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Treating Symptoms, Not Causes – Why the United States Will Never Adopt a Single-Payer Medical System

It’s Treatment Based on Symptoms, Not Income
Billboard in San Francisco – Sutter Health

That healthcare can be a lucrative line of work has been a feature of the healthcare system in the United States for over 150 years. The American Medical Association (AMA) has been doing all it can to elevate doctors and dismiss community traditions like midwives and alternative medicine. Of course when there is money involved all sorts of shady people come out of the woodwork, trying to make a buck. Think of the wallpaper that you sometime see on folksy restaurant bathroom walls of reproductions of late 18th century newspapers. Ads for tonics and elixirs, perhaps often disguised liquor, that cure everything from heart conditions, digestion issues and even your sex life.

This sort of commercialization of healthcare, even when they are  “not for profit” institutions is so ubiquitous that people rarely think twice. So when I saw the Sutter Health slogan “It’s Treatment Based on Symptoms, Not Income” I was struck with the thought of whether this was created by the Sutter Health marketing department, the Sutter Health finance department or the Sutter Health doctors. It all sounds so altruistic and noble but give me a break; the CEO of Sutter Health a few years back made over 7 million dollars a year; the CEO of Kaiser Permanente made 16 million a year. Even though these institutions go under the moniker of “non-profit” in the end it is really about money and just like the petrol-chemical and banking industries, the main message of most marketing is often not about the actual product but about the political spin and supposed benevolence of the organization. I would wager that there are people today dealing with the Sutter Health billing department.

A larger question would be what does “treating the symptoms” actually mean?  If you were a roofer, treating the symptoms would mean that your leaking roof would never actually get fixed. Instead of treating the cause, that perhaps your roof is twenty years old and needs to be replaced, roofing companies would simply charge you for expensive plastics buckets indefinitely to capture the symptom – the water dripping through the ceiling. If you were a glass shop, you would indeed treat the symptom, the broken window but never get to the cause – perhaps  the golf driving range next door.

If our healthcare is now simply about “treating symptoms,” our healthcare system will over time become more expensive and never become single-payer. There are simply trillions of dollars, whole economies, insurance companies,  medical technology companies, a cultural ethos and entire small cities built around our current healthcare system.  That the pharmaceutical industry is also built around treating symptoms simply closes the loop.

A better slogan, but one where there is a lot less money to be made would be,

“Identify the cause,  the symptoms may go away.”

But that would would take some actual work and people always want a quick fix – give me a pill, make it go away.

Kaiser Permanente

While taking the BART back from a show in Oakland, I was struck by the fact that every single billboard in the 19th Street Station was bought out by Kaiser Permanente.  All fifty or so billboards had doctors looking directly at you.  With the slogans “There When You Need Us”, “Care at the Center”. This must have cost a lot of money. Every billboard was rented which meant perhaps fifty units in one of the most expensive markets in the United States. Meanwhile, every few minutes a somewhat desperate looking person would approach you  panhandling and looking for a few bucks. The irony was a bit hard to take.

Modern medicine, especially the technological advances when it comes to intricate surgeries, are amazing. If you get in a car accident, the tools available to doctors today are much more powerful than just ten years ago, but that is just part of the story of our current state of Western medicine.

The “Medical Industrial Complex” is upon us. Dwight Eisenhower who’s final speech as president gave us the term, “Military Industrial Complex” is probably just shaking his head. It is probably dangerous for healthcare slogans to be made by marketing departments and in the end not good medicine.

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Theodore Roosevelt and Elizabeth Warren – The Similarities Abound

An angle not represented in the media is the similarities in the policies and platforms of Theodore Roosevelt and Elizabeth Warren.  In the media, most often there is this constant score keeping of who is on the left or right and how someone went further in a certain “directon.” Elizabeth Warren’s proposal for universal healthcare put the media in a tizzy.  “Good grief! That is socialism! Elizabeth Warren has gone further to the left!”  In the New York Times you can read The Billionaires Are Getting Nervous about the possibility that they would be taxed more than they are now and how the economy will be in shambles if we help poor people with healthcare. A pretty odd headline when you consider that billionaires have in essence little to be be nervous about. They do not have to worry about their next meal, surely have a fancy private doctor and will always have a roof over their heads – probably three or four mansions. Really? Nervous? That Trump slashed the marginal tax rate by 21% for billionaires  just increased the inequities in the United States. Let’s not worry about the billionaires and their anxieties that they may one day be simply millionaires and maybe even have to stand in line at the DMV.

