Posts Tagged ‘Death’

Romney’s Fact-Free Universe Isn’t Healthy (Limerick)

Thursday, October 11th, 2012

Mitt Romney, who continues to lie about covering pre-existing conditions, seems to live in a fact-free universe. Here’s what he told the Columbus Dispatch yesterday:

We don’t have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don’t have insurance.

Well, if 26,100 deaths per year is the same as zero deaths, then Romney’s correct:

More than 26,000 working-age adults die prematurely in the United States each year because they lack health insurance, according to a study published ahead of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling on President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform law.

The study, released on Wednesday by the consumer advocacy group Families USA, estimates that a record high of 26,100 people aged 25 to 64 died for lack of health coverage in 2010, up from 20,350 in 2005 and 18,000 in 2000.

That makes for a rate of about 72 deaths per day, or three per hour.

The nonprofit group based its findings on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a 2002 Institute of Medicine study that showed the uninsured face a 25 percent higher risk of death than those with coverage.

Romney’s Fact-Free Universe Isn’t Healthy (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Mitt Romney says nobody dies
For lack of insurance. He lies!
Three work-age adults
Die per hour — the results
Of no health plan. With Mitt that will rise.

*****
Political Haiku of the Day:

The debate’s on soon.
I’m sure hoping Joe Biden’s
less nervous than I.

John Mortimer (Barrister, Author, Rumpole Creator) Dies at 85

Saturday, January 17th, 2009

I was very saddened to read that Rumpole creator John Mortimer died. Not only am I a fan of his books, but I had the pleasure of meeting, interviewing, and profiling John Mortimer for British Heritage Magazine back in 1996 … not to mention sharing champagne with him while we chatted.

Needless to say, I sipped very slowly.

We spoke about everything from feminism and God to computers and murderers. Here are some excerpts from my Mortimer profile:

Judges, according to Mortimer, “take themselves too seriously,” while prisons are a “university of crime.” Mortimer speaks from experience; he earned considerable acclaim as a barrister, especially for his successful defenses in censorship cases. He also represented many divorce clients and accused murderers during his barrister years. According to Mortimer, he much preferred the murderers.

I asked Mortimer which was more difficult to write, comedy or tragedy. “Comedy,” he answered without hesitation. “It is very easy to make people cry, be sad, be miserable. Farce is an incredibly difficult genre. Comedy requires enormous imagination. There are quite a lot of great tragedies, and there aren’t many great comedies.”

Mortimer was equally emphatic about the relative difficulties of his two careers. “Writing is much, much harder than being a lawyer. If you’re a lawyer you can rattle on doing things other people can do. If you’re a writer, you’ve got to do something which nobody else can do. Except writing has less disastrous results. If you write a bad book, no one goes to prison, which is rather a relief.”

Mortimer appears to relish making comments that would tend to provoke a rise, or at least a laugh. Indeed, he laughs easily and often, a condition I found quite contagious. When asked if it’s possible for men and women to communicate without gender getting in the way, he said, laughing, “No. Thank God for it. Vive La Difference.” He added with another chuckle, “I think women don’t want to be sex objects, but I’d love to be a sex object. My own ambition is to be loved only for my body.”

Mortimer, like Rumpole, enjoys making fun of feminists. Yet I sensed that behind his flippant love-me-for-my-body remark was a man who, again like Rumpole, measures women when it matters on merit alone. I suggested that while many women enjoy being sex objects, they don’t want gender to interfere with their careers. “Absolutely,” Mortimer responded, “and so it shouldn’t.”

You can read my entire John Mortimer interview here.

(Cross-posted on my general Humor Blog.)

Rest In Peace, Mom

Thursday, January 1st, 2009

2008 was a very difficult year for me and for my family. My father died in January, and my mother died December 30th and is being buried tomorrow.

Rest in peace, mom. I hope you and dad are together again.

I love you both and miss the two of you more than my words can express.

Beatrice Begun (1925-2008)