I've been posting a lot of political blogs recently, and the main reason is that at lunchtime at my new job I scan through all the news websites (and MSN for its quirky stories) and then spend the rest of the day thinking about the news. I cannot promise that future posts will be either funny or political. However, I want to wrap my thoughts together.
My political views, shaped by my dad by the time I was eight and furthered through logic as I grew, tend to be of a minimalist government and capitalist society. I love history and acknowledge the advances we have made. There were gross abuses of the capitalist system, however, I cannot see that government regulation has made much of a positive impact since the middle of the 20th century. Once workers were being treated fairly and safely and laws were in place to protect consumers, capitalism pretty much had everything it needed.
I recently discussed my views with a friend over lunch. I mentioned abuses to capitalist systems - such as fraud, intent to deceive buyers, and so on. She made an excellent point - even these abuses, under a truly capitalist society, get discovered and rectified. Think about Enron. The people who committed fraud at Enron today are not rich, many are in jail, and the company is gone. The unfortunate side effect is that the hundreds of innocent people involved in that scandal also saw financial ruin.
In a way, this is a fairly black and white view.
That brings me to my other point. I believe in pure capitalism, but I also believe in charity. Sometimes people, whether due to situations in their control or not, cannot rise to the advantages of a capitalist society. When that happens, those of us who can should aid them. America is great because no one need go without a home or food because there is always a homeless shelter or food kitchen to provide for needs. (Of course, we still have homeless for many reasons, but most efforts to help these people off the streets end in failure, as this lifestyle is of their choosing). There are programs for education and self betterment as well, and still plenty left over to help other countries.
Even in charity, capitalism is a helpful tool. It is better to teach a man to fish, they say. And ultimately, we all want to have jobs and to feel usefully employed. Think about the early Christians - they shared everything, and no one was rich or poor (which is essentially communism), but they also made a point that everyone work to their ability.
Capitalism is a good system for a good economy, but charity is a good system for a good society. Unfortunately, when charity gets written into the economy through government intervention, the opposite of what is intended can happen. I have heard that some people believe their taxes are too low. In their human sympathy, they feel guilt about their well-off position and wish to spread the wealth. However, because they have come to rely on the government to spread the wealth, they don't even think to actually spend their own take-home pay on charitable works. Others spend the money but do not get involved. Every election year, the media reports charitable giving by candidates. It always seems the candiate who is most anxious to institute government social programs is the one who spends the lowest percentage of his income on charity.
I could go on and on in different directions that I may take in future blogs. However, I want to give an example of why it is so important that changes in society be brought about by love and not government intervention. Because I am a woman, I feel the following is an appropriate example.
The historical picture for women has been mostly negative. For thousands of years, culture and laws did not allow us to vote, hold well paying or respecatble jobs, or escape from abusive marriages. However, thorughout history there have been shining stars of women who achieved great things. Many times, I look upon these women only to discover that there was a man who believed in them. A father or husband taught her his trade, encouraged her to get an education, or so on. This does not mean that women could not succeed on their own (many did) but only is an example of how the love and care of a man was often pivotal for success.
So it was with gaining the right to vote. How do you "gain" the right to vote? You can't vote yourself the right. Someone else has to vote it for you. The first state to allow women to vote had to do so on the urging of men. The first woman elected to congress was voted for by men and women. But how do you get men to allow women to vote? Because the men who know women and love women see that they need to have a voice. Because men realize that the system as it stands is unfair to women and unethical on a human rights level.
Essentially, love only, not government mandates, allowed women to reach equal voting ground with men.
Throughout the first half of the century, women gained grounds professionally and educationally. Once again, male institutions had to open up their doors to women out of love and compassion. Women took over in the workforce during the wars and men, gratefully, worked together with them when they came back. Men loved women. Women loved men. Real change happened.
However, in the 1960's and 1970's, the attitude changed. Women started to resent men for various reasons, forgetting that it was men who put them in their position of voting and working. They started demanding more and more "rights," and trying to gain equality. These women are still trying to gain equality, because to them, nothing will ever be enough. They stopped celebrating the beauty of being female and the love and companionship of men, and they started celebrating themselves and their own perceived achievements.
Rules enacted during this time did not serve to help the environment of men and women. It started to become common for companies to feel obligated to hire and promote women, which led to resentment among male employees. Women were given scholarships to colleges that men could not apply to. Women forced their way into all-male organizations. Any given remark was subject to be called sexist. And so on.
Men stopped feeling the need to love women into a position of respect because women were pushing their way in - sometimes causing resentment. So, compare the changes in the first half of the century to the second half. In the first half, women gained the right to vote and to work to support themselves. These concepts have become so embedded in our culture because they work. They are based on love. In the second half, women complained about nearly everything, elbowed their way in to what they could, and complained some more. If anything, although women have the same rights as men, it is possible that they have eroded some of the respect men used to have for them.
This is what I mean when I say that change has to be brought about by love. Once we won the right to vote and work, it was only a matter of time before other equalities fell into place. Hard working women would eventually be rewarded by their bosses with promotions and raises. This may have taken time, just as the voting process took over 100 years, but it would have happened. And then we would live in a world where we are truly equal. Instead, both sexes seem to be constantly looking over their shoulders, always suspecting the other of trying to keep them down. It truly became a battle of the sexes.
This same pattern continues in any venue in which one group of people or the government try to force something upon someone else. To put it another way, all Christians are taught the virtue of charity, but very few give up everything they have for the sake of others. Through our own growth in Christ and love for others we can also help change the world and make it a better place, but any kind of forced response diminishes the physical and spiritual returns of the good it attempted to do.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
The Realization of All Things Conspiracy Theory
"Beggars in Spain" is a three-part novel about a woman who was genetically engineered to not require sleep. The science fiction book addresses the topics of society's resentment against genetically improved humans. However, the book may be more science than fiction.
I recently read an article about parents who were "genetically engineering" their children so as to avoid passing on genetic diseases. Their methods varied. One Jewish community, which already practices arranged marriages, took into consideration risk for certain genetic diseases when pairing couples. Other couples who are using artificial insemination pre-test embryos for susceptibility to genetic diseases before implantation. The final method is to abort fetuses who test strong or positive for these dieases.
Oddly enough, the article seemed to praise these efforts and applaud the parents who made these decisions as heroes of the human race. However, when I look over that last paragraph, I see ethical dilemma after ethical dilemma - eugenics, bioengieering, abortion. Are any of these topics easy?
One's view on the ethics of genetic selection may be based on when you believe life forms. For instance, some may find aborting fetuses a much higher ethical problem than discarding embryos. I would like to leave my opinion out of that argument for a moment to say that, whether one considers embryos to be human beings or not, the idea of testing, selecting, and altering embryos sounds eerily like genetic engineering. It brings to mind words like 1984 and clones.
The plus sides of genetic selection are obvious - people will be healthy. Diseases will not be passed on to future generations. But the drawbacks are numerous!
1. As people select their children to not have genetic diseases, research for cures for these diseases will go by the wayside. This will effectively leave out those who choose not to use genetic testing either for ethical or financial reasons.
2. The definition of a genetic disease may broaden. Already most parents who find out they are carrying a Down Syndrome child choose to abort. How many other diseases and birth defects will we decide are too burdensome either on the parent or child to warrant carrying the baby full term? For instance, what if the child is missing a limb? A thumb? Will we be able to test the potential IQ of children before they are born and abort children who are only average? And what about eugenics? The idea that we can create the perfect human being, and idea that was popular in the 1930's and inspired Adolf Hitler?
3. Right now genetic testing is only being performed on embryos from parents who are trying to have children. However, as this science expands, it could become more popular and less carefully used. If genetic selection is performed on too many children, the gene pool could be decreased, which may actually cause MORE sickness in the general population.
4. The ability to use genetic testing to select children is an emerging technology, and it will therefore be used only in dire cases or for wealthy individuals. This will serve to further the class gap. Poor families who cannot affort genetic testing will have to struggle to pay the medical costs of raising sick children, while the wealthy will choose only to have healthy (and perhaps intelligent, athletic, etc., when the technology improves) children.
5. Those who are now living with genetic diseases may be hurt by the process. I was interested in the response to the Super Bowl commercial from Focus on the Family. Here a woman stood up and said how blessed she was to have her son, and her son stood up and said how happy he was to be alive, and people actually became outraged. What kind of person does it take to look a mom and her son in the eyes and say, "No, this man should not be alive?" And he was healthy. People who are not in perfect health can still contribute to society, love, feel, and enjoy life. And more than that, their parents love this child. Sure, times are tough, but parents were meant to love their children, and ultimately, they are a joy to them.
6. Some of these genetic diseases do not kill for many years. One man featured in the article had Huntington's Disease. I am not an expert on this disease, but the article itself said that first symptoms often do not appear until someone is in their 40's, and even then, the disease works slowly. To be sure, a slow death is not appealing to anyone. However, this is all the more reason to find cures for the disease itself. The man was so proud he was going to eradicate the disease in his family, and yet he had his 40 healthy years to live. Who are we to say that a potential child, whether embryo or fetus, would rather never be born than to live a good life of 40 years? What if that child had found the cure for Huntington Disease, forging on through life-saving necessity?
7. Most importantly, this practice furthers our culture's downward spiral into a culture that has no love. By genetically testing potential children, parents are giving a clear signal - only healthy children will be acceptable. However, there are still many diseases that cannot be diagnosed in the womb, and non health related traits such as intelligence are all but impossible. Further, sometimes pre-birth diagnoses are inaccurate. How many times does a doctor get the gender of a baby wrong? I have seen it happen. Are you willing to trust your child's life on a similar diagnosis? Or risk a healthy baby's life to actually perform the test in the first place?
Further, when parents close the door on unhealthy children, they are closing the door to the possibility of unconditional love. A year, four years, or even 12 years, after their healthy child is born it is possible he could get in a car wreck and enter a wheelchair for the rest of his life, or perhaps suffer severe brain damag. How will parents who custom ordered a healthy child deal with the unpredictable?
How will children in the family feel about the practice - will they feel the love of their parents looking out for their health? Or will they feel pressure to measure up to the pre-set standards? Will they wonder if they would have been a twin or triplet, if only that other embryo had not shown predisposition to a genetic disease?
This is so important. No matter what your opinion on birth control, abortion, or even genetic testing is, if you set out to do something "for the children," you must consider all the consequences of that choice. Ultimately, what are the motives of genetic testing? Is it really to have healthy, happy children who will lead fulfilled lives? Or is it so we can have wealthy or middle-class parents who don't have to struggle along for finances and free time as they help their child, God's precious gift, through life. Are these heroes of humanity after all?
I recently read an article about parents who were "genetically engineering" their children so as to avoid passing on genetic diseases. Their methods varied. One Jewish community, which already practices arranged marriages, took into consideration risk for certain genetic diseases when pairing couples. Other couples who are using artificial insemination pre-test embryos for susceptibility to genetic diseases before implantation. The final method is to abort fetuses who test strong or positive for these dieases.
