Think First

If The Shoe Fits…

A couple of mothers at our kid’s school were offended that my wife called statements made by some other parents insensitive and tactless. The other parents were concerned that so much time was being spent with average or below-average that their “gifted” and “advanced” children weren’t getting enough attention and being challenged enough. There aren’t any special opportunities in K-3 for gifted children to explore their potential. There apparently are for the later grades, but not K-3.

Simply put, what they said absolutely was insensitive and out of line. In my opinion, one of the most common and egregious mistakes people make in their arguments is missing the real issue. In this case, the real issue is a lack of resources. Our school district, like most, has limited resources. When your resources are limited, you have to make choices about what is most important and you can’t afford to cut back on. If you’re smart, that means you cut back on the extras, going without some of the luxuries so you can keep the heat on. It would not have been out of line at all for those parents to say that they would like more opportunities for gifted children to achieve their potential. Who wouldn’t want that for their children? For whatever reason though, they felt the need to blame the other children rather than the lack of resources. They went from looking like a good parent, wanting only the best for their child, to a selfish piece of shit. Yeah, let’s let those normal or struggling kids fall by the wayside so your kid can sprout wings and fly like an angel.

I’ve got a crazy idea. Maybe if their kids is so gifted, they could get involved in their kids’ education, make sure they’re challenged, and reach their full potential. It’s not the state’s job to make sure your kid is all that they can be, it’s yours as a parent. The state is there to do the most good it can for the most people it can, providing all children with the best education baseline that its’ resources can provide. If your 5-year-old displays a gift for reading, rather than bitching about my autistic kid holding yours back, maybe you could yours down to a library if you can find time in your busy schedule.

I was a gifted child and there were times I felt it wasn’t fair that the average kids seemed to get more attention than I did, but I could have sought out challenges and my parents could have taken a greater interest in challenging me. It wasn’t the fault of those other kids that I didn’t apply myself. On the other hand, my 5yo daughter is autistic, and although she excels at a great many things, she needs greater attention with some things than other kids do. With that extra attention, she has avoided falling behind and is thriving. Let’s flip back again by looking at my 3yo son who is already beginning to read. The psychologists put him on the autistic spectrum too, but let’s just say that the spectrum covers a lot of ground, and they also say that he’s likely gifted. In either case, I am very grateful for what the school does for them, but ultimately take responsibility as their father to make sure that they get what they need to succeed in life.

What’s Good for the Goose…

In my opinion, a government that cannot mandate people purchase health insurance they can afford has no business mandating hospitals treat those unable to pay. 

It’s okay for me to say it, but not you.

That seems to be the gist of what this non-thinker has to say in response to Geraldo Rivera’s explanation/apology regarding his remarks about Trayvon Martin’s death.

Although a black preacher may warn his congregation or a black father may tell his son that we live in a society where they can be singled out, where they’re going to have to defend themselves against the racism that exists in America, it is not for you to go out on the most Conservative news network and say something insensitive and enabling on a show that you know promotes the most negative stereotypes. To go in front of them is dramatically different than a black or Latino father telling his son to ”watch out, the world is still full of racism and you’re at risk.”

So because Geraldo isn’t black, and what seems more important, because he works for Fox News, he apparently isn’t allowed to say what Mr. Simmons, the source of quote, implies that he is allowed to say.

The media seems to be talking out of both sides of their mouths on this, as usual. On one hand, your a racist if you suggest that a person’s appearance can contribute to such a situation. On the other hand, you can pretty much say just that as long as you’re black. I just read an article in Time magazine, written by a black man, that said, “I’m not saying you can’t wear what you want, but your clothes are a red herring.” They both carefully skirt around the underlying implication that your choice of clothing does affect what others think of you. I find it laughable that people are saying that it doesn’t or even that it shouldn’t. People want what they wear to affect what others think of them. Why else is there even such an industry as fashion? Why else would so many people spend so much on things that have no utilitarian benefit over things that are a fraction of the price?  Does Lady Gaga dress like a freak show because it’s more comfortable? Do pro athletes wear all that bling because it helps their game performance? Come on!

To top it off, I see another article on globalgrind.com by it’s Editor-In-Chief, Michael Skolnik, saying that, “White People, You Will Never Look Suspicious Like Trayvon Martin!” Are you serious? I’ve come across people of every color I know of that struck me as scary, dangerous types. I’ve also come across people of every color I know of that didn’t intimidate me whatsoever. A man in clean clothes that fit him and not making any effort to intimidate those around him is not going to get labeled as a threat by me, regardless of his color. A man with his pants halfway down his ass, making every effort to intimidate all those around him, is absolutely going to get labeled as a threat by me.

