tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83129762537025337632024-03-07T21:45:55.912-08:00Looka' herescotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-67058776038659498362012-04-19T21:10:00.002-07:002012-04-19T21:17:18.289-07:00RunnoftR U N N O F T, I done runnoft. Come and see my new blog. DocAsblog@blogspot.comscotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-34005495878853961302012-03-29T16:58:00.000-07:002012-03-29T16:58:29.620-07:00Hey, howdy, how are you? Well we have been working away Una Voce by Dwalia South MD is out and selling well, about to send my pair of the twins to the printer to come out in June. It's called The Uncommon Thread and if you want a taste to see if you like it there is a sampler available on Amazon.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> <a href="http://amzn.com/B005UGWGRE">sample</a></span>scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-12581477618413467552012-01-19T10:59:00.001-08:002012-01-19T11:00:16.181-08:00Poe's Birthday<br />
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Today is the birthday of Edgar Allen Poe. He was born in Boston in 1809. As a physician I can’t help but wonder how Poe’s life would have turned out if we had developed anti-mycobacterial therapy a century or so earlier. Firstly he may have never become an orphan. As his mother would not have died of tuberculosis when he was two years old. He would not have been adopted by the Allen family, therefore he would be, simply, Edgar Poe. Not being raised by a well-to-do family in Richmond, it is unlikely that he would have ever attended the University of Virginia to receive the tools to become a writer. In his adult life, his young wife Virginia would not have contracted the same disease that had killed his mother, he would not have had to endure her debilitating illness and therefore would have never produced “The Tell-Tale Heart”, or her subsequent death which led to the tone of his work for the remainder of his life.<br />
<br />
So, from his birth came the man, and from the scourge of tuberculosis came his art. Happy Birthday Ed,I think that’s what we would have called him if INH or Rifampin would have changed his life. But we would all be less, for there would be no resonance when we heard the word “nevermore”.</div>scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-54684245918185327502011-11-16T19:12:00.001-08:002011-11-18T09:47:29.700-08:00Occupy Bourbon Street<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></b>Gordon grew up destined to protest
something. I guess you could say it
was in his genes. His daddy’d come
down to Mississippi from Ohio in the summer of 1966 to help register the blacks
to vote. His name wasn’t Middleman
though. It was Lowenstein. Middleman was Gordon’s momma’s family
name. Anyway, Gordon’s daddy’d run
off to Canada to avoid the draft about the same time his momma, Bettie Lee,
found out she was pregnant. He said he was going to send for her when he got
settled, but I don't guess they ever heard from him again. </div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Gordon was effected by that too I
guess. He never could stay with a
job for too long. Some said it was
because he’d never had a daddy around to show him what work was. Others said it was having to take care
of his momma his whole life, after she came off of that motorcycle, that’d done
it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Bettie Lee’d run head on into a
pick-up truck and right through the windshield she went. She never talked again. They called what happened to her
“organic brain syndrome” but everybody around town just shortened it to OBS. Gordon was five at the time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I don’t really know all that much
about it. Everything I know is
only second hand ‘cause I wasn’t around back then. Gordon’s my cousin.
He’s old enough to be my uncle.
He’s only three years younger than my dad. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Gordon’s been teaching me how to
drive all summer. He did a great
job. I just got my license last
week. I passed the driving test
the first time through. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
They closed the battery
reprocessing plant where Gordon worked the same day. I guess they can get a better deal getting them made over in
China where they don’t have to worry so much about lead poisoning. So Gordon was at loose ends when he
heard about the protests that had started up north in New York City. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
From what he explained, ninety-nine
percent of the people in the United States were being held up by one percent of
some greedy hogs that were living there in New York on Wall Street. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
“They might as well have a gun,” he
said.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Gordon logged on to the Occupy Wall
Street web site to have a look. He
gave them some money and watched a little video somebody posted about how to
start a protest in your own community.
I watched it with him, but I swear, it was about the most boring thing I
ever saw on You Tube. I thought it
was stupid. A protest in Soso,
Mississippi wasn’t going to accomplish much of anything. What was he going to occupy anyway, the
post office?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Gordon saw it different
though. He thought New Orleans was
just about perfect for a protest.
Besides, it was the only city anywhere near big enough that was close to
Soso. I thought, maybe he could
catch a Saints game while he was down there. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
He said he could get a couple of
his buddies, catch the Amtrack, and go down there on Wednesday if he could get
me and his neighbor, Mrs. Clanton, to keep an eye on his momma for a few days
while he was gone. I said
sure. Getting away for a little’d
do him good. He didn’t have a job to go to right now anyway. Maybe they could occupy Jackson Square.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
He thought about it all day and by
that night he was sure that this was a thing that needed doing. So he went back to the OWS website to
let them know what he was intending to do. OWS thought that that was a fine idea, and gave him some hints
about drums, and collections boxes and what to write on the protest signs and
all sorts of things like that.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
He went out to the garage to paint
some protest signs. He had a lot
of paint left from painting the short bus for the Mardi Gras parade back in
February. He made the first sign
purple and gold. He wrote OWS in
big letters. Then stood back to
get a good look to see how it seemed at a distance. OWS looked a lot like the thing his momma had, the
OBS. Maybe it was a sign. Something was trying to show him what
it was that he was supposed to do.
Gordon P. Middleman was going to be a real leader. He was the founding father of his own
protest. Gordon was going down
there and Occupy Bourbon Street to raise money for his momma. So that’s what he wrote on the rest of
the signs. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
OBS for OBS</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Support your momma</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
He caught the train on Tuesday. Nobody else went with him. I couldn’t go ‘cause I had school. All our friends had jobs except Wilson,
we call him Boo, and Boo wasn’t getting out of jail for three weeks. Gordon wasn’t waiting. So there wasn’t any of us that could go
with him. I drove him to the
station. He had a lot of extra
signs. I watched as he put them on
the rack above him, then he sat down with that big drum he got from the attic on
his lap, like it was a lunch box or something. That’s the last I saw of Gordon for a while. I heard from him though. He sent me texts almost every day.</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Day One</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Well, my OBS protest isn’t working worth
a damn. At first nobody else on Bourbon Street even noticed I was there. I was
just standing there by myself with my signs, beating on the drum. A few people gave me money. Some others
spit on me. Folks stuck Saints
stickers on my signs. Tomorrow I’ve got to get some help.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Day Two<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">a.m. – Slept behind some garbage cans, a
guy peed on me. Threw my clothes away and washed off with a hose.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Day Three<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Ohhhhh…my head is killing me. Started on Canal. I was beating on my drum and a kid with
a trumpet and a girl with a violin started playing along. Next thing I know a seven-foot tall
giant in a green tutu, torn fishnet stockings, high heels, and a Tulane
football jersey took my green sign and tore it so it only said “Support you
Momma” and gave it to a chubby girl in a clear plastic raincoat and nothing else.
