So I’m learning first hand what a frakking mess the American health-insurance situation is. And I’m not just talking about “Bush to poor kids: Drop dead.”

My wife and I are both professionals, and both capable of easily earning in the range of $30,000 to $50,000 per year in freelance and part time work, which is what we’d both prefer to do. But we can’t. We couldn’t afford the health insurance. You would think that a household income of $80,000 a year would be more than enough, but it isn’t.

Right now we get our insurance through COBRA — I’m on the same plan I was on when I was working for the Roanoke Times, but I pay the full cost. That’s about $1300.00 per month for my family — more than my mortgage. And that’s under a group health plan.

What that means is that one or both of us will have to get a job in an office simply to get cheap health insurance. Because when COBRA runs out, trying to get insurance that would cover my wife’s high blood pressure and Sam’s growth hormone will be impossible. (And if not impossible, prohibitively expensive.

So an office it is.

Imagine if we weren’t able to make that kind of money, or didn’t have the skills to work at a job that paid benefits. (Attention Wal-Mart customers!) We would be uninsured. If I broke my leg, or my wife had a serious illness, we would probably go bankrupt, as many people have.

Something is wrong with this picture.

Pricing structures

Of course, one reason health insurance costs so much is that health care costs so much. Take drugs.

While waiting for COBRA to kick in, I went to fill a script at Walgreens for a generic medication. It cost $45.00. I pointed out that the same meds cost $4.00 at Wal-Mart and Target. (This is old news, that different pharmacies charge way different prices for the same meds. The New York Times wrote about the problem in 1897.)

Anyway, the pharmacist at Walgreens said those stores must have a different deal with the drug manufacturer. I was going to get reimbursed by my insurance company, so I didn’t worry. But it got me thinking.

Even with the clout that Wal-Mart has, it couldn’t get the drug manufacturers to sell their products at a loss. So even with a retail price of $4.00, the drug companies are making money, although obviously not as much as they are from Walgreens’ suckers customers.

Therefore, the price being paid by insurance companies (and people without insurance who shop at Walgreens) is outrageous.

Certainly they have the right to charge what the traffic will bear. But the “traffic” in this case in the insurance companies. They’re paying that much, and they’re passing that cost on to us in the form of outrageous premiums.

It’s time for the traffic to stop bearing the weight of those profits.

Message time

I am all for the pharmaceutical industry making profits, even huge profits. They invest a ton of money coming up with chemicals that help us live longer. Let ‘em get filthy rich. But there’s a line somewhere beyond which their profits are bad for the country as a whole, where they’re able to get away with a bit too much.

Capitalism says that prices are regulated by the buyers. In this case, we’re not talking about one kind of widget, but of an entire industry. And it’s time for the buyers to push back. Government in this country is us.

Perhaps healthcare reform is about us telling the drug companies that We the Traffic don’t feel like bearing their costs any more. That absurd drug prices lead to absurd premiums, which leads to people being unable to get basic health care. Sick people aren’t good for the country. The millions of man-hours lost means labor lost, productivity lost, taxes lost. It’s an ebbing tide that’s lowering all our boats.

If the only way to get the message to the pharmaceutical companies is to get the government to step in, then so be it. The problem is widespread enough that the government should step in.

I have health insurance — expensive insurance, but insurance nonetheless. But too many others don’t, and that’s intolerable.

When you’re riding in an elevator (or anything that has people coming and going), it’s inevitable that you’ll hear chunks of conversations between others, but that you won’t be able to join in on.

That in mind, I occasionally make use of this fact. I’ll be in an elevator with a friend (I did this a lot with an ex-girlfriend, which is one reason she’s an ex) and say one of the following.

“So, did they reattach your roommate’s arm?”

“You’re serious? They cut the whole thing off?”

“Anyway, I ended up stabbing him in the eye.”

“Yeah, her fingers were popping like grapes.”

“I thought that was the color it was supposed to be.”

