What Do I Know?

Beau Brummell In Your Closet and On Your Streets

"To be truly elegant one should not be noticed."

Beau Brummell, the über elegant London fashion trendsetter during the Regency era, stands perpetually erect on Jermyn Street, outside the Piccadilly Arcade, appropriately surrounded by shops selling the finest menswear London has to offer.

I daresay he'd have loved shopping today, with endless selections of readywear available in supermarkets, online, and charity shops. No need to visit Savile Row; just log on to BrooksBrothers.com.

Me, I hate shopping, whether it's online or in person. I prefer looking at statues on London's streets to imitating mannequins in London's shops. Which is why my closet looks like a storeroom for a nineties-era sitcom. If it was good enough for Murphy Brown, it's good enough to last a few decades, right? Khaki will never die! Grunge, yes—that got purged from my closet sometime around 2004. (Although you will only pry my Doc Martens from my cold, dead feet.)

"To be truly elegant, one should not be noticed," Beau said. He was right, which is why I always wear shades of dirt: black, brown, and off-grey. I used to have a red sweater, but I gave it away, tired of seeing it when I opened my closet. It looked like something had bled all over my khakis.

I also have a fear of prints, although I once bought a zebra striped sweater. I sometimes pull it out, wondering what I was thinking. Zebras belong in Kenya, not in my closet.

Theoretically, only having to choose between three basic colors should make it easier to get dressed. But like Beau Brummell, I sometimes spend hours dressing, trying to decide between the khaki trousers or the black jeans. The white knit or the grey sweater. The brown cardigan or the linen blazer. And that's before I even think about footwear: which black loafer should I wear today?

Whoever decided that men should wear smart suits and blazers and crisp button down shirts while women should wear loose, flowing knits the shade of flowers? I love flowers, but not on my person. I like Beau Brummell's idea: Let the men dandy themselves up with cravats, hats, and paisley-patterned plumage. We women should wear the serious clothes: Khakis, black sweaters, and loafers. Or for posing on London streets, perhaps a sturdy pair of Doc Martens.

Friday Lamb Blogging

Thomas the Lamb loved getting rubbed.

These two lambs were at Cogges Manor Farm in Oxfordshire. I wrote about my visit earlier, but wanted to save these lovely lamb shots for Friday Lamb Blogging.

The male lamb was the friendlier of the two. He was born in May, according to the "dairy maid" who showed up while I was in the barn. They both ran over to her for more pets when they heard her voice.

Cogges Manor "dairy maid" gives the motherless lambs some love.

The smaller female, I was told, was a late lamb. They thought her mum wasn't pregnant after all, then discovered the baby in the field one day in June, long past lambing season. Both were bottle-fed, as the male was one of a set of triplets. Three is too many for a ewe to feed, so Thomas joined the little late female in the pen here at Cogges Manor.

Looking on while his "sister" gets her pets.

I was surprised when the dairy maid told me the lambs had been penned up to protect the dogs that were visiting the farm that day. (Dogs are allowed, on leads, at Cogges Manor Farm.) Apparently these two give dogs a hard time. I immediately imagined my dog cowering in fear if a lamb charged her. She's sort of silly like that.

"I love when you stroke my face," said Thomas.

Thomas really loved it when I rubbed his woolly fleece. The top of his head had two indentions where horns are coming in, I guess. Otherwise, he reminded me a lot of my dog, nudging me to pet him if I stopped for a second.

I wanted to put both these lambs in my car and bring them home with me. But my dog would never have forgiven me.

Cogges Manor Farm: Rural Victorian Life on Display

The Manor House

When I read that Cogges Manor Farm in Witney was closing down while it reorganizes as a trust, I decided I better get out there and see it. Since I'd recently time-traveled to Victorian London, I figured it was time to see how the other half lived.

The two halves couldn't be more different. In London, the Sambournes bought their provisions from the many shops on Kensington High Street. In rural Oxfordshire, the family that lived in Cogges Manor were almost self-sufficient.

Cogges Farm is a working museum, a recreation of a late Victorian farm, complete with dairy maids, a hardworking cook and best of all, baby animals.

The Manor House dates back 700 years, though it's furnished today as it would have been during the late Victorian period. In the large kitchen, a roaring fire keeps the oven hot, while an appropriately dressed cook bakes savory treats for visitors.

Inside the kitchen, where the cook entertained visitors while baking Welsh tea cakes.

Behind the Manor House is a walled garden, growing kitchen herbs and plants as well as flowers. In the dairy, I smelled the sour smell of milk and butter. (If you don't eat diary products, you soon come to find they smell slightly rancid.) I got out of there fast, and decided to make friends with the many animal species found at the farm.

Free range chickens wander about the farmyard, giving loud voice to their chicken-ish complaints. Rabbits huddle in hutches (baby bunnies are for sale, but I resisted the urge to bring one home). Pigs root in their stone pens. Two donkeys nibble the grass, though one became fascinated by the dogs at the gate.

I made friends with two lambs, who were in a shed by themselves. Lambs are really camera hogs—the larger one was fascinated with my camera, and willingly posed for photos. In another barn, I found a couple of cows, who placidly munched hay while visitors gazed at their backsides.

