Can you say plateau? I was flat week ten at 254, then went up to 256 the Friday after Thanksgiving. But, the last three weeks had my wedding anniversary where we got to eat the wedding cake top we'd saved, plus two thanksgiving meals, one with my family and one with hers. It was just one never ending obstacle course of calories.
I'm bumping up my treadmill time to 45 minutes a day to try to get past this. My final weigh in for the weight loss competition at work is Thursday after next. I think I still have a shot of getting to 250 by then. I'm certain I can get back to 254. My toughest competitor at work also gained weight over Thanksgiving, so I just might stand a chance at winning even at 254.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Friday, November 09, 2012
A Libertarian Perspective on the Presidential Election
My goodness, what a great gnashing of teeth in some quarters that President Obama has been reelected. Reactions have ranged from agonizing soul-searching of what went wrong, to finding straw men to blame for the loss (Liberal media! Voter fraud! The Takers!) to outright ranting of how the republic has reached its final days and America is fated for a long, agonizing decline.
My own view is probably most closely aligned with the last one... but I've felt that way since the 1980s, save for a brief surge of optimism in the late 90s. And, I would have felt that way if Romney had won instead of Obama.
I know it's trite to say that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans. But, from my perspective, there's very little difference between Democrats and Republicans. Both parties have demonstrated a devotion to unrestrained use of the national credit card. Both parties have demonstrated a willingness to throw away American lives in wars of dubious value to the security of this nation. Neither side has shown a surplus of respect for individual liberties. Neither side has shown much respect for capitalism, with both parties allowing large financial institutions to loot the national treasury.
It's true that Obamacare is a monstrosity of paperwork and complications that will likely make health care more expensive, more opaque, and less responsive. But, as someone who has had many chances to witness the workings of the modern health care system, I can testify that the system before Obama was elected was a morass of paperwork, outrageous costs, opaque billing, and frustrating wait times. Last year when I developed my thyroid problems, I had no existing family physician, and most doctors offices I called to see if I could get a checkup quoted me wait times of several months before they could see me (though I did eventually find one that saw me after a wait of merely several weeks). I honestly don't know what the answer would be to improving our health care system, but I also know I certainly never heard even one sentence from Romney, McCain, or Bush that indicated that they had any better ideas than Obama did.
As for issues of national defense, as the foreign policy debate indicated, there was no discernible difference between Obama and Romney, because there is no important difference between Obama and Bush. As for Obama's horrible mishandling of the attack in Libya and what I feel is an ongoing cover up, I'm happy to admit that heads should roll for this. But, the magnitude of Obama's negligence in this situation is pretty small potatoes compared to the magnitude of Bush's deciding to invade a foreign country to protect the world from weapons of mass destruction that turned out, in retrospect, to be figments of the imagination. Four thousand Americans and a minimum of a hundred thousand Iraqis have perished because Bush made poor decisions. Compared to four US deaths, it's difficult to get too worked up by the right wing outrage machine.
Returning to fiscal matters: Obama has been absolutely horrible on the federal budget. But, I never heard any serious plan from Romney to fix things. I'm all for cutting funding for NPR, but that's just drops in the deficit bucket. I don't believe that marginal tax cuts have the stimulative effect that Republicans seem to believe it. Much of the Obama stimulus was tax cuts, as was Bush's stimulus, and his budgets weren't balanced either. It was difficult to take Romney seriously when he swore not to trim even a dime from the military. Ryan's supposedly serious budget plan promised to balance the budget by 2040! Talk about political courage!
My biggest regret of the Obama reelection is that we will probably wind up with at least one more youthful liberal Supreme Court Justice. It's not that I'm a 100% fan of the conservative wing of the court, but at least they seem to acknowledge that the government has some constitutional restraints.
But, there are positives to Obama's victory as well, from my perspective. The cause of gay marriage will be able to advance in a more friendly environment. The children of illegal immigrants can live their lives in slightly less fear of deportation. Atheists won't be dismissed as unpatriotic and unworthy of belonging to the greater American family.
So, take heart, Republicans. The nation you will live in for the next four years is pretty much the same nation you would be living in if your guy had won. Democrats, don't gloat too much. Life under Obama is very little different from life under a 4th term of George W. Bush. Yeah, liberals can cherish small victories, and Republicans will have many chances to fester with outrage, but, from a libertarian perspective, it's pretty much all the same.
My own view is probably most closely aligned with the last one... but I've felt that way since the 1980s, save for a brief surge of optimism in the late 90s. And, I would have felt that way if Romney had won instead of Obama.
I know it's trite to say that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans. But, from my perspective, there's very little difference between Democrats and Republicans. Both parties have demonstrated a devotion to unrestrained use of the national credit card. Both parties have demonstrated a willingness to throw away American lives in wars of dubious value to the security of this nation. Neither side has shown a surplus of respect for individual liberties. Neither side has shown much respect for capitalism, with both parties allowing large financial institutions to loot the national treasury.
It's true that Obamacare is a monstrosity of paperwork and complications that will likely make health care more expensive, more opaque, and less responsive. But, as someone who has had many chances to witness the workings of the modern health care system, I can testify that the system before Obama was elected was a morass of paperwork, outrageous costs, opaque billing, and frustrating wait times. Last year when I developed my thyroid problems, I had no existing family physician, and most doctors offices I called to see if I could get a checkup quoted me wait times of several months before they could see me (though I did eventually find one that saw me after a wait of merely several weeks). I honestly don't know what the answer would be to improving our health care system, but I also know I certainly never heard even one sentence from Romney, McCain, or Bush that indicated that they had any better ideas than Obama did.
As for issues of national defense, as the foreign policy debate indicated, there was no discernible difference between Obama and Romney, because there is no important difference between Obama and Bush. As for Obama's horrible mishandling of the attack in Libya and what I feel is an ongoing cover up, I'm happy to admit that heads should roll for this. But, the magnitude of Obama's negligence in this situation is pretty small potatoes compared to the magnitude of Bush's deciding to invade a foreign country to protect the world from weapons of mass destruction that turned out, in retrospect, to be figments of the imagination. Four thousand Americans and a minimum of a hundred thousand Iraqis have perished because Bush made poor decisions. Compared to four US deaths, it's difficult to get too worked up by the right wing outrage machine.
Returning to fiscal matters: Obama has been absolutely horrible on the federal budget. But, I never heard any serious plan from Romney to fix things. I'm all for cutting funding for NPR, but that's just drops in the deficit bucket. I don't believe that marginal tax cuts have the stimulative effect that Republicans seem to believe it. Much of the Obama stimulus was tax cuts, as was Bush's stimulus, and his budgets weren't balanced either. It was difficult to take Romney seriously when he swore not to trim even a dime from the military. Ryan's supposedly serious budget plan promised to balance the budget by 2040! Talk about political courage!
My biggest regret of the Obama reelection is that we will probably wind up with at least one more youthful liberal Supreme Court Justice. It's not that I'm a 100% fan of the conservative wing of the court, but at least they seem to acknowledge that the government has some constitutional restraints.
But, there are positives to Obama's victory as well, from my perspective. The cause of gay marriage will be able to advance in a more friendly environment. The children of illegal immigrants can live their lives in slightly less fear of deportation. Atheists won't be dismissed as unpatriotic and unworthy of belonging to the greater American family.
So, take heart, Republicans. The nation you will live in for the next four years is pretty much the same nation you would be living in if your guy had won. Democrats, don't gloat too much. Life under Obama is very little different from life under a 4th term of George W. Bush. Yeah, liberals can cherish small victories, and Republicans will have many chances to fester with outrage, but, from a libertarian perspective, it's pretty much all the same.
Thursday, November 08, 2012
Thursday, November 01, 2012
Week Eight
257. So, so close to being down 30 pounds from my starting weight. I'm going to try to be aggressive this week with exercise to try to hit that milestone.
My need to buy new clothes is getting a little ridiculous, though I continue to hold out, not knowing where my weight loss will end. Pants that were to tight on me two months ago are so loose they fall off if my belt isn't completely tightened.
I confess, though, that today I gave in to temptation and ate some french fries. I had a broiled fish platter for dinner, and it came with either fries or a baked potato. I figured I'd just nibble on a couple of fries. Nope, all of them gone in about two minutes. Oh well. Nothing 45 minutes on the treadmill can't negate.
My need to buy new clothes is getting a little ridiculous, though I continue to hold out, not knowing where my weight loss will end. Pants that were to tight on me two months ago are so loose they fall off if my belt isn't completely tightened.
I confess, though, that today I gave in to temptation and ate some french fries. I had a broiled fish platter for dinner, and it came with either fries or a baked potato. I figured I'd just nibble on a couple of fries. Nope, all of them gone in about two minutes. Oh well. Nothing 45 minutes on the treadmill can't negate.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Week Seven
259. I can tell I'm starting to plateau a bit. May need to bump up my workouts to compensate. Stay tuned....
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Quick thought on the foreign policy debate
A lot of pundits are commenting on how often Romney agreed with Obama last night on a whole string of foreign policy issues. Even when he made a show of disagreement, Romney would essentially repeat back exactly the same position Obama had offer, only he would throw in the word "strong" five times.
But what Romney couldn't note was that he was stealing Obama's foreign policy issues mainly because Obama pretty much stole all his actual policies from George Bush. Sure, he got us out of Iraq, but the reality was we were pretty much done in Iraq by the time he took office. He's promising to get us out of Afghanistan, but only after surging there for goals as amorphous and unachievable as anything Bush ever proposed.
