WEEKLY SOUTHERN ARTS
"Sometime the boogaloo 
  • Home
  • From The Publishers
  • Summer 1970 - Fishing with Alligators
  • The Fire-Starters
  • Jimi Hendrix Was The Roy Buchanan of Rock & Roll & Other Rural American Stories
  • Real Genius
  • Guns, Faith and Murder
  • A Blue World
  • Nova Explains
  • Satan's Jr. High
  • The Million Dollar Store
  • The People Who care
  • Jesus and The Red Words
  • Sniffing Out White Supremacy
  • Artistic Con-cepts
  • “The Word From The Streets”
  • A Voice from the Crowd
  • How a White-man Became a Black-man In Order To Find His Whiteness—His Alright-ness.
  • Camille Bertault: 2 Views of a Secret
  • Judy Garland - "Soul Singer"
  • Robert & Jimi and the Twenty Seven Blues
  • The Last Vestiges of Mueller’s Collusion Case Just Died...and Nobody Noticed
  • The Great Pretenders
  • Imagine
  • Me and Junior Parker
  • The Republican
  • "Kill The Pigs!!!"
  • "Another of Trump's Henchmen Falls!!!"
  • Saving ISIS, Killing America
  • Cyrus The Great Strikes Again
  • The Big Lie - "Fear Russia Love China"
  • “The Russians are Coming!” (again)
  • "Impeach This!"
  • “Trump Backs Turkey Down”
  • Congressman Elijah Cummings Died last night at the age of 68.
  • Sweet Home Chicago (The Obama Shakedown)
  • Blind as a Bat
  • "I cannot Tell a Lie"
  • If Only Obama Was Still President, Syria Would Be Swell
  • Impeachment Fever
  • The Ballad of Hunter & Joe
  • "God Will Do It!"
  • Jeffrey Epstein & The Mysterious Case of The Infinite Pedophile Monkeys
  • The World is Insane: pt 4095 - “What is Less Than Zero?”
  • The Magic Bullet and The Lonely Death of Jeffrey Epstein
  • The Facts about Illegal Immigration
  • Chicago
  • Liz Warren Hits The Road
  • Traitors & Lies
  • “If The World Was Fair”
  • "The Few, The proud, The Insane: The Democrats"
  • "GOD & UNCLE SAM"
  • A Minor Complaint
  • Murder in The Meantime
  • The 22-yr-old Bottle Blonde
  • “Jerry “The Toad” & other Sesame Street Lessons”
  • "Riffing in Tongues"
  • The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence Revisited
  • The Few The Brave The FBI
  • Jesus and Liz Warren Want to Forgive You
  • The Witch Hunt Ends? Not Even Close.
  • Divine Guidance
  • The Crocodile & The Politician
  • Uncle Joe Apologizes
  • Why I Hate, Hate Crimes
  • It's Only a Matter of Time
  • Let It Rain
  • Dumb & Dumber
  • ....of Poets & Scientists
  • Goodbye Pork-Fried Rat
  • Hearing Duane Eddy
  • Is It Alright...To Be White?
  • "Hell is Real!!!"
  • Mauled by Reality
  • The Cult of The Secret Unknowing Marxist
  • Resist the Devil and He Will Flea
  • The Unwitting Socialist
  • Personal Stories
  • The Magula Report 2019
  • "The New Blood & The New Deal"
  • “The Wall"....and other, mostly silly conversations.
  • The War for the Soul of Mankind: “Stan Getz vs Eric Dolphy”
  • The "Others"
  • White Cracker-Ass Niggas
  • New York Gives The Thumbs Up To Mass Genocide
  • Rudy & Nat
  • A Close Shave With The Well-Intended Bigot
  • This is What Happens When My Favorite Band “The Mellow Herb” Comes To Town
  • The Hemispherical Brain Activity of a Wayward Somnambulist
  • Gun "Race With The Devil"
  • “Half Of All Millennials Think Barack Obama is More Important Than George Washington!!??”
  • "The Dow Posts The Biggest One Day Gain In History."
  • Good Morning Comrades
  • Sharks, Zombies & God
  • A Road Home
  • You're Getting Sleepy....Very Sleepy
  • Stupid People
  • Jezebel and Ahab Make a Comeback
  • Stevie Ray Vaughn: Derivitive Hack or Genius
  • Music & Reminiscence
  • “The Giant Facebook Id-Monster Attacks”
  • “Bullshit...it’s a Damned Invasion!”
  • Bobby-Jack
  • Lowell George searching for authenticity
  • For The Love of Krazy Kat
  • How I Came To Understand That Fighting The Power Was Useless. Unless...You Fight The Power By Giving Power to The Power To Fight The Power
  • Within the Lifetime Of The Average American...The U.S. Population Could Realistically Exceed That of China & India
  • The Problem of Blasphemy In a Secular Society
  • The Waitress and The Power
  • A Message From The Democrats After The 2018 Midterms
  • On This Day Before Election Day, These 5 Things Should Be Remembered As You Vote
  • A Lie Is As Good As The Truth....as long as it's a good lie
  • "Evil Republicans Suppress The Minority Vote"
  • The Enemy of Mankind
  • The Mob
  • Why Chinese Tariffs?
  • A Caravan To Nowhere
  • Ant Farm
  • “They’re Coming For Your Social Security!”
  • The Witchfinder Speaketh
  • Eating Sawdust & Voting Democrat
  • Muslims Kill Washington Post Journalist”...and other stories best left untold
  • Orwell's Nightmare
  • The Sobbing Walrus
  • A Telling Lie
  • Tribal Marxism
  • A Pimp and His Stable of Political Whores
  • "Evidence?.... I Don't Need No Damned Evidence!"
  • A Post Modern Lynching
  • Talkin’ Blues: A White Social Justice Warrior Meets a Bluesman
  • Pocahontas Wants To Impeach President Trump
