Cost of medicine

This is obviously a very hot topic lately, so I want to post an article I came across that caught my eye: "Burned Baby's Parents Charged, Mother: Didn't Want to Pay for Ambulance"

As is often the case in these situations, many things went wrong. An infant was left unattended in a sink, a toddler was left unattended, the extent of wounds was underestimated and balanced against the estimated cost.

A couple thoughts. It doesn't matter what your opinion is about whether or not people have a right to health care (and from what I read on message boards, many people do not believe there is a right to health care), when the lack of affordable health care leads to serious injury and potential death, you have a social program that destroys its citizens. The issue isn't that these parents made a mistake, but rather their thought process. They love their child, but can't afford the cost of an ambulance and couldn't get a ride to the hospital. The wounds didn't look serious, so when they could get there they didn't go, because they couldn't afford the cost of care. Now society wants to charge them for not giving the child care they couldn't afford.

I think it's a very difficult question. It seems not unlike debtor's jail - if you can't afford your child's medical treatment, you are a criminal. Yes, a child is a human life and as a result, anything done to hurt the child is an attack against a human. And my response here would be that by deciding to have a child, these people took on that responsibility until the child is at an age of majority.

The only problem is, you don't end up with a child the way you end up with a pair of shoes you don't need. Particularly when you're poor and grow up in circumstances that put different values on family and motherhood and validate a sense of identity for a girl growing up in what are highly unusual circumstances to the people in the judiciary/jury who would pass judgment on this case when she becomes a mother. She finally becomes someone. Moreover, children have a tendency to pop out, often regardless of whether precautions are taken.

Point merely being that, as with many of these situations, the issue is extremely complicated and is far from being a simple case of abuse. It actually doesn't sound like abuse at all to me. And furthermore, I think we undermine the importance of going after abuse when we call what are rational actions in certain people's minds, as a result of their circumstances, abuse. We owe the people who end up in these circumstances far more than to call them criminals and post their photos on the web. They need to be treated like human beings. They needed that a long time ago. And instead of doing anything about it, we chastise them years later when their actions are inconsistent with what we think is appropriate. Where were we when they needed to learn how to deal with these situations? What solutions are we providing?

Why do CA and LA have the same license plate?

I recently found myself in the south of the United States and stumbled upon something that has deeply troubled me.

I first noticed it because I tend to unconsciously scan license plates as I walk past and I was struck by how many California license plates were in Louisiana. Of course, some, sure, that makes sense. But there were tons.

Until I looked closer.

I've spent a lot of time in California and so am intimately familiar with the standard California license plate. But it turns out that Louisiana's is basically the same. Red right-leaning script of the state's name on the top across a white background with the license plate number in block dark blue letters/numbers.

Apart from it being an odd coincidence, it really lacks creativity. And begs the question of what exactly, on a deeper level, California and Louisiana have in common.

Wow...

So someone else is evidently as amused with humanity as I am:

See, Craigslist Underground

I have also added this to my permanent list of sites.

More scam email...

I really like this one for some reason - it just seems absurdly improbable, so I can't imagine why anyone would sign up for this. Maybe the use of all caps is meant to entice a sense of security...oh, but no, it does the exact opposite...

This is actually a little tighter than some of the others - for example, a phone number is provided, the country code of which is actually the country the e-mail purports to come from, a street address is provided, although the address is of Afribank and not a part of the government. Sadly, as per usual, the horrific spelling errors give it away - the person writing the e-mail clearly did not even have an english word processing system built in to detect obvious orthographic missteps. Also, there's no indication of what 30th anniversary is going on and why in the world the WHO, U.N. and E.U. would randomly be giving money to people who haven't entered a contest and who were theoretically involuntarily and unknowingly entered into it, like it even makes sense that they would be joining together for something like this. But I digress because it is late. Enjoy.

______________________________________________________________

BATCH No:(W-342-8876,U-500-32)

Saturday, 18 April, 2009 12:18 AM

From:

"OFFICE OF THE SENATE HOUSE"

To:

undisclosed-recipients

OFFICE OF THE SENATE HOUSE FEDERAL
REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA COMMITTEE ON
FOREIGN PAYMENT(RESOLUTION PANEL
ON CONTRACT PAYMENT)IKOYI-LAGOS
NIGERIA14th FLOOR51/55BROAD STREET.

