I have to whole-heartedly agree with the thoughts of Alan Levine and D’Arcy Norman about the way reality TV is showing our decline from civilization.I think it is ironic that D’Arcy is offering to help buy an island to get away from reality TV with royalties from a reality TV show. Despite the irony I volunteer to pitch in my pennies and be among those refugees on CDB Island.
You know you have hit the big time when astute readers send you interesting articles. Okay, the truth is that it’s nice to have some extra eyes and ears out there to help me not to miss too much of the news that interests me.
This story was definitely one of those items. The issue is the reduction of benefits in the Medicaid program in Missouri, but the underlying theme is just as applicable. The conclusion of the article is that while we do not really want to cut government spending on these programs, the government programs are not as effective as having good people meet the needs of the needy around them.
The question sent to me was “what do [I] think of that?”
The answer is simply that the conclusion of the article is correct. When we set up government programs to help people in need the impersonality of the programs leaves them prone to abuse on all sides. The programs get used by some to perpetuate the division of society into classes. People who don’t need the help find ways to channel the money into their own pockets in various ways. (e.g. “hmm, section 8 provides rental assistance to low income people. If I rent to low income people I can charge rental rates at the top of the section 8 range and be assured of a constant income stream.” or “So long as I don’t save up any cash I can get the government to give me a generous allowance in foodstamps each month.”)
I do not mean to imply that everyone in the system is crooked or dishonest. I believe that is not the case, but I also believe that having an impersonal, government run solution makes it easier for those who are crooked to go unnoticed as they feed off the system. The only way a government run system works well is in a society where everybody is basically good and there are no leeches who try to take advantage of the system. A society like that can only be made up of people who care about their neighbors enough to notice them and help out where possible, where they put the needs of others before their own comforts. That kind of society does not require a government program because the help comes from individuals without the bureaucracy.
This does not mean that I propose that we scrap all the bulging safety nets, but it would be helpful if we understood that they are bandaids for the problems rather than solutions. The solution is to improve society and representative government cannot do that. Again, I do not propose to end representative government (if, in fact, that is still what we have) but rather I suggest that we recognize our individual responsibility in improving ourselves as a means to improve society.
Thanks to e-Clippings I read the text of Bill Gates’ Speech on America’s failing high schools.
I can’t say that I am the biggest fan of Gates’ products, but his rhetoric here is exactly right and I think everyone should read it.
This will only make sense with the background information that I never wanted to buy a minivan.
I love my minivan. That statement, and the rest of this post, is less about my minivan and more about me – and minivans in general.
As I peel away the rough edges of my own pride I discover that I do not care about image like I used to. I did not even know that I cared about image, but in retrospect I did. This is not to say that I have no care for image, but that it is different than it had been.
Before I chose to get a minivan I had decided that I did not want that minivan image. Basically that was because the image is not popular. It truth there is nothing wrong with it. I hated all the arguments about SUV’s using too much gas. The fact is that the mid-sized SUV’s have about the same gas mileage as the average minivan. It’s not great mileage, but it’s no reason to choose a minivan over a mid-sized SUV (at least once the optional third row entered the Ford Explorer and Chevy Trailblazer class) because they could seat the same number of people and got no significant disadvantage in fuel efficiency and I might as well get the increased towing capacity and power of the SUV – besides the image thing.
When the time came that I was faced with the need to grow out of two carseats in the back of my sedan I changed my mind on the stance I had held that I would rather make car payments on an SUV than own a minivan free and clear. I made the wiser choice (financially speaking) and now I look back and realize that I have come to care less about the image, more in line with what I used to believe was already true. I have also came to wonder why I ever hoped to own an SUV rather than a minivan. Who wants to open the back door of an SUV (of any size) when they have the option of sliding doors on their van. That also makes me wonder why anyone ever made a minivan with hinge doors to the back (the older models of the very minivan I bought – Mazda MPV – did not have sliding doors) when sliding door are so functional/versatile and save so much space in my garage.
Today I am thankful, not so much that I have a minivan that I like, but more because I got to catch a glimpse of growth within myself which is always what I am striving for anyway.
