i updated the following status to my facebook page before i left on this coastal adventure with my brother and parents, for our first "family vacation" since i don't even know when:
off to gold beach, where time surely stands still, though the oregon coast is a beautiful, but cold, but still beautiful, thing...
my favorite lady pointed out that it was almost poetic, and rereading the post with that in mind, i actually thought so too. without being pretentious, cos i'm no f. scott fitzgerald, it reminded me of the way he may have phrased something in his book the great gatsby, which i highly recommend to anyone who's not yet read it. it's funny how other people seeing things in your allows you to see them as well.
as i write this blog from a bar, the only place open with free wireless internet in gold beach, the sun peeks through a ramshackle skylight, where a malapropos state of california flag and some sort of kite in the shape of an old bi-plane hang. the song "here comes the sun" comes on the radio, which would be incredibly kitsch to write were it not true, followed by the oh so familiar voice of the one and only hank williams. it's no later than 2pm here but the bar already ebbs and flows with people much, like the ocean that one can see through the bay windows behind the bar. 2 women come in, order a white russian and some sort of mai tai looking drink and sit down to try their luck at the video poker and slot machines. a saturday afternoon indeed.
before landing here, my brother and i made more of a status quo attempt to get on the internet at a local cafe, only to find that they, in addition to drink prices, charge $2.50 for 3 hours of internet. welcome to 5 or more years ago where wireless internet was a luxury and not a necessity as it is in all big cities, hell, just about any size city, now. while waiting on my freshly ordered coffee, a dark italian roast that my palate was greatly looking forward to, an elderly woman, who had apparently just ordered the same thing and who was holding a mug containing the fruits of that labor, extends it towards me and says, "smell it. that's the dark roast." welcome to small town america. i lean towards the cup, and against my current big city protocol of how one interacts with people, i feign to smell it. this brand of rehearsed kindness is due to a dormant, small town politeness that manifests itself upon occasions when one finds themselves in similar situations to their childhood/adolescence.
imagine asking someone in paris, san francisco, new york city, or even berlin where i currently live, to smell your cup of coffee. i'd love to be a fly on the wall for that reaction. maybe the idea of mine in a big city, where personal space and private property can be so scarce, is much more pronounced and fiercely defended. i try the coffee. it's awful. not in a snooty, "this isn't my big city, organic, fair trade, french roast" kind of way, just in an "oh my god, how do they make money selling this" kind of way.
once i discover the internet is not free, we pack up our things and head out. dutifully sipping my coffee, we make our way the couple blocks to the other place in town with internet: the crow's nest. who saw that coming?? a bar in a coast town with a vague reference to some sort of seafaring theme?? go figure.
this is all happening on the day after our night out at...wait for it... "the sea shell" (see aforementioned reference to seafaring bar themes in towns on the coast...). this place had a very strange dynamic to it. there were quite a few scurvy characters in there (lots of carhartt clothing), however, being spring break, there was a contingent of 20 or so osu students in the bar, bravely brandishing their identity, err...school colors. they were doing this in the form of sweats, sweatshirts, hats, jackets and anything else that would help them belong. it's not enough that you pay about 20 grand a year for school, you also want to drop an extra grand on clothing throughout your college career to fit in and/or prove to people you go to that school. people should really just walk around with their official "student loan" receipts in their pockets and they can whip those out in order to prove that they belong. oh yeah, you belong buddy, to the tune of 40 grand in student loan debt....
after listening to a surprisingly good, read: accurate cover band, playing several games of pool at 75 cents a game (what!!?? it's cheaper in manhattan) and for sure being mistaken for "gays" a few times, my brother and i decided to call it a night. where are we off to tonight though after the parents call it a night you may ask? well, probably the sea shell, for round 2.
until the next time....
