Maybe We Should Stop Calling Them Upsets

Forcing the opponent to 23 Skiddoo
FDU
And SDSU too
Really, quite a to-do!
#NextUpTheEliteEight

The Food Is Terrible. And Such Small Portions. (Confessions Of A Fresser)

Relying on the Borscht Belt humor to provide a gateway into my subject matter, I want to mainly reflect on my experience with a low FODMAP diet, both the immediate sensations during it all, today begins the sixth and final week, and as a gateway into my troubled relationship with eating too much, having done so over a good chunk of my life.  There must be a zillion other essays written by overeaters about their experiences and possible lessons learned.  The bit of novelty I can add with mine is incorporating some knowledge of behavioral economics/decision theory into the narrative, which might help to explain my approach, and possibly be of use to others.

I wrote the above yesterday.  I will try to finish off the post today, aiming to conclude with a sketch of my daily diet as of late. 

Let me begin with the symptoms I had (and still have, though to a lesser extent) that got me to seek help.  A few of these were probably there for some time already before I knew I had a problem - a growling stomach, excessive gas/flatulence, and more recently a feeling of being full after eating only a little bit of food. I'll get back to that last one as it relates to the overeating issues.  I got a mild  case of Covid during the return from our Christmas vacation to visit my younger son in Seattle, and the feeling full thing happened during that.  The Covid manifest as a bad head cold for a couple of days - there never was a fever - and then a lot of congestion after that that lingered for perhaps 10 days or so.  Almost immediately after that concluded I started to experience stomach pains, rather intense, and for me debilitating, which means I was unable to concentrate enough to write a blog post like this one.   Also, the stomach growling and gas/flatulence seemingly intensified.  The former would sometimes happen at night and keep me from going back to sleep.  The latter would sometimes produce chest pains that I was quite convinced were not related to heart issues.  

I had my semi-annual appointment with my oncologist near the end of January.  (I had been treated for prostate cancer in 2018 and this was part of the routine follow up.)  These visits sometimes would wander over a variety of topics - my writing, for example - and not just be contained to my health issues, narrowly conceived.   At this one I complained about the stomach pain, even though I thought it was outside of his jurisdiction.  He said otherwise and got me a referral to a digestive health specialist.  Scheduling healthcare appointments for non-life-threatening illness being what it is these days, it took not quite three weeks before the appointment actually happened.  

At the appointment we discussed my symptoms, a modest physical exam was performed so she could feel and listen to my abdomen while I breathed deeply, and then a variety of tests were prescribed as was the low FODMAP diet.  The first test, done a few days later was a breath test, which confirmed that I have SIBO and led to the prescription of a rather strong antibiotic, Xifaxan.  I had to wait another week for the second test, providing the lab with a stool sample, because I had been taking Prilosec and she wanted me to stop taking it for a week to not confound the test results.  I did that and have not resumed the Prilosec since.  That test turned out negative for H. Pylori, which I take it means I don't have ulcers.  The third test, really two different tests on the same day, is an endoscopy and a colonoscopy.  We agreed to schedule this, as the lag for getting an endoscopy is quite long, but would cancel it if the symptoms were gone.  At present the symptoms are still there.  The procedures are scheduled for April 13.  I hope there is improvement between now and then, but for the time being I'm expecting to still have the symptoms.  After these procedures I hope to have a better sense of the cause(s) for my digestive health issues.

Now let me drill down into the diet and how I tried to manage it.  At the time my wife was on her own self-imposed regime, a no-alcohol February and an Atkins diet.  The no alcohol part overlapped with my agenda. The Atkins diet part meant that apart from a protein at dinner time (typically chicken breast or fish) we were eating separate foods.  So I needed to plan what I would eat and when during the day I would eat it.

The low FODMAP diet is somewhat daunting, particularly at first.  The big deal is no lactose (originally I took this to mean no dairy products, but I learned that certain aged cheeses, cheddar is one of them, lose most of their lactose over time so are okay on the diet) and no wheat (so no bread nor the Bran Buds cereal that I favored as part of my breakfast).  Basic microeconomics assumes that more choices are better, but when there is so much uncertainty about what makes sense to do, developing a routine is really the thing to do.  Having a routine reduces the uncertainty and thereby lessens the chance of making decisions that ultimately go astray.  So, some of my immediate goals were centered around finding a routine for my eating.  

I want to consider this relative to the food culture that many of my peers participate in.  There are many posts in Facebook from friends which feature interesting foods, either prepared by the author or purchased at some restaurant.  In some sense these photos are substitutes for photos of their cats (or their grandchildren).  The photos send an indirect message.  Eating should be an engaging activity, with the variety and the quality of food preparation part of what engages.  As a fresser, I confess that quite frequently I've found volume of eating more important than the quality of what was eaten, though the two are really complements not substitutes.  

But now, with the stomach pain and the feeling full happening early in the meal, I needed a plan for eating less.  Having the meals be okay but boring, in the sense that it's the same as what was eaten yesterday, became part of the plan.  Boring is good in this context.  I also learned that sometimes I had to walk away from the meal halfway through, to return sometime later to finish it.  With that I basically did away with seconds at the same sitting. I'd eat what was prepared and when I was done that was it.

Let me get to some other issues one has to grapple with in following a diet like this.  One is how much of a stickler one should be in following all the rules.  Here is one example.  I learned that the canned tuna packed in water for brands we are familiar with (I'm a Charlie the Tuna guy) are actually packed in vegetable broth.  So I searched online and found another company, Wild Planet, that really does pack its tuna in water.  I ordered some of that.  It tastes a little different than StarKist.  But does it really matter for staying on a low FODMAP diet?  When I ordered it, I thought it might.  Now I'm less sure.  I found a recipe online for low FODMAP ratatouille and had my wife make a batch.  (It has since become my go to way of having the same vegetable dish from one day to the next.)  The first time around, the color was a bit weird and my wife complained about the fresh tomatoes being out of season.  The next time, on her own initiative, she used canned tomatoes and has been doing that ever since.

Another issue is how much to experiment with foods specifically designed for a low FODMAP diet.  In the days prior to these health issues I would like to start the morning with a treat to go along with my coffee.  A blueberry fritter from Schucks is one of my favorites.  A chocolate chip cookie from the Art Mart is even better.  So I found some vegan, probiotic alternatives and ordered a couple of them as alternative.  One I didn't like much.  I stuck with treats from Belli Welli and now get both their chocolate chip cookie and their blueberry muffin, alternating days with each. It's pricey compared to a doughnut, but under the circumstances seems to make sense. I'll explain how it fits in with breakfast in a bit.

Another experiment, one that I tried a bit before this diet, was to have non-dairy yogurt.  I've settled on Silk Vanilla Unsweetened, made with almond milk (partly because I prefer the large containers to the ones for individual servings), and in the course of doing this tried other yogurt made with cashew milk and once oat milk.  I definitely want to go back to dairy asap.  And a couple of times I've had my cereal and fruit without any yogurt at all, which wasn't too bad.  I've finally concluded to have a more modest amount of yogurt than I would if it were dairy.  I won't advocate for this solution, but I can live with it for the rest of the diet.

Then there is the matter of portion size, for individual foods and for entire meals.  In my not entirely thorough reading of what is allowable under a low FODMAP diet, certain foods make the list if they are eaten in modest quantities.  I found this less than satisfactory because the unit seems to be per meal, rather than per day or per week. That didn't make sense to me. There is then the issue of how many meals per day.  I'll get to my answer in a bit.  On the portion size thing, I'm one who'd rather eyeball the answer than to measure out each thing exactly.  (The one exception is the amount of water to add to the oatmeal before putting it in the microwave.)   So for foods like sweet potatoes and garbanzo beans, I'm aware of the recommendation and try to follow it, but only with an eyeball approach.  

Now let's consider factors that make it easier to stick with the diet and then other factors that make it much harder.  I've lost about 10 pounds since starting with the low FODMAP diet and it turns out (not surprisingly to my friends, I'm sure) that I'm quite compulsive about weight loss, as an end in itself and because of improved appearance (manifest in the ability to wear clothes that I had stopped wearing 30 years ago).  So, that sticking with the diet is associated with weight loss makes it easier for me. 

Indeed I had a period of my life, from summer 1976 through summer 1992 where I was almost normal in my weight, after having gone on a crash diet and losing about 45 pounds and then finding a reasonable balance between my food and drink excesses and the amount of exercise I would get.  My weight then was about 210 pounds for much of the year.  It might get as high as 220 during the winter, when I wouldn't get as much exercise, but then come back down again.    I'm now within ten pounds of that earlier norm and reattaining that weight or possibly getting even lower than that seems within reach.  That's quite a motivator.  One wonders why it wasn't as strong a motivator over other portions of my life.  Here's a bit of background about why weight gain returned for me.

