American Healthcare Part VI Practical Healthcare Proposals After decades of poorly crafted medical policies and between all of the civil discontent that has resulted from the passing of the healthcare bill it seems reasonable to doubt whether the United States is capable of having a balanced equitable and practical healthcare system that all can agree upon Achieving this type of balance presents a difficult puzzle for lawmakers At the heart of the best working systems are simplicity practicality and accountability none of which lawmakers appear to have any interest in discussing much less attempting to legislate Before any other changes are adopted I would encourage all Americans to urge members of Congress to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 It is important to note however that this should not be done to upset the left or appease the right It should be done because it was poorly crafted legislation Constitutionally speaking if Congress intends to create and enforce any type of federal healthcare mandate an amendment should be properly made to the Constitution ratified by the states and executed just as the process has required for over two hundred years Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have any constitutional authority simply to dictate such wide stretching federal legislation Even beyond the Constitution it should be common sense that the legal empowerment of multinational corporations with a guaranteed marketplace will among many other things only help to ensure the expansion of lobbyists and special interest groups This is sure to result in nothing but higher healthcare costs poorer service and an even less manageable bureaucracy How can Americans possibly expect any level of impartiality between the various branches of healthcare while they are legally joined as one But it is not enough just to repeal the law In parallel to the time it would take Congress to remove the legislation there are several very simple and practical improvements that could be debated and readied for implementation across the country Individuals have an incredible ability to control the direction of healthcare through the power of our capitalist market While politicians might continue to remind us of how they know best in the matter immediate and positive change requires nothing more than for us to be responsible and accountable and to hold others to these same standards But everybody must do his or her part First and above anything else it is important for our society to start an open dialogue on the differences between healthcare and health insurance One of the dangers that this lack of understanding has wrought on society is that it removes the base principles of calculated risk from public discussion and debate Politicians both Democrats and Republicans have long since capitalized on this and as of 2009 made the modern healthcare debate almost exclusively about insurance Instead of discussing some base expectation or level of healthcare as would perhaps be a progressive step for our society they have instead debated whether or not people should be legally required to hold private health insurance This has been paired with the notion that health insurance should be responsible for every single treatment we ever receive regardless of how routine it may be This whole idea is absurd in almost every respect and provides insurance companies with enormous powers and profits I would suggest to all Americans particularly those who are self insured that they closely examine the true costs of their insurance package Consider the monthly cost the deductible any copayments and any percentage of care they are still responsible for beyond the insurance coverage this can often be 20 or more Compare that to what yearly medical costs have traditionally been and many people may be surprised to learn how much they are actually spending just to visit the doctor a few times a year As an alternative to a comprehensive health insurance plan consider combining a catastrophic plan with a health savings account typically called an HSA Catastrophic medical insurance plans often come with relatively high deductibles that are neither appropriate nor practical for routine healthcare They do however more appropriately embrace the fundamental idea of how insurance is mathematically calculated and is designed to function Catastrophic plans are specifically intended to treat medical emergencies and more severe healthcare needs as they arise Health savings accounts work very similarly to retirement accounts such as IRAs and 401Ks are available to anybody and allow individuals to make yearly tax deductible contributions of up to 3 050 as of 2010 That is about the same amount of money one might expect to spend annually on a premium health insurance policy Moreover the money within the HSA can even be invested just like most retirement accounts allow for But one of the key benefits to an HSA is that it provides the individual with the ability to manage and offset his or her own financial risk In other words if the individual happens to not require medical care over a given period of time the money they would have otherwise spent on insurance is theirs to keep This can significantly cut back on needless monthly expenditures and help individuals to save money When the individual needs to pay for a medical expense the money comes directly out of the HSA provided that the medical expense qualifies as most do Ironically under the new healthcare law over the counter medications no longer qualify for this program without a doctor s prescription Why would the bill remove medical tax exemptions if its very purpose is to make healthcare more affordable Of course on the opposite end of the health insurance spectrum many people enjoy absolutely wonderful benefits at a very low monthly rate through a company program Although I am certainly in favor of individuals receiving these types of benefits it is important to understand that this does not change the underlying cost of the insurance package In these cases the costs are simply defrayed by the company as part of an employee perk If you are one of the millions that enjoy these top shelf plans at a low monthly rate take a moment to ask your human resources director what your monthly rate actually costs the company Most people will be shocked to learn how much money is spent on them annually regardless of whether or not they even use the coverage These benefits might seem free to us but the company is passing along the costs to their employees one way or another be it through lower salaries fewer stock options or various other cost cutting measures This is also one of the reasons that companies are becoming increasingly inclined to hire contract workers instead of permanent employees the costs associated with acquiring new employees is simply getting too expensive Although individuals can take it upon themselves to more responsibly manage their own healthcare coverage government does need to play a role in helping to ensure sufficient facilities exist A practical Congressional measure would be for the federal government to provide incentives as opposed to mandates for cities and states to ensure the 24 hour operation of minor care centers These centers could operate as stand alone facilities or to be directly connected with local hospitals Much like my personal experience with the motorcycle accident the twenty fold cost differential was a result of the hospital preparing to admit me into a full trauma room Whether one has been seriously injured or merely nicked their finger with a kitchen knife many hospitals will admit the patient to a facility capable of providing the same high level of care Of course hospitals also come a premium rate Any trained medical professional should be able to judge within reason what type of medical care a patient is in need of Opponents of that idea will argue that the decision can be ethically wrong and could potentially jeopardize the care of a patient But this counter argument is essentially the same thing as suggesting everybody should be entitled to the best medical care possible all of the time regardless of the circumstance it ignores certain boundaries and practicalities that the real world is forced to operate within Moreover in all medical cases doctors are constantly required to take calculated risks for the well being of their patients They use the information that they have gathered to make the most effective medical judgments possible Why should this be any different with respect to the type of facility a patient is admitted to It is also worth considering how in the absence of this system insurance companies can more easily assert their grip on medical costs In reality when the need for medical care arises people rarely have the convenience of shopping around for a better deal they are likely in need of immediate care Provided the patient is insured neither the hospital nor the insurance company has much incentive to try and keep costs low Another necessary component for establishing sensible healthcare policies is to remove the financial abstractions from within the medical marketplace It is important to understand that those needing medical attention are customers however unfortunate their circumstances may be As customers they will undoubtedly receive a bill for any treatments they receive I would strongly advocate the government mandating that doctors and hospitals be required to provide all costs up front Although I generally reject mandates on principle this type of mandate in no way affects the private dealings of the market it simply provides the consumer with information that they are already legally entitled to be provided I have heard it argued primarily by those in the medical field that it is simply too difficult to know what medical attention will cost before seeing a doctor and therefore unreasonable to predict estimated costs up front This is the primary reason why medical costs are typically not disclosed before service However this whole idea is baseless and falls somewhere between arrogance and conspiracy There are few service based industries in the entire world whereby the service provider knows exactly what up front costs will be involved And yet in every one of these industries the business is still expected to provide a cost estimate For example if you consider something as commonplace as having a vehicle diagnosed by a mechanic how could they possibly be expected to know how long it will take or exactly what types of tests they would to run There are simply too many unknowns This is easily solved by basic communication There are certain costs that are provided to the customer up front and the rest are approved as progress is made This is not a difficult system to understand and yet we are made to believe that it is somehow an incalculable operation on the part of most medical facilities Interestingly dentists and veterinarians are able to provide accurate estimates before treatment Aside from it being too difficult another counter argument that will arise is that the medical industry has a unique moral responsibility to their patient The claim is that after all how can anybody put a price on the wellness of a human being That sounds nice but it also tends to blind people from the reality that the medical industry is a business and will put a price on that aforementioned wellness even when the industry attempts to form an argument to the contrary It is therefore only reasonable that they be held to the same consumer business standards that any other industry would be held to This alleged moral responsibility would be a much more reasonable claim if we adopted a healthcare system whereby all costs were fully covered or reimbursed In that case it might not make sense to ever disclose costs to the patient But that is only because they would truly be a patient and not a paying customer Of course that model does not exist within the country nor is it practical for the obvious associated costs Consequently so long as the United States healthcare system continues to operate as a private industry which I anticipate being the case then like all other private industry it should not be exempt from having to provide the customer with the associated costs before they are incurred In the absence of this there is simply no mechanism in place for even the most basic of checks and balances to exist Medical practitioners hospitals and insurance companies are free to manipulate the bill without ever even involving the customer Incidentally however the customer is still the one responsible for this bill Still doctors and other medical professionals do have one very valid reason for arguing why they must provide the most comprehensive medical care to all patients regardless of any costs and that is due to medical malpractice Medical malpractice lawsuits have steadily escalated for years throughout most of the most of the United States and as of 2009 were responsible for over 30 billion in litigation alone As a direct consequence doctors spend tens of thousands and sometimes even hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on insurance policies protecting them against malpractice lawsuits Naturally these costs are indirectly passed onto the patients through more expensive billing and other service cost increases But the problem is not as simple as just paying for the doctor s insurance premiums Because doctors want to avoid being sued in the first place and certainly want to have a defense for when they are it winds up being in their personal interest to run every medical test conceivably possible This often results in patients receiving expensive and unnecessary tests from state of the art medical equipment While some more advanced screenings can undoubtedly detect malignancies that doctors perhaps would not be able to on their own the increased chance of detection is generally insignificant when contrasted with the significantly higher costs that will be billed to insurance In other words a ninety five percent accurate diagnosis at the cost of one dollar is more useful than a ninety eight percent accurate diagnosis at the cost of one hundred dollars Those interested in reducing the quantity and variety of claims arising from medical malpractice are generally said to be seeking tort reform Although the term has been received more attention in Congress over recent years it is not always made entirely clear what tort law is and why the reforming of it could be beneficial Tort law is simply the branch of law within the United States and other common law countries that involves a breach of a civil duty owed to someone else Plaintiffs of such suits are generally seeking some type of monetary damages from the defendant or defendants Each of the sub branches within the scope of tort law has their own criteria that generally must be shown in order to prove a breach When people are said to call for tort reform within the medical industry they are usually implying that the criteria needed to show medical negligence should be modified so that frivolous claims are less likely to occur In 2003 the State of Texas created legislation to reform medical liability laws in an attempt to address the growing problem That same year medical license applications across the state rose from 2 561 to 4 041 an increase of almost 58 This statistic is relevant in illustrating at least one of the direct benefits to having some type of tort reform Unless we assume doctors began migrating to Texas just for the opportunity to practice medicine more carelessly the unprecedented yearly increase shows how negatively our current legal system affects doctors The State of California actually began addressing the problem as early as 1975 by passing the Medical Information Compensation Reform Act otherwise known as MICRA The state s legislation which is very similar to what Texas adopted in 2003 placed a number of fiscal caps on damages from medical malpractice suits Opponents of tort reform argue that increasing the burden of proof for medical negligence or capping compensatory damages may not hold as many medical practitioners properly accountable for negligent acts Statistically speaking this is very likely true Assuming that it were more difficult seek damages or less lucrative for lawyers to pursue them common sense would suggest that there would be less claims filed and consequently more legitimate claims not investigated But this is the type of balancing act that we need to consider very seriously Nobody wants to see truly negligent claims wind up unresolved nor should doctors be protected from the consequences of such incidents But by not amending the very broad definition of negligence that medical practitioners can be sued for we are only further jeopardizing our own healthcare system So long as we continue forcing doctors to hold expensive insurance packages as protection from all too common frivolous suits we can expect patients to continue paying for this through higher costs Medicine is a science and like all other sciences is not perfect in its application It would benefit us as a society to comprehend this and to frown upon those who would seek to exploit minor mishaps for their own financial gain Although it would take the leadership of Congress to actually begin drawing these lines doing so would be to benefit of all society Finally the United States needs more doctors One of the simplest ways to address this problem would be for the government to create an incentive for students to seek a medical degree A program like this would give students a full ride through medical school In exchange they would be required to dedicate at least seven years of professional work to an accredited hospital as a general practitioner Once this time period had expired they would be free to practice medicine however they saw fit This kind of reciprocal arrangement could be structured in any number of ways For example medical facilities could be granted full or even double tax deductions for privately establishing and managing the programs Alternatively debt forgiveness