Health Care Reform

I'll admit, I almost always ignore the national news, especially when it comes down to the politics of things.  Recently, in my Social Stratification and Inequality class, we watched Michael Moore's film "Sicko," about several nationalized health care systems in comparison with the United States' system.  One of the first scenes is about a man who had to choose between the tip of his ring finger ($12,000) or the tip of his middle finger ($60,000) because he didn't have adequate health insurance.  It talked about how insurance companies are in it to get rich, just like every other corporation, verses trying to make sure every American citizen has the opportunity to live a healthy life.  If the man had lost his fingers in another country (Canada, the UK or France [we didn't have time to watch the part about Cuba]), it's likely he would have been able to keep both of his fingers, with no or extremely little cost to him.

Personally, I believe that if we were to model our system after one of the countries in this movie, or even aspects of all of them, and offered free health care to all, our country would be better off.  Sure, the class and status of doctors might be lowered, but do they really need 4 houses or 3 sports cars?  Can people change their mindset from money to helping people?  I'm down for paying a chunk of my paycheck towards a system that will allow me to seek health care when I need it.  Currently, I'm uninsured, because, guess what?  I can't afford it.  I'm one of like 6 million Americans that strives to live safely and avoid getting hurt.  Last November, however, I failed to do so.  I'm currently waiting on a slow system to get me all of my paperwork in order. Thankfully, they cut my bill by 35%, but the total from all of the bills is still greater than $1000, that I don't have.

Americans live shorter lives than people in the countries with nationalized health care.  We're stressing about money from doctors bills.  We take the "fix it when it's broken" approach versus a preventative care approach.  If all Americans were to quit being stupid with their decisions and care a little more about their bodies, we'd live longer too.

Like I said before, I don't know the specifics of the health care bills that are going through Congress, but I think people should watch the film "Sicko" before complaining so much about a nationalized system.

Making decisions

Have you ever made a decision without knowing all of the information?
I have. And I have done .it recently. It's backfired on me and I don't
know how to fix it.
I was informed of a situation involving a couple members of a group
I'm in, however I heard it second hand from someone who wasn't
involved, but is the head of the part one of the people involved is
in. All he knew is what was in the situation and police reports. He
asked me if I felt the person involved should step down because of an
action this person made involving someone they are leading and
teaching. Without hearing the other side of the story, and without
reviewing the bylaws, I agreed with the person not involved amd the
counterpart of the person involved that the person involved should
step down. However the group that the person involved is teaching
didn't understand why both parties were not being punished. After
hearing the whole story, I didn't feel that either party should have
been punished from our group because it wasn't a group function.
Within this group disciplinary action is only to be assigned after all
parties involved have a chance to state their story to the exec board.
When approaching the person not involved, I worded my (and the
majority's) feelings wrong saying you instead of we and without
stating that I shouldn't have agreed in the first place. The person
involved reacted rudely and strongly against me and rudely criticized
my leadership skills. The person not involved has also been making
decisions and demands that have not been made before and it seemed the
person not involved reacted as if everything revolved around that
person. Its bullshit and the things that were said should not be
affecting me so strongly, but I can't get it off my mind and I really
don't want it to bring me down anymore. I know those involved are on
my side.

--
Sent from my mobile device

"Play difficult and interesting things. If you play boring things, you
risk losing your appetite. Saxophone can be tedious with too much of
the same."
~Steve Lacy

Final score

Mens baskestball final score: 77-74

--
Sent from my mobile device

"Play difficult and interesting things. If you play boring things, you
risk losing your appetite. Saxophone can be tedious with too much of
the same."
~Steve Lacy

Mens baskestball

Northwest Nazerene up by one with 30 seconds left

--
Sent from my mobile device

"Play difficult and interesting things. If you play boring things, you
risk losing your appetite. Saxophone can be tedious with too much of
the same."
~Steve Lacy

Rules

Rules are there for a reason and are meant to be followed.  We have national rules, rules of the road, rules for students, codes of ethics for working, rules for sports, bylaws for clubs and organizations and rules of the house you live in.  Lately, in my life, people have been breaking the rules or just not following them.  It's frustrating.  I won't go into details because I don't feel it appropriate for the internet, but come on people, make better decisions.

Governer's Cup 2010

This a post I wrote for the Univerisity of Alaska Fairbanks Student Ambassador's Blog 

As a part of the Nanook Traditions: Winter Carnival, the Governor's Cup was played.  The Governor's Cup is a hockey tournament between the Alaska Nanooks and University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolves.  I can't remember how many years its been played, but I do know that the Nanooks won the cup this year after losing for the past three years. 

Here are two of my brothers from Alpha Phi Omega with the Governor's cup.

This year, Alpha Phi Omega teamed up with the Student Activities Office (SAO) and ASUAF (The Associated Students at the University of Alaska Fairbanks) to fund a motor coach to Anchorage to watch the first game played at the Sullivan Arena.  For $30, students got a ride to Anchorage and back, a t-shirt, a ticket to the game and noisemakers.  A pretty sweet deal to cheer on our team on away ice.

 Final score UAF 7-UAA 4. By the way, our student section over there was almost louder than the 4,000 UAA fans.  

After our first two goals, we sang our school's fight song, here are the lyrics:

A photo from the Anchorage Daily News sports front page of our student section at the Sullivan Arena.  

(http://www.adn.com/2010/02/26/1159357/governors-cup-hockey.html) 

Some more Nanook pride:

Chancellor Rogers made an appearance at the Sullivan Arena with his wife, Sherrie.  

The second game packed the Carlson Center as the Nanooks played on home ice! Only 82 seats were available at the start of that game.  So, pretty much packed!  It was amazing! More of the t-shirts that the SAO ordered and passed out to almost the entire student section. 

And the pep band: 

The place was roaring, I can't even begin to describe it.  Check out the highlight video at the Alaska Nanook Hockey Blog.  If you're interested in any more info from a fans' perspective, you can find that too in the Nanook Hockey Blog.  

  During the intermission between 2nd and 3rd periods, the Tradition Stone made an appearence.  After one of their players was ejected (for punching one of our players in the head), their coach was ejected (for throwing a water bottle at the ref) and one of our players was ejected (for something that was "A stupid decision, I should have backed off" [from the player at the post conference]) we won 3-2!   

As for the other Winter Carnival Activites, I was too tired to attend, but I head that the showing of the unreleased to the public: Boondock Saints 2 was a success, as well as the kareokee night!

Right now, I'm looking forward to a week off of classes (though I'll be working on papers and the like) for spring break.

Mercedes
ps: all photos were taken from a friend's facebook because my camera was broken that weekend. :( 

Activities

As promised, here is my activity update.

First off, pep band this semester is now over.  Hooray and boo! I have my Thurs/Fri/Sat nights back! But I love playing my saxophone with a group at the same time.  Perhaps instead, now I will join the Fairbanks Community Band.  I would love to have a reason to practice.

Next, APO.  I'm so ready to be done... some people frustrate me beyond belief.  I will NOT run for president again because I'm sick and tired of having my leadership abilities scrutinized.  We are hosting the section 8 conference in 2 weeks and have about 28 people registered.  I'm not the only person that should be doing things.  and some people need to stop claiming that the chapter is theirs.  others need to step up and take some leadership action.

third, my new favorite, student ambassadors.  this group of people, while we don't know each other very well, is a group of fantastic people.  I love going to meetings because things get done.  we each know our responsibility and what has to get done in order to be successful.  it's amazing.