Higher Humanities?

Interesting article from Thomas H. Benton. It ends with this paragraph:

Graduate school in the humanities is a trap. It is designed that way. It is structurally based on limiting the options of students and socializing them into believing that it is shameful to abandon "the life of the mind." That's why most graduate programs resist reducing the numbers of admitted students or providing them with skills and networks that could enable them to do anything but join the ever-growing ranks of impoverished, demoralized, and damaged graduate students and adjuncts for whom most of academe denies any responsibility.

I've certainly had my own checkered past with higher education, but I don't think the author goes far enough to draw a clear circle around "humanities." Certainly some forms of higher education are necessary and desirable. Still, for the most part, all valid points.

Health Care, What's Up With That?

For the past few weeks this country has been engaged in a battle over the idea that a major reform is due for the United States health care system. I've put together a short guide on the broader issues and why this matters. If the news coverage makes you glad the remote was invented, please consider reading this note.

You will not find a debunking of “death panels,” "rationed care," or “socialized medicine” here. There are plenty of great Web sites you can go to and figure out how to get to the bottom of those issues. This note is meant to be a step back from all that, to give you some idea of how we got here with the hopes you can decide for yourself which side to support.

“What’s the issue here?”

The issue is that HR 3200 has been introduced to the Congress with the goal of providing “affordable, quality health care for all Americans and reduce the growth in health care spending, and for other purposes.”

“Why is it so long?”

You see the phrase above “for other purposes.” This is an incredibly complex issue, and this complexity has unfortunately become the cost of doing business in modern times.

HR 3200 numbers over 1,000 pages. Most Americans can’t be expected to wade through such a considerable document, but the Bill is available for public review and can be found by clicking the link above or on the Web by a simple Google search.

“Why should we do this?”

No matter who is counting, there are millions of Americans who are uninsured and millions more who can barely afford their present insurance. The price of health care has indisputably continued to increase. At the same time, according to the CIA World Fact Book, the U.S. currently ranks 50th in the world in life expectancy and 44th in infant mortality.

This means that we are the country in the world with the highest cost of health care, but far from the greatest care. The United States is the only industrialized country in the world that does not provide its citizens with health care.

“But so those other countries are socialist, right?”

In countries with a parliamentary form of government, it is possible for a party with a "socialist" platform to be elected. This has happened in France, and some might call the English Labor party socialist. "Socialist" is a very broad term, however, and this has primarily meant a change in the allocation of government resources for economic or social programs (think school lunch or Medicaid). These changes did not happen without the will of the electorate, and it no case did it make any of these countries any "less democratic."

One of the primary reasons a similar thing has never happened in the United States is because the United States has a predominantly two-party system. It is very hard for an individual to be elected to office in the United States without allegiance to one of these parties. Certain ideas may carry broad support at a given time, but in general party platforms predominate political debate.

"So what's all the fuss about?"

The health care debate breaks down neatly over party lines. Grossly over-simplifying the argument gets you this:

Democrats in government are driving the debate by claiming that expanding the government's role to include health care for all is something that a government should do for its citizens.

Republicans are countering with the claim that the expansion of health care is not the government's role, and actually harms business besides. They further contend that problems with health care should not require such a drastic solution, and that HR 3200 will create more problems than it solves.

In fact, the health care debate is rather nuanced and should not be considered fully explained by those two statements.

Neither side is proposing things like "euthanasia," "rationed care" or "death panels" although both sides are blaming the other of doing so.


“Ok fine, but I like the system and so all this crap doesn’t really affect me. Besides, my company pays for it!”

If you are a salaried or wage employee working for a company of any size and have health insurance through this company, you are paying for the cost of health care.

By some estimates, health insurance premiums have more than doubled over the last decade and now account for 17% of the US gross domestic product. Businesses are forced to carry this cost, and it has had a demonstrable downward effect on wages, R & D, and business spending.

Many of the people that cannot afford their health care are ordinary Americans who because of accidents or disease suddenly gain an enormous cost for their care. The odds of this happening only increase as one grows older. The odds that someone you know is being affected by the high cost of health care are considerable.

"Single payer? Public option?"

