Eminent Domain. The power to take private property for public use by a state, municipality, or private person or corporation authorized to exercise functions of public character.
If you google that, there are multiple examples of lawsuits by landowners, large landowners, businessmen that are in the middle of fighting eminent domain lawsuits. Whatever "public good" was expected to occur when the current owners had their property taken is on hold.
Eminent domain is not just used for taking property to place prisons or jails, schools, county hospitals, or parks, it is also used if a wealthy corporation decides to talk the local politicals into a project that will increase property taxes, attract tourists, make the area prettier. No one ever mentions that it will also make the wealthy corporation buttloads of money, also.
While prominent businessmen, large landowners, and large groups of uppermiddle class residents can hire someone to squash such ventures, the poorer communities are frequently just walked all over.
We call that gentrification.
As in "Anti-Robin Hood". Steal from the poor and give to the rich.
I realize that when an area looks poor, is full of liquor stores and crappy apartments, empty buildings, and dollar stores, it does not bring in big revenue. Poor people don't have big revenue. But, they have to live somewhere. Getting rid of every place that they call home doesn't make them middle class, it makes them homeless.
I have read in a few books where the poor in feudal times were called little people (not at all the same as fairies, gnomes and brownies).
I have heard those few rich and powerful families referred to as "giants among men."
As a regular human, every time I walk outside, I may--or may not be squashing ants and other bugs. The front of my car proves that I kill much more than ants every time I drive, but especially at night when they are attracted to my headlights. If I glance at the side of the road, I realize that our vehicles create a lot of roadkill, also.
And most of us never think about that at all.
I think those "giants among men" do a lot of that to the "little people". "Well, what was I supposed to do, they were in my way." "They breed like cockroaches, they won't even be missed." "I am doing important work here, what are they doing."
Well, they were living their lives. AND, they weren't easy lives....some of us humans have multiple houses, the best-of-the-best food, never have to worry about their children longer than it takes to call a lawyer or the Doctor on speed-dial, never have to worry about the electricity being off longer than it takes the generator to kick on during the storm. BUT, a lot of us have a certain familiarity with the basic needs---pay the bills on time, how to prioritize the use of the money coming in so that A) everyone eats, B) The rent or mortgage is paid, C)The Utilities stay on, D) the car is not repossessed, E) everyone has the clothes they need to not be suspended from school, not be sent home from work, and not freeze in winter or burn in summer.
There are plenty of "little people" that screw up periodically and miss a beat that causes them some problems: the woman that thinks that better clothes will get her that better job, then finds it doesn't pay her more and now the kids school clothes are too tight and---inappropriate. The family that does everything right till the baby gets sick and mom or dad has to stay at home for a week. IF they knew about FMLA AND did the paperwork, the jobs are still there, but the pay is not guaranteed and now something has to give---will it be the food? the rent? or the utilities. They ride the bus, so nothing to cut their, but also, not much saved while off work not riding. Hopefully the landlord will understand, the rent being late is least likely to make a sick kid worse.
Little lives can be dangerous lives. Fraught with hard choices that those giants among men never have to face. Some of the small things can be a mom or dad that works in health care or was in the military choosing to make butterflies to hold a wound shut that obviously needed stitches. Or throwing a child in a cool bath when their temp spikes to 105 degrees F--to avoid a copay to the ER that is bigger than they have. Choices like feeding the family nothing but processed foods known to cause cancer because the fresh food is too high for the budget. Choices like living in a car when they have to choose between the job and the rent.
Life is full of choices for the "little people".
But rarely full of the kinds of choices that they want to make.
If you ask a 12 year old whether they would rather be the CEO of the bank or the Teller, they aren't dumb, they say CEO. But in the next 6 years, when they should be preparing for their future, they are doing what middle school and high school students have done for generations in public school. They are trying to get the classes they want--based on how easy it is and whether their friends are in it. We have a lot of AP classes anymore, and by 3rd grade, kids in small communities know who in their class will be taking those AP classes and who will be stagnating in boring, minimally helpful classes that have them memorizing pointless facts, filling out worksheets, reading the state approved books (or finding a good report on Google), trying to figure out the new math---and there is always a new math, because how else do you sell all those textbooks on a subject that is set in stone and never needs an upgrade--except maybe to make it less white bread in the story problems.
Most kids like school till third grade. Then, we stop worrying about everyone's self-esteem and start trying to push all the kids into the mold that will build the future workers of America.
We are currently all about STEM or STEAM, depending on whether or not they put art in there to make the name look more recognizable.
But, do we really need an entire population of scientists, technologists, engineers and Mathematics?
Reality is, most of those giants among men, don't want the little people getting any closer to their STEAM moneymakers than clerical work, data entry, and working in the warehouse once they get their next little widget made to sell.
We aren't trying to turn everyone into scientists and mathematicians, we are trying to identify talent early and the rest of them are welcome to go right back to being C students that can apprentice to their plumber father and carry on with their lives.
Maybe, we should start helping all the children of the "little people" identify their special talents and aptitudes and then help them hone those for their entire public school life. Let the musical focus on music and the person with great fine motor skills focus on things that use that.
Let us all, even us little people, live our lives to our best ability, using our strengths for our own success and enjoyment instead of having a government that is busy trying to help the giants groom us for their own business success.
Once upon a time, the lord of the manor would ride out, see a 12 year old girl that looked like she would be a nice addition to the manors servant quarters, and there she would go--her life no longer her own. Or see a big strong 10 year old boy, grab him up and apprentice him to the blacksmith. It didn't matter what they wanted, it didn't matter if they had dreams.
Because the dreams of ants don't matter. Their lives are short and meaningless to those that can't see that small.
Don't misunderstand, I would have loved the STEAM program when I was a child, but we had 2 tracks, college and vocational. For the girls that was further narrowed into---girls to college for teaching or nursing, and girls to secretarial or home economics.
Boys were great athletes to college, nerd boys to college, and all the other boys to shop class.
We haven't changed much. We kill the love for school for many children by third grade. That is a sign that school is not for the good of the children. Right now we have laws requiring IEP's for "special children". It's time that all children were special. Unfortunately, we don't really like to pay for educating the children of "the little people" unless we can mark it off as a business expense.
Just remember, ANTS ARE PEOPLE TOO!
Tuesday, October 2, 2018
Saturday, September 15, 2018
That won't work.
"THAT WON'T WORK"
If you have ever said that about anything, and there is plenty our there that that can be said about, but if you have ever said that about, say, Universal Healthcare, or free college education or clean energy, then you need to ask yourself three questions.
1. Who told me that will never work.
2. Why do I believe that will never work.
3. Why are all three things occurring successfully in other countries.
Tough questions.
We have all said things won't work that did.
My grandfather believed so strongly that men going to the moon would not and could not happen that he hooked it to his belief in God. He died before we made it to the moon, so no crisis of faith there.
Gave his children pause, though.
Leonardo DaVinci drew many things that would never work, like helicopters and such.
The Telegraph, Telephone and Television were all three pipedreams at one time.
Women as voting, thinking, productive (not talking babies here) members of society was at one time an absolutely ridiculous set of ideas.
A non-white, non-male ruler has been a "won't work" repeatedly, but has now happened successfully all over the world---repeatedly.
Educating poor people, laborers children, farmers children, girls, etc., etc., etc., has been seen as pure foolishness.
So, right now, if you are calling the idea of everyone having equal access to healthcare something that won't work---why? Why can't we do what those other countries are doing.
Last thing, but far from least, is clean energy.
This one really freaks me out a little.
We, especially in Oil-rich states like mine, but also in those with lots of coal mines, are so loyal to fossil fuels we can't even consider doing something better. We call Natural gas "clean" because it is a clear gas, but the air contamination of burning it is little if any better than oil or coal. And the possibility of leaks; of gas, of pipelines, of coal ash disposal sites, is huge.
I realize that tobacco farmers denied smoking was bad for people, self-preservation and all, but denial will never make fossil fuels clean anymore than denial will prevent cancer and heart disease.
We know how to eliminate most of this, how to change to clean energy that will be cheaper---and there in lies the problem. Cheaper is not the energy folks goal. Profit is and always has been the goal.
Dirty energy is big money.
Expensive school is also big money.
Private healthcare is big money.
People enjoying the benefits of having those three industries stay full of money, full of profit, expensive, will never, ever say, we can do this better, cheaper, faster.
And as long as their money is lobbying our lawmakers and supporting those superpacs, they will keep staying fat and inefficient while not benefiting those of us that need them most.
Maybe its time to change "that won't work" to "Let's do this for us all".
It's actually past time.
If you have ever said that about anything, and there is plenty our there that that can be said about, but if you have ever said that about, say, Universal Healthcare, or free college education or clean energy, then you need to ask yourself three questions.
1. Who told me that will never work.
2. Why do I believe that will never work.
3. Why are all three things occurring successfully in other countries.
Tough questions.
We have all said things won't work that did.
My grandfather believed so strongly that men going to the moon would not and could not happen that he hooked it to his belief in God. He died before we made it to the moon, so no crisis of faith there.
Gave his children pause, though.
Leonardo DaVinci drew many things that would never work, like helicopters and such.
The Telegraph, Telephone and Television were all three pipedreams at one time.
Women as voting, thinking, productive (not talking babies here) members of society was at one time an absolutely ridiculous set of ideas.
A non-white, non-male ruler has been a "won't work" repeatedly, but has now happened successfully all over the world---repeatedly.
Educating poor people, laborers children, farmers children, girls, etc., etc., etc., has been seen as pure foolishness.
So, right now, if you are calling the idea of everyone having equal access to healthcare something that won't work---why? Why can't we do what those other countries are doing.
These green countries have done it. Some for over 70 years. Besides ourselves, we are in the company of some of the poorest, most unstable, least safe countries in the world.
Why can't we join the free world on Healthcare.
Next is free public college education.
Once upon a time, there was no public education at any level. The idea of letting everyone spend time learning to read and write and do arithmetic was ridiculous. Most of the people would never be anything but general laborers, farm hands, maids, and cooks, and blacksmiths and barrel makers. No one really wanted to take those children out of the workforce, and yes, they were working by 7, maybe at the family business, maybe in the coal mine or on the land owners farm or in town for the wealthy households providing maid service and livery service and go-fer service. Why teach them to read and write and do arithmetic.
But we did, and it helped many people NOT have to spend their lives in menial jobs that wore them down and bored them mentally and convinced them life was hopeless. Don't get me wrong. There are people that love service work. They feel fulfilled when they are making someone's life run smoothly and look beautiful. But, if you can't choose not to live that life, can anyone say you DID choose to live that life?
Everyone wants choices, they want to dream and not have those dreams crushed by accident of birth.
