can we all just agree that thomas friedman + pie = pretty satisfying?

thanks to html mencken at sadly, no! for letting us know about this. and also for using the exceptional phrase, "the altogether inadequate but still somehow satisfying flying pastry of cosmic justice" in the aforelinked post.

thomas friedman is one of my very least favorite commentators ever. and the fact that, in the last couple of months, he's decided that he's always been a huge environmentalist is even more infuriating.

i think that anyone with half a brain can see that totally unregulated global capitalism is bad for the environment (to say nothing of its effects on actual, um, you know, people), so for totally unregulated global capitalism's biggest cheerleader to simultaneously attempt to position himself as some sort of renegade, no-b.s., pragmatic, cutting-edge environmental thinker is incredibly offensive to me.

note that the pie was green. this post, from rising tide north america, explains the greenwash guerillas' specific motivations for the pieing. (hint: they have a suspicion that corporations are not necessarily going to save us from the problems that they have created.)

some thoughts on health care reform.

•when you consider that we already have socialized bookshelves (libraries), socialized learning places (public schools), socialized fire protection (your local fire department), socialized security forces (police departments), socialized letter and package delivery systems (the u.s. postal service), socialized road fixing (caltrans, at least here in california), socialized environmental monitoring (the e.p.a.), and socialized medicine for old people already (medicare)...socialized medicine for everybody just doesn't seem so unreasonable.

•i've read the gospels quite a few times and i still can't find the part where jesus says that the man found by the good samaritan shouldn't have been lazy enough to not have a job with good coverage and lucky enough not to have a carrier who dropped him when his treatment got expensive.

•if health insurance companies are already doing such a great job, why should competition from a public plan endanger them in any way?

•on this issue (and probably this issue alone) i am turning into a total laissez-faire economics cheerleader. move over thomas friedman, it's my turn to high five the invisible hand! natural competition in the market solves everything!

•if we were to get a public option and you didn't like it, you wouldn't have to use it. that's why the public option is called the public option, not the public mandatory.

•rep. alan grayson is a total badass and i would like to give him a hug and bake him a cake and probably give him a kiss, but only if he would like it and only on the cheek. WATCH THIS OMG HE IS SAYING THE THINGS I'M THINKING BUT HE IS ON TELEVISION:

Rep. Grayson on the Situation Room

•if you want to contact rep. alan grayson and tell him that he is the best ever, you can do so here.

•if you want to contact your congresspeople and ask them why the hell they can't be more like rep. alan grayson, you can do so here.

•stephen helmsley is a bad person (but he's not the only one. anyone who makes their fortune denying care to sick and injured people is, in fact, a bad person):

Greedy Insurance Companies—Unscrupulous United Healthcare CEO Stephen Hemsley

•it's taken me a long time to get around to writing about this. i don't feel like this post represents my best work, or my clearest or best organized thinking about health care reform. but i'm tired. tired, and furious and terrified. i just weathered another coverage-related fiasco, and i'm doing fine now (properly covered, going to get reimbursed for some stuff i needed but couldn't easily afford, etc) but it was a really scary couple of months. yes, months. with terrible nightmares. i'm publishing this in spite of its failure to meet my usual capricious standards because i think it's important, but i've really gotten to the point where, when i'm trying to talk to someone who is arguing against health care reform, all i hear these days is, "sarah, i don't actually care if you die."

david rees is awesome.

by now, i hope you are aware of the excellence of david rees. he started writing get your war on shortly after september 11, and i am not exaggerating when i say that g.y.w.o. was a key part of my continued post september 11-existence. it's already starting to seem like a distant memory to me, but for the record, 9/2001-1/2009 were some pretty messed up times to be alive. g.y.w.o. said what i was thinking, but in cleverer ways and with a lot more profanity (a lot more), and reassured me that i wasn't the only one who was running out of ways to explain how disgusted i was with my country. for that i will be forever grateful. brother bear and i were talking about this the other night, in fact:

sarah: i have such a crush on david rees
a celebrity crush
he's married and all
but i was just looking at gywo the other day
and thinking about how that was seriously and truly one of the things that got me through the entire bush clusterfuck
i will tell my grandchildren that some day
"granny why does this comic book have so many curse words and no funny jokes?"
"THAT BOOK MADE IT POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO BE HERE TODAY. SIT DOWN AND I WILL EXPLAIN ALL THE REFERENCES TO YOU UNTIL YOU CLAIM YOU HAVE TO PEE AND THEN SNEAK OUT THE BATHROOM WINDOW."
brother bear: heh heh

anyway, you should go look at g.y.w.o., and also its friends, my new fighting technique is unstoppable, my new filing technique is unstoppable, and adventures of confessions of st. augustine bear. there is a handy link over there in the sidebar to his website, where you can find all of these comics, order books (seriously, do it!), and learn more about the mine detection and removal team in afghanistan that he's been supporting ever since he started making money from g.y.w.o.

and also, david rees has recently written a very thought-provoking article, asking a question that's been at the forefront of everyone's minds these days: "Is Mark Sanford America's First Emo Governor?"

i hope you get a chance to look at that too; rees presents a pretty compelling case.

i also encourage you to watch this talk by david rees, delivered at columbia university in 2005. if you don't have time for all 70 minutes, watch the first few, where he thanks his sponsor, the thomas friedman metaphor illustration service. it made me laugh until i cried the first time i saw it. (granted, it was 2005 and we were all under a lot more stress, but still, the point is, it is funny.)