Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Tuesday, September 23, 2003

Does Western Civilization deserve to continue? You be the judge...

I am so proud to belong to a society that can produce a couch that will order a pizza for me without me ever having to lift a finger. A recent story making the rounds on all the various news outlets details the work of a group in Ireland that is developing a sofa that, by determining your weight using force sensors it legs, can tell who you are and perform a series of tasks without having to be prompted. These include turning on appliances, entertainment equipment and placing various and sundry food orders.

One student who I shared this with commented, "What if I don't want a pizza?" My first thought is that there's a lot of stuff that we don't want that we go ahead and accept because its just sort of shoved at us. I mean, have you seen the latest Quiznos commercial about the guy being raised by wolves? Do we really "want" to see yet another installment of "The Bachelor"? Do I really have to open that junk email about Viagra or body part enlargement? If a pizza shows up at my door every night after I get home from work and its been charged to my bank debit card will I send it away? Especially knowing that it is my own laziness that has caused its creation in the first place. I would hate to think that the pizza's life would go unfulfilled.

Anyway, is this what Western Civilization's idea of progress has brought us to? If so, the machines won't have to battle us for control of the planet. We'll gladly hand it over to them as long as we don't have to get up from watching the latest vicarious "reality" programming. Arrgh!

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Monday, September 22, 2003

Look at the Booonnnesss!!!(say it in your best cheesy Monty Python scottish accent)

Yep, test time again. Last week and this week are test time in my classes. This is where I find out if my students have been taking me seriously or if they've been thinking, "Oh I know he says physics is the hardest subject we'll ever take but there's no way Newtonian motion will ever be as complex and difficult as what we have to do in Pool Cue Management or Social Group Fluid Dynamics class." My tests are the Vorpal Bunnies of Gordon College. Nothing comparies to them, outside of something from the Calculus II class. Three hours long (I'm not making this up) and filled with a fine variety of the most ravaging questions known to man. The interesting part is that none of the questions are "trick" questions (I have neither the time nor the energy to make up trick questions) but instead are the type of questions that leave you no real place to hide your ignorance or unpreparedness. Other than time spent with the material, there is no "Holy Hand Gernade" by which to "snuff it out."

After the exam, I'm giving only one A in PHYS1111. That'll get better as students start to realize what they've gotten themselves into. The scarier part is that about a third of the class got less than a 45% on the test, after the curve. These people want to be your doctors, vets and pharmacists. I don't like thinking of myself as a gatekeeper sort of professor but in these cases, I'm more than happy to uphold a standard. Even more amazing is that some of these students haven't dropped the class yet, and a vast majority of them need to. I hate the day I give the first exam back. There are all of these high test score, memorize your way to a better life, allied health students all waiting to see if they've somehow, once again, cheated grade death like they've been doing since high school. Oh come on, you know what I mean: never really studying the material until the night before and then magically pulling a 96 out of the hat so that you think you're golden. Heck, I know that's how I got through high school. Then they hit this class where memorization gets you a 30 on the test and you have to have been studying seriously for the last four weeks. They see their 48 and its like I've hit them between the eyes with a board-stunned and unable to parry. They've never seen a score like that, not even in their worst nightmares. I mean, they wake up screaming from dreams that involve test grades in the high 70's. The brain can't take it in and for about 5 minutes its gaping fish time.

At this moment I feel like crap, I really do. All these dreams and aspirations and all of the sudden the whole world comes crashing down. None of these students get to do what they want to do with their lives without passing through my class and now the possibility of that looks very slim indeed. I feel for them, I really do. Lord knows that I've been there. Many of them say, "I studied harder for this test than for anything in my entire life." And I have to tell them that the test doesn't lie, not one bit. They may have studied hard compared to their english comp class but what they'll have to do to pass this class is nothing compared to what they'll need to be able to do in Med School or the Pharm program at UGA. They feel like all of their lives they've been clearing an 18 foot pole vault bar and for the first time you show them what the 12 foot bar really looks like and its a lot higher up than they've been jumping. Its hard bad day all around. I went home Friday and spent the entire night sick, literally. Nausea, headache, aches and pains. While I may have had a touch of the flu, I truly believe that returning those tests had something to do with it.

