Every day brings another crazy weather story, reminding me of this novel

Heavy Weather

by Bruce Sterling

Here's the Wikipedia Description:

Set in the year 2031, Heavy Weather depicts a world where mankind has unbalanced the world's ecosystem with their continuing production of greenhouse gases and unchecked expansion. As a result, the weather has become unpredictable and dangerous. Powerful storms routinely leave trails of devastation in their wake. Alex Unger, a young man suffering from numerous medical problems, is liberated from an illegal Mexican clinic by his sister Janey and brought back to America to her group of friends and colleagues, the Storm Troupe. The Troupe are dedicated and knowledgeable storm chasers who use high technology to document and research the weather, led by Janey's lover, the charismatic and brilliant scientist Jerry Mulcahey. They are preparing to meet an F-6, a storm of truly monstrous proportions.

And every day this year has felt more and more like this story is becoming that much closer to real. It's just been nuts. As I sit here, 4 days from May, watching it snow outside, while tornadoes are killing people across the country, and rivers in the Midwest are breaking through levees. And yet, despite all of this, there are people who refuse to accept that Climate Change is real, to the point of passing bills in Congress denying it's existence. Like nature gives a damn about a bill in Congress or a state legislature. I really think that this is the future in our world, like it or not, and it would behoove us to do as many smart things as we can to be prepared for extreme weather effects. I doubt we can reverse it, or even minimize it. It would be smarter to invest in technology that can help us adjust to this world.

Why I love Medicare & Medicaid and hate the #GOPwaronthepoor

I'm going to make this as simple and personal as possible in the hopes that maybe someone out there will understand just what the government can do and has done for poor people in this country, instead of picturing government as just aiding and abetting a bunch of free loading welfare queens.

My nephew was born about 14 years ago. When he was born to his teen mom the plan was to place him on his grandmothers health insurance, insurance she received from her employer. He was born with a hypo plastic left heart, which necessitated a heart transplant at less than a month old. However, the private insurer decided that his birth defect was a 'pre-existing condition' and therefore they would not cover the operation and any subsequent health issues.

Medicaid stepped in and paid for the operation and has paid for the millions of dollars worth of care he has received since then. I was reminded of this on Friday as he went in for his regular check up, where they detected an arrhythmia and immediately sent him into exploratory surgery to find out what was causing it. (Nothing was found by the way.) All of this care was provided by Medicaid and wonderful doctors and such. None of this care is provided by private insurance. If it was up to private insurers he would have just been left to die peacefully as a baby.

Now the G.O.P. has passed a budget plan that, among other things, wants to change the funding of medicaid entirely, making it a block grant to the states to spend how they wish. This would effectively end medicaid for large swaths of poor and disabled people when states run out of funds (like now). Leaving it up to private insurers to supposedly take up the slack, which they clearly will not do.

That is the G.O.P. response to the Affordable Care Act. Among other things the Affordable Care Act has made what that private insurer did illegal, they can no longer refuse coverage based on a 'pre-existing condidtion'. That is the type of law that the G.O.P. Congress voted to repeal.

I think you can't get any more simple contrast: One party wants to help poor people and protect them from the whims of private companies, and be there when there is a need for a safety net. The other party would leave things entirely in the hands of private insurers and just let the market do what it's supposed to do, and if that means that poor people don't get coverage, or their coverage falls short or fall in a loophole, that's just too bad.

How to re-engage the body politic?

So I am reading a different Matt Taibbi book: The Great Derangement and it has got me thinking. How can we as citizens get our fellow citizens back into the body politic so we can regain the government we really want?

1. Congress, State Houses, Governors and even the President are at best captive to big interests and big money. At worst they are willing collaborators in a system where real change is just not going to happen. As long as roughly 70% of Americans do not really have a voice in the day to day operations of government how can we expect that government to respond to our wishes? Our elected representatives do not truly hear the 'voice of the people'. Oh there are polls after polls out there, and the politicians can speak out about those poll results, and give voice showing support for whatever position those polls show. But realistically that is talk, not action.

2. When the leading contender on polls for a major party is a reality TV star with seriously questionable credentials as a businessman you have to question those polls. Especially when that figures single biggest issue that he has spoken out about is to question a simple fact that has been proven over and over and over to the satisfaction of every legal level in the land. Truly the whole Birther issue makes any of the many other 'hot button' faked issues that have occurred before pale in comparison. And yet the main stream media, and the internet stream media and the polls make this issue a huge deal. This is how you kill democracy.

3. How do you get people to get active, and actually do something about the real issues, and hold their representatives accountable for them when this is the big topic? That is a major distraction, and while I don't believe there is some conspiracy out there saying: "Let's distract the voters by questioning the veracity of legal documents so they don't realize what is really happening." That has become the end result. And really all of the big 2 party arguments are more often than not about this level of actions, just distractions.

4. The real questions and issues that people should be asking and demanding action from their representatives are: where are the jobs, how are you going to end a cycle of near 2 digit unemployment? How are my children going to get educated when education has become a sinkhole and scapegoat profession? What is being done to keep highways, bridges, other major infrastructure from disintegrating before our eyes? Why has no one been held accountable and served actual time in prison for a systematic fraud that nearly destroyed the worldwide economy? Why are we bankrupting our country paying for 3 wars while simultaneously allowing Congress and State governments to strip a regulatory system that has served to keep our people, workers and environment safe for over half a century?

5. I don't have a simple answer to any of the above questions but I think that until we stop letting ourselves be distracted by non-issues, and reality TV stars masquerading as political figures, and accept as gospel economic theories that have been proven wrong both in theory and in practical fact for the last 30+ years we will not see an end to this.

6. So I say it is time to stand up and demand better. Demand real answers from politicians not platitudes. Ask hard questions. Educate yourself about those things that matter to you and don't rely on the media. Because the media is feeding us those distractions, not overtly at the wishes of some shadowy conspiracy, but because we allow them to do so.

Justified gives a redneck Fredo moment, and impending war

What a cool show, and another strong episode. You can almost see Raylan pondering his escape, not realizing that at the exact same moment all of the elements that will force him to remain in Harlan accelerating in momentum. You have Boyd deciding to resume his criminal career, retaking all that his Daddy once controlled. And you have the Bennett's family feud which has all the potential of blowing up. And you just know that all of this will erupt in the kind of war that only Raylan will be able to sort out and finish.

Along the way in this episode you had a classic redneck reinterpretation of the Godfather 'you went against the family, you never go against the family scene'. When Mags delivered that line it was just classic, 'you are not a part of the family any more'. And of course now Mags is set up for another visitation of the 'just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in' scene.

And watching Boyd's mind spin as he sits and lets Dickie Bennett talk big about being in control just tells you that someone bit off more than they can chew, and it sure as hell wasn't Boyd.

The big question of course is who the hell sent those gunmen after Raylan? He clearly didn't recognize them in his classic scene ('I'm out of sorts from shooting and killing a man 3 days ago, so why don't you just drive a different direction?) And I doubt Mags or Boyd would hire someone to take him out at this point. Actually I don't think they were after Raylan, I think they were after Winona. Follow me on this, we know Gary is back in cahoots with the Dixie Mafia guy. And we know that Gary needs money. And when the divorce settlement involves a big argument over insurance, then you know where that is leading. Of course if that means the Dixie Mafia has decided to tip it's toe back in Harlan that cannot bode well for anyone.

God I love all of this, it's like a cross of the Soprano's, Deadwood, with some Deliverance mixed in for color.

Where I am on the web and easy way to keep track of it all

I imagine that a few of you are a little confused these days. It used to be simple to keep track of me, I had 1 blog, under various names, but just the one URL. And for a while even I was e-mailing new posts to people when I wrote them. And I even used to just have my posts appear in Facebook as Notes. So it was easy. But I am not one to keep things the same, I cannot resist the urge to tinker. And on top of that the reality is that I write about lots of different things, and not all of my readers care about all of them.


So I started branching out, first creating a second blog, then dropped that, then branched out to Tumblr. Then in the last month I created a Google Site for the family web page, then resurrected my second blog. Here’s a summary of where I am at now and generally what you can expect at each location:

Family Web Site

https://sites.google.com/site/ruchnewland/

I keep up a blog here that is strictly devoted to family news. I don’t delve into politics, talk about games or sports except for the ones the kids play. There is an option to subscribe to the blog so you can see the updates in a reader form like Google Reader, as well as just receive the updates via e-mail using FeedBurner.

Mike’s World

http://mikesworld-miker.blogspot.com/

This is my training blog. Where I write about my running, and strength training. And occasionally delve into things like nutrition. And last I will use this site for my political posts/rants. There is an option to subscribe to the blog as well so you can see the updates in a reader form like Google Reader, as well as just receive the updates via e-mail using FeedBurner.

FreeRangeGeek

http://freerangegeek.blogspot.com/

This is my blog for things like role playing games, miniatures, movies, television shows, books, and sports. Basically my hobbies and interests outside of physical achievements and politics. Like the others, there is an option to subscribe to the blog as well so you can see the updates in a reader form like Google Reader, as well as just receive the updates via e-mail using FeedBurner.


I have set up Feedburner to update my Twitter (@freerangegeek) and Facebook feeds when I update the later 2 blogs, and use bit.ly to create similar links when I update the Family blog. So you can try to hit 3 different sites, or just watch my Twitter and Facebook feeds, or use the RSS feeds to keep up to date on all 3 sites. I am going to go ahead and post this on all 3 sites (sorry for the duplication) to make sure the message gets out. Thanks for the patience if you do follow, and even more if you don’t and get tired of all the links that you just ignore.

