Swine Flu Spreads Terrorist Germs!!

     Like any flu, swine flu can kill, especially people who are weak. There are sensible things you can do to strengthen your immune system, like eating healthy food (no white flour/rice/pasta/sugar or processed ready-to-eat products), and getting plenty of sleep, and exercise outdoors in the fresh air. And if you do get sick, there is no shortage of natural substances, like medicinal herbs and fresh garlic, that germs don't like.

     Many people are ready to blame hog farms in Mexico for this threat of a pandemic. But even if there turns out to be a connection, these farms are only one symptom of the presenting problem. What kind of farming is unhealthy and why are people working that way? What are the trade-offs? What role does mobility play when half the world is jetting around and the other half are illegal immigrants?

     We don't know if this flu makes people sicker than other flu bugs. If mortality is higher in Mexico, it could be due to poor health due to economic exploitation.

     And could the black market drug trade be a disease vector? If law enforcement can't stop illegal drugs, how can public health officials stop germs from hitchhiking on them? And while this flu is probably not that dangerous, other diseases are. The most cost-effective way to track such vectors is to decriminalize, the only way to shine a light on a black market.

Newsflash! TV Makes You Stupid!

     A concerned parent, Allen Kanner, wrote in the last 2008 Tikkun describing his (and his wife's) decision to raise their kids without TV. They want to shelter their children from the blizzard of corporate capitalist advertising, what Zappa called "the slime oozing out of your TV set." In particular, it's the "corporate materialism" the Kanners object to. Others have demonstrated a link between materialism and low self-esteem.

     But there seems to be another scary effect of TV programming, which is that kids don't know how to play. Teachers report kids don't know what to do with themselves when left alone during recess. Research indicates kids playing with toys they have seen on TV shows limit their play to just the stories shown on those TV shows.

     However, I'm not sure I totally agree with the Kanners' solution of total isolation, particularly as the child progresses toward puberty. I would install exactly one TV, and inoculate my kids by making fun of the ads - a form of play that will empower and sharpen growing minds. Pointing out the hypocrisy and greed that goes along with all that money seems a far more effective way to prepare children to avoid another market meltdown.

     I'm also not sure TV is the only villain here. Kids can't learn to play - or act - on their own if parents never leave them alone. Too many parents are too afraid to let their kids travel alone in their own towns, not to mention out in the woods. Again, inoculation is a better defense than too much protection. Gavin de Becker's book, "Protecting the Gift," has some great ideas about how to do this, from an author with substantial professional experience.

Campaign Finance Reform

     I cannot tell a lie. I am a bad progressive who doesn't believe in public financing of campaigns. I think it's a waste of money that doesn't really address the problem. The last thing we need is more ads when the nature of advertising has gradually been rotting our brains and our schools.

     The problem is locked in place by Supreme legal precedence that any personal money spent on one's campaign is protected by the principle of free speech. The constrained freedom to contribute is also protected. Unfortunately, pandering speech enjoys equal protection not just under the law but by customary acceptance and approval. Such acceptance is close kin to people's approval of local pork.

     Many years ago, I advocated in a letter to the Bee that half of all campaign contributions be allocated to local general funds. Another great idea would be requiring more open-ended, calm, and equal time access to be provided by all news media. We could limit campaigns to a month or 2, as in Europe.

     Another campaign reform available to everyone is to never vote for anyone you see advertised on TV.

Free Health Care! No Insurance Required!

The best way to get free health care is to learn how to take care of yourself. Of course, it helps to have the good sense to eat right, exercise regularly, and get plenty of sleep.

Eating right means eating healthy food - protein and fresh vegetables from healthy sources, not from factory farms and not from multinational corporations. No white flour, rice, pasta, etc. No sugar. No soda pop. "Eat food, mostly plants, not too much." Luckily, healthy food is often the most economical.

Exercise is readily available when you grow even some of your own food, and bicycle even some of the time instead of driving. Luckily, healthy exercise is often more economical than business as usual.

Getting plenty of sleep enables you to think clearly, and it also enables your body's immune systems to work properly.

When you get a cold or minor infection, you don't need all the stuff advertised on TV, and you usually don't need to go to the doctor. You just need to take the time, and feed yourself the healthy food, that your body needs to heal itself. Fevers and congestion are part of the healing process; let your body do the job it's evolved to do.

Trust your body. Learn to listen to it, and it will tell you what it needs. Learn to be your own doctor.

Don't be afraid of death. The death rate is always the same - one per person.

The true tragedy is realizing on your deathbed that you were afraid to live your life to the fullest, and to be the best person you could be.

What To Do About GM

     It's time for the creative destruction Schumpeter described. Rather than propping up the dinosaur with subsidies, it should be reformed into many small independent R&D manufacturing companies. If GM workers were put in charge of many small independent factories, they could liberate the creativity currently stifled by GM management's delusion that it's still 1950.   

     Remember who killed the electric car. Those are not the people who are going to design and build affordable sustainable cars and trucks. What if the GM staff who did design the EV-1, and who really cared about their baby, had been an independent company? 

     How many other ordinary people have great ideas that they could share with each other, and work together to come up with truly elegant designs that meet people's need for affordable alternative transportation and other sustainable tools? I'm sure the people who work for the parts companies (that politicians say we need to save GM for) could help out too.

     Heck, we could use some of the subsidy to hire some laid-off workers to drive the buses that transit agencies can barely afford to hire drivers for even though fares have been raised so high driving and parking is cheaper.

A Rule of Law

     One of the basic principles of making laws is that if the law contradicts cultural norms or human nature it will be an unenforceable joke. It's too bad the city council will doubtless make a mockery of this rule of law on Tuesday by approving the anti-scavenging ordinance, yet another ordinance that contradicts human nature. This will only diminish respect for the laws that already exist.

     Of course, many people who believe emotional reflexes are actual rational thinking will support the council's expected reflex approval. But people who are hungry, tired, and more or less desperate, are always going to heed their survival instincts rather than a foolish law based on wishful thinking and fear of an unlikely event.

     If Sacramento's laws allow cops to evict homeless people from their cars just because the registration is expired, or allow repo companies to trash perfectly useful items that have been left behind by former homeowners who have been foreclosed and evicted, then it is only poetic justice for those who still have houses to get ripped off too.

     If we allow these injustices to continue to injure other Sacramentans, we deserve the karma of victimization that this ineffective ordinance is designed to look like it will prevent.

March 3rd, 2pm Final Chance to protest the proposed Ant-Scavenging Ordinance in Sacramento

Please show up to oppose the passage of the proposed Anti-Scavenging ordinance that would criminalize scavenging from dumpsters. I believe this legislation is the wrong direction for the Sacramento City Council to be moving, as it shows a lack of compassion for those who need to scavenge for sustenance and is inconsistent with the ideals of reusing, recycling, and sustainability.

Please show up: 2pm Tuesday, March 03, 2009 at City Hall 915 I Street, 1st Floor Council Chamber

Sacramento City Council Agenda for March 3rd, see item 14
030309-14-Scavenging (PDF-255 KB)

"Trash or treasure?, Sacramento City Council considers ban on Dumpster diving", By Sena Christian in the "Sacramento News and Review"