Cows wait to be milked in the barn...

Then the fresh, sour-smelling milk goes to the dairy...

Where it is turned into butter.

Victorian-era farm implements are on display throughout the property. For the curious, demonstrations of farm chores are given at different times, though I didn't stick around to see any. In the gift shop, visitors can buy jams and preserves made at the farm.

The River Windrush runs through the property, and in the orchard are picnic tables and a safe place for children and dogs to romp. (Dogs are allowed, though not in the Manor House.)

Cogges Manor Farm closes on August 31, but will reopen in the spring under new management. It's worth a visit, for a glimpse of rural Victorian life as well as a chance to meet some friendly farm animals.

For more photos of the animals at Cogges Farm, you'll have to wait for Friday Cow Blogging.

Beautiful Views and Blackberries

Checking out the view over Bourne End.

This morning we walked near Bourne End, along a particularly beautiful  stretch of the Thames. It's a popular spot for dogs—you can see why: wonderful views, lucious blackberries, and inviting muddy banks for cooling off after a two hour romp.

More photos below:

Time Traveling to Jane Austen's House in Chawton

Jane Austen's house in Chawton

It's terrifically easy, I've discovered, to time travel in England. All you need is a bit of imagination and a working knowledge of Britain's rail and road system. Last week I journeyed to the late Victorian period at the Linley Sambourne house in Kensington, and on Thursday I traveled to the Regency period during a visit to Jane Austen's house in Chawton, Hampshire.

First, a bit on the major eras in British history, useful info for time traveling novices: In Britain, periods are generally named after the monarch who reigned during the time. The Victorian Period, used to describe furniture styles as well as history, was between 1837, when Victoria came to the throne, and 1901, when she died. The Regency Period spans the years 1811 and 1820, and is named after the regency of George IV, who ruled when his father, George III, became unfit. The period before that is named after three successive Georges, the Georgian Period.

The Regency period is particularly fascinating to historical novelists. An entire genre in American literature, the Regency Romance, characterized by Georgette Heyer, is named for the brief but exciting period. Not only was there a war going on with Napoleon, which presents writers with the possibility of plenty of tortured war heroes, but Romantic poets like Byron and Shelley were obligingly penning love poetry. London and cities like Bath began to look more like a romanticized ancient Greece, thanks to architects like John Nash and Robert Adam. Unlike the later Victorian period, morals were looser and pleasure seeking was considered a perfectly acceptable pastime. London Society was occupied with balls, parties, and gambling, while in Brighton the Prince Regent was building his over-the-top Pavilion.

And in an idyllic setting in Hampshire, Jane Austen was writing sparkling dialogue and cutting commentary that continues to inspire authors and screenwriters today.

Jane Austen's family were poor. But by a fortunate twist of fate that seems torn from the pages of a novel, her brother, Edward, was adopted by rich distant relations. When he inherited the estates, he allowed his mother and sisters to live at the house in Chawton, which today is open to the public, and furnished with many original Austen pieces.

 

Jane sat at this tiny table and wrote her novels.

It's not a fabulous mansion, like the one where Edward lived up the road. Nor is it extravagantly furnished—in fact, the writing table where Jane penned her novels is very small, hardly the sort of desk from which you'd imagine great Literature bursting forth. But it is comfortable and spacious. It's easy to picture Jane, her sister Cassandra, and their mother filling their hours here, making tea on the hob, climbing the stairs to their bedrooms, or gazing out the window as their neighbors' donkey carts passed by.

The original square Clementi piano is still in the drawing room, along with a bureau belonging to Mr. Austen. In the room Jane shared with her sister is a replica of her bed, as well as a lace shawl belonging to her niece, Fanny. Did Jane lie in a bed like this, dreaming of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood's heartbreak and happiness?

The gardens have been carefully recreated to feature plants that would have been found in a Regency garden—no exotic Victorian specimens from Asia! A dye garden, with plants used for dyes, is blooming like mad in August. Would Jane have sat in the shade of the large oak tree and imagined the Bennet girls falling in love?

 

The side of the house, from underneath the oak tree, with the dye garden on the left.

A short walk up the road is the Chawton House Library. The house where Jane's wealthy brother, Edward Knight (he changed his name after being adopted), lived is now owned by an American, who's opened it as a home to early English women's literature. Guided tours of the house are available on Tuesday and Thursday and cost £6. On the grounds of the estate is the churchyard where Jane's sister and mother are buried—both lived to be very old.

Jane Austen's house is open most of the year (weekends only in January and February) and costs £7. Photos (without flash) are allowed inside the house, a rarity in Britain.

If you're traveling by car rather than time traveling, you'll find Chawton 13 miles south of Basingstoke, near Alton on the A339. And you'll find Jane Austen's books at your library or bookstore.

You can see more photos of Jane's house and the Chawton House Library here.

This Is Post Number 2001

A photo of me blogging. (Yes, I do blog barefoot.)

