baked beans and filet mignon

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"V for Vendetta" masks

-- Because a friend of mine is currently in India, it makes me wonder why the Occupy Wall Street movement that has spread far and wide in its depiction of the disparity of incomes has not come home to roost in places where that disparity is truly apparent -- India, Africa, South America, etc. These are not places in which income disparity is spelled out as the difference between baked beans and filet mignon ... these are places in which income disparity is spelled out as the difference between life and death.

-- In England, proposed changes in the free health care laws may mean that pregnant women can now choose to have a cesarean section birth. Opponents claim that supporters have simply caved in to the "too posh to push" crowd. I can almost hear mothers around the world taking umbrage at the notion that sidestepping the pains of natural childbirth is a mistake ... if you don't believe it, just try it! In this country, the too-posh-to-push crowd is a fact of life as I understand it. But what I never understood was why, if someone wanted to sidestep the pain that natural-child-birthers can wax lyrical about, they simply don't follow my mother-in-law's example ... seven kids, all of them under anesthetic. Anyway, I like the zippiness of the phrase, "too posh to push."

-- Six men who were locked in tubes for a year and a half as a means of testing what it might be like to fly to Mars and return have emerged from their isolation. The men have been whisked away for medical and no doubt psychological testing, but still, a year and a half -- imagine that!

-- Michigan's largest city, Detroit, is described as being in an "extremely serious financial condition" and needs to straighten out a projected $150 million in red ink before next year if it is to avoid a state takeover. Pensions, healthcare, labor union contracts and other middle-class payouts are on the chopping block ... as usual.

-- In Russia, where satirists seem to be using YouTube as a means of outflanking the censor, one commentary suggested recently, "Let's remind the crooks and thieves. ... They have not just lied, they have brought the country to such a state that these and other promises seem to be mockeries." This makes me wonder if the Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street plans to sue for plagiarism ... or get sued for it.
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