There are a lot of Web sites dedicated to explaining the various terms surrounding the health care debate. What the "single payer" health plan essentially means is that the government will get into the business of providing health insurance to all Americans -- just like it currently does to a certain part of the population with Medicare and Medicaid. In the case of citizens that choose this option, the government will be the "single payer" of all health care benefits.

"Public option" is just another way of saying the same thing. As is discussed below, this system will exist alongside the current privately owned health insurance system. No one will be forced to join, and can keep their private insurance if they choose.

"So why would anyone have a problem with that?"

Some have made the argument that the government getting into the business of providing health care will destroy the ability of the insurance companies to be competitive since the government will offer the lowest price. This in turn will cause private insurance companies to eventually go out of business.

Once that happens the "Public Option" will be the only option.

Once that happens the government monopoly on health care will make the system inefficient by default, since there will be no incentives to make the system better. Once that happens the level of care will drop overall, and eventually students deciding to become doctors will go into other professions.

“Well, ok, but doesn’t the free market do a good job? If these companies were really doing such a bad job, they’d just go bankrupt, right?”

That depends on which free market you are talking about.

If you are talking about the free market of Adam Smith, many have commented that Adam Smith’s discussion of the free market can readily be taken to mean whatever you want it to mean. It is not clear that Smith would have been for the modern idea of a corporation, or of lobbyists. It is equally unclear that Smith would have argued that keeping people healthy should be subject to market forces. One thing worth remembering is that a big fan of the “market” as described by Adam Smith is the founder of modern Communism – Karl Marx!

As for the free market that exists when government keeps its nose out of the affairs of business, there simply is no such thing. The government interferes in business all the time. This was the case when the phone company and airlines were deregulated in the 1980s, when the government brought an anti-trust suit against Microsoft in the 1990s, and when the government deemed AIG and GM "too big to fail" and bailed them out of their financial crises over the last year.

There is “free market” as an economic idea and then there is “free market” as a political idea. When referring to the health care debate we must take care to distinguish when this term is used on a political and not economic basis.

"Ok, but then my taxes are going to go up!"

The president's office has called for raising the taxes of the top 1% of Americans to pay for the health care plan (an idea Adam Smith would have agreed with). There have been some big differences between the Obama Administration and the Congressional Budget Office regarding the "real" cost of health care. It could be expected, however, that the lowered cost of health care should more than offset any tax increase.

“Ok, but the government’s just going to mess everything up right? And besides, health care isn’t in the constitution!”

“Obamacare” does not propose to eliminate private insurance companies or the choice to carry private insurance. There is no such provision in HR 3200. If HR 3200 passes, companies like Healthnet will continue to exist. They will be in competition with the federal health care plan, and will surely lose members as a result.

The federal government has its challenges and some notable failures, but it certainly does do some things well. There are of course exceptions, but your mail generally goes where you send it and arrives when you need it, the power grid works when you plug things in, public schools provide decent educations and people can trust the food they eat. Our planes do not crash when we go to visit grandma. This is all because of the federal government. Additionally, in all cases (with the exception of the FAA) there are private alternatives that much of the time provide better options, and that will not change if HR 3200 is passed.

"All right, whatever, geez, enough already! I'm missing Lost!"

Fair enough, I'm done. Hopefully this has helped you understand the broader arguments and why they matter. I welcome any comments and ask that the debate remain respectful. Thanks to K. C. for his insightful insight.

Sports and Blogging

Here's a little media flare up worth some attention, an article in the NY Times called "A Confrontation on ‘Costas Now’ Worthy of a Blog" by Richard Sandomir.

As with all good journalism, the first paragraph says it all:

If the sports blogosphere needed someone to symbolize the mainstream media’s fear and suspicion of its influence, it found him in Buzz Bissinger on Tuesday night on a live, 90-minute edition of “Costas Now” on HBO. Bissinger, the author of “Friday Night Lights” and other bestsellers, stepped forward fulminating during a 16-minute discussion with Will Leitch of Deadspin.com and Braylon Edwards of the Cleveland Browns.

A video of said fulmination is up on deadspin.com itself.

One notable quote: "The Web is a meritocracy," says Leitch.

Dave.

Laura Berg

I can't believe the story of Laura Berg hasn't been in the press more.

Sedition? That's got to be a joke. If that's what this country now stands for, we're in trouble.

