Author Archive: Paul Epps

We Did It the Old-Fashioned Way

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I overheard a couple people discussing IVF today . . . here in Southern California the cost apparently runs $15,000 – $20,000 for a single IVF cycle, which of course includes no guarantee of success. When my wife and I decided to have a child, I knocked her up on the first try. Just wanted to put that on the record . . . Read more →

What Would You Charge for an EpiPen?

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I don’t mean hypothetically, I mean I literally want to buy an EpiPen from you right now. My kid got stung by a bee, his face is swelling up like a balloon and his lungs are about to shut down. I see a lot of people are mad at Mylan for charging $600 for EpiPens but they don’t seem to be mad at everyone else in the world who won’t sell them an EpiPen at all. Not to mention, $600 for a life-saving treatment seems like a pretty good bargain to me. Hillary Clinton has called for reducing the price of EpiPens. Hillary Clinton has never lifted a finger in a productive enterprise in her life. She will not sell you an EpiPen at any price. If the amoral profiteers at Mylan have an obligation to sell cheap EpiPens, why doesn’t Hillary Clinton? Why don’t you? Read more →

Carmack on Government

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My core thesis is that the federal government delivers very poor value for the resources it consumes, and that society as a whole would be better off with a government that was less ambitious. This is not to say that it doesn’t provide many valuable and even critical services, but that the cost of having the government provide them is much higher than you would tolerate from a company or individual you chose to do business with. For almost every task, it is a poor tool. Given the inefficiency, why is the federal government called upon to do so many things? A large part is naked self interest, which is never going to go away — lots of people play the game to their best advantage, and even take pride in their ability to get more than they give. However, a lot is done in the name of misplaced idealism.… Read more →

This Year’s Recital

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I’ve been doing these student recitals once a year for three years, since I started taking piano lessons. This year. I didn’t nail it but I didn’t botch it either. It was somewhere in-between. At the refreshment table after the recital, one of the piano teachers in attendance said to me with some surprise, “Your teacher is younger than you?” “Every person here is younger than me,” I pointed out. Read more →

Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink. — Shunryu Suzuki

 

For My Daughter

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When I die choose a star and name it after me that you may know I have not abandoned or forgotten you. You were such a star to me, following you through birth and childhood, my hand in your hand. When I die choose a star and name it after me so that I may shine down on you, until you join me in darkness and silence together. — David Ignatow, “For My Daughter” Read more →

One Thing I Can’t Tolerate is Intolerance: BYU Edition

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What values are we talking about? Tolerance for sexual preferences? What about tolerance for religious beliefs? You want tolerance for what makes you different but you’re not willing to extend tolerance to what makes others different? That’s not tolerance. There’s a word for what that is, and it’s not tolerance. What about inclusiveness? Is inclusiveness a good value? Should the Big 12 exclude BYU to promote inclusiveness? That’s not inclusiveness. Read more →

How Do I Know If I’m Gay?

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Here’s what I learned on the internet today: Gay refers to any male-identified person who is physically or emotionally attracted to other male-identified people. Lesbian refers to any female-identified person who is physically or emotionally attracted to other female-identified people. So if I’m a male-identified person and I’m physically attracted to a biological female, who looks and dresses in every respect like a female, but identifies as male, am I gay? Read more →

Good to Great

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Browsing a bookstore with my son . . . he checks in to say that he was skimming through Good to Great. “Have you read it?” he asks. “No, and I’ll tell you why . . .” “Because you’re satisfied with just being good?” he interrupts. Read more →

The Man in the Arena

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t is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. — Theodore Roosevelt, from the speech “Citizenship In A Republic,”… Read more →

Jill Stein on Leaked DNC Emails

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The leaked DNC emails are the smoking gun that the Democratic establishment was rigging the game against Bernie the whole time. Instead of running the process impartially and letting the voters decide, top Democratic officials were doing all they could to ensure a Clinton victory, including collusion with journalists to present a pro-Clinton, anti-Sanders narrative. You want to affirm a corrupt party that just dragged you across the coals? You expect your supporters, who have a vision and who voted for integrity, to follow you into this shithole? Is there no respect here for his campaign and for himself? Are they just going to pretend it didn’t happen? I think it would be very hard for a self-respecting Sanders supporter, in light of these revelations, to take the beating and humiliate themselves and disrespect themselves, to go into the campaign and support the predator who destroyed them. How is Hillary… Read more →

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