Though this is no way a legally binding document- in fact, there is no way to even prove I ever wrote this- if I ever, god forbid, am in a coma with no brain function, do not keep me on life support.
Do not waste the money, do not consign yourself to the endless waiting and uncertainty, the never knowing. Unless a doctor can tell you there is some chance I will come back, let me go. I am not there. You will be left with exactly what you had before you pulled the plug- the memories you have and whatever else you have of me. You can't ever lose me because if you care, then I affected your life, and so I am always a part of it.
But seriously. Let me go. I'm an organ donor for a reason.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
five day forecast brings black tar rains and hellfire
This is why I stay away from politics.
After reading over my post from this Friday, I could only think "oh that should be changed...well, technically...that's not fair..." and so on.
Sometimes I feel it's viewed as indecision; sometimes I attribute the quality to myself. Honestly though, I just never feel that I know enough to make a sweeping call on anything. After what I've seen and experienced, I've learned one big thing- that you never really know. About people, about situations, about solutions. Maybe it's fear of being wrong, maybe it's the desire to know exactly what I'm doing at all times, but most times it's just this: More than fearing being wrong, I fear making a mistake.
You can be wrong about a person. That's okay. Making a mistake- not seeing something in someone you should have though- that's not okay with me. Or less okay, because being wrong about them in the first place bothers me too. You can be wrong about a belief or in a solution to a problem. But making a mistake that results in losing someone, in hurting people, in keeping you up at night- I desperately fear that.
It's also the science in me. It's be hammered into my head- you test everything. You hypothesize; you publish papers about you think is going on. But until you test it exhaustively, until you know, you don't really know. And I don't want to take some position and stick with it no matter what unless I know. If I don't know, I want to hear other things, other sides. I'm fascinated. I want more. Always.
But still, I was frustrated and it was soothing to write. And who reads this anyway? So no harm done by my antagonism and faulty thoughts, where ever they were
After reading over my post from this Friday, I could only think "oh that should be changed...well, technically...that's not fair..." and so on.
Sometimes I feel it's viewed as indecision; sometimes I attribute the quality to myself. Honestly though, I just never feel that I know enough to make a sweeping call on anything. After what I've seen and experienced, I've learned one big thing- that you never really know. About people, about situations, about solutions. Maybe it's fear of being wrong, maybe it's the desire to know exactly what I'm doing at all times, but most times it's just this: More than fearing being wrong, I fear making a mistake.
You can be wrong about a person. That's okay. Making a mistake- not seeing something in someone you should have though- that's not okay with me. Or less okay, because being wrong about them in the first place bothers me too. You can be wrong about a belief or in a solution to a problem. But making a mistake that results in losing someone, in hurting people, in keeping you up at night- I desperately fear that.
It's also the science in me. It's be hammered into my head- you test everything. You hypothesize; you publish papers about you think is going on. But until you test it exhaustively, until you know, you don't really know. And I don't want to take some position and stick with it no matter what unless I know. If I don't know, I want to hear other things, other sides. I'm fascinated. I want more. Always.
But still, I was frustrated and it was soothing to write. And who reads this anyway? So no harm done by my antagonism and faulty thoughts, where ever they were
Friday, March 6, 2009
baby i've been here before;; i've seen this road and i've walked these floors
Ah, Friday nights.
Now, I don't usually get too involved in politics. I read about the issues and I'm fairly well informed of what's going on. I can have intelligent conversations about most things going on to a certain extent, but I tend to not get overly involved. The problems that most people talk about today are so multi-faceted and overwhelming that it seems sometimes that the system can't fix it. The issues are so cumbersome, so massive, so intrinsic and so deep rooted that sometimes I think that it should just be scrapped and started over.
I would have voted for Obama, had I actually gotten my absentee ballot. I think that the other candidates were not better qualified to handle this mess; truth is, I don't think anyone really is. And I think he is doing as well as can be expected. Hm, lately my grammar has been much worse- I think my over thinking of German grammar is negatively impacting my English sentence structure. Anyway.
But it seems sometimes like there is so much and so little that can be done. It's so frustrating to watch this happen. What prompted this post, actually, was this status update from this random kid I used to do Student Congress with. The fellow in question is a (presumably) Republican who I often was at odds with, one of those people you're friends with because you technically know each other and have no reason not to accept the friend request though you haven't spoken to them ever about anything besides the reason you know each other.
Anyway. His status ends up my newsfeed the other day about how they should send Berneke to jail for not disclosing beneficiaries of the bailout and let G.M. fail. I wonder, sometimes, how people make these decisions- the politicians, I mean. Here is a company that is not and has not been doing well. It produces a product that many do not want and it has been irresponsible in not seeing this and altering their path. Given, they couldn't have predicted the high gas price craze of this past summer and the current crisis that has made people desperate to just pay their bills and their mortgage. Who's thinking of buying a car?
Why should the taxpayer be responsible for the mismanagement of a firm like that? A perfectly legitimate stand. On the other hand- how many people does G.M. employ? Sending them out of business costs the taxpayers money too. It will drive up unemployment numbers and won't do anything to stabilize the stock market. Those people who are now jobless will stop spending money, causing a drop in demand for consumer goods, which will hurt the companies who produce the products, who might not hire more people or lay people off. The laid off people from both companies will then need unemployment, Medicare/Medicaid, social security. They also won't be paying taxes. The government is out even more money.
