Wow, it snowed again overnight, and it's still snowing, quite hard. I can see I'll be working from home tomorrow. There's about 4 inches of snow piled up outside in the driveway already.
R was over from OKC for a weekend visit this weekend - had a game of 6th Edition wherein he massacred me: Note to self, do not charge chariots frontally into hoplites. Just because it sorta worked in DBM doesn't mean it will anywhere else ... which (a) makes sense from the real-world point of view, and (b) what on earth was DBM thinking?
Otherwise, kinda tiptoed around all the things we disagree on, like global warming, and a general hankering to revert to the 50s when middleclass white males had it so good (which inter alia I would say, actually not, but that's yet another matter).
Showing posts with label making friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label making friends. Show all posts
Monday, February 8, 2010
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Ingrained
Well, we had a surfeit of guests - first Ray came for the weekend, which was, as always, a good thing: as more or less my only friend in the flesh here, and a fellow wargamer. Sadly he was pretty sick this visit, and we didn't get to play a game, just sat around, mostly bitching about how bad the current rules & lists are, and floundering about trying to find a superior alternative. The current leaders for that, btw, are WRG 6th Edition, now a venerable 28 years old I think, and Armati, also not exactly fresh out of the gate, but so be it.
As always though, we stayed up very late watching movies & talking ... well, yattering on endlessly to be honest, about anything and everything. One thing that does disturb me about Ray is his seemingly reflexive sexism & racism, which - I'm not sure - either underpin or grow out of his elaborate & well-defended republicanism/conservatism. I know this periodically drives Cat absolutely wild, and occasionally leaves me aghast too, but it's a bit late to be trying to change his behaviour, so we both let it ride: besides, he has been a very staunch friend, and is in general such a good-hearted guy, it more or less just puzzles me that he hasn't grown out of that, for some reason.
Then we had 2 of Cat's friends over for lunch yesterday while I was working from home. They brought a grandson, and also their mother, and while the others were smoking, I had a fairly lengthy, and to be honest horrifying, discussion with the mother. Her racism was not just overt, but a bit breathtaking. Of course, she would be in her 60s or 70s, and I guess it may not be untypical for her generation, and for someone who grew up in rural Arkansas.
Naturally, as our guest, I didn't challenge these attitudes - they were too obviously deeply felt and strong, and having a blazing open argument over it was hardly going to change her mind, just upset everyone & terminate the visit, and possibly Cat's friendship. It did serve me as a reminder that these people are still around, and still oozing their poison where their grandkids and great grandkids can hear it, and probably absorb at least some of it.
Perhaps I was wrong to let it slide, when I think on it: that is the sort of attitude that does allow it to continue to fester. But I don't seem to have a strongly confrontational approach, and that sort of thought usually occurs to me only far after the fact.
One other thing she said almost did trip me into a heated argument though, and it's something I hear a -lot- of in the US: 'Oh they ain't poor, there's plenty of jobs if they wanted to work, they just don't want to work'.
Of course, I've heard this arrant nonsense everywhere I've lived - it was practically a mantra for Robs' Mob, and for most of the National Party, and it's endemic in bits of UK society, but over here it seems even more widespread. It always drives me a bit nuts, especially in times like these when there's 11% unemployment and we're going through a fairly severe depression*.
The truth is, people DO want to work, with amazingly few exceptions. Even when it is barely more than the dole, and sometimes when the net (after transport & such) is less than it, people will work, at the most amazingly wretched jobs, for disgustingly little pay.
Waitressing in this country, for instance. The legal minimum wage here is something like $7.25/hour now - except for waitresses & waiters, who have a special exemption to be paid a minimum of $2.13 .... and trust me, the number of places that pay more than the minimum is extremely small, even in quite high-tone places. The assumption is that they will make this up and more in tips, and most americans who have never worked these jobs assume that they not only make it up, but make very good money on top, just from tips.
I doubt it, severely. From what I've read and heard, there are an awful lot of tightwallets who tip minimally or not at all, and most waitstaff struggle to even make an extra $5 an hour to get to the usual legal minimum. Of course in the tightening economy, tips are one of the very easy economies: while it is 'customary' to leave a 15% tip, it is very easy to squeeze that - plus of course quite a few people just cut dining out to a minimum or nothing.
Our visitors on Monday both work as waitresses in the weekends, and one - an extremely good waitress and very popular - used to clear about $100 a day on the weekends, i.e. about $12 an hour, which is, well, OK, but hardly overwhelming. This has fallen by over 50% in the last year, so she is now getting $50 a day net ... after paying for travel, about an hours' drive each way, it leaves very little money indeed. Naturally she's looking for a position closer to home, but - also naturally - there's damn-all of them available in the current situation.