Obviously, there is such a thing as racism, but we’ve gotten in the habit, ironically in my opinion, of labeling judgements, even those based on experience and perfectly natural intuition, as racist if applied to certain people. The clothing issue in this case is no different than it is when it comes to women and rape. Wearing trashy clothing is in no way an excuse for someone to rape a woman, but you can be damn sure I’m going to discourage my daughter from every wearing such things. I’ll discourage her first and foremost because she should have more self-respect than that, but also because there are bad people out there that do bad things and to act like there aren’t is just plain naive.

(Source: globalgrind.com)

Public Workers Are Playing The Wrong Game

They’re playing checkers and others are playing chess.

I’ve read a lot of articles and letters to the editor, and the ones supporting the workers are missing the elephant in the room and I believe they’re just digging themselves a hole with public opinion. The arguments I continually see made are that:

• That’s the way it’s always been, so that’s the way it should stay.
• We don’t do it for the money. We love our jobs and do them because we care about you and your families.
• We provide your families with safety and your precious children with a good education. That should be worth a lot to you.
• Those benefits are part of our pay so you’re cutting our pay.
• Those benefits aren’t part of our pay. We graciously took them in lieu of extra pay when the economy was tough.

I agree with some of it and some if it I don’t, but none of it matters because the one fact that none of it changes is that we can’t afford it. Until you change that, arguing about it is pointless. Basic math tells us that if you don’t have enough money to pay your bills, you either have to cut costs or increase your income. It may not be your jobs to do either, but you better believe that your jobs depend on it.

So far, the unions’ approach has been a colossal blunder in my opinion. They continue to rely solely on our appreciation of their services and how little they’re compensated. For a lot of people though, I think playing the underpaid card rings a little hollow these days and may come off as a sign of how out of touch with “the rest of us” they may be. As much crap as we give the 1% for living in a different world, the public workers are coming off as living in a world of their own as well.

When people found out how “little” many public workers make and that turns out to be a lot more than a lot of those people, and a lot of those same people pay much, much more than 12% of their benefits, it was like Bugs Bunny put a carrot in Elmer Fudd’s shotgun and watching him pull the trigger. They’ve managed to make an enemy of many of those whose support they arguably need the most. This has become a fight between groups who should be allies. We should be fighting together against things like corporate welfare and tax loopholes that allow the rich to pay far less than the rates that some would argue are too low to begin with.

I appreciate their services very much, support them in many ways, but I won’t support them by taking a double-hit so they can avoid a single. I certainly will not support them by voting for a recall of a fairly elected official who has only done what he said he would.

Why are they silent?

Thousands of ordinary women across the country have been writing letters, sending e-mails, leaving phone messages, and buttonholing state and national lawmakers in support of cheaper contraceptive methods and greater access to abortion.

But I have to ask — where in these recent debates are the voices of ordinary men? Why aren’t we hearing publicly even now from husbands who are not ready to have children they would have to support? Or from boyfriends who do not have the means to support a child?

I support providing cheap access to contraceptives. I cannot support greater access to abortion, but I won’t get into that discussion at this point. I believe it’s a discussion that is separate altogether than the one of contraception and need not be shackled to it. One of the biggest problems in politics in my opinion is this “all or nothing” mentality. Issues and the bills that make their way through Congress as a result should stand on their own or not all. I support it in the same way that I support providing access to clean needles to drug addicts. Quite simply, it’s cheaper than the alternative. Contraceptives has the added bonus that I don’t want innocent children to suffer for someone else’s lack of responsibility. So let’s talk about supporting cheap access to contraceptives. First though, I’d like to analyze the phrase “cheap access to contraceptives”.

The author of the article fails to include the adjective cheap in a picture caption that uses the phrase, “attacks on access”. Saying access is being attacked is misleading in my opinion. Access in general is not being attacked. Quite frankly, I think it’s a bit misleading to even say that cheap access is being attacked. Considering the average cell phone bill ($73 according to J.D. Power recently) is significantly more than the average cost of birth control pills ($15-$50 according to Planned Parenthood). How many teenage and college-aged girls do you see without cell phones? Priorities anyone?

Now let’s dig deeper. Let’s get back to talking about how issues should stand on their own. Is this is an issue of birth control or not?

If it isn’t a birth control issue, but rather a women’s reproductive health issue because of all the beneficial side effects of some forms of birth control, then why do we call it birth control? Birth control medication seems to be one of the few that gets a pass to market themselves for their off-label use. I for one am all for getting insurance companies to cover things in a more logical manner. What they do and don’t cover is some serious voodoo. Even if they cover it, the spider webs of network vs out-of-network amongst other things means they pretty much cover whatever they want. A perfect example is my daughter who is autistic. Wisconsin law mandates that insurance cover autism therapy. My insurance covers it, but I’ll probably never get a dime from them for it. How do they get away with this? It’s easy really. They may have to cover it, but they don’t have to let any providers in their network, so I’ll be paying every last nickel I can squeeze out of my own pocket with my $12,000 out-of-network deductible that is separate from my in-network deductible (a nice trick they all seem to be pulling in recent years).

Maybe that’s why “ordinary” men are so silent. There are a lot of injustices when it comes to health care. You’ll have to forgive me if I’m not full of as much righteous indignation as you that you might have to cut back your data or texting plan to cover something that is rarely, if ever, medically necessary. There are plenty of people facing far greater injustices with health care that aren’t getting nearly as much attention.

On the other hand, maybe “ordinary” men aren’t buying that it’s not birth control issue. In that case, they’re probably saying to themselves the same thing I am, “Society tells us to keep it in our pants and you’re the ones who don’t want double-standards, so keep ‘em zipped ladies.”

(Source: CNN)

Cause and Effect

While reading this article about a Miami valedictorian facing deportation, a statement jumped out at me and spurred this post:

“She’s a good citizen, besides being a brilliant girl,” said North Miami Senior High School administrator Larry Jurrist, who added he can’t understand why the judge decided to deport the girls.

Back that train up. She’s not a citizen and that is precisely why the judge decided to deport her and her sister. When it comes to immigration law, about the only thing anyone does seem to agree on is that it’s a mess. However, it is still the law. Should it matter that she gets good grades? Maybe, maybe not, but obviously it does for a lot of people and I’m not going to attempt to answer that question because it’s not relevant as far as I’m concerned. What is relevant is what the law is and isn’t. Don’t break the law and wonder why — you know why. Disagree with, protest it, change it, but don’t act like it doesn’t exist.

“What I have worked for since I was 4 years old - to live the American dream. And I feel like I earned it,” she said.

No, you didn’t, not legally anyways, and that’s all a judge should consider when sitting on the bench. You may feel like you’ve earned it, but your feelings don’t change the facts of the matter.

On a side note, I cannot ignore a pet peeve of mine — the misuse of the term literally:

“Can you imagine that? Literally putting a postage stamp on her forehead and send her packing,” Michael Wildes, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, said about the case.

Really? They’re going to literally put a postage stamp on her forehead, eh? This guy is a professor at a law school no less and he says something that stupid? Serenity now!

(Source: CNN)

An Attack on Women, or not?

I just read a blog post about how religious institutions not wanting to cover birth control as part of their health care is an attack against women. I’ll refrain from sourcing the blog post to try and avoid the cyber-bullying that goes on for anyone that doesn’t goose-step nicely for the twitterverse.

In an effort to combat your tunnel vision, let me start by saying that I have no problem with insurance covering birth control. It doesn’t offend me in any way or bother me really. However, it’s a choice of whether or not to cover medically unnecessary services that I believe they are within their right to make.

I would like to examine some of the statements she made. Let’s start with this:

If the institution has female employees they should not be able to say which ailments/conditions/medications/etc. they are willing to pay for.  That is discrimination.

Heres’ the thing: every employer and/or insurance company picks and chooses what ailments/conditions/medications/etc. they want to cover to some degree, or at least they can. My insurance doesn’t cover Tamiflu, or at least our last plan didn’t; I’m not sure about our current plan/carrier. My daughter was diagnosed with swine flu a couple years ago when we all seemed to think it was going to strike down the human race. So were told it pretty serious and she needed this to combat this potentially life threatening illness. Again, my insurance didn’t cover it. I paid for it out of pocket. Was it not medically necessary? I asked my insurance that. That wasn’t the problem. It didn’t matter if it was medically necessary, it wasn’t included in my plan they said. People have some serious illusions about how insurance actually works. Most people seem to think, “I’m sick, my doctor said I need something, I’ve got insurance, I’m covered.” Oh, and don’t’ get me started on the difference between covered and paid. Trust me, there can be a big difference.

