Hyperbole and Then Some

I know I'm as guilty of this as the next person, so it is a little hypocritical to complain, but have you noticed how it seems like so many people use negative hyperbole when something doesn't work?

For example, I have a friend who is having problems with the game application conglomerate Steam. She wanted one game and she can't seem to get Steam to download or install it. The result is a steady stream of Facebook posts about how much Steam sucks, that it is awful, its support is horrible, etc. I interjected that it is normally a pretty solid application and game installs can involve a lot of variables. But she's having nothing to do with that. In the end, the fact that both myself and many of my friends use Steam without trouble or incident is ignored and the entire company, at this point, "sucks" because she's having trouble.

A similar instance happened this weekend. A group of friends got together. Most (all? not sure) use Chrome to connect to a specific website we use to game together. One friend was using Chrome and had issues; he could connect to the site but couldn't get the audio features to work correctly. Soon we were reading a steady stream of how much Chrome sucks, how bad it is, and other venting... even though the rest of us had no real issues with connection or our audio/video setup. In his defense, each time we connect as a group, one of us seems to have an issue -- this was just his turn, it seemed. What's more funny is that when it is my turn having issues with the connection, everyone jokes that it is "just John" and how I always seem to have trouble-- when really I have only had a couple of instances, they just tend to be more memorable than others.

As I watch the news, the same thing is happening in our leadership and around the world; one person has an issue with something or someone that everyone else seems to be getting along with, yet that one person dominates the news cycle with his/her opinions. Or the news conflates one person doing something to some sort of "why didn't this other person/group do more" question that doesn't apply and is not applicable. For example, when a shooting makes the headlines, no one stops to related how low gun-crime statistics actually are per capita; they rarely mention that there are frequently multiple and sometimes up to double-digit laws already in place that could have and should have been enforced, which would have solved the issue; they seem to rarely mention that in many of these cases, warning signs were ignored and/or the police or other authorities were involved earlier and were unable to do anything to stop the violence from happening before it bubbled over; they rarely mention the huge rise of knife violence happening in "gun-free" countries like China and other Asian countries, where there have been a number of incidences of people taking knives and going on rampages and killing and injuring multiple to dozens of people. Instead, the news media usually jumps on the "ban guns" bandwagon yet again. They rarely mention that in many of these cases, the guns were obtained illegally and that banning the law-abiding citizens (who are rarely in the news for gun violence reasons) from following the law and obtaining guns won't stop people from continuing to get firearms illegally.

Look at our lawmakers: for the past five and a half years, John Boehner's cronies in the Republican party have been doing their best Chicken Little impersonation about any bill or idea put forth by President Obama or anyone in the Democrat party. They keep hammering their ideals and what they believe has happened no matter how mountainous the evidence to the contrary. If these few people keep telling us something long enough, they think we'll believe it. It is like they do not realize that what they say and what they do is recorded, or that the American people will have the means by which to review those recordings in the future and call them on their poor decisions, outright lies, and general obfuscations. Even when caught, and shown the evidence that they said one thing and then did the opposite, or that the one thing they said was outright wrong, they try to spin it like that isn't what actually happened. How much longer can the American people stand for this to happen, or the constant inaction that has come from it, before voting these people out of office?

At some point, we each have to take responsibility for ourselves and stop blaming "the other." My friend with the Steam app issue may want to stop blaming the company and the app and realize it is likely some setting in her PC that is causing this issue. Thousands of others use Steam daily without these issues and hundreds have likely used Steam support without a hassle. Chrome may not be as much to blame as, say, the website itself or my friend's personal PC setup in connecting to it. Maybe the guns aren't so much to blame as the person who wants to commit the violent act. Maybe our lawmakers should look in the mirror at who is to blame for the government's ineffectiveness, rather than trying to blame the other party, the President, or some other force. Maybe we all need to start saying, "I have an issue, how can I resolve it?" rather than, "They are the problem, how can I screw them the most for it?"

Let Us Service Our Servicemen

It is absolutely disgusting how we have treated our veterans via the VA. This seems like a no-brainer and something that is easily resolved.

Questions or comments I have about this situation:

• Why can't we hire some high school or college aged interns who work 8 hours a day scanning or retyping a case file into the system?

It seems like doing this would very quickly resolve the issues of so much paper not being in the system.

• I have some smart programming friends and some of what they have had to do is write "rippers" to grab data from one system and map it to a different system. Why can't we hire programmers to do this in order to get one VA system talking to another.
• Meanwhile, hire a second set of programmers to start building a new system that interconnects everything and that can use the databases the rippers use in order to populate everything.

This seems like it would resolve the issues of interoperability between the various systems very quickly.

• Why is it the Republicans in particular, but all of Congress in general, isn't making this a cause and fixing the issue? The Republicans are specifically in favor of our military, not cutting the defense budget, and keeping our service personnel in harm's way, yet they keep derailing, blocking, or voting down any attempt to fix the issue. What gives? 

I can't even recognize the Republicans now as the same party I was a member of for a decade. Their values seem to be totally different and their goals change with each new day, it seems. Obama represents the Reagan ideal better than any current Republican, which is why I laugh when they all point to Reagan as the end-all, be-all saint of their party these days. Reagan would be considered a moderate Democrat by today's standards.

• Why can't we say something like: All servicemen (and family) can go to ANY doctor at ANY time. All they need to do is show their military ID to prove they served, and they get all treatments and appointments for free. The doctor's office then must fill out a form and submit it to get any payment back. Any payments not received back within 365 days of the doctor visit can be legally written off on the doctor's taxes.

This pushes the onus for payment to the doctor's staff, who is already dealing with these issues. It pushes the onus back to the gov't for paying on time. And it makes the gov't accountable to pay by taking money away from the gov't if they don't pay within a reasonable period of time via the tax write offs. It also puts the onus onto the IRS to make sure doctors are being truthful via the IRS's audit system, which already does this sort of thing. And, in the end, the military personnel and their families are out of this loop entirely AND getting seen by doctors.

• Create a one-strike rule. You get one "oops." If, as someone who works anywhere for the VA, you have a second complaint against you (for example, that you have two lists of appointments, are hiding the truth, messing around with servicemen's records, or anything else) you are fired immediately without any severance or parachute. Period.

Accountability seems to be the biggest thing America is missing right now. Make it a law.

ADDENDUM:
It appears that the current VA secretary has resigned today. Now, let's hire someone who wants to completely revamp this thing AND who can get both Reps and Dems to agree to fund the revamp.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/31/us/politics/eric-shinseki-resigns-as-veterans-affairs-head.html

Medical Reaction

There is so much going on in the world that I am at a loss. I am truly dumbfounded. I have been at a loss for words,saddened, angry, and shaking my head at each new stupid thing that is going on both in North America and around the world. I'll try to get to those items as I make sense of all the stupidity in the world right now.
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The reason I have not written in over a month is because my wife had her first serious brush with illness. On May 12th we went to see her new doctor, who prescribed her a new medication (Plaquenil) to go with an existing medication (Methotrexate) to help with some issues that seemed to point at arthritis. She took the first pill that evening and the required two more the next day. That night she noticed a rash on her forearms. The next morning we noticed a rash starting to cover her arms and torso. The itchiness was off her personal scale, and she didn't sleep well that night. On Thursday it was slowly covering her back and her legs. By Friday, her rash was itching madly and she hadn't slept well due to waking up scratching herself raw from it. She decided to leave work and drive herself to the Urgent Care at the smaller hospital close to her work to be seen.

The Urgent Care doctors did not properly (or, maybe more accurately, "fully") diagnose her, but gave her yet another drug to take to try to stave off the rash (Prednisone in large doses for three days). By Sunday, she was a massive red rash from head to ankle, with only her feet and her hands strangely untouched. The rash was so bad doctors found evidence of it inside her mouth and ears. The Prednisone did nothing to impede it or help with scratching. I said that was it and we went to the Emergency Room at the main hospital.

We spent about four and half hours there on Sunday, during which we learned she was having a Stevens-Johnson reaction to the medication. By this time she was so red that she looked like she had a second degree sunburn over most of her body, including developing pustules, she had red welts over a lot of her body, the itching was at insane levels, and some of her was purple and looked like huge bruises. They gave her new medications for the itching but said the only real solution to the problem was time. They also recommended being seen by a dermatologist to check for skin damage from this type of severe reaction.

The lack of sleep, itchiness (nothing helped for more than a few hours), and stress of this reaction and the situation overwhelmed her and she was very emotional during this time. I'm better for solving problems than I am with emotional issues, but I did the best I could to be comforting.

On Tuesday we went to see her GP. The doctor was shocked at my wife's appearance and the story we told of this reaction and what had happened. By Friday, we got in to see the only available Dermatologist, and he was equally shocked -- even though we assured him she was actually starting to look better, as the rash was starting to move through her system by then. She was more red/sunburned looking with a general lessening of the hive-like bumps.

The dermatologist took some skin samples, wrote a script for more bloodwork, gave her scripts for various creams that would help both with itching and the pustules, and he wanted to see her back in a few days. On the follow-up on Tuesday, he noted that she was progressing nicely and that he didn't need to see her again unless things took a turn for the worse.

It is now Thursday and my wife is doing much better. She's been sleeping through the night, isn't scratching as much, her skin is mostly back to its normal shade in her upper body and is getting there in her lower body. She was able to do a good amount of work from home yesterday and is making her first foray back to work today.

As I said at the outset, this is my wife's first real long-term issue with illness. She's broken toes in the past, gotten sick for a few days, but nothing so debilitating and long-term as this. At one point, crying and emotionally spent, she asked me how I do it (as I have chronic conditions I have been fighting for going on 20 years now). I said, "One day at a time. Just simply one day at a time. Slowly you get used to the new reality of your life and you don't have to fight so hard against it. And then you're good for awhile until the next thing happens. Then you take that one day at a time until you reach a plateau with that. Rinse and repeat."

It is often hard for even those close to someone with a chronic or debilitating issue to fully understand what it is like. Now, when I tell her I'm tired, or don't want to take my meds, or that my body is rebelling on me, or any of the other things I say when I'm depressed, or flaring up, or just done, she has a frame of reference. While her bout with this problem is easing away and she can, hopefully, get on with her life and be the healthy person she normally is, she now has sympathy and understanding of that it can be like for those who suffer daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. I'm very sorry she had to suffer this, but I think her awareness has grown and her empathy further expanded (I say "further," because she is already an empathetic person).

Going forward, my wife must be more cautious of new medications. She needs to alert any doctors she sees that she has had a Stevens-Johnson reaction to Plaquenil and take any new medications slowly, easing into them. And, she's learned some harsh, hard life lessons along the way, which will take longer for her to assimilate, understand, and move beyond. And I'll be right here to help her.

I Guess I Just Don't Get It

Most of my friends enjoy The Big Bang Theory. They rave about the humor. Most of them claim to laugh out loud while watching it. I have tried to enjoy it. I originally watched the premiere and the second episode when it debuted, and didn't laugh at all. Didn't even crack a smile, actually. Since then, I have repeatedly watched episodes on the cable channels that air it ad infinitum. I would guess that I have seen somewhere around 40 episodes at this point (it is hard to say because it seems like the same 15 episodes are on a lot). During that time, I have smiled a couple of times and have chuckled or outright laughed twice. Yes, twice.

My issues with it, and so many other "comedies" currently on the air, is that it pokes fun at the audience. And I don't like being made fun of, I guess. I, and many/most of my friends, enjoy comic books, sci-fi/fantasy movies and shows, science, and tend to be on the smarter side of society, yet the four main characters on The Big Bang Theory look and act nothing like us. Those characters are beyond stereotypes; they wind up being caricatures of what someone who is not a nerd or a science geek thinks these people are like. Geek- and nerd-dom have come a long way, baby. Most of us are pretty average, can carry on a conversation, are productive and interesting members of society, and dress in our work's dress code or jeans and polo shirt on weekends.

I dislike Sheldon the most, because his character is the most irritating: he's presented as a genius but actually is portrayed as a buffoon. I've known, schooled, and worked with some wickedly smart, high-IQ individuals and Sheldon reminds me of none of them. While a few were socially inept, that was mostly from being mildly autistic and/or incredibly introverted, not from being an ass with a one-track mind. Many of them were just as socially able as anyone else, and a few were the 'life of the party' types.

At my last few comic book shops, it was not at all unusual to have women browsing the shelves. The guys who run my current comic book shop are more used to seeing my cute wife than they are me, because she works nearby and it makes more sense for her to pick up the comics most weeks than it does for me to drive in. A few of my female friends also frequent the store, play games there on gaming night, and would be considered attractive.

Sci-fi and Fantasy movies and TV shows would not be as successful as they are without a strong female audience, as they (females) tend to be the driving force behind what a couple or a group watches (more so than the males). So showing them as either not being involved or being condescending toward what the "geeky" guys like is simply wrong.

When I go back and watch old episodes of Cheers, MASH, Cosby, Frasier, and even newer shows like Seinfeld and Friends, they don't make fun of the audience. They poke fun at that specific character on the show. Rather than turning "the fat guy" into an indictment on all fat people, they would poke fun at that specific character and his specific fallacies and failings. 'Joey' on Friends and 'Woody' on Cheers were not written as Everyman Idiots, they were nuanced, caring, considerate, and had their areas of expertise or understanding. All of the characters on these shows were fully-formed human beings, not stereotypes. When I watch comedies today, I don't see that; in general, I see stereotypes and caricatures that, like on The Big Bang Theory, are often not even accurate to reality. The characters in question then seem to be a stand-in for the audience and all the humor seems to be directed at those watching, rather than at the characters on the show.

And too many shows are cancelled before they can hit their stride and get the chemistry right. Go On was improving with each episode, as the writers were starting to really get the characters and tone of the show down when it was cancelled. What could that show have become if given a little more of a chance?

On top of all of this, there are a plethora of shows, like Arrested Development, Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Portlandia, and New Girl that we just don't find funny. At all. Even remotely. We keep wondering how they are even classified as comedies. They seem to be primarily sad dramas about miserable people either being miserable or making others miserable.

In the end, while I agree that the five main actors (really, seven now) on The Big Bang Theory have good chemistry and comedic timing, I simply don't like the characters they portray, the humor they try to convey, nor the over-use of badly written stereotypes. As this seems to be the case for so many comedies today, I think we just need to let it go and move on.

The Death of the PC has been Greatly Exaggerated

The "death of the PC" has been greatly exaggerated by the media for the last few years. The PC, which, by the way, stands for "personal computer," is simply in  moment of flux as the concepts around personal computing change.

Most people in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s did not need a full blown desktop or laptop computer for how they used the machine. The vast majority of people only needed someplace to store and retrieve photos and videos, a way to connect with the Internet, a way to connect with their friends and family (via email, blogs, and now social media). The vast computing power provided by a desktop, whether Apple or Window's based, was not needed nor used by the majority of people.

Tablets and smartphones have been around, in some form, since the early 1990s. However, it took significant leaps in technology and user accessibility before either became truly successful in the early to mid-2000s. It required additional refinements for each to become the ubiquitous devices we use today.

Apple's creation of the iPad and iPhone hit the right combination of user friendliness, options, and usefulness to get it right. Once a successful model was in place, the computer manufacturers were off and running. For many people, especially those for whom work and/or "power" gaming are not required, the tablet was all they really needed, and it was usually much cheaper than a laptop or desktop model because it focused on their needs only. The laptop and desktop are more generally usable, but that generality comes at a higher cost. The tablet and smartphone simply connected users to the Internet and to their family and friends. It allowed them to view videos and read the news that was important to them. And it was ultra portable, so they could take it with them wherever they went as opposed to chaining them to their desk or the limited portability of the much larger, heavier, and more awkward laptop.

So, yes, obviously the sale of this new tablet/smartphone personal computer ate into the sales of the old desktop and laptop personal computers. However, while the vast majority of people only need a PC that does those simple tasks, there are still many people who require more power to do what they need to do.

If you are serious about graphics applications, do significant amounts of work on a PC, or are a serious gamer, a tablet simply will not work for you. It does not have the power, accessibility, or lifespan needed to do what you want to do. Graphics applications, like video editing and serious drawing programs, require a level of CPU processing and power that simply cannot be found in tablets today. Many can only really be used in serious, high-end laptops (those referred to as "desktop replacements" or "mobile desktops") or on desktops. If you are writing a significant amount each day, you certainly don't want to do that on a non-ergonomic device like a tablet as you would have repetitive motion issues within a short order. And, if you have any desire to play the latest and greatest MMOs, FPSs, or sports programs, you need a dedicated graphics card, a lot of memory, and the fastest Internet connections, which you simply cannot get from a tablet or smartphone. A day may be coming where the tablet or smartphone can do these types of activities. But it isn't here yet.

