AN OCEAN IDYLL Salahidin Abdulahat, left, and Khaleel Mamut, Uighur Muslims recently freed from Guantánamo Bay, swam in Bermuda on Sunday. Mr. Abdulahat said his first-ever ocean swim was "the happiest day of my life." [NYT]
See NY Times story here.
That was a Windows XP Service Pack 3 update (937 MB) that took hours. I thought it would never end. I just now got back online. No more yellow shield.
Meanwhile I made the big pot of chicken gumbo with Andouille sausage. Came out excellent. I used small chunks of boneless chicken breast (on sale) and didn't overcook it. (I added it at the end. There was already the chicken stock in the mix.) That was dinner and will also be lunch for the next few days.
[A bit later] Actually there was one more update--a security update--which took no time. I just had to reboot.
The computer hasn't behaved so well since I can remember--fast, responsive.
The yellow shield is gone (I hope for the rest of the night). Watching a new show on Africa on the History Channel.
Computer was acting up again today (not the same thing as last time). I ran a Windows Defender scan and it found 1 infection. I ran a Malwarebytes scan and it found 40 infections! (I'll buy that if I have to.)
[Later] I'd been suspicious of a yellow shield-shaped icon at the bottom of the screen, which says I have updates to install. I did a little research and found out this could install something malicious. That's why I ran the malware software before installing any updates. So I let it begin to install Internet Explorer 8 and then went for coffee. (One of the first things it does is search for malicious software. Good, I thought.)
When I got back from Starbucks, I had a message saying that F-Prot (my anti-virus software) had found and removed a virus. Hmmmm.
Anyway, the new Explorer is up and running. I had to download something from Hewlett-Packard, however, to make my printer compatible with it.
I see that the yellow shield is back...
Had a long talk with my friend in Canada tonight.
Regarding the post immediately below (and others). Perhaps as I've said better elsewhere: it's nice for Obama to try to get everyone involved. But the opposition is not going to play nice (and has already shown that). The people who own them are going to have to change their way of doing business in a health care environment with a "public option," and they're going to fight that with everything they've got. So no more being nice if we're going to get a health care system that works for everybody and cuts unnecessary costs.
It's a drain on our economy (not to mention being immoral and unethical) for doctors to expose patients to unnecessary and potentially harmful procedures for profit (or otherwise), and for the drug companies to price drugs in a way that bears no relation to their cost of producing them (R&D included). They're just gouging you and the insurance companies and the government health agencies--for profit's sake. Stop it now!
From Big Tent Democrat at Talk Left here.
The National Journal Weekly Bloggers Poll asked:
Politically, how important is it to President Obama that health care reform be bipartisan?My answer:
"Bipartisan" health care reform would not be health care reform. It is important that health care reform not be "bipartisan."[...]
(I agree.) Check out the National Journal link.
From Firedoglake here.
The trigger is dead, long live the co-op! I won't go into the details of why the co-op idea won't work - Scarecrow and Jason Rosenbaum (as well as commenter MosquitoFleet) have already covered that far better than I ever could. No, I wanted to point out Jason's first paragraph:
We're going to see a lot of these kinds of "compromises" from now until we pass a health reform bill through Congress. First, we had the "trigger" proposal, designed to effectively kill a public health insurance option. Now, we have the "co-op" proposal.
When all is said and done (or not done), the bogus compromises will be as numerous as the justifications for invading Iraq... and as credible. The conservative Democrats who keep introducing these brainstorms understand that most Americans are hungry for reform of our dysfunctional and overpriced healthcare system, but they also understand that their big insurance donors will be very displeased if their profits decline.
Which is why those conservative Democrats - and probably some mainstream ones - so desperately want to split the difference by passing a bill that looks like healthcare reform but isn't. All these gimmicks like the trigger and the co-ops are attempts to find just the right shade of lipstick to make their faux-reform pig look good enough to vote for, and perhaps provide some plausible deniability when the scam falls apart.
What worries me is that so many Democrats have a long history of overestimating pig attractiveness (Jason's post contains some excellent guidelines for pig-appraising, let's hope they read it).
What frustrates me is the thought of how good our healthcare system could be if even a fraction of the effort and ingenuity invested in its failure was invested in its success.
Physician cites New Yorker story by Atul Gawande. By Mary at The Left Coaster here.
Dr. Chris McCoy resigns from the AMA.
In reading the response, I was frustrated and disheartened by the fact that you couldn't get through the second paragraph before bringing up the issue of physician reimbursement. This merely highlights how the AMA represents a physician-centered and self-interested perspective rather than honoring the altruistic nature of my profession. As a physician, I advocate first for what is best for my patients and believe that as a physician, as long as I continue to maintain the trust and integrity of the profession, I will earn the respect of my community. The appropriate financial compensation for my endeavors will follow in kind.
I encourage the AMA leadership to read Atul Gawande's recent article describing how physician culture drives up the cost of health care without benefiting patient outcomes. At the heart of this problem are physicians who have a vision of themselves as money-generating profit centers rather than professionals serving the public good. The AMA represents, and encourages, this mindset with its single-focus on physician reimbursement over all other health care reform issues.
Here! Here!
Read the physician's entire letter (follow link). (Unfortunately it could have benefited from some copy editing.) And by all means read Atul Gawande's article, you have haven't already.
I'm glad I got the upgrade to the Magic Jack. There's always room for improvement. In the past, I would sometimes hear an echo of my own voice when calling friends in Broward County (the next county up). But I've had few problems with calls to Canada or St. Louis, MO.
I didn't get the gumbo made but I got my grocery shopping done. (The chicken is still thawing anyway.) Later I'll do some laundry--I have to wash the throw rugs that got soaked last weekend, among other things. They've been drying out on the terrace this past week.
There was a fly outside the door when I got home from the store, so I let it inside for Lucky to play with. He'll chase it for hours.
I think I'll go for a tea across the street.
I haven't made it to the store yet. I did have a bowl of tortilla soup and a beef burrito at Lime Fresh Mexican Grill. The soup was supposed to have chicken in it, but I didn't come across any. Also, the burrito wasn't as good as the last two times I've had it. Way too much lettuce this time and not enough of the good stuff. It was really hot outside, even sitting under cover.
Went by B.'s restaurant with my camera to show him some recent shots of his cat (Bootsy), etc. and sit in the air conditioning. Had a cup of coffee there and talked about the shoulder, the water problem, etc. This was around 5:00 and there were hardly any customers (2 tables). He offered me a dessert but I declined (they had enormous Napoleons, fresh fruit tarts and chocolate mousse cake). I noticed he was wearing a silver wedding band on his left hand. I'd never seen that before--and I think I would notice something like that. Oh well. He used to have a nice gold one.
After that cup of coffee, the weather got nicer (i.e., it clouded over and cooled down), so I walked down to Starbucks and had another cup and finished off the Parsi story. Very interesting. Then I came home and had to get an upgrade from Magic Jack, since I was getting an error. All of their technical support is done by chat, and it's excellent. Today I was chatting with "Bradley" (they all have nice English names but they're probably chatting from Mumbai).
Right now is a good time to go to the store (dinner time).
Stayed up pretty late last night and got up shortly past noon. Nothing unusual happening here--no floods, etc. I think I'll make chicken gumbo today. I have lots of chicken broth left over from the gastroenterological procedures (it was on sale) and some frozen chicken breasts. First I'll head up to Lime and get a beef burrito, then do some grocery shopping at the Publix, which is right there.
I hope I don't wake up tomorrow morning in a daze, with people milling around in my apartment and water standing on the floor and being told someone cut a pipe on my water heater. Knock on wood!
Was back at the gym tonight. (Lost five pounds.) Even did a shoulder exercise and not a twinge of pain. The shoulder is 100% functional again following the needle torture. Had a green tea and a big oatmeal raisin cookie at Starbucks afterwards. (Cookie was excellent.)
I was sitting there reading an article in the July Harper's Magazine about the Parsis in India. Parsis are Persian Zoroastrians who originally settled in India over 1,000 years ago to escape religious persecution. One feature of their religion is that they place their dead atop round towers, to be eaten by vultures, since they consider dead bodies unclean and to dispose of them otherwise would defile the elements. The problem is: with urbanization and its attendant elimination of the vultures' habitats, and with the vultures getting sick and dying after eating the bodies of people and cattle treated with a certain anti-inflammatory drug, the vultures have all but died out and the corpses are now rotting up on the towers. (See here.) From Wikipedia:
The loss of vultures has had a social impact on the Indian Zoroastrian Parsi community, who traditionally use vultures to dispose of human corpses in Towers of Silence, but are now compelled to seek alternate methods of disposal.[16]
I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the article. One of my parents' friends, an architect, was a Parsi, married to a lady from Louisiana, who was a fabulous cook, by the way. (She taught me how to make an authentic curry, which she'd learned how to make for her husband.) As a kid, I was fascinated by his talk about his religion--the towers, etc. By the way, he was a student of Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesen. My parents got to know him and his wife when they bought my grandmother's house on Malaga Ave. in Coral Gables (and immediately started modernizing the outside).
Also I didn't know until surfing around tonight that Freddie Mercury (Farrokh Bulsara), the lead singer from the rock band Queen who died of AIDS in 1991, was a Parsi.
"Will Obama stand up to lobbyists and insurers to give Americans a needed public option?" By Robert Reich at Salon here.
June 12, 2009 Wednesday the American Medical Association came out against a public option for healthcare. The President has reaffirmed his support for it. The next weeks will show what Obama is made of -- whether he's willing and able to take on the most formidable lobbying coalition he has faced so far on an issue that will define his presidency.
And make no mistake: A public option large enough to have bargaining leverage to drive down drug prices and private-insurance premiums is the defining issue of universal healthcare. It's the only way to make healthcare affordable. It's the only way to prevent Medicare and Medicaid from eating up future federal budgets. An ersatz public option -- whether Kent Conrad's non-profit cooperatives, Olympia Snowe's "trigger," or regulated state-run plans -- won't do squat.
The last president to successfully take on the giant healthcare lobbies was LBJ. He got Medicare and Medicaid enacted because he weighed into the details, twisted congressional arms, threatened and cajoled, drew lines in the sand, and went to war against the AMA and the other giant lobbyists standing in the way. The question now is how much LBJ is in Barack Obama.
The big guns are out and they're firing. All major lobbying firms in Washington -- many of them brimming with ex-members of Congress -- are now crawling all over the Hill. Lots of money is on the table. . . .
Some congressional Democrats are willing and able to stand up to this barrage. Many are not. They need cover from the White House.
The President can't do this alone. You must weigh in and get everyone you know to weigh in, too. Bombard your senators and representatives. Organize and mobilize others. And let the White House know how strongly you feel. This is one of those battles that define a presidency. But more importantly, it's one of those battles that define the state of American democracy.
Story here.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Chastity Bono is having a sex change to become a man. A spokesman for Bono, born a girl to Sonny and Cher, says he "has made the courageous decision to honor his true identity" and began the sex-change process earlier this year. Publicist Howard Bragman said Bono is proud of his decision and hopes "that his choice to transition will open the hearts and minds of the public regarding this issue."
The 40-year-old writer, activist and reality-TV star came out as gay 20 years ago, Bragman said. . . .
Column is here.
Back in April, there was a huge fuss over an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security warning that current conditions resemble those in the early 1990s — a time marked by an upsurge of right-wing extremism that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing.
Conservatives were outraged. The chairman of the Republican National Committee denounced the report as an attempt to “segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration” and label them as terrorists.
But with the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic, closely followed by a shooting by a white supremacist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the analysis looks prescient.
There is, however, one important thing that the D.H.S. report didn’t say: Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.
Now, for the most part, the likes of Fox News and the R.N.C. haven’t directly incited violence, despite Bill O’Reilly’s declarations that “some” called Dr. Tiller “Tiller the Baby Killer,” that he had “blood on his hands,” and that he was a “guy operating a death mill.” But they have gone out of their way to provide a platform for conspiracy theories and apocalyptic rhetoric, just as they did the last time a Democrat held the White House.
And at this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream conservatism and the black-helicopter crowd seems to have been virtually erased.
Exhibit A for the mainstreaming of right-wing extremism is Fox News’s new star, Glenn Beck. Here we have a network where, like it or not, millions of Americans get their news — and it gives daily airtime to a commentator who, among other things, warned viewers that the Federal Emergency Management Agency might be building concentration camps as part of the Obama administration’s “totalitarian” agenda (although he eventually conceded that nothing of the kind was happening).
But let’s not neglect the print news media. . . .
See story here. (Click on photo to enlarge.)
ESSEN, Germany, June 12 (UPI) -- A German boy on his way to school has become the second known person to survive a direct strike by a meteorite, scientists say.
Gerrit Blank, 14, has a 3-inch scar where he was hit on the hand by a pea-sized rock that hurtled to earth at more than 30,000 miles an hour, The Daily Telegraph of London reported Friday.
"At first I saw a large ball of light, and then I suddenly felt a pain in my hand," Blank told the Telegraph. "Then a split second after that there was an enormous bang like a crash of thunder." . . .
