Every culture had its fuel, its driving force, and once it stopped or slowed, that society began to crumble. For ancient Rome, that fuel was imperialism, and once the empire could no longer expand, it began to deteriorate, and eventually collapse. The society on Easter island collapsed once they used up all of their natural resources for trial pursuits, such as moving statues with their lumber (instead of building ships or homes). In America, our fuel is oil and natural gas, i.e. fossil fuels. These fuels power just about every aspect of our lives and without them, it seems pretty clear that our society would crumble.
I feel like our society, much like the society of Easter island is trivial in its own way. We look only at the short term and refuse to look beyond what will ultimately be best for everyone. At some point we will run out of oil and we will need to find another source for power. Unfortunately we live in a country ruled by those who give the most money to the politicians that decide what we invest in and what energy we use to keep our country running. Because of that, we continue to rely on oil and gas because it is profitable for some, while in the scheme of things if we fail to find alternative energy, our society will collapse. I feel like we can only allow this to go on for so long before we decide that the value of our functioning society is greater than the profit of a few hundred people making billions off of the little oil that is left.
In class Andy told us about Entropy, a law of thermodynamics, which basically states that everything will eventually move towards a lower or equilibrium state of energy. I think that this can be applied to our society because once we have no more fuel for our society and no more momentum, society will crumble and reach a lower, equalized state. That is, if we allow it to. The theory of Entropy is only true when it is not being effected by outside variables, so if we put more energy into our society than no equilibrium state will occur, and our society will remain in tact.
The importance of the Easter island example goes far beyond the surface problem of waisting resorces, but deeper to; why they were waisted. The answer to that is also a parallel with our culture. The people of easter island cared so much about status (much like ourselves), that they used all of their resources up competing with each other to build the biggest and most wasteful statue. This is so similar to what we do today, its almost eerie.
To put this into simplified logic, a self destructive society cannot stand. If we continue to use Rolls Royce Phantoms (11/18 miles per gallon) and 35 room mansions (using immense amounts of power) to show and support our superior status levels, than we will eventually run out of the fuel to run anything at all. We have to make a choice, and quick; Social status, or society?
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Collapse Assignment #1
After reading the chapter on Easter Island from the book "Collapse", I began to think alot about the similarities and more so, the differences between our culture and the culture of the people on Easter Island. Immediately their seemed to be a parallel with our society in terms of how their society collapsed once they used up all of their natural resources. The parallel of course was with the trees of Easter Island, and the Fossil Fuels used in America today. The basic idea here I think is the idea of luxury vs. commodity. I think that the problem with this comparison for the most part is that the people of Easter island used all of their trees as a way to transport their massive stone statues from the inland to the beach (a luxury), while we use fossil fuels as a way to power our vehicles, machines, homes, heat, and just about everything else (a commodity).
Looking back at the repercussions of using those trees for transporting statues to the other side of the island, it is clear that they could not last as a society after they had drained the land of the resource that they needed the most to survive. Had they used those trees to make boats that could be used to retrieve food from other islands, or build homes, they could have made much better use of their limited resources than they did.
Today, we are draining the world of fossil fuels and have since reached our peak level of oil (2006) meaning all that can happen now is we use up what little we have left until we adopt a new form of power before we end up like the Easter island residents with no resources left. This is basically the main idea of collapse, we use up what resources we have, and than are left with nothing. The only answer to avoid collapse seems to be to find an alternative, and until we do, it seems to me that the reality of the Easter island collapse isn't to far off for ourselves.
Looking back at the repercussions of using those trees for transporting statues to the other side of the island, it is clear that they could not last as a society after they had drained the land of the resource that they needed the most to survive. Had they used those trees to make boats that could be used to retrieve food from other islands, or build homes, they could have made much better use of their limited resources than they did.
Today, we are draining the world of fossil fuels and have since reached our peak level of oil (2006) meaning all that can happen now is we use up what little we have left until we adopt a new form of power before we end up like the Easter island residents with no resources left. This is basically the main idea of collapse, we use up what resources we have, and than are left with nothing. The only answer to avoid collapse seems to be to find an alternative, and until we do, it seems to me that the reality of the Easter island collapse isn't to far off for ourselves.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Final Food Assignment
In the 233 years since the founding of the United States in 1776, we have gone through a period of the US as a farm based nation, to a Slave based plantation nation in the early 1800's, to an industrialized factory nation in the early 1900's, to a modernized nation in the last few decades. In every form, our country has been producing the most it can given the machinery and technology available. What has changed since the days of small local farming to the factories of today, is that a natural process which we did not yet know how to speed up, has become an industrialized process lead by technology which has allowed production to become nearly exponential from 233 years ago.
This is a basic noticing about our country, but what has remained more or less the same in these 233 years, is that what is being used, the product, has not changed. Cows are not cloned, Tomatoes are not grown in labs from chemical compounds. Because of this, we have been successfully increasing the capability to speed up the processing of livestock in factories, but failing to increase the natural production of livestock. Now that the companies have fully modernized the capabilities of their factories, they are now trying to modernize their product (the animals, and vegetables). What this has resulted in, is the factory farms of today which use antibiotics, animal bi-products as animal feed, economizing of space (fitting alot of livestock into a smaller more "efficient" area), and assembly line slaughter houses. In the movie "Unser Taglich Brot" (our daily bread), we get a look at all of these things, with no people speaking about what is going on, just what is their. What I took away from it was a feeling of concern for the future and uncertainty about the direction we are headed in if we allow the industrial world to determine how our food is processed.
What I think really needs to be done, is create a whole new approach to how we use our technology to effect how we handle our food. We have newer technology than we use in our processing plants, but try and use it at a larger scale which requires more recent technology. Because we don't use a more natural and modern approach with our livestock, factory farms pump cows and pigs full of chemicals and ingredients (most of which are illegal in other modernized countries) which are directly associated with super strains of disease and sickness, which in humans have no cure.
One such disease is mad cow, which in other countries has been prevented through strict laws making chemicals and practices known to cause mad cow, illegal. In America, laws have been made with lethal loopholes allowing practices such as the use of cow and pig blood plasma as a supplement in the milk of baby cows, a process which is a leading and known cause of mad cow disease. According to the Organic Consumers Association, in an article on Jan. 16, 2004, the US Center for Disease Control had been writing off hundreds if not thousands of annual deaths symptomatic of mad cow (Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease; CTJ in humans) as unexplainable and spontaneous cases of fatalities. This is really telling, because it shows just how much the US government cares about the health of its citizens.
In the video on the website chooseveg.com, it talks about how chickens are among the worst treated and most abused animals on the planet. One such way in which these animals are terribly treated is that they are pumped full of antibiotics and hormones which cause unnatural and rapid growth, so much so that it causes death by heart attack and starvation for these birds which are to big to move, so they die. This goes right along with what I am saying about how we use primitive and stupid methods of industrialized farming to screw around with nature to yield more of the product to meet the demand. Because we have the capability to process immense amounts of meat, companies use inhumane methods such as hormone growth and genetic engineering to breed enough chickens to use their machinery at its highest capability. What this causes is unnaturally grown birds which are low in health and cannot be properly maintained due to the shear amount of animals being farmed for meat or eggs.
To me, factory farms are one of the most ridiculous things in world history. It only takes one look at a pig farm where hundreds of pigs stand in crates side by side, or thousands of chickens stand with no room to spread their wings with dead and dying animals among them to realize that the ability to maintain this amount of livestock is simply not their. I feel like you need to be able to ensure quality of your food if you want to be a mass food producer, otherwise any jackass with a few bucks can be the owner of a factory farm, because its not very difficult to build a barn and put thousands of animals in it [as is the case today].
In Jared Diamonds article "The Worst Mistake In the History of the Human Race" he discusses the argument that the move from hunter- gather society to agriculture has historically been destructive to societies. I feel like this makes a lot of sense because it makes quantity the main concern and primary objective in food processing as opposed to quality which should be the main focus. The problem that I see with this as a comparison to today is that now we have the technology to move to a middle ground where quality and quantity are balanced, but because of the profit and industrial business aspect of the modern food industry we have not, meaning we are opting for a much lower quality of life in our society which in the past has proven to only have a destructive impact on the people's health in that society.
At the beginning of this food unit, I thought a lot about the food I ate and where it came from, but did not do much to change that in my daily life. I had always thought very narrow minded about how I could eat, either vegetarian or not. After this unit I realized that I just couldn't give up eating meat, but I could, and will give up eating non- organic meat, and non- free ranged meat.
