Notes on Bryson

I’m reading Bill Bryson’s latest travel book about his adopted home, the U.K. 

Mostly he travels to small towns in England and Wales to inform the reader on the history and current state of affairs. We get a little bit of the writer’s personal life as he relates his past travels through the country. The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain takes a fresh look at English pubs, tea, country towns and cell phone etiquette in this hilarious travel diary.

It is one part journalism and two parts satire. Satire and observation make up the humorous (sellable) part of the book. Most towns have backstories explaining the name or historical figure associated with it. Too often the story or legend is dull and anything beyond a paragraph is too much for me. Much of the small town hopping is excessive; he seems determined to check as many towns off the list as possible. It doesn't ruin the story but does seem to pad it. The insight and wit Bryson displays make the slower parts less so.

Raised in Iowa, he gets the differences between America and Britain on food culture and customer service intuitively. Here, he sprinkles the chapters with personal stories from hotels in New York to B&Bs in West Wales. His take on pop culture and what has been lost in modern Britain is hilarious. He can’t help the ‘back-in-my-day’ approach to travel and what has changed since his famous Notes on a Small Island days, the book established him as a travel humorist (travelumorist?). I confess I haven’t read it but Bill references it so often this feels a bit like a sequel. Like most sequels it probably lacks the creativity of the first however. 

He spends a little time on the green zone debate in London. If you aren’t familiar it is similar to other urban planning concerns in major cities. Historical society types and do-gooders who think it is their business to take valuable land out of production have a massive green belt around London. Bryson loves the green space and although I don’t understand his enthusiasm for the green belt, his support of it really strengthens the conservationist tone of the book. He takes a few shots at the green belt Economist for wanting to sell off the unused space.

 The author does his history research throughout the book but doesn’t pummel the reader with useless hagiographies of every earl of this and count of that. He keeps it light and funny with delicious bits of anecdotes in every helping. He might of trimmed the fat on this project some. It isn’t a long book but feels slow in the middle and drags--a little like walking through the countryside.

The humor of the writer shines through brilliantly and the country that inspired him to enjoy nature walks gets another close up from the master cynic.

"Not My Precedent"

The Obamacare precedent is that the government SHOULD be responsible for the medical coverage of all Americans.

Not knowing a ton of information about health care industry I’m reluctant to wade into this topic. But here it goes…

 I don’t like the idea of government sponsored health care or health insurance because it uses public money for private business. This distorts the market because public money is an endless buffet of ‘promises’ never completely delivered. As a society we can carry some debt on interstates and bridges or disaster relief and war but not private health insurance. Hospital visits will get more frequent and medical plans will cover more ailments as long as taxpayers are funding the bill. Medicare runs out of funding consistently.

I can’t imagine the Republican plan to overhaul the ACA (Affordalbe Care Act) will be much cleaner than the original Democrat plan. They don’t do minutia and shouldn’t be asked to. We wouldn’t ask long haul truckers to race their rigs in the Indy 500. They weren’t designed for it. This is a job for markets. Congress can help by removing restrictions on levels of coverage or by allowing some interstate commerce to increase competition among insurers.

Officials don’t help us buy food or gas, why do we need them for health care?

 Obamacare puts taxpayers on the hook for individuals’ health care, or at least the price of it.

It might sound mild but it is a significant change of course for Americans who think and act in market based terms for most goods and services. I get that the market is decidedly less free than it used to be. New homes, cars, food and energy are all frequently subsidized through direct payments and rebates. Both the ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program and the new home tax credits were forms of subsidies. A subsidy is just money from the government to help with the cost of a good or service. Often we come out ahead, like I did on the housing credit, occasionally we lose out.

 How well did used car dealers do under Cash for Clunkers?

 Economists (good ones) hate market intervention because it distorts the real value or price of an item. If your corner Quicki Mart owner gets a 50 cent rebate from Pepsi for every bottle, he can sell pop cheaper than everyone else. Pepsi made the pop at Quicki Mart cheaper than at both EZ buy and Save More. The real market value of Pepsi is something closer to what EZ buy and Save More sell it at. Pepsi distorted the real value of the pop sold at convenience stores by subsidizing Quicki Mart.