Obama didn't close Gitmo. He didn't bring terrorists to the US for trial. He took a stand against torture, but the subject hasn't been brought up by Romney so I have no idea what his position is. Obama has order far more drone strikes than Bush. And, if Obama has any difference in policy from Bush on China, Europe, or Russia, Iran, or North Korea, I'm really hard pressed to think of it. Obama went into office promising to talk to Castro and Ahmadjinadad (I know I just misspelled that!), but it turned out that he wasn't even able to negotiate with John Boehner.
The thing that scares me is I suspect that Romney sincerely will conduct a foreign policy indistinguishable from Bush/Obama. We'll continue fielding high-tech weapons and expertly trained and equipped soldiers against enemies who fight with improvised bombs and hand weapons, whose greatest strategic defense against being bombed back into the stone age is the reality that they seem to really want to live there already.
Am I advocating isolationism? Not by any means. I would just welcome some perspective. Are the threats we face deserving of the money and lives we throw at managing them? Does a single attack on US soil justify a decade and a half of foreign wars? Why is the threat of Islamic terrorism more of an existential threat to us than massive debts? Why is it more of a threat to us than our own handgun violence? Cigarettes? Obesity? We've turned criminal acts into acts of war, and in doing so we've managed to surrender some of our most cherished values, while elevating the terrorists into positions of heroes and martyrs for an entire generation of people who are growing up in lands we've occupied by force.
Just another reason I'm voting for Gary Johnson.
But what Romney couldn't note was that he was stealing Obama's foreign policy issues mainly because Obama pretty much stole all his actual policies from George Bush. Sure, he got us out of Iraq, but the reality was we were pretty much done in Iraq by the time he took office. He's promising to get us out of Afghanistan, but only after surging there for goals as amorphous and unachievable as anything Bush ever proposed.
Obama didn't close Gitmo. He didn't bring terrorists to the US for trial. He took a stand against torture, but the subject hasn't been brought up by Romney so I have no idea what his position is. Obama has order far more drone strikes than Bush. And, if Obama has any difference in policy from Bush on China, Europe, or Russia, Iran, or North Korea, I'm really hard pressed to think of it. Obama went into office promising to talk to Castro and Ahmadjinadad (I know I just misspelled that!), but it turned out that he wasn't even able to negotiate with John Boehner.
The thing that scares me is I suspect that Romney sincerely will conduct a foreign policy indistinguishable from Bush/Obama. We'll continue fielding high-tech weapons and expertly trained and equipped soldiers against enemies who fight with improvised bombs and hand weapons, whose greatest strategic defense against being bombed back into the stone age is the reality that they seem to really want to live there already.
Am I advocating isolationism? Not by any means. I would just welcome some perspective. Are the threats we face deserving of the money and lives we throw at managing them? Does a single attack on US soil justify a decade and a half of foreign wars? Why is the threat of Islamic terrorism more of an existential threat to us than massive debts? Why is it more of a threat to us than our own handgun violence? Cigarettes? Obesity? We've turned criminal acts into acts of war, and in doing so we've managed to surrender some of our most cherished values, while elevating the terrorists into positions of heroes and martyrs for an entire generation of people who are growing up in lands we've occupied by force.
Just another reason I'm voting for Gary Johnson.
Friday, October 19, 2012
CPAP Q&A
I've been using a CPAP machine for two months now. This week, I had a follow up with the CPAP tech who confirmed what I already knew. My sleep apnea events have dropped from dozens per night to two. According to the card, I'm getting just shy of seven hours of sleep per night on average. I feel a lot better these days. I no longer worry about falling asleep when I'm driving home from work, and when I get home I'm still a functioning human being who doesn't have to immediately go to bed for an hour long nap. The CPAP might even be making me look better, as using it corresponds with losing over twenty pounds of weight. My dietary changes are probably responsible for most of the weight loss, but the CPAP keeps me rested, which means I can exercise routinely, and I no longer need a full liter of Mountain Dew to keep me awake and alert during my work day. In fact, I've cut almost all caffeine from my diet, save for occasionally ordering unsweetened tea when I'm eating out.
Before starting the CPAP, I had a lot of questions. I thought I'd post a bit of a self Q&A in case other people had the same questions.
Q: Do people really need this? If the human body was so badly designed that it strangles itself while sleeping, how did we survive as a species?
A: Just another argument against intelligent design. I've known for over ten years that I stopped breathing sometimes in my sleep. Pretending that this was normal and acceptable is easily one of the top three bone-headed thoughts ever to lodge in my mind.
Q: Does the CPAP actually fix the problem? Or is it just treating the symptoms? Can't you fix your breathing by exercising, losing weight, and changing your sleeping positions?
A: Well, sure, it is just treating symptoms. But, while being heavy does contribute to the problem, I know people who are a long way from obese who also need the machine. And, I've tried sleeping in every position you can imagine without positive results. The long and short of it is, the machine actually works.
Q: What if there's a power outage when you have the mask on? Won't you suffocate?
A: I was really worried about this before I tried a mask on. If you google CPAP problems, you find people talking about feeling as if they are suffocating. I honestly have no idea what they are talking about. The mask has holes in it to let you exhaled air escape. If the machine's off, these holes also let air in. Breathing with the mask on and power off isn't a problem at all.
Q: Maybe CPAP will help some people, but I have terrible allergies and can barely breathe through my nose half the time.
A: That's a statement, not a question. But, I really am someone who had difficulty breathing through his nose at night. But, with the CPAP, you're breathing filtered air all night. Most mornings, I wake up and my nostrils are completely open. Before the mask, I always started each morning with a ten minute sneezing session. Big improvement.
Q: Is it hard to fall asleep with the machine blowing air in your face?
Not at all. You really don't feel air blowing on you. I usually fall asleep in under five minutes. It's pretty awesome.
Q: Won't the mask make my face break out? Or leave lines in my face?
A: So far, I haven't had this problem, though I do wake up feeling like my face is oily where the mask sits. I also can see the lines of the mask for twenty minutes after I wake up. But, so far, these things really don't seem to be a problem.
Q: Then what does seem to be a problem?
A: I sleep so soundly that I don't toss and turn, and when I sleep on my sides, sometimes my arm will be numb when I wake. I also can sleep on my back for the first time in decades, but when I do so, I sometimes wake with back aches. Despite the machine having a humidifier, I do often have dry mouth in the mornings, so bad even my throat will fill dry. Luckily, a few swigs of seltzer water in the morning fixes this. Finally, I also wake up with dry eyes. I think air leaks ever so slightly from around my nose and blows into my eyes. I've tightened my mask as much as I find comfortable without fixing the problem. For now, I muddle on. Usually the dryness is gone a few minutes after waking. Rarely does it persist beyond my morning shower. When it does, there's always eyedrops.
All in all, I really regret I didn't get on the CPAP ten years ago. I think of all the hours wasted because I woke up each morning feeling like a zombie. In just two months I'm feeling healthier and have reclaimed several extra productive hours in each day. I know most people want to die in their sleep. But, it's just stupid to let your sleeping body try to kill you night after night.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Week six: 260
Despite eating out all weekend, Cheryl and I both had good progress on our weight loss this week. I've now lost 24 pounds since starting, meaning that it's likely that my next weigh in is going to have me in the 250s, which is a pretty big milestone for me.
I need to figure out what to do about my clothes. I've added three new notches to my belt, but at this point most of my pants would drop right off without the belt. But, I'm hesitant to go out and buy new pants, since I hope to be thinner still in another six weeks.
If anyone else out there has gone through a similar weight loss journey, I'm interested in hearing how you shopped for clothes without knowing what your waistline might be in another month. I'm too cheap to be buying new pants every couple of weeks!
Speaking of our weekend eating out, we went to a Burmese restaurant and had ginger salad, which was essentiall coleslaw with ginger, sesame seeds, and soybeans, with sesame oil and soy sauce dressing instead of mayonnaise. It was amazing. The second I took a bite into, I knew that I had added a new favorite food to my top ten list. It's just perfectly balanced. It's a little salty, a little hot, a tiny bit sweet, a bit sour and really crisp and crunchy. Seriously, if you have the fortune of living within driving range of a Burmese restaurant, go get some of this. It will leave you shaking your head at how bland and pointless American coleslaw is.
I need to figure out what to do about my clothes. I've added three new notches to my belt, but at this point most of my pants would drop right off without the belt. But, I'm hesitant to go out and buy new pants, since I hope to be thinner still in another six weeks.
If anyone else out there has gone through a similar weight loss journey, I'm interested in hearing how you shopped for clothes without knowing what your waistline might be in another month. I'm too cheap to be buying new pants every couple of weeks!
Speaking of our weekend eating out, we went to a Burmese restaurant and had ginger salad, which was essentiall coleslaw with ginger, sesame seeds, and soybeans, with sesame oil and soy sauce dressing instead of mayonnaise. It was amazing. The second I took a bite into, I knew that I had added a new favorite food to my top ten list. It's just perfectly balanced. It's a little salty, a little hot, a tiny bit sweet, a bit sour and really crisp and crunchy. Seriously, if you have the fortune of living within driving range of a Burmese restaurant, go get some of this. It will leave you shaking your head at how bland and pointless American coleslaw is.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Week Five
262 pounds at my work weigh in this morning. On my home scale undressed I'm consistently getting weights under 260 most mornings.
I have concerns that this progress will come skidding to a halt this weekend. We're going to a con and will be eating out all weekend. There's no question that probably the biggest factor in my success is the fact that my wife Cheryl has taken the lead in meal planning and has displayed some pretty amazing cooking chops at bringing in dinners that are low calorie and super nutritious. Most of our evening meals are coming in under 500 calories, yet we wind up full because we're eating a lot of non-starchy vegetables and lean proteins. The only "diet" food we're resorting to regularly is a diet salad dressing, a balsamic vinegarette that tastes pretty awesome. (I also tried some no-fat hot dogs a few weeks ago. Not as awesome.)