The sudden creation and nearly ubiquitous use of "the cloud" for computing in the last few years has led to further advancements in how we interact with our PCs. For example, if my mother (or mother in law) said she needed a new PC today, I would probably steer her toward a Chromebook (or similar device) over a laptop, desktop, or tablet. It is a low-cost, easy-to-use, hard to get wrong device that uses primarily free tools via the Internet (most specifically, Google's free online Word suite replacements) to provide utility to its users. The current generation allows (limited) use offline as well as (full) use online, so you are not completely without your data. The OS is kept updated invisibly to the user and all virus protection and safeguards are on Google's end. For someone like my mother, this winds up being a nearly perfect solution to her PC requirements as a retired teacher who likes to write, stay in touch with her family and friends, have portability in her device, but also needs comfortable usability (as it is more like a laptop and less like a tablet).

In today's PC market people have a lot of choice. They can get the device that services their needs without getting a lot of extras they do not. For the vast majority, a smartphone, tablet, or Chromebook device is the perfect answer. Some still require the extra power and flexibility of a laptop or full desktop, however. The numbers on sales of "PCs" (i.e., desktops) are stabilizing at what will be their new normal and these articles about the "death of the PC" will slowly ebb as well. At least, until the next leap forward.

Random Thoughts, April 4, 2014

Quick thoughts:

• The Republican party, in general, is considered the party that wants small government and government to stay out of peoples' lives. So why is it that it is currently the party so incredibly invested in making decisions for women and homosexuals? Why do they want government so involved in the private lives and bedrooms of females and gays?

• On a related matter, you cannot provide something that so many people want for so long and then take it away without repercussions. Which is why the backlash against the (primarily) Republican party's assault on women's rights will have severe repercussions going forward. Abortions and reproductive issues have existed for over 2,000 years; just because you make it illegal now does not mean it will stop. You just make it into a "back alley" scenario again until the women get mobilized to legalize it once more. And/Or make the politicians who took it away pay for their arrogance.

• It is April and we still have snow actively on the ground. We just had a snowstorm/blizzard that dumped enough snow to cause up to four foot drifts in our driveway. I'm sick of winter now. This is the longest winter has held on since I moved here.

• Oh, and why is the right-leaning media so involved in questioning Global Warming because this winter has been so harsh and cold? Apparently, being "news" people, they didn't think to look up what that actually means but, instead, took the words themselves to mean that everything should be getting hotter, not colder. When, in fact, Global Warming actually means that, while the overall trend is toward a warming of the Earth, short-term that means weather instability and wild fluctuations. Those fluctuations include colder, wetter, longer winters, more tornadoes and hurricanes, hotter summers and falls, more active draughts and rainy seasons, and fewer mild, "normal" days. Why can't they simply report the facts?

• News media in general is not reporting actual news anymore. Have you noticed that CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, et al, are primarily filled with opinion shows? This is because a) there simply isn't enough hard, verifiable news to report on a 24-hour news network and b) you don't have to fact-check and hold to news standards those who are expressing opinion. A corollary to this is that the networks then make those opinion shows look as much like a news show as possible to confuse and mislead the public into believing what these talking heads say is news fact and not personal opinion. To my mind, this should be illegal. 

• I like to do new and interesting things on my birthday -- going bowling, going to a museum, attending an aquarium, doing a new activity. However, so many things in our area don't open until May or June that I'm left with few good options for a birthday party. It's a little depressing.

Unwanted

The American justice system has its flaws. The rich get away with more than the poor because they can hire the best law firms. The use of precedent overwhelms the system and creates loopholes and unintended consequences. And, in today's mobile, online, instant news society, the law doesn't always keep up or make sense to the masses.

The goal of this system is to provide an unbiased result based on the facts of the case. The biggest benefit to it is that an (supposed to be) impartial judge or a jury of one's peers is used to arbitrate between the accused and the accuser. This is especially essential for instances where the hierarchical power system in place most everywhere (between employee and employer, between the government and the individual, etc.) would unnecessarily bias one side against the other.

However, there is one glaring area where an impartial system does not exist: the military.

In the military, everything is kept "in house." In many cases, your commanding officer (or that person's commanding officer) is used to administer justice. Even when something actually makes it to military court, many of the people involved may be the accuser's superior officers. Even if they are not, they have something to gain or lose based on what is accused and what the verdict is.

The military has a sexual assault problem. The rates for all types of sexual misconduct are much higher per capita in the military than in the private sector. Both men and women are attacked, as sexual assault is mostly about power and not about the act of sexual intercourse. So, the fact that women are in the military doesn't make sexual assault more prevalent -- it just means that women are now being attacked along with the men.

The problem, though, is that those who are attacked are forced to go through their own chain of command in order to report the assault. In some cases, this means going to either the person who is performing the assault or who is the direct commander of the person who is committing the act, or that person's immediate superior (if the commander in charge is the one performing the assault) in order to levy a charge of sexual assault. These individuals have direct and biased reasons not to send the assault charge up the chain command: first, a charge of sexual assault looks negatively on them as the leader of the person(s) in question and could negatively influence their ability to move up the chain of command; and, secondly, they may like the conduct, person, or performance of the accused more or less than the accuser.

There have been many reports of sexual assault and outright rape in the military over the last 20 years. No one branch has been spared the scandals of these allegations. There have been movies about it, including a recent documentary about the problem, The Invisible War. Even if you consider that movie biased against the military, the facts presented and the incredibly myopic way in which the military is shown to respond (for example, making it the assaulted person's fault for being assaulted, or the program to make sure you have a safe buddy to walk around base with at night, etc.) shows the military culture to be biased against women and "weak" men and stuck in a version of the past where these sorts of things just "didn't happen." (Of course, they did, but like the nostalgia films from the 1950s, the military's response just seems to gloss over and simplify how very real and present the problems actually are.)

While that movie was able to briefly change the way the military works, much more is needed. (The military took away the unit commander's decision whether to prosecute these cases.) When Congress confronted the military leadership and demanded answers, strongly considering changing things so that sexual assault would be prosecuted in civilian court systems, the military leadership determined that it would hurt morale, undermine the command structure, and somehow bring down the military as an institution to take away military prosecution of sexual assault. And Congress backed down.

My question is why? Many companies work on a similarly hierarchical command structure yet having a judicial system outside of that structure hasn't toppled those businesses when a sexual assault charge is levied. In no other stratosphere of life does having an independent and unbiased judicial system hurt the process -- and, as I argued at the beginning, it actually helps the process by trying to ensure as fair and balanced a process as possible. (Yes, we can argue all day about how actually fair and balanced the judicial system is, which is why I noted some of the problems with it, above. The fact is that it tries harder than most other judicial systems to be unbiased.)

The military is an insular system. They need that in order to do what they do. But when that insular system, in essence, rewards sexual assault predators with a system in which they can get away with the act more often than not, the system has to change. Taking sexual assault cases out of the system so that both the accused and accuser get a fair court hearing and verdict is paramount to this process.

As we consistently learn, whenever an institution is left to police itself, be it Congress, banks, brokerage firms, churches, or, now, the military, it fails because the participants are biased for a variety of reasons. It is time for the men and women of our armed forces to be safe and able to bring these charges to a fair, unbiased court system outside of their chain of command. The military has proven both unwilling to change and unable to cope with this problem, so the government should force the issue. Our servicemen and women deserve nothing less.

Now Comes the Hard Part

I had my last physio session with my therapist yesterday. While he recognizes that my back is still weak, he likes the direction it is going, he thinks I've got a lot better mobility and flexibility, and he thinks I'm on the right path. To that end, he gave me some suggestions and "graduated" me from the program.

My father in law has a device specifically made to help strengthen the back. He loaned it to me and I have been using it multiple times a day for the last two weeks.

* Not the exact model I am using, but a very close design

By doing a "reverse sit-up," I can stretch and strengthen the back in the specific area I had the herniated disc. In addition, I can use the handles to do a nice, deep push-up.

What I've been doing is, every time I go down to put wood on the fire, a set of 10 push-ups and a set of 10 back extensions. Since I feed the fire about once every 60-90 minutes, this means I get about 8-10 sets in each day with plenty of rest between. This has helped my arms, chest, and back to start feeling stronger as well as burning a few more calories than previously.

Next up is to add back in my stationary bicycle and work on my stamina, which is poor (to put it mildly). This will work the legs as well as being good cardio work. My initial goal is to get to riding for around 45-60 minutes (enough time to watch one DVRed show on TV). I was just reaching that point when I had the herniation and the subsequent issues with my back. All of my gains were lost (and then some) during my recuperation (since I couldn't do much lifting, twisting, or, well, walking during much of this time).

Once I reach that stage, I'm hopeful that my back extension and push-ups have made a nice difference to my upper body, I've lost some weight, and can start adding in some sit-ups and strengthening leg-work. Also, as we move from winter to spring, I hope my wife, our friend Dre, and I can start going back to the Nature Park and walking. Now, the two ladies walk me into the ground and I usually take a course that is half what they do, but my goal is to one day keep up with them. Plus, the Nature Park is a nice, quiet, natural setting, which is nice to visit.

