Health Care Debate

It's not about health care.  It's about Insurance companies and their contributions to our elected representatives. The focus of even the ACA centers on the behaviour of health insurance companies and what they may do and not do.  As a secondary by product, some considerations looks at physicians and hospitals.  Actual health care and it's cost receives only inor attention as I see it.  

The real pre-existing condition which few have talked about is the Health Insurance business model with which we aflict ourselves.  And, as a total non-sequitur,  the free market does not exist in this area.  The health insurance companies have a monopoly.   

Nancy Pelosi put on her less than subtle hobnailed boots and told the republican side of the isle that the latest non-OBAMA bill would mark their forheads with something like day glow paint.  That republicans would suffer in the mid-terms.  I should live so long. 

Why doesn't the lady's pronouncment work?   The folk on the left most likely to suffer at the republican handiwork have a known lack of patriotism, gumption, or  motivation.  I refer of course to the urban poor whho suffer from the structural iniquities which the system and their subculture imposes on them.  The rural poor,often come from Scots-irish origins.  Their ancesters survived Appalachia.  Their ultra Calvanist  God / culture requires them to avoid charity as a mark of moral weakness.  That same Their origins on the border lands between Scotland and England  instilled in them a willingness to fight against anything oppresive / English.  And, that include government intervention in their personal lives.  

As you might suspect, I resnet these folk.  I wold not so much if they would confine themselves to hanbdling thier snakes and mis-reading this Authorized King James.   But they also, unlike the urban poor feel compeled to vote.  This, despite the fact that they know less about the work than last night plucked chicken. 

The only way I know how to show them any sort of respect at all is to avoid as much contact as possible with themn.

Plant Boon Doggle

Westinghouse goes boom:  Like Bankrupt.  

Two Problems

1. The design technology dates from the late 50's or early 60's.  A number of ways of building nuclear devices which will geneate electricity have come along in the meantime.   I have seen this documented on NOVA.  I would supply a link, but the NOVA web site asks so many questions that I can't make my way through it.    But I testify that I have seen it. 
2. The seconed issue deals with the likely hood that when Southeren Company and Georgia power have to eat the costs of thier bad judgment, the Public Service Commission will allow them to pass the cost along to us.  
3. God forbid that the lunk heads on the boards and share holders should forgo their new cars, furs, and jewelry just becuase they made stupid mistakes.  We, the small fry, esist to bear any burden pay any price ... etc. 

 

That Was Then This Is Still Then

Some time ago, it became clear that FDR won in 1932 as a result of a fairly even distribution of people in small towns, villages, and famrs. They shared the burdens of the depression in a similar way.  Their situations resembled each other by and large. 

Urbanization has rapidly moved people into suburbs and large metropolitan areas.  Mechanization and industrialization of farming and food production has reduced the population of farmers to less than ten percent of the overall population.  Among other results, we raise urban children who do not know that chocolate milk does not come from chocolate cows.  

Chocolate cows may sound trivial, but it points to a real and larger issue.  That issue is the disconnect in conscious and cultural framework between those who live in urban, suburban and rural settings.  

I confess to having this disconnect.  A part of me understand the desire of some to live in a rural setting.  Such a setting might permit a person to concentrate on rasing and loving a family.  That setting offers the opportunity to connect deeply with nature and develop self-suffency and enhanced self-efficacy.       

Now, a person can also do this in urban and suburban settings, but this writing seeks to focus on the lack of understanding between the people in the different setting.  Could this lack of understnding have slowly crept into the fabrci of our nation over time as we rushed through the depression, two hot  wars, a cold war, a a resurgence of once  beleaguered  now challenging the Amnerican hegemony in the market place.  

None of this is easy or pleast stuff to grasp.  The human spirit shys away from the hard work that lies ahead.   But, accept this new rality we must, if the best priciples of our founders are to prevail.

America, as the shining city on a hill cannot shine and embrace chauvinism, demagoguery, and selfishness at the same time.  We must embrace communicably and individually slef discipline and enlightened self interest.    We must frequently spend a period of time reflecting on what these characteristics of slef discipline and enlightened self interest means in any given situation. 

Again and again

Have the "trumpets" *  pushed us †   into another reactionary place?  I wonder. 

I lived, as a child, through the beginnins of the Cold War, H. U. A., C., Joe Mc Carthy, and a bat shit crazy aunt. I learned to think nimbly and practice dissimulation dn evasion.  The aunt  could not listen to another point of view.  She had to be right. 

The aunt was my father's sister. The last of five children.   Shortly after her birth instability attacked the family.   The family spoiled her.  She was quite attractive.  She spent her life waiting tables and running a rooming house with my grandmother.  I believe she possessed much intelegence.  She lacked direction. ‡

My cut on this says she never accepted reality fully.  Her expectations from being spoiled exceeded any  realistic point.   She failed to go beyond high school.  And, she could not understand why she didn't have more. 

My aunt consoled herself with reactionary fixations.  These played out in the usual way.  She followed many bizare  fads.  And, she vituperated vitriolically against the usual minority groups.   

From my perspective, trumpets behave in this way.  

We ±do have issues and  even threats.   That is not the question.  The question focuses on the degree of impact and the better way to address it.


* Trump supporters
† USA citizens
‡ How much of this comes from my own projection?  You can find out if you pay the theray bill.

± op cit

Thoughts on a State Department

Start with Ben Gazi.  Descisions dealing with the number of military assigned to an embassy most likly fall into the hands of  a high level career civil servant.  Does a Secretary Of State actually concern themselves with such.  

So why roast Hillary?  
Because they like to. 


Do career diplomats always get it right?  No, not always do they get it right. 
Could an international businessman do something different?  Could those international business contacts acumulated over a thirty year career serve the needs of  this country?  It seems possible.   


So, comes the word that numbers of seior level civil service specialists in the State Department have resigned.  It also seems likely  that many of them might not want to serve under the Trump administration.  But, also maybe the time has come to go do something else.  With such policy experience in one resume, an academic post or work in a private think tank could slo prove attractive.

So, do these resignations  -- head count not available as of this writing -- mean anything other than just the normal run of things?  Only Hannibal Lector knows for sure.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2017/01/26/the-state-departments-entire-senior-management-team-just-resigned/?utm_term=.f0c3e34778f7

How to denude the worlds forests

Logging!  

It threatens to denude the Tropical Rain Forrests of  South America, Africa and Asia. 

Keep it up. 

 I've got a fix. 

We build Trump frames.  And, on these frames, we grow kudzoo and that invasive fern species taking over Florida'S swamps.*  

The resulting vegetation will do what tree huggers allege that the trees do.

Tree hugger research demonstrates that vines, ferns, and non-tree plants process more carbon dioxide than the much vaughented tree canopy.†

*  The plant has yet to swamp  the good o'l boys  in Tallahassee.
†  This is a fact, whether you like it or not.

Once Upon A Time

Once Upon A Time
Future Schock and two Third Waves 

-- or is it reverse, never mind --

predicted that automation / robots would put a lot of folk out of work.   At that time, off shoring and environmental degradation stood far off if at all in our consciousness. 

We, the people, failed to address the imponderables.  
We continued to let the Good Times roll.  
Or, later on, we rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic. 

Or did we fail?   We must ask if we can save all? 
Do too many  indulge themselves in victim hood and take their expectations from that chorus piece from the Stage Musical Li'l Aber:  "When the idle poor become the idle rich...".