January 2011
Snow Storm Coming - Winter Flowers
We’ve been told to stop our smug smirking over the fact that downstate is getting most of the snow this year, because our turn is coming.
It was 11-degrees F this morning, so it seemed a good time to photograph the Winter flowers currently brightening our house.
Southbury, Connecticut - Reprise
“The public lobbies of hospitals are always nicer than where they keep the sick...”
– Spork Major, June 27, 2009
East Branch, New York, on Rte 17
is in the heart of the Catskills and far away from towns or villages. The last time we stopped at this rest area, the sun was shining on flowering shrubs, bright green leaves – and there were only two crows in sight. They flew before I could document their presence. This January day (the 22nd) was too cold to take pictures through an open window, let alone to get out of the car. 6-degrees F to...
Southbury, Connecticut (January 18-22)
“It’s clear that voters were frightened away from Health Security by the...”
– Wendell Potter. Deadly Spin (2010). Bloomsbury Press, p. 134.
I agree with Wendell Potter’s take on the consequences of defeating the Clinton health reform proposals. However, as a health provider (psychologist) at the time myself — and fresh from a local battle with an HMO along...
Across the border in Las Cruces, New Mexico, a former talk radio host with a Ph.D wrote: It does not matter to me if you do not want more. Some people live on the land, foregoing electricity, using only what they need. I would not stop them, but I do not want them to impose their lifestyle on me. I like greed, it is why our country has been and is so very prosperous. Michael Swickard, Ph.D.,...
“I have just listened to a speech by Candidate Obama. He scares me. He is...”
– Letter writer to Las Cruces Sun-News (New Mexico), February 23, 2008.
And several more comments somewhat similar in tone and content. And in Oklahoma, the letter writers to The Oklahoman called for the repeal of the 17th Amendment to the US Constitution which provides for the direct election of US...
“We have to remember to include the patients. We have to include their...”
– Dr. Albert W. Wu, lead author and a general internist and professor of health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Consider the patient — a novel thought in thinking about health care improvement. A refreshing deviation from the almost exclusive focus...
Update on first New Year's baby
The Buffalo News, January 3, 2011.
It’s not the paper’s fault. What amazes me are the admissions of poor communication within the hospital, as disclosed by the hospital spokesperson.