The Revolution Will Not be Medicated

Today's news from the senate chamber is no less than fantastic. Really, I'm happy to see any motion on healthcare reform whatsoever; but to a very specific degree, does anyone else feel that this victory is Pyrrhic? Both the House and the Senate bills, which have yet to be reconciled, were near party-line votes (60-39 in Senate and 220-215 in the House) are the result of compromise followed by compromise, to the point where, while this bill will have its effects, no one really seemed happy with the end result.

Too often when learning/reading/listening about the healthcare debate, I want to throw my hands in the air and forget about it because, simply stated, where is this all going? Would a reform be e true revolution which is necessary. Regardless of one's political ilk, virtually everyone agrees that an overhaul is absolutely necessary, but there is severe disagreement about what to do about Americans' health insurance.

Throw it out.

That's it, throw it out. A certain, calming epiphany when I realized that this was the path-- healthcare needs a complete paradigm shift, a total revolution as to its purpose and existence. Why are we insured at all?

in·sur·ance
1 Coverage by contract whereby one party undertakes to indemnify or guarantee another against loss by a specified contingency or peril

By definition, insurance is an agreed-upon, businesslike gamble. There's nothing wrong with this... in fact, much of modern life and commerce owes functionality to someone gambling that bad things won't happen. Every year, I spend hundreds of dollars on a gamble that I might find myself in an automobile accident-- I'm happy to have lost this wager every year, but it's nice to know that if I "win" and get the insurance company to pay out, it'll be helpful in the aftermath. All insurance is simply a gamble-- this is why certain religious groups such as the Amish and some Muslims do not participate in conventional forms.

Say what you will about gambling... coming from a town that relies on it, I see it as a fun vice when in control (as any other vice), but in the end, Americans can usually tell a good bet from a bad bet. I can wager that I won't crash my car or burn down my house by taking precautionary measures, and the respective insurance companies won't have to pay; in fact, I can continue being safe like this for years or even decades. Health is something entirely different-- sooner or later, everyone taking part in seeing a doctor or an ER or having a baby or whathaveyou.... it's a rare case when an one's odds of losing is 100% on a long enough time-scale.

So the insurance company always loses... and then passes the losses back onto everyone else. It's a guaranteed cycle, under which too many people have figured out how to make money. Now making money's not bad, it's the American Way, after all, but I do not need to renumerate the costs of what the healthcare industry does.

Simply stated, betting against not being sick is an outdated model for insurance companies. Even the insurance companies know this by now, as they no longer brand themselves as insurance industry, but healthcare industry. Keeping one's health no longer a gamble, it must be a service. Homeowner's insurance does not stop my house from being on fire, the community-supported firehouse does. Insurance policies are not without purpose, but where they are now, they are just in the way.

When I was about 10, I considered emergency services, which I think at the time was defined as "when someone is involved with sirens." Aware that the police and fire departments were a part of the city government, I asked my father about ambulances and hospitals being a part of the same structure of public services. He made a remark about the First Lady that I didn't really understand, but I remained even more confused that not dying was something for which you were given a bill.

Rules for insurers, public insurance, reformed insurance. Same song, new chorus. The fundamental idea of how Americans think of how we take care of ourselves simply needs change. This will come, assuredly, but not now; nor will it be easy.

The Revolution Will Not be Medicated.

Unscientific America by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum

My process for reading books is never quite as fast as I would like it to be... this inevitably results in always adding more to the eternally growing list of to-reads. For this reason, as much as I enjoy books of the zeitgiest, they too often loose their great impact before I get a chance to comb through the pages. Unscientific America, in this mold, operates very much within the moment; clearly researched in late 2008, and written/published in early 2009, Mooney & Kirshenbaum's work is an extension from Mooney's 2005 Republican War on Science (recommended reading). However, rather than taking aim at a particular political philosophy, the authors have a greater focus upon the American people's malaise and insouciance of the scientific world.

A relatively short work (about 150 pages), but very clear and to the point, the book rose from the failed effort of ScienceDebate2008, an effort during the 2008 presidential election to bring Senators Obama and McCain to a forum in which the scientific issues of the day were discussed (in the same way of the values debate, economy debate, etc...). The Obama campaign politely declined requests, and the McCain camp simply ignored any discussion of the topic. Good idea though, right? A lot of universities, professional researchers, and members of the educated community thought so too. The simple reason why the campaigns declined (or ignored) the idea of discussing American science in a highly public forum was that there was no reason to-- a presidential campaign is purely an animal of survival-- the quadrennial campaign is as lean and as close to public sentiment as metaphorically possible.

But why don't Americans like to talk about science?

"Of course we're intimidated by science! Science holds itself above everybody else-- above God, evidently. You guys have been kicking ass since the Enlightenment"
-Stephen Colbert

A quick history of the American relationship with the scientific community through the latter half of the 20^th century (although not as cutting or encompassing as in Mooney's earlier work) brings us to the state of science of 2009, after eight years of an outright antiscience adminstration, culture wars on man's origin, stem cells, and some topics you would never think would be debated, to ask where are we now, and where are we going?

[For a full jeremiad about the declining place of science in America, please see older posts.]

While it would be easy to place blame upon the populace for scientific lassitude, Mooney and Kirshenbaum are equanimitous in spreading blame to scientists for popular disconnect. While American interest in scientific advances have consistently slipped in that last fifty years, science itself has become more obtuse-- beautiful, encompassing, and wonderful-- but largely abstract to the general population.

Communication of science, the authors argue, is the greatest failing of the American science-culture system. While science writers have been declining in the waning years of newspapers, the scientists themselves are often left to communicate the wonder of their art to the people, which has simply never been a high priority, as researchers themselves prefer research, and there has always been science writers to serve as a medium.This might be why so many Americans hear "scientist" and think of something like this:
<------------

when, in reality, so many of us are
more like this --------------->

Okay, not always beakers, but beer pints instead, and not as much dyed hair. But we do rock the fuck out.


Anyway, the book. In the end, there really is no one place or person to hang all of the blame for the problems with how Americans do or do not embrace science. For all that we bemoan and cringe at the actively antiscience population, the truth is that most of our countrymen (and women) are actually very respectful of science and interested when it does pop-up in an understandable form. What is necessary is a new culture, which is actually quite fortunate, as American culture has shown us, it is malleable and powerful when concentrated. Let's not let this decade's ascendancy of the geek stop with a complacency that the Bush years are over, there is always a great amount of work to be done. It can always be better. Both scientists and Americans are defined by a strong attachment and dedication to consistent, hard work. Both are capable.

Mentioned yesterday that I was feeling rather philosophical, and I think I'll explore that again. Unfortunately, there's been about 24 hours' worth of lag-time, and I can't quite recall where I was going with such thoughts.

Let's see, yesterday, I wrote about Avatar, so let's see where that takes us...

"Avatar" itself is the Sanskrit word for incarnation, or manifestation as in a god's physical manifestation on Earth. Funny how in the general translations, Christ is never referred to as an avatar, or "god in the flesh." Funny how that comes to mind as I write this week of Christmas (speaking of which, Happy Solstice, everyone).

Religios interpretations aside, the term today has come to represent not so much a manifestation, but as a projection. I can go onto my Facebook friends' list and find at least a half dozen WoW avatars, not to mention the myriad other games where this is commonplace. Moreover, in so many facets of today, our avatar is, in fact, often our digital projection to the world-- it is the form we choose to take in social media, MMOs, message boards, podcasts, YouTube channels, or even of characters in tabletop RPGs

What do we choose to project? So many of us have found Facebook to be a fine replacement for the Class Reunions of generations past (personally, I'm on the fence about what I'd do with a Class of '01 invite). Friends, acquaintances, even enemies are brought together via Walls and Apps and Games which span from the melodramatic years of high school to the quasi-established "adults" which so many of us have become ("and of my goodness, so-and-so has a baby!"). Who are we? Many are mindful of our web-presence, and the most careful of us minutely scrutinize personal information disseminated to the Web.... but where is the line between dissemination and scrubbing?