In all aspects of modern life and especially in marketing, social media and politics the maxim that “perception is reality” seems to gain more and more traction.  The phrase “perception is reality”  is a simplification  of an 18th century theory called “immaterialism” or “subjective idealism.”  It’s the childish notion that something does not exist if it is not perceived. It elevates reality to only things that are registered in our senses.

Theodore Roosevelt was male. Elizabeth Warren is female. How could these two people be possibly similar? They look so different. One is a vigorous macho male who traveled to Africa to shoot wild elephants. The other a very smart, experienced, competent woman who probably has never shot a wild boar, a deer or even a pheasant! Simply look beyond the covers and the similarities abound. Let me list out the similarities. I will put Roosevelt’s name first just because he came first and is now dead, not because he is a guy.

Both Theodore Roosevelt and Elizabeth Warren where once Republicans who left the Republican party.

After being the youngest president and a Republican, in 1912 Roosevelt left the party and helped formed the Progressive “Bull Moose” Party which called for wide-ranging progressive reforms.

Elizabeth Warren was a registered Republican from 1991 to 1996. She now is running for president as a Democrat.

Both Theodore Roosevelt and Elizabeth Warren proposed universal healthcare.

Roosevelt saw the government as a crucial force in regulating industries to improve the health of people. He saw through the Pure Food and Drug Act, Meat Inspection Act. While Theodore Roosevelt lived at a time before antibiotics and had infected abscesses in his leg craved out with a sharp knife,  you get a sense that he believed in some form of universal health care with the government playing the prime role.

“Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us. Let me add that the health and vitality of our people are at least as well worth conserving as their forests, waters, lands, and minerals, and in this great work the national government must bear a most important part.” Theodore Roosevelt – 1910

Elizabeth Warren has a  Medicare for All plan which gives everyone good insurance and cuts their health care costs to nearly zero – without increasing middle-class taxes one penny.

Elizabeth supports Medicare for All, which would provide all Americans with a public health care program. Medicare for All is the best way to give every single person in this country a guarantee of high-quality health care. Everybody is covered. Nobody goes broke because of a medical bill. No more fighting with insurance companies. Elizabeth Warren – 2019

Both Theodore Roosevelt and Elizabeth Warren saw the monopolies of their day as a problem.

Roosevelt through anti-trust laws was able to break up the railroads and regulate food industries and big-oil.  The list is long and complicated, but like our present era of vast income inequities, the early 20th century had its similarities with vast fortunes in very few hands

Elisabeth Warren wants to breakup the tech monopolies like Facebook, Amazon and Google. If Teddy Roosevelt were alive today, he would do the same thing.

Perception is not reality. Reality is the actual stuff that exists even if we do not see it. It is the stuff under the glossy cover.

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Sunday, September 29, 2019 – News, Opinions & Gossip

It is Sunday, September 29, 2019. I find it incredibly odd after reading the Sunday Chronicle “Fast and furious threat unlike Trump has faced before” by Julie Pace and Zeke Miller, that the journalism about President Trump and his arm twisting of the President of Ukraine and resulting whistle blower complaint and impending impeachment is often not about the facts but opinion and whether there is political momentum for impeachment. Editors and journalists should do themselves a favor and have the op-eds on the op-ed page and not on the front page masquerading as news. Opinion has bubbled up. This is sloppy journalism.

What would be better is not to assume that the reader is well-versed in civics and the Constitution of The United States of America, and rather explain exactly what laws the president may have broken. This would reinforce that we are still a nation of laws and not merely a place of perpetual gossip, where people can get away with crimes due to their position.

