What to do About Our Univited Guests

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors recently voted unanimously to invite and help recent immigrants who were caught trying to enter America illegally. The Board wants to sponsor 200-300 needy immigrants each month. And to that end has also authorized the expenditure of $100,000 a month for two years to pay lawyers to represent our recent unauthorized arrivals. The City is already a sanctuary city allowing undocumented immigrants to live here without any fear of deportation and with every possible social service available to them. Our document-free immigrants are living here in the City by the Bay because of a policy that was created to aid refugees from El Salvador’s bloody scenes in the 1980’s, but just kept expanding to cover everyone here illegally.

San Francisco is also the home of more than 6,000 homeless. We are spending approximately $30,000 a year per homeless person (that equals $2,500 a month or $80+ a day) to house, feed and provide medical care for this needy population and still have half living in the streets and in our parks, relieving themselves wherever they can.

The City of St. Francis is known as the most liberal and generous city in the country and perhaps the world. Many of our residents are doing very well economically. We have more billionaires per capita and per square mile than any other city in the world. We can afford to pay our workers well, even those here without permission. Nannies, housekeepers, construction workers, landscapers and dog walkers make about $25-$30 an hour. Most of these workers pay no payroll or income tax and so net more than the average American does.

But San Franciscans are not the only Americans who want to help our new, uninvited guests. Many Americans realize how lucky we are to live here and bemoan the fact that so many people cannot live as we do. Many of us feel a a sense of noblesse oblige and want to help these unfortunate people whose only fault is being from a poor, corrupt, violent and unhealthy country. Some of us even don’t blame the leaders of these countries for their people’s poverty nor their culture or beliefs and practices. We choose to blame outside sources. Some of us want to blame America and other successful countries for these poor countries’ failures even though their problems go back hundreds of years. In any case, we want to help the helpless innocent.

For the past several years, tens of thousands of people have migrated from Central America to find a better life. We are told that these people live in poverty in countries like Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador where the average wage is less than $1000 a year. They must pay $7000 to $10,000 to have a family member brought here the 1500 miles without invitation. We now have what is being called a “humanitarian crisis” resulting from a “broken immigration system.” What should be done with these tens of thousands of new interlopers? Can we send them back to suffer in their native lands? Can we help them here in our great land?

The United States of America is, without a doubt, the richest in the world. We have the largest gross domestic product, and annual budget. But we also have some problems. We have an accumulated federal debt of more than $17 trillion, adding half a trillion dollars in annual deficits each year. More than 10 million of our people are unemployed.  Job seekers without a high school diploma make up a large share of our long term unemployed. Many of these applicants are Latino or black. (While we are never told who these unemployed are, there is a 40% unemployment rate among young blacks). They cannot find entry level jobs because many are taken by the eight million people already working here illegally.

Fifty million Americans live in poverty relying on the government for their basic needs, many are black or Latino.

But still we want to help the poor from other lands. There are more than three billion people living in abject poverty all over the world, including 2.5 billion living on less than $2 a day while America’s poor live on as little as $40 per day. In Latin America, there are more than 165 million living in desperate poverty (29% of the population), the vast majority would much rather live in America with its population of 320 million.

But America has only 53% of its 116 million households that can afford to pay any income tax at all, meaning that about 60 million families must pay for the needs of 320 million Americans and 10+ million illegal immigrants already living here. Can they also be asked to support the many new immigrants who lack the education, intellect and training to support themselves in this new land? If they stay, they become totally our responsibility for generations. We must educate them, treat their healthcare needs, find shelter for them as well as good paying jobs.

So what is the solution? Can we turn our backs on the tens of millions of Latin Americans who must suffer lives of poverty and violence in countries riddled with corruption? Can we accommodate these people in our rich country even if it means doing less for the poor Americans living in our country? 

I think that the answer lies in the countries from which so many citizens want to leave. While I am against most of our foreign aid which too often goes to corrupt governments and makes even decent ones dependent upon our continued largesse, I believe that it is in our national and regional interest to help our neighbors to the south. The aid should not be in the form of weapons systems or money that usually goes to the powerful. The aid should be in the form of advisers. We should advise on education, which will be the foundation for future development in these underdeveloped nations.  We should provide guidance for business development and management and for developing government systems to discourage fraud and corruption so rampant in these countries. We can help set up checks and balances in the various arms of government. And we can help educate the population on the merits and necessity of birth control.  If you are too poor to feed yourself, you probably should not be having children.

