Salvatore Buttaci

The issue of healthcare in a altruistic society is a rallying cry for citizens to band together for the good of all. A society that believes in the old adage “One for all and all for one!” recognizes that healthcare across the board is imperative, not merely for some but for everyone in that society, and for some to be deprived of healthcare is to admit an absence of justice. America is not the altruistic, neighbor-loving society about which Socrates wrote in his dialogues, that ideal state where the Philosopher-king benevolently ruled and all was right with his subjects and their world. Sorry to say, we Americans misinterpret the virtuous work ethics of the early pioneers. Instead of seeing the positive value of such ethics, we distort them into a “me-first” mentality. Our main objective in life remains “What’s in it for me?” We are not willing to allow anyone or anything or any legislation to threaten our comfort zones. We are all for one, and we stop there. Healthcare is not an issue at all for those whose employers provide what they need. They are duly employed and when illness comes, their medical insurance coverage will take care of them. Nor is healthcare an issue for politicians whose election to Congression guarantees full medical coverage, not only for terms in office, but for life. Why should they risk the ire of pharmaceutical lobbyists who support their elections?   President Obama has become the scapegoat in this war against a just...

You know the lady. She’s visited your house on some occasions and you were so happy to see her, you wanted to sit her down to turkey dinner, share some of your favorite oatmeal cookies, then listen to her pour out that good old inspiration. The muse, of course! We pray the lady in the long blue gown will barge into our writer’s block and make the blank-page blues--or blank-screen blues--go away. Well, it just isn’t going to happen! The idea of a muse is amusing. Wouldn’t it be too easy if every time we wanted to write a poem we simply sat there contemplatively waiting for an inspiration handout and the poem got written without our efforts? Sometimes I think we are brought up to think this way. When we are young, we ask for things and we get them. We make mistakes and somebody covers for us. Santa Claus comes, whether we’ve been naughty or nice, and decorates the bottom of our tree with gifts we often do not deserve or need. However, now that we’ve grown up, let’s also toughen up! What happens when we rely on that occasional inspiration? We find one more excuse upon which to rest our lazy bones. If a poem does not materialize, we say it wasn’t meant to be. If we sit there in a dry spell, we rationalize it away by saying all poets suffer through these losing streaks. How foolish! Co-dependency of any kind is self-defeating. It prevents the individual...