programs could also be put into place Once doctors completed their state obligation their education debt would be forgiven in full This latter type of program could be further administered through bonds thus ensuring it remained solvent However the funds were distributed saturating the market with new waves of doctors would only help to reduce the increasing cost burden of healthcare It would also have the ancillary benefit of not burdening students with an otherwise unmanageable level of debt In the years since I was involved in the motorcycle accident I have had the pleasure of sharing my experience with hundreds of individuals from varying political and economic backgrounds As a result I have heard a wide range of responses to the situation I was in Some have told me that my decision to leave the hospital was foolish that I am not a doctor and should not have presumed to know the extent of my injuries Others have told me that this was a sound decision and that if I was coherent enough to be mindful of the ensuing costs then I was fully capable of determining where and how I should receive medical attention But across the spectrum of responses I have been consistently pleased to hear people express disgust for the situation and commend my effort of sticking to a principle amidst legitimate personal turmoil I suspect that encouraging people to potentially jeopardize their own well being in order to make their point heard is generally frowned upon But how else is a free society able to change its ways if it is unwilling to take action during difficult times Anybody can succeed in favorable times It is how we handle bouts of adversity that define us There are likely hundreds of simple and practical ideas just like those in this section that could be implemented in relatively short periods of time to help strengthen and improve the healthcare of the United States But one thing is for certain so long as the health insurance companies pharmaceutical companies and politicians remain in cahoots the price of healthcare will unquestionably continue to rise Americans should not expect this type of behavior is going to be changed just on good fortune and happenstance nor is the drive to increase profit margins likely to disappear The United States was founded on the idea that people should not have to sit idly by and merely hope for the best They reserve the right at all times to stand up and demand change And when that fails it is the responsibility of every American to take action and to stand up for the collective good of the entire nation The rich must enable the poor the educated must defend the illiterate and those who can lead must speak out for those who cannot If the American people would be willing to stand up for what is right and refuse to participate in systems that so clearly favor corporate and political interests that collective will would be virtually unstoppable This is how the healthcare system of the United States will return to greatness not by playing the victims of special interests and expecting politicians will dictate what is right

Exploring Angkor Wat on a Scooter Solo Traveler After trying to do some research over the past several days about exploring Angkor Wat on your own that is to say without a guide or even a tuk tuk driver I found that the internet really doesn t have a lot of great information on it I found several people online even inquiring about where the new ticket office has been relocated to Unfortunately and per typical internet standards the common online response I ve come across seems to be an entirely different solution rather than providing an answer to the question I was asking I d honestly prefer a simple em I don t know em in place of these responses Many responses I ve read online make the suggestion em just take a tuk tuk they ll know where to go em Well obviously the tuk tuk drivers and other such guides know where to go but that s irrelevant to the question and isn t especially helpful for those people who want to explore without a guide That all stated if you re interested in exploring Angkor Wat by yourself on a scooter please read on I am delighted to share my own experience and hope some people find it useful photo 651432 656781 0 center A corner shot looking over the moat of Angkor Thom part of the Angkor Wat complex photo Having explored virtually all of the Angkor Wat complex including the many many temples throughout it I honestly can t understand why most people would use a guide or a tour group There are just so many things to see and so many places to stop and take photos that I can t imagine being tied to a group much less being at the mercy of tuk tuk drivers It s also incredibly inexpensive to go by oneself as it turns out I rented a scooter in Siem Reap for 9 USD per day more on that process in a minute I explored a bit of Angkor Wat after 5 30pm on a Saturday the temples are closed at that hour but you can drive around the complex perimeter and then spent over nine hours exploring dozens of temples on Sunday In total I spent over 15 hours exploring the place during my stay in Siem Reap Stating it very plainly this was probably the single most amazing place I ve ever explored in my entire life It was absolutely breathtaking Every stop I made was more incredible than the last one and there was a glow on my face the entire time I should note that I ve also never sweat more in my life To give an idea I drank over 4 liters of water 2 cokes and a big glass of watermelon juice and I didn t have to stop to pee one time It was hot it was humid paired with about 12 miles of walking it took a hell of a lot of energy out of me That all said the wind from riding around on the scooter was incredibly refreshing I couldn t recommend the experience more It was truly one that I ll remember forever strong style text decoration underline Renting a Scooter strong There are places all over Siem Reap that will rent a scooter to you I m sure most of the bikes are great or at least good enough but the problem I ran into is that they all want your passport to secure the scooter I assumed they just wanted to copy it but it s not that simple They hold onto it while I had their scooter Apparently this is pretty standard practice and I m sure they re mostly all on the up and up However I told them there was absolutely no way that I was going to do that and I m pretty certain that was the right move As a general rule don t ever give a strange your passport LifeLesson And yes I certainly tried to negotiate with these rental places citing that they could copy it or charge a hold to my credit card or whatever else but that s just not how they do it If I didn t part with my passport they weren t parting with their equipment I looked up various companies that you can rent from online In these cases you use a credit card but it was unclear if I would then go and pick up the bike or if they would drop it off for me As it happens I was having dinner at the a href https www tripadvisor com Restaurant_Review g297390 d12302434 Reviews Old_Delhi_Indian_Restaurant Siem_Reap_Siem_Reap_Province html Old Delhi Indian Restaurant a delicious by the way and happened to notice another shop renting scooters across the way I went into the store and inquired She initially wanted 10 USD day for the scooter but decided that she would do it for just 9 USD day Just like the other rental places the rental company did want some kind of card that she could hold on to The woman behind the counter inquired about my passport but after a short discussion said that my Texas driver s license would work too Since I couldn t care less if my driver s license was stolen while abroad really it s worthless and costs only 10 to replace at home I told her that would be fine It took maybe 5 minutes to do the paperwork She let me pick out a helmet Incidentally if you ve been around Southeast Asia then you know their standards for motorcycle helmets aren t the best I picked out the best one I could but it still lacked a face protector and shield It was slightly better than the small brain cups you so often see but only slightly photo 651148 656782 0 center An outside shot of the scooter rental place I found that didn t require my passport photo There was also no official damage form to fill out but another manager at the store looked over the bike condition with me There was some minor damage but nothing too serious As always I took photos of everything in front of the guy including the mileage and the gas level which was just shy of empty Be sure that you have the guy explain to you how to unlock and open the gas tank the under seat storage area and anything else the bike might have It s not always a intuitive as you might think photo 651314 656782 0 center My trusted scooter for exploring Angkor Wat still at the rental shop photo strong style text decoration underline Gassing up the Bike strong I m not 100 on this but pretty certain that the company just drains whatever gas is in the bikes when they get them back and keeps that for themselves They of course tell you that you ll need to go and fill the bike up and will direct you to a gas station Don t do this For starters the gas stations can be a huge pain in the ass especially if you haven t ridden around at all There are really no rules in terms of driving and cars and bikes are interweaving with each other around every turn The gas station is really no different A dozen scooters and motorcycles will pull up at random around a pump and somehow the gas attendant manages it like a craps table He won t miss a beat but unless your Cambodian is especially strong it s unlikely you ll get filled up too quickly The locals seem to get full attention I did this for my first fill up but learned there is a better way Instead head slightly off the beaten path and as you start passing shops on the side of the road you ll often see a stand out front with dirty liquor bottles In Bali these were exclusively Absolut Vodka bottles in Laos they were a mixture of bottles sometimes plastic liters of Coke but in Siem Reap they all seem to be some cheap brand of whiskey Of course none of these places are actually selling alcohol but rather selling their own variety of petrol gasoline photo 650938 656782 0 center Petrol stocked up in whiskey bottles photo photo 651900 656782 0 center Getting my scooter filled up with petrol photo I m told the bottles are filled with a slightly rougher petrol that is leftover from the refineries Presumably it s gasoline that is somewhat imperfect They work just fine but I m guessing are a little less environmentally sound Either way a single whiskey bottle s worth of petrol I m guessing 1 5 liters worth will set you back about 3 500 Riel about 0 85 It s also super fast You pull up you tell the guy what you want he breaks out a funnel and pours one of the bottles into your tank You pay You re done If you have your money ready to go the whole process takes less than a minute It s also kind of amusing to see it in action and provides cash to a local shop instead of what I assume are nationalized petrol chains A single bottle filled up my scooter about half way from empty so I was fine with this As a side note there are dozens of such stands selling gas like this between Siem Reap and the Angkor Wat compound They re far enough out that I wouldn t venture out on an empty tank but you ll definitely be able to find fuel along the way strong style text decoration underline Getting to the Ticket Office strong You would think that the ticket office would be located near the entrance to the park or at the very worst case in the middle of town but that s just not how they did it It s not near the temples nor is it especially convenient from town It s just kind of out there on its own It s even difficult to find on the map unless you know what you re looking for On Google Maps it comes up as Angkor Panorama Museum I think this museum actually exists at that location but it is also where they happen to sell the tickets to Angkor Wat To get there head north of the city on Charles de Gaulle until you get the Street 60 There will be a sign directing you to turn right and continue for 3km Do turn right Do not drive for 3km as you will overshoot the ticket office by a solid kilometer and wind up on the 60kmph section of the highway as I discovered After about 1 8km or so there will be a roundabout Go straight through the roundabout and there will be two giant buildings on your left They are not marked all that well but the first of the two buildings is the ticket office There is a small sign alongside the first building illustrating that it is the Angkor Wat ticket office but because the sign is exactly parallel with the road it s difficult to see as you re approaching Just trust it s the buildings immediately past the roundabout photo 774550 740 0 center A map showing how to get to the Angkor Wat ticket office from the center of Siem Reap photo Park your bike in the parking lot and head towards the back of the building behind the various gift shops You ll see dozens of ticket window stalls When you walk up to one of them they ll ask you if you want a 1 2 or 3 day pass to the temples I did a 1 day pass it cost 37 USD They ll take your picture and immediately print you out a custom ticket with your photo on it Keep it somewhere safe as they will definitely check it several times Also bear in mind that you re probably going to sweat a lot and it s just a paper ticket I kept mine in my a href https www amazon com Universal Waterproof JOTO CellPhone Samsung dp B00LBK7OSY ref sr_1_11 ie UTF8 qid 1508364994 sr 8 11 keywords underwater iphone bag waterproof iPhone bag case a which by the way if you don t have one of these I would highly recommend they re incredibly useful Once you get your ticket head back to the roundabout This time you ll head to the right after leaving the ticket booth parking lot left if you are considering how you originally went through the roundabout From there it s roughly another 6km or so to the park When the road eventually hits a T interesction there will be a checkpoint Show the guard your pass If you purchased a multi day he will punch a hole in one of the days This is not necessary if it s just a single day ticket Incidentally they only check westerners passes Locals are free to visit without charge Once you get to the intersection turn left You ll continue for another few kilometers driving underneath a beautiful canopy of trees and eventually paralleling the lake which ultimately serves as the moat for Angkor Wat photo 774549 740 0 center A map showing how to get from the center of town or the Angkor Wat ticket office to the actual Angkor Wat compound photo When you finally get to the Angkor Wat parking areas there is a good parking lot right next to the Blue Pumpkin Cafe It only cost me 2 000 Riels about 0 50 to park there for the day albeit I only wound up staying in that particular lot for two to three hours The parking attendant will staple a ticket onto your bike and then hand you a receipt for it Don t lose the receipt as they did ask for it later though it seemed a little stupid since I obviously had the key to my own bike It s probably not necessary but I had a lock for the bike and so I ran it through the wheel and into the frame just for peace of mind If you don t want to pay for a spot you can drive beyond the general tourist area where all of the locals are camped out on the lawn if facing the Angkor Wat entrance which will be very obvious to identify when you re out there it s to the far left of it I left my bike there for several hours on a separate trip The bike will likely have a storage compartment but beyond the helmet I don t know if I d trust leaving anything locked in it They re not especially hard to break into Once you ve explored enough of the main Angkor Wat temple your day is really just beginning Exit the parking lot where the bike is and head down the main road the one that looks to come immediately out of the front door of Angkor Wat There will be taxis and tuk tuks everywhere When you get to the first intersection turn right This will start you on your path towards Angkor Thom another absolutely breathtaking temple From there you re pretty much on your own if you have a scooter Provided you picked up a map of the facilities from the ticket office you can just navigate around and check out as many of the smaller temples as you d like I would ride up to one jump off the bike explore it for 10 20 minutes and then carry on to the next one Definitely do bring water and some snacks but there are also restaurants and vendors all throughout the park You ll not be in dire need of anything so long as you re in the compound It was really just an amazing place to be and honestly was one of the best experiences of my entire life I highly recommend it If you re in need of food or especially fuel on your way out be sure to stop in at one of the refueling huts especially if it s getting dark It s a bit of a drive back and while it s beautiful once you get past the main park area there really isn t much until you get back into Siem Reap

