Thursday, July 5, 2012

My experience in a (four) Chinese hospitals

(This was written on Tuesday, June 26, on my last day in the hosipital, but couldn't be posted until I returned home.)

On Thursday, June 21, I was in Beijing, China.  I had been in China for almost two weeks.  My friend checked me into the nearest hospital ER (emergency room) a few minutes past midnight.  Praise God the doctor on duty for the night shift could speak English (this was a local hospital, not a big one) and the cardiac specialist could also speak English.  I went in because my stomach was feeling really bad.

A few days prior, on Sunday night, I was in Jiamusi (very northern China) and my friend took me out that night after we checked into our hotel.  There was a street fair going on (kind of like an annual town party up and down a few blocks of the street).  We walked around and my friend bought some local food being cooked on the street.  It looked like an omelet wrapped in a lasagna type noodle and put in a cup.  We watched him cook it, then my friend gave it to me.  I said something like "yeah right" and he said it's a Jiamusi unique food and I should try it because it's very good.  He had bought one for me and him, and we had watched it get cooked, so I said I'd try it.  Then we took two steps over and he wanted another (what I would call) exotic food that looked like a squawker of little squid tentacles.  We watched it get cooked and then when he asked for two I knew what was coming next.  Again he said this was unique in all of China and it's good so I should try it.  The first thing I thought was I have no drink.  If this is revolting, I'm stuck with it.  But he insisted and had bought it already and we watched it get cooked, so I accepted it.  I sampled both and that night I woke up in the middle of the night with diarrhea.  I took a pill of antibiotics that the company nurse had given me a few weeks prior and instructed me to take if I got traveler's diarrhea.  The diarrhea didn't return and I took the pills twice a day for two days.  That left me with two pills left which I saved for the trip home, which was the upcoming Saturday.  However on Wednesday (the day I stopped taking the pills) I started feeling bad in the mid afternoon.  I took a nap from 6-11pm and woke up at 11 with a really bad feeling in my stomach.  Specifically the top of my stomach, like I needed to throw up but for some reason couldn't.  It felt so bad that I was honestly concerned for my life.  Oddly, it wasn't "painful" like you might think, it just felt really really "bad," as unspecific as I'm sure that sounds.  It was midnight where I was but back home it was noon, and my company nurse would be online.  So I instant messaged with her and she suggested I start the last dose of that medicine, and I did.  But it was going to take up to a couple hours to take effect and I'd obviously need more to last me until Sunday, and I was feeling really bad, so I asked my friend to take me to the hospital.

By the time the hospital had taken their blood test and gotten the results, the antibiotics had kicked in and my stomach felt almost fine again.  But the blood tests were very alarming to the doctors.  They thought I had in process or had just had an acute myocardial infarction.  I had no idea what that was, and I felt fine so all I wanted was more antibiotics to make it through the rest of the week and I figured I'd check with the doctor when I returned home.  But while waiting for another test to come back I looked up the definition of this problem they said I had on my free Merriam Webster's Dictionary on my phone and it only had two words.  That was all it needed to say.  It means "heart attack," so though I felt fine, I decided it was too risky to ignore their concerns and let them do what they thought needed to be done.  The staff took an ECG (electro cardio gram) and were even more concerned.  The blood test showed that three enzymes were up ridiculously high.  (Later, a friend from home whom I called said this was evidence that my heard muscles were dying.)  They had me take some aspirin and after the first two (with no water) the doctor said I should chew the next three.  Not fun.  I almost gagged and threw it all up.  But I appreciate his attempt to keep me alive.  I asked them to write down in English what statistics they had seen that worried them so much and called my mom, since she's a retired registered nurse.  I gave her the stats and she was of course concerned.  My colleagues who were with me were trying to get a hold of my doctor in the USA but weren't successful for various reasons.  This hospital wasn't prepared to do anything further and I was transferred to an international hospital later in the morning (probably about the time most of us were waking up).  But when they found out I was there because there was a strong chance I had had a heart attack, they immediately sent me to a specialty hospital.

