Imagine you were living in 1900 and somehow you were granted the ability to time travel to 1960 and then again to 2011.  Which period would you believe experienced greater progress?  Jet engines were invented in the 1950s, the American interstate system and the personal automobile were already around in 1960.  TV was a fast growing phenomenon and we were in the golden age of Hollywood.

What have we really achieved since 1960? Even with the passing of Steve Jobs and the heaps of praise we piled on him and his company, what has Apple really done for humanity?  Sure computers are smaller than they were in 1960, and we’ve figured out a way to put hundreds of records on a device the size of a credit card, but is that the kind of earth shattering innovation we saw in 1903 when we first took to the skies ?  Cars aren’t moving any faster in 2011 than they were in 1960.  Since the Concorde program was canceled, we’re actually moving slower than we were only 10 years ago.  We went to the moon in 1969, and haven’t even tried to go anywhere else since.

In the early part of the 20th century, we eradicated polio, cholera, measles, and smallpox.  Since then we’ve manged to stop chickenpox.  Despite our grand plans, cancer, aids, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes are still killing millions every year.

It is time to realize that the great Western civilizations can no longer create something from nothing.  Innovation is what made America great, not Fed policy or government incentives.  We had the best inventors and the best ideas and from that grew the best economy the world has ever seen.  We’ve been deluding ourselves if we were thinking that an iPod the size of a fingernail would rescue the American economy or be sign of continued progress.

So what’s required to get back to creating the big ideas that set America apart?  I think Americans need to be free to succeed or fail on their own merits.  Government needs to get out of the innovation market.  As we’ve seen with the Solyndra story, when the government props up certain ideas or companies based on its idea of economic progress, the free market is taken out of the game.

I love my iPod and MacBook as much as the next guy, but if I was able to fly from London to LA in 4 hours, I wouldn’t need a 30 GB iPod capable of holding 10 days of music.  Let’s stop pretending that traditional economic gamesmanship can get us out of our current problems and realize that some, no kidding, innovation is what we need to get back in the game.

The rest of this post is going to utilize a comparison that is deeply flawed in many ways.  But I’m going to use it anyway to illustrate a point about incentives.  Here’s the comparison/thesis…Health care would be cheaper if we purchased it using the same principles we use to buy car insurance.

The first thing that needs to be said is that car insurance is not a right. The government does not pay for your car insurance if you cannot afford it, nor should it.  The same is true with regards to health care.  Of course human life is much more important than cars, but the principle remains the same.  If we start there, we’ve already fundamentally changed the way the federal government has done business for the last 60 years.

Next is how you go about finding the car insurance plan to meet your specific needs.  If you drive an Aston Martin DB-9, you’re going to pay a much higher premium than the person who drive a Ford Focus.  Similarly, if you want a top of the line health plan that covers dental, dermo, optometry, etc, you’re going to pay more than the person who wants to be covered in case of a traumatic health emergency.  The point of this is that individuals choose what they want.  You might say “Well the rich person will have higher quality care than a middle class or poor person.”  Well duh.  Rich people have higher quality of just about everything, that’s the best part about being rich.  Higher quality cars, houses, vacations, and health care.

One thing most car insurance plans do not cover is preventative maintenance and regularly scheduled car care.  It is up to you as the car owner to ensure that your car receives regular oil changes, engine checks, new windshield wipers, new tires, new brake fluid, etc.  If your car blows up because you haven’t changed the oil for 5 years, your insurance company is not going to have a lot of sympathy.  This is how we need to approach health care, and its where incentives come into play.

Health care costs would immediately drop if health plans stopped covering yearly physicals, dental cleaning, and other low risk medical evaluations (think ear infection, or strep throat).  That’s not to say that these appointments aren’t extremely important. They are.  But the responsibility for scheduling and paying for these non life threatening visits should rest entirely with the individual.  Your health insurance should be there to cover you for cancer, diabetes, surgeries, heart attacks.  Think of your yearly physical as an oil change that your health care provider requires you to have in order to stay current on your policy.

If you were paying for your own regular treatment out of pocket, you would be much more discerning with the sort of care you receive, just like when you take your car to a mechanic.  When a mechanic quotes you the prices for different types of repairs and parts, you decide what’s best for you based on your budget and knowledge of the situation.  You might go to different mechanics to find more estimates.

