Mo Rage

Quote of the day--on opening one's mind

2013-06-19T07:00:00.000-05:00

“All too often, those big ideas run up against the challenge of the everyday: in particular, how to find work that pays the bills. A lot of the time, meaningful work becomes necessary work, and passions are forced to fade. The easy part is knowing that you should follow your heart and do something important; the hard part is coping with the world as it is today at the same time as you invent how it should be in the future.

But inventing the future — in spite of the greatest recession since the Great Depression — is exactly what our generation does. If there’s any core attribute that connects you to me to everyone else of our age, it’s this conviction that we do not have to take the world as it is; in fact, it’s up to us to make it what it should be. ...

The "money quote"--one thing more and more Americans would benefit from greatly:

If there’s one thing you do after graduating today, create some habit that makes it easier for you to get out of your bubble. Follow someone you disagree with on Twitter. Buy a subscription to a newspaper or a magazine that will tell you the most important news of the day. Install an app on your phone that doesn’t just filter the news by your social network, but by what you need to read. Not only will these habits make you a better citizen, they’ll make you a more interesting husband or wife, and certainly a more informed job applicant.”

--Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook and owner of The New Republic in his commencement speech this Spring at Georgia State University

Link: In Looser Tone, Speakers Urge Graduates to Take Risks and Be Engaged

Quote of the day--on our current American socio-economic system

2013-06-18T18:00:00.000-05:00

From a commencement speeck by Ben S. Bernanke, Economist and Fed Chairman at Princeton University this Spring:

“A meritocracy is a system in which the people who are the luckiest in their health and genetic endowment; luckiest in terms of family support, encouragement and, probably, income; luckiest in their educational and career opportunities; and luckiest in so many other ways difficult to enumerate — these are the folks who reap the largest rewards.

The only way for even a putative meritocracy to hope to pass ethical muster, to be considered fair, is if those who are the luckiest in all of those respects also have the greatest responsibility to work hard, to contribute to the betterment of the world and to share their luck with others.”

I love the new ad slogan for Apple Computer

2013-06-18T16:00:00.000-05:00

That's beautiful, isn't it?

Clearly a shameless ploy to get us thinking it's all done here in the States.

The second part of the ad should closely follow with:

"...still made by near-slave labor in China."

Thank you, Tim Cook.

Kentucky: It sucks to be you

2013-06-18T14:00:00.000-05:00

How embarrassing would that be to have Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul as your state's two senators in Washington, supposed to lead you while also having the nation's and world's only "Creation Museum"?

That's gotta' hurt.

Their state motto should be "We're Not Mississippi, But We're Trying."

Link: Tea for 2? Kentucky Senators in a Marriage of Convenience

Yet more good indicators on "Obamacare"

2013-06-18T10:00:00.000-05:00

Every article that comes out, showing how states and the people of the country are benefiting from the Affordable Care Act, aka, "Obamacare" warm my heart and give my hope, both. There was another one Sunday in The New York Times :

Million-Anecdote Baby

I won't bore you with much of the article but just a few of the good things that are coming from that much-needed legislation are:

The early indications are that most Americans will be pleasantly surprised. Millions of people, shopping and comparing prices on the exchanges set up by the states, are likely to get far better coverage for the same — or less — money than they pay now. The law, as honest conservatives predicted, before they orphaned their own idea, is injecting competition into a market dominated by a few big names...

In Washington State, nine companies have filed paperwork to offer policies in a region that has long been controlled by three big entities.

“The surprise is that, for many in the individual market, the premiums will be lower and the benefits so much richer,” said Mike Kreidler, the state insurance commissioner in Washington. “Eventually, I can see the Affordable Care Act being embraced like Medicare, because once people get used to this kind of coverage, it’s going to be a pretty abhorrent thing to try and take it away.”

In Oregon, brisk competition will mean real choice for consumers. Starting in October, a 40-year-old resident of Portland can choose between one insurer charging $169 a month or another asking $422 for the same plan. When these rates were first posted not long ago, some of the companies requested a do-over so they could submit lower rates. Yes, lower rates. So much for a government takeover.
In California, 13 companies will compete for the business of 5.3 million or so people expected to purchase insurance through the new exchanges. Officials say the average monthly premium will be $321 — that is, $110 less than the national average predicted by the Congressional Budget Office.