At the specialty hospital they did more tests and were sure I needed an angiogram.  (This is where they make an incision in your groin and stick a fiber optic camera up one of your arteries all the way to your heart and take a look from the inside.)  It was hours between when I arrived and when I went in for surgery.  I got the feeling later that financial details were being worked out but I didn't care, I wasn't in a hurry to go in and I didn't want to know what it would cost.  So I laid there almost flat on a bed for many hours.  Fortunately for me I had I think 4 coworkers there who cared about my health.  This was my first experience in a Chinese public hospital.  Really my first experience in any public hospital.  I was in a room with seven other people with curtains dividing the room (sort of).  I had to use the restroom and instead of being brought a wheel chair they brought a custom shaped bucket and said I should go in that.  Yeah right.  Perhaps it's standard to do that worldwide when you're stuck in a hospital bed for fear of any biological movement to exceed an invisible threshold and kill you, but I've never done it and wasn't excited to try.  So one of my colleagues got me a portable potty and I was allowed to get off the bed to sit on the potty four inches away from the bed.  This guy helped me go potty (including holding the curtains so I had a semblance of privacy) and then literally carried the mess away for me.  What a friend!

I went into surgery at exactly noon, and they finished about 12:45.  They were expecting to find 95% or more blockage, but praise God they found 0% blockage.  I was awake during the procedure and only had local anesthetics because the doctor wanted me awake so I could tell him if I felt any pain where it wasn't expected.  Not the most comfortable activity of my life, but the local anesthesia was essentially effective and there was no significant pain.  After the surgery I spent the next six hours laying in a hospital bed (which is very normal for angiogram recovery).  It was a room with seven other beds, though the one next to me wasn't filled while I was there, and the beds were separated by a curtain like the previous room.  While in bed I just couldn't win.  It was a firm mattress (if you call it a mattress) and when I was flat on my back, my spine hurt (as it has for years whenever I lay like that).  So I got the doctor to agree to my laying with head and feet slightly elevated, which made my spine feel fine.  But then I just couldn't lay there any longer without going crazy and after a couple hours asked if I returned the bed to a flat position if I could lay on my side.  It took a couple times asking before he thought it was safe, but eventually he did.  Then that got old and I returned to the somewhat laying position.  I spent an hour or two like that and felt fine this time, but then realized both my wrists had gotten completely stuck in a bent position, presumably from laying the same way for so long (though that has never happened before and I've laid in the same position for longer).  It took a full hour of gently urging back to a straight position before they were normal again.  My fingers worked during this time, but my wrist was unable to obey movement commands.  I asked one of my colleagues to ask the nurse (who didn't speak English) for a washcloth soaked in hot water to help the restoration of my wrists.

After the six hours were up they suspected I'd want to change hospitals.  A doctor from the International SOS (a global healthcare coordination company my company works with) arrived and offered if I wanted to go to a more "western" style hospital in town or if I wanted to be "air ambulanced" to a hospital in Hong Kong.  I figured if I was going to fly, I'm flying home, so across town would be fine.  They decided that since the next day (Friday) was a holiday that traffic would be worse than normal in Beijing, so I should be transferred to the next hospital ASAP, even though the city's rush hour still wasn't over at the time (7pm).

So an ambulance showed up shortly after my 6 hours in bed were up and took me to the fourth and final hospital of my adventure.  It was interesting going to so many hospitals.  You can probably tell by the style of my writing in this post that I'm a factual and logical kind of guy.  So as I was being carried on stretchers (both ambulance and hospital kind) I couldn't help but notice what it was like to actually be the one on one of these things, just like I see on TV (especially since my wife likes to watch murder mystery TV shows).

I was admitted to the ER, and requested to use the restroom immediately.  I felt like I was going to explode.  They let me go and then I figured out the fun way that by taking anti-diarrhea medicine I was now constipated.  Great.  So they helped me back to a private room in the ER and asked me the usual questions of the day (do you smoke, do you drink, do you do drugs, do you or your family members have any history of heart disease).  Whenever I'd say "no" to both the smoking and drinking questions all the nurses would raise their eyebrows in surprise and go "huh?" and often they'd say "you are a good man."  My colleagues were there with me, I think five of them.  The staff decided I didn't need the ER services and quickly upgraded me to the ICU (intensive care unit).  They did the usual tests (blood sample, blood pressure, pulse, ECG, oxygen ratio, and heart ultrasound) and we called it a night.  By the time all these were done it was 11:00pm, 24 hours since I had last woken up.

