Our greatest tool

As I get older, time seems to pass by quicker and issues and votes that once seemed far apart (seemed like Nixon/McGovern - the first election in which I was politically aware, lasted for years whereas now, presidential elections feel too frequent).

As we get into this season, I'm reminded about how people are focused on getting what they want (nothing wrong with that) at the expense or a best ignorance of others (lots really wrong with this). There is irony that in this season of sharing, people become more focused on themselves.

It is with extreme relief that I step back and recognize that balance tends to win both on large and small scales. This is what our founding fathers intended for our system and this is what tends to regulate life in a way that eventually works out for many of us.

It has become obvious to me that power shifts readily in this country and that change itself is a tool that helps keep us from becoming single minded in our direction. The danger to the system are those that look to create a situation where change cannot not effect their cause.

Special interest groups based on business, religious ideology or social issues tend to push hard to set their agenda as being for the common good - in separate corners we might find 'Religion in public school", "Carbon credits" and "Clean Air" groups, pressing to win their issues (and funding them with ungodly amounts of money).

There will be many who disagree, but in my opinion, it is fortunate that these groups are subject to a system that changes - it keeps us from living in a land where school prayer is forced or where business is legislated without representation.

Don't get me wrong - I support some special interests - but in knowing that they live and die with my support - they are a market of sorts - they gain and lose based on a system of balance, a brother to the the invisible hand that regulates our economy - there is comfort in the physics of it all.

It is the same with our personal lives - if we each view ourselves as a special interest, we can recognize when pushing for the home team is a reasonable thing to do and when we need to subjugate to the better good - it is better when we come to that conclusion ourselves. It is even better when we realize that in most social situations others do not have to lose in order for us to win. At the same time, it is good that our governance is such that it is representative and that individual cannot always prevail.

An excellent article in the economist December 19 issue called "Direct Democracy: The tyranny of the majority" is worth a read (see the link below). I was thinking about the discussion above when I read this and it hit home that we do live in a republic - it is representative, not majority rule - another check and balance that our forefathers were visionary enough to put in place. Mind you, it doesn't always work - special interests can corrupt this, but special interests can corrupt any check and balance - the irony - and our salvation - is that competing interests in turn keep these at bay.

Happy New Year. Support the balance. Long live change.

http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15127600

Theo

Two weeks ago, while we were on vacation, we lost Theo, our Shetland Sheep dog (on the right, with Bessie, our Corgi on the right). Coming on the heels of Bessie's passing earlier this year, it's been a rough year for our family in this regard.

We had boarded him with our vets, because giving him medication had become difficult (and even dangerous) and the folks that would normally watch him were friends - it was too much to ask someone else to do. We were hand feeding him and he would stop breathing at times, however we had been able to revive him.

He didn't take well to unfamiliar circumstances and we knew there was a risk. We had discussed putting him to sleep a couple of times, but he still had lively moments, even though his breathing was labored from his enlarged heart.

We had a call from the vets indicating he wasn't eating and then during dinner, a call that he was in very bad shape and suffering - they could take extreme measures or put him to sleep. We took the latter. The three of us stepped out of the restaurant and cried. It was hard on our friend Lynn too, as we were out celebrating her birthday at the time.
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Theo, perhaps more than our other dogs, was dependent on us. He was an excellent dog - he maintained a very close relationship with each of us, through to the end - but especially Jen, who he would follow around. He always needed to be where she was.

He was shy at first with anyone, but after a period of tentative checking out, he became very warm. He always had a handsome mane, even when it was tangled and he loved to let it blow in the breeze. He had a propensity for barking at anything (we would joke that he would notice differently charged ions and bark at them).

He had a love for things cold and crunchy, especially veggies and fruit. Apples were favorites, as were watermelon and cucumbers - although he was an omnivore - eating anything and everything.

He had a myriad of nicknames. Bananaman. Fio. FiFi. Theeman. Handsome Man. Theo J. Fluffyman or Mr. Fluffyman (I recently wrote a song about him - "Blues for TJ"). Mr. Mr., The Big Man, Jumbo Shelty, His Majesty, Bunnyman. There are more, but you get the idea. He was the old man, but also the child and my single male counterpart in this house of women.

His early years found him chasing cats and barking and the later years barking and yes, a lot of sleeping. He had a penchant for air conditioning vents in the summer, given the winter coat he carried year around.

He was thirteen years old - a long life for a Shelty and a good one. We hope his final moments were short. We are relieved his labor and suffering have stopped. We are profoundly sad he is no longer in our lives - he is loved dearly and will be missed.

Riley is ready to rumble.

Those Titans better hide...

And what about our fellow humans?

Pretend for a minute that you have no political affiliation - not a Republican, not a Democrat - are just a human being.

