prism

“If you harness all the capabilities of our nation, you could have a better understanding of foreign threats,” he said. “But what makes it hard is that everyone has an opinion. There’s very little appreciation for the threat, and there are so many special interests, particularly civil liberty groups with privacy concerns. That mix keeps us from getting to the crux of the national issue."

this quote comes from mike mcconnell, former head of the n.s.a and director of national intelligence currently working as vice chairman for booz allen hamilton.  he was commenting on the snowden leaks concerning the secret u.s. surveillance system called prism.

it's the special interests that make america.  it's those special interests we're guarding.  the crux of the national issues shouldn't be security for security's sake, but rather security to guard american rights, particularly the personal autonomy and agency that our culture highly values.

bradley manning does not seem like the brightest bulb.  he released a lot of classified diplomatic cables less revelatory about american diplomatic missions than they were embarrassing to some of the diplomats.  he acted like a teenager, impulsive, and caused a big stink.  at the same time, as with a lot of people who act impulsively, the consequences of his actions will probably be more severe than he deserves. 

the information that edward snowden recently released about secret surveillance programs in the united states is completely different than the information released by manning.  snowden leaked information he genuinely thought the american public needed to know.  he wanted to inform the public about an issue that potentially affects them.  and now we see america actively considering the role of government in their lives, the importance of national security weighed against their own privacy.  after over a decade of hearing the war drums started by president bush, this is a conversation the american public needs to have.





ps: david brooks completely misses the point with snowden.  i think he could have made this argument with manning, but this is completely different.

unhealthy disappointments

ryan said, "it wouldn't be tuesday if you weren't freaking out about health care."

it's not tuesday, but let's talk about it anyway.

some pundits have been lauding the changes currently under way to the american health care system, and i, too, believe that the affordable care act could do a lot of good here and there, in bits and pieces.  but the more i read about it, the more i realize the affordable care act will not actually make healthcare in this country affordable.  here are a few articles from the new york times i've been looking at recently:

reed Abelson writes, "Say goodbye to that $500 deductible insurance plan and the $20 co-payment for a doctor's office visit."  in an effort to avoid the "cadillac tax" of the affordable care act, a penalty on "luxury" health care plans, many insurance plans are scaling back their offerings.  the author writes, "In a way, the changes are right in line with the administration’s plan: To encourage employers to move away from plans that insulate workers from the cost of care and often lead to excessive procedures and tests, and galvanize employers to try to control ever-increasing medical costs."  but my $20 co-pay isn't a luxury for me - it's what makes going to the doctor affordable.  when the point of health care policy is preventative medicine, accessibility and thus the price of health care has to encourage every american to seek medical help.  no one should be discouraged by the price of an appointment.  preventative medicine starts with absolute accessibility.

certainly, patients may be insulted from seeing cost and subjected to excessive medical procedures, but this has not resulted from the luxury of a low deductible or co-payment.  in this litigious age, doctors themselves have been insulted from the cost of medicine.  they have no idea how much their recommendations, prescriptions, and orders cost.  therefore, they have no way to know or incentive to prescribe more cost-effective evaluation and treatment.

here's another essay i dig: "a simpler, better solution."

usually i don't care much the room for debate forums.  these two doctors (david himmelstein and steffie woolhandler) write an opinion that simple, succinct, and scary.  they first simply argue that a single-payer health care system is more simple and efficient.  done.  then they note several disturbing problems with the affordable care act, which has a lot to do with how complicated the act is.  first, this:

"If your income is below $31,321 for a family of four (133 percent of the poverty line), you will get Medicaid (unless you live in a red state that declined the federal assistance, like Texas or Alabama). And “Medicaid” nowadays means a privately run Medicaid H.M.O. But make one dollar more (or if Junior moves out, leaving a family of three) and Medicaid disappears; now you’re shopping for subsidized private insurance in the state-run exchange. That’s not a rare occurrence: 28 million adults cross the 133 percent line annually."

then they note that if you, "[m]ove from 400 percent of poverty to 401 percent, and individual premiums rise $2,303. Can’t quit smoking? Add $3,365."

the rules and exceptions are labyrinthine.  flatly: the affordable care act is far from comprehensive and does little to make health care affordable to average americans.