Considering what seemed to be going on, my experience of the day was very nice.  All the doctors who've seen me have spoken English, my colleagues in country here have done a fantastic job of keeping me company and watching over me in my many times of need.  My boss back home in the USA has assured me to worry about nothing and she'll take care of everything.  People from the ISOS company have offered options, advice, and help coordinating anything I'd like, though my local colleagues have been taking care of enough for me.  (By the way, the term "local" isn't exactly right, because they all live and work 2 hours away in TEDA (tianjin economic development area, but they came to Beijing to help me).  The nurses who don't speak English have tried their best to meet my needs and explain what they need me to do, and were very nice about it.  All the doctors were very courteous and seemed to genuinely care about making me healthy, even when I looked very skeptically at them that I had any problem of the magnitude they suggested since I felt fine.  The nurse who rode in the last ambulance with me was very nice and talkative, which was exactly what I needed since I had to go to the bathroom so bad and needed a distraction.  I don't really know what it's like to literally be a prince, but I'm sure it feels like this.  (Not that a prince would want to be hospitalized, but if you're going to, this was great care.)  I think six people from work have kept me company each day.  Three of them had cell phones that could call home and I was able to call wife every twelve hours the whole time, as well as occasionally updating mom and boss.

The ICU room was a huge private room.  It was big enough for at least a dozen people and equipment, with a private bathroom.  That stay only lasted a day, and I don't remember much from Friday.  I do remember that walking was not easy, a few steps was as far as I could go without help.  The only practice I got was walking in the bathroom (which wasn't more than a few steps, but that was enough).  At first they wheel chaired me all the way to the stall, then by the next day I was able to walk across the little room, barely.  For those of you logical people like me out there, it's curious why my body didn't function.  The difficulty was mainly the discomfort of the angiogram healing, which wasn't "painful" but rather uncomfortable, but I didn't want to cause damage (which would surely be painful) before it was done healing.  Having one or two IV's (intervenes) sticking out of you doesn't make it easier, either.  Saturday morning I was doing well enough that I was upgraded again to the general ward.  On the way we stopped by the x-ray department and they confirmed there was a problem with my lower lungs, probably a bacterial infection.  The new room was still private, not quite as big (but big enough) and with more character (not a huge sterile white room) and just as many (if not more) features (including big screen TV, sink, private bathroom, and fold out love seat).  I spent almost four days here and it felt like a dorm room, because there were always between 1-4 other people here, we had a TV (which we didn't watch) and we were in a big building on a floor with a bunch of other people and girls (nurses and other workers) came and went all the time.

Saturday afternoon I was able to walk around the room without difficulty, but I could tell that was going to be as far as I got that day.  Sunday I walked down the short end of the hallway and was able to shower for the first time since Wednesday morning.  This was the first time I showered since it was the first time I could stand long enough (though they had one of those shower seats so I didn't have to literally stand the whole time).  Monday I walked down the long end of the hallway and walked to radiology in the next building over, where they rechecked my lungs.  (After three days of antibiotics on Monday my lungs were fine.)

Saturday I still couldn't talk on the phone very long without getting tired.  This is a really weird feeling for someone who's used to being healthy.  (Also, in case you don't know or don't remember, Beijing is 13 hours ahead of Chicago, so when I'd call home at night it was their time to wake up, and when I'd call when I woke up they were going to bed.)  My breathing on Friday and Saturday was often short unless I intentionally slowed it down.  It didn't feel bad to breath slow, but if I forgot about it I would breath fast (short).  I had my friends read to me in the morning but then realized my brain couldn't stand sensory data and had to ask them to stop.  All the lights were turned off and though I have a ton of music on my phone I just couldn't listen to it.  We talked sporadically because that involved short gaps rather than a continuous stream of sight or sound like recorded media has.

Sunday was relatively quiet.  Between one and three friends were around most of the day.  My friend tried reading to me but it was getting too much, so I asked her to read me anything she wanted in Chinese, so my brain wouldn't be able to "process" what she was saying, but I could close my eyes (they still for some reason were tired) and her voice would keep me company.  The rest of what happened that day I already explained above.

