Odds

This afternoon, I was looking at some pictures taken in Sri Lanka following the 2004 tsunami. This has been on my mind a lot lately for one big reason. About a week ago, Condoleeza Rice announced we would give $770 million to Lebanon to rebuild after their war last year. It's hard to argue that they don't need it. But they were at war. All the damage was human-induced. And Lebanon is far more developed than Indonesia or Sri Lanka, where we pledged $350 million and haven't delivered it all.

Most Americans, myself included, will probably never see anything like the horrors of either situation, which may render my question naive. Why aren't we doing more for the tsunami victims? These people were mainly fishers, hunters, and subsistence farmers. They don't have bank accounts. They don't have factories full of frozen vegetables or airports where citrus fruit will just be flown in instead of grown locally. Lebanon can recover more easily. People will invest in Lebanon. The population is relatively well-educated, there is a middle class and a financial sector and so many other things Aceh doesn't have. We can not forget the tsunami survivors who need to get their lives back on track.

So the title of this post. No matter how many times I see these numbers, my mind is blown. Sometimes it's really easy to live in a little bubble and have your perception of the world become totally skewed.

1 out of 6 Americans did not finish high school.
Less than 1 of 3 Americans has a college degree.
Less than 1 in 11 Americans has a graduate degree.
1 in 6 Americans has no health insurance.
1 in 8 Americans lives below the federally set "poverty line."

And this is the United States, the largest, most powerful economy in the world. This is changing every day, but only about one percent of the world's population has a college degree. 1 in 5 people in the world live on less than $1 US per day. This ends my winding monologue.

Over the next few days, I'm going to talk about my wristbands. I wear four. Three are related, one is not. I think this is one of the best fads of my lifetime, and it's now over. But I've hung onto mine, I wear them literally all the time, and I believe very deeply in the causes they promote.
Tomorrow: relentless.

From the (Madison) Capital Times this morning:

Editorial: Bush Health Care Deform

I've always been kind of slow to bash the President, because, well, he is the President. And I think someone who receives an education in public policy/whatever your school calls it learns to have a certain amount of respect for anyone in public office. You gain an understanding that they are in office and ran for office to try to do the right thing for the people they represent. But the State of the Union got me thinking about something I said in 2000. Both George W Bush and Al Gore ran for President because they thought that was what they were supposed to do. People would have thought it was bizarre had Gore, as incumbent VP, not run, and as for Deuce, what would you do if you were a governor and your dad was once President?

So what's the point? People have remarked that Bush seems not to care that his approval numbers are low and that he makes unpopular decisions. I believe this is because he governs for himself. Again, I hear the argument that every elected official does this, but Bush has gone above and beyond in terms of selfish governance. He found an excuse to invade Iraq, gave Americans tax cuts that no sober economist would have advised, and sat idly by for two of the biggest disasters of the last century (the Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricane Katrina). He has run up a massive national debt and proposed a "solution" that will be incomplete when he leaves office.

And now there's this healthcare situation. I believe he sees it as loaves of bread from the Republican Party to poor and middle-class Americans. I understand that one in six people in the US are uninsured, and that's a problem. But this plan doesn't solve it. An article in the Washington Post yesterday, which now I can't find, remarked that West Coast and Northeastern Members of Congress (MoCs) were irritated because this would affect their middle class citizens. They're right. Middle class in Fairfax County, VA, for example, means that your family income is between $72,000 and $120,000 per year. Contrast that with Wichita, KS, where a middle class family earns between $41,000 and $60,000 per year. Taxing employer contributions to insurance for those earning over $75,000 is not going to help this situation. I'll let the editorial say it for me.

From this morning's LA Times...

Rage Against the Machine will reunite for Coachella

And only for that one show.

That's quite a lineup they've put together there. But $250 for three days in the desert...

I'm feeling good about this whole deal. I'm actually taking the time to do work on the site! This is a good sign!

For those of you interested, that image appears to be looking southeast down Rt 7 towards Seven Corners. I think.

On the Electronic Campaign Trail, Politicians Realize the Potential of Web Video

This is what I'm thinking about today. Namely, why does this matter? Who are they reaching? Will turnout be higher in 2008 because of things like this, or is this a response to the assumption that turnout will be higher?

At times like this, I wish I were a pundit. Mostly because that would be a cool title to have. But also because I would care enough to make some prognostication about who will win each party's nomination in, oh, 19 months. Just to put that in perspective, Gabe will be four times older than he is now at the time of the conventions. And the Red Wings will have two more Stanley Cups.

It would be remiss of me to not cover the weather. It snowed for the first time this winter yesterday. It was Gabe's first time to see snow. Since we're overprotective, he didn't go outside to see it or touch it. But it looked nice in the yard from the window. Come to think of it, I didn't even touch it until I walked to the bus stop this morning. By Virginia law, all activity must cease while snow is falling. So when I went to Trader Joe's yesterday morning, it was packed. I always wanted to meet the people who stock up on samosas and chicken apple sausage before a "snowstorm." Well, yesterday I got to.

So the buildup of no snow/ice until now meant that the local media got to unleash three storms worth of coverage on this one. It is worth noting that a normal storm here probably gets three to five times the coverage it would anywhere else. And to clarify, a storm in DC equals at least three flakes of snow. That gigantic "Storm Tracker" or "Snow Machine" graphic, with the information bar taking up 30 percent of the screen - you know the one. We get that if there's a chance it might snow. It did snow hard for a few hours. It was great to watch Your NFC Champion Chicago Bears while it was cold and snowy here. So that's the next topic, right? Right.

John singing "The Prayer" at Maura and Anthony's Wedding

We were in Brooklyn last weekend for our friends' wedding. Maura's (the bride) younger brother and one of her friends delivered this, a fantastic rendition of "The Prayer." Better than Josh Groban, better than Andrea Bocelli, just better. Performed by John Sabatos and Maria Morgan on January 13, 2007.

I think this is going to have to be my last shot at this web thing. We're going to try this one more time. If all goes well, I will migrate this to a real domain over the summer and be a real web guy after 12 years of making up excuses for not having my own site, yet critiquing and sometimes fixing others.