Classy Things: Muckraking, Crystal Meth, & Health Care

The end of October is a portentous and strange time of year. Leaves change color, clocks change time, and the weather changes everything. With Halloween and all its depravity around the corner, sunlight begins to recede to the brink of hibernation and the air bares the first stinging breaths of an impending winter. In baseball, October signifies the end of the year and, if you’re in New York, another run at a World Series title commencing with ever tasteful coverage of the opposing team by our very own New York Post (see: Shane Victorino on the front page wearing a superimposed skirt). For BET, it means another lavish and at times overdone Hip-Hop Awards show to honor the year’s best, where you can see the unlikely grouping of Mos Def, Black Thought, and Eminem slaying bars in the same cipher. But October isn’t all about endings. If you’re YW favorite Ron Artest, October brings about a new season, a new team, and a new outlandish haircut. And if you’re Michael Bloomberg or Bill Thompson, October is high season for political muckraking and debate.


As muckraking goes, this mayoral race has been a doozy. You can’t turn on a local radio station or TV channel without hearing an ominous voice telling you that Bloomberg is an out-of-touch tycoon who’ll eat your children, or that Thompson is going to raise your taxes, ruin the public school system and then eat your children. Shit, you’d think Mike Tyson and Caligula were running for mayor. With so many hateful and uninformative messages bombarding us through the airwaves it’s hard not to think of this race as some enormous Andy Kaufman-like hoax. The utter hate being spewed in these commercials is so overdone and vindictive it’s become a source of comedic entertainment. Take the above commercial, my personal favorite, as an example. Paid for by a local Communications Workers union that supports Thompson, this $500,000 ad spends 30 seconds showing you multiple stills of Bloomberg’s face in various states of duress. He looks angry, confused, and like an extra from “Planet of the Apes.” A stern voice tells you that Bloomberg just doesn’t get the needs of the common man – although at no point do they specify what those needs are. The only thing I took away from this ad is that Michael Bloomberg really doesn’t like Diet Coke (look at the first still if you don’t know what I mean).


Take a look at the picture above. Would it shock you to learn that this man used crystal meth? Me neither, but it’s caused a pretty significant uproar in the tennis community. In case you don’t know, the man in question is eight-time Grand Slam winner and mohawk-toupee-wearer Andre Agassi. In a new memoir hitting bookshelves next week, Agassi cops to using crystal meth multiple times during 1997 – a year that saw his world rank slip from No. 6 to No. 141 (I wonder why?). What’s more, he admits to failing an ATP drug test that same year. So why is this only coming to light now. Simple, when Agassi learned about his failed drug test, he wrote a letter to the ATP explaining that he failed the test because he shared a soda with his assistant Slim, who unbeknownst to Agassi had spiked the beverage with meth. That’s about as believable as saying you didn’t inhale. Strangely, the ATP bought that story and never suspended Agassi. The real story is that Slim introduced the star to meth in ’97 and the two spent the year acting like Missouri trailer trash (side note: Missouri is the meth capital of the world). While this news may be devastating to some, as a long time Agassi fan, I don’t really care. I was far more devastated when I was seven and my dad, a big Pete Sampras fan, would jokingly tell me that Agassi didn’t have a penis.


Somebody needs to take Joe Lieberman into a dark alley and beat the shit out of him. Lieberman, a former Democrat turned Independent Senator and perennial fuckhead, said Tuesday he would join a Republican filibuster to block the final vote on any health care bill that has a government-run public health insurance option. With such a divisive Senate, Lieberman’s vote would be crucial to passing any health care bill. In an attempt to make the bill more appealing to Republicans, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he would submit a health care bill that has a public option but also allows states to opt out of that provision. But even that isn’t enough for Lieberman, who famously turned his back on running mate Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election. Oh, and don’t worry, Lieberman doesn’t get a shit ton of campaign donations from pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies. While my distaste for Lieberman is palpable, I’m equally shocked and pissed at the ineptitude and political bureaucracy of the Obama administration. Obama has caved into political maneuverings and Washington lobbyists. And I’m sure some of you are saying, “What the fuck is he talking about?” Not once did Obama or his administration try to push the comprehensive social healthcare bill that was a major tenet of his campaign. Do you realize that if we increased our current Medicare tax (not a large figure at all, check your next paycheck) by 33% we would accrue enough money to make health coverage free in this country? Obama knew that and didn’t once push the issue, probably because he’s afraid of losing congressional seats in the midterm elections or because he’s in the pocket of the pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies (both are actually true). And why isn’t Obama at the forefront of this health bill? Why has it become Harry Reid’s bill? Why did Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel help to write a version of the bill that doesn’t include a public option? We were promised health coverage and instead we might not even get a public option in our new health care bill, which would be an absolute disaster. Why? Because whatever version of this bill gets passed, it’ll include a stipulation that everyone must have health insurance, even those that can’t afford it. That’s change I can take a dump on.