-r-
Samstag, 27. März 2010
Donnerstag, 25. März 2010
healthcare in the good ol' u.s. of a and how it affects me directly
well, this is the topic of the moment isn't it? so what would be more a propos, than an average, middle class citizen of this country, directly involved in the debate due to the healthcare bill's indirect involvement of everyone who calls him/herself a citizen of the united states, to sound off on it and how it affects him personally? because really, if we take everyone's position into account and see the polarizing effects that this bill has brought out in our society, then we see that it's people and their individual opinions, regardless of how inane or illogical they may be, that make up the core of this debate and they're the ones to decide it, whether it be by having encouraged they're representatives to pass the bill, or by trying to vote the representative out of office who did pass the bill that is so out of touch with the people, as the tea party members would most likely protest.
my opinion on the situation, oversimplified for this example of course, is that even if both positions are taken to an extreme, in the sense that you have extremists on each side blindly preaching their values, whether or not they know the reasoning behind it, much like in this video
at least on the side of universal healthcare, in spite of the fear of "government interference"(which is a misnomer saved for another blog post perhaps. anyone heard of a government program called medicaid?? hmmm...), people are being taken care of.
now i've never been a democrat, nor a republican, i'm a registered independent in fact, though party, nor alliegence should be incredibly important in my opinion when it comes to health care. why is this you say? well, health care is something that is in my opinion, a fundamental human right, because this "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" that we as americans swear upon, is directly affected by one's health and ability to carry out normal, quotidian affairs directed at achieving said happiness. Unless it's just some cruel joke, i'm sure the founding fathers upon writing that into the declaration of independence, didn't mean it in the sense of a carrot on a stick, but rather the pursuit of a personal, attainable happiness. one may pose the question: what does universal healthcare have to do with any of that? well, my retort would be to point out anyone who has had a cold or any other short term, curable malady, such as the flu, strep throat, etc, can attest to the debilitating nature of being sick in hopes of accomplishing anything. anyone who has been bed ridden for a week due to illness knows that it's no picnic and life goes from "the pursuit of happiness" to survival. now, if one were to expound this debilitating condition, turning it into something of a chronic, incurable nature, and then compound that with not being able to get treatment for the aforementioned malady, that's a whole different story, in fact, it's a travesty. even more so when you consider the surroundings; this isn't happening into some poverty ridden, far off country, this is occurring to people in our country, and more immediately, in our communities, to people we know personally, not just statistics. this is happening in america, a place where these people going under are surrounded by an incomparable wealth and abundance unseen in the rest of the world. consider this:
"That the country needs to reform its health care system is painfully obvious. At least 47 million Americans have no medical coverage, 75 million are underinsured with skeleton plans, and 86.7 million Americans have been uninsured for at least 6 months over last two years. There has been a dramatic rise increase in the uninsured rate in every state. Lack of health care coverage caused 45,000 deaths per year. Health care premiums shot up more than 90% between 2000 and 2007, while the profits of the 10 largest insurers increased 428 percent over the same period. Without real reform, there will be a 94% increase in health insurance premiums by 2020. Harvard researchers say 62% of all personal bankruptcies in the US were caused by health problems—and 78% of those filers had insurance. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, despite having the most expensive per capital health care in the world, the US in only ranked 37th in the quality of care."
in berlin, germany where i've lived for the last 3 years, i randomly contracted pink eye one day, anyone that's had it recently, can attest to the fact that it's no fun. now pink eye is very curable and i was able to procure the necessary drugs for less than 10 euro if memory serves, and everything cleared up in one day, which made me think. people in third world countries are not so lucky as to have the access to those same drugs, therefore transforming a curable condition into something potentially serious. in america, not having insurance is our equivalent. the drugs are in reach, but aren't accessible, much in the same way that drugs aren't accessible in third world countries, albeit for different reasons, the bottom line is the same: people are not being helped.
i read this quote in an article in the new york times: and found it very accurate:
"In the broadest sense, insurance is meant to spread the costs of an individual’s misfortune — illness, death, fire, flood — across society."