Monday afternoon I went to radiology while my friends went out to lunch.  When I got back I looked through the stack of DVDs they have in the room and found one that I thought I'd try.  I started it but then my friends returned and I turned it off to not waste my time with them.  That evening after they all left (but one) I resumed the movie.  It was "It's Complicated."  By Hollywood standards it's probably a great movie.  But by Christian and otherwise generally human standards it stunk.  The reason I kept watching it was it created a great opportunity to discuss these normally difficult and tender concepts with my friend, who is at least ten years younger than me.  I paused the movie I think three times so we could discuss how much people want to choose both their actions and their consequences, but we only get to choose the former and we're stuck with the later.  We discussed how wrong adultery is, even though the movie didn't come out and say it (that stupid movie even hinted that the opposite may be true).

I talked to my Cardiologist, Dr. Bai, this morning and she confirmed I did not have a "heart attack."  The data we had on Thursday morning (the blood test with elevated enzymes and the EKG) did point to one, but subsequent data (mainly the angiogram) has made it clear I did not.  Assuming God didn't do a miracle and clear up my arteries for me, the latest theory is that I contracted a bacteria and/or virus that attacked my heart and lungs.  This is a serious differentiation for my future health, my sister's, and that of my biological daughters.  Thursday morning my white blood cells were up, later that morning after I had taken some antibiotics they were down, then after that wore off the white blood cells were back up again.  This is textbook symptom of a bacterial infection (and tells you how many blood tests I got that day).  The ultrasounds have all turned up normal (I suspect even the one at the first hospital did too) and the EKGs have been fine since day 2, though they were completely different on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, but completely normal on Monday and today.  They also revealed an incomplete right bundle branch block, which she said 20-50% of all people have and is insignificant.  Ken Ham, the founder of one of my favorite ministries (Answers in Genesis) has a saying: "It's designed to do what it does do. What it does do it does do well."  I suspect my heart is working just fine, but I appreciate the care and caution I got when the warning signs were noticed.

Followup: I did some Internet searches after I got home (at 3am while jetlagged) and found that there are a lot of people in the last decade or so who don't think heart attacks are caused by the traditional paradigm of artery blocks.  A growing number of people seem to be thinking heart attacks are caused by very small fatty deposits on the artery wall that break and form only temporary clots that quickly disappear.  Obviously this would stink, because detecting these is extremely difficult.  I'm no doctor and don't know if this is an acurate model of reality, but if it were true would make it more believable that I had a [minor] heart attack.

Missed Opportunity

(Written on Tuesday, June 19, in a hotel in China, unable to post until I returned to the USA.)

Well, I blew it tonight.  It didn't even occur to me that I could have.  I was on a random street in a random town in a random country where the native language wasn't English, and I was tired.  I had just finished a good dinner and had just started heading back to the hotel when I heard someone say "Hello."  Again they repeated "hello!"  I am used to walking through big cities in foreign countries (and at home) and just ignoring people who say that.  They typically want to sell something.  It didn't even occur to me that this would be different.  Again she repeated "hello!"  And still I continued to walk by without looking.  Eventually I glanced and halfway smiled, and I noticed it was a young lady, perhaps 20, respectfully dressed, and a handful of other girls.  I saw her for about half a second, but continued walking.  I didn't really think anything of it.  As we're walking to the corner to get our taxi, one of my colleagues said "she was talking to you."  Still, it didn't really register.  Or at least that's what I tell myself.  But after it was too late I realized, duh, she was speaking English to me, and duh, she wasn't trying to sell me anything.  She just thought it novel to see a white man walking by and wanted to say hi, and I snubbed her.  There goes a huge opportunity to put my money where my mouth is and prove that "everyone matters" by taking two seconds out of my day to stop and say hi, or even have a short conversation with her.  But I was tired, and now it's hours later, and she was a random girl on a random street in a town of millions, on a planet of billions, and the opportunity slipped through my fingers.  Not that she matters to me specifically, but she matters to God, and what better way to prove it than to have acknowledged she existed and maybe even told her explicitly that God loves her.  Hopefully next time I'll be better prepared.