For a lot of people, the choice of college is never seen as an option, they are too busy trying to survive childhood, and know that no one can pay for their college. But, if they knew they could go if they just made the grades???? How many lives would that change. How many hopeless poor kids would dream bigger and work harder in school. In cities with free community college to students from that city, enrollment increases by over 10%. It's not Scandanavia. Students still need some source of funds for living while they are in school and there is no telling how many can't go due to needing to work fulltime to find a place to live and eat. I do know that our minimum wage jobs are not going to help students out much. And poor parents can't always afford to keep feeding and housing children after high school graduation. It may take several generations to stop the "crab in a bucket" mentality of poor parents that couldn't go to college, that now don't see themselves as needing to help their own children in college when they are still struggling daily to survive.
The following is a table of college affordability rankings by country. It is not a world map. But we are far from the top. Our income inequality makes this a very tough price for our poor to lower middle class.
Last thing, but far from least, is clean energy.
This one really freaks me out a little.
We, especially in Oil-rich states like mine, but also in those with lots of coal mines, are so loyal to fossil fuels we can't even consider doing something better. We call Natural gas "clean" because it is a clear gas, but the air contamination of burning it is little if any better than oil or coal. And the possibility of leaks; of gas, of pipelines, of coal ash disposal sites, is huge.
I realize that tobacco farmers denied smoking was bad for people, self-preservation and all, but denial will never make fossil fuels clean anymore than denial will prevent cancer and heart disease.
We know how to eliminate most of this, how to change to clean energy that will be cheaper---and there in lies the problem. Cheaper is not the energy folks goal. Profit is and always has been the goal.
Dirty energy is big money.
Expensive school is also big money.
Private healthcare is big money.
People enjoying the benefits of having those three industries stay full of money, full of profit, expensive, will never, ever say, we can do this better, cheaper, faster.
And as long as their money is lobbying our lawmakers and supporting those superpacs, they will keep staying fat and inefficient while not benefiting those of us that need them most.
Maybe its time to change "that won't work" to "Let's do this for us all".
It's actually past time.
Thursday, September 13, 2018
Dear President Donald.
Trump Administration Transferred $9.8 Million From FEMA To ICE.
That is a headline from an Article on NPR.
It is an item being reported by most other news reporting bodies as well.
"They" needed more money to handle the asylum seekers that were entering the country illegally.
To "process" them. and "house" them.
This occurred with not one but three potential hurricanes approaching land that is part of the USA: the east coast, the Gulf of Mexico, and Hawaii (another island--don't forget the 3 thousand plus that have died in in Puerto Rico because, you know, water all the way around it--of course, most of them died because of the hurricane, but when it first hit, that number was 60ish, the rest died of our own failure to rescue them from the aftermath of a destroyed infrastructure and no food/water/medical supplies actually getting where it needed to go.
Of course, most Puerto Ricans are a) poor and b) brown. Not exactly your supporters. And definitely not your kind of people, if they weren't already US citizens, you would be building a wall around them.
But, how is the money for the disaster relief of US citizens a slush fund for a personal prejudice against asylum seekers.
If you really want to fix our immigration problem, stop all immigration.
All of it.
No one from another country comes in, no one goes out. No more of this bringing in the well-educated or monied people from other countries---they are just taking up our jobs and our houses and our AIR. They can stay where they are and fix their own homeland to be more like the USA if they like our country so much.
We can pull all our soldiers back, line them up across the southern and northern borders with automatic weapons, but about 50 yards back, and they just shoot anyone that crosses that line.
The other side is welcome to get 50 yards back from their side also with their own soldiers in case anyone is crazy enough to try to go to their side---because no one ever tried to go to Mexico or Canada to seek asylum--and anyone in that vvvveeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyy wide football field across both borders is target practice.
Of course, we just, kind of declared WAR against Mexico and Canada, but our soldiers will not go out of the country ever again----and they will always know what they are protecting.
I do believe that trade with all other countries will need to end at that point. We won't be importing or exporting to our neighbors with this going on since you don't enjoy a secure and safe business relationship with countries you are at war with.
But what if Canadians or worse, Mexicans, travel to a place that we allow to send ships or planes with merchandise from and ride in that way.
That won't do, we can't risk those people coming into our country that way either, so no more imports of any kind.
And, if we don't buy their stuff, they are most likely not going to want to buy our stuff.
Even if they still want our stuff, we can't risk those ships and planes returning with hidden Mexicans and Canadians on board.
The downside, Mr President, is all those countries with your hotels and casinos and golf courses might decide that Americans can't own property in their countries.
You will never be able to play golf anywhere but the USA.
And, you better be nice to Melania once the border is closed, no replacements coming in after that.
I mean, if we had done this in in 1880, we wouldn't have you over here either.
Where is that time machine when you need it.
That is a headline from an Article on NPR.
It is an item being reported by most other news reporting bodies as well.
"They" needed more money to handle the asylum seekers that were entering the country illegally.
To "process" them. and "house" them.
This occurred with not one but three potential hurricanes approaching land that is part of the USA: the east coast, the Gulf of Mexico, and Hawaii (another island--don't forget the 3 thousand plus that have died in in Puerto Rico because, you know, water all the way around it--of course, most of them died because of the hurricane, but when it first hit, that number was 60ish, the rest died of our own failure to rescue them from the aftermath of a destroyed infrastructure and no food/water/medical supplies actually getting where it needed to go.
Of course, most Puerto Ricans are a) poor and b) brown. Not exactly your supporters. And definitely not your kind of people, if they weren't already US citizens, you would be building a wall around them.
But, how is the money for the disaster relief of US citizens a slush fund for a personal prejudice against asylum seekers.
If you really want to fix our immigration problem, stop all immigration.
All of it.
No one from another country comes in, no one goes out. No more of this bringing in the well-educated or monied people from other countries---they are just taking up our jobs and our houses and our AIR. They can stay where they are and fix their own homeland to be more like the USA if they like our country so much.
We can pull all our soldiers back, line them up across the southern and northern borders with automatic weapons, but about 50 yards back, and they just shoot anyone that crosses that line.
The other side is welcome to get 50 yards back from their side also with their own soldiers in case anyone is crazy enough to try to go to their side---because no one ever tried to go to Mexico or Canada to seek asylum--and anyone in that vvvveeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyy wide football field across both borders is target practice.
Of course, we just, kind of declared WAR against Mexico and Canada, but our soldiers will not go out of the country ever again----and they will always know what they are protecting.
I do believe that trade with all other countries will need to end at that point. We won't be importing or exporting to our neighbors with this going on since you don't enjoy a secure and safe business relationship with countries you are at war with.
But what if Canadians or worse, Mexicans, travel to a place that we allow to send ships or planes with merchandise from and ride in that way.
That won't do, we can't risk those people coming into our country that way either, so no more imports of any kind.
And, if we don't buy their stuff, they are most likely not going to want to buy our stuff.
Even if they still want our stuff, we can't risk those ships and planes returning with hidden Mexicans and Canadians on board.
The downside, Mr President, is all those countries with your hotels and casinos and golf courses might decide that Americans can't own property in their countries.
You will never be able to play golf anywhere but the USA.
And, you better be nice to Melania once the border is closed, no replacements coming in after that.
I mean, if we had done this in in 1880, we wouldn't have you over here either.
Where is that time machine when you need it.
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
An addiction to winning.
Florida had another mass shooting.
An angry gamer just shot last years winner, and some other gamers.
Why?
Why!!!
We, in the USA, have created a world in which it is more important for our children to WIN, to be WINNERS, than it is for them to be happy, healthy, and comfortable in their own skins.
We have fathers that push their kids to play football, forget about that sissy brain injury stuff, "be a real man".
And sons, raised by those same fathers, not only buy into the idea of risking their brains, their future, for high school sports and winning, but then turn around and push their own sons in the very same way.
Because, Football players are winners.
No one brags about losing while playing football.
No one brags about losing at any team sport.
Because, currently, team sports are all about beating someone else's butt.
It is possible to play individual sports competing only against yourself, but then we wouldn't have all these competition and Olympics and events if it wasn't still about beating someone else's butt.
Sports are not the only thing that we in the USA enjoy competing in. We compete in Music, Acting, Dancing, Painting, Cooking, even eating.
But our big competition is the game of life--and the winners are announced by Forbes once a year.
Money is the big competition.
Are you smart enough, hard enough, greedy enough to win at life?
Small towns have their own variation of it, since few of them can compete with the big dogs. They have the biggest farm, biggest house, nicest car, name on most city buildings. Drive through most places and you can name their biggest winners just riding though the town.
A wealthy person once told me that she didn't think that wealthy people should be taxed as much, so they can give to their favorite charities and the high taxes decrease the amount they can give.
All I could say was that poor people want to give to their favorite charities also---even if it won't be enough to get their name on the building. To her, I obviously wasn't even supposed to be playing her game.
Am I angry because I'm not rich?
No.
I am angry because I'm discounted for not being rich.
Am I angry because I'm not a winner?
What a ridiculous concept.
What even is a "winner".
But the idea that "winning" is actually an addiction, that was a recent insight.
Addiction may involve the use of substances such as alcohol, inhalants , opioids , cocaine , nicotine , and others, or behaviors such as gambling; there is scientific evidence that the addictive substances and behaviors share a key neurobiological feature—they intensely activate brain pathways of reward and reinforcement, many of which involve the neurotransmitter dopamine . Both substance use disorders and gambling behaviors have an increased likelihood of being accompanied by mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety or other pre-existing problems. "activate brain pathways of reward and reinforcement" Nothing on earth does that like winning does it for some people. Me, I'm more prone to wine and chocolate, but mostly because I don't like the feeling that I made someone else feel like a loser. I've felt like a loser. When we tell someone to "get back on the horse, don't wait" they are basically telling them to not let that loser feeling turn into an aversion you can't shake. When we compete with others, we are agreeing to be judged according to someone else's standards and then placed into categories according to those doing the judging's judgement regarding those other people's rules. Every time I see a parent whack their kid in the back of the head when he or she misses a ball, give them the evil eye when they don't even place, or tell them "maybe this sport just isn't for you" when it was obvious they had fun, they just were average; I want to scream "Leave them alone" "This isn't even about you" But it is, because now that they are too old to win at their sport, they can only win if their offspring is winning. Did you know there is a gene for grip strength?, for being a warrior vs being a strategist? How about for fast twitch muscle fiber? How about for perfect pitch, academic achievement, reaction time and episodic memory. All of those exist, but those without them are not losers, they have their own genes and those genes helped them to survive just like the others did. The fast twitch muscle fiber is common in elite athletes, but unless both parents are homozygous for it, the kids are not that likely to get it too. And, a gene does not mean that a kid will not prefer reading too sports. AND, why do we place so much importance on sports?!? Because we like winners. When you have kids getting ready for college, the high school is all about getting their athletes to college, they want to get those good students that competed in debate and competed in science fair and tech and computer all in the colleges. But what about the students that just made consistently good grades, went through school basically invisible. Are they losers? Have they already been determined to be losers, NOT winners based on nothing more than they didn't compete. We have millions of things created by barely known people and then mass produced by totally anonymous people. Does that mean the woman that sewed my favorite blue jeans is a loser? How about all those stunt doubles in the movies, most of us not only wouldn't recognize their faces, we wouldn't recognize their name, because they are listed in fine print at the end of the credits. Those movies would not be the same without them. Are they losers? We have people like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, both are as famous as can be, they were evil incarnate, the fodder of multiple books and movies and copy cats. ARE THEY WINNERS? I think I would remove all references to winning from childrens' lives. We talk about competition and winning like it is just part of life, but is it really? Or did we just make it part of life. If one child loves playing ball and one loves painting, aren't both having a great time. If one child runs fast and one child runs slow, aren't they both getting their exercise? If one child remembers everything they see and one learns to categorize everything so he/she can remember, aren't they both learning? Are we so tribal, so focused on war, so determined to not create a world better than our hunter/gatherer ancestors, that we can't learn to value everyone for being who they are? Most of us like winning an occasional game of checkers or a ribbon for our jelly at the county fair, a little recognition of doing a good job, but can we not treat those that didn't win like losers? And we do make people feel bad for not being the best. Pretty soon, enough years of being treated like an extra in your own life will cause the person to start feeling pretty replaceable, unimportant, worthless. It is my theory, and I have some good but anecdotal evidence, that addictions are are things we start for the purpose of coping, and then continue because they make us feel like we are better. Sometimes, they make us feel like we are better when we are really getting worse. Sometimes, others can see what is really happening better than we can. And just like the alcoholic blames other people for his own inability to keep drinking AND maintain his work standards and family duties and interpersonal relationships, the "Winner" blames others every time he/she does not win, it is never the fault of the "winner" because "winners" are always the best. Their have been plenty of people addicted to winning. When I was a kid, their were neighbors always trying to keep up with the Jones', but our Jones' were not named Jones. When a fancier car or mailbox or sofa appeared at the home of the Jones's not named Jones, the others in the neighborhood would suddenly start having similar cars or mailboxes or furniture store vans appear. Amazingly, there were also those that didn't even try to compete, usually older, perhaps wiser, or maybe they had already seen that particular cycle come through too many times. We currently have a President with an addiction to winning. Because he routinely refers to himself as a winner and everyone who disagrees with him is a loser. He is older, but apparently he is also hooked through the nose, as they used to say about those old coke addicts. Perhaps it is time to examine our motives for continuous one-upmanship. Am I trying to be the best of the best of the best? Am I trying to be better than those around me? Am I trying to be better than I used to be? That isn't a terrible goal as long as I'm being honest about who I'm competing with. Am I trying to be good? Good. No comparatives. No competition with anyone else. But such a hard goal. Hard for toddlers and hard for teens, hard for parents and hard for old codgers. Today, I'm going to be a good person, feel free to join me. No winners will be announced tonight. It will be goodness for goodness' sake.
An angry gamer just shot last years winner, and some other gamers.
Why?
Why!!!
We, in the USA, have created a world in which it is more important for our children to WIN, to be WINNERS, than it is for them to be happy, healthy, and comfortable in their own skins.
We have fathers that push their kids to play football, forget about that sissy brain injury stuff, "be a real man".
And sons, raised by those same fathers, not only buy into the idea of risking their brains, their future, for high school sports and winning, but then turn around and push their own sons in the very same way.
Because, Football players are winners.
No one brags about losing while playing football.
No one brags about losing at any team sport.
Because, currently, team sports are all about beating someone else's butt.
It is possible to play individual sports competing only against yourself, but then we wouldn't have all these competition and Olympics and events if it wasn't still about beating someone else's butt.
Sports are not the only thing that we in the USA enjoy competing in. We compete in Music, Acting, Dancing, Painting, Cooking, even eating.
But our big competition is the game of life--and the winners are announced by Forbes once a year.
Money is the big competition.
Are you smart enough, hard enough, greedy enough to win at life?
Small towns have their own variation of it, since few of them can compete with the big dogs. They have the biggest farm, biggest house, nicest car, name on most city buildings. Drive through most places and you can name their biggest winners just riding though the town.
A wealthy person once told me that she didn't think that wealthy people should be taxed as much, so they can give to their favorite charities and the high taxes decrease the amount they can give.
All I could say was that poor people want to give to their favorite charities also---even if it won't be enough to get their name on the building. To her, I obviously wasn't even supposed to be playing her game.
Am I angry because I'm not rich?
No.
I am angry because I'm discounted for not being rich.
Am I angry because I'm not a winner?
What a ridiculous concept.
What even is a "winner".
Definition of winner
: one that wins: such as
a
: one that is successful especially through praiseworthy ability and hard work
b
: a victor especially in games and sports
c
: one that wins admiration
d
: a shot in a court game that is not returned and that scores for the player making it.
But the idea that "winning" is actually an addiction, that was a recent insight.
Addiction may involve the use of substances such as alcohol, inhalants , opioids , cocaine , nicotine , and others, or behaviors such as gambling; there is scientific evidence that the addictive substances and behaviors share a key neurobiological feature—they intensely activate brain pathways of reward and reinforcement, many of which involve the neurotransmitter dopamine . Both substance use disorders and gambling behaviors have an increased likelihood of being accompanied by mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety or other pre-existing problems. "activate brain pathways of reward and reinforcement" Nothing on earth does that like winning does it for some people. Me, I'm more prone to wine and chocolate, but mostly because I don't like the feeling that I made someone else feel like a loser. I've felt like a loser. When we tell someone to "get back on the horse, don't wait" they are basically telling them to not let that loser feeling turn into an aversion you can't shake. When we compete with others, we are agreeing to be judged according to someone else's standards and then placed into categories according to those doing the judging's judgement regarding those other people's rules. Every time I see a parent whack their kid in the back of the head when he or she misses a ball, give them the evil eye when they don't even place, or tell them "maybe this sport just isn't for you" when it was obvious they had fun, they just were average; I want to scream "Leave them alone" "This isn't even about you" But it is, because now that they are too old to win at their sport, they can only win if their offspring is winning. Did you know there is a gene for grip strength?, for being a warrior vs being a strategist? How about for fast twitch muscle fiber? How about for perfect pitch, academic achievement, reaction time and episodic memory. All of those exist, but those without them are not losers, they have their own genes and those genes helped them to survive just like the others did. The fast twitch muscle fiber is common in elite athletes, but unless both parents are homozygous for it, the kids are not that likely to get it too. And, a gene does not mean that a kid will not prefer reading too sports. AND, why do we place so much importance on sports?!? Because we like winners. When you have kids getting ready for college, the high school is all about getting their athletes to college, they want to get those good students that competed in debate and competed in science fair and tech and computer all in the colleges. But what about the students that just made consistently good grades, went through school basically invisible. Are they losers? Have they already been determined to be losers, NOT winners based on nothing more than they didn't compete. We have millions of things created by barely known people and then mass produced by totally anonymous people. Does that mean the woman that sewed my favorite blue jeans is a loser? How about all those stunt doubles in the movies, most of us not only wouldn't recognize their faces, we wouldn't recognize their name, because they are listed in fine print at the end of the credits. Those movies would not be the same without them. Are they losers? We have people like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, both are as famous as can be, they were evil incarnate, the fodder of multiple books and movies and copy cats. ARE THEY WINNERS? I think I would remove all references to winning from childrens' lives. We talk about competition and winning like it is just part of life, but is it really? Or did we just make it part of life. If one child loves playing ball and one loves painting, aren't both having a great time. If one child runs fast and one child runs slow, aren't they both getting their exercise? If one child remembers everything they see and one learns to categorize everything so he/she can remember, aren't they both learning? Are we so tribal, so focused on war, so determined to not create a world better than our hunter/gatherer ancestors, that we can't learn to value everyone for being who they are? Most of us like winning an occasional game of checkers or a ribbon for our jelly at the county fair, a little recognition of doing a good job, but can we not treat those that didn't win like losers? And we do make people feel bad for not being the best. Pretty soon, enough years of being treated like an extra in your own life will cause the person to start feeling pretty replaceable, unimportant, worthless. It is my theory, and I have some good but anecdotal evidence, that addictions are are things we start for the purpose of coping, and then continue because they make us feel like we are better. Sometimes, they make us feel like we are better when we are really getting worse. Sometimes, others can see what is really happening better than we can. And just like the alcoholic blames other people for his own inability to keep drinking AND maintain his work standards and family duties and interpersonal relationships, the "Winner" blames others every time he/she does not win, it is never the fault of the "winner" because "winners" are always the best. Their have been plenty of people addicted to winning. When I was a kid, their were neighbors always trying to keep up with the Jones', but our Jones' were not named Jones. When a fancier car or mailbox or sofa appeared at the home of the Jones's not named Jones, the others in the neighborhood would suddenly start having similar cars or mailboxes or furniture store vans appear. Amazingly, there were also those that didn't even try to compete, usually older, perhaps wiser, or maybe they had already seen that particular cycle come through too many times. We currently have a President with an addiction to winning. Because he routinely refers to himself as a winner and everyone who disagrees with him is a loser. He is older, but apparently he is also hooked through the nose, as they used to say about those old coke addicts. Perhaps it is time to examine our motives for continuous one-upmanship. Am I trying to be the best of the best of the best? Am I trying to be better than those around me? Am I trying to be better than I used to be? That isn't a terrible goal as long as I'm being honest about who I'm competing with. Am I trying to be good? Good. No comparatives. No competition with anyone else. But such a hard goal. Hard for toddlers and hard for teens, hard for parents and hard for old codgers. Today, I'm going to be a good person, feel free to join me. No winners will be announced tonight. It will be goodness for goodness' sake.
Thursday, August 30, 2018
humans as trash.
I heard a story of an immigrant that, in his own words, "was born trash, lived as trash, and will be thrown in the trash at his death" He spent his life picking through the trash for food and clothes and to find things he could sell. The journalist he was talking to was asking him if he could talk to him and maybe take photos, and he seemed shocked that someone would talk to him about his life.
He agreed to cooperate, because those anonymous words by that journalist would be the only proof the world would have that he had lived.
Listening to them tell the story (NPR, I don't remember more, because it had me choking on tears in the driveway.)
I'm not an easy crier.
