Comfort

"I choose to believe that the white light people sometimes see... they're all just chemical reactions that take place when the brain shuts down.... There's no conclusive science. My choice has no practical relevance to my life, I choose the outcome I find more comforting.... I find it more comforting to believe that this isn't simply a test."

- Dr. Greg House, House (#121)

Meeting Haiku #2

E.R.P. Madness

People talking in circles

Confusion Reigns

Meeting Haiku

Life Auditor

Fixing the work of others

Not call of Maker

Health Care

I find politics to be an interesting conundrum, largely because bipartisanship and the size of the United States has served to separate the actual essence of many issues into a myriad of competing viewpoints, bureaucracies, political score keeping and cultural identities.

Which leads me to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a hotly debated piece of politics that largely seems to fall along partisan lines.  I find myself with very mixed feelings on this issue. At its inception I believe that it had pure intentions. We live in a time where we are sending robots to mars and trying to master the power of quantum physics, but poor people are dying because they are being forced to choose between pain meds and antibiotics because they lack the money for both. I firmly believe that with all the technological power and economic might of the United States that our disadvantaged and poor should not be dying from easily curable diseases. The problem is this; how do you make an effective system to treat this problem without allowing the graft and waste that is typical of federal programs? This is where politics comes in. This would be a challenging task even in a politically neutral environment, where everyone went in with the best intentions. Even then humans are imperfect creatures, there would still be a chance that the program would not work well. Now take this challenging task and place it in the political landscape of the last 5 years. I lack trust in most politicians, but especially federal ones, as I feel that most have risen to that level largelydue  to interest groups that back them, so their motivations are all high suspect.  Given that I would surmise that the ACA would have a low chance of success of being a high functional and efficient system.  Now add the pork and partisanship to the mix and it pushes these chances even lower. Of course the whammy is going to be actually determining the effectiveness once it is implemented. Both sides of the aisle will have vested interests in skewing the data as much as possible, and spreading as much disinformation as possible. I have honestly no idea how transparent most federal programs are, but I do know bureaucracy and rarely are numbers their friend.

I guess I will have to wait a few years to get a real evaluation of this program, I remain skeptical but I truly hope this becomes an effective institution in the years to come. What I really want is for Washington to realize that the intention of the ACA is to help people, and for Washington to genuinely start acting in the best interests of the people, whether that be the ACA or something else.

Rick Warren TED

For me its hard to make sense why the world even works. I sit here in a cafeteria and wonder how the hundreds of people that work at this Honda plant come to work everyday. I know that I would not be capable of doing the same job everyday for years and years on end. I am unable to put myself in some one's head who could do that. It is as alien to me as being blind or mentally disabled, I have no way to conceptually understand it.  From a practical view I certainly can, they likely have families to feed, or hobbies and interests they need to fund, plain just like not having to think, or love working with there hands in a job that pays them well enough to do it. I just can't enter that mindset and not see the abyss staring back. The idea that people would live their lives not liking what they did for a majority of it is bone chilling. How do people anywhere deal with this problem, for I know for certainly that I am not the only one who thinks this.  I think the only way to deal with this is to not think about it. These thoughts are like Pandora's box, once they are out, they cannot but put back in it. Which brings to me the TED talk of Rick Warren. While I am not a man of faith, I can respect those who are, and I can I love his view on life. The point of his TED speech was for us to live the way we meant to live, and to use who we were to make this place (Earth, society, the human race) a little better than we got it. Whether this mandate is from God or simply how it should, I cannot agree more with this sentiment. I love that there are people who have seen what I believe the truth of existence to be, and are trying to help us along that path. I can only hope his words can touch others like they have me. The fact that I am writing this post from work on a Saturday show me how much I am not in that place, and that I must strive to get there soon.  The words of Robert Byrne ring truest "The purpose of life is a life of purpose"

Here is the TED speech given by Rick Warren.