Apples and Oranges

It's a well-worn discussion that Europe and the United States have problems with their health care systems. However I'm not sure if I agree with Ezra Klein in the value of choice in our health care system. He argues in favor of the French system because it has lower debt. Yet let's look to the future. What about the millions of second and third generation immigrants? How will that affect French industry? Is it enough to argue that Medicaid/Medicare have crippled the American health care systems and not predict problems for the French system in the comparison? Dale Franks argues that the American system may still be preferrable over the French and German health care systems, but all are not satisfactory. He is right in the differences between the two systems. However, to group the two countries is not the best idea either. France is a top-down bureacratic state and German is a federal state. Neither will translate directly to the American liberal economy.

presidential likenesses

I've always said that people of certain races tended to aggregate at my high school, and now,

"nobody has ever voted for a presidential candidate they wouldn't have had lunch with in high school."

Thank you, David Brooks. Even if I can't agree with the typecasts, reading this quote after watching a primarily white audience dance to rap music made the column worthwhile..

Feeling small

Last night I watched Syriana. In a way, watching such a movie was a strange phenomenon. Watching a conspiracy unfold alongside strangers in the dark. The audience gained bits of information related to the characters but had no power by which to intervene. Men in business suits made pacts and ordered killings with the efficiency and undistinguishable air of ordering a cup of coffee. T argues that the movie doesn't aptly depict life in bureaucracy and oil dealings. I am little qualified to argue anything besides bureacracy and the actions left unsaid.

Between student government, interning, and being a bit of a politics nerd, the inherant consequences of "insider" information is difficult to ignore. Trying to know and make the student opinion heard while being an overloaded student is difficult. Working with administration that is in transition is difficult, with rewards at infrequent intervals. Yet reading about the everyday politics of a country, even as I realize that so many people do not follow them, is hard to comprehend. The politicians and bureacratic forces that shape the laws, make the laws, and sign disarmament agreements is important to the particular society. The discussions between Sinn Fein and the DUP will shape Northern Irish politics for the next decade. However, the ability to find meaningful commentary is low. Is globalization supposed to open up interest in other parts of the world for reasons other than self-interest?

In some ways, this began as a response to K's blog about the liberally educated person. We are supposed to be able to converse on multiple levels and display dexterity in knowledge. Perhaps the liberally educated person will be more willing to develop understanding of multiple regions of the world that are affected by our global economy for reasons that are not self-interested initially. Perhaps it will be the ability to reach outside of personal "bubbles" and to be more than a spectator or ignorant reader who skips particular section in the daily newspaper. There are some life skills that will not be taught at Kenyon - such as a lack of direct correlation to an "academic" nature or upon the affluent nature of the college. I agree that a wake-up call is necessary. As much as I abhor bureacratic machinations, I probably will continue to work towards some sort of meaningful progress. I know my contributions are as large as one ant. It' is hopelessly depressing at times, but in one microcosm of the world, it may be all that can be done. Sometimes I just wish that people outside of the microcosm would take genuine interest in my "bubble" as I hope to do with their "bubble."

a liberal education

A friend of mine is interviewing in DC this week. She has a new spring suit, new shoes, tasteful jewelry, a modest briefcase, and multiple copies of her resume. She’s conducted two practice interviews, one with our career counseling center and one with friends with varying degrees of interview experience. We spent last night brainstorming the little details: how to take public transportation (viz. buses), merits of carry-on luggage, and checking whether the hotel had an ironing board.

What amazed me last night and has amazed me since I came to college, are the number of small “life skills” that my friends and I do not know. My friend’s new suit? The pants needed to be hemmed, and out of the four 22-year-old girls, only I knew how to hem. Making a flippant remark about the fact that it’s one of those life skills like sewing buttons, I was slightly taken aback that my roommate doesn’t really sew buttons. Yet she knits!

I confess, I was clueless about car care two years ago. I still am clueless. It took me two months, three conversations, and two phone calls to determine that my front wheels needed to be balanced and that my sister can throw away the old windshield wipers. Do I know what to look for when I look under the hood? I’ll take the 5th on that one.

