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Wednesday, January 10. 2007
The Governator Strikes!
“Have you heard the news?Can’t afford new shoes.” — Frank Zappa
In his State-of-the-State address, the Governator took a bold action, one of those bold actions he bragged about when he was first running for governor in 2003.
You don’t know who the Governator is? Man! Where have you been! The Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger — “I’ll be bahk” — and he’s back! His career as an action movie hero is over, seriously. Did you see T3? But he’s making it as a politician. He’s a Republican, in name only, some would say. I believe the acronym is RINO.
Arnie took a beating in the 2004 elections when he tried to side-step the legislature with a couple of ballot initiatives and the electorate slapped him down. Then he did something truly unprecedented for a politician: he admitted he made a mistake, that he was wrong! Grudgingly, I have to admit the Governator is likable as governor of our fine state. He’s the Mit Romney of the West!
Anyway, the Governator has T-shirts now, cool black ones with a Terminator-style picture on the front. You can buy them at the airport, but I can’t seem to find them anywhere around here, deep in the heart of Duncan Hunter country. I guess the conservatives in this neighborhood know a real Republican.
“Sir, I guzzled beer with Duke Cunningham and you’re no Duke Cunningham.”
When family came out for a visit in October, while waiting for their plane to land, I happened upon one of the knick-knack vendors at the airport that was selling the Governator T-shirts. All my guests got one. My sister, one of the guests — she from Colorado — told me later that her step-son loved that shirt and so for Christmas, he got one too. He’s the toast of his school!
“DUDE! COOL SHIRT! Where’d you get that!” It’s all about who you know, boys.
Got to get him another one though because he’s still growing like a marijuana plant in a hydroponic garden.
Enough of that tangent. Once you start writing about marijuana and hydroponic gardens, the Homeland Security experts reading our e-mails get all twitchy and feel a need to contact the DEA. Just for that someone with the “I need a drink” jitters at the NSA reading this, I don’t consume, grow, sell or use marijuana (or any other street drugs) in any way.
For all intents and purposes, marijuana is legal here in California. We had a ballot proposition that made it so. I would bet I could find a medical doctor who would write me a prescription and tell me, and everyone concerned, “Yes, consuming marijuana would be good for your heart condition.”
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
It’s a good plan, from what I’ve read of the proposal. No one would have to change doctors or move into any of those ridiculous health-prescription plans the feds rolled out for the elderly, you know, the confusing adaptation with virtually hundreds of “plans” to choose from, all of them requiring experts to explain.
Basically, if you can’t afford health insurance, the state provides health insurance at a low cost and businesses with a less than ten employees are exempt from the requirement that all businesses must provide health insurance.
Of course there are a lot of people on both sides of the aisle who object — unions, for instance, say the plan will force low-income workers, who can’t afford to pay for health insurance, to buy it. Doctors and hospitals of course reject the idea that they will pay additional taxes to fund it, 4% for hospitals and 2% for doctors.
The Governator’s plan will pass though, with a few changes of course, but the general mood in California is that everyone should have proper health care. And it’s Arnie’s plan. The Governator is still wildly popular with the electorate here and there is a large majority of Californians who support his efforts.
The plan doesn’t do away with private insurance and in fact it retains many of the features we have in the current, private sector only health care system that many of the anti health care for the poor and middle class want, like, for instance, health insurance providers can still be assholes.
It begs the question: Will the insurance companies have to cover prescriptions for marijuana and if so, what’s the co-pay for a script of five doobies a day?
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