Risk Your Heart

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.” ~ Louise Erdich

"For all our failings, despite our limitations and fallibilities, we humans are capable of greatness." 

- Carl Sagan

There is much good and love left in the world...

One of the most inspiring things I've seen in a long time.

Health

"When the earth is sick and polluted, human health is impossible...To heal ourselves we must heal our planet, and to heal our planet we must heal ourselves."

~ Bobby McLeod

At a Moment's Notice

The Future is Ours

Health Care - What Happened to the People?

I've been following the Supreme Court's review of President Obama's health care law. They are set to make a ruling this month, either repealing the entire thing or portions of it. As I read the news articles on this topic, I've noticed that they all focus on one primary thing - profit. They look at each scenario and discuss who profits and who doesn't, essentially, who "wins" and who "loses." Funny how we are talking about corporations here, and not people. How do the people "win" and "lose" in regards to the most precious thing given to all of us; our health and livelihood? Without that, we have nothing. What about the individual's profits and losses? What happened to the role of people in this equation? Here's a brief outline of the sections of the article I just read, titled "How Stocks will Fare in Court Ruling on Health Law:"

THE COURT THROWS OUT THE INDIVIDUAL MANDATE BUT KEEPS THE REST OF LAW
Hospitals could find themselves in the sick ward.

THE COURT REPEALS THE INDIVIDUAL MANDATE AND THE NEW COVERAGE RULES
Insurers would win.

THE COURT REPEALS THE ENTIRE LAW
Insurers focused on Medicaid recipients could lose.

THE COURT KEEPS THE LAW
In a sense, health care companies, and their investors, win.

Each section then describes each scenario and who "wins" and "loses." The entire article can be found here:

http://www.9news.com/money/273998/344/How-stocks-will-fare-in-court-ruling-on-health-law

It is all focused on profit. Nothing like feeling as though my health means nothing and is simply a commodity for someone at the top to make money off of. I realize this article is specifically focused on how the decision on the law will effect stocks. It just makes me angry that access to health care in this country is not a given right to every single citizen, and that it is not equal. We are all a part of the human family, all we have is our life and our health and that we are denied access to health care in this country is absolutely absurd. This is the only industrialized nation who does not offer health coverage to all of its citizens.

Voting this law down will only make us go backwards again. Why wouldn't the American public want to be covered if they have a preexisting condition? Why wouldn't we want our young population and college graduates to remain on their parents' policies until they are 26, while they establish their careers and find coverage on their own? I am always reading about people who disagree so much with Obama's health care plan. Yet, it helps millions of people get access to coverage! It treats ill people as equals to healthy people! I know it requires everyone to get coverage, but it also provides a lot of assistance to those who can't afford it. Obama's plan isn't flawless and I can understand why some people want to make their own decision as to whether or not they are covered, but the rest of us should also be able to get coverage if we want it, and right now that is not an option for many of us either.

A win-win would be to allow those who don't want coverage to decline it and for those who do to have access to it. Why is this so complicated? I guess because eventually, those who are not covered end up needing care and hospitals foot the bill. It all goes back to money and profit, though. If health care was available to everyone, this wouldn't be an issue. We can spend trillions on war, but we can't find a way to make sure every American has basic health care coverage? And it all comes down to profit. Fuck money and big greedy corporations. I belong on a different planet where they don't exist...a place where health and well-being is the top priority, not money, profit and power.

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."

Death and Rebirth

“Sometimes the one who is running from the Life/Death/Life nature insists on thinking of love as a boon only. Yet love in its fullest form is a series of deaths and rebirths. We let go of one phase, one aspect of love, and enter another. Passion dies and is brought back. Pain is chased away and surfaces another time. To love means to embrace and at the same time to withstand many endings, and many many beginnings- all in the same relationship.” 
~Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Do Something or We're Screwed

Roberts' "Do Something or We're Screwed" article at grist.org: http://grist.org/climate-change/climate-change-is-simple-we-do-something-or-were-screwed/

This is a great article and video. I get so tired of the arguments that arise about climate change. It doesn't matter if it is human-caused or a result of the climate naturally changing. Either way, we have to adapt in order to survive. My personal opinion is that even if the Earth is naturally warming, we are contributing to and accelerating that process at unprecedented rates. An introductory geology course taught me how the various cycles on this planet work, most notably the hydrological cycle, carbon cycle and the nitrogen cycle, all of which effect the atmosphere. We are certainly changing these cycles drastically, especially the carbon cycle. I don't understand how people can believe that our actions do not have a negative impact on the delicate balance on this planet that allows life to survive. Just the fact that we have not found life on any other planet that we have been able to study, goes to show how amazing, miraculous and delicate life is. Period. The conditions have to be so precise. We have become so consumed in our daily lives that we often fail to look at the larger picture, including how amazing and wonderful this planet and all of life is. We often take life itself for granted. It makes me sad to think about what kind of future we are leaving for future generations and inhabitants of this planet. If we are wrong about our impacts on the Earth, that's fine, but if we are correct, it's ridiculous that we are not doing more to change that. It doesn't seem like something worth taking a chance on. It seems best to err on the side of caution; that we are causing damage. It's obvious in some ways, such as deforestation. We need to quit putting ourselves at the center of everything. Without the health of the planet, our health suffers. There are many things that are in our control, in the power of our own hands, and like David Roberts says, we need to do something or we're screwed.