health care

Personal
Thursday Morning Update
December 12, 2024

Remember When [2021 original with AI background]

The bed was crowded this morning. Queen Bit, licking at my hair, woke me five minutes before the alarm. Solaris was on my head. Gabby was in my lap. Frankie, the smashed-face wheezer kitty, was on my feet. Both dogs were at my side, snuggled in close. Kat had Fat Guy and Kronk snuggling with her. Hunger was the only motivator for anyone to move. Once I’m up, the cats know food is coming next.

Once the cats are fed, it’s time to take the dogs out. Hamilton prances impatiently as I get dressed. He doesn’t understand that with a windchill of 0, I need a fleece below the twenty-pound overcoat. Putting on the coat is a little painful this morning. Once we’re outside, though, I’m glad I have it. The wind blows from the Northwest, pushing the fur from the collar onto my face. The ground crunches beneath each step. Hamilton loves the cold and does a couple of quick laps around the yard. Belvedere does what he came to do and then returns to my side, anxious to go back indoors. A gust of wind tries to take the hat off my head.

With the dogs fed and coffee in hand, I sit down and wake up the computer. A number of AP alerts pop up from overnight. Biden pardons 1,500. Time selects a demon as its Person of the Year. North Carolina seals a five-year deal with Bill Belichick. Hannah Kobayashi is found safe. The importance of any story depends on what one has at stake. Are you harmed? Are you threatened? Do you benefit?

A shooter arrested for killing a CEO fights extradition. Is he a hero? Do insurance workers have a reason to be afraid? Opinions try to keep some balance on the highwire of morality. The demonization of insurance companies comes easily. Yet, it is legislatures that deal the most damage. Indiana state code could threaten health coverage for 754,000 Hoosiers. Yes, we are included in that number. The US House passed a defense bill that denies coverage for transgender minors. We have friends who are affected.

Meanwhile, CEOs are tripping. Literally. They’re high as fuck.

If killing one CEO strikes fear into the insurance industry, what might it take to deliver the same level of fear to Congress? We complain about insurance companies, and rightfully so, but the solution of Universal Healthcare has to come from the idiots you elected to Congress and the bunch being seated in January isn’t likely to be cooperative on the subject without some motivation. Is targeted violence an answer? Nothing else has worked. We need to look carefully at the options.

Putting this update together is being complicated and painful. I’m sure I’ve seen a story this morning about rising cancer costs, but I can’t find it. That happens a lot. My head still hurts, focus and memory are shakey at best. I sit here struggling with what to write.

Do I care that more teens are looking at porn? Only to the extent that what they’re watching tends to be more violent. When parents fail to provide honest answers and never have reasonable conversations about sex, then yeah, kids are going to look to porn for that information. Teens have questions but they’re finding adults don’t have answers. Want a better outcome? Provide a better resource.

Totally unrelated to anything, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled that reality TV contestants are technically employees. Yeah, that’s going to affect what we see next year.

If you came here from Facebook, you may want to be aware that Meta, FB’s parent company, donated $1 million to the Felon’s inauguration. Google+, where are you when we need you?

Another alert pops up, this time from the bank. They’re insisting that I need to put $186 in my account to bring the balance to $0. The only thing I can do about that is this: Venmo: @C_I_Letbetter. CashApp: $ciletbetter. Other than that, I’m just screwed until the first of the year.

The animals have all settled down for their morning nap. I need some hot cereal and my meds. That means I should stop typing now.

Is this even useful to anyone? I wonder. Maybe I’m just typing words.

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Current Issues  /  Long Read  /  Politics  /  pop culture  /  Social Commentary
Just How Liberal Can I Be?
July 9, 2024

All the icons [2010 original with AI background]

For years, I have insisted that I am a couple of steps to the left of liberal. Yesterday, I discovered that can be quantified and yes, I’m about as far to the left as the measurement goes. I’m out there. Am I dangerous? I don’t think so, but then, I’ve yet to be pushed to the point that I would need to be. I am loud and obnoxious at times, I think most people who know me will agree with that, but I’m not yet at the point of being ready to lynch everyone connected in any way with Project 2025. I can see myself getting there, but let’s put a hold on that for now.

What is a liberal? Well, technically, it’s this:

If that is the definition of liberal (and it is), then why the fuck isn’t everyone trying to be liberal? What is there within that definition that holds any level of negativity? Why is that not something that every human on the planet should long to achieve? Conservatives keep trying to paint being liberal as something to avoid, but how the fuck can you even come close to being a decent person and not be liberal? I don’t understand. I never have understood. I think Conservatives are just jealous because their brains aren’t working.

Yesterday, this thing popped up in my Facebook newsfeed from the Pew Research Center offering to let me see where I fall on the ideological spectrum. How could I possibly resist an offer to confirm what I’ve known to be true for years? Of course, I took the test! And what was the result?

Your best fit is…

Progressive Left

… along with 6% of the public

See that spot there, alllllllllllll the way to the left? Yeah, that’s me. Only six percent of the population are anything like me. I’m not surprised, though, are you? I’ve always known that I’m a rare bird. And I’m not one who’s prone to half-ass things. If I’m going to be liberal, then I might as well over-stuff myself on liberality. I don’t see any reason to be any other way.

What does all this mean? We need something here that goes beyond the label, don’t we? Why, thank you for asking! Yes, we do, and I happen to have that data right here, ready for your perusal. First, let’s consider how Progressive Left is defined:

Progressive Left, the only majority White, non-Hispanic Democratic-oriented political typology group, have very liberal views on virtually every issue and support far-reaching changes to address racial injustice and expand the social safety net. They are among the smallest typology groups, but also one of the most politically engaged. They feel less warmly toward the Democratic Party than Establishment Liberals or Democratic Mainstays, but those who voted in the 2020 general election were nearly unanimous in their support for Joe Biden. They are the only group in which a majority say they like political leaders who identify as democratic socialists.

As for how I actually stand on the issues:

The results shown below are based on a survey of 10,221 adults conducted July 8-18, 2021.

Share of Progressive Left saying the same as you

Share of the general population saying the same as you

GOVERNMENT

You answered: Religion should be kept separate from government policies

94%

72%

RACE AND IMMIGRATION

You answered: America’s openness to people from all over the world is essential to who we are as a nation

97%

66%

You answered: A lot more needs to be done to ensure equal rights for all Americans and most U.S. laws and major institutions need to be completely rebuilt because they are fundamentally biased against some racial and ethnic groups

71%

25%

You answered: It would not bother you at all to regularly hear people speak a language other than English in public places in your community

78%

38%

You answered: White people benefit at least a fair amount from advantages in society that Black people do not have

96%

57%

FOREIGN POLICY

You answered: The U.S. has gained more than it has lost from increased trade

20%

41%

You answered: There are other countries that are better than the U.S.

75%

23%

You answered: In the future, it would be acceptable if another country became as militarily powerful as the U.S.

83%

36%

PARTIES AND CANDIDATES

Thermometer ratings:

You rated Democrats 90.

Progressive Left, on average, rated Democrats 69. The general public, on average, rated Democrats46.

You rated Republicans 0.

Progressive Left, on average, rated Republicans 10. The general public, on average, rated Republicans 42.

You answered: I usually feel like there is at least one candidate who shares most of my views

83%

60%

OTHER ISSUES

You answered: Experts are usually better at making good policy decisions than other people

85%

61%

You answered: Business corporations make too much profit

93%

64%

You answered: People being too easily offended by things others say is a minor problem in the country today

57%

28%

You answered: People saying things that are very offensive to others is a major problem in the country today

63%

53%

You answered: Greater social acceptance of people who are transgender is good for society

88%

38%

You answered: Overall, people who are convicted of crimes in this country serve too much time in prison

81%

28%

You’ll undoubtedly notice that there are a few places where my opinion and those of the general population are way off balance. Let’s take a look at those.