I'll take care of you

When I was in Waterloo, Iowa, I thought my property taxes were high.  They were about $1,000 a year for a four bedroom, two and a half bath, two story house on a quarter acre.  When we moved to a new state in 2009, I was pretty upset with my bank at allowing me to get a mortgage that was more than I could afford... again.  I was upset at my last bank for allowing me to max out my spending, being young myself and my first house and not realizing what it would do to my budget.  Then when it happened a second time I was annoyed at both my bank and myself.  But then I realized, it wasn't my mortgage, it was my township!  The mortgage was actually perfectly reasonable, but my property taxes were ridiculous.  I bought a new house in 2009 (built less than two years earlier) and the taxes were $4,000.  Then the next year they doubled to $8,000.  Then the next year they went up to $9,000, this year they went up again, and next year if they increase by even 1.2% then they'll pass $10,000.  Ahhh!!!  (This is for a four bedroom, two and three quarter bath, ranch house on less than a quarter acre.)

However, that's just background, it's not the point of this post.  The point is how God proves His involvement and concern in our lives in His own, subtle ways.  This year our federal income taxes were $3,095 and our state were $3,303.  I'm not telling you this so you can reverse calculate my income, nor so you'll feel sorry for me, but the details really matter here, so stick with me.  Also remember in December how I posted that we were blessed to be able to sell stock and pay off our mortgage.  The last sale was intentionally larger than needed to pay off the mortgage and all the excess was saved for the inevitable taxes.  The amount leftover was $4,396.95.  Also in April, my grandma gave me a $2,000 check (it's been too long and I forgot to write down why).  So let's do the math: 3095+3303-4396.95-2000 = $1.05.  One dollar???  Surplus???  God is saying, despite all circumstances, "I'll take care of you!"

That's not the only time this has happened in the last few months.  But first I want to point out that I'm absolutely not a health and wealth preacher.  God does not have a goal to make all Christians rich, and He doesn't promise health or prosperity to all His followers.  He does give us guidelines for how to live, saying that in general, if we take His advice then our lives will go well.  He does say His preference is for us to be prosperous (Jeremiah 29:11) however God also is obsessed with free will.  He is generous to the good and the evil among us (Matthew 5:45) and if we choose to be evil, then that will have consequences for everyone (and everything) around us, and the Christians aren't exempt from that (John 15:18-19).

So another way this happened since tax season was my car.  I was working at the office on a warm and sunny day and left my windows down when I parked in the parking lot.  Near the end of the day I started hearing some strange noise while in the office and wondered what it was.  Honestly, I didn't recognize it as rain because it was pouring down so hard and so thick and in such defined waves that it didn't sound like rain, it sounded like something running across the building.  When I realized it was rain I immediately thought of my open windows and "oh great."  Fortunately for me, the rain stopped before I left the office.  As I walked to my car through the drenched parking lot, I thought surely my seat would be soaked, and so would my daughter's car seat (I happened to be picking her up tonight).  As I approached the car, I saw the windows still open, as I had left them, and beads of water on all surfaces.  But as I opened the door, the seats were dry.  All of them.  All four windows on my car were down, leaving at least an inch opening each.  I was parked facing south, and two people told me later (not to mention my own observations from inside my office) that the rain was coming down sideways from the east.  There's no way my car interior could be dry without a miracle from God.  God was again reminding me that "I'll take care of you."

Another side note, when I hear from God that He'll take care of me, I again don't believe in health and wealth.  So when I hear Him say that, two days ago it meant He'd take care of my taxes.  Yesterday it meant He'd keep my car dry.  Tomorrow it might mean even though I'm being tortured for Christ, even if I die from the persecution, God will still take care of my soul and can manage my family just fine without me.  Obviously this isn't a pleasant thought, but it's important to acknowledge.

A third way this happened recently was at the beginning of our vacation.  I typed this up in China two weeks ago (China blocks anyone from accessing this website so I couldn't post what I'd typed) while there on business, and the prior two weeks I was on vacation with my family.  We had a great American vacation and packed up the car and drove cross country to visit the nation's capital, and a couple other places along the way.  We drove and camped in tents wherever we wished in great American freedom.  The first stop we made was at the Creation Museum, just outside Cincinnati.  This was my wife's and my fourth visit to the museum, and our kids' third.  It was an eight our drive from home to the museum.  I filled up on gas in our home town just before getting on the highway (and after dropping off some books at the library), and reset the trip odometer.  I didn't think about gas until the next morning.  As we got into the car and turned the ignition, I checked the fuel gauge.  It didn't move.  About thirty seconds after being in motion the fuel empty warning light came on.  Obviously we went straight for the nearest gas station.  The trip odometer read 410 miles, which is about as far (not farther) as we've ever gone with a single tank.  And that with a 125% full trunk and a big bulky two seat stroller strapped on top of the roof (creating drag that God apparently dismissed in order for us to tie our gas mileage record).  Just as obvious, if our drive had been even ten miles longer, we would have run out of gas and had a much different experience on our first night of our two week vacation.  Praise God for divine timing!

