Greatest Health Care System in the World?

Maybe for John Boehner. But he's well covered (and not just with Ban de Soleil Mega Tan) by the federal government. But what about the rest of us? Those of us who are too lazy or stupid to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and become congressmen. I suppose that if number one means the freedom to go bankrupt because of medical bills, we fit that bill. USA! USA! But, really, by what metric are we number one? How do we compare with the rest of the western democracies? For the sake of clarity I'll limit the comparison to prosperous western democracies, the ones that supply health care to all their citizens.Unless you live in Texas or Mississippi it is hardly fair to compare our circumstances with the Republic of Congo. Lets take a tour -

Average life expectancy (from our friends at the CIA) :

1

Monaco

89.78

2010 est.

2	Macau	84.38	2010 est.

3	San Marino	82.95	2010 est.

4	Andorra	82.36	2010 est.

5	Japan	82.17	2010 est.

6	Guernsey	82.08	2010 est.

7	Singapore	82.06	2010 est.

8	Hong Kong	81.96	2010 est.

9	Australia	81.72	2010 est.

10	Canada	81.29	2010 est.

11	Jersey	81.28	2010 est.

12	France	81.09	2010 est.

13	Spain	81.07	2010 est.

14	Sweden	80.97	2010 est.

15	Switzerland	80.97	2010 est.

16	Israel	80.86	2010 est.

17	Iceland	80.79	2010 est.

18	Anguilla	80.77	2010 est.

19	Bermuda	80.60	2010 est.

20	Cayman Islands	80.57	2010 est.

21	Isle of Man	80.53	2010 est.

22	New Zealand	80.48	2010 est.

23	Italy	80.33	2010 est.

24	Liechtenstein	80.19	2010 est.

25	Norway	80.08	2010 est.

26	Ireland	80.07	2010 est.

27	Jordan	79.92	2010 est.

28	United Kingdom	79.92	2010 est.

29	Greece	79.80	2010 est.

30	Saint Pierre and Miquelon	79.74	2010 est.

31	Austria	79.65	2010 est.

32	Malta	79.59	2010 est.

33	Faroe Islands	79.58	2010 est.

34	Netherlands	79.55	2010 est.

35	Luxembourg	79.48	2010 est.

36	Germany	79.41	2010 est.

37	Belgium	79.37	2010 est.

38	Virgin Islands	79.19	2010 est.

39	Finland	79.13	2010 est.

40	Wallis and Futuna	78.83	2010 est.

41	European Union	78.82	2010 est.

42	Korea, South	78.81	2010 est.

43	Puerto Rico	78.77	2010 est.

44	Bosnia and Herzegovina	78.66	2010 est.

45	Saint Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha	78.60	2010 est.

46	Gibraltar	78.53	2010 est.

47	Denmark	78.47	2010 est.

48	Portugal	78.38	2010 est.

49	United States	78.24	2010 est.

50	Taiwan	78.15	2010 est.

OK. Top 50 isn't too bad. At least we beat Taiwan. And there is no indication that this is healthcare related, even though those countries that beat us have some version of Obamacare - only better. It may well be lifestyle. Compare a bunch of fish eaters to us Twinkie soaked Americans? - no fair!

If by best Speaker Boehner means most expensive he may well have a point-

  Per Capita health expenditures in US dollars:
Iceland - $3294
Australia- $3123
Canada- $3173
France - $3040
United Kingdom -$2560
Japan - $2293
United States - $6096

Yay! Numero Uno! We get to spend twice as much as those countries listed above and still manage to rank below them in average life expectancy. Maybe Boehner meant something else. Maybe he meant that, despite all evidence to the contrary, we think we have the best health care system in the world. Let's see - (from Fox news, no less)

Here's someone who's already laid it all out (I could have saved myself the trouble):
Percent of people who believe their health care system needs fundamental  change:

United States   60%
Sweden          58
United Kingdom  52
Japan           47
Netherlands     46
France          42
Canada          38

We won again. To recap - the United States has the best health care system if you are a wealthy Republican congressman. Or an Insurance executive. Or maybe a plastic surgeon. Basically Boehner is full of shit. But you knew that already. Boehner is afraid, and rightly so, that once the American people find out the benefits of the incremental changes in the admittedly flawed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act   they will come to view  universal health care as a fundamental right in a prosperous and civilized society.  Boehner and the Republican party has never gotten over the fact that Social Security and Medicare are popular and irreversible accomplishments of American progressives. Just like Boehner can't get over the tan tax.

He Promised He'd Never Hurt Me Again

Battered wife America has lifted the PFA against the Republican Party and agreed to a 2 year trial reconciliation. "He promised that he has changed" she said "And will never leave me broke and destitute and will never again touch the kids ( Defense, Social Security and Medicare), and never ever flirt  with that skank Discretionary Spending."

