A Prayer for Universal Health Care

However, this whole health care reform debacle is frustrating the hell out of me. Republicans have no interest in reforming health care, except to block any progress towards universal coverage, while some Democrats don’t have the spine to stand up to special interests groups and lobbyists from threatened health insurance companies. Most of the so-called debates on mainstream media go on tangent and degenerate into name-calling (“socialists”, “fascists”), racism, and outright lying. And then there’s Rep. Joe “Lyin’ Wilson and the useless Baucus bill which is not even worth the paper it’s printed on. And it just goes on, and on, and on, and on…

Meanwhile, millions of Americans either continue to have no health insurance or are underinsured.

But what frustrates me the most is that the mainstream media gives more airtime (and print space) to the insane and ignorant people — politicians, celebrities, and radical (or more accurately, crazy) fringe groups on both left and right — who have nothing useful to add to the health care reform. Instead of solutions, insights, and wisdom, the media highlights confusions, ignorance, and political food fights. No wonder a lot (if not most) of Americans are drowning in the sea of cacophony when it comes to the issue of universal health coverage.

Fortunately, there are people out there who are doing their best to inject some sanity into the health care reform issue. One of them is journalist T.R. Reid, author of the book, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care. Below is a video of T.R. Reid on FORA.TV (watch the whole program here). Listen to what he has to say. It will make you think deeply and wonder what’s keeping the U.S. from extending health care for all.

Finally, whether you believe that health care is a fundamental human right, or otherwise, I highly recommend watching T.R. Reid’s PBS FRONTLINE documentary, Sick Around the World. Go figure.

May we all be safe, happy, healthy, and live with ease. Here’s a prayer for universal health care.

ADDENDUM 09/20/09: Here’s another informative Q&A interview with T.R. Reid on C-SPAN. T.R. Reid should be getting more airtime on CNN, MSNBC, or even FOX, instead of those bumbling politicians and lunatics at the fringes…

I’m at home watching the 2009 Presidential Inauguration on TV, on MSNBC live, and on CNN/Facebook online. The wave of excitement and optimism makes me feel like playing Sting’s Brand New Day. It certainly feels that way.

Godspeed, Mr. President. Make it so.

via Alex Grey’s Obama – Anatomy of a World Leader

“Perhaps you can use this symbol of Barack Obama to send him a prayer of support, to send all the loving hopeful healing and creative energy that we can focus on him so that he can perform the task of leadership in the most effective and powerful way for the greatest good, for the greatest number.”

changing colors of U.S. politics

It’s election day. Here’s my prediction: a mandate for Obama. I’m being ballsy but still somewhat conservative with my guesstimate. Out of my remaining respect for McCain I didn’t give Arizona to Obama. But even that is still up in the air.

Once the election is over, we have a lot of work to do. As we head our way to the climax of this historic election, I’m deeply filled with gratitude to have been a part of this great experiment. This has been a gaint leap in American democracy.  It makes me proud to call myself a Filipino-American and then some.

UPDATE: 11/04/2008, 6:40PM PST – w00t! Obama wins Ohio! That’s it. Hello, President Obama! Hello, Vice President Biden!

UPDATE: 11/04/2008, 9:05PM PST – And here’s the historic acceptance speech (see transcript).

UPDATE: 11/05/2008, 7:57AM PST – It’s an awesome feeling to wake up in the morning knowing that the world loves our President. Here’s to President v44.

W.B. Yeats obituary @ Drumcliffe

But as the daylight succumbs to darkness,
And as the Stars exhaust their radiance,
Life bestowed returns to blankness,
The Law of Existence knows no defiance…

~Life Bestowed

Today is All Souls’ Day. In the Christian tradition it is the day when the souls of the faithful departed are commemorated. Serendipitously, it is two days before the denizens of the state of Washington vote on Initiative 1000 (I-1000) on the November 4 election. While Proposition 8 in California is getting most of the media attention I-1000 is the measure that really tests the ethical boundaries of one’s philosophy on life and death.