Fourth and lastly (for now), the next leg of our trip had a similar experience.  The next leg was from Cincinnati, Ohio to Dover, Delaware.  Our map program said this would take nine hours.  We left around 9am and at 5pm it was becoming clear we weren't going to make it in 9 hours.  We called the campground and they said as long as we were there by 10pm, then there'd be someone to help us in.  My wife was estimating that we'd get there by 7 and that should be fine.  We made no extra stops and took no scenic routes and drove the speed limit the whole way, and we pulled into the campground at, no joke, 9:59pm.  Would the world have ended if we pulled in at 10:01pm?  No.  But this was another way of God saying "I'll take care of you," and just as importantly, it's His way of saying "you can trust me for both the big stuff and the small stuff" (John 3:12).  Just as important, by allowing me to write this blog post, He's not only saying it to me, but He's saying it to you, too.

The Prayer of a four year old

Back on May 29, 2012, little Carrot (almost four and a half years old) prayed without excessive prompting that "Jesus would take away her sins" at the Good News Club.  Mommy was leading the weekly event and after the lesson time she offered (like every week) the 20 kids if anyone wanted to go back with Ms. Dawn then they could.  Carrot went with a couple other kids and said the above on her own, without being instructed.  That's great, Carrot!

Capitalism & Socialism

(This was typed in mid May but was delayed at being finalized until now.)  Following is a modern parable.  My comments will make more sense after you read this.

[Begin parable]
     An economics professor made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class”. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A…. (substituting grades for dollars – something closer to home and more readily understood by all).
     After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.
     As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. It could not be any simpler than that.
     Remember, there is a real test coming up: the elections. Here are five critical applications from this experiment:
  1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
  2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
  3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
  4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
  5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of all the people.
[End parable]

So the first question is, do you agree or disagree?  Disagreement would involve having contradictory or conflicting facts or interpretations, which might make the above wrong. If you do not have this then you simply dislike my conclusions and it's important to consider that the above is true.

A friend responded after reading this that socialism is in between Capitalism and Communism, but that's incorrect.  Capitalism and socialism are on opposite ends of an economic policy spectrum. Communism is a form of government that employs socialistic policies.  Democracy and monarchy are two alternatives to communism, capitalism is not. As I was thinking about writing this, a thought popped into my head about the specific socialistic classroom idea presented in the parable above.

Schools around the world are either capitalist or extreme capitalist, but I've never heard of a socialist school.  What I mean is, even in China (one of the first countries I would think of if you asked what countries in the world are communist, after Russia gave up on it, even though China has actually flushed Communism down the toilet in favor of Capitalism anyway) the students are graded individually.  Each student gets a grade for their own work. (However "own" is different in China than in the USA, in China it's expected due to their interdependent culture that students will cooperate to get assignments done, whereas that would be called cheating in the USA. But the point is each student gets their own grade.) This is capitalist, because you get what you deserve based on your performance & results.  Then there's extreme capitalism, and that's also called a bell curve. With the bell curve, not only do you get what you deserve (the opposite of everyone getting the same) you only get the best grade if you're better than your immediate peers, not just better than the objective test. If socialism were so great then why would it not have a manifestation in school grading?

So let's be clear on the rub. Socialism makes everyone equally poor and capitalism makes everyone unequally rich.  If your priority is equality then you're automatically going to side with socialism and put all effort into raising the bar for everyone from poverty to wealth. If your priority is accountability and meritocracy then you're going to side with capitalism and spend your philanthropic efforts on helping people understand what it takes to succeed in a capitalist society and then providing the opportunities for people to make themselves rich. A key point there is the last three words: "make themselves rich," which carry an implication of hard work. I know some of you reading this are going to hate me for saying that, but if we're honest (and pessimistic) then socialism could be interpretted as a philosophy of the lazy and capitalism could be interpretted as a philosophy of the arrogant.

