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I read in the news yesterday that Azharuddin Ismail, child star of Slumdog Millionaire, and his mother have moved into a new home. They are very happy that there are 4 walls, a toilet, and a locking door. These things should remind us that we don't have it so bad after all. The other child star, Rubina Ali, is also going to be in a new home. These homes are apparently being provided by the Mumbai housing authority, who I guess sells them for £30,000 ($48,000) to whoever. A trust fund has been set up to provide for both children for education and living expenses. The producers are also suppose to set up a £500,000 ($800,000) donation to a local development charity to improve slum children's lives.
The point I'm trying to make here is that the movie grossed $360,000,000! Granted, there are expenses involved as well as the theaters' operating costs, but how much did it cost to actually make this movie? The average household income in India is $1600 per year. (I don't know if this includes the ones we all get stuck with on customer support.) I can't imagine that it cost very much to hire the extras shown in the movie. One woman said her kids were in the movie and they weren't paid at all. Of the 5 million people living in Mumbai, 2.5 million of them live in the slums. Assuming a breakdown of Mom, Dad, and 3 kids, I come up with 1.5 million children living in these slums. That's about 50 cents for each kid from the $800,000 donation mentioned above. Doesn't that make you wonder who made the real money?
Let me preface this by saying that it's about time something besides a Chinese Crested won this contest. Has anybody seen the latest winner of the Sonoma-Marin Fair ugly dog contest? http://tinyurl.com/mhyy8 That's a face only a mother could love. It's curious that the dog known as Pabst (cool name!) is tagged as a "boxer mix". Looks like a red-nosed pit mix to me. I think they classify shelter dogs with anything but a pit or bulldog reference because of the misinformed public panic about these dogs. Our adopted shelter dog was labeled a "dalmatian-hound mix". When we went to meet him and adopt him, I noticed some bulldog features. After we adopted him and took him home, I looked through the paperwork we got from the animal hospital and noted that he was in fact a dalmatian-bulldog mix.
It's a shame that there is such negativity about bulldog breeds. They get so much bad press that it has stirred people into a frenzy that is resulting in the breed actually being banned in some communities. I've had 2 and neither one was more aggressive than any other breed. Most of the stories you read about these dogs killing or mauling someone are a result of poor training and/or environment. Dogs are like people in that how you are raised defines your eventual behavior. Most of these dogs were either abused or raised by gang bangers and meth cookers with the occasional white supremacist thrown in. Most were trained to be mean. The 2 meanest dog breeds I have seen are dachshunds and Jack Russell terriers. The crazy thing is that Jack Russells appear to have become the family dog of choice since thay are smaller than Labs and "fiercely loyal". The "fiercely" is what you have to look out for!
This has been a rough time for celebrities. It started with Ed McMahon. If you've never heard "Here's Johnny!" , then you must not have ever watched a TV. Then there was Farrah Fawcett. Her story had been known for a while as she battled cancer. It's a shame that her death was overshadowed by Michael Jackson's sudden demise and subsequent channel-clogging news frenzy. Interesting that we as humans tend to glorify the positive and overlook the negative when someone dies. The shocker was Billy Mays. At least in the US, he was as well known as Jackson and even more so, depending on how old you are and how much TV you watch. You didn't have to see the TV to recognize the voice. I got the impression, after watching his show "Pitchmen", that he genuinely tried to help people get their inventions and products marketed. What was cool was that he pitched life insurance just like he pitched OxyClean! That's a true pitchman. We're going to miss you, Billy Mays.
What is it about political office that makes a guy like Gov. Mark Sanford do something as stupid as having an affair with someone in Argentina? I don't know which is worse; the affair or the fact that she's in South America. It's not like you can run down to the Walmart parking lot. You have to pretend you went hiking for a long time. My favorite prez had it goin' on. Willie Bill just did it at his office!
One has to wonder what kind of people we are electing into office. I don't know if politicians err at the same percentage rate as the rest of us or if aberrant behavior is a political prerequisite. You have governors with prostitutes. You have governors having affairs. You have senators playing footsie in public restrooms. I think these are all distractions so that we don't notice the other back room deals going one that cost us money and freedom. Politics on the state level invariably involve some sort of deal that benefits the governor's wallet, family, or area he is from. It's almost like a rite of passage. Some states are worst than others. Please note that I haven't done any research on this so I'm going off of memory. Louisiana has a terrible record of state officials screwing the public over. New York has its share of idiots. You see what came out of Texas. Their current governor has commented on secession. We all know what happened the last time! Come to think of it, South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union, thus starting the Civil War.
