spc_wspc_TheDisabilityShow 0004

spc_wspc_TheDisabilityShow 0004

media files:

m4a -> http://media.libsyn.com/media/msb/spc_wspc_TheDisabilityShow_0004.m4a

CSN&Y - Ohio

YouTube -> ..

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Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

This show is "not" any kind of a medical show /podcast.

It is by and for the disabled, and if we can help reach across the chasm of questions and indifference to the other side of the rainbow of ability ... well and good.

Its purpose is to keep us entertained, to explain our symptoms, to remark on our discoveries, and to raise the general consciousness about our disabilities.

The path to disability is shadowy, murky and rough strewn.

The path to wellness is lit by the lamp of knowledge.

---- "We Share Our Mothers' Health (Radio Edit) (Single)" by: "The Knife" http://www.last.fm/music/The+Knife

We got PSAs:

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Campus Safety urges students, faculty and staff to sign up for text alerts, online @ spc.edu/alerts

This will be used to inform students, faculty and staff in an emergency.

This was useful last year in the bomb scare.

To sign up, students must know their Spirit ID # (Bring their Saint Peter's College ID.)

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Here's a proper, honest to goodness, real promo. :-)

Promo_WSPC_PeacockNation2008/12/05

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We've also got some cross promotion going with the web version of St. Peter College's own "Pauw Wow".

The perpetually available and comment capturing web version is "growing on" as opposed to the occasional "Dead Tree" edition which can only capture "a moment in time" for a minority of the news competing for a scarce resource, space with anything else on a fixed number of pages.

As Liebnitz famously once said: "The 'Power of the Press' belongs to those who own one."

But as anyone who can read will attest, the limitations of "that" business model are slowly bleeding to death all of the owners of the "dead tree" press.

The future of the press lies on-line with the internet mixing media according to their appropriateness to whatever is being reported.

From "Twitter" to IM, to e-mail, to FaceBook to Podcasts, to web-radio, to streaming content, to PDFs, to vodcasts, to YouTube, to MP3s, to app mash-ups, to whatever's next, the internet is emerging as the clear winner of the media wars.

So log on to http://pauwwow.com/ and grow with the media.

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Intro

Well, I guess my prospective guest didn't want to be interviewed.

That's okay. Some people want to stay quiet. Some people are intimidated by the the thought of speaking into a microphone.

That's another kind of handicap, one as visible as high blood pressure and just as debilitating.

Its a form of self censorship when its not warranted.

We'll just go on, as we always do, leaning on our crutches, our canes or wheeling on by.

---- "I am Canadian" by "Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie" http://www.deadtroll.com/

Thesis:

Coming from Canada as I do gives me a different perspective on the issue of health care.

Why on earth is the United States asking employers to shoulder the burden of health care?

This is a specially glaring hypocrisy in the face of how the United States is treating its military personel.

Apart from particularly glaring aberrations at Walter Reed medical center, during the reign of "Bush the Younger", when out of sight was out of mind and not out of pocket, the people of the United States treat their military very well.

---- "Zhong Guo Ren Min Jie Fang Jun Jin Xing Qu (Marching Song Of China Military)" by: "China Military Philharmonic Society"

Synthesis:

Health care is particularly poorly served the moment you really need it.

When you really need it, you are likely to be at least temporarily unemployable (and, quite likely, unemployed.)

Most likely, through some accident or infection, you are taken out of the work force and are put at the mercy of people without any mercy.

I refer to the accountants who can look at their balance sheets, look at you, and not see any difference.

While I acknowledge the need for accountancy, I don't believe that they should ever be put in charge of anything.

The current multi-trillion dollar banking debacle and fiscal melt down was the result of people who knew the cost of everything but the value of nothing.

And "we're" left holding the nothing.

---- "Holding Nothing" by: "noel" http://bitmunk.com/media/6425677

Imagine you're working for somebody and you come up with a way to stop having to pay for a growing problem.

You can rightly figure that getting that off the books will get you a bonus.

Health care is a growing problem and by getting rid of the source of the problem, all these sick people, you can save your company huge sums every year.

I mean, you're a company, not a charitable institution, so why should you as a company be expected to pay for all these sick people.

So you look for loop-holes, hire them under different rules, anything so you're not stuck with their health care tab.

Never mind that the current health policy system was started as a kind of Ponzi scheme [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme ] started by Nixon to save his political butt, (I mean, people were dying in the street after having had to burn through their life savings, [The more life savings, the longer people were able to delay the inevitable impoverishment, until it became terminal, {"viz:" you died in the street because you were broke. (The seventies were an ugly and hazardous time in America, I would refer you to Kent State for an example of how dangerous it, and Nixon, really was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings].)}])

New policy adherents would subsidize the costs of taking care of the the current policy holders while the insurance salesmen pocketed the money. (Sort of like Bernard Madhoff paid his dividends. [Hey! It worked fine, until people needed the money and he didn't have it. Given the quality SEC's oversight, "quid custodiet ipso custodes", its the only reason he got caught, {but, in retrospect, it was inevitable, wasn't it?}])

---- "Four Dead In Ohio" by: Four Dead In Ohio" http://www.csny.com/

Conclusion:

The current health-don't-care system has features reminiscent of, and is administered like, a huge Ponzi scheme.

Money goes in, profits are pocketed and as little money as the insurer can get away with paying without causing an insurrection goes to actually pay for health care.

The money is being paid by employers, people who aren't really liable and aren't likely to suffer if they shirk their responsibility (In fact, they're likely to profit from doing so.)

So it goes back to the same area of social responsibility.

Is the United States grown up enough to take care of its sick?

Or is it going to become the only developed nation on the planet which trips over the dead and dying naked bodies of its citizens in the street?

The jury is still out.

---- "Jury's Out" by: '' Dave Nevling" http://www.davenevling.com/

Outro

The show notes, incuding the complete text of this episode, and any and all links to the artists featured, are on a server ... somewhere.

And this show is also being podcast in m4a format, which means that it you use a compatible player, like iTunes, you get the content divided up into chapters with images and "hot links" to the the web, on the topic of the chapter or to accompany the music.

You can send me feed back. suggestions, or just some sign that there's anybody actually outside the studio.

Address email to charles at msbpodcast.com