PBS recently did a piece on the poverty in Central America by telling the story of one family.  The mother was a woman who appeared to be about 60 very difficult years old. She had hardly any teeth and lived in squalor. She had six children who were malnourished causing them to be much smaller than normal and with diminished intellectual capacities. The youngest was less than a year old. As with all such reports, the reporter did not ask the obvious questions: why did this seemingly very old woman have six children and how could the youngest be a baby? The answer must be that the woman was not 60 but just a very old 50 and that she had kids she could not afford because someone had sex with her many times without benefit of contraception. If the poor in Central America could stop having children they could not feed, it would dramatically reduce poverty in that region.

If more Latin American governments could find ways to change their cultures and values, they could slowly work their way out of poverty. Brazil is doing that now in South America. Costa Rica and Panama are finding ways to change for the better in Central America. Mexico has also seen great improvement in living standards in the past 20 years. Countries like Guatemala and Honduras produce healthy food crops but are forced to export most of it leaving the people with diets of rice and beans. Women are treated badly by their men. The non-white populations, though in majority, are treated as second-class citizens with most of the leaders being of pure Spanish heritage. These are some of the areas where cultural changes are needed in Central and South America.

But it should not only be America who comes to the rescue of our southern neighbors. There are more than 190 other countries in our world, including the 34 Latin American countries that are joined in the Organization of American States. This organization should be instrumental in helping not only these tens of thousands of recent refugees to return to find safety in their own region, but aiding also all those who are suffering there now as well as helping the millions now living in the States without legal authority to return to their beloved homelands with reason to hope for a brighter future.

A New Political Party and Agenda

A New Political Party and Agenda

If you are tired of the excesses of the Left and Right, of liberals and conservatives, of Democrats and Republicans, take heart - a third party is emerging - the Independent Moderate Party.

It will have a simple, straightforward platform for future government. Here are the planks:

I.    Reducing income inequality -
    A.  Raise the minimum wage to $10 per hour now and up to $15 an hour in
          five years.
    B.  Change the federal tax code with all income considered equally taxable, and no itemized deductions or
          credits, just a standard one and only six,    
          tax brackets with the highest being 35% for incomes over $1 million.
    C.  Improve pre K-12 public education, including a change in curriculum
    D.  Bring manufacturing jobs for clothing, electronics and appliances back to USA via trade agreements to
          produce good paying jobs.
    E.   Put financial reforms in place splitting up  banks into retail and investment.

II.    Reducing the budget deficit -
    A.   Close most of our 700+ foreign military bases, shrink the infantry and expand special forces, letting host
           countries, regional treaty organizations and the U.N. ensure their security.
    B.   Enacting 1A and 1B which would raise taxes while reducing transfer  payments such as Earned Income
           Credit, food stamps and rent subsidies.
    C.   Reduce foreign aid that now exceeds $50 billion a year.
    D.   Reduce prison populations by releasing prisoners who are no risk to  society.
    E.    Legalize and tax marijuana.
    F.    Route out waste and fraud in government programs and healthcare.
    G.   Stop minting pennies and nickels.


III.      Improving the Environment
    A.   Dramatically increase solar and wind power sources while limiting coal production and domestic oil use.
    B.    Plant tens of millions of trees, especially near factories.
    C.    Strictly enforce fair EPA regulations.
    D.    Encourage alternate transportation choices like walking, biking or living nearby.

IV.    Improving the Political Environment
    A.     Eliminate campaign contributions, shorten and change the primary and campaign efforts.
    B.     Work with Congress on moderate measures avoiding extremism.
    C.     Make legislation simple and clear so the public and legislators understand it.
    D.     Encourage moderation.

V.    Improving Immigration System
    A.    Secure the borders and our VISA system.
    B.    Penalize companies hiring undocumented workers
    C.    Allow undocumented residents to get documentation if they have not violated the law. They must be paid
           what others are but will not be eligible to citizenship or welfare.
    D.    Change criteria for legal immigration to be people with skills we need and not distant relatives of legal
            residents.
    E.    Make English the official language.
                
VI.    Making Social Security Secure
    A.    Immediately raise FICA deduction to be 8% for both employer and employee instead of current 7.65%
           (this would include 6.5% for Social Security and 1.5% for Medicare).
    B.    Over time, raise the FICA deduction to 10% each.
    C.    Raise the maximum amount subject to FICA deduction to $200,000
           from the current $110,000 ceiling.
    D.    Make all Social Security benefits payments subject to federal income tax, not just a maximum of 85% of
           benefits. All tax collected goes back into the trust for Social Security.