So what is I-1000? I-1000 or “Death with Dignity” is a measure that would “…permit terminally ill, competent, adult Washington residents medically predicted to die within six months to request and self-administer lethal medication prescribed by a physician.”

This is not just liberal vs. conservative political decision. It is a deeply moral and philosophical vote that transcends political affiliation. That’s why I took the time to read the details and listened to the pro and con arguments on the proposed measure. For me, this is a harder vote than the U.S. presidency.

In the end, however, I decided to cast a YES vote on Initiative 1000. Here’s my rationale on how I arrived at my decision:

#1. I filtered out the religious arguments.

To me, this is a matter of social ethics and philosophy rather than religious interpretations by some church hierarchy. Of course, people are free to fall back on their religious beliefs when making their decision, but this measure is best argued in a secular public square without the use of religious language (e.g. “the Bible says so…”). There are various religious views on suicide, but secular arguments against I-1000 are more reasonable and have more room for philosophical and ethical debates than religious convictions.

#2. I evaluated the measure whether it would be easy for people and health insurance companies to abuse it.

Opponents of I-1000 argue that there are no safeguards on the measure and there’s a possibility of abuse by insurance companies. Great points. But when I looked at the details of the specific provisions, I believe that there is enough safeguards to counter abuse.

Also, since I-1000 is modeled after 10-year old Oregon Death with Dignity Act, there is enough peer-reviewed independent studies stating that the “…Death With Dignity Act and related research and data analyses do not show evidence of abuse, neglect, manipulation of, or pressure on patients in vulnerable groups in the state of Oregon.”

#3. I put myself in the position of someone who has a dying loved one.

What if I have a loved one who’s dying? What if she’s terminal and that she would surely suffer a painful and gruesome death? I can’t bear the thought of seeing a loved one suffer a horrible death. If death is certain and my loved one specifically asks for eternal rest, then who am I to counter her decision? If she accepts death, then I have no right to project my own fear of death on her to make myself feel better.

#4. I put myself in the position of a physician.

Prescribing a lethal drug to a patient is against the Hippocratic Oath. I understand why there are physicians who are against I-1000. However, if I’m a physician, I would focus more on “doing no harm.” For terminal patients who only have a painful death to look forward to, I believe that it is more ethical to allow them to make a choice of relieving their suffering.

#5. I put myself in the position of the dying.

This is the easiest deliberation for me. Even the great Socrates drank his hemlock. I hope it doesn’t come to it, but if it do get afflicted with a gruesome terminal illness, I would like to have autonomy on how I die. I prefer to gather all my loved ones around my deathbed and tell them that I’m prepared to embrace death as I have embraced life. I would tell them not to grieve for too long, but, instead, celebrate the memories and the journey we’ve taken together. I would ask them to remember how I lived and not how I died. What is death anyway but a transformation of one form into another? This is where my Eastern-influenced philosophy and integral views on suicide kick in.

Initiative 1000 and the Moral Zeitgeist

impermanence @ chinese general hospital

Judging by the number of endorsements of I-1000 it seems like the moral zeitgeist in Washington tends to favor the measure. But who knows? Let the will of the people determine the outcome.

Regardless, I believe that our basic moral intuition would continue to drive us to explore ways on improving health care and care for the dying. Just because I-1000 is there doesn’t mean that people would fall in line to their oblivion. When faced with the choice between life and death, most people would choose life. I-1000 is for people who no longer have the option to choose life. I believe that it is more compassionate to give dying (conscious and sane) people the autonomy of choosing how they die.

That said, I never liked the phrase “Death with Dignity”. Aside from the stupidity of dignity when it comes to bioethics, I subscribe to Dr. Gregory House’s aphorism: “There is no dignity in death.” There is only acceptance and compassion.

But though the daylight succumbs to darkness,
And though the Stars exhaust their radiance,
Life bestowed will always be boundless,
The Law of Existence knows no defiance.

UPDATE: 11/04/2008 11:28PM PST – Initiative 1000 passes. Here’s to embracing death with compassion.

YES WE CAN. And I Just Did.