Interview With Howard Ludlow Sr photo 261525 740 200 right Howard Ludlow during his interview photo On December 27th 2001 I conducted a brief interview with both of my grandparents father s side Catherine Kitty Ludlow and Howard T Ludlow known as Momma and Poppa respectively This is the interview with Howard The total recorded interview is almost 18 minutes long I have transcribed the interview below and included applicable links detailing certain events and locations that my grandfather described namely using Wikipedia IMDB and Dictionary com iframe width 420 height 315 src http www youtube com embed eNMRlOXlElA frameborder 0 allowfullscreen iframe table class BLOGNarration tr td colspan 2 b SETTING UP THE INTERVIEW HOWARD IS TAKING HIS SEAT b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td Did you want honest answers and stuff td tr tr td valign top Kevin td td That would be helpful td tr tr td valign top Howard td td I can make them up too if you wish td tr tr td valign top Catherine td td Do you want me to get the cane td tr tr td valign top Howard td td No I ll put the cane over here That s ok td tr tr td td td HOWARD IS SEATED FOR THE INTERVIEW td tr tr td valign top Howard td td Now I can fall asleep in this chair if you want me to do that Hello ladies and gentlemen td tr tr td td td LAUGHTER td tr tr td valign top Kevin td td That was very good td tr tr td valign top Howard td td Well I am lector at church you know and I like to speak to the crowds 840 people in our church during the busy season Right now about 100 the un busy season td tr tr td valign top Howard td td Well what dost thou wish hah td tr tr td valign top Howard td td Is that one of those digital type cameras td tr tr td valign top Kevin td td It is td tr tr td valign top Howard td td I don t know anything about them or how to use them or anything else td tr tr td valign top Kevin td td You re not camera shy are you td tr tr td valign top Howard td td No td tr tr td valign top Kevin td td I didn t think so td tr tr td valign top Howard td td No not microphone shy td tr tr td valign top Kevin td td No I don t have a microphone but td tr tr td valign top Howard td td Well what picks up the sound td tr tr td valign top Kevin td td Well there s a little microphone somewhere td tr tr td valign top Howard td td It has something built in there td tr tr td valign top Kevin td td Yea td tr tr td valign top Howard td td Are these lights my better side td tr tr td valign top Kevin td td I got your better side I even dimmed the light down a bit you know It makes you td tr tr td valign top Howard td td Allright makes me shine up better td tr tr td valign top Kevin td td Kind of like a grace Kelly 1940 s td tr tr td valign top Howard td td Oh ok well that looks good Whatever happened to her td tr tr td valign top Kevin td td I don t know I didn t do the followup but td tr table br style clear both table class BLOGNarration tr td colspan 2 b THE INTERVIEW BEGINS b td tr tr td Kevin td td b i So where were you born i b tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px a href http en wikipedia org wiki New_york_city New York City a td tr tr td Kevin td td b i You ll have to be more specific i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px I don t remember the street because I was too young to recall it But it was in the a href http en wikipedia org wiki Bronx Bronx a And uh yea that was it in the a href http en wikipedia org wiki Bronx Bronx New York City a td tr tr td Kevin td td b i And is that where you grew up i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Not in that particular area but in another part of the a href http en wikipedia org wiki Bronx Bronx a yes td tr tr td Kevin td td b i And what part was that i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px The part commonly referred to as the North Bronx Near the not too far from the border of the city of a href http en wikipedia org wiki Yonkers Yonkers a td tr tr td Kevin td td b i Oh the nice part of town i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Yea nice area near the parks No problem td tr tr td Kevin td td b i That s good And what did your dad do i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px He mostly worked in banking areas One type or another of banking jobs Various jobs But mostly as I say in the line of credit and loans and banking work td tr tr td Kevin td td b i Trusting people i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px I don t know if he trusted anybody because I don t trust anybody so I don t know about that td tr tr td Kevin td td b i That s good Uh so and where did you go to highschool i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px I went to DeWitt Clinton in highschool in the Bronx within walking distance of my house And it was the largest all boys highschool in the world With 10 000 boys all boys But not all of them went to the main campus Uhh We had a couple of other branches I would guess that oh maybe about 80 or about 8000 went to the main campus and the others went to the other branches One branch was in Manhattan one branch was in the Bronx another part of the Bronx I don t know if we had any others But we always boasted it was the largest all boys highschool in the world My graduating class we used to graduate twice a year a 6 months arrangement and my graduating class had 1000 boys in it And that was half a year if you want to think of it that way Yep td tr tr td Kevin td td b i That s a lot of people i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Yes it was And uh somehow we got along most of the time td tr tr td Kevin td td b i So then where did you go to college i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px I first went to the city college of New York but I stayed there only a semester maybe a year I think one semester though and after many years later I went to the Fordham College td tr tr td Kevin td td b i Which is in i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px In the a href http en wikipedia org wiki Bronx Bronx a br br I briefly attended a href http en wikipedia org wiki Princeton_University Princeton University a under the Army s specialized training program and I flunked out of it because I have always been rather poor at math and they had a great deal of math in the program In fact if you want a humorous story or maybe it s not so humorous one of the final exams if not the final exam because this was during WWII required you to navigate a bomber from the mainland of the United States to someplace in England I guess it was And you were given all of the things that might happen to you on the trip Everything from fuel consumption to wind altitude all kind of things of that nature and you had to methodically plot this course all the way over to England And I did that as did everybody else But when I got my report back it said that I had failed because I had brought the bomber down in the water somewhere near England instead of at an airport So I went to the professor and uh tried to argue myself into a passing grade on the grounds that after all I came close And I remember him screaming at me saying the Army aircore doesn t want people navigating bombers who come close And that s what happened td tr tr td Kevin td td b i Good story i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px But actually I was in the wrong program anyway When I was in a href http en wikipedia org wiki Princeton_University Princeton a I originally had been sent there to study Arabic At that time they had quite a program it s interesting today to think of that and when I got there they somehow divided us up and half of us studied Arabic and half went into engineering And I got put into the engineering program and that s what got me into trouble td tr tr td Kevin td td b i Ah the math i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px The math namely And some other courses physics chemistry and so on br br With physics it wasn t so bad because you were divided into partners Partner was two fellows And my partner I worked it out that he did all the physics experiments He worked with all the gadgets and timers and whatnot and then I wrote the reports because I could write and he could do the experiments and we got through there ok td tr tr td Kevin td td b i Good i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Ok td tr tr td Kevin td td b i So when did you join the Army i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px 1942 td tr tr td Kevin td td b i WWII i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Yes and that was the war you may have heard of I don t know Read your history books td tr tr td Kevin td td b i Maybe And what did you do i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px I was a private I I didn t do anything I helped the war effort but not very much Anyway td tr tr td Kevin td td b i Did you have to overseas i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px No I didn t No td tr tr td Kevin td td b i So where did they station you i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Well I was stationed in a href http en wikipedia org wiki Camp_Upton Camp Upton a Long Island and uh that s an interesting question a href http en wikipedia org wiki Fort_Bragg 2C_North_Carolina Fort Bragg North Carolina a uhh then back to New York City at that time there had been a large building five stories perhaps which had been the Israel Orphan Asylum which was a Jewish orphanage for children Jewish Children And the Army took it over and converted it into barracks and I was one of the I guess few hundred who were in the Israel Orpham Asylum Of course they didn t call it that once the Army took it over of course And we were there just before and during the rather serious race riots that took place in Harlem in 1943 I guess it was And uh that was a rather serious situation with shooting and that kind of thing because we had fellows in the barracks of this building who literally had to shoot it out with people in other buildings nearby and that sort of thing So I was there And then where did I go next I think I was in the Israel Orphan Asylum before I went to a href http en wikipedia org wiki Fort_Bragg 2C_North_Carolina Fort Bragg a Yea that s right then I went to a href http en wikipedia org wiki Fort_Bragg 2C_North_Carolina Fort Bragg a And I got out of the Army at a href http en wikipedia org wiki Fort_Bragg 2C_North_Carolina Fort Bragg a I d had enough so they couldn t use my splendid services anymore so I quit td tr tr td td td LAUGHING td tr tr td Kevin td td b i So then you went to go teach i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px No of course that was you know 1943 I guess and uh you know I returned home had various jobs until I went to college at Fordham College And then a href http en wikipedia org wiki Fordham_University Fordum University a graduate school td tr tr td Kevin td td b i What did you graduate with i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Well I had my bachelor of science degree and then I got a master of arts and then a doctorate of philosophy td tr tr td Kevin td td b i Cool i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px And my major was economics br br And then I well I actually went to teaching when I had my masters degree and then on to the doctorate td tr tr td Kevin td td b i At Seton Hall i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Well I taught at a href http en wikipedia org wiki Seton_Hall Seton Hall a but I went to a href http en wikipedia org wiki Fordham_University Fordum University a for the graduate program br br Ok You gonna pay me now td tr tr td Kevin td td b i Uh I don t have anything to pay you with i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Well I thought maybe this was a paid commercial or something like this you know td tr tr td Kevin td td b i You could have some wine i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Well no that s true but it s early in the morning and there s a saying in the Navy you don t drink until the sun is over the a href http dictionary reference com search q yardarm yardarm a and it s not over the a href http dictionary reference com search q yardarm yardarm a yet td tr tr td td td LAUGHING td tr tr td Kevin td td b i Close So are there any other interesting stories for my interview i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Well the most interesting of course has been my life with your dear grandmother td tr tr td Kevin td td b i Oh yes I m sure i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px That has been a series of adventures for almost 50 years Most of the adventures pleasant ones She s having trouble with her ear right now I think I can hear in the background Yea unfortunately she has a hearing aid and very difficult inserting it properly and it s rather painful for her We ve taken it back for readjustment a couple of times but it still doesn t seem to be right td tr tr td Kevin td td b i That s understandable i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px And of course the greatest adventures also included having children one of whom is your father td tr tr td Kevin td td b i Yes I m sure he did all types of bad stuff i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px I wouldn t say bad I would say adverturesome I would say original Everything from being a volunteer fireman to other types of legitimate activity td tr tr td Kevin td td b i I see i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px You know when he was a young boy he belonged to the boy scouts and cub scouts I guess first and the cub scouts then and maybe still had an annual derby race where the boys make small wooden cars and they race them down this incline And they time it to see who wins Well I figured I d help your father out so I had the bright idea because they had the dimensions for the car and you couldn t exceed the dimensions but they didn t say anything about the weight So I had got bright idea of taking a heavy spike and putting it under the car to give it more weight so then it would go down the hill faster Well that sounded ok to your father it sounded ok to me it was my idea But when we had the race the spike stuck on the board of the incline and he was disqualified for trying to maneuver this td tr tr td Kevin td td b i Cheating i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Well they didn t say you couldn t do that but unfortunately that s what happened td tr tr td Kevin td td b i And you you used to have a boat i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Yes we ve had several boats And uh the last boat we had was a a href http en wikipedia org wiki Trawler trawler a type boat 43 feet long twin diesel engines and uh we sold that boat ohh I would say it must be about 13 or 14 years ago We used to keep it in the a href http en wikipedia org wiki Chesapeake_Bay Chesapeake Bay a We cruised all over We ve been to a href http en wikipedia org wiki Canada Canada a with it we ve been up and down the a href http en wikipedia org wiki Hudson_River Hudson a throughout a href http en wikipedia org wiki Chesapeake_Bay Chesapeke Bay a obviously other places too td tr tr td Kevin td td b i Was that the LeiLani i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Yes Each of our boats has been named LeiLani And uh I got the name from a motion picture going back to the 1930 s I guess maybe 1936 37 with a href http en wikipedia org wiki Bing_Crosby Bing Crosby a where he sung the song a href http www imdb com title tt0029742 combined Sweet LeiLani a And at that time as a young boy I said if I ever had a boat I m going to name it LeiLani And I remembered that and that s why the name LeiLani means beautiful flower in Hawaiian So all my boats have been called LeiLani td tr tr td Kevin td td b i I did I did try to break one of your boats one time I threw your ropes overboard if I recall i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Well yes I remember that In fact when you were younger than that and you used to cruise on one of our boats with your parents we had a a href http en wikipedia org wiki Flying_bridge flying bridge a And naturally you take small children on a a href http en wikipedia org wiki Flying_bridge flying bridge a and it s kind of risky especially when their in a playpen So your father rigged up the playpen on the a href http en wikipedia org wiki Flying_bridge flying bridge a secured it to the rail and dunked you in it so you couldn t go anyplace that we weren t aware of td tr tr td Kevin td td b i That was clever I was a prisoner i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px More or less It s good practice for years later in life td tr tr td Kevin td td b i Yea I guess so One of these days Well is there anything else you d like to say i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Well it s a pleasure celebrating Christmas here with you and your family and our family and hope you do well in your course and if some professor is reading this or judging it he should know that he has a good student td tr tr td Kevin td td b i That s good i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Ok td tr tr td Kevin td td b i That ll work i b td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Thank you td tr table

