The Billy Graham Rule

For those raised with urban values, rural sensibilities are often confounding, difficult to understand and even more difficult to internalize and accept. Combine these differentiating value systems with one of the most complex aspects of formalized religion: those allowed over the centuries to interpret a faith and add embellishments to it. While we see harsh Muslim clerics embrace austerity and chastity at levels that challenge everything we are, that proclivity to interpret has also been with Christianity since inception.

Most Christians are unaware that the New Testament took almost six centuries from the time of Christ to mature into acceptable text (and there are obviously different versions of that sacred tome). From the leaders of various forms of Orthodoxy and Catholicism to the challenges of Martin Luther and the interpretation of a litany of evangelical clerics, what is or isn’t accepted as “Christianity” has been fluid and evolving; very little of what is practiced being the actual words of Jesus Christ.

The glue of faith is often a bond stronger in those who live in isolation – homes not adjacent but separated by vast tracts of land – people whose very livelihood hinges on the bounty of weather and the freedom from natural catastrophe. Farm values. Lives impacted by nature, seemingly well out of man’s control. Faith, a belief that by following the perceived dictates of faith, God’s bounty will be their blessing, freedom from natural harm their gift. When natural harm imposes itself, when bounty seems withdrawn, there is often a search for what deviation from basic tenets may have angered God accordingly. Basic. Atavistic almost. But one very strong reason such evangelical passion is so exceptionally immutable.

Urban values tend to be built on the complexity of crowded human interaction. Mutual dependence. A notion that rules, laws and market forces are the drivers, not abstract weather patterns and natural phenomena. A belief that man makes, creates and controls. Bounty emanates from economic success, working hard or generating valuable capital. Land is called “real estate,” and its bounty is determined by “property values.” With more personal interaction, rules are more fluid, more realistic. Sex in a big city, where lots of people connect all the time, versus in a small rural community where contacts are sparse and sexual scandal can taint an entire town, straining relationships for decades.

Through most of the 20^th century and into the 21^st, one super-respected evangelist stood nobly above the rest. Coming from those rural roots, he proselytized four basic, fundamental and very conservative values by which Christians should live their faith. “William Franklin ‘Billy’ Graham Jr., [was] one of the nation’s most prominent Christian evangelists for more than six decades before his 2018 death. Graham preached to millions and was pastor to presidents.

“In 1948, Graham and his ministry established rules of conduct to shield themselves against the negative repercussions of a variety of misconduct, including financial and sexual, wrote professor of religion at Central Michigan University Sara Moslener in an essay for Religion Dispatches. One of those rules was that a man should never be alone in a room with a woman who was not his wife.” Suhauna Hussain writing for the Los Angeles Times, July 15^th.

When uber-conservative Vice-Presidential nominee Mike Pence, now Donald Trump’s second in command, declared that he could not be alone in a room with a member of the opposite sex, those with urban values scoffed. He was simply a relic of a bygone era that bore little or no connection to 21^st century American reality. But his belief resonated with fellow adherents of rural values, to those who followed the elements of Billy Graham dictates. Here is the most recent trigger of that value system:

“Robert Foster, a first-term Mississippi state representative running for governor, declined to allow a female reporter to cover a campaign trip — that is, unless she brought a male colleague with her… Foster said in a tweet that the rejection resulted from a pledge he made to his wife that he would follow the ‘Billy Graham rule,’ to ‘avoid any situation that may evoke suspicion or compromise of our marriage.’

“Larrison Campbell, the Mississippi Today reporter denied access, wrote in an article Tuesday night that Foster’s campaign manager told her a male colleague would need to accompany her on the 15-hour trip because the optics of a candidate alone with a woman could be used to insinuate an affair… Campbell and her editor thought “the request was sexist and an unnecessary use of resources given this reporter’s experience covering Mississippi politics.” Campbell says the practice has unfair and untoward implications for her and other women.” LA Times. To some, the MeToo# movement provides many examples to men of why they should not work with women. Not exactly what was intended.

What may seem unrealistic and even perverse to those with modern urban values, and definitely an obstacle in the path of an upwardly mobile, educated and ambitious woman, is just a fact of life to a rather large number of Americans. “What is the Billy Graham rule and where does it come from?...

“Jonathan Merritt, religion writer and author of ‘Learning to Speak God From Scratch,’ grew up in the Southern Baptist community. His father, who served as president of the Southern Baptist Convention in the early 2000s, and other prominent conservative pastors would essentially brag about how they never met alone with women, he said.

“Women’s bodies, said Merritt, were viewed as objects of temptation. Religious leaders were meant to be above reproach, and in order to maintain that status they avoided being alone with women, Merritt said… ‘Graham was known as an evangelical of impeccable character,’ Merritt explained. ‘He’s No. 1 — he’s the guy, and so it makes total sense that people make an effort to emulate him.’” LA Times.

In a country that is 85% urban, with tons of acceleration of ethnic, racial, gender and religious diversity, these are adherents of a view that sinful existence will punish the United States (like the natural disasters that urbanites blame on global climate change) and marginalize both their constituency and their values… values they associate with their vision of the United States of America. Immigration is also a vehicle for the erosion of their constituency and their values.

These diverse views of the universe, of faith, help explain the intransigence of Don Trump’s base. There are fighting for their God, their way of life and their values… so out-of-step with the urbanization all around them. They double down, dig in their heels, some ready to fight and kill to preserve what they believe is God’s intention. Time may correct this imbalance, this polarization, or it just might break this nation into pieces. Whatever happens, it is critical for the urbanized world to understand, even respect, where these diehard evangelicals are coming from. They are probably doomed to failure, given the rapid shift of American demographics, but expect them to go down fighting.

            I’m Peter Dekom, and the vituperative polarization all around us is probably the anthesis of what our Founding Fathers intended but is very much a fact of America life today.

Escaping Escalating Nuclear Risks

Europe has sent a message to the United States, loud and clear: By unilaterally withdrawing from the UN, six-party Iran nuclear containment accord (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), you have undone the protections we negotiated with Iran, provoked them, and they are resuming building their nuclear weapons capabilities. The Iran accord had seriously effective inspection requirements. Even your own military said the accord was working.

You have swatted the wasps’ nest of Tehran’s hatred of all things American, sent your ships of war into threatening waters, launched drones, imposed additional killer economic sanctions and moved to the brink of out-and-out war. They have responded with mines and unsubtle assaults on passing tankers. You have easy oil; we do not. Iran is in our backyard, not yours. Europe thus has to live with the egotistical consequences of your autocratic “America First” president, which is oceans and continents away. Europe suffers from your inept folly. There are no benefits. Iran has doubled down. And Europe simply will not take it anymore.

Remember, the leaked email from UK’s Ambassador to the US, Kim Darrosh? Well he wrote some other stuff that is a hot topic in both Europe and Washington: “In one 2018 cable published by the Mail on Sunday [7/14/19], U.K. ambassador Kim Darroch says President Donald Trump pulled out of an international nuclear deal with Iran as an act of ‘diplomatic vandalism’ to spite his predecessor, Barack Obama…The memo was written after then-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson visited Washington in a failed attempt to persuade the U.S. not to abandon the Iran nuclear agreement.” Associated Press, July 14^th. Even Trump’s favorite Brexit dude, Boris?

Donald Trump is wildly unpopular in most of Western Europe, our supposed allies. They disagree with most of his foreign policy forays. They seem him as a bumbling, egotistical incompetent, catering to a base of billionaires and unsophisticated constituents who do not understand how much the world has changed from what they have assumed it to be. If Trump wants to take America back into the 1950s, Europe doesn’t care as long as this does not impact them. But it does.

Europeans are so furious at Trump’s rejection of the treaty to contain Iran’s nuclear weapons program, instead escalating sanctions that ultimately punish Europe as well, that they are actively finding a way to redesign global financial structures to circumvent American dominance and control. And if the structures work, you can bet that much of what they are doing will become permanent, reducing America’s global power and influence accordingly. This a is a work-around to circumvent American control of international banking. Clearly, Iran’s reaction to Trump has been to do precisely what Donald Trump said he will never permit them to do. They see America’s withdrawal plus new sanctions as relieving them from further compliance.

Here is analysis of that European work-around plan from Nabih Bulos, writing for the July 13^th Los Angeles Times: “As Iran presses on with its gradual dismantling of terms set by the 2015 nuclear deal, and while tensions with the U.S. increase ever higher, European signatories say a new financial mechanism can salvage the accord.

