Annoyances, and A Note of Support for Smart Healthcare

In my recent procrastinations, I've been busy with trying to expand my mind in (hopefully) fruitful ways. Listening to the In Defense of Food audio book until its used book price on Amazon comes down; circularly soul-searching about the future and what career/educational direction to take (which I'm hoping to soon emerge from with a decision); reading some Chomsky; and opening far too many tabs for one sitting on Firefox. I digress.

The other day I reluctantly stopped at Whole Foods for a quick pick up and saw a sign that disproportionately pissed me off. "Come visit us on our Facebook Fan Page."

Wow, I thought. Now there is a way that giant corporations can invite us to do their own advertising for them, by becoming a fan and showing our patronage to all of our "friends," while at the same time doing what Stewie from Family Guy once deemed as, "displaying the creative work of others to personally express myself."

My contempt for how the glutton of marketing in our society makes sheep out of the American consumer -- often unwittingly -- has grown for a number of years. I have phased out most any piece of clothing I have that displays the company or institution's name, and the only shirt that I've bought with writing on it in the past couple years is a used yellow Schlitz Beer T-shirt. Clothing is an area that I shouldn't start talking about, but in short I think the less of it I own and the less I buy from any manufacturer that has labor practices that attempt to stay above the region's laws to the lowest degree possible - as most do - the better.

Before this rant becomes any less organized, let me be coherent for a few sentences on the national health debate. Nurses are marching on Washington and getting arresting during hearing in an attempt to get the attention of senators beholden to their insurance industry lobbyists and campaign contributors.

Bill Moyer's interviews a nurse with the right idea. Single-payer health insurance is a combination of ideas from the right and the left, and answers concerns that each side has. It's a system where private companies administer the care, so no horror stories of poorly state controlled hospitals that take weeks to deliver on surgery, etc (which in countries with nationalized health care like Canada, France, and even Cuba, never happens). The only thing that gets nationalized? THE BILL. Not only does this simply the present and future catastrophes that will no doubt occur if we extend this same system, but it will reduce the amount that people will have to pay in the long run, and protect those who really need the care and can't help it. If we can dump trillions of dollars into failing banks, we should at least be able to give essential care to those who really need it -- and this solution will not change who is giving the medical care.