American Healthcare Part II The Healthcare Divide There are few things responsible for creating more division in the United States than when politicians express radical stances on hot button issues These issues mysteriously tend to pop up around election cycles and are particularly good at distracting voters from real problems that much more significantly impact the nation For years politicians have been utilizing this method to prey upon human emotion and sway voter opinion in the direction they choose In one manner of thinking this is exactly what politicking is but it is the abuse of this methodology that has hit an absolute tipping point That tipping point is resulting in dire consequences for the country In more recent years politicians have included topics such as abortion gay marriage government spending gun control and immigration just to name a few Though these issues are certainly relevant to public discourse and should be debated they typically receive a significantly disproportionate amount of attention when compared to other issues This is not because they are important topics that will affect the majority of American citizens They are instead political fluff for well oiled campaign strategies Regardless of how intense politicians may appear to stand on these issues or how frequently they may bring them up rarely will we hear any type of legitimate stance be it for or against For example Republicans have frequently rallied behind their strong opposition to abortion but never have I heard a plan or even a strategy for how they would intend to reverse the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision Similarly for years Democrats have toted themselves as the party that promotes equality for all and yet only a select few have shown the political fortitude to speak in favor of same sex marriage despite the glaring discrimination it presents to gay and lesbian Americans And so it goes that every election cycle the general electorate is treated to what appear to be intense debates but somehow remain oblivious to the fact that nothing substantial is ever being said Unfortunately this has become somewhat of the political norm for politics in America Although this behavior is discussed in a later chapter I have included a brief summary here to remind readers of how disheartening the political game has become What was once a tool for offering hope and new ideas to the country has become nothing but a marketing gimmick full of cheap rhetoric and empty promises However despite our being conditioned to accept this political process one of the very few talking points that actually carried some follow through from the 2008 Presidential election was that of healthcare reform President Obama spoke extensively of his intentions to radically overhaul the system and for better or worse he definitely did follow through As the 2008 presidential race raged on the Democratic Party consistently and clearly expressed their intentions to pass some form of universal healthcare upon a presidential victory Then Senator Obama was very much in line with his party s position and at virtually every rally interview and debate he articulated his intent to push for significant healthcare reform should he be elected For that matter other Democratic hopefuls particularly Senators Hillary Clinton and John Edwards echoed similar sentiments throughout respective campaign trails While partisan crowds of Democrats cheered for the hard stance their party was promising to take on healthcare reform equally partisan Republican crowds were quick to label the Democrat s ideas as impractical irresponsible and even socialist Unfortunately aside from suggesting tax credits Republicans never felt the need to offer any real type of plan for how the country could deal with the bureaucratic and corporate driven debacle of the American healthcare system It would therefore stand to reason that either Republican constituents associated healthcare reform as a typical hot button talking point with no anticipation of follow through from Democrats or that Republicans simply had not found the American healthcare system to be broken And so upon being elected by a clear majority and eventually inaugurated on January 20th 2009 President Obama quickly began pushing Congress for new healthcare legislation just as he said he would To the credit of the Democrats this was actually very much in line with their boldest campaign promise It therefore followed that since we the people elected the leaders in a series of majority votes and those leaders introduced legislation on par with what they claimed they would the democratic process was by all textbook measures quite a success Of course if one factors the actual legislation that was passed and the manner in which it was passed keeping campaign promises should have seemed like little value The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 also known as Obamacare was anything but a bill with the best interest of the American citizenry in mind Members of Congress created a massive 2 200 page text rife with bloated spending provisions special interest projects hidden taxes and undisclosed IRS provisions All of these hidden agendas would be revealed in the ensuing weeks and months after the bill had already been executed into law Rather than to try to provide some type of constructive approach towards minimum healthcare expectations Congress instead federally mandated the purchase of private insurance Thus for the first time in American history all American citizens became legally indebted to private corporations literally from the day they are born The legislative process contained an almost a complete lack of transparency on all fronts Members of Congress predominantly Democrats were anything but shy talking about backroom deals being made Even the final addendum to the bill was passed controversially using the method of reconciliation a Congressional process otherwise reserved for budgetary bills that specifically restricts debate time This process was used to make at least thirteen significant changes to the healthcare bill after it had already been passed On March 9th 2010 twelve days before the House of Representatives voted on the bill Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had the audacity to publicly inform an audience at the National Association of Counties that the bill would have to be passed before it could be read Specifically she said to her audience em You ve heard about the controversies within the bill the process about the bill one or the other But I don t know if you have heard that it is legislation for the future not just about health care for America but about a healthier America where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for or out of pocket Prevention prevention prevention It s about diet not diabetes It s going to be very very exciting But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it away from the fog of the controversy em What a relief it was to know that politicians of the twenty first century have become so trustworthy that Americans no longer even need to read the governing legislation they have been elected to create Needless to say transcripts and videos of her statement quickly circulated the Internet prompting outrage from those who already opposed to the bill and indifference from those who supported it I had even heard it argued by Democratic supporters of the legislation that Republicans should embrace the bill due to its similarity to Massachusetts s law The claim was that after all it was essentially the same type of healthcare package that Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney had signed into law on April 12th 2006 while Governor of the state Unfortunately the irony of such a statement seemed to be lost on many of those same people That is to say if the Obama healthcare package was anything like Mitt Romney s which in many ways it was then why would liberals be so inclined to support something that had been previously adopted by a conservative right wing exceptionally wealthy former Republican governor Surely those same left leaning individuals would not have cheerfully supported such a federal proposal from Mitt Romney had he won the general election But none of this not the lack of transparency not the special interest clauses not the mandate tying individuals to private industry not even Speaker Pelosi s insinuation that Congress should simply pass legislation before Americans even read it seemed to sway public opinion one way or another The problem it seems is that those who were already behind the Democrats were willing to take anything that was thrown in their general direction regardless of how senseless or poorly crafted it may have been But this is the culture we have created legislative particulars and practicalities are of little importance to people provided that they come from the far left or the far right Still the fact that most Republicans and conservatives were so outspoken and appalled by the passing of the legislation does in one light appear to be a bit hypocritical That is to say given that the right wing of the country enjoyed virtually no oversight and exercised such disregard for the Constitution over the better part of eight years why would anyone have expected that the Democrats would suddenly be inclined to play fairly after their Congressional and Presidential victories So while I would fully agree that conservatives should express their disdain for this type of radically polar legislation and legislative process as should liberals the numerous one sided liberties taken by President Bush s Administration just prior should also not be forgotten A short list of these accomplishments includes invading Iraq and Afghanistan without Congressional declarations of war justifying the need for deficit spending providing financial military aid to Pakistan curiously shifting focus from Osama Bin Laden to Saddam Hussein enacting the Patriot Act into law holding prisoners on foreign soil without charges endorsing an amendment to federally ban same sex marriage and providing bailout capital to some of the country s largest corporations while ignoring a struggling middle class of people And therein lies the back and forth game of radical policymaking that has successfully permeated American culture The painfully obvious reality that neither Democratic nor Republican constituents want to acknowledge is that engaging in such radical policymaking does not work Moreover it is dangerous and divisive As we have witnessed for years implementing such policies will only result in equally radical ones of opposing ideals being implemented with the next changing of the guard Of course this type of policymaking can only exist for so long Eventually policies become so on the fringe that civil unrest becomes the only remaining option If only we could find a way to convince people to consider both social and fiscal responsibilities with some form of moderation and without the need to draw from the far ends of the spectrum If only we could convince people that instead of providing unbridled loyalty to a party that they instead speak out and challenge their party to do what is best for everyone instead of merely appeasing themselves In that alternate reality we might be sitting with a model for healthcare that was fiscally responsible socially conscious and soundly economical for consumers Instead the country is left to deal with a political and social nightmare that is likely to waste tremendous time and resources on lawsuits repeals and Congressional challenges for years to come Instead the country is left with a bill that will almost undoubtedly raise the cost of healthcare while simultaneously reducing the quality of it And instead the country is divided in half outraged at one another s lack of moral obligation and fiscal sense respectively from the left and right There is a much more damaging and fundamental problem with the United States remaining so divided on the topic of healthcare Unlike so many of the hot button topics that have little significance in the grander scheme of the country the fundamental ability of human beings to heal one another represents a cornerstone of all humanity It is something that each and every one of us has always and will always be dependent upon in one way or another So the question still remains how can an entire population that is equally dependent upon a system maintain such vastly opposing ideas for its application in society It is imperative that we force one another to bridge this divide and that we force our politicians to do the same In the interim of moderate solutions medical companies will continue reaping enormous profits families will continue seeing higher costs and the overall health of the country will only continue to worsen em continued in a href blog 2133 American_Healthcare__Part_III_Healthcare_vs_Health_Insurance Part III Healthcare vs Health Insurance a em

Understanding Soi Cowboy Before leaving for Thailand I had told a number of my friends that I would not just look into the sex industry but rather stare intently into it and see what it s actually all about I did just that I m not especially interested in it myself from a customer point of view but there is a certain mystique and fascination around how legalized prostitution works around the world I should also note that prostitution in Thailand is better categorized as not illegal rather than legal There are a host of laws that could be used to stop it from happening but the powers that be turn a blind eye to this I also want to acknowledge up front that I fully comprehend that at least some portion of the sex industry in Thailand fuels sex trafficking something I and I assume most any decent person is fervently opposed to for rather obvious reasons All told my friend and I visited six of the clubs in the Soi Cowboy area Here s some notes from the experience Firstly when you arrive at Soi Cowboy it will probably be a lot smaller than you think it is When I had seen pictures of it over the years I thought the iconic neon signs that I was seeing were the entrance to it or something like that As it turns out the street is probably only a few hundred meters long and there are maybe 20 clubs in total I m ballparking but thereabout anyways photo 633356 641658 0 center The iconic photo view of Soi Cowboy from just outside of the main street photo br style clear both The first club that we entered was Baccara This club sits on the far east end of the block and has a reputation for being one of the nicer clubs there Having been to strip clubs all over the United States the South Pacific South America and Mexico I will say that the experience here was pretty crazy and a little overwhelming The club is very small There are booths about 3 seats deep around the entirety of it with a small portion kept for the bar There is a single stage that sits in the middle of the room with a handful of poles for the girls to hang on to Above them is a glass ceiling with ladies dancing on the 2nd floor so yes you can see right up into them The most shocking difference from an American point of view is just the sheer number of women that are on stage and how it works Put very bluntly it is much more literally like a meat market than you ve likely ever heard that term used before What I mean is that at any other club I ve ever been to a single stage will be occupied by maybe two to three girls at once often times a single stage is just a single girl Not here At Baccara as with most of the clubs on the strip there were about 30 to 40 young Thai women on the stage at a time They re all wearing what is essentially a skimpy bathing bikini bathing suit but none of them on the main stage are naked not even topless There were three different groups of these women One group wore an orange outfit another wore a black outfit and the third group the upstairs group wore a kind of schoolgirl dress no doubt fulfilling some creepy old guy fantasies there The schoolgirl dressed girls were on the second floor They would be half assed dancing around on the glass floor ceiling from our point of view and after set intervals would become topless and then ultimately naked After enough time had elapsed they would go back to being dressed and then start the process over again This could be an incorrect assessment but we ultimately decided that these were the freshmen of the group Not necessarily the youngest in fact most likely not the youngest but the newer girls or less marketable girls who actually did have to get naked to keep their job They essentially just kept the whole thing stimulating Now onto the other two groups The orange and black teams would come out on stage only with their fellow teammates Thirty or so girls would march off the stage and thirty or so new girls would come back on But here s where it gets crazy they don t do anything They don t dance They don t interact with the customers hardly anyways They literally just stand on the stage and show off what they have To the meat market comment each one of them literally has a number pinned to their chest The process is as follows You see a girl that you like and so you tell the madam of the house one woman who is essentially just keeping tabs on everything in a pimp like fashion that you like number 224 This is the buying a drink phase The madam will summon girl 224 to come and sit with you and you immediately are expected to purchase her a drink Best we would tell the drink would just be a glass of cola but you re still paying about 300 baht for it about 9 00 USD You talk with the girl make sure you like her and then one of two things happens Either option one is that either you don t really like her after all or you weren t really planning to do anything with her in the first place this was our category and so after her drink is done she thanks you and goes back to the herd Or option two is that you pay for her The madam will present you with a price sheet that essentially dictates how much you would have to pay to take her back to your hotel either for an hour or for the evening The prices were about 3 000 baht about 91 USD for the hourly service or about double that for the entire evening That s it So this kind of club of which there are several of in Soi Cowboy aren t really strip clubs at all at least not in the sense that Americans think of them They are literal brothels where you are just looking at a live menu and deciding what who to pay for Again the freshman team dancing naked upstairs keeps the strip club feel alive but that s definitely not the intent of them After we left Baccara we stopped by another well known club called Crazy House It had the same methodology as Baccara It was definitely a wilder vibe and these girls would at least interact with people a little bit more on the stage I wound up slipping a few 20 baht notes about 0 60 USD into leg garters they were wearing Eventually a pair of them came and sat with me for a bit We actually had a really fun time drinking and trying to communicate in broken English and Thai but that was the extent of it Like Baccara this one also had the glass ceiling although some of the girls on the main stage would actually strip Some went topless while others were fully nude As a somewhat sad interjection it became pretty obvious which of the girls were new You could tell rather clearly that they were being told to strip down but were then lightly covering themselves with their hands and things of this nature It was subtle but easy to spot if you were looking for it The Cowboy2 Bar and Spice Girls were mostly the same kind of setup Each one of them had their own little twist to how they ran the operation but the process was the same The girls all had numbers pinned to them you selected one bought her a drink were presented with a list of payment options and then you d either send her back to the herd or leave with her There were two bars that had a very