Bits and pieces

[sabotabby]

Paying to stay alive, part II: jk_fabiani has a horror story.

"Perhaps after the surgery I'll have around $100,000 dollars of debt, but hey, wouldn't you pay that to save your own life?"

Yes, but no one should have to make that sort of choice.

---

I did say that I wasn't going to go on about the stupid cartoons, but in case you still thought that this was about equal-opportunity freedom of speech blah-de-blah, it appears that Jyllands-Posten has a double standard. (Via springheel_jack and my overloaded inbox.)

In related news, just because the other kid started it doesn't mean that you get to be a moron, too.

---

And finally, good news: IWW Toronto is now officially a branch. Go us!

Comments

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

Health savings accounts!

[sabotabby]

How ghastly.

[jhfurnish.livejournal.com]

Imagine what would've happened to that woman in France if she couldn't afford to get her face replaced?

[sabotabby]

What woman in France?

[jhfurnish.livejournal.com]

There was a woman in France recently who had a partial face transplant. She was lying unconscious from an accidental overdose of painkillers or psychotropics, can't remember, when her labrador retriever decided to eat her fucking face. Chomp.

Nose, mouth, chin. All gone. Horror story. She even saw it in the mirror.

This was in Yahoo yesterday, She went public with the rather good results of the surgery.

[sabotabby]

Oh my. See, this is why I'm a cat person. Cats will just chew your ear.

[pluvka.livejournal.com]

kirby used to lick my face to wake me up. or he'd just sit an inch away from me and just stare (it really did wake me up, and god, that's scary to wake up to) if he was really desperate he'd bite my nose.

[lokilokust.livejournal.com]

really?
when iwas there, he would attack me with kitchen knives and we'd fight it out until first blood.

[sabotabby]

Maybe that's why I haven't heard from Sara in awhile.

[pluvka.livejournal.com]

well, that's because he liked you.
i forgot to mention his most common way of waking me up: humping my legs.

[jhfurnish.livejournal.com]

My cuddly wuddly fuzzy wuzzy spoily roily Roisin baby would never try to eat my fucking face. She's my fuzzy baby pet. She's my cuddly tiger baby, my squealy baby cat. She doesn't snarl my face or other parts or try to gnaw on me.

My ex-fiance's cat gnawed on me a bit, but he didn't mean anything by it.

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

I believe it was actually a deliberate overdose, and the dog was trying to wake her up, albeit somewhat overenthusiastically.

[jhfurnish.livejournal.com]

What I'd related was from the Yahoo article I'd read yesterday, as I'd read it.

Perhaps she was trying to backpedal from what had been said in the Media before.

[pluvka.livejournal.com]

i just don't believe the dog was trying to wake her up. dogs aren't that stupid! he probably thought she was dead.

[jordansc.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if they print a Holocaust cartoon all of us Westerners are going to riot and burn down the Iranian embassies. Oh wait, we have better fucking things to do.

[sabotabby]

Bush is looking for an excuse to bomb them. That'd be a pretty pathetic one, mind you.

[caprinus.livejournal.com]

OMG. Two good friends of mine in Toronto just went through life-saving colostomies. Thank Allah Tommy for Medicare!

[sabotabby]

Yay Tommy.

Holy healthcare

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

There is only one God but Dougllah and Laytohamed is his prophet!

[bike4fish.livejournal.com]

I posted this on another friend's journal, but I thought I should share it here, too.

I'm trying to see an essential difference between Muslims who find sufficient offence to cause them to resort to violence and those who would throw people into jail for performing the symbolic act of burning a US flag. It's very difficult.

In both cases, people have missed the boat. The prohibition of making images of Mohammed (and a more general prohibition against images of animate beings) had the intent of discouraing idolatry. That people resort to violence about depictions of Mohammed that are not likely to be objects of veneration by the faithful not only misses the original point, but seems to make a idol of not making images of Mohammed.

Similarly, banning the symbolic act of burning a flag completely misses the ideals on which the US was founded, as expressed in the Constitution.

I noticed the Onion has announced the opening of an additional circle of Hell. I think I have a clue about what sort of people wind up there.

[sabotabby]

To me the essential difference is power. A Black person making fun of white people is not the same as a white person making fun of Black people. There's also intent -- while offending public sensibility might be a secondary motivation for someone burning a flag, the primary motive is usually something else, be it expressing anger at US policies, or even making a stand for free speech. The primary motivation for publishing these cartoons was not (especially given the paper's rejection of Jesus cartoons), expressing a belief in free speech, or even making an offensive but funny joke, but provoking as many Muslims as possible.

I don't think violence is justified in this case, but it's telling that the most significant act of violence -- the killing of four protesters in Afghanistan, was done by either NATO troops or their Afghan allies. There have been images made of Mohammad before that have not had that sort of effect; the riots, I think, stem from the larger political context as much as they stem from misguided religious zealotry.

[lovableatheist.livejournal.com]

congrats on being a branch!

[sabotabby]

Thanks!

[enile.livejournal.com]

really interesting tidbit on Jyllandsposten. gah, i hate that newspaper. we call it the governments mouthpiece. i'll pass it on in the appropiate circles, and perhaps my boyfriend's newspaper (well, it's not his, but, eh, yes!) will publish that story! they recently made satirical drawings of our prime minister: http://www.information.dk/InfWebsite/FremvisningPHP/Common/Information.php?pShow=Blog/index.php&p=55

[sabotabby]

Some of those are really good.

It's interesting that people call it the government's mouthpiece; the impression we're getting here is that the government is trying to distance itself from the whole thing and saying that it has nothing to do with them.

Ugh

[locustinferno.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know all about the crazy medical costs in this country. My mom came down with a severe case of Guillain-Barre Syndrome (http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/gbs/gbs.htm) that put her in the hospital for close to two months. The bills are well into the six figures for that. Given that she was a waitress, of course here that translates into no health coverage from the employer, and with Medicare being what it is, the financial and emotional strain on my grandparents (whom my mother lives with) has been tremendous. Neither of them have money to even begin to cover all these expenses.

Makes me wonder more and more about what you guys have up north (and over-seas as well, at least in most of western Europe)that I'm missing down here.