John Boehner, wearing an understated pale umber skin tone for the occasion, mentioned frequently that he has learned his lesson and will now work diligently to implement the Will of the American People. Not the american people of two or four years ago but the real American People. The half of the half of the people who agree with him, anyway. He outlined a specific plan for  revenue enhancements and spending cuts to control the burgeoning deficit. (Hah! Got ya! Just kidding)  After warning the President to play ball or he'll umm...uh... be sorry,  Boehner  choked up at the thought that a poor orange boy with plastic hair could rise from humble beginnings to become the Speaker of the house. Either that or he was stifling a chuckle at the fact that, in this economic climate, even a guy running on a family values platform who shows up wearing  a diaper and flanked by a hooker can get reelected as long as he has an R next to his name.

None Dare Call It Sleazin'

Do you ever get that "not so fresh" feeling?

 
Poor Ann Coulter. She's been kind of marginalized since the wingnuts have found fruitier loops in the box. Far fruitier. Even though the new breed, Palin, O'Donnell and Bachman have trouble generating a tweet between them and can't answer a direct question on any topic without resorting to Constitution, freedom or momma-somethings, they seem to have reduced Ann to a vague web presence and syndication in two bit small town newspapers (which counts for balance in these parts - point and counterpoint with Eugene Robinson - god help us). Even though Ann has managed (I assume on her own) to write whole books full of incoherencies and an actual column with real words and everything. Sad, really. Her desperate aging fame-whoredom reminds me of an aging hooker strutting around in her muffintop hot pants trying to get a reaction out of someone, anyone. At best Coulter's attempts at vitriol elicit the same confused and vaguely nauseated reaction as Wolf Blitzer and Chris Coons had during the debate.. Liberals? Yeah, I've heard of them. Kind of like the Whigs or something, right? But she gamely keeps applying the face paint and pressing on, hoping for some sort of reaction. Here's one, more out of pity than anything else:

In all of life's tribulations, there is nothing so aggravating as being condescended to by an idiot. In last week's CNN debate in the Delaware Senate race between the astonishingly well-spoken Christine O'Donnell and the unfortunate-looking Chris Coons, O'Donnell had to put up with it from Coons for 90 minutes.
O'Donnell wiped the floor with Coons, moderators Wolf Blitzer and Nancy Karibjanian, and the idiotic University of Delaware students asking questions – all of whom were against her.

Wiped the floor with Coons? Well, O'Donnell didn't throw up and no monkeys flew out of her ass so I suppose that counts as a victory of sorts. Astonishing is right. And I really think a woman with a bad dye job and an adam's apple shouldn't characterize anyone as "unfortunate looking". Stupid students, anyway. Always with the questions.

And the Problem Is...?

Yo! I'm talking to you

  "The social transformations we have seen over recent decades have complex causes, the roots of which are distant in time and have profoundly modified our perception of the world. ... If, on the one hand, humanity has seen undeniable benefits from these transformations and the Church received further stimuli to give reasons for the hope she carries, on the other, we have seen a worrying loss of the sense of the sacred, even going so far as to call into discussion apparently unquestionable foundations, such as faith in the God of creation and providence; the revelation of Jesus Christ our only Saviour, the shared understating of man's fundamental experiences like birth, death and family life, and the reference to natural moral law".

From the apostolic letter Ubicumque et Sempter (Everywhere and Always) issued Moto pro prio (because I can) to announce the founding of a new Vatican Agency tasked with evangelizing the backsliders. Issued originally only  in Latin and Italian. I suppose the Popester wanted to see how it played with the home team and Classics scholars before disseminating it in a language someone actually speaks. Sure there's the grudging admission that 400 years of post Enlightenment scientific and social progress in the Western European democracies has increased the standard of living beyond what 2000 years of Christian statehood could even dream of but don't these poor souls know that while their bellies are full, their souls are wandering thirstily in a spiritual desert. And even if these Europeans know, they don't appear to care. Funny how the least religious countries are the ones that you would most like to live in. Excepting the good ole USA, I guess. We appear to be a special case where evidence based knowledge and superstitious dumbassery uneasily coexist, often in the same person.

So good luck, Papa Bene. You're gonna need it. One question: If there is such a thing as Natural Moral Law why do we need religion at all?

Fox Hires Guy Named Juan

How about that. They are fair and balanced. NPR dumps Williams and he surfaces with a 2 million dollar contract from Fox News. Tragic. I know how Williams feels - guys in camo make me nervous.

Goo goo G'joob

Far out - if she is me than who am I or is I am you as you are he as we are all together? Freak me out - I think she is a witch

"I'm nothing like you've heard"
Are you anything like what you've said?

"I'll go to Washington and do what you'd do"
Visit the Hall of Human Origins? I doubt that.

