Once again, I've managed to slip in a diary that will technically be posted on a Monday, although anyone to the east of my timezone might debate that fine detail.

It's been a strange week for me. Maybe it's my psychology, or maybe I'm tapping into some zeitgeist, but I've been feeling like we're at the tail end of an era and about to open up a new chapter. I was trying to figure out a song that captures how I feel, and one keeps returning unbidden: hear it below the fold.

Well last week I posted a first in what will hopefully be a series of diaries on Mondays involving music. Tonight's theme is songs that relax you at the end of a long first day of the week. Please post titles, links, or YouTubes of a tune that helps soothe the demons. After the fold, I'll give you this week's sample: A Perfect Circle's cover of Joni Mitchell's The Fiddle and the Drum:

I opened up the newspaper from my hometown this morning and came across this headline. Bobby Peterson, a graduate of my high school, suffered a stroke at age 21, and his mom can't find any nursing facilities that will take Medi-Cal. What kind of cruel, heartless society do we live in? Does anyone have any ideas for him?

Good Morning Everybody!

I have a hard time waking up, especially on Mondays. I thought I would start posting videos every week to help get the juices flowing! Please respond with a musical selection that moves your blood!

Tonight I was paying some bills. Not my favorite activity, but one that needs to be accomplished whenever I have the cash to do so. Normally, I don't look at the billing detail unless there is some sort of spike. But when I noticed two charges of $9.99 by a company called "US Credit Find" on my AT&T Phone and Internet service, I started to delve into the shadowy world of billing clearinghouses such as ILD Teleservices and their involvement with the practice of "phone cramming".

For the past few weeks, the SF Bay Area news venues have erupted in talk about proposed aerial spraying of a pheromone product over large swaths of our urban communities in order to combat the spread of an agricultural pest, the light brown apple moth. I had never heard of this insect or known anything about previous sprayings in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties until after reading up on the subject. Now it's time to educate my internet brethren about the facts surrounding this issue and resultant controversy.

Sometimes I need a little break from the great DailyKos pity party of Primaries 2008; therefore, I give you following:

So you're a wealthy health insurance CFO, and you're considered "one of corporate America's most admired executives":

It was [David] Colby who helped put together the $16.4 billion deal that created Indianapolis-based WellPoint in 2004. He was named best CFO in managed care for four years in a row by Institutional Investor magazine. Stockholders and Wall Street professionals saw the Columbia University graduate as someone who "gave it to you straight," said stock analyst Thomas Carroll. -- AP article

What better way to enjoy your hard-earned cash than to travel around the country wooing dozens of women, giving them STDs, and promising mansions and private schooling for their kids?

Of all the important work being done on DailyKos, I think nyceve's diaries rise to the forefront, and tons of people agree with me. She's a good writer, she writes from the heart, and the issues she investigates are literally life-or-death. We have a serious healthcare crisis in this country, one that can't be ignored anymore and which must be greeted with serious organization and massive activism. I can't think of any good reason not to front-page nyceve. If you agree with me, please recommend this diary!

[Updated] - Please visit today's nyceve diary, Hospital execs slam UnitedHealth: "sociopathic willingness to ignore laws", and recommend it.

I just re-viewed SiCKO on DVD. It has been a half year since this film was released, yet the point it drives home is still just as heart-wrenching, maddening, and inspiring as when I first saw it, in the theater with an enthusiastic crowd of fellow Americans. "Who are we?" asks Michael Moore. I'll tell you who I am...a person who is absolutely, positively, 100% fed-up with the way health care is being run into the ground in this country.

America is allowing her citizens to be maimed and murdered by a health insurance industry which profits only by delaying, denying, and defrauding our legitimate claims, and that's if you're "lucky" enough to have coverage! We must come together as a people and fight for a national health care system, or else we are dooming 101,000 of our fellow citizens to die, every year, from preventable causes: 33 times the number who died on 9/11. This is war.

I'm collecting strategies, positions, and tactics to win the first battles. Will you please join me?

Good Evening. Tonight I would like to say a few words about our common humanity. We are all people: we all have feelings, take ourselves too seriously sometimes, read too much dKos, and we all share love for our families, be they human or pootie.

human |ˈ(h)yoōmən|
adjective
of, relating to, or characteristic of people or human beings : the human body | the survival of the human race.

After 8 years of Bush's destruction of America and Congress's complicity in ripping up the Constitution, what keeps me up at night is not whether a Democrat knows how to compromise. After reading up on the campaign contributions and policy positions of our leading Democratic contenders, I'm losing sleep over the fact that Barack Obama has received the 2nd highest level of contributions from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries, his healthcare coverage plan is receiving pretty low marks, and he has a somewhat mixed history with energy industries. The two biggest fears I have for the world my future child will reside in are 1) that we will have unstoppable global warming, and 2) that we will not have access to decent health care. And on these two fronts, Barack Obama is, so far, not really fighting that hard for us.

exactly what Obama stands for? I get the "Hope" thing, I also heard "Change", but are there any specifics? This is my first candidate hit diary, so please excuse my naiveté. I was talking with my best friend tonight, a young father who was leaning Hillary but I've been pelting him with the Edwards meme long enough to start turning him. He emphatically vowed that Obama should not get the nomination, and unless I can figure out what Barack actually values and what he would bring to the table, I have to agree. Maybe the right-wing talking points have been getting to me - I certainly understand what it's like to have your favored candidate attacked on the ad hominem front, but my criticism comes from a lack of clarity on the part of his campaign. I just don't understand how people could be inspired by abstract nouns.

Good Evening Kossacks. I just wanted to share the happy news of expecting our first child sometime in August! Having a community like DailyKos is very reassuring because I know you are all fighting for American Families. One practical thing I'm concerned about is how to afford childcare. We live in the SF Bay Area, where everything costs an arm and a leg. My husband might end up being a stay-at-home dad, while I remain the primary breadwinner. I'm open ears about what to expect, and any advice you can give is much appreciated. Thank you DailyKos. Keep Fighting.

Dear Kossacks,

I would like to express my solidarity with our progressive cause. We all deserve a better America, one that works for us instead of against us at every turn. That's why I'm offering an olive branch that we can all rally around - our principles. Our stated goal is to elect more and better Democrats, but we must expand our focus to the time after the election when we will have some sort of Democrat in office, and we may or may not agree with their policies. At that point, it will be critical to remember why we are Democrats in the first place, and to stand up for our liberal values. Regardless of who wins, this is what we stand for:

It's just speculation at this point, but the son of a recently arrested bank robber from Napa, CA suggested that his estranged dad might have needed the money for medical reasons:

Today at the health benefits presentation at my work, we were introduced to our new choice of health care plans: Option A, or Option A. Actually, there was an Option B, but it came from the same company as Option A, only it was ridiculously expensive. Option A was only a mild rip-off.

You know, growing up I used to have this idealistic notion of capitalism: it was worth it to society for the private sector to provide services in competition with one another because we consumers would end up with the better menu via choice and competition. But what the health care system now is not capitalism, it's a freakin' Beast!

I think Hillary's plan stinks, and I let her know as much.