Culture

Much has been said about healthcare in the last few months. It seems there is nothing more to talk about. I mean come one we’re headed towards National Socialism or Communism (interesting how one policy can lead to wildly divergent political outcomes eh?), we’re going to kill grandma, we’re going to ration healthcare, we’re going to take healthcare decisions out of the hands of patients and put it in the hands of bureaucrats (a dramatic shift, no doubt, from my insurance company denying any and every treatment I’ve ever needed until I called in to bust some balls). Well this post is about absolutely none of those things, so I’d appreciate it if we could avoid such silliness.

No, this post is about the costs to our healthcare that arise from our social isolationism. Okay, so the title is a bit misleading, it says individualism, but I tend to not see a dramatic difference. Individualism encourages us to look to no one but ourselves for our necessities, which when taken to its logical endpoint, means we become more isolated. Semantics aside, my argument is pretty simple: our isolationism is costing us in our healthcare spending – and big time. Read more…

A new-found friend of mine created the videos below. Kate Hathaway is a local musician who has mastered the Peruvian charango. Kate and her brother create music under the band name Hathaways. The first video features Kate the musician and the second features Kate the documentarist.

The documentary is about Charles Joseph Smith. I have met and spoken to Charles before about his music, but I did not have the intuition to investigate his life and his thoughts. Kate did. Champaign-Urbana is teeming with unique, interesting, beautiful people and I am happy that she noticed one of them. I think a good writer or filmmaker could make a career out of attempting to understand and describe the people in Champaign-Urbana who live with spark.

Both pieces are thoughtful, intelligent and intimate. Both deserve at least one viewing.

Hey Urbanagora! My name is Rosie Powers, I’m a sophomore at U of I, and an aspiring journalist. I’m currently on staff with the Daily Illini, and I was linked into Urbanagora thanks to the deep intellectual insight of Billy Joe and Josh.

University of Chicago student starts “Men in Power” advocacy group

According to a recent Chicago Tribune story, University of Chicago student Steve Saltarelli recently founded a male advocacy group entitled “Men in Power”. The group was founded to celebrate male achievement while promoting entrance into the competitive workforce. The article also mentions how many members of the group see it as a necessity as a result of the job market shrinkage with the advent of more women reaching higher career positions. Saltarelli proposed the idea in a satirical column, but started the group after he received an overwhelmingly positive response. In this column, Saltarelli wrote, “Anyone with an interest in both studying and learning from men in powerful positions, as well as issues involved with reverse sexism, may become a member of MiP.”

While I believe that this group has the same right as any other gender or cultural group to assemble, its premise seems a bit blurry. It is true that in many male-dominated professions, women are now being offered more jobs in an effort to diversity the workplace, putting some men out of jobs. But “reverse sexism”? Really?

I am not at all advocating against merit. I don’t believe a woman should be hired instead a man merely because of her gender, paying no attention to his or her qualifications. But I find this group’s viewpoint a bit skewed. For example, Corporate America continues to be a male-dominated career field. According to CNN, only 15 of the current Fortune 500 company CEO’s are women. Certain fields, yes, are dominated by women. But similarly, many professions continue to be associated with men.

I support this group in that there are already many other advocacy groups which focus specifically on women or certain minority groups. Consequentially, yes, males have this same right to celebrate their role in society. However, I sometimes think that the presence of these groups (regardless of what race, ethnicity or gender that they focus on) can promote a feeling of segregation and isolation in society. American society has often been described as a sort of “melting pot” of cultures, in that various cultural backgrounds and beliefs coexist to mix together, culminating into a sort of multicultural national stew. Do we always have group ourselves with people exactly like ourselves? From the same socioeconomic backgrounds, with the same ideals, political leanings, ect.? Joining groups like this that promote these ideals can be positive and proactive. But I can’t help but be concerned as to how groups like this, especially with a name like “Men in power”, will promote single-mindedness.

I recently read Edward Abbey’s Good News. The book describes post-apocalyptic skirmishes between good and evil in America. Some kind of nuclear war destroyed civilization. The West is wild again. I have not been able to find good discussion of this book on the Internet; I have a dim hope that this post will initiate some. I wrote an essay about the book, but I am only going to post a small portion of it.

Abbey makes frequent mention of brand names being dead and buried in the sand. Cars that used to be expensive and cherished line all lanes of the highway attempting to escape from Phoenix. Abbey mentions these decayed brands to show their insignificance and transience. The post-apocalyptic world does not value them. It doesn’t care for them. Human necessity and roots do not give a damn about them. They are transient. Abbey wrote:

They ride at a brisk walking pace, due west, up the broad avenue littered with fragments of paper and glass, flanked now with dehydrated palm trees, abandoned automobiles, decaying office buildings with sagging walls of lathing, chicken wire, stucco, crumbling bastions of cinderblock. Old voices speak from dangling signs, dead for a decade: Lou Grubb Chevrolet: “the Friendly Folks”; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints; Ace Liquors; Goldwater’s; Ramada Inn East’ Fannin Makes It Move!; Big Surf; Food Giant; Yellow Front; Checker Auto Parts; McDonalds: “Over Two Hundred Billion Served”; Denny’s; Valley National Bank; No-Tel Motel: “Adult Movies in Every Room” . . .

Abbey’s description of decayed decadence reminded me of a poem taught to me by John Bottiglieri in my High School English class. Thanks, Mr.  Bottiglieri. I coincidentally saw him a couple of weeks ago at the Ebert Film Festival. We attended Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg. It’s a cool and weird movie, my preferred flavor.

Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote a poem called Ozymandias in 1818. I love it. Ozymandias is another name for Pharaoh Ramesses the Great. The poem reveals the transience of power. It implicitly argues that ideas, like Shelley’s poem itself, endure. The genuine kings of humanity write or speak about ideas. The student rebels in Good News cherish the one remaining music record that they have. The piano player only wishes to play beautiful classical music until humans regain their sanity. Shelley purportedly wrote the poem for a friendly competition with Horace Smith. They wrote on the same subject and published their poems in the same magazine. I prefer Shelley’s poem. I was not aware of Smith’s poem, but it coincidentally relates to Good News. The conclusion of Smith’s poem has a “Hunter” wondering at the ruins of London in what could be a post-apocalyptic world or simply the fall of London as a major city. I have copied the two poems below:

Ozymandias – Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Ozymandias – Smith
IN Egypt’s sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desart knows:—
“I am great OZYMANDIAS,” saith the stone,
“The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
“The wonders of my hand.”— The City’s gone,—
Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.

We wonder,—and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro’ the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

Joe Pug is a fantastic songwriter/musician from Chicago, and he’s only 23. He reminds many people, including me, of a young Bob Dylan. Here’s the video of the first track from his debut album.

Thanks to One Jones Brother for telling me to check him out.