In August of 1992 our first son was born.  Parenthood was great, but the lack of of sleep that goes with it somewhat crippled my defenses to sweets, other junk food, and alcohol.  I became a campus administrator for ed tech in summer 1996 and the increased stress from that was substantial and almost immediate.  The weight drifted up a little more accordingly.  A breaking point was reached for me right around 9/11.  Jogging had been my go to exercise after tennis and golf became somewhat untenable.  But my knees couldn't take it and I had to stop.  Foolishly, I didn't find walking as an alternative for quite some time.  And the job stress mounted more after my little ed tech unit merged with the big campus IT organization, ultimately taking much of the pleasure out of the work I was doing.  My weight really ballooned after that until September 2006, when I had a serious fall that ended severing all the ligaments between my left thigh and knee.  I didn't immediately find the light after that, but found a little and did more so in retirement. where health stress rather than work stress became the driver.  

Now let me mention some good news, which I didn't anticipate in prospect but is evident now, regarding the health benefits from losing weight.  My blood pressure is much more under control now, sure, but I don't associate high blood pressure with physical pain.  What I'm referring to is pain in my right hip and lower back.  I had been x-rayed some years back and learned I was a candidate for a hip replacement. I ultimately decided to delay that for fear of developing an infection. 

The idea that food (and drink) might serve as an escapist way for dealing with stress is certainly not new.  Here I want to point out that it should be considered a bad habit rather than a rational response to stress, which is obvious yet I think it is worth considering for two reasons.  One, the habit likely develops well in advance of the evident stress, so it is "available" when the stress occurs.  For me, this happened as a teenager with overeating, particularly with regard to various issues I had with my mother, where nominally she had authority over me yet I felt no real basis for that.  I discussed this at some length in my post The (Not So) Mystical Mom.  The other reason is that once the stress is manifest, you look for easy outs rather than try to develop rational responses then and there.  So, unless a rational response was anticipated in advance to address the situation, it likely won't be forthcoming at all.  And then there is a negative feedback loop between the source of stress and the bad habit to make the situation seem even worse.

Returning to the hip and lower back pain, I found it limited me in how much walking I could do.  Eventually, I took up walking on the treadmill instead, because there I could use my arms to take hold of the handrails, bearing some of my weight that way and thus taking pressure off my back, so being able to walk longer as a result.  But I continued to try walking outside as an alternative.  As I lost weight, I found I could go a longer distance without needing to sit to take the pressure off my back.  (Recently, I've been able to go about a mile and a half before needing to take a break.) With that discovery, I'm wondering whether I'm still a candidate for a hip replacement or if I can just go on as is, which would be my preference, as long as I can do the long walks. 

Another such discovery happened quite recently, during the low FODMAP diet.  I have been having issues with constipation, which the diet seems to have exacerbated.  I read somewhere that taking muscle relaxants might make constipation more severe.  I had been taking them for quite some time to deal with issues related to a compressed disc in my neck.  I would get spasms in my left arm and then the area above the wrist would seem to cramp up, which was quite painful.  But I deemed the constipation as the more immediate concern, so I stopped taking the muscle relaxants, under the proviso that if the issues returned I'd resume with them.  So far, those issues haven't returned.  Could losing weight be the reason?  I really don't have a clue as to the answer.  But it's nice to imagine that it is.  

Alas, some other health issues don't seem to be related to my weight.  I've had a rather large cyst on my left shoulder for at least the past 5 years (and maybe a good deal longer).  Recently, it got infected and looked like a big bright red bump.  It was painful.  After a week or so I decided it wasn't going to go away on its own, so I went to Convenient Care.  The doctor prescribed an antibiotic, Bactrim.  For two days I took that and the Xifaxan and had to make sure they were sufficiently separated by ingest time to not interfere with each other.  Then the Xifaxan prescription expired.  I worried that the Bactrim would interfere with the digestive health issues, but I subsequently learned that sometimes it is prescribed to treat SIBO. So my gut may have gotten an unplanned boost from that.  Perhaps 5 days later the abscess started to ooze on its own accord.  It was even more painful then.  Indeed, I would say that pain was more severe than the stomach pain, so it became difficult to determine whether I was making progress with the latter or not.  

A couple of days later I went back to Convenient Care, this time seeing some nurses.  They ended up squeezing out a good bit of the infection from the wound.  It was very painful while they did it.  And the entire experience was quite stressful for me because I like to prepare myself mentally some before a procedure such as this is done.  In this case they told me one thing, that I'd get an injection to numb the area and then they'd cut open the abscess, but ended up doing another, no injection and no cutting, just manual pressure to get the gunk out of me.  I was unnerved for the rest of the day as a consequence.  I should report that after that there was much less pain.  And tomorrow I have a consult with a general surgeon to see whether something more needs to be done to get all the infection out.   That there is a lingering infection definitely is a worry.  

The other main physical pain is in my feet, where there is chronic puffiness, some of which is surely arthritic, and perhaps some other cause as well, gout perhaps.  The right foot is worse than the left.  I had a stress fracture in the right foot back in 2018 and I thought that perhaps I had done it again last summer.  The Podiatrist said no.  I looked at the x-ray.  Instead of individual bones for each toe, it seem to show one big blob, as if the bones fused in some way.  I don't know.  This stuff is beyond me.  I can say that is hurts simply to push on the brake pedal when I'm driving.  This issue, I take it, will be with me for the rest of my life.  So I've got to deal with it, one way or the other.  

The last health issue I will mention here is what I call old-man disease - having to go to the can at night multiple times.  Whether this was caused by the prostate cancer or not is moot, from my perspective.  I do take Flomax to regulate the problem.  The real issue is not having to get up to go to the john.  It is whether I can get back to sleep in a reasonable amount of time afterwards.  If I can get back to sleep each time, the night is a success.  If I can't, I'm worn out the next day and lacking in energy (though perhaps surprisingly I seem to get better at doing the NY Times Spelling Bee,  Some things maybe are better done on autopilot.)  This too is a an issue I'll deal with for the rest of my life.

There are, of course, non-health sources of stress.  I'll mention two serious ones and one other that many will find ridiculous.  The first is our national politics, no surprise there.  The second is related to the volunteer work I do, for a human rights organization in Uganda.  There is inherent stress in this but what is happening Uganda now regarding the Anti-Homosexuality Bill and related consequences is truly horrible.  Then, there is being a fan of Illini basketball.  Even though I no longer go to games I do invest myself in watching them on TV and wear the orange garb while doing so.  

This is a good lead-in to the behavioral economics approach in managing how to deal with stress, particularly the excess eating and drinking.  First there is the idea called hyperbolic discounting - meaning that what is "optimal" to do will seem different at 7 AM in the morning over the first cup of coffee from how it looks at 6 PM at night, where the temptation to have a drink or a highly caloric snack is more immediate.  Non-economists will talk about impulse control, much the same way as others talk about deferred gratification.  But behavioral economists take a different approach - nudges.  (See the book by Sunstein and Thaler.)  A nudge is a change in the economic environment made beforehand to raise the cost of unhealthy behavior and thereby promote the healthy alternative.  When I was single, one of the nudges I relied on (though then I hadn't yet heard the term nudge) was to never keep ice cream in the apartment.  I could have ice cream with colleagues when we took our afternoon walk to Baskin-Robbins, but not at nighttime.  Nowadays, my big nudge is to go to sleep early.  (The move to Daylight Savings Time has changed when this is on the clock.  Think of it as just around sunset or 7 PM, whichever is later.)  My urge to have a drink or an unhealthy snack is much greater at night.  Further, if I already know that I will go to sleep early, I can more readily show some discipline in the evening.  It seems then that I don't have to hold on for so long.

Here's how this nudge has worked in practice as of late.  If the day is ordinary from a stress point of view, I won't drink and I will stay on the diet.  In contrast, if the day has an unusually high amount of stress, then I'll have a drink.  After this, my willpower will be less.  I likely will have another drink.  I may then go off the diet portion-wise (eating more of what is most attractive or having another breakfast treat).  The ordinary days string together, maybe for a week.  The high stress days are typically one and done.  I already mentioned the return visit to Convenient Care and the stress that ensued.  I drank that night.  A week later  I drank when Illinois stunk it up against Arkansas. (Even though Arkansas subsequently beat Kansas, the number 1 seed in the region, that was small consolation only.  It should have been Illinois that beat Kansas.)  A couple of nights later I didn't sleep well at all.  I drank the following evening.  I'm hoping the sleepless nights are few and far between, but it is a real concern. 