  • A Belated Tip of The Hat To John McCain's Funeral
  • "Colin Kaepernick Fights The Power. My Brothers!"
  • Jack Ryan: Promoting Jihad & The Brotherhood of Man
  • Rediscovering Willie "The Fruitbat" Johnson
  • The Allegation
  • Message in a Bottle
  • A Coven of Witches
  • The Communist & The Exalted Cyclops
  • America vs Satanic Goat Worshipers
  • Forcing Transgender Penis Cakes on America
  • The Iidots Lament
  • Irritating Post: no. 529
  • Irritating Post: no. 642
  • My Brain is a Liar
  • My New Rap "Alligators"
  • Helpful Hints in Logic
  • The Unredacted News
  • A Loss of Composure
  • The Myth of Objective Fact Checkers
  • Surviving Politics
  • The Pit or The Pendulum
  • Do Not Forsake Me. Not For a Dollar. Not For a Dime.
  • Repeller of The Amorites
  • Sometimes I feel Like a Motherless Child...but only sometimes
  • Welcome To The Freakshow
  • Part One: The Monster Is Summoned
  • A Sideways Glance at Reality....
  • The Ballad of Trey Gowdy
  • Lies, Spies, and Thighs at The FBI
  • The Ballad of Charlie Crockett
  • Children in Cages
  • A Poem For Clifford Odets
  • Anthony Bourdain
  • Like Billy Eckstein Singing to an Empty Club at 1:00 AM on a Saturday Night in 1975.
  • A Letter From The Democratic National Committee
  • Bent
  • "There Were No Spies in The FBI and Other Fictional Tales"
  • The New Rules For Radicals
  • Blood In The Water
  • "3000 American Businesses Colluded with Russia For Profit"
  • I Spy (For The FBI)
  • Free Shit—and Bears
  • Cute Dog Videos
  • How The Press Aided and Abetted Terrorists
  • The Iran Deal Myth
  • The Scouts
  • Pinko Muthafuckas
  • Kelly Joe Phelps
  • Johnny Winter and, 1970
  • Happy Days Are Here Again
  • RAGe Against The Machine
  • Carlos and Buddy
    • How The Bird & Darwin Took Flight With a A7#9 Chord
  • Just a Few Glaring Examples Of Media Scummery
  • They Call it Stormy Monday
  • "I Gotta Take A Wiz" or, "How Starbucks Destroyed the World"
  • Who Needs War?
  • Why The Devil Don't Come Around No More
  • 2+2 Really Does = 4
  • The Tangled Web
  • Shadow Banning
  • What Changed?
  • Oblivious But Concerned
  • "Give Up!"
  • Jesus: The Spirit of Man and God That Illuminates The Darkness
  • Mickey Baker: Goin' To Kansas City
  • "Washington Saves America from Pot-smoking Mass Murderers"
  • Nontraditional Thoughts
  • Attack of The Trillion Dollar Omnibus Bill
  • Hearing Junior Wells “On Tap'' one more Time
  • Just Words
  • Muddy and Me
  • Racist Debtaes About Terrorsim
  • Fidel's Utopia
  • Unwitting Hypocrisy is The Best Kind of Hypocrisy
  • Excess Baggage
  • Excess Baggage pt. 2
  • Fake News Is The New Real News
  • The Death of Billy Graham and Manufacturing Consent
  • American Youth: The Rise of The New Media
  • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Talk About Slavery and Shit
  • Just Smoke
  • Monkey in a Box
  • How The Children of Sal and Dean Destroyed The World
  • On This Cold Winter's Morn
  • The Crime of the Century
  • Evidence: What The Hell Is It?
  • They Were Pissed: America, Jack Kerouac, and the Beats
  • Negotiating The Maze Of Life and a Blues Shuffle.
  • Everyone Is Hitler (In their own Way)
  • The Mystery of The Giant Balloon Shark
  • Subterfuge and Its Discontents
  • God Debunks Global Warming
  • Day Two: God Continues To Debunk Global Warming
  • Strzoking Russia
  • The Al Franken Effect. Or, How to Destroy America and Lose Elections
  • The Big Maybe
  • The News Apocalypse
  • The Guitarticle (Guitar article)
  • The Nation of Lucifer
  • Slurring Pocahontas
  • Why Everything Good Said About Net Neutrality is a Lie
  • .....and behold, The Cause of Your Demise Is Upon You
  • The Trans-boy That Cried Wolf
  • Believe Nothing
  • Donald Trump Blasts The Heads Off Of Tiny Woodland Creatures
  • The Problem of Hypocrites
  • Roy Moore: Serial Pervert
  • I'm So Frustrated
  • The Devil's Whisper
  • Science Can't Dance
  • You're Gonna Have To Serve Somebody
  • Louie C. K.
  • Common Sense
  • Hunting For Witches
  • Living in The Age of "tRump"
  • The Devil is a Hustler
  • The Skinny
  • Eric Dolphy
  • ISIS Rode in On a Donkey
  • "The Manafort Indictment"
  • The Truth About the Middle East
  • Dennis Budimer's "Alone Together" Revisited
  • The Halloween Edition
  • The 20th Century Was Groovy
  • The Salesman
  • The Dossier
  • Elmore James
  • Isle of The Poor
  • The Patriarchy is Alive and Well
  • Moving Napoleon
  • Guns and Guerrillas
  • Playing Four
  • Hollywood and Scumbags
  • Why Everything You Think, Is Wrong
  • Killing Yourself With Terrorism
  • Being Liberal
  • Laced With Hate
  • A Message From Occupy Democrats
  • A Taxing Dilemma
  • What Really Happened with Aid in Puerto Rico
  • Colin Kaepernick and Beyoncé are geniuses. Part 1
  • When the Levee Breaks
  • The Second Coming of Anthony Weiner
  • How to Never Lose a Fight
