The script of life is so unspeakably beautiful to read because death looks over our shoulder. — Martin Buber
Is Healthcare a Right or an Entitlement?
That’s the title of a lengthy article on LinkedIn in which the author makes the following argument:
- I had to spend more than $30,000 on cancer treatment.
- Therefore, healthcare is a right, not an entitlement.
Because having a “right” to something implies that you have the right to force another person to work and pay for that thing. Someone else must exert positive effort to help you – and not because you make it worthwhile for that person to exert that effort on your behalf, but because the government will ultimately imprison him or her if he or she refuses to supply you with that to which you have a “right.”
You can add a level of abstraction, i.e., “the government should pay for my healthcare” sounds more appealing than “another person should pay for my healthcare” but where do you think government gets the money to pay for things?
The article also offers this: Prisoners get free healthcare and shouldn’t we get the same rights as prisoners?
Of course, prisoners give up a lot of rights in exchange for free healthcare but if you think it’s a good tradeoff, commit a crime and go to prison.
If we, as a country, did what they do in countries with “free” healthcare, that is, add up the cost of everyone’s healthcare and then split the bill, most of us would pay more than we do now, the reason being that a disproportionate amount of healthcare spending goes to people who are old and/or sick.
We’d overpay most of our lives for the privilege of possibly underpaying if and when we get old.
If you had the bad fortune of getting cancer, you’d pay less than you would with the current system, but if you don’t get cancer you’d pay more, because you’d have to pick up your share of the cost for everyone who does get cancer.
There is at least one potential cost-saving option of putting the government in charge of healthcare spending and that is that if you’re very old or very sick, you’re not going to get all that technology and all those drugs to maybe keep you going for another couple of years. It’s too expensive, so we’re going to let you die.
Berkeley Sunset
Notes on Existential Well-Being
I’m taking an online class on existential well-being . . . posting some notes and thoughts:
Well-being implies physical health, comfort, pleasure.
It is also essential for human beings to have relationships with other people and to have a place in society.
We speak of personal well-being when a person is able to develop their talents and feel at peace with him or herself.
Beauty, compassion, truth, love — these are experiences of the “life force” or the “spirit.” In these spiritual experiences we transcend our limited self. We become part of something bigger and participate in universal qualities that nourish and enhance life.
We are conscious of the physical, the social, the personal and the spiritual dimensions of human experience. We make no hierarchy between these dimensions.
We recognize that human life is also characterized by suffering, pain and many limitations. We acknowledge that because of limitations, we are challenged to use our full potential to realize our physical, social, personal and spiritual existence in our given situation.
What Did You Think “Woke” Meant?
It's weird that sweeping, prejudicial generalizations about race, gender and sexual orientation are now offered by some and accepted by others as woke. https://t.co/A8udKbtVh6
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) December 12, 2017
Year in Search 2017
The annual Google search trends are available for 2017.
A couple of surprises to me:
- The third most searched for person in the world (behind Matt Lauer and Meghan Markle) was Nadia Toffa, whom I’ve never heard of.
- The most searched for “How To” item was “How to make slime.”
See You in Hell, Ed Lee
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE]
Ed Lee was the mayor of San Francisco, a sanctuary city.
My plan was to have Ed shot to death by an illegal alien but he outsmarted me by dying of a heart attack before I could put all the pieces together.
See you in Hell . . .
Every Male Journalist Will Be Famous for 15 Minutes
Either for a sex-related termination or for botching another “bombshell” Trump story . . .
He Was in No Other Place
Cross and Christians, end to end, I examined. He was not on the Cross. I went to the Hindu temple, to the ancient pagoda. In none of them was there any sign. To the uplands of Herat I went, and to Kandahar. I looked. He was not on the heights or in the lowlands. Resolutely, I went to the summit of the fabulous mountain of Kaf. There only was the dwelling of the legendary Anqa bird. I went to the Kaaba of Mecca. He was not there. I asked about him from Avicenna the philosopher. He was beyond the range of Avicenna . . . I looked into my own heart. In that, his place, I saw him, He was in no other place.
The Country is Turning Into One Big Junior Prom
Former Fox News anchor says Trump once tried to kiss her https://t.co/G3YakLpyaC pic.twitter.com/ZYVm4AqIvQ
— Hollywood Reporter (@THR) December 9, 2017
That’s interesting. Have any other men tried to kiss her? Or is that the whole list? Why does anyone need to know about this?
I’ve tried to kiss women. I hope Al Franken is saving a place for us in the unemployment line.
There seem to be an awful lot of apparently adult women who should not be allowed to leave home without a chaperone . . .
Liberalism and the Wrath of the Privileged Whites
The largely white and affluent solid liberals are notionally egalitarian and opposed to white privilege, but they include many of the most privileged whites in America. . . .
Millions of working-class whites felt that Obama was talking about them, too, when he said, “There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America—there’s the United States of America. There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.”
And many of those same Americans knew that Hillary Clinton was talking about them when she ranted about the “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it” deplorables.
All the Elements For Your Happiness Are Already Here
Be yourself.
Life is precious as it is.
All the elements for your happiness are already here.
There is no need to run, strive, search or struggle.
Just Be.
