Health Care in America: A Layman Reads the Health Care Bill - Part 2

Hello loyal reader(s). We're back with another installment of the Health Care Act reading. In this episode, we will actually begin reading the act. As I mentioned last time, the first part of the legislation ("Subtitle A") is a series of amendments to the Public Health Service Act. Now, I'm no expert, but as far as legislative amendments go, these are pretty exciting. No, seriously.

Considering that I haven't actually read the original text of the Public Health Service Act, I'm not sure what these amended sections originally said (or if they even existed, as opposed to being amendments adding sections to the act). But a quick rundown of the 26 pages of amendments follows:

Amended section 2711 - This section states that there can now be no limits on dollar amounts per beneficiary, and no "unreasonable" annual limits on the dollar value of benefits for an enrollee in a program. There is a caveat - if a plan is not providing "essential benefits" it can have limits on "specific" (though unspecified) covered benefits as permitted by law. Apparently we can see section 1302(b) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (i.e. the new health care bill) for explanation. Presumably we'll get there at some point in this process.


Amended section 2713 - This section discusses coverage requirements on preventive health services. Insurance companies must cover, without cost-sharing, the following:

• 'A' or 'B' rated services according to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force...I don't know what that means;

• immunizations recommended by the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunizations, which seems reasonable to me;

• preventive services for infants, children, and adolescents supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration, which again seems like a reasonable source;

• U.S. Preventive Service Task Force recommendations regarding breast cancer screenings, mammography and prevention, etc.

It is pointed out that this list does not prohibit services other than those recommended by the U.S. Preventive Service Tast Force. So they're just not limiting options, here.


Amended section 2714 - This section is the one I was most familiar with so far. It states that a covered person's dependent will continue to receive coverage until they are 26. This takes place immediately. It's a short section.


Amended section 2715 - This section is about explaining coverage. It's a long section. But I actually really enjoyed reading it because it is so obviously needed for protecting consumers. I'm glad that out of 2000-odd pages, it seems like there's actually some substance to this bill!

The short version is that all insurers will have to issue summaries of their coverage to any enrollees - before they enroll, or any enrollee already in a coverage plan.

The requirements are almost entertainingly specific. For example, all summaries must be 4 pages or less, and cannot contain print smaller than 12 point font. You can almost see those fine-print writing guys throwing their hands up in exasperation on reading that rule. Other highlights - the summaries must be "linguistically and culturally appropriate" to the enrollees, and understandable by the average enrollee; must include definitions - of insurance and medical terms, coverage descriptions that must include cost-sharing descriptions, exceptions, reductions and limitations, deductible/co-pay/co-insurance explanations, renewability, even common examples of coverage scenarios such as pregnancy, chronic conditions, etc. They must also include a clear statement that they are only summaries along with contact info for questions and website listings where the full contract can be found.

The summary has to be delivered within 2 years of passage of the bill (so March 2012) to applicants, enrollees prior to enrollment or reenrollment, and policy holders. They must be available in both electronic and paper format.

Also, insurers are required to communicate plan changes to policy holders at least 60 days prior to effectiveness.

Failure to fulfill any of these requirements will incur a maximum penalty of $1000 per offense. I'm unclear if that means, for example, $1000 per each change that's not communicated, or $1000 per change for each policy holder they fail to contact. I hope it's the latter, but that's just me.

Amended section 2716 - This is another short section. It simply notes that, in group plans, elegibility rules cannot be established that discriminate based on salary. My understanding here is that if your company has a group plan, it can't make elegibility for the really good coverage cost a high dollar amount that will preclude lower level employees from being able to afford it. Elegibility can, however, be based on a percentage of income, so everyone pays, for example, 10% of their income for the better coverage. The goal seems to be that everyone could afford to pay for that coverage, regardless of their wage level. Whether or not they will all decide to do that, when another option could cost only 5% of their income, is up to the employee.


Amended section 2718 - I really like this section, too. Insurers will have to start reporting the percentages of premium income spent on the following 3 categories: 1). Enrollee reimbursement; 2). Quality of health improvement activities for enrollees; 3). all other non-tax expenditures, along with an explanation of those expenditures. These reports will be available for public viewing on the Health and Human Services website.

The next part of the amendment I'm a little shaky on, but I'll do my best. As I understand it, the reports will be used for requiring insurers to grant rebates to enrollees on a pro rata (anyone speak Latin?) basis if they spend more than 20% (for the group market) or 25% (for the individual market) of the premium income on that 3rd group of expenditures. So if your insurer spends 30% of what they take in with premiums on anything other than their policy holders' medical reimbursements or quality of health improvement programs, they have to send you a rebate of some sort.

I think that rocks. I don't personally enjoy the idea of spending nearly 1/2 of my income (according to an NPR report last year, by 2015 Americans will spend about that much on health insurance) on making insurers really really really rich. That's shenanigans.

Along with the rebates, the amendments also require hospitals to publish a list of "standard charges" for items and services provided, so consumers can compare and see what kind of a mark-up they're paying the insurance company (at least, that's what I understand to be the purpose of those lists).


