Abulia Day

In 1986, I owned a 'One New Word a Day' desk calendar. May 27th was 'abulia: an abnormal lack of ability to act or make decisions.' I felt that my life had a lot of applications for this word, and tacked it up on the wall. I usually remember each May 27th.

Er... why?

I turned on the radio this morning and happened to hear some minister in Mahmoud Abbas' government talking about some reforms they were planning with the police- this is part of what he said:

'We support the private security industry and we believe as a government that you need both a strong public security system and a strong private security system.'

Nicholas Raqsani, I think his name was. Actually, I just made him up. Who I really heard was our health minister, and what she said was this:

'We support the private health insurance industry and we believe as a government that you need both a strong public health system and a strong private health system.'


But... is it really true that we need a private health insurance industry? This private health system is currently complaining that if legislation is changed so that the government no longer bullies people into buying their product, no one will buy it. I would be embarassed to be associated with a product that was as crummy as that. And in my rare lucid moments, I would ask myself, do people really need our product?