The only other known case of a human surviving a meteor strike was in the United States in 1954 when a grapefruit-sized rock crashed through the roof of a home in Alabama and struck a sleeping woman.
Here too.
A 14-year old German boy was hit in the hand by a pea-sized meteorite that scared the bejeezus out of him and left a scar.
"When it hit me it knocked me flying and then was still going fast enough to bury itself into the road," Gerrit Blank said in a newspaper account. Astronomers have analyzed the object and conclude it was indeed a natural object from space, The Telegraph reports. . . .
Salon editor Joan Walsh is on Rachel Maddow tonight, talking about the social consequences of right-wing hate speech, etc. (Go watch the segment on MSNBC.com.) She's really good on TV, which I guess is why she's such a popular guest on the shows. She's articulate and fearless.
Bootsy got his ears treated tonight. I got a nap earlier (first in days). I was alarmed when I listened to a Magic Jack message when I got home--Security calling, saying there was a problem with my water heater. I immediately ran to the water heater closet, checking for water on the floor. (Bone dry.) I even went downstairs and talked to the security guard. It turned out the message was from Saturday, when the water heater pipe was leaking. I wonder why I'm just now getting the message. (Maybe the malicious software had something to do with it.)
Bone dry is good.
Got the new Harper's Magazine in the mail today. There's a big story comparing Obama to Herbert Hoover (one of the "best and brightest" of his time) and how his policies failed to help the country out of the Great Depression. Interesting thesis. Didn't finish reading the article at Starbucks, where I was having a green tea. I hope Obama is clued in on it. People are expecting a lot of Obama and he's got to hang tough. I happen to think he is. He knows now (and probably suspected already) that reaching out to the opposition will get him nowhere (a nice gesture, but these people don't play nice). They want everything he does to fail. They certainly won't countenance a public option for health care. They've already been corrupted by the insurance and pharmaceutical companies. At the expense of the country's health.
The U.S. spends more money per person on health care than any country in the world, and yet is the least healthy among the advanced countries (and even some of the less advanced countries). Meanwhile we have tens of millions of people with no access to health care at all (except the emergency room in a hospital). Do something!
See "The healthcare industry isn't going to play nice" by Mike Madden here.
Obama came to Green Bay because Wisconsin, and the Green Bay area in particular, spend less money on healthcare than most other parts of the country, without compromising the quality of the service patients get. "There are places where doctors typically work together as teams," he told his audience. "And they start off asking themselves, 'How can we provide the best possible care for this patient?' And because they're coordinating, they don't order a bunch of duplicative tests. And the primary-care physician who initially sees the patient is in contact with all the specialists so that in one meeting they can consult with each other and make a series of decisions ... that improve quality, increase coordination, but actually lower costs." . . .
What Obama knows, and reminded his audience, is that even opposition that sounds silly at first can build momentum in politics. "This next eight weeks is going to be critical," he said. "And you need to be really paying attention and putting pressure on your members of Congress to say, there's no excuses. If we don't get it done this year, we're probably not going to get it done." As with nearly all of his policies, the White House realizes the president is his own best salesman here. If he can't push healthcare reform through now, he's probably right -- we're probably not going to get it done.
"Don't be fooled by the watered-down versions that desperate Democrats are using to lure Republican votes." From economist Robert Reich here.
June 12, 2009 Here's the latest contortion from Senate Dems trying to win over a few Republicans to a "public option": Let nonprofits create healthcare cooperatives, then call them the public option. Kent Conrad, of North Dakota, chair of the Senate Budget Committee, came up with this bamboozle. Finance Committee chair Max Baucus, D-Mont., is impressed, and some Republicans — even Chuck Grassley of Iowa — seem interested. Watch your wallets.
Nonprofit healthcare cooperatives won't have any real bargaining leverage to get lower prices because they'll be too small and too numerous. Pharma and Insurance know they can roll them. That's why the Conrad compromise is getting a good reception from across the aisle, just as Olympia Snowe's "trigger" (whereby there's no public option until sometime down the pike, and only if Pharma and Insurance don't bring down costs and extend coverage a tad) is also gaining traction.
The truth is that there's only one "public option" that will truly bring down costs and premiums — one that's national in scale and combines its bargaining power with Medicare, and that's allowed to negotiate lower drug prices and lower doctor and hospital fees. And that's precisely what Pharma and Insurance detest, for exactly the same reason.
Whatever it's called — public option or chopped liver — it has to be able to squeeze Pharma, Insurance, and the rest of the medical-industrial complex. And the more likely it is to squeeze them, the more they'll fight it. And the greater the opposition from Republicans and from Dems who either believe any bill has to have some Republican support or who have sold themselves out to the medical biggies.
As long as single payer is off the table, then we need a real public option. Don't be fooled by labels. Demand the real thing.
For no reason. Story here.
CARACAS — The Venezuelan government of U.S.-critic President Hugo Chavez on Wednesday ordered Coca-Cola Co to withdraw its Coke Zero beverage from the South American nation, citing unspecified dangers to health.
The decision follows a wave of nationalizations and increased scrutiny of businesses in South America's top oil exporter. . . .
Coca Cola said Coke Zero contains no harmful ingredients, but that it will stop production and remove the product from shelves during the ongoing investigation. . . .
Despite Chavez's anti-capitalist policies and rhetoric against consumerism, oil-exporting Venezuela remains one of Latin America's most Americanized cultures, with U.S. fast-food chains, shopping malls and baseball all highly popular.
Mantilla did not say what health risks Coke Zero, which contains artificial sweeteners, posed to the population. . . .
The AMA was never a bastion of enlightenment. Their main concern is doctors' salaries. From Turkana at The Left Coaster here.
While Daily Kos diarist DrSteveB wants everyone to know about the terrific, 16,000 member Physicians For A National Health Program, the New York Times is reporting that the largest physicians' organization in the nation intends to be an impediment to a national health care plan:
As the health care debate heats up, the American Medical Association is letting Congress know that it will oppose creation of a government-sponsored insurance plan, which President Obama and many other Democrats see as an essential element of legislation to remake the health care system.
The opposition, which comes as Mr. Obama prepares to address the powerful doctors’ group on Monday in Chicago, could be a major hurdle for advocates of a public insurance plan. The A.M.A., with about 250,000 members, is America’s largest physician organization.
While committed to the goal of affordable health insurance for all, the association had said in a general statement of principles that health services should be “provided through private markets, as they are currently.” It is now reacting, for the first time, to specific legislative proposals being drafted by Congress.
