mjh's blog

All Mark Considered

It’s nice to have been noticed by mi virtual vecino, Rudolfo Carrillo:

If you like challenging content and clunky pre-Web 2.0 layout, I’ve got the perfect site for you. While the questionably formatted photographic elements may raise a few eyebrows, you can hear a real heart beating here. Dang intellectuals! Usability rating: 5/10.

I’m thrilled to be associated with “challenging content” and intellectuals. I’m glad my heartbeat has been heard. I’ll consider the source regarding “clunky” and “questionably formatted.” I’m not sure I can stomach being in the same context as Mario Burgos, however.

For the record, edgewiseblog.com is my blog collective, mostly occupied by me and Walking Raven. I salt this page with thumbnails of my photos, which I wish you would take the time to see at www.flickr.com/photos/mjhinton. I have other blogs, as well, including one on computer topics and another on wilderness and anything I associate with that. My pages on Chaco Canyon used to rank high in Google, though I’ve let them languish.

Take some time to look around. “Get to know me,” as Jon Lovitz so famously said. Thanks for visiting. peace, mjh

PS: Web 2.0 (Internet) The second generation of the World Wide Web, especially the movement away from static webpages to dynamic and shareable content and social networking. [Hmmm. My database-driven website with social-networking content (Flickr) may not be 3.0.]

Republican Scare Tactics / Paranoia

Don’t worry, we won’t treat you the way you would treat us. peace, mjh

… a thirteen-question survey in the mail from the RNC, and that one of the questions implied that the health care reform bills before Congress would purposely discriminate against people who affiliated with the Republican Party:

…

Of course the RNC survey is just one part of the scare tactics being used by opponents of health care reform. They have suggested that health reform could “pull the plug on grandma“, subject mentally ill children to “death panels,” and even herald in a new era of eugenics.

A spokesman for the RNC has now described the mailing as “inartfully worded.”

Whispering, “Rain!”

In this dry year,
the cottonwood leaves linger
late in December.
They rattle
a parched prayer
or poem, perhaps.
Whispering, “rain,”
they stay long past
their fellows fallen
into mulch in the gutter.
Whispering, “rain,”
they cling to their post
on sacred duty.
Whispering, “rain,”
they cannot let go
as clouds gather.
Whispering, “rain,”
they will not drop
until they are answered.
Whispering, “Rain!”

mjh

Written 12/16/02, my father’s birthday. // It rained this week.

Facts, not Fiction, in Health Care Coverage [updated 8-25-09]

Winthrop Quigley is in a class by himself as a writer. He does a superb job of breaking down complex topics. Everyone should read all of his column on health care coverage (linked).

ABQJOURNAL BIZ: For sake of argument, stick to the facts
By Winthrop Quigley
Of the Journal
         If the nation is to have any hope of a reasonable debate about health policy, people on both ends of the political spectrum would do well to renounce some cherished myths about health care not only in the United States but in the rest of the world.
       Policies based on reality really should work better.
       There is a case to be made that commercial insurance has no place in health care. There is a case to be made that government has no place in health care. …

[updated 8-25-09]

Not a Bad Return
By Winthrop Quigley
Monday, 24 August 2009 15:02

Some of the predictable sniping occurred at Martin Heinrich’s town hall on the health care bills Saturday. A noisy but minority cohort insisted on describing as socialism proposals to cover more low-income people with public funds and to establish a government-operated competitor for insurance companies.

Socialism as a theory says that the only input to production of any value is labor and therefore the only return from production should be to labor. As a practice, socialism generally means central planning and state ownership of factors of production.

I am not a big fan of the federal bail-out of GM and Chrysler. I have written in the Journal that I doubt the government-run insurance company that President Obama favors will make any meaningful difference to health care in America. I do not believe that any business is too big to fail.

But I am a big fan of calling things by their proper name. The people screaming about socialism at Heinrich’s town hall were upset about the car company bailouts, the need of the government to recapitalize Fannie Mae, investments in Citigroup, loans and warrants in the finance sector. What they are upset about is not socialism but state capitalism — state investment in the private sector.

There is a bunch of that around. The state of New Mexico invested in Eclipse Aviation. China’s sovereign wealth funds have positions in natural resource companies. The United States owns stock in Citigroup.