mandating that all americans pick up health care is pointless if basic health care is still unaffordable.  we can't argue for preventative medicine, medicine that deals with mole hills before they become mountains, then keep access to that out of reach while patting ourselves on the back for insuring the nation.

i had hoped the affordable care act could be obama's greatest legacy, and he has definitely been a fantastic president, but i think this may just be one of america's greatest disappointments.

ars poetica

john thinks journaling must be an addiction.  he will tell you a story about a woman who beat her drug addiction by journaling and now promotes her book that will teach one how to journal.  whether john actually saw this story on oprah or cooked this one up himself, i'll never know.

i have stacks of journals.  piles.  i talked to my mother the other day as she has been going through the library of books i left in alabama when i moved to oregon.  she found a cache of journals among all the other volumes; she told me she'd save them for me.

these journals contain a lot of entries about the purpose of maintaining a journal.  how do i justify this habit?

a part of me believes (perhaps falsely) that in writing this daily monologue, in noting these quotidian details, in indulging this compulsion to record i can glean some meaning from the culmination of events, that i can sort out my thoughts and experiences and emotions and all the rest of this meaningless bullshit and be left with a revelatory web, a pattern i can apply to the future.  i believe in this mathematics of memory.  my memory impacts and affects my experience now which compounds to affect a future present.  memory snowballs and collects like interest.

psychoanalysis breaks apart memory to find the missing mental component or malfunction buried underneath strata of memory and habit.  i think i journal for the same reason: i want to be able to pick apart of the calculus of experience, to understand subsets of memory, trajectories of effect.  that i should think of that man then when i love this man now and how then will i love another?  that china considered itself as center of the world, then a non-aligned, third world, and now again an economic superpower - how then will it be?

honestly, john may be right.  journaling may be just a compulsion.  it doesn't help me predict the future.  it is not a crystal ball.  it's not even an effective psychoanalytic tool considering i continue to fall into the same mental traps year after year.  i've been keeping a journal since the age of fifteen.  what would i do with all that time if i stopped now?

the middle kingdom and the three worlds

"third world" probably doesn't mean what you think it means.  the term originated during the cold war to refer to nations non-aligned with either the capitalist west (nato) or the communist bloc (the ussr.)  many of these third world countries had been former colonies, having found independence and needing to develop economically in the '60s and '70s.  hence popularly "third world" came to describe poor or developing nations.

the west did not consider china a third world country.  rule by the chinese communist party signified soviet alignment to the west.  mao zedong had a different idea: he wanted to lead china was a non-aligned power between the u.s. and the u.s.s.r., despite his communist ideology, calling this his "three worlds theory."

i don't really remember the collapse of the u.s.s.r. - it didn't hold much significance for me at six.  neither did china form an axis of evil with the soviet giant.  i missed the hysterics of reagan.  young children in nineties must have dreamed of china as an alien place of red palaces and toy factories.  we saw the "made in china" sticker everywhere.

china came of age economically at the same time my generation did.  it now has the second largest economic in the world.  furthermore, in the new york times yesterday, an article reviewed the rising military might of china in the pacific, narrowing the capabilities between the u.s. and china.  obama and the joint chiefs of staff have in response this year declared a shift to greater attention militarily to the pacific, particularly as traditional american allies such as japan, south korea, and india continue to find themselves locked in disputes with china over territory.

this military focus only inflames china.  as henry kissinger points out in his book "on china," the middle kingdom has historically considered itself the center of the world, insisting upon tribute from bordering kingdoms, but the ancient imperial mandarins of china dealt with their neighbors diplomatically.  contemporarily china may seem aggressive, but in a constantly changing southeast asia populated by many different peoples and cultures, china attempts to maintain internal stability and beneficial relations with its neighbors in the face of a growing american military presence in the area.

instead of providing constant worry to the chinese government, instead of viewing china in the united states (replacing the u.s.s.r. as the second world,) the u.s. government needs to start supporting chinese diplomacy.  overt u.s. support could temper china's aggressive stance and put china in a place to effectively stabilize the region, including aiding democracy and normalcy in north korea and myanmar.  china needs to become a regional leader and an international leader and can only do so with the support of the united states.