Am I really trying to promote either one? Not really, I just want us to be honest and consistent. If you want to be rich, you either have to be capitalist or be the one in charge of a socialist society. If you don't care if you're rich and you just want to survive, then either philosophy will suit your needs, though socialism will be a lot easier. If you're a career politician, odds are you want to be rich. So if you're a politician and you're touting socialism then you're probably a liar who thinks socialism is great for the masses because it allows central control of all resources which thereby allows you (the people in charge) to control and distribute the money. If you're not a polititician and you desperately want to convert your capitalist society into a socialist society, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you're serious, well intentioned, and would honestly follow through if given the opportutnity. But there's this problem that rich people don't feel comfortable in socialist societies because there's always the threat (if not the explicity mandate) that their wealth will be taken from them. So that means in a truely socialist society anyone who actually develops a good work ethic (even though there's no incentive to do so) will abandon ship at first opportunity and move to a capitalist society where there will be legal protection of their wealth. This trend will severely hamper your efforts to raise the bar for the general population and perhaps even make it impossible.  Which then begs the question, is it better to dedicate your life trying to change human nature and get socialism to work, or is it better to figure out how to work within the bounds of Capitalism and spend your life dedicated to making sure we all treat each other as humans (are accountable for our actions)?

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Government 2.0

While most of this blog is dedicated to my kids when they get older, this post is more general.  Even as recently as 1912 the concepts of government were rather static.  Someone in the capital represents the people and makes decisions for them based on information learned word of mouth or by written letter.  It was common yet non-the-less fairly expensive for the leader to communicate a consistent message to all the people.  (For example, the royal decree.)  It was even more challenging for the people to visit the leader, since an entire population cannot live within walking distance of their topmost leader and even if they did live so close they would likely only be allowed to visit by appointment, when the leader happens to be in town (especially in the case of leaders like Xerxes where showing up unannounced meant death.)

The maximum scope of accountability in the old paradigm meant government only officially met in an open forum where visitors (or perhaps the press) were allowed, or an accurate list of meeting minutes were provided afterwards.  Then anyone who desired could go way out of their way to see what their leaders were up to.  But typically accountability took another form, the form of "does my leader keep his people propserous (by whatever definition the locals want to use) and does he seem to be an honest person?"  Without methods of mass communication what more could you do?

All this was consistent from the time of Adam up until the fifteen century.  Then around 1439 Johannes Gutenberg invented the first printing press, revolutionizing and exploding the power of the written word forever.  (Paper as we know it today was actually invented in 200 AD in China, and about a millenia later the first mill was built in Europe.)  In the later half of the 1800's the typewriter was developed and refined by many people, further empowering the world of text.  In 1837, Samuel Morse invented the first electric telegraph, thereby allowing words to be spread across great distances without paper or person.  In 1876, Allexander Graham Bell was awarded the patent for the telephone, around 1900 the first radios were being built, and televisions became relatively common in the 1930's in the USA & Europe.  While the concept of the computer evolved over time, the first microprocessor was released around 1970 and the backbone of the Internet was laid in the 60's and 70's.  Hypertext transfer protocol was a significant milestone in Internet adoption and was created by Tim Berners-Lee, which also signified the birth of the World Wide Wed in 1991.  About 10-15 years later the more interactive concepts of Web 2.0 became common.

In the 1930s and 1940s, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave what he called Fireside Chats.  In these the president spoke directly to the nation through radio.  Television was employed heavily by President John F. Kennedy, arguably most memorably with his 1961 challenge to the nation to put a man on the moon within a decade.  By now most Americans know that whitehouse.gov exists and that, if we wanted to, we could see what the president is saying any time we want.  However most of us do not have time to randomly go there and watch videos of speech recordings.  Thomas.gov provides a good resource on bills, if you need some heavy reading to help put you to sleep at night.  Congress.org (not an official government website) provides a great summary of who our officials are, how they voted and on what, but lacks one important detail: why.

