Still trying to optimize the built environment

I was invited as a participant to the TEDxRainier conference set for November 12, 2011 at Kane Hall on the UW campus. This is what I wrote in my invitation request:

I’m passionate about finding ways to circumvent obstacles to home building. I’d love to replace the 30 year mortgage with community-supported alternatives coupled with alternative building methods. There are methods that are environmentally sound, that will withstand structural engineering scrutiny and still cost less than $120/square foot. I’d like to encourage an industry that promotes acceptance of a greater variety of building methods like cob, straw bale, superadobe, etc. Why do we accept a debt for nearly a third of our lives simply to live in a place we call home? This is the change I want to be. I’m renting now and refuse to mortgage my future for the sake of the debt economy. I played that game, sold my home and don’t want to go back to the status quo. Please invite me. Thanks!!

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We're all trying to grapple with how to be effective in the world as it has become in the space of our lifetimes. It is terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. I want to take the fear out of it entirely and meet as many kindred spirits as possible.
 
I'm hoping that one of the speakers, Howard Frumkin will give me some insight about how to approach this subject matter.

A public/private partnership in healthcare?

Yesterday, I was imagining a potential public/private partnership as a means to reform healthcare. On closer examination, I think this won't work. A private, for-profit model for the provisioning of a basic human right is completely untenable. What was I thinking?? Guess I was pulling an Obama.

I respect our president, but this kind of compromise is not why we voted for him. As any OWser can tell you, our current system simply needs to be dismantled. I once worked for a consulting firm, and while doing a content audit, found an article by one of the actuaries still (2009) defending the use of the pre-existing condition clause in insurance policies. The policy structure that maintains the health insurance industry protects all the typical players, in all the typical ways that private enterprise is known for. The needs of the customers in this case are actually at odds with the goals of the service the health insurance company intends to provide. They must pay as little as they can according to their contractual agreements, and do it, foot-dragging all the way.

Have you ever had to wait eight months to be billed for a minor surgery? You know what I mean. There is an oceanic cesspool of bureacracy between the service provider and the customer.

Once in a while the conscience of a good soul emerges from ignorance, and when that person is from the industry, he deserves a listen. Such is the case for Wendell Potter who, in this video admits: "I was insulated. I didn't really see what was going on."

Remove the connection between healthcare and employment

Do I have the option only to work six to nine months of any given year? No, not if I want uninterupted health insurance coverage. If I don't mind being dependent on someone else, my time and labor can be freed up for other things. That means my husband has to work for my right to health insurance. In this society there is no assumption that a human life has value independent of labor as measured in the balance of the workforce. So, my husband makes up for my labor deficiency by having the uninterupted job with benefits he shares with me.

Can I accept this form of dependence? I have done so, but it sucks. This is a constraint I can't do much if anything about. I live in a society where it is not my option to have health insurance independent of my job. One could argue that I am free to source an individual insurance plan for myself, but that is a joke, as the expense alone may easily consume the money I derive from working. In fact, I was part of a plan sponsored by Lifewise and they refused to pay a legitimate claim. I went through all kinds of official channels to resolve the issue. At one point I was even reminded that I could lodge a formal complaint with the state insurance commissioner. I cancelled the policy. Let's face it, I knew what I was dealing with. Health insurance companies resisting the payment of legitimate claims is emblematic of the reasons for the Wall St. occupation.

And so I live in a society that appears to have some requirement that my fear of lacking health insurance should be maintained. The excuse given is that costs to society would be too great for everyone to have coverage. However, costs are not calculated according to the status quo we already are living in, where the uninsured find their only option is an emergency room visit. It is fairly obvious that the costs of maintaining this form of care are simply passed on in ways that aren't made clear to most of us.

The costs of running Harborview Medical Center don't exactly make the local news. The policy makers do no want us to know how wasteful the healthcare system is, let alone how it could be changed.

There is no reason basic health maintenance should be an insurmountable task. When supplemented with insurance for catastrophic care or chronic disease management, there is no reason our government couldn't assure simple, routine measures of health maintenance like office visits, consultations, screenings, tests, and even massage and accupuncture and other forms of stress and pain relief.

These things could be easily definable, and other forms of insurance would only kick in at specific points of protocol where more intensive measures are necessary. It is a failure of political will that prevents us from having a decent, more evenly shared economy.