And one of the odd, ironic, possibly even hypocritical things about all this is that the Republicans and Conservatives and Right Wingers and Libertarians and all the Obama haters out there are likely deeply FOR "competition in the marketplace" but against this, which is bringing just that--competition for health care insurance premiums and so, lower prices.

I love the smell of Republican hypocrisy in the morning, don't you?

Protecting chimpanzees, at last

2013-06-18T07:00:00.000-05:00

I saw this article in The New York Times this past Sunday:

Goal of Broader Protection for Chimpanzees Emerges From Changing Perspectives

And suddenly, suddenly it also occurred to me how blatant and obvious this is, that we shouldn't be killing these beautiful animals or any longer using them for scientific experiments.

And how insane it all was that we ever did.

One billion dollar weather disasters in the US

2013-06-17T19:30:00.000-05:00

Listening to the Weather Channel last evening, with a lot of thunderstorm warnings all around my new 'burg--yet again--the announcers mentioned that the last several years has seen a great deal of $1 billion dollar weather disasters in the US. They seemed to softly suggest that it was likely due to global warming and/or climate change.

So I Googled:

Billion Dollar U.S. Weather Disasters, 1980–2013

Source: National Climatic Data Center

The U.S. has sustained 123 weather-related disasters during the 1980-2012 period in which overall damages and costs reached or exceeded $1 billion at the time of the event. Twelve occurred during 2011 alone—the most for any year on record, with total costs being approximately $52 billion.

Then I searched some more:

NCDC Releases 2012 Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters

According to NCDC’s 2012 weather and climate disasters information, 2012 saw 11 weather and climate disaster events each with losses exceeding $1 billion in damages. This makes 2012 the second costliest year since 1980, with a total of more than $110 billion in damages throughout the year. The 2012 total damages rank only behind 2005, which incurred $160 billion in damages due in part to four devastating land-falling hurricanes.

The 2012 billion-dollar events included seven severe weather and tornado events, two tropical cyclone events, and the yearlong drought and its associated wildfires. These 11 events killed over 300 people and had devastating economic effects on the areas impacted. With 11 events, 2012 also ranks second highest in total number of billion-dollar events behind 2011, which had 14 events.

The two major drivers of the damage costs in 2012 were Sandy at approximately $65 billion and the yearlong drought at approximately $30 billion. Sandy’s large size, with tropical storm force winds extending nearly 500 miles from the center, led to record storm surge, large-scale flooding, wind damage, and mass power outages along much of the East Coast.

So it begs the question: at what point do we learn?

At what point do our nation's leaders stand up, recognize the situation we're in and lead the people, lead the country to what we need? That is, how soon until they guide us onto a path of far more sustainable lives and living?

We need to get started.

Links: Billion Dollar U.S. Weather Disasters, 1980–2013 | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0882823.html#ixzz2WWF0Lozm

Billion-Dollar Weather/Climate Disasters

Entertainment overnight

2013-06-16T20:00:00.000-05:00

Go here:

http://reichrolld.com/

What Americans don't know about health care

2013-06-16T16:00:00.000-05:00

There is a terrific article today in The New York Times about health care in America--and Sweden. I contend that virtually all Americans should read it--with an open mind--and so few will.

What Sweden Can Tell Us About Obamacare

Just a small bit from the article:

The United States spends more than $8,000 a person per year on health care, well more than twice what Sweden spends. Yet health outcomes are far better in Sweden along virtually every dimension. Its infant mortality rate, for example, was recently less than half that of the United States. And males aged 15 to 60 are almost twice as likely to die in any given year in the United States than in Sweden.

Not that Americans are about to learn anything--anything--from Sweden or anyone else (heck, learning alone is a problem for us) but it would be nice if we could read or study these other country's situations--gasp--and, as I said, learn something.

Just a few comparisons:

Doctors in the two countries also face different financial incentives. In the United States, under the fee-for-service model, they can bolster their incomes, often substantially, by prescribing additional tests and procedures. Most Swedish doctors, as salaried employees, have no comparable incentive.

Another important difference is that, unlike many American health insurance providers, the government groups that manage Swedish health care are nonprofit entities. Because their charge is to provide quality care for all citizens, they don’t face the same incentive to withhold care that for-profit organizations do...