different methodology to them Afterskool Bar and Toy Bar were an entirely different beast These clubs were narrow in their design with the bar taking up one entire wall and the stage taking up the other entire bar You d essentially sit between these two elements There would only be a few girls on the stage at one time and they were stripping in the sense that you would see in America Except that they re doing a lot more than that photo 633468 641658 0 center Some of the dancers from the Afterskool Bar The one posing sat and chatted with me for awhile photo br style clear both photo 633387 641658 0 center The same girl from Afterskool whose name I unfortunately forget now photo br style clear both These girls were entirely blatant about what the purpose of your visit was There was no menu presented there was no process informal or otherwise for how the interaction happened If a girl noticed that you were looking at her long enough or perhaps if she just liked the cut of your jib she would come and talk to you Toy Bar was considerably more direct about it but they would tell you outright what they could do and would negotiate prices directly with you I suspect that the varied it based on how much they thought you could afford what you looked like and frankly just how they felt at any given moment These girls were not drinking cola but rather were getting pretty fucked up I d imagine a number of them were doing drugs but I didn t see any of this directly Cutting right to the chase a hand job in the bar would cost anywhere from 500 to 700 baht 15 to 21 USD respectively whereas a blowjob would cost anywhere from 1000 to 1500 baht 30 to 45 USD respectively You could certainly pay to take them home as well and I d imagine the prices were a little cheaper than the meat market bars but the general idea was that they would just take you somewhere in the club and you d get your time with them Again I have been to a lot of strip clubs over the years for countless different reasons ranging from bachelor parties to friends wanting to go to girlfriends wanting to see what they re all about to everywhere else in between In all of those experiences though I ve never had a woman directly proposition me for anything other than a dance To be clear you re not asked something like hey baby what are you looking for but rather shown explicit gestures of exactly what you can get Even in the Mexican border towns they re not quite that brazen It s a weird experience While I ultimately support prostitution namely as I don t think somebody should be told they cannot sell their own body I d imagine that there is an entire underbelly of creepy old men who are regular visitors to these bars many likely provide them with regular services photo 633305 641658 0 center I was highly entertained by this sign in the street photo br style clear both All in all Soi Cowboy was a ton of fun and I would highly recommend anybody checking it out but just keep in mind that it s not like going to an American strip club but rather is like entering a brothel Also bear in mind that while sex tourism is entirely fine there are certainly people there who have been trafficked This is an awful thing and so it s hard to say whether you should support the business in any way Regardless there s a world of difference between American and Thai strip clubs

Bayesian Flooding and Facebook Manipulation photo 261465 740 200 right photo For the past few months I ve been conducting an open online experiment It s really an extension of a seven year project I ve been working on but this newer portion is exclusively focused on Facebook The purpose of the experiment is to explore how much control a typical Facebook user has over his or her personal information online not what is externally visible but what is internally being analyzed In other words is it possible to manipulate the flow of information being collected for advertising and marketing purposes The consideration behind this idea is due to three basic realities ol li The advancement of online technology and communication is not going to slow down much less stop Social networking plays a vital role in this li li In order to participate in society one cannot simply hide from technology li li There is a lucrative market for acquiring and selling private personal information demographics lifestyle choices spending habits interests etc li ol Over the past few years I ve had dozens of people ask me if I thought they could remove themselves from the watchful eyes of Facebook My answer is always no The problem is that once the information has been collected it will always be stored and associated with you I have therefore devised a slightly different method for dealing with this problem Rather than trying to hide information from Facebook it may be possible simply to overwhelm it with too much information While this may sound counter intuitive there is a well known mathematical theorem that may in fact validate the idea Imagine if you were asked to look inside of a friend s pantry or cupboard for 30 seconds and then to make a guess about their general diet For most people this would be a pretty simple exercise and the results would probably be very accurate But now imagine that when you peered inside their pantry was magically the size of an entire grocery store and contained just as many products Other than the fact that they weren t starving what could you really report about this friend s diet The amount of variation available would make the analysis very difficult This is the basic idea strong Target and Teenage Pregnancy strong photo 261555 740 200 right photo Back in February of this year Forbes released an article detailing how a href http www forbes com sites kashmirhill 2012 02 16 how target figured out a teen girl was pregnant before her father did Target successfully determined that a teenage girl was pregnant a before her father was able to The girl had received coupons in the mail for a host of maternity items This prompted her father to call Target s customer service department and complain how it was inappropriate to send a teenage girl such material Target was quick to apologize but a few days later the father actually wound up apologizing to Target noting that his daughter was indeed pregnant The question is how could Target possibly have known this Like most big box stores Target tracks everything that their customers purchase According to the article customers are assigned a em guest ID number tied to their credit card name or email address that becomes a bucket that stores a history of everything they ve bought and any demographic information Target has collected from them or bought from other sources em So not only does Target keep a history of what customers buy but they purchase demographic information about these customers from other companies as well Perhaps companies like Facebook They are then able to have programmers and statisticians analyze giant chunks of data and assemble patterns of consumer spending habits In the case of Target the statisticians noticed that women tend to stock up on health supplements in their first trimester and unscented lotions in their second trimester As it turns out they claim to have about 25 products that they use to indicate a pregnancy score the likeliness that a customer is pregnant The article explains that when just four of those products are purchased by the same customer the likeliness of them being pregnant is a whopping 87 It might sound a bit like witchcraft but it s the type powerful of statistical analysis that can be done with such large data pools Imagine the selling power a company like Facebook has when it comes to providing supplemental demographic information to a company like Target Whether or not they em do em sell such information is a matter of their internal business practices but the data they are regularly collecting is priceless This provides them with a continued incentive to collect and store personal data about individuals strong Email Extrapolation strong In 2004 I was working for an email marketing company Naturally we were eager to analyze potential customers any way that we could but often had little more to work with than their email address incidentally these were typically acquired via some pseudo scandalous online promotion I began working independently on an interpretive email address analyzer and after leaving the company had mixed success in marketing the product to other businesses The relevance to this experience is how much can be ascertained just from a single email address never mind the hoards of voluntary information associated with a Facebook profile The basic process would run an email address through a series of filters I had devised Each filter would output how the email address scored against the particular filter For example say we wanted to analyze the gender of a user If the email address reads em susan example com em it s pretty likely it belongs to a female for the obvious reason that Susan is a female s name The program would cross reference a database of names and assign a probable score of the user being female But consider a less obvious address like em steelerj67 example com em A different gender filter would extrapolate the word steeler cross reference a list of sports teams and associate it with the Pittsburgh Steelers It would then score the user as a male albeit with much less certainty than the previous example The logic being that females tend not to associate their email addresses with sports teams There could be dozens of filters applied just to determine the likely gender of the person And of course other filters would perform completely different tasks In this case one would also extrapolate the 67 and interpret it as a birth year Without performing this kind of analysis we just have a customer email address But with this analysis we potentially have a 45 year old male living in Pennsylvania who likes football That s a lot of data to extract from a single address even if it is speculative This type of analysis is certainly not always accurate but it is statistically very relevant and can greatly affect the usefulness of large datasets More importantly when we apply the analysis of these filters to other collected demographic information the results tend to improve very significantly When these methodologies are applied to tens of millions of customer records the aggregate change in revenue can increase tremendously Advertising to a 13 year old female versus a 62 year old man requires a pretty substantial change in advertising content Simply knowing this is invaluable to a company If I was able to successfully extrapolate so much information just from an email address think of how accurate Facebook can be with all of the information users provide them strong id bayesianflooding Bayesian Flooding strong photo 261565 740 300 right A look at Facebook s Advertising system br a href photos download d7fb4231370e3e6b9c545072219c325c Click for Full Size a photo Facebook no doubt uses methods similar to the two described above but they also enjoy the luxury of collecting large amounts of personal data directly from users this is exclusively what their service does In turn they re able to use the information collected to advertise to their users If you ve ever used their advertising system you probably know just how powerful it is The level of granularity and depth one is able to target for advertising purposes is far beyond the scope of Google And yet this powerful advertising model may still suffer from a rather obvious Achilles heel For the time being at least it appears to depend very heavily upon the honesty of its users This is where the experiment I have been working on comes directly into play Over the past several months I have entered a myriad of life events to my Facebook profile using their new Timeline feature Some of those life events are true and some of them are not In my fictitious life I ve explored a dozen different religions had countless injuries and broken bones suffered twice through cancer been married divorced fathered children all around the world and have even fought for numerous foreign militaries This is what I refer to as Bayesian Flooding and to be perfectly honest it s turned out to be a great deal of fun My intent was to coin the term within the same sphere as Bayesian Filtering a common method of filtering junk email by word analysis Of course both terms pay homage to a href http en wikipedia org wiki Thomas_Bayes Thomas Bayes a a mathematician best known for a href http en wikipedia org wiki Bayes 27_theorem Bayes Theorem a photo 261520 740 200 right The basic formula describing Bayes Theorem It depicts the conditional probability of event A given event B has occurred photo Bayes Theorem is a commonly applied mathematical formula used for calculating the conditional probability of some event given that some additional event has occurred or that some additional knowledge has been gained For example if someone told you they had a nice conversation on a train the probability it was a woman they spoke with is 50 If they told you the person they spoke to was going to attend a quilt exhibition it is far more likely than 50 it is a woman a href http en wikipedia org wiki Bayes 27_theorem Introductory_example sup 1 sup a The probability of correctly assuming the gender increases because you have gained more information about the original problem Mathematically speaking you are now considering the probability that the person is a woman em given em that you know the person was attending a quilt exhibition knitting crocheting and quilting are more typically associated as being female hobbies An interesting quirk of Bayes Theorem is that it heavily relies upon sexism racism ageism and every other type of generalization imaginable in order to draw assumptions This is not because it is somehow prejudiced but rather because such categorizations can be shown to be statistically accurate The key is to have accurate statistics about the topic being generalized To borrow from the esteemed Sherlock Holmes You can never foretell what any one man will do but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to This is essentially the backbone of Bayes Theorem When Facebook analyzes my profile and notices that I have participated in a dozen different religions over the past 30 years their engine em should em make the assumption that I am interested in theology and various disciplines of spirituality As a result they re more likely to serve me ads and recommendations within this realm perhaps for spiritual books personal retreats or the like For a sizable majority of people these assumptions and recommendations will be accurate and should result in a better click through rate and ultimately more revenue But the truth is that I m an agnostic atheist and certainly couldn t care less about religious topics It might seem like childish anarchy but there is a legitimate rationale behind wanting to fool the engine As data analysis becomes more and more detailed namely due to our world being digitally cataloged companies are inventing coercive psychological tricks that manipulate consumers into spending more plain and simple The products aren t necessary getting better rather the science of selling the products is Advertisers argue there are benefits to more efficiently targeting customers but I believe these benefits fail to acknowledge the downside consumers face It s simply a matter of knowing far too much about a person while having the singular goal of acquiring their money If consumer manipulation is harmless I would have to strongly question why we condemn psychics for applying similar tricks while at the same time congratulating the business world Beyond psychological manipulation there are also legitimate privacy concerns that need to be taken into consideration much like the case of the pregnant teen If advertisements became completely personalized it would be possible to learn virtually anything about someone just by observing what they were suggested to buy never mind what they actually bought Whether or not a teenager should be made to disclose her pregnancy to her father is a matter for a different debate But I believe it s a pretty unanimous position that Target should not be involved at any level of the discussion There are dozens of very large players in this game at the moment but Facebook and Google are most likely the two best known Even people who may not grasp the complexity of personal data collection probably still suspect they re being cataloged and they re right But an interesting difference with Facebook versus say Google is that I believe their data pool can be distorted without inhibiting one from using their site If Facebook became em the em go to source for private personal information and that information was flawed it would potentially affect all other analysis of the individual as well The theoretical advantage a company like Google has is that it would extremely difficult to apply an idea like Bayesian Flooding to their model with any level of practicality Google s paid advertising is primarily based upon the user s active search query If you enter a false query you ll get answers to questions unimportant to you it would be a futile exercise Conversely and when you actually need to search for something the ad engine would still be just as effective since it runs in real time This is especially true of services like Gmail In order to flood a Gmail account not only would you have to send non sensible emails to contacts with some regularity often referred to in this sense as a href http en wikipedia org wiki Bayesian_poisoning Bayesian Poisoning a but recipients would have to reply in a similar manner Of course the only reason one sends email in the first place is to exchange communication and thus the purpose of the tool would again be lost at least in practical terms By contrast applying Bayesian Flooding to a Facebook profile is quite trivial and in no way inhibits one from still enjoying the many facets of their service The method only disturbs the advertising and