This is a basic noticing about our country, but what has remained more or less the same in these 233 years, is that what is being used, the product, has not changed. Cows are not cloned, Tomatoes are not grown in labs from chemical compounds. Because of this, we have been successfully increasing the capability to speed up the processing of livestock in factories, but failing to increase the natural production of livestock. Now that the companies have fully modernized the capabilities of their factories, they are now trying to modernize their product (the animals, and vegetables). What this has resulted in, is the factory farms of today which use antibiotics, animal bi-products as animal feed, economizing of space (fitting alot of livestock into a smaller more "efficient" area), and assembly line slaughter houses. In the movie "Unser Taglich Brot" (our daily bread), we get a look at all of these things, with no people speaking about what is going on, just what is their. What I took away from it was a feeling of concern for the future and uncertainty about the direction we are headed in if we allow the industrial world to determine how our food is processed.
What I think really needs to be done, is create a whole new approach to how we use our technology to effect how we handle our food. We have newer technology than we use in our processing plants, but try and use it at a larger scale which requires more recent technology. Because we don't use a more natural and modern approach with our livestock, factory farms pump cows and pigs full of chemicals and ingredients (most of which are illegal in other modernized countries) which are directly associated with super strains of disease and sickness, which in humans have no cure.
One such disease is mad cow, which in other countries has been prevented through strict laws making chemicals and practices known to cause mad cow, illegal. In America, laws have been made with lethal loopholes allowing practices such as the use of cow and pig blood plasma as a supplement in the milk of baby cows, a process which is a leading and known cause of mad cow disease. According to the Organic Consumers Association, in an article on Jan. 16, 2004, the US Center for Disease Control had been writing off hundreds if not thousands of annual deaths symptomatic of mad cow (Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease; CTJ in humans) as unexplainable and spontaneous cases of fatalities. This is really telling, because it shows just how much the US government cares about the health of its citizens.
In the video on the website chooseveg.com, it talks about how chickens are among the worst treated and most abused animals on the planet. One such way in which these animals are terribly treated is that they are pumped full of antibiotics and hormones which cause unnatural and rapid growth, so much so that it causes death by heart attack and starvation for these birds which are to big to move, so they die. This goes right along with what I am saying about how we use primitive and stupid methods of industrialized farming to screw around with nature to yield more of the product to meet the demand. Because we have the capability to process immense amounts of meat, companies use inhumane methods such as hormone growth and genetic engineering to breed enough chickens to use their machinery at its highest capability. What this causes is unnaturally grown birds which are low in health and cannot be properly maintained due to the shear amount of animals being farmed for meat or eggs.
To me, factory farms are one of the most ridiculous things in world history. It only takes one look at a pig farm where hundreds of pigs stand in crates side by side, or thousands of chickens stand with no room to spread their wings with dead and dying animals among them to realize that the ability to maintain this amount of livestock is simply not their. I feel like you need to be able to ensure quality of your food if you want to be a mass food producer, otherwise any jackass with a few bucks can be the owner of a factory farm, because its not very difficult to build a barn and put thousands of animals in it [as is the case today].
In Jared Diamonds article "The Worst Mistake In the History of the Human Race" he discusses the argument that the move from hunter- gather society to agriculture has historically been destructive to societies. I feel like this makes a lot of sense because it makes quantity the main concern and primary objective in food processing as opposed to quality which should be the main focus. The problem that I see with this as a comparison to today is that now we have the technology to move to a middle ground where quality and quantity are balanced, but because of the profit and industrial business aspect of the modern food industry we have not, meaning we are opting for a much lower quality of life in our society which in the past has proven to only have a destructive impact on the people's health in that society.
At the beginning of this food unit, I thought a lot about the food I ate and where it came from, but did not do much to change that in my daily life. I had always thought very narrow minded about how I could eat, either vegetarian or not. After this unit I realized that I just couldn't give up eating meat, but I could, and will give up eating non- organic meat, and non- free ranged meat.
Food Journal #8- Industrial Food
It seems that our culture has not changed in its dietary habits so much as it has changed in terms of how we meet the every increasing demand for these food products. The change from a farming society to a fossil- fueled industrial society has been about a greater need for pork, corn, tomatoes and beef, and not a new need for a different food. Since our population has grown in the United States from 5,308,483 people in 1800, to 281,421,906 in 2000, we basically eat the same stuff, but at a much larger scale. This is the basic concept of industrialized food.
The problem with industrialized food is that we tend to work off of the principal "quantity over quality" which allows us to increase the supply to meet the demand, but cutting back on the quality of the product. One way in which food manufactures cut costs is by spending less on the basic amenities of the livestock. While in my opinion industrialized food is necessary to meet the demands of a growing population, it is logical to say that their is always an alternative. That alternative is extremely simple. Instead of moving towards what seems to be the inevitable transformation of the food industry into industrial super- farms to meet the demand, we need to move backwards to regress, and simplify how our food is processed.
In "The Meatrix" video, it talks about how we need to move away from the factory farms and back towards family farms. I agree, because when quantity and profit become involved as factors in food production, quality and health concerns are what suffer. What really disgusted me the most was that the milk fed to baby cows has some cows blood in it. This specifically made me think about the whole way our food is prepared. I asked myself, what point does that serve? Than I thought about the real question; what cost does this lower? This is the real problem, that food has become an industry, and as we learned in the birth unit of our class, profit cannot be introduced to something or profit becomes the primary concern.
In the article "The Seven Deadly Myths of Industrial Agriculture: Myth Three", it raises an interesting point that i feel is important to make about industrial food, that it is not as cheap as we are lead to believe. I think that what we need to realize is that just because something is bad doesn't always mean that it is better for someone else. Specifically the way in which industrial farms are run, how the animals are raised and fed are horrendous, but this does not mean that their is an equivalent upside to this for the producer. On top of that, costs which can be externalized, in most cases are, and left up to the US taxpayers to pick up the tab. Because we have been fed the idea that the more food processed, the lower the cost of the food, we assume that more local farming (less food processed) results in a higher cost to the consumer and is more of an elitist idea. I think that the image of the Whole Foods shopping, Park Slope living, Fixed Gear bike riding yuppie is what comes to mind when we think of shopping organic and Eco-friendly, but truthfully within this environmentally conscious world of food, their are much cheaper and more sustainable options for the every day person who wants to get away from the factory farmed food, and towards the healthier and happier option of local farming.
The problem with industrialized food is that we tend to work off of the principal "quantity over quality" which allows us to increase the supply to meet the demand, but cutting back on the quality of the product. One way in which food manufactures cut costs is by spending less on the basic amenities of the livestock. While in my opinion industrialized food is necessary to meet the demands of a growing population, it is logical to say that their is always an alternative. That alternative is extremely simple. Instead of moving towards what seems to be the inevitable transformation of the food industry into industrial super- farms to meet the demand, we need to move backwards to regress, and simplify how our food is processed.
In "The Meatrix" video, it talks about how we need to move away from the factory farms and back towards family farms. I agree, because when quantity and profit become involved as factors in food production, quality and health concerns are what suffer. What really disgusted me the most was that the milk fed to baby cows has some cows blood in it. This specifically made me think about the whole way our food is prepared. I asked myself, what point does that serve? Than I thought about the real question; what cost does this lower? This is the real problem, that food has become an industry, and as we learned in the birth unit of our class, profit cannot be introduced to something or profit becomes the primary concern.
