It's Quiet in Iran Right Now

I wonder if POTUS would start dropping bombs again if we started talking about Epstein again.

Too cynical? 

Reveling in Ennui

Unlike most people, I aspire to boredom, and today is a day where I'm succeeding.  On most days, I have a laundry list of things I want or need to do, and I'm usually short of the necessary time to do it all.  This state of mind is so ingrained that when I really have nothing important to do, I tend to get a little anxious, either worrying that I missed something or fearing what pseudo-emergency is going to crop up next.  I've spent a lot of effort over the past couple of years trying to unlearn that anxiety and just allow myself to be bored.  In my case, the secret was a career pivot.

I've spent the majority of my life working in the IT industry.  I started out on workstations, and over time built an expansive expertise that includes servers, networking, cloud, and security.  The IT industry has been a great field for me.  I appreciate that there's always more to learn.  I love designing and building things.  Solving problems brings me pleasure.  I enjoy being a resident expert and feeling needed.  The downside is that I've been expected to be available essentially 24/7.

My current job is IT security compliance.  What this means in plain English is that I recommend and implement well-established best practices and make sure that we actually follow them.  It's not a particularly exciting field.  Sometimes it's downright mind numbing.  But there's no such thing as a compliance emergency.  I can take a day off, knowing that nobody will call to ask me why my compliance can't send email, and nobody is going to call me at midnight to say that my compliance is down and the company is at a standstill as a result.  In fact, the primary reason my job exists is to meet regulatory requirements.  Yep, my entire industry was effectively legislated into existence.  Compliance is a way to prove that a given business is doing what's legally required, such as keeping health records private, and reducing the likelihood of getting hacked.  But I'm digressing.

My point is that I like boredom.  It gives my mind a chance to wander, and my body a chance to rest and recharge.  I've spent enough of my life on edge or chasing adrenaline.  I welcome the sedate life and I'm happy that I'm reveling in ennui today.

Happy Coincidences

When I returned to blogging toward the end of last year, the original purpose was to find a place where I could share my political thoughts, without enraging my Facebook friends, without all of the vitriol of social media, with a method of protecting my anonymity, and in a place were I could expound on the reasoning behind my views with no restrictions on what I say or how I say it.  I kind of envisioned myself as a political essayist without an audience.

It was a wonderful coincidence that Sunny happened to dust off her blog at almost exactly the same time, because I quickly found myself dropping by to see what she had to say, which quite frequently inspired me to write about stuff outside of the political realm.  As a result, I'm no longer a single subject writer and I've unintentionally freed myself to write more frequently.  I kind of feel like this little blog has turned into an online version of a pen pal relationship between Sunny and me.  The major difference is that our letters aren't necessarily directly written to each other, and anyone in the world can read our correspondences.

I also feel like blogging is almost an anachronistic endeavor, which I think is part of the draw.  Nobody writes letters anymore, but this is damned close.  By the same token, it seems that nobody blogs anymore, but that can't quite be true, otherwise blog platforms would have disappeared.  I also suspect that pen pals have become a rare thing as well, but I feel like I have one in Sunny.  I'm happy that we've stumbled across one another again.

Setback

I mentioned in a recent post that I had found an old pair of my combat boots and that I'm refurbishing them.  I've experienced a couple of minor setbacks.  One of the cracks isn't filling in as well as I'd like.  No worries, I'm moving forward and accepting that one.  The other one is that, after sanding some areas down to bare leather, the shoe polish alone was not enough to blacken the leather.  After about ten coats of polish, I've decided that I'm going to re-strip the boots and dye the leather.

To reiterate, I'm not worried about this.  The boots are old and were in very poor repair when I started this project, and I have no timeline.  This is about learning stuff.  I'm reasonably confident that my finished product will meet my expectations.  Either way though, feel free to wish me luck.

Employer-Sponsored vs. Government-Sponsored Insurance

I am not sure if I've said it before, but I support socialized medicine in the US.  My rationale is twofold... first, I believe that we would reduce costs significantly if we removed insurance companies from the equation, (IE, getting rid of the profit motive,) and second, if we socialized medicine, everyone would have access to basic health care, which would realistically reduce costs further, because we could catch problems earlier and mitigate, rather than waiting until it's an emergency.

