February 28th, 2006
A heap of thanks to Jon Armstrong at [Blurbomat](http://www.blurbomat.com/) for pointing out this [Malcom Gladwell article:](http://www.gladwell.com/2005/2005_08_29_a_hazard.html)
“Moral hazard” is the term economists use to describe the fact that insurance can change the behavior of the person being insured. If your office gives you and your co-workers all the free Pepsi you want–if your employer, in effect, offers universal Pepsi insurance–you’ll drink more Pepsi than you would have otherwise. If you have a no-deductible fire-insurance policy, you may be a little less diligent in clearing the brush away from your house.
This should be required reading for anyone that thinks that HSAs are the way to go. Gladwell provides information on the history of the failed Universal Healthcare movement (did you know that it dates back to WWI?), reasons why the current method of providing healthcare is a failure, and why HSAs are a categorically bad idea.
February 27th, 2006
Yesterday, during one of the brief moments where I felt well enough to get off my posterior and _do_ something, my husband and I were bandying about the idea of Batman in Cleveland. It started off as a joke, and then got the “I’m _so_ going to blog this, you know that, right?” We started talking, as only comic book geeks can, about whether or not Bruce Wayne (Batman, for those of you uninitiated to the comic books, cartoons or movies) would _ever_ live in Cleveland.
Sure, there’s plenty Bruce and his Dark Knight alter ego could do here: we’ve got the industrial thing going for us, not to mention biotechnology and plenty of opportunities for charity and non-profit work, so Bruce can make his money (maybe) and throw galas for good. He could put his industrial complexes out in Independence with the other industrial complexes. Just think — he’d bring more jobs to Cleveland than that Quicken guy! We’ve also got plenty of crime and not enough cops, so Batman would have ample activity anytime he wanted it. But it’s not just about the accommodations, it’s also about the city. Read the rest of this entry »
February 27th, 2006
When it’s biological. I hear a lot of people who say that homosexuals lead “alternative lifestyles”, yet these people insist that homosexuality is not a choice–that it is a “biological thing”. I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and I’ve come to a realization: if you believe (as I do) that homosexuality is _not_ a choice, that it is innately biological, _stop referring to it as an “alternative lifestyle”!_
I know that there are some people out there who will disagree with me, but hear me out. If you insist that homosexuality is alternative, you’re insisting that there is another choice for gays and lesbians. That’s like saying that I _chose_ to be white, or that I _chose_ to be straight. I didn’t, I was just born that way. When was the last time you heard about ostriches exercising “alternative transportation” because they’re flightless birds? Biologically, homosexuals don’t have a choice. Of course, they can _choose_ to live contrary to their biology, creating unhappy relationships and dysfunctional families, but is that really a valid choice? Read the rest of this entry »
February 24th, 2006
I’m an independent liberal, one who _used_ to read Daily Kos, well, daily. I used to read conservative websites like Little Green Footballs and shake my head, thinking _what vitriol! How hateful!_ Now I think the same thing about many of the entries on Daily Kos as well. What happened? I’m not sure–perhaps a shift in my perception, perhaps a shift in the collective personality at Daily Kos, probably a little bit of both. I am sure of one thing though: Daily Kos is just the mirror image of conservative diary communities like Little Green Footballs and Free Republic.
Why do I think this? Both are full of _ad hominem_ attacks, attempted character assasinations, rabid infighting and their users frequently demonize anyone who harbors a dissenting opinion. The star members of the community bully others into marching lockstep with the accepted beliefs. Switch around a few words, play opposites with some of the opinions, these sites could all be the same!
Sites like these are frequently bad for all of us. Sure, sometimes there’s some great posts on Daily Kos, usually the science posts or financial diaries. Most of the entries and comments don’t challenge anyone to think outside partisan lines, however, and they present a warped view of reality and they encourage immature partisan behavior.
So if they’re that bad, why read any of them? I’ve joined a twelve step to shake the habit: I’m weaning myself off of Daily Kos, finding that my fix is less than necessary every time I come back. I’m hoping that I’ll get my coin sometime this decade. I’ll stick to reading the national and international news and reading local blogs. I can form my opinions without Kos’ or Armando’s help or “encouragement.”
February 22nd, 2006
I’ve got to say, Alan Richman is one brave guy. He’s braved stranger dishes than the average American couch potato will see on Fear Factor, just to write about them all.
Read his article, [Waiter, There's a Cloven Hoof on my Plate](http://men.style.com/gq/features/landing?id=content_4197), if you haven’t just finished your meal.
February 21st, 2006
Someone once told me that forgiveness is like the ringing of a church bell. The pain of wrongdoing goes in waves like the volume of the bell’s ringing: the first toll is the loudest and most painful, and every time after that the sound diminishes until it’s no more than a whisper in the back of your mind.
As a Christian, I struggle with forgiveness. Not the action of forgiveness, but whether or not it’s actually possible. How can I, as an individual with a working brain, look at my transgressors and say “I forgive you”? How is it possible to look at someone that has wronged you and say_”It’s ok–I forgive you.”_ Read the rest of this entry »
February 14th, 2006
I’ve read (and heard) some comments about the NEO “blogosphere”, specifically about the behavior of some of our bloggers. Some say that a few of our bloggers are a little hard to handle. I say, suck it up and read. It’ll be good for you, and you may miss something important if you don’t.