we need to erase the distinction between a capitalist first world and a communist second and acknowledge that whether as a developing nation or non-aligned, china is not a third world country.

goodbye gypsy

the waiter said, "well, if you like the taste of gin you may like it, but i'm not a big fan of it."  he wore a look of disgust.  i doubted the man found himself to be a big fan of anything.  he certainly had not sold us on anything.

yesterday had been sunny so we had hoped to get a seat outside on the patio of departure.  adam and i had come for the view.  for a nice dinner.  for a drink.   we had been to this restaurant together, several months before, to celebrate a promotion i had received.  adam had suggested we return last night to celebrate his new job, having received his first paycheck and his tax refund from the irs.

i said, "to having it all finally come together for you."  adam looked happy.  he smiled at me and look past me out the window at the view of portland.  gin and bourbon and crab fried rice and shu mai and glazed pork belly.  the room slowly darkened and our moods lifted and we left the restaurant very happy.

we walked a couple blocks over and got frozen yogurt.

adam has to wake early for his job.  early.  so early.  it hurts being awake that early.  it's too earlygodhelpmeican'tbeawakeatthishour.  ok.  it's a fairly normal hour, normal to most americans who have to wake and commute to the office.  adam at least just has to bike about ten blocks from his house.  though for one job i held i needed to be at work at 5am, i've grown spoiled.  i try to be at work by 8.30.  the latest 9am.  but sometimes, i don't get there until 9.45, such as monday morning when through the haze of my hangover i found it hard to even find the office.  i come in late and stay late.  i make up for it.  adam has to be responsible and get to work early, which i take as a burden on my sleep, on my rest, on my beauty, and my patience.

my eyes can't even open fully at that hour.  ungodly hour.  the morning hours before work are the worst - worse than late night insomnia hours.  adam leans over the bed and kisses my forehead, benediction, acknowledgement that i can't get out of bed just yet.  i smile.  close my eyes.  and pull the blanket over my face.

communion

my friend offered up to the guests gathered at his birthday dinner a clear glass canister filled with cellophane wrapped candies.  each candy had been collected by this friend from an installation by felix gonzalez torres.  i chose a candy with a shiny green wrapper, evidently from a candy installation produced by gonzalez torres titled ross in l. a.  it tasted like medicine.

body of christ.  amen.

this friend prepared his own birthday dinner for his friends, and then offered them candies from art installations by one of his favorite artists.  for those there at the dinner not familiar with gonzalez torres, we learned from rob that gonzalez torres would install these candy "spills" in galleries: large piles of wrapped candies, free for the taking by anyone who visited the installation.  the installed art fragments and disperses as participants take and ingest or cherish or dispose of the candies.

watching the death of his lover ross, felix gonzalez torres understood that a person disperses physically with time, age, infirmities, but also socially through conversation, memory, and legacy.  even if we're not all social butterflies, our relationships produce butterfly effects.  you capture the memory of me as a subject: the things i've said to you, the ways in which i have helped you, the particular gestures i make, the times i've made you laugh.

this is my body.  this is my blood.

by partaking of his body and blood, by ingesting his message and memory, we in turn act and love and talk and live - our bodies, our blood, our actions and sacrifices further dispersed and immortalized.  even if one were not aware that the candy spills by gonzalez torres correspond to the diminishing weight of the artist's lover as he died of aids, the ghost of ross continues to haunt us through felix gonzalez torres and his candy and our participation in this installation, this ritual.

i received a snapchat of my friend talking about felix gonzalez torres to us that night and i thought, i wish i could save this.  i wish i could have this always.  but i realized that i wouldn't need a video to remember this moment.  the memory would integrate itself into my consciousness, into my daily life, into dinner parties, and candies, and communion.

considering a "post-democratic" china

a week or so ago, i found myself at a tiki bar listening to a man ramble about china.  mostly he amalgamated whatever he had heard on tv: that china kept their money artificially which their economy growing and that their economy would overtake ours eventually.  we have been hearing this for years. the american image of china consists of the looming threat of a gigantic economy and population and simultaneously a poor chinese populace repressed by a brutal communist government.

