Monday, April 02, 2012

Monday in Holy Week

Shrine to Mary Magdalen

I got palms from a Gnostic on Palm Sunday. Went down to the final service at my friend Rosamonde's place. She had to sell the building only five years after buying it. Not the economy, as I discovered. A female Judas. R took it in her usual stride.

Still not-reading a lot of stuff I know would make me blow a gasket. The headlines alone suffice. Or just a picture or mention of O and Michelle Antoinette or "My People/Nation of Cowards" Holder.

I am hoping that the Supremes shut down Obamacare entirely. Too much to ask?

Been noticing how religion --well, Christianity-- gets treated in the British programs I am watching on Netflix. I think the Brits are a pretty deeply irreligious people. The believers are almost always cast as borderline nutjobs, even when they are in the right. (Like the Christians in True Blood.) And the unbelievers are very nasty about it, feeling no compunction whatever to treat religious folks, Christians anyway, with anything other than righteous contempt. "The Inquisition and the Crusades" pretty well sums it up for them. When the West dies, it will be largely due to intellectual sloth and stupid slogans.

Come to think of it, Nasty is a default for a lot of Brit characters in these programs. The country I see in all these dramas is profoundly depressed.

An alien-invasion flick starring Aaron Eckhart, whom I like. Kind of a riff on Independence Day.



And since it was space aliens attacking Earth, it made it ok to wave the flag without irony. Rare for Hollywood. The one female soldier was tough but not male-hating at all. Unusual. But the PC over-representation of minorities in the Marines is part of the agenda of Our Liberal Betters to teach us to see the world they want to exist rather than the one that does. Minorities are a minority in the Marines, and in the Armed Forces generally, especially among combat troops.

Speaking of minorities, the now cliche story of mobs of "youths" attacking "people", this time in Minneapolis. The reporters cannot speak about The Race Which Must Not Be Named, but the videos show that it's The Usual Suspects. Obama's other Tray-von "sons".

A headline I saw this morning. In Afghanistan, at a US military base, a rainbow flag is now ok, but the cross is banned, lest it offend You Know Who. Again, I note: a) if you give a subaltern group an inch, they will take a yard. And b) my Muslim Foreign Policy: Fight against Muslims when you must, but never fight for them.

I was once again chastised by B the DILF for my lack of hetero slang knowledge. Who knew that trim meant sex?  But then, he didn't recognize the Latin word for tomorrow (cras, hence procrastination.) in a holy card for St. Expedite. So we're even.

I remain grateful for the climate here. Years ago in Toronto or New York, April could indeed be "the cruelest month, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain" because especially in Canada, Winter was still in control in April and snow on Easter not unknown. We are having some chill and rain lately here in SF, but it's all a meterological misdemeanor, so to speak. Last two days: sunshine.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess during Holy Week Gnostics enjoy reading biblical-criticism experts who argue that the cries for help on the audio-text aren't from the Jesus of history but only the Christ of faith. ...

Anonymous said...

P.S. Wishing for the Supreme Court to overturn the individual mandate on grounds that this is an impermissible use of "regulating interstate commerce" may be good for America -- if the sufficient funding has not been arranged for the plan for universal medical care.

But it may also be good for the president's re-election: he will be able to campaign that he arranged to fix America's broken medical system, but the court prohibited his plan by a technicality of judicial interpretation.

Admittedly, the case before the Supreme Court does seem to turn on an clause in the American Constitution, and we can't reasonably say that we are depending on an original intent meaning of "regulating interstate commerce" c. 1800 in arrangeing for an expansion of the medical system in 2012. Only a "living constitution" interpretation is possible.

On the other hand, since even some Democrats say that we can't know what's in the bill until it is implemented by the government, the judges could ask how they are to rule on the constitutionality of legislation whose real content and purpose is unknown. Isn't it like asking the courts to decide on the licitness of waterboarding without a description of waterboarding? ...

IMHO burgeoning medical care everywhere in the 'develop'd world' is failing because of valuation: the authorities won't worship those who massively overuse the system (demanding expensive procedures, especially in end-of-life situations, for free or for a minuscule co-pay). e.g.,Canadians are permitted two free examinations by an ophthalmologist per year, lots of Canadians take every one of those free examinations.

The authorities feign that ever-expanding medical costs are a problem, when evidently they are the system's final cause, its teleological fulfilment, written in the world.

... Every modern medical system involves rationing (constricting the supply, usually, thus imposing waiting periods). The Democrats have promised, perhaps sincerely perhaps not, that the expansion will not involve the least constriction of Americans' access to the most modern advanced and expensive procedures. This implicit promise may be necessary because of the rhetorical power of the phrase "death panels." But even the NYT ?praises the "genius" of "Obamacare" in its cost-hiding cost-shifting prestidigitation. ...

Nevertheless, if including private coverage systems within a universal medical plan for all Americans that results in enormous cost increases and those cost increases bring on the debt crisis crash sooner and in an effort somehow to stave off the crash restrictions or 'rationing' for all Americans results, the president's legacy will be one of bitterness. For the White House is now owning the phrase "Obamacare" and the president seems to consider that it will be his legacy.

If the plan must be a disaster -- because ultimately of the infinite appetite of a large proportion of Americans and their medical corporations for expensive procedures -- and the courts strike it down, the president may have a better place in the history books, just as HRC can pretend that she try'd to save the medical system during her husband's administrations but was thwarted by Republicans on congress.

On the yet another hand, if the president had used the stimulus money to extend medicare to the uninsured, as I proposed years ago, this might have work'd: get some kind of universal medical care system up and running, and then see how to continue its funding. ...

Anonymous said...

P.S. I don't recommend that the president accept advice he may have received that costs will be contain'd when all Americans can get free check-ups and preventative care.

Sc that low-class Americans will learn from medical care professionals what they haven't learnt from the media, namely not to be overweight, to have a healthy diet and to get frequent exercise, etc, and these 'interventions' will save the American medical system so much money in the long term by obviating heart bypass operations etc that extending free coverage to every American will actually help spend down the debt load etc.

This sort of thing doesn't work in other 'advanced countries' (where medical costs keep increasing), so I doubt Americans should expect to save money this way. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to get people to have a healthy lifestyle. Even the educated-class don't generally have a healthy lifestyle. Free medical care is expensive and the American system will have to pay more for it. ... I suppose maybe it will have a broad economic advantage so that universal medical care should be a component of a real plan for real economic prosperity for America.

Anonymous said...

Hey, you know this gambit might work: impose an income tax increase on every resident of America to the amount of the individual mandate, and then give everyone who has insurance or no income to pay the tax an exemption or rebate or something from the new tax increase.

Probably still not enough money to fund the new medical system expansion, but avoids applying the bogus "regulating interstate commerce" clause.

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