We are talented thoughtful writers who can discuss political philosophy, quantum mechanics, narrative theory, and ecological population shifts. We can cook, do laundry, and clean a house to varying extents. Do we know how to network and how to do an informational interview? Do we feel that it is possible to live on less than $20,000 per year in a large East Coast City? Increasingly, our parents will support us in a monetary fashion after we graduate. I will still call my mom for tips when I spill red wine on white pants. I will call my stepdad and my dad when I don’t know how to check what kind of light I need for the door light. And I will ask my friends when I don’t know what I’m forgetting to do.

New Slang

Even if she can't tell the pineapple story to save her life, I enjoy laughing at my sister's jokes almost as much as I enjoy laughing at her.

Be a free radical. Join the anti-Markovnikov movement.

where Fargo is a big city

http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifThe NY Times has an intriguing article on North Dakota. Whereas the Sunbelt and Cactus Belt are struggling to absorb their population increases, North Dakota is seeing a mass exodus.

North Dakota has continued to lose people. And it didn't have that many to begin with. In 1930, its population peaked at 680,845. In 2000, it was down to 642,200, and by 2004, the last year for which statistics are available, it had dropped to 634,366. (By comparison, the national population more than doubled, to 294 million from 123 million, during the same period.) Of the 25 counties nationwide that lost the largest portions of their populations in the 1990's, 12 were in North Dakota.

I spent a few days in rural ND last August, and it confirms the anecdotal evidence of the residents of Crosby, ND. Towns are few and far between. The landscape is flat, to be broken as the fields change from corn to soybeans to sunflowers. In town, there is one main drag, often with a railroad line dividing the town into sections. One town celebrates "Uff-da Days" and unfortunately, I left my T-shirt with the recipe for lefse at home. Neighbors can peer through their lacy windows because, well, strangers add a little excitment, mystery, and fodder for gossip. North Dakota was built on the pen of Lincoln with the Homesteading Act and thus on the need for community. The article points out initiatives by inhabitants to maintain what it values:

North Dakotans, [one resident] says, are "superfriendly, to where you say they're borderline nosy. A real tight sense of community."

The NY Times makes no secret of the problems that cannot be helped by civic pride alone. The desire to live in a place where everyone knows your name doesn't bring employment opportunities and young families to town. [I'm not talking about the teenage pregnancy problems where the youth have nothing to do but smoke, drink, have sex and now do meth. Even seeing David Brooks' column about the lack of values in our society today didn't make me too optimistic] It brings retirees.

The emigration to other places (like Minnesota) and the lack of a tourism industry has meant that ND is in danger of falling off the map. It's sad to hear about a town that simply folds up because it has two residents. "A History of Violence" set itself in Nowhereville, Indiana, to emphasize the disappearance and imagery of small-town America; the NY Times recommends that one goes to ND to see the last vestiges of true small-town America. But this real-life version is grimmer and more ghostly.

Second to none - survey 2

Try this Johari survey for me (karly). The link is different than kelly's link in the previous post.

Better than the Mean Girls survey

Johari. It's not the Bryers-Miggs (or is it Myers-Briggs?), but thankfully, klutzy is not an option.

Science daily

Irregular webcomics combines my two favorite topics: science and politics in my favorite setting: Legos.

Educational Debates

It is interesting to note that AP exams are becoming more common. However, contrary to the Washington Post article, AP classes are not necessarily more difficult than their honors counterparts.

For many years, honors courses have been an attractive compromise for American high-schoolers. They have sampled the choices like Goldilocks: Regular courses? Too easy. Advanced Placement courses? Too hard. But honors courses were just right.

As one educator noted, it is up to the school to follow the guidelines of the AP curriculum, but it is not rigid. Do the financial resources of the schools have any effect on the outcome of the students' AP and college careers? Variation between schools is a critical factor. Nor does this emphasis on AP exams take into consideration students' interests. Rather it focuses on an end goal, college entrance, rather than students liking what they learn. Yes, valuable skills are gained from classes that may not be of interest. However, I would support the person who said that it is best to take at least one AP exam... not the push for all AP classes.


