I was shaken to the core when I found out what happened to Chelsea King. I don't know her personally. The first I heard of her was an email at work last week saying she was missing. The place where they arrested her murderer was the same place my sons and I go mountain biking. I remember my young son falling behind and it is terrifying to think that a predator lurked in the same area. This atrocity is too close to home.
Chelsea is not much younger than my own daughter. I can't imagine the pain this loss is causing her family and friends. I found out yesterday that a coworker lives in Danielle Van Dam's neighborhood. My friend's daughter was in Danielle's class at school and she had come over for a birthday party about a year earlier. She is still scarred by Danielle's murder after 8 years.
To remember the true horror and reality of the crimes against these girls, I recommend that the next time you watch CSI Crime Scene Investigation, CSI New York, CSI Las Vegas, CSI Miama, Law & Order Criminal Intent, Law & Order Special Crimes Unit, Criminal Minds, Cold Case, Bones, Without a Trace, or any other crime drama or horror movie (of which there is a disturbing abundance) ---
Remember it is real and it is ugly!!!
P.S. If I just ruined watching these shows for you, then this posting served its purpose.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
The Health Insurance Iceberg
The world is not run by those who are right. It is run by those who can convince others that they are right p 37
When you're debating something as big as health care reform, it seems that there are two sides that have each decided on a solution, and they simple report the numbers to convince others that they have the "right" solution.
Government Provided Health Care
For example, one solution is for a complete takeover of health care by the government. This side reports the high costs of medical insurance, excessive executive compensation, etc. The logic for government provided health care goes something like this:
1. Because of high costs, too many American's don't have health care.
2. It's the moral responsibility for a rich nation to assure all citizens have access to health care.
3. Therefore, the government should provide health insurance for all American's.
I've tried hard to come up with a valid syllogism to fit this argument. The form of a syllogism is:
All X is Y
All Y is Z
Therefore, all X is Z.
"All" can be replaced with "Some" or "No".
"is" can be replaced by "is not".
In order to be a valid argument, the premises need to be valid and the syllogism needs to be valid.
Valid Premises, Invalid Syllogism = Invalid Argument
Some health care is provided by the government
Smart people have health care
Therefore, smart people get their health care from the government.
In order for this to work, any value of X,Y and Z should work:
Some X is Y
Z is X
Therefore, Z is Y
To show how this is flawed, try:
Some lawyers are crooks.
Pres. Obama is a lawyer.
Therefore, Pres. Obama is a crook.
Another example (if you see no fallacy in the last example)
Some whites are racists.
Nancy Pelosi is white.
Therefore, Nancy Pelosi is a racist.
Valid Argument, Invalid Premise = Invalid Argument
Everyone deserves affordable health care.
Only the government can provide affordable health care (Invalid).
Therefore the government should provide health care for everyone.
Valid Argument, Valid Premise = Valid Argument
All health care for American's is _________
All _______ is health care provided by the government
Therefore, all health care for American's is provided by the government.
For those pushing government provided health care, a middle term is needed to make both premises valid. Good luck!
The Free Market Solution
For full disclosure, I am a proponent of the Free Market, but some of the arguments on this side are weak. For example, in response to the attack on health insurance companies, the health care reform opponents say that the we spend about $2.5 trillion ($2,500 billion) on health care in the U.S. each year and that the executive compensation ($10 million and up) is pennies. Also, the average profits for health insurance companies is only about 5%, which ends up being less than $20 billion per year (not even 1% total health care cost). Very compelling numbers! The Free Market wins! Or does it? (I think this is a fallacy of invalid contrast or misuse of statistics).
A closer look at the numbers (see table below) shows that the top 10 health insurance providers have total annual revenues of $253 Billion or 10% of all of our health care costs.
While these revenues represent exchanges for goods or services, none of these goods or services actually represent health care. For example, a policy that costs $8000 (rough estimate of annual cost of insurance), the amount breaks down as follows (If we assume that all U.S. health care is paid by claims against insurance - which it isn't).
$7200 Medical Claims paid out ($8000 minus 10% or $800 of insurance company revenues)
$760 Operating costs (buildings, utility bills, salaries, etc.)