I wish I could make these people who bang on about plenty of jobs if you want them, see exactly what rubbish they are talking: and what wretched jobs are actually like. But then, I might as well wish for the moon :/
----------------------------
*That's a word that gives me a wry smile: originally it was called a crash, but that upset people, so they changed the word to a crisis - after a while that sounded too alarming, so they just called it a depression, something softer-sounding and less scarey. Of course 1929 screwed the pooch on that, so they switched to recession.
It all means the same thing tho - the economy is explosively shrinking, shedding jobs as though it were deciduous. At one point recession in the 80s started sounding scarey so they tried contraction, but that never caught on. You now have the ludicrous situation that some of the TV talking heads, exhibiting their complete cluelessness, argue about whether the current fiasco is a depression, or 'just' a recession. Duh.
As always though, we stayed up very late watching movies & talking ... well, yattering on endlessly to be honest, about anything and everything. One thing that does disturb me about Ray is his seemingly reflexive sexism & racism, which - I'm not sure - either underpin or grow out of his elaborate & well-defended republicanism/conservatism. I know this periodically drives Cat absolutely wild, and occasionally leaves me aghast too, but it's a bit late to be trying to change his behaviour, so we both let it ride: besides, he has been a very staunch friend, and is in general such a good-hearted guy, it more or less just puzzles me that he hasn't grown out of that, for some reason.
Then we had 2 of Cat's friends over for lunch yesterday while I was working from home. They brought a grandson, and also their mother, and while the others were smoking, I had a fairly lengthy, and to be honest horrifying, discussion with the mother. Her racism was not just overt, but a bit breathtaking. Of course, she would be in her 60s or 70s, and I guess it may not be untypical for her generation, and for someone who grew up in rural Arkansas.
Naturally, as our guest, I didn't challenge these attitudes - they were too obviously deeply felt and strong, and having a blazing open argument over it was hardly going to change her mind, just upset everyone & terminate the visit, and possibly Cat's friendship. It did serve me as a reminder that these people are still around, and still oozing their poison where their grandkids and great grandkids can hear it, and probably absorb at least some of it.
Perhaps I was wrong to let it slide, when I think on it: that is the sort of attitude that does allow it to continue to fester. But I don't seem to have a strongly confrontational approach, and that sort of thought usually occurs to me only far after the fact.
One other thing she said almost did trip me into a heated argument though, and it's something I hear a -lot- of in the US: 'Oh they ain't poor, there's plenty of jobs if they wanted to work, they just don't want to work'.
Of course, I've heard this arrant nonsense everywhere I've lived - it was practically a mantra for Robs' Mob, and for most of the National Party, and it's endemic in bits of UK society, but over here it seems even more widespread. It always drives me a bit nuts, especially in times like these when there's 11% unemployment and we're going through a fairly severe depression*.
The truth is, people DO want to work, with amazingly few exceptions. Even when it is barely more than the dole, and sometimes when the net (after transport & such) is less than it, people will work, at the most amazingly wretched jobs, for disgustingly little pay.
Waitressing in this country, for instance. The legal minimum wage here is something like $7.25/hour now - except for waitresses & waiters, who have a special exemption to be paid a minimum of $2.13 .... and trust me, the number of places that pay more than the minimum is extremely small, even in quite high-tone places. The assumption is that they will make this up and more in tips, and most americans who have never worked these jobs assume that they not only make it up, but make very good money on top, just from tips.
I doubt it, severely. From what I've read and heard, there are an awful lot of tightwallets who tip minimally or not at all, and most waitstaff struggle to even make an extra $5 an hour to get to the usual legal minimum. Of course in the tightening economy, tips are one of the very easy economies: while it is 'customary' to leave a 15% tip, it is very easy to squeeze that - plus of course quite a few people just cut dining out to a minimum or nothing.
Our visitors on Monday both work as waitresses in the weekends, and one - an extremely good waitress and very popular - used to clear about $100 a day on the weekends, i.e. about $12 an hour, which is, well, OK, but hardly overwhelming. This has fallen by over 50% in the last year, so she is now getting $50 a day net ... after paying for travel, about an hours' drive each way, it leaves very little money indeed. Naturally she's looking for a position closer to home, but - also naturally - there's damn-all of them available in the current situation.
I wish I could make these people who bang on about plenty of jobs if you want them, see exactly what rubbish they are talking: and what wretched jobs are actually like. But then, I might as well wish for the moon :/
----------------------------
*That's a word that gives me a wry smile: originally it was called a crash, but that upset people, so they changed the word to a crisis - after a while that sounded too alarming, so they just called it a depression, something softer-sounding and less scarey. Of course 1929 screwed the pooch on that, so they switched to recession.