Right now, the health care provider foots the bill for whatever test the doctor recommends.  Neither your doctor or you are concerned with the overall cost of that test.  That’s like taking your car to the mechanic and he offers you the “Pimp My Ride”special.  If you know that your car insurance will cover whatever repairs the mechanic recommends, of course you would pimp your ride, there is no incentive not to.  If you were liable to pay for the tests you receive, you would do a better job shopping for the best test for your dollar, and your doctor would be forced to do a better job selling the tests he thinks are best.  That means more information for the patient, and fewer costs to health care providers and individuals.

Now say the test discovers a malignant tumor in your brain that requires immediate chemo and surgery.  That’s the equivalent of a head on collision if we stay true to the metaphor.  Of course that reduced price insurance you’ve been paying for will cover the repairs to the car, and the treatment for the cancer.  That’s why we have insurance after all, to cover us for when the unthinkable happens.

There are tons of holes in this analogy, not the least of them being that elderly people require much more frequent doctors visits than the young and virile, like myself, and consequently more expensive care for the people who are generally least able to afford it. Not to mention we still need to figure out what to do with the poorest of the poor who cannot afford any coverage at all.  I suppose the best solution is to have fewer poor people.  I’m simply offering a perspective that tries to take a very complicated problem and realign it to put the onus for health care back on individuals.  There are creative ways to solve these problems and they don’t always require government intervention.

When did it become fashionable to walk around wearing a shirt that makes it look like you just got in a fight and lost?  There are 2 type of people who wear these shirts (well probably more, but only 2 with comedic value).

1) Juiced up muscle heads looking to show how “jacked and tan” they are.  These guys take more pleasure in showing of their own cleavage than ogling their partner’s (if they’re lucky enough to have one).  At least in the UK, the stretched out collar is bound to be accompanied by tatted up arms which are strangely devoid all hair like they’re preparing for an Olympic swim race.

2) Skinny “hipsters” who wear these shirts because of the inner sense of rebellion they feel walking around in something that looks like it was donated to Goodwill by a more sensible person.  Though admirable in their self-confidence, they are severely lacking in their self-awareness.  No one looks good in a stretched out collar shirt, no one.

So the next time you’re shopping for new Ts, stick to the traditional collars.  The crew neck or high v-neck are standards that flatter every guy.  And if you disagree with me, you’re probably a tea party-er.

Lets face it, us Gen Why’ers have had the easiest life of any American generation in history.  By any objective standard (wealth, opportunity, education, experience, etc) my peers and I have lived better than any generation in the history of the planet.  That is quite the thought.  Perhaps it is because we feel like we’ve been given such a great gift, we feel we need to earn it by doing something.  We just don’t know what that “something” should be.  That should be the question.  That is what the students in the video should be searching for.

I’m excited about what I’ve seen.  Tom Brokaw described the people who fought and won WWII as “the Greatest Generation.”  I think ours has the potential to be just as great.  We didn’t bow to the deity of selfishness, as the Gen X’ers did in the 80′s.  We didn’t dangerously rebel against the “man,” as the Baby Boomers did.  In fact, we’ve embraced the notion that the only way to change the “man” is to become the “man.”

To be fair, we haven’t done a thing yet.  But before we go making videos about everything that is wrong with world, we need to get out there and try to fix it.

This is just a short teaser.  Why come back with such a small entry? Mostly because I just finished a bottle of Jameson and I don’t feel my writing would be up to my usual high standards of diction and prose.  Also, I feel like I need to take baby steps to rekindle the fire that once made the PC the light of the blogosphere.  So think of this as a spark.  Are there any more readers out there? What do you want me to write about? PC Haberdashery? Travel? Politics? Hot Mormons? Send me feedback, and I’ll get to work.

-Sean O’Keefe

Editor-in-Chief

Usually when I’m talking to someone face to face, its easy enough.  With the occasional hick-up here and there, I understand the conversation and what the other person is saying to me.  But talking to someone on the phone is a whole different ballgame.

First of all, Brits aren’t exactly known for their upbeat demeanor.  You can be walking down the street and not a single person will say good morning, or much less even smile at you.  This carries over to the phone.  It’s all very businesslike and conversations happen much faster than in person.  The whole conversation is very monotone.  That is, until the end.

