With paramedics, polyclinics and plastic bone banks everybody gets free care in the USSR.
In the 1919 when the newly launched Soviet Union was threatened by a plague of louse-borne typhus, Vladimir Illyich Lenin bluntly warned his countrymen: “Either the lice defeat socialism or socialism defeats the lice.” The USSR survived the lice and in the half century since has built to most massive system of the national health care ever known, still based on Lenin’s logical, if unsentimental premise: Russia needs her workers, and a sick worker cannot work.
From birth do death the Soviet citizen is followed by a dossier of his health history. He may get production line preventive treatment without leaving his post at school, factory, farm or office. If he is sick but can walk, he goes to a polyclinic, one of thousands of free, all-purpose infirmaries. At least in the cities there are doctors aplenty. Of the world’s 2.5 million physicians, 500,000 – or one in five – are Russians. (The U.S. by comparison has 309,000 M.D.s, for a population 85% as large. Another half million trained medical assistants called feldshers supplement the doctors, particularly in the vast, thinly settled rural outlands.
The system has flaws. To achieve quantity, the quality of treatment often suffers. Hospital sanitation is spotty at best. Anesthetics and modern equipment are often unavailable and most advanced drugs have to be imported. Dentistry is painfully old-fashioned. Medical education considered as a whole, is not up to U.S. standards (I would argue with that. M.V). But the Soviet goal is a lifetime health care for everyone, and any enterprise that ambitious is bound to have failings.
Some toys end up at the mass grave at the Community Yard Sale:
This is one morbid-looking doll:
Sturdy Play Suit – made for hard play (if you know what I mean):
A pin from a lot more innocent times:
Naked golf balls no more:
Other toys get to live in the museum:
Jewel Secrets Ken – draw your own conclusions:
In the hindsight it might have been inappropriate to write “my arms and legs are pauseable”, “ages 3 and up”, and “no batteries required” on a Pee-Wee Herman doll. If you own an Ernest talking doll, you might be a redneck:
Some PEZ dispensers:
Lastly, you may have seen these “urban toys” before:
Most religions start with some kind of revelation. Some guy while walking in the woods finds golden plates, next thing you know, two scmucks are knocking on your door asking strange questions. An old man walks to the top of the mountain, comes down with a couple of stone tablets, next thing you know I have to feel bad about eating bacon. A guy gets crucified, next thing you know….
I may be on to something too. Lately, I started noticing that Dove Chocolate Promises contain unlimited supply of chocolate wisdom and life directives. After eating several bags of chocolates I now have enough wrappers to cover most of life’s questions and daily matters.
The Promises can be divided into two categories: wisdom and directives.
Directives:
Go to your special place
Go against the grain
Send a love letter this week
Don’t think about it so much
Follow your instincts
Whisper in the dark
Live your dreams
Wink at someone driving past today
Smile. People will wonder what you’ve been up to
Love without rules
Discover yourself
Watch reruns, they replay your memories
Wisdom:
It’s definitely a bubble-bath day
There is a time for compromise…it’s called “later”
Sometimes one smile means more than a dozen roses
Age is nothing but a number
If they can do it, you know you can
When two hearts race both win
Temptation is fun…giving in is even better
These pearls can be combined in an infinite number of ways. Try it:
Don’t think about it so much+Go to your special place+Discover yourself
See, it’s like a higher power telling you what to do.
OK, I am back from my “special place” where I just “discovered myself” and I am “smiling” so “people will wonder what I’ve been up to”. Get it?
I am on my quest to eat more Dove Promises to finally discover the secret of life. I found out that I can actually order my own Promises with old stand-by’s like “don’t pee against the wind” or “don’t eat yellow snow”.
I wonder if there is a rating scale for potholes similar to the F-Scale for tornadoes or the Richter Scale for earthquakes. If there isn’t one, I’d like to propose a Kansas City Pothole Scale to commemorate this City’s contribution to the subject of road damage. I’ll leave it to the scientists to decide if potholes should be rated based on their size or on a potential vehicle damage from a minor bump (K-1) to a complete disappearance of the vehicle as described in the Bible “and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up” (definitely a K-10).
Every day I have to maneuver around this crater of a pothole on my way to work, wondering if one wrong turn will send me on my way to the center of the Earth, or at least a little closer to it.
As you can see, there are visible remains of the previous handiwork done by the highly trained professionals working for the City.
It’s hard to tell but the tape measure in the photo is extended to almost three feet to give you some dimension perspective.
It’s not just a hole in the ground. There seems to be a cave underneath it. Maybe it’s an old mine, or an unknown entrance to the abandoned underground tunnel, or an end of the secret escape route leading to the Mayor’s office.
I didn’t feel like spelunking my way down there on a gray Saturday morning.
Few days ago someone placed an orange warning sign around this pothole but it swallowed the City property overnight. You can see the remains of the sign deep down in the abyss.
During my annual griping about the KCMO Earnings Tax, someone never fails to point out that it’s only fair that I pay my fair share for the roads and wonderful amenities I am using while I am in Kansas City. Stupidity of this argument aside, I think I paid enough during my 10 years of employment to fill this hole with cash.
This article explains that you may have a small chance of the City compensating you for the damage to your vehicle caused by a pothole; coverage may be provided by the Missouri Public Entity Risk Management Fund. Obviously I am not qualified to provide any advice, do your own research.
In the meantime, please exercise caution on this intersection of the 6th and Cherry, you’ll find the giant pothole next to the property tax-free building.
For people who pride themselves on being independent, Americans too often become victims of the herd mentality. Whether it’s the approval of the war in Iraq, voting for Obama or wearing Crocs, Americans latch onto some absurd idea and follow it all the way to the disastrous end. The common problem is that important and sometimes life-and-death decisions are made based on emotions and very little knowledge and common sense. To me, the question of the light rail in Kansas City falls into the same category. No one in the right state of mind would even propose the light rail as an option which would solve any transportation problems in this city. Instead of just being dismissed as a bad idea, huge waste of money and totally worthless as a means of commute, this issue is constantly being discussed, written about, voted on, studied and even taken to courts.
Kansas City has a rich history of public transportation which allowed the public to move around town before cars took over as the main commuter option.
I, of course, didn’t get a chance to see this. I was happily growing up Behind the Iron Curtain where I had a chance to ride every imaginable kind of public transport from bus to tram, from subway to trolleybus, from taxi to water ferry.It wasn’t very comfortable but it got the job done. It was crowded, hot, sometimes smelly and noisy but it allowed an average person to get around town with relatively little wait, not too much walking and very cheaply. And that’s what I consider the major criteria of the usable public transport system:
Cost. Some people will overpay just to be “green”. For the majority it has to make fiscal sense.
Convenience. I am not driving 10 miles to the terminal just to ride the light rail for 7 miles. It has to be within walking distance or it’s too much hustle.
Coverage. I am not interested in the A to B ride, unless I live in A and I am going to B. Public transportation system should blanket the area with routes that cross each other and allow passengers to jump from route to route.
Constant circulation. This is crucial – I don’t want to know bus schedules, I just want to know that the bus will show up within 10-20 minutes even if I just missed the last one. One fear that I have is to be stranded somewhere with no chance to get out.
Security. I want to arrive in one piece with all of my belongings.
In the next few installments I will try to describe the public transportation system I grew up with. It wasn’t perfect but it worked. More than I can say about the light rail that never will.
