Name:Aaron Country:United States State:Texas Metro:Denton Birthday:4/2/1985 Gender:Male
Interests:Historical and collegiate fencing, fantasy novels, sci-fi, video and PC games, chillin with my hommies, bowling, pool, traveling, history, religion, and occasionally the Xanga Expertise:Folks, I am a certified Home Depot cashier. Graduated from Cashier College in '05, I'm bona fide, and can assist you in all your cashiering needs at any Home Depot Occupation:Sales Industry:Retail
Xanga has been a part of my life for many years, starting with Sam when I was in high school, and for the many years since, I have used it to chart my personal growth and development. This site has seen more survey results, emo posts, poetry, etc. than people really deserve to read. Now I realize that as much as Xanga helped me to flesh out my own thoughts and voice through my adolescence, it since has stagnated, and has not proved as useful in my adulthood.
I am not giving up on blogging altogether. When I move to Britain, it will become especially important to maintain some touch with friends beyond Facebook. Then, I will create a newer and more professional blog centered around actual events in my life, in archaeology, and in my experiences abroad.
I'm unable to sleep. I slept for about fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. I feel like I'm on the edge of an epiphany. Like I was called awake for something, and if I was just able to see or experience it, then everything would fall together and then I would understand...what? Something big. Does this happen to other people? How many of us lie awake at night teetering on the cusp of Understanding, but are unable to take the plunge?
How many of us feel that if only we could write a poem, or paint a picture, or compose a symphony, then we could bring this understanding to the world and then, for the duration of that song could we all share in it? What a burden the artist has, to force our minds and our hearts to fit their reality, their perception! If only to get us all to see, "This is it! This is what I've been waiting for! Now I'm free to be a Human!"
What torments did Beethoven endure just to forge his Seventh out of deafness and above all, doubt? Did his audience understand? Or did they just hear music? What of Picasso's art? The abstract artist who spawned a thousand imposters trying to capture his genius, his understanding of what abstract art can be? How many today have succeeded?
How many people are happy?
EDIT: Scratch that. I'm happy. I'm on a career track I love studying something fascinating. Not a day goes by where I'm not thankful for the choices that I've made leading up to this. I've got great friends, a great apartment, a great sense of humor, and more confidence than I've ever had before. I'm able to set my goals now and meet them not only to the minimums, but surpassing even my higher hopes. I can play piano, and I'm learning Latin. I like swordsmanship and the times I had in ARMA. I have yet to get a B on a single research paper. I'm open and I'm friendly and I'm happy. I sail, I travel, I drink, and I dance, and I'm pretty damn good in bed.
Some people seem to think I'm weak because I'm polite and courteous. Like these traits are relics from a day gone by when men wore powdered wigs and a woman's only concern was what to wear to the ball. Or maybe when white knights rode on horses saving dames, or perhaps never. Fuck them.
I'm going to be a Renaissance man. A Philosopher Archaeologist. A dabbler in science gleaning human history from a sawed old bone. An alchemist learned in the motions of the heavens and their affects on the physical realm. A musician who plays for his family's amusement. A warrior who fights for their defense. A politician ringing out his voice when with a lever and a ballot. No longer shall I cower in self-doubt only confidant in the thrall of alcohol. I will take my place among my forebears as a Man, and I shall march proudly forward through life whether it be to Heaven, Hell, or Oblivion
I have not had much to say on the issue of healthcare that hasn't been better said by more eloquent writers. It's a sticky issue with a great deal of facets, and trying to enumerate them all with clumsy words is better left to the specialists. I will say that I am adamantly for reform completely beyond what Barack Obama is supporting which is mandated insurance with a possible public option. I am not inclined to give actual data for this rant, though undoubtedly I will be required to in order to back up my claims. Or you could go and look up the myriad of data yourself and try to refute me using well-documented statistics on how government-run systems are ineffective.
I am for a single-payer system.
