CSotD: Futility and funny stuff
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Jim Morin's cartoon amuses me, but it also depresses me.
We're at a point where negativity is gaining an edge, and health care is only a portion of the issue.
Thing is, he's absolutely right. But … well, yeah, he's right, and what the hell difference is it going to make?
I mean, if talk radio hosts and Certain Congresscreatures were really the Friends of the Taxpayer, they'd be all over this fact: They'd be screaming "Get a policy, you freeloaders!" and bludgeoning us with rants about how much taxpayers shell out for unnecessary emergency room visits.
Instead, not only do they ignore this gigantic drain on the system, but they promote the idea that poor people get "free" coverage in emergency rooms as a reason we don't need reform and why there is no need to expand Medicaid.
This line of reasoning is so bogus on so many levels that the problem isn't that people say it. Nor is the problem that people believe it.
The problem is that people insist on believing it, that they are absolutely militant about believing it, and that pointing out how completely and utterly false it is not only falls on deaf ears but makes them furious.
It's not that "A lie is halfway round the world before the truth can lace up its boots." It's that, even when Truth catches up, it's not only too late but he's likely to get burned at the stake as a heretic.
This isn't just about health care. It's true on a lot of issues these days. But health care is the immediate one.
People believe what they want to believe and reject what they don't want to believe, and they seem to focus far more on the messenger than on the message.
La Cucaracha makes the point, albeit a little indirectly: Bush got a pass on deliberate lies, while Obama …
… well, and then we come to the second part of the frustration.
The rollout problems, together with the "keep your coverage" issue, put advocates of reform in the position of the young girl who finally persuades her parents to let her go out with a particular boy, only to have him show up at the door drunk.
It doesn't matter what the excuse is. And the fact that he's really really sorry and it's never happened before and will never happen again doesn't cut the freaking mustard.
Damn.
So anyway.
So anyway, Tom Tomorrow's piece won't sway very many people, but it makes me feel better to know that I'm not insane, that I didn't make it all up, that someone else is seeing what I'm seeing.
It's probably futile, but, still, he took all the truth he could get into a box and flung it out into the universe, and what he has done here, futile or not, sure stands head-and-shoulders above the flood of cheap, pointless jokes about letting teenagers fix the site or having the NSA take it over.
If nothing else, it's a good reminder that, however futile it seems, and even no matter how futile it may prove to be, you need to stay in the battle. If you can't win, you can at least bear witness.
And that sometimes nothing is a cool hand.
Dirty laundry
Let's shift mood here: Cory Thomas taps into a lot of odd little themes, which makes "Watch Your Head" a must-read every day. There are so many "bunch of college kids sitting around" strips on the web that it's hard to stand out, and, while WYH is syndicated, it's in so few papers that you are likely going to have to read it online.
Do so. The strip is so far beyond beer kegs and talking animal mascots that it doesn't deserve to be in the same category.
The current arc has newlyweds Kevin and Dana in their new, cheesy apartment and Kevin enjoying the sort of oddball letters that invariably land in the mailboxes of cheesy apartments.
And, while yesterday's strip was strictly for laughs, today's contains a little pathos. And that's true to life.
I bought a house once that was an FMHA repo, and, while it was quite a bargain, it needed quite a lot of work before I could move in, including a new furnace, a working hot water heater and new carpets and linoleum on about two-thirds of the floors.
And I don't mean so that it would be nice. I had to wait a few years before I could afford to upgrade anything to "nice." No, I mean to the level of being fit for human habitation.
It really didn't take long for a bemused "Geez, they sure let this place to go hell," to morph into a deep sense of sadness over how far down the toilet your life would have to sink for you to screw up a house payment of less than $200 a month. And to not even have the energy left to rake the cat turds out of the shag carpet.
No idea where Cory is taking this one. Which is why I'll be back again tomorrow.
And now, it's nostalgia time
Today's Better Half strikes home. My keyboard doesn't just have plaque and a touch of halitosis. It has full-blown gingivitus and I think a thrush infection as well.
I actually do have a soft tootbrush for it. I don't know if everyone still uses a toothbrush, but for those of us who were around in the analog days, it was common to keep a toothbrush and a small jar of alcohol handy for cleaning the ink and ribbon fibers out of your typewriter keys. ("Keys" were not just the things on the keyboard, kids. The name also meant the parts inside that jumped up and struck the ribbon to make marks on the paper.)
You didn't have to worry about the keyboard on a manual, because everything pretty much fell right through, but electrics could often use a quick touch of the brush to keep them crud-free.
Better run along now, young'uns. When you come to visit again, I'll tell you some stories about carriage returns and what could happen if you parked your coffee cup in the wrong place.
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