A boy took a marker and changed OBS on one of the signs to Oh Baby Show me, and
off we went, marching along. All
kinds of folk were following us, throwing beads and stuff, girls up on the
balconies were pulling up their shirts.
We were sure doing some protesting now. Police on horses even rode along beside us. We spent the donation money on some of
those tall hurricanes. I slept on
the girl with the raincoat’s couch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Day Five<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Somebody stole my drum last night. The girl I’m staying with is a stripper
at the JoyLuck Club. I hope she
didn’t give me something. I only
have one sign left and it’s all covered with stickers so you can’t tell what it
says.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I didn’t hear anything else for a week
or so then Gordon showed up at home.
He said he felt bad about leaving his momma alone for so long but he
wasn’t getting enough donations and the raincoat girl threw him out. After that, he didn’t have enough
money to buy a ticket home, but it was worth it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Gordon and I are both pretty sure
he taught those greedy hogs up there in New York a thing or two.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-88363602687181667002011-10-17T14:12:00.001-07:002011-10-17T14:12:13.614-07:00Time Donors Wanted paper bookWell, the book version will be out by the end of the month, available in trade paperback from Amazon and beyond. Scott<br /><br /><br />- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad<br />scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-39623924801611300512011-09-20T12:43:00.001-07:002011-09-20T12:58:53.866-07:00Looking to the FutureToday PRNewswire released the results of a Harris poll conducted 7/11-7/18, 2011 on reading habits in the US. The headline was that one sixth of the population is now using an e-reader of some sort, with the same number projecting that they are likely to purchase one in the next year. Various variables are analyzed but what do they really mean in terms of book sales. I decided to do the math. With the current penetration of the market, and assigning median values of 1.5, 4, 8, 15, and 25 for the number of books purchased per year, we can figure the number of books sold per 10,000 people. That comes out to 45,390 books / 10,000 folks for conventional book sales and 15,030 books / 10,000 people for e book sales. So about a third.<br /><br /> What is interesting is to extrapolate where we'll be if the projected growth in e readers materializes. In that case, conventional book sales would be expected to drop to 37,380 books/10,000 people and the number of e-books should jump to 30,060 e book sales/ 10,000 individuals. So at 30% penetration almost half of sales are of e books. When costs and profit margins are taken into consideration, I think where we're headed is obvious.<br /><br /> Scott Anderson<br /> IsoLibris Publishing<br /><br /><br />- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad<br /><p class='blogpress_location'>Location:<a href='http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Mississippi&z=10'>Mississippi</a></p>scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-38553299197093089792011-09-11T09:48:00.000-07:002011-09-11T09:48:19.471-07:00The Uncommon Thread ProjectI guess I better explain how there are so many Uncommon Thread shorts coming out. Well, there were a bunch of them that were in a book that is coming out jointly by China Grove Press (Hardback) and IsoLibris (e book) later this year called Una Voce, that was a compilation of work by Dr. Dwalia South and myself. But Una Voce as it was compiled cut off before the death of Dr. South's dear husband Rob, and the things that she has written in the interim are so compelling that I reworked the collection and pulled my own work out, because of the gravity and excellence of the material available from her alone.
We had already planned to put columns from my more recent column "The Uncommon Thread" out through the Kindle singles program, but that program has a lot of particular constraints, one of them being that the material should be of an intermediate length that isn't suitable for either a novel or a magazine article. Well since all of these have already appeared in the JOURNAL of the Mississippi State Medical Association, we got rejected on that one.
Oh well, because we now have access to the older material and we aren't constrained by the Kindle singles program, we've bundeled collections of 6-10 columns into short format releases that run about 50 pages each. So far I've put together five of them. These will represent about all of the things that I've put out that have a general interest appeal, I don't guess you care about specific issue topics or medically based subjects so these were tossed from consideration. We will offer another collaborative volume next spring of the best of these that will be offered in both hardback, by China Grove, and e book, by IsoLibris. So I hope you give them a try. If you like one, try more. If you have suggestions about which stories are your favorite let us know and that's what will go into the book. You get to determine what we publish. I hope you'll be a part of deciding what we put out. To do it, go to www.IsoLibris.com and then click on my page. Thanks, Scott
This is your chance to direct what gets put in a book!!! scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-69593255322668150502011-09-11T09:45:00.001-07:002011-09-11T09:45:23.886-07:00A new wrinkle in The Uncommon Thread ProjectThe more I've been thinking about this project, the more I want to encourage you guys, the readers, to participate, so, I think that you should have an incentive to be involved. Anyone who takes the time to read and offer comments on all five shorts will get a signed first edition of the book when it comes out, and whoever sends in the most helpful guidance (judged by the author, me) will get a personal "Thank You" in the Acknowledgements section of the book.
To download the shorts go to www.IsoLibris.com and go to my page. Scottscotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-64508942908474498942011-09-11T07:54:00.000-07:002011-09-11T09:14:21.291-07:00Una VoceHere is the blurb for the book I just edited and put together, it is coming out in November. This is one of the most difficult and intense acts of creation that I've ever undertaken, to create a whole from pieces that are not yours is extremely difficult. Coming up with the obscure bits that are needed to make the whole and assembling them so that they make sense to the reader is a unique art, it is like making a mosaic. A mosaic of words.<br />
<br />
<b>Una Voce - Dwalia South M.D.</b><br />
<br />
This collection of stories, poems, and letters is gleaned from the writings of Dr. Dwalia South throughout her writing career. Constructed as a compelling narrative to tell the story of an extraordinary life, from her remembrances as a young girl growing up in the hill country on the Mississippi-Tennessee border to her election as President of the Mississippi State Medical Association and beyond as she faces life’s deepest mysteries on both a professional and personal level. It chronicles both her efforts to care for the people of her hometown of Ripley, Mississippi and the effect that her vocation, life, and community have had on her as a person and as a physician.<br />
<br />
Dr. South’s ties to William Faulkner are far deeper than geographic or kinship. Her writing mines the wealth of history and tradition that gave rise to Yoknapataha and all those that populated it. With that same insight she tells the stories of her home state and of medicine.<br />
<br />
Her heartfelt reflection of the people she serves and the lives she is privileged to share changes us, and that is a hallmark of great writing.
scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-87995327909824735342011-09-10T20:41:00.001-07:002011-09-10T20:41:09.749-07:00Lost TimeFinished the production work for D. South's book Una Voce. Now all we need to do is finish the cover and it's off for galley prints.<br /><br /><br />- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad<br />scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-88496982667917559182011-08-27T09:47:00.001-07:002011-08-27T09:47:05.346-07:00My '51Driving my 1951 Chev PU today...woooohoo.<br /><br /><center><a href='https://picasaweb.google.com/103272694363550738146/BackwardsBooks?authkey=Gv1sRgCNedipvGmbbLYw#5645578279277658098'><img src='http://lh3.ggpht.com/-Kb3xHu4jQhw/TlkfiJABf_I/AAAAAAAAACA/BRs8hEee2cw/s288/0.jpg' border='0' width='281' height='210' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br />- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone<br />scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-70406049570967666922011-08-23T22:27:00.000-07:002011-08-23T22:27:34.758-07:00Nazz - Hello It's Me - YouTube<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dwSOoQXgQU">Nazz - Hello It's Me - YouTube</a>scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-17942378993873093742011-08-23T21:37:00.000-07:002011-08-23T22:36:26.038-07:00Hello, it's me.La-la-la-la me-me-me-me-me-me-me -de-de-de. I don’t know why I’m trying to sing on a blog, it just happened. See that’s the way things get started around here. Some seemingly dumb thing pops up and the next thing anyone knows we’re off on the hunt, following my own personal hellhounds on the trail of some wispy etherial thread of a concept that somehow starts to come around and turn into a fairly coherent and discernible theme by the time we get to the fence. Welcome to my brain. It’s kind of a dark, squishy, strange place. So watch your step. Stay on the cinguli if you would please, try not to fall into any sulci (we don’t want anybody getting lost), and please, please don’t walk off with any of the memories. Just pour them into yours and let them run back out. I want you to have fun. For me, writing is best when it involves a conspiracy between the author and the reader to go where the story takes you. So, come on, you can trust me, after all, I’m a doctor. Who could you possibly trust more?scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-57004397639970681602011-05-23T18:38:00.000-07:002011-05-23T18:39:37.534-07:00A Free ManI’m back.<br /><br />Yep, I met with the Editor and they’ve decided to keep me on. So I’ll be writing this thing for another year. I guess that’s good, or bad depending on if you like the stuff I write, or not. This year will be a little different though, for the first time since I started stringing together words for the JOURNAL I’m unencumbered. Well, I’m still emcumbered by nutty thoughts that ping around in my brain, but what I mean to say is I’m not tied up by being on the board of trustees or the AMA delegation or anything official, so if I say stuff you don’t like you can’t hold it against State Medical. You’re welcome to hold it against me but you shouldn’t expect I’ll lose a lot of sleep at night just because you think I’m an idiot. I’m used to that. I have a whole family that thinks I’m an idiot from time to time. <br /> <br />The unencumbered stuff is only partly an accident, I guess. Most of it was my own doing. I did run to be re-elected to our rapidly diminishing AMA delegation…I lost, but I got to give one of the most fun to give campaign speeches I could ever imagine giving.<br /> <br />It was one of those things that comes to you when you’re driving a pretty long way, like Meridian to Tupelo, and you have time to let things roll around inside your head, getting bigger and bigger as you drive. Usually, after you get to wherever it is that you’re going, common sense takes over and you write a real speech, but I didn’t get that chance. See I’d had to run back home in the middle of the meeting to treat an emergency patient, an old friend, who had developed a spinal cord compression in the mid-thorasic spine. Not wanting them to be paralyzed from the waist down for what life they had left, there wasn’t a lot of choice. Anyway I got back to Tupelo, got out of the car and gave the speech, about that fast. Here it is, as best as I remember:<br /><br />Our inaugural theme for this year is “A Night at the Races”, so in keeping with that theme, I’m going to talk about this election in racing terms. See, as far as medical politics goes, the AMA meeting is the Kentucky Derby. It’s our chance to shine in the national spotlight, and up to now we have. You, the Mississippi State Medical Association, are the riders, and we, the AMA delegation have been the horse that runs the race. Well, next year you’ve decided that it will be best for Mississippi to enter the Kentucky Derby riding on a two-legged pig.<br /><br />By quitting the AMA you’ve left your delegation with only one delegate and one alternate delegate, the same size as the delegations from Puerto Rico, and the gay and transgender physician section. <br /><br /> So what this election is all about is deciding what two legs you think you need on that pig. Do you want a couple of hams? We surely have our share of hams on the delegation. We can harness the power of those hams and go plowing along through the dirt trying to get around that track. Maybe we need a couple of strong shoulders, we have plenty of those on the delegation too, a little more dignified perhaps. They can pull us along. Or maybe you all want one ham and one shoulder. We can try to find a way to balance ourselves and not fall over in the dirt.<br /><br />None of these, I submit, is a good alternative. It is a shame is what it is. You want to tell me that the AMA doesn’t represent you, that the delegation isn’t important to you? Well the work of this delegation is directly responsible for you getting checks for 8.1% of your entire gross federally derived income last year. By fighting to require CMS to abide by the congressionally mandated geographic price correction we prevailed. That meant something to you. You put that money in your pocket. Nobody called to say, “I’m not taking this damned money, the AMA got it, and I don’t approve of the AMA.” Destroying this delegation, just to make a political point, when you’re benefitting from the work that it does is shortsighted and stupid.<br /><br />My friends have told me that this is a suicide speech. If it is…then so be it. Somebody has to tell you the truth. If we get 1001 members of this association, one fourth of our members, to re-join the AMA at least we’d have two delegates and two alternates. While we still probably won’t win the Kentucky Derby on a four-legged pig, I’m betting we’ll eat a lot less dirt.<br /><br />It was a great time. I got to pound on the lectern and point at people and tell the truth. Who could possibly ask for more?<br /> <br />The election turned out fine. We decided on two strong shoulders, Luke Lampton and Danny Edney. I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome…unless, of course, those of you out there reading this listen to what it is I’ve said, and do what it’s going to take to get us a couple more legs to run on.