This morning’s video of Zach Wamp’s appearance on MSNBC regarding the President’s plans for universal health care was a little jarring — even though I’m a long-time fan of Congressman Wamp.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m very leery of universal health care.  I think quality would suffer and costs would soar — and the people causing the increased costs wouldn’t be the ones paying for it.  My problem with Zach’s sound bite is just that I don’t think health care is a privilege — it IS a right, but a right that you have to pay for.  One could say the same about food and shelter.  Everyone has a right to food, shelter and medical care, but that doesn’t mean everyone has a right to get those things free.

What you can pay for, decides what level of quality you are entitled to.  Lots of people live in much larger, more luxurious houses than I do; some people spend much more on food.  That’s okay, and I don’t have a problem with it.  Some people live in government-subsidized housing that isn’t quite as spacious as my own, and some people receive food stamps.  That’s okay too.

Actually, I had a little taste of what government-managed health care might be like, just this morning.  Gamma is sick with mono, and has picked up a secondary virus (I can neither pronounce nor spell it, so I won’t try) that has caused her lips and mouth to blister horribly.  So, in addition to being nearly unconscious all the time, it’s very painful for her to eat or drink — so, she doesn’t.  She’s lost eight pounds in seven days.

I should have this disease for her… except I’ve already had my turn.

This morning, her doctor prescribed a combination of substances that, mixed together, may bring some relief and healing for the blisters.  Hopefully, that will enable her to eat properly, which would speed her recovery.  But here’s the catch: there’s only one drugstore in town that actually does "compounding" anymore, and they’re not on our insurance company’s list of "preferred" drug stores.

In a phone call to the insurance company this morning, I got a heavy sales pitch to let them fill the prescription by mail-order, rather than submitting paperwork for reimbursement later.  Even after I explained to the call-center chickadee that this isn’t one of those things that works well for mail order (like meds you take all the time, knowing weeks in advance when you’ll need them); my child is in pain, and cannot eat.

They’re going to spend more on paperwork justifying the reimbursement, than the medicine costs to begin with.  The truth is, it’s not going to do me in to pay for the medicine — it’s not a big deal.  Really.  But given that we pay for insurance (and pay for much more than we use), I think it’s asinine for them to expect me to jump through hoops to have a $30 scrip covered, no matter where I choose to get it filled.

Especially if their "preferred" pharmacies can’t handle the mixing of three fairly common ingredients.

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Kudos to Jefferson Compounding Center, whose pharmacist made a special trip in today to fix up Gamma’s meds so that she gets some relief.  I don’t begrudge them the cost of the prescription, and highly commend them for their sympathy in this situation.

More kudos to her pediatrician, who seems to have an excellent grip on the situation, and is very calming to a nervous mom.

Even more kudos to the teachers and staff at ORHS, who’ve been e-mailing me assignments and such.  IF she is ever awake for more than five minutes, she can start catching up on all the work she’s missed.  And thank goodness Spring Break is just around the corner — that’s one week that she won’t fall further behind.

So, it’s just been two weeks since Gamma was down with the flu and pneumonia, but she’s been back in school and seeming to feel good.  Until yesterday.

Yesterday, she spiked an even worse fever than with the flu+mycoplasma combo, complaining of an extremely sore throat.  My first thought was possible strep, but she didn’t have the telltale blisters in her throat, so I left her in bed for a day to see if it would run its course.  This morning, the visibly-enlarged lymph nodes under her jawbone caused enough concern to rate another trip to the pediatrician.

There, we got the real answer (gotta love these fast, in-office tests): mononucleosis.  So, she’s in bed for at least a week; it could be much longer.  Alpha was down for a good five weeks with it her sophomore year in high school.

On Monday, I’ll begin accumulating all of her assignments for the week.  Gamma’s hardly ever been sick in the past; I guess it’s just her turn this year.

At tonight’s school board meeting, the Board received the salary proposals from teachers and principals.  It was unlike any other — the shortest, the hardest proposal ever pitched.

Our teachers and principals are expected to do more than ever before, to teach our children more at earlier ages, to fill in the gaps of parenting and medical care and social services.  They have risen to the challenge, and done so largely without complaint.  They did so this year, on the same salary as last year, as there was no raise in the budget. 

Yet each one, like the rest of us, have families to provide for, mortgages to pay,. cars to fuel, etc.

