Because I clearly haven't been through enough lately, and because all politicians are at their core about as mature as your average two year old, there appears to be a pretty good chance that I'm going to be furloughed. Which, you know, after dropping cash like a madwoman on all of the incidentals that two deaths and funerals in a row seem to bring and with gas jumping to new heights and the work my car needs (let's pray I don't need a whole transmission), I could really go for a furlough.Budget passed! Crisis averted! But it's okay. I'm a federal employee. As the incredibly well-informed individuals who comment on internet news stories know, I'm an uneducated slob paid astronomical sums of money to sit my drooling ass in a vibromassaging chair all day while plotting new and exciting ways to waste tax dollars and be nasty to tax payers. Oh, and I don't pay taxes either.

Hm. My sense of sarcasm is starting to return. A little? I guess that's... good? Sort of? I think that it's because anger is an easier emotional transition. I don't know. My sense of humor is still decidedly missing. I kind of don't want it to be back though, because in a weird way I don't want to feel normal again, because there is nothing that will ever be normal again and, if things become "normal" again it means that my brother is consigned to the past. And that is just opening another world of pain.

Bizarre sign that I miss my brother of the day: I actually left Ken Burns's Civil War on for a while tonight. It's just soooooo painfully boring to me, but I actually watched it for an hour and imagined Nick nitpicking the shit out of it. Sure beats the email from the blood bank asking my opinion about how to best handle Nick's image in their advertising campaign. That one left me a sobby mess in the restroom at work for a while-- on top of dropping the freshly baked coffee cake on my kitchen floor, should pretty much illustrate what a crappy morning it was. Sadly, it didn't get much better from there and then my plans got canceled on me. On the plus side? A quiet evening at home with FatCat and a good book is about the best way my evening could have turned out.

For Klari, Pt. 1

Klari is a fabulous woman with fascinating interests, and an excellent conversationalist and debater to boot. And I have slacked off on writing a proper response to her question: what I think health reform should do.

I should explain my stance on the current version of reform pending in Congress: I don't think it's terribly good, but I also don't think it's the OMGENDOFTHEWORLD that the right claims. I also think that if it doesn't pass, we're not going to see health care touched for at least another decade-- by which time, health care spending will inflate to maybe a quarter of our entire economy. Which would be extraordinarily NOT GOOD. Especially when we're staring down the barrel of baby boomer retirement and aging. However, I'm not optimistic about the chances of reform passing, and I'm actually quite frightened by the incredible amount of vitriol poisoning the debate. Like the older guy on the news talking about if it passes, there'll be a "revolution, in the election or armed". Seriously? Pardon my french, but you'd shed blood over a fucking health plan? I think that's a little melodramatic there, and that's certainly NOT the kind of person I like to think about owning firearms.

I think that any reform needs to return to first principles. Is health care a basic necessity like food or water, to which everyone must have access, or it is a commodity-- an important commodity, but still a commodity-- to be purchased in a manner like electricity? Nobody has a "right" to electricity, and there are a number of people that live without it (the Amish are the first to come to mind, of course). Establishing a non-ambiguous philosophical attitude about health care is essential; think of it as leveling the ground and determining the proper foundation upon which all other policy and legislation will be built. This is the first place where I think that all attempts at health "reform" go wrong. I define "health care" in this case as not just free cancer screenings or emergency department services, but actual, substantial care. Regular primary care. Non-essential surgery that improves the quality of life (think knee replacements). The whole shebang, not just seeing an overworked nurse practitioner in a free clinic for school vaccinations or an emergency department that complies with EMTALA. Getting a free screening that tells me that my funky mole might be melanoma, but not being able to access any other care until I'm practically dying of skin cancer doesn't do any good.

Honestly, once the decision is made whether health care is a right or a privilege, everything else is almost academic.

If it's a right, we can either further modify our current delivery or financing systems-- slap another patch program on there-- or start from scratch. If it's a privilege, then there's really not much reason to change how you treat it as we do now-- like heating oil or gas in the north, where the destitute can apply for limited assistance funds in the winter? Let the market sort itself out.

