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Excellent points. I feel for you and your grandmother, in part because it is such a common experience. What is less widespread, but I believe very necessary, are some clear expressions about the morality of refusing so much life extending care. When the time comes, I am quite certain that I will refuse certain treatments on what I deem socially moral grounds. My desire is that such a decision will be viewed as responsible, and not slotted away with faith healers or some other disregarded or denigrated group.

We need to be clear that death is not "failure" --as you say--and that "extending life" is not unalloyed success. Instead of "wanting the best" for grandma, my child, my spouse --"no matter the cost" --the moral decision needs to be based on what is best for the community. Selfish, personal healthcare actions are too often construed as moral absolutes. Community-based decisions, which might raise questions about sustaining the heart functions of alzheimer's patient or ensuring the live-birth of a 22 week old fetus, need to be accorded similar moral heft. 

posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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Up to 25% of all health care costs go for patients in the last year of their life. I expect that most of these expenses are publicly funded, which means physicians, care centers, and patients have no real sense of how much any of this care costs. Indeed, they have no incentive for knowing the amount of money that is spent on new hips, more pills, care, etc.

We do not need death panels. We may not even need rationing. We do need people to understand how much everyone pays for extaordinarily expensive care.

My doctor recently prescribed an MRI for a sore shoulder, even after an x-ray gave a very clear indication of the problem. The MRI was to "just be sure." I subsequently learned that my costs for the MRI would be close to $600, while my insurance would have to kick in $2300. I thought the latter figure was obscene. Why should ohers pay so much for something that really wasn't necessary. After all, it was just a sore shoulder. My doctor had no idea of the costs, and when I told him he started to have second thoughts about glibly prescribing such matters.

I don't want to ramble, but in this case I believe some clear discussions about costs is needed. It is ignored for various reasons, but such ignorance directly feeds high costs and high (unearned) profits.

posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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Too much of today's discussion is driven by anecdotes. The issue is too big and too complex to simply allow a long personal story to skew a debate in one direction. Please shoot for systematic analysis with the rest of the time.

posted 3 years, 4 months ago
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I lived and traveled in Mainland China in 1989 and experienced the spring demonstrations in several provincial capitals. It was an exhilirating time. Besides the marches and demonstrations, which were calm, polite and unsure, it was a broader time of public expression and discovery. At the time, the horror of the Cultural Revolution was a very live memory. In dozens of conversations--in Chinese, English, and both--people spoke of their sufferings at that time and viewed the Spring Democracy movement as a hope they dare not have, yet could not turn away from.

At the time I wrote in my journal that I could not fully believe the wonder of the time, and that I could not imagine just how terrible the state crackdown would be.

I left China in May, about 2 weeks before the crackdown, and listened to the events on the radio while in Pakistan. I returned to China in July and experienced a different world. Very few people were comfortable speaking with me in public. In the spring, I couldn't avoid deep, political conversations.

One year later, I read the entry in my journal and had forgotten that I feared--at the time--the crackdown that came. I only remembered the hope of the time, not the fear.

I fear that we --people in China and the West --have this same memory loss now. China's economic success of the past 15-20 years is remarkable, but the Tianmen of June 4, 1989 is still at its core. Centralized authority is the essential principle of the Chinese government--before Communisim, since Mao, and through the "economic miracle." The current destruction of Kashgar in western China, the colonization of Tibet, the government sanctioned factory towns of today, are expressions of this central principle. And if challenged too publicly, if social harmony seems threatened, brutal state violence will ensue. That, for me, is the lasting meaning of Tianmen in 1989.

posted 3 years, 11 months ago
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I'm frustrated by the amount of plowing and spraying that takes place within feet of the Willamette River--causing erosion, diminishing fish habitat, and contributing significant pollution. Checking on these violations is fairly easy; a charter flight and google.earth will reveal all of the violations and the problems they create. What exactly are the regulations, in terms of retaining riverside vegetation and buffer zones between heavily used fields and rivers? And why do they persist in plain view?

posted 4 years ago
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Pure Joy is Cheryl Lynn, "Got to Be Real."

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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The privacy issue does not concern me. I'd like to comment on a another element of fairness that I have yet to hear about. What percentage of miles driven --by truckers, tourists, business travelers, and SW Washington commuters --are from vehicles registered out of state? Won't all of that revenue be lost --and won't the policy just send trucking companies out of state? And what's to keep people in Portland from simply opening PO Boxes in Vancouver to register their cars in Washington. This seems like a recipe for creating a new kind of black market --not a solution at all.

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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I consider myself a veteran of America's military involvement in Central America during the 1980s. It was a dangerous, tragic and secret time that certainly shapes my understanding of U.S. foreign policy. I was not a paid soldier in covert operations. Rather, I was an unarmed but active opponent of U.S. activity in Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador.

My understanding of war is also shaped by my training as a historian, and as proud uncle of a marine killed in Iraq.

John McCain likes to criticize people who oppose his foreign policy ideas as "isolationist." The opposite word which he apparently uses to define his ideas is "engaged." My experience with war leads me to use a very different term. The idea that we should have bases, ships, missiles, and heavy troop activity all over the world is "imperialistic."

We don't just need a national discussion on race and class. We also need a national discussion on imperialism.

On a final note -to correct your first guest: George H.W. Bush, a decorated military veteran, did take the U.S. to war.

posted 5 years ago
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