Señor, ten piedad

That's "Lord, have mercy" in Spanish.

Brutal news from El Salvador from our friend Caminante, here. Mother of God!


San Romero de las Américas, camina con nosotros.

I wrote my letter. Did you write yours?

See below. Today is write-the-President-about-health-care-reform day.

And if you wish, share what you wrote, or what you are thinking, or any related information about health care reform and action for health care reform, in the comments to this post or to the post below.

Thank you.


Tonight: a little something on those folks whom we elected to represented us in Congress.

"Do Something" Series: Dear Mr. President...

Tomorrow is letter-writing day.

No, it's not a national holiday or some Hallmark-fabricated day. It's letter-writing day tomorrow because we all needed time off today (I am writing this very late on Saturday night - in fact, after midnight, but I'll back-date this post), because it's a long weekend and we have time to write a couple of letters, and also because I said so.

I hereby pledge to write President Obama tomorrow, Sunday, September 6.

On Monday, Labor Day, I will write my two Senators and Representatives. But we'll get to that tomorrow.

I'm keeping things simple in this DO SOMETHING About Health Care Reform Series. There are other more sophisticated bloggers to whom I will eventually link. I'm just a citizen trying to inform herself and her friends and determined to act. I can't stand apathy.

I invite you to keep me company and to write the President as well. Tomorrow. Today, by the time you read this. Sunday. September 6.

Once you have done this, check in with us here and leave us a comment to confirm that you wrote President Obama. Yes, this is a support group, and also a kick in the pants. Call it what you will, but DO SOMETHING. Politely, of course.

Details, information, and help below.

1. Remember the President is giving a speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. The speech will be about health care reform.

2. Bill Moyers is (in the words of Father of Acts of Hope in a book review a few years ago) a national treasure. He socked it to us, and to President Obama, and to the talk shows and Pfizer and a few other entities, in a special message at the end of his show on Friday night.

"....As it is, we're about to get health care reform that measures human beings only in corporate terms of a cost-benefit analysis. I mean this is topsy-turvy — we should be treating health as a condition, not a commodity.

As we speak, Pfizer, the world's largest drug maker, has been fined a record $2.3 billion dollars as a civil and criminal — yes, that's criminal, as in fraud — penalty for promoting prescription drugs with the subtlety of the Russian mafia. It's the fourth time in a decade Pfizer's been called on the carpet — and these are the people into whose tender mercies Congress and the White House would deliver us?

Come on, Mr. President. Show us America is more than a circus or a market. Remind us of our greatness as a democracy. When you speak to Congress next week, just come out and say it. We thought we heard you say during the campaign last year that you want a government run insurance plan alongside private insurance — mostly premium-based, with subsidies for low-and-moderate income people. Open to all individuals and employees who want to join and with everyone free to choose the doctors we want. We thought you said Uncle Sam would sign on as our tough, cost-minded negotiator standing up to the cartel of drug and insurance companies and Wall Street investors whose only interest is a company's share price and profits.

Here's a suggestion, Mr. President: ask Josh Marshall to draft your speech. Josh is the founder of the website talkingpointsmemo.com . He's a journalist and historian, not a politician. He doesn't split things down the middle and call it a victory for the masses. He's offered the simplest and most accurate description yet of a public insurance plan; one that essentially asks people: would you like the option — the voluntary option — of buying into Medicare before you're 65? Check it out, Mr. President.

This health care thing is make or break for your leadership, but for us, it's life and death. No more Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. President. We need a fighter. "

That's the end of the message. To watch the whole thing, go to Moyers's website and click on the video here. (The video is also bopping around on YouTube.)

You can also read the text of the message here or at DailyKos.

3. The major House bill on health care (there are others) is HR 3200. A helpful site from the Annenberg School called factcheck.org debunks some of the lies about it here.

4. Sometime this week we'll post various information sources, but for now, here is a link to one of the more reliable ones, the Kaiser Family Foundation. The health care reform part of the website is here. For a comparative chart of the various health reform plans, go directly here, or click the link on the health reform page. For a history of health care reform efforts in the U.S., click here.

5. Head spinning? You can always go back to this simple presentation.

6. I support single-payer health care. You may or may not. Whether or not you do, I am assuming that you want some kind of health care reform in this country. Write the President and tell him. Be as specific and clear as possible. A brief letter is fine. In fact, it's best.

7. Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) supports single-payer health care, and explains it, too. There's a petition at PNHP, if you are feeling lazy about writing a real letter to the President. There are petitions everywhere. I suggest you do both: sign one of those easy petitions AND write a real letter, which can be an e-mail.

