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August 16th, 2010
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R. Buckminster Fuller and Walt Whitman talking at Arlington….
July 27th, 2010
Walt turns to Bucky and says,
“I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all
oppression and shame,
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men at anguish with
themselves, remorseful after deeds done,
I see in low life the mother misused by her children, dying,
neglected, gaunt, desperate,
I see the wife misused by her husband, I see the treacherous seducer
of young women,
I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love attempted to be
hid, I see these sights on the earth,
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny, I see martyrs and
prisoners,
I observe a famine at sea, I observe the sailors casting lots who
shall be kill’d to preserve the lives of the rest,
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon
laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;
All these – all the meanness and agony without end I sitting look out upon,
See, hear, and am silent.”
Bucky, thinks for a moment and replies,
“Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons.”
Key Small Business Items in Health Care Bill
March 25th, 2010
At HotClickVideo Worldwide, Inc. we use Bryson Financial Group for our company insurance. They supplied this brief about what changes small business owners should expect from new health care legislation. Here are the bullet points:
Although the reform package has yet to be finalized, major changes are looming. Some of the package’s provisions that will affect employers include:
Employer Mandates. Effective in 2014, most employers with 50 or more employees must offer coverage to employees. Employers who do not do so may be subject to hefty penalties. The benefit plans offered will also have to meet certain requirements.
Individual Mandates. Citizens and legal residents will be required to have a certain level of health coverage, or pay a tax penalty. These rules could restrict the usage of high deductible health plans and will decrease the chance that your employees will decline coverage under your plan.
Coverage Subsidies. Small employers that provide health insurance for employees will be eligible for a tax credit. Also, employers who provide insurance to retirees over age 55 who are not eligible for Medicare are eligible for a temporary reinsurance program.
Health Benefit Exchanges. In 2014, state exchanges will be established for small businesses and individuals to shop for health insurance. Larger businesses will be able purchase coverage in the exchanges in the future.
Insurance Reforms. These reforms require policies to provide dependent coverage for children through age 26. They prohibit lifetime coverage limits, rescission of coverage except in cases of fraud, and imposing pre-existing condition exclusions on children. Many of these provisions will take effect in 2010. They may affect your benefits and how you administer your benefit programs.
The health reconciliation bill would increase the thresholds to $27,500 and $10,200 for family and individual coverage; it also delays imposition of the tax to 2018
Caps FSA annual contributions at $2,500 (indexed) The health reconciliation bill delays the effective date of the cap by one year.
Neither the bill that was signed into law, nor the health reconciliation bill, would repeal (or restrict) health insurers’ antitrust immunity.
Additional Reconciliation Bill Issues of Concern:
A proposed 3.8% tax (the proceeds of which would go to the Medicare trust fund) on high income ($200,000/individual and $250,000/married) taxpayers’ unearned income.
A new rate review entity at the federal level that would have to approve health insurance premium increases.
When the Right’s Gone – What’s Left?
March 12th, 2010
I have been struggling to help my daughter Lily with her 4th grade homework. Not entirely because my math skills are tested in the process but because I lack patience. Lily has a familiar inability to focus on the details of her homework and as a fellow Right Brain thinker, I haven’t been much help.
What I found is that while we prefer a right or left brain approach to processing information, we can overcome this tendency. As right brainers, Lily and I naturally process the whole question leaving the details for last. We have to consciously line up the pieces of information in a logical order, where a left brain thinker would do this automatically.
Lily (and I) tend to start with the answer first and work backwards. This is impossible in situations where we must process new information. We need to know Why first, then it becomes easier to determine How. Now that we start each homework exercise with a review of the entire project, Lily is finding it less difficult to find a starting point.
I have lived my life in the big picture – starting with visions and working backwards to determine execution and viability. It’s not the outline but the outcome that comes to me easily. But, more and more I appreciate the lefty inside me who can approach conclusions after lining up the facts. To be sure you are right, engage what you have left.
To You
March 9th, 2010
To You
by Walt Whitman
(1819-1892)
Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why
should you not speak to me?
And why should I not speak to you?
should you not speak to me?
And why should I not speak to you?
Patriotism
September 8th, 2009
In President Obama’s speech to US schoolchildren this morning, I remember him saying something similar to, “if you quit on school, you are quitting on your Country.” I like his reference toward individual responsibility and the values inherent in a good education. I worry, however about his inference that graduation is in itself a patriotic act. I am concerned because of the dichotomy of responses the term Patriotism can illicit over time. On one hand Patriotism is defined as love of one’s country. However, extremism often cloaks itself in Patriotic zealous defense of the interests of one’s country, but not all would agree such actions to be nationalistic. In an eighteenth century reference by Dr. Johnson a patriot was defined as ‘a factious disturber of the government’. In reference to the demagogue John Wilkes, he also said that ‘Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel’.
Mr. Obama has done more to foment right, and left wing positive patriotism than any Presidency I have been privy to. However, the irony in opposing views on patriotism is as cavernous a gap as divides those that rise up for, and against, any change our President’s proffer. To affect change, within the framework of today’s fractious political and global climate, is challenge enough. I worry that he will exacerbate his tasks with an attempt to maintain the integrity of Patriotism when examples of such acts so often lead to disparate results.
Its the miles…
August 11th, 2009
Song of the Open Road
by Walt Whitman
(1819-1892)
…
Wisdom is not finally tested in schools,
Wisdom cannot be pass’d from one having it to another not having it,
Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof,
Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content,
Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the
excellence of things;
Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes
it out of the soul.
Wisdom cannot be pass’d from one having it to another not having it,
Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof,
Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content,
Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the
excellence of things;
Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes
it out of the soul.
I could live with animals
August 5th, 2009
Song of Myself
Part 2
by Walt Whitman
(1819-1892)
I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and
self-contain’d,
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of
owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of
years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.
Integrity
July 21st, 2009
The other day, my wife watched in shock as a woman side-swiped a car in a parking lot, then did a 14 point turn to hightail it out of there. We discussed how un-cool this was and postulated that she was in a hurry to get home/Starbucks/the gym/nowhere; and leaving a note was beyond her conscience.
A few years ago I found my car had been side-swiped during the night, but on the windshield there was a note. It read something to the effect, “Sorry I backed into your car, please call Joey at 555…” While I was bummed to have a dented car I was impressed that the guy left a note. When I called Joey’s number, his Dad answered and said that Joey wasn’t feeling well but that he was sure to call me back.
Joey did call me back and had his insurance cover the damage. We talked briefly and it turned out we had mutual friends. I was saddened to hear that Joey died not long after that of pneumatic complications. Looking back on it, I am even more impressed by the integrity Joey displayed by doing the right thing.
Doing what is right may not affect you directly but it will contribute to the decisions those that you effect will make.
World’s Coolest Doorway
June 6th, 2009
The entrance to the Svalbard “Doomsday” seed bank in Norway, 700 miles from the north pole in the Svalbard archipelago.