You're At That Age...

When you can't get it up and you've forgotten everything you ever knew about cars. Seen that Viagra commercial with that "self reliant" can do guy driving through the desert in his primered '69 Camaro? He looks relaxed but more likely is depressed. Not only can't he get it up or afford to paint his car but everything is in black and white and he doesn't have so much as a bridge abutment to run into to end it all. Anyway, the car overheats and this guy rolls into a two bit service station, gets a liter of chilled water and pours it in the radiator and cruises on down the road. How he popped the radiator cap without suffering second degree burns and poured the ice cold water into radiator without cracking the block I do not know. My experience in cars of that era involved heavy towels, fountains of rusty scalding coolant and a lot of running around screaming "Oh, shit!". Maybe Mr. Self Reliant is at that age where he spent 3 hours trying to piss and everything cooled down by the time he got back to the car.

So he cruises back into town and pulls in next to the wifey's minivan. The implication being that she can't wait for her Mr. Softee  to get home.  Hope he remembered the boner pills or, at least, is good with his hands..

I Still Ain't Got It

You know how some people say "I'm not getting older, I'm getting better"? Well, those people can go fuck themselves because it ain't true. Nothing like 5 minutes on the soccer field to disabuse one of the notion that "young at heart" makes up for "old in body". It was during the weekly Giants vs. Trolls pickup game at soccer practice that I found out that my current limit of full tilt running is less than 5 seconds at a clip, followed by a ten minute recovery time. And I used to play club soccer in high school. Faster than most with no left foot (to clarify, I have a left foot but I just can't kick with it), I loved to race down the sideline and arc the ball towards the goal where those team mates more temperamentally suited  to pain would take the shots. It didn't even matter who it went to, I just loved that arc. Now I just dribble down my shirt. My brother was one of the inside guys due to a rather unique genetic mutation. Picture Schwarzenegger legs on a Pee Wee Herman torso (with a Grizzly Adams forehead) and you got yourself a striker.

What made my performance even more embarrassing was that every time I turned around one of the 57 little buggers was practicing his (or her) slide tackle and planting me on my ass.  Real funny, pick on the old guy. In my defense they were 3rd graders. Mostly.

Not a Winner

Well, it was 1.24 miles. That's a long way for an old guy. We'll do better next year if we don't get diverted again by George Washington or do a Rocky on the Art museum steps.

The Parkway Run/Walk was the wife's idea.She enjoys being part of a community fund raising effort. She likes people. Even around her. Strange. Me? I'd rather write a check. I don't travel well. But Brenda and Jas do. Especially Jas, being a hotel and hospital kid from all the operations, cancer treatments and doctor's visits. We stayed at the Hotel Windsor which I highly recommend. Clean and way cheaper than the Four Seasons. Efficiency, centrally located, nice restaurant down below and heated rooftop pool. I floated on my back and looked at the glass walled Comcast building towering above. Just like being in a commercial for the good life. Valet parking so these Jamaican guys disappear your car when you get there and if you need something out of it you have to get them to bring it back and disappear it again. I'm not sure I like that. I like having at least three vehicles and their contents wilthin easy reach. I guess you're supposed to tip them. Hell, I don't know - I did - every trip. Why I should care if a couple of Jamaican guys think that I am a clueless rube I do not know. But I do.

Philly makes me a little uneasy, although it seems cleaner and safer than when I was a kid. Part of the unease resulted from my wife's boy howdy attitude towards everyone she met as she dragged us to every fucking fountain in the city. I guess when you're from the suburbs of a cow pasture any conversational encounter is a good one. She is so nice that she will stop to give directions to total strangers even when we're lost. In my humble opinion, that's a little too nice.

Better class of bum than in the old days, too. More mellow. Not like the wild eyed obscene agressive juicers of my youth. Maybe they're dispensing Prozac down at the shelter. Here's where I get deep: You have to wonder what brought these men to this sorry state and how close any of us are to having our function switches turned off. I suspect any accidental turn of the screw could sit any one of us down at any time. I'm sure some of these guys had families. And some of them had stuff. I can almost see how it happens.

Don't Touch That Wiener!

Oh goody. Bachman, Palin, Angle - I guess the crazy just wasn't deep enough for the new Know Nothing Party. Of course, that was back in the 90's (the 1890's) before it was discovered that masturbation was good for you. After all, if Jesus didn't want you to masturbate he wouldn't have invented porn. Here's another tidbit from the Republican nominee for one of the Delaware Senate seats:

CHRISTINE O’DONNELL: Now, he said that it’s based on fact. I just want to point out a couple things. First of all, they use carbon dating, as an example, to prove that something was millions of years old. Well, we have the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens and the carbon dating test that they used then would have to then prove that these were hundreds of millions of years younger, when what happened was they had the exact same results on the fossils and canyons that they did the tests on that were supposedly 100 millions of years old. And it’s the kind of inconsistent tests like this that they’re basing their ‘facts’ on.

