Have you met Jimmy?

That is what Emily told me at the Ruta Maya at the late night dance on Sunday night. I didn’t think much about it at first when Emily told me about it. But it turned out that letting me know about Jimmy was going to put a great finale to the weekend! It was a weekend full of surprises.

Let’s rewind all the way back to Friday night, you will have to read to the end to find out about Jimmy.

Surprise number 1: I arrived after a long, exhausting day of flying from Rochester, NY to Austin, TX. In any case, I entered the Friday evening main dance room. After dancing a couple of songs, I noticed a familiar face. It was Carrie, who had just came back from England and was zig-zagging her way around the USA on the way back to DC from California. She was trying to hit as many dances as she could in as many different locations possible. For those of you who don’t know it, Carrie knows ASL pretty well. I don’t remember for sure if she was an interpreter.

For some strange reason, Carrie wound up interpreting for me as someone was saying her name. I don’t recall why right now, but I think Carrie might have asked for her name, and was simply interpreting the exchange. Anyways, here is how the exchange went:
Carrie: Spells out Jeannie unintelligibly to me
Me: “What?”
Carrie: “Oops! Sorry…” then thinks a bit as she shifts gear “J-e-a-n-n-i-e”
Me: “Hmm…I think I realize you…”
Carrie: Nods to signal “yep”
Me: “Cassie?”
Carrie: “No, Carrie”
Me: “Oh, close! What happened?”
Carrie: “I’ve been in England for 2 years, still thinking in BSL”

Long story short, I couldn’t help but think “hey, Beth would have loved this!” British Sign Language uses a different signed alphabet — one that uses 2 hands, and needless to say, I’m lost if you spell something to me in BSL. I had fun talking about it, and finding out that she really had been using BSL for those 2 years she was in England!

Later that night, my host, Reed, introduced me to Emily, who could sign pretty well. I danced with her, and then kind of forgot about her until the next day.

Surprise number 2: it just happened that we decided to go to a fancy Austin restaurant on Oysters Landing. Guess what, Emily and the army of maybe 8-10 dancers were there too! So we added our 4 to them, and it made for a wonderful dinner party right in the middle of the restaurant. At that restaurant, I was surprised to discover that the politically correct police have decided to change the sign for the country “Mexico”, and that they sign ‘who’ and ‘little bit’ slightly different in the south.

Surprise number 3: Sunday night, after the evening dance (which was outside on a nice day for a change), Reed, Emily, and others organized to go to a restaurant that happened to be close to the Whole Foods world headquarters. Unfortunately, that restaurant was closed, so we went to another place, the Waterloo Ice instead. We would soon find out was the perfect outing for us 15 something hungry dancers to raid! The place was pretty much empty when we walked in, but they quickly chained together a long stream of tables for us. And it so happened that this place was having an open mic night that night. The band that they had playing was a mix of soul and pop/rock.

Guess what happens when you put over 10 lindy hoppers in a restaurant that is playing soul music? Oh, of course, a lindy bomb ensued, and we were up on our foot dancing to the band! I danced with maybe 5 followers that night while eating dinner, thinking “this is so perfect!” While eating dinner, I decided to ask some other leaders what followers they liked to dance with this weekend.

Quick aside, I did not ask “what is your favorite follower” — because generally speaking, I don’t like to think about favorites. What I was thinking was more along the lines of “who inspired you this weekend!” I also wanted to know if there was somebody I should ask that night. Shorty George saw fit to bring up Sarah’s name, along with a video of her dancing (so I knew who it was right away). Richard gave a resounding “yes, she is great!” I remarked “well, I tend not to ask the young followers like that for a dance”. Generally speaking, I tend to ask them only if I have gotten to know them through other avenues, or that they have seen me dance with another follower that I know they trust. In Rochester, that is one thing, but when traveling, I try to be conscious about making sure everyone is comfortable. Anyways, Richard encouraged me to ask her anyways.

Surprise number 4: So the main dance on Sunday evening, I asked Sarah, and was pleased to find that she was quite secure, cheerful young girl. Oh yes, she was an awesome follower, but the best part was at the end. As is customary, I always sign “thank you” at the end of the dance. When I did that with Sarah, I got a surprised reaction along with “you deaf?” Turned out that Sarah knew some sign!

