Dissent into the Maelstrom
It's so much fun living in another country and having to answer questions like "why don't Americans want health care?" and "is everybody over there crazy?" Because clearly they don't and clearly they are or at least some noticable proportion. How has it come to this? Is having a black man in the Oval Office so maddening to some people that they cannot approach any issue he raises with rationality? Is the thought of others having equality, the availability of a social safety net something to make these people sociopathic? Or is it that 8 years of fear and loathing under GWB has deranged this part of the population so that anything and everything that smacks of denigration for the bedwetters' heroic torturers sends them into a rabid fury? Maybe Obama really should take away their guns.
23 March 2010
Downside
I have to wonder whether the NY Times’s assertion that “a sizable part of the nation is unenthusiastic” about the health care [insurance] reform bill is another example of their Judith Miller reportage – i.e., we got it from a press release transfusion – or whether it’s more simply the usual broad-brush approach to analysis media outlets seem prone to indulge in for sales purposes. Yes, there’s much to disparage, and yes, many people wish the outcome had been different, but the majority of Americans elected this President and this Congress with the knowledge that “socialised” medicine was on the agenda, among other things, no less so than closing Guantanamo or getting out of Iraq, also recognising, one would hope that none of these issues were any less fraught than another, although that’s clearly hoping for too much. The “tea baggers” – and who among them could possibly be so naïve as to have missed out the alt-sex nuances of the phrase (oh, right, all of them) – and their GOP enablers have decided that a black President and a Democratic Congress must equate to the apocalypse, but anyone capable of taking a deep breath and not triggering an embolism must know that however flawed the present bill really is, and it is, the modern world does not, cannot, allow its population to rely for health care on catch-as-catch can “market forces” because that only leaves the most vulnerable, the most likely to succumb most disastrously to even the most common ailments, unprotected, and solely to maintain an unequable distinction to the least vulnerable. This is the same thinking that has led to CEO salaries of 250% more than the lowest paid workers in some companies, a variable that used to be magnitudes more reasonable, and yet the selfishness on parade is being exhibited by thousands of people who fall into exactly these categories, as if precluding government intervention in such areas would ever give them a chance to close either gap. The “American Dream” has, at least since the so-called Regan Era, become the American Mythology, and many of us now worship these false idols. The wake-up call cannot come soon enough, but I fear for the nature of the alarm.
I have to wonder whether the NY Times’s assertion that “a sizable part of the nation is unenthusiastic” about the health care [insurance] reform bill is another example of their Judith Miller reportage – i.e., we got it from a press release transfusion – or whether it’s more simply the usual broad-brush approach to analysis media outlets seem prone to indulge in for sales purposes. Yes, there’s much to disparage, and yes, many people wish the outcome had been different, but the majority of Americans elected this President and this Congress with the knowledge that “socialised” medicine was on the agenda, among other things, no less so than closing Guantanamo or getting out of Iraq, also recognising, one would hope that none of these issues were any less fraught than another, although that’s clearly hoping for too much. The “tea baggers” – and who among them could possibly be so naïve as to have missed out the alt-sex nuances of the phrase (oh, right, all of them) – and their GOP enablers have decided that a black President and a Democratic Congress must equate to the apocalypse, but anyone capable of taking a deep breath and not triggering an embolism must know that however flawed the present bill really is, and it is, the modern world does not, cannot, allow its population to rely for health care on catch-as-catch can “market forces” because that only leaves the most vulnerable, the most likely to succumb most disastrously to even the most common ailments, unprotected, and solely to maintain an unequable distinction to the least vulnerable. This is the same thinking that has led to CEO salaries of 250% more than the lowest paid workers in some companies, a variable that used to be magnitudes more reasonable, and yet the selfishness on parade is being exhibited by thousands of people who fall into exactly these categories, as if precluding government intervention in such areas would ever give them a chance to close either gap. The “American Dream” has, at least since the so-called Regan Era, become the American Mythology, and many of us now worship these false idols. The wake-up call cannot come soon enough, but I fear for the nature of the alarm.
22 March 2010
Gavel: Pen
So Speaker Pelosi used the Medicare gavel to ring in Health Care [insurance] Reform (at last), which leaves me wondering if Obama's got a corresponding set of pens to sign it with? Man, I'd give almost anything to get me one of those socialism biros.
Hooray for the Democrats and another major step forward into the modern world for the US of A.
So Speaker Pelosi used the Medicare gavel to ring in Health Care [insurance] Reform (at last), which leaves me wondering if Obama's got a corresponding set of pens to sign it with? Man, I'd give almost anything to get me one of those socialism biros.
Hooray for the Democrats and another major step forward into the modern world for the US of A.