The effect of this behavior on weight loss is something like two steps forward and one step back.  Also, it must be that though drinking is said to dehydrate you, I retain water in some way when I'm drinking.  Not drinking for the next day or two seems to produce larger weight loss than usual the following morning. That has to be due to water loss. I'd like somebody who understands this stuff to explain what's going on here.  For me, it's a bit of a puzzle.

Let me get to the diet itself.  In the ideal, I drink one glass of water for each of the first two or three cups of coffee and then continue drinking water for the rest of the day. For the first glass of water, since I need to take my morning pills, it is pretty much a no-brainer.  Thereafter, it's more of a struggle and some days I do this better than others.  Once I've had my fill of caffeine I'll switch to decaf, though recently I've taken the second cup to be decaf and have more caffeine later.  Someone needs to fill me in on whether water and decaf are reasonable substitutes or not. I hope they are.

Somewhere in the middle of the first real cup of coffee I'll have the Belli Welli breakfast treat.  (This is usually after doing the Wordle but still in the middle of the Spelling Bee.) About an hour later I will have the real breakfast - now half a banana sliced up, maybe some blueberries or strawberries added, some non-wheat cereal and the delightful yogurt.  Most days I use a round bowl which holds a fair amount of the stuff.  Some days I use a flat bowl which holds less.  It is one bowl and done.  Then nothing to eat till lunch.  Every third day or so I change the routine by having oatmeal instead of yogurt.  Some salt is added but it is otherwise not doctored with sweetener, milk, or butter.  I do put sliced banana into the oatmeal.  Then a few blueberries or strawberries will be served on the side.  Compared to what I was eating before the low FODMAP diet, there was a full banana sliced into the yogurt with Bran Buds, and I would frequently raid the refrigerator a couple of hours later.  I don't do that now.  Truthfully, I'm rarely tempted to do so, but maybe this is the digestive health issue rather than any discipline in sticking to the diet.  

Lunch is typically a salad.  I used to favor salad kits that featured some version of Caesar Salad.  But now the croutons and Caesar dressing are out of bounds.  So I get a bag of greens, some cherry tomatoes, a protein source (either from dinner the night before or canned tuna) and then some other fixings that vary - possibly a bit of sweet potato, possibly a few garbanzo beans, once or twice it has been white rice, and maybe some bits of cheddar cheese.  I will mix this all up in a big bowl and use Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing.  I'll eat half the day I make it and the rest the following day.  I use a small flat bow for serving the salad, so that even with half of the big bowl, it takes two servings in the small bowl to make a meal, the only time I allow myself to have seconds.  Every once in a a while I will have something else instead of  salad.  I will microwave some green beans (for 3:45 on high power).  I serve those without seasoning or dressing.  I actually like the taste of the green beans themselves.  I'll have that with some protein and maybe a starch as well.  The rice I get is in one-serving containers that can be microwaved.  That or a bit of sweet potato would be the starch.  

An afternoon snack is planned roughly 2/3 of the way between lunch and dinner.  My go to food during the diet has been cantaloupe.  I will go back to apples eventually, and then have cantaloupe as part of lunch.  But apples are not low FODMAP.   Somewhere in the afternoon I will also have a cup of chicken broth made from Wyler's powder.  Its a diversion from the decaf.  I don't know if it has any other nutritional value than that.  

There is then a regime of pills and eye-drops, that lasts about 90 minutes in total.  (There is a lot of downtime between the various steps in this regime.)  After it is over dinner is served.  Some nights there will be a protein made by wife.  Tuesday and Thursday there is fresh fish at the market.  We get either salmon or cod.  Chicken breasts, cut up into smaller pieces, are also a mainstay.  Last week we got smoked turkey from Indian River Smokehouse, which I thought quite good eaten plain, without gravy and without any side dishes.  Ratatouille is the main vegetable dish.  My wife will make bok choy every once in a while.  And then there is a starch of some sort.

My attitude about eating starch as part of the diet has changed as a consequence of recent experience.  The portion size question, when it is not the low FODMAP diet itself which determines that, is still something I'm trying to master.  Smaller portions overall would seem to indicate more rapid weight loss.  But depriving yourself too much, even if currently overweight, may be counterproductive.  I found that around week three of the diet I would sometimes have rather intense headaches in the morning.  I wondered whether dreaming itself might produce that or if it was something else, possibly dehydration or low blood sugar, or the two in combination.  I found that the headaches would be gone after the morning pills, the first cup of coffee, and the breakfast treat.  So one wonders whether the headaches can be avoided by eating a bit more starch the night before.  Likewise, sometimes I feel little oomph during the day, even if my sleep was not bad the night before.  Might a bit more starch help with that too?  Getting the magnitudes right seems more art than science at this point.  But I'm convinced that for diet to achieve weight loss, slow and steady wins the race.  That's the goal.

The question, entirely open now, one I will pursue seriously if the stomach pain goes away for real, is whether this approach to diet with a meal plan of this sort can still work for me.  I'm thinking that maybe it can.

Then again, the Illini better have a good basketball team next year.

Inspector Morse Never Too Far Off Course

Chasing a wild goose
The tree shakes something loose
Could it possibly be a clue?
Need more leather for the shoe.
#AnotherDepictionOfDetectiveFiction

Rambling About Gambling

If the bracket
Is a racket
How does one crack it?

We should be regretting
College sports betting
It is upsetting.
#TheWaySomeTeamsPlayedCouldTheFixBeIn

When Your Digestive System Internalizes Extremist Politics

The neurotic
Probiotic
Became psychotic

For a while it was exotic
But then chaotic
And ultimately despotic.
#ICannotStomachThisMuchLonger

The Endeavor to Be Clever Needs a Lever

One whit of wit
Times two it's a twit
Causing others discomfit
Which might bother you just a bit.
#WeReallyNeedDorothyParkerNow

Nostalgia for Childhood

Simple Simon and Simon Says
Nursery rhymes and kid games to ward off the malaise.

Finding innocent truths in reflection while sitting on a chaise
And eating candy, perhaps a Sugar Daddy or some Pez.
#ASlidingPondForTheMind

Belly Whoppers

Brief prose
About adipose
Is merely chewing the fat.

Noting a small decline
In the waistline
Is now where it's at.
#WhenADietIsImposedForDigestiveHealthReasons

The Spelling Bee Blues

Only two words to go
But then totally stymied
So feeling rather low
As aspirations go by me.
#ThereAreWordsInTheDictionaryThatAreNotAccepted

Geezer Self-Maintenance

What you oughta
Drinking watta
Though you might be keen
On having more caffeine.
#FrustrationViaDehydration

Irritable Lanny Syndrome

Yesterday, I went to the Digestive Health Institute at Carle for a breath test to see if I have SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. The test is administered over time. I would blow into a tube connected to a collection device. The tech who administered the test would take the collection of my breath and feed it into some machine. The first time this was done, it was to establish a baseline. Then I was given a bit of sweet fluid to drink (Lactulose). There were subsequent readings every twenty minutes, for two hours in total. 

 

I was told they were very busy when I was there. Indeed, after the first reading and drinking the fluid, which happened in an examination room, I was then ushered back to the waiting room. All subsequent collections of my breath happened there in the waiting room. The technician came out to get it. I remained seated as she did this. 

 

There were several other people in the waiting room who were also having breath tests. The technician told me this was a scheduling issue. But it also must be that many people have similar symptoms to mine and the breath test is a first step at diagnosis, since it is comparatively inexpensive to administer and benign for the patient, except for the time commitment. 

 

At the conclusion of the test, I was told by the technician that it could be up to 2 weeks before I would get the results. In fact, It was only a few hours later when I got a message from the APRN who ordered the test. I had tested positive, not really a surprise given my symptoms. She recommended that I get a prescription of Xifaxan and she said she'd work with my insurance to get it approved. Apparently there is no generic version and only a couple of reasonable alternatives, one of which is currently in short supply. I wrote back to her saying it would be ironical if my insurance didn't give its approval, as I pay an IRMAA for Medicare Part D. 

 

The pharmacy called earlier this afternoon saying the prescription was ready. I went to the drive-through to pick it up. My bill was $713.63 for two weeks worth of pills (taken 3 times a day). I would have exploded at this, except that the night before I did a little research online about the cost of Xifaxan and thus knew it was well over $2,000. The invoice from the pharmacy confirmed this. The full price was $2,442.89. So I agreed to pay my share. And as of now, I've taken the first of the 42 pills.

