Author Archives: tom

I've Elected to Have No Opinion

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OK this goes against the very grain of writing a blog, but here goes: I have decided on some issues to have absolutely, completely, entirely no opinion. I hope this doesn’t put my American citizenship in peril.

There are certainly many issues where I will continue to have strong opinions and this is far from a decision to stop blogging. But I’ve noticed that I’m oftentimes asked to weigh in on an issue and I have a hard time either deciding on the issue or caring about it. I’m now electing to vocally have no opinion.

I’ve often used the 24 hour news channels as a scapegoat and will do so here. My problem with networks like CNN, Fox, and MSNBC is that every 24 hours they need to find 24 hours of content. One of the ways they fill this content is to pit pundits against each other and argue; they also bring viewers in to participate through real time emails and phone calls. This results in all of us feeling not that we have a right to an opinion, but that we have a duty to an opinion. I’ve decided to just say no to this duty. Here are some of the areas where I have chosen to have no opinion:

  • The Mt. Soledad Cross: There is a war memorial cross on a hill in La Jolla. For the last several years there have been lawsuits going back and forth regarding the appropriateness of having a religious symbol on public land. I’ve decided to have no opinion.
  • Every year at Christmas the level of moral outrage appears to spike up. Public displays of manger scenes (Christian) menorahs (Jewish) and the like provoke heat seemingly every year. Some complain that wishing a non-Christian “Merry Christmas” is offensive while others are offended with “Happy Holidays” and feel they are not allowed to say “Merry Christmas.” I’ve elected to have no opinion.
  • Last week I was listening to National Public Radio and they ran a story on chocolate milk in schools. It seems that some groups (like the dairy industry) like having chocolate milk in schools because more children will drink milk. They’ve outlined their arguments at a web page called Raise Your Hand For Milk. The other side argues that the added sugar in the chocolate makes it no better than sugared soda. They are led by Chef Ann Cooper who calls herself the “renegade lunch lady.” I’ve elected to have no opinion.

There will no doubt be other issues and I’ll keep the blog posted.

End of a Month of Celebration

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Almost everyone knows that I love Thanksgiving. I like the fact that while it’s a civil holiday, most people think of it in at least partly religious terms. I like that it doesn’t cause the problems of specifically religious holidays (e.g. Christmas). I also like the idea of taking a time to specifically look at those people and things we are grateful for.

Thanksgiving was fun, but the real celebration was the wedding of my nephew Nathan to Makayla Nadeau. I can safely say that if it weren’t for their wedding there would be no way we’d go to Newport, Rhode Island in November. It goes without saying but it was a magical weekend. I’m Nathan’s godfather and as a priest I gave him his 1st Communion; I was also touched to be asked to participate in part of the wedding ceremony. Rev. Dan Hopkins presided and did all the legal stuff, but I treasure my part in it.

Nancy and I flew into New York City and we were able to spend time with our niece Katie and her boyfriend David. I’ll confess that I like NYC better and Nancy does, but it was great.

We took the train from Penn Station to Providence, RI. It came a month after peak foliage but it was a beautiful ride nonetheless. I love San Diego and will never move but I do miss the East Coast from time to time and it was nice to experience it from sea level.

Nathan and Makayla, Nancy and I wish you as happy a marriage as ours.

Another Health Care Post

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The current Health Care Debate answers one of the critical needs in this country: how to provide protection to everyone (or nearly everyone). But there is another need: how to contain costs and make health care more efficient. We’re hearing more about how to provide health care to some of the 47 million people in this country without health insurance, but very little about how to make the system more efficient. Let me tackle these two separate issues one at a time.

The figure of 47 million without insurance comes from the census department and is from 2008. That translates to 20% of the US population under 65. There is nearly universal coverage for the population over 65 because of Medicare. Most Americans get health insurance from their work, or the work of someone in their household. Unfortunately that excludes people who are under 65 and not working, people who own their own business, and people who are not eligible to receive health insurance from their employers. These people daily live with the awareness that an accident or serious illness can have catastrophic effects. It’s true that if you are uninsured and are injured, the emergency room of any hospital is required to treat you regardless of ability to pay, but that’s a long way away from being cured. According to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) the hospital is required to treat a life threatening emergency until you are stable or can be transported somewhere else you can be treated. They are not required to treat a serious, but not life threatening, emergency and can “release” you once you are stable even if you life was in danger when you came in.

Now, whenever we liberals talk about expanding health coverage conservatives scream that government run health care would be a disaster. But the funny thing is that since 1966 we’ve had virtually universal, government run health care for those 65 or older. It’s called Medicare. I work with the elderly and to a person they like how Medicare is run. When you turn 65 you are eligible to enroll in Medicare, but not required. You are free to not enroll and find health insurance on your own. Funny that I don’t know anybody who has done that. It’s also funny that we have universal health care for the elderly (who vote in high numbers) but not children (who can’t vote).

But this misses my main point. We are not dealing with is the outrageous cost of health care and how poorly we ration it. Do not be fooled: we currently ration health care but we do it by coverage. If two 40 year old men are diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes (formally called “Adult Onset Diabetes”) and only one of them has health insurance, their lives will become dramatically different. The one with health insurance almost certainly has access to medication (either oral or injectable), counseling to change your lifestyle, and methods to monitor your blood sugar level. The one without has none of this. The one without health insurance is looking at a dramatically shorter lifespan with the added benefits of possible blindness and gangrene in your feet.

The hard, cold reality is this: no matter what we do, we won’t ever be able to have everything we want as we want it as soon as we want it. We as a nation have to decide who will not receive all they want. Currently we ration by ability to pay (either privately or through insurance). I don’t believe this is the best way.

The further hard, cold reality is that no matter what we do, the death rate is still the same: one per person. We are all going to die one day and all the health care in the world isn’t going to stop that. The purpose of health care is not to allow us to live forever, but to allow us to live a good quality of life for as long as is practical. That said, there really does come a point where additional health care dollars are not doing that. For example, if a 95 year old man with terminal prostate cancer wishes to have aggressive chemotherapy treatment it probably doesn’t make sense. The chemo is likely to be unsuccessful, and even if it does stop the cancer, he is likely to be much sicker from the chemo. Even if the chemo is successful and doesn’t lead to additional bad side effects, he is still a 95 year old man who will likely die of something else within the next few years.

Under the current system, if he (or his family) demands aggressive treatment he will likely get it. His primary doctor can refuse to allow the chemotherapy but most doctors will go along with the patient or family if they are insistent enough. Also, if his heart stops beating (for any reason) the local paramedics will try through CPR to get it going again. Essentially there is little in the current system that will tell him it’s time to go. These are resources that are not being used to help people who will. The chemotherapy the 95 year old man receives takes away from the ability to provide preventative medicine for children and the poor. Unfortunately at this time there is nobody who is able to say no to the 95 year old man.

This isn’t about death panels. It is about recognizing that limited health care resources need to be allocated where they will do the most good for the most people. My father in law is 90 years old and is in good health. Recently I overhead a conversation he was having with a few friends. He was explaining that if there was a procedure that he needed and a 30 year old man needed the same procedure, the younger man should get it even if the younger man cannot pay for it. His friends were astonished and basically said that the 90 year old is entitled to whatever he can afford, and if the younger man can’t afford it, well that’s life. Frankly, I hope when I’m 90 I’ll have the same insight as my father in law.

At some point this discussion has to be part of our health care debate.

Family Update

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OK, I don’t do this often, but I wanted to post a quick note about happenings in my family. I decided to do this after I read a nice article about my nephew Chris in his local newspaper in Virginia. He turns 18 next month and has begun his senior year at my old high school, Woodbridge Senior High School. I hear rumor of a tattoo, but haven’t seen it yet.

In other exciting news, his older brother Nathan is marrying his longtime love, Makayla Nadeau. We’re all gathering in Rhode Island in November for the wedding (a short 55 days from today). Nathan is currently studying for a Ph.D. at Boston University (a short ride on the T from my old stomping grounds, Boston College).

These are exciting days.

The Health Care Debate is Making Me Sick

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This is no surprise but when Barack Obama was elected President I was one of the people who was heartened. I believed (and still believe) that our country can once again be one that cares about all of its people, not just the ones with oil wells. His decision to tackle health care makes me feel that this may be the time we have real reform.