“The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

— U.S. Constitution, Article II, section 4

Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. Seems like public opinion has nothing to do with this case. Just let Congress investigate and have the the chips fall where they may.

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Kamala Harris Taking a Stand

“I know predators, and we have a predator living in the White House, and let me tell you, there’s a little secret about predators. Donald Trump has predatory nature and predatory instincts. The things about predators you should know, they prey on the vulnerable. They prey on those who they do not believe are strong. The thing you must importantly know, predators are cowards. I have a background where successfully, I have prosecuted the big banks who preyed on homeowners, prosecuted pharmaceutical companies who preyed on seniors, prosecuted transnational criminal organizations that preyed on women and children, and I will tell you we have a predator living in the White House.”

Kamala Harris
U.S. Sentaor
Presidential Canidate
July 3, 2019

You can point to Bernie’s “billions and billions,” Warren’s epiphany to break up the monopolies in big tech, even Andrew Yang’s idea that we need to move to higher ground, but the quote above speaks to the reality of our current society. There are predators taking advantage of the vulnerable everywhere and it has unfortunately become acceptable and part of business as usual.

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Technology, The Digital Era and the Shaping of a New Geography

It took until I went to college in the early 1980’s that I learned that geography was not only about maps, states, countries and continents. I took a class by Yi Fu Tuan where I learned about spaces and places. That besides physical geography there was also the whole world of human geography. Inside of human geography there were many sub types, cultural and political to name but two.

Political geography is defined as:

“Political geography is concerned with the study of both the spatially uneven outcomes of political processes and the ways in which political processes are themselves affected by spatial structures. Conventionally, for the purposes of analysis, political geography adopts a three-scale structure with the study of the state at the centre, the study of international relations (or geopolitics) above it, and the study of localities below it. The primary concerns of the subdiscipline can be summarized as the inter-relationships between people, state, and territory.” –
Wikipedia

I find it interesting that I have been unable to find any writings on how technology has affected human geography over time. Imagine with every technological change how our understanding of the earth, other spaces, places and cultures have been influenced. For instance, starting with the invention of the wheel the world has become a smaller place. People are always devising new ways to get around more efficiently, faster or easier. Fast-forward to 1450, in the West, the printing press made it so descriptions of faraway places were mass-produced and then could be consumed by many people. Notions of that world were given a perspective always from the cultural point of view of the observer. The telegraph made it so people continents apart could send messages instantly. Later the telephone, radio and then television perpetuated this phenomenon of space taking on new meaning. As time goes on, these technological advances have had profound effects on human psychology and geography. The world is no longer your family and farm, local community or village. It is seven continents and you can visit any one digitally and by pushing a few buttons. In our current world, this notion of space and presence has been invaded by the internet, but more significantly the cellphone and specifically, the “smartphone.”

From a human experience perspective, all of the modern communications technologies of the last 150 years have to do with changing this sense of space. A telegraph over the wire was like an arm reaching across an ocean. Radio had the effect of making it so someone hundreds of miles away was seemingly sitting in your living room. Television. simply added a visual component. At the beginnings of each of these technological advancement was a time of readjustment and decentralization of society and political power. Eventually, overtime, the power became monopolized by few powerful players. In television, in the United States it was the three major broadcasting networks. Now on the internet it is Google, Facebook and Amazon.

In 2019 the cellphone makes it so many people for most of the day are mentally not even in the physical location that they preside. I noticed this phenomenon when at the beach. It was a hot day and people went out to the ocean to cool off. I noticed a woman wading in the water while at the same time having a video chat with someone on her cellphone. Was the woman at the beach or was she with the person on the cellphone? Where was the woman? Is human geography simply where we occupy the planet or where we preside in our minds? The digital era makes it so geography no longer is a place at all but spaces that are digital and psychological.

The ramifications of this effect are many. We see it in the way the political systems around the world are in upheaval. No longer do you simply build walls and moats to keep away intruders as in the end the digital landscape has no borders. We see it in how political systems have become more reactionary and full of jingoism.

