I went on a trip to death valley with my parents and grandparents. Of course I took pictures.
Check it out:
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Why we need healthcare reform and why it’s bad
American health care overall is really good (seriously, my grandma had a hip replacement and my grandpa had a heart replacement. You can get an MRI and see what’s going on inside your brain. Every day we make progress on new cancer treatments, it’s almost miraculous), but we need health care reform in America for a number of reasons.
1) It’s getting really expensive, and if we don’t fix it soon, the government will be in a lot of debt. Even more debt.
2) It’s not nice to let people die on the street because they don’t have insurance.
3) Even if you have no morals and WANT to let people die in the street, right now we are already paying for health care for everyone, because anyone can go to the emergency room to get treated. But it’s a mess. Why not fix their health problems before it’s an emergency? It will be better.
4) Doctors get sued so often that they have insurance to take care of it when they get sued.Really, anyone who’s looked at the problem closely agrees that there needs to be some kind of healthcare reform. It’s not even an open question.
However, the reform bill currently in congress has a number of problems:
1) It’s really expensive. Although they will increase taxes to cover the costs, it won’t be enough.
2) It will require businesses to pay for the insurance. If you are going to pay for insurance, do it right.
3) The bill is less focused on solving problems and more focused on moving control into the government. In fact it’s not a very good piece of legislation at all. If they had spent the time to figure out what exactly the problems are, thought about the best ways to solve them, they could have created a really nice solution. Instead the strategy is to get it done quickly, and fix the problems later. As someone who creates systems as a profession, this is a recipe for disaster.There is another way to create legislation, and that is to find a solution to the problem that is so clearly the best, that no one can reasonably oppose it. We have real problems with health care, and if Obama had come up with a solution that worked, he wouldn’t need to try to rush it through congress, and he would have something that is best for the country.
One potential solution I think would work is to offer minimal, disaster insurance to people who don’t have it. This type of insurance wouldn’t cover things like viagra, but if you break a bone you should have access to a doctor. We’re paying for it anyway, why not make it official?
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Real Dreams
After remembering about the Sound of Music, I started checking around and found this:
It’s a nice song. The warmth and power of this song I think comes, not from the artists, but from the authors, Rogers and Hammerstein, and the meaning behind the song.
It says to work hard to reach your dream: you may have to climb mountains, but keep going.
What kind of dream? The words say, “a dream that will need, all the love you can give, every day of your life, for as long as you live.” This is a real dream.
I think those two men, Rogers and Hammerstein did have a dream, and their dream was the music and plays that they wrote, and with these words they are trying to say how they reached their dream: they followed it with all their heart. And it worked, they wrote musicals that were so great that no one hardly remembers what came before them.
That’s what the words say, the music is saying, “you will reach it,” it wraps around you like a warm blanket. That is what they were trying to do: teach their wisdom through words and music, and encourage you on.
What is your dream? Do you have a dream that you can follow with every ounce of love you possess?
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Eidelweiss – Watch it! (cute girl)
Here a cute little girl gathers all the courage she possesses to go on stage:
I am such a wuss, I cried when I saw it. I feel happy when I see someone overcome their fears and reach greatness inside them and I couldn’t contain myself.
The story of the song is about a man who stands up for his homeland at a time when every dark power is against him. He faces it and reveals the powers for what they really are: weakness. Just as when a light is turned on in a dark room, the darkness cannot stand, so as we reach for the strength and power within ourselves, the roadblocks to our happiness melt away.
Every one of us has a Hollie Steel inside of us, even if we don’t need to act or sing, we all have our greatness. Find that greatness in yourselves and bring it out. I am trying to, also.
She has True Grit.
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Alicia Keys
Today I finally checked out Alicia Keys. Wow! How could you not like her voice, so confident, smooth, and precise? I should have listened before!
Her eyes are so expressive. Look when she sings, “sometimes I feel used….” she could kill with those eyes. Then other times she looks with a look that could melt your heart. Check it out:
I actually watched this one several times to figure out how she does that with her eyes, and do it myself in a more manly way, of course.
This one is good too, that kid makes me laugh:
Hey, yeah! I want a woman to buy me a trip around the world too lol! Sounds great! Where do I find that kind?She has a bunch of good ones, this one trying to bring out the good in everyone:
She is Superwoman!
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Sleep Sweetly
Happy Garfield SleepingI don’t remember how I slept when I was a baby. Probably on my back. Sometime since then, I’ve changed to sleeping on my side. Not like this guy:
Now I’ve been wondering if that is healthy. Maybe it’s better to sleep on your back. I had a friend in the army who used to sleep standing up while on guard. I’m pretty sure that’s not healthy.
Is it better to sleep on your side, your back, or your face? Or something else?
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Iranian Intrigue
By now, the fact that the Iranian elections were rigged is common knowledge. If you still aren’t sure, we know for a lot of reasons, for example, the national media announced the results before the votes were even counted. The citizens of Iran for good reasons feel upset.
The intrigue goes deeper. Power in a country is never as simple as it seems, for example, in America, President Obama found that once he was president, Nancy Pelosi (the house majority leader) had a lot of power that he needed to deal with. Or John Spratt, the Chairman of the budget committee, has a lot of power over the money that gets spent. Usually a person in a position of power can only use that power if he/she can take it: if Pelosi manages to push Obama around, then the office of president will not help him much. Learning to use power is a skill that must be developed.
In Iran, there are apparently two power groups: the religious leaders and the military leaders. Ahmadinejad is with the military group. So what appears to be happening is that the military group is trying to seize control of the country. Ahmadinejad has threatened to take away all the assets from many of the mullahs and give them to the poor. Sounds nice, but it is really an attempt to take power away from the religious leaders.
Now, there is another power group in any society, and that is the general population. In issues that they care about, the general population wins most of the time. What remains to be seen is if Ahmadinejad can pacify the people and get them to tolerate him for another few years. He’s had a lousy start. It will be important to see what happens going forward. He has a few things he can try, give the poor money (worked in Venezuela), scare the people with military threats from foreign countries (works in N Korea), or he can adapt his regime to give the people what they want.
The military threats to Iran, of course, are Israel and the US (maybe Europe). We can expect Ahmadinejad to say more outrageous things, to try to provoke the US to threaten them. Fortunately, we have in Obama the perfect president for dealing with those kinds of things. He is extremely non-threatening. He doesn’t fall for the provocations. He has his own agenda, and he makes his point clearly: he wants peace and cooperation between all parties. He doesn’t want fighting, because really, working together we can be better than we each are alone.
If Ahmadinejad can’t convince the people to at least tolerate him, then his time in office will end soon, and the harder he tries to hold on, the harder he will fall.
Interesting article here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124502114089613711.html
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All about me (some things that happened)
This weekend I took some days off and went to Yosemite. No pictures, but it was on the edge, kind of in the wilderness. We went on an 8 mile hike, and saw a bald eagle in the wild, while we were eating lunch. He was sitting there, watching us as we were watching him, and being scolded by a little black bird. I guess the blackbird didn’t like having him so close to his nest. Little blackbirds can usually manage to chase off a hawk, and he was flying all around this eagle, but the eagle is more formidable than a hawk. The eagle didn’t seem to care at all, and the blackbird was just wasting his energy. I like the wilderness.
Today was my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. Wow, long time. Grandpa has Alzheimer’s but grandma gets more energy all the time. They both want me to come down and visit more often. I probably will. I think my grandpa wants an excuse to ride horses.
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Arab Queen, Woman’s Rights, and Education (or Why Peace is Possible)
Today I came across the website of Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordon, in the middle east. She is on Twitter, too! Check it out.
She is a shining example of everything that is right in the world, working for women’s empowerment, children, education, and yes, hope.Here is a quote from her website, which is absolutely true. If only the American schooling system would make this its motto!
“Educating our children is not just about imposing a body of knowledge on them. Rather, it involves preparing children from the early years for the world in which they will come of age. It means instilling a love for lifelong learning, creativity,self-expression and an appreciation for diversity.”
Things like this are proof that world peace is possible. We need to follow her example and focus on making the world a better place, instead of worrying about terrorists and who has WMD.
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In Defense of Cheney
Remember the one called by liberals, Darth Vader? Mr. Dick Cheney himself, who shot his friend in the face during the hunting accident? Here is a picture for you:
He has come back on the world stage, defending torture. At first I was annoyed, I don’t agree with torture and I didn’t want him to stay around, but then I realized he has one extremely strong redeeming virtue: he is 100% sincere. He truly believes he did the right thing for the country.
I don’t believe torture is acceptable, but a lot of people agree with him. And by opening up the debate with sincerity, he has brought democracy into action, representing those people, and allowing real arguments to be put on the table. We now have a real, sincere debate going on between Obama, his policies, and Cheney, and those who agree with him. It’s been a while since we’ve seen this level of honesty in politicians.
It is a complete change from Carl Rove/Nancy Pelosi, who will say whatever they think can hurt their opponent, nevermind if it is true or not.
I welcome this and hope we see more Dick Cheney’s in the world. Remember, freedom of speech is your right to say whatever you believe, even if it is unpopular (or in this case, wrong
).
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