you know you’re getting anglicized when you spell it snow ‘plough’ and gmail underlines it in red (or i guess my computer does the underlining?)… but ‘plow’ just has so few letters! lol.
I had a few minutes before my tute today and took a walk around Christ Church meadow.
It’s not an unusual scene, especially not for me - coming from the middle of nowhere, new jersey, but it’s nice. I can feel the overwhelming scope of what’s out there and how much more there is to the world and how big things are in comparison to me doing badly on an exam. I like feeling small. It happens either when I am in a bustling city and surrounded by people going and being and doing or when I stand somewhere like this and begin to realize just how immense the world is.
Also, looking through Plath’s journals today, something I do fairly often. It amazes me how eloquent she could be even in her journals.
“I want to live each day for itself like a string of colored beads, and not kill the present by cutting it up in cruel little snippets to fit some desperate architectural draft for a taj mahal in the future.”
Sylvia Plath, Unabridged Journals.
Coffee break, Tuesday, early AM, London. Even early in the morning, London is so much more alive than Oxford.
Op-Ed Columnist - Our Politics May Be All in Our Head - NYTimes.com
This is interesting, on some basic level it does make sense (conservatives being sensitive to fear), but I can’t really comment on the science.
One important and interesting point Kristof makes:
“Conservatives may be more responsive to health reform, he suggested, if it is framed as a national security argument. For example, American companies complain about the difficulty of competing with foreign companies that don’t have to pay for employee medical coverage. In that sense, our existing health care system leaves us vulnerable.”
This makes intuitive sense, but also makes you wonder. How has healthcare reform been framed? Would people really be more responsive if they considered that it was weakening American companies in global competition? Or wouldn’t they be more responsive if the perceived threat was to them, individually, also? Isn’t that the problem we’re facing - convincing people for whom the lack of healthcare reform is not an individual threat?
my friend on our love of The West Wing
- her: and you know what? i think they're healthy crushes. i mean, crushing on the deputy chief of staff and the president's speech writer is acceptable.
Governor's School cuts foreclose on N.J.'s future leaders | NJVoices Guest blog - NJ.com
End of Governor’s school for public issues. My gov school. I remember the writer of this article coming and speaking to us at gspi. Angered by this decision, more on it later.
of all the random little things I always think I’ll miss about America, USPS is not one of them. Turns out I do (miss USPS that is).
Also, I really like post offices. Random.
The grisly truth about the Super Bowl abortion ad. - By William Saletan - Slate Magazine
Being pro-choice and all, I obviously don’t like this ad. But my problem with it is similar to that described in this article. It isn’t just about labels about choice and life - it’s about a distorted message, that if you don’t have an abortion and carry through an extremely risky pregnancy, you will have a child who is a star football player. Obviously, most people aren’t stupid, and don’t see it that way, but at a basic level that’s what the ad is saying. bad
healthcare. finally.
American healthcare.
I don’t really know where to go after those two words. They have consumed and captivated the interest of the Western world for the past few months.
Why does the rest of the world care so much? What difference does it make if Americans have health care or not? What difference does it make where the system goes?
Honestly? It’s about American exceptionalism. The same cause for anger and resentment towards the country that breaks – no makes – rules.
America claims to be, and is, a bastion of freedom. We are the chief representative of the Western world. Our influence has permeated across the world – some through military, some through mass media, some through Michael Jackson.
What does it mean to be American? It means to live in a world that believes in justice and equality. It means All Men Are Created Equal. That we are endowed – not permitted, not given, we are endowed – with certain inalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
America was created as a refuge from the injustices of Britain. It was founded on principles of justice, of adequate and equal representation.
And, despite any and all missteps, it remains a symbol of all of this. I am not overly patriotic, but still, in politics essays at University, I am compelled to write that the American system is most right.
And this is why healthcare is such a big deal. Everywhere in the world.
Because this is our chance to redeem ourselves, since the world was let down with Iraq, it’s the time to prove ourselves.
Many European countries have more comprehensive healthcare systems than ours. So what are we so afraid of?
Honestly? I don’t understand. The details of the plans are inevitably immensely important. The requirements for employers to provide healthcare. The existence of a public option. The effect on the economy. The effect on taxes.
To be honest, very few people know or understand these details. It is only avid readers of broadsheets and watchers of CSPAN who have followed the details. What lies at the heart of the reluctance for universal healthcare is a moral and philosophical problem.
American values place special emphases on individualism. The government need be only as big as required.
And with the proposed healthcare plan, the argument goes that the government is too big. Individuals who don’t have health care are at fault. And it is not the responsibility of the American government to be a welfare state.
All this leads to one overwhelming, underlying question: why are we so afraid of the government fulfilling its duties?
The government exists to protect its citizens. We are fans of big government most of the time: we are fans of big government when it provides public education for all our children. We are fans of bigger government when it’s maintaining security. When it’s convenient.
Because the truth is, very few of the approximately 15% of Americans who are uninsured are part of the debate that we read in the newspapers and watch on CSPAN.
For most of the voices that are heard, the worries are: higher taxes, reallocation of resources; a slippery slope of individualism being traded for the big government.
For most of the voices that are heard, the concern is not healthcare. It’s not being able to go to a doctor when they’re sick.
For many involved in the debate, the actual real idea and thought and promise of universal healthcare itself is almost irrelevant.
