Health Care Is A Human Right

California's single-payer law is getting closer to the Governor's desk. This week the bill known as SB-562, The Healthy California Act, advanced out of the Senate Health Committee, and it will now be taken up by the Appropriations Committee.

This proposed law is well supported by the federalist ideal that individual states should be laboratories of democracy. So I can't say, well James Madison didn't envision that a single state would become as large as France, or be ruled by a single party, because that's besides the point.

But James Madison didn't envision that women would be granted suffrage, did he?

The fact that women vote, and vote irrationally, with their emotions, is how you get laws like this. You start with the premise, as the bill declares, that "All residents of this state have the right to health care." It's an appeal to emotion presented in circular reasoning.

Health care is not a human right. It is a resource. The doctor's time is a resource, and no person has the right to demand treatment.

The bill was authored by Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens), and is sponsored by the California Nurses Association. Rank-and-file nurses are admirable people, and represent the entire political spectrum. But nurse's unions are doctrinaire socialists, and they backed Bernie Sanders in the last cycle.

But why would the union want single-payer? Any health care worker becomes a de facto government employee. The nurse's union wants to unionize California's 500,000 home health care workers and personal care aides.

The nurse's unions also get seats at the table. The law creates the Healthy California Board to govern the program. The board will have nine appointees, and there must be "at least one representative of a labor organization representing registered nurses."

The Healthy California Board will be advised by a public committee, which must comprise "two registered nurses," and two representatives of "organized labor." Oh, and did I point out yet that bill author Lara is running for Insurance Commissioner?

The bill requires "existing federal health care payments to be paid to the Healthy California program." In other words, block grants from the federal government. Funny how whenever Paul Ryan tries to restructure Medicare this way, he's accused of trying to "destroy Medicare as we know it."

The bill's only appeal to reason is that administrative costs will go down, because we will be eliminating the overhead of insurance companies. A number that gets thrown out a lot is 15, the percentage that private insurance companies spend on overhead, compared to about six percent for Medicare. This difference is always framed as "wasteful" spending.

Insurance companies spend money on claims scrutiny. But when you realize that around ten percent of Medicare claims are improper payments, or outright fraud, that difference disappears. Then consider the fact that California will have to raise taxes to pay for all these new health consumers. That will inevitably mean the end of Proposition 13. California's single-payer health plan is more of a wealth-distribution scheme than anything.

The Martian (2015)

America used to have an ambitious space program. That was a long time ago. The last time a person walked on the moon was in 1972. Since then, we have christened and retired an entire fleet, the Space Transportation System (Space Shuttle program). We haven't flown a Space Shuttle since 2011. The National Aeronautic and Space Administration isn't an agency that explores space any more. They're more concerned with climate change and diversity initiatives.

Yet in many ways, 2015's The Martian is as much a movie about NASA as anything else. Virtually every main character is either an astronaut, NASA functionary, or JPL nerd.

In the movie, NASA sends a group of astronauts on a 14-month round trip journey to collect soil samples. "How many samples do we need, Commander?" "Seven. 100 grams each." Instead of a daring adventure, we get a technical mission that could have been done by unmanned vehicles, and delivered by wooden actors repeating leaden dialogue.

I understand that collecting soil samples is what an actual Mars mission would entail. But getting technical details right doesn't make it fun. They've solved the problem of transporting astronauts, and pressurized habitats, hundreds of millions of miles. But they couldn't figure out how to make the rocket for the return trip stand upright during a wind storm?

This NASA seems funded well enough to equip their crews with a trillion-dollar space ship, yet struggles with mundane issues like the cost of a paper clip and authorizing satellite time.

Vincent Kapoor, NASA's Director of Mars Missions: "I need you to authorize my satellite time."

Teddy Sanders, NASA Director: "Not going to happen."

The movie's biggest challenge is how to convey the emotional weight of the plight of marooned astronaut Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon. The problem is that Watney is all alone, with no other actors to play off of. Director Ridley Scott solves this exposition problem by having the narration take place in a mission log.

The emotional moments of Watney's ordeal are delivered via clumsy reaction shots back on earth.

Vincent: "Mark, We haven't told the crew you are alive yet."

Mark: "What the fuck?!"

Cut back to the control room, people gasping, covering their mouths with dismay. Then cut to a montage of Mark "sciencing the shit" out of things to a disco track like Rock The Boat, a 1973 standard by The Hues Corporation. The disco era is the descendant of the Apollo program? For a running joke, the disco theme works as well as a scratched LP.

Another theme that feels like a dud is the contrivance that Mark is a seafaring adventurer like days of old.

Mark: "There's a treaty that says, if you're not in any country's territory, maritime law applies. So Mars is international waters. I'm gonna be taking a craft over in international waters without permission, which, by definition, makes me a pirate."

Perhaps the humor is supposed to lessen the tension, but there isn't any doubt that Mark will be rescued (although I was certainly rooting against him).

Ridley Scott filmed the exteriors in Wadi Rum in Jordan, then colorized them to look like the Martian surface. Scott seemed to be making a conscious attempt to inspire the same sweeping grandeur as David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, which was also filmed in Jordan.

Wadi Rum is a hostile environment if you are on a camel, but inert background to an astronaut in an SUV. The movie's premise is that Mark is a lone sailor on a vast ocean. The vast ocean is the surface of Mars, but they didn't render any Martian features. How cool would it have been for Mark to navigate Olympus Mons, the Martian peak 16 miles high?

Space is huge and expansive, but the human space there is claustrophobic and vulnerable, like a cork bobbing in the ocean. Astronauts are crammed into pressurized suits and transported by tiny capsules that conserve fuel. The Martian pampers us with a desert landscape that isn't Mars, and dewy actresses too pretty to be astronauts, on space stations big enough and shiny enough for an investor relations cocktail party and meet- and- greet at Theranos Corp.

We used to have exciting space travel that made children dream of becoming astronauts. Not anymore. We also used to make really good science fiction movies, back when disco was still king.

Sexual Assault Awareness Month

Why isn't it called Sexual Assault Prevention Month? Or Rape Awareness Month? I have a theory about that, but first things first.

Did you know that today, April 26, is Denim Day? It was inspired by a 1998 decision by the Italian Supreme Court that overturned a rape conviction. The girl wore jeans that were said to be so tight, that "she had to help him remove them, and by removing the jeans it was no longer rape but consensual sex."

Seems like a pretty horrible decision, but it was a ruling based on speculation about the victim's behavior during the attack. The participants in today's #DenimDay are making this about the signals her clothing must have sent to her attacker. That's why they cough up banalities like "clothing is not consent," and "this is not an invitation to rape."

This is Gender Studies boilerplate. Women hate rape culture so much, they are creating networks of institutions dedicated to raising awareness about it.

Along with Title IX coordinators and Diversity Chancellors, there are job opportunities aplenty in the 501(c)(3) non-profit sphere. These have names like Hollaback, Know Your IX, and Callisto, and they cling like barnacles to the wheezing, ponderous ship of fools known as higher education. While all these systems claim to want to end rape culture, what they really want to do is perpetuate themselves.

Callisto's web page has a mission statement of sorts, informing that they are "fighting rape culture by empowering survivors to make the choice that’s right for them." A woman who had her breasts fondled against her will at a frat party is now considered a "survivor." And, she has the choice of reporting the offense to her school or to law enforcement.

Right below Callisto's mission statement is a Donate hyperlink that whisks you to a page that accepts your tax-exempt donation.

Interesting to note that two of the "Founding Institutions," of Callisto are California-based universities. A woman who has had her honor violated at a California university has no choice in reporting. Since 2015, AB 1433 mandates that any report of a violent crime, must be "disclosed to the appropriate local law enforcement." This specifically includes sexual assault.

This may be why sexual assault has all but vanished from California campuses, according to my reading of local news. We won't know for sure until September when the Clery Reports are due. Yet the Rape Racket continues to metastisize. Even the hundreds of lawsuits that are currently pending against universities, and the many decisions against universities, haven't diminished the racketeers.

Rescinding the 2011 "Dear Colleague" letter won't fix this. Nothing short of repealing Title IX will reverse the collective guilt that men face at university. Even if that happens, the discourse is now fixed, and the gender warriors wouldn't have it any other way. Because besides the hatred for men that some gender warriors bring to the battle, there is another reason to perpetuate the Title IX system.

Women are hard wired for exhibitionism, for the hot bright lights of the strip club. And the reason they exalt the victim of unwanted kissing to "survivor" status? The hard wired emotional need for women to imagine they are the helpless victim being stalked by a predator. Don't believe me? What do you think the number one sexual fantasy for women is?

Confess Your Internalized Misogyny

Hollywood is a brutal place to be a female. Audiences don't want to see you on screen if you are older than 25. But what about off-screen? The moral panic now is focused on the lack of female directors, and how this supposedly represents intolerable discrimination.

The problem is so bad that there are lawsuits coming from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the American Civil Liberties Union. It will be a battle between feminists and movie studios. All of which are operated by Jewish homosexuals. Too bad they both can't lose.

Instead of suing production studios, they should sue the DGA. Women are only five percent of members of the Directors Guild of America.

Anne Hathaway seems pretty emotionally fluent, but she relies on feminist tautologies instead of naked honesty. In this interview with Peter Travers, she relates how she couldn't or wouldn't allow herself to trust director Lone Scherfig because of her own "internalized misogyny."

I'm comfortable using terminology like "sexism" to discuss differing attitudes that people have towards women. I will even allow that hatred of women exists. But why turn an issue about sexism into a Gender Studies assignment, about how Anne Hathaway was somehow conditioned against her will to hate women?

Why use a feminist tautology instead of simply admitting that she has trust issues, or doesn't fully trust women directors? I don't think she understands the answer to this, either. She frequently covers her mouth while speaking, which might mean that she's trying to suppress her truth.

But she looks away and scans the room frequently, which suggests she is still thinking about this subject. And her chest is flushing, so she might be embarrassed. She is going to a place of deep insecurity, and it shows.

I, for one, am agnostic about female directors. If their work is original and compelling, like Kathryn Bigelow's 1987 Near Dark, then the director's sex is irrelevant. Film direction is a pure meritocracy.

Perhaps Hathaway didn't trust Lone Scherfig because, after reading the script, she was embarrassed to be working on an insipid chick flick that looks like it ripped off, Same Time, Next Year.

It would be nice if we could just say, I don't trust her because I don't know her, or I have unresolved issues. Anne Hathaway should be better than resorting to feminism 101.

The Lost Sheep

The 23rd Psalm begins thusly, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." Many people would probably resent being compared to an animal that belongs to a herd, and gives itself unthinking to the herd mentality. I think a lot of people like to think of themselves as self-reliant, independent, and self-sufficient.

Women are currently socialized to think that way, to think that being someone's wife or mother is a lesser objective, that the greater ambition in life is the pursuit of material wealth. We have gotten so far from our intended purpose as human beings.

Dr. Willie Parker is an ob-gyn who performs abortions, generally for no medical reason. Parker has become a coveted guest for those who promote this sacrifice to Moloch, like in this interview with Amanda Marcotte, in which he says he performs abortions out of "Christian compassion."

The profound admiration for Parker is written on the faces of the two lesser demons on either side of him.

In this Quartz article, Parker is quoted as saying that "abortion is never mentioned," in the Bible. William Shakespeare wrote that "The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose, an evil soul producing holy witness." Apparently, the Devil also can pretend that the Bible's plain language does not say what it says.