Yesterday my husband and I were talking about the randomness of Google, and why it returns certain WDIK blog posts in its search results. Offhand, I estimated I had around 2000 posts on my blog, but my husband seemed skeptical. So I checked my stats: Typepad informed me WDIK has exactly 2000 posts. Wednesday's post about my dog was the 2000th post I've written for What Do I Know?

It was entirely appropriate that it was again my dog who captured my attention at such a momentous milestone, one which passed unnoticed at the time. She's been a favorite topic ever since I started blogging. Mainly that's because she can't rebut anything I say about her. Which is why my photo of her climbing a tree is a top Google hit when you search for an image of "dog climbing tree".

She actually doesn't climb trees that often.

They say writing is like opening a vein, and blogging is no different. Except that there's no editor looking over your shoulder as you slice open your vein blog. You can get by with using capital letters for emphasis and there's no limit on exclamation points, or fortunately for me, parenthetical phrases.

It's amazing I've found something to say 2000 times, especially since I started this blog with the question "what do I know?" uppermost in my mind. Apparently I did have 2000 "blistering pustules of knowledge" to impart to the universe. (I was obviously celebrating the no-editor thing by imbibing a little too freely in the purple prose.)

Whether or not the universe benefited from such a close examination of my pustules is another question—as far as I can see, I haven't changed the world. I haven't influenced any elections, advanced my agendas, or improved BT's customer service. I have, perhaps, given you a few ideas on what to do with tofu. And raised awareness of the deepening problem of shop clerks failing to remove security tags.

I still have a couple of festering pustules, so I won't quit at 2000. But I seriously doubt I'll make it to 3000. Not even Chatty Kathy has that much to say.

Cognitive Dissonance for Canines

"I refuse to listen to your meaningless nonsense".

I just told my dog to "sit down". Boy was she confused.

Anyone who's ever trained a dog will understand my inadvertent mistake. I told her to both "sit" and to get "down", two very different commands. I immediately realized my mistake and apologized, and then got her a treat, since apologies don't carry as much weight as biscuits.

This verbal confusion happens often. My husband commits a similar verbal slip when he tells her to "go down". The word "go" she knows is associated with leaving the house to go for a walk or go in the car. Telling her to "go down" results in cognitive dissonance. She can't decide if she's supposed to lie supine on the floor or head for the door.

Dogs can understand a great many words and even concepts, but they can't really understand that a word might have two different meanings. I'm constantly on the alert for those dual meaning words, and I try not to use them. I've almost stopped myself from telling her to "Shake!" after a bath when she jumps out of the bathtub—she immediately presents a paw instead of shaking vigorously as she longs to do.

I'm also alert to the adjective "good". I used to habitually exclaim, when we came in from a walk, "We had a good walk!", which made her wonder if the walk was going to get a treat, like "good girls" do. Now I declare it a "nice" walk, and leave it at that.

The other day I created more confusion, again, inadvertently. When I'm heading out to the gym, I put on my sneakers and the dog comes out, wagging her tail, since she knows it might mean a walk. "You can't go; I'm going to the gym" I tell her, and she dejectedly returns to her spot under the desk. So though she probably doesn't understand what a gym is, except that she knows I come home smelling slightly sweaty and warm, she does know she can't go there. The other day we met our young friend down the street, who has a new rescued border collie. Her name, I learned, was Jem, so I turned to my dog and made the introduction. "This is your new friend, Jem," I said to her, and then wondered why she gave me such a dejected look. Was she sad that the little girl had a new canine playmate? No, jealousy hadn't entered her mind. Of course, I realized as we walked away—"Jem" and "gym" are the same word to her, since she can't see the different spelling.

As I've written previously, I've made a conscious effort to teach my dog human language. But human language is very contrary and confusing. Just like humans who are bilingual, I think my dog prefers her own language.

Buckinghamshire Wildlife Report

We saw this blue heron on our walk today. He ignored the dog, who was more interested in wading through the pond than in chasing birds.

Right before that, a muntjac deer crossed our path, but I didn't have time to pull out my camera. Here's a website with a photo, and here's a video if you want to see what one looks like. They're slightly smaller than my dog, and walk hunched over, like they have bad posture. They probably eat the brambles (blackberries) that ripen this time of year. So does my dog—we stop and graze whenever we see a good patch.

Muntjacs bark, and sometimes scream. They live in the pasture behind our house, and sometimes we hear an unfortunate scream.

The Linley Sambourne House: A Visit to Victorian London

Modern automobiles parked outside the very Victorian 18 Stafford Terrace

Yesterday I went to visit an old friend, Marion Sambourne, who lives at 18 Stafford Terrace in Kensington. She was out shopping, so the housekeeper, Mrs. Reffel, showed us around. It was a perfect opportunity to get a peek at a Victorian house, preserved as it was in 1899.

I met Marion in the pages of the book A Victorian Household, Based on the Diaries of Marion Sambourne. The diaries were sparse at first, no more than 140 character Twitter entries, then later her "posts" grew to resemble something like a blog, as she complains about her health, her son's performance in school, and her mother-in-law.

Marion was born in 1851 and lived at Stafford Terrace since her marriage in 1875. The book paints an intimate picture of her life, and the lives of her family: husband Linley, who was a cartoonist for Punch magazine, daughter Maud, who was the grandmother of Lord Snowdon, and son Roy, who never married and continued to live at 18 Stafford Terrace after his parents' deaths.

