on A FISH CALLED WANDA: http://www.matchflick.com/column/2114

I just had to share these two stories (then it’s back to work).

First, Du clued me in to this story: http://www.fresnobee.com/local/story/1813692.html Is there some reason why Fresno is the drunkest city in the nation and one of the least educated? Well, it might have something to do with a certain community college instructor who teaches the Bible in health class, explaining that the textbook is wrong (because abortion kills more people than cancer) and that homosexuality is wrong, but curable by shots. He’s gotten in trouble for this kind of thing before, but apparently it’s okay, because he doesn’t believe in the separation between church and state (or facts and religious belief).

Second, a story on NPR today really hit home. I was just writing about my insurance issues this week and then a certain company (mine) decided to raise its rates over 30%. Listen in: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/02/10/pm-reich-commentary/

And now tell me why insurance companies are immune from anti-trust laws. Anybody?

(Small question for the Fresno teacher: why are those who are pro-life often pro-gun as well (I don’t know if you’re one of those people)? Guns are used to kill lots and lots of people, but we’re not supposed to outlaw them because “guns don’t kill people, people do.” Even if you see abortion as murder, shouldn’t you hold that “abortions don’t kill people, people do” and not try to outlaw them? Just asking.)

I’ve been watching the British TV series Robin Hood this week. While not the best thing on TV, it’s strangely addictive.

I’ve found myself rooting for one of the villains, though. Sir Guy is after Maid Marian and power (not in that order). But he does genuinely seem to love her and keeps saving her life in kind of hot ways. He even saves her and loves her after she betrays him in a most emasculating way.

But I think the real reason I want Marian to dump Robin for a bad guy is because the bad guy is so cute. How did I not know about Richard Armitage before?

Here he is: 

Here he is as a bad guy (there’s a pun there):

And just in case you missed him, here he is again.

To weigh in on the healthcare debate is in some ways fundamentally silly, especially when reform is being halted by those claiming that “Americans” don’t want reform. (It’s amazing how the vast majority of the Americans I know apparently aren’t American.)

Some people believe that any move toward Obama’s plan is a move to Socialized medicine. Socialized is a word meant to scare people, although we have a socialized military, police force, fire-fighter force, postal service, pre-college education system, etc.

Those who manage to move beyond simply snarling the word “socialized” say that there are two huge consequences to socialization. 1. “Bureaucrats” would get to decide whether I receive care. 2. I might have to wait for treatment.

I’m not all that sure how this would be different from the system now. I belong to what is likely the largest insurance company in California (because of where I work; I would never be able to get insurance on my own due to some pre-existing conditions). To listen to those against reform, this should mean that my doctor and I should get to make medical decisions based on what’s best for my health.

However, there is nothing my doctor can prescribe and no one he can send me to without insurance authorization. This means that bureaucrats are deciding what treatments and drugs I may have access to. This week, they’ve held up two prescriptions (one is a simple refill and one is a larger dose of an existing refill to combat an exacerbation of symptoms).

As far as waiting for treatment goes, I’ve had to wait several months for the neurology appointment I have this week. My insurance company has negotiated a contract meaning I can’t see the allergist I’ve been going to for years. While waiting for an appointment with one I can go to, I’ve been deprived of both my allergy shots and a very necessary asthma medication for over a month now. I have no idea when I’ll be back on them. One specialist can’t give me a follow-up appointment — they’re just too booked up–and there’s no one else to see unless I wanted to drive a few hours (as it is, I have to drive out of town to see the specialists I’ve referenced here). My son has had to wait five weeks to see an ENT after he tore a membrane in his ear even though the referral was marked “urgent.”

I’m extremely lucky to have insurance and I’m extremely lucky to have a caring Primary Care Physician.

But whoever thinks we don’t need reform in this system apparently isn’t using this system as much as some of us do, or else they would be able to see that something has to change.

Many moons ago, I talked about getting to meet Raj Patel, the hot and brilliant, Eddie-Izzard-funny, Colbert-appearing economist (though he hadn’t been on Colbert then). I didn’t quite proclaim him my god, but I proclaimed him. (You can scroll down a bit to see what I said.)

According to this New York Times article, Raj has been declared a god: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/us/05sfmetro.html

I sort of called it first.

In the Loop on IN THE LOOP is here: http://www.matchflick.com/column/2100

When I was a child, my great-grandmother would tell me that she wanted some sugar, which meant that she wanted a hug and a kiss.

Over the past year, I’d tried to abjure literal sugar. Thus, I’ve been putting splenda into my tea. It wasn’t a hard habit to get into. In fact, it made sweetening iced tea easier, as splenda dissolves a lot easier than sugar.

Splenda isn’t always available, though, and so sometimes I had to have sugar. And then I started wondering why tea tasted strange.

Splenda has warped by sense of taste. Sugar doesn’t sweeten tea for me anymore.

Thus, I’m going back to sugar. For the past month, I’ve not had splenda. Tea has tasted awful, but I have faith that my taste buds with reacclimate.

Lift your glasses to nature. Long live sugar!

