Picked this book up because I wanted to learn for myself the truth about the U.S.’s healthcare system in comparison to other countries’. I think it’s the American thing to do to strongly defend everything that makes us uniquely American, but on this one thing, we must learn to humbly admit that our healthcare system sucks. The one thing that differentiates us from every other healthcare system is that we have decided to commoditize healthcare. It is a good/service that can be bought. The wealthy can get the best kind of healthcare while the poor are simply too poor to buy it.  Professor William Hsiao, a Harvard Health Economist, who has helped shape many a country’s health care system from scratch (for example Taiwan’s) says this about a country’s stance on their health care system. 

“Before you can set up a health care system for any country, you have to know that country’s basic ethical values.  The first question is: Do people in your country have a right to health care? If the people believe that medical care is a basic right, you design a system that means anybody who is sick can see a doctor.  If a society considers medical care to be an economic commodity, then you set up a system that distributes health care based on the ability to pay.  And then the poor, pretty much, are left out.” 

However, many argue that it is our capitalist health care system that makes our health care system the most innovative with the most number of specialists and top-notch medical centers. That may be true, but these accolades look pathetic and ironic next to the following statistics. 

• Even though the U.S. one of the highest neonatal intensive care capacities (6.1 neonatologists per 10,000 live births), U.S. has one of the highest infant mortality rate among developed nations.
• In 2010, almost 50 million Americans (1 out of 6 Americans) were uninsured. 
• U.S. is ranked 15th in the list of countries that do the best/worst to treat “avoidable mortality”
• Average life expectancy in the U.S. is 77.85 years. Sounds good but we come in 47th just ahead of Cyprus and a little behind Bosnia and Herzegovina.
• More importantly, in the DALE (disability-adjusted life expectancy) which measures how long we can expect to live before we start deteriorating, we are not even in the top 10. We are #24 at 70 years. That put the U.S. just behind Israel and just ahead of Cyprus. Below almost all the other developed nations.
• The U.S. is the only developed country where people go bankrupt because of health costs (~700k people annually)
• We are the only developed country that lets for-profit insurance companies and medical centers control the price, quality, choice, and coverage. This guarantees that long-term investments (preventive care) is not a priority and that the people who need insurance the most are not covered.

One of the most interesting insights Reid had was that Americans aren’t cold, heartless people who believe that only the rich should get health insurance. It’s that most people don’t realize the sheer number of people who are uninsured or under-insured.  We also believe that holding onto this idea of “capitalism” is more important than the overall health of our country. If you want to talk about socialized healthcare, then not covering a low-income family, and making the city cover their emergency room costs if an emergency occurs is actually more socialized than the healthcare systems in so-called socialist Germany, France, UK, Singapore, and Taiwan. 

Obamacare was a great first step to getting more people insured. It made it illegal for insurance companies to deny coverage because of pre-existing conditions. It increased the net for Medicaid. It requires those in finance to contribute to Medicaid/Medicare (yes, those hedge fund managers and traders weren’t paying before). It requires small businesses (49 employees or more) to provide health insurance (along with a tax credit of course). A lot more, but you should read it for yourself! 

Anyways, this was a great read. I would definitely recommend it to everyone who wants to learn more about the topic. 

I finally finished reading The Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy. Granted there were very many details that I skimmed over - the entire series were great. JRR Tolkien was and is a great author who has created a new world unparalleled except I guess by our real world. The funny thing about reading the books was that my mind was completely free and open to the Hobbit because I hadn’t seen the movie while my mind was wholly tainted by the movies which I think made the LOTR books less interesting. There are a lot of differences between the movie and the book, obviously. Keep in mind that I am a LOTR noob and that, honestly, my opinions don’t matter that much and so if you’re offended by them, get over it.