I have also started using the food and exercise trackers on MyFitnessPal.com again. I have set up it to help me lose 40 lbs, so it is limited my caloric intake to 1500 calories a day (from the standard 2000). I may lower it when I see over the next two weeks how I normally eat (with all my health issues the last six months, my diet is all over the place; I need to get a new baseline with the exercise program to see if I can make the calorie intake more aggressive). I'd rather have a steady, sustained weight loss than crash and rebound. Right now, the caloric intake suggests 8 lbs a month loss, which seems fine (2 lbs a week). My wife uses this tracker and she managed to lose about 20 lbs with her exercise schedule (Zumba twice a week plus walking on treadmill or on streets every day). Losing the weight off the gut will help the back stay strong, as well as help my feet, knees, and other joints. My arthritis makes it difficult to be too aggressive with exercise, and I have to stay away from too much high-impact stuff.

Anyway, today is as good day as any to start really hitting it and moving forward, right? Last year was our year of no procrastination. We managed to get a lot done around the house, with paperwork, and similar. I'm carrying it over to this year and trying to keep the train moving forward.

More TV Woes

My wife wanted to buy her mother a Blu-Ray player that was both wi-fi capable and had a USB port, so she could share with her mother movies and other files from our very large collection. Seems simple enough, right?

Wrong.

My MIL has some very nice, but older, technology in her house. Also, her house is old enough not to be wired for internet. Hence the desire to have the player by wi-fi enabled. Her 36" CRT TV is a rugged, nice machine, but it is old enough not to have current, modern connectors. She doesn't have a receiver through which she runs everything.

Knowing/discovering all of these facts as we pursued this avenue, we stumbled on the need to get an HDMI to RCA converter in order to plug the Blu-ray machine into her TV. This is because we could not find a Blu-ray player that has RCA jacks AND wi-fi AND a USB port; if they have wi-fi, they pretty much all have only an HDMI port.

After our trying and not finding the device, or eschewing going to some places because we were sure they wouldn't have such a device, we headed to The Source, a primarily electronics seller in this city (kind of Radio Shack). There were two people working there, a male about early-20s, 5'6", with dark hair and a female about the same age and height and with blond hair.

I asked if they sold any HDMI to RCA cables. They both gave us very quizzical looks. The girl started to say, "I don't think they make those," while the male said no and started smiling and laughing and generally got "attitude" and, well, snotty. He asked if I was sure such a thing existed. Since I was sure (I had looked it up online and they are readily available for $40 and lower, depending on make/type) and was starting to dislike his attitude, I said, "I'm absolutely sure. So sure that I will bet you any sum of money you'd like to wager on it."

I've worked retail. Was pretty good at it, actually. And, when you run across a customer who is asking for specific things and is showing intelligence, confidence, and competence about what he/she wants, you should trust that customer and work with him/her to your mutual benefit. This guy didn't understand that concept. Instead, he started talking very negatively about the ramifications of doing this conversion, how the picture would be "horrible," and how we really should get a new TV. To which my wife replied, "Are you going to buy us a new TV?" She was getting steamed at this yokel, basically, laughing at us.

I was getting irritated too. This guy, at various parts of our conversation, laughed openly at us, ducked his head and continued laughing, and generally was unpleasant. He spoke so negatively about the device we wanted to purchase, and then had the gall to say, "I'm not trying to be negative about it or stop you from buying it, but it's not going to work for you." Really? Are you sure. Because I've seen the reviews of these devices online and, for the most part, people are pretty pleased with being able to buy a $100 Blu-ray and a $10 connector, rather than spending $800 on a new TV, $100 on a new Blu-ray, and $20 on the HDMI cord required.

His attitude toward us was getting to us both, but I started to step forward when my wife grabbed my arm and said she wanted to go. She was done talking to this ass-hat and didn't want me getting into it with him. Over my shoulder as we left, I made some disparaging comment about the store and that guy (to which I heard a, "What... what did he just say?" from the male to the female employee).

The somewhat ironic conclusion to this story is that we went home, looked online at the plethora of such converters and cables, and tried to decide which would work best for us. My wife found that The Source store we had visited had one such converter in stock and for sale (albeit, it was for HDMI to Composite, not HDMI to RCA which is what we specifically asked for). Had the ass-hat male employee bothered to look, he would have found that. He would have then known:

1. Such a thing does exist.
2. Not to be a jerk to us, because we actually knew what we were talking about.
3. To check his computer for relevant other devices and discover if The Source carried the specific item we needed and could order it in for us.

Instead, this employee felt entitled to laugh at us to our face, sardonically suggest we buy a new TV, and felt it was appropo to show gross negativity toward what his customer needed. Out of the half-dozen or so better ways he could have expressed his negatively that would have been helpful and left us with options, he instead convinced us never to shop there again.

In the end, we're probably going to chip in and help my MIL buy a new TV sooner, rather than later. Once she has a new TV, she'll have the ports she needs and we can consider getting her a Blu-ray.

Oscars, 2014

The Academy Awards were on last night, and I watched pretty much all of it. And it was boring. Very, very boring. I have fairly specific desires for what I want to watch during the Oscar telecast; last night's show wasn't it.

• Opening. I like the opening song and dance number. Either that or some sort of funny and interesting monologue. Whatever it is showcases sort of the theme and general direction of the show. Ellen's opening was brief, which is always nice, but also boring and not very funny, which is unlike her. And, not surprisingly, the show itself was sort of boring and not very funny.
• Tributes. Unless there is a reason for it (i.e., a significant-year anniversary or the passing of a legend), I don't want to see tributes. Last night's show had a ham-fisted tribute to animation and one to movie heroes that both felt tacked on and without focus. Why were they added? Taking both together, that was at least 10 minutes that could have been cut from the show.
• Presenters. I hate them. The host should present most of the awards (up to all but the Big 4). This gives the host a chance to actually do something during the telecast beyond introducing someone who is going to flub his/her lines, not be able to read the teleprompter, say something uncomfortable or that can easily be misconstrued, and/or butcher someone's name. The transition time from the host to the presenter and back again could be spent just having the host present that award. All those small minutes saved would add up to somewhere around 30 minutes of time saved on the far end, I'm guessing.
• Presentations. I like having the previous winner of X presenting the current night's award for Y, however, I want the presentation to mean something. In Oscars past, we have had affectionate presentations to each award nominee. I liked this. Keep to about 1 minute per, show clips in the background (or overlay it for the TV audience), and have a professional help the presenter with the writing so it is short, sweet, genuine, but to the point. Last night, they each came out, barely said anything, had the pre-recorded list, and then presented the winner -- boring.
• Death. Last night's In Memoriam was really done well... one of the best of recent memory, until they had Bette Midler come out and sing after the presentation was over. Either have her sing during or don't have any singing at all... there's another 5 minutes you can save. Also, remember that we are trying to celebrate the life of those who died; their accomplishments in their chosen field, how well they were known and liked in the industry, and their impact on film in general. This should be a happy, but solemn, moment.
• Pace. The big categories everyone wants to see are Song, Screenwriting (?), Supporting Actor and Actress, Lead Actor and Actress, Director, and Best Picture. Since, generally, the Oscars telecast is about 3:30-4 hours long, that means you should have one of those awards presented every 25-30 minutes of the telecast. Don't suddenly cram a bunch of the biggest awards into the last 30 minutes.
• Clapping. Start each telecast with a statement to the audience to hold all applause until the END of the presentation. Often, the clapping drowns out what the presenter or pre-recorded piece is saying, or it shows obvious favoritism (one person gets hoots, hollers, and a lot of clapping; the next gets a polite smattering of applause). Also, if it is a live presentation, the clapping often causes the presenter to pause, adding to the overall time of the show. Just wait until they are done, clap the same amount for everyone, and then allow specific applause for the winner.
• Closing. Have some sort of closing presentation, not too long (maybe 4 minutes) that wraps up and ends the show. Doesn't need to be another song and dance, but something that sums it all up and eases you back out of the show. The way last night just sort of had Ellen come on stage and say good night was a bit terse. People who get into it are still amped up over the show and need something to ease them down and out.

It's Not What You Say, But What You Don't Say...

My wife and I like pulled beef/pork sandwiches and we use our slow cooker to make the BBQ sauce and cooked meat. Because we've had some issues cooking this meal since we got our new slow cooker, she decided to get a mix from the same company as our slow cooker (Crock Pot).

