The cancer came back and Obama did nothing to stop it!

Well it happened again.  My cancer came back and President Obama did absolutely nothing to prevent it!   After all, isn’t the President of the United States supposed to keep Americans safe from everything?  The Obama Administration has known about cancer for a long time and only now, in the waning days of his administration, does Obama declare a “moon shot” to cure cancer. Well, Barack, it’s too little, too late for me. 

 

OK, I admit, for a moment I succumbed to being “Republicanized.”  “Republicanization” is the political doctrine that requires you to abandon all rational, logical and realistic thought and blame everything you don’t like on Obama specifically and government in general.  Essentially it means you don’t have to think, just believe everything Donald Trump and Ted Cruz tell you and you’ll be fine.

Since I have just returned from an another all-expense paid stay at a hospital where they cut out another chunk of my lung, postponed my entry to eternity one more time and returned me to the world of political absurdity, I thought it appropriate to discuss just one of the current Presidential campaign political issues:  Universal Health Care.

First a total disclaimer:  I am completely in favor of Universal Health Care for all Americans administered by the Federal Government.  (As Bernie Sanders has told you repeatedly we are the only advanced country in the world that doesn’t do this.)

Second, the Affordable Care Act (ACA, a.k.a. Obamacare) while it may not be great, it is not all that bad.  It has helped millions of people get health insurance, and the best the Republicans can do is scream and holler about “train wrecks” and “the worst thing since slavery” without offering any new or better ideas.  (Of course, the Republicans have not had any new idea for nearly four decades.)

Admittedly, I look at this from a different perspective.  It is dear to my heart, or perhaps I should say dear to my lungs.  I have Medicare, the equivalent of Universal Health Care for old people.  If Obama and his administration had had the guts, they would have stood up to the Republicans and established Medicare for all (the public option the Democrats capitulated on).  I can state unequivocally that I have seen Universal Health Care, and it is good.  Without Medicare I would be bankrupt, dead or both. 

Now before my Republican readers go berserk, I have gone to the Trump and Cruz official websites to get first hand their policies on health care.   Cruz does not even have it under the “Issues” tab so I had to research it further.  Essentially, both Trump and Cruz state they will repeal Obamacare, and turn health care over to private industry and “the market economy.”  That is based on the totally absurd principle that encouraging competition between private health insurance companies and establishing “health savings accounts” will give everybody “affordable” health care.  It won’t as many studies have shown.  That’s the way it was before Obamacare and millions were without health insurance because they could not afford it or because the insurance companies simply turned them down since they were too ill to be profitable. 

As one who has had a rather intimate relationship with health care for the last five years I have concluded letting private industry take over health care is a really bad idea.  In simple terms and to put ii very bluntly, the health care industry does not give a rat shit about you no matter how many schmaltzy, soppy advertisements they put on television.  All the health care industry—insurance companies, doctors, hospitals, clinics, pharmaceutical companies, physical therapy et. al.—cares about is making money.  Period. 

You have seen the studies about how health care costs vary wildly throughout the country for the same things.  Your colonoscopy could cost twice as much depending on where you live.  It’s artificial pricing which attempts to extract the maximum amount of money from Americans who get sick and has nothing to do with “compassion” or “care.”

Now here’s a bit of my own research illustrating how drug companies—in collusion with medical providers—make a fortune on artificially inflated prices.  When I was discharged I was given a prescription for Lidoderm patches.  As a result of my lung surgeries, I have residual nerve damage pain that actually never goes away.  The brand name, prescription patches (Lidoderm) come in packs of 30 and have five per cent lidocaine which is the active ingredient.

If you go to goodrx.com, you will find that those 30 patches will cost you $376.05 at Wal-Mart, $375.41 at Walgreens and $390.23 at Publix.  If you request the generic version, the prices drop to $88.43, $112.39 and 237.45, respectively.  But, if you just buy a 2.7 ounce bottle of Aspercreme, an over the counter topical analgesic, it will cost you $7.49.  Aspercreme contains four percent of the active ingredient lidocaine.  So adding just one percent of lidocaine makes it a prescription that sells for hundreds of dollars. 