I happen to think that health care, like clean water and air, is a right that needs to be formally recognized. For some, the idea of clean air and water as a right is an abstract notion. Growing up with the stench of the Clairton Coke Works hanging over the valley every morning, surrounded by creeks and rivers that you couldn't touch because of mine runoff or other industrial chemical contamination, I have a pretty good idea what it means to live with lipservice to that right. Sure, they were "cleaning up their act," but it didn't change the fact that we were still breathing in hydrogen sulfide (among other things) and people seemed to die awfully young. Your family could sue them, assuming they could definitively prove that without the emissions you wouldn't have died-- but you're still dead. Likewise, the notion of health care as a right is an abstract concept-- doesn't the ER* have to treat you? Yes-- but it doesn't change the fact that you probably wouldn't wind up there in the first place if you had regular primary care!

I freely admit that my personal beliefs influence my position, both my ethics and religious leanings. I just think that it's the right thing to do. You don't let people starve to death when there's plenty of food to go around, you don't let people freeze to death when there's plenty of clothing to go around, and you just don't let people suffer and die because they can't afford health care. Especially when someone is trying to do it for themselves and needs help.

Now that I've explained the philosophical underpinning, I'll describe what I think that reform from that point "should" look like in another part.

*(I know ED is the preferred nomenclature, but I associate ED with erectile dysfunction)

white knuckles

Since we're now on the downside of the final semester, is it appropriate or old meme to insert "The Final Countdown" videos?

Hm. I'll go with "too close to hipster 'irony.'"

At any rate, I do not recommend doing detail-oriented work with The Cold From Hell! It's just a bog standard annoying, disgusting cold instead of anything special, but I think rhinoviruses are from that special corner of hell from whence mosquitoes and people who don't use turn signals also came. So I feel completely justified in calling it The Cold From Hell. I feel like I'm my own subject in determining whether a cold itself or a cold with cold medicine makes for the most unintentionally creative writing. I think I've unintentionally grossed out my office partner, because I can't go five minutes without sniffling or blowing my nose.

Oh well. I'd better retrieve the very important things I left at home this morning thanks to my decongestant haze so I can actually finish this work before learning how to be a lobbyist. Yes, I already learned the basics of how to be a lobbyist from lobbyists-- and it was fun, fascinating, and frightening-- but this time I'm learning how to lobby as part of an activist group instead of as a legislative liaison. So we'll see how they compare.

out and about in Squirrel Hill and a tea party hangover

I would call this brilliant timing.



And here is the street where I park Jeepzilla.



And poor Jeepzilla looks pretty much settled in for a long winter's nap. Not moving anytime soon.



So we're about as snowed in as you can get around these parts with this once-in-15-years storm. Good times, as I really needed to get to the library this weekend and... not happening. No vehicle, no/ extremely limited public transportation, and, right, libraries all closed. So here I am, indulging in something that I know isn't good for me: Sunday morning news programs. And of course, they're giving a disproportionate share of attention to the tea party types.

I picked on the left last time, so it's time for the right. Why do conservatives prefer to listen to idiots like Sarah Palin? I hate the rampant anti-intellectualism she represents. She wanted to create foreign policy without a basic grasp of geography, to remold the Supreme Court without the ability to name a single court decision when asked (didn't we ALL learn about Brown v. Board of Education, Miranda v. Arizona, hell, Roe v. Wade?). Her hypocritical faux-folksy shtick pits straw man "professors" against "real Americans," as if intelligence and education precludes one from being a real American-- and are unfit to have any input into policymaking. Glad to know that I'm not a real American. But studying at an elite institution, possessing advanced degrees doesn't magically exempt anyone from paying mortgages, arranging childcare, or buying groceries and gasoline. Either that or they forgot to show me the free grocery secret handshake at graduation.

On top of the ridiculous presupposition that intelligent Americans aren't real Americans, where does this leave intelligent, articulate, educated conservatives? Take George Will, for example. Is he not a real American, or do his political leanings allow him to be grandfathered into the club? Why can't conservatives embrace this kind of figurehead instead?

I see the Republicans falling into the same trap that the Democrats did about 6 years ago-- attacking, but not offering tangible, reasonable alternatives. I'm still waiting to see a reasonable Republican health plan rather than abstract suggestions like "allow people to buy insurance across state lines." Minor adjustments to the health insurance market are not going to fix a fundamentally flawed delivery and payment system. Anyway, I'll be truly shocked if any kind of health care reform is passed. I wonder where that's going to leave us in about 15-20 years, when the boomers are in long term care and swelling Medicaid and Medicare.

