GuidoWorld

This is a headline we’ve seen often over the last decade or so. Never mind the interesting word play irony on “dead last” and health care, this is no laughing matter.

On my post entitled Health Care Hullabaloo penned May 28th of this year I quoted reports on the health care bill and offered a little help in reading through the spin. In this post I want to address some of the loose ends left from that post.

This past weekend I read an article which used a version of the above headline and expounded on why we are last in the survey for the countries analyzed. The short answer was we are too expensive for what we actually provide and that we rank last in terms of customer satisfaction. The lack of customer satisfaction basically blew away the myth that US citizens health care is delivered quicker and with higher quality. The reality of the situation is that our waits to receive services are often longer and mistakes regarding medication and procedures lead the world.

In my Health Care Hullabaloo post I noted how insurance companies and hospitals were actually going to fiscally benefit by the proposed health care reform bill. Specifically in the fact that insurance companies were going to be free to raise rates with almost complete freedom. While being told they could not drop a client for a preexisting condition or due to cost, they could just raise a clients premiums to protect their profit margins.

In addition the personal responsibility of having insurance supersedes the responsibility of providing health insurance. What this means is that in the upcoming health care reform citizens not having health insurance will be fined if they do not have health insurance. So, the person who use to be dropped by an insurance company will now face escalating insurance costs and when unable to pay their bills and insurance premiums will then be fined for their inability to keep their insurance.

The official response to this scenario is that the reform bill includes subsidies to help those who cannot afford health insurance. Yet, all this means is that the tax payer through government subsidies will be paying the over inflated health bill costs of those who get economically forced out of their health insurance.

In such a scenario the insurance companies are able to actually inflate their profit margins by passing on costs and responsibility to the tax payer via government subsidies. Thereby allowing wealthy capitalists (insurance companies, pharmaceuticals) to avoid the hardship of social responsibility while at the same time passing on responsibility to the general public.

Yet, despite this win-win situation for those currently milking our health care system for every penny it can get, we will surely hear insurance and pharmaceutical companies bemoan the fact that the inherent socialism embedded in the health care reform are handcuffing them and impeding their ability to provide US citizens with the quality health care they have been accustomed to receiving. Isn’t it amazing that those with the most wealth and power in our society are so often obsessed with convincing us that they are the real victims in a given situation?

The true weakness of not only our health care system but so many other aspects of society is the primacy of profit. When profit is primary, by definition, every thing else is secondary.

The cost of poor health can be very harmful to an economy, the long prolonged costs of cancer as it was dealt with in the 70’s thru the 90’s became highly damaging to profit margins for health insurance companies which probably is what allowed our society to start to take on the tobacco industry. Big Tobacco had to adapt to Big Insurance.

Yet, good health and real cure is bad for profits of health care, insurance and pharmaceutical companies. Profits are maximized when symptoms are controlled but not cured. We need people in almost constant need of interventions, procedures, medications and endless tests. When profit is primary health is something to consume but never quite reach.

Like all industries in an advanced capitalistic society the primary goal is never ending expanding profit and wealth for the industry. In this sense the economic health of insurance and pharmaceutical companies is more essential than the physical and mental health of the American citizenry. In fact there are many aspects of physical health which are in direct conflict with the fiscal health of all industries which make their living on the public’s consumption of health care services and products.

This is not to say that profit is the root of all evil, but any solution offered in today’s world which does not take into consideration the reality of our economic system is at best blind and at worst totally lost and unrealistic.

Jim Guido

The modern dating services are all trying to convince potential customers that they can help people find their ideal mate. A professional service is supposed to match people according to interests, personality type, pleasures and sexual appetite. The thought is that there is a science to the biochemistry of attraction and finding the right mate is a matter of selecting and matching the right variables.

Imagine if you could truly create your ideal mate. If the entire database of your wants, likes and desires were to be matched with another person. Imagine if this ideal mate was malleable enough to instantly respond to your changing moods and almost read your needs and feelings at any given moment. Imagine a mate who was there truly for you, who talked when you wanted to, left you alone when you desired it, and met your every sexual desire almost as soon as you recognized it.

