After the debate last night

You know, something has been on my mind for a long time - the difference between the conceptual proclamations and political speeches. And here is the crux of it.

One of the conceptual pillars on which US officially bases her life is free market and the right and the responsibility of each person to make decisions for him or herself. That is what the US likes to officially promote around the world as essential components of freedom.

Well, then I hear so much about health care and the health insurance business associated with it and the home foreclosures situation. These are by no means isolated examples of the conflict between political proclamations and the principles US likes to promote both internationally and abroad, but the most glaring to me after hearing the debate last night.

And here's what we are told. We are told by at least one of the candidates that insurance companies should not be permitted to discriminate against the applicants based on the their state of health. In other words, the premiums and/or the approval of the application should not depend on how sick the applicant may be. Now, why is it that in the environment of the free market, where any business must pay attention to the bottom line, insurance companies are not allowed to do that. Obviously, if someone is already sick, the likelihood that he or she will be drawing on the benefits of the health insurance is higher than if not. Why should the insurance company, or all the rest of the insured, have to bare the cost of that? I am not debating the justice of lack of it or of discrimination, but am ticked off by the hypocrisy.

Then the sub-prime crisis and the foreclosures. If we have a free market, as we are told to believe, then why should I, a member of the public, pay for someone taking advantage of cheap loans? This makes no sense in the context of the free market, does it? Candidates are all talking about freezing the sub prime rates and putting a moratorium on foreclosures. Well, either lenders are going to lose their investments or everyone will have to pay for the foolish (or perhaps not so foolish, perhaps it is just a gamble and some lose and some win) of those being lured by low sub prime lending rates. In either case, the fundamental principles of free market and free decision making are severely violated.

Again, I am not debating here whether or not we should have socialized medicine or housing or education and leave behind the free market ideal, just am voicing my frustration with the double-speak of those who advocate free market out of one side of their mouth and then want protection when they speak out of the other. Can we just not make up our mind?

Saturday, Feb 9, - in Buenos Aires

Arrived a bit late, had enough time for a cup of coffee waiting for 7:30 and my connection to arrive. As we drive to town, he informs me that there have been changes so we had to go somewhere else to get the key for the apartment (Laura is not in Buenos Aires and she supposedly had arranged for people to take care of the things). We get the key and go the apartment.

I go upstairs and the renter is still there acting surprised to see me. But, he lets me leave my luggages in “my room” – luckily he had taken the other room. The deal was that I would return by 11:00; I would let in the cleaning woman; she would clean the place and prepare it for me.

I returned at 10:45, the apartment was unlocked with my stuff in it and not a trace of the guy or the cleaning woman. I wait and wait, no one shows up. I e-mail Laura and she informs me that the cleaning woman cancelled on her (and me, really). The long story short, no cleaning, no new sheets o towels – nothing – dirty dishes in the sink, garbage bags on the floor, it is a mess.

Well, I somehow accepted that I just had to live with it, but my feeling for Laura and her distance management is souring by the minute. I go downstairs to the 3^rd floor apartment to see if the other Laura’s tenant, “a nice woman from Albuquerque,” had an idea. She did not have any ideas what to do, but had some clean towels for me.

I hook up my laptop to the internet hub in the apartment – the connection is very unstable, off and on.

It’s now time for the class with Mimi Santapa. I am looking forward to it and can’t wait for four o’clock to go to Callao 86, quarto piso. I got up there and I was the first student. Mimi did recognize me from last year and was glad to hear from Gordon and Wanda. The class was okay, but, I am loosing my enthusiasm for Mimi. Especially after I practiced with her assistant (I can’t remember her name, the one with long blond hair) and tried to lead a sequence which I sort of invented for myself, tried with several partners in Tallahassee and it worked every time – all of them loved it. Well, this assistant got stuck at one point and refused to make a step as marked complaining she could not read the mark. She asked Mimi and Mimi had hard time with it too. That really discouraged me – either I was totally inept at it or both Mimi and her assistant were not really up to it. It sort of bothered me.

(I tried that same lead several times again in the days to follow with several other women and it worked every time. On top of that, I showed it to Ana Maria Schapira during my private lesson with her today – Friday, Feb 15 – first to her assistant who danced with me – she liked it and said the mark was perfect – then Ana Maria wanted to feel it and she agreed that the mark was very clear and she liked the sequence saying she had not seen it before. So, I am now thinking something was really wrong in Mimi’s class on Saturday.)

Anyway, that made me not want to join them at Al Arranque today. I just went home and decided that I had a long day and needed to rest. Went to the small grocery store downstairs, loaded up on some supplies and called it the day – a very long day.

