Thoughts Before The Alarm Sounds

      The much ballyhooed healthcare summit between President Obama and the Republicans generated quite a bit of heat, but little fire. Pundits from both the left and the right are claiming their side “won,” but is that what is really important? Is this a war? Both sides scored a few brownie points with their constituents, but what about those members of the American public that have no health insurance? As usual, they lost.       The Republicans came into the meeting shouting “start over,” and never budged, while the President kept calling for bipartisanship, and he was just a voice calling in the wilderness. To be honest, he didn’t offer any compromises either. The whole meeting was just a “tempest in a teacup, signifying nothing;” an exercise in political posturing.       So where do we go from here? I may be slightly overstating the standoff; this morning’s news reports that the President has approached Sen...

      Several days ago a few of us were solving the world’s most serious problems over coffee and dessert, when the subject of obituaries came up. (You can tell what we consider to be serious world problems.)       I believe the subject arose because someone mentioned an obit two full columns in length, which had appeared in that morning’s newspaper. The writer mentioned everything from the deceased’s having shoveled snow for his neighbors at the age of nine, to his career as a distinguished textbook author and educator. We agreed that it was probably a self-written obit because no one other than the man himself would have known all the intimate details included.       Someone asked me if I was going to write my obit. I have thought about it since then, and I have decided that it’s a good idea. I will mention everything from the time I read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica at the age of four, through my post-...

      Yesterday I wrote about the first time events occur. These occasions are often easy to recognize, although in some cases considerable time has to pass before we realize that it was indeed a pioneer event.       But while writing about first times, I recalled something I had written some years ago about last time events. This was written while we were living in California:       Barbara and I have often passed a very old Asian gentleman who takes daily shuffles around our development. I say shuffles, because he moves the heel of one foot even with the toe of the other when he walks. His progress is very slow – we usually meet him, walk completely around the development, and meet him again about half a block from where he was before.       We always say “Good morning” to him, and he always smiles and tips his cap to us. Barbara has noticed that he has to shift his cap (which he us...

      Along with most of the world, I have been watching the Winter Olympics. Seeing the athletes, particularly skiers and snowboarders, flipping, twisting and turning through the air has got me to thinking about the first person to do certain things.       For example, think about the first person to do a flip, a spin or a twist on skis. He was gutsy enough, but how about the first guy to combine them into one jump. What was he thinking? Would you do it? Neither would one person in a thousand.       The same applies to the first person to navigate the half-pipe in snowboarding. And the snowboarder to do all those flips, spins and twists for the first time.       I went to Youtube to review Dick Button’s gold medal performance in 1948 . It looks a bit anemic today, but the jumps he performed were firsts for a new era in ice skating.       Gettin...

      On Thursday, February 18th, Joseph Stack deliberately crashed his small plane into a building housing IRS offices in Austin, Texas. Before taking off he set fire to his own home.       On his web site Stack left a long tirade, in which he managed to blast just about every organization he could think of: the government, the Catholic Church, and of course, the IRS among others.       He had apparently gotten himself into trouble with the IRS several times in the past, and of course the complexity of the Tax Code came in for particular attack, along with the "political representatives (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate)” who “don’t see [simplifying it] as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies.”       Stack saves some of his invective to lambast “the incredible stupidity of the American public; that they buy, hook, line, and sinker, t...

      President Obama has finally presented a healthcare plan that he would like to see enacted. It’s about time – if he had done this months ago we would have a plan by this time.       Instead he has been leaving it up to Congress to develop a plan. That’s about as likely to happen as finding a herd of cats forming a straight line. So much for leadership. Anyway, as of February 22nd he has finally decided to take the reins.       His plan makes a few changes to the Senate plan which was passed a few weeks ago. It would cover 31 million presently uninsured people.       Almost everyone would need to either have insurance or pay a fine. Exceptions to the fine would be available for certain low income people; they would receive generous subsidies to help them buy insurance.       Certain reforms would be mandated for the insurance industry, e.g., no one could b...

      I have written before about the fact that the success of a republic is dependant upon having an enlightened electorate (See blog of Jan. 24, 2010). But the more I see of the public reaction to the stimulus bill, the more I realize that the electorate has been kept in the deep shade.       Most economists agree that the stimulus was the right thing to do, and that it prevented a bad recession from sinking into one much worse. Private sector analyses estimate that ultimately it will preserve or create 2.5 million jobs. Why, then, has it got such a bad rap?       It’s not that the administration has not tried to get the message across; it’s just that the Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, Palin crowd (BHLP) has shouted louder to get a skewed version across.       Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda chief said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come t...

