Organizational assumption: automobile

Things you forget being in an area well-served by transit: outside of those bubbles, which is most of the USA, everyone just assumes automobile ownership. I found housing that allows me to walk to work. So I call to make an appointment for orientation and find it's several miles out of town. Then there's another task to be accomplished a mile away from that location. I mention taking the bus (because I've scoped the area and know the bus route), and the person acts as if taking the bus is unprecedented, but can be accommodated. This makes me suspect they'll have me run across town again for a upcoming, somewhat trivial task that could easily be accomplished on site. Welcome back to the work world - where the work is not the actual work (at least not yet?)

One downside of taxpayer funded health

This is one of the downsides of having a national health system. In the US, if you can find the money, you can probably find a doctor who will do just about anything. Whether it's an effective treatment or not is another matter, but doctors perform a lot of questionable procedures in the name of income, and supposedly for "rare cases" or potential cures outside of orthodoxy. There's a lot more latitude for quackery, but there's also a lot more latitude for experimentation. When the government and taxpayers are paying for it, you have to draw the line on what's considered effective - you can't be funding questionable procedures for everyone; funneling lots of money to potential quacks. But as this article illustrates, a cabal of orthodoxy conspires to bully others in support of where the line is drawn.

The Australian system could be improved by allowing more self-funded experimentation - meaning, the government won't necessarily pay for it, but if someone wants to try it in Australia, it should be allowed on an experimental basis, with the patients' full knowledge that it's considered experimental and there could be serious hazards or side-effects. If someone is dying, they won't care. People with money are going outside Australia for treatment, where even more questionable doctors claim more questionable practices are actually effective.

Top neurosurgeon Dr Charlie Teo says Sydney Children’s Hospital refuses to let him operate on sick children

Family life

Where I'm from, people believe that having children and a family is the be all and end all of life. They believe it so strongly they think that if ever sperm has a chance to meet egg, the parties involved should be forced to join the club. Considering society there pretty much revolves around the family, people with little interest, broader interests, or even delayed interest in procreation leave to seek adventure elsewhere.

On the shuttle bus to the San Francisco airport, I met a guy from Malaysia who said "San Francisco is the only American city I like." In many ways, San Francisco is the opposite of the mindset of where I grew up. Rather than being insular, it is open and full of people who read widely and travel internationally. People successfully raise children there, but the cost of real estate makes it a challenge, and a swath of middle class families with children does not exist there. Travelling internationally is a challenge when it requires buying a six-pack of airline tickets.

A friend recently posted a link to an article that discussed the subtle or not so subtle prejudice felt by a woman not wearing a head scarf in an area that is veering back to more fundamentalist leanings. What is this small town venom - where people use shunning and gossip freely about neighbors, but can't discuss politics openly because it would only lead to dangerous friction? There are places where conformity is valued above diverse viewpoints and civil discussion. On the right, it is the small town or insular mid-size cities. On the left, it is political correctness that stifles healthy discourse. Both sides have their bullies that directly or indirectly enforce conformity and shun outsiders.

Physics - did they know more in 1910?

Now that it's later in the antipodean summer, I'm realizing other aspects of how well this house in Sydney is designed to deal with heat. The winter sun shines on the front porch and heats the bricks. The summer sun is blocked from shining on the front porch. By 10 am in the winter, the front bricks would be warm. Now, 10 am in the summer, they're still cool. 1910 - when there was less technology, and better knowledge of simple physics.

What's the fuss over firearms?

After living in Australia for three years, I had almost been convinced by Australian media that the United States was a primitive country with gun fights daily in the streets and mass murders occurring on nearly a weekly basis. My recent visit back to the US provided a helpful reset button to the hype that I feel is due to a combination of Australian nationalism and media amplification. Note that in the link underlying media amplification, other countries in the Americas are left out.

Did any violence occur while I was in the US?
Yes. During a week in Miami Beach, a stabbing occurred and police gunned down a mentally ill man. The stabbing made international headlines; the police video went viral, but didn't make mainstream national news. Both were within blocks of where we were staying. While I was in Indiana, 14 people were killed and 22 seriously injured in San Bernardino, California. That situation evolved into being described as an act of terrorism.

Did I personally witness any violence?
No.

During my month there, did I ever feel threatened?
No.

