New Station and Time for All Souls Radio Broadcasts
(Unitarian Church, New York, New York):
Sundays at 11 AM on WWRL AM 1600
or www.wwrl1600.com
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Personal actions will prevent contributing to the "Plastic Continent"
The other continent
Laura Rose
(From DivineCaroline.com) - When I heard about the "Plastic Continent" in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I have to admit that I thought it was just an urban myth or an overreaction by some extreme activists.
Much to my dismay, what I found by searching the Internet was that it was more of an understatement than an exaggeration. There it was "3.5 million tons of trash, 80 percent of it plastic" a mass twice the size of Texas. Yes, TEXAS!
At a cost of billions of dollars to clean up the mess, no country wants to take responsibility for it, and so it has continued to grow at a rate of tenfold per decade since 1950.
Sea turtles mistake plastic sandwich bags for jellyfish, and birds feed their young bottle caps and other plastic chards, unknowingly filling their stomachs to the point that they die of starvation. Beaches once scattered with drift wood and seashells are increasingly covered in plastic debris.
If you live in San Francisco, you now know why the Board of Supervisors, led by Ross Mirkarimi, outlawed the use of plastic bags in grocery stores and other retail outlets. Every city needs to follow their example and make this a priority.
Right now, there doesn't seem to be much that we can do about the garbage dump that churns between San Francisco and Hawaii, but we can do our part to keep it from growing.
1) Tell everyone you know about the Plastic Continent. The first step in solving any problem is awareness.
2) Use reusable shopping totes.
3) Get rid of the plastic sandwich bags in your child's lunch box, or at least reduce the number you use. Replace them with reusable containers or, at a minimum, rinse them and use again.
4) Buy a stainless water bottle. Make it a policy among friends and organizations to bring stainless bottles to soccer games and other sporting events and outings.
5) Write to your local, state, and national political leaders. Encourage them to outlaw the use of plastic bags. Know that lobbyists for plastic manufacturers are very influential; we need to influence with our letters and our votes.
6) Watch what you consume. Our lifestyle of constant consumerism and instant gratification hasn't just hurt our wallets, it's hurt our environment.
Laura Rose
(From DivineCaroline.com) - When I heard about the "Plastic Continent" in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I have to admit that I thought it was just an urban myth or an overreaction by some extreme activists.
Much to my dismay, what I found by searching the Internet was that it was more of an understatement than an exaggeration. There it was "3.5 million tons of trash, 80 percent of it plastic" a mass twice the size of Texas. Yes, TEXAS!
At a cost of billions of dollars to clean up the mess, no country wants to take responsibility for it, and so it has continued to grow at a rate of tenfold per decade since 1950.
Sea turtles mistake plastic sandwich bags for jellyfish, and birds feed their young bottle caps and other plastic chards, unknowingly filling their stomachs to the point that they die of starvation. Beaches once scattered with drift wood and seashells are increasingly covered in plastic debris.
If you live in San Francisco, you now know why the Board of Supervisors, led by Ross Mirkarimi, outlawed the use of plastic bags in grocery stores and other retail outlets. Every city needs to follow their example and make this a priority.
Right now, there doesn't seem to be much that we can do about the garbage dump that churns between San Francisco and Hawaii, but we can do our part to keep it from growing.
1) Tell everyone you know about the Plastic Continent. The first step in solving any problem is awareness.
2) Use reusable shopping totes.
3) Get rid of the plastic sandwich bags in your child's lunch box, or at least reduce the number you use. Replace them with reusable containers or, at a minimum, rinse them and use again.
4) Buy a stainless water bottle. Make it a policy among friends and organizations to bring stainless bottles to soccer games and other sporting events and outings.
5) Write to your local, state, and national political leaders. Encourage them to outlaw the use of plastic bags. Know that lobbyists for plastic manufacturers are very influential; we need to influence with our letters and our votes.
6) Watch what you consume. Our lifestyle of constant consumerism and instant gratification hasn't just hurt our wallets, it's hurt our environment.
T.R. Reid from Washington Post., debunking myths about health care around world
From Washington Post, Aug. 23, 2009 ... Never too late.
5 Myths About Health Care Around the World
As Americans search for the cure to what ails our health-care system, we've overlooked an invaluable source of ideas and solutions: the rest of the world. All the other industrialized democracies have faced problems like ours, yet they've found ways to cover everybody -- and still spend far less than we do.
I've traveled the world from Oslo to Osaka to see how other developed democracies provide health care. Instead of dismissing these models as "socialist," we could adapt their solutions to fix our problems. To do that, we first have to dispel a few myths about health care abroad:
1. It's all socialized medicine out there.
Not so. Some countries, such as Britain, New Zealand and Cuba, do provide health care in government hospitals, with the government paying the bills. Others -- for instance, Canada and Taiwan -- rely on private-sector providers, paid for by government-run insurance. But many wealthy countries -- including Germany, the Netherlands, Japan and Switzerland -- provide universal coverage using private doctors, private hospitals and private insurance plans.
In some ways, health care is less "socialized" overseas than in the United States. Almost all Americans sign up for government insurance (Medicare) at age 65. In Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, seniors stick with private insurance plans for life. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is one of the planet's purest examples of government-run health care.
2. Overseas, care is rationed through limited choices or long lines.
Generally, no. Germans can sign up for any of the nation's 200 private health insurance plans -- a broader choice than any American has. If a German doesn't like her insurance company, she can switch to another, with no increase in premium. The Swiss, too, can choose any insurance plan in the country.
In France and Japan, you don't get a choice of insurance provider; you have to use the one designated for your company or your industry. But patients can go to any doctor, any hospital, any traditional healer. There are no U.S.-style limits such as "in-network" lists of doctors or "pre-authorization" for surgery. You pick any doctor, you get treatment -- and insurance has to pay.
Canadians have their choice of providers. In Austria and Germany, if a doctor diagnoses a person as "stressed," medical insurance pays for weekends at a health spa.
As for those notorious waiting lists, some countries are indeed plagued by them. Canada makes patients wait weeks or months for nonemergency care, as a way to keep costs down. But studies by the Commonwealth Fund and others report that many nations -- Germany, Britain, Austria -- outperform the United States on measures such as waiting times for appointments and for elective surgeries.
