Without the state

links for 2009-08-27

• Photography in the Age of Falsification - 98.05
  (tags: digital ethics photography photomanipulation)
• Too Much of a Good Thing - The Atlantic (June 2003)
  (tags: photography Art collecting vintage repro reproduction forgery)

Health Insurance Reform Reality Check

Health Insurance Reform Reality Check.  - from the White House

For example:

Linda Douglass of the White House Office of Health Reform answers a question from outside the recent town hall in New Hampshire on why Congress voted to exempt themselves from reform. This is a myth: there is no exemption and there has not been any such vote.

Boycott Scotland!

Boycott Scotland!

Every self-respecting American should immediately ensure that they do not purchase, own or use any of the following as it could be construed as supporting Scotland and their terrorist friendly regime.

Road Travel The pneumatic tyre, tarmac and the two stroke engine are all Scottish inventions and as such should be avoided. Unfortunately it is best if you don't cycle either as that was also invented by a Scotsman. For the time being please walk instead.

Television Set down the remote control, unhook the cable and turn off the television set as its inventor was born in Helensburgh. I know it might be difficult, but think about all the time you will have free to do other things, just make sure you walk to them.

Communication I urge you to please get the word out about this site and the Boycott, but do not telephone your loved ones or write to them (best to avoid postcards, fax & radio as well).

Bridges Please do not use any of America's suspension bridges as their construction is due to another Scottish invention. If you do have a suspension bridge in your area please consider contacting your local government official and demand its removal.

Thanks Brenda

Reasons to be thankful you live in Britain

#234 We don't have Rush Limbaugh

#235 We don't have Rush Limbaugh

Health Care reform US style

Even if you live in the UK, you are hardly likely to have missed the furore brewing up in the US over reform of their health care 'system'. Given that the US spends about twice the proportion of GDP on health care than we do and still leaves 45m people uninsured - and a disproportionate number of them are black or Hispanic - I'm not sure what they have to be so proud of, so something else is clearly going on.

An unexpected side effect of the debate for me is the way in which the UK system has been singled out by many campaigners as An Awful Warning. Some of this is simple stupidity - the guy shouting, “Keep your government hands off my Medicare” and the posters with similar messages are good for a laugh, but they demonstrate a perilous level ignorance of how the present US system works.

More seriously Campaign ads in the US have used numerous interviews with British people to belittle the NHS but at least one of those interviewed is now on record saying she was lied to about the purpose of the interview and that her views have been distorted. In other TV coverage I have seen the most outrageous lies about the way the British system works put forward by both US politicians and demonstrators. One person claimed it took 6 months to get a dentist appointment - which is of course malevolent garbage. What is it about the American obsession with British teeth anyway? Is it a folk memory from WW2 (when we didn't have the NHS by the way)? We have also seen some Conservative Party nonentity appearing on American TV deliberately it seems misrepresenting the position we face here - he has now been repudiated by his own party leader, who of course has his own reasons to be thankful for the British NHS.

Another interviewee claimed that the UK has the worst death rate and the lowest recovery rate in Europe. Perhaps - but the variation across 'Old Europe' ie excluding the former Soviet Bloc countries is minimal. In practice life expectancy in  the UK and most of Europe are marginally better than in the US, while neo-natal death rates are significantly better than the US. (Source OECD and WHO via BBC)

A host of stories have surfaced in the US, of which perhaps the most bizarre is the claim that "People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the UK, where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless" to which Prof Hawking responded "I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS, I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."

Some of the other stories are listed here in that bastion of socialist thinking the Daily Telegraph. For example:

Allegation: NHS patients over 59 years of age cannot receive heart repairs, stents or bypasses.

Response: A national audit on cardiac surgery showed that one in five of all patients was aged over 75.

If you want to see what life can be without accessible health care look at this photo. This is the  christening photograph of my grandmother, taken in 1887. The man standing at the back is her father, my great-grandfather. His wife isn't there because she was either dead or dying as a result of childbirth. She died about three months after the birth from anaemia - effectively she bled to death.

I was born before our NHS started. I was born with a crippling condition known as talipes - otherwise known as club foot. I had to wait until the NHS came into being before it could be treated, and that delay was critical in causing many of the health problems I face some 60 years later. Without the NHS, I probably would be dead by now, because of the stresses of the crippled life I would have faced.

