Who can I sue?

One day recently while driving home from work in Miami, my mother passed a very peculiar billboard overlooking the highway. It read, simply, “Who can you sue?” The rallying cry of a generation.  We’ve progressed to the point where anything negative that happens to a person is assumed to be someone else’s fault, and that the guilty should be made to pay exorbitant amounts of money for the pain and suffering caused. Lost in much of Obama’s rhetoric is a complete rejection of this sort of thinking. America is responsible for its actions. Our national problems aren’t caused by terrorists, communists, illegal immigrants, minorities, gays, or any influence outside of our control. Even when outside forces act on us, we choose how to respond. America controls its own destiny if it has the will to do so.

There are so many instances in which I see the people around me throw up their arms in frustration and wonder what we can do to change things. Yet no one votes. The 2008 presidential election had an estimated 63% of the electorate come to the polls. That would be the highest number since 1960. In the midterm elections when the President is not on the ballot, that number falls into the 30-40% range easily. In local and state elections, the numbers can be even worse. People constantly complain that politicians are corrupt and don’t care about the people, and yet a United States senator has a 96% re-election rate. These people love to talk about accountability, let’s make them learn about it firsthand. When they screw up, vote for the other guy or write in a candidate, but kick them out of office. Then vote out the next guy too. The only way to shake up a system as stuck in a rut as the American electoral system is to shake it up. It would likely take 4 or 5 election cycles, but they would get the idea that people aren’t going to let them do as they please anymore. If they want to keep their job, they need to work for the interests of their constituents and not themselves or their party.

People complain that American companies outsource jobs, or move their production facilities to the third world where labor is cheaper. Countless jobs have been lost to this phenomenon over the last decade, and yet it continues over the protests of the American public. We ask the government (whom we can’t trust anyway if the public sentiment is to be believed) to step in and save us, and then are surprised when nothing is done. Then we keep buying their products. What happened to the American spirit? In the 60’s and 70’s, Ceasar Chavez organized strikes and boycotts that brought the agriculture industry to its knees, and secured many quality of life improvements for its employees. In the 2000’s, companies fire thousands of employees and set up shop in a different country to save themselves money and we happily give them more. The government can’t legislate our way out of this problem. These companies are concerned only with profit. That’s fine, in a capitalist society, that’s the function they are supposed to serve. However, the consumer has the power as much as they will try to convince you otherwise.  Next time a company closes a factory and moves to Mexico, stop buying from them. Make your friends stop buying from them. This is a country of 300 million people. If even 1% of that catches on to a boycott, all but the biggest companies would feel it.

If CEOs and politicians are the super villains of the “pass the buck” society, then teachers and cops are just under them in the hierarchy of evil. Both are in the unfortunate circumstance of not being able to do anything right in the eyes of the public. The police officer is a simpler case because they are only noticed when they screw up. The phrase “Never a cop when you need one.” snuck into our vernacular as if we think they consciously ignore people in need. People tend to blame cops for crime while they criticize them or being too watchful of “minor” crimes like speeding and marijuana possession. Teachers are thought of in such a negative way that one wonders why anyone takes up the profession any longer. If your child fails a test or a grade level, it’s the teacher’s fault not the child. Teachers are asked to fill so many roles, while having no real authority in the classroom, that it makes their job nearly impossible. So problems with schools aren’t the fault of the kids, parents, administrative officials, or the government, the responsibility falls solely on the teachers.

In my opening anecdote, the billboard posed an interesting query. Who can we sue? Thinking about it, it really doesn’t matter who because only two parties ever win in the end: lawyers and insurance companies. Mostly the latter. Schools, emergency services, doctors, businesses, drug companies, and basically every other public institution you can think of need to keep exorbitant insurances policies just in case someone decides to sue them. If you don’t think all that doesn’t raise the cost of living you’re crazy. In fact, if you really want to lower health care costs, this is where you need to start. For example, my step father is an investigator for the medical examiner’s office in Broward County and had an interesting case recently. A drug addict overdosed on oxycodone and died. Basically, he manipulated the system to get far more of the drug from a prescription than one person should consume in a year. His family wants to sue the makers of the drug because should a powerful pain killer shouldn’t be on the market and it’s the company’s fault their kid died. The sad part is they’ll probably settle out of court because the company won’t want the expense and negative exposure of a trial. Perfect example of the mindset of America today: it’s the drug’s fault I’m addicted to it, whoever made it should pay. It’s the gun’s fault I shot someone. It’s the television’s or the internet’s or video games’ fault that my kids are violent. It’s the school’s fault my kid can’t read. Who can I sue?

O-Ver Rate-Ed

I haven't written anything just for the blog in quite a while, and its about time I did. As the title suggests (if you can't read it, you just aren't a college sports fan), this is about all things over rated. As usual with me, this will be in a top 5 list format, because, really, is there a better way? I also might throw in something about people/things I think are somehow overlooked or under rated. So without further ado...

