Davidson Woods

Fat and old --should they be against universal health care?
Tom submitted on January 15, 1970
here is the link to the full article, http://meganmccardle.theatlantic.com

you have to scroll down to the post entitled "A Long Long Post about my reasons for opposing National Health Care" . A short bio of Ms. McCardle follows the excerpt here.

here's the interesting excerpt, from Megan McCardle:
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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENThere is the link to the full article,         <a href="http://meganmccardle.theatlantic.com">http://meganmccardle.theatlantic.com</a> you have to scroll down to the post entitled "A Long Long Post about my reasons for opposing National Health Care" .  A short bio of Ms. McCardle follows the excerpt here. here's the interesting excerpt, from Megan McCardle: The other major reason that I am against national health care is the increasing license it gives elites to wrap their claws around every aspect of everyone's life.  Look at the uptick in stories on obesity in the context of health care reform.  Fat people are a problem!  They're killing themselves, and our budget!  We must stop them!  And what if people won't do it voluntarily?  Because let's face it, so far, they won't.    Making information, or fresh vegetables, available, hasn't worked--every intervention you can imagine on the voluntary front, and several involuntary ones, has already been tried either in supermarkets or public schools.  Americans are getting fat because they're eating fattening foods, and not exercising.  How far are we willing to go beyond calorie labelling on menus to get people to slim down? These aren't just a way to save on health care; they're a way to extend and expand the cultural hegemony of wealthy white elites.  No, seriously.  Living a fit, active life is correlated with being healthier.  But then, as an economist recently pointed out to me, so is being religious, being married, and living in a small town; how come we don't have any programs to promote these "healthy lifestyles"?  When you listen to obesity experts, or health wonks, talk, their assertions boil down to the idea that overweight people are either too stupid to understand why they get fat, or have not yet been made sufficiently aware of society's disgust for their condition.  Yet this does not describe any of the overweight people I have ever known, including the construction workers and office clerks at Ground Zero.  All were very well aware that the burgers and fries they ate made them fat, and hitting the salad bar instead would probably help them lose weight.  They either didn't care, or felt powerless to control their hunger.  They were also very well aware that society thought they were disgusting, and many of them had internalized this message to the point of open despair.  What does another public campaign about overeating have to offer them, other than oozing condescension? Of course, the obese aren't the only troublesome bunch.  The elderly are also wasting a lot of our hard earned money with their stupid "last six months" end-of-life care.  Eliminating this waste is almost entirely the concern of men under 45 or 50, and women under 25.  On the other hand, that describes a lot of the healthcare bureaucracy, especially in public health. Once the government gets into the business of providing our health care, the government gets into the business of deciding whose life matters, and how much.  It gets into the business of deciding what we "really" want, where what we really want can never be a second chocolate eclair that might make us a size fourteen and raise the cost of treating us. I realize that to most people, these are airy-fairy considerations that should be overridden by the many "practical" considerations of the awesomenes of central health care.  Well, I'm actually pretty underwhelmed by that awesomeness, for reasons I'll happily elaborate elsewhere.  But not here, because fundamentally, to me, the effect on the tax code and the relative efficiency of various sorts of bureaucracy are mostly beside the point.  The real issue is the effect on future lives, and future freedom.  And in my opinion, they way in overwhelmingly on the side of stopping further government encroachments into health care provision.  About Megan McCardle. note many similar conjunctions--The Economist, Univ of Penn, Univ of Chicago, lives in NW Washington: About Megan McArdle Megan McArdle was born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and yes, she does enjoy her lattes, as well as the occasional extra dry skim milk cappuccino. Her checkered work history includes three start-ups, four years as a technology project manager for a boutique consulting firm, a summer as an associate at an investment bank, and a year spent as sort of an executive copy girl for one of the disaster recovery firms at Ground Zero . . . all before the age of thirty. While working at Ground Zero, she started Live from the WTC, a blog focused on economics, business, and cooking. She may or may not have been the first major economics blogger, depending on whether we are allowed to throw outlying variables such as Brad Delong out of the set. From there it was but a few steps down the slippery slope to freelance journalism. For the past four years she has worked in various capacities for The Economist, where she wrote about economics and oversaw the founding of Free Exchange, the magazine's economics blog. She has also maintained her own blog, Asymmetrical Information, which moved to the Atlantic Monthly, along with its owner, in August 2007. Megan holds a bachelor's degree in English literature from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from the University of Chicago. After a lifetime as a New Yorker, she now resides in northwest Washington DC, where she is still trying to figure out what one does with an apartment larger than 400 square feet.
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On the Road Again - July 7, 2009
Anne and Chuck submitted on January 15, 1970
We have stopped for the evening in central Tennessee, having left Cherokee NC late this morning. The motor home came to life nicely and chugged over the Smokies in proper form. We coasted down through Pigeon Forge and past Knoxville. Tomorrow we roll into Henersonville to visit the Davidsons. From there we have planned stops in southern Illinois and then near St. Louis before arriving in Chicago. Looking forward to the celebration.
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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTWe have stopped for the evening in central Tennessee, having left Cherokee NC late this morning.  The motor home came to life nicely and chugged over the Smokies in proper form.  We coasted down through Pigeon Forge and past Knoxville.  Tomorrow we roll into Henersonville to visit the Davidsons.  From there we have planned stops in southern Illinois and then near St. Louis before arriving in Chicago.  Looking forward to the celebration. Anne finished working on June 24th, and we drove to Cape Hatteras with the car on the 25th.  There we took two boat rides in search of sea birds, finding several including our first Bermuda Petrel.  From there we returned briefly to PA.  A dead alternator stalled us a few hours, but our early "birding wakeup" still allowed us to make it home in one day.   We stopped first to spend the night with Chuck's parents on Monday.  On Tuesday we arrived at our house and visited with neighbors.  On Friday Chuck's sister drove from Princeton to York with both our children aboard.  We all met at Chuck's parents for the first feast of the weekend.  We took Alex and Elley home with us that night. On Saturday we became hosts of the party.  The weather was grand and the barbeque sizzled.  We closed out the evening with our children watching a video of "Pirates of Penzance" made at a performance in Central Park, NY. On Sunday, Alex moved to California.  We all rose early.  Chuck made a nice breakfast of eggs and home fries.  We dropped Alex off at the Harrisburg airport at 7:30 a.m.  and then turned back to bring Elley to the train station downtown.  She was meeting friends in Philadelphia before returning to NYC.  Then we drove to York one last time to say goodby to Chuck's parents and breakfast with an old friend of Anne's.  After that we started west, stopping again at our house to pick up our luggage and shut down the house.  We'll not see it again until September. From there we started down I-81 and stopped early at Staunton, VA to visit friends there.  Yesterday afternoon we arrived back at our motor home in Cherokee, NC.  It was well.  We relaxed and packed for today's departure with rig.  This morning, Anne made a final run to the hosptial to return a borrowed screened room and make final good-by's.  We pulled out of the campground before Noon. On the last morning we glanced at the iris bed, saw a wood thrush hop across the campsite, and crossed out of Cherokee for a last time this year.  We enjoyed most of April, May, and June there this year.  Finally, we crossed the Great Smoky Mouuntains National Park to reach Tennessee.  A bittersweet departure.
