My Uncle Sam and McCartney's Uncle Albert

"Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" ("UA/AH") takes its place among those songs with lyrics that confound. I didn't know what the song meant when I was seven, and I probably won't know when I'm sixty-four.

In 1971 while my dad drove us along the Rock Creek Parkway in DC, "UA/AH" was on the radio. I sat in the backseat with my sister and my Mrs. Beasley doll. I was in a dress, on my way back to the hotel from the Smithsonian.

Last Sunday a cabdriver speaking Arabic drove me along the same segment of Rock Creek Parkway, and "UA/AH" was playing in my acoustic memory. I sat in the backseat with a doll, my 17-year-old daughter. She was in a dress, and we were on our way to the hotel from the National Gallery.

In '71 "UA/AH" was one of my favorite songs, but "Bridge Over Troubled Water" won the Grammy. That sad song always makes me think of the deaths of President John F. and Senator Bobby Kennedy. In '71 our troops were in Vietnam; now they're in Afghanistan.

This week the only word my cabdriver said that I understood, as he held a cell phone to his head while he held our lives in his hands, was Afghanistan, and I recall he said that word just as we passed the Watergate. In a Neil Young song "even Richard Nixon has got soul." Nixon certainly had an ego. It kept him from doing the right thing.

I was invited to the Capitol by a college classmate on Monday, and as I toured the building, I felt the same awe to be viewing one of our nation's jewels that I felt as a child at the Smithsonian.

We've suffered as a nation since the 70's. There's the misery of those who returned from war and the misery of those whose kin did not. We're scarred by September 11th and the hurricane.

The misery of "those who have not" hangs in the balance as we makes fools of ourselves over who is entitled to health care. Will the sick have to rely on charity or will access to care be deemed an individual right (not to be confused with an individual mandate)? If our country fails here, the disgrace is all our own. There has been no provocation from foreign soil. We cannot blame the elements.

People who reproduce are said to be genetically fit. Maybe the term should be changed to mean those who can afford the best health care policy their DNA will allow. The insurance companies are becoming genetic watchdogs: "Your body repairs DNA damage, you can have insurance; your body does not repair DNA damage, no insurance for you."

Genetic bullying wasn't okay for Hitler, and it's not okay for us.

Sometimes songs we don't understand still resonate. Even in those songs that lose us, there's usually one line hits the mark. In McCartney's song, "the kettles on the boil, and we're so easily called away." I hope we don't get called away from this topic of national urgency.

I had to turn off The Ed Schultz Show today when the cancer-stricken caller began crying. I didn't want to get that upset while driving, but it was too late because I'd heard enough of the story. The caller's status as a provider had been decimated by his illness. Not only did he lose the business that provided health insurance for his employees, but he also lost his ability to support his family.

Maybe our legislators will get it right. On Monday at the Capitol, my friend pointed out one of Senator Kennedy's sanctuaries. Although the senator's at rest now, we needed him a little bit longer.


"We're so sorry, Uncle Albert/But we haven't done a bloody thing all day."
-Linda and Paul McCartney, "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey"