From today's LA Times

  A study comparing prices for hospital stays, physician office  visits, drugs and other medical procedures in developed  countries shows U.S. prices among the most expensive. 

Scott Hauge, president of the San Francisco-based Small Business Coalition, told coalition members this  week that the survey and other indicators of growing medical costs are "not good news for small  businesses that are struggling to continue to provide health insurance and why health insurance access  and cost is the number one issue again for small businesses in our survey."

This is one of the main reasons  we need a single payer system!  We spend more and get less than any other wealthy nation in the world.  It hurts our citizens and it hurts our businesses.  It only benefits the insurance industry at the expense of the rest of the nation.

A response to a family political dispute. One decrying the excesses of the Radical Republicans, the other, a Republican, defending the party as not all extreme. My response to the first position follows:

Your facts are accurate in general, but I recall a time when both parties were reasonable and cooperative. The Republicans have allowed the propaganda machines of Fox and company to drive them to extremism and to purge or excommunicate those who are moderate and reasonable.  (RINO's -- Radicals in Name Only) They will either return to moderation or be replaced by a more reasonable party.  The Democrats will eventually drift toward extremism, to some degree or another. that is why I have no party loyalty and am deeply suspicious of all who do.

I Like your Christ

I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. -- Mahatma Gandhi

Far From Home

To a young man, far from home, making his way in a troubled world:

The world is often a harsh and troubled place.  At times humanity is depressingly short of our hopes and even our expectations.  It should not surprise anyone who knows me that five of my favorite authors are Swift, Twain, Kafka, Pratchett, and Vonnegut.  All take a sharp and even harsh view of humanity.  

It is easy to become depressed and despair of our species.  But recall that we are one with not only the crude and hateful, the bullying and the crass, but with the kind and wise, the creative and the loving. 

More importantly, consider the history of humanity. We have come a very long way from our roots. Casual cruelty, torture, rape, murder, slavery... the list of things which were once considered normal,  but which are now considered terrible, is very long.  We do progress. We do become a better species. It is slow and difficult road, but one which we have taken throughout our history, and are continuing to take now.

As hard it is for you at the moment, I recommend that you consider looking at things in a different way. You have referred to your feeling that you have a calling. Perhaps your calling is to be a better person yourself, and through the rest of your life, to help others to be better than they are today. It behooves each one of us, each and every day, to do what we can to make the world a better place than it was when we woke up that morning. It may seem at times as if we are struggling to create a huge cathedral one single stone at a time. But then again, given enough time and enough people making the effort, such cathedrals will rise.

After all, think about the progress we have made. Cathedrals have risen. There is much work to do, and is discouraging see how slowly and erratically the work goes, but it does go on.  The progress is painfully difficult and gains are often lost or at least eroded, yet we do not slip completely back into savagery at every opportunity.  In the long run, we advance.

I am reminded of an African story and an American one.  The African story was told on a television show I cannot recall.  The American one at a conference for school administrators.

The jungle had caught fire. A small group of varied animals who had escaped gathered on a hillside down which ran a stream and watched the destruction of their home.  A hummingbird, it's iridescent feathers flashing In the flickering light of the fire, began flying to the stream, sucking up as much water as it's tiny body could hold, then flying back to edge of the burning jungle, and squirting out the liquid in a vain attempt to slow the flames.

"You're wasting your efforts" said the elephant. 

"Yes," answered the exhausted hummingbird, "but at least I'm MAKING the effort."

Following a hurricane in Florida, a man was walking along a devastated beach. He was shaking his head at the terrible distress of the many thousands of sea urchins, sea stars, and starfish which had been washed ashore and were dying in the hot sun.  He met a little boy who was carefully picking up the animals one by one, and placing them back in the ocean.

"Don't waste your time, Kid," said the man.  He waved his hand at the disaster spread across the sands, "There's just too many of them. You can't make a difference."

The boy carefully picked up a red starfish, carried it to the waves, and dropped it in. He and the man watched it begin to stir and slowly start to crawl away. At that point the boy said, "Made a difference to that one."

I should end on that note, it feels right strictly from an authorial viewpoint.  However, I need to go on and make an additional point. Looking at the whole thing from a different angle, I must say that for all the difficulties that they are inflicting upon you, these are our fellow human beings. I was a quiet, intellectual kid, so I suffered my share of bullying in school. I understand your feeling of frustration and anger, because I've been there and I've done that. But I have also learned that human beings are very complex creatures. 

