People think I'm a Democrat.

It's really kind of an insult. People still think that Democrats are "liberal," and that calling me a Democrat is akin to calling me a liberal.

Balderdash.

Pat Oliphant today characterized so nicely how I feel about Demos and Repugs. Thanks, Pat!

If you're going to slag me for not being a Kool-Aid drinking neocon, call me a "liberal," at least. Don't call me a Democrat. Puh-leeze.

Interestinger and interestinger

So, today, I was the sole member of a quality control "panel" for the clinic. The only invited person who attended. I told the social worker conducting the "panel" of my consistent experiences, and by the time I was done, she was without words. I mean, I've been speechless before, but this was something to see. No one in the room had anything at all to say for about 15 seconds.

We'll see if this accomplishes anything; it was good to learn that the idiot who had screwed my prescription refills over the last year and a half had been "replaced." I hope that whatever he's doing, no one's health care is associated with it. He'd be someone good to .. oh, I don't know, lay around the house and bitch about how awfully he's been treated while someone else takes care of the expenses, the cleaning, the cooking, the laundry, and .. well, everything else.

Today while working on loans - four of 'em, actually, it totally interfered with my planned work for the day - I had an email from Wayne (who's the Prince of Sweetness) that had a link to a YouTube video in it. The video was amazing. I had chills all over my upper body throughout the entire video, and then had tears in my eyes for 20 minutes.

So, tonight, we're going to have a little lesson. Yep. This lesson is two-fold; it's about culture, and it's about passion.

First, a little walk into movie past - the show is "Pretty Woman," and the scene is where Richard Gere puts Julia into an incredible dress, and into about a quarter million dollars worth of jewelry and flies her on a private jet to San Francisco to see a production of "La Traviata." She's never been to an opera before. She asks what to expect, and he says, basically, you're going to either love it or hate it.

And she's captivated.

Opera is like that for me, when it's .. well, captivating. I've been to gorgeous opera productions - millions upon millions of dollars spent on set, costume, lighting, and the musical execution is flawless - and it has all of the emotion of putting your white clothing into the laundry and heaving in some soap.

I've also been to opera that cost about sixteen dollars to produce, where the singers were musically talented but they conveyed the meaning of the piece through their emotional involvement. And, there's nothing like it.

So, here we're going to review a few short clips of the same piece of music performed by a few different professional, well known opera stars .. just to get a sense of what we're doing.

The show is "Turandot," by Puccini. The piece is the Nessun Dorma, one of the most famous tenor pieces in all of the world of opera. I'm going to copy out the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article for you, because it references the guy who is the point of all of this piece tonight.

Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, to an Italian libretto by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni, based on the play Turandot by Carlo Gozzi. It was left unfinished by Puccini at his death, and completed by Franco Alfano. The first performance, at the Teatro alla Scala, in Milan, on 25 April 1926, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, included only Puccini's music and not Alfano's additions. Later performances were of the completed score. In June of 2007, Paul Potts, a performer on the British television show "Britain's Got Talent" sung an abridged version of Nessun Dorma, a piece of the opera often performed by such renowned tenors as Pavarotti and Domingo. The Youtube video of his performance, posted on June 10, 2007, had 1,014,418 hits by June 13. As acclaim of the performance has spread over the internet, millions of viewers who had never pursued or observed classical Italian opera have been introduced to the art by this performance.

So, first let's look at the most well known of tenors, Pavarotti. Make sure you watch the whole thing - the words are subtitled for you:



Pretty impressive, huh? Musically, he's awesome.

No chills for me, though. No tears. No response. (yawn..) Did I park my car on the fourth floor of the garage? Hmmm.

Now, we're going to watch someone who kicks things up a notch. Not as flawless in his apparent musicality, but still very good. Phrasing is awesome.



Here's the thing - this guy's singing gives me chills BEFORE he emits a single tone. Watch his face - he's THINKING about what he's saying with the lyric. Chills, chills, chills. Wow. This is great stuff. In Ankara, Turkey? Did we know that they have an opera house? Can you hear the people EXPLODE into applause and cheers? They don't give this kind of a reception for the other performers, it's more politeness and an acknowledgement for their reputation and accomplishments.

Bottom line, now - this guy who sang on the UK television show "Britain's Got Talent." He's a mobile phone salesman in South Wales. It's his dream to be an opera singer. I don't know that he's formally trained, but from his pitch control, I'd have to say that he's not.