Finale: At the late night at Ruta Maya, Emily told me “Have you met Jimmy”. She went on to say that there was a deaf guy named Jimmy outside the door and that I should go out and talk to him. At the time I was thinking “well, I guess I see enough deaf people, I don’t need to go meet every one I see.” About half hour later, I was talking to Sarah (in sign), and found out that she had learned her sign from a deaf teacher. I was like “wow, those are the best — it forces you to get comfortable with deaf people.” Indeed, she was, so I thought “hey, there is a deaf guy outside Ruta Maya, so why not we go meet him”. Let me explain: I teach sign sometimes. I tend to prefer when I teach somebody, that they have exposure to sign from several deaf people, not just me.

So we walked out the entrance, I saw 2 black men at the table smoking. I noticed something that looked similar to signs, but couldn’t make out any specific words. I signed “hello, you deaf?” He was kind of surprised to see yet another person signing to him from the dance party. I went on to tell him that I was deaf. We talked for a while, and what is really cool about Jimmy is he doesn’t sign ASL. He signed Gestuno, also known as International Sign Language. I have no idea how much of that Sarah was getting (I recall being impressed with how she was handling herself). I found the experience talking to somebody who signed Gestuno to be quite interesting. I, of course, adapted my sign a bit to try to match what I was seeing.

But, what I found really cool about Jimmy was that, it turned out that Jimmy could do a variety of dances too. He claimed to be a musician who can play variety of instruments. I don’t know if we can believe everything somebody on the street says, but at the moment I’d give him the benefit of the doubt. We talked about variety of different dances, I was saying I am a swing dancer. He said that he knew African dancing. Actually, he kind of proved it — I was impressed when I saw him move his body in ways that looked like raw African dancing. Really, and I have taken African dancing classes in the past, so I’d like to think that I would know it when I see it.

We went back inside, and I don’t know how Jimmy got in through the hand band checkpoint, but he followed us in around 5 minutes later. It was so cool discussing with Jimmy about how we, being deaf, can really feel the music in Ruta Maya. Ruta Maya is almost all smooth concrete, yet, you can REALLY feel the music all throughout the room. Ruta Maya was a perfect case point in that deaf people do not necessarily need to be able to feel the floor vibrate to pick up the music. It is entirely possible for a deaf person to pick up the music right from the air. For those of you who don’t know, if you stomp your feet on concrete, and have someone stand about a yard away, they are unlikely to be able to feel anything. Basically, if you have concrete floor, say goodbye to feeling ANY vibrations in the floor.

Jimmy did get to dance with a few followers, including Emily and Sarah. I don’t know what they think about his lead, though. But it sure made for a very interesting aspect of the weekend. From British Sign Language to ASL to Gestuno/International Sign Language!

Updated: I got confirmation from the event booker at Ruta Maya that Jimmy is indeed a dancer and musician. See the comment section

Status Quo

Here’s a thought…I’m curious to hear what others think.

You know “Robin Hood” — that idea where you steal from the rich to give to the poor.

A thought I just had was this:
Any law that is passed for the express intent of preserving the status quo is likely to have a reverse Robin Hood effect.

Reverse Robin Hood is where you steal from the poor to give to the rich. My thinking is that the people most interested in preserving the status quo are the rich. There is a natural progression in which a business would start out by climbing the socioeconomic ladder using shrewd business acumen to bring the customers what they want. Then once they are in the top of the world, they have money to hire lobbyists and so forth to contact and “work” with politicians. Those people might appear to have an interest in improving society, but all too often what they really want is to preserve their position at the top of the world, which basically entails keeping the status quo intact.

What if highways were privately owned?

It is typical for Americans and Europeans to take our public highways, roads, and so forth for granted. We tend to assume that those things have to be owned by the public — as if that is the only way.

But…when I read articles on mises.org, I was struck with the possibility that it does NOT have to be that way. In fact, Walter Block has written a whole book on how a privately-owned highway infrastructure could work, and how it could mean better highways.

Without reading Walter Block’s book, I’d like to propose a few ideas that I think would improve our highways that you are unlikely to see the government implement. A private owner might be more likely to implement those ideas. Are you ready?

Traffic jams? There are actually many different mechanisms to prevent traffic jams out there. Conceivably, private-owner COULD increase the tolls so that the demand for their highways go down — especially on peak traffic hours.