And besides for the money, what about those families? The stress money issues cause, the things they won't be able to buy. How will they pay their mortgage? Their children's college tuition? Are they to be punished for the bad decisions of their bosses? And if you're a selfish bastard who doesn't care because you're sitting pretty on a better job and a savings account that hasn't taken a hit, do you want to be punished by having the pay for their benefits and lose the money from their taxes?
I also take offense to Wall Street insisting that their executives need their billion dollar salaries and if they're not offered, no one will work there. Since when did 500,000 become a small amount? Now, I am aware that other companies may continue to pay more- but maybe they'd drop the salaries they offer to keep in line with the now lowered salaries. May I point out that I know plenty of people who pursue medical degrees to become a wealthy doctor- making maybe 200,000 a year? What kind of society do we think we're running when we think that 200 grand is enough for a surgeon replacing people's hearts, but 500 grand isn't enough for running a company? A lot of people look to medicine for lucrative careers. At first, will people leave the financial sector? Maybe. But will people come back? I would certainly run a company for 500 grand a year.
Plus, what are you doing complaining that you're 'only' making half a million a year? You have a job. You have to prove yourself before you get to walk away with more. It's disgusting how top traders and analysts at companies, traders and CEOs and analysts who caused the companies to fail, walked away with a safety net, while the people who supported them- the secretaries, the assistants, the janitors and the lower level people- walk away with so much less. Man up, crybabies. Millions of years of evolution, and this is what we ended up with.
Speaking of evolution, you think someone would have figured out how to run a health insurance system that actually, you know, worked. I go to the doctor, I get a test done. It takes 5 minutes at most. The ingredients in the test are cheap (I know) and it only requires a microscope to look at. 30 bucks. My father is ill. This has produced so much stress on my mother that she probably has an anxiety disorder. She can't find a job. I don't think the anxiety helps. But she can't go to a psychiatrist- they cost so much money. And health insurance barely covers mental health. My parents would have been beggared had they not had insurance when my father had his heart attack and then needed surgery, stayed in the hospital for a month and then required rehab. We still get bills from it. Now that my mom lost her job, her health insurance coverage is going to disappear soon.
I need to get my wisdom teeth removed. I have to get it done before it expires. I can get insurance through my school. So can my younger brother. My other brother will have to buy into insurance with my mom and dad. But my dad has a heart condition, a neurological condition, a defibrillator, expensive heart medications every month, had a stroke a year and a half ago, had cancer as well. Who the hell will cover him? And at what cost? If he gets on disability, it's covered- I think.
The whole system is a complete mess. Companies will aggressively market new and expensive drugs. Patients get them- except the new drugs are far more expensive than the old drugs and don't work as well. You need health insurance most when something catastrophic happens- and that is the time you are least able to deal with the mess and bureaucracy that plagues what should be a basic human right- to go to a doctor, to be able to be diagnosed and treated.
People make a profit off of the suffering of others. Your knee hurts? MRI time! That'll be 700 dollars please. What? Listen, I know the machine cost a lot. The films cost money. The time to read them also costs money. But 700 dollars? Oh, you didn't find anything? That's great. I understand there needs to be profit. I will probably buy a house one day off of the illness and pain of others. I get that that is the way it works. But it is brought to a sickening degree. A doctor orders something and needs to get it okayed by an insurance company. They can just say no.
Do they have medical degrees? No. That CEO is bringing in how many hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and they're bringing middle class families to their knees and bankruptcy from medical debt. It shouldn't work like that. It shouldn't. Not in a country where 8000 dollars is spent per person per year on medical care, more than any other country. You should get out what you put in.
I just don't get how and why these things happen. People by nature are such vicious loving bastards. I get it. And I don't.
But seriously. The next pretentious ignorant naive uncaring middle class private school graduated college student I hear who starts saying they should let companies fail without a single mention or acknowledgment of the untold suffering they are causing to thousands of workers who did nothing wrong while they sit in their 40,ooo a year school dorm is going to get beat down.
Now, I don't usually get too involved in politics. I read about the issues and I'm fairly well informed of what's going on. I can have intelligent conversations about most things going on to a certain extent, but I tend to not get overly involved. The problems that most people talk about today are so multi-faceted and overwhelming that it seems sometimes that the system can't fix it. The issues are so cumbersome, so massive, so intrinsic and so deep rooted that sometimes I think that it should just be scrapped and started over.
I would have voted for Obama, had I actually gotten my absentee ballot. I think that the other candidates were not better qualified to handle this mess; truth is, I don't think anyone really is. And I think he is doing as well as can be expected. Hm, lately my grammar has been much worse- I think my over thinking of German grammar is negatively impacting my English sentence structure. Anyway.
But it seems sometimes like there is so much and so little that can be done. It's so frustrating to watch this happen. What prompted this post, actually, was this status update from this random kid I used to do Student Congress with. The fellow in question is a (presumably) Republican who I often was at odds with, one of those people you're friends with because you technically know each other and have no reason not to accept the friend request though you haven't spoken to them ever about anything besides the reason you know each other.