It's been said, and I agree that firearm ownership plays a big role in American culture. I think attitudes have evolved (and not for the better). My own family illustrates a range of attitudes. My siblings and I grew up being taught responsible gun ownership. While the crazy neighbor boys were shooting each other in BB gun fights, our parents used BB guns as a test of our level of responsibility (*manufacturer now recommends for ages 10 and older). Toy guns were toys, but if we could treat a BB gun as if it were a real weapon, we could graduate to a 22 caliber rifle or shotgun. I left home while my sister was still young, and don't think she went through the gun training process, but she now owns a handgun (she didn't know what caliber). One of my brothers was never into hunting, but one of his sons is an avid deer hunter. My other brother has guns, but it doesn't seem that any of his sons are into firearms. I had guns when I was young, but when I joined the military and started traveling around, it seemed too much of a hassle to bring firearms and keep them secured. Thus, I haven't owned guns for over 30 years. I've also lived in urban areas where firearms are more clearly the cause of major problems.

My parents live in a poor, rural area with known drug dealing going on in the neighborhood. The police wanted to install a surveillance camera on their garage. They consented, but then the police realized they would need to cut a tree, and my parents objected. No camera. My father owned primarily hunting guns but was concerned that someone in the neighborhood might steal them - so he sold them. Better to get the money than have them stolen, and he spends his time fishing rather than hunting. An attempted burglar walked into my sister's house once when my brother-in-law was home. The attempted burglar was a casual thief, and after an awkward conversation with my brother-in-law he left. Their house now has security cameras and my sister sleeps with a gun in a safe next to the bed - with the key nearby. It's easy to understand why she wants a gun, and she keeps it secured to prevent either thieves or her children from getting their hands on it.
When I was growing up, firearm ownership was more about hunting. My father taught us about rifles and shotguns, but for safety reasons, didn't want us to have handguns. Since guns were all about hunting, handguns were somewhat irrelevant. The shift in attitudes that I perceive in the United States is that as natural areas have been converted to suburbs, firearms now seem to be less about hunting and more just a hobby, about gun rights, or for personal protection.

As I mentioned, my father sold all of his firearms, but the stories he mentioned drove home why so many people in suburban and semi-rural areas insist on owning firearms for protection. We went for a drive by the house of a man who worked from home as a gunsmith and was killed by burglars. Over time, a FedEx delivery person learned the nature of his business, and returned after hours with accomplices, killing the man and stealing weapons from the house. I noticed one version of this story decided to be kind to FedEx; leaving their name out of the story. My parents mentioned another home invasion story where a pregnant woman was killed by two home invaders. Both situations happened in 2015, and if you look at the stories (linked in previous sentences), they reinforce fears that those living in predominantly white areas have about race.

Those who are against gun ownership point to statistics showing that people or their family members are more likely to be killed when there's a firearm in the home. It's interesting the different attitudes between the generations of my family. In the face of possible burglary, my father sells his guns; my sister purchases a gun. I think part of this is the change in attitudes regarding firearms for hunting versus for protection. Another part of it is that my parents see the daily activities of their neighbors as perhaps misguided, but they don't feel particularly threatened; whereas my sister, based on prior experience does.

None of my family members live in urban neighborhoods where gangs and gun violence are a frequent occurrence - they see this as something "out there" in neighborhoods that they avoid. There is also the notion that the overall statistics include a lot of people who don't have appropriate training and are not keeping firearms secure - people who leave guns where they shouldn't be. And so, in the spectrum of attitudes about guns, the dichotomy is largely one between urban and rural lifestyles, with the sprawling suburbs being a grey zone depending on one's roots and experiences.

Scary spiders of Australia

Or was it a spider? A couple of days ago, felt just a normal, minor scratch on my neck. But in the next hour or so, as I scratched the same spot three or four times, it started feeling raw, like I'd accidentally scratched the surface off my skin. Not burning, mind you, just raw. I look in the mirror and oh. A circular patch of redness with a mark in the middle. I'd been bitten or stung by something; most likely a spider.

The next morning, when I took a shower and the water streamed on my face, there was a weird sensation - my lip and chin on the side of the red mark. Hard to describe, it wasn't really numb, but as I moved my mouth around, I could tell the lower muscles on that side were something less than normal responsiveness - mind you, I had mostly forgotten about the bite until then. Uh oh. Time to look things up on the internet. The scary spiders of Australia?

