In 2005 September 30th was a beautiful day, better than even today. It was bright and mild with temperatures just where you would expect for the last day of September. As I recall it didn’t turn grey. The sky was a deep blue filled with high, heavy clouds that just amplified the brightness of the day as they reflected the sun and shone a bright white. The clouds’ seeming luminescence added to the depth of the blue of the sky.
It was gorgeous and it was the day I got out of the hospital.
I can remember that moment very clearly – the moment as we drove away from the hospital. I had been unconscious for most of my time in the hospital but I knew, my mind and my body knew, that I had been there for a long time. Now I was finally out and I was going home.
In a year when I have been avoiding those anniversaries, that is a day worth remembering.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Fair elections
Whatever the cost, before the next election, all voting machines in the country must be changed to be more reliable, they must be required to have a paper trail of all votes cast, maintain a record of all votes rather than just totals and the voter should get a certified copy of their own vote printed for them.
It is too easy to control the votes with electronic voting machines. The tests aren’t good enough and the security isn’t good enough. The modern electronic machines are insecure by design.
For example:
Add a program to the machine that adjusts votes so that one party wins by a set margin no matter what votes are cast
This program is only active on the day of the election while the polls are open
Before election day all tests are valid
After the polls close the program deletes itself
You pick the winner – not the voters
This is not difficult to do. Every year stealing an election becomes easier and easier. Machines can be hacked, pre-programmed, altered wirelessly, totals corrupted and votes made meaningless. The paper trail, the security and the accountability of the people doing the counting all need massive improvement in every voting district in the nation.
Our voting machines must be made accurate, secure and easy to validate.
This should be done immediately whatever the cost, because the cost of not doing this could be too great.
It is too easy to control the votes with electronic voting machines. The tests aren’t good enough and the security isn’t good enough. The modern electronic machines are insecure by design.
For example:
Add a program to the machine that adjusts votes so that one party wins by a set margin no matter what votes are cast
This program is only active on the day of the election while the polls are open
Before election day all tests are valid
After the polls close the program deletes itself
You pick the winner – not the voters
This is not difficult to do. Every year stealing an election becomes easier and easier. Machines can be hacked, pre-programmed, altered wirelessly, totals corrupted and votes made meaningless. The paper trail, the security and the accountability of the people doing the counting all need massive improvement in every voting district in the nation.
Our voting machines must be made accurate, secure and easy to validate.
This should be done immediately whatever the cost, because the cost of not doing this could be too great.
It’s Late September
And I really want to go back to school.
This really belongs on the blue-sky list but I just can’t get it out of my head. I won’t let myself believe that this is something that I can’t do. Well, if I’m honest with myself, I don’t actually believe that it is something that I can do, but I keep thinking about it anyway.
It won’t happen this school year. I didn’t do too well when I tried to do more things earlier this year, which seems to pretty much prove that I don’t have the energy for it. That I have trouble now doesn’t mean I can’t improve (denial or optimism, you decide). So I want to try to get in shape for it hopefully by next year. At the very least it will be a step in my progress – forward or backward doesn’t matter, I need to keep trying different things so working on school is one more thing to try.
Or should I be looking for a pool cue?
This really belongs on the blue-sky list but I just can’t get it out of my head. I won’t let myself believe that this is something that I can’t do. Well, if I’m honest with myself, I don’t actually believe that it is something that I can do, but I keep thinking about it anyway.
It won’t happen this school year. I didn’t do too well when I tried to do more things earlier this year, which seems to pretty much prove that I don’t have the energy for it. That I have trouble now doesn’t mean I can’t improve (denial or optimism, you decide). So I want to try to get in shape for it hopefully by next year. At the very least it will be a step in my progress – forward or backward doesn’t matter, I need to keep trying different things so working on school is one more thing to try.
Or should I be looking for a pool cue?
Monday, September 12, 2011
The cost of shipping
Fedex: .1 pound package from Philadelphia to Los Angeles costs a minimum of $11.32 and will take 4 days.
UPS: default .5 pound, letter from Philadelphia to Los Angeles costs a minimum of $27.08 and will take 2 days.
USPS: Priority Mail letter from Philadelphia to Los Angeles costs $4.95 and will get there in 2 days and I can mail it on a Saturday. Or I could just mail a letter that will get there in a few days anyway and pay a maximum of $0.44.
Is there an alternative I don’t know about? How would you mail something if there was no Post Office? Why would anyone even want to get rid of the Post Office? Communication of this sort was considered so important that we’ve had a postal service in this country since before we were a country. It all started in 1775 and support for it is even written into the Constitution. Free delivery (RFD) was even started in the late 19th century to keep people in remote parts of the nation connected to the rest of the country in a practical and affordable way.
So why get rid of the post office?
Fun facts:
The Post Office supports itself with stamps, postal fees, PO boxes and selling some shipping products and such. It does not receive one cent in tax dollars. Zero, zip, zilch, nada. If you don’t mail anything then none of your money goes to the Post Office.
The Post Office is only in the red because 5 years ago Congress – which gets to set the rules even though they provide no money for the service – mandated that the USPS fund its pension 75 years in advance. In other words, the USPS must fund its pension for people who may some day work for them but who not only don’t work for them now but they won’t even be born for 50 years. ETA: And they have to do this in just 10 years.
I suppose it’s only a coincidence that not only does this bankrupt the USPS for no good reason, but it also puts billions of dollars into a government controlled fund while also threatening the future of an organization that employs hundreds of thousands of union members.
This could be fixed very easily. The Post Office could be saved from bankruptcy by a vote from Congress that would not cost one cent.
Sure, email has cut back on letters, but the Post Office was and could go on doing just fine if Congress let it. Of course people complain when the cost of a stamp goes up – it’s human nature. A first class letter cost 5 cents when I was a kid, now it’s 44 cents. Is that really so much? What are the alternatives?
UPS: default .5 pound, letter from Philadelphia to Los Angeles costs a minimum of $27.08 and will take 2 days.
USPS: Priority Mail letter from Philadelphia to Los Angeles costs $4.95 and will get there in 2 days and I can mail it on a Saturday. Or I could just mail a letter that will get there in a few days anyway and pay a maximum of $0.44.
Is there an alternative I don’t know about? How would you mail something if there was no Post Office? Why would anyone even want to get rid of the Post Office? Communication of this sort was considered so important that we’ve had a postal service in this country since before we were a country. It all started in 1775 and support for it is even written into the Constitution. Free delivery (RFD) was even started in the late 19th century to keep people in remote parts of the nation connected to the rest of the country in a practical and affordable way.
So why get rid of the post office?
Fun facts:
The Post Office supports itself with stamps, postal fees, PO boxes and selling some shipping products and such. It does not receive one cent in tax dollars. Zero, zip, zilch, nada. If you don’t mail anything then none of your money goes to the Post Office.
The Post Office is only in the red because 5 years ago Congress – which gets to set the rules even though they provide no money for the service – mandated that the USPS fund its pension 75 years in advance. In other words, the USPS must fund its pension for people who may some day work for them but who not only don’t work for them now but they won’t even be born for 50 years. ETA: And they have to do this in just 10 years.
I suppose it’s only a coincidence that not only does this bankrupt the USPS for no good reason, but it also puts billions of dollars into a government controlled fund while also threatening the future of an organization that employs hundreds of thousands of union members.
This could be fixed very easily. The Post Office could be saved from bankruptcy by a vote from Congress that would not cost one cent.
Sure, email has cut back on letters, but the Post Office was and could go on doing just fine if Congress let it. Of course people complain when the cost of a stamp goes up – it’s human nature. A first class letter cost 5 cents when I was a kid, now it’s 44 cents. Is that really so much? What are the alternatives?
Friday, September 9, 2011
Memory Day
I have not been mentioning anniversaries this year. In fact I have been deliberately avoiding the topic, both here and in my life – to lesser and greater degrees of success.
Today is different, though I’m not entirely sure why it is so important to me personally. Maybe it’s because I remember it.
You see, that’s the whole point of the day. September 9th is the day I started to remember things after being taken off the sedatives. I wasn’t remembering much, and even at the time I knew that I wasn’t remembering things in order. I have memories over a three day period that even then I knew that I couldn’t tell what day a particular memory was from. It wasn’t until the 12th that I started remembering things sequentially.
