Waiting can be bad for your health

Posted on January 22, 2012 by oddmanout215

My bathtub when I look at it without my glasses. Photo by TONY WOOD

With apologies to Jagger/Richards, today’s deep thought: It’s OK to wait for something you want, but not for something you need — health care, for example. Sometimes there are no jobs, and money you were counting on simply doesn’t come through, and neither does decent health insurance.

Then you have two choices: Avoid doctors as part of your effort to save money, or spend your savings on health care and hope that novel of yours becomes a hit before you go broke.

Sooner or later, your body makes up your mind for you. One morning last month, I woke up feeling like someone had driven a nail through my jaw. Waiting was no longer an option. I made dental appointments I couldn’t afford. At the first, the dentist, a good fellow, stopped drilling and asked me if there was any pain. “Only in my bank account,” I said.

It began to rain that day as I was biking home, a problem because the raindrops on my eyeglasses made it hard to see. I stopped to clean the glasses and realized, not for the first time, that I need to replace them — not because they’re steel-rimmed and severe and make me look like a defrocked priest — but rather because I need a new prescription. Even when my glasses aren’t rain-spattered, I can’t see through them as well as I did two years ago, and when I take them off, I see double.

My point again — and this is a breakthrough for someone in denial — is that unmet needs turn into big pains, or worse. You can move up or down, but you can’t stand still, not for long.

The risk is that, in shoving off, you’ll plummet to the bottom. As Barbara Ehrenreich noted in December, “… Where other once-wealthy nations have a safety net, America offers a greased chute, leading down to destitution with alarming speed.”

Actually, it leads to a big gray office staffed by overworked bureaucrats at the mercy of corporate-sponsored politicians such as PA. Gov. Tom Corbett, whose accomplishments include helping eliminate health insurance for low-income workers and, more recently, stripping 88,000 PA children of Medicaid benefits.

Eventually, we’ll have to change the corrupt campaign financing system that gets Corbett and others like him elected. But first — and here’s that deep thought again — we have to take care of our health, by any means necessary.

Footnote: Tony Wood can be reached at http://www.anthonywoodphotography.com

Posted in campaign finance reform, Congress, economic collapse, Great Recession, Politics, unemployment | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Brothers under the skin: Mitt and Jay-Z

Posted on January 21, 2012 by oddmanout215

Mitt Romney (center) and his homies at Bain Capital

The question on Bill Maher’s show was “Why do many people not like Mitt Romney?” Maher didn’t mention that Mittens looks soft and un-molded, like a pod creature in Invasion of the Body Snatchers that hasn’t yet assumed full human form. Or that he speaks like a phony, alternately trying to sound stern or folksy, always condescending, often punctuating his remarks with stiff smiles and mechanical chuckles.

Instead, Maher compared Romney to other famous zillionaires — Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney — and noted that the latter three men made tons of money because they produced something tangible that people could buy, whereas Mitt’s wealth grew only in relation to how many jobs and lives he destroyed.

And then, in trying to explain why Mittens is doing well as a presidential candidate, Maher said something interesting:

People who like Mitt Romney like him for the same reason other people like rappers who endlessly rub it in that their life is so much better than ours. They’re in the hot tub at the after party with the bling and the bitches. And yet, no matter how clear Jay-Z makes it that the hot tub is only for the coolest and most beautiful people, somehow at the end of the song that is us.

Exactly. Maher showed photos of hip-hop stars posing with wads of cash in their hands — and one of Kanye West with a pair of benjamins in his mouth — and then a photo of Mittens and his whiter-than-white homies at Bain Capital, striking similar poses with money. His point was that material wealth — more so in our time than ever — is an end in itself, an American cultural imperative far stronger than belief in God or notions of good and evil, or race and class differences.

Look at those photos if you want to know why bankers are allowed to get away with grand theft, or why mediocrities such as PA Gov. Tom Corbett can make it difficult for poor kids and old people to obtain food stamps. It’s partly because many Americans still believe the main goal of life is to be in the hot tub with the bling and the bitches, or some variation on that scenario, and to hell with everyone else.

It’s only when hard times persist that Americans lose their awe of the rich and contempt for the poor. There would have been no New Deal — no dramatically revised social contract — without the pervasive, ongoing poverty caused by the Great Depression. In our time, there will be no new version of the New Deal until living conditions become unbearably bad for the great mass of people who call themselves middle-class.

Posted in economic collapse, globalization, Great Depression, Great Recession, Mitt Romney, Politics, The New Depression, unemployment | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Sitting Bull at Starbucks

Posted on January 20, 2012 by oddmanout215

I’ll have the pumpkin-spiced latte, white boy.

When I can no longer conjure up a good thought, let alone write a good sentence, I turn on the TV. Last night PBS showed a documentary about Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer, who was wiped out with more than two hundred cavalry troops he led against the Lakota Sioux in 1876. The U.S. government was in the process of stealing the Black Hills area of South Dakota from the Indians, but Custer got too cocky and picked a fight in the wrong place, separated from other units of his 700-man battalion.