It was pointed out to me today that Paul has a partially cleft palate. So, no background for this stuff, physical impairment, and what does he have? One shot on a cheesy TV show with Simon (legree) as the Head Bastard in Chief.

Watch this:



I've watched this clip now five times today. Every single time, I've had chills all up and down the ENTIRE time he sang. The first time, I had tears in my eyes for twenty minutes. I just watched it for the sixth time today as I was posting the embedded link, and I have tears running down my face.

This is what passion is. This is what commitment is. This is what faith is. This is how some people succeed beyond all obstacles.

Find it in yourself.

New York Times Editorial: Bork v. Bork

New York Times Editorial: Bork v. Bork

June 14, 2007

Editorial
Bork v. Bork

There are many versions of the cliché that "a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged," and Robert Bork has just given rise to another. A tort plaintiff, it turns out, is a critic of tort lawsuits who has slipped and fallen at the Yale Club.

Mr. Bork, of course, is the former federal appeals court judge who was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1987 but not confirmed by the Senate. He has long been famous for his lack of sympathy for people who go to court with claims of race or sex discrimination, or other injustices. He has gotten particularly exercised about accident victims driving up the cost of business by filing lawsuits. In an op-ed article, he once complained that "juries dispense lottery-like windfalls," and compared the civil justice system to "Barbary pirates."

That was before Mr. Bork spoke at the Yale Club last year, and fell on his way to the dais, injuring his leg and bumping his head. Mr. Bork is not merely suing the club for failing to provide a set of stairs and a handrail between the floor and the dais. He has filed a suit that is so aggressive about the law that, if he had not filed it himself, we suspect he might regard it as, well, piratical.

Mr. Bork puts the actual damages for his apparently non-life-threatening injuries (after his fall, he was reportedly able to go on and deliver his speech) at "in excess of $1,000,000." He is also claiming punitive damages. And he is demanding that the Yale Club pay his attorney's fees.

We can imagine what Mr. Bork the legal scholar would ask if he had a chance to question Mr. Bork the plaintiff. If it was "reasonably foreseeable" that without stairs and a handrail, "a guest such as Mr. Bork" would be injured, why did Mr. Bork try to climb up to the dais? Where does personal responsibility enter in? And wouldn't $1 million-plus punitive damages amount to a "lottery-like windfall"?

Since we believe in the tort system, when properly used, all we would ask is whether Mr. Bork's unfortunate experience at the Yale Club has led him to re-evaluate any of the harsh things he has said in the past about injured people, much like himself, who simply wanted their day in court.

“We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us” –Pogo (Walt Kelly)

So, this morning, I was exchanging emails with a young man who was telling me he couldn't talk to me outside of work, because he has a young daughter at home, and she would figure out that he's gay if he spoke to a gay man on the phone.

I've long understood that terrified homosexuals are the bane of gay rights, and in fact are frequently in the vanguard of those campaigning against gay rights and gay existence, but last night's lesson in this truth that it is we who fight ourselves was quite startling.

My sister, who lives a life of extreme privilege compared to the large body of US citizens, is unwilling to give up her employer paid benefit package in support of universal single payer health care.

My sister has never been without health care. She's never been without paid vacations, employer paid retirement, and a benefits package that provides her with disability insurance, life insurance and long term care benefits. She travels considerably for work and so pays nothing for recreational travel, as she keeps her frequent flier benefits.

Our conversation last night could not have been more polarizing. Her opinion, and apparently that of most of her associates, is that they should keep their titanium plated benefits while everyone who isn't covered now gets some kind of Medicare/Medicaid plan.

This completely overlooks several of my primary points, especially that of personal bankruptcy and debt defaults (improves credit worthiness generally, and improves bank's risk exposure,) small business and entrepreneurial flexibility and growth (more jobs, increased economic activity, and economic expansion,) taking the huge load off of globally competing large corporations (Business Week wrote last week that Chrysler was a health care company with some car issues,) and significantly ignores the 14th Amendment to the United States constitution. Meaning that, if the government gets into supplying health care, then exemptions or variations from that which the government is providing violates equal treatment mandated by the 14th amendment.