In the article "The Seven Deadly Myths of Industrial Agriculture: Myth Three", it raises an interesting point that i feel is important to make about industrial food, that it is not as cheap as we are lead to believe. I think that what we need to realize is that just because something is bad doesn't always mean that it is better for someone else. Specifically the way in which industrial farms are run, how the animals are raised and fed are horrendous, but this does not mean that their is an equivalent upside to this for the producer. On top of that, costs which can be externalized, in most cases are, and left up to the US taxpayers to pick up the tab. Because we have been fed the idea that the more food processed, the lower the cost of the food, we assume that more local farming (less food processed) results in a higher cost to the consumer and is more of an elitist idea. I think that the image of the Whole Foods shopping, Park Slope living, Fixed Gear bike riding yuppie is what comes to mind when we think of shopping organic and Eco-friendly, but truthfully within this environmentally conscious world of food, their are much cheaper and more sustainable options for the every day person who wants to get away from the factory farmed food, and towards the healthier and happier option of local farming.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Food Assignment #7
My favorite food that i am able to make is BBQ chicken pizza. In order to make this I need to use the following ingredient:
- 1 Frozen Trader Joe's Pizza
- 1/3 box of pre-sliced southwest chicken
- 4 Cap-fulls of Peter Lugar Steak/ BBQ Sauce
First preheat the oven to 420 degrees for 10 minutes while the chicken and the sauce warm to room temperature and the pizza thaws. After 10 minutes put the pizza into the oven and let heat until cheese is melted and pizza is warm (about 7 minutes). Put pieces of chicken onto pizza and cover the pizza with the Steak/ BBQ sauce. Put the BBQ chicken pizza back into the oven and let cook until pizza is fully cooked (5-10 minutes).
- 1 Frozen Trader Joe's Pizza
- 1/3 box of pre-sliced southwest chicken
- 4 Cap-fulls of Peter Lugar Steak/ BBQ Sauce
First preheat the oven to 420 degrees for 10 minutes while the chicken and the sauce warm to room temperature and the pizza thaws. After 10 minutes put the pizza into the oven and let heat until cheese is melted and pizza is warm (about 7 minutes). Put pieces of chicken onto pizza and cover the pizza with the Steak/ BBQ sauce. Put the BBQ chicken pizza back into the oven and let cook until pizza is fully cooked (5-10 minutes).
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Food Journal #6
I think that Michael Pollan makes a very good point that we do not have a set food identity as a culture, like the French do with pastries, escargot, bread and cheeses. Or the Italians with pasta. We do not really have foods other than hotdogs and hamburgers associated with our nation. What i think is important to recognize is that America is made up of many different cultures making 'American food' something which is more of an idea than an actual type of food.
In class Andy brought up a point which I felt was very true, that food is more regional than national. The example was India, and how the Indian food we eat in America is really food from a specific region of India such as Bombay, or New Delhi. For America I think this is just as true. In the south, spicy 'cajun' food is eaten. In Texas, people eat more meaty, barbeque flavored foods, and in the cities, like New York, we eat just about everything in a culinary 'melting pot' of foods from every culture.
What we do have in America, is an obsession with our eating habits that no other country in the world seems to have. This is probably attributed to the fact that America is one of the most obese nations in the world. We have made certain ingredients literally illegal, such as trans fats, which were used in about every fast food restaurant in America. We also have a variety in the food we eat greater than virtually any other culture, because we incorporate all other cultures foods into the American food pallet. This variety I think is partly why we have such an obese society. In France, a large part of the food they eat is heavily flavored and prepared to the point that Americans would consider it unhealthy, but they eat basically the same things all their lives, and are far healthier than we are. In America, a large portion of the population tries to eat 'healthy' or adhere to a strict 'diet', but we eat different foods from different parts of the world, meaning we don't really have a regulated diet at all in our country.
If I were to make an educated guess on why America is so unhealthy, and why we have such a food obsession, than I would attribute that to the variety we have in America and the fact that our food does not always come from our region of the world. I think that if we ate more natural food from right here in America, and indulged rarely in Chinese, Mexican, Italian or Thai food, than we would be much healthier, and on par with the Chinese who eat Chinese food, the Mexicans who eat Mexican food, and the Italians who eat Italian food.
In class Andy brought up a point which I felt was very true, that food is more regional than national. The example was India, and how the Indian food we eat in America is really food from a specific region of India such as Bombay, or New Delhi. For America I think this is just as true. In the south, spicy 'cajun' food is eaten. In Texas, people eat more meaty, barbeque flavored foods, and in the cities, like New York, we eat just about everything in a culinary 'melting pot' of foods from every culture.
What we do have in America, is an obsession with our eating habits that no other country in the world seems to have. This is probably attributed to the fact that America is one of the most obese nations in the world. We have made certain ingredients literally illegal, such as trans fats, which were used in about every fast food restaurant in America. We also have a variety in the food we eat greater than virtually any other culture, because we incorporate all other cultures foods into the American food pallet. This variety I think is partly why we have such an obese society. In France, a large part of the food they eat is heavily flavored and prepared to the point that Americans would consider it unhealthy, but they eat basically the same things all their lives, and are far healthier than we are. In America, a large portion of the population tries to eat 'healthy' or adhere to a strict 'diet', but we eat different foods from different parts of the world, meaning we don't really have a regulated diet at all in our country.
If I were to make an educated guess on why America is so unhealthy, and why we have such a food obsession, than I would attribute that to the variety we have in America and the fact that our food does not always come from our region of the world. I think that if we ate more natural food from right here in America, and indulged rarely in Chinese, Mexican, Italian or Thai food, than we would be much healthier, and on par with the Chinese who eat Chinese food, the Mexicans who eat Mexican food, and the Italians who eat Italian food.
Food Journal #5
My family generally does its day to day shopping at the D'Agostinos supermarket up the block from my house. This is where we get our cereal, milk, juice, ice cream, cheese, bread, bagels, chicken, fruits and vegetables. My mom does most of the shopping on her way back from work, where she picks up the food she needs to get to make me and my brother dinner. My dad is a vegetarian and gets most of his food from either Trader Joe's, or a health food store in my neighborhood called Health and Hearty.
For more long term and extensive shopping, my family shops at Trader Joe's in union square. I like trader joes for a few reasons. The first being that it is much cheeper than its competitors and quality products. The other is that they only sell their own brand and use ingredients from local farmers in California (where the company is based). I think that this takes the marketing and consumerism out of the food we eat, which personally I'm in favor of. I feel that this is better for the consumer as the prices are better, and the seller can ultimately do better business.
When I was younger, me and my brother used to go with my parents to the supermarket and always would beg her for certain foods, such as cookies, sugary cereals, ice cream and other sugar filled stuff. I can say for sure that I remember seeing most all of these items at eye level when I was younger. Katie said in class that she noticed how most of the children's food items were at eye level for her (she's kinda kid sized) when we took a trip to the supermarket. I think that this is really true and one of the best marketing schemes ever. Kids, especially young kids are pretty manipulative when they want something, all they need is something to want. If you make an item right their for a kid to look at and package it attractively, with a "free prize inside", or a cartoon sponsor, than the kids will sell the item to their parents so they can get what they want. By making it right their, the supermarkets are almost guaranteeing better sales for those items.
For more long term and extensive shopping, my family shops at Trader Joe's in union square. I like trader joes for a few reasons. The first being that it is much cheeper than its competitors and quality products. The other is that they only sell their own brand and use ingredients from local farmers in California (where the company is based). I think that this takes the marketing and consumerism out of the food we eat, which personally I'm in favor of. I feel that this is better for the consumer as the prices are better, and the seller can ultimately do better business.
When I was younger, me and my brother used to go with my parents to the supermarket and always would beg her for certain foods, such as cookies, sugary cereals, ice cream and other sugar filled stuff. I can say for sure that I remember seeing most all of these items at eye level when I was younger. Katie said in class that she noticed how most of the children's food items were at eye level for her (she's kinda kid sized) when we took a trip to the supermarket. I think that this is really true and one of the best marketing schemes ever. Kids, especially young kids are pretty manipulative when they want something, all they need is something to want. If you make an item right their for a kid to look at and package it attractively, with a "free prize inside", or a cartoon sponsor, than the kids will sell the item to their parents so they can get what they want. By making it right their, the supermarkets are almost guaranteeing better sales for those items.
May Day Reflection
The holiday on May 1st, known around the world as International Workers Day is a holiday celebrating the labor and struggles of the working class around the world and the rights which they had to fight for. It was a holiday initially started in the united states, yet we do not celebrate it and for the most part have since forgot about it in our national memory. In class when Andy asked us if we knew what May day was, nobody seemed to know, and i personally did not have any idea. We learned that it was started in 1886, after the Haymarket massacre in Chicago, where police killed 12 people during a workers protest, where the workers were trying to attain a set 8 hour work day.