“That mechanism, INSTEX, aims to provide Iran with an incentive to stay in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the nuclear agreement is formally known, despite the U.S. withdrawal last year… In May, on the anniversary of that withdrawal, Iran began a careful but escalating campaign of enriching and stockpiling uranium beyond the deal’s limits.

“If INSTEX doesn’t compensate Iran for staying in the deal even as the U.S. levies additional sanctions, among other measures, Tehran has threatened to walk away from the accord altogether… At its heart, INSTEX — the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges — is a clearinghouse for trade deals between Iran and Europe that allows companies to avoid payment across borders.

“Established in January by Britain, France and Germany, it’s headquartered in Paris and became operational last month. The mechanism avoids use of U.S. dollars… Iran established a mirror entity in April called the Special Trade and Finance Institute…

“Say you have a European company sending machinery to an Iranian importer, and an Iranian company sending pistachios to Europe. Normally, the Iranian importer in the first deal would have to send money to Europe and the European importer would send money to Iran. Instead, INSTEX would match those two transactions: The European importer pays for the pistachios by giving money to the European exporter. The two Iranian companies pay each other in rials.

“This way there is no direct financial flow between Iran and Europe, but commodities can still travel to and from Iran… In two words, ‘secondary sanctions.’… The U.S. has long used primary sanctions, such as asset freezes or trade embargoes that prevent U.S. companies from doing business in Iran.

“Secondary sanctions target non-U.S. entities for engaging in commercial activities or providing material support to Iran… Punishments can include denial of visas and import/export certificates, denying these foreign entities the use of American dollars or even cutting them out of the U.S. financial system and forbidding any U.S. party from doing business with them… Banks, especially, have been skittish.

“Because a number of the large international banks have been hit substantially by sanctions over the years, they’re reluctant to engage in any business that could jeopardize their access to U.S. markets, said Doug Davison, a sanctions expert at the London-based law firm Linklaters and former SEC official. ‘They [the banks] have in effect become the best enforcers.’

“Even though the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the U.S. governmental agency enforcing the sanctions, is small, the sanctions are open to interpretation in a way that gives it an outsize chilling effect, Davison said… ‘We’ve had clients who had transactions that weren’t problematic,’ he said. ‘But once the transactions are flagged as potentially problematic, the banks are very reluctant to process them, even if there is a good explanation, given the substantial risk in making the wrong call.’

“And the complex legal demands, which require the attention of an army of compliance officers, along with the comparatively minor reward for doing business with Iran, mean that a deal is usually not worth the effort… At this point, banks are so intimidated they’ll refuse dealing with a company with any exposure to Iran, even if the business it brings is completely unrelated.

“So INSTEX helps Iran circumvent sanctions?... No. INSTEX, at least to start, deals with humanitarian aid, which in theory is still allowed… ‘It’s designed to process transactions that are permissible under U.S. sanctions but aren’t happening because of over-compliance on the part of non-U.S. banks.,’ said Jarrett Blanc, the State Department’s coordinator for Iran nuclear implementation under President Obama.” Wink wink. It really is a European attempt to erode the impact of U.S. sanctions on Iran and get Iran back to its targeted nuclear containment pledge.

Simply, Iran asked Europe for a way to relieve the impact of these new US sanctions if they are expected Iran to comply with the JCPOA in any way. Europe found a way, perhaps to Make Europe Great Again.

            I’m Peter Dekom, and I wonder when Trump supporters will wake up to our President’s proclivity to create problems that he says only he can solve (insert photo op)… and then not only make things vastly worse… but be completely unable to implement a solution.

Painfully “Beautiful”

The Trump administration has instructed his Attorney General to support a lawsuit brought by 20 red state attorneys general to uphold a Texas federal court ruling that the Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare) is unconstitutional because its principal financing structure was deleted by Congress. Trump said that once the ACA is killed – even as such a ruling would leave millions of Americans without healthcare insurance – he and his Republican Congress would replace it with a “beautiful” and affordable alternative. 

There are so many catches. Even assuming the Supreme Court agrees with some pretty wild stretches of legal interpretation and kills the ACA, it would take a dysfunctional Congress years to pass a replacement. And that would also presume that the GOP has a replacement bill waiting in the wings… which it does not. There are powerful Congressional Republicans who think the government should get entirely out of the social service arena; they’re not even happy with Medicare. Even imagining a GOP healthcare bill that really works for those who have coverage under the ACA is a stretch.

