At least, that’s what Joe Biden says…
http://www.politico.com/click/stories/1002/biden_its_easy_being_vp.html
Archive for February, 2010
Affirmative Action, Altruism & Advantage
On February - 23 - 2010
Thoughts pressed and squeezed my mind as I left Politics class the other night, the topic was Civil Rights, the bunny trial, Affirmative Action. As a Conservative, I believe I should be more angry with AA than I currently am, I’m probably not so angry because the Professor’s prose was Siren of nature. He broke my classmates with information concerning the illegality of quotas and point based college entrance systems; I didn’t know this, it soothed my rage, I steered my ship towards the Island of Anthemoessa. What AA serves as, we were informed, is a tie breaker between candidates, all things being equal; diversity for the win.
Here is my kernel, what a small kernel it is! I’d like to believe AA is about altruistic equality of all things roughly similar, but I do not, I believe its naked, or somewhat naked advantage. People, deep down, do not want equal opportunity, they want advantage; you want the job over the other person even if you’re not the better candidate. President Johnson’s eloquent altruism delivered to the graduating class of Howard University couldn’t help but head in the direction of unfettered advantage. His line of fairness drawn in the sand of employment, a glorious moment ruined by inertia. For who stops at the the line of fairness when you can go beyond, into the land of advantage?
This is probably why I’m secretly okay with AA, it has nothing to do with altruism or siren song. Rather, the demographics showing shifts that will make me a possible minority in the next fifty years…
The Green Police Vs. Audi Vs. Cap and Trade
On February - 8 - 2010
Last nights Superbowl, with its very unexpected Saints win, most entertaining commercials, and decent halftime show, had one advertisement in particular that got me thinking. I speak of the Audi green police commercial, which was an alternate reality farcical take on extreme enviro nazi/green police recycling that some fictional country, perhaps America, embarks upon in order to attain Mother Gaia’s favor. The only one who gets along in the commercial, unscathed and unharassed, is the owner of a brand new Audi super clean diesel car. Here was my thought, what enviro nazi’s are to the normal people in the Audi commercial is to what cap and trade policies are to business.
Not saying things one way or another, but I find it interesting that we recoil at the thought of Audi’s alternate reality being real while we apply this very same pseudo reality for real, to business, in the form of cap and trade…
Legitimate Health Care Reform as it relates to the Cost of Cars
On February - 1 - 2010
Would you ever buy a car without first knowing how much it was going to cost? Of course not, stupid question. Alas, we routinely walk into hospitals and partake of their procedures and products without having a clue as to how much their procedures and products cost. We’ll send you the bill, a bill which usually mimics the price of a new car, sometimes much more so.
This lack of common sense cost transparency reminds me of that parlor game where you have a peanut hidden under one of three cups; quickly move around the cups and guess where the peanut is. Guessing where the price will be after insurance and hospital finish manipulating their “cups” is no better. This situation, could in part, be remedied by a posted price index of services. I’d be totally okay with the folks in Washington forcing the hospital/insurers hand in this regard. Iron out the costs, put these online, empower the patient!
Once again, the car dealership scenario of buying a car, driving it home, then, for the first time, becoming aware if its cost! Nonsensical, preposterous, why do we the people tolerate this very same bewildering model in heath care?
