broken arm, broken healthcare system
     by jane stillwater

     this report is gonna be short because i have to type it all with only one hand.  hunt and peck.  no capitalizations.  that's what happens when one breaks one's arm.

     and another thing that happens when one breaks one's arm is that, after i had tripped and fallen over a piece of uplifted sidewalk in berkeley and got rushed to the hospital in a fire truck, i also quickly discovered how much our healthcare system has been looted and plundered by healthcare insurance company executives trying to score yet another million-dollar paycheck -- at the expense of our hospitals, us patients and our hard-working doctors and nurses.

    it took forever for me to get seen and treated.

     ouch!

     the doctors and nurses and technicians at my hospital were all angels of mercy and friendly and skilled and kind.  but there were only a few of them and only so much they could do in the time allotted to each patient -- they could only spread themselves so thin. 

     "and how do you feel about working for sutter health, that big conglomerate that has taken over your hospital?" i asked all of them  http://www.sutterhealth.org/

     "sutter health?  i hate sutter health!" they all replied.  hey, me too.  and every single employee that i talked to said the same thing.  and they didn't just hate sutter health.  they really really really hated sutter health.  must be strange to have 100% of your employees hate you so much.

     "there should be a law that says that when the salaries of executives of non-profit corporations reach over one million dollars a year, then that company's non-profit status should be revoked." 

     sutter's greed is slowly eating our local hospital alive.

    i would type more on this subject but gotta go take my pain medication and then try to figure out how i'm going to take a bath and drive a stick shift with only one arm.  sigh.  my total sympathy goes out to anyone who has ever permanently lost the use of an arm, a hand, a leg or any other appendage.  don't see how they can do it.

ps:  between the heath insurance lobby, the nuclear-waste-creation lobby, the pharmaceutical lobby, the oil lobby, the coal lobby, the nra lobby, the bankster lobby, the gmo/agribusiness lobby, the war profiteer lobby, the tobacco lobby, the anti-regulations lobby, the aipac lobby, the pro-pollution lobby, the anti-education lobby, the offshore tax haven lobby, the anti-social-security lobby, the cia lobby, the hedge-fund lobby, the deforestation lobby, the anti-union lobby, the sell-off-our-post-offices lobby, the media-monopoly lobby, the food additive lobby, the strip-mining lobby, the keystone pipeline lobby, the pesticide lobby, the fracking lobby, etc., it's a wonder that any of the rest of us americans are even still alive and functioning at all -- and still even have all our arms and legs too.

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Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!
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If anyone ever wants to hire me on as a travel writer (or war correspondent), "Have laptop, will travel!"

******
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

****
Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come! Here's my reel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C91uEYjLUXA
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Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
****

I recently got my Notary Public commission!

Need a Notary Public? Have seal, will travel. E-mail me at jpstillwater@yahoo.com and I'll stamp your document, make it official and only charge $10. Of course if you live outside of Berkeley, I may have to charge travel expenses -- but am well worth it!

****

Want something good to read? Buy my book! "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719/ref=cm_pdp_rev_itm_title_1. It's like if Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain and/or Janet Evanovich went to war.

I also wrote a book about going on Hajj (also included as a chapter in "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book is cheaper -- but it's worth buying them both!) My book on the Hajj is so outstanding that I bet even Christian fundamentalists will love it! Please buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product
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"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!"You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here:http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters


"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds." You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for those of us who are still idealists in these troubled times. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

 

 

Be very afraid: What happens when the other bad guys get drones too?

     OMG!  What if American neo-cons aren't the only imperialist bastards to start developing and using drones!  What if some other imperial bastard bad guys also start using drones too?  Or Goldfinger or the NSA or the phone company gets them?  Then, obviously, what would happen next is that wedding parties in Oregon and Ohio and women and children in New Hampshire and New Mexico will also have to keep their eyes on the skies 24/7 too -- just like they now do in Pakistan and Palestine! 

     And when (not if) this happens, we can realistically expect to see a whole new 9-11-style fear-and-loathing scenario being played out every day on every quiet, peaceful suburban street in America. 

     Yes, thanks to drones, war might easily be coming to America soon -- just like the Pentagon has already generously brought war to the doorstep of almost every other country on the planet.

     When the American neo-con military-industrial complex began developing and using drones, it obviously opened a whole new can of worms.  And are we any safer now because of these drones?  NOT.  What goes around comes around.  Thanks a lot, War Street.

     "But, Jane," you might say, "you're acting just like Chicken Little here.  No one else is gonna be able to develop drones -- or be able to use them either."  Hey, why not?  Drones are basically model airplanes with payloads.  How hard can it be to develop one of those?  All that the other bad guys have to do is just infiltrate some model-airplane rally in Ohio -- and it's Goodnight Cincinnati.
     Someone just informed me that Monsanto is currently also developing drones.  Dare to plant some heirloom tomatoes in your back yard and you're toast!  "Step away from the tomatoes!"  That is, if you get any warning at all.

     And I also just learned that in Afghanistan the Taliban are now able to bring American imperial bad guys' drones under radio control and then use them to strike back.  What if DuPont seized Monsanto's drones?  Or the Mafia seized control of your friendly local police department's drones?  Or psychopathic child-stalkers in Florida got their hands on one.  Or if they started having drone wars on "Big Brother" or "Survivor"?  Or what if those mean girls at your old high school got "droned" by the science nerds.  Fox News could use them to knock off us liberals.  Scouting could even offer a "I built a drone!" merit badge.  And I bet that those same National Rifle Association marketing executives who brought us Sandy Hook and Stand Your Ground would just be creaming their jeans at the thought of selling every household on every block in America its very own drone.

     The possibilities for death from the skies are endless here.  And you don't even need to have access to yellow-cake or reactors or cyclotrons to kill people either! 

     Be very afraid.

PS:  The National Security Agency should also start being very afraid too -- but for a different reason.  If the NSA truly is listening in on all of our phone conversations and reading all of our FB pages and e-mails, then it must surely know for certain what billions of people all over the world are currently saying about their outrageous spying operations -- and not one of these billions are hitting the "Like" button either.

     It must be really scary for the NSA to eavesdrop on so many of the world's party lines -- only to discover that everyone who is anyone is talking trash about THEM http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18094-richest-300-persons-on-earth-have-more-money-than-poorest-3-billion.

PPS:  And speaking of national security, I just went to see The Lone Ranger -- and loved it.  It seems that the Lone Ranger and Tonto were actually keeping the Old West safe from corporate corruption!  http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/bob-patterson/50444/dalton-trumbo-rides-again  So where are they now when we really need them?

     Then I went to see "World War Z," a biology-gone-wild thriller that you just gotta love http://www.worldwarzmovie.com/#  But then on the way home, I tripped on a broken sidewalk, broke my arm and ended up in an ambulance on the way to the hospital, giving a whole new meaning to the term, "blockbuster".

     And another summer blockbuster that I'm all excited to see is "Elysium," with Matt Damon and Jodie Foster.  "In the year 2154, two classes of people exist: the very wealthy, who live on a pristine man-made space station called Elysium, and the rest, who live on an overpopulated, ruined planet." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvGE2nP4ga8  This is the logical extension of what is currently happening on our corporatized planet -- except that in Elysium in 2154, the American imperialist bastards of the future have even awesomely hotter-looking robots and drones than they do now.

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*************************************

Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!
******

If anyone ever wants to hire me on as a travel writer (or war correspondent), "Have laptop, will travel!"

******
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

****
Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come! Here's my reel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C91uEYjLUXA
****
Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
****

I recently got my Notary Public commission!

Need a Notary Public? Have seal, will travel. E-mail me at jpstillwater@yahoo.com and I'll stamp your document, make it official and only charge $10. Of course if you live outside of Berkeley, I may have to charge travel expenses -- but am well worth it!

****

Want something good to read? Buy my book! "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719/ref=cm_pdp_rev_itm_title_1. It's like if Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain and/or Janet Evanovich went to war.

I also wrote a book about going on Hajj (also included as a chapter in "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book is cheaper -- but it's worth buying them both!) My book on the Hajj is so outstanding that I bet even Christian fundamentalists will love it! Please buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product
****
"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!"You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here:http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters


"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds." You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for those of us who are still idealists in these troubled times. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

Birth control and abortion: A man's right to choose!

     I recently saw a cartoon of a man walking out of an X-rated video store -- only to be confronted by an irate bunch of women picketing him and screaming, "Masturbation is murder!" and "Life begins at erection!"  Truly hilarious.  But perhaps a lot of people who saw this cartoon missed its main point.  Ironic sarcasm?  Sure.  But also by its shear absurdity, the cartoon made it clear that an American man's reproductive decisions are his and his alone -- and that a woman's reproductive decisions are mostly his too.

     I think that we've all seen photos of grinning federal, state and local lawmakers who have just voted in favor of making various birth-control and anti-abortion laws mandatory for all women.  And most of the people in these photos are men.

     So maybe it's time to turn the tables here and take away a man's right to choose too. 

     The possibilities are endless.