Only 25% of people said that A lot more needs to be done to ensure equal rights for all Americans and most U.S. laws and major institutions need to be completely rebuilt because they are fundamentally biased against some racial and ethnic groups. What is in that statement that you do NOT agree with? Are you really satisfied with what’s being done to make sure everyone has the same rights, regardless of race, creed, religion, national origin, or sexual identification? REALLY? Because I’m not and a lot of the reason I’m not has to do with the inherent bias of most US laws and major institutions. Laws written by white men, for white men, and with complete disregard and disdain for anyone who is not a cis white male absolutely overwhelm this country and the society that we’ve created. I’ve said it before and I’ll take this opportunity to say it again: We need a new Constitution, one created by intelligent people who have an eye on the future and can see how our biases and phobias result in negative outcomes for marginalized people. If we do not have Liberty for each and every last person, we don’t have any Liberty at all!

Only 23% of people said that There are other countries that are better than the U.S. Wow, you’re letting your patriotism blind you. If you genuinely love this country, these United States, then you have to look honestly at the places where we’ve declined over the years and realize that there are a lot of countries that are doing things better than we are. Consider that we’re not in the top 10 in any of the following categories:

  • Health care
  • Influential culture
  • RELIGIOUS FREEDOM (we’re #11)
  • Well-distributed political power
  • Best country for women (#19)
  • Human rights
  • Racial equity
  • Gender equality
  • Committing to climate goals
  • Personal Safety
  • Environmental Quality

Would it help you to see this dismal picture as a graph? Fast Company happens to have put a couple together just for you. The first, for general comparison, is how the world as a whole is doing.

Now, look where the US ranks in addressing these issues:

Granted, 2016 is a little old on the data front, but the US has not improved at all! In fact, on factors such as how satisfied people are with their way of life, the US ranks down in the 30s, below Greece and Poland. So don’t go telling me that we’re the best country in the world. We’re not even close! We have tremendous room for improvement and plans such as Project 2025 would take us in the WRONG direction!

And then, only 28% of Americans think that overall, people who are convicted of crimes in this country serve too much time in prison. I’m just going to go ahead and assume that the 28% are people of color. I don’t see any way that anyone but white people, and I mean those of ya’ll who are so Caucasian that the sun reflects off you like a mirror, could ever be okay with the amount of time people spend in prison in this country.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any independent democracy in the world, and the highest rate of incarceration per capita and in absolute numbers of any country. As of the end of 2023, the U.S. had around 1.8 million people incarcerated, which is nearly 16% of the world’s total prison population, even though the U.S. only has 4% of the world’s population. The U.S. also has a higher percentage of incarcerated women than any other country, accounting for almost 30% of the world’s incarcerated women.

By comparison, China, where one can be jailed simply for thinking the wrong thing, only had 1.6 million people incarcerated.

But the question was specifically about how long a person is in jail. How do we rank there? According to Pew Charitable Trusts, the average amount of time that people spend in jail has been steadily increasing over the past decade. Just-released national data for 2020 shows a 6% jump in average length of stay over the previous year. The longer stays were primarily driven by people whose bail had been set at more than $5,000.

According to the Council on Criminal Justice, Comparisons of average sentence length for homicide shows that the U.S. has the longest sentences among nations at 40.6 years, compared to 34.2 years for Mexico (ranked second) and 6.1 for France. The higher average sentence length in the U.S. may partly reflect the fact that American policies allow for sentences exceeding 100 years. The U.S. holds a substantial portion (40%) of the world’s population of people serving life sentences, as well as the vast majority (83%) of those sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. While most jurisdictions with life sentencing laws have a provision for release, the amount of time people must serve before becoming eligible varies widely. In Belgium, Denmark, and Finland, it’s 12 years or less. In Georgia, it’s 30 years, and in Texas, it’s 40 years.

Do you think maybe we’re looking at this in the wrong way? JUST MAYBE?! How can we even begin to call this Just? We incarcerate so many people for so many years that jailing has become a big business! In what universe can anyone see that as Just? So yeah, I have a problem with how long people are in jail and I think that you should be as well!

Oh, and let’s not forget these gems:

  • “Black people had 220% higher odds of suffering a botched lethal injection execution than white people from 1976 to 2023.”
  • “The likelihood of a homicide clearance is 3.4 to 4.8 percent lower for homicides involving Black victims, and this race effect is slightly higher for males and that racial disparity has moderately but significantly increased over time.”
  • For Black and Hispanic or Latinx birthing people, residing in counties with greater jail incarceration inequity was associated with increased risk of… [severe maternal morbidity] compared with residing in low-inequity counties.
  • Extreme sentences for violent crimes and reliance on criminal histories as a basis for determining prison sentences are drivers of racial disparities in imprisonment.
  • These racial and ethnic disparities in police contact snowball as individuals traverse the criminal legal system. They also, as discussed below, reduce the perceived legitimacy of policing.
  • Black individuals account for 69% of police stops and 62% of individuals arrested; white people account for only 18% of police stops and 21% of arrests, despite the fact that Black and white people make up similar shares of the city’s population.

And that list goes on and on and on. How are we not ashamed of ourselves? How are we not knocking down the doors of our state and federal legislators to fix this problem? How do we fucking sleep at night knowing that we are responsible for some of the worst injustices in the world?

If we go by the line chart I posted at the beginning, roughly 45% of Americans are left of center. I don’t understand how that can be possible in one of the most highly educated populations in the world. Are we not paying attention or do we just not fucking care? I have to question why it is that so many people are either content with exactly the way things are or are willing to make matters significantly worse through the implementation of the horrible and wildly egregious ideas coming from disasters such as Project 2025.

In my mind, that only 6% of people in the US agree with me is mind-boggling. I don’t think that any of my positions are unsupported by fact. In fact, I know I could justify every last one of my answers on the survey. If the information is there, and if that information is readily available to everyone in the US, why are there so many people to the right of me?

I’m going to need all of you to do better. If you’re not sure where you are on the spectrum, take the test for yourself. Go ahead, I dare you. Then, see if you can factually justify your position. Let’s have this conversation and see where we end up.

I can’t be the only person who is this liberal. Where’s the rest of the six percent?

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Current Issues  /  Nature  /  News & Comment  /  Social Commentary
Time To Eliminate The Hoarders
April 9, 2024

Waiting For His Time [2004 original with AI background] Yes, we were that close.

Dreams are odd and unusual things that sometimes have a meaningful message and other times are nothing more than a series of bizarre images that have no noticeable relationship to real life. Sometimes, dreams are replaying events of the past, especially those one wishes they could change. Other times, dreams indulge in fantasies, things we might like to do if we didn’t have to suffer the consequences of doing them. Dreams are not trustworthy. Dreams are not predictable. They are glimpses into a part of our mind that science has yet to understand. So, when I dreamed of a movement to eliminate billionaires the hard way, I woke up trying to tell myself that it absolutely does not mean that I’m bloodthirsty.

In my dream, we (those faceless individuals with me) commandeered a submarine and torpedoed Jeff Bezos’ yacht. We (presumably the same group) then used a surface-to-air missile to take Elon Musk’s plane out of the sky at 30,000 feet (Is that even possible?). Immediately, the world started being a better place as the billions of dollars they hoarded were distributed more equitably through charities named in their wills. While their deaths were news for a moment, people quickly forgot all about them and went on about their business.

