No, let me do one better.

This land was made for you, me, and Deamonte!* Let's review, shall we?

Twelve-year-old Deamonte Driver died of a toothache Sunday.

A routine, $80 tooth extraction might have saved him.

If his mother had been insured.

If his family had not lost its Medicaid.

If Medicaid dentists weren't so hard to find.

If his mother hadn't been focused on getting a dentist for his brother, who had six rotted teeth.

By the time Deamonte's own aching tooth got any attention, the bacteria from the abscess had spread to his brain, doctors said. After two operations and more than six weeks of hospital care, the Prince George's County boy died.

I'm going to type this real slow.

A. child. died. because. he. was. not. insured. over. some. bullshit.

Can we PLEASE get some health care reform out this bitch?

I know I am not the only one who is playing shit off (ah, this twinge in my tooth is so annoying; oh, my ankle is giving me trouble, but let me see if I can walk it off) acting like my body will magically heal on its own because I am not trying to catch a bunch of emergency room fees.

So, you'll have to excuse my rage when I watch people who have enough money to PAY CASH when they roll into a doctors office, who want to haggle for fees and let "the market" take care of the cost, dominate the public conversation.

Mofo, shut up, you don't need any help! The question isn't health care or freedom! Where the fuck are you getting this shit from? The question is health care or more dead people!

But here's the deal. This fight is not about health care for them. Because if it was just about the ultimate question of how we would reconcile our vastly uninsured populace with some kind of tenable plan, we wouldn't be hearing shit like this:

Mr. Miller, shaking, stood his ground. He said he was furious that the senator's staff had limited the questioning. "One day," he said to loud applause, "God is going to stand before you, and he's going to judge you!"

Seriously? WTF! I expect to hear shit like that at a pro-choice rally from anti-choicers, not at a town hall meeting on fucking health care.

Can we at least *try* to have a conversation? I mean seriously, can we talk without the distortions, like this one:

This [mailer] is kind of a new frontier in the scare campaign targeting old folks: It links the prediction of drastic Medicare cuts to the widely-debunked claim that health care reform will lead to mass government euthanasia of the elderly. The mailer says that "bureaucrats" could prevent you from receiving treatments, even if "you and your doctor insist on them," and quotes Obama saying:

"Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller."

Taken out of context, the comment sounds like a callous declaration to a patient that he or she should suck it up and forget about getting needed care. In fact, Obama was actually discussing the difficulties inherent in helping the elderly make good medical decisions.

No one here is actually interested in having a conversation about health care. They just want to scream. And this is unfortunate because instead of having an actual conversation about what this health care bill will actually provide (which is still murky) and how it will be paid (murkier still) or what is actually in this 1,018 page document, we're still on a bunch of bullshit about socialism.

Marc Ambinder over at the Atlantic provides a good summary of the situation:

The American people remain anxious and confused about health care reform. That is an underlying reality that Republican activists are so eager to exploit. But doing so required a certain restraint — and a willingness to traffic in at least approximate truths — and an ability to make distinctions within their own ranks about which tactics were valid and which tactics were venomous.

We live in a country where the only people constitutionally guaranteed a right to health care are prisoners. That is a travesty. And the answer here is not to remove health care from prisoners - many of whom actually have access to adequate medical treatment for the first time in their lives - but to ask why a country is so disconnected with their citizenry that provisions are not made to protect all citizens from preventable illness.

But we aren't talking about that. Instead, I'm listening to this bullshit:

"If they don't let us vent our frustrations out, they will have a revolution," Mary Ann Fieser of Hillsboro, Mo., told McCaskill at her Missouri health care forum.

So you think you want a revolution?

Let me tell you something about a revolution. A revolution is not something to be entered into lightly. They are frequently long, often painful, and most often soaked in blood. And revolutions don't come from a moneyed class who is worried about everyone getting a chance at something they take for granted. It comes from the bottom, from those who have no other options, for those who have lost so much that they can see no other option than an outright revolt.