$40 Profit of 5% on the $800
The opponents of government provided health care say that the $40 profit on a $8000 policy is nothing. The problem is that this is a flawed argument used to counter another flawed argument. Insurance profits are only the tip of the iceberg. The rest of the "insurance" iceberg is the $760 per person it costs to run the insurance company.
The flawed argument here is:
1. Insurance company profits and executive compensation are only 5% (True)
2. Insurance company profits are an even smaller percentage of total health care costs (True).
3. Therefore, insurance companies are not the problem with out of control health care costs.
This is either the fallacy of the excluded middle (total insurance costs) or of irrelevant contrast.
Why is Health Care so expensive?
My hypothesis is that government measures that attempt to improve health care has the unintended consequences of interfering with the free market feedback loop.
Here's where I expose my strong bias against publicly owned/traded companies.
Privately owned - focus on making customers happy by increasing quality of products and services while reducing prices/costs.
Publicly owned - focus is split between making customers happy and making stock holders happy. Increasing revenues is the only way to make stockholders happy.
Regulation on health care companies and another focus to both types of companies: how to satisfy government rules and regulations. For public companies, no amount of regulation is going to reduce the stockholders demand for growth. Limiting preexisting conditions, guarantees for uninsured, etc. all reduce revenue growth and therefore force premiums to go up.
Conclusion
Insurance companies are a larger contributor to rising health care costs than free market proponents will admit. The reason that insurance companies are a problem is due to government intervention and market growth demands that squeeze out the consumers needs.
The way to shrink the "iceberg" is to find ways to help private companies compete against the public companies. This will only work if many of the regulations that the government has imposed to "fix" health care are changed so that market forces can help melt the rest of the "iceberg".
Only the government thinks that cutting a foot of the bottom of a blanket and sewing to the top will make the blanket a foot longer.
When you're debating something as big as health care reform, it seems that there are two sides that have each decided on a solution, and they simple report the numbers to convince others that they have the "right" solution.
Government Provided Health Care
For example, one solution is for a complete takeover of health care by the government. This side reports the high costs of medical insurance, excessive executive compensation, etc. The logic for government provided health care goes something like this:
1. Because of high costs, too many American's don't have health care.
2. It's the moral responsibility for a rich nation to assure all citizens have access to health care.
3. Therefore, the government should provide health insurance for all American's.
I've tried hard to come up with a valid syllogism to fit this argument. The form of a syllogism is:
All X is Y
All Y is Z
Therefore, all X is Z.
"All" can be replaced with "Some" or "No".
"is" can be replaced by "is not".
In order to be a valid argument, the premises need to be valid and the syllogism needs to be valid.
Valid Premises, Invalid Syllogism = Invalid Argument
Some health care is provided by the government
Smart people have health care
Therefore, smart people get their health care from the government.
In order for this to work, any value of X,Y and Z should work:
Some X is Y
Z is X
Therefore, Z is Y
To show how this is flawed, try:
Some lawyers are crooks.
Pres. Obama is a lawyer.
Therefore, Pres. Obama is a crook.
Another example (if you see no fallacy in the last example)
Some whites are racists.
Nancy Pelosi is white.
Therefore, Nancy Pelosi is a racist.
Valid Argument, Invalid Premise = Invalid Argument
Everyone deserves affordable health care.
Only the government can provide affordable health care (Invalid).
Therefore the government should provide health care for everyone.
Valid Argument, Valid Premise = Valid Argument
All health care for American's is _________
All _______ is health care provided by the government
Therefore, all health care for American's is provided by the government.
For those pushing government provided health care, a middle term is needed to make both premises valid. Good luck!
The Free Market Solution
For full disclosure, I am a proponent of the Free Market, but some of the arguments on this side are weak. For example, in response to the attack on health insurance companies, the health care reform opponents say that the we spend about $2.5 trillion ($2,500 billion) on health care in the U.S. each year and that the executive compensation ($10 million and up) is pennies. Also, the average profits for health insurance companies is only about 5%, which ends up being less than $20 billion per year (not even 1% total health care cost). Very compelling numbers! The Free Market wins! Or does it? (I think this is a fallacy of invalid contrast or misuse of statistics).
