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Cheer: Music festivals
Last Saturday’s Bisbee Blues Festival and Sierra Vista Fiddle Contest brought good times to the cities that hosted them.
The two events offer venues not only for local musicians to play, but also for people to celebrate and relax.
The Blues Festival saw people dancing to the music — watch the video at our Multimedia link on our Web site if you want to see. It also brought talented musicians and curious visitors to the heart of beautiful Bisbee.
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The fiddle contest brought out young performers, as well as performers from other states. The number of participants improved, too. A video of that is on our Web site, too.
We want to congratulate the organizers of these two events on their efforts, and we look forward to seeing them return next year.
Cheer: Banned book
scavenger hunt
Words. Sometimes they become more than what’s on a printed page, especially when a book takes on the status of being banned by a government, group or other entity.
In the United States, where people have the right to choose what they read, we still see efforts to ban books based on content that someone may not like.
To raise awareness, starting today, the Copper Queen Library in Bisbee and Atalanta’s Music and Books in Bisbee are sponsoring a banned book scavenger hunt. Participants must go to Old Bisbee merchants and collect a list of banned books that have been distributed throughout the town. It’s a lesson in free speech. It’s a lesson in the rights of Americans.
We are participating at our Bisbee Daily Review office and applaud the library and the book store’s owner, Joan Werner, for organizing this event. It reminds us all that we’re lucky to live in a nation where words are meaningful and we can read any of them any time we want.
Jeer: Health care bill
President Bush stands poised to veto a health care bill that could give health care to 4 million children, saying “it directs scarce funding to higher incomes at the expense of poor families.”
The State Children’s Health Insurance Program is set to expire today. The program, which was created by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, allocated about $20 billion over 10 years to help states insure more children, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
“The law authorizes states to provide health care coverage to ‘targeted low-income children’ who are not eligible for Medicaid and who are uninsured,” the conference said on its Web site. “States receive an enhanced federal match (greater than the state’s Medicaid match) and have three years to expend each year’s allotment.”
The argument against the current bill comes in several waves. One senator said it would offer loopholes that would allow illegal immigrant children to get health care. The White House says it will help “higher income” families, and not the lower.
And then there is the argument that bill will pay about $5 billion to $12 billion annually for the next five years, something opponents say is too much. The $60 billion is double what is recommended by Bush.
Investing in our children is what should happen.
This isn’t about socialized medicine. It’s about making sure kids who can’t afford private insurance have access to health care. And why shouldn’t the government work to cover more kids? It’s only wise to make sure the younger among us have the care they need.
