LETTER FROM SCOTT PETERS

I wrote  to Representative Scott Peters and other  legislators addressing how Obamacare stuck it to the working people and gifted insurance companies  with huge benefits, like allowing them to write policies with large deductibles. Here is Scotts' answer.

Dear Mr. Hujsak,
Thank you for contacting me to share your views on the Affordable Care Act (ACA). I appreciate hearing from you.
I was not in Congress when it passed the ACA, and, like almost everyone, I recognize that the law is flawed in many ways—no law ever is perfect. This is why I am focused on making sure that we do what we can to fix the law where and whenever needed. Like you, I was frustrated
by the rocky roll-out of ACA, and by the cancellation of health care plans that people had been satisfied with. That’s why I crossed party lines and voted to enforce President Obama’s promise – again and again – that if you like your health care, you can keep it.
The ACA is a massively ambitious effort to remake a broken American healthcare system, and
in many ways it is making progress. It’s prevented insurance companies from denying cover-
age because of preexisting conditions and it’s allowed kids to stay on their families’ plans until they’re 26. It’s moving us away from a system where too many people go to the emergency room for their care or lose their homes because of medical bankruptcy. The California exchange has been successful in enrollment, and the federal website has recovered from its early and serious problems. And if, over time, the ACA can move us from a sick-care system focused on treatment and procedures to a health care system focused on health and prevention, we would save taxpay- ers a lot of money.
There is still a lot of work to be done to make health care affordable. And any of us might have come up with a different approach from the ACA. However, it is folly to think that this law will actually be repealed by the whole Congress, or that the President would agree to start again from scratch. Speaker Boehner himself acknowledged that the ACA is ‘the law of the land.’ It is past time to stop the politics of false solutions like repealing the Affordable Care Act and get Congress to work toward solving the problems the law creates for the people of San Diego, and Americans around the country.
That’s why, over the past two years, I have voted for several measures that address the flaws we’ve seen with the rollout, and provide common-sense fixes to the policy. In each of these cases, I have shown a willingness to buck my own party in order to get the law right. I voted to allow Americans to keep their current health plans. I voted to delay the individual mandate tax until the federal website — which is responsible for enrolling people in 36 states — gets it act together. Finally, to help small businesses and their employees, I voted to change a definition in the law that forces companies to provide healthcare to employees working more than 30 hours a week—the bill I supported would change it to 40 hours.
I’m open to any policy idea—Republican or Democrat—that will make the ACA better for employers, employees and families. I’ve received too many messages from San Diegans about how health care is costing them for me to sit idly. I support policies that increase patient access to care, increase quality, and drive down cost. The ACA is a tremendous undertaking and will require more fixes as we continue to work through its implementation. 

HERE'S AN IDEA

          News of progress with molten salt reactors (MSR’s) frequently appears in industrial journals, in news clips on the internet, as well as in other media that are concerned with energy in all its aspects. Interest in development of thorium reactors is worldwide, mainly because they promise better safety than uranium reactors, and because thorium is far more plentiful than uranium. Reactors would be more economical to build and operate. According to the World Nuclear Association, five nuclear energy companies in Canada and the United States are developing molten salt reactors: Terrestrial Energy (Canada), Thorcon Power (Florida), Terrapower (Washington), Flibe Energy (Alabama), and Transatomic Power (Massachusetts).

           The idea is this: The nuclear powered merchant ship Savannah, now inactive, docked at Pier 13 in Baltimore, MD. What better place to showcase a MSR, producing an ability to demonstrate the technology worldwide?

            Research and development will eventually result in a demonstrator reactor, typically in a building on the back lot of development laboratory. More spectacular and appealing would be a real application that would rapidly gain public appeal and support. The Savannah offers a way to do this.
            The Merchant ship Savannah had its origin in 1955 in President Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” program. The ship was designed by NY architect George C. Sharp Inc. Construction was funded by Government agencies; The Maritime Administration (MARAD), The Atomic Energy Commission and the Department of Commerce. It was launched in 1959 and was then fitted with a nuclear power plant by Babcock & Wilcox Corporation.