This ideal mate is still a fantasy but the day is coming when it will be a reality. Soon cyborgs and robots will have skin which both pleases and is pleased by our touch. Soon we will have programmable partners who can be as orgasmic as we wish and who are devoted to pleasing us at our beckon call.

The programming possibilities are endless. You could make slight alterations to everything from their physique, eye and skin tone and personality to their accent, hair style and conversation topics on a daily basis. You could even create a little conflict and tension if you find harmonious bliss too boring.

It is hard to imagine a sexual relationship with a normal human being even coming close to the amount of ecstasy and pleasure of a personal cyborg. The potential of physical pleasure and heightened orgasm from a cyborg will definitely out strip anything that a normal human could provide you. Aging processes such as wrinkles, sagging, etc. would be totally optional and reversed or increased with little effort.

Those of you who think that getting cyborgs to have sensual skin is far in the future may be in for a surprise. Forget the competition from artificial reality and cyber space fantasy, the real deal may happen in many of our life times.

Satisfying human sexual relationships housed in matrimony are already an endangered species due to affairs, fantasy, porn, cyber-sex and the like. What chance will it have with artificial reality and erotic cyborgs?

What a cyborg won’t be able to provide until they become autonomous experiencing beings is another sentient beings perspective? They will never truly validate our perceptions or offer different perspectives based on their experiences. They will also not challenge us to grow and develop.

Yet, what percentage of the population has that or even desires that in their sexual mates. Already many people get more pleasure and are more bonded to pets, friends and therapists than their avowed mate.

Without significant changes and improvements occurring in human relationships the truly monogamous relationship will soon become extinct, and only practiced by those who are staying monogamous for the cause rather than for personal happiness and sexual satiation.

I’ve written many blogs on gender issues and the male sex drive in particular and they provide many ideas which could help save human to human relationships as are my posts on intimacy and my book Exploring Intimacy which can be read in the words section of this site. Only a more realistic appreciation of human sexuality and our drive towards intimacy could salvage the primacy of human to human relationships.

Yet, maybe I’m just resisting the inevitable and potentially blocking myself from experiencing life in a fuller and more meaningful fashion. Only time will tell. Yet, in the mean time I will continue to explore and discuss ways in which we can make our lives and relationships more rewarding and meaningful.

Life and human experience is truly amazing, and we have barely scratched the surface of understanding and unfolding our potential and joy.

Jim Guido

Young love has always proven to be a potential tragedy, just ask Romeo and Juliet. Yet, while their tragedy had to do with a lack of communication I fear the current tragedies are often due to over communication.

Frankly, I’m so glad I’m not a young hormone ridden adolescent trying to start up a relationship. I had my first substantial relationship when I was in 7th grade. The relationship lasted about 6 or 7 months, thereby making it a rather successful venture. Yet, the main reason it lasted so long had a lot to do with the sparseness of contact.

Other than eating lunch together we had little opportunity to talk at school. Living in a home with only one land line we spoke on the phone less than an hour a week. Not having any access to a car made it hard to see her at her home or out in public. I would guess that maybe we saw each other a dozen times outside of school over the 6 months.

I seldom go to the malls, but my wife and I try to visit a few times a year just to keep in touch with local pop culture. The last few visits have been dominated by watching little pods of girls huddled together texting each other and guys. After a few minutes they walk and migrate a bit before settling in for another text fest.

In another part of the mall you see little pods of adolescent boys texting girls. In both pods you see kids sharing their texts with their friends. The girls squeal or say “ew” in response to many a shared text a girl receives from a boy, while the boy pods often try to goad each other into sending outrageous texts to a girl or try to dare the girl to send them some bawdy text or pic.

When I look back to my early adolescents I remember a time of intense emotions. It was a time full of awkward moments, when I often felt embarrassed by something I said or did. I remember great anxiety and nervousness when making a first phone call, or trying to push a relationship to the next stage. I also remember moments of intense exhilaration when a girl gave me the impression she wanted to be my girlfriend.