The Ingredients list is simple:

• 3 lbs pork
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup cider vinegar
• 1 pkg. Crock Pot Pulled Pork BBQ Seasoning
• 1 cup water

The Preparation section is even easier (I will type everything exactly):

1. PLACE pork in slow cooker.
2. MIX seasoning packet with ketchup, brown sugar, and vinegar until blended. Pour over pork.
3. COVER & COOK 8 hrs. on LOW or 4 hrs. on HIGH. REMOVE pork from slow cooker. Shred, using two forks. Return meat to slow cooker. Mix with sauce and heat before serving.

That's it. Notice anything? That's right, that 1 cup of water listed in the ingredients is not used anywhere in the preparation. Why is it needed? After some discussion, we decided the water was designed to keep the meat moist during cooking. We feel that step one should read, "PLACE pork and water in slow cooker." We can make a case for it being added to the sauce in part two of step 3, so we're not certain of our choice. It's what we're going with. 

This error leads us to another error by omission that has been frustrating us: everything we have been cooking in our new slow cooker has been either overcooked or done way sooner than the estimated times on recipes. My wife did some research and discovered a couple of interesting things, which our slow cooker instructions and manuals don't mention.

1. Modern, recently-made (last 5 years or so) slow cookers are set to higher temperatures than older models. If you had an older model and purchased a new one, you may notice that your recipes are finishing sooner or are overcooked when cooked in the new cooker. This may be why. No one seems to know quite why manufacturers decided to make this unspecified and unneeded change.
2. Slow cookers are designed to be used at a minimum of about 2/3 full. If you are, say, two people who just want enough for dinner and some leftovers, and you purchased a larger slow cooker, you may find your food overdone because it gets too hot during cooking because it is only 1/3 or maybe 1/2 full.

In both cases, why not clearly mention it? It makes a pretty big difference; my wife and I have wasted a number of meals because we couldn't figure out what we were doing wrong. We had a solid, older model that made good food and we could use without issue and we were throwing out dry, almost inedible food with the new, larger one. Knowing either piece of info would have made a huge difference; knowing both is causing us to rethink our purchase and considering downgrading to a smaller slow cooker.

Where is the editing? Why omit this information? Is no one reading or reviewing these items?

Addendum (2/21/2014)

Here is the response I got back from the company. Doesn't exactly instill confidence that they will fix the issue in subsequent runs of the ingredient package:

Dear John, 

Thank you for taking the time to contact B&G Foods Inc. We’re sorry to hear about confusion regarding the directions on our Crock Pot BBQ Pulled Pork Seasoning Mix. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. 

After placing the pork in you slow cooker, mix the entire seasoning packet with water, ketchup, brown sugar and vinegar until blended. Pour over pork.

 B&G Foods Inc.Corporate Consumer Affairs/2

Musically Speaking

I will start with a caveat: I don't really know music. I don't know a treble from a clef. I do know what I like and I do know what "sounds right" and what doesn't to my ear. This post is about the difference I hear in two performers I know.

We have a friend, TL, who is a professional musician and singer, as well as a music teacher. She is respected and asked to adjudicate musical performances all over this area. She performs publicly. I happen to really like her voice. When she performs, she often teams with a male friend of hers I'll call C. He is similarly a singer, a teacher, and a respected adjudicator. Both have performed all over the province, and he has performed nationwide. They both enjoy performing and they seem to have fun together on stage.

When I watch and listen to them sing, I come away with the same feeling every time: no matter how "into it" he is, no matter what he sings, I simply don't feel the passion from him that I do from her. He is, I believe, technically proficient; his pitch and tone and the sounds he makes are all true and perfect, but there isn't any heart behind it. Don't get me wrong, I think -- no, I know -- he enjoys what he sings, and with whom he is singing it. But enjoying it and filling the song with emotion and passion are two very different things, at least in my mind.

C's voice is like a bell while TL's is like a guitar. C's voice is clear and precise and perfect, but it can only do that one thing, make that one note. No matter if you use it in a rock song, a ballad, a jazz hit, or a choir, it remains exactly the same; reliable, and perfect, but without any added depth. Its use may be better suited to some genres than others, but it is always clear and precise no matter how you use it. TL's guitar, on the other hand, can hit many notes. She can use her guitar in rock, jazz, country, folk, or even classical songs. Her guitar just has more depth, more use, and more utility than does C's.

On the other hand, I don't think C's unwavering perfection and lack of depth is a bad thing, per se. It is my belief that C's perfection allows TL to do more, take more chances, fail and succeed more often because she can rely on his steady, perfect, metronome-like ability to know the words and stay on pitch and tempo. He's like the flagpole and she's like the flag; she can tie on, raise or lower, whip around, and even rip off and fly free because she knows the flagpole will always be there, doing its job.

Take the song 'Hallelujah.' This song, written and first performed by Leonard Cohen is, frankly, all about the life and the passion you can infuse into it. The best versions of the song are not those sung with technical brilliance, but those sung by people who have had hard lives and can put those troubles and tribulations into the words and the music. While those that are sung with perfection are still nice to listen to, I often come away with an empty feeling. Yet when Cohen, or John Cale, or Jeff Buckley sang it, they infused the drugs, the hard traveling, the divorces, and the impoverished times into those words. You can feel the difference. Cohen's voice cracking and breaking when he sings it, the tiredness and perseverance in Cale's rendition, the alcohol/drugs and hard traveling in Buckley's version -- it all adds to the overall performances and depth of the song.

C recently sang Hallelujah and it was ... fine. He was technically proficient, he hit all the notes, he was in time with the music, and sang all of the words, but it didn't have the heart or the soul that the song requires to be great. It just sounded flat to me, even though it was well done. He was that perfect bell in a song that needed some dirty guitar work.

Now, C has improved in his performance and his range since I've been watching the two perform. However, he remains the bell to TL's guitar. Recently, in their last two performances, they have performed some Elvis Presley hits. When TL performs them, she rocks out; she sways her hips, she changes inflection based on what she is singing, she nods her head, and she goes through more range with her voice, from low to high. She doesn't mimic The King, but she pays homage to him sometimes and other times she goes off on her own in whatever way her voice wants to. She makes it hers. When C sings those hits, it is obvious he is having fun doing it, but his voice remains the exact same as when he is singing a choir tune for church or a Broadway melody, only the words are from The King. C doesn't make it his, he just sings it, if that makes sense. He sings it well, he has fun doing it, but, ultimately, he just sings it.

Again, I don't know music. I may be way off and someone with musical knowledge and/or talent may be able to tell me what I'm hearing and why I think this way. And, don't get me wrong, I enjoy watching the two of them perform and do their thing. I think that C's abilities help TL to do what she does with less fear and greater conviction, which makes it valuable. I also reach the conclusion that if someone could teach C how to let go of the perfection and get a little dirtier, he'd find his music takes off in new and unexpected ways.

TV Woes, Part 2

An additional issue we were having with our entertainment center was that our Series 2 Dual-Tuner TiVo was not receiving the remote signal consistently. Sometimes it would work okay, but most of the time it was taking multiple presses to get the signal to the TiVo and, sometimes, it would go through long stretches where it wouldn't accept the signal at all.

This came to a head recently as well. It got to the point where we could barely control our TiVo at all. Once again, I turned to the Interwebs for information to see if others were having this issue.

It turns out that modern LCD/LED TVs have a function called "backlighting." This feature can send out a strong enough signal that it can override your remote's IR signal, effectively blocking it from reaching the IR sensor on the TiVo (or, perhaps, other devices). The backlighting feature is used to make the screen brighter and the colors sharper. It has different settings depending on the way you are using it (for example, on our TV, the "Sports" selection has high backlighting, the "Movie" one has low backlighting, and the "Standard" is a medium amount of backlighting).

I played around with this feature and discovered if we turned it all the way off, our TiVo remote started functioning again. But even one tick up on the scale for backlighting and the TiVo remote stopped working reliably.

I then starting thinking about when this trouble started, because we have owned that TV for a few years and the issue only cropped up in the last few months. I then realized that when we had some work done in the front room, we had changed the setup of the devices within the cabinet, placing the TiVo closer to the TV than it had been before, and I suspected that the problems started about that same time.

After dealing with the issues in TV Woes, Part 1, my wife and I decided to act on my hunch and move the TiVo down in the cabinet, farther away from the TV. This only shifted its position by about 3.5", but I recalled not having the remote issues prior to moving it up and we were definitely having them after moving it up. So, it was worth a shot and didn't cost us anything.

Low and behold, since moving the TiVo down under the other (used much less often) device, the TiVo is working like a champ again.