This is so unbelievably wrong on so many levels and there are so many logical fallacies embedded in that one statement that it is almost impossible to parse out what she is trying to say. The anti-intellectual fruits sprung from the poison seed of Rushdoony . We're a country half full of half educated dumb asses. Let's send one to the Senate.

Not Exactly Don Draper

Well, this is a little embarassing. I stopped in the company president's office this morning for a little chat and to brag about my mad estimating skills and about how I am the man. I was just getting into what percentage of total sales was the result of my bidding efforts when he looked at me and asked me if my shirt was on inside out. Shit. It was. I just walked out. God, I hope some of these jobs make some money.

More Invasion of the Species

My entire back yard was graded down to the clay when they built the highline next to the house. That was in 1913 and the soil has yet to recover. Shaded by a row of decaying rock maples,  the flat spots can grow only dirt and the occasional clump of quack grass and the railroad bank and fence line grow everything else, mostly a feeble vegetable garden and my collection of invasive plants. I do have some native plants - poison ivy and pokeberry. Yay.

Trumpet vine (Campsis radicans) - inherited this. The parent vine seems to have died but runners are popping up all over. No blooms this year, though.

Morning Glory (Ipomoea nil) - my fault. Can't say I wasn't warned. I managed to infest my father's place with these things and I heard about it until the day he died. They looked nice on his trellis, though. Supposedly the seeds have hallucinogenic properties if you eat hundreds of them. Blecch. Oddly enough I don't know if this is true. I also have a wild variety embedded in my garden that seems to propagate by runner instead of seed. I'll never get rid of it. It's the hydra of morning glories.

Garden of Invasive Species

Apparently, I am very, very good at growing invasive species. Invasive Species gardening is easy - they practically grow themselves! So easy you can do it, too. But if the DCNR gets wind of what's infesting my quarter acre estate they will order a napalm strike on my back yard.  Here are some ecology destroying plants that I either inherited or planted myself because I'm not all that bright :

G

Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima) - Jumped the railroad tracks about 30 years ago. Heaven must stink if it's full of these dirty, smelly useless punkwood bastards. Easy to uproot but they just keep coming back - prime candidate for chemical warfare.

Golden Bamboo (Phyllostachys aurea) - grabbed a couple of clumps as a screen for the railroad from an old homestead when I moved to town. It spread pretty well just north and south alone the high line bank although  over the last year or so a couple of shoots have escaped down into the yard. So what. What's it gonna do - disturb the dog shit? It would have to get by the chemical barrier my neighbor's massive English walnut puts up to escape west. There's a bridge north, the chemical wasteland of the double track east so all it can do is go  south. At the rate it's spreading it will be 50 years before it crosses the property line and I'll be dead or way beyond caring.  Besides it has to get by some other successful invaders to go any further. Stay tuned...

Who Said What?

Can you separate the psychopath from the sociopath? Which of the below quotes comes from baby killing mass murderer Timothy McVeigh and which is from confused loon Sharron Angle, the Nevada Republican nominee for the US Senate?

 a."The government is afraid of the guns people have because they have to have control of the people at all times. Once you take away the guns, you can do anything to the people. You give them an inch and they take a mile. I believe we are slowly turning into a socialist government. The government is continually growing bigger and more powerful and the people need to prepare to defend themselves against government control."

b."What is a little bit disconcerting and concerning is the inability for sporting goods stores to keep ammunition in stock," she said. "That tells me the nation is arming. What are they arming for if it isn't that they are so distrustful of their government? They're afraid they'll have to fight for their liberty in more Second Amendment kinds of ways? "That's why I look at this as almost an imperative. If we don't win at the ballot box, what will be the next step?"

c."If this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies..."

d."Taxes are a joke. Regardless of what a political candidate "promises," they will increase. More taxes are always the answer to government mismanagement. They mess up. We suffer. Taxes are reaching cataclysmic levels, with no slowdown in sight. [...] Is a Civil War Imminent? Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system? I hope it doesn't come to that. But it might."

e."Half of the country is working to produce and pay the taxes and pay the bills, the other half is living off the taxpayers -- they’re living off the other 51 percent."

Tough, isn't it?   McVeigh - a.,d.  Angle b.,c.,e.

Freak Me Out

Time to pack up. It is amazing how time zips by. Household chores today. Every thing is ok here. See you soon.

Love to all - Dad

Don't use my laptop much except while on vacation.  Found it in my email under the header Too Fast. Dad died last November so I'm thinking that time has stopped zipping by for him. But "see you soon"? I don't think I like that at all.