VII.    Making Medicare Healthy
    A.    Route out fraud and waste said to be in the hundreds of billions.
    B.    Use improvements in communications to dramatically reduce doctors‘ visits and lab tests.
    C.    Improve preventive and treatment strategies to reduce the incidence and severity of major diseases like
            heart, cancer, liver damage and AIDS.
    D.    Dramatically reduce incidence of obesity now affecting one out of  three Americans.
    E.    Dramatically reduce number of people smoking cigarettes.
    F.    Dramatically reduce the rate of alcoholism.
    G.    Legalize euthanasia.

VIII.    Foreign Policy
    A.    Maintain a non interventionist position
    B.    Support strengthening the U.N. to police the world
    C.    Support NATO and encourage the strengthening of all regional alliances (e.g. African, Latin American,
           Arab, and Asian)
    D.   Dramatically reduce foreign military footprint closing most foreign bases and cutting most foreign aid.
    E.   Use economic pressure, rather than military force to change behavior.




      

Finding the Right Team Name

Names have meaning and value. Parents try hard to find the perfect name for their beloved offspring. Pet owners challenge themselves to find a name for their pet that expresses their affection for them and the attributes that make them so lovable.

Athletic teams also choose their names carefully. Now, a team whose team name has been the same for more than 81 years is being asked, urged, demanded to change their name for fear it might offend some members of a group that has been identified with the name.

The team was the Boston Braves but changed it to the Redskins to honor its beloved coach who was part American Indian. They are now the Washington Redskins and are now being asked to find a less offensive name.

There is no doubt that the American Indian has been mistreated since the 16th century by Europeans who migrated here hoping to start new lives in a new world. The settlers stole Indian land, killed their people and forced the survivors to live in substandard conditions on Indian reservations. When some of the reservations were found to have oil, the government withheld billions of dollars owed for access to the black gold.

The name “redskin” is not one that American Indians enjoy or identify with. To some it is racist and should have never been used for a team name. It should be changed, some say. A number are also offended by the name “Indian” or “Brave” preferring to be called Native Americans not to be confused with the term “native Americans” which refers to anyone born here.

But what about other team names? Are some of them also possibly offensive and needing to be changed?

The Cleveland Indians should be the Cleveland Native Americans. The Cleveland Browns should have a color blind name not one that could upset Latin Americans. The Cincinnati Reds should have a less communist sounding name that might also upset Native Americans. The Atlanta Braves should be the Atlanta Courageous. The New York Yankees’ name might offend Southerners still remembering what the Yankees did in the 1860s. And what’s with the Red Sox and White Sox? Should the Golden Gate Warriors be the Peacemakers? And why do the Clippers have a name used for NFL players who make illegal tackles or is it after coupon clippers, which would surely offend the 99%? And there are two teams called the Giants. How does that make short people feel? Does size really matter? Then there’s the 49ers. So people 50 and over should feel old? Isn’t that offensive?

What about the Dodgers? Are they tax dodgers, artful dodgers or do they dodge all rules? Is this what we want our children emulating? Aren’t parents upset? The Chicago Cubs seems like an OK name until you talk to some Boy Scouts. Why not the Chicago Scouts, instead? Chicago also has the Bears. The name sounds like people are naked or are tolerating something difficult. Shouldn’t G-d fearing people find this objectionable? And don’t the Baltimore Orioles sound too much like Oreos, a term also used to question a person’s racial soul? The Oakland Raiders should change their name so as not to offend corporate raiders or those who raid their refrigerators late at night and wonder why they are gaining weight. They should be able to watch the game without feeling guilty.

And the two teams that call themselves the Cardinals should change their name so as not to offend Catholics who saw their cardinals cover-up sex abuses against their children in order to save the "good" name of the Church or atheists or those who believe in the separation of church and sport. The Kings should find a new name as well. America is a democratic republic. We revolted against the King in 1776. How would DAR members whose ancestors gave their brave lives fighting the King feel to hear people cheer for his namesake? The Jets' name must be changed so as not to offend the Puerto Rican - Americans who still feel unfairly stereotyped by the "West Side Story" anti-Puerto Rican gang by that name. Surely they don't want to hear "Here come the Jets..." anymore.

We must be much more sensitive to the possible feelings of our people.

What if we only used the name of the city the team plays in? If there are more than one team in a city as is the case in New York, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, the name could be followed by the sport name as in Football or Baseball, to avoid possible confusion. This would ensure that no one is offended or hurt by the team name.

See, every problem has a solution. 

Let's hope it doesn't offend anyone.

