Wednesday, September 24, 2014

noted in passing

There are individuals who imagine themselves "powerful" who can send out mass mailing emails, without fully considering the consequences...........

overheard

America's for-profit medical system is an insult to the dignity of human beings,
an assault upon all that is sane and holy.  It is an abomination.  If I needed another
reason to advocate socialism and the elimination of capitalism (Global Warming
alone would be enough) then America's for-profit health DONT-care system would
give it to me.

An eighty-eight year old lady enters the health facility at the assigned time.
Waits for doctor for an hour.

Doctor arrives and begins commanding the staff: Hurry up!  I cannot stay here until midnight.
Ignores eighty-eight year old lady who he's supposed to operating upon. 

When the eighty-eight year old lady arrives--and she's here for her second cataract operation,
and this time it's for her  LEFT eye, she is greeted with the question, "Let's see....It's for your Right eye?"

"NO!" she says.

To which the Nurse or some other creature replies to her, "Sorry we don't handle that side of things
it's the doctor's responsibility..."

Later she is given too much anesthesia and loses the rest of the day.

She complains to the doctor when she sees him the next day, and he responds, "I don't handle that.  I only contract with this company, and they are responsible for who they hire...."

Oh, the poor man.  He probably was thinking about what sort of animal he'll be shooting on his next African Safari.  (No joke; when I met the man, he did tell me about his trip to Africa for a safari.  As if I was interested.  As if I had anything but disgust upon hearing that the man could think of nothing better to do during one of his numerous vacations......)

No one is responsible in this inhumane system, but money does go into someone's pockets.
"Not me" said the nurse.
"not me"  said the weary physical therapist.
"Surely not me!" said the exhausted in-home care-giver.
|Who's left?
|Why, good old Mr. Safari and the investors who own everything........


Sunday, September 21, 2014

what you'll never read in a Czech newspaper

What you'll never hear from Czech "intellectuals", journalists, or the media.....
Global warming is a greater threat than Russia or any Islamic State.
True, but no one will say it................

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

an important insight

"... it's the habit of the American government to kind of say, okay, we made a mistake, it's just a one-time thing, we violated people's rights, it won't happen again, we'll put everything in check, and then they'll go back and a couple of years later new laws will come out, and those laws will justify whatever that behavior was. And then, from then on in, that's no longer a mistake, and the next time it happens it's something different, torture, say, for instance, you know, or enhanced interrogation. And at some point, that becomes--well, okay, that's legal."
--Eddie Conway, interviewed on "The Real News".
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12383

Sunday, September 14, 2014

The Grouch Reads (once again)...
But this time he's reading The Czech Press (or at least one so-called "left" newspaper)...

and he's listening to the TV...

And he's noticed that someone is proud of weapons sales.  It's not just the disgraced ex-leader who was happy about selling high tech weapons to Afghanistan......

It's also the recent article bragging that Czech machine guns are superior to Kalishnikoffs,
but they use the same bullets, so they can be sold to Kurdish freedom fighters.

But, best of all, and proof that the grouch is not wholly insane was the editorial cartoon
in which a man said (to his wife, I presume) that the success of Czech foreign policy
was evident from the fact that parties on both sides of a conflict were using Czech machine
guns.

Now that's what I call progress.  Gee, who would dare say that capitalism just means more wars.....