Note to President

I just sent the following to Pres. Obama:

Every time the right denounces you, you should view it as an opportunity to completely change the debate by criticizing the awful rhetoric they use. Your doing this could change our political life for the better for years to come. We have all been waiting for years for a democrat to do that, but we keep getting weak democrats. Please be strong for our sakes. Everybody wants a strong, courageous advocate.

Questions on Healthcare for President Obama

Why have you not been emphasizing the "same insurance that members of congress get", rather than the "public option?" Or, why not simply expand the availability of medicaid or medicare, and charge premiums pro-rated to income? Why not sell the whole thing as a reduction in bureaucracy, and a simplifying of an overly complex system, by combining medicare, medicaid, VA, federal employees, and the armed forces health system into one system. You would then have the rhetorical upper hand in all these discussions. The idea of extending coverage would be less of a focal point.

PianoBlog

I am starting a new project called PianoBlog, consisting of recorded, mostly extended technique, piano improvisations.

Doctrine and Covenants 104
16 [B]ehold this is the way that I, the Lord, have decreed to provide for my saints, that the poor shall be exalted, in that the rich are made low.
17 For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare; yea, I prepared all things, and have given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves.
18 Therefore, if any man shall take of the abundance which I have made, and impart not his portion, according to the law of my gospel, unto the poor and the needy, he shall, with the wicked, lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment.

Information Technology and Freedom

Iran is showing that information technology, from movable type, to mobile phones and the internet have always played a pivotal role in the march of freedom. I think I remember President Kimball saying that the Lord had provided inventions to enable the gospel to be preached to more and more people. This has been dramatically shown to be true over the years. Now I am seeing that information technology is opening up formerly closed societies, hopefully bringing about their access to the gospel.

"Winners" and "Losers"

I am continually shocked at the cavalier way the terms "winners" and "losers" are used in public policy debate, particularly regarding healthcare in the United States. If someone dies because of a healthcare snafu, isn't everyone a loser? Isn't there any sense of collective responsibility or collective benefit, or collective loss. Is the vestigial anti-communism so deep and so compulsive that we our discourse on public policy has to assume we are all monads, or nuclear family groupings. The terms "winners" and "losers" come directly from sports. The mythology in America is that participation in organized sports by children is the highest and best way to foster "values." But there is no query into what these values are. The most fundamental value that underlies organized sports (i.e. that lead to tournaments, etc.) is the zero sum gain, that there is one winner and one loser. This concept is behind all the problems I see in America (and increasingly, the world) today. It justifies greed, and doing horrible things to other people and the earth. We believe competition is a positive in itself, a cure-all, and you can't get in its way or you will cause all kinds of problems.

When I was a kid, I loved to play sports mainly for the exhilaration of various types of physical activity, the miracle of motion of bodies, balls, wheeled vehicles, etc. Friendly competition could make it fun and a little more urgent. But organized sports were always unpleasant to me, not so much because of the competition between teams, but because of the negativeness within a team--getting benched, etc.

I would suggest that the collaboration involved in creating new things is a much better way to teach values to children. Collaboration, working with people toward a common and creative goal, being respectful of what others have to offer, these are what children need to learn to foster a better society.

Coming Up: My Problems with Hip Hop