That story made me aware of the number of people that see themselves as nothing. They are hopeless. They have no one that cares if they live or die. No one thanking god for them.
And, they are invisible most of the time.
The thing most of them have in common is they are poor and powerless.
Most countries turn a blind eye to the poor. They are like cracks in the sidewalk---expected but not important.
Syria currently has an over 80% poverty rate. Their most recent GDP places them at 66th place.
The USA has a rate of 15%, falling between Tunisia and Sweden and tying with Belgium.
The USA has the highest GDP in the world.
Tunisia's GDP is 84th.
Sweden's GDP is 23rd and Belgium is 26th.
That was by Gross Domestic Product.
If you use the Gross Domestic Product per capita, things change a bit.
At that point, the USA is the 11th ($59,532 per capita), Belgium was 19th ($47,561 per capita), Sweden was 18th ($50,070 per capita)and Tunisia was 96th ($11,911 per capita).
That means that Qatar http://www.borgenmagazine.com/the-qatar-poverty-rate/, Luxembourg https://borgenproject.org/luxembourg-poverty-rate/, Singapore https://borgenproject.org/poverty-singapore/, Macau https://borgenproject.org/poverty-in-macau/, Hong Kong https://borgenproject.org/poverty-rate-in-hong-kong/, Brunei https://borgenproject.org/poverty-in-brunei/, Ireland https://borgenproject.org/poverty-in-ireland/, United Arab Emirate https://borgenproject.org/poverty-in-the-united-arab-emirates/, Kuwait https://borgenproject.org/poverty-in-kuwait/, Switzerland https://borgenproject.org/7-facts-poverty-switzerland/, San Merino https://borgenproject.org/poverty-san-marino/ and Norwayhttps://borgenproject.org/look-poverty-norway/ all had a higher GDP per capita than the United States.
So highest GDP, not highest GDP per capital in the USA. And higher GDP per capita is related more to the number of very rich people than the amount the average person is making or the number of poor people in the country.
The USA has 15% poverty rate.
That means that fifteen of every hundred of our people is invisible and powerless.
One thing that is always true in every country and in every time; children and the elderly are always the most vulnerable poor.
About 49% of babies born into poverty will remain poor throughout their lives. So 7 of every 100 people born in the United States are born invisible and powerless, born throw-a-ways, born trash.
When I was a little girl, my grandmother, who considered cats to be nasty but necessary around a farm told about when she was small, "younger than I was" is what she said, her parent told her to put the latest batch of kittens in a burlap bag and take them out to the pond and throw it in.
She didn't want to, but a "switch" convinced her. She handled her farm cat population herself until she was in her 80's, when she developed a most surprising attachment to her barn cats, letting them not only take over her buildings, but feeding them scraps daily. She was dismayed when they all disappeared on week. The cougar paw prints and screams explained that, but what was shocking was---"she was dismayed" at the loss of the kittens. Suddenly they weren't nasty creatures with no reason to live, they had value to her.
Maybe they just stopped being invisible to her.
How do we start seeing that 15% of our population as people like us, deserving of our empathy and compassion.
How do we stop treating 15% of our population like rubbish?
How do we make them visible, empowered, worthy of a decent life?
I am personally fond of the idea of getting rid of actual poverty--change our taxation system to a leveling system, so that no one pays taxes on the amount of money that is considered poverty level. And we need to make sure that the poverty level is based on real numbers per geographic regions. Our Federal poverty number is $12,140 and $4,180 for each additional family member. Obviously that amount is more likely to work in some areas than others. I realize that places like Beverly HIlls and Fifth Avenue cost a lot, as much to keep out the poor as to make a living. Rich people like to only see rich people.
Maybe that is how the poor became invisible in the first place.
But we need to make getting rid of poverty a goal for our country instead of just trying to hide our poor.
No more homelessness.
No more Hunger.
No more lack of healthcare--including mental health and addiction treatment.
No more lack of educational opportunity from lack of funds.
And we need jobs that allow all to contribute to society with their time and efforts, not like a punishment, but like a recognition that most people want to participate, to contribute, to be partners in our country.
No one's future should be determined by their accident of birth circumstances.
No old people should find themselves choosing between rent, food, and medicine.
Life is never trash.
He agreed to cooperate, because those anonymous words by that journalist would be the only proof the world would have that he had lived.
Listening to them tell the story (NPR, I don't remember more, because it had me choking on tears in the driveway.)
I'm not an easy crier.
That story made me aware of the number of people that see themselves as nothing. They are hopeless. They have no one that cares if they live or die. No one thanking god for them.
And, they are invisible most of the time.
The thing most of them have in common is they are poor and powerless.
Most countries turn a blind eye to the poor. They are like cracks in the sidewalk---expected but not important.
Syria currently has an over 80% poverty rate. Their most recent GDP places them at 66th place.
The USA has a rate of 15%, falling between Tunisia and Sweden and tying with Belgium.
The USA has the highest GDP in the world.
Tunisia's GDP is 84th.
Sweden's GDP is 23rd and Belgium is 26th.
That was by Gross Domestic Product.
If you use the Gross Domestic Product per capita, things change a bit.
At that point, the USA is the 11th ($59,532 per capita), Belgium was 19th ($47,561 per capita), Sweden was 18th ($50,070 per capita)and Tunisia was 96th ($11,911 per capita).
That means that Qatar http://www.borgenmagazine.com/the-qatar-poverty-rate/, Luxembourg https://borgenproject.org/luxembourg-poverty-rate/, Singapore https://borgenproject.org/poverty-singapore/, Macau https://borgenproject.org/poverty-in-macau/, Hong Kong https://borgenproject.org/poverty-rate-in-hong-kong/, Brunei https://borgenproject.org/poverty-in-brunei/, Ireland https://borgenproject.org/poverty-in-ireland/, United Arab Emirate https://borgenproject.org/poverty-in-the-united-arab-emirates/, Kuwait https://borgenproject.org/poverty-in-kuwait/, Switzerland https://borgenproject.org/7-facts-poverty-switzerland/, San Merino https://borgenproject.org/poverty-san-marino/ and Norwayhttps://borgenproject.org/look-poverty-norway/ all had a higher GDP per capita than the United States.
So highest GDP, not highest GDP per capital in the USA. And higher GDP per capita is related more to the number of very rich people than the amount the average person is making or the number of poor people in the country.
The USA has 15% poverty rate.
That means that fifteen of every hundred of our people is invisible and powerless.
One thing that is always true in every country and in every time; children and the elderly are always the most vulnerable poor.
About 49% of babies born into poverty will remain poor throughout their lives. So 7 of every 100 people born in the United States are born invisible and powerless, born throw-a-ways, born trash.
When I was a little girl, my grandmother, who considered cats to be nasty but necessary around a farm told about when she was small, "younger than I was" is what she said, her parent told her to put the latest batch of kittens in a burlap bag and take them out to the pond and throw it in.
She didn't want to, but a "switch" convinced her. She handled her farm cat population herself until she was in her 80's, when she developed a most surprising attachment to her barn cats, letting them not only take over her buildings, but feeding them scraps daily. She was dismayed when they all disappeared on week. The cougar paw prints and screams explained that, but what was shocking was---"she was dismayed" at the loss of the kittens. Suddenly they weren't nasty creatures with no reason to live, they had value to her.
Maybe they just stopped being invisible to her.
How do we start seeing that 15% of our population as people like us, deserving of our empathy and compassion.
How do we stop treating 15% of our population like rubbish?
How do we make them visible, empowered, worthy of a decent life?
I am personally fond of the idea of getting rid of actual poverty--change our taxation system to a leveling system, so that no one pays taxes on the amount of money that is considered poverty level. And we need to make sure that the poverty level is based on real numbers per geographic regions. Our Federal poverty number is $12,140 and $4,180 for each additional family member. Obviously that amount is more likely to work in some areas than others. I realize that places like Beverly HIlls and Fifth Avenue cost a lot, as much to keep out the poor as to make a living. Rich people like to only see rich people.
Maybe that is how the poor became invisible in the first place.
But we need to make getting rid of poverty a goal for our country instead of just trying to hide our poor.
No more homelessness.
No more Hunger.
No more lack of healthcare--including mental health and addiction treatment.
No more lack of educational opportunity from lack of funds.
And we need jobs that allow all to contribute to society with their time and efforts, not like a punishment, but like a recognition that most people want to participate, to contribute, to be partners in our country.
No one's future should be determined by their accident of birth circumstances.
No old people should find themselves choosing between rent, food, and medicine.
Life is never trash.
Friday, August 24, 2018
medicare for all
Not just current medicare, but a no deductible, minimal copay, everyone gets meds and everyone can schedule an appointment at a Drs. office. No more EMTALA as the only human safety net. No more of Dr.s and pharmacy's, etc., trying to find ways to get more from the people with good coverage while trying to avoid taking patients with poor payor sources like Medicaid and the local jails.
Medicare-for-all has become a battle cry for many of us.
I don't care what we call it, as long as it takes all the profit out of healthcare and makes sure every single person has the ability to receive the same healthcare as a person with excellent insurance.
The arguments against it include:
"My taxes should not pay for other peoples health issues" (who, exactly, do you think is paying for the care provided in emergency rooms, hospitals, ambulances, nursing homes, etc, for those patient's without insurance/jobs/money?)
"My taxes should not pay for the poor life choices of crackheads and junkies and lazy bums"
1. I'm pretty sure my taxes have paid for some poor life choices of rich people, bank bailouts, failing automobile manufacturers, infrastructure prettiness in the expensive zipcodes of my city, and
2. my taxes are paying for their incarceration, and for the increased policing where they are hanging out, why not invest that in drug treatment, mental health care, affordable housing, life choices and coping education when young, especially in areas hit by poverty and job retraining programs that are easy to access as opposed to the current federal goldmining system in which career colleges get loans for people in fields in which there are no opportunities , that will never pay well, and then we ruin their credit for life since there is no loan forgiveness for education loans--not even bankruptcy.
"If your job doesn't provide good insurance, get a better job" (ok, so either require every employer of even one person,no matter how part time, to provide insurance, with those making too little to live (less than 15$ an hour) having no part of the payment, or what? Do we quit having cosmetologists, and wait staff, and dishwashers, taxi drivers and carnies? They have jobs. They just don't get insurance with them. )
This side of the argument is all from the idea that anyone with worse insurance or no insurance can only blame themselves and therefore need to die. (apparently in an ER)
The truth is, they do die, but not quickly or cheaply.
They may not be able to get any mental health treatment or chemical dependency treatment or chronic illness treatment or other basic preventative medicine screenings, but the law is, when it is bad enough, they can go to the Emergency room and get full service---if what they have wrong can cause death, dismemberment, if it isn't treated.