When everything is viewed through the lens of market valuation, it leaves no room for viewing humans as willing participants in their own value. If human value cannot be immediately assumed in the exchange of goods and services through enterprise or labor, there is no other assumption that is made. Humans after all are grown and developed by other humans who assume the creation, care, and feeding of their eventual worth in the workforce until such time as they are let loose on the world at age 18 or there abouts. As long as we're plugged into the labor force our status is assured.

If the world view assumed some already accepted value in the souls walking this earth then no one would ever be unneeded in the maintenance of the world. All would be cared for at a basic level through a system in which all partake. Call it taxation, call it socialism. I don't care what you call it. All I know is that what I am describing is not impossible.

I hesitate to back-pedal, but in truth, I would prefer single-payer, universal healthcare. By putting these ideas together, I was attempting to imagine a hybrid system worthy of consideration.

Doing the real work

Matthew Crawford's essay, The case for working with your hands, provides an excellent definition for determining what makes work worth doing:

"A good job requires a field of action where you can put your best capacities to work and see an effect in the world."

In this essay, an except from his book, Shop class as soulcraft, Crawford contrasts the work environments typical of the corporate world with those of manual labor. His observations about these cultural differences are extraordinarily accurate. I found myself in every passage.

Eighteen years ago I ran a business as a custom tailor in the back of a high-end vintage clothing store. I created original designs and provided restoration on the garments sold in the store. As much as my customers appreciated the work, they also disliked having to pay for it and often didn't hesitate to tell me. I sensed their vulnerability from not knowing if they could trust me or if what they wanted was possible. My job involved the execution of my craft and being a consultant and hand-holder, too.

During the years I spent tailoring clothes I experienced the full spectrum of attitudes that people maintain about practical, manual labor. On the one hand, some were genuinely gracious and understood the work as having value and requiring skill. On the other, there was always someone available at a drycleaner who would do it for less, but communication was an issue so they came to me. I understood very well the context of this prejudice toward sewing as work, but didn't believe it should be my problem to solve. From my point of view, I was offering a service just like any tradesman, and no less deserving of the same esteem as an electrician or mechanic. However, there seemed to be a strong distaste for this particular form of labor deep within the collective psyche, one I didn't share.

At one point, a well meaning person even said: "...I wouldn't be ashamed of doing that..." It never occurred to me that I should.

Fast forward several years, and I'm in a cubicle farm of a sportswear product group conversing with overseas factories about the fit and proportions of next spring's fashions. I have been sufficiently retrained as Crawford would say, "according to a certain cognitive style". 

Now rather than having the immediacy of directing my own actions, I am obligated to manage the work of others. I will never know or see them, but I'm utterly dependent on them creating garments according to specifications and instructions I provide. So while my previous skill development serves me well for orchestrating this, it bears no resemblance to what I call the "real" work.

Patterning, cutting, sewing, and finishing all require a knowledge and precision no less important than the clarity of emails I write to the reps and managers in Hong Kong. However, this labor went from being locally devalued to being globally devalued all so that we can purchase jeans and tee shirts at prices that have no connection to the true cost of production.

What I love about Crawford's essay is how well he grasps this transformation, and the resulting realization that work on either side of the ocean is not what it seems.

"When I first got the degree, I felt as if I had been inducted to a certain order of society. But despite the beautiful ties I wore, it turned out to be a more proletarian existence than I had known as an electrician."

And so, we are left to question the process by which any kind of work is esteemed.

A lesson in how to justify selling more lap band devices

(What follows is an email I sent a good friend of mine. I then forwarded it to another friend who suggested I post it. Never one to be pointlessly disagreeable, I have posted it here as well.)

Last night I saw a news story that, if you haven’t picked up on it, will be something that interests you. The criteria for who is a candidate for lap band surgery is now up for revision as follows. The example given in the story was for a person 5’ 6”, which got my attention because that is my height. The current beginning of the range for being eligible for the surgery at this height is a weight of 220 pounds. The new eligibility being considered is a weight of 186 pounds and a body mass index of 30.

This is outrageous. I might have been eligible for surgery for my extra pounds? Really? I was 181 pounds with a BMI of 29. Yes, I was carrying more on my bones than was healthy, but to suggest I needed surgery to deal with it is anything but a healthy reaction. The folks at TSFL* should seriously pick up on this and call it for what it is. 

A friend of mine once weighed 400 pounds. Yes, she was an ideal candidate and lost half that amount post-surgery. However, it is not easy to maintain her new life because the mechanism controls her and not her own mind. She will have to live with this mechanical device inside her for the rest of her life because she was not on a program of behavior management, much less nutrition management.

