Thanks Will, for planting the seed of this rant. I was going to write it a few days ago but didn't really wanna kill my Christmas buzz. And then I read an article in the USA Today about health care reform and I blew my top.
So, after all the bickering and moaning, all the debating and investiture of tax payer dollars, and after all the bluster from radio commentators, it turns out that even with "Health Care Reform" passing, our trusty politicians have only managed to bring us more of the same.
The article I read today talks about how, once the bill is worked out, some people's insurance premiums with INCREASE. Yeah, that is right. Our worthless, spineless, witless, gutless, clueless, useless, brainless politicians have been working an entire year to bring us this great change and in the end it turns out that they have changed nothing. All they have done is move some of the pieces around the board but not truly advanced the cause of the American people.
It turns out (at least according to this article) that the only people who really stand to benefit from the changes are those who earn less than $40K and are paying for their own private plan. These people will get a government subsudy to buy health insurance while the rest of us will still pay full price, if not an increase in prices. Who the hell does this benefit besides the Health Industry?
The only justification I can think of for this kind of worthless legislation is cowardice. Plain and simple, the people we elect are ineffectual wet noodles. They don't have a real spine between them. America is the only nation in the developed world where sick people are routinely denied care, and our politicians lack the will power and courage to fix it. It is the greatest injustice in our society, but we would rather make sure our doctors remain overpaid.
So congratulations, Senate and House: you have failed us again. Your track record remains unblemished.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Friday, December 11, 2009
Return to Rant
Wow, long time; no rant. How could I ever go that long with out complaining about something? Well, I wish I could report that I have been storing up rage and indignation for one world-saving, mind-blowing, paradigm-altering Rantzilla, but that is not the case. The truth is I kind of ran out of things to rant about. Even now I am at a loss as to what deserves a good tongue-lashing.
Have I lost my passion? Has the fire gone out? Has the world suddenly and unexpectedly become a perfect place? Or am I simply not paying enough attention? As I think about it, I figure I am probably just tired of my own thoughts and ideas. I need new material. Anyone out there care to help me out?
Lets do this: if you read this, and would like to hear me go off half-cocked on some topic either trivial or earnest, please tell me what that topic is, and I will proceed to explode. I will work myself into a righteous fury on your behalf, and launch my indignation into cyberspace. We could do it like Dear Abby, except instead of advice, I would offer pseudo-philosophical diatribe.
So request away. Who knows what we may end up with? Humor? Eloquence? A better mouse trap?
Have I lost my passion? Has the fire gone out? Has the world suddenly and unexpectedly become a perfect place? Or am I simply not paying enough attention? As I think about it, I figure I am probably just tired of my own thoughts and ideas. I need new material. Anyone out there care to help me out?
Lets do this: if you read this, and would like to hear me go off half-cocked on some topic either trivial or earnest, please tell me what that topic is, and I will proceed to explode. I will work myself into a righteous fury on your behalf, and launch my indignation into cyberspace. We could do it like Dear Abby, except instead of advice, I would offer pseudo-philosophical diatribe.
So request away. Who knows what we may end up with? Humor? Eloquence? A better mouse trap?
Thursday, October 22, 2009
On Why Executives are Morons
OK, so not all executives. But certainly many. I am thinking specifically about the reptilian oafs heading up the companies that tanked the American economy. GM, AIG, etc.
They drove their companies, either through incompetence or negligence or maliciousness, into the ground to such an extent that tax-payer funds were needed to bail them out. And now, when actual consequences are being threatened (if you haven't heard, their salaries are being severely restricted) people all over talk about this being a bad idea. And why do they say it is a bad idea? Because reducing the salaries "might drive the best people away from the position."
Seriously? Best people? These were the best people? These negligent, foolish, greedy sops were the best people?
No. They weren't. I don't buy that. Not for a minute. They were not the best. They were the status quo. They were not the elite through quality, they were the elite through position. Their actions have proven quite conclusively that they were not the best. More to the point, their actions have proven that they were among the worst.
