Alliance Defense Fund Still Around

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If you thought the folks at the Alliance Defense Fund took their ball and went home after taking the Forsyth County Commissioners' prayer case and running with it all the way to the US Supreme Court and losing, you'd be wrong. They've reappeared as an influencer of the controversial NC Amendment One on tomorrow's primary ballots. From the Fayetteville Observer:

The official explanation issued by the state Constitutional Amendments Publication Commission on next month's measure, written to help voters understand it, acknowledges the "debate among legal experts" over the possible effects. It concludes: "The courts will ultimately make those decisions."

Stam, the Raleigh lawmaker, said he wanted a more narrowly worded amendment but was "overruled" by "national experts" he identified as the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal advocacy group.

Stam says the state needs the amendment to protect marriage from efforts to de-legitimize it. If unmarried straight couples want the benefits of marriage, he said, they should get married. 

Hurricane Lucy

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If you know Lucy "Esbee" Cash, she of Life in Forsyth fame, you will not be surprised to learn that she's been named Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools' 2012 Judy Mountjoy Volunteer of the Year:

Between Paisley, where her son Leon is a seventh-grader, and Whitaker Elementary School, where her younger son, George, is in the third grade, Cash spends about 20 hours a week as a volunteer. 

All the work that Cash does – and all the care she shows for students and teachers along the way – prompted the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Council of PTAs to give Cash its 2012 Judy Mountjoy Volunteer of the Year Award last night. Established in 2000, the award is named for a former teacher and guidance counselor who has devoted countless hours as a volunteer.

It feels odd to be honored for doing something that’s so satisfying, Cash said. “I genuinely enjoy it.” 

If you've ever met Lucy you'll also not be surprised by these quotes from other volunteers:

“She has a lot of energy, and she is here all the time, no matter what,” said fellow volunteer Brierley Ash.

“If the teacher needs something, she’s going to figure out a way to get it done,” said Deena Dreyfuss, a Paisley volunteer who nominated Cash for the award. “She is here so much, she gets to know the kids. So many kids come up to her. She says, ‘How did you do on that math test?’”

Those of you who may have been wondering why her blogging at Life in Forsyth has been less prolific of late I think you have your answer as to why.

Well deserved Lucy. Congratulations!

Money Is an Illusion

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Daniel Suelo is a guy in Utah who gave up money in 2000 and started living in caves, eating roadkill, dumpster diving and living off the generosity of friends and strangers. Some would classify him as homeless, but are you truly homeless if you call your home a cave and live there on purpose? In watching the video below I was struck, as I always am by stories like this, that people who document these stories often fail to point out that although their subjects are living off the grid they are still dependant on the grid. Where did the dumpster come from that he's diving into? Some person or company who's living on the grid of course.

That nitpick aside I found one concept from the video to be thought provoking: when Suelo gave up money he declared that money was an illusion and the writer of his story asks, "When your house is worth $500,000 one day and $300,000 the next day where did that $200,000 go?" Indeed it seems like an illusion. 

They may be on to something. Watching PBS' excellent Frontline four-part series Money, Power and Wall Street it's hard not to think of money as an illusion when you hear about the creation of financial vehicles out of thin air. Rather than confuse ourselves trying to understand crazy things like synthetic collateralized debt obligations let's think of something as simple as our houses. We each believe our house is worth a certain amount of money; our local government believes it's worth a certain amount of money based on the (hopefully informed) opinion of a professional assessor; if we have a mortgage the bank believes it's worth a certain amount of money based on the opinon of its appraiser; rarely do these three values match, and so the true value of our house is merely an illusion.

But a house isn't money, it's an asset that is bought, sold and valued using money as a measurement. How could money, an actual dollar, be an illusion? Obviously that piece of fine paper it's printed on is not an illusion, but you could argue that what that piece of paper is worth is an illusion. Sure, we know that a dollar is worth 1/150,000 of a certain house (according to the appraiser), or that it's worth one candy bar, but that's today and that's because we think that our dollar will be worth roughly the same amount tomorrow as it is today. We trust that our government will not print one quadrillion dollars overnight and thus make that dollar in our pocket worth a penny tomorrow. That's a trust shared by all of us and all it takes is one violation of that trust for the perceived value to evaporate. So really a dollar is merely a token representing our collective opinion of the trustworthiness of our financial system – if that's not illusory I'm not sure what is.

Having Their Cake and Eating It Too

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According to an article in today's Winston-Salem Journal the Triad affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure is experiencing a deep decline in its fundraising after the Planned Parenthood controversy the national organization created last year. That's not terribly surprising, but a quote from the president of the Triad affiliate is a bit befuddling:

Natasha Gore, president of the Triad affiliate, acknowledged the challenges that the local group faces, stressing that most of the money raised here stays in the region. She also expressed frustration that some would-be donors do not differentiate between the local affiliate and the national organization.

"A lot of the time, people think we are one and the same," Gore said. "If they're boycotting us because of something happening with the national organization, it does not really fit with what's going on."