It’s cliché but true to say that our current health care system is broken. Most of us have health insurance and if we’re under 65 years old we get it from our employer (or the employer of the head of our household). Employer provided health insurance started as just another perk to attract good employees, but it’s become a huge problem. It’s a problem for a couple of reasons:

  • This is the easiest problem to understand, but if you lose your job, you lose your health insurance. At the time when you’re awash in worries about how to pay your bills, you now have to worry about getting sick or injured. It’s true that many people can take advantage of COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) but that means you need to pay the entire cost of the policy (where before your employer paid most of it) and it expires 1 1/2 years (18 months) after it starts.
  • If you work for someone who doesn’t offer health insurance, it can be difficult to get it. Your employer is not required to offer it, though most large employers do for full time employees. But if you’re part time, if you work for a small company, or if your boss is a cheap bastard, you’re out of luck. You need to find insurance on your own.

I’ll admit to this, but I don’t have much sympathy for the insurance companies. They have to negotiate with large companies for big volume, but if you’re looking for individual coverage you have no way to negotiate. Not only do you pay big bucks for limited coverage, they can drop you for just about anything. And they can do it retroactively (this is called “recision”). Don’t believe me? Ask Robin Beaton. She is a retired nurse who was diagnosed with breast cancer in June 2008 and needed a double mastectomy. Her insurer, Blue Cross approved the surgery, but days before the surgery they informed her that they weren’t going to pay for the surgery because she had a preexisting condition that she hadn’t disclosed. Turns out she had seen a dermatologist for acne and Blue Cross interpreted this as precancerous (teens all over the world may panic now). Since she “already had cancer” they weren’t going to pay for the mastectomy. Through the intervention of her congressman she was able to have the surgery 4 months later when the size of the tumor increased 2 to 3 centimeters. You can read more about this at Salon.com and CNN.

I knew when President Obama started talking about health care there would be some pushback from the Republicans but I can’t believe what I’m hearing. To quote Lily Tomlin, “No matter how cynical you get, it’s impossible to keep up.” Here are some highlights:

  • Sarah Palin: Seniors and the disabled “will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care.”
  • The Club for Growth: The health care reform plan would set limits similar to the “socialized” system in Britain, where people are allowed to die if their treatment would cost more than $22,000.
  • Rush Limbaugh (7 August 2009): It’s right out of Adolph Hitler’s playbook.

There’s more but this gives you a flavor. The reality is that President Obama, and many of us, simply wish to provide adequate health care to all Americans. We don’t wish to devalue or decrease the health care of people who already benefit, but expand it to those who don’t. In the 1960s these same forces opposed Medicare calling it “socialized medicine,” but today it would be hard to find someone on Medicare who thinks he’d be better off without it.

Stop believing the lies of those who want to nothing else but to scare you.

Goodbye Michael

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So earlier today there was a funeral in Los Angeles; maybe you heard something about it. Michael Jackson, who died on June 25th, was laid to rest today in Forest Lawn Cemetery after a memorial service at the Staples Center.

It was a landmark event that marked the end of a brilliant but tragic life. Even people who didn’t like Michael have to admit he was a boy and man with incredible talent and genius for what would entertain people. I have to confess that my iPod has a few of his songs and I still enjoy listening to them. He was one of a kind.

Unfortunately he was also tortured by the very talent that made him famous. Much like his former father in law, Elvis Presley he appeared to use great quantities of pain killers to try to cure his emotional and spiritual pain. Elvis died at 42 and Michael at 50, and fans of both try to pass their deaths off as heart attacks.

I believe that the tragedy in Michael’s life is that he didn’t love himself as much as his fans loved him. It all seemed to work as long as he was the talented, youngest member of the Jackson 5. He was young, black, and very talented. But as he grew up he somehow became uncomfortable with the idea of being a black man. In the 1990s his skin began to turn white; he claimed he suffered from a condition called Vitiligo, a condition where patches of skin have no melanin and appear lighter than the rest. Most people of African descent either live with it or find ways to make the patches appear darker. Michael claimed that he lightened the rest of his skin to match the patches. Many health professionals doubt he ever had Vitiligo, and even those who believe him think he made a poor choice in how to treat it. It is generally assumed that he wanted to be white and “bleached” his skin to make him look white.