Indeed, the red state/Trump administration cabal have twisted and turned to erode as much of the ACA as possible. Defunding. Attempting to grant exemptions from the rules – almost always rejected by the court – to allow, directly or indirectly, policies that have dollar caps and exclusions (or “non-coverage”) for preexisting conditions. The net impact of these machinations has been to cause premiums, co-pays and deductibles to soar… which the GOP then touts as proof that the ACA does not work. Hmmm. A little bootstrapping.

No one can tell you that the ACA is perfect. The pharmaceutical industry got to charge full freight for its products in exchange for supporting passage back in 2010. There are problems everywhere, but the ACA was working. Most of the issues stem from GOP attacks and erosion. Most seminal social legislation is amended many times before stabilizing. The ACA really has been left, without meaningful amendment, to twist in the wind. Gridlocked Congress won’t even try to fix it. The GOP is offering nothing tangible as an alternative and probably never will.

But soaring healthcare costs, even for those with insurance, has been the inevitable result of this conservative push against universal healthcare… even extending into the world of private insurance. Writing for the June 11th Los Angeles Times, Noam Levey explains the pain: “The steep rise in health insurance deductibles over the last decade has saddled insured, middle- and working-class Americans with medical bills they can’t afford, a Times examination of job-based insurance shows.

The biggest impact, however, has been on people like Matney who have illnesses such as diabetes, cancer and epilepsy that require regular medications and consistent care.

“As drug prices have skyrocketed and deductibles in job-based coverage have more than tripled in the last 12 years, soaring to an annual average of $1,350, these sick Americans now routinely pay thousands of dollars every year to get care they need. That has made being sick in the U.S. dramatically more expensive.

“‘It’s really a double whammy,’ said Dr. Brian Callaghan, a University of Michigan neurologist who has studied the impact on people with neurological illnesses… The financial strain is pushing millions of seriously ill Americans to ration their care, jeopardizing their health and even their lives.

“In 2016, for example, Americans taking multiple sclerosis medications every month paid on average $3,708 a year out of pocket for the drugs. Patients in high-deductible health plans paid even more, with average annual costs of nearly $8,000, according to a study by Callaghan… Fifteen years earlier, the out-of-pocket costs for those medications were $244 on average, adjusted for inflation.

“The average patient with lymphoma, a common blood cancer, pays nearly $3,700 in the 12 months following the diagnosis, according to an analysis of commercial insurance data by Milliman, a national healthcare consulting firm. Patients with acute leukemia pay more than $5,100… Most patients now diagnosed with cancer don’t understand how severe the financial strain will be, said Dr. Scott Ramsey, director of the Hutchinson Institute for Cancer Outcomes Research in Seattle.

“Analyzing bankruptcy records and cancer registries in Washington state, Ramsey found that cancer patients were more than 2½ times more likely to declare bankruptcy than people without the disease, even after accounting for differences in age, socioeconomic status and other factors.

“‘Suddenly, people find they owe hundreds or thousands of dollars,’ Ramsey said. ‘If they are young or working in a low-wage job, they’re not going to be able to pay….Makes no sense’

“Several Western European countries, including Britain and France, which have national healthcare systems, limit cost sharing for people with some chronic conditions, making prescription drugs available at no cost to patients… Holland, which relies on private insurance, requires insurers to exempt primary-care visits from any cost sharing.

“In the U.S., however, federal law generally prohibits high-deductible plans from exempting these services, forcing patients to pay for them in full until they meet their deductibles… 

‘What we’re doing makes no sense,’ said David Grabowski, a health policy researcher at Harvard Medical School… Grabowski’s work has shown that epilepsy patients like [one patient with constant epilepsy] who have high out-of-pocket medical costs were less likely to fill their prescriptions and more likely to end up in an emergency room or to be admitted to a hospital, leading to higher costs.

“‘We want these people to take their medications. That’s not only good for their health, it’s good for overall healthcare spending,’ he said. ‘This is penny wise and pound foolish.’…‘Heartbreaking’… Across the country, organizations that work with sick patients increasingly report being called upon to aid people who cannot afford care, despite having insurance.”