Feeling awkward or undesirable was more common than feeling confident and attractive. When I liked a girl I wanted to spend all my time with her, and I ached when we were apart. In times away from her I would mull over endlessly the next thing I would say to her, or imagine how I would act the next time I saw her.

I tremble when I think of my early adolescents if I would have had today’s immediate forms of communication such as email, cell phone, texts, etc. I can remember so many disasters I avoided by having time to think and prepare my words.

It is very rare that two people enter a relationship with the same amount of investment. I think this disparity is even more pronounced in adolescents. In young love it is common for one person to be infatuated and convinced they are in love and the other be just flattered or curious. In today’s world it is hard for the smitten person not to perpetually stay in close communication with their beloved.

This makes me consider the following question, What is the difference today between dating (courting) and stalking?

Modern technology just increases the likelihood that one person will consistently feel suffocated while the other is feeling rejected or frustrated. The lover will have so many opportunities to electronically court (badger?) their beloved. Their moments of angst and worry will most likely spur them to perpetually text, call and email their beloved. Without enforced time away from their beloved the lover will even more often say and do the wrong thing due to feelings of panic and hormonal desire.

Even for those able to show a little restraint, they may fall prey to the unusual pressure provided by the modern text world I’ve witnessed at the malls. Many of the relationships I had in adolescents were terminated by her “best” friends or her peer group in general. Our relationship could have been going along relatively smoothly but could terminate quite suddenly if one or a few of her friends made fun of me, or considered me uncool.

Most girls would move you into the category of “just friends” when faced with the prospect of having your relationship cause her to be excluded by her friends or lose her status in the group. In the modern text groups it is hard to imagine a boy going very long before one of the girls in her girlfriends entourage going “ew” or “gross” or making some official pronouncement of disgust over what he has texted her.

Heck, my first relationship in 7th grade probably would have lasted less than two days rather than 6 months with that type of scrutiny and pressure to perform.

The post has listed a few of the concerns I have regarding modern technologies impact on the length of young relationships as well as the added pressure it places on people to perpetually perform. Along with this I’ve mentioned the increased likelihood that the ease and pervasiveness of immediate communication will cause the lover to behave like a stalker when wooing the beloved.

Another subject for a later post might be the lack of depth relationships might foster when communication is instant and constant. So much depth and understanding of a relationship is born during times of reflection due to time spent away from your beloved. The majority of my love songs were created during extended periods away from my beloved, when I was allowed an opportunity to savor and appreciate what we had, and time to consider ways on how to improve and hone the beauty of our relationship.

Jim Guido

According to web tracking devices such as Firestats the number of daily visits to this site are increasing at a noticeable rate. I’m always surprised at the number of nations finding an interest in my posts, books and music. I want to thank all of you for taking the time to read my thoughts and perspectives on such a wide range of concepts.

I’m always confused on the exact number of readers I have on any given day because so few nations URL’s are ever listed. So, lets say on a given day my stats show I had 30 visits. If I click on the visits I may find almost all of the hits show up in 3 or 4 nations yet the stats indicate a large percentage of recent visits are coming from a nation that isn’t represented. In fact, often times I find countries such as Germany, China, Italy, Indonesia, India, Israel, Spain and Iran listed as high visitors yet I have never found a single individual URL from any of those nations. Just as a point of interest, additional countries that are frequent visitors to this site are Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, Malaysia, Mexico, Britain and Ghana. If I didn’t mention your nation, well tell your friends so that you can get into my top 10.

Recently I thought it would be fun to Google some key words based on blog titles and subject matter to see if any of my posts were listed. To my amazement I not only found many listed, but a sizable portion were listed in the first few pages. In just 10 minutes of typing in some key words I found about 6 or 7 of my posts ranked number one on Google. I’m not exactly sure what this means, but it definitely makes me feel like I’m being read a bit.

Though the bulk of visits to my site are listed as views of posts a growing number of people are reading my lyrics, listening to the music and reading my books. I really am excited by the prospect of more people getting some exposure to my art.