Or, how about reengineering the highways so traffic jams are unlikely to happen in the first place. For instance…lot of times jams take place because someone had to change lanes suddenly to make an exit lane, locking up lot of other cars behind them and leading to a bumper to bumper traffic. If I owned a highway, I’d be thinking about how to make signs clearer, and giving drivers plenty of head time so they can change lanes in an orderly, timely manner in order to make their exits. But, that is only ONE step I’d take to fix the problem. Now, what if someone decided to slam the brakes because they couldn’t make their exit, and tie up traffic in a couple of lanes just to make an exit? What could we do to dissolve the traffic jam?

Consider this: bumper-to-bumper traffic only survives as long as the cars remain close to each other. When cars are close to each other, nobody can change lanes even if they want to. So subsequent drivers who want to get to the exit are prevented from changing lanes in order to be prepared to exit. Could there be a mechanism to encourage cars to maintain their distance even when traffic slows down somewhat? Well, cars are likely to continue to maintain their distance if they are going 45, or even 50 miles an hour. Which leads me to the next idea: dynamic speed limits. Put up electronic speed limit signs — if there is some small problem a couple of miles ahead, the speed limit from that point and downstream is slowed down immediately. Slow the flow of the traffic of cars that are piling into where the jam has happened so the jam can resolve itself in a timely manner. Assuming enough people obey the dynamic speed limit and agree to the principle, we could conceivably dissolve the jam quickly, and dynamically before it even becomes a big problem. But alas, it is unlikely that an government agency is likely to do an exhaustive research into what works and what doesn’t work in traffic control. If you own the highway — you’d want more people to be able to use it, and to be happy with it. You’d find a way to make your highway jam-proof and capable to handle more cars.

Sometimes it is the entry that is a problem. How about having a computer-controlled traffic light some hundred of yard from the merge point to enter the highway. If a block of car is would be in the middle of the road passing the merge point when the next car is likely to arrive, then that light should be red. Then when it looks like there is likely to be a place for the car to merge in, give them a green light — and they can speed up to the right speed, and get into the traffic without a hitch. What about the idea of exit from one lane, enter from the opposite side? Would it reduce the possibility of congestion? Again, another idea that maybe the government wouldn’t think of trying.

Actually, even better is an idea I heard someone else tell me. Having some highways that have computerized speed control. Someone wants to merge? No problem — have several cars computer work together to regulate the speed. One of the car on the highway would slow down a tad bit to create a gap in front of them while the merging car is ramping up the speed at precisely the right rate. Then when they get to the merge point, the gap to merge in would already be there, and ready to snap right in! Oh yeah, it would speed up our transportation time BIG time. It could even be implemented in such a manner that the highway doesn’t control the car, but rather that the cars themselves communicate with each other. Another way is for the highway to monitor what cars are going, and what speed they are going, and what gaps are available in the highway at various point. You push a button, your car communicates with the highway to get the current traffic pattern that is soon to come to the merge point. Then tweak the ramp up speed so that you would get plugged right into an existing gap when it arrives at the merge point.

What about people like me who don’t drive? I’d pay for usage of something like this:
http://www.biketrans.com/

Put it either next to, or in the wasted land right in the middle of lot of highways. Then bicyclists can bike along cars on high speed highways. Even cooler, with a fan providing tailwind, bicyclists would be able to go faster than they normally could go.

Consider this: if highways were privately owned, then you would be paying (through tolls) for the actual cost of the roads. It costs money to buy car, it costs money to pay for gas, but the piece you almost never see is the money it costs to maintain the roads and to park. I really do disagree with the principle that parking should always be free. I’d argue that this distorts the true picture as to how much cars costs. If people became more aware of the true cost of their transportation, they would take steps to reduce their reliance on cars. Light rail, high speed trains, metro, and maybe even bicycling could become more competitive. All of which I think is a good thing and could easily lead to lower traffic congestion.

And, no…I don’t think that paying toll would even have to be an hassle. You might have to sign a contract to use a certain network of highways, and it reads your license plate when you enter and when you exit. If you change your license plate, then it is maximum fee or something like that (private owner would be adept at finding the frauds anyways). Speed limit could also be enforced through similar means. If you go too fast, you pay more because you endanger others on the road or make it harder for the owner to optimize the traffic flow.

Love your enemies

One thing I thought about quite a bit lately is what it means to love your enemy. It is rare that people would ever think of ‘love’ and ‘enemy’ in the same sentence, yet that is exactly what Jesus called us to do.