Who knew this would happen? I don't think having 20 cameras following a family around is a good idea and it certainly isn't good parenting. What will the kids think about their parents in 10 or 12 years when they see reruns of their upbringing? It's a shame that Jon and Kate would put their own need for fame and money above the proper raising of their children. I wondered what their decision would be when it popped up in the news a few weeks ago. I was hoping that they would kick out the cameras and try to salvage their relationship and normalize their family life. Apparently their egos got in the way. I'm surprised that they are going to continue the show. Are we going to have the "Jon visits the kids on his weekend" show or the "Kate goes after more child support" show? This kind of crap also reduces TLC's legitimacy as a true learning channel. All I learned was not to put your family on TV!
What is with PETA these days? I guess they would be happy if we were all just germs living in a mud puddle. A natural reaction by anyone bugged by a bug is to smash its little guts out. A fly has no "redeeming social value" except to let you know what restaurant not to eat at! I'm curious to see how big the scandal over the fly's demise gets. From what I can tell, when Obama killed the fly, the news folks called PETA to get their opinion. Sounds like the news channels are trying to drum up a controversy. I did hear one news chick say that there are over 175 million bugs for every human on Earth. I wonder what PETA's opinion is of all the bugs that get eaten in southeast Asia?
The proposals and plans being passed around Washington that deal with our healthcare crisis read like a crazy man dreamed them up. Obama claimed in his campaign that he wanted to reform our healthcare industry. What a wonderful idea! I just don't know who is really adding up the money. The assumption is that saving a trillion dollars over the next ten years would pay for insurance for the currently uninsured. Obama asserts that $106 billion could be cut from government healthcare payments to hospitals because there would not be any uninsured people showing up at hospitals. The theory behind this is that these people would have insurance either through Medicaid or because Ted Kennedy's proposed health insurance plan would hold a gun to their heads to ensure that they buy insurance. If you are paying the hospital either way, how is that saving? That is just the tip of the iceberg. Obama claims that he can reduce by $110 billion the payments to hospitals and other providers (but not doctors), because the system is becoming more efficient. When was the last time he sat in the outpatient surgery area for 3 hours waiting for a procedure? Not too much efficiency there! The additional claim is that Medicare drug payments will reduce by $75 billion. Does that mean that Grandma will now have a co-pay? The price of some drugs is ridiculous. The drug companies claim that they have to charge those high prices because of the cost of R&D and liability insurance. Have you seen foreign drug prices? You can buy Plavix for $47 from Europe instead of the $135 in the states. Why is that? Because the drug companies' arm is way up the FDA's ass! The FDA is like their puppet. It got that way because of the powerful drug company lobbyists. They have made sure that legislation keeps us from buying foreign drugs. Lobbyists are named thusly because, back in the old days, the type of business they conducted in Washington was not acceptable for the Oval Office. They were forced to do their business in the lobby! What I don't understand is that apparently medical providers across the healthcare spectrum say that there is as much as $2 trillion in waste that could be cut. Why do they have to wait on the government to force them to stop the waste? Why not start now?
This whole idea of making me buy health insurance is bullshit! What am I supposed to buy it with? I work for a company that will not provide insurance either due to its prohibitive cost (as a percentage of total business costs) or because they are cheap (probably the real reason). The last time I checked on insurance, the premium was around $650 a month. That's $7800 per year. If I got sick, I would spend that $7800 plus the $2000 deductible just to get to the part where the insurance company then pays 80%. How is that in any way fair? The blame is laid on the people who show up at emergency rooms with no money. I don't go to the doctor. Apparently, I have been blessed with relatively good health. Most of the people I see going to the emergency room for non-life threatening ailments are on Medicare or Medicaid. They are the "entitled" ones. I guess they think that since everything is covered, they can go there for every stupid little twinge or tingle. That is one of the areas where waste is obvious. Are these the people the reason Ted Kennedy is going to force me to buy insurance? There is a fairly large group of Americans who fall through the fiscal cracks when it comes to who pays for what. These are the people who make too much for any public assistance, but not enough to afford health insurance. How will the government force them to buy insurance? What will they do if I don't buy it? One part of the proposal is that they will take my tax refund or maybe even increase my withholding (like a garnishment). Part of Obama's proposal to pay for "healthcare for everyone" is to increase taxes on the healthcare industry. How does that work? All it does is hurt the public in the long run. It is like buying ice cream. The industry has reduced the size of the carton to 1.5 or 1.75 quarts. Oh yeah, they also jacked the price $3. This ice cream math is already at work and has been for years. All the current healthcare reform proposals will do is extend this formula.
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