And she just doesn't care. She is unwilling to even entertain a program that would bring everyone's health care up to these standards. She went on about how no one would vote for such a package, because it's too much like socialism. The 14th Amendment/Equal Protection argument is lost on her, even though it was the first thing my room mate (who has such platinum plated health and other benefits through his employment, but was completely in agreement that everything should be pitched into a common hopper for the benefit of all.) She wasn't willing to discuss at all that her notion fragments the risk pool, making the cost unsupportable for the government covered population.

No, no, no, no, no. It can't be done, you won't take anything from me, nothing's going to change anyway.

It's like she read my thoughts and gave them no consideration - only the statement that everyone have health care together, and "bang!" She shot that one dead between the eyes.

Okay, I'm from Texas - I have to use such metaphor. But, you have to understand - my sister isn't just liberal in her politics and thinking - she's what today would be considered a wide-eyed fanatic left wing nut job. It's a family trait - that isn't a criticism of her political views, because she and I share most of those.

It's only that if this is what resistance the idea is going to get from those who are in the left, how is anything going to be accomplished?

I still stand on my assertion that if big business (I guess that should be Big Business) and the Chambers of Commerce get behind the economic forecasting, increased economic resources and activity, and behind the idea of universal, single payer health insurance, it will happen. We just have to look out for those whom we thought would be standing with us stabbing our backs as we try to walk forward.

Declining balances

Oh, what fun .. it is to ride .. the sleigh of human behavior.

So, today, a call from a realtor with whom I've had great chemistry and bad fortune.

"Did you get my invitation to the show? Blah, blah, our friend should have been in it, blah, blah, it's going to be really cute, blah, blah. Oh, let me bring you up to date on that former client (you gave me.) He's working toward another closing, and it seems that the client himself is the cause of these delays. (blah, blah) Oh, he needs copies of his tax returns, can you please fax them to his new loan officer?"


1. I'm not that easily fooled.
2. Seems that they're trying to get him 100% financing, still, but they need his tax returns. Which won't support a loan at all.
3. Interest rate is what we quoted him three months ago, not the lower number that he was originally promised
4. Appraisal was JUST ordered because the client wouldn't cut loose with the appraisal check
5. LO was stymied trying to get him to release his bank statements
6. They can't prove his self-employment for two years, and I won't sign a tax preparer letter.

Hah. Hah. Hah.

Never once does the realtor say "I'm sorry I ever believed that you weren't doing the best job you could do and that the problem lay somewhere else."

I called him back about ten minutes later to point out that the client couldn't possibly do a full doc loan unless he was no looking at a $60,000 property. Maybe.

Bram came home last night, and, as expected, advised that he'll be gone within days. I am committed to making his bedroom into a curio case. My conversation with C-man this morning on the subject:

back to ATL and hope for the best. I expect he'll be gone in a few days.
[12:49] C-man: ugh
[12:49] C-man: well... best of luck with that - sorry to hear it
[12:49] drdivo: I'm quite serious about turning his bedroom into a curio case
[12:50] C-man: lol... for your glass menagerie?
[12:50] drdivo: all the stupid shit I've bought on eBay and cannot sell now
[12:51] C-man: lol
[12:51] C-man: ahh - a shrine to meg Whitman!
[12:51] drdivo: pretty much. And late night lonliness with a credit card

This selling experience on eBay has been horrible. Of the six things that did sell, three were sold out of country, and the buyers in each case have been pendantic and arrogant about how much postage I should be able to charge. Of course, it's not that you're supposed to just recoup your POSTAGE, but also whatever shipping and handling costs there are. The two Canadians have both already PAID what they thought was "fair," based on the eBay shipping rate calculator, which isn't taking into account the fuel surcharge fees.

So, I was screwed. Well, a different word, actually, but screwed will have to suffice here.

Thusly, I have a batch of crap purchased on eBay over the last ten years that will gather dust until I either wise up and pitch it all in the trash, or until they haul my moldy carcass out of my house, and then pitch it all into the trash. And, it needs a home. And I need a use for Bram's room that doesn't involve inviting yet another non-paying, useless man into my home.

Speaking of useless men, two notes: The Abilene boy was to have come over last night (his request) and he was again a no-show. The client who has a long history of wanting proposals, business project documents, help with understanding his taxes and whatever and can't pay a nickel, ever, has been making noise about getting together to finally cough up some home remodeling supplies he has that he was going to use to liquidate his bill. He invited me to come to his house on Sunday, and then blew me off by text message AFTER the meeting time. Yesterday, it was "sorry, but I'm available the next two days." Yesterday, I told him that I was unwilling to make further plans with him because he doesn't keep them. He wrote me back today and said "well, now you missed me for tonight.."

