I said I would cuss less in the New Year…
….see how long *that* lasted.
I mean WTF? What the effing F? is this stuff…?
Just how in the name of every hell ever imagined, does *anyone* think this is morally sound??? Moral Hazard just became Immoral Gambling…
(for the humorless and clueless this is your Satire wrapped around Truth Alert)
See, I talked to Louie the Loanshark last week…He says that I can have the assistive tech, a surgery requested by my physician, orthotics, physical therapy….
I can have it all, even though I have a high deductible health plan.
He pulled me down the dark alley, sat me down on an old crate, brushed off his thrift store suit and gave me the scoop:
“We’ll be watching all the sick people,” he says.
We’re going to be finding out stuff….”
“What?” I said, thinking about HIPPA and privacy laws and all that…
“Credit Scores,” he said grinning….the lower the score, the more money we can extort….-”
“You mean ‘offer?,’ I said carefully….
“Offer! Offer,! of course!” he said with an odd laugh…” If you have to finance some or all of your medical bills…We’ll do it! For the right interest rate..
Since Experian bought out Search America
They’ll combine with hospitals, to tell them who is likely to be able to pay their out of pocket medical bills and the back alley loansharkin’ will begin.
Of course, people can always, yanno, hold *out* for a little while.” He laughed, and I shuddered…”That’s a win-win….costs them no dough, costs us nuthin’ too.”
“And what,” I said, remembering all the grisly mob movie justice I’d ever seen….”…What if? What if it’s medically necessary and they cannot pay?”
“That’s the beauty of it. I don’t need no thugs. Garnishments, forclosures, denial of jobs because of a low credit score influenced by the high level fiancing we just sent them….bad behavior, stress….and then…,” This time he was the one who shrugged…”Flatline. One less deadbeat to carry. What do ya think health care is…
A *right* or somethin?”
Glinda’s the real ‘witch’ in Oz
So, TCM has the Wizard of Oz on now…
And I’m a cynic.
There were *already* two good witches available in Oz before the twister dropped the sepia toned house into Technicolor Oz. (We never see or hear of a good Witch in the South, but…logic would suggest she exists)
Glinda is obviously spending too much time in front of her mirror to bother to kick TWWoTEast’s butt. She could have *done* it obviously…But she’s been too busy admiring herself to care about the little people…But a mortal girl and a yappy dog…She sees them as the perfect answer (along with a sack of staw, a tin can, and a loopy lion.).
Glinda: “I’m not going to *tell* her that all she needs to do is touch her heels three times to get back to Kansas: one accidental death isn’t enough…at least not until she’s handled that uppity green broomrider for me…. Spells, truly terrifying flying monkey’s and those guards in the fake Russian outfits…I might muss my hair. Or heavens! I could lose my crown! Not about to take on the Western Witch…no siree. The girl’s a foreigner. An illegal immigrant. She won’t be missed. And what dreadful hair!
(though, distantly from Kansas, I heard her voice, and I’m dying of jealousy over it…Best she go down fighting like a hero…)
I can send her to that useless Wizard. Maybe he’ll occupy himself with her problems and stop pestering me to hook up.
“
Apocalyp Toes
I’m profoundly opposed to the idea of an Anti Christ/Devil/End Times Mania that some religious persons are very concerned about.
But, maybe they are on to something:
I don’t think Mephisto Shoes *meant* for their sophisticated elegant commercial to send tiny freakout jitters through my head each time I see it…
But it does! I can’t help but think of all the lousy horror movies that transform Average Jane or Joe into a demonic nutcase by being in proximity to a possession that is…well, possesed
Although I admit, Jack Nicholson grinning from ear to ear sporting a pair of Mephisto’s rather than an ax…
Somewhat less terrifying….
And I couldn’t wait to hear some defense lawyer:
Your Honor, the defendant believed his shoes were sending him demonic messages….
The Shoes Made Him Do It!
They’re still having telethons, no matter
what we say….