Without the NHS I wouldn't have a wife - she has MS and would probably again have died by now without the health and social care we can take for granted here.

Without the NHS I wouldn't have a daughter - my wife had several miscarriages and without NHS treatment she would never have carried a pregnancy to term.

Not for the first time America is meddling in the affairs of other countries. The Republican Party and the health insurance lobby are lying about OUR health service to defend their own financial positions. They certainly are not interested in the health of the average American. Despite the stupidity - or perhaps gullibility - of many of those protesting in the US against reform, they would do well to think about the stories I have told. Stories that are being repeated now across Africa. Stories that in only slightly less harrowing forms are still being told in America.

Surely, no country that calls itself civilised can allow its citizens to live in the sort of fear and despair that lack of health insurance can cause, IS causing in the US, now, today and day after day. Some reform is essential. Hiding behind fairy stories about death panels (the egregious Sarah Palin), lying to your citizens about what happens elsewhere, deliberately promoting ignorance to defend your privileged position is not civilised. Something must change.

Lying about other countries has other effects too of course. We have no shortage of venality in this country. There will be politicians who want to protect their own status, who will seek to curry favour with the Mail readers who blame it all on immigration, who will try to dismantle our own system using the same lies as are being told in the US.

America - you are being told lies.

(Posted as part of Ronni Bennett's blog campaign - see more here)

Health care reform in the US

From Ronni Bennett's blog "As Time Goes By". Go here to read the full post.

Even though it is always easier to rage against an idea – particularly when your argument is fact-free – than to intelligently debate the pros and cons; even though I suspect the kind of people who shout down speakers at town halls and are becoming increasingly violent cannot be reasoned with, that is what I am asking every elderblogger who reads Time Goes By to do – to explain reasonably why you support health care reform.

Here is what I propose:

• That next week, on Thursday 20 August, elderbloggers rise up on their blogs in support of health care reform including a public option
• That we denounce the say-no-to-everything Republicans and their handmaidens, the Blue Dog Democrats
• That we call out the health industry and their lobbyists who are bribing Congress with campaign donations to maintain the health care status quo and preserve their staggering profits
• That we fact check the lies, half-truths and exaggerations of the scare-mongering media nitwits who dare to compare the health care bill to Nazi Germany and who shout fascism, socialism and Communism without a gram of understanding of those terms
• That we reinforce the the fact of the backbreaking cost of health care that will skyrocket so high in the next decade, without health care reform there can be no economic recovery.

And so on.

Post your stories in support of health care reform on Thursday 20 August. Then email me the link and I will keep a running list of those links on my post throughout the day. If there are enough, we can make an impact elsewhere on the web and maybe in other media. If there are enough to be impressive, I will do my best to see that word gets around.

links for 2009-08-13

• Etsy :: fine art promotion/support?
  (tags: Art selling promotion selfhelp)

links for 2009-08-12

• The Creation “Museum” : Pharyngula
  (tags: creationism nonsense drivel science blog evolution religion)
• Original Fine Art For Sale by Nick Bantock - Gallery
  (tags: Art surreal mailart collage mixed media)

Praying couple lets their daughter die.

Wis. father on trial in girl's faith-healing death.

A comment on this story in the Chicago Tribune, that nails the mentality of people like this despicable couple:-

The weather reports were predicting serious storms and flooding. The man lived in a low-lying valley. His friend arrived by car and told him, "You have to get out of here, this place is going to flood." The man replied, "God will save me." The friend tried to reason with him, but eventually gave up and drove away. A while later water is lapping at the guy's porch. A rescue boat comes by and the rescue worker tells the man, "Hop in, I'll take you to safety." The man replies, "God will save me." The boat man tries to persuade him, but he has other people in the boat to worry about, so he leaves. Eventually the man is standing on top of his house, clinging to his chimney. The flood is raging all around him. A helicopter flies overhead and drops down a ladder. "Grab hold," the pilot yells, "I can still get you out of here." "God will save me," the man replies one last time. But just then his house gives way and he's swept away in the flood and dies. Of course, being a faithful man, he gets to go to Heaven and see God. God asks if he has any questions. Well, actually, yes," the man replies. "Why didn't you save me?" "I sent you a car, a boat and a helicopter. What more did you want?"

Abuse doesn't just mean physical violence.