A while back, Bernie Sanders proposed legislation that would incentivize employers such as Wal-Mart, who have a huge number of employees who make wages low enough to be qualified for medicatd, to increase wages.  The idea behind the legislation is that medicaid acts as a pseudo subsidy for these companies by shifting medical costs from that company to the federal government.  The incentive to raise wages would be that the government would fine the employer for having too many employees that are eligible for Medicaid.  I thought it was a great idea, but this article managed to change my mind.

The premise of the article is that Sanders's idea effectively serves to keep insurance with employers, which has the unintended outcome of reducing the power of labor, which is a perspective I had not previously considered, and one that makes me even further in favor of socialized medicine.  Allow me to illustrate my point.

Let's say that I'm working a job and get laid off.  Under the current system, I essentially lose my insurance when I lose that job.  (Yes, I can keep insurance through COBRA, but the costs are prohibitively expensive, and it's still only for a limited time.  And yes, I can directly purchase private insurance, but again, it's not cost effective.)  As a result, I am significantly more likely to accept the first job offer I get, even if it's at a far lower wage, just so I have insurance.  If the government were to provide for basic needs, such as food assistance and health insurance, I'm in a position to hold out a bit longer until I find a job that pays me what I'm worth.

Those opposed to socialized medicine say that welfare is a disincentive to work.  For years, they've held out the welfare queen as the example.  I will concede these people exist.  However, study after study after study demonstrates this is the rare exception, not the rule.  And realistically, those who would exploit the system will find a way to do so, no matter what system is in place.

Another objection is that the government would create "death panels" to determine who lives and who dies if socialized medicine were to come into play.  In response to that, I say we already have death panels; they're known as insurance companies.  In fact, they're death panels twice over.  The first hurdle you need to jump is getting a job that provides insurance.  No job essentially means no insurance, and no insurance means no healthcare.  Second off, insurance companies are known to deny lifesaving treatment.

I get that not everyone shares my perspective.  I do, however, believe that most people agree our current system is broken.  There have been tons of ideas floated and tested in order to fix our broken system, but nothing seems to work.  Logic would dictate that eventually one would admit it's worth trying something completely different.  It makes even more sense when you see other countries with socialized medicine that provides the same level of healthcare (or better,) to more people, at the same cost (or less.)

I'd really love to know what Sunny has to say on this, since she spent time in a country with socialized medicine.  I'm always open to learning more. 

Sore

Last Thursday I played flag football for my weekly PT session with the Marine Poolees.  It was a fun departure from the usual running and calisthenics, and everyone enjoyed it.  I've got to admit that I'm sore, though.  I used parts of my body that apparently have been long neglected.  My hip flexors and IT band are both quite sore.  What really surprised me most, however, is how sore my feet are.  The day after PT, the tops of my feet hurt as if people had been stepping on them all day.  Since then, the bottoms of my feet have been stiff, like sore muscle stiff, when I first get out of bed.  Those first few steps hurt!

For the record though, I'd absolutely do it again. 

Getting Closer

I see the Department of Justice has reclassified certain marijuana products from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3.  In case you're not aware, Schedule 1 means that a given drug has no accepted medical use and has a high potential for abuse.  Schedule 3 drugs are acknowledged to have medicinal value and has fewer regulatory restrictions.

I smoked a LOT of pot in my younger days and absolutely believe this is a step in the right direction, and I may or may not indulge in the occasional edible if I'm in a location where it's legal to do so.  I don't believe that pot is completely harmless, but I am fully convinced that it has medicinal value, and that it's no more harmful than alcohol.  I believe the federal government should decriminalize marijuana and allow states to regulate the sale and consumption.  As I say this, bear in mind that I live in a state that only allows medicinal marijuana, and even that is tightly regulated.  I'd like to see it legalized here, but that's a separate discussion.  Either way, it looks like we may be getting closer.