day from a woman; she said, I don’t want government-run health care, I don’t want socialized medicine, and don’t touch my Medicare. (Laughter.) And I wanted to say, well, I mean, that’s what Medicare is, is it’s a government-run health care plan that people are very happy with. But I think that we’ve been so accustomed to hearing those phrases that sometimes we can’t sort out the myth from the reality."
…clearly the actual word “hippie” was a form of Ebonics (black slang) from Harlem that passed it’s way through the beat era into the 1960’s, until Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle used it enough times by late 1965 to describe the young arrivals in their city…that the national media soon swallowed it whole and patented it. But apart from the slick zoot suit clad “white Negroes” of 1930’s Harlem there actually were long-haired bearded individuals during this same era who wore sandals or bare feet and usually tended to favor mild subtropical places like southern California and Florida where they could forage their meals from the fruit trees that were so plentiful then…. (photo: eden ahbez 1948. Part-time yogi and full-time mystic, this 1940s “hippie” always spelled his name with small letters because he believed that only God and Infinity should be capitalized.)
eden ahbez lived behind one of the giant letters of the Hollywood sign.
He wrote the song ‘Nature Boy’ popularised by Nat King Cole.
Legend has it that he was so determined Nat King Cole should sing it, he took to hounding the singer with his sheet music of the song wherever he saw he was playing until his wishes were granted.
More here.
(@ 'the sweetest psychopath' via 'Mogadonia')
