From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V16 #745 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Thursday, October 9 2008 Volume 16 : Number 745 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: florida does it again [2fs ] Re: The "Eye" debate... [2fs ] no politics yes Whedon [2fs ] Re: The "Eye" debate... [James Dignan ] Re: perhaps this is being discussed in another thread even as we speak... ["(0% rh)" ] rolling stone mag on john Mccain's character [great white shark ] Re: Master Debaters [Sebastian Hagedorn ] Re: Master Debaters [Eleanore Adams ] Re: death and dying [Carrie Galbraith ] Re: Perspex Island, politics, and the wife ["C. Huff" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 16:57:04 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: florida does it again On 10/9/08, Marc Alberts wrote: > > > If rationality were the province of only one side, the major national > debate over the last 35 days or so wouldn't be about whether Palin is > qualified to be VP but whether Obama, with a resume that is basically just > as long, is actually qualified to be President. That was, of course, the chief plank (such as it was) in McCain's campaign before he rendered it utterly absurd by picking Palin as his VP nominee. On the canard that Palin's just as experienced as Obama: < http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/2/1613/27485/447/581295>. (Executive summary: it is to laugh.) More to the point: experience, as a quality desired in leaders, is vastly overrated. Far more important are intelligence, character, and judgment. You will notice that in nearly every domain of life, the people in charge aren't necessarily those who've been there longest (if they were, it'd be a simple gerontocracy). And while experience can be "borrowed" in the sense that a person of intelligence, character, and judgment but relatively little experience can surround him/herself with experienced people - intelligence, character, and judgment cannot be so made up for...since those who lack intelligence, character, and judgment are precisely those least likely to take the advice of those with experience (and I,C, and J). McCain may be more experienced than Obama, but his judgment often seems rash, his character far more dubious (Keating, the Russian adventure, the oh-so-tasteful way he divorced his first, disabled wife while having an affair with the far wealthier, younger Cindy...), and his intelligence a bit suspect these days (Sunni, Shiite...which way on the economy, Mr. McCain?). The only questions about Obama's character result from severe stretches in attempting to find guilt-by-association, his intelligence has been demonstrated by his achievements throughout his academic and political career, and while judgment is often a (yep) judgment call (based to an extent on ideological predilections), he certainly seems more circumspect than the rather mercurial McCain. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 17:08:00 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: The "Eye" debate... On 10/9/08, James Dignan wrote: > > Jeff wrote: > >> >> >> Reminds me of one of the few times the Fripp wrote to the King Crimson >> email list "Elephant Talk" (which several members of the band were lurkers >> on, in one case hilariously so, which I'll have to tell you about at some >> point if prodded). >> > > > This is all very much paraphrased - I can't find the file I saved the > original in, unfortunately. > > Someone had written to Elephant Talk saying that he was annoyed about the > level of audience noise at a King Crimson Concert - after all, he pointed > out, people are there to hear the music, and half of the atmosphere of > Crimso's music is the quiet sections that lull you in before the full > assault. > > Another list member replied, and their comment was something like this: > > I agree totally about the excess noise at Crimso concerts. I've been to > quite a number of them now, and I find it really distracting when you're > trying to get into what's being played. The last gig I went to was a case in > point. I was just grooving along to the music when this guy behind me > started making a hell of a racket. I tried to ignore it for a while, but it > was just too much, so I turned around and glared at him. He caught my eye > had the good sense to quieten down. I thought that was the last I'd heard of > him but as soon as the next song started up he was at it again, making so > much noise it was difficult to work out what the guitarists were playing. I > turned round and glared at him again, but he just grinned back and kept on > hitting the drums. > > Tony L. Utterly awesome. I have heard it before (or maybe even read it while lurking around the ET archives, which I've done occasionally), but it's totally worth encountering again. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 17:24:36 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: no politics yes Whedon Shouldn't someone call an album "It Takes a Nathan of Fillions to Hold Us Back"? - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:52:11 +1300 From: James Dignan Subject: Re: The "Eye" debate... Jeff wrote: >On 10/8/08, James Dignan ><grutness@slingshot.co.nz> wrote: > >Dear old Musician - I don't know which was more fun, Robert Fripp's columns >or the indignant letters in response to them, the most succinct of which >read simply, "What a pretentious asshole" - which I'm sure Fripp got a >chuckle out of. > > >Reminds me of one of the few times the Fripp wrote to the King >Crimson email list "Elephant Talk" (which several members of the >band were lurkers on, in one case hilariously so, which I'll have to >tell you about at some point if prodded). > > >Prod, prod, prod... well... okay :) This is all very much paraphrased - I can't find the file I saved the original in, unfortunately. Someone had written to Elephant Talk saying that he was annoyed about the level of audience noise at a King Crimson Concert - after all, he pointed out, people are there to hear the music, and half of the atmosphere of Crimso's music is the quiet sections that lull you in before the full assault. Another list member replied, and their comment was something like this: I agree totally about the excess noise at Crimso concerts. I've been to quite a number of them now, and I find it really distracting when you're trying to get into what's being played. The last gig I went to was a case in point. I was just grooving along to the music when this guy behind me started making a hell of a racket. I tried to ignore it for a while, but it was just too much, so I turned around and glared at him. He caught my eye had the good sense to quieten down. I thought that was the last I'd heard of him but as soon as the next song started up he was at it again, making so much noise it was difficult to work out what the guitarists were playing. I turned round and glared at him again, but he just grinned back and kept on hitting the drums. Tony L. James - -- James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- =-.-=-.-=-.- You talk to me as if from a distance .-=-.-=-.-=-. -=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time .-=- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 20:05:23 -0400 From: "(0% rh)" Subject: Re: perhaps this is being discussed in another thread even as we speak... Sebastian says: > -- "(0% rh)" is rumored to have mumbled on 9. > Oktober 2008 16:33:11 -0400 regarding perhaps this is being discussed in > another thread even as we speak...: > >> so i'd not heard "dick van dyke" (N.B. title is a guess, since it's, >> yes, well-concealed in the cd player) before. it's very catchy. >> well, maybe not catchy. perhaps it more just latches on. fiercely. >> but i have to love it: i mean, how often does robyn write a song >> whose sole purpose is to heckle the jazz butcher? > > I have no idea what song you are refering to! I'm not even sure if I've > already listened to every track on "Bod Case Of History" (that's what you > mean, right?). So, which one is it and how does it heckle old Butchy? i'll go out on a limb here: you definitely haven't heard every track. you'll be able to tell the "dick van dyke" song when robyn starts singing the words "dick van dyke" over and over and over (i think there might be some other words in the stanzas, but they prove to be no match for "dick" "van" "dyke"'s in the overpowering chorus.) but the thing is it sounds like a jazz butcher song. in fact, it kind of sounds like ALL jazz butcher songs. and not in a "homage" kind of a way. > A couple of weeks ago I traded in my Coke bottle caps for "A Scandal In > Bohemia" from the iTunes Store. I only had that one on tape and hadn't > listened to it in ages, except for those tracks that are also on "Draining > The Glass". It was a real pleasure to finally have "Mind Like A Playgroup" > and "Soul Happy Hour" once more! are Coke bottle caps what i think they are? was this like a rare boyhood collection, or this week's promotion? as ever, lauren - -- "people with opinions just go around bothering one another." -- the buddha ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2008 21:14:01 -0400 From: FSThomas Subject: Re: Master Debaters I've got a slight insight into the NHS and a good idea what the US health care system is like. A bit of background. My ex-wife is from England. We dated for ~5 years and were married just under 3. Things changed a bit in my life, but my second wife's mother is English as well (it's all completely random, I promise). Quickly to the point: my ex would often come