When we start losing the plot, it's sometimes best to get back to the definition of something, to the root of it. at some point in time, someone invented this thing we now call "insurance" in order to safeguard people from catastrophes that no one person could ever prepare themselves for. nowadays, insurance companies will look for that loophole that allows them to deny payment, or at least to give the bare minimum. people can say this isn't true, and i understand people making a living, but the mere fact that someone can be denied health insurance due to the fact that they're already sick, i.e. a pre-existing condition, is something that, putting it bluntly, just seems inhumane, especially considering they are the ones who need help the most. of course, the rich will have to pay a bit more, and the rich don't like that, but when nobody is left to work in their factories, producing their ideas that earn them millions, (consider the example of the cotton farmer who makes a pittance for the raw materials he provides, about $25 a bale, to the designer who then sells a t shirt composed of that cotton for 100 dollars) what will they do then?
i have been living abroad for the better part of the last decade and have been therefore not directly affected by the staggering giant we call the u.s. healthcare system. i do know however what i've been "missing out on" if you could call it that. we as americans are told and learn by rote that we have the best healthcare system in the world. i know personally, that i had been indoctrinated enough by this idea that i was afraid to get a cavity filled in germany, another first world (to use an antiquated term) country and wanted to get it done in the united states before i left, where i had no insurance. well, i go to the dentist, uninsured, and am told that i have 6 cavities that need to get filled and that unless i want to look like a pirate, i.e. no silver and gold fillings, it's going to cost me 1900 dollars. i go to germany and have a dentist take a look, he says that i have one. one. single. cavity. it cost me 25 euro to get it filled and it could've been for free, however i chose to go the porcelain route (see pirate argument above).
now, there are 2 sides to this argument. once the possibility of profit is removed, so is the incentive to go above and beyond the call of duty so to speak. the other side of that coin is that once profit is introduced, there is the option of going too far for the sake of lining one's pockets. i can say this: the doctors and dentists in germany where i've lived, are not hard up for money. in fact, i'd venture to say that they are all still in the top 10% of earners in that country, and as long as the prestige that doctors receive for becoming doctors exists, there will be no less incentive to become a doctor (doctor shortages is another staple of the "don't socialize medecine" argument). the difference however between one cavity and six does seem significant though.
this blog post has become much longer than i originally intended, and there's still much more that i could say, but given all the links and supplemental reading within this blog, , and at the risk of boring my reader, i'll perhaps add something to this later. for now though, i'll hold my peace and hope you are out there weighing the options of all this. though the health care bill that has been passed is far from perfect, it is a step, and it is most of all, a stop to the inaction of the american government (consider that the last major bill passed was in the late 60s). the argument that something isn't perfect is not a good reason to do nothing at all. this bill is a much needed beginning, a jump off point. please treat it as such...
my opinion on the situation, oversimplified for this example of course, is that even if both positions are taken to an extreme, in the sense that you have extremists on each side blindly preaching their values, whether or not they know the reasoning behind it, much like in this video
at least on the side of universal healthcare, in spite of the fear of "government interference"(which is a misnomer saved for another blog post perhaps. anyone heard of a government program called medicaid?? hmmm...), people are being taken care of.
now i've never been a democrat, nor a republican, i'm a registered independent in fact, though party, nor alliegence should be incredibly important in my opinion when it comes to health care. why is this you say? well, health care is something that is in my opinion, a fundamental human right, because this "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" that we as americans swear upon, is directly affected by one's health and ability to carry out normal, quotidian affairs directed at achieving said happiness. Unless it's just some cruel joke, i'm sure the founding fathers upon writing that into the declaration of independence, didn't mean it in the sense of a carrot on a stick, but rather the pursuit of a personal, attainable happiness. one may pose the question: what does universal healthcare have to do with any of that? well, my retort would be to point out anyone who has had a cold or any other short term, curable malady, such as the flu, strep throat, etc, can attest to the debilitating nature of being sick in hopes of accomplishing anything. anyone who has been bed ridden for a week due to illness knows that it's no picnic and life goes from "the pursuit of happiness" to survival. now, if one were to expound this debilitating condition, turning it into something of a chronic, incurable nature, and then compound that with not being able to get treatment for the aforementioned malady, that's a whole different story, in fact, it's a travesty. even more so when you consider the surroundings; this isn't happening into some poverty ridden, far off country, this is occurring to people in our country, and more immediately, in our communities, to people we know personally, not just statistics. this is happening in america, a place where these people going under are surrounded by an incomparable wealth and abundance unseen in the rest of the world. consider this:
"That the country needs to reform its health care system is painfully obvious. At least 47 million Americans have no medical coverage, 75 million are underinsured with skeleton plans, and 86.7 million Americans have been uninsured for at least 6 months over last two years. There has been a dramatic rise increase in the uninsured rate in every state. Lack of health care coverage caused 45,000 deaths per year. Health care premiums shot up more than 90% between 2000 and 2007, while the profits of the 10 largest insurers increased 428 percent over the same period. Without real reform, there will be a 94% increase in health insurance premiums by 2020. Harvard researchers say 62% of all personal bankruptcies in the US were caused by health problems—and 78% of those filers had insurance. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, despite having the most expensive per capital health care in the world, the US in only ranked 37th in the quality of care."
