Category I want to understand my country.

Out With The Old, In With The New. Well, Maybe.

Dusty Leave a comment

Toni and I just got SlingTV a month ago, and for the first time in two years, we can watch HGTV. At last.

First, let me just say that this “a la carte TV” thing is starting to work out. We first killed our cable (though at that time it was Dish) in 2006, because we had been watching too much and paying far too much for the privilege. For two years, we got all of our news from the internet, and watched DVDs. It was good, for a time; this was when Blockbuster was still renting movies, and we had a store in our town, and they had their mail-order service working; so we would get DVDs of interesting movies in the mail, and then we would go and trade them in at the store for a free rental of another interesting movie. We watched some TV shows that way, too – Deadwood, if I recall, and The Sopranos, and the first season of Dexter. It was tough to manage the TV shows, though, because you only got them one disc at a time, and you had to space them well in the queue of discs you wanted to rent so that you could get the next one when you wanted it, but not be inundated with show discs.

But then Blockbuster went bankrupt, and the store in our town closed, and the mail-order service folded soon after; the go-to entertainment activity of my youth went away, to be replaced by “Netflix and chill.” (I have only recently discovered that this is the slang for “Come over and let’s have sex.” Back in my day, we just said “Come over and let’s have sex.”) We looked into cable again, because we had Comcast for internet, and we decided to get regular broadcast television again. It was nice, to go back to watching actual shows as they were broadcast instead of months or years after they had ended, though our movie consumption went down again as we didn’t have to fill up a queue with movies that we thought we might want to watch; on the plus side, we stopped watching so many bad movies. Plus we had HGTV, and Animal Planet, and Bravo and AMC; we got to watch The Dog Whisperer, and Millionaire Matchmaker, and The Amazing Race – and our beloved House Hunters. This period ended when Comcast just got too expensive for the package we wanted: it became our highest bill, and we just weren’t watching enough TV to justify it.

But we had heard of Hulu, and Amazon had TV now, and of course there was Netflix, that flimsy cover for teenage hormones. We had just bought a Playstation 3, and we decided we’d try out streaming all of our TV and movies. The price was wonderful, and the convenience, as well; there was also a Redbox, now, that we could walk to when our streaming TV had nothing worth watching – which frequently happened, as they didn’t have a lot of good stuff on there, none of the premium channel shows we had been watching on cable, no Nurse Jackie, no Shameless. But we knew we would be moving, and we didn’t want to get caught up in contracts.

So we moved, and because Comcast didn’t cover Tucson, we had to change internet providers; fortunately – I guess it was fortunate – Comcast had a sister company, another tentacle of its media juggernaut beast-parent company, that ran the cable business in southern Arizona. So we went to Cox and signed up for internet service – and they offered us a bundle with TV, for the same price. Only the basic channels, but with HBO and Starz, free for a year. Sure, we said, free TV? Why not? Well, because the basic service had about two channels that weren’t home shopping, religious, or local access, and those two channnels were generally filled with shows we didn’t much want to watch. And we still had the Playstation and subscriptions to Hulu and Amazon – we would have kept the Amazon Prime regardless, as it gave us free shipping on our frequent Amazon orders. Plus they had Downton Abbey and Sons of Anarchy.

But of course, Cox jacked up the price at the end of our free year of TV bundling (That’s what they used to call sex back when the Puritans had cable), and so we shut them off and went back to streaming. And now, after two years without HGTV or the Food Network, we found SlingTV, and signed up for a three months’ subscription which got us a free Roku. Now, once more, we can watch House Hunters. And see broadcast news on CNN, and even ESPN, if I ever decide to follow basketball again.

All of which is not the topic I meant to discuss. (Don’t worry; this will all come together in the end. Which is what they used to call sex back in the 60’s.) I was going to use House Hunters to introduce the conflict I am interested in: the tension between tradition and progress. So let me get to that. (That was how they asked for sex in the 70’s. At least that’s how Shaft did it. And his woman understands him, even if no one else does.)

House Hunters, if you are not a devotee, shows people, usually a couple, who are looking for a new home. The show and its spin-offs span the globe, though the majority are in the US; they have people looking to rent $500-a-month apartments, and to buy $5 million islands. There is no host, just a camera crew and some voiceovers and graphics added later, and the pattern is always the same: the realtor shows the client three places, and the client tours them, complains incessantly about minor deviations from perfection, and then makes a choice, first eliminating one and then picking between the other two. The last minute of the half-hour program shows them after a few days or months living in their new home and talking about how happy they are with their purchase. It’s a great show, and it will never run out of episodes, because there will always be people looking to buy homes and be on TV, and the only overhead is the camera crews (I presume there are several working all at once, as they pump out episodes at an amazing rate; you can watch two of these a night and never see a repeat.) and the one woman’s voiceover salary. No host, no script, no studio, nothing but homes. And carping clients.

The inevitable tension on the show comes from the different wish lists of the people buying the home; I presume the show prefers couples so they can have that drama, because they always play it up. And the conflict is almost always the same: he wants modern/contemporary, clean lines and open spaces, and she wants traditional, with historical charm and cozy comfort. He wants it to be move-in ready, and she wants a fixer-upper, or at least some projects, so she can put her stamp on it, make it her own.

Since we’ve been watching this show at least once a day since we got the Roku, I’ve been thinking about this conflict a fair amount. And it occurred to me that it related to the question a friend of mine posed after the last blog I wrote about education – You Have Been Weighed, You Have Been Measured – which was this: “Trend v. tradition. The powers that be seem to thrive on pushing us deeper and deeper into proficiencies and standards, yet they cling to an archaic grading system of A-F? Once the dust settles from all the rubric scores we then assign a letter grade??? What gives?”

Why is that? Why is there a strain between conservative and progressive, between clinging to the past and reaching for the future?

I have at least something of an answer. (Thanks, HGTV.) Though I’ll have to stretch a bit to make it suit the actual question about education. Here goes.

When we are trying to do something that will last, like buy a home or teach a class, we look back to the experiences we have had ourselves: we buy homes based on the ones we lived in, we teach based on the way we learned. This probably goes for everything: I write the way I do because of the authors I have read; Toni paints the way she does because of the art she has seen. We raise Sammy the way we have because of our experiences with Charlie, and, I would assume, people raise their human children using their own parents as a model.