The moral of the story is, if you find your remotes are not working as well or consistently as they were or you think they should, try finding and turning off the "Backlight" feature on your LCD/LED TV (the feature is also on some plasma TVs). If your remote suddenly seems to work much better and more consistently, then you need to get your device farther away from your TV so the backlight feature doesn't cause interference with the IR reception from the remote. Or, of course, if you don't mind the much duller look of your picture, you can simply turn off the Backlight feature and leave it off.

TV Woes, Part 1

A few years ago we bought a Samsung LN46C630 TV. We love it. It is a nice size (although my wife now admits we could go bigger), a quality-name product, and has a very nice, clear picture. Recently, however, the picture started suffering from a problem: it flickered. By "flicker" I mean that the entire picture would start strobing brighter and darker rapidly while never actually losing the picture. This strobe effect would sometimes turn off when a new signal was received, like the station going into or out of a commercial break, or when a DVD would move to a new chapter, etc., and would occasionally fade or stop on its own.

It was getting worse, though. When it first started, it was only our main (Component 1) input that was affected. If we switched to any other input, the flickering would stop and we would be left in peace. However, over the last few months, switching inputs stopped working to resolve the issue. We were at the mercy of some sort of signal change. Then the signal change stopped working. At that point, once the TV started flashing, it would keep flashing. Needless to say, it made our really nice TV virtually unwatchable when it happened.

We were to the point where we considered buying a new TV. Our TV was out of warranty and, actually, the problem started very shortly after the warranty expired. I decided to check online to see if others were having this issue. Searching on "Samsung TV flickering" and "Samsung TV strobing" I found that there were many who were having the same issue with their Samsung TVs. Reading through the many hits, I found a trend: it seemed to be all the "LN##C###" in particular were having this issue, and the C600 models specifically. It also seemed strangely common and convenient that it happened just about the time the warranty expired in almost every case.

Reading further, someone had called for servicing and his service person was told by Samsung that it is a common problem with a particular run of TVs and that cutting a jumper on one of the two electronics boards inside the TV can resolve the issue. Depending on the exact model of your TV, the exact jumper number may be slightly different, but they are located in the same spot on the board and perform the same function.

Everyone who tried the solution presented had excellent results and their flickering problem went away.

I've been laid up again with back pain after falling down the stairs. So, I've been sitting in the front room in my recliner watching a lot of TV. Having the flickering happening nearly all the time was driving me nuts. I confirmed with my wife that the TV was out of warranty and that we had enough in our account to buy a new TV if needed. I then tackled the issue following the advice/instructions I found online.

Instructions

They are pretty simple and straightforward. The one piece of advice I would add is that the sensor that reads the remote signal is in an awkward place and you can easily pull it out while taking off or putting on the TV's back cover. If you find that you follow these instructions and the remote "stops working," crack open the case and find the little daughter board and make sure the cable that connects that board (and the sensor) to the main motherboard inside is still connected, or reconnect it if needed.

Since performing that little bit of surgery, we have had no flickering/strobing on our TV. It is back to working 100% and looking great.

Taxes

Through some of the biggest growth and success of America, the wealthiest were taxed at what would be considered Draconian amounts today. Shortly after World War 2, the government taxed the wealthy around 90% of their income. Yes, 90%. This lasted through the 1960s. In the 1970s, we lowered the tax rates to around 70% and in the 1980s, Reagan lowered them to 50% and then down to about 30%. In the 1990s, during the last economic crisis, the tax rates were raised to around 40%. Now they are back to round 35% or so.

The problem, as always, is where is the money? By that I mean, who has the money? The federal government can only get taxes from people who can pay taxes. During the 1950s and 1960s, the federal government taxed the hell out of the upper classes because they were the ones with the money. This allowed the government to afford all the for-work projects it created to get the huge influx of people injected into the workforce as the men came home from war and the women did not want to give up their own careers and go back to being exclusively homemakers.

As the workforce expanded, even more jobs were created, which allowed poorer individuals to move up, and allowed the middle class to both spring into existence and grow in size (millions of people) and wealth (percentage of wealth in their collective hands). The bulk of the wealth of America shifted from a few people having a lot of money and the majority not having it, to the majority of the wealth being spread over a lot of people, with only a few on the extreme ends. In this way, the federal government was able to ease the tax burden on everybody and lower the tax rates on the rich while easing the tax rates on the huge middle class. As the middle-classes' amount of the wealth slowly increased, the federal government steadily lowered the tax rates on the rich, as they didn't need to shoulder the bulk of the burden any more, and the much lower rates on the steadily increasing middle-class continued to cover the needs of the government.

However, the government did not change this philosophy as the wealth started to move back into the hands of a minority of people again during the 1990s. The tax rates were changed for a brief time and America was able to "right the ship" on the false belief that the economic crisis was over. However, Bush lowered the taxes again on the wealthy during the 2000s, and the money continued flowing faster toward a minority of people again. Middle-class wages were no longer keeping up with or exceeding inflation, people's dollars were not buying what they once could (like housing and cars), and the middle-class had to borrow increasing amounts of credit to do what they wanted, while the rich got wealthier and inject less of that money back into the economy as either purchases or taxes.

I guess a simple way to put it is like this:

The federal government needs $1000 to run. You have 10 people from which to gather the $1000.

• 1 person makes $1000 (top 10 %)
• 2 people make $500 each (wealthy)
• 5 people make $100 each (middle class)
• 1 person makes $50 (minimum wage)
• 1 person makes $10 or less (poor or out of work)

If you only tax the 5 middle class people any amount, including 100% of their income, you cannot reach the $1000 you need to run the government. If, however, you tax the top 30% a tax rate of 45%, you net $900 of the dollars needed ($450 from the top and $225 each from the next two). Now the 5 people making $100 only needs to make up the remaining $100, or be taxed at about 20% each ($20 each). Notice that those in the lowest brackets don't even need to pay taxes, even though they may be the people who benefit the most out of the government's use of its funds.

Now, here's the thing: the middle class is taking home $80 (or 80%) of their income, which they can use to buy a lot of goods and services, assuming that their buying power is strong. As a whole entity, the middle class has a collective buying power of $400. The next wealthiest group, even though they are being taxed more than double what the middle class makes, takes home 3.5 TIMES the middle class amount ($275/ea), so are still considered very wealthy. The top 10% take home almost 7 TIMES the middle class amount ($550), and nearly double what even the next wealthiest 20% do, so are still considered extremely wealthy and have huge buying power and ability to create jobs and more income!

This is why high tax rates on the wealthy work. You can tax them using extremely high tax rates and they still take home more money than the middle class workers do, by a large amount.

You can find many graphs online that show the money discrepancy in America. Using the same example data, above, we are taxing all but the lowest class approximately 30%, which is why we have a deficit. If you tax everyone 30%, you only take in $765 of the $1000 you need to run the government. Either you have to cut government programs to work under the new figure, or you have to raise taxes.

The other problem is that the buying line has shifted. In my first example, I'm assuming a buying power of $50. The minimum wage people are, therefore, living paycheck-to-paycheck and just scraping by, the middle class (after taxes) has room for some savings and extra purchases, and the wealthy have huge buying power. Today, however, that is not true. They buying power is at about $80. So the poor are at a huge disadvantage, with nearly no upward mobility. The minimum wage people get farther behind with few chances to move up. The middle class is slowly getting farther behind and cannot put much away for savings, with fewer chances to move up. But the wealthiest 30% are not touched at all and see nothing wrong or problematic with the system.

Here's a great video that illustrates the income discrepancy in America.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM

Notice that the respondents know and understand that the distribution of wealth should be unequal. People understand that there should be stratuses of wealth, as it gives them something to work and strive for. What people do not understand is how much wealth the top 20% (and the top 1%) actually has. Once you realize how much of the actual dollars are with the wealthy, you understand that they MUST be taxed higher because THEY HAVE THE MONEY. You cannot get blood from a stone, and the middle class simply no longer has the bulk of the money. Its buying power isn't the equivalent to the wealthiest people any more... not by a long shot.

Is that video the end-all, be-all? No, of course not. It has well-documented flaws. But it shows the vast disparity of where the wealth is actually located. When you take into account that Congress keeps pushing for yet more tax breaks for the wealthiest, even though that is where the money is located, that means the non-wealthiest have to pay more in taxes, even though they don't have the money to do so. The more they pay in taxes, the lower their buying power to purchase items that keep the economy running and the fewer dollars they can save for retirement or emergencies. So,either the wealthiest 20% (and 1% in particular) need to be taxed at much higher rates OR they need to spend the equivalent of what the 100 million or so "middle class" people would be spending on items, goods, and services to keep the economy flowing. So, either way, the wealthiest few need to inject more money into the system because they are the ones with the money.