The fact that we in America do not know what May 1st represents, is much more reflective of our society than it is of the people who worked so hard to make sure this day would not be remembered. I feel like we are a very submissive society, which fears authority only when we have to stand up against it. We talk alot, and demonstrate against the establishment, but lack a certain common goal as a society. This is why i think that when these protesters were killed, and the bosses at all the factories fired all employees who were absent on May 1st, we kinda' forgot about what the lives of these 12 people meant, and what the efforts of every person at these protests resulted in. Today we certainly appreciate the 5 day work week and the 8 hour work day, but do not even devote one day to their memory. While virtually every other country around the world celebrates and holds rally's in memory of those who fought for workers rights. We in America do not, and have pretty much suppressed this date and what is represents in our country.
I think that what this shows is that Americans take things for granted. If you asked any average working class person if they appreciated the weekend, and the 9-5 work day, they would without a doubt say yes. But the fact is, we don't appreciate the struggle and the effort it took to get to this point. I think we need to have a major effort in America to bring back the celebration of May Day, and what it means, because we need to appreciate what went in to what we enjoy today.
The fact that we in America do not know what May 1st represents, is much more reflective of our society than it is of the people who worked so hard to make sure this day would not be remembered. I feel like we are a very submissive society, which fears authority only when we have to stand up against it. We talk alot, and demonstrate against the establishment, but lack a certain common goal as a society. This is why i think that when these protesters were killed, and the bosses at all the factories fired all employees who were absent on May 1st, we kinda' forgot about what the lives of these 12 people meant, and what the efforts of every person at these protests resulted in. Today we certainly appreciate the 5 day work week and the 8 hour work day, but do not even devote one day to their memory. While virtually every other country around the world celebrates and holds rally's in memory of those who fought for workers rights. We in America do not, and have pretty much suppressed this date and what is represents in our country.
I think that what this shows is that Americans take things for granted. If you asked any average working class person if they appreciated the weekend, and the 9-5 work day, they would without a doubt say yes. But the fact is, we don't appreciate the struggle and the effort it took to get to this point. I think we need to have a major effort in America to bring back the celebration of May Day, and what it means, because we need to appreciate what went in to what we enjoy today.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Food Journal #3
My family is Russian/ Austrian. At my house though we tend to eat alot of italian food. Also my dinner is generally some kind of meat (chicken, beef, hotdogs) with corn or rice, and salad. My mom makes dinner and we usually sit at these small tables on the couches surrounding my television. We eat with a fork and knife like every other person in the civilized world does today (not to say chopsticks and spoons aren't civilized). My family is Jewish, but not religiously practicing, so we do not conduct any religious ritual or blessing before our meals. I sit on my computer usually, on a couch by myself, my brother sits either on another couch near me or downstairs on the family computer, my parents both sit on the larger couch and watch MSNBC. We talk about how our days went sometimes and about stuff that happened since we last had time to talk. Than I will usually grab some desert and hang out with my parents and talk a bit while watching TV "with" them, before I get ready for bed.
I think that my families dinner routine is fairly typical of how Americans tend to eat meals. For the most part, we in America cannot break ourselves away from a screen even to eat, and often find ourselves in the company of others, paying attention only to the people on the screen and not those around us. This is a problem i think and says alot about the attention span and value of media over family in America. It bothers me when I try to converse with my dad and he tells me to wait for the commercial, and i feel that this happens often in most american households.
I think that my families dinner routine is fairly typical of how Americans tend to eat meals. For the most part, we in America cannot break ourselves away from a screen even to eat, and often find ourselves in the company of others, paying attention only to the people on the screen and not those around us. This is a problem i think and says alot about the attention span and value of media over family in America. It bothers me when I try to converse with my dad and he tells me to wait for the commercial, and i feel that this happens often in most american households.
Food Journal #2
What is American food?
When you walk around in a grocery store or watch television, you are kind of able to develop the feel for what we in America consider to be our cultures food. TV dinners are inherently American, Hungry Man, Jimmy Dean and others are prime examples of that pre- packaged meal which we seem to love so much. Anything it seems, which makes getting food from the refrigerator to our stomachs a quicker process is what we want. What preservatives, meat bi-products and chemicals are in that food doesnt seem to concern us. When we don't want to eat our meals at home, we tend to go to a pizza place, a McDonalds, a Taco Bell, overall, a fast food restaurant. According to a study done by the NRA (National Restaurant Association) in 2006, Americans spent about $142 billion on fast food.
When you walk around in a grocery store or watch television, you are kind of able to develop the feel for what we in America consider to be our cultures food. TV dinners are inherently American, Hungry Man, Jimmy Dean and others are prime examples of that pre- packaged meal which we seem to love so much. Anything it seems, which makes getting food from the refrigerator to our stomachs a quicker process is what we want. What preservatives, meat bi-products and chemicals are in that food doesnt seem to concern us. When we don't want to eat our meals at home, we tend to go to a pizza place, a McDonalds, a Taco Bell, overall, a fast food restaurant. According to a study done by the NRA (National Restaurant Association) in 2006, Americans spent about $142 billion on fast food.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Lets see whats in my Fridge...
-eggs
-cheddar cheese
-bread
-hotdogs
-ketchup
-milk
-orange juice
-cream cheese
-butter
-chicken
-salsa
-chocolate syrup
This list of what is in my fridge does not seem to show alot about my culture, except that most of these things are packaged in plastic containers. What this shows is that we are a pretty wasteful culture because we package food which gets consumed, and than discarded, in material which does not biodegrade. I think that what is even more wasteful is that certain packages such as the chocolate syrup bottle CAN be refilled (the cap screws off) but their is no real environmentally friendly way to refill the bottle. I do not think that this is an American specific problem, food is packaged virtually the same in every other developed country in the world. For that reason, I really do not know what this shows about America in particular.
-cheddar cheese
-bread
-hotdogs
-ketchup
-milk
-orange juice
-cream cheese
-butter
-chicken
-salsa
-chocolate syrup
This list of what is in my fridge does not seem to show alot about my culture, except that most of these things are packaged in plastic containers. What this shows is that we are a pretty wasteful culture because we package food which gets consumed, and than discarded, in material which does not biodegrade. I think that what is even more wasteful is that certain packages such as the chocolate syrup bottle CAN be refilled (the cap screws off) but their is no real environmentally friendly way to refill the bottle. I do not think that this is an American specific problem, food is packaged virtually the same in every other developed country in the world. For that reason, I really do not know what this shows about America in particular.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Big Health Care Paper
What should the United States strive for in a national health care plan, and what factors have contributed to our lack of universal health?
America was the first country to land on the moon and the first to fly a plane. We've been setting social trends for the world since the 1900's. Most every world culture has become "Americanized", yet through all of this, we remain the only modernized country without universal, government paid, or single payer health care. This is an idea known as "American exceptional ism". Basically we are the only exception to the rest of the developed world which has a universal health care system in place for its people.
In America, we have HMO's (health maintenance organization), a privatized health care industry, which is a basic health care organization where those with HMO coverage are covered for care provided by a network of doctors and specialist who are registered with the HMO. Care that is provided outside of the network is not covered and their is discretion on the part of the companies to determine what can and cant be paid for. This is what the industry calls pre- existing conditions, and is the source of the countless lawsuits against the HMO's who try and provide the least care they are legally bound to provide. Because of these "pre- existing conditions" many patients are denied very vital care and often die or go broke trying to pay for the care themselves. In a system like this, it makes you wonder why after the 36 years (first created in its current form in 1973) since the program was started, it has not been replaced?
The problem in America is that we have a massive lobby for the health care industry in our nations capital. According to Michael Moore's film SiCKO, the health care lobbyist to senator ratio is 4 lobbyists for every senator. What this shows is how unavoidable it has become for senators not to push legislation and vote in favor of legislation that supports the health care industry. The way i think about it, is that if you have 4 people who constantly are giving you "gifts", large cash donations, and buying you meals, their own agenda will eventually make their way into how you vote and what you publicly support. With the creation of the HMO (health maintenance organization) system, health care has become an industry with a vested interest in making a profit (just like any other capitalist for- profit company). If this system worked, that would be one thing, still corrupt, but functional. Instead, the united states has a global health care rank of #37, just below Costa Rica (#36), and right above Slovenia (#38). For one of the worlds wealthiest countries, a ranking of 37 for the health care of its people is simply unacceptable.
This system can mostly be attributed to former president Nixon who, signed into law what is known as the HMO. This HMO- for profit medical organization was founded by Henry Kaiser and Sidney R. Garfield in 1945, but remained an option for care, not the dominant national plan. In 1973, Henry's son Edgar Kaiser proposed to John Ehrlichman (the Chief Domestic Advisor to Nixon) that America adopt his fathers program on a national level. Ehrlichman than proposed this plan to Nixon in a meeting that can be credited with the birth of privatized health care. A part of the transcript from the meeting is as follows.