The house was preserved first by Maud, and then by her daughter Anne, who was the Countess of Rosse. It was turned over to the Victorian Society, and its contents have remained intact for over a century.

The house contains a great many examples of typical Victorian decor. William Morris wallpaper—which cost the shocking sum of £70, we were informed by Mrs. Reffel—covers most of the walls. But it's obscured by the many framed pictures and photographs that are grouped so closely together that hardly a bit of paper shows through. This, we were informed by the housekeeper, was considered artistic by Linley, whose taste on such matters was apparently never questioned.

The Sambournes, who had many artist friends, decorated the house according to the Aesthetic Movement, which was a "back to nature" influence in furniture design. Flower motifs, Asian mock bamboo, and ebonized wood characterize the period. There is evidence of this throughout the house, which must have made it a very smart home for its time.

As an artist and photographer, Linley worked at home, so much of the house was devoted to his work. The upstairs bathroom served dual purpose, as his bathing room and also his darkroom. After his cold bath in the morning, he filled the marble bathtub with developing chemicals. Women did not enter a man's bathroom, so we were asked not to tell anyone that we'd actually stepped in to such an intimate space...shhh!

Marion Sambourne spent a lot of time shopping, spending her £25 per quarter allowance in the shops on Kensington High Street. Her parents lived around the corner, and she was quite close to them, visiting almost every day.

Tuesdays she spent at home, receiving visitors, who never stayed more than 15 minutes. Other afternoons she made calls herself, inquiring after friends' health, a main topic for conversation. Marion suffered from various complaints, some of which were real and some of which were probably due to hypochondria. As her diaries show, she always felt better in the evening, when she and Linley went to plays and parties with their many friends.

The house is open to the public for tours on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and on Saturdays you can have a tour conducted by the housekeeper, Mrs. Reffel. She does a great job of staying in character, at one point remarking on the trousers we all wore—"You must ride them bicycles!" She even warned us we'd have to exit through the service entrance below stairs—it wouldn't do for the neighbors to see four women leaving through the front door, wearing trousers!

If you can't visit Marion and Linley, you can see a brief glimpse of their home in this video. You can also see photos of the interior on the website, by clicking on the house. The house is located one block off Kensington High Street, near Holland Park. The book, which is sold at the house, is also a great introduction to late Victorian daily life, particularly of London's upper middle class. With no blogs to record the minutiae of daily life in the nineteenth century, we have to rely on diaries of women like Marion Sambourne, whose life otherwise would have been forgotten, but for the fact she kept a diary.

Shocking News on Health Care Reform!

That's right, this deserves the scary headline. No one else has reported this, and believe me, I've looked.

Did you know that the INSURANCE COMPANIES are IN FAVOR of health care reform? And what's more, they endorsed or even WROTE much of what's in the current bills in Congress!

Okay, my pinkie's getting tired; no more scary all-caps. But isn't it shocking to find out that those death panel and evil rationing stories you're hearing from the far right are about a bill that the insurance industry wants to see happen?

Don't believe me? Watch this C-SPAN interview with Karen Ignagni, head of the health insurance trade association, AHIP. It will air tomorrow (Sunday) at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. ET.

Here's the deal: Insurance companies are tired of being the meanies, and denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and denying expensive treatments to folks who need them. They know deep inside things have got to change. But they can't do it on their own. They need government to step in and force some regulations on them. In exchange, they get something they want: Universality. That's right, insurance companies want to see 100% of the population covered. Because that's the only way they can afford to make some of the concessions they realize they will have to make.

How? Because a significant proportion of those uninsured are young and healthy. Insurance companies need their premiums, as much as those uninsured people need to be covered, in case something bad happens. It's sort of a win-win proposition. (For a more complicated explanation of how universality is tied to insurance regulation and cost control, read Uwe Reinhardt on the "three-legged stool" of health care reform.)

And what about the soaring costs in health care? The insurance companies also want to see something done about that. Their current business model is unsustainable. As costs rise, employers drop coverage for their employees. This forces insurance companies to become even more mean, and figure out how to deny payment for treatment while at the same time raising premiums.

Now, I don't for a minute think insurance companies lie awake at night, worried about their mortal souls in the afterlife or even their reputations. They're purely motivated by profit, which is what their shareholders expect. So the fact that they're in favor of most of what's being proposed isn't shocking—there's a lot of good stuff in there for insurance companies, including the regulations that are being proposed. After all, these regulations will apply to all, equally. If AETNA isn't allowed to cancel your insurance when you get sick, neither is Blue Cross. And they get their greedy little paws on a whole new chunk of uninsured, who'll be mandated to participate so they don't free load on the system once they get sick.

This isn't speculation on the insurance companies' part, either. A lot of this has actually been done already—in Massachusetts, where they've achieved near universal health care coverage, and in the process, learned a lot of valuable lessons about how it can be achieved. (In the interview, Ignagni goes on at some length about the lessons learned in Massachusetts. You have watched it, right?)

