Food-borne illness (or bad economy) hits Olathe:

Christmas deflation in Olathe (follow-up to inflation):

Where Santa sleeps tonight:

Mr. Ma(c)goo? Maybe you shouldn’t be driving??

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Hit it! [audio:https://www.kcmeesha.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Tony_Babino_-_LInternationale_from_Capitalism_A_Love_Story_by_Michael_Moore.mp3|titles=Tony Babino -L’Internationale (from Capitalism A Love Story by Michael Moore)]Since I wrote about the healthcare reform last year the situation didn’t get any better. Whatever will be voted in or “shoved down the throats of the American people” – depending on which TV channel you are watching, it will not produce a meaningful reform in this country. If President Obama was even half as good as some people believed him to be, he would have used his position and Congressional majorities to institute a single-payer system paid for by an increase in taxes. That would have been the right thing to do. Sometimes the right thing needs to be done, even if it’s unpopular. Previous administration had no problem doing the unpopular and wrong things like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan based on the wrong information and misguided convictions. Obama seemed to have the right information and plenty of conviction but not enough courage, persistence, or desire to do what he promised or implied in his campaign appearances.

What will be passed soon is in no way a reform – more band-aids; few things that sound good but will be easily loopholed by the healthcare industry; few accounting gimmicks that will make spending increases look like savings; few giveaways and favors in exchange for votes with most of the changes delayed for years. Nothing here says “vision”, “courage”, “hope” and definitely not “change”. More like “lame”, “sellout”, “weak”, “dishonest”, “gimmicky” and “disappointment”. Any talk about this legislation opening doors for more reform or debate is just that. For years no one will dare to touch this subject, and there won’t be another chance of 2 branches of Government being in sync to produce anything meaningful.

The sad part is that most of the clowns protesting the healthcare reforms and spitting on congressmen are poor schmucks who are one or two paychecks away from begging for the government healthcare and other various forms of assistance, or are already using it based on income, age or previous military service. There may be problems with Medicare of VA but they are free or cheap and, most importantly, available. That’s the most important thing about the government services in general, they may not be the best but they beat not having any. Too bad that many protesters don’t understand that this is the direction we are headed in – not having enough/any coverage. Most of the workplace benefits disappeared or deteriorated and will continue to do so in the future, many people (including myself) now have to dig deeper in their pockets before the insurance payments even kick in. In this situation the failure of the President to pass the real reform is unacceptable; his attempt to mislead the people with the neutered bill they are about to pass is just disgusting.

After the election, when everyone was crying with the fake tears of joy even I let my cynicism down a bit to see if something really can happen. Looks like my streak of not voting will continue unbroken.

In conclusion, a few old photos of a socialized healthcare at work. As you can tell it looks worn out and poor. This is a small country hospital where my Father worked, you can see him making rounds with a group of colleagues (he is on the left in the top photo). The system wasn’t perfect and many times was just broken and inefficient but it was there. People were getting treatment, doctors cared, no one lost their possessions due to a medical treatment or a hospital stay. People who remember that time will tell you plenty of horror stories, but at the same time having this system available took away at least one thing to worry about.

The best chance to have a healthcare reform in this country was wasted months ago. Even when it gets passed there will be nothing to celebrate; it’s a failure at best, but is probably worse because it will allow the President to hang a “mission accomplished” banner of his own and act like the right thing was done. Too bad.

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This photo attracted my attention with a sign in the window “Whiskey Sold By Case”:

Then, upon closer examination, I noticed a poster in the window promoting V-Mail.

V-mail stands for Victory Mail. It was based on the similar British “Airgraph” system for delivering mail between those at home in the United States and troops serving abroad during World War II. V-mail correspondence worked by photographing large amounts of censored mail reduced to thumb-nail size onto reels of microfilm, which weighed much less than the original would have. The film reels were shipped by priority air freight (when possible) to the US, sent to prescribed destinations for enlarging at a receiving station near the recipient, and printed out on lightweight photo paper. These facsimiles of the letter-sheets were reproduced about one-quarter the original size and the miniature mail was delivered to the addressee.
I didn’t find the exact same poster, so here are few other ones.

Visit Smithsonian online exhibition about V-Mail.

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Recent post by Scott Adams described his vision for the future of public transportation in the new economy.

Suppose the government enacted laws that made it legal for anyone to be a taxi driver in his own car without a special taxi license. And suppose the income was non-taxable. The result would be cheap taxis and high availability. Every time you wanted to run an errand, and had an extra minute, you could choose to pick up a rider and cut your own driving expense in half. Technology will make it easy to match amateur taxi drivers with riders. And the market would keep prices low.

This is very similar to the system that existed for years (and still alive an well) in the USSR and countries that followed it. In addition to pretty well developed system of public transportation and state-owned taxis, a person could just stand on the street, raise a hand and flag down a private car. Both sides benefited equally: a passenger received a semic0mfortable ride for a price comparable to a cab (general price/distance ratio was common knowledge) and a driver made some extra money without making any extra effort. Some people liked it so much that they made it into a part-time job. Others just picked up passengers on the way home or wherever.