Ok, the last two amendments have to do with consumer education and protection.

First, Amended section 2793 discusses the creation of grants to fund consumer assistance/ombudsman programs to answer questions, explain consumers' rights and responsibilities, and help with consumer appeals to insurance companies within the state exchanges. In case anyone missed it, at some point we learned that there will be private insurance exchanges created in each state (I think it's each one) from which people will be able to buy insurance at a (hopefully) reduced rate, due to competition between insurers. We'll see how that all works out, but right now we're just talking about essentially a consumer hotline and 1-stop-shop to get their insurance questions answered. The federal government will set aside an initial $30 million in grants to establish these facilities. States will have to apply for the grant money for their programs. Each state that qualifies for a grant will get between $1 million and $5 million in grant money.

Amended section 2794 further amends the last section, creating a review process which will require insurers to submit justification for "unreasonable increases" in premiums to the Secretary of the health care administration. The consumer assistance/ombudsman facilities will, in order to get the grant money, also have to engage in collecting info like that from the insurers in their states. That info on premium increases will then be evaluated to determine if an insurer gets to stay in (or gain initial entry to) the exchange program. This amendment also provides for another $250 million in grant money, if necessary, for the assistance offices between 2010 and 2014. Not sure what happens after 2014, but I guess we'll just have to see if there's any more info on that later in the bill. Lord knows there's room for it.

The final section just explains that, unless otherwise specified, all these amendments are effective in September 2010 (6 months after passage of the bill). Sections 1002 and 1003 (these last sections about the assistance and grants) go into effect immediately.

Congratulations! We've completed the first part (Subtitle A, to be specific) of the health care bill! Wasn't that fun? Well, it could have been worse, I suppose. Maybe. Honestly, I'm pretty impressed with it so far. I haven't come across anything that's grossly harmful to the average citizen, and while a lot of this stuff may make it harder for insurance companies to become trillion dollar businesses, that's honestly not a problem for me. I want to pay the insurance company to give me insurance, you know, help, if I need it. And for you to get help, too. Not for them to buy Jaguars. I don't care if they have to drive lame Ford Focuses like the rest of us (seriously, how many of those freaking cars have been sold? It's like 1 out of every 3 cars if a freaking Focus!...sorry, that was random). I'd be interested in any thoughts, questions, challenges to my interpretation that anyone has. Otherwise, I get kinda bored just sitting alone in a room reading health care legislation.

In any case, we'll see you next time, when we begin...wait for it...this is gonna be exciting...Subsection B! Woohoo!

Health Care in America: A Layman Reads the Health Care Bill - Part 1

To begin with, let's be clear on one thing. I am a legislation beginner. I've never read a piece of legislation in my life. I thought it would be fun to start with one of the most complex and polarizing pieces of legislation to come out of congress in about a decade or so. I'm a glutton for punishment, it seems.

Now that that's out of the way, let's get started.

The first thing one notices about the bill is the sheer size of it. I looked at a few different versions of it - mostly formatting changes - online before settling on my final choice, and none of them totaled fewer than 900 pages. Unfortunately, the shortest one I found was formatted so that the text was nearly microscopic, not to mention the margins were smaller, so an already daunting document was now made more so by the fact that each page was simply a wall of text nearly eight inches wide and 10 inches tall. Not nearly as inviting as my final decision - the 2,409 page behemoth. Much better.

After coming to terms with the enormity of the document, it becomes clear that this is more than just a large compilation of words and punctuation - it seems to have been deliberately designed to ward off even the most adventurous readers. This is the equivalent of Sleeping Beauty's castle to her potential suitors. Yep, I went Disney in the second post, and compared myself to a knight, and the Bill to a beautiful sleeping princess. Ok, so the metaphor isn't perfect, but the point remains - legislation is designed not to be read. I'm surely not the first person to realize this, but again, this is my first stab at legislation and I was just quite honestly taken aback by the simple un-readability of the stuff.

It starts with 17 full pages of Table of Contents. Seriously, 17 pages. And as if that wasn't enough, once the TOC is finished, we launch right into what appears to be a series of amendments to an entirely separate piece of legislation - from 1944. Not be alarmed, though, said amendments are for Title XXVII of the Public Health Service Act, which, as I understand, is an act from, again, 1944, which spelled out all legislation related to Public Health Service (if you're really interested, this appears to be a pretty good explanation). And so, the series of amendments tackle issues such as "Lifetime and Annual Limits [on benefits and coverage]," rescission, preventative health services, etc. Nothing to scoff at - just something to confuse the rookie (i.e. me).

After an evening of wading through the first several pages of the bill, I think that's about enough for tonight. To recap - we decided that the bill is enormous and confusing. I feel like a lot was accomplished here. Oh, and it starts out referring to other, previous pieces of legislation. But it only took me about 2 hours to figure that one out, so I feel pretty good about the whole thing. Next time, we'll begin actually reading the bill. It's gonna be great!