At work I have a few mantras and one of them is "transparency, accountability, and accuracy."  Now that we live in a connected world of instant messaging, emailing, and blogging (intentionally leaving out names of specific websites) the functional concept of what democracy means and even what a republic means has opportunity to change.  I am not talking about re-writing the dictionary, but adapting the concepts to fit the times.  In the year 12 AD, it made sense that the Roman government claimed accountability and limited transparency based on word of mouth and some written communications.  In 1972 it made sense for the USA government to have a republic that claimed accountability and limited transparency based on word of mouth and written communications, live TV and radio broadcasts, and two way telephone calls.  In 2012 perhaps it is time that we embrace the next evolution in transparency and accountability.

Many of us have used (if not bought from) Amazon.com, Walmart.com, iTunes, or some other Internet based store, and seen (if not read) the product reviews and ratings at the bottom of each page.  We know it is possible to have your voice heard no matter who you are or where you live or how much money you make, your review on Amazon.com can influence the purchase of thousands of people.  Imagine the power of being able to politically vote online.  That would take democracy to the next level.  This would address the "transparency."  Archiving all votes for many years and allowing voters to review their history would address the "accountability."  Count how many times you hear the word "recount" next time there is an election.  Yeah right.  Moving to an online voting system would address the "accuracy."  Now I know the natural next question is, who is going to manage this database and ensure it is being used properly?  (If the people in power do not fear God then it does not matter if you have a democracy or a dictatorship or communism, the leadership is going to be corrupt and you are doomed to opression.)  So if we cannot agree on who would manage the database then I guess the answer is no, we are not ready for this evolution.  But perhaps there is one change we can still make that would still change everything.

In a republic the people decide who will represent them, rather than voting directly.  Remember how in the year 12, the Roman representatives had word of mouth, papyrus, and stone tablets to document for the citizens how they had used their power.  Scribes and writing substances were expensive so use was limited, and you only have so much time to talk in the day and only meet so many people in a year so word of mouth for most citizens was less about hearing directly from the representative as it was hearing third (or three hundredth) hand (and hopefully we all know how well the childs game of "telephone" works.)  But now it is the year 2012.  The important detail is not that it is two millenia later, that is irrelevant because people have not really changed.  But in the last 50 years our world has, and we now have the ability to document anything for virtually no cost.  Voting is only one piece of what we elect people for, but it is the most significant place where the "rubber meets the road."  What if the government adopted a database that kept track of how every elected official votes on every official vote?  What if every representative was also given the ability to explain their every vote?  What if every citizen was also given the ability to browse the bills, votes, and explanations?  Not only browse but search, sort, filter, and compare?  This would be the unification of the governmental concept of a republic and the communication power of web 2.0 and could change the world as we know it by providing unprecedented transparency and accountability.  At the very least it would make the election season more objective.

Wouldn't that be cool?

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Angels

Two incidents happened last weekend that made wonder about angelic interactions.

Saturday we all went to Lowes and Pickle and Carrot wanted to just hang in the car so mom stayed with them and Noodle and I went in.  I was carrying Noodle through the parking lot and as I got to the edge I slipped. My left leg went flying out in front of me. I could tell my right foot was on ice too and I was waiting to fall down and bring Carrot with me to the concrete. However my right leg was fine and I stood there waiting but didn't fall. We just kept on going but that little act seemed to defy physics, so I suspect an angel kept us from falling.

This isn't the first time an angel has prevented one of you from falling. A month or two ago Carrot was on the top bunk, trying to help me make the bed. You were helping stretch out the sheet and stood up and backed up over the edge but rather than tumble down onto your head you simply sat down on the railing. That's not what the law of conservation of momentum says should've happened. Praise God for protecting you, all of us, with His angels!

The same thing happened to Pickle many years ago in Waterloo. You were playing on the top bunk bed and all of a sudden decided to all but run off the side. Instead of falling off you just bumbed off nothing and sat straight down. With the momentum/ inertia you had you should've gone flying but you didn't. Had to be an angel, but we'll have to wait until heaven to find out for sure.

The other event this weekend was less based on physics and more on I don't know what else to attribute. Pickle, you have a real stigma about speaking to anyone anything that anyone else wants spoken. You are happy to talk, but only your ideas to who you want to speak to. Mom and I have had a hard time getting you to practice your Awana verses lately, or I should say verse because you wouldn't even say one for us this past week, but somehow you said _five_ verses Sunday evening to your teacher. I asked if you'd been secretly studying at midnight but you denied that. Perhaps you're being taught by angels?