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A Day on the Beach – June 2009
Anne and Chuck submitted on January 15, 1970

Birding on the beach is often a relaxed affair and, if sunscreen is not neglected, usually without significant adventure. Even as I write this I am reminded of watching out for polar bears on the coast at Churchill, Manitoba and of a windchill at Barnegat Light, NJ that drove us off despite a multitude of layers one fine winter day. Still, usually birding the beach means little more than slogging a bit through the sand and scanning the shore and waves. There is usually little danger of getting lost, being mauled, or sliding down a cliff.

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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTBirding on the beach is often a relaxed affair and, if sunscreen is not neglected, usually without significant adventure.  Even as I write this I am reminded of watching out for polar bears on the coast at Churchill, Manitoba and of a windchill at Barnegat Light, NJ that drove us off despite a multitude of layers one fine winter day.  Still, usually birding the beach means little more than slogging a bit through the sand and scanning the shore and waves.  There is usually little danger of getting lost, being mauled, or sliding down a cliff. So, having arrived at Frisco Campground on Cape Hatteras a day early for a pelagic birding boat trip with Brian Patteson and not wanting to drive anywhere after a ten-hour journey from Cherokee, NC the day before, we decided to make an easy walk along the beach.  From earlier visits we knew of a trail that connected through the “Buxton Woods” to the road near the Cape Point Campground.  I thought it was about three miles long and that we could complete a trek on this sand trail and reach that campground in the cool of the morning.  We would carry only a liter of water and refill there.  We might then walk out to the Cape Point and follow the beach back to Frisco.  Easy. The walk started off well enough.  The coastal woods were lovely and we saw or heard most of the resident birds including a bright summer tanager.  Then soft sand made the walk more difficult.  Much worse, in places the trail was overgrown and the grass remained damp.  We had not dressed to avoid chiggers and ticks.  Not only did the trail deteriorate but after a time we noticed a mile marker No. 4.  When we saw No. 3, we realized that the walk to Cape Point would be longer than expected.  Still, we are hikers, and could manage it.  I knew we could shorten the walk by finding a short cut back to the beach and not go to the very point.  This option disappointed me because Cape Point is a highlight of this seashore, but I knew Anne was not up for a twelve-mile hike.  We had not packed lunch.  Still, I thought it would be about a six-mile walk to the Cape Point Campground and three or four more miles back along the beach.  We would ask a ranger at the campground for the shortest path.  We came out to the road and walked toward the campground and the point.  There was no obvious source of water along the road.  As it turned out we passed a ranger station, but there was no sign and we didn’t recognize it.  We turned in at the campground.  Anne was upset because we would have to walk back out.  I said it was not far to the kiosk and water.  This was true, but we found the campground nearly abandoned.  There were campers, but not in the first two loops.  Worse, there were no rangers.  The camping was “self-serve.”  This was disappointing but we had walked the roads around the Cape before and I thought I could lead us through.  We found a water spigot, drank well and filled the canteen for a shorter return trip. We walked back to the road and came to the first junction.  I said we should keep right and the road would take us out south of the Cape Point.  Anne agreed to this plan.  She was “ready” to get back to camp.  At the second “Y” the road was marked ‘closed to vehicles’ but indicated a course to “South Beach.”  I was relieved that my memory was confirmed.  We continued.  The road was soft and the walking was difficult, but we made good time.  I commented that we had made a trade off.  The walking would have been easier along the sweet patch at the edge of the moist sand on the beach, but we were reducing the length of our walk by at least a few miles.  The walk while difficult was not unpleasant.  We were serenaded by catbirds and yellowthroats.  The side roads across the marsh were now closed for bird breeding, but we would take this open road back to the beach.  The distance was about two miles.  Once on the beach, we would probably have another two miles to Frisco Campground.  The road at last passed through a dune and turned out to the beach.  There we saw a wire across it and a sign saying “Closed.”  We were unhappily surprised and studied our situation.  Our canteen was half full.  The walk back to Cape Point would be difficult.  The walk back to Frisco by the route we took would be impractical to say the least.  Anne said simply she could not do it.  We would have to continue.  I didn’t like the idea, but thought the closure was just of the area behind the beach.  We would have to “sneak across” to the beach.  There might be some nesting birds in the road.  If so we would go around them to avoid disturbance. It was either that course or an ordeal. We walked out of the dunes.  We saw oystercatchers with young to our left.  We kept right and reached the waters edge.  I was surprised to see no one along the beach.  Incredible as it seemed, I the whole beach seemed to be closed.  This made no sense, but we had no choice but to continue.  A single track indicated passage of a patrol vehicle.  The distance to Frisco appeared to be about two miles.  We were good for a safe return.  We might be stopped when we came out and would have to explain our predicament.  Unfortunate, but unavoidable.  The walk remained pleasant, but we were anxious and tired.  We nursed our water.  We saw least terns nesting in the dunes inland of our path and sanderlings early returned from the north at the edge of the surf.  Now we were coming close to the beachcomers and beachbuggies.  But, as we approached the line, we saw a single vehicle driving towards us.  Of course it was a ranger.  Actually it was the bird biologist and an intern.  She asked if we knew we were on a closed beach.  I said that I had figured that out, and that we had been forced out to avoid an emergency.  I said we were walking between the tide marks to avoid disturbing wildlife.  She said we could not continue on this path because there were nesting birds ahead.  I knew there were no nests along the tide line, but knew better than to argue.  So, we took a long ride back to Cape Point.  The good was that we saw parts of the beach that we would not otherwise have been able to access.  The bad was that we were exhausted and needed to return to camp to clean up and refresh after some eight miles of walking.  