But not everything we have experienced is positive, and so we use our past experiences as both examples and warnings, things to do and things not to do. If I were to have children, my children would read the same way my parents had me read: they gave me the best children’s books in the world, Harold and the Purple Crayon and Where the Wild Things Are and of course Dr. Seuss, Green Eggs and Ham and The Fox in Socks and The King’s Stilts. My mother read me the books she had loved as a child, like The Land of the Lost and Uncle Wiggily and Freddy the Pig. When I was past that stage, my father read stories to the entire family: Sherlock Holmes and Edgar Allan Poe and J.R.R. Tolkien. My kids would have that same experience, with the addition of books that are more recent but also awesome – my kids would read Harry Potter. But on the other hand: my parents gave me the opportunity to participate in the classic team sports, soccer and baseball – which I absolutely loathed. So my child would not suffer through that experience. My child would do something more awesome, like rockclimbing or kayaking or hiking or martial arts. (My parents did put me in martial arts, which I liked but was no good at, so it didn’t last long.) Or fencing and sailing. I’d like to make my child into a pirate. But that’s not the point.

The point is that we try to keep the things we like, and replace the things we don’t like. I think it telling but not surprising that this plays out along gender lines on House Hunters: traditionally speaking, women have the role of nesters, seeking to make things comfortable and welcoming; hence traditional and cozy and charming. Men traditionally seek to build things and make things bigger and better and newer, to conquer new heights and expand into new territory, partly for the glory and partly to improve their family’s situation. And so, when looking for a home, men seek modern things, things that are new and don’t need to be patched up, things that require little maintenance – because they have to go out there and get to work bringing home the bacon, hunting down a mastodon, subjugating the neighboring tribes. You know – man stuff. And of course this isn’t always the way it breaks down: I hate modern and contemporary styles, and while Toni also dislikes the coldness of modern homes, she does like to have as little maintenance as possible: when we are watching someone coo over their enormous bathroom with its walk-in shower, Toni’s inevitable thought and frequent comment is “Do you know how long it would take to clean that?” There are sometimes couples that agree, or with the reversed preferences; because traditional gender roles are sometimes discarded for something more new, something that works better than what was done in the past.

So that explains both House Hunters and a la carte television, which allows us to watch the shows we’ve liked for years, and also try new things like Mozart in the Jungle and Orange is the New Black, which never appeared on broadcast television. But does it answer the original question?

I think it does. I think people teach based on the way they learned, and they keep what they liked and they try to replace what they didn’t. So those of us who didn’t like handwriting instruction embrace word processing, and those who write a lovely script bewail the demise of cursive. People who have fond memories of running track or making it to the state championships in softball argue that sports are an integral part of schooling, and people who eschewed jocks and embraced the arts consider music and drama and painting to be the linchpin of education. And even in the classroom: my favorite teachers used to discuss the subject matter at length; they would joke with us and tell stories. There were very few worksheets and not a lot of group work – I hated group work. I hated having to be teamed up with people I couldn’t stand, and I hated doing all the work for them. I didn’t mind doing all the work, but I hated the freeloaders getting a grade that I earned them, that they couldn’t have gotten without me – because it was unjust, and even worse, the pricks were never grateful enough to stop picking on me.

So what does my classroom look like? It’s fun; we discuss and tell stories; I love my subject and I show that to my students. And there is never, ever, any groupwork, and there are only worksheets when I’m angry and want to punish them. Other than vocabulary. I loved vocabulary. And silent reading, though that doesn’t work very well, since my students don’t really love to read.

This is not merely an emotional reaction to our own childhood (though I think the power of that should never be discounted): there is logic in keeping what works and replacing what doesn’t. The only question remaining, and it’s a difficult one with education, is – how do you decide what works? And when something doesn’t, how do you get rid of it? Because letter grades, as I argued before, don’t work: they really don’t work when, as my friend pointed out, we use more modern assessment methods, like rubrics and working portfolios and the like, which clash with the overly simplistic letter grades.

The answer, I think, is that those things stay because the people making the decisions like them, and think they work just fine. Because most of the people in charge are the ones who won their spots on top of the heap because they work well within the current system, the same one they came up through. When our current politicians and superintendents were in school, they were popular; they were elected to class office; they had great GPAs because they wrote neat papers and did well on multiple-choice tests. They were proud of their A’s, and they remember fondly how happy their parents were when they got that report card at the end of the semester, how they called Grandma to brag, and posted the grade printout on the fridge with a magnet. (This also describes the majority of teachers, by the way.) Those people think that system works beautifully, and so long as it continues to produce people just like them, and reward those people for doing those specific things well, then they will continue to believe the system works well. And as long as the system puts people like that into positions of authority, they will keep making the same decisions; and as long as people keep thinking that certain things have to be the way they’ve always been – as long as we keep telling our students, and they keep believing, that grades are a valid means of figuring out how well or how poorly one is doing in a class, and as long as we keep thinking of an A as a reward and an F as a punishment, and telling our students that they have to do the work in order to get the grade, the system will remain in place. I really don’t think the commercial education industry (which is the other major driving force behind changes in education, though that is only partly for the sake of improving what doesn’t work, with the other half coming from what is most profitable) cares at all about letter grades. But my students’ parents certainly do. So here we are.

And here I am. Facing the truth: that I don’t want either a traditional Victorian or a modern loft: I want a castle. On top of the Cliffs of Insanity, with a pirate ship docked below. I don’t want the past, or the future – I want the fantastic. I want the epic. I want the legendary.

I’m just not sure where to find it.

The First Step

Dusty Leave a comment

You almost got me. Almost.

I came this close to throwing in the towel: I actually posted a blog entitled “I Surrender.” And in it, I did so. I said there was no hope, no chance, no point. I accepted defeat. I ceded the field of battle to the enemy. I walked away.

But then I thought about it. I thought about how, even in my acceptance of defeat, I acknowledged that I have had some success in this fight. I thought about how important this argument is: quite literally, it is about life and death. I thought about how the last piece I wrote focused on the importance of never giving up: never give up your dreams, I said. Try, try again, I said.

I took down the white-flag-blog-post. I thought about this argument, and I realized, first, there is another aspect of it that should be examined, which I could examine, so that I wouldn’t just be saying the same old things over again, and expecting different results. I realized, second, that even if I don’t have anything new to say, I should still say the same things, say them again and again, say them loudly and repeatedly and, above all, reasonably; make it harder for the other side to shout me down with their inanities and their absurdities and their lies. Maybe it won’t work. But I should try.

