Here we go again!

I know that the health care debate in America is not exactly new, but I have, thus far, ignored it. I have ignored it to the benefit of my own mental health, in fact, because thinking about it sets me off, makes me angry. I'll get into more of this later, because I've recently seen red and the issue is now one that I am furious about. Again.

I watched a video of Bill Moyers Journal in which Bill Moyers interviews Wendell Potter, a former executive at CIGNA. The video can (and should) be watched here. In it, they discuss what is wrong with America's health care system and bring up several of the usual boogeymen, including "long lines" and "Socialism."

As I said, I'll discuss these things in later posts. For now, I just want to commemorate the time that I have spent not hating Republicans and conservatives. That time is over. Republicans are my enemy and "conservative" is, once again, pejorative. Game on, motherfuckers!

Impatience is a Waste of Time

We are on the verge of moving closer into town. You may have heard about it. I may have said something. We are obsessed. I can't think of anything else. It's a month away and we've already started packing. We've already picked out our paint colors - we want to be prepared, you know!

But there's only so much that can be done ahead of time. After a while, planning and preparation turn into academic exercises and, no matter how excited and motivated I may be, I really just have to wait. And that has become a bit of a problem, because it has left me feeling empty, impotent and frustrated. That, in turn, has caused a little bit of angst and a little bit of depression.

What I realized, however, is that I am living in the future. I spend every day fantasizing about how great the new living situation is going to be. Sometimes I find myself holding unrealistically rosy views of things and I am reminded of a song from An American Tail, "There are no Cats in America." But the new house will be great - I don't even think that I'm being unrealistic about it.

The problem is that my life isn't terrible now. It's pretty great, actually, and when I focus on the future, I am missing - completely missing - what's happening right now! I don't want to miss the entire month of July just because I live in Wake Forest instead of Raleigh. And that's what I aim to do now. Forget the future. Forget the new house. Forget packing. Forget how much shorter my drive to work will be (2 miles down from 15!) and how much closer we will be to the things we love to do (our friends, Lilly's Pizza, Remedy Diner, the Rialto, the Farmer's Market, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's - coming soon!) and how great the house is going to be (fenced yard for the dogs, neighborhood dog park, screened front porch with a swing, a basement for me to brew beer). Instead I should focus on the things that are slipping by me.

Time is precious. I hope to live to the age of 60 - if I'm lucky I'll live to 75. Any way you cut it, I'm almost halfway done. This is by no means a mid-life crisis happening, but I am aware that my hours are limited. They are ticking down even now, each hour lost forever. And to spend even a minute waiting for the next one is to waste a very precious and limited resource.

NPR on Francis Collins

This will be short. I just want to give my kudos to NPR (because they read my blog - obviously!) for a piece this morning on Dr. Francis Collins, who has been tapped to head the National Institutes of Health. The article was informative, but they mentioned that he brings some controversy with him from the scientific world because of his Evangelical Christian faith.

John Hamilton: "...I think if there is anything that makes scientists uncomfortable it's the fact that he's been very public in talking about [his faith]. He wrote a book about it and he speaks frequently about his faith and... there's some scientists who don't understand how he can reconcile those two parts of his thinking."

Steve Inskeep: "But he does?"

Hamilton: "But he says he does."

Listen to the full story here.

I really don't want to misrepresent anyone here. I don't think that NPR had any kind of agenda when they went into the story. But I appreciate the notion that science and religion are incompatible. Because, of course, they are.

American Bohemia: the Myth of the Road

When I was in college, I was very lucky with regard to housemates. Aside from one particular unfortunate frustration (Ryan was an absolutely awful roommate), I got along with pretty much everyone I ever roomed with. I'm not in contact with any of them now really, but at the time we never really clashed much. Now that I am thinking about it, a few instances are springing to mind, but nobody's perfect. During my first year, I slept on a couch in the living room for $80 a month, and I wasn't always the most pathetic person in the place. We managed to pick up several drifters to stay with us for a few months. As it was my first experience living out on my own, I didn't find it all that odd. I guess I just assumed that, in the Real World (and the Big City, at that!) this sort of thing happens. This Sort of Thing doesn't happen as it turns out - my landlord was just crazy. Anyway, one of these tumbleweeds was more memorable than the others, in spite of being one of the most pathetic. I don't recall his name for sure, but I think it might have been Brad, which will work just fine for this post.