Alien-Earthling Relationships
Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. — Picasso
Al Franken and Ted Kennedy
I’m old enough to remember when a U.S. senator could actually kill a woman and not only NOT resign but be considered a legislative luminary, the lion of the Democratic party.
(If you’re not old enough to remember that, google “Ted Kennedy.”)
I’m hearing that Sen. Al Franken will be resigning his seat within the next day.
The last straw was an allegation from a woman who said that Franken, before he was a senator, appeared to be about to kiss her and she moved away:
He was between me and the door and he was coming at me to kiss me. It was very quick and I think my brain had to work really hard to be like ‘Wait, what is happening?’ But I knew whatever was happening was not right and I ducked. I was really startled by it and I just sort of booked it towards the door and he said, ‘It’s my right as an entertainer.’
Her brain “had to work really hard.”
Franken categorically denies the allegation but that hasn’t stopped an avalanche of senators from calling for his resignation, none of whom apparently have ever in their life tried to kiss someone who wasn’t interested.
Satan and Ted Kennedy must be having a good laugh together. Those were the good old days, Ted. Pass the Jameson . . .
A Visit to Stahl House
Presumption of Guilt
But some female lawmakers, like New York’s Kathleen Rice, have begun to ask why elected officials aren’t being drummed out like their private sector counterparts.
“You see the actions that CBS, NBC take when there are allegations against very well-known men in positions of power, and we don’t do the same,” Rice said. “I think it’s a disgrace.”
“Allegations.”
She’s talking about Al Franken and John Conyers. The Franken case has photographic evidence, so the allegations against him are provably true.
But Conyers vehemently denies the allegations made against him. Why should he be “drummed out”? Why is there a presumption of guilt?
Anyone who’s ever been alone with another person can be the subject of allegations. Why is there a presumption in favor of the accuser?
A case study on false allegations, which you probably remember if you’re old enough, is the McMartin preschool trial:
Members of the McMartin family, who operated a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, were charged with numerous acts of sexual abuse of children in their care. Accusations were made in 1983. Arrests and the pretrial investigation ran from 1984 to 1987, and the trial ran from 1987 to 1990. After six years of criminal trials, no convictions were obtained, and all charges were dropped in 1990. When the trial ended in 1990, it had been the longest and most expensive criminal trial in American history — Wikipedia
When charges were finally dismissed against one of the defendants, teacher Ray Buckey, he had been jailed for five years.
Matt Lauer’s Secret Sex Lair!
Lauer’s private office at storied 30 Rockefeller Plaza contained a secret button that could essentially turn that office into a secret sex lair. — Fox News
The “secret button” closed the office door and locked it, if the doorknob was in the locked position.
If closing the door and locking it turns an office into a “secret sex lair,” isn’t everyone’s office a secret sex lair?
I read elsewhere that Lauer’s behavior included “luring” female employees to his office. How is “luring” different from inviting? Did he drag around a nice pair of shoes on a fishhook?
One more: according to Variety, “despite being married, Lauer was fixated on women, especially their bodies and looks.”
Ask not for whom the bell tolls . . .
Who Will Be Left to Scold the Scolders?
Some of the questions Matt Lauer asked Bill O’Reilly during their Today Show interview on Sept. 19:
[Your accusers] came forward and filed complaints against the biggest star at the network they worked at. Think of how intimidating that must have been, how nerve-racking that must have been! Doesn’t that tell you how strongly they felt about the way they were treated by you?
Over the last six months since your firing, have you done some soul searching? Have you done some self-reflection? And have you looked at the way you treated women that you think now or think about differently now than you did at the time?
You were probably the last guy in the world that they wanted to fire because you were the guy that the ratings and the revenues were built on, you carried that network on your shoulders for a lot of years. So doesn’t it seem safe to assume that the people at Fox News were given a piece of information or given some evidence that simply made it impossible for you to stay on at Fox News?
Every Form of Harassment is Okay — Except One
How did we decide that sexual harassment is the one category of workplace abuse, incidences of which require national outrage and loss of employment?
Ideally, we would all have the prudence and restraint not to make sexual advances toward people over whose career we hold sway, but it happens.
And yet we’ve all been harassed and ill-used in the workplace in other ways by someone more powerful, someone who negatively impacted our career by embarrassing us, intimidating us, undermining us, lying to us, lying about us, stealing the credit for our work . . . it goes on and on.
Rarely do negative consequences accrue to the harasser.
Steve Jobs, for example, was known for being abrasive, dismissive, shouting down colleagues, blaming others when things didn’t work out and occasionally wrapping himself in glory that rightly belonged elsewhere.
Did this torpedo his career? Hardly. He’s an American icon.
(In other Pixar news, John Lasseter likes to hug people. He’s now a pariah.)
Bill Gates never hesitated to tell people how dumb they were and how stupid their ideas were. In spite of this, Gates also managed to have a good career.
You can fill in your own additional examples. There are plenty to choose from.
Like sexual harassment, the options for dealing with other forms of workplace harassment are 1) report it; 2) quit; 3) decide that you need or want the job enough to remain silent and take what’s dished out.
I’ve usually taken option 1 or 2. Maybe I would have had a better career with more frequent exercise of option 3 . . . false pleasantries toward people I didn’t like, faux respect toward people I didn’t respect . . .
Thus spoke The Programmer.