Furthermore, while people have this notion that they are in control, nothing could be further from the truth. The large internet companies are tracking everyone’s digital landscape and using techniques from behavioral psychology to reward or punish certain behaviors with the motivation of both political and economic influence. This has been dubbed the “surveillance economy.” George Orwell is surely snickering in his grave but probably not, as humour was not his strong suit. He is probably screaming – “I told you so!”

Where this will end up is unknown but for those who think that the digital era is a time of liberation and some sort of political and economic equalization are wrong. The same centralization of power that happened in previous technological eras has happened again. Monopolies have emerged as the powerful players. There are dangerous silos of digital communities that are like echo chambers reaffirming racist and cult-like manifestos based on ignorance and flawed science. This is happening in all spaces, both on the political right and left

What is the one constant is that the undesirable qualities of humans that have existed over centuries are unchanged – greed, vengeance, vanity, violence to name a few are still prevalent. In some ways, with the internet they simply are amplified.

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The State of the Narrative

“You know, whether you send a bomb or receive a bomb it’s important to remember that we have some very fine people on both sides.”

Albert Ross – Colorado
From comments to NY Times article After Bomb Scares, Trump Tries Bipartisanship, Then Blames the Media

Two weeks before the November elections and all kinds of stories emerge. We are guided by narratives which is really about shining light on certain realities.  Assassinated journalists close to home reporting on events far away. Strange, explosive packages in the mail. Disenfranchised, vulnerable people migrating north from Central America in search of peace and opportunity. All events true and all extremely symbolic.

I cannot help but think what is the big deal about the migrants coming north. There are so many crappy jobs to fill in the United States of America that we should just open the doors and let them in. “Here’s a pizza and I think there may be a gig cleaning toilets at the Trump hotel or gardening at one of his golf courses. But be careful. Many people in El Norte are pretty stressed and on narcotics.”

One of the narratives which is perhaps heavier than anything in the news is the latest story in the New Your Times about the sorry state of the Pacific Ocean off of California. California’s Underwater Forests Are Being Eaten by the ‘Cockroaches of the Ocean’

If our oceans die, we die. That should be obvious. The intelligence of homo sapiens is way over-rated.

Nevertheless, remember to vote and if you do not vote you are letting some nutcase determine your future and you have nothing to complain about.

…

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The Quarterly Report – September 2018

As the news-cycle screams forward with ever-more velocity, here is your San Francisco quarterly report – a condensed look at all the really important things going on around San Francisco over the last three months. Perhaps this sounds presumptuous, but I think as a species we often have a difficulty slowing down and observing and taking note of what is going on around us and documenting these events and changes.

Politics
San Francisco elected London Breed as new mayor. She is the first African-American woman to be mayor. So far so good, but her election was one were the progressive side of the San Francisco Democratic party was left eating their lunch. As often the case, some pretty clever politicking ruled the day as Ron Conway surely pulled some switches with some big cash and clever strategies. Often in politics if there is no news that is good news and people are simply doing their jobs but you never know. It will be interesting to see how long the big open smile on London’s face will keep smiling. City politics always gets controversial in San Francisco but things are pretty much the status-quo. Homelessness everywhere. The Tenderloin full of junkies and shopping carts for storage and portable closets. Skyscrapers leaning evermore one direction and lots of cranes all over the place building condos and stadiums.  The Golden State Warriors stadium is being built in record time. Seemingly two feet above sea level and that place will have a shelf-life of twenty years or until the next iceberg melts.

The usual op-ed writers dig into familiar positions. The latest is Tim Redmond bashing Heather Knight.  I think that what really needs to happen is for BART executives to draw straws to get the job of cleaning the 16th Street BART station for a year . That would get people a bit more focused at the top and they could make a reality TV show about the whole thing and make millions. They could call it “Strange Smells” or “Altered States of Vomit.”

