If I Ran the World...

Well, It's been a long month, but at least the election is done and behind us. 

As you know, (unless you watch Fox News) President Obama won 4 more years.  Some months ago, this blog endorsed the President for re-election, based primarily on his being a fellow Homebrew Dad.

And he won.

So I think I’ll take the credit for that.

But what about the beer?         

The White House beer, I must say, is very good.  Not overly sweet, like many other honey ales I’ve tried, and not overly bitter, like too many homebrews made by homebrewers who think cranking the IBUs to 100 is an original idea.  Sweet, but balanced, surprisingly conservative while still clearly liberal in its alcohol content.  On the whole, delicious.

And as I was quaffing one of these delectable Election Day brews, it suddenly occurred to me how this might be the key to making the world a truly better place.  We spent a lot of time during the election talking about how things were, and how things are, but when it came to making things better, all we got from anyone were vague promises.

So here, in no particular order, are the 5 things I propose (under the influence of homebrew) for solving all our problems.  And the nice things is, none of these will cost much of anything, and will probably save us money in the long run.

Everyone Makes Homebrew

Who didn’t see that one coming?

Ok, so I’m biased, but I really think homebrewing will help solve a lot of our problems, and there are many really good reasons to try it.  For instance…

It will save you money.                

Seriously.  The ingredients for making a basic blonde (pale) ale, or pale lager, will run me about $30, and that’s not even a very good deal.  You can get the stuff cheaper if you try.  One batch makes 5 gallons, which works out to about 48 12 oz bottles, or 8 six packs.  Eight six packs for $30, or about $3.75 per six pack, for good beer.  Find me a better price anywhere.

And if you’re worried about taking jobs away from one of the few industries that still make things in this country, consider this: the best thing that has happened to the beer industry in the last half decade is the rise of homebrewers.  Homebrewing has led to microbrews, craft brews, and a resurgence of forgotten (in this country, anyway) styles like Belgian white, or Irish red.

Don’t like beer?  Make wine.

Don’t drink?  Make cheese, make vinegar, make something! 

We as a society are increasingly reliant on the supermarket and industrial processed food.  I’m not saying everyone should go back to owning a farm and returning to a subsistence economy, but seriously, understand what goes into our food, and try making some stuff from scratch.  You’ll be surprised how easy it is, and how good it turns out!  And it might change the way you think about food.

Eliminate Political Parties

As things stand right now, everyone in this country is identified either as a Democrat or a Republican (or Libertarian, Tea Partier, Communist, and there might be a couple people up in Maine who still go by Bull Moose, I’m not sure).  The point is, right now, that party defines who you are, with Democrats favoring high taxes, and Republicans favoring deregulation of everything, and Tea Partiers favoring white people.  Our representatives go to work, based on party ideals, and only the party with a majority can get anything done.

But what if you want lower taxes and a reduction in government spending, and also favor gay marriage, a woman’s right to choose, and an expansion of Medicaid?  Are you a conservative Democrat?  A liberal Republican?  A Republocrat?

The various party platforms do not and cannot represent every point of view of every American perfectly.  We’re slightly more complex than that.  And increasingly, our elected representatives are discouraged from having their own opinions and voting according to what they believe, because if they do they will be punished by the party machinery. 

Our political system is brilliant at doing exactly what it was designed to do.  It takes into account that we will have important and complicated issues that face us, we have representatives with radically different ideas on how to solve these problems, and we have a process by which competing ideas can be debated, and we have regular elections so if people don’t like the outcome, they can elect new representatives.

This system works, when we let it.

The problem lies in the need to put party needs above the needs of the country, or the state, or the electorate.  People can, and do, have political positions, and they should be elected according to that, but once they are elected, those politicians need to be able to think for themselves in putting forward ideas and considering the ideas put forward by others.  Instead, the parties themselves now stand directly in the way of compromise and rational debate. 

They need to go away. 

Our politicians need to stand up to the powerful partisan machinery, and the voters need to reward the politicians that do.

And please, my fellow voters, call bullshit on the next partisan politician who makes any reference to the “original intention of our founding fathers” or any such nonsense.  Or founders didn’t intend anything, except that people get to vote for their leaders (a radical idea, at the time), and that our nation would occasionally enjoy a peaceful transfer of power from one group of leaders to another (even more radical, at that time), and somehow, even when we disagreed, we’d all find a way to live together without anyone threatening to leave the country if they lost like some whiny kid being forced to share his toys (still a radical idea).