(and yes, my loyal reader - more catharsis. I'm full of catharsis - I'm the most catharsisarean guy you'll ever meet. And don't make me look up any more words)

The World's Worst Catholic™ Explains Why God Allows Requires Pain and Suffering

Our grandaughter was born with a sacrococcogeal teratoma which necessitated a helicopter ride to a surgery center for removal of the tumor and, as there was a germ cell malignancy  found in the liver, she had to undergo chemotherapy for the first 9 months of her life. This left her bald, sick and continually in the hospital to deal with urinary tract infections and pneumonia resulting from her compromised immune system. She has been in remission for 6 years but the surgery has left her incontinent, without muscle mass around her sphincter and nerve damage to her bladder. The tumor displaced her hip so surgery and a spica cast were required to realign her hip. So each day is a continual round of medications to bolster her kidney function and laxitives and immodium to try to time her bowel movements so that she is more or less (mostly less) socially continent. She has also developed mild epileptic seizures that require medication and a regimen of high calorie foods to maintain her weight. But, all in all, she's a happy, well adjusted kid. Things have stabilized to the point where we only have to drive the 150 miles to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia a few times a year. Once a year we have a followup for the cancer survivors program in the oncology wing. It's a tough trip.

"In a recent Angelus message Pope Benedict XVI hit on the very core of the Church's belief that, there is, in fact a great value and worhiness to be found in human agony. To be sure, the Church's understanding of human suffering lies at the very heart of salvation itself."

 Thanks, Pope, I feel much better now. Next time I see a bald, sick unto death, bewildered four year old with a port in his chest in the oncology wing I'll remember that human suffering is all part of God's love for us. Without it we would face eternal suffering. Or when I see a 20 year old athlete with an inoperable brain tumor barely able to move from the combined effects of radiation and chemo I'll tell her, " Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? Yet not one will fall to the ground apart from you Father's will."  A little transcription error here, a stray neutino there, a modest mutation in a regulatory sequence. All part of the Big Guy's master plan. Doomed to a short agonizing life with an incurable birth defect because your parents follow the Church teaching that a merciful abortion is a mortal sin? Well, that's all God's will.
If I weren't such a spiritual fellow, and having seen children in all stages of disease and disability, I would almost think that there really isn't any purpose to this pain and suffering. That a transcription error is just a transcription error, a stray neutrino is just a stray neutrino, the sparrow just gets sick and dies and shit just happens. If I weren't such a spiritual person I would almost think that a person's time would be better spent volunteering at the local hospital than praying  and contributing weekly to Doctors Without Borders or the Ronald McDonald House than dumping those bucks in the collection plate. If I weren't such a spiritual person I'd almost think Benedict and the Church are full of shit and lionizing suffering is a weak argument designed to give meaning to something that has none and to perpetuate a superstition who's only rationale is its own existence. If I weren't such a spiritual person I would almost think that, if there is a God, he's asleep, dead or just doesn't care and all we really have are each other. If I weren't such a spiritual person, that is.

Dropping the F Bomb

I suppose it's my own fault because I used it first. But it still makes me wince when I hear my seven year old granddaughter use the F - word. That would be the word "family". For some reason I got it in my head to start a new family tradition - Friday Family Movie Night. So every week I try to track down some god awful fun for the family G rated snoozefest and it's not easy satisfying a group with such diverse interests. My taste runs to sci-fi/zombie, Brennie likes well made films that plumb the depths of the human condition - you know good movies (bleh) and the granddaughter likes to watch the same episode of Big Time Rush over and over and over again. She's picked up on the fact that my heart melts when I think of her being stuck with her grandparents for a family.  So now everything is family - Family Swim Day, Family Go to Burger King Day, Family Buy Me a Toy Day - Please - how about a Family Shoot me in the Head Day? I'm trapped in the Family Circle.

Baaaad Boys

So we're trapped between the incessant anality of accounting (we hate to see them coming) and the skewed nerdosity of D & E (Palin's not the only Shakespeare around here). Our office conversations revolve (or devolve) around four basic topics:

1. Sports
2. Boobs
3. Calling everyone who wears a new shirt, or one that isn't stained or smelly, gay
4. Sheep fucking

Scripto, you say, since you live in a dairy producing region why is sheep fucking such a hot topic? I'm not sure. I guess it's just the way we those guys roll. Maybe being around cows all the time makes sheep seem kind of exotic and sexy. I read in the paper about a guy who went to jail for...um... making love to a turkey. But that was a couple counties east. There are some sick fuckers out there.  Personally, I find the whole concept not only illegal but mildly disturbing. Tradition demands that we call all employees that make the trip to work over the mountain from the next county over "sheepfuckers". This is, of course, an exaggeration. They are not all sheepfuckers. Some of them have sisters.

