Does flying make Superman get all sweaty and stinky? You never see him get all sweaty and stinky.
The big drawback to human powered transportation is our exposure to the elements and the byproducts of our own exertion. We get rained on, and we get all sweaty and stinky. People who can ride short distances without serious hills can avoid getting too nasty. And some employers provide some sort of facilities for protected parking, and even shower and locker facilities. Or the rider might work in a place where being sweaty and stinky isn't as much of a liability.
Superman could definitely commute by air. It doesn't seem to tax him much.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
So Much for Perspective
We have our personal interests to keep us amused. The other night we taste-tested a couple of different forms of martini and then tried to teach one of the cats to sit on command, using bits of expensive salmon from our dinner plates. When she realized what we were up to, our early success evaporated.
If you're going down anyway, you might as well have a good meal. And enjoy a little good string quartet music until the deck tilts too steeply for them to play.
The human condition is a human problem. And being human I can't resist picking and prodding at it. Can we be turned from a cancer on the Earth into a benign and amusing condition? Can we stop being our own worst enemy?
Having bet no one's life on it myself, I can view it with detachment, but still I want to imagine a better future. So I do.
Off to work. If I were a school janitor I would probably make more money and have benefits. But then who would fix the janitor's bicycle? And the janitor needs his bike.
Just trying to make myself useful. Between alternative transportation and environmental protection I have a full schedule of doomed and poorly compensated endeavors that obstruct wealth creation.
If you're going down anyway, you might as well have a good meal. And enjoy a little good string quartet music until the deck tilts too steeply for them to play.
The human condition is a human problem. And being human I can't resist picking and prodding at it. Can we be turned from a cancer on the Earth into a benign and amusing condition? Can we stop being our own worst enemy?
Having bet no one's life on it myself, I can view it with detachment, but still I want to imagine a better future. So I do.
Off to work. If I were a school janitor I would probably make more money and have benefits. But then who would fix the janitor's bicycle? And the janitor needs his bike.
Just trying to make myself useful. Between alternative transportation and environmental protection I have a full schedule of doomed and poorly compensated endeavors that obstruct wealth creation.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Well that's enough shouting into a burlap sack for one day.
We're really just here to try to find something useful to do while we wait to see what form of death will claim us.
Have a nice day!!
Is it just me, or is it dark in here?
Nothing really matters. It only matters to you. And who are you? The human condition is a human problem. No humans, no problem.
Anaesthetize yourself with possessions and sensations. Good for you. Increase dosage as needed for the relief of awareness. If your life is good, you have increased the overall goodness coefficient of all humanity. One fabulously well-off person raises everybody's average, even that of the guy starving to death at the gates of the compound. If that wall weren't there, the poor bastard would have nothing to lean against. He'd be lying on the ground. So there.
Don't tax the rich. I might be one some day, and I'll want all the coin I can keep to make up for the years of deprivation getting there. That and to pay for my prescription drugs.
Shouting into the sack again. Be a pal and pour some ether on the outside of it, would you? I'll be better after a nap.
We're really just here to try to find something useful to do while we wait to see what form of death will claim us.
Have a nice day!!
Is it just me, or is it dark in here?
Nothing really matters. It only matters to you. And who are you? The human condition is a human problem. No humans, no problem.
Anaesthetize yourself with possessions and sensations. Good for you. Increase dosage as needed for the relief of awareness. If your life is good, you have increased the overall goodness coefficient of all humanity. One fabulously well-off person raises everybody's average, even that of the guy starving to death at the gates of the compound. If that wall weren't there, the poor bastard would have nothing to lean against. He'd be lying on the ground. So there.
Don't tax the rich. I might be one some day, and I'll want all the coin I can keep to make up for the years of deprivation getting there. That and to pay for my prescription drugs.
Shouting into the sack again. Be a pal and pour some ether on the outside of it, would you? I'll be better after a nap.
