Economy for Energy and Health Care

I have listened to health care town halls and even participated in a few of them. I have even volunteered as host and as participant along the way. This is my current thinking for our economy, health care, and the development of energy.

1. Shouldn't we figure out how to pay for health care first before implementing it?
   
   All we see is the intention to put it in place. I suggest we create wealth which solves the energy problem and use that excess for services. Check out Solar Roadways at http://www.solarroadways.com. For the cost of paving the roads we can have 3 times the amount of electricity that we use in the United States today through a renewable energy resource -- Solar. And we can drop in a fault tolerant, distributed network which plugs other energy source into it.
   
   
2. Shouldn't we figure out infrastructure before we invest in alternative energy that has no where to plug into?
   
   Then all projects have somewhere to fit and probably will be funded privately because plugging into infrastructure means local money saved if we do what Germany did with their infrastructure.
   
   Don't you find it ironic that private industry (a cottage effort) shows us how to use brown's gas, wind turbines for $200 that cut local electricity 80 percent, and a host of inventions that are leading to renewable solutions? In government we seem to talk in magnitudes of millions, billions, and trillions.
   
   Even T. Boone Pickens figured this out when he postponed his implementation of Wind for the infrastructure to be in place.
   

Doubling nuclear power is not a solution. McCain promised 100 more nuclear facilities. The only thing we lack in this country's leadership is the will to do renewable energy. As Henry Ford said, "if you believe you can or can't, you are right". It is T. Boone Pickens that showed us that 30 million dollars of wind can do the job of more energy across the midwest. In fact, 20 percent of our electricity currently generated can be generated by wind in the midwest if we only had the infrastructure to support it. That is our government's responsibility in my opinion -- it is the large stroke of President Eisenhower who gave us interstate highways for the benefit of the people. Now we need the magic of boldness to create interstate solar highways for the people. It will lift us out of this economic decline. Why?

1. Source of energy is renewable
2. Fault Tolerant Grid is plug and play
3. Smart highways clean off their own snow
4. Half the country powers the other half as night falls
5. Half the country powers the other half as day comes
6. Smart highways detect and warn of accidents, pedestrians, deer ahead
7. The cost is what we spend anyway to pave the roads
8. Removes terrorist threat of taking out a single power station
9. Provides a new communication backbone as well
10. Interstates travel to most remote areas, takes power and communication there
11. Wind now has a role to play for night time power usage
12. Electric cars can plug in the grid

I believe there is a role for government when it is an enabling technology that binds us together as a people. Some examples are printing and managing money, raising taxes to cover services, creating laws for the protection of the people, and creating infrastructure which enables private enterprise to thrive.

Seeing Oregon for the First Time

Maybe this sounds too simple but I felt like I was entering God's country as I entered the wonderful state of Oregon. The trees were happier, the forests stood taller, and the people seemed to drop all pretenses. By the time we had reached Corvallis we had passed endless rows of mountains, meadows, valleys, bridges, and forested byways.

At the ocean the water was especially cold for a summer. The kelp made a great jump rope for the group of us. And entering the water until the knees were numb felt great. It made the picnic and games at the beach even more warming. With our family we sang, played piano, played drums, and frolicked through their lives at bit.

Julie and I danced to a small dance band with piano, drums, stand up string bass, trumpet, and saxophone / clarinet. The next morning we played racquetball and literally forgot the time. I think we will always carry a bit of Oregon with us wherever we go.

Cap and Trade Laws

What we need today is not a cap and trade system -- it is action and leadership. Accepting a bribe for energy costs that are simply passed on to the consumer is not a solution -- it is a stop gap that hurts the consumer and costs jobs. There are good solutions that we can do today because of American ingenuity. Look to our inventors like wind hunter and solar roadways.

What is a solution? Check out http://www.solarroadways.com and you'll see a national grid that can go up that will give us 3 times our current electrical power consumption for the cost of repaving our roads. Then we would have something to plug alternative energy into to smooth out the peaks. Smart roads would encourage smart communities who extend the solution to their own factories, malls, businesses, and (YES) even homes.

A road should be able to melt its own snow without any equipment. A road should be able to detect people or deer on the road and warn in coming vehicles. A road is the perfect place to create a fault tolerant, national grid to manage the energy and communication needs of our communities through the country. It is "where the road goes" that "the people will flourish and benefit."