Addressing Homelessness

Recent surveys on homelessness have found that there are approximately 600,000 homeless people in America; that New York City has 60,000 and San Francisco has 6,400 individuals/families living without a permanent residence. Another study found that different cities had different percentages of homeless living on the streets. San Francisco has about half of this population in shelters at a cost of $165 million per year, most of it county money with some of it going to related services. This figure does not include city costs for medical care and does not include charitable efforts to provide food and shelter to San Francisco’s homeless. When these costs are added, they total more than $200 million that is spent annually on our 6,000+ homeless. We are spending $30,000 per homeless person per year and still half of them are still sleeping on sidewalks and under bridges.

It makes one wonder if there is a better way to help this desperate population. I think there is. First a little history.

Until the 1990s, San Francisco had few homeless people. Single individuals who were poor and in need of food and shelter went first to 150 Otis Street and applied for General Assistance. Families that were poor went to 170 Otis and applied for AFDC.

Applicants for aid would be identified and interviewed and if found eligible, were given a list of hotels and residence centers to call for a room. The clients would be given a cash grant, Medi-Cal, food stamps (now called SNAP) and a Muni fast pass.  There were more than 3,500 individuals on G.A and about 15,000 families on AFDC. Not all the G.A. clients were really eligible to the aid and not all the AFDC recipients were close to being homeless, but about 3,000 single people, mainly men, and thousands of families would have been homeless without these programs.

In 1978, an analyst for the Department of Social Services (now called the Department of Human Services), which administered these programs, produced a report to change the General Assistance program. The report recommended dividing the G.A. caseload into three groups: the permanently disabled, the temporarily disabled and the employable.

Workers assigned the permanently disabled would work to get their clients on Social Security disability (known as OASDI) if they had worked long enough to qualify, or on VA benefits if eligible, or on SSI which was federal/state welfare for the disabled poor. If G.A. clients got on these government programs, the county would be reimbursed for its costs back to the application date from the client’s retro check, and the client would receive welfare benefits that exceeded G.A. payments. G.A. clients who were employable were referred to ETRS for jobs.

But because of the generous G.A. payments and difficulty proving residence, there was an unacceptable level of fraud. People who didn’t live in the county would get aid. People with excess assets would receive benefits to which they were not entitled.

To address this issue, the analyst recommended turning G.A. into an in-kind benefit program. The client would receive little or no cash but get a place to live, food stamps, Medi-Cal and a Muni fast pass. The analyst recommended the City buy the many rundown and filthy residential hotels that clients were living in, fix them up to be clean and safe, and offer them to the clients rent free. The hotels would have been bought either through normal real estate transactions or, if necessary, by eminent domain or police power. Real estate values in the late 70s were a small fraction of what they are today. These hotels are worth many times as much as they would have cost the city in 1980.

While the recommendation to divide the caseload was eventually accepted, the idea about making G.A. an in kind program and buying hotels was rejected by those on the Left and the Right. The Left objected because they wanted clients to have cash to spend as they freely chose. The Right objected to the government replacing the private sector in real estate. It looked like socialism to the Right.

Years later, a young member of the Board of Supervisors with greater political ambitions, unveiled a program called “Care not Cash” which was a move to an in-kind G.A. program but without G.A.

Around the same time, a young American President, eager to reduce the budget deficit, changed the AFDC program into a workfare program. The idea was to end generational welfare and get people back into the work force. There was no more AFDC for the long term poor families to turn to. 

Now, in 2014, the homeless problem in San Francisco has grown from a few hundred in 1980 to as many as 7,000, including children. Every neighborhood now has homeless people sleeping on park benches or city sidewalks; raiding garbage cans for bits of food or recyclable bottles and cans; relieving themselves in public; using public bathrooms for bathing; dressed in rags and suffering in ways the rest of us could not bear and no one should have to. Many of the homeless here have health problems that only get worse with neglect. Many wind up at San Francisco General Hospital needing in patient or out patient treatment.  Many have serious conditions like AIDS, Cancer, diabetes, kidney failure, liver damage, pancreatitis or heart disease.

There are many good people working hard to help the homeless. The city has a program to coordinate with non profits to find more residential opportunities for the needy. Good work is being done in the Tenderloin and the Mission to convert some sleazy hotels into attractive and safe homes for those so in need of them. Charitable organizations are providing clothing and free food to thousands of people each day. Citizens are generously donating their clothing to non profits and charities to clothe this population. The staff at San Francisco General provide excellent medical care to their homeless patients.

But none of this is enough. What should be done?