Refusing to let the NBA go Godfather III on me

With the sports world in a serious dead time the NBA playoffs are just about to start. I used to love to watch the NBA, and I am a big LA Lakers fan (dating back to the Showtime and Magic Johnson days). But starting a couple of years ago I reached a point where the NBA slowly became unwatchable. There were 3 factors: my trying hard to watch less sports on TV, the games changing into a kind of boring blob of interchangeable parts, and knowing that the Lakers are defending back to back.

I have been trying hard to de-emphasize TV sports for a while now. With differing success of course. It's easier to ignore basketball than football, just because I like to watch football at pretty much any level, while basketball can be hard to watch without a lot of factors being involved. And part of that is when my team is on, I can become pretty unbearable to be around, and that's not fair for my family, and not healthy for me. So the smart thing is to break that viewing habit, and try to focus on other things.

The more I watch the NBA lately the more it feels like all the teams are pretty much interchangeable. It is no longer a matter of the teams having distinct personalities that the players adopt. Instead it is the players that create the team's personality. And that gets pretty boring, especially when it feels like 8 guys standing around watching 2 go 1 on1. I know that isn't all that is happening, that there is a lot there that doesn't meet the eye. But to someone who has gradually become a casual fan of most teams that is what it looks like.

Last, I know that I am being a little spoiled, but I might not feel this way if the Lakers had not been in the last 3 Finals series, and won the last 2. On the other hand, I am not even sure I could bring myself to watch much of the Lakers playoff games any more, it's just not that much fun to watch.

My goal is to let the playoffs go and not watch any games, just follow the scores and stories on the web. Which should be relatively easy to do as there are not a lot of big gatherings in the near future where people will want the games on in the back ground. I'm going to try, I won't say it will be easy, and there's a possibility of:

"Just when I thought I was out, they drag me back in"

Today I come to speak of Justified, favorite writers and dialogue

Last night I got to catch up with my second or third favorite show on television (since Friday Night Lights is about to air it's final season it still counts, but only partially). And to try and explain what it is about the show, and similar shows and movies that I love so much.

The show is Justified, a show on late night F/X network. It's centered on a U.S. Marshal who has returned to his home town in Kentucky and the various adventures and misadventures he encounters there. It stars one of my new favorite actors: Tim Olyphant. And is loosely based on a character and book written by Elmore Leonard.

There are 2 things I really like about the show, and also the books of Elmore Leonard: dialogue and real people and criminals. First, the dialogue in the show and the books is just great. It may bare little relation to how a lot of people talk. But that's okay, because it is the dialogue that draws me in. My absolute favorite line so far this season:

"I'm not afraid of heights, snakes or red-headed women"

Just a great tag line. Much of the talk and dialogue in the show is like that, eloquent but in a round about way. People using a lot of big words, but using them in such a way that it doesn't seem like they are actually educated. And all spoke with very authentic, slow Kentucky accents. It's just a joy to listen to, and appreciate how the characters interact.

Which brings me to the second part, and this is the element of all of Leonard's books and shows and movies based on his work that I love best of all. The people, and especially the criminals are very true to life. They can seem very smart and cunning, but in reality more often than not they are just making thing up as they go along, and the most common response to any problem is violence. And the total lack of self awareness is especially true. When a character is faced with a problem often as a result of their own behavior and choices their response is never 'oh I screwed up, that's why this bad thing happened' instead it's always someone else's fault. And like it or not that is a far more common response by people than you might want to think.

While the show is violent, and the language can get very real and profane I would recommend it to anyone who can get past those elements. Again, not for everyone, but if you like your characters heroic but flawed, and your criminals with plenty of gray to them, this is the show for you.

Reactivating this blog

Decided to try and make things a little easier for those who follow me. My other blog: Mike's World will continue to focus on me, my running, training, weight loss, with occasionally foraying into politics. This blog is where things I had been posting to Tumblr will go: gaming, sports, other geekier interests.

I just have grown a little dissatisfied with Tumblr and it's limitations for blogging and linking things. It's great for the occasional short post, and random web links, but this is easier for actually writing in.

What are the best options for a kid's (9 y.o.) desire for his own web site?

Last night James stated that he wants his own web site. And I figure it’s about time to bring him into the online world officially. But the big question becomes how? What are the best options for this? There are a lot of things to consider:

1. What conditions and requirements? I already told him that when I set this up there will be a contract for him to sign, just like his home work contract. It will contain things like:

•While he will have his own e-mail address and web site he will not be allowed to change the password, I will always know what that is.
•He cannot give out his e-mail address online without consulting me first.
•He cannot sign himself up on any web sites without first consulting me or Kim.
•I will have a say in what sort of things he posts, not so much final control, but more of an ability to look at it, and tell him to take down things he shouldn’t have.

2. What is the best option for the actual web site? There are a number of different choices out there. My inclination is that I will probably end up just setting him up on Google, with GMail, and blogspot etc. Just to keep things simple (one account, one password).

3. What is he going to post there? He says he wants a place to post pictures of his Lego stuff, and possibly other things.