8. Easy e-mail form to contact the President here. Use it.

Also:
The Honorable Barack H. Obama
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
(They ask that you include your e-mail address even if you write snail-mail.)

Phone contact:
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414\
FAX: 202-456-2461
TTY/TDD
Comments: 202-456-6213
Visitors Office: 202-456-2121

Tomorrow: A little civics lesson on bills and Congress, and another letter-writing day, with information on how to contact your Congressfolk.

Soon: Write your local newspapers. Write the TV stations. Write a magazine. Peeved at the media? Do something about it. We'll help you to do so.

Remember: We welcome your suggestions, stories, and links. I am the final editor, in consultation with the local feline, but I will read whatever you send mindfully.


Photos nicked from my friend janinsanfran's blog, "Can It Happen Here?", one of the best personal blogs on public issues. The photos are from a rally of elders for health care reform.

Gratuitous Romanesque Europe nostalgia photo: Sénanque Abbey and its lavender field

This is one of my favorite places.

I haven't been to the Abbey of Sénanque in about 30 years, but the parents of an old and dear friend of mine from high school have retired to the nearest town of Gordes, and their granddaughter (my friend's oldest child) was married there in Gordes, just miles from the abbey, last weekend. Alas, I couldn't be there because we had just started school at Guilford.

Enjoy the picture, and click the links if you want to know and see more.

Click on the photo to enlarge it. Gorgeous.

DO SOMETHING for health care reform every day: a series begins

Occasionally we have a series here at Acts of Hope, a mix of information, inspiration, and advocacy. We seem to do this roughly once a year, though not by design.

There was the fund-raising and Latin American theologies series. The beneficiary of our (and other blogs' - this was a group project) fund-raising was an Anglican parish in a very poor neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. By the way, I have an update on the parish of Cristo Rei from our friend Luiz which I have been meaning to post and which will go up this weekend.

Then there was the Obama election series.

I'm doing it again.


Some of you may have been involved, the last 48 hours, in the Facebook series that asked you to post to your daily updates the following message: No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.

I didn't do it.

Not because I don't agree --I do and then some-- but because I felt that for the most part it would be preaching to the converted and that if my eyes were starting to glaze over from the message, other people's would. And mostly, because I think we need to DO something.

Like my other friends and colleague who want health care reform and who prefer either a public option or plain ol' single payer health care, I rant and complain, but more than half the time, I don't do anything. Meanwhile, there are lies and distortions all over the place, our local and national media don't get complaint letters when they spread those lies or when they fail to do their job as public educators, the noisy rude folk dominate the public forums (or maybe they don't, but they sure get the coverage), and our Congressfolk don't hear from us. A few of them have spines, but the others will not develop them till we remind them that we are the ones who will re-elect them -- or not. And that they work for us.

And we bitch and moan (pardon my language) about the President we worked hard to elect when he doesn't change massive systems with the wave of a magic wand. Then, of course, we will blame him for everything.

How do you think we got him elected?

HARD. WORK.

PUBLIC. INVOLVEMENT.

TIME. ENERGY.

It's our country, these are our bodies, this is our health care system we want to change. And we have no right to complain unless we act.

Thus, I am starting a series here. It's partly to get myself off my duff and have a place to be accountable and partly because besides I am at heart several things --artist, priest, and yes, organizer.

I don't have time for this either, but it's too important to leave alone.

I don't fully know what will be in this series, but I pledge to put something useful here every day. Information, education, ways to act, analysis, commentary, reporting. It won't all be mine. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. I will link to other sources and to people who know more than I.

And yes, I will write, this weekend, a short report on our Greensboro public forum on health care, with a little something on Teddy Kennedy.

I am also doing this in part in memory of Kennedy, who was my Senator for many years and was still, at the time of his death, my parents' Senator.

Feel free to send me (in the comments or via e-mail) information and links and suggestions.

Uncivil speech is not welcome; I will delete it; don't even try. Conversation is another matter. Conversation is good. Disagreement is fine if it is reasoned and polite. And lament is fine too: there is plenty to lament. But lament is the beginning of resistance and healing. Or can be.

Stay tuned. And thank you for reading this and for caring for the common good.

If you haven't see this video about the why of government-run health insurance, have a look.

P.S. I'll still post other things, too. This isn't turning into The Health Care Blog.

Mural "Community Caring, Community Healing" by David Fichter. Martha Eliot Health Center, Jamaica Plain, MA.