Rooting for the right things . . .

Last week's cover of The Economist has troubled me for days: "Losing Afghanistan." I've come more and more to become concerned that we definitely not lose that fight, despite growing voices from both left and right (George Will, for instance, is calling for a pullout). I'm all the more troubled now that the GOP head, Michael Steele, seems to be labeling this "Obama's War," implying that the U.S. is either guilty of mismanaging the war or guilty of remaining in a lost cause.

It's our nation's war, Mr. Steele.

I applaud President Obama for putting General Patreus in charge. It must have been somewhat difficult for him to do so. Though disobedient, General McChrystal was Obama's hand-picked choice to oversee that theater after dumping General McKiernan. Going with Patreus implies that the surge in Iraq, something Senator Obama proposed, was the right move to make. I appreciate what the President did there.

I appreciate also it shows some resolve on the part of the President to win an unpopular, protracted conflict.

Gimmicking my way to . . .

Two strategies I've employed recently to discipline myself involved saving money and losing weight. My savings strategy:

• never spend change
• never spend a $5 bill I receive as change
• don't spend money I get reimbursed
  
• deposit above monies in a credit union account
• use that account to make fun purchases

It's worked well. The first two gimmicks I read about in news pieces. The third I made up. So far I've use the money I've saved to . . .

• buy this laptop
• buy an HD TV and Blu-Ray
• buy my beer-making equipment
• replace my lost wedding ring
• pay a speeding ticket

It's disciplining me, but it's creating a paralysis of analysis anytime I contemplate spending money, hence my difficulty replacing my Nexus and hesitation to buy any new computer games through Portal as Ben is suggesting.

As for the other gimmick: I was challenged by my doctor to lose weight lest I get put on blood pressure medication. Here's what I did (and this is proving more difficult to do in the summer):

• no second helpings
• no eating while standing
  
• set utensil down between bites
  
• no beer Sunday sundown through Friday afternoon

It's funny how these weight-loss gimmicks are harder to tackle in the summer while my proclivity against spending and for saving gets easier.

2,300 sq. ft.

Neat column in the New York Times about the growing size of the typical American home. Nowadays the average square footage is 2,300. During the baby boom it was less than 1,000.

In this we might see the boiled frog phenomenon at work. As a society, we've had a creeping shift in expectations for what a house should be. The square footage is an indicator of this, but the shift is also about expectations for privacy, for how to use the outside space, and what electronic amenities we need as well. And, perhaps, we find ourselves in this stalled economic state today because we have hit the law of diminishing marginal returns with housing. There's just not much more we as a society can buy regarding our homes. Pretty soon we'll run out of demand for digital tv services, patio furniture, and central AC.

So, there's a dilemma

A few weeks back I lost a friend. It was a combination satellite radio receiver and MP3 player. A gift from my wife, I at first didn't know what to think of it. I listened at the time to XM in my car and didn't really know what this thing would do in the house.

Oh, how I miss it.

I'd use it to fill the house with music, usually older pop for the kids' sake but often obscure classic rock. At times, I'd use it for classic country, which drove my lovely wife somewhat crazy. Sometimes I'd grade schoolwork to a baseball game I could stream from it.

I only tapped into the best feature in the past year or so. I'd record radio, and then play it back in my classroom. Since I can't stream anything online, and since I can't receive FM cleanly there, it ended up being my antidote to the white noise of the institutional HVAC. Usually I'd just play somewhat anonymous stuff from Deep Tracks and The Loft. On more inspirational days, I'd tie in the music with what I was teaching, i.e. 50s pop when covering the Eisenhower administration in class.

With that player I discovered a lot of music I'd never have otherwise stumbled upon.

Players like this are hard to find. The music and radio industry seems to have settled upon the iPod as the Alpha and Omega of all things audio. The sales people at Best Buy really want to steer you there, and from their point of view I can't blame them.

I'm trying the Pandora thing. It's not doing it for me.

I hesitate to submit to the predictability of the iPod for listening to my music. It seems one then submits to a fragmentary and unimaginative loop of music selection and purchase. I will forfeit the pleasure of recording something, then finding gems when I play it back. I'll forfeit the ease with which I could in one day transform the mood in my room. And I'll miss the spontaneity of recording a song with one touch that my kids perk their heads up to.

By the way, here are the best gems from my 2 1/2 years of recording:

• "Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys," by Ed James (Not Waylon Jennings, and I can't find this recording on iTunes)
• Harry Kalas calling the top of the 9th from the 2008 World Series, Game 5
• "I'm not Lisa" by Jessie Colter
• "Seven Nations Army" by White Stripes (I know it was popular 7 years ago . . . I just missed it)
• "Gimme Shelter" by Rolling Stones (easy to find on iTunes, I know, but much more fun to discover from something you absent-mindedly recorded)

Does this blog have a pulse . . .

