Perrygraphs – Tribal Divides

Let's learn something from the Arabs. Famously, it is said they only trust their immediate family and then their tribe. That's why Saddam surrounded himself with people from his hometown Tikrit, also from his tribe. His sons, five I think, each had a palace and responsibilities. They were all Sunnis, hated Shiites, Sufis, and Kurds.

Their nations, the Arabs don't trust so much. Westerners, like the Brits, divided up the Middle East with ignorance of the peoples, but knowledge of geography. Their wars over the years have been trying to straighten this out. Oh- throw in their two big political religions: Sunni and Shiites, plus some random ethnic groups here and their like the Kurds. Thomas Friedman in two earlier books on the ME, suggested one way to bring order to an Arab country was with a strong man. So we find Saddam, Assad, Erdogan, and the Saudi king and princes.

Tribes. Can America be tribal? My high school fight song was a faint modification of “Illinois Loyalty:” “We're loyal to you Neville High...” All our schools have their local pride and mascots. Years later, we still identify with our various alma maters, ever if we've not be back in years. Half the buildings are replaced, none of the faculty is the same, and the student body has turned over a dozen times, but we are still loyal to the schools whose names are at the top of our diplomas. In a similar way we may be loyal to our state, our town, or our church.

I wonder about this intense rivalry that we feel – even encourage in high school and college athletics. Can this be training us to strengthen our natural “us and them” division? A few – very few – communities join together and build one large stadium rather than several smaller ones. Instead of everyone playing on Friday nights, they could rotate playing on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. How many nights in your community do two or three stadiums remain empty while each team plays half its schedule out of town? One cooperative stadium makes far more sense, even financially, but imagine the resistance if you try it.

Does this transfer to politics? In high school, the president of the student body is always a popularity contest. Most schools I've known have no requirements beyond his or her becoming a passing senior. Campaigning does make a difference, but because the kids know each other, especially in smaller schools, popularity usually wins.

When you run for civic office, the situation changes a bit. Whether there is a political party involved, most often there are local parties or blocks, who seek some agenda. Their partisans vote for the candidates they feel will most likely support that agenda. But the larger the city, the less the populace knows the individual politicians. Enter advertising. Enter money. Parties get more complicated: capital and labor, for example. Uptown and downtown. Suburbs and projects. EACH ONE OF THESE CRYPTO-PARTIES DEVELOPS AN IDENTITY AND A FOLLOWING. Over time, the same old school loyalty develops to that party.

To a degree, the party advertises what it stands for. But more and more they are looking for sound bites, slogans. “Make America Great Again.” Political speeches hammer at emotions, not logic. And platforms re-enforce these.

I personally hate platforms. The two main parties craft their platforms in large part to separate themselves from the other party. Republicans want less government, but not everything on their platform carries that out. What does anti-abortion have to do with that? Surely, there are many pro-abortion Republicans as there are certainly pro-life Democrats. Louisiana's present governor is a good example. The mere fact that we seek party loyalty and conformity to the platform insures the growth of hostility and legislative logjams.

Recently about 40 in Congress from both parties sat down to discuss how to fix health care for the people of the US, not for the parties nor the insurance companies. They also intended to put aside party lines and slogans. I personally love this idea. Why not a Common Sense Party? Why not a Congress and President aimed at tackling one problem after another, collecting experts in the areas affecting those problems, and crafting a way to improve the situation. Do this without needing to defend the choices, but simply trying them out, adjusting them where they don't work, until they find a way that does?

This would require a new way of thinking. The other fellow is not your enemy, but your collaborator. You don't set out either to get government out of the problem, nor to make sure government is the solution. Rather, the sky's the limit on solutions, with the understanding that all solutions are temporary and open to constant change and improvement.

News: Fake or Real?

The day I wrote this, Trump and Putin met at the gang of 20 meeting in Hamburg. The spin on that meeting was as widespread as any I've seen. A neutral observer would call it a draw if it were a competition, which is how the media billed it. Actually, it was not a competition, it was a meeting between two heads of state to discuss mutual problems. Each got some of what they wanted. Personally no fan of Trump, I'd have to score him as the winner if I scored it. Note the media spun the story as a competition, like a championship game.

First, Donald kept the meeting to just the two of them, along with their Secretaries of State and two interpreters: six in all. Putin wanted to bring several more. Score one for Trump, though a couple of news sites mentioned it in passing, not one seemed to recognize it as part of the competition. On the contrary, he who sets the ground rules scores big time.

