The massive cuts that Tennessee implemented last year for its TennCare health care program are having detrimental effects on some of the state’s poorest and sickest residents, as illustrated in this NPR profile of one woman who is being forced to choose between medications because TennCare will cover only five prescriptions per month.  Her story is heartrending, all the more so because thousands of other Tennesseeans are probably in similar dire straits.  Governor Bredesen, who led the charge to restructure TennCare, defends his actions by emphasizing that he eventually wants to provide a basic level of health coverage for every uninsured resident before focusing on the needs of high-risk populations.  But while Bredesen’s goal of some sort of universal coverage is admirable, I think he needs to recognize that the people with significant disabilities were not the cause of the budget crisis resulting in the TennCare austerity measures.  TennCare was badly mismanaged for years, but the people forced to reckon with the mistakes of politicians and bureaucrats are those people who can least afford to do so. 

What reason have I given the publishers of Maxim to believe that I might be interested in a trial subscription of their magazine?  What specific demographic data do they possess that indicates I might be interested in articles on the Harley-Davidson Night Rod (am I supposed to snicker at the name?) and robots that will carry my golf clubs on the links?  Don’t get me wrong, the woman on the cover of the issue that appeared today in my mailbox is lovely, but I’m afraid the sight of a partially concealed breast (or a fully unconcealed breast, for that matter) just doesn’t grab my attention like it once did.  Their marketing people only had to look at my other subscription habits (New Yorker, Economist, Entertainment Weekly) to realize I’m a) old, b) boring, and c) a hopeless geek.

I was in the mood for eye candy today, so I caught Cars at the local gigaplex.  Pixar’s latest effort isn’t as nuanced or sophisticated as The Incredibles, but it has some sweet moments and the visuals (especially those of the desert Southwest) are breathtaking in their lyricism.  And the trailer for Pixar’s next film, Ratatouille, looks promising, if only because I’ll be able to point to the various scenes of Paris and whisper “Saw that.  Saw that, too,” to whomever sits through the film with me. 

Joel Spoonheim, a good friend and fellow Civics Board member, is running for Secretary of State as an Independent.  While I am and most likely will always be a progressive DFLer, I think a strong Independence Party could have a healthy influence on Minnesota politics.  After Governor Ventura left office, the Minnesota IP movement withered on the vine and nearly disappeared for a time.  What remains to be seen is whether a significant number of Minnesota voters can be convinced to support an Independence Party that doesn’t have a former pro wrestler as the headliner.  Regardless, I wish my friend Joel luck and much success.  I know him well enough to declare with confidence that he would make a supremely competent and eminently fair Secretary of State. 

“If I had no legs, I wouldn’t enter for the London Marathon.”  With these words, Guardian columnist Alexander Chancellor launches into a somewhat oblique criticism of the “political” efforts of employers to hire people with disabilities.  So as not to come across as too much of a…well…dick, he first praises us supercripples who are “triumphantly successful” in our chosen careers.  He notes the accomplishments of a renowned percussionist who happens to be deaf, but the strain of trying to conceal his true nature must have been too much for him, because he then writes, “Why she wanted to embark on this career, and how she has succeeded at it, I cannot imagine.”  That a person who is deaf might possess a deep love for music seems to be a fact that he can’t entirely square with his tragically limited worldview. 

 

By the end of the column, we learn that the source of Chancellor’s grumbling appears to be a letter carrier who has dyslexia and failed to deliver several hundred pieces of mail.  But in the course of his grousing, Chancellor seems to be charging some of us for not knowing our place.  “It is still a mystery to me why people should be determined to do the one thing for which fate has sought to disqualify them,” he writes.  Couldn’t the same be said of someone who rises out of poverty or some other life trauma to achieve success?  Sometimes, reach exceeds grasp, no doubt about it.  But what Chancellor calls “fate” is what many of us would call “prejudice” or “ignorance.” 

 

The real mystery to me is why the Alexander Chancellors of the world get paid for their ill-informed ramblings while talented young bloggers toil away in obscurity.