If anyone else in America, from mechanics to doctors, did their job as piss-poorly as these executives have done theirs, the talk would not be of reducing their salary. Rather, the talk would be of termination and possible criminal charges. If a single doctor performed a surgery as recklessly and with as little foresight as these executives have prosecuted their responsibilities, that doctor (after the patient died a horrible, unnecessary death) would be subjected to board review, lose his/her license, be forbidden to ever practice medicine again, and would then have to stand trial for malpractice, if not for manslaughter.
That these executives even still have their jobs is more than generous. That they, even after losing their ridiculous bonuses, are still paid far more than the average American is insulting.
These men and women do not deserve to even be mentioned in the same sentence as the word "best." They are the worst, and we do not need them. We should set them aside, letting them drift away on their golden parachutes, while new blood with good ideas takes their spots. I know dozens of bright, motivated, savvy college grads who would do the job for a fraction of the cost. We do not need to overpay executives. Even if an exec here or there is worth the millions they are paid, that money is wasted on any single individual, and would be better spent on growing the company. In the cases of miserable failures like GM and AIG, those executives are not worth any kind of compensation, period.
They drove their companies, either through incompetence or negligence or maliciousness, into the ground to such an extent that tax-payer funds were needed to bail them out. And now, when actual consequences are being threatened (if you haven't heard, their salaries are being severely restricted) people all over talk about this being a bad idea. And why do they say it is a bad idea? Because reducing the salaries "might drive the best people away from the position."
Seriously? Best people? These were the best people? These negligent, foolish, greedy sops were the best people?
No. They weren't. I don't buy that. Not for a minute. They were not the best. They were the status quo. They were not the elite through quality, they were the elite through position. Their actions have proven quite conclusively that they were not the best. More to the point, their actions have proven that they were among the worst.
If anyone else in America, from mechanics to doctors, did their job as piss-poorly as these executives have done theirs, the talk would not be of reducing their salary. Rather, the talk would be of termination and possible criminal charges. If a single doctor performed a surgery as recklessly and with as little foresight as these executives have prosecuted their responsibilities, that doctor (after the patient died a horrible, unnecessary death) would be subjected to board review, lose his/her license, be forbidden to ever practice medicine again, and would then have to stand trial for malpractice, if not for manslaughter.
That these executives even still have their jobs is more than generous. That they, even after losing their ridiculous bonuses, are still paid far more than the average American is insulting.
These men and women do not deserve to even be mentioned in the same sentence as the word "best." They are the worst, and we do not need them. We should set them aside, letting them drift away on their golden parachutes, while new blood with good ideas takes their spots. I know dozens of bright, motivated, savvy college grads who would do the job for a fraction of the cost. We do not need to overpay executives. Even if an exec here or there is worth the millions they are paid, that money is wasted on any single individual, and would be better spent on growing the company. In the cases of miserable failures like GM and AIG, those executives are not worth any kind of compensation, period.
Friday, September 18, 2009
The Mighty Middle
Alright, so now that my employment worries are cleared up, I have more room in my head to think about other things. More specifically, I have room to think about social concerns and politics. So lets take out that particular dusty soap box. . . and up we go.
Political parties are deadly, toxic, inherently corrupt organizations, and both are equally anti-American. I have ranted about this before, yet I have not even scratched the surface of all of the things I think are wrong about political parties and American politics in general.
The parties are both (or all if you count the Libertarians, which I don't) anti-American. None of them, regardless of how they talk about social justice or patriotism, have the best interests of America the Country at heart. None of them represent America first. If anything the parties do benefits America in any way, it is only a pleasant side effect of the parties serving their own interests.
