Dr. Lane’s Thoughts LXVIII

3) The problem most people have with the motor vehicle agencies in their state are the long waits and the ignorance of the staff.  The staff do not seem to have to be trained to do their job and it would seem that that they learn on the job, usually badly.

I am a chiropractor (DC) in NJ .  I am allowed to do this FEDERAL DOT Medical exam in my state but chiropractors are not allowed to do this exam in many other states.  What this means is that my exam can be done on any CDL holder in any state in the USA but if I had my office in another state (NY comes to mind) I would not be allowed to do it.  For this exam and my degree, practicing in some states would not be allowed but in my state (NJ) I am allowed.

The training to do this exam as a certified medical examiner is a difficult national exam much like a board exam in a medical field that you have to take while you are in training to become a doctor, dentist, nurse, PA and so on.

I think that we are all on-board with what I wrote here: in NJ it is ok for me to do this exam on any state license in the US.  If I was in one of the states where DC is not allowed, I could not do it.

I periodically get phone calls from CDL holders in NY where their DMV (called a MVC in NJ) is not letting them renew their license because I (a NJ DC) did the exam because “it is not allowed to be done by a chiropractor”.  It is certainly allowed but just not in NY if I was a chiropractor.

Clearly, the staff person doesn’t know their job but that does not stop them from making it hard for the CDL holder to get his license renewed.  A supervisor at the DMV has to be brought in and the problem is solved but only after a long hassle for the driver.  It is doubtful that the supervisor informs or instructs the counter employee.  I speculate that the counter person will be insulted and demand ‘their rights’ to not be ‘hurt’ or ‘insulted’ by their supervisor instructing them in the proper knowledge of this medical card and who can perform it.  I am sure that the counter person demands a union representative be brought in to ‘protect their rights’ as well, even though the whole staff at the DMV are union members and no one was writing them up for what they didn’t know (nor for the many times in the future when this same scenario will be repeated).

4) The following lifestyle behavioral factors are the ones that matter for the longest and healthiest life:

• Not smoking;

• Regular physical activity;

• Healthy weight;

• Healthy diet;

• Healthy sleep (defined as an average of 7-9 hours nightly);

• Blood pressure in a healthy range:

• Blood glucose in a healthy range; and

• Non-HDL cholesterol in a healthy range.

5) In life we have to deal with ‘collateral benefits’ and ‘collateral damage’: what these words mean can only be explained by examples.

I write about these topics because of a researcher who I read about who is adamant that race-based financial aide decisions work against poor White kids to favor well-off non-White kids.  He states that all financial aid decisions should be based on income only and not skin color.

He has a point if the the only goal of financial aid was ensuring that poor kids get a chance to get an education.  This is simply not the case; aid decisions are also meant to diversify a student population from mostly-White to a population that is a range of skin colors and backgrounds and that sometimes means that affluent non-White are rewarded by aid packages that make their attendance inevitable.  Hence, ‘collateral benefit’ of the decision to make racial background a criteria rewards a kid who’s parents could afford to send him anywhere because cost was not a limiting factor in his decision.

What about collateral damage?  I return to one of my ‘favorite’ topics (which is to say that I have written about it before) which is the rise of diversification in the workforce that began in the 1960s where underrepresented people (e.g. not White Men, who had all the best jobs and best pay because they were both White and Male) such as women, minorities, and, soon, the ‘other-abled’ (what is the proper term for people who use wheelchairs and other enabling devices?).  They were encouraged to try for job that were in workplaces under government mandate to include them.

This meant that the labor pool increased substantially for the same job and businesses had to respond by increasing their hiring of people other than White males.  The ‘collateral damage’ was that salaries went down substantially (and they have never recovered) because people took these jobs even at a lower pay (if they didn’t take the job some other person would take it – desperate times demand desperate responses).  My father in 1963 had 6 kids on his salary in Buffalo, NY working for the State Teachers College (changed to SUNY College of Buffalo and, today, called Buffalo State University).  Upon his death he was replaced with 5 people and I doubt if those people could afford to have families that large because that pay was now devalued to something unlivable because it was split 5 ways.

It was a business decision to pay people less because the same level of quality could be ‘purchased’ with a lower cost. “It’s just business” – a line popularized by gangster movies – does mean that it is not personal and that costs do factor into decisions made for the good of the enterprise.  The lower salaries (damage) were the result of a larger labor pool (a social good).

There are so many more of these ‘collateral’ problems: better life-saving techniques mean more people are living longer and that puts a strain on our social programs, increased immigration due to refugee issues puts more strain on our social programs, increased food production puts chemicals into our water systems, increased need for energy makes the need for electricity dependent on unreliable systems (solar and wind) and ones with dangerous side-effects (nuclear power), improved antibiotics save lives but create a need for ever-improved weapons as the lifeforms that cause these medical issues grow immune to the ones in use.

The worst is the need for housing that puts more people into smaller spaces and increase pollutions of air, water, and soil and that leads to skin, digestive and mental problems as people try to adapt with body systems that cannot keep up with such rapid demands.

The only answer is to navigate what you are presented with and do your best to both be aware of what dangers are coming at you and negotiate your best opportunities to gain the most and harm the least even if that is at the detriment of others.  What other choice do you have?

6) I has dawned on me a certain (might I say?) GENIUS of Trump – he did something no other candidate has done in the US in my remembered history.  Perhaps FDR did something similar but nothing like what Trump did for his followers: he gave them PURPOSE.  He didn’t tell them to sit still and let him lead, he told them to rise up and do something and he would lead them!

Other people in office have said to their constituents “let me do this and I will try to do what you want me to do” to various levels of capability.  Trump, on the other hand, has made it clear that he wants his followers to “do something for America”.  He gave them permission to ‘act out’ and perform insurrections, protest, march, be hateful and weird and he told them that this was a good way to behave.

Trump made it a reasonable personal decision to make the USA ‘your way’ – and his followers took this permission and made themselves vocal – an America with them and no (take your pick – Democrats or Jews, or Blacks, etc.) your America was for you and let your fantasy run wild!.  Trump let his followers know he gave them permission to reshape America and ‘make it great again’ ‘their way’ and not just with words but with violence, referring to himself as their ‘retribution’ and stating that his indictment (on 34 felony counts) as leading to “potential death and destruction.”  Nixon (who was still in office at the time) got in legal trouble and never told his followers to create trouble.

When I mentioned FDR as doing something similar I only meant to show that the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and Civilian Works Administration (CWA) and other programs that took unemployed Americans and put them to work which both gave them money and purpose.  These programs contributed to save America.  They also called on able-bodied people but it was for both their own good and the public good and, without a doubt, it succeeded very well on both counts.

Trump only used his leadership to permit his followers to attempt to destroy America.  It didn’t happen. I am grateful.