So why are the right wing mobs so angry? One reason may be that part of the plan the insurance companies don't like—the so-called public option. The public option is included in the House bills, but will not likely be in the Senate version. By the time the bill goes to committee, something's got to give. Likely the public option will be severely watered down, or won't exist at all. That's a shame, because it's going to be very difficult to control costs if the public option isn't there. And liberals like me are very much in favor of controlling costs, so that resources can be spent on more important things, like early childhood education. 

But I don't think it's the idea of a public option that's got right wing mobs so riled up. I think it's the disinformation coming from people like Sarah Palin and other Republicans, who should know better. But they've decided to put partisan interests in front of the truth. They're even putting partisan interests in front of the business community, including small business owners who stand to benefit from this bill. (They'll be able to offer their employees the same low-cost insurance plans that currently are only available to large employers, through the insurance exchange.)

If this bill passes, the only losers will be Republican politicians. So they have to scare people about what the bill actually contains. They won't vote for it, or defend any parts of it, even though they've contributed much of the language in the bills. (You won't hear them admit that, either, but watch C-Span.)

I know this sounds odd coming from a liberal who's longed railed against all-powerful insurance companies, but if you really want to do your insurance company a favor, you'll phone your Congressperson and ask them to vote for the health care reform bill. It'll make Karen Ignagni happy, and it just might help a lot of Americans who currently don't have health insurance—and that could very well be you if insurance reform doesn't pass.

Dear America: Britain Is Laughing At You

The Brits are having a field day over the comments in the US about the National Health Service, Britain's health care system. Apparently some anti-health care reform groups in the US have produced some adverts which distort the truth and flat out lie about the NHS. The result is the misconceptions on view in this BBC video.

For the last two nights, Radio 4 (which is sort of like NPR) has reported on the controversy, and this morning they covered the dust up extensively. Apparently a Tory MEP went on Fox news to diss the system, and he immediately was contradicted by his party leader, David Cameron. David knows there's no way he'll get elected if the public fear he's not four-square in support of the NHS. Tossing aside the customary diplomatic silence, PM Gordon Brown and his wife both spoke up about their support (they have a child with cystic fibrosis and have seen more than their share of NHS waiting rooms). The general reaction seems to be "There go the Americans, being stupid again" but this time, there's a bit of national pride thrown in.

The issue has become a trending topic on Twitter, with the hashtag #welovethenhs. Here are a few sample tweets I pulled up just now:

@Gibbo68 Nobody ever claimed the NHS was perfect but I'd rather live under UK Healthcare than US. I'm proud we of the NHS today #welovethenhs

@Rollo87 Fact: The WHO ranks Britain's healthcare as 18th best in the world and the US 37th http://tinyurl.com/oehtlk - #welovetheNHS

@PG_Rule #welovethenhs Pity that US healthcare (hardly an integrated system delivering value to all stakeholders) has not a cure for myopia

@willshome Let's get this straight: in the Bible does the Good Samaritan care for the man set upon by thieves, then sent him a bill? No. #welovetheNHS

@kathyf The NHS must be great; look how long it's kept The Archers alive. #welovethenhs (That was me, picking on the poor old Archers again.)

Here's an interview with Graham Linehan, who started the hashtag. Sounds like he understands how the American right-wing attack machine works:

"Glenn Beck thinks he can spread lies and no-one will notice but it is a very connected world now."

Also via Twitter, I came across this American ex-pat's experience with the NHS, an honest comparison between the US system and the British system. It's a great article, and gives a better picture than I could of how the NHS works.

Here's the writer on the issue of choice:

"I had my choice of doctors. My small rural town had two GP offices (a GP is a General Practitioner, a family doctor) with about 5 GPs in each office — I could choose either office and any GP in that office I chose.  I could choose to go to the GPs office in a neighbouring town if I prefered (though some offices limit the regional area they’ll cover). I could change GPs at anytime for any reason, no questions asked."

Quite a different experience than what you've been led to believe, right?

The irony is, no one in the US is proposing a system anything like the NHS. The fundamental difference is that the NHS really is a government-run system. The government hires doctors and medical professionals, builds and maintains the hospitals, and administers the system. This is actually rare in Europe—most European health care systems are either single payer or a combination of single-payer and private heath care insurance, only with the insurance much more regulated than it is in the US. Every European country offers universal coverage, meaning all citizens are covered, regardless of ability to pay.

There is no one in Britain who'd swap their system for the one that exists in the US. Just as they lied to you about death panels, they're lying to you about the "terrible" government run health care system in Britain. You've been duped, and the Brits are laughing their asses off.

Where Was the Death Panel When I Needed One?

I have to applaud Sen. Johnny Isakson, R.-GA for his efforts to include so-called death panels in the health care reform legislation. As I've been reading about the proposed plan to offer end-of-life counseling to Medicare recipients, I am painfully reminded of the time when I had to make those decisions for my mother.

She suffered from Huntington's Disease, an illness which destroys the mind and body. By the time she came to live in Albuquerque, where I placed her in a nearby nursing home, she was no longer capable of making end-of-life decisions. So it was left to me.