In Japan, waiting times are so short that most patients don't bother to make an appointment. One Thursday morning in Tokyo, I called the prestigious orthopedic clinic at Keio University Hospital to schedule a consultation about my aching shoulder. "Why don't you just drop by?" the receptionist said. That same afternoon, I was in the surgeon's office. Dr. Nakamichi recommended an operation. "When could we do it?" I asked. The doctor checked his computer and said, "Tomorrow would be pretty difficult. Perhaps some day next week?"
3. Foreign health-care systems are inefficient, bloated bureaucracies.
Much less so than here. It may seem to Americans that U.S.-style free enterprise -- private-sector, for-profit health insurance -- is naturally the most cost-effective way to pay for health care. But in fact, all the other payment systems are more efficient than ours.
U.S. health insurance companies have the highest administrative costs in the world; they spend roughly 20 cents of every dollar for nonmedical costs, such as paperwork, reviewing claims and marketing. France's health insurance industry, in contrast, covers everybody and spends about 4 percent on administration. Canada's universal insurance system, run by government bureaucrats, spends 6 percent on administration. In Taiwan, a leaner version of the Canadian model has administrative costs of 1.5 percent; one year, this figure ballooned to 2 percent, and the opposition parties savaged the government for wasting money.
The world champion at controlling medical costs is Japan, even though its aging population is a profligate consumer of medical care. On average, the Japanese go to the doctor 15 times a year, three times the U.S. rate. They have twice as many MRI scans and X-rays. Quality is high; life expectancy and recovery rates for major diseases are better than in the United States. And yet Japan spends about $3,400 per person annually on health care; the United States spends more than $7,000.
4. Cost controls stifle innovation.
False. The United States is home to groundbreaking medical research, but so are other countries with much lower cost structures. Any American who's had a hip or knee replacement is standing on French innovation. Deep-brain stimulation to treat depression is a Canadian breakthrough. Many of the wonder drugs promoted endlessly on American television, including Viagra, come from British, Swiss or Japanese labs.
Overseas, strict cost controls actually drive innovation. In the United States, an MRI scan of the neck region costs about $1,500. In Japan, the identical scan costs $98. Under the pressure of cost controls, Japanese researchers found ways to perform the same diagnostic technique for one-fifteenth the American price. (And Japanese labs still make a profit.)
5. Health insurance has to be cruel. Not really. American health insurance companies routinely reject applicants with a "preexisting condition" -- precisely the people most likely to need the insurers' service. They employ armies of adjusters to deny claims. If a customer is hit by a truck and faces big medical bills, the insurer's "rescission department" digs through the records looking for grounds to cancel the policy, often while the victim is still in the hospital. The companies say they have to do this stuff to survive in a tough business.
Foreign health insurance companies, in contrast, must accept all applicants, and they can't cancel as long as you pay your premiums. The plans are required to pay any claim submitted by a doctor or hospital (or health spa), usually within tight time limits. The big Swiss insurer Groupe Mutuel promises to pay all claims within five days. "Our customers love it," the group's chief executive told me. The corollary is that everyone is mandated to buy insurance, to give the plans an adequate pool of rate-payers.
The key difference is that foreign health insurance plans exist only to pay people's medical bills, not to make a profit. The United States is the only developed country that lets insurance companies profit from basic health coverage.
ad_icon
In many ways, foreign health-care models are not really "foreign" to America, because our crazy-quilt health-care system uses elements of all of them. For Native Americans or veterans, we're Britain: The government provides health care, funding it through general taxes, and patients get no bills. For people who get insurance through their jobs, we're Germany: Premiums are split between workers and employers, and private insurance plans pay private doctors and hospitals. For people over 65, we're Canada: Everyone pays premiums for an insurance plan run by the government, and the public plan pays private doctors and hospitals according to a set fee schedule. And for the tens of millions without insurance coverage, we're Burundi or Burma: In the world's poor nations, sick people pay out of pocket for medical care; those who can't pay stay sick or die.
This fragmentation is another reason that we spend more than anybody else and still leave millions without coverage. All the other developed countries have settled on one model for health-care delivery and finance; we've blended them all into a costly, confusing bureaucratic mess.
Which, in turn, punctures the most persistent myth of all: that America has "the finest health care" in the world. We don't. In terms of results, almost all advanced countries have better national health statistics than the United States does. In terms of finance, we force 700,000 Americans into bankruptcy each year because of medical bills. In France, the number of medical bankruptcies is zero. Britain: zero. Japan: zero. Germany: zero.
Given our remarkable medical assets -- the best-educated doctors and nurses, the most advanced hospitals, world-class research -- the United States could be, and should be, the best in the world. To get there, though, we have to be willing to learn some lessons about health-care administration from the other industrialized democracies.
T.R. Reid, a former Washington Post reporter, is the author of "The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care," [the NPR "Fresh Air" interview link] to be published Monday.
5 Myths About Health Care Around the World
As Americans search for the cure to what ails our health-care system, we've overlooked an invaluable source of ideas and solutions: the rest of the world. All the other industrialized democracies have faced problems like ours, yet they've found ways to cover everybody -- and still spend far less than we do.
I've traveled the world from Oslo to Osaka to see how other developed democracies provide health care. Instead of dismissing these models as "socialist," we could adapt their solutions to fix our problems. To do that, we first have to dispel a few myths about health care abroad:
1. It's all socialized medicine out there.
Not so. Some countries, such as Britain, New Zealand and Cuba, do provide health care in government hospitals, with the government paying the bills. Others -- for instance, Canada and Taiwan -- rely on private-sector providers, paid for by government-run insurance. But many wealthy countries -- including Germany, the Netherlands, Japan and Switzerland -- provide universal coverage using private doctors, private hospitals and private insurance plans.
In some ways, health care is less "socialized" overseas than in the United States. Almost all Americans sign up for government insurance (Medicare) at age 65. In Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, seniors stick with private insurance plans for life. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is one of the planet's purest examples of government-run health care.
2. Overseas, care is rationed through limited choices or long lines.
Generally, no. Germans can sign up for any of the nation's 200 private health insurance plans -- a broader choice than any American has. If a German doesn't like her insurance company, she can switch to another, with no increase in premium. The Swiss, too, can choose any insurance plan in the country.
In France and Japan, you don't get a choice of insurance provider; you have to use the one designated for your company or your industry. But patients can go to any doctor, any hospital, any traditional healer. There are no U.S.-style limits such as "in-network" lists of doctors or "pre-authorization" for surgery. You pick any doctor, you get treatment -- and insurance has to pay.
