Tazi's Corner #74 - Where Did All The Civility Go? Also, Truth Versus Truthiness

Dear Readers:

With the dawn of 2014 many changes are taking place. People are making resolutions to improve themselves, so in that spirit I thought I would, too. However, since I am a cat it goes without saying that I am perfect, so instead of changing me I will be making a few improvements to my home.

A pet door, a self-cleaning litter-box, and window insulation!

A general, societal improvement I have been hoping to see for some time now is improvement in the political discourse among Americans. It used to be name calling was reserved for trolls on chat boards, but now it seems to have seeped over into other areas, particularly Facebook pages and other forms of social media. This week I noticed someone posting a comment on my Mayor's Facebook page, calling someone else's girlfriend "ugly" (click the link and scroll down to Dec. 24th for all the gory details). Said girlfriend was not there to defend herself because she was not part of the debate - her boyfriend had a couple's picture as his profile picture and some woman attacked because the boyfriend had made fun of this woman's shirt. While it was sophomoric to make fun of someone's clothes - and certainly not germane to the conversation - it crosses a line to bash innocent bystanders. When my Mommie tried to moderate, someone who disagreed with her judgement jumped in and told her to call the "WAAAAambulance". (She really should leave these things to me!).

Where has civility gone in the course of political discourse? I know people who have "unfriended" lifelong, real-life friends over differences of political opinion. I see people calling their neighbors "ignorant" and "uninformed" simply because they disagree with an opinion offered (solicited or not). Maybe it's time to apply some rules to political communications: As my Mommie learned as a college freshman, if you are going to have an opinion, make it an educated one!  Do not source politically polarized material; instead, look to find the original source of that material. Who was the primary researcher who wrote the story, quoted the people on record, and is standing behind the work? If this information is not available - or is of questionable repute - look elsewhere before you form an opinion. If someone has the letters "PhD" after their name, look to see which scholarly/peer reviewed publications have published their work! If you can't find any, that "PhD' may not be valid! In the age of the Internet, anyone can fake credentials and the average person is not going to bother to do a background check. (Someone once suggested I call myself Tazi-Kat, PhD! Would you believe that?)

Most importantly, before believing what you read online, you need to ask yourself: Am I believing what I am reading because it gels with what I want to believe? Too often, the truth gets embellished to make it a story people want to believe and (in the age of blogs and YouTube royalties) send viral. This phenomenon picked up steam after 9/11 and generally involved feel-good stories about those who survived the attacks; now, as Steve Colbert would say, the element of "truthiness" has infected so much more. This brings me to my next commentary...

Truthiness is defined by the Merriam-Webster online dictionary as "the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true" (American Dialect Society, January 2006).  This week, An Open Letter From An Alabama Mom started making the rounds on the conservative online newsletters. This letter was originally posted in a private blog (and re-posted with permission) where it was picked up by...other conservative sources. Not a single, solitary major news source has run with it - not even Bloomberg, the unpaid bloggers' paradise.

While Snopes.com confirms the validity of the source of this article in question (the Alabama Mom) it does not confirm the validity of what was written. While it may sound like I am nitpicking, this is a very important point; if you read the article from a neutral viewpoint, you pick up on some "facts" that don't sound like facts at all. To start:

This Alabama family was supposedly paying $380 a month for direct-pay (not employee sponsored) health insurance. This was not a catastrophic care policy, but full coverage for a family of four - parents and two sons, one of whom has ADHD - including prescription coverage and dental for all family members! She does not mention any kind of yearly deductible, so we must believe there is none if we are to believe her argument is truthful (simply because she rails against the deductible that she must pay under her Obamacare policy). Apples to apples and not oranges, right? If this sounds too good to be true, read on...

The ADHD medications she must purchase every month have an uninsured cost of $400/month. Alabama Mom writes that her new co-pay will be $55 before the annual deductible is reached and then "covered at 80%". This means that the co-pay will rise to $80 after the yearly deductible is paid. This just does not make sense. Now, before you get your dander up over the Affordable Heath Care Act and its perceived evils, stay with me just one more minute...

I would like to know how a family is paying $380/month for full family coverage (including prescription and dental coverage!) if a single prescription medication that costs $400/month is covered at close to 90%? 

Hold on while I do the math...

You don't have to be an Actuary to figure out that something does not add up here! Even if Blue Cross pays the pharmacy at a lower rate - say 50% of uninsured total - that would still mean the cost to Blue Cross for this one prescription is better than 50% of the monthly premium. Is Blue Cross hoping that the child does not have any visits with his specialist that will eat up the other 50% of that month's premium? Are they hoping that nobody else in the family will need a prescription or a cavity filled, or that the creeping crud that is invading their hometown will magically bypass this particular family? Or do things just operate differently in Alabama than they do in the rest of the world? (Please, keep all comments civil!).

