Life Hiker's Trail Diary

I've seen the clip of majority leader Reid comparing the republican senators' blocking of health care reform with those, years ago, who delayed freeing the slaves and allowing womens' suffrage. I've also seen the outrage of those he called out. Reid was right. Health care is no longer a luxury only for those who can afford it; it's a human right.

If you read my blog you know that I don't believe in unlimited rights. Those who abuse the system need to be restrained, and there are many who try to abuse it. I believe that those who fail to put in a day's work don't deserve a job, for example. I believe that those who abuse their bodies shouldn't get expensive care to fix what they have done to themselves. Being responsible is important.

On the other hand, being born into a family with limited means should not prevent any child from getting whatever preventive or corrective care that will improve their chances of being a productive citizen. Being a working class person without company-paid insurance should not prevent an adult from seeing a doctor before their health problems become severe.

We need health care reform. If I had my way, we would go well beyond the legislation now being proposed. For example, I would divert many of the dollars now going to treat older, chronically ill people toward preventive education and care for all citizens regardless of ability to pay.

Reid was right. The republicans have no plan. Their customers are members of the "big money" culture who are prospering under the current system, or they are citizens who have theirs and could care less for those who don't - just like the slave owners. Way to go, Reid!

We Americans are naive. We think that we should be able to solve all our problems with guaranteed solutions that don't upset our routine too much. We have a low threshold of success.

Yes, most of us get through each day, and most companies and institutions stay in business from year to year. Perhaps many of us count this "muddling along" as success. I don't. Success is accomplishing the big things, the difficult things, the things that are important to achieve but have uncertainties big enough to sink the ship. Few of us, and few organizations, have the stuffing even to attempt these things. We've grown cautious and complacent.

America now has many problems that I would consider "big things". Education, infrastructure, health care, international competition, global warming, and inner city deterioration all call out for solutions that go beyond band-aids. "Muddling along" is always the solution proposed by entrenched bureaucracies and special interests, but it will not result in success. Success will require upsetting the applecart, taking big risks, and changing the rules. Who will lead the charge? Certainly not those to whom we've been entrusting our future.

It's time to support those who bring forth the bold solutions, those who have vision, intelligence, dedication and the willingness to take some risk to achieve great results. Success is not beyond our capability, but it seems to be beyond our comfort zone. That needs to change. We've got citizens who carry genes that crossed oceans and opened a frontier, that got us to the moon. Let's find them and give them more than a little rope. The taste of success would be sweet!

Obama made his speech last night, pledging to beat down the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This morning, critics on the right and left are pounding on him. The right is upset about the withdrawal plan, the left about his not deciding to get out. Who knows who is right?

I've been listening to so many "experts" during the past few months that I may know more about that part of the world than I know about my own town. Unfortunately, I still don't know the right answer. That part of the world has frustrated many great military powers, starting with Alexander the Great and, more recently, the Soviet Union. Will we be the next to fail?
Perhaps.

As a former executive, I'm keenly aware that every decision must be based on assessing the benefits and the risks. There are few "sure things", and there are always unintended consequences. Decision makers do their best to come out on the smart side of the big questions. They have a really tough job, a job that most non-leaders fail to appreciate. To think that conscientious leaders don't do their homework or take decisions lightly is crazy; I recall taking many runs around my neighborhood at 3 a.m. as I, unable to sleep, went out to sort my thoughts on major issues as I jogged off the tension. Obama, no doubt, has been agonizing over his choices on Afghanistan.

I've been against escalation because I have little faith in the Afghan people. There has never been an Afghan "nation"; Afghanistan is a collection of local ethnic groups with little allegiance to a central government. Overcoming this obstacle, which is exacerbated by pervasive corruption in the government and illiteracy in the populace, will be extremely difficult. Obama's troops and diplomats will need some magic if they are to create a country out of this mess. The risk is that we waste a huge amount of money and many lives in a failed enterprise.