           The ship carried passengers and cargo between 1962 and 1965, then later only cargo until it was decommissioned in 1971. It had sailed a total of 450,000 miles. The reactor fuel was removed but the reactor remains in place. The Savannah was subsequently towed from port to port for exhibition and maintenance. Finally in 2008 it was towed to pier 13 in Baltimore, where it awaits an unknown future in dry dock.

                Savannah rests in drydock in Baltimore, MD

           Will it be just another maritime museum or will it have a new life, powered by a MSR?

           The fifty thousand or so world merchant fleet represents a fertile area for gains in cimate change abatement. Ships are heavy fuel consumers and in the aggregate, substantial contributers of carbon dioxide emissions. Merchant ships consume from 140 to 150 tons of fuel for a seven day excursion. Taking the lower number, every day, per thousand ships at sea, total carbon dioxide emission is calculated to be over 60,000 tons (a hundred and twenty million pounds). Thus, conversion of the merchant fleet to nuclear power could contribute measurably toward abatement of global warming.

          President Eisenhower could as well have had a vision for use of atomic power for abatement of global warming, but in those times there was only an awareness of pollution, which appeared to be regional. The Keeling curve, which warned of rising carbon dioxide concentration and ensiung climate studies that confirm an onset of global warming, were still in the future. 
          Savannah operating on Thorium……..could be as world-shaking as Watts' improvement on the steam engine.

MAGNOLIA

I have this thing about trees, as I'm certain others do….it borders on reverence.

Gray hared woman,
the scent of my outrageous blooms
has drawn you here, hasn't it?
Or has a long past lover's tryst
awakened need to place your hands
on something more than memory?

I see you searching for the heart
you outlined with your fingers,
then watched its carving by his hand,
so deft; you couldn't know the trail
of broken hearts he'd left behind.

You will not find it now.
Like you, I'm scarred with age.
But sit, together we'll remember
gas lights lit around the garden,
soft laughter, clinks of crystal goblets,
strains of Straussian waltzes.