Anyways, the moment is over and the class will go on. I'll lose about a third of the students and the rest will soldier on. Some will return in the spring to try again and others will change their dreams and careers because they just don't want to or can't work as hard as they need to. For those who stay in and don't give up, most will make it and actually grow by leaps and bounds. They'll finish out here and go on to professional school and do really well. Their fellow students in those programs will look at them and wonder how they learned to learn and work so hard. Most will forget this day ever happened and will chalk it up to their hard work and that's fine by me. Just as long as they learn to never take the work that goes into being a health care professional for granted.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Wednesday, September 03, 2003

Thoughts About Health Care Coverage

This has been a post a long time in coming. I've had the mind to write this post for several months as a rant against a number of things but my conscience kept me from doing it. While it may shock you, my gentle readers, that I have a conscience, I do and it has troubled me these many weeks as I have tried to figure out what I've wanted to say. You see, I really don't want to hurt anyone's feelings too badly. On the other hand, I want to make a strong point that I feel is well reasoned, insightful and compelling. If I were Rush Limbaugh I would just fire away and not give so much as a second thought as to who I might have offended. I don't wish to be Rush Limbaugh, however, so I feel I must reconsider how I am going to say what it is I want to say. Anyways, enough rationalizing! Get to the point man!

OK, I read this statistic a couple of weeks ago on CNN.com. A group of doctors did a very large study of Americans and heart disease. They found that in 90% of the cases where heart disease was found in a patient at least one of four other factors was also present: hypertension/high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes or smoking. In over 75% of the cases two or more of the factors were present. Why is this significant? Well, what this seems to indicate is that heart disease is tied to what are mainly lifestyle related conditions. While I understand that some people will be overweight due to thyroid conditions, some people suffer from Type 1 childhood diabeties and some people have high blood pressure for non-lifestyle related reasons (genetic) most Americans who suffer from these conditions do so because they choose to. All Americans who suffer from the condition of smoking choose to. They are lifestyle related diseases.

So, who cares, right? I mean, I don't smoke, I exercise regularly, I manage my weight, I deal with stress in my life in a healthy way and I eat a fairly balanced diet. Won't my healthier life and the quality of life it brings be its own reward? In a sense, yes. Statistically, I'll have the last laugh because I'll be the last one standing. My life expectancy, because of my lifestyle choices, is significantly longer than those with one of more of the above listed conditions. So from my point of view, some would argue, I should feel "badly" for those who make those choices and get on with the business of outliving them and enjoying the time more. From the point of view of American culture, I'm OK individually and that should be good enough. But I disagree.

Here's another statistic: 85% of the health care resources in this country are used by 1% of the people. These 1% of the people aren't shouldering 85% of the cost. Not even close. Much of that cost comes from lifestyle choices. A quadruple bypass surgery is a spendy procedure. While I'm not saying that those who take care of themselves will never need one, but the chances they will are a lot lower. So even though I live responsibly I have to foot the bill for the 2 pack a day smoker and the 100 lb overweight 30 year old and the sedentary TV watching, video-game playing, internet surfing couch potato whose daily dietary intake consists mostly of simple carhohydrates and saturated fats that are slowly killing off his pancreas and clogging his arteries. Why do I have to pay for this person's bad choices. I understand that as part of a society, I have an obligation to help care for my neighbor, but doesn't that neighbor also have a moral responsibility to not overburden me?

Now you may say, "Chad, that's all well and good but what's the big deal? You have health insurance and that'll take care of it." Those of you who are still with me have figured out where this is going by now. What about those who aren't able to afford health insurance? I spent nearly 10 years of my life uninsured because I couldn't afford it on a grad student's salary. Some say, "Well if we truly had a compassionate government, we'd have universal health care." Maybe, but that just seems like highway robbery to me. Now I have to pony up in my taxes and I have no chance of changing things. Now I'm paying for every person who makes bad lifestyle choices whether I want to or not. What really fries my bacon are the kids that aren't covered. We could cover them if we didn't have to have it our way.

I wonder what would happen if those people who had one or more of these conditions were put in their own "insurance group". Obviously, their insurance rates would skyrocket. To hell with taxing cigarettes; how about making people pay for their own health care costs! The rest of us would see a huge drop in our rates. I'll bet most of those families who can't afford coverage for their kids would be able to. However they can't. Why? Because most of us think like 17 year olds, we think we're invincible to the consequences of our actions.

You see, being overweight probably won't kill a 30 year old person tomorrow or the next day. No, its like a time bomb ticking for twenty or thirty years. These poeple say, "Yeah I need to lose weight and yeah being overweight is going to kill me but I want my Hageen Daas now. I don't have time to exercise today. I'll do it later." And they say the same thing tomorrow and the next day and the next day and then all of the sudden they're in the doctor's office going, "What? I need surgery? How did this happen?" That's if they're lucky. Too many of them miss their grandkid's first step or first day at school or graduation. Sometimes I wish every person could have a "Christmas Carol" sort of experience. Some malevolent or at least uncaring spirit would show up at their doorstep and tell them, "If you don't change the way you're living and lose 50 lbs (or stop smoking or eating crap or whatever...) you will die in six months." The spirit would then take them on a tour of their very real and unavoidable death from bad choices. How many people would choose being overweight for six more months and dying to losing 50 lbs. No one.

So why are they overweight now? And why do children in this country have to go without health care because of it?

The Physicist   Link Me    |