Is This Responsible Journalism?

Readers of the Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle were treated to a somewhat lurid article regarding the failure of the city's emergency response system.

The system is a failure, the Chronicle implies, because an analysis of over 200,000 emergency response calls shows that "at least 439 people" died when the city's EMT's failed to respond in less than 6-1/2 minutes to high-priority calls.

(Interestingly, the article itself refers to an analysis of 200,000 calls; but the article on the analysis claims the researchers looked at 300,000 calls.)

Now while it is, of course, awful when anyone dies waiting for help to come, I'm not sure what this splashy, colorful article, complete with pictures of accident victims, tells us about emergency services in San Francisco.

439 people is .2% of 200,000 calls. Additionally, some of the people mentioned in the article were quite old and obviously in poor health. That's not to say these people don't matter or got what they deserved, but it is to make this point: no city's emergency heath services can save everyone.

San Francisco is a city of over 775,000, according to the 2000 census. Is it fair or responsible for a city's primary newspaper to suggest that each of these 775,000 has a reasonable expectation to receive medical attention anywhere within the city limits at any time within 6-1/2 minutes? Am I missing something?

Here's a cynical analysis: it's been pointed out in several places that newspaper readership is on the decline. Who is still reading the newspaper is primarily older folks who haven't made the switch to the Internet for news. Presumably. Equally presumably is that readership has been down at the SF Chronicle.

So, who's most likely to need emergency services, or be most fearful that the ambulance might not arrive? Young bloggers, who thumb their nose at health insurance...or...

They could always try the other way of selling papers.

Noam Chomsky and Norman Solomon

Last August I e-mailed Noam Chomsky to tell him that I maybe finally understood what he's been talking about for so long. Recently I read an article about Norman Solomon whose an advocate of similar ideas regarding the accuracy of the media. (Whether Solomon or Chomsky would agree with that sentiment, I couldn't say.)

Chomsky's (understandably) brief reply to me was essentially that he's pleased to hear that I found his ideas stimulating. In the article I read about Solomon he makes a similar point: As important as it is that you read the news it's equally -- more -- important to think for yourself about the news. Amen to that.

Fair and balanced comes from within.

The End Is Near!

I recall hearing that some scientists (before the horror became a reality) that the detonation of an atomic bomb would cause all matter on earth to ignite in a fearsome chain reaction. I also recall an Isaac Asimov story where two scientists program a computer to determine the nature of the universe, and as the truth becomes known the start begin to flicker out above their heads. I also recall reports that the year 2000 would be the end of life as we know it.

With all that to worry about comes a report that CERN might destroy the earth? Guess I'd better check my bucket list.

Technorati Post Claim

I'm registering this blog on Technorati Profile in the hopes that some day I, too, will be somebody.

Fresh Take

As much as I don't always agree with Frank Rich, his recent take on the Iraq War is an interesting one. I wish I thought that 1) it mattered and 2) I hadn't heard it all before.

Timetable for Withdrawal

Except for the fact that it goes on too long (everyone's a critic, I know) this post on 23/6, satirizing the phrase "Timetable for Withdrawal" is pretty funny.

Comments: OFF! Part 2

The Times does not disappoint!

In an article just today about the dismissal of the suit brought against the movie Borat by Jeffrey Lemerond* (the gentleman that ran down the street in supposed terror after Borat tried to hug him), Sewell Chan writes:

"Does Borat deserve the same protection as, say, a reporter for The Times? (Readers, be gentle.) "

This is just what my earlier post mentions. The reporter knows his question (which, it could be argued, has nothing to do with the story) might draw ire. He knows he's writing for the "City Room" blog -- located at http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/ -- which probably encourages him to break down that fourth wall and address the readership directly.

Which again raises a point made earlier, ok, so, what's the difference between "blogging" and "journalism" when Times staff writers report breaking news on a blog? I know "blog" is a breadbasket term that describes the technology, the content and the whole megillah, but still.

As of this post, out of 63 comments not one reader had cared enough to answer Chan's question. Numerous people did however respond to the posting as if they themselves were Borat.

So here's an analogy: If you were in a grocery store, and someone had product samples out on a table, and said, "Well, that next bite might suck," would you try it? If there was a group of people standing next to the table, one of them screaming "IT SUCKS! IT SUCKS!" would you try it?