Ehrlichman: “This, uh, let me, let me tell you how I am …”
President Nixon: [Unclear.]
Ehrlichman: “This … this is a …”
President Nixon: “I don’t [unclear] …”
Ehrlichman: “… private enterprise one.”
President Nixon: “Well, that appeals to me.”
Ehrlichman: “Edgar Kaiser is running his Permanente deal for profit. And the reason that he can … the reason he can do it … I had Edgar Kaiser come in … talk to me about this and I went into it in some depth. All the incentives are toward less medical care, because …”
President Nixon: [Unclear.]
Ehrlichman: “… the less care they give them, the more money they make.”
President Nixon: “Fine.” [Unclear.]
Ehrlichman: [Unclear] “… and the incentives run the right way.”
President Nixon: “Not bad.”
After this conversation, Nixon went on to green light the HMO act of 1973 which was essentially Kaisers plan. What resulted, was the variant of HMO which we use in America today, called the Kaiser Permanente. Health care became an industry which was no different at a basic capitalist level than the auto industry. Ehrlichman proposed this for profit system to the president for the very reasons that make the Permanente an extremely corrupted and broken system today. Since 1973, Kaiser has continued operation, now in 9 states, with a non- profit corporate status. This non- profit corporation however generates an annual revenue of $22.5 billion, to me this seems like a profit.
I think that we need to move away from this HMO system as fast as possible, and towards universal health. Right now, President Obama is proposing a new health care system which does not replace the old HMO, but rather improve it. According to his website, the new plan gets rid of the main problem with the for- profit system; pre-existing conditions. In his plan, insurance companies will now be required to cover pre- existing conditions, therefor getting rid of a large part of the incentive to provide less care to generate a greater profit. Another positive step with his plan is that Obama will ensure all of the 50 million uninsured Americans through a national government health plan modeled off of the health plan that members of congress have. This government health plan will for that matter be available to everyone in America who decides to choose government health care over HMO care.
When we were interviewing people on what they thought of the health care in the United States, our class interviewed a man named Kevin Ulysses Nelson III, who told us he had just finished serving a prison sentence for the last 27 years. He made what I thought was a very simple yet important point;
"The problem in the U.S. is not that the care is bad. The care is good, and the doctors are good. The problem is that not enough people have access to it. When not enough people can afford care, the system failed, and it did. The people working for the system in the hospitals, the clinics and elsewhere are all doing their jobs as well as they could given what the system allowed, these people did not fail."
When we interviewed Mr. Marx, he told us that he thought that the HMO system could never work. He told us that when you have profit factored into health care, profit will always take priority over the health of the people who generate the profit. He also said that he was against Obama's plan, but in favor of single payer health care.
"In single payer health care you have more freedom and choice in the system, while with Obama's plan, my fear is mainly of government bureaucracy, which I don't trust, being in charge of my health care"
Single payer health care is a form of health care payment for universal health coverage. Basically with single payer, you can go to any doctor or hospital you want, with payment coming from a fund which can be national, statewide or county based. It makes it so you can get the best care for free, with no restriction on where you can seek care. An example of a country with Single payer is Canada where the people receive free care, the hospitals are maintained through provincial funds, and doctors are paid by the government for their services.
This made me think about what the Obama plan is offering, a solution to fix the system, not the care. The Obama plan offers an improvement to the system if people wish to stay on the HMO plan, but it also creates an alternative to a system which is broken. It seems that the idea here is that by offering a better system, people may stay on their old health plans, but slowly people will move towards the government care once they see that they can get the same care they get for a premium with the HMO's, at a fraction of the cost with the public plan.
If we want to strive for the best possible health care system we can get, I do not think Obama's plan is it. I feel like it is a compromise of something which is supposed to be a right as an American. I believe that Obama does want to make a plan where their is no private health care industry and the HMO's are shut down, but the lobby in our political system is to strong and the plan would get shut down very quickly. By making a less drastic plan, Obama should be able to pass his plan, and in time the CIGNA's and Humana's will no longer find it profitable to compete with the government for the business of its citizens health, and we will have universal health in America at last.
Sources
http://www.kaiserthrive.org/about-kaiser/
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/
http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-payer_health_care
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States
http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSTRE51P84G20090226
America was the first country to land on the moon and the first to fly a plane. We've been setting social trends for the world since the 1900's. Most every world culture has become "Americanized", yet through all of this, we remain the only modernized country without universal, government paid, or single payer health care. This is an idea known as "American exceptional ism". Basically we are the only exception to the rest of the developed world which has a universal health care system in place for its people.
In America, we have HMO's (health maintenance organization), a privatized health care industry, which is a basic health care organization where those with HMO coverage are covered for care provided by a network of doctors and specialist who are registered with the HMO. Care that is provided outside of the network is not covered and their is discretion on the part of the companies to determine what can and cant be paid for. This is what the industry calls pre- existing conditions, and is the source of the countless lawsuits against the HMO's who try and provide the least care they are legally bound to provide. Because of these "pre- existing conditions" many patients are denied very vital care and often die or go broke trying to pay for the care themselves. In a system like this, it makes you wonder why after the 36 years (first created in its current form in 1973) since the program was started, it has not been replaced?
The problem in America is that we have a massive lobby for the health care industry in our nations capital. According to Michael Moore's film SiCKO, the health care lobbyist to senator ratio is 4 lobbyists for every senator. What this shows is how unavoidable it has become for senators not to push legislation and vote in favor of legislation that supports the health care industry. The way i think about it, is that if you have 4 people who constantly are giving you "gifts", large cash donations, and buying you meals, their own agenda will eventually make their way into how you vote and what you publicly support. With the creation of the HMO (health maintenance organization) system, health care has become an industry with a vested interest in making a profit (just like any other capitalist for- profit company). If this system worked, that would be one thing, still corrupt, but functional. Instead, the united states has a global health care rank of #37, just below Costa Rica (#36), and right above Slovenia (#38). For one of the worlds wealthiest countries, a ranking of 37 for the health care of its people is simply unacceptable.
This system can mostly be attributed to former president Nixon who, signed into law what is known as the HMO. This HMO- for profit medical organization was founded by Henry Kaiser and Sidney R. Garfield in 1945, but remained an option for care, not the dominant national plan. In 1973, Henry's son Edgar Kaiser proposed to John Ehrlichman (the Chief Domestic Advisor to Nixon) that America adopt his fathers program on a national level. Ehrlichman than proposed this plan to Nixon in a meeting that can be credited with the birth of privatized health care. A part of the transcript from the meeting is as follows.
Ehrlichman: “This, uh, let me, let me tell you how I am …”
President Nixon: [Unclear.]
Ehrlichman: “This … this is a …”
President Nixon: “I don’t [unclear] …”
Ehrlichman: “… private enterprise one.”
President Nixon: “Well, that appeals to me.”
Ehrlichman: “Edgar Kaiser is running his Permanente deal for profit. And the reason that he can … the reason he can do it … I had Edgar Kaiser come in … talk to me about this and I went into it in some depth. All the incentives are toward less medical care, because …”
President Nixon: [Unclear.]
Ehrlichman: “… the less care they give them, the more money they make.”
President Nixon: “Fine.” [Unclear.]
Ehrlichman: [Unclear] “… and the incentives run the right way.”
President Nixon: “Not bad.”
After this conversation, Nixon went on to green light the HMO act of 1973 which was essentially Kaisers plan. What resulted, was the variant of HMO which we use in America today, called the Kaiser Permanente. Health care became an industry which was no different at a basic capitalist level than the auto industry. Ehrlichman proposed this for profit system to the president for the very reasons that make the Permanente an extremely corrupted and broken system today. Since 1973, Kaiser has continued operation, now in 9 states, with a non- profit corporate status. This non- profit corporation however generates an annual revenue of $22.5 billion, to me this seems like a profit.
I think that we need to move away from this HMO system as fast as possible, and towards universal health. Right now, President Obama is proposing a new health care system which does not replace the old HMO, but rather improve it. According to his website, the new plan gets rid of the main problem with the for- profit system; pre-existing conditions. In his plan, insurance companies will now be required to cover pre- existing conditions, therefor getting rid of a large part of the incentive to provide less care to generate a greater profit. Another positive step with his plan is that Obama will ensure all of the 50 million uninsured Americans through a national government health plan modeled off of the health plan that members of congress have. This government health plan will for that matter be available to everyone in America who decides to choose government health care over HMO care.
