• Our health

    If you’ve been paying attention to the news in the U.S. you know health care is on people’s minds. Talk has been spreading almost as fast as the ranks of the uninsured/underinsured.

    Michael Moore has fanned the flames of debate, spawning talk about the universal coverage offered by our fellow industrialized nations. We hear lots of stories in the U.S. about Canadians crossing our border to avoid waiting in line for certain tests or procedures. The garden-variety opponent of universal coverage brings it up constantly. ”I would never stand for a system that made me wait for a test I needed.”

    That’s easy for a fictitious couple to say in a televised attack add, or for a healthy middle class couple with (what they think is) good coverage (which they’ve never really had to use). What I want to know is this: how many Canadians would trade their system for ours? How many of those folks coming to the U.S. for a procedure or test would really choose to ditch their universal system in favor of ours?

    I’ve heard a few anecdotes which suggest there aren’t many.

    We bemoan big government, but could it really do worse than the quagmire we’ve got now? Almost every time I’ve had to deal with my insurance providers, I’ve yearned for the relative tranquility of the lines at the DMV.

  • The Semi-Official Williams Wedding Stick in the Mud

    This is one of a handful of entries that have been sitting around gathering dust. I wrote this a little over a year ago, but never got around to posting it…

    The base is loud enough to mix a drink, my head hurts, and I have to pee. Routine bodily functions are not usually fodder for sharing, but I’ve really gotta go and the men’s room is out of order.

    So I’m sitting outside by the pool, and the sounds of a wedding are but a thump-thump in the background. By a remarkable coincidence, the thump-thump is in sync with the pounding in my head. Damn do I make a lousy date.

    I wonder how many have looked out, seen me, and wondered who is the poor woman who came with the guy with the PDA by the pool. The realist in me knows no one has noticed I’ve been gone. I don’t know if that’s a relief or really depressing.

    I probably should have told my wife where I was going. Eh, she looked like she was having a good time. I didn’t want to spoil it.

    Yeah, like it’s soo much better for her to read about it here.

    You want to hear something really amusing? A fellow wedding reception refugee has joined me by the pool. Hey – GREAT NEWS – this must mean I’m not so pathetic after all.

    Maybe if I say that often enough I might believe it. You want to hear something really depressing? This grand gala serves as our big night out – for our wedding anniversary.

    Ain’t self pity grand?

  • Fighting dryness

    If you go all day without drinking, then throw back a quart or two all at once… it’s practically the same thing as drinking the same amount over the course of a day, right?

    **NOTE: “Drinking,” in this context, is meant to refer the ingestion of liquids that are generally non-toxic, regardless of the volume.