But I was conscious, more or less, and remembering. And I know for sure that it started on the 9th. There are fragments from when I was sedated, but they aren’t full or accurate memories, just bits and pieces that I held onto. The real memories are important. I imagine that it makes me think of myself as a real person. Damn, this is hard to write about.
There’s a big gap in my life that covers things that have changed my life dramatically. Maybe that’s why I care about today. In some ways my mind knew that I had been in the hospital for a long time and this signaled an end to the weeks of sedation in the ICU. I don’t know. Maybe there’s no good reason for it, except that I could think.
I still have problems with my memory. I forget some things and I can’t recall other things from the past. It’s a real mess in there. I may not always know right away what day of the week it is, but I’m always pretty sure that today isn’t yesterday. In a way it should really be September 12th that’s important because that was when I started to experience life more normally again. Being able to understand how the days are ordered is a very significant thing. Yet I can’t help having a special feeling about today. It was a triumph of sorts that can actually only be realized after the fact.
If it hadn’t been for that other breakthrough on the 12th when the memories became more ordered – and I attribute that to being more recovered from the sedation – then I wouldn’t really know that the 9th was a special day at all. It would just be another day in a jumble of memories that I couldn’t sort out.
Maybe I should combine the two, the way official holidays are merged, and celebrate Memory Day. I can make it the Monday closest to the time between the 9th and the 12th. I think I’ll do that, if I can remember to.
Today is different, though I’m not entirely sure why it is so important to me personally. Maybe it’s because I remember it.
You see, that’s the whole point of the day. September 9th is the day I started to remember things after being taken off the sedatives. I wasn’t remembering much, and even at the time I knew that I wasn’t remembering things in order. I have memories over a three day period that even then I knew that I couldn’t tell what day a particular memory was from. It wasn’t until the 12th that I started remembering things sequentially.
But I was conscious, more or less, and remembering. And I know for sure that it started on the 9th. There are fragments from when I was sedated, but they aren’t full or accurate memories, just bits and pieces that I held onto. The real memories are important. I imagine that it makes me think of myself as a real person. Damn, this is hard to write about.
There’s a big gap in my life that covers things that have changed my life dramatically. Maybe that’s why I care about today. In some ways my mind knew that I had been in the hospital for a long time and this signaled an end to the weeks of sedation in the ICU. I don’t know. Maybe there’s no good reason for it, except that I could think.
I still have problems with my memory. I forget some things and I can’t recall other things from the past. It’s a real mess in there. I may not always know right away what day of the week it is, but I’m always pretty sure that today isn’t yesterday. In a way it should really be September 12th that’s important because that was when I started to experience life more normally again. Being able to understand how the days are ordered is a very significant thing. Yet I can’t help having a special feeling about today. It was a triumph of sorts that can actually only be realized after the fact.
If it hadn’t been for that other breakthrough on the 12th when the memories became more ordered – and I attribute that to being more recovered from the sedation – then I wouldn’t really know that the 9th was a special day at all. It would just be another day in a jumble of memories that I couldn’t sort out.
Maybe I should combine the two, the way official holidays are merged, and celebrate Memory Day. I can make it the Monday closest to the time between the 9th and the 12th. I think I’ll do that, if I can remember to.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Look, new posts
I guess you could take these posts to assume that I am finally getting over my (FOURTH!) cold of the summer. I am.
I am slowly starting to feel a little better. These recent posts were prompted by things I noticed recently. Once my head clears a bit more I’ll get back to more regular posting around here.
I am slowly starting to feel a little better. These recent posts were prompted by things I noticed recently. Once my head clears a bit more I’ll get back to more regular posting around here.
Jobs speech
Not a bad speech, but there were some things I would have done differently and certainly a few things that he shouldn’t be proposing.
A payroll tax cut sounds nice but it means cutting funding for Social Security. That is a bad thing.
Saying we have to reform Medicare to strengthen it is usually the phrase used by people who want to cut benefits and raise the enrollment age – which means hurt and weaken Medicare. You may want to call it strengthening but if you cut the system back it is weakening it.
The Georgia Works program doesn’t work very well if at all, so proposing going national with that is a bad idea.
Putting people to work is a great idea, and the areas mentioned are important, but I don’t think it goes far enough. There needs to be more direct action to put people back to work, which means spending to actually create jobs. It worked before, it can work again.
Most of this is tax cuts and not enough actual jobs. I’ll wait till the real numbers come out, but I am not optimistic. I think that it was very telling that the Republicans in the chamber would not respond to even statements that should be uncontroversial, politically speaking. There were only 2 or 3 times when they applauded – with the exception of one guy on the end who I couldn’t get a good look at. You can’t prove anything either way from this about the Democrats, but it does show that there is no desire for bipartisanship from the Republicans.
I won’t hold my breath on the whole getting the rich and corporations to pay a fair share of taxes. And denigrating regulation doesn’t help either. The speech didn’t propose anything really strong, and it does threaten to make things worse. Paying for this by cutting the budget by another $500 billion? That isn’t exactly a novel position to take, and where do the cuts come from. There’s just too much politics here and not enough statesmanship. I also think the best it can do is break even on the budget.
As a campaign strategy I think it was very good, but it remains to be seen if this will get any jobs created. Like he said, we can’t wait 14 months to get something done. We need action now. We need jobs now. I wasn’t expecting any more than this. To be honest I expected a less forceful speech. Still, as much as this may help in some way, I don’t think it goes far enough. There won’t be enough jobs.
Screw the deficit, raise taxes on the rich and put people back to work now. Fix the roads, fix the bridges, fix the railroads, fix the electric grid, invest in alternative energy and repair all the damage done by the earthquakes and storms. That will create jobs and in turn help the economy.
That’s my initial reaction in a disorganized way.
A payroll tax cut sounds nice but it means cutting funding for Social Security. That is a bad thing.
Saying we have to reform Medicare to strengthen it is usually the phrase used by people who want to cut benefits and raise the enrollment age – which means hurt and weaken Medicare. You may want to call it strengthening but if you cut the system back it is weakening it.
The Georgia Works program doesn’t work very well if at all, so proposing going national with that is a bad idea.
Putting people to work is a great idea, and the areas mentioned are important, but I don’t think it goes far enough. There needs to be more direct action to put people back to work, which means spending to actually create jobs. It worked before, it can work again.
Most of this is tax cuts and not enough actual jobs. I’ll wait till the real numbers come out, but I am not optimistic. I think that it was very telling that the Republicans in the chamber would not respond to even statements that should be uncontroversial, politically speaking. There were only 2 or 3 times when they applauded – with the exception of one guy on the end who I couldn’t get a good look at. You can’t prove anything either way from this about the Democrats, but it does show that there is no desire for bipartisanship from the Republicans.
I won’t hold my breath on the whole getting the rich and corporations to pay a fair share of taxes. And denigrating regulation doesn’t help either. The speech didn’t propose anything really strong, and it does threaten to make things worse. Paying for this by cutting the budget by another $500 billion? That isn’t exactly a novel position to take, and where do the cuts come from. There’s just too much politics here and not enough statesmanship. I also think the best it can do is break even on the budget.
As a campaign strategy I think it was very good, but it remains to be seen if this will get any jobs created. Like he said, we can’t wait 14 months to get something done. We need action now. We need jobs now. I wasn’t expecting any more than this. To be honest I expected a less forceful speech. Still, as much as this may help in some way, I don’t think it goes far enough. There won’t be enough jobs.
Screw the deficit, raise taxes on the rich and put people back to work now. Fix the roads, fix the bridges, fix the railroads, fix the electric grid, invest in alternative energy and repair all the damage done by the earthquakes and storms. That will create jobs and in turn help the economy.
That’s my initial reaction in a disorganized way.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
WWRD
It seems that there’s a debate this evening at the Reagan Presidential Library. I’m not watching, I tend to ignore these sideshows especially this early in the campaigns.
Still, I want whoever is running the thing to ask this:
Here in the Presidential Library honoring the Presidency of an acknowledged Republican hero, I want to ask, which of you would have the courage to do what Ronald Reagan did to improve the economy and protect Social Security?
I would have no other questions.
Still, I want whoever is running the thing to ask this:
Here in the Presidential Library honoring the Presidency of an acknowledged Republican hero, I want to ask, which of you would have the courage to do what Ronald Reagan did to improve the economy and protect Social Security?
I would have no other questions.
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