Health Care in America: A Layman Reads the Health Care Bill - Introduction

What with all the chaos surrounding the passage of the health care bill into law, I decided it was time to break my long silence on this blog. I will take it upon myself to attempt the seemingly impossible - I will read the entire health care bill. And along the way, I'll blog about it here. And for those of you following along at home, you can read what I'm reading, if you're so inclined, here.

Get ready for some exciting reading - legislative style!

simplicity?

sim-plic-i-ty -noun: freedom from complexity, intricacy, or division into parts.

Here's how my mind works: I see the word and definition above and I think, "Ok, but 'complexity, intricacy, or division into parts' of what? In what way?" You see, there's always more to see, more to define, more to understand, even to better understand what "simplicity" is.

I've spent much of my life thinking about how great it would be to live more simply. But, without even realizing it, I had fallen into that trap of believing that if I just had one more thing, one more year, then I'd finally be able to simplify for real. I adore the romanticized idea of living simply in the country - even more in the country than where I grew up - I'm talking up in the mountains or something, far away from anything, even far away from the basic technologies that I grew up with (which would be laughable from the perspectives I've surrounded myself with lately - living in one of the largest cities in the world, with more technology at my fingertips than I usually know what to do with...literally). And yet, I rationalize: I would probably need some kind of satellite connection so that I could stay apprised of worldwide news and keep in touch with my family; I'd also need a whole new skill set - I'm not too handy in the wilderness, though I'd love to be; I'd also need to have enough cash to sustain myself, right? These needs surely aren't too great, just enough to get by and stay in touch - at least when and how I want to be.

So now we're back to the earlier questions - simplicity in what way? Is it simpler to live away from society and rely on only oneself and one's environment? Is simplicity the smartphone I've got on my desk? It allows me to place calls, check emails, surf the web, send text messages, record "video," take pictures, plan my calendar, and play games - and it fits in my palm! But when I think of simplicity, surely a device like this is nowhere to be found. Indeed, I love the idea of sitting down and hand-writing letters to friends and family. But I seem unable to deny the simplicity of simply sending an email instead.

Inadvertently, I stumble upon the realization that simplicity may in fact be an ideal that exists only in my head. If the very notion becomes an unending trail of question and confusion, requiring thoughful answer after thoughtful answer, is this not the very nature of complexity? And finally, I find myself in a familiar state of awe, once again bowing before the simple complexity of a creative God, who in wisdom unimaginable bestows upon himself the simple and paradoxical name YHWH - I am that I am. And I pray for understanding, even of the most simple.

Profundity is Overrated

I don't write as much as I'd like. Anyone who checks this blog (or has in the past, you know, when there were updates) is aware of as much. Or at least is aware that I don't write much. Well, if you were wondering, I'd like to write more, so I don't write as much as I'd like. I think I may have stumbled upon the reason for that. It appears that I have this misconception that every time I write, it has to be profound and deep. Fortunately for me, I recently came to the conclusion that this is simply untrue. Sure, I'd like to be profound all the time, and I'd love it if everyone thought I was profound all the time. Unfortunately, that would really only work on people who've never met me, and I don't think a lot of them have/will read my blog, and anyone who actually knows me and has real conversations with me will quickly uncover the ruse. So I'm done with that, then. Hopefully, this revelation will inspire me to write more, whether on here or on paper (like in the old days) but either way, it would be nice. So for now, that's all. Just a bit of an 'apostrophe' I recently enjoyed. Thought I'd share.

Also, I'm reading a book about the war of 1812 called "The Invasion of Canada" and let me tell you, we (the U.S.) really jacked that up. Can you imagine how much more lumber we'd have at our disposal if we had just successfully annexed that place almost 200 years ago? Talk about natural resources.

Not sure why I threw that in there, but I did. So deal with it. In case anyone is confused, we did not (yet) annex Canada. But don't worry, there's still time.

Ok, I'm gonna go. In review, profundity is overrated. Most of the time, anyway.

Life, of late

I haven't posted in a few days because it's been pretty busy. So now, I'll just update all (both) you faithful readers as to what's been going on - even though at least one of you was there for most of it. ;)

Recently Amanda and I went to a wedding and then her family came down to meet my family for the first time the following day. It was, all told, a pretty good weekend. Amanda and I had a lot of fun hanging out with my family, as is usually the case. She even learned how to drive a stick-shift after the wedding on Saturday! It was really impressive, she didn't kill it once on the whole way home. I was very impressed.

The wedding we went to was possibly the most awkward wedding we've ever been to (together, at least). There was no specific even that occurred to make it so awkward, it was really more of a state of being. Just not a comfortable atmosphere. Not what I expected out of a couple that's been dating for...let's just say a very long time. Since the wedding, I realized that the reason it felt so awkward was really just that it was a wedding involving normal people. By that I mean that they are part of the vast majority of people who are not, in fact, terribly comfortable in front of large groups of people. Or at least, they do not with their presence put groups at ease. This led me to the realization that I have a very strange group of close friends. By and large, my friends to whose weddings I've been invited have been very socially skilled people. A lot of my friends spend time in front of large groups on a consistent basis - either as teachers, preachers, musicians, or through the course of other more random things. Anyway, all that to say that my friends are the strange ones, and anyone who is less comfortable with these things is, I suppose, way more normal. But it just is more entertaining for the audience when the main focus is a couple who thrives in the spotlight, no offense to anyone who does not.