It is high time for a revolution. But people like Mary Ann Fieser better hope that it starts and begins at health care and doesn't start sliding into questions of class.

*No, I am never letting this go for as long as I live. My tombstone will read "Now rolling with Deamonte. I tried, kid."

For Want Of A Dentist [Washington Post]
The Roots Of Rage At A Town Hall Meeting [MSNBC/NY Times]
Brutal Mailer From Anti-Reform Group Displays Sick, Languishing Old People [The Plum Line]
Health Care Bill Released [Huffington Post]
How Conservatives Are Blowing Their Chance [The Atlantic]
Health Care Costs Rising As Prison Population Grows And Ages [Stateline]
Specter: Protests Not 'Representative Of America' [Associated Press]

Christmas is a time when everyone turns in to a 5-year old. You make lists of stuff that you want, you wear ridiculous sparkly things, you shove cookies in your face and sing "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells" in public places, and you do these things sober, because it is Christmas, and Christmas makes us all insane at times.

Yet Christmas, apparently, is also a good time for younger people to remind you that you are, in fact, an old grownup loser. And though you may win the heart of your 5-year-old niece by knowing the names of everyone on Yo Gabba Gabba and doing a headstand while performing a puppet show, your 13 year old niece will continue to remind you that you are, in fact, totally uncool for not knowing how to tell the Jonas Brothers apart and for seriously sucking on the Easy level of Guitar Hero. You begin to panic: not because you give a shit about the Jonas Brothers, but because you realize that you are, in fact, a grown up. The one present you asked for was flannel sheets and a down comforter. You don't feel guilty anymore about sneaking Bailey's into your hot chocolate. You laugh at your parents' matching sweaters instead of wanting to "like, totally die" whenever they walk into a room together.

And then you open your stupid mouth and say this: "I can't believe I'm going to be 28 in three weeks. I am so old!" and your 35 year old sister, 60 year old mother, and 75 year old neighbor give you the biggest "Bish, plz" look in the history of the universe. "You're a tadpole," the 75 year old says, and you remember the black and white pictures in her house, and all of the stories she's told you about the life she has lived and the adventures she has had over 75 years, compared to your 28 years of whatever and whatnot, and you want to punch yourself in the face for being such an idiot.

So here is the real lesson, I guess: you're always old to somebody, and you're always young to somebody else. The sucker punch you feel when you realize you've left pieces of yourself far behind, and that you're in a different place, can easily be balanced out by the relief you feel knowing that even though you may suck at Guitar Hero (for now- Auntie is practicing, son) and you don't know who the Jonas Brothers are or give a shit about High School bloody Musical, you also don't have to go through 8th grade all over again, like your niece does. And even though her job is to remind you that you're slowly moving into "old" territory, your job is to catalog her love of the Jonas Brothers and tease her about it in approximately 15 years, when she's in the very place you're in right now. And also, of course, to remind her that you used to be 13, too, and you'll be there to help her through it if she needs you, much like your older sister, your mother, and your 75 year old neighbor are there for you.

Also? The Jonas Brothers will be uncool in 6 months, but my flannel sheets and down comforter are going to be hot for years to come. Take that, whipper snappers!

See, “Bitches” is about a quartet of female friends, living in New York, who just happen to be werewolves. The show has been described as a “quirky urban fairy tale." As Scanner points out, "Oh, so not only does it, in a way, rip off Buffy The Vampire Slayer, it also demeans and insults women!" The project has already received a script plus penalty commitment from the network, so there is a very good chance we will soon be seeing this monstrosity on the small screen. [Scanner]

[Washington, D.C., December 15. Image via AP]

With Santa Claus looking on, First lady Laura Bush, center, flanked by Dania Jecty, 11, left, and Elmer Reyes, 13, reads a holiday story book to patients and parents at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, Monday, Dec. 15, 2008. Both are patients at the hospital. (AP Photo/Staff)