Braced for a request that I feared we would not be able to honor, I listened carefully.  What I heard was nothing short of a shock: given the dire economic times for state and local government, they asked that if we must choose between retaining personnel and giving raises, that we retain all staff with direct student impact, even if it means that there can be no cost of living increase.

It was the most selfless request imaginable.  I am humbled and embarrassed that we cannot provide for our teachers and staff what they need and deserve.

These are the folks who are teaching our children every day.  I am humbled.

Today was the annual Tennessee School Boards Association’s "Day on the Hill," where school board members from across the state gather to receive updates on legislation filed that could impact our school systems, as well as to talk with our representatives to keep them informed about education issues.

This year, we all know that there won’t be any big gifts under the holiday tree. There won’t even be a holiday tree.  We’re not quite to the point of burning furniture to survive, but every school board, every superintendent knows it’s going to be a tough year.

What I asked of our legislators was, "do no harm."  Please don’t pass any bills requiring us to fit more into the already-overcrowded day (e.g., HB0836 or HB1441), go back to elected superintendents (at least when we HAD some elected superintendents prior to 1992, there were clear checks and balances in place limiting the superintendents’ powers — this bill has NONE!), or any that mandate start dates, earlier TCAP dates, or anything else that makes life more difficult — unless they figure out how to appropriate additional time.

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Among the things I learned was that the "stimulus money" from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will not cover building or renovating schools,  because the $18B for that purpose in the original bill was cut from the final version.  There may be a little bit included for energy efficiency, but not much.  Not enough to rebuild the preschool.

Some money will come to the state for fiscal stabilization, but that was designated by the feds to go first to restoring dollars cut since 2006 — all in higher education.  Truthfully, we don’t know exactly what we’ll receive.  The Commissioner of Education is in DC tonight, meeting with the Secretary of Education and the VP, trying to ascertain exactly what’s in there for Tennessee schools.

* * * * *

There may be a need for additional communication with Nashville, but for now, there aren’t many hot-button issues brewing.

Over the weekend, we had the wonderful experience of attending the All-State East Orchestra performance.  Directed by professor Ronald Vernon of the University of Mississippi, All-East is an opportunity for the best orchestra students all over East Tennessee (both public and private schools) to practice and play together for three intense days, culminating in a concert.

Entrance was by audition, with only a small fraction of those trying out being accepted.

Gamma told me, with great pride, that half of the violas were from Oak Ridge High School.  I ran the numbers, and she’s right: six of the dozen violas were ours.  Overall, more than a quarter of the All-East Orchestra were from Oak Ridge, with a sizable number of the others coming from exclusive private schools like Baylor and McCallie in Chattanooga, or magnet schools like Chattanooga School for the Arts & Sciences, or Center for the Creative Arts (also Chattanooga).

Oak Ridge’s orchestra program, unlike most others, takes all students — no audition, no private lessons required.  That we are able to succeed in such a competitive environment is amazing, but part of the secret to our success is that we, unlike most others, begin orchestra classes in fourth grade.

Unfortunately, our fourth grade strings program is put at risk every few years, due to time and budget constraints.  The reality is, it’s not really budgetary, because the way it’s structured, the program only costs about $20k per year.  The real cost is in the time set aside, and apparently, some of the elementary principals would like to use the time for other purposes.

That’s a grave mistake, in my opinion.  There’s a great deal of research out there demonstrating the fact that early music instruction (actually reading and learning to play written notes) helps develop additional neural pathways that enhance other "academic" learning, such as mathematics, literary expression, spatial reasoning and critical thinking.

So, when the discussion next arises (I expect it this year) about whether to keep our fourth-grade strings program intact, remember this: we have a record of success in doing it this way, both musically and academically.

Gatlinburg and the Smoky Mountains are so close, we don’t take advantage of it often enough.  This week, we were there twice — skiing on Wednesday, and for Gamma’s performance with the All-State East Orchestra today.

With some time to kill this morning, we took Delta to the Aquarium.  Seriously, if not for the enormous crowd of people that showed up about noon, we could have stayed there all day.  Instead, we took a picnic lunch up to the Chimneys, and enjoyed a simple lunch in 60-ish degree weather, with snow on the ground all around us.

The concert was wonderful, but I’ll have more on that tomorrow.

I awoke at 3:30 a.m. yesterday, mulling over the several things on my schedule and everything that needed to be done in between.  But my inbox held a message from the Superintendent, indicating that schools would be closed.  By 5:30, the automated phone call confirmed it.