Many (not all, there are good, conservative ER Docs that do the mandatory medical exam and tell them they need to see a doctor but that they are not in danger of death or permanent disability from their complaint.--they can't see any other doctor which is why they went to the ER in the first place) but many of the ER doctors take their Hippocratic oath seriously enough and get that the people really can't go anywhere else, thus send them out with a prescription and suggestions for future good health. Most of them can't fill the prescription, though. Pharmacies have no requirement to give drugs to people without money.
The flip side (sides) of the "no universal healthcare" argument is:
"Without competition, no one will do new research" (that is the reason that there are so few drugs and treatments for orphan diseases, no big money so, no! money isn't the motivator. But what if we had researchers that were trying to find cures, trying to make scientific breakthroughs, trying to save the world and NOT DEPENDENT on the money the drug companies give them. There is a reason we have many treatments for erectile dysfunction, baldness, short eyelashes, and wrinkles but few treatments for neurofibromatosis, progressive supranuclear palsy, leukodystropies. We also need to do more research into causes and preventions for chronic illnesses instead of just making more "bread and butter" treatments that patients take their whole lives till they die. Soooo, as long as competition in this country is measured by dollars, only money items get researched. More people want it, more research. More rich people want it, Big Research.
"rich people from other countries come here for healthcare so they won't have to wait or risk being turned down for their treatment" (I guess that is also why rich people here go to other countries for treatment they can't get here, rich people all over do whatever they want, and after we all have healthcare available without having to fear dying of a simple infection or a treatable chronic illness, the rich people will still be able to find doctors--US doctors, doctors in other nations, that will do whatever they want. John Doe the homeless guy can get his insulin and his foot care and it won't hurt the Forbes 400's healthcare one bit. They can go where ever they want, or hire their own, private, fulltime physician that only cares for them. (reminds me of the old royal poop examiner)
"But we won't have the best healthcare system after we have universal healthcare, medicare-for-all, call it what you will"
https://www.numbeo.com/health-care/rankings_by_country.jsp
There are bunches of sources regarding quality of healthcare by country. The USA is at about the 30th position every time, EXCEPT by COST of healthcare. WE pay more than any other country.
Apparently paying multiple insurance CEO's millions and insurance marketers commissions and multiple Pharmacy CEO's millions and drug rep's commissions and Dr.'s educational cruises and ski trips and expensive dinners to use those drugs on their patients, really increases money in healthcare.
We have Medicaid being applied like an HMO, with physicians getting paid monthly for providing care for a certain number of patients (capitation) and then, since it pays less than other insurance, they arrange for a set number of available appointments for those Medicaid patient's and when that number has been reached, they tell the patient to go to the Emergency room. Poor people going to a Doctors office by appointment instead of waiting till it's nearly too late and going to the ER and on to the ICU then dying is much more economical. IF you consider that healthcare providers are physicians, nurses, therapists, pharmacists and technicians, then the huge numbers of people making a living off those people's work is basically padding the bill.
So, in truth, those that sing the chorus against universal healthcare, are just being gullible.
If the used car salesman told them that blacksmoke coming out the tailpipe was because it was so new the paint was still burning off, you wouldn't believe them (I hope).
If your child's teacher told you that it has been proven that children shouldn't be taught to read before age 16, when you asked why your 7 year old couldn't read, you WOULD seek other information.
So why, when those people making craploads of money off our nations healthcare problems tell you universal healthcare is bad, do you not even question their motivation.
The insurance companies do not want universal healthcare, it will likely put most of them out of business.
The pharmaceutical companies do not want universal healthcare, it will make them have to charge prices competitive with what other nations, those with universal healthcare, already pay for drugs.
The Physicians are split on it, some are fine with it, it fits their view of caring for people, others don't want it, it will decrease some of those insurance and pharmaceutical perks used in marketing. It will make them follow the evidence based practice guidelines so they can't do more invasive tests than are frankly good for a patient or required for diagnosis and treatment.
But employers should want it, it is good for employees to have access to healthcare that is not tied to their own ability to make some high-volume purchase. (that is why small businesses have problems, they don't get the high volume lowered price)
It will be great for emergency rooms and ambulances, they will be back to treating emergencies.
It will be great for poor people and addicted people and chronically ill people and people under 65 that want to retire but couldn't get affordable care till 65.
And, it will eliminate the need for states to provide Medicaid for their poor and disabled.
There is a reason that access to healthcare is a human right. It is as necessary to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as all of our rights are per the Bill of Rights. It's our ability to choose life over death, life over disease, life over dysfunction.
Why are we even having this discussion.
To your health!
Medicare-for-all has become a battle cry for many of us.
I don't care what we call it, as long as it takes all the profit out of healthcare and makes sure every single person has the ability to receive the same healthcare as a person with excellent insurance.
The arguments against it include:
"My taxes should not pay for other peoples health issues" (who, exactly, do you think is paying for the care provided in emergency rooms, hospitals, ambulances, nursing homes, etc, for those patient's without insurance/jobs/money?)
"My taxes should not pay for the poor life choices of crackheads and junkies and lazy bums"
1. I'm pretty sure my taxes have paid for some poor life choices of rich people, bank bailouts, failing automobile manufacturers, infrastructure prettiness in the expensive zipcodes of my city, and
2. my taxes are paying for their incarceration, and for the increased policing where they are hanging out, why not invest that in drug treatment, mental health care, affordable housing, life choices and coping education when young, especially in areas hit by poverty and job retraining programs that are easy to access as opposed to the current federal goldmining system in which career colleges get loans for people in fields in which there are no opportunities , that will never pay well, and then we ruin their credit for life since there is no loan forgiveness for education loans--not even bankruptcy.
"If your job doesn't provide good insurance, get a better job" (ok, so either require every employer of even one person,no matter how part time, to provide insurance, with those making too little to live (less than 15$ an hour) having no part of the payment, or what? Do we quit having cosmetologists, and wait staff, and dishwashers, taxi drivers and carnies? They have jobs. They just don't get insurance with them. )
This side of the argument is all from the idea that anyone with worse insurance or no insurance can only blame themselves and therefore need to die. (apparently in an ER)
The truth is, they do die, but not quickly or cheaply.
They may not be able to get any mental health treatment or chemical dependency treatment or chronic illness treatment or other basic preventative medicine screenings, but the law is, when it is bad enough, they can go to the Emergency room and get full service---if what they have wrong can cause death, dismemberment, if it isn't treated.
Many (not all, there are good, conservative ER Docs that do the mandatory medical exam and tell them they need to see a doctor but that they are not in danger of death or permanent disability from their complaint.--they can't see any other doctor which is why they went to the ER in the first place) but many of the ER doctors take their Hippocratic oath seriously enough and get that the people really can't go anywhere else, thus send them out with a prescription and suggestions for future good health. Most of them can't fill the prescription, though. Pharmacies have no requirement to give drugs to people without money.
The flip side (sides) of the "no universal healthcare" argument is:
"Without competition, no one will do new research" (that is the reason that there are so few drugs and treatments for orphan diseases, no big money so, no! money isn't the motivator. But what if we had researchers that were trying to find cures, trying to make scientific breakthroughs, trying to save the world and NOT DEPENDENT on the money the drug companies give them. There is a reason we have many treatments for erectile dysfunction, baldness, short eyelashes, and wrinkles but few treatments for neurofibromatosis, progressive supranuclear palsy, leukodystropies. We also need to do more research into causes and preventions for chronic illnesses instead of just making more "bread and butter" treatments that patients take their whole lives till they die. Soooo, as long as competition in this country is measured by dollars, only money items get researched. More people want it, more research. More rich people want it, Big Research.
"rich people from other countries come here for healthcare so they won't have to wait or risk being turned down for their treatment" (I guess that is also why rich people here go to other countries for treatment they can't get here, rich people all over do whatever they want, and after we all have healthcare available without having to fear dying of a simple infection or a treatable chronic illness, the rich people will still be able to find doctors--US doctors, doctors in other nations, that will do whatever they want. John Doe the homeless guy can get his insulin and his foot care and it won't hurt the Forbes 400's healthcare one bit. They can go where ever they want, or hire their own, private, fulltime physician that only cares for them. (reminds me of the old royal poop examiner)
"But we won't have the best healthcare system after we have universal healthcare, medicare-for-all, call it what you will"
https://www.numbeo.com/health-care/rankings_by_country.jsp
There are bunches of sources regarding quality of healthcare by country. The USA is at about the 30th position every time, EXCEPT by COST of healthcare. WE pay more than any other country.
Apparently paying multiple insurance CEO's millions and insurance marketers commissions and multiple Pharmacy CEO's millions and drug rep's commissions and Dr.'s educational cruises and ski trips and expensive dinners to use those drugs on their patients, really increases money in healthcare.
We have Medicaid being applied like an HMO, with physicians getting paid monthly for providing care for a certain number of patients (capitation) and then, since it pays less than other insurance, they arrange for a set number of available appointments for those Medicaid patient's and when that number has been reached, they tell the patient to go to the Emergency room. Poor people going to a Doctors office by appointment instead of waiting till it's nearly too late and going to the ER and on to the ICU then dying is much more economical. IF you consider that healthcare providers are physicians, nurses, therapists, pharmacists and technicians, then the huge numbers of people making a living off those people's work is basically padding the bill.
So, in truth, those that sing the chorus against universal healthcare, are just being gullible.
If the used car salesman told them that blacksmoke coming out the tailpipe was because it was so new the paint was still burning off, you wouldn't believe them (I hope).
If your child's teacher told you that it has been proven that children shouldn't be taught to read before age 16, when you asked why your 7 year old couldn't read, you WOULD seek other information.
So why, when those people making craploads of money off our nations healthcare problems tell you universal healthcare is bad, do you not even question their motivation.
The insurance companies do not want universal healthcare, it will likely put most of them out of business.
The pharmaceutical companies do not want universal healthcare, it will make them have to charge prices competitive with what other nations, those with universal healthcare, already pay for drugs.
The Physicians are split on it, some are fine with it, it fits their view of caring for people, others don't want it, it will decrease some of those insurance and pharmaceutical perks used in marketing. It will make them follow the evidence based practice guidelines so they can't do more invasive tests than are frankly good for a patient or required for diagnosis and treatment.
But employers should want it, it is good for employees to have access to healthcare that is not tied to their own ability to make some high-volume purchase. (that is why small businesses have problems, they don't get the high volume lowered price)
It will be great for emergency rooms and ambulances, they will be back to treating emergencies.
It will be great for poor people and addicted people and chronically ill people and people under 65 that want to retire but couldn't get affordable care till 65.