Next, Trump seems to have kicked it off by bringing up the election right off the bat. He moderated it in the eyes of many by saying the American people wanted an answer about Russian interference. Tillerson commented afterwards that he pressed Putin more than once on the issue. Of course Putin said they were innocent. Did the media expect him to fall down in abject repentance and guilt? They seemed to think Trump should have hit him with increased restrictions and threats. Odd, since Obama could have done the same thing and received effusive praise while conservatives excoriated him. My major point here is not a critique of today's coverage, but to point out an excellent example of how the media spins news. Today's was exaggerated.) If Trump had nailed Putin at the very beginning, he would have hurt our chances to get concessions elsewhere that might save lives.

Obviously the most important immediate impact is the truce in SW Syria. Whether it holds or not depends on other factors as well, such as the militias fighting there under the control of neither country. Nevertheless there's a chance for a break in the fighting and discussion over time. Note there was no mention of Iran in this discussion or anywhere else, though they may have talked about it and not reported it. After all, they talked over two hours, and a large part was on Syria.

Tillerson and his Russian counterpart gave contrary interpretations to what happened. I'm sure both had their respective countries' audiences in mind. Thus to the Russian, Trump accepted Putin's disclaimer on the election hacking. Tillerson said Trump kept bringing it up. Between the two I would think our Secretary of State more likely to be telling the truth.

Now let's go back and pay attention to what I would call the meta-conference. In business it's well known you have a power advantage if you get someone to come to you on your territory. You can see home-field advantage documented in sports. This was a neutral site, but the arrangements for the meeting determined certain things. Most important, the two men were basically alone, six people instead of 16 as Putin would have wished. This was huge! Trump nixed it (or his aides) showing he would not be bullied nor intimidated. Had Putin showed up with a dozen, do you think the atmosphere would have been the same?

A neutral observer might feel that the most important thing was the leaders of two great powers met to discuss world affairs. With North Korea thrown into the mix, the meeting takes on even more importance. Most of the sites I read indicated there would be follow-ups, an excellent thing, indicating that it went well enough to continue talking. No one stalked off muttering threats!

I've been meaning to write this blog about how to distinguish between reliable and biased news for awhile. I couldn't pass up the opportunity today. If you are serious about learning to distinguish real from fake news, read about the confab on five or six different news sites and pay attention to the differences!

FAKE NEWS

HOW TO TELL IT?

Tomorrow, Vivian and I will take the dangerous trek to and across the Shreveport traffic to the LSU specialty clinic to see an audiologist in hopes of keeping Vivian's hearing from getting worse.

Actually, we aren't. That's fake news. Furthermore it's poorly written, and for those who know me well, it should be obvious it's fake. Let's rewrite it:

Tomorrow morning, Vivian and I will cruise down the interstate, enjoying what promises to be a beautiful day, to see her audiologist for a tune-up on her hearing device. After the tweak to make it better, we plan to find a place to enjoy a meal.

Still fake news. At this writing, we have no appointment at all. But pretend we wanted to write a “straight news” sentence. What would it look like? Try this:

Tomorrow, Vivian and I will go to Shreveport to see her audiologist for a checkup.

If she did have an appointment, that would be a “straight news” way of writing it. What is “straight” news? Most journalism classes teach that straight news is “just the facts, ma'am.” There are few, if any, adjectives or adverbs. It's written with nouns and verbs. And even those nouns and verbs are chosen to be neutral and accurate. For example, “trek” and “traffic” are nouns, but they add to the pessimistic slant of that first sentence. I just wrote “go” in the neutral sentence.

The motive of keeping her hearing from getting worse makes it appear extremely serious, which it's not. Actually, if we felt she was in danger of getting worse, we'd be seeing a doctor, not an audiologist.

Back to the class. In beginning journalism I was taught that basic news was to be neutral. In those days, news stories did not even have the writer's name or by-line on it. By-lines were reserved for the Opinion Page. Some flexibility was allowed in the Features section and the Sports section. So if you read an article on the internet, pay attention to whether it is slanted by the modifiers or choice of words.

Notice how often headlines are used to get you to read the story, and that info is given way down in the story. It's seldom as radical as the headline promises. But that same memory of the headline may bias your reading all the way through. Some bias is just the news media trying to get its share of attention. That's why the headline is usually much more exciting than the story.

Other bias can be striving to slant or spin the news in someone's favor. To spot that, learn to identify the source of the news. Despite Mr Trump's insistence that it is all fake news, the mainstream news media do less of it – IN THEIR STRAIGHT NEWS STORIES – than others. I will publish later an analysis of the media's reports of the Trump-Putin meeting.