In our quest to pummel the intellectual snot out of politicians we do not like and programs we disagree with, let's not fall to the truthiness that surrounds true fact. In failing to do so, we only weaken the argument being made and in hindsight, when the truth is laid bare - and it usually is - it is those who spread the lies who will appear to be ignorant and uninformed.

Snuggles,
Tazi

Ask Tazi! is ghostwritten by a human with Bachelors degrees in Communications and in Gender and Women's Studies. Tazi-Kat is not really a talking feline.

Tazi’s Corner #55 – Potential vs. Practice (A Labor Day Lesson)

Dear Readers:

I am   not a very political kitty, nor do I intend to become so; the purpose of this feature is not to judge, but to observe. However, I DO keep up on the political goings-on of state and country (I am an astute kitty!) and one thing I have observed is how dreadfully partisan politics has become. Why just this morning I was reading the Editorials over my Mommie’s shoulder when I read that a minority faction of the GOP (I will let you guess which one) has suggested a government shutdown in order to prevent the Affordable Health Care Act (aka Obamacare) from being put into practice. This idea is Plan B, since almost 40 Congressional votes to repeal the act have been taken and gone down in flames. Now, I could rail about how Congress has more important things to do than take symbolic votes that they know will fail in order to curry favor with wealthy donors rather than do the actual work that is required to keep this country moving, but I won’t. Instead, I decided to look at the bigger picture and ask:

Are they crazy? How far up their butts are their heads that they can’t see how this plan would harm the average American? I’m a cat, and even I can see how this would affect me: Since the USDA is not considered an “essential service” food inspections would have to stop until the government started up again. Am I the only one who remembers the rash of animal deaths from infected pet chow? Do you trust your food provider to keep the strictest of standards without government oversight or do you think a government shutdown might prove a good reason to go back to growing your own food? (Locovores, feel free to chime in on this in the comments section on the validity of potential vs. practice on this concept). Now to my title point:

I often hear how someone will like (or dislike) something when it is merely an idea – something potential – but will rail against it (or champion the cause for it) one it has been put into practice. A relevant example would be Mitt Romney’s views on Mass Health and the mandatory health insurance act that he helped to pass in the state of Massachusetts when he was governor there, but now denounces as something bad. This program is the very program upon which “Obamacare” is based, and it seems to be working quite well. In fact, the fears that employers would potentially layoff employees rather than offer health insurance has proven false in practice; the truth of the matter is that there have not been increased layoffs due to mandatory health insurance laws and more employers are now offering employees health insurance than in the past (Politifact.com confirms it!). The cost of the program does not appear to be bankrupting the state; in fact, the Massachusetts economy is flourishing. Businesses have not left the state looking for greener pastures just over the state borders in Rhode Island (although I wish they would). As in the past, many Rhode Island business owners continue to set up shop in Massachusetts for its favorable business climate.

Several years ago I hopped in my Tazi Sack and attended a Meet the Candidates night at which candidates for the Rhode Island governorship were speaking. One candidate (who has a Masters Degree in Taxation, so you know he is well-educated!) was arguing that in order to bring back our economy we need to bring manufacturing jobs back to America. While personally I think this idea had great potential – no more “Made in China” tags on textiles! – I realized right away it would not work in practice. The Chinese have government sponsored health care, eliminating this expensive cost to manufacturers. Many manufacturing plants also offer employees housing, just like the American mill owners once did, as a part of their salary. While I am not suggesting we go back to the days when Americans sold their souls to the company store, I am suggesting that we need to think of some creative ways to compete with Chinese manufacturers; ideas that will work in practice and not just as a potential. Once upon a time union leaders had some great ideas on how to make both employees and business owners happy. Are there any great negotiators left? Or is it the business owners who have sold their souls this time around? (Tune in next Sunday for more thoughts on this debate!).

This Labor Day, I think we all owe it to ourselves and our country to try. Try what, you ask? Exactly. Just try. So often we are afraid to leave our comfort zone because it means putting the potential into practice, a time during which the hopeful risk failure and the naysayers risk being proven wrong. Try anyway. Then, try again. You will never get the taste of failure out of your mouth if you don’t work to overcome it. (My Mommie loves to tell her Chemistry students how she failed the subject back in high school because it shows that failure can be replaced with success the second time around).

Don’t like legislation that Congress has passed? Try to give it time, to see if it will work before you try to change it. Then, if it is the utter disaster you predicted (based upon nothing more than your political and/or moral beliefs), work to change it – not through empty and poorly researched rhetoric, personal opinion, or symbolic votes that you know will fail but through grassroots efforts to motivate and affect change.

