But kudos for telling the truth.

That was just about perfect.

Because we all know what rotten parents poor people are. Obviously, health-care is a serious problem and everybody deserves easy access, but a line like that is just ignorant and seriously intereferes with a worthwhile message.

hey junk food (including fast food) is cheap and convenient, and it's certainly not just poor people who buy & consume it. and who said that the rat family was poor? you're projecting.

great video!!!! "the omniscient invisible hand of the free market" -- ha!

Mother and I loved it!

By the way, who's the pompous twit who keeps posting under my name?

TOOLS!

Big gaping error of fact in their little morality play...

"My daughter is malnourished because all I can afford to feed her is junk food."

That's the quote. The "all I can afford" part gives the impression of being underprivileged, but you're right, maybe she's middle class and a complete idiot. The point is, if you want to establish sympathy for a character, don't make her a complete idiot and a terrible parent. Because, as much as I have sympathy for the message of getting affordable health-care to everybody (having spent years working with the underprivileged), if your child is malnourished in the U.S., it's nobody's fault but your own.

My name is Anonymous. I'm available for dominance/bottom parties. Just dial 1-800-I-EAT-SHIT and leave a message.

(keep it up...this is fun!!)

have you ever lived in an impoverished neighborhood? the kind where the only real grocery store is miles and miles away? the kind where the "corner stores" (gas stations and liquor shops) are the only source of food within walking distance? where you have to work two 30-hr/week (because they won't hire you full time) minimum-wage jobs to pay all your bills? where you can't afford a working car and you're too goddamn exhausted from working to take the bus home, get your little kids, and then take them on another thirty-minute bus ride to the "real" grocery store to get real healthy food?

this is why I did not interpret the video as a dis on working class parents. healthy food is not just that easy to get. it's almost a @#!$!$ luxury in this country.

maybe it's not that way where you live. but it's that way where I live.

love,

No Name Given

I actually have lived in rural places like you describe. I've worked minimum wage jobs miles from grocery stores. I've worked with clients who lived in places like that. Some were able to plan their grocery shopping and some weren't. The ones that weren't were either mentally ill or emotionally dysfunctional. And then, sadly, there were a few that were just too lazy and self centered.

If the cartoon had been about a mentally ill person unable to get services, or people living miles from towns, I'd understand. But I think it was implying that most underprivileged people can't "afford" (as opposed to "not get to") healthy food.

I agree that healthcare is a serious problem in the U.S. and that poor folks suffer most. And I don't think it's necessarily dissing poor folks, I just think it's a clumsy and not very well thought out propaganda piece, as also evidenced by the "good lawyers like George Bush" remark.

Something that the profession should take credit for: no law school would accept him, in spite of the family's influence and money.

He's an MBA.

And he probably *could* have gotten into *a* law school, just not the law school of his choice. There are lots of law schools out there. There are also lots of people who aren't committed to the legal profession per se, people who apply to only one school and don't apply to any fallback schools or think about going somewhere else. Dubya took this all-or-nothing approach; as far as I know he only applied to the University of Texas School of Law, which had a very selective admissions policy *even in the 1970s* when he applied. Even if he couldn't get into UT with his connections, however, he probably *did* have the connections to get him hired in some Big Firm or other had he chosen to apply to and attend a less-elite law school.

Aside: his application--test scores, grades, etc.--must have been atrocious! because there ARE connections that will get you into UT Law, even today.

(If you're stuck in a town with one law school, and can't leave that town because of family reasons, that's different.)

Dr. Lion was mistaken when he identified "George W. Bush" as a lawyer--he may be as dishonest as lawyers are accused of being but he did not go to law school or take the bar in any state. Before becoming a politician W was a "businessman" whose chief accomplishment was being born into the Bush family.