It all means the same thing tho - the economy is explosively shrinking, shedding jobs as though it were deciduous. At one point recession in the 80s started sounding scarey so they tried contraction, but that never caught on. You now have the ludicrous situation that some of the TV talking heads, exhibiting their complete cluelessness, argue about whether the current fiasco is a depression, or 'just' a recession. Duh.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Personality
I know it's a truism that everyone has many different faces that they put on, depending on the people they are with, and what they are trying to achieve, consciously or otherwise. Like everyone, I suppose, I've seen myself do it, usually making small & subtle changes to bring forth or suppress various facets and try to charm, please, anger, impress, scare, whatever: and always assumed that everyone else did the same, of course*
But, 15-odd years of wandering around the internet has really driven home how much this happens and how enormous the changes can be. Of course that's mostly in watching my own presentations: I primarily assume that everyone else is experiencing the same things, it's almost impossible (by definition) to see very much of this in anyone else.
I do find it a bit astonishing just at the scope though, I have found myself (more or less without conscious volition), being charming, loquacious, flirtatious, dynamic and driven, leading and encouraging, angry and volatile, even cruel and tough-minded - all at different times, of course, I'm not a complete psychotic!** Until I had the opportunity to show these in online situations, I didnt really know that I had any of that inside me, and it's quite astonishing: well, to me anyway.
I guess it has actually helped me try to find it in real life, too, although overcoming the things that inhibit all those traits is much tougher when you are actually looking other people in the eye (and habits are kind of concreted-in like fence post by now). It's a truism of course - you can be more than you are - but also disconcerting to discover and connect with the idea at a visceral level rather than just mentally acknowledging the truth of it.
I should add that while we dont get much chance to see other people do it, in some online situations you get to see quite a bit of it in some ways: for instance, in playing World of Warcraft, the online role-playing game, people talk at both the character level (that is, the person they are portraying) and also at the person level (that is, their actual persona, rather than the role).
That isn't too illuminating, but .... when you play WOW, you create multiple characters, and unless you tell them, noone knows that you are the same person behind different ones: which means you can actually see some of the different personae that the same player exhibits to different people. I dont mean this in some sneaky fashion intending to deceive (at least not for me), just usually from inattention or some other cause. It certainly can be interesting though, particularly (of course) when someone wants or needs something from one character and not from another: you sure get to see different sides to some people.
I've also seen this in other places of course: one thing I noticed, with WOW, with online chat, and other programs, that the same person can exhibit quite different traits in chat to that of email, even when they know they are addressing the same person. I assume that is just because of the different nature of the media: in chat you generally write more or less as you talk, although you generally have a moment or two to reconsider*** between typing a sentence and sending it; whereas in email you have time to polish and consider at more length**** and craft it to fit your recipient (target was the word that sprang to mind, but that's a bit harsh).
As usual, I'm not really going anywhere in particular with this thought, more just banging on about what's on my mind today - naturally, as an upshot from an experience in WOW last night, which somewhat revealed an, ah, unexpected side in someone I thought I knew quite well - in as much as you can know someone online, of course.
*If I'm wrong and I'm the only one in the world doing this, well, damn I just stepped in it! and also, whats wrong with all of you? LOL
** Bits of me are missing, hahah
*** Sadly much underused
**** Sadly even more underused. Of course one could say the same about blogs :)
But, 15-odd years of wandering around the internet has really driven home how much this happens and how enormous the changes can be. Of course that's mostly in watching my own presentations: I primarily assume that everyone else is experiencing the same things, it's almost impossible (by definition) to see very much of this in anyone else.
I do find it a bit astonishing just at the scope though, I have found myself (more or less without conscious volition), being charming, loquacious, flirtatious, dynamic and driven, leading and encouraging, angry and volatile, even cruel and tough-minded - all at different times, of course, I'm not a complete psychotic!** Until I had the opportunity to show these in online situations, I didnt really know that I had any of that inside me, and it's quite astonishing: well, to me anyway.
I guess it has actually helped me try to find it in real life, too, although overcoming the things that inhibit all those traits is much tougher when you are actually looking other people in the eye (and habits are kind of concreted-in like fence post by now). It's a truism of course - you can be more than you are - but also disconcerting to discover and connect with the idea at a visceral level rather than just mentally acknowledging the truth of it.
I should add that while we dont get much chance to see other people do it, in some online situations you get to see quite a bit of it in some ways: for instance, in playing World of Warcraft, the online role-playing game, people talk at both the character level (that is, the person they are portraying) and also at the person level (that is, their actual persona, rather than the role).
That isn't too illuminating, but .... when you play WOW, you create multiple characters, and unless you tell them, noone knows that you are the same person behind different ones: which means you can actually see some of the different personae that the same player exhibits to different people. I dont mean this in some sneaky fashion intending to deceive (at least not for me), just usually from inattention or some other cause. It certainly can be interesting though, particularly (of course) when someone wants or needs something from one character and not from another: you sure get to see different sides to some people.
I've also seen this in other places of course: one thing I noticed, with WOW, with online chat, and other programs, that the same person can exhibit quite different traits in chat to that of email, even when they know they are addressing the same person. I assume that is just because of the different nature of the media: in chat you generally write more or less as you talk, although you generally have a moment or two to reconsider*** between typing a sentence and sending it; whereas in email you have time to polish and consider at more length**** and craft it to fit your recipient (target was the word that sprang to mind, but that's a bit harsh).
