Not a right, but right

Let's all take a moment and forget the politics of healthcare. Forget how you're registered to vote, what channel you get your news from, and what you think of the president and Congress. Take a breath. Now ask yourself this question: is it a moral imperative to reform healthcare so that those unable to attain coverage are able to do so?

The answer, clearly, is yes. That isn't to say I support the idea of a single-payer system (I don't) or a public option (I don't, at least not as it is currently defined). It means I agree with Obama and others when they say that this is a moral issue, not just an economic or political one.

We forget -- while thinking about big government and small government, about political parties and numbers of votes, about the sheer political gravity of this issue -- that lawmaking is sometimes about right and wrong. Democrats forget because they feel powerful. Republicans forget because they feel weak. As parts of either a significant majority or minority, most have retreated into political comfort zones. There are exceptions, of course.

If we all stopped for a minute and agreed on this much I think we would be much closer to finding the solution. If we viewed the issue through a lens of right and wrong, with the idea in mind that this matters, could we put parties and allegiances out of mind for a while? That might not jibe with the kind of people drawn to politics. I don't know.

Roger Ebert, whose writing I love but whose politics I don't care for, said something similar last week, though from it he drew a conclusion I disagree with. In paraphrase, it went something like this: if healthcare reform is morally right, then the public-option plan is morally right. This is too easy, too political. If healthcare reform is a moral imperative, we need to do better than that.

This might be the first of multiple posts on healthcare. If it is, I'll get into what shape I believe reform should take later on. Maybe that will happen in the comments. I hope it does, because this post is a better starting point for debate than one involving specifics.

TWE: Money Clips

Men don’t (or shouldn’t) carry purses, and as such must choose from only pocket-sized vessels in which to carry their money. Which pocket to carry money in is also a concern – if you wear a jacket regularly you are blessed with many pockets from which to choose – but this post addresses my taste in money-carrying devices. I prefer a money clip.

Wallets are fine. There’s nothing wrong with a wallet (unless you shove it in the back pocket of your slacks, ruining the slacks and making you look dumb). But a money clip says some things about the man who carries it. And they’re all good things. A money clip draws attention because it’s distinguished; a wallet is ordinary. A money clip says you’re a man with nothing to hide; a wallet is a mystery.

Practical benefits of the money clip include:

1. It forces you to minimalize. Your Costco card that you use three times a year, your video rental membership card, and receipts from your last seven visits to Taco Bell don’t need to be in your wallet, but they probably are. They just can’t fit in a clip. How much does one person need? A few folded bills, an ID, a credit card or two. That’s about it. For special circumstances (like a trip to Costco) think ahead and grab what you need.
2. It necessitates the carrying of cash. Understandably, use of cash is in decline, but we all know how annoying it is to wait behind someone in line while they pay for their $1.85 cup of coffee with a credit card, or to have to buy your buddy lunch because he didn’t think to bring cash to the burrito stand. Don’t be that person.
3. It’s just less to carry. Enough said.

I wish I was awesome enough to regularly use a money clip. My bulky wallet will probably give me back pain later in life. Men, give the clip a try. Too much stuff to carry? Get rid of some. Or ask a woman to put it in her purse.

The Weekly Endorsement: The Summer Movie Season

I love the first week in May. At other times of the year, movies are divisive. But come May everyone agrees on why we go to the movies: it's damn fun. Critics sometimes try to maintain some kind of artistic standard, but more often than not they say stuff like, "It's the kind of blockbuster that makes you happy movies exist" (Katey Rich). Other seasons isolate certain demographics, but summer is for everyone!

Summer's also the best time to see art and entertainment come together and blow our minds. Some people say you have to sacrifice one or the other, but summer respectfully disagrees. For example, content aside, Star Trek is an interesting piece of art simply for daring to take on and revamp an established cultural phenomenon. For the same reason, it's an interesting piece of commercialism. And it's probably awesome to watch, too.

Another reason: everyone pays attention to box office figures. If you're a big nerd you pay attention the whole year, but everyone seems to care more in the summer.

For being all-around awesome, the summer movie season earns my weekly endorsement.