  • Creating Chaos out of Meaning
  • Crime and Punishment
  • The Man in the Mirror
  • Guitar Gods of the Sixties
  • Entopy: A Play in One Act
  • The Ragged Tale of a Poverty Stricken Economic Genius
  • The Dreamers
  • Hey There Georgy Girl
  • This Is Not a Defense of Joel Osteen. Or is it?
  • The Ballad of Poindexter Glockenspiel
  • The Big Dummy
  • More Florida in Pictures and Text
  • How Do I Hate Thee
  • Florida in Images and More Images
  • "How To Solve The Healthcare Crisis and Why It's So Damned Hard To Fix"
  • The Big Lie
  • The Demise of the West
  • “Good Times! Good Times! You know, we talkin’ bout Good Times!”
  • "Justice My Ass!"
  • Wolves in Sheep's Clothing
  • The Coming Apocalypse and How to Avoid it: a Historical/Biblical Perspective.
  • "Muthafuckin' Chains!"
  • Lies Our Father's Told Us
  • Poetry and Politics - a few mixed verses
  • The Inner Man
  • The Vampire and The Carpet Salesman
  • Comey Speaks!
  • A Word From Nostradamus about the Comey Hearings
  • The Towering Babble
  • Chain of Fools
  • I Got Ramblin' on My Mind
  • Telling Ourselves Stories
  • Shit! Make Me Wanna Holler!
  • Even More Reasons Why The Paris Accords are Total Horseshit.
  • When Life Imitates Satire
  • Jethro and Becky Sue Come To America
  • Random Apocrypha
  • Why The Paris Climate Accords Are Total Horseshit
  • Urban Stories
  • The Kingdom of God: a personal rant
  • Urban Week @ South Beach
  • Serpico Revisited
  • The Road To Surf-dumb. Or, is it The Road To Serfdom?
  • This is Not a Political Article
  • My Hometown
  • What Does This Mean?
  • We're All Fools Sometime
  • One Pill Makes You Larger
  • "What a Maroon!"
  • Secrets and Lies
  • A Tale of Wine and Murder
  • "White House Under Siege!"
  • The Amateur Narcissist
  • Like a Rock
  • The Greatest of Ally of a True Idiot is.....
  • How To Prove someone's a Witch
  • Jesus Was a Sly Dog
  • An Open Letter From The Democratic National Committee
  • The Power of Language
  • The Existential Croûton
  • Random Facebook Thoughts
  • A Play "The Poverty Racket"
  • The Demise of the 4th Estate
  • Love To Hate My Enemies
  • Feelings, Oh, Oh, Oh, Feelings
  • Art or Reality
  • The Prison Yard Blues
  • Who is Richard Spencer and Why Does He Matter?
  • __an excerpt from "The Power of Voltron "
  • A Plea From a Progressive
  • ANTIFA - The Anti Fascists, Fascists
  • Conspiracy Theory
  • 4 More Poems, 4 More Pictures
  • "Are You Freaking People Insane?"
  • 4 Pictures 4 Poems
  • The Ballad of Carlos Slim
  • Pretending What's in Your Head is True
  • The Cognitive Dissonance of a Faithful Democrat
  • The Human Snakepit
  • George Freeman - Unsung Master of the Jazz Guitar
  • The Price of Milk
  • Suspicious Minds
  • Bill O'Reilly Sexual Predator?
  • The New Soldier
  • Orwell Revisited
  • Larry Coryell - The Godfather is Dead
  • A Tiger Beat
  • South Florida - HOT & COOL
  • Jean Paul Sartre & the Existentialist Mojo
  • Culture Matters, Immigration Matters, Sharks Matter
  • Thomas Sowell
  • A Tree Falls In Central Park on a Gay Banker
  • Black Codes From The Underground
  • Does an Idiot know they're an Idiot?
  • A Poem for Pooh
  • It's All or Nothing Baby!
  • Racism is Alive and Well
  • "Shut the Hell Up!"
  • Jerry Seinfeld - Social Pariah
  • A Man Must Nurture His Pet Peeves
  • Not the Usual Immigration Article
  • Man Talk, with Donald Trump pt. 1
  • Man Talk, with Donald Trump pt. 2
  • The Bad Seed
  • Dogma Never Sleeps
  • Trump and Clinton Debate
  • Was Jesus a True Pacifist?
  • Brexit Was the Shot Heard Around the World
  • Obama, How Great Thou Art
  • War is Good
  • The Willful Ignorance of Intellectual Children
  • What about All Those Peacful Muslims?
  • Terror! What Terror?
  • Biff and Shorty Play The Blues
  • Forty Miles of Bad Road
  • How Obamacare Became the law of the land: And Other Fairytales for Adults
  • Genteel Republicans vs The Alt-Right
  • Should Drugs be Legal?
  • The Prophet Speaks
  • The Dream Sequence
  • Voting 3rd Party and the Moral Low-Ground
  • Sayonara America
  • What does Never Trump Mean?
  • Barack Obama is the Most Brilliant Man Ever to be President?
  • If God Created War, Does That Mean That War is Good?
  • Never Let Your Enemies Define You
  • Facebook, Science & Religion
  • Bullshit by the Numbers
  • Bullshit by the Numbers - part II
  • The Heated Quest for the "No Information Voter"
  • I Love The Dead
  • Those Who Lurk
  • Battered, Bruised and Beaten
  • Trump and Hitler
  • America in Black and White
  • Trans-Athletics
  • Playing a Rigged Game
  • Who was that Mass Murderer?
  • The Kidnappers
  • The Game
  • Terror in Nice: A Variation on a Theme
  • The Idiots Guide on How to Destory the World
  • Terror in France
  • A Fictional Conversation Between a Pastor and a Historian About the Bible
  • The Immoral Necessity for Scapegoats
  • Who Really Shot Those Eleven Cops? Was It Donald Trump?