I've found The Guardian and the Christian Science Monitor do the best jobs of telling the facts straight. They're not perfect, but much better. Another good source is Quartz, which at times leans left, but usually gives good info.

When news breaks, and you want to get a grasp of reality, start with the Guardian, which is Free. Then check the Drudge Report, which will be conservative and The Huffington Post and Slate, which are liberal. Sometimes you can hardly believe Drudge and Slate are reporting on the same event.

By the way, it is standard practice for journalists to report something as fact only with at least two sources. They also like to name the sources and tell why they are commenting. What the Secretary of Defense says about N Korea should be more important than a rap singer. It's also standard practice to report both sides of an issue or analysis. If you see only one side, check the sources very carefully and be skeptical.

PERRYGRAPHS 4/10/17

AMERICAN HEALTH CARE

To bring down the cost of health care, someone will have to lose money. We forget that. Somehow the arguments mostly do not deal with that – with one exception. Most of those who like the single-payer option favor much of that financing comes from high taxes on the wealthy. Indeed, in Canada, England, and Europe taxes seem to average 35%. A figure I saw today said in the US the current average of income tax plus Social Security is 25% of income. After WWII, the top rate was 95%!

But who else would lose money? Would it be the doctors? With office calls running often to $150, would physicians drop them to $100 and take longer to pay off their student loans? Would they hire less staff? Would they charge less for surgery?

How about hospitals? Most hospitals are running hard to break even. Small, rural hospitals are gradually disappearing. Two regional hospitals in my area have in the last few years transferred from public to private hospitals. The first thing the new companies did was cut staff. In one specialized unit a nurse told me the head nurse quit because they wouldn't give her enough staff to feel the patients were getting adequate post surgical and crisis care. One doctor moved from that same hospital to a Catholic hospital that was also beleaguered, but didn't reduce quality.

Specialty hospitals are cropping up, especially surgical units and rehabs. The advantage they have is they are not required to have Emergency Rooms. In case you missed it somehow, ER's always lose money, because many indigent – or supposedly indigent – people use this as their only source of medical care. Thus they come in to get sinus prescriptions instead of paying a doctor. The hospital has to eat the cost. Why don't they refuse them? Because the law requires them not to turn them away. Further, if they do turn someone away, and they die, the family can sue them for millions – and they have! I would favor Congress and legislators reworking the law to protect the ER and their staff and allow them to decline to treat patients who are clearly having minor needs.

At this point, the legislators also need to consider reworking the liability law among health professionals. Liability insurance in case they are sued is extremely high, according to what several doctors have told me. But most legislators are lawyers, and lawyers make a good deal of money on both sides of a lawsuit. (Did I say someone has to lose money?)

Another source of high expense is the pharmaceutical companies and skyrocketing drug costs. Someone on Facebook recently commented that he required an epinephrine pen that cost him $ 600 whenever he needed a new one. For the three or four months I'm in the “donut hole,” I must pay close to that amount before I hit the “catastrophic” stage in July or August and only pay 5% for the rest of the year.

Big Pharma excuses the high cost due to Research and Development expense that requires three rounds of testing before any drug can be released. Then they are patented for many years. While the patent lasts, they can set prices pretty much at what the market will bear. Meanwhile, their spread sheets do not publicly say how much is actually spent on R &D.

NOTE: Often there are cheaper drugs, even generics available for ten bucks or less. But generics are those whose patents have expired. Thus to use a generic means to lose the cutting edge drugs to older drugs. True, some of these are very effective, but many don't come close to matching breakthrough drugs in effectiveness.

So far, there are only two partial solutions I have thought of The first is government regulated prices. Medicare already does this. When I get a Medicare report, it shows what the doctor or institution charged, how much of that Medicare allowed, and 80% of the latter figure that Medicare pays. I'm left with 20% of the allowed amount. Possibly Congress can authorize a branch of the Medicare system to regulate prices – at least by capping them. Thus a regular office call might be capped at $75 for an FP and $100 for some specialists. I recognize that regulation is anathema to some people, but by definition bringing down the cost of medical care means someone has to lose money. Until now, only the patients lose money.

The second concept that would bring down costs is aimed at drugs. Many have already suggested that Medicare and Medicaid be allowed to conduct an auction or bargaining for drugs. If they know they will pay for a million prescriptions of superbiotic next year, they could allow competitive drugs to bid. So far the drug industry sets its prices with little outside interference.

Finally, I have a personal prejudice against lobbyists and PACs. We have set up rules for them, which seems to me to be regulating corruption. With the Supreme Court decision recently, I have no hope to outlaw them anytime soon.