The stated benefit of escalation is that the Taliban will be prevented from establishing a solid base of operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. If their objectives were simply to hold that territory, we should certainly get out of the fight - it would be a civil war. However, there is substantial evidence that Al Queda has objectives far beyond holding ground; they wish to establish fundamentalist Muslim societies after overthrowing governments in the Middle East and other places, and they wish to bend other countries' policies to accomodate them. They are not kidding about being our implacable enemies; hosts of suicide bombers put an exclamation point on their dedication to this cause. Can we give them a secure base by leaving Afghanistan?

Obama has made his decision. He's got more information and more advice on this topic than anyone else in the world, and his decision is not one primarily based on politics. His critics, on both the right and left, are far more subject to criticism for being politically influenced, so I discount them. Obama must be practical, above all, and he knows he'll be personally secure whether or not he succeeds in this war. At the end of the day, he decided that the risk of allowing Al Queda and similar groups a safe haven was too great to walk away from. I can live with that, and I wish him and our military the very best.

The TV program last night showed dramatic footage of much land in northern China turning into desert due to overgrazing and over-watering, and the water table is falling fast in some places due to exuberant irrigation. Farmers who thought they had a good thing going are now crying the blues as their fields blow away in giant dust storms. It's sad, and bad for China.

Now the good news. We owe them lots of money, and it looks like they'll be needing to import a lot of food in the coming years. We've got lots of agricultural capacity, and we'll have a lot more when we get out of the silly corn ethanol business. Selling our crops to them might be a winner.

But it still hurts me to see their country disappearing in great brown clouds...

Our leaders and the media must believe we are fools. They feed us pap and we take it for filet mignon. The lack of facts in the information we're given is embarrassing, but we don't protest. The lack of substance in the recommendations they make is also embarrassing, but we don't hold our leaders or the media to a higher standard. Maybe we really are fools.

Here in New York, we have real problem with the state budget. It's short about $4 billion and the politicians have been wrangling for a month, unsuccessfully, to agree on a solution. So, last week a local state senator went on the radio to discuss the matter. He talked with the interviewer for an entire hour without saying anything about what state spending he would cut. But, he achieved his objective: he said a lot about "solving the problem" and "working together", but he didn't offend even one special interest. He just offended me by providing no pertinent facts and no solid recommendations.

NPR this week broadcast a series on traffic fatalities. It highlighted the trucking industry and elderly drivers as problems to consider, but only after saying that traffic fatalities have decreased about 12%, to about 35,000 each year, since the year 2000. It took a caller to the program to point out that 30% of the fatalities are alcohol-related, and nobody said what percent of fatalities were single-vehicle crashes caused by driver errors such as pushing motorcycles too hard. NPR presented a lot of babble with few facts, plenty of opinion, and no simple recommendations as to which new laws would produce the greatest drop in fatalities while being accepted by the motoring public. I expect more from NPR.

Debates on the two current national issues, Afghanistan and health care reform, have also been light on information and recommendations. President Obama will attempt to sell his Afghanistan strategy this coming week, and I expect an excellent presentation; many lives may be lost pursuing his decision. Regarding health care, conversely, the result will be the work of congress - disfunctionality personified. It will be a hash, probably far less positive than what is needed. The fact that discussion of of the health care bill centers far more on the political push and pull than what's in the bill is telling; if we knew what was in that stew, we probably wouldn't eat it.

I'm tired of being treated like a child by government and the media. As Sergeant Joe Friday used to say, "The facts, ma'am, just the facts!" These agencies need to put out hard information, so that we have a fair chance to form our own conclusions and assess their decisions. Then again, maybe that's why we know so little about the important things.

Recently I posted about my distaste for religion that expects God to intervene when people bring their problems to God. I said that God already did God's thing by allowing us "to be", and by giving us the ability to perceive the divine. The rest is pretty much up to us, I believe. We have a conscience, right? That conscience is God, speaking to us if we listen.