I wish I'd had a "death panel" as the scaremongers are calling it, a committee made up of doctors, health care professionals, social workers, and/or counselors, to help me make those decisions. Instead, I had a harried nursing home administrator, who shoved a stack of papers toward me and told me to sign "here, here and here." An Advanced Care Directive gave me pause. What did it mean to withhold life-saving treatment? In what circumstances would life-saving treatment be given or withheld? I wasn't even quite sure what CPR involved, or how a feeding tube worked. I certainly didn't want my mother kept alive by artificial means if that meant prolonging her pain, but at the time, she wasn't in any pain. I really couldn't envision what the end of her life might look like.

I had no idea what I was signing, and I had no one to help me make those decisions. If there had been someone there to explain the possible outcomes to me, I'd have gratefully accepted that assistance.

I'm morally offended when people like Sarah Palin suggest that those of us who support the proposed legislation want to "euthanize grandma". I'm against euthanasia. I simply wanted to do what was best for my mother.

Death panels are a scary image designed to sway public opinion. And the idea has been mocked, rightly so. But dying is a painful subject, one most people are reluctant to talk about. That's why those Republicans and Democrats who've pushed to have such language included in health care reform should be thanked, and commended for their bi-partisan efforts to craft a bill that will include help for Americans facing those difficult decisions that modern technology has offered us.

Because we all get old. Hopefully we'll all have a death panel like the one proposed by Sen. Isakson to help us make decisions when we do.

I Read Health Care Reform Experts So You Don't Have To

It's a sacrifice, but someone has to do it. And obviously, it's not going to be Sarah Palin.

I start my day with a cup of tea, or three, a bowl of shredded wheat, strawberries and soymilk. This takes time, so I sit at my desk and I read what people who really understand health care reform have to say. They're journalists, economists, and writers who've studied the issue for years, and understand the intricacies of health care policy and the current proposals for reform much better than I do, even though I paid attention in my Economics classes.

Health care reform is a complicated subject. But it's not so difficult that a person with a reasonable grasp of English and a working knowledge of our political system couldn't understand it, especially when it's explained by good writers who refrain from using jargon. And I'm not talking about whoever wrote that email you got the other day, with bold fonts and lots of exclamation points.

For instance, today I read a thoughtful post by Jonathan Cohn, who writes for The New Republic and has been called "one of America's leading experts on health care policy". In it, he explained why the health care reform bill won't put us on the path to rationing health care. On the TNR blog The Treatment, Sharon Eliza Nichols recently wrote about how small businesses may benefit from health care reform, quoting an expert from Georgetown's Health Policy Institute.

See why The Treatment is one of my first stops during my morning tea break?

But for prolific policy debates, you really can't beat Ezra Klein at the Washington Post. I've been following Ezra for a long time—he's a real wunderkind, a twenty-something writer who's passionate as well as informed. (And he's also into food writing.) Not only does he have health care policy down cold, he's also a great interviewer. I particularly liked his interviews this week with Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Sen. Johnny Isakson (R. GA). Turns out Isakson was the one who thought up the end-of-life planning language that was inserted into one of the Senate bills, and eventually turned into the "death panel" nonsense. 

If you read nothing else but Ezra Klein's columns, you'll be very well informed on the health care reform debate. In fact, on days when I'm limited to one cup of tea, I make sure Ezra's the one I'm reading while I'm sipping.

Another journalist who's made health care policy her schtick is Karen Tumulty, from Time Magazine. Recently she scored a big get, as they say. She interviewed the President of the United States about what he'd like to see in the health care reform bill. But this wasn't my favorite column by Karen. Her column about her brother, who was denied treatment when his kidneys failed, was not only poignant but also a disturbing primer on how individual insurance (the insurance you buy if you're not covered through your employer) fails so many people.

These aren't the only columnists I read; often they point to other articles and charts and debates that are informative, such as the article by Atul Gawande on how one town in Texas manages to charge so much for health care, far outspending other towns in similar circumstances. Yesterday Ezra Klein linked to the NY Times' round table debate (Six experts! All on one page!) on the public plan, which may or may not be included in a final health care bill. And this short article by Uwe Reinhardt, a health economist at Princeton, gives me lots to digest, along with my shredded wheat.

It's because of these writers that I've learned a few basic facts about the American health care system, facts I didn't know before because, frankly, I haven't used it for a while. (It's not just that green tea keeps you healthy; I live in Europe and also am eligible for America's own socialized health care system, the military.) 

One startling fact is that more than 26,000 Americans die every year because they lack access to medical care. Another is that a million families declare bankruptcy each year due to medical costs—62% of all bankruptcies. I've learned America spends 16% of GDP on health care, about twice as much as any other country, and if we do nothing, those costs will rise to 37% by 2050.

I've also learned the difference between universal health care (which everyone, regardless of ideology, should be in favor of), single payer health care (which is what Medicare is and what Canada has) and socialized medicine (which is what we have in Britain and essentially how the US military runs its medical care). And although Americans over the age of 65 report very high satisfaction with Medicare, those under 65 don't like it, even though they've never experienced it.

