INSTABEING
A few minutes ago there was a beautiful cardinal on the birdbath in our backyard. I saw the radiant little bird land in the bath as I was standing in my kitchen, gazing out upon our yard and running through a new song, called “I’m Holding On To You,” in preparation for a show I’m playing in Milwaukee tomorrow night. Right away I thought to myself, “This would be a really great picture,” but I resisted the urge to stop in the middle of the song and grab my phone. The image of the cardinal playing in the birdbath was striking, no doubt, and would have been great to preserve, but I was very emotionally invested in the song I was playing. I decided to continue on with the song, and if the cardinal was still on the birdbath when I completed the song I would snap a picture of it then. I finished the bridge and last refrain, all the while watching the cardinal flap around and enjoy himself. I like to think that he could hear me playing and singing and that we were savoring the moment together.
The second I strummed the last chord of the song the cardinal flew away into the bushes. I smiled, for even though I had missed my opportunity for a great photo, I was disciplined enough to enjoy the moment. I’m thankful for that moment.
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ON HEALTHCARE
In America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, there are really only two affordable ways to receive health care: be lucky enough to have a job that offers it, or be lucky enough to be married to someone who is lucky enough to have a job that offers it.
I’m not writing this blog in defense of those who agree that healthcare should be provided for all. I’m writing this blog in objection to those who are either ambivalent about the healthcare debate or are themselves in objection to the healthcare law that recently went into effect.
Politically, I consider myself an independent, far to the left of either of the two major parties. I guess one could say that I vote based on “humanity.” Of the two major parties, I feel there are few differences. Both parties send Americans into needless wars. Both parties allow for the continued oppression of foreign workers as labor in our never-ending quest to provide cheaper and cheaper goods to American consumers. Both parties line their pockets with lobbyist money. On healthcare, though, there is a difference.
A very specific example I can give is also a personal one, and that is of insurance coverage for children with autism. This example is personal to me because I work in the autism field and have seen the benefits of early and continued behavioral intervention with children with autism. These in-home behavioral programs have only been around for about 15 years and not many states offer such programs. For the first ten years or so these programs were funded by state and federal money. Then about four years ago families of children with autism and autism treatment providers began to make a push to require insurance companies to cover autism treatment. At that time in Wisconsin we had a Democratic governor and a Republican controlled state Senate and Assembly. The governor, Jim Doyle, set about drafting legislation requiring insurance companies to cover autism treatment. The company that I worked for at the time and other companies from around the state and families and friends of children with autism all converged on Madison, the state capital, to lobby in favor of the bill, but to no avail. The bill never passed the Assembly—it was voted down by the vast majority of Republicans, if not by every single Republican. How could this happen? Autism is not a disability which only affects Democrats and/or liberally-minded people. This bill is not something which would require any tax increase. In my opinion, there should have been absolutely no political objection. All we were asking was for insurance companies to pay for a form of healthcare. Isn’t this, after all, what insurance companies were created to do? Though it took a couple more years of hard work campaigning and lobbying, and an election which yielded a Democratic majority in both the Assembly and Senate, I’m happy to report that the bill was eventually passed in Wisconsin. Hundreds of children and their families have benefitted in the past couple years alone.
Why would anyone oppose healthcare coverage for all Americans? I understand the “not wanting to be told what to do by the government” argument. I would interpret this one of two ways, though. Either you’re someone who understands fully-well what it means to have 50 million fellow Americans without insurance and you just don’t really care. You’ve got insurance and in your eyes those 50 million without insurance are probably just lazy deadbeats. The other possibility is that you don’t want the government to “mandate” that you help your neighbor, but you’ll do so in your own way. This doesn’t seem to be very plausible to me, though. Are you going to do your part by paying for your neighbor’s health insurance or doctor visits? Probably not. Uninsured Americans cannot simply rely on the goodwill of their fellow citizens to provide them with healthcare needs. We Americans have proven time and time again that unless we are forced to do the right thing we simply won’t do it (slavery, women’s suffrage, Industrial Revolution working conditions, racial segregation, behavioral treatment for children with autism—just to name a few cases).