On a slightly different note, South Dakota did not pass their version of the "Academic Bill of Rights."

Lawmakers who backed the measure had argued that it would make clear that the Legislature values intellectual diversity, which the bill defined as "the foundation of a learning environment that exposes students to a variety of political, ideological, and other perspectives." The measure's supporters, who were mostly Republicans, had said the legislation would allow for better oversight of how well the state's campuses were protecting diverse views.

South Dakota certainly seems to have their share of headline-grabbing legislation lately...


Finally, the New York Times prominently featured an article on multiples (siblings) in the classroom. On one side of the argument, you have parental choice.

Advocates of parental choice point to studies in the past few years that have suggested that twins, for example, may actually benefit from being left together in their early years.

Yet, the same people go on to argue that the bond between twins is "is intense and thus privileged" and therefore it may be better for the twins to be together. I can understand the parental choice argument, though it does invite micro-managing parents into the equation. However, to say that twins (or triplets) will fluorish more in the classroom with his or her sibling(s) may not be accurate. Some children become more socially engaged and are more confident with friends present, while others merely become shadows in their friends' wake.

On the opposing side, parents argue that multiples should not have the constant comparisons with one another, which often occurs when the children are placed in the same classroom. Stories abound on both sides of the issue. As you are reading this, you probably already have a bias, based on experience....

life's lessons

On living life the right way:

"Before I left for college, my mom gave me two pieces of advice. One, never mix your whites and colors in the laundry together. Two, when someone asks you what you want to be in life, always answer with an adjective, never a noun."

~a friend who has followed the latter piece of advice, but not always the former.

Repelling genetics.

So apparently, we learn Mendelian genetics in order to learn about ear wax. The allele for wet ear wax is a dominant whereas the allele for dry wax is recessive. Cribbed from NY Times:

The single mutation in the earwax gene is one in which a G (for guanine) is replaced with an A (for adenine). People who inherit the version of the gene that has A from both parents have dry earwax. Those who carry two of the G versions, or one G and one A, are destined to live with wet earwax.

I can't access this article, so I can't read why the authors linked dry ear wax to low body sweat/odor in Han Chinese, Koreans, and Native Americans.

better days

I've nearly completed Jonathan Kozol's Amazing Grace. The book, by depicting the lives of residents in the South Bronx (and particularly Mott Haven), covers the gamut from employment to drug turf warfare to environmentally-induced asthma to whether hope can exist there. In many ways, the problems encountered are so entrenched as to be nearly overwhelming.

A quick look at articles addressing many of these issues are not exactly hopeful. Drug use? NYC hopes that methamphetamine usage won't catch on because, as two people surmise, cocaine is widely available and meth is the poor white trash's drug of choice. Health care? Besides the oft quoted statistic that 46 million Americans lack health insurance and that 38 million are on Medicaid,

Medicaid, Medicare and other publicly financed health care, such as that for ex-servicemen, and the public sector already pays for 45% of American health care. (The total is nearer 60% if you include the tax subsidies.) (Economist, 26 Jan 06)

Perhaps it's an oversimplification, but I'm reminded of an old argument between K and myself. From where does change occur? Yes, like deepening democracy by entrenching political values within a society, enacting change among the residents of the neighborhood would ideally be the most sustainable solution, but where do the rest of us fit? By changing policy in a top-down approach, working to better implement policy, or to "work on the ground?"

Quite a few of my friends have been mulling over the merits and drawbacks of the Peace Corps and Teach for America lately. In many ways, I think this first hand experience is the way not only to influence lives and also to influence our future actions in the area of social justice. And maybe I'm just leaning too heavily on my current emphasis and desire to enter the field of public health and how societal issues intersect.

bedknobs and broomsticks

Yesterday I was in a state of awe over one of the small things in life... doorknobs.

