Three-For-One

Three posts for the low, low price of one:

I haven't even begun to check out Obamacare, or as it was called originally, the Affordable Care Act (the "ACA").  I'm not sure I'll do anything about it, frankly.  I think the SCOTUS was wrong; this is a penalty, not a tax, and since it originated in the Senate, it is constitutionally flawed.  But that's beside the point.

What I'm failing to understand is that the administration won't acknowledge that there are massive problems with the so-called rollout and delay the effective date for at least six months.  If the thing's not working -- and reports are that it isn't -- what's the harm?  I just don't understand the intransigence.

Even more enervating are the selective carve-outs for special interest groups -- Big Business, certain governmental employees, now unions, possibly -- while ordinary citizens who have no voice in Washington are bound to comply or else.  What this indicates to me is that we dividing as a people into the haves and the have-nots.  Ironically, it's happening under the watch of the party that holds itself out as the guardian of the middle class.  If conservatives did this there'd be riots.

Finally, has the President gotten too big for his britches?  It would seem that he can't admit anything negative and won't concede that anything he's said or done relating to the ACA -- or anything else, for that matter -- could possibly be wrong.  This extends to his friends and cohorts.  With Clinton, there was an acronym that described friends of the President as FOB.  Here, it should be FOO...and that would be appropriate.

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Some thirty-odd years after my family went to Canada without me (I had to stay home to earn money for school), I finally crossed our northern border.  It wasn't nearly as exciting as crossing the border into Portugal was for me, but we did go through the tunnel into Windsor.

Windsor wasn't as Canadian as I expected.  Being as close to the States, that's not altogether surprising. That we were there on a Sunday may also have had something to do with it.  But we went only to purchase tickets for a show in January that we wanted to attend.

The border crossing guard was pleasant enough.  He even stamped my passport, although he didn't stamp Karen's.

I can't wait to see more of Canada.  Going to Windsor and saying that represents Canada is like going to Newark and saying that represents the States.  Sometime in the Spring we may travel to Toronto for a long weekend, which would be nice.  I'd love to see the Hockey Hall of Fame, although that might bore Karen to tears.

Perhaps the best part of being in Canada was the guy at the tourist office noticing my Blackhawks' cap and saying that he was a fan of the team.  Karen thought I was silly for wearing the hat, telling me that no one would care about it.

Not only did the kid in the tourist office comment on it, so did the border patrol agent in Detroit comment on it.

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When we went to purchase the tickets, we went into the Caesar's casino, where the show will be held.  This was my first time in a casino -- honestly.  I don't gamble and have little interest in shows generally.  I thought we'd only have to go to the box office located somewhere inside the front door.  I couldn't have been more stupid.

The box office, it turns out, was way on the other side of the building whence we entered.  But of course. So that meant we had to wend our way through hundreds of chattering machines with blinking lights and whirring wheels revealing fruit, and numbers, and symbols and whatever else the gambling magicians thought up to entice people to throw their money away.  Not once did I wish I were staying there gambling.

One thing that I'd always assumed that this little visit confirmed for me was that not one person in the establishment looked anything like the people in the glitzy commercials that are shown on television.  I saw not one would-be or actual model on the floor.  Everyone was overweight or old or ugly -- not one good-looking person in the bunch.  Plenty of people were drinking beers -- it was only two o'clock in the afternoon --and many of the older folks sat in front of the one-armed bandits like automatons putting in coins and pulling levers or pushing buttons.  What kind of existence is that?

We'll probably eat at the casino the night of the show simply because it may be cheaper to do so.  But I have no interest in ever gambling or spending any amount of time in a casino other than to see a show.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles