My Morning at Healthcare.gov!!

Since our President didn’t get a single question about Obamacare’s disastrous rollout at his press conference yesterday, I figured that all the “glitches” had been fixed at Healthcare.gov. So, this morning I decided to pay the site a visit. Who knows, maybe I would find some sort of health insurance miracle, or stumble upon some heretofore unknown subsidy that would relieve me of my nearly $1000 monthly insurance expense.

Upon entering the site, I am greeted by a lovely brunette with perfect teeth and just the slightest hint of Latino heritage in her dark eyes. The screen proudly proclaims in large font that the HEALTH INSURANCE MARKETPLACE IS OPEN! It then implored me to click on the apply now tab to see if I qualify for lower costs. Intrigued, I quickly hit the tab and was seamlessly transported to the second screen, this one featuring an older Asian woman and her daughter, both smiling widely as if they had just won the Lottery. Here I’m welcomed to the health insurance marketplace that I was assured was open for business on the first screen. I am then asked to choose between individual/family coverage or small business coverage. Who said there wouldn’t be options with Obamacare? I hit the family coverage tab.

At this point, I am ushered to the Let’s Get Started screen, where I find that before I can sample the wonders of government health care, I must first set up my marketplace account. The first set up screen is straight forward, only asking for my name, the state where I live, and my email address. Then comes the obligatory username and password screen. Finally I’m asked to choose three separate security questions, and for the first time I become uncomfortable. I am given 12 questions to choose from, but all 12 seem…odd. Some examples below:

What is your favorite radio station?

What is a relative’s telephone number which is not your own?

What is the name of the manager at your first job?

Who was the first Republican you voted for?

Ok, ok, I made that last one up, but the other three are legit. Seriously, they want me to offer a relative’s phone number??

Undeterred, I pick the three least intrusive security questions from the list and plow forward. I excitedly press the green create account tab whereupon I am informed that an email has been sent to the email address I provided and I should open it and go to the highlighted link. Sure enough, there is the Healthcare.gov email awaiting me in my inbox. I click on the link and am greeted by a yellow screen with the encouraging words, Almost there. This step may take a few minutes. The time was 7:10 am.

At exactly 7:18, large black letters declared the disappointing news that, THE SYSTEM IS DOWN AT THE MOMENT. In smaller letters underneath this shocking news was the comforting assurance that “We’re working to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Please try again later.” Damn glitches.

At this point, I decide to go back to the beginning and chose small business instead of individual/family. Perhaps the business side of the website was more amenable. Here a distinguished elderly African American woman is beaming at me while holding a phone to her ear. I begin to wonder if men are even allowed to be on this site since all of the smiling people I’ve seen are women. The small business screen is a bit more involved, explaining that in order to apply for group coverage; a five step gauntlet must be endured. I clicked through the steps and realized that my small business did not qualify for any subsidy. Imagine that?

So, there you have it. Can’t wait until Obamacare is fully implemented. Can’t wait!

Unsupervised Cartwheels. Finally a Thing of the Past

I read the headline and immediately thought that it couldn’t possibly be accurate, there had to be another side to the story. So I clicked on it and read the entire sorry tale and discovered that yes, children at the Weber Middle School in New York would henceforth be banned from playing with “hard” balls during recess. No more footballs, baseballs, or lacrosse balls would be tolerated. In addition, games of tag would be forbidden, and no cartwheels without the aid of a coach.

Port Washington Schools Supt. Kathleen Maloney explained that there had been a rash of playground injuries of late, and that some of the injuries could become quite serious. “We want to make sure that our children have fun, but are also protected.” A spokesperson from the local emergency room offered that he had been seeing some head injuries, along with bumps and scrapes of late and that there were worries about concussions. The story also included this sentence:

Without helmets and pads, children are much more susceptible to getting hurt, experts said.

Luckily for this “expert’s” self respect, his or her name was withheld.

When I was in middle school, recess was my only salvation. Let’s just say that sitting at a desk in a classroom for hours at a time didn’t mix well with my personality type. Every day I would count the minutes until recess. Whenever it rained or snowed, it was something very close to hell for me. What did me and my friends do during recess? I see no need to go into the gory details here, but suffice it to say that if our activities didn’t result in at least one bump or scrape, we would have thought it a colossal failure.

When I read stories like this, it makes me wonder how it is that the people who wind up running public schools are so pathetically uninspiring. What is it about the education bureaucracy that produces such people? From zero-tolerance policies that result in little Johnnie being kicked out of school for pretending to throw a pretend grenade into a pretend fox hole, to the banning of unsupervised cartwheels, modern public education seems to be run by an army of soulless, rubber stamping, idiots who couldn’t pour water out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel.

It hasn’t always been like this. The Principals at the schools I attended were large and in charge and not to be trifled with, but they were also Solomon-like in their application of justice. I remember the time when I got caught loosening the tops of all the salt shakers at the teachers table in the cafeteria back in elementary school, (I was ratted out by Frank Hargrove). When I was called to the principal’s office, it scared me to death. I was given very strict punishment, but I’ll never forget the smile on his face as I was explaining how I had came up with the idea from a Three Stooges show. He told me that he had seen that one too and it was one of his favorites. How cool was that? Then the hammer came down and I had to help the janitors clean toilets after school. Can you imagine any elementary school child today being made to clean toilets after school?  Between child labor lawyers and union work rules, any Principal imaginative enough to come up with such a punishment would be sued within an inch of his life. Besides:

Children being forced to do degrading and humiliating work at a young age as punishment might suffer self-esteem issues later in life, experts say.

So, thanks to lawyers, helicopter parents, and woosified education bureaucrats, the kids at Weber Middle School will be sitting on the ground in encounter groups during recess, made safe from the runaway skinned knee epidemic by the brave and proactive Ms. Maloney.

Maybe she has a future at the Department of Education.

Throwing a Flag on Breast Cancer

 

The NFL in October can only mean one thing, the color pink. Yes, it’s that time of year again, when that most testosterone infused game becomes infested with pink arm bands, pink towels, and this past weekend even pink penalty flags, in honor of the single most hyped disease since the Bubonic Plague, breast cancer. For an entire month football fans have their awareness raised to dizzying heights, and money is raised in a race for the cure. A few observations.

Breast cancer is the third leading cause of death among women in the United States, behind heart disease and lung cancer. My mother had breast cancer and one of my best friends is suffering with it even now. So, why do I feel oddly annoyed when I see 300 pound men running around on a football field wearing pink cleats? Why does finding a cure for breast cancer seem like such a commercialized crusade? More importantly, how on Earth did the National Football League manage to get co-opted by the Susan G. Komen Foundation?

Then, it hit me. Never take your eye off the money. After all, the NFL isn’t about football anymore; the NFL is a marketing colossus. This whole breast cancer thing is about expanding the brand. Football has locked up practically every demographic of men in America, now it’s time to lock up the women too! Brilliant.

But still, breast cancer? If heart disease and lung cancer kill more women every year than breast cancer, why not hype those? I guess since men are far more interested in breasts than lungs, the question answers itself. But, who plays football? Men. And what kills 30,000 men every year? That’s right, prostate cancer! So, how about a month long propaganda blitz about prostate cancer? The problem would be coming up with a signature color. What color would be appropriate for such a disease? Yellow? Black? Perhaps rust, to symbolize leaky pipes? The possibilities are endless. If breast cancer can become the cause célèbre of professional football, maybe prostate cancer can get a gig with the WNBA or the LPGA?

Wedding Planning. Episode One.

Saturday afternoon Pam and I sat down with my daughter and her fiancée for our first official wedding planning meeting. So far, our wedding planning has consisted of picking out the venue and forking over a couple of deposits. Kaitlin has been overwhelmed with her first month of teaching, so Pam has spent all day and all night doing research on the internet. Saturday it was time to discover what she had learned. Thanks to the government shutdown, Jon has been furloughed, so he was available.  There we all were sitting in our den, captivated by the Apple TV presentation on the big screen, blown away by the otherworldly organization skills of my wife.

There before us, in all of its 52 inch HD brilliance, was an Excel spreadsheet with each line item of our wedding budget. I use that word very carefully since in reality the dollar signs on the screen represent our fervent hopes and dreams and as actual hard and fast numbers, serve as mere suggestions. The term, “in the ball park” frequently comes up in our conversation along with, “more or less” and “roughly”.

After the first hour we have chosen a DJ for the blessed event and in so doing saved several hundred dollars from what was budgeted. This decision was not made without much angst and trepidation, since hiring the wrong DJ could be disastrous. (Picture  200 mostly white, mostly middle class, mostly religious people trying to wrap their heads around the lyrics to Niggas in Paris!). Luckily for us, Pam’s brilliant research was flashed up on the screen complete with pro’s and con’s, copies of text conversations with Patrick with his observations, as well as user reviews of our guy with Dynamite DJ’s. She even threw in audio clips of some suggested aisle walking music. I’m told that when Wagner’s bridal march was played, both Jon and Kaitlin got teary-eyed. I didn’t notice because I couldn’t stop staring at the minimized spreadsheet with our budget up in the corner of the screen. Were we seriously going to have to pay for chair rental for every fanny over 150 at the reception? Are you kidding me? Not only do I have to feed these people, I have to provide chairs for them to sit in? Whatever happened to mingling?

At the two and a half hour mark, we had managed to check several items off of our to-do list, and schedule a tasting party at our venue for next Wednesday. This is where we get to sample the different types of dishes that can possibly be served at the reception, everything from vichyssoise to corn dogs, I’m told. I am assuming that this “tasting” is complimentary, but as of yet, no word on whether chairs will be provided.

There will be many more of these wedding planning meetings to come over the next several months, I’m sure. There will be surprises, little unplanned detours down the road of our master plan, like this morning when we discovered that the amount we had budgeted for a photographer might only cover two rolls of film, one tripod and four pictures of the wedding cake. Apparently, capturing images of this event for posterity will cost me more than I paid for my first automobile.

I will keep all of you posted on the thrilling details to come as we take this matrimonial journey together.

Politically Correct College Football Picks

Many of you have complained that I have abandoned last year’s wildly popular weekly college football picks. Honestly, none of you have complained about it, and frankly, my feelings have been hurt about the whole thing. So, today I am reintroducing my picks with a twist. This time  I’m going to make my picks based on political correctness alone. I will ignore things like won loss records or strength of schedule, or how many good players a team has. No, I will try to answer the question of which team will win based solely on what outcome would be more fair and equitable, given all the injustice in the world today. Here goes…

 

Maryland vs. Florida State

Here we have the Terrapins, the lowly turtle, possibly the slowest creature on Earth, who plods along trying desperately not to be run over and crushed by the single biggest menace to the environment ever built, the modern automobile. They will be going against the Seminoles, a team that has wrapped itself in the traditions and lore of a noble Native American tribe. This blatant racism most notably displays itself with that most irritating tomahawk chop, and a stadium full of white people imitating the Seminole war chant. This contest boils down to the environment vs. racism. Take Maryland and the points.

Georgia Tech vs. Miami

Georgia Tech is a school that trains the finest mechanical, technical and nuclear engineers in the country. Their graduates then go on to work for big corporations that produce products that befoul our environment, endanger our communities and in doing so produce obscene levels of profit. Miami, on the other hand, has perhaps the most racially diverse student population in America. It’s President is none other than Donna Shalala, who served for eight years as the Secretary of Health and Human Services under Bill Clinton,  the one department of our government most determined to stand against obscene levels of profit. Profits vs. people? Take Miami to cover.

Ohio State vs. Northwestern

Northwestern University is perhaps that most loathsome of institutions, the private research university. Its classes are filled with only the very best and brightest students. In all of the Big Ten, it is no doubt the most elitist. On the other side of the line of scrimmage will be the Ohio State buckeyes, a school which accepts an amazing 68% of its applicants, as clear a refutation of elitism as can be imagined in academia. In addition, Northwestern’s  mascot is something called Willie the Wildcat, a gross and tawdry example of the personification and ultimate subjection of the animal kingdom. Ohio State in a blowout.

Washington vs. Stanford

This is a tough one. While Stanford is also a private research university which accepts only 7% of its applicants and therefore represents the elites of our culture, they did make the brave decision several years ago to divest themselves of their racist past by removing the offensive Indian as their mascot and replacing him with “the Tree”. It was a beautiful thing. However, their opponent today is the University of Washington, a fine public school which accepts anyone as a student who can fog a mirror, an egalitarian record it can be proud of, and yet…there’s the tricky business of their personified mascot, the embarrassingly named “Harry the Huskie.” This is a call that can go either way. The tie breaker comes down to team colors. Washington’s purple is a color of peace, while Stanford’s cardinal red is the universally recognized color of war. Take Washington to eek this one out in overtime.

Secession!?

It’s getting harder and harder to visualize America’s future. We are so divided by politics, so annoyed with each other, that the word secession has started to pop up in the national conversation. One day I read where some county in Colorado wants to secede, the next day it’s some town in Maine. Maybe it would be for the best. It has gotten me to thinking about the possibilities…

1.     New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Pennsylvania and Maryland all form a new country and call themselves The Utopian Republic. They elect Michael Bloomberg as their first President. They immediately install a single payer universal health insurance system, and declare college education will henceforth be free. The minimum wage is unilaterally raised to $23.50 an hour, every citizen is issued free condoms, food stamps, and a new house. 20 oz. soft drinks are outlawed, and corporate profits are criminalized. To pay for all of this, the Utopian Republic becomes the first modern nation state to outlaw the military, saving billions.

2.     Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee get together and form a new country, calling themselves The SEC. Paula Deen is elected by acclamation as their first President, and immediately declares butter to be the official national condiment, making the use of margarine punishable by the death penalty. Rudeness is declared to be a felony. Military academies are established in every county in the new Republic, and every SEC boy is required to attend. Each and every meeting of the National Congress begins with a covered dish supper, and ends with mint juleps under the Spanish moss trees in the courtyard. A tongue awfully similar to English is declared to be the official national language. Charleston, South Carolina is declared to be the capital city of the SEC.

3.     Texas makes itself its own country, and warns everyone in the world to not mess with it.

4.     Mexico annexes New Mexico and Arizona. It thinks about throwing California into the deal but decides that it has enough financial problems without getting stuck with that train wreck.

5.     California, thus scorned by Mexico, decides to just go for it. They elect Sean Penn as Generalisimo, and declare themselves to be the People’s Republic of Free Lovia. Negotiations between the nascent nation and Cuba begin in earnest, as Penn sends Alec Baldwin to Havana to work out the details.

6.     Oregon and Washington State combine to form the progressive new country of Caffenia, where each and every citizen is issued an umbrella and a $1000 gift card to Starbucks.

7.     Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota become a colony of Canada, and declare rust as the official Colonial color.

8.     The entire upper and mid west from Montana down to Arkansas form the largest of the fledgling countries and call themselves the Flyover Republic. Of all the new breakaway states, the Flyover Republic is destined for greatness by virtue of the fact that it’s the only place in North America where anyone knows how to farm anything. They immediately become an insanely rich country by exporting grain and beef to its very hungry neighbors.

9.     West Virginia becomes the only former state not to become its own country, waking up one day to discover that it was no longer receiving huge federal subsidies and wondering what the hell happened.

10.  The people in the District of Columbia finally get their wish, finally able to cast a meaningful vote, which they do by declaring themselves a Protectorate of Venezuela.

The E-mail Ad Wars

I am officially bored with the government shutdown, and I feel relatively certain that you are tired of reading about it. So today let’s delve into a subject of almost equal frustration, the number and subject matter of junk e-mails.

Every morning when I turn on my cell phone, there are at least four or five unsolicited email advertisements in my inbox. There’s nothing necessarily objectionable about this, I mean, hey, people have to make a living, and deleting them takes two seconds of my time. But what is starting to puzzle me is the subject matter of these emails and what it might suggest about…me. First of all, what makes these advertisers think that I would be interested in their products? Frankly, sometimes it’s insulting. For example:

# Discount tire coupons. These people carpet bomb me with offers to replace my tires. Why me? My tires are very expensive and at the very first sign of wear get replaced at great expense since I have my cars worked on at Axselle’s Auto. Give it a rest fellas, I’m good!

# Canadian Pharmacies. These guys are even more relentless, offering me everything from testosterone supplements to Viagra knockoffs. Need pain killers? We got your pain killers right here, no prescription needed. Wait, isn’t that illegal? And why Canada? What makes them the discount drug kingpins?

# Senior Living Retirement Communities. Maybe these people know somehow that my Dad is 88 and in failing health. At least that’s what I hope it is. I am certainly NOT ready for their services at the moment!

# Get Published NOW! Ok, somehow the marketing world has gotten wind of the fact that I’ve written a book. I get at least one offer to polish my manuscript per day, not to mention offers of one stop shop self publishing services, with low, LOW prices.

# Thinning hair cures. Seriously people, have you looked at my head lately?

# Male Enhancement Miracles. No comment.

# Check your credit score for FREE. I have excellent credit. Wait, do these guys know something that I don’t?

# Terry Mcauliffe is a Communist, Ken Cucinelli is a scum bag. Now these particular emails vary depending on whose running but they are always the same, depicting the other guy as a monster. I have never once gotten a political email simply proclaiming the virtues of a candidate.

 

So, that about wraps it up. Of course there are the assorted free oil change coupons, offers to sell my home, and the random bra promotion( I’m not kidding). I’m sure there’s a way to shut these things off which maybe one of my tech savvy readers will let me know about. I’m not sure how many more senior living emails my fragile ego can take!