I was flipping around the TV news channels this morning trying to avoid further idiotic reporting on the Supreme Court and I landed on “Morning Joe”.  I stuck there to watch Sen. Tom Coburn, who is an actual doctor, talk about health care.

Now, I don’t know a hell of a lot about Coburn’s politics but, in the healthcare debate, his physicians’ point of view is pretty interesting.  Indeed, along with some of the others who seem to know what they’re doing it makes me wonder how the healthcare bill was so horribly botched.  Face it, you might not like Obamacare but something needs to happen with healthcare.  It’s a mess.  My favorite idea is nation-wide insurance instead of state by state but I’m no expert.

A little closer to home the state Senate, a somewhat regular bastion of sanity in Richmond, have tossed their mental cookies.  As a part of their budget, they’ve included a provision that requires localities to deposit fines resulting from the violation of local ordinances with the state treasury.  At that point they’ll divvy up the resulting money according to a formula.  As always, that formula will be very favorable to begin with but, within a couple of years, most of it will be state revenue.  It’s kinda like having a friend of a friend over to your house and you emerge from the bathroom to find your friends’ friend digging around in your couch cushions for spare change.

Right here in river city, the Council and School Board are finalizing our respective budgets.  Almost every strategic planning session I’ve been involved in has concluded that communications are not well-handled in the City.  Education Forward also identified it as a priority.  The Schools had half a position in their budget to begin with and then took it out.  The Council has failed to do anything about it 6 years running.  However a majority of the Council, if polled seperately, would agree communications are a real problem…:)  I’ve asked for a communications position to be put on the open items list.  We’ll see.

I don’t know what all of that means but it is interesting that institutions resist any and all change until it is absolultely inevitable.  I guess the trick is figuring out when that is without letting the whole damn thing plunge over the cliff.

All of this reminds me of a saying my Grandfather used when my father asked if one of his friends could come over and help with chores:  “Son, if I got one boy, I got a whole boy.  If I’ve got two boys, I’ve got half a boy and if I got three boys I got no boy at all….”