HileThoughts

We just returned from a cross-country trip to Yellowstone. As rest areas have been on my mind I decided to take a look at what a few other states had to offer.

Iowa – One of my favorites along I-94 were the signs for “Modern” rest areas. (These signs were generally right before a rest area that was basically a pull off with a few trash cans.) The “modern” rest areas had an entrance area with local information. The restrooms’ themselves were quite similar to Missouri except that they had real mirrors and, what was included in Missouri’s questionnaire as a possible “waste of $$$,” free wi-fi access. 

South Dakota – This was our first time in South Dakota. Their rest areas were staffed with friendly employees who were happy to provide information, directions, and advice. Each area had a stylized concrete teepee and was loaded with information on places to see and things to go in South Dakota. Most interesting, however, were the South Dakota CDs. A set of 4 CDs with information about the state for $20. Return them to another rest area or in the post paid envelope and receive a $15 refund. We listened to them across the state and, while they were occasionally repetitive and a bit to “advertisy” for our taste, we learn about the state in a way that would not have happened without them. Great idea! (All night I kept dreaming about the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota tribes – I had never heard of the latter.) We also stopped at a beautiful rest area on a tall hill over looking the Missouri river. In addition to the usual facilities there was a Lewis and Clark keel boat in which you could climb and a lovely small interpretative center about their trip. (To bad Missouri does not have any nice vistas, and relationship with Lewis and Clark, or anything about the state that they would be proud to share with visitors.)

Wyoming – Wyoming has miles and miles of miles and miles Two of the rest stops we saw were actually on two lane highways – something I have not seen in the east. One stop we did make over looked a wind farm. The buildings were squat and low. An information sign pointed out that the winds reach up to 70 miles an hour so that seemed pretty reasonable to me. I wondered what a wind farm looked like with 70 mile an hour winds – and was glad I was not there to find out.

Nebraska – Their rest areas, at least the one I visited and another I drove by, are two part affairs. One building with the facilities (the one were we stopped had some broken fixtures) and the other with local information.  They did have one of the more interesting signs asking folks not to wash dishes in the drinking fountain.

It was ironic that during our vacation, as we were conducting our random and unscientific (though biologically based) survey, we happened across an article in USA Today about states closing their rest areas. Fortunately we did not run into any shuttered facilities.

Based on our experiences it seems to me that states can make a positive impression on rest area users. They can share their history, strengths, and natural features. How could any state not want to make the best impression possible on their highway visitors. And perhaps, by so doing, having them linger or even better making them want to come back for an extended stay.

I have been spending an inordinate amount of  time on Missouri’s Interstates, 44 and 70, driving back and forth across the state. Today I stopped by a rest area on 44 East near Rolla. Outside was a rather interesting opportunity – a “Rest Area Report Card.” So I grabbed one to give them some feedback. As I looked at the card, however, there was not enough room to tell them what I think and, in honor of the summer travel season, thought I would expand on my thoughts just a bit.

First, being a man of a certain age, I need to stop frequently as I drive long distances. This has provided me with a good range of experience with rest areas in various states. For example, in Paducah Kentucky  the rest area is built into Whitehaven a small antebellum mansion. Along the same highway (Interstate 24) the rest area at the Tennessee border is built into a beautiful original log cabin. Even when there are no historic sites handy, Illinois, Kentucky, and other states have build lovely modern facilities that are pleasing to the senses. 

So what about Missouri’s rest areas? Well, contrary to the title, they were probably not really built in the 50’s. However, they all seem to have tumbled out of some sort of time warp (like being in a White Castle at 2:30am) being build a wonderfully solid ceramic blocks that I remember from in my grade school restrooms.

Inside the only thing they have going for them is that they can be easily washed down with a fire hose. While it didn’t have an offensive aroma, I did make me what to get out as quickly as possible while touching as little as possible.  My favorite architectural detail are the mirrors – some sort of shiny metal. Evidently, the state is thoughtfully protecting us from seven years of bad luck if we were to break a real mirror. As a whole, it would not be out of place in a prison.

The rest of the area is quite acceptable. The grounds, parking, eating areas, etc. It is really only the restrooms that are an embarrassment to the state.