      President Obama has included an amount of $371 billion over ten years to pay for the cost of preventing the reduction of Medicare payments to doctors. It may well do that, but in essence it freezes those payments for the next decade. I would expect that will not sit too well with the medical profession.       Not only that, but he has left the details of the freeze up to Congress. Considering the politicians’ penchant for pork, that could be a disaster for MDs who do not live in the district of a powerful Congressman.       Regardless of any other healthcare reform, it is a foregone conclusion that certain Medicare plans, in particular the so-called Medicare Advantage plans, will see changes in the near future, in the form of cuts in reimbursements to insurance companies and other providers. Undoubtedly MA customers will see substantial increases in cost and decreases in service.     ...

      One of my Facebook friends, who happens to be a motivational speaker, contributes a daily inspirational comment on the wall. Her thought for today is, “Winter is on its way out. Shovel what you can to clear the sidewalk of your life. Spring - and new growth - is coming soon...look for the new opportunities budding in your life.” That is a good idea anytime.       I have proof that she is correct regarding the departure of Old Man Winter. Although there is still a foot of snow on the ground, and it is piled up six feet deep along the highways, there are some places where it is not so deep, e.g., sheltered spots or places where the wind has blown it away. In some of those spots, the daffodils and crocuses are beginning to poke through. I can hardly wait.       For inspiration, however, one need look no further than the Winter Olympic Games now showing on NBC. Take your cue from the kids – skaters, skie...

      A few days ago during a discussion I was having with a correspondent on the internet, I got a bit dogmatic. He politely corrected me; a correction which I accepted and for which I apologized. Then I wrote, “In my belief system one should always tacitly add ‘in my opinion’ to any sentence I utter.”       He answered, “In my belief system one should always add to any statement I make.”       Alfred Korzybski (1879 – 1950), a Polish-American philosopher and scientist, founded the study of general semantics. If you have come across the statement, “The word is not the thing,” or, “The map is not the territory,” you are familiar with two of his favorite sayings.       It was Korzybski’s contention that no matter what or how much one may say about any thing or event, something will be left out of the description. For example, you can describe the texture of a fabric all day, but it is not...

      I believe that listening to ideas from the right side of the aisle is a good idea, and I certainly hope that the bipartisan healthcare summit to be held on February 25th does not degenerate into political posturing and name-calling by either party. Not all ideas put forth by either Democrats or Republicans are necessarily born without blemish, but almost all deserve some consideration.      One good idea from the right is to make health insurance available across state lines. Here is a true life example:       When Barbara retired, she lost the health insurance that came with her job. When she applied for private coverage, it was denied because she was taking two blood pressure medicines; if she had been taking only one, she could have got it. So she opted for the high-risk coverage offered by the state of California, at a cost of almost $900 per month; upon moving to Pennsylvania, the same coverage was $240 p...

      In my blog A Good Idea From the Right of 02/13/10, I mentioned the cost of preventive medicine which physicians are almost compelled to perform in order to avoid litigation. Without doing something to mitigate this problem, healthcare costs will continue to rise.       In a nutshell, what makes this cost difficult to control is that medical suppliers are paid according to the number of procedures they perform. The more procedures they perform, the more they get paid.        Republicans are concerned that the establishment of information-gathering panels (Sarah Palin’s “death panels”) to determine what treatments are most effective for specific medical conditions would result in government micromanagement of the healthcare system. The fear is that such management would lead to the rationing of treatment by government bureaucrats. In fact, Senate Republicans recently introduced "antirationing" legisla...

      It appears that the Pelosi/Reid healthcare reform legislation has gone down in flames. I have not included Obama among the drivers because it doesn’t appear that he had much to say about it, apparently by his own choice. It still seems ridiculous that one can have a 59 to 41 majority in any organization, and still not be able to get anything passed.       Unfortunately, this is not football; one cannot just drop back and punt. But what can one do? The Republicans have some suggestions, some of which are good ones; others may need further study.       Tort reform is at the top of the Republicans' list. Insofar as it concerns healthcare, I think it is an idea that needs to be considered. But what is it?       Without realizing it, most of us are ambivalent in our understanding of tort reform. On the one hand we believe tort reform is the effort to “reform” lawsuits so as to prevent...

