Comic for Monday, February 11th, 2008

Posted: 7:55 am, Monday, February 11th

Does anyone get this? I'm really reaching here, I think.

I can't imagine the feeling of being covered in filth one would obtain from having to spend time researching and writing a bio on Jesse Helms. I still think Clinton should've sent the Secret Service after the fucker for that bodyguard comment back in '94. I also remember the clip from Michael Moore's TV Nation when they were doing Love Night, and sent a gay men's choir to sing What the World Needs Now to Jesse Helms, but only got to sing to his wife, instead. Good times!

Speaking of Michael Moore, we finally watched Sicko (or SiCKO, as I guess it's properly expressed) this past weekend. Woof, powerful stuff. We're so fucked-up in this country.

And semi-speaking of old Times archive searches, this is by far the coolest Google result my name has ever turned up. I'm all the way at the bottom, as a hack driver.

I already love Braxton Cave. On a conversation with Urban Meyer's wife:

"Basically, the weather and how they were on the boat and all this stupid crap," Cave said.

Frankly, this news regarding the SpiceCam is much more devastating to me than any news coming from the Spice Girls' tour.

Wow, this art would be such a step up for Gil Thorp that I'm glad they didn't go with it. I mean, the guy's good and all, but if I could understand the action in the Gil Thorp comic strip, it would take almost all of my enjoyment of it.

Taking the theme of crappy comics and running with it, ye gods, man, Tinsley must be up to a handle a day of the hard stuff. Fuck the heck, man. To save you the jump, the strip is a bad caricature of the homeboy (holla, weekend sweep!) writing a Valentine, with the following poem:

Bill got you your job in the first place....
And whenever I'm under attack....
I know that you'll BOTH be in my face....
Where's that "strong woman" stuff?.... love, Barack

I left out a bunch of random italics and bolds, but, wow. Awesomest rhyme scheme ever? I do think so. Also, I count the chin as maybe the eighteenth most distinctive thing about Barack's face, but I guess a true artiste like Tinsley knows that's what sells the portrait.

I haven't gotten a full chance to explore this site, but I'm very excited by the idea of it. For some reason, I've never even thought not to follow the instructions to an Ikea piece.

bullfrog

MNP -- Monday, February 11 2008, 08:29 am

yeah, not sure I got today's strip. I might just need my coffee, though.

Polyester Bride!

Zero's got your back.

Zero

do you want to flap your wings and fly away from here??

No worries, MNP, as Zero and skt point out, I am paraphrasing, at length and rather oddly, a track off of Liz Phair's somewhat obscure 1998 album whitechocolatespaceegg.

http://www.lyrics007.com/Liz%20Phair%20Lyrics/Polyester%20Bride%20Lyrics.html

I love the song, I guess I'm just saying I don't know why a bartender would ever put up with Liz's line of questioning? Maybe? I don't know what I'm saying. I guess I just wanted to write about the song.

Henry looks like an alien to me...kind of freaked me out first thing in the morning...

I got it. I'm always torn about that album though.

Exile was so raw and space egg just, well, isn't. I still like it though.

Yeah, but Polyester Bride's a great song.

In a way, it's too bad Liz Phair came out with Exile in Guyville first, because it really made everything else she ever did come up short.

pour a 40 for Roy Schneider. "I think we're going to need a bigger boat."

oops... scheider

Let's see, why would a bartender ever put up with Liz's line of questioning? Because it's freaking Liz Phair, man!

For some reason, I thought Henry resembled a mummy.

OK, OK, you're right. It's Liz Phair.

I was for some reason shocked to learn Roy was 75. I guess I expected time to stop after Jaws was filmed 30 years ago, and SeaQuest DSV was filmed 15 years ago, or whenever. Oi, SeaQuest.

My former boss's daughter is listed in today's Times as a leader of the RAND report the army tried to buried.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/washington/11army.html

How in the name of all that's holy did I get on the mailing list for the "Official Janice Dickinson Model Agency Season 3 Finale Party hosted by Janice Dickinson and her models"?