Milongueando 2008

It’s been both exciting and frustrating for me since I left for Buenos Aires on Feb 8. So, I have not written down any of my experiences and will try to summarize them now.

Friday, Feb 8, 2008 – I left for Buenos Aires

My dear friend, Karen, took me to the Tallahassee airport and all seemed just perfect. Arrived to Miami well ahead of the time of the departure for Buenos Aires – four hours.

Went the the Aerolineas Argentinas desk to get checked in only to discover that somehow, between Thursday and Friday evening, someone cancelled my reservation. That sent me straight through the roof. AR had changed my ticket several times since I bought the ticket back in October – four months ago – to the extent that I lost one day in Buenos Aires. Well, I begrudgingly accepted all that since I felt I had little choice. And now, no reservation on record at all? Well, I got really angry and angrier by the minute.

After much finagling I got the boarding pass and was on the plane for Buenos Aires as scheduled. No “we are so sorry for your trouble” – nothing. I mean, very bad business indeed.

"old" age

Sure! 58 (my current biological age) is more than 38 is more than 18 is less than 78 ... I do recall, when 18, thinking of those of 38 as super old, having nothing in their life, and certainly those of 58 already dead!

Now that I am 58, I'd like to let those of 18 and 38 know that we are not dead, that we have laughter and joy in our lives, that we too yearn to be loved, held and embraced and to hold and to embrace, that we are curious, we look around the corner, we travel unknown, sometimes forbidden, paths and, although we might nap a bit more during the day, we are very much alive!

But, will they listen? Did I?

chinese room

The other day I got interested again in the issues of mind-body connection or interface and so I went to Wikipedia to see what people have to say about it. I read the post and got intrigued by the Chinese Room experiment.

Reading that post reminded me of how it seems almost inevitable that we restrict our thinking to within a certain world view and thus limit ourselves. For example, the article has the following on the "Brain replacement scenario:"

Brain replacement scenario. In this, we are asked to imagine that engineers have invented a tiny computer that simulates the action of an individual neuron. What would happen if we replaced one neuron at a time? Replacing one would clearly do nothing to change conscious awareness. Replacing all of them would create a digital computer that simulates a brain. If Searle is right, then conscious awareness must disappear during the procedure (either gradually or all at once).

The paragraph illustrates the problem on multiple points. The first sentence assumes that all actions of neurons are knowable and thus potentially reproducible by a computing machine. Thus the whole paragraph is now based on false or incomplete premise or at least one which can not be proven true or false.

Then in the third sentence (one right after the question) the author offers a statement as an established truth, which in fact is rather another assumption at best. The following statement contains yet another questionable assertion.

What concerns me is not so much the fallacy of the mental exercise, which, the exercise, does have value on its own, though, but rather the fact that often, based on those musings of various scientists or philosophers, technologies are developed which are used to consciously impact some aspect of daily life. If this is done with full understanding of the limitations of the theories, fine - we can possibly prepare properly for eventualities. Otherwise, such blind application of theories which incorporate fallacious thinking leads to uncharted territories with potentially disastrous consequences.

intelligent design

The other day I listened to yet another debate on the radio about the "intelligent design" vs evolution. Regardless of what I think about the issue (I will write about that separately at some point), I am amazed how the "creationists" are not very effective in responding to the "fossils" argument offered so often by the "evolutionists."

It should be simple to say that, since the "creator" created the world and humans in it, the "creator" also created the fossils. I mean, if you believe in the notion that a "creator" created it all, why could that not also include the fossils?

primaries

Various thoughts race through by always-busy mind. It's about the NH primaries yesterday and election in general, more about evolution/creation, music I listen to, and, of course, always the immortal dance of tango.

NH primaries. I wonder what it is a testimony of that the pundits talk about the "come back kid" or the Iowa-momentum. Or they talk about too short of a time between Iowa causes and NH primaries so voters do not have enough time to "re-think" their votes. They talk about such-and-such candidate loosing/gaining ground. Everyone talks about "change," " experience," and such. All very generic stuff. I think all of that is a testimony of the inadequacies of the US electoral system.

I can understand how vote-casting calculus works and why the results of a previous primary/caucus election in the same election cycle would influence my vote. I suppose, if, by some reasoning (and here the media play a very crucial role) "my candidate" has no or very little chance of the overall win or some similar important role, I'd better switch my vote to the candidate who has the chance of winning, even if he or she is not "my candidate." That way I would make it almost certain that "my candidate" does not win.

I suppose you can argue that on some level it actually makes sense because in the process the candidate who is the best for most people eventually bubbles up on top.

But, why not have all the primaries on the same day and vote for two candidates - the most and the next most preferred one. I would prefer that in order to cut out the "pundits" effect.

I will leave the others thoughts of the day to other posts.