August 21, 2009
Posted by Jay Livingston
For those of us who have never lived in a country with socialized medicine, it’s always useful to get the truth from ground level about the horrors of these inferior systems. J.A. Getzlaff is an American journalist who lives, for the moment, in Paris. Here are some excerpts about French medical coverage from her blog, Foreign Parts.
Obviously, she’s biased and selective in her reporting. For example, she completely omits any mention of les panels de mort.
A euro is about $1.42. To make it simple, just multiply by 1.5. So as an American in Paris, she pays about $85 a month for her health insurance.
The hospital room costs her $24 (€16) a night, more if she wants a . . .
No Heroes
August 20, 2009
Posted by Jay Livingston
The “more guns, less crime” crowd have a romantic fantasy of bravely defending themselves and their property (and of course their wives and children) against potential predators (see my earlier post here) . It’s the adolescent boy’s super-hero fantasy, only the boys are older, and instead of imagined super-powers, they have actual super-weapons.
The reality of shooting bad guys in self-defense is far more complicated. The people who have done it don’t feel like heroes.
I tried to make this point in an overly long post a few days ago about Charles Augusto, the Harlem store owner. Kareem Farim, reporting in today’s The New York Times, does it better. He mentions Augusto’s sympathy for the families of the robbers. Then,
Posted by Jay Livingston
The “more guns, less crime” crowd have a romantic fantasy of bravely defending themselves and their property (and of course their wives and children) against potential predators (see my earlier post here) . It’s the adolescent boy’s super-hero fantasy, only the boys are older, and instead of imagined super-powers, they have actual super-weapons.
The reality of shooting bad guys in self-defense is far more complicated. The people who have done it don’t feel like heroes.
I tried to make this point in an overly long post a few days ago about Charles Augusto, the Harlem store owner. Kareem Farim, reporting in today’s The New York Times, does it better. He mentions Augusto’s sympathy for the families of the robbers. Then,
His emotions echoed those of Peter Giron, the co-owner of a South Bronx dry cleaning establishment who shot and killed a 17-year-old gunman in 1978. Mr. Giron collapsed and had to be sedated after the 17-year-old’s father visited his store and politely asked about the shooting.
A few owners said the shootings in their pasts, even those from decades ago, were still too painful to talk about. One, who would speak only anonymously, said, “I’ve been trying to forget about this since it happened.”
Ivan Blume, who wrestled a gun away from a robber and killed both him and his accomplice at his store, Quality Canines, in Brooklyn, in 2003, would say only, “It’s a chapter in my life I’d rather close.”
Healthcare, Lies, and Videotape, and More Lies
August 20, 2009
Posted by Jay Livingston
You can’t fool all of the people all of the time, said Honest Abe. Maybe so, but Lincoln missed the point. You only have to fool about half of the people every couple of years. And dishonesty seems to be a pretty effective way to do it.
Some of the assertions about health care reform –broadcast in the media and sent around the Internet – are just plain lies. Here are four of them. The assessments are from either PolitiFact or FactCheck.org
One more thing. Of the people who had seen coverage of the town hall meetings, most (62%) said that these made no difference in their views. The rest were about evenly split – 16% said they’d become more favorable to the Obama plan, 19% less favorable, because of the protests.
(Hat tip: Ezra Klein)
Posted by Jay Livingston
You can’t fool all of the people all of the time, said Honest Abe. Maybe so, but Lincoln missed the point. You only have to fool about half of the people every couple of years. And dishonesty seems to be a pretty effective way to do it.
Some of the assertions about health care reform –broadcast in the media and sent around the Internet – are just plain lies. Here are four of them. The assessments are from either PolitiFact or FactCheck.org
(For a larger, legible view, click on the image.)
Do these lies have any impact? A recent NBC/WSJ poll asked people how likely some of these outcomes were.- Will give health insurance coverage to illegal immigrants
- Will lead to a government takeover of the health care system
- Will use taxpayer dollars to pay for women to have abortions
- Will allow the government to make decisions about when to stop providing medical care to the elderly
One more thing. Of the people who had seen coverage of the town hall meetings, most (62%) said that these made no difference in their views. The rest were about evenly split – 16% said they’d become more favorable to the Obama plan, 19% less favorable, because of the protests.
(Hat tip: Ezra Klein)
Kind of Blue
August 20, 2009
Posted by Jay Livingston
Kind of Blue. The LP was released fifty years ago this week. It’s the best-selling album in the history of jazz, and year in year out, it continues to sell. Has anyone in the sociology of culture tried to explain this kind of durability?
It’s easy to explain how and why Kind of Blue was different and influential – its use of modes rather than chord changes as the basis for solos (though the first track on the album Milestones, recorded a year earlier, was also modal in concept). But that’s probably not much of a consideration for most people who buy and listen to the album. Its initial success owed something to the tastes of the time. It came out when jazz was at its most popular. But does that account for its continued popularity?
Are there other albums in other genres that still sell decades after they first came out. The Wall? Sgt. Pepper? The Glenn Gould Goldberg Variations?
Posted by Jay Livingston
Kind of Blue. The LP was released fifty years ago this week. It’s the best-selling album in the history of jazz, and year in year out, it continues to sell. Has anyone in the sociology of culture tried to explain this kind of durability?
It’s easy to explain how and why Kind of Blue was different and influential – its use of modes rather than chord changes as the basis for solos (though the first track on the album Milestones, recorded a year earlier, was also modal in concept). But that’s probably not much of a consideration for most people who buy and listen to the album. Its initial success owed something to the tastes of the time. It came out when jazz was at its most popular. But does that account for its continued popularity?
Are there other albums in other genres that still sell decades after they first came out. The Wall? Sgt. Pepper? The Glenn Gould Goldberg Variations?
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