I can afford this and after today probably won't lose any sleep about it. But what about the others who tested positive? I can only guess at the income of others who were sitting in the waiting room yesterday. Given that, I can imagine that some, in a similar situation, would say that $700 is too much to pay for the pills and therefore go without. How can that make sense, especially for retirees on Medicare?

 

Prescription drugs for more esoteric illness coupled with how health insurance now works has become a royal pain in the ass. 

 

We've known that for some time, but this is the first time in my own experience where that stared at me straight in the face, as I've only once before received medical attention in the waiting room and that time my situation was unique. This time, it applied to several other patients as well.

 

*****

 

Most readers can stop after reading the above. Below I want to discuss the underlying economics a little, and suggest a possibly better way for conducting government policy about drug pricing.

Fundamentally new drugs that offer the promise of improved health for many receive a patent, or possibly several different patents. The patent protection means the drug company faces no competition in the market for this drug during the patent term. The patent term is the greater of these two: (1) 20 years after the patent application has been filed, or (2) 17 years after the patent has been awarded. There will be competition from generic alternatives after the patent term has expired. That competition should bring down the price. 

 

During the patent term, there will be monopoly pricing. Of course, this price depends on the demand for the drug. Pharmaceutical companies try to increase demand by marketing their drugs to doctors. Doctors have incentive to recommend the best drug for treatment, regardless of cost. So the aforementioned marketing focuses on drug effectiveness. Of course, the doctors and other health professionals do understand the affordability issue for their patients. 

 

Patients who have their drug costs insured 100% don't care about the price at all. It's the insurance company that cares. Even when the patient has a co-pay or a deductible, the concern about drug price may be minimal as the insurance company bears the lion's share of the cost. Thus the system has evolved so the insurance company has to approve the prescription beforehand. If the insurance company doesn't approve, the patient can't get the drug unless the patient is willing to pay full price for it. This is the same mechanism at work with expensive diagnostic procedures. (A quick aside here, my experience recently, meaning over the past 5 years or so, is that doctors and other health professionals are intimidated by this approval process. They resent that their judgments are challenged by the insurance companies.)

 

With this as background as to what determines demand for a new drug, there will be monopoly pricing . The price of the drug will be set to maximize the profit of the pharmaceutical company. As any student of microeconomics should be able to tell you, the monopoly price is socially inefficient. There is a deadweight loss. (This is sometimes referred to as a Harberger triangle, after the U Chicago economist Arnold Harberger.) 

 

Social efficiency is obtained with marginal cost pricing. For this discussion the price of a generic alternative gives a reasonable approximation of marginal cost pricing. The proposal I will offer here is that this be the pricing that is used even near to when the drug is introduced in the market. The pharmaceutical company will be rewarded another way, by government paying it an amount equal to the monopoly profits in that market. 

 

That would produce the efficient solution and still reward the pharmaceutical company for its innovation with the new drug. If the demand for the new drug was known up front, this would be the sensible solution. 

 

Of course, it's not that simple. The demand for the new drug isn't known so readily. Have doctors been convinced by the marketing they've received or not? Even with that, there will be inertia as to whatever was prescribed before the new drug hit the market. The demand is apt to grow over time for this reason. And perhaps other uses for the drug are found after its release. That too would increase demand. This will be learned over time and won't be fully evident at the outset.

 

So let's imagine bargaining between the government and the pharmaceutical company happening on an annual basis. They are to bargain over drug price and the lump sum the government will pay the company. They will use the past experience of price, volume of drug use, and the company report on profits of the drug to help determine this year's bargain. The government will understand that the drug company has incentive to overstate profits from last year, to inflate the lump sum payment this year. Likewise, the government has incentive to lessen the lump sum payment somewhat, in anticipation of the drug company's behavior. But to the extent that transaction prices and volume of transactions can be accurately measured, the profit assertions will have be brought in line with that. 

 

Over time the hope would be that the drug price falls to near marginal cost. (What a name brand would charge as a premium in the presence of competition from a generic alternative means it won't fall all the way to marginal cost.) And the drug companies are happy with the lump sum payments they receive from the government while the drug is under patent. 

 

Could this actually happen? If only wishing would make it so.

Confrontation with My Own Cheating

My wife and I do the Spelling Bee, one of the games in the NY Times. She goes first and gets as many words as she can. Then it is my turn. I see if I can get the rest. We usually make it to Genius level, their highest ranking. Sometimes we get to Queen Bee, which means we got all the words.

We use the hints that they publish. To us, that is not cheating. The hints give how many words start with the same first two letters, also the length of the words starting with the same first letter (the minimum length is 4 letters).

The fun in doing this is in guessing the words themselves, given the seven letters they give you, where the letter in the center must be in the word, and there are 6 other letters that can be used in the word. Letters can be used more than once.

Sometimes, you look for additional help. With four letter words you can brute force an answer, especially when the center letter is not one of the first two letters. This is a kind of cheating. But, on the flip side, if you've never heard of the word before you certainly won't guess it. The vast majority of words are familiar. But these puzzles do include obscure entries. IMHO, cheating on those is acceptable.

A second type of cheating that I've discovered is by using an online dictionary. I use Dictionary.com. If you type in the first few letters, it will suggest full words that begin that way. Once in a while, such a word can be made with the letters provided in the puzzle. I've actually found many words this way that the puzzle does not accept. Usually they are technical terms, or the English version of words from a foreign country. Also, if a word has two different spellings, the puzzle might only accept one of those. So it is a bit arbitrary. In any event, this type of cheating can produce words that I should have guessed in advance. Then I have some regret from doing it. On the other hand, even though I'm retired I don't want to spend the full day doing this puzzle.

The most egregious form of cheating is following the Community link. There someone has posted answers - though in hint form, not the words explicitly. Going there is the last resort, for when you're ready to give up on the puzzle. It's good for words you've never heard of before. Last Sunday, one of the words was Haboob. It's been a very long time since I studied vocabulary for the SAT, but I don't think that haboob was on the list. (And typing now, the browser is giving a red squiggle under it, so maybe it's not really a word.)

At present I have 54 words out of 55 in total for today's puzzle. I know the first two letters of that last word and how many letters it has. I'm procrastinating on deciding whether to keep guessing at this last word or cheating on it.

Procrastination is its own form of cheating. I do it a lot. Some role model for our students, huh?

When There Is No N R G

Is this guy slacking
With effort apparently lacking
Because he has no oomph?

Here it bears repeating
The person isn't cheating
He simply is a schlump.
#LackingJazzWithNoPizazz

The Last Draw

Instead of relying on a pencil
The geezer made use of a utensil
For sketching in the mashed potatoes
Highlighted nicely with cherry tomatoes.
#ReleasingYourInnerKid

Opinion or Fact May Be Hard to Extract

The objective
And the subjective
A retrospective.

This review
Of the point of view
Is long overdue.
#FromWhereYouLookCanBeMistook

Second Guessing

A tough decision
Pains like an incision
So feeling morose
Though not comatose.

Even when you're right
So want to put up a fight
Lost sleep in the night
Can cause quite a fright.
#TheSeedsOfDoubtFromEmotionNotFromReason

AI or EIEIO

Let's begin with this mock quiz.

1.  Complete the line:
You can lead a whore to culture _________________________.

2. What question was asked that provoked this line as response?

3. Who is the author of this line?

4. What other line was this a parody of?

My guess is that my cohort from high school (we graduated in 1972) could answer these questions in their sleep.  But if you posed it to college kids today, most wouldn't have a clue.   Let's assume that's true now, just for the sake of argument.  Is that quite okay, because knowledge of the content in the mock quiz really should be generational?  Or is it indicative of a larger problem, because every educated person should know the content in the mock quiz?

(Answers to the mock quiz: 1. ________ but you can't make her think.   2.  Can you use the word horticulture in a sentence?  3.  Dorothy Parker.  4.  You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.)

Over the years as I became familiar with the various issues in how people learn, I picked up this knowledge nugget.  If an example is presented that people already know and understand, they begin on terra firma.  From there they then can branch off to the more general issue, which people may be less comfortable with at first - take what you know and use it to learn what you don't know.  In this case the issue is about literacy, particularly among students.  Are we doing a good job of teaching literacy?  The Magic 8 ball would say - very doubtful. 

Actually, the example gets at something else that is related.  What do we already know and do we we know enough to be literate, making good meaning of what we read when the piece is intended for a general audience? As an example, do we already know the answers to the mock quiz?  From there one can generalize - what other things do we need to already know to be literate?