The Sixth Commandment is pretty clear on the subject in general. But yes, the good book doesn't specifically mention dilation and evacuation, or vacuum aspiration. But the book of Matthew has the Parable of the Lost Sheep. Jesus says,

"If any man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that is straying? If it turns out that he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine which have not gone astray. So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones perish."

The point is that Parker uses phrases like "Christian compassion" out of one side of his mouth, while ridiculing the faithful and the pro-life secularists out of the other side. In this April 18 interview with Steve Inskeep, he says, "if you say that life begins at conception," that is "a religious understanding of what life means."

His retort to this "religious understanding" is that this is a "non-biologic understanding," that "life began a long time ago, when whatever we define as life showed up on the planet." This is anti-scientific, and anti-reason, to compare a single-cell bacteria from billions of years ago to the highly evolved product of human beings.

And that's not even the most cringe-worthy sentiment he shares. He asserts that if we "prioritize the outcome of reproduction" over the body of a woman, "it is the same as saying that a woman becomes property." Therefore a woman who can't have an abortion is a slave in the exact sense that an African person sold into lifetime bondage is a slave.

Dr. Parker forgets that women have the ability to say "no" to sex, whereas a captured African has no agency whatsoever. All of this sounds pretty much like rationalizations for committing large-scale atrocities, and giving license to those who would. All of this sounds like someone who was mentored by George Tiller, as Parker was. And this is where I go meta.

Because it's not the children who are aborted that are the Lost Sheep. They have always existed with God, and they will always exist with God. The Lost Sheep are women who learn to justify this practice, and Parker, well, he's the Evil Shepherd.

Everybody Wants Some!! (2016)

In the opening scene of Richard Linklater's 2016 movie, Everybody Wants Some!! Jake (Blake Jenner) is driving toward college for the first time. He parks his car in front of a three-story, turn-of-the-century house, and gathers his belongings. A countdown clock appears briefly on screen.

Class starts: 3 days 15 hours

A countdown clock is usually a device that a director uses to bring tension to a movie. The conventional message is that time is running out, and an inescapable climax looms. The conventional use of the countdown clock is to reinforce a feeling of dread.

But in this case, the countdown clock functions more like a snooze alarm that occasionally intrudes on Jake's dreamy interlude. Because this is a movie about dreams.

The residence house that Jake occupies functions as a bit player as it creaks and groans under the weight of a half-full waterbed. But the main role the house plays is symbolic. Much character interaction takes place in and around the house, as it serves as an internal setting players use to measure themselves against their teammates.

When Linklater films the house, it's with brief tracking shots. The camera peers at the exterior, then rises to frame the higher stories. This gives the viewer a feeling that they too, are floating, as if they, too, are part of the dream.

In general, a house is one of the most important, archetypal dream symbols. It represents the dreamer's entire psyche. In Everybody Wants Some!!, the player's house is also a place of transition. Once the players graduate, they will move on with their lives.

Many of the players dream about making a transition from college baseball to the major leagues. There is one player, Willoughby, who is unable to conceive of any such transition. He smokes marijuana in almost every scene he's in, and he forms the philosophical and spiritual center of the movie. His secret is that he is actually thirty years old, and has been showing up every fall at a different school with a different set of forged transcripts, hoping for another season of baseball.

Is Linklater making a reference to college baseball being a kind of nirvana, an exquisite afterlife? That's up to the viewer to decide.

The time setting and music throughout the movie reinforce this theme of transition. In 1980, there was no such thing as AIDS. All the sex is consequence-free, except for one character's girlfriend's late period.


The music soundtrack is mostly rock, with lots of Van Halen, which serves to bridge the disco era, and the coming rap era. The proto-rap song, Rapper's Delight, by The Sugarhill Gang, is sung by the players in one early scene.

Jake, meanwhile, has clear eyes, a strong right arm, and an easy-going assertiveness that allow his quick integration on the team. He meets a young lady, Beverly (Zoey Deutch), and she invites him to a party at the house of her performing-arts friends. This part of Jake's dream turns surreal, in a non-threatening way.

Beverly meets him wearing an Alice in Wonderland costume, and the party has odd things happening, like a skit based on the Dating Game, and a cat that hops down out a refrigerator when someone opens the refrigerator door. After the party, Jake goes back to Beverly's room, and he lies on the bed, pretending to be asleep while Beverly changes. He's not quite ready to wake from this dream yet.

When the clock finally counts down to class time, Jake finds his seat and puts his head down on his desk, quite sleepy from his adventures, a slight smile crossing his face. His dreams are coming true.

Star of Siam

Alex Wagner's stock continues to rise. I missed where she had joined the Tiffany Network, CBS, in November. So it was surprising to see her on This Morning today.

The trending story is the FBI seeking and getting a FISA warrant to investigate Carter Page. Someone most people never heard of is the subject of a FISA warrant that is granted 99.9 percent of the time. Once people find out who Carter Page is, they still won't care. But to the Obama dead-enders at CBS, he's important because he advised Trump last summer before being let go.

Wagner's trademark is a partisan comment delivered with a smirk. Today, she said, "and another chapter opens..." in her transition to the next story. But don't worry, she considers herself to be non-partisan.

Wagner is as partisan as they come. She married Obama's chef and personal friend, Sam Kass. Her current boss, David Rhodes, is the brother of Obama's national security guy, Ben Rhodes. Her father was co-chair for Bill Clinton's Presidential campaign. Ah, but this is only circumstantial evidence.

Let Alex tell us, in her own words, how she feels about the second Amendment. She thinks we should "get rid of the second Amendment."

Alex has said that NRA President Wayne LaPierre advised people to carry firearms to protect themselves against "dark people in Brooklyn."

This is all carefully focus-group tested messaging. It's message discipline from someone who graduated cum laude from George Soros' Center For American Progress. A person buys a firearm not to protect themselves and their loved ones, but because they are afraid of "dark people." Likewise, if you favor a small decrease in federal food assistance, like SNAP, you are not a person concerned about dependency or the federal government's enumerated powers or the deficit.

You're "pro-hunger." Principled opposition to any government spending is proof that you are a human being without empathy, indeed, that you are sociopathic and sadistic.

The only proper response to that is not to say, no no, I'm not sadistic. You have to take Ben Shapiro's advice for debating liberals, and not let them establish the terms of the debate.

I'm not pro-hunger. You're pro-dependency. You're in favor of keeping the federal government large enough to take away my liberties to satisfy your altruism. Also, you're a fascist.

Embarrassed To Be An American

Conservatives believe that America is such a great country, that being allowed to emigrate here should be a valuable privilege. It should be valued so highly that the people we bring here must adopt our culture and customs.

Liberals think that emigrating here is some kind of natural right. They prove this when they say things like, "Donald Trump wants to prevent all 1.5 billion Muslims from immigrating here."

If only liberals were as selective about who they admit into our country as they expect a place like Harvard to be.

It's like they're saying, "America, you're no prize."

Does this mean that I believe liberals are not as patriotic as conservatives? I know it seems like a lazy trope, but it's true. The typical liberal is quite aware of our mistakes, and point to them as examples of our shortcomings. They have this idea that every country, like every person, is a blank slate, with the potential for perfection, given the right stimuli.

Conservatives know better. They know that human nature is venal and corruptible. People are born that way, and they are capable of improvement, but not perfection. The reason conservatives are so grateful to live in this country is because they are free to make mistakes. And conservatives are not ashamed to display pride in our country.

Liberals act ashamed of our country. And they consciously avoid displaying any sort of pride or gratitude to be here. Oh, they are proud of their Park Slope neighborhood in Brooklyn, but only because they are surrounded by the right kind of people, people like them.

That's why they think it's quaint and charming that Mexicans come here and display their bandera, and bring their customs with them. To them, displaying the American flag, or expressing patriotism, is considered gauche.