Most of the things we have we bought because we didn’t understand them…A real work of art you never entirely understand, and anyway, if I had waited until I thought I understood I’d never have bought anything

Herbert Vogel, 1977

Herbert and Dorothy Vogel have been collecting art all their life. The couple has lived in the same one-bedroom apartment in Upper East Side of Manhattan since 1963. They were not well off by any standard. Dorothy was a librarian. Herb was a postal man. The couple did not have any children, just cats and reptiles. They lived off of Dorothy’s salary, while using Herb’s earnings to purchase and collect art. Over the past several decades, the couple went on their Saturday excursions hunting for worthy artworks that were both “affordable” and can “fit into the apartment.” Over their lifetime, the Vogels collected over 4,750 works of art, an estimated worth of several million dollars.

In 2009, they stopped collecting art. Instead, they partnered up with the National Gallery of Art and proceeded to donate 2,500 of their lifelong collection to 50 art museums across the country, choosing one from each state. The Blanton Museum here at the University of Texas at Austin was chosen as the one of the recipients of Vogels’ collection under the Fifty Works for Fifty States initiative.

The Vogels’ love and passion for art were inspring and mesmerizing when I visited the Blanton the other day with a couple of friends to see the exhibit, “The Human Touch.”  For me, the Vogels are the archetypal art collectors we are not necessarily rich, in the material sense, but I have no doubt that the couple has lived a much happier life being closer to beauty and humanity, and simply pursuing what they love together. 

I came across this really good article the other day. It resonated me so much that I’d like to delve into it a bit more. The article challenges the often touted notion that we need to stay busy in the current world. College students, young professionals, even children are over-scheduled and are stretched thin. This constant almost obsessive effort to remain busy, appear busy, sound busy is self-induced and unnecessary. It is an addiction; “It’s not as if any of us wants to live like this; it’s something we collectively force one another to do.” I cannot think of how many times my parents call me and I have to sound busy, as if to satiate their expectation that I should be busy in college. Or how I obsessively keep up with two separate calendars, one on my laptop and one in a planner, in addition to a notepad to jot down to-do lists and sort them based on urgency and importance. Or perhaps how I try to squeeze in thirty minutes of a show or an hour of coffee meeting with an acquaintance.

Living life on a tight, hectic schedule cannot be ideal. It is suffocating. Why do I feel bad about taking a nap when I should be doing school work? Why do I feel “too busy” to not go to the gym or simply go for a jog? Why do I constantly feel that there is not enough hours in a day? What happened to those seemingly empty hours when we enjoy doing nothing? Who says doing nothing is not productive? As the author points out, reflection and thinking are ways to help us collect our thoughts, reevaluate our actions, and calm our nerves. If we live life by the minutes, what room is there for us to improve ourselves through self-examination? Isn’t it Aristotle who advised us that an unexamined life is not worth living? How in the world can we examine anything if we keep ourselves busy all the time? This article serves a warning bell for those – like myself – who have a desire to be superproductive, who cannot stand “doing nothing” because the feeling of “wasting time” undermines our self-worth. We have to let go and not be so rigid with our schedules because there is so much to life than just a schedule. 

“Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets.”

Why So busy? #YOLO

Are We Ready for Condom Police?

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-porn-condoms-20120705,0,1195723.story

So apparently citizens of the Los Angeles County will have the pleasure of voting for or against mandatory condom usage for adult film performers in explicit language on the ballot for the fall. Woohoo! Power to the people!

From a safety standpoint, namely preventing STIs from transmitting among pornstars, the ballot initiative makes sense. AIDS Healthcare Foundation has been lobbying for mandatory condom usage for years. It could not find any state wide politician taking up its cause (EVEN in liberal California?!) There apparently have been cases where young adult performers have contracted HIV/AIDS through sexual intercourse on the job, so as humorous as this sounds, it is a real issue for the multi-billion-dollar porn industry entrenched in LA county. Not only having sex without condom increases the health risks of participants, the act sends the wrong message to thousands of consumers of modern internet porn. 

This all makes sense, except one point; and please do pardon my ignorance and lack of imagination on – shall we say –  certain logistics in a mandatory condom usage law: HOW IN THE WORLD IS THE GOVERNMENT GOING TO ENFORCE IT!? I would rather not envisage a new legion of city employees, who are hired with taxpayer money and carry the professional title of Condom Inspector? 

Whistleblower: I suspect the guys in Juicy World next door are not using condoms!