  • Killer Cops and Cop Killers
  • Happy 4th of July
  • How Do You Cast Your Vote When You've Only Got a Few Bullets Left?
  • "Yes, She's a Lying Sack of Shit....but She's our Lying Sack of Shit."
  • All Apologies
  • Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up
  • Goodbye Scotty Moore
  • If a Bluebird Plays the Blues Why Can't it Play Free Jazz
  • Terror in Turkey
  • When David Slew Goliath
  • The Life & Death of a Global Fat Cat
  • Intentionally Censoring the News
  • The Brits Leave the EU
  • Chick, Christian, Roy & Kenny G
  • Who Really Committed Mass Murder in Orlando
  • The Tale of the Prince and the Shrew
  • A Dying Father's Last Father's Day
  • Mass Murdering, Terrorist's Father is Obama and Hillary's Best Friend
  • Why Cream still Matters 50 Years Later
  • Misguided Anger and Partisan Politics
  • The Deep Guilt of the Religious Left
  • Radical Islam! What Radical Islam?
  • Denial is a River in Egypt
  • A Response to all the Haters
  • Why Muhammad Ali was my Hero (in spite of being a Racist)
  • Why Trump Matters
  • The New Progressive Racism
  • A Tragedy in Cincinnati
  • The Evil that Men do (Women too.)
  • Differences? What Differences?
  • Racism Revisited
  • Battling Immigration Straw Men
  • Blood Quantum
  • Fighting Transgender Straw Men
  • Logical Fallacies about God and Money
  • Progressive Straw Men
  • Everybody is Robbing You Blind
  • On The Road To El Donaldo
  • Dear Mark: About Donald Trump
  • Identifying the Enemy
  • Why I Will Vote For Trump
  • I Totally Agree With Myself
  • Teaching Americans Where to Pee
  • Goodbye Lonnie Mack
  • Bernie Wants You To Pay His Fair Share
  • Bruce Springsteen vs. North Carolina
  • Mr. Smiley Is an Idiot
  • Why Does College Cost So Much?
  • Black Power and Bad Vibes At Whiteness History Month
  • How Facebook Showed Me That We're Doomed
  • Muslims kill Muslims by means of White People
  • The Slap
  • America Wants a 3rd Party Candidate
  • Jesus Loved Everybody
  • Call it what it is.
  • Belgium vs. Turkey. Which One is Worse?
  • Barack, Fidel and Che
  • How He Gonna Get His Money pt. 2
  • How He Gonna Get His Money
  • The Turn of The Screw
  • Dear America: Now, about Trump....
  • The Attack of the Anti Trumpers
  • Did You Know that America is Socialism....and boy, ain't it Swell
  • Trump - Prophet or Blowhard?
  • Black Lies Matter, All Lies Matter
  • The Donald and the Debate
  • Leonardo and The Bear
  • The Thunder Rolled and the "Trump" Blows em all to Hell
  • Fragmented Fairytails
  • Cars That Never Were but Should've Been, Part 6
  • Building The Perfect Beast
  • America: A Tale of Two Cities, Part 1
  • Uncle Bernie in New Hampshire
  • The Big L
  • The Diary of a Former Leftist
  • Free Speech not Hate Speech?
  • State of the Union
  • Losing My Religion
  • Don't Take Our Guns Away Until We Kill Those Honky Bastards
  • Bye Bye Europe
  • "Trump is a Racist!"
  • "Hell Yeah! I've Got Obama Care!
  • Trumponomics
  • Woman of the Year
  • Malicious Intent and the Art of the Microaggression
  • Muslim No-Go Zones - Myth or Reality?
  • Donald J. Trump and the Muslim Migration to America
  • There Is No God But Allah?
  • Roadhouse - The Reboot
  • Sometimes You Just Can't Win
  • A Few Thoughts Regarding Trump
  • Cars That Never Were But Should've Been, Part 5
  • You Can Have My Steering Wheel When You Pry It From Cold, Daed Hands
  • The Great Debate
  • Al, Thomas and Paul - Malthusians Then and Now
  • A Prophet Debates Global Warming and other retated Dogma
  • Memes, Scapegoats, Propaganda
  • Little Hillary and Her Monsters
  • A Prophecy for America
  • The Basketball Metaphor
  • Vladimir Putin: An American Hero
  • Little Things
  • The Democrats Debate
  • It's All Ablout da Benjamins
  • Remember When?
  • Mass Shooter
  • Cars That Never Were But Should've Been: Part 4
  • Should A Muslim Be President in America?
  • The Strange Case of Ahmed Mohamed
  • Debt and Other Devious Angels
  • Bernie Sanders is Caesar not Jesus
  • An inconvenient Truth
  • Who's really a Native American?
  • The Rebirth of the Silent Majority
  • Money That's What I Want!
  • The Syrian Crisis and the Memeing of America
  • Why Societies Have Generally Valued Men More than Women
  • The Problem of Evil
  • A few Thoughts on a Few Things
  • The Authentic pose of a Black White Man
  • Sweden: Socialist Utopia or Progressive Madhouse?
  • Why Dogs Matter
  • Guilty Until Proven Innocent
  • Was Jesus a Socialist?
  • "The Donald" A Man for the Ages
  • Harvesting the Wheat - or - Karma's a Real Bitch
  • Cecil The Lion
  • Cars That Never Were but Should’ve Been, Part 3
  • Secrets and Lies
  • Can Minorities Be Racist?
  • I Was Just Thinking....Hmm?
  • Iran Deal - Good or Bad?
  • Jihad or Not Jihad? That is the Question.
  • "Let's Do Lunch" with Planned Parenthood
  • America The Contemptible