Just when you think you’ve made it through the phone call, you have to negotiate the dismount.  Because that same monotone person who’s been on the other end of the line for the past few minutes now runs you through the gauntlet of goodbyes.  It starts out with a simple cheers.  To which I respond in kind.  Then it goes on to a thanks followed by a suddenly cheery, and very high-pitched BYYYEEEEEEE!  They are the happiest when you hang up.

God help you if you interrupt the sequence, because it’s just going to start over again.  For example, if after the “Cheers” you respond with a “Thanks”…they will say “Cheers” again.  Or, if you say “Goodbye” before their suddenly friendly “BYE” they will literally start the entire conversation again.  I’ve had to hang up on unsuspecting callers who were not prepared for the sudden end.

This is all added to the sense of shock you hear on the other end of the line when the caller discovers that I’m an American.  I’ve actually used this to my advantage with would-be telemarketers.  Yes, somehow, I’ve been added to the UK phone list for telemarketers.  Luckily, most of the time I can’t understand what they’re trying to sell me anyway.

A fellow called me up the other day and asked me why I hadn’t purchased insurance for my new cell phone.  I said “Because I’m pretty careful with my phone, and I don’t expect to break it.”  He replied with, “It wasn’t because of the price of insurance?”  I said, “No.”  The telemarketer (who I presume was trying to sell me insurance) then said, “Cheers…Thanks…BYEEEEE!”  I hung up and thought to myself, that was possibly the least effective telemarketer in the storied history of the telephone.

This Monday, I’m finally moving into my apartment in downtown Cambridge.  I’m very much looking forward to the transition from hotel living to having a man-cave of my own.  Stay tuned for my future adventure which will include trying to pass myself off as a Cambridge exchange student from Stanford, pretending to be a snob while taking in a performance from the Cambridge Gilbert and Sullivan Society, impressing local co-eds with my expansive knowledge of useless trivia, and the always entertaining karaoke.  These are just a few of the plans I have for the next few weeks, so be on the look out for the continuing adventures of the Prodigal Colonist.

I woke up yesterday and was amazed at the site that greeted me from my window.  Could it be, I thought?  Is that really the sun?  And indeed it was.  In fact it was sunny all weekend.  So to celebrate, I decided to drive Bev downtown and go exploring.  I ended up stumbling into a Turkish barber shop on High Street in Huntingdon.  The experience was great.  I didn’t know this, but evidently the Turks are known for their top notch barbers.  Not only was my cut very good, but my barber used some unusual techniques to remove hair from some unusual places.

Towards the end of my haircut, the barber took out a lighter and proceeded to light a alcohol-soaked cotton swab on fire.  As visions of Sweeney Todd flashed in front of my eyes, the barber started burning the peach fuzz hair on my ears off with the open flame.  Not only was I surprised to not feel any pain, but my ears are smooth as a baby’s bottom.  So I’ve got that goin for me.

If you want to get a visual for what I’m talking about, check it out (needless to say, I tipped very well)…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B59Sg_KKYmk&feature=related

Today was Sunday, and in the UK, that means most pubs serve a Sunday roast.  Today I went out and got a fantastic pork roast to go with a John Smith’s ale.  I could get used this tradition.  There’s something comforting about walking into a warm pub, eating roast meat while drinking a beer and watching soccer on the TV.  I felt very local for maybe the first time since I arrived here 2  weeks ago.  No doubt, I’ll be taking advantage of this tradition again in the future.

This should be another big week for me, as I should finally sign a lease on an apartment in Cambridge.  I’ll be sure to keep ya’ll posted on how it goes.  I’ve looked at a few places, and let’s just say that space is definitely at a premium in this city.  I may have to build bunk-beds so I have enough room for activities.

Thanks for reading.

I officially arrived here on Dec 27th 2010.  Fortunately the snow that had shut down London a week earlier was gone and I was able to arrive, relatively, unscathed.  Obviously the first experience for any traveler is the airport.  I’m happy to report that for all of you that have had to deal with the headache that is JFK or La Guardia, Heathrow is no better.  So some things don’t change.  I was just glad to be getting off the plane that had been my prison cell for the previous 12+ hours.  After I collected my bags, I was off to see where I would be spending the next 2 years of my life.

