Tuesday October 27, 2009....A Poem

Earth Song
of the Native American Flute


You whisper to the wood
and my heart hears the song.
It is the wind coming down the mountain.
It is the clouds flying across the sky.

The song is the breath of sunset
and the ripple of the mountain stream.
It is the Aspen leaves fluttering in the breeze
and the prairie grass bending in the wind.

I listen to the whisper of the wood
and it sings to my heart
of another place and another time
when the spirits of the land were at peace.

It is a song I yearn to hear
and a song not heard enough.
It is a song of nature before man
when the earth had its own song.

You whisper to the wood
and we hear the earth song.
It sings to our hearts
and brings us peace.



Robert H Pflanz

Saturday October 17, 2009...Healthcare

I got together with some long time friends the other night. I was disappointed and frankly a bit dismayed when I heard their opinions about some of the negotiations going on in Washington right now. Apparently not everyone is as enthused as I am with the hope for universal health coverage coming to the forefront. In my opinion, we are severely lacking in providing healthcare for our citizens and one of the few industrialized countries that doesn't supply it. To my way of thinking a healthy, educated public will help to maintain our world status and will payback any initial cost with better jobs and less illness. Our current system denies basic healthcare and higher education to people who can't afford it and we, as a nation, lose out on that potential. If we maintained the health of our people and gave them education through college or vocational training we would have a happier, healthier and productive society. My friends hate to see the government step in, but the system isn't working without their involvement. We can see our competitors gaining and bypassing us as our present system takes more and more of our dollars to maintain our health. If we leave it up to the insurance lobby and the healthcare industry and the pharmacy companies we will end up with higher and higher costs and less and less coverage (which is what is happening across the country right now). The government needs to step in. Some of my friends seem to be perfectly happy with the status quo and don't want to change what we have. They are worried that the government will somehow mess it all up and end up costing us more than it already does. What we have now doesn't work for many millions of us and is costing us way too much of our production and it is steadily increasing way beyond our ability to keep it under control. Change is inevitable and should be welcomed and monitored.

I see basic health care as something that we, as a people, should provide to ourselves and should use our government as our tool to administer it for us. In this country, we are the government. We choose who we want to represent us and can tell them what we want and don't want. The government is not some nebulous entity that exists without our direction. We actually do have some say in what happens in our country.

Thursday October 15, 2009...It's already Fall

Here it is the middle of October already. I don't know that I'm ready for the cooler weather. We actually had a very mild summer and when I was out in Colorado last month it got downright cool. There was snow in the high country and the Aspen has turned already. I'm including some nice pictures of the Aspen and mountains. The altitude takes away your breath (or is it the beauty of the mountains?). In any event, I can't romp around in the high country like I could years ago. I'm really glad that I have those memories to look back on. Now I enjoy just sitting back by the fire and viewing the clouds and the mountains. It's peaceful and quiet when you get up there and there are few, if any, people around. During the summer, there are lots of people and during the winter, there are lots of skiers and snowmobilers. But in the fall, the few people you see are there just to observe and enjoy. It was nice to get away from the constant political arguments and the sorry business climate and just be one with nature. Now it's time to get out the Christmas jack-o=lantern and the Thanksgiving yule log and prepare for all the sales. Enjoy the pictures.