That said I am not unwilling to compromise, and I will not condemn Obama for attempts to broker negotiations even if the bill is reduced from health care reform to insurance reform. The most important thing we can do is to steal back our right to be healthy from those who would sell it to us as a luxury. I will not be a slave to an insurance company, nor a hospital, nor any for-profit agency determined to sell me my natural rights at a premium. I will not be a corporate slave.
Some of the most idiotic talking points have come out because of this.
Death panels and socialism! Great Scott! Insurance company bureacracy can already deny a man the right to health care thanks to a preexisting heart condition, and you want to tell me that telling a doctor to talk to an elderly man about End-of-Life Care is evil? Wait times? That only exists at a minimum in Canada where elective surgeries have a wait time of a few weeks with occasional outliers that make the news. I still had to wait a month for my elective surgery. And then I had to pay two $500 deductables and another $800 fee at check-in!
Yeah. Way better. I'll attend the Socialism part in a second.
But Aaron! The gov't will have to increase taxes to pay for a system!
Too bad I already have to pay my insurance premiums through my paychecks at work. Oh but yeah, no deductabile at the hospital. No $100,000 medical bill (fine) for accidently falling out of a tree.
Well what about those dirty brown folks who cross the border illegally? They'll abuse our new system!
We already pay for them now, except we pay for them at emergency rooms instead of in primary care. If we have to support this burden (and we do. Let's face it, they're not going back home.) then we might as well pay $100 for a checkup instead of $10,000 at the emergency room.
Capitalism drives innovation and lowers prices! Our Healthcare System must therefore provide the most effective treatment in the world at the best price.
True Capitalism implies that there are limited barriers to entry and no one player gets to dominate the market. In this case, I am referring to insurance companies acting as a cartel nationally, and as monopolies locally. They negotiate the prices with the hospitals (and have the leverage of making the hospital an out-of-partner location. They accept and deny clients and claims even after the doctor's given you the treatment without having had the time to consult with the agency. They require or forbid kinds of tests. They are driven by the profit-motive, not philanthropy.
Governments are ineffecient bureacracies themselves! How could they possibly run an effective system?
Ask our veterans and those on Medicare. Look at the satisfaction with which those users have with their agencies. It's a lot higher than those with private insurance across the board. Granted, it's not a perfect system, but at least no one there's getting stuck with a $12,000 bill for having a baby. And exactly does "inefficiency" refer to anyway? It refers to a firm's ability to turn a profit, ie the highest revenues vs. costs ratios it can provide itself. Not "saved lives". Not "most effective treatments". Not "all tests determined necessary by physicians to make a diagnosis". Also, I hate to break it to you, but insurance companies themselves are enormous bureacracies. At least I can vote my politicians out of office if I don't like them. I have yet to vote for the President and CEO of All-State.
I plan on attending a march this next Sunday in Austin, TX. This is one of the most important issues America is facing, and I want to let my representatives know that. I'm tired of hearing about these astroturfed town-halls like they're legitimate protests. I want to let Texas and America know that I am proud enough of my country to say that I'm tired of abused by robber barons, whether it be from corn, petrol, military industry, pharma, or insurance companies!
tl;dr:
I am the master of my life, of my decisions. That is my right. And I will exercise it to the fullest by being master of my government. I am not a corporate pawn. I am not a slave.
I was thinking about a favorite poem of mine that I had read recently. This one is very reassuring to me when I'm feeling existential, and I hope others may find it so.
The Fireside Poem -J.R.R. Tolkein
I sit beside the fire and think of all that I have seen, of meadow-flowers and butterflies in summers that have been;
Of yellow leaves and gossamer in autumns that there were, with morning mist and silver sun and wind upon my hair.
I sit beside the fire and think of how the world will be when winter comes without a spring that I shall ever see
For still there are so many things that I have never seen: in every wood in every spring there is different green.
I sit beside the fire and think of people long ago, and people who will see a world that I shall never know.
But all the while I sit and think of times there were before, I listen for retuning feet and voices at the door.
On November 22, 1859, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life and changed the face of natural history forever.
