There’s been a lot of talk lately about health care in these United States. There’s been much debate about public options, death panels, and Nancy Pelosi, but there’s been one issue that seems not to have been addressed. This issue is preventative health, and I have a stunning solution that’ll keep you out of hospital rooms and in the brightest bloom of health for years to come.
First let’s examine what the core issue is: happiness, or lack thereof. You may not know it, but very few people in this world are immortal. In fact, the numbers are so small as to be inconsequential. The vast majority of people will die one day. Scary, but true. What’s the solution to this? I don’t think there is one. People will just go on being born and dying, and there’s nothing you or I can do about it. So what’s the whole issue with health care? After all, if everyone is just going to die anyway, who cares if they do it half an hour earlier or later? Obviously there must be more to do it than that. The answer is, as I wrote earlier, happiness. People want good health care because they’re happy with life, and they want it to continue. Or maybe they want good health care because they have a terrible life and they think it’ll get better if they have good health care. See how complicated it is? If bloggers have a difficult time coming to grips with the issue, imagine how difficult it must be for members of congress, who are too busy wasting the public’s money (actually, at this point it’s China’s money) to ever use their brains, to comprehend it. Especially when the bill is over 1,500 pages long, and most of these people can barely read enough to figure out if the soda they’re getting from the congressional cafeteria is diet or regular.
Be that as it may, the goal of health care is for the person undergoing treatment to be happier coming out than they were coming in. The goal of truly excellent health care is to make the person coming in so happy that they don’t even have to get any health care treatment. How is this to be accomplished? Very simple: make people happy. Obviously.
How to make people happy? Not so easy as all that, because of course there are different sorts of people and they get happy from different sorts of things. Some people become happy from feeling fulfilled, and others think this is a load of codswallop. Some people are happy when they see other people suffer, and some people are happy when these types of people are suffering themselves. Evidently, it’s difficult to make everybody happy all the time. Still, we could try our best, which is all that can really be asked of us. How to make the largest amount of people happy with the least amount of trouble? The answer is…
Cellphones!
That’s right. Sure, some people don’t like cellphones, and some other people think that true happiness comes from inner peace, but they’re a minority of people. Most everyone else would be much happier with a new cellphone (or even a cellphone accessory, we’re not picky), and think of the benefits to society- shorter lines in the emergency room, less people crowding our cemeteries, and global peace and glory descending on humanity. All from a simple cellphone. Remarkable? I’ll let you decide that.
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104 comments:
A cell phone would add to my happiness, but someone to call, that would be divine ....
In America, or Japan?
Why this is nothing more than a load of codswallop!
Do you think that the purpose of life is to "feel fulfilled"?
Anywhere. At this point, even that Nigerian prince who wants my American bank routing codes will suffice.
Do you think there's happiness in Skype?
no, what kind of a codswallopy question is that TRS?
Nemo: sheesh, you sound pretty desperate. You know, they have these things in Japan called Geishas...
No.
Dovid: so what are you saying then?
Sheesh, just just give out mass distributions of soma.
I guess I just wanted to use the word codswallop. Then I thought it would be neat to use codswallop as an adjective.
Sara: as in, you want a free cell phone?
Dovid: ahh. Neat.
I already have a free cell phone. Unfortunately the bill is not.
I have heard from a reliable source that cell phones give you brain cancer. But not just any cell phones. Specifically iPhones with the stuck Shift button. How, do you ask, can a Shift button be stuck on an iPhone if it is, indeed, a virtual button? That is indeed a mystery, just like how an iPhone can give one a brain cancer. But both are true.
Also, the reason people in this country want health care is so that they can sue doctors.
Sara: so you want me to pay your cell phone bill?
CA: I sense a little resentment here-perhaps you have an inferiority complex, and are becoming passive aggressive?
An inferiority complex as a Windows user or as a Razor user?
How can you have an inferiority complex due to using something which makes logical sense? Perhaps I also have inferiority complex because I drive a Japanese car as opposed to an American one? Or because I prefer beer to wine?