She follows that with:

Believe me, if this was about paying for erectile dysfunction meds or prostate exams, the guys would be allllll over that.

Here’s the thing, you just named a dysfunction and an exam that is checking for cancer. For most women, birth control is not medically necessary. You don’t need it, and yet most insurance pays for it anyways. There may be some rare exceptions, but you’re generally not going to DIE without it. You don’t have to have sex, believe it or not. It’s a choice. You want to preach about pro-choice, I’m all for supporting your right to make choices, but I’m not going to support the rest of us sharing in the consequences of your choices.

Here’s another choice snippet:

Why do we as women sit there and allow men to tell us what to do with our own bodies???

Nobody is telling you what to do with your body, they’re just saying they’re not going to support your choices. You can go fuck the whole town for all they care, but there are consequences to that. Now I completely understand that it is probably in society’s best interest to help you avoid an unwanted kid because it’s going to cost us a lot more to support that consequence since it’s not one that decent people are willing to ignore. We don’t care so much if you die in a ditch, but we’re not going to let you do that to an innocent child just because you couldn’t keep your pants on. Unless that is, you’re saying that you can’t keep your pants on. If that’s the case, should we start giving pedophiles and such a pass? I mean, whether you believe it or not, the argument has been made that such things are a sickness, a compulsion that cannot be controlled.

This is just another example of people tossing around their opinion of what they seemingly believe to be their God-given rights. The Ten Commandments is short as is the Bill of Rights. In my opinion, any list of rights or rules that applies to everyone period should be short lest you infringe upon those of others. People don’t have a right to much in this world. They sure do think they’re entitle to a lot of shit though.

Compensation: A Matter of Perspective

When you think of what you get paid, do you consider your benefits? How do you differentiate between pay and benefits to begin with? Have you ever gotten a job offer like this?

“We’ll pay you $90,000 per year

• $55k in money paid directly to you
• $20k for health insurance
• $10k for retirement
• $5k for several other benefits”

If you have, I’d love to hear about it. I certainly never have. I’ve never seen a job listing like that either. I see things like:

• Competitive salary
• Health Insurance
• 401/k with company matching up to 3%
• 2 weeks of vacation your first year
• 8 paid holidays per year

Okay, maybe if you’re being offered a job as CEO of a major corporation you might get offered $X million in stock options or whatever, but you’re playing a different game than the vast majority of us so I’m not counting you.

I would argue that about the only one who looks at it from the first perspective is an employer and only when the bills come in for that matter. It’s been a bit of a hot button issue where I work as health insurance costs have sky-rocketed and employees have been asked to shoulder more of the burden. I completely understand that, from my employer’s perspective, they have to pay more money to have me work there, plain and simple.

Maybe compensation should start being pitched from the first perspective. “I’m going to pay you $90k/year and here are some benefits that are available to you and they cost X amount right now and typically go up about X% per year.” Then it would be like any other cost of living going up. I didn’t all of a sudden get paid more when the price of gas went through the roof, so why should I get paid more when health insurance goes up? As I write that, I start to think to myself who stands to benefit from these costs being essentially hidden from much of the public? I suspect the outrage from the public towards corporate America would be even greater if they directly felt the pain of the rising costs of benefits. Instead, people with employer provided health insurance and retirement take it for granted for the most part. It’s just something we get, like Labor Day off. That way, the insurance companies have made it into a fight between employer and employee, not them vs the employer and employee on the same team.

One of the most striking examples of this is the fight between teachers and the “rest of us” in Wisconsin. Yes, it’s more than just teachers, but it’s basically about the teachers. This post is a result of an article on Forbes essentially about how teacher’s pensions were part of their pay and not some sort of handout, so by asking them to put part of their pay into is really asking them to take a cut in pay. I now wonder if that’s where things went wrong in the first place. When the airlines were going bankrupt - okay, so when aren’t the airlines going bankrupt - the unions make concessions in the form of pay freezes, pay cuts, benefit cuts, all  to keep their jobs. In our case though, we didn’t ask our workers to take a cut in pay for the good of many. We went out there and painted a picture of greedy teachers living in their ivory towers, unwilling pay their fair share. Then we told them we were cutting their pay and we told ourselves that we were actually cutting back on lavish bonuses basically. These aren’t Wall Street bankers getting $10 million bonuses when their customers were losing their life savings. A good teacher is worth their weight in gold. We all know there are serious problems with our education system, but there’s a lot right with it too. Where would we be without it? It’s certainly not going to get any better by working against each other.