In this light, I said that I pray about two things: first, I thank God for my life and the greatness of all creation; second, I pray I will listen to my conscience and try to act in the spirit of the great commandment - love God, and your neighbor as yourself. But I left something out.

It's very telling that I forgot to mention confession. I don't always do very well with the first two prayers, so confession to God is important. Sins of commission and omission plague me. My thanks are too infrequent, and my choices are often poor. No one knows this better than God. I owe a bunch of "I'm sorry's", to recognize the omnipotence of God and my poor efforts to contribute to the plan that I perceive only dimly.

In considering "confession", I must also remember the great sins of our species - sins that I participate in or acquiesce to . War. Destroying the ecology of our planet. Letting people starve or die of preventable illnesses. The list goes on and on. As a group, we humans are often stray far from being partners in the creative nature of God. We, and I, share responsibility for all the ugliness in the world. We, and I, need to feel some real sadness about this shameful part of our nature. That is confession, and it is the start of making amends.

I'm sorry I overlooked confession. I'll try to do better.

President Obama's visit to China is highlighting the differences between the two countries. China is repressive and undemocratic, but its economy is growing at 10% each year and poised to continue this trend. The US is open and democratic, but its economy is staggering and is poised to continue this trend. Perhaps both countries need to move toward the other's system.

The secret to China's rapid progress is unity of purpose. The cause of the U.S.'s slow decline is largely lack of a unified purpose. China sacrifices openness, personal rights, and property rights to accomplish its purposes. The U.S. system allows minorities so many rights that they can effectively block almost any purpose, regardless of its importance. Both countries need to move toward the middle.

I sense that the Chinese know they must loosen up as their population becomes more educated and wealthy; at some point, speaking out becomes a reason for being. However, Americans may only now be concluding that our constitution, our laws, and our legal system have morphed into an almost paralytic maze.

If the U.S. is to have any chance of maintaining some level of parity with China in the coming decades, our political system must change. The battle of "left" and "right" is killing us; what we need is some sort of national unity, and decisions that are important for the long term. But the politicians seem not to care a damn about our future - it's all about them.

On the national scene, the lack of an operational long term storage facility for nuclear waste is a great example of our paralysis. We've spent billions on a Yucca Mountain storage facility, deep in the Nevada mountains, but its use is being held up by endless lawsuits despite general scientific agreement that it's the right answer to the problem. In China, opening this facility would be a slam dunk. Time is money.

On the local scene, New York State is in paralysis because it spends more than residents can afford to pay in taxes. Can our elected representatives deal with this? No way! They play to the folks that bought them their offices, and the general populace suffers. Even the governor is powerless to impose a solution. So, the state crashes but the legislators get all their pay and the immensely overstaffed state bureaucracy lives on. Perhaps it's time for a revolt, since no other solution is remotely in sight.

China needs to allow more freedom while maintaining its ability to implement a national purpose. The U.S. needs to find a way to implement many national and local imperatives while still maintaining freedom. Neither course is easy, but the U.S. is in far greater danger if if does not find a way to break its political and legal logjams.

This guy has a history. It's not easy to grow up as an "outsider", even if you are talented. I feel certain Hasan experienced a lot of discrimination and harassment as a Muslim in America. That has got to have a significant and lasting effect on one's persona, but it does not justify a mass killing. Hasan took out his frustrations in an unjustifiable manner.

In my view, this mass murder had little to do with Islam. Radical Islam was just a hook onto which Hasan hung his own problems. Hate needs company, and he found it there. He could have gone another way, but he chose the way of vengeance.

Why was Hasan not identified as a psychotic and a dangerous person? There were more than a few significant indicators, and his future in his profession and the Army was debated several times by smart people. What was lacking was the decisiveness to do the right thing with him, to go through a painful and time-consuming process to remove him. Supervisors always consider trade-off's about dealing with problem employees, simply because discipline takes lots of time and energy. In this case, their lack of stomach resulted in a failure to do the right thing, and lots of people died.

