I’m a few days after passing the halfway point of being 25 years old.
I have no health insurance. I aged out of my parental-influenced Kaiser Permanente coverage 2 years ago (and would have been dropped at 18 if I didn’t go to college), and because of the stupidity that is the “pre-existing condition,” neither Kaiser, Blue Cross or anyone in Big Insurance will even give me the time of day. Even if I lost weight, or stuffed my depression (and, while never put on record, social anxiety) into the darkest corner as I am often forced to do now, I can’t help the fact that I was born with an underperforming thyroid.
This job market is so awful that, even though I’ve an A+ card and can build a PC in less than 3 hours (from a pile of parts to the start of OS installation), or that I can paint badass-freaking Dark Paladins with shiny armor, I have yet to find any kind of meaningful employment so that I could GET any kind of health care or even make enough to pay some doctor at a cash clinic to write me a script for the Synthroid I need.

As much as I consider myself an anomaly in the system, in other ways I am not unique in my circumstances. And there are people out there who have it even worse.

For all we say about America having badass health care, it’s practically negated by the horrible reality– that because of the stranglehold that not just Big Insurance but even the non-profits (hiding behind “keeping costs down”) have over us, too many people die every day because it just freaking costs too much.

It’s not just the absurdity of Big Insurance valuing profits over people that is so infuriating. It’s the people at the top who are so ardently resistant to changing the broken system, too. This isn’t about liberals vs. conservatives, or Democrats vs. Republicans, or illusions of government takeovers and socialism, as much as we paint the conflicts as such to make it easier to comprehend… it’s about the compassion (or lack thereof) of our fellow men and women. How can one in their right mind argue against extending the hand of accessible health care to everyone on the basis that it would eat into Big Insurance’s profits? Is the reverence of capitalism so great that it grants one a free pass to turn a blind eye to human suffering if it means the CEO gets a freaking new jet?

And the lengths that people of their ilk will go to in order to protect their interests, oh cripes. “Death panels,” they cry, unaware that they themselves ARE the death panels. And that is only one of the many absurd lies and shallow excuses flung about to justify doing nothing. I won’t even dignify the others with a mention, they’re just too stupid that even saying them would, in some perspectives, vindicate them.

In a sick and twisted way, this spectacle that is the health care reform hand-wringing makes me glad that Father died the way he did. A flash of a brain aneurysm, and he was gone. Gone before he realized he was tumbling downstairs. Horrible as that was (even though I was spared from having to see it– the last image of father in my memory was of him wrapped up in a blanket on a chilly evening while watching the tee-vee, and with that goofy grin on his face), it’s eerily preferable to being in a hospital and having to deal with the hassles that come with it.

I can’t find anymore words to further address this madness, because beyond that, it spirals into a void of nonsensical “I don’t get it, why is it so backwards” and “this does not compute” and just… rage. So, instead, I’ll refer you to someone who tells it far better than I ever could: one Keith Olbermann, and his thundering opera of a Special Comment that was tonight’s episode of Countdown. If you care at all about fixing this wretch of a health care system, do watch it, or read it or loot the podcast (I’ve half a mind to mirror both the mp3 and video versions on AP), even if you otherwise hate the guy. There’s no harping on Bill O’Reilly and his Fox News pals and other (to say it politely) misguided people as he is (in)famous for, only the story of a ludicrously-flawed health care system and the story of Olbermann’s father’s hospital stay.

And if after hearing all of that, you still object to health care reform?
Well…
…I don’t know.
There are no words.
“I pity you and your shrunken heart” aren’t good enough.
Thus, no comments here. There is simply no room for debate on the subject– there shouldn’t even BE a debate about whether or not we should fix a system that puts money above humanity.

Update:
I’m mirroring the podcast versions (read: no commercials) of that Special Comment. Flash player variant is nice, but the commercials kinda ruin the flow.

MP3: http://audio.layer-infinity.net/countdown-100709.mp3
WMV: http://video.layer-infinity.net/countdown-100709.wmv

(sourced from the DA pile rather than the Ramen subserver because I can, they’ll get posted to the Ramen subserver later)

Aaaaahahahaha I am the worst liberal in the world! And by that I mean I’ve been naughty and made ramen offerings to the MSNBC gods. It just kinda happened, ESPECIALLY the latter.

Best Mob in the World
My inclination to mentally draw parallels between the absurdity of cable news and Azumanga Daioh is going to come back and bite me. Or it could spawn things far more horrible. (Like more episodes of Pundit Games!) For reasons I… don’t quite remember, I was possessed to scribble just about every major MSNBC dood I could think of– not just the primetime heavy hitters like Olbermann and friends, but also the morning and daytime anchors too.

Click for the fullview if you want a full list of all the happy people.

Also I will never, ever get over Chris Matthews’ XD face. Every piece I’ve drawn him in, he’s had the XD face. It’s almost like Xelloss and his near-perma-^_^ face. The man is defined by that Velan-esque “HAH,” one that has become so widespread that both Hardball and Countdown have “HAH” sound bites (similar to how many news stations now have a “D’oh!” button).

Speaking of silliness…

MSNBC Party Van

This is not the FBI Party Van that you are looking for, the one you hear about on 4chan and affiliated acts.
No, this is the opposite! This is the MSNBC Party Van, the clunker that brings joy and awesome, and breaks up acts of lameitude.
(I’m not sure if MSNBC has its own van fleet, or if all the NBC subnets just draw from the same NBC van fleet. Nonetheless, I totally pulled the design for the MSNBC Party Van out of nowhere. Go me!)