The Swedes also provide drugs and other treatments only when evidence establishes their effectiveness. People can spend privately on unproven treatments, but the government refuses to impose their cost on taxpayers.

Clearly, the Swedish health care model is far more humane and moral than our profit-based one.

There was an excellent program on PBS a few years ago that did just that, too--compared other country's health care systems, one to another to ours:

Comparing International Health Care Systems

This one, here, above, compared our system to the Netherlands, which is highly successful both in keeping costs down and in getting good outcomes from the health care paid for.

And then these two, from 2009 and 2012, again on PBS, comparing our costs which, by the way, are and have been the highest in the world for decades now:

Health Care Expenditures: An International Comparison

Health Costs: How the U.S. Compares With Other Countries

Here's just one very indicative chart from this article:

And then there's this tidbit, from that same article:

Life expectancy at birth increased by almost nine years between 1960 and 2010, but that's less than the increase of over 15 years in Japan and over 11 years on average in OECD countries. The average American now lives 78.7 years in 2010, more than one year below the average of 79.8 years.

Another fact:

When we look across a broad range of hospital services (both medical and surgical), the average price in the United States is 85 percent higher than the average in other OECD countries.

If anyone in this country thinks we don't or didn't need the Affordable Care Act--aka "Obamacare"--when we spend grossly more than any other nation on the planet for that care and our results are worse than any the other, top 17 industrialized nation, they are badly and sadly mistaken.
________________________

More PBS links on health care (in case anyone out there actually does want to learn about us and our health care system:

Toyota-inspired approach to improving care and bringing down costs.

What steps can you take to make your next hospital stay safer and cheaper?

They illustrate what the U.S. could buy with the $750 billion wasted in American health care each year, and, in a separate post, our partners at Kaiser Health News examine the "Top 7 Drivers of U.S. Health Care Costs."

In a "Reporter's Notebook," Betty Ann Bowser examines Virginia Mason's decision to eliminate a staple of the American hospital: the waiting room.

What inefficiencies have you seen in the U.S. health care system?

Ladies and gentlemen, your US Congress

2013-06-15T16:45:00.000-05:00

The following productivity--or, rather, lack of it--comes to us all courtesy of our own US Congress:

This, among other things, is what campaign contributions and splintered, uncooperative political parties and politicians get us, as a nation, as a people.

And we must put an end to it.

We must fight to end campaign contributions.

As soon as possible.

On corporate profits, human greed and why we need government

2013-06-15T14:30:00.000-05:00

The Supreme Court's ruling yesterday -- that human genes cannot be patented, but that patents can be had on scientific discoveries altering genes' natural states and on new processes to carry out genetic tests, such as cancer screenings -- will alter the future of the biotech industry and, in many ways, medical research. It will reduce the price of many new drugs and alter investment incentives.

But it also illustrates a more basic point.

At least since economist Milton Friedman first advanced the view (popularized by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher) that the basic choice is whether to rely on the market or on government to decide who gets what -- and that the market is more compatible with freedom -- we have been locked into an ideological debate that has little or no bearing on the real world.

The fact is, markets don't exist in a state of nature. All we have there is survival of the fittest. Civilized societies create markets. They decide on the rules of the game, such as whether genes can be private property. Markets can be organized in many different ways, some more equitable than others. The fundamental choice isn't between the so-called "free" market and government. It is between static efficiency or equal opportunity and access, between growing apart or growing together.

--Robert Reich, American political economist, professor, author, and political and economic commentator

It's regulation. It's why we need government to regulate business, clearly. Someone, some organization must oversee the human tendency for greed and the corporate propensity to cut costs at all costs, to maximize profit. It's why there were 2 blasts yesterday in Louisiana at the oil processing plant--cost-cutting corporations for profit above all else.

Like it or not, ladies and gentlemen, we need government. We need strong government and we need government regulation of business. We don't need huge government but we do need strong government and we keep getting reminded of exactly why, too, with catastrophe after catastrophe.