In my experience, even following the rules for disciplining or firing an employee often results in far more problems than it should. Here in New York, too many government agencies go overboard in their attempts to stand up for employee's "rights". Employers also have rights, in my view including having employees who show commitment to act in the employer's best interests and follow the rules. When they fail to do so, they should be dismissed after appropriate warning. But, too often the fear of incurring large legal fees and a potential reversal or settlement drives supervisors to overlook extremely negative behavior.

Hasan was terribly wrong. Our employment laws are wrong, too. Hasan will get his just deserts, but will government loosen up it's stranglehold on employers?

Yesterday, while on a road trip with Good Witch, we passed a church with a typical sign outside. It read something like "Follow God, and God will Take Care of You." It made me cringe. It's the wrong message, at least for me. Although I'm a Christian, I don't believe that God is obligated to any quid pro quo deal. But if we can't expect any special treatment in this world, what is the purpose of religion?

For me, the purpose of religion is simply to give God the recognition God deserves. My every thought and breath are gifts from God, and this miracle of existence and consciousness is precious to me. The miracle underlies every moment and every experience of my life. Whether the moment is one of pleasure or pain, it is a unique moment that God has allowed to be. Consequently, God has already "taken care of me". My only response must be to say "Thank you", constantly, without expectation of any additional benefits from my action. Not one day more, not any fewer difficulties, not one penny more of wealth. So, where is the payback?

For the moment, let's forget about the life after death and think about the now. If I believe every moment of my life is valuable, then I've got to believe that every moment in everyone else's life is also valuable. The "Golden Rule" then becomes real and of the first priority. It affects the way I treat every person and how I view the community that is humanity. It makes me want to see the world as God sees it, however limited I may be in this endeavor. And, strange as this may seem, this attitude brings me far more benefits than deficits. I have a positive, non-protective attitude, and people respond to me with a smile. I am content.

The alternative is to see my life as being in competition with everyone else. I am protective, I am reserved, I am calculating. Every person who interacts with me will find out, one way or the other, that they had better watch out for me because my interests always come first. Smiles and hugs are less genuine and less frequent. But, I end up with more stuff. I trade stuff for smiles. That's not a good trade for me. I may be a "Type A" personality, but a smile is worth more than stuff to me.

In my view, God allowed our world to occur and gave us freedom to see what would become of it. Would we get our act together as a species, understand the opportunity that God has given, or would we self-destruct? Each one of us has a role to play in this drama. From time to time, God has intervened to give us some guidance -"Jesus" being one of several of these interventions - but God generally stays absent from the fray. It's our deal to win or lose, individually and as a species.

So, I don't expect God to take care of me. God has already taken care of me by giving me life and enough consciousness to perceive the divine. Whatever happens, happens. But while I'm here, I say "Thank you!" The benefits of that viewpoint make my days worthwhile, and when my days are over I'm willing (and obviously, obligated) to accept whatever God has in store for what's left of what was once "me". That sign on the church has meaning for me only in that respect.

It's been crazy at the Lifehiker and Good Witch house lately. The place had become a bit shabby and dated, but nothing $10,000 (or so) worth of paint, carpet, and "this and that" couldn't cure. But restoring a home is most inconvenient. Maybe, just maybe, everything will be calmed down by the end of November. In the meantime, I've been contributing a lot of sweat equity on the tasks where professionalism is not required.

While all this has been going on in my home, the cretins in Maine have voted down gay marriage rights, the pointy-headed, pedophile-loving Catholic bishops have put down the gauntlet on abortion rights, and a pissed-off Army psychiatrist has shot up Fort Hood. Not a good couple of weeks!