 

And speaking of irrational partisan bickering...

 Free Healthcare

It’s not in the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution, but only because medical coverage in the 18^th century was mostly delivered in the form of leeches.  But today, with the current advances in medical treatment, with our scientific understanding of health and nutrition and today’s much longer life expectancy, there is no excuse.

Give healthcare to everyone.  Full care for children and elderly; basic, routine care for everyone else.

Didn’t I say this wouldn’t cost us anything?

It wouldn’t.  The government has the money, most of these programs are already in place in one form or another, either at the federal or state level.  And you and I, as private citizens and taxpayers, already pay way more for healthcare than we would under a single-payer government-run system.  Money is not the issue.  Well, money is the issue, but only the money in the insurance industry.  And that's a lot of money we're spending on this stuff, which buys really good lawyers and lobbyists.

But really, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

At least two of those require healthcare.

 Pay People More (Certain People, Anyway)

We are a people who react to incentives.

And there’s no better incentive than money.

Which is why so many smart people spend their lives buying and selling imaginary things like stocks or derivatives or mutual funds or inverse fault derivative bargains (I just made that last one up, but by next year, you’re 401(k) be heavily invested in them), bringing home ridiculous amounts of money to spend on private schools or influencing politicians.

People aren’t attracted to these jobs because they like playing with imaginary things.  They’re attracted by the money.  Which is good, for our overall economy (I want smart people in charge of inflation, interest rates, and economic growth), but what about other just as essential jobs.

It turns out, some of the most important jobs necessary for the future of our country don’t pay very well.  And we should change that.

Start with paying teachers more.  Our schools are, after all, literally determining the course of the future of this country (hint: it’s the kids).  So naturally, we devalue the importance of teachers to the point that the only people who take that job either a) really, really want to teach, even if it means barely making ends meet for most of the rest of their life, only to retire and need to take on a new job because their pension isn’t enough to live on, or b) they want summers off, and don’t really care about anything.

I think most teachers fall into the (a) category, but I’ve met a few from (b). 

But what if young people said to themselves, “I’m smart, I got good grades, I really want to make a boat-load of money.   I could pursue law, maybe get an MBA, or maybe I could become an eight-grade math teacher.”

There are a lot of problems with our educational system, but instead of arguing about class size, or standardized testing (for which there are rational arguments on both sides, and the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle), start with paying teachers what they deserve.  Treat them like rock stars, and while you’re at it, stop pretending rock stars are "role models."  I’d rather my daughter would want to grow up to be like her pre-school teacher than Lady Gaga.

Paying more money to teachers would also attract better teachers, and our students would come out of school with better educations, resulting in more innovations, better leadership all over the place, and a booming economy.

Now, you say, this MUST cost us more money!

That depends (he says in a classic Clintonian evasion).

Are we spending, or are we investing?  Right now, we keep talking about spending money on school, when really, we need to talk about investing in our future (hint: it’s still the kids!).

Of course, no politician would dare spend that much more on education when rich special interests line their pockets with “gifts” and “campaign contributions.”  So before we pay teachers more, first we need to pay another profession more:

Politicians.

And let the hate mail begin!

No, really, hear me out!  Right now, politicians make relatively little salary for what they do.  If you want to be a politician and make a decent living you either need to be a) independently wealthy, or b) totally corrupt.  Or c) both.

Are these really the people we want deciding the fate of this country?  Where are the scientists, the teachers, the laborers, the social workers, the nobel laureates?  They either can’t afford it, or can’t be bothered with such a hopelessly corrupt system.

So, same as with teachers, pay more, and attract a better quality of politician.

There are many good politicians (mostly rich), and many smart politicians (mostly corrupt), but many, many who are neither (both).  We can vote any of these guys out and put in someone who is smart and honest, but they’d have to run for office first, and no one that smart and that honest has any incentive to run.  And that needs to change.

We can take the corrupting influence of money away, just by paying them more.  And every single successful corporation in the world knows that this works.

Think it will cost us money?

I think smart politicians will be a lot more efficient at spend our tax money than most of the turkeys in charge of that now.