Oddly enough, the article seemed to praise these efforts and applaud the parents who made these decisions as heroes of the human race. However, when I look over that last paragraph, I see ethical dilemma after ethical dilemma - eugenics, bioengieering, abortion. Are any of these topics easy?
One's view on the ethics of genetic selection may be based on when you believe life forms. For instance, some may find aborting fetuses a much higher ethical problem than discarding embryos. I would like to leave my opinion out of that argument for a moment to say that, whether one considers embryos to be human beings or not, the idea of testing, selecting, and altering embryos sounds eerily like genetic engineering. It brings to mind words like 1984 and clones.
The plus sides of genetic selection are obvious - people will be healthy. Diseases will not be passed on to future generations. But the drawbacks are numerous!
1. As people select their children to not have genetic diseases, research for cures for these diseases will go by the wayside. This will effectively leave out those who choose not to use genetic testing either for ethical or financial reasons.
2. The definition of a genetic disease may broaden. Already most parents who find out they are carrying a Down Syndrome child choose to abort. How many other diseases and birth defects will we decide are too burdensome either on the parent or child to warrant carrying the baby full term? For instance, what if the child is missing a limb? A thumb? Will we be able to test the potential IQ of children before they are born and abort children who are only average? And what about eugenics? The idea that we can create the perfect human being, and idea that was popular in the 1930's and inspired Adolf Hitler?
3. Right now genetic testing is only being performed on embryos from parents who are trying to have children. However, as this science expands, it could become more popular and less carefully used. If genetic selection is performed on too many children, the gene pool could be decreased, which may actually cause MORE sickness in the general population.
4. The ability to use genetic testing to select children is an emerging technology, and it will therefore be used only in dire cases or for wealthy individuals. This will serve to further the class gap. Poor families who cannot affort genetic testing will have to struggle to pay the medical costs of raising sick children, while the wealthy will choose only to have healthy (and perhaps intelligent, athletic, etc., when the technology improves) children.
5. Those who are now living with genetic diseases may be hurt by the process. I was interested in the response to the Super Bowl commercial from Focus on the Family. Here a woman stood up and said how blessed she was to have her son, and her son stood up and said how happy he was to be alive, and people actually became outraged. What kind of person does it take to look a mom and her son in the eyes and say, "No, this man should not be alive?" And he was healthy. People who are not in perfect health can still contribute to society, love, feel, and enjoy life. And more than that, their parents love this child. Sure, times are tough, but parents were meant to love their children, and ultimately, they are a joy to them.
6. Some of these genetic diseases do not kill for many years. One man featured in the article had Huntington's Disease. I am not an expert on this disease, but the article itself said that first symptoms often do not appear until someone is in their 40's, and even then, the disease works slowly. To be sure, a slow death is not appealing to anyone. However, this is all the more reason to find cures for the disease itself. The man was so proud he was going to eradicate the disease in his family, and yet he had his 40 healthy years to live. Who are we to say that a potential child, whether embryo or fetus, would rather never be born than to live a good life of 40 years? What if that child had found the cure for Huntington Disease, forging on through life-saving necessity?
7. Most importantly, this practice furthers our culture's downward spiral into a culture that has no love. By genetically testing potential children, parents are giving a clear signal - only healthy children will be acceptable. However, there are still many diseases that cannot be diagnosed in the womb, and non health related traits such as intelligence are all but impossible. Further, sometimes pre-birth diagnoses are inaccurate. How many times does a doctor get the gender of a baby wrong? I have seen it happen. Are you willing to trust your child's life on a similar diagnosis? Or risk a healthy baby's life to actually perform the test in the first place?
Further, when parents close the door on unhealthy children, they are closing the door to the possibility of unconditional love. A year, four years, or even 12 years, after their healthy child is born it is possible he could get in a car wreck and enter a wheelchair for the rest of his life, or perhaps suffer severe brain damag. How will parents who custom ordered a healthy child deal with the unpredictable?
How will children in the family feel about the practice - will they feel the love of their parents looking out for their health? Or will they feel pressure to measure up to the pre-set standards? Will they wonder if they would have been a twin or triplet, if only that other embryo had not shown predisposition to a genetic disease?
This is so important. No matter what your opinion on birth control, abortion, or even genetic testing is, if you set out to do something "for the children," you must consider all the consequences of that choice. Ultimately, what are the motives of genetic testing? Is it really to have healthy, happy children who will lead fulfilled lives? Or is it so we can have wealthy or middle-class parents who don't have to struggle along for finances and free time as they help their child, God's precious gift, through life. Are these heroes of humanity after all?
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Hermanos
English is a fallen language. The beauty of our language has been watered down over time, and coarseness has taken place. In addition, political correctness has creeped its way into the language until PC and grammar are considered one and the same.
When I grew up, if we were discussing a person of unknown gender, it was grammatically correct to refer to this person as "he." For instance, "In order for the student to understand complex mathematical problems, he must study nightly." Further, multi-gendered nouns took on the masculine, "policeman" "congressman," and humanity itself was referred to in the masculine. "Wherever the rights of man have been threatened..." "Good Christian men rejoice!" "Brothers let us now be at peace with each other."
By high school, "he" had been replaced with "he or she." Besides being a hassle to write (that extra "or she" is a lot of work), the change resulted in a new onslaught of grammatical errors. It is not correct, for instance, to say, "In order for the student to understand complex mathematical problems, they..." It has to be he or she. But people, under the grounds of political correctness and ignorant of the correct grammar, ultimately turn to they or them.
After that, it became necessary to switch "he or she" with "she or he," and then finally "she" became the norm in some texts.
Worse, of course, is the message it sends. It sends a message of ignorance of our language origin and meanings. Calling a non-gender specific person "he" does not make that person male. It simply is what words like "he" "she" and "it" have always been - a pronoun, something that takes the place of a noun. It shows that we are easily offendable, to the point of ridicule. If we cannot listen to humanity described in differing and unique terms, which even include "all men," "men" and "mankind," then we are likely to take offense at anything ("Why did you invite a policeMAN to come speak to the children? Can't you bring in a policeWOMAN?)
Unfortunately, this terminology is even slipping into our Bible and religion. The one place where women should know that they are loved and accepted - equals to men - is church. Christianity has always been one of the most women-friendly religions of the world. And yet, Paul now writes to his "brothers and sisters," and Bible have become gender neutral in other ways as well. The worst part is that some are now calling God a woman - our heavenly parent or heavenly mother.
Don't get me wrong. We all know that God is gender neutral - He has to combine all the male and female parts and traits in order to have created them. And He loves us all equally. However, He chose to represent himself to us as a male figure, as a Father. He chose to send His Son to earth - we can't get around the fact that Jesus was a man. To call God a "parent" or woman is to politicize our great creator!
I went to church this afternoon, and the service was done in half English and half Spanish. Because I have a fairly good grasp of Spanish, I followed along with the Spanish readings, interpreting them as I went. Imagine my horror to see written on the page, "hermanos y hermanas" or "brothers and sisters."
The Spanish language is different than English in that all nouns, whether living creatures or not, have genders. It's a grammar thing. A house, casa, is feminine and so all the words used to describe the house are also feminine. Words of living beings that have genders will have two words to describe them, much like we do. HermanO is brother, and hermanA is sister.
However, much like English, in Spanish if there is a crowd of mixed genders, the masculine form is used. Therefore, "hermanos" may translate to "brothers" OR it may translate to "brothers and sisters" depending on the context. Much like we have the word "grandparents" to describe two individuals - grandMA and grandPA as a group, they have "abuelos." And much like English, this system has nothing to do with a masculine leaning machismo society. It has everything to do with grammar. That's it - grammar. I've always liked Spanish because it is so much easier to work with the gender system than to try and tiptoe around offending anyone on the basis of gender.
But now we have printed "hermanos y hermanas." Bad Spanish grammar. Is this a simple mistake on the translators part? Based on the fluency of the rest of the translation, I think not.
How sad is it that this political correctness is seeping into Spanish. It's as painful for me to consider as, say, the westernization of native American cultures has been. When we were in Spanish class learning gender grammar, no one ever thought to say that there was some sort of bias. But today, it seems that someone thought that the "sisters" might feel left out if they weren't specifically mentioned. I know this has to be an act of an English-speaking person, probably not a native speaker of Spanish. You may as well have printed "brothers and brothers" or "sisters and sisters" based on the grammatical rules.
And as women, especially, we should be trying to preserve this grammatical heritage. We should be celebrating our differences with men. We should be aware and respectful of our long history and how we are afforded more rights today than ever before. We should be reading "brothers" and smiling at our knowledge that Paul may have been writing "brothers" but that the religion he was spreading was open to both male and female.
And ultimately, we should keep our heads. Making a big deal out of the gender of unidentified people or groups should be seen as ridiculous as trying to gender identify a tree or a flower. Yes, words do mean something, and in this case, not yielding to the PC temptation means something as well. It means that we are bigger than the prejudices that we may have faced in history and that we are still one united race, one humanity, one mankind.
When I grew up, if we were discussing a person of unknown gender, it was grammatically correct to refer to this person as "he." For instance, "In order for the student to understand complex mathematical problems, he must study nightly." Further, multi-gendered nouns took on the masculine, "policeman" "congressman," and humanity itself was referred to in the masculine. "Wherever the rights of man have been threatened..." "Good Christian men rejoice!" "Brothers let us now be at peace with each other."
By high school, "he" had been replaced with "he or she." Besides being a hassle to write (that extra "or she" is a lot of work), the change resulted in a new onslaught of grammatical errors. It is not correct, for instance, to say, "In order for the student to understand complex mathematical problems, they..." It has to be he or she. But people, under the grounds of political correctness and ignorant of the correct grammar, ultimately turn to they or them.
After that, it became necessary to switch "he or she" with "she or he," and then finally "she" became the norm in some texts.
Worse, of course, is the message it sends. It sends a message of ignorance of our language origin and meanings. Calling a non-gender specific person "he" does not make that person male. It simply is what words like "he" "she" and "it" have always been - a pronoun, something that takes the place of a noun. It shows that we are easily offendable, to the point of ridicule. If we cannot listen to humanity described in differing and unique terms, which even include "all men," "men" and "mankind," then we are likely to take offense at anything ("Why did you invite a policeMAN to come speak to the children? Can't you bring in a policeWOMAN?)
Unfortunately, this terminology is even slipping into our Bible and religion. The one place where women should know that they are loved and accepted - equals to men - is church. Christianity has always been one of the most women-friendly religions of the world. And yet, Paul now writes to his "brothers and sisters," and Bible have become gender neutral in other ways as well. The worst part is that some are now calling God a woman - our heavenly parent or heavenly mother.