In other news, this week is being pretty insane at work. I started training at a new position - basically the same thing I was doing, managing a copy/mail/general service center at a law firm - but now it's exceptionally larger. I went from a firm of 13 attorneys to 60 (plus several more in the coming days and weeks) and from a staff (under my employ) of 2 to a staff of 6. That change alone would be enough, but on top of it, during my one week of shadowing the current manager and training on the position, we've got a huge in-house move to prepare for the incoming attorneys. That means that I'll be staying late, potentially several hours late, on Wednesday night, and then heading back to work at the normal 8 AM on Thursday, which may or may not also be a late night (though not as late). I've gotta be honest, I'm not exactly looking forward to all that, but such is life, I suppose.

So now that we're all caught up on my exciting life like it's something worth being caught up on, I'm going to go ahead and call it a night. Thanks for reading, and sorry it was so boring.

What's your theological worldview?

You scored as a Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan

You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God's grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists.
Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan
79%
Reformed Evangelical
71%
Emergent/Postmodern
68%
Neo orthodox
61%
Fundamentalist
61%
Roman Catholic
43%
Classical Liberal
39%
Charismatic/Pentecostal
36%
Modern Liberal
29%

Understanding Obedience

Another post on N.T. Wright's book about Paul. I have a feeling these will become commonplace before this book is over. I suppose that's not such a bad thing, I'm just gonna roll with it either way.

I'm not sure exactly where it was that Wright talked about this, but it was somewhere in the 2nd or 3rd chapters, I think. In any case, I feel like God slapped me across the face with an understanding of the Cross and Obedience that maybe should have been obvious a long time ago. In his discussion of Paul's understanding of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ - specifically from the perspective of a 1st century Roman-Jew - Wright went into some detail about the fulfillment of the prophecies to Abraham, Paul's inherent understanding of those (as well as other prophecies about the coming Messiah), and how these things would have been naturally internalized by a man like Paul.

Somewhere in this detail, I finally came to understand the part in Romans where Paul says that Christ was the fulfillment of the law and, if you will, the counterpart-man to Adam. Where Adam's sin was disobedience to God - the eating of the fruit - which resulted in Sin's great entrance into the world, Christ's sacrifice was a great obedience to God whereby sin is defeated for all who accept the gift. Sounds great, but that's about where it always ended for me before. Then I realized (again, I'm not sure exactly what it was that tipped me off) what the operative word here is - I italicized it, in case you missed that.

So obedience is what was most vividly displayed on the Cross - humility, yes; love, yes; sacrifice, yes; but all of those things were borne out of the unspeakable obedience of Christ.

I look at it this way: Adam could have eaten anything in the garden except that food. Why that food? Could God have made that food without whatever special properties it had? Absolutely. Could God have given the special properties to something else - maybe a certain part of the garden to which Adam was debarred from entering, or a body of water he was to avoid. The fruit and it's nature as food is not what's important here. What's important is that he was given a command from God - any command would have done! - and he disobeyed.

Now look at Christ. He was God and man at once. He had all power and authority in heaven and earth at his disposal (and we see examples of that, calming the storm, miraculous healings, even bringing people back from death!) and he allows himself to be treated the way he was. And let's be clear about something else here. Wright goes into detail also about the horror of crucifixion. This was not just execution. The act was so heinous, so despicable that respectable Romans avoided it in polite conversation. I can't even think of a modern equivalent (maybe that speaks to our depravity and exceptional debasement...but that's another post), but the point is, this was horrible, in the most painful sense of the word. And Christ did it - and the reasoning behind his doing it was to obey his Father in heaven.

I think this is what Paul's saying when he says that any "good" done without God is not good (I'm paraphrasing, obviously). If God wants the glory for anything we do - and if we do good things in His name, not ours - then how could we do them for any reason other than simple obedience? It suddenly strikes me that if I give out an amount of money every week or month, and that amount of money is a sacrifice for me (because I believe that just giving 10% is not what's important, what's important is not the amount, but that the giving is sacrificial, whether more or less than 10%), but I don't do it to be obedient to God, then it doesn't matter. If I tell someone I love them and give them food or money or my time, but I do it because it makes me feel good about myself or because I feel guilty, then it doesn't matter! I am convinced that the only justifiable reason for any such action is in order to obey the dictates of God. Otherwise how can I say that I do it for God? If obedience is not the basis for my action, then how can I honestly say it's not because I feel better after? Christ's sacrifice was incredible, and painful, and loving, but it was most of all - and, I would argue, most of those things simply because it was - obedient. Maybe I'm wrong here, but I cannot shake this new belief that love is not love for God if it is not borne out of obedience, sacrifice is not sacrifice for God if it is not borne out of obedience.