Imagine yourself standing somewhere on the Lenin Street (each city had one of these), you raise your hand and soon one of these beauties stops to pick you up:

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Soviet Union had its own “Big 3”: GAZ, AutoVAZ, and AZLK; ZAZ in Ukraine produced some of the ugliest and the most unreliable even by the Soviet standards vehicles. Due to the shortage of cars and years-long waiting lists people were happy to get anything with wheels. Sometimes, when at the end of the month autoworkers were rushing to fulfil quotas so they can get their bonus, a lucky buyer would find a bucket of uninstalled parts inside his new vehicle. Despite these cars being 20-30 behind the rest of the automotive world when they came off assembly line, many of them are still on the road closing in on 40 years. Soviet people invented ingenious ways of keeping them going and they turned out relatively easy to fix and maintain.

My current situation does not easily lend itself to carpooling: I don’t always go straight to work and don’t always drive straight home. The other problem is potential emergency situations that happen rarely but still have to be planned for. In this city I don’t have a reasonable way of getting home from work without my personal vehicle, so I would welcome an opportunity to get a ride from someone who is already headed in the same direction. The only issue  is that when I was growing up© people getting into a stranger’s car were not afraid to be later found in the woods in a block of concrete; drivers were not generally scared of being robbed, killed or raped. Once I hitchhiked almost 200 miles  from where I was stationed in the army to my hometown, changing 5 or 6 cars in the process and never felt any danger; I was wearing my uniform and no one ever asked me for any money. (if some window pops up, just click “return to map”) I don’t know if I would have the same trust now, but if sharing a ride was commonly accepted practice I would probably give it a try.

If you are ever so lucky to get a ride in an old Soviet Car make sure to try this, it will make you instantly popular:

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Some time ago I decided that this blogging thing is becoming too much of a burden and not as much of a recreational activity I envisioned it to be, so I relied on Forrest Gump to convey my feelings on the subject and stopped. Surprisingly the Earth didn’t stand still, and, according to a humorless fellow Pitch commenter, everyone is probably better off without me “spouting some inane half literate garbage off the top of (my) head, without offering a single new fact, based on things (I) read courtesy of the hard work done by the good folks in the “dead tree media”” . In the meantime, I entertain myself trading one-liners on Twitter and mostly keep my opinions to myself. Once in a while I see a subject, an image, a story and just like in the old days I think: “This could make a good post”, too bad I don’t feel like writing it. In the past weeks for various reasons I thought about death and dying, love, P&L made-up controversy du jour, almost typed something up in defense of Nadia Pflaum, who I don’t even know and rarely read, almost wrote something about Obama, auto industry, weather, movies and pickling of a watermelon (that may still show up some day). I thought about writing about these things but I didn’t because no one really cares what I have to say and to prove that, my blog is still getting about the same number of clicks I used to get when I posted something every day.

I guess nothing prompts me to actually sit down and write something like a cattle-like public support for the Iranian opposition, complete with blogs, facebook messages, re-Tweets, green-tinted avatars, etc.  Here is a video of the public racing to support the “democracy” in Iran.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzvO9x2H7ZA

For the record I don’t care who gets elected in Iran because in Iran “…Supreme Leader … has the final say in all matters”; Iran’s current president may be an angry Holocaust-denying degenerate with a potential access to nuclear weapons and no love for America but I can make a similar case for many other world leaders and, to some degree, for many people in the US congress and some former presidents. Let me make up some facts for you.

1. Until last week you’ve never heard of Mousavi.

2. You think he is better than the current president because an angry demonstrator with a green mask on his face told you so.

3. You have no idea what his platform is and if he is planning to stick with it.

4. You found out from Twitter that there was election fraud.

5. You felt that the opposition needed your personal support.

6. You painted your avatar green and now it says “where is my/their vote”

7. Mission accomplished.

8. This doesn’t seem ridiculous to you at all.

I am sure after being beaten and sprayed with tear gas the Iranians come home and find satisfaction in the “sea of green” faces on Twitter. You played an important part in the supporting of democracy, give yourself a good pat on the back.

It’s no secret that the tactic of indiscriminately supporting pro-American opposition didn’t always work out in the long run. One doesn’t have to look back 30 or 50 years to find another failed example of a misguided American foreign intervention. Both the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the Rose Revolution in Georgia were enthusiastically supported, encouraged and financed by the United States but produced neither the expected results nor any significant political and economic improvements. Few years later the new opposition is clashing with yesterday’s revolutionaries demanding their removal from power. Today, Ukrainian and Georgian people resent the United States for interfering in their affairs and egging them on into hasty action.

That’s why President Obama should continue with the policy of leaving Iranian people to resolve their election problems for themselves, while making sure that their Twitter is in perfect working order.  United States’ support of the Shah is in no small part responsible for the current situation in the country so if there is a time to stop interfering – it is right  now. It is painful to watch the beatings, bloody clashes and murders but there is no guarantee that if the opposition wins they will not kill and loot like their neighbors in Iraq. Who will you support then? So far the number of casualties is comparable to an average year in Kansas City, I don’t recall  a huge wave of Twitter indignation for our local beatings and murders.

In the meantime all the clueless do-gooders can continue their self-gratifying support for the Iranian demonstrators and protesters, changing time zones for conspiracy and painting their faces green. Election fraud and stolen elections apparently happen to the best of democracies (just Google “2000 election stolen“), no reason to get hysterical about it. Especially if you live 7,000 miles away and it takes you 3 tries to point Iran on the map.

In the famous words of Klaatu:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNu1Bj3oR00

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