Don't get me wrong. We all know that God is gender neutral - He has to combine all the male and female parts and traits in order to have created them. And He loves us all equally. However, He chose to represent himself to us as a male figure, as a Father. He chose to send His Son to earth - we can't get around the fact that Jesus was a man. To call God a "parent" or woman is to politicize our great creator!
I went to church this afternoon, and the service was done in half English and half Spanish. Because I have a fairly good grasp of Spanish, I followed along with the Spanish readings, interpreting them as I went. Imagine my horror to see written on the page, "hermanos y hermanas" or "brothers and sisters."
The Spanish language is different than English in that all nouns, whether living creatures or not, have genders. It's a grammar thing. A house, casa, is feminine and so all the words used to describe the house are also feminine. Words of living beings that have genders will have two words to describe them, much like we do. HermanO is brother, and hermanA is sister.
However, much like English, in Spanish if there is a crowd of mixed genders, the masculine form is used. Therefore, "hermanos" may translate to "brothers" OR it may translate to "brothers and sisters" depending on the context. Much like we have the word "grandparents" to describe two individuals - grandMA and grandPA as a group, they have "abuelos." And much like English, this system has nothing to do with a masculine leaning machismo society. It has everything to do with grammar. That's it - grammar. I've always liked Spanish because it is so much easier to work with the gender system than to try and tiptoe around offending anyone on the basis of gender.
But now we have printed "hermanos y hermanas." Bad Spanish grammar. Is this a simple mistake on the translators part? Based on the fluency of the rest of the translation, I think not.
How sad is it that this political correctness is seeping into Spanish. It's as painful for me to consider as, say, the westernization of native American cultures has been. When we were in Spanish class learning gender grammar, no one ever thought to say that there was some sort of bias. But today, it seems that someone thought that the "sisters" might feel left out if they weren't specifically mentioned. I know this has to be an act of an English-speaking person, probably not a native speaker of Spanish. You may as well have printed "brothers and brothers" or "sisters and sisters" based on the grammatical rules.
And as women, especially, we should be trying to preserve this grammatical heritage. We should be celebrating our differences with men. We should be aware and respectful of our long history and how we are afforded more rights today than ever before. We should be reading "brothers" and smiling at our knowledge that Paul may have been writing "brothers" but that the religion he was spreading was open to both male and female.
And ultimately, we should keep our heads. Making a big deal out of the gender of unidentified people or groups should be seen as ridiculous as trying to gender identify a tree or a flower. Yes, words do mean something, and in this case, not yielding to the PC temptation means something as well. It means that we are bigger than the prejudices that we may have faced in history and that we are still one united race, one humanity, one mankind.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
The Price of Revolution
I've heard the revolution word a lot recently, and I'm not sure why all of us are throwing it around. I posted about this last year, and I believe that the reasons are similar to what I posted about - people who do not feel that they are being justly represented in a so-called democracatic republic. On the other end of the spectrum, however, there are those who are not satisfied with the state of life we live in right now. They are jealous of those who have more than them.
However, I recently watched a documentary on Catherine the Great of Russia and bits of a documentary on the French revolution, and they have made me realize how difficult, dangerous, and unecessary real revolution really is.
First of all, when the Russians revolted under Catherine (not the great Communist revolution over a century later) they existed in feudalism. This social setup places those at the bottom of the ladder in near slave conditions. There was absolutely no way for these people to move up in society, become financially independent, or even get out of poverty without either the aid of the upper class or revolution. However, in the wake of their revolt, they also showed a scary world - one where they slaughtered all the wealthy and educated members of society, all the leaders.
In light of this documentary, I became enraged at the sentiments of some people in America today. More and more I feel that there are very few legitimate reasons to complain about being poor - for instance, poor health and handicaps - but for the majority of people, it is simply a matter of choosing not to complain but to do something constructive about their situation. We are no longer barred by feudalism, which means that any one person can live the American dream. Incidentally, sometimes it seems that those who have the greatest barriers are those who rise to success above us all - those whom I would understand if they gave up instead surprise us all and fulfill their dreams. It is because Americans, even the poorest of us, are too well off and cozy that we have lost the ability to work hard for our goals. It is easier to sit in middle class and complain about not being rich than to actually work hard to be rich.
The other perspective was of the French Revolution, which happened around the time of our own. Here we had men overthrow their government, much like we had done. However, the aftermath was incredible. Those who disagreed were beheaded, more and more every day. The church was banned - extremes were taken to rid the country of religion. A counter revolution began. Yes, America had a war to win our independence and a rough start to boot, but every account of the French Revolution sounds like sheer terror for everyone involved.
When I study revolutions around the globe, it seems to me that it is rarely the case that a country can successfully carry one off and then stabilize as we did. Even America had a civil war within 84 years of our founding. Latin American countries are rocked by instability. Iraq and Afghanistan are having difficult elections. How European countries stabilized into democracies is beyond me, although I know they had hundreds of years to perfect the systems of government they use, slowly ceding more power to the people, rather than all at once as we did.
One thing that I think helped our revolution was that we had a governing body in place before we even began. While the continental congress did not ultimately begin to rule, it established great leaders who worked together for the common good. No one man stood to profit by the war, and a republican system was already at work before the war was even won.
Revolutions also tend to bring about extremes in government. It is no wonder, because if they are started by politically charged people, then the result will be extremists in power. Communism is one such extreme, whereby the people throw this system of government together without thinking of the past, present, or future implications.
As I mentioned before, in America we have little reason to complain about being too poor. Those with communist and socialist leanings are either well-intentioned or lazy and greedy. We have the necessities of life, but we just want more.
Imagine if we took the GDP and spread it out evenly, per capita, to everyone in America. Say this is about $30,000 a year. That's liveable, especially if you have a two or more person home! Or say we take all the property - savings and equity - in America and redistribute it evenly. Say we just give everyone $100,000 to start off with. Or say we even do both. Even steven. All from scratch.
The truth is that in a short time, perhaps even within a year, the classes we now see will be back in place. The poor will be poor and the rich will be rich. This is because those who are rich now know how to save and work hard and make good investments. Those who are poor now do not.
Now, there are obviously other factors involved in what makes someone rich or poor. Education is key - and this education inevitably comes from your parents, not the schools. I went to public school and a state college, so as far as I'm concerned I was afforded no additional advantages than your average student. If there was an educational difference it came in my predisposition to learning and support from my parents.
I write this because ultimately everyone loses in impassioned revolution. Some lose their lives. Others lose what they have worked hard for. We all lose our dignity. And those who start the revolution may find that they have ended up in the same place they started in, only now they have the guilt of what they have done to contend with.
I don't think that we are on the verge of major revolution in America. But I think people do need to think about what some of the words they throw around mean and imply. Unless changes are made out of love for the common good, then they are imperfect changes and will not bring about the reform we envision.
However, I recently watched a documentary on Catherine the Great of Russia and bits of a documentary on the French revolution, and they have made me realize how difficult, dangerous, and unecessary real revolution really is.
First of all, when the Russians revolted under Catherine (not the great Communist revolution over a century later) they existed in feudalism. This social setup places those at the bottom of the ladder in near slave conditions. There was absolutely no way for these people to move up in society, become financially independent, or even get out of poverty without either the aid of the upper class or revolution. However, in the wake of their revolt, they also showed a scary world - one where they slaughtered all the wealthy and educated members of society, all the leaders.
In light of this documentary, I became enraged at the sentiments of some people in America today. More and more I feel that there are very few legitimate reasons to complain about being poor - for instance, poor health and handicaps - but for the majority of people, it is simply a matter of choosing not to complain but to do something constructive about their situation. We are no longer barred by feudalism, which means that any one person can live the American dream. Incidentally, sometimes it seems that those who have the greatest barriers are those who rise to success above us all - those whom I would understand if they gave up instead surprise us all and fulfill their dreams. It is because Americans, even the poorest of us, are too well off and cozy that we have lost the ability to work hard for our goals. It is easier to sit in middle class and complain about not being rich than to actually work hard to be rich.
The other perspective was of the French Revolution, which happened around the time of our own. Here we had men overthrow their government, much like we had done. However, the aftermath was incredible. Those who disagreed were beheaded, more and more every day. The church was banned - extremes were taken to rid the country of religion. A counter revolution began. Yes, America had a war to win our independence and a rough start to boot, but every account of the French Revolution sounds like sheer terror for everyone involved.
When I study revolutions around the globe, it seems to me that it is rarely the case that a country can successfully carry one off and then stabilize as we did. Even America had a civil war within 84 years of our founding. Latin American countries are rocked by instability. Iraq and Afghanistan are having difficult elections. How European countries stabilized into democracies is beyond me, although I know they had hundreds of years to perfect the systems of government they use, slowly ceding more power to the people, rather than all at once as we did.
One thing that I think helped our revolution was that we had a governing body in place before we even began. While the continental congress did not ultimately begin to rule, it established great leaders who worked together for the common good. No one man stood to profit by the war, and a republican system was already at work before the war was even won.
Revolutions also tend to bring about extremes in government. It is no wonder, because if they are started by politically charged people, then the result will be extremists in power. Communism is one such extreme, whereby the people throw this system of government together without thinking of the past, present, or future implications.
As I mentioned before, in America we have little reason to complain about being too poor. Those with communist and socialist leanings are either well-intentioned or lazy and greedy. We have the necessities of life, but we just want more.
Imagine if we took the GDP and spread it out evenly, per capita, to everyone in America. Say this is about $30,000 a year. That's liveable, especially if you have a two or more person home! Or say we take all the property - savings and equity - in America and redistribute it evenly. Say we just give everyone $100,000 to start off with. Or say we even do both. Even steven. All from scratch.
The truth is that in a short time, perhaps even within a year, the classes we now see will be back in place. The poor will be poor and the rich will be rich. This is because those who are rich now know how to save and work hard and make good investments. Those who are poor now do not.
Now, there are obviously other factors involved in what makes someone rich or poor. Education is key - and this education inevitably comes from your parents, not the schools. I went to public school and a state college, so as far as I'm concerned I was afforded no additional advantages than your average student. If there was an educational difference it came in my predisposition to learning and support from my parents.
I write this because ultimately everyone loses in impassioned revolution. Some lose their lives. Others lose what they have worked hard for. We all lose our dignity. And those who start the revolution may find that they have ended up in the same place they started in, only now they have the guilt of what they have done to contend with.
I don't think that we are on the verge of major revolution in America. But I think people do need to think about what some of the words they throw around mean and imply. Unless changes are made out of love for the common good, then they are imperfect changes and will not bring about the reform we envision.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
The Trickle Around Effect
We've all heard of the trickle down effect, made popular in the Reagan era. The concept is that if you give someone extra money, he will spend it, and the person he spends the money on will have more money and so on, until everyone gets a piece. This concept is also debated in the race to fix the economy, as the goal of both tax breaks or stimulus bills is to put more money into the hands of the people so that they can spread it around.
