Academik

Thursday morning I’m heading to work as usual.  I descend the bus at Stockton and Grant and proceed on my leisurely stroll to the office.  There’s a Mont Blanc store at the corner of Maiden Lane and Grant that’s been under construction and so when I see a number of construction workers outside it’s no surprise…

One of them is fumbling with a stack of blueprints and right before I get to him he emphatically spits out “Fuck!”.  He looks up at me in a Navy Blue suit and tie and says “Sorry.”  A little perplexed at his need to apologize for speaking, let alone to me, I walk past thinking nothing of it. After I pass him and I am about to turn the corner I hear, “I thought that was the mayor…”

v

Perhaps… ?

So as I am embroiled in a battle with my employer and the IRS concerning taxes (read more here) I have once again come to the conclusion that antiquated systems are keeping us from reaching our full potential. What do I mean? The tax system in the US is RIDICULOUSLY complicated - overcharging those who can’t afford accountants or don’t have the education to understand it, and rewarding those who know how to manipulate it - how does this make any sense?

This takes me back to a previous realization that outdated entrenched systems keep us from moving forward. Telcos. Copyright law. our Oil-based economy. Healthcare. Taxes. They’re all systems that were set up a long time ago and then bandaged over and over again to catch up to modern times and now there is so much money invested in them that the people who are winning from the status quo are impeding our national progress.

These exploiters are spending millions of dollars to keep their system in place instead of spending those millions on R&D and the implementation of newer technologies. Telcos pilfered billions of dollars from the US government to build a high-speed fiber optic network in the 90s - then bailed and told the government it was too expensive. Link Here

The oil companies consistently battle alternative sources of energy (while highly publicizing their piddly forays into alternative energy) and higher fuel efficiency standards (thanks for sticking up what’s in our best interest congress & is there a reason why US car manufacturers have the worst fuel economy?). The price of oil affects the price of nearly everything that we consume because transportation costs and oil are directly linked : whether it’s gasoline for your car, food from your grocery store, your purchase from Amazon.com, or a CD from Best Buy - it’s price factors in the cost of fuel for the transportation that gets it to you. With virtually everything based on this one natural resource (that according to the Department of Energy 70% of our imports come from Canada, Mexico, Suadi Arabia, Venezuela, and Nigeria in order of magnitude) why are we not putting everything we have into alternative fuel research - because the status quo is great for oil comapnies and they’d like to keep it that way.

Healthcare! Wow what an awe-inspiring disappointment that is. While providing better care than most nationalized healthcare systems for middle and upper class patients, many of our poorer brothers and sisters are slipping through the cracks. Due to the heavily weighted system we’ve put in place for Healthcare Insurance providers, normal people get screwed with ridiculously priced services ($80 for a 10 minute consult at my family doctor). It’s known to most people that doctors make a good amount of money, especially if they have their own practice, but what you may not realize is that the doctors are paying ludicrous sums of money to insurance companies to cover them. And what are insurance companies saying, “We [their clients] are using health care services more and more. Not only is medical technology improving, but people are visiting more specialists, more often.” (Blue Cross Website) As the baby-boomer generation grows older, those costs are going to go through the roof. Add to that the problems generated by Americans lack of exercise and bad diet and it’s no wonder we’re going to the doctor so much.

What we need is a revolution. John Edwards is calling for a nationalized healthcare plan which I think is doomed to failure due to the litigiousness of our society - if they can limit tort settlements (breach of agreements entered into involuntarily; IE suing your doctor for making a mistake) to non 7 digit numbers then we might have a shot, but even then… I had a friend in the UK who had 6 months to live and was on an 8 month waiting list to have the surgery that could heal him. Talk about an ineffective system. I know there’s a better way, but too many people are happy with the status quo to make a change.

Back to my original point about taxes - think about the number of people employed as tax accountants and IRS officials - now imagine what would happen if the United States had a flat tax or a stratified flat tax on net income. poof! Hundreds of thousands of jobs would disappear. Definitely not something the IRS or H&R Block want to hear, but is it right for a country to burden its citizens with this? Why doesn’t the government make it as easy and straightforward to pay our taxes as possible - this would make it much easier for them to collect and monitor the entire process and yet I feel like we’re still in the New Deal here, making up jobs so that people have work regardless of its cost to the taxpayer. AHHHHHhhhh!!! I will be filing my 1040, 1040SE, 2106, and 1040C-EZ sometime soon, or some variation there-in.