I’m sure no upstanding Christian would raise their hand and say that they hate their enemy. However, there are times when our actions, or our inclination borders on hatred for our enemy. The thing here is, we probably would not even dare to use the word “hate” since we know it is wrong. A non-Christian probably would have no problem using the word “hate” — in that sense they could be more honest than we are!

What type of situations am I thinking of? Here is one example from a friend who shall forever remain unnamed, but I’d daresay that lot of Christians could very easily replicate this type of attitude. What happened is he gave a testimony at a meeting I was at in which he talked about a employees at some place who was doing a poor job, or doing something dishonest on the job. At the end, he said that after those people were reported, they were all fired. He said, praise the Lord that they were all fired! It brought silence to the meeting, and I remember looking over at Danijela, and we both chuckled as if “hmm…I don’t think that is a good thing, I think that is a sad thing!”

Let’s be clear about something — I really do think that if someone is doing something that is unethical, or doing a poor job at something, then in some situation they ought to be fired. However, I’d be concerned anytime someone gets fired for cause. Sure, I want them to learn a lesson, but I’d think about how difficult it would be for them to replace that job. I really don’t think it would ever be God’s heart to cause anyone unnecessary pain. God would lovingly discipline us when we go on the wrong path to try to prevent the worse pain that comes when the consequences of our sin comes due. Sure, you could thank God for firing them (if it really was necessary), but please keep in your heart that it is not necessarily God’s desire to do so. It simply is not a situation worth celebrating. A better situation would have been if there was a way to teach that employee how to do a good job so that they can satisfy the customers.

Second example, and this one I’ve noticed a bit too much in my own life lately. This issue, I started thinking about it a while ago when I read the comments on Cheeseslave’s website. Cheeseslave posted a blog post about foie gras. Cheeseslave loves foie gras, and she believes (whether she is deluding herself or not we cannot judge) that the production of foie gras, including gavage is NOT animal abuse. Anyways, in the blog comment section, there was one guy who told her that she ought to be ashamed of herself.

What hit me was Cheeseslave’s response. It went something like this “ashamed of myself? I shall not wish that upon anybody. If I really believed foie gras harmed the geese in any way, I would not eat it.” Whether you agree with that last sentence is not the point, the idea here is that shaming another, or wishing that someone else be ashamed of themselves is not a loving thing to do. If you truly loved somebody, you would wish nothing less than the very best for them.

I could go on and on with examples after examples. But, let’s review a few other examples where hatred masquerades but might not be obvious.

1. When Dr. Atkins died…vegetarians and vegans spent a lot of time eavesdropping in Dr. Atkins private medical records. It seemed almost to the point where they celebrated Dr. Atkins death as a vindication of their belief that his diet was bad. Look: even vegetarians and vegans die. Dr. Atkins’ death could (and from what I heard about the medical record) have had nothing to do with his diet. It is quite alright to use statistics to prove your point (like a long range study with many thousands of people and how long they live on various diets). But you should never celebrate the death of somebody no matter how much you might despise their ideas.
2. If you hold a certain belief regarding nutrition, and someone disagrees: do you wish poor health upon them? Watch out! Despite what you might believe, or evidences you have read that someone else’s diet is unhealthy, you should never wish upon another poor health.
3. When Obama won the presidency, some conservatives predicted doom in a discussion thread on Gina’s facebook page. Another liberal rightfully called it out with something like “so you are going to drop everything you are doing to make your prediction come true?” Lot of people have the inherent tendency to — if their idea is not chosen, they refuse to help make someone else’s idea work. Lot of companies have collapsed because employees refused to do their job because they didn’t like the direction of the management. Hatred can be destructive like this. That is a good reason to get it out of your life for good.

In case #3 — what we ought to do instead is do the best we can think of to make whatever idea is winning actually work. Don’t stop doing good for others and for society simply so you can say “look, I told you, it is not going to work!” This means that one shouldn’t celebrate an economic collapse simply because they predicted it. I have predicted it is coming, but I hope I’m wrong.

Personally, I think the best way to prove that your idea works is to look for ways to apply your ideas in your daily life without unnecessarily breaking the existing laws. Libertarians have a tendency to do a great job at that — they don’t stop innovating. They don’t stop thinking of private means to solve day-to-day problems and to serve others around them without utilizing the government. Don’t give up, instead live out the principles you want to see others adopt. And even if they do not adopt it, don’t ever wish doom upon another just so you can say “I told you so”.

In that sense, if you do that, that could actually serve as a stronger proof that your ideas really does have more merits than the prevailing ideas. In another words, it is a better proof of an idea to use the principle for good — let the goodness shine through. When your enemies come along to try to condemn your ideas, instead of condemning theirs, why not look for ways to do good and through doing so, prove your ideas.

-Tim

Let the little ones come to me…

Something unusual happened at church yesterday. Not once, but twice. In fact, I don’t think I have EVER had this happen before in my life in church. Yet, in 2 different churches it happened. I wonder what this all means.

What happened? In the middle of the church service — in the middle of worship, I got a note from little kids. The first one was at ECC — the little boy sitting behind me took an offering envelope, wrote on it “I’ve been praying for you”, tapped my shoulder, and handed it to me!

Second one was at Lighthouse Christian Center, Sunday night, a little black girl wrote on a construction paper an invitation to greet the pastor and his 2 girls (note, she was his daughter).

Anyways, today, I was thinking, well, 2 little kids wrote a note to me in the middle of service. I never had this happen before even in thousands of times of going to church services, let alone twice in one day. So, I was praying to try to figure out what it all meant. I don’t know for sure at this point, but this got me thinking about what a childlike faith really looks like and what being a child would entail. I figured I’d do a post to talk about children, and how much God values them.

Jesus not only said to let the children come to Him, but also that if we don’t receive Him like a child, then we cannot enter the Kingdom (Matt 19:14). At Lighthouse, a little girl actually received a word from God. Not only that, children are MUCH more likely to be able to believe in miracles, especially if the bible says that they happen. They are more likely to pray for somebody and really expect them to get healed.

One of the worst thing we can do to a child is to tell them that they can pray, but they shouldn’t expect people to be healed. I understand, we don’t want to set them up for disappointment, but you are killing their faith when you do that. Think about it, would Jesus hold the children back when they want to do good? Furthermore, find me a verse in the bible where Jesus failed to heal someone that he met? As far as I know, anytime someone wanted healing, it was almost always “yes!” Where is the biblical basis for the faith-killing theology that maybe we are sick to improve our character? Mind you, there IS biblical basis that we can be sick because we did something wrong. Plus, common sense says that if you hit your head with an hammer, you are gonna be sore for awhile (in another words, sometimes our pain is telling us to stop doing something).

Anyways, my feeling is that for those who hold back the little ones, this verse applies:
Matt 18:6, “but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”

Wow, that is quite harsh! I don’t know exactly what kind of punishment God has in mind, but I’d think that this should serve as a warning to any Christians out there — be careful what you do to those little ones. When Jesus talked about a child, you would never find Jesus telling them that they cannot dream too big, or believe big. Quite the contrary, Jesus tended to compliment the children in their tendency to just believe, going as far as saying that unless one cannot humble themselves and believe like a child, they cannot enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt 18:4).

Alright, I’ll say it. My current belief regarding children is similar to what the International House of Prayer of Kansas City says — that children is as much a part of the church of today as the adults are. What I mean is, children should be allowed to share, to pray, to prophesy, to speak in tongues, and pretty much move in any gifts of the Spirit that God has placed in them.

I have a friend of a friend who attend the IHOP of Kansas City who has said that oftentimes children do better than her in some areas. They do not have years of unbelief dragging them down. That is their strength, and you had better not dampen that strength. I really think that is what receiving the Lord with a childlike faith really should entail. It should entail laying aside the baggage of unbelief that have always held you back and simply believe what the bible says. Forget all the theological debates that grown-ups are likely to get tangled up in, and read the bible with a fresh pair of eyes. What is it really speaking in the here and now?

May we all seek to encourage each other towards greater faith. Especially the little ones — even if it means that they accomplish more than we do. Jealousy should have no place in the Kingdom except when it pertains to motivating us to get ever closer to God. One of a parent’s desire when raising a child should be to see their child accomplish more than they ever did in their own life. Yes…I remember my dad telling me that when I was a young boy.