While it is true that many of us engage in reprehensible behavior...you need only look at Rush Limbaugh's recent excursion into filth and the degradation of American women, to see that even the powerful and wealthy are often vicious bullies...it is nevertheless also true that, with a few exceptions, there is a decent side even to those who are the most offensive.  I have, as an educator, worked with roughnecks, I have raised roughneck or two, and I have to say that not all rough-and-tumble dialogue is bullying or is even intended to be harmful. Much of it is intended as humor, as a bonding technique, and even as a cover for the tenderness which a roughneck can find confusing in himself.

Also remember that we gentle folk, we who prefer things smooth and easy, depend very heavily upon roughnecks for the safety of our existence:

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf. --George Orwell

Your chosen profession places you in the company of rough men. I'm not excusing everything all that they do and say. I am sure there are excesses and that at times they're entirely out of line. On the other hand, you are working with rough men. I think it is reasonable to expect them, from time to time, to be rough.  In other words, sometimes their behavior is just the habitual way which they have. Sometimes it is malicious, but try to remember that it isn't always malicious. Sometimes it's just...well, being rough.

So, although it isn't fair, since you are the thoughtful and reasonable one, it follows that it is up to you be thoughtful and reasonable.

If you do remain in this profession for your entire career, I can easily see you as the one who is regarded as "the old man". The thoughtful, steady hand which is key to a unit functioning smoothly. It's a position well-known and well respected in the Armed Forces. It may not be an  official assignment, but, believe me, it is an essential one.

I have a new TwinTurbo WaterPik shower massage. This is a direct result of my Moen  showerhead finally falling apart. Considering that it wasn't new when I moved here, and I moved here 12 years ago, I can't really complain. When I first used the new showerhead, I was pleased to find that it gave me the strongest massage yet.  I depend upon that due to my arthritis and general muscle aches and pains. My big complaint has always been, why isn't this shower massage stronger? 

When I first used the new unit, I was pleased, it was stronger than any I had used  before. But it still wasn't strong enough. Then I realized that there was a leak in the hose connection.It turned out at the washer was damaged. A quick trip to Walmart and that was corrected.  With the leak blocked, the massage spray was much more powerful.  

To all of you It may not matter. But I am happy!

From a Facebook comment on Republican attacks on Obama for apologizing to the Islamic world for the accidental mistreatment of the Koran by US forces:

Message to the Republican Party:

 A manly apology is not a weakness. It is a strength. An adult, secure in his position, confident in his masculinity, is not afraid to apologize. This, of course, is also true of an adult woman who is self confident and self-assured. The insecure, the frightened, those lacking in self-respect, these are the ones who are afraid to make a sincere honest, apology when an error has occurred.

As a retired elementary school teacher and principal I am quite familiar with this particular problem. Actually, I think every parent is quite familiar with this particular problem. Every kindergartner needs to learn, if their parents have not already taught them this essential fact, that throwing a temper tantrum, hissing and shrieking, and flatly refusing to apologize to everyone who dares to disagree with you is not actually the way to appear to the world to be a big boy or a big girl. The simple fact is, grown-ups apologize.

It does not hurt them to apologize. It does not weaken them to apologize. It shows that they are polite, self-assured, and secure.  It bears repeating, grown-ups apologize. Spoiled little children do not.

From the LA Times today. :

'We have a biology for reciprocation. I call oxytocin "the moral molecule." It's a chemical that motivates us to engage and care about others — and that's the basis for moral behavior. '
Yes, but there is much more to the story!   The chemical has a dark side:
http://www.ibcsr.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=287:connor-wood&catid=3:newsflash&Itemid=61
'Oxytocin, a hormone produced in the brain during bonding activities such as breastfeeding, childbirth, and sex, helps humans to relax, trust one another, and feel comfortable with others. Its pleasant effects are so well-known that it's often referred to as the "love hormone." But researchers at the University of Amsterdam have recently uncovered a dark secret: oxytocin appears to prime humans to prioritize in-group members over out-group persons, prompting questions of whether oxytocin is the key ingredient of ethnocentrism and prejudice.'

Scientists should know better than to oversimplify.  Flattered by the attention, honest scientists simplify and "clarify" complex data.  The popular press seizes on such carelessness, and later, when the full facts come out, the public assumes that science is untrustworthy and is constantly changing it's view of reality.  Not true, but it looks so to careless and poorly informed minds.  Minds that vote.

Errata:
Bobby, back in the days of the Philosophy Club, I once made point about humans as biochemical robots.  I pointed out that naked mole rats made lousy fathers and unfaithful mates, until dosed with oxytocin.  Then they became nurturing fathers and stayed loyal to one mate.  I have since discovered that the actual research was done on prairie voles.  In my defense, a story about prairie voles' sexual conduct has less amusement value than one about naked mole rats...you know, like Rush Limbaigh, the nakedest mole rat ever to insult American women.