democratic views

Goodhue and the Tooth Fairy

Goodhue Wilson is a friend of mine. He’s been a great father to his children, helped his parents, has a good marriage, and takes civic responsibility seriously. He could be a role model. Maybe, now I’ve put it that way, I’m shortchanging him. Considering how many hours we spend talking about matters public and private, I should say he’s a good friend.

Why the Republicans Blew It over Health Care Reform

Democrats, as they reached certainty that they would have enough votes to pass health care reform, had the pragmatic wisdom to allow Democrats in contested districts to vote against the bill in order to improve their reelection prospects. Republicans, driven by ideology and a media-frenzied right wing, were not so wise. This will cost them in the future.

Our Lady of Perpetual Misery

A U.S. Army psychiatrist goes bonkers and kills thirteen people, wounding dozens others. U.S. soldiers suffer grievous mental trauma, and when they find mental health care, the mental health professional they see is increasingly likely to suffer therapy-induced stress disorders. Perhaps the healers help the sick; but the healers themselves all too often end up needing treatment. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Every act of violence against civilians creates traumas which may or may not be treated. If there are not enough mental health professionals in the U.S. military to care for military personnel in need without traumatizing the caregivers, imagine what the cost among the civilian population is and globalize it. Iraq. Afghanistan. Pakistan. India. Sudan. Myanmar. Iran. China. Indonesia. Ireland. Colombia. Mexico. Korea. Syria. Lebanon. Palestine. Zimbabwe. Israel. Egypt.

Bring it home and look at the domestic costs of violence in our cities. Chicago, where a schoolchild is shot every day and one dies of gunshot wounds every two weeks. We count the soldiers killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan one by one, but school-age children being shot by the dozen doesn't make the national news on a regular basis. The News Hour with Jim Lehrer and This Week with George Stephanopoulos don't give us a moment of silence with pictures and ages for schoolchildren who die while doing their duty to build America's future.

The Army has 408 mental health professionals for 553,000 personnel, or one caregiver for every 1,355 soldiers. That ratio is close to what the general population has, where the American public finds about 1 specialist for every 1,115 people. Those numbers suggest that there aren't enough health professionals to treat the cases of human-induced traumas, after factoring in data across the United States for assault, gunshot wounds, domestic violence, disease and other incidents that result in trauma needing mental health treatment. Violence seems to be winning. We're left without much in reserve to help when natural disasters disrupt thousands of lives instantly, and sometimes permanently. In the Army's case they clearly don't have enough resources: soldiers suffer trauma at a far higher rate than the average civilian.

The developing world is a mess. One example: Pakistan, a country in which we claim to have vital interests, has some 1,455 mental health professionals for a population of roughly 158 million, or 1 for every 108,000 people. Factor in the prejudice against acknowledging mental distress and seeking help, and the situation is dire. According to the World Health Organization, Afghanistan is in even worse condition, with only 1 provider for every 300,000 people. Yet these countries have dislocation and refugee problems; research shows that as many as one-quarter of the population is suffering some form of mental distress. In Canada, by contrast, there are over 50,000 mental health professionals for a population of about 32 million, a ration of 1 to every 630 people, nearly twice as many as in the United States.

There's something to be said about national health care and what it means for people to have access to the help they need. When we treat other people as a means to an end, and push American soldiers back into battle repeatedly or sacrifice human rights concerns for civilian populations in countries that are decimated by war or despotism, we sow the seeds of future tragedies, and do not advance the cause of peace or the best American ideals of liberty and justice for all.

The Failure of Too Big to Fail

As the government moves forward with plans to put more stringent controls on financial institutions and Wall Street, Robert Reich and Paul Krugman don't think the proposals go far enough. Not so, says Edward L. Yingling, president of the American Bankers Association. Speaking of the reform proposals he says "you don't want to create a system that raises great uncertainty and changes what institutions, risk management executives and lawyers are used to." Really.