Rather than serving the country, political parties do a direct disservice to the country. They polarize the populace, and rob citizens of their constitutional right to be represented in the law-making bodies of the state. Here is how it plays out:
In order for anyone to have a chance of getting elected, they need a ton of money. So, unless you are a savvy Mitt Romney or a zany Ross Perot, you will not have the funds lying in your own pocket to make a successful run at office. In order to get the funding needed, candidates sell their loyalties (if not their souls) to one party or another in return for the financial backing of a mega-large organization. No later than that initial point, the candidates are no longer representing the citizens of their area. Instead, they begin to represent the interests of the party they have joined, which don't have a snowflake's chance in hell of being representative of the population that voted for them.
In the last 3 elections we have seen a country that is so evenly divided down party lines that even presidential elections have been decided by mere handfuls of votes. The senate seat in Minnesota is a perfect example. It is nearly a 50/50 split even in major races. If we had 3 parties, the split would be somewhere around 33.3333%. But to the victor go the spoils, so whoever comes away with the win can then proceed to represent their constituents in name, but their party in fact. To ensure the financial support needed to gain re-election, the winner then needs to play a game of favor-mongering to make sure the party likes them enough to pay their bills come next election season. If the majority of their constituents want something that the party is not in favor of, then the citizens are left out to dry, while the party gains more power.
There are a few politicians who buck this trend, and I applaud them. But even they are stuck in a system where they have to dance to the tunes the two parties are playing. The end result of all of this is that the overwhelming majority of Americans, who find themselves ideologically somewhere between the stances of the Democrats and the Republicans, are forced to pick the bad fit that fits the least bad. We are not as ideologically divided as the parties would make us. We agree far more than we disagree. If the fight is the left vs. the right, then you need to know which side you stand on. But from where I see it, the true fight is much more the right and left vs. the middle, and every time that fight happens, it is the American people who lose.
Political parties are a toxin to democracy. Like George Washington feared, they have corrupted the republic, and turned our would-be democracy into a farce. I cannot vote for what I want, because none of the parties want what I want. They want to be opposed to one another, and I want compromise. They want to lean away from each other to highlight their differences and justify their existence. I want the American people to lean closer and find a productive middle ground. That can't be done when the shots are called by opposing teams. So that is why the parties are both anti-American. They work together to divide our country. It is a Mason-Dixon line of ideology that keeps us from being One Nation under God. That is Anti-American. Membership to the parties keeps our representatives silent and forces them to follow party lines. They prevent political progress and stifle social growth. They are bad all around, and what is worse, we don't even need them. Our democracy would be better without them.
Political parties are deadly, toxic, inherently corrupt organizations, and both are equally anti-American. I have ranted about this before, yet I have not even scratched the surface of all of the things I think are wrong about political parties and American politics in general.
The parties are both (or all if you count the Libertarians, which I don't) anti-American. None of them, regardless of how they talk about social justice or patriotism, have the best interests of America the Country at heart. None of them represent America first. If anything the parties do benefits America in any way, it is only a pleasant side effect of the parties serving their own interests.
Rather than serving the country, political parties do a direct disservice to the country. They polarize the populace, and rob citizens of their constitutional right to be represented in the law-making bodies of the state. Here is how it plays out:
In order for anyone to have a chance of getting elected, they need a ton of money. So, unless you are a savvy Mitt Romney or a zany Ross Perot, you will not have the funds lying in your own pocket to make a successful run at office. In order to get the funding needed, candidates sell their loyalties (if not their souls) to one party or another in return for the financial backing of a mega-large organization. No later than that initial point, the candidates are no longer representing the citizens of their area. Instead, they begin to represent the interests of the party they have joined, which don't have a snowflake's chance in hell of being representative of the population that voted for them.
In the last 3 elections we have seen a country that is so evenly divided down party lines that even presidential elections have been decided by mere handfuls of votes. The senate seat in Minnesota is a perfect example. It is nearly a 50/50 split even in major races. If we had 3 parties, the split would be somewhere around 33.3333%. But to the victor go the spoils, so whoever comes away with the win can then proceed to represent their constituents in name, but their party in fact. To ensure the financial support needed to gain re-election, the winner then needs to play a game of favor-mongering to make sure the party likes them enough to pay their bills come next election season. If the majority of their constituents want something that the party is not in favor of, then the citizens are left out to dry, while the party gains more power.