down with what was referred to as tonsillitis. Chronic sore throat. She would go to her NHS doctor and get a referral to an Ear Nose and Throat doc. Usually about 2 to 3 months out. By the time she saw the referring doctor she was asymptomatic and dismissed. Had she seen a specialist when she was presenting with symptoms she would have been adequately diagnosed and treated. Such wasn't the case. Now granted tonsillitis (or whatever she may have been suffering) isn't life-threatening. At least not on the surface. It's not a big deal. Take, however, my brother-in-law. He recently presented with symptoms indicating one of three things: A brain tumor, an anurysm, or Multiple Sclerosis. The diagnosing doctor recommended an MRI. A 42 year-old male got one within 3 days. That's in the US system. What, I wonder, would have been the wait-time for a similar patient under the English/European system. Pipe up with examples, please. - -f. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 23:56:34 +1030 From: great white shark Subject: rolling stone mag on john Mccain's character http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/ make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain/page/1 a bit tabloid, but it still is disturbing der commander Unfortunately, any lessons McCain learned from the Keating scandal didn't affect his unbridled enthusiasm for deregulating the finance industry. "He continues to follow policies that create the same kind of environment we see today, with recurrent financial crises and epidemics of fraud led by CEOs," says Black, the former S&L regulator. Indeed, if the current financial crisis has a villain, it is Phil Gramm, who remains close to McCain. As chair of the Senate Banking Committee in the late 1990s, Gramm ushered in  with McCain's fervent support  a massive wave of deregulation for insurance companies and brokerage houses and banks, the aftershocks of which are just now being felt in Wall Street's catastrophic collapse. McCain, who has admitted that "the issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should," relies on Gramm to guide him. McCain also did his part to loosen regulations on big corporations. In 1997, McCain became chairman of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees the insurance and telecommunications industries, as well as the CEO pay packages of those McCain now denounces as "fat cats." The special interests with business before the committee were big and well-heeled. All told, executives and fundraisers associated with these firms donated $2.6 million to McCain when he served as the chairman or ranking member. The money bought influence. In 1998, employees of BellSouth contributed more than $16,000 to McCain. The senator returned the favor, asking the Federal Communications Commission to give "serious consideration" to the company's request to become a long-distance carrier. Days after legislation benefiting the satellite-TV carrier EchoStar cleared McCain's committee, the company's founder celebrated by hosting a major fundraiser for McCain's presidential bid. Whatever McCain's romantic entanglements with the lobbyist Vicki Iseman, he was clearly in bed with her clients, who donated nearly $85,000 to his campaigns. One of her clients, Bud Paxson, set up a meeting with McCain in 1999, frustrated by the FCC's delay of his proposed takeover of a television station in Pittsburgh. Paxson had treated McCain well, offering the then-presidential candidate use of his corporate jet to fly to campaign events and ponying up $20,000 in campaign donations. "You're the head of the commerce committee," Paxson told McCain, according to The Washington Post. "The FCC is not doing its job. I would love for you to write a letter." Iseman helped draft the text, and McCain sent the letter. Several weeks later  the day after McCain used Paxson's jet to fly to Florida for a fundraiser  McCain wrote another letter. FCC chair William Kennard sent a sharp rebuke to McCain, calling the senator's meddling "highly unusual." Nonetheless, within a week of McCain's second letter, the FCC ruled three-to-two in favor of Paxson's deal. Following his failed presidential bid in 2000, McCain needed a vehicle to keep his brand alive. He founded the Reform Institute, which he set up as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit  a tax status that barred it from explicit political activity. McCain proceeded to staff the institute with his campaign manager, Rick Davis, as well as the fundraising chief, legal counsel and communications chief from his 2000 campaign. There is no small irony that the Reform Institute  founded to bolster McCain's crusade to rid politics of unregulated soft money  itself took in huge sums of unregulated soft money from companies with interests before