And, it will eliminate the need for states to provide Medicaid for their poor and disabled.
There is a reason that access to healthcare is a human right. It is as necessary to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as all of our rights are per the Bill of Rights. It's our ability to choose life over death, life over disease, life over dysfunction.
Why are we even having this discussion.
To your health!
Monday, August 6, 2018
Remember that moment...
When you first realized that all that elementary school history and civics lessons were basically propaganda?
When I was a child, I had the history of thanksgiving and George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and the flag.
Those were tied to holidays in 1st,2nd,3rd, and 4th grade--every single year. We made a turkey and colored it, cut out pilgrams, talked about the first thanksgiving and how the pilgrams came for religious freedom. We cut out hearts and glued the faces of Washington and Lincoln in them, talked about how brave they were. Talked about Washington's false teeth and cutting down a cherry tree and never telling a lie and Lincoln being born in a log cabin--which is why our Lincoln Logs are called Lincoln Logs. Talked about Betsy Ross and the flag and the stars are for the current states and the stripes are for the original 13 colonies.
Four years of that, no further details. Each event pretty isolated and unattached to everything else.
In fifth grade, (And 6th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th) we had history ( in 9th grade we had a semester of Oklahoma history, starting with the dinosaurs and ending with statehood, and Civics, "how a bill becomes a law" but before the songwriter made it a catchy tune): U.S. history, starting with the European explorers discovering America while seeking a faster route to India and China so they could NOT go over the mountains that separated Europe from Asia, and so they could NOT go all the way down and around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa.
Someone decided that the Earth was a sphere, and we could go straight west to reach the Far East. This, according to our history books was Columbus, although the theory was accepted in Ancient Greece by the 6th century BC.
Sometimes, the Church is not the best thing for the progression of basic science and math.
We learned about all the explorers reaping the Gold of the Aztecs and Incas and Mayans. (And what savages they were, how backward, easier to take from bad people) We learned that Columbus called the people "Indians" because he thought he had reached India. We eventually learned that Ponce de Leon went through the swamps that would become Florida in search of the "Fountain of youth" and conquistadors went through Oklahoma in search of Cibola--the 7 cities of gold. We learned that fur traders went across the top of North America and that explorers sought a "northwest passage" so the fur traders could get the furs out faster. We learned about Pocahontas, though the story was not so embellished as Disney's, it was also not very clear about why this young woman married some man she barely knew.
Then we had the revolution and the War of 1812 and the civil war, then the school year ended.
Every year, we finished just at the end of the Civil war.
We memorized names and dates and places.
The only thing we learned with great assurance was that the United States was the greatest Nation that had ever existed.
Everyone hated history.
Except for the art and construction paper.
I had to take a US history class in college, so I took post-civil war, since I had never gone that far before. It was a bit meatier, but still heavy on the names and dates and places. It was all about wars and politics and economics and not at all about the people that actually lived or died in those wars or politics or economics.
While this class did discuss some corruption, it was not focused on except as aberrations but rather on specific "bosses" that sounded like crime syndicates had gotten themselves elected to positions of power.
Then, I took a few electives in history. Wonderful stuff. Where every single individual that lived in a period is part of that history. History is alive, its our story, our ancestor's stories and is happening as I type.
I read some books, and discovered that history is all about perspective. I talked to some people that lived through some well known events, the co-worker that was hiding behind a large rock with bullets and bottles flying while attending Kent State. She was not protesting. She was going to a class. The co-worker that drove to Wounded Knee to deliver a collection of weapons and food stuffs, my father, who was in WWII, and saw no battle, only German and Italian prisoners-of-war in a camp in Louisiana. (what? we didn't have prisoners-of war, I never heard a word about that!)
I was on a roll.
Talk to people, talk to grandma about the depression. Talk to Daddy about the KKK. Talk to mom about being a war bride, the PSO's, the hose and leg shaving and tanning.
Talk to strangers. Talk to strangers about whatever. Listen.
And start to hear what the history books didn't include.
Stories about the Indian Schools, the blankets we gave away--infected with smallpox--on purpose or by accident, the stories about land-grabs when oil became a valuable commodity. Homesteaders with little, losing everything to rich ranchers that paid the sheriff to move them on.
The twists of history brought on by women, long relegated to powerlessness, so long that all they could focus on was getting the vote and making their man quit drinking. Such low goals set. The second backfired so badly.
Prohibition, which just created a new opening for a giant criminal enterprise. Yet, slow as we are, we repeat ourselves with criminalized drugs that are highly sought either for their effect or for their addictiveness. ( a great little pharmacy museum in New Orleans went over so much info about drug usage before government regulation--drug addicts are nothing new) If they try it with tobacco, the country will burn unless we learn to cure the addiction before making it illegal.
So, do you remember the moment that you started questioning whether this was really the greatest country that has ever existed. Or perhaps the America we were all taught NEVER existed: only as An Ideal, A Myth.
It's a patriotic stance.
It's a loyal position.
But is it about reality?
Does it have anything to do with anything any of us have actually seen?
"History is written by victors" doesn't have to be true. When it was oral history, only those that survived could tell the tale. Today, we have not just books but also audio tapes and video tapes and film and pictures.
We can see all the sides, from all the sides.
Instead of patriotic loyalty that does nothing but teach us lies, we can learn from our mistakes and become a better nation.
There is no single best country. Every country that has a single person experience something horrifying could be improved. Every horrible country that exists has nurtured someone that was needed in the future.
Instead of always comparing our country to other countries, using less then honest parameters to make ourselves look better, how about we only compare ourselves to ourselves--are we getting better for everyone, or are we losing ground.
We could always be our own best country. Neither patriotism or loyalty will improve us. We need great compassion and high goals for every single person.
We are all a part of history and every time we let a child fall through the cracks educationally, every time we convict an innocent person, every time a poor person dies of a easily treatable disease, we are creating a history that some future historian will judge us all for.
Remember that.
When I was a child, I had the history of thanksgiving and George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and the flag.
Those were tied to holidays in 1st,2nd,3rd, and 4th grade--every single year. We made a turkey and colored it, cut out pilgrams, talked about the first thanksgiving and how the pilgrams came for religious freedom. We cut out hearts and glued the faces of Washington and Lincoln in them, talked about how brave they were. Talked about Washington's false teeth and cutting down a cherry tree and never telling a lie and Lincoln being born in a log cabin--which is why our Lincoln Logs are called Lincoln Logs. Talked about Betsy Ross and the flag and the stars are for the current states and the stripes are for the original 13 colonies.
Four years of that, no further details. Each event pretty isolated and unattached to everything else.
In fifth grade, (And 6th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th) we had history ( in 9th grade we had a semester of Oklahoma history, starting with the dinosaurs and ending with statehood, and Civics, "how a bill becomes a law" but before the songwriter made it a catchy tune): U.S. history, starting with the European explorers discovering America while seeking a faster route to India and China so they could NOT go over the mountains that separated Europe from Asia, and so they could NOT go all the way down and around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa.
Someone decided that the Earth was a sphere, and we could go straight west to reach the Far East. This, according to our history books was Columbus, although the theory was accepted in Ancient Greece by the 6th century BC.
Sometimes, the Church is not the best thing for the progression of basic science and math.
We learned about all the explorers reaping the Gold of the Aztecs and Incas and Mayans. (And what savages they were, how backward, easier to take from bad people) We learned that Columbus called the people "Indians" because he thought he had reached India. We eventually learned that Ponce de Leon went through the swamps that would become Florida in search of the "Fountain of youth" and conquistadors went through Oklahoma in search of Cibola--the 7 cities of gold. We learned that fur traders went across the top of North America and that explorers sought a "northwest passage" so the fur traders could get the furs out faster. We learned about Pocahontas, though the story was not so embellished as Disney's, it was also not very clear about why this young woman married some man she barely knew.
Then we had the revolution and the War of 1812 and the civil war, then the school year ended.
Every year, we finished just at the end of the Civil war.
We memorized names and dates and places.
The only thing we learned with great assurance was that the United States was the greatest Nation that had ever existed.
Everyone hated history.
Except for the art and construction paper.
I had to take a US history class in college, so I took post-civil war, since I had never gone that far before. It was a bit meatier, but still heavy on the names and dates and places. It was all about wars and politics and economics and not at all about the people that actually lived or died in those wars or politics or economics.
While this class did discuss some corruption, it was not focused on except as aberrations but rather on specific "bosses" that sounded like crime syndicates had gotten themselves elected to positions of power.
Then, I took a few electives in history. Wonderful stuff. Where every single individual that lived in a period is part of that history. History is alive, its our story, our ancestor's stories and is happening as I type.
I read some books, and discovered that history is all about perspective. I talked to some people that lived through some well known events, the co-worker that was hiding behind a large rock with bullets and bottles flying while attending Kent State. She was not protesting. She was going to a class. The co-worker that drove to Wounded Knee to deliver a collection of weapons and food stuffs, my father, who was in WWII, and saw no battle, only German and Italian prisoners-of-war in a camp in Louisiana. (what? we didn't have prisoners-of war, I never heard a word about that!)
I was on a roll.
Talk to people, talk to grandma about the depression. Talk to Daddy about the KKK. Talk to mom about being a war bride, the PSO's, the hose and leg shaving and tanning.
Talk to strangers. Talk to strangers about whatever. Listen.
And start to hear what the history books didn't include.
Stories about the Indian Schools, the blankets we gave away--infected with smallpox--on purpose or by accident, the stories about land-grabs when oil became a valuable commodity. Homesteaders with little, losing everything to rich ranchers that paid the sheriff to move them on.
The twists of history brought on by women, long relegated to powerlessness, so long that all they could focus on was getting the vote and making their man quit drinking. Such low goals set. The second backfired so badly.
Prohibition, which just created a new opening for a giant criminal enterprise. Yet, slow as we are, we repeat ourselves with criminalized drugs that are highly sought either for their effect or for their addictiveness. ( a great little pharmacy museum in New Orleans went over so much info about drug usage before government regulation--drug addicts are nothing new) If they try it with tobacco, the country will burn unless we learn to cure the addiction before making it illegal.
So, do you remember the moment that you started questioning whether this was really the greatest country that has ever existed. Or perhaps the America we were all taught NEVER existed: only as An Ideal, A Myth.
It's a patriotic stance.
It's a loyal position.
But is it about reality?
Does it have anything to do with anything any of us have actually seen?
"History is written by victors" doesn't have to be true. When it was oral history, only those that survived could tell the tale. Today, we have not just books but also audio tapes and video tapes and film and pictures.
We can see all the sides, from all the sides.
Instead of patriotic loyalty that does nothing but teach us lies, we can learn from our mistakes and become a better nation.