I think that the analyst who wrote the G.A. report 37 years ago would recommend the following:

The homeless should first go to San Francisco General Hospital to apply for assistance. There they will be identified with basic information like name, birth date, place of birth, social security number and any known medical information. Some might be missing from friend and family who would like to help them. Some might need immediate medical attention. Each person should get a complete physical and a warm shower or bath. While at SFGH, they can get clean clothing selected from the very large inventory already at SFGH.

If the individuals are deemed to be permanently disabled or aged, eligibility workers there should evaluate whether they are eligible to government aid such as VA, OASDI, or SSI, Medi-cal and food stamps. They could then be placed at Laguna Honda’s old, now vacant hospital. It has capacity of more than 300 beds. It was closed when the new facility was built. The new one is more earthquake safe. The old one has never lost a patient to earthquake and probably never will. Patients here die on their own since they have advanced conditions that are usually terminal.

If the individuals applying for homeless assistance are temporarily disabled, they could soon be housed at what will be the old SFGH when the new hospital is completed next year. Old SFGH could house hundreds of  temporarily disabled people providing them with a safe comfortable room and bathroom as well as medical attention to bring them back to health.

If the individuals are deemed employable, with no serious medical or psychological conditions, they need to be housed in safe, clean SROs many of which are in the Tenderloin, SOMA, downtown and Mission districts or in well managed housing project units. Those not already run by non profits dedicated to helping the homeless should be brought up to code and decency for the homeless.

Since these people are healthy enough to work, they should be given work to do in the City to partially pay back for all that they will receive from it. They can help clean and fix their own buildings, pick up litter in the neighborhood, and can help park workers keep the weeds from overwhelming them. Some can help feed the homeless. Others can help other programs intended to help them. Some can collect recyclables that are not already in garbage cans.

Those who can work should does so, not only to contribute to their community, but also as a way to come back into the mainstream, slowly but surely. It also gives them something to do and a feeling of worth raising their self esteem.  

It would seem that most people who are homeless in San Francisco would jump at this idea. It is hard to imagine many preferring to live out on the streets instead of getting a chance to enjoy are more normal life. But those who do prefer the outdoor life should be discouraged from this lifestyle. Those who are too mentally challenged to make this obvious choice can be brought to SFGH on a 5150. This allows them to be kept under observation for three days or as long as 14 days. During that time, these people can go through the same process. After three days of having nice warm meals, new clothes, a few warm baths or showers, and a clean comfy bed to sleep in, many of these people might want to join the program. Those who are healthy and still don’t want in would be released but advised that they can not sleep or eliminate waste products wherever they want. They must get housing on their own and not in city parks or city sidewalks.

These ideas come with a price tag. Running the old SFGH and Laguna Honda will require additional staff and 24 hour coverage. Since all the patients at both should eligible to Medi-Cal, some of these costs should be reimbursed. The aged and permanently disabled would be eligible to Social Security benefits if they worked long enough or SSI if they didn’t. SSI pays $877 or $961 (if living in an SRO) a month per person. This money could go toward paying for their living costs. Food Stamps, now called SNAP, provides $189 a month for an individual and $632 for a family of four. These benefits can go toward feeding the homeless.

And homeless activists must agree that this idea is much better than anything their people have now. They should advocate for this by urging every homeless person to come in out of the cold.

In Search of the Magic Bullets

We have all been assured that life is very complicated and in some ways beyond our human comprehension.  There are no simple answers or solutions.  There are no magic bullets for life’s many problems.

I see magic bullets everywhere.

The magic bullet to saving someone whose coronary arteries were completely blocked was open heart surgery.  They are developing magic bullets to destroy certain cancers without hurting healthy cells. The magic bullet to prevent severe birth defects was prenatal testing and if necessary, first term abortions. The magic bullets to reducing auto fatalities were seat belts and then air bags and laws against drunk driving.

But are there magic bullets for a country’s poverty or to cure a culture of violence?  How can the poor countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East free themselves from their crippling poverty?  Can Muslim radicals such as Al Qaeda, Taliban, Hamas, and Hezbollah members end their lives of vicious violence? Can air pollution and climate change be reversed?

Surely, these are very complex problems dealing with culture, religion, history, genetics and ignorance.  There could be no easy fix.  Could there?

Yes, of course.

The magic bullet to end a third world country’s poverty by doing just one thing: educate the girls.  Educated girls will have children later and have fewer.  The key to a country’s economic rebound is fewer children per poor family.  Educating all the girls might be easier said than done.  Ignorant men, like the Taliban, do not want girls educated at all, the better to subjugate them.  Educated women would raise educated children who would behave in more productive and less violent manners.