A closer look at the numbers (see table below) shows that the top 10 health insurance providers have total annual revenues of $253 Billion or 10% of all of our health care costs.
| Company | Sym. | Mark.Capital. $Billion | P/E | Profits $Billion | Total Revenue $Billion | %profit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UnitedHealth Group | UNH | 38.19 | 10.44 | 3.66 | 87.14 | 4.2% |
| WellPoint | WLP | 27.47 | 6.26 | 4.39 | 61.24 | 7.2% |
| Aetna | AET | 13 | 10.56 | 1.23 | 34.73 | 3.5% |
| Cigna | CI | 9.37 | 7.25 | 1.29 | 18 | 7.0% |
| Health Net | HNT | 2.4 | 5 | 0.48 | 15.71 | 3.1% |
| Coventry Health Care | CVH | 3.38 | 14.1 | 0.24 | 13.9 | 1.7% |
| Humana | HUM | 8.06 | 7.7 | 1.05 | 8.02 | 13.1% |
| Amerigroup | AGP | 1.34 | 9.21 | 0.15 | 4.97 | 2.9% |
| Universal American | UAM | 1.1 | 8.34 | 0.13 | 4.85 | 2.7% |
| Centene | CNC | 0.77 | 9.47 | 0.08 | 4.1 | 2.0% |
| Total | 105 | 88 | 13 | 253 | 5.0% |
While these revenues represent exchanges for goods or services, none of these goods or services actually represent health care. For example, a policy that costs $8000 (rough estimate of annual cost of insurance), the amount breaks down as follows (If we assume that all U.S. health care is paid by claims against insurance - which it isn't).
$7200 Medical Claims paid out ($8000 minus 10% or $800 of insurance company revenues)
$760 Operating costs (buildings, utility bills, salaries, etc.)
$40 Profit of 5% on the $800
The opponents of government provided health care say that the $40 profit on a $8000 policy is nothing. The problem is that this is a flawed argument used to counter another flawed argument. Insurance profits are only the tip of the iceberg. The rest of the "insurance" iceberg is the $760 per person it costs to run the insurance company.
The flawed argument here is:
1. Insurance company profits and executive compensation are only 5% (True)
2. Insurance company profits are an even smaller percentage of total health care costs (True).
3. Therefore, insurance companies are not the problem with out of control health care costs.
This is either the fallacy of the excluded middle (total insurance costs) or of irrelevant contrast.
Why is Health Care so expensive?
My hypothesis is that government measures that attempt to improve health care has the unintended consequences of interfering with the free market feedback loop.
Here's where I expose my strong bias against publicly owned/traded companies.
Privately owned - focus on making customers happy by increasing quality of products and services while reducing prices/costs.
Publicly owned - focus is split between making customers happy and making stock holders happy. Increasing revenues is the only way to make stockholders happy.
Regulation on health care companies and another focus to both types of companies: how to satisfy government rules and regulations. For public companies, no amount of regulation is going to reduce the stockholders demand for growth. Limiting preexisting conditions, guarantees for uninsured, etc. all reduce revenue growth and therefore force premiums to go up.
Conclusion
Insurance companies are a larger contributor to rising health care costs than free market proponents will admit. The reason that insurance companies are a problem is due to government intervention and market growth demands that squeeze out the consumers needs.
The way to shrink the "iceberg" is to find ways to help private companies compete against the public companies. This will only work if many of the regulations that the government has imposed to "fix" health care are changed so that market forces can help melt the rest of the "iceberg".
Only the government thinks that cutting a foot of the bottom of a blanket and sewing to the top will make the blanket a foot longer.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Health Care Summit - The Onus is On Them
While trying to listen to the Health Care Summit today, I found myself cringing at the abuse of logic. (I just finish reading "Nonsense: Red Herrings, Straw Men and Sacred Cows: How We Abuse Logic in Our Everyday Language").