A fair test

Note: This blog entry was actually written on January 30, 2009. I am going through some unpublished blogs and publishing the ones I think are good. When reading this, imagine Obama was just inaugurated, and Christmas has passed a month ago. The prior blog I referred to is here

– Start entry –
I’ve been reading a Christmas present from my mom. The title of the book is “Honor’s Reward” by John Bevere. Reading this book has led me to think of a pretty good filter I ought to start applying. Probably from here on.

I was kind of inspired by a certain friend who said in her 25 things “I am a movie leaver”. She explained in that note that she often stands up and leaves in the middle of movies if she feels that the movie is heading in a direction that would teach her the wrong thing or otherwise be disturbing to her spiritual walk.

Putting the two together, I’m starting to think that perhaps I should become a post, or blog leaver. I rarely ever go to the movies, but there are tons of posts and blogs out there that in their very writing does not speak out of the right spirit. In this instance, the criteria I’m thinking is this:

If it becomes clear that something I’m reading is speaking out against authority, insubordinate, or is outright disrespectful of any other human being, I’ll stop reading right there. If it becomes a clear pattern in a blog or feed that I’m reading, then I’ll stop reading or following that source henceforth.

My goal with this policy is NOT to be judgemental of others. Quite the contrary, my goal is to avoid unnecessary judgemental attitude from entering my own life, and taking root. Note that it does not matter if the point is 100% dead on — if the attitude stinks then I’m leaving. I’ll probably have more tolerance for secular sources than for Christian sources in applying this criteria. I never uphold others who don’t follow Christ to the same standards as I would those who do. I believe that is a biblical way of dealing with it — hear the word of Paul in 1 Corinthians 5:12-13:
“For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges. Removed the wicked man from among yourselves”

There are two ways that verse can be applied. On an individual level, we can disassociate from fellow Christians if they are living in a sinful way and unwilling to repent in order to protect ourselves from falling into the same hole. On a church-wide level, the leader has the authority to boot those who refuse to repent of their sin.

To close, I support Obama, the last post I made to call out to conservatives is no joke. I hope others will heed the call. Shortly, I’m thinking of reading the different things Obama has laid out in whitehouse.gov to see where I could fit in in helping out with the new administration’s agenda. We will stand firm on issues in which we believe Obama is going against God’s will, but we will support our president in everything else.

I hope others will join me in this next stage in my journey with Christ, and refuse to succumb to attitudes that is disrespectful of others, especially authority.
– End entry –

Aaah…nice to be reminded

Those “out of nowhere” moments…

You know those moment where you are reading something about a certain topic. Your mind is thinking about that subject, then out of the blue, out of nowhere, in the midst of that page is something that seems to be a totally different subject. Yet it is so on topic. While reading the wishlist for gnucash (the financial program I tend to use), I was reading through different things that people wanted the financial program to do for business, personal finances and other purposes. Then I hit this wishlist item:

—–
Islamic Financial Calculations – support fort Zakah/Khums. – You know Muslims are supposed to pay a portion of their excess money every year to poor people. If this suggestion is approved we may need to start writing the formula needed to calculate the money someone should pay each year.
—–
Source: http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/WishList

Kinda struck me as pretty cool concept, if you think about it. Got excess money — portion of that should be used to help the poor. But I guess it makes me curious as to what they define as “excess money”.

That said — Christians have their tithe, and I’m a strong advocate of always paying at least 10% of the gross income for that. I guess we have some of the same dilemma here — if I sell a stock for a profit — does 10% of that profit go to the church or not? What about interest incomes? Dividend income when stocks payout? What about 401K? What if you earn so much money that it would be insane to give 10% of it to a single church? Well, my thoughts are that God doesn’t really need anybody’s money, and God doesn’t really want the money. What God really wants is our heart, and I think that if somebody doesn’t tithe, I’d question what is really the Lord of their life.

That said — just because somebody tithes does NOT by itself mean that they have their priorities right anyways, we all have our strengths and weaknesses. Some might be great at tithing, but terrible when it comes to managing their time well. Sometimes time can be worth more than money, and that is a topic I’ve been thinking about from time to time — how to help people with my time.

-Tim

Ohio Issue 2

Wow…Cheeseslave really does a LOT of research on Ohio’s issue 2 here:
No on 2

So I had to do some of my own research. It looks like…issue 2 is proposing the creation of something similar to a FDA, only for the state of Ohio, and dealing with animals. Basically, Livestock Care Standard Board will become an agency that factory farmers will be able to hide behind.