  • Marriage, Bigotry and Cooties
  • The Things We Care About
  • The Simplicity of it All
  • A Dissenting Opinion
  • Cars That Should've Been, But Never Were: part II
  • Live Now, Pay Later
  • I Am, Whatever I Say I Am!
  • Bernie Sanders is the Dumbest Bastard on Earth
  • Cars That Never Were But Should've Been
  • Bruce Jenner
  • The Good Society
  • A Personal Jesus For My Own
  • Take a Ride on a Hell Bound Train
  • Requiem For a Car Show
  • Obama Channels Neville Chamberlain in Dealing with Iran
  • The Short Life of a Political Lemming
  • The Strongman
  • The Broken Window
  • The Selective Outrage of The Anti Israel Left
  • When the Blind Lead the Blind
  • Top Brass With Class
  • Living In A world On Fire
  • Lying Liars and the Lies They Tell
  • What The Hell Is Esotericism?
  • Unicorns, Free Healthcare and other Mythological Creatures
  • Heroes and Dunces
  • A Few Thoughts On a Few Things
  • The Return Of Super Fly
  • Should You Ever Bet On A dead Horse?
  • Money For Nothing
  • Across The Great Divide
  • Tom, Jerry, Eddie & Sydney
  • The Folly of Foibles
  • Who really killed Eric Garner?
  • The Art of The Sale
  • Political Bullshit and All That Jazz
  • Oh, The Horror of It All
  • To Torture or Not To Torture, That is The Question
  • Selective Justice
  • Executive Action
  • Give Us Your Tired, Poor and Ambitious
  • Johnny Winter, Ahhh-Yeahh!
  • Homeless and Transgender "Let My People Pee!"
  • Are We Insane? You Betcha!
  • Ebola and Racism
  • You're a Racist, Just Admit It!
  • To Discriminate or Not to Discriminate, That is the Question
  • The Life of an Imaginary Historian
  • Why Most Debates About The Minimum Wage are Bullshit
  • The Return of the Infinite Monkeys
  • Politically Correct Genocide
  • Language and the illusion of Meaning
  • Obama vs. Reagan
  • Is Barack Obama our Most Successful President Ever?
  • White Racism Black Racism
  • The Race
  • Should People Be Free to Discriminate?
  • Science, Religion and Brother Neil
  • Welcome To America
  • The Reincarnation of Jimmy Carter and the Return of Scarface
  • SCOTUS, Condoms and Collateral Damage
  • The American Dream
  • Attack of the Bloated Leeches or "Why Does the Economy Suck pt. II"
  • Why Does the Economy Suck?
  • Jaco Pastorius - A Passage in Time
  • How can we save the world, from people who want to save the world?
  • A Short Political rant: pt I
  • Jerry Reed, Tom Jones and the Original Guitar Heroes
  • Part Two: The Politics of the Eloi and the Morlock
  • Angel: part 7
  • Wayne Cochran "Going Back to Miami"
  • Blessed Assurances and other Iron Clad Guarantees
  • James Brown & the Art of the Indefinite Rhythm
  • If the Bible Say's it, I believe It!
  • Go For a Jog, Go to Jail
  • Life as Theatre and The Well-Intended Sociopath
  • Rory Gallagher & Taste
  • Utopia and the Militant Socialist
  • Matt Damon & the Teachers Union vs. the Capitalist Pigs
  • The Fight of the Century
  • The Last Damned Healthcare Article You'll Ever Need
  • The Gospel According to Mark
  • You Might Be an Idiot if.....
  • How To Interpret Political Speech and other Forms of Gibberish
  • Polygamy and the Search For Morality
  • The "Big" Gulp
  • When a Lie is the Truth and the Truth is a Lie
  • Jim Hall - The Subtle Radical
  • Making Deals With the Devil in Iran
  • Dennis and Mary
  • Thank You Lord For the Good Things You have Done
  • Excersise In Futility
  • Is Obama The Antichrist?
  • The Case for Limited Government (and that includes a limited military)
  • The Weekly Southern Blog
  • Angel: part VI
  • The Esoteric Agenda
  • Ted Bundy & The Hunt For The Devil
  • Things I wish the President Knew Pt. 3
  • Really Now, I'm Syria
  • What Will You Do?
  • Charlie & Clint: Dead & Deader
  • God Loves Me and Has a Plan For My Life...Right?
  • Trayvon & George : An American Hate Story
  • Is God's Grace Ecclesiastical White-out?
  • Jury Duty
  • The Left's Contradictory Love Affair With Gays & Muslims
  • Hee Haw and Grandma and Grandpa
  • Little Tommy & The Blues Kings
  • Gay Marriage: Part II
  • Kayaking "The Big Cypress" with Crocodlies
  • The Birth of The Jazz Guitarist
  • Running With The Bullshit In Pamplona
  • Divided By Abortion
  • Gay Marriage
  • Life on the Fault-line
  • Out of the Wild
  • A Generation Out Of Touch
  • Morning Faith with a Cup of Joe
  • For The Children
  • Made up Facts & True Beliefs
  • The Unforgettable - Nat 'King' Cole
  • Slavery Was Big Business....and It Still Is!
  • Garage Band - The 1960's
  • A Man's Best Friend is his Dogma
  • Voting With Our Private Parts
  • Investors of the World, Unite
  • Good Intentions...bad results
  • The Plural of "You"
  • How to Get God to Give You What You Want: Redux
  • We Have Not Yet Begun To Fight
  • Polls–Divination or Manipulation?
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The Last Damned Healthcare Article You'll Ever Need!