I only heard one person who actually seemed to attempt to address the issue while not pushing an agenda. That was Senator Tom Coburn who happens to be a medical doctor. I liked how tried focus on "why" health care cost so much and what we can do about it. His first proposal was to address Medicare fraud and abuse, which could save billions of dollars (The current cost of Medicare, etc. is about $440 billion with an estimated 10% of that being fraud, waste and abuse).
The response to Senator Coburn was:
Pres. Obama - "Every good idea that we've heard about reducing fraud and abuse in the Medicare and Medicaid system, we've adopted in our legislation... we want to eliminate fraud and abuse".
Rep. Steny Hoyer - "In our bill.. you'll be happy to see a very substantial investment in [cutting fraud, waste and abuse]".
So I say, Mr. President and distinguished members of Congress, if you are capable of "legislating" significant reduction of fraud, waste and abuse then you might gain my confidence that the rest of your legislation is more than "good ideas" and "investment [spending]". Until you gain my confidence, I am suspicious that any expansion of Government Health Care will be subject to the same fraud, waste and abuse of the old programs.
The onus is on you: reduce fraud in the programs you already manage before expanding them OR get out of the health care business altogether.
I only heard one person who actually seemed to attempt to address the issue while not pushing an agenda. That was Senator Tom Coburn who happens to be a medical doctor. I liked how tried focus on "why" health care cost so much and what we can do about it. His first proposal was to address Medicare fraud and abuse, which could save billions of dollars (The current cost of Medicare, etc. is about $440 billion with an estimated 10% of that being fraud, waste and abuse).
The response to Senator Coburn was:
Pres. Obama - "Every good idea that we've heard about reducing fraud and abuse in the Medicare and Medicaid system, we've adopted in our legislation... we want to eliminate fraud and abuse".
Rep. Steny Hoyer - "In our bill.. you'll be happy to see a very substantial investment in [cutting fraud, waste and abuse]".
So I say, Mr. President and distinguished members of Congress, if you are capable of "legislating" significant reduction of fraud, waste and abuse then you might gain my confidence that the rest of your legislation is more than "good ideas" and "investment [spending]". Until you gain my confidence, I am suspicious that any expansion of Government Health Care will be subject to the same fraud, waste and abuse of the old programs.
The onus is on you: reduce fraud in the programs you already manage before expanding them OR get out of the health care business altogether.
Friday, February 12, 2010
1929 to 2008: Market Oscillations
The stock market seems to be going up and down. This agrees with Ben Bernanke's "Financial Accelerator" model, which indicates that when the market starts to move, it typically overshoots where it should be and then bounces back. It is a little like the spring in the animation on the right.If we use the "mass on a spring" model, there is a clear formula for the frequency at which the mass goes up and down. The time between up (or down) cycles is proportional to the mass on the spring (The bigger the mass, the slower it moves).
If we think of the "mass" of the market, a good measure would be Market Capitalization. I had a hard time finding this value for 1929, so I decided to use GDP instead. To convert to 2008 dollars, I divided by CPI (consumer price index) to factor out inflation.
| Date | GDP ($billion) | CPI | Sqrt(m) | Ratio to 1929 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1929 | 104 | 17.13 | 2.46 | 1.00 |
| 2008 | 14200 | 207.34 | 8.28 | 3.4 |
What this means is that 3.4 days today is equal to 1 day in 1929 (in terms of market momentum). So here's a plot of the stock market with 1929 scaled by value (using recent market highs) and by time (using here 2.8 days). The similarity is scary.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
The Dictator Game
I'm reading "Super Freakonomics" and came across an interesting story. Somehow, it seems I always end up reading something relevant to the days events. The day I read this happened to be a couple of days before the State of the Union address.
The economic games/experiments described in "Super Freakonomics" helped me understand why the President and Congress are so quick to take our money.
There are two classic games "Ultimatum" and "Dictator" used as experiments by economists for determining human behavior.
In Ultimatum, there are 2 players. One is given $20 and is asked to offer any amount to the second player. If the second player rejects the offer, neither player gets any money. The average offered was $6. It was usually rejected if it was less than $3.
In Dictator, the main difference was that the second player got no input. Surprisingly, the "dictators" were very generous.
