Thessaly's Tooth

When I visited England in 1996, fish and chips constituted at least a quarter of my diet. Though it was chilly out, we usually took our food out to eat it outside, in order to avoid paying the 17% VAT on food consumed inside a restaurant. According to an interview I heard on public radio recently (the name of the interviewee and the title of his book escapes me), income tax, estate tax, and so forth are all sky-high in Europe, but in return Europeans receive free medical care, schooling, and so forth. In one country (Norway?) the government pays new mothers the salary they previously earned for one year after the baby is born, and guarantee her job back afterwards. What’s-his-name, the interviewee, said there were big student protests in England after they tried to start charging $5000 per year tuition at Oxford or Cambridge, the student’s said that “our beloved welfare state” was in danger.
Thinking about this, I wonder if this is a good idea, a bad idea, okay for Europe but not for the U.S., or what. Personally, though it would be nice not ever to have to worry about….anything, I guess, I don’t think I would like this. I’ve gotten a lot of help from my family, but insofar as I’ve ever been somewhat self-sufficient, I’m proud of being able to take care of myself. To me, it feels good to be able take care of myself and my family. Also, of course, I like having more say in what happen with the money I earn, what I want to use it for, and it certainly feels a lot better to freely donate money to causes instead of having someone just take it and apportion it for me.
On the other hand, America seems to have a hard time getting health care etc. to people in need, and maybe giving up autonomy in return for making sure everyone gets what they need is worth it, I don’t know.
Another question I have is, why would people living under such a system ever do anything? It seems like there wouldn’t be any advantage to behaving responsibly or working hard or doing anything at all. There’s no question of trying to build a better life for yourself or your family, no need to work to make the world better, the government just does everything for you. The interview guy also said that religion is pretty much nonexistent in Europe, which really makes me wonder what people value in life, what gives life meaning.
Anyway, just some idle wonderings. I know there’s some people who know more about Europe than I do who frequent this blog, any insights into comparisons or contrasts between Europe and America would be appreciated!

I’m doing some last-minute reading-up on election issues this weekend, in hopes I can find some reason to vote for, rather than against, somebody. This essay in The Economist could probably be used in support of either candidate, though they hesitantly favor Kerry. I’ll continue posting links (perhaps some by people who can actually vote in this election!) if I find anything interesting.
One from U.S. News & World Report on the fear factor and how things have changed.

On Friday Andy arrived at my temporary place of employment to pick me up, bringing with him a Jello and a broken car. The Jello was for the potluck/Bible study we were supposed to go to that night; the broken car was (probably) due to a faulty new alternator which was installed that day. Apparently Andy had a Bermuda Triangle experience while traveling down I-96, in which all the idiot lights blinked on one at a time, then began flashing in unison, while the electricity began flickering on and off. He barely made it to my TPOE’s parking lot before it died altogether. So we called AAA, which came promptly and delivered the car to the mechanic and us home. The Jello has lived a much more eventful life than most Jellos, having received a tour of the TPOE’s refrigerator and a ride in the tow truck, and is now being enjoyed by us instead of the potluckers while we’re waiting on tenterhooks to find out what the damage is this time.
In other news, the latest Netflix offerings have been Guys and Dolls and Mean Girls. This 1955 version of Guys and Dolls didn’t live up to my first experience with it, when performed at Lincoln, Nebraska’s Community Playhouse, but it was interesting to see Marlon Brando sing. Mean Girls was about what I expected. I’m a sucker for these teen revenge of the nerdy girls comedies.

Whatever.

I finally signed up with a temp agency, and have an assignment which started this week and lasts two weeks more. It is definitely the most boring job I’ve ever had, even worse than painting guide posts, but somehow I don’t mind it. I can listen to music all day and not think about anything. It’s pleasant.
Bumper sticker I recently saw: “I’m the Christian that the devil and the liberal media warned you about.” Doesn’t matter what you think about Christians, the devil, or the media: that’s one good bumper sticker.

It’s interesting the way extremes start to become each other. Here’s Barbara Ehrenreich, proposing to disenfranchise anybody who votes Republican by demanding a recall of the duly elected President (or instigating a bloody coup, it’s quite ambiguous what exactly she’s proposing here), should he turn out to be a Republican. This is on behalf of disenfranchisement of minority voters, since she’s already decided any Republican victory will necessarily have been the result of fraudulent…disenfranchisement. (Already tired of that word). I’m not sure of the point of the part of her article where she tries to determine what institution will give the official word re. election fraud, since it’s clear the issue has already been decided.
Apparently, I’ve sunk low enough to start attacking The Progressive, ordinarily much too easy a target. See what this election is doing to me?!?
(In order to attempt to maintain my bipartisan status, I’ll be looking for some conservative commentator to get exasperated with next.)

Here is an interesting interview with the author of a new book about Peter Jackson. (I’m not just saying that because I know the interviewer 🙂
Just read a thing about The Royal Tenenbaums, which reminded me of something I thought about it when I saw it–did it remind anybody else of J.D. Salinger’s Glass family (yet another link to amazon)? For the longest time I kept thinking the movie must be based on them somehow, although the story wound up having little to do with any of the Glass stories. (Update: Google. Is there anything it can’t do?)
anyway…that’s all I really have to say today…

My birthday occurred a few weeks ago, and for it I got a new computer–a Macintosh! I haven’t used a Macintosh since 1995, when I used to borrow my neighbor’s old boxy type one to check my email and read X-Files fanfic (my senior year in college was notably lacking in riotousness). Before that, I used one for my high school newspaper, when it would frequently make whatever story I was writing disappear just before it was due.
The Mac and I are getting along much better these days though. I still had Windows 95 on my old computer, which was getting to be a nightmare–none of the newer versions of the applications would run on it, many things just weren’t working any more, and it crashed more than I would have liked. So pretty much any computer would have been an improvement, but I’m really enjoying the Mac. I’m getting used to the commands and am having fun exploring some of the new programs. It’s so nice having a new version of Word to work with for school–my old one was getting very quirky.
So it is a pretty terrific present, and makes school work much more efficient and fun. It also makes web surfing more efficient and fun, though, so school work still has some competition.

but sometimes having no idea whatsoever what you are doing works out fine. I managed to successfully change the template (per Movable Style) despite having no clue what it is I was doing. It kind of reminds me of pre-calculus. Score one for ignorance!
Now I just have to wait until Andy can help me spruce it up some more…