On the plus side, a few days of beautiful weather have descended on Rochester, New York. Any clear and sunny days in the high 60's or low 70's are called "bonus days". I painted my new garage door so that it now matches the primary color of my home, and I happily swept and raked the gajillian leaves from my yard. Maybe some golf is coming up before it's over!

My presbyterian church is slowly dying as aging members or those who lost jobs in the recession relocate, not to be replaced by new members. People seem to be too busy to give God the respect God deserves. I'm not saying this theologically. It just bugs me that so few people these days seem to wonder what it all means, and most of these think they will live forever. And then there are the republicans, who seem to believe in economic evolution while denying natural evolution. I hope God has a sense of humor about being dissed!

As liberal as I feel about many public policy topics, I'm still a bit miffed about the lack of accountability that we tolerate. If you fire somebody who doesn't give a crap about their job, the somebody can find plenty of government people to torture you. Both the Wall Street criminals and their union counterparts have got off pretty much scot-free after torching our economy. Far too many students and their parents think that paying no attention to education is OK, but expect somebody else to take care of them. Can't we have a society that rewards people who put in a full day's work and tells the others to live in a barracks and eat rice and beans once a day? Yes, the rich are too rich - but so are too many of the poor!

Tonight is "Dancing With the Stars", which Good Witch and I watch regularly. We love the incredible coordination of the pro dancers, and we appreciate the effort and achievement that the non-pro's exhibit as they strive to learn these very difficult dance moves. This show beats sit-com's hands down!

Tiger Woods got his hat handed to him this past weekend in Shainghai by Phil Mickelson and a few others. Woods has got a bit spoiled, I think, allowing himself to be distracted by spectator behavior and such. Don't you remember hearing how his father created giant distractions when Tiger was learning how to excel? Seems like Tiger's forgotten how to disregard what's happening around him and just hit the golf ball...but he's still the best.

As much as I like my home, I'm still a bit uncomfortable with all the "stuff" of life. I can identify with those Eastern religion adherents who believe that older folks should shed their stuff and simplify, simplify. I might be happier with a lot less. Something to ponder.

Be kind; do something selfless; say "thank-you" to whatever God you worship; savor the moment; learn something. The days go rushing by, and soon they will be over.

p.s. Get your swine flu shot when you can. If you die of the flu, I'll stand on your grave and tell you "I told you so!". This EMT has seen some ugly bad flu - don't take a chance.

The cost of health care in our country is exorbitant, and it will probably rise as a result of the new health care legislation that I hope will pass. Covering the uninsured and those with pre-existing conditions is costly - but it is the right thing to do. How then can we reduce the cost? Here are four suggestions.

1. Increase the penalties for health care fraud, and hire a lot more inspectors. I recently read that annual Medicare fraud may cost taxpayers as much as $800 billion dollars. Even if it's only half that number, we could pay 50,000 new inspectors $100,000 each for only $5 billion annually and save a bundle. Catch the crooks put them away for a long time!

2. Bust the professional groups that, in effect, are unions that engage in medical featherbedding.

For example, today I read that the New York governor has issued an "emergency" executive order that will allow Swine flu shots to be administered by dentists, paramedics, pharmacists, and other health care professionals, all of whom need to be specially trained for the job. Perhaps I am missing something, but it seems to me that if a paramedic is already qualified to inject powerful life-saving meds, without supervision, they might be qualified to give a flu shot! Can you believe that a PA can't even give a flu shot under normal conditions? The medical "special interest groups" have far too much power, and their featherbedding adds a lot to the cost of health care.

3. Revisit the paperwork and patient confidentiality rules.

Many of us veterans remember standing in long lines to get rapid-fire innoculations. Hundreds of soldiers got their "shots" in no time. Yet in this "national emergency", the paperwork and "confidentiality" crap associated with giving flu shots make the lines move at a snail's pace. Snail's pace processes are expensive.