Reality would be much different, however. For all the calls to “eat the rich,” killing rich people isn’t sufficient to redistribute billions of dollars of wealth equitably. Billionaires have wills, trusts, and succession plans already in place to make sure that whoever comes behind them continues to build on the wealth they already have. Like fighting the legendary Hydra, cutting off one head only causes two more to pop up in its place. If we’re really going to put an end to billionaires, all of them, then we are going to need a much better plan, one that ensures money is getting to where it’s most needed.

First, let’s take a look at who, exactly, we’re talking about when we use the term billionaire. Forbes just updated their list last week. Consider who’s hoarding the most wealth.

  1. Bernard Arnault & family, the head of LVMH fashion and beauty powerhouse. They are sitting on $233 Billion in assets. While headquartered in France, their holdings are global.
  2. Elon Musk is riding high on $195 Billion despite having made a mess of the X platform and continually having recalls and missing deadlines with Tesla.
  3. Jeff Bezos is right behind Musk with $194 Billion and on any given day, depending on how the market fluctuates, they may trade places on the list.
  4. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg comes in with $177 Billion but he may also be one of the more vulnerable billionaires on the list as his stock value depends highly on mass public appeal that could turn on a dime at any moment. Stop using social media and he’s broke within a few months.
  5. Larry Ellison, the insane (literally) head of Oracle rounds out the top five with $141 Billion. Only because Oracle is a solid and proven product does the stock price withstand Ellison’s foot-in-mouth comments that are so bizarre he makes the 45th president sound sane by comparison. Fortunately, he’s not really in charge of the day-to-day operations.

The number of billionaires has increased by 141 over last year, up to 2,781 with an aggregate value of $14.2 trillion. The US has the most, by far. China comes in second and India third (up significantly from last year). It is almost impossible to wrap one’s head around how much money these people have. Let’s examine the obligatory comparisons.

  • It would only take $1.6 trillion to eradicate hunger on the entire planet by 2030 completely.
  • The UN doesn’t put a budget number on housing, but it would take only $20 billion to house everyone in the US. Extrapolating that out, housing everyone on the planet would only cost around $800 billion.
  • Educating everyone in the world through secondary school (12th grade) would only cost a little over $2 trillion. That’s every country, which would eliminate a great deal of the ignorance causing problems today.
  • Providing healthcare for everyone in the world would only be $2.2 trillion.

Excluding war, these are the four biggest problems addressing the world at the moment and they could all be completely eradicated by 2030 and our group of billionaires would still have more money than they can possibly spend. Think about that for a moment. All the world’s most critical needs can be met if the world’s billionaires would kindly get their heads out of their collective asses.

Apparently, all those billionaires need some incentive. The go-to response is that they need to be taxed. That sounds like it should be an easy solution. However, the US government wastes approximately .51 cents of every dollar on bureaucracy. Even at the most streamlined methods, it would still double the cost of any endeavor. Other countries are worse. Then, once the government has the money, there’s the fight over who gets how much. Inevitably, the military, which doesn’t need any more fucking money than it’s already getting, would be yelling and screaming for more and there are far too many politicians willing to give it them because of the pull the military-industrial complex has. Several billion would be lost to pork projects in individual states under the guise of “creating jobs.” The inefficiencies of government cause very little actual help to reach the people who need it.

A much more efficient way would be for the billionaires to get together and handle these matters themselves. They already have the people and the structure and, unlike governments, have reason to operate in the most efficient way possible. Think of all the good Chef Jose’ Andres is doing with World Central Kitchen and he isn’t a billionaire! These problems are fixable without involving governments and the solutions would almost certainly last longer and be more effective than any government-funded project would be.

The problem is, that billionaires don’t want to work together and don’t want to let go of the money they’ll never spend. The motivation has to come from people like us. We have a couple of choices: either we stop buying their products and dump their stocks (which puts more money in our own pockets), or… we start buying rocket launches and putting them to good use. How many billionaires do you think we’d have to blow out of the sky before they got the hint?

Before you get all self-righteous about murder being wrong, stop and think about the degree to which billionaires who could help world problems and don’t, are accessories in the deaths of millions of people who die because they didn’t have enough food, protection from the elements, enough education to survive, or sufficient access to healthcare. MILLIONS of people that they could and should be helping.

There is a moral responsibility we all have to help those in need. Hoarding wealth in extreme amounts does not excuse anyone from that responsibility. Knowing that you could completely eradicate an inhuman condition and doing nothing more than throwing pennies at it (donations less than $100,000,000) makes you just as inhumane. Billionaires are the real animals in our society, and yes, that includes the ones you like.

This all brings to mind the French Revolution and the solution they found for the inhumanity of the rich: cut off their heads. The advantage of using rocket launchers is that you don’t have to get as close to the filth.

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Current Issues  /  News & Comment
Flagrant Foul
March 23, 2017

Mistakes are inevitable but intentional harm is inexcusable

 

charles i. letbetter - flagrant foul

The Short Version

Flagrant fouls are part of college basketball and a game can turn on a last-minute call. Sometimes it’s good strategy but it comes with risks. Acts of terrorism, political malfeasance, and the whims of the universe can also come with flagrant fouls of their own. Perhaps, like basketball, we should get a free throw when those happen. Something good to counter the bad.

More To The Story

[dropcap]One of the things that make the month of March endurable is the NCAA basketball tournament. I like basketball up through the college level. The players work hard, develop their skills, and learn to work as a team. Anything can happen on any given night during this tournament. South Carolina can take down a perennial powerhouse like Duke. Wisconsin can eliminate top-seeded Villanova. The excitement is palpable.[/dropcap]

Games can turn around, though, when someone does something questionable and intentionally fouls a player from the opposite team. Strategically, this can be a smart move at the end of a very close game. Intentionally fouling a weak player puts them on the free throw line instead of allowing them to pass the ball to a strong player who might make a three-point shot. Putting a weak player on the line holds the possibility of getting the ball back without giving up any points. Depending on the team and the player fouled, the strategy can give an edge to a team that’s only losing by one point.

A flagrant foul at the wrong time, however, can kill a victory. We saw that happen a couple of times last week in close games. A flagrant foul call against a Seton Hall player in their match against Arkansas almost certainly cost them the game. There has been a lot of debate, especially by Seton Hall fans, over whether the call was justified. Did young Desi Rodriguez really intend to commit the foul or did momentum make the contact inevitable? Referees at the game said the action violated the rules against pushing from behind (NCAA men’s basketball Rule 4; Section 15; Article 2.c.2). The action caused Arkansas’ Jaylen Barford to fall forward, losing his balance. Fortunately, Mr. Barford was not hurt, but the potential was certainly there.

Flagrant fouls in sports are part of the game. We expect them at certain points and there are times it can be a good strategy despite being a clear violation of the rules. However, we too frequently see the same strategy of flagrant fouling outside of basketball and when that occurs, the results are not nearly so entertaining and someone almost always gets hurt.

Terrorism would be a good example. What happened yesterday (22 March) in London was unquestionably a flagrant foul. One person’s deliberate and planned actions cost the lives of five people and injured some 20 others.  The act was not only an offense to the people of London and the UK, but to the entire world. Civilized society does not tolerate the deliberate targeting of innocent people. Foul. Take the responsible persons out of the game.

Flagrant fouls happen in politics all the time. Again, there are times when a deliberate breaking of the rules can be a good strategy, such as when Congressman John Lewis led a sit-in on the floor of the House of Representatives last Spring. He brought attention to a critical issue that Congress was attempting to ignore. At other times, however, such actions can be devastating for justice, the rule of law, and the American people.

One of the most recent examples would be Rep. Devin Nunes assertions late yesterday that communications between the president-elect and his staff might have been “inadvertently” caught up in intelligence officials’ monitoring of other targets. Such a statement from the chair of the house intelligence committee was a foul in a couple of different ways. First, the chair was speaking to the press about information the full intelligence committee had not yet seen or discussed, a clear violation of House rules. Second, there is every possibility that the information the Congressman gave to the press was, in part, classified. A direct violation of law.

Who loses in a situation such as this? Justice. The American people. The statements by the Congressman undermine TWO ongoing Congressional investigation, one of which has severe implications regarding the interference of Russians in the US elections last fall. Such deliberate and calculated carelessness underscores the need for an independent, non-partisan investigation into both matters. Congressman Nunes needs to be removed from the intelligence game for such a flagrant foul.

Another flagrant foul would be the threats the administration and Congressional leadership have put on Members of Congress to pass the health care law scheduled for a vote today. GOP leaders and the president have been heavy-handed in their threats to members who have voiced opposition to the bill. The implication of those threats is that the party and/or the administration will “punish” those who vote against the bill. What this administration and party leadership seem to forget is that neither of them owns or control the votes of any member of Congress. Representatives are there to express the voice of their constituents. Failure on the part of a Congressperson to do so is a severe dereliction of duty. The foul is a strategical move by a losing team grasping at straws.

The strategy may well end up going against the administration and result in losing the vote. As of this morning, the Freedom Caucus, which is composed of extreme-right GOP members of Congress, still opposes the health bill. Should they, as a bloc, vote against the bill, it would not pass. The extreme right are not the only ones opposed to the bill, though. Consider the opinion of Senator Lindsey Graham:

There is a caveat here that Congressional votes such as this often come down to the wire as deals are made with individual members of Congress. Yet, getting back on point, the flagrant foul of attempting to overtly threaten Members of Congress is still wrong and, hopefully, contributes to the defeat of the bill.

I could continue to list other flagrant fouls on the part of the administration, but there is a point here at which such accusations feel redundant and fail to serve the point. I suppose, bringing the story back around to our original example, in some ways the administration’s propensity toward misbehavior is like Duke’s Grayson Allen intentionally tripping other players at the beginning of the season. The situation became so bad that Duke had to suspend Allen for several games and the ACC officially reprimanded him for his behavior. The difference is that we can’t just suspend the president for a few weeks. Even if Congress were to grow some balls and reprimand the president for his behavior, it would almost certainly have no effect.

Life throws flagrant fouls at us as well. Repeated trips to the doctor over the past two weeks have tripled the number of medicine bottles on my shelf. With so much medicine comes a wave of side effects and those are the flagrant fouls that leave me unable to stay focused, dealing with increased levels of pain and confusion. The effects are supposed to be temporary, according to the doctor, but the results, for now, are frustrating and debilitating to a large degree. Add to that forced changes in what I eat and how I live and I most certainly think the universe deserves to be whistled for the foul.

I know many of you have felt the same.

In basketball, when one is fouled, one gets a free shot. With a flagrant foul, you not only get the free throws, you get to retain possession of the ball. I think the universe needs to institute such a penalty. For everything bad that happens, for every terrorist incident or every political misappropriation of power, something of equal or potentially greater good has to happen. The two children of Ayshe Frade, whose mother was killed in yesterday’s Westminster attack, deserve for the rest of their lives to be blissful in exchange for the horrendously flagrant foul committed against them. The American people deserve an all-inclusive single-payer healthcare system that cannot be tampered with by Congress.

And me? I just want to be able to take pictures without worrying about forgetting the appointment or becoming ill in the middle of a shoot or having pain affect the quality of my pictures. I’ll take those free throws, thank you.

And against the odds, we’re pulling for Butler against North Carolina tomorrow night. This is what makes March so mad.

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Current Issues  /  Fashion  /  News & Comment
Show Some Compassion
March 18, 2017
charles i. letbetter - show some compassion

Humanity demands compassion but the president isn’t listening

 

charles i. letbetter - show some compassion

The Short Version

After White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney referred to the president’s budget proposal as “fairly compassionate” this week, many were offended by the characterization because of the severe cuts to social programs. But when we look at what compassion actually encompasses, many of our own lives have room for improvement as well. As we demand more compassion from our government, perhaps now is the time to demand more from ourselves as well.

What We’re Talking About

Compassion is a basic human moral value that is embraced by every major religion and progressive philosophy for the past 4,000 years. Broad in its reach and interpretation, compassion requires one to think outside themselves, to consider strongly not only the needs of others but how one’s own actions affect other people. Compassion requires forgiveness, inclusiveness, and acceptance. Compassion requires giving of oneself to the point of personal sacrifice. Compassion requires setting aside what might make sense in order to do what is right toward another human being, or even the planet. Compassion puts lives before profit and before power. Compassion does not have a bottom line.

Embraced by every major religion in the world, the Christian bible requires feeding one’s enemy (Romans 12:20), and being forgiving, kind, and thoughtful (Ephesians 4:32). The Quran teaches Muslims to “compete with each other in doing good (Surat al-Ma’ida, 48).” The Hindu god Vishnu is motivated by compassion and incarnates to bring compassion to an unbalanced world. The Talmud requires compassion from those who would seek compassion. Nearly every belief system in the world, spiritual or secular, adheres to some form of the “Golden Rule:” Do unto others as you would have done to you.

Against such a background, we can confidently state that to not show compassion is globally immoral. The overriding question, though, is how much compassion is enough? White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney calls the president’s budget proposal “fairly compassionate” because, he alleges, taxpayer money is only used “in a proper function.” That statement has received considerable backlash, however, as many of the cuts proposed by the White House would spell an end to some of the most compassionate programs that exist. In fact, between the budget and the proposed health care law, the current administration and Republicans in Congress do not appear to have any concern for compassion at all. Between the two bills, these are just some of the items that could be eliminated or severely reduced.

  • Various programs that make up the system of support for expecting mothers and children known as WIC
  • The Community Development Block Grant program that allows states to identify and address specific social needs within communities
  • After-school care programs that provide critical meals to the children of working parents
  • The Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant that provides assistance for low-income college students
  • Subsidies that help lower-income people pay for out-of-pocket health care costs
  • The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program that helps lower-income people pay utility bills especially during times of extreme temperatures
  • $80 billion in Medicaid funding for disabled, poor, and elderly Americans
  • The Legal Services Corporation that provides low-income assistance for civil cases, such as acquiring restraining orders for victims of domestic abuse
  • $1 billion in funding for CDC Prevention and Public Health Fund that supports heart disease and stroke prevention, immunization, lead poisoning prevention and diabetes prevention
  • The Corporation for National and Community Service supporting community-based programs such as AmeriCorp and others
  • Dental, Vision, and Mental health care for low-income children

I dare anyone to sufficiently explain how any of those programs are not “a proper function.” Compassion requires that we offer all the assistance we can to the poor, the sick, the homeless, and the underprivileged. There is no profit/loss line to the budget of compassion. One does not measure compassion based on an action’s return on investment (ROI). One cannot even measure compassion based on the success or failure of a program. Compassion is exercising our resources to meet a need. When it comes to compassion, it is better to have dome something and failed than to have done nothing at all.

Compassion requires we look outside ourselves, even outside our own country. The entire concept of “America first” lacks compassion as it ignores the needs of seven billion people world to focus on the narrow needs of some 376 million people in the United States. We cannot call ourselves compassionate if we support and implement programs that remove funding for international aid simply so that we can build an ill-conceived wall across a portion of our Southern border.

For example, yesterday (March 17) was Match Day for doctoral students graduating colleges this spring. This is where the soon-to-be-physicians find out where they will be doing their residency and what communities they’ll be serving. Of course, everyone wants the elite hospitals, but the truth is that all the graduates from all the medical schools in the US are not enough to fill all the residency vacancies. As a result, we have, for many years now, been dependent on foreign doctors to help take up the slack. Without those additional physicians, there would be gaping holes of service, especially in family-oriented fields of general practice. However, the president’s travel ban stands to severely limit the number of doctors who are able to apply for residency in the United States. Not only are doctors from the six directly affected countries prohibited from applying, doctors from other countries are finding their visas under increased scrutiny, delaying or eliminating their ability to accept much-needed medical positions in the US.

Let’s cut this down to reality here: for every doctor who is denied entry to the US, an entire community of Americans has less access to health care. Show me the compassion in such a program.

What strikes me, though, is that perhaps our elected officials fail to show compassion in the legislation they author is, consciously or not, they don’t consider their constituents to be compassionate people. Part of the momentum that drove populists into important positions in the past election is an overwhelming message of selfishness. As a nation, we voted for what we thought best served our personal interest. We didn’t care how our decisions might affect other people. We didn’t care who might be hurt as long as it wasn’t us. Our votes sent a horribly selfish message to Washington and they have responded based on that selfishness.

We need a government steeped in compassion. However, we must first be more compassionate ourselves. We’re talking about more than just dipping into our pockets a bit more. As a nation, we’ve been stuck on this trend of giving approximately two percent of our national GDP for some time now. This makes us look better than we actually are. As the economy improves, so does the dollar amount that we’re giving. However, as a percentage of our income, we’re not actually giving any more. Add to that the fact that 32% of our giving goes to religious entities, of which less than three percent is distributed to social needs, and what we’re doing to help other people is, in reality, much less than we think.

There are opportunities to be compassionate everywhere we look. Just this morning, I was reading about rainforest-free clothing. Now, as a caveat, I have to say that I really don’t like rayon fabric myself, but I understand that for certain garments it is much more cost effective than silk or satin. That aside, though, when we purchase garments made with rayon and support fashion labels who don’t carefully source the fabric, we’re ultimately doing harm to communities dependent on the rainforests for their livelihood. While it’s great that labels such as Victoria’s Secret and Stella McCartney have started eliminating those fabrics from their collections, it is up to us to consciously decide to exercise compassion in choosing rainforest-free clothing.

What we do with our cast-off clothing is anther opportunity for compassion as well. While it is easy enough for us to just dump our closet rejects at the local second-hand facility, the more compassionate move is to work directly with those organizations that interface with giving away clothes to the poor. By avoiding the more corporate entities with huge overhead costs, we can get more clothes to the people who really need them rather than giving Millennials and others an inexpensive way to fund a trendy lifestyle.

Compassion often requires us to make difficult decisions, such as not seeking the death penalty despite pressure to do so, or allowing the terminally ill to die of their own accord without any interference. We don’t like issues surrounding death and often find it difficult to determine where compassion is best applied. Do we act in benefit of those who would die, or do we act for the benefit of those who still live? Compassion is not always an easy or popular choice.

Compassion also leads us to care for the mentally ill and this is where we need to pay special attention because I firmly believe that .many other social issues such as unemployment and homelessness are directly affected by undiagnosed and untreated mental illness. Our country has never recognized and funded treatment for mental illness at anywhere near the levels necessary to have a serious impact on other social challenges. We too often think that mental illness is something that is made up or contrived or created to manipulate a system. However, over 42 million Americans, by conservative estimates, suffer from some form of mental illness, whether it be depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia. If we were to be totally honest about veteran PTSD rates, the number would likely double.

Compassion for the mentally ill is challenging because when we get serious about treatment, many would do best with in-patient care but there are not enough facilities, not enough doctors and nowhere near enough funding to meet the inevitable need. Compassion is also complicated by the fact that, for many diagnoses, intervention and care has to be done at a professional level. There are times when the best we can do is to insist someone get professional help and make sure that happens.

For example, let’s take someone who is overtly paranoid and believing that important people are out to “get” them, someone who also lies on a regular basis without any reason for doing so, someone who exaggerates facts, and who lashes out at perceived criticism, someone whose sense of reality is off-base to the point of creating danger. Compassion for this person means not only providing appropriate psychiatric care but removing them from the situations that fuel and perpetuate their psychosis. Compassion also demands that we prevent this person from taking any action that might cause harm to themselves or others, either directly or indirectly. Compassion also requires severing the co-dependent relationships that facilitate the psychosis and allow it to continue.

We all know someone like that. We elected him to office.

We are required to be compassionate. To not be compassionate is immoral.

So, consider what you need to do. Be compassionate and then encourage Congress to do the same.

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Current Issues  /  News & Comment  /  video
5 Things You Should Know: 01.05.2017
January 5, 2017
charles i. letebtter - 5 Things You Should 01-05-17Know

04:49:47 01/05/2017

https://youtu.be/x07M8GYJjRQ

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Going back to bed is still an option

charles i. letebtter - 5 Things You Should 01-05-17Know

Wow, here it is Thursday already and this morning is not getting off to a good start. There’s snow on the roads here in central Indiana and already that snow appears to have claimed its first life in a vehicle accident quite literally just up the road from us. There’s more coming in, so be aware that there are slick spots all over, especially at intersections this morning. The chance of snow continues throughout the day so please be careful if you must be out.

The world is not looking to be an especially friendly place this morning as over 100 prisoners escaped from a Phillipinne jail, the impeachment trial for South Korea’s president is underway, and Chicago police have arrested four people who live streamed a kidnapping. Rather makes you wonder if the entire world has lost its freakin’ mind, doesn’t it? We have 5 things you need to know, but hang on, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

 

The train stops here

charles i. letebtter - 5 Things You Should 01-05-17Know

The Long Island Railway is the busiest commuter railway in the United States, carrying over 300,000 passengers daily. If you are one of those who uses this train to get back and forth to work in New York and Brooklyn, you know how crowded it can be during rush hours. People pack as tightly as possible into the cars, hoping to not get stuck next to someone wearing too much perfume. Those packed conditions likely contributed to over 100 people being injured when the train crashed into a bumper block and partially derailed as it pulled into Brooklyn’s Atlantic Terminal yesterday morning1.

Fortunately, none of the injuries were considered life-threatening and most of the hysteria seems to have come from the fear of not being able to escape overcrowded cars. The train had already slowed for its approach to the station, but the partial derailing was still serious enough that a rail punctured the bottom of one of the cars. Somewhere between 600-700 people were on the train when it came to an abrupt stop. The most serious injury recorded so far is a broken leg.

What’s not so clear still this morning is exactly what caused the accident. The Metropolitan Transit Authority is initially looking at the train’s driver, who says that it was the driver’s responsibility to stop the train, but no one knows yet why that didn’t happen. Trains are an integral part of the New York transit system, so expect a full investigation here. If the fault were individual or mechanical, it will no doubt be corrected as quickly as possible to prevent a repeat of yesterday’s chaos.

 

Hey Doc, I’m feeling a pain in the ass

charles i. letebtter - 5 Things You Should 01-05-17Know

If anyone had the displeasure of walking around the United States Capitol yesterday, they likely saw some rather disturbing protest signs that read, “Make America Sick Again.” The people carrying the signs were, of course, protesting Republican legislation that would largely dismantle the Affordable Care Act created under President Obama’s administration. The lines were drawn yesterday as both President Obama and Vice President-elect Mike Pence lobbied lawmakers regarding the set of health care laws2.

We knew this fight was coming and we don’t expect it to be over anytime soon. While repealing the Affordable Care Act was one of the things that brought Republicans to power in this Congress, the challenge before them is how to actually live up to that promise without leaving millions of Americans stranded without insurance and healthcare providers looking for payments that may not be coming. For his part, President Obama has been urging Democratic legislators to vehemently oppose any changes to the law, using whatever parliamentary procedures necessary to prevent a vote. After six years of complete obstruction, Republicans may be about to feel what it’s like to be on the other end of partisan politics.

Among the items that were proposed yesterday are repealing the individual mandate, which has been immensely unpopular, capping funding for Medicare, basing tax credits on age rather than income, which would shift more credits to older people who currently have none but could leave younger people with less income stranded, and allowing insurers to sell across state lines3. None of these are likely to become law without a significant fight in both houses of Congress. I’m sure this is just the first time we’ll talk about the issue. It’s not going away.

 

When free speech disrupts the economy

charles i. letebtter - 5 Things You Should 01-05-17Know

Just as the US Congress is getting back to work this week, so too are state lawmakers who often have a habit of introducing legislation that, while limited to their own state, is important because of how it could potentially spread if not found unconstitutional. One of those laws was introduced this week in the Washington State legislature where Sen. Doug Ericksen introduced legislation that would increase penalties for economic disruption from a misdemeanor to a felony with up to five years’ imprisonment4.

Exactly what is Ericksen upset about? Well, remember all those protests that occurred after the election last November? One of the nation’s largest was in Seattle, where thousands of people took to the streets to protest the electoral outcome. One of the consequences to those protests was that stores were not able to open or conduct business as usual. The Senator, and those who think like him, see this as economic disruption and their intent is to hold someone responsible for events such as this.

This is kind of scary because it very blatantly flies in the face of that little line in the US Constitution that prohibits “abridging … the right of people to peaceably assemble.” What Ericksen is going to argue is that such protests are not “peaceable.” Windows are sometimes broken. Looting sometimes occurs. What he’s looking to do, however, is shut down vocal opposition by threatening event leaders with imprisonment and a felony record. I cannot emphasize how every dangerous it is that such a law was even introduced. Watch this one closely, and don’t be afraid to protest.

 

A bit of good news

charles i. letebtter - 5 Things You Should 01-05-17Know

If there is an apparent bit of good news, it is that Americans are buying a lot of new vehicles. For the second year in a row, US car and truck sales have set a record, this time some 18.4 million of them, an increase of 0.4 percent over 20155. This would seem to be proof that America’s economy is genuinely stronger than has been perceived. The average price for a new vehicle is somewhere in the neighborhood of $35,000. That means a lot of people are spending considerably more than that. When one factors in the interest on a standard five-year loan, what we’re actually spending on those new cars is north of $100,000.

Of course, for the economy, this appears to be very good news. Stock prices for GM, Ford, and Toyota, the new “big 3” in American auto sales, were all up yesterday, as were a number of other car manufacturers. The best-selling vehicle continues to be the Ford F-150 pickup, and pickups, in general, are still the best-selling class. While December sales involved some very heavy discounts, on average around $4,000, GM says that per-vehicle sales, even with discounts, were still up some $740 from the month before.

Major sales such as automobiles are key economic indicators that not only show that we’re willing to spend money, but that we have enough confidence in the economy to make a long-term commitment. While some economists had expected a slowdown toward the end of last year, that doesn’t appear to be happening. The good news wasn’t so good for Fiat Chrysler, however, as sales there slid ten percent. Not everyone gets to be a winner.

 

And then the bad news

charles i. letebtter - 5 Things You Should 01-05-17Know

While we’re busy buying a lot of trucks, what we’re not buying are clothes and pots and pans from major retailers. Two retail giants, both Macys6 and Sears7 announced significant store closings yesterday in the face of continued declines and an absolutely horrible sales drop in the month of December. Macys is closing 68 stores by the end of the year and Sears will be shuttering some 108 Kmart stores and 42 Sears stores by April. This is on top of additional closings both stores had announced last year.

Additionally, Kohl’s says its sales were down dramatically as well, but they have yet to announce any store closings. The general retail sector as a whole took a huge hit in the last quarter of the year, with Black Friday and other holiday sales failing to generate the level of revenue generally expected during the final month of the year. Online sales and sales at niche boutiques are getting a lot of the blame for the woes at traditional retailers, with even discounters such as Wal-Mart showing slower sales than the same period last year.

This probably says something about American’s priorities that we’re buying big-ticket items like trucks and SUVs but not so much clothes and household items. We’re much more willing to hold on to the clothes and things we already have while the improved safety and fuel conservation of newer vehicles seems to be a particular draw. Where we’re spending, we are still being very careful to justify our purchases.

 

And that’s all we have time and space for today. We’re keeping a close eye on everything going on, including Congress and the weather. As always, no matter where you are, if you have to be out, please be safe. We’ll do the same and be back here with more stuff you should know tomorrow.

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science  /  Social Commentary
Creatives & Addiction: Rethinking Our Approach
October 22, 2016

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism. —Carl Jung

 

charles i. letbetter - creative & addiction: re-thinking our approach

Recent changes in the definition of addiction should have us re-thinking how we respond to addicts. [photo concept and makeup by Sasha Starz]

I’m not sugar-coating this one for you: addiction among creatives is too common and too frequently undiagnosed. Even when it is diagnosed, it has previously been almost impossible to “cure.” Some handle it better than others, but we’ve lost too many, from Janis Joplin to Amy Winehouse and, apparently, even Prince. And those are just the names you recognize. I’ve seen addiction in photographers old and young, ruining creative lives before their full vision is ever realized. Writers seem to be especially prone to addiction. I’ve had several tell me they couldn’t even start to write without being high or being drunk.

I’ve always taken a hard line in my attitude toward addicts. I don’t like them. I don’t want them around. Addiction is something I’ve always seen as a weakness, a fundamental flaw in one’s character. If you know you have a problem with something, stay away. Understanding how anything can control someone to such a fatal degree is not something I’ve been able to do. I try to be sympathetic for those struggling, but I tend to blame them for their own problems.

Now, the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM)  has me re-thinking my disdain for addicts. As it turns out, taking such a hard line has probably been exactly the opposite of what those people have needed. Shoving them into rehab facilities might not have been as productive as we thought. 12-step groups could possibly be completely misdirected.

Maybe we were all wrong.

A New Definition

Addiction is a chronic brain disorder and not simply a behavior problem involving alcohol, drugs, gambling or sex.  That’s the direction the ASAM is now taking in regard to addiction. Stop and think about that for a moment. Addiction is a chronic brain disorder. Let that sink in. All these years, we’ve been looking at addiction as a character flaw, perhaps a psychological psychosis brought about by some childhood trauma or something. We have ultimately looked at addiction as a choice one makes and faulted them for making that choice.

Here’s the first part of the ASAM’s short definition of addiction:

Addiction is a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry. Dysfunction in these circuits leads to characteristic biological, psychological, social and spiritual manifestations. This is reflected in an individual pathologically pursuing reward and/or relief by substance use and other behaviors.

Make special note of the use of the word “chronic.” That’s important. “Chronic” puts addiction is the same class as heart disease and diabetes. “Chronic” means that it’s not going to go away. Either one deals with addiction their entire life, religiously, continually, or they risk dying. There is no cure. There is only treatment and without that treatment, the disease gets worse.

Obviously, there’s some disagreement with this definition. Therapeutical psychologists, the folks who make their living getting one to lie on their couch at $500 an hour, don’t care much for this definition because it means their attempts to treat addiction as a psychosis is misdirected. One is not an addict because their father slapped them when they were four-years-old or because they didn’t get the bicycle they wanted when they were seven. Instead, genetic factors are responsible about half the time. We’ve been looking at this totally wrong.

A Personal Story

Mark Cummings was one of the best young photographers I ever knew. We first met out on assignment, both of us covering the same event for different entities. He was sharp, funny, and had an incredible eye for seeing things that everyone else was missing. He noticed, for example, that one particular Senator from Oklahoma always had his shoes untied. Always. He caught the look of burnout in a young pop star whose label was pushing her too hard. Mark infuriated editors because he didn’t capture the image they wanted to see. Instead, he captured a dark reality that was unnerving.

Mark also had an addiction to alcohol. He carried a flask of whiskey in his camera bag. Always. He would have another in his car, a third in his suitcase, and kept a bottle hidden in his office. Mark started the day with  a shot of whiskey in his coffee, then dropped the coffee by 10. In the three years that I knew him, I don’t think I ever saw him sober. He was functional. He took fantastic pictures. Mark Cummings was never sober.

Cummings wasn’t one to admit he’d had too much. Truth was, most days he was over the legal blood alcohol limit by noon. One evening, after being yelled at for over an hour by his editor for “wasting” five rolls of film and not getting anything printable, Mark was “extra thirsty.” When I saw him, he was already six glasses in. I stayed for two more and tried to get him to share the cab ride home with me. He wouldn’t leave.

I received the phone call early the next day. About three hours after I left, and who knows how much more whiskey, Mark put his head down on the bar, fell off his bar stool, and died from alcohol poisoning. Another brilliant photographer, gone.

Understanding The Problem

Again, quoting from the long definition of addiction from the ASAM:

 Addiction affects neurotransmission and interactions within reward structures of the brain, including the nucleus accumbens, anterior cingulate cortex, basal forebrain and amygdala, such that motivational hierarchies are altered and addictive behaviors, which may or may not include alcohol and other drug use, supplant healthy, self-care related behaviors. Addiction also affects neurotransmission and interactions between cortical and hippocampal circuits and brain reward structures, such that the memory of previous exposures to rewards (such as food, sex, alcohol and other drugs) leads to a biological and behavioral response to external cues, in turn triggering craving and/or engagement in addictive behaviors.

Understand, two decades of neurological research have gone into formulating this definition. Mark, along with every other creative addict we’ve known, was repeatedly told he had “a problem.” What he should have been told was that he had a neurological disease, one for which there is no cure, only treatment. I can’t say that would have saved Mark. He was stubborn, as a log of addicts are. It would  have, however, made a difference in how everyone responded to him.

The causes of addiction are worth noting as well. Again, from ASAM:

When persons with addiction manifest problems in deferring gratification, there is a neurological locus of these problems in the frontal cortex. Frontal lobe morphology, connectivity and functioning are still in the process of maturation during adolescence and young adulthood, and early exposure to substance use is another significant factor in the development of addiction. Many neuroscientists believe that developmental morphology is the basis that makes early-life exposure to substances such an important factor.

There’s a lot more that I encourage you to read on the ASAM website.

Our Response Is Part Of The Solution

Dr. Michael Miller, past president of ASAM who oversaw the development of the new definition, states, “… we have to stop moralizing, blaming, controlling or smirking at the person with the disease of addiction, and start creating opportunities for individuals and families to get help and providing assistance in choosing proper treatment.”

When I think of all the times we’ve gotten it wrong, I want to cry. We blamed Mark for being a drunk, for not taking responsibility for his “habit.” His boss tried to control Mark’s drinking by pairing him with writers who would confiscate any alcohol they found. People would laugh at him when he couldn’t stand or took pictures too blurred to tell what they were. Every last one of those responses was wrong.

We have to change our way of thinking about addiction. If someone has a stroke you don’t laugh at them, do you? Should a friend you’re with suddenly have a heart attack, are you going to tell them they need to do something about that problem and walk away? No, you help them get help. Addicts are exactly the same. While the choice to get help is ultimately their own, we have to guide them toward professionals who genuinely understand the problem. While a 12-step program might help, they need a lot more than just a weekly meeting or two.

The ASAM states:

Recovery from addiction is best achieved through a combination of self-management, mutual support, and professional care provided by trained and certified professionals.

Each year, we lose too many wonderfully creative people to addiction. Help them get help. The ASAM can help connect you or a friend with the appropriate professional. Let’s stop treating addiction as just “a problem” and treat it like the disease that it is. Let’s do more to save our addicted friends. The world needs their creativity.

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Current Issues  /  PotD
Taking Over The World
May 3, 2016

The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do. —Sarah Ban Breathnach

 

charles i. letbetter - taking over the world

Taking over the world may be as simple as taking one single action: voting

One of my favorite cartoons ever originated the same year my oldest son was born. Warner Brothers’ Animaniacs holds a place of nostalgic importance within our family for many reasons, but one of those is the concept that anyone with the right determination, effort, and a little luck, might take over the world. Where did we get that idea? Pinky and the Brain. In every episode, Pinky asks, “What are we going to do tonight, Brain?” and Brain answers, “The same thing we do every night, Pinky, try to take over the world.” They’re mice, and more than once they come quite close to succeeding.

Given the interconnectedness and interdependencies among nations, taking over the world is probably a more realistic goal now than it ever has been. The solution is rather simple and I’m not the only who has noticed, I’m sure. Affect the stock market in one major country and watch all the others respond in kind. This makes gaining economic control easy. World food supplies are largely controlled by a handful of companies. Control the food supply and you control people. The entire world, including governments and the global power grid, are connected by computers.  One well-written virus and you control who has electricity and who doesn’t.

Perhaps most frightening is the realization that one intelligent individual could probably achieve that level of control without the aid or knowledge of their own government. Fortunately, controlling a stock market and the global food supply requires a substantial form of capital and not many people have access to that wealth. Still, it is a very real danger. Who has access to that kind of wealth and power?

The President of the United States.

Whether we like it or not, we cannot deny that the US is a global power and that the decisions made here affect events and people around the world. For example, the United States is the sole source for a number of life-saving drugs. Should we decide to shut down production of those drugs, especially those for fighting diseases like Ebola and Malaria, the results could be devastating on a global scale.  Were our government to enact a policy that makes it impossible for international companies to make a profit in the US, the global economy, including our own, would crash overnight. Where we decide to put troops affects the safety and well-being of millions of people. Pull the Marines from Okinawa and that region of the world would almost certainly collapse as North Korea’s insane leadership would see that as an opportunity to assert domination.

The President could affect all of those situations and more.

When we’re considering for whom we are going to vote, or whether we’re going to vote, our tendency is to look at domestic issues, specifically, “What’s best for me?”  As such, our vision tends to be incredibly short-sighted. We too often want a President who will encourage and enact policies we think will make our lives better, even if it is to the detriment of someone else. We are as selfish in our voting as we are in our use of money.