Hoping for a promotion at work? Try taking a class that will make you more marketable. Start by trying to fill out the financial aid forms, if money is what is holding you back. Start by walking into the school’s Academic Assistance Center, if academic ability is what is keeping you from trying. The excuse that you lack the time or that there is a scheduling conflict has been made moot by the advances in distance learning programs.

This Labor day, vow to put your potential into practice. Take risks; it is individual efforts that came together in the form of a collective goal that built this country, let’s not let fear of the potential cause it to crumble.

Snuggles,

Tazi

Ask Tazi! is ghostwritten by a human with a Bachelors of Arts in Communications. Tazi-Kat is not really a talking feline.

Tazi's Corner #33: The Fallacy Of An Urban Legend

Dear Readers: 

This week, I received the following email – an urban legend that, according to Snopes.com, has been making the rounds since 2009. I reprint it here to publicly respond to my comments on it:

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A. (Substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Okay, so how many of you believe this or think that it “could happen”? To all who raised your hand, please lower them…this is the Internet and I cannot see you. I further recommend you all take a basic economics class in order to learn the vast differences between Socialism and Communism – something an Economics professor would already know – which will also illustrate the huge hole in the plot of the above anecdote. In the meantime, I am here to punch a hole in the rest of the story.

College students do not act this way; they just don’t. Remember, these are people who are paying for their education; depending on that education to assist them in their future careers. But this story is about more than just students; the above story suggests by extension that humans in general will only put out the minimum effort required of them in order to get by, and that they will willingly sop off of others in an attempt to get ahead without actually trying. If this is true, how did America ever become the country of comforts that it is? This leads to the argument that there are two types of people: producers and receivers, and the specious belief that producers are the ones working hard while receivers sponge off of the sweat of society. The problem with this argument is that it leaves out intrinsic values upon which humans depend to succeed in life, whether they realize these needs or not. I will again use the example of the student, and how the reality differs from the anecdote.

Humans, like the animals they forget they are, are pack creatures; following their natural instinct to form a group in times of stress, students will form a study group. In these study groups will be students of impressive skills, students of average skills, and students who have little to offer – just like life in the larger dynamic of the world outside the classroom. The students who have much to offer would appear to have little to gain from a study group, and would appear to be the ones being taken advantage of by their weaker counterparts, but things are not always as they seem. Even the strongest students in a class are still students – meaning, they are still learning the material being taught, just at a faster pace than others. 

The learning journey is a stressful one, and we all need someone to lean on when our motivation flags. Enter, the weaker among us. The weakest students in the classroom are often the most motivated learners; they just need a little more guidance to find the path to the answers, a little more reassurance that they can do it. For a strong student, taking the time to assist a weaker student can often result in a better grade for both, since you haven’t truly mastered a task until you know it well enough to teach another how to do it.  How does this apply to the world of economics?

Let us look at the many programs that would accomplish little if supported by the individual, but accomplish much when we band together and support a program as taxpayers; to start, a free public education. The money the average taxpayer pays to the government would not even begin to cover the cost of educating their child; since a free public school offers future benefits to society in the form of an educated populace, some pay more than others in order to see that all are educated – regardless of whether or not they actually utilize the public school system.

One of my preferred “socialist” or “fascist” programs is municipal garbage pick-up. Who wants to make a weekly trip to the dump with the week’s leavings in the trunk of their car? For the convenience of not doing this, I am happy to pay a little more than my share of the cost through my municipal taxes (I have almost no trash; my litterbox leavings are fully compostable!).

A third and final example of how the whole can be greater than the sum of single parts is the family unit upon which human society is based. An infant, or even a pet for that matter,  cannot care for itself, nor is it expected to contribute some form of financial or economic worth in return for having its needs met. So why care for them in return? Why do people love their dogs and cats so much, to the tune of several billion dollars a year spent on their care and well-being? Could it be that we offer some sort of intrinsic value that cannot be bought? What economic price would you put on your pet if someone offered to buy it from you? What price can be put on the wag of a happy dog’s tail at the end of your long hard day? A price cannot be put on everything, and just as in the classroom, we need others to lean on while in the outside world.

Some may argue that they made their fortune through hard work, without leaning on others; I argue that not all help received was financial. Often times it is not laziness but fear of failure that keeps someone from making a first step towards greatness. When the going gets tough, the tough get going, but those that go the furthest are the ones that have a strong emotional backing from those who believe in them. Those who end up the most emotionally balanced are the ones who are a part of something larger, not as an island unto themselves. Remember that not all great rewards are financial; not all wealth can be measured on the New York Stock Exchange – or in a teacher’s grade-book.


Ask Tazi! is ghostwritten by a human with a Bachelors of Arts in Communications. Tazi-Kat is not really a talking feline.