Introducing a new feature

When I started this blog, writing only opinion pieces seemed like a good idea. It was somewhat original, set my blog apart from those of my peers, and expressed part of my personality in its very concept. Additionally, I enjoy having a blog that is clear in its purpose and direction.

The problem: it is hard to keep up with a blog when so much effort is required for an entry. As it stands, in order to pull off a successful post, I need to develop a strong opinion about something, remember I have a blog where I can write about it, have the time to write about it, and write something that I like enough to post. Apathy, laziness, and forgetfulness all stand in the way of frequent posting, which is why (as you may have noticed) I manage to only crank out about one entry a month.

To correct this, I have developed a new feature for my blog which breaks from the letter of its original intent but, I believe, stays true to the spirit: The Weekly Endorsement. This will be, well, an endorsement of anything that I find cool, believe in, or for any reason want to give my seal of approval to. It could be a philosophy or political ideology, a product or service, a person, a way of life. Anything, really, and it will come on a weekly basis.

The Weekly Endorsement will not replace opinion pieces, which I'll still post when I can, but it will force me to post more frequently and might lead to more blog features in the future.

The first endorsement is lighthearted, but gives you an idea of what I'm going for. So without further delay...

The Weekly Endorsement: Charmin Ultra Soft

I believe in spending responsibly, but there are certain things that are just not worth compromising on. Underwear, for example. Coffee for another. When it comes to toilet paper, saving a buck or two is just not worth having to clean yourself with anything but the best in sanitary technology.

Besides the obvious physical comfort of a softer, plusher line of TP, Charmin Ultra Soft (not Ultra Strong -- that is a completely different animal) offers other benefits. Firstly, you don't have to change the roll as often; the grocery store brand is cheap, but the rolls come with about half the actual paper on them. Secondly, guests in your home will never think of you as cheap. Finally, waste is eliminated; I firmly believe that I use less toilet paper in terms of mass because a square or two of the good stuff is significantly more effective than 10 of the cheap kind. This also cuts down on toilet clogs.

This final point is especially important because it leads me to believe that an investment in more expensive toilet paper actually saves me money. Initially, it costs a few extra bucks, but it lasts way, way, way longer than a package of generic. Your best bet? Buy in bulk at Costco and reap the physical and financial rewards every day.

A lost art

I write opinions because I like to and because it’s a challenge for me to take the thoughts in my brain and put them on paper (so to speak) in an ordered, reasonable fashion. If the end result is a coherent argument I’ve succeeded – if not, I’ve failed. What I mean to say here is that I write opinions not because of a burning desire to let all three of you who read my blog know what I think about stuff, but because it’s a good way to work on skills that I think are valuable. The debate that hopefully follows is an added bonus.

I was commiserating with a friend (one of the aforementioned three readers) the other day about how we often offend friends by turning everything into an argument. We like debate for the sake of debate, and find it hard to understand why everyone isn’t just like us. I can see how annoying we must be to other people, but I have the hardest time letting someone’s opinion just hang out in the air without asking, “Why do you think that?” Especially if it seems ungrounded to me. (Side note: be flattered if I ask you to defend yourself. It means I think I can learn from you.)

From what I’m told, debate was a skill that used to be valued. I wonder how long ago I wouldn’t have had to risk eye rolls for expecting someone to have reasons why they believed something.

It seems like opinions are too easy to come by these days. I’m allowed to pick one up and call it my own because the New York Times prints it, or because my friends say it. As an example (just an example, I’m not getting political here), everyone I met in Europe preferred Barack Obama for president and went out of their way to tell me so, but I only met one person who, when questioned, could tell me why. Their culture allowed them to have a shallow opinion.

I call this “opinion inflation,” and I think it’s ruining our ability to think for ourselves. Never having to answer the question “why?” means I’m free to think or say anything, without having to take the initiative to examine evidence for myself. It means I can pretty much expect not to be challenged.

Opinion inflation is but a symptom of the larger disease: a fear of conflict, even the healthy kind. But that is another discussion for another day. For now, be confident enough to not accept everything you hear. Be willing to say, “I don’t know” when you don’t know. Ask why and expect to be asked why in return. We’ll all be better off for it.