A. Doesn't make sense, logical or otherwise.
B. You can have an inferiority complex about anything- it's a feeling, with no basis in reality.
C. Perhaps you do?
Well, if I was a butterfly, perhaps.
Let's assume, for the moment, that you are. Now what?
I'm with Sarabonne. Somma for the masses!
hmmm. maybe I shouldn't have subscribed. It looks like another trs-ca comment-chat marathon is about to start.
As soon as someone tells me what "Somma" means I'll be happy to get to work on it.
That's the kind of hateful comment that breeds anti-Americanism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soma#In_Western_fiction
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,892617,00.html
e is leaving obnoxious comments? That's it. I hate America.
Oh, of course! Everyone knows what "soma" is. The question is, what is "somma"?
If I was a butterfly, my mind would not rule over my heart. In particular, because butterflies do not have a mind. But, generally speaking, “living your life like a butterfly” is code for living your life spontaneously, with different phenomena of one’s psyche (emotions, aspirations, complexes, etc.) happening yesh m’ayin.
a misspelling, apparently
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1CHMA_enUS360US360&q=somma+brave+new+world&aq=f&oq=&aqi=
CA: And this would be a good thing?
e: or maybe she meant something else?
Well, no.
Fine, so now let's assume that you are not, in fact, a butterfly.
"Buy my product and save America!! and merit life and hapiness to boot." Niiiice
In that case it is unlikely that I have an inferiority complex regarding usage of Windows Operating System and Razor cellular phone. (I am still considering that iPhone option though, complex or no complex. Simply because it’s a little awkward to do Rambam on my Razor.)
I do rambam on paper.
I do Rambam in random places. Sometimes during seminars.
you do Rambam? one perek? three perakim?
(that comment was addressed to modeh, not CA)
Modeh: Exactly.
CA: Get it and give it to me!
Modeh: That's very chassidish.
CA: You're like the Rebbe in class in France.
e: Nu, how many do you do?
CA: yeah, I used to do Rambam in shiur (not rambam shiur) now i sometimes do it online in class.
e:Sometimes one sometimes three often none.
TRS: you're advertising in the wrong place. You need to get this message to people who can afford to buy cellphone accessories just for some stupid reason like saving the country.
Do three a day religiously for 11 months, and you'll know kol hatorah kulo! C'mon, you can do it!
I even used to wear a casket.
But I don’t do it because I don’t want to immerse myself in tumah, but because I am bored. Also, if the speaker suddenly says: “Schneerson, what did I just say?”, I probably won’t be able to repeat.
Plus, my wife doesn’t do my homework. Mostly because I have no homework.
the rebitzin used to do the rebbe's homework?
Modeh: I wrote this for the official HD blog, but I decided to post it here too, because no one reads the official HD blog (except maybe my mother in law).
e: You didn't answer the questinon.
CA: You wore one of these?
http://bit.ly/8AWpQO
If the speaker says, "Schneerson, what did I just say?" you'll look around and try to see who he's talking to, because it sure as heck wouldn't be you-you're last name is Axe.
We can arrange for both those conditions to change.
trs: here's a career option you should consider
http://blogserviceprovider.com/services-prices-2?gclid=CP21lJ2Eop8CFchn5Qod9D4KrQ
Who knew blogging was a specialty?
Hmm, nice.
No, I wore one of these. Except mine was not too big for me; it barely fit. (It’s hard to find a hat too big for me; I have a head which is too large for most hats. Which is one of the reasons I don’t wear a Bursolino and never lend anyone my tefillin.)
Ahh. What will you do when the big day comes?
I have a pirate hat which fits me perfectly. If it was good enough for Purim, it should be good enough for the big day.
Or I’ll just find a Bursolino that fits me.
The latter would be far classier than the former, but imagine- you could walk down the aisle to the soundtrack of Pirates of the Caribbean!
Hey! No revealing secrets before time!
bwahahhahahahahaha
It’s down the “aisle”, not down the “isle”? How come you didn’t correct me all these times I’ve used the word incorrectly?
