An ER Dr.'s Perspective on the Health Care Crisis

A friend posted this on Facebook and I thought it was worthy enough for a spot on my blog. This is a letter sent to the White House by an E.R. Dr. offering his perspective on the Health Care Crisis. And it is SO TRUE!

Dear Mr. President:
During my shift in the Emergency Room last night, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient whose smile revealed an expensive
Shiny gold tooth, whose body was adorned with a wide assortment of elaborate and costly tattoos, who wore a very expensive
Brand of tennis shoes and who chatted on a new cellular telephone equipped with a popular R&B ring tone. While glancing over her
Patient chart, I happened to notice that her payer status was listed as "Medicaid"! During my examination of her, the patient informed
Me that she smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes every day and somehow still has money to buy pretzels and beer.
And, you and our Congress expect me to pay for this woman's health care? I contend that our nation's "health care crisis" is not the
Result of a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. Rather, it is the result of a "crisis of culture", a culture in which it is perfectly
Acceptable to spend money on luxuries and vices while refusing to take care of one's self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance.
It is a culture based on the irresponsible credo that "I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me".
Once you fix this "culture crisis" that rewards irresponsibility and dependency, you'll be amazed at how quickly our nation's health care
Difficulties will disappear.

Respectfully,
STARNER JONES, MD

The Healing Properties of Silver

The therapeutic properties of silver have been known for thousands of years. When Hippocrates wrote about its healing and anti-infective properties, the Phoenicians began storing their water and wine in silver containers. Silver compounds were used to prevent infections during WWI, and were widely used right  up to the introduction of antibiotics prior and during WWII.

Though silver has taken a back seat to antibiotics, it is still widely used in the development of medicines in the equine world including skin disorders all the way to respiratory infections.

Ballew, Mickey. Breathing Silver: Healing properties of silver used for equine respiratory disease. Holistic Horse, issue 81. Oct/Nov. 2012.

Victoria as Bait!

HM Queen Victoria of England wasn't always popular. She survived eight assassination attempts. On one such occasion on May 29th, 1842 a man stepped out in front of Victoria's carriage and aimed a pistol at her. His gun was poorly charged and the attempt failed. No harm came to Victoria, but her would be assassin escaped.

Victoria's Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, offered his suggestion. Lure the man out by riding down the same path at the same time and see if he tries again. Surprisingly enough Victoria agreed. The plan worked. Undercover policemen apprehended John Francis as he was getting ready to step out of the crowd. He was arrested and exiled to Australia (initially Victoria wanted him hanged).

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Some people close to the queen was afraid that this lighter sentence would encourage other would-be-assassins to try their hand at it and that a harsher punishment was required to deter them. Prince Albert came up with the Treason Act of 1842 where a man, if convicted, would be flogged and serve up to seven years in jail. Though, a few men did serve jail time, not one was ever flogged.

Not as American as we thought.

Here is a list of popular American icons that are actually foreign owned (as listed by CNBC):

1. Budweiser and Bud-Light Beer: owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev N.V. of Belgium and Brazille. They even sponsor a "made in America" festival in Philadelphia.

2. Alka-Seltzer: Bayer, AG of Germany.

3. Good Humor: Bought by Unilver of Britian and Netherlands. They also own Lipton, Klondike, and Popsicle.

4. 7-Eleven: Seven and I Holdings, Co. of Japan.

5. Gerber: Bought by Nestle of Switzerland.

6. Firestone: Bought by Bridgestone Corp. in Japan. It started out in Akron, Ohio, though.

7. John Hancock Life Insurance: Picked up by Manulife Financial Corp. in Toronto, Canada.

8. Frigidaire: Originally from Ft. Wayne, Indiana is now owned by Electrolux of Sweden.

9. The Chrysler Bldg.: 90% of the bldg. is now owned by Abu Dhabi Investment Council.

It is sometimes hard to know what is American and what is not. For the sake of America, our people, and our economy, please try to buy American owned products or at least from companies that employ Americans.