As usual, I'm not really going anywhere in particular with this thought, more just banging on about what's on my mind today - naturally, as an upshot from an experience in WOW last night, which somewhat revealed an, ah, unexpected side in someone I thought I knew quite well - in as much as you can know someone online, of course.
*If I'm wrong and I'm the only one in the world doing this, well, damn I just stepped in it! and also, whats wrong with all of you? LOL
** Bits of me are missing, hahah
*** Sadly much underused
**** Sadly even more underused. Of course one could say the same about blogs :)
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Friends
Isn't friendship funny?
One of my friends (who shall remain nameless) remarked at how hard it was to make friends - which was a bit of a surprise as I'd always thought of him as someone with a most complete set of social skills, who didn't acquire more friends from choice, but that's a whole other subject. It did make me recall an observation from some novel - the name and author now fled to the dim recesses of memory alas - of how college/university is where you make all your close friends for life, and then carry them through with you, for better or worse.
I don't know about that, at all. I am doubtless atypical, but I can't believe that that relatively narrow period where you're nearly grown up and still open to the intense emotional tides of teenage years, is the be-all and end-all of fixing friendships. When I read it, it had a certain surface plausibility, but overall, no I don't think so.
I mean, look at those I'd count as good friends now - aside of the beloved dead - a guy I've known since school, a guy who I knew from the Net for 12 years before we ever shook hands, a woman I worked with for 3 months and since have become closer purely over the Net, a woman living in another continent who I met because she's partner to one of my wife's friends, a woman from the Net who I've only met once. From university years, well, no, not so much. And here where I'm living, hmm, not yet - perhaps one is forming with the guy in the next cubicle.
And really, what do I have in common with anything? Next to nothing really for the most part, except for a certain openness, a willingness to listen & talk, and trust.
Part of why I was thinking of this was watching Cat trying to strike up friendships here. It's something she seems to be very good at, at least with other women, and in England she formed quite a few friendships, a couple very strong and solid. Here, it seems much more of a struggle, and I wonder if there are cultural signals she is missing (or I am for that matter).
One of these in particular I think has hurt quite a bit - she found a woman at the quilting shop and struck up what seemed a pretty good friendship with her, to the point that we've had them over for lunch several times & attended one of their parties. After the woman lost her job, she seems to have just dropped Cat like a stone - no calls returned, no contact at all. They ran into each other at the quilting guild & she gave Cat some story about losing her number, so of course Cat gave her the phone number again, and since then, more nothing. You'd think Cat had done something to deeply offend, and may be so, but if it is, she has no clue as to what it might be, & nor do I.
Just one of those mysteries we have to live with, I suppose, like how George Bush got elected (that is, you may someday be able to explain it logically but it will never make sense).
OK, not really going anywhere with this so much as just musing about it all. All I really know is, keep your friends close, and damnation to your enemies*: the rest of the world can look after itself.
*That machiavellian thing about keeping your enemies closer is fine if you're a good hand with a dagger or a poison ring a la Lucretia, but for the rest of us, it's actually terrible advice I think: it's become one of those commonplaces that are trotted out without any thought for what it's actually saying.
One of my friends (who shall remain nameless) remarked at how hard it was to make friends - which was a bit of a surprise as I'd always thought of him as someone with a most complete set of social skills, who didn't acquire more friends from choice, but that's a whole other subject. It did make me recall an observation from some novel - the name and author now fled to the dim recesses of memory alas - of how college/university is where you make all your close friends for life, and then carry them through with you, for better or worse.
I don't know about that, at all. I am doubtless atypical, but I can't believe that that relatively narrow period where you're nearly grown up and still open to the intense emotional tides of teenage years, is the be-all and end-all of fixing friendships. When I read it, it had a certain surface plausibility, but overall, no I don't think so.
I mean, look at those I'd count as good friends now - aside of the beloved dead - a guy I've known since school, a guy who I knew from the Net for 12 years before we ever shook hands, a woman I worked with for 3 months and since have become closer purely over the Net, a woman living in another continent who I met because she's partner to one of my wife's friends, a woman from the Net who I've only met once. From university years, well, no, not so much. And here where I'm living, hmm, not yet - perhaps one is forming with the guy in the next cubicle.
And really, what do I have in common with anything? Next to nothing really for the most part, except for a certain openness, a willingness to listen & talk, and trust.
Part of why I was thinking of this was watching Cat trying to strike up friendships here. It's something she seems to be very good at, at least with other women, and in England she formed quite a few friendships, a couple very strong and solid. Here, it seems much more of a struggle, and I wonder if there are cultural signals she is missing (or I am for that matter).