Travelling means eating out for dinners, and it becomes a lot harder to guess how many calories you're consuming without breaking out a scale at every meal. At home, we weigh most of our calorie dense ingredients and have a pretty precise measure of how many calories we're consuming. When we're at restaurants, we often get a wide range of calorie estimates when we type the dishes into our phones. Still, when we do we out, we're definitely making smarter choices than we used to. Avoiding pasta, potatoes, and white bread is a decent rule to follow in these situations.
Last week, I mentioned that, despite losing twenty pounds, I really couldn't tell it in my appearance or my wardrobe. Then, Sunday, I kept having to hitch my pants up. I finally had to punch a new hole in my belt to keep from having them slide off me. Jeans that were tight only two weeks ago are now loose. I have a leather jacket that I stopped wearing about 4 years ago because it was too tight around my gut. I almost gave it to good will when we moved. Today, I wore it to work and it was a perfect fit.
Still a long way to go to win the competition, though. One of my coworkers is pretty close to losing 10% of her body weight. I'm only down 7%. Fortunately, I still have plenty of flab to work off, and seven weeks to go. I think I still have a shot at this.
I have concerns that this progress will come skidding to a halt this weekend. We're going to a con and will be eating out all weekend. There's no question that probably the biggest factor in my success is the fact that my wife Cheryl has taken the lead in meal planning and has displayed some pretty amazing cooking chops at bringing in dinners that are low calorie and super nutritious. Most of our evening meals are coming in under 500 calories, yet we wind up full because we're eating a lot of non-starchy vegetables and lean proteins. The only "diet" food we're resorting to regularly is a diet salad dressing, a balsamic vinegarette that tastes pretty awesome. (I also tried some no-fat hot dogs a few weeks ago. Not as awesome.)
Travelling means eating out for dinners, and it becomes a lot harder to guess how many calories you're consuming without breaking out a scale at every meal. At home, we weigh most of our calorie dense ingredients and have a pretty precise measure of how many calories we're consuming. When we're at restaurants, we often get a wide range of calorie estimates when we type the dishes into our phones. Still, when we do we out, we're definitely making smarter choices than we used to. Avoiding pasta, potatoes, and white bread is a decent rule to follow in these situations.
Last week, I mentioned that, despite losing twenty pounds, I really couldn't tell it in my appearance or my wardrobe. Then, Sunday, I kept having to hitch my pants up. I finally had to punch a new hole in my belt to keep from having them slide off me. Jeans that were tight only two weeks ago are now loose. I have a leather jacket that I stopped wearing about 4 years ago because it was too tight around my gut. I almost gave it to good will when we moved. Today, I wore it to work and it was a perfect fit.
Still a long way to go to win the competition, though. One of my coworkers is pretty close to losing 10% of her body weight. I'm only down 7%. Fortunately, I still have plenty of flab to work off, and seven weeks to go. I think I still have a shot at this.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Doublespeak
This weekend at Capclave, I'm going to be on a panel with James Morrow called Doublespeak. The panels topic is: "The proliferation of information beyond the control of any one authority is a
good thing that can topple dictators and hold powerful corporations accountable.
But, falsehoods can be spread just as easily as truth, and seemingly neutral,
objective data can and is manipulated by people with political agendas. How are
we to navigate the growing maze of truthiness that surrounds any subject?"
Sometimes, I despair. We live in an age where we're immersed in news and information like never before, yet I'm constantly surprised by just how information free most debate is these day. The tiniest snowflakes of truth seem to instantly grow into avalanches of half-truths and misinformation. For instance, in last weeks debate Mitt Romney said he would cut funding for public broadcasting. This instantly was mocked along two lines. First, people ridiculed the idea that Romney thought he could balance the budget by cutting this funding. But, I never heard Romney make that claim. He argued it wasn't important enough to borrow money from China to pay for, but he plainly was offering this as one example of unneeded spending, not the entirety of it. Second, some ads and commentary have run with the idea that Romney was threatening to fire Big Bird. In the same breath, people will point out how small the Federal dollars are that go to programs like Sesame Street. And they're right! The sale of dolls and books and games about Sesame Street characters is probably more than enough to keep the TV show on the air. Cutting off federal funds isn't going to ruffle a feather on Big Bird.
I'm not a Romney supporter, and can point to examples going in the other direction. WND just yesterday was running proof that Obama is secretly a Muslim. They had enlarged a photo of his wedding band a zillion percent and were showing how the blurry little squiggles in the gold spelled out "There is No God but Allah, etc." It reminded me a bit of people who find the face of Jesus in the stains on a whitewashed wall. And, of course, if you type in "Obama Birth Certificate," you will find hundreds of thousands of words dedicated to proving that the certificate is a forgery.
Twenty years ago, a few nut jobs with newsletter might have been able to spread these rumors to a couple of thousand people. Today, anyone with a computer and a cellphone can make their wildest theories available to millions of people. The millions inclined to believe Obama is a foreign born Muslim can read a new article proving their case every day. It's news! There's evidence! Look at the photos! Look how there's a blur on the birth certificate around the third "e" that proves it was cut and pasted from a different document! YOU'D HAVE TO BE BLIND NOT TO SEE IT, PEOPLE!
Of course, the "mainstream" media is only slightly less embarrassing. The order of the day is report on controversies, and, if none exist, make up some. Again, not to defend Romney, but when our embassies were attacked in Libya and Egypt he made a statement that the State Department had handled the matter poorly. For the next 72 hours of the news cycle, the headlines of how Romney had embarrassed himself with the statement seemed to be just as prominent as the stories about the actual attacks. It's not that I wanted to read stories about how the White House had screwed up... I really would have been happy with some real reporting about what was going on. But, of course, it's difficult to report on a story taking place in a far away country where American reporters might not be safe asking questions of the local authorities. It's easy to report on what politicians here are spinning. The path of least resistance is followed, and reaction to the story becomes the story... even while the facts of the story are still unresolved.
Arguments are fun. Shows that provide partisan arguments draw far higher ratings than shows that provide more staid, objective reporting. At least, I guess they do. I don't know. I'm throwing out a fact that could probably be googled, but I'm not going to google it, because if I'm wrong I don't want to throw out my argument. The perception that the partisan argument shows have higher ratings feels true to me, and probably feels true to many people reading this, so, PRESTO! We have truth! Who the hell cares if there are facts undergirding our truth? We live in an age where three news stories have to break every fifteen minutes just to keep us interested. If we're not entertained by our news, we'll just click on over to Cracked.com and look at their latest list of goofy photographs. Or there's always the latest World of Warcraft podcast to listen to, or a chatroom to discuss who's winning Face Off.
I'm reminded of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Hunter S. Thompson:
Sometimes, I despair. We live in an age where we're immersed in news and information like never before, yet I'm constantly surprised by just how information free most debate is these day. The tiniest snowflakes of truth seem to instantly grow into avalanches of half-truths and misinformation. For instance, in last weeks debate Mitt Romney said he would cut funding for public broadcasting. This instantly was mocked along two lines. First, people ridiculed the idea that Romney thought he could balance the budget by cutting this funding. But, I never heard Romney make that claim. He argued it wasn't important enough to borrow money from China to pay for, but he plainly was offering this as one example of unneeded spending, not the entirety of it. Second, some ads and commentary have run with the idea that Romney was threatening to fire Big Bird. In the same breath, people will point out how small the Federal dollars are that go to programs like Sesame Street. And they're right! The sale of dolls and books and games about Sesame Street characters is probably more than enough to keep the TV show on the air. Cutting off federal funds isn't going to ruffle a feather on Big Bird.
I'm not a Romney supporter, and can point to examples going in the other direction. WND just yesterday was running proof that Obama is secretly a Muslim. They had enlarged a photo of his wedding band a zillion percent and were showing how the blurry little squiggles in the gold spelled out "There is No God but Allah, etc." It reminded me a bit of people who find the face of Jesus in the stains on a whitewashed wall. And, of course, if you type in "Obama Birth Certificate," you will find hundreds of thousands of words dedicated to proving that the certificate is a forgery.
Twenty years ago, a few nut jobs with newsletter might have been able to spread these rumors to a couple of thousand people. Today, anyone with a computer and a cellphone can make their wildest theories available to millions of people. The millions inclined to believe Obama is a foreign born Muslim can read a new article proving their case every day. It's news! There's evidence! Look at the photos! Look how there's a blur on the birth certificate around the third "e" that proves it was cut and pasted from a different document! YOU'D HAVE TO BE BLIND NOT TO SEE IT, PEOPLE!
Of course, the "mainstream" media is only slightly less embarrassing. The order of the day is report on controversies, and, if none exist, make up some. Again, not to defend Romney, but when our embassies were attacked in Libya and Egypt he made a statement that the State Department had handled the matter poorly. For the next 72 hours of the news cycle, the headlines of how Romney had embarrassed himself with the statement seemed to be just as prominent as the stories about the actual attacks. It's not that I wanted to read stories about how the White House had screwed up... I really would have been happy with some real reporting about what was going on. But, of course, it's difficult to report on a story taking place in a far away country where American reporters might not be safe asking questions of the local authorities. It's easy to report on what politicians here are spinning. The path of least resistance is followed, and reaction to the story becomes the story... even while the facts of the story are still unresolved.