recommendation model not the actual tool It is still possible to share photos exchange stories and ideas and comment on posts regardless of any superfluous details that happen to be associated with one s profile What s the real harm if someone on Facebook thinks I spent two years in the Pakistani National Army so long as I can still share photos with them from my recent trip to Canada With the release of their Timeline system anybody is free to add such details regardless of how accurate they are Now that Facebook has decided to become a publicly traded company it seems to me this is a pretty significant detail shareholders are likely to begin questioning It may even be one of the reasons as to why they have recently become so anxious to get people using their email services such services are much more complicated to fool as described via Google above The more people that begin to use Facebook for day to day emailing and chatting the more accurate and valuable each individual dossier becomes strong Results of the Experiment strong photo 261470 740 200 right Some of my current recommendations from the Facebook robot photo Thus far my experiment seems to be producing exactly the results I had hypothesized it would Whatever algorithm s Facebook uses to recommend pages is evidently picking up on my colorful assortment of life changing events This is a promising start for those interested in reducing what they re worth to Facebook as a human commodity Companies are willing to pay for advertisements because ads produce quantitative measurable results If one receives an advertisement that is irrelevant to them the cost of that ad space has been wasted If the cost of advertising outweighs the return on investment companies tend to stop advertising This is an oversimplification of the whole cycle but illustrates the basic premise Of course there are numerous methods Facebook uses to provide recommendations and advertisements to people Some are based on the likes of Facebook friends some are based on COOKIES from other sites and I would imagine that some are even based on internal browsing history So while it may not be possible to manipulate all of the personal information being collected about you the Timeline feature can at least be used to manipulate it to some degree at least per my own experimentation Incidentally I ve also discovered numerous bugs in their system most of them related to dates on the Timeline Although Facebook does not allow you add life events prior to your birth they do permit you to include other people in your life events that occurred before em they em were born I m sure Facebook will eventually fix this but for the time being I suspect it makes their Bayesian analysis that much more inaccurate strong Algorithmic Corrections strong It might be fair to ask if a company like Facebook would be able to adapt to something like Bayesian Flooding The short answer is that yes they most definitely would be able to Data mining companies can analyze all sorts of patterns illustrating how normal people tend to enter personal data Once normal behavior patterns are established it is not particularly difficult to flag outliers Of course what Facebook might do with such outliers requires a bit of speculation At worst they could be banned for intentionally misusing the system However it seems this would be a little short sighted as the user still carries a marketable value perhaps just less of one Instead I suspect they would be flagged to not receive certain kinds of advertisements thus not wasting advertisers money After all the company hosting the ad wants the product to sell as much as the company selling the product does Why else would the advertising dollars continue to pour in If Facebook chose to implement filters to detect this type of Bayesian Flooding people like myself would simply concoct new ways to further interfere with those filters perhaps by adding events at a slower rate or adding events more central to my actual life Facebook would then try to correct those methods and so on This is how technological cat and mouse games get started similar to fighting SPAM or attempting to prevent piracy As a technological rule of thumb every measure invented to curb a certain practice eventually has a counter measure to circumvent it But having written that there is an upside to those who take to Bayesian Flooding I very sincerely doubt enough people will be interested in the idea to create a blip on Facebook s radar much less change anything That probably means those wishing to partake would find success in the idea strong Conclusion strong While I ll definitely keep experimenting with their system it does seem for the time being that people can directly affect what advertisements they receive simply by flooding their profile The new Facebook Timeline feature makes this simple and even fun And though the idea may appear petty to some people those of us wishing to protect our privacy and avoid being cataloged by corporate America may find it beneficial to our cause If you have any comments or thoughts on this process please feel free to a href contact contact me a as always

Rebecca and Manderlay Oceanfront Property KEVIN LUDLOW RTF 317 FINAL PAPER REBECCA AND MANDERLAY OCEANFRONT PROPERTY FRAN GUILFOYLE APRIL 30 1999 In March of 1940 United Artists released one of Hitchcock s most memorable movies Staring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine Rebecca won the academy award for best picture of the year By this time Hitchcock had released over twenty other films none of which measured up to the intensity of Rebecca Why Perhaps because of the incredibly developed plot which Hitchcock managed to capture in perfection Rebecca has a series of plot twists within it Through these plot twists the viewer s feeling towards the characters changes steadily throughout the movie The resolution also remains uncertain up until the very last minute As the movie opens we learn that Mr de Winter Laurence Olivier is an extremely wealthy and unhappy man Hitchcock holds out on the audience as to why Mr de Winter is so unhappy but we are given some hints He soon falls in love with a young lady Joan Fontaine who is being a paid companion of one of Mr de Winter s female friends They know each other for an extremely short time period and are married Although this happens early within the story line there is certainly a feeling that Maxim is rushing things along from a viewing standpoint It appears that he is a lonely man searching for love and that he could not have found it with such a lady When we view Joan Fontaine s character at this point in the story we see her as a young and na ve girl that would do anything not to work as a servant It is hard for us to view her as a bold and independent woman ready to face the challenges of marriage and a new life The new Mrs De Winter is soon taken to the infamous castle of Manderlay the home of Maxim As the plot continues Mrs De Winter comes into many conflicts with a castle servant Mrs Danvers The servants look down upon her because they all compare her to the first Mrs De Winter Rebecca Around this point in the story Maxim gets very upset with Mrs De Winter on several occasions On one particular occasion Mrs Danvers dresses Mrs De Winters up in a beautiful ball gown for a party that Maxim is throwing It seems at this point that Mrs Danvers is being exceptionally nice to her and that she is a very dynamic character As Mrs De Winter makes her way down the grand staircase in the house Maxim is immediately upset with her He asks her where she got the nerve to wear such a costume and makes her take it off It is at this point that we realize that Mrs Danvers has tricked Mrs De Winter and is not changing after all Through sequences like this our emotions change for the characters From the first minute that we are introduced to Mrs Danvers we see that she is a bitter woman and almost get a sense of hatred towards her It appears that she will not change throughout the entire movie despite Mrs De Winter s constant kindness towards her As a viewer we had a sense of relief when it appeared that Mrs De Winter s efforts had finally paid off Especially after Mrs Danvers kindly created the dress for her Hitchcock had an incredible way of playing with our emotions in this way He would never reveal the behind the scenes look at Mrs Danvers but instead led us to believe that she was finally changing It is nothing more then a kick in the teeth when we find out how Mrs Danvers has wronged her once again Hitchcock could easily have shown us just for a second a mischievous look on Mrs Danvers face or anything to lead us to believe that she was up to no good but he did not This is one of the ways that he was able to create such incredible mysteries When it appears that she can take no more Mrs De Winter finally learns that Rebecca drowned while sailing in a storm or so it would seem We eventually learn from Maxim that his first marriage was nothing but a fraud and that Rebecca never did love him It was all for an image that he wanted to have Our emotions are once again toyed with at this point in the story Maxim goes into great detail about Rebecca at one point in the story and it almost seems as if the new Mrs De Winter is playing the same role to him that Rebecca did He tells her how he loves her and would not hurt her but can we really believe him at this point It seems that Maxim has been all but a good husband to his new wife since very early in the story There is no reason for the viewer to believe that he is all of a sudden going to change and be kind to her as he should We must also question the idea of what really happened to Rebecca Maxim has so much anger and aggression towards his ex wife that makes it seem as if he has killed her Obviously this is exactly what Hitchcock wanted us to believe or he would have told us otherwise through the use of flashbacks or narration Maxim s character has fluctuated throughout the film but around this point he is certainly at the peak of throwing us off He fell in love with Joan Fonatine s character in the first few minutes of the movie After marrying her he mistreats her and neglects to give her the love that she feels for him After it finally seems that he may be ready to tell the truth to Mrs De Winter it is impossible to decipher what the truth really is As an audience we feel that the only protagonist in the movie is Mrs De Winter Both Mrs Danvers and now Maxim seem to have turned for the worst He claims to be innocent of killing Rebecca but there is suspicion from her ex lover that foul play was involved For several scenes Hitchcock has us jumping back and forth in our heads trying to figure out what really did happen To view this movie for a second time with a person that has never seen it can be very humorous during these scenes The frustration level that Hitchcock manages to build up in our minds is incredible When we can finally take no more confusion abuse a doctor proves Maxim could not have killed Rebecca therefore changing our opinion of him once more To those who hated him for believing that he killed Rebecca and lied about it a sense of relief He is once more a likeable character but we now need to find out what really did happen to Rebecca However to those who loved the idea of Maxim being a killer and not really loving Mrs De Winter the frustration sets back in Someone obviously killed Rebecca and if we can prove that it was not Maxim who was it We have learned that Maxim did not in fact kill his wife However about three fourths of the way into the movie we learn that she wanted to die She committed suicide Even though Rebecca is never actually in the film this brings up several questions as to the kind of person that she was She had gotten almost everything out of life that one could possibly ask for She was given an incredible home in which to live more money then she could possibly spend a husband and even servants She did lack one thing however love As a viewer it is hard for us to feel sorry for Rebecca She is the second hand cause of the pain and suffering that the new Mrs De Winter has gone through But still she was willing to take her own life As we learn more and more from Maxim we not only begin to understand how their marriage was a fraud but also Maxim would be ruined if he left her Rebecca claimed that she would tell people how their marriage was a fraud which would make him look terrible in a to others As we hear more and more from Maxim we begin to feel less sorry for Rebecca and more sorrowful towards Maxim Although after time there was not necessarily love in their marriage he still gave her everything that a person could give to another He was also not abusive to her like we might expect To make things even worse Rebecca happened to take her life in the presence of Maxim It is hard to speculate whether or not she did this on purpose which leaves more confusion inside of us She may have purposely killed herself in front of Maxim for the sake of making him remember such a site or she may have just thought it was a way to make things right Rebecca s last intentions alive are never really unveiled in the story line but we know she is dead and that Maxim witnessed it Whether you have loved and prospered or loved and lost it would be a horrible site to see a loved one take their own life To complete this confusing sequence we learn that Maxim put a body on another boat and sent it off in the storm He was afraid of what people might say to find his wife had killed herself or worse to be accused of murder When the authorities found the boat they assumed that it was Rebecca but could not tell because of the damage that the body had gone through Maxim could not face the reality of his own life and was forced to make these decisions in haste Many people could say that Maxim was not a very smart man because of such a decision but I feel that in such a case others would do the same He placed Rebecca on a sailboat and caused it to sink which leads to the previous explanation of her body being found As the story nears an end the new Mr and Mrs De Winter are almost able to go about their lives but not before one more fateful scene As they return home to Manderlay they discover that the beautiful mansion has been set ablaze We feel almost sorry for the turn of events in Maxim s life and now it has gotten even worse One of the final shots reveals Mrs Danvers in the window of the burning building with an expression of pure evil on her face We as viewers are racing with mixed feelings about the plot while watching this scene It finally becomes evident that Mrs Danvers can be considered the antagonist in the movie not only to Maxim but also to his wife When we look back at all of the wrongfulness that Mrs Danvers has brought upon Mrs De Winter we feel a sense of justice being done As in most classical Hollywood narratives the antagonist is taken care of In this particular case it is safe to assume that she has killed herself At the same time however it brings a feeling of sadness to us to see Maxim s estate burned to a ground by a servant that he has housed and fed for so many years Also by this time all of our feelings that Maxim could have been a bad man have been altered He did not kill Rebecca he married Mrs De Winter because he loved her and yet everything that he owned has been destroyed It is terribly upsetting or is it One of Hitchcock s views towards movie making was never to leave the audience with the antagonist getting his or her way He would create that realm of suspense and make you think that everything had gone wrong but then fix it The protagonist will win So leave it to him to once again twist things around for the better If we read into what Manderlay really was we find that it was nothing more then a graveyard of memories of Rebecca Everything from the carpet to the ceiling was designed and picked out by Rebecca Maxim is finally given a chance through fate to start a new life to rid himself of the horrible memories that Rebecca has left him with Of course who better to do it then Rebecca s personal servant Mrs Danvers Although it is somewhat harder to find then in many of Hitchcock s movies all is well for the protagonists We feel a sense of relief for Maxim and are happy that he and Mrs De Winter can move on I can only imagine if the story had continued that Mr and Mrs De Winter would be seen building their own house together As we look back at this immeasurable plot line we can understand why Rebecca was such a successful movie With the exception of Mrs De Winter every character goes through drastic changes throughout the film or so Hitchcock got us to believe Mr and Mrs De Winter are clearly the protagonists of the movie Maxim and Mrs Danvers appear to be very dynamic characters but I disagree Mrs Danvers has nothing but bitterness running throughout her from the beginning of the film until her death At times it seems that she is changing but it never does once stick with her Maxim is just the opposite He is so full of love for his new wife but it seems at times that he is not treating her as he should He is however merely trying to protect her from the past that he himself can not deal with As things wind down it is quite clear that he is still full of love and that his second marriage has a strong foundation It has been said that a fool builds his house on sand and a wise man on solid ground If this is true Manderlay was a beach Fortunately for Maxim solid ground was just around the corner