Condom Inspector (Operator): O we will be there in a jiffy, no problem. One of our undercover agents snuck in some Viagra into Juicy World during our last arrest. We should be able to catch them in the act.

Yeah…

Education is crucial in empowering sexually active participants to make good healthy choices. Industry standards need to be revisited in order to mitigate health risks of contracting STIs. Employees and performers working in this industry need to be notified and educated fully on the risks involved in their job. Ultimately, the decision to be employed and to participate in certain acts is a conscious decision taken by the performer. Decisions have consequences. Government should stay out of individual decision making matrix, despite its good intentions. Beyond the mere impracticability of enforcing such a law, the government is encroaching upon private decisions. This level of paternalism undermines the human spirit by imposing government-knows-best solution in place of personal responsibility.  If TSA agents can grope private citizens at airports in the name of safety, and local police and government workers can “spot check” whether private employees are using condom or not in the name of safety, how much further can the government push the constitutional boundaries of privacy before the very notion of privacy and liberty will cease to exist. 

The Amazing Spider-Man: an American story

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0948470/

I took a lazy nap yesterday afternoon after orientation staff meeting. I then went to grab dinner at the campus cafeteria with two friends, who convinced me to join them and another friend to see the new Spider-Man movie in IMAX over at Bob Bullock History Museum nearby. At first I was reluctant to spend money to sit in a movie theater to watch a movie that I did not have much interest for up until that point. Though realizing that I did not have better alternatives that early in the evening, I went along with them to see the movie. When I was in line getting my ticket, I joked that the movie better be “amazing” or else I would ask for a refund, but boy was it a cinematic adventure to say the least!

I was shocked to find that Andrew Garfield, who plays Eduardo Savarin in the Social Network, plays Spiderman in the movie. He is beyond gorgeous to say the least, especially viewed in 3D glasses… What’s more? Emma Stone was in the movie! I absolutely adored her performance in The Help from 2011.

The story begins with a camera zooming into the young Peter Parker, who is left at an early age to the care of Uncle Ben and Aunt Mae after his father, a cutting-edge geneticist, is been pursued by those who are after his secretive work with DNA regeneration using reptiles. Uncle Ben and Aunt Mae are in every possible way father and mother figures in the life of Peter Parker. The couple treasures the boy as if he is their own. Despite been the “only child” in the house living with adopted parents, Peter is depicted as a “good boy” who stands up against bullies in school, who is smart, who helps around the house, and who is shy and inexperienced with talking to girls. This clumsiness in dealing with someone of opposite sex despite his otherwise brilliance and ingenuity makes Peter a lovable character from the get-go. Perhaps it is this picture-perfect family, aspects of functional co-dependence and seldom-found cross-generational connection and respect, that makes the death of Uncle Ben in the hands of a casual villain so emotionally harsh. This incidence serves as the turning point in which Peter Parker truly takes upon himself to be the male head in the family and seeks revenge in his new found role as a genetically modified, mutant superhuman. At the core of the story is about growing up and taking responsibility for one’s own actions; Peter resolves to revenge his uncle’s death as well as to preserve law and order amidst a chaos that he himself has created.

The well intentioned scientist. Dr. Connor, who turned “mad” and ascribes his personal ambition within a larger, nobler goal to improve humanity. Yet his character flaw, which caused his ultimate tragedy, is rooted in his hubris, as if he alone can save and improve humanity for the better.

The police chief, who happens to the father of the girl who is interested in Peter, serves as the protective father figure who sacrifices in the public field attempting to bring about law and order as means to protect his family and the community. Yet he too is a tragic outcome of hubris. He issued the order to arrest Spider-Man, when he should have known that Spider-Man, the vigilante, also serves the public good of maintaining order, albeit in an informal way, and if not better than the police.

Of course, the love story cannot be understated. I think it is this youthful plotline that traces the love development of Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy as two highly attractive and smart individuals who are righteous risk takers that make audience fall in love with them.

