I wrote my AP English exam essay on Nicholas Nickleby, and couldn't remember the name of Wackford Squeers. I wrote a whole essay about "the schoolmaster" and how Nicholas beat his butt in righteous fashion, blah blah social activismcakes, and could not come up with the name.

The name is WACKFORD SQUEERS. It isn't like I was trying to remember if it was Bob Rodriguez or Bob Gonzalez, you know?

Heh. I think that's basically what I ended up doing, Ginger...being like "the mother in the story blah blah blah" rather than using her name.

What's odd is realizing I could do all this stuff in high school that I can't do now--read complex Spanish stories, do calculus and chemistry, get up to catch a 6:40 bus every morning...

Y'all are either a lot younger than me or have a lot better memories. I couldn't tell you what my AP exam was about to save my life. I took AP Brit Lit and AP World Lit. The exam must have been about books. That's as good as I can tell you.

"Alas A Blog" passes on this link [link] to story about a Surrey town where the local council is hiring sharpshooters to reduce the pigeon population. The point of the link is not the story, but the comments thread which appears to have been taken over by dadaists.

Where do posts on theremin-playing cats go? Because here another theremin-playing cat video: [link]

Wow, I just watched last night's Frontline, in which the reporter examines the health-care systems of Japan, the UK, Germany, Taiwan, and Switzerland, in order to evaluate how wealthy developed nations administer universal health-care.

It was quite enlightening, and even hopeful. And yet I suspect we'll never ever get such a system here. The insurance and pharmaceutical and medical lobbies are too big.

A fact they quoted in the report: 700,000 Americans a year go bankrupt because of health-care bills. W.T.F.

good luck tomorrow, Kat.

PS, Suela, that statistic is just angry-making. Egad.

So incredible. And the reporter kept asking: "So, how many people here go bankrupt because of medical bills?" --and they all looked at him like he was insane. I liked the Swiss guy the best, because he was all, "OMG no, that would be a HUGE SCANDAL!"

Actually, Switzerland was particularly interesting, because they had a system just like ours until 1994, and then voted in a referendum to change it to a mandated-insurance system (IIRC) with no profits for basic services. Of course, it just barely passed--but now it has broad support and even the right-wing types like it. So it can be done, although the Swiss have only 1/35th as many people as we do...

A fact they quoted in the report: 700,000 Americans a year go bankrupt because of health-care bills. W.T.F.

I knew that hospitals were expensive but I truly didn't realize how much until the statements started rolling in from my trip last month. One night in the hospital (along with the ambulance ride and the ER visit) would have cost me more than $30k.

I was never so grateful to have insurance as when I opened that envelope.