But then we arrived in Fuzhou, Fujian, China (population: 7,000,000). Fuzhou is a site like no other. As far as I could tell the sidewalks in Fuzhou are just extra roads for which any sort of traffic can and will navigate. As we walked the avenue just outside of the main train station we started seeing some exceptions to the norm we had adjusted to in Taiwan. Scooters leapt onto the sidewalks, often heading against traffic straight at us. No big deal, they all seemed plenty competent as they honked incessantly, encouraging pedestrians to move before they ran them over. But then I saw my first car on the sidewalk and I started to consider that my personal safety might be in jeopardy. That thought was short lived however as I saw a bike roll off of the curb into oncoming traffic. To her credit, the lady kept her course on the white line in between two streams of cars that were releasing a chorus of honks. It was then that I realized that NO ONE was safe. Had I stayed any longer in Fuzhou, I have no doubts that a nervous twitch would be in my future.

Our cab ride to the south train station brought our 24 hours stint in Fuzhou to a fitting end. Our ride was twenty minutes and our cabbie had his hand on the horn for at least ten of them. He used sidewalks, curbs, shot across multiple lanes of traffic and had a feel for the road that I didn’t know was possible. But when he opened up the throttle on the empty road south of town, Jay commented, “I think I prefer the traffic”. Agreed. And the great thing about the drivers in Fuzhou – all of this is normal, no one makes funny facial expressions, when someone gets cut off they don’t yell, they expect it and they’ll do the same to you if they can.

500 km or so north east the world is more serene. With a population 1M less that Fuzhou, Hangzhou (population = 6,000,000) has the same amount of traffic but much more courtesy. They use fewer horns and have way more bikes. Yes people take advantage of any open space before them, but I have yet to see a car on the sidewalk or scooters running each other down. In fact, the driving is a bit more like Taiwan here.

That raises the question – Who cares? Right. The differences in driving are obvious differences between two Chinese cultures in relative close proximity. But what are the subtle differences and I am missing? Thousands, I’m sure. Not speaking the language puts me at a severe disadvantage for doing one of the things I love most – observing. Hell the standard way we order at a restaurant is by pointing to random chinese characters. We have never received the same thing twice. Oh well, I’m going to keep on trying. China is pretty rad, Mao and all.

I just got back from a talk given by Hank Brown (former CU President, and former Colorado Senator) on the topic of healthcare reform in the United States. The talk was presented by the Student Association for Pre-Health Professionals (SAPP) at CU. Thirty or so “students” attended. I ended up leaving with steam pouring out of my ears.

Since Mr. Brown seems to be well respected in the CU community, and considering the appointments he has had both at CU and the state government, I expected tonights talk to reveal some downright novel thinking on a tough subject. I couldn’t have been more wrong in my expectations.

To his credit, Mr. Brown did a halfway decent job of summing up the issues with the American healthcare system in just under thirty minutes. That in and of itself is a tough as nails task, and he attempted it. He described the amount of uninsured in the US as somewhere between 10 and 50 million. Then he broke that number into thirds attempting to explain the different demographics of each third. By then you can already imagine I was having problems with his statistics but I was willing to let these slide provided we got to the meat of the topic – how to solve the problems that plague the American healthcare system.

Next he tried to sum up the “bill” that will soon be voted on in Congress. Of course those of you in touch with this healthcare debacle know that there isn’t a single bill yet, there are still 3-4 that are being worked on – but Mr. Brown forgot to mention that. Instead, he focused right in on the so called “public option”. Immediately he equated the public option to a single payer system citing the fact that it would likely run the private insurance out of business.  Again, he forgot to mention that under the current writing in the Senate – the public option will only be available to people whose employers don’t offer healthcare. So as of now there really is NOT a direct line to a single payer system as he let the audience believe.

Somewhere down the line he equated a single payer healthcare system to socialism. I almost fell out of my seat. I am no expert, but I’m pretty sure if the US went to a single payer system it wouldn’t mean that capitalism is canceled. Regardless, he went on to talk about the differences between east and west Germany, Hungary and Austria, and Cuba before and after communism (apparently he was equating socialism to communism too). Mr. Brown claimed that someone in England might have to wait months for a surgery they need now; he also stated that on the whole Europeans were less healthy than Americans.  Now if this had been the right time and place I would have happily offered to debate him – but it was neither the right time or place. During the one instance when I couldn’t hold back any longer I spoke up and told him he was flat wrong about the majority of health insurance companies being non-profit. He was startled but seemed to know he had no solid ground to stand on.

When I asked him why no one in Congress had the guts to introduce something novel, something new to the US – he avoided an answer. There is plenty of good precedent out there – look at Hawaii with mandated employee offered insurance if you work 20 hours or more. Or look at Maryland who has uniform pricing, or Switzerland that has 100% mandated private insurance with subsidies (think bye bye medicare), or England with their NHS totally government healthcare. All of these systems produce healthier and happier people. But he just sidestepped my question and revisited why he thinks we should be naysayers of the public option. Blah.

My real problem with tonights talk has to do with what wasn’t said. IF Mr. Brown had introduced himself as a career Republican perhaps the students in the audience would have taken tonights talk with a grain of salt. But from the questions that were being asked I’m pretty sure they were looking at Mr. Brown as if he was a non-partisan healthcare expert.

Overall tonight really disappointed me. I am disappointed that pseudo-facts can be used with such ease when in a setting like tonight there are few checks on their validity. And I am disappointed that a person that spreads such misinformation has held a public office and been president of the University of Colorado. If, as I witnessed tonight, the character of our elected officials is comprised primarily of ignorance – then America is in more trouble than I had originally thought.

Friend -

I don’t really appreciate political forwards as I don’t really think they are a gateway to the political conversation that our country desperately needs. Often times they are hurtful and most of the time wholly inaccurate. They often represent ignorant or selfish ideas that are not in the best interest of you and I as Americans.

I think the idea of voting party lines is simply ludicrous. Rather I think one ought to vote for the best candidate out there, keeping in mind the founding ideals of our country: freedom of choice, separation of church and state, peace, and prosperity. Considering those ideas and more, a great conversation between opposing or similar parties might contain questions such as these: Does a candidate really represent ones moral values? Does he represent fiscal responsibility? Does he understand economics? Does he have Americas neediest, poorest, and worse off in mind? Does he only care about notoriety or beating the “bad guys”? Does he want what’s best for America and can he solve americas problems (the biggest deficit in the world, failing health care, the uninsured, a failing war and economy)? Or will he at least address them?

These are the types of questions I’d love to delve into with my friends. If you’re not interested in such things, please at least refrain from sending forwards slamming or supporting either camp. That’s not my idea of a good or constructive conversation.

Cheers,
Ryan

So here I am flipping through for the third time in as many nights. Channel 6! PBS! They are actually streaming the convention live while people are talking! Imagine that. If you want to hear the speech on CNN you have to listen intently to background noise. PBS = front and center. How novel.

Did you guys catch this speech? 6 minutes long and as passionate as you’ll see this week: