Greetings to Dan in Spokane. It's nice to hear from you and fortunate I caught your post, because I gave up looking for comment about a year ago. Peak and shrink, huh? Haven't studied as much on that as you clearly have. The best job on Peak Oil I've read is the one in the Transition Handbook.  By the way. I don't know properly how to respond to a response. That's howcome the use of this blog space.

Tom

Whereas the insurance industry will put paid to single payer, the climate will change willy nilly, the fifty-first state will be a state of war, and Wall Street will steal the very paving from Main Street, there shall be established a Society which is dedicated to the idea that Vashon can, and should, become self-sufficient in all matters of physical well-being. The attempt to get there could lead to Vashon finding a concerted voice that will cry out in outrage over US disregard for humanity. And so the heart of the dedication is that in survival we may find redemption. There will be no dues nor officers, no agenda nor schedule of meetings. The only by-law is prohibition of saying it won’t work. The Society will meet at the Café Luna. (Sent to the Beachcomber in August 2009. Unlikely to be published as sent too close to my last submission.)

To The Loop. Health care in the year 2009 is about to get worse. The reason is that funding for existing government health care, Medicare and Medicaid, will be threatened by what ever bill gets passed: there’s zero possibility of any good coming out of the posturing and deception in congress. Another bad harbinger is that health industry lobbyists outnumber congress six to one. Maybe you differ, but maybe you will agree that Vashon should do something. One possibility I’m hearing is that we look into a self-contained single payer plan. The grail is that by eliminating paperwork we can save so much as to fund not only basic care but actually build up a reserve for corrective surgery. The national hope is dead, state hope is very slim, but Vashon hope for single payer is viable. For those having trouble sorting out the posturing and deception, the crux of the health care situation is easy to describe: it is not health care at all but instead is a commodity in which to invest for profit. Look at it this way, do...

The Beachcomber's report August 5th on cooperation between five Island human services organizations speaks well of many people. It also is a harbinger of Vashon sharing California’s current economic fate. That disaster and dozens of lesser ones around the country are a painful re-learning of the downside of having a central bank: a downward pressure from bad loans in just one sector can spread through the network of national and private banks to the whole country like a hypodermic shot in an artery. But Vashon could defy the harbinger if it were to put in place an alternate dual currency of the proper sort. The details of such a currency are for the most part available but it has not caught hold with more than a handful of very worried islanders. The reason is that using a non-central dollar currency is like re-arranging life from the comfortable norm to one so new as to be deeply disturbing. There are some tough knots to untie in creating the dual alternate but none nearly as tough as the change in style of living....

Whereas the insurance industry will "put paid" to single payer, the climate will change willy nilly, the fifty-first state will be a state of war, and Wall Street will steal the very paving from Main Street, there shall be established a Society dedicated to the idea that Vashon can, and should, become self-sufficient in all matters of physical well-being. The attempt to get there could lead to Vashon finding a concerted voice that will cry out in outrage over US disregard for humanity. And so the heart of the dedication is that in survival we may find redemption. There will be no dues nor officers, no agenda nor schedule of meetings. The only by-law is prohibition of saying it won’t work. The Society will meet at the Café Luna.