As loyal readers know, last weekend was Al-Eddie-Al. The boyfriend even made T-shirts to celebrate the occasion. Here’s what happened with the Al parts (Eddie to follow in a later posting).

After an amazing lunch at Angeline’s in Berkeley, we arrived at Cobb’s Comedy Club. Unfortunately, many people arrived before us, so we had to sit near the back. Weird Al Yankovic was in “in conversation” with Chris Hardwick, the host of Web Soup. I will freely admit here that I didn’t know who he was; even though he’s had lots of gigs, I’ve never watched something that featured him. Hardwick began by talking about Al as his idol (I could relate). The third time they met, he asked Al to lunch, and they’ve been friends ever since. (I’d seen Al in concert three times, but I’d never met him before).

The conversation was good, though I suppose many of us in the audience knew the basics–where Al went to school, etc. I’m glad that we were sitting in the middle, as Al kept turning to Hardwick, which put his hair in his face and blocked the view for one side of the audience.

There were also video clips.

One of the things we were able to see was this clip from Al’s “Eat It” years. He was invited to perform on what was described as Japan’s Saturday Night Live. He assured us that his look of total confusion was not acting: <object width=”425″ height=”344″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/mJEvTCqToCk&hl=en_US&fs=1&”></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/mJEvTCqToCk&hl=en_US&fs=1&” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”425″ height=”344″></embed></object>

They also showed this absolutely awful rendition of “My Sharona,” which Al agreed to do for a friend’s school project in college (this was way before MTV, btw). Apparently, this is an easter egg on his video collection, but I’ve never once found an easter egg, perhaps because I don’t randomly hit buttons when I’m watching DVDs: <object width=”425″ height=”344″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/1BnfhNNaFgQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&”></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/1BnfhNNaFgQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”425″ height=”344″></embed></object>

Then came the audience questions. Most of them were banal and some were below banal (can I take a picture of you; would you sign this?). I wanted mine to be special.

Hardwick was choosing the audience members, so when he got close, I kept my hand up and gave him a flirty look (the things I do for Al!). When my time came, I could hear my own heartbeat. I managed to thank Al for allowing Du and I to use the lyrics to “Weasel Stomping Day” in our book. And then I told him that DJ and I saw a street sign in Maui that had been corrected: When we returned to the mainland, DJ found out who fixed that sign.  Yes, it was Al. (See the video of him altering the sign here: http://www.twitvid.com/BF9B7). I asked Al if he always carried sign fixing stickers around with him. He said usually not and that his wife made him take down the sticker after a few days.

This means two things. One, when DJ and I said the sign was proof that there are intelligent people in the world, we should have known it was Al. Second, Al and his wife were there at the same time as DJ and I.

After the questions, Al graciously signed things for people. He signed a shirt for me and the picture of the sign for DJ. I gushed and had a total nerd freak out when I  got to shake his hand.

Look how happy I am:

Dr. Karma & Weird Al

We saw Al again at midnight, after we’d reunited with the boy. Al was introducing a midnight screening of UHF (after which he left, presumably to get some sleep). DJ and I weren’t sure we were going to make it through the film, but it went at an amazing pace, as usual.

All in all, it was one of the best days of my life. Al is not a disappointment as a hero, as so many people can be–he’s kind and smart and is my favorite star in the world.

The real lesson of the day, though?

The third time I meet him, I’m definitely asking him to lunch!

A few thoughts on the news:

The Supreme Court has just reversed precedent that limited how much corporations can spend on political campaigns. On a theoretical level, I’m torn. I believe in free speech, and the corporations are claiming that money IS free speech.

On a practical level, however, I’m not torn at all. I’m not convinced that money is free speech. If it is, then I don’t really have any access to free speech at all.

If money is free speech, we can’t call it “free” anymore.

The way corporations run everything is already frightening. This decision opens the door to America fully becoming a corpocracy. It’s already absurd that insurance companies get to be “consulted” on health care reform bills (um, they profit when you pay but then they get to deny you the coverage you paid for). Imagine what their “free speech” will be able to accomplish now.

In other news, hearings have shown that one of the major problems that caused the Christmas day Detroit flight near-bombing was a spelling error. That is, the person putting the terrorist’s name into the system spelled it wrong.

Congresspeople yesterday were assured that the government was now using a spell-checker program to prevent this from happening again.

Two things: 1. a spell checker program will not help, because names aren’t in the spell-checker’s dictionary. A spell-checker doesn’t know my last name to know if it’s spelled correctly; it’s not going to know likely bombers’ names, either.

2. To all those people who thought I was crazy for saying that proofreading could sometimes be the difference between life and death . . . I was right.

Finally, Conan’s last show will be on Friday. This is such bullshit. Conan is funnier than Jay has ever been. Jay Leno left The Tonight Show because he wanted more money in prime time. He bombed. And now he’s being rewarded by getting his old job back? Fuck him. If I left my job and my job was filled–with a talented person with a contract–I wouldn’t get my job back after I totally failed at the other job.

In fact, am now boycotting Jay Leno. Yes, he joins Domino’s, Six Flags, Coors, Continental Airlines, and Long John Silvers.