In closing I will attempt to explain to the “republicanized” that Universal Health Care is NOT socialized medicine as Trump, Cruz and company would have you believe.   Under Universal Health Care the government if just one great big insurance company.  It collect premiums from the insured and pays the providers for services and supplies rendered.  It is open to everyone.  When the insurance company is a private enterprise it has no interest in the quality of the actual care you receive, it simply wants to turn a profit. 

  

If we had a Universal Health Care system, everybody would pay into the system and everybody would benefit from it because the government has no requirement to make money on your sickness or disease.  Also you would not be paying several hundred dollars for a one per cent increase in an inexpensive active ingredient.

Robert, the iPhone 6s Plus and me

No visit to New York City would be complete for me without a visit to the Museum of Art and Design on Columbus Circle.  Not only do we see new and exciting exhibits each time, but lunch at Robert, on the 9th floor is always a treat, gastronomically and visually.

The view of Columbus Circle and Central Park is breathtaking and this time I tried to capture it with the iPhone 6s Plus and the olloclip supplementary fisheye and wide angle lenses.

But  first, let’s eat. Cocktails of course, my habitual Manhattan and this time Linda picked Autumn Spice (tasted good but I do not now what was in it).   Linda had salmon and I had a shrimp stew.  Then cheesecake (after all we are in New York) for desert.

Coctails

Shrimp

 Salmon

 Cheese

To set the scene I used the panoramic option on the iPhone to capture the entire restaurant (well almost, there are more tables around the corner).

But the visual main event is Columbus Circle.   I will let the photographs speak for themselves.
The fisheye produced some interesting effects and the wide angle worked on the verticals capturing the tall building that dominates the Circle.

New York through the lens of an iPone 6

Usually on my annual trip to New York City I illustrate thoughts and activities with my photos.  Since my last trip I purchased an iPhone 6s Plus and decided to make this trip a photographic odyssey experimenting with my new phone camera.   When cameras began appearing on smart phones, like most professional photographers I considered them simply a toy for amateurs to play with.  But now I must admit I am having a great deal of fun especially with features my DSLS don’t have,  So these blogs will probably be of more interest to my friends at the Island Arts Association Photograpers Group and the Coffee and Cameras.  However, if you’d like to see New York City through the lens of an iPhone 6, come along.

One of the more intriguing features is the instant panorama.  You take a single slow moving (left to right) shot and the camera make the panorama instantly.  No need to take several shots and stitche them together in the computer.

What's in a name, a lie by any other name...

Donald Trump called Ted Cruz the biggest liar he has ever seen.  Apparently Donald has not looked in the mirror lately.  Truth, especially on the Republican side, is in scarce supply. 

 

Much to the annoyance of my Conservative friends, I have an annoying habit of checking PolitiFact.  Recently I pointed out that Donald Trump has told so many “pants on fire” (the most blatant) lies PolitiFact could not single out one for the title 2015 Lie of the Year so they bestowed that dubious honor on the sum of all his lies.  Those Conservative friends, of course, huffed indignantly and blew it off with “Well PolitiFact is not always reliable.”  For Republicans, truth is arbitrary, optional and relative to what they want to believe.

We all know that every politicians lies to some extent.  Yes, even Hillary and Bernie have told some whoppers, but compared to the two Republican front runners, the Dems are rank amateurs.  You can go to PolitiFact.com and see for yourselves.

I find Cruz’s and Rubio’s lies much more problematical and dangerous than Trump’s.  Most of Trump’s lies are so bombastic and outlandish that they are swallowed only by the bottom of the far-right brainless barrel.  Things like, he saw thousands of Muslims cheering the fall of the Twin Towers, or unemployment is probably, 28, 29 as high as 35 “in fact I even heard recently 42 percent,” and his tweet that crime statistics show blacks kill 82 percent of white homicide victims.  These are blatantly intended to stir up fear, hatred, bigotry and racism, and, unfortunately, work very well in whipping up his white, male uneducated base.

But Cruz, and also Rubio, tell their lies so well, with such a straight face, feigning sincerity and authority, that they can deceive even some relatively rational, Republicans.  In other words, they make the lies sound plausible enough that more educated Republicans find them credible.  That’s the dangerous part, they are such skillful liars that Republicans do not question them.

