DoctorD's Observations

Dental and mental care

I asked my dentist if the health care reform bill had anything in it that affected the practice of dentistry one way or another, and he said no.  But he did say that, in the view of his father, a life-long doctor, the malpractice-related legal provisions effectively force doctors to order a lot of unnecessary and very costly tests and procedures, for fear of being sued.

This surprised me:  my opinion has been that doctors order very costly and unnecessary tests and procedures because they like to, because that is what they get paid for, and because they like to use their esoteric skills.

The other issue I am interested in is does health care reform have any effect on mental health services.  So far as I know, it does not; I haven't read or heard that it does.

And actually, that makes good sense.  The most wide-spread mental illness in the USA right now is the Distorted Republican Beliefs Disorder (DRBD).  But that is so widespread that it would be impossible to treat on an individual by individual basis, with a trained clinician and drugs.  Some other solution will have to be found.

Sometimes I resort to prayer, which may not do any good.  But I am not willing to pay for mental health services for all of the right-wing whacko crazies.  They are simply going to have to cure themselves.  I would suggest that they start by reading the U.S. Constitution and Federalist Papers.  12-step support groups to help people get back to the foundations of American democracy could be organized on a block by block basis.  In the most dangerous cases, responsible citizens could organize "interventions," and force people to take down their "Obama is a Socialist" flags and bumper sticks.  That could begin by explaining, in short and simple words, what "socialism" is and who and where in the global society is an actual socialist.

I'm no "socialist," but at least if we had that here, we would have better railroads.  That would be a plus!  It is so hard to get anywhere anymore, expect by taking the darn (privately-owned) airlines, which of course are very heavily subsidized by government but still on the whole have trouble turning a profit.  Of course driving is an alternative, a slow one, but it is my favorite way really, as long as it is off the expressways.

Praying for their their salvation might possibly help redeem some the tea-party crowd.  But I don't think it will do anything for gums and cavities--except possibly in the very worst, and most sympathetic, cases.

Did Job have bad teeth?

A comforting note from ex-governor S.P.

Here is a feel-good bit of news.  Sarah Palin has recently warned that anyone who advocates violence against her political enemies like the socialist/leftie/ fascist/commie/ObamaCrats is "in her crosshairs."  

Isn't that reassuring?  I guess she is turning pacifist!

She does have a map with gun crosshairs all over it, showing she is targeting legislators who voted for health care reforms.  It is on her facebook page.

But, you know, I guess she doesn't really mean it, not literally, with actual weapons and telephone threats of death and and broken windows and pipe bombs and stuff like that.  Shucks, no!  It is "just a word," a figure of speech, like Armageddon, which is being brought in by the passage of health insurance restrictions.  It isn't really a call to battle against the devil-spirts of Democracy in the name of Jesus Christ.  Not, you know, really  It is just the way Republicans like to talk, at their tea-parties in Alaska and Nevada and Utah.

Kind of friendly-like.

Pizza

If you are on the south side of Chicago, near White Sox park or Bridgeport or Chinatown or the Illinois Institute of Technology, be sure to give Connie's Pizza on Archer a try.  Good food, fine place.  You won't be disappointed.

I first went there with some high Chicago police department officials.  They definitely converted me over.  Chicago does have, of course, a lot of good deep dish pizza.  But Connie's is a full-service restaurant, certainly suitable for families or for anybody, and makes pizzas with quite a variety of different styles of crust.

This is interesting (recent Harris poll)

Majorities of Republicans believe that President Obama:

• Is a socialist (67%)
• Wants to take away Americans' right to own guns (61%)
• Is a Muslim (57%)
• Wants to turn over the sovereignty of the United States to a one world government (51%); and
• Has done many things that are unconstitutional (55%).

Of course, none of these things is true.  They are products of paranoia, ignorance, fear, and steady media and political campaigns of "misinformation."  But the data are interesting to help figure out how big the nut-case segment of the current American population is, and to see exactly what it means to "be a Republican" in contemporary America.  Mostly, it appears, it means to be a fool, a sucker, a dupe.  I do keep wondering how big a proportion of the German population (widely know for being sensible) had to be convinced of the Nazi tripe to elevate Hitler into office and support the mass slaughter of Jews.  I don't know, but I bet it wasn't very big.