Canadians have their choice of providers. In Austria and Germany, if a doctor diagnoses a person as "stressed," medical insurance pays for weekends at a health spa.
As for those notorious waiting lists, some countries are indeed plagued by them. Canada makes patients wait weeks or months for nonemergency care, as a way to keep costs down. But studies by the Commonwealth Fund and others report that many nations -- Germany, Britain, Austria -- outperform the United States on measures such as waiting times for appointments and for elective surgeries.
In Japan, waiting times are so short that most patients don't bother to make an appointment. One Thursday morning in Tokyo, I called the prestigious orthopedic clinic at Keio University Hospital to schedule a consultation about my aching shoulder. "Why don't you just drop by?" the receptionist said. That same afternoon, I was in the surgeon's office. Dr. Nakamichi recommended an operation. "When could we do it?" I asked. The doctor checked his computer and said, "Tomorrow would be pretty difficult. Perhaps some day next week?"
3. Foreign health-care systems are inefficient, bloated bureaucracies.
Much less so than here. It may seem to Americans that U.S.-style free enterprise -- private-sector, for-profit health insurance -- is naturally the most cost-effective way to pay for health care. But in fact, all the other payment systems are more efficient than ours.
U.S. health insurance companies have the highest administrative costs in the world; they spend roughly 20 cents of every dollar for nonmedical costs, such as paperwork, reviewing claims and marketing. France's health insurance industry, in contrast, covers everybody and spends about 4 percent on administration. Canada's universal insurance system, run by government bureaucrats, spends 6 percent on administration. In Taiwan, a leaner version of the Canadian model has administrative costs of 1.5 percent; one year, this figure ballooned to 2 percent, and the opposition parties savaged the government for wasting money.
The world champion at controlling medical costs is Japan, even though its aging population is a profligate consumer of medical care. On average, the Japanese go to the doctor 15 times a year, three times the U.S. rate. They have twice as many MRI scans and X-rays. Quality is high; life expectancy and recovery rates for major diseases are better than in the United States. And yet Japan spends about $3,400 per person annually on health care; the United States spends more than $7,000.
4. Cost controls stifle innovation.
False. The United States is home to groundbreaking medical research, but so are other countries with much lower cost structures. Any American who's had a hip or knee replacement is standing on French innovation. Deep-brain stimulation to treat depression is a Canadian breakthrough. Many of the wonder drugs promoted endlessly on American television, including Viagra, come from British, Swiss or Japanese labs.
Overseas, strict cost controls actually drive innovation. In the United States, an MRI scan of the neck region costs about $1,500. In Japan, the identical scan costs $98. Under the pressure of cost controls, Japanese researchers found ways to perform the same diagnostic technique for one-fifteenth the American price. (And Japanese labs still make a profit.)
5. Health insurance has to be cruel. Not really. American health insurance companies routinely reject applicants with a "preexisting condition" -- precisely the people most likely to need the insurers' service. They employ armies of adjusters to deny claims. If a customer is hit by a truck and faces big medical bills, the insurer's "rescission department" digs through the records looking for grounds to cancel the policy, often while the victim is still in the hospital. The companies say they have to do this stuff to survive in a tough business.
Foreign health insurance companies, in contrast, must accept all applicants, and they can't cancel as long as you pay your premiums. The plans are required to pay any claim submitted by a doctor or hospital (or health spa), usually within tight time limits. The big Swiss insurer Groupe Mutuel promises to pay all claims within five days. "Our customers love it," the group's chief executive told me. The corollary is that everyone is mandated to buy insurance, to give the plans an adequate pool of rate-payers.
The key difference is that foreign health insurance plans exist only to pay people's medical bills, not to make a profit. The United States is the only developed country that lets insurance companies profit from basic health coverage.
ad_icon
In many ways, foreign health-care models are not really "foreign" to America, because our crazy-quilt health-care system uses elements of all of them. For Native Americans or veterans, we're Britain: The government provides health care, funding it through general taxes, and patients get no bills. For people who get insurance through their jobs, we're Germany: Premiums are split between workers and employers, and private insurance plans pay private doctors and hospitals. For people over 65, we're Canada: Everyone pays premiums for an insurance plan run by the government, and the public plan pays private doctors and hospitals according to a set fee schedule. And for the tens of millions without insurance coverage, we're Burundi or Burma: In the world's poor nations, sick people pay out of pocket for medical care; those who can't pay stay sick or die.
This fragmentation is another reason that we spend more than anybody else and still leave millions without coverage. All the other developed countries have settled on one model for health-care delivery and finance; we've blended them all into a costly, confusing bureaucratic mess.
Which, in turn, punctures the most persistent myth of all: that America has "the finest health care" in the world. We don't. In terms of results, almost all advanced countries have better national health statistics than the United States does. In terms of finance, we force 700,000 Americans into bankruptcy each year because of medical bills. In France, the number of medical bankruptcies is zero. Britain: zero. Japan: zero. Germany: zero.
Given our remarkable medical assets -- the best-educated doctors and nurses, the most advanced hospitals, world-class research -- the United States could be, and should be, the best in the world. To get there, though, we have to be willing to learn some lessons about health-care administration from the other industrialized democracies.
T.R. Reid, a former Washington Post reporter, is the author of "The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care," [the NPR "Fresh Air" interview link] to be published Monday.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
How Cong. Weiner helped bring public option back; challenging another way that Obama disappoints us
President Barack Obama is a colossal disappointment to progressives. Pick your issue. The Nobel Peace Prize winner is escalating the war in Afghanistan; Obama's Education Secretary Arne Duncan is short-sightedly pursuing a program to speed up the closure of "troubled schools" as a panacea to all ills in American education; he has restricted government generosity to bailing out the financial industry (OK, the federal bailout/ buy-out of General Motors, excepted), failing to address how the recovery is a jobless recovery. Now, he is settling for a terrible health care plan that rewards medical insurance companies and forces uninsured individuals to pick up their own health care costs.
To worsen matters on the last point, President Obama is dozens of potential allies on health reform. Meet Brooklyn/Queens (New York City) Congressman Anthony Weiner. And note well, how Obama responded to Weiner's hewing closer to principles with "I hope you are enjoying your last trip on Air Force One."
John Heilemann, "Back From the Death Panel: How the public option, helped by a congressman looking for an issue and a shrewdly silent White House, returned from the brink" "New York Magazine," October 11, 2009
To worsen matters on the last point, President Obama is dozens of potential allies on health reform. Meet Brooklyn/Queens (New York City) Congressman Anthony Weiner. And note well, how Obama responded to Weiner's hewing closer to principles with "I hope you are enjoying your last trip on Air Force One."