Back to the report card. there was one set of “you have to be from Missouri to understand” question response options. For such questions as “Would you like Tourist Info” The responses are “Yes,” “No,” or “Waste of $$.” Clearly what people think who stop in our rest areas must be “My, Missouri must be a great state because the sure don’t waste their $$ on frivolous services that would make their rest areas more pleasing to the visitor.”

So for my short evaluation – bulldoze the restrooms and build something that people will be pleased to visit rather than feeling as though they were visiting a local prison.

In March, Daniel Everett spoke about endangered languages at a Long Now seminar (audio, summary). In 1977 Everett, then a Christian missionary, went to work with the Pirahã tribe in the center of the Amazon.  A tribe that

numbers only 360, spread in small groups over 300 miles. An exceptionally cheerful people, they live with a focus on immediacy, empiricism, and physical rigor that has shaped their unique language (Brand, 2009)

What I found most astonishing was that they have no creation stories or myths. While this would seem to be fertile ground for a missionary it actually had the opposite effect. The ultimate empiricists, the Pirahã  believe only what they can see, what their elders have seen, or what others have told them that they have seen. When unable to provide evidence for his god the Pirahã lost interest in discussing it further. Moreover, in that failed effort Everett lost his faith as well. During his presentation he tells a rather charming story about this experience which he evidently expands in his book Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle.

I had always thought that all peoples had creation stories, that all peoples had created one or more gods. It is most refreshing to know that is evidently not the case.

I have long decried the foolishness of our litigious society. This week I was offered the opportunity to benefit from such a suit.

I received an official postcard offering me money because I had a first generation iPod nano. First I was slightly irritated. The day before I had talked to the repair center where I sent my recently broken nano. The cost of repair, $125, the cost of a replacement $133. So I told them to pitch my old unit. Not wanting to completely forgo the offer I read further and fond that in fact I did not need to actually have the nano. Great – free money!

So I settled in to read the fine print. All that I was required to do was to agree to the following statement.

Yes my nano did have scratches. The shiny backing was no longer pristine. As a mirror it was not as distortion free as the day I took it out of the box. Yet did this scratching “impair my use or enjoyment of my iPod nano?”

It is an audio device! In using it I listen to the podcasts it contained (never did use it much for music recordings). So no, the scratching did not impact my listening. What about my enjoyment. Well I suppose that if I thought of is as “my precious” and spent my time stroking its immaculate features my enjoyment would have lessened. But my enjoyment was based on using it at the grocery, while waking the dogs, while cutting the lawn, while driving to Jefferson City, …. So that was a no as well.

I did consider that by not checking the box I was enabling other members of the class to get my portion of the settlement $s. By so doing I would increase the reward to people who file foolish law suits. But even that seemed like a cop out.

So, call me foolish, but in the end I could not bring myself to check that box. What would you have done?

On a recent vacation I was finishing Simon Schama’s three volume History of Britain. Near the end I came across this passage from H.G. Wells’ Outline of History (yes that H.G. Wells):

War is a horrible thing, and constantly more horrible and dreadful, so that unless it is ended it will certainly end human society…There are people who seem to imaging that a world order and one universal law of justice would end human adventure. It would but begin it…Hitherto man has been living in a slum. amidst quarrels, revenges, vanities, shames and taints, hot desires and urgent appetites. He has scarcely tasted sweet air yet the great freedoms of the world that science has enlarged for him. (p. 435; Schama, Simon. History of Britain Vol. III, The fate of the empire 17776-2000)

Though there seems to be an argument that we are actually facing much less violence than ever before (for example here and here), the risks still seem large.

Wells’ words caused me to pause for a moment and think about all of the money, all of the time, all of the energy, and all of the lives that are squandered on war. Just sit for a minute and entertain a thought experiment. Imagine for a moment the world with all of the money, time, energy, and lives currently wasted in war were rather spent in the pursuit of making the world a better place. Oh, what a wonderful world it would be.

In a recent NY Times op-ed piece Nicholas Krustof calls public education funding Our greatest national shame 15 Feb.

Education is critical. Without it people have no chance in the modern world. Without it the modern world has no chance. Yet in the city of St. Louis we have a public educational system is at its best shameful.

One Friday in February our Leadership St. Louis class focused on the St. Louis city public schools. Starting with a visit to Vashon High School, housed in beautiful new building which in 2002 replaced it’s dilapidated  previous location.