My top 5 over rated (semi)modern rock bands:
5. U2- Have they done anything worthwhile since Joshua Tree? Admittedly, I might like them more if Bono and Edge weren't so overbearingly pretentious and just.... douchebaggy. But when your last relevent entry into the world of music was in 1987, and people still worship the ground you shred on; I do believe that qualfies you as over rated.

4. The Smiths- Quick name five Smiths songs. And "I Know its Over" doesn't count. So why does every person who likes indie/underground/somewhat not mainstream rock have to love them somehow? Hollywood continues to stick them in every movie soundtrack which features less then mainstream rock though.

3. Coldplay- Sold over 50 million records worldwide, and their last album in 2008 won several Grammys. They sound like the bastard child of U2 and Radiohead, but with all of Bono's crap and none of Radiohead's soul and angst.

2. Dave Matthews Band- Maybe I don't get them because I don't smoke weed. I just don't see what every single college kid, stoner, and female between 18 and 30 see in this music.

1. The Clash- Now, just because they are here on this list doesn't mean I don't think they are good. They are. Are they the greatest punk band of all time? Are they one of the most influential bands of the past 20 years? The Clash are like the Brett Farve of rock music, in that everyone knows they are good, but the "experts" throw so much praise at them that you just get sick of it.

My best band you haven't heard of pick has been spoiled by their recent success, though congrats to Kings of Leon. You were my go to in this category for a strong 3 years, but now I think the title has to go to The Black Keys. Good music, kind of a bluesy sound.

Top 5 over rated athletes in a sport in season now:
5. Alex Rodriguez (3B, Yankess)- A-Roid almost pushes himself off this list if he actually shows up for a post season like he has thus far. You can put up all the numbers you want on bad teams or in the regular season, if you can't put them up when it matters, its kind of worthless.

4. Jay Cutler (QB, Bears)- We keep waiting for him to be a top 5 quarterback in the league like all the experts have told us he will be his entire career. Don't hold your breath. He'll do just enough to make you think he's good before he throws another bonehead interception.

3. Alex Ovechkin (LW, Capitals) Ok, don't get me wrong here.. he's good. Really good. The next Gretzky he is not. He also just inked a 13 year $124 million dollar contract, the richest in NHL history. He's in his fourth year, he has won zero championships, and only a few playoff games. Let's let him pad his resume a bit before we start putting him in the Hall of Fame.

2. Todd Reesing (QB, Kansas) Reesing is generally brought up in the top 5 of quarterbacks in college football. He's universally thought to be a second round draft pick at worst. He lost what was then the biggest game of his career to a Mizzou team that couldn't play any kind of defense, before his Jayhawks won the Orange Bowl over an 11-2 Virginia Tech that was there because someone had to win the ACC. Maybe he becomes a solid pro... I just don't see it.

1. Tony Romo (QB, Cowboys) With so much exposure on the biggest position in the most popular sport in America, its no wonder the QB dominates my list. This guy is dangerously close to falling off this list as people start to see how really bad he is. Last Sunday, my dad and I came up with a good 15 guys in the league we would rather have under center on our team over Romo. This is the guy they ran Drew Bledsoe out of town for, people were clamoring for him in the streeets of Dallas. How's that working out?

This football season is kind of strange in that, now that the pecking order has been established, I don't see anyone sneaking up on us. The good teams are really good, the bad teams are really bad, and the middle ground is almost nonexistant. Though, if you haven't seen the Broncos play yet this season, they are good. Kyle Orton (another QB) is the real surprise of the season.

Last one... Top five over rated television personalities:

5. Stephen Colbert- I like him, but he's ridden Jon Stewart's coattails for long enough.
4. Joe Buck- Sports commentator. Ask any sports fan, this requires no discussion. I hate Joe Buck, but he does every major sporting event every year.
3. Conan O'Brian- Looks like his over rated status might be in question since the new time slot isn't going so well. I've never thought he was the least bit funny.
2. Anderson Cooper- When did this guy become the face of CNN? Who decided that was a good idea? God, I miss Tim Russert. And, you know, decent television journalism.
1. Glenn Beck- Speaking of terrible television journalism.... Beck is the Conservative rabble rouser of the day. He doesn't let little things like facts get in the way of his stories, either. "Fair and balanced" personified.

What has he done?

Barack Obama, one term president. Some readers will rejoice, some will lament, but early signs point to this president joining that unfortunate list. He’s a unique case in so many ways in the history of the American president. Expectations for the man were somehow both exceedingly high and pessimistically low at the same time. In the same year, he has been compared to Kennedy and FDR, as well as Stalin and Hitler. In the latest bit of strange Obama news, he has won the 2009 Nobel Prize for Peace. This despite the voting taking place in February when he had hardly been in office for two weeks. To put this in a bit of context, there were three previous American presidents who have earned the prestigious award: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Jimmy Carter. Roosevelt won for negotiating the peace treaty to end the war between Russia and Japan, Wilson for being the architect of the League of Nations, and Carter for his numerous global charities.  In many ways, this award is a microcosm of the early Obama presidency thus far.