HIPPA, a law originally intended to stop insurance companies from misusing health care information, somehow morphed into a law that puts sand in the gears of the entire health care complex. For example, a patient being rushed to the hospital with chest pains has to sign a statement saying he's been told that his patient information will not be mis-used? Are we nuts?

4. Make physicians justify why elderly patients with certain terminal conditions should receive certain very expensive treatments rather than moved to hospice care. It's just silly that we spend an immense fraction of our health care dollars on persons who die shortly afterward of problems previously known to be terminal.

Common sense has been absent in many areas of health care, resulting in increasingly expensive processes for doing simple things and a huge medical fraud industry. Who is tackling these obvious problems? It's time to start complaining, and loudly!

Americans seem believe war is like video war games; you play for awhile, lots of characters fall down or are blown up, and then you turn off the game and everyone magically comes back to life. But war is not like a video game. Real people die and never come back to life.

Obama is debating whether or not to send more troops to Afghanistan. What's not said often enough is that if more are sent, more will die. How many American deaths is an Afghanistan "liberated" from the Taliban worth?

Don't get me wrong. I believe that if the Afghanistan war is really in America's best interests to win, then more troops may be necessary. But, we must not be naive about casualites. There will be many of them, and there will also be more Afghan civilian casualties.

While listening to Diane Rehm on NPR this week, I heard an "expert" say that we had killed many Al Queda leaders with Predator air strikes. Diane immediately said, "But there also were civilian casualties!" That was a naive comment, but a telling one. Many Americans just don't understand that war is a messy business.

So, if we increase troops we must also willingly accept more of our soldiers being killed and wounded. We must also accept the idea that Afghan civilians will be in the way and be killed. Our soldiers must not be asked to fight with hands tied behind their back, risking even more danger than they should.

Will the American public support our really "going to war" in Afghanistan? I don't know.

The health care debate is slowly coming to a conclusion. Most of the horses have been traded, most of the spears have been thrown, most of the insults spewed, and most of the numbers added. In my mind, the issues still remain rather basic.

1. Will the bill provide a way for a great number of uninsured working people and people who have worked in our economy to get affordable care if they are sick or injured?

2. Will the bill provide means and incentives for health care providers to reduce costs while maintaining or improving the quality of care?

3. Will the bill provide incentives for Americans to adopt more healthy lifestyles and to make informed choices about end of life care?

Every person who has honestly evaluated the American health care non-system understands that it is far too costly and far too inefficient. We need to make progress on solving these problems, or they will simply get worse. This will not be easy, and it may be incremental, but we must make progress. Anything else will be a major failure of government.

Both radical liberals and radical conservatives have staked out positions in opposition to major planks that will likely be in the final bill. Liberals who represent several major unions object to taxes on the high cost "Cadillac" health plans they've negotiated with employers. For example, they support the idea that teachers should be able to get four pair of new eyeglasses each year, for free. Conservatives in hock to the industry object to the idea that working people should not go bankrupt if they happen to get really sick and incur hundreds of thousands of dollars in doctor and hospital costs. Both groups are hindering progress toward a reasonable solution.

On balance, the conservatives have been most outrageous in their objections. If you listen to them, you soon realize that they never describe the problems with the system or suggest ways to solve them. They are almost 100% negative. Some believe (this is true!) that those unable to pay for hospital procedures shouldn't get them; "survival of the financially fittest" is their motto. Others, when asked why they object to health care reform, say they don't want to pay for illegal immigrant health care, something that is not in the bill. The absurdities go on and on...such as, "don't let the government get involved with my Medicare". In short, I only pay attention to those who seem concerned to improve America's health care, and I don't think those who focus only on negatives are interested in that at all.

I've been pretty close to the health care industry for the past 10 years, and I understand it a lot better than most Americans. Our system is broken; it must be fixed. If we don't make some real progress on reforming it, we have shot ourselves in the foot, or maybe even in the upper leg. So, support those who have positive ideas and ignore the others! Let's get something good done, and soon.