No serious person thinks we need a government subsidy so EZ buy and Save More can sell Pepsi at the same rate as Quicki Mart. Or that either shop couldn’t try to sell it cheaper to compete with Quicki Mart. We do treat health care this way though.

Large insurers with thousands of members offer plans at lower rates than small insurers. The reason is simple; the coverage they offer is broader and comes with rebates on hospital and clinic visits. Big health insurers can afford to sell cheaper than their competitors because of the rebate they get from providers. Governments have no more business regulating this than the price of Pepsi at corner stores.

Yes I understand that health care is much more serious than carbonated drinks, but not recognizing this as something for private industry to handle is what leads to high prices. Laws insisting everyone have coverage puts pressures on employers and insurance companies to cover everyone. The only way it works is because of the rebate the insurer gets from the government for offering a plan they couldn’t afford without it.

This is like insisting everyone buy Pepsi. If you can’t afford it the government will help you pay for it by giving you special coupons for EZ Buy and Save More.

The president wanted to get a massive health care law done before he left office, so bad in fact that the framework was built to fall apart. A federal pyramid with mostly older and sicker Americans at the top collapses of its own weight eventually.

 Obamacare was exactly that kind of precedent, one that made official the belief that governments should be the ultimate judge of life and liberty.  

I don’t think the Republicans will improve things much because we’ve crossed the Rubicon between roles of government and roles of citizens. We now think health care just needs to run better, a massive shop with an efficient manager. Republicans will save money and cut costs, probably. It misses the real point. They have no business selling it or regulating it, beyond some very minor things. Let the hospitals, doctors, drug companies, hospice centers, insurance providers and specialists figure it out. They know how.

This isn’t my precedent.

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Commitment breeds Consistency

  

 I tried to learn Chinese a few years ago. 

I breezed through my CD-ROM of Mandarin 1. No doubt most of what I learned in 2005 (in China) I forgot over the last couple of years but I was consistent in studying when I came back. The belief that kept me going was this idea of traveling back to China someday, work or travel. The language study fulfilled some emotional attachment I had, and have, to the middle kingdom. I liked the ‘idea’ of learning Mandarin, more than actually learning Mandarin. 

The long term commitment to learn it just wasn't there. 

Like gym-goers full of energy and dedicated to losing weight we forget our exuberance after a rainy day or a cold morning. By April the passion in the eyes is all but dim, like the last few coal embers on a camp fire. This is human nature though. We ebb and flow on commitments because our feelings get in the way. If we understood how emotional our commitment to exercise and healthy eating was we wouldn’t be surprised when it finally waned.

Emotion clouds commitment as surely as Kool-Aid colors water.

Long term commitment requires a larger reserve of guts to accommodate the crashing waves of emotion along the way. If not guts than something more eternal, a higher purpose. Spouses of loved ones with debilitating diseases spring to mind. I noticed a special recently about a movie director with ALS whose wife takes care of him regularly, he managed to direct a film in his condition. The fact that he directed a film through words typed on to a screen using his eyes to located keys on a keyboard (Stephen Hawking style) is amazing and inspirational. His wife and her upbeat look at life and kids really impressed me though. She takes care of him all the time while raising a handful of kids too.

I imagine she approaches every discipline in life with the same dedication it takes to care for her husband and kids.

 Long term commitment has transferable skills that jump from one successful corner of life to another. For instance, if working out is your thing and you’ve been faithful to it, you understand the discipline it has built in you. The foods you’ve avoided, the parties you left early, the alarms you’ve woken up to have all contributed to a better you. When you take on new tasks you are more likely than others to finish them or continue working on projects that aren’t interesting anymore. Because you understand how to ride waves of commitment when others bail out, sick of trying to stay on the surfboard.

Commitment has to be enough by itself, all by itself. Saying “I’d love to go but I can’t…I made plans to help Todd move” has to be enough. Sticking with something doesn’t have to feel a certain way it just needs to be something consistent you do, something you practice. Emotion can’t have any part of it. Stick with that difficult thing and watch improvement roll in.

 Whether learning a language or giving up Saturdays to help a neighbor move, steadfastness pays off. You will approach other situations in life with the same dedication.

You know what it takes now. You are committed.