- E. Hujsak

GRIEF AND TRIUMPH

Soon enough, there will be no one alive who remembers The Great Depression, the 1930’s, when human failing, poverty, joblessness and Nature converged to give Americans a really bad time. Unemployment in the United States rose to 25%. People were hungry and lean and restive.
I lived in New Hampshire then, so that is where my memory takes me. In different regions of the country  grief and misery took many paths. In the the midwest it was a time of prolonged drought, over-tilling of the land and an ensuing dustbowl. The nation was witness to mass migration from the midwest to the west coast. `
Fortunately, after the 1929 financial collapse, populace president Franklin D, Roosevelt took the reins and with courage and strength led the nation into recovery. The preamble to the Constitution  clearly states that a duty of the government is  “to promote the general Welfare." That was the legal backbone for forming the Workers Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC). 8.5 million WPA jobs were created  for building bridges, dams, roads, public buildings and public parks. There were even programs to support the arts in music, drama, art and sculpture. (Long after World War II I had the good fortune of coming into possession of a 1.25 plaster bust of President Roosevelt, executed from life in the White House by artist/sculptor Charles Farrar under a WPA assignment. But that is another story).
The CCC employed young, unmarried men who lived in camps under a military discipline. The CCC  created many of the nation’s  public parks, planted trees, built roads, built buildings, and improved rural firefighting ability. A fortunate  outcome  of the CCC was to provide disciplined, trained manpower for the approaching war. 
Many sought to earn a dollar in unexpected ways. A large number became junkmen who scoured the country for scrap metal that included abandoned and aged factory and farm machinery and old automobiles. They sold their  truckloads of metal to junk dealers, who in turn loaded the metal onto rail cars bound for the west coast. From there it was  shipped to Japan. In Japan the metal was turned into Japan’s war machine, into ships, aircraft, mobile  equipment and guns that in a few years would be brought to bear against the United States in the ensuing far East war. So you see, in a large part, the Japanese war machine came out of the US Depression.
The Great New England Flood of March, 1936 was unexpected. A southerly wind and heavy rains  melted away the winter’s snow and caused massive flooding of the Merrimack and Connecticutt rivers. River ice broke up, piled  against and smashed bridges. Roads were washed out. The Merrimack River rose high above its banks, carrying buildings, lumber, furniture, oil drums and debris to the Atlantic. In Merrimack, my home town,  the Boston and Maine railroad, factories and homes were under water. 
In the years following the flood, the Army Corp of Engineers built dams and reservoirs along the rivers’ upper waters, to avert further flooding disasters.
But Nature wasn’t done. In September, 1938, a hurricane dubbed the Long Island Express struck Long Island and barrelled across New England, causing enormous damage. Houses were blown away, coastal settlements disappeared. One of the incredible sights, if you happened to be watching a pine forest, was to see an entire growth keel over, the sound drowned out by the roaring wind.
The government stepped in again to fund a harvest of the fallen trees. If left lying, pine borers would ruin the logs in a single season. That was when, at 14, I learned the pain and sweat of  wielding one end of a two-man crosscut saw,  the backbreaking feel of rolling logs up a sawmill ramp with a cant hook.  I grieved at the loss of my best friend who fell into the path of runaway rolling logs.
A fortuitous outcome of the hurricane was the creation of a store of lumber to construct barracks for military camps and internment centers for the upcoming war, as well as shipping crates for iend-lease articles.
Throughout the decade nations watched as Japan and  Germany prepared for a war they felt sure was coming. It began with the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, followed by invasion of Poland by German and Russian armies in 1939. We had little idea then, that in  two years the United States would be catapulted into a major worldwide conflagration that would take the lives of sixty million people. 

THE MUSICIAN

The Steinway stands silent
In the living room.
I keep it tuned for you.
You practiced far into the night.
Who dares play Hindemith’s
Ludus Tonalis beginning to end,
As you did,
Before a stunned audience?
Your Bach was masterful
And the harp accompaniment
To Britten’s Ceremony of Carols
In the Padres’ ancient mission
Brought me to tears.


From"The Year of the Daisy"
by E Hujsak

CHANGING PLANET

Author’s Note:  Trill is a fictional female acquaintance who makes it possible to write in a style that is comfortable for me.

