Welcome to Street Vein

Does the universal health care system work well in your country?  I've mostly seen Canadian and British folks on Vox, but I'd love to hear from anyone with experiences living abroad in any country with universal health care systems.

Does it work?  Does it suck?  Would you rather live with America's health insurance system?

Socialized Monsters

Tell me about your generation?  What are they like?  What defines your breed & creed?

My generation is X, but absent are the radical ties to Malcolm.  The X in my generation stands for a generic signature cashing blank checks at the mall.  We are a bland group of whiny citizens with little to offer the future.  Our cell phones make flapjacks, take pictures and scratch our balls... this will be our legacy.  A silent and preoccupied generation that stood quietly and looked away as we began a new century with a grotesque American agenda.

We have no Bob Dylans.  There are no Muhammad Alis.  While Washington should be burning to the ground, we fatten our asses and watch America's Next Top Model.  We can blame it on the 60's.  They battled racism, unjust wars and chauvinism on a scale we'll never see again, leaving us pampered and indifferent to modern injustices. 

Corporate plundering, oil manipulation, war profiting and bailout schemes do not outrage us.  Annoy, yes, but not outrage.  That is reserved for canceled TV shows and unreturned text messages.  We will not take it to the streets.  We will not march against evil and rise up against the machine.  But we will bitch & blog and go to sleep.  ;-)

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Charlie Hustle

My father was a baseball player, a pitcher.  I was a third baseman and my son is an outfielder.  Some of my best memories are of me playing catch with my friends, snaring a line drive to save a game, or watching my son get his first hit in little league.

Baseball is the finest game on earth -- well, it used to be.  I remember when it was still our national game.  My hero was Pete Rose.  He was the toughest player on the field and hardest working man in baseball during the 1970's.  He had ten 200-hit seasons, and collected 4,256 base hits in a career that featured headfirst sliding and bone crushing collisions at the plate.  No one did more to win games than Pete.   He was nicknamed Charlie Hustle for his work ethic, giving everything he had on each play.  The fans loved him... still do.  Even after he proved to be a gambling fool and lying slob, expelled from the game, incapable of admitting fault, the public still forgave him for reasons I've mentioned.

His stature is now as low as the game he once dominated.  A game where players today switch teams and loyalties at the drop of a dollar.  Ah, but that's kids stuff.  My adult heroes are George Carlin, Hunter Thompson and Clint Eastwood.  Hang in there, Clint.  You're the last one left.

Rape, Inc.

I no longer entertain ideas about escaping oil.  As long as there is oil under the Earth's surface, ExxonMobil and their merry band of conglomerates will not rest until they have squeezed the last drop from the planet.  And no one can stop them.

Oil interests are the richest and most powerful in the world.  ExxonMobil alone had revenue exceeding $400 billion last year -- larger than any company around the globe.  Repeat that $ again in your head for dramatic effect: $400 BILLION.  Even if ExxonMobil had the technology & knowhow to replace oil with another means of energy, they wouldn't.  Why would they give up billions of dollars to spare Mother Earth?  Laughable.  They will use every means of power they have, which are considerable, to protect their lucrative, ruthless business.  This is what corporations do, and oil companies are the biggest and baddest on the planet.

News Flash:  There will be no widespread electric cars, no hovercrafts, no ethanol cars.  As long as oil remains available, Exxon will continue to buy your politicians and shape the world economy.  PERIOD.  Pragmatic corporate interests do not believe in hope, world peace or clean planets.

The scary part is we have no idea how much oil is left... this could go on for another century or more.  Regardless, whatever the next source of energy is, it will also be run by ExxonMobil or another like it, so don't get excited about a "green" future.  Sorry, someone had to tell you.

On May 1, 1947, Evelyn McHale leapt to her death from the observation deck of the Empire State Building.  Photographer Robert Wiles took a photo of McHale a few minutes after her death. 

The elegant but morbid photo ran a couple of weeks later in Life magazine accompanied by the following caption:

"Just after leaving her fiancé, 23-year-old Evelyn McHale wrote a note. 'He is much better off without me ... I wouldn't make a good wife for anybody,' ... Then she crossed it out. She went to the observation platform of the Empire State Building. Through the mist she gazed at the street, 86 floors below. Then she jumped. In her desperate determination she leaped clear of the setbacks and hit a United Nations limousine parked at the curb. Across the street photography student Robert Wiles heard an explosive crash. Just four minutes after Evelyn McHale's death Wiles got this picture of death's violence and its composure."

From McHale's NY Times obituary:

At 10:40 A. M., Patrolman John Morrissey of Traffic C, directing traffic at Thirty-fourth Street and Fifth Avenue, noticed a swirling white scarf floating down from the upper floors of the Empire State. A moment later he heard a crash that sounded like an explosion. He saw a crowd converge in Thirty-third Street.

Two hundred feet west of Fifth Avenue, Miss McHale's body landed atop the car. The impact stove in the metal roof and shattered the car's windows. The driver was in a near-by drug store, thereby escaping death or serious injury.

On the observation deck, Detective Frank Murray of the West Thirtieth Street station, found Miss McHale's gray cloth coat, her pocketbook with several dollars and the note, and a make-up kit filled with family pictures.

The serenity of McHale's body amidst the crumpled wreckage it caused is astounding. Years later, Andy Warhol appropriated Wiles' photography for a print called Suicide (Fallen Body).

death becomes her

"We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world, a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you. Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us; they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them."

HST

Hunter S. Thompson

WARNING: Children should not read beyond this point.

Suicidal Egg

Humpty Dumpty did not fall; nor was he pushed.  He committed suicide.

The life of an egg is not an easy one.  Humpty was obese and no stranger to ridicule.  The kingdom's children were often merciless in taunting him.  "Artery Clogger" and "Fat Fuck" were common jeers, and kids frequently murdered his friends in frying pans, purely for the "this is your brain on drugs" comedy bit, a sobering reminder of how disposable his kind truly were.

Humpty often climbed atop the kingdom's wall to sit and reflect on his miserable existence.  Earlier in the year, his wife had run off with a handsome onion, though they later met their demise, dying a romantic death as ingredients in a cheese omelette.  Humpty always wished it had been him instead.  Looking down at the welcome cobblestones below, Humpty finished his last cigarette and voluntarily plunged to his death.

There was little hope for a rescue as much of the medical assistance came from all the king's horses... yes, horses, I say.  Health care was certainly lacking in the previous centuries and Humpty had seen many of his fellow eggs crushed to death under clumsy hooves while horses "helped" during medical emergencies. 

Is it no wonder Humpty ended it all?  There was no sunny side up.  Scrambled was the only option.

Beautiful scenery...

Strawberry Fields Forever

Where have all the great conversationalists gone?  I could listen to him all day...