The number of comments left on posts remains scant which I find disappointing. I love and long for fruitful dialogue. I also yearn for feedback to help me hone some of my ideas and see how my words are being interpreted.

Yet, overall I’m amazed how such a simple site with no bells or whistles run by a complete technological incompetent has attracted an audience.

Let me know if there is anything an old school guy such as myself can do to make this site more attractive and interesting for you.

In the meantime I’ll still be trying to write stimulating and thought provoking stuff on a variety of topics including politics, economics, ecology, philosophy, psychology and popular culture.

Oh, by the way go Italia in the World Cup.

Jim Guido

Probably the most prolific predator in the history of our planet is also the most ignored. This predator is even more amazing in the diversity of what it kills than in its quantity of kill.

This predator kills insects, birds, and many varieties of animal. The list of its prey is almost endless. It kills both crawling and flying insects including worms, caterpillars, crickets, mosquitoes, butterflies, lightning bugs and beetles. Its diet includes snakes, frogs, turtles and lizards. Songbirds and crows can be counted amongst its prey. Rabbits, possum, raccoons, squirrel and even cats and dogs are common. Not to mention fox, deer, moose, groundhogs and even bear which are part of their quarry.

Even other major predators become prey for this able killing machine. Bobcat, cougar, panthers and wolves are not uncommon victims. In the US an astounding 40,000 humans a year are killed by this great predator. The list of victims to this predator could fill volumes.

I guess by now many of you have guessed this incredibly gifted predator, yes it is the motorized vehicle best represented in the car, van and truck. Each day thousands of animals and untold numbers of insects and birds are felled by its endless murderous excursions.

What is most deplorable of this predator is that it doesn’t even eat its prey. While sometimes it kills in order to help its occupants go to work to survive, it often kills in totally unnecessary journeys in its territory or to foreign parts. Many of these excursions are just joy rides, or a desire just to get out and about. The majority of these kills are executed without the slightest bit of remorse by the drivers, or at least little effort is made to reduce the number and distance of these murderous journeys.

Ironically many of the drivers of these vicious vehicles are horrified when they find out that some their friends hunt or fish. Many are incensed when they see someone wearing a fur coat or snake skin boots. Somehow they either totally ignore the majority of the murders they execute while behind the wheel, or they view all there motorized excursions as being necessary.

The destruction to wildlife caused by cars isn’t restricted to its actual time on the roads, but the disturbance caused by preparing roads to be paved is extremely invasive and destructive. The pavement itself alters the ecosystem causing permanent dislocation and death to numerous insects and earth worms. The non-porous pavement causes suffocation and drowning to various life ill-adapted to a concrete covered terrain. The toxic properties of asphalt present their own death warrants for plant and animal life.

Though this predator has only been on the scene for a century its numbers are now in the hundreds of millions if not billions. It is amazing the number of environments and ecosystems that have adapted to the motorized vehicle. The number of natural predators has decreased as the the populace of their prey has been decimated and managed by the burgeoning car population.

At this point in time the total removal of cars and trucks from the globe would have potentially dire consequences. The uncountable number of animals, insects, reptiles and birds spared their execution by a lack of cars would create an unstable environment. The number of remaining natural predators would be insufficient to meet the proliferation of prey. This could result in disease, pestilence, plague etc. as the predator population takes time to raise its numbers sufficient enough to control the population of a number of species throughout the animal kingdom.

So, though it would be nice for us to curtail our murderous ways by reducing our dependency on the automobile, we should do so in a thoughtful manner.

Yet, in the meantime I think it is terribly misguided to view ourselves and our role on the planet as being moral or humane. There is no way to avoid the obvious fact that we are the most reckless and selfish murderers on the planet. The only way to salvage our dignity and humanity is to admit our savageness and quickly find and implement ways for us to be more respectful of life. Hiding behind the “fight for survival” is a callous joke, we neither need to point fingers at nature nor make excuses for our heinous ways.

The choice isn’t between reality and utopia, the reality is we have many options and choices to live life in a more humane and respectful manner.

Jim Guido