An economist, John List, thought these experiments didn't agree with real human behavior. He tried a couple variations:
The first variation: Dictator game with an additional option of being able to take $1 from the second person. The result was that fewer people gave money. The power to take people's money (taxation) makes you less generous!
The second variation: the Dictator game, but the first person is told that the second person also was given $20. They are told that they can still give any portion of their money, or take any of the second persons money. The result was that only 10% gave money, more than 60% took money, and most surprising more than 40% took ALL the money. Taking money from the rich makes you want to take ALL the money!
3. The final version of the game was the same as the last version, except that both players had to WORK for the $20. The result was that only 28% of the players took money away and 2/3 neither gave nor took a penny. We respect other people's property more when everyone works for what they have!
The last version is my favorite. I think it is evidence that a free-market economy is the best option. So what does this have to do with the State of the Union address this week?
Congress and the President are acting like dictators in game 2. What they don't realize is that they are actually playing the "Ultimatum" game and the American voter is about to "reject" their offer and vote them out of the dictator position. Test results won't be in until November.
The economic games/experiments described in "Super Freakonomics" helped me understand why the President and Congress are so quick to take our money.
There are two classic games "Ultimatum" and "Dictator" used as experiments by economists for determining human behavior.
In Ultimatum, there are 2 players. One is given $20 and is asked to offer any amount to the second player. If the second player rejects the offer, neither player gets any money. The average offered was $6. It was usually rejected if it was less than $3.
In Dictator, the main difference was that the second player got no input. Surprisingly, the "dictators" were very generous.
An economist, John List, thought these experiments didn't agree with real human behavior. He tried a couple variations:
The first variation: Dictator game with an additional option of being able to take $1 from the second person. The result was that fewer people gave money. The power to take people's money (taxation) makes you less generous!
The second variation: the Dictator game, but the first person is told that the second person also was given $20. They are told that they can still give any portion of their money, or take any of the second persons money. The result was that only 10% gave money, more than 60% took money, and most surprising more than 40% took ALL the money. Taking money from the rich makes you want to take ALL the money!
3. The final version of the game was the same as the last version, except that both players had to WORK for the $20. The result was that only 28% of the players took money away and 2/3 neither gave nor took a penny. We respect other people's property more when everyone works for what they have!
The last version is my favorite. I think it is evidence that a free-market economy is the best option. So what does this have to do with the State of the Union address this week?
Congress and the President are acting like dictators in game 2. What they don't realize is that they are actually playing the "Ultimatum" game and the American voter is about to "reject" their offer and vote them out of the dictator position. Test results won't be in until November.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Apple vs. The Czars
My son had his Apple iPod Nano stolen at school. I don't remember if it was from his backpack or his locker. I do remember that I got mad at him for bringing it to school in the first place. This all happened before Christmas and his birthday, so an obvious present for him was a replacement MP3 player.
I was concerned about replacing it just to have it stolen again. I would prefer he buy it with hard earned money in order for him to place greater value. I wanted to keep our losses to a minimum by buying the cheapest alternative.
Notice all of the "I"s in the previous paragraphs.
So what did my son ask for? An Apple iTouch. Ouch! That's an expensive alternative! Of course my lovely wife thought we should get the iTouch, since she has a different philosophy:
So my son got an iTouch and I got a LG Chocolate Touch cell phone. The LG is the first new cell phone I've ever had, since I am always practical and take the hand-me down phones from my wife.
The LG Chocolate Touch is pretty cool.
The iTouch (and iPhone) is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!
So what's the difference?
The difference is top down planning vs. free market. Both LG and Apple use top down development to create cool technologies, but Apple uses the free market to completely blow away LG. The difference is in the "apps" or applications you can use.
Apparently LG uses the czarist or top down approach. The czar defines what will be on the phone and the peon developers implement their plan. I'm not insulting the developers; just the czars. The developers probably have a lot of great ideas, but weren't allowed to do them or had no incentive.