My Dear Trill,

What an exciting time to be alive! We have front row seats to witness  Earth ending one epoch and slipping rapidly into another. The last epoch, the Pleistosine, lasted 2.6 million years, ending with the Fifth Extinction. Scientists are not sure why, but are quite certain that it was sudden and enormously destructive. Earth was home to many big animals then, revealed by various digs like the La Brea Tar Pits in California. Humans were not making much of a mark, but somehow survived to begin the Holocene Epoch about 11,700 years ago. It is an age in which the species dominates over all others and plunders, pillages and pollutes the planet to the point that Holocene may be the shortest ever, a mere12,000 years, to introduce  another era. It seems a short time, but already there are predictions of the Sixth Extinction, brought about by a prolifiration of the human species. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution human activitty has proven sufficient to cause a global warming that will have dire effect on all living things. The Anthropocene Epoch, the Sixth Extinction, as the new era is commonly termed, is our future. Some scientists, including noted astrophysicist Stephen Hawking,  predict the onset in as few as one hundred years from now. Others insist that it is going on now and has been going on since the beginning  of the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700’s.
I take the apocalyptic view because in my opinion not much can be done about it. World population continues to increase, exacerbating an already serious situation. (Birth rate is approximately 4.3 per second, whereas death rate is only 1.8 per second). 
Admittedly, an important movement is now taking place toward abatement of climate change, but lacking enforcement, sadly, it will  only postpone disaster by a few years.
In the end, although it will matter little, Earth’s ruin may ultimately be traced to politicians and climate change deniers and their intransigence regarding taking action now to avoid  the consequences of global warming. It will be said, though, that some did try.
The Paris Accords, sponsored by the United Nations, brought together a meeting of representatives from 195 nations and produced a non-binding agreement to jointly reduce emissions in the coming years at a rate that will hopefully limit the damage. Every five years they would meet again to see how well they had done. The language calls for limiting the temperature growth to 2 degrees centigrade over the next 100 years: an admission that reducing the rate of climb, or even reversing it, is beyond reach. The United States, which is responsible for 18 percent of the world’s emissions, is tacitly assumed to take the lead, though France has already shown the way,  providing 90% of its energy needs from renewable sources and nuclear energy, If the United States fails, then other nations will feel less compelled  to comply with the objectives that were agreed to and published.
The  challenge is formidable, because there are many legislators who believe that global warming is a hoax. Some have ties, financial support and orherwise to special interests. For example, Senator McConnell, leader of the Senate, reports to interests in Kentucky, his home state, where coal mining is a major industry. More disturbing, the Republican candidate for the presidency, Donald Trump scorns the warnings  about global warming. Then there are companies like ExxonMobil who wilfully fund studies that undermine  scientific data on climate change history and trends for the future.
Another powerful contradiction lies with the person who considers himself a champion for climate change  abatement, who may be the single greatest polluter of all.... President Obama, and I would add to this, President  George W. Bush before him.
The president habitually takes his annual Christmas vacations at taxpayer expense in Hawaii,  about 5000 miles from Washington, or a round trip distance of 10,000 miles. The media refer to these trips in a bemused way as “costing millions” and leaving “a big carbon footprint” and lets it go at that. But for each such adventure, involving up to three 747 sized aircraft, 3 million pounds (1500 tons) of carbon dioxide is generated. 
In contrast, a typical automobile operator, over a driving lifetime of 50 years, will generate less than 20% of emissions created by President Obama’s  single vacation trip.
The super rich, for whom the whole world is a playground, cannot be excluded from the list of excessive polluters. 
Other conditions exist  that contribute to climate change that appear beyond control.  An example is the refinement of Canadian tar sands oil. The refinement process produces a nasty combustible coke byproduct which cannot be burned in the United States because it is so polluting, but it is welcomed as cheap fuel in India and China. If, in the next administration, the Keystone Pipeline is approved (and it probably will be ), then mountains of foul burning coke will be produced in Texas  refineries and exported to foreign countries. 
Nothing will stop the exploitation of the tar sands. Plans are already in place for a pipeline to the west coast, known as The Northern Gateway, for loading tar sands crude oil into ocean tankers. It will then be shipped to Asia, and possibly toTexas.
There are many deceptive assurances that some activities, for example, replacing gasoline powered cars to grid-powered electric cars, will mitigate the problem. In this case it is  a false notion, since  two thirds of grid power is provided by fossil fuel burning power plants.
So you see, Trill, we are headed toward untold disaster, caused by human behavior, and are unlikely to make a course correction. This disparate species will never come together and measure up; not so long as the most powerful and privileged among us continue to pursue their profligate ways and employ fraud and deception to assure the public that there is no problem. 

Welcome to the Anthropocene Epoch......the Sixth Extinction.

BLISS

This poem was posted onYourDailyPoem.com on June 2, 2016

There is a stillness here, a cathedral ambience. Song birds silently flit by, A yellow butterfly flutters aimlessly about and two Painted Ladies twirl as one. Hummingbirds pause briefly, sipping at the colored feeder, and   a raven tops the eucalyptus tree, then swoops northward toward the University, to audition, perhaps, for a playhouse Poe recital. Plant life, both deeply rooted, and pampered into pots, speaks quietly to me. Tall trees ache to dance in the wind. A Hibiscus shrub flaunts its crimson blossom and a Ficus tree, newly shorn, glows golden in the noonday sun. Were you to ask, “Which way to heaven?” I would reply: “We are there. We are there." -by e. hujsak