Then ask yourself "What is the right thing to do? If a person is sick, should they be able to get medical attention? If they are pregnant?" - if your answer is "Yes", then you owe it to yourself to look at what the president is trying to accomplish.

If you don't agree with how it is proposed then look to change it - but not to stop it!

Taking care of one's fellow man is not Communist or Socialist or Nazi. As the only wealthy Democracy that doesn't do this, we are in a shameful place. As the wealthiest democracy in the world, we need to look at ourselves and know that we cannot ignore the problem anymore. We need to look beyond our own needs. People who are yelling about taxes being too high are only thinking of themselves. And it is not wrong to think of oneself, unless it is to the exclusion of others - which is what we are, in essence, nationally doing.

Having recently been hospitalized as a precaution (I had some chest pain which turned out to be muscular), I'm seeing how ridiculous the cost is: $11,000 for 16 hours in a hospital room, 1 xray and a stress test. That doesn't include doctors fees. Would I pay it for the assurance that I'm ok - yes - my cost is 10% and whatever overage the doctors will charge. If I didn't have insurance, I would either not get the treatment or pay this out of pocket. That is more than half of what poverty level workers make in a year.

The same people that are spreading fear about death boards who sentence Grandma to non-treatment are essentially actually sentencing a few million Grandma's to exactly that - if the effort fails, they will not be able to afford medical care. And yes - hospitals cannot turn people in crisis away, but if their life is not immediately in danger, they can be turned away. As we all know, emergency health care and health care are not the same - both are needed to keep a reasonable quality of life. It is not just for children (it is important that they are covered, but that's not the point. Everyone needs to be able to be covered).

Yes, the devil is in the details. We need to be involved. This cannot be a "let my congressman worry about it". But it also must be done. But for the grace of god, there go I. We owe it to our children and our parents, to our neighbors and our friends and to complete strangers alike. It is not entitlement - it is respect for human existence on a base level.

Write your Congressperson. Write your Senators. Ignore the rubbish that is coming out of the extreme media. Find the truth and spread it.

It seems to me that politics is no longer a game of representation. It has come down to a fight between two teams, to the death, to gain the upper hand, so the special interest money flows to the winner. Cynical? Yes. It is in this Arena that Mr. Obama finds himself fighting. He's not just fighting politicians, but big money. He is "Old Fashioned" - he is doing the right thing. It is important that we let our congresspersons and senators know that we know about their game - and if they don't reform insurance, don't reform healthcare - that we will need to replace them with someone who has the same old fashioned values - in the representation of the voting public. 

Live free or die...

Iran's Theocracy is working hard to blame the west for the protests, for the questioning of the vote. What I'd like to know is - why would we care? Do I want to see their Democratic process truly work - Yes! Do I care who is elected - no. I just care that they were elected fairly. But what I do care about is human rights and Iran's leadership is not showing the world what a charitable religion Islam can be. Instead, these dictators who are hiding under the shroud of democracy are forcing their will - like so many before, in every country on the planet. This is in the hands of the people of Iraq. The leaders need to understand that they lead, only because the public allows it. And they will either own up to it, or eventually see another revolution - not spurred by the west. Spurred by the right of every individual to live and think as the wish, as long as it doesn't harm others.

Today I read a short article that discusses how drug manufacturer Merck created their own medical journal to publish articles favorable to their products. FOX news routinely reports politically biased reports and conveys opinion as fact. If there is one danger with the internet and current media, it is this; That spin will be seen as fact due to exposure and frequency.

So how do wqe counteract this? Does creating more noise solve it? Perhaps, to some extent, getting fact out helps and using media that is willing to expose the lie, yes. But really, what needs to be done is harder than that. Americans need to be taught to understand how to research - how to get tot he facts, through the noise and they need to be motivated to do it. The people responsibile for this kind of deception largely count on a lazy and uncritical public.

It needs to start with our children and teach them how to discern. I've done this with my daughter, but it requires diligence and work and needs to be refreshed.

Hitler and the Nazi movement were masters of misinformation. They are an ultimate example of what can happen when we take biased material and present it as fact. Each bit of misinformation damages the truth, by making it seem like just another arguement in a sea of agruements. This is how evil gets it's way.

We will see in the coming months, attacks on facts regarding healthcare, business, fuel and other items related to the presidents agenda. We need to all do our part in educating our children, neighbors and friends regarding the myths. Businesses and political interests will pour millions into misinformation, to avoid losing the billions they currently recieve from the governement or in many cases, the lack of governement action. They will fight to defend the status quo. Change represents loss of revenue or loss of political advantage. We need to make sure that the truth is heard above their distraction and agenda's like healthcare for everyone be passed into law.

Time

Facebook, Orkut, Myspace, Email, Phone, IM - I have never had more ways to keep in contact - but face the same issues as we all do - time. I love to keep up with friends, but find it challenging timewise sometimes. 