When we were interviewing people on what they thought of the health care in the United States, our class interviewed a man named Kevin Ulysses Nelson III, who told us he had just finished serving a prison sentence for the last 27 years. He made what I thought was a very simple yet important point;
"The problem in the U.S. is not that the care is bad. The care is good, and the doctors are good. The problem is that not enough people have access to it. When not enough people can afford care, the system failed, and it did. The people working for the system in the hospitals, the clinics and elsewhere are all doing their jobs as well as they could given what the system allowed, these people did not fail."
When we interviewed Mr. Marx, he told us that he thought that the HMO system could never work. He told us that when you have profit factored into health care, profit will always take priority over the health of the people who generate the profit. He also said that he was against Obama's plan, but in favor of single payer health care.
"In single payer health care you have more freedom and choice in the system, while with Obama's plan, my fear is mainly of government bureaucracy, which I don't trust, being in charge of my health care"
Single payer health care is a form of health care payment for universal health coverage. Basically with single payer, you can go to any doctor or hospital you want, with payment coming from a fund which can be national, statewide or county based. It makes it so you can get the best care for free, with no restriction on where you can seek care. An example of a country with Single payer is Canada where the people receive free care, the hospitals are maintained through provincial funds, and doctors are paid by the government for their services.
This made me think about what the Obama plan is offering, a solution to fix the system, not the care. The Obama plan offers an improvement to the system if people wish to stay on the HMO plan, but it also creates an alternative to a system which is broken. It seems that the idea here is that by offering a better system, people may stay on their old health plans, but slowly people will move towards the government care once they see that they can get the same care they get for a premium with the HMO's, at a fraction of the cost with the public plan.
If we want to strive for the best possible health care system we can get, I do not think Obama's plan is it. I feel like it is a compromise of something which is supposed to be a right as an American. I believe that Obama does want to make a plan where their is no private health care industry and the HMO's are shut down, but the lobby in our political system is to strong and the plan would get shut down very quickly. By making a less drastic plan, Obama should be able to pass his plan, and in time the CIGNA's and Humana's will no longer find it profitable to compete with the government for the business of its citizens health, and we will have universal health in America at last.
Sources
http://www.kaiserthrive.org/about-kaiser/
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/
http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-payer_health_care
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States
http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSTRE51P84G20090226
Monday, April 20, 2009
SiCKO Response/ My Family's Health Plan Research
The health care that my family has is under a family plan through my mother’ union 1199 SEIU, which covers me, my brother, my mom and my dad. As far as I have heard from my parents, they have paid out a good deal of our medical bills. This includes hospital visits, ER visits, doctors appointments, and everthing else. Personally I have not spent that much time in an emergency room, but between me, and my family, we have gone a good number of times to the ER. The only real problem with a high medical bill that my parents told me about was not for any of the people in my family, but my dog (Harpo) who had to be taken to the hospital right before he died. The veteranarian, and animal hospital bill was not at all covered by insurance, so the total cost for not being able to save my dog was around $7,000 which we will be paying off for quite some time.
Recently my dad has been sick and undergone treatment for prostate cancer. The recovery and procedure went well and he has been recovering very well. I remember that around the time he first told me that he had cancer, he was also trying to decide what treatment option he would be choosing. The interesting thing was hearing how he ruled out certain treatment options because they were not covered by the insurance. Once we watched SiCKO, I realized that had the only viable option for treatment not been covered by the insurance, we might not have been able to afford treatment, which for me is some scary shit.
As far as I know nobody in my family has been denied treatment, but I do know that my great aunt who was like a second mother to my dad, was treated very poorly in the hospital before she died. My dad found out and sued the hospital for negligence (I think it was negligence) and he won, but his aunt was still dead.
I think that in contrast, my experience, and my families experance with health care has been much better than the average experience of people in America, and far better than the experience of anyone in Michael Moore’s movie. This proves not that his movie is an unfair depiction of the American health care system (the opposite is true; the movie very accurately depicts our health system), but that my family and I have been pretty fortunate in our lives as far as medical bills and expenses are concerned.
Recently my dad has been sick and undergone treatment for prostate cancer. The recovery and procedure went well and he has been recovering very well. I remember that around the time he first told me that he had cancer, he was also trying to decide what treatment option he would be choosing. The interesting thing was hearing how he ruled out certain treatment options because they were not covered by the insurance. Once we watched SiCKO, I realized that had the only viable option for treatment not been covered by the insurance, we might not have been able to afford treatment, which for me is some scary shit.
As far as I know nobody in my family has been denied treatment, but I do know that my great aunt who was like a second mother to my dad, was treated very poorly in the hospital before she died. My dad found out and sued the hospital for negligence (I think it was negligence) and he won, but his aunt was still dead.
I think that in contrast, my experience, and my families experance with health care has been much better than the average experience of people in America, and far better than the experience of anyone in Michael Moore’s movie. This proves not that his movie is an unfair depiction of the American health care system (the opposite is true; the movie very accurately depicts our health system), but that my family and I have been pretty fortunate in our lives as far as medical bills and expenses are concerned.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Internet Research: Poverty Questions
In class we have been looking at the American system of taxation, and poverty in America. We used two activities in class, using chairs to represent the economic spectrum in our country. The first activity showed the breakdown of the wealth by having people sit and control a number of chairs in relation to their wealth (i.e. Andy had the most money, in the highest economic bracket, so he controlled 6 chairs all to himself). The second activity was a musical chairs game, where people had their names labeled on certain chairs to signify that they were owned (I controlled 4 chairs to start and eventually ended up with 6). This activity showed how the few people who start out with wealth, end having control of the wealth, while a majority of the people struggled to compete for a very small number of job opportunity. At the end of this activity everyone who started with a chair either had more or the same amount, and only one person who did not originally have a chair (Kevin), ended up with one. The rest of the class however "lost" the game.
- What is the current amount of funding available for welfare programs in the US?
The amount of funding approved in Iowa for 2009, is $131,600,471. This is funding for "child and family services" in Iowa
http://www.dhs.iowa.gov/docs/10-401-HHS-007B-Child-Welfare.pdf
- What percentage of the US lives below the poverty line?
The poverty rate in America has been around 12- 17% on average, but according to government studies, 59% of people will spend at least one year below the poverty line between ages 25- 75.
This graph is from the census report: "Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2005" and it shows the amount of people in poverty given the year, and the percentage of the population living in poverty.
- Who (government office) is responsible for the distribution of government checks?
The Department of Labor is the agency in the US, in charge of unemployment checks, Health Care and many more social welfare programs. They are responsible for the distribution of the checks for such programs as well.
http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/programs_initiatives.html
- How does the unemployment rate today compare to that of the great depression, or even the Vietnam war?
The unemployment rate in 1932 was 24.9%, today in 2009 (march) it is 8.5%. The important thing to remember is that in 1932 the population of the US, was 124,840,471, meaning roughly 31,000,000 people were unemployed in 1932. The current US population is 305,529,237 so 8.5% of that puts the number of unemployed at about 26,000,000. This is alarming as the comparative rate of unemployment between now and the great depression are about the same.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression
http://www.bls.gov/
- Now that most public housing projects are filled, where do people who are elegible for the Section-8 program apply?
As of now, no alternate program exists for section-8 housing but newer sectioned housing projects are being built, allowing more space for those in need of homes and a higher quality of living for those living in unacceptable conditions.
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/19/realestate/alternative-to-section-housing.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2
- How many people living below the poverty line ARE employed?
According to a report from the "Working Poor Family Project", 28% of people living below the poverty line, are families where one or both parents are employed. This was based off of data from 2004- 2006 and the report was released in 2008. This is highly relevant because we know that almost 30% of those in poverty are making wages lower than the US government has deemed a livable wage.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21032.htm
Questions I Still need to Answer:
-What percentage of people living below the poverty line claim any form of social benefit?
-How do the homeless receive these benefits?
- What is the current amount of funding available for welfare programs in the US?
The amount of funding approved in Iowa for 2009, is $131,600,471. This is funding for "child and family services" in Iowa
http://www.dhs.iowa.gov/docs/10-401-HHS-007B-Child-Welfare.pdf
- What percentage of the US lives below the poverty line?