We were taken to the ranger station.  We were informed that the sign had blown away.  That is why we didn’t recognize it.  We were also told that the kiosk at the campground had burned.  That is why there was no ranger at the campground.  At the ranger station we were transferred to the turtle biologist’s truck.  We sat there and waited for the “enforcement officer.”  He asked for our story, which was briefly given.  Then he lectured us.  He told us he could prosecute and we would be fined $150 each, but he didn’t have time.  He said the closings were serious, etc. etc.  We listened quietly with exhaustion.  There was little to say really.  We had walked eight miles and needed to complete the loop to survive or at least prevent a crisis.  We had looked for assistance in selecting a route but had found none.  It never occurred to us that the beach itself would be closed on a “National Seashore.”  We had no warning until we had gone too far.  Only later would we read of the consent decree, the beach closings, and the controversy. Finally, we were given a ride back to our campground at Frisco.  This time a discussion of turtle nesting at the Cape eased what seemed to be an interminable drive.  Still, it was just Noon when were arrived back at our camp.  We had started our “easy morning stroll” about six a.m. and had almost completed an inward spiral on foot before it was interrupted.   Then we made a much larger outward spiral by vehicles back again.  We munched our lunch decided on a retreat from the afternoon heat to a movie matinee.  Only that night did we discover that the overgrown trail had indeed been infested with chiggers.  Unable to clean up soon enough, we were well bitten.  We thought that evening too of the time on Hatteras when someone tried to climb into our tent.  We decided that Hatteras, despite its beauty, has never been a good place for us.  We may still return for its charms, but we will always view it with suspicion.  I didn’t think much of the closed beach when we were on it, but afterwards concluded that closing the intertidal zone to foot traffic is a case of bad regulation that ill benefits conservation.  It might provide slight benefit to brooding shorebirds, but alienates their conservation to the beachgoing public that must support it to achieve their survival.  We loose so much of our beach life to development, must we now give up seeing the rest because we might disturb it?  Can these birds that nest on our roofs and just behind the beach and have tolerated our presence for so long no longer put up with us?  I shake my head and move on?  There are still other places to go.  
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Interesting Johnny Cash--Bob Dyln anecdote and consrvative principles
Tom submitted on January 15, 1970
Waughian Conservatism

Tuesday, July 7, 2009, 3:11 AM

Joe Carter

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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENT<div class="blogEntryTitle"><a href="http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2009/07/07/waughian-conservatism/" rel="bookmark">Waughian Conservatism</a></div> <div class="blogEntryDate">Tuesday, July 7, 2009, 3:11 AM</div> <div class="blogEntryAuthor">Joe Carter</div> <div id="post-4896" class="post-4896 post hentry category-uncategorized"> <div class="blogEntryContent1"> <div class="blogEntry"> <div class="storycontent"> While working on a recording together, Johnny Cash asked Bob Dylan if he knew “Ring of Fire.” Dylan said he did and began to play it on the piano, croaking it out in typical Dylanesque fashion. When he was done he turned to his friend and said, “It goes something like that, right?” “No,” said Cash shaking his head. “It doesn’t go like that at all.” I can understand how Cash felt; I often get the same feeling when people talk about conservatism. For example, a friend of mine once wrote that, “Conservatism is what it is and it’s not subject to interpretation. It’s not a ‘living’ concept subject to the vagaries of public opinion. It’s small government, low taxes, and muscular foreign policy in its simplest form.” Although many conservatives in America would nod in agreement to that tune, all I can think is that while some of the words are right, “It doesn’t go like that at all.” No one seems to be able to agree on what the term conservatism means anymore, so we’re forced to keep adding modifiers—neo, paleo, pomo, crunchy—to clarify what we intend. That being the (unfortunate) case, let me add one more for consideration: Waughian conservatism. William F. Buckley, Jr. considered <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Waugh">Evelyn Waugh</a> to be “the greatest English novelist of the century.” His novels are certainly are worth reading (A Handful of Dust is a personal favorite) but it was a travel memoir that provides some of his most intriguing and overlooked thought. In his book, Mexico: An Object Lesson, Waugh presents what could be considered a succinct manifesto of his British, Catholic-influenced conservatism. (I’ve taken the liberty of breaking up the text into paragraphs to make it easier to read): Let me, then, warn the reader that I was a Conservative when I went to Mexico and that everything I saw there strengthened my opinions. I believe that man is, by nature, an exile and will never be self-sufficient or complete on this earth; That his chances of happiness and virtue, here, remain more or less constant through the centuries and, generally speaking, are not much affected by the political and economic conditions in which he lives; That the balance of good and ill tends to revert to a norm; That sudden changes of physical condition are usually ill, and are advocated by the wrong people for the wrong reasons; That the intellectual communists of today have personal, irrelevant grounds for their antagonism to society, which they are trying to exploit. I believe in government; That men cannot live together without rules but that they should be kept at the bare minimum of safety; That there is no form of government ordained from God as being better than any other; That the anarchic elements in society are so strong that it is a whole-time task to keep the peace. I believe that the inequalities of wealth and position are inevitable and that it is therefore meaningless to discuss the advantages of elimination; That men naturally arrange themselves in a system of classes; That such a system is necessary for any form of co-operation work, more particularly the work of keeping a nation together. I believe in nationality; not in terms of race or of divine commissions for world conquest, but simply thus: mankind inevitably organizes itself in communities according to its geographical distribution; These communities by sharing a common history develop common characteristics and inspire local loyalty; The individual family develops most happily and fully when it accepts these natural limits. A conservative is not merely an obstructionist, a brake on frivolous experiment. He has positive work to do. Civilization has no force of its own beyond what it is given from within. It is under constant assault and it takes most of the energies of civilized man to keep going at all. Barbarism is never finally defeated; given propitious circumstances, men and women who seem quite orderly, will commit every conceivable atrocity. Unremitting effort is needed to keep men living together at peace What can we Americans learn from this indirect manifesto? What should we plunder in order to use in our own understanding of what it means to be a conservative? </div> </div> </div> </div>