<br /><br /><br /><br /> See ya next time,<br /> One of the hamsscotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-36043731672049126632011-01-03T15:09:00.000-08:002011-02-21T18:52:32.355-08:00Living In The Valley of the ShadowThese words are hard. <br />Think of them as small shards of crystalline truth; <br />I throw them out, each alone, and hope you will be struck by them. <br />Some may stun you with their beauty, some may cut you to the bone, <br />and some will do both, if I do my job at all.<br /><br /><br />I’m not always sure why I have been put here to do this job, <br />too many times I am the angel of death, <br />but sometimes I am the saver of life. <br />The war I fight is a war of days. <br />I can prevail only for a time, since all life ends. <br />So there is no power at all within my hands, <br />except to give the gift of moments. <br />Moments shared, moments that death comes to take. <br />I can not hold him off forever, <br />but I can sometimes say come again old friend, old nemisis, old foe. <br />Come again some other day hence and give us just a few more days to spend together upon this earth.<br /><br />Sometimes he will listen and go for a time,<br /> Sometimes he won’t, and sometimes the release he brings <br />is the only comfort that can be hoped for. <br /><br />One way or another we will all find ourselves trapped in his shadow <br />for a time, <br />and all of the philosophies, religions, and beliefs we hold <br />will rise and fall and rise again like waves on the sea to buoy or drown us <br />until we arrive at some method by which <br />we can find a way <br />to live in the valley of the shadow.scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-4649492048029130662010-03-25T20:45:00.000-07:002010-03-25T20:46:57.033-07:00UndergroundCarl: “Wagner liked them.”<br /><br />Frank: “thought...........'RATZ, now I must come out of hiding....'<br />The caves are no longer safe.....He MUST get the ring from the Gypsies ....... under the cover of darkness, Frank (Tom) moves out.....m-16 in hand......one target in mind....”<br /><br /><b>Gypsies</b><br /><br />Gypsies, gypsies what in the hell had he been thinking of, trusting the ring to his cousins, now he was going to be tramping all over half of the state of West Virginia looking for that bunch of knuckleheads…and that’s if they did what he told them to. He thought about Ms CGS, would he make it in time to save her, and was it even worth the trouble to try to. He’d had his suspicions about her as soon as he spoke to her over the phone. She’d know too much about the ring when they’d spoken, it was almost as if …as if, she’d used the ring herself sometime, somewhere in the past. He hit a pothole, and heard the rifle bang against the back of the trucks cab, where he’d stored it behind the seat. Damn it, he hoped it stayed zeroed. He should have just left it in the gun case until he got there. The problem was, that if he did run into Moelusteian unexpectedly, a gun in a case wasn’t going to do him a whole lot of good.<br />Let him try his Swedish, paranoid, heresy here and see how much good it did him with an M-16 going off, up his butt. First things first though, he had to find Willie and the Glimmer twins to get the ring back. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><b>Underground</b><br /><br />Ms CGS: "The intensity of the moments, her breathlessness,the karst's vast silence and unbending blackness; was she going mad? This ring, simply a band of gold was only a token; others had been driven mad by the same in the name of marriage or felicity of another sort. Could she sacrifice another's life, lest her own, just to preserve the lovely unending line, at this point the only true constant in her life. But this ring is for the ages, stretching far beyond the moment. Moist, cool air enveloped the two. Occasional water drips, growing ancient formations, are heard at close range, then...yes, farther away another lake was filling with steady, deliberate drops of water, the lifeblood of this subterrannean hiding place. This would be Hades to the ancients, but to the Seekers of Tom it was becoming a heaven, the darkness a balm. Were they dying? No...too close to the legacy's unfolding. Ah, breathe, smell the saturated rock, give in and embrace the dark, sleep maybe, yes, just rest a little, dream. Deep sleep is jarred by a gentle sound, not of water, not even footsteps, but distant music, like earthen chimes...is this her heaven? And where is he?"<br /><br /><br /><b>Inganteria Moelusteian</b><br /><br /> He sat silently, listening, straining his ears to hear the slightest ruffle, a sniff, a breath, the faint zip of cloth on flesh, as she moved. He drew the air in deeply and slowly through his nose to avoid any sound. He smelled a woman’s scent, the faint waft of this morning’s perfume, mixed with the smell of the coffee, that she’d thrown all over him. He raised his hands to his face and gently let his fingertips explore the damage. Already there were fluid filled blisters around his eyes. He didn’t know how well he could see, it didn’t really matter here anyway. The Tom that they called Frank had written of the olcooedootdso dome, as if that were enough to deceive him, he could decipher that with or without the ring. It was the “code to loose” the demons of hope on all mankind. Hope…hope the most virulent of all curses. And it was this one the one he hunted now that was the key to that hope. He’d seen it in her eyes when he had grabbed her to stab her. She’d never even seen the knife, she’d lashed out, not in anger, not in rage, not even in the paranoia that was engulfing the entire world now, but with hope. The hope that she could escape. The hope that she could survive this to see her husband again, to raise their children. It had burned him to the core of his soul. <br /> She was nearby, the answer was to wait, the first one to move loses.scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-35741229854542004272010-03-22T21:37:00.000-07:002010-03-22T21:47:43.198-07:00The Ring and The CavernThe Ring<br /><br />Frank: "....(aka) Tom Was surfing the web (that's the information highway of the future), with his secret decoder ring, when he broke out in a cold sweat and yelled "OMG"!! He saw that Cracker Jack was NO LONGER putting the secret decoder rings in the boxes as prizes. That means that Frank (Tom) has the only one left. He also found out while surfing on the Anderson blog, that Inganteria Moelusteian wants the ring and has plans to 'inanimate' him to get it.....Thinking fast, Frank (Tom) quickly sold the secret decoder ring to a band of roaming gypsies roaming the Appalachian Mountains. Frank (Tom) then fled to the 'old country' where he will hide in the 'olcooedootdso' caves (known only to a few trusted minions) for the next 1,000 years. At that time he will retrieve the ring from the gypsies grave and again read the Anderson blog to see if it is safe for him to return to the general population."<br /><br />Carl: “Tom Tom the piper runs 'n Scott had no wipes so some be stunned...”<br /><br />MS CGS: “MY GOD, MAN, DON'T PAAAANICCC! Sick the Body Parinoid on this ingrate Inganteria. They'll devour principles held dear, then claim the ring was all their idea, after all. (Tom, embrace the Pope that is your true id.)”<br /><br />Frank: “The ring is in safe hands, it has a 1,000 year curse on it....to be broken only by me....I MUST hide, paranoid cannot kill paranoid....it can only multiply! Inganteria is multiple paranoid.....run...hide...”