What kind of a system makes healthcare unaffordable even for those with health insurance? What kind of insured medical coverage has co-pays and deductibles so high that even people with normal healthcare policies file medical bankruptcies? People in the rest of the developed world have it so much better than average Americans. That those most deeply negatively impacted are often in Trump’s populist base is an irony that seems to be lost on his supporters.

              I’m Peter Dekom, and who would ever have thought that America could be so cruel and uncaring to its own citizens?!

Prescriptive Solutions

Under one of the best universal healthcare plans in the world, only 7% of German residents say they have issues in paying their rather minimal contributions to their universal healthcare plan, which is fully accessible but still relies on both private health insurers and private doctors. Contrast that to the United States, which lacks such a universal plan, where one third of all Americans struggle with healthcare costs. “A study done at Harvard University indicates that [the inability to pay medical costs] is the biggest cause of bankruptcy [in the United States], representing 62% of all personal bankruptcies. One of the interesting caveats of this study shows that 78% of filers had some form of health insurance, thus bucking the myth that medical bills affect only the uninsured.” Investopedia.com.

We also have the highest costs for prescriptions in the developed world. When the Affordable Care Act (ACA – Obamacare) was passed in 2010, in order to placate the powerful pharmaceutical lobby, the bill promised not to challenge what these drug manufacturers charged for their prescriptions. Large and powerful healthcare exchanges were barred from using that power to negotiate lower drug prices. To make matters worse, the anti-government-supported healthcare stance of the GOP and the Trump administration – through Health & Human Services rulings and exemptions, executive orders, judicial action and legislation – have forced healthcare costs to skyrocket.

Prescription costs are still absurdly higher than what other nations charge for the same drugs. Trump’s jawboning and asking pharmas to publicly post their prices have done little if anything to mitigate that problem. Wink-wink. After all, Trump is a combination “President for the business and the rich” and crumb-thrower to social conservatives to hold his populist base intact. But those pharmas appreciate the tax cuts and allowing them to charge their scandalously high prices. They also know how to make political contributions to both sides of the aisle.

Claiming that clamping down on drug prices will stifle research, a myth that Republicans rely on, you have to ask if perhaps there just might be another way. Germany seems to have answered that question with a program that just might work here as well, one where government actually uses private insurers and private doctors, with supportive rules and subsidies along the way. Costs are absolutely controlled and limited.

“The German government doesn’t set drug prices, as some European nations do. And the country — home to some of the world’s largest drug makers — has a robust pharmaceutical market… ‘Germans don’t believe the government should run the healthcare system,’ said Franz Knieps, a former senior government health official who now heads an association of large German insurers. ‘But they wanted a system that’s affordable.’

“Building that wasn’t easy, but politicians, healthcare leaders and industry officials settled on a compromise that has saved billions of dollars and won the acceptance of even many drug makers… ‘We had a lot of doubts about the system when it first started,’ said Dr. Markus Frick, a senior official at Germany’s leading pharmaceutical industry group, the VfA. ‘Now we see it works for many, though not all, cases.’

“Germany’s drug pricing initiative was born of widespread fears — not unlike those driving today’s U.S. debate — that the rising cost of new specialty drugs would make health coverage unaffordable… With roots that date to the 19th century when industrial employers offered health protections to head off a threat of socialism, the German healthcare system is built on a tightly regulated market of private, nonprofit insurers, known as sickness funds… Germans are required to enroll in one of these funds, which are similar to U.S. health insurers.

“There are strict limits on how much patients must pay for their medical care — a major difference from the U.S., where patients’ deductibles have been soaring. Co-pays, for example, are limited to 10 euros per prescription. There are no deductibles… Sickness funds must cover new drugs as soon as they become available.

“Importantly, the funds also must collect enough in premiums to cover the costs of their members’ medical care… That meant that when drug prices started shooting up in the 2000s, sickness funds began running deficits and faced pressure to hike premiums… ‘It was a situation we couldn’t accept,’ said Daniel Bahr, a former minister of health. ‘We needed change.’

“On the left, politicians clamored for government price controls. Germany’s powerful pharmaceutical industry, in an echo of arguments made in the U.S, warned that would choke off innovation… Chancellor Angela Merkel’s right-of-center government chose a middle path… New drugs would have to go through a system of rigorous evaluation. Using the evaluations, sickness funds — not the government — would then negotiate prices with drug makers.