One of these in particular I think has hurt quite a bit - she found a woman at the quilting shop and struck up what seemed a pretty good friendship with her, to the point that we've had them over for lunch several times & attended one of their parties. After the woman lost her job, she seems to have just dropped Cat like a stone - no calls returned, no contact at all. They ran into each other at the quilting guild & she gave Cat some story about losing her number, so of course Cat gave her the phone number again, and since then, more nothing. You'd think Cat had done something to deeply offend, and may be so, but if it is, she has no clue as to what it might be, & nor do I.
Just one of those mysteries we have to live with, I suppose, like how George Bush got elected (that is, you may someday be able to explain it logically but it will never make sense).
OK, not really going anywhere with this so much as just musing about it all. All I really know is, keep your friends close, and damnation to your enemies*: the rest of the world can look after itself.
*That machiavellian thing about keeping your enemies closer is fine if you're a good hand with a dagger or a poison ring a la Lucretia, but for the rest of us, it's actually terrible advice I think: it's become one of those commonplaces that are trotted out without any thought for what it's actually saying.
Friday, August 14, 2009
How unreasonable can it get?
The guy in the next cubicle to me, Mark, is a very engaging, friendly guy. We have hardly anything in common, despite being about the same age, not even background or history really - he is an orthodox traditionalist christian (although brought up as an evangelical), hard-right Republican (& always has been), who more or less avoided popular music, drugs, & the university lifestyle when younger, and has 5 kids.
Despite that, or because of it, we have long, extended conversations, comparing and contrasting experiences, arguing fairly intently on a range of political subjects, and occasionally even finding common ground - for instance, we both agree on the recent ouster of the President of Honduras:
(Massive tangent here) Despite being popularly elected originally, we both think that he has both extensively violated their constitution, and was the one to originate the violations - with his opposition doing only a minimum of violence to the rule of law, necessary to actually protect the rule of law. After all, when your opponent is expressly ignoring the laws, and the rulings of your Supreme court, and is arming and recruiting mobs threatening violence, to wait for the next congressional meeting to pass a motion of impeachment (which he can equally ignore), is to invite your opponent to complete the violent overthrow of the constitution and claim perpetual power under the guise of 'popular action' a la Venezuela.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Chavez stole his initial election there (the subsequent ones, yes, the first one was honest) - but he has comprehensively ignored the laws and the constitution at his own whim, and even if he has retained popular support (a debatable proposition), to destroy the rule of law is to destroy all legitimacy: without it, all you have is the whim of the tyrant, whether his power arises from the army, the divine right of kings, or 'popular majority'.
But, to get back to my original point at last! We were wrangling over the Health Care reforms being proposed, and I was flabbergasted when he said his opposition is based, not on anything in the bills being submitted, but because they contain the seed of something that may be carried much further as a precedent, which he would oppose, such as the supposed 'death panels' that are causing such hysteria here.
God spare me!
On that basis you should oppose any and all laws - I can certainly find in the roots of any bill that is passed, something that could be egregiously exagerrated into a total abuse of power. How can you even argue with someone who won't argue the law being offered, only possible extensions of it and hypothetical actions of future politicians? The time to argue against the things you actually resist is when they are proposed, not at some earlier irrelevant juncture, surely.
I've listened to these slippery slope arguments for 40 years now** - ever since Vietnam - and they have never borne fruit, not once. I'm just utterly exasperated at this point. Worse than that, Mark and his family would be amongst the beneficiaries of these reforms (whereas I doubt if it will benefit me, short of losing my job), yet he has this apparently totally irrational opposition to these very moderate and mild reforms, because 'they could lead us to having a Canadian style health system'.
I won't even bother with the argument that the Canadian system actually delivers much better average outcomes than the US one does, at 2/3 the price - it doesn't matter, the Canadian system has been so systematically vilified as terrible, with horrible rationing of care, that no argument based on facts could actually penetrate. Of course the US system also has horrible rationing - done by insurance company functionaries operating out of a profit-first motive, so even more callous than any government bureaucrat - but that also doesn't matter, apparently.
The fact is, the current proposals dont resemble in any fashion the Canadian system, and noone is suggesting that it should, or that it would be a good idea: and what truly seems to horrify people here about the Canadian system is that they forbid you to go outside the government system if you're rich enough to pay for private health care.
Of course, the Canadians can afford to do this because they know anyone rich enough to seek private health care (and thus skip over the dreaded queueing), will simply drive across the border and get it in the USA, where, after all, the best health care in the world is available, if you're rich enough. Besides which, if any politician ever made such an egregiously egalitarian proposal here in the Land of the Free, they would be immediately and permanently jerked out of office, and laughed to scorn, with popularity ratings as low as the despicable Cheney.
Anyway, with even the reasonable wing of the opposition being apparently totally unreasonable (and I would talk about how chickenhearted the uncrazy Republican politicians are about this subject, but I appear to have exhausted my store of invective for the moment): all we can do is hope the Democrats find some backbone and cohesion, and ram this through. There is no possibility of getting bipartisan agreement on the bill(s), and the opposition have made that painfully clear: but, the Democrats actually do not need this, and can & should ram it through on their own, as soon as possible. Once it's done, the storms of opposition will move on to some other subject, and health care will be forgotten, and eventually (like Medicare and Social Security) be seen as part of the American heritage, and a great thing. Eventually.