Arguments are fun. Shows that provide partisan arguments draw far higher ratings than shows that provide more staid, objective reporting. At least, I guess they do. I don't know. I'm throwing out a fact that could probably be googled, but I'm not going to google it, because if I'm wrong I don't want to throw out my argument. The perception that the partisan argument shows have higher ratings feels true to me, and probably feels true to many people reading this, so, PRESTO! We have truth! Who the hell cares if there are facts undergirding our truth? We live in an age where three news stories have to break every fifteen minutes just to keep us interested. If we're not entertained by our news, we'll just click on over to Cracked.com and look at their latest list of goofy photographs. Or there's always the latest World of Warcraft podcast to listen to, or a chatroom to discuss who's winning Face Off.
I'm reminded of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Hunter S. Thompson:
“We are all wired into a survival trip
now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60's. That was the fatal flaw in Tim
Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion"
without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in
wait for all the people who took him seriously... All those pathetically eager
acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a
hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was
the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped create... a generation
of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential
old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that
somebody... or at least some force - is tending the light at the end of the
tunnel.”
The struggle of our age isn't drugs. It's amusement. We're all to busy watching the Daily Show, or listening to Rush Limbaugh, certain we're being informed when we're merely being entertained. And for the few who suspect there might be more to learn about a subject, they simply decide to trust that there are people out there who are keeping track of the important things. Information is everyone's right, but someone else's job.
The information universe has ordered itself to provide us with the most stimulating news. Giving us internet connections is like giving a monkey a button hardwired into the pleasure centers of his brain. The monkeys would rather push the button than eat. We'll just keep pushing our own pleasure buttons again and again, slowly starving out brains of any actual nourishment, going down that dark tunnel with smiles on our faces.
Saturday, October 06, 2012
A political debate
Long time readers of my blog know I used to write a lot about politics. I eventually shied away from such posts for a couple of reasons. First, while I have no trouble separating an artist's political views from his or her artistic output, I've become increasingly aware that many other people do. Orson Scott Card is a good example of a writer who made his political opinions known and as a result has turned off many potential readers. One can argue that for every reader you lose because you hold a given political opinion, you gain others who agree with you. But, honestly, I'd rather not have people form opinions about my books in advance because they heard on my blog that I'm a libertarian atheist. This definitely bleeds over into the work, and if a reader dislikes these philosophies in my fiction, I'm cool with that. The work is what it is. But I don't want people thinking they know everything I write just by glancing at this blog.
Second, I also stopped writing about politics in large part because I've lost a lot of my passion. I felt like serious issues were discussed in the eighties, nineties, and in the years after 9-11. But politics in the age of twitter and facebook seems hopelessly trivial and vapid. I would be interested in a political debate about whether or not a president should have the right to assassinate a US citizen on foreign soil with a drone strike. I'd be interested in debating the root causes of poverty, and how to reform education to reflect the reality that we now outsource a great deal of our memory and analytical skills to machines. I'm bored stiff by debating whether candidate A is going to reduce our deficit by 3 trillion dollars over twenty years or candidate B is going to reduce it by 5 trillion over thirty years, or whatever. People talk about the stark differences between the hyper polarized parties, but I honestly don't see them. The parties are debating how what shades to paint the walls of our great palace of democracy. No one is talking about the fact that the foundations of that palace are in desperate danger of crumbling.
So, all of this is a long and probably unneeded prologue to my making a point about the biggest political story of the week, the presidential debate. I listened to the debate on the radio and thought that both candidates were just babbling talking points. If I'd been doing shots every time Romney said "jobs" I'd have passed out before they got to the third question. I was stunned to discover the next day that the pundits were declaring that Romney won. It wasn't that I thought Obama won, I just came away from the debate feeling really good about backing Gary Johnson.
But, in light of the majority verdict, I wanted to put forward a theory about why Romney did so well. Obama complained on Thursday that he wondered why the real Romney hadn't shown up. I would argue that the problem was that Obama believed his own campaign spin, and the parody figure of Romney created by the media. It doesn't much matter who is running for president. The playbook is that Democrats are wimpy socialists and Republicans are heartless dimwits with no connection to the common man. Romney especially has been targeted as being a cold and ruthless billionaire who builds his mansions out of the bones of poor children. I've heard 10,000 jokes about how stiff and robotic he is, how devoid of soul, and how he can't open his mouth without making a gaffe.
Surprise! Romney was friendly, bright, and funny. I still thought he was talking in sound bites and trivia, but he didn't follow the year long media script of being a mean-spirited weirdo from another planet.
I think Obama wasn't ready for this debate because he believed his own negative ads about Romney. I think the strategy was to show up and play it safe and let Romney be Romney, and all the swing voters would be repulsed. Now, he's complaining that the Romney he wanted to debate didn't turn up.
Of course, that's kind of a pattern for Obama. The economy he wanted didn't turn up. The opposition party he wanted didn't sit down with him. The technologies he wanted didn't sell. And the foreign policy he wanted got derailed when democracy-loving twitter users in the middle east didn't wind up taking over their countries according to Thomas Friedman's script.
None of this means that Romney would be a better president. But the fact that one of these two men will be leading our country for the next four years really makes me regret my atheism, since I think, at this moment in time, prayer for divine intervention to is a pretty attractive plan.
Second, I also stopped writing about politics in large part because I've lost a lot of my passion. I felt like serious issues were discussed in the eighties, nineties, and in the years after 9-11. But politics in the age of twitter and facebook seems hopelessly trivial and vapid. I would be interested in a political debate about whether or not a president should have the right to assassinate a US citizen on foreign soil with a drone strike. I'd be interested in debating the root causes of poverty, and how to reform education to reflect the reality that we now outsource a great deal of our memory and analytical skills to machines. I'm bored stiff by debating whether candidate A is going to reduce our deficit by 3 trillion dollars over twenty years or candidate B is going to reduce it by 5 trillion over thirty years, or whatever. People talk about the stark differences between the hyper polarized parties, but I honestly don't see them. The parties are debating how what shades to paint the walls of our great palace of democracy. No one is talking about the fact that the foundations of that palace are in desperate danger of crumbling.
So, all of this is a long and probably unneeded prologue to my making a point about the biggest political story of the week, the presidential debate. I listened to the debate on the radio and thought that both candidates were just babbling talking points. If I'd been doing shots every time Romney said "jobs" I'd have passed out before they got to the third question. I was stunned to discover the next day that the pundits were declaring that Romney won. It wasn't that I thought Obama won, I just came away from the debate feeling really good about backing Gary Johnson.
But, in light of the majority verdict, I wanted to put forward a theory about why Romney did so well. Obama complained on Thursday that he wondered why the real Romney hadn't shown up. I would argue that the problem was that Obama believed his own campaign spin, and the parody figure of Romney created by the media. It doesn't much matter who is running for president. The playbook is that Democrats are wimpy socialists and Republicans are heartless dimwits with no connection to the common man. Romney especially has been targeted as being a cold and ruthless billionaire who builds his mansions out of the bones of poor children. I've heard 10,000 jokes about how stiff and robotic he is, how devoid of soul, and how he can't open his mouth without making a gaffe.
Surprise! Romney was friendly, bright, and funny. I still thought he was talking in sound bites and trivia, but he didn't follow the year long media script of being a mean-spirited weirdo from another planet.
I think Obama wasn't ready for this debate because he believed his own negative ads about Romney. I think the strategy was to show up and play it safe and let Romney be Romney, and all the swing voters would be repulsed. Now, he's complaining that the Romney he wanted to debate didn't turn up.
Of course, that's kind of a pattern for Obama. The economy he wanted didn't turn up. The opposition party he wanted didn't sit down with him. The technologies he wanted didn't sell. And the foreign policy he wanted got derailed when democracy-loving twitter users in the middle east didn't wind up taking over their countries according to Thomas Friedman's script.
None of this means that Romney would be a better president. But the fact that one of these two men will be leading our country for the next four years really makes me regret my atheism, since I think, at this moment in time, prayer for divine intervention to is a pretty attractive plan.
Thursday, October 04, 2012
4 weeks, 20 pounds
Weighed in today at 264 pounds. A bit of a surprise; I'm obviously clothed at work for these weigh ins, and my home scale had me at 266 when I was dressed for work. So, one of the scales obviously needs calibration, but for the purposes of tracking, the work scale was where I recorded the weight of 284 exactly four weeks ago, so I can say with some confidence I'm down 20 pounds.
Oddly, this has changed my waistline almost none at all. My pants pretty much fit exactly the same way they did when I started. Looking at myself in the mirror, I really can't see where the weight is coming from. I had hoped for at least a few aesthetic benefits for my efforts.
Of course, even down twenty pounds, I'm still well above my ideal weight. I'm trying to lose as much weight as I can by December because of the competition at work, but long term it would be nice to get down under 230. Some health charts I've seen say my ideal weight is 196, which I think is insane. The last time I weighed that was in my early twenties and I was still thin as a rail. I have no real interest in becoming gaunt.
When I saw my doctor last week, he said my weight loss would probably level out soon. Assuming that my current average of 5 pounds a week won't last, my new goal is to try for 2 pounds a week and by week 8 be at 256 pounds. This would be down 10% from my starting weight, which seems like a decent milestone. At that point I can recalibrate and figure out my goals for the third four-week period.
A diet note: I've been mosty avoiding pasta, and probably miss it more than any other food I've given up. So, tonight we tried making noodles from ribbons of zuchini. They rocked! I know one thing that will be in our garden next year.