To the north of London, about 2 hours by car, is a little town called Huntingdon.  It’s about 25 minutes away from Cambridge and is a typical mid-size British town.  I’ll be living and working near here, so I’m sure many future entries will have Huntingdon and Cambridge as central characters.  Of course whenever you arrive in a new place, it takes a while to get oriented.  Especially so when you have to drive everywhere on the left side of the road.

Yes friends, I have survived my first week driving on the wrong side of the road.  It’s not as hard to get used to as it sounds.  I only turned into the wrong lane once, and I quickly corrected after I nicked an elderly couple and three small children (Don’t worry, all survived).  The UK has these fantastic two lane windy roads with 60 mph speed limits that make driving a whole lot of fun.  There are also hardly any stop signs or stop lights as the Brits make heavy use of roundabouts (also known as death traps for unsuspecting American drivers).  I’ll try to describe these later on, but just imagine entering a roundabout at 60 mph while judging just how fast the person to your right is going in order to decide if you can safely make it into the lane before they slam into your trunk (or boot in UK speak).

Yesterday I had my first local pub experience.  This is a central aspect to English social life, and I’ll be excited to devote future entries to this topic.  I can assure you that I am fully devoted to giving pub life the time and research it deserves.  Indeed, I foresee spending many, many hours spent pursuing this important topic.  Hopefully I’ll be able to remember enough of my research to write about it in the future.

Well, I reckon that’s enough for now.  Please keep reading, there is going to be  a lot to write down in the coming years.

Cheers, and Happy New Year!

- Sean

You see bars have forever been the beneficiary of foolish dares, bets, or otherwise crazy challenges designed to prove the intelligence, wits, or bravery of the winner.  These stunts were undoubtedly meant to attract the attention of the fairer sex, but more often than not, achieve just the opposite.

Of course before the smart phone, Wikipedia, YouTube, and the like, bars were forced to wait until a future time for the bet to be settled.  For those of you a little unclear as to what I’m talking about, I’ll give you an example…

“Hey Steve, do you know who’s sings this song?”

“I think its “Take a Picture” by Matchbox 20.”

“No that’s not right.”

“Yes it is.”

“I’ll be you a beer its not Matchbox 20 who sings this song.”

You see, before the smart phone and its ability to recognize songs, this bet would have to wait until one of the parties could either get to a record store, or a computer with the internet.  The poor bartender would have to wait to get that extra beer’s worth of business.  But now, this bet can be settled almost instantly.  “Take a Picture” is sung by Filter…BAM!  Someone gets a free beer, and the bartender gets an extra tip.  (PS “Take a Picture” is a great song)

This instantaneous ability to settle stupid disagreements has led to the biggest jump in bar betting in the history of bars or betting.  Indeed, during this period of economic struggle for the common man, bars are flourishing.

Yet another unforeseen result of this information revolution is the amount of general, random, useless trivia in the heads of the average American.  We are becoming a nation of future quiz show winners.  It seems that every bar you walk into has its own version of bar trivia.  You can’t buy a nice quiet beer without being bombarded with useless information.  And I think this is all for the better.

As a recovering Jeopardy-holic, I believe that the more random factoids one knows, the easier it is to accomplish nearly anything in life.  Honestly, I can’t think of a single situation in my 22 years of existence where I haven’t benefitted from my knowledge of useless information.  I was accepted and graduated from college and achieved success in athletics based on trivia.  Women practically throw themselves at me when I bust out gems like there are 108 stitches on an ordinary baseball, or that Taft was the last President to feature facial hair while in office.  In fact, if I ever write a memoir, it won’t have any biographical information.  Rather, it will be a book of factoids that when linked together will tell the story of my life.

So while the contents of this post have gotten completely off track, I would just like to remind you of the thesis, and encourage bartenders all over the world to give a thank you to the computer geeks who started a trivia renaissance.

First things first.  No, I am not in England yet.  I know that when this blog was started in March of 2010, I wrote that the posts would be dedicated to my, eventual, move to the UK.  Well, I’m still in the eventual phase.  For a whole bunch of reasons that I don’t really care to explain, I won’t be arriving in Cambridge until New Years 2011.  So where am I?  Biloxi, Mississippi.  The Vegas of the Gulf Coast.  Home of great casino buffets, white sand beaches, and the world famous Biloxi hot-rod week which I just had the pleasure of enjoying.  Basically what I’m saying is, who needs England when I can stay in a city as awesome as Biloxi.  But relax, as long as things go according to plan (cause things have run sooo smoothly so far), I will be driving on the left side of the road in 2.5 months.