I’m not a very political person. I grew up loathing politics in my country of origin. But as a first generation immigrant and a first time voter here in the U.S., this election is very important to me. I followed it since the primaries. I got to know all the candidates. I watched the debates. I read their web sites. I watched the cable news. I investigated the issues on the internet. I’ve constantly read FactCheck.org. I blogged my heart out on political matters.

As a result, I’ve learned a lot of things in U.S. politics that I never paid attention to before. And for the first time in my life I contributed to a political campaign in exchange for a cool car magnet, and a sense of hope that things will be better than the last eight years of failed G.W. Bush policies and politically brain dead Democratic and Republican parties.

I originally planned to vote on November 4 so I could experience using those hi-tech voting machines at the polls, but I opted to vote by mail instead. I might as well vote early, save gas, and beat the long lines on election day.

I’ve made up my mind long before Colin Powell, Christopher Buckley, Christopher Hitchens, and Scott McClellan jumped on the Obama bandwagon. Frequent readers of this blog know by now why I’ve decided to vote for Obama and Biden. See my past entries:

I Have a Crush on Sarah Palin That’s Why I Won’t Vote for Her

Staff of the Goths, DNC, RNC, and Why This Election is Very Important to Me

We Pick the Presidential Candidate Who Shares Our Worldview

I’ve had reservations with Obama, but the closer we get to election day, the more proud and certain I am of my vote. I believe that Obama is *clearly* the better candidate as demonstrated by his temperament on how he run his campaign. I like my President to be highly intelligent, broad-minded, diplomatic, passionate but not quick to anger, and compassionate. I see all those qualities in Obama.

I have no doubt that Obama will be our next President. I’m glad to be part of this historic moment. I hope that Obama and Biden will make good on their promises. There’s a lot of work to be done to get the U.S. back on its track. But first things first.

YES, we can. And I just did.

Unfortunately, most Americans have a different mindset. Most young people are conditioned to use credit cards even before they have jobs. Even children are trained at an early age to buy stuff and accumulate toys, while most adults are trapped in the debt rabbit hole. Combine the hysterical mass credit conditioning, greedy lenders, less government oversight and regulation, the housing bubble and we’ve got ourselves a subprime mortgage crisis which is now pulling everyone of us into a black hole of economic uncertainty.

No wonder we have a $10 trillion national debt. Aside from leadership without any vision and brain dead partisan politics, America’s collective mantra has been “In Debt We Trust“. One way to get out of this credit mess is through collective awareness. That’s why every American has to see this documentary.

On a personal level I’m glad that, except for my mortgage, I don’t have any other outstanding debt. On the other hand, we’re all interconnected so this gives me little satisfaction and security. We’re all in this together. Our financial world is flat and we’re all headed to a place marked “beyond here, be dragons.”

Photo by: Perry Gerenday Photography

As I write this Washington Mutual had just collapsed–”the largest bank failure in American history”–and the bailout talks just ended in chaos. Swell.

I’m ignorant when it comes to the complexity of economics. But it seems to me that there are plenty of blame to go around: government, banks, and people who took loans they can’t afford. In short, we’re all in this deep shit together, whether we’re innocent or otherwise. Who says that the world is fair anyway? That’s why it irks me when people play the blame game just to prove that their ideology is better than the other.

Here’s a case in point: Some conservatives blame liberals for the current economic crisis.  See NYPost: House of Cards – Liberals Fueled Wall Street Woes.

HOW did America wind up in its worst financial crisis in decades? Sen. Barack Obama explained it this way last week: “When sub-prime-mortgage lending took a reckless and unsustainable turn, a patchwork of regulators systematically and deliberately eliminated the regulations protecting the American people.”

That’s exactly backward. Mortgage lending took that “reckless and unsustainable turn” because of regulation – regulation driven by liberals and progressives, not free-market “deregulators.”

Pushed hard by politicians and community activists, the regulators systematically and deliberately altered financially sound lending practices.