I'll end with this thought. If nothing I can possibly do, or say, or think, or feel can be worthy of my God on its own - and it can't, how could anything I do be worthy of the God who created me?! - then it follows, doesn't it, that only my vivid, simple, sincere obedience to God would be of worth to Him? Any amount of money I give, any amount of time I give, any amount of love I give is absolutely pathetic in comparison to Christ's sacrifice, and is of absolutely no worth in comparison to His Love - what He requires instead is constant, life-changing obedience. Nothing less, and simply, nothing more - because anything I could do should flow out of obedience to God's commands. And that's my epiphany for today.

What Gospel?

Toward the end of last week, I started reading a book by N.T. Wright called What St. Paul Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? Now, I've heard a lot about N.T. Wright and I've read some excerpts before, but I've never actually sat down with one of his books myself. I have to say, I'm pretty impressed thus far. Aside from what seems an absurdity of giving a book with this title a slim 183 pages, it's packed with dense reading (plus, Wright's way smarter than I am, so I suppose I should give him the benefit of the doubt here). And it's not a scholarly work, nor is it entirely pop literature, so you sort of have the choice between making it more or less scholarly depending on what level of focus, thought, and intensity you want to give his writing.

As I'm only about 60 pages in, I can't comment on the entire work just yet, but at this stage, I'd suggest it to any of my friends, no questions. The thing that struck me most, though, was a discussion of what the word "gospel" might have meant to Paul. Wright does an incredible job of flushing out, in each of his subjects so far, the relevant sides of the relevant debates, their merits and shortcomings, and, finally, why he disagrees with both sides and chooses a third side (usually, anyway). He has an incredible grasp on the historical situation in which Paul lived, both secularly and religiously, which anyone must agree is fundamentally important in any discussion of a historical person, place, or event.

The conclusion that shocked me started by raising this question: what does it mean to say "the gospel of Christ?" The question itself shocked me because I realized that I don't have an answer to that myself. I could ramble about it for a while, but I don't think I would get anywhere substantial. He then traced a number of reasons to conclude that for Paul, the "gospel" is not any set of issues relevant in the Church today, it's not singularly about wealth or sexual orientation or giving or saving or teaching or speaking or sharing - it's about being a herald for the King. The word (in Greek) references the style of heralding the Emperor of Rome, of announcing his presence or his ascendency. This is what Paul lays out in Romans, according to Wright, as the definition of the gospel of Christ.

The most poignant part of the explanation, to me, is how Wright points out that by the very annunciation of the presence of the Lord of all the World, of the victory of Christ over death and His subsequent ascent to the Throne of Dominion over sin in the world, people are saved - salvation is the subsequence of this announcement, not the reverse! People aren't saved only to later discover Jesus' victory! If there is no victory, if there is no fulfillment of the prophecies naming Christ as Lord of all the world (as opposed to just ruler of Israel), then there would be no salvation. Bearing this in mind, Wright paraphrases Paul's mimicry of the Roman emperor's herald as saying: "When the herald makes a royal proclamation he says 'Nero (or whomever) has become emperor.' He does not say 'If you'd like to have an experience of living under an emperor, you might care to try Nero.' The proclamation is an authoritative summons to obedience - in Paul's case, to what he calls 'the obedience of faith.'"

This just floored me. The reality is that we are not living under a King who's content to let us choose whether or not He exists and is King. He has become King through the ultimate act of obedience and sacrifice - this is not a passive ascendency! He has violently laid claim to the throne of utter world domination and whether or not we decide to accept his legitimacy and his presence, it exists, and it exersizes judgement over the world. It's a pretty big deal.

Needless to say, it was a pretty intense ride to work this morning, reading this and having a series of little epiphanies. Hopefully, in my attempt to paraphrase the discussion in the book, I didn't commit too many heresies. If you spot one, let me know, I would like to not blaspheme - at least not on accident - if at all possible!

A Whole New Level of Disgust

Look at this, and discover a whole new definition of disgust, and a whole new level of vanity. And be sad with me. Misery does, in fact, love company.

And just so this post, being only my second, is more than two lines long, I think I'll go ahead and come up with something to say.

I was listening to a new album the other day and I thought it was really good. In fact, I still do. So I started telling people about it. It's a local band (but not local to me, so that's weird) and they're basically just a bunch of guys with no money who love doing music. But when I mentioned how good I thought the music was to one friend, his response was, "yeah, it's ok. I thought the vocals were too far up front and the music wasn't mixed right." I just don't understand. If you're Coldplay and you're putting out an album on the dime of a multi-million (or billion?) dollar record label, and you're working with some of the greatest sound engineers you can find, then sure, you expect perfection. But if you're a local band who scratches up the money to put together an album to sell at your shows, trying to get your name out there and just getting started, then is it really necessary to require that your album sounds like it was done by a legend?

This, to me, seems like the equivalent of looking at a car to buy and then deciding not to because, even though it's an extremely well made car, reliable and safe, with great mileage and at a decent price, but the lighting in the showroom was bad, and the salesman really needed to brush his teeth. Hmmm. Maybe I'm just not a truly devoted audiophile. Or maybe I just prefer to listen to good music roughly mastered than shitty pop music* gloriously mastered at the best studio money can buy.