A couple of articles calmed my nerves. It seems there are mostly two spiders that are serious business. The funnel-web and the redback. The funnel-web's venom causes an immediate reaction. The redback's bite is sharply painful. Nope. Nope. And unlike the brown recluse in the US, there are no Australian spiders with venom that causes delayed necrotizing. In spite of my unnerving symptoms, my mind was set at ease.

Day three - the red mark is still there, but the weird muscular symptoms have subsided. They never reached a point where there was an actual loss of control. I am convinced I have escaped the worst scenario.

First impressions - back in the USA

After three years in Australia, I made a trip back to the USA to have Thanksgiving with my aging parents. Since Australians are prone to long holidays; my wife extended this through Christmas and travel involved five air segments as well as driving about 1300 miles (2092 km) from Miami Beach to Indianapolis.

What were my impressions, after being away so long and hearing about the US only through media? The first thing that struck me - transportation infrastructure - miles and miles of concrete and asphalt. Six and eight lane freeways (3-4 in each direction) are common; not just around cities, but linking all the cities. In colder areas, freezing, thawing, and heavy use means continual maintenance, but nearly everywhere additional lanes were being built; interchanges expanded - not just on interstate highways but suburban roads. There are a handful of cities in the US that have good public transit systems, but outside of that, the highway is king, and sprawl is an economic imperative. The miles of asphalt represent not only a huge investment, but an entire ecosystem of interrelated employment - construction workers, truck drivers, diesel mechanics, auto sales, and restaurants and hotels along every freeway interchange. Rail may be the most efficient means of moving cargo, but building highways and cars creates more jobs. There has been much talk of the self-driving car and the self-driving truck; there has been little talk of replacing asphalt with rail or some other alternative. The current thinking seems to be of continuance of independent, programmable units travelling on the existing asphalt substrate and "driving" jobs may be eliminated, but the maintenance infrastructure employment will remain intact for some time. Los Angeles is frequently cited as the first US city to be built after the private automobile became the dominant means of travel, but every major city in the US has had neighborhoods razed to accommodate high-speed travel or new suburbs built to accommodate commuting by private automobile (strange that word, and the private vehicle is only now on the verge of truly becoming an auto-mobile).

The second of my impressions, and one that I looked forward to considering the Thanksgiving holiday: food. Critics, my wife included and myself to a lesser degree, lament the widespread prevalence of processed food with added salt, sugar, or fat being the primary enticing ingredients. The typical American's health shows the effects of this. However, I grew up in a Midwest where winter fruits and vegetables consisted of carrots, cabbage, or something frozen and subsequently mushy. From that perspective, modern processed food is an improvement, and of course even better, fresh produce from around the globe. The "eat local" movement decries the waste of energy spent shipping food, a large percentage of which subsequently spoils, but in temperate winters, fresh fruits and vegetables are a modern luxury. Still, most consumption is of processed food, or restaurant fast food, with a priority for taste and convenience over nutritional value. One change I've seen, especially in the Midwest, is a proliferation of fast food chains and families (including my nearly 80 year-old parents) relying on fast food restaurants as a primary food source. In the larger picture, crop subsidies and a low minimum wage or even illegal sub-minimum wage has contributed to this inexpensive convenience, and in families with two working parents, convenience is seen as essential. As my mother's health declines, cooking is more of a challenge. The question from a health perspective: can nutrition compete with salt, sugar, and fat?

Related to the food infrastructure: health care. There is widespread discussion regarding the inefficiencies of health care in the United States. One factor becoming more apparent that is rarely part of the discussion: overcapacity. In Indianapolis (and more recently in San Francisco), competition among hospitals is spurring overbuilding and overcapacity. My perspective is that much of US healthcare operates on what might be considered a predatory model. While food sales are increased by the addition of sugar, salt, and fat, the health care system can make more money performing heart surgery or gastric bypass operations (or selling related pharmaceuticals) than it can make, under the current system, in any sort of preventive care or admonishment. It seems there will always be more money and desperation in prolonging life than in preventive care. Fertility clinics, virility, and plastic surgery are also cash cows. While much of the developed world wrestles with how to add capacity and innovation to their health care systems, the US has capacity and innovation in abundance, but most of it is geared towards cashing in on trends rather than improving overall health. Mind you, the motivation towards greater individual income is present in all systems, it just plays out differently when taxpayer funding and union working conditions are larger factors than insurance, pharmaceutical, and institutional profit.

Another topic and impressions: guns and gun violence. But there's enough in that one for a separate post.