    Suppose, for instance, that some man wants drink a few six-packs on a Saturday night and make drunk-dialing booty calls?  Nope.  His state's legislature has just made that illegal.  No more right-to-choose for you!

     Or let's say that you and your wife have decided to have children.  Maybe one or two?  Not gonna happen.  Laws have been passed.  No condoms or vasectomies for you either.  You must now have ten kids and change all their diapers and pay child support for all of them too -- whether you want to or not.  Screw right-to-choose for men.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/an-appellate-courts-dangerous-precedent-on-contraception/2013/07/12/7cbe629a-e35a-11e2-aef3-339619eab080_story.html

     You wanna play around at the office Christmas party?  No way!  Maximum sentence here.  Jail time.  You have no choice.  Wanna cheat on your wife?  No, no, no and no.  There's a law against that too.

      Oops.  OMG!  You just had a wet dream.  That's a $10,000 fine and a year in the slammer.  "Baby killer!"  Plus some pro-life fanatic might shoot at you too.

     Make up your own examples here.  Have fun with it. 

     How about that we make laws demanding that boys should be taught from birth onwards that their whole duty in life is to propagate the race -- nothing else.  Let's keep 'em barefoot sperm banks and chained to the kitchen.  Let's stop giving the males of our species any choice at all, especially their right to make decisions regarding their own reproductive organs -- which they clearly can't manage to keep inside their pants without stern legislative help. 

     Turnabout is fair play.

     Male lawmakers all over America have certainly had fun taking away American women's right to choose lately, and some of the bizarre things that they have come up with so far have just got to be jokes http://crooksandliars.com/juanita-jean/texas-senate-removes-tampons-mass-des.  Reality itself these days has become so weird and far-fetched that even Andy Borowitz's recent satire on this subject might actually really become yet another facet of male lawmakers' current Taliban-like right to choose what women can or cannot do with their own bodies.  http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/07/texas-weighs-ban-on-women.html?mbid=nl_Borowitz%20%28149%29

     Then there's the fact that over 10,000 men show up at the ER each year because an erectile dysfunction drug like Viagra has given them an unrelenting stiffie.  Each of their ER visits costs these guys approximately $1,778.  According to NBC News, "In all, the mean annual charge for episodes that began as an E.R. visit for priapism was $123,860,432."  http://www.nbcnews.com/health/long-lasting-painful-erections-send-10-000-men-er-each-6C10620067  So shouldn't we be passing laws that make use of Viagra illegal too?  For wasting all that good sperm?

     But how about that we pass another new law instead, one that will finally make sense?  How about passing a new law that says only women are qualified to make any and all laws regarding their own reproductive freedom. 

     No men allowed.

PS:  About three years ago, I looked in the mirror and said, "OMG, I look old -- what can you do with OLD?"  That's obvious.  I should become an actress! 

     Since that time, I have played all kinds of older women in approximately 60 student films -- kindly grandmothers, women dying of cancer, judges, burka-wearing Afghan ladies, the devil's minion, business executives, homeless women, doctors, society matrons, aging sluts. 

     Last Saturday I played a drunken barfly in a honky-tonk saloon at a morning shoot, and then an aging whore in 1850 San Francisco in the afternoon (and they paid me in pizza). 

     "So, Jane, what's your point?"  My point is that there are all kinds of women out there -- just like there are all kinds of men.  And almost all of us are totally capable of making our own freaking decisions regarding our own reproductive organs.  It's time for our leaders to go legislate on more important stuff (such as putting Wall Street criminals and War Street weapons profiteers in jail for criminal destruction of life after birth) and leave our individual reproductive choices alone.

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*************************************

Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!
******

If anyone ever wants to hire me on as a travel writer (or war correspondent), "Have laptop, will travel!"

******
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

****
Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come! Here's my reel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C91uEYjLUXA
****
Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
****

I recently got my Notary Public commission!

Need a Notary Public? Have seal, will travel. E-mail me at jpstillwater@yahoo.com and I'll stamp your document, make it official and only charge $10. Of course if you live outside of Berkeley, I may have to charge travel expenses -- but am well worth it!

****

Want something good to read? Buy my book! "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719/ref=cm_pdp_rev_itm_title_1. It's like if Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain and/or Janet Evanovich went to war.

I also wrote a book about going on Hajj (also included as a chapter in "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book is cheaper -- but it's worth buying them both!) My book on the Hajj is so outstanding that I bet even Christian fundamentalists will love it! Please buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product
****
"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!"You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here:http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters


"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds." You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for those of us who are still idealists in these troubled times. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters