On the Contrary

There were several news stories of note to enhance one’s breadth of knowledge, wisdom, and food for thought at this mid-week.  To wit:

• It would appear that the deeply religious hang on to the bitter end in end of life situations as opposed to those who are less religiously inclined (New York Times), demanding aggressive intervention to stay alive in their last few months.  Now this is interesting for two reasons.  First you would think that those who thought this life was the end of the road would try to hang on to it more than those who were on their way to the promised land.  Second, over one-third of all Medicare costs are incurred in expensive end-of-life care for these aggressive interventions.  The study also noted that for these “hangers-on” these interventions are painful and reduce the quality of their last days.  I guess accepting reality has always been hard for the religious (creationism come to mind?) and expensive for the rest of us.
• With the villagers in the streets with torches to string up those guys who got bonuses from AIG, maybe we ought to stop and think about this a moment.  The conventional wisdom is that these people who are getting the bonuses were the very same people who took the company to ruin with their reckless trading.  But wait a minute.  Just how were these bonuses computed?  Sell x amount of the risky credit default swaps and you get y amount of a cash bonus?  And although these transaction did destroy the company, who set up the incentive system to sell all these CDSs?  Should we be punishing the troops when it was the general who told them to charge the wrong hill?  Maybe some of these guys worked night and day to do what their bosses wanted, and from their point of view, now we are depriving them of the compensation they were promised.  No, I don’t think these bonuses should be paid, at least not the amounts publicized, but I think we are stringing up the wrong group of people.  Does nationalization come to mind?  Maybe it is not such a bad idea.
• In the ongoing attempt to reform health care “leading Republicans and insurance companies have expressed alarm at the idea of a new government-run insurance plan competing with private insurers.” (New York Times)  I find this truly hilarious that the free market, competition solves everything crowd can’t stand the heat from a government program.  What are they afraid of, finding out that a single payer system like Medicare is the only cost effective way forward?
• The White House is considering using “budget reconciliation” to get the Obama budget through Congress because this process bypasses the filibuster.  It then only takes 51 votes to approve a budget.  Republicans are shocked, shocked, shocked.  But a look at history tells us that most fundamental change came from using this process including April 1981, April 1982 (think Ronald Reagan here), April 1990 (George Bush), April 1993 (Clinton-Gingrich), and the 2001 Bush tax cuts.  It would seem that when we want to make real changes, our form of government with the filibuster (read super-majority requirement here) has to go to extremes to make it happen.  Sooner or later we ought to let the majority party implement the changes they were voted in to do, and then judge them accordingly in the next election instead of allowing the radical minority to stymie progress.
• There are two international stories to think about.  One is the Russians wanting to base their bombers in Cuba.  To me this is a no-brainer.  It would be a barter chip for removing the missile defense system from our proposed sites in Eastern Europe.  For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  Second is the Obama administration considering further and expanded predator drone strikes in Pakistan.  Although I understand that we are at war with the Taliban, these strikes in Pakistan involve collateral damage that may be more damaging than the Taliban/al Qaeda we are trying to take out.  This campaign seems to violate the lessons we are learning about guerilla warfare being about hearts and minds, not tactical battles (It is sad that some of us learned all these lessons in Viet Nam and they have been conveniently ignored and then resurrected as new ideas in Iraq and Afghanistan).  I also have a problem with sanctioned assassinations that violates our concept of justice.  War is hell isn’t it?
• One last irreverent thought.   The Pakistani woman, Mukhtar Mai, who was gang raped by 13 members of a rival family, sanctioned after an alleged impropriety by her younger brother which later turned out to be false, has decided to get married.  She has been a model of the “new” Pakistani woman because she has bravely stood up to this treatment of women in Pakistani society and against custom, charged these men (beasts) with rape.  My concern here is that she will be the second wife (as in two at the same time) of a man who has pursued her for years, and after his attempted suicide, she finally relented.  I fear for her because in Pakistan, your wife is your property.  Maybe she can turn that one on its head too.

Just some food for thought.