And, frankly, as my simplistic example above showed, you can tax the wealthiest at significantly higher rates and it doesn't affect their buying power or their status. It won't affect people trying to strive to be in that stratum of the country, either. But, regardless, that money HAS TO flow into the country either via purchases (and, simply put, the wealthiest few simply cannot purchase enough "stuff" to keep the economy going-- there are only so many houses, cars, refrigerators, and toys that a million people need) OR via taxes.

Addendum

Read this post, written over two years after I made this post. Interesting that some of the rich are coming to similar conclusions.

Give the Devil His Due

Sometimes, something just strikes you. I don't claim this is original thought, it is just original to me and one that came to me a few days ago like the proverbial light bulb turning on.

If you follow the Christian mythology, God created all things. However, He only gave free will to Man. The Devil is a fallen Angel, who "rebelled" against God and his favoring of Man above all His other creations. But Angels do not have free will and cannot do anything other than God's will. Therefore, Lucifer, the Morningstar and first among Angels, must have been commanded by God to rebel. It is part of God's plan that the Devil exists. It also means that the strife and discord that the fallen Angel brings is on purpose and according to God's plan.

What does this mean for Christians today? Well, knowing that it is part of God's will that there be a Devil, and all the discord that he sows, might change how Christians view the bad things that happen in life. It means that the Devil is God's way of testing Christians, making them use their free will, and hopefully choosing good over evil.

Also, obviously, Christians have a list of ten rules that must be followed (the 10 Commandments). It is in these areas that mankind is most likely to be tested and where the Devil will tempt Christians. These also seem to be the areas where Man's emotions and free will are the weakest.

Lastly, it also means that the image of the Devil as a horned, tailed, pitchfork-wielding creature who revels in torment is likely wrong. It is much more likely, if following God's plan, that Lucifer is as beautiful as any other Angel. His job is to tempt, after all. And, as the old axiom goes, it is easier to catch flies with honey. How often does the, say, attractive politician or celebrity in the nice suit lead someone astray?

What does this mean for Christians? I'm not sure. At the least, you know that your temptations are part of God's plan (which you should already know), and that you are more likely to be tempted by the fair face. You should realize that those temptations are part of God's plan for you and part of your quest to salvation. And that God loved you enough to give you something against which to be tested, to prove your mettle, and to overcome.

As I said, I'm sure that none of this is original thought. But, I think, it is interesting to ponder.

Helix

Normally, it takes a TV show multiple episodes before it completely goes off the rails and re-interprets or ignores characterizations of its own characters. Not Helix, the new SyFy channel TV show about a potential plague and the CDC's attempts to halt it.

The show had a stellar pilot episode. The sets were well-made and interesting, the characters were broadly written but well-defined, the story was interesting and engaging, and the actors were adept. My only quibble was the small amount of melodrama inserted from the beginning -- the fact that Julia had slept with Peter while married to Alan. I loved how the show used very little music, outside of "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?". The direction was competent. I was thinking that this might be a nice, new addition to my TV watching.

And then I watched episode two.

The premise of Helix is that a secret base full of scientists working on groundbreaking and cutting-edge research in the Arctic concoct a deadly pathogen that gets loose within the base and could start an outbreak of epic proportions. The CDC is called in to help analyze and resolve the situation. Once there, the CDC starts to discover things are worse than they imagined, and the pathogen actually mutates people.

By episode two, you already have people acting like idiots... er, I mean, "typical" horror-movie walking fatalities waiting to happen. These supposedly smart scientists who have worked on these types of issues before, are suddenly:

• Working alone, many levels away from support and other people, with her back to the only door in/out of the lab she is in, even though she knows there are loose, pathogen-plagued individuals wandering around who cannot be found (and at least one of which has proven quite dangerous). You cannot be surprised when an infected gains access and threatens her.
• Putting three possibly infected people together in one room even while she sees clear evidence of infection and the three are all physically larger and stronger than she is and they are exhibiting paranoid behaviors. You cannot be surprised when the three gang up and threaten her trying to secure their release.
• Acting in such a lackadaisical fashion about the people they think may be infected in general. You cannot be surprised when the three women are overwhelmed by the infected and they all get loose.
• Ignoring the team leader.
• Alan asks his ex-wife repeatedly to work on one aspect of the pathogen and she constantly ignores him, does her own thing, and confronts (or tries to confront) him about his decisions. When she finally actually does what he asks, she finds out revelatory information about the pathogen that may have changed their protocols and analysis had she actually done it much sooner (for example, when first asked).
• Alan tells everyone that they must go everywhere with a buddy. Everyone ignores this rule whenever it is convenient to the story to do so, and people are killed, infected, and harassed because of doing so.
• Julia goes off to take a shower on her own, and is apparently infected by Peter in a pseudo-rape/aggressive sexualized encounter (his "kiss" spreads the infection and he attacks her when she rebuffs him and forces his kiss on her in a very aggressive, powerful context) scene in the shower (while he is fully clothed and she is completely naked, of course).
• Lying to each other. Alan tries to convince the obviously evil and "in on it" head of the research group that they must be straight with each other in order to resolve this problem and save everyone's lives, yet then turns around and doesn't share everything he's learned with his teammates.
• Being obtuse to the obvious and strange behavior of the head of the research group as he is obviously and verifiably lying to them over and over.

Now, looking at the list of idiotic behavior, you note that vast majority of them were performed by the female cast members. That's strike one. You notice that each is a behavior that people with intimate knowledge of viruses, pathogens, behavior, and disease control simply would not do, and is certainly against the characters and their backgrounds as presented in episode one. That's strike two. You notice they put the "hot chick" into a situation where she is naked and assaulted, fulfilling the standard "rape fantasy" aspects of any horror movie. That's strike three.

What looked to be an interesting and challenging TV show has turned into a typical, and badly written, horror archetype by the second episode. After watching them both, I am unsure whether I will even go back for a third helping, let alone finish out the season.

ADDENDUM (1/19/2014)

After watching the third episode, where the characters, in particular the female characters, continued to act in ways that are, at best, hard to fathom for trained professionals in their capacity, I had to delete the season pass and write off this series. It's too bad, as it has a lot of promise and the first episode was so good.

"Affordable" Care Act

Many years ago, California passed laws that made having auto insurance mandatory within the state. The insurance companies looked at that legislation and said, "Great, we have a captive audience. Let's cancel policies, create new ones at many times the current costs, and screw as many people as possible, while making huge profits." (I'm paraphrasing.) While the intention of the state mandate was good, and, logically, the insurance companies would have had many more millions buying the existing policies, increasing their coffers a very respectable amount, they got greedy. California later then created and passed Proposition 103, which forced the insurance companies to rein in their greed. According to the Consumer Federation of America's report, Prop 103 has saved California drivers about $100 billion since it was passed, in 1988. California is also the only state where auto insurance rates have consistently gone down over the last 25 years.

The Affordable Care Act is a great idea. Allowing children to stay on their parents insurance longer? Great. Insurance companies not denying or dismissing your insurance for pre-existing conditions? Wonderful. Setting a baseline for the minimum amount of healthcare that plans will service? Stupendous. Getting rid of plan maximum payouts? Awesome.

But, like in California with the auto insurance, the federal government forgot some vital components:

1. Setting insurance cost maximums for those base policies.
2. Making it illegal for insurance plans to eliminate your insurance and then sell it to you again at higher rates.

Insurance works by having many people pay a small amount into a pooled fund. It is assumed that the majority will need very little of the fund and a small minority will need some or a lot of funds, so the majority pay for the minority and everybody pays a small amount total. The insurance companies get their profit from:

• the amount of people in the fund, paying insurance premiums
• the interest from the (assumed) amount of money that is paid in that is not paid out again.

Insurance is, in essence, the only legal pyramid scheme allowed, and all insurance works this way.

Health insurance companies could have looked at "Obamacare" as a huge influx of money into their coffers. They should have been lauding and trumpeting the passage and the subsequent Supreme Court rulings making it legal. Depending on which side you ask, somewhere between 15 and 50 million Americans would be added into the pool of those paying for health insurance. This would, by how insurance works, create more premiums going into its coffers and create more interest on the unused, larger amount of funds.

But, like in California in the 1980s with the auto insurance, the health insurances saw a way to make even more profit from Obamacare: in order to hit the baseline minimums that the Affordable Care Act insisted on, insurers simply eliminated a host of existing plans and then resold those people new plans that hit those base minimums but at a much higher cost to the canceled plans.