Sorry this post is kind of a downer, but I think there's only one person (other than me) reading this, so I suppose it's not a huge deal. ;) So there we go, a little peak into the rantings of Joe.

*this phrase does not apply to Coldplay

insert pithy title here

It's been a big day. It's 8:43 AM and it's been a big day. Not a lot of times in my life I've been able to say that.

I decided today (well, today and last night) to become a morning person. To do a lot of things I've wanted to do for a while, really. There's this guy in my head that I imagine myself to be, and he's really not all that unattainable, but he's not really who I am. I decided that it's about time to go ahead and see just how attainable he is. One of the things he does is get up early and get things done, rather than rush around for 25 minutes and just barely make the train.

He shaves more often, too, but I think that one's more flexible.

I call this "musings from across the pond" but obviously, I'm not in York. I've not been in York for quite a while, actually. Roughly two years ago this time, I was finishing up my school work in the UK and trying to soak up as much of England and it's wonderful people as I possibly could. And it's taken me this long to start writing again for some reason. In any case, I'm back, and I think the title will stick around, too. I like it. It reminds me of a good time in my life (not that this time is necessarily bad) and, cliche as it is, a simpler time. I spent a lot of my time over there thinking, reading, playing Zelda, eating rice, drinking really good beer, and enjoying people. I also got pretty decent at frisbee (and double-bee, more importantly), but that's mostly gone, and I really need to get good at it again. But one of the things England taught me was how to be an alien. And how to enjoy it, to relish in the joy of difference. To love not belonging, not entirely, anyway. Cause, I'm not English. I know, it surprised me too. But it's true. So now matter how comfortable I got there, no matter how much it felt good to be there, and even natural, it wasn't natural to everybody. People I didn't know saw me as different, as an outsider. And it was kind of nice, to be honest. I've never really been a true outsider before. And more importantly, I believe that I am an outsider here, or I should be. My faith tells me that I'm an alien, and the more I come to realize my faith, and accept what it teaches me and try to embody it (let me tell you, that guy in my head rocks his principles like no other...it's impressive, trust me) I realize that to do that, I must be alien. I cannot conform. It doesn't work.

That was quite an epiphany for me when I realized it, and then I started thinking about York and then I started thinking about this blog and then I thought, well given this new reality, I suppose I may as well be musing from across a pond, whether that big Atlantic one or not. So the title remains.

Who writes this big of a post (with that big of a paragraph?) about a title? Me. If you're reading this, still, you should probably get used to that kind of thing. I'm sure it'll be commonplace.

So that's it, that's my first post in this new part of my journey. Hopefully it won't be my last, and hopefully it'll soon be joined by others. We'll have to wait and see, eh? In any case, it has begun. Feel free to join me if you want, though I'm not going to promise excitement...or even good writing. Just thoughts. I'll be here if you want to stop by. Enjoy yourself.

AMERICA

I'm back in the States!!!!!!!

Mom came to York on the 28th and then we went to London on the 30th and hung out there for a while and came home on Wednesday. London was a good time and mom had fun, which was good, but it was crazy hot the whole time we were there. It was in the 90s for most of the week, which of course made the front page of all the papers. Lucky us. The flight home was good - pretty uneventful, thankfully. We pulled into O'hare at around 3:30 on Wednesday afternoon and went and got some good American style pizza and equally importantly cold drinks (the English aren't terribly worried about making sure their beer/pop/anything else anyone could drink is cold). So that was a good time. Now I'm just working on getting the next few months of my life figured out and making sure I can take this last freaking class up in Chicago in the fall. Hopefully it'll all work out alright and then things will be happy. That's about all I got right now, and I need to go replace the fuel filter on my car. Man it's good to be back in the States. :/

huh...

I was just sitting here thinking. I like to read good writing, a lot. I have some friends on this thing that are really good writers, they have the ability to utterly pull you into their words and make you feel like you're with them, like you're experiencing what they're saying. I've always appreciated good writing, I think I just never really put a lot of effort into finding it and reading it - partly because I couldn't even keep up with my school reading, but still. Not that the stuff I've read before was bad writing, I just feel like I've missed out on a lot of good writing because I've been too lazy to do a lot of reading. Last week I read F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and now I'm almost done with Appolonius' Jason and the Golden Fleece. It seems like England has, if nothing else (and trust me, there's some things 'else'), led me to seek out and get through good literature. Strange that none of it thus far has been English, but whatever. That's just a thought I had this morning. Oh, by the way, I might not get to go to Ireland. That sucks. Gotta go now.

