Spies and heroes

When I was a kid during the Cold War, I read a lot of spy-thrillers; Our Man in Havana (Graeme Greene), From Russia with Love (Ian Flemming), The Fourth Protocol (Frederick Forsyth ), The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (John LeCarre), and many more. In the Cold-War thrillers, the Russians were the bad guys and the Americans (and Brits) were the heroes.

Now everything seems to be turned upside down. What I have in mind is the Snowden case.

To me Snodwen is a hero. He is a whistleblower who stands up against powerful organizations violating American and international law. He told the world that NSA violates rights of privacy, monitoring millions of accounts on Google and Facebook.

Whistleblowers never win. They’re always shot down, unless they stay undercover, like Deep Throat. But, history often gives them the credit they deserve.

The NSA claims they have prevented several terror attacks. That’s great. We can probably accept surveillance of selected groups and individuals to prevent terror.

But why does the NSA spy on European embassies and government offices? We don’t like that. I’ve always been a fan of Obama, but in this case he has disappointed me, if he knew what was going on.

I hope the NSA has noticed that Napoleon is no longer Emperor of France, and Hitler is not Chancellor of Germany. 

Today most EU countries are social democracies. Is this the motivation for the surveillance?

In America the only word that appears more scaring than terrorism is socialism. It means collective farms and gulags, Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot.

Social democracy is not the same as communism.

In practice, a social democracy is a capitalist system with a socialist touch. The social democracy has invented horrifying things like free health care and free education. Except from that, there’s not much to fear.

We’re friends of America and will always be. Part of a friendship is to tell your friend when he has done something unacceptable. 

(The cartoon was borrowed from joyreactor.com)

Tipping the maid

Last week, in San Antonio, I was sitting in a restaurant by the River Walk with some friends. We were about to pay our bill, and discussed the tips. We're not used to tipping where I come from. For most types of services, it's all included.

I learnt about tipping when we lived in Colorado. You should tip about anyone who provides you a service; waiters, taxi drivers, hair dressers, and room maids (but not room mates). I reminded my friends that they should tip the maid before checking out of the hotel (some of them where leaving the next day).

(In a fair world people like me would be paid less, and the maids would be paid more. I know this sounds like a socialist thing to say, and I guess I'm kind of socialist at heart, at least in theory, and sometimes I even try to practice.)

The maids are doing a nasty job cleaning our rooms, and they don't get much paid for it. I know, because one of them once told me. This happened many years ago in New Orleans, before Katarina destroyed the city.

I stayed in Hotel Monteleone, an old hotel with a historic atmosphere in the French Quarter. One day I returned to my room to pick up some stuff I had forgotten, and I came in while the maid was cleaning my room. She asked where I came from (I'm speaking English with an accent), and then we had the conversation going. She was a cute Afro-American girl, grown up in New Orleans. She had two little kids, and was totally relying on tips to make enough money to keep it going. Her salary was less than $5 per hour (she said).

In the morning the day before I left, I met her in the corridor outside my room. She told me that she had her day off the next day, which was my checkout day (she probably new from her room list). It was a discrete hint that I should leave her the tips one day early. Otherwise it would end up with a different maid.

So, this is what I did: I put $50 on the desk in my room, $10 for each day she had cleaned my room, and wrote on a note that it was her tips (she was a very cute girl). When I came back to my room that night, there was a box wrapped in gift paper on my bed, and a card signed "Best Wishes, Your Maid".

I unwrapped the parcel. In the box there was a small ceramic bathtub with the hotel's logo. She had stolen it in the hotel's stock of bathroom accessories. I brought the bathtub back home, and had it for many years in my office, with pens and pencils in it.

Now the bathtub is lost and gone. I don't know where, but I'm sure I'll book in at Hotel Monteleone the next time I make it to New Orleans >:)

(The picture above has nothing to do with the story above, which took place before the advent of digital cameras. However, New Orleans and Austin both reminds me of great live music, jazz and blues, respectively. The picture was taken by a friend of mine, some years ago, when we happened to spend a night on 6th Street in Austin, Texas.)

A big fucking deal

The president won, and the vice president said the F-word in pure happiness. That’s cool. I like people who dare to say it, in particular when it appears inappropriate (I guess it’s that little rebel in me). The train has started to move, but Obama’s reform is not really a health reform. It’s rather an insurance reform, a step in the right direction, a beginning. But it doesn’t even touch the real problem.

All over, the US health care system is the most inefficient in the world. USA is spending 16% of the GNP on health care, for about half the population. For comparison, Canada and European countries are spending 8-9% of the GNP to give health care for the entire population. And it’s been like this for more than 40 years. Basic health care is offered by public hospitals. We pay for it over the tax bill; about 7% of the tax is for health care and social services, such as one year maternity (or paternity) leave. The rich and wealthy can buy additional services and cosmetic surgery if they want to. Yes, that’s possible, even in the most fucked up “socialist regimes” in Northern Europe (sorry about the F-word, it's just my Tourette again).

The American system is sick, infected by parasites sucking money out of the system; insurance companies, drug companies, hospitals, and lawyers (the lawyer assholes are everywhere). The main purpose of the US system is, not to produce health care for the people, but to make profit for the companies involved. The republicans are their loyal spokesmen and defenders (like they are for the gun industry, and used to be for the tobacco companies).

The health (or insurance) reform limits the insurance companies’ possibilities to refuse insurance due to “pre-existing conditions”, or cancel the insurance if you get sick. That’s insane isn’t it? The health insurance is cancelled when you need it, when you become an expense rather than a source of income for the insurance company.

The hospitals also take their big share of the cake. Some years ago, we lived in Colorado for a while. We didn’t have an insurance, since we were covered by the public health care in Winterland, within reasonable limits. When needing medical care for the kids, we learnt that it was important to tell the doctor that we were self-paying customer. Then the price was greatly reduced compared to treatment covered by insurance.

It’s amazing to see how those opposing the health reform are defending a bad system with such enthusiasm. It’s a good system for the rich and very bad for the poor (like USA in general). I know there are historical reasons why Americans are suspicious to government involvement, and prefer coffee before tea. But there’s no reason to be afraid of King George III anymore. He died in 1820, and is not coming back to force you into the British Commonwealth again (there’s not much left of the Commonwealth anyway).

In general, I think there are a few things that are best handled by government and authorities. This includes road construction, power supply, water supply, and basic health care. This may of course involve commercial sub-contractors to perform the actual work. I know this is crazy European socialist thinking (we call it social democracy), but all over it’s a quite beneficial system for both the rich and the poor.

But who cares about the poor anyway? They’re probably just lazy and stupid. If they were smart, they would have been rich and republican, of course; insurance agents and lawyers and vampires and stuff like that.