Autumn Tree
A farmer has parked his tractor, possibly permanently, next to this abandoned grocery store. The population of these remote areas has decreased over the last fifty years, and many small towns have been left empty.
Ten Deer Resting
I happened to be driving on a remote dirt road. I turned around a corner of a hill, and on the other side I saw these deer bedded down on the hillside, not expecting to see me. Fortunately, I had my camera ready.
Red Cloud
A Well-tended Car
This beautiful old car was found parked on the street. What make, model, and year is it?
Burning the Trees
The trees in this orchard were a variety of peaches that simply was no longer popular in the grocery stores. The farmer was forced to tear out all the trees, and in a very old practice, burn them. Modern agronomists use gigantic shredding machines to turn the trees into mulch. From there, they could even be reconstituted into super-strong boards. The orchard across the street from this burned orchard was turned into mulch.
The identities of these two were not recorded.
White House and Partly Cloudy Sky
The house across the street once again makes an appearance, This time it is Photoshopped almost beyond recognition.
Health Care Punishment
Another brilliant comment from the NYT online:
- GC
- Ireland
The strangest fact about the dysfunctional American healthcare system is that American taxpayers are ALREADY paying for full universal coverage for every American.
The US federal government already spends more per person on healthcare than any other country except Norway. The difference is that Norway and every other developed country gets full, universal coverage for it’s money. Americans, on the other hand, get deductibles, co-pays, coverage limits, mountains of paperwork, medical bankruptcy, stress, hassle and, of course, big bills for private insurance.
As a percentage of GDP the United States spends about twice as much on healthcare as other developed nations – 16% for the US vs 8% for the others. The extra 8% of national income that Americans spend on healthcare reflects the political power of those who are making money from the status quo – along with the dysfunction and idiocy of those who support them, of course. I’m not sure whether to call that extra 8% the ‘ideology tax’ or the ‘stupid tax’.
Americans are being bled dry to pay for the greed of powerful vested interests in healthcare, ‘defense’, criminal ‘justice’ and other areas of US dysfunction. And the strangest thing is that they just seem to accept it.
Nov. 18 2013 05:14 am.
Conrad Theodore Seitz 