Health Care: An Oxymoron and other Things That Are Pissing Me Off Today

And my love affair with Ms. Moon continues . . .

Speaking of the oxymoron, I'm again at Barnes and Noble today trying desperately not to listen to the wingnuts. And again, I'm failing. But I think I did find one of the people that Ms. Moon is asking for. She's at the table behind me, well now she's in front of me because I had to turn around to look at her. She has just made a phone call to a doctor's office to set up a consultation for a "mini facelift." I wonder what that means. Does she have a small face? Does she imagine that gravity has done her less a disservice than others? What I'm sure of is that "mini" has nothing to do with what she will be paying for it.

Whenever I think of people having voluntary surgery, I can't help but think, "I wonder how much that is going to cost. I wonder how many flocks of chickens that would buy. I wonder how many pairs of shoes that would buy. How many vaccines? How many school books? How many mosquito nets?" I hate to be judgemental, I swear I do. But the frivolity and arrogance of many Americans really gets my blood boiling.

I wonder if this woman here, Kathy with a K, has thought about the mosquito nets. And if so, how did she decide that her neck flab was more offensive than the wholly preventable death of a child? How? And if she hasn't thought about the shoes, I say to you "How didn't she?" I find it absolutely impossible to buy anything for myself without thinking about other mothers who cannot. And I'm only buying $19.99 Crocs that are on clearance! How did she buy that Polo shirt and those designer jeans and those snazzy leather flats? My guilt would be crippling if I was shuffling around in those things.

Maybe she is a generous soul. Maybe this neck shrinking is her gift to herself after all the good things she's done this summer. Maybe she just returned from Africa or the 9th Ward or Guatemala. Maybe she has been busy nursing the sick and clothing the poor and shoeing the unshod. She must feel great, really thankful. She has earned this little indulgence, right?

If all of that is true, then she must be well aware of how far a little money will go in these impoverished places. She knows what the Dollar can buy. She knows the difference that the 9 cent vaccine makes in the jungles. But she did good work. The village that she just returned from is a better place now, healthier and cleaner and safer.

But what about the village around the bend? And the one around the next bend? And the child that was 101st on the list of folks to receive the 100 vaccines that she brought with her?

I have to go and buy a flock of chicks now. I thank Kathy with a K for reminding me.

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Republicans

Sweet, sweet Dawn has sent me to Barnes and Noble for some solitude. I have the laptop, my phone and an Iced Mocha. What did I forget? What? Oh! Right. The iPod.

I have an eerie ability to eavesdrop. I can follow several conversations going on around me and not miss a beat in my own conversation. It can be fun, but it is also annoying as hell when I can't turn it off. Today, my brain got trapped a few tables over.





4 slightly older than middle-aged Republicans. 2 couples. Hetero, of course. They were bitching about the Stimulus Package.

"I heard a car dealer the other day saying that he's already collected $150,000 in cash for clunkers vouchers. Of course, he hasn't seen a dime of that money, yet."

Oh, yeah? Well that's because the program just started a week and a half ago. $150,000? He can't wait a few weeks for $150,000? It's a voucher backed by the government of the United States of America. Shut up.

"And now the dealers are having a hard time keeping cars on the lot. What are they to do?"


Oh, yeah? That's a great problem to have, dumbass. The answer? Order more. The dying automobile industry will be more than happy to crank out a few for him. By the way, are you a car dealer? No? Well . . . Shut up.

"And what about the cars that are getting traded in? They're just going to sell those, too."

No, moron. They're not. That would be in violation of the cash for clunkers program, thus negating their handy dandy vouchers. You don't actually know anything about this, do you? So Shut up.

"And what about the ones that won't sell? The junk dealers are just going to love that. Our nation's junk yards and landfills are going to be overflowing with beat up cars."



Actually, no dickfuck, the bleeding heart Dems have an answer for that, too. This administration has an exit strategy for these vehicles. Was that a dig? Yes, and just when I was thinking that maybe you weren't so good with subtlety and I might need to lay it on a little thicker.





And as long as we're talking about the landfills . . .that bottle of water that you're drinking will be there for the next 94 million gazillion years or so. Get a cup, ass wipe. Oh, and Shut up.






And now for my favorite quote of the day -

"You know I saw on CBS the other night about some folks going down off the cape of Africa and going out in a boat to watch sharks eat seals. The sharks jump out of the water and devour poor little seals. I say to you, What is this world coming to when people will pay thousands of dollars to see animals tortured?"





OK. Wow. Hard to know where to start. First of all, you didn't see it on CBS. It was on Discovery. And they're not "sharks." They're GREAT WHITES, the most perfect predator the world has ever known. They have remained largely unchanged for 400 million years. They predate the dinosaurs. They are living breathing fossils. These living breathing fossils weigh up to 5000 lbs and are longer than 4 of you laid tiptoe to stupid bigoted brain. They are so powerful and well adapted that they can propel their massive heft 12 ft from the surface of the water in their pursuit of a seal. Poor seals? Yes, they're cute aren't they? The island that the seals live on, has a population of about 6 million seals. They're OK.

By the way, that turkey croisandwich or whatever yuppie thing you just ate had turkey in it. That's how it got its name. That animal was raised in horrifyingly disgustingly unsanitary conditions. It was probably kept in the dark or blindfolded. When it was time to be "harvested" it was strapped by its feet to a conveyer belt that carried it upside down through a factory where it was plucked and decapitated after it spent the last hour or so of its life hearing the screaming of the ones that went before it.

If it was me, I'd choose being ambushed and swallowed in one big bite everyday and twice on Sundays instead of the horror of life and death in a meat factory, not to mention the indignity of ending up on a plate in front of someone who has no regard for the life that I didn't get to lead. Where is the honor in that?

And one more thing, fuckface, the people that spend the thousands of dollars to witness this miracle of nature are contributing to the conservation of our oceans and its inhabitants. Where do you vacation? I'll bet Cancun or the Bahamas, places that hardly resemble themselves now that the American Bastards (you) have done their Extreme Makeovers. Ancient ruins demolished, reef systems that took 1000s of years to form decimated in decades, native peoples exploited.

So long story short (too late) and not that I would have missed this opportunity to lay your ignorance bare, Fuck off.


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