 The Nobel committee is representative of one of the two groups that are creating the rather unique set of circumstances around this president. In essence, one group has already beatified Obama into presidential sainthood creating an impossibly high standard for him to live up to. The American media, liberals and left leaning independents, civil rights organizations, environmentalists, and many European news outlets all fall into this first category.  What many of these people don’t realize is that in Obama’s many speeches and appearances, he was setting long term goals and plans. He was thinking in terms of decades, they are thinking in terms of months to a year. On the opposite side of this coin is the conservative attack machine. Conservatives, religious groups, many corporate interests, and , of course, Fox News are all aligned against the president and simply need to use his supporters’ lofty expectations against him. Anyone that has a clear checklist of goals is easy to attack for the ones he won’t have accomplished in four years. Since Clinton’s election the rancor between the parties has seemed to only get worse, and Obama has been under fire since the day after his inauguration.

 I always said that I could never be elected to public office because I would tell people that I can’t fix anything worth fixing overnight, that the things they want cost money and they need to be willing to shoulder the cost, and that anyone who tells them otherwise is a liar and a fraud.  In this instantaneous gratification culture we now suffer through, it seems that first tenant is the problematic one. People continuously ask, “What has he done?” That singular inquisition will be the epitaph on the headstone of this one term presidency. Is it justified? Consider that in George W Bush’s first 8 months in office he had not been able to get any of his initiatives passed, had a Senator leave the party on his watch, and already made one of his frequent trips to the Crawford ranch (this one to tackle that pesky stem cell research problem). His major campaign promise, the No Child Left Behind Act, wasn’t signed into law until Jan. of 2002. In Bill Clinton’s first year, he signed the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 which allows people to take a leave of absence from their job for medical emergency or to care for a sick family member or newborn without fear of losing their job. However, he also couldn’t deliver on his promise of integrating the armed forces with respect to sexual orientation and, instead, settled on the compromise of the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy. Both of these presidents have supporters who can point to many successes over the course of their terms. Neither had overwhelming first years on the job. Neither was crushed under the weight of “What has he done?”

 Honestly, I can’t tell how the Obama presidency will turn out 3 years from now. I think we should wait until he has a record to judge before we begin to cast aspersions or worry about what he hasn’t accomplished yet. By the end of year two, one can really see the shape a person’s presidency will take, and by year three many of those campaign promises will start to be checked off the list. However, if by then we are all still wondering why he is winning awards and when we’ll finally see him do something, then all the criticism will have been justified.

Water Towers

I recently wrote about many scientific issues that are affecting the country and its politics today. One criticism that I often hear when I write or speak about these things is: “Why should we care?” As someone who enjoys asking “why?” as often as possible myself, I respect that question. Most of the issues that I raised seem philosophical in nature, or, at least, so far off in the future as to not be our problem. I find that second justification used with climate change fairly often. People think that anything that would happen from raising temperatures would occur long after they are dead. However, with the spotlight shining so brightly on climate change with the upcoming summit in Copenhagen in December, it has been revealed that the glaciers in the Himalaya region are melted far faster than in any other region of the world. In fact at the current rate, they will disappear completely by 2035.

Now you might still wonder why this would be a concern. Especially to an American audience, this problem is nearly literally on the other side of the planet. One thing we do know, if that water is the most precious natural resource on the planet. Civilization as we know can’t exist without clean water supplies. The Himalayan glacier system is the largest in the world outside of the arctic. The runoff from this massive network of ice is the foundation for all of the region’s major rivers. India, China, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and several other countries depend on this water for their household drinking water, agriculture, fisheries, and power. Some of the largest rivers are extremely significant culturally, religiously, and historically. The region is so important it is known as “The Water Tower of Asia.” Roughly 40% of the world’s total population would be affected by a sudden disappearance of these glaciers.

As the glaciers start to melt faster, the first problem these people will face is the flooding. This is already becoming a problem in some places and villages have already been destroyed. Millions of lives could be lost in the regions closest to the river sources as catastrophic flash floods tear through the region. On top of the loss of life and property, farm land and crops are destroyed as low lying farms are simply washed away and irrigation systems are overloaded and destroyed. The rich nations can hold off the famine this would cause for a while, the poorer nations would starve without aid. As the rivers began to dry up for good, any remaining sources of fresh water become exponentially more important, and expensive. In the course of human history when vital resources are scarce and held by a relative few, violence ensues. This region in specific has a history of skirmishes over water resources as several regions have harsh dry seasons. Now add in to this powder keg of an equation that three of these countries (India, Pakistan, and China) have nuclear capabilities.

So what the world is facing if nothing is done over the next 25 years is, at best, a humanitarian crisis the likes of which we have never seen before. At worst we could see literally billions (China and India each have well over a billion citizens themselves) of dead and all out war in the region. These are the kinds of problems the world faces by doing nothing about climate change. This is why we should care, and why our best and brightest should be coming up with ways to avert the crisis. And this is why we need to listen.