(On a personal note, I’d really like to say social workers and retail managers should also be paid more, but I’ll save that for another time.)

And finally,

Go To Mars

I know, this is already on the table.  And I love it.  Space exploration programs produce more return on investment in terms of technological development than just about any other program out there.  These programs, though expensive, pay for themselves.  

Think NASA is a giant waste of taxpayer money?  Check out this site and see what NASA research and development has contributed to the world.  (It doesn't seem too impressive, just one thing...well, refresh the page.)

Which is why we need to go to Mars.

Now, ask any theoretical physicist, engineer, or behavorial psychologist what it will take to get to Mars, and you’ll get three good answers why it’s currently  impossible.  Put them together in a locked room with enough Mountain Dew and pizza, and all those problems will be solved long before the oxygen runs out, and those answers will lead to new technologies with practical applications right here on Earth, which will in turn lead to new industries, new private companies, new manufacturing jobs, and entire new economic models.

Plus, it would be awesome.

Which is why I should run the world.  

One Last Ghost Story: The Burning of the Palatine

Well, last night was Halloween, and what a great Halloween it was!  Weather turned out to be good, my neighborhood has electricity, and we got gobs and gobs of candy!

We also took part in our town’s latest and not-so-greatest idea for creating a “safe” trick-or-treating environment: truck-or-treat.

Have you heard of this?  Maybe I’m the last to know.

In our case, people gather their cars on the town common, open their trunks, and hand out candy to parades of little kids walking by.  Last year, when half the town was still without power and electrical lines and tree branches still hung precariously on many streets, trunk-or-treating saved Halloween.  This year, it was somewhat less necessary.  And it kind of gives me the willies.

The idea seems like a good one:  gather the kids in one place and create a safe trick-or-treating environment.  Only think about the behavior this encourages:  walking up to a stranger’s car because of the promise of candy in the truck.  That’s just an abduction waiting to happen.

On the other hand...

But while that’s all behind us, there’s still time for one last ghost story:

This one, like my last one, comes out of Rhode Island.  I grew up close to the ocean, and from some of the Rhode Island beaches where I would build sand castles and look for shells and sea glass, I could look out on the vastness of the blue-gray waters, and the unimaginable secrets held in its depths.

Rhode Island has not one, but many islands, almost all of which are found within Narragansett Bay.  But a little ways out into the Atlantic Ocean lies the tiny island of Block Island, all by itself.  As you can imagine, the people on Block Island make their living largely off the ocean, and have for centuries, one way or the other.

Back in the 18^th century, sailing along the waters off southern New England was a dangerous affair.  Between storms and rocks, many ships met their end, including many that ended up run aground on the shores of Block Island.  In those cases, there were residents of the island who would come out and ransack the ship, scavenging anything they could get their hands on.

Supposedly, some even hung lanterns or built signal fires near the most dangerous rocks, hoping to attract ship to be wrecked on the rocks.  And some say that is exactly what happened to the Princess Augusta in 1738.

The Princess Augusta was carrying a load of immigrants, nothing of value at all, but it was caught in a storm of Long Island.  The legends are unclear if the ship struck the rocks of Block Island by accident, or if they were lured onto the rocks by wreckers, but wreck it did.

The wreckers who made it to the ship found nothing of value, but helped all the passengers onto shore.  All, that is, except for one woman, sometimes described as a “mad woman,” who refused to leave.  The ship was set ablaze, at which point the rising tide and winds pushed the Princess Augusta back off the rocks.  The ship drifted off to the edge of the horizon, blazing like a Viking funeral, and all the while, the people ashore could hear the mad woman’s screams.

The following year, on the anniversary of the wreck, awestruck islanders watched as the Princess Augusta appeared again off shore, still engulfed in flames, and the mad woman’s screams once again filled their ears, before drifting once again beyond the horizon.

This horrifying story became even more legendary when the poet John Greenleaf Whittier used it as the inspiration for his poem, “Wreck of the Palatine.”

And to this day, residents of Block Island still say that one night a year, usually the night of a storm, near the anniversary of wreck back in 1738, you can still see the light of the burning ship on the horizon, now known as the “Palatine Light.”

And if the wind is blowing just the right way, the mad woman’s screams can still be heard.