But what of the magic bullet to end culturally institutionalized violence as we see in most of the Muslim countries?  Muslim men are said to be violent toward their women and to everyone they feel has somewhat different beliefs from theirs.  How does this tendency change?  I have the magic bullet.

Give them dogs.

Muslim terrorists, reputed to be the most violent on the planet, are not allowed to have dogs.  It is felt that dogs are somehow unclean. Their feet should never touch the ground and their saliva should never touch a Muslim’s skin.  Murdering, raping, lying, destroying and hating are OK, but not a dog’s footstep?

If we can convince Muslim radicals that their prophet had nothing against dogs, we could give them all our shelter dogs we have that will have to be put down - but no Pit Bulls, Rottweilers, Mastiffs, German Shepherds, Dobermans or Great Danes, just Cocker Spaniels, Golden Retrievers, Bernese Mountain dogs, Shelties and Cavalier Spaniels - warm friendly pups who not even a vicious terrorist could abuse.

While Muslim violence can be said to have several causes like low self esteem, feelings of inadequacy, low intelligence, envy, frustration and confusion; the chemical force that ignites the need for violence is testosterone.  It is the fuel of our reptilian brain which is the source of our fight and flight response as well as our sex drive.  The counterbalance to this chemical is oxytocin.  Oxytocin is produced when a mother nurses a baby, or when someone is cared for or when a dog is petted.  Just as testosterone makes us violent, oxytocin makes us loving and kind.

Can you image a nursing mother getting mad and killing someone?  It can not happen.  So too, Muslims no longer denied the companionship of a dog who provides unconditional love and a healthy dose of much needed oxytocin will not hate and want to kill people.  They will not commit suicide killing innocent women and children in order to go to paradise because they won’t want to leave their beloved pets.  Paradise would be here on earth with their loving pets.

But what about climate change, what is the magic bullet to reverse the trend toward greater CO2 pollution leading to the gradual warming of the planet? Besides switching to cleaner burning fuels like solar, wind and hydroelectric power, what can be done?

Grow more trees.

Trees and all vegetation live on CO2 and produce oxygen. We have lost many if not most of our trees here and around the world. If we could immediately plant hundreds of millions of trees all over the planet but especially near highly polluted areas, the vegetation would thrive from all the CO2 available and would produce oxygen in its stead.

The Western world is addicted to a crippling drug called alcohol. It is the cause of several varieties of physical and mental illness. It destroys the liver and pancreas, it cause mood changes and memory loss. Alcoholism can cause people to fight and attempt to damage lives and property. Abuse of this elixir can lead to heart disease and failure, strokes, cancer, Alzheimer’s, driving accidents, type two diabetes and bar fights.

But what can be done to stem what has been a cultural Christian tradition since a Messiah turned water into wine? Alcohol provides an escape from the reality that sometimes is too much to bear. It is an accepted way for us to try to transcend our ordinary consciousness in the hopes of finding more peace and joy, or at least more fun and fewer inhibitions. Life is hard for all of us and we need a way to get beyond the past and future and submerge ourselves in some eternal present. So even though we are all aware of the severe price we pay for enjoying the fermented tonic too freely, we are willing because of the relief we find in it.

Could there be a magic bullet that would liberate us from the harmful effects of this much-needed transcendental device?I say yes there is:

 Legalize marijuana.

Marijuana provides the essential transformational and transcendental experience almost instantaneously at low cost with no known bad side effects. Users will be smarter, funnier, more open, deeper, more compassionate, more creative, less neurotic and will have a much better appetite because food will taste and smell better. Love life will improve, while alcoholism can actually end it. It is also said to cure or at least lessen the effects of asthma. 

But what about education? Is there a magic bullet to improve America’s K-12 public school education system?  The system is plagued with all kinds of problems from tremendous student diversity, more probably than any other educationally successful nations like Norway, Sweden or Japan. Our system is impacted by strong teacher unions that make firing a poor teacher almost impossible.  Too many students come from broken homes or from great poverty or parents who do not speak English. While longer school years would help and the infrastructure can always use improving, is there a magic bullet here?

Smaller classes.

They allow teachers to know their students better and to be able to identify problems much sooner. Does this child have a learning disability? Is that child being abused at home? Does this one really follow what we’re learning? Could that one be bored and need more of a challenge? It’s hard to answer these questions with 30 or 40 kids in a classroom. It’s much easier with just 15-20.  Smaller classes would also allow teachers to teach more effectively and would make inadequate teaching more apparent and subject to improvement efforts. The reduced class size would also allow for more experimentation by teachers and students while reducing the likelihood of trouble making.