She Has the Look - Go Mickenna!

 

 Disney acting ‘Event’

By Sandy Scarmack Herald Staff Writer The Sharon Herald Mon Aug 20, 2012, 12:00 PM EDT

JACKSON CENTER — Calling herself both dramatic and shy, 14-year-old Mickenna Ansell hopes landing a spot at The Event, a Disney-based forum for combining talent scouts and aspiring actors, will give her some solid experience if she opts to pursue a career on stage.

Well, that and the one-in-a-million chance to co-star in a movie with Johnny Depp, she said.

The youngest daughter of Sherry and Donald Ansell of Jackson Center had “the look” that scouts were searching for, her mother said, and the teen was called back for a second day of tryouts in Cleveland, where screeners worked with nearly 200 teens on the last weekend in July.

“We ditched my niece’s bridal shower to drive two and a half hours to Cleveland, twice in two days,” said Sherry Ansell. Her older daughter, Katie Engstrom, tagged along with them. “They called us the second day and asked us to come back, because Mickenna had the look they wanted,” she said.

The prize for having been chosen to participate in The Event, she said, is traveling to Florida in March when she will audition for various parts by doing dramatic readings, some stand-up comedy, a commercial and some sitcom lines. Mickenna will work with other teens who work with the youth-based Nickelodeon channel and has the chance to be called for future roles on television shows. Sponsors of The Event will pay for her lodging at Disney World, but travel is at the family’s expense.

“We’re looking at it as a nice vacation. Even if nothing comes of it, she will have had a chance to learn something. I don’t see a downside,” said Mrs. Ansell.

She made multiple phone calls to Disney and other sponsors to make sure it was a valid offer. “I confirmed that they do have talent agents who will be there and they do have classes to work with the young actors,” she said.

Mickenna has already taken singing lessons at Lakeview High School, tap, jazz and ballet lessons privately and participates routinely in an academic decathlon that involves public speaking. She said she has loved acting since she was a little girl because “all the characters I can play are so different from me. I get to be somebody different,” she said.

“I’m not afraid to speak in public because I’m not speaking for myself. I’m playing someone else,” she said.

She has acted in two productions, she said, and played the lead in “A Walk to Remember” and “Happily Never After.” A fan of Facebook, romance novels and watching movies, the high school freshman said she is excited about a chance to audition, but doesn’t rule out a career outside of acting. “I also thought about psychiatry,” she said.

Still, her mother cautions, this isn’t anything more than an opportunity to find out if she likes acting.

“We are looking at this as a fun family vacation. If she gets a part in some show or a commercial, that is great. If she doesn’t, that’s great too. We are going so she can learn something. We’re not approaching this like ‘hey we can sell the house and quit our jobs because we’re going to be rich’, said Mrs. Ansell, who for the last 35 years has worked as a hairdresser. Mickenna’s father is a blasting supervisor at Allegheny Mining.

Requirements for participation in the program include not changing how Mickenna looks.

“No weird hairdos or dramatic changes,” she said. She is required to have specific outfits, including a black and white outfit and some semi-formal attire.

“We’ll be waiting till after homecoming season until we can buy a dress cheaper. My sister will take the photos she has to have, instead of us hiring a photographer. We aren’t going to run out and spend a fortune buying her a whole wardrobe. We do things as cheaply as we can here,” said Mrs. Ansell.

**I copied this verbatem from an email that was forwarded to me by my mom. I don 't know Mickenna personally, but she is a relative of mine and I wish her the best of luck! I am very excited for her and her story deserves a special place on my blog. Go Mickenna!

Sixty Seven Years Since Hiroshima

"I was praying for the souls lost in Hiroshima and trying to imagine what must have happened on a beautiful August day." - Harry S. Truman

“We’re going to kill a lot of people, but we’re going to save a lot of lives too. We won’t have to invade.” - Paul Tibbets, pilot of the Enola Gay.

“The world of the dead is a different place from the world of the living and it is hardly possible to visit there. That day in Hiroshima the two worlds nearly converged.” - Richard Rhodes

A moment of silence for all who perished, suffered, or lost family members in WW II........................

