ACA Success story

You know: "success"

ACA supporter: 2 months of attempted online registrations, 5 phone calls to Healthcare.gov, 3 registrations (each time having to start from scratch); then, finally, a 90 minute phone call to confirm what we already knew about subsidy access and have a rep read out every single plan available to us, but with no provider names.

ACA sceptic: private price comparison site, 8 seconds to retrieve list of above plans. The site was probably built by high school students.

Note: Our state requires the application process through the exchange. This is frustrating. 

Charity

One though to add to my previous post: one thing I greatly admire in the Catholic church (and not only, but as we are speaking about Catholicism) is the charitable work. In many disaster areas the Catholic church is one of the first giving aid on the ground, and in most places carries an ongoing position of financial, nutritional and, yes, also spiritual support to those who need it most.

Dare I say: private charity increases the more private individuals have control over their own finances.

Just sayin'.

Papal Judgement

Speaking of strange judgements.

With Pope Benedict XVI we ("we") were all full of scorn and contempt for his Prada shoes and golden throne.

Now we have Pope Francis, whom we ("we") adore for not wearing Prada shoes nor sitting in a golden throne.

Neither appears to have much altered the church's position on woman priesthood, homosexuality in the church, priest celibacy, etc. (I would dare to venture even church finances and corruption, though changes have been made I do not by default equate change to improvement).

So basically: "we" are much more concerned with the Pope's shoes and chairs than much else. So are we Pope Benedict XVI?

Morning Ominousity

An unexpected change in radio station meant I woke up to oboes playing in minor chords.

Feeling ominous.

Judgmental tolerance

I am open and tolerant of all human beings in all walks of life and adhering to any lifestyle.

Unless you partake in Black Friday shopping. Then I look down on you with contempt.

No, not me, but people in general. It has me ver confused. I've never seen such vitriol from so many people who demand so much love and respect from others.

“The Wilder Shores of Marx”, an excerpt

The Skeptical Doctor blog is a collection of writings by Anthony Daniels, also known as Theodore Dalrymple. They recently published an excerpt from one of Daniels’ earlier books, The Wilder Shores of Marx (or Utopias Elsewhere, in the United States). The book tells of when he traveled to North Korea for the World Festival of Youth and Students in 1989.

Read the whole excerpt here. On this page we want to highlight this passage in particular:

Department Store Number 1 was a tacit admission of the desirability of an abundance of material goods, consumption of which was very much a proper goal of mankind. Such an admission of the obvious would not have been in any way remarkable were it not that socialists so frequently deny it, criticising liberal capitalist democracy because of its wastefulness and its inculcation of artificial desires in its citizens, thereby obscuring their ‘true’ interests. By stocking Department Store Number 1 with as many goods as they could find, in order to impress foreign visitors, the North Koreans admitted that material plenty was morally preferable to shortage, and that scarcity was not a sign of abstemious virtue; rather it was proof of economic inefficiency. Choice, even in small matters, gives meaning to life. However well fed, however comfortable modern man might be without it, he demands choice as a right, not because it is economically superior, but as an end in itself. By pretending to offer it, the North Koreans acknowledged as much; and in doing so, recognised that they were consciously committed to the denial of what everyone wants.

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On Serena Williams

Well put:

"The Williams scourging is a clarifying cultural moment. It should be conceptually possible to separate the issue of the boys’ culpability from the question of whether the victim had the power to avoid the assault in the first place by behaving responsibly. Parents tell their children not to get into strangers’ cars not because they think that a stranger would be justified in abducting a child who did so, but because not getting into a stranger’s car is the best way to avoid kidnapping."

Indeed. These are two separate things which both merit comment.