Because the economy is the way it is, and perhaps because we are nearing the end of winter, people are starting to get edgy. I have heard stories of the "shrinking middle class" (newsflash, if the Kindle is Amazon's best selling product, the middle class is fine). People are suspicious and angry about "fat cats" on Wall Street making millions of dollars. Some of this anger is justified, given that taxpayer money bailed these people out.
However, I would like to explain why, when no bailout is applicable, fat cats and high corporate profits are not a problem for any of us.
First of all, in a free market the price of goods are set by supply and demand. There may be some resentment against corporations about the price of the goods or services we acquire from them. However, when there is no unethical behavior (lying), the price is the price. If a company sets a price for a product unreasonably high, eventually they will have to lower it as the market adjusts.
Now, on to corporate profits.
There are essentially a limited number of things that a company can do with their net income (bottom line after tax). It doesn't matter if their profit margin is 1% or 100%, a company's net income is good for everyone.
One way a company may spend their net income is to give raises and bonuses to their executives. If you remember the trickle down effect noted above, this is a good thing. If you are particularly upset about executive pay (I have blogged on that before), then I suggest you consider the company using its income to give raises to the meat and potatoes employees. A company that has a net loss or bad year is not going to give as good of raises to ANY employee, executive or entry level. The other good thing about a company using income to doll out raises and bonuses, is that the different levels will spend differently, thereby affecting different areas of the economy. An entry level employee may buy a TV or a bike or start building a deck. An executive may buy a vacation home, a yacht, or a luxury car. All these industries need customers.
But what, you say, if the employees throw the money into savings? Well, this is also an option for the company - to throw their net income into savings. Whether on the individual or corporate scale, people put money into banks that pay ridiculously low interest rates. These banks loan the money out to others at higher interest rates. Although the money is borrowed, the money goes towards a variety of expansion projects - from funding new business to building and purchasing houses, and sometimes to getting that yacht. Once again, even though the money is technically being saved, it is actually being spent by someone else, thus helping the economy.
One thing companies are expected to do with their income is to pay out dividends. A portion of the income is passed on to stockholders, who include anyone from the chief officers (go back up to the bonus paragraph) to individual shareholders who own less than 1,000 shares each, to retirement accounts and 401(k)'s that contain some form of the company stock. Just think about investments, because we all have a stake in the stock market in some way - like this: any time a company succeeds, you get a little richer!
The final thing the company can do is reinvest the earnings. They may do this by expanding their assets, such as purchasing a new world headquarters, streamlining their fleet of trucks, or opening an office in Detroit. In each case, this reinvestment results in jobs for someone, either within the company, or perhaps at the truck company they purchase from. Another thing they can do to invest is to purchase companies that would fit within their business model. Once again, they grow the company, expanding jobs, and an "exec" at a mom and pop business retires with a hefty pension based on the deal.
So, you see, although there is a lot of animosity towards "corporate earnings" and CEO's, because our economy is linked we all succeed together or fail together. I call this the trickle around effect, because what goes around comes around. If we want to be employed, to expect raises, and to be able to meet our full potential in earnings and as human beings, we must be respectful of the institutions that allow us to do that. Those institutions are our employers and the corporations that help to keep America running and goods priced low.
Don't bite the hand that feeds you.
Because the economy is the way it is, and perhaps because we are nearing the end of winter, people are starting to get edgy. I have heard stories of the "shrinking middle class" (newsflash, if the Kindle is Amazon's best selling product, the middle class is fine). People are suspicious and angry about "fat cats" on Wall Street making millions of dollars. Some of this anger is justified, given that taxpayer money bailed these people out.
However, I would like to explain why, when no bailout is applicable, fat cats and high corporate profits are not a problem for any of us.
First of all, in a free market the price of goods are set by supply and demand. There may be some resentment against corporations about the price of the goods or services we acquire from them. However, when there is no unethical behavior (lying), the price is the price. If a company sets a price for a product unreasonably high, eventually they will have to lower it as the market adjusts.
Now, on to corporate profits.
There are essentially a limited number of things that a company can do with their net income (bottom line after tax). It doesn't matter if their profit margin is 1% or 100%, a company's net income is good for everyone.
One way a company may spend their net income is to give raises and bonuses to their executives. If you remember the trickle down effect noted above, this is a good thing. If you are particularly upset about executive pay (I have blogged on that before), then I suggest you consider the company using its income to give raises to the meat and potatoes employees. A company that has a net loss or bad year is not going to give as good of raises to ANY employee, executive or entry level. The other good thing about a company using income to doll out raises and bonuses, is that the different levels will spend differently, thereby affecting different areas of the economy. An entry level employee may buy a TV or a bike or start building a deck. An executive may buy a vacation home, a yacht, or a luxury car. All these industries need customers.
But what, you say, if the employees throw the money into savings? Well, this is also an option for the company - to throw their net income into savings. Whether on the individual or corporate scale, people put money into banks that pay ridiculously low interest rates. These banks loan the money out to others at higher interest rates. Although the money is borrowed, the money goes towards a variety of expansion projects - from funding new business to building and purchasing houses, and sometimes to getting that yacht. Once again, even though the money is technically being saved, it is actually being spent by someone else, thus helping the economy.
One thing companies are expected to do with their income is to pay out dividends. A portion of the income is passed on to stockholders, who include anyone from the chief officers (go back up to the bonus paragraph) to individual shareholders who own less than 1,000 shares each, to retirement accounts and 401(k)'s that contain some form of the company stock. Just think about investments, because we all have a stake in the stock market in some way - like this: any time a company succeeds, you get a little richer!
The final thing the company can do is reinvest the earnings. They may do this by expanding their assets, such as purchasing a new world headquarters, streamlining their fleet of trucks, or opening an office in Detroit. In each case, this reinvestment results in jobs for someone, either within the company, or perhaps at the truck company they purchase from. Another thing they can do to invest is to purchase companies that would fit within their business model. Once again, they grow the company, expanding jobs, and an "exec" at a mom and pop business retires with a hefty pension based on the deal.
So, you see, although there is a lot of animosity towards "corporate earnings" and CEO's, because our economy is linked we all succeed together or fail together. I call this the trickle around effect, because what goes around comes around. If we want to be employed, to expect raises, and to be able to meet our full potential in earnings and as human beings, we must be respectful of the institutions that allow us to do that. Those institutions are our employers and the corporations that help to keep America running and goods priced low.
Don't bite the hand that feeds you.
Monday, February 15, 2010
The Rising Costs of Healthcare
Why is health care so expensive? And what is the solution to lower the price? These have been the main topic of debate in the news and politics over the last six months.
It's time for a little history lesson. Not so long ago, healthcare was not as good as it is now. Pennicillin was not discovered until the first half of the 20th century. Treatments for diabetes came along later. Leaps and bounds have been made in the areas of medical technologies, drugs, and even sanitation. Because of all this, people are living longer. People with diseases that were once deadly now live and require ongoing treatments. Is this a bad thing? Not at all.
In addition to longer (but not necessarily healthier) lives, there are more of us to take care of. The baby boomer generation has aged, and now the largest group in the population today is also the group that requires near-constant medical attention.
The smaller population groups are asked to provide the care in the forms of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, etc. They are asked to assist financially. There are just not enough of us to go around.
Here we have a simple case of demand outstripping supply. When that happens, there is a shortage, and costs automatically rise.
Now, if we wanted to lower costs, we need to encourage more people to enter the medical field. And we probably need to stop research and development. Let's face it, once a cure has been found, everyone thinks they are entitled to it. So the simple solution to lowering medical costs would be to stop finding ways to save lives. (I offer this up as mere satire).
Another reason for high costs is the cost of research and development itself. Look at drugs. People complain about the high cost of a miracle drug that is saving their life. No one complains about the miracle. Drugs become generic so quickly these days, that pharmaceutical research companies have to mark up the price of their drugs 1,000% or more just to get by. For every drug that is marketed, many are dropped from studies. Each drug requires years and years of development and testing on hundreds of subjects.
Should the price of prescription drugs become more affordable, what I mentioned earlier will automatically happen - drug makers will simply give up finding new drugs. Yes, they will lower the cost of their drugs, but what we have now is what we will always ever have. And though the people who are being helped with the miracle drugs can now pay less, those with diseases not yet cured will never be helped.
Someone suggested that the government take research and development away from the companies, so that the companies could lower the prices without harming innovation. I think this is a bad idea for many reasons. First of all, the government is not efficient. Without being profit motivated it is, well, not motivated. We have seen the success of leaving research projects in the hands of the people. For instance, where space is concerned, private developers have picked up where NASA left off. Second, prices would still be high. We would no longer be paying them for prescriptions but to fund the research and development projects. Ultimately, then, this would be a tax on healthy people. We would pay higher taxes to fund lower prescription drugs for those who are unhealthy and already taking them. Finally, the government is not scrupulous. I have little faith in a government to avoid unethical experiments. It is true that businesses may perform them now, monitored by the government. However, if the government suddenly found itself with the power to research, it would start to bend the envelope further and further, and this time there would be no watchdog to stop it.
Another reason costs are so high are the lawsuits people file against medical practitioners. Here we may see one of the areas for greatest cost-cutting if applied correctly. Medical lawsuits, and most lawsuits for that matter, have blurred the lines of innocence and responsibility. No longer are doctors allows human errors - perfection is required or else millions of dollars may be paid out. Hindsight is 20/20, and lawsuits thrive on Monday morning quarterbacking. For this reason, doctors order excessive tests that are not necessary, just to make sure they don't miss something.
To cut these costs, tort reform is a good place to start. Another is with the people. Instead of having 10 tests performed when we go to the doctor with a headache, we should talk to the doctor and take his advice. Find out what the tests he suggests test for. Find out the odds that you have that disease. Find out what the worst case scenario outcome of having that disease go undiagnosed is. Ask for medicine that treats the problem, not just the symptoms. And above all, don't sue!
Now, I'm not saying that it's bad to sue a doctor who leaves his glove in a loved one who consequently dies. Or who amputates the wrong arm. However, even here we should be rational. Will a lawsuit bring back your sister? If it was your husband who was the bread earner, you may need the money to get by now. What do your career prospects look like now that you are armless? How much do you need to get by? We don't need to award multi-multi-million dollar lawsuits just because a doctor makes an honest mistake.
Finally, healthcare is expensive because we, the American people, are paying for it. Ever year billions of dollars of taxpayer money go to fund Medicare and Medicaid. Programs like these allow low income Americans to waltz into a doctors office any time they want - if their child coughs. While millions of other Americans stay at home with the sick kid and wait it out, either because they cannot afford the doctors visit, or because they are being responsible. In this regard, someone who only makes a few thousand dollars more than a Medicaid recipient is many times worse off than the latter and is being penalized for being wealthi-er.
If people on Medicaid were forced to pay any sort of copay, even a relatively small one, for doctors visits, it would free up doctors for other patients, earn back a small portion of the cost, and force people to consider responsibility in determining what warrants a doctor's visit.
These are things to consider when having a healthcare debate, because these issues are not easy to solve, and they may not actually need solving. Healthcare, like any other part of society, is a free market. If insurance premiums rise, it is because costs or demand rise. If Healthcare is 1/6 of our economy, it is because that is what people choose to find important. There is not an easy solution to the high costs, but there doesn't necessarily have to be. Eventually supply will catch up and if it does not, people will learn to accept a lower quality of healthcare. There is nothing wrong with that - people have survived on this planet for thousands of years with much less than we now know.
It's time for a little history lesson. Not so long ago, healthcare was not as good as it is now. Pennicillin was not discovered until the first half of the 20th century. Treatments for diabetes came along later. Leaps and bounds have been made in the areas of medical technologies, drugs, and even sanitation. Because of all this, people are living longer. People with diseases that were once deadly now live and require ongoing treatments. Is this a bad thing? Not at all.
In addition to longer (but not necessarily healthier) lives, there are more of us to take care of. The baby boomer generation has aged, and now the largest group in the population today is also the group that requires near-constant medical attention.
The smaller population groups are asked to provide the care in the forms of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, etc. They are asked to assist financially. There are just not enough of us to go around.
Here we have a simple case of demand outstripping supply. When that happens, there is a shortage, and costs automatically rise.
Now, if we wanted to lower costs, we need to encourage more people to enter the medical field. And we probably need to stop research and development. Let's face it, once a cure has been found, everyone thinks they are entitled to it. So the simple solution to lowering medical costs would be to stop finding ways to save lives. (I offer this up as mere satire).
Another reason for high costs is the cost of research and development itself. Look at drugs. People complain about the high cost of a miracle drug that is saving their life. No one complains about the miracle. Drugs become generic so quickly these days, that pharmaceutical research companies have to mark up the price of their drugs 1,000% or more just to get by. For every drug that is marketed, many are dropped from studies. Each drug requires years and years of development and testing on hundreds of subjects.
Should the price of prescription drugs become more affordable, what I mentioned earlier will automatically happen - drug makers will simply give up finding new drugs. Yes, they will lower the cost of their drugs, but what we have now is what we will always ever have. And though the people who are being helped with the miracle drugs can now pay less, those with diseases not yet cured will never be helped.
Someone suggested that the government take research and development away from the companies, so that the companies could lower the prices without harming innovation. I think this is a bad idea for many reasons. First of all, the government is not efficient. Without being profit motivated it is, well, not motivated. We have seen the success of leaving research projects in the hands of the people. For instance, where space is concerned, private developers have picked up where NASA left off. Second, prices would still be high. We would no longer be paying them for prescriptions but to fund the research and development projects. Ultimately, then, this would be a tax on healthy people. We would pay higher taxes to fund lower prescription drugs for those who are unhealthy and already taking them. Finally, the government is not scrupulous. I have little faith in a government to avoid unethical experiments. It is true that businesses may perform them now, monitored by the government. However, if the government suddenly found itself with the power to research, it would start to bend the envelope further and further, and this time there would be no watchdog to stop it.
Another reason costs are so high are the lawsuits people file against medical practitioners. Here we may see one of the areas for greatest cost-cutting if applied correctly. Medical lawsuits, and most lawsuits for that matter, have blurred the lines of innocence and responsibility. No longer are doctors allows human errors - perfection is required or else millions of dollars may be paid out. Hindsight is 20/20, and lawsuits thrive on Monday morning quarterbacking. For this reason, doctors order excessive tests that are not necessary, just to make sure they don't miss something.
To cut these costs, tort reform is a good place to start. Another is with the people. Instead of having 10 tests performed when we go to the doctor with a headache, we should talk to the doctor and take his advice. Find out what the tests he suggests test for. Find out the odds that you have that disease. Find out what the worst case scenario outcome of having that disease go undiagnosed is. Ask for medicine that treats the problem, not just the symptoms. And above all, don't sue!
Now, I'm not saying that it's bad to sue a doctor who leaves his glove in a loved one who consequently dies. Or who amputates the wrong arm. However, even here we should be rational. Will a lawsuit bring back your sister? If it was your husband who was the bread earner, you may need the money to get by now. What do your career prospects look like now that you are armless? How much do you need to get by? We don't need to award multi-multi-million dollar lawsuits just because a doctor makes an honest mistake.
Finally, healthcare is expensive because we, the American people, are paying for it. Ever year billions of dollars of taxpayer money go to fund Medicare and Medicaid. Programs like these allow low income Americans to waltz into a doctors office any time they want - if their child coughs. While millions of other Americans stay at home with the sick kid and wait it out, either because they cannot afford the doctors visit, or because they are being responsible. In this regard, someone who only makes a few thousand dollars more than a Medicaid recipient is many times worse off than the latter and is being penalized for being wealthi-er.
If people on Medicaid were forced to pay any sort of copay, even a relatively small one, for doctors visits, it would free up doctors for other patients, earn back a small portion of the cost, and force people to consider responsibility in determining what warrants a doctor's visit.
These are things to consider when having a healthcare debate, because these issues are not easy to solve, and they may not actually need solving. Healthcare, like any other part of society, is a free market. If insurance premiums rise, it is because costs or demand rise. If Healthcare is 1/6 of our economy, it is because that is what people choose to find important. There is not an easy solution to the high costs, but there doesn't necessarily have to be. Eventually supply will catch up and if it does not, people will learn to accept a lower quality of healthcare. There is nothing wrong with that - people have survived on this planet for thousands of years with much less than we now know.
The Myth of the Pre-Existing Condition
The health care debate is alive and well in congress, as the American people continue to have little say in the matter. However, one element that appears to be a focus of both parties is to push for insurers to cover pre-existing conditions, or to not charge high premiums for these.
I mentioned in a previous post that healthcare is not a right, and that doctors will treat someone regardless of whether or not they have insurance. Just to clarify, I was speaking of emergency life-saving treatments, not routine prevention care. However, I reiterate now that healthcare, or health insurance, is not a right. Further, this debate is not about the right to health care, but the right to CHEAP healthcare, and that is not a right at all.
Health insurance is still insurance, and insurance is a hedge. Let me explain how this works. Sally pays $100 a month in premiums on her insurance. Her work pays $100 for her. She goes to the doctor once a year and pays $50 for the visit as a copay. Her total healthcare cost out of pocket is $1,250.
The insurance company receives $2,400 on Sally. They spend $400 as their portion of her doctor's visit, meaning they make $2,000. However, Sally is not the only customer of the insurance company. Bob, Amy, Derek, and Lindsay also are patients. Together, the insurance company recieves $12,000 from these customers. As mentioned before, they pay $400 for Sally's doctor visit, $600 for a visit and X-ray for Bob, Amy doesn't use any medical services during the year, they pay $1,000 for Derek during his bout with pneumonia, and they pay $6,000 for Lindsay when she breaks her leg. Altogether, the company pays $8,000 in medical claims during the year, leaving a $4,000 profit. The majority of this extra goes towards paying the salaries and operating expenses of the company. (I have heard insurance companies make as little as 2% profit).
Now, the insurance company makes its money by pooling people together. You see that, if Lindsay had been the only customer, they would have lost money. And their margins on Derek would have been much lower. The more people in a pool, the more people the risk is spread across. The insurance company has actuaries that calculate the expected medical costs and risks, and what the company needs to charge based on the risk level of a group.
So let's put a pre-existing condition on the charts. Let's say now that Amy has diabetes. She knows for sure that she will have to attend four doctor's appointments a year, buy $100 worth of medicine a month, and there is a chance she will be hospitalized at least once in the next two years.
The insurance company knows this, too. They know that she will cost them $1,600 in doctor's visits, $1,200 in medicine, and probably $2,000 on average per year in hospital visits. Therefore, they need to charge her premiums of $4,800 - double what she is now paying - just to recover costs, not to mention paying for operating costs and a small profit margin.
For, you see, this is what pre-existing conditions do. They change the insurance contract from a hedge, to a sure thing. Somehow people feel as though the insurance company is obligated to insure them, even though to do so is the worst possible thing that the company could do!
Let's look at Sally again. She doesn't get sick - she just has her doctor's appointment on a yearly basis as a preventative measure. She knows that if she did not have insurance, instead of paying $1,250 for premiums and copay, she could pay $450 in total for the doctor's visit. However, she chooses to keep the insurance because she is afraid of a broken leg or hospital visit that will cost much more than $1,250 - perhaps more than what she could save over the course of years and years without insurance. This is how insurance works in the free market - Sally pays what she pays because the comfort of knowing that she won't go broke in a few years due to medical expenses outweighs the actual cost that she spends on the insurance.
Not so with a pre-existing condition. Both parties know exactly how much this condition is going to cost in the next few years. In fact, the insurance company probably has a better understanding because of their actuaries. No longer is this a free market contract deal - it is one party feeling as though they deserve coverage and another party knowing that it is financial suicide to offer it.
Perhaps one answer to the question would be insurance contracts that cover the person for any NEW conditions but that specifically exclude conditions that the insured already has. Or the company could offer greater pools of people, mixed with both healthy and unhealth, in order to spread the cost.
On the other hand, for Congress to force this issue upon insurance companies would be a sad day for free markets. It would be an act of giving in to people who feel entitled to something. Put another way, Joe and Amy both make the same amount. Joe has no health care costs. Amy has to spend $5,000 in her health care costs. She feels entitled to have that money back because JOE doesn't have to pay it. There is no guarantee that your life will be as easy as any one other person's. Life is not fair.
I write this only to show that some of the ideas thrown around in the healthcare debate are not logical at all. They are based purely on emotion and on pleasing the crowd, with little thought given to what is actually being said. Even I blindly nodded when people mentioned pre-existing conditions, until I actually sat down to think about the math. Is it right that companies that employ thousands of Americans and provide a valuable service to millions others should go out of business while in the very act of providing what can only be described as forced charity on the rest of the country?
There are other ways.
I mentioned in a previous post that healthcare is not a right, and that doctors will treat someone regardless of whether or not they have insurance. Just to clarify, I was speaking of emergency life-saving treatments, not routine prevention care. However, I reiterate now that healthcare, or health insurance, is not a right. Further, this debate is not about the right to health care, but the right to CHEAP healthcare, and that is not a right at all.
Health insurance is still insurance, and insurance is a hedge. Let me explain how this works. Sally pays $100 a month in premiums on her insurance. Her work pays $100 for her. She goes to the doctor once a year and pays $50 for the visit as a copay. Her total healthcare cost out of pocket is $1,250.