in berlin, germany where i've lived for the last 3 years, i randomly contracted pink eye one day, anyone that's had it recently, can attest to the fact that it's no fun. now pink eye is very curable and i was able to procure the necessary drugs for less than 10 euro if memory serves, and everything cleared up in one day, which made me think. people in third world countries are not so lucky as to have the access to those same drugs, therefore transforming a curable condition into something potentially serious. in america, not having insurance is our equivalent. the drugs are in reach, but aren't accessible, much in the same way that drugs aren't accessible in third world countries, albeit for different reasons, the bottom line is the same: people are not being helped.
i read this quote in an article in the new york times: and found it very accurate:
"In the broadest sense, insurance is meant to spread the costs of an individual’s misfortune — illness, death, fire, flood — across society."
When we start losing the plot, it's sometimes best to get back to the definition of something, to the root of it. at some point in time, someone invented this thing we now call "insurance" in order to safeguard people from catastrophes that no one person could ever prepare themselves for. nowadays, insurance companies will look for that loophole that allows them to deny payment, or at least to give the bare minimum. people can say this isn't true, and i understand people making a living, but the mere fact that someone can be denied health insurance due to the fact that they're already sick, i.e. a pre-existing condition, is something that, putting it bluntly, just seems inhumane, especially considering they are the ones who need help the most. of course, the rich will have to pay a bit more, and the rich don't like that, but when nobody is left to work in their factories, producing their ideas that earn them millions, (consider the example of the cotton farmer who makes a pittance for the raw materials he provides, about $25 a bale, to the designer who then sells a t shirt composed of that cotton for 100 dollars) what will they do then?
i have been living abroad for the better part of the last decade and have been therefore not directly affected by the staggering giant we call the u.s. healthcare system. i do know however what i've been "missing out on" if you could call it that. we as americans are told and learn by rote that we have the best healthcare system in the world. i know personally, that i had been indoctrinated enough by this idea that i was afraid to get a cavity filled in germany, another first world (to use an antiquated term) country and wanted to get it done in the united states before i left, where i had no insurance. well, i go to the dentist, uninsured, and am told that i have 6 cavities that need to get filled and that unless i want to look like a pirate, i.e. no silver and gold fillings, it's going to cost me 1900 dollars. i go to germany and have a dentist take a look, he says that i have one. one. single. cavity. it cost me 25 euro to get it filled and it could've been for free, however i chose to go the porcelain route (see pirate argument above).
now, there are 2 sides to this argument. once the possibility of profit is removed, so is the incentive to go above and beyond the call of duty so to speak. the other side of that coin is that once profit is introduced, there is the option of going too far for the sake of lining one's pockets. i can say this: the doctors and dentists in germany where i've lived, are not hard up for money. in fact, i'd venture to say that they are all still in the top 10% of earners in that country, and as long as the prestige that doctors receive for becoming doctors exists, there will be no less incentive to become a doctor (doctor shortages is another staple of the "don't socialize medecine" argument). the difference however between one cavity and six does seem significant though.
this blog post has become much longer than i originally intended, and there's still much more that i could say, but given all the links and supplemental reading within this blog, , and at the risk of boring my reader, i'll perhaps add something to this later. for now though, i'll hold my peace and hope you are out there weighing the options of all this. though the health care bill that has been passed is far from perfect, it is a step, and it is most of all, a stop to the inaction of the american government (consider that the last major bill passed was in the late 60s). the argument that something isn't perfect is not a good reason to do nothing at all. this bill is a much needed beginning, a jump off point. please treat it as such...