What I wrote to my congressman and senators
I hope you're working on real health care reform. Using insurance companies to pay for spiralling costs just adds their administrative costs to the already soaring price of medical care.
I can't afford to keep paying premiums that go up 15%-20% a year. My income certainly doesn't go up 15%-20% a year. In New Hampshire I'm lucky if my income holds steady, let alone goes up.
Don't try to tell me that medical savings accounts will take care of anything. If a person can't afford to save at all, a restricted-use account will not help. When I did get suckered into a medical savings account a few years ago, it cost me money and saved me nothing.
Only by chance did my wife and I get to deduct our medical insurance costs on our tax return, because she is mostly self employed and I derive a small amount of income from freelance writing. If we both worked for small businesses we would have to pay for our expensive insurance and we'd get NOTHING back on taxes.
The country needs positive action on this, not political bushwa. Either that or let's publicly acknowledge that our system is designed to weed out lower income people because they are less valuable human beings. Come on, let's hear it. Drop dead, low income scum!
I can't afford to keep paying premiums that go up 15%-20% a year. My income certainly doesn't go up 15%-20% a year. In New Hampshire I'm lucky if my income holds steady, let alone goes up.
Don't try to tell me that medical savings accounts will take care of anything. If a person can't afford to save at all, a restricted-use account will not help. When I did get suckered into a medical savings account a few years ago, it cost me money and saved me nothing.
Only by chance did my wife and I get to deduct our medical insurance costs on our tax return, because she is mostly self employed and I derive a small amount of income from freelance writing. If we both worked for small businesses we would have to pay for our expensive insurance and we'd get NOTHING back on taxes.
The country needs positive action on this, not political bushwa. Either that or let's publicly acknowledge that our system is designed to weed out lower income people because they are less valuable human beings. Come on, let's hear it. Drop dead, low income scum!
How's your Doctor?
I don't go to the doctor much. It's a lot easier to tell if I have a good car mechanic than if I have a good doctor. And now, with health insurance premiums eating up every free dime and then some, I really have to need an office visit to justify shelling out for it. But I digress.
I picked my doctor because I rode mountain bikes with him and he seemed like a good enough guy. He's never really impressed me, but he hasn't hurt me yet. Another guy I know can't say as much. He stopped going to my doctor after a mildly botched vasectomy. Ouch. Obviously it isn't something I can easily bring up to my physician, but it certainly makes me think twice about what I'll let him work on. So basically I figure I don't really have a doctor. I just have someone's office staff holding my medical records for me.
Days away from an age at which one is supposed to submit regularly to undignified procedures to stay ahead of the early signs of various fatal conditions, I ponder my choices. I can't really afford to pay out of pocket for any of those expensive indignities, so I am unlikely to suffer them, but if I wait for spectacular symptoms to tell me I'm finally sick enough to suck some money back out of the insurance company, my odds of survival go down.
Say, for the sake of argument, that I had played the game of life properly and attained something like the national median income for my demographic. With some chance of actually using a physician on a regular basis, I would want to choose carefully.
I think physicians should be required to keep a copy of their school transcripts, right back through high school, out on the table in their waiting room. Read the out of date magazines if you want. I'd be poring over the doctor's academic history. Sure, grades aren't everything. A wise physician would keep some supplemental biographical information out there as well.
Better still would be a central place, perhaps a website, on which one could compare all such information for physicians in the area. It would have to be mandatory to do any good. If physicians could merely choose to subscribe, both good and bad might be left out.
I picked my doctor because I rode mountain bikes with him and he seemed like a good enough guy. He's never really impressed me, but he hasn't hurt me yet. Another guy I know can't say as much. He stopped going to my doctor after a mildly botched vasectomy. Ouch. Obviously it isn't something I can easily bring up to my physician, but it certainly makes me think twice about what I'll let him work on. So basically I figure I don't really have a doctor. I just have someone's office staff holding my medical records for me.