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"I used to be a pretty greedy guy.  So, I thought, I need to come up with a plan to get rich quick.  I figured if I charged forty thousand dollars an hour for my services and work three, maybe four hours a year, I could sit back and relax.  Seemed like a good idea to me.  There was only one problem.  No one, I mean no one, was willing to pay me forty thousand dollars an hour for my services.  So, I figured I’d cut my fees in half, after all, who could argue with a fifty percent reduction.  This was sure to get me plenty of business.  But, no one wanted to pay even a measly twenty thousand dollars an hour.  Finally, I got wise, and decided to charge the going rate.  In fact, I thought “If I beat the going rate and offer better service, I just might get a lot of business!”  Sure enough, people started to call, and, I started to get a lot of work.  “Damn!”  I thought, “who knew that competitive pricing and good service was such a sure bet?” 

What is the moral of this story?  Anybody who thinks that being greedy will make you rich, is an idiot.  


Plato

Let's start with a simple, but relevant question.  Why does the average eighteen-year-old male pay more for auto insurance than a female of the same age?  Does anyone really need to answer that question?  It’s well known that men, until about the age of twenty-five, are far more likely to get in an accident than women of the same age—about eighteen million times more per year.  But even well into their golden years men cause more accidents than women.  They’re also more likely to get in the car hammered drunk and drive.  In other words, their behavior, which is a good deal more conducive to getting killed in just about every kind of wheeled conveyance, is the difference, and that is why they pay significantly higher premiums.

Imagine if that same behavior had no effect on cost.  And, that it was no longer legal to discriminate against young men for driving just because they were a lot more likely to kill or be killed behind the wheel.  Would anyone see this as reasonable? 

What if politicians began succumbing to the pressure of heavily organized groups of eighteen- and nineteen-year-old males, armed with slogans like “You want me to kill some kid with a gun in Iraq, but I can’t kill them in the good ole USA while driving drunk?”  Before you know it, college kids from Berkeley to your local community college would be marching in the streets with signs that said, “Fair treatment regardless of gender.”  What could be more American than that!  

If this seems farfetched, it isn’t.  The same illogic that applies in our hypothetical scenario is at work in our current healthcare debate.  

Here’s a simple example.  Health insurance is more expensive if you’re older, a good deal more expensive when comparing a sixty-year-old to someone who’s twenty-five.  In that regard, youth is a big advantage
--and for obvious reasons.  Young people are more likely to pay much lower premiums because they’re a lot less likely to get sick.   They’re also more prone to forego shelling out their hard-earned money for expensive insurance premiums for the same reason.  Why take $500.00 dollars a month out of your pocket to buy insurance you’ll probably never use? 

Here’s the rub.  Young people do get sick and need medical treatment.  And, some get into car accidents and survive, but not without heavy medical costs, to say nothing of other unforeseen calamities.  Without health insurance, every other taxpayer is forced to pick up the bill for these youthful slackers.  The fact that the average young person is probably more likely to be killed by a wild boar than incur huge hospital bills is beside the point.   

How then, do those wily, money-grubbing insurance companies determine who gets covered and who doesn't?   They use statistics and actuarial tables to interpret potentially dangerous behavior in order to determine cost.  For instance, if you smoke, your premiums are justifiably higher.  If you work as a stuntman or as a crocodile hunter your premiums are sure to go up as well.  But that could mean that some three-pack-a-day alligator wrestler may find it hard to get insurance.  How’s that fair?  A better question might be, “How is it not?”