Weather
The fire season was pretty much on fire this summer. There were so many fires you kind of lost track. I am wondering if the next time I go up to Lake County there will be any trees left at all. I am sure there are still burns going on now as it has not rained yet. A few months ago, in San Francisco you would wake up in the morning to white ash dust sprinkled lightly all over your car. This is getting so common now that you hardly think twice about it.

We are heading into our Indian Summer weather but so far the North West winds have continued to blow and we have had just a few warm days. It really is anyone’s guess what kind of rain we get this year. I have always been of the mind that our water supply comes down to five really good storms that last about three days each and dump all that snow up in the Sierra. This happened in January 2017 but last year was pretty dry overall. Mother nature does always bat last even though we think we are omnipotent, she always has her way in the end.

Baseball
Speaking of batting, while the San Francisco Giants are almost in last place the ever-scrappy Oakland A’s are looking to be heading to some sort of playoff birth. I have not followed them this year but, being the fair-weather fan I am, will watch and root for them down the stretch. Barry Zito do you still have that curve ball?

Tech Industry and Google Buses
Here they are. A gaggle of Google buses. In the mornings they leave. In the evenings they return, pushing there way back into the city. Raising the rents and making it impossible for people not on the same pay-scale to live San Francisco. I hear this sort of tech-commuting is happening in other cities as well.

Here is a gallery of Google buses for those who are interested on what they look like up close. What is interesting is that they have no advertising on the sides. Sort of ironic as most the people in the buses are in the end working to market and sell something. You would think they would have the imagination to leverage the situation but then again perhaps they prefer to try to be incognito. Pretty sneaky.

Sunsets are Beginning
One of the things that keeps people living in this golden state are the sunsets. The fog is starting to push back and we are starting to get those great autumn golden colors and magical light with its sharp, crisp shadows. Hopefully by the next report I can talk about all the great rain storms we will be getting.

Until then.

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Epiphanies from Hotel Stebbins

On vacation for a few weeks. Out of the fog and fires of California it was good to be in Wisconsin for a family reunion then Minnesota for a week, working out of my sister-in-law’s house in Minneapolis. Ninety degree weather made for great working conditions, shorts and a t-shirt – the fan set to “hi” blowing the air around. Lots of recreation on water – a pontoon boat ride, canoes, sailing and kayaks. Much enjoyable visiting with family and old friends. My sister even got married and we had a nice memorial for my mother who passed away five years ago.

For a few nights we stayed in a hotel room in Algoma, Wisconsin at Hotel Stebbins, one of the oldest hotels in Wisconsin. I highly recommend Hotel Stebbins as the rooms are nice and it is pretty darn cheap. Also you are downtown and close to the beach, winery, antique shops and brewery.

“I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag.”
– Molly Ivins

In all of the rural areas of the Midwest it seems as though people have gone flag-crazy. You see them flying up and down main streets in the front of most houses. It seems that all the Trump banners of 2016 have been replaced with American flags. I am not sure why people are now so obsessed with this symbolic emblem of our country but perhaps it is a sign of insecurity. I always liked the Molly Ivins’ quote “I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag.” which would be wise to post on large billboards in these fly-over states. Indeed, it would be good to hand out copies of the United States Constitution to all these flag waving mid-westerners for they surely need a refresher course.

In the hallway of Hotel Stebbins was a whiteboard with what were called “epiphanies.” Seeing as it is Sunday and a day of reflection, I post some of them here. Good stuff!

Never argue with an idiot, people watching won’t be able to tell the difference…
– Unknown source

You must do the thing which you cannot do
– Eleanor Roosevelt

Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss.
– R. Scott Fitzgerald

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent
– Eleanor Roosevelt

Work hard in silence. Let success be your noise.
– Unknown source

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes
– Oscar Wilde

It always seems impossible until it is done.
– Nelson Mandela

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
– Helen Keller

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San Francisco Jury Duty – A True Story

Mission 14x bus to 6th and Bryant Street

Called into jury duty after deferring once. I took the Mission 14x bus to 6th and Bryant Street. On the first day the vague details and outline of the case was explained. On 6th Street and Market in front of the Baltmore Hotel a murder had taken place in 2012. A man with a gun shot another man and there was an accomplice. Both defendants were African American males around the age of 25. Both were large, dressed in button down shirts and ties. One of the defendants seemed to have at one point been beaten as one of his eyes was at an unnatural skew.

