new york in fall

Pears & apples
Originally uploaded by vermilionink.

one of the things i love most about living in new york city is the prevalence of fresh fruit. surprised? seriously, every morning i walk by a stand that sells fresh fruit on the street corner... bananas for $.25, pears for $.50, and the apples... don't get me started on the apples... the harbinger of fall... they are amazing. this year, i am a big jona gold fan. a month and a half ago, i wouldn't have had a clue what jona gold was... one of austin powers lady friends? seriously, it's good stuff.
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so... yeah... i'm brain dead. i've lost it. remember back when i could type a complete sentence and it would make sense? yeah. that doesn't happen anymore. i miss my brain. it was fun while it lasted. oh, yeah, i remember what i wanted to tell ya'll. a fun little tidbit from class courtesy of the world health organization. in a quick and dirty comparison of healthcare in france, israel, and the us, the us fares particularly poorly... for example, in israel, the life expectancy at birth is 80 years; in france, 79 years; in the us, 77 years. in israel, child mortality is 7 boys or 6 girls per 1000; in france, 5 boys or 4 girls per 1000; in the us, our child mortality rate is 9 boys or 7 girls per 1000. israel and france both have universal health coverage, and they spend $1890 and $2736 per capita on health respectively. in the us, we spend $5274 per capita on health -- that's 14.6% of our GDP as compared to israel's 9.1% and france's 9.7% -- all for a system that's ranked 37th in the world. that means that much poorer countries are keeping their citizens healthier than our expensive, elitist system in the united states. sad, eh? do with it what you will...