And we’ve had a few Oscarina’s in the Huffington Post! I try to make sure there’s on there every Monday. I call it “Political Monday at Oscarina.”

This one is about the middle class worker’s duty to strike:

Congratulations to New York, where we can all be gay in every sense of the word now, as equally as anyone. Boo to you Ruben Diaz, but as this is a democracy, we have to uphold your right to dissent from common sense if you must. Do everything else right, and I’ll be okay with you. But you better do everything else right, bud.

I’ll have to repost this Oscarina (as seen on the Huffington Post recently) in honor of it all. Blow it out your asses, conservatives! (click on the image if you need it bigger).

Also in the news, I’ve created a page on Facebook, for those for whom newyorkette is not enough!  Please feel free to go there and “like” away. I need at least 25 likers before I can get a username, they say.

I haven’t been submitting much to The New Yorker due to working on more personal stuff, but I’m getting back in the groove, and you will be seeing me there again soon, if they haven’t given up on me in disgust, thinking I just got lazy.

Meanwhile, here’s the lastest Oscarina, for your entertainment. Click on the image to open a larger one if you can’t read the text.:

Now, on the Huffington Post.

On Salon.com:

To see this on the Huffington Post’s site, click here.

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Anyway, here are this week’s Huffington Posts, exceptionally there are two, due to Ted Kennedy’s demise. See what I (and quite a lot of commenters) think of death panels by clicking on the image below.

And see what I think of Ted Kennedy, by clicking on the image below. Full disclosure: I’m 44, and the first time I heard about Ted Kennedy, it was for Chappaquiddick. So, for my generation, his life began with that moment, and the rest of his life has been about atoning for it. I’d say he did a good job, and that it diminishes his efforts if you forget that he was actually redeeming himself in the world’s eyes nonstop, and inexhaustibly. Plus, you can’t have one Ted Kennedy without the other Ted Kennedy.

It appears that people are trying to scare seniors into thinking they’ll be put on a “death list” that will ration life-sustaining treatment and medication in order to save money for the proposed national health system. The specter of “Logan’s Run” and “Soylent Green” has been raised. “Kill granny,” and other such nonsensical words have been thrown out there. All I can say  is maybe these fearful people fear things that they themselves would do to others if they had the chance. I know for a fact (since he’s always said as much) that my dad wouldn’t want to give a dime to pay for anyone’s health other than his own, and yet I’m sure he would probably not hesitate to benefit from national health insurance if he had the chance. Some people will complain about anything, anyway: if it’s not national health insurance, it’s private health insurance they’ll rail against. Grump, grump, grump.

I happen to have benefitted from national health care for 13 years in France. Socialist? Maybe! I also had a free university education, an excellent one, I might add. And when I was a full-time legal employee in a French company, I earned two days of paid vacation every month, till I had my five weeks of paid vacation like all the other French people. They never let me bring work home, and said if I couldn’t do my job at the office alone, it was the wrong job for me. And they were right. I learned to do my work at the office more efficiently. My office was a happy, productive place.

People who are greedily and angrily demanding that not a thing change so that their lives (and insurance coverage) may continue exactly as it does now, rather than suck it up and take the risk with all of us so that we have a better life for all simply deserve to have this fact pointed out to them. The fearful die a thousand deaths, and the courageous only die once.  And yes, I’ll happily pay into a national health system that covers even these annoying people. Because it was GREAT. When everyone pays into the system, it’s actually CHEAPER. Not more expensive. I had excellent care at very low (compared to here) prices. I didn’t even need to ask for my reimbursements. I was happy to leave my money in the system.

And can I just say how many times I’ve heard people with health insurance say, “I put all this money into my insurance, I’m going to get my money’s worth?” These are the people who are making it expensive. Me, I never go to the doctor. NEVER. I am the health insurer’s dream. Well, the hell with private health insurance’s wet dreams. I’m staying out of it. I’m a socialist!

When did “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” only apply to offering to go kill people in other countries? When did it turn into “ask not what your selfish, self-destructive ass can get for itself and nobody else at the expense of future generations?”