McCain's committee. EchoStar got in on the ground floor with a donation of $100,000. A charity funded by the CEO of Univision gave another $100,000. Cablevision gave $200,000 to the Reform Institute in 2003 and 2004  just as its officials were testifying before the commerce committee. McCain urged approval of the cable company's proposed pricing plan. As Bradley Smith, the former chair of the Federal Election Commission, wrote at the time: "Appearance of corruption, anyone?" "HE IS HOTHEADED" Over the years, John McCain has demonstrated a streak of anger so nasty that even his former flacks make no effort to spin it away. "If I tried to convince you he does not have a temper, you should hang up on me and ridicule me in print," says Dan Schnur, who served as McCain's press man during the 2000 campaign. Even McCain admits to an "immature and unprofessional reaction to slights" that is "little changed from the reactions to such provocations I had as a schoolboy." McCain is sensitive about his physical appearance, especially his height. The candidate is only five-feet-nine, making him the shortest party nominee since Michael Dukakis. On the night he was elected senator in 1986, McCain exploded after discovering that the stage setup for his victory speech was too low; television viewers saw his head bobbing at the bottom of the screen, his chin frequently cropped from view. Enraged, McCain tracked down the young Republican who had set up the podium, prodding the volunteer in the chest while screaming that he was an "incompetent little shit." Jon Hinz, the director of the Arizona GOP, separated the senator from the young man, promising to get him a milk crate to stand on for his next public appearance. During his 1992 campaign, at the end of a long day, McCain's wife, Cindy, mussed his receding hair and needled him playfully that he was "getting a little thin up there." McCain reportedly blew his top, cutting his wife down with the kind of language that had gotten him hauled into court as a high schooler: "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt." Even though the incident was witnessed by three reporters, the McCain campaign denies it took place. In the Senate  where, according to former GOP Sen. Bob Smith, McCain has "very few friends"  his volcanic temper has repeatedly led to explosive altercations with colleagues and constituents alike. In 1992, McCain got into a heated exchange with Sen. Chuck Grassley over the fate of missing American servicemen in Vietnam. "Are you calling me stupid?" Grassley demanded. "No, I'm calling you a fucking jerk!" yelled McCain. Sen. Bob Kerrey later told reporters that he feared McCain was "going to head-butt Grassley and drive the cartilage in his nose into his brain." The two were separated before they came to blows. Several years later, during another debate over servicemen missing in action, an elderly mother of an MIA soldier rolled up to McCain in her wheelchair to speak to him about her son's case. According to witnesses, McCain grew enraged, raising his hand as if to strike her before pushing her wheelchair away. McCain has called Paul Weyrich, who helped steer the Republican Party to the right, a "pompous self-serving son of a bitch" who "possesses the attributes of a Dickensian villain." In 1999, he told Sen. Pete Domenici, the Republican chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, that "only an asshole would put together a budget like this." Last year, after barging into a bipartisan meeting on immigration legislation and attempting to seize the reins, McCain was called out by fellow GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas. "Wait a second here," Cornyn said. "I've been sitting in here for all of these negotiations and you just parachute in here on the last day. You're out of line." McCain exploded: "Fuck you! I know more about this than anyone in the room." The incident foreshadowed McCain's 11th-hour theatrics in September, when he abruptly "suspended" his campaign and inserted himself into the Wall Street bailout debate at the last minute, just as congressional leaders were attempting to finalize a bipartisan agreement. At least three of McCain's GOP colleagues have gone on record to say that they consider him temperamentally unsuited to be commander in chief. Smith, the former senator from New Hampshire, has said that McCain's "temper would place this country at risk in international affairs, and the world perhaps in danger. In my mind, it should disqualify him." Sen. Domenici of New Mexico has said he doesn't "want this guy anywhere near a trigger." And Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi weighed in that "the thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded." McCain's frequently inappropriate humor has also led many to question his self-control. In 1998, the senator told a joke about President Clinton's teenage daughter at a GOP fundraiser. "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?" McCain asked. "Because her father is Janet Reno!" ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 17:34:43 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Re: no politics yes Whedon On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 3:24 PM, 2fs wrote: > Shouldn't someone call an album "It Takes a Nathan of Fillions to Hold Us > Back"? > Possibly. I'll use this as a flimsy pretext to deploy a joke I cooked up an embarrassingly long time ago about how I'd really like to hear a mashup album called "Fear of a Black Planet Is A Man's Best Friend". Phew... now I can delete that draft from my outbox and resume my campaign. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 04:03:09 +0200 From: Sebastian Hagedorn Subject: Re: Master Debaters - -- FSThomas is rumored to have mumbled on 9. Oktober 2008 21:14:01 -0400 regarding Re: Master Debaters: > Quickly to the point: my ex would often come down with what was referred > to as tonsillitis. Chronic sore throat. She would go to her NHS doctor > and get a referral to an Ear Nose and Throat doc. Usually about 2 to 3 > months out. By the time she saw the referring doctor she was > asymptomatic and dismissed. Had she seen a specialist when she was > presenting with symptoms she would have been adequately diagnosed and > treated. Such wasn't the case. I don't know about the UK, but at least in Germany you *can* go to a specialist right away. It's prefered that you see a GP first that refers you to the specialist, but (except for a few cases) that's not required. You are, however, charged 10 Euros per quarter per doctor if you don't get a referal. As far as waiting for an appointment is concerned, that varies wildly. But with HNO docs (that's ear, nose and throat) in my experience you just go there without one. You may have to wait for a few hours in the waiting room (never more than two, in my experience), but sometimes you may luck out and get to see a doctor right away. Note also that Germany's health system is dual, i.e. there are both private and public HMOs. Even the public HMOs have some kind of competition, although that's about to change in 2009 when all public HMOs are required to charge the same percentage of your wages. You can only become a member of a private HMO if you earn at least a certain amount of money. The amount is relatively high, e.g. I've went back and forth between being eligible and not during the last seven years. If you decide to go private, you can't return. Private patients get appointments more quickly, they may be treated better (see below), they pay lower rates when they're younger, but the older you get the harder it becomes to keep up. Public HMOs charge a fixed rate (as a percentage of your income) regardless of how old you are. I used to be a private patient, because my father was a professor and thus a "Beamter" and that's a rather strange status that used to have loads of perks. Beamte don't have to be in an HMO at all. They are reimbursed for their medical costs by the state. That applies to spouses and children as well. However, they may have covered 100% in the past (not sure), but these days it's a (decreasing) percentage. I think in my case it was 50%. So what basically everyone in the position does is to get additional coverage by a private HMO. So I know both systems from personal experience. I was in the hospital several times as a private patient and not yet as a "public" one, but I know that aspect from others. In my experience it's not worth it. The main downside to being a public patient in a hospital is that you are put in more crowded hospital rooms. One supposed "advantage" of being a private patient is that you are treated by the chief doctor, but in my experience that's either a sham, not worth it, or both. When I had a torn ligament once and a broken arm another time, the chief would visit me every day, shake my hand and leave. That was it. The chiefs were always of an age where I'd start to worry about a deterioration of their manual skills. The actual doctors were usually much younger, more friendly and just as skilled. Those are the same ones that would treat you as a public patient. I admit that's anecdotal and there are probably situations where things are different (e.g. you need experimental drugs that a public HMO may not cover), but in general the system works quite well. - -- Sebastian Hagedorn Am alten Stellwerk 22, 50733 Kvln, Germany http://www.uni-koeln.de/~a0620/ "Being just contaminates the void" - Robyn Hitchcock ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 17:27:51 -0700 From: Eleanore Adams Subject: Re: Master