There are no shortages of anecdotal tales about embarrassing information posted by oneself or one's friends, but from what we control, what is chosen?
"This profile photo hides my double-chin,"
"Am I in a relationship, or an it's-complicated?"
"Why should I post that I still have the same job I did at 18?"
"Let's just make sure that everyone knows I have a Master's degree"
and what is that line between our avatars, the personalities we want others to see, and who we truly are?

Cinematically, an excellent addressing of this idea stretches back a decade (yes, friends, it has been a decade) to 1999's The Matrix. Although this metaphor is quite literally backward-- in The Matrix, we live as digital projections ignorant of our physical reality-- many points still hold. Consider the "residual self-image," how do you truly view yourself? Your mind's projection of your physical appearance... what is seen in the psychological mirror? And do we bend our image to our will, or better yet (as shown by Neo), is our image of the world bent to us? Okay, it probably stretches my point to the edge of breaking, but the question remains.... what is our projection?

In the end, so much of our daily avatars move back to the ancient interpretation-- the mundane actions of a god. As gods of our own universe, like Neo, we define our reality by our interpretation of it; it goes without saying that a physical reality exists of its own accord regardless of whatever interpretations we have have, but as the image which we project to the world, and that of the world which our mind projects to ourselves, one asks, how are these reconciled? Can they be? Should they be?

What's your avatar?

Feeling a bit philosophical today. Also, I had wanted to try out a new format in the form of movie review. What apparently has been James Cameron's baby for the last decade or so, has been the epic-scale science fiction, Avatar.

There's little need to go into particular plot details, as much of this has been hashed-out before, but for the sake of a purposeful review: A paraplegic Marine in the mid-22^nd century (Sam Worthington as Jake Sully) is given an opportunity at life again as a military operative for industry on Pandora, moon of a gas giant orbiting Alpha Centuari (I'm assuming A, due to the color of the star). After a 5-year journey (I figured it out to be v=0.9c, with a time dilation of 60%, so we're in the realms of decent physics here), he is introduced to Pandora, which is immediately painted as a primeval and beautiful place, if exceptionally dangerous, with hints during the hastened exposition of the aboriginal Na'vi, who aren't particularly keen on a human mining operation in their holy forests. Once a part of the program, he is introduced to his avatar-- a Na'vi-Human genetic contruct into which he can "plug himself in" to control while sedated in a remote pod-like thing. The local interstellar corporation is mining for the (creatively named) unobtainium, which lies beneath a Na'vi settlement, and it's Jake's job to go native and git er dun (oh god, spell check accepted that phrase, please kill me) in the American way to extract the ore.

I'm sure that you can extract the remainder of the plot from there. If anything, the biggest failure of the film was an easily visible plotline, however, this was not as crippling as Jake's off-screen spinal injury, as the film moves fantastically and beautifully through the thoroughly imagined and created world of Pandora. For this, Cameron's vision and care for this world is uniquely praised as a fine display of cinematic and technological talent to bring what was clearly a very specific vision of a story to life. I did not, however, see the much-spoken 3D version, although from what I hear, it is well done; considering the immersive nature of the "basic" 2D from yesterday, one can truly appreciate that the film is trying to pull the viewer into the exotic forests of this world.

On the other hand, Cameron also imagined floating mountains. Unless unobtainium is a suspiciously buoyant mineral, I remain skeptical.

More than anything else, I was heavily reminded of the 1992 animation FernGully (anyone remember that one?), with it's ultimately pro-environmental, anti-military-industrial complex ethos, which on a personal level is a very satisfying feeling. Moreover, the "sides" built on the human side are the corporate mercenaries (lots of Hoo-aah!s, no offensive to my serving friends, thorugh, you guys are awesome) who are gung-ho about blowing stuff up and burning epic life-trees (personalized by the"arg, I'm a tough drill-sergeant-esque uber-fighter" Col. Quaritch [Stephen Lang]) vs. the tree-hugging, uber-educated scientists/diplomats who have the audacity to learn about and from the Na'vi people, summed-up by Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver, in her best movie since Ghostbusters) distill the reactions of mankind to a new race.