That cleared my schedule, as all of my meetings or commitments were either directly tied to the schools, or with organizations that automatically cancel if school is called off for weather.  In realizing that I no longer needed to pack Delta’s dinner for her school ski club trip, I lamented that the ski club would be missing what would undoubtedly be one of the prime skiing days in terms of snow quality in Gatlinburg.

Yeah, I know.  "Snow quality" and "Gatlinburg" are terms that don’t normally belong in the same sentence, but snow on the slopes midweek, when most of the yahoos in camouflage are otherwise occupied, sparks a longing to ski.

By the time that the rest of the family awakened, I’d already assembled my gear.  HWTFM took my car to work, leaving me with his snow-friendly 4WD… but by 8:30, temptation overtook him and he looked at the Ober Gatlinburg snow report online.  At that point, he called home and asked me to wait — he was joining us.

There were a number of others from Oak Ridge who had the same thought, it seems.  Delta found quite a few of her ski club friends on the mountain, and I found parents who, like me, didn’t want their kids to miss out.  Some of the parents weren’t even skiing, just waiting and watching out the window!

Education is very important in this family, so know that we used our time wisely.  Engaged in interactive learning, we studied Newton’s First Law of motion, and tested the effects of gravity and friction thereon.  There was also a bit of chemistry review in observing the efficacy of CaCl in the ihibition of freezing water on sidewalks, parking lots, and hairpin turns in the road; also, we noted the oxidation of steel in the edges of our skis, in need of a tuneup.  English was not left out, as Delta engaged in reading for an hour and a half in the car. 

We observed the effects of wind on trees at altitude, incorporating a little life science.  There was some practical application of geometry in gauging the exact angle of skis over a ripple in the terrain to yield a trajectory for maximum altitude, not to mention that we definitely met the Phys Ed requirements for the day.  The only thing that was shortchanged was probably social studies… though Delta could cite her observations that people wearing camouflage can’t ski, and are likely to present a dangerous obstacle at some point on the slope.

I’m sure she’ll be much more attentive in school today, having had a chance to put all her studies to use yesterday.  I know I’ll be more productive.

Does Tennessee need to come up with a kinder, gentler method of execution?  Some folks think so.

Ol’ Sparky was probably anything but kind or gentle, but he got the job done — quickly.  The current standard is a three drug cocktail (used by 37 states) of "an anesthetic, a muscle paralyzer, and a substance to stop the heart."

Either of which, of course, is more comfortable and humane than 30 more years in prison, I’d think.

None of the options are likely as bad as what was done to the victims of whatever crime was committed to land the prisoner on death row in the first place.

In being humane, how many of us have had a pet euthanized in the vet’s office?  I have.  I hated like hell to do it, but most caring people agree that lethal injection is sometimes the kindest, most compassionate option.

If justice is the goal, then perhaps they should just take Steve Henley home, shoot him, and burn down the house.  That is, after all, the punishment he dealt out to an elderly couple, all because he perceived they owed him something.

Now, we owe him something too.

Yesterday’s surprise snow gave us a second test of the new parental alert system — calling off school mid-morning.

We made the most of it, with hot chocolate, fresh oatmeal cookies, movies and board games for the afternoon.  There wasn’t really enough snow on the ground for sledding and such, but just enough slush on the roads to call safety into question.  It also wasn’t the same all over town, as the east side of town seemed to get more accumulation on the roads than out west, where we live.

I felt some sympathy for Dr. Bailey in having to make that call: no matter what, someone will always be unhappy with the decision.  If he closes school, half the parents are unhappy because they have to take time off work; if he does not, half the parents complain that he’s putting the children at risk.  I know that yesterday’s snow wasn’t huge, but just a few miles outside our boundary, an Anderson County school bus slid off the road with a full load of children.  Fortunately, no one was hurt — but that’s the kind of risk we’d like to avoid.

For years, we went along with our three snow days in reserve, never using all of them.  I think there were a couple where we didn’t use any at all, which always made me wonder why we couldn’t add them to Spring Break, lop them off the end of the year, or toss in a couple of three-day weekends in May.  This year though, there’s the opposite concern: we could run out of snow days, and have to make them up somewhere.

In Tennessee, our biggest snowfalls have historically come in February or March.  I even remember a good one on April 1.  So, today’s question is, did the kids stay in school long enough yesterday to count for a day’s attendance by state standards, which would mean that we still have two potential snow days in reserve?

UPDATE: I’ve confirmed that Monday’s early dismissal will not count as one of our three snow days, which is a good thing.  We still have our two snowiest months to go.