The Cairo Complex

“But BEING PAID,–what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! How cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!”
Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“Gotta let it show, I love the dough, hey
I love the dough, more than you know.”
Notorious BIG, “I Love the Dough”

• Brush teeth and rinse with Act and Listerine cocktail.
• Catch an Orange Line train towards Vienna.
• Read through the daily posts at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.
• Listen to Garrison Keeler’s “The Writer’s Almanac.”
• Eat two pieces of wheat toast with butter.

Bored. To. Tears.

“And how much better to die in all the happy period of undisillusioned youth, to go out in a blaze of light, than to have your body worn out and old and illusions shattered”.
Ernest Hemingway, A letter to his parents circa WWI

“I hope I die before I get old”.
The Who, ‘My Generation’

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not very politically savvy.

I have views, to be sure, but mostly just about the “big” issues. I think most of my ideas are pragmatic and logical (but then again, who doesn’t think that about their own ideas?). My ideas tend towards the liberal (and sometimes ultra-liberal), but I’m not a party member, and I have some opinions which are patently republican.

In short, it’s kind of a jumble in my head, which is why I’m reaching out on facebook to solicit some opinions on this healthcare hullabaloo we’re in the midst of.

So, maybe it’s just my ignorance (a very real possibility), but am I missing something with this whole health care reform thing that was apparently illuminated to the masses about a week ago because of some congressional ice cream social that got a lot of press? How are the plans being discussed good ideas?

And just to be clear, I don’t mean how is promising people health care a good idea. That much is obvious. What has me confused is how essentially turning part of the government into an insurance company is a good idea. Isn’t that essentially what all the plans being bandied around are suggesting? Is the government really suited to this purpose at all? Moreover, is that purpose even the best way to address the true problem? I mean, it seems to me, even real life professional insurance companies aren’t all that great at helping people stay healthy.

If the government is really all that interested in helping people with their health, why not take an approach that distributes its efforts across a wide range of programs that directly impact health care? Why, essentially, is the “best” idea up for discussion pretty much turning the government into yet another disconnected middleman in an already complex system? I mean, just off the top of my head, I can think of a few ideas which seem more straightforward and focused than anything I’ve read about so far being discussed by the people running our country. I mean, I’m looking for some discussion on this if I’m way off, but why not…

* Establish large scholarship programs for medical students who pledge to work in government-funed free clinics for X years after graduating;

* Cover the salaries and provide tax breaks to experienced medical professionals and specialists willing to work in those free clinics;

* Increase funding to free clinics for supplies and facilities;

* Provide higher incentives for charitable donations to medical centers and organizations;

* Help establish, and reward schools and organizations that follow guidelines for rigorous health education and establish healthy-living programs;

* Increase funding of medical research programs and universities with medical-based research goals;

I mean, clearly all of these ideas involve lots of spending, but so do all the other ideas I’ve been hearing about. If the money’s going to get spent, though, it seems smarter to spend it on directly addressing the issues at hand rather than just making things even more complicated than they already are.

Am I right? Way off? Vote for me in about 12 years?

Thanks everybody!

So I’m listening to “This American Life” and they make mention of some upcoming revisions to the DSM that bring to surface a question I had a long time ago that never got answered.

Apparently, the DSM is going to officially strike reference of the term “mental retardation,” the argument being that it’s an offensive term, in favor of “intellectual disability.” Now, I’m hoping some of you psych people out there on my friends list chime in on this because I’m really confused.

Retard (v.) means to suppress, or slow progress and development. On its own the word doesn’t really provide insight into degree or severity, but it does by definition hint at some sort of scale. Disability, on the other hand, is a very discrete term. It’s binary. Something, or someone, is abled or disabled. There’s no grey there. In terms of mental aptitude and ability, then, it seems to me like the offensiveness in these terms is flipped. It seems more proper and less harmful to use the term that gauges across a scale. Peoples’ cognitive abilities are graded, it’s not like a brain is just on or off.

So is this just a case of societal trends and evolved connotations totally running contrary to literal meanings? Shouldn’t the DSM be striving to maintain a clinical perspective on these things, or am I just thinking too much about random stuff I hear on This American Life?

By the way, the rest of this particular episode of This American Life is really incredible, and if you haven’t already you should check it out.