Mittwoch, 24. März 2010
monkey see-eth, monkey doeth...
i think that's probably how that quote originated, in times of "yore", or something...
well, i'm starting a little blog here that i am certain to never maintain, but my favorite girl just started one and i'm a bit bored myself so it's inspired me to start my own as well. i actually, according to blogger.com's records, have been a member since september of 2007, and well, this is my first post so we can see how that good intention didn't amount to... well... shit.
so i'm back in the states, have been for awhile now, and you know those times in your life where you have epiphanies?? well, this has not been one of those seasons for me. we all have those occurences, plans that are coming up for the future and you see it as some sort of breeding ground for epiphanies and life direction. that was of course how i viewed my trip home. i figured i'd glean some sort of something that would give me the clarity to figure out what my next step was, i.e. what i'd 'be doing and/or where i'd be living next year. well, that has not happened. so far, everything has been such a whirlwind that i've had little to no time to get a feel for anything, let alone get a specific direction down. i kinda feel like i'm on a rushed vacation. go go go and not enough time. the one thing that i've gotten out of this is that i don't really miss berlin badly, which means i could move back to the states and be fine not being in europe i suppose, but i do miss it over there, and most of all i miss the big city.
what is it about big city life that appeals to so many people, present company included. is it the inaccessability that you have once you are a face in the crowd? is it that oppressive "regard des autres" that sartre would refer to, which, though it's not the case, seems refreshingly absent in big cities. anonymity. you can just be you, and the people around you don't really care (some also wouldn't care if you were alive or dead, but that's a different topic....).
how it is though that "big city people" evolve into such is a mystery to me. one guess i have is that depending on where you come from, a small town or big town (i come from a small town (by american standards, 25,000 people or so....), you decide that you either love it or hate it there, and then once that's decided, you either stay or never go back. i suppose that is quite an over-simplified version, but it seems to hold true to form somewhat.
well, i'm going to end this blog on that note. feel free of course to share your own opinions should you have any regarding what has been posted. take care
well, i'm starting a little blog here that i am certain to never maintain, but my favorite girl just started one and i'm a bit bored myself so it's inspired me to start my own as well. i actually, according to blogger.com's records, have been a member since september of 2007, and well, this is my first post so we can see how that good intention didn't amount to... well... shit.
so i'm back in the states, have been for awhile now, and you know those times in your life where you have epiphanies?? well, this has not been one of those seasons for me. we all have those occurences, plans that are coming up for the future and you see it as some sort of breeding ground for epiphanies and life direction. that was of course how i viewed my trip home. i figured i'd glean some sort of something that would give me the clarity to figure out what my next step was, i.e. what i'd 'be doing and/or where i'd be living next year. well, that has not happened. so far, everything has been such a whirlwind that i've had little to no time to get a feel for anything, let alone get a specific direction down. i kinda feel like i'm on a rushed vacation. go go go and not enough time. the one thing that i've gotten out of this is that i don't really miss berlin badly, which means i could move back to the states and be fine not being in europe i suppose, but i do miss it over there, and most of all i miss the big city.
what is it about big city life that appeals to so many people, present company included. is it the inaccessability that you have once you are a face in the crowd? is it that oppressive "regard des autres" that sartre would refer to, which, though it's not the case, seems refreshingly absent in big cities. anonymity. you can just be you, and the people around you don't really care (some also wouldn't care if you were alive or dead, but that's a different topic....).
how it is though that "big city people" evolve into such is a mystery to me. one guess i have is that depending on where you come from, a small town or big town (i come from a small town (by american standards, 25,000 people or so....), you decide that you either love it or hate it there, and then once that's decided, you either stay or never go back. i suppose that is quite an over-simplified version, but it seems to hold true to form somewhat.
well, i'm going to end this blog on that note. feel free of course to share your own opinions should you have any regarding what has been posted. take care
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