But at the same time, I get it. I understand why they want to create such an agency — because there are animal rights activists that have taken some stuff a bit too far. Just look at California.

The thing is that like the FDA, the proposed LCSB only works IF the following holds true:

1. All government personnels are completely ethical and honest in all of their dealings.
2. Government officials in the agency has no beneficial interests whatsoever in the industry in which they are regulating.

Problem is that those two issues are highly unlikely to be true today. This is one thing that Ron Paul’s book “End the Fed” has made me think hard about.

In one passage in that book (I think near the end), he was talking about how when he ran for office, after he won the campaign, a supporter came up to him and say “ok, what is the balance?” As if he had campaign debt to pay off, that is. Ron Paul looked at this business guy as if “what are you talking about?!?” because to him, having a campaign debt and depending on others to pay it off is a liability that can easily create conflict of interests. Anyways, after bringing up that story, he went on to say that that business person had a philosophy in that the government ought to work in partnership with the business.

Now, this is something I didn’t get when I read the book. I mean, for so long I’ve always thought it was a good idea to work with the government in improving things in our life. I mean, what is wrong with businesses doing things to help our society? Or charitable organizations, or churches — for that matter. This phenomenon is quite pervasive in our society that few even bother to think about how this could present an ethical dilemma. I mean, even my own church gets grant from the government for some programs that have proven to be successful. It is a fact that private, non-governmental assistance tend to be far more effective than government assistance. Cities have been known to turn to churches to help improve the streets.

Plus, when you think about it, if the government is to work independently of all else, it becomes a question of exactly what they ought to do. That much is incredibly unclear to me. I mean, if I was to give up my job and run for a political office, I have a hard time even beginning to think about how to avoid conflict of interests. Especially when you consider all the money pouring into your campaign from left to right.

Anyways, back to the issue at hand. Suppose we launch the LCSB, what is likely to happen? That is a very hard question to answer, but one of my favorite way of answering questions like that is to look into the recent past and try to find a pattern in similar agencies behavior and extrapolate this into the new LCSB. Are you ready?

What has happened in Ohio recently — here is one story:
Swat team raided an Ohio coop

That is actions of the Ohio Department of Agriculture less than a year ago. The point here is that when you create agencies like this, you also give them power. Power to do good also entails power to do evil. So it is kind of like a catch-22 — you want a benevolent agency that really does look out for the good of the customers. But that very same agency could be used against the very interests you are trying to pursue. With LCSB, I think that the people who are most likely to gain control over the LCSB decision-making process are NOT the small farmers, not the customers, but the big farmers who only have interest in making as much food as they can as cheaply as possible.

How do they wind up on the top of our food chain — because they get lot of money, and then contribute it to get their people in boards like LCSB, the FDA, and so forth. Now, this echoes exactly what Ron Paul is after: the questionable ethical dilemma when you have businesses “partnering” with the government. What tends to happen is businesses have the money and often connections to put their people on those boards to protect their interests or to legitimize their poor choices. They don’t do it because they want to do something good for everybody. Let’s get it straight — anyone partnering with the government would be all fine and dandy if they are good people, ethical people who are capable of truly looking out for the good of others. But often they are people just like Cheeseslave describes — people who are more concerned about making a living and their pocketbook than about the customers.

If you are from Ohio, and you are voting — think for yourself. I’m not gonna tell you how to vote.

-Tim

11th Hour Political Surprises

So…Dede Scozzafava in the NY 23rd Congressional District, noticing that she cannot win, decided to effectively withdraw from the race and release all her supporters from supporting her. Wow…I’m amazed at her courage to do that. That is the kind of politician I like to see. Although I disagree with her position on the issues, I think that it is wonderful that she was able to see that it was not in the best interest for many of those in her district to support her. The reason why I think that is the kind of politician I like to see is because I believe that if it becomes clear to you that a certain voter does NOT agree with your position, then it is prudent to direct him to vote for another candidate who does while at the same time explaining why you believe the way you do. Nobody should be bending their principles simply to garner votes.

Less of a surprise is, GOP actually has a new health care proposal:
GOP Health Plan

Well, I agree that every 1 of the 4 points they bring up would, if changed, help reduce cost, and make health insurance MUCH more competitive. Seriously: allowing competition across state line could do a whole lot. It might not be that great for my job working for an insurer, but when it comes to politics, my job is secondary to our country’s interest.