Mario Van Peebles Mouseman III strong Introduction strong Around November or so of 2002 I went to the PetsMart and decided that I would bring home a mouse to keep as a pet He lived inside of an aquarium in my bathroom and all of his toys and playhuts were custom built by me in the woodshop It wasn t but a few days that I decided I would go back to PetsMart and purchase a few more of these fury little bastards 4 more to be precise strong Mouse Dominance strong This was perfectly fine until I started noticing and subsequently read on the web that mice apparently will attack one another when they are attempting to mate with females Not only will they attack one another but they begin spraying their love all over the place Granted this love scent was confined to the aquarium but after a few days time it really began to stink For this reason alone people seem to recommend only getting all males or all females so that dominance will not be such an issue Well sadly enough it was not long before my mice starting dying One was dead one day another the next and the cycle went on for about 2 more weeks There were finally only two mice left in the cage and though they both seemed to be doing ok I was sure they would die within the next few days I was half right one of them did Obviously I wasn t too hopeful that the other one would survive at this point but I continued to build him things to crawl on ladders to climb etc photo 35998 739 0 right Mario Van Peebles Mouseman III photo photo 35982 739 0 right Profiling for the camera photo strong Naming the Survivor strong Days and then weeks went by before it occurred to me that this mouse was not going to die which incidentally was good news to me I rewarded him with a name for having outlasted all of his brethren And so was born strong Mario Van Peebles Mouseman III strong a k a Mousie Many people have asked me over the years where the name actually came from While on a Rioudosa NM skiing trip in 2001 with a few friends of mine I built a snowman one night The next morning my dear friend Preston Graham saw it and for whatever reason named him Mario Van Peebles Snowman The III suffix was later added to the snowman s name and so when I purchased the mice months later I brought the name back into play photo 35966 739 0 right Mousie s new cage photo photo 35974 739 0 right Maybe the emails really did come from Mario photo strong Departing the Company of Mario strong I kept Mousie as entertained as one could for several months I played with him often built him complex mazes to run through would let him swim around in a lukewarm bath and really all of the other things one does with a pet mouse But as my travels to New Zealand were nearing I needed to find him a temporary sitter My sister agreed to care for him during the year I would be abroad She sent me webcam pics of him with some regularity see below and otherwise did an excellent job of keeping me informed of his life in Arkansas where she was attending college strong The Fate of Mousie strong I gave Mousie to my sister around mid June of 2003 and left for New Zealand I had Mousie for about 8 months prior to this As I said before my sister kept me informed of his status with emails and pictures while I was away in New Zealand with Tisa though I was looking forward to getting to see him when I returned to the states I got back from New Zealand in late March of 2004 and for whatever reason Mousie was not around because my sister had not yet returned from college for the summer Regardless since I didn t have my apartment setup back in Austin just yet I asked my sister to hang on to him for just a little while longer My sister and her boyfriend were coming up to Austin to see a concert in June of 2004 and I was finally going to be reunited with Mousie after having not seen him for over a year The day they came up Kim organized all of his things packed up his toys and cleaned his cage one final time before bringing him back to me Midday I received a call from my mother telling me to call Kim as she was horribly upset I rang her and she was crying rather hysterically After calming down a bit she explained to me that Mario had just died We re really not sure what killed him though the best we could come up with was the stress of moving him around to clean the cage There weren t any chemicals used to clean the cage and in any case it was entirely open thus he would not have inhaled them It is a sad fact to face I ll never see Mario Van Peebles Mouseman III again strong The Memorial strong Apparently my sister posted this link about Mario on some site named a href http www ilovedmypet com view asp id 11849 I Loved My Pet a It says the link will only be active until August 28th 2005 but this has persisted for years Here is what she wrote em Mario Van Peebles Mouseman III Mousie was born in a PetsMart in Austin Texas and was loving adopted along with 4 of his siblings by Kevin Ludlow Mario truly embodied Darwin s survival of the fittest outliving all of his relatives and ultimately becoming Kevin s adored pet Kevin and Mousie enjoyed each other s company and the many memories of their brief life together live in Kevin s memory daily Kevin s moved to New Zealand forced him to relinquish his beloved pet to his sister Kim Ludlow of Houston Kim sent Kevin countless pictures and updates which allowed him to keep track of Mousie s progress Kim and Mario ultimately moved and Mousie enjoyed a stint in Arkansas before eventually returning to Houston in route to Austin where he would once again live with Kevin Unfortunately Mario was never able to experience a reunion with his original owner and tragically he passed away moments before his journey home to Austin began em

American Healthcare Part III Healthcare vs Health Insurance Before the United States can even begin to make progress towards sensible healthcare policies Americans must first comprehend what is being debated Over the past few decades and certainly throughout the healthcare debates of 2010 the terms health insurance and healthcare have been increasingly used to mean the same thing In fact the phrases are frequently interchanged throughout interviews debates and occasionally even on the Congressional floor It has not surprised me in the least that most politicians have carefully avoided clarifying the topics at times even dismissing the differences as mere semantics But however insistent politicians might remain on the synonymy nothing could be further from the truth Stated very clearly health care and health insurance are two fundamentally different ideas Health insurance is nothing more than a subset of any other insurance In general insurance is a system that hedges a fiscal value against the risk factor of potential financial loss It is nothing more than a legitimate system of gambling albeit there appears to be a great deal of reluctance to associate that term with it Nevertheless in the specific case of health insurance it is responsible for covering the medical costs of the policyholder in the event of an emergency This is specifically why insurance policies for those with pre existing conditions have been significantly higher than those without It is also why insurance policies for those who commonly partake in dangerous activities have been significantly higher as well In both cases the risk of financial loss is elevated and thus a higher wager needed to cover that risk so to speak Healthcare by very stark contrast is simply the treating of an injury or illness both mental and physical by trained medical professionals The most important distinction between these two phrases is that healthcare has absolutely nothing to do with financial risk mitigation it has only to do with the wellness of human beings When we allow politicians to intertwine these terms at their convenience or when we do it ourselves it makes it impossible to discuss obvious and costly flaws within the system Whether some form of universal coverage were to exist or not we all understand that some form of healthcare is required this is fairly simple to comprehend as we all have been witness to injury and illness But by conflating these terms this also assumes that we need health insurance as well and that is not necessarily true One of the first things we have to remember about insurance is that it is a business plain and simple It is not a privilege for the public to freely indulge and it certainly does not operate like a charity Like all businesses the two most important functions are keeping costs low and profits high This in no way precludes a business from being altruistic but if it is unable to be profitable then it eventually ceases to be Likewise if a company is unable to sustain upward growth in the long run then there is typically little incentive to continue improving it In order for the business to succeed it is imperative that a demand exist for the products or services the company sells The insurance market is no exception to this rule ask any insurance salesman But slightly more counter intuitive is considering where consumer demand comes from within the insurance market and understanding how politicians and insurance companies can manipulate this demand When it comes to insurance there are two specific prerequisites that must be met in order for demand to exist The first one is fear and the second is high costs This might sound like the introduction of a conspiracy theory but it is actually quite logically sound and in fact exactly what drives the market For example consider the likeliness of someone from Omaha Nebraska insuring a one million dollar home against earthquakes Or for that matter the likeliness of someone from Los Angeles California insuring a five hundred dollar tool shed against earthquakes In the case of Omaha there is absolutely no history of earthquakes throughout the state so there is no reason to fear such a cataclysm And in the case of Los Angeles where earthquakes are fairly common there is little reason to insure something of such inconsequential relative value Even if the shed crumbled entirely to the ground the total cost to rebuild would not exceed five hundred dollars and could hardly be considered financially devastating This is again why fear and high costs play such a vital role in creating the demand for insurance Consumers must first be convinced that whatever they are buying protection from actually has a statistically realistic chance of occurring If you purchase fire insurance for your home you must first assume your home could catch fire If you purchase comprehensive auto insurance for your car you must first assume you could be in an accident And if you purchase renters insurance for your apartment you must first assume that your possessions could be destroyed or stolen The complementary factor of high cost is what fuels the frenzy Many families spend decades paying off their home mortgage Should their home suddenly catch fire and burn to the ground the valuation would be so high that they could not realistically afford to replace it this would be a highly devastating financial loss for them The same is true of most vehicles and personal estate belongings The high value of these goods combined with the fear of losing them is what creates the demand for insurance Historically speaking the open market has shown that most people are willing to pay small reoccurring fees for a little peace of mind should the unthinkable occur Despite what some people may wish to believe it is important to understand that it is impossible to insure sentimentality or that which is irreplaceable Insurance cannot replace things it can only repay their perceived valuation Therefore in order to insure anything that which is to be insured must first be assigned a monetary value It is probably fair to say that insurance is really nothing more than a service provider of financial security But it is really only a useful service if we first believe or are convinced that we could find ourselves financially insecure In a consumer driven market most businesses have a desire to see the costs of goods and services remain low this generally allows them to sell more products Insurance companies are unique in that they have a vested interest in seeing the costs of goods and services remain high That is to say the more expensive things become the more expensive they become to replace Consequently the service of selling a financial safety net appears all the more necessary This is perfectly fine when we consider most insurance markets because there is no way to significantly influence or alter the marketplace In other words it is virtually impossible to predict any sort of truly calamitous event the very things that insurance is designed to protect against Nobody can predict that their house is going to burn to the ground one morning or that they are going to be in an accident while heading out for a drive or that they will be burglarized while away on vacation Furthermore unless insurance agencies began secretly committing acts of arson reckless endangerment or larceny respectively then they have no way to increase the likeliness of these occurrences Over the years they have used hundreds of fear based marketing campaigns to increase the perceived need for insurance but even these tactics can only have so much of an impact given basic day to day observation This is specifically why most insurance works rather well it relies on true actuarial calculations that factor the likeliness of incidents versus the costs of loss and base both on historical and market factors But in the case of health insurance the problem is that the calculations are no longer exclusively based upon unpredictable calamitous events This allows the risk factors we paying to be insured against to be directly manipulated by the same companies providing the policies Americans have become convinced that health insurance should serve as some sort of financial subsidy for even the most basic of healthcare needs This creates a goldmine of business opportunity for health insurance companies Imagine for a moment if we relied upon our homeowners insurance for all of the minor repairs we made to our house or if mechanics had to collect payment from our auto insurance provider after every oil change It might sound a little ridiculous but these are exactly the same types of expectations that we have deemed acceptable within the specific realm of health insurance It would certainly be possible in both cases for insurance agencies to handle these rather mundane necessities but not without significant base cost increases If we allowed those changes to take place we would no longer be paying for a financial safety net to cover the unpredictable losses of our homes and vehicles respectively that would only be part of it The other and more significant part would consist paying a middleman to manage our personal business dealings with other private companies And this is exactly how modern health insurance companies have managed to alter the face of the American healthcare system They have slowly propped themselves into the position of executing most healthcare decisions in the country But given how susceptible routine healthcare is to the influence of regular markets this creates an unbelievable conflict of interest and Americans are the ones who are suffering as a result We need to again be reminded that insurance companies just like medical service providers are businesses This means that most Americans who hold health insurance policies are just paying one corporation the insurer so that corporation can pay another the medical service provider Only in doing so the insurance company attaches whatever restrictions it wishes to the transaction and still takes money off the top This is not the premise of insurance The fact that we schedule doctor appointments weeks and months in advance with the intention of using insurance as the method of payment is evidence of this It shows exactly how ignorant we have become of this fiscal reality But at the same time it is hardly fair to blame insurance companies for their part As we have already examined their objective as a business is to maximize profits not to indulge in altruism The system described above presents them with a lucrative way in which to accomplish their objective Americans need to be willing to take their share of responsibility for carelessly buying into their practices This mentality has been in place for over two decades and the problem is only worsening There are a host of very serious consumer drawbacks that arise from giving a business this type of control over personal monetary decisions Specifically health insurance abstracts the cost structure of goods and services In the traditional sense of how insurance works this is not the case because the policyholder is only compensated for his or her financial loss If one s house burns down or one s car is destroyed an adjuster determines the valuation and a check is paid in that amount How that check is spent remains the decision of the policyholder We have developed the expectation that health insurance should be used more like a credit card or gift card provided we can show proof of our prepaid policy the bill is paid for or at least most of it is When every single transaction is routed through an insurance claim like this regardless of how minor it is the ability to know what we are spending money on becomes exceptionally difficult The need to care about what we are spending money on is removed from the equation entirely When the financial transaction is abstracted and insurance simply covers it the consumer has little reason to exercise any fiscal responsibility at all The customer could have been charged for dozens of unnecessary services but what is their incentive to dispute these charges given they are not the one paying the bill This is similar to arguments against a number of welfare practices The fact is that reckless consumerism is easily observable in any marketplace deprived of fiscal consideration Although it might make goods and services appear to be free or at least inexpensive in the long run it is something we all wind up paying for while somebody else profits Consider for a moment what it might be like if we really did expect our auto insurer to pay for routine oil changes and other minor maintenance If that were to become the case auto insurance companies would find themselves in the position of having almost complete control over the marketplace They could begin dictating what type of services could be performed what brand of oils could be used and even how frequently cars could be brought in for service They might even begin requiring mechanics to send in logs of the car s computer This could help to ensure that the driver was