“Under this new system — known by its German acronym AMNOG — sickness funds must pay drug companies the list price for new drugs for one year after they are introduced, an important feature of the system designed to ensure patient access to new therapies… But the foundation of the system is an independent, transparent assessment of new drugs that is undertaken when the drug enters the market… Manufacturers must submit information about new drugs to a nongovernmental agency that compares them to existing therapies.

“The system ‘asks a very basic question: Is there an added benefit from a new drug? And it’s on drug makers to prove their case,’ said Dr. Jürgen Windeler, head of the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care, or IQWiG, the agency that conducts the analysis…

“[Thus,] Germany’s ability to provide citizens access to the latest drugs while keeping patients’ costs so low is made possible by a novel strategy launched in 2011 to rein in exploding prices that were threatening to bankrupt the nation’s healthcare system.

“Mixing free-market incentives to encourage innovation with regulation and lots of transparency, Germany’s drug review process gives manufacturers the chance to bring new products to market and charge higher prices — but only if they can show the new medications are better than existing ones.” Noam N. Levey writing for the June 20^th Los Angeles Times.

Bottom line: Germans almost never pay more than $11 for a prescription. We should learn and listen. The National Conference of State Legislatures tells us that: “Prescription drugs account for 10 percent of overall health spending in the United States, totaling $328 billion annually. (Also calculated as $450 billion when list prices and middle-man transactions are included).”  Don’t you love all those prescription drug ads? Wonder who pays for all that.

              I’m Peter Dekom, and since most legislation is drafted to favor the biggest campaign contributors, guess what kind of healthcare support we actually have in government?

Woof!

“Many high tech companies get credit for creating dog-friendly workplaces (companies such as Google-Alphabet, Salesforce, Etsy, Autodesk and VMWare welcome employees’ dogs), but small businesses have often led the way in letting dogs accompany their human companions to work. And, recently, to help attract Millennials, some businesses have added pet-oriented employee benefits, such as company-subsidized pet insurance or ‘paw-ternity leave’ (days off when an employee adopts a new dog).

“A dog-friendly office… Helps in recruiting employees. Employees love their pets, and companies large and small that recognize the importance of pets in employees’ lives have a competitive edge in attracting talent. Rhonda lists ‘dog-friendly office’ in every help-wanted ad, helping her small business attracts quality staff who are delighted to bring their dog to work or just work in a friendly atmosphere.” USAToday.com, 6/21/17.  OK, there are a few minuses, like barking, dog-to-dog confrontations/attachments, poop and pee, crotch-sniffing and potential allergies (pet-free-zone anyone?).

It’s actually a money point as well. “Allowing owners to bring their pets to work also provides a significant financial benefit—it eliminates the additional costs of doggie daycare or dog walking services for employees who work long hours or commute a significant distance from their home each day. Daycare or walking services can be quite costly, so this can be an excellent perk for a pet-owning employee.

“Allowing pets in the office can boost a customer’s perception of the business. Most customers have a positive reaction when they are offered a chance to interact with an employee’s pet, and it can help them to relax and enjoy their visit to the business. Having pets in the office also tends to soften the company’s image and makes a business seem more progressive and forward thinking.

“[And a few negatives:] Pets can certainly be a distraction for both the owner and their neighboring coworkers. A dog will need to go outside for a few walks, and there could be noise issues from barking or whining. Pets also can draw small crowds of employees seeking entertainment, when those employees should be at their desks working…

“Pets can cause damage to office equipment by having occasional accidents on the carpet or chewing the furniture. While the office’s pet population may maintain a very high standard of good behavior, accidents do happen.

“There are always potential legal and insurance issues related to scenarios where a dog could bite or trip an employee, customer, or service provider while on company property. It is important to discuss such issues with a lawyer.” TheBalanceCareers.com. For workplaces that allow pet, having a clear written policy on the matter is a must.

While you wouldn’t expect a pet-friendly program on an assembly line, a sterile work environment, an oil rig or a coal mine, when the possibility of a pet on the premises exists, the whole work experience can change dramatically. Take the massive presence of Amazon in downtown Seattle, a maze of modern and restored buildings, as an example:

“Through it all weave hundreds of dogs, whose presence may be the ultimate workplace perk — especially in Seattle, where canines outnumber kids. More than 7,000 dogs are registered to come to work at Amazon’s offices here, compared with 6,000 a year ago.

“That amounts to a dog-person ratio of 1:7 at the mother ship, where about 49,000 people are employed. A host of dog-oriented enterprises, including doggy day-care and trendy pet-friendly bars and restaurants, contribute to the beehive of activity in the neighborhood where Facebook and other tech firms are also opening offices.

“On a recent day in Amazon’s 12-story Apollo building, a Havanese named Cooper accepted a customary snack from a receptionist at the lobby counter, his owner hurrying upstairs to teleconference with London. There was scarcely time to sniff Sparky, a Shih Tzu-Maltese trotting to an elevator, or Murphy, a goldendoodle running out on his person’s coffee break…

“Countless studies have extolled the benefits — for employees and companies — of having pets in the workplace. British researchers have even associated dogs in the office with reduced employee turnover, which is notoriously high at tech companies competing for talent. News reports have suggested Amazon has struggled with turnover, but a company spokeswoman declined to provide figures.

“‘The benefits of dog-friendly workplaces may manifest as lower rates of absenteeism and higher worker morale and productivity,’ according to a 2017 paper in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

“As lines blur between work and home, and people and pets bond in new ways, companies nationwide are finding that dog-friendly perks are relatively cheap compared with health plans and other conventional benefits — and they’re a useful recruiting tool as well. Newer West Coast businesses lead the pack among employers catering to canines, according to a recent national ranking of ‘best dog-friendly companies’ by Rover, a pet services clearinghouse that is based — not incidentally — in Seattle. (Amazon was rated No. 1 by Rover — and in an annual ‘most pet-friendly companies’ survey released by Wellness Natural Pet Food ahead of Take Your Dog to Work Day.)…

“There are, of course, a few rules for the canine-friendly workplace: Amazon policy requires employees who want to bring their dogs to work to get their managers’ approval, which could be revoked in cases of bad behavior. The company requires vaccinations and licenses to be current. Dogs must be house-trained. An employee may bring as many as two dogs to work at a time — and there is no registration fee.

“When the inevitable accident occurs involving poop, an employee can simply fill out an online ticket or email janitors known as ‘remedy gurus.’ (Amazon follows city policy for pet waste, disposing of it in plastic bags placed in trash containers to avoid contaminating lakes, streams and bays.)…

“The attention to detail is conspicuous. Sturdy plants selected by horticulturalists and landscapers populate the Amazon campus. Artfully placed ‘pee rocks,’ to use a technical term, are designed to concentrate potty activity. Water fountains feature ground-level drinking bowls. Waste-bag dispensers are ubiquitous.

“Lobby counters feature shiny metal buckets brimming with dog treats, scarfed down at the rate of 20 pounds a week in the entryway of the 37-story Day 1 Building. Receptionists are quick to intervene when unsuspecting visitors help themselves, mistaking the treats for human snacks.” Richard Read writing for the June 21^st Los Angeles Times. There are vets on site, doggy food sources, and groomers. And it’s not just dogs: “Richard Winograd, a Prime Video software engineer, pedals to work with his cockapoo, Mighty, nestled in a basket.” LA Times. Ah, different times. Today, you can not only work like a dog, you can work with one too. Wonder if litigators keep pit bulls in their offices… or perhaps pet sharks.

              I’m Peter Dekom, and when I related this tale (tail) to my cat Jasmine, she turned up her nose and responded disapprovingly with a simple Millennial “meh!”

Irrelevant

Complaints from local communities over homeless encampments have skyrocketed of late. They lower property values, breed rats and insect infestation that spreads to nearby neighborhoods, feces and urine stench fill the air, crime rises, violence is common, medical issues are untreated, disease festers and spreads, and alcohol and drug use is pervasive… as mentally ill ghosts wander the streets, often pushing their ubiquitous shopping carts or begging at crowded intersections. But mostly people suffer. Really, really suffer. 

Hopelessness, misery and homelessness seem to be synonyms. If you haven’t seen or experienced the issue yourself, you can review the numbers, understand the underlying realities and read about the programs designed to deal with the issue… and their failure… in my recent It’s No Picnic to Park – Homelessness Crisis Silicon Valley Style (May 30th) and Homelessness, Just a Symptom or More (June 10th) blogs.