The Energy to Go the Distance

Even as President Obama presses for renewable energy, he reminds us that not only will the entrenched oil and coal lobbies, and backward-looking business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce resist the change, but that we will need carbon-based fuels for decades. Energy reform is a strategic challenge and a matter of national security and economic security for the United States. In a speech he gave on Oct. 23 at MIT, Obama said "nations everywhere are racing to develop new ways to producing [sic] and use energy. The nation that wins this competition will be the nation that leads the global economy." It's a race we have to win.

Fox News Pokes Obama in the Eye: Chris Wallace Crosses the Line

Fox News has a stellar lineup of commentators who say outrageous things, and their opinions got the entire Fox News organization in trouble with the White House. No matter what punches commentators like Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity throw, getting the President involved in blacklisting Fox News was a bad idea. The Becks, Hannitys, and Coulters just aren't that important. If Obama stepped into the fracas on his own, perhaps he should have taken advice. If that's the advice he was given, well, someone should be taken to the woodshed. Sometimes smart people are too smart by half. The president's advisors didn't clean up the lawn after the dogs were out, and now he's stepped in it.

Fabulous Insurance

In the country of Havahart, citizens got tired of privatized medicine and health insurance companies doing outrageous things. In one case, the insurance plan doubled its premiums, raised deductibles, and changed co-payments from a nominal flat fee to a percentage of the bill. Outraged citizens knew that the companies were playing hardball, sending a signal to leave them alone to do business as usual, to forget about health care reform. The people also grew tired of elected politicians who lacked courage to do what was right. So a bold new movement took hold among the public: they stopped paying their insurance premiums. The Great Insurance War began.

Pseudo-Science: The Anti-Vaccine Epidemic

In 2000, measles was eradicated in the United States. No more measles, due to successful vaccination programs. In 2008 measles returned with the largest number of cases since 2000. This trend in the U.S. – rising numbers of measles cases – is the opposite of a worldwide reduction in cases of measles, which still kills 540 children every day. The reason: a growing number of parents who won't allow their children to be vaccinated; and backward-looking public school districts that do not require proof of vaccinations before a child can attend school. Pseudo-scientific claims questioning vaccine safety continue to drive parents into making bad decisions for their children.

From Sea to Shining Sea

The United States has a geography that until recently worked greatly in our favor. Although the U.S. isn't an island nation it might as well be. Two vast oceans, a friendly country with great tracts of wilderness to the north, and southern neighbors that have been largely under our sphere of influence with the isthmus of Panama serving as a natural choke point. It's been hard to attack us unless you drive a truck bomb into buildings or commandeer airplanes.

Afghanistan is not Vietnam: It’s an Energy War

Politicians and a complicit mainstream media are doing a good job of framing the war in Afghanistan and its long shadow in Pakistan as a fight against Islamic fundamentalists who want to attack the United States. Let the Taliban win in Afghanistan and they and Al-Qaida will destabilize Pakistan, which even now is on the verge of a civil war. Let terrorists fracture the government in Islamabad and they will have nuclear weapons to use against us, and tensions with India may boil over into a regional nuclear conflict. This may be true, but it is not the complete story. Our transparent government is wrapping the entire show in the cloak of fear and waving the flag of patriotism.

Sheriff Joe: An Ugly American

The "Ugly American" is a storied phrase in American history, and Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County, Arizona is doing his best to keep it alive. Sheriff Joe brought his armed deputies to county offices and took over a $25 million computer system that links police agencies and the court system. He's now in a court fight with the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. Sheriff Joe is defying the Federal government as it seeks to take away his authorization to enforce federal immigration laws. Sheriff Joe is battling the Mayor of Phoenix and accuses him of driving the calls for federal investigation of the Sheriff's practices. The Mayor's spokesman says that the investigations are both civil and criminal and began under the Bush administration. On all fronts the Sheriff runs an aggressive and well-oiled media operation that presents him as a defender of American liberty when the reality of his law enforcement practices may well be one of the greatest threats to our liberty.