driving within appropriate limits since they would legitimately have a vested interest in the operating conditions of the car There might be various lawsuits over consumer privacy rights but with such an enormous marketplace lawyers and lobbyists could be hired to sort that out And on the other side of the equation what would prevent mechanics from acting in their own self interest and performing more comprehensive and expensive tests on vehicles Like all other businesses their objective is to maximize profit margins as well The insurance company would likely impose some fixed limits but they would still not have many practical ways in which to control spending And even beyond that what incentive would exist for limiting spending in the first place If the cost of regular maintenance began to rise as it undoubtedly would the insurance company would just pass those additional costs onto their customers Given the volume of their customer base and ability to track statistical usage they would be in the unique position to raise their rates slowly while the actual costs of goods and services simultaneously rose rather quickly It would even be in best interest of the vehicle s owner to request every possible test to make every minor repair and to replace anything that was remotely showing signs of wear Since the bill would already be paid for in advance no less what would inhibit the owner from requesting the utmost of care for his or her vehicle If we apply some numbers to this imagine that the mechanic tells the customer they can get a standard oil change for 35 or a comprehensive oil change for 40 In both cases they are informed that insurance will cover the full cost Naturally most will pick the more expensive option since it will be perceived as better and is paid for by insurance regardless That seemingly small increase just by itself already represents a base cost increase of over fourteen percent Since the insurance company is the one paying the end bill they know exactly how much customers are spending on oil changes and how often they are paying for this service The math is a bit more involved but if most consumers began to take the more expensive option and required service an average of 4 25 times per year the insurance company would need to cover an additional 21 25 per customer per year If we also assume that the insurance company took an additional dollar off the top they would have to raise rates by 22 25 per customer per year to cover their costs and also increase their profits This is where basic marketing principles and human psychology play a vital role By itself an additional 22 25 seems like a reasonably large jump in price But when this rate is spread across the entire year insurance policy holders would only see an increase of about 1 85 per month far below the threshold of any real concern This is exactly how the insurance bill would look and exactly how an insurance salesman would explain this to a client But now the mechanic is routinely charging more the insurance company is routinely collecting more and the customer winds up paying more for a supposed higher end service that they have never previously required in the first place As more and more people begin purchasing the expensive options the perceived market value of the service begins to rise in accordance In other words there is an illusion that the market is demanding a better service and that people are willing to pay more for that service when in fact neither is really true As the costs begin to rise those who are uninsured quickly find themselves having to spend more and more for the same routine car maintenance since the perception is that the market will bear more for these services Eventually this allows the insurance company to further justify how they can help the consumer but only because they are responsible for artificially driving up market rates in the first place This is how health insurance providers have a tremendous ability to manipulate the price of the market This is a purely fictitious example but also a parallel of how modern health insurance companies have fundamentally changed the landscape of expectations within the United States Moreover how Americans have willfully bought into the practices They have blinded people from the reality that routine healthcare service would otherwise not be unusually expensive to begin with This is especially true when compared to the high monthly costs that most modern health insurance plans charge Statistically the need for routine healthcare does not occur all too frequently and is relatively predictable in nature In the wintertime for example North Americans experience an elevated risk of colds and flus and will be more likely in need of doctors In the summer months this need drops off rather precipitously So why then is the country paying such high rates to have these uncertainties accounted for when in fact the alleged uncertainties are relatively predictable to begin with Why not just let customers pay doctors directly for their basic services and let insurance protect against truly unpredictable medical needs What originated as a legitimate branch of insurance has devolved into a bureaucratic and corporate driven system of healthcare administration It has become in every way imaginable a bloated and completely unnecessary component of the American healthcare system This is in no way to suggest that health insurance is not beneficial or that it should not be purchased To the contrary and like many other insurances health insurance can be invaluable in its ability to protect against financial loss when unpredictable accidents and medical emergencies occur We should ask ourselves both as individuals and as a nation whether we are purchasing insurance to cover our medical losses or just to manage our routine healthcare costs If it is the latter then we need to understand that this is not insurance at all it is just an abstracted and convoluted corporate hegemony of financial manipulation and administration Whether various industries associated with American healthcare are intentionally engaging in collusive behavior is purely speculative and a matter for debate However if the health insurance industry has the ability to drive costs upward inadvertently or otherwise and we know that the fundamental purpose of business is to maximize profits then how can we ignore the glaringly obvious risk this places upon us Is it actually reasonable to expect that businesses should act in the interest of consumers This is why it becomes imperative that people understand how healthcare and health insurance are fundamentally different terms The blurred relationship between these is two ideas and the resulting ignorance is a significant factor in why American healthcare costs have continued to rise for years And as of March 23rd 2010 President Obama and the 111th Congress of the United States legally intertwined the two as one em continued in a href blog 2131 American_Healthcare__Part_IV_An_Unpredictable_Event Part IV An Unpredictable Event a em

Using C Channels to Construct a Steel and Cedar Fence strong style font size 16px Introduction strong This is a new method that I came up with for building a Steel and Cedar fence using stainless steel C Channels in place of other methods like angle iron photo 1007020 1162992 0 center A section of the fence shortly after completion photo One of the difficulties of building a steel and cedar fence is the process of physically adhering the cedar pickets to the steel itself While this might not be immediately obvious at first the mechanics behind it actually create quite a lot of work for anybody building this type of fence The typical method used is to weld angle iron pieces to the vertical posts They are positioned on the inner tracts of each section and allow various types of backing boards to be screwed onto them These backing boards can then be used to affix the cedar planks I came up with a new method for accomplishing this same process by using Stainless Steel C Channels The channels allow for standard pressure treated 1x4s to be slid into the channel slots These are then used to affix the cedar just as in the standard method Here s a detailed video of how I made this work Full textual instructions can be found below that iframe width 521 height 391 src https www youtube com embed kH8RfF6ag2k frameborder 0 allowfullscreen iframe strong style font size 16px Acquiring C Channels strong Once I came up with a proof of concept for the work the first challenge was just acquiring all of the C Channels I found what I needed at Home Depot but I thought surely my local metal distributor would have these at a better price and quite possibly in longer segments It turns out that I was mistaken My local steel company sold C Channels too but unfortunately they were quite different from what I actually needed If you look at the two of them side by side you can see that one of them has angled edges The reason for this is how they manufacturer them photo 1007908 1163037 0 center Two different types of C Channels one with straight walls that I found at Home Depot and one with angled walls that I found at my usual metal distributor photo The C Channel on the right which I m told is called pig iron is actually manufactured in the forge They start with a solid brick of steel and then use a press to carve out the channel The problem is that excess steel has to go somewhere and so it s left behind in the channel That s what forms the angled grooves photo 1008800 1163068 0 left Some of the C Channels I acquired at Home Depot just before cutting them photo By contrast the C Channel on the left is made from an existing piece of flattened stainless steel They use a machine to bend the two sides of it This creates the channel with the straight walls This is an important distinction for the method that I came up with and these types of C Channels are required for the process to work properly Once I had all of the C Channels that I needed I laid out half of them on a ladder next to me and started on the process of preparing them br style clear both strong style font size 16px Jig to Cut the C Channels strong Given that Home Depot only sells the stainless steel C Channels in 36 pieces I needed make literally hundreds of cuts for the 3 1 2 pieces that would be useful on the fence To ensure they were done with relative precision I built a simple jig out of some scrap wood The jig was designed so that the C Channel could be slid into a groove with walls on either side locking it firmly into place The outermost edge had a wall that would stop it from being inserted any farther into the jig In order to get the proper cut the C Channel had to abut this outer wall I left a several inch wide gap in the two side walls The 3 1 2 cutline that I needed was where the gap first started So in other words so long as I cut the C Channel as close to that edge as possible the resulting piece would be sufficient for what I needed with a precision of maybe photo 1006757 1163068 0 center The jig I built for cutting the 36 C Channels into 3 1 2 pieces photo It took about three hours for me to cut all of the pieces that I needed It should be noted that safety equipment is of the utmost importance here In addition to always needing safety gear when working with a grinder and cutting steel the sheer volume of the material being cut produced an unbelievable amount of metal dust and shavings For that reason alone I would strongly advise wearing a breather as well as an apron Metal dust and shavings are incredibly difficult to get out your clothing What s worse is that because so many of our modern conveniences rely on strong magnets your phone for example the tiny shards of metal will get stuck to everything and are very difficult to remove photo 1007008 1163068 0 center A view of the jig I used after cutting hundreds of C Channels photo photo 1007588 1163068 0 center Some of the metal dust that resulted from the massive amounts of cuts made photo photo 1006320 1163068 0 left The Homer work bucket filled with 3 1 2 C Channel pieces photo After each cut I d just toss the 3 1 2 C Channel into a Homer work bucket The bucket eventually became extremely heavy but not so much that I couldn t move it around It provided an easy way to move them to each fence section as we worked on welding them into place br style clear both strong style font size 16px Welding the C Channels strong Welding the C Channels into place wasn t especially difficult but it did require some reasonable welding skills Admittedly they don t require a lot of welding to secure them to the frames but rather can be adhered with just a few well positioned tacks We found that placing a tack on the underbelly of each C Channel as well two tacks on the outer portion of each one worked just fine photo 1006326 1162987 0 left One of the C Channels tacked into place The board in this photo is a standard 1x4 untreated common board This was used as a test but only pressure treated wood was used for the final product photo Assuming each fence section is 8 feet wide you should plan on having 3 pairs of C Channels per fence section One pair on each of the outermost parts of the section and then one pair dead center If you have any sections of fence that exceed 8 feet in width you might consider using 4 pairs of C Channels for such a section In that case use two pairs on the outermost posts of the section and then space two more pairs equally within the section itself Keep in mind that if you do this you ll want to divide the width of the fence section by THREE and not by four The reason is because you need to use the number of gaps required 3 for the math and not the number of channel pairings 4 br style clear both Once you have all of the C Channels welded into place you ll want to paint them For a black fence I d recommend using Rustoleum Black Gloss paint You can use a brush if you prefer but I found the spray was much easier for painting the C Channels given their irregular shape and how small they are Still though this is entirely a preference At this point you ll be ready to start attaching the 1x4 backing boards These should be pressure treated boards and you ll want to make sure that you spend time carefully choosing the boards to ensure minimal warping Horizontal warping is especially problematic with this method given the boards will need to be properly fit between each pair of channels You ll want them to be as straight as possible photo 1007402 1162987 0 center Pallet of pressure treated Yellawood 1x4s at Home Depot photo I found that cutting all of the backing boards was probably the most labor intensive part of the entire job Because of the unusual shape of the C Channels it can be difficult to properly measure the height that you need Ideally you would run the tape measure from the floor of the lower C Channel to the ceiling of the upper C Channel However given that each C Channel is just thick you can simply measure the distance between the two horizontal steel tubes and then subtract from the total required height This is what I found easiest I also tended to err on the longer side of my measurements as I needed to ensure that each backing board was snugly fit into place Consequently I would measure the distance needed and then subtract just under from the measurement before making the cut This would usually result in the board being slightly too long to fit inside of the C Channel pairing I would simply set the bottom part of the 1x4 in the lower channel and then see how close it was to fitting inside of the upper channel Once I could see how much was left to cut I could usually eyeball it from there and make very small adjustments While this took a lot of additional time I wanted to ensure I got the height of the 1x4 as perfectly fit as I could This would occasionally mean I had to make 3 or 4 cuts on the same piece of wood but I think the results speak for themselves in terms of the precision that I ended up with photo 1008192 1162987 0 center A section of the fence with three backing boards and a single cedar picket held onto the bottom This was still testing the proof of concept photo I should also note that just because the left side of your fence section measures some height does not mean that the right side will have an equal height While you should have certainly used a level when installing the horizontal tubing it s very possible that there will still be a slight angle to the tube resulting in one side being slightly higher or lower than the other While this isn t generally perceptible to the eye provided you indeed used a level it makes a significant difference fitting the 1x4s given the precision required to slide them into the channels The backing boards should fit perfectly into place between each pair of the C Channels While you don t want them to be loose in any way you also shouldn t require a great deal of force to knock them into place I found that they worked best when they required a gently tapping from my hand or a mallet But that s basically it Once all of the backing boards are in place you can proceed with installing the cedar pickets as you normally would Cut them to width and then screw them into the backing boards photo 1007134 1162988 0 center Various sections of the fence with the backing boards exposed photo br style clear both strong style font size 16px Attach the Cedar Pickets strong Assuming that you re using 1x6 cedar pickets and paired with the 1x4s this means that the total amount of usable wood depth should be 1 I used Spax 8 1 decking screws for the job This ensured that none of them would penetrate the 1 of depth The brand is generally very well received for these kinds of jobs photo 1006295 1162988 0 center The boxes of Spax screws required to affix all of the cedar pickets photo If you have any questions about how to apply this method please feel free to contact me photo 1008052 1162988 0 center Working on cutting and affixing the cedar pickets to one side of the fence photo photo 1007281 1162988 0 center Me after getting the first few sections of fencing finished after weeks of hard work photo