Medi-share

Take a gander at the new possibilities our market economy has to offer. This is an actal ad I recieved this morning, and it got me to thinking...

"Medi-Share is Proven
For over 17 years, Medi-Share participants have been helping one another through medical bill sharing-over $500 million has been shared and discounted! It's God's way of helping His people care for one another while providing healthcare that works.
Medi-Share is Sensible
With options to fit every budget, and even an incentive available for our healthier participants, Medi-Share is a great option for Christians who don't want to be left alone to pay their medical bills.
Medi-Share is Good Stewardship
Medi-Share is Good Stewardship. Medi-Share is for Christians who want their healthcare dollars to help fellow believers who are living the same lifestyles they are, based on biblical principles and service to others."

Imagine if you will, a retelling of the Good Samaritan parable...

Jesus is talking with a young man about how to be "justified"-

He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’[a]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b]”
28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii[c] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
Unfortunately, the good samaritan had "Medi-share coverage", which wouldn't cover care for people outside his own sect of Judaism, and so he was denied coverage. The inn keeper had to sue him for failure to reimburse. The inn keeper called the 1 800 number and tried to explain about how the Samaratin had found the poor man and how he had been attacked. The associate on the help line explained that "we provide help only for those living the same lifestyles we live by, based on biblical principles and service to others like ourselves."
36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
37 The expert in the law replied, "Medi-share is my choice for health insurance. They are excellent stewards of our money and and there's even an incentive available for our healthier participants!
Jesus wept.

Length does matter

This week a firestorm swept the CUNY system as honorary doctorate recipients looked for ways to return their awards. They did this in support of Tony Kushman, a now ex-recipient of an honorary doctorate from CUNY. The short version- a Pataki appointed chancellor or member convinced the rest of the short sighted members of the CUNY board that Kushman was an anti-semite and voila, honorary doctorate removed. Of course, there are numerous details and nuances one could look into, but who has the time?

This week another storm brewed as President Obama tried to make a dent in the armor of a conflict that has been waged since World War II. By mentioning a single date (1967), Obama was said to have "picked a fight with Israel." Today he begins to make in roads into repairing the damage, explaining that he didn't say anything earth shattering or unusual in his reference to those post war boundaries.

What do these two storms have in common? Israel, yes, but more importantly, taking a short view of things vs. a longer one.

The 'short view' in general is the quick decision without the research, the impulse buy at the store, the whim that can lead to heaven or hell. In both these cases regarding Isarael, had the agents involved stopped to think, maybe they'd be better off today. To whom does this warning apply? All of them. Tony Kushman probably may have been better off had he considered how his words would be taken out of context and used against him. The CUNY board should have looked into the situation before rescinding his award. In these two cases, political expediency trumped long and deliberate thought. Perhaps it was impossible for Kushman to think out the long term ramifications of his ideas, and the way our world now recycles and spins words and sound bites, they are little machines with teeth of their own. The CUNY board, trying to "get out in front" of the accusation that they were being anti-semitic, surely made their move without a conversation with Kushman.

Could Obama have had more conversations about this speech prior to this moment in order to calm the waters? Did he and his cabinet know the furor was coming? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I have come to see of late that we rarely see anything coming as clearly as we think we do. In hind sight, we see it all, and can assign motivations to every event. But in real time, I am surprised at every event that comes up.

We can all read the news as Harry Shearer does with a supercillious air, finding every news maker ludicrous and short minded. To be fair, it was Mr. Shearer who made me aware of the CUNY debacle in the first place. It was his show and his spin on the story that made me think, how could they dare do this?

As news consumers it is a very convenient place from which we judge the short sightedness of others. Still, there are decisions made that we can criticize as (in hind sight) really, really bad.

This past week, someone decided to layoff one of my family members. This is the short sighted view of the world at its worst. This short sighted person looked at what would "work" for her in the short run. Despite claiming that it was about the future of the company, she was really choosing what was convenient for her for now. If she had considered alternatives, and had conversations about the problem, the conflict might have been resolved. But who can have such conversations? Instead, we act fast, think decisively, and react to the catastrophes later.