November

I just want to say that the November 2010 elections are seven whole months away.  That is a long time; much can happen.  Indeed, just two month's ago, the health insurance reform legislation was being declared "dead," but it passed last night, getting its final vote, with all Republicans and only a handful of craven Democrats voting in opposition.

There is a lot of loud bluster now about how the statute is unconstitutional, how it must be repealed:  the unreasonable opposition that was created during the legislative campaign leading up to its passage hasn't let up, and indeed, it may continue for quite a while.  Reasonable voices, like David Frum's, are being silenced, and I would expect more of that.  There has been quite a bit of violence and intimidation, and I would expect more of that, too.  The shrill will get shriller.

Still, while our recent political dialog has been dominated almost exclusively by the totally unrealistic and unreasonable claims of the right wing--that health care reform would be "armageddon" for American democracy and liberty.  That isn't true in any sense at all, and now (as the news is starting to cover what is actually in the statute, which they failed to do before passage) ordinary people are learning its contents which, they are finding out, are on the whole quite beneficial.

I think our political news and debates are dominated to a considerable extent by right-wing fanatics, with Obama trying to be reasonable and fair, giving every point of view a hearing, and doing a wonderful job of that.  But I also think that there must be a fairly large segment of the population, what in the past was termed the "silent majority," that has to be perhaps a bit uninformed, not very active, but still, fundamentally reasonable in their point of view.

How big as that "reasonable center?"  I have no idea.  I don't think that the crackpot/teaparty/republican group can be over 30%, although they certainly get much more than 30% of media attention.  And of course there are some confirmed Democrats at large as well.

Anyhow, it seems to me that it will be extremely difficult for the Republicans to run, 7 months from now, on the "how horrible health care reform is, let's repeal it" platform.  A fair number of Americans will have a more accurate appraisal of what Congress has wrought by then, and new issues will have emerged, too.  The Republicans do have a problem in that there is nothing they are for; they have no even tentative solutions to any national problems.  Like Mayor Daley once asked, "what trees to they plant?"  They plant no trees:  all they scatter are weeds, really sharp and prickly and destructive ones, ones that kill the grass and despoil neighborhoods.

It is hard to believe that can do them a whole lot of electoral good, and it certainly doesn't provide a basis for governing, for holding office.  I'm not making a prediction that Republicans won't pick up seats, and it seems likely that some Republican legislators will be replaced by even more "conservative" competitors.  But, still, the Republicans are not in a strong position to get large-scale, committed, political support.  Perhaps the Democrats won't be either, but at least the Democrats will have one major accomplishment (and very likely several more) to show for their time as the majority.  That's more than the Republicans have in recent decades.

How to Speak Republican (video)

This is from Move-On.

Where the slums are

On our way home from Michigan today, we passed through Gary IN on US 20 and then along many city streets.  What a mess!  What a tragedy!  The steel plants that formerly dominated local industry are, for the most part, gone.  Now they offer little in the way of employment, and empty houses and abandoned buildings are all over.  Just broken windows and falling down.  It is the worst I have ever seen, personally.

This was interesting.  Many have an image of Detroit as a city completely dominated by slums.  But the suburban area where we spent a long weekend was quite lovely, although there were some empty commercial and manufacturing buildings and housing values have indeed fallen.  Still, extremely attractive.  And, in our travels around other parts of the Michigan, we saw very little that could be compared with Gary.  (I don't doubt that such places may exist, I'm just saying they were not obvious to us).

20 is a coast-to-coast route from Massachusetts to Oregon.  I think it may be the way we will drive to Oregon later this year.  Oregon is the only state of the 48 that my wife has never visited, so we want to go.  Lewis and Clark ended their westward exploration there.  And of course everyone is aware of the historically-important Oregon Trail, which brought settlers westward from the St. Louis area.  There are places where you can still see the ruts left by covered wagons; we've seen them, and I want to see them again.

And in tonight's news

We are home again, so I have more access to tv than when on the road.  I saw the beginning of the CBS and ABC national newscasts (I'm too angry at NBC after their show last night).

The lead story on both was about the violence and threats against members of Congress (Democrats) who voted for health care insurance reform.  That this is happening shouldn't be surprising given the tenor of the media coverage, and all the attention given to totally bogus claims and charges.