This was a sudden scribble, per request of a new community that needed a banner. Ordinarily the next piece in the political ramen queue was going to be another Pundit Games piece, but it got preempted in favor of the MSNBC Party Van.
And yes, the license plate is “BU5H3D1″ :P

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Fear not, the Oasis pic is still a go– it merely requires ink and color.
Also, a hint for things to come in the normal ramen queue… Skeleton Generals are best enjoyed extra crispy!

As promised, a Ramen double-hitter.

First up, the sequel to May’s Pundit Brawl, Pundit Kart!
Because, you know, I’m a naughty liberal and worse still, there’s nothing like solving political and pundit-related conflicts with VIDEO GAMES.
Once again, Team MSNBC (represented by Rachel Maddow) takes on Team Fox News (represented by Gretchen Carlson). I want that Rubber Duckie Couch so badly. The real funny, of course, is in the onlookers.

I think I turned David Shuster into Charlie Brown… which is more amusing than it really should be. Yeah, you eat that popcorn, Shu-bot! :P

This was a little late in being publicly posted on regular Ayarane Project; for the time being, political art goes on dA and the two political comms I frequent first. I have also elected not to post WIPs of those here as a courtesy to some of my more conservative peers, since it seems like I’d just be rocking the boat more than necessary. Still, ramen is ramen, and these pieces are really more about the silliness of people in large groups.

Speaking of which…

Elves are NOT Watermelons.
Seriously, they aren’t. Of course, Haruko = too drunk to tell the difference. (Or is she?)

Numair, against his better judgement, let Chelsea and Velan bury him in sand for lulz. (Probably, Velan baited him with cookies.) This, of course, is a ginormous trap in the form of a boozed-up blindfolded Haruko wielding a stick. And poor Hikaru, even on vacation she is still having to be the sole responsible adult in a guild full of crazy people. (You would think the likes of Deeum and Nemesis would be, too, but they booze it up like the rest of ‘em. Rineas is too much of an assmunch to care, and Old Lady Kit may LOOK normal but she’s just as bad as Velan in terms of “doing it for the lulz.” :P)

First off, to anyone who sees this and is a fan of Fox News… please accept humble apologies from this extremely-naughty liberal. >_>;;; I know at least one person who’s going to chew my head off over how I portrayed Glenn Beck, ahahaha…

With that out of the way, let there be… MOAR Brawl?! For those who do not follow the American political machine, tonight is the White House Correspondents Dinner, and when the guest list was leaked on olberfanns it just set off a badly-needed wildfire in Yoshi’s Imagination, enough to drag my lazy bum to fire up Painter. And… this happened. Once again, things like “who’s playing as who?” is left up to your imagination even though you would think that somewhat defeats the purpose… or does it? In a way, these Brawl drawings are kinda like bar scenes, just replace beer with Wiimotes. And the really kooky part is that, knowing President Obama… this kind of stuff probably COULD happen. The man does have a Wii. >_>; Never mind that critics would howl (and supporters and, hell, pretty much all the fangirls on obama_daily/biden_daily would squee) at the thought…

Anywho!

I was going to try and shower and summon pizza so everything’s in place so I can plop into my (albeit squeaky) rocking chair and watch the MSNBC broadcast of the WHCD, but I took too long in spreading the Brawl around. (dA, Ramen server, twitter and olberfanns). Hm. We’ll see how things unfold!

/t Evil Stepfather,

If you are going to bark at me to put MLB score widgets on your laptop-that-you-really-don’t-need, do not bark at me if it turns out half of them don’t work at all, and the other half don’t let me specify which team to stalk (never mind that the season hasn’t even STARTED yet). No, I don’t know how to code Vista Sidebar widgets, I cannot magically write one that will stream your sports.

Ripping out all the bloatware and Dell crap on this thing was bad enough, I did not need to get barked at because I don’t care about baseball and sports in general. On top of that I was hungry and by the time I got upstairs, all the bulbs on my ceiling fan (which, aside from the glow of my monitors, is the only source of lighting in the room) had apparently burned out between my leaving for volunteer service and getting back. No significant lighting, um, kinda makes it not safe to operate my toaster oven.

(I cannot cook downstairs. Not because there are almost always puppies running amok, it’s just that my coming in, no matter how quiet, causes them to perk up and go berserk, barking in a collective frenzy, and I get barked at by Evil Stepfather for it because he can’t hear his precious sports and TV. The dogs REALLY need more obedience training because their conduct is, just, really absurdly apalling but, of course, mother just can’t be bothered to do it, even after I offered to pay for in-house lessons.)

It’s 1am and thus too late to cook anyway (even if I could see anything in here outside of the limited range of monitor glow, the beep of my toaster oven would send the dogs into a barking frenzy)… I didn’t even get to finish inking Celina because laptop-tweaking took too long.

I think tomorrow, everyone is going out for a good, long time, though. Sure, I could easily flee while nobody’s looking (and I have Dinah back in working order so I could ramen it up anywhere)… but I like my alone time with my big orange furball, too.

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Go go Keith Olbermann, way to freaking PWN Ann Coulter. I LOLed when he busted out the diploma. XD

This made me smile after having to deal with mother and Evil Stepfather’s dumbassery.