July 12, 2014

Saturday Morning Essay: Hands Across the Water, July 12, 2014



Brought to you by Peet's store-bought dark and oily...

Happy birthday, amigo.  I'm glad you stuck around to bear witness to the epochal unwinding of the human experience rather than opting for an early exit, stage left, before all the kings, queens, dukes, duchesses, viscounts, uncles and aunts, and various court hangers-on were sprawled dead and dying all over our rotten Norway of a world.  It will be a big finish, and not one you would want to miss.

I never really had any doubt.  As I said to anyone who would actually listen, you're fundamentally a tough guy, and I knew you would vanquish the hydra-headed monsters with "itis" suffixes (or "emia" or even the British "aemia") in good time, that behind the miasma of confusion and delirium you would, like the South, rise to fight again.

Way to go.  I'm glad your care was attended to by a country where the first priority is not figuring out how to put you back on the street at the absolute earliest opportunity, as the Bouncers (oops!..."social workers") were wont to do in the case of my dear departed mother.  If you're a Medicare patient and you want to go home?  Hey, not a problem!  Just let me stick that bone back inside the skin where it belongs.

While you were convalescing, the Commerce Club conducted a survey of modern medical systems, using various weighted parameters,  and found that the National Health, overall, was really the best in the world. The United States was number 11, which is not too bad till you notice that they were ranking 11 countries.  "Timeliness" was a weaker point for Great Britain, but I think they mean you wait a while for a hip replacement.  Overall, that can be endured, and it's usually safer than trying to send someone home from the hospital with a hematocrit of 20.

As Ingrid's stuffed-shirt, but valiant husband said to Rick Blaine, "Welcome back to the fight.  And this time, I know our side will win."