Coastal
Post Online
January,
2004
Skeptic's Journal
By Jeanette Marie Pontacq
In honor of the arrival of 2004, I have
given myself permission to vent a bit....on a number of issues... so here
goes...
On local matters, why is it that no
community discussion takes place on why so many West Marin parents send their
kids over the hill to school? Even those who cannot truly afford to do so are
doing it! What gives? The latest vandalism fiasco in Point Reyes/Inverness,
attributed to Tomales High students, also highlights a problem that keeps being
swept under the rug. Why the silence, on both West Marin School and Tomales
High?
Also locally, what does it mean for the
community when victims of serious vandalism don't want to find the
perpetrators? Such refusals to face reality don't work when it comes to kids or
young adults who are doing such things. Unless the kids/young adults see that
there are consequences from within a caring community, they will simply go on
to bigger and better things and end up in prison or dead. Letting it go (i.e.
co-dependence) is tantamount to saying that one simply doesn't care about where
the kids involved are going.
What else? How about health care in
America? It sucks, being totally under the thumb of the insurance companies.
The number of uninsured is soaring... Kaiser Permanente, for example, has
increased costs once again. A single mom (age 40-49) with one child pays $363 a
month or $4,356 a year. Hospitalization costs went from $200.00 per incident to
$200 a day ($1,200 a week out of pocket in an emergency). Co-pays for the
Personal Advantage plan have gone up to $25.00 each time one uses Kaiser. And
Kaiser is one of the better alternatives! Health care in America is screwed up
and totally overpriced due to the overlay of insurance company costs and profits.
We need single payer, like the rest of the industrialized world.
On another level... what do you think about
the "Outsourcing of America?" So many American corporations are using
workers in India, Panama, China, etc... while firing American workers... that
one has to wonder how they expect Americans to buy their products without jobs.
Let's define what patriotism means for American corporation? The list of these
corporations is growing and growing... according to CNN's Lou Dobbs, it
includes Dell, Bank of America, Kaiser Permanente, Monsanto, PG&E and
several hundred others you would recognize. Think about it: your financial
data, health records, computer technical support and the design work on
California's aging power grid are in the hands of people overseas! What is
fueling this outsourcing phenomenon? Greed: the cost savings reaped by the
corporations is never passed on to consumers.
And... about dogs and cats... I am a foster
mom for rescued dogs awaiting adoption via Second Chance Rescue
(www.secondchancerescue.com). What I have learned from this experience, being
involved in transportation of rescues, housing and training....is that those
who abuse dogs or cats should be shot... especially those gangs in the East Bay
that train Pit Bulls to fight to the death to make some bucks. What kind of
human being would do such a thing? There is a sainted woman in Oakland that
goes each morning to pick up the broken bodies of the dogs who have been thrown
in the gutter....she saves some, but most are so badly broken up that they die
horrible deaths. She is the other side of the coin from the creeps who use the
dogs so badly.
The problem of too many dogs and cats due
to the failure of "owners" to spay/neuter their charges is also
tragic. Millions and millions of dogs and cats (each with an individual
personality and feelings) are killed every year due to overcrowding in
underfunded shelters. Please don't cause more suffering: spay or neuter your
pets.
And finally... we need a national
conversation on the undocumented persons/illegal aliens in our midst. The issue
of giving illegals drivers licenses is illogical and keeps the present chaotic
immigration system in place. What workers, illegal or legal, need is decent pay
and protection from abusive bosses. As long as workers are illegal, they will
be taken advantage of. Duh. And any country who has porous borders and cannot
have a say on who enters is a country with a huge identity problem. The answer
is to provide those other-nationals who wish to work in this country with a
documented system that allows them to enter, work and be protected, and then go
home with bucks. The Federal Government is guilty of allowing California and
other states to be overwhelmed by illegals while providing no funding to offset
costs, and sanctioning the abuses. Myths and false information abounds on this
issue. The bottom line is that the United States government is dangerously
dysfunctional to not have a comprehensive immigration policy that is fair and
fully enforced. Kudos to those businesses who act ethically in the face of all
this immigration chaos. And a black mark for a government that makes sure the
chaos continues.
So welcome to 2004. Thanks for letting me
vent... feel free to do the same at pontacq@horizoncable.com.