The scary, scary future, or why my generation is screwed

This has been such a freaking bizarre week.

First, decompression: Hell really is other people. Some people are hellbent on being such assholes that calling them assholes is an insult to assholes everywhere. I console myself with the firm belief that in whatever kind of afterlife exists, they'll have their own room with one another for company.

Second, I was called cool by merit of my docs by a little high schooler wannabe punk type. I suspect the kid was in diapers when I got my first pair of docs, which I have worn through coolness into uncoolness and apparently back into coolness. I also suspect the kid wasn't even in school yet when I first played with Manic Panic, which I think was the dye in their hair. I am so very, very old.

Third, let's not talk about work.

Fourth, politics are sadly progressing exactly the way I expected them to: bitter and divisive.

Can we talk politics for a bit? It's my blog, so I'm going to anyway.

Holidays and health care reform perspectives

I hope that the handful of you that read my little journal had a lovely holiday, or if you don't celebrate, a lovely day. Christmas remains my favorite holiday, even though it doesn't really "feel" like Christmas when you're so busy in the time leading up that you're ready to drop from exhaustion. My all too brief winter break consisted of a lot of cooking and last minute baking/ confection making, DVD watching (while baking/ cooking), and napping. The cats, they do so like the toasty apartment and the bounty of treats, catnip, and toys from their admirers... not to mention the human-sized hot water bottle for their own napping.

It's sad that this was in all likelihood my last Christmas season here, and yet there was no visit to Oglebay or other light displays, no visits to the various holiday attractions, and little time with friends or family. Given that I'll be the low man on the totem pole wherever I am next season, I'll probably just be in and out for Christmas. Which means that there really isn't a "next year" anymore. It's weird to think about. I've tried to arrange time with others, but I think that there's a significant amount of denial and the insistence that I'm not going anywhere... making everything that much harder on me.

So... I made the first cut of the Presidential Management Fellowship. The next step is a really, really long test down in DC. So I'll be down January 13th, in downtown (the site's near the Farragut West metro stop), exact arrangements to be determined. I'm applying for a federal positions as they arise, but there's a state-level fellowship that looks intriguing. That one could place me in Virginia, NC, Maine (my top choices).

Anyway. Speaking of my future career and such, how about that health care reform? It's... something, but it's not real reform. It's an attempt to broaden access, but it's so bogged down with trying to keep various interests happy and it's lacking guiding principles like "nobody will go without health care" or "we will revamp our system to make it at least efficient enough to not spend one-fifth of our GDP on care that's not making our country particularly healthy". Or how about actually reducing the 5,000+ monthly deaths from preventable medical errors. It's also a testament to how far the country has shifted to the right in the past 40 years or so. The bills in the conference committee now are actually not so terribly different from health care reform legislation proposed by Richard Nixon, of all folks. Unfortunately, Watergate came along soon after, and that was pretty much the end of that. But it's a sad state of affairs when ideas that came from a fairly conservative president are now being blasted as "socialist." And it's an even sorrier state of affiars when this is, you know, only my field of study in which I'm a thesis away from a masters, and yet certain friends and family seem to think that I still know nothing about the subject. Huzzah for personal politics getting in the way of actual thought.

It pisses me off endlessly how people are in denial on both sides of the political spectrum. No, we DON'T have the best health care in the world. We're on par with countries like Costa Rica in terms of infant mortality, despite spending twice as much per capita as the next biggest spender. Yes, we have cutting-edge technology- but only a small fraction of the population can actually access it even with insurance thanks to arcane agreements between hospitals and insurers, cost-sharing and rules about "experimental" treatment. So what good is that technology if only the ultra-rich have access? On the other hand, stop comparing the US to Canada-- Canada has one-tenth of our population, is far less diverse, and has a completely different national character. And like it or not, we can't just destabilize such a huge chunk of the economy. Health care in the US has become a particularly large brain tumor at this point-- it's quietly grown into a major problem while we were all focused on more immediately pressing issues. But going in all helter-skelter is just as dangerous as completely ignoring the problem. But as we've sadly learned and seen, over and over again, nobody is willing to actually listen to the people who study this issue (ahem... like myself...). Almost everyone has their own political axe to grind, and very few are willing to let something like facts get in the way.