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some interesting thoughts on the coverage of Michael Jackson's death
Tom submitted on January 15, 1970
From "The Corner"

Friday, June 26, 2009

Some Quick Thoughts on Michael Jackson [Jonah Goldberg]

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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTFrom "The Corner" Friday, June 26, 2009 <img src="http://www2.nationalreview.com/images/blog_dotted_divider.gif" alt="" />   Some Quick Thoughts on Michael Jackson   [<a href="mailto:JonahNRO@gmail.com">Jonah Goldberg</a>]   Generally speaking, I’m a believer in the rule that we should not speak ill of the dead. Or at least we should wait a decent interval before doing so (if we never spoke ill of the dead, history would be meaningless). But, I must say I find the media’s instinctive rush to sanctify Michael Jackson disgusting. Look, I understand that Michael Jackson was an “icon.” I understand that some people loved his work and that many people who never met him believed they loved the man too. But I didn't, and I’m hardly alone. If Michael Jackson were just another famous person, I’d probably stay silent and let the pro forma celebration of his memory roll by without comment. (For instance, I have no problem whatsoever with the media taking a moment to pay respects to Farah Fawcett). Sure, I liked the Jackson Five. I liked “Thriller,” too, when I was a teenager. Michael Jackson was an “icon” for me too. But let’s pause for a moment on that word “icon.” It seemed the consensus adjective for the news networks. NBC ran a special on two “American Icons” — Fawcett and Jackson. Every cable network (including Fox, for the record) used the word “icon” to describe him as if this was some sort of safe harbor, a word everyone could agree on. “Love him or hate him,” the implied logic went, “he was an ‘icon.’” Yes, well, maybe so. But that doesn’t let you off the hook. Even though the term sounds neutral, it isn’t. An icon, technically speaking, is a religious symbol deserving of reverence and adoration. The networks may not have intended to use the word that way, but they certainly showed an unseemly amount of reverence and adoration for the man. I think part of it is the narcissism of our celebrity culture. Here was a guy so many of “us” read about in People magazine for so long. His passing, therefore, isn’t a loss in the sorrowful sense of the word, but in the selfish one. It’s a loss of an interesting subject, a creature to gossip about and to fill a few minutes on E! or Entertainment Tonight. Everyone likes to invoke Lord Acton’s axiom that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” But nearly everyone forgets that he coined this phrase not to indict powerful men, but to <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=XFrIeWud0_wC&pg=RA1-PA372&dq=power+corrupts,+acton,+creighton,+letter&ei=LFFESqqNHoqEywTTxshW&client=safari">instruct</a> the historians who write about them. Historians tend to forgive the powerful their transgressions. Likewise, journalists (for want of a better word) tend to forgive the famous. Calling Michael Jackson an icon doesn’t let him off the hook for anything. But to listen to the news anchors you’d think it absolves him of everything. I say: Who cares who his famous friends were? Who cares what a “fascinating” person he was? If you want to talk about his death as an end of an era, have at it. But that’s not what the Barbara Walters set is doing. I know that Michael Jackson wasn’t convicted of the despicable crimes he was accused of. And that’s why he never went to jail. Three cheers for the majesty of the American legal system. But in my own personal view, he wasn’t exonerated either. Nor was he absolved of his crimes because he could sing, moonwalk, or sell 10 million records. (Though many of us suspect the money and fame he made from those things is precisely what kept him out of jail). And, while I merely think he was a pedophile, I know he was not someone responsible parents should applaud, healthy children emulate, nor society celebrate. And while we’re at it, his relatively early death wasn’t “tragic.” He was one of the richest people in the world. He spent his money on perpetual childhood and he was perpetually with children not his own. Meanwhile, in the last ten days, we’ve seen or heard of remarkable people who’ve given their lives for freedom in Iran. We’ve heard of innocents killed because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the last decade, America has lost thousands of heroes in noble causes and thousands of innocent bystanders who were denied the simple joys of life through no fault of their own. Those deaths are tragic, and we're hard pressed to think of more than a handful of names to put with the long line of the dead. If anything, Michael Jackson’s life, not his death, was tragic. Every year at the Oscars they show a montage of people who died over the previous year. Invariably, the audience only applauds for the really famous people. This has always offended me. Not necessarily because the famous people don’t deserve praise but because it’s so clear that the audience is clapping for the fame. Michael Jackson had many accomplishments. But the press is sanctifying him because he was famous, deservedly so to be sure, but not because he was good.  So much of the coverage seems to miss this fundamental point, as if being famous made him good. I feel sympathy for Jackson’s family and friends who understandably mourn him. But I can't bring myself to mourn him any more than I mourn the random dead I read about in the paper everyday. Indeed, I confess to mourning him less. Every channel says this is a sad day for America. I agree. But not for the same reasons.
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Health Care – USA
Anne and Chuck submitted on January 15, 1970
OK, I’m a skeptic. I watch with dismay as the government endeavors to “fix the health care problem.” This is the same government that has created the problem. Much as the Congressmen who most contributed to the current financial crisis now are in charge of a fix for that, I anticipate that the same politicians who add more and more to our health care costs will develop the plan to make it cheaper.