My opinion on the differences: 

•  I’m glad that Arwen was given a larger role in the movie. In the books, even though Eowyn inquires about Aragorn’s love life, he doesn’t give her a straight answer. There’s no mention of Arwen really except for at the dinner at Rivendell. I think that Liv Tyler did a great job as Arwen and her hope and spirit added to the movie. Also, there should be more than one great female character.  
• There definitely are a lot of minor details that pop up at the end after the ring is destroyed. Aragorn’s relationship with Arwen isn’t really cemented until their wedding at the end. Rosie Cotton isn’t introduced until the end. So I love that Peter Jackson gave Sam’s character a deeper level by introducing his crush on Rosie Cotton earlier on in the movie. 
• Saruman’s comeback in the Shire. I think this would’ve made a great addendum to the film. Maybe as a bonus track… I don’t want to spoil this for people who haven’t read the books, but this was a great moment of glory for Sam, Merry, and Pippin. 
• Did you all know that Frodo is supposed to be 50+ years old when he starts the adventure out of Hobbiton? He is in possession of the ring for more than 20 years  before Gandalf comes to tell him what he has discovered. Overall, I think the distribution of time is kind of odd in the books. Although it takes over 20 years for the truth about the ring to be discovered, the time it takes for Frodo to make it up the black stairs and into Shelob’s lair is like less than 2 days. This might not make too much sense haha but when I was reading the book and then JRR Tolkien drops the time difference, I was like whaa? 

Overall though, I’m glad that I read this epic story. Epic isn’t really a good word because this kind of imagination is truly genius and once in a lifetime.. I guess I should quote Gandalf in his description of hobbits in relation to books,

“Hobbits (BOOKS) really are amazing creatures. You can learn all there is to know about their ways in a month, and yet after a hundred years they can still surprise you. 

I think that the Hobbit and The LOTR books have a lot to offer and I appreciate it for its wealth of creativity. However, I dont think that I’ll be drawing maps or cosplaying anytime soon. 

Dead Gallop by Pablo Neruda

There is one line that I repeat inside my mouth, “From where, to where, on what shore?”

It’s not just that it is so catchy. “From where, to where, on what shore?”

It’s inviting. It’s also frustrated - an exasperated sigh.

The famous, immortalized Pablo Neruda. I hadn’t heard of him until a good friend of mine gave me a book of essentials my senior year of high school. He is the mortal writing Aphrodite.  He is quoted in movies and was on the lips of people like Che Guevara. He is a lover, but more than that, he was a lover of love.

It’s a question that we all have to deal with. What is love? Whether it pertains to our parents, to our friends, or to strangers whose eyes we believe in.

“From where, to where, on what shore?”

We start forming ideas of love and sometimes we believe that we completely understand what it entails, but more often than not, we’re completely wrong. Like a handful of accumulated sand, it seeps and escapes through our fingers. There are too many permutations, too many gears and wires, and all we can marvel at, gape at what it is.

I don’t confess to understanding it, this love. But Pablo Neruda ends this poem by invoking the “great pumpkins” in the summer. It knows that harvest will come and go - that summer will end, but until then it will stretch out their leaves and drink heavily of the rain that comes today.

Dead Gallop

By Pablo Neruda

Like ashes, like oceans gathering themselves,

in the submerged slowness, in what’s unformed,

or like hearing from a high place on the road

the cross-echo of church bells,

holding that sound just off the metal,

confused weighing down, turning to dust,

in the same mill of forms, too far away,

remembered or never seen,

and the fragrance of plums rolling to the ground,

which rote in time infinitely green.

That everything, so quick, so lively,

immobile, though, like the pulley, wild inside itself,

those wheels in motors, you know.

Existing like the dry stitches in the seams of the tree,

silent encircling, like that,

all the limbs mixing up their tails.

I mean, from where, to where, on what shore?

The constant swirl, uncertain, so mute,

like the lilacs around the convent,

or death’s arrival on the ox’s tongue,

who falls in jerks, his guard down, his horns trying to

sound.

That’s why, in what’s immobile, stopping oneself, to

perceive,

then, like an immense fluttering of wings, above,

like dead bees or numbers,

ay, that which my pale heart can’t embrace,

in multitudes, in tears scarcely shed,

and human exertions, storms,

black actions suddenly discovered,

like ice, vast disorder,

oceanic, for me who enters singing,

like a sword among the defenseless.

Now then, what is it made of, that surge of doves

there between night and time, like a humid ravine?

That sound, already so long,

which falls striping the roads with stongs,

or better yet, when just one hour

expands without warning, extending endlessly.