Have our auto companies build our new interstates and gain a stake in an America that sets a trend of the next century and beyond. Have so many jobs available that we don't worry about who will get them. We all need to help this happen.

In Memory of Emily Pickens

For those of you who knew Emily Pickens, there is a memorial site dedicated to her memory. Here is the link.

Dancing with the Stars

This week at our activities center we learned how to pass the hand behind you while swinging with the swing. What a fun dance. People are always telling my wife and I that we look like dancing on the stars. It is amazing to get out and learn enough to be caught up in it. I know my Dad and Mother were both serious Jitterbug dancers. Someday I'd like to see a replay of all this.

Whatever you want to do -- go out and do it. Don't wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Success to me is in the doing -- not in the being successful. Anyone can be successful and then quit. It is the amazing people that are alive their whole life, not letting success or failure get in their way.

I was once told early in my life that my music was nothing and that they could do rings around anything I had ever written. Yea, I said, and what are you playing today? What are you writing today? The point to me is not to be rings around someone else -- I love to write and play music so it is real every day of my life. I enjoy it and it thrills me to be alive and producing music.

Dancing with the stars to me is not an achievement, it is a process through which I like to travel weekly. I watched my Father paint and even with a big brush he made painting after painting -- amazing. He wrote songs, he planted a garden, he got out in his free time to golf, play ball, visit the folks, visit the farm, visit the museums, play backyard badminton, and teach the neighborhood kids how to play guitar or harmonica. He seem to capture the essence of what I call humanity with those whom he came into contact.

I watched my Mother populate our house with projects and populate our basement with goods put away for the future. Her tireless work was amazing and she seemed to involve all of us with a passion for being prepared. She always makes a holiday a special event inside her own home. She is always looking for that next thing to do.

My parents split apart when I was young but they both remained faithful to this unconquerable spirit of doing. They both remarried and found partners who seemed to be on the same wonderful spin of life. To me they are the true spirit behind dancing with the stars.

I Have a Question

Since entering the Oriental Medicine field this "I have a question" has grown a bit larger with greater responsibility. And sometimes what I say does not translate into exact play by play action. And sometimes we make mistakes. Yes, that is the life of a practice. Not all is perfect. Even The Land of Oz had the little man behind the curtain that you were supposed to not pay attention to except that Toto, Dorothy's little dog, kept yapping away at him.

A degree in any field is only a beginning of a long and arduous journey. I remember asking a patient to add Oregano Oil to help combat some problems in a specific way. He bought the oil and added it to his chicken meal. NO, DO NOT DO THAT! Pure Oregano oil on chicken -- it tasted terrible, of course. I had even written down instructions. No matter, it was put on the chicken.

One of my favorite supplements is kelp in dispenser that you sprinkle lightly on sandwiches or salads or other food. One patient put a large tablespoon in her food and it taste terrible. Only a sprinkle I had said -- oh, and that was the last time they tried it. Things don't always translate.

It reminds me of studying martial arts. My martial art teacher used to worry about someone stealing his system and teaching it. After years of watching his senior students he realized, it is nearly impossible to steal it. It is nearly impossible to learn it in the first place, even for the best of his students. To someone who knows the art and does it well -- almost any art, it is almost impossible to steal it.

My teacher used to say, you learn it on different levels. First, you see it and try the best you can. Then you use it and gain some understanding of it. Then you memorize it and repeat it at slow, medium, and fast speeds. You try everything out on bags, pounding away -- letting the bags teach you what did not work. Then you try it in sparring, letting the matches teach you what did not work. Over time, your body takes over and teaches you what your mind could not learn. Then you begin a process of meditation. The awareness kicks in and the levels repeat themselves all over again. The senses and the sensing of energy add a new dimension. By then the teacher has gone over three different levels of using each move ... from simple strikes to point work where a point is hit, to grappling or seizing, to throws, to nerve strikes, or even multiple strikes working in concert with each other.

And if you have done all that -- you deserve to teach it.

George Pickens Memorial

This link will go to a memorial for George Pickens. He lived a great life. He will always be remembered by those who loved him and those who were loved by him. I only knew him a short while and he grew on me. I know that throughout my life I will think of him and his funny sense of humor. In his grossly understated way he often tackled difficult and puzzling problems and came out victorious.