========================================================
Update: and apparently it was going on a long time before I started listening (from Political Animal):
Despite that, or because of it, we have long, extended conversations, comparing and contrasting experiences, arguing fairly intently on a range of political subjects, and occasionally even finding common ground - for instance, we both agree on the recent ouster of the President of Honduras:
(Massive tangent here) Despite being popularly elected originally, we both think that he has both extensively violated their constitution, and was the one to originate the violations - with his opposition doing only a minimum of violence to the rule of law, necessary to actually protect the rule of law. After all, when your opponent is expressly ignoring the laws, and the rulings of your Supreme court, and is arming and recruiting mobs threatening violence, to wait for the next congressional meeting to pass a motion of impeachment (which he can equally ignore), is to invite your opponent to complete the violent overthrow of the constitution and claim perpetual power under the guise of 'popular action' a la Venezuela.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Chavez stole his initial election there (the subsequent ones, yes, the first one was honest) - but he has comprehensively ignored the laws and the constitution at his own whim, and even if he has retained popular support (a debatable proposition), to destroy the rule of law is to destroy all legitimacy: without it, all you have is the whim of the tyrant, whether his power arises from the army, the divine right of kings, or 'popular majority'.
But, to get back to my original point at last! We were wrangling over the Health Care reforms being proposed, and I was flabbergasted when he said his opposition is based, not on anything in the bills being submitted, but because they contain the seed of something that may be carried much further as a precedent, which he would oppose, such as the supposed 'death panels' that are causing such hysteria here.
God spare me!
On that basis you should oppose any and all laws - I can certainly find in the roots of any bill that is passed, something that could be egregiously exagerrated into a total abuse of power. How can you even argue with someone who won't argue the law being offered, only possible extensions of it and hypothetical actions of future politicians? The time to argue against the things you actually resist is when they are proposed, not at some earlier irrelevant juncture, surely.
I've listened to these slippery slope arguments for 40 years now** - ever since Vietnam - and they have never borne fruit, not once. I'm just utterly exasperated at this point. Worse than that, Mark and his family would be amongst the beneficiaries of these reforms (whereas I doubt if it will benefit me, short of losing my job), yet he has this apparently totally irrational opposition to these very moderate and mild reforms, because 'they could lead us to having a Canadian style health system'.
I won't even bother with the argument that the Canadian system actually delivers much better average outcomes than the US one does, at 2/3 the price - it doesn't matter, the Canadian system has been so systematically vilified as terrible, with horrible rationing of care, that no argument based on facts could actually penetrate. Of course the US system also has horrible rationing - done by insurance company functionaries operating out of a profit-first motive, so even more callous than any government bureaucrat - but that also doesn't matter, apparently.
The fact is, the current proposals dont resemble in any fashion the Canadian system, and noone is suggesting that it should, or that it would be a good idea: and what truly seems to horrify people here about the Canadian system is that they forbid you to go outside the government system if you're rich enough to pay for private health care.
Of course, the Canadians can afford to do this because they know anyone rich enough to seek private health care (and thus skip over the dreaded queueing), will simply drive across the border and get it in the USA, where, after all, the best health care in the world is available, if you're rich enough. Besides which, if any politician ever made such an egregiously egalitarian proposal here in the Land of the Free, they would be immediately and permanently jerked out of office, and laughed to scorn, with popularity ratings as low as the despicable Cheney.
Anyway, with even the reasonable wing of the opposition being apparently totally unreasonable (and I would talk about how chickenhearted the uncrazy Republican politicians are about this subject, but I appear to have exhausted my store of invective for the moment): all we can do is hope the Democrats find some backbone and cohesion, and ram this through. There is no possibility of getting bipartisan agreement on the bill(s), and the opposition have made that painfully clear: but, the Democrats actually do not need this, and can & should ram it through on their own, as soon as possible. Once it's done, the storms of opposition will move on to some other subject, and health care will be forgotten, and eventually (like Medicare and Social Security) be seen as part of the American heritage, and a great thing. Eventually.
========================================================
Update: and apparently it was going on a long time before I started listening (from Political Animal):
Though no one was talking about "death panels" back then, opponents claimed that Social Security would result in massive government control. A Republican congressman from New York, for example, charged: "The lash of the dictator will be felt, and 25 million free American citizens will for the first time submit themselves to a fingerprint test."
Another New York congressman put it this way: "The bill opens the door and invites the entrance into the political field of a power so vast, so powerful as to threaten the integrity of our institutions and to pull the pillars of the temple down upon the heads of our descendants." A Republican senator from Delaware claimed that Social Security would "end the progress of a great country and bring its people to the level of the average European."