DEAR BENEFICIARY,
CONGRATULATIONS WE BRING TO YOUR NOTICE!!!
THE OFFICE OF THE SENATE HOUSE HAS CHOSEN YOU BY THE
BOARD OF TRUSTEE AS ONE OF THE FINAL RECIPIENT OF THIS
NEW YEAR 2009 PROMOTION CASH GRANT/DONATION, TO
CELEBRATE THE 30th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATE, WE ARE GIVING OUT A YEARLY
DONATION OF THE ATM CARD VALUE IS USD($500,000.00) FIVE HUNDRED
THOUSAND UNITED STATE DOLLARS TO 7 LUCK RECIPIENTS, AS NEW YEAR
PROMOTION FROM THE W.H.O,UN,AND THE EU in ACCORDANCE WITH THE ENABLING
ACT PARLIATED.THE ATM GRANT/AID ONLY COLLECT EMAIL ADDRESS OF FINAL
RECIPIENT FROM DEFFERENT COUNTRY: UNITED STATS, GREECE, SAUDI ARABIA,
EUROPE,ETC.AND WITH AN ELECTRONIC BALLOTING SYSTEM, WITHOUT THE
RECIPIENT APPLYING, YOU EMERGED ONE OF OUR LUCKY BENEFICIARY.

YOU ARE TO FILL OUT THE BELOW INFORMATION AND SEND IT BACK TO THE
PAYMENT REMMITANCE OFFICE VIA EMAIL CONTACT ADDRESS.

WINNING BATCH No:(W-342-8876,U-500-32)

FULL NAME:________________________
RESIDENTIAL ADDRESS:______________
OCCUPATION:_______________________
NATIONALITY:______________________
PRESENT COUNTRY:__________________
AGE:_______________________________
SEX:_______________________________
TELEPHONE NUMBER:________________

ONCE AGAIN CONGRATULATIONS.....
(PAYMENT REMMITANCE OFFICE CONTACT)
Mr.Fred Usman
E-Mail:fred.usman@msn.com
Tele- +234-805-1860-375

What is up with the U.S. Governors?

Now, governors, while generally thought of as statesmen, are of course primarily politicians. It isn't that they are primarily motivated by politics - the good ones aren't. It's that in order to productively effect change in American society as currently designed, politics, in one shape or form, is the best forum.

And to back up a second, "politics" isn't a bad word. There are two main classes of definitions for "politics" - one referring specifically to the act of governing/managing a nation or other governmentally-defined body and another that deals more with the derogatory notion that people are engaged in behavior that is not substantive but rather more along the lines of "social relations involving intrigue to gain authority or power." People tend to collapse the two into one since often to engage in the former brand of politics, one is required to engage in the latter. It's the nature of our electoral system. But in no way does that mean that the former is actually just the latter. Trust me. People are actually doing real things to help people and our society and it does absolutely nothing for them. You won't hear about it a lot, because it doesn't fall in that second category and given that we all want the instant gratification of sensationalism, it just doesn't get coverage. But it's very very real.

Now given this, I've been deeply weirded out over the last few months or so by the bizarre behaviors of U.S. state governors. We'll start with Governor Rick Perry of Texas' recent suggestion that Texas might, again, secede from the Union. He claims not to have specifically said it would, but rather ominously in the midst of standard tax day protests: "Perry said he doesn't think Texas should secede from the union despite some talk about it on the Internet. But he said Americans are getting fed up with Washington and that it's unknown what that might lead to one day."

While I understand and actually respect the sentiment and moreover the lack of reverence for authority, it doesn't work that well when you ARE authority. It's fine if some bizarre anarchist covered with tea bags makes this sort of vague threat to the Union and Washington but really not cool when a governor does it. I understand it's posturing and all politics is local, but really, it's just hack work. Part of it is the impotence Perry must feel. And part of it has to do with the irresponsible behavior of the electorate. We really should not be electing these types of people to posts where they have massive power and influence. See, only a fifth of Texas voters would actually want to secede -and I can't imagine that's much higher than in other places. Again, it's posturing but the thing is, Washington doesn't need that much from the states. It doesn't really matter if Perry is upset or not. So it's really just a waste of the taxpayers' time.

See, e.g., the decision, well not decision but posturing, about not accepting federal stimulus funds. The problem here, again, is that if you're a radical with no one (or other radicals) to answer to, you can adhere to a strict belief system. In the real world, and particularly in the political world, and particularly in a diverse state, you are in the end beholden to your constituents. So Mark Sanford of South Carolina who went off about not taking stimulus funds, well, he's having to backtrack. Sanford's particular issue was that he wanted to use the stimulus funds not for education, but for paying off the state's debt. My guess is the people of South Carolina, on the whole, would like to see their schools fixed and some jobs immediately created in the process.

I won't bother going through all the republican governors who played this absurd game because it isn't worth my time to pull up all the articles b.c., big picture, all the stories are the same.

Of course, this is the primary pool from which we pull presidents. And I worry about these behaviors because it appears to show that they don't know when to knock it off with the second definition of politics and get back to the first one. I will grant that there are numerous arguments against the use of stimulus funds in specific circumstances but none of them hold water when you consider that economies go beyond an individual state. So if a neighboring state is getting this money and yours isn't, that isn't going to help you, regardless of how laudable your long-term financial and economic view was.

Saying the government shouldn't give out money by not personally accepting it isn't going to stop the government from giving out money. That's just not how it works.

Somalia

Someone misunderstood, entirely in fact, what I was saying the other day and thought I was expressing sympathy for Somali pirates. Apart from being an alarmingly stupid interpretation of anything I would say, it bothered me more generally because I fear that extremist left-wing individuals without much information are thinking that really, these "rich" Western nations are in the wrong and these "pirates" (it offends me that the term is used as their activities do not at all rise to level of impressive piracy) are behaving appropriately given the circumstances. It should be noted that this is a variation on the belief that Western nations are responsible for poverty in Middle Eastern nations (actually the fault of the ruling oligarchies) and so on and so forth and as a result, human beings are allowed to randomly attack other human beings without consequence.

Obviously, that doesn't make any sense. You can disagree with the world order but certainly anarchy is no solution. No one wins under that scenario.

Somalia has been vaguely painted in the press as a horribly poor country just fighting for survival through these acts. That's not what's going on. This is just another form of the young men without a sense of propriety, discipline, or law enforcement to control their impulsiveness deciding to harass other people so they can engage in whatever marks tacky nouveau riche behavior in their society. There, here's what it is:
"With their black scarves covering their faces and submachine guns slung over their arms, Somalia’s pirates are the real Jack Sparrows of the twenty-first century, minus the eyeliner. One young woman who lives near Boosaaso bragged about going to a pirate wedding that lasted two days. A band was flown in from neighboring Djibouti. There was nonstop dancing and an endless supply of goat meat. “They drive the best cars, they throw the best parties,” she gushed. “We all want to marry them.” She claimed that her own pirate boyfriend had just given her a small gift—$350,000 in cash. For young Somali men, pirate life is becoming too much to resist. Fishermen all along the coast have traded in their ragged fishing nets for rocket-propelled grenades."

Sounds a lot like the Colombian drug lords back in the day, no? And the current Mexican drug lords? And like a lot of people in....well, I've decided against insulting people for a while (but think, hotbed for the nouveau riche).

The twist on this actually also follows the traditional route for justification of this behavior - someone has done something upsetting to the environment and so, drastic behavior that has nothing to do with the original issue is appropriate. In this case, a couple decades ago the country's government fell apart and then things were found floating in what I will assume were national waters for the Somali pirates' benefit in this argument and there was overfishing and so, there was a right to attack international vessels, hold people aboard hostage and extract huge amounts of ransom money. Um okay. Let's say they'd done this and used the money to fix the water, block international vessels from fishing within their waters, etc. Then, maybe, maybe, there would be an argument. It wouldn't be right, but it would be understandable, given that it was unlikely the fisherman could actually reach out to those corporations and demand restitution. Of course, that isn't what they did with the money. Instead, it's now a business, with investors, inventory, ROI estimates etc. without any connection to improving the nation. It is, however, dedicated to a redistribution of wealth from "wealthy" countries to violent people in developing countries.

Just a point - there's no need for violent people in developing countries to have more money. Ergo, there's no reason to support the actions of the pirates. And people who do can turn their money over to the pirates voluntarily. Go ahead.