The minimums required by Obamacare are:

1. Ambulatory patient services
2. Emergency services
3. Hospitalization
4. Maternity and newborn care
5. Mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment
6. Prescription drugs
7. Rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices
8. Laboratory services
9. Preventive and wellness services and chronic disease management
10. Pediatric services, including oral and vision care

You may not need every single aspect (you might be male and single, and don't need maternity or newborn care, for example), but I think most people can respect that these are the bare minimums of things that should be covered by any insurance plan.

Let's say you had Plan X and it had 8 of the 10 minimums and charged you $50 a month. Insurers could add the two items you do not have to your plan and charge you, say, $5 or $10 a month more for the plan, which you would likely find reasonable and affordable. Instead, insurers are primarily choosing to delete your current plan, create a brand new plan with all 10 items, and charge you $100+ to rejoin. What do you get out of it: the exact same coverage, with one or two new coverages added, at double, triple, or more the original rate.

Now, let's say you are a health insurance company. You have 100,000 people with Plan X, paying $50 a month. You are getting $5 million a month from that plan, or $60 million a year. You are betting that less than 20% of your insured population will need to use these funds during any given year, and further betting that, of those who do need to, the majority are for low-cost circumstances (ER visit, kid has the flu, blood tests, medications, etc.). As an insurer, you can add those two missing items, charge the same people $60 a month, and start making $6 million a month. Because of Obamacare, you may also get another couple of thousand who didn't have insurance before who buy into Plan X. So, now you have 110,000 people at $60/month, or $6.6 million a month. You've increased your income by approximately 33%!

Instead, insurers chose to cancel the policies in full, force people to sign back up (with a strong likelihood they would, since the online registration rollout was so poorly handled), and charge them double, or more, for nearly identical plans. That is a money grab, plain and simple. Instead of being happy with the huge increase in profits that would come naturally, they made a grab for even more. And, what's worse, is that it is completely legal, because the politicians didn't consider that a corporation would take full advantage of a law like this, even though they had examples in fairly recent history.

Well, California is leading the charge again. They are proposing legislation similar to Prop 103 that would work the same way. I imagine it will have the same effect, too; insurance companies will continue to do business, will continue to make huge profits, but the people will have affordable rates and policies. No more raising rates by 170% over the last decade while inflation rose 32.5% during the same period!

Had the federal government thought to do this from the beginning, many of the people now without plans, and most of the people who were forced out and back into new plans, would have hardly noticed the Obamacare rollout. It would have truly meant only those people without a plan would need to work toward getting one.

There is absolutely no reason why the Affordable Care Act cannot work and work well. We've seen it work in more than one state and in nearly two dozen industrialized countries. Insuring everyone is a good thing, when done right. However, rather than learning from similar situations (like car insurance in California) or from the various ways that other countries have implemented it, America decided to recreate the wheel -- and did it badly. Insurance companies, which should have been helping every step of the way and thinking about all that new money that would be coming in naturally, got greedy. Politicians, rather than looking out for their constituents, made bad decisions (Democrats) or abstained from the process altogether (Republicans), rather than writing a law that made sense and closed these types of loopholes.

I hope that Obamacare continues because I know people with cancer and similar, expensive illnesses who need the caps on insurance removed. I know (and am!) people with pre-existing conditions that either cannot get healthcare or cannot get affordable healthcare because of them. I know people with insurance that doesn't actually cover anything, and I know people who have had their insurance dropped for no good reason except they had to actually use it, cutting into fly-by-night insurers profits.

Please, government, don't get rid of the ideas behind Obamacare -- just fix the broken bits with laws that make sense and keep the people in mind.

Back Pain, Again

I mentioned a little while ago that I had some severe back pain (here and here). Taking the advice of many family, friends, coworkers, and acquaintances, I pushed for an MRI before starting physical therapy. The issue, many of them explained to me, was that physio is great as long as you are being treated for the right cause. In many cases, however, they started physio right away and nothing worked or their back trouble got worse, because you do different physio based on the root cause of the problem.

The MRI was last week and I got the results today. Turns out that I have disc herniation in the L4-5/S1 area of my back, presenting on the right side. Which is exactly where all of my pain and discomfort came from. Even down to my right leg not wanting to make a full arc when walking due to the discomfort I still feel in it.

The herniation is NOT pressing on the nerve, which is great news, but the fact everything is swollen and not in line still causes a lot of pain and discomfort.

Now that I have a cause, I can go get the right physio for my situation. And my doctor is setting up a referral to a back specialist to review the case and make sure that nothing more is needed, like surgery or specialized treatment.

Hopefully, in a few weeks or months, I can post how my back pain is gone and my therapy worked. Now that we know the root cause of the problem.

Oh, and to the ass hat of an urgent care doctor that didn't want to listen, didn't want to know, and acted put out that I insisted on an x-ray, gave me bad pain medication, and refused to pay attention to my medical history -- I was right and you were wrong. Idiot. I don't know where he graduated in his class, but I can guess he failed the parts about "bedside manner."

Bullied

I was bullied at times as a child. I was small, always something that bullies look for in a victim. I was a bit of a smart ass, something that bullies hate. I was one of the smart kids, something that many bullies can't stand. As someone who was bullied fairly regularly, I learned that there is never one set, pat answer to the bully. The correct response is fluid and changes with what is going on, how bad the bullying gets, the level of physical or mental trauma inflicted, and the level of threat in evidence.

The Incognito/Martin issue currently in the news, and constantly developing, really shows a dichotomy in how people think and see bullying. I was just watching ESPN and it was showing an exchange between Mike Golic and another former NFL player on the subject. Golic's response showed me that Golic has never, ever been bullied in his life (or that he believes one answer is right for all circumstances). He was basically saying, "Martin should have stood up to Incognito. He should have fought him and this problem would have gone away. Martin was weak to handle it the way he did."

Believing that you always stand up to a bully and doing so is the only correct solution shows a lack of understanding of the subject. While many bullies are in it for the physical (or mental) domination and having their prey stand up to them takes that away, not all bullies work that way. Some simply target someone for "fun" or some reason specific to the bully. Once targeted, the bully will do whatever it takes to stay in what they see as a position of dominance and control over their selected victim. If physical works, they use that. If the person stands up to that, they move on to emotional harassment, then maybe political control. They will lie to peers and those in power, even when the victim isn't around, in order to facilitate further bullying later. They will do things subtly, so if the victim speaks out or acts up, it looks like they are the ones at fault or having the problem, and the bully can keep right on doing it.

Add into this the level of sophistication and 24/7 access that today's technology allows a bully, and the abuse can be neverending.

When I was bullied, I had to determine which response was the best/right one for the current circumstances:

• Stand up and take a beating (and hope to give one, too)?
• Run away and live to fight another day?
• Use quick wit and smarts to get out of it or away from it?
• Take it to an authority and tell on the bully?

Each response has its Pros and its Cons. Each has a potential negative and may cause the bully to continue the attacks, or even double-down on them and make them worse.

With one bully, I stood up. I got punched in the ear so hard it started ringing and I thought his fist would come out the other side of my head. I kicked him in the testicles in return, and we actually became pretty good friends. In another case, I ran away; he had numbers on his side and I was likely going to get really messed up, but I knew I was faster than anyone in the bully's group, so I could escape that circumstance. I then had to avoid that bully and his gang until I figured a way to turn the tables on the bully and get back at him. Then he turned his attention on someone else. In another case, the bully was not physically imposing, but was mentally trying to dominate and control me. I had to use my wits to overcome this threat. And, on more than one occasion, I had to go my least favorite route and simply tell on the bully and see where the chips fell. In some instances, it went badly for both of us. In most cases, the authority figure believed me and the bully got taken down and had to move on to someone else because I refused to play the game.

In many of those cases, had I simply stood up to the bully physically, it would not have made any difference. Those who bully through emotional manipulation, lies, subterfuge -- they would have simply continued on, and probably increase their efforts, because they got the rise out of me they were looking for.

Another aspect that comes into play is the bullied person's temperament. A quite, shy, introvert is going to have a very different response and way of dealing with the situation, regardless of bullying type, than an extroverted, outgoing, confident person. The introvert will want to ignore it, at first, and then try to "go along to get along" second. He/she may finally feel either telling an authority figure or running away is the best course of action. An extrovert is going to confront first, and maybe use their wits, charm, and people skills to diffuse the situation. Both are valid responses, and neither is right or wrong. But what do these people do if their bully simply changes tactics and continues to come at them? That is when character is tested.

This is a very complex issue and one that cannot be solved simply by a physical confrontation. We are still finding out what went on between Incognito and Martin, so I cannot say how Martin handled it was right or wrong. Anyone who says that there is only one right way for Martin to handle the situation, however, I take exception to. Either they have never been bullied or they are completely obtuse to how bullying works.