Today, opponents of a public health insurance option claim that it would drive private health insurance out of business and put a bureaucrat between doctors and patients. Back then, opponents of Social Security warned that it would "establish a bureaucracy in the field of insurance in competition with private business" that would "destroy" private pensions.
Then as now, opponents played the socialism card.
It wasn't just Social Security. When FDR tackled health care reform, the right condemned "the socialization of medicine," and the AMA said Roosevelt's plans were "un-American."
Monday, June 1, 2009
Eh, Monday
Well, we had pretty good weekend - Ray came over from Oklahoma City for the weekend, so we dined out a lot, stayed up waaay too late talking every night (I'm definitely too old to stay up til 3 a.m. now ... so is Ray o'course :), much jawing about wargames and roleplaying, and carefully tiptoeing around political subjects*, and played a game of Flames of War, which Ray had seen played but hadn't tried before.
The game went about as they usually do: too much static armour sitting around engaging in shooting contests while the infantry cower in terrain or dig in around objectives. It was a draw in the end, as we both managed to make several rolls to keep our shattered platoons from breaking & sweeping away the whole army.
Dining out was interesting - almost everywhere we went, business appeared to be sharply down - the only place that wasn't true was Bossa Nova, a Brazilian place we like to frequent for Sunday brunches: it was only about 40% full, but that is how it has been for the last 12 months. Everywhere else (Red Lobster, Satellite Cafe, Mimi's Cafe, & Outback Steakhouse), where we would expect to have a 10-20 minute (or more) wait for seats, we were seated straight away, and none of them were more than half-full. For Outback (which we went to on Saturday evening at 6, prime dining time for Little Rock), I was just astonished: last time we went there on a Saturday, we had a 45 minute wait and it was packed the whole time - this time it was barely a third full.
I guess it's a sign of how badly the depression is biting, even here in the heartland where supposedly we are much less affected than California, NYNY, or Chicago/Ohio. I thought people might be 'dining down' & going to cheaper places, but apparently not - even Denny's Diner & IHOP continue to be nearly empty, and the fastfood places are all looking empty all the time too - the Wendys, BK & MacDonalds that we'd drive past, last year would usually have a long queue at the drive through, but now the carparks seem empty & you hardly ever see a queue.
Bad times all around: Thank god my job relies primarily on an electricity/gas company, who are fairly unlikely to go out of business.
Well, back to work
*Ray is a die-hard Republican who seems quite blinkered when I try to discuss anything of this nature with him: he either cites spurious evidence or simply replies that the democrats are even more corrupt, depending on the subject. About the democrats, he sometimes has a point, I must admit, but I wish I could persuade him to at least doubt some of the so-called evidence the Republicans drum up on other subjects (the economy, for one). Oh well, we just agree to disagree, and doubtless he feels the same way about me :) Fortunately, we share an enormous amount of overlap in terms of wargaming and roleplaying games, amongst other things.
The game went about as they usually do: too much static armour sitting around engaging in shooting contests while the infantry cower in terrain or dig in around objectives. It was a draw in the end, as we both managed to make several rolls to keep our shattered platoons from breaking & sweeping away the whole army.
Dining out was interesting - almost everywhere we went, business appeared to be sharply down - the only place that wasn't true was Bossa Nova, a Brazilian place we like to frequent for Sunday brunches: it was only about 40% full, but that is how it has been for the last 12 months. Everywhere else (Red Lobster, Satellite Cafe, Mimi's Cafe, & Outback Steakhouse), where we would expect to have a 10-20 minute (or more) wait for seats, we were seated straight away, and none of them were more than half-full. For Outback (which we went to on Saturday evening at 6, prime dining time for Little Rock), I was just astonished: last time we went there on a Saturday, we had a 45 minute wait and it was packed the whole time - this time it was barely a third full.
I guess it's a sign of how badly the depression is biting, even here in the heartland where supposedly we are much less affected than California, NYNY, or Chicago/Ohio. I thought people might be 'dining down' & going to cheaper places, but apparently not - even Denny's Diner & IHOP continue to be nearly empty, and the fastfood places are all looking empty all the time too - the Wendys, BK & MacDonalds that we'd drive past, last year would usually have a long queue at the drive through, but now the carparks seem empty & you hardly ever see a queue.
Bad times all around: Thank god my job relies primarily on an electricity/gas company, who are fairly unlikely to go out of business.
Well, back to work
*Ray is a die-hard Republican who seems quite blinkered when I try to discuss anything of this nature with him: he either cites spurious evidence or simply replies that the democrats are even more corrupt, depending on the subject. About the democrats, he sometimes has a point, I must admit, but I wish I could persuade him to at least doubt some of the so-called evidence the Republicans drum up on other subjects (the economy, for one). Oh well, we just agree to disagree, and doubtless he feels the same way about me :) Fortunately, we share an enormous amount of overlap in terms of wargaming and roleplaying games, amongst other things.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Storms
Well, we survived the remnants of Hurricane Gustav pretty easily. Weds was quite stormy (even by Wellington-winter standards), and produced quite prodigious amounts of rain: enough to persuade me to stay & work from home for the day, rather than risk the car aquaplaning all over the road: but other than that, it wasn't too bad.