So, able telethon producers, and hangers on and moneymakers of the Charity Model of Disability…
Let’s say you have a spice rack…High end, glass jars with your favorite aromatic and tasty types…with a dual cover that allows for either a big handful, several “pinches” or sprinkling or “shaking” through a series of holes, just like salt or pepper shakers….refillable too…
And one day, you realize you’re out of your favorite spice of all (mine wavers between tarragon, or ginger, that beloved mainstay of oriental salad dressings….) so you head to the store, grab ginger off the rack and head home.
You are at once saddened and astonished when you get home. The top of the glass jar is completely solid. No openings…and you’re completely *out of spice money* for the year…..and somehow no matter how much you freeze this jar, or boil it in water or take your welding torch to it, or leave it with the dog to play with….you cannot crack the glass into the requisite holes or openings. But, you reason, to be any use at all….it’s got to have those openings or it’s not worth a damn.
(The other spice jars, garlic in particular have been jumping up and down making a ruckus, but you don’t notice this. )
One evening, intead of getting angry at the oft poked prodded and welded jar, you notice it’s got fine lines and curves and a sparkly label, for all it’s uselessness. So, you contact the Food Network and the Home Shopping Network, and say, we’ve *got* to do a teevee show about this and you find from them that you aren’t the *only one * with this problem, that in fact, this year, *one in five* spice jars was made without the normal openings, and the manufacturer has advised that this will be an ongoing problem, due to who knows what.
So one day a year, you put your shiny, defective spice jar full of the most aromatic ginger known to man on television, and ask the viewers to pity the malformed thing.
(At home, your other spice jars are sweating and worn out from trying to give you an answer, but you are so entranced by the big stage, the bright lights and most importantly the sad songs….full of tears,pathos, bathos and whining….)
and even you are amazed at the amount of bucks that roll in. You lie to yourself and the viewers that it’s all for the dear, sad, brave, ginger jar… (can’t be used for a new spice jar, but many new high tech gizmos are set aside to torture the ginger jar anew come end of telethon day.Thinning the glass with toxic chemicals. A miniature plastique explosive that claims to obliterate the jar and leave the precious ginger intact. You almost go for that one, but decline because you’d lose the plucky sparkly tear provoking label.)
You come home at the end of telethon day and set about buying gizmos, and dump the meal ticket ginger jar in a corner….
And that’s how it goes for you each year….you use the jar to provoke tears, and then ignore it the rest of the time….it isn’t fit to stay in the spice rack so after a few years, you buy another, normal jar, and lock the ‘different’ one up in a dark cupboard at the far end of the kitchen.
Until the tarragon jar comes and bites you on the hand one day, when you are attempting the nearly impossible: to mimic the marvelous tarragon chicken salad made fresh by your local Whole Foods organic grocery every day.
“You dumb bastard! You’ve wasted the best ginger in town and I won’t stay by that cheap-ass replacement you’ve bought!”
You’re flummoxed by a talking spice jar, but being a showman of sorts, you recover quickly, efficently bathing the bite in Neosporin and wrapping it with a heavy cloth napkin.
“You just have to open it differently you idiot!” The tarragon jar was on a roll and not about to shut up. “Use the refill opening on the bottom and you’ll get all the ginger you want!”
Slackjawed and amazed, you go to the confined jar, and open the refill end…and the ginger…surprisingly still fresh, rolls onto your palm ready for use, the sharp and lovely smell filling the kitchen.
If you’d watched the Grinch when you were a kid, this would have been that lightbulb moment. You would have understood that *making the jar a charity case and locking it away,* two things that had nothing to do with whether or not it had holes, *you* were the one perpetuating the negative consequences of it’s difference…That if you had just had a chat with the ginger jar, and perhaps others like it, you would have found an adaptive method for using the jar, and all this bullshit would *never have happened.*
But, Paula Dean’s gonna cry on this year’s show, and Elton Brown is going to laugh at the jar, whilst explaining the exact scientific properties of glass and ginger, and the ‘normal’ jar making process is going to be guest hosted by some dude from the Discovery Channel…
That’s what *you* love. The reactivated plastic fame that you get one day a year. The jar has to *stay* malformed and pathetic instead of adaptive and useful, otherwise you don’t get your jolt of what you still see, misguided and evil as you are, of “doing a good thing.”
I’ll be chatting with the spices this year, so I guess I’ll have to miss your show.
What a shame.
Midlife And Treachery 