My crazy landlord (who lived at the condo with us - he was a college student too) met Brad at school or work or some place, struck up a conversation and decided to offer him a place to sleep for a while. Brad didn't have a real job - he was an actor looking for work. So in the meantime he sold pagers and cellphones at the mall. And although he was an out-of-work actor in Orlando, Brad was still an inspiration to me. He lived in Maryland until one day, out of the blue, he just up and moved to Orlando. He packed his shit in a tiny, unreliable car and drove down to Orlando with little or no money. Crazy? Yes. But if that isn't the American Dream, then I don't know what is!

There's no doubt that he did a shitty job of planning. And although I assume that he eventually got his life in order and is living a perfectly successful life right now, I have no idea. He may have died on the streets, eating newspaper and glue. I would never do what he did. What I crave more than anything else is stability and safety. I need roots. And yet I love to fantasize about just throwing everything into my car and just leaving. It isn't just fear that keeps me rooted though. There are plenty of things that I want to keep: my wife, my dogs, my things, my money. I like, and in some cases, love those things.

The desire to just blow away isn't specific. I don't know if it is universal, but I know it can't be uncommon. It is one of my favorite themes in literature - movies, art, music too, I suppose. There is something very tempting about having no - or very few - responsibilities or ambition. Live in a shitty apartment and pay rent with cash, drive an old, beat up car, wear thin shirts, drink cheap beer - it isn't exactly the high life, but there is a sort of romance in it, and - to me - an undeniable charm. Instead of working to make more money and constantly improve your standard of living, you work just enough to maintain your current state and spend the rest of your time living and hanging out with friends.

I have been reading Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture by Douglas Coupland. To some degree, this is a story like that. It follows characters in the American Bohemian mold. At first I was put off by the cliche anti-corporate, anti-yuppie (I guess they were a problem in the early 90s) theme, but after a while I was able to work around it. Although Generation X's specific 'antis' are a bit dated, the 'pros' are more universal. It was like On the Road or Catcher in the Rye or Stranger than Paradise or Fight Club - a story about young people in self-imposed exile.

The recent eponymous Conor Oberst CD is quite excellent - the perfect soundtrack to abandon your old life to. One song in particular, "Moab," states the sentiment perfectly in the refrain: "There's nothing that the road cannot heal." I don't know if that's true or not. In fact, I'm pretty sure it isn't. But when the pressures of life outweigh the treasures, it is a very tempting offer.

Hostages to Fortune

Roger Ebert's blog has a very interesting entry today about the so-called lost phenomenon of "Free Range" children. That is, children who grow up (in America and other such countries) without the use of all of the safety precautions. This mostly refers to children who grew up before the 1970s who would drink out of garden hoses, pee in the bushes, ride bicycles everywhere (without a helmet, of course) and play with pocketknives.

This isn't the first time I've heard this discussion. At the end of Ebert's piece there is a whole list of videos, including a news piece on the "World's Worst Mom" who let her 9-year-old ride the New York subway alone. Although I consider myself a bit of a news junkie, I know that the world is not really worse than it used to be. The news media - perhaps irresponsibly but not out of malicious intent, I don't think - reports more terrifying stories without putting them in perspective. Sure, we see more stories about train accidents, airline crashes and child abductions, but are these dramatic stories truly indicative of growing trends? Or is the fact that they are compelling news stories more an indication of how rare these events really are? In fact, I believe that the world is a good deal safer than ever simply because people are smarter and technology is better.

I have no intention of ever having any children of my own, so the question is really more hypothetical than anything, but all this makes me think about what I would do in this situation. Do I really believe that the world is safer? Would I really let my child loose on the New York subway or would I just be too consumed with fear and dread and paranoia?

I am actually a pretty reasonable person (I think) and not particularly paranoid or fearful for my own life. Not to say that I am a daredevil or have a great amount of faith in my own abilities, but I just don't fear the world too much. I don't run from wasps or bees because I don't think they are going to sting me (although I do flinch when they buzz my head). I don't feel nervous when traveling through a poor neighborhood because I don't think anyone is actually going to rob me. I don't worry about flying because I don't think that my airplane is going to crash. I also don't play the lottery because I don't think that I am ever going to win.

Things are much different, however, when it comes to others. Although I don't really think that my wife's airplane will crash, I have to constantly remind myself that she is perfectly safe. I worry that one of my dogs might pull out of their leash and run into the street. The very dangers that I don't believe exist truly do terrify me in a way that I have no real control over. I still have passive fears of hell (fortunately my fear of heaven is long gone!). I really do love Francis Bacon's quote, "He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief." How true. I have no plan to have children, but if I did, I fear that I would wrap them in bubble wrap and fret over every single moment that they were not in my sight. And all of this would be in direct contradiction with what I believe, that it is better for the child to have more independence and autonomy. Strong and compelling cases have been made for relaxing the control and protection of children. I am very glad that I will never have to deal with this problem!