Sixty seven years ago on this day, 6 August 1945, U.S. President Harry Truman gave an order that forever changed history. The United States was engaged in the throws of WWII and in a desperate attempt to prevent any more American casualties the atom bomb, Little Boy, was unleashed on Hiroshima, Japan. The devastation was catastrophic and resulted in the immediate deaths of estimated 80,000 people. In the coming months injury and radiation brought the death toll upward to 140,000. And when Japan still refused to surrender a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Thus began the nuclear age.

Since then the world has been in a race over arms; it is what led to the notorious Manhattan Project and the cold war between the U.S. and Russia. Can't we learn from history? Nuclear war could mean the end of humanity...so thought Einstein and other visionary scientists who signed a document stating their position against the use of such horrific weapons. Even General Eisenhower (later President Eisenhower) admitted that he questioned the morality of using the cruel device.

After Hiroshima's reconstruction, the city has been a leader in the quest for peace. Every year on the anniversary of the bombing, the city mayor reaches out to countries around the world to unite in prayer.

God be with us and with those who have died before us. Let us know peace between nations.

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The oleander is the official flower of the city of Hiroshima because it was the first to bloom again after the explosion of the atomic bomb in 1945.

"Agnes Darling" - Wild Bill's Eerie Letter

"Agnes Darling, if such should be we never meet again, while firing my last shot, I will gently breathe the name of my wife---Agnes---and with wishes even for my enemies I will make the plunge and try to swim to the other shore." - Wild Bill Hickok to his new wife Agness.

Wild Bill wrote these words in a letter to his wife the day before his death in Deadwood, SD, in 1876. He was shot in the back of the head by a disgruntled man who had lost money to him playing poker just the day before.

Bill had always sat with his back against the wall when he played cards. However, on this occasion his spot had already been taken and the man occupying it refused to move. Instead of causing a ruccous, Bill went against his own rule to never sit where someone could sneak up behind him.  It was the one and only time he would make this mistake.

Agnes received the letter a month later in the mail.

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Friends said that Hickok wrote the letter because he was now in his late 30's and felt that he was losing his edge. After many decades of fame he was still very much sought after by the public and young men used him to test their metal. Hickok knew he wasn't as fast as he used to be and that his days were numbered.

 

It is interesting to note that "Everyday Paranormal", a paranormal research group who supposedly uses scientific methods to capture evidence of the paranormal, supposedly caught an "EVP" of a "spirit" who seemed to answer their questions as Hickok might have. When asking:

- what his last words would be if he had a chance to voice them... a voice responded, "tell my wife I love her."

- what was the fifth card in Hickok's hand when he was shot, the spirit replied "nine diamonds."

The arrangement of cards Hickok last held while playing poker are famously known as "The Dead Man's Hand." He held a pair of eights, and pair of aces; the fifth card was lost to history.

One version of the trial: Hickok's murderer, Jack McCall, was found not guilty in a court of law (due to the false testimony that Hickok had previously killed McCall's brother), but was taken back to court a second time  and was tried again. It was found that McCall didn't even have a brother to begin with. The coward hung.

ALY DARLING!

Alydar, the famous chestnut throughbred racehorse who is best known for dueling with his rival Affirmed in all three legs of the 1978 Triple Crown, was named by the owner of Calumet Farms, Lucille Markey, after her close friend the Aga Khan of Islam. His name was Aly Khan and she addressed his royal highness as "Aly darling!" Alydar is a contraction of Aly darling!

Alydar was born March 23, 1975 at Calumet Farm and also died there of mysterious causes on Nov. 15, 1990.

Alydar had no trouble beating any of his adversaries by a huge gap, except for the impressive Affirmed.

Alydar finished his career with 14 victories -- and nine seconds -- in 26 starts and earned $957,195, while Affirmed, who was Horse of the Year at age 3 and 4, won 22 of 29 races and $2,393,818. sportsillustrated.cnn.com /horse_racing/news/2003/04/26/affirmed_alydar_ap  

Interesting tidbit: The Aga Khan was once married to one of America's own on-screen royalty, Rita Hayworth.