There is even a magic bullet to reduce our deficit without hurting the recovery or causing damage: reduce the number of non-magic bullets and military bases abroad and let the U.N. and the various regional treaty countries deal with foreign conflicts without enlisting the aid or unilateral action by the U.S. Making peace would be a large magic bullet for our economy, our morality and our very souls.

But what about dealing with income inequality in America where the poor are too poor and the rich are too rich? What magic bullets do we need besides improved K-12 education for all?

Raise the minimum wage and simplify the federal tax code eliminating all itemized deductions and counting all sources of income as being equally taxable.  

Raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour immediately and to $15 an hour in the next decade would raise the minimum annual income of a full time worker to $30,000 a year. This would reduce profit margins in large corporations meaning lower bonuses for CEOs and lower dividends for the idle rich who live off them. Simplifying the tax code so that it exists only to raise needed revenue and not to encourage social or economic behavior, would mean giving all taxpayers a standard deduction but no itemized ones. Currently, two thirds of all taxpayers use a standard deduction. Itemized deductions are used mainly by the highest income households to keep more of their generous revenue. Even keeping the highest tax bracket, for incomes of $1 million or more to only 35%, the country would get more revenue while the rich would contribute their fare share, somewhat reducing their high incomes.

You see, there really are magic bullets.  They’re just waiting to be found, aimed and fired at their appropriate targets.

When Is Time Up?

It seems as though life is filled with time limits. They are the expression of entropy in a finite world. Everything that begins must end. But how do we know when that is?

This question is coming up with greater frequency of late.

In Oakland, a 13 year-old child died unexpectedly from complications during a tonsillectomy.  She was pronounced absolutely brain dead by three top neurologists. Her body was kept alive mechanically. The family felt that since she was still warm, she was still alive and should be kept that way by hospital staff until the child regains consciousness. There was no way that would ever happen. They went to court to force the hospital to keep the dead child alive at hospital or taxpayer expense. After several court-ordered delays, the court finally allowed the hospital to do the obvious and take the dead teen off life support.

In Florida, a misguided hospital staff insisted a brain dead pregnant woman whose fetus was 14 weeks old, must be kept alive until the baby can be born, against the wishes of the family. A court finally ruled that the hospital staff had no idea what they were doing and ordered the woman taken off life support. The hospital then asked the family to pay the costs of keeping the woman alive against their wishes.

Years ago Congress got involved in a case of a brain dead woman kept alive for 15 years because her parents wanted her to recover. When she was finally taken of life support, an autopsy was conducted. It found there was nothing left of her brain. The deceased was completely empty headed.

We have hundreds of thousands of people in hospitals and nursing homes with no chance of ever improving and unable to take care of themselves. We have tens of thousands of people on end life dialysis, being kept alive daily with painful treatments which when ended result in almost immediate death. All dialysis costs are paid by taxpayers. 

Thanks to the marvels of modern medicine, we are able to live much longer. Heart blockages leading to heart attacks can be opened while totally blocked arteries can be replaced. People with heart conditions can get bypasses, pacemaker/defibrillator implants, mechanical hearts and even new hearts through transplant. Most of our organs can now be replaced. Cancer fighting drugs have been developed that can target cancer cells and destroy them. Work is being done to replace external parts like ears, noses, arms and legs.

The majority of national healthcare costs are for people in the very end of their lives in order for them to cheat death just a little bit longer.

It is now the same with our favorite pets. While dogs used to last only a few years 50 years ago, with many killed prematurely in traffic accidents or by natural causes like cancer and heart disease, many now live well into their teens. Pet owners now spend thousands to fight their pet’s cancer or heart disease or to provide devices to enable their loyal furry friend to walk or at least roll. Dog owners are now finding themselves having to decide when their beloved canine must die. It is very painful decision and one that is put off as long as possible.

And end dates don’t only apply to living creatures. When should a T.V. series end? When should a public policy end as we saw with affirmative action, school busing, segregated schools, discrimination against gays in the military and the military draft? These are difficult but necessary planning decisions known as management. 

Now we face new decisions about end dates.

When should we get out of Afghanistan? The vast majority of Americans say “immediately.” But those who fought and sacrificed there want to see our troops remain for as long as ten more years to make sure that all they accomplished with 17 years of war would not be lost.