I could go on, but I've finished my third cup of tea. The point is, there's a lot of information out there. Not everyone who writes or emails or blogs about health care policy knows what they're talking about. Neither did I, until I started reading columns by people who've made it their life's work to understand it. I realize not everyone can keep up with the debate to this degree—three cups of tea takes a while to drink, time when I could be attending to my Facebook page, or whipping up a new dish in the kitchen, or researching a book I want to write. 

But this is an issue that has a lot of Americans really angry, really frustrated, and really confused. I don't like being angry, frustrated, or confused. So I do something about it.

Karl Marx, Soylent Green, and Middle Class Suicide

"Karl Marx once said that history always repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce; and it's true, the US Congressional Democratic Party, as if they were understudies at a community college summerstock production of "How not to run a country", has slipped into the role of its predecessors in the 1993-94 Congress, the institution which morphed into a giant tub of writhing Jello rather than vote on then first lady Hillary Clinton's healthcare initiative."

That's Julian Delasantellis writing in Asia Times, explaining the American health care system to, I guess, Asians who watch a lot of films.

He begins at the beginning, explaining how Roosevelt's attempt to include government funded health care in the New Deal failed, but with wage and price controls, employers learned to offer relatively cheap health insurance to workers instead of higher wages. It worked, for a while, until health insurance was no longer cheap and American factories were no longer operating as monopolies in a playing field destroyed by WWII. It no longer made sense for employers to offer generous health insurance packages to any but their most valuable employees, and consequently, we now have 47 million without insurance—many of them middle class workers.

To borrow an analogy, it's as if someone were shooting a movie, called How Not To Devise a Health Care System, but the really scary part is its sequel: It's called Soylent Green.

"Another future-as-hell epic, Richard Fleischer's 1973 Soylent Green, has New York City police detective Robert Thorn (Charlton Heston) investigating the source of a mysterious new food product, Soylent Green, designed to feed an overpopulated and starving world . He is none to happy to find out the truth.

"It's people. Soylent Green is made out of people. They're making our food out of people! Next thing they'll be breeding us like cattle for food. Soylent Green is people!"

Well, the American middle class is at present being voluntarily consumed so the rich can have their healthcare. Still, a great many of them oppose any Obama health plan; it's not easy to warn somebody that they're about to be eaten alive when you find them waiting patiently under the ketchup nozzle."

Read the whole thing. It's long, but worth it. It describes how the middle class, which for so long has been the prop upon which the American health care system rests, can no longer continue to do so when health care costs are rising faster than the rate of their productivity. Something's got to give, and what gives is the middle class worker, who loses their health care so that others may keep theirs.

Yet, like certain characters from certain fictional movies, they go along with it.

That's where the farce comes in—note that this article was written before the whole notion of "death panels" was invented by a certain former Alaskan governor. Can you spell "prescient?"

Who needs death panels when you have Soylent Green? And ketchup.

Is the Investor's Business Daily Really This Dumb?

When I read this Washington Monthly blog post "Stephen Hawking is Alive and Well" just now I thought something had to be wrong. I mean, people aren't really this dumb at the Investor's Business Daily, are they?

But then I clicked on the link and yes, they are that dumb.

In the article "How House Bill Runs Over Grandma" the writer, who doesn't give his/her name, claims that in the UK health care is rationed. Not the way I would describe it, but wait...it gets better.... After plucking some lines from the Nice (National Institute for Clinical Excellence) guidelines regarding quality of life (although no link is given, so who knows where the information came from?) the writer claims:

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

Well, it's a good thing Stephen Hawking doesn't live in Cambridge, England!

Oh wait. He does.

And was recently hospitalized, where he received excellent care and recovered.

My advice would be, don't ever take advice from the Investor's Business Daily. They obviously have never heard of Google, which is currently a pretty good investment.

P.S. One of the commenters at the Monthly notes that, if Stephen Hawking lived in the US, he'd never be eligible for private health care, as he has a pre-existing condition, namely ALS.

Friday Horse Blogging, Stylized Liechtenstein Edition

I was looking for Friday Animal Blogging photos and couldn't find any recent ones. But I came across some photos my daughter must have taken while we stopped in Liechtenstein during our recent vacation.

This was in the public plaza in Vaduz, the main city in Liechtenstein (as you can imagine, there's only the one city there). I was sitting in the car, too ill to get out, but determined I'd at least set foot in another tiny country. (I'm obsessed with tiny countries, as regular readers are aware.) After walking a few steps from the car, I decided I'd seen enough, and I sent my daughters off to photograph the sights.

I have no idea what this stylized horse is supposed to represent, and the next one she took is even odder:

This looks more like something you'd see in Santa Fe. There's carving along the bottom, some sort of modern glyphs.

Liechtenstein is a country of oddities. They're known for their postage stamps, which is fitting for a country the size of a postage stamp.

From my seat in the Volvo, I could verify they've got a remarkable public transportation system. While I was sitting in front seat, waiting for my family to return from their photo mission, I noticed a bus drive by. A couple of minutes later, another city bus, and another and another. Keep in mind, the entire city of Vaduz is easily walkable. But this country is so wealthy it treats its citizens to bus service every two minutes.

Maybe the horses are just for show. I can't imagine anyone riding a horse in thoroughly modern Liechtenstein.