china may have a lot of surprising both/ands.  more to the story than just when china will overtake the u.s. economically, there may be a lot of surprising statistics about china to consider.  in a recent issue of foreign affairs, shanghai venture capitalist and hedge manager eric x. li provides a view of what he calls the "post-democratic" future of china, which contrary to popular western belief is built upon a meritocratic government that provides for its people with wide popular support.  in opposition to li's argument, foreign affairs has concurrently published commentary by yasheng huang, a mit professor, who argues that the chinese communist party does not have the strong popular backing that li claims and must quickly push toward a wider democracy if it wants to avoid a cultural and economic crisis such as the country saw with the cultural revolution.

while i agree with eric li that democracy as america understands it may not be necessary for a successful and prosperous china, huang points out several relevant problems with li's analysis.  however, the issues that yasheng huang brings up may still be resolved in a manner unique and appropriate to the government and economy currently in place and the contemporary culture of china.

to begin with let’s consider some statistics concerning democracy that eric x. li mentions in his argument.  li cites a poll conducted by the pew research center in 2011 reporting that "87 percent of respondents noted satisfaction with the general direction of the country, 66 percent reported significant progress in their lives in the past five years, and a whopping 74 percent said they expected the future to be even better."  noticeably these figures do not account for any specific government entity or personality or for party approval in general.  this may be an affect of the difference between concerns that preoccupy the chinese populace.  li argues that, "Instead of demanding abstract political rights, as many in the West expected, urban Chinese are focused on what are called min sheng (livelihood) issues."  average chinese citizens concern themselves more with securing a comfortable daily life, with being able to afford food, comfortable accomodations, leisure, healthcare, transportation, and so forth than with government censorship or party mechanics or autonomy necessarily.

countering li's arguments, yashang huang argues that the Chinese population may not be as happy with the Communist Party as the polls li cites suggest.  "In a country without free speech, however, asking people to directly evaluate their leaders' performance is a bit like giving a single-choice exam."  huang cites a survey titled How East Asians View Democracy which shows that "72.3 percent of the Chinese public polled said they believed that democracy is 'desirable for our country now,' and 67 percent said that democracy is "suitable for our country now.'"  neither poll cited by li nor huang directly accounts for chinese sentiment of the current government and Communist party; both polls measure more abstract ideas such as desire for democracy and general satisfaction with life.  in contradistinction to li, yashang huang argues that the while the Chinese Communist Party may govern in radically different ways than it would have fifty years ago, many of the changes to policy and economic advances seen in china have democratic foundations.  he sees the decentralization of power in recent decades as the cornerstone to chinese development and growth.

li calls for an enlarged role for private business and nongovernmental agencies providing services to accomodate those "livelihood" issues, such as healthcare and education.  he also foresees further financial liberalization and expanded inclusion in party politics.  he notes that rampant corruption in the ccp, if not stemmed, could set back progress within the country.

in shayang huang's opinion, the chinese communist party has not yet addressed its past massive policy failures, such as the tragedies of the cultural revolution or the tiannamen square massacre.  with an economy dependent on the global market, such as china's, if global demand stagnated, and standards of living within china suffered, tensions between the governing party and the wider population could mount to another conflict as seen in the past.

a high standard of living helps support the legitimacy and efficacy and power of any government.  li points to general dissatisfaction in the american public for its government: "The approval rating of the U.S. Congress among the American people stood at 18 percent in November.  The president was performing somewhat better, with ratings in the 50s. And even support for the politically independent Supreme Court had fallen below 50 percent."  the american public does enjoy a high standard of living which may dissuade in some way any great outcry or movement to change the government and its policies.  that nascent contentment in a rising chinese middle class may mean that the communist party could sustain its grip on power for a while.  however, if as eric li predicts, the party becomes more inclusive, i predict that the acceptance and demand for democracy that huang cites will become integrated into the policies and procedures of the party so that slowly the country will completely transform.  looking at the instability and recent shifts in the global economy, it may however be beneficial to the stability of china and the communist party to integrate democratic change sooner rather than later.  while i am not sure that china can indefinitely maintain a "post-democratic" government, i do believe that they do not have to kowtow to the specifically american mixture of capitalism,  liberization, and democracy (and subsequent stagnation) that our society advocates.  there must be the possibility for a definitely chinese solution.