The insurance company receives $2,400 on Sally. They spend $400 as their portion of her doctor's visit, meaning they make $2,000. However, Sally is not the only customer of the insurance company. Bob, Amy, Derek, and Lindsay also are patients. Together, the insurance company recieves $12,000 from these customers. As mentioned before, they pay $400 for Sally's doctor visit, $600 for a visit and X-ray for Bob, Amy doesn't use any medical services during the year, they pay $1,000 for Derek during his bout with pneumonia, and they pay $6,000 for Lindsay when she breaks her leg. Altogether, the company pays $8,000 in medical claims during the year, leaving a $4,000 profit. The majority of this extra goes towards paying the salaries and operating expenses of the company. (I have heard insurance companies make as little as 2% profit).
Now, the insurance company makes its money by pooling people together. You see that, if Lindsay had been the only customer, they would have lost money. And their margins on Derek would have been much lower. The more people in a pool, the more people the risk is spread across. The insurance company has actuaries that calculate the expected medical costs and risks, and what the company needs to charge based on the risk level of a group.
So let's put a pre-existing condition on the charts. Let's say now that Amy has diabetes. She knows for sure that she will have to attend four doctor's appointments a year, buy $100 worth of medicine a month, and there is a chance she will be hospitalized at least once in the next two years.
The insurance company knows this, too. They know that she will cost them $1,600 in doctor's visits, $1,200 in medicine, and probably $2,000 on average per year in hospital visits. Therefore, they need to charge her premiums of $4,800 - double what she is now paying - just to recover costs, not to mention paying for operating costs and a small profit margin.
For, you see, this is what pre-existing conditions do. They change the insurance contract from a hedge, to a sure thing. Somehow people feel as though the insurance company is obligated to insure them, even though to do so is the worst possible thing that the company could do!
Let's look at Sally again. She doesn't get sick - she just has her doctor's appointment on a yearly basis as a preventative measure. She knows that if she did not have insurance, instead of paying $1,250 for premiums and copay, she could pay $450 in total for the doctor's visit. However, she chooses to keep the insurance because she is afraid of a broken leg or hospital visit that will cost much more than $1,250 - perhaps more than what she could save over the course of years and years without insurance. This is how insurance works in the free market - Sally pays what she pays because the comfort of knowing that she won't go broke in a few years due to medical expenses outweighs the actual cost that she spends on the insurance.
Not so with a pre-existing condition. Both parties know exactly how much this condition is going to cost in the next few years. In fact, the insurance company probably has a better understanding because of their actuaries. No longer is this a free market contract deal - it is one party feeling as though they deserve coverage and another party knowing that it is financial suicide to offer it.
Perhaps one answer to the question would be insurance contracts that cover the person for any NEW conditions but that specifically exclude conditions that the insured already has. Or the company could offer greater pools of people, mixed with both healthy and unhealth, in order to spread the cost.
On the other hand, for Congress to force this issue upon insurance companies would be a sad day for free markets. It would be an act of giving in to people who feel entitled to something. Put another way, Joe and Amy both make the same amount. Joe has no health care costs. Amy has to spend $5,000 in her health care costs. She feels entitled to have that money back because JOE doesn't have to pay it. There is no guarantee that your life will be as easy as any one other person's. Life is not fair.
I write this only to show that some of the ideas thrown around in the healthcare debate are not logical at all. They are based purely on emotion and on pleasing the crowd, with little thought given to what is actually being said. Even I blindly nodded when people mentioned pre-existing conditions, until I actually sat down to think about the math. Is it right that companies that employ thousands of Americans and provide a valuable service to millions others should go out of business while in the very act of providing what can only be described as forced charity on the rest of the country?
There are other ways.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
The Love Approach
I could not believe the outrage over the Focus on the Family Super Bowl Commercial. Here we have a woman saying how blessed she is to have her son in her life, and a man saying how lucky he is to be alive, and people are upset. How can someone look at this man and tell him that it is wrong for him to be alive? That his mother should not have chosen to let him live? These people call themselves "pro-choice," but in reality they are pro-abortion because otherwise they would have more respect for this woman's choice.
I have long been following the abortion debate, but the almost panicked response of pro-choice groups to this harmless 30-second ad got me thinking about the abortion debate. Crazed, nonsensical, panicked. That's what the pro-choice spokeswomen sounded like. That's the kind of rhetoric one usually hears when someone is backed into a corner, which is odd considering she has the upper hand in both law and the ear of the media.
On the other hand we have the pro-life movement, in this case Focus on the Family, calmly explaining that the ad is not controversial and is about love. Because that's what the pro-life movement has been about - love.
Now, I know there are people who stage violent protests at abortion clinics, murder abortion providers, show disturbing images, and perform undercover sting operations (which the pro-choice movement does as well). However, these types of tactics are not usually condoned by mainstream pro-lifers. And many times they test or break the limits of the law.
Ever since Roe v. Wade, those who respect life have been in an uphill battle. The law is not on our side. Federal funding goes to abortion providers and to provide abortions even in foreign countries. Popular culture is not on our side. The rising numbers of unexpected pregnancies are not on our side.
But in this culture, those who identify themselves as "pro-life" have increased from about a third of the population to over half. And over half is enough to make a difference in the way we elect our government officials. Over 2/3 would be enough for us to overturn Roe v. Wade.
So how do we get there when we are fighting the law, the pro-choice movement, and even the extremist versions of our own movement? The answer is love.
The distinctive factor in the mainstream pro-life movement is that it has to be, by its very nature, a movement about changing hearts. Unlike other movements which have been reinforced with government mandates, this movement is, in its way, against the very law of the land.
However, by using our free speech, love, and with a lot of help from God, we win over hearts. First and foremost, we show women that we love them.
The pro-choice movement wants to paint us as people who hate women. In their eyes we take choices away from women and then judge them for the choices they do make. However, what they do not tell women is that the only choice they offer (abortion) is the one that is most likely to harm them both in the short and long run.
Abortions hurt women. I used to naively think this phrase referred to unborn females. However, in the last few months I have been studying the effects of abortions. There is a great medical risk, first of all, which can cause serious side effects, difficulties carrying future babies, and in some cases death. It is an invasive procedure, as it would have to be. It does not remove a cyst or a tumor that is not supposed to be there, but a baby which the body has fully accepted and will not give up easily.
Then, of course, there are the emotional risks, which tend to be greater the more unsure a woman was about the choice she made. For insance, if someone says she believes abortion is murder but has one performed anyway, then for the rest of her life she is doomed to live knowing that she has committed murder. This guilt is as much self imposed as it would ever be imposed by society.
However, the truth of the pro-life movemement is that we lovingly point out these real risks but let the mother make the final decision. Although we feel the pain of so many unborn babies, we believe in a loving God who will call these innocents home. The focus of the pro-life movement has to be on the mother, and our love for her, and God's love for her.
By using love, we show her that she can be forgiven and redeemed no matter what her decision. If she chooses to keep the baby, we discuss plans for sexual integrity in the future, so that she does not have to go through the pain of this decision again. We help her financially. We discuss adoption. If she chooses abortion, we are there for her in prayer. If she comes back hurt, she will not meet with anger or judgment. Instead, we will show her how God has set out a plan to redeem her and help her find counseling.
(By the way, I recently found out that Project Rachel, which is one of the biggest post-abortion recovery groups in the United States, is a Catholic service. I mention this only to show just how easy it can be to misjudge those who call themselves pro-life. No one is more outspoken against abortions than the Catholic church. However, they also provide the greatest healing services for women who have had abortions. Rather than dole out judgment, the most adamant pro-life group in the world calls hurting women into God's healing arms).
In taking this love approach, we are almost blessed as a movement. I believe that many other Christian movements - indeed Christianity in America itself - have been damaged simply because they are accepted. We are losing Christians right and left, and perhaps this is because we have become complacent. We have forgotten what it means to struggle for what we believe. And we have forgotten the power of love.
I write this today because of the change that observing and being involved in the pro-life movement has done in my heart. By being pro-life, that means I am for all life - both those born and unborn. I have learned the value of every life, which means that I am learning the value of each individual that I meet. To hate is to wish someone dead. To wish someone dead is to wish they had never been born. And to do that, I would be a hypocrite.
Strangely enough, I have almost stopped caring about "saving babies." Perhaps it is because I believe they are already saved. However, my new passion is helping scared, hurting women by showing them love and helping them to make the right choice, even if it is not the easy one.
How grateful I am for this uphill battle, because it would be so easy to take the same route as the pro-choice movement or the extreme pro-life movements. To be vocal and have an ear in the media. To commit acts of violence. To respond to mild threats by snapping back in a panicked frenzy. But women are not tennis balls. They do not deserve to be fought over like a piece of steak by two rabid dogs. They are human beings whom God loves, and who deserve to know the facts, and who deserve to be loved.
I have long been following the abortion debate, but the almost panicked response of pro-choice groups to this harmless 30-second ad got me thinking about the abortion debate. Crazed, nonsensical, panicked. That's what the pro-choice spokeswomen sounded like. That's the kind of rhetoric one usually hears when someone is backed into a corner, which is odd considering she has the upper hand in both law and the ear of the media.
On the other hand we have the pro-life movement, in this case Focus on the Family, calmly explaining that the ad is not controversial and is about love. Because that's what the pro-life movement has been about - love.
Now, I know there are people who stage violent protests at abortion clinics, murder abortion providers, show disturbing images, and perform undercover sting operations (which the pro-choice movement does as well). However, these types of tactics are not usually condoned by mainstream pro-lifers. And many times they test or break the limits of the law.
Ever since Roe v. Wade, those who respect life have been in an uphill battle. The law is not on our side. Federal funding goes to abortion providers and to provide abortions even in foreign countries. Popular culture is not on our side. The rising numbers of unexpected pregnancies are not on our side.
But in this culture, those who identify themselves as "pro-life" have increased from about a third of the population to over half. And over half is enough to make a difference in the way we elect our government officials. Over 2/3 would be enough for us to overturn Roe v. Wade.
So how do we get there when we are fighting the law, the pro-choice movement, and even the extremist versions of our own movement? The answer is love.
The distinctive factor in the mainstream pro-life movement is that it has to be, by its very nature, a movement about changing hearts. Unlike other movements which have been reinforced with government mandates, this movement is, in its way, against the very law of the land.
However, by using our free speech, love, and with a lot of help from God, we win over hearts. First and foremost, we show women that we love them.
The pro-choice movement wants to paint us as people who hate women. In their eyes we take choices away from women and then judge them for the choices they do make. However, what they do not tell women is that the only choice they offer (abortion) is the one that is most likely to harm them both in the short and long run.