John Heilemann, "Back From the Death Panel: How the public option, helped by a congressman looking for an issue and a shrewdly silent White House, returned from the brink" "New York Magazine," October 11, 2009
On the night last week when much of Washington was joyously weeping over the seal of approval bestowed on the Baucus health-care bill by the Congressional Budget Office, Anthony Weiner was in his quarters in the Rayburn Building, merrily pissing all over the legislation instead. “It’s just too weak,” he told me. “It doesn’t do enough. It doesn’t achieve real cost savings. There’s no real competition. It’s pretty much a wish list for the insurance companies.” And those were merely Weiner’s substantive criticisms of the bill. His political assessment was even harsher: “It’s effectively dead,” he said.
Not a droplet of Weiner’s dismissal of the Baucus plan came as any sort of shock; he’s been trashing the Senate Finance Committee’s efforts for weeks. What’s surprising is that anyone gives a fig what Weiner has to say about the topic in the first place. Until six months ago, after all, the congressman was known more for his yearning to acquire the keys to Gracie Mansion than his mastery of the arcana of Medicare reimbursement rates. In fact, as Weiner would be the first to admit, his interest in, knowledge of, and record on health-care reform were perilously close to nonexistent.
And yet, since May, when he concluded that taking on Mike Bloomberg was a challenge that went beyond the Sisyphean into the realm of the just plain silly, Weiner has emerged as one of the few real stars in the marathon health-care debate: the clearest and savviest (and, as always, loudest and noodgiest) voice in favor of the public option. And though it’s plain that whatever bill eventually lands on Barack Obama’s desk—and, yes, I think the odds are now close to overwhelming that a big pile of health-care paper will wind up there—won’t be anything close to Weiner’s single-payer dream, his role in framing the terms of the discussion has been more than salutary. In some non-obvious ways, you could argue that it’s been essential.
I should confess at the outset that I have a long-standing soft spot for Weiner, whom I first met more than twenty years ago, when he was a budding Chuck Schumer protégé and we played on the same Capitol Hill softball team. Weiner then was strikingly similar to Weiner now: amped-up, ambitious, wicked smart, forever gauging all the angles, unafraid of being (actually, proud of being) a royal pain in the tuchis. All the qualities, in other words, that have served him so well in the wrangle over health care.
Weiner describes his efflorescence on the subject as a matter of opportunism, in the best sense of the word. “This was one of those unusual issues where we really didn’t have a mother ship that was directing the message, and that created an entrepreneurial environment,” he says. “You didn’t have the president out there speaking clearly about what he wanted. And among my colleagues, there weren’t people that jumped out who either had a comfort with the material or weren’t intimidated by the blowback.” Weiner laughs. “Frankly, I like the blowback. After my thirteenth town-hall meeting, someone on my staff said, ‘I can’t tell if you’re a sadist or a masochist.’ ”
Weiner is right about the nature of the vacuum that he smartly stepped in to fill, but there are at least two other proximate causes for it that should be added to his list: the illness and death of Ted Kennedy and the migration of Hillary Clinton out of the Senate and into Foggy Bottom, which deprived the debate of what would have been its two dominant liberal protagonists. For Weiner, Clinton’s absence and its implications carry a personal twist; he is engaged to Huma Abedin, Hillary’s longtime personal aide. “It’s a weird irony that I’m kind of part of the family now and this has become my issue,” Weiner says. “If Hillary had stayed in the Senate, I would never have had this opening.”
Weiner allows that he’s discussed the health-care battle with Clinton; what she’s told him he will not say. But one imagines she approves of the cleverness and chutzpa he’s displayed—especially in drawing an explicit analogy between the public option and Medicare, an equation that not only increases support for the proposal among voters but flushes out the phoniness of the Republican howls against a “government takeover” of health care. And one similarly imagines Madame Secretary’s chagrin at watching the Obama White House pursue a dance-of-the-seven-veils strategy explicitly designed to be the antithesis of the one she employed back in 1993 and 1994.
Weiner’s view of the administration’s approach hasn’t exactly been approving—a point he’s made abundantly and consistently clear over the past months. On the eve of Obama’s September speech before a joint session of Congress, Weiner cracked that “up to now, the messaging from the White House has been done by Sybil … They seem to have a different perspective on this every couple of hours.” And he’s apparently had no change of heart. “The president has been a miserable messenger on this by and large,” he tells me.
Read more: How Anthony Weiner Helped the Public Option Return From the Brink -- New York Magazine http://nymag.com/news/politics/powergrid/59907/#ixzz0Zc6q2dVk
Back From the Death Panel
Such criticisms haven’t gone unnoticed at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, in no small part because Weiner—in a testament to his consistency, lunacy, inability to shut up, or all three—hasn’t shied away from making them directly. Indeed, on a recent flight back to Washington from New York on Air Force One, I’m told by one congressman who witnessed the scene, Weiner got into a testy exchange with Obama over the former’s ideas about how the latter might better prosecute the case for reform. When I ask Weiner about the incident, he refuses to divulge details, but notes that when it was over, the president said to him drily, “I hope you’re enjoying your last trip on Air Force One.” “He was kidding—I think,” adds Weiner.
In truth, Weiner has been on the receiving end of zero complaints from the White House for his potshots. “I see Rahm [Emanuel] at the House gym every morning, and he’s never beefed to me about this once,” Weiner says. “I think he needs this pressure from the left—it serves them. They needed someone to generate the heat of their base to give them the space to be the moderate voice. I’m convinced that if it weren’t me, they’d have to create me.”
Weiner’s theory is self-serving, but it makes a kind of sense. Over the summer, Weiner, by threatening to bottle up a vote on the main House health-care bill in the Energy and Commerce Committee, forced House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to grant him a floor vote this fall on a single-payer plan. Weiner believes in single-payer as a matter of policy—but he also sees the political advantage of putting forward a proposal that will at once satisfy certain elements of the base and create the appearance that the public option is itself a compromise toward the center. And his adamant advocacy of a robust public option itself generates breathing room for the sort of modified version that might win approval in both the House and Senate.
What Weiner has no doubt about now is that the final legislation will include just such a provision—because without it, there simply aren’t the votes in the House to pass a bill. “I think President Obama will put his finger on the scale at some point,” he says. In the end, it’s going to be simpler to corral one or two senators to accept a public option with some modifications than it’s going to be to get a hundred House members off their rebellious screed.
