November 2009 archive

Cross posted at DK

Morning all (cant say good cause it’s not)

Wednesday Morning Science Supplement is an Open Thread

27 Story Final.

1 Obama urges action as Europe ups pressure on US

by Michael Mathes, AFP

1 hr 1 min ago

Muse in the Morning

Brocade 1:



(Click on image for larger view)

The muses are ancient.  The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them.  Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward.  In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.

It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse.  Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets.  Others have been suggested throughout the centuries.  I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts.  And maybe there should be many more.

I know you have talent.  What sometimes is forgotten is that being practical is a talent.  I have a paucity for that sort of talent in many situations, though it turns out that I’m a pretty darn good cook.  🙂  

Let your talent bloom.  You can share it here.  Encourage others to let it bloom inside them as well.

Won’t you share your words or art, your sounds or visions, your thoughts scientific or philosophic, the comedy or tragedy of your days, the stories of doing and making?  And be excellent to one another!

This is one of those horrible stories which seem to illustrate vividly the problem with the whole “profit in healthcare” system that is now in place in the United States.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/256…

On Saturday, 10 days after Scott Hawkins was beaten to death inside his dormitory at California State University, Sacramento, his parents got a letter in the mail.

It contained a bill from the UC Davis Medical Center for $29,186.50 along with a form letter addressed “Dear Patient” that implied they were indigent and stated that the hospital no longer could provide them services.

“UC Davis can no longer provide follow-up care or any other non-emergency care to you,” it read. “Please go to a County clinic for all non-emergency care or to get a referral to another doctor.”

For Gerald and Elizabeth Hawkins, it was just too much to bear.

“It was just devastating and insulting,” Gerald Hawkins said Monday. “It’s just hard to grasp for words. My wife and I were near collapse.”

The couple said the mailing tore at the wounds opened by the loss of their 23-year-old son.

“We were just very upset on Saturday, it just all spiraled downward,” Elizabeth Hawkins said. “We called a crisis counselor and he came over and spent several hours over here.”

As a means of coping, the family made a copy of the letter, took it into the backyard of their Santa Clara home and burned it.

Monday morning, they picked up the phone to straighten things out.

Gerald Hawkins said he first called the UC Davis billing department, but was so distraught he lost his voice and handed the phone to his wife.

“It was just one more unpleasant process,” she said. “I was crying through the whole thing.”

The parents also sent a note to the billing department noting that their son was not indigent and that he carried full medical coverage through a Kaiser Permanente plan.

Contacted by The Bee on Monday, Carole Gan, a hospital spokeswoman, called the mailing “a mistake.”

A “mistake”.   Yeah, I’ll say.   Having a for-profit healthcare system is, indeed, a “mistake”.

Sorry!   We made a mistake!    You’ll just have to get over it!    Now have a nice day!

We didn’t have anything to vote about

here in Carlsbad this round.

But 2010 will be different.

I could easily run for city council in Carlsbad, New Mexico, and win.

Last time we had a city council election, my ward had no formal candidate. One guy was a write in and he won with 90 votes or so. If I’d ran, and gotten my name on the ballot, I likely would have won because of name recognition, etc.

I thought about that for a long time after it went down. I had no idea that the level of involvement here was so slight.

I live in the north end of the barrio. My neighborhood is a mixed bag, racially. I’m not close to any of the people here, but they don’t give me any trouble, either. We’re all pretty good about keeping out of each other’s hair on my street.

There are maybe 25,000 people in Carlsbad.

The guy who has been mayor for many years finally has run into the term limit wall.

I know I should get off my lazy cowardly butt and get in these people’s faces and run for City Council.

But they scare the shit out of me. They are so indirect and weird and different and entrenched.

I think a lot of stuff is up for grabs in 2010. Not sure. They don’t like to advertise that sort of thing around here.

But I also know that I could become a member of the City Council of Carlsbad, NM, as a representative of my ward, if I put some energy into it.

There are people here would would ruin my life if it suited them, just to keep me out of the way.

But they could do it anyway, I guess.

Should I run for City Council next time the opportunity arises? I could easily win this, and if I won it, I know myself well enough to be very clear that I would get really ornery if I got some cats in my face about how I should just get along with the program.

Please give me advice. All of you. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. They don’t pay city council members here more than a pittance. That doesn’t matter, it would not be about money for me. If I am to try to do this, how do I start?

Thank you.

Miep