Links: Robert Reich

Robert Reich - Wikipedia

Quote of the day--on power in America

2013-06-13T19:00:00.000-05:00

There are two centers of unaccountable power in the American political-economic system today -- places where decisions that affect large numbers of Americans in important ways are unchecked either by effective democratic oversight or by market competition. One goes by the name of the "intelligence community" and is centered in the National Security Agency within the Defense Department. If we trusted that it reasonably balanced its snooping on Americans with our nation's security needs, and that our elected representatives effectively oversaw that balance, there would be little cause for concern. But the NSA has so much power, and oversight is so thin, that we have every reason to be worried.

The second goes by the name of Wall Street and is centered in the five largest banks there. If we trusted that market forces kept them in check, and that they did not exercise inordinate influence over Congress and the executive branch, we would have no basis... for concern. But those banks are so large (much larger than they were when they almost melted down five years ago), have such a monopolistic grip on our financial system, and exercise so much power over Washington, that we have cause to be worried.

The reason, I think, that both the political right and left in America are equally upset about the encroachments of the NSA on the privacy and civil liberties of Americans, and about the depredations of "too big to fail or jail" Wall Street banks on our economy is, fundamentally, this toxic combination of inordinate power and lack of accountability. That neither Republicans nor Democrats have done much of anything about these two centers of unaccountable power makes me think that, if present trends continue, a third party will be borne out of the smoldering embers of these concerns.

--Robert Reich, American political economist, professor, author, and political and economic commentator

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I say again and why I keep saying that we must, must fight to end "campaign contributions." Until we get the big, ugly, corrupting influence of them out of our election and political systems, our laws and government will continue to be owned and operated by and for the wealthy and corporations.

Links: Robert Reich

Robert Reich - Wikipedia

On Dems vs. Repubs

2013-06-12T07:00:00.000-05:00

Keeping in mind, of course, that it was also these same Republicans who voted in their pack to also give the already-wealthy tax cuts the nation is now trying so desperately to afford and pay back during Dubya's grossly irresponsible administration.

Think government surveillance is new?

2013-06-11T18:00:00.000-05:00

The whole brouhaha over government surveillance of our emails and phone calls gives me two reactions.

First, it makes me laugh because I think people are making a great deal out of not much and second, it kind of p*sses me off because the people complaining are quite likely, also, the ones who would REALLY scream bloody murder if we WERE attacked by some wack-jobs, intent on killing and hurting people in this nation.

And for anyone who thinks this is a new phenomenon, think again.

Back in 1937, the following happened:

"When Princess Juliana of the Netherlands became a mother, CBS planned a fifteen-minute spot" on the radio, mind you "...about the new heir to the House of Orange. For reasons of scheduling, New York changed its mind. The decision to drop it, a cabled order went back to London:

"KILL JULIANA'S BABY."

That afternoon, Helen Sioussat found two FBI men at her door."*

Mind you, that's 1937, too.

When it comes to the government surveillance of our emails, so far, I come down with the likes of Right Wing, Republican, small-government, though moderate columnist David Brooks last week on NPR :

"You know, I'm not as bothered as some. I'm somewhat bothered by the secrecy, but I don't feel it's intrusive. Basically, they're running huge amounts of megadata through an algorithm. That feels less intrusive to me than the average TSA search at the airport. And so I don't think it's particularly intrusive. It is supervised by the court. It has some congressional supervision.

It seems to be reasonably narrowly focused. And so I don't regard this as a crime against our civil liberties. I regard it as a somewhat moderate and balanced way to look for people who are calling bad people."

What the government is doing was put by the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches, also, so it's not as though it hasn't been "aired out", so to speak. It was never a big secret.

And what's the alternative choice? That we have wackos with bombs running around the country for some God-knows-what purpose, trying to kill and hurt Americans?

I'll stick with the possible loss of a little privacy every time.

*Director of Talks and Public Affairs for CBS radio from 1937 to 1958. Passage taken from the book
Murrow: His Life and Times by A. M. Sperber.

Link:

Week In Politics: Sifting Through Surveillance

Additional, great article, just out this week, that rather agrees with my points:

The New Yorker: So Are We Living in 1984?

On life, living and the internet today

2013-06-09T15:45:00.000-05:00

The New York Times has three good to great to excellent articles today on the internet and what it's doing to us today.