20 March 2010
More Rabbit-woes
I don't really know enough about the rules to be sure of what I'm seeing all the time when the referees call a penalty, and I really think the sledging that goes on is probably more than a little over the top, especially the whole off-sides business, given that our side does it too, but I do think tonight's match was decided as much by penalties as by performance, and that's a shame. The Titan's got a penalty kick through to tie the game at the "golden minute", putting the match into overtime. A subsequent call in their favor put Gold Coast into scoring position, and they capitalized with a one-point field goal, giving them a sudden death win at 19-18. It was an exciting match, all the same, very aggressive and energized, but we failed to take advantage when we had it. I'd guess that some of that aggression also accounts for the number of calls against us. More fundamentals drilling this week for the boys in red & green.
I don't really know enough about the rules to be sure of what I'm seeing all the time when the referees call a penalty, and I really think the sledging that goes on is probably more than a little over the top, especially the whole off-sides business, given that our side does it too, but I do think tonight's match was decided as much by penalties as by performance, and that's a shame. The Titan's got a penalty kick through to tie the game at the "golden minute", putting the match into overtime. A subsequent call in their favor put Gold Coast into scoring position, and they capitalized with a one-point field goal, giving them a sudden death win at 19-18. It was an exciting match, all the same, very aggressive and energized, but we failed to take advantage when we had it. I'd guess that some of that aggression also accounts for the number of calls against us. More fundamentals drilling this week for the boys in red & green.
14 March 2010
Round One Wrapped, Not Rapt
The Mighty Bunnies performed miserably today. I had to come home to watch the news just to validate I'd seen some of what happened out there. 36-10 is not a result anyone can be happy with, except the Roosters, of course, but the score only tells half the story. Souths went out and dropped the ball regularly and spectacularly, seemingly on every set. Passes were desperate and misguided. Meanwhile, Easts seemed to have an extra man on the field. Every pass they made, every off-load was picked up, as were all of our errors. Our side seemed mired and easily misdirected, leaving the opposition free reign over the field, regularly bringing the ball back to the try line with long, unopposed runs. Only desperate goal-line defense saved the score from being even worse. Russell Crowe's presence at past games has seemed to fire up the Rabbits, but not this time. I'd guess he's hoping for something requiring a distant location shoot soon.
The Mighty Bunnies performed miserably today. I had to come home to watch the news just to validate I'd seen some of what happened out there. 36-10 is not a result anyone can be happy with, except the Roosters, of course, but the score only tells half the story. Souths went out and dropped the ball regularly and spectacularly, seemingly on every set. Passes were desperate and misguided. Meanwhile, Easts seemed to have an extra man on the field. Every pass they made, every off-load was picked up, as were all of our errors. Our side seemed mired and easily misdirected, leaving the opposition free reign over the field, regularly bringing the ball back to the try line with long, unopposed runs. Only desperate goal-line defense saved the score from being even worse. Russell Crowe's presence at past games has seemed to fire up the Rabbits, but not this time. I'd guess he's hoping for something requiring a distant location shoot soon.
01 March 2010
Happy GBLT New Mardi Gras Nudes News
Photographer Spencer Tunick (note: NSFW) came to Sydney at the invitation of New Mardi Gras and as a result, more than 2,000 people turned up at the Opera House this morning at 4 a.m. to get their kit off and stand around for about three hours. We had to wait for the sun to come up, which it was slow to do, a grey, cold morning, made rosier by the blushing. I've been colder in Sydney, but not by much.
It was an odd thing to do, I suppose, but interesting insofar as human behavior goes. I was a little surprised by the numbers of groups there were, not just couples, but four or five people, college students and the like, all about to become just that much more intimate with one another. It got a little uncomfortable when were directed to embrace and kiss, especially as the guy I was standing next to was a good head taller than me.
Somehow it was even less comfortable once we went inside the theatre, which is perhaps why one woman left in tears and one was booed into disrobing. (I rather like the idea of one dressed person; I'd have left her alone.)
It must be said, however, that it's obvious why Mr. Tunick is a photographer: he has zero verbal skills and minimal management skills. "This group here"; "you, with the tan lines"; "this way"; "that way" - these are not useful directions. Dude, take the picture, please.
Correction: 5,200 people.
Photographer Spencer Tunick (note: NSFW) came to Sydney at the invitation of New Mardi Gras and as a result, more than 2,000 people turned up at the Opera House this morning at 4 a.m. to get their kit off and stand around for about three hours. We had to wait for the sun to come up, which it was slow to do, a grey, cold morning, made rosier by the blushing. I've been colder in Sydney, but not by much.
It was an odd thing to do, I suppose, but interesting insofar as human behavior goes. I was a little surprised by the numbers of groups there were, not just couples, but four or five people, college students and the like, all about to become just that much more intimate with one another. It got a little uncomfortable when were directed to embrace and kiss, especially as the guy I was standing next to was a good head taller than me.
Somehow it was even less comfortable once we went inside the theatre, which is perhaps why one woman left in tears and one was booed into disrobing. (I rather like the idea of one dressed person; I'd have left her alone.)
It must be said, however, that it's obvious why Mr. Tunick is a photographer: he has zero verbal skills and minimal management skills. "This group here"; "you, with the tan lines"; "this way"; "that way" - these are not useful directions. Dude, take the picture, please.
Correction: 5,200 people.
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