And I thought: the hell with it. No retreat, no surrender. You can have my argument when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

So, once more, no matter how futile it may feel at times, because it is a fight worth fighting, because it is as important as life and death, let’s talk about guns.

First: for all of the people who, after this latest tragedy (If you’ve already lost track, or if there has been another shooting that I have not heard about yet, I am speaking about the ten deaths in Roseburg, Oregon.), are claiming that we should be talking about anything other than guns, you’re wrong. You’re just feeling what I was feeling, that there is no way to get this country free from its addiction to guns. But doing anything other than confronting the problem head-on is just enabling the continued destructive behavior. Praying for those who lost their lives, while admirable and surely comforting, does nothing to prevent the next atrocity. Focusing on mental health is ineffective, partly because those who commit atrocities are not consistently identifiable as mentally or emotionally unstable beforehand (though they surely are identifiable after the fact, which is what makes this such an effective distraction from the underlying issue), and partly because the key to changing the effectiveness of mental health treatment in this country is to stop thinking of mental illness as an illness, which goal will not be achieved through looking at mental health through the lens of atrocity. Examining the underlying callousness, or lack of empathy, or unconcern for human life, that plays a part in atrocities, although it certainly is a reasonable target at which to aim, is not a short-term solution, and so shouldn’t be the only target. While we are considering what may cause a man’s indifference to the suffering of his fellow man, let’s also do the obvious: let’s make sure that those who are indifferent to the suffering of their fellow men cannot shoot those men.

All right: one thing at a time. Let’s look first at my description of this country’s attitude about guns as an addiction. Definition, please, O Almighty Google?

“Addiction is characterized by inability to consistently abstain, impairment in behavioral control, craving, diminished recognition of significant problems with one’s behaviors and interpersonal relationships, and a dysfunctional emotional response. Like other chronic diseases, addiction often involves cycles of relapse and remission. Without treatment or engagement in recovery activities, addiction is progressive and can result in disability or premature death.”

From the American Society of Addiction Medicine

That sounds about right. Our country is unable to consistently abstain from guns: no matter how many atrocities, no matter how many data sets show that guns are not safe to own, we still own more than any other country, per capita and total. We show impairment in behavioral control — certainly true; between accident, intentional homicide, and suicide, guns caused almost 34,000 deaths in 2013 alone. Craving? 300 million guns are owned by about 50 million households. When you already have a gun for each hand, a gun for each foot, and one for your mouth, and you think, “I should really have one more,” that’s a craving. Diminished recognition of significant problems with one’s behaviors and interpersonal relationships? And does this behavior result in disability or premature death? Of course it does. That’s the point.

How does one deal with addiction? First, we have to recognize the problem. We need to talk about it, and keep talking about it. We have to keep paying attention to gun deaths, both in specific and in general. We have to confront gun owners with statistics and facts. We have to treat guns as what they are: murder machines. We can’t shy away from it, we can’t ignore it and hope it goes away — and we can never give up. I will try to remember that.

We do also need to examine the underlying factors that cause the problem. In this case, here in America, I think the reason for gun ownership is fear. We fear our government, and we fear crime. It would be great if we could address the causes of that fear — eliminate crime through drug legalization and the reduction of income equality; reduce the fear of government through reducing the military, increasing government transparency, and improving political education — but what we need to do first is recognize our fear, and recognize that our reaction to it is irrational and harmful. Just as alcohol doesn’t fix the problems that drive people to drink, guns do not fix the problems that drive people to shoot. Good people with guns do not stop bad people with guns. Columbine had armed law enforcement personnel on campus. The Navy Yard shooting and the Fort Hood shooting were both on military bases. There were armed civilians at Umpqua College, and yet they did not stop the atrocity — and neither, for all of his genuinely admirable heroism, did the army veteran who tried to stop the shooter. Chris Mintz was shot seven times trying to keep the killer out of the classroom, and yet the killer got past him into the classroom, and murdered several other people inside. Is there a better argument for the particular deadliness of firearms than this?  People say that, if guns were banned, killers would use knives. Do you think a murderer with a knife would have gotten past that guy? Neither do I. The shooter did, because guns are murder machines, and they are very efficient and effective. That’s why people use them. It stands to reason, then, that removing those murder machines would make murder less efficient and less effective, and therefore rarer. Isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t that the goal of everyone, including, in theory, those who want everyone to carry guns everywhere? Isn’t the argument against “Gun Free Zones” exactly this, that those places increase the likelihood of murder? So how can the removal of the murder machines do anything other than reduce murder? I know, I know: if we ban guns, only criminals would have guns, and if a criminal wants a gun, he’s going to get a gun. Gun bans in other countries have proven both of these tropes to be false. People make the same claim about easy access to illegal drugs, but that isn’t true either: right now, sitting here, I have no idea where I could safely buy crack. I know exactly where I can buy a firearm. The same goes for 99% of the population of this country. As sincerely as I oppose the war on drugs, I have to admit that it has made it harder to get those drugs than it would be if they were legal; can’t gun owners admit the same thing about a comprehensive ban on firearms? Just so we know we’re all on the same page, thinking rationally, and dealing with reality? Here, I will concede this: a comprehensive ban on firearms would violate the Constitution as it has been interpreted by the Supreme Court, and it would infringe on the rights of responsible, law-abiding gun owners. I’m not suggesting a comprehensive gun ban for those reasons. Can’t we all admit that, even if it is illegal and probably immoral, a ban on firearms would at least be effective in making guns harder to get, regardless of what other problems it would cause? Let’s at least face reality, okay?

Here’s some more reality people don’t want to face: even apart from atrocities, people do not use firearms to protect themselves from crime. Every claim of how often they do is based on one — one — thoroughly discredited random phone survey, performed by Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz. (See here) It’s exactly like the link between vaccinations and autism, except the people who accept pseudoscience as reality in this case are more numerous. And armed.

 

Here’s the thing I’d like to address. It’s this notion of self-defense. I want to know what, exactly, gives someone the right to kill another human being. Why do we have the right, morally and legally, to use lethal force in the name of preventing the use of lethal force? Or even worse, the right to use lethal force to prevent non-lethal force? Even to prevent property crimes? I can legally shoot someone who is breaking into my house in order to steal my stapler. Can anyone defend that rationally?