I wrote back:

I'm still in the same place I was before - you make plans over the last eight months, and you don't keep them. Or you make some enticement to have plans ("let's get together") but there is no specificity, and then you hit me back for not meeting up with you when there were no plans to begin with.

And I still decline. I'm unwilling to make one more appointment that isn't kept, or talk about some deal or project that I'm not going to be compensated for in any way. Sorry.

I'm sure I'll hear something about that.

While on the subject of useless, today I went to Legacy Health (where I've been a patient for almost five years, nee the Montrose Clinic. http://...com/2gq6fh if you want to check them out.) For the ninety-eleventh time, the 82 pound twink at the desk flounces over and asks why I'm there. "Why are you here today?" No, I'm serious. "I have an appointment." "Why, though? What do you need?"

"Lab work." "Well, I see that your appointment is for fasting labs, but that's all it says."

Uh, doesn't that mean that you KNEW why I was there?

"What labs do you need?" "How am I supposed to know that?"

(much flipping through SUBSTANTIAL chart - after all, I've been going there for nearly five years for the identical issue.)

"Well, I don't want to charge you the wrong amount and order the wrong tests, so I'm going to have to go back into the back to find out what you're supposed to be getting."

Now, why would it bother them that they charged me for labs or tests I didn't need, or didn't order labs and tests that I did need? It would be a first time, as they've historically done it wrongly in the past without an apology or a credit back.

"It's not my job to know what your job is supposed to be. When you figure it out, you can call me. I'm going back to work."

Health issues are stressful enough, and they're exacerbated by stress. Many times when I've gone in for an appointment, I have high blood pressure at the exam because of the rudeness, indifference and incompetence that I've suffered at the front desk.

Today, I was thinking about this issue of health care in the US. I was wondering, has Canada had any sort of significant economic reversal since they adopted British Columbia's health care system nationwide some twenty years ago?

From an economic standpoint, having health care in this country wouldn't be so hard to accomplish, and would be a strong economic benefit in the following ways:

1. People who were confident about their health and the support they'd have in health issues are more productive
2. Systems that seek to engage in preventative medicine have fewer people who miss work due to appointments, procedures, and recovery time - so more productivity and fewer missed days

3. Systems that engage in single payer but private provider arrangements provide stimulus for efficient, comforting and accurate care delivery

4. Systems that engage in single payer arrangement can negotiate enormous discounts, and set fair values for procedures as is currently done by HMOs and Medicare.

5. Systems that provide for the care of everyone would resolve the emergency room meltdown; everyone could just go to a clinic or doctor that was convenient for them.

6. Systems that focus on preventative and critical care leave open the high-profit elective, cosmetic and vanity medical services that our high paid doctors gravitate toward.

7. Taking out employer paid benefits (for that lucky portion of the population who are employed where such benefits are paid) dramatically increases the profitability and competitiveness of US firms in a global marketplace.

8. Making health insurance uniform and predictable creates a situation where EVERY employer's positions are competitive based on environment and opportunity, not based on health coverage. This makes smaller, non Fortune 500 employers far more competitive, and increases their opportunity.

9. Making health care generally available through a single-payer system also provides for uniformity of access to health care; people in smaller cities or rural areas would not be impeded from high quality care when there is no "give 'em a pain killer and shove 'em out of here before it costs us something" mentality.

10. Otherwise highly productive employees who are older, or have health issues could gain access to full employment, because their prospective employers wouldn't shun them to avoid increased risk/health care costs. This again increases the wage base, increases productivity, and provides more general economic stimulus.

11. On the job injuries cease being the responsibility of the employer (where such rules are actually enforced.)

12. Immigrants to this country have to "buy in," essentially pay in an actuarially calculated amount of money to gain access to the health care system, or pay privately.

13. Instant financial relief for the myriad industries in this country who are burdened by health care costs for their current and retired workers. Instant global competitiveness for those firms.

14. Bankruptcies and financial defaults would plummet; more than half of all consumer bankruptcies are brought about by health care costs related to a catastrophic health event.



Accomplishing this isn't rocket science, either.