Wherever you are, whatever you do, don’t let antiquated systems (or mindsets) stand in the way of progress.

Images above taken from following:
Zebra Field from Flickr: Liumorse
Iranian Oil Field from Flickr: The Original Mozzy
Syringe from Flickr: Wakalani
IRS Logo from Aerojockey.com

technorati tags:telcos, oil, healthcare, AntiquatedSystems, outdated, economy, US

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A colleague mentioned relationships in the US are different than in France. Apart from the myriad of obvious reasons this is true I asked him to explain. “Americans marry their best friends. Europeans marry their lovers.” I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and I don’t know if I have an answer, but I’ve definitely got some ideas…

In America I was brought up to believe that men and women are essentially equal. Sure there are the general observations about women being more emotional than men, men being physically stronger than women, women having longer endurance than men, and perhaps even being able to take more pain than men (not taking into account Jack Bauer). But all of this is generally irrelevant because we don’t interact with general ideas of each other - we interact with people who come in all shapes, sizes, mentalities, abilities.

What equality really means is that every man and woman has the same possibility to become something. CEO, homemaker, entrepreneur, athlete, accountant, musician, artist. Whether they attain these positions or not is up to them. There are too many physiological differences between us to really be considered the same -I mean seriously, women have the ability to create life inside of them, birth them (squeezing a watermelon out of a hole the size of a lemon), and feed them using milk their bodies make! I have a penis. End of story.

But this idea of equality has changed our vision of gender roles and relationships… Simply by having the option to become anything we became something else. We have, in some ways, convinced ourselves that we are alike, regardless of our physical differences and our instincts. This re-interpreted vision of ourselves has had a direct impact on the way we view relationships.

The reason I bring this up is that I spoke with a woman who said she married her best friend (seemingly ideal) and eventually just got bored and they divorced after 8 years. This is something I’ve heard several times, but never really explored until now. I wonder if the ebb and flow within a natural relationship is necessary to retain interest? Perhaps somehow by marrying someone that you are so close to, sharing everything with - you actaully take away some mystery in the relationship and thus some of the interest and attraction as the years pass.

I say there are three things that must be present for a good relationship: physical attraction, mental attraction, and chemistry. People throw around that last one a lot, but I think it boils down to sexual tension and the way in which we parlay our physical attractions to each other. There should be a good amount of all three in a healthy relationship. By placing an extremely high priority on mental attraction (or how well we connect) and downplaying the physical / sexual side of the relationship, perhaps we upset the delicate balance of the relationship… I just don’t know.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this because my mind is certainly not made up.

The power of music is in the mood and emotion that it sets in us. It has the power to change us - to make us smile on a bad day, to instill peace in us when the world is falling apart, the power to make us dance and forget our troubles, or inversely to embrace our anger or let us wander among our miseries. We identify songs with emotions, with people, and with places. This song doesn’t have strong ties to any of these emotions… yet.

Alexi Murdoch’s Orange Sky, is a simple and beautiful song about hardship and hope. “WellI had a dream I, stood beneath an orange sky… with my brother standing by” Juxtaposing the imagery of an orange sky - the color of fire, and the color of battles written across the clouds - with the image of a “brother” or a “sister” standing next to him, Murdoch paints a picture of unity against a backdrop of conflict.

“And you know sister my hearts been broken. Sometimes, sometimes my mind is too strong to carry on. Too strong to carry on.” Sometimes our minds take over for our hearts, for when we are wronged it is rarely our minds that suffer. Our hearts are the ones that bare our scars, ceding more and more territory to our minds every time we are cheated, fooled, or swindled - if we let it.

“When I am alone, when I’ve thrown off the weight of this crazy stone, when I’ve lost all care for the things I own, that’s when I miss you, you who are my home. You, who are my home.” - It’s only when we overcome our hardships (perhaps accepting that their will always be hardships), when we forget about our materialism, that’s when we realize what life is about - each other. When we are not distracted by our job, entertainment, or material things, then we can’t help but remember how important people are.

“Here is what I know, in your love, my salvation lies.” It’s in the love of others that we will find our purpose and our destinies.

All this from a simple song found in a movie trailer earlier this week. Find the song in this week’s podcast - Feb. 5, 2007

technorati tags:music, alexiMurdoch, OrangeSky, Hope, Hardship

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