I recognize that we have the right to defend ourselves, or another human being. But do we have the right to kill? If I can stop someone from killing me without killing them, isn’t that the extent of my right? Even if murder is necessary to prevent murder, how do we know that someone is intending our death? How can it be that I have the right to shoot someone simply because he breaks into my house? Someone breaking a lock or prying open a window does not put my life in danger. Even someone attacking me does not necessarily put my life in danger. People do not want to take the chance that an intruder is not an attacker, or that an attacker is not intending to kill; but that is a matter of convenience and egotism: it is only more convenient to assume that an attacker is intending lethal harm and therefore lethal force should be applied in stopping him; and it is mere egotism to say that my life is more important than an attacker’s just because he’s the attacker. I mean, seriously? Our moral argument is “He started it?”

Someone intending harm should be prevented from doing harm. But it seems to me that using lethal force to prevent that harm is, quite literally, overkill. If there are non-lethal means of preventing harm, aren’t those means the extent of what is justified? As soon as the attacker is no longer intending to kill me, I am no longer defending myself. Right? So if I punch him in the face, and he decides, “Never mind, I don’t want to kill this guy,” I am done defending myself. And if I punch him again, now I am the attacker. Now he should have the right to defend himself against me. The scenario as I describe it is absurd, yes — but how absurd is it to assume that anyone who breaks into my house is intending to inflict lethal harm on me? And without that intent, what is the justification for using lethal force to stop him?

The fact that I have a gun shouldn’t mean I am right in using it when I could use a Taser just as easily. Aren’t non-lethal means of prevention of harm available to citizens? Things like good locks, alarm systems, access to police? Self-defense weapons like pepper spray and stunguns? Martial arts training? Guard dogs? Neighborhood watch? How about a bat?

As far as I know, the only argument against these things is that they are less effective and/or less efficient (meaning “slower”) than guns in stopping an attacker. No: I suppose there is also the argument that “bad guys” deserve death. We Americans relish playing Dirty Harry and Wyatt Earp, blowing away the “bad guys,” thus making the world safer by ensuring that they won’t attack anyone else ever again, and putting a notch in our gunbelts. But apart from our comic-book-vigilante fetish, it is just this point: stunguns and pepper spray are not as effective as guns, partly because they require someone to get close enough for the attacker to fight back, and they do not cause as much harm as quickly as does a gun, and so the attacker may still harm the defender.

I refuse to accept that someone threatening me, or even worse, threatening to take my stuff, is deserving of the death penalty. If we believe that, why don’t we kill everyone who commits any crime? The best indicator of future crime is past crime; the best indicator of future violence is past violence. Shouldn’t we be lining schoolyard bullies up against the wall and putting a bullet in the back of every head? Ditto for every kid who shoplifts, or tags a wall, or smokes a joint? I also refuse to accept that the simple fact that I own a gun, but not an effective non-lethal means of self-defense, justifies my using the gun; when my explanation is “Well, it’s what I had in my hand,” I lose the argument. “Honey, why did you give me a ball of pocket lint and a used wad of gum for an anniversary present?” “Well, it wasn’t like I could just go to the store and buy flowers! You said, ‘Happy Anniversary,’ and I had to react in a split-second!” Or maybe this: “Sir, I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist you pay for your purchases with actual money, not this piece of paper with your grocery list written on it.” “Hey, man — you can’t expect me to get out my wallet, find the money, pull it out, count it, and then reach all the way over there to hand it to you! You could have given away my purchases half a dozen times by then!”

Self-defense should be limited to what is required to end the threat. Not the easiest means of ending the threat, not the fastest, not the most viscerally satisfying of my bloodlust; only what is necessary. Anything beyond what is necessary now makes me a greater threat to my attacker than he is to me. If I shoot an unarmed man, or even a man armed with a weapon less dangerous than my gun, then I am become the attacker, not the defender. Anyone who uses a gun to kill when it is not necessary is a murderer; isn’t that the standard we use for police? Aren’t we enraged to the point of riot when that standard is not upheld? And yet we think nothing of a homeowner with a gun safe full of weapons unloading on an unarmed burglar who was trying to score drug money?

Of course, those who own the guns almost certainly disagree with me; they probably think that police are justified and right in killing unarmed civilians who merely seem to pose a threat. (Though those gun owners should consider this issue when arguing that our government is a threat, as well; isn’t it this very standard that allows them to be such a threat? Maybe there is a solution to both problems . . . ) But here’s the thing I have to keep in mind: I have to remember that argument, particularly in a debate like this one, is not simply intended to sway the zealots of the opposition. It is intended to provide points of consideration for the rational, regardless of their initial position in the debate. So for those of you who are rational, consider this. How much offense is necessary for defense? How much harm can one do in the name of preventing harm?

How much harm must we do to each other, and ourselves, for the sake of clinging to our prejudices? How many people have to die before we recognize that we have a problem, and we need to deal with it?

Addicts must change their lives: they have to change their way of thinking, their understanding of themselves and their behavior, their concept of their addiction and what it does for them. They must avoid the people and the places and the activities that served in the past as triggers for their addictions. They need to work, and keep working; they can never ease up, not ever. We are addicted to guns. There are a lot of things that need to change before we can quit the guns; we can’t go cold turkey, that I will concede. But just because it’s hard to accomplish doesn’t mean it isn’t the right thing to do, nor that it shouldn’t be attempted. 34,000 deaths a year beg us to do what must be done. Think of how many people you know. Think how much it hurts when one of them dies. Recognize how many orders of magnitude that is away from 34,000 deaths. Recognize that that number occurs in this country every year.

Let’s take the first step: admit that we have a problem. And let’s do the work.

Gun Is God

Dusty Leave a comment

I saw this on Facebook today. And my immediate reaction was to attack: Well but that isn’t the same thing at all — people have an inherent right to freedom of religion, which is codified in (though not granted by) the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights. And religion isn’t used to kill people. And pssh — Iowa. Come on. Like anything intelligent ever came out of Iowa.

Then I immediately thought: but the right to bear arms is also in the Bill of Rights. Even if I think it shouldn’t be. The Second Amendment does represent a natural right, the right of self-defense. Even if I think there are better ways to go about defending one’s self.

And as for religion: seriously, Dusty? It isn’t used to kill people? Even apart from the indisputable facts that have led to the prejudice represented here (more on the prejudice later), namely the sheer number of Islamic terrorists and war-mongers of the last — what, sixty years? — religion is behind most of the wars of human history, or has at least been used as the justification for them, as well as countless atrocities — the Inquisition, the witch-burnings, the Holocaust, the pogroms, chattel slavery, colonialism — Jesus, do I need to go on?