A couple Republican spokesmen tried to separate the official party from these "activists," but that is clearly bogus too.  The entire Republican program is based on disruption of normal political processes, and an unwillingness to accept the results of last November's election and submit to the traditions of majority rule.  I suppose that started with the "tea party" efforts to disrupt the many town hall meetings held throughout the nation on health reform issues.  And indeed, it is what is going on right now in the Senate; where disruption is clearly the order of the day, to prevent a vote from being taken, and in foolish suits and counter-reform legislation being proposed in the states.  

When you take people who are quite rightly angry and afraid, particularly because of great economic harms they have dealt; wind them up with hate radio and hate tv news; place the blame everywhere that it doesn't actually belong, which is almost entirely on Wall Street, the Bush Administration, and the Republican Congress; stir in a bit of the racism from which the U.S. has long suffered; and add the fact that these same people love, simply love, having access to weapons--and it is the natural outcome.  And it is right at the heart of the Republican strategy and, really, to me it is clearly part of what I don't know what to describe except as an American fascist movement of great danger and growing intensity.

I want to be a little generous here, because I remember when antii-war liberal and civil rights radicals turned to violent protests in the late 1960s.  There were huge riots, and cities were burned. These things happen.  Indeed, we have experienced a civil war and quite a number of political assassinations.

Still, it is incredibly dismaying to see the process of violent radicalization take hold again, and in particular (as I've said before) for it to capture one of the two great major American political parties.  But when you live in a time when federal legislators seek fame by shouting "you lie" at the President of the United States, and "baby-killer" at each other, on the floor of the Congress, it isn't surprising at all.

Here we go again.  Here comes the violence, as (I believe) Walter Cronkite once declared.  It isn't surprising, but it is a shame.  You would think the U.S. could grow up.  It is a shame, and it is very sad.

Watching NBC news on an historic day

Their lead news story about the signing of health care rights legislation is simply about the opponent's views.  And they were put in the strongest, and most unreasonable, language.  Not one word, not one word, was said about the new benefits and assurances.  

This isn't Faux News, this is NBC news.  Theoretically, I guess, part of the "liberal elite media."

Really, it is almost funny.  The Republicans tell people for a year, almost always inaccurately and dishonestly, how horrible the proposals were.  (Little was ever said about what the actual proposals were).  Now their biggest single "objection" is that "the people" are "against" it, that they are 'confused."  

(That''s like when I told my I told my three year old son that cupcakes were poison, that they were made from devil's food--and then was shocked when he wouldn't eat them!)

Oh, wait, here it comes now:  Brian Williams is saying that they have put a guide to the new legislation, and what it might mean to you, separating fact from fiction, on the NBC website.  On their website!  It is't important enough, or interesting enough, or dramatic enough, for the actual newscast.  More interesting are the garbage views of the uninformed and unpatriotic.

I looked there, on the website, and couldn't find it.  There was an article about "what Americans really think," but not what the law actually does.

But there was one factual item at the end of the broadcast--and really it was news to me--and that is that restaurants will be required to include calorie information on their menu (as is apparently is already required in New York).  That, Williams opiined, will "really ruin a restaurant meal."

So, here it comes!  That's it!  There is the ObamaTyranny!  Here is Big Government taking away your liberties!  Isn't it just so horribly awful?  I'm sure that my doctor wouldn't want me to know the calorie count of the foods I consume.  Would yours?

That must be unconstitutional too, simply unconstitutional.  Let's repeal it.  Repeal it all.

And remember not to eat cupcakes!  They can have as much as 780 calories.

Constitutionalism

Okay, okay, apparently we live in a country where corporate-sponsored political officeholders are legal, but governmentally-assured health care is not?  Those seem to be the Republican claims.

I guess one day they will figure out some way to declare that the U.S. Constitution itself is "unconstitutional."  After all, it does contain quite a lot of pretty liberal stuff.  Kind of tries to place obstacles in the way of rule by the wealthiest (plutocracy)  and by the mob in the street (ochlocracy).  And those are the twin foundations of the new "conservative" world-view.

We are in a lot of trouble over here, on this side of the pond.