With July 4th on the horizon, I cannot fathom a better movie that depicts the national character of America better than the Amazing Spider-Man. The movieis a work that portrays the importance of family, community, good versus evil, and human hubris. Among other themes include corporate greed, fatherhood, care for each other, and of course, justice. All of which are truthful portrayal of various aspects of our country in exaggerated terms: the importance of a loving family, a sense of community (as portrayed by the construction worker who helps Spiderman out later in the movie for saving his son), good versus evil (the constant struggle to define who is good and who is evil), and human’s natural feel for invincibility and infallibility. The movie challenges us to reevaluate certain things in life: whether pursuing cutting-edge science have moral and ethical ramifications; who among our immediate support system deserve our utmost attention and love; how should we conduct ourselves to enhance the community we live in; and how do we wrestle with our inherent constraints as human beings, recognizing that we are flawed. These are perennial social issues that affect and intrigue our psych. I suggest that this may be why movies like the Amazing Spider-Man will timelessly capture our imaginations, hopes, expectations, and sorrows for ages to come.

I pray that America will stand on the side of justice for all people and continue to lead the world in fostering a democratic world of free thinkers and believers. Let the can-do American spirit sweep across the country and provide sustenance to national recovery and prosperity. And let the spirit of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution continue to inspire and liberate those living under tyranny. May the troops and civil servants abroad live and work in peace. I pray for their daily sacrifices. May we the people not forget the foundations of society: love, family, community. Happy 236th America. God bless the U.S.A.

SCOTUS’s Puzzling Decision on ACA

Last Thursday, the Supreme Court ended its term with the eyes and ears of the whole nation on its final say on the constitutionality of President Obama’s health care reform legislation. The Court ended up with a 5-4 decision upholding the most controversial provision of the law and the legislation overall, while striking down the Medicaid expansion provision; overall, a political victory for the President and the Democrats. If you were like me, my eyes were glued to my Twitter feed that Thursday morning, and I have to express my disappointment with the Court’s decision when I first read the scoreboard. It befuddled me how the Court could possibly come down upholding the law after its much more dramatic grilling of the Government at the March hearings, on top of legal scholars across the country doubting the constitutionality of the individual mandate under the commerce clause. As a former student of constitutional law, I set forth to discover an answer for myself. I read through the Court’s 59-page decision penned by Chief Justice Roberts,  Justice Ginsburg’s 61-page separate concurring-in-part-dissenting-in-part opinion, as well the join dissent. The process was tedious to say the least, but I come to understand the political nature of the decision better through Roberts’s puzzling reasoning, as well as a glimpse of the behind-the-scene struggle between the Chief Justice and the more conservative bloc on the court on this decision. Here are some of my takeaways. 

Chief Justice Roberts starts off his opinion with a rather conservative judicial tone emphasizing the proper role of government, citing strong federalist cases such as Marbury v. Madison and Gibbons v. Ogden, both cases acknowledge the Constitution’s inherent limit on federal powers. Roberts lends more support for this restrictive argument by invoking the tenth amendment as well as affirmative prohibitions to highlight individual states’ general “police power.” (Comstock case) However, the Chief Justice shows much deference to Congressional prerogative by opting to save the Affordable Care Act, citing Hooper v. California – as well as Parsons and Blodgett, as guiding precedents. For the Chief Justice, “It is not our job to protect people from the consequences of their own political choices.”

The Chief Justice surprised me in his rather long and puzzling opinion in a few ways, but I would like to focus primarily on this point:

Rejecting the Government’s argument for enforcing the individual mandate under the Federal Commerce Clause power, but UPHOLDING the constitutionality of the mandate using Government’s Taxing Power; all the while, calling the mandate “penalty” a “tax” for logical convenience.

As I have mentioned in a previous post, I highly doubted that the mandate would sustain a commerce clause challenge; the Chief Justice seems to agree. I appreciate Robert’s straightforwardness in his opinion for calling the mandate for what it is – a policy tool to force young, healthy adults to buy into the health insurance market to effectively subsidize less healthy individuals with pre-existing conditions. In my belief, this part of the Court opinion is a victory for limited government constitutionalists, as the Chief Justice argues, “The power to regulate commerce presupposes the existence of commercial activity to be regulated.” Roberts draws the distinction between activity and inactivity and adamantly rejects the notion that the Government can regulate non-activity, namely not being an active participant in the health insurance market. In response to those who argue the inevitability of one consuming health care sometime in his or her life, Roberts rebuts, “Everyone will likely participate in the markets for food, clothing, transportation, shelter, or energy; that does not authorize Congress to direct them to purchase particular products in those or other markets today;” for the general police power is reserved to the States. The Chief Justice also validates my argument in a previous post regarding the distinction between health care and health insurance in his concluding paragraph rejecting Government’s overreaching commerce clause argument.  

The opinion then turns 180 and Roberts proceeds to uphold the mandate, under a different power cited by the Government. This is the turning point that confuses many, and here is why. 

