FRIDAY FOLLIES: On the Dalai Lama, Thurber, Michael Scott and Mitt

I've always dreamed of someday meeting the Dalai Lama (hasn't everybody?); sitting down with him, picking his brain, asking him the questions of the day:  What do you think about war and famine and global warming?  If I knew I was actually going to have the chance, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be working up a joke to tell him.  But then I'm not Australian anchor Karl Stefanovic, who had been saving his best joke (I'm guessing) for his best interview ever only to find it painfully lost, in translation and everywhere else.  Watch this.

On Target:  So I found that funny Dalai Lama link above at Gawker, a fun place to go when you want a laugh or two, but then I had to hang around long enough to find this disturbing bit of news:  Target says their people don't need no stinkin' unions.  They're so sure they really don't they've put out an anti-union video that's shown to all new employees.  At Target!  Yes, Target. Where anything a union can do they can do better.  Gawker says you won't find this in many places, so here it is in all its glory.  Thank you, Gawker. Always great to end the week on a low note.

As if Anthony Weiner's presser wasn't low enough.  The deeds, the resignation, the heckling at a press conference. . .it's a strange new world out there.  I wish it hadn't happened--any of it--but it did and it ended last week.  So there it is.  But I would rather remember Rep. Weiner like this.

Mitt Romney, a millionaire times a couple hundred, took all kinds of flak this week for commiserating with the jobless by telling them with a twinkle in his eye that he's out of work, too.  But here's the thing:  If Romney never, ever had a chance at a position of power I could kind of like the guy.  I mean, doesn't he remind you of Michael Scott, Steve Carell's character in "The Office"? The genius of Carell's "Michael" is that, while you're seeing all measure of a completely clueless "bad boss", there's that underlying pathetic need for acceptance, that clumsy begging to be liked that might just be tugging at your heartstrings if you could overlook all the overlying damage that comes with it.   Those Romney moments are like that.

Moment of Sublime:  A rare interview with James Thurber on "Omnibus". I've probably read everything Thurber ever wrote (my favorite is "The Years with Ross", probably because I thought I would be writing for The New Yorker some day. . .) and I admit I've spent endless minutes studying his cartoons, trying to make sense of why I'm laughing when they make no sense, but I can't remember the last time I've seen a clip of him actually talking.  (It could be I never actually have before.  When the memory goes, it's a terrible thing.  Unless you're able to forget that you had once remembered.)

That clip of Thurber being interviewed by Alistair Sim comes from a piece by Bob Mankoff, who wrote about Thurber in The New Yorker, Thurber's home away from home, which I read (after finding a mention on Twitter) courtesy of KenInNY at Down with Tyranny, who writes about attending a Thurber Celebration where Keith Olbermann spoke--along with Thurber's daughter, Mankoff, and Calvin Trillin. This is the beautiful beauty of the Internet.  If I hadn't come across the tweet on Twitter I never would have followed the wonderful paths to the video and I wouldn't be sharing any of it here.  That would be just pitiful.

Cartoon of the week:

James Thurber - The New Yorker magazine - 1929

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In America: The Sick and Dying have to go Begging--in America

"Most of the people I met [at the Kansas City Free Health Clinic] were working people. Eighty-three percent of the people who come to these clinics are employed. But over and over and over, I heard about unaffordable junk insurance, unaffordable premiums, obscene co-pays. During these very difficult economic times, the choice always comes down to food, clothing, and heat or insurance and health care. I also repeatedly heard people say that when they had insurance, they still got stuck with the bills, so what's the point of having insurance? Yes, we all know about that scam."

Eve "nyceve" Gittelson, Huffington Post, 12/12/09

 There is something horribly wrong when a country claiming to be the Leader of Democracy in the Free World turns its back, shuts its eyes, blocks its ears, and cries "Poor" when  it is faced with a shameful, outrageous truth:  That there are citizens of this country--working citizens--who can't afford health care and are turned away from free health clinics held in venues as large as 120,000 sq. ft. because the volunteer staffers are overwhelmed with unbelievable numbers of people seeking medical help.

SHAME on the White House, SHAME on Congress, and SHAME on any person with the ability to do something about it who hasn't.

Read this, please.  Watch Gittelson's videos.  Then take an hour or so to bombard the White House, every member of Congress, the New York Times, The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, and every other media outlet that could do something about this abominable health care debacle and hasn't.

You'll note I've left MSNBC off of this list.  That's because they've done remarkable work promoting the efforts of the National Association of Free Clinics.  Ed Schultz has actually gone to the clinics and if you click on the link, you'll see the kind of outrage I'm feeling right now.  It's the admirable truth, but who is listening?  Apparently nobody.)

Keith Olbermann has raised well over a million dollars for them, and literally got the ball rolling enough so that they could rent larger buildings and care for more patients in more cities.  But no matter how large the operation, they inevitably have to turn people away.  They do it with heavy hearts, with tears in their eyes.

Meanwhile the Obama administration and the Congress of the United States bog themselves down in speechifying and face-saving pissing matches.  They've made closed door promises to the perpetrators of all that misery, the so-called Health Care "providers", and now have the nerve to mask their perfidy as sudden concern for our economic well-being.  I've heard enough of their unctuous speeches, their phony concern, their whistling Dixie off-key.

I'm off now to give 'em hell.  I hope I'm not alone.

Ramona

(Cross-posted at Talking Points Memo here)