(see previous post for title)

So there I was, walking through town past some charity shops (that's what they call clothing re-sale shops) and as I look in the window, what do I see? Normally after a sentence like that, a person would just go right ahead and tell you what he saw, but not me. I want more than that from you. I want you to take a minute or so and think of all the outrageously absurd things that one could see in a charity clothing shop window. And don't think stupid things like, I dunno, trees. Obviously there won't be trees in there, it's a clothing shop. Come on, work with me here. Ok? Ok. Now, here we go, I'll give ya a minute........................and stop. Got any good ones? Like, I dunno, a hat with antlers on it? Or a U.S. uniform from the Revolutionary War? That would be entertaining, good thought. But no, it was neither of those. It was, in fact, an Arizona FFA jacket!! Let me say that again, cause I'm sure some of you in the back didn't hear me. It was, in a charity clothing store in York, England, an Arizona FFA jacket (boy, after you type arizona once or twice it really starts to look strange). How freaking outrageous is that? What's it doing here? How did it get here? And why where they charging 35 pounds for it? Who is going to want that, if they aren't in the FFA? I mean come on, it's a royal blue cord jacket with tons of gold embroydery on it, someone else's name, and a giant bright gold FFA symbol on the back (consisting of plow, owl, rising sun and of course, corn, for those of you who don't know.) Actually, that parenthetical reminded me, let me just take this time to address those of you silly enough not to know what FFA is. You all are silly. There, you've been addressed. Ok, actually it's a huge youth organization centered around the agricultural industry. It's massive, and given that the ag (that's what those of us in 'the know' call agriculture, try to keep up ;)) industry is the largest employer in the country, that affects a lot of people. Go to ffa.org if you want to know more. And don't kid yourself, you do. Yeah, so anyway, that's my stream-of-consciousness post for now. An FFA jacket in York. Absolutely fantastic. Aight, peace.

NO FREAKING WAY

JOHN C. MCGINLEY A.K.A. DR. COX IS IN THE ROCK!!!!!!! That's right, we were watching the Rock the other day (it was a great day) and when it started I was like, wait a minute, I know that name, no way, he's not in that. And then, he was! This pushes The Rock over the edge into a new realm of wonder. Not only is it the greatest action film ever made, it must now have surpassed even the possibility of being challenged. Sweet. That's all.

philosophy and footie

Man, it's been a while since I've done anything on there, sorry about that. I'm just generally lazy, but you all know me, so that's no surprise. Things have been going pretty well here, time is going really fast, which I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, I can't wait to get home. I feel like I'm in a period of my life where I am just treading water and not really moving forward, but only in some respects. Even though I'm not working or moving to Chicago right now or anything like that, I am definitely making progress in other ways. The things I'm reading for class are all about the philosophy of history, which sounds like it would be boring, but I'm kinda into boring things, so it's cool for me. It really makes me rethink the way I think about history and how how I view the importance or lack thereof in it. Stuff like that. The casual reality of my life here (no job, no car, no cell phone, it's a very different world for me) allows me to do a lot more thinking about things like this than I would do at home, I think. So that's definitely a good thing, and I'm enjoying it a lot. Plus, my friends here are fantastic and we have a great time, so they tend to curtail my anxiety to get home. But at the same time, I miss all my friends back home, I miss being able to see my family almost any time I really want to, if I just make the effort. I want to be working, finishing school, moving on with what Western society touts as "real life," if you'll excuse the absurdity of the statement. It's weird to try to articulate what exactly it is that I want to move on with, because it is so clear that the things that I'm thinking about here are so great a part of what life really is. So there I am, and it's a strange place to be.

When I haven't been thinking/reading about the history of philosophy, I've been working on getting my computer back up and running so I don't have to keep hiking over to this freaking computer lab every time I want to check an email. It's coming along slowly, and hopefully in the next week or two will be taken care of. Cross your fingers. Also, me and the guys are getting a lot better with the frisbee. I'm told there's an outdoor basketball court nearby, so if we can find a ball I'll work on schooling England in yet another aspect of what makes America great. :) And if I lose, you'll never hear about it, heh heh. It's looking like a couple of us are going to try to get to Ireland around the second weekend of June. I'm excited about that, even if we'll probably only get to see Dublin and nothing else. It'll still be sweet, plus the Guiness brewery is there. Hooray!

Yeah, so that's about all that's going on here. The 'footie' (football) (soccer) is starting up around here, so it looks like that's going to consume most of our Saturday afternoons from now on. I'll see if I can't pick up some idea of what the heck is going on, and maybe I can try to explain the peoples' fascination with sports that involve neither throwing nor catching with the hands. Don't hold your breath, though. Aight, I'd better go so I can meet the guys before the match starts!

Aight, well, I tried this the other day and it didn't work, but maybe it will go better this time. So I am back in York and had my one exam yesterday. It went alright, no big surprises, really. Now that that's over, I decided that today would be the day that I would shave my beard that's been growing for four months and cut my hair, which also hasn't been touched as long as I've been here. It's been a big day. And, I'm really excited that things like that constitute big days lately. That's fun. The computer's still jacked up, so I'm not sure how soon that'll all get figured out. Hopefully soon.