The Chief Justice proceeds and upholds the mandate on Government’s alternative argument based on the Federal Taxing Power. What is perplexing is that the Chief Justice rejects the notion that the mandate is a “tax” for the jurisdictional considerations under the Anti-Injunction Act, which would have barred the Court from gaining jurisdiction until people are actually taxed under the “shared responsibility payment” provision in 2014, all the while accepting that the “penalty,” for not complying with the mandate, to be effectively a “tax” in any meaningful fashion, and thus can be constitutionally construed to be within Government’s power “To Lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises” (Article I Section 8) 

You do not need a college degree to know that there is dictionary difference between the words “tax” and “penalty.” Tax is at least theoretically levied in a way that presupposes an act, namely government spending, as a before-the-fact collection of revenues; while a “penalty” is assessed based on the failure to perform an act, thus an after-the-fact collection of revenues, to penalize an unlawful act. Congress used the word “penalty” to describe failure to purchase health insurance in the ACA, and as the join dissenters point out in their opinion, “penalty” is included 18 times in the mandate article of the Act, not the tax article. It seems like the Government – and the Chief Justice – want to have it both ways: refusing to call it a “tax” to avoid a Anti-Injunction Act bar against jurisdiction, while calling it a “tax” for constitutional purposes of saving the provision. This blatant cherry picking of jargon for an easy-way-out from a complex constitutional question cannot be more troubling.

Furthermore, the Court’s reliance on CBO’s data (that about 4 million people will not comply with the mandate and opt to pay the penalty – and thus the “penalty” is not punitive. After all, would the Government criminalize 4 million of its own citizens?) as a basis for arguing the non-punitive nature of the “shared responsibility payment,” or the “penalty,” is egregiously basing whether to call this a tax or not merely on statistical projection offered by Congress itself (37-38). Though this does not undermine the Court’s constitutional analysis e.g. United States v. Morrison, it does suggest a potential loophole for anti-Obamacare people to exploit as a way to construe the provision as a non-taxing provision, and the extent to which the Court seems to desperately latch onto this weak tax argument.

In addition to individual mandate, the Court struck down the Medicaid expansion provision that threatens to withhold federal Medicaid funding from States to be duly coercive, following precedents that bar Federal Government from commandeering state governments from enforcing federal regulatory programs.

This is victory for the States, who may or may not want to use state budgets to expand Medicaid, currently a state-federal cooperative program for the poor, the disabled, the blind, and the elderly, into an expansive welfare program doling out government checks to people making below a certain income level, a fundamental restructuring of this otherwise popular government program. The Justices dueled out on this provision reciting Government’s proper Spending Power, with Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor coming down as the sole supporters of Government’s Spending Power argument for expanding Medicaid.

In conclusion, the SCOTUS’s decision in this highly anticipated case, ever since the 12 states initially filed suit the day the ACA was signed by President Obama, seems to me a partial victory for the limited government federalists with the Chief Justice carefully drawing lines against further expansion of federal commerce power and upholding the mandate in its narrowest form, albeit the decision no doubt delivered a political victory to the President the his Party. There has been speculations by a few legal scholars on how the Chief Justice may have switched vote last minute through the use of certain language in the dissent, which perhaps was once the majority, as well as suggestions that Roberts has been ostracized by the conservative justices for his knee-jerk vote with the majority. The mystery remains: did the Chief Justice really switch his vote since the March hearings? Perhaps he is cognizant of the public ire on either side, particularly sensitive to a renewed wave of liberal bashing of a highly partisan, conservative court, not unlike the aftermath of the Bush v. Gore decision. As the overseer and protector of institutional legitimacy, Roberts needs to consider not only the constitutional precedent he is setting but also the image of the Court in the eyes of the public and other branches of government. That is a tall order. In any event, I do believe the decision has reenergized the Republican base to be more active throughout this summer with fundraising, media campaigns, and stump speeches drawing clear policy distinction between the GOP and the President. The Romney Campaign reported raising $4.7 million the day after the ACA ruling. The Republican House is poised to have another vote to repeal Obamacare on July 11th. A new Rasmussen poll released over the weekend shows that 52% of the public is against Obamacare. The Republicans have a chance to redefine the debate and make this November election a referendum on President Obama’s signature domestic policy reform. The stakes couldn’t be higher, as this country is on the cusp of ushering in a third wave of progressivism that will extend ourselves deeper into a fiscal hole.