<br /><br />MS CGS: “Raiders of the Lost Ring, led by the intrepid but wily Jack, intend to find you and that bejeweled metal circle. You can't hold for a century that freeze in Madame Troussaud's. Besides, we'd miss you, Mr. T. Take pride in your Tomness. If Obama can pass Health Care, you can face this fire!”<br /><br />Frank: “'tis too late......the present and future has been written...in the 'olcooedootdso' caves, time is not time as you or I know it.....1,000 years is but.............mere weeks.......the fate of the secret decoder cannot and will not be changed.”<br /><br /><br />The Cavern<br /><br />She'd grown up in the caverns. She was used to them. The cool velvet blackness did not frighten her. There was some comfort to it. As a constant temperature of 54° surrounded her she let herself adjust. The attack had been swift and sudden she'd never seen it coming. She was walking through the lobby with a newspaper and a cup of coffee when he grabbed her. What happened then was pure instinct. The fresh hot coffee had gone in his face. His hands up came up to protect his eyes but it was too late. The scalding liquid seared his flesh and blistered his eyelids. The rolled newspaper stabbed straight forward into his groin and she was running. But She was already in the mouth of the cave when she heard the first sounds of his pursuit. <br /><br />The sounds of her feet on the limestone steps, cut into the very mouth of the cave, sounded like thunder in her ears. She took comfort in that, because so would his. <br /><br />"The ring!," he whispered harshly into her ear as he grabbed her. "I want the ring now..."<br /><br />That was the only thing he said to her, before she turned and threw scalding liquid into his face. It wouldn't matter now if he could see her not, she thought as she reached the bottom of the grotto. She'd sat still and listened, listened as his footsteps came down those same stairs that she had just descended. It was only when she knew that he had reached the bottom beyond the reach of the light at the entrance that she threw the switch and threw them into utter and total darkness. It was a darkness deeper than any darkness and space because even in the outskirts of space some light from some distant source penetrates the blackness. Here there was none.<br /><br />It was a funny thing, standing here in the pitch black, remembering how it was as a child. When she and her brothers and sisters have played in the caverns. Even in the dark, they had learned to feel one another. She wasn't sure how they did it. Maybe it was the feeling of the heat of another body passing by and the constant unvarying temperature of the underground environment. But sometime from somewhere she felt as a pastor in a dark. Leaving the uninitiated giving them faint sounds and echoes to follow. She took him to the edge of a drop off and stopped, waiting, silent, breathing as shallowly as she could. Even willing her heart to slow and beat in the control that only a lifetime of training can impart. Her thumb moved to the ring, and spun it on her finger as she waited. If she stood still at the base the stone, column that she was leaning against he would pass her in the dark and in the passing would fall to his death. But would that solve her problem?scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-62767490710793481012010-03-21T13:29:00.001-07:002010-03-21T13:31:05.757-07:00Discovery-The Continuation of The Thomasine LegacyFrank: ahhhh...but did you really?<br /><br />MS CGS: Then there's "Tom, Tom, Piper's son, Stole a pig an' away he run; pig was eat, Tom was beat, Tom went runnin' down the street." (secret Mason-esque code for the potential perils of tracking the Holy Grail) Finally, the esoteric revealed!<br /><br />Frank: Pig was yummy tho..........<br /><br />Me: I had totally missed the secret society scenario,the code though may take us as far back as Thomas a Beckett Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 until his death in 1170.<br /><br />Me: Now all we need is the secret ring.<br /><br />Frank: I got one, but can't tell you or let you see it....it's a secret :-|<br /><br />Me: The truth is that his real name was Gilbert Beket Jr. it must be some linkage to the Thomasine conversion of 1169 that caused Henry II to kill him the following year, and thus he became Saint Thomas to both the Catholics and the Protestants.<br /><br />Frank: My ring has a video of that.....oops....shhhhh.<br /><br />Me: Now if I can just tie this all into String Theory by adding a couple of more dimensions, we've got that little trinket from Stockholm sewn up.<br /><br />MS CGS: Do you suppose Disney's "Thomasina," the cat heroine (re: the divine feminine) is Gilbert reincarnated? Her worst hairball was a visage not of Christ, but of her nemesis, Henry II's rat-fink advisor. She gagged when she spied the secret decoder ring in her daily ration of Cracker Jack.<br /><br />Me: The screenplay was written by Robert Westerby and Paul Gallico and was based upon Gallico's 1957 novel Thomasina, the Cat Who Thought She Was God. ...<br /><br />Me: What more proof could we possibly need, it also explains why Frank keeps watching that secret decoder thingy, he's such a cat lover.<br /><br />MS CGS: It's the Fisherman's Ring. Tom-Gilbert is the Pope!<br /><br />Frank: Da*n Cats.....watch my decoder for the cat's 9th life.....<br /><br />Discovery<br /><br />When I read what I have stretched out before you, I must admit, my blood ran cold. I came upon it on that fool Anderson’s blog. He’ll be the first one that I kill, I fear.<br />When the nomination first came before me I laughed. I have been a member of the Nobel Physics committee for seven years and this was the first time any one had paid so little regard to the Nobel protocol that they’d submitted their own work, work that had not even been finished, much less published, for official consideration. I knew right then that this Anderson must be either a fool or a genius. My job was to figure out which. <br />When I began to look through the submitted equations that were purported to prove the Thomasine Confluence theory, I was appalled. They lacked coherence and anywhere that they crashed they were buoyed by the insertion of an unseen universe or a temporal inversion to sustain them.<br />Officially I derided them, in public it was easy to show that they deserved no more consideration than the lint under my carpets for serious candidacy for the prize, but it took me to the blog, and it was when I read the comments that I knew they’d begun to see the clues.<br />My name is Inganteria Moelusteian, but everyone calls me Tom, and yes I am that Tom, the direct spiritual successor to the apostle Thomas, Saint Thomas, Tommy Smothers, and Tommy Chong. The Rightfully Ordained Brother Thomas of the Order of the Thomasine Monks. I am the guardian of the secret of cynical thoughts, the doubters of truth, God’s own troublemakers. And now a small group of idiotic Americans had begun to post the secrets of our Order on the Internet.<br />My charge is clear, I must hunt them down one by one and eliminate them as a threat, by conversion to the true belief or transition to the inanimate.scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-56481724605364084692010-03-14T11:19:00.000-07:002010-03-14T11:30:47.322-07:00The Thomasine ConfluenceWhen I posted my little story The Ghost on my blog it produced an interesting set of responses, which I shall post here, via the magic of cut and paste, unaltered except for names.