In other words, they oppose it on principle. Due to a collective lack of principles! And given the great success of the private system, in denying access to medical care to millions of Americans, it is now clear that the AMA no longer is interested in one of the basic tenets of the Hippocratic Oath:
...never do harm to anyone.
For the AMA seems to think profit comes first. . . .
Glad that the malicious software is gone and that I have the Windows Defender running. (I thought I already had that.)
I wanted to take a nap and go to the gym tonight but spent the time getting the computer fixed instead. Tired. I'll go to the gym on Friday.
Tonight I got an email from my neighbor across the hall.
I have/had water by my AC closet due to a water heater issue in #909 [a few floors up] leaking for sometime. Carlos sucked the water up this morning and I guess I will be billed for the effort. I guess it's the business but I was told at least 5 different causes prior to really finding the issue yesterday. Some were it's my water heater, it is condensation from my AC unit, it's my guest bath shower plumbing----what a trip.
This is not the worst management we've had here. Actually it's good especially compared with the last, corrupt crew (including B.'s new BF). But the maintenance people are in over their heads when it comes to plumbing. The latest I heard from the condo association president (while still insisting that gremlins came in and sawed the pipe on my water heater): "We will call in a plumber to check the water pressure in the building."
They recently got a new water pump, and serious water pressure issues arise when the maintenance people shut down and then bring the water lines back up. My lawyer friend in FTL/STL with the paralyzed dog and the schizophrenic BF told me the other day that this has to be done very slowly in a high-rise. (I don't know how he knows this, but it makes sense to me.)
Enough of all that. Already looking forward to the weekend with no medical or flooding or being-on-call-to-go-to-work (which I don't mind if there's no flooding) issues--knock on wood!
Robert Reich, from TPM here.
In an interesting piece in Sunday's New York Times Magazine, Matt Bai suggests that the White House has learned the main lesson of Bill Clinton's failed attempt at universal health care, which is not to deliver a finished product to Congress but instead give Congress a set of goals and let it decide how to reach them.
The question to my mind is whether the Obama White House has over-learned that lesson. Without strong White House leadership, individual members of Congress are particularly susceptible to the threats and promises of powerful lobbies. A statement of White House goals that leaves the details to Congress will likely result in legislation that superficially meets those goals but whose details undermine them. That's the biggest danger now with the inchoate healthcare legislation.
Fortunately, the White House now intends to get more involved in the emerging healthcare bill. Following are the three biggest issues where powerful lobbies on the other side are working the details to their advantage. The question is how hard the Obama White House will push back. . . .
(That would be Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown, of the Labor Party.) Column here.
What would have happened if hanging chads and the Supreme Court hadn’t denied Al Gore the White House in 2000? Many things would clearly have been different over the next eight years.
But one thing would probably have been the same: There would have been a huge housing bubble and a financial crisis when the bubble burst. And if Democrats had been in power when the bad news arrived, they would have taken the blame, even though things would surely have been as bad or worse under Republican rule.
You now understand the essentials of the current political situation in Britain. . . .
to malicious software that had found its way into my computer. It was this stuff:
Antivirus System PRO is a fake security software which uses fraudulent strategies by displaying false or exaggerated security issues on your computer rather than any legitimate ones to coerce you into purchasing their
software.
I did some research online on how to remove it and then spoke with one of our technical services people at work. He said the software (or malware) was really bad and that the best thing to do would be to restore my system to a date before the software invaded (I have Windows XP). So I restored it to last Wednesday. You can also remove it with Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware or Windows Defender (which I thought I already had), but it's best to do a restore, since the malware can mess up your Internet connection in the meantime.
The first thing I did tonight when I turned on the computer was to disconnect the DSL line from the wall. The malware keeps letting more damaging stuff into your computer via the Internet, which is one reason why it's best to nip this in the bud before it increasingly damages your computer. (Sure enough, the malware was trying repeatedly to connect to the Internet, without success. Ha!)
Actually, before I located the System Restore option on the Control Panel, I'd started running the Malwarebytes software (which I'd downloaded at work and saved to a CD). It had already found 26 infected files by the time I did the restore.
About the only thing I could do last night was email. It was also playing audio (e.g., a Lysol commercial and music). I had to turn the speakers off--it was so annoying. And the fake warning screens popped up constantly. (Click on the images to enlarge.)
Meanwhile I've downloaded Windows Defender and run a scan now just for the hell of it. (All clean.)
I see I did manage to post something last night. I wasn't sure whether it posted or not. Also, anti-virus software doesn't detect this type of software. By this morning my anti-virus software hadn't found any viruses. (Glad to know that, at least.)
See AP story here.
President Barack Obama is making a mistake on health care by insisting on a government insurance option for the middle class, influential Republicans said in a letter to the White House released Monday. . . .
"Democrats know that if they go to a totally partisan approach like the president has suggested they're going to eat that the rest of their lives," said Hatch, who circulated the letter to Obama.
I say go for it. We know who pays for these guys. This is from the Mayo Clinic website:
Mayo Clinic is the first and largest integrated, not-for-profit group practice in the world. Doctors from every medical specialty work together to care for patients, joined by common systems and a philosophy of "the needs of the patient come first." More than 3,300 physicians, scientists and researchers and 46,000 allied health staff work at Mayo Clinic, which has sites in Rochester, Minn., Jacksonville, Fla., and Scottsdale/Phoenix, Ariz. Collectively, the three locations treat more than half a million people each year.
This also:
Obama Cites Mayo Clinic as High Value, Low Cost
In an address to Senate Democrats on June 1, 2009, President Obama cited Mayo Clinic as an example of a high value, low cost health care provider. The comments came as part of a discussion on health care reform and the direction that reform should take. Read President Obama's remarks.
I was at the Mayo Clinic once (as a visitor). It was quite impressive.
Click here and scroll down. (I read there's another photo out there somewhere that was taken at the morgue.)
I was at the dentist's at the end of the day. Had two bondings done (with novocaine), then caught the bus home. (I was out of the dentist's after the time I would normally leave work.) I always take a couple of Valium before I go to the dentist to calm me down, and it works. I really like my dentist and everyone else in the office (including the oral surgeon, who's pulled wisdom teeth, etc.) and I've been going there for years. But it's still torture. Tonight I was going to drive up to the big Publix and get a few things and then swing by Lime to get burrito for lunch tomorrow, but I decided against driving. (I was still under the influence of the Valium and I don't take it that often.) Instead I roasted a bottom round roast that was on sale last week and made gravy for hot open-face roast beef sandwiches for lunch. (I was going to roast the roast anyway.) I also made a load of frozen mixed vegetables in the microwave and will take some of that too.