From what Weiner can divine from Emanuel and others in the White House, this kind of brass-tacks calculation—not the policy merits, not even the long-range political ramifications—is all that matters now. Obama’s bizarro, out-of-nowhere acquisition of the Nobel Peace Prize at the end of last week notwithstanding, the president has had a rough few months and badly needs to put a win on the board. And no one is looking to make that any harder than it’s been already.
To illustrate why that means the public option will prevail, Weiner colorfully sketches out his vision of the endgame: “Obama goes to Nancy and says, ‘I’ve decided I’m giving up the public option.’ And she says, ‘Well, dude, I can’t get this done then.’ So then he goes to Harry Reid and says, ‘We’re going with the public option. What do we have to do in Nebraska to get Ben Nelson onboard?’ That’s a much easier conversation.”
Read more: How Anthony Weiner Helped the Public Option Return From the Brink -- New York Magazine http://nymag.com/news/politics/powergrid/59907/index1.html#ixzz0Zc6LeVS3
Prevention Magazine: the Seven deadliest foods experts won't eat
I caught this earlier this week in yahoo's portal. These warnings generally steer people in the direction of more expensive choices. The sad truth is that people will often opt for many of these foods.
The real credit goes to:] Liz Vaccariello, Editor-in-Chief, PREVENTION, November 24, 2009, "The 7 foods experts won't eat"
The real credit goes to:] Liz Vaccariello, Editor-in-Chief, PREVENTION, November 24, 2009, "The 7 foods experts won't eat"
How healthy (or not) certain foods are—for us, for the environment—is a hotly debated topic among experts and consumers alike, and there are no easy answers. But when Prevention talked to the people at the forefront of food safety and asked them one simple question—“What foods do you avoid?”—we got some pretty interesting answers. Although these foods don’t necessarily make up a "banned” list, as you head into the holidays—and all the grocery shopping that comes with it—their answers are, well, food for thought:
20 ways to feed your family for $100 a week.
1. Canned Tomatoes
The expert: Fredrick vom Saal, PhD, an endocrinologist at the University of Missouri who studies bisphenol-A
The problem: The resin linings of tin cans contain bisphenol-A, a synthetic estrogen that has been linked to ailments ranging from reproductive problems to heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. Unfortunately, acidity (a prominent characteristic of tomatoes) causes BPA to leach into your food. Studies show that the BPA in most people's body exceeds the amount that suppresses sperm production or causes chromosomal damage to the eggs of animals. "You can get 50 mcg of BPA per liter out of a tomato can, and that's a level that is going to impact people, particularly the young," says vom Saal. "I won't go near canned tomatoes."
The solution: Choose tomatoes in glass bottles (which do not need resin linings), such as the brands Bionaturae and Coluccio. You can also get several types in Tetra Pak boxes, like Trader Joe's and Pomi.
14 worst health mistakes even smart women make.
2. Corn-Fed Beef
The expert: Joel Salatin, co-owner of Polyface Farms and author of half a dozen books on sustainable farming
The problem: Cattle evolved to eat grass, not grains. But farmers today feed their animals corn and soybeans, which fatten up the animals faster for slaughter. More money for cattle farmers (and lower prices at the grocery store) means a lot less nutrition for us. A recent comprehensive study conducted by the USDA and researchers from Clemson University found that compared with corn-fed beef, grass-fed beef is higher in beta-carotene, vitamin E, omega-3s, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), calcium, magnesium, and potassium; lower in inflammatory omega-6s; and lower in saturated fats that have been linked to heart disease. "We need to respect the fact that cows are herbivores, and that does not mean feeding them corn and chicken manure," says Salatin.
The solution: Buy grass-fed beef, which can be found at specialty grocers, farmers' markets, and nationally at Whole Foods. It's usually labeled because it demands a premium, but if you don't see it, ask your butcher.
25 ridiculously healthy foods you should be eating now.
3. Microwave Popcorn
The expert: Olga Naidenko, PhD, a senior scientist for the Environmental Working Group,
The problem: Chemicals, including perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), in the lining of the bag, are part of a class of compounds that may be linked to infertility in humans, according to a recent study from UCLA. In animal testing, the chemicals cause liver, testicular, and pancreatic cancer. Studies show that microwaving causes the chemicals to vaporize—and migrate into your popcorn. "They stay in your body for years and accumulate there," says Naidenko, which is why researchers worry that levels in humans could approach the amounts causing cancers in laboratory animals. DuPont and other manufacturers have promised to phase out PFOA by 2015 under a voluntary EPA plan, but millions of bags of popcorn will be sold between now and then.
The solution: Pop natural kernels the old-fashioned way: in a skillet. For flavorings, you can add real butter or dried seasonings, such as dillweed, vegetable flakes, or soup mix.
Your nutritional guide to grocery shopping.
4. Nonorganic Potatoes
The expert: Jeffrey Moyer, chair of the National Organic Standards Board
The problem: Root vegetables absorb herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides that wind up in soil. In the case of potatoes—the nation's most popular vegetable—they're treated with fungicides during the growing season, then sprayed with herbicides to kill off the fibrous vines before harvesting. After they're dug up, the potatoes are treated yet again to prevent them from sprouting. "Try this experiment: Buy a conventional potato in a store, and try to get it to sprout. It won't," says Moyer, who is also farm director of the Rodale Institute (also owned by Rodale Inc., the publisher of Prevention). "I've talked with potato growers who say point-blank they would never eat the potatoes they sell. They have separate plots where they grow potatoes for themselves without all the chemicals."
The solution: Buy organic potatoes. Washing isn't good enough if you're trying to remove chemicals that have been absorbed into the flesh.
14 ways to make veggies less boring.
5. Farmed Salmon
The expert: David Carpenter, MD, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany and publisher of a major study in the journal Science on contamination in fish.
The problem: Nature didn't intend for salmon to be crammed into pens and fed soy, poultry litter, and hydrolyzed chicken feathers. As a result, farmed salmon is lower in vitamin D and higher in contaminants, including carcinogens, PCBs, brominated flame retardants, and pesticides such as dioxin and DDT. According to Carpenter, the most contaminated fish come from Northern Europe, which can be found on American menus. "You can only safely eat one of these salmon dinners every 5 months without increasing your risk of cancer," says Carpenter, whose 2004 fish contamination study got broad media attention. "It's that bad." Preliminary science has also linked DDT to diabetes and obesity, but some nutritionists believe the benefits of omega-3s outweigh the risks. There is also concern about the high level of antibiotics and pesticides used to treat these fish. When you eat farmed salmon, you get dosed with the same drugs and chemicals.