The most interesting part of the story wasn’t Custer, a glory hound and all-around jerk, but rather Sitting Bull, the Lakota chief and spiritual leader who had urged Indians for years to resist domination by the whites.

At some point in the show, the narrator quoted Sitting Bull, who had continued to live off the land with other warriors after many in his tribe had become resigned to life on the reservations:

Look at me, see if I am poor, or my people either. The whites may get me at last, as you say, but I will have good times till then. You are fools to make yourselves slaves to a piece of fat bacon, some hard-tack, and a little sugar and coffee.

 

I remembered Eliot’s dismal Prufrock — I have measured out my life in coffee spoons — the antithesis of Sitting Bull. Then I thought don’t kid yourself, Odd Man Out, you couldn’t get through one day without your sugared coffee, not without a great struggle. You are Prufrock.

I tried to imagine Sitting Bull’s daily trek to the Starbucks in Sioux Falls. “Give me the pumpkin-spiced latte, white boy, but go easy on the whipped cream, gotta watch my cholesterol.”

I’m not saying our version of civilization is bad and we should roam the Plains — only that it’s a shame we build the cages we’re in, most of us, often without realizing it. Most people wouldn’t think of stepping out of their cages, of joining something like Occupy Wall Street. It’s too far outside the routine.

In fact, only one person in a hundred in this country really knows what freedom is. I know this because I heard it on NPR yesterday, from the Gallop Poll guy, as I was sipping my midday espresso. Or that’s what I thought I heard. One person in a hundred, but with a four percent margin of error, of course.

Posted in history, humor | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Perry hangs up his guns

Posted on January 19, 2012 by oddmanout215

Do you remember when Rick Perry seemed like a formidable presidential candidate, awash in PAC money, waving a pistol? That was before he opened his mouth. Dubya is dumb, but Perry is dumber than one of Dubya’s fence posts. And he’s a nasty son of a bitch.

From Paul Begala today:

Let us not allow Rick Perry to exit stage right—far right—without a final word or two. What can be said about a man who burst onto the national scene by toying with secession, as if 600,000 dead in the Civil War weren’t enough?

Rick Perry appealed to the darkest angels of our nature. In his final debate appearance, standing in the metaphorical shadow of Fort Sumter, he said the state of South Carolina “is at war” with the federal government—and he said it with approval. Perry called Social Security a Ponzi scheme and “a monstrous lie.” He attacked the constitutionality of Medicare. He openly and dishonestly called our president a socialist. He said he would reinvade Iraq. He almost certainly executed an innocent man.

Right. Paul Krugman has a theory about Republican candidates:

I view the primary race through the lens of the FOF theory – that’s for “fools and frauds”. It goes as follows: to be a good Republican right now, you have to affirm your belief in things that any halfway intelligent politician can see are plainly false. This leaves room for only two kinds of candidates: those who just aren’t smart and/or rational enough to understand the problem, and those who are completely cynical, willing to say anything to get ahead…

… So what you have are fairly dim types like Perry, on the one side, and the utterly cynical Romney, on the other. (Gingrich manages to be both a fool and a fraud). Maybe, just maybe, the GOP could have found someone able to achieve Romney-level cynicism while coming across as sincere; but political talent on that level is quite rare. I mean, the various non-crazy-non-Romneys who were supposed to have a shot all turned out to be duds, e.g. Pawlenty.

Krugman’s piece makes sense, but it raises questions that he probably would rather dodge. Such as, what does his FOF theory say about the reasoning powers of Republican voters, and of Democrats who choose to vote for the likes of George W. Bush?

Posted in mainstream media, Mitt Romney, Politics | Tagged , | 2 Comments

‘Yes He Can,’ but will he?

Posted on January 19, 2012 by oddmanout215

Has Barack Obama ever acknowledged Robert Reich’s steady stream of criticism regarding Obama’s apparent lack of interest in putting the real economy back on track? He seems to have shunned the former Secretary of Labor, and to have ignored anyone urging accountability for Wall Street crooks.

Regardless, the accountability issues will be raised again today at “Yes He Can” events around the country, good opportunities to ask Obamabots why their man has shirked his responsibilities.

Footnote: In Philadelphia, MoveOn.org has arranged a protest at noon, at the Bank of America’s 16th Street and JFK Boulevard branch, followed by a march to Obama headquarters at 15th and Chestnut streets to deliver petitions demanding an investigation of the role played by banksters in the crash of the housing market.