For dinner I had two little cubed steaks (also on sale). Yesterday I made a load of chili with lean grown beef (also on sale). So I'm set for lunch food. Last week I ordered in (except for Monday, when I had the medical procedures)--I'd not felt like cooking over the weekend. Saturday I had my "Last Supper" at Friday's and Sunday was spent starving ahead of Monday's procedures.
I had a good day yesterday, especially after the disaster that was Saturday. Today I got an email back from the condo president. They're still denying any responsibility for what happened ("Things are happening to your unit that are beyond our control.") But the last sentence of her email states: "We were just trying to constrain the problem from affecting more unit owners than it already had." So she admits there's "a problem" and that they're trying to "constrain" it. I wrote her back and basically said I was glad of that.
Yesterday I also went back to treating Bootsy's ears. I hadn't felt up to doing it with all the medical stuff going on with me, and his ears seemed to be fine. So he had a week off from that, but then I noticed two days ago that he was starting to scratch at his right year (the worst one) again. At any rate, he's happy now.
Today I was even more achy from Saturday's exertions than I was yesterday. I was moving around kind of slowly.
P.S. I have to say I'm glad I had my DSL modem off the floor when I had the flooding on Saturday. (Glad also that the computer itself is off the floor in a desk.) Meanwhile I'm keeping the new Magic Jack high and dry. I'm kind of glad I got a brand new one. Maybe the technology has improved. Also the new device came with instructions to run "MagicFix" (whatever that is--it's not explained--but it sounds like some kind of a maintenance routine).
P.P.S. The photo is a joke.
Obama mentions the Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic. Sounds like he read this article. From what I've read (and I read a lot on this topic), it would be in the country's best interest to eliminate altogether the profit motive from providing health care. The profit motive drives up health costs and at the same time, as I've pointed out, subjects patients to more risks and side effects than they otherwise would be subjected to if profit weren't a motive (thus making them less healthy). There are private, not-for-profit health care organizations in the U.S. that provide excellent care at low cost. They should be a model. Everyone knows the Mayo Clinic is probably the most outstanding health care center in the country.
See this ridiculous article in The New York Times that presumes we should worry about the fate of our health insurance companies should we possibly get a decent health care system that covers everyone. (What's more important: the companies' health or the people's? Isn't the people's health the whole problem now?) This made me want to cue up the mini-violins. (Emphasis added):
But critics argue that with low administrative costs and no need to produce profits, a public plan will start with an unfair pricing advantage. They say that if a public plan is allowed to pay doctors and hospitals at levels comparable to Medicare’s, which are substantially below commercial insurance rates, it could set premiums so low it would quickly consume the market.
Although the numbers are disputed by public plan advocates, the Lewin Group, a health care consulting firm, recently projected that a plan paying Medicare rates would prompt 119 million of the 172 million people who are privately insured to switch policies (while also providing coverage to 28 million of the 46 million uninsured).
“No one has ever put up a plan to compete that exploited the bargaining leverage that you have with Medicare,” said John F. Sheils, a senior vice president at Lewin, which is owned by UnitedHealth Group, a major insurer. “It’s never been done, and if it’s never been done there’s not much you can conclude from looking at these state plans.”
Mr. Sheils estimated that only 12 million people with private coverage would migrate to a public plan if Congress provided protections for insurers, along principles suggested by Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. Seeking to broker a deal that might attract Republican support, Mr. Schumer is promoting many of Mr. Nichols’s proposals, including that a public plan be subject to the same regulations as private plans and that it pay providers at higher levels than Medicare. . . .
We don't need Republican support!
Contact Congress here. Contact Senators here.
(Of course there's a lot of waste in Medicare and Medicaid also owing to the profit motive, and that has to be eliminated.)
I myself am a very expensive person in the current health care system, and I don't need to be. Get the profit motive out of the system and get the drug companies to lower their exorbitant prices. They don't deserve the profits they're reaping on their cheaply-made, over-priced drugs. (And a lot of them are developed with money from the U.S. government.)
"The most recent ex-wife of David Carradine once filed legal papers claiming that the actor engaged in 'deviant' behavior that was 'potentially deadly.'" See the legal papers from The Smoking Gun here.
Today I'm on call to go in to work. The beeper went off but it was a false alarm (I called my supervisor).
The maintenance people are doing something with the water lines today. I can hear noise from the pipes, and they've shut the water off and on. (They're guilty!)
Woke up a little sore today from yesterday's exertions. Don't feel like doing much.
I just had another false alarm. This beeper is for the birds. They have my cell phone number anyway and will probably call rather than beep me if they need me. I think we should get rid of the beeper altogether. It's old and archaic. Everyone's got cell phones now.
Robert Reich, from TPM here.
I've poked around Washington today, talking with friends on the Hill who confirm the worst: Big Pharma and Big Insurance are gaining ground in their campaign to kill the public option in the emerging health care bill.
You know why, of course. They don't want a public option that would compete with private insurers and use its bargaining power to negotiate better rates with drug companies. They argue that would be unfair. Unfair? Unfair to give more people better health care at lower cost? To Pharma and Insurance, "unfair" is anything that undermines their profits.
So they're pulling out all the stops -- pushing Democrats and a handful of so-called "moderate" Republicans who say they're in favor of a public option to support legislation that would include it in name only. One of their proposals is to break up the public option into small pieces under multiple regional third-party administrators that would have little or no bargaining leverage. A second is to give the public option to the states where Big Pharma and Big Insurance can easily buy off legislators and officials, as they've been doing for years. A third is bind the public plan to the same rules private insurers have already wangled, thereby making it impossible for the public plan to put competitive pressure on the insurers. . . .
This is it, folks. The concrete is being mixed and about to be poured. And after it's poured and hardens, universal health care will be with us for years to come in whatever form it now takes. Let your representative and senators know you want a public option without conditions or triggers -- one that gives the public insurer bargaining leverage over drug companies, and pushes insurers to do what they've promised to do. Don't wait until the concrete hardens and we've lost this battle.
Contact Congress here. Contact Senators here.
See also Paul Krugman here.
At first the insurance lobby’s foot soldiers in Congress tried to shout down the public option with the old slogans: private enterprise good, government bad.
At this point, however, they’re trying to kill the public option in more subtle ways. The most recent ruse is the proposal for a “trigger” — the public option will only become available if private insurers fail to meet certain performance criteria. The idea, of course, is to choose those criteria to ensure that the trigger is never pulled.
And here’s the thing. Without an effective public option, the Obama health care reform will be simply a national version of the health care reform in Massachusetts: a system that is a lot better than nothing but has done little to address the fundamental problem of a fragmented system, and as a result has done little to control rising health care costs.