You could, of course, take the low ground and say things like “Did the cream I gave you help at all?” but I think it’s more fun not to try to embarrass the other person because they’re more likely to play along.

So, any suggestions for elevator comments?

The title of the entry from VaDocWatch says it all: “If you puke again, you’ll have to eat it.”

For you physics people (or inventors): If a golf ball flies farther because it’s dimpled, why don’t bullets and hunting arrows have dimples?

A little thanks, a few changes, some background, and some waxing technological.

First, thanks for all the suggestions; keep ‘em coming. I’ve taken many of them and considered all of them, all of which you should see reflected in the design now.

One thing I thought about is what people will see.

Some of you go to the home page (as would many new visitors), but many go straight to an entry, either through RSS, because of a Google search, or because of a direct link. So the individual entry pages had to act as pseudo home pages.

The real reason for the redesign is something you can’t see. The back end was a mess. There were five or six stylesheets, and I didn’t know how many of them were actually being used. There was a mix of old Movable Type entries and the newer WordPress ones, (Turns out WordPress had them all. Once I cleaned out the old MT stuff, everything switched to the new look, even the really old stuff.)

Even if there was only one stylesheet, the code was still a mess. I tweaked it so many times that some sections had two lines of code setting the font when it should have been <h3>.

So the back-end code is now cleaned up, and the pages have been simplified.

Getting a bit technical: I decided not to switch from using tables for the overall structure. I know purists think everything should be done with CSS, but frankly using tables is a lot simpler when you’re doing columns. So all the formatting is done in CSS, while the overall ’shape’ is done with a three-column table. It’s still a lot easier to work with and tweak.

Now it’s just a matter of making sure the design goes through to all the interior pages — the Contact page, for example, didn’t exist for a while. Now it does.

And that’s that. I’m sure to make more changes, but I’m vowing to keep it clean on the back end so when it’s time for the 2009 version, I’m all set.

Thanks for reading this far!

I finally got the redone site up. Hope you like it. Things are probably still broken, but it’s about 2 a.m. and I am beyond caring at the moment. Let me know (what you think, what’s not working, etc.)

…it’s — oh, wait, it is an overreaction. Yet another one from America’s screwed up public schools. From the Northwest Florida Daily News:

An investigator with the Department of Children and Family went to Destin Middle School on Sept. 19 to look into an allegation that a child had been having sex with an adult, according to an Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office report.

The investigation revealed that the story started during P.E. class while a few boys were joking around.

I can see it now: “A joke about an elementary school boy’s mother wearing army boots led to a Department of Homeland Security investigation into whether she was involved in a paramilitary organization…”

I wrote a while ago about how Amazon.com shipped me 18 towels in 18 separate boxes.

Now comes another horseman of the packaging apocalypse, courtesy of Chiquita grapes.

No, it’s not individually wrapped grapes. But it’s close.

Behold Chiquita Grape Bites. One larger bag…

…hold five smaller bags (er, “Go Packs”), each of which contains about 22 grapes:

I think there’s just about as much plastic as there is fruit.

Grape Bites. Sheesh.

Oh, and I hear there are also Apple Bites and Carrot Bites. [sigh]

The other idea I had was for Heinz Ketchup. You know how Hallmark had a brilliant marketing campaign a long time ago, “When you care enough to send the very best”?

The implication was clear: If someone sent you a non-Hallmark card, they didn’t think much of you. That brand of cardboard was a better brand than American Greetings or whatever.

So, Heinz.

It should start making fun of “inferior” ketchup — implying that only poor people use Hunts (or whatever other brand).

You know, “John and Mary are having a tough time since he lost his job. She’s working late, he’s always in a bathrobe. And you know the worst part? They had to stop using Heinz Ketchup.”

Or maybe people not eating at one restaurant because it doesn’t use Heinz. “Who knows what other cuts they’re making?” (Maybe with a shot of “Grade D But Edible” meat.)

Good — got these ideas out of my system. Note to McNeil and Heinz: I’m available for consulting.