The quote is befuddling because it's amazingly naive, if not downright disingenuous. Of course people are going to confuse the organizations because in the grand scheme of things they are the same organization. Sure the local affiliate has it's own board, staff, volunteers, grants, etc. but it has affiliated itself with the national organization, which means it benefits or suffers from the national organization's activities. The Triad affiliate certainly benefited from the national organization's advertising and branding activities and I don't recall hearing any concerns about brand confusion from the local affiliate before the controversy.

So the donors aren't confused, rather they're saying loudly and clearly that they've lost faith in the organization and it is up to organization on both the national and local level to win back that faith. If the local affiliate thinks the brand is too damaged to repair then they might want to consider:

  • Disassociation from the national organization
  • A name change (would likely be required by the national group anyway)
  • A clear articulation of the local group's principles/standards and how they're different from the national group's
  • An ad/branding campaign to introduce the "new" organization to the Triad, and to highlight all of the organizations that benefit from its grants

In the end an affiliation is like a marriage: you're stuck with it in good times and bad, and if the bad gets horrific then your only choice might be a divorce.

Apparently Women Like to Highlight More Than Men

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Amazon has a list of the most highlighted passages on Kindles and all you have to do is look at the list and you realize that highlighting seems to be dominated by women. I know, I know, that's a terribly sexist statement, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Suzanne Collins and Jane Austen appeal much more to women than to men. On a separate note who knew Suzanne Collins was so deep?

Dunning the Sick

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Whenever I hear people debating health care reform or talk about "Obamacare" I almost invariably hear the statement, "Well, even with the system today everyone is able to get medical care – hospitals aren't allowed to deny anyone care." I've always thought that to be a dumb argument because it seems like it's an incredibly inefficient and expensive way to provide health care to those who can't afford it, and reading this article on collection agencies working in hospitals seems to support the argument that it is indeed supremely stupid and expensive:

Still, hospitals are in a bind. The more than 5,000 community hospitals in the United States provided $39.3 billion in uncompensated care — predominately unpaid patient debts or charity care — in 2010, up 16 percent from 2007, the hospital association estimated.

So it's no surprise that hospitals would try to recoup some of their money through collection agencies. Unfortunately, the tactics at least one of these agencies is using seem to be encroaching on the health care delivered by the hospitals:

Collection activities extended from obstetrics to the emergency room. In July 2010, an Accretive manager told staff members at Fairview that they should “get cracking on labor and delivery,” since there is a “good chunk to be collected there,” according to company e-mails.

Employees were told to stall patients entering the emergency room until they had agreed to pay a previous balance, according to the documents. Employees in the emergency room, for example, were told to ask incoming patients first for a credit card payment. If that failed, employees were told to say, “If you have your checkbook in your car I will be happy to wait for you,” internal documents show…

Patients with outstanding balances were closely tracked by Accretive staff members, who listed them on “stop lists,” internal documents show. In March 2011, doctors at Fairview complained that such strong-arm tactics were discouraging patients from seeking lifesaving treatments, but Accretive officials dismissed the complaints as “country club talk,” the documents show.

Nah, we don't need no stinking health care reform.

A Different Look at Amendment One

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Greensboro blogger David Wharton, a Catholic, has decided to defy his bishop's endorsement of Amendment One for a very specific reason – he feels that endorsing the amendment is a violation of the Second Vatican Council's Declaration on Religious Freedom Dignitatis Humanae:

After due consideration, I've come to the conclusion that Bishop Jugis is wrong to support the amendment.

The Church holds that marriage is a sacramental, lifelong union between one man and one woman, founded in the love between the partners and for the procreation of children; however, it blesses sacramental marriages between infertile and post-fertile opposite sex couples. Thus its position is prima facie contradictory, but let that lie for now.

Even granting the Church's definition of marriage, I believe Bishop Jugis's endorsement of Amendment One violates the Second Vatican Council's Declaration on Religious Freedom Dignitatis Humanae. Here are some excerpts from that document, with the most relevant language highlighted by me. Pardon the length.

Despite the length of the post it's worth reading.

Debtors’ Prison

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This is kind of scary, especially when you consider how often folks get billed erroneously and then have to struggle to get it cleared up:

How did breast cancer survivor Lisa Lindsay end up behind bars? She didn't pay a medical bill — one the Herrin, Ill., teaching assistant was told she didn't owe. "She got a $280 medical bill in error and was told she didn't have to pay it," The Associated Press reports. "But the bill was turned over to a collection agency, and eventually state troopers showed up at her home and took her to jail in handcuffs."

Although the U.S. abolished debtors' prisons in the 1830s, more than a third of U.S. states allow the police to haul people in who don't pay all manner of debts, from bills for health care services to credit card and auto loans. In parts of Illinois, debt collectors commonly use publicly funded courts, sheriff's deputies, and country jails to pressure people who owe even small amounts to pay up, according to the AP.