Explaining US Health Care to a Hapless Brit

I have a head cold, so I went to the drug store to get a decongestant. I wanted the stuff that actually works, containing pseudoephedrine. In my home state of Pennsylvania, you have to go up to the pharmacist's counter, show ID, and sign a release to purchase this. (Even if I wanted to, how much meth could I cook up with 18 tablets?)

In front of me at the counter was a British expat. He was astounded that his HMO had changed the rules on him as of January 1st. The medication he wanted would now cost him over $100. He was going on about how his HMO could be allowed to do this.

I stepped in to explain it to him:

Friend, you have to remember that health care in this country is a for-profit business. American health care is the same as other for-profit businesses, like the gambling industry or porn. Only with less integrity.

The pharmacist was not happy with me, but I got my decongestant. Business marches on.

The French vs. the British vs. the G-spot

An article in The Washington Post reports that British researchers conclude that the G-spot does not exist. (Or, if it does, it is "completely subjective." This is a term one uses with people who believe in, say, unicorns or gay Republicans, rather than saying "it's all in your head.")

In response, approximately 1,000 French gynecologists assert that the English need to "keep looking." This is more impressive than it sounds, because the French gynecologists were apparently at a convention about the G-spot. If they concluded that the G-spot didn't exist, they might want their convention fees back.

My guess is that the G-spot exists on the continent, but suddenly disappears when you enter Great Britain. But feel free to prove me wrong.

Another New York Times Junkie

This morning I shoveled a foot of snow off my car and hit the road. After checking on my parents, I went in search of The Sunday New York Times. (Yes, I know you can read it online. It's not the same!)

I didn't see anyone out except for snowplow drivers, grumpy store clerks, and a meth addict trying to score. I think the meth-head had more business being outside than I did.

My New Fragrance

I've decided on the composition of my new fragrance:

part old books,
part dead silverfish,
and a tang of ozone from a sputtering fan trying to cool off an aging MacBook.

It's called "Bookworm."

If Amiri Baraka Can Do It...

At a party, we challenged each other to come up with the most outre name for a rock band. I won with "Kafkaesque Vaginas." But I think I just ruined any chance I had to become poet laureate.

Christmas Card to a Billionaire

Right about now, Steve Jobs is writing this Christmas card to Bill Gates:

Bill, thanks for once again marketing such a shoddy product! Thanks to you, Apple's products don't have to be good. They just have to be better than yours!

Snow on the Wasteland

I spent most of yesterday working in a suburban library. (It's not the closest one or the largest one - I go there because it's under-utilized, and I can always find a table to myself.)

This library is in a new housing development. Hundreds of townhouses, the proverbial "little boxes made of ticky tacky." I worked until closing, long after sunset. As I left, I saw the Christmas lights that the townhouse builder had put up in the tiny park in a futile attempt to make the place look festive.

Across the street are a few acres of land not yet bulldozed for housing. The trees on that land - now bare of leaves - had snow plastered to their trunks and branches on the windward side.

Those snow-covered trees on wasteland are far more beautiful than anything that builder had managed to achieve. Or ever will.