Abortions hurt women. I used to naively think this phrase referred to unborn females. However, in the last few months I have been studying the effects of abortions. There is a great medical risk, first of all, which can cause serious side effects, difficulties carrying future babies, and in some cases death. It is an invasive procedure, as it would have to be. It does not remove a cyst or a tumor that is not supposed to be there, but a baby which the body has fully accepted and will not give up easily.
Then, of course, there are the emotional risks, which tend to be greater the more unsure a woman was about the choice she made. For insance, if someone says she believes abortion is murder but has one performed anyway, then for the rest of her life she is doomed to live knowing that she has committed murder. This guilt is as much self imposed as it would ever be imposed by society.
However, the truth of the pro-life movemement is that we lovingly point out these real risks but let the mother make the final decision. Although we feel the pain of so many unborn babies, we believe in a loving God who will call these innocents home. The focus of the pro-life movement has to be on the mother, and our love for her, and God's love for her.
By using love, we show her that she can be forgiven and redeemed no matter what her decision. If she chooses to keep the baby, we discuss plans for sexual integrity in the future, so that she does not have to go through the pain of this decision again. We help her financially. We discuss adoption. If she chooses abortion, we are there for her in prayer. If she comes back hurt, she will not meet with anger or judgment. Instead, we will show her how God has set out a plan to redeem her and help her find counseling.
(By the way, I recently found out that Project Rachel, which is one of the biggest post-abortion recovery groups in the United States, is a Catholic service. I mention this only to show just how easy it can be to misjudge those who call themselves pro-life. No one is more outspoken against abortions than the Catholic church. However, they also provide the greatest healing services for women who have had abortions. Rather than dole out judgment, the most adamant pro-life group in the world calls hurting women into God's healing arms).
In taking this love approach, we are almost blessed as a movement. I believe that many other Christian movements - indeed Christianity in America itself - have been damaged simply because they are accepted. We are losing Christians right and left, and perhaps this is because we have become complacent. We have forgotten what it means to struggle for what we believe. And we have forgotten the power of love.
I write this today because of the change that observing and being involved in the pro-life movement has done in my heart. By being pro-life, that means I am for all life - both those born and unborn. I have learned the value of every life, which means that I am learning the value of each individual that I meet. To hate is to wish someone dead. To wish someone dead is to wish they had never been born. And to do that, I would be a hypocrite.
Strangely enough, I have almost stopped caring about "saving babies." Perhaps it is because I believe they are already saved. However, my new passion is helping scared, hurting women by showing them love and helping them to make the right choice, even if it is not the easy one.
How grateful I am for this uphill battle, because it would be so easy to take the same route as the pro-choice movement or the extreme pro-life movements. To be vocal and have an ear in the media. To commit acts of violence. To respond to mild threats by snapping back in a panicked frenzy. But women are not tennis balls. They do not deserve to be fought over like a piece of steak by two rabid dogs. They are human beings whom God loves, and who deserve to know the facts, and who deserve to be loved.
Monday, February 8, 2010
A Tribute to Star Trek
As I recall, Friday nights were always kind of dry as far as TV shows were concerned. I think this is because producers knew people wouldn't be as likely to stay in. However, Friday nights at our house growing up consisted of a trip to Pizza Hut followed by an all-new episode of Star Trek Voyager. I loved that show! Something about the clean metallic walls and space travel helped me sleep at night.
By the time in high school that my sister introduced me to Star Trek Deep Space Nine, I knew that to watch it would be a "nerdy" taboo. I never liked it as much as Voyager, but I did watch it.
When the new Star Trek movie came out this summer, I wasn't in line to go see it or anything. But I had already planned a trip to Wichita, and the chance to surprise my parents by showing up at the theater presented itself. Even though I missed the first 30 minutes, the movie was great! And so I rented it when it came out.
That got me interested in the original series, which I subsequently Netflixed.
I'm not going to lie, I loved it! I think the terrible special effects are especially appealing to someone of my generation, but it was a good show. It was about a captain of a ship who maintained a moral high road above all, who was advised by a man who only knew logic, and of all the adventures they had.
Many episodes didn't seem like what I thought of as Star Trek. All aliens were just humans with incredible psychic powers. The myth that humans were always the lowest life-form may have began here (doesn't it seem that in any science fiction, aliens always have some sort of advantage, whether physical or telekinetic, over humans, and yet the humans win?)
And, frankly, I can't see how the TV series evolved into something so associated with nerdiness. I believe part of the problem was "Trekkies" themselves. Here people who already struggled to get along in society or relate to their peers found an immense joy in something fictional that they could all share. A love of science seems to be implied, but a love of fantasy is also there. Ultimately, Star Trek is just a story - and who doesn't love a good story?
Still, fascination with Star Trek seems to have a more negative connotation than, say, fascination with sports. Society at large seems to have chosen one hobby that is acceptable over another hobby that is not. Why is that? Is it because sports are in the now, while Star Trek is a fictional future? Is it because people think (wrongly, I believe) that you need to have some understanding and love of science to relate to science fiction? Is it because sports are seen as more manly, and therefore men who like Star Trek are not following the pre-defined evolutionary route of man?
Whatever the cause, there is a sad result. Even people who casually like Star Trek (here defined as watching any or all of the series or movies but not going to conventions or buying exorbitant amounts of souveniers) and see its value as a good story feel compelled to hide this interest. On the radio this summer, I heard DJ's surprised that the Star Trek movie was so good, and a third DJ was being called a Trekkie even though it sounded like he only watched casually.
Much like in my Tribute to Crossword puzzles, I don't think that interests and hobbies should be so dramatically belittled by society, especially considering that a person may have little control over his interests. Someone may not be able to join in his buddies' review of the funniest parts of "The Office" because he was watching the latest Star Trek series, but he should at least feel free to say so.
And that goes for other "nerdy" past times as well. Anything sci-fi or fantasy related shouldn't be shunned by society. I have also enjoyed, in my time, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Sherlock Holmes, but you would have to hang me by my nails to get me to admit it in a room full of strangers.
And finally, Star Trek represents many aspects of The Great Thinkers of history. For it was the Trekkies of their day who pioneered almost any scientific advancement we enjoy today. Further, Star Trek pioneered social reforms as well, as it envisoned a future without race and where women were equal to men, and it did so without the obvious political undertones seen in so many of today's TV shows.
So if you have the ability, watch a season of Star Trek sometime. You may be pleasantly surprised. (Just avoid the movie Star Trek I - somebody had a serious case of writer's block when that one was made).
By the time in high school that my sister introduced me to Star Trek Deep Space Nine, I knew that to watch it would be a "nerdy" taboo. I never liked it as much as Voyager, but I did watch it.
When the new Star Trek movie came out this summer, I wasn't in line to go see it or anything. But I had already planned a trip to Wichita, and the chance to surprise my parents by showing up at the theater presented itself. Even though I missed the first 30 minutes, the movie was great! And so I rented it when it came out.
That got me interested in the original series, which I subsequently Netflixed.
I'm not going to lie, I loved it! I think the terrible special effects are especially appealing to someone of my generation, but it was a good show. It was about a captain of a ship who maintained a moral high road above all, who was advised by a man who only knew logic, and of all the adventures they had.
Many episodes didn't seem like what I thought of as Star Trek. All aliens were just humans with incredible psychic powers. The myth that humans were always the lowest life-form may have began here (doesn't it seem that in any science fiction, aliens always have some sort of advantage, whether physical or telekinetic, over humans, and yet the humans win?)
And, frankly, I can't see how the TV series evolved into something so associated with nerdiness. I believe part of the problem was "Trekkies" themselves. Here people who already struggled to get along in society or relate to their peers found an immense joy in something fictional that they could all share. A love of science seems to be implied, but a love of fantasy is also there. Ultimately, Star Trek is just a story - and who doesn't love a good story?
Still, fascination with Star Trek seems to have a more negative connotation than, say, fascination with sports. Society at large seems to have chosen one hobby that is acceptable over another hobby that is not. Why is that? Is it because sports are in the now, while Star Trek is a fictional future? Is it because people think (wrongly, I believe) that you need to have some understanding and love of science to relate to science fiction? Is it because sports are seen as more manly, and therefore men who like Star Trek are not following the pre-defined evolutionary route of man?
Whatever the cause, there is a sad result. Even people who casually like Star Trek (here defined as watching any or all of the series or movies but not going to conventions or buying exorbitant amounts of souveniers) and see its value as a good story feel compelled to hide this interest. On the radio this summer, I heard DJ's surprised that the Star Trek movie was so good, and a third DJ was being called a Trekkie even though it sounded like he only watched casually.
Much like in my Tribute to Crossword puzzles, I don't think that interests and hobbies should be so dramatically belittled by society, especially considering that a person may have little control over his interests. Someone may not be able to join in his buddies' review of the funniest parts of "The Office" because he was watching the latest Star Trek series, but he should at least feel free to say so.
And that goes for other "nerdy" past times as well. Anything sci-fi or fantasy related shouldn't be shunned by society. I have also enjoyed, in my time, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Sherlock Holmes, but you would have to hang me by my nails to get me to admit it in a room full of strangers.
And finally, Star Trek represents many aspects of The Great Thinkers of history. For it was the Trekkies of their day who pioneered almost any scientific advancement we enjoy today. Further, Star Trek pioneered social reforms as well, as it envisoned a future without race and where women were equal to men, and it did so without the obvious political undertones seen in so many of today's TV shows.
So if you have the ability, watch a season of Star Trek sometime. You may be pleasantly surprised. (Just avoid the movie Star Trek I - somebody had a serious case of writer's block when that one was made).
Sunday, February 7, 2010
A Tribute to Crossword Puzzles
In the fall of this year I purchased the World's Largest Crossword Puzzle. Measuring something like 7 X 8 feet, it hangs on my wall above my stair and takes up the entire space. I must stand on a chair to reach the highest clues, and the puzzle goes down to the floorboards.
Once the puzzle was hung up and I had taken my first try at the top row of clues, I sat back to reflect. This was my cat. By purchasing such an obvioust time waster, something that others couldn't understand, I had essentially declared to the world my intention to hole myself up in my house and withdraw into intellectualism. I didn't play the crossword puzzle at all for at least a week.
But I had underestimated myself. First of all, the puzzle proved to be of great assistance to my stage of life. Working the unpredictable hours that I did, I could not develop hobbies dependent on the outside world. To say that Wednesdays I would go to choir practice or to sign up for a pottery class would have been impossible. It was true I had no friends in the area outside my house, but my situation did not afford such things. The crossword puzzle gave me more relief than I had imagined. It was a project that did not rely on schedules or obligations. As winter progressed I found it to be warm. Indeed, this was my hobby because I could not have a hobby. I could pick it up or set it down at any moment, and it would always be there. Before I had wasted what little time off I had because I had no established protocol for how to use the time.