My younger sister (for reasons best left unsaid) broke my doorknob, broke it to the point where the knob came off on my side of the door. The door still closes completely, but now the door locks behind me. Once inside my room, I'm stuck. I can't open my door.

Maybe I'm glad that I'm leaving tomorrow.

thoughts on a snowy evening

Recently I have been struck by one of K's favorite quotes from J.R. Tolkein: "All that glitters is not gold; not all that wander are lost." Watching television tonight, I was appalled at the thin actresses who cry after putting on a fat suit (they wanted to "empathize" with those who are overweight). And this is what entertains America? I browsed through the New Yorker and read an editorial/article asking what kind of values are Americans setting up for themeselves? Menand has an interesting point in that

"We are ourselves products of the culture whose products we consume, and we can't help taking it, for the most part, on its own terms."

The social constructs which we create are immensely powerful. Menand referred to literary prizes as valuable only in the recognition that society bestows upon the award. K just wrote about the consumerism craziness that overtakes all good sense during the holiday season. Tolkein may be right in that some who wander are not lost, but right now, society is a bit lost.

The Economist has a thought-provoking article on the differences between the poor in Appalachia and those in the Congo. What is happiness and what is not happiness is a matter of opinion. Yet if happiness is universal, then is it merely the emotion that is shared? Happiness economists would suggest that the level of one's happiness is relative to the level of material goods of others around one's self. Moreover, when "an individual who becomes richer becomes happier; but when society as a whole grows richer, nobody seems any more content (7 Aug 2005, The Economist).

Perhaps the American dream fits both sides. Its retains the flavor that a better life is just over the horizon but that this "good life" is attainable. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in Majesty (short story):

The extraordinary thing is not that people in a lifetime turn out worse or better than we had prophesied; particularly in America that is to be expected. The extraordinary thing is how people keep their levels, fulfill their promises, seem actually buoyed up by an inevitable destiny.

It may be that a new year is approaching or that I realize that the year will bring many changes to my life. I have not been this content for a long while. A good friend of mine once said that when you're not looking for it, what you want will happen. Now I've paraphrased this generously and it was originally referrring to relationships, but I think he's right (as he often is).

Happy New Year's.

so this is Christmas

It's easy to say that Christmas (for those who celebrate it) is over-commercialized. Each year, K and I venture into the four shopping malls that permeate our lives in the hope of bestowing some measure of happiness to those on the receiving end. We practically learned how to drive years ago when we would do our December shopping on the weekends. Then, as now, I find the process overwhelming. No one seems happy when they shop at these times of year since no one either has the time or can find the perfect gift. I mean, is the special edition of Office Space or boxed set of eight different fragrances from Victoria's Secret going to change the life of the average middle class American?

I like to think that, in the vein of Charlie Brown, that it is the spirit of Christmas that counts. Certainly, there are moments on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day when I believe this to be true. Glancing at the parking lot of Target is not one of them.

For many, Christmas is a huge expense. In 2004, sales grew by 6.7 percent. This year, according to the Washington Post,

The NRF has been among the most bullish, forecasting sales growth of 6
percent, to $439.53 billion. Other groups, like the International Council of
Shopping Centers, expect a more modest increase of 3 percent to 3.5
percent.

[To put it into perspective, the The International AIDS Vaccines Initiative estimates that the total annual spending on an AIDS vaccine is $682 million.]

Maybe it's good that Christmas comes but once per year.

Life as we know it

Life is changing a bit too quickly these days. Coming back from San Francisco, I had a layover in Vegas and tried my first slot machines. For $3, I could occupy my 20 minutes before boarding a plane. Apparently, slot machines are made for right-handed people and take less skill (but about as much luck) as I anticipated. Also, the lights and pyramids and glitter of the hotel-casino complexes are astounding from an airplane.

Perhaps more importantly, while hovering over Vegas, I realized that I probably won't be in the Midwest next year. I'm looking at six cities, only one of them being in the Midwest. Tis a bit scary, to be flying around the country and never having the chance to explore a city in which I may be living next year.