So one of these guys from over the mountain made the mistake of talking about a sheep one day. I'm sure the whole thing was perfectly innocent but when he was asked whether the sheep was a boy or a girl he answered-

"I'm not sure. I didn't look at its face."

It's going to take a while to live that one down.

Dumbest Thing I Ever Saw

  From the 'Hey Let's See If Some Idiot Will Buy This' Dept at Columbia Sportswear

Comes with antler headband and clip on tail. I don't know about you but I think a guy would look a little peculiar wandering around the woods in that outfit. You'd either get laughed to death by your fellow hunters, shagged to death by a nearsighted Grizzly or shot. Or all three. Maybe it's a furries thing.

Bout Effing Time

We now hold that the FCC’s policy violates the First Amendment because it is unconstitutionally vague, creating a chilling effect that goes far beyond the fleeting expletives at issue here.

I led a very sheltered life in the sixties. My parents never swore, nor did my aunts, uncles or grandparents (although on occasion my Lithuanian grandma would mutter something under her breath that may or may not have been inappropriate). Sure the folks drank and smoked and fought a lot but who didn't? Haven't you ever seen Madmen? Occasionally a "hell" or "damn" and rarely a "shit" but never a "fuck" or (my personal favorite) a "shitfuckers". I remember being totally shocked when I saw my father give someone the finger and yelling "yeah, right here!"  when he was driving me to school. At the time I didn't even know what it meant but I was shocked, shocked, I tell ya and I knew it was something bad because when I asked him about it he told me to shut up. A defining moment in my life or, for some reason, one I remember. I lost my innocence right there. In the suburbs of Philly the unpleasantness was 20 miles away, Vietnam was some pictures in Life magazine or (I shit you not- I think I don't, anyway - you know how memory is) an episode on American Sportsman or Wide World of Sports about hunting Viet Cong and the hippies with their reefers and LS and D were off in San Francisco.

        But I've grown up a little. I like some "hells", "damns", "bastards", and "bitches" in my cop shows. Although "God damns" and "Jesus Christs" are curiously absent and I wouldn't mind a little blasphemy now and again to make it more realistic. And on cable it seems idiotic to bleep out John Stewart when you know exactly what he's saying and substituting "frak" for the F word in the late lamented Battlestar Gallactica. C'mon, almost the entire human race has been destroyed by robots and the rest are fleeing for their lives. If that doesn't deserve a "we are fucked" nothing does.
       But there have to be some standards or chaos will reign. I'd be a different (and probably not a better) person if I grew up watching Howdy Fucking Doody or if Mr. Rogers looked out at me and said, "Won't you be my neighbor, you little fucker." Adult and children's programing should be held to different standards. I don't want to have to explain what a blow job is when my grandkids and I are watching Hannah Montanah. And I don't  want to hear Caillou's dad say when Caillou comes in the bedroom after having a bad dream, "Get the fuck out of here, you bald headed freak, I'm trying to do your mom." And what if, because of the ADA, they have to keep Nina (Melanie was fired because she appeared in two spoof PSA's  - too bad - I liked her and PBS can suck it) on the Good Night Show even after it is discovered that she has developed Tourettes?

Hey!
Hurray! (cock!)
We had another (fuck! suck! cock!) fantastic day
And (shit fuck cock motherfucker) now it's time to say-
Good
Banana?
Good (bitch! shit! cock!)
Noona?
Gooooood Niiiiiiight! (fuck! shit! pussy! cock!)

That would be bad.

More On Birth Control from The World's Worst Catholic™

                                   Damn Humanae Vitae

"I don't want to overstate or understate our level of concern," said McQuade, the Catholic bishops' spokesperson. "We consider [birth control] an elective drug. Married women can practice periodic abstinence. Other women can abstain altogether. Not having sex doesn't make you sick."

Well, it makes me sick. Moping around depressed all day can't be healthy. And the begging is bad for my self esteem. The Catholic Bishops are living proof that lack of a healthy caring sex life leads to all sorts of unhealthy perversions - like man on altar boy sex and sticking your beak in the secular American political process to control everyone's access to birth control.

"I don't want to overstate or understate our level of concern" - how meaninglessly thoughtful                                                                                             

"We consider [birth control] an elective drug." - taking birth control drugs is still elective - insurance companies would be required to subsidize the cost as part of the benefit package. If you want to reduce abortions you need to reduce unwanted pregnancies - and that means universal access to cheap birth control.

"Married women can practice periodic abstinence" - abstinence during their periods ? - but that's when they are least likely to get pregnant. If you want to reduce abortions you need to reduce unwanted pregnancies - and that means universal access to cheap birth control.


"Other women can abstain altogether."  - yeah, that works. If you want to reduce abortions you need to reduce unwanted pregnancies - and that means universal access to cheap birth control.