Oddly, this has changed my waistline almost none at all. My pants pretty much fit exactly the same way they did when I started. Looking at myself in the mirror, I really can't see where the weight is coming from. I had hoped for at least a few aesthetic benefits for my efforts.
Of course, even down twenty pounds, I'm still well above my ideal weight. I'm trying to lose as much weight as I can by December because of the competition at work, but long term it would be nice to get down under 230. Some health charts I've seen say my ideal weight is 196, which I think is insane. The last time I weighed that was in my early twenties and I was still thin as a rail. I have no real interest in becoming gaunt.
When I saw my doctor last week, he said my weight loss would probably level out soon. Assuming that my current average of 5 pounds a week won't last, my new goal is to try for 2 pounds a week and by week 8 be at 256 pounds. This would be down 10% from my starting weight, which seems like a decent milestone. At that point I can recalibrate and figure out my goals for the third four-week period.
A diet note: I've been mosty avoiding pasta, and probably miss it more than any other food I've given up. So, tonight we tried making noodles from ribbons of zuchini. They rocked! I know one thing that will be in our garden next year.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Week Three Addendum
I got my bloodwork results in the mail today. Results were even better than expected! Last year, most of my cholesteral numbers were right on the borderline of being high, with a few meandering over the line into the low reaches of the danger zones.
Now, all my numbers are well in the midpoint of the recommended ranges. My resting blood sugar has also improved away from being borderline worrisome. Since my father was diabetic and died of heart disease, getting these numbers down is a pretty smart move on my part.
Just returned from a three mile hike which we went ahead and did despite the fact it was raining. If it wasn't raining, we probably had it in us to go a bit further. We are really lucky to have some excellent trails in this area.
Now, all my numbers are well in the midpoint of the recommended ranges. My resting blood sugar has also improved away from being borderline worrisome. Since my father was diabetic and died of heart disease, getting these numbers down is a pretty smart move on my part.
Just returned from a three mile hike which we went ahead and did despite the fact it was raining. If it wasn't raining, we probably had it in us to go a bit further. We are really lucky to have some excellent trails in this area.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Week Three
Weigh in today: 267.
Can I hit 264 by next Thursday? I know I'll probably plateau soon. But, for now, I'm happy with my results. I really think the biggest key to my success is my smart phone. Logging everything I eat, and being able to research instantly the calorie choices before me, are key. Today I had a situation where I couldn't come home until late and had to eat dinner out. Thanks to my smart phone, I was able to look up all the calorie counts for the entire menu at PF Changs while I was sitting in the parking lot and when I went in I was able to place an order for lettuce wraps and a bowl of soup that were well within my calorie budget. Especially in a restaurant where a lot of the food is prepared with different sauces, having the mystery removed of how many calories I was consuming was pretty empowering.
Onward! (Or downward, as the case may be.)
Can I hit 264 by next Thursday? I know I'll probably plateau soon. But, for now, I'm happy with my results. I really think the biggest key to my success is my smart phone. Logging everything I eat, and being able to research instantly the calorie choices before me, are key. Today I had a situation where I couldn't come home until late and had to eat dinner out. Thanks to my smart phone, I was able to look up all the calorie counts for the entire menu at PF Changs while I was sitting in the parking lot and when I went in I was able to place an order for lettuce wraps and a bowl of soup that were well within my calorie budget. Especially in a restaurant where a lot of the food is prepared with different sauces, having the mystery removed of how many calories I was consuming was pretty empowering.
Onward! (Or downward, as the case may be.)
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Week Two
Today at work I weighed in at 271 pounds. That's 13 pounds gone since starting my dietary changes two weeks ago. I'm less than a week away from my next physical, and I'm really interested in seeing the bloodwork. I've been eating a high fiber, high protein, low carb and low fat diet, so I'm expecting all my numbers to look good except for sodium. I've always eaten a lot of salt, but I suspect it's representing an even higher percentage of my diet these days, since I'm avoiding all sweet snacks and sticking with salty ones; ie, I eat beef jerky instead of Snickers during breaks at work.
I'm trying to get Cheryl to eat tofu, but it's an uphill climb. I personally like tofu, and have since long before starting this diet. I eat it in a lot of dishes at asian restaurants, and would be perfectly happy recreating these dishes at home. Alas, Cheryl doesn't like any of the various textures it comes in. I currently have been experimenting with extra firm tofu, which to me has the texture of a firm cheese, but, I must admit, it's also a texture that resembles biting through a pencil eraser. Not that I've done that. I'm not that hungry.
Which is my biggest surprise. I've had few moments since starting this when I've really been hungry. A lot of my food consumption patterns were built on habit instead of actual physical need. Some of my coworkers go outside to smoke during breaks. I would go to the break room and eat an ice cream sandwich. (I work next to a DollarTree... they sell ice cream sandwiches in boxes of 4 for a dollar. You can eat a lot of ice cream sandwiches for pocket change.)
I can't yet figure out if eating healthy is costing me more or less than my old dietary habits. Last week's trip to the farmer's market wasn't cheap. The whole grain flatbread with flax seed I've been buying is a heck of a lot more expensive ounce for ounce than an ordinary loaf of bread. Beef jerky costs a heck of a lot more than a candy bar. On the other hand, we've eaten out much, much less. I suspect in the long run we're saving money.
Okay, enough writing. Time to hit the treadmill for the evening. I want to make sure that at weigh in next week, the second digit on my weight will be a six.
I'm trying to get Cheryl to eat tofu, but it's an uphill climb. I personally like tofu, and have since long before starting this diet. I eat it in a lot of dishes at asian restaurants, and would be perfectly happy recreating these dishes at home. Alas, Cheryl doesn't like any of the various textures it comes in. I currently have been experimenting with extra firm tofu, which to me has the texture of a firm cheese, but, I must admit, it's also a texture that resembles biting through a pencil eraser. Not that I've done that. I'm not that hungry.
Which is my biggest surprise. I've had few moments since starting this when I've really been hungry. A lot of my food consumption patterns were built on habit instead of actual physical need. Some of my coworkers go outside to smoke during breaks. I would go to the break room and eat an ice cream sandwich. (I work next to a DollarTree... they sell ice cream sandwiches in boxes of 4 for a dollar. You can eat a lot of ice cream sandwiches for pocket change.)
I can't yet figure out if eating healthy is costing me more or less than my old dietary habits. Last week's trip to the farmer's market wasn't cheap. The whole grain flatbread with flax seed I've been buying is a heck of a lot more expensive ounce for ounce than an ordinary loaf of bread. Beef jerky costs a heck of a lot more than a candy bar. On the other hand, we've eaten out much, much less. I suspect in the long run we're saving money.
Okay, enough writing. Time to hit the treadmill for the evening. I want to make sure that at weigh in next week, the second digit on my weight will be a six.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Week One
I weighed in today at 274 pounds. Losing ten pounds in a week is a nice start, but I'm realistic that the path ahead won't be quite as easy. Still, what's surprising is that, so far, it hasn't been all that hard.
I've gone cold turkey on soft drinks. The only liquid I've drank in the last week with any calories are V8 and tom yum soup. Coke and Mountain Dew have been my weakness for decades. This is the first time an entire week has passed without me partaking of either.
The withdrawal from the caffiene gave me a dull headache the first few days, but now I'm pretty much over it. Many days I was drinking over 1000 calories of this stuff. I knew it was insane, and I'm damn lucky I'm not already diabetic. I feel good about resisting the siren call of sodas for the foreseeable future.
I'm also over pizza, at least the mass market produced stuff. I work next door to a Little Caeser's pizza, and once or twice a week would grab a pizza for lunch. Some days I'd eat the whole pizza. How was it I managed not to weight 300 pounds already?
The competition factor of losing more weight than my coworkers over the next three months is still extremely motivational. Basically, I've transformed work from the place I used to have my worst eating habits to a place that is keeping me focused on my goals.
I've also got the help of my wife, Cheryl, who is 100% behind rethinking out meals at home. We've both signed up for My Fitness Pal, an android ap that lets us track all the calories we consume in a day on our phones. So far, I've met my goals every day with room to spare. The act of recording all the food I'm eating really makes me stop and think about everything I put in my mouth.
We bought a used treadmill from Habitat for Humanity and have done a decent amount of walking. I'm planning to add some weight training soon. I've got a doctor's appointment on the 25th. I'm looking forward to seeing what he thinks of my current weight loss goals. So far, I feel like I'm on a good path.
I've gone cold turkey on soft drinks. The only liquid I've drank in the last week with any calories are V8 and tom yum soup. Coke and Mountain Dew have been my weakness for decades. This is the first time an entire week has passed without me partaking of either.
The withdrawal from the caffiene gave me a dull headache the first few days, but now I'm pretty much over it. Many days I was drinking over 1000 calories of this stuff. I knew it was insane, and I'm damn lucky I'm not already diabetic. I feel good about resisting the siren call of sodas for the foreseeable future.
I'm also over pizza, at least the mass market produced stuff. I work next door to a Little Caeser's pizza, and once or twice a week would grab a pizza for lunch. Some days I'd eat the whole pizza. How was it I managed not to weight 300 pounds already?
The competition factor of losing more weight than my coworkers over the next three months is still extremely motivational. Basically, I've transformed work from the place I used to have my worst eating habits to a place that is keeping me focused on my goals.
I've also got the help of my wife, Cheryl, who is 100% behind rethinking out meals at home. We've both signed up for My Fitness Pal, an android ap that lets us track all the calories we consume in a day on our phones. So far, I've met my goals every day with room to spare. The act of recording all the food I'm eating really makes me stop and think about everything I put in my mouth.
