I have been a fan of John Stewart. Not the Jon Stewart of Comedy Central, but the John Stewart of Signals Through the Glass, California Bloodlines, The Lonesome Picker Rides Again, Wingless Angels, etc. I have just finished listening to the last album he recorded before his death in January 2008, The Day the River Sang.

As with all his albums, John Stewart reminded us of an America that we remember faintly in the past and dearly hope still exists. His songs often had contemporary themes, but he presented them through eyes, voice, and values that have grown rare.

His look backward was wistful, never revanchist. John loved Bobby Kennedy, campaigned with him up and down the valleys and coasts of California, and was with him that night in the Ambassador hotel. He never lost the hope for and love of America that he shared with Bobby--and so many of us--that summer. Even when he sang of contemporary tragedy--as in the amazing "New Orleans"--which mourns the city's loss after Katrina, he knows we will come back. And we know it too, as a result.

I am writing this tonight because, until a couple of weeks ago, I did not know we had lost his voice. We have his songs still, but that most American voice is gone. I used to follow him around the Denver area in the early 70s, catching his performances whenever I could. Somewhere along the line I got too busy to look up his concert schedule. Even when he regularly appeared at the Birchmere, a mere 90 minutes from my house. Then he was gone.

I remember John in his 40s, tough, rowdy. In his last appearances (I looked them up on YouTube) he was an old man in failing health but still writing, recording and performing. His voice was still real, if not so strong. I feel older and America is poorer for his absence.

Paynes Chapel

One of my hobbies is photographing litttle country churches. Where I live--in West Virginia's eastern panhandle--means I have a lot of photo opportunities.

This is Paynes Chapel, near Ridgeway, West Virginia.

The Czars are coming! The Czars are coming!

Years ago, R. Emmet Tyrell, conservative pundit and prankster, described the '70s as "The Great Silliness." Tyrell didn't know for nothin'.

The "naughties" (as our British cousins like to call this decade) are truly the silly season. How else to explain the wing-nuts parading in Washington DC, waving signs decrying our "socialist" President--or "Nazi" depending on who is waving the AstroTurf banners--who just happens to be slightly to the right of Dick Nixon. How else to explain the current obsession with "Czars" roaming the halls of power. If not silliness, could it be calculated cynicism, based on the premise that the American population really is the booboise that H. L. Mencken accused us of being? Could it be that the press--who are supposed to check their facts and not just regurgitate stuff they are fed--are failing miserably at their jobs? You decide.

The Czar issue has been booming around the echo chamber otherwise known as talk radio and Fox News for a while now. Glenn Beck has cautioned that we are soon to be stripped of our freedoms by these Nazgul, no doubt ferried in black helicopters.

There are 32 of them we are told, with extraordinary authorities to menace our liberties. According to Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, the 32 (an unprecedented number she intones) are, by their existence, a walking constitutional crisis. Representative John Boehner, House Minority Leader (whose name makes me wish Don Imus was still broadcasting on DC area radio) is equally alarmed.

Sheesh!

If 32 Czars is "unprecedented" it is only because George W. Bush blew past that number on his way to appointing 36. I don't remember an outcry back then.

"Czars" have been around at least as long as the Nixon administration. Actually they aren't really called Czars, except by media types who want to call them something snappy. Who after all wants to talk about a special advisor for automotive industry restructuring when you can say "Car Czar."

So the press creates the term, gets it into widespread use, and then trumpets "concern" about it implications...

By the way, Bush actually had more than 36 if you count up the "Assistants To" running around the Pentagon. By naming someone an Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, his administration could get around limits on the number of sub-cabinet level positions he could fill, and he could avoid Senate confirmation. Sort of like an "assistant to the regional manager," only with real power.

Oh yeah. Of Obama's unprecedented 32 Czars, nine were confirmed by the Senate. Their positions were fully vetted, as were their qualifications.

Like I said, Tyrell don't know for nothin'.

More on the Health Care Debate

One of the --frankly--sillier things I have heard from critics of a government health program is: "I don't want a government bureaucrat coming between me and my doctor."

As opposed to an insurance company bureaucrat?

Let us examine the presumption that a government bureaucrat (as opposed to an insurance company bureaucrat) is not competent to adjudicate billing and fee issues between physician and patient.

First of all, the government bureaucrat will likely know what he or she is doing. To get a job, a government employee must describe and document KSAs (Knowledge, Skills, and Aptitude) for the job in question. Getting promoted also requires either documenting KSAs or performing elements of the job at a higher level of performance to the satisfaction of a superior; just ask anyone who has ever applied for a federal position. By the way, the federal KSAs are public record.

On the other hand, the insurance company bureaucrat may have no experience whatsoever. There is no way to tell.

The government bureaucrat has little incentive to deny a claim for cost reasons, because his or her job performance is not measured by bottom-line considerations. Rather the government bureaucrat's work performance is measured against performance-based objectives including speed of processing claims, accuracy, judgement, client satisfaction.

The insurance company bureaucrat is very much judged on how much money he or she save the company (read; number of claims denied).

In our current system, you have an insurance company bureaucrat between you and your doctor; who may have worked at a Kentucky Fried Chicken last week and is, in any case, not working for you but for the company's bottom line.

I'll take the government bureaucrat.

40 years along...

Before I forget. I joined the U. S. Navy 40 years ago today. I was 17 years old, getting off a bus at Naval Training Center, San Diego, and scared stiff. The sailors who met the bus made my high school gym coaches seem like weenies.They were loud, coarse, and scary. What the hell had I gotten myself into? It didn't take long to decide that I had made the biggest mistake of my life (all 17 years of it!).

I had no idea--I could not have conceived--that 20 years later I would look fondly on that day as the day I first put on the uniform that I was about to retire.

Today, 40 years later, I still smell the salt air at Nimitz Island, I still hear the martial music blaring from loud-speakers as seaman recruits learn to march to John Phillip Sousa's cadences, and I remember a lot of 17 and 18 year old kids setting out on their greatest adventure.

Health Care; Go Big, Go Long, Go Single-payer

Well, I have been on hiatus for a few months. Once the elections were over, the creative juices sorted of slowed; work picked up; the energy and concentration needed to opine--well--sort of dissipated.

But, I've been listening to the debate on health care; on television, radio, street-corners, my sister's kitchen, anywhere people get together with differing views on the subject. I though, what the hell...

For starters. Obama needs to go big and go long. Go straight to single-payer. Tell Americans the truth. Single-payer is cheaper, it allows cost containment (without which no health plan will work), care will improve, it will be a boon to business, and Americans who want Cadillac care can still get it through their choice of insurance plans.

The difference will be that health care will no longer depend on employers -- and will no longer burden employers. That should translate to higher wages; since money that could have gone into wages has been sidelined into paying for the spiraling increases in health plan costs. It should also translate into lower prices for goods and services because the cost of providing employees' health care should no longer be a factor in setting prices for said goods and services.

What is single-payer? It is the big "government-run" health plan that the Republican leadership in Congress is doing their best to scare the wits out of Americans with. It is, in fact, Medicare for all Americans, regardless of age. Medicare is one of the most effective and cost-effective programs this country has fielded. With an approximate 4 percent administrative overhead, it is one of the cheapest to operate. Doctors point out Medicare's success in cost-containment every time one of them quails at taking on a new Medicare patient -- because Medicare sets limits on what can be charged and scrutinizes treatment and testing options.

It is late and I am drooping, but I have more to write on this topic and I hope some will be there to read it.