In the search for a leaner, meaner church the Magesterium has brought out this hoary old birth control chestnut once again. It didn't work in the 60's for American Catholics and it will only work now for those too intellectually challenged to see the fundamental disconnect. If you consider abortion a moral evil you need to be pro birth control. Abortion is not an easy choice and I think those of us that can't get pregnant shouldn't have a choice in the matter. My position is that, until the fetus can live outside the womb on its own, the decision to carry to term is up to the woman. Anyway you look at it, as a method of birth control, abortion is expensive and should be a last resort. No matter how they try to pretty it up theologically, the Church's position is fundamentally stupid - I'll say it again- If you want to reduce abortions you need to reduce unwanted pregnancies - and that means universal access to cheap birth control.

And the Conference of Catholic Bishops can go fuck themselves with a pointy hat. We're not going to listen to them anyway.

There is a War on Christmas

Either this is an assault on Christmas or there is a problem with the translator at Santa's Workshop™ - Shanghai Division.  Either way I'm glad I got the small Satan, although the whole Antimatter thing has me a little concerned about plugging it in. Maybe the neighbors won't notice.

Heard at Work

I couldn't find a family friendly image implying dicks going in and out without actual dicks going in and out

From a former employee corrected for viewing inappropriate material.

"It's not porn if there's no dicks going in and out of it."

Which would be a far more accurate definition of obscenity than I know it when I see it and  violation of contemporary community standards.

Feel the Love

 Dr Pipi. I do not like or love you. But I do like and love brenda. Can we go buy some more fish Plese. Why? Because I want to buy some fish that are the ones that I like. OK. ok Jasmine
can we go to wall maret to get them.

Makes it all worthwhile, doesn't it? The why after the first sentence or two appears in all her notes, a technique I think she learned in first grade journal class. It is usually followed by because it is fun or because I like to. Why? Because it counts as a sentence, I guess and you gots to have at least 3.

Worst Father's Day Eveh

Well, naming you "Beaver" just seemed funny at the time

Got lost - that's not supposed to happen. Especially not on Father's day. Especially not when I had to admit it and most especially not since I looked it up, wrote it down and somehow missed the turn anyway. My navigator was busy blabbing away on the phone and I didn't give her enough "time" to find Rt. 32. Stupid iphone. And I didn't even get to yell at her since I "knew" where I was going. Stupid Expedia. But I didn't say anything, although I wanted to and she knew I wanted to. Bad things happen when I do. To me.  One of our first major arguments was over the correct method of barbecuing, which ended with several pounds of raw chicken being flung into the dirt during our tug of war over the platter. (She laughed - I knew at that moment that this was the woman for me). So I'm pissed and fucking stewing over having to backtrack. Then this:

Why the silent treatment - I didn't yell at you.
Well, I tried to make conversation - you didn't seem  interested.
What I thought - Oh Jesus, It's Father's Day - do I have to talk, too?
What I said - Shit, I'm sorry.

Of course, we have to take 3/5's of the grandkids with us which means 87 stops everytime one of the little whiners needs fed, watered or bathroomed. If it was just me I'd never stop - I once drove from Pittsburgh to Fort Collins in 28 hours straight thru - gas and coffee only. That's how a real man rolls.

Rep. Barton Chokes on Misconstrudel

Barton couldn't have been more clear if he had published his apology as an Op-Ed in the Times.

"I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong is subject to some sort of political pressure that is - again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown," Barton said. "So I apologize."

OK, bye. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. I'm sure Barton would rather live in a country where compensation claims have to wind through decades of litigation, enriching generations of lawyers, before the injured party is made whole. Get the original apology and watch the cutaway to BP exec Hayward during Barton's apology for Obama being a meanie - Hayward's got that what the fuck is this guy talking about? look on his face. Our congress is making BP look like the model of competency.


And still smoking something that can't be good for you - Rep. Michele Bachman (R-wacko), proprietor and client of the Watch Out Behind You, Jesus Is Coming Therapy and Homosexual Rehabilitation Center. Look into her eyes - the crazy is strong in this one:

“They have to lift the liability cap. But if I was the head of BP, I would let the signal get out there — ‘We’re not going to be chumps, and we’re not going to be fleeced.’ And they shouldn’t be. They shouldn’t have to be fleeced and make chumps to have to pay for perpetual unemployment and all the rest — they’ve got to be legitimate claims.”

Sorry, Michele, to be head of a multinational corporation you have to be a ruthless sociopath, not a retarded one. I think the chumps are the people who voted for her. Poor BP - ponying up 20 billion out of a yearly profit of 24 billion. That's profit, mind you. The delicate dance the Obama Administration is doing is to get BP to pay up before they go belly up. It's in no one's interest to kill the company. It is also in no one's interest to ever, ever listen to Michelle Bachman.

