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Passion and Commitment at the HCAN PA Town Hall in Washington.

  By Health Care

I’ve been to a lot of political rallies and events. And, if truth be told, a lot of them are pretty dreary. Speeches go on for too long. And pretty much every rally is subject to the funny observation I first hear from Mo Udall about political conventions, after the first 15 minutes “everything has been said but not everyone has said it.” I think the Pennsylvania town hall yesterday was a little different, especially at the beginning and the end. Continue reading

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What Mark Sanford can teach us about sex and love

  By Love and Sex

The initial reaction to Governor Mark Sanford’s admission of infidelity has been to see it as one more example of the sexual depravity of politicians or perhaps of ambitious, successful men in general. Sanford was initially portrayed as another man who gave into sexual desire because he could, that is because some combination of the opportunities presented to him by women infatuated with power on the one hand, and his self-absorption, on the other, lead him risk his career and his family in pursuit of sexual pleasure. But, it did not take long for at least some people to see that Sanford is different. He’s no Eliot Spitzer pursuing sex with an expensive call girl. He’s no Jack Kennedy, keeping a few women on his staff for the purpose of satisfying him whenever he got the urge. No one in pursuit of just sex takes up with a woman thousands… Continue reading

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Our buses are full but you can still virtually join us at the PA Town Hall in Washington

  By Health Care

Pennsylvania Health Care activists have been on the move for months, holding four to five events every week all over the state. And tomorrow, about 2,000 of us are heading to Washington DC for a national rally followed by a Pennsylvania Town Hall. I know that many of you wish you could join us. We do have a few seats left in Pittsburgh but otherwise the 20 HCAN buses and the 16 buses being run by our labor partners are pretty much full. If we had enough buses, we could have taken 5,000 people from PA to Washington. But you can watch our Pennsylvania Town Hall tomorrow, Thursday June 25th at 1:30 pm, on a webcast at http://tinyurl.com/mab6sp Senator Specter and PA Representatives Dahlkemper, Doyle, Sestak and Schwartz will be speaking at the Town Hall along with many of the leaders of HCAN and our coalition partners in the state.… Continue reading

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Table games part of PA budget Deal: Could this provide a path to fixing casinos in Philly?

  By Casinos, Philadelphia

A Terry Maddona tweet says: Reliable sources in Harrisburg suggest that table games will be approved for Pa casinos as part of eventual budget deal. I’ve argued for a long time that, if we are going to have gambling, we made a mistake by starting with slots. Table games have an appeal to members of the the professional–mangerial calss who can better afford to blow their money. I’d prefer not to finance our government with gambling. But the residents of the city live with a high end casino–preferably one where you had to wear a Tux and drink your martinis shaken not stirred—much more easily than a slots parlor. I would think that a high end casino in the Strawbridge building would have relatively more appeal to tourists and well-off suburbanite than a slots parlor, which would appeal as well to the poor and working class in the city. Continue reading

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At the very least, move the casino parking off the river

  By Casinos, Philadelphia, Transportation

There are a lot of people in this city who are not giving up the fight against casinos. I’m one of them. But our political officials have given up. After kneeling by our side during the 2007 election (you can’t call what they did standing), City Council members and our Mayor have thrown in the towel. Badgered by a Governor intent on securing the most dubious part of his legacy, and a state legislature that wants to suck every possible dollar out of our fellow citizens—and hampered by the need for legislative approval for the tax increases we need to survive the recession—Mayor Nutter and City Council have given up the fight. We’ll fight on without them. But here is one thing I just don’t understand. If they won’t fight to keep the casinos out of Center City and the Delaware Waterfront, why won’t they at the very least fight… Continue reading

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New Facebook address and tools.

  By About me

My new Facebook address is /marcstier. And if the tools I just set up work, what I’m currently writing in Microsoft Word will post to my blog Marc Stier at Large (http://blog.stier.net), the blog will then automatically create a tweet which will then automatically update my Facebook status. Or I’ll create a cosmic conflagration. It’s one or the other. Here goes. Continue reading

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The single payer negotiating strategy delusion

  By Health Care

Revised on September 9, 2009 Even as Obama was hitting a home run tonight, I saw posts on Twitter and Facebook by usually savvy people who repeated what has become the latest delusion on the single payer left: that if Obama had started with single payer as his negotiating point, we would have no trouble winning a public option now. That this is an error is easy to see if you recognize that Congressional negotiations are not at all like contract negotiations. It’s not a matter of each side making and offer and then moving slowly to something in the middle. There are two keys to success when Presidents try to build support in Congress. The first is to create as big a block of supporters as you can to start with. Without a lot of supporters at the beginning of the effort, other members of Congress won’t think there is… Continue reading

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Do we daydream anymore?

  By About me, Life Stories

Do we daydream anymore? I’ve been wondering about that in the last few days after a conversation with a close friend in which we mutually confessed our penchant for daydreaming. My fear is that daydreaming is a lost art. But perhaps that is just a solipsistic point of view—just because we generally don’t see other people daydreaming, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I want to write here about why daydreaming is so important to me, why I fear it may be a phenomena in decline and why my daughter gives me some hope for the future. Continue reading