We bought a used treadmill from Habitat for Humanity and have done a decent amount of walking. I'm planning to add some weight training soon. I've got a doctor's appointment on the 25th. I'm looking forward to seeing what he thinks of my current weight loss goals. So far, I feel like I'm on a good path.
Wednesday, September 05, 2012
Lifestyle changes ahead
I'm fat.
For the first half of my life, I had the exact opposite problem. When I was a sophomore in college, I only weighed 140 pounds. This, on a 6'2" frame gave me a rather scarecrowish appearance. I really was self-conscious about how skinny I was. I tried a lot of strategies for bulking up. I lifted weights and I ate ravenously. I could eat an entire large pizza and drink a two liter soda on my own and still have room for a bag of chips. It didn't matter. I remained skinny as a sideshow freak.
Then, in my twenties, some kind of switch went off in my body and suddenly I started to pack on pounds. I hit thirty weighing about 220, and was reasonably happy with the way I looked.
If I had stopped at 220, everything would be fine. Alas, through my thirties and forties, I've continued to add to my girth. I now weigh 283 pounds, twice as much as I weighed in college. It's not difficult to figure out how I got here.
1. I never gave up my eating habits from college. I still can eat a whole pizza if the spirit moves, and it's not unheard of for me to go through a 2 liter soda in the course of an evening.
2. I'm sedentary. I do work a day job that keeps me on my feet, but it's in a very small area. I don't move around that much. On my days off and in my evenings, I sit in front of a computer and write novels, an even more sedentary occupation. I do occasionally go hiking, bike riding, and canoeing, but seldom more than once or twice a month.
3. I have some physical challenges. Over a decade ago, I was diagnosed with a thyroid deficiency. I treated it for a while, but eventually stopped taking the medicine because I didn't feel any effect. Last year, my condition worsened, from a state of mild deficiency to severe deficiency. I'm finally back on medication, but I still carry weight I put on when I wasn't treating my problem. Also, from childhood until my forties, I suffered from allergies and asthma. Any kind of vigorous excercise would trigger an asthma attack. But, for reasons that I can't explain, my asthma just disappeared about five years ago. It can still be triggered if I'm around too much cigarette smoke, but physical activity doesn't produce even a wheeze. And, claritin has mostly taken care of the allergies.
Finally, I've suspected for a long time I had sleep apnea. I had a sleep study years ago, but failed to sleep due to all the wires taped to my scalp and the fact the study took place on a bed that felt like cinderblocks with a sheet draped over them. That study cost a lot of money, so I wasn't eager to pay for another sleepless night, which explains why I waited over a decade before again agreeing it was something I needed to check out. It wasn't my physical symptoms that worried me as much as my mental symptoms. My short term memory has become terrible. This is a sypmtom of sleep apnea, caused by lower oxygen levels, and my oxygen levels were getting down below 75% at night, according to my latest sleep study. But, even though if was fear for the integrity of my mind that pushed me into treatment, I also know that my body suffered because of the apnea. I just felt tired all the time because I never got a good night's sleep.
So, why now?
We just got a new floor mounted shipping scale at work. And, of course, the second it was installed, everyone started weighing themselves. I'm the second heaviest person on my job. But, I'm not the only one overweight, and so several of my coworkers are going to compete for the next three months to see who can lose the most weight. I'm in!
Why I think I can lose the weight:
First, I've started on a CPAP machine two weeks ago. I'm still learning how to sleep with the machine, but early results are promising. I'll be starting this weight loss competition getting full nights of restful sleep, something I haven't had in ages. I'm hoping this will translate into more energy for excercise.
Second, my other physical issues, the thyroid deficiency and the allergies, are mostly under control with medication. I don't feel like my body is actively fighting my efforts to make it healthier.
Third, after many years of struggle, I'm finally breaking my addiction to cola. I've never liked diet cola, and know that drinking sugar water at meals and between meals has been disasterous for my health. But, last spring, I stumbled onto a mineral water called Topo Chico that has zero calories and that I enjoy drinking. I've sampled other seltzer waters since, and have discovered that plain old Food Lion brand seltzer water is pretty satisfying. I've already stopped buying sodas and drinking them at home, but tend to drink Mountain Dew at work for the caffeine boost. But, I needed the caffeine partly because I was so tired from not getting good sleep. I'm stocking my work locker with seltzer water and making a go at not drinking soda during the day. I think I can make it because work is where I'm in the weight loss competition, and I'm pretty competetive. Once I tell people I'm giving up soda, being seen drinking a Mountain Dew would be losing face. Eliminating soda is going to cut almost 800 calories a day from my diet. That's a pretty good foundation to work from.
Cheryl is on board in changing our menu here at the house. A lot less homemade ice-cream is in our future, alas. A lot more leafy greens, which is cool, since we both actually like leafy greens.
But, changing my diet won't matter much if I don't start exercising properly. Luckily, the timing of the competition is pretty good for me. Fall is the time of year I'm most active outside. Hiking in July in North Carolina is a difficult chore due to the heat. Fall is when we already did most of our outdoor activity. There's a lot of additional walking in my immediate future.
Despite the fact that there's a competition that's triggering my effort to shed some weight, I'm doing it primarily because I just want to feel better and be healthier. My goal is to lose about 1.5 pounds a week. That's only about 20 pounds in three months; probably not enough to win the contest, but hopefully a realistic enough lifestyle change that I can get back below 240 pounds by next spring. This isn't about how much I can lose in three months. It's about whether or not I can treat my body better in the long run and have more years of productive, active life.
One reason I'm posting this here on my blog is that I'm hoping a public declaration will help me keep on track. I don't want to come back here next month and announce I've gained three pounds! And, I've also been giving a lot of thought to the kinds of essays I post here, and feel like I may have run my course on writing about politics. I feel like I've spelled out my political philosophies pretty thoroughly over the years, and just have run out of interesting things to say. (Partly, this is because our current crop of politics have stopped debating interesting topics.) But there's a lot more to life than politics, so I'm going to shift to topics a bit more personal. Stay tuned!
For the first half of my life, I had the exact opposite problem. When I was a sophomore in college, I only weighed 140 pounds. This, on a 6'2" frame gave me a rather scarecrowish appearance. I really was self-conscious about how skinny I was. I tried a lot of strategies for bulking up. I lifted weights and I ate ravenously. I could eat an entire large pizza and drink a two liter soda on my own and still have room for a bag of chips. It didn't matter. I remained skinny as a sideshow freak.
Then, in my twenties, some kind of switch went off in my body and suddenly I started to pack on pounds. I hit thirty weighing about 220, and was reasonably happy with the way I looked.
If I had stopped at 220, everything would be fine. Alas, through my thirties and forties, I've continued to add to my girth. I now weigh 283 pounds, twice as much as I weighed in college. It's not difficult to figure out how I got here.
1. I never gave up my eating habits from college. I still can eat a whole pizza if the spirit moves, and it's not unheard of for me to go through a 2 liter soda in the course of an evening.
2. I'm sedentary. I do work a day job that keeps me on my feet, but it's in a very small area. I don't move around that much. On my days off and in my evenings, I sit in front of a computer and write novels, an even more sedentary occupation. I do occasionally go hiking, bike riding, and canoeing, but seldom more than once or twice a month.
3. I have some physical challenges. Over a decade ago, I was diagnosed with a thyroid deficiency. I treated it for a while, but eventually stopped taking the medicine because I didn't feel any effect. Last year, my condition worsened, from a state of mild deficiency to severe deficiency. I'm finally back on medication, but I still carry weight I put on when I wasn't treating my problem. Also, from childhood until my forties, I suffered from allergies and asthma. Any kind of vigorous excercise would trigger an asthma attack. But, for reasons that I can't explain, my asthma just disappeared about five years ago. It can still be triggered if I'm around too much cigarette smoke, but physical activity doesn't produce even a wheeze. And, claritin has mostly taken care of the allergies.
Finally, I've suspected for a long time I had sleep apnea. I had a sleep study years ago, but failed to sleep due to all the wires taped to my scalp and the fact the study took place on a bed that felt like cinderblocks with a sheet draped over them. That study cost a lot of money, so I wasn't eager to pay for another sleepless night, which explains why I waited over a decade before again agreeing it was something I needed to check out. It wasn't my physical symptoms that worried me as much as my mental symptoms. My short term memory has become terrible. This is a sypmtom of sleep apnea, caused by lower oxygen levels, and my oxygen levels were getting down below 75% at night, according to my latest sleep study. But, even though if was fear for the integrity of my mind that pushed me into treatment, I also know that my body suffered because of the apnea. I just felt tired all the time because I never got a good night's sleep.
So, why now?
We just got a new floor mounted shipping scale at work. And, of course, the second it was installed, everyone started weighing themselves. I'm the second heaviest person on my job. But, I'm not the only one overweight, and so several of my coworkers are going to compete for the next three months to see who can lose the most weight. I'm in!
Why I think I can lose the weight:
First, I've started on a CPAP machine two weeks ago. I'm still learning how to sleep with the machine, but early results are promising. I'll be starting this weight loss competition getting full nights of restful sleep, something I haven't had in ages. I'm hoping this will translate into more energy for excercise.
Second, my other physical issues, the thyroid deficiency and the allergies, are mostly under control with medication. I don't feel like my body is actively fighting my efforts to make it healthier.