Yeah, I only remember Scheider for SeaQuest and that damned dolphin. I swear it was Darwin's fault.

Sign your campaign is staggering: you need to change your campaign manager. And maybe get one for Bill as well.

A song from the Marshall Mathers LP just popped up on my shuffle - I find it mind-boggling that Eminem ever dedicated a full verse to ripping on the Insane Clown Posse.

thanks for the strip today - reminds me to listen to that one when i get home. great song! although, i found it kind of disturbing that it was on one of those airplane radio stations on a flight long ago - every 40 minutes or so, that song would roll around, right after the goo goo dolls or some crap on the rock channel. it's such an odd choice - it's not like she's every really courted extra air time. i would imagine that they have to get her permission for something like that, right?

p.s. 2 hour delay today. it's like christmas! without the guilt and responsibility.

There should be a wing to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for the greatest band names and one-hit wonders ever. Insane Clown Posse would so be in there.

I'm in a computer class, and my instructor is ranting and raving about how bad we are, comparing us to the Huckabee campaign. I don't know whether to thank her or see if she'd join the Obama run (assuming he gets the Democratic nomination).

How lame is this ad?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA8Wy51Ionk

also: I totally didn't get today's strip - I guess listening to broadway shows exclusively will do that to you...

That ad is awful. Like watching the awkward kid in school ask the prom queen to dance. It's just...a train wreck.

Michael Moore does a good job of finding out little known scary ass facts and showing them to the world. What I don't like is that he mish-mashes them and skews them to prove his point and further his agenda, which would be fine (everyone does) if he wasn't blasting the government so much for doing the same thing.

Health care is messed up in this country, but I am also glad that I live here. If I'm lucky enough to be wealthy and have a serious health issue I can pay people to do research and to help me. In a socialized medicine setting, the answer would be, we are sorry but we can't justify taking up all the time of these doctors to work on a disease that affects 1% of the population when things like cardiovascular disease are affecting tens of millions more.

Socialism is for the greater good, which I am usually for, but when it comes to one's kids and family I can get pretty selfish pretty quickly. Just something to keep in mind.

As a former medical biller I have personally gone to bat for patients whose insurance refused to cover them. It really didn't matter how "quality" their plan was. Across the board I ran into institutionalized road blocks to getting patients seen and covered for their care. The industry is unrestricted because our government allows them the freedom to self-regulate. I would very often have to resubmit claims 3, 6, even 10 times with documentation to support the vague term "medical necessity." Still we received denials--or limits to care--based on decisions made people who benefited by not paying the claims.

Tempest--I wonder where you are getting your information from. What country are you referring to that turns away its patients for having rare illnesses. I have come into contact with many people who have lived under socialized medicine who had nothing but positive things to say about the system. Sure, they may wait in an emergency room, but the last time I was in an emergency room we waited 2 hours for my husband to get stitched in his thumb.

You are lucky to be wealthy. But keep in mind that even you are just one life threatening illness away from bankruptcy. A surgery your insurance decides isn't medically necessary could end up costing you hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I'd say the fault with Sicko - besides depressing the hell out of me - was that Moore never addressed the cost of a socialized health care system. Like, X is what comes out of the typical American paycheck for health care, and X is the taxes they pay for it in France or wherever. Out of every flick he's ever made, I think this one probably had the least skewing of information (although the aforementioned TV Nation didn't have a lot of that and was freaking brilliant - seriously, I think TV Nation's on DVD, it is a great, great show).

And two things to Tempest. First, to 2.0 - s/he said "if," they're wealthy. Second, Temptest, I don't think that's exactly for the National Health Programs work in the UK and France. I'm not claiming to be an expert here, but the doc in Sicko said, "I'm a National Health System doctor" (or whatever the program is called, I can't remember)(programme). The way he said leads me to believe - ktbb, you know anything about this? - that there are non-NHS doctors over there. I'm fairly certain any wealthy person in the France or UK or Canada or anywhere is going to be able to get their treatment for a 1% population disease. I mean, Sicko featured a girl going to Canada for treatment of cervical cancer, which is not a rare form of cancer - I'm pretty sure we're not going to turn away someone who can pay for their treatment on this side.