If I Could Only Tweet...

Twitter's down. But here's what I would tweet if I could:

• Am considering attending my high school reunion in September. Problem: No summer clothes.

• When did Casual Corner close? No one told me! #onlineshopping

• Anyone know any place to shop online, US or UK? Along the lines of Casual Corner, Ann Taylor, etc.

• Anybody know what's going on with Twitter?

• My dog looks very small next to a Great Dane. #walk

• Oxford's colleges only admitted women in 1974. Before that they had to go to separate women's colleges. #research

• Getting a lot of research done while Twitter's down. #TwitterFAIL

• Am considering making up a new women's college rather than using an existing one as a setting. Thoughts?

• I hate to shop, even online. This is why I buy most of my clothes at Tesco, along with grocery items.

• Too bad this book isn't available until April: The University of Oxford, A New History

• Anybody ever used Scrivener? Doesn't feel at all intuitive to me. Maybe I'm a lunkhead.

• The pound hit $1.70 (Oh no!) then dropped; more quantitative easing from the British govt. #Econ101

• Just realized I'd get a lot more done if Twitter didn't exist.

I can't believe I once existed without Twitter to answer my questions and express my thoughts in 140 character snippets.

Of Cabbages and Kim Jong Il

Yes, there was news out of Pyongyang that had nothing to do with hostages. Apparently, cabbages are on the great leader's mind these days.

Via The Plank, Korean Central News Agency reports on what else Kim Jung Il has been up to, along with chatting with Bill Clinton and freeing the odd hostage:

Pyongyang, August 4 (KCNA) -- On an autumn day of Juche 68 (1979) General Secretary Kim Jong Il dropped in at a railway station for a while on his way to the east coastal area.

He was saluted by officials there. It was unexpected that he raised an issue related to the harvesting of cabbages for the winter kimchi.

He stressed that coming here, he saw cabbages in fields in some cities and counties and they should reap the remaining ones as soon as possible.

In those days the cabbage harvest was raised as an urgent problem as the temperature suddenly fell down in the overall parts of the country.

The officials were deeply touched by the meticulous care shown by him for the dietary life of the people on his journey of pressing field guidance.

His affection for the people was not confined to it.

A few days later he again detrained at a station on his way of coming back from the field guidance to acquaint himself with the cabbage harvest.

The meticulous care shown by the leader for winter kimchi is still conveyed as an epic of great love.

An epic of great love indeed.

Just Dance

No, not THAT dancing video...

Makers, Managers, and the Muse

While I never knew why, I've always gone to great lengths to avoid scheduling meetings or appointments in the middle of my day. Especially when I was deep into writing, I absolutely hated to have to break up my day for any but the most necessary interruptions. I was even reluctant to schedule lunch with friends. It seemed to me, albeit improbably and unrealistically, as if the whole day was wasted if I had to leave mid-morning or mid-afternoon to meet with someone or to have an appointment.

Now I know why, thanks to a programmer who's defined the difference between a "Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule."

Most powerful people are on the manager's schedule. It's the schedule of command. But there's another way of using time that's common among people who make things, like programmers and writers. They generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can't write or program well in units of an hour. That's barely enough time to get started.

When you're operating on the maker's schedule, meetings are a disaster. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by breaking it into two pieces each too small to do anything hard in. Plus you have to remember to go to the meeting. That's no problem for someone on the manager's schedule. There's always something coming on the next hour; the only question is what. But when someone on the maker's schedule has a meeting, they have to think about it.

Exactly! It's difficult for me to tear myself away from the writing process—and it is a process. It's like if you jumped off the elliptical machine before your heart rate got up to speed. Even if you went back for another 15 minutes, the benefit wouldn't be as great.

The writing muscle works the same way, and I suppose for a programmer it works similarly. I need a long chunk of time in order for creativity to run amuck. My muse needs hours and hours of playing fields, or else she just stays inside and doesn't come out at all.

There's another intrusion, too, that wreaks havoc on a Maker's schedule: the internet. The constantly updated stream of information that's available at a click, not to mention email, Facebook and Twitter. Now you can have a virtual lunch with friends by checking Twitter to see where they're grabbing a bite, and catch up over Facebook by peering at their vacation albums. These left-brained interruptions are coitus interruptus for an impassioned muse.

To paraphrase, Break my Day.

The article above describes the euphoria that comes with the prospect of an unbroken day:

Don't your spirits rise at the thought of having an entire day free to work, with no appointments at all? Well, that means your spirits are correspondingly depressed when you don't. And ambitious projects are by definition close to the limits of your capacity. A small decrease in morale is enough to kill them off.

I've never been able to explain my meeting aversion to anyone; I always passed it off as a typical introvert's quirk. But that explanation didn't hold, since when I did go to a meeting or social gathering I was usually the last to leave—I do enjoy the company of others, even more so since I so often find myself alone.

But apparently I'm not alone with my meeting aversion. You can read more on the Freakanomics blog at the NY Times, where author Stephen J. Dubner is also freaked out about meetings. And as he suggests, I will now forward this column to anyone who asks me to schedule a meeting.