It is awfully nice to see scientists portrayed as major, non-stereotyped nerdy characters, but the sequence of the film's plot begs the questions why did a mining operation get here before the scientists? Oh well, Cameron has left this one wide open for sequels and further exploration of this universe.

In essence, this film is a re-telling of the story which has rung for our culture since the the age of Columbus... just how far does "white man's burden" extend? How idealized is the "noble savage?" What has our modern life sacrificed from Nature? Parallels are easily drawn between Avatar and whatever oppressive colonization in history you want to compare it to, but as a story told on such a grand scale, one can appreciate a unique sci-fi, where we are the evil, invading aliens (or, "Skypeople," as labeled by the Na'vi). In particular, the heavy-handed ecological message is as timely as ever, but is likely to be lost in the cacophonous din of what Hollywood produces on a near-constant basis. I would like to see it again once the ooh-ahh-factor of the first viewing has been drawn out (note: I am certain of Avatar's place in graphics awards this year) to take a deeper viewing of the story itself. There is an enchantment to an unspoiled wilderness that is ready to draw us in, and I'm curious as to what else is there.

The Martian Chronicles,
Ray Bradbury

I've been a fan of Bradbury's work on and off for a long time. A short story he wrote about a girl on Venus struck me in 7^th grade as one of the first literary pieces of science fiction I had read. Fahrenheit 451 is, of course, a classic which will never die, and arguably his greatest work (this novel is particularly interesting as Bradbury more recent activities include being a cranky old man who protests when libraries close).

Last year, my interest in literary sci-fi started again, when I picked-up out copy of The Illustrated Man, a collection of stories told in a fascinating, if dark, prose which tumbled out of Bradbury's prolific imagination. The Martian Chronicles is created along the same vein, in the author's own words, "a book of stories pretending to be a novel."

The series of 26 vignettes are a history of mankind's exploration and settlement of the Red Planet, from 1999 to 2026. A few of these episodes were published on their own as short stories in the late 1940s, and appear primarily as thought explorations for the the future of Mars from the mid-20^th century perspective. When these stories were ultimately pulled together as a single narrative in 1950, Bradbury's presentation of the future is done in the classic futurism stylization of the era.

In many parts, a thinly veiled description of early friction between human explorers and the native Martians is the classic science fiction model of criticism of the present/past (i.e., Manifest Destiny) by stories of the future. Indeed, the chapter "Way in the Middle of the Air" is a direct social critique of contemporary racial attitudes in the era (to the old Confederacy's credit,South which Bradbury paints in 2003 is much worse than it actually turned out to be).

There exists a certain joy(?) is reading of the past's predicts about today. In the often-bemoaned complain of 21^st century life, "where is my jetpack?" decades past has set us up for disappointment (however, let's not forget about our robot cleaner houseservants). From the lens of the futurists of the post-War period, lunar bases and cities would be mainstream by the time of my birth and Martian colonization (if not terraforming) would begin around the turn of the century. As someone with a degree in astronomy, I found myself suppressing the "aw, that's cute" ideas of 1940s planetology which had blue Martian skies, temperate weather, and flowing canals of water (not to mention that this was the Venus was said to have extensive jungles and contant rainfall); however, we always forgive, because Mr. Bradbury was, in fact, using some of the better science of his time, and focus instead on the content of the story.

Early explorations and interactions with native Martian (or Tyrr, as they call their home) peoples are... odd. One would expect our First Contact, of course, to be beyond anything within our experience. These early encounters are somewhat fanciful and bizarre, however, these give way to an eventual human dominance era, in which the drama takes on a more familiar tone (ask a Wampanoag about smallpox if you want to see an older version of the story). Once the Mars is in the hands of humankind, and exploration gives way to settlement and colonization, a darker, if cynical storyteller appears which seems more reminiscent of Fahrenheit 451, and some of the darker stories of the Bradbury canon.

What is the future always about? Today. All considering, this book did actually make me a bit hopeful, for all of the destruction and calamity predicted at the dawn at the Atomic Era-- 64 years since our greatest sin against the atom, and there have only been two cities we've annihilated in this manner. For all of the shiny, Jetsons-eqsue hopes the 1950s had for the present day, there was a bleak, hollowed-out interior of fear as the early Cold War waged more in the minds of the world than on battlefields. For all of the fears and hopes of tomorrow, we've let down many, but in our wisdom, avoided so much more.