Absurd of me even to take up this argument, if this is all I have.

But that third one — that’s kind of right. Tom Arnold is from Iowa. So is Michele Bachmann. And Steve King, of course  (The moronic Congressman, not the author.). Ashton Kutcher. Charles Osborne, the guy with the world record for the longest lasting case of hiccups. Sure, there are a couple of scientists and mathematicians on the list of Iowans, several astronauts, and a few authors I like — Bill Bryson, especially — but you don’t get away from Michele Bachmann that easily. Not even with the Ringling Brothers.

So what does this mean? I’ve been arguing against guns for years and years now, and here I find myself stymied. Does it mean I should be changing my stance on gun control? Have I been unfairly critical of gun owners? Has this meme changed my argument? DID IOWA JUST WIN THE GUN FIGHT?!?

Well, no. It didn’t. The problem with this argument is that it equates religion and gun ownership, claiming that a prejudice against one is as morally and intellectually bankrupt as a prejudice against the other. This much is true: prejudice is always morally and intellectually bankrupt. It is also always instinctive for humans because we evolved to be hunter-gatherers and our minds are evolved to discover patterns, so we see them everywhere, and frequently use them as a basis for action and reaction; when we eat  the red berries and they are tasty, then the next time we see red berries, we assume they’ll be tasty. And sometimes they are tasty, and the prejudice is therefore efficient; and sometimes they are toxic and we die, and the prejudice is inefficient. Evolution argues that it is more frequently efficient than inefficient when used as a survival strategy — but that has no bearing whatsoever on the value of prejudice in society. There, the value is almost always outweighed by the costs.

But that doesn’t mean either that gun ownership is equivalent to religion, nor that the argument against gun ownership is equivalent to the argument against Muslims.

First: religion and gun ownership. Sure, both are personal rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Both are defended fanatically on the Fox network. Both are, theoretically, under attack by liberals with an agenda — and neither actually are. And yes, both often catch the blame for atrocities carried out by terrorists.

But religion, however it may have been used in the past, whatever people may think of it, is not a weapon intended to do harm. The goal of religion is truth, and subsequent salvation. The question of relative harm as it is created by religious tenets, as in, “If I allow you to die unshriven, you will burn in Hell forever; therefore I should torture you until you confess your heresy and renounce your beliefs– and then you’ll go to Heaven!” is certainly a troubling one, as religion here grants people a moral justification for doing harm; but that is an application of a specific religious principle, carried out by the person — it is not the intention of the religion as an entity.  Christianity was not founded in order to justify torture or slavery or war. I won’t say that those things are a misuse, as that implies that the actual intended purpose is a correct and proper usage of the religion, and as an atheist I don’t accept that; but I think there can be no argument that religion was not and never has been created intentionally to do harm.

Firearms, on the other hand, were invented, produced, and evolved over time intentionally and specifically to harm others. They exist for that reason. The possession of firearms is considered a right, both a natural right and a right in the Constitution, because of that reason; people may own firearms simply for amusement, but that is not why they feel a right to own them — if so, we’d all have the right to a Playstation 4, and I would currently be suing Sony. We have the right to bear arms because arms are the most effective way to harm others so that those others cannot harm us: the ability of firearms to do harm A)rapidly to multiple targets, B) from a distance that keeps the bearer safe from retaliation, and C) without physical strength, dexterity, or training, is unmatched in the world of weapons. This is why people use the Second Amendment to protect guns, rather than, say, swords and spears and personally owned stealth bombers. It is a disingenuous argument to claim that any weapon could be used to kill another person — and therefore the government can’t take away my gun. There is a reason why guns are the focus of the argument: because they are the most effective and efficient killing machine on the planet. The millions — billions? — who have been shot since the invention of firearms show this.

So we should not make analogies between religion and firearms, not even in criticizing anti-religious prejudice with anti-firearm prejudice. And let me just add: why would you want to do that? When I used to debate online against guns, I was frequently dismissed as a hoplophobe, one who suffers from a morbid and irrational fear of guns; the classic, er, “argument” that goes “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” is based on the same objective understanding of firearms as inanimate objects, incapable of independent action, and therefore the incorrect focus for the fear felt by those who promote gun control. But this emotionless, objective, apparently logical stance is lost if one makes the comparison between gun owners and devotees of a religion; now those who own firearms are — true believers. Members of the faith. Followers of their prophet/messiahs, Smith and Wesson and Remington and Colt. This is not an opening which gun rights advocates want to give us hoplophobes.

But the real problem with this meme? It’s a meme.  The concept of the meme was created by Richard Dawkins, the British evolutionary biologist; Dawkins described the meme as the modern version of genes, now that mankind survives through social adaptation to environmental pressure, rather than biological adaptation. That is, rather than better genes propagating more than worse genes through reproduction and natural selection, we make adjustments for “bad” genes through our society: we take care of people who can’t survive on their own; we use medicine to give those with “bad” genes a full life; we create niches for those with differing strengths, so both the man with the strong back and the man with the strong mind can survive and thrive. The ideas that create those situations, the belief that family members should take care of those who cannot take care of themselves, for instance, are spread through our culture, and help that culture survive, along with the people who spread it. Our modern human culture is our survival strategy: we live and reproduce because our culture protects us far more than our bodies do.  Because of that, although we are continuously evolving as a species, today, our genes do not change very much; rather, our memes do.

The purpose of a meme, like the purpose of a gene, is not to create the perfect being, or the perfect argument: it is to reproduce. That means it has the qualities that will make it most likely to spread and multiply, not necessarily the best qualities. Blonde hair and blue eyes do not make someone a better human being — but if they make that person more likely to reproduce and spread those genes, then those genes will survive and thrive. Watch Idiocracy: there’s a meme, a reproducible bit of culture, that shows why neither genes nor memes need to be the best to be the most successful. It shows, in fact, how memes are become more powerful than genes in human evolution: successful memes actually make people’s genes worse, and the people themselves less biologically adapted to survive.

So this:

is not the best thought, not the best argument, but it is likely to be reproduced and propagated; therefore, it is a successful meme.

What internet memes do — what the meme that started this blog did — is oversimplify, because on the internet, simplicity is king. That’s why so many memes are crude line drawings, or this sort of simple joke. They use the same photos again and again, and the same font, and the same sentence structures and joke patterns because those things have been selected, have proven successful in the past, have been propagated and reproduced.