A "Toast" to Eighteenth Century England

It was considered appropriate for aristocratic men in eighteenth century England to say a few words at the banquet table. They enjoyed the tradition to such an extent that they did so without pausing to "relieve" themselves.

In a footnote of Amanda Foreman's book, Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire, p. 25, she writes, "The practice of proposing and replying continued throughout the dinner and with even more vigour after the women had left. Toasting the ladies, toasting the food, each other, and whatever else came to mind went on for so long there were chamber pots in each corner, and the person who has occasion to use it does not even interrupt his talk during the operation." It was a quote taken from Frenchman Andre Parreaux's, Daily Life, p.36.

Lack of ethics destroyed Challenger space mission.

"We all knew if the seals failed, the shuttle would blow up!" - Roger Boisjoly.

Roger Boisjoly was an engineer working for the Morton Thiokal company which supplied parts for NASA at the time of the Challenger space shuttle disaster back in January 1986. Months before the disaster he, along with three other employees, remembers speaking to the managers of his company about his belief that the elastic seals on the rocket booster (SRB) were faulty.

The outermost seal, also known as an O-ring, had been designed to seat itself and then flex along with the joint where two individual parts of the SRB came together. It was discovered, however, that instead of staying seated in its place during periods of flexion the ring would often shift out of position allowing exhaust to escape. This hot gas would then damage the ring.

Cold temperature was also noted to be a safety concern. Engineers working on the project knew that freezing temperatures would cause the rings to stiffen. Once they were incapable of flexing, gas was bound to escape. One spark is all it would take cause the SRB to explode, as well as the shuttle itself. This is what Boisjoly had tried so hard to warn everyone about.

At around this same time, the Morton Thiokal company were in the middle of negotiating with NASA on the renewal of their contract. Ethical or not, it is believed that the company's plan was to keep Boisjoly's warnings low key until after the new deal was "sealed."

NASA evidently was aware that there was a problem. A day before the scheduled launch NASA and Morton Thiokal held a teleconference to decide once and for all if the shuttle was flight worthy. After one last debate the managers of the company gave the okay to proceed as planned.

Boisjoly was alarmed upon hearing this! This January had been the coldest on record in Florida; he knew the rings were sure to fail. Behind the scenes he made attempt after attempt to cancel the flight. Only moments into the flight, the shuttle was lost. The company managers had gambled on the other people's lives and lost.

Unfortunately Boisjoly was branded a "whistle blower" by his colleague's and was ostracized by the engineering community at large. I, however, believe there should be more people out there like Boisjoly who will step up and do the right thing even when you stand alone. You are a hero in my book.

Others also have acknowledged his bravery before the disaster. He was given the Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility by the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1988.

Mr. Boisjoly, you will be remembered for your honesty and integrity. May you rest in peace. April 25, 1938 – January 6, 2012.

Kennedy's Eery Foreshadowing of Day of Own Funeral

JFK made private recordings of his conversations before his assassination in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

In a scheduling discussion three days before his killing, JFK comments on what would become the day of his funeral.

Kennedy - "Monday?" he asks. "Well that's a tough day."

Staff Member - "It's a hell of a day, Mr. President."

MSNBC.com, Secret Tapes of JFK's Last Days Released, 24 January 2012.

No political progress since the days of Kennedy...

The conversation below speaks for itself.

In a conversation with political advisers about young voters, Kennedy asks, "What is it we have to sell them?"

"We hope we have to sell them prosperity, but for the average guy the prosperity is nil," he says. "He's not unprosperous, but he's not very prosperous. ... And the people who really are well off hate our guts."

Kennedy talks about a disconnect between the political machine and voters.

"We've got so mechanical an operation here in Washington that it doesn't have much identity where these people are concerned," he says.

MSNBC.com, Secret Tapes of JFK's Last Days Released, 24 January 2012.