Wasn’t There a War Going On?

It’s still pissing me off that the most newsworthy items of the week have been Anna Nicole Smith and Britney Spears.

Alright, Anna Nicole Smith is DEAD. She’s been dead for well over a week now. I think it’s time her fifteen minutes of fame ended and you move on to the fact that our soldiers and DYING IN A WAR!

Britney Spears shaved her head. That’s all that needs be said on it. She did something crazy and stupid AGAIN. Why does everyone care so much? The baseball team at my school shaved their heads once because they made playoffs. Cancer patients lose their hair because the chemo. Some people are just bald because they’re old. Hair loss it common. It happens.

Last I checked, we have thousands of troops marching around in a foreign country to protect our freedoms. I thought that was newsworthy, but apparently it’s not. We have thousands of people dying of genocide in Darfur. That’s not top news either. Hell, there are hundreds of thousands of people living and dying on the streets but we have to focus all of our attention on Anna Nicole Smith and Britney Spears.

Way to go America. You’re the greatest.

Every Now and Then

It’s rare that I stumble across a story in the news that plugs in the life support keeping my faith in humanity alive.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/02/14/shubert.hospital/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

According to this, the staff of this hospital hasn’t been paid fully in nearly a year, but they still keep their hospital running as best they could. In fact, the doctors that were getting paid higher than the other gave up some of their wages so the poorer staff members could get the money they needed to support themselves and their families.

I can’t imagine that hospital charges people a hell of a lot. If they do, they don’t expect to get any money back. After all, more than half of Palestinians live in poverty.

 I suppose it takes a special breed of people to keep going under those conditions. I doubt you’ll find any hospital in the United States doing that. We just wish our doctors were that awesome. I mean, we have such advanced medical technology, but we pay out the ass for it.

That’s why I’m waiting for some sort of vaccine against my appendix exploding and my tonsils dying. I can’t get insurance, and I’m not paying them money to cut me, especially not that much money.

Hundreds, thousands of dollars to remove an organ that doesn’t even have a use anymore.

Thanks, Uncle Sam and Ronald Reagan, for making my health care impossible to obtain.