And all of that’s fine. Memes are jokes, and plenty of them are funny — this one cracks me up:

And this one is not only funny but true:

But none of the things that make these successful memes make them good thoughts or good arguments. Just — good at grabbing people’s attention so they click “Share.”

So for that, this meme

is successful, because it has an interesting enough idea, formulated in an eye-catching way — with a picture that is both relatable and idealized, because that guy looks ordinary and also badass; and using the all-caps font with red for a highlight; short words, simple sentences, rhetorical question — and so it was shared. And it is also successful in that it provokes thought: it took me some time to work my way through the meme’s rhetorical question and come to my answer. Time spent thinking is always good.

The answer is: no. It is not time the 80 million gun owners in America get the same treatment. First because gun ownership is not a religion, and the analogy doesn’t work. Second because although there is a right to self-defense, it should not be realized through firearms, which are unnecessarily deadly even when used to protect one’s self. The Second Amendment is wrong: arms should be regulated, for the safety of all, because private gun ownership creates as much danger as it eliminates, and generally more; the presence of weapons creates a feeling of safety far more often than it creates actual safety, and yet those weapons are most often used to do more harm than could be done without them. We could certainly get into a debate about personal liberty versus safety — so long as nobody quotes the Benjamin Franklin meme. Which oversimplifies and relies entirely on the persuasive power of the author’s name.

Lastly, the answer is No because, simply put, gun owners have never been treated the way that Muslims have. Yes, massacres that have been carried out with firearms have led to calls for gun control — but thanks to the Second Amendment, they have never led to even the beginning of a discussion of banning guns. Armed police and military are expected and appreciated. The only gun law that was passed using a mass shooting as impetus, the Brady Bill’s ban on assault weapons, was allowed to expire, because gun owners and manufacturers made it pointless. We can still buy extended clips like Jared Lee Loughner used in Tucson when he shot Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others — without reloading — and we can still buy weapons online as James Holmes did before he shot 82 people in Aurora. People speak out against guns, as they do against Muslims (And let me note the prejudice inherent within the meme itself, when it claims that every terrorist attack is related to Islam — only days after Dylann Roof killed nine people in a church in South Carolina. With a gun given to him for a birthday present, and therefore requiring no background check. He could also have done what Adam Lanza did, and used his parents’ guns.), but no laws ever pass, no action is ever taken. No innocent gun owners are beaten in the streets as happened after 9/11; no gun owners are unfairly targeted in airport searches; nothing has been done that is analogous to the Bible Belt states’ bans on Sharia law. No Baptist preachers are burning Guns & Ammo.

We have not yet invaded Austria to eliminate the Glock company.

 

In summation, all I have to say to this meme is this:

The Gouging Is Not Enough

Dusty 5 Comments

Someone needs to explain this country to me. I don’t understand it.

I don’t understand how we can love freedom, and yet work like mules to take it away from others, from the jailed, from the people of other nations, from our own workers, our soldiers, our students. We so love leisure and relaxation that it seems this is the only time we work this hard: when we betray our own professed morals and ideals.

I don’t understand how we can love the beauty of nature, and yet build drilling rigs atop it and rip down the centuries-old trees like grass, strip mountains down to pits of poison. How can we spend weekends watering and mowing and fertilizing our lawns and yet never go for a walk in the woods, a swim in the river? How can we pollute our own countryside?

I don’t understand why we don’t love art. We coo over talent and beauty in our celebrities — even when it isn’t actually present — and we can’t throw our money at them fast enough; but we wouldn’t pay a dime for a painting instead of a poster, nor anything for a song so long as we can download for free; and people with vast talent, who spend years striving to create true, immortal beauty, are only given one commission: get a real job. We love memes and clever witticisms, revere the turn of phrase, the surprising insight, the genuine outpouring of passion in confessions and rants and the cri de coeur — so long as it does not last more than a paragraph. And God forbid the novel.

I don’t understand why we go to war. Why we fight to protect both life, and our right to own guns. Why we eat ourselves to death, drink ourselves to oblivion, and jail those who use marijuana. Why we mock people who shop at Wal-Mart, spit on those who hold a hand out for charity, and then fight tooth and nail to keep wages low, unions useless, and education ineffective. Why we profess to love our children more than anything else — will gather by the thousands to light a candle and pray for the safe return of a single missing child — but allow thousands of children to go hungry on the streets. Why we believe the government is corrupt, even antagonistic in its self-serving greed, but trust the profit motive to build honest and effective businesses; nor why we fear the amoral inhuman corporation, but trust the government to work itself out of its shady dealings with those same corporations and their bottomless pockets without a revolution.

I don’t understand why we have not had a revolution.

But today, I’m not thinking about any of those things. Today, there is only one thing I don’t understand, and it is this: why we pay for health care. Why insurance companies are allowed to exist, and to do business the way they do. Why people work for them, even knowing what that job costs, what it entails, in exchange for a paycheck that I can’t think is more than meager.

I wonder: do the employees of health insurance companies have better coverage? Do their claims get denied? If so, do they fight? Or is the answer to this the answer to my previous question — they work for the insurance company because it is better (in this allegedly Christian nation) to inflict on others exactly what you protect yourself from?

I’m thinking about this today because of my wife. (I confess: I think about most of these things because of my wife, who is an artist, who loves nature and animals, who actually loves freedom and desires it for all as much as for herself, who doesn’t understand the same things I don’t understand, no matter how much we talk about them and try to figure them out.) My wife Toni has glaucoma. Glaucoma is a condition of the eye: the liquid inside the eyeball doesn’t drain properly, but its production continues, and so the pressure inside the eye increases steadily, causing severe headaches and damaging the optic nerve, leading to vision loss and eventual blindness if not treated. It generally occurs in the elderly, but Toni inherited it, so now she gets to be the youngest person in the opthamologist’s waiting room every few months. And though it is appallingly ironic for an artist to face a disease that could blind her, glaucoma is eminently treatable: she puts drops in her eyes every night which reduces the pressure in her eyes, and even should the condition worsen, she would not be without options — there are other medications, there are surgical options, there is marijuana. (Actually, marijuana is not a wonder treatment for glaucoma; while THC does indeed lower intraocular pressure, this effect only lasts for three or four hours per dose, and it may cause other complications that would outweigh even that benefit. But personally, I love the idea that she could be prescribed marijuana, and I could get fired for using it — even if I was prescribed it. Well — “love” as in “don’t understand and actually really hate.”) And along with the glaucoma, Toni inherited thick corneas — about twice as thick as most people’s, and so even though her intraocular pressure is much higher than most people’s, her eyes can withstand it. As her doctor told her (I swear this isn’t my analogy, but oh, how I wish it was), where most people have balloon eyes, she has basketball eyes, and the thicker walls mean they can hold much greater pressure without, y’know, popping.