There is no single best country. Every country that has a single person experience something horrifying could be improved. Every horrible country that exists has nurtured someone that was needed in the future.
Instead of always comparing our country to other countries, using less then honest parameters to make ourselves look better, how about we only compare ourselves to ourselves--are we getting better for everyone, or are we losing ground.
We could always be our own best country. Neither patriotism or loyalty will improve us. We need great compassion and high goals for every single person.
We are all a part of history and every time we let a child fall through the cracks educationally, every time we convict an innocent person, every time a poor person dies of a easily treatable disease, we are creating a history that some future historian will judge us all for.
Remember that.
Sunday, July 1, 2018
free speech vs. hate speech
The First Amendment gives us the right to free speech:
“Congress shall make no law...abridging freedom of speech.”
Freedom of speech includes the right:
-
Not to speak (specifically, the right not to salute the flag).
West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943). -
Of students to wear black armbands to school to protest a war (“Students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate.”).
Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503 (1969). -
To use certain offensive words and phrases to convey political messages.
Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971). -
To contribute money (under certain circumstances) to political campaigns.
Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976). (I'm thinking if money is speech, a lot of us can't afford much free speech) -
To advertise commercial products and professional services (with some restrictions).
Virginia Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Consumer Council, 425 U.S. 748 (1976); Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, 433 U.S. 350 (1977). -
To engage in symbolic speech, (e.g., burning the flag in protest).
Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989); United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990).
In other words, speech can be oral communication, written communication, symbolic communication, financial communication (obviously we can not all use this method equally), without any restrictions on message.
Well, with some restrictions.
Freedom of speech does not include the right:
-
To incite actions that would harm others (e.g., “[S]hout[ing] ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.”).
Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919). (I'm pretty sure "hate speech" has frequently done just that--think lynchings and beatings and---dragging people behind cars or horses) -
To make or distribute obscene materials.
Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957). (You know, "I know it when I see it") -
To burn draft cards as an anti-war protest.
United States v. O’Brien, 391 U.S. 367 (1968). (Since a draft card is a piece of paper, I'm thinking this might need to be re-looked at. We don't require everyone to carry ID all the time, and we aren't currently drafting people, so maybe a new, this-century, ruling is needed, especially with all the deferred people running the country.) -
To permit students to print articles in a school newspaper over the objections of the school administration.
Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (1988). -
Of students to make an obscene speech at a school-sponsored event.
Bethel School District #43 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675 (1986). -
Of students to advocate illegal drug use at a school-sponsored event.
Morse v. Frederick, __ U.S. __ (2007). (I'm thinking I see a trend, schools have more rights than students, apparently schools are treated like private property and private business, so those owning the school are the only ones that can make the rules---a perfect set up to use propaganda instead of education about critical thinking.)
Sooo.
Where does hate speech fall into this.
Is it all right to call people different than ourselves names? rude names? obscene names?
Is it all right to suggest people different than us not be allowed in the country? as immigrants? as vacationers? as visa holders? This is not about immigration, but about talking against immigration, specifically against the immigration of those groups that we personally hate.
Is it all right to stirringly speak on the evils of certain religious groups or cultural groups or any group that is not living in the middle of the mainstream? what if we stir up violence?
Is it all right to condone the murder of those people?
Is it all right to endorse candidates for political positions using money or the distribution of materials that are printed or on the internet that are speaking on the evils of certain groups and/or condone the removal or death of those people?
Do we have a right in this country to "hate speech".
Many of us consider such activities obscene--not in a sexual manner, but in a demeaning and degrading way, and isn't that what makes porn obscene?
Much of the speech that has been disallowed involves minors in schools, or people in schools--universities that are not state schools, but rather private.
A lot of speech that has been disallowed involves the condoning of illegal activities.
To be illegal, there must be a law against it.
What if there is no law.
What if there is a law which is immoral, unethical, or conflicts with the constitution?
To be illegal, there must be a law against it.
What if there is no law.
What if there is a law which is immoral, unethical, or conflicts with the constitution?
I'm not at all sure why a person can not burn their draft card--but I haven't seen a draft card since the 1970's and that was a different time--a much more "mainstream" time (read majority rights over individual rights, English-speaking white man rights over woman or child or brown or non-English-rights).
If we can't speak freely about things that are currently illegal, like marijuana use, or in the 1910's-women voting, or in the 1960's equal rights for everyone---you get it, protesting is always against what is a current law but not a fair law--then is there any free speech?
If we can speak of killing or exiling (I'm not kidding,:that stinking "America, love it or leave it" bumpersticker slogan is protected by freedom of speech, but the minute they try to make people leave by intimidation or violence, it's hate speech.) those that disagree with the current laws, that want to stop people form seeking equal rights or equal treatrment, are not just practicing freedom of speech, they are trying to intimidate people into silence and that is hate speech without doubt.
I very recently got into one of those social media back-and-forth discussions where someone decided to call everyone on a site stupid for believing what they believed. The first question is, why was he on the site--yes, yes, freedom of speech, but why?
Then, he proceeded, due to personally knowing the person that posted the information and not wanting to be insulting, to try to explain how he knew that his personal acquaintainces were not like those "far left crazies wearing the pink hats".
Pussy hats.
Far left extremists.
You know, women that didn't like it that the president of the United States of America bragged about being so rich and so powerful he could grab strange women by the pussy, even though he didn't know them and had no relationship with them.
FAR LEFT EXTREMISTS---was there a single woman that heard that and that thought, "cool, my kind of guy"?
Freedom of speech let him say that.
It also let me call him ridiculous and block him (not the president, the troll. When I figure out how to block the president, I'll let everyone know---for free).
I love "freedom of speech".
I hate "hate speech".
But I loath just plain ridiculous speech.
Good luck figuring out what is going on in the USA these days.
If we can't speak freely about things that are currently illegal, like marijuana use, or in the 1910's-women voting, or in the 1960's equal rights for everyone---you get it, protesting is always against what is a current law but not a fair law--then is there any free speech?
If we can speak of killing or exiling (I'm not kidding,:that stinking "America, love it or leave it" bumpersticker slogan is protected by freedom of speech, but the minute they try to make people leave by intimidation or violence, it's hate speech.) those that disagree with the current laws, that want to stop people form seeking equal rights or equal treatrment, are not just practicing freedom of speech, they are trying to intimidate people into silence and that is hate speech without doubt.
I very recently got into one of those social media back-and-forth discussions where someone decided to call everyone on a site stupid for believing what they believed. The first question is, why was he on the site--yes, yes, freedom of speech, but why?
Then, he proceeded, due to personally knowing the person that posted the information and not wanting to be insulting, to try to explain how he knew that his personal acquaintainces were not like those "far left crazies wearing the pink hats".
Pussy hats.
Far left extremists.
You know, women that didn't like it that the president of the United States of America bragged about being so rich and so powerful he could grab strange women by the pussy, even though he didn't know them and had no relationship with them.
FAR LEFT EXTREMISTS---was there a single woman that heard that and that thought, "cool, my kind of guy"?
Freedom of speech let him say that.
It also let me call him ridiculous and block him (not the president, the troll. When I figure out how to block the president, I'll let everyone know---for free).
I love "freedom of speech".
I hate "hate speech".
But I loath just plain ridiculous speech.
Good luck figuring out what is going on in the USA these days.
http://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-resources/about-educational-outreach/activity-resources/what-does
Saturday, June 30, 2018
lifestyles of the rich and famous
Not the show, but our longterm love of turning what rich people and famous people left behind into tourist attractions, driving through the fancy neigborhoods just to look, visiting the clothing stores where someone serves you a drink, sets you in a chair and brings out clothes to consider before you try them on and have them tailored (even though you obviously don't shop there).
Is it jealousy? Is it envy?
Is it a wide awake daydream in which suddenly you can afford whatever comes to mind?
Average people are fascinated by the why the "other half" live.
The "other half" is only about 2% of us.
But when a person doing all right goes to see how poor people live, they are accused of "slumming"
(I don't believe that the rich and famous do much of this, more of a upper middle class thing--usually as a young person in rebellion)
I've never met anyone that knew what being poor was like, AND actually wanted to become poor. More like they wanted to have to struggle a little and feel as if they succeeded on their own, walk around anonymously for a while, or maybe feel less like a pampered joke.
But those without love to imagine what being rich would be like.
When the homes of the wealthy are opened to anyone, people show up just to gawk.
And when regular folks took their kids on vacation, it was never to regular places, but to tour the homes of wealthy, famous, historical (but not poor) people.
There have always been sites preserved for the future that showed regular life or a poor but great persons birthplace, last home or workplace, but instead we go look at the fancy stuff. It's our chance to peek.
I can't pretend not to want to have more money--it's why a get my weekly lottery ticket.
But I don't want a McMansion so I can pretend to be rich.
I don't want to spend more than 3/4 of my money on a mortgage so the neighbors and family can think I'm doing better than them.
But when a relative says, "so and so is getting a 1/2 million dollar house", I want to see it. I want to see what that looks like.
I don't get jealous.
I'm getting up there in years and have lost the imagination and desire to decorate rooms I don't need.
My collection of clutter, filled with memories and sentimental value and just plain oddness, would never fit in a half a million dollar McMansion.
I'm more of a farmhouse or bungalow woman.
These days, many feel, not so much jealousy as self-hate; that they can't do that well, that they can't buy that for their children. They are losers, incompetent, poor providers, ne'er-do-wells.
We were all sold the old standard "you can be whatever you choose to be", so apparently most of us chose to be ordinary folks with jobs and little homes and little families.
We chose to struggle to make ends meet.
We chose to live lives without wealth, fame, or power.
Perhaps, that whole "choice" thing was over-stated.
Yes, the child of a wealthy family can choose to be wealthy or can walk away and choose an ordinary, regular life.
And I've heard some of them have.
Mostly, I've heard of the children of the upper middle class that thought they were rich ending up in ordinary, regular lives.
They thought their parents were rich, then discovered that their parents were living at their own maximum level and while they provided a good education and a great starter car, they couldn't actually hand them a small million dollar loan to get started and won't be leaving them 50 million plus property when they die.
So these kids, that thought they were rich now have a degree in something, or not, a job, or not, and a lifestyle like their parents, or not.
Now, lets have a moment of reality.
The average salary in 2016 went up to $59,039.00.
The median net take home that same time was $30,533.31.
The average net was $46,640.94
The difference between average which is the total of all salaries for the year divided by the number of people with a salary, while the median is the point where 50% of the population makes more than than and 50% makes less.
Those are important differences to understand. A CEO making 30 million and a company where 80% make minimum wage that employees 1000 people will have a median wage of about $16,000/year, but an average wage of $53,660 even if none of the 20% making more than minimum wage make over $25 dollars an hour. That 0.1% of employees making 30 million raised the average to much higher than the median.