No, and the store manager would call the police.

So then why is this commenting seen as a good idea?

*Yes, this site is a little offensive, but I agree with the sentiment completely, and this is a blog, not journalism.

Comments: OFF!

Here's something I hope I'm among the first to say: user moderated comments are a bad idea.

For examples -- and there are many -- one need look no further than Forumwarz. Billed as "The Internet...in game form," in Forumwarz players earn points by attempting to wreck as many forums as possible through obnoxious posting.

While Forumwarz is a parody and not an example of why user moderated comments are a bad idea, there seems to be little difference between, say, YouTube user moderated comments, and Forumwarz comments. It just takes one silly man person man, usually with little more to say than "it sucks!", to ruin everyone's day.

But what's new and different about what I'm saying is this: 1) User comments seem to be the holy grail of "social media" for, say, newspaper sites, and as such 2) have an adverse affect on the content they're meant to support. In other posts on this blog I've pointed out problems I've found with the New York Times and it's become clear to me that I wasn't so willing to do this before I realized I could, and publicly. I also agree with the unpopular sentiment that there is a difference between blogging and journalism (how could there not be) so I don't understand why the papers are moving towards these services so enthusiastically.

(Maybe they just don't get it.)

I also don't understand why they're not seeking to make a greater distinction between hard journalism and wispy (not to mention puerile) content.

It seems as if newspapers have also gotten themselves wrapped up in what Jim Collins calls a "doom loop:"

1) We are losing readership to Internet-driven* content
2) Let's create Internet-driven content of our own!
3) This weakens our own content and
4) Our Internet-based audience comments on it on their Internet-driven content
5) Back to step one.

Hmmm...maybe I should go to journalism school!

*Question: I wonder if there's a term for that type of content, generically? Content that is driven by, created by, Internet-based content generating media. Example, a blog.

The Real Deal?

I hate playing "gotcha" with the New York Times, I really do, because it's a great paper that I've been reading for twenty years or so.

But some things are hard to ignore. So here I go:

Two articles, a week apart, seem to make the claim that New York's real estate brokers have it rough:

That 6% is Getting Harder to Earn March 30, 2008.

Who Asked You? March 23, 2008.

In both articles the primary point of view represented is that of the broker! Especially brokers from The Corcoran Group.

Now it's clear to me that the Times or its real estate section has some kind of relationship with Barbara Corcoran (that's un-substantiated, but hey, this is a blog!), and I'm sure she gives them a lot of great quotes, but bias is bias.

As I wrote in the comments section following the first article on the Times Web site, it has seemed to me since I moved there in 1993 that New York's high real estate prices have mostly to do with all of the non-essential folks that make money on apartments. Everyone who's ever lived there has a horror story.

In addition, the Times has a columnist who's made a good chunk of his recent career by demonstrating from an economic standpoint that brokers work against their customers' best interests. Am I missing something?

Left Coast

A lot of moving to Marin County, CA, from NYC, NY, has to do with changing my New Yorker's View of the World.

So imagine my surprise when I went to a local farmer's market, and found that it was head and shoulders above New York's fabled Greenmarket. Isn't the Greenmarket the best in the world? Didn't I hear celebrity chef Tom Collichio (or was it Padma Lakshmi) say that on the TV?

A little more looking around and I find others feel this same way.

Well, you could say that Greenmarket is the best, because it's surrounded by the greatest city in the world. Hard to say, though. There's just something about left coast clean livin'.

Image from Ric Miller at sausalito.org

The Tanya Harding Candidacy

I can't believe that Hillary Clinton's plutocratic friends are attacking Nancy Pelosi for suggesting the Democratic SuperDelegates should vote for whomever has more votes at the end of the primaries. Despicable. (I also don't like the comparison, made by Nicholas Kristof, likening Clinton to Ralph Nader in 2000, but one thing at a time!)

Will (the) Clinton(s) stop at nothing to win this election? I'm all for never give up, but not everyone can be president!

It's easy to say it's killing the Democratic Party, but it's killing the Democratic Party. I like the term -- and I'm not sure who came up with it -- that HRC is now running a Tanya Harding Candidacy. And she is. Hope Barack Obama has some strong knees!

