My daughter and I watched Hillary’s speech last night at the Democratic National Convention - day 2 - and we were awestruck by the power of her passion.

This bitch and C-Money will be attending our brother Bill’s plan meeting tomorrow. For those of you unfamiliar with the world of residential treatment, a plan meeting is where guardians, staff and social workers gather to create a document that will contain my brother’s life.

When we think of hero’s, most often our minds first conjure up larger than life figures, either from fictional characters initially in books or in later times splashed across movie and television screens.

Four million people were admitted to California hospitals last year. That’s a lot of people. And of those 4M, 1,002 cases of serious medical harm were disclosed by California hospitals between July 2007 and May of this year.

Why does basic health care cost so much? This question plagues me, and countless others in the USA. Over the last three years, the cost of medication and tests that I have undergone has put me on the edge of bankruptcy.

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, whose members include Pfizer, Amgen Inc. and Eli Lilly & Co., lobbied on how prices are set for seniors’ medications, rules governing drug imports and other issues.

Under current National Health Service (NHS) regulations, if a patient chooses to purchase expensive drug treatments not covered by the government, they forfeit the right to further state-funded treatment.

I thought I would take a look at the local cost of the War in Iraq. The National Priorities Project has a page where you can get the costs as it pertains to your locality. Taxpayers in California’s Congressional District 36 (Harman) will pay $1.3 billion for total Iraq war spending approved to date.

This is the time of year I can’t help but think of my husband’s friend of 35 years. Mac was an independent, cranky old fuck, 10 years older than my sweetheart.