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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTOK, I’m a skeptic.  I watch with dismay as the government endeavors to “fix the health care problem.”  This is the same government that has created the problem.  Much as the Congressmen who most contributed to the current financial crisis now are in charge of a fix for that, I anticipate that the same politicians who add more and more to our health care costs will develop the plan to make it cheaper. I have more than an academic interest in this subject.  We are among the few who pay directly for our health care.  This is not quite true because we must utilize “an administrator” or we would be overcharged.  Health care is perhaps the only service for which paying cash results in a surcharge.  It is better to refer the supplier to our “administrator” (agent) and then after a couple of weeks we are told how much to pay the supplier.  Then the supplier sends us an invoice and we pay the reduced charge.  Tell me how this benefits either the consumer or the supplier?  I pay the administrator to negotiate the reduced charge, and the supplier waits weeks for payment.  Simply dumb. I believe that the United States population is about 304 million.  Of these some 50 million are uninsured.  There are various reasons for this, but it is largely because the cost is too high for the benefits desired.  The health care cost for our population is estimated at some $2.5 trillion.  This includes the cost of caring for the uninsured, of course, because in our generous society medical care is provided even to those who can’t or won’t pay for it.  The total cost amounts to some $8,200 per person (pp).  This is the health care problem in America.  How many of us would conclude that the improvement in our health provided by health care is worth this much?  For a family of four this comes to some $32,000.  Clearly many families of four would want much more economical health care if it were available.  I suspect that a family earning say $40,000 would consider $4,000 to be a reasonable cost for hospitalization insurance and maybe $1-2,000 for out-patient doctor, dentist, optometric care and drugs.  Why would an average family not want to spend some $32,000 each year for health care?  Even if the family could afford it, whoever is in charge of finances would consider the cost way out of line for the benefits.  Certainly the family wants to protect its health, but it also want to eat, drink, go out, and travel from time to time.  Spending this much on health care to extend life under as many circumstances as possible is simply excessive.  Most would rather take the money for a better life during periods of health and die a bit sooner if chance would so have it.  Unfortunately families are not given that choice.  No one in government is talking about that. Instead, the proposal is to increase spending by another about $150 billion each year.  This is such a huge number that we cannot really grasp it, but dividing it by the some 50 million uninsured gives a value of  $3,000 pp.  At first glance, this might not seem a bad cost compared to the $8,200 pp of medical care now.  Except, we must ask, what is it for?  It would seem that this cost is to increase the benefits for the currently uninsured.  As, I said already, these folks are already receiving medical care.  The care may not be as good as that received by the insured, but it is there.  Thus, the additional cost must be to equalize their care with that of the insured.  In effect, the program is to increase medical care and with it the total medical cost for everyone.  The program will increase the cost for the entire population to $8,700 pp.  This does not seem to address the basic problem that medical care is already too expensive. More, since it is doubtful that most of the newly insured will be paying for their benefits, it is likely that the rest of us will have to pay more for medical care. I am not sure how this is possible, but am fascinated to find out.  More importantly, I want to know how it will affect me.  So far, the news is not good, but as convoluted as our health cost payment system is, it is not easy to determine exactly how the new regime change will affect me personally.  This is in large part because the payment of health costs and of taxes are already so closely intertwined, even for us who in theory pay directly for our health care. Last year Anne and I paid some $17,000 for health care including $7,000 for hospitalization insurance, $8,000 for long-term care insurance, and $2,000 for out-patient care, etc.  But, our cost is not as simple as that.  Because we carefully limit our income, health care greatly exceeds 10% of it.  That means we can deduct health care costs (in excess of 10%) from our income tax.  On top of that we receive a deduction for putting money into a health savings account.  Without recalculating my income taxes (horror) I can’t put an exact value on the tax credit for health costs, but I estimate it at about $5,000.  So our health care cost is about $12,000.  At $6,000 pp we clearly are getting a great bargain (based on the calculations above) even though the cost seems obscene to us.  The new administration does not believe in high-deductible health insurance policies.  The indication is that it will demand we purchase a low-deductible policy and also wipe out any deduction for a health savings account (H.S.A).  This will likely increase our insurance cost by much more than the $2,000 we paid for costs other than insurance and probably not reduce our non-insurance costs by very much.    On top of this, we will loose whatever part of our tax deduction was for the H.S.A.  These changes will significantly increase our cost. The short of it is that the new program will increase medical costs, a huge negative when medical costs are already much too high.  We are being sucker-punched here; most of us never see how much it is costing us, and now it will cost us more.  Some like to imagine that if it is a government program, someone else will pay.  For some that may be true, but if we believe that someone else is going to pay more than a fraction of that new $150 billion a year health cost, we are stupid.  I wonder how we will manage to pay for it.  I simply don’t see how we can.  Probably the whole system will collapse, and that could be a good thing.  It would make much more sense though, if we let folks pay directly for their own health care.  The costs would quickly come under control and we would get what we want at a reasonable price.  It seems almost criminal that the current system makes it so that many of us have completely lost the need (and ability) to save and pay for things such as doctor’s visits or the delivery of a child.  This “having it taken care of” attitude makes us dependent and irresponsible.  Some of us seem miffed when a medical provider demands even a ten or twenty dollar “co-pay.”  Our failure to pay directly for basic medical services does not insulate us from these costs; it hides them from us.  That is dangerous.  Instead of showing us the costs in meaningful terms, our Congress appears to believe we are willing to imagine we live in a fairy world where unlimited medical services that let us live nearly forever, can be had by all with someone else paying for it.  That is deceitful to no end.  Forgive me if I have a problem with that.  Being a minority voice, I expect the magic of propaganda to succeed, but I could wait forever to spend more on health care.  
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Electro-magnetic pulse doomsday scenario
Tom submitted on January 15, 1970
Hey, doomsdayers! Here's a link to an article from a Canadian magazine--Maclean's-- which talks about a fictional account about the destruction of all computers through electro-magnetic pulse explosion or something--and how it used to be a concern 'cause it would wipe out all our bank accounts. But now, it might be a blessing because it would wipe out all our debt! It's by a conservative humorist, but its not bitter or repulsive, like some of his articles.

I thought about it again after reading Chuck's May 15, 2009 post.
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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTHey, doomsdayers!  Here's a link to an article from a Canadian magazine--Maclean's-- which talks about a fictional account about the destruction of all computers through electro-magnetic pulse explosion or something--and how it used to be a concern 'cause it would wipe out all our bank accounts.  But now, it might be a blessing because it would wipe out all our debt!  It's by a conservative humorist, but its not bitter or repulsive, like some of his articles. I thought about it again after reading Chuck's May 15, 2009 post. Best place to invest-- buy land in North Carolina where you can grow things! <a href="http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/06/11/so-your-bank-account%e2%80%99s-wiped-out/print/">http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/06/11/so-your-bank-account%e2%80%99s-wiped-out/print/</a>
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June 8, 2009, Cherokee NC
Anne and Chuck submitted on January 15, 1970
We are both enjoying our remaining weeks in the high mountains and preparing for travels after our departure. We have let some of you know our plans directly. Others may be interested in an outline of our travels below.