Right now the health insurers are promising to deliver major cost savings. But history shows that such promises can’t be trusted. As President Obama said in his letter, we need a serious, real public option to keep the insurance companies honest.
See here also.
Did some online research on the Magic Jack and then returned to Radio Shack. I talked to a new, nicer salesperson who was on duty. (He also uses a Magic Jack for international calls.) The bottom line is--a Magic Jack costs $39.99 and comes with a year's free phone service. So I went ahead and bought it. I'd thought that since I was just replacing my old device and not interested in the free year, the device alone would cost less. Not the case.
I'm not losing anything in this deal. I'd already got one year of free calls, included in the original $39.99 purchase. (I recently paid $19.99 for an additional year of the service.)
Back home, as instructed earlier by the tech chat people, I went back to the chat and got step-by-step instructions to assign my old Magic Jack phone number to the new Magic Jack. It's working now. I swear I'll keep it off the floor.
Used Magic Jack later for a long conversation with my friend in Ft. Lauderdale/St. Louis (the guy who had the paralyzed dog, who is doing well--better than his BF, who has schizophrenia and is reportedly doing worse).
Magic Jack is dead--drowned, to be exact--so I went to the Magic Jack technical support chat and explained my predicament. They said I could buy just the device (without a calling plan) at Radio Shack, WalMart or Best Buy. Radio Shack is the closest, so I drove down there. The salesperson (a very young woman) was rude. Before I said anything, she told me I'd have to wait five minutes. I asked her why and she said the computer was down. (OK.) I saw the Magic Jacks hanging behind the counter, and there was a sign by the cash register for a $39.99 promotion that included the jack and a year of the phone service. I then explained the situation with my Magic Jack, that I needed only the device and not the whole plan, and she said it was still going to be $39.99. I'm going to call there tomorrow and ask to talk to a manager about this.
I drove home and chatted back with the Magic Jack help and told them about my experience at Radio Shack. I also told them that if they would refund me the $19.99 I just paid for another year of the service, I'd go back to Radio Shack and buy the whole package. They didn't entertain that possibility and reiterated that Radio Shack sells just the device--well, not mine, I told them, and asked them to complain about it (no comment). Finally I said I'd try WalMart. So I drove out to the WalMart (also not far) and looked around for the Magic Jack and didn't see any. I asked a clerk and was told that the store didn't sell them. By then I was getting hungry and decided to give up for the day. I stopped off at Arby's across the street from WalMart and had a roast beef sandwich and potato cakes and came back home.
Depending on what Radio Shack says when I call back tomorrow, I might also be driving up to Best Buy.
OK. Enough cleaning. Having an inch of water sitting on the floor for a few hours makes the floor remarkably easy to clean. This bedroom, the bathroom, the hall, and the cat box closet are clean (the floors at least). Tomorrow I'll work in the kitchen and living room.
It stormed here earlier but nothing like yesterday. Now it's sunny.
The Magic Jack is dead, I'm afraid. I'll try it one more time later and if it doesn't work, I'll order a new one. The Magic Jack rests on the floor when it's not plugged into the computer.
Lucky was sleeping by himself on the comforter in the middle of my bed a couple of hours ago. Then I heard Bootsy complaining. The next time I went into the bedroom, Bootsy was sleeping in the middle of the bed and Lucky was up on his pillow at the head of the bed. I guess Bootsy made him move. Bootsy's the "dominant" cat here. Even though he accepts Lucky now, apparently what he says, goes.
Email to the president of the condo association. Subject: Plumbing leaks in Unit ____
Hi, _________.
[A maintenance person] is fixing the problem with the water heater. By the way, it was absurd of [the head maintenance person] to imply that someone cut the pipe. Nobody is ever here but me, and the only people with keys to my place are the [condominium] management office, [my neighbor] across the hall, and me. The only person who cut the pipe was the licensed plumber who installed the water heater in October, 2008. And I personally watched him soldering the pipes.
It seems to be too much of a coincidence that I should be getting plumbing leaks twice in a row following the shutdown of the #10 water lines. A few weeks ago, the water line to my refrigerator sprung a leak following a shutdown, and now, the water heater.* Both of these were installed last fall by (different) licensed plumbers. For people who work in this building, and who are not licensed plumbers, to tell me that the plumbers didn't install things properly seems now to strain credulity. It appears, rather, that the lines are not being shut down and brought back up properly, resulting in a burst of pressure that is strong enough to damage properly installed plumbing equipment.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
[me]
__________________
*The #10 lines were shut down yesterday, 6/5/09.
I woke up at 9-something this morning with people in my apartment (again). One of my water heater pipes apparently came apart at a joint and was spilling water all over the building. My next door neighbor had several inches of water in her bedroom (she woke up and slipped!). She said a maintenance person was in there for three hours vacuuming the water up. I had 1/2 inch to an inch of water in my second bedroom (this room) (next to my neighbor's bedroom). I got that up with my Hoover Floor Mate (took a while) and cleaned the floor. The water heater is next to the cat box closet (and the cats fling litter onto the floor), so there was cat litter mud everywhere mixed with the water.
There was also flooding on the floor below (a "common area" by the pool deck).
Can you believe the head maintenance man said someone cut the pipe? He even posited that theory to the condo association president (who was here also). I'm sorry, but there's a pressure problem here, and that maintenance man is probably to blame. He's a moron.
The head maintenance man said it was my problem and I called the plumber who installed the water heater. They wanted $250 for a service call (not including parts). The other maintenance guy was standing around when I called them and offered to do the job for $175. So I let him do it. It's fixed now. If it happens again, it's unequivocally the condo association's fault.
I felt so bad about my next-door neighbor.
P.S. My Magic Jack was sitting on the floor by the computer and was full of water. I'm letting it dry out now. (I may need to get a new one.)
P.P.S. Well, this floor is clean. Yea! The living room floor is now a mess, since it got tracked up.
This morning I had the 9:30 appointment with the orthopedic surgeon. I was out of there by 10:00. All is fine. I asked him about the needle procedure, and he did say he tried to break up the calcium deposit. I asked him whether he accomplished that and he said he didn't know. (I guess he could have done more x-rays, but not necessary as long as I have full mobility in shoulder once again.) (He doesn't come across as one of these "profit center" doctors.) (And, of course, more x-rays would have exposed me to radiation--harmful.)
