A Life of Assumptions

 But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane, 
In proving foresight may be vain:
 The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men 
Gang aft agley,
 --To a Mouse, 
Robert Burns
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Our lives are based upon assumptions we call "reality", or, "the Truth".

We assume that if we work hard, we will get ahead. If we marry, we will be happy (or at least, have our needs met, mostly.) If we lead responsible lives, we will gain and retain our personal property. And so it goes.

The military and civilian sectors also make assumptions before constructing plans and policy but these ideas are often horribly off-base, and when a clunky organism like a military-industrial complex becomes committed to a plan, it can be very hard to change tack.

Some grand failures of the modern era:


1) The Domino Theory: If the Republic of Vietnam fell to the Communists, so too would the rest of Southeast Asia

2) Commie Killing: Killing the Communists in SE Asia would create a democracy in Vietnam

3) The U.S. military can protect the U.S. Homeland from Islamic Terrorists

4) Killing Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan will make the U.S. immune from terrorism

5) The "Reverse Domino Theory": If Iraq stands up and becomes democratic, so too will the rest of the region

6) Defeating the Taliban military forces will result in a democratic Afghanistan

7) Requiring health care insurance will translate into affordable health care for all U.S. citizens

8) Globalization will benefit the American people


Of course, killing Communists in RVN did not prevent the North Vietnamese from uniting the country under Communism. The dominoes did not fall, either.

Defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan did not destroy al Qaeda. The deadly whack-a-mole game merely caused them to move to other locations, and become more virulent, much like the result when whacking a ball of mercury.

Requiring health care insurance does not translate to more affordable or accessible health care. Just as did the Communists and the terrorists, The health care behemoth will create new tactics to insure their profit margins.

Assumptions must be based upon reality, and not vice versa. Reality does not emerge into being from assumptions. When our assumptions are false, the plans made upon them and their results will not be effective.

Depending upon which side of the fence you sit, you have assumptions about Russia, Ukraine, Libya, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, etc. Those who engaged the U.S. military participation in so many foreign wars also made assumptions. Do you think your assumptions are any more reality-based than theirs?

The Land of Milk and Cookies

I don't care if you're full
Just eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it
Open up your mouth and feed it
--Eat It, Weird Al Yankovic

these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top
--Homage to My Hips,
Lucille Clifton

You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes
You just might find
You get what you need
--You Can't Always Get What You Want,
The Rolling Stones
____________________

Ranger Question of the Day:
If Obama were CEO of a major corporation,
would they retain him after four years?
___________________

Ranger does not do food articles, usually, but this one can be tied to tactical issues.

The first thing that returning prisoners of war crave are dairy products -- usually milk and ice cream as these are comfort foods that hearken back to days when they enjoyed the comforts of home.

In our little corner of the universe the grocery stores are having trouble keeping organic milk products stocked. The suppliers are in a bind because of increased feed costs due to increased petroleum costs; organic feed is more expensive than ordinary forage.

In addition, smaller bottles of milk are often not available, and we can only guess that is because people are buying smaller bottles because they cannot afford the larger ones. It is a strange day in the USA when one cannot purchase the kind of milk one desires.

Now that is change one can believe in.

And speaking of food issues, Mrs. Obama's "Let's Move" campaign to reduce the rate of obesity and introduce better food choices has been heralded by Better Homes and Gardens and other middle-brow outlets geared to makes us feel good about something today. Of course, she has gardeners maintain a vegetable garden outside of the White House. But how are Americans supposed to eat proper meals if they are unemployed or impoverished, or just too tired from trying to piece together a living to cultivate a garden?

What if you rent in a high-rise and or a high crime area, and you have no arable land available to you? It sounds very homey with retro overtones of Victory Garden, but how does that square with the reality of modern life?

If one is living on a fixed income, one must maximize the number of calories one may purchase with one's limited food allotment. Those foods are often high-carbohydrate and poor quality, laden with high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and other cheaper ingredients. Obesity rates are correlated to social and economic disparities. It costs money to purchase organic fruits and vegetables and to eat well. Ironically, cheaper food can often be purchased from China and South America. For people living on the edge, carbon footprints are not a concern.

Republicans often point to the weight of lower-income people as justification for cutting food programs, but people often become heavy from making poor food choices. It sounds easy and good to say "Let's Move", but the national blight of obesity has arisen from multifold causes. It's not easy to shake your thing when you're hungry or undernourished.

Most articles on the Move initiative offer unverified glowing reviews -- noting that stores like Walmart are increasing their fresh food choices and reducing the amount of HFCS. However, these moves were in play before Obama's program, a response to a segment of the market which is more informed and has the discretionary funds to pay more for healthier food choices.

Until the Department of Agriculture stops subsidizing monster processed food corporations like Monsanto, Archer, and ConAgra and their unlabled GMOs, obesity and it's evil twin of diabetes and other weight-related health woes will continue, unabated. Though a recent report stated that the rate of increase in the number of newly obese was decreasing, that still leaves over two thirds of us overweight or obese (and growing, no pun intended).

Until the interests of Big Agra and Big Pharma are reined in, obesity will be a growth industry.