It's really easy to forget how quickly things pick-up. Moreover, despite being in hte middle of several books, I haven't quite finished any of them yet, hence the review-less October. However, it is likely to get worse, as this year, I am once again a participant in National Novel Writing Month, the challenge to write a 50,000 word story between November 1^st and 30^th.

I've tried this on three separate occasions before, veering from science fiction to alternate history to sci fi again, and to be fair, I have no idea where I'm going to go this year. The biggest problem for all participants, however, is motivation, so if you know of anyone else doing this, be sure to send them reminder emails to get their ass moving. I'll try to leave notes from the road during travels in whatever holds for my mind.

-Phil

Okay, so updates need more regularity. But I do have a good excuse, as the madness with school has yet again begun.

Anyway, a new book.

Finding Oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story by Evan I. Schwartz is well, just that. I first heard about this on NPR toward the beginning of the summer, and due to the library's insistence over fines, wound up reading two halves of this book about a month or so apart. The Wizard of Oz itself is so central to our early 21^st century culture, that the allure of discovering its origins was too much to pass up (incidently, both Megan and I were coming home very late that night and listened to the same story in each of our cars).

Finding Oz is as much a biography of Lyman Frank Baum as it is of the story itself. In short, Baum had been a late 19^th century jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none whose career began in western New York as a chicken farmer and veered to playwright, oilman (in New York and Pennsylvania), then a variety shop owner, publisher, journalist, sports manager, and essayist (in Dakota Territory), and writer/traveling salesman/journalist in Chicago. It was at the age of forty, with four sons, a wife, thousands of miles behind him, Frank Baum had failed at just about everything he'd done when he struck upon samadhi in the winter of 1898, and with a single pencil, scribbling on the backs of envelopes and scraps of paper all over his house, created The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

For both Dorothy and Toto, the journey to, through, and from Oz is a transcendent and adventurous experience which ultimately reflected Baum's zigzagging across the cities and frontier of fin de siecile America. This journey indeed, is as much spiritual as it is literary and historical. While Baum's Oz is, at the end of the day, a children's story, it is filled with allusions and intended interpretations as a spiritual search for one's inner Self. What we know today as "New Age" religions aren't really as "new" as the name would imply, but in fact, have their roots in the writings and teachings in a late 1800s school of thought known as theosophy. What began as philosophical wanderings of a Helena Blavatsky fused ancient traditions of occultists, old religions (think pagans), and Eastern thought. Indeed, the American theosophical movement came to a head with the (unrelated and unplanned) arrival of Swami Vivekananda at the 1893 Worlds Fair (Columbian Exposition) Parliament of World's Religions, representing Hinduism (great and interesting sidestories about him too), which introduced to the West Hindu and Buddhist modes of thought.

Schwartz does a wonder job describing Baum's entrance to a metaphysical world was aided by his Matilda Joslyn Gage, his over-the-top (and historically overlooked), crazy-liberal feminist mother-in-law who hung out with likes of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Indeed, Matilda served as the archtype for both the Wicked and evil Witch of the West as well as the saintly, wise, and beautiful Good Witch of the North.

In a book which is a fine mixture of history, biography, philosophy, and literary criticism, Schwartz provides an engaging work which keeps the reader aware of both the beauty of the story as well as its deep, deep roots.

Most of our culture is an import. Throughout an American's childhood, we will find ourselves familiar with Little Red Riding Hood, King Arthur, Rumpelstiltskin, and Snow White, but The Wonderful Wizard of Oz's greatest contribution was the simple matter that it was the first (and perhaps only) thoroughly American fairy tale. Each component of this story sags with the weight of the closing of the frontier, capturing imaginations of the pioneer who was first terrified of the tornado, saw none by grey on the Kansan prairie, in the Exposition, was dazzled by the glimmer of an astounding city powered by power-mad wizards of science and industry, and sought to wash away the embodiment of their deepest fears.

While I know this description is not likely one of my best, this is certainly a good read