The middle aged Asian judge was a rather playful fellow who talked incessantly about food and providing a lunch of sticky buns for all the chosen jurors  and that “wasn’t it great we were not at the dentist!” He tried hard to make jokes but the humour fell a bit flat. Good thing he is a judge and not a comic. He then proceeded to demonstrate his prowess in three Chinese dialects and said that if you were Chinese American and did not understand English it was not an easy way out.

5 Spice Chicken for Lunch – Reading Time – Really Bad WIFI

During the jury selection one of the defendants lawyers went to great lengths to try to find if people had implicit bias. It was interesting to hear from the diverse potential jurists and their takes on implicit bias which lead to the discussion of racial profiling. Concepts of data and metadata as relating to phone calls was brought up and interestingly the prosecutor seemed quite naive about such concepts. Let us explain. The actual call is the data. The time, date and location of the call, which the phone company surely knows, is the metadata. There surely is more to data and metadata in this case but that is the basics.Two younger folk in the technology industry were released. A few others were released due to past histories.

Mission 14X bus to 6th and Bryant Street

A few people called as potential jurors seemed quite intelligent. A few lawyers, a retired Professor named Brown who had written a book about police conduct in Los Angeles filled the room with interesting observations.  A few people related to police officers in the case were dismissed. A funny old Latina grandmother a bit hard of hearing and maybe with a screw starting to come loose upstairs admitted that because years ago her purse was snatched by an African American see could not trust “those blacks.” At one point people laughed and she shushed them which made it even funnier. She was dismissed.

Lunch in the Park on Harrison – Rain but Some Sun

We are down to the final jurors and the alternates and the judge states that juror selection is coming to an end. It is looking like the 80 or so people left in the room will not be on the jury. I am starting to relax and thinking how cool the whole process has been – how interesting the conversations were and how nice it was going to be to be in a building that actually had ventilation. For some reason the entire wing in this part of the Hall of Justice had no air. It was hot and the air was stale – a bit sufficting really. And just when I started to think how the poor ventilation systems probably made for some interesting escape attempts from the county jail I heard “Paul Lyons” and then there I was – “In the box.” Out of all the people in the room, I was the last juror called. I picked up my bag and took my seat.

Of course there is a list of questions on the board that I had to answer – occupation, family and years in San Francisco. The first defense attorney read my answers to the questionnaire that I had filled out a week earlier.

“I find it odd that the judge seems compelled to bribe the potential jurors with promises of food. I think that jurors should be paid a fair wage for their service.”

That is all that I had written thinking that I would never be called. The room burst into laughter.  I did not realize that I had used the words “bribe” and “judge” in the same sentence – not exactly prudent.

Next, the second defense attorney started grilling me to which the prosecuting attorney for the first time actually objected to a question – “Objection Your Honor!” – that I do not now recollect. Everything started moving very fast. I do not remember my exact answers to the next questions at that point but I remember stating that “the jury process, while not perfect is a good thing and the best that we have. I played my cards very close to my chest.”

Other recent seated jurors were asked similar questions. Due to the questionnaire we had filled out a week prior, one of the questions was about the ability to be comfortable with seeing photos blood and of gruesome scenes. Paradoxically the rather tattooed and pierced woman sitting next to me stated that she was “uneasy about looking at gruesome photos of blood” but in the end confessed that she would get over it and be a willing juror and could handle it.

A few minutes later the three lawyers and the judge dismissed themselves to the chamber in back  and came out soon after to swear in the three alternates none of which were me. In other words, I was dismissed.

A truly strange, interesting but edifying experience. Time to write the judge an apology letter and thank him for his service. I will mail it to him in May, long after this trial is done.