Like any owner, sovereign owners have a say in how things are done, but they are no more interested in running the companies they invest in than is the average worker who owns shares of IBM through his 401K plan.
But here’s the fun part: It turns out Uncle Sam has been a very saavy investor. We the taxpayers own 34 percent of Citigroup, and based on its recent stock price so far we’ve made $11 billion. (Citi is the only bank in which the U.S. government has an ownership stake.) We earned 23 percent on the TARP money we gave Goldman Sachs. In fact, it looks as if the government will make money on most of the deals it did during the financial turmoil of the past year or so.

Another Rightwinger Wants to Dissolve the Union

http://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/letters/2222946letters08-22-09.htm

Obama and the Democrat Party have returned us full circle to the tyrannical days of Taxation Without Representation. And if I might point out to our politicians and the rest of their communist colleagues, it was Taxation Without Representation which started this country and it’s going to be Taxation Without Representation which ends it.
       CLYDE J. ARAGON
       Albuquerque

Seriously, Clyde? Were you not represented by Tricky Dick Nixon, the crook, and Spiro Agnew, the godfather of thuggery? Were you not represented by Ronnie Raygun, the god of the GOP and bumpersticker politics? Were you not represented by Gingrinch and the Contract on America? Were you not represented by BushCo? In all those years, I paid taxes. In most of those years, if I complained, your ilk told me to shut up or move to another country. Now, after one election, you’re ready to dissolve the union? Where’s your respect for America? peace, mjh

Grand One-note Party

Sound familiar?

“Write those letters now. Call your friends, and tell them to write them. If you don’t, this program I promise you will pass just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow. And behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country, until, one day… we will awake to find that we have socialism. And if you don’t do this, and if I don’t do it, one of these days, you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.” – Ronnie Raygun railing against Medicare to the AMA in 1961

Heath Haussamen on New Mexico Politics: Reagan’s great Medicare blunder

So, how many Americans wish the GOP had defeated Medicare?

Just You Wait, John Wayne Higgins – Trust in Fate

I first heard of John Wayne Higgins when he ran for Bernco Probate Judge in 1998. Aside from his cool name, his most distinguishing trait in that race was a complete lack of probate experience. That’s NM’s constitution, for you: The only requirements for county office are being 18 and paying a small filing fee.

Higgins is a DWI attorney. After his second arrest for DWI, I wonder if he is subconsciously drawn to DWI or if the appeal is learning to game the system. The belligerent, bellicose drunk in the police videos clearly needs to dry out. But, heck, can you blame him for celebrating after getting off of domestic violence charges that same day?

Higgins should accept his 48 hours in jail (not yet served) and one year probation. Of course, he’s going to fight it to restore his,  ahem, good name. Oh, but those videos will be around forever, JW.

Attorney found guilty of aggravated DWI | KRQE News 13 New Mexico

Aloha, Hawai’i! Happy Statehood Day!

Fifty years ago, four years after I was born in the Territory of Hawai’i, Hawai’i became the 50th state. Let’s overlook the invasion, conquest, and overthrow of the indigenous sovereign a hundred years ago, and hang loose. Aloha!

Five-oh is five-oh. « The Edge of the American West

I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by the virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim August 21, 2009, as the Fiftieth Anniversary of Hawaii Statehood. I call upon the people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.

http://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/2009/08/21/five-oh-is-five-oh/

Huzzah to Barney Frank!

Think Progress » Frank slams protester comparing Obama to Hitler: ‘On what planet do you spend most of your time?’
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/08/19/frank-woman-hitler/

Last night, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) held a contentious town hall in Dartmouth, MA to discuss health care reform. The crowded hall of more than 500 people had both supporters and opponents of health care reform, but the opposing side was “much louder and more raucous.” At one point, Frank asked the crowd: “Which one of you wants to yell next?” Frank then excoriated a woman who asked a question while holding up a picture of President Obama defaced to look like Hitler:

QUESTION: Why do you continue to support a Nazi policy as Obama has expressly supported this policy? Why are you supporting it? [...]

FRANK: On what planet do you spend most of your time? … You want me to answer the question? Yes. You stand there with a picture of the President defaced to look like Hitler and compare the effort to increase health care to the Nazis. My answer to you is, as I said before, it is a tribute to the First Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated.

Frank concluded: “Trying to have a conversation with you would be like arguing with a dining room table.”

Afterdeath

LuckyDog died a week ago today. Soon, it will have been a month ago, then a year. One day, he will have been dead longer than he lived. So it is for each of us.

I’ve categorized Lucky’s blog entries under “The Atheist’s Pulpit.” I created that category years ago to collect entries pertaining to my thoughts about life and death and what, for other people, are religious experiences.

I do not believe there is or ever was a god. I know, you got that from “atheist,” but I say it more emphatically because I never hear anyone else say it so baldly. I used to call myself an agnostic and, then, an antagnostic (one who would oppose god if he could believe in god). However, the absurd overconfidence of people who believe in a micromanaging patriarch compels me to speak for myself.

More relevant to my thoughts over the past week: I believe death ends individuality. I don’t really care about the particulars of what happens to a once-living being’s molecules or the energy that animates it. What we call personality, identity, self, or soul, ends at death. Memories and photos aren’t the same.

Even people who reject the notion of a cartoonish heaven where everyone is miraculously reunited with everyone else usually take comfort in something beyond death. My mother expected to reappear as a cardinal or a butterfly, although she spoke sometimes of radiating out into space, like an old TV show. Most of my godless friends fill the void with Life or the Universe itself, which I find tempting, but one might as well worship the sun at that point. (I would be in the minority, worshipping the moon.)

So, I don’t believe in god(s), I don’t believe in heaven or hell (but I know where I’m going if I’m wrong), I don’t believe in reincarnation, an afterlife, or an immortal soul. Feel free to feel superior or scandalized, or to pray for me. By all means, rib me gently should we meet on the other side of Death. I’ll owe everyone a Coke. peace, mjh

PS: If I were going to believe in gods, I’d be a polytheist. It is easy to imagine countless petty, incompetent, jealous, and quarrelsome gawds looking for ways to trip us up.

PPS: I do appreciate a beautiful Buddhist image of the river of life cascading over a falls. A droplet of water appears for an instant – that is your life. In no time, that individual droplet returns to the All. Beautiful, but no comfort, if you like being yourself or want to see your dog again, someday.

Loss, Sacrifice, and Hope for Renewal

For my 40th birthday, I asked my friends to shave my head in an unintentionally bloody fireside ceremony in Chaco Canyon. I half-jokingly referred to that as a ritual sacrifice. As an atheist, I have to create my own communal rituals and rites of passage to mark the milestones of my life.

Twenty four hours after Lucky’s death, I shaved my head again. In some cultures, the grieving ululate, whip themselves, and rend their clothing. Now I wear my sacrifice as a disfigurement I cannot hide. Still, in time, some of my hair may come back in a slow indication of renewal. Life does go on.

Although Lucky took to Merri immediately, he wasn’t so sure about me. He eyed me suspiciously and kept his distance. The first time I entered our bedroom as Merri slept, Lucky barked a warning. We considered it might be my maleness, about which I have never been able to do anything, one way or the other. In desperation, I shaved off my goatee (my pride), as a sacrifice for the pack. Eventually, Lucky came around and the goatee came back.

We’ll bury my hair with Lucky’s ashes, as well as with shards of his food bowl, which I shattered. A part of me will always be with a part of him, and vice versa.

More Rightwing Nonsense

I held my nose and fought my gag reflex to push my way through a recent column by Victor Davis Hanson, the corporate shill. His thesis today is that Obama is Big Brother. I’m not interested in debunking his, ahem, insights, although I’m certain they will sweep through the community of Deep Thinkers faster than a photo of Obama with a swastika carved in a slice of watermelon.

There are just two things I won’t let stand unanswered, as futile as it is to respond to people who are intentionally ignorant and too angry to reason with.

“Once praised dissent has become subversive.” Once praised by whom, Vic? Certainly not by your side, which argued it was the duty of all citizens to shut up and take of their shoes for the good of the Homeland. (How many people actually read the PATRIOT Act. Talk about newspeak and double-think.) It’s not surprising that Hanson doesn’t understand “dissent” doesn’t mean carrying guns and signs calling for the death of the president or that simulated lynchings are not an act of moral courage. Or does Hanson believe those incidents were manufactured by leftists and the “state-run media” (no, not Fox, anymore). (I’d be laughing it I weren’t terrified by the reality that thousands of gunnuts are having wet-dreams about becoming the great liberators thanks to the overheated rhetoric of Hanson and his ilk. When blood runs in the streets, it won’t be a leftish holding the gun.)

“Bush is somehow culpable for the newly projected $2 trillion annual deficits.” Uh, “somehow”? Doesn’t Hanson remember the big taxcuts followed by the invasions of two countries, one of which was just to show Daddy who has the bigger Dick? Yes, BushCo turned a surplus into a deficit and turned taking your shoes off into an act of loyalty. Gawd love the violent, dangerous, mean, and ugly Deep Thinkers and the lies they sing to each other.

I recommend Animal Farm to Hanson. A tale about lying pigs seems more relevant to him.

Less Heat, More Light

A friend had an encounter with a health care reform opponent and threw up her hands in frustration. I wrote and gathered a few things for her [thanks, Newmexiken, et al.]:

To opponents of health care reform: The word "socialist" means absolutely nothing anymore. It frightens a minority of Americans and makes just as many groan and roll their eyes. It has become a red flag that says "I’m not listening to anyone because I know what’s wrong with everything." So, what do you say to someone who isn’t listening? Nothing at all.

"Nobody in America is going without health care at this time.  True, the current situation is inefficient,  expensive, and to some degree unjust.  Yet, there are not any people in this country who can not get treatment if they are hurt or sick."

Wow. How can anyone believe that. Normally, opponents of reform say that, yes, there are those without coverage, but most don’t need it, many don’t want it, and the rest are illegals. (and therefore, not deserving? even though actual criminals get state-funded healthcare).

Surely, reform opponents would agree that sending every person with any ailment into an Emergency Room is horribly inefficient. That inefficiency is expensive and we all pay for it somehow. People need to see doctors before they’re sick. People need access to
General, Primary, and Urgent care, not just Emergency. Do opponents really believe that everyone in America could schedule a routine annual exam if they wanted one? Or get a tetanus shot anytime? Aren’t we pissing away money on delayed and ineffective treatment and tests?

The person quoted above seems to think there is no need for any reform whatsoever, despite admitting the current situation is "inefficient, expensive, and, to some degree, unjust." Really? His own words seem to demand reform. Isn’t there a single issue about health care and insurance that the extremes can agree on?

As for the rush: I sympathize with this view, although I know for a fact it is a straw man for those who will NEVER support change. Why did we pass the odious "PATRIOT" Act so quickly? Where we these "slow down" people then? Letting fear rule them.

I hope somewhere there is a single opponent of healthcare reform who thinks, if only we’d taken care of this 17 years ago, we’d have saved billions and a ton of acrimony. But, holding one’s breath is unhealthy. peace, mjh

- – - – -

Family Health – Health Care Reform Simplified and Myths Dispelled by President Obama | Health News
http://www.healthnews.com/family-health/health-care-reform-simplified-myths-dispelled-president-obama-3557.html

The reason of reform was laid out by President Obama in June during a speech to the American Medical Association (AMA). “Today we are spending over $2 trillion a year on health care—almost 50 percent more per person than the next most costly nature. And yet, as I think many of you are aware, for all of this spending, more of our citizens are uninsured, the quality of our care is often lower, and we aren’t any healthier… So to say it as plainly as I can, health care is the single most important thing we can do for America’s long-term fiscal health. That is a fact.”

The need for reform came from millions upon millions of Americans who expressed as much during the presidential campaign and since the Obama administration came into power. Not only are there now more than 47 million people in the United States known to be without health care coverage of any kind, but a growing number of people are being added to that list who have insufficient coverage, are on the verge of losing coverage due to unemployment and rising insurance costs, do not get treatment even when covered because of deductibles and copayments, and or have gone bankrupt due to medical costs. The demand for reform came from the majority of the American people.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/

Ezra Klein – The Actual Debate Over Health-Care Reform

[mjh: after two paragraphs of things legislators agree on or are discussing...]

Here are the things legislators don’t agree about: whether we should have a public option that is open only to the minority of Americans on the exchanges or a co-op option. How to handle abortion. How to handle geographic disparities in insurance costs.