The solution: Switch to wild-caught Alaska salmon. If the package says fresh Atlantic, it's farmed. There are no commercial fisheries left for wild Atlantic salmon.
Delicious and easy fish recipes
6. Milk Produced with Artificial Hormones
The expert: Rick North, project director of the Campaign for Safe Food at the Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility and former CEO of the Oregon division of the American Cancer Society
The problem: Milk producers treat their dairy cattle with recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH or rBST, as it is also known) to boost milk production. But rBGH also increases udder infections and even pus in the milk. It also leads to higher levels of a hormone called insulin-like growth factor in milk. In people, high levels of IGF-1 may contribute to breast, prostate, and colon cancers. "When the government approved rBGH, it was thought that IGF-1 from milk would be broken down in the human digestive tract," says North. As it turns out, the casein in milk protects most of it, according to several independent studies. "There's not 100% proof that this is increasing cancer in humans," admits North. "However, it's banned in most industrialized countries."
The solution: Check labels for rBGH-free, rBST-free, produced without artificial hormones, or organic milk. These phrases indicate rBGH-free products.
Don’t be fooled by these 11 health food imposters.
7. Conventional Apples
The expert: Mark Kastel, former executive for agribusiness and codirector of the Cornucopia Institute, a farm-policy research group that supports organic foods
The problem: If fall fruits held a "most doused in pesticides contest," apples would win. Why? They are individually grafted (descended from a single tree) so that each variety maintains its distinctive flavor. As such, apples don't develop resistance to pests and are sprayed frequently. The industry maintains that these residues are not harmful. But Kastel counters that it's just common sense to minimize exposure by avoiding the most doused produce, like apples. "Farm workers have higher rates of many cancers," he says. And increasing numbers of studies are starting to link a higher body burden of pesticides (from all sources) with Parkinson's disease.
The solution: Buy organic apples. If you can't afford organic, be sure to wash and peel them first.
How to pay less for organic.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Windows 7 Complaints Begin: installation and program migration can be buggy
Windows 7 Complaints Begin
by David Goldman
Wednesday, December 9, 2009 provided byCNNMoney.com
Users of the new operating system say the upgrading process is buggy. But once the kinks are worked out, customers are liking Windows 7 a lot more than Vista
Microsoft launched Windows 7 in late October to much fanfare. But, just like with previous Windows upgrades, complaints about bugs have already started rolling in.
A whopping 31% of clients have reported problems with upgrading to Windows 7, according to a recent survey of more than 100,000 customers conducted by consumer helpdesk firm iYogi.
More from CNNMoney.com:
• Top Tech Gadget Gifts for $299 or Less
• Music Stylist: How Hotel Music Is Made
• Windows 7 Student Upgrade Hell
"Most of the problems that customers have with Windows 7 have to do with installation, or application and data migration," said Vishal Dhar, co-founder of iYogi. "These are all fixable problems, but they're annoyances and they're time consuming."
One common gripe, experienced by 9% of installers, is that the half-hour to an hour-long upgrade process gets to the "62% completed" point and then freezes. It's a problem that Microsoft is aware of, and can be fixed by rebooting the computer, going into advanced settings, and typing in a code that instructs the computer to ignore plug-ins.
However, issues didn't stop with the upgrade process. Many users still experienced glitches even after successfully installing Windows 7 on their machines.
Most common among those complaints was that basic "applet" programs, like Mail, Movie Maker and Photo Gallery, were missing. That's because Windows 7 deletes those programs and makes users download them from the Windows Live Essential Web site. IYogi said 26% of their customers were confused about that extra step.
More from Yahoo! Finance:
• What the Car You Drive Reveals About You
• Save Up to $1,500 per Year on Your Energy Bill
• 13 Simple Ways to Lower Your Electric Bill
Visit the Family & Home Center
Others had problems getting their computers to work properly: Eight percent said their DVD drives couldn't be found and 2% couldn't sync their iPhones with Windows 7.
One in seven users also complained that the sleek new "Aero" theme doesn't work. The Aero theme enables users to see through a window to view the desktop or other programs that are open behind it. According to iYogi, most of the 14% of users that have problems with Aero don't have the graphics capabilities on their PCs to handle the program.
Other common complaints included an inability to view file extensions, too many "mini-dumps" (memory images saved on the computer when it crashes), problems with the "Aero snap" feature, changes to custom icons and problems with the new taskbar.
Microsoft (MSFT), which debuted Windows 7 on Oct. 22, did not return requests for comment.
Smoother sailing once it's debugged. Once the bugs from upgrading have been worked out, users have had a relatively hassle-free experience. And those who bought a new computer with Windows 7 preloaded have seen the fewest issues.
"Customers who finally get it up and running love Windows 7," said Dhar. "We haven't had a lot of people calling for usability issues, because it's a much more intuitive interface than Windows XP."
That's not to say that Windows 7 is perfect.
According to Zeus Kerravala, an analyst at Yankee Group, one of the biggest annoyances with the new operating system is that the "ribbon menus" at the top of programs have been redesigned and must be relearned. In previous Windows versions, the menus remained very consistent (File, Edit, View, Insert, etc.), but in Windows 7, they can be wildly different from application to application.
"It took me a long while to figure out how to print," said Kerravala. "Microsoft tried to improve the user interface, but there's a learning curve because it's inconsistent."
Microsoft also did away with many favorite applications like Windows Movie Maker, which is particularly surprising given the propensity of cell phone videos and Flip video camera movies.
But all of the gripes about Windows 7 pale in comparison to the angry complaints about Microsoft's previous Windows iteration, Windows Vista. That version was an outright disaster after it was released in 2007. Vista was plagued by bugs, software incompatibilities, sluggishness and annoying security alerts. The episode nearly destroyed the tech giant's reputation with consumers.
"While there are a few bugs, I haven't seen or heard of any show-stoppers," said Laura DiDio, principal analyst at ITIC. "In fact, just the opposite. Some Vista users can't wait to upgrade. So far, this has been a home run for Microsoft."