What might have a greater effect on our longevity and quality of life, however, is how we relate to the world. Even our domestic policies such as health care and minimum wage affect things such as immigration and foreign investment. We like to think we’re all big and mighty and powerful on our own, but the fact is we hold a lot of debt and in many ways are just as dependent on other countries as they are dependent on us.

One of the first stories to slap me in the face this morning is evidence that Syria’s President al-Assad is coordinating efforts with Daesh.  This is bad news for the entire world as Syria appears to be directly funding terrorism. Both the economic and military strength of the United States are principal aspects in stopping this atrocity.

Oh, and there’s more evidence that China’s economy lacks a solid foundation. China influences the US economy in three ways: investment, debt, and trade. Should their economy crash, they could easily take down ours and the European Union at the same time. US foreign policy is critical in helping keep the Chinese economy stable.

Then, there’s the increasingly worrisome matter of North Korea. Not only have they now limited movement in and out of Pyongyang, but they’ve banned weddings, funerals, and any other form of assembly ahead of their party congress next week. This increases speculation that the country may attempt a nuclear demonstration during the event. Even North Korea’s one reluctant ally, China, is depending upon US intelligence information in helping to form an international response should the rogue nation decide to do something stupid.

The United States is tied to events all over the world, which makes the US president a key component in how those events are resolved. While we don’t need a president who is going to be overly aggressive and intimidating toward foreign leaders, we also don’t need someone who fucks it all up with a religious-based ideology or a hesitant approach to taking action. We are dogged by the hindsight that had we taken a more forward and active role in foreign matters prior to WWII, we might have prevented at least some of the atrocities committed in both theaters of that war. We don’t have to like being a world power, but the world depends on us stepping up and taking that responsibility.

Okay, so maybe it’s a stretch to say that the US rules the world entirely. We have our vulnerabilities. Still, whoever we elect as President wields incredible power over the lives not only of Americans but the seven billion plus citizens of this planet. We should take extra care in deciding how we’re going to cast our ballots. After all, Pinky, we know taking over the world is possible. We need to be careful about which lab mouse we select to do so.

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Advertising
Everyone Wants Your Money
January 25, 2016
charles i. letbetter - everyone wants your money

Money and women are the most sought after and the least known about of any two things we have.—Will Rogers

 

charles i. letbetter - everyone wants your money

By 2017, Millennials will have more buying power than any other generation in the industrialization era

Everyone is after the Millennials and their money. As a group, Millennials have replaced the Baby Boomer generation as being the most attractive to advertisers. They are more likely to have expendable income and both their earning and buying power is just beginning to grow. Brands that lock in Millennials as repeat customers now are likely to enjoy a long purchasing relationship in the future.

The challenge is that Millennials have a very different outlook on the world than did my generation when we were their age. Therefore, they don’t respond to the same form of advertising and marketing campaigns that have worked before. Ad agencies get this because, no big surprise here, a large portion of their creative staffs are Millennials. Convincing their clients of the need to change, however, is not always easy. Some get it, some don’t.

Among those who seem to understand the need to market differently to Millennials is MillerCoors. Sure, it’s no big surprise that Millennials like beer; in many ways they have fueled the craft beer boom almost single-handedly. The traditional big-volume beer sellers have struggled, though, in no large part due to the fact that Millennials don’t like mass-market beer. As a result, we see companies such as MillerCoors looking to smaller agencies like Mekanism to create campaigns tailored specifically to the Millennial, such as this one:

Among the things worth noting about this ad:

  • it’s short. 16 seconds is all the time it takes to make their point. Millennials tend to not have long attention spans and a 30-second commercial is likely to be overkill.
  • it’s real. Millennials are hitting their childbearing years and responding to that natural desire. However, these are not super-young 20-something couples; they’re older, more mature, which is common among this and subsequent generations.
  • it’s not sexy. No girls in bikinis, no buff guys in baby oil. While the couples are reasonably attractive, Millennials don’t respond to over-sexualized images the way that Boomers did.
  • it shows a reasonable income bracket. No large pool, no large house. Millennials want homes, but haven’t been able to afford them, so showing a smaller house that is more likely a rental is appropriate.

MillerCoors isn’t the only one getting the message. Hilton Worldwide has announced it will be opening a new chain of hotels called Tru that is designed specifically to attract Millennials. The first hotel is scheduled to come online later this year, with approximately 132 facilities planned for cities that are popular among that generation, such as Portland, Dallas, Atlanta, Chicago, and Denver. The hotels will focus on highly personalized service and what they refer to as a “common, youthful look.” Their ads will be, “visually represented through spirited photos with playful and vibrant colors; custom, fun illustrations; circular shapes, not only to invoke our logo, but also to convey that we are different; and the custom vernacular we’ve created for this brand using three-letter words like zip, jam and fit,” according to Alexandra Jaritz, global head, Tru by Hilton.

There’s no question that Millennials like to travel, but even there they’re not doing it in the same way as Boomers. This is evidenced by the very existence of AirBnB, which is counting on Millennials (and Chinese tourists) to help make it profitable. Can Tru by Hilton create an experience-based standardized accommodation that actually competes with staying in someone else’s home? I have to admit, this could be entertaining to watch. I’m just glad I don’t have any money invested with either approach.

For all the places that are at least trying to understand Millennials, however, there are four or five times as many companies who don’t, and those are likely to be some of the major losers over the next few years. Here are some of the sectors I think really need to step up their game if they want to stay solvent once Boomers are no more.

  • Banking & Finance. Millennials don’t trust banks and they damn sure don’t trust Wall Street with their money. As a result, the climate is right for an alternative to come in and set a genuinely new paradigm in the financial sector. Unfortunately, this also may make Millennials more financially vulnerable in the long-term.
  • Cable Television. It’s been suggested that there is too much television already. What’s driving this concern is the fact that only 46% of Millennials watch any television programming at all, and the vast majority of that is on mobile devices. Millennials have cut the cord with cable pretty hard and I’m not sure it is remotely possible to convince them to come back.
  • Transportation. Just as the auto sector is starting to recover from the recession and sales are picking back up, they soon need to begin re-examining their approach to the Millennial market, which, as a group, doesn’t exactly like cars. Even with the new hybrids and promising growth among alternative-fuel vehicles, Millennials would still rather ride their bicycles, take public transportation, or call Uber for a ride. Environmental concerns override money issues on this one. While there are more than enough Boomers still buying cars, and big ones at that as gas prices plummet, automakers need to re-work their approach to a generation that doesn’t have the brand loyalty their grandparents did.
  • Warehouse Clubs. This one kind of makes sense. Millennials live in smaller places and have limited transportation options that don’t involve carrying around a pack of 46 paper towel rolls. While all the major warehouse clubs have online purchasing options, the positioning, design, and marketing of those options leaves a lot to be desired. If they want to capture Millennials, the folks at Costco and Sam’s Club need to follow Amazon’s example and then improve upon that experience.
  • Family-related services. This includes anyone involved in health care, children’s services (including clothing and education), and anything to do with weddings. Millennials are totally redefining family. Who and when they marry, when or if they have children, and how they approach health care have significantly different answers than previous generations. A lot of traditions are being left in the dust and will not recover. Those who survive will do so only by completely re-configuring how they do business and how they market to this new generation.

These are not insurmountable issues. For all the challenges some companies may face, there are reasonable answers for most. There’s no time to waste, though. Companies who don’t have a Millennial-focused plan by the end of this year are going to find it increasingly difficult to ever win that business at all. You want Millennials’ money, you’ll have to work for it!

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