I will start, too, with the best of the three because I am convinced it is one of the most beautiful, true, poignant, timely and even important columns I've read in a long, long time and that we might read all year:

How Not to Be Alone

It is about, yes, computers and our phones and technology and how they do bring us together but also, paradoxically, how they can also separate us physically and even emotionally.

Because the whole thing is that good and, as I said, even important, I'll only put a few quotes of it here:

Technology celebrates connectedness, but encourages retreat...

The flow of water carves rock, a little bit at a time. And our personhood is carved, too, by the flow of our habits...

Psychologists who study empathy and compassion are finding that unlike our almost instantaneous responses to physical pain, it takes time for the brain to comprehend the psychological and moral dimensions of a situation. The more distracted we become, and the more emphasis we place on speed at the expense of depth, the less likely and able we are to care...

THE problem with accepting — with preferring — diminished substitutes is that over time, we, too, become diminished substitutes. People who become used to saying little become used to feeling little.

With each generation, it becomes harder to imagine a future that resembles the present.

I worry that the closer the world gets to our fingertips, the further it gets from our hearts.

Most of the time, most people are not crying in public, but everyone is always in need of something that another person can give, be it undivided attention, a kind word or deep empathy. There is no better use of a life than to be attentive to such needs.

I say again, it was one good to great article. I would implore nearly anyone and everyone to read it.

The second and third articles, totally unintended to be related, I think, show what people are doing in order to stay connected:

The 'I Dos,' Unplugged

Showing how brides and grooms are having people leave their phones at the door, during weddings, increasingly (and good for them).

Student Social Climbing, but on an Indoor Bike

Wherein, students are attending kind of "cycle parties" and not texting, etc.

Interesting stuff.

There's lots more in the Times today, of course, on technology (like on the US and Chinese, negotiating how we'll work together and what will and will not happen with cyberespionage) but these, above, I thought were good and important on how we all act, interpersonally, with the 'puters and what we do and don't do with them.

Enjoy your Sunday, y'all.

Quote of the day--why is this so bloody rare in America?

2013-06-07T18:00:00.000-05:00

"I just think people need to make a living wage with health benefits. It also puts more money back into the economy and creates a healthier country. It's really that simple."

--Craig Jelinek, CEO of Costco

Link to original article:

Costco CEO Craig Jelinek Leads the Cheapest, Happiest Company in the World

What part of "public meeting" don't these people get?

2013-06-07T15:00:00.000-05:00

So the Mayor's panel on deciding what we're going to do with our airport met yesterday for the first time and it was reported to be a public meeting--but they threw two people out who wanted to be there?

Seriously?

From the Kansas City Star today:

Public gets first input as KCI study panel meets

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/06/06/4276925/kci-task-force-says-it-will-try.html#storylink=cpy

Kansas City’s airport study panel held its first public meeting Thursday and said its goal will be to recommend the best airport to serve the region now and for future generations.

Commission co-chairman Bob Berkebile said he hopes the group can issue its recommendations before the end of the year.

But already the initiative has been embroiled in a minor controversy. Two people were excluded from the public meeting at Union Station.

Dan Coffey, a member of a group gathering petition signatures against a new airport terminal, said he and a colleague were unfairly prevented from attending the meeting.

Coffey said that he had been gathering petition signatures in front of Union Station before the meeting but that security told him to leave. When he then tried to attend the task force meeting, security told him he had to leave and he did. Coffey said he was never told what law he was violating or why he had to leave. So it's a "public meeting" but you throw the public out? Then, get this: Union Station Kansas City Inc. issued a statement later saying that Union Station is not a public building and does not allow petition signing inside on any issue. The statement said the petitioners refused to move to a public area outside the building, so security and Kansas City police officers helped move them to a public area.

We all thought it was a public building, didn't we? Yet they throw the ones they don't want in there, out? And they called it a "public meeting." Yet they want and expect the people's input and trust on all this? Seriously? It's surely not getting off on the proverbial "right foot" here, is it?

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/06/06/4276925/kci-task-force-says-it-will-try.html#storylink=cpy

Eavesdropping on our phone calls is just one part of the problem

2013-06-07T12:15:00.000-05:00

The big news today--and yesterday--all over the internet and news programs is that--SURPRISE!--the government is listening in on Americans phone calls.