One is often criticized as being too pensive, too cerebral, too wishy washy if one asks questions first. This is the classic attack on Hamlet, the prince who thought too much. I am more and more convinced of the importance of Nietzsche's observation that Hamlet did not think too much, but rather, that he thought too well. He thought too well because he could see the long term implications of every act he considered. This can lead to paralysis. One must eventually put on a le show or respond to a request...

Take a quick listen to the Harry Shearer show from Saturday. You will hear about...

Those who sell and buy FEMA trailers full of formaldahyde are desperate for cash and desperate for housing, respecively. Preston Mitchum plagiarizes a You Tube speech and later hopes it won't have an impact on his career as a lawyer... Another man blamed his Danish sense of humor for offending... well, everyone except his closest friends. von Trier said he sympathized with Hitler. He is now "persona non-grata." In an opening prayer, Bradley Dean attacks Obama's faith in the Minnesota house of representatives. GOP head Kurt Zellers denounced the words, but should he have seen it coming? James Frey (A Million Little Pieces) was apologized to by Oprah Winfrey this week because, she now explains, she hadn't thought about his side of the story. Someone named Hartge used the word "jewed" and then defended it by saying it was in the dictionary and that it was a business term. Jamie Diamond (of JP Morgan Chase) apologized for wrecking people's lives while the shares of JPM went up by 11%. Newt Gingrich apparently was "inartful" when he "appeared" to call Ryan's plan for destroying Medicare socialist. He now wants to work with him and are exchanging emails.

This list of short sighted folks is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Of course, the only way one can stay off such lists is to say nothing or do nothing... The long view takes too much time, and by the time you get the idea out, everyone is on to something else. We live in a very rapid world, where time is short and so is our attention span. Most of us cannot read anything longer than a paragraph or so. Length matters, and so does the long view, but it takes time we don't have?

On how to avoid despair

This week was tough in Averill Park. Suffice it to say, many of us feel a bit like ships without a star to guide us. We wandering barks have looked on tempests in the past, but the current one is more like a dead spot in the eye of a hurricane.

Many of my colleagues are beginning to ask very serious existential questions, primary among them: why am I doing this? Why should I care? What's the point? On a moment to moment basis I move between pragmatism and my old friend idealism. Pragmatist me has been winning of late.

The only solace I can offer them and myself is that it will pass. Having taught for almost a quarter century, I cannot easily answer the question my daughter offered up this afternoon: is this is the worst it's ever been? I can't remember it being worse, but I can't really trust my memory.

In the end, you can only control your own situation, and so I guess my advice is to continue to do what is meaningful to you. The things I've believed in still seem true to me, so I will continue to do the things that conform to those ideas. In my last class of the day today, I was leafing through my old copy of Knoblach and Brannon. For those of you did not do a masters degree on the writing side at SUNY Albany in the late 80s or early 90s, their book was the gold standard in the field of composition. Their first paragraph, which I read to my class (I doubt they got why I read it), demands of teachers that they be philosophers in the classroom, that they think about why they do what they do. That while they may be tempted to despair or tempted into the doldrums, every day should be a new chance to seek out the doing of things that conform to an intentional approach to the teaching of literature or composition.

It is important not to give in to abandoning one's principles and simply training kids in what is fashionable or comfortable or what sells. Being able to pull up a PBL document on a large screen is smexy in teacher world these days, but if one is doing such things to impress a principal or to satisfy one's sense that one has not become mired in the past, etc., let that go. Remember why you do what you do. I still believe that learning to be a great reader or writer comes when students are given a constant message: you are the author, you work within a real world on real ideas that must be taken seriously, writing to fill in boxes in an instructional plan is not learning- it is performing- it is dying.

So, if you want to avoid despair, return to your root principles- whatever they are, and like the Santiago you are, fight the fight. Go to the mattresses. Push the rock up the hill. It is all pointless in the end, but it's the only game in town.

References in the last paragraph (Hemingway, Puzo, Camus, Fish)