Truth is, pirates work down the isle.
But you didn’t know about my pirating plans? I suspect you were just snickering about an EFL boy. Just like e, when he made fun of my for saying “the potato”.
Of course I knew about them! I know much more about you then you'll ever know.
I can't wait to see you walk down the isle in your pirate hat carrying the potato to put on the princesses finger...
I don’t know if my potatoes are worth two pruta.
e: no I won't. I'll no the entire yad at which point I'll have no excuse not to learn moreh.
CA: It only has to be worth one pruta.
TRS: In other words you are advertising where no customer will ever see your ads.
Oh. Then we are in business.
CA: it was "the onion," and it was honest confusion. I wanted to know if you were talking about the onion in the salad, or onions in general.
EFL=English as a fourth language?
Modeh: This is purely for entertainment purposes.
e: The onion?
There was an onion in the salad?
Yes.
Or was that “onion in the salad”?
Honestly, Romans never used articles, and they did just fine. The same regarding Russians. (Of course, both nations were major evildoers...)
Which salad is this?
trs: when I allegedly made fun of CA's article issues, it was when he asked what beracha to make on "the onion" while sitting in front of an onion-containing plate.
CA: there was onion in the salad. Perhaps there was only "an onion." You'd have to ask le7.
What were the first three?
I didn’t ask which brocha to make; I said: “I never know which brocha to make on the onion or the lemon.
Russian, Ukrainian and Israelit. Even though my English is much better than the last two, I started learning it after them, and for a while, I could speak much better in the latter than in English.
ukrainian? wow. that's impressive. People spoke Ukrainian back then?
People have been speaking Ukrainian since 13th century. I know, I find it absurd myself.
but wasn't it stomped out during communism and revived only recently? Where did you live in the old country?
I even remember a poem in Ukrainian:
Трактор в поле: «Дир-дир-дир».
Ми за мiр, ми за мiр.
It was spoken in the Western Ukrainian by the treacherous people known as Western Ukrainians. Also, there was some literature and poetry. But overall it was somewhat oppressed. In late 80s there was a revival, and in the pre-collapse 90s (i.e., 1991, when I went to school), it was taught in the schools of Ukrainian Socialist Republic. Of course, after the collapse, it became national language and was taught as well; so, I learned it well until the 8th grade, after which I seeked asylum in the US, since at the end of the 9th grade, I would have to pass a state exam in Ukrainian.
By the way, the state exams in Algebra and Geometry (which my Math tutor called “exams for polu-durki”, for half-fools) were already in 7th and 8th grades (later I covered the same material in the 10th grade in the US). They were in Ukranian, and we made fun of it all the time during the exam. Also, literary rallies were in Ukrainian (a little later; the ones I went to at first were in Russian... I guess they expected the smartest people to despise Ukrainian).
propaganda that tractoring on the kolkhoz will bring world peace?
You sought asylum in the US to avoid taking a test in Ukrainian? Does the ICE know about this?
I put it down in my application. “To avoid psychological and physical torture.”
literary rallies? Only Russians would rally about literature.
The only Ukrainian I know is from the announcements in the subway: "Shanobni passezhiri, na stantzii perkhoviet elektro poizd"
"dveri zachinayetca"
I also know the number-one Ukrainian spelling rule: replace random vowels with an "i", and viola, you've transformed Russian into Ukrainian.
I remember one time we were assigned to learn a poem by Taras Shevchenko. The poem had something antisemitic in it, and the whole class refused.
The teacher of Ukrainian (who wore a cross and considered Lenin her guru) once told us that it is ridiculous not to wash down a sausage sandwich with a glass of milk.