US Maintains Vast Database of Phone Calls, Lawmakers Say

I mean, come on, who of us is surprised?

But you know what surprises me far more and even disappoints me?

Do you even know how this story broke?

It came from a British newspaper, the Guardian UK:

NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon ... - The Guardian

A foreign newspaper chain got the scoop on this story. How insane is that? What about the New York Times or Reuters or the AP or heck, even Fox "News"? ABC? CBS? NBC? CNN? NPR? PBS? Anyone? Any news agency here in the States?

No one in the reporting industry in America was on this story but a British, English newspaper was?

Is this what we are to expect of American media in the future? We're to get our news from England or Al Jazeera or some other international media source?

If this is what we are to expect, and I fear it is, it doesn't seem as though the media can be counted on to be the "fourth estate" and help keep the government and/or wealthy and/or corporations in check.

In the meantime, this morning, we got this from the President:

'Nobody is listening to your telephone calls'

President Obama staunchly defended domestic surveillance programs.

That is very little comfort, I have to say. First drones, then drones killing 4 Americans, then defending all that, now this.

I'm not panicking but I don't think it's good, either, not for using less or no drones, not for privacy and not for reporting in America and the world.

Quote of the day--on fairness

2013-06-07T07:00:00.000-05:00

Southwest Airlines---expands??

2013-06-06T17:15:00.000-05:00

Yessiree, I read it just this afternoon on none other than our own Kansas City International Airport's Facebook page:

Southwest Airlines restarted service to Oakland and Seattle-Tacoma this week. Book your flight to the West coast soon!

Imagine that. And we didn't even have to tear down a terminal to get it.

Link: http://www.facebook.com/Southwest?fref=ts

Senator Frank Lautenberg, 1924-2013, Rest in peace

2013-06-04T07:00:00.000-05:00

The Cost of War

2013-06-03T10:00:00.000-05:00

The cost of war -

Another week and another $2 Billion spent in Afghanistan. Total bill to U.S. Taxpayers = $1,444,224,447,359.

6680 - Number of Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn casualties as confirmed by U.S. Central Command.

1 more dead this week:

- Army Spc. Christopher R. Drake, May 26, 2013 - 20, of Tickfaw, Louisiana

The Kansas, Republican debacle is finally over

2013-06-03T07:00:00.000-05:00

From the Kansas Democratic Party Facebook page, yesterday:

"In the middle of the night, the Kansas Legislature voted to raise Kansans taxes $777 million. They also voted to slash $56.1 million from higher ed, cuts corrections funding making our state less safe, and refused to carve out the developmentally disabled from KanCare. Raising taxes on middle-class Kansans and cratering education - just another night's work for Gov. Brownback and the Kansas GOP."

What's also stunning about the end of this entire debacle, besides the fact that this should never have happened and that it was extremely, additionally and unnecessarily expensive for Kansans and that the Republicans are reputedly the political party of lower government spending (don't make me laugh), is that these people, these politicians, these political representatives of Kansas not only raised taxes on the middle- and lower-class people their supposed to represent while also, cruelly, let's face it, lowering the taxes of corporations and the already-wealthy but that they did it in the middle of the night and were so really cowardly about the whole thing.

The total cost to Kansans for the inability to do their work in a timely, responsible fashion?

Nine extra days x $45,000 per day = $405,000.

Perilously close to one half million dollars.

Congratulations, you Kansas State representatives. You spent nearly one half million additional dollars Kansas and Kansans didn't have. You must be so proud.

If there's one thing good about all this is that, one, it's that it's finally over and, two, it won't cost Kansans any more than it already has.

Link: Republicans advancing tax, budget bills in push to end legislative session

Quote of the day--on the day of rest

2013-06-02T07:00:00.000-05:00

The United States of Inequality

2013-06-01T16:00:00.000-05:00

“A petty, narcissistic, pridefully ignorant politics has come to dominate and paralyze our government, while millions of people keep falling through the gaping hole that has turned us into the United States of Inequality.”

--Bill Moyers, American journalist and public commentator. He served as White House Press Secretary in the Johnson administration from 1965 to 1967

Links: Bill Moyers Essay: The United States of Inequality

Moyers & Company | BillMoyers.com

Bill Moyers - Wikipedia