This Slashdot article asks “Would you be violating a social contract hitting the 30sec skip button on Tivo? Or putting a strip of paper across the bottom of our TV screen to block out those super annoying scrolling banners?”
My question is, if viewing ads and pop-ups is part of my social contract, how can I cancel the contract?
I just read on Wired News about a spammer who was just convicted for “pumping out at least 10 million e-mails a day.” Why would a person do that for a living? Later in the article the answer came to me loud and clear as I learned that “prosecutors say he grossed up to $750,000 per month.” That’s a very compelling argument – especially to someone who recently viewed $12,000 per year as a raise.
As a bonus he never had to worry about his internet access since he used 16 high-speed lines for sending out all that email.
I enjoyed Rovy’s little rant. I agree that the lack of creativity is not rooted in the ISD process, but rather it is rooted in the lack of a design culture among LPs. We are taught how to develop things and then we follow the ADDIE recipe (or whichever flavor we favor). We have taken all the creativity out of design and turned this into learning science. We lose the artistry so that we have become cooks instead of being chefs.
I was interested to read about Homesourcing and be reminded that I seem to be caught between two radical philosophies concerning conservation and energy independence. Radical not because they are unreasonable or extreme, but because they are so different from the most common proposals for energy independence.
Homesourcing is really another name for tele-commuting, the other radical approach is espoused by some bicycle enthusiasts I know – bike to work. Each of these ideas appeals to me in different ways. I will not expound on homesourcing (since I have linked to it) but biking to work adds the advantage of keeping yourself in shape although it limits how far you can live from the office. The only downside to homesourcing is that there really is something to be said for mixing in the same physical location with other people that you are working with.
Maybe I should bike to work two or three days a week and then work from home the rest of the week. That would be about the best of both worlds.
I was amazed after my recent move to Missouri at how different things were out here. Inside the church people have a much more friendly and functional attitude and outside the church people have a much more friendly and inclusive attitude. Laura asked why it is that Mormons – who ought to be the friendliest and most helpful people should be so closed in an area where they are so dominant (Utah). I think I have finally figured out what is going on – in Utah and in Missouri.
In Missouri, within the church, it is necessary to be accepting of people who do not share all of our values and beliefs because most of the people around us don’t. In Utah, within the church, it is easy to not associate with people who do not share our values because they are in the minority.
In Missouri (and I hear that most of the Midwest is like this) people are open and friendly and non-judgmental. That stands in stark contrast to the way things are in Utah. Society is very closed. It divides all to sharply along ward and stake boundaries and there is little association with anyone outside you religious circle – especially, but not exclusively, with anyone who is not a member of the church. There is some exception to that as people intermingle with others outside their wards and stakes at school and work, but that mixing occurs in very small doses when compared with the frequency of association within ward groups.
Some people might think that this is all a bitter exaggeration, and it may turn out that my memory of society is not entirely accurate, but even if my memory is imperfect there is another, more sinister, indicator of the cliquishness of the society in Utah. We are often taught that Mormons are persecuted throughout the world. That teaching is technically accurate, but it has the undesirable effect of making people paranoid and closed to outsiders unless it is tempered with the accompanying fact that 99% of that persecution comes from a group of people that is no larger than the membership of the church (which is less than 2% of the population of the United States and less than .2% of the population of the world.
Telling stories of persecution is supposed to make us resolve ourselves to stand firm when things get tough, but maybe we need to spend more time talking about standing firm and less time saying “poor picked-on us.” It seems that we are prone to forget that others are also picked on and it also seems to promote our inadvertently picking on others. The result in Utah, where Mormons are in the majority, is that Mormons tend to be closed to non-Mormons and non-Mormons are not inclined to become more trusting of Mormons than they were before.
In “It takes a whole village – or does it?” I see some strong truths expressed that the family is the basic unit of society, but there is also a kernel of truth in the saying “it takes a village.” The village in which I raise my children will have an effect on how they grow up and what they learn – whether I like it or not.
I, like Hyrum, refuse to allow the village to become the primary teacher for my children. I’m sure that Hyrum would agree with me though that we must be careful in choosing the village in which we raise our children because it will have an effect. I consider that “it takes a village” when I choose the village and also when I choose to participate in shaping that village.