Failing Education

Much is made of reforming education in America. In Washington, D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee is struggling to fix a dismal education system. A bit down the street in the U.S. Department of Education, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is figuring out how to use nearly $5 billion to create incentives and mandates that will improve education practices throughout the land; he calls it a "moon shot."

One-Term Obama: A Profile in Courage

We've spent trillions trying to make the country safe. But without fundamental reforms to health care and education there won't be anyone left to be kept safe. Reforms, not just tinkering around the edges of the current systems, trying to please every interest group and lobby. Someone dies every 12 minutes in America because they didn't have health care. Education is being ravaged by budget deficits at the state and local level. So our future looks like this: a country of undereducated citizens unable to find work in a knowledge economy, with a lifetime of depressed earnings because of their lack of learning, unable to pursue lifelong learning and dying early because they don't have or can't afford health care.

A Lilliput in Googleland

Years ago the stock broker I was dealing with couldn't (I think wouldn't) get his hands on any shares from Netscape's IPO, and I lost a fortune before I made it. He suggested I put the funds I'd given him into Micron Technologies, which promptly tanked and ate up a good portion of the capital I'd invested. After that debacle I started trading on my own and gave up believing in the integrity of Wall Street.

Infernal Fires

Today is the anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. Many remember it by the now-discredited story of Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicking over a lantern. Fewer remember that today is also the day of the Great Peshtigo Fire in Wisconsin, and several other fires that same day which destroyed towns and tracts of land across Wisconsin, Michigan, and into Canada. According to local lore, many in Peshtigo did not flee the disaster because they believed the end of the world was at hand.

The Week in Entertainment

Nancy Franklin writing in The New Yorker skewered Jay Leno and NBC, and rightfully so. Jay's talent is being wasted because NBC never had a hit they couldn't kill, and despite Leno's reported $30 million salary, the network is saving money.

Fred Armisen on Saturday Night Live roasted Barack Obama in a hilarious skit about change we haven't seen. Maybe someone at the White House was watching the show. Maybe some of Obama's majorities in Congress were still awake and got the message, too.

I’m Depressed and You Should Be Too

The only problem with what they're calling the "Great Recession" is that it isn't the "Great Depression." Really, we'd be far better off if the unemployment rate was 28% and more than half the country didn't have health care. Then the politicians would be motivated to fix something. If they didn't angry voters would make some serious changes, and losing that cushy Congressional job would put them out of work along with everyone else.

The New You: Biobricks by Lego

Synthetic. Completely programmed. Got cancer? Just kill the cells that are running amok by reprogramming their DNA, and program new, healthy cells to take their place. Want a green-eyed baby with curly brown hair? It's a DNA program your doctor can provide. Need a new drug or chemical? Grab a cell culture, dump in the DNA programming and make it. Want a new pet, a creature unique and never before seen? Make it yourself. Finally, if you really, really support the end of coal mining, oil drilling, and fossil fuel production, watch the U.S. Joint BioEnergy Institute at work making synfuels with nothing more than large vats of cell cultures and DNA strands. That's where synthetic biology is going. Quickly.

Red Sky All Day

"Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Red sky in morning, sailor's warning." What about when the sky is red all day, as it was during the recent dust storm that enveloped Sydney, Australia? Forget the lovely PR photos of the Opera House's full white sails rising up over blue water under a blue sky. We're talking about an ugly premonition of days to come as an overheated earth dries up, and then whips us with storms of increasing fury. I used to think that we wouldn't see red skies all day until billions of years from now when the sun enters old age, turning into a red giant and burning up the earth. By then, I hoped our descendants would have found some other planet to inhabit. I'm not sure we have the intelligence to make it that far.

Smoke ‘Em Out

Smokers in China inhale three times as many cigarettes as an American addict. This is great, because with three times our population and the threat that their economy will overrun ours we need the highest Chinese mortality figures we can get without starting yet another war. Because they're godless communists, have that wonderful one-child rule leading to state-sponsored abortion and infanticide, we should be looking for some enlightened social policy foundation to give them an award. Americans who stop smoking are showing their patriotism by enlisting in the tobacco war against China.