(Warning: Boring stuff) I called Home Depot back today and left a message with the expediter, who called me back. Apparently the plumbing contractor is saying they didn't install the water line that burst (?). The expediter asked me how old the fridge was. I said 3-4 years (I just checked, and it's not even 3 1/2 years old). She asked who installed the original water line, and I said Sears. I also told her I'd never had a problem with the Sears-installed water line. This failure occurred after a water shut-off (which occur frequently in a large building, such as when plumbing work is being done in the units). I also explained that I'd bought the new water line at Home Depot with the kitchen designer and that the cabinet people had run it through holes they drilled across the tops of the cabinets before the counter was put down. And then the plumber came and connected it to the water source and to the fridge.
I'm glad I brought my plumbing permit to work today (that's where I called the expediter from). It says right on the permit: "DESC: KITCHEN SINK, GARBAGE DISPOSAL, DISHWASHER AND ICE MAKER LINE". This is exactly what they did. The expediter also had some record of this and I think was just verifying it with me. (Sounds like these contractors are out to rip off Home Depot and Home Depot is aware of this. I think the electrical contractor was definitely trying to rip them off. I don't need to rehash this.)
This expediter has a good "bedside manner" and always comes cross as attentive and is a pleasure to deal with. I explained the whole situation about the leak into the hallway, and she'll be getting the plumbing contractor back here. How long that's going to take, I don't know. I was just glad to talk to her. The ball is rolling again.
With all the problems other people have, I probably don't like to admit how much this bothers me, but it really does (hell, I have worse problems than this, but they don't bother me as much). This project has been going on for well over a year now. I would like to reclaim my space and get on with my life here. Meanwhile I'm living in Home Depot limbo.
God, what a day. According to the local news, in four hours it rained as much as it normally does in a month. South Beach is flooded, and thousands of homes in Miami-Dade and Broward are without power. The storm hit right at the afternoon rush hour. I was at work and went downstairs a couple of times to check it out. It looked (and sounded) like the end of the world. I don't think I've ever witnessed a storm with so much thunder and lightning (and I'm from here). According to this story, "In the area between Miami and Miami Beach, the weather service recorded about 100 lightning strikes in a five-minute period."
By the time I left work (6:30), the worst of the storm had passed, but I didn't get home till close to 10:00. There'd been an accident on the MacArthur Causeway, which connects downtown (where I work) to South Beach, effectively blocking the causeway. So U.S. 1 from downtown up to 36th Street was clogged with cars traveling north to other causeways. It took my bus over an hour to get to Omni (one mile).
I saw the horrible logjam and got off the bus one stop after the Omni Station and had dinner at Checkers (a chili dog and half a barbecue bacon double cheeseburger and a small Coke). Then I got an apple pie across the street at Burger King so I could use the restroom (which they keep locked) and walked back to the Omni Station. (I'll eat the pie tomorrow.) By then--an hour or so later--the traffic had thinned out, and fortunately I caught my bus right away. (Apparently other people at Omni had been waiting for it a long time.) The bus barrelled up U.S. 1 and I made it home in good time.
See story here.
David Carradine, star of the iconic Seventies TV show Kung Fu, has been found dead in a Bangkok hotel room in bizarre circumstances.
Thai police said the 72-year-old American actor had hanged himself, using cords from curtains in the room.
He was discovered yesterday by a chambermaid hanging naked in a wardrobe with a cord around his neck and genitals.
The circumstances surrounding the death shocked family and friends, who said Carradine showed no signs that he was likely to commit suicide.
Police would not comment on reports suggesting the actor may have died while performing an auto-erotic act which accidentally led to asphyxiation. There was no suicide note. . . .
(From Talk Left)
From the LA Times here.
Findings by Harvard researchers show that medical-related bankruptcies have increased from 55% in 2001. The report could boost Obama's bid for healthcare reforms. . . .
Medical insurance isn't much help, either. About 78% of bankruptcy filers burdened by healthcare expenses were insured, according to the survey, to be published in the August issue of the American Journal of Medicine. . . .
"Lots of health insurance comes with big co-payments, deductibles and uncovered services," she said. "So you can be insured and still end up with big bills. At the same time, even if you have good insurance through your employer, you can lose it if you get sick and can't work."
Most people who filed medical-related bankruptcies "were solidly middle class before financial disaster hit," the study says. Two-thirds were homeowners, and most had gone to college. . . .
Today I forgot to call Home Depot, but when I got home I had a message on my home phone from the kitchen expediter. I'll call her back tomorrow.
One more medical thing tomorrow: I have an appointment first thing in the morning with the orthopedic surgeon who "fixed" my shoulder joint two weeks ago.
I felt overall more "normal" today. I think going without food for a day and a half (except for Jello and chicken broth), on top of flushing out one's system, has to deplete you a little bit. (Also I didn't take my vitamins on Sunday since they make me hungry.) I gave myself a rest and didn't do any cooking last weekend, so I didn't have anything to take to work for lunches this week. So I've been ordering lunch in. (I usually have roast beef hash and V-8 for breakfast.) Today for lunch I had steak fajitas, which came with beef chili, and scallop bisque. (I ate the chili later for a snack.) Good stuff! Not a bad deal either. (Fajitas under $10.) The scallop bisque at this place is delicious and usually full of scallops (as it was today).
Tonight I did grocery shopping and will prepare food this weekend.
Decided to take it easy and forgo the gym tonight. Watched the second half of the NBC show on Obama's White House. Not much to it, if you ask me. Didn't see the first half, however.
Was over at Starbucks earlier for a turkey and Swiss and a tea. My digestion is just getting back to normal. Made the appointment to see the gastroenterologist in two weeks or so.
I still haven't heard back from Home Depot or the plumbing contractor about fixing the problem with the water line to the fridge. I was supposed to hear something at the end of last week or Monday. Meanwhile the ice-maker and water-dispenser are still out of commission. I can live with that, but it needs to be fixed. (I really miss the ice-maker.) I guess I'll call Home Depot back tomorrow.
Thinking back on the gastroscopy which I can't remember. I'll bet I didn't like that. I can't wait to ask the doctor about my reactions. I don't like the idea of not having control over myself and having my memory blacked out by some chemical substance (including alcohol) ("Been there, done that," as my recently deceased friend used to say). Also, if the anesthesia acts like a "truth serum" (as I've read), I shudder over what I might have said while I was under. We'll see what the doctor says, since I'm going to ask him. As you can tell, I'm bothered by this, especially since I value my privacy. ("The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated . . . .") (U.S. Constitution.)
On a lighter note, I watched a new "Renovation Realities" tonight. Pretty good, but I've seen better. The best ones are when the husband and wife are going at each other. (This is a set-up drama, but entertaining nonetheless. Just too much repetition.)