I had not been in a public high school for many years, though I remember mine quite vividly. An two story plain rectangle of a building. Long strait halls lined with lockers. Between classes there was crowded seemingly chaotic activity in the halls, slamming lockers, and a general hubbub. During classes there were full rooms and the purposeful murmur of activity behind each door. Vashon was quite different - cool architecture, small classes, and very quiet. The later was particularly notable. Class changes were almost eerily quiet with few students in the halls. No banging lockers. No horseplay. No masses of students in the halls. Classes were very small though, even then, there were students that were not engaged or even attending to the instructor. 

(It was interesting for me to see one of the students in class texting. This form of partial attention is clearly a poor idea wen trying to learn. However, I had had a conversation a couple of weeks earlier with a woman training medical students at SLU. She to was lamenting the fact that SLU medical students engaged in the same behaviors during their classes.)

Part of the difference was size. My high school class was larger than the whole student body at Vashon. But I later found out that, in addition to being relatively small, the school has about a 40% absence rate - so the school and classes were empty because few of the enrolled students were actually present.

The principle, teachers, and students we met were justifiably proud of the advances the school has made. It has a history of problems and of being in the paper because of violence and other school problems. The students with whom we spoke were focused on getting out of school and getting into college. They had applied to, and been accepted by, multiple colleges and reported that they were going to be able to get funds to attend.

The student leaders we met with were all women. When asked, they quickly volunteered that there was also a male leader and there was hope that, this year for the first time in many years, they would have a male class valedictorian.

Our tour of the school was lead by a teacher and 5 ROTC students. I am not exactly sure why we needed 5 students to take time from their classes to lead us around the building. They were polite and would answer direct questions but for the most part kept pretty quiet. We saw neatly kept classrooms (all behind locked doors) and spent a very few minutes in classes with real teachers and students. We visited the well appointed day care center (for the young children of students and staff). Saw the gym, which held the most life in the school, and a dry swimming pool (for the lack of an instructor).

In addition to our school experience we met with the new superintendent and one of the special board members - since the district has been taken over by the state because of its loss of accreditation.

At the end of the day I walked away feeling a little sad and believing that, while the presentations put the best possible face on the situation and that there are positive stories and educated students coming out of these schools, for a much to large proportion of students we are failing. We are failing and that will drag down both these individual students and our society.

On a recent Leadership St. Louis weekend we learned about some of the problems of health care. Touring health facilities (the photo is part of our class on the St. Louis University heliport), hearing from the head of one of the region’s crown jewels the Missouri Foundation for Health,  and talking with others who are actively tackling health care issues in the region.

As a country the US uses 17% of its GDP for health care. Canada in contrast spends on 9.5%. Yet for all of this expense over 16% of our citizens are uninsured (based on a 2005 report, this percentage has increased significantly during the current recession). Yet we have poorer health outcomes than countries that spend much less.

With the consumer model (which I have previously derided), health care is something that one can never get enough of. Why shouldn’t I get the newest treatment, the most expensive drugs, the more elaborate tests, receive the most aggressive (experimental and/or expensive) care which will not improve my eventual outcome. The US health system based on this "it’s all about me" approach. If you have money you can have care. If not tough. If you are over 65 you can have socialized medicine. If you are younger tough. (The fact that government health insurance is great for folks over 65 and bad for people younger than that is one of the great stupidities of our country.)

It is time that we abandon the consumer model of health care and adopt a citizen’s model. Instead of how can I get the most (not necessarily the best) care for me. The question is how can we as a group best support and improve our health. Instead of how can this insurance/health care corporation makes the most money for it’s share holders. The question is how can we provide the best health care for all.

I have never been entirely comfortable with the term consumer when referred to individuals receiving mental health services - or really any health related services. The term is new, with the earliest OED citation being 1968. Initially it had the implication of a demand for high quality goods and services. Today, however,  it has morphed into implying an insatiable demand for goods and services - generally at lower and lower prices.

This newer meaning always seemed inappropriate to me when it comes to health services  but I could never quite put my finger on exactly why it was troubling. Yesterday, as I was riding my bike along the Gulf of Mexico, I heard a 2004 TED lecture by James Howard Kunstler, The Tragedy of Suburbia. He nailed it for me. The term, he opined, was problematic because it means that consumers "do not have obligations responsibilities and duties to their fellow human beings" (you can find this quote at the very end of the lecture).