That is the equivalent of America’s current healthcare debate.  Once you start talking about why some folks have coverage and others don’t, using terms like “intrinsic fairness,” you’ll have little hope of untangling the truth from the rhetoric—and there is nothing that politicians love more than soaring rhetoric.  Without lofty verbiage echoing throughout the halls of Congress and across television screens, “Reason,” that most disputatious of tendencies, could get in the way.  Rhetoric is always the last refuge of scoundrels of every kind, politicians and televangelists being fine examples, with little appreciable difference between the two.


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So, how do you cover everyone regardless of behavior or circumstance?  “Not easily”! Certainly not without a radical increase in costs.  In fact, no reasonable business would risk substantial losses unless they were offset by even more substantial premiums.  In other words, no one goes into business with the intention of losing money—not if they wish to stay in business.  Of course, government isn't a business, so losing money isn't much of a problem.  Not as long as your well-intended Uncle Sam can simply stick his hand in your pocket to pay for his failed ideas.   Why be accountable when the tax payers make such willing scapegoats?

In all fairness, though, there are people who get sick through no fault of their own, and any culture that simply lets people rot in the hospital doorway is no culture at all.  I think that few would disagree with this.  Children, the aged and the infirm should be taken care of with undiminished capacity, whether they can pay or not.  The problem, of course, is finding the most cost-effective way of achieving that goal without breaking the bank.

 Throughout most of American history, charity hospitals took care of the poor.  These weren’t Soviet-style hovels with nurses wearing babushkas and patients groveling in filth, but were among the premier hospitals in the world—often run by churches.  Catholics were prolific in building hospitals for the poor.  Protestants weren't far behind.


Strangely, there were no atheist’s hospitals, not a single one.  It was those evil Christians who overwhelmingly built hospitals, nursing homes and soup kitchens.  In fact, they were at the forefront of virtually every charity movement.  They still are today.  

Let’s be fair, though, back in the day, atheists were busily engaged in their own religion, with Darwinism having begotten the eugenics movement and religious figures like Margret Sanger (the Anti-Mother Theresa) eagerly  aiding the poor by snipping their reproductive organs.  This was intended to thrust forward the human race by drying up the supply of racially inferior peoples from around the world, especially the dark-skinned ones. “The less idiots the better.” being the favored slogan among social progressives following Darwin’s triumph over religious superstition.   But, I digress!

Before there were runaway hospital costs and doctors stopped making house calls, sick folk paid as best they could.   Doctors got paid much lower wages, relatively speaking, and an aspirin wasn’t twenty dollars at the emergency room, which it can easily be in today’s government-subsidized environment.  Costs, overall, remained stable. It wasn’t until Uncle Sam got deeply involved in the healthcare business that prices began to soar like the proverbial eagle.  

So, what did happen to cause greed (I mean prices) to rise like the stench from a fresh mound of dog debris? 

Back in the good ole WWII, Franklin Roosevelt, the president at the time, determined that, in order to keep workers from using the threat of labor strikes to bargain for better wages during wartime, he’d offer them subsidized healthcare.  It costs money and labor to build weapons of mass destruction. Funding for scientists so they could devise bombs that could kill every living thing on earth wasn’t cheap either.

It was simply easier to offer big tax breaks for businesses so their employees could get cheap healthcare in lieu of a raise.  Here’s how it worked.  For every dollar spent by employers on their workers’ healthcare, the government gave the business $1.50 to $2.50 in tax breaks.  This was more than good for America’s vast manufacturing industries and insurance companies, it was highly profitable.  Up to that point people paid very modest fees for doctors and hospital visits and prices remained stable.  Even afterward prices rose at acceptable levels. 


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Part of the reason was simple. As WWII came to an end America emerged largely unscathed from the global carnage.  Europe and Japan, by comparison, were little more than rubble, and were in need of a big hand up, which Americans generously offered.  It can be expensive to fight two global wars in the span of forty years without a staggering loss of life and property, as Europeans, in fact, did.  Being the sophisticates that they are and always eager to try some new political ideology, they gave the thumbs up to National Socialism (Hitler and the Nazi’s).  As if that wasn’t enough, some of them came up with the equally compelling Marxist utopia of international communism—and forged ahead running up a death toll unmatched in human history.  So, when things got really bad, they called on Uncle Sam in an effort to end the mass slaughter and help them rebuild after the war.  

This meant that America, which was already the most powerful industrialized nation on earth, was pretty well set with a huge client base for its products.  Jobs and more jobs sprung up, driving our economy and creating incredible national wealth, even for the poorest people, including African Americans.  The rising tide, not unexpectedly, lifted all boats. 

Eventually, those pesky Europeans and Japanese rebuilt their countries and economies and began to compete with Americans in the global marketplace.  It was at this point that America had two options; let them compete fairly, or bomb them back into a state of permanent need.  As appealing as the second option was, we chose the former.  Europe and Japan recovered and America’s period of unparalleled prosperity came to an end, as it always does.  It was just about that time that we decided to radically increase the size of our welfare state in an attempt to end poverty permanently.  After all, we were rolling in dough, what better time, if not then.  The fact that we had largely ended poverty by creating jobs and freedom, was beside the point.  Throw in an ever-growing military industrial complex, and, before you know it, you’re running up debts like a fourteen-year-old with a no-limit credit card.