Debaters I can second that - I had hip surgery, and had to pay about 20K, and the rest was covered by insurance. I cashed out stocks to cover my healthcare. This year I broke my arm, and I am still on a payment plan for that 20% that my insurance did not cover. I am very ready for a NHS. I say reduce military spending and create a NHS. ea On Oct 9, 2008, at 7:38 AM, kevin studyvin wrote: >> Yes, people here want to see the NHS fixed in a variety of >> important ways, >> but no one would want to be in the situation folks are in the >> states, where >> maybe they have cover through their employers, maybe they don't, >> and even >> with employer-based insurance, they are covering a percentage of >> the cost >> themselves. Even with a 20/80 split, which I gather is common >> these days >> over there, a semi-serious medical condition can quickly land a >> family in >> tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt. > > > > I can attest to that - I got hit by a car not too long ago, was in > surgery > for nine hours, in the hospital for a week, am still seeing a physical > therapist, and our 20% of those costs would have utterly crushed us > if not > for our having access to a wicked good lawyer. Would I like to see a > single-payer universal health care plan? Ummm...yes. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 15:00:59 -0700 From: Carrie Galbraith Subject: Re: death and dying On Oct 9, 2008, at 12:48 PM, (0% rh) wrote: > Ben says: >> I've told you this before offline, Lauren, but I am so glad your >> mother had >> the chance to receive hospice. Neither of my parents had the >> chance (their >> declines were too rapid). I still think far too few people know >> it's an >> option, though. > > that's my impression as well. i have only just heard of it within the > last 2-3 months (i would say that perhaps i was just paying more > attention because of my mother's illness, but since she was diagnosed > three years ago, i sort of discount that because there was like 2.5 > years of not hearing about it.) i imagine if all this had happened > even 10 years earlier, my family might not have known about it (this > is just a WAG (of course, i could find some actual data. i chose not > to.) > > but when i really heard about was at funeral of a family friend's > father, just this past june or july, where i first heard someone talk > about what hospice does and how helpful hospice it had been. > While my mother's decline was also too rapid for hospice, my father spent 4 years enduring a cancer that slowly killed him. His last year he was called "terminal" and put in a hospice program. They were life- savers, not just for him, but for my mom, since my father was at home. They were angels, really. And we asked people to donate to hospice in my father's name after he died. This occurred from 1978 - 1982, when he passed away. So hospice has been around a while. - - c ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 18:49:02 -0700 (PDT) From: "C. Huff" Subject: Re: Perspex Island, politics, and the wife <> Interesting...once again, I thought the Respect tour was much better than the album itself...it was neat the way they played all acoustic - Robyn had this odd Jack Nicholson obsession going through the whole show, and sang My Wife and My Dead Wife cabaret-style with no guitar (smarmy and a little disconcerting!) with Andy on piano...RH's hair was also completely out of control - like the huge 70's mullet from the early Soft Boys period...the album has some beautiful tracks (Arms of Love, Moon Inside), some of his best rockers (Yip Song, Driving Aloud...though I confess it was an acoustic version of Driving Aloud 10 yrs later that finally woke me up to that song...) - but it always seemed a little depressing in the sense that you could tell the Egyptians' time was ending...probably if I go back and take this one out of context I will like it more. Note to self: listen to Respect again (1st time since 06)... I forgot "Hen" so I'll reprint my list...;-) Globe of Frogs Fegmania! Gotta Let This Hen Out (though the keyboards get older as time goes on...) Element of Light Perspex Island Queen Elvis Respect I agree wholeheartedly about Globe Of Frogs - for me it seems like the most "complete" of all the records, it hangs together like a fully realized eggplant. I used to hate Luminous Rose as a teen, but it has ripened... still when you line these records up, it really does show the incomparable songwriting...to say nothing of the solo stuff and little off-the-cuffs like You've Got - which I requested once and RH said "Yes, well, we all have these little motifs that we repeat, but they don't make very good songs do they..." !?! whatever "dude"... ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V16 #745 ********************************