"Radical" for all the wrong reasons

Stupid "anarchist" kids annoy me. They don't know shit. This happens on many occasions, but I will just enlighten you with one that I encountered only a few minutes ago. My friend Ian was talking about oil and politics for a second and soon afterwards the anarchist type said "Did you know they are trying to pass a law that makes it illegal for SUVs get under 27 miles to the gallon? Instead of just lowering the gas prices they do that instead." Alright, only an idiot would be angry that the government is forcing the auto industry to make more efficient cars. I just ignored it, because he probably has too small of a scope of issues to understand just how conservative, yet anti-conservationist, his remark really was.

Analogy

A successful analogy will shatter any preconcieved mold of indoctrination by replacing familiar situation with the presise situation in an unfamiliar context. From this fresh prospective the mind will once again have room to anaylize the situation without first stumbling through the current political, social and cultural norms.

Movie Review: Coffee & Cigarettes

Noted director Jim Jarmusch's latest film has no plot and no main characters, but plenty of coffee and cigarettes. The movie begins with two people having a discussion over coffee and cigarettes, which is followed by a different scene all together which also involves people enjoying their coffee and cigarettes. This is the premise of the film. It goes on like that for awhile... like, the whole movie. There are some interesting conversations that take place, but I didn't completely dig the film altogether. However, I highly recommend watching the scene at the end staring Rza, Gza and, of course, Bill Murray. Oh, and don't forget to watch the scene with Iggy Pop and Tom Waits.

2 1/2

HMOs in Latin America

UNM studied U.S. involvement in the Latin American health field. Here is an excerpt from an article on it, found here.

Questioning the veracity of what everybody knows can at times be frustrating, but holds some unique rewards. Already the group has found a number of paradoxes, said Waitzkin. While everybody knows, or believes that administrative costs are lower, the evidence of those benefits seems to be inconsistent.

For instance, "some state governments in the U.S. which have voted in managed care systems because of presumed lower administrative cost savings have started to see those administrative costs rise," he said. Also, in many incidences, states have introduced managed care plans simultaneously with funding cuts for social health programs -- and cost savings may be coming more from those cuts than from any administrative cost savings. And while theorists never expected that managed care companies would be able to produce substantial savings in rural areas, states are continuing to expand such care into rural
communities.

Managed care may not be a system where "one size fits all." Unlike in the United States, most Latin American citizens have a constitutional right to medical care. And, particularly for lower income families, access to healthcare in Latin America has traditionally been greater than what similar families could expect in the U.S.

"It is a rather common misconception that healthcare is better in the United States," said Waitzkin, "yet in many instances it isn't. People migrate to the United States for a number of economic issues, but finding better health care is seldom one of them."

As services are cut back, it is conceivable that lower income Latin Americans may find that their out-of-pocket expenses are increasing at the same time services are being cut back. Such experiences could have far reaching effects on the governments in those countries.