He also didn’t want to grow up. I personally don’t get this (and am much happier as an adult) but he embraced the innocence of being an eternal child. This ended up being the most controversial part of his life as he built a life around his own imagined childhood: a ranch he called Neverland from Peter Pan. He surrounded himself with children who he saw as playmates. Unfortunately the rest of the world saw these children as victims and him as a pedophile. His claims that they shared his bed as “innocent fun” sickened most of us and gave him a label he never fully understood.

I pray that in death he finally achieve the peace that eluded him in this life.

Goodbye Michael.

Habamas Cattus

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OK, my Latin is really rusty and I have no idea if I have the right declension but it’s supposed to say “We have a cat” and it’s a takeoff from the “Habamas Papam” that is declared when a new pope is selected.

Yes, the long wait is over, and we have a cat. Pictures will follow, but for now she’s a short hair tabby that we got from the San Diego Humane Society and SPCA. Once we finished all the house stuff it was time to look at getting a new cat. As you remember, our last cat, Kirby, died in March and we’ve been without a cat since. Yesterday there was a Humane Society Adoption Center at the Ocean Beach Dogwash and they had 9 kittens. They were given names, grouped by litter. Ours was named (no kidding) Mint Chocolate Chip and one of her siblings was named Neopolitan. There was another group of three called Morticia, Uncle Fester, and Lurch.

One of our first jobs is finding a new name for her: Mint Chocolate Chip was just a placeholder name. We’ve decided to move past the vacuum cleaner names (ie, Hoover and Kirby) and we are thinking of naming her Missy. Suggestions are always welcome and we’ll keep everyone posted.

We had a good night with her last night but I still have this fantasy of inventing a time machine and going back to ancient Egypt. There I can find the person who first decided to domesticate a nocturnal animal.

Caperton v. Massey: How Could Four Justices Side with Massey?

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OK, I’ll confess a bias: When I was in high school I dreamed of being a lawyer. I liked the idea of argumentation and found that I think like a lawyer. I was cured of this desire when I joined the debate team at George Mason University. I learned that very little time is actually spent in argumentation: most time is spent in libraries going through endless articles and most argumentation is not finding the best argument but rather in burying your opponent in tons of words (with little regard to efficacy).

In any case I still enjoy following how courts rule on different issues and I confess to a dream of someday meeting NPR’s Nina Totenberg. A few days ago I was listening to NPR about the Supreme Court’s recent decision in the case of Caperton v. Massey. Here are the facts of the case:

  • In 1998 Hugh Caperton (President of Harman Coal Company) sued the Massey Energy in West Virginia, claiming they were using fraudulent business practices to run him out of business. In 2002 a jury in Boone County, West Virginia agreed and awarded Caperton the sum of $50 million.
  • Not surprisingly, Massey Energy appealed and the case began to wend its way up through the courts. During this time (in 2004) West Virginia Judge Warren McGraw was running for reelection as a judge in the West Virginia State Court of Appeals. Massey’s CEO was Don Blankenship and he began to campaign against Judge McGraw. I’ve been reading articles on this case and I can’t find any previous relationship between Don Blankenship and Judge Warren McGraw.
  • In any case, Don Blankenship began to back another candidate, Brent Benjamin, for the office. In fairness, Blankenship had given money to political campaigns before, but the sums were small. With Benjamin running for office, however, he donated $3 million
  • The campaign against McGraw turned ugly: a web page called …and for the sake of the kids accused McGraw of voting “to let a child-rapist out of prison, and court records show the plan called for the rapist to work at a local school.” Not surprisingly, Brent Benjamin wins the election and gains a seat on the West Virginia Court of Apppeals.
  • Drum roll everyone: the case of Caperton v. Massey came before the court. The lawyers for Hugh Caperton asked Judge Benjamin to recuse himself as his position was due in large part to the generosity of the defendant, Don Blankenship. He refuses.
  • Another drum roll: The court reversed the decision by a 3-2 vote with Judge Benjamin voting for the majority.
  • Final drum roll: Hugh Caperton continues to appeal, arguing that Judge Benjamin is biased and should have recused himself. Eventually it reaches the Supreme Court who agrees to accept the case.

