Less For More
       It  used to be that if you paid less you got junk and if you paid more you got quality. No more. Now the trend is toward astronomically priced dreck. Herewith a couple of examples:
    The word is out that our recent election cost six billion bucks, enough money to fund 20 minutes of war in Waziristan. Much of that moolah was used to inflict a million tv spots on us in the most awful and annoying waste of air time since the devil created public broadcasting fund drives.
    Ever since our betters poured that six bil down the bowl, the talking heads have been belatedly discovering that very few, if any, serious issues were brought up in the platinum-plated campaign. Of course, the same talking heads were chief among those who at the time made the important trivial and the trivial important.
    So the example that the self-proclaimed leader of the free world is setting is that for a ridiculous amount of money you can pit two corporate clones against each other to bloviate about nothing much and call it democracy. I’m sure lots of people in all those un-greatest countries will jump at the chance to model themselves on us.
    On the same note, but with far larger numbers, is our multi-trillion dollar disgrace without honor now being celebrated from Mesopotamia to the Hindu Kush. You would think that with unlimited bucks and gung-ho spirit to spare, the world’s most extravagant military might just justify itself by winning a war now and then--especially since it has seemingly restricted itself to battling medieval tribes people.  But, like elections where you actually tackle public issues, that doesn’t seem to be in the cards.
    If the above cited horrors are making you sick, you might add to your miseries by considering, yet again, our health care system.  I was reminded of it after getting a statement from Medicare containing a charge of $15,426 for my most recent cardiac catheterization. Of course, I won’t pay anything out of pocket and Medicare will cough up only a fraction of it.  That’s the amount that any of the nearly 50 million Americans without health care would have to pay.
    As I noted in this space on several occasions, the same catheterization in France some years back was billed at $1,300.  If we took our politics seriously and stopped spending like Plutus to make war on Pushtoons, maybe we could have affordable health care for everyone. Nah.