It just so happens that the stock valuation for the company that makes this device shot up on the day this was announced. How sick is that? If you’ve got more than, say 25 pounds to lose, you can now consider surgery instead of simply taking the effort to learn better habits. The governing bodies that make recommendations for these devices and all kinds of medical and health-related issues are obviously happy to help the manufacturers boost sales. After all we have an obesity ‘epidemic’ thanks to our food policies and subsidies. Why not give people an easy fix for the problems we unwittingly foist on them in the first place?

I feel like I’m having a Susan Powter moment! (Remember her?) Stop the insanity!!!!

*TSFL = Take Shape For Life is the program I used to lose 25 pounds last summer. It was easy to follow and it worked for me.

The symbolic violence of making it too hard just to live

(happened on 10/29/10)

Last Friday on my usual trek up the hill after leaving the ferry, I was waiting for the light at 2nd & Marion. An ancient, red Chevy Cavalier struggled to crest the hill. Its cringe-inducing gears grinding noisily made me notice that the make and model seemed at least 30 years old, a car museum piece. Just as it managed to turn the corner in front of me, the driver leaned over and yelled out the open passenger-side window.

"I'm so sorry!"

Did he see the expression on my face, or was that meant for everyone else waiting at the corner? I shook my head and said, "I don't care." to no one in particular. As he continued down 2nd Avenue less noisily than before, I couldn't avoid seeing the pile of stuff in his back seat. Stacked to the top of the rear window were liquor store boxes and a beige keyboard. I imagined him a Turk, a Greek, or a Bosnian—but who knows? Perhaps I don't think of downtrodden Americans so readily apologizing for their car needing a new transmission. It's all just part of the noise.

As soon as he disappeared down the street his embarrassment, his pleading apology echoed in my brain and I felt sorry for him. Who knows how he acquired the car he was driving and why it was packed to the ceiling with junk? Clearly, this was a man trying desperately to retain some pride independent of his circumstances. And what were those circumstances? Did he live out of his car? I didn't want him to feel ashamed. His pained expression seemed atypical of so many who would have only cursed and driven on.

This scene made me think about a book I recently read: The Spirit Level: Why greater equality makes societies stronger by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. The authors provide well-documented research on the consequences of social inequality. Hierarchy and class distinctions, as they are maintained, affect people almost as profoundly as inequalities in income.

"Bourdieu calls the actions by which the elite maintain their distinction symbolic violence; we might just as easily call them discrimination and snobbery. Although racial prejudice is widely condemned, class prejudice is, despite the similarities, rarely mentioned."

Calling inequities of income and status merely symbolic violence is too mild a description for what really happens to people. I'm sure this man has hopes and dreams. Must those dreams be only to maintain basic living standards that so many others take for granted? People often resent having to witness the misfortune of others, but I fear cyncism forces us to lose touch with compassion. All the green energy and improved food production in the world will make very little difference if we don't find a way  fundamentally to facilitate how people get their basic needs met within the types of labor available to them to procure, housing and health care, for example, not to mention safer transportation.

The first annual 21st Century Citizen Award!!

When you are lucky enough to find the inspiration you're looking for from a kindred spirit, you've got to pass it on. In fact, the work of Thomas J. Elpel is just such a phenomenon that I've decided to name him my 21st Century Citizen of 2010. Here is a guy who has used most of his life figuring out how to be not only a responsible user of his own energy and resources, but also to help people understand how they can do the same in our economic ecosystem. I really admire the approach he took to writing his book: Direct pointing to real wealth. It is sort of an odd title, but the founding message of his thesis is unmistakably sound and appealing. Here is the basic premise:

"The first key to effective resource use is to creatively mimic nature in it's efficiency and synergism to close the loop on all kinds of waste at home and in business, from wasted materials and energy to wasted time, money and labor."

Early on his goal was to build his own energy efficient home and avoid having a mortgage so that he could achieve the greater goal of not having to work for someone else to have the life he wanted.

"...money is representative of calories, and the fewer we expended the fewer we would need to earn."

and:

"... we made our house energy efficient so that we would not have to work all our lives to pay high energy bills."

He repeatedly uses the analogy of calorie intake and consumption as the model for deciding where best to place your own resources for maximum return. This is but a taste of all the wisdom one can glean from this book, and no doubt his others. His writing alone might have earned him my citizen award, but that he also wants to teach others sustainable home building practices is the real winning element.
So what you might ask is the prize for this award? Uh, good question. I'll have to expend a few calories to create a suitable token of appreciation. As always, stay tuned for the next installment......