<br /><br /><br />“Sis: Enjoyed the blog, Tom. Glad you answered when opportunity rang the bell”<br /><br />“Frank: Tom, are you sure it wasn't UPS...they ring once and run. And, we went to RMH for the Cardiac Unit's 2 year anniversary this afternoon. Shook hands with my Surgeon, his PA, nurses etc., who remembered me well.....when leaving, the Surgeon said "nice seeing you again - you look great, Tom".... When they made my name tag....they put Thomas (my middle name) instead of Frank....very - very spooky if you ask me....Tom.......VERY SPOOKY.....!!!!”<br /><br />“Me: the world is a spooky place maybe he was in the wrong place”<br /><br />“Frank: Which Tom was in the wrong place?”<br /><br />“Ms CGS: or maybe the surgeon is a closet writer/blogger/prf. of English?”<br /><br />“Ms CGS: Really enjoyed your blog, Scott.”<br /><br />“Me: Frank, since you're the only Tom here, I think the ghost was a bit south of where he intended to be. Thanks CG. I don't know where it's going, but it will probably have to be edited some to get published.”<br /><br />“Frank: But, you see, I'm NOT the only Tom here...you have a Tom there....You are just as much of a Tom as I am....mistaken identity?”<br /><br />“Ms CGS: can I play? I'll be Tom the Editor.”<br /><br /> I was planning to answer CGS with a suggestion that if we were going to cast an attractive woman as Tom the editor, that she would have to be comfortable being a dominatrix that only wanted to edit you really, really hard. But then something struck me. It was both the tone and the content of those final two posts which led me to the conclusion that there was something larger going on here. So that meant it was time for me to get in gear and look into it, in only the way a piercing mind such as mine can possibly do it. It was time for some…tat da da daaaaaah…..(wait on it)……RESEARCH.<br /> <br />Now research is always a good answer when you have a vexing problem or coincidence to investigate, the problem becomes how, and what to research? Clearly, this doesn’t appear to be a religious problem, although there are examples of Thomas’s who play a prominent role in the bible, and there is always the possibility that we have all been simultaneously, because of our natural tendencies to scoff, and distrust been transformed into visages of the Thomas who doubted Jesus’ resurrection, but after due consideration and running a few preliminary mathematical equations, I rejected this as the explanation.<br /> <br />Biology was always a consideration, and I had to consider the possibility that some genetic sequence that we all possess in common is the root of our mutual Thomasine misidentification. So, I went out to the garage and fired up my DNA sequencer, and used a vacuum on my screen to suck DNA samples from the keyboards of each of your keyboards, by visiting your Facebook profile, and using direct screen-to-screen transport to shove the vacuum nozzle against your keyboard. I hope you don’t mind the intrusion. I looked at that and yes almost ninty-percent of our DNA sequences are similar, but Eighty-five percent of our DNA sequences match those of an earthworm, so I wasn’t able to draw any firm scientific conclusions from that. And while I don’t profess to speak fluent earthworm, I am unaware of any earthworms that refer to one another as Tom at all, much less it having some identifiable locus, so I was able to exclude those common sequences from consideration. The five percent remaining that the three of us have in common with each other, but not with earthworms seems to code for stuff like arms and legs and a four chamber heart and things like that, and not for name specific identity. So I rejected biology.<br /><br />The answer then I reasoned must come from the realm of physics, specifically I gravitated to the subject of String Theory, and because it is such a fluid field, I adjusted and tweaked physical principles, added two unknown dimensions to account for Thomasine movement, a term I have now created, and viola there was the answer implicit in the very underpinnings of the science. We have only to look of the dual resonance model, first postulated by Veneziano in 1968 to see what is happening. In short, Veneziano observed that the s- and t-channel vibrations that occurred in meson scattering were of exactly the same amplitude, on further observation the exact phenomena was observed in N-particle amplitudes that gave us the idea of harmonic, opposing amplitudes like that which occurs in a one-dimensional model of linear string vibration. Obviously what is happening to us is an exact but opposite reaction, modulated through time by the presence of the two unseen dimensions of the great Brucine Confluence that effected Monty Python in the same years that Veneziano was developing his resonance model, and is only showing up now. I propose that we try to quantify B- (for Brucine) and T- (for Thomasine) confluent amplitudes and sit back and wait on the guys in Stockholm to send us that Nobel Prize I always knew I was going to get some day. I’ll start working on the math.<br /><br /> Scottscotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-34229312213057372892010-03-13T14:19:00.000-08:002010-03-13T14:28:21.648-08:00The GhostI don’t know much about ghost stories. I don’t like reading them ‘cause my life is scary enough as it is. You want to scare me you can hold the ghosts and tell me about a woman and her two daughters loose in Bergdorf’s with my credit card, now that’s what scares the hell out of me. As far as trying to tell one, I was never any good at ‘em. I usually messed up the scary part, and everybody’d laugh when they were supposed to be hollering and screaming. Although that happens about a lot of stuff, for me, the laughing part not the hollering and screaming. I guess it’s just the way I say things.<br /> <br />I remember once when I was just going into radiation oncology and was still doing a lot of work at the Children’s Hospital of the Kings Daughter. I was trying to tell a friend who I’d deployed with on dive jobs around the world about how it was making me feel. How I was running a lot better now because I wasn’t running through woods imagining getting away from Russians or Arabs or whatever, I was running down the streets of Virginia Beach trying to get away from the eyes of the dead children I’d taken care of. <br /> <br />His response wasn’t that helpful in trying to help me find a way to deal with the way I was feeling about stuff. He cracked up and said, “Man you should do stand-up. This stuff is hilarious.”<br />I changed the subject.<br /><br />So if you’re hoping for a scary ghost story save yourself the trouble and bail out now, ‘cause that’s not what this is going to be. Anyway, Barry Hannah died this month. He was the kind of author that took chances, sometimes too many, but he was a good writer, for it and despite it too. He died up in Oxford where he taught creative writing, but I never knew him there. He was born here in the town where I live, Meridian Mississippi, but I never knew him here either. I went to the University of Alabama. When I was there we won the national championship twice, Bear Bryant was our coach, Sela Ward was one of our cheerleader, and Barry Hannah was in a drunken whirlwind, shooting arrows through folks houses, stealing motorcycles, and teaching in the English Department. That’s when I was aware of his existence.