      On average, the Lancaster area receives two snowstorms of 12 inches or more every fifty years. We have had three so far this year, and it’s only the middle of February! It’s already a record year for the most snow.       The first one at the beginning of January measured just over 12 inches, and by afternoon the highways were clear. No big deal.       The second, about two feet deep, occurred last Friday night and Saturday; by Sunday the roads were still not in very good condition. We didn’t get out of the house until Monday.       The double whammy hit Tuesday night – another 12 inches. We are again confined to the house.       We are going stir crazy. Just to show how much we need a change, we rearranged the furniture this morning – the first rearrangement in three years.       Of course, it’s really not that bad as long as we...

      In my blog “Will The Real Barack Obama Please Stand Up” on February 7, I mentioned that the President does not seem to be very enthusiastic on infrastructure spending, and that he has tended to push that off on the states. I think infrastructure spending is a veritable gold mine for job creation.       Chicago road crews are scrambling to fix 67,000 potholes a month. Communities in Pennsylvania rely on 100-year-old water pipes made of wood. Squirrels still cause widespread blackouts. The country’s 600,000 bridges, 4 million miles of roads and 30,000 wastewater plants desperately need attention. The solution isn’t patches, it’s an overhaul. [Popular Science, February, 2010.] The article also suggests some of the fixes available - some soon, some not so soon. Here are a few examples:       A professor at the University of Michigan has developed a concrete that senses the carbon dioxide and water in small c...

      I need to write about one more situation in my sermon concerning Barack Obama’s handling of the current recession: I realize that continued government spending to create jobs and pull us out of this downturn will entail running up deficits.       First a little history: During the period 1900 - 2010 the federal government has ended the year with a surplus 33 times and a deficit 78 times. There were five successive surplus years from 1900 to 1904, eleven from 1920 through 1930, and four from 1998 through 2001.       I believe a fair way to compare the size of the deficits is by ranking them as a percent of Gross Domestic Product. Not surprisingly, of the top 20, seven of them occurred during the war years 1918–1919 and 1942–1946. Five of them occurred during the Reagan years 1982-1986, and three of them occurred during the Bush-41 presidency. Only two occurred during the “runaway spending” years of the Gre...

      Yesterday I wrote that although Barack Obama needs to be prudent about how he spends the federal dollar, attempting to reduce overall spending would be a bad mistake at this time. Today I will attempt to expand that thought.      It is true that every dollar spent on either goods or services creates a job somewhere along the line, whether it is spent for prostitutes or Air Force tankers. However, not all dollars spent produce the same number of jobs. To the extent possible, the President should spend the money on those items which will produce the most “jobs per buck.” The following is a chart of jobs created by industry per million dollars spent:       In an interview on CNN days before the election, Mr. Obama explicitly ranked his priorities, starting with an economic recovery package that would include middle-class tax relief. His second priority, he said, would be energy; third, health care; fourth, tax ...

     I hate to say this, but Barack Obama is about to blow his last chance to end this recession anytime soon. I say this because history is about to repeat itself.      One year ago Obama signed a stimulus bill authorizing $787 billion dollars to beef up an economy which was suffering badly because of the credit crisis inherited from the Bush Administration. It was not enough. The President was still in the “honeymoon” stage with Congress, and that was his best chance to make a difference.      Now he is beginning to get concerned about the federal budget. He should, of course, be careful what he spends money for, but the idea of cutting back the total is a bad one.      While the number of jobs created by the stimulus is questionable, it has undoubtedly kept people on the payroll who would otherwise have been laid off. But the money will soon run out, and new jobs have not been created fast enough. ...

      One of the problems with aging is that one can see both sides of many controversies. This is one of those cases.       In 1969 (it’s hard to believe that was over 40 years ago), at the behest of then Governor Ronald Reagan, radical professor Angela Davis was fired by UCLA Regents because of her membership in the Communist Party. She was later reinstated after legal action was taken.       At the time she was fired, I was upset because I felt that if someone had radical ideas, those ideas would not survive the court of public opinion. I was, and still am, a believer in the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech , or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.       Or am I?  ...

      If you think baseball is a game of statistics, you haven’t seen anything yet. Sportvision, the folks who brought us the yellow first down line in football, and the pitch locator (the one with the crosshairs) in baseball, are busy in the off season installing their FieldFX camera system in major league ballparks. Up to four cameras will be located on the light standards along the first and third base lines.       On every play, the cameras will report the position, movement, direction and speed of every player on the field. It will also track the flight of the ball. In fact, not just the flight, but the position, angle, speed and who knows what all at every instant.       All of these will feed into a computer which will output things like “only 27% of the players in major league baseball could have made that play,” or “Joe seemed a little slow on that play; he was running at 15 miles per hour, but he gene...