San Francisco reminds me of Cape Town for some reason.

High society

The fact that I'm back from Philly means that I'm over halfway done with my tour of the major US cities and also not any closer to a decision. However, I will say that I have started to have a clearer picture as to what I want and need for the future.

The highlight of this trip was of course, the New York Philharmonic, featuring the pianist Andre Watts. What I love about music was exemplified in the technical splendor of Watts on Saint Saens or the divine, exposed lonely notes in "Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde."

Alerted by the AJOB blog to an opinion article on HIV testing in the New England Journal of Medicine. The World Health Organization lists voluntary counseling and HIV testing (VCT) as a “crucial entry point into the care and treatment programmes” (WHO 2001). VCT is considered an integral part of HIV prevention or treatment program, as it “enables uninfected people to remain so and enable those infected with HIV to plan for the future and prevent HIV transmission to others” (ibid).

The argument in the NEJM article is whether the HIV/AIDS epidemic should be treated as a viral epidemic, subject to the control of standard public health measures, or as a social disease, one in which the social mores and dangers of stigmatism of the individual are of primary concern. Certainly, it would be easier, and perhaps more cost-effective, to monitor the disease in the US with standard notification of partners and track progression of the disease epidemiologically:

"Using the current CDC estimate of 40,000 new HIV infections per year, the potential to prevent half to two thirds of these infections, and the current average lifetime cost of care for a patient with HIV infection of $200,000,²⁹ more effective epidemic control would save between $4 billion and $5.4 billion per year. Widespread availability of condoms, syringe-exchange programs, public health notification of the partners of infected persons, and improvement of case management and monitoring systems would be unlikely to cost more than an additional $1 billion to $2 billion per year nationally — two to three times the current CDC funding for HIV prevention."

The authors argue that in an age of openness and multiple anti-retroviral drugs, that it's a travesty that 2/3 of those with newly identified HIV-positive serostatuses do not inform their partners. I agree with that assessment. However, the problem of partner notification is the question whether proclaiming one's status is considered as socially acceptable as the researchers. If it is socially acceptable, then HIV testing and prevention methods (condom distribution, decrease in number of partners, careful monitoring of existing viral load) is working. In that case, HIV might well be managed as a chronic disease. However, if it is not, then the stigma attached to HIV (and even to STI's in general)

The downside is that routine notification of partners may have an adverse effect on the utilization of health care services. Could knowing that one's partner would be notified translate into a lack of willingness to access health services?

Tradition

David Cameron, age 39, has been been given a mandate by the Conservative Party in Britain to lead them back to Downing Street. Having the "energy of youth" and the willingness to talk about the issues (such as the environment) that the Tories previously have avoided is a huge start. Interestingly, he appears more open to Blair's social policies, just as Blair embraced some of Margaret Thatcher's economic policies.

Commentators have been bringing up Cameron's sudden rise to the party's leadership forefront. It will be worthwhile to see how Cameron talks about family values and his position on national security in the coming months. Bill Clinton lead the Democratic Party to victory in the 1990s after promising to inspire greater trust in the government and moving the party to a center position on the ideological spectrum. Tony Blair captured the swing voters in 1997 and brought his party to a "New Labour" stance.

How will a strong Tory leader affect British politics and the "Special Alliance" between the United States and Great Britain? Much of that answer will lie in Cameron, but it will also lie in the future of the Republican Party. Cameron has opportunities on the basis that he is a new leader with a vision of Britain that is unlike that of his predecessor, Michael Howard. Cameron is more willing to work with the current system than to change it completely and does not appear to endorse the reactionary responses seemingly favored by Howard. The 2004 election became more centered on the presidential candidates than the platforms themselves. Who will be the face of the Republican Party after Bush? Who will become the face of the Labour party after Blair? With the parliamentary system in Britain, the governmental party has greater influence over policy than what occurs in the United States. Therefore, the process will be important for the future as well as which leaders the British goverment will be contacting.