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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTWe are both enjoying our remaining weeks in the high mountains and preparing for travels after our departure.  We have let some of you know our plans directly.  Others may be interested in an outline of our travels below. Anne works until June 25th.  On that day we will drive to Cape Hatteras where we have plans to take to the high seas in search of pelagic birds.  These adventures in deep-sea fishing boats are at times heavenly and at others nauseating.  We have seen sperm whales, giant loggerhead turtles, miles of banded seaweed, huge waves, and sea as flat as glass.  Mostly, of course, we go to look for birds such as shearwaters, petrels, and boobies that come to land only to nest and so are mostly far from it. We will take only our car on this trip and continue on to Pennsylvania to visit Chuck’s family and our house.  After the 4th of July we will return to Cherokee to recover our motorhome and begin our journey west.  We plan stops at Mark Davidson’s parents in Hendersonville TN, Shawnee National Forest, and near St. Louis before arriving in Chicago.  There we will camp at the Illinois Beach State Park north of the City.  After festivities there we will move west into Iowa to meet Elley who is planning to peddle across that state in the Ragbrai Tour.  We will make another stop along the Mississippi River before arriving at Lake Farm Park in Madison.  There as in Chicago, we will arrive Thursday and depart Monday.  After Madison we will work our way east with stops near Point Pelee in southern Ontario and Golden Hill and Cayuga Lake State Parks in New York.  This travel should take us into Schenectady for a final wedding of the season.  We look forward to seeing many Woods in these travels.  We should be in our house during the fall of this year should anyone wish to see the hills of Pennsylvania or the Gettysburg battlefield and park. Here we have spent a lot of time walking trails in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, looking for birds, and paddling our canoe down modest whitewater streams.  Anne has enjoyed the work, but looks forward to its ending as well.  We have stayed in a private campground well removed from the highway.  Our social life here is limited, but we have friends who work at the hospital.  Anne works on quilting, and Chuck studies natural history.  Some might find living in a motorhome confining, but we find it adequate and comfortable.  Having less to manage is rewarding in itself, and if we want more room we go outside.  The computer or “corresponder” that it has become provides rapid communication.  This is good, because mail has difficulty reaching us at times.  I could blame it on our moving from place to place, but the bigger problem is it is a governmental operation.  I chuckle to recall a comment by Milton Friedman, I believe, who when told the government was going to take over the passenger railroads to “fix them” said it was a good idea considering what a wonderful job the government did with the post office.   
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May 15, 2009 – Qualla, NC
Anne and Chuck submitted on January 15, 1970
Friday after lunch at Ft. Wilderness Campground. I (Chuck) laundered and paid bills this morning. I have other chores and work on my Florida tree identification program for this afternoon. The forecast is for showers over the weekend, but we will still attempt a walk tomorrow morning in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and we may on Sunday go paddling on the Tuckaseegee River. Anne will be off work on Wednesday, but we have made no plans for that day yet. We would like to make a long day-hike, but we will watch for a break in the showery weather.
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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTFriday after lunch at Ft. Wilderness Campground.  I (Chuck) laundered and paid bills this morning.  I have other chores and work on my Florida tree identification program for this afternoon.  The forecast is for showers over the weekend, but we will still attempt a walk tomorrow morning in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and we may on Sunday go paddling on the Tuckaseegee River.  Anne will be off work on Wednesday, but we have made no plans for that day yet.  We would like to make a long day-hike, but we will watch for a break in the showery weather. Anne has enjoyed work at the clinic at the small and elegant Cherokee Hospital, but there are, as always with work, challenges.  She tries to provide sensitive care to patients, many of whom have “medically complicated problems.”  Her four-day workweek is good; she works nine to ten hours usually when she is on, so the schedule is almost full-time.  She has friends now at the hospital and enjoys their company.  Still, the setting is institutional and bureaucratic, and personnel issues are also often “complicated.”  I have never ceased to be amazed that some people find unhappiness at a good job and elect to be petty.  Medicine at Cherokee is socialized; sadly this does not result in a healthier community.  Patient compliance is even tougher when there is no economic penalty for non-compliance.  The wealth of Cherokee provides billboards about such things as diabetes and smoking hazards, but many folks seem to expect that these are problems to be managed by the medical community.  Too many young people appear at the clinic wanting “pain pills” for chronic discomforts.  Others choose to avoid doctors until the ailment has become very serious.  The mixture of routine and more difficult cases makes the medicine at least interesting.   We will now be staying almost through June, and then be off to the Midwest after a short visit to Pennsylvania.  That means we will be here through the rhododendron blooming season.  Hurrah! Alex is visiting this Thursday through Tuesday of next week.  We look forward to some playtime with him before he migrates to central California.  I have tried to walk at least every other day on one or another local trail, watching the arrival of spring and the associated budding and blooming of plants and the arrival of migratory songbirds.  This has been great fun.  Spring is still arriving at elevations above 5K feet.  The road to Balsam Mountain campground opened last week, and I visited it for the first time on Tuesday.  The leaves were just coming out and already an eastern wood peewee and a black-throated blue warbler had made nests among the spruce trees.  Alder-leaved viburnum shrubs were in bloom in the shadows of the balsam trees.  The light breeze was chilly on the mountaintop, but the sunlight was brilliant and I could make out with binoculars the tower on Clingman’s Dome some thirty miles away.    Evenings are quiet.  I cook as fine a dinner as is practical with the motorhome facilities, and then we work on small projects and watch TV or video from 9-10.  With an early bedtime we have caught up on our reading and sleep.  We listen to the news, but ignore it as best we can.  The federal government has become a blackhole sucking up more and more.  Already there is no market for money.  Interest paid is much less than inflation.  Bonds are outrageously overpriced with inflation looming, and while stock has become cheaper, the new administration seems to enjoy bashing business.  We expected “a correction” with the change of administrations, but now expect a long recession and punitive taxation.  Our retirement may not go so well on the long run, but then again the outlook for working and saving now don’t look so good either. Bizarrely, we ended up paying no federal income taxes for last year.  