January 2011
December 2010
From the Personal to the Public: Misplaced...
He’s a Vietnam vet with an MBA from NYU and he spent his career in middle management at a Fortune 500 company before retiring early to the affluent Connecticut hills within 100 miles of several major medical centers – and he was repeatedly doused with Agent Orange at Long Binh. The skin cancers began nearly 30 years ago. So, when a mole changed in October, he noticed. Gave it a couple of weeks to...
There are persistent assertions here that U.S....
Did you know that in the United States today nearly a quarter of the men who die before age 75 – die preventable deaths? And nearly a third of women who die before age 75 die preventable deaths? False advertising: Not the best. Merely, the most expensive in the world. The United States medical care ranks 37th in the world if you take Third World countries into account.
To be fair, arguments...
A Special Christmas Present
Holiday Greetings
In the era of Wikileaks, this ancient, ornery holiday card seems appropriate.
BIG NIGHT TRIBUTE TO MILLIE NISS FEATURING KAZIM...
Sponsored by: Just Buffalo Saturday, February 19, 2011 @ 8:00 PM Celebrate the posthumous publication of City Bird: Selected Poems 1991-2009 (Blazevox, 2010), by Millie Niss Poetry by Kazim Ali! Video by Millie Niss and other artists! Poems by Millie Niss read by friends! Food by Geoffrey Gatza!
It's a harsher side of Winter
“It’s time to get involved with our hospital care. We cannot depend on...”
– From a newsletter written by Martine Ehrenclou, M.A.for her book Critical Conditions: The Essential Hospital Guide to Get Your Loved One Out Alive (Lemon Grove Press)
There is a logical leap in this analysis that if adverse events in the hospital are preventable, then we (the consumers and ...
“I regret that some reports about the exhibit have created an impression that the...”
– http://www.buffalonews.com/city/article277617.ece
Unfortunately, we can look forward to a lot more of the same now that Republican office-holders have suddenly become art connoisseurs.
December Flower
“What was going on in Baltimore is going on right now in every city in America,”...”
– http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/06/health/06stent.html?hpw
Spork tends to focus on mistakes and/or neglect in the health care community. This story of the doctor and all the stents for sheer profit rather than medical necessity represents the other half of the universe of medical issues affecting...
The Ripple Effect
Remember the story circulating after the Big Blackout of 2003 when the entire Northeast lost power? A little boy in rural Maine thought he had caused the blackout because he dropped his electric toothbrush into the toilet.
Apocryphal perhaps, but also on point.
For the last 9 months, the surviving Spork has been fighting a lonely battle, partly because others didn’t know, partly because it...
Winter Arrives on the First
A First also for this camera: Now there are the challenges of photographing birds through water-streaked windows in a cool room. The temperature first: Thermostat set at 55-degrees F to maintain the plants and to reduce fog on the windows. The camera is kept in the cool room if photography is anticipated.