The past month has been spent working during the week, and traveling during the weekends.  Trips have included Baton Rouge for an LSU football game and Theta Xi frat party (stay tuned for a post on the upcoming LSU-Alabama game where I will be in attendence), and Pensacola, Florida (also known as the Redneck Riviera).  But by far the most note-worthy trip was my recent journey to my alma-matter to watch my Air Force Falcons finally defeat the Navy Goats.

The game was fantastic, my boys came out ready to fight and we got our first win in 7 years.  The cadets charged the field, the band roared, babys were crying, the whole-shebang.  But the adventure really begins with the journey back to the deep south.  Let me paint the picture…The game ends at 4:00pm on Saturday afternoon.  My friend (Nugget of Sudds w/ Nuggs fame) and I have to be back in the south for Sunday afternoon.  Do the math, thats 1800 miles in 24 hours.  Even averaging 100 miles per hour, it would take 18 hours (hows that for some math?? suck it calculus).  Needless to say, we had an ambitious drive on our hands.  But we were undeterred, loaded up with 5-hour energy and Mountain Dew Code Red, we set out.

As I took the first shift into the night across Eastern Colorado and Kansas, I couldn’t help but think about the people who crossed these plains 150 years ago in covered wagons.  1800 miles in a day was unthinkable to them.  But at the same time they got to shoot buffalo and ford rivers, so I pretty much consider it a wash.  I’ve never driven east of Colorado, but the one benefit of driving across Kansas in the middle of the night is it looks just like Kansas in the the middle of the day.  Listening to the smooth sounds of Sade and Bruce Hornsby, I was thoroughly enjoying the drive.  That was about the change.

Nugget took over the drive from midnight to 4am while I tried to get some shuteye.  This wasn’t easy because while I listen to Sade and Bruce Hornsby while I’m drivings, Nugget prefers Eminem.  Now I had anticipated this, so I brought my noise cancelling headphones along.  Little did I know that while Bose has developed headphones that block out the sound of a jet engine and crying babies, Eminem is evidently so obnoxious that technology has yet to find a way to block out his shrill and vile voice.  So needless to say, sleep was not an easy thing for me.

I took over again in Columbia, Missouri at 4am.  We decided that a little food in our stomach would do us well.  Of course, at 4am the body only really wants one things…Waffle House.  So after taking a year off my life with a Waffle House breakfast, I grabbed the biggest cup of coffee I’d ever seen to go, and we were off.  The route took us through St. Louis past the Illinois state line and then to the south.  I was lucky enough to hit St. Louis right at sunup and was able to get an immaculate view of the Gateway Arch at sunrise.  However, that was the last good thing of this entire trip.

I don’t know if this has ever happened to anybody else, but after about 3 hours of driving, I began to feel like I was floating above the car.  Now I wasn’t in the greatest state of mind, but I was pretty sure floating was a bad thing to be feeling.  So as I started coming back down to Earth, I kept drinking my coffee and Mountain Dew Code Red.  I’m not sure exactly what did it, the coffee, Mountain Dew, or 5 hour energy, it was probably a combination of the 3, but my whole body started to tingle.  It started in my hands which were holding the wheel, then it spread to the rest of my body.  I knew at this point I had to pull over and stop.  It just so happens that we were passing through Metropolis, Illinois and I was, thankfully, able to pull over. After a short break (just long enough to take some sweet superman pics in Metropolis) we were back on the road.

The rest of the trip was a constant struggle as the miles kept ticking by more slowly.  Everyone should undertake a wholly unrealistic drive at some point in their lives, I’m glad I got mine out of the way.  While it was a poor life choice, at least I can finally sympathize with those ice road truckers on the History Channel.

I can’t promise that the next post will be anytime soon.  I hope this gave all 4 of my readers a nice surprise.  You never know when I’ll get the itch to write (I feel a PC Haberdashery is long overdue), but the original purpose of this blog was to write about England.  So continue to stay-tuned because New Years 2011 will be like a new beginning for the PC.  Thanks for reading.