But I liked reading some stories in Ukrainian. They were very nice. And of course, Nikolai Gogol’s “Evenings on the chutor near Dekanka” are a classic (of course, he was just a Russian who had been born in Ukraine from Ukrainian parents and wrote about Ukraine while living in Moscow).
e, that’s not true. i and и are two different letters, both in Russian and Ukrainian.
i = и = eeh (as in peek)
и = ы = yh (as in thing)
You’re thinking i in pre-Revolutionary Russian, the one that was removed by the Communists. Regarding that, when people want to imitate old Russian spelling (like people in the US who write in Shakespearean English) — usually in the names of magazines and stores — randomly replace и with i and add hard sign at the end (another thing which Communists abolished). Which is also wrong; there are very specific rules for their usage in pre-Rev. Russian.
Why, what do you think you should wash a sausage down with?
Literary rallies = city- and region-level competitions in different subjects. They were called “literary rallies” in Louisiana; in Russia they were called Olympiads (although there was naked wrestling only in the ones for Chemistry). I participated in Math and Biology ones, and one time, while in the 7th grade, I and a few other people went to a 9th grade Olympiad in English.
There was an 18th-century Ukrainian poem, which started with “If you only knew, land-owners, how people weep at night”. Jews were eventually blamed for every evil, although that part of the poem was cut out from the curriculum. When we were reciting it, we began with “If only you knew, landowners, what people do at night...” (it sounds better in Ukrainian).
TRS: Beer, of course.
You didn't wrestle naked? How disappointing!
I made up for it with other things.
Such as?
I once won an Olympiad in “Jewish tradition”, getting Martin Buber’s Chassidic Stories as a present.
Neah, give me the wrestling any day.
CA: Aside from the i = и and и = ы business, they also like throwing in i's. For example "xlib," "xapkiv," and "kiiv."
Oh, that’s their genuine language. Just like in English, they like dropping Greek endings. Plato instead of Platon. Xeno instead of Xenon. In Russian, they like dropping Latin endings. So, Rabbi Yehuda’s friend’s name in Russian was Марк Аврелий. Veni, vedi, vici was said by Юлий Цезарь.
calling "khleb" "khlib" has nothing to do with dropping Latin suffixes.
And wasn't Rabbi Yehudah's friend Antoninus?
No, but it’s the same craziness. Khleb vs. khlib is like dance vs. tanz. Or husband vs. gospodin.
I thought it was good old boy Marcus. Not sure...
Nu, my point still stands. If you want to make a Russian word sound Ukrainian, throw in an "i".
There might be some rhyme and/or reason to this "i"-love affair, but it does exist.
Make Russian word kit (whale) sound Ukrainian?
OK, that was below the belt, but if you find out the answer, you’ll discover the second rule.
Apparently it's кит in both Russian and Ukrainian.
Yes. But кит in Russian is kit. While кит in Ukrainian is kyt. Two different letters.
If you want to make Russian sound Ukrainian, change “o” to “i” and “i” to “yh”. Or you can just speak as an elf with Down’s Syndrome.
Of course, Ukrainians are very devious, as Russians discovered when Nazis invaded. Some words are almost exactly the same. But some words are not. For instance, glastuk (a tie) is kravatka (from German krawatte). At the same time, krovatka means “little bed” in Russian.
By the way, I learned Ukrainian not in school but by watching ALF on TV. (I don’t suppose anyone here knows what ALF is. Does anyone know what MASH is?)
In Ukrainian translation of Harry Potter, Hagrid was speaking with Western Ukrainian accent.
http://www.animalliberationfront.com/
?
or maybe: http://images.google.com/images?q=ALF&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=mnZPS86lMsmklAeGrN23Cg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBsQsAQwAA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M*A*S*H_%28TV_series%29
Now you know.
I also watched a show called Herman’s Head. I actually felt very empathetic to Herman.
This explains a lot.
Things like why the climate in Atlanta is the same as in NY?
No, like why you are the way you are.
Oh.
And I had Al Gore waiting on the line.
Is this a new form of psychoanalysis: analyzing one’s personality based on TV show preference?
(This would explain why some frum Jews I’ve met seem to have no personality at all.)
Tell him "hi" from me.
Yes.
Yes.
I already hung up. He seemed irritated that I distracted him from... wait, what does Al Gore do nowadays?
He makes money.
He contributes to global warming by emitting hot air from his nether regions.
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