The poverty rate in America has been around 12- 17% on average, but according to government studies, 59% of people will spend at least one year below the poverty line between ages 25- 75.
This graph is from the census report: "Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2005" and it shows the amount of people in poverty given the year, and the percentage of the population living in poverty.
- Who (government office) is responsible for the distribution of government checks?
The Department of Labor is the agency in the US, in charge of unemployment checks, Health Care and many more social welfare programs. They are responsible for the distribution of the checks for such programs as well.
http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/programs_initiatives.html
- How does the unemployment rate today compare to that of the great depression, or even the Vietnam war?
The unemployment rate in 1932 was 24.9%, today in 2009 (march) it is 8.5%. The important thing to remember is that in 1932 the population of the US, was 124,840,471, meaning roughly 31,000,000 people were unemployed in 1932. The current US population is 305,529,237 so 8.5% of that puts the number of unemployed at about 26,000,000. This is alarming as the comparative rate of unemployment between now and the great depression are about the same.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression
http://www.bls.gov/
- Now that most public housing projects are filled, where do people who are elegible for the Section-8 program apply?
As of now, no alternate program exists for section-8 housing but newer sectioned housing projects are being built, allowing more space for those in need of homes and a higher quality of living for those living in unacceptable conditions.
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/19/realestate/alternative-to-section-housing.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2
- How many people living below the poverty line ARE employed?
According to a report from the "Working Poor Family Project", 28% of people living below the poverty line, are families where one or both parents are employed. This was based off of data from 2004- 2006 and the report was released in 2008. This is highly relevant because we know that almost 30% of those in poverty are making wages lower than the US government has deemed a livable wage.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21032.htm
Questions I Still need to Answer:
-What percentage of people living below the poverty line claim any form of social benefit?
-How do the homeless receive these benefits?
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Danish Vs. American Tax System
In the United States, we have a tax system which I feel is distorted. We use the income tax as a way to tax every citizen at a flat rate, which depending on the amount they make, can be alot of taxation or lower taxation. The problem, is that the majority of america is not making that much money. So the taxes that an average american pays is a much higher percentage of their annual income in contrast to the upper class. This taxation on a mostly lower class, generates less tax money than heavy taxes on the rich and super- rich. The upper class tend to evade much of their taxation, and cause most of the taxes to come from the lower and middle classes who cannot afford the rate.
I think that the way the Danish have a better tax system than we do, and seems to infact fit more with our society than it does with the social layout in Denmark. What i mean by this, is that in America we have a much higher percentage of the population living in poverty than they do in Denmark. Yet we have a taxation system which seems to favor the rich and punish those at the bottom of the economic ladder by taking what little they have. The Danish have less homeless people, and lower poverty rates. The low poverty rates are helped in part by a system that is geared to meet the financial needs of the different economic groups. For example, the tax brackets that we only have for social "grouping" purpouses (lower, middle, and upper class), in denmark are tax groups where they have different tax rates. The people who came to visit were private school kids, who in Denmark would fit into the top, or upper class of the tax & social brackets. This bracket is subject to about 65% income tax, while the middle and lower tax brackets are significantly lower at 20- 35% taxation.
If I were to chose between America sticking with its current tax system, and adopting the Danish system, I would chose the Danish system over our current one. I feel that a tax system where less than 10% of the people making around 90% of the wealth pay 20% of the taxes, is completely out of sync with the American social system. The Danish system fits with our society because it taxes the highest earning citizens at the highest percentage of what they make, and not everyone equally. I think that the problem at its rout, is that we have an equal tax system, but people do not make equal wages so it isn't very logical.
One thing that can be said for our system is that it is effective. We have been able to support two wars, a bailout of the two largest industries in America all on tax dollars, but the problem is about who is being taxed, not how much we are getting out of it. If we put 65% taxes on the upper class, the amount of tax revenue we would see in America would be immense and take alot of stress off of the middle and lower classes as they could now enjoy lower taxes and higher income (which would eventually be spent and generate sales tax money).
In the United States, we have a tax system which I feel is distorted. We use the income tax as a way to tax every citizen at a flat rate, which depending on the amount they make, can be alot of taxation or lower taxation. The problem, is that the majority of america is not making that much money. So the taxes that an average american pays is a much higher percentage of their annual income in contrast to the upper class. This taxation on a mostly lower class, generates less tax money than heavy taxes on the rich and super- rich. The upper class tend to evade much of their taxation, and cause most of the taxes to come from the lower and middle classes who cannot afford the rate.
I think that the way the Danish have a better tax system than we do, and seems to infact fit more with our society than it does with the social layout in Denmark. What i mean by this, is that in America we have a much higher percentage of the population living in poverty than they do in Denmark. Yet we have a taxation system which seems to favor the rich and punish those at the bottom of the economic ladder by taking what little they have. The Danish have less homeless people, and lower poverty rates. The low poverty rates are helped in part by a system that is geared to meet the financial needs of the different economic groups. For example, the tax brackets that we only have for social "grouping" purpouses (lower, middle, and upper class), in denmark are tax groups where they have different tax rates. The people who came to visit were private school kids, who in Denmark would fit into the top, or upper class of the tax & social brackets. This bracket is subject to about 65% income tax, while the middle and lower tax brackets are significantly lower at 20- 35% taxation.
If I were to chose between America sticking with its current tax system, and adopting the Danish system, I would chose the Danish system over our current one. I feel that a tax system where less than 10% of the people making around 90% of the wealth pay 20% of the taxes, is completely out of sync with the American social system. The Danish system fits with our society because it taxes the highest earning citizens at the highest percentage of what they make, and not everyone equally. I think that the problem at its rout, is that we have an equal tax system, but people do not make equal wages so it isn't very logical.
One thing that can be said for our system is that it is effective. We have been able to support two wars, a bailout of the two largest industries in America all on tax dollars, but the problem is about who is being taxed, not how much we are getting out of it. If we put 65% taxes on the upper class, the amount of tax revenue we would see in America would be immense and take alot of stress off of the middle and lower classes as they could now enjoy lower taxes and higher income (which would eventually be spent and generate sales tax money).
Monday, March 2, 2009
Business of Being Born: Reflection
After watching this movie in class, I feel that I have been able to reach a full understanding of the natural and home birth process, while on the other hand, I feel like I was misinformed in some way, due to the blatant bias of the film. Before watching this movie, I had thought of hospital birth as the only real option for women giving birth in this day & age. By watching this film, I became informed about what is in reality a world of options for how to, and where, you can give birth other than a hospital bed. While the movie followed a few women (including the filmmaker) in the days and weeks before they gave birth, the film discussed how we got to where we are in America today with birth methods and procedures and the history of this in America. The position of the film was highly in favor of natural and home births, and as a result the majority of the film was about home birth and the advantages of it over a hospital birth. The people interviewed and what was discussed about hospital birth, was almost all negative, and clearly intended to frame it as an evil and inhumane process. Because the film used such a contrast between good and evil; home birth and hospital birth, I feel like I wasn't able to completely accept what the film said as truth. An example of the contrast, was how the history of hospital birth was shown through black and white photo's, and set to creepy music, but the history of home birth was shown through colorful film clips, and rock music. The people interviewed about home birth were happy looking and energetic people, while interviews in favor of hospital births were done with people who seemed much less kind and caring than their home birth counterparts.
For me, I found the evolution of where births took place to be very interesting. According to the film, in 1900, 95% of births were at home, in 1938, 50% were at home, and since 1987 home births have accounted for about 1% of all births in the United States. The historical context that these figures reflect, was the result of a smear campaign on home birth and midwives, by the medical industry which presented hospitals as a "clean alternative" to your home, and medically trained doctors over "dirty, ill-educated" midwives. By the public accepting this propaganda as fact so quickly, it became commonly accepted fact that it was safer and a better choice to have a hospital birth than a home birth. Before watching this movie, and learning what we have about home birth in class, I saw nothing wrong with this idea that hospital birth was preferable over home birth. After watching it, I felt more inclined to suggest a home or natural birth to my wife, over a hospital birth. I think that what seems better about home birth, is the fact that in the movie, all of the women seemed to have quick and semi-painless births, which they were overjoyed about when they had pushed the baby out. What i had always known about, was hospital births, where the norm appeared to be intense pain and being miserable until finally the baby came out and the joy was more from being done with the labor and pain than the child itself.