<br /> <br />I wasn’t the kind to get too impressed with a wild ass literature professor back then, I was in the honors English program and was studying Southern Literature because I liked it, but I was a pre-med major and all I gave a shit about was Biochemistry, and Physics, and Advanced Analytic Spectroscopic technique. My one stab at writing was a research paper on “The Clinical and Laboratory Characteristics of Macroamylasemia” a clinical syndrome where your amylase molecules are too big, with large redundant sections, so it doesn’t get excreted normally and you get high serum amylase levels. I’m pretty sure Barry wouldn’t have seen it favorably, as it didn’t take a lot of chances with the English language. Anyway, Airships had just come out, and one of the big stories that drew a lot of local ire was Constant Pain in Tuscaloosa. The constant pain had ended up with him in Bryce Hospital, the local inpatient psychiatric unit, for alcoholism. Which explains some things later in the story.<br /><br />Now this morning was a rodeo Saturday at Casa Charlo (that’s the name we gave our new house, the last one was called The Monkey House because of all of the kids who lived in it with us). We were up a 5:45 am to get ready, get everything together; horses, trailers, trucks, etcetera so the girls could drive across the state to ride horses around stuff in a dirt pen somewhere else instead of here. I wasn’t going, so after I took them to breakfast and the barn and watched them drive away in a pick-up with a gooseneck horse trailer on the back I got to go home and go back to bed for another hour or so.<br /> <br />That’s when Barry showed up. Which was kind of disconcerting, because I’d known about him being dead for about a week or so. Anyway, I was lying there asleep and there he was, his hair was even still dark, no gray in it yet, althought he died with a bunch of gray hair. He was leaning over the bed and shouting down into my face, like he was famous for doing in class all those years ago.<br /><br />“Tom…Tom…listen to me now Tom.” My names not Tom, but I figured it was the alcohol talking. “…just listen. You’re never going to be a real writer if you keep yourself all bottled up in your own life. You got to let go. You just got to let go and see what in the hell happens. Let your characters run their own lives. Stop getting in the middle of it. You gonna be dead soon enough, just like me. Write something worth leaving before you go Tom. God damn it, write something worth leaving.”<br /><br />It never occurred to me that he might of gotten the wrong address, somehow I knew he was talking to me, he just had the wrong name, which wasn’t unusual back then either.<br /> <br />“So what is it you're trying to tell me to do, man?” I asked, still in college, I suppose.<br /><br />“When opportunity knocks, you open the door Tom. Open the fuckin’ door.”<br /><br />In the dream, I guess, I heard the doorbell ring and I was confused. Barry was gone and I didn’t know if the doorbell had really rung or not. The dogs weren’t barking. That was a sign that it was just in the dream, but I couldn’t just lay there. I got up and put on my robe and went from door to door and I didn’t see anybody out there. Opportunity had not knocked.<br /><br />I tried to figure it all out, but it didn’t make sense. I poured a cup of coffee and sat down at my desk and rewrote the ending of The Hard Times , the novel I was editing, and I wrote well, which is always a nice thing. It was raining outside, the coffee was still warm, and I knew that while opportunity knocks and is gone, inspiration’s the one that takes the time to ring the bell.scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-61708474172601457792010-01-22T14:30:00.000-08:002010-01-22T14:35:07.660-08:00Title changeJust to clear things up for everybody that wonders what happened to DOWN THE TUBES, the title changed. Virtually every woman that was surveyed had a negative reaction to the title, so now it's called THE HARD TIMES, which is a better title anyway and fits the story as it is currently written. Working on where to go next, get the Bible and look at Numbers 35, then think about a graphic novel.scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-78339128858754396242009-08-31T20:09:00.000-07:002009-08-31T20:11:27.205-07:00Hi worldHow are you world? I'm still here, the Una Voce collection is finished and submitted to a publisher. Have written eleven chapters of a new novel, Down the Tubes, I don't know why any more, I guess I can't help it. I need to find out what happens to the little people who run around in my head. I was horrified when the hero revealed that he had had an affair and that his wife had known about it for years before she left him. I know where he's headed, I just don't know how he gets there. I guess it's kind of just like the lives that we think of as our real life. Hope I see some nice people on my way.scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-91514409866408764722009-02-27T19:04:00.000-08:002009-02-27T19:04:35.903-08:00More and LessLet me let you in on one of the basic facts of life, and no, you don’t have to be a doctor to know this one, everybody wants more- more money, more fulfillment from their lives, more love. If you need proof, look in the self-improvement section of any bookstore, or just turn on your television during the day and flip through the channels. <br />
Why do we need more? Well, we need more money so we can get more stuff. Our society and our economy has been based on a simple principle…consume, consume, consume. When we hit a bump and consumer spending dropped the entire world economy stalled. <br />
I hate to admit it, but I’m no different from anybody else. I fell hook, line, and sinker for the lure of “consumermania.” I can even believe that I need the newest two terabyte MP3 player… my crummy eighty gig is way too small, it only holds a thousand or so CDs. Who can put up with that? Unfortunately, as much as I delude myself to believe it is, my need isn’t a real need. I don’t have time to download a hundred CDs, much less a thousand. I have about thirty-seven CDs on my player, and yet I’m gullible enough to believe I need a newer, more technically sophisticated model. With the rapidity of technological evolution in the modern world, this cycle of need and fulfillment is never ending, as soon as I buy the new “two-T”, they’ll begin to advertise a newer model, one that comes with a cell phone in it, and as soon as I get that, there’ll be an even newer model with both a cell phone and a miniature computer in it, and so it goes ad infinitum. <br />
In a lot of ways medicine is the same way, but instead of ego and vanity being the only driving forces, it may truly be that our lives are at stake. We want more and we want better, the heck with better, we want the best. Who doesn’t feel that they deserve the best health care? America is nothing, if not an egalitarian society, in this regard, everybody deserves the best health care, right? I don’t know. Let me pose a hypothetical question, what if there were a drug that was ninety-nine percent effective in preventing osteoporosis in post-menopausal women, and had no identifiable side effects, shouldn’t we give it to everyone that could benefit from it? Sure, that seems like a “no brainer”… but, what if it cost twenty thousand dollars a dose? Ok, well, that does seem a bit steep, but it really would make so many lives better, I guess we still should. The problem is, at that cost, for that many women, most of which will be sixty-five years old, or older, the cost of the drug will bankrupt Medicare in a single year. Now, should we make this wonder drug available to our Medicare beneficiaries? By the way, I hate the term beneficiaries, almost as much as I hate the term, health care provider. These are patients, sweet little grandmothers and mamas, wonderful women, and I am their doctor with this wonder drug that will make their lives so much better. No longer will they have to face the chronic back pain and the debility of nerve root compressions that are associated with the pathologic fractures of osteoporosis. Can I give it to them? <br />
This isn’t a medical decision, medically, the answer is obvious. From a risk-benefit standpoint the drug is amazingly effective, so it’s all benefit with no risk. The only risk is to the solvency of the largest health care provider in the United States. So, this decision becomes not a medical decision but a social decision, a governmental decision, a legal decision, even a moral decision. If the recent financial downturn has shown us anything, it is that consumption has limits, and those limits are imposed by the availability of funds. We are currently in a position that requires that we make a decision on how we will impose limits so that our spending stays in line with the funding available to provide health care. <br />
SGR stands for Sustainable Growth Rate and it's how our federal lawmakers have tried to limit the growth of Medicare costs in the past. They’ve tied the total amount of money that can be expended on Medicare to the United State's GDP or Gross Domestic Product. That means the value of all goods and services produced in the US during the preceding year. <br />
Because our economy is, to say the least, less robust than it was a few years ago and the number of folks becoming Medicare eligible due to baby-boomers pouring in like a damn busted, things don’t work like they did when the law was enacted. The formula stopped working several years ago, and in the current economic environment would be a total disaster. Everybody knows it doesn't work; the lawmakers, the doctors, the hospitals, even the HHS folks who administer Medicare know. Guess who doesn't know? For the most part patients have no idea about the costly, intricate dance that goes on every year, with doctors and hospitals spending millions of dollars to convince the lawmakers to do what they know they are going to have to do anyway. <br />
We need a better system. The nature of the system put in place to make decisions on health care will reverberate through the years, to effect, not just ourselves, but what type of a system our children have to look forward to. <br />
The beginnings of legislation to establish a Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research was hidden by our newly elected president in the Economic Stimulus Package. The whole purpose of this council is to slow the development of new medications and treatment technology because they are driving up the cost of health care. This is similar to a board that governs who receives medical care and what care they receive in England and the United Kingdom. Medicare recipients will be judged on the perceived amount of useful life that they have left as to whether or not they will receive treatment for a given condition. <br />
Will the egalitarian system we take as given, grant access to all to every technical step forward, or equally restrict access by all. Will equal access become a quaint naiveté` and give way to a two-tiered, or multi-tiered system of health care delivery, with the latest and best going to those who can afford it, and whatever’s left going to those who can’t? We would never stand for that, as a country, would we? We already do. There are forty-five million Americans without health insurance, the uninsured are now a sub-class, they don’t have access to the same preventative care and routine checks that the insured enjoy. As a matter of fact, even if they can afford health care, they may be afraid to seek it. There’s the big punch-a-roo, if they get diagnosed with a pre-existing condition, they may never get access to health care they can afford.<br />
Do you know which segment of the population is the fastest growing pool of the uninsured? Poor people, right? Perhaps, the unemployed? Nope, on either count. That distinction goes to working males over fifty, that make over seventy-five thousand dollars a year. That can’t be right. That’s what I thought, until it happened to me. When a misrouted bill went unpaid, my insurance was cancelled without notification until sixty days after the action. And once you find out your policy has been cancelled, if you’ve gone more than thirty days without a bridge policy, you have to jump through hoops and throw around a good deal of loot to get any type of coverage. After several rounds of denials, and a total inability to get a private policy to cover either myself or my wife (every company was happy to cover our perfectly healthy children, for the same price we had been paying as a family). Thankfully, I have a good income and the cost of establishing a group policy and hiring my wife wasn’t an undue hardship, but it cost twice what I had been paying. Most families can’t absorb this. <br />
In my opinion, any, health care reform has to deal with both of the issues; cost and access. Until there’s some type of insurance reform that actually reforms the practices of private insurers and provides a means for all Americans to obtain health care coverage in some form, any health-care policy we undertake is a mere band-aid. What is not intuitively obvious is that the elimination of the vast number of uninsured Americans will in and of itself drive down the cost of health care per capita. This is so because the cost of delivering health care to the uninsured is simply passed on to the insured. It is the only way hospitals and health care providers can survive in the current environment. Secondly, coverage of largely healthy younger people whose expenditures on health care do not exceed their premiums will help offset the costs of those individuals with higher costs.<br />
If health care policy is going to be made in secret and obscured in the depths of legislation clearly intended for other purposes, any national dialog on how we as a country feel it’s best to address these issues, is subverted. <br />
What is my message to those in power; the senators, congressmen, and the president? Stand up, be men, do not act in a secretive or cowardly fashion. America deserves the right to be included in deciding where our, and I repeat OUR, health care is going.scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-69267455940543801852009-01-16T16:21:00.000-08:002009-01-16T16:24:09.987-08:00Where have I been?It's Jan 2009, there haven't been any posts since November, what gives? I have been putting together a book based on the Una Voce columns. Am 3/4 of the way done. Will post more as we get closer to done.scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312976253702533763.post-185001011065859632008-10-08T22:14:00.001-07:002008-10-08T22:16:45.139-07:00Teary Sockets in TucsonTeary Sockets will be showing at the Tucson Film and Music festival at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday October 12th at the Rialto Theater. If you can come see us. Jackson (the director, and co-writer) and I will both be there.scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08284975813232300117noreply@blogger.com0