The mortgage market was humming along just fine when, in the late 1980s, progressives decided that it needed to be “fixed.” Their complaint: Some ethnic groups got approved for mortgages at lower rates than others. (read more)

Well, if you identify as a conservative then you might consider this article as “proof” that liberal/progressive ideology (i.e. multiculturalism, political correctness), rather than conservative ideology (i.e. less government regulation), is the root-cause of the subprime mortgage crisis. The NYPost article essentially puts the blame on Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) – the purpose of which “is to provide credit, including home ownership opportunities to underserved populations and commercial loans to small businesses.” Great! Here’s a proof that liberal ideology got us into this mess! Conservative ideology of less government regulation is not to be blamed! My ideology is better than yours! Booyah!

However, there is another side to this argument which essentially demolishes the above article. See American Prospect: Did Liberals Cause the Sub-Prime Crisis?

It’s telling that, amid all the recent recriminations, even lenders have not fingered CRA. That’s because CRA didn’t bring about the reckless lending at the heart of the crisis. Just as sub-prime lending was exploding, CRA was losing force and relevance. And the worst offenders, the independent mortgage companies, were never subject to CRA — or any federal regulator. Law didn’t make them lend. The profit motive did.

And that is not political correctness. It is correctness.

My take? Like I said, I’m ignorant with economic matters. Like most people I go by the opinion of experts, in this instance, economists, as well as journalists and politicians who explain the crisis in layman’s terms. Both articles have their conservative and liberal bias, respectively, but I think that the American Prospect article makes more sense. Indeed, CRA may have partially contributed to the economic crisis, as argued by Ron Paul. However, it seems to me that greed in Wall Street and less/more (depending on your conservative and liberal views) government regulation also played a major part in the subprime crisis, but it’s the banking system’s flawed statistical methods which is the bedrock of this mess.

In short, regardless of our conservative or liberal ideologies, the banking system is simply not equipped to handle Black Swans. See EDGE: The Fourth Quadrant: A Map of the Limits of Statistics by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

The current subprime crisis has been doing wonders for the reception of any ideas about probability-driven claims in science, particularly in social science, economics, and “econometrics” (quantitative economics). Clearly, with current International Monetary Fund estimates of the costs of the 2007-2008 subprime crisis, the banking system seems to have lost more on risk taking (from the failures of quantitative risk management) than every penny banks ever earned taking risks. But it was easy to see from the past that the pilot did not have the qualifications to fly the plane and was using the wrong navigation tools: The same happened in 1983 with money center banks losing cumulatively every penny ever made, and in 1991-1992 when the Savings and Loans industry became history.

It appears that financial institutions earn money on transactions (say fees on your mother-in-law’s checking account) and lose everything taking risks they don’t understand. I want this to stop, and stop now—the current patching by the banking establishment worldwide is akin to using the same doctor to cure the patient when the doctor has a track record of systematically killing them. And this is not limited to banking—I generalize to an entire class of random variables that do not have the structure we think they have, in which we can be suckers. (read more)

Bottom line: Instead of arguing, defending, and attacking conservative and liberal ideologies, it’s more sane to go back to first principles and tackle the limits of the banking system. I’m certainly not qualified to do this. Heck, I don’t even look at my 401K. All I know is that I have a first-hand experience on the economic hardships we’re going through right now. And I consider myself lucky to have landed a job that pays the bills.

Playing the lemon-eating blame game won’t do us any good except deepen our ideological differences. I just hope that when I wake up tomorrow, there’s already an agreement on how to proceed with the $700 billion bailout.

P.S. Dear Barack Obama: I’d like to see Nassim Nicholas Taleb as one of your economic advisers when you become President. Dear John McCain: Enough politics. Enough excuses. I expect to see your “maverickness” in the Presidential debates.

I’ve been jaded with politicians at an early age. I vowed to myself to never get into politics. I prefer to look for other ways to do service and make a difference. When I was young I remember looking up to the U.S. wondering how “enlightened” leaders in America play politics. Politicians there must be smart and corruption non-existent. I was wrong. We don’t understand a country until we live there.