Every day, Lucky makes me laugh (always good). Tonight there's been some kind of flying insect in the house (like a flying Daddy Long-legs). Lucky's been on it for hours. I just tried to catch it and release it outside but failed.
On a heavier note, I firmly believe that the government should aggressively crack down on rising health care costs. (Read the article by Atul Gawande mentioned earlier.) (Obama talked about this on the show tonight.) When doctors' practices turn into "profit centers" and patients are subjected to being over-treated, it not only raises costs but also is ultimately bad for the patients' health. All these unnecessary procedures have risks and side effects that put the patients in harm's way. And as the Hippocratic Oath says, "First, do no harm." (But see this.)
Meanwhile, the government, through Medicare and Medicaid, is paying for a lot of this stuff. If we're going to have a national health care system, this mentality on the part of doctors has change. I personally think my gastroscopy was unnecessary and that I was possibly subjected to potentially harmful, brain-damaging anesthesia in order for the procedure to be done so that I wouldn't remember it. (Seriously--I've been mentally fuzzy.) I've had no stomach complaints for years. But the minute I told this doctor I was taking Prilosec, he ordered the gastroscopy--after I'd told him my stomach was fine.
Back to work today. Didn't get such good sleep last night. Maybe it's because there was still some of that anesthesia in my system. It takes at least 24 hours to flush it out.
I'm glad the past two days are over. I'd love to know how I reacted to the treatments as they were happening, but I have no memory of them (that's the way the anesthesia works). (Probably just as well.) Before they put me under, they stuck a plastic piece in my mouth with a hole in the middle, through which they would pass the gastroscope or endoscope to examine my upper gastrointestinal tract. Glad my stomach and esophagus and the beginning of the duodenum were healthy. The doctor had been concerned that I might have GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease). I supect I used to have it, but I've been taking Prilosec for a couple of years and it's gone away. But then on the NBC Nightly News a couple of days ago, there was a report saying that people who take these anti-acid drugs have a 30% (?) greater chance of bone fractures. Prilosec was mentioned by name. I'll just try not to fall down. (Which I never do.) I just did a search on this topic and apparently it's old news.) (I also still take Tums mainly as a calcium supplement. I used to eat them like crazy for heartburn.)
Yesterday, for $25, I got my own car and driver to and from the ambulatory center. Such a deal! After the treatments, they gave me a bottle of fruit punch and a package of peanut-butter cheese crackers. When I got home, I immediately finished off some cold left-over steak and onion rings from Saturday's dinner at T.G.I. Friday's and then nuked a couple of White Castle cheeseburgers. Then I walked across the street and got a toasted bagel with lox spread at Einstein's and had a couple cups of coffee at Starbucks, while reading my magazine and The Miami Herald. (Father Cutie drew a big crowd at a nearby Episcopal church on Sunday.) (See here.) I wasn't allowed to drive yesterday or do heavy lifting or sign documents. (The only documents I signed were at the ambulatory center before the procedures.) And I became a little concerned when they asked me whether I had a living will (I do). Anyway, glad that's over.
Now I have to make an appointment with the gastroenterologist for two weeks from now.
"The Stagers" was supposed to be new tonight, but it was an old, oft-repeated episode (but still good).
(Click on the diagram above to enlarge.)
What the hell. I've chilled enough.
"Pro-life" people who murder doctors who perform abortions can hardly be considered pro-life. If you want to call yourself "pro-life," you don't kill, period. Have some actual morals if you want to call yourself that. And ask yourself: Do tragically deformed fetuses in the womb have a more exalted right to life than normal human beings already born (and legally practicing medicine perhaps)? (If so, I'd like to hear that rationale.) These murderers are crazed. (I dare say that progressive-leaning people or even hardened liberals do not go around killing people for causes.) Watch the Maddow video. There's a whole underground of radical extremists (terrorists) who extol and promote violence against doctors who perform abortions. Their goal is to scare everybody involved. Some of them also equally hate gays. It's the whole hate-filled right-wing agenda taken to its murderous antisocial extreme.
As Bill Clinton said, abortions should be safe, legal and rare.
They found one polyp in my colon today. My stomach, however, was normal. I have no side effects from the procedures. I'm just wondering whether I ran off my mouth while I was under. (The anesthetic they use is not like a regular general anesthetic--you're awake but you don't experience pain or remember anything afterward.) I have to see the gastroenterologist in two weeks. I'll ask him if I said anything rude and apologize if I did.
More tomorrow.
Everybody should read The Cider House Rules by John Irving. (Review here.) From Big Tent Democrat here:
DougJ provides us this testimonial from a commenter about Dr. George Tiller:
In 1994 my wife and I found out that she was pregnant. The pregnancy was difficult and unusually uncomfortable but her doctor repeatedly told her things were fine. Sometime early in the 8th month my wife, an RN who at the time was working in an infertility clinic asked the Dr. she was working for what he thought of her discomfort. He examined her and said that he couldn’t be certain but thought that she might be having twins. We were thrilled and couldn’t wait to get a new sonogram that hopefully would confirm his thoughts.
Two days later our joy was turned to unspeakable sadness when the new sonogram showed conjoined twins. Conjoined twins alone is not what was so difficult but the way they were joined meant that at best only one child would survive the surgery to separate them and the survivor would more than likely live a brief and painful life filled with surgery and organ transplants. We were advised that our options were to deliver into the world a child who’s life would be filled with horrible pain and suffering or fly out to Wichita Kansas and to terminate the pregnancy under the direction of Dr. George Tiller.
We made an informed decision to go to Kansas. One can only imagine the pain borne by a woman who happily carries a child for 8 months only to find out near the end of term that the children were not to be and that she had to make the decision to terminate the pregnancy and go against everything she had been taught to believe was right. This was what my wife had to do. Dr. Tiller is a true American hero. The nightmare of our decision and the aftermath was only made bearable by the warmth and compassion of Dr. Tiller and his remarkable staff. Dr. Tiller understood that this decision was the most difficult thing that a woman could ever decide and he took the time to educate us and guide us along with the other two couples who at the time were being forced to make the same decision after discovering that they too were carrying children impacted by horrible fetal anomalies. I could describe in great detail the procedures and the pain and suffering that everyone is subjected to in these situations. However, that is not the point of the post. We can all imagine that this is not something that we would wish on anyone. The point is that the pain and suffering were only mitigated by the compassion and competence of Dr. George Tiller and his staff. We are all diminished today for a host of reasons but most of all because a man of great compassion and courage has been lost to the world.
A murdering terrorist, intent on terrifying doctors and women alike, has ended the life of Dr. Tiller. . . .