Third, after many years of struggle, I'm finally breaking my addiction to cola. I've never liked diet cola, and know that drinking sugar water at meals and between meals has been disasterous for my health. But, last spring, I stumbled onto a mineral water called Topo Chico that has zero calories and that I enjoy drinking. I've sampled other seltzer waters since, and have discovered that plain old Food Lion brand seltzer water is pretty satisfying. I've already stopped buying sodas and drinking them at home, but tend to drink Mountain Dew at work for the caffeine boost. But, I needed the caffeine partly because I was so tired from not getting good sleep. I'm stocking my work locker with seltzer water and making a go at not drinking soda during the day. I think I can make it because work is where I'm in the weight loss competition, and I'm pretty competetive. Once I tell people I'm giving up soda, being seen drinking a Mountain Dew would be losing face. Eliminating soda is going to cut almost 800 calories a day from my diet. That's a pretty good foundation to work from.
Cheryl is on board in changing our menu here at the house. A lot less homemade ice-cream is in our future, alas. A lot more leafy greens, which is cool, since we both actually like leafy greens.
But, changing my diet won't matter much if I don't start exercising properly. Luckily, the timing of the competition is pretty good for me. Fall is the time of year I'm most active outside. Hiking in July in North Carolina is a difficult chore due to the heat. Fall is when we already did most of our outdoor activity. There's a lot of additional walking in my immediate future.
Despite the fact that there's a competition that's triggering my effort to shed some weight, I'm doing it primarily because I just want to feel better and be healthier. My goal is to lose about 1.5 pounds a week. That's only about 20 pounds in three months; probably not enough to win the contest, but hopefully a realistic enough lifestyle change that I can get back below 240 pounds by next spring. This isn't about how much I can lose in three months. It's about whether or not I can treat my body better in the long run and have more years of productive, active life.
One reason I'm posting this here on my blog is that I'm hoping a public declaration will help me keep on track. I don't want to come back here next month and announce I've gained three pounds! And, I've also been giving a lot of thought to the kinds of essays I post here, and feel like I may have run my course on writing about politics. I feel like I've spelled out my political philosophies pretty thoroughly over the years, and just have run out of interesting things to say. (Partly, this is because our current crop of politics have stopped debating interesting topics.) But there's a lot more to life than politics, so I'm going to shift to topics a bit more personal. Stay tuned!
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
A few thoughts on Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand has been in the news lately since Republican VP candidate Paul Ryan is on record as saying that his thoughts on government have been influenced by her.
I read Atlas Shrugged when I was in my late twenties and can honestly say I count it among the handful of books that truly shaped the way I live my life. Before reading Atlas Shrugged, I mostly described myself as an agnostic. People seemed more accepting of this than of outright atheism. Agnosticism seems to leave some wiggle room, saying, "I don't know if I'm right, and I can't say if you're wrong." Rand's forceful arguments against religion really knocked me off that fence into full-fledged public atheism. If it made other people like me less, so be it. What was important was that I was honest with myself and with others, which in the end made me happier than when I hid part of myself.
The fact I read Rand and came out a confident atheist is why I find it bizarre that so many of her biggest fans are right-wing Republicans. Yeah, she hated collectivism, and sure she was pro-capitalism, but most of all she was pro-reason. For her faith-based thinking was weak-minded failure. She was also strongly in favor of abortion rights, refusing to see how an unthinking mass of cells could have rights that trumped the rights of an adult woman. If she were still alive today, no Republican who dreamed of getting votes would ever dare be photographed shaking hands with her in public. But, it's okay to have her on a bookshelf, since then you can treat Atlas Shrugged like a second Bible, picking and choosing the parts you wish to live by, ignoring the rest.
Of course, I pick and choose from her writings as well. I love her defense of reason, and whole-heartedly agree that the individual's highest virtue is to pursue his own happiness. Some people denounce this as selfishness, but I've never found the conflict. I don't see how my happiness or success harms anyone else.
I also think that the brand of capitalism she presents in Atlas Shrugged is a virtuous one far removed from what's practiced today. And while a lot of people feel that she celebrated wealth, they ignore that many of her central characters pass up wealth to pursue their dreams. You don't have to read between the lines to see that she thought that the pursuit of wealth was not the same goal as the pursuit of happiness, and many of her villains are those whose lives are driven purely by material things.
Where I jump ship with Rand is, ultimately, her blind faith in reason. The worst parts of Atlas Shrugged are the romances, which unfold under the veneer of logic. When the heroine dumps one boyfriend for a different man, everyone involved agrees it's the rational, sensible thing to do, and there are no hurt feelings. Her happiness is a rational happiness, but real life happiness is often completely independent of logic. I may be an atheist, but I'm also a realist, and humans have evolved to operate more on faith and emotion than reason. Reason is often called in in the aftermath of a decision made on instinct in order to explain or justify it, but I believe it isn't a driving force behind most human activities.
Nor should it be. Reason is an intellectual tool that provides useful insights into the world and can help guide us in decisions. But, we are, deep in our DNA, mere animals, and plenty of good can come from following our animal instincts. For instance, right now, while writing this, I've started feeling hungry. So I'm going to eat a sandwich. And I'll be happy about it, even though there are people in the world who don't have sandwiches. Does that make me selfish?
I read Atlas Shrugged when I was in my late twenties and can honestly say I count it among the handful of books that truly shaped the way I live my life. Before reading Atlas Shrugged, I mostly described myself as an agnostic. People seemed more accepting of this than of outright atheism. Agnosticism seems to leave some wiggle room, saying, "I don't know if I'm right, and I can't say if you're wrong." Rand's forceful arguments against religion really knocked me off that fence into full-fledged public atheism. If it made other people like me less, so be it. What was important was that I was honest with myself and with others, which in the end made me happier than when I hid part of myself.
The fact I read Rand and came out a confident atheist is why I find it bizarre that so many of her biggest fans are right-wing Republicans. Yeah, she hated collectivism, and sure she was pro-capitalism, but most of all she was pro-reason. For her faith-based thinking was weak-minded failure. She was also strongly in favor of abortion rights, refusing to see how an unthinking mass of cells could have rights that trumped the rights of an adult woman. If she were still alive today, no Republican who dreamed of getting votes would ever dare be photographed shaking hands with her in public. But, it's okay to have her on a bookshelf, since then you can treat Atlas Shrugged like a second Bible, picking and choosing the parts you wish to live by, ignoring the rest.
Of course, I pick and choose from her writings as well. I love her defense of reason, and whole-heartedly agree that the individual's highest virtue is to pursue his own happiness. Some people denounce this as selfishness, but I've never found the conflict. I don't see how my happiness or success harms anyone else.
I also think that the brand of capitalism she presents in Atlas Shrugged is a virtuous one far removed from what's practiced today. And while a lot of people feel that she celebrated wealth, they ignore that many of her central characters pass up wealth to pursue their dreams. You don't have to read between the lines to see that she thought that the pursuit of wealth was not the same goal as the pursuit of happiness, and many of her villains are those whose lives are driven purely by material things.
Where I jump ship with Rand is, ultimately, her blind faith in reason. The worst parts of Atlas Shrugged are the romances, which unfold under the veneer of logic. When the heroine dumps one boyfriend for a different man, everyone involved agrees it's the rational, sensible thing to do, and there are no hurt feelings. Her happiness is a rational happiness, but real life happiness is often completely independent of logic. I may be an atheist, but I'm also a realist, and humans have evolved to operate more on faith and emotion than reason. Reason is often called in in the aftermath of a decision made on instinct in order to explain or justify it, but I believe it isn't a driving force behind most human activities.
Nor should it be. Reason is an intellectual tool that provides useful insights into the world and can help guide us in decisions. But, we are, deep in our DNA, mere animals, and plenty of good can come from following our animal instincts. For instance, right now, while writing this, I've started feeling hungry. So I'm going to eat a sandwich. And I'll be happy about it, even though there are people in the world who don't have sandwiches. Does that make me selfish?
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Social Darwinism
Robert Reich had an opinion column after the Paul Ryan pick for VP in which he said, "Ryan exemplifies the social Darwinism at the core of today’s Republican
Party: Reward the rich, penalize the poor, let everyone else fend for themselves."
I've gone on to read the "social Darwinism" label in a half dozen other editorials, but it was Reich's definition that really got me thinking about government and it's relationship with the poor, the rich, and everyone else.
First of all, I think in terms of where money is actually spent, the vast, vast bulk of our spending goes to the "everyone else" category. Social security and medicare go to elderly people regardless of income. Combined, they make up about 44% of our budget. The next biggest slice of the pie is defense, at almost 25% of the budget, but this again seems to be an "everyone else" program. In theory, we all share equally in the benefits (and liabilities).
Welfare, which we would think of mostly as money going to the poor, is about 12% of the budget.
The rewards to the rich are much more difficult to quantify. A lot of their income is taxed different and at a much lower rate than ordinary income. They obviously also benefit the most from a low inheritance tax rate. Mortgage rate deductions also benefit the wealthy more than the poor or even the middle class. If you have a million dollar mortgage, you get a much bigger tax break than if you live in a double-wide. The wealthy also don't pay as much in social security taxes, since there's a wage cap on how much income is taxed. But the most expensive tax break I could find was the one for employer provided health insurance. It's true that corporations get the bulk of this tax break, but I would say that most people with employer provided health insurance probably fall into the middle class. The wealthy also sometimes avoid taxes via tax shelters, storing their money offshore. The Planet Money podcast recently did an article about this, and it's apparently fairly easy to do. But, since the top 1% of tax payers pay 37% of all income taxes, they obviously aren't hiding all their money overseas. Still, I'm willing to say that that the reason our tax code is so convoluted and confusing is because wealthy special interests spend a lot of money to tinker with it to give them advantages. My gut guess is that all the tax breaks probably add up to a much greater sum than all the money spent on welfare, but who knows?