One thing I like about the U.S. though is that it’s very easy to “tune out” politics if I want to. There are more distractions here: MTV, sports, business, travel, technology, Hollywood, shopping, and endless consumerism. So for the most part I’ve ignored U.S. politics and just focused on my work and on being a good citizen. But since the Iraq war and since I’ve become a U.S. citizen, I paid closer attention to what’s going on in Washington. Since then I’ve learned a lot of things, including U.S. history, details of the election process, the deep ideological differences between the two main political parties, the geopolitical role of U.S. as a nuclear superpower nation, and crucial issues such as economy, health care, education, and alternative energy.

But my interest in politics reached its peak with the on-going election. Here are the top 25 things I’ve learned so far from the 2008 U.S. presidential election, in no particular order.

1. Democrats are spineless tree-huggers. Republicans are fear mongering war freaks. Independents are fence-sitting hecklers.
2. Watching the election coverage on TV is a great practice on patience, tolerance, equanimity, and critical thinking. CNN tries to be objective. PBS is intelligent but boring. MSNBC has a bad case of Bush hatin’. FOX is a shit hole.
3. Change, maverick, and truthfulness have lost their meanings.
4. If you follow the election too closely you’ll get prophetic nightmares.
5. Issues are secondary, worldviews and framing are primary. Pandering to the lowest common denominator is key strategy.
6. The blogosphere is a web of political lies and conspiracy theories.
7. Factcheck.org is an indispensable resource to cut through the bull.
8. Graduating as magna cum laude, serving as president of Harvard Law review, and being a U.S. Senator mean nothing. Describing yourself as a hockey mom and pitbull with lipstick is a winning strategy.
9. Two memoirs + a bunch of geeks = Amazing Money Machine
10. Ron Paul has bigger balls than Joe Lieberman.
11. Bob Barr + Ralph Nader = None of the Above
12. Community organizers are laughable. Fuck Thank you, Giuliani!
13. People are idiots and politicians love to capitalize on this basic fact.
14. Small town values, as opposed to worldcentric views, are more useful for governing the most powerful nation in the world.
15. Watching the election campaign on TV makes you dumber. Following the election on the internet makes you smarter (assuming your home page is not pointed to the Huffington Post or the National Review).
16. Democrats and Republicans stretch the truth, but GOP talking heads are pompous hypocrites. (Do some objective fact checking and get back to me.)
17. Whoever was the Republican National Convention set designer is so fired.
18. Real straight talkers: Sam Harris, Bill Maher, Michael Moore, Jesse Ventura. Ben Stein is asinine.
19. Nobody wants to be associated with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, especially the Republican party. Now that’s “change” we can believe in.
20. George W. Bush is probably shitting his pants already. Hurrah for Bugliosi!
21. Brain-dead politics is America’s disease. Parody is the best medicine.
22. I’m part of the demographic known as “nation of whiners.”
23. I can tolerate Papa Bear O’Reilly but my patience is really tested with Sean Hannity.
24. I have a hidden desire for dominatrix types.
25. I’m a masochist for subjecting myself in the political freak show drivel. We are now in the era of electotainment.

I’m sure I’ll be learning more as we move closer to election day. But the more I learn about U.S. politics the more it strikes me that the political dynamics is not much different with politics in developing nations. Yes, U.S. politics is more sophisticated and complicated on the surface. But on a deeper level it is still plagued with corruption, deception, terrorizing, and hypocrisy. It’s the same shit wrapped differently, with astronomical sums of money. I find it kind of irritating and funny.

P.S. Objectivity is overrated. We’re all biased one way or the other. When all is said in done we make our decisions on a conscious and unconscious subjective level. In my view, the Republicans had lost it in this election. They no longer respect the intelligence of the voting public. They are using the “people are idiots” strategy. They have surrendered on the issues and resorted to soap opera and drama. That’s why I’m voting for Obama.

Sarah Palin - photo via Wikipedia

Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown.

And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves.

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities. I might add that in small towns, we don’t quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren’t listening.