This question has captured the attention of many and been a matter of public debate and policy.  During the Reagan Presidency, the issue was part and parcel of the culture wars, as they occurred then.  In my own experience teaching undergraduates, particularly in intermediate microeconomics, but in other courses as well, I found many of the students lacking this way and I had no good methods for the students to overcome their deficiency, good in the sense both of effectiveness and that the students would willingly do the work. What is evident to me is that the students need to read a lot more than they were reading, and what they read must be interesting and challenging material.  There is learning by doing.  That much I believe.  How to get the students to read a lot on their own is another matter.  It's a challenge that remains unmet.

Over the years I've written about literacy and about learning to read.  This post, Are We Ketman?, was written just before I retired.  Much of it was fueled by Diane Ravitch's book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, which I was in the midst of reading at the time.  There is also mention in my post about Cultural Literacy and E.D. Hirsch.   I was somewhat sympathetic to him there.  I've refined my thinking some since.  It is definitely true that when I was a kid there was an ideal that was encouraged - to be a Renaissance man - know at least a little bit about everything.  As an adult there are things I simply don't care about at all and am quite okay with my own ignorance.  A couple of examples are pop music and interior decorating.  Perhaps the first of these made it harder to relate to my undergraduate students when I was teaching (pre-Covid).  I really don't know.  I will briefly consider other ways to relate to students that to me matter more for the issue of cultivating their literacy.    

There is also in the Hirsch conception that it all has to be prior knowledge.  I think that is wrong.  If one has a deficient background to consider an important subject of interest, then one needs to be able and willing to self-teach and acquire that background then and there.  This means that sometimes when we read something, we must read other things as well to appreciate what is being said in the original piece.  A graduate student learns this by seeing a literature review whenever they read a published paper.  But surely the need exists well before the student pursues graduate education.  And nowadays, with so much content readily available online, this is much easier to do.  Back when I was a student, you needed to go to the library to track down the related readings.  

The following paragraph from my post is worth reading, as the history on the literacy issue during the Reagan years is still very interesting to consider, in particular the importance of the document A Nation At Risk. 

I found her history of the events immediately preceding and succeeding A Nation At Risk fascinating. I was an Assistant Professor at the time and pretty locked into my econ research, so this gave me a different perspective of what was happening in the Department of Education then. I should add that the ANAR document itself is well worth the read. It seems to hold equally well today as it did when it was written, though now the risks are even greater having gone through No Child Left Behind, and the emphasis on accountability that continues under President Obama.

So, I think it fair to say that the issue has been with us for some time.  Indeed, the book Why Johnny Can't Read came out in 1955, the year I was born.  Evidently there was some controversy about how to teach reading to first and second graders back then - either the Dick, Jane, and Spot way or the sounding out words phonetically way.  I can't remember how my classmates and I did this back then.  (I'm thinking it was some of both but I'm really not sure.)  What I do remember is far more recent, this little snip from the movie Eddie which pokes fun at the entire endeavor.

• Ivan Radovadovitch : [Ivan is doing a commercial]  Ivan learn important English words like "renegotiate," "eliminate salary cap," and "union lockout."

  [the respective words appear on screen] 

  Ivan Radovadovitch : That is why I am Hooked on Phonics.

  [Ivan turns to the camera holds up a box saying "Hooked on Phonics" as the phone number appears on screen] 

Now I'm quite unsure of how younger students are taught to read.  I do recall that when I was a kid there was a related fear that watching TV would hamper literacy - Gilligan's Island might be cited as a pure time waster.  Maybe it was.  But I watched quite a bit of TV and yet was also able to read a lot on my own.  The thing is, there was ample time for both.  Nowadays kids tend to be over programmed.  Reading time gets crowded out by other things.  

Let me return to the literacy of college students.  This post, The Purpose of General Education, argues that it should be one of the fundamental goals, though in that piece I referred to it as reading comprehension.  We in Higher Ed don't seem to be doing a very good job of it, especially for those who enter college with mediocre to poor reading habits.  Further, if my teaching during retirement is any indication, there was an inflection point in 2015 where things got worse than they were in 2012-2014.  (In any one class that I taught, this could be explained by a cohort effect, but it persisted thereafter, which makes me suspect that the inflection point really did happen.)  During my 2016 class, I expressed my frustration in this post, When Students Don't Get It.  The post gives several different examples where non-learning is happening.  The post might make it seem to be entirely the student's fault.  But that is wrong.

The university has a responsibility here as well.  Consider the following.  Gen Ed classes are often taught as large lectures.  Why is that?  One reason, at least at Illinois, is the budgeting model.  Revenues per student credit hour generated are much higher in the major classes than they are in Gen Ed classes.  So departments that offer the Gen Ed classes have incentive to teach them in a less expensive way.   Offering large lectures is one way to do this. (The introductory rhetoric classes and introductory foreign language classes are the exceptions.  Class size there is modest.  But the instructors are almost always graduate students.)  Further, these courses tend to be textbook based, with few if any outside readings.  Most of the instructors teaching these classes nowadays are not on the tenure track.  The instruction tends to be teaching to the textbook.  Students prepare for exams by memorizing the textbook and/or the lecture notes.  None of this promotes growth in student literacy.  

We seem not to talk about about the university's responsibility but instead will talk ad infinitum about student cheating in writing assignments by using AI.  (Before AI, it was cheating by purchasing already written essays online or essays written to order.)  Let us understand that students whose literacy skills are poor to mediocre will have incentive to cheat, simply to conceal their deficiency. Students are fearful of the judgment of others - peers as well as instructors - if that judgment concludes that the student is stupid.  This is a form of fear of failure.  Students must learn that they need to fail, again and again, until they do things well.  The idea that they'll get everything right the first time out is a delusion.  Big writing assignments, especially those that don't have a rough draft first, encourage this delusion.  

Will the handful of students who are literate also resort to AI in writing assignments?  Here, I think, a different issue comes to bear.  Does the student perceive the assignment to be truly instructive or is it thought to be busy work?   I wish this was the only concern such a student would have, but I want to report that in fall 2019 I had a student who was taking 24 credit hours of coursework (done by taking 8 3-credit courses).  Such behavior, to the extent it exists suggests that getting through is the sole priority and enrichment to learning that might occur in any one course is not of importance.  I fear that such a student would also use AI for the essay writing.

Let me quickly consider what might help on the student literacy front, by considering this post from my fall 2019 Economics of Organization class.  As it may seem frivolous and is evidently not about economics, I need to give some explanation first.  This is a class that frustrated me and I felt I had lost a great majority of the students.  I did not require attendance.  Eventually many students took the class as if it were taught online, even though I didn't teach it that way.  (My face-to-face classes probably had more online stuff than most Econ classes back then.)  To counter the evident lack of student engagement, near the end of the semester I began to give "Quizzes" which were jokes or riddles.  Students were supposed to figure out the punchline.  The thought was that if they found this entertaining, they might engage more on the economics as well.   This post was not a quiz.  Instead it presented a few different "curiosities" that might entertain the students.

Note that there is one comment from a student in the class, who is posting under an alias that I assigned.  There was no course credit given for such comments.  He liked the play on words and that he commented on it is a simple demonstration of intrinsic motivation, something we instructors should strive for more with students.   Let me make a few other observations here.  There was only one such comment.  The analytics on the post now shows 19 hits, some of which surely are me, and the class had enrollment in the low to mid 30s.  So many students never saw it and among those who did nobody else chose to comment.  This experience is akin to what I've seen with my instructional videos on YouTube done under my ProfArvan ID.  The comments are few and most express gratitude.  The average viewing time, however, is typically around 30% of the video length.  Intrinsically interesting content might be helpful for literacy, particularly of the wordplay variety, but it surely isn't the full solution, as many students will never access it.

I also want to note that I learned both the Palindrome and the Theorem in that post during 11th grade math.  That math has wordplay shouldn't be surprising, yet nowadays we seem to consign literacy teaching in Gen Ed to English and Comparative Literature classes.  Also, my Econ of Organizations class is intended for juniors and seniors.  So I was exposed to this wordplay much earlier in my own learning trajectory than the student who made this comment.  I'd like to expand on this further.  

What I say here may be unfair to students who are the first in their families to attend college, because the opportunities for this may be less, but it is my view that (a) students should not be over programmed with out-of-school activities or with excessive homework, (b) it is the students themselves who need to pursue their own interests rather than to be directed by adults, and (c) students should find an "intellectual social life" as part of what they do in their free time. I wrote about this in a post called PLAs Please, one of my favorites among my blog posts.  The following snippet shows the interplay of school and intellectual social life for me while in elementary school.

Reading was different. Pretty early on, perhaps fourth grade, we had SRA. This history by Don Parker is a fascinating read, if a little melodramatic. We also had individualized reading. (Those who preach a learner centric approach likely will be intrigued at how early this piece is and yet that its critique is not about “teacher centric” so much as it is about “grouping,” where all students read the same book.) And now I must confess that my memory fails, or that I’m not able in looking backward to attribute cause to school or elsewhere or in some combination.