There are a few politicians who buck this trend, and I applaud them. But even they are stuck in a system where they have to dance to the tunes the two parties are playing. The end result of all of this is that the overwhelming majority of Americans, who find themselves ideologically somewhere between the stances of the Democrats and the Republicans, are forced to pick the bad fit that fits the least bad. We are not as ideologically divided as the parties would make us. We agree far more than we disagree. If the fight is the left vs. the right, then you need to know which side you stand on. But from where I see it, the true fight is much more the right and left vs. the middle, and every time that fight happens, it is the American people who lose.
Political parties are a toxin to democracy. Like George Washington feared, they have corrupted the republic, and turned our would-be democracy into a farce. I cannot vote for what I want, because none of the parties want what I want. They want to be opposed to one another, and I want compromise. They want to lean away from each other to highlight their differences and justify their existence. I want the American people to lean closer and find a productive middle ground. That can't be done when the shots are called by opposing teams. So that is why the parties are both anti-American. They work together to divide our country. It is a Mason-Dixon line of ideology that keeps us from being One Nation under God. That is Anti-American. Membership to the parties keeps our representatives silent and forces them to follow party lines. They prevent political progress and stifle social growth. They are bad all around, and what is worse, we don't even need them. Our democracy would be better without them.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Colorado, Round 2
OK. On Monday I start my new job at Bridge House, and I am super excited. Not only because I will be working full time again, but also because I won't have to worry about impending homelessness and looming destitution, both of which I would just as soon do without.
Bridge House is a great place, and I am stoked to work with a new population, where I can continue to grow and expand my therapeutic repertoire. I really am very excited. I am supposed to come in on Monday and start to learn the ropes, get to know the staff there, and maybe even start to work with my clients.
The clients I will be working with are in Acute treatment, which means they are, for a variety of reasons, unstable and need intensive, in-patient treatment for a short-term basis. These are not individuals who need hospitalization, but rather folks who have had a major incident in their lives and need some insulated time to recover. As I understand it, I will be working with a lot of the community mental health hospitals, and referring a lot of clients to other facilities once they are no longer good candidates for Bridge House services. For my part, I will be working on assessing and stabilizing my clients, working with them intensively for a few weeks, and then helping them find a suitable next-step.
I am really excited about a few features: for one, I will be working intensively with my clients, seeing them multiple times a week. For two, my case load is not going to be ridiculous like it was at my last job. I will only have 5 or 6 clients at a time, so I will be able to stay on top of things without getting my cleints mixed up. Also, I won't have to do any traveling, which was a huge time-drain and schedule-scrambler.
Plus, Bridge House is a part of the Arapahoe-Douglas Mental Health Network, which is the county service for both Arapahoe and Douglas counties. ADMHN is really huge, and they have a multi-facility approach, and tons of resources at their disposal. I am stoked to work in a multi-disciplinary team, and they have already shown me a great degree of respect and consideration.
So yeah, I am excited. The job that brought us out to this neck of the country turned out to be a huge disappointment, but it may just have opened the door for us to find something even better.
Bridge House is a great place, and I am stoked to work with a new population, where I can continue to grow and expand my therapeutic repertoire. I really am very excited. I am supposed to come in on Monday and start to learn the ropes, get to know the staff there, and maybe even start to work with my clients.
The clients I will be working with are in Acute treatment, which means they are, for a variety of reasons, unstable and need intensive, in-patient treatment for a short-term basis. These are not individuals who need hospitalization, but rather folks who have had a major incident in their lives and need some insulated time to recover. As I understand it, I will be working with a lot of the community mental health hospitals, and referring a lot of clients to other facilities once they are no longer good candidates for Bridge House services. For my part, I will be working on assessing and stabilizing my clients, working with them intensively for a few weeks, and then helping them find a suitable next-step.
I am really excited about a few features: for one, I will be working intensively with my clients, seeing them multiple times a week. For two, my case load is not going to be ridiculous like it was at my last job. I will only have 5 or 6 clients at a time, so I will be able to stay on top of things without getting my cleints mixed up. Also, I won't have to do any traveling, which was a huge time-drain and schedule-scrambler.
Plus, Bridge House is a part of the Arapahoe-Douglas Mental Health Network, which is the county service for both Arapahoe and Douglas counties. ADMHN is really huge, and they have a multi-facility approach, and tons of resources at their disposal. I am stoked to work in a multi-disciplinary team, and they have already shown me a great degree of respect and consideration.
So yeah, I am excited. The job that brought us out to this neck of the country turned out to be a huge disappointment, but it may just have opened the door for us to find something even better.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Hooray for Nice
I just graduated a married couple from therapy who have been seeing me for about half a year. They are great folks, and I have really enjoyed working with them, but when they first came in to therapy, things did not look rosy by any means.
In our first session, they were cold, aloof, and ready to fight. I asked them how close to divorce they were, and they responded that they were already 80-90% divorced. They had major issues, and were pretty convinced that they needed to work out some kind of solution to those issues specifically.
Well, instead of focusing on what was wrong with their marriage, we focused on what was right. Instead of letting them duke it out in my office every week, I made them be nice to each other.
And as it turns out, nice works. The couple reported today that they feel that the original issues are no longer a cause of concern. They are simply not worried about it anymore. They reported that they are more understanding, more patient, and more appreciative of one another, and feel less burdened by one another's shortcomings. Long story short: they don't need me anymore.
It is one of the best feelings I have ever had to help someone to the point that they no longer need your help. It is an even better feeling to know that they don't need my help because they have mastered the most powerful marriage therapy technique of all: being nice to each other.
So hooray for nice. It is almost like Jesus knew what he was talking about when He told us to love one another as He has loved us.
In our first session, they were cold, aloof, and ready to fight. I asked them how close to divorce they were, and they responded that they were already 80-90% divorced. They had major issues, and were pretty convinced that they needed to work out some kind of solution to those issues specifically.
Well, instead of focusing on what was wrong with their marriage, we focused on what was right. Instead of letting them duke it out in my office every week, I made them be nice to each other.
And as it turns out, nice works. The couple reported today that they feel that the original issues are no longer a cause of concern. They are simply not worried about it anymore. They reported that they are more understanding, more patient, and more appreciative of one another, and feel less burdened by one another's shortcomings. Long story short: they don't need me anymore.
It is one of the best feelings I have ever had to help someone to the point that they no longer need your help. It is an even better feeling to know that they don't need my help because they have mastered the most powerful marriage therapy technique of all: being nice to each other.
So hooray for nice. It is almost like Jesus knew what he was talking about when He told us to love one another as He has loved us.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
The Sadness of Being Anti
In a little less than three weeks from now, Dana's parents are coming into town from Germany. Since we live in Denver now, that places us a lot closer to some of the LDS historical sites in Nauvoo and Kirtland, so we decided to swing up that way so they can see the sights. It will be a first for me and Dana as well. And, just to sweeten the pot, my brother Jesse and his wife Wendy live in Chicago, so it is as close to a travel hat-trick as you can get.
Anyway, the last few weeks have been witness to a lot of planning and replanning of our trip itinerary, and hotel reservations, and I have been reading a lot of reviews on hotels and restaurants and such. Among those reviews I stumbled upon more than a few reviews that had nothing to do with hotels or restaurants, but rather were reviews of Nauvoo as a city, and more specifically, reviews of Mormon culture and history.