PROLOGUE

The two men in the trial were convicted of murder. Let it be known that the jury was quite diverse. There were three black people on the jury – one a black woman over 65.  An Asian man. People of all ages. The evidence must have been clear. I read online that the San Francisco district attorney expressed that both of the men would “spend the rest of there days in jail.”

The whole thing is a sad story. Two boys born into a society where the cards were stacked against them. A stupid series of decisions. A culture of poverty, probably struggling schools, violence and revenge.  I cannot help but think that the real crime goes much deeper. It is a crime against humanity – a failure of humanity.

 

 

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Zorba the Greek and Thugs, Leeches, Shouting and Playing Piano in the Lobby

“ Mr. Fintiklis, 39, declined to comment, but he has made several notable — and provocative — appearances at the hotel in recent days. On one evening, following a verbal confrontation with Trump employees, he and his entourage of about a dozen people retired to the lobby and had pizza delivered from a restaurant on the property. Then Mr. Fintiklis played music from “Zorba the Greek” on the lobby’s baby grand piano while his friends sang along.”

From N.Y. Times – Thugs, Leeches, Shouting and Shoving at Trump Hotel in Panama (March 3, 2018)

This story in the Sunday N.Y. Times seems like the perfect material for either a documentary or a piece of historical fiction. We are at a point where in the world of politics, reality is stranger than fiction. Imagine Mr. Orestes Fintiklis, a young millionaire in a tussle with Trump and he uses art (playing a song in the hotel lobby) as a way to state his position. If this was a proposed screenplay it would never make the cut – too unbelievable. I like the fact that this really rich guy takes pleasure in playing the piano and singing songs from the mid-twentieth century. Imagine the party eating probably Dominoes pizza in the lobby hanging around the piano singing songs while the security in military garb and armed with AK 47s stood guard. What a bizarre scene.

Perhaps the movie would be called Orestes the Cypriate.

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Observations on the Word “Feminism”

“According to Merriam-Webster’s “feminism” was the most searched-for word in its online dictionary, up seventy percent from 2016. But who in 2017 needed to be told what “feminism” means? Upon searching, these people would have learned from Merriam-Webster that “feminism” is “the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes.” Some number of them where probably relieved to learn that it is still just a theory.”

From The New Yorker – Jan 8th, 2018 – Talk of the Town – Words of the Year (Louis Minead)

There are some words that are confusing by their very sound and came to life in a way that in the end does not serve humans or the word well. “Feminism” is one. “Net neutrality” is another.  Wordsmiths and politicians conjure up others. Citizens United, the law that allows corporations to be treated as citizens is another and should really be called Corporations United to Screw You Over. But once a word takes life it is hard to undo the confusion and damage.

The reason why people were probably looking up “feminism” is because for many it conjures up an image of the feminine – perhaps lipstick and high-heels, but originally it was not meant to mean that at all, but I digress and am “mansplaining”  – a word that is quite good and accurate – way better than “feminism.” But I hope the people who looked up the word “feminism” are satisfied with the Merriam-Webster’s definition. That is how I have always had it defined in my head.  Equality. Maybe it should be “equalitism,” but that almost sounds like a mathematical theory.

It is strange that the UCLA feminist magazine and website Fem is staffed entirely by woman. https://femmagazine.com/about/staff-2015-2016/. I think it may have to do with the confusion about the word “feminism” and perhaps a feeling by men that they are not welcome. Surely nothing could be further from the truth. One of my friend’s kids that is off to college joined the  school’s Latin Dancing Club and is loving it. Very few men and a lot of woman who are eagerly looking for dancing partners. Smart guy.

Anyway, this little essay ,Words of the Year, is extremely well written and also pretty funny. I have been exposed to the New Yorker since I was young. When I was a little kid, I would eat my bowl of cereal and page through the single pane cartoons and never get a single joke. Now I look at the cartoons and marvel at how they came up with such great ideas. Usually the Talk of the Town is all about the dreary state of politics. It is good that they mix it up from time to time.