Wading In

Fiddling as health care crisis burns The Other Side Column in the Fairfield Daily Republic By Kelvin Wade February 25, 2010 6:10PM 'I think any Republican that says you should start from scratch (on health-care reform), I think that's bogus talk, and that's partisan talk.' - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Almost 20 years ago I was sick and had no health insurance. It was strep throat, but I didn't know it at the time. I just knew I had a fever, felt miserable and felt like I was gargling razor blades. I endured it for a week before my girlfriend made me go to the emergency room. The doc took one look down my throat and wrote a prescription for antibiotics that cleared up the infection. The bill was around $175. I paid it. Multiply that by thousands. Millions. Think of the people who don't have health insurance and refuse to go to the doctor. Untreated strep throat can lead to tonsillitis or rheumatic fever. It can affect the kidneys and have severe complications li...

Majority rules: Filibuster reform now By Kelvin Wade February 18, 2010 The Other Side, Fairfield Daily Republic Is there something wrong with majority rule? Whether it be at work, school or on the playground, when groups decide what to do they usually take a vote and the majority, 50 percent plus one, carries the day. We don't require 60 percent or a two-thirds vote to make a decision. So why do we put up with that in Congress? Now I realize the filibuster is a longtime Senate tradition but you can't find it in the U.S. Constitution. True, the Founding Fathers wanted the Senate to be a deliberative body that slowed and leavened the passions of the House but they didn't want government to come to a halt. After losing Congress in 2006, Republicans doubled the number of filibusters as the previous Congress. In fact, they've now made getting 60 votes for major legislation the norm. Requiring every serious vote to have to meet a 60-vote threshold renders the will of the peo...

The Other Side by Kelvin Wade February 11, 2010 Black Like Me What am I? Am I a Negro, black or African-American? And if African-American is the accepted term for what I am in America 2010, then why isn't this month African-American History Month instead of Black History Month? Why isn't the NAACP the N quadruple A? Why haven't we made a clean break from “black?” Some were outraged that the U.S. Census form contains the word “Negro” as one of the options alongside black and African-American. The term is archaic but I don't know too many blacks who are offended by it, unless it was used in some offensive context. Trying to dampen the tempest, the government defended the inclusion of the term saying some older blacks identify with it. Really? Well a lot of younger blacks self identify with the N word but I don't see that on the census form. Speaking of the word Negro, Senate majority leader Harry Reid ran into trouble when it was revealed last m...