Copyrighted, CNNMoney. All Rights Reserved.
by David Goldman
Wednesday, December 9, 2009 provided byCNNMoney.com
Users of the new operating system say the upgrading process is buggy. But once the kinks are worked out, customers are liking Windows 7 a lot more than Vista
Microsoft launched Windows 7 in late October to much fanfare. But, just like with previous Windows upgrades, complaints about bugs have already started rolling in.
A whopping 31% of clients have reported problems with upgrading to Windows 7, according to a recent survey of more than 100,000 customers conducted by consumer helpdesk firm iYogi.
More from CNNMoney.com:
• Top Tech Gadget Gifts for $299 or Less
• Music Stylist: How Hotel Music Is Made
• Windows 7 Student Upgrade Hell
"Most of the problems that customers have with Windows 7 have to do with installation, or application and data migration," said Vishal Dhar, co-founder of iYogi. "These are all fixable problems, but they're annoyances and they're time consuming."
One common gripe, experienced by 9% of installers, is that the half-hour to an hour-long upgrade process gets to the "62% completed" point and then freezes. It's a problem that Microsoft is aware of, and can be fixed by rebooting the computer, going into advanced settings, and typing in a code that instructs the computer to ignore plug-ins.
However, issues didn't stop with the upgrade process. Many users still experienced glitches even after successfully installing Windows 7 on their machines.
Most common among those complaints was that basic "applet" programs, like Mail, Movie Maker and Photo Gallery, were missing. That's because Windows 7 deletes those programs and makes users download them from the Windows Live Essential Web site. IYogi said 26% of their customers were confused about that extra step.
More from Yahoo! Finance:
• What the Car You Drive Reveals About You
• Save Up to $1,500 per Year on Your Energy Bill
• 13 Simple Ways to Lower Your Electric Bill
Visit the Family & Home Center
Others had problems getting their computers to work properly: Eight percent said their DVD drives couldn't be found and 2% couldn't sync their iPhones with Windows 7.
One in seven users also complained that the sleek new "Aero" theme doesn't work. The Aero theme enables users to see through a window to view the desktop or other programs that are open behind it. According to iYogi, most of the 14% of users that have problems with Aero don't have the graphics capabilities on their PCs to handle the program.
Other common complaints included an inability to view file extensions, too many "mini-dumps" (memory images saved on the computer when it crashes), problems with the "Aero snap" feature, changes to custom icons and problems with the new taskbar.
Microsoft (MSFT), which debuted Windows 7 on Oct. 22, did not return requests for comment.
Smoother sailing once it's debugged. Once the bugs from upgrading have been worked out, users have had a relatively hassle-free experience. And those who bought a new computer with Windows 7 preloaded have seen the fewest issues.
"Customers who finally get it up and running love Windows 7," said Dhar. "We haven't had a lot of people calling for usability issues, because it's a much more intuitive interface than Windows XP."
That's not to say that Windows 7 is perfect.
According to Zeus Kerravala, an analyst at Yankee Group, one of the biggest annoyances with the new operating system is that the "ribbon menus" at the top of programs have been redesigned and must be relearned. In previous Windows versions, the menus remained very consistent (File, Edit, View, Insert, etc.), but in Windows 7, they can be wildly different from application to application.
"It took me a long while to figure out how to print," said Kerravala. "Microsoft tried to improve the user interface, but there's a learning curve because it's inconsistent."
Microsoft also did away with many favorite applications like Windows Movie Maker, which is particularly surprising given the propensity of cell phone videos and Flip video camera movies.
But all of the gripes about Windows 7 pale in comparison to the angry complaints about Microsoft's previous Windows iteration, Windows Vista. That version was an outright disaster after it was released in 2007. Vista was plagued by bugs, software incompatibilities, sluggishness and annoying security alerts. The episode nearly destroyed the tech giant's reputation with consumers.
"While there are a few bugs, I haven't seen or heard of any show-stoppers," said Laura DiDio, principal analyst at ITIC. "In fact, just the opposite. Some Vista users can't wait to upgrade. So far, this has been a home run for Microsoft."
Copyrighted, CNNMoney. All Rights Reserved.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Finding software reviews, comparisons, free software
A poster requested where to find the program XRumer 5.0 Palladium. He or she claims that the program is the best choice for putting advertising on the Internet.
I cannot comment one way or the other on that claim. I can suggest these sites for finding comparative reviews --or sole product reviews-- of software. So much software is available in a free format these days. I used one of these sites for finding reviews of free PDF editor programs. My favorite sites among the choices are CNET's site and the "TopTenREVIEWS" site.
http://download.cnet.com
http://software.toptenreviews.com
http://freedownloadscenter.com
http://www.topshareware.com
http://software.informer.com
I cannot comment one way or the other on that claim. I can suggest these sites for finding comparative reviews --or sole product reviews-- of software. So much software is available in a free format these days. I used one of these sites for finding reviews of free PDF editor programs. My favorite sites among the choices are CNET's site and the "TopTenREVIEWS" site.
http://download.cnet.com
http://software.toptenreviews.com
http://freedownloadscenter.com
http://www.topshareware.com
http://software.informer.com
Friday, November 27, 2009
When fired food began to be considered tasty
Harvard primatologist Richard Wrangham on the key role cooking played in human evolution.
In "Scientific American.
Evolving Bigger Brains through Cooking: A Q&A with Richard Wrangham
Our intelligence has enabled us to conquer the world. The secret for the big brains, says biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham, is cooking, which made digestion easier and liberated more calories.
A New York Times conversation:
A Conversation With Richard Wrangham
From Studying Chimps, a Theory on Cooking
By CLAUDIA DREIFUS
Published: April 20, 2009
Richard Wrangham, a primatologist and anthropologist, has spent four decades observing wild chimpanzees in Africa to see what their behavior might tell us about prehistoric humans. Dr. Wrangham, 60, was born in Britain and since 1989 has been at Harvard, where he is a professor of biological anthropology. His book, “Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human,” will be published in late May. He was interviewed over a vegetarian lunch at last winter’s American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago and again later by telephone. An edited version of the two conversations follows.
{Click the above hyperlink for the interview.}
In "Scientific American.
Evolving Bigger Brains through Cooking: A Q&A with Richard Wrangham
Our intelligence has enabled us to conquer the world. The secret for the big brains, says biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham, is cooking, which made digestion easier and liberated more calories.