I will say that, in classical government budget theory, you tax stuff you want less of and spend money on stuff you want more of. So, the government has a high tax on cigarettes, for instance, to drive up the cost and discourage smoking. While it's a tiny percentage of government spending, we want solar and wind power, so we spend money on these industries and give them tax advantages.
So, why do these theories not apply to wealth and poverty? If Reich is unhappy that Republicans would reward the rich and punish the poor, is he advocating that the government reward the poor and punish the rich? If we subsidise poverty by increasing spending, don't we actually increase poverty? If we punish the rich with higher tax rates, don't we just encourage them to report less and less income?
Keep in mind that I'm not a Republican. I already know that, this fall, I'll be voting for Gary Johnson on the libertarian ticket. The Ryan budget that Reich finds so draconian doesn't actually eliminate deficit spending until 2040! Nor have Romney or Ryan made any specific proposals of how they would simplify the tax code to eliminate all the loopholes, most of which represent governmental tinkering with free markets by favoring one industry over another. (For instance, the health insurance tax break favors employees of corporations over self-employed people. Or, subsidies that encourage the growth of corn over other crops.)
One final note: If you don't believe in social Darwinism, do you believe in social Intelligent Design?
I've gone on to read the "social Darwinism" label in a half dozen other editorials, but it was Reich's definition that really got me thinking about government and it's relationship with the poor, the rich, and everyone else.
First of all, I think in terms of where money is actually spent, the vast, vast bulk of our spending goes to the "everyone else" category. Social security and medicare go to elderly people regardless of income. Combined, they make up about 44% of our budget. The next biggest slice of the pie is defense, at almost 25% of the budget, but this again seems to be an "everyone else" program. In theory, we all share equally in the benefits (and liabilities).
Welfare, which we would think of mostly as money going to the poor, is about 12% of the budget.
The rewards to the rich are much more difficult to quantify. A lot of their income is taxed different and at a much lower rate than ordinary income. They obviously also benefit the most from a low inheritance tax rate. Mortgage rate deductions also benefit the wealthy more than the poor or even the middle class. If you have a million dollar mortgage, you get a much bigger tax break than if you live in a double-wide. The wealthy also don't pay as much in social security taxes, since there's a wage cap on how much income is taxed. But the most expensive tax break I could find was the one for employer provided health insurance. It's true that corporations get the bulk of this tax break, but I would say that most people with employer provided health insurance probably fall into the middle class. The wealthy also sometimes avoid taxes via tax shelters, storing their money offshore. The Planet Money podcast recently did an article about this, and it's apparently fairly easy to do. But, since the top 1% of tax payers pay 37% of all income taxes, they obviously aren't hiding all their money overseas. Still, I'm willing to say that that the reason our tax code is so convoluted and confusing is because wealthy special interests spend a lot of money to tinker with it to give them advantages. My gut guess is that all the tax breaks probably add up to a much greater sum than all the money spent on welfare, but who knows?
I will say that, in classical government budget theory, you tax stuff you want less of and spend money on stuff you want more of. So, the government has a high tax on cigarettes, for instance, to drive up the cost and discourage smoking. While it's a tiny percentage of government spending, we want solar and wind power, so we spend money on these industries and give them tax advantages.
So, why do these theories not apply to wealth and poverty? If Reich is unhappy that Republicans would reward the rich and punish the poor, is he advocating that the government reward the poor and punish the rich? If we subsidise poverty by increasing spending, don't we actually increase poverty? If we punish the rich with higher tax rates, don't we just encourage them to report less and less income?
Keep in mind that I'm not a Republican. I already know that, this fall, I'll be voting for Gary Johnson on the libertarian ticket. The Ryan budget that Reich finds so draconian doesn't actually eliminate deficit spending until 2040! Nor have Romney or Ryan made any specific proposals of how they would simplify the tax code to eliminate all the loopholes, most of which represent governmental tinkering with free markets by favoring one industry over another. (For instance, the health insurance tax break favors employees of corporations over self-employed people. Or, subsidies that encourage the growth of corn over other crops.)
One final note: If you don't believe in social Darwinism, do you believe in social Intelligent Design?
Sunday, August 05, 2012
A little late to the "you didn't build that" party...
I'm late to the party on the whole "you didn't build that" controversy. Obama's statement at first struck me as just very poor phrasing. I dislike the whole "gotcha" sound-bite culture that our political campaigns have become. Obama has an actual record of policy at this point--not exactly a glowing one--but any substantive criticism of his record is going to disappear under a wave of phrases stripped from their full context. The flip will be true of Romney as well. The hours devoted to actual laws he's proposing will be swamped by the hours dedicated to playing the sound bite of him saying he likes to fire people.
But, there's something that I want to address in the larger context of Obama's remark. As I understand the spin of what he meant to say, his argument is that no one builds a successful business of their own. Successful businesses exist in the context of good infrastructure. Obama mentioned roads and the internet, but I would add to this list an impartial legal system, good public education, and a peaceful, safe, and inclusive society.
Assuming that Obama was talking about this sort of infrastructure, I think it makes his comment even worse. Because, yes, we did build it together, using our taxes and our civic participation. And when you are driving on a public highway and get pulled over, no one ever checks your tax returns to find out if you've paid your fair share. They reality is, the roads are mostly neutral; a man who earns minimum wage gets to drive on the same interstates as the wealthiest people in our nation. The only one who really gets to drive alone on the highway, as near as I can tell, is the president himself.
So, we did build the infrastructure, and we all have equal access to it. The poorest child in America can get a library card. I certainly did, and my parents were definitely on the low, low end of the economic scale.
Honestly, despite all my libertarian leanings, I'm a big fan of good government. I want good roads, I want clean water and air, I want the trash picked up on time and the streets to be safe to walk on. I want every child to learn to read and write and have opportunities to pursue their education as far as they want to take it.
The problem is that, once you admit that government can do some good, some people would then argue that even more government creates even greater good. But, there's a point of diminishing returns. For instance, I think government has done a good job of making college more accessible. The down side is, a lot of colleges have dumbed down their requirements to pull in more students. And, a lot of people graduate from college with degrees that aren't worth a heck of a lot. And, as government has intervened to see that more and more people are given grants and access to loans to go to college, most colleges have responded simply by increasing their tuition.
I suspect the same is true of medical expenses. The more government puts money into the system, the more expensive the system gets.
I personally don't despise paying taxes. I recognize that things like schools, prisons, and parks cost money and improve the quality of my life. But, I do dislike throwing money down a well. It bugs me that so many of my tax dollars go to paying interest on debts we shouldn't have incurred. It bugs me that my tax dollars fund wars at costs disproportionate to the threats we are avoiding.
And yet, the truth of all this waste is that we built that too. We keep electing people willing to run up deficits and line the pockets of their closest donors. The most conservative politician in America will vow to vote against expanding Medicare, but ask them to close an outdated military base or stop building a plane that the air force no longer wants and suddenly money is no object.
Our government isn't going to change until we as a people change. Step one will be to stop obsessing over soundbites and stop treating government like a team sport. It's time for us a nation to say, yeah, I helped build this... and now it's time to help fix it.
But, there's something that I want to address in the larger context of Obama's remark. As I understand the spin of what he meant to say, his argument is that no one builds a successful business of their own. Successful businesses exist in the context of good infrastructure. Obama mentioned roads and the internet, but I would add to this list an impartial legal system, good public education, and a peaceful, safe, and inclusive society.
Assuming that Obama was talking about this sort of infrastructure, I think it makes his comment even worse. Because, yes, we did build it together, using our taxes and our civic participation. And when you are driving on a public highway and get pulled over, no one ever checks your tax returns to find out if you've paid your fair share. They reality is, the roads are mostly neutral; a man who earns minimum wage gets to drive on the same interstates as the wealthiest people in our nation. The only one who really gets to drive alone on the highway, as near as I can tell, is the president himself.
So, we did build the infrastructure, and we all have equal access to it. The poorest child in America can get a library card. I certainly did, and my parents were definitely on the low, low end of the economic scale.
Honestly, despite all my libertarian leanings, I'm a big fan of good government. I want good roads, I want clean water and air, I want the trash picked up on time and the streets to be safe to walk on. I want every child to learn to read and write and have opportunities to pursue their education as far as they want to take it.
The problem is that, once you admit that government can do some good, some people would then argue that even more government creates even greater good. But, there's a point of diminishing returns. For instance, I think government has done a good job of making college more accessible. The down side is, a lot of colleges have dumbed down their requirements to pull in more students. And, a lot of people graduate from college with degrees that aren't worth a heck of a lot. And, as government has intervened to see that more and more people are given grants and access to loans to go to college, most colleges have responded simply by increasing their tuition.
I suspect the same is true of medical expenses. The more government puts money into the system, the more expensive the system gets.
I personally don't despise paying taxes. I recognize that things like schools, prisons, and parks cost money and improve the quality of my life. But, I do dislike throwing money down a well. It bugs me that so many of my tax dollars go to paying interest on debts we shouldn't have incurred. It bugs me that my tax dollars fund wars at costs disproportionate to the threats we are avoiding.
And yet, the truth of all this waste is that we built that too. We keep electing people willing to run up deficits and line the pockets of their closest donors. The most conservative politician in America will vow to vote against expanding Medicare, but ask them to close an outdated military base or stop building a plane that the air force no longer wants and suddenly money is no object.
Our government isn't going to change until we as a people change. Step one will be to stop obsessing over soundbites and stop treating government like a team sport. It's time for us a nation to say, yeah, I helped build this... and now it's time to help fix it.
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