Days away from an age at which one is supposed to submit regularly to undignified procedures to stay ahead of the early signs of various fatal conditions, I ponder my choices. I can't really afford to pay out of pocket for any of those expensive indignities, so I am unlikely to suffer them, but if I wait for spectacular symptoms to tell me I'm finally sick enough to suck some money back out of the insurance company, my odds of survival go down.
Say, for the sake of argument, that I had played the game of life properly and attained something like the national median income for my demographic. With some chance of actually using a physician on a regular basis, I would want to choose carefully.
I think physicians should be required to keep a copy of their school transcripts, right back through high school, out on the table in their waiting room. Read the out of date magazines if you want. I'd be poring over the doctor's academic history. Sure, grades aren't everything. A wise physician would keep some supplemental biographical information out there as well.
Better still would be a central place, perhaps a website, on which one could compare all such information for physicians in the area. It would have to be mandatory to do any good. If physicians could merely choose to subscribe, both good and bad might be left out.
Education Funding: Beyond the Bake Sale
Public schools are turning increasingly to private money to supplement the money they receive from penurious taxpayers who say no to whatever they can. This is what has brought vending machines dispensing unhealthy food and drink, and now even some corporate branding of the schools themselves.
Soon individual classes will have sponsors, like Sex Education, brought to you by Johnson Controls. The section on homosexuality would be sponsored by Johnson&Johnson.
Many sponsors are lined up to fund Driver Education. Between NASCAR, the various auto and tire makers, petroleum companies and the producers of the Fast and the Furious movies, the young menaces to navigation should lack for nothing.
We can't pursue this trend fast enough. Since the whole point of an education is to learn to be a good and voracious consumer, and to gain the job skills necessary to earn enough money to contribute to the economy by keeping consumption high, a strong corporate presence in the schools is like having the young ones tag along while the experienced tribe members hunt or gather. It brings the real world right into the classroom.
It's in the corporations' best interests to produce successful people. This isn't just a tax deduction. This is a chance to take real control of curriculum.
The taxpayers still remain in the mix. That ought to make school administrators' lives hell, as they try to answer to both the citizenry and their corporate sugar daddies. But eventually the citizens will get bored and go away and let the corporations take care of things. Freedom is a pain in the ass. You have to keep taking care of endless details, paying attention to the shell game. All anyone really wants is a comfortable, hassle-free life. Strong corporations run by decisive leaders can provide it better than anyone. That's what their marketing says.
Questioning authority is so passe. It might have been necessary in the Dark Ages, when authority was wrong about so many things, but nowadays authority is really good. Questioning it just creates antisocial turbulence. Now off you go to School, Inc.
Soon individual classes will have sponsors, like Sex Education, brought to you by Johnson Controls. The section on homosexuality would be sponsored by Johnson&Johnson.
Many sponsors are lined up to fund Driver Education. Between NASCAR, the various auto and tire makers, petroleum companies and the producers of the Fast and the Furious movies, the young menaces to navigation should lack for nothing.
We can't pursue this trend fast enough. Since the whole point of an education is to learn to be a good and voracious consumer, and to gain the job skills necessary to earn enough money to contribute to the economy by keeping consumption high, a strong corporate presence in the schools is like having the young ones tag along while the experienced tribe members hunt or gather. It brings the real world right into the classroom.
It's in the corporations' best interests to produce successful people. This isn't just a tax deduction. This is a chance to take real control of curriculum.
The taxpayers still remain in the mix. That ought to make school administrators' lives hell, as they try to answer to both the citizenry and their corporate sugar daddies. But eventually the citizens will get bored and go away and let the corporations take care of things. Freedom is a pain in the ass. You have to keep taking care of endless details, paying attention to the shell game. All anyone really wants is a comfortable, hassle-free life. Strong corporations run by decisive leaders can provide it better than anyone. That's what their marketing says.
Questioning authority is so passe. It might have been necessary in the Dark Ages, when authority was wrong about so many things, but nowadays authority is really good. Questioning it just creates antisocial turbulence. Now off you go to School, Inc.
Friday, June 23, 2006
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