Now it becomes news. The Supreme Court finds that there is always going to be a fuzzy line with elected judges, but wherever the line falls, this is way beyond it. In the 5-4 majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy ruled that Justice Benjamin should have recused himself: “Just as no man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, similar fears of bias can arise when — without the consent of the other parties — a man chooses the judge in his own cause.” The opinion recognized that there may some fuzziness and there may need to be other rulings but this case was too far over the line.

The minority opinion used what I call the “Pandora’s Box” rational. Chief Justice John Roberts based his opinion on the fear of where this might go. Would Justice Benjamin have to recuse himself if the contributions were smaller? etc.

This clearly will begin an increase in litigation over judicial bias but I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. The election of judges opens the door to all sorts of questions and the fact that it can’t be settled in one case doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing.

The Long and Winding Road: Our Journey with Contractors

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First the good news: the project is finally completed. When our last cat Kirby died in March we realized this was probably our best opportunity to get some projects completed in the house. Our home was built in 1969 and has been well taken care of. The previous owner sank a great deal of money into the kitchen and that was one the things that attracted us to the house. We were, however, a little puzzled that the master bathroom had not been touched and had all the original fixtures. We’d known for a long time that we wanted to update it.

We also thought this was a good time to replace the flooring. Most of the house (except the kitchen and bathrooms) had hardwood flooring and while we like not having to care for carpeting, it was time for a new floor. We like the look and feel of bamboo flooring and also like that it is “green” (ie, more renewable than other hardwood floors).

We also had a good contractor in mind. They are friends (actually she is Nancy’s brother’s ex girlfriend, but “friends” is an expansive term). That meant we trusted them to work on our house when we were on vacation the beginning of May. We realize what a gift we had that we could leave town and know the job was getting done. The original hope was that they would start work the day we left and by the time we were back the floor would be complete and the bathroom would be mostly complete. We expected it to take 2 to 3 weeks.

We should have known better; it’s finally finished after about 5 weeks. In the interim it’s been a comedy of unforeseen/unforeseeable delays and errors on the parts of some of the suppliers. The bathroom pretty much went as planned and that wasn’t the problem. The flooring, on the other hand, was a different story.

Here’s how it went from my memory:

  • The first part of the job was to remove the old flooring. That’s normally a pretty easy process as there are standards on how floors are laid in the beginning. However, whoever laid the original flooring used some kind of glue or cement that I can only describe as Kryptonite that went directly on the slab under the house. The guys who were doing the job had to literally jackhammer the old flooring off. About the time the floor was supposed to be completed they were about 75% of the way toward removing the old floor.
  • They underestimated the square footage of the flooring they needed to order. We asked for some decorative work to be done just inside the front door and this threw off the estimate. This meant that when they were completing the job they ran out of wood with only 2/3 of the spare room done. The whole thing had to stop while more flooring had to be ordered and shipped from the East Coast.
  • Here’s where it actually gets frustrating: Ordering more of something that you’ve already ordered should be a fairly simple job. But the flooring people (and let’s be clear here, not the contractor) ordered the wrong stuff three different times. Each time it had to be sent back and the new order had to wend it’s way across the country. Oh yes, and when the correct stuff did arrive, it needed to “season” in the house for 3 days before it was installed.

Again, the end result was excellent and we are pleased with the flooring, but exasperated at how long it took. What was supposed to be finished around May 10th wasn’t done until June 5th. And again, to be fair, we were thrilled with the contractors and highly recommend them (let me know if you need a reference) and they have learned to stop using these flooring guys. Also, I was clear that I’d rather have it done right than fast and didn’t accept any suggestions of shortcuts.

We’re glad it’s over. Next step: a new cat. Stay tuned.

Memorial Day: Remembering Those Who Have Fallen

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It’s become an annual tradition for me to post on Memorial Day. Since shortly after the Civil War families of those who were killed in war have felt the need to commemorate their sacrifices. Since 1868 it has been a national holiday, now celebrated on the 4th Monday of May. Last year I noted that 4083 of our young men and women have died in Iraq since 2003. The number is now 4300.

That is, in a sense, good news in that only 217 have died in the last year, but that’s of little consolation to their families. The major focus of the war is moving to Afghanistan and I’m having a hard time finding a web page that tracks casualties there.

Regardless, it’s a good day to thank a veteran.