So while this is bad, it could be much, much worse. She could be dying. Glaucoma threatens her vision, but not her life. Even the worst case is decades off, rather than a few years, or even a few months.

But of course, there is one thing that makes this situation much worse than it has to be, more dangerous, more frustrating, more costly: Toni is an American. We live in this country, rather than in one of the civilized nations on this Earth: the nations that pay for health care. Instead, we have to deal with an insurance company. Which is why I’m thinking about this today, why this is what I don’t understand right now.

The Affordable Care Act is four years old, now, and it has helped: millions of people are insured that weren’t insured before; the costs of health insurance and health care, while still growing, are growing slower than they have in years. And people can no longer be denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions or lifetime maximum allowances. But the ACA — Obamacare — didn’t go far enough, and now Toni has to slog through the quagmire that is left, which is deep and dangerous, even if smaller than it has been in the past.

You see, while you can’t be refused coverage because of a pre-existing condition, insurance companies can refuse to cover health costs associated with a pre-existing condition for up to a year after the initial diagnosis. Toni has been aware of her high-pressure basketball eyes for quite some time, but the official diagnosis of glaucoma, and the accompanying need for more frequent tests and for daily eyedrops, only came last May. And then in June, we moved from Oregon to Arizona, and I took a new job.

And got new health insurance.

With that came the letter informing us that the company would not cover any costs associated with Toni’s pre-existing condition until ten months after her coverage began, which deadline will be June 30 of this year. For the intervening year, in which Toni would need to find a new opthamologist and undergo new diagnostic tests to monitor the progress of the disease, and of course take medication every day, the insurance company would not pay for any of it.

So here’s my first question. Why not? Why wouldn’t a company that exists to cover medical costs actually cover those medical costs? Is it because they are protecting themselves from fraud, from the danger that her previous physician, who was outside of this company’s circle of approved doctors, might have lied, so that Toni could bilk the company of the costs of treatment? First, why would that require anything more than a confirming diagnosis from a physician they trust? And second, why would anyone try that scam with glaucoma? The tests cost money, as does the medication, but we’re talking about hundreds of dollars over the course of a year, not hundreds of thousands, as can be true in other cases.

My assumption is that the company is merely taking the opportunity not to pay out money. Simple as that. They don’t even have an excuse that has any humanity or business logic to it: they just refuse to pay money. In the past, insurance companies have refused to pay any money for any pre-existing condition; now they can only do it for a year — so they’re doing it for the year. If the law allowed them to refuse payment for three years, they’d do it for three years.

That is madness. Absolute madness. An insurance company exists to pay money for claims. They profit by collecting more in fees than they pay out in claims, which they do by insuring a greater pool; the more healthy people they insure, and collect monthly fees from, the more they have to pay out in claims, and the more money they have for profits. So the way to increase their profits should be to get more members — preferably healthy members — and to raise fees. And they do both of these things, of course — but they also fail to provide the service they exist to provide to some of their members? While still collecting fees? It’s like a mechanic taking your car into the garage, charging you $300 for a repair, and then saying, “My profits will be lower if I actually spend time and money fixing your car. Instead I’m going to inspect three other cars that are in perfect working order and send your malfunctioning car back out on the street. Will that be cash or charge?” And then you give him the money.

Exactly what business are these companies in? What does their business model look like? And is there any way to see this as anything other than extortion? We need health insurance, thanks to the obscene costs of health care in this country and the fact that our health is the one thing we can’t go without — if the car in my analogy breaks down, you can carpool or walk or take public transportation; but you can’t borrow a new pair of eyeballs, you can’t leave your body in the garage and take the public body instead — and because we have to have the service they offer, they can cheat us, openly and repeatedly, and we just have to accept it.

The most important question of all is: why do we put up with it? Why was Obamacare fought as hard as it was, and why was the single payer option — the path to the only system of health care that actually makes sense, nationalized socialized medicine — removed from the law? Why do Americans choose to live like this? All of our voices, all of our influence, all of our votes and our money: all of it is serving literally no one but insurance companies, who extort and cheat and bilk us, while refusing us medical help. Why? I remember whistle blowers publicizing the fact that insurance companies had policies in place designed to delay the payment of claims until after the person died. They let people die for the sake of profit. And yet these companies still exist? And the Republican congress tries to repeal Obamacare? If the corporations were actually people, we would charge them with murder, and we’d probably execute them; but no, we pay them more, and fight to deregulate them.

Why?

Toni got sick this past spring. Nothing terrible, just a sinus infection, but it was an extremely nasty one: she’s always had allergies, she’s always had sinus trouble, but this time the pressure was so severe that she had constant debilitating headaches, a constantly blocked airway, and a fever; she felt awful. She went to the doctor, who quickly diagnosed her with acute sinusitis and prescribed an antibiotic. Toni took the antibiotic — no treat, that, as it had unfortunate side effects that made her feel even worse than the sinus infection had — and the sinusitis cleared up. Huzzah!

Then we got the bill from the doctor’s office, for the remainder of their fee after the co-payment (That’s another one, by the way. Co-payments? We pay them to provide a service, and then we pay for part of that same service? I’ve heard of passing costs on to the customer, but this is ridiculous.). Why were we charged? Because the insurance company had rejected the claim.

So Toni called them to ask why. She waited through a long time on hold, listening to one jazzy Muzac song on a loop (Toni: “I thought I was going to have to stick a poker in my eye.”), until she got to speak to a claims rep, and she asked her question. “It was automatically rejected,” the rep said, “Because of your pre-existing condition.”

Toni asked her what her glaucoma had to do with the sinus infection. The rep agreed that that didn’t make much sense, and said she would look into it, and call back by the end of the week.

She didn’t call back.

So Toni called again. Same wait time — same damn song, threatening the same eye-poking (which would, I suppose, make the whole thing irrelevant; maybe that’s the insurance company’s ultimate goal) — and the same question. And the same response: “No, you’re right, that doesn’t make any sense. Of course the inability of your eyes to drain properly had nothing to do with the bacterial infection that got into your sinuses, almost certainly because you moved to a radically different climate and Tucson had a comparatively wet winter, which gave bacteria a perfect environment to grow and get into your system. Let me fix that and send you a check.” Well, actually, it was, “I will look into that and get back to you.”