Elsewhere in this case was the public library, but also books that were at home. I recall a series that I believe Random House produced. The books were numbered, each around 150 pages, dealing with a character or event in American History – Kit Carson, The Transcontinental Railroad, Fulton’s Folly, Appomattox, etc. I’d read at least one of these a week, sometimes one in an evening. And there were biographies by Clara Ingram Judson from the school Library. This was an enormous education. I soaked it in. Once the momentum started it self-sustained. I’m really not sure of the spark. What does it matter?

Now I'm wondering whether many of the non-reading activities we did in school or at home also contributed to our literacy.  I don't know whether my kids ever learned Old McDonald Had a Farm (the one I remember for them is The Wheels on the Bus), but surely every one of my high school friends would recognize the source of EIEIO.  And I'm sure we learned to sing Home on the Range as well, even though we were city kids.  We also learned Three Blind Mice and Frère Jacques, which I think happened at school.  My dad taught us London's Burning.  We did some singing in the family.  Is that usual now? And there were games that promoted literacy, notably Charades, but also Simon Says, which encouraged you to pay careful attention, and even jumping rope required spelling out words at the same time.  

I don't know if anyone conceived of the play environment we had as kids as complementary to literacy education, but now it seems that way to me.  I'm far less sure that kids nowadays have that same type of play environment.  And I've yet to mention the parents reading to the kids at bedtime, which is crucial in my view.  My dad did that for my brother and me (we shared a bedroom). The stories themselves were important.  That my dad implicitly messaged us that reading them aloud was equally important, showed that parenting has to have with it an eye toward the kid's education.   Dad, we got the message.

First to the Moon but then the Swoon

No team seems to want to be number one
The rankings have become a game of musical chairs
For more of the fans this adds to the fun
Both opportunities and threats contribute to their cares.

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/35497617/no-14-tcu-hands-no-2-kansas-worst-home-loss-2-years

Which Way Did He Go George?

The "b" in subtle
Is not meant to be heard
Though it's not a rebuttal
Says Mortimer Snerd.

Who is the dummy
And who throws his voice
Since we're all kind of chummy
It seems a matter of choice.
#WhenWhatYouHearAndWhatYouSeeToACertainExtentDisagree

Patience for Patients

Does coughing addle the brain?
For me it's a familiar refrain
Thar she blows!
So now it's the nose
Gunk in the chest is hard to restrain.
#OnesMorningRoutinesBlownToSmithereens

 

Antecedents

I have been fixated on the expression - an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure - but in this case applied to our national politics, particularly the Big Lie and the events in and around 1/6.  The rhetoric from the House Committee recently mentioned that their purpose was in large part to prevent a situation like this from happening again.  I have no quibbles with that.  But they seemed to contain their investigation to the time interval between the November election and the events in question.  What about earlier? Wouldn’t that be where to look for that ounce of prevention?

The House Committee itself was likely constrained from doing so. They already had quite a bit on their plate with getting detailed information about more contemporaneous events that were clearly within the scope of their investigation.  Looking at earlier events would open them up to accusations of overreach and thereby lessen the impact of their findings.  But that shouldn’t prevent others from doing so, if only in a speculative manner.  I’m going to do some of that in the rest of this post.

There are questions that immediately pop up in doing this.  How far back should one go?  What sort of events should one look for to find some prevention?   I don’t have great answers to these questions.  What I feel comfortable saying here is that as a rule we are not very prescient.  Thus, taking the prevention soon before it is needed is desirable, if possible.  But if the event doesn’t provide much in the way of prevention then one must look elsewhere; quite possibly one must look earlier.

The event I will focus on is the first Impeachment and Senate Trial of Donald Trump.  In doing this analysis, I will rely on this explanatory piece from Vox, which I found helpful to understand things, although on one key point I will take issue with what they say.

https://www.vox.com/c/2020/2/6/20914280/impeachment-trump-explained

I will assume that the House Impeached Trump, as actually happened.  But then we’ll consider the counter factual, where the Senate finds Trump guilty.  The questions we’ll consider are these:

1)  Would a guilty verdict serve as an effective preventive, in the sense discussed above?

2) Assuming that Pence would become President after a guilty verdict in the Senate, what would be the likely consequences of that?

3) Given the answers to both #1 and #2, would enough Republican Senators rationally vote for a guilty verdict that such a verdict is obtained?

In considering each of these questions there is a lot of uncertainty to reckon with.  So answers certainly shouldn’t be considered as definitive and probably are closer to pure speculation.  Nonetheless, I think that working through to those answers is useful, which is why I’m writing this post.  

In my recollection, there was little blowback from Trump about the first Impeachment, though perhaps that was because he had assurances that the Senate would find him innocent.  Surely there would be substantially more blowback if he thought a guilty verdict were possible and even more blowback if he thought such a verdict was likely.

Given the nature of the crime he was charged with, there would be no Big Lie. Instead, the blowback would likely focus on the Deep State.  While this might do damage to the “national fabric” l think there would be far less damage than has happened under the Big Lie.

What about collateral damage from MAGA types who are coordinated by Trump?  We should expect some of that, but how much of it will be harder to determine.  Here is what can be readily determined.

During the actual Senate trial, no witnesses were called. The duration of the trial was less than the two months between the November election and 1/6.  If a guilty verdict had been a serious possibility, witnesses would have been called.  This would lengthen the trial, giving Trump and the MAGA types more time to , coordinate and a larger time window in which to identify a date for disruptive action.

As to whether other dates might offer similar opportunities for disruption as to what happened on 1/6, I really can’t say.  I’m out of my element here. But my guess is that when in the calendar the disruption happens should matter. During regular work weeks when most students are in school, the opportunities for disruption lessen.  

If that’s right, then a guilty verdict would offer some prevention but not full prevention.  And then we surely would quibble about how much prevention it would offer.  Let me leave it there and move onto the next question.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was still alive during that first Impeachment trial.  If Pence became President at the trial’s conclusion, there is then the question of what he would do regarding filling her seat on the Supreme Court after she passed.  Would he not nominate anyone and leave that choice to the next President?  Or would he do as Trump had done and nominate a very Conservative candidate?  

Then there is the matter of the 2020 election. Presumably, Pence would be the Republican candidate for President.  I suspect he would be regarded as a weak candidate.  The perceived impact on downstream races would be negative. Of course, the voter perception of Trump’s guilt matters.  

Let’s keep that voter perception as separate from his actual guilt or innocence. (The Vox piece argues that he actually was guilty.)  Republican voters and Democratic voters will differ in their perceptions.  And among the Republican voters there might be substantial variation in perception. 

As I write this I’m trying to recall my attitude to Gerald Ford when he became President. Everyone I knew hated Nixon.  But I’m convinced that if Ford hadn’t pardoned Nixon he would have won the election in 1976. Likewise, might a Pence Presidency experience goodwill across the board?  That seems possible, though how likely that would be I really don’t know.

The upshot is that on purely political grounds, keeping Trump as President looks like a safer play to a Republican Senator. The Vox article is useful in reminding us that the Democrats in the House were also political in not having an Impeachment based on the Mueller Report because it didn’t say explicitly that crimes were committed. This in spite of the fact that the public was much more aware of Mueller’s investigation than they were of Trump’s manipulations with Zelenskyy. (Vox blamed this on Mueller being a Republican.  I think the real blame lies in the charge Rod Rosenstein gave to Mueller not to look at Trump’s financial dealings with Russia. Plus Barr may have indicated to Mueller to tone down the language in the Report if the findings were suggestive rather than definitive.)

I suppose that the best we can expect is for Members of Congress to have dual motives in the Impeachment process. One would be to seek truth.  The other would be to follow political inclinations.  And one might also hope that the severity of the crime determines which motive wins out.

But that is just a hope

If we return to what actually happened, it appears that Senate Republicans whitewashed the Impeachment trial.  That makes it seem there was a conspiracy between them and Trump.  If that is correct, the amount of preventative in the Impeachment itself is essentially nil.

* * * * *

I think there is a logical problem in considering Trump as the source of the problem but then ignoring the role played by Republicans in Congress in enabling Trump.  An effective preventative needs to deter such enablement.

In the novelette that I have recently written, I try to work through this idea.  But it is fiction rather than an essay, or a series of essays, because some of the ideas seem so improbable that they will strain credulity, especially at first.  The reader needs to get past that to give the full set of ideas a fair hearing.

https://uofi.box.com/s/c9ufajuqt8to9k0paqvbdpwc8k52920r

So Much For Sunlight As A Disinfectant

The fix is in
He said with a grin
So let the doctors spin
While the rest sigh with chagrin.

Manipulation
Now a sensation
Has been killing the nation
Since well before its creation.
#TheHouseOfCardsAndOtherCanards

Past Tense or Present Tense

Sometimes people need to know you're thinking about them
Other times though, probably not
Which is which can cause mental mayhem
But avoids their special day that you forgot.
#KeepingACalendarInYourHeadASourceOfWonderAndOfDread

Sunday Brunch Every Day Of The Week

The bagel asked the lox
How come you don't wear socks?
The lox then got snide
How, in the cream cheese, could I hide?
#CaloriesGaloreWhatTheHolidaysAreFor

My Novelette - Adventures Of The Minute Women

I have now finished a complete a draft of my novelette - Adventures Of The Minute Women. The screen shot will give you a quick idea of what it is about. If you give it a read, I would appreciate getting your impression. Is the core hypothesis believable or not? If it's not you can stop there. If it is, there are follow up questions you might consider.

To find the various chapters go to the Navigating The Site Tab here:
https://adventuresoftheminutewomen.blogspot.com/

The chapters (and notes) are available either in blog format or in PDF format. The latter has page numbers. The former is just a scroll.

 

Spying The Finish Line

Getting near the close of a project
Which for a while has been my object
Now out of the woods
And armed with the goods
The last bit I surely won't neglect.
#HereIsACheerForTheEndIsNear

When Recall Is Not At All

Trying to remember a rhyme
Composed well after bedtime
But to no avail
It was an utter fail
Lost in the jungle of the mental slime.
#WillHaveToWaitTillReincarnation

How Do You Know You're On The Right Track?

The right answer
To the wrong question
It won't give you cancer
Though perhaps indigestion.

Problem solving is easy
Problem identification is hard
Rather than feel queasy
Go ask The Bard.
#AreWeThereYetAndRelatedSentiments

Fear Itself

Working up the courage to write
Avoidance a sign of the fright
You'd think feeling dull
Would offer a lull
But it means things really aren't right.
#WritersBlockAndOtherSchlock

Bird Brains

The hootie owl
Continued his howl
For while not a fowl
He wouldn't throw in the towel

Which others who heard
Found completely absurd
For they would have preferred
That this bird be deterred.
#TheSoundsOfInsomnia

The Post-Holiday Diet

A very straightforward deduction
It's time for calories reduction
Draw the line
With water not wine
And avoid the pull of leftovers suction.
#TheNewYearsResolutionAMonthEarly

Food For Thought

A turkey
Made from beef jerky
Might very well be murky.

But a candied yam
Made from jam
Would be totally glam.
#ItIsAGoodThingThatIAmNotDoingTheCooking

The Morning Routine Is Anything But

What's next? One seems to constantly ask
The trick in ordering early AM tasks
Easy to do
Or a pleasure for you
Afterwards you wonder should you wear a mask?
#AsOneGrowsOldTheStoryMustBeRetold

A Bit Of Silly Offered Willy-Nilly

Ratman and Bobbin went out for a spin
This was on Bizzaro World where the criminals win
So while they saw a Green Goblin as they motored along
Instead of fighting him they broke into song.
#DoDoDoDoDoDoDoDo

The Relationship Between Performance And Confidence

When the answer suddenly appears
Self-doubt seemingly disappears
But when you are evidently stuck
Perhaps you've used up your quota of good luck.
#EitherWayItIsStillYou

Sometimes You Just Have To Cheat

A great injustice in the world
What words count in the Spelling Bee and which don't
Rally the troops with flags unfurled
Get them to change their policy even though they won't.
#AWordNotInTheDictionaryNonethelessWasAccepted

The Morning Routine Is Clearly Obscene

An eye drop falls on my forehead
Evidently the dropper was misaligned
Taking drops in the morning I truly dread
For one's limitations readily become defined.
#ThisComesAfterSoManyThrillsFromTakingThePills

A Dirge for the Online I Once Knew

Web 2.0
Wikis and Blogs
Where did the promise go
How much does the bile now clog?

Why did early ideals
Mask the subsequent reality?
The way things used to feel
Lacked prognostication with clarity.
#TheInternetSoMuchPromiseButNowRegret

Oh Man or Omen

A rhyme you wrote isn't there
About recreating it should you care
Or should what you do
Be to start anew
Even if not finding it made for a big scare?
#WasItAllADreamOrAnAccidentalDeletion

How Much Of Our Lore Is The Survival Metaphor?

The fox and the hound
Went round after round
Stopping only for bagels and lox
And then after, to change their socks.

Nobody can know
How long they will go
Nor that losing the chase
Is surely no disgrace.

Running and hiding
And on your feet deciding
Which way to go next
Is bound to leave you perplexed.

For the predator and the prey
It's always been this way
But for you and for me
Must it be our history?
#IfChasingOurOwnTailsWouldItMatterWhoPrevails

When WYSIWYG Doesn't Hold At The Grocery Store

The slice of tomato
Said to the slice of cheddar
"When we are together
It makes things better."

The cheddar reflected
And only then replied
"If we have food coloring
Then actually we dyed."
#DoesFoodAppearanceAffectFoodTaste

Reconsidering Our Own World View

When sarcasm
Supplants enthusiasm
It creates a chasm
And in the mind, a spasm.

A simple good deed
Is what we need
To stop all the greed
Yes, indeed.

So put the self
Upon the shelf
Then perhaps in stealth
Share the wealth.
#TheAnswerIsEasyStickingWithItIsNot

When Escapism Becomes A Burden

Would it be an innovation
To have two Wordles a day?
Might it cause a sensation
Or make it other than play?
#HavingFunOrUnderTheGun

Anti Sosh All Sigh Ants

Once poly sigh

Was the big guy

Now it’s prop a gander

Most miss understand her.

#BrainWashingHasASpinCycle

Screwing Around Captures The High Ground

People are in search of mirth
Of which there is a dearth
And if what's offered up is pun-ny
They'll like it even if it's not funny.
#FindingJoyWithAWordPlayToy

It's A Puzzlement

The Emperor's new clothes
Display his adipose.
So why do you suppose
It is that which he chose?
#MirrorMirrorOnTheWallWhoWillHaveTheGreatestFall

Thoughts About The Yankees

It is interesting to note that Joe Girardi was the Phillies manager at the start of the season, when they were floundering.  Of course, Girardi had previously been the Yankees manager.  The Yankees did win the World Series back in 2009, but there has been a drought since.  You have to wonder whether managing the Yankees becomes unlike managing other teams, because of the overwhelming media attention, in which case it is inevitable to manage not to lose, rather than to win.  At the time the Yankees let Girardi go, there was talk about him being distant from his players.  I'm belaboring this bit of history, because I wonder if something similar happened to Aaron Boone.  The talk in Twitter is about bringing in Mattingly and Jeter to replace Boone and Cashman (GM).   But I haven't seen anyone talk about the pressurized environment that they operate under.  Can anything be done about that?  I don't know, but I'd like to see some chatter about that. 

I actually think that Cashman did quite a good job this year/last year.  Trading for Harrison Bader late in the season was a great deal.  Likewise, trading for Andrew Benintendi was the right move, though he got hurt and was entirely out of the playoffs.  Together they eliminated the Yankees outfield woes plus Benintendi could bat leadoff, filling the slot that DJ LeMahieu normally fills.  That both of these players ended up not participating in the playoffs was a definite problem, but it can't be blamed on Cashman.  

The one trade I wasn't happy about was getting Josh Donaldson in the preseason.  I would have preferred it had the Yankees kept Gio Urshela.  But it was a package deal and trading Gary Sanchez was a big thing as just a few years earlier he was viewed as the future of the Yankees.  Yankees catching, from a defensive point of view, definitely ticked upward with the acquisition of Jose Trevino.  

Overall - it seems to me that Cashman did a very good job during the past year.  I feel less good about Aaron Boone's performance for the following reasons.

There were mental mistakes made by players who don't normally make them.  This showed up mainly on defense.  Aaron Judge running in front of Harrison Bader right before the baseball landed in Bader's glove, which he then dropped for an error, was perhaps the most egregious example.  Bader surely had been instructed to take all the balls he could reach in left center field, to take the pressure off of Giancarlo Stanton. What were the instructions for Bader and Judge about the balls hit to right center field?  That Judge made an apparent mistake suggests the instructions weren't clear to him, or the matter hadn't been previously addressed.  Preparation of the players is ultimately a managerial responsibility.  The stress of the playoffs is likely to inadvertently reveal where the players are under prepared.  This was one glaring instance.

