Healthy Rant

Professor J,

As you know this post is a day late due to my mom's ongoing health issues. The other day while we were  visiting her, the cardiologist basically told her that her condition (actually there are several) is incurable and the rest of her life will be about managing her pain and breathlessness and trying to give her the best quality of life possible. But he felt the need to share all the information and possible treatments, which included various things up to and including a heart transplant. As he said those two words he looked at me in a way that said "she's 73 and that's not really an option." We understood each other perfectly.

Now that most people seem to have come to terms with the idea of the Affordable Health Care Act as a reality we all have to decide what kind of managed health care we want. As you've pointed out before we don't have "health care" we have "sick care." If we are all going to be in it together then we are going to need better education and communication about all the facets of living a healthy life style. People cannot  do whatever they want and then expect for the rest of us to pick up the tab for drastic procedures at the other end of the road for illnesses and conditions that are related to life style choices.
Change is possible, but comes with education, a desire to do what is necessary, and the realization that we are personally responsible for much of our own health. It might take more than one generation.

Here's what this looks like in my family. My mom's conditions are diabetes, emphysema, congestive heart failure, COPD, and panic attacks. She doesn't smoke any more but did for 30 years. Her life long diet was a typical American one. The idea of exercise was a joke. Only hippies or monks did yoga or meditation. There was a pill for every disorder.

I did a bit better avoiding lots of the pitfalls by observing the kind of life I didn't want. But change was hard and took a long time. It takes quite a bit of concerted effort to decide you aren't going to go on a diet, but eat a completely different way instead. It means investigating, learning, trying, and eventually embracing a new and different way of doing things. Eliminating things like soda and trying to avoid most processed food is hard in the beginning for those of us raised on a steady diet of Coke and Twinkies.

My kids, both in their twenties, are way ahead of where I was at their age. My son gave up red meat at 13 and hasn't eaten a burger in nearly 10 years. His current target is eliminating candy and most other sugars from his diet. My daughter is a pescetarian foregoing poultry as well as beef and pork. Neither of them drink soda (by itself ;)). They cannot imagine a life that wouldn't include lots of physical activity and my daughter even teaches yoga to her kindergarten class. 

Our lifestyle changes didn't happen overnight; new attitudes had to be formulated over time. But once everyone recognizes how much better they feel the changes stick on their own. I have every hope that once we are all in the healthcare boat together, we'll have a little peer pressure in society to help us make better decisions. Might sugar and fried foods go the way of cigarettes? If my kids are any indication, the answer is yes. They are already judging people by what's in their grocery cart.

We've come a long way, baby. 

Eight Kinds of Sideways

Madame M:

Yes, we are probably too late.  After all, this is the disposable era of momentary spectacle-focus, usually followed by attention deficit.

“A nation of hypocritical immigrants.” Well said.

An irony (there are many) of the upset crowd is that the lyrics to the song itself were written by a woman whom lesbian activists of today claim as a historical lesbian and feminist activists of today claim as a historical feminist.

Blended, synergistic diversity has been America’s promise, and often our success, and yet we keep sabotaging ourselves over it.

America, the Land of SO MANY advantages, seems bent on squandering most of them.

It takes blessings and turns them into curses.

Sees many right answers—and chooses the wrong one.

Has so many opportunities to be grandly noble—and follows pettiness instead.

Lifts up ideals that all can be inspired by—and fails nearly thoroughly in trying to live them.

And manages to twist and pervert even the right ideas it carries forward.

For instance: We have, partially rightly, granted access economically internationally to our markets.  The world does need to share, and the world will be a better place when all the peoples have opportunity —and it will be a much safer place too.  But we the willfully ignorant let it be carried out at our working class and middle class expense while the rich benefit.

We need a society—national and world—that simultaneously allows a decent life for decent work while also permitting the exceptional to be exceptional and reap exceptional rewards.

The concept is not that hard.  There are even some societies that have made some initial strides toward it.  You may have mentioned them in this blog a time or two. :)

America the Beautiful Translates

Professor J, are we too late to get our two cents in on this one?

 The Super Bowl Coke ad was moving. No matter how small minded anyone is, the imagery was beautiful. And the song in the various languages was brilliant. We can sing the same song and embrace the same ideals in different ways. That vision of America the Beautiful is why people want to come here. To dream big dreams, start over, and breathe free. And these days, it isn't even so much the reality of what is, as it is the vision of what can be that brings people here. The desire to embrace freedom and possibility is timeless, colorless, and has no language. That's what I saw. And it kind of reminded me of another Coke commercial:

Maybe they were just supposed to sing but not America the Beautiful. And not come here for crying out loud!

I'd like the people who were so offended by the Coke ad to tell our Native American brothers and sisters how outraged they are about all the outsiders featured in a Coke commercial. One of the languages used in the commercial was Keres, a language spoken by the Pueblo people.

Here's the list of languages used: English, Spanish, Tagalog, Hebrew, Hindi, Keres, and Senegalese-French.

I doubt that many people were actually offended by the French or Hebrew. Rather I suspect that they were offended by the different. The other. The not like us. 

Most of the xenophobic Twittter comments were crouched behind the "English is the official language" argument. I suspect however that if the song had played with no words and the same images had been shown, the outrage would have been just as fierce. 

We are a nation of hypocritical immigrants who now dislike immigrants. Which I find amusing and disturbing, and sad. How ironic that the Super Bowl opened with various people quoting the words on the Statue of Liberty:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door. 

 

Whether or not anyone should be consuming the product advertised is another matter entirely. If you must, I recommend finding it on the Hispanic aisle of your grocery. Coke bottled in Mexico is made with cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. It tastes the way you remember it tasting when you were a kid. Well, except for the added Jack Daniels. ;)

Just Super

Madame:

Good suggestions.  John Maxwell teaches great leadership skills as well (although occasionally we come into slight disagreement).  Readers take note from that while one should not be self-delusional in one’s thinking, the how and character of our thoughts have tremendous impact—personally, with family and friends, and societally.

Today, of course, is Superbowl Sunday, a day that should be enjoyed.  Although I might often appear in these postings a curmudgeon who is in to guilt trips, that perception would be incorrect.  Recreation, play, diversion, group enjoyment—all are very important to both individuals and societies.  I myself have numerous hobbies, pastimes, interests, etc., some quite time engrossing, and would vastly prefer to spend a great deal of each day and week in them.

Superbowl Sunday should be a well earned, well deserved capstone to a week that saw good progress for the society.  One where we could all enjoy it wholeheartedly and guiltlessly because our lives and those around us are progressing sustainably for the better, because we’ve made the decisions and taken the actions to do that.

Except that isn’t the case.  And so Superbowl Sunday becomes instead a Roman-esque testament to our propensity to divert ourselves from the fact that we made no sincere efforts at progress and actually inflicted anti-progress on ourselves; to deny or willingly misapprehend the realities around us; to promote the banal or inane or destructive, and divert the resources to do so; to reward selfishness and visionlessness; and all when the civilizational indicators are heading strongly in the wrong direction. 

And people will justify it by saying they are “powerless to do anything”—except for all the energy, time, and thought they will devote to the premier modern gladiator game, let alone all the smaller ones before that.

Powerlessness in this society is largely a choice.  Readers are referred once again to Madame’s post about the potency of one’s thoughts.

I’ll still be getting together with my friends this afternoon.  We will laugh, we will eat, we will comment on the commercials, we will enjoy the game and each other’s company.  And in the back of our minds we will feel a little tug.

That’s our societal conscience, which knows, and can’t be fooled by justification of hollow spectacle.

What Do You Think?

Professor J,

I'm having one of those weeks where certain ideas that I've been focused on seemed to converge in a whirlpool of information and experience. Do you ever get the feeling the universe wants you to understand something now?

I've been thinking about, well...thinking. Your last post pointed out, to some extent,  how the lack of it weakens and divides. And as you've alluded to many times, it is often the people who have spent the least amount of time giving deep thought to anything who are the ones who are the most sure of their opinions and beliefs.

I'm reading John Maxwell's new book, Thinking for a Change. I like the title's double entendre. Maxwell can usually be relied upon for good advice in the motivation and leadership departments, but I was intrigued with the skills he's promoting:

1. Acquire the wisdom of big-picture thinking - does my thinking extend beyond me and my world
2. Unleash the potential of focused thinking - concentrate to find clarity on the real issues
3. Discover the joy of creative thinking - get out of the box and find break through thinking
4. Recognize the importance of realistic thinking - does my thinking have a solid mental foundation
5. Release the power of strategic thinking - is my thinking leading to plans for today that help me reach my potential tomorrow
6. Feel the energy of possibility thinking - possibility thinking can help you find solutions to even the difficult problems
7. Embrace the lessons of reflective thinking - am I revisiting the past to gain understanding and learn from what happened
8. Question the acceptance of popular thinking - am I rejecting the limitations of common thinking
9. Encourage the participation of shared thinking - am I engaging others to expand and sharpen my thinking
10. Experience the satisfaction of unselfish thinking - am I considering others and their needs
11. Enjoy the return of bottom-line thinking - am I staying focused on results

*copied from a reviewer's post 

While I've been reading this book other things have come to mind. First, our ability to control our thoughts and actually change our brains by doing so. Buddhist monks, for example show an amazing capacity for empathy and compassion when studied, proving that indeed "as a man thinks, so he is." Read the article about one such study here: This Buddhist Monk is the World's Happiest Man My daughter and I recently discussed after our yoga class that it never occurs to us during our practice to hold any negativity or ill will toward anyone. Yet I've heard many Christians condemn yoga and meditation as dangerous (for unclear reasons).

Might the  knowledge of the mind's power be why Christians are admonished to do the following?

"...be renewed in the spirit of your minds." Eph. 4:23

"... whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." Phil. 4:8

"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" Rom. 12:2

Studies have shown that the self talk we engage in can greatly affect our behavior, the difference between saying "I can't eat that" and I don't eat that" for instance. Here's an article about the study: The Amazing Power of "I Don't" vs. "I can't."

Hopefully Maxwell's book will attract lots of readers (and doers also). We can't change the entire world overnight but we can start with our own thoughts and self talk.

Long Division

Madame:

This Beck thing brings us back to “the early days” (lol) of this blog, where we looked at books by Beck and Obama.  Readers may find that archive search instructive.

You mention that Limbaugh and Coulter will not have even the tardy bit of introspection that Beck seems to have had.  It brings to mind what I heard an “old” and “liberal” radio talk show host say about a lot of the “conservative” commentators, because he has known most of them personally from their beginnings:  they are smart, they only believe part of the things they say (and rarely to the level that they take it), and they are knowingly exploiting for financial gain the willful, emotional ignorance of their “followers.”

Interestingly enough, that particular talk show host was canned by the station he was on for not being “hip” or “progressive” enough (but was probably also canned at least partially because he didn’t march in the all anti-conservative, all-the-time parade).

As I travel the country, I encounter this division theme, which seems to be a familiar one but which few REALLY want to make a determined effort on: As we’ve mentioned, it serves those who hold the semi-hidden power.  How else could one explain so many PRESENTLY middle class people who are in denial and diversion about the reasons for the economic changes around them.  Who ignore and make no connections about all the older cars on the roads (and the autos in need of repair, sometimes appallingly so); of the faltering (and sometimes missing) infrastructure; of the increasing scarcity of certain skills and experiences that used to be basic; of the young who ARE the future but far too many of whom are either unprepared or lacking any real economic opportunity—and who will BE the future, for good or ill; of the formerly middle class people who have spun out of it into what USED to be the “working class,” but which is now in many respects the lower class, an often part-time and hard scrabble existence; of real poverty right in our midst, not even counting the homeless.

Only a populace that had been psychologically conditioned (the cynical would say brainwashed) would accept the disconnection, a disconnection that permits denial, permits the fiction that because THEY are “all right” for the moment, that things must be okay, and the “sensationalist media” and “bleeding hearts” are “enabling the moochers.”  Who, if they even acknowledge its existence at all, refuse to see Robert Reich’s documentary “Inequality for All, ” terming it “b.s. propaganda from another liberal who wants to kill jobs and the American Dream.” 

Good on Reich for soldiering on.  Just like the women suffragists who were ridiculed, harassed, or dismissed by so many of their fellow women, but had truth on their side, uncomfortable truth is present here as well.

Income inequality, and the plight of the middle class (which had been suffering in one fashion or another throughout most of the decade) is almost precisely where it was in 1928.  I hope I don’t need to remind everyone what triggered off economic calamity that next year.   I am NOT predicting economic calamity next year (and fervently hope it doesn’t happen), but I AM saying that, in Rush’s (the group, not Limbaugh) words, “if you choose not to decide, you’ll still have made a choice.”  Meaning that, denial only delays decision and reckoning, it does not evade it.  We can choose both not to see our problems and not to deal with them, but eventually they will deal with us in ways we will have little control over.

Owning Up

Professor J,

Welcome back to the land of the living. ;)

So out of oblivion this week comes Glenn Beck.  I never really got his humor on the radio, though I loved him on CNN Headline News when he had a unique talk show. Then he moved to FOX where they gave him free rein to do whatever he liked and at first I was still a regular viewer. He promoted learning more about our history and asked a lot of questions that were pertinent in the beginning. As time went on his theories on things got...well, a little unhinged.

 One day he was showing a clip of President Obama saying something that sounded sinister. He showed the same short (maybe 5 seconds) clip repeatedly during the show. I went online and found the speech from which the clip was taken and the clip being shown over and over completely misrepresented the tone of the entire speech. I'll admit I stuck with him an embarrassing length of time after that. He finally lost me when the daily chalk boards outlined conspiracies of one kind and then another.

Then there was his incendiary language. Which in this recent interview he says he now regrets and admits to being part of the problem and says " “I think I played a role, unfortunately, in helping tear the country apart and it's not who we are.”

Only thanks to him and others like him, it is who we are now. 

 He's sorry looking back, but the damage has been done--and the money has been made (wink). But I'll give him some credit for realizing the amount of damage he's done and showing remorse. I doubt we'll see such introspection from the likes of Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh who have legions of loyal fans who have bestowed upon them celebrity status and made them fortunes.

Fear and loathing, not searching for common ground and solutions,  is what keeps you atop the best sellers list and makes you a popular talk show guest.  And why mess with success, no matter the cost?

I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/ann_coulter.html#Y90elQJjyPgFfY44.99

I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/ann_coulter.html#Y90elQJjyPgFfY44.9

I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/ann_coulter.html#Y90elQJjyPgF