Any community of bloggers is a little like a family. We’ve all got our drunk uncles, our snobby older sisters, moonbat hippy cousins and crazy aunts. I’m not going to start classifying anyone in the Cleveland blogosphere as “Creepy Uncle Harry” (but we all know who you are…), but we all have our little quirks and some of them just aren’t cute like showing the kids what a colostomy bag looks like or giving little Jimmy his first sip of homemade moonshine/engine degreaser (after all, he _did_ just get into that fancy preschool!). My point is that we need all sort of people around to balance out the decks, even the brother-in-law that voted for Bush twice, and then two more times this decade.
We may all be a little strange, smelly and more than a little offensive to each other, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. The sometimes tiresome navel-gazing is nothing but a kitchen table conversation — it twists and turns, sometimes it gets a little heated, but there’s usually no hard feelings by the time the coffee’s poured. After all, if I couldn’t disagree with Hitch’s and Jonathan’s conservative ramblings over at [Brewed Fresh Daily](http://wwwbrewedfreshdaily.com), read about the magical [coffee castle](http://writeslikeshetalks.blogspot.com/2006/01/coffee-castle.html) Jill’s daughter built (I swear I’m going to have one of those someday), and read Tim’s rants against Brown, I would feel like something is missing.
So here’s my little paper heart to Cleveland, with its pasted-on candy hearts and a doily background. Even with the shitstorms that occasionally swirl up around NEO, the blogosphere strides on. The bloggers in NEO are crazy, creative stars who want to make the world a better place and dream of ways to do it. The best part is, these dreamers aren’t asleep. Happy Valentine’s day NEO, you all deserve a big ol’ kiss.
February 14th, 2006
Rule #11: “Public service often involves waking up in the morning, opening up the newspaper, and discovering that someone, somewhere out there thinks that you’re a dickhead.”
The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat
The rules of bureaucracy, as [The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat](http://angrydrunkbureaucrat.blogspot.com/) sees them, are straight forward and so simple they seem humorous. If you want to read them all, look in the sidebar–all sixteen rules are listed there. While they’re certainly funny, all of the rules are true. Gems like “Rule #2″ (the sixty minutes rule: “Never do anything that would cause Ed Bradley, Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Steve Croft, Leslie Stahl, or even Andy Rooney to persue you down a hallway with a camera crew.”) are priceless and need to be memorized by Ohio politicians and bureaucrats from the city level on up to the Statehouse.
February 14th, 2006
It seems like there’s a lot of people out there talking about this little state. Most of them only know Ohio from the Drew Carey show or WKRP, some of them know us from a brief visit or a friend’s brother, but everyone seems to be talking about Ohio like they’ve got a stake in the fate of our state. We’ve become a choice in the political fantasy football league and it’s beginning to get tiresome.
I’m tired of hearing people talk about Sherrod Brown as if he’s anything but a rank and file politician. The Ohio Democratic Party had to strong-arm Hackett out of a _primary_ so that he could win it. That’s just pitiful. It’s a primary, kids! Not the actual election, but a primary. That sends a pretty clear message: _Brown can’t win a primary unless he’s unopposed_. You just know that DeWine’s campaign will use this to their advantage.
It’s bad enough that we have so many problems with corruption and questionable behavior in our existing state government. We have [legislated bigotry](http://www.smartvoter.org/2004/11/02/oh/state/issue/1/), we’ve had [scandals](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/14/national/14coin.html?_r=1&oref=slogin_) [galore](http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002800204_ohio12.html), we’ve got people involved with [national scandals](http://www.rollcall.com/issues/51_72/news/11875-1.html?CMP=OTC-RSS). We stink of corruption. Now, along with that lovely sewer-smell that only lawless politics can bring, we have petty schoolyard tactics employed in the running of primaries. Our party politics stink.
I’m not thrilled with Hackett dropping out–he could have made a change for good, but he’s giving up. That’s his choice, but I think that he could really have been good for Ohio. It’s hard to stay in the race when you’ve been so betrayed and sometimes you have to know when to quit. I think that his vociferous statement about the party’s tactics has exposed problems with the ODP that the general public didn’t know about, and maybe that will be the good that comes out of this disappointment.
If anything, this has just cemented my decision to move back to Independent status in the voter’s booth. I won’t be affiliated with _any_ party, because affiliation means support. I can’t support underhanded tactics like pressuring donors to cease funding a candidate, I can’t support a party that breaks promises. That means I can’t support _either_ the Democratic or Republican parties. Hell, I can’t even tell the difference between the two anymore.
February 10th, 2006
We all have stories to tell, we just don’t know it yet. We’ve been convinced that our lives are small and uninteresting compared to everything else in this big world.
Take that homeless guy on the corner: what do you think he had for his most recent meal? How did he get his meal? What brought him to that corner? Pay attention to those people you pass in the grocery:
* That woman over there just got passed over for a raise she _knows_ she deserves, while the person she constantly covers for got the glory and the cash.
* That kid bagging your groceries? He got accepted to Brown University, but he really wants to go to Kent so that he can stay closer to his family and his girlfriend. He’s mulling over how he’s going to break the news to his parents as he bags your ketchup.
* The woman who will take your parking spot as soon as you pull out just finished her third IVF cycle this past month. This one takes, allowing her to have twins, but she doesn’t know that yet. She’s on her way to pick up some Ben and Jerry’s and yet another box of pregnancy tests. She’ll use up all three, not believing what she sees, before she tells her partner that there is a faint pink line.
* The store manager just got back from Iraq. He’s one of the lucky ones who’s come back without injury, but he still wakes up every night to the sounds of phantom gunfire and shells. He took this job while he’s waiting to get back into college.
These may not seem interesting, especially with the onslaught of celebrity romances and pregnancies, government scandals, and true crime, but they are in many ways more important than what you’ll hear on the evening news or read in tomorrow’s paper. These stories form our social environment. Read the rest of this entry »