Happiness

A recent edition of the New York Review of Books discusses the number of books that have come out recently that are devoted to the subject of happiness.

The author notes that in surveys across the board people claim to be happy, humanity rating itself as a 7 (from 1-10) on average. As such, she can't resist the low-hanging-question: if so many claim to be happy, why do we need all of these books?

Advertising, is my response. Maybe we're all happy but we're so caught up in chasing the uncatchable American Dream that we can't just relax and enjoy it. In this country, anyway. If it weren't for that, no one would play the lottery!

The Times Has Got Your Back!

There's a story in today's New York Times about the prevailing economic meltdown entitled: Can't Grasp Credit Crisis? Join the Club.

What's there is an extremely oversimplified version of what's been going on in the American economy for the past 6 months.

Now while it's correct to say that there's a lot going on that people don't understand, the tone of the article -- that that's ok -- is objectionable. In addition, the writer plays down the over reliance of the American economy on what Russ Winter calls "Black Box Crony Capitalism," and completely ignores the predatory lending practices that were the engine behind the meltdown in the first place.

It makes me want to say, as much as I hate to say it, that the New York Times seems to be committed to helping us forget history. And everyone knows what happens when you do that -- or do they?

Or maybe it's just a matter of knowing your target market.

Bad Taste in Everyone's Mouth

Geraldine Ferraro's Op-Ed in this morning's New York Times is really just specious and awful.

She's essentially arguing that the election should be left to the Superdelegates, since they're the only ones with enough common sense to know the difference between Shinola and that other thing.

One more reason to vote for Ralph Nader.

Obama Bashing?

A friend of mine wrote me this morning to tell me his sister read Robert J. Samuelson's op-ed in the Washington Post this morning, and that it "crystallized" her hesitation to support Barack Obama.

The Post is a fine paper, and Samuelson's as bright as they come, but with all due respect to both institutions of American journalism -- as well as any individual's right to vote for whomever -- Samuelson is wrong. (It's also not exactly "objective journalism" to be writing such columns, dressed up as OpEd's, but there's always more to write about, isn't there?)

Without taking a stance on Obama one way or the other, it's American politics that's at stake in this next election, and it's been increasingly taken away from the American people since someone realized that what the Nixon-Kennedy debates really represented were advertising dollars, and the media got on board besides (besides the aforementioned instance, see Network for as good an example as any). And so here is my response to him:

It's seems as if there's nothing "radical" about ANY of this years candidates. Maybe Ron Paul, who's not on the table.

So what if Obama's platform is similar to Hilary's?! (Oh yeah, except she voted for the war, and hasn't apologized.)

The politicians have fooled us all for so long that we'd indeed be foolish not to be more cynical. Any candidate that's going to be nominated is only so free to say what s/he really thinks. If America really wanted a progressive platform, John Edwards would still be in the hunt, and Bush wouldn't have been re-elected in 2004.

Obama will like do much the same as Hilary once he gets into office; he's not likely to be "bad" for America. How much experience did George Washington have before becoming president? (Ok, not much of an argument, but still.)

Besides that, what this country needs is inspiration!

Look at JFK: If he'd been an older guy with dyed hair and a plain wife who lived through two terms we'd probably be comparing him to Nixon. Not much more experience than Obama when he was elected; rich, entitled, anti-semitic family; friend to Joseph McCarthy; Bay of Pigs; Cuban Missile crisis; got us in to Vietnam; not really that much of a stellar record; perhaps didn't even write his most famous, Pulitzer Prize-winning book - but people still have his picture on the wall 45 years later because he brought hope to America. (No, that's not Kennedy bashing.)

If GWB can bring the national mood down, what's wrong with qualifying a candidate that can bring the mood up? What's true of Obama that wasn't true of Bill Clinton in '92? (Ok, Bill was a two-term governor, but still.)

Two more points: 1) There are a lot of Clinton haters out there -- even on the Left -- and Hillary might not beat McCain; and 2) If there's one thing that's been true of journalism since Henry Blodgett, if not before, it's that some pundit always wants to be the one that says he was the first to say boo -- and it's certainly no skin off his nose to do so. For instance: David Brooks wrote the exact same column yesterday.

Backwards Bush

It's a bit tacky, but I can't resist.