The Curmudgeon Speaks

Brokaw offers sound advice. There is no defense for public access to military weapons. This has nothing to do with the constitution, it is the consequence of some sick NRA logic and the money flowing from this organization to politicians. The Make America Great motto has little meaning when the political process allows these events over and over. There are so many areas in which the arrogance of Americans prevents us from recognizing the sound decisions made in other countries.

Cindy loves to read or send me inspirational quotes she finds online. Things that are intended to help me find motivation or direction for my life. I think I have found something far better – an inspirational hat. I have many hats. This is the case because I keep forgetting the one I am supposed to have with me. I have a thin covering of hair on the top of my head and I must seek coverage to limit sun or cold exposure. I found this hat in the gift shop at Ha Ha Tonka (laughing waters) state park.

Ha Ha Tonka state park did have some other interesting things. This is the remains (it burned in the 1940s) of the Castle at Ha Ha Tonka. Those in the castle had a tremendous view overlooking the Lake of the Ozarks.

Awareness of pre-existing conditions likely came to the public awareness during the ongoing debate over health care and made visible the issue of whether the government has a role to play as insurance companies are allowed to deny coverage. Pre-existing is used in reference to characteristics of individuals, perhaps based in unfortunate genetics, making specific problems more likely and as a consequence making such individuals statistically more expensive to keep healthy. Of course, poverty is also a pre-existing condition predicting greater health risks and greater difficulty purchasing health care coverage. Such situations are convenient to ignore unless you happen to be or know someone falling into one of these categories.

I was thinking about the plight of those in Texas and Florida as they struggle to recover from the recent hurricanes. Even though a good deal of the financial burden will fall to home and business owners, the government, translation tax payers, will pump billions of dollars into the region to support recovery. My point here is not to speak against all of us making this contribution rather it is to point out how unaware we are of inconsistencies in our thinking when it comes to statistically unavoidable life consequences. Building close to warm water is a pre-existing condition for hurricane damage. The odds of being outside the 100 year flood plain (I understand this situation from being flooded while living outside the 100 year flood plain in Grand Forks) doesn’t guarantee you will avoid costly damage and doesn’t deny you government support.

Pointing this out is mostly intended to target all of the southern Republican politicians willing to vote against the Affordable Care Act and now expecting the rest of the country to fund the unique pre-existing conditions they fail to recognize as such. In my opinion, ignoring pre-existing conditions is basically selfish and is an issue the government must address. Politicians may pick and choose their issues without regard for the inconsistency in what makes them look good. Perhaps bringing this inconsistency to their and their constituents attention will be helpful.

Facebook is increasingly becoming a source many of all ages turn to for news. In light of recent stories regarding the targeting of stories based on demographics and Facebook’s own use of user preferences for prioritizing the content provided based on personal preferences, this trend has the potential to convince people they are staying informed when in fact the inputs to their thinking are being biased in several ways.

http://www.journalism.org/2017/09/07/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2017/

We are having some remodeling done and I had to move my bookcase. I must admit I seldom read a book with actual pages anymore and removing and then reshelving the books provided a walk down memory lane. So many of the books had shaped ideas I found very stimulating.

Here is a sampling from the top shelf:

• Convergence culture
• Smart mobs
• The virtual community
• Weaving the web
• The wealth of networks
• Got game
• Free: The future of a radical price

Here is the thing about this collection. Pretty much all promised a future that has not been realized and now seems a type of idealism that for one reason or another has been lost.

These books were written by great writers with a view of the possible that seemed very probable. They were great thought leaders. When applied in education, the label of thought leader has started to rub me the wrong way. Too often, it seems these folks make their way by telling the rest of us what we have missed and what we should be doing to get us from here to there. These folks have the innovators mindset, hack this or that, or act like pirates. I must admit the pirate thing still kind of baffles me.

I suppose I am old fashioned or cautious, but I prefer a mix of data with my innovation. The thoughts pretty much are the equivalent of hypotheses and as a researcher, I can tell you with certainty that not every creative idea gets published, nor should it.