For example, in their never-ending battle to kill Obamacare, Republicans will believe anything they’re told, like Cruz’s statement “Obamacare is the biggest job-killer in this country—millions of Americans have lost their jobs, have been forced into part-time work.” That is totally untrue, i.e. a “pants on fire” lie. But because he says it with such feigned authority, Republicans believe it because that’s what they want to hear.  And once the lie is told, it sticks in their minds and there is no way you can convince them it is not true.

Rubio told Meet the Press that Iran released the hostages two days after Reagan’s inauguration “because Iran perceived America was no longer under the command of someone weak (a not very veiled reference to Obama).”  Another “pants on fire” lie.  You can look it up.

Most recently, referring to appointing a replacement for Justice Scalia, Cruz stated at the Greenville, SC, debate and repeated on Meet the Press that “We have 80 years of precedent of not confirming Supreme Court justices in an election year.”   There is no “long tradition” of presidential passivity or Congressional obstruction.  It is simply rare for a justice to leave the court voluntarily or involuntarily--like Scalia--during an election year.  When it has happened, the president promptly nominated a replacement.

In this election year, Republicans are highly susceptible that old political truism, if you tell a big lie over and over again, people will believe it.

Iowa? So?

The good news is that that Iowa caucuses will be over in seven days.  The bad news is we will have to endure seven more days of Iowa hysteria.

Every four years we are subjected to the presidential elections circuses intended to name the two parties’ candidates.  The ritual begins with the Iowa caucuses when everyone in the United States is expected to agonize over polls and pundit commentary, breathlessly waiting to learn who Iowans will select as their nominees.

In the interest of political science you are invited to participate in a political survey to determine your Iowa tolerance quotient:

Question 1:  Do you have any idea why all the presidential candidates are groveling to Iowans and the news media are going nearly berserk about covering, analyzing and speculating on the Iowa caucuses?

Question 2: Do you really care who Iowans want to be the presidential candidates?

Question 3:  Do you know what a caucus is?

Question 4:  Do you know where Iowa is?

In the interest of full disclosure here are my answers.

Question 1:  No, I have no idea why I every four years presidential candidates ingratiate themselves to Iowans.  I get very tired of endless interviews with white, wholesome looking Iowans, mostly seniors, drinking coffee in local diners offering their assessments of presidential candidates and the candidates’ fervid, public declarations of how much they love Jesus Christ.  I do not know why a state that is 92 percent white, 3.4 percent black and 5.6 percent Hispanic and largely rural is somehow considered a representative cross section of all American.  We are told that the reason Iowa is so important is because it is first to declare a nominee, whatever significance that has.

Question 2:  No, I do not give a damn about who Iowa farmers think should be the presidential nominees.  I have nothing in common with them and they, in my opinion, do not represent the American public and are certainly not representative of me.  Of course Iowa television stations make a lot of money on political advertising during this period and over the years Iowa corn farmers have gotten huge Federal Government handouts to subsidize corn for ethanol.

Question 3:  No, I do not know what a caucus is and I don’t care.

Question 4: Yes, I do know where Iowa is.  I have been there and I found it probably the most boring, dull, uninteresting place in the entire universe unless you like driving through flat fields of corn and soybeans.

But this whole Iowa thing is just indicative of how ridiculous our American political system has become.  Last Sunday in the pursuit of political research I watched the three major network morning news programs where they interviewed the top candidates and then did panel discussions interpreting and analyzing what the candidates just said.  Then I watched the pre-game shows for the NFL playoffs. 

It was hard to tell where politics left off and the football began.  It has all—football and politics—become so much hoopla and show business, hyperbole and hysteria.  The caucuses and primaries are like the playoffs leading up to the Presidential Election.  You get play-by-play and commentary with announcers hyperventilating about how exciting all this is and attempting to generate suspense about the outcome.

There is one major difference between the NFL Super Bowl and presidential elections.  The playoff run up to the Super Bowl only lasts a couple months.  We have to endure the run up to the presidential election for well over a year.

Note: I don’t give a damn about New Hampshire either.