Health care is our largest expense.  We have to wonder how much a “nationalized health care” will add to that bill.  No point in worrying, but the future looks less bright.  A massive contraction of government will come; let us hope that it can somehow be done cleanly.  It will be painful, however it happens.  Meanwhile, private wealth is contracting and will continue to do so.  We’ll continue to putter along, but there may not be much to putter with.  Too bad. Our society also seem to be more “crisis driven” than ever, though we should be wiser with education and universal communication.  Last week “global warming” this week “the flu.”  Excuse me, I guess that is already old news.  Our expansive technology seems to give us the capability to overreact to everything, and the public seems to have bought government’s line “that it can make things better.”  When house, medical, and education expenses were exploding, the government said inflation was running at 3%.   With private credit growing in tandem with these expenses the government maintained and expanded Fannie May and Freddie Mac to promote the securitization of mortgages and credit, credit, and more credit.  When journalists complained that these institutions failed to maintain adequate reserves and that their failure would saddle the government with their liabilities and cause a rippling financial crisis, Congressmen excoriated the journalists for crying wolf.  So, the Federal Reserve Bank kept making money and all banks kept pushing loans.  I shorted houses in 2005.  The herd waited until 2007.  The government banks, Fannie May and Freddie Mac, collapsed at the end of last year and brought down several private banks with them.  Congress, of course, blames the bankers, and the government solution is to make money like crazy.  It says that inflation has gone to zero, but why then did the cost of my health insurance policy, my largest expense remember, go up by 10% this year?  The solution, no doubt will be to increase taxes.  These are probably not included in the inflation index either.  The life strategy going forward may be to earn so little that you minimize taxes and reap the most federal benefits.  This may go on for a long time, until there is so little left to reap that we tire of waiting for it.  In the 1970’s I expected the fall of the Soviet Union.  I have since heard arguments that we had something to do with that.  I find that funny.  I said then that even the policeman’s wife had to stand in line for bread.  I said that they wouldn’t take it much longer.  Within a few years they threw out the government that provided everything – and nothing.  I’d like to think that we are smarter than to have to go through the same process, but I begin to wonder.  The government has said not to save.  So, most don’t save.  I understand the pressure against it, but still!  The government has perverted our health care system so that people do not expect to pay for routine care out of pocket.  They expect insurance or someone else to do that.  Huh?  Who is going to pay for your health care?  The rich?  What is the point of working hard to get rich if the government takes half of your money?  A few may persist, but most will say, what for?  We quit work in large part when our largest expense became taxes.  We could keep working to save more, but the more we earned, the more taxes we paid.  We just stopped, and our expenses went way, way down.  The penalty for saving really came home to us when we had children in college.  Our daughter laughingly told us one time that she might be the only student she knew who was not receiving “financial aid.”  I told her she was, but it was coming from Mom and Dad.  Education was, behind taxes, our largest family expense.  We saved furiously for it.  Our bonds earned about 6%.   The feds took 2% of that in taxes and 3% in inflation.  College tuitions went up 12% a year.  That was criminal, but the government kept throwing more and more money “into education.”  Educators smiled and kept increasing the cost of tuition.  College presidents are not stupid.  Students and parents smiled when they received financial aid thinking that somehow they were being helped, but for some reason they still had to pay bills.  The few who didn’t get assistance fumed because we had to pay not only the basic cost, but also the cost added by the federal contribution.  A double whammy.  No house of cards lasts forever.  Years ago, I was concerned when some politician said that government could not do this or that because we were indebting our children or grandchildren.  I sort of believed him.  I have since learned that the consequences of actions seldom take that long.  Simply put, a society has to support itself.  We can promise a government dole to everyone, that the U.A.W. will not go bankrupt, and that we will tax coal out of existence.  But, when the government can provide nothing, we will still have to make a go of it.  Look at the people of Cuba.  When in Florida, I looked at a collection of marvelous hand-made little motorboats.  People worked long hours illegally for foreign currency to obtain the old auto engines, repair them, and have them installed.  Then they waited for a calm night and hauled ass to los Estados Unitos.  Too bad they could not instead have created wealth in Cuba.  Here we have the freedom, but we seem to be thinking that the Cubanos have it better than we do.  Some idiot even made a movie suggesting that the Cubans have a better health care system than we do.  How does the song go? “When you have nothing, you have nothing left to loose.”  Nothing is sustainable, I suppose, but I see no reason that this country should not continue to expand wealth.  We still, in my view, have taken the best and the brightest and those most willing to work.  We have, so far, kept the world from starving and lead the development of computer technology that has enriched both the world and us.  I trust that we are not now going to become two nations, government and union employees and the rest of us.   We, as a people must put some proportion to everything.  We can’t do that if we don’t pay for it.  If we are paid for work we don’t do, if we receive benefits beyond our contributions, if our employer or the government pay for our health care, and if  “only the rich pay taxes,” we loose the connection between what we get and what it costs us.  That is a recipe for disaster.  The current recession is a hint of what can happen when you play games with money.  Sadly, we seem not to be learning a lesson.  We may face hard times if we do not start. Sorry, if I sound gloomy today. I am not, just frustrated. It is a rainy day.  I’m glad we quit work and started spending some of the savings before the government turned a portion of it to dust.  We’ll keep earning and spending a little and doing just fine.  I worry about our children.  I hope that they are looking at houses now that the bubble has gone down.  There is an old saying, “buy low and sell high.”  People tend to do just the opposite.  Good things can happen even in bad times.   
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A Unitarian Perspective - Chuck Strehl
Anne and Chuck submitted on January 15, 1970
The subject of Unitarianism has been making the rounds as plans are made for this summer’s events. As a Unitarian, I view this with some humor and also concern. I don’t mind if people consider Unitarians weird, but I do mind if people misunderstand what Unitarians are. To prevent this, I seek to discuss the views of the faith and of this person.
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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTThe subject of Unitarianism has been making the rounds as plans are made for this summer’s events.  As a Unitarian, I view this with some humor and also concern.  I don’t mind if people consider Unitarians weird, but I do mind if people misunderstand what Unitarians are.  To prevent this, I seek to discuss the views of the faith and of this person. Unitarianism is a bit odd as a religion because it supposedly lacks a creed and encourages its adherents to define their belief system (within certain guidelines.)  This means that Unitarians sharing the same religious community have beliefs that range from atheism to Catholicism.  How can this be? Let’s first start with what a Unitarian is.  Most simply, a Unitarian is a member of a church or society affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association of Beacon Hill, Boston, MA.  This church formed as a consolidation of the separate Unitarian and Universalist traditional faiths in America.  What are these faiths?  The Unitarian perspective can be summed up as disgust with the concept of Trinity.  It promoted monotheism.  There is one god, and God is not three persons.  God is God, responsible for good (and evil).  Unitarians, influenced by rationalists, Deists and freethinkers, tend to view God as non-interventionist.  The Universalists also believe in one God, and they refuse to be confounded by some calling God, Jehovah, others Koresh, and yet others Allah. That different religions see God differently and may give God various names makes no difference.  God is God, no matter what we call God or how we perceive God.  Universalists believe that all religious efforts to provide a perspective of God were worthy of consideration, but given the diverse views of God, Universalists understand that God is somewhat of a mystery and accept God as such. The Unitarians and Universalists decided along the way that their views and approaches to religion were not so different and so merged.  The Unitarian/Universalist churches still leave the definition of God largely to the individual.  Instead of providing dogmatic details, the church and congregations provide a forum for discussion of God, the creator.  Its adherents are liberal enough to tolerate a diversity of views and elect to join the church to share with others in a search for truth and meaning. Today the Unitarian/Universalist adherent still seeks to understand the creator through a rational and reflective spirituality.  The Unitarian Church itself makes no attempt to select among these views.  It leaves that to the individual members. Unitarian churches have tended to be congregationally focused and geographically concentrated in New England.  Traditionally Protestant in orientation, they provide typical church services and ceremonies recognizing births, marriages, and deaths.  Congregations are run democratically (ugh!) and so there is considerable variation among congregations.  Members are typically liberal in the sense that they are tolerant of different views or practices.  Members tend to be politically liberal as well, which can be frustrating for those of us who hold more conservative views.  The church has never tolerated racial segregation and more recently has been known for embracing homosexuals.  It would marry them too, but marriage is a civil union and state laws have largely prohibited it.   So, instead, Unitarians may provide “joining ceremonies.” Although the majority of Unitarians consider themselves to be Christian, the church is not Christian.  It attempts to draw inspiration and theology from beliefs and practices of all faiths.  The congregations provide Sunday services and religious education for youths and adults.  Since members are expected to develop their own beliefs, a major goal of educational sessions is to assist individuals in the development of their own theology.  This effort is not for everyone.  Those who want to be told what to believe find building a personal theology a nuisance or just ridiculous.  Unitarianism does not provide certainty.  Most Unitarians recognize the God concept as amorphous.  God is the creator, yes; but is God a physical force, the spirit of nature, or God the Father?  Most would probably say that they have some opinion on the subject, but can’t be sure of their conclusion.  God is a mystery, perceived differently by different people.  The best we can do is to strive to understand God.  We may accept certain beliefs, but we can’t confirm them.  Unitarians know that the Unitarians sitting next to them in church may believe something entirely different, but that they probably have a more similar view of God than the person sitting next to them at work.  Unitarians do not go to church for the Word, but to seek understanding, inspiration, and fellowship.  Given the uncertainty about God, Unitarian beliefs and morals tend to be based on humanism.  Whatever the nature of God, our actions must be guided to provide for the well being of the creation, of humanity, and of the individual.  Services vary with the congregation, but most typically include opening words, music, a children’s story, reports from members of personal joys and sorrows, a sermon, and closing words.  Sermons may relate to a biblical tale or a Buddhist one.   The minister or guest speaker may also address current events or social issues and give a moral perspective.  Some services may be devoted to music or art.  As with other religions, the services provide an excuse to get together on Sunday. I am a Unitarian coming from a Catholic become agnostic background.  I am pleased and amazed at the natural universe, but I don’t see supernatural forces at work in the world today.  I have no idea why the world exists, but I am glad it does and that I have been blessed to live in and see it.  For some brief period, my substance has been given an opportunity to be conscious of the ways of the world.  I know that it will loose this gift with death, but that it and life will go on.  I am often reminded of George Harrison’s wonderful lyrics, “and life flows on within you and without you.”  Without refers to space and time.   I don’t believe in life after death as Hades, heaven, or hell, or as reincarnation.  Consciousness is ephemeral.  Although my ego may demand I preserve my consciousness, mine vanishes each time I sleep and have no reason to fear death except for the loss of the joy of life and for the vulgar act of dying.  So, without concern for a life after death, it is important to me to do well in life for humanity and myself.  Years ago I read somewhere of the Unitarian Church and realized that it seemed to offer an appropriate forum for exploring faith.  Here was a group of individuals seeking to understand the meaning of God and to establish an ethical basis for living.  A church that seemed to lack the conceit to believe that it somehow had the true light and that all the other churches on the planet were in darkness.  A church that expected you to think and not simply to accept what was offered.  And so, I have found Unitarianism rewarding.  Spiritually I have been at peace for a long time.  Certainly I suffer guilt and uncertainty.  Woody Allen commented on the alternative (death).  I have found the basics of right and wrong easy to understand, but always there are ambiguities and we all err.  Still, I have been successful and moral in life.  The church has provided a social community and a place for my children to learn of right and wrong.  The church has also provided a voice in the community for individual rights and welfare that are frequently sacrificed with prejudice or based on rules of other churches that want to control the lives not only of their own members but of everyone else too.  I have made many friends at church and it has provided a social circle for me. I have a, perhaps Unitarian, lack of certainty that prevents my taking my faith too seriously.  The condemnation of the pagan, the heathen, the Catholic, Muslim, or Secular Humanist because of their beliefs is anathema to me.  The stoic (become Christian) golden rule is to me fundamental to peace.  As a Unitarian I endeavor to encourage tolerance while at the same time trying to accept the thoughts of those who refuse to tolerate nonconformance to their views.   My faith that each person can make this world better gives me hope for the future, but it provides no assurance that violence will be overcome.  Horrors are a part of the creation. I do not need certainty, nor expect it.  Life is uncertain.  As a Unitarian I I seek to understand and accept life.  
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