Judging from the date of my last post - seven months ago! - I guess the answer is "no." Time to reboot this thing.

My political commentary got better the more I wrote, so I should continue that, somewhat. Events of the past year or so in politics, however, has been humbling and I can't profess to have solutions much more brilliant than those that our current leaders inadequately offer.

But I think it's time to blog more about what I observe as a teacher and as a dad. I just finished reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid and doing so reminded me of how I really have my foot in several different worlds: childhood, adolescence, maturity, proto-maturity. There's still a kid alive in me, but there's also a great deal of adult. Next year I'll have been teaching as long as my students (all seniors) have been in school.

Oh, and update photographs. Must update photographs.

Two down, one to go

For more than a half dozen years I've been intrigued by what is called the abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike. When the Turnpike was built in the 1930s it was renowned for its abundant tunnels that cut through the rugged mountains of western Pennsylvania. In order to save costs, the original roadway featured tunnels with only one lane for traffic in each direction. By the 1960s, these narrow tunnels were creating choked traffic conditions and the Turnpike Commission began digging parallel tunnels so that two lanes could travel in each direction. However, for three tunnels, it made more sense to redirect the roadway, leaving three abandoned tunnels on two different stretches of dormant roadway.

Kendra, Matt, and I traversed the longest of these tunnels back in 2007. That one is known as Sideling Hill and it's the easternmost of the tunnels. Yesterday, Kendra and I convinced Zach and Stephen to travel to Rays Hill, the shortest of them, which is located near Breezewood.

Frankly, Rays Hill wasn't as fascinating an experience as Sideling Hill. It's much more inaccessible. There's no legal place to park at the eastern portal. The western portal is very close to a maintained road, however there's no safe place to park there.

However, the four of us got up on the old roadway and at least saw Rays Hill.

Next goals:

Be the first to post a photograph on Google Earth of the Laurel Hill Tunnel. Laurel Hill was the first to be bypassed and the roadway on which it is based is very short. It will be hard to get to it as it is far west of my Uncle Larry's home. Further the wilderness out there is even more rugged and unpopulated than northern Fulton County.

Travel the length of the abandoned section near Breezewood by bicycle. It's 8 miles long. Taking it from Breezewood to the eastern end and back should only take a couple of hours.

Health Care's Failure of Imagination

So I guess I've degenerated. I now mostly am viewing the health care debate in Congress through primarily partisan lenses. I am rooting for Democratic failure. I have fallen in for the point of view that Michael Gerson pointed out some time ago, that legislation like this would fundamentally shift political discourse in the country and put conservatives on the unpopular defensive indefinitely.

However, I've been trying to mull over the ethical elements of what the nation's leaders are deliberating. A New York Times columnist recently wrote of how the health care debate essentially is a struggle between quality and vitality in our society as well as a tug of war between the young and the old. His was a helpful perspective. Also, I'm looking for a columnist to articulate another struggle implicit in the health debate: namely that major reform like this can come at greatest cost to those who have been playing by the rules and who have genuinely benefited from a combination of effort, family legacy, aptitude, and luck. The greatest benefit is enjoyed by those who have lacked one of those factors in some abundant degree. Unaffected are the exploitative.

I guess what baffles me most is the cumbersome quasi-solution the Democrats are pushing. The goal of extending coverage to Americans who don't have it is laudable. The legislation won't even get coverage to all Americans, however. Further, the solution proposed is typical New Deal / Great Society Democrat boilerplate: fix a broken system by adding more elements, making the mechanism even more cumbersome and inefficient while bringing about mediocre gains. Further, special interest groups line up at the trough to benefit from the new legislation.

Therefore, my biggest objection to healthcare reform, setting aside my partisan lenses, is the complete lack of imagination with our system. Core problems aren't addressed, namely controlling the cost of medical coverage and making more explicit the costs of coverage to users. As long as medical care remains an opague rather than transparent system as far as costs are concerned, the costs will escalate.

A key question left unanswered: Is medical coverage a public good? If the answer is yes, then government needs to look at completely nationalizing it. If the answer is no, then a simpler set of new guidelines by which insurers must operate and consumers can find protection is all that is needed.

But why haven't we looked at models of somewhat similar industries (at least economically) for inspiration. Namely:

a) a board for governance of healthcare that resembles the local school districts we have in our nation - local, democratic, and able to boil down debate abstractions into tangible concepts for voters

b) the auto insurance industry and the concept of accident and catastrophe coverage vs. checkups and maintenence

c) the dental sector of healthcare where costs seem more reasonable and, most importantly, transparent; further, that sector is a model for client-friendly practices

Please, Congress, think outside the box rather than apply techniques that harken back to the 1960s or 1930s. Further, the opposition could advocate for the private sector by showing how the markets have solve similar problems.