Anyway. His status ends up my newsfeed the other day about how they should send Berneke to jail for not disclosing beneficiaries of the bailout and let G.M. fail. I wonder, sometimes, how people make these decisions- the politicians, I mean. Here is a company that is not and has not been doing well. It produces a product that many do not want and it has been irresponsible in not seeing this and altering their path. Given, they couldn't have predicted the high gas price craze of this past summer and the current crisis that has made people desperate to just pay their bills and their mortgage. Who's thinking of buying a car?
Why should the taxpayer be responsible for the mismanagement of a firm like that? A perfectly legitimate stand. On the other hand- how many people does G.M. employ? Sending them out of business costs the taxpayers money too. It will drive up unemployment numbers and won't do anything to stabilize the stock market. Those people who are now jobless will stop spending money, causing a drop in demand for consumer goods, which will hurt the companies who produce the products, who might not hire more people or lay people off. The laid off people from both companies will then need unemployment, Medicare/Medicaid, social security. They also won't be paying taxes. The government is out even more money.
And besides for the money, what about those families? The stress money issues cause, the things they won't be able to buy. How will they pay their mortgage? Their children's college tuition? Are they to be punished for the bad decisions of their bosses? And if you're a selfish bastard who doesn't care because you're sitting pretty on a better job and a savings account that hasn't taken a hit, do you want to be punished by having the pay for their benefits and lose the money from their taxes?
I also take offense to Wall Street insisting that their executives need their billion dollar salaries and if they're not offered, no one will work there. Since when did 500,000 become a small amount? Now, I am aware that other companies may continue to pay more- but maybe they'd drop the salaries they offer to keep in line with the now lowered salaries. May I point out that I know plenty of people who pursue medical degrees to become a wealthy doctor- making maybe 200,000 a year? What kind of society do we think we're running when we think that 200 grand is enough for a surgeon replacing people's hearts, but 500 grand isn't enough for running a company? A lot of people look to medicine for lucrative careers. At first, will people leave the financial sector? Maybe. But will people come back? I would certainly run a company for 500 grand a year.
Plus, what are you doing complaining that you're 'only' making half a million a year? You have a job. You have to prove yourself before you get to walk away with more. It's disgusting how top traders and analysts at companies, traders and CEOs and analysts who caused the companies to fail, walked away with a safety net, while the people who supported them- the secretaries, the assistants, the janitors and the lower level people- walk away with so much less. Man up, crybabies. Millions of years of evolution, and this is what we ended up with.
Speaking of evolution, you think someone would have figured out how to run a health insurance system that actually, you know, worked. I go to the doctor, I get a test done. It takes 5 minutes at most. The ingredients in the test are cheap (I know) and it only requires a microscope to look at. 30 bucks. My father is ill. This has produced so much stress on my mother that she probably has an anxiety disorder. She can't find a job. I don't think the anxiety helps. But she can't go to a psychiatrist- they cost so much money. And health insurance barely covers mental health. My parents would have been beggared had they not had insurance when my father had his heart attack and then needed surgery, stayed in the hospital for a month and then required rehab. We still get bills from it. Now that my mom lost her job, her health insurance coverage is going to disappear soon.
I need to get my wisdom teeth removed. I have to get it done before it expires. I can get insurance through my school. So can my younger brother. My other brother will have to buy into insurance with my mom and dad. But my dad has a heart condition, a neurological condition, a defibrillator, expensive heart medications every month, had a stroke a year and a half ago, had cancer as well. Who the hell will cover him? And at what cost? If he gets on disability, it's covered- I think.
The whole system is a complete mess. Companies will aggressively market new and expensive drugs. Patients get them- except the new drugs are far more expensive than the old drugs and don't work as well. You need health insurance most when something catastrophic happens- and that is the time you are least able to deal with the mess and bureaucracy that plagues what should be a basic human right- to go to a doctor, to be able to be diagnosed and treated.
People make a profit off of the suffering of others. Your knee hurts? MRI time! That'll be 700 dollars please. What? Listen, I know the machine cost a lot. The films cost money. The time to read them also costs money. But 700 dollars? Oh, you didn't find anything? That's great. I understand there needs to be profit. I will probably buy a house one day off of the illness and pain of others. I get that that is the way it works. But it is brought to a sickening degree. A doctor orders something and needs to get it okayed by an insurance company. They can just say no.
Do they have medical degrees? No. That CEO is bringing in how many hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and they're bringing middle class families to their knees and bankruptcy from medical debt. It shouldn't work like that. It shouldn't. Not in a country where 8000 dollars is spent per person per year on medical care, more than any other country. You should get out what you put in.
I just don't get how and why these things happen. People by nature are such vicious loving bastards. I get it. And I don't.
But seriously. The next pretentious ignorant naive uncaring middle class private school graduated college student I hear who starts saying they should let companies fail without a single mention or acknowledgment of the untold suffering they are causing to thousands of workers who did nothing wrong while they sit in their 40,ooo a year school dorm is going to get beat down.
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