For health services including those for physical health, mental health, and substance abuse we should never consider ourselves passive recipients. Rather we should be responsible for our own behaviors, should participate actively in our care, should consider it our duty to help others in similar circumstances, and should widely promote the benefits we have received. In other words, we should not be consumers but active participants and change agents.

In the middle of our year, my Leadership St. Louis spend a weekend learning about race and exploring the racial divisions in our fair city. What I learned shocked me. What I felt humbled me. What I experienced changed me.

Contextually, this weekend comes at a time when the nation is about to get a president elected by the content of his character rather than the color of his skin. When race is a more frequent topic of discussion. When the local paper has launched a new blog to encourage a dialogue about racial issues. And, paradoxically, when there is an increase in the number of hate crimes.

Where I come from.

I was not raised in a household that told racist jokes or denigrated those whose race did not match our own. My only memory of this sort of speech was a single comment my material grandmother made. I do not remember the comment, but I do clearly remember my mother telling her that it was inappropriate.

On the other hand, mine was not a family that talked about racial issues at all. We lived in uniformly white neighborhoods, went to mostly all white schools, and attend a church with no black members.

In graduate school I was in a class of eight - four men, four women, one Chinese, one Japanese, one black, Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and atheists, folks from the East and West coasts and the Midwest, people who had gone strait through school, some with extensive work experience, some young and some old.  In all, a group very carefully selected for its apparent diversity.

Yet for all of this diversity, what I remember is how similar we were to one another. While I remember a split on whether Chinese or Japanese food was better - I do not recall any other discussions of how our different experiences impacted our work or our interactions. We took classes together, partied together, studied together, and all worked hard to succeed.

So,  before this weekend I would have said that prejudice still exists. That some still feel and practice it but that, for the most part, people would be embarrassed to do so. That logically prejudice makes no sense.

What I experienced.

Our weekend had a number of components - survey results, history lessons, local studies, experiences and discussions. Two, however stood out for me.

The first was called the Level Playing Field. We stood shoulder to shoulder holding hands. The facilitators read positive and negative life experiences (e.g., my family vacationed out of the country, my family could afford to pay for my college education, I did not have enough to eat as a child). If the positive item was true you took one step forward. If a negative items was true you took one step backward. At the end we turned to look about us.We were spread widely by our experiences.  However, all of our black classmates were in the back - behind all of our white classmates.

The second was a group discussion. As we talked each of the black classmates spoke of their fears when their sons went out. Fear that they would be arrested, abused, hurt - simply because of the color of their skin. I to have a son. I to worry about his safety when he goes out. So I understand how that feels. However, I never have to worry that the color of his skin will be the cause of that hurt or make being stopped more likely.

The weekend made me understand - in a way I had never had to consider before - that in our city, and by extension our country and world, prejudice is alive and well. The people I know and care about experience it daily. And that I needed to behave in a way that actively seeks to combat its practice and impact.

What can I do?

I do know I can start by talking with my black colleagues to see if there are things we need to address at work. I need to go to local traditionally black universities to actively recruit people to fill my positions. I can pay more attention. I can continue to speak up when I see things that are not as they should be. I can talk about the issue when no one else does. I can continue to learn about racial issues. I can continue to feel, in some small way, the pain and difficulties created by these attitudes and behaviors. Hopefully these steps will start me down a path so that I can make some impact on this foolish and disgraceful practice.

I just read Kate Lovelady’s (the Leader of the St. Louis Ethical Society) blog post discussing one of her new year’s resolutions to make sure her wishes to be an organ donor were recognized.

I checked the back of my license and saw that would not have helped - I would have to sign as well as two witnesses - that seems more dificult than it should be. While my family knows my wishes I decided to take Kate’s advise and visited this national site which has links to information from each of the various states.

Going to the Missouri link, I worked for a while and finally figured out how to register on the state’s web site. The usability of the site clearly has never been tested by watching real people try to walk through the process. They have managed to create a site that is well deigned to frustrate rather than help users. The ability to get to the pages is hidden, the text confusing, and trying to fill out the forms when you are able to get to them is counterintuitive. But, if you are persistent, you can in fact use it to register to make your wishes known.

So I did it - so can you. Find out how to register in your state and make your wishes known so that when you loose your life you can pass parts of it along to others in need.