There was also the revolving door about who plays shortstop.  I didn't understand that, but evidently Boone lost his faith in Kiner-Falefa, the regular shortstop for the entire season.  The substituting at that position during the playoffs looked bush-league to me.  Indirectly, I think it was why there was an error on a double-play ball hit to Gleyber Torres, who made a gentle toss to the bag, but Kiner-Falefa had already scooted past the bag; I suppose to avoid contact with the base runner.  That was a backbreaking play.  Again, I think ultimate responsibility for it goes to the manager.

The Yankees had a Jekyll and Hyde year.  Was it injuries that explained the big drop off in performance around mid season?  And did the Yankees have an unusually high number of injuries?  Or was something else going on?  The team that appeared in the playoffs was some combination of the early excellence and the later dismal performer. So the real question is whether the early excellence can return and, if so, can it last for a full season?  

I want to make on more note, this time about Aaron Judge, and compare him to Alex Bregman.  Judge has a huge swing and there is a definite upper cut in it.  Bregman has a much shorter stroke and his swing is flatter. Judge has clearly developed his swing over several years.  It seems designed to produce the long ball, making contact is a secondary concern.  Judge obviously did make a lot of contact during the season, as evidenced by his high batting average.  But he didn't do it in the playoffs.  Either the home run chase took too much out of him to recover from that, or against good pitching the swing Judge has is less reliable.  It makes you wonder.

The Seeds of Dis Chord

When your treasure drives you insane
So that your pleasure becomes your pain
Maybe it's time to sup
And then lighten up
Measure to measure we need a new refrain.
#VerySoonWeNeedADifferentTune

Aspiring To Be Dorothy Parker

The real difference between boys and girls
Is how they rank order swine and pearls
A pigskin is fine
For crossing the goal line
But for a gem of a phrase, the flag unfurls.
#GettingPastThePhaseWhenTheCleverPhraseCatchesUsInADaze

How Often Should You Blog?

When you have something to say
Then a blog post per day
Is surely the "write" way.

But if you're prone to stew
Then what you must do
Is frequent writing eschew.

To produce the occasional insight
Then one must continue to write
Tho perhaps with lower wattage
For the bulb used in the Aha! light.

The Guardians Versus The Yankees Tonight

A series that goes the full five games
With ups and down and a pitcher who tames
Batters who are hot and swing for the fences
Causing fans to utter expletives in past and future tenses.
#TonightsGameStartsAHalfHourEarlier

A Closer, A Closer, My Kingdom For A Closer

The disappointment in being a fan
When the outcome deviates from plan
It's very much like experiencing grief
Where the Yankees' pitching needs better relief.
#ThereIsAnotherGameTonightAndIWillBeWatching

A Bluff And Related Stuff

When randomizing the traditional action
Is simply to flip a coin
Yet a probability is merely a fraction
Then what with this method gets purloined?
#WhenYouDontWantOthersToSeeTheRandomOutcome

Caring For One's Parents As They Age

First limitations
Then a lack of transcendence
Become frustrations
Passed on to the dependents.
#ThinkingOfMomAndDadAsITurnIntoThem

A Red Letter Day

What if Kurt Gödel
Were to play Wordle
While wearing a girdle
Would that be absurd-el?
#OrWouldItSimplyBeIncomplete

A Knight In Rusty Armor

Finding the right life balance
Requires a variety of different talents
A bad joke if you please
Puts everyone at ease
While a damsel in distress needs gallants.
#AndPrayThereIsntAnEscapadeThatRequiresFallingOnAGrenade

The Humble Beginnings Of Creation

A writer is doing his penance
Idea fragments yet not a full sentence
For he must first pay
For what he will say
Only then will his word house have tenants.
#TheScatteredBrainShouldNotComplain

Life on a Chessboard

Having always been a pawn
I instinctively wanted to move to King-Four
And do so slightly after dawn

While not knowing what I’m doing it for.

#InARhymeYouCanEndASentenceInAPreposition

Marnie

Tippi Hedren

Took an Excedrin

Though her headache continued to linger

While Sean Connery
Played the con on Marnie

After slipping a ring upon her finger.

#AnotherGreatHitchcockMovie

Bullwinkle Is Coming

The squirrels are taking over
From the tall trees to the clover
Spy you they do
Enough to eschew
When near the sidewalk as they crossover.
#AsIGetOlderTheyGetBolder

Saggy

Skin that droops
Posture that stoops
The gray and the wrinkles
And the omnipresent tinkles.
#PerhapsAMetaphorForTheStateOfOurCountry

Male Fail (A Gender Bender)

This post is a reaction to the column by David Brooks from last Friday called The Crisis of Men and Boys.  Brooks, in turn, is commenting on a recent book by Richard Reeves called Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It.  I have not read the book yet and I'm undecided whether I will do that.  Reading about dismal things is not good for my own psyche.  So here I'm just going to make a few observations and then stop.

First, I already was aware of how male children of parents who have at most a high school education are struggling now.  This can readily be attributed to the decline in manufacturing and the concomitant decline in private sector unions, so the evident scarcity of decent well paying jobs that call for manual labor.  I think the country botched this terribly, both on the left and on the right, though for quite different reasons.  I do think it is fixable.  Better late than never.

Second, I was surprised that there were similar gender differences among the elite students, though this might be quite a different phenomenon than the one mentioned in the previous paragraph. Single parent households are less common for this group.  But having a helicopter parent probably happens fairly frequently with this sub-population and having the kids be over programmed is part and parcel of that.  Indeed, the whole Excellent Sheep phenomenon might be explained this way. If you asked whether there are gender differences among children as far as being obedient to parents, irrespective of whether the kids are high academic achievers or not, I'm not sure where I'd come down on that one.  And that sort of thing might depend on the generation when the kids went to school.  It also might depend on the culture/religion/nationality of the parents. But it wouldn't surprise me too much for gender to matter in aggregate.

Third, which is cause and which is effect might be hard to sort here, but there is no doubt that increased income and wealth inequality in the society overall is related to viewing school as a passport to well paying jobs and GPA as an important component of that.  This view existed even when I was in high school, but it clearly has intensified since.  In the current jargon, there is emphasis on extrinsic motivation in school and, in turn, that reduces consideration of intrinsic motivation (curiosity, passion for the subject matter) that might better promote learning.   With the focus on extrinsic motivation, school becomes something of an artificial game.  I'm guessing that it still affords an avenue for self-expression for some kids, as it did for me, but they are comparatively few.  The rest get jaded, because playing an artificial game makes it appear that nothing really matters.  Are there gender differences among those who can function amidst the artifice?  I suppose there are.

Fourth, this one may be less popular to mention these days but I believe school teachers are of lower quality now as compared to when I was in school because, especially for women teachers, there weren't many other paths for having a decent job when I was in school, but now there are.  And teaching is paid comparatively poorly now.  If earnings drive career choice, there is an obvious selection issue as to who becomes a teacher.  Nowadays, teachers may not be well equipped to accommodate students who don't seem engaged in class activities or to get them a specialist to deal with their learning disability.

Fifth, there may be a differential effect that technology plays on children.  I'm thinking particularly of video games and whether the skills learned in that domain are useful for school.  When my younger son was still in elementary school, he became very absorbed with Age of Empires and learned a lot of historical facts that way.  It gave him an interest in history for a while which was satisfied by watching shows on the History Channel. But he also developed a belief that learning should happen in a snap. Slower and more deliberate learning eluded him as a consequence.  Then, of course, there were all these other games that were either a race or a battle against some competition.  The games were absorbing, but might not have much to offer outside the gaming environment.  I don't know how this goes with girl children (both of my kids are boys).  But I can readily imagine gender differences here.

Let me wrap up with a thought experiment.  How would my cohort from elementary school, junior high, and high school fare if they started first grade in the late 1990s or early 2000s rather than in the early 1960s, but they had the same parents.  (How the parents would have adjusted to the times is outside the thought experiment).  In particular, would I have failed in school or done pretty much the same as I did back then?   I did have quite a lot of trouble with "fine motor activities".  For example, threading a needle was a challenge for me.  At school this manifest mainly via poor handwriting.  But I was either extraordinarily fortunate or socially adept in some way to make good friends within the school environment and I was able to learn a lot from my friends this way.  Would that skill have been impeded if I started school 40 years later?  If so, would it be the loneliness that would do me in and perhaps impede my academic performance?  Or would it be more evident that I'm an introvert and could be okay learning on my own?  I don't know, but I think this sort of thought experiment useful for others to consider, before focusing on remedies.  We tend to look for solutions before we understand the problem we're trying to solve. We shouldn't do that here.