I have no idea whether the healthcare legislation currently being proposed would do much good or not, from what I read the reforms sound fairly inadequate at best, but please, can't our political system do better than this:
The questioner, Cheri Heiland, persisted, telling Grassley, "You know there is nothing in the House bill that will require any elderly person to stand before a committee and decide whether or not they are going to live or die." Much of the crowd booed and said she was wrong. The senator instead [of agreeing with her totally accurate claim] went on to condemn the idea of end-of-life counseling, no matter how it is structured.
"I think the best thing to do is if you want people to think about the end of life, number one, Jesus Christ is the place to start, and after that, in the physical life, as opposed to your eternal life, it ought to be done within the family and considered a religious and ethical issue and not something that politicians deal with," he said.
Even as a Jew, I happily acknowledge that Jesus Christ is great and stuff, but Jesus Christ cannot help you write a living will. More generally, does America really have the dumbest politicians in the world (or at least the world of advanced democracies), or does it just seem that way? And if the former, why?
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And if the former, why?
Maybe the news cycle makes it seem like this happens more often? I don't know. Good luck with the start of school. Any suggestions on places to eat in the CH/Durham area?
Hmm. I think my answer would be that food in Durham sucks. Bullock's is supposedly good but I wouldn't know as I hate barbecue. Magnolia Grill is extremely well-reviewed and fairly overrated. Italian is a nightmare. Chinese usually is too. There's a rather good Korean place but I can't recall where it is. Possibly the best single dish in Durham is the waffle fries at the campus Chick Fil-A. They're always incredibly fresh, particularly if you go when they're busy.
As for our dumb politicians, I have a totally unsupported notion that, on account of TV news being a commercial enterprise (as opposed to, say, Britain where they have the BBC), our TV journalism, which is the only sort of journalism most Americans consume, is junk and therefore allows even the dumbest and most fantastically dishonest politicians to get elected.
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