I’ve heard the argument that the new healthcare law will force doctors and medical providers to “ration” healthcare. To me this is nothing more than a scary, conservative, Fox News soundbite.
How has “rationing” come to be such a scary word in this country? Is it because we’ve grown accustomed to eating Big Macs faster than we can shit them out? Is it because we have no problem sending our troops overseas to fight needless wars, just as long as gas prices stay low? Is it because we TiVo more television than our brains can consume in a lifetime? Is it because we use our credit cards to buy what we want, when we want and don’t usually think about how we’re going to pay for our purchases? Americans get fat while the rest of the world starves. To keep up with our neighbors we buy needless and frivolous things while others in the world struggle to have their basic needs met. And we value being able to see a doctor at the drop of a hat. We don’t want to have to wait, and we fear that if all Americans had healthcare, we just might have to wait a couple extra hours to see the doctor, or a couple extra days for a procedure.
Personally, I’m willing to wait a bit longer or pay a bit more to see a doctor or have a procedure done if it means that my neighbor might also be able to have healthcare coverage. If you feel that you don’t want to pay for some “deadbeat’s” healthcare, guess what—you already are, when they go to the emergency room and don’t pay the bill. Unless, of course, you are one of the crazies who choose to go without healthcare. I really have no problem with you choosing to do that, as long as you can promise me that you’re never going to call an ambulance or go to an emergency room if you get ill—I don’t want to be “mandated” to pay higher insurance premiums to pay for your foolishness.
The new healthcare law is working. Citing the Green Bay edition of Scene: “Here in Wisconsin, 94,700 children have conditions that could have resulted in denials of coverage but are now protected…Insurers are banned from dropping you because of an honest mistake on your application…Yearly limits will be phased out in 2014…If you’re a young adult, the ACA ensures you can stay on your parents’ health plans up to the age of 26. Here in Wisconsin, 42,200 young adults are eligible to do this…All of our state’s 918,300 Medicare enrollees now get access to free preventive services such as mammograms and colonoscopies. In addition, last year, 59,345 Wisconsin seniors on Medicare Part D got prescription drug discounts totaling $37.9 million when they hit the ‘donut hole’ coverage gap.”
Visit www.healthcare.gov to find out more.
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PICK IT UP
I just got back from walking my dog, Gypsie, during a mid-winter thaw. Gypsie was in doggie heaven, as her favorite activity is to sniff out where other dogs have been and leave her “mark” on that spot. She had an easy time today, as we found lots and lots and lots of other dogs’ crap during our trip around the block.
I got to wondering about the people walking all those dogs and the mindset that would allow them to knowingly leave their waste on other people’s property—in other people’s lives. To me it’s a bit of a metaphor for how so many of us seem to live in all aspects of our lives. Sure, leaving your dog’s crap on someone else’s lawn means that it saves you time and energy, but it also means that someone else has to expend that time and energy cleaning it up. I wonder how many of these people allowing their dogs to crap on other people’s lawns wouldn’t be outrageously irate if they saw someone else’s dog crapping on their lawn and not picking it up.
This whole thing, in my opinion, serves as a metaphor for this certain sense of entitlement so many of us seem to live with: “I don’t have to pick up my dog’s crap. I don’t have the time. It’s only dog crap. I’m too important.” This sense of entitlement expands to many areas of so many people’s lives: “I don’t need to recycle. I’ll be dead for hundreds of years before the landfills fill up. I don’t really care where my food comes from, just as long as it tastes good. I don’t care where my shoes come from, as long as they’re cheap.”
There seems to be a sort of hierarchy to this way of living. Few people would allow their dog to crap on someone’s lawn while the owner of the house is standing three feet from them, watching them. More people would allow this crapping to happen if a neighbor across the street were watching. More still if it were just people driving past. If you knew you weren’t being watched and that the crap would never be traced back to you, would you allow this to happen? It seems like a lot of us would.