Apple, on the other hand, understands the amazing power of the free market. They made it relatively easy to create apps for the iPhone/iTouch, provide a store for selling your apps, and give you 70% of the selling price! (I bet the LG developers are lucky to get 1% of the selling price of their apps). The result is over 100,000 very cool apps.
Why does this work? It's all about the protection of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Get rid of the czars and let the people create freely. Give people cool options and they will spend money.
Here's a few of the iTouch apps:
I was concerned about replacing it just to have it stolen again. I would prefer he buy it with hard earned money in order for him to place greater value. I wanted to keep our losses to a minimum by buying the cheapest alternative.
Notice all of the "I"s in the previous paragraphs.
So what did my son ask for? An Apple iTouch. Ouch! That's an expensive alternative! Of course my lovely wife thought we should get the iTouch, since she has a different philosophy:
- Christmas and birthday presents are supposed to be about what the recipient wants.
- Presents don't have to be practical.
So my son got an iTouch and I got a LG Chocolate Touch cell phone. The LG is the first new cell phone I've ever had, since I am always practical and take the hand-me down phones from my wife.
The LG Chocolate Touch is pretty cool.
The iTouch (and iPhone) is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!
So what's the difference?
The difference is top down planning vs. free market. Both LG and Apple use top down development to create cool technologies, but Apple uses the free market to completely blow away LG. The difference is in the "apps" or applications you can use.
Apparently LG uses the czarist or top down approach. The czar defines what will be on the phone and the peon developers implement their plan. I'm not insulting the developers; just the czars. The developers probably have a lot of great ideas, but weren't allowed to do them or had no incentive.
Apple, on the other hand, understands the amazing power of the free market. They made it relatively easy to create apps for the iPhone/iTouch, provide a store for selling your apps, and give you 70% of the selling price! (I bet the LG developers are lucky to get 1% of the selling price of their apps). The result is over 100,000 very cool apps.
Why does this work? It's all about the protection of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Get rid of the czars and let the people create freely. Give people cool options and they will spend money.
Here's a few of the iTouch apps:
- Koi Pond - Relax while you watch koi fish in a pond. Touch the water and it sends ripples and the fish scatter. Hold your finger steady and the fish come and nibble on it (at 4:50 in video).
- Earthscape - Spin the earth and zoom into anywhere to see satellite imagery. Find your house or go to Paris or Egypt.
- Shop Savvy - Find the cheapest prices. Take a picture of a bar code and find out the lowest price and where to buy it online.
- Flute - Hold your iPhone like a flute and blow into the microphone to create music. Use the Google Earth map to find other people playing their flutes and listen to their music.
- Finger Twister - Like the classic game twister, but you play with two fingers with a friend.
- Level - Use your iPhone as a bubble level. Place it sideways on a shelf or picture frame to see if it is level.
- Fishing - Pick a fishing spot, make a casting motion with your iPhone and then real in the fish using the touch screen.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
I'm a racist; and a pacifist
I'm reading a great book: "Nonsense: Red Herrings, Straw Men and Sacred Cows: How We Abuse Logic in Our Everyday Language". After learning about all of the wrong ways to make statements, I decided to take notes on what the non-abusive, logical way to speak.
One example is "name calling". The non-abusive way to call someone a name is to:
Pacify = "to bring peace"
Pacifist = "someone who loves to bring peace"
Note that the suffix "-ist" modifies the root word as "someone who loves ..."
2. The evidence
My mom was the first one to call me a "peacemaker" when I tried to get the neighbor boys to stop hurting their dog.
Race = "the manifestation of inherited physical characteristics"
Racist = "someone who loves race"
Note: my definition is quite different from the usual definition.
2. The evidence
I was raised in the Mormon church, which historically discriminated against blacks in that they were denied ordinances beyond baptism. When I was 14, I read a book called "A Black Mormon Tells Her Story", by Wynetta Willis Martin. I was so impressed by this book that I wrote about it in my journal. This is what I wrote: "Reading this book has really changed my impression about blacks and our church. I now know that someday, blacks will be able to hold the priesthood...". A photo of my journal is below, along with an interesting entry a year later, when the Mormon church changed their policy on blacks, giving them full rights to all church ordinances.