Traveling was fun, and hopefully I'll get around to chronicling (?) the whole thing at some point, though I'm not sure if I'll put that up here or not, since I have already got several posts up here from that whole time. We'll see. After Brugge I made it back to England in one day, succeeding in making it to three countries in one day, which was fun. I got to London at a decent time and met up with Andy and Colleen. I hung out there for a couple days, then went to Windsor to see my friend Dan and the castle, which was closed because the queen was there, which totally pissed off all of the locals that I met, all of whom went on a big rant about how I had traveled from the U.S. just to see the freakin' castle and she goes and closes it. I mean how many rooms does she need at one time? The nerve. But the outside was cool. Then I came back to London and stayed there for Easter and then went to Scotland on the following Tuesday, met up with my friend Lindsey and crashed at her parents' place and then proceeded up to Fort William in the Highlands, actually at the base of the tallest peak in Britain. That was cool and beautiful, even if I failed to find the really cool sounding waterfall on this river that runs out of the mountains - possibly because I didn't start walking along the river until almost 6:00 in the evening, though I still walked for a solid hour and forty-five minutes one-way, which I think should be more than far enough to find a freakin' waterfall. Any waterfall worth seeing should put itself within an hour and forty-five minutes of anyone who wants to see it, that's what I say. Anyway, then I was back in York on Friday, did some studying then and on Saturday, too, and finally got to move into my room again on Sunday afternoon. Joy. Since then not much has happened, just studying and hanging out in the flat. It's nice to see all the crazy people again and it's nice to have a home again. I don't know if any of ya'll have ever been homeless for any extended period of time, but the 5 weeks that I was without a real place to call home was enough for me. That's just a stinking awkward feeling right there. So that's the story thus far. Assuming the computer works at some point, I'll have pictures up and that will be cool, including the ones from today chronicling the various stages of me aquiring a face again. They're interesting. Aight, that's all I got right now. Peace ya'll.

ten

Aight folks, so I've only got 10 minutes or so right now. I thought I would have more but just getting this site to come up took about 5, which is kinda annoying but whatever. I just thought it would be nice to have a more in-depth update some time.

So I got here yesterday and there was only one person in the room, this Canadian girl named Sherry. We introduced ourselves and she was nice enough. I went out and saw some stuff, came back and she was in the bar at the hostel so we talked for a few minutes and then I got some dinner, read some, did some emailing and went to bed. Then today I went out again during the day and came back in the afternoon and now there was another girl, this one from Australia, talking to Sherry. We all sat and talked for a while, found out the new girl's name is Megan (pronounced Aussie-style, Meegan) and the all of a sudden the whole room filled up. So after a while we were all hungry and Megan knew about this place that had take-out pasta for like, 2.70! We went there, then got a belgian waffle and came back and now we are up to like, 8 people. It's crazy! And they're all so nice. It turns out that traveling alone has its own perks, like getting to know a ton of Aussies and Canadians (everyone in my room is either an Aussie or a Canadian except one other girl from Alaska - may as well be canadian!). But all in all it's a good time and I'm having a lot of fun with my new friends. Hooray for people traveling alone and in need of making new friends, just like me.

It's looking like the London-with-the-Keltners thing is going to work out alright, which will give me a day or two to plan for the Windsor-with-Dan and the Scottish Highlands trip. Good times. The European leg of traveling was a really good time, and I think Germany was the best part, but Brugges is fun too. It's a small town and has a cool atomosphere, even if it's just because it's made for tourists. It kinda reminds me or York and Munich, both of which have a very laid-back atmosphere and are really good for walking around. Ok, so now I only have a few minutes left so I'm gonna have to cut this short. So much for an in-depth update. But at least I got to put something up about today, and something more substantial than one paragraph. Aight, peace.

singularity

Aight, so I don't have a lot of time, but I wanted to put something up quick because, hooray, the hostel I'm in right now has American keyboards, which it turns out is one of the most exciting things a hostel can do for me, score. I'm in Bruges right now, the first city I'm doing on my own. After this I'm heading to London to crash with Andy and Colleen (hopefully) for a couple days, then with my friend Dan from York Uni at his place in Windsor, then probably up to Scotland to see the highlands. We spent some time in Paris which was alright, but generally overated, I think. The Louvre is cool and just massive. The Eifel Tower is really big and awfully ugly. Honestly, I'm not sure I see the romance of that one. Notre Dame is big, but not as big as the York Minster, and at this point I pretty much am not impressed with giant churches - they just kinda make me sad/angry. We saw Versaille, which was cool, but tours of palaces only show you the same 8 or 10 rooms of every palace, so it all kinda seems the same each time. Ok, this post is annoying me already because I'm so unimpressed with what really is pretty cool. So I'm gonna stop I think. In general, things are going really well and I'm having a good time. So there's your update. It's not as bad as the previous few lines made it sound, I'm just a cynic. :) Peace.

Germany, Part 2

So we're back in Germany now. We left Prague today at around 5:30, but only after we got to the station about 40 minutes early and then realized 30 minutes before our train left that we were at the WRONG train station. That was fun. Fortunately for us, we're getting really good at "mobilizing" as Emily put it later on the train, so we still made it. In fact, after we ran through two train stations carrying all our stuff, we ended up getting to the platform before the train! That was more annoying than it seems like it should be. Anyway, I haven't got a ton of time, so I'll make this short. We're in Berlin until Thursday and then we go to Paris. Yeah, I know, but it just seems like you should go to Paris if you're in Europe. Hopefully I'll make it through the situation. Ok, I gotta go before I run out of time. Just thought I'd try to update quick.