Here are the things that aren’t under consideration but are alive in the public debate: socialized medicine. Euthanasia. Government-driven rationing. Death panels. Illegal immigrants. …

The Democrats conceded so much up-front that the actual range of debate is strikingly slim. The public option attracts most of the attention, but the reality of the policy, even in the liberal House bill, is that it’s limited to the insurance exchanges and isn’t expected to serve more than 12 million people by 2019.

In part, that’s why the debate has had to move toward fear-mongering and lies: There just aren’t that many scary elements in the bills, because the legislation is oriented toward preserving the existing system and avoiding points of controversy. You can make an argument that the policy is worse because of its modesty. A more ambitious approach could save more money and do more to fix the system. But that’s the way it is. …

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/08/the_actual_debate_over_health-.html

‘This law is really well thought out’

I think I read about 50 or 60 pages of it, legal language with lots of references to other parts of the legislation and even standing laws going back to the 1950s. And I’ve got to say: this law is really well thought out. (Keeping in mind that it won’t get really cluttered with special interest crap until it goes to conference.) The protections in the law for people who don’t want to give up their private insurance are detailed and comprehensive.

It got to be kind of fun. My friend would email me a complaint, and I’d go find the relevant portion of the legislation and discover that the rightie scare story he was reading had the law exactly wrong. It’s going to forbid companies from offering private insurance! No, it’s not. It’s going to force me into the government plan! No, it’s not. If I have another kid, that kid will have to go into the government plan while the rest of the family stays in the private plan! No, it’s not. If I decline the government plan, I’ll have to pay a tax penalty! No, you won’t.

The legislation bends over backwards to let people and companies make their own choice, but to hear the opposition tell it, it’s a Nazi takeover. Instead of town meetings, politicians should host small-group readings of the legislation. I thought the afternoon was fascinating.

http://newmexiken.com/2009/08/this-law-is-really-well-thought-out/

House Health Care Bill – H.R.3200: America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 – U.S. Congress – OpenCongress

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/show

And, as a thoughtful contribution from the other side:

GOP Congressman: There are ‘death counselors’ authorized in the health care bill.

Rep. John Mica (R-FL) told a Florida radio station today that the health care legislation being considered by the House of Representatives will authorize the creation of “death counselors“:

“They create a whole new category,” Mica, a Winter Park Republican, said on WDBO. “There are death counselors. There is authorization for reimbursement for those counselors for Medicare. You have a whole new cottage industry.

Mica joins several other conservatives in promoting the conspiracy theory that health reform legislation is secretly designed to kill old people.

- – - – -
FACTBOX: How do healthcare proposals compare?
Fri Aug 14, 2009 8:11am EDT

(Reuters) – When Congress returns September 8, lawmakers will continue work on an overhaul of the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare system. There are three different plans in the works, all containing changes that would be phased in over a number of years.

In the House of Representatives, three committees have each approved changes to one House bill. The changes will be melded by House leaders into final legislation before a floor vote expected in September.

In the Senate, the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has approved its version and the Senate Finance Committee is working on a separate healthcare overhaul bill.

The following is a comparison of major points in the various proposals. …

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE57D23Z20090814?sp=true

A Good Death

I wrote Lucky’s obit the night before the end. Although I do feel it is terrible to have to euthanize a loved one, euthanasia is amazingly quick, peaceful, and a necessary release. Lucky’s long-time vet, Dr. Barb McGuire, and her tech, Amanda, could not have found a better balance of professional conduct plus heartfelt compassion. We put Lucky’s bed in the shade of the sideyard. Merri gave him his last piece of bacon. I picked him up and gently laid him down on the bed. He sighed. He didn’t flinch at the sound of the electric razor used to trim fur from his leg. We were all as ready as we would ever be. From pinprick to expiration couldn’t have taken 10 seconds. Merri and I sat with him in the grass until the animal cremation company arrived and kind Ely carted him away. That was the moment I felt the most regret – the loss felt more real suddenly — but we agree cremation makes sense.

It also makes sense that any person who is suffering beyond all hope of relief should have the option to end his or her own life with the help of a compassionate physician.

Thank you to everyone who has read these entries and to those who have written. Grief feels lonely, but it unites every living being. Death is the price of Life. Grief is the price of Love.