When should we end the extension of unemployment benefits to those who have been receiving benefits for more than six months already? The extension expired in December and has not been renewed. Should the extended benefits be allowed to end now that the unemployment has fallen to almost 4% from a high of almost 10%? We sometimes forget and are never reminded, that under the best of economic circumstances, the unemployment will be between 4 and 5%, meaning millions of Americans will always be unemployed.

When should a relationship end? How do we know that it is really irreconcilable? Should couples stay together for the sake of the children or would everyone be better off if the two parted?

In today’s journalism the question has been when should coverage of a story end. Clearly some stories go on much longer than they should because they help raise advertising revenues. We see this with natural disasters and perverse political stories as well as juicy crime sagas.

Some reporters seem so taken with their own verbiage, that they extend their columns well past the needed length not wanting to end the experience. Not so with this column.

It ends here.

Evolution and Free Will

Most people who read this column would admit to believing in the theory of evolution and in Man’s free will. The theory of evolution posits that evolution occurs through natural selection with the survival of the fittest. Every religion, especially Western ones, insist that even though there is an all knowing, all powerful G-d in control of the universe, every person has free will. Free will is described as the ability of individuals to freely choose their path in decision they make. Some consider free will Man’s greatest vanity.

We all believe these ideas until they involve real people or the things we love.

Yes, there is the survival of the fittest, but every human and most animal species should survive, regardless. We believe that any human death before age 100 is a tragedy. The unborn child who has major health complications should not be allowed to pass away and should even get surgery while still in the mother to prevent a still birth. No cost should be spared. A human life is at stake.

If a person sustains a totally debilitating injury or is so advanced in age that s/he will never function independently and can never contribute to society, we must spend whatever necessary to make the person as comfortable as possible for as long as possible. Every human life is precious.

If a teenager gets killed after trying to kill someone else, it is a tragedy and the killer is at fault even though it was self defense. His parents are due damages from someone with deep pockets. No young person should die, no matter what.

If an animal species is facing extinction because it cannot adapt to changes in its environment, the environment should be changed to allow the species to survive. Every species is essential to the planet’s survival.

If a business can no longer sustain itself with costs exceeding revenues and faces bankruptcy, we morn their loss after all efforts to save it fail.

If some people lose their job for any reason, they should be entitled to every possible safety net to keep them going. Everyone must survive economically.

If people’s lives are threatened because of the loss of functioning in an essential organ or a painful joint or a missing a limb, every effort must be exerted to fix or replace the damaged part. Soon we will be able to replace deadened heart tissue with our own stem cells. We will be able to give hearing to those who have lost it, sight to those who cannot see as well as replace any body part. We want everyone to survive regardless of their fitness.

And then there is free will. Free will means that we are each responsible for our actions because we choose them freely. But there are many allowed exceptions.

If a person is homeless because of mental illness and/or substance abuse, we realize that it is not that person’s fault. We feel that we should do whatever we can to help the homeless and we tolerate whatever they do, no matter how unpleasant, because they can’t help themselves, they have no free will. (Yet, we invite them to stay in shelters but only if they freely choose to do so.)

If people come to our land without documentation, invitation or permission because they are poor and see no future in their native country, we say that they are not to blame. They had no choice. We understand that they might drive without license or insurance, that they might purchase fake I.D. or use someone else’s Social Security number to get work. What choice do they have? All they want is to work and earn a living. If they commit crimes or have vehicular accidents, we realize that their situation forced them to do what they did, they had no free will.

If people live a certain lifestyle, it is said that they had no choice, they were born that way. Some are said to have known since an early age that they were different.  Some realize much later in life that they actually were born to be different. In any case, the argument is that since they have no free will as to what lifestyle to choose, all choices should be considered equal, since we are all created equal, at least according to our Founding Fathers’ Declaration.

In a sense, all these rationales have some basis.

Humans are perhaps members of the only species that knows that their finite existence will surely end in death. We know, if only instinctively, that life's entropy, the force we battle our whole lives, will finally defeat us. We want to fight this force until the death.

And on one level, everything is predetermined. If there is an all knowing and powerful G-d, then there can be no free will, He already knows what we will do. If we are each infinite or part of the infinite, there is no free choice, everything just is a part of a much larger interdependent pattern. If we are mainly products of our genetic makeup and our early childhood experiences over which which we had no control, then how can we be said to act freely? If we are bound by the structure of our brains which predispose us to different thoughts, feelings and resultant actions, can we be held responsible for our actions?

So should we believe in evolution and free will?

 What choice do we have?

 Our survival is at stake.