Reply #69: I've been in an alternate universe for two days, watching horse racing

[bread_and_roses]

I have a love-hate relationship with TB racing. I detest the inherent elitism, loathe the reverence shown for the Royals of Dubai and elsewhere, have grave objections to many of its practices and wonder if it is not in essence abusive to the horses, detest the exploitation of back-stretch workers, and hold my breath every race knowing at any fraction of a second a horse or a human could die on the track. And...with all that...can't resist the beauty of the creatures, their unworldly grace, their pure spirit. And yesterday was pure magic, as a filly/mare named Zenyatta took the richest race in North America, against one of the best fields ever assembled for this race, at a distance she'd never run, making history: a perfect record (no losses) and the first time a female horse has ever won this race. Perfection.

And now I have to get up to read about this grotesque horror of a "health insurance" Bill passed in the House yesterday....passed, I guess, so Obama can say he did something, I can't figure out a single other reason why they bothered with it. The few reforms to the Vampire Insurance Cos could have been done with simple legislation; instead we have this utterly dishonest hoopla that will play entirely into the Rights hands as we have to create endless regulatory and administrative paths for the non-public "option" they threw in as a sop to real reform, while they're shoveling more $ into the coffers of the Corps and some low-wage worker suddenly has to BUY insurance that some idiot in DC deems is "affordable" for him/her.

You know, we're insane. We know that if the forests and oceans die, we die. We keep destroying them. We know that our Gov't is a bought and sold exhange for the Profiteers - and we keep talking like it's a representative democracy. We know that poverty and unemployment is destroying our nation, not to mention the world, and we say "the recession is over!" because a few rich get richer. In comparison, my cognitive dissonance on horse-racing is the mildest of disorders - it's not causing wars or poisoning the earth and sea or stealing more than a fraction of the wealth of the people.

Thank the goddess for Zenyatta.