The real problem that I saw with hospital birth, was that the medical field has become the medical industry, which is run more like a business than anything else. By charging up to $15,000 per birth, as a business, hospitals would want to maximize their profits, which could be done by speeding up the time of each birth. Because of this, the C- section and various medications have gone from being used occasionally, to virtually every birth with the intent of speeding the process up and making birth fit a schedule which suited the doctor and may be detrimental or even dangerous to the health of the patient. When business is introduced to medicine, the interests of the hospital tend to overshadow and surpass that of the patient. As c- sections are used more and more (up 46% from 1996), they are becoming accepted as the norm and what is an improvement from traditional birth, much like hospitals became accepted over homes as a better, cleaner solution for giving birth. The problem with C-sections is that it is a serious surgery which causes a large amount of harm to your body, and for this to become the norm would be dangerous to the health of the mother and child, while benefiting the hospital by cutting down the time of births significantly.
For me, I found the evolution of where births took place to be very interesting. According to the film, in 1900, 95% of births were at home, in 1938, 50% were at home, and since 1987 home births have accounted for about 1% of all births in the United States. The historical context that these figures reflect, was the result of a smear campaign on home birth and midwives, by the medical industry which presented hospitals as a "clean alternative" to your home, and medically trained doctors over "dirty, ill-educated" midwives. By the public accepting this propaganda as fact so quickly, it became commonly accepted fact that it was safer and a better choice to have a hospital birth than a home birth. Before watching this movie, and learning what we have about home birth in class, I saw nothing wrong with this idea that hospital birth was preferable over home birth. After watching it, I felt more inclined to suggest a home or natural birth to my wife, over a hospital birth. I think that what seems better about home birth, is the fact that in the movie, all of the women seemed to have quick and semi-painless births, which they were overjoyed about when they had pushed the baby out. What i had always known about, was hospital births, where the norm appeared to be intense pain and being miserable until finally the baby came out and the joy was more from being done with the labor and pain than the child itself.
The real problem that I saw with hospital birth, was that the medical field has become the medical industry, which is run more like a business than anything else. By charging up to $15,000 per birth, as a business, hospitals would want to maximize their profits, which could be done by speeding up the time of each birth. Because of this, the C- section and various medications have gone from being used occasionally, to virtually every birth with the intent of speeding the process up and making birth fit a schedule which suited the doctor and may be detrimental or even dangerous to the health of the patient. When business is introduced to medicine, the interests of the hospital tend to overshadow and surpass that of the patient. As c- sections are used more and more (up 46% from 1996), they are becoming accepted as the norm and what is an improvement from traditional birth, much like hospitals became accepted over homes as a better, cleaner solution for giving birth. The problem with C-sections is that it is a serious surgery which causes a large amount of harm to your body, and for this to become the norm would be dangerous to the health of the mother and child, while benefiting the hospital by cutting down the time of births significantly.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Ways To Give Birth
- What percentage of C- sections are elective?
- What percentage of women squat?
- What percentage of women have dulas?
- The percentage of fathers in the room at the time of birth?
- How often does the father choose to or not to have a dula?
- What is the most common method of bith?
- What is the average time for most "traditional" births?
- Which is faster, squating or traditional?
- How does the method of birth effect post partom depression?
- What percentage of women squat?
- What percentage of women have dulas?
- The percentage of fathers in the room at the time of birth?
- How often does the father choose to or not to have a dula?
- What is the most common method of bith?
- What is the average time for most "traditional" births?
- Which is faster, squating or traditional?
- How does the method of birth effect post partom depression?
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Inauguration Day
Today, Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. Up until today, he was the president elect and nothing was official, but today made it official. I watched the ceremonies in a classroom with about 100 other people, all watching a TV that was set up with rabbit ear reception. In the classroom, virtually every person was enthusiastically watching as the first African American president was sworn in to office. For America, it is not an opinion, but a fact that today was a historic day on any level, be it racial or political. The mood of people who watched the inaugural from what i saw, was hopeful and optimistic. You had a sense in the room that everyone was proud of their country and for what its worth, was proud to be an American. I feel that today did represent a great step forward in America because on a massive scale, the culmination of organized free speech and protest efforts, resulted in the product of what we saw today. This is not to say that racial discrimination in America has ceased, but racial inequality in America, especially for African Americans has come a long way.
The ceremonies today seemed over the top, with a massive organization of millions of people who came to see Barack Obama sworn in. In class today someone brought up the point that the costs of today's event was around $180 million dollars, this coming when we are experiencing the worst economic crisis in history. I think that it is slightly excessive, but the money is going towards something which can be enjoyed at a national level. It is important that we have these traditions and ceremonies in our society because it defines us in a way as a culture; how we celebrate the transfer of presidential power. If we happen to spend $180 million taxpayer dollars doing so, i feel we could be spending it on worse things than a presidential celebration.
Barack Obama's speech seemed to be what everyone had expected, an acceptance, an outline of his goals as president, and what he thought about the ability of the American people to meet these goals. He put in some things about the social structure of America, and the economic ladder. What I found in particular that was so interesting was how Obama used his speech not to discuss his views on partisan issues, but to lay out common goals for America to meet and unite under. The economy, foreign policy and the individual obligations were all discussed in the speech, and under the theme of bettering ourselves, and our country Obama told us how he would fix everything.
What his speech showed me about the American way of life, was that our society is like a rebellious child. We push the limits of what we can and cannot do, like to be told we can do whatever we like. Yet secretly, we want structure and discipline because we are not stupid, just reluctant, and we know that it is required for our well being. As a nation we push the limits in our arts, our music and our entertainment, we use our free speech to protest when we are against something, and organize when we want something. When taxes and sacrifice is needed, we flock to the politician who promises lower taxes and the ability to live in excess. The last 8 years have been full of doing whatever we pleased and recklessness, without any thought of the consequences. Now we are suffering the consequences because we were never given any discipline with our economy, or our military actions. Obama's speech was about what we have facing us over the next 4 years because of the previous 8. What I thought was important, was that Obama talked about how great America once was, and has proven itself to be, and can be again, if he can do what he has said. He is offering change, but with change comes structure and sacrifice. In order for Obama to be a successful president, he needs to have popular support, and if the people can realize that sacrifice and socio-economic discipline are necessary for our country to move forward, than Barack Obama will be a successful president.
The ceremonies today seemed over the top, with a massive organization of millions of people who came to see Barack Obama sworn in. In class today someone brought up the point that the costs of today's event was around $180 million dollars, this coming when we are experiencing the worst economic crisis in history. I think that it is slightly excessive, but the money is going towards something which can be enjoyed at a national level. It is important that we have these traditions and ceremonies in our society because it defines us in a way as a culture; how we celebrate the transfer of presidential power. If we happen to spend $180 million taxpayer dollars doing so, i feel we could be spending it on worse things than a presidential celebration.
Barack Obama's speech seemed to be what everyone had expected, an acceptance, an outline of his goals as president, and what he thought about the ability of the American people to meet these goals. He put in some things about the social structure of America, and the economic ladder. What I found in particular that was so interesting was how Obama used his speech not to discuss his views on partisan issues, but to lay out common goals for America to meet and unite under. The economy, foreign policy and the individual obligations were all discussed in the speech, and under the theme of bettering ourselves, and our country Obama told us how he would fix everything.
What his speech showed me about the American way of life, was that our society is like a rebellious child. We push the limits of what we can and cannot do, like to be told we can do whatever we like. Yet secretly, we want structure and discipline because we are not stupid, just reluctant, and we know that it is required for our well being. As a nation we push the limits in our arts, our music and our entertainment, we use our free speech to protest when we are against something, and organize when we want something. When taxes and sacrifice is needed, we flock to the politician who promises lower taxes and the ability to live in excess. The last 8 years have been full of doing whatever we pleased and recklessness, without any thought of the consequences. Now we are suffering the consequences because we were never given any discipline with our economy, or our military actions. Obama's speech was about what we have facing us over the next 4 years because of the previous 8. What I thought was important, was that Obama talked about how great America once was, and has proven itself to be, and can be again, if he can do what he has said. He is offering change, but with change comes structure and sacrifice. In order for Obama to be a successful president, he needs to have popular support, and if the people can realize that sacrifice and socio-economic discipline are necessary for our country to move forward, than Barack Obama will be a successful president.
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