She didn’t call back, either.

In the intervening time (Each of these Calls-and-waits-for-response is about a week’s time), we got another bill from the doctor’s office. Toni will be attending the University of Arizona in the fall, working towards her Master’s in Visual Communication. Before she was allowed to register for classes, she had to present proof that she has been immunized against measles. There’s a whole story here which I’m going to leave out, but suffice to say, she went to the doctor’s office to get her sixth lifetime measles inoculation. And then the insurance company denied the claim.

So Toni called again, this time with two questions about two denied claims. (I should note that Toni can be rather tenacious, when she thinks something is unfair. And she has worked for banks, with all of their labyrinthine procedures, and also in Accounts Receivable, where she would call the company’s clients and try to cajole them into actually paying their bills; she has said that her job was to be on hold. The insurance company holds no fear for her. But frustration — oh yeah.) This time, the rep was neither conciliatory nor helpful; after several cycles of eye-poke-inducing Muzac, the woman said that the claim was automatically rejected because of her pre-existing condition. (On a Kafkaesque note: at no time did any of the insurance company employees state what that pre-existing condition is, nor does any of the billing paperwork or our account information. Toni wondered at one point if the pre-existing condition was in fact “She is human.”) Toni asked how glaucoma could be related to sinusitis. The woman interrupted, raising her voice to talk over Toni, repeating the same statement in effect: the claim was automatically rejected (She emphasized this as though it gave her argument weight: the computer said no. You can’t argue with the computer.) because of her pre-existing condition. Toni then calmly asked why the measles vaccination had been rejected, in what way that was related to her glaucoma. There was some fumbling, but then she received the final explanation of the denial of both claims: “It was rejected because of the way the visit was coded.” In other words, the doctor had made some mistake in recording the two visits, or in their invoice to the insurance company (And just imagine how Byzantine and maddening that process must be), and that’s why the claims were rejected.

So Toni, with a furious gleam in her eye — and yet a perfectly polished and polite phone manner, nonetheless; it was like watching James Bond call Blofeld and make an appointment to strangle him before popping out to the tennis court for a quick match with his beautiful secretary — called the doctor’s office, to confirm that they had not, in fact, coded the two visits as “Glaucoma treatment (sinus infection)” and “Glaucoma treatment (measles inoculation).” They had not. So once more, she called the insurance company. This time, the rep was polite, but was also clear: the claim had been denied. Toni asked about the appeals process, and the woman directed her to the online form and explained that either Toni would have to complete it or her doctor could file it.

Then she said, “But they’ll probably deny it anyway.”

Toni wrote to the NP who had diagnosed her sinusitis to ask, just in case the company has a point, if there could be any connection between her glaucoma and the infection, if the medication lowered her resistance or something similar; he responded that there was absolutely no relevance, as we suspected. We did get a phone call the next morning, from the second woman of the four Toni talked to; she left a message informing us that the matter had gone for medical review and they were working on it constantly, without pause for breath or sleep or food (Words to that effect) to resolve the matter. She said she would call us back.

We are considering the appeal, though we expect the company would deny it, to force us to hire a lawyer and take them to court; it is my assumption that the criteria for denial of this claim was, “Could our highly paid attorneys confuse the matter sufficiently to make a jury think that there could be a connection between glaucoma and the infection?” And the answer, based on proximity of the sinuses to the basketball eyes, and the similarity of symptoms, i.e., headache in both cases, is, I presume, yes. We are also generally against frivolous lawsuits, which this instance definitely would be, considering the amounts in question. So even if we appeal, we won’t take it to court; I think the value of appealing is to reverse what I believe is in fact their policy in these matters: I think they want to make the claims process as difficult, slow, and annoying as possible, in hopes that the customer will throw up her hands and simply pay the doctor, lest she be sent to Collections by her physician’s office, with all that entails regarding credit rating and reputation. The failure to call back, with repeated promises to do so, the long hold time, the need for further review despite the obvious absurdity of their argument — and the long and complex fine print attached to the Appeal form — all fit my theory. But the most interesting thing about the appeals process? The company reserves the right to deny any claim made while your appeal is being considered. What a wonderful and terrible implied threat that is: sure, you can appeal our decision — hope you don’t get sick while that’s going on. Maybe you should reconsider, hmmm?

Why do we put up with this? Who could possibly think that the government, no matter how inefficient they may be in some ways, would provide worse service than this? I know the fear with socialized medicine is that the government functionaries would deny people health care; what would you call this? Toni had a sinus infection. One doctor visit, one simple prescription — payment denied. How would the government handle this more callously, more indefensibly, than the company? And could you imagine that the government program would cost anything even approaching what our insurance company charges us — so that they can provide us with, quite literally, nothing of any value whatsoever? We have, in essence, no insurance; certainly no peace of mind.

Why do we allow this? Why do we accept this? I know the feeling of futility that the process brings to people; I feel the same thing. But it isn’t futile: Obamacare was passed. The situation was changed. We can take this further.

We must.

That’s why I’m writing this. Not for our sake; as I said, Toni’s infection is long gone, and the measles inoculation was successful — she is still measle-free, and now registered for her classes for the fall. Her glaucoma is being treated. All told, after they deny our appeals, we will be out just over $200, which we can afford. Her time with a pre-existing condition is almost up. We can handle our situation as it stands now.

But what if?

What if we decide to appeal, and Toni gets into an accident, and they deny her claim because she is in the middle of appealing a ruling?

What if that was the claim they had denied because of her glaucoma, and we were out thousands?

What if the pre-existing condition was life-threatening and expensive?

All of these things are true, for thousands if not millions of Americans.

Insurance companies are letting us die so that they can make money. They are not making our lives better, they are not improving either our medical care system nor our health outcomes.

It is time to stop allowing our government to help them make money from our suffering. It is time we stopped this nonsense, and did what we all know is the right thing.

Please: support candidates who support single-payer government-sponsored tax-funded health care. Write to your representatives. Join campaigns to push for single-payer health care. If you have your own story, tell your own story, in the comments below or on your own blog and then send me the link; otherwise, share ours, or share another that you know with the people you can reach. Let people know that this has to stop, and we have to stop it.

I want to understand my country again. I want my country to start making sense.

And Toni doesn’t want to listen to that song any more.