And, really, we're getting away from the key issue here: Fuck Richard Nixon.

The other key thing, thanks for writing in, Tempest. Two noobs in the comments in one week!

I had to wait six hours in at a public clinic to have my flu checked out. The office was about 70% full, and there were some people who clearly were in far worse pain than I was, and nurses at the counter would not allow me to switch places in the queue with one of them. And if they had looked up once, they would have seen that people really don't like to be waiting six to seven hours for a doctor.

I had to wait a further hour for the doctor to show up and proscribe me antibiotics. And another hour for Walgreen to actually put the pills in over-sized bottles. I don't know if our health-care system is in need of repair, but waiting six hours for a doctor in an non-emergency situation isn't a good sign.

If my experience at the ER at Methodist in Brooklyn is anything to go by, the way you get instant attention is to come in high as a goddamn kite and looking like you're about to vomit. Front of the line with that kid.

Cutting your thumb open and having sense enough to keep it elevated gets you in the low-priority queue.

(Not that I actually have the sense to elevate the wound - that was all 2.0.)

I know for a fact in the UK that you can use government supplied medicine or you can pay more for a private doctor. It's supply and demand and in a capitalist society private medicine will emerge as long as a) it's legal and b) they can provide better quality service that people are willing to pay for.

Yes. Certainly. Anyone who wants to pay a doctor out of pocket to treat their illness would be allowed to do so in the US--with or without private health insurance. In fact, you can do it now. Many of the US's leading doctors don't even take insurance because companies don't don't cover the services they provide, or they are such a headache (with paperwork, etc) that it no longer makes sense for them to pay someone--such as myself--to do the work needed to get paid.

The advantage goes to Pharma and the insurance companies. Not doctors, or hospitals, or taxpayers.

It doesn't matter if Tempest is wealthy, does it? My point was your personal wealth does not protect you. Healthcare is so overwhelmingly expensive in this country that you are at the mercy of that little plastic card. I know a very wealthy couple whose young daughter got cancer and her doctor had to fight the board of his hospital to perform the surgery because her insurance company was denying it.

I know these people very well, and also went to this same doctor for my own surgery. I was lucky--my insurance paid my bill--and I am decidedly NOT wealthy.

My point is good luck to you.

Did you see these Valentine's cards on the GOP site (via Andrew Sullivan)?

http://net.gop.com/valentine/

I know I shouldn't be surprised by anything the Republicans do, and I'm not really all *that* surprised, but still -- cheap, mean, unfunny cards like this belong on a ranting blogger or op-ed columnist's website, not that of the Republican National Committee.

I think the scariest thing is that the RNC evidently thinks "AX" is a letter...

Could explain their economic policies.

Glad that my comment inspired additional debate. This is only my 2nd time adding comments to a discussion even though I've been following the webcomic daily since early 06.

I am very much not wealthy either, but I have worked in a hospital emergency dept before. The nurses used to joke with me that if they could put up an electronic sign like they have over highway commutes that read "Current wait time-2 hrs 4 min" that half the people would get up and go home. There were a lot of people that came in, but there were also a lot of repeats that we had, new mothers that came in every other night, or other people that appeared to gum up the works. These opinions aren't mine (just a 25 year old guy who was volunteering a night shift) but rather the opinions of senior nurses and technicians that had worked there 20 odd years.

One interesting thing to consider is that with the world potentially being over-populated (in itself a debate), is it better that medical technology is allowing a vast decrease in the rate of natural death from illness even though the birth rate seems to be increasing worldwide. Is medicine being irresponsible by contributing to this problem? If by 2030 the avg. life expectancy in the US gets up to 95, so that you have the rare people that make it to 120. Would we have the same problems with social security and the retiring baby boomers only exacerbated by a ten fold increase? It's a question every responsible consumer must ask themselves.

Just a cool map and some additional info for you all: http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/human_pop/human_pop.html