There are/were efforts, mostly in places like Southern California, to raise awareness and funding for the homeless problem, but it’s a big city problem. With the United States quite polarized on urban (blue state) vs rural (red state) values, it is the one massive issue that somehow has slipped out of the mainstream political debate leading up to the 2020 elections. The issue does not seem to resonate in those critical swing states that are critical to a successful presidential campaign. But can homelessness truly give rise to heartlessness?

“When new figures released last week [early June] showed a jarring rise in homelessness around Los Angeles, the response throughout Southern California was shock and indignation… The reaction from the crowded field of Democratic presidential candidates: silence.

“While White House hopefuls crisscross the country, making big promises on issues such as college debt relief, climate change and boosting the working and middle classes, they have largely ignored an issue — the soaring number of unsheltered Americans — that has reached a crisis point in communities on the West Coast and elsewhere.

“The reason, said Sam Tsemberis, is simple… ‘It doesn’t have a constituency or an advocacy group that has enough money,’ said Tsemberis, who leads Pathways Housing First, a Los Angeles nonprofit that works to end homelessness. ‘The National Coalition for the Homeless is not the National Rifle Assn.’…

“Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, the former mayor of Newark, is the only one with a housing proposal that specifically talks about eliminating homelessness nationwide, by doubling funding to $6 billion for federal grants geared toward serving that population.

“Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s housing plan ties in such factors as affordable-housing scarcity, housing discrimination and the needs of people who require substance-abuse treatment, all issues that influence a person’s vulnerability to homelessness.

“Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign website features his stands on 25 issues, but housing is not among them. When he ran for president four years ago, Sanders called for increased federal spending on rent vouchers for the poor, repairs to public housing projects and construction of low-rent housing… In March, Sanders tweeted that the country has ‘a moral responsibility to make certain that no American goes hungry or sleeps out on the streets.’..

“Julian Castro, who was Housing and Urban Development secretary under President Obama, stood out among Democratic rivals by highlighting homelessness on the campaign trail. On an April visit to Nevada, he toured a storm-drain tunnel beneath the Las Vegas Strip where hundreds had set up encampments… ‘This is not the kind of issue that a lot of people open their arms to, but they should,’ Castro said Thursday in an interview.” Tyrone Beason, Melanie Mason and Michael Finnegan writing for the Une 10th Los Angeles Times.

But what really staggers my mind is the horrific cost of dealing with “little unpleasant things”… like bathrooms for those encampments… so expensive that they make me wonder why that money cannot be deployed for something much better and more permanent. 

“Homeless advocates want more mobile restrooms near encampments so homeless people can relieve themselves in clean, secure, monitored facilities. Doing so ultimately saves money by averting problems that can become big and costly, said David Busch, a homeless activist who once went on hunger strike in Venice to demand toilets and other services.

“He and other advocates rattled off examples: Preventing homeless people from being beaten up while using an unattended restroom and then needing emergency care. Thwarting the diseases and infections that come from waiting too long to urinate or not being able to wash one’s hands.

“Having ‘attended, well-kept toilets and hand-washing stations is less costly than when people get typhus, hepatitis A or other serious illnesses,’ said Liz Forer, chief executive of the Venice Family Clinic.

“A big part of the cost for bathrooms is staffing: To prevent portable toilets from being trashed or taken over for illicit activity, such restrooms are monitored by trained attendants for 12 hours a day at a cost of more than $117,000 annually, according to city officials. Adding administration, toilet rental and other costs brings the price to roughly $339,000.

“Running them around the clock would cost more. On the automatic toilets, L.A. spends less because it doesn’t have to rent them. Staffing them for 12 hours daily, plus other expenses, comes to nearly $200,000 annually, according to the city.” Emily Alpert Reyes for the Los Angeles Times. We live in a time when it is acceptable to let those with needs, those with an inability to meet those needs, fall through our social cracks, wither painfully and die slowly, simply fading into the shadows of uncaring denial. It is how we are making America Great Again.

              I’m Peter Dekom, and throughout modern history, America has rallied to help those in need all over the world… until now… where ignoring or purging what we don’t like has become the new American value.