--Jim & Lisa

They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

Them who has gets
and them what don't, won't
and what he don't take
the undertaker takes as you exit
--Them That Has, Gets,
The Andrew Sisters

The dice was loaded from the start
-Romeo and Juliet, Dire Straits

Maybe it's just the whole world
is like central casting.
They got it all rigged before you ever show up
--They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969)

We’ll never be sick a day in our lives my love
simply because we can’t afford to be
--Mink River, Brian Doyle
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Sunday Homily: The Fallacy of Christian Emotionalism.

Mr. Doyle's characters live on the edge, as do the one of six Americans at or below the poverty line. Their willing health is romantic, but life doesn't deal out romance. Hard facts dictate limited resources, and everyone doesn't get everything.

Thing is, we know it. That is why everyone is afraid to make a move regarding actual health care reformation. We are all very grateful for the drugs we get and the five minutes of the doctor's time. None of us wants to be thrown on the ash heap too soon, and somewhere along the way someone instilled the idea that we have a purpose for roaming this earth (even though for many, that seems to be little beyond patronizing Costcos to lay up 128 oz. bags of artificially-colored chips.)

If we would look at our existence rationally, there are only so many resources, and they are not apportioned equally. You and I both know that we do not get Cadillac health care. We accept something middling if we are fortunate to have some sort of coverage. If we choose to show compassion, we feel for those unfortunate enough to never have been at the receiving end of the bennie chute and so must trudge along with bad teeth and pulling ramps from the side of the road in the hopes of building concoctions to keep them going.

Instead of fearing "death panels", Ranger would welcome them, both at the state and federal levels -- death panels based upon medical realities, based in logical thinking, shucked of the emotionalism and false Christian ideas which swirl about any current efforts to address the thing.

We will not spend much time deconstructing the religious hypocrisy, but if one were to live by The Word, one would not lay up material things and would be buried in a pine box or incinerated (ashes to ashes, dust to dust). How is it the deceased enters the natural flow when hermetically sealed in a locked vault? Jesus does not speak of prolonging life in perpetuity on this physical plane. The Lazaruses and Methuselahs are few and far between. So, perpetuation of life beyond reasonable means is not a part of scripture.

Mercy, compassion and love are, however. The question is, how best to show those qualities? Is it always shown through keeping the organism alive through superhuman means, even when the sentience (soul?) has left the building (=body)? That may be interpreted as a selfish cruelty on the behalf of those who cannot let go.

The system bears a heavy burden during the final days, weeks, months and even years prior to the expiration of a critically ill person. Most Medicare costs are seen then. We prolong life that will benefit naught, except to line some health executive's pockets, and we do it unquestioningly, meeting any opposition with fierce and unthinking opposition.

"All life is sacred", is it not? If so, then we needs define "life", and perhaps differentiate that from existence in extremis. If mercy is the prime objective, that would seem mandatory.

As it stands, emotion and prejudice rule what should be the most rational of decisions. This is not a question of choosing who lives and dies; this IS a question of applying a medical protocol to determine what intervention are not merely heroic, but in fact, futile, and which may bring benefit.

It seems most of us would prefer to reach a reasonable end, knowing that death and taxes are the only sure thing, without extreme measures to extend our lives when there will be no further quality to be wrung from extending the quantity. Death panels could help revitalize our medical system by prioritizing and categorizing states of being and allocating resources in an equable manner. This would be a step in reining in the health care behemoth.

The NYT's Paul Krugman calls us out this week:

"A serious fiscal plan for America would address the long-run drivers of spending, above all health care costs, and it would almost certainly include some kind of tax increase. But we’re not serious: any talk of using Medicare funds effectively is met with shrieks of “death panels,” and the official G.O.P. position — barely challenged by Democrats — appears to be that nobody should ever pay higher taxes" (The Austerity Delusion).

Krugman concludes, "The confidence fairy (= hope) won’t save us from the consequences of our folly." So we languish in a head lock we won't get out of because who will let granny die, or the hydroencephalocele baby who is doomed to die anyway, but who will undergo extravagant outlays of medical resources and funds during its brief existence? Because somewhere in the arcana, Christianity demands that hydroencephalocele's keep breathing until superhuman efforts fail to continue to enable that possibility.

Meanwhile, Ranger has an associate who is caught up in the folly of a poorly administrated health care system of limited resources. She is medically disabled but fairly young and in fairly good health. A recently FDA-approved drug might provide the help she has been seeking to become a more productive member of society.

However, that drug is caught up in a precious Big Pharma + drug manufacturer monopoly: It is not covered by her plan's formulary, and must be ordered by the doctor from the manufacturer (even though FDA-approved.) Someone stands to benefit from this Rube Goldberg distribution scheme, and it is not her. It will cost hundreds of dollars per month, and she will probably not be able to afford this. Yet we choose to afford to allow people like her -- prospective contributing members of society -- to limp along with the minimal resources currently provided.

We live in a country where medical caravans visit the most under-served parts of our country a few times a year and must turn away hundreds each time for the most basic of health care. Ranger contends that precious medical resources like health care professionals should not be providing frivolous services like nose and boob jobs and penis implants. What a revolution THAT would be, if we trained our attention on things that actually mattered.

It is the most human of all questions: What constitutes a life? It is our contention that being brain dead and on life support is not living.

--Lisa and Jim