My father worked at a family business in South Central Los Angeles. I would occasionally work Saturdays and when I got older, I would work summers. One of my first regular jobs was stock boy (before that I swept floors, cleaned, etc.). I worked alongside another employee, Delores, and we became good friends. Delores was also Mormon (and black) and her husband was one of the first black Mormon bishops. My next job was deliveryman and I visited hundreds of homes. This was a good way to break racial stereotypes that a suburban white boy might have developed. I met alot of very nice people (Most people are nice when you deliver a working refrigerator, regardless of what race they are).
When I turned 19, I applied to go on a mission for our church. I still remember telling my dad that I would like to have a black companion (mormon missionaries are always paired in companionships). Companionships are assigned, so you don't get to pick your companion. You learn alot when you spend every waking hour with someone who was previously a complete stranger. I have to admit that this was challenging; until I got my last companion. He was black. We had some amazing experiences and a lot of fun. He was also the most compatible companion I had my whole mission and our friendship raised the bar for what I looked for in a relationship.
Later, in graduate school I worked with people from Japan, Taiwan, India and Europe. Our lunches were multicultural exchanges. I loved it.
Years later, my best friend at work was Asian-American. He was a good friend at a challenging time in my life. He invited me to play in a 3-on-3 basketball tournament at his church and I ended up being one of a few white guys (everyone else was Asian). I must say, yt was the friendliest basketball I've ever experience.
So in conclusion, I love race; therefore, I'm a racist.
My Journal Entries:
One example is "name calling". The non-abusive way to call someone a name is to:
- Define what the name means.
- Provide evidence that the person meets the criteria of the name.
Pacifist
1. The DefinitionPacify = "to bring peace"
Pacifist = "someone who loves to bring peace"
Note that the suffix "-ist" modifies the root word as "someone who loves ..."
2. The evidence
My mom was the first one to call me a "peacemaker" when I tried to get the neighbor boys to stop hurting their dog.
Racist
1. The DefinitionRace = "the manifestation of inherited physical characteristics"
Racist = "someone who loves race"
Note: my definition is quite different from the usual definition.
2. The evidence
I was raised in the Mormon church, which historically discriminated against blacks in that they were denied ordinances beyond baptism. When I was 14, I read a book called "A Black Mormon Tells Her Story", by Wynetta Willis Martin. I was so impressed by this book that I wrote about it in my journal. This is what I wrote: "Reading this book has really changed my impression about blacks and our church. I now know that someday, blacks will be able to hold the priesthood...". A photo of my journal is below, along with an interesting entry a year later, when the Mormon church changed their policy on blacks, giving them full rights to all church ordinances.
My father worked at a family business in South Central Los Angeles. I would occasionally work Saturdays and when I got older, I would work summers. One of my first regular jobs was stock boy (before that I swept floors, cleaned, etc.). I worked alongside another employee, Delores, and we became good friends. Delores was also Mormon (and black) and her husband was one of the first black Mormon bishops. My next job was deliveryman and I visited hundreds of homes. This was a good way to break racial stereotypes that a suburban white boy might have developed. I met alot of very nice people (Most people are nice when you deliver a working refrigerator, regardless of what race they are).
When I turned 19, I applied to go on a mission for our church. I still remember telling my dad that I would like to have a black companion (mormon missionaries are always paired in companionships). Companionships are assigned, so you don't get to pick your companion. You learn alot when you spend every waking hour with someone who was previously a complete stranger. I have to admit that this was challenging; until I got my last companion. He was black. We had some amazing experiences and a lot of fun. He was also the most compatible companion I had my whole mission and our friendship raised the bar for what I looked for in a relationship.
Later, in graduate school I worked with people from Japan, Taiwan, India and Europe. Our lunches were multicultural exchanges. I loved it.
Years later, my best friend at work was Asian-American. He was a good friend at a challenging time in my life. He invited me to play in a 3-on-3 basketball tournament at his church and I ended up being one of a few white guys (everyone else was Asian). I must say, yt was the friendliest basketball I've ever experience.
So in conclusion, I love race; therefore, I'm a racist.
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