On the second shelf, I found another book – The big switch. (Who controls the Internet would work as an alternative.) This book by a different thought leader explains why the other thought leaders were wrong. The idealism of learning from each other, learning through sharing, and combining our capabilities (blogs and wikis) has been subverted by the big players (the media companies, ISPs) and our own lack of willingness to make personal contributions. Remember the promise of the Read/Write web? Probably not. Bloggers and free content creators no more, there is also the opportunity for the innovators to make a buck by writing or talking about innovation. Interesting ideas are fun and science fiction writers have been offering such ideas for nearly as long as books have been printed. Sometimes their ideas resemble what becomes the future but no one holds them to their visions.

Just a free thought to consider

Fake Coyote – Cindy purchased two from Amazon. We have a goose problem at our lake place. Nice lawn with easy access to the lake can bring geese. We have tried everything we can think of short of a shotgun to get rid of them. No luck so far. Cindy read that coyote decoys would do the trick so she bought two. The decoys come rolled up and the directions said that you should stuff them with something (I used towels) and place them in the sun for a couple of hours to get them to take on a more natural shape. I position this one on top of the grill on my deck. For the unprepared, I am thinking waking up in the middle of the night and looking out on the deck might cause quite a reaction.

[Alice’s Restaurant – for young folks with have lived a sheltered life]

I post frequently about my frustration with what I consider the flawed and dangerous policies of the Trump administration and some specific Republican positions that are very much in contradiction to my personal value system. The Trump and Republican health care is probably the best example. Access to health care is simply something I cannot accept to any who need it. My life experiences have provided concrete examples of how health care is not equitable.

We have good friends we became acquainted with in Russia and who later moved to the U.S.. We do not talk politics with them a lot, but you hang out with folks long enough and you begin to pick up on things.

Our friends are concerned about me and my level of frustration. Cindy tried to explain that this is just the way I am. I assume problems can be addressed and I have always been persistent. To ignore problems would eat me up. Our Russian friends felt they had no chance to make changes and so found ways to live their lives despite their circumstances. Of course, they were willing to leave their jobs, home, and country to move here. People sometimes joke about moving to Canada. Few have the courage to take this risk and I see their way of responding to what they perceived as injustices as a far stronger and more courageous reaction than my own.

I have been thinking about how I might best convey my attitudes toward affordable health care. What type of analogy offers the best way to explain through comparison why I believe all Americans deserve to be offered a way to have health insurance and why all must contribute? There are certainly other services that are provided to all and all are asked to support. It might be argued in a Maslow kind of way that health care – life and death – is a more basic need than at least some of these other services.

The most obvious comparison that comes to mind is K-12 education. All are provided access to a K-12 education no matter the resources of their care givers or the cost to meet basic individual needs. Not all of those who must contribute have children in need of this service. Some never had children and many have no present need. We somehow have decided the collective benefit is worth the imposed requirement. We do not shy away from providing the most expensive services to those who we know will never be able to pay back the resources that have been invested in them. We make these commitments because these are values we support and because we understand that life is not always fair. This is not about business. This is not able allowing the market to find a way. This is about all of us accepting a responsibility to allow each individual to receive a basic “level of coverage”.

Why should health care be different? Why don’t we start from what Trump proposed, but what we now recognize as hollow promises? Why are we willing to ignore the health needs of some because their personal needs are more expensive? Why are we willing to put individuals at risk because their life circumstances have prevented them from acquiring a level of income so many of us take for granted and somehow attribute entirely to our own effort? I cannot answer these questions because I assume I have

I cannot answer these questions because I assume I must accept certain responsibilities and the government has to be the mechanism through which such responsibilities must be executed. Think of health care as a type of tax if you must. Taxes are simply the way we cover the cost of things we value for the common good. The math is not that hard and the solutions are there. If every business and each individual cannot be counted on to contribute to the common good by purchasing insurance, then the government needs to take on this responsibility through taxation.

This is likely the first time I have forwarded an article from the Grand Forks Herald. However, I do keep up with North Dakota issues through the Herald and this opinion piece is so consistent with my own thinking, I thought I would post it here. Glassheim outlines what I would argue is the Democratic position (or at least Glassheim as a Democrat) on health insurance.

Glassheim is a long time state legislator from Grand Forks who has run for national office. The odds of a Dem from ND being successful at the national level is fairly remote, but Glassheim has always had the capacity to present important issues in a lucid fashion.