The British Columbia model, which I've only superficially studied, works like this:

a. Everyone who is in BC has a health care card/registration.
b. Everyone in BC pays a tax into the health care pool. EVERYONE. The unemployed pay in. The employed pay in.
c. Since the BC system is non-profit, the rates are established by the actuarial and actual prior year costs based on the number of enrollees. No reserves are necessary for losses, or for underwriting issues.
d. Everyone has equal health care, with an emphasis on non-invasive and preventative health care.
e. The Federal government in Ottawa contributes some Federal revenue into the provincial health care system.

Many elements of this system are already very familiar to anyone who is acquainted with Medicare/Medicaid.

So, we just expand Medicare/Medicaid to include EVERYONE. It's administered on a state by state basis with uniform standards imposed by the Federal program. EVERYONE pays a tax in. The tax collected is a pittance as compared to the health premiums now paid by employers or individuals, but covers the actual risk/costs of health care delivery. Local governments contribute a PORTION of their charity health care tax revenues now allocated to emergency room and clinic care delivery. "Poof!" No more ER crisis. No more county red-ink.

No cosmetic or vanity procedures are covered.

Massive discounts on drugs are negotiated by the system. Drug costs plummet.

The amount of money spent on health care in this country falls. Productivity goes up disproportionately, as more people are able to work more fully, or become hireable.

The following subjects fall away from the collective consciousness entirely:

* Immigrants stealing health care
* Counties and cities overburdened with indigent health care costs
* HMOs denying health care to someone who needs it
* Fraud committed against insurance carriers or Medicare on schemes like motorized wheelchairs or unnecessary back surgeries
* People dying of undiagnosed disease for inability to pay for health care
* People in one state or city having access to wonderful health care, while people in another state languish with old methods and inadequate facilities.
* Unreasonably high rates of birth defects, infant deaths, and preventable deaths will go away

Of course, anyone can object and suggest that there will be flaws. There will be flaws with any system. However, I think that either or any of the Democratic candidates for the Congress or the Presidency could do well to promote an economic model that will show the benefits to the economy and to big, medium and small business will overcome the powerfully funded objections sure to be mounted by the AMA, the drug companies, and the retail medical establishment.

If every major business community save and except those directly affected by the bloated, greed motivated health care "system" we currently have were in favor of a single-payer health system in the US, it would get done. Period.

Leading Conservative Activist Seeks Punitive Damages

Judge Robert Bork, one of the fathers of the modern judicial conservative movement whose nomination to the Supreme Court was rejected by the Senate, is seeking $1,000,000 in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages, after he slipped and fell at the Yale Club of New York City. Judge Bork was scheduled to give a speech at the club, but he fell when mounting the dais, and injured his head and left leg. He alleges that the Yale Club is liable for the $1m plus punitive damages because they "wantonly, willfully, and recklessly" failed to provide staging which he could climb safely.

Judge Bork has been a leading advocate of restricting plaintiffs' ability to recover through tort law. In a 2002 article published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy--the official journal of the Federalist Society--Bork argued that frivolous claims and excessive punitive damage awards have caused the Constitution to evolve into a document which would allow Congress to enact tort reforms that would have been unconstitutional at the framing:

State tort law today is different in kind from the state tort law known to the generation of the Framers. The present tort system poses dangers to interstate commerce not unlike those faced under the Articles of Confederation. Even if Congress would not, in 1789, have had the power to displace state tort law, the nature of the problem has changed so dramatically as to bring the problem within the scope of the power granted to Congress. Accordingly, proposals, such as placing limits or caps on punitive damages, or eliminating joint or strict liability, which may once have been clearly understood as beyond Congress's power, may now be constitutionally appropriate.

Ted Frank, another leading proponent of tort reform, questions the merits of Judge Bork's claims:

I sympathize with Judge Bork's serious injuries, but it's beyond me what his lawyers are thinking in asking for punitive damages. And if any danger is open and obvious such that there is an assumption of the risk, surely the absence of stairs to reach a lectern on a dais is—especially if the dais is of the "unreasonable" height that the complaint alleges it to be.

ACSBlog wishes Judge Bork a swift recovery from his injuries.

Investments gone bad ..

When one starts off a good blog, and inserts imagery, quotes, lots of fun stuff to spice things up, and then we find that it's gone for good because the blogsite on which I was posting (I cross post in three places normally) has crap base code, and flakes out on about 10% of the software commands...

One feels like saying "screw it, no one really needed to hear this shyte anyway."

So, that's where I am with it right now.