The creek in the back yard must have risen by 8 or 9 feet I guess - almost to the top of the banks - but that's no real threat to the house, as there's another 8 feet or so of elevation before it would get to the foundations (and much wider, of course). The dead tree out the front yard shed quite a lot of branches, and has kinda broken in half, with the upper half now dangling down in the fork of the bottom half - we're waiting for the landlords to fix this, lacking appropriate tools (a decent length of rope, essentially).
Parts of the city lost power for the day, but nowhere near us (they appear to be the, umm, poor parts of town, for whatever reason). We did have a lot of N'orleanois up working in our Little Rock office for the week, as it seems to have been moderately badly hit again.
And afterwards, we've had just a stunning few days of weather - warm, sunny, and with just enough wind to be pleasant.
We had Betty & Dennis over for lunch on Sunday - Betty works in the quilting shop that Cat goes to all the time, and is (of course) a keen quilter, and Dennis is her husband - an interesting mix of Texas hick and sophisticate. I think it went very well, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and the food seemed to work well : I made bacon&egg pie, and Cat made corn/cheese/onion muffins, neither of which they had ever had before - Muffins in the US seem to be exclusively of the cakey, very sweet, saturated with syrup variety, so savoury ones were a great surprise :)
Other than that, just trundling along, trying to find friends, and trying to fit in.
The creek in the back yard must have risen by 8 or 9 feet I guess - almost to the top of the banks - but that's no real threat to the house, as there's another 8 feet or so of elevation before it would get to the foundations (and much wider, of course). The dead tree out the front yard shed quite a lot of branches, and has kinda broken in half, with the upper half now dangling down in the fork of the bottom half - we're waiting for the landlords to fix this, lacking appropriate tools (a decent length of rope, essentially).
Parts of the city lost power for the day, but nowhere near us (they appear to be the, umm, poor parts of town, for whatever reason). We did have a lot of N'orleanois up working in our Little Rock office for the week, as it seems to have been moderately badly hit again.
And afterwards, we've had just a stunning few days of weather - warm, sunny, and with just enough wind to be pleasant.
We had Betty & Dennis over for lunch on Sunday - Betty works in the quilting shop that Cat goes to all the time, and is (of course) a keen quilter, and Dennis is her husband - an interesting mix of Texas hick and sophisticate. I think it went very well, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and the food seemed to work well : I made bacon&egg pie, and Cat made corn/cheese/onion muffins, neither of which they had ever had before - Muffins in the US seem to be exclusively of the cakey, very sweet, saturated with syrup variety, so savoury ones were a great surprise :)
Other than that, just trundling along, trying to find friends, and trying to fit in.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Bridge
The other thing we've started this week, is attending the local Bridge club, about half a mile from home. Mondays they run a 0-300 night - more or less equivalent to a B grade night, I think - and Wednesdays they run a 0-20 night, for beginners (the other nights are either open, or for higher graded players).
The Monday night crowd was about 30 - 8 tables, so we played 3 hands per table, 21 hands for the evening. That worked well, as it meant stopping around 10 p.m. Given it was our first time playing for 10 years or more, we did pretty satisfactorily I think - 43% & slightly under halfway: a couple of fiascos, as to be expected when we were so rusty, but also a few good top boards, including a slam noone else bid.
Wednesday night was only 7 pairs, so we played 6 rounds, 3 hands per round, shifting from N/S pair to E/W pair partway through, to allow all the pairs to play eachother. This was much more relaxed, with time (and the inclination) to stop and discuss tricky hands afterwards, which made the whole thing feel much looser and friendlier. We did fairly well again, placing right in the middle this time (4th of 7), after a couple of blips - and again a few really excellent hands. Overall I think our bidding is working fairly well, but we need to work on defensive play.
All in all, a good start, and hopefully a small bridge to congenial companions.
The Monday night crowd was about 30 - 8 tables, so we played 3 hands per table, 21 hands for the evening. That worked well, as it meant stopping around 10 p.m. Given it was our first time playing for 10 years or more, we did pretty satisfactorily I think - 43% & slightly under halfway: a couple of fiascos, as to be expected when we were so rusty, but also a few good top boards, including a slam noone else bid.
Wednesday night was only 7 pairs, so we played 6 rounds, 3 hands per round, shifting from N/S pair to E/W pair partway through, to allow all the pairs to play eachother. This was much more relaxed, with time (and the inclination) to stop and discuss tricky hands afterwards, which made the whole thing feel much looser and friendlier. We did fairly well again, placing right in the middle this time (4th of 7), after a couple of blips - and again a few really excellent hands. Overall I think our bidding is working fairly well, but we need to work on defensive play.
All in all, a good start, and hopefully a small bridge to congenial companions.
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