Have you ever gotten an idea for a commercial that you know would do wonders for the product? Me, too. This one’s been kicking around my head for a while.

Show a busy mall. Show a skeevy-looking guy — maybe someone like this:

He’s coughing or sneezing or both, covering his mouth with his hand. He’s walking with a purpose. He gets to the door of the mall, pushes it open, and leaves.

Now we see a normal-looking family. They’re also headed to the door. Dad reaches out to open it, and the moment before his hand touches the exact same spot as skeevy guy, the image freezes and we see

Purell. Because you don’t know who else touched that door.

C’mon — wouldn’t you grab it? :)

(I’d even make a dirty doorknob a big part of the marketing scheme.)

If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear, right?

Ha.

“Federal Agent Indicted For Using Homeland Security Database To Stalk Girlfriend,” is the headline. The story:

Benjamin Robinson, 40, of Oakland, Calif., was indicted by a federal grand jury in San Jose Wednesday in connection with allegations that he accessed a government database known as the Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS) at least 163 times to track a woman’s travel patterns.

Nice to know that:

1) The government is busy tracking individual Americans’ travel (not just unlawfully bugging our phones)

2) The government has a database in which it stores all our personal travel information

3) The people with access to that database have apparently not been screened very carefully

Somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden is laughing his ass off.

One of these days I’ll go off yet again on how the homogenization of America is ruining so much. But for the moment I should mention this.

Next time you want to buy a book and are thinking of using Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble, think twice. Instead, call your local bookstore.

Most people don’t think of that small store down the block as having a great selection. True, at least for browsing. But they all have distributors, and they can all get whatever you want, usually within a day or two.

True, it’ll be delivered to your neighborhood instead of your doorstep, but you won’t pay shipping and you’ll be helping a local business. (One that in turn helps you community by giving it some character.)

Heck, once they get to know you, your local bookseller might even take your order via a quick informal e-mail — “Cathy, can you order me the new Donald Westlake?”

Beat that.

My wife bought us a new bathroom scale, and it came with one of those body mass index charts that tells you where you fall in the range of “emaciated” to “morbidly obese.” Foolish me, I weighed myself and checked the chart.

And thus I learned that I’m obese — or at least a Twinkie away from crossing the line from merely “overweight.”

Hmm.

First of all, I certainly need to lose weight. No doubt at all, and you don’t need to point it out. But as one person commented to me, “You’re carrying a few extra pounds, but you wouldn’t call yourself fat.” (Well, Mac users did, but that was because I didn’t praise Apple enough. Another story.)

So overweight, absolutely. And let’s even say “heavy,” although I suspect that if you were describing me to someone that isn’t a word you’d use — it’s not my defining characteristic, like it is for someone like, say, John Goodman.

But obese?

Here’s a recent picture of me — it’s a year or so old and I weigh about the same now:

According to the Centers for Disease Control, the guy in that picture is grossly overweight, bordering on obese.

This gives me an entirely new perspective on the obesity “epidemic.” According to the CDC, almost one third of adults in the U.S. are obese. (Apparently, that includes me.) So maybe, just maybe, the definition of “obese” is a bit off — maybe there’s something else that needs to be taken into account besides height and weight before giving it a label.

More likely, though, I really am obese and just don’t see myself that way. I’ll think about that the next time I do a cannonball into the local pool.

(Note: If you’re gonna get nasty in the comments section, don’t bother. I’ll just delete it. Snarky is fine, but being a jerk isn’t. And you know what I mean.)

Hmm, here’s an interesting story… bizarre kidnapping, three men charged, mm-hmm…

[keeps reading]

Oh, “Greco said one of the men is nicknamed ‘No Nose’.” That’s a funny nickname. Let’s scroll down to see if there’s a pic–AUGH!!! OH MY FRAKKING GOD!!! JESUS MARY MOSES AND VISHNU ON A PLATE! MY EYES!!!

I have a couple of pretty decent spam filters at work, and they catch about 90-someodd percent of what comes in. The rest is but a moment’s work to remove.

Because the software learns what “spam” is, as spammers try new tacks the software sometimes takes a few days to catch up. That’s when my spam picks up.

Modern spam filters were born soon after Paul Graham’s “A Plan for Spam,” where he outlined the mathematics for creating better spam-catchers. But even great filters can’t catch everything; it’s a constant war between spammer scum and the rest of the world.

So few people like or want spam that the odds would seem against the spammers. And yet it still makes up a huge portion of e-mail.

Technology helps, but there’s a better way.

The path from spam to your inbox has a number of stops — that is, a number of people involved. There’s the product maker, the spammer, the spammer’s ISP (and yes, major telecom companies are well aware of what their customers are doing), and the people who actually buy the stuff being sold, without whom it wouldn’t be worth it.

We need to attack the spam problem at those points. Break any link in the chain and you can stop some spam.

Here’s how: If you know someone who has bought a product through spam, if you know someone at an ISP that supports spamming — or, better, if you know an actual spammer — let this person know the behavior is unacceptable.

Tell them, “If you do this again, I will find you and beat the crap out of you. I will trash your car, I will trash your house, and if it keeps up, I’ll get a few friends and turn your face into a modern-art project. You will never be safe.”

It is time to use violence against spammers and their kin.

Sure, there are those who are inaccessible — out of the country or members of organized crime (i.e., armed and dangerous). But many are not. Many are here.

Economic and legal threats apparently don’t work; they shrug them off. So let’s talk in a language that they aren’t expecting, and one they won’t be able to ignore.

My guess is that after a few well-publicized car fires, window-breakings, or baseball bats to the face, spammers will get the hint that the cost of what they do has gone up.

Imagine hearing. “Johnny Jones down the block bought one of those penis-enlargement things from a spammer. We took care of his car.” Would you take a chance?

Imagine being the guy who makes spamming software, or who sells lists of e-mail addresses and getting a note, “You have a house at 123 Main Street. You drive a silver Jetta. You help spammers. In a week, you’re going to give up one of these. Choose carefully.”

I think some people might make the right choice.

I finally won this stupid “Grow” game. I just needed to share that. If you have no clue what I mean, don’t sweat it.

The solution (select the white text to view):

Bolt, axe, logs, steering wheel, smokestack, battery, chip, alcohol burner

Update: I’m told that there are at least two solutions to this puzzle. I haven’t gotten any others, and honestly I don’t know that I’m gonna try. :)

My RSS isn’t RSSing. Don’t know why. If you care, it’ll be fixed soon, I hope.

Update: Fixed. Apparently it was a WordPress problem. Funny thing is, I deleted and replaced a file — that is, replaced it with an identical file — and now it works. Computers. Go figure.

Newspapers, the conventional wisdom goes, are a dying breed — dying in the face of competition from the Internet (e.g., CNN.com and USAToday.com), bloggers, television, and even video games, all of which either compete directly as information sources, or indirectly for readers’ time.

Papers are frantically trying to “reinvent” themselves — they’re creating new media departments, dabbling in audio and video, putting their columnists online creating blogs, targeting one new audience after another: kids, women, seniors, dog owners, music lovers, and so on.

They — and we — think they can clearly see the day when all this newfangled competition drives them away. They’re dinosaurs, after all.

Except.

Newspapers are only strangers to competition lately. Only in recent decades have local newspapers been master of their markets. In their heyday, newspapers faced a lot of competition — from other papers.

Many cities, even smaller ones, had at least two daily papers, if not more. (New York, at one point, had 20!) They had to fight tooth and nail for readers. And at the same time it was the high-water mark of journalism. (Sure it was also the heyday of yellow journalism. But it was certainly fun to read.)

But then the markets began to consolidate. Smaller papers folded or were bought by larger ones. Newspapers, which then and now enjoy tremendous profit margins (only pharmaceuticals and financial services companies make more money) were purchased by giant corporations. Soon markets with three or four papers became markets with one.

And that ruined the quality of newspapers; the lack of serious journalistic competition turned them bland. As virtual monopolies, they didn’t need to try as hard to attract readers. Instead of trying to win people’s eyeballs, they focused on keeping the eyeballs they had — and that meant not writing anything to drive people off.

And so it stayed for a long time.

Then the Internet came along and things began to change. People suddenly had a choice of more news sources: from other cities and other countries and other voices.

“Freedom of the press is for those who own one,” wrote newspaper journalist A. J. Liebling decades ago. As has been pointed out innumerable times, the World Wide Web means everyone owns one.

Newspapers have competition again.

To some people, that competition means the end of the newspaper. But those people show a depressing lack of historical knowledge. It was when newspapers had competition that they were at their best. When they fought for their readers they produced great work — not the bland crap we read today.

Consider the two major New York tabloids: the Daily News and the Post. Like them or not, they can hardly be called bland. And the third major daily there, The New York Times, is the largest metropolitan newspaper in the country. Competition does newspapers good.

Sure, some newspapers will respond to that competition and declining circulation with aimless panic. They’ll substitute buzzwords (“new media,” “hyperlocal,” “Web 2.0”) for a legitimate plan, or they’ll focus too much on what topics they cover (hint: how about the news?), ignoring the fact that what’s really killing papers is their blandness.

But many more will rise to the occasion. Newspapers have the best journalists, the best market penetration, and the best reputation — and they’re making a ton of money. They just happen to have the most boring writing — that’s what happens when you’re afraid to offend. That can change, and for the papers that do change it’s going to mean some grand success.

Think about this. Who would you rather date: someone who tried to be what he thought you wanted, or someone who was smart and funny and interesting? So what would you rather read, a newspaper that listened to surveys, or one that was smart and funny and interesting?

Get it?

I’m offended! I’m offended! It’s the rallying cry of the whiny set.

Two news stories of note today.

First, Virginia Tech has “banned” the “Stick it, stick it in” chant that Hokie fans cheer when the team is approaching a touchdown. (I put “banned” in quotes because it’s unclear how you can ban 66,000 people from yelling something.)

Why the ban? Some people found it — wait for it — offensive.

Second, the Cavalier Daily, student newspaper at the Univ. of Virginia, apologized for daring to run a cartoon that some people found — you gussed it — offensive.

From the Daily Progress:

The comic in question, “Quirksmith,” was drawn and written by Grant Woolard, one of the Cavalier Daily’s two graphics editors. Captioned “Ethiopian Food Fight,” the comic depicted nine emaciated black men dressed primitively and fighting each other with stools, chairs and other objects.

Was it crass and insensitive? Yep, absolutely. But to jump from “X is offensive” or “X is insensitive” to “X shouldn’t be shown” is a poor leap of logic.

It’s offensive. It’s mean. It pokes fun at something that shouldn’t be made fun of. So what? So someone said or did something you didn’t like. Live with it. Write a letter. Combat speech you don’t like with more speech.

Demanding that the newspapers your read or the radio you listen to never, ever offends anyone is pathetic and embarrassing. 

And the fact that too many media outlets give this kind of whining the power it has is the reason so much mainstream media is bland, dull, boring, and all the similar adjectives.

Right-wing extremists like Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter, and the staff at Fox News know this. They’ve made their mark by ignoring that kind of political correctness in favor of strong statements — stupid, often; offensive, maybe. But strong. And people like that.

Meanwhile, the left is so busy desperately trying not to offend anyone that it has sucked the life out of whatever news it has. Anything written by the AP is drier than kindling — gods forbid there be an ounce of attitude.

So the right prefers to get its “news” from Fox, and the left prefers to get its “news” from Jon Stewart, and people in media wonder what they’re doing wrong.

So to the people who found Virginia Tech’s chant offensive, or the cartoon in the Cavalier offensive: Grow up.

Do you really think you’re going to live in a world in which no one says or does anything that will ever offend you? Do you want to?

Some people have it.