By 1970, with the creation of Medicare and Medicaid and with the expansion of the welfare state in full swing, our healthcare costs began to rise like a rocket ship sucked in by the gravitational pull of the sun.  A simple look at a chart showing the explosive rise in healthcare costs after the 1960s makes it clear that it wasn’t greedy doctors or insurance companies that was the problem, but the attempt by the government to radically expand subsidized coverage for the poor and elderly that was the difference.  Healthcare, however, wasn’t the only thing that made Aerial flights into the stratosphere. 


"From 1900 through the 1940's the amount spent by government on health care rose less than one half of one percent.   After WWII, costs doubled.  By the 1960's, after the establishment of Medicare and Medicaid, healthcare costs rose nearly thirty times.   These numbers are based on Gross Domestic Product and are taking into account inflation"
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"In 1913, the 16th Amendment to the constitution made the income tax a permanent fixture in the U.S..  In 1918, collections for the IRS passed the billion-dollar mark, rising to $5.4 billion by 1920. With World War II, employment increased, and so did taxes, to the tune of $7.3 billion. The withholding tax on wages was introduced in 1943 and radically increased the number of tax slaves...I mean taxpayers, to 60 million and tax collections to $43 billion by 1945."

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Prior to WWII the income tax, which had been minimal, began to hit workers across the board for ever larger sums in an effort to pay for it all.  That meant that workers were, in reality, paying for their own healthcare, just not directly.  As long as the withholding tax came off the top and was hidden behind specially-devised terms like “before taxes" and "after taxes” (and no one looked too closely), all was swell. 

The income tax, among other encroaching taxes, would continue to grow like a festering sore as the nation’s wealth increased—and government grew exponentially with it.  All of this expansion created a circular problem, more services and entitlements meant more government, which, in turn, meant more taxes.  Politicians found out pretty quickly that they could buy elections by pandering to particular segments of the population by offering new and amazing programs that could be paid for with good intentions and other mystical processes.  And, amazingly, the people bought it, particularly those designated as the prime beneficiaries of the government’s second hand generosity.  When things got bad and money got tight, the finger could be pointed at some undesirable group like the rich and words like “Greed” could be used to elicit the appropriate emotional response.  In reality, it wasn’t those greedy insurance companies and drug manufacturers that were the real problem, although they made their own contributions, it was an ever-expanding sense of entitlement that drove it all.  A sense of entitlement that filtered across the land, with poor and rich folk alike, hands out, palms up, and a “grab everything you can” theory of good citizenship that was the real culprit.  

To quote The Talking Heads, “It’s the same as it ever was.”

There was a secondary and unintended consequence at work as well.  Once a person’s insurance picked up the tab for medical care and doctor’s visits, who cared what things cost.  After all, their insurance would pay for it, so why worry.  By disconnecting healthcare from market forces and genuine competition there wasn’t much to restrain prices except the altruism of businessmen and politicians.  And altruism amongst the business classes is only slightly less likely than your average politician’s indifference to being reelected.  This was crony-capitalism personified, even it was initially motivated by good intentions. 

That’s why an aspirin at the emergency room today can cost as much as $20.00, while you can by a bottle of thirty aspirin for a buck at your local dollar store.  The difference is the dollar store isn’t regulated by the government, so competition drives the market price.  If they were subsidized by the government, it would be called the twenty-dollar store.

Why then, would any rational society hand over a trillion-dollar-a-year industry, solely to government (Which is the ultimate intenion) when it’s that same government-subsidized healthcare industry that is driving all the debt to begin with?   The answer is simple.  If we removed all government subsidies from the equation, our radically over-inflated healthcare industry would collapse like a punctured balloon.  The rapid dispelling of oxygen would cause it to careen out of control and fall earthward, taking the nation with it.  Since that’s unthinkable, especially to politicians who understand the political ramifications of it all, the only alternative will be to turn it over to the government.  They will be forced to set prices for goods and services and eliminate the market completely in the hopes that the great runaway beast can be restrained, leaving only a monopoly in its place.  It should be obvious that a healthcare version of the old “Bell Telephone” model is a bad idea.  But I have little confidence that reason alone will be sufficient to pierce the veil. It’s far more likely that an eventual and unprecedented economic collapse will be the catalyst for meaningful change.  


America the great, has become a nation of junkies and crack addicts, with government as the dealer and debt as the drug of choice.  

Contrary to popular mythology, our healthcare system, in its previous incarnation, wasn’t some greedfest of corporate fiends withholding medical treatment while urchins fell like flies on American streets.  Sure, mortality rates were higher, but not because of a lack of government intervention.  Technological and scientific advances made the world a better place.  You see, scientists don’t just build bombs—and Christians aren’t always withholding a sandwich from the poor until they get an earful about Jesus.  The world is, and always has been, a more complex place than the simple-minded way in which our political history is conveyed through the lens of popular media.  If a “Keep it simple, stupid” methodology is at work within in our culture, it only works because stupidity, willful or otherwise, is always an easy substitute for actual knowledge.  And, until we’re willing to look beyond the spiraling rhetoric, it’s unlikely that we’ll get very far in solving our biggest problems.  We’ll remain captive to our well-intended ignorance, using selective facts as weapons to move forward what is often nothing more than self-serving agendas—always, of course, masquerading as the noble cause. 


Mark Magula


The extraordinary George C. Scott, speaking the words of the equally extraordinary Paddy Chayefsky, in 1971's "The Hospital." 

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The Last Damned Health Care Article You’ll Ever Need