But…I think the GOP plan still isn’t enough. Look: if obesity continues to be on the rise, then we will continue to have problems with escalating health care cost NO MATTER WHAT THE SOLUTION.

Second problem with their solution is…I wonder what GOP has to say about how to increase the number of doctors we have? Problem here is: we cannot insure more people unless we have more doctors, especially primary care physicians who are often considered to be inferior to specialists in medical schools. So most people are motivated to become specialist, nobody gets excited about being a primary care physician. Granted, I’d guess they figure that a free market would find a way to provide more doctors. But the problem is that medical education in our country is probably heavily regulated, and I remember reading from a Democrat (yes…) that American Medical association often reject people otherwise qualified people who want to become doctor from entering medical schools.

Why aren’t we discussing how to make healthy food more accessible and what mechanism would increase the supply of health care providers? We cannot cover all the uninsured until we have a system that could encourage both the reduction in demand (by making the population more healthy — Jesus said “it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick”), and increase in supply.

Sorry, Sarah Palin (who called this plan a game changer), Boehner, and the rest of the GOP: I don’t think this is it. It doesn’t look like a game changer at all. Yes, it is better than what we have right now — but it still maintains the status quo both in the Big AG (where to start — go watch “Food, Inc.”), and the medical establishment (where drug companies control almost all of the medical industry). It is that status quo that is wrecking our health and our health care system along with it — FIX THAT, please!

Here’s my proposal — in addition to the 4 you outlined, how about these:
5. End subsidy for corn crops or ANY big agricultural operations. Especially those mass producers who do not follow sustainable, organic practices. Allow food that was previously subsidized to return to market price.
6. Rein in the power of the FDA so they cannot sue companies over “false advertising” without providing a victim that was hurt by the advertisement. I’m all for cracking down on fraudulent actions or claims — but you need a victim first or you have no case. BTW, competitor’s sales being hurt does NOT qualify as victim — a victim is a customer who bought the product and were hurt because it does not do what the advertisement says it does. Competitors are, however, welcome to help find victims of false advertisement and bring a lawsuit on their behalf.
7. End immunity to lawsuits for drug companies and, yes, food companies. FDA approved or not, nobody should be immune to lawsuits if their product really does hurt somebody.

Maybe it sounds like those items do not belong in a health care reform. You might be right about that, but you don’t remove spider webs and expect webs to stop popping up. No, you get rid of the spider too!

My 3 items (and maybe there are others) are designed to shoot down what is really at the root of this travesty. What is at the root is that we are subsidizing cheap, nutrient-deplete food with one hand, and with the other hand the result of the nutrient-deplete food becomes patients for the medical industry. Furthermore, on both sides (food and medicine), if it is “FDA Approved’, then it is protected from lawsuits.

I’ll illustrate how this protection works with a kind of hypocritical story. I once read a story that when evidence came out that BPA in lot of plastic really was bad for our brain, someone tried to find out if plastic containers from various organic companies were affected. Almost all, except Eden Foods (who uses glass container for almost everything) were affected at the time that article was written. You know what the companies response was “but, look, it is FDA approved” — and they started to turn to the FDA to defend their choice of using plastic containers rather than listen to the customers. Look: those companies SHOULD know better than using the FDA as a shield.

Think about it, if FDA didn’t exist, then guess how quick companies would switch to using glass or other more safe containers if customers demanded it? They might even give customers choice of packaging, and they won’t be waiting on the government to make decisions, or wasting time trying to defend their right to use plastic even when customer wants glass in court. How silly is that, what happened to “customers are always right” motto of good business acumen?

Now, this is dealing with companies that make otherwise healthy, ORGANIC products! Those are generally better companies and have higher quality standards than conventional. If they use the FDA to defend themselves, just think how companies with lower ethical standards would use the FDA to defend absurdly poor practices or otherwise entice customers to consume their products? Oh yeah, they do, and the stuff they do is much worse. Trust me, I have some examples in mind as I write this.

-Tim
Some of my ideas came from Michael Pollan

Interesting cooking tip…

I guess they teach people this in cooking school?
http://rouxbe.com/tips-techniques/363-how-to-properly-heat-a-pan

Basically: how do you cook with a stainless steel pan without having food sticking to it.

-Tim