Thursday Thoughts

Dear James, Daniel and Emily,

Our Family and marriage

First some thoughts on the family. After some recent bad news from a couple of friends I got to thinking about what I think are the reasons we have kept oursleves together, despite some challenges and changes over the years. I think I would the reasons like this:

1. Prioritizing: we have both made sure that the family and family time comes first. That may not be the same thing to everyone in the family (to James family time means Mom & Dad doing something with him, not the other kids). But we have both made a point to focus on family. That has meant some sacrifice, from me especially as I have effectively given up 1 hobby for the sake of family time.

2. I love being a parent: Not the same thing as loving your kids. I think pretty much every parent loves their kids, it's pretty hard not to. But I love being a Dad, doing Dad things, taking kids on walks, to the park, playing games, taking them to sports and games, giving baths, teaching them, the whole 9 yards. Are there times when I tire of it? Sure, I am human after all. But overall I love everything that comes with being a father, and I think Kim feels the same about being a Mom.

3. Luck: We have been lucky, lucky to have generous and loving extended families. Lucky that nothing truly terrible has happened to us. Lucky that we haven't lost our jobs when we really need them (Kim's PD career notwithstanding).

4. Hard work: We have worked at things in our marriage. We weren't always great at communicating, or listening to each other. We have been known to harbor little grudges, and not express ourselves well. But we have worked at it and gotten to the point where we rarely let anything major get bigger and cause problems.

Are all of the above a guaranteed recipe for a long lasting marriage? No, I don't think there is a guaranteed recipe for that. But I would credit the above items as the reasons we have succeeded so far.

Health Care Reform

Yeah I am going to hammer away on this one. Despite my growing cynicism that the powers that be are doing their moneyed best to stop reform in it's tracks. I think that the tack that Congress and President have taken of trying to make it revenue neutral is wrong. I think that taxes on the top 1% do need to be raised to pay for it, along with corporate taxes. I think the problem with that is that those interests control the PR right now. And they are sending the same message that keeps people buying lottery tickets: 'Someday you too could be one of those top 1%, so those are your taxes that are being raised". Never mind the astronomical odds against that happening. Or the fact that this really will not affect 99% of this country beyond giving them access to something they don't currently have.

But I had another idea yesterday and developed this morning: pay for it with sin. Let's legalize some drugs (not all of them, there are some that just should not be accessed) and tax them. And let's legalize prostitution and tax it. And let's make gambling legal nationwide and impose a federal tax. Then combine those revenue streams to pay for national Health care. Like alcohol and tobacco taxes I think it would be easy to get people to accept taxing these other 'sins'. And it would also greatly reduce some law enforcement costs, which is savings that could be used to keep some local governments afloat in these difficult times. I think that is the kind of out of the box thinking this discussion needs.