Posted in economic collapse, Great Recession, Obama, Philadelphia, The New Depression, Wall Street | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Wolcott: Tea Party’s brew is tepid

Posted on January 18, 2012 by oddmanout215

The “dreadful inevitability” of Mitt Romney’s candidacy has led James Wolcott to conclude that the wing-nut right, despite its blustering, packs a feeble punch:

…The right blogosphere ain’t squat. It’s a hornet’s nest up in the attic whose noise can be safely ignored. No top-tier candidate was more unbeloved by rightwing bloggers than Mitt Romney…

…The Tea Party is all peckered out. It isn’t just that Romney is the least favorite Tea Party favor (apart from the now-gone Huntsman) but that his recent surge gives lie to the Tea Party’s populist fervor. The attacks on Romney’s record as a venture capitalist (“vulture capitalist,” in Rick Perry’s nice phrase) at Bain in the Super-Pac documentary “King of Bain: When Mitt Romney Came to Town”–visually, a punk collage crossed with a fragmentation grenade–seems to have strengthened his hold on the top spot, and not solely because angry bladders like Rush Limbaugh have rallied to the defense of poor, little, frail turbo-capitalism. It’s because the controversy tapped into the dirty little non-secret of Tea Party activists…

The secret, of course, is that Tea Party activists and so-called moderate Republicans are not so different and will end up on the same page. The only X factor is Ron Paul.

Posted in mainstream media, mid-term elections, Mitt Romney, Politics | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Whatsa matta, you no like-a SOPA?

Posted on January 18, 2012 by oddmanout215

In case you didn’t notice, some large websites shut down today to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act that was being sneaked through Congress until President Obama voiced opposition to it. Which doesn’t mean Obama won’t sign the bill if revisions are made and Congress approves it.

From Open Culture via Suburban Guerrilla:

Backed by the Motion Picture Association of America, SOPA is designed to debilitate and effectively shut down foreign-based websites that sell pirated movies, music and other goods. That all sounds fine on the face of things. But the legislation, if enacted, would carry with it a series of unexpected consequences that could change the internet as we know it. Among other things, the law could be used to shut down American sites that unwittingly host or link to illegal content — and without giving the sites due process, a real day in court. Big sites like YouTube and Twitter could fall under pressure, and so could countless small sites. Needless to say, that could have a serious chilling effect on the openness of the web and free speech…

Posted in Congress, mainstream media, movies, Obama, Politics, pop music | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Piggy bank empty? Don’t resort to plastic.

Posted on January 18, 2012 by oddmanout215

It's worse than not being able to buy new toys. Photo by TONY WOOD

So why have relatively few formerly middle-class Americans become actively outraged by Wall Street frauds and job-destroying corporate raiders such as Mitt Romney? One answer is that many of us, despite lost jobs or lowered wages, have managed to maintain fairly good living standards, thanks to savings and other monetary cushions. But piggy banks across the country are close to tapped out:

From Reuters via Truthdig:

More than four years after the United States fell into recession, many Americans have resorted to raiding their savings to get them through the stop-start economic recovery. In an ominous sign for America’s economic growth prospects, workers are paring back contributions to college funds and growing numbers are borrowing from their retirement accounts.

Some policymakers worry that a recent spike in credit card usage could mean that people, many of whom are struggling on incomes that have lagged inflation, are taking out new debt just to meet the costs of day-to-day living. American households “have been spending recently in a way that did not seem in line with income growth. So somehow they’ve been doing that through perhaps additional credit card usage,” Chicago Federal Reserve President Charles Evans said on Friday.

“If they saw future income and employment increasing strongly then that would be reasonable. But I don’t see that. So I’ve been puzzled by this,” he said…

Posted in economic collapse, Great Recession, Mitt Romney, Politics, The New Depression | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

From Bryan Ferry’s ‘Dylanesque’

Posted on January 18, 2012 by oddmanout215

The line it is drawn/The curse it is cast/The slow one now/Will later be fast/As the present now/Will later be past/The order is rapidly fadin’/And the first one now will later be last/For the times they are a-changin…

Dylan recorded this one before he “went electric” and pushed his songwriting skills into a new dimension, where oddball sophisticates such as Brian Ferry would thrive. Not an easy task, but Ferry, in his understated way, breathes new life into the song, and his rhythm section rumbles like not-so-distant thunder.

Posted in arts, pop music | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Vote for a genuine outsider

Posted on January 17, 2012 by oddmanout215

This one goes out to South Carolina Republicans who are still on the fence concerning the upcoming primary. Are Mittens and Newt and Rick too insider-ish? Well, how about Herman Cain?

The super PAC of comedian Stephen Colbert, which has been legally transferred to humor sensei Jon Stewart, is urging voters in South Carolina to choose former candidate Herman Cain in the January 21 Republican presidential primary.

The ad notes that the Palmetto state primary is less than a week away, and South Carolinians are “frustrated” because “there is still no candidate for us. Plus, the economy.”

“Americans For a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow believes a vote for Herman Cain is a vote for America,” the ad says, using the PAC’s official name. Pictures of Colbert are shown throughout the ad and Cain is never seen.

“He’s not a career politician. He’s such a Washington outsider he’s not even running for president,” the ad intones…

Posted in campaign finance reform, humor, Politics | Tagged , , | 1 Comment