Michelle and Joe sittin' in a tree
K-I-S-S on BP
First comes love
Then comes marriage
Then comes an oil spill massive enough to wipe out an entire ecosystem for generations to come
In a baby carriage

And here is Sarah Palin, fresh from using her mad momma-grizzly skills to confuse herself further and quite possibly the only person on the planet who could make Bill O'Reilly look smart, taking a little friendly fire. Check out this clip on the Dumbotron:


OK. She's not even pretending to make any sense. I think even Sarah realizes that she is tagged with the Drill, Baby, Drill mantra forevermore. In the interview with O'Reilly she has that uncomfortable look of someone who's not sure whether they just shit their pants. Sorry, Sarah, something smells.

Why I'll Hide a Mexican in My Basement

For one thing, it's an unfinished basement. For another, I owe the Mexican people a debt of gratitude, or at least one Mexican people a debt of gratitude. As I pointed out in my previous post, on occasion I would use the boxcar as an alternative means of transportation between San Louis Obispo and Seattle. It was while sitting in a boxcar that I had my one and only contact with la migra which amounted to an accent and skin tone check. Guess they weren't looking for Lithuanian/Irish hippies from Philadelphia. The guy I was with was an Aussie on a cross country American adventure. Guess he didn't count as one of them either. At one point in the trip, somewhere around San Francisco, the slow freight stopped next to the BART line and about 5000 Mexicans got on. Men, women, children, all chattering away. So odd, like something you would see in a travelogue about the Calcutta Express, except that no one was actually sitting on the roof. We sat there as the airconditioned streamlined BART train whizzed past no more than 10' from us, carrying all of 4 paying customers. The freight chugged along for about 10 miles and everyone besides me and my buddy got off. In the middle of a bunch of fields. I don't know where they were going. Work, I suppose.

On my way back I rolled back into San Luis around 2 in the morning, hungry, tired with my poor long suffering dog Fred trailing along behind me. I walk by this restaurant and the dishwasher standing beside the back door smoking a cigarette. He motions for me to wait, walks back in the restaurant and brings me out a plate of food, a beer and a dish of water for my dog. We didn't have much to say, since I know no Spanish and he knew little or no English so I finished the meal, smoked a cigarette with him, thanked him and left. To this day I think it's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me. That's why I'll hide a Mexican in my basement.

Riding the Rails 101

You can get from San Luis Obispo to Seattle on a dollar. I did, with change left over. Of course it was 30 some years ago and I spent the dollar on a pack of cigarettes so these days you better make it 5 bucks. Particularly if you want to smoke. Bear in mind these travel tips are from back in the day and may not hold true today. Southern (or was it Northern?) Pacific may well have beefed up their security procedures after those towers got knocked down. They always had the rep as being a hobo friendly railroad back then.

Woo University Rules of the Rails:

1. Don't ever jump on a moving train - there are no one- legged hoboes - fall under the train and, if you survive it, you will end up an ordinary bum on a mechanic's crawler, panhandling for sterno in a big city somewhere. I only violated this rule once and that was to avoid arrest. A cop was sitting at a crossing with his lights flashing pointing at me as I walked alongside a freight that was slowly picking up speed. I tossed my dog Fred in the boxcar and jumped in after him, successfully making my escape.
2. Don't step in the track switch area - the switches are remotely operated. If your foot gets caught you are royally screwed because there's a train coming and you're not going anywhere.
3. Look for a boxcar with a wooden floor - corrugated steel floors are cold and uncomfortable but a wood floor was rare then and I imagine they may be non-existent now.
4. Find a large cardboard packing box and roll yourself up in it forming a tube open at the ends. Warm and toasty all night long.
5. Stay out of the transient camps if you're traveling alone. Bad things can happen.
6. You can always get food - hop off at any town and hit the mission or Salvation Army. It's a great country, full of Christians.
7. Stick to the slow freights or you may get hassled by the yard detectives. I rode a fast freight carrying piggyback trailers out of San Francisco once. Best ride of my life. Straight through, stopping for nothing, they even moved passenger trains to the side. When we hit the mountain passes they would bring up 3 locomotives behind to push it up the mountain. Mail train - we was flyin'. Bumped off in Medford. The yard detective asked me what I was thinking riding under a trailer clearly marked "explosives".  "I dunno - just trying to get home." "Well, stick to the slow freights and we won't bother you."
8. Oh, and ladies. I don't care if you've seen Boxcar Bertha - this mode of travel ain't for you.

Hat tip to Sweet (an old black guy who carried all his worldly possessions in a blue plastic dish tub) and Phil from Wilkes-Barre (nice guy but quite possibly had a bit of a drinking problem) who kept me from being dumber than I was. I imagine you guys are on the slow freight to eternity about now. Hope the floor is wood and the weather is warm.