Within the ring of summer

the great pumpkins listen once,

stretching out their poignant plants,

of that, of what’s asking so much,

full, dark with heavy drops.

A third of us can’t be bothered to use the votes Libyans are dying for.

 From IntelLife

1. A rat can last longer without water than a camel.
2. Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks or it will digest itself.
3. The dot over the letter “i” is called a tittle.
4. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.
5. A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate.
6. A duck’s quack doesn’t echo. No one knows why. (except in Salford, Manchester. The University of Salford conducted an experiment proving this much quoted internet fact to be a fallacy. So there you go, never believe anything you read on t’internet http://www.acoustics.salford.ac.uk/acoustics_info/duck/
7. A 2 X 4 is really 1-1/2 by 3-1/2.
8. During the chariot scene in “Ben Hur”, a small red car can be seen in the distance.
9. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.
10. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn’t wear pants.
11. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.
12. The number of possible ways of playing the first four moves per side in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000.
13. There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with orange, purple, and silver.
14. The name Wendy was made up for the book “Peter Pan”. There was never a recorded Wendy before.
15. The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin in World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
16. If one places a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death.
17. Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to s-l-o-w film down so you could see his moves.
18. The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA”.
19. The original name for butterfly was flutterby.
20. The phrase “rule of thumb” is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn’t beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
21. The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.
22. Roses may be red, but violets are indeed violet.
23. By raising your legs slowly and laying on your back, you cannot sink into quicksand.
24. Celery has negative calories. It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with.
25. Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest.
26. Chewing gum while peeling onions will help reduce the number of tears.
27. Sherlock Holmes NEVER said “Elementary, my dear Watson”.
28. An old law in Bellingham, Washington, made it illegal for a woman to take more than 3 steps backwards while dancing.
29. The glue on Israeli postage is certified kosher.
30. The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries.
31. Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a spacesuit damages them. Not to mention the other drawback to passing gas in such a confined space….
32. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave
33. The Guinness World Record for holding the most Guinness World Records is set by Ashrita Furman , who has broken over 303 official Guinness World records
34. The first British Cyclist to ride 25 miles in under one hour was Ralph Dougherty (1939). Ralph Dougherty was also the first cyclist to be disciplined for failing to wear black socks (which at the time were compulsory because in early time trials, cyclists had to look ‘inconspicuous’ because initially cycle races were banned in Britain) - Cycling Facts
35. The annual coal carrying world championships is held every year in Gawthorpe, Yorkshire. The ideal weight of the winner is said to be 10st 7lb and the most successful entrants are window cleaners, builders and farmers Yorkshire Facts

(from this site)

Budget Planner Software - Mint.com

“Don’t ever discount the wonder of your tears. They can be healing waters and a stream of joy. Sometimes they are the best words the heart can speak.” William P. Young

A lot of people know that I am a cry baby; in fact, I admit that I wear my heart on my sleeve. However, I concur with Mr. William P. Young when he says that tears can be wonderful. Although they can represent the anguish and the pieces of a hundred cuts and lashes to the heart, they come bearing ointments and salves. 

Today, I literally “stumbledupon” this website that claimed to have 101 short stories that will leave me “smiling, crying, and laughing” and cry baby cynic that I am gave the first dozen stories a half-hearted glance while simultaneously watching “Lipstick Jungle”. However, as I focused and read, it made me think. 

As a Duke student, the definition of success and I can sometimes have a monogamous relationship.  There is a picture in my mind - me getting a phone call securing that lucrative internship position for this summer that will lead me to my future. How incredibly puerile.

There must be more than this, correct? However, we need reminders that even though our houses, cars, watches, and gadgets are made of sticks and stones, our lives are built and kept by the people around us.  Those people we hate and despise, those people who pull us by the hair to our wits end, those people that tick - they’re human. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about legacy - what am I going to leave behind? No matter how many people are trying to save the world, there seems to be too much world to be saved. Furthermore, doesn’t it seem like everyone wants to save the world now? It’s become “hip” right?

Even though I desperately want to make everything about me, it’s not. There are greater pictures to be seen and greater things to do. 

I hope that these 101 short stories make you think. I hope they make your cry. I hope they make you pass it along.