Why approval ratings are dumb

The Wall Street Journal ran an opinion article last week on Obama's falling approval rating. The article was based on recent news that "polling data show[s] that Mr. Obama's approval rating is dropping and is below where George W. Bush was in an analogous period in 2001." That was the general sound bite from conservatives everywhere, who seem to want to latch on to any news that this presidency is already a failure.

I’m not Obama’s biggest fan, but I’m insulted for him that the public thinks his job – which involves so many moral complexities, heavy stresses, and general gray areas – can be summed up by a simple thumbs up or thumbs down. Like many things, we are insisting on measuring something very gray in terms of black and white. Most people are happy with that; the idea that US politics are all about two opposite, warring factions makes it kind of fun. The truth that most of us can’t align neatly with one camp or the other isn’t quite as sexy. Maybe that’s why politicians who aren’t heavily partisan are rare.

I guess it bothers me that people put so much stock in approval ratings. A number doesn’t reflect on the kind of job a president is doing, because we don’t really understand the president’s job. We understand what he does in public, and what the constitution says he can do, but day-to-day we just don’t know all the information he sees and the choices he makes, and we aren’t entitled to that information. Discretion is part of the job description, which means a president can’t hope to please everyone. It also means that when we approve or disapprove we’re making an uninformed decision.

Republicans should stop drooling over this data, because the truth is that history tends to remember presidents very differently from how they’re seen during their time in office. I’ve lived through just enough administrations to know that. It’s too early to tell how Obama or W. will be remembered (but God knows that hasn’t stopped anyone from trying). History is just now figuring out what it thinks of Clinton’s presidency.

History doesn’t get caught up in hate-Bush hysteria, nor does it hail Obama as the second coming of Christ. Hopefully, in ten years we will be able to judge this administration by its merits.

The Shield and how it affected me OR: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love TV

I just did a search on Facebook. I typed in "I don't watch TV" and the results I got back included several friends, a number of groups, and a whole slew of random Facebookers dedicated to the anti-TV cause.

I guess I just don't get my generation's opinion on TV. It seems to me that the popular opinion among people my age is that TV is unwaveringly bad for you. Or at least a lot of people will go out of their way to let you know that they don't watch much TV. Stuff White People Like had an entry about not owning a TV. All the cool kids like to say that it will rot your brain or make you stupid; these are usually, and ironically, the same kind of people that won't use the word movie, but only film. You know the type.

In the mind of our generation, when did television become slop and film stay art? I could make a pretty good argument that television is a better artistic medium than movies. Television gives its creators a lot more freedom to develop deeper characters, and more of them. It has the ability to tell more stories, and longer ones. It's harder to make a TV show that's consistently compelling for five seasons than it is to make a movie that's compelling for two hours. Way harder. Provoke me if you ever want to hear the long version of that argument.

Last night I watched the finale of The Shield. I got pretty emotional about it. That sounds dumb, but this was a show that was a formative -- perhaps the formative element in my appreciation of and education in the media arts (a term here encompassing film, television, and related forms). It meant a lot to me because from it I learned the point of making art on television. And damn if the end of the story wasn't haunting -- I didn't sleep last night.

My point is this: there's not a movie (or film, if you like) on the planet that could stick with me like the end of The Shield did. That's because I didn't spend seven seasons and a hundred hours growing and changing and learning and experiencing life along with the characters in any movie. We spent two hours together! I barely knew any of them! The challenge of film, I suppose, is conciseness (make me care about someone in two hours or less, admittedly an achievement) while the challenge of television is consistency (make me care constantly about someone for years).

"But Jeff, TV is centered around commercial breaks -- it's just a tool of the man to get you to buy stuff." Well, you're right, TV is built around commercials, which for one thing means that we always get proper structure. So we don't end up with crap like Zodiac that should/could/would have been really good but wasn't because no one pared an hour off the second half. Plus sometimes commercials are cool. Be thankful for it.

I want TV to get its due. It's certainly art, and some argue that the right kind of TV can make us smarter. Steven Johnson argues that we recognize this subconsciously: "The shows that have made the most demands on their audience have also turned out to be among the most lucrative in history."

I used to be embarrassed to tell how much I liked TV. One day I decided not to be. Now I'm honest.