A short column this month as I am on my way to Bolivia with a delegation that will meet with the Prime Minister and possibly with President Morales. The focus of our conversations will be food production, from independent farmers to corporations. We want to learn how Bolivian food production is influenced by the northern hemisphere.

I will write about our findings and my travels when I return.

So, this month, a short note once again about the health care issue facing the United States:

We must be the laughingstock of the entire developed world. Can you imagine what they must think of the ridiculous goings on in Congress worrying about how to pay for health care for all of our citizens?

How ludicrous that this country can spend hundreds of billions of dollars on wars killing people and then cry and complain about how we will afford to save American citizens' lives here at home by passing a health-care-for-all bill.

This country is owned totally by the corporations especially the health insurance industry, drug companies, banks, food producers and the lobbyists who represent them.

We will never have health care for all until they are all severely regulated and their monstrous practices curtailed.

When I was in Iran two years ago the government had just passed a bill that brought their nomadic people into the health system. We should be ashamed of ourselves. A member of Bush's "evil empire" can cover all of it's citizens, including nomadic tribe people, and we can't?

Call your representatives and tell them NO MORE pandering to corporate interests. Insist that they start representing the people of the United States!