What I need is a twitter device, hooked directly to my brain, where I could send and recive updates and do other stuff :) Ah well, to keep up with friends I will need to be single-tasking me and suck it up!

Social Responsibility

OK - so I’m going to bring it up again, because the president is about to take on healthcare. There are going to be special interests with huge media campaigns fighting him. But I urge everyone to consider why these interests feel so threatened - they will tell you that the government will decide your medical fate - that a politician will decide what doctors you see and who gets health care.

They will tell Doctors that they will lose income. They will warn you that your healthcare will be nationalized and subsequently suck - that it will be the worlds largest bureaucracy. They will tell you he is destroying the American dream, that hard work will no longer be able to allow one to “get ahead”. They will tell you that the system works and try to make every American think that the tax on big business is a tax on the everyday American. They will tell you the deficit will grow to a level that will drown our children. They will tell you it is socialism and communism. But it’s not. In fact, it is capitalism in it’s best light - working for the people.

The special interests? Banks. Insurance Companies. Big Oil. And the congress members that support them. Why? Because the president is planning on taking away the corporate windfall wealth that has been substituted for the care for the well being of the American people.

The truth? The deficit will go up, but it will be paid down. Insurance companies will have to compete for government business. It means that banks and student lenders would lose their taxpayer subsidies and require competition with each other to lend. Oil companies will lose their tax breaks. Competition for a tight dollar will keep costs reasonable. Competition is a basic principle of capitalism. These businesses know it will make them work harder. Conservative congressional Representatives and Senators see themselves losing corporate funding. Conservative state representatives, vested in the insurance industry see themselves losing revenue.

We must question true motives. The president doesn’t wish to spend money for the sake of it. His agenda is to improve our medicare system, to make insurance affordable (for both people and the businesses they work for), to increase revenues to pay for research into alternative energy and to make higher education more affordable and reachable.

These will strengthen the American dream, not undermine it. Because the dream is for all of us, not just a select few, not just the upper class, not just the middle class, but everyone. America is not a special interest. It is a diverse population, with many different ideas. Everyone needs to thrive for us to take advantage of it.

If everyone can eat, have a roof over their head, stay healthy and get an education, we can bring ourselves back into a relevant and competitive place in the world. Not only will our businesses thrive, but our people will too. Many other nations that are smaller, but more progressive, have already done this. It is time that we join them. This is how we sustain Democracy - through socially responsible capitalism - not through greed and special interest.

Party politics need to be put aside.

Congress - start thinking about the American people. Disagreements about what works? OK. then get experts together and have them work out the solution and then listen to them.

This has to be done without protectionism. My employer asks me to do my job in a way that plainly documents what I do. This allows anyone to eventually compete for my job. I keep my job because I perform well. You need to live by the same standard - and right now, congress (yes all of you) are not performing well.

It's not just money - programs that are there to help people need to genuinely do it. We need your work to be measured by the customer (that's constituent, not the lawmakers, not Federal or State executives). Because in the end, if the mortgage program does not keep people sheltered, if unemployment insurance does not get to the unemployed, if food or medical attention does not get to those that need it, in the proper time, then the programs are not doing what they need to do.

Stop screwing around. People are getting hurt. People are losing homes. People are starving.

Martin Luther King

I saw a newspaper article today asking if Martin Luther King’s vision had been achieved. They polled different ethnicities and 2/3 of African Americans felt it had and a smaller percentage of whites felt it had. But I think we need to face it – Martin Luther Kings vision was not just for black people. It was for all people.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."…

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!" – MLK, 8/28/1963

We’re getting there. We have traveled very far since 1963 and we are better for it. We have achieved milestones along the way, including the election of Barak Obama. But when we need to ask “are we there?” we have to know we are not – when we get there, we will not be asking ourselves have we made it. We won’t recall that it is an issue we need to deal with. Our interaction with each other will be free of discrimination.

There is discrimination in many facets of our society – between classes, in politics, in ideology, in religion. Until our society can stop celebrating difference as a way to exclude, we cannot be there.

• We saw it recently in the form of discrimination against those who felt the war in Iraq was unjust.
• We see it in the saving of the middle class as a cause worth pursuing, but continue in ignorance or apathy in regard to of the plight of our own poor.
• We see discrimination in vilification of the wealthy as well.
• Some discriminate based on skin color still.
• Some discriminate on Religion (or a choice to forgo it – just look at Liz Dole’s attack against her political opponent, calling her an Atheist. )

In 2009, race is much less of an issue for us. Hallelujah! That deserves recognition. Let’s keep going. Let’s learn how we can unify through the idea of not only tolerance, but acceptance that others are different. Let’s celebrate difference as everyman’s privilege to be unique, to choose, to eat, with the understanding and caveat that personal belief should not be forced on others and shared only when invited.

I have a dream…
http://www.usconstitution.net/dream.html