I feel that this is a good analogy with the way we shop, in the products we buy. Would you seek out a 12 year old girl and pay her 40 cents to make you a pair of running shoes? Probably not. But knowing about Nike’s terrible workers’ rights history in Asia, would you buy a pair of their shoes?
I know, it’s only dog crap. And what difference can we really make in regards to the products we buy? That’s not really my point. My point is that we, as a “civilized” society, need to take more personal responsibility for the things that we do—ALL of the things that we do: the products we buy, the amount of resources we use and consume, whether we buy another gadget we don’t really need or give extra money to charity, the food we eat, whether we pick up our dog’s crap or not.
Choosing to do the right thing might not present immediate benefits to us. After all, bending down to pick up that crap is a small amount of work. But give it some time for this newfound responsibility to catch on. Soon, everyone will be picking up their dog’s crap. The air will be fresher, your neighbors’ lawns will be cleaner, and your walks will be more enjoyable.
It’s really not that hard to live with this added sense of personal responsibility. Your conscience is probably already speaking to you quite often. Just choose to listen every once in awhile.
Be a good person, even if you don’t think anyone is watching.
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SLOWING DOWN
I began a little more than a year ago to slow down. Jane (my wife) and I bought a new small car and I decided to challenge myself to maximize my mpgs. I’ve always been rather cheap and thrifty, so it didn’t take much convincing. I had read somewhere once that driving around 55 mph was the way to get your best mileage (My dad and I actually tested this theory once while on a road trip—the theory held true). The highway speed limit in the US had been set at this speed during a time of high volatility in the oil markets during the 1970s.
I do a lot of driving for my job, often times spending 15+ hours a week on the road. A lot of this driving is highway miles, driving down highway 41 from Green Bay to Appleton. After a few weeks I was pretty excited with the mileage I’d been getting: 35+ mpg (In a broader sense, 35 mpg is pretty insulting, I feel. I’ve heard that the technology to allow cars to get 70 mpg has been around for decades, stifled by big oil, but that’s for another rant.).
A really interesting and unintended side-effect occurred while engaging in my new driving habit: I was less stressed during and after driving. The process of driving became easier in a number of different ways.
I didn’t have to maintain the speed that I was used to maintaining: I had always driven 5-7 mph over the speed limit, feeling that that was the fastest I could go without really risking receiving a speeding ticket. Slowing down to 2-3 mph over the speed limit, in my mind, virtually eliminated any possibility of ever getting a speeding ticket. I no longer worry about spotting cops, and that natural instinct that so many drivers have to step on the brake when they see a car parked in the median of the highway has all but gone away for me. It’s liberating.
The reason that I feel pretty confident driving 2-3 mph over the speed limit without worrying about a speeding ticket has everything to do with the relative nature of all of us drivers on the road. When I drive at this speed, the vast majority of vehicles on the road are traveling faster than I am. This was a difficult thing for me to come to terms with at first. I’m a very competitive person and a part of me felt that every time someone would pass me I was somehow “losing.” Once I was able to convince myself that I was no less of a man for traveling slower than other people I was once again very liberated. What I’ve done by slowing to a speed where most people are passing me is to take control of my driving. The speed that I travel is the speed that I choose to travel, not the speed of the car in front of me who won’t move out of my damn way. I see the other drivers on the road less as obstacles and more like driving compatriots—sad, stressed-out compatriots who haven’t yet figured out the secret to driving stress-free.
It’s impossible to control the speed of the cars in front of you, so why not slow yourself to a speed where the cars in front of you have less of an impact on you and your drive.
A big part of this slowing down mentality, I feel, is convincing oneself that driving (life) is not a race. We’ve all got places to and things to do. Believe me, I’m as ambitious and goal-oriented as anyone I’ve ever known. So often, though, we are not in absolute control of how fast our lives are moving in a specific direction, so why not choose to slow down the speed of your life and appreciate the speed at which you are moving?
If you stop and think about it, how often do we really need to be in a hurry to get somewhere?