Only about 64% of the population owns or is buying a home these days. In 2009 that was 69%.
The average home price in 2017 was $240,000. The average square foot was 2426 square foot.
If you measure the homes in any 1920's neighborhood, most of those clapboard bungalows were considered huge if they were bigger than 1800 square feet.
http://www.newser.com/story/225645/average-size-of-us-homes-decade-by-decade.html
If you look closely at most of us average joe's, you will find that we are not so average about what matters.
Some of us have learned very well how to be happy with a home where everyone has a place to sleep, food to eat, loving interactions with family and friends. We might play the lottery, but know the actual odds. We don't try to push our children into living our dreams or pulling us into the society of the rich and/or famous.
Some of us don't get that being famous for performing in sports or entertaining or even politics, even though the income is amazingly high, will never pull us into that 0.1% of the population that runs the world. If you make it to that level, see how well you are accepted at their tables and into their families. The Forbes 400 don't meet their standards for old money and elite class.
https://www.therichest.com/rich-list/old-money-families-that-have-been-richest-the-longest/
So.
Now.
Have you been trying to keep up with the Jones' family? (nevermind the Gates' or Besos's, and forget completely about the Rothschilds and Rockefellers and Roosevelts.)
Do you spend more than you can afford on your home, your car, your child's wardrobe, your interior decorating?
Have you declined into a hoarder of bric-a-brac, books, washed and folded aluminum foil?
Do you struggle with depression because you will never be as rich as you want, have the best house in the city, the most tweets to go viral?
Do you check yourself in the mirror repeatedly to make sure you appear to be: a fashion model? A princess? A successful business man or woman? or whatever image you feel the need to project.
If you are feeling inferior due to averageness, remember these old clichés. (clichés aren't necessarily wrong, frequent repetition makes it unoriginal not erroneous)
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/rich-and-poor
“[W]hat is always overlooked is that although the poor want to be rich, it does not follow that they either like the rich or that they in any way want to emulate their characters which, in fact, they despise. Both the poor and the rich have always found precisely the same grounds on which to complain about each other. Each feels the other has no manners, is disloyal, corrupt, insensitive - and has never put in an honest day's work in its life.”
― Elaine Dundy, Elvis and Gladys
“Rich people always had someone to call who could arrange something that the average guy couldn't get done, no matter how right or wrong. The only call the poor man could make was to Jesus. If Jesus didn't answer, Smith and Wesson always did.”
― James Anderson, The Never-Open Desert Diner
“They would have liked to be rich. They believed they would have been up to it. They would have known how to dress, how to look and how to smile like rich people. They would have had the requisite tact and discretion. They would have forgotten they were rich, would have grasped how not to flaunt their wealth. They wouldn't have taken pride in it. They would have drunk it into themselves. Their pleasures would have been intense. They would have liked to wander, to dawdle, to choose, to savour. They would have liked to live. Their lives would have been an art of living.
But such things are far from easy.”
― Georges Perec
The point is not that rich people are right and poor people are wrong.
The point is not that rich people are evil and poor people are good---or the other way around.
The point is not that being rich is easy or being poor is easy.
The point is---we are all humans, and what all humans have in common is they are alive. They have a right to be alive. They have a right to feel their feelings, to follow their dreams, to have friends and family, to love, to create, to live their lives in such a manner that they feel times of happiness, of grief, of hope, of elation and of self-satisfaction.
And none of them have a right to do any of those things at the expense of any other, at the detriment of any other, or at the exclusion of any other human.
Know what you have, appreciate what you have, and never think that anyone else is better than you or more entitled to live their life to their fullest.
Be rich in your love and happiness and gratitude.
You are already famous (or infamous) to those that know you.
Never put your life on hold till you become rich and famous.
It's not really money that rules.
IT"S TIME!
Is it jealousy? Is it envy?
Is it a wide awake daydream in which suddenly you can afford whatever comes to mind?
Average people are fascinated by the why the "other half" live.
The "other half" is only about 2% of us.
But when a person doing all right goes to see how poor people live, they are accused of "slumming"
(I don't believe that the rich and famous do much of this, more of a upper middle class thing--usually as a young person in rebellion)
I've never met anyone that knew what being poor was like, AND actually wanted to become poor. More like they wanted to have to struggle a little and feel as if they succeeded on their own, walk around anonymously for a while, or maybe feel less like a pampered joke.
But those without love to imagine what being rich would be like.
When the homes of the wealthy are opened to anyone, people show up just to gawk.
And when regular folks took their kids on vacation, it was never to regular places, but to tour the homes of wealthy, famous, historical (but not poor) people.
There have always been sites preserved for the future that showed regular life or a poor but great persons birthplace, last home or workplace, but instead we go look at the fancy stuff. It's our chance to peek.
I can't pretend not to want to have more money--it's why a get my weekly lottery ticket.
But I don't want a McMansion so I can pretend to be rich.
I don't want to spend more than 3/4 of my money on a mortgage so the neighbors and family can think I'm doing better than them.
But when a relative says, "so and so is getting a 1/2 million dollar house", I want to see it. I want to see what that looks like.
I don't get jealous.
I'm getting up there in years and have lost the imagination and desire to decorate rooms I don't need.
My collection of clutter, filled with memories and sentimental value and just plain oddness, would never fit in a half a million dollar McMansion.
I'm more of a farmhouse or bungalow woman.
These days, many feel, not so much jealousy as self-hate; that they can't do that well, that they can't buy that for their children. They are losers, incompetent, poor providers, ne'er-do-wells.
We were all sold the old standard "you can be whatever you choose to be", so apparently most of us chose to be ordinary folks with jobs and little homes and little families.
We chose to struggle to make ends meet.
We chose to live lives without wealth, fame, or power.
Perhaps, that whole "choice" thing was over-stated.
Yes, the child of a wealthy family can choose to be wealthy or can walk away and choose an ordinary, regular life.
And I've heard some of them have.
Mostly, I've heard of the children of the upper middle class that thought they were rich ending up in ordinary, regular lives.
They thought their parents were rich, then discovered that their parents were living at their own maximum level and while they provided a good education and a great starter car, they couldn't actually hand them a small million dollar loan to get started and won't be leaving them 50 million plus property when they die.
So these kids, that thought they were rich now have a degree in something, or not, a job, or not, and a lifestyle like their parents, or not.
Now, lets have a moment of reality.
The average salary in 2016 went up to $59,039.00.
The median net take home that same time was $30,533.31.
The average net was $46,640.94
The difference between average which is the total of all salaries for the year divided by the number of people with a salary, while the median is the point where 50% of the population makes more than than and 50% makes less.
Those are important differences to understand. A CEO making 30 million and a company where 80% make minimum wage that employees 1000 people will have a median wage of about $16,000/year, but an average wage of $53,660 even if none of the 20% making more than minimum wage make over $25 dollars an hour. That 0.1% of employees making 30 million raised the average to much higher than the median.
Only about 64% of the population owns or is buying a home these days. In 2009 that was 69%.
The average home price in 2017 was $240,000. The average square foot was 2426 square foot.
If you measure the homes in any 1920's neighborhood, most of those clapboard bungalows were considered huge if they were bigger than 1800 square feet.
http://www.newser.com/story/225645/average-size-of-us-homes-decade-by-decade.html
If you look closely at most of us average joe's, you will find that we are not so average about what matters.
Some of us have learned very well how to be happy with a home where everyone has a place to sleep, food to eat, loving interactions with family and friends. We might play the lottery, but know the actual odds. We don't try to push our children into living our dreams or pulling us into the society of the rich and/or famous.
Some of us don't get that being famous for performing in sports or entertaining or even politics, even though the income is amazingly high, will never pull us into that 0.1% of the population that runs the world. If you make it to that level, see how well you are accepted at their tables and into their families. The Forbes 400 don't meet their standards for old money and elite class.
https://www.therichest.com/rich-list/old-money-families-that-have-been-richest-the-longest/
So.
Now.
Have you been trying to keep up with the Jones' family? (nevermind the Gates' or Besos's, and forget completely about the Rothschilds and Rockefellers and Roosevelts.)
Do you spend more than you can afford on your home, your car, your child's wardrobe, your interior decorating?
Have you declined into a hoarder of bric-a-brac, books, washed and folded aluminum foil?
Do you struggle with depression because you will never be as rich as you want, have the best house in the city, the most tweets to go viral?
Do you check yourself in the mirror repeatedly to make sure you appear to be: a fashion model? A princess? A successful business man or woman? or whatever image you feel the need to project.
If you are feeling inferior due to averageness, remember these old clichés. (clichés aren't necessarily wrong, frequent repetition makes it unoriginal not erroneous)
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/rich-and-poor
“[W]hat is always overlooked is that although the poor want to be rich, it does not follow that they either like the rich or that they in any way want to emulate their characters which, in fact, they despise. Both the poor and the rich have always found precisely the same grounds on which to complain about each other. Each feels the other has no manners, is disloyal, corrupt, insensitive - and has never put in an honest day's work in its life.”
― Elaine Dundy, Elvis and Gladys
“Rich people always had someone to call who could arrange something that the average guy couldn't get done, no matter how right or wrong. The only call the poor man could make was to Jesus. If Jesus didn't answer, Smith and Wesson always did.”
― James Anderson, The Never-Open Desert Diner
“They would have liked to be rich. They believed they would have been up to it. They would have known how to dress, how to look and how to smile like rich people. They would have had the requisite tact and discretion. They would have forgotten they were rich, would have grasped how not to flaunt their wealth. They wouldn't have taken pride in it. They would have drunk it into themselves. Their pleasures would have been intense. They would have liked to wander, to dawdle, to choose, to savour. They would have liked to live. Their lives would have been an art of living.
But such things are far from easy.”
― Georges Perec
The point is not that rich people are right and poor people are wrong.
The point is not that rich people are evil and poor people are good---or the other way around.
The point is not that being rich is easy or being poor is easy.
The point is---we are all humans, and what all humans have in common is they are alive. They have a right to be alive. They have a right to feel their feelings, to follow their dreams, to have friends and family, to love, to create, to live their lives in such a manner that they feel times of happiness, of grief, of hope, of elation and of self-satisfaction.
And none of them have a right to do any of those things at the expense of any other, at the detriment of any other, or at the exclusion of any other human.
Know what you have, appreciate what you have, and never think that anyone else is better than you or more entitled to live their life to their fullest.
Be rich in your love and happiness and gratitude.
You are already famous (or infamous) to those that know you.
Never put your life on hold till you become rich and famous.
It's not really money that rules.
IT"S TIME!
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