I had weekends off this fall, but they were busy (with what I cannot remember). It was on weekends that my joy of the crossword puzzle grew. I found tha tin the mornings th elight would stream through my window (provided the day was not cloudy) and land on the puzzle itself, if not the floor beneath it. Working on my puzzle was then the warmest activity I could do. Pacing back and forth gave me some exercise. I would play a movie that I could scarce give any attention to, and pour Mountain Dew into a wine goblet to feel sophisticated.
Because that is ultimately the way crossword puzzles make me feel. Before I purchased this giant puzzle, I had always enjoyed the daily puzzles in newspapers wherever I went. The sophistication came from playing a game that relied upon knowledge.
Some clues don't vary much. I can't begin to explain how many times I have seen "Tara" as the answer to a clue, that says, "O'Hara's Plantation" or some other such nonsense. Clues don't necessarily expand the vocabulary, either, and in some senses contract it.
However, there are better clues. I have mentioned my love of roman numerals. I find references to these all over crossword puzzles. Sometimes I am asked to do math, others to translate. My biggest flaw is that I can never remember the differences between "L" and "D" (50 and 500).
Clues may be about foreign languages. I usually skip over French (unless it is "ami", "Friend"), German, Italian, and Latin until I can fill in most of the letters. However, I find the Spanish clues delightful. I only wish they were deeper than "senor" and "Este" now and then.
However, what I love most (and find most "sophisticated") about the crossword puzzles is that you cannot get along by just memorizing typical answers. Every now and then a real clue is thrown in. These clues require you to know a great many things: history, literature, movies, politics, law. And they usually come in the form of the longest answers on the list. I love to congratulate myself on knowing the importance of the Lusitania.
(Clues in the newspaper crosswords may also be answers to little jokes. These plays on words are dreadful when you can't figure them out, but quite fun to see the result when you do).
Although I suppose crossword puzzles are somewhat univeral, I continue to associate them with people of my grandma's generation. I continue this association for selfish reasons, I suppose, especially if I am wrong about it. I have a little snobbery when it comes to people of my generation, and in some senses I see older as better. Pastimes associated with times "ago" certainly seem more innocent, but also intellectual. I find it hard to picture the average teenager today sititng down to a crossword puzzle and carefully thinking over the clues presented to him.
On the other hand, this association causes me some embarrassment, especially given my fear of people equating the puzzle with a cat.
In the end, though, I suppose I can neither take vain pride in my enjoyment nor cower from it. It is in fact an enjoyment - nothing more, nothing less. It would be as hard to explain my dislike of pickles compared to my love of puppy chow. It is simply a matter of taste.
Once the puzzle was hung up and I had taken my first try at the top row of clues, I sat back to reflect. This was my cat. By purchasing such an obvioust time waster, something that others couldn't understand, I had essentially declared to the world my intention to hole myself up in my house and withdraw into intellectualism. I didn't play the crossword puzzle at all for at least a week.
But I had underestimated myself. First of all, the puzzle proved to be of great assistance to my stage of life. Working the unpredictable hours that I did, I could not develop hobbies dependent on the outside world. To say that Wednesdays I would go to choir practice or to sign up for a pottery class would have been impossible. It was true I had no friends in the area outside my house, but my situation did not afford such things. The crossword puzzle gave me more relief than I had imagined. It was a project that did not rely on schedules or obligations. As winter progressed I found it to be warm. Indeed, this was my hobby because I could not have a hobby. I could pick it up or set it down at any moment, and it would always be there. Before I had wasted what little time off I had because I had no established protocol for how to use the time.
I had weekends off this fall, but they were busy (with what I cannot remember). It was on weekends that my joy of the crossword puzzle grew. I found tha tin the mornings th elight would stream through my window (provided the day was not cloudy) and land on the puzzle itself, if not the floor beneath it. Working on my puzzle was then the warmest activity I could do. Pacing back and forth gave me some exercise. I would play a movie that I could scarce give any attention to, and pour Mountain Dew into a wine goblet to feel sophisticated.
Because that is ultimately the way crossword puzzles make me feel. Before I purchased this giant puzzle, I had always enjoyed the daily puzzles in newspapers wherever I went. The sophistication came from playing a game that relied upon knowledge.
Some clues don't vary much. I can't begin to explain how many times I have seen "Tara" as the answer to a clue, that says, "O'Hara's Plantation" or some other such nonsense. Clues don't necessarily expand the vocabulary, either, and in some senses contract it.
However, there are better clues. I have mentioned my love of roman numerals. I find references to these all over crossword puzzles. Sometimes I am asked to do math, others to translate. My biggest flaw is that I can never remember the differences between "L" and "D" (50 and 500).
Clues may be about foreign languages. I usually skip over French (unless it is "ami", "Friend"), German, Italian, and Latin until I can fill in most of the letters. However, I find the Spanish clues delightful. I only wish they were deeper than "senor" and "Este" now and then.
However, what I love most (and find most "sophisticated") about the crossword puzzles is that you cannot get along by just memorizing typical answers. Every now and then a real clue is thrown in. These clues require you to know a great many things: history, literature, movies, politics, law. And they usually come in the form of the longest answers on the list. I love to congratulate myself on knowing the importance of the Lusitania.
(Clues in the newspaper crosswords may also be answers to little jokes. These plays on words are dreadful when you can't figure them out, but quite fun to see the result when you do).
Although I suppose crossword puzzles are somewhat univeral, I continue to associate them with people of my grandma's generation. I continue this association for selfish reasons, I suppose, especially if I am wrong about it. I have a little snobbery when it comes to people of my generation, and in some senses I see older as better. Pastimes associated with times "ago" certainly seem more innocent, but also intellectual. I find it hard to picture the average teenager today sititng down to a crossword puzzle and carefully thinking over the clues presented to him.
On the other hand, this association causes me some embarrassment, especially given my fear of people equating the puzzle with a cat.
In the end, though, I suppose I can neither take vain pride in my enjoyment nor cower from it. It is in fact an enjoyment - nothing more, nothing less. It would be as hard to explain my dislike of pickles compared to my love of puppy chow. It is simply a matter of taste.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
A Tribute to Roman Numerals
As hot August days turned into hot September nights, four unique auditors continued to huddle around a cramped table trying to finish up what may have been one of the world's worst audits. We were as different as four people could be. Our religions ranged from atheist to devout. Our politics seemed to follow the same lines. Our hobbies included dogs, drinking, drinking, and eccentricity.
However, one evening we were united by a simple comment from our fearless leader when she said, "You know what really makes my day? When you're typing your phone number into a form on the internet and it automatically jumps to the next space." How true. It really does make one's day.
As we commented on her discovery, we made a discovery of our own - that we were in a circle of safety. Despite our differences, we could unite around the fact that, unfortunately or not, we were accountants. And as such, we have little quirks that mostly only accountants (or nerds) and people with OCD could have.
So I have decided to pay tribute to my nerdiness - things that bring me joy that probably bring very few other people in the world the same joy as they do me.
And, of course what tribute to nerdiness would be complete without a tribute to Roman Numerals?
As a child, I was vaguely aware and curious about the odd letters on clocks that were supposedly numbers. I learned what they meant more out of an understanding of the location of the hands of the clock (VI was down at the bottom and therefore must mean six) than because I was taught.
Imagine my joy as an accountant when I learned this new number system formally! Oh how I loved using the formula to determine what letter to place next. I loved counting: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX, watching the length of the number grow and shrink - so unlike our systematic arabic numerals!
Of course, to add to this joy, I believe the class that taught us the mysteries behind the roman numerals also taught us the wonders of outlines. For the rest of that school year I took every opportunity to make my notes in outline - I loved to see how many letters or numbers I would accumulate before having to start over again. I loved to see how far indented I could get - switching I - A - 1 - a - i...and so on!
Now add the accountant's final joy, not discovered until years later in my first Tax class - IRS Code! The code took my outlining and turned it into a word. Section 106(A)(2)(c)(ii). If I could ever use this system, I did!
If ever there was someone destined to love roman numerals, outlines, and IRS code references, it was me. As a small child I took every opportunity to line things up and categorize them. If it could be lined up or sorted, it was done: I sorted the silverware going into the dishwasher as well as out of it, I sorted crayons by color or length, I was constantly changing the arrangement of CD's and books, and I took all my toys and simply lined them up in great long rows.
To this we add an interest in codes and foreign languages, which explains some of my joy with the roman numerals. Knowing that I was born in MCMLXXXIV and that this year is MMX makes me feel educated at least, like a kind of spy on a good day.
Of course, all this knowledge is all but useless in modern days except when outlining or reading the backs of movies. There is one additional use of roman numerals, which leads me to my next ode to nerdiness subject, the crossword puzzle!
However, one evening we were united by a simple comment from our fearless leader when she said, "You know what really makes my day? When you're typing your phone number into a form on the internet and it automatically jumps to the next space." How true. It really does make one's day.
As we commented on her discovery, we made a discovery of our own - that we were in a circle of safety. Despite our differences, we could unite around the fact that, unfortunately or not, we were accountants. And as such, we have little quirks that mostly only accountants (or nerds) and people with OCD could have.
So I have decided to pay tribute to my nerdiness - things that bring me joy that probably bring very few other people in the world the same joy as they do me.
And, of course what tribute to nerdiness would be complete without a tribute to Roman Numerals?
As a child, I was vaguely aware and curious about the odd letters on clocks that were supposedly numbers. I learned what they meant more out of an understanding of the location of the hands of the clock (VI was down at the bottom and therefore must mean six) than because I was taught.
Imagine my joy as an accountant when I learned this new number system formally! Oh how I loved using the formula to determine what letter to place next. I loved counting: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX, watching the length of the number grow and shrink - so unlike our systematic arabic numerals!
Of course, to add to this joy, I believe the class that taught us the mysteries behind the roman numerals also taught us the wonders of outlines. For the rest of that school year I took every opportunity to make my notes in outline - I loved to see how many letters or numbers I would accumulate before having to start over again. I loved to see how far indented I could get - switching I - A - 1 - a - i...and so on!
Now add the accountant's final joy, not discovered until years later in my first Tax class - IRS Code! The code took my outlining and turned it into a word. Section 106(A)(2)(c)(ii). If I could ever use this system, I did!
If ever there was someone destined to love roman numerals, outlines, and IRS code references, it was me. As a small child I took every opportunity to line things up and categorize them. If it could be lined up or sorted, it was done: I sorted the silverware going into the dishwasher as well as out of it, I sorted crayons by color or length, I was constantly changing the arrangement of CD's and books, and I took all my toys and simply lined them up in great long rows.
To this we add an interest in codes and foreign languages, which explains some of my joy with the roman numerals. Knowing that I was born in MCMLXXXIV and that this year is MMX makes me feel educated at least, like a kind of spy on a good day.
Of course, all this knowledge is all but useless in modern days except when outlining or reading the backs of movies. There is one additional use of roman numerals, which leads me to my next ode to nerdiness subject, the crossword puzzle!
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