Most of them were instantly recognizable as being beligerent, argumentative and abashedly one-sided, anti-Mormon propaganda, so I didn't read them beyond their first paragraph. Others, however, were intelligently written, and objective enough to be considered at least fair and honest, even though they were still admittedly anti-Mormon. Those I read out of curiosity, but they still left me flat, and had nothing new or compelling to say.
But all of them left me feeling something in common: sadness. I can hardly think of anything that is more melancholy than being 'anti-something.' Being anti-X is nothing more than telling people what you are not. An anti-Mormon is clearly not a fan of Mormonism, but we know nothing about what he is for. Of all the possible causes to support, we have no more information than one of the causes that he is against. The assumption could be that he is diametrically opposed to Mormonism, and in support of whatever the diametric opposite of Mormonism is, but that entire assumption is uncertain, and a dynamic and versatile concept like Mormonism cannot have a diametric opposite in the first place.
So these 'anti-X'ers spend hours of time writing down what they do not like about X, but precious little time writing about what they do like about Y. We know nothing about them and who they are. Simply what they are not. That would be akin to me writing an Antibiography in which I relate several impassioned stories that are not about me, and talk at length about the hopes and dreams I have never had.
And that is what makes me sad. Where are the stories of who these people are? I am not interested in what they do not do or what they do not believe in. It would be far more compelling, as far as I am concerned, if they would actually come out and say "I am an anti-Xer. But that is boring, so let me tell you why I am a pro-Yer" If a person tells you who they are, you have the option to relate and understand them on a human level. But if all they tell you is who they are not, then you are no closer to relating to them and understanding them than if they spoke to you in Martian.
I have no problem with their beliefs, no matter what they are. They are free to believe anything in the world they want, and are free to express those beliefs until the last of the cows comes home. But it is sad that they are so caught up in telling the world what they don't believe. And so, they never really express themselves after all.
Anyway, the last few weeks have been witness to a lot of planning and replanning of our trip itinerary, and hotel reservations, and I have been reading a lot of reviews on hotels and restaurants and such. Among those reviews I stumbled upon more than a few reviews that had nothing to do with hotels or restaurants, but rather were reviews of Nauvoo as a city, and more specifically, reviews of Mormon culture and history.
Most of them were instantly recognizable as being beligerent, argumentative and abashedly one-sided, anti-Mormon propaganda, so I didn't read them beyond their first paragraph. Others, however, were intelligently written, and objective enough to be considered at least fair and honest, even though they were still admittedly anti-Mormon. Those I read out of curiosity, but they still left me flat, and had nothing new or compelling to say.
But all of them left me feeling something in common: sadness. I can hardly think of anything that is more melancholy than being 'anti-something.' Being anti-X is nothing more than telling people what you are not. An anti-Mormon is clearly not a fan of Mormonism, but we know nothing about what he is for. Of all the possible causes to support, we have no more information than one of the causes that he is against. The assumption could be that he is diametrically opposed to Mormonism, and in support of whatever the diametric opposite of Mormonism is, but that entire assumption is uncertain, and a dynamic and versatile concept like Mormonism cannot have a diametric opposite in the first place.
So these 'anti-X'ers spend hours of time writing down what they do not like about X, but precious little time writing about what they do like about Y. We know nothing about them and who they are. Simply what they are not. That would be akin to me writing an Antibiography in which I relate several impassioned stories that are not about me, and talk at length about the hopes and dreams I have never had.
And that is what makes me sad. Where are the stories of who these people are? I am not interested in what they do not do or what they do not believe in. It would be far more compelling, as far as I am concerned, if they would actually come out and say "I am an anti-Xer. But that is boring, so let me tell you why I am a pro-Yer" If a person tells you who they are, you have the option to relate and understand them on a human level. But if all they tell you is who they are not, then you are no closer to relating to them and understanding them than if they spoke to you in Martian.
I have no problem with their beliefs, no matter what they are. They are free to believe anything in the world they want, and are free to express those beliefs until the last of the cows comes home. But it is sad that they are so caught up in telling the world what they don't believe. And so, they never really express themselves after all.
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