- Transcript: Gov. Sarah Palin at the RNC

The first time I laid eyes on Sarah Palin I was still half awake. I just dreamt about her nomination. There I was staring at the TV witnessing a beautiful woman standing by John McCain announcing her candidacy as VP.

Sarah who? At first I thought I was so politically ignorant that I didn’t even know her. It soon turned out that the media people (and some people in her own party) were also scampering to find out who she really is.

So who is Sarah Palin? It depends on who you want believe–the media, the internet, the Republicans, the Democrats, the people around her, or whoever she says she is. But this I know for sure. I have a crush on her. I was overpowered by her allure.

Who wouldn’t? She’s driven, politically savvy, athletic, intelligent, eloquent, charismatic, and an all around super hockey mom who has a big beautiful family with uber-adorable babies. She’s a perfect image of an all-American mom. Even Craig Ferguson succumbed to her “naugthy librarian” charm. I love books. Naughty librarians make me

But what about her experience? Well, she used to be a basketball player, a member of the PTA, mayor of Wasilla and now Governor of Alaska. Beauty, athletics, politics, and brains all in one package. Droool!

And then there’s her historic and infamous acceptance speech. Forget those lowly celebrities. A star is born.

+100 Crush points

Sarah Palin rose to the occasion amidst the unbearable whiteness of the Republican National Convention. The Republican base is energized with a speech full of condescension. People are excited. They haven’t been this excited with John McCain. We’ve got a star in our midst! Screw the issues! We might have a shot at this election after all! USA! USA!

Some say Palin is a willing sacrificial lamb in this election. If she is, then she’s faking it real good. She looks like she’s playing to win. They don’t call her “Sarah Barracuda” for nothing. I’m looking forward to how she’ll charm Joe Biden in the debate. Biden better not look into her eyes for too long lest his foreign policy experience would melt like ice cream on a hot plate.

Hello, world!

But the more I get to know Sarah Palin the more I realize that my crush on her is so fleeting. She’s a projection of my own narcissism. I admire her looks, her brains and her overall packaging. But beneath the surface of her charm, her worldview give me pause and alarm. The reality is, our views are worlds apart. I vote with my worldview and my understanding of issues, and for me, Sarah Palin doesn’t make the cut.

But I couldn’t get myself angry at Palin. It’s John McCain that I look down in disdain for using her and toying with the election in the most powerful nation on Earth. The Republicans are desperate and they know they can’t win on issues. That’s why they opted to play the game of “How low can you go?”

Sam Harris put it bluntly and succinctly:

Americans have an unhealthy desire to see average people promoted to positions of great authority. No one wants an average neurosurgeon or even an average carpenter, but when it comes time to vest a man or woman with more power and responsibility than any person has held in human history, Americans say they want a regular guy, someone just like themselves. President Bush kept his edge on the “Who would you like to have a beer with?” poll question in 2004, and won reelection.

This is one of the many points at which narcissism becomes indistinguishable from masochism. Let me put it plainly: If you want someone just like you to be president of the United States, or even vice president, you deserve whatever dysfunctional society you get. You deserve to be poor, to see the environment despoiled, to watch your children receive a fourth-rate education and to suffer as this country wages — and loses — both necessary and unnecessary wars.

McCain has so little respect for the presidency of the United States that he is willing to put the girl next door (soon, too, to be a grandma) into office beside him. He has so little respect for the average American voter that he thinks this reckless and cynical ploy will work.

Exactly. This is the kind of politics I loathe in my developing country of origin. I’m disheartened to see it happening here in America, yet again.

The sad thing is that there’s a chance that McCain’s ploy might work. But I have faith and I’m optimistic that majority of the American people would see through the cracked character of a once noble politician that is John McCain.

I still have a crush on Sarah Palin. But I don’t love her worldview, her party and her politics. They give good rallying speeches. But their message comes across to me as: Screw your community, Country first, and the hell with the rest ‘em!

As I write this I’m awaiting for John McCain’s acceptance speech, and Barack Obama’s appearance on the O’Reilly Factor. Now this would be entertaining.

P.S. What the f*ck is a community organizer anyway?