A New York Times conversation:
A Conversation With Richard Wrangham
From Studying Chimps, a Theory on Cooking
By CLAUDIA DREIFUS
Published: April 20, 2009
Richard Wrangham, a primatologist and anthropologist, has spent four decades observing wild chimpanzees in Africa to see what their behavior might tell us about prehistoric humans. Dr. Wrangham, 60, was born in Britain and since 1989 has been at Harvard, where he is a professor of biological anthropology. His book, “Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human,” will be published in late May. He was interviewed over a vegetarian lunch at last winter’s American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago and again later by telephone. An edited version of the two conversations follows.
{Click the above hyperlink for the interview.}
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Ditch your running shoe!: Lehrer talks with McDougall
WNYC -New York public radio, 11/26/09:
Heel to Toe
Running is more popular than ever. Christopher McDougall, contributing editor for Men’s Health, and author of Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, talks about the science of “extreme” running and the rise of running culture.
Heel to Toe
Running is more popular than ever. Christopher McDougall, contributing editor for Men’s Health, and author of Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, talks about the science of “extreme” running and the rise of running culture.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
EWG study: top most attractive cellphones and 10 worst phones in radiation emissions
Bravo to the Environmental Working Group for posting its ranking of the best and the worst of cell phones (or mobile phones), measured by the factor of lowest or highest radiation emissions.
AND
Here is the link to the full Environmental Working Group (EWG) study on DOZENS of phones.
AND ANOTHER AUTHOR ASKED, Was Senator Ted Kennedy's brain cancer death the result of frequent cell phone use?
Follow this link at examiner.com.
Yet, the EWG ratings rate the SAR levels. As one writer notes, this is insufficient and possibly misleading.
AND
Here is the link to the full Environmental Working Group (EWG) study on DOZENS of phones.
AND ANOTHER AUTHOR ASKED, Was Senator Ted Kennedy's brain cancer death the result of frequent cell phone use?
Follow this link at examiner.com.
Yet, the EWG ratings rate the SAR levels. As one writer notes, this is insufficient and possibly misleading.
Why is the SAR value not an accurate measure of safety?
The SAR value is only comparing the heating effect of different phones and does not give an indication that a cell phone is ‘safe.’
The power, or heating effect, of the phone is only one of many possible factors impacting cell phone ‘safety.’ Exposures to the radiation from the cell phone at non-heating levels have been linked to many serious biological effects, and the SAR value is not capturing anything about these harmful non-thermal exposures.
SAR values are reported to the FCC by the manufacturer and have been known to vary from the reported number by a factor of two across models of the same phone.
The SAR value varies with the source of exposure and the person using the phone. For example, if you are in a rural area or in an elevator or a car, where the cell phone uses more power, your brain will get a greater exposure from the higher power required in these instances.
Holding the phone in a slightly different way can actually render the worst SAR value phone better than the best SAR value phone.
SAR values have been created based on simulations of exposure in a plexiglass head filled with fluid, not a human head, and many scientists consider them to be inaccurate and irrelevant at determining actual biological effects. As Rees points out, and I wholeheartedly agree:
“Physical distance of the phone from your brain, and less usage of the cell phone overall, more so than simply choosing a phone with a lower SAR value, is probably a far better insurance policy.”
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Gmail, google groups need to become more user friendy!!
Can google get it more user-friendly???
Could they maybe talk with yahoo or amazon or airline companies to see how they make it more possible for people to recover accounts?
Very very difficult. I thought that I put in the right email when they asked for originating email for the gmail. It seemed so, the system remembered me. I got into my old version of this blog --with but one post.
Anyway, it still allowed no access for my gmail accounts.
This makes for problems beyond gmail.
It is impossible to join google groups.
Again, why can't they make friends among the competition over at yahoo, who make it a LOT MORE EASIER to access their yahoo group counterparts to google groups.
Could they maybe talk with yahoo or amazon or airline companies to see how they make it more possible for people to recover accounts?
Very very difficult. I thought that I put in the right email when they asked for originating email for the gmail. It seemed so, the system remembered me. I got into my old version of this blog --with but one post.
Anyway, it still allowed no access for my gmail accounts.
This makes for problems beyond gmail.
It is impossible to join google groups.
Again, why can't they make friends among the competition over at yahoo, who make it a LOT MORE EASIER to access their yahoo group counterparts to google groups.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Why does Verizon make online payment impossible?
Verizon will NOT make payment possible online.
And their phone service is not helpful toward this end.
I attempted to make a payment online.
Now they have an added charge: you used to be able to do this online.
Actually, in the Nynex days you could pay in person at customer service centers.
However, now you encounter a message at their site saying that you must pay $3.50 at an outside vendor.
What is the other option? You must register if you want to bypass that.
What does registration involve? you must wait for a PIN.
OK, what if you want to pay at an authorized payment center.
But the official Verizon payment center locations directory says that there are no authorized payment centers for zip codes for the vicinity of zip codes for lower Manhattan, mid-town Manhattan, downtown Brooklyn, western, central queens.
OK, so if you want to go to checkfreepay centers. They do not take checks
they want cash.
As I have been typing this, I have been on hold for 55 minutes on bothn my landline to 1-888-669-9901, and my cellphone to Verizon's standard local number for service/ payment matters, 1-718-890-1550.
Hello, Verizon! This blogpost should be a wake up call that you have to reform your ways, or people will search out your competitor phone companies.
Another route that we should take is to rally to have a consumer's bill of rights, just as Congressman Barney Frank and President Barack Obama have been pushing to roll back the most egregious abuses of the credit card companies.
THE WORKERS' SOLIDARITY ASPECT OF LUDDISM
You know, in the not so far distant past, like ten years ago, you could go to centers, staffed by real humans (as I noted earlier). The elimination of these centers has meant the elimination of jobs. And furthermore, it is apparent that many of your service assistance calls are not being handled by employees in the United States but by people in India. In a time of declining domestic (i.e., American) employment, it is critical to do what little one can to support live human beings that are working in the United States. Off-sourcing and modern technology are sending jobs abroad.
And their phone service is not helpful toward this end.
I attempted to make a payment online.
Now they have an added charge: you used to be able to do this online.
Actually, in the Nynex days you could pay in person at customer service centers.
However, now you encounter a message at their site saying that you must pay $3.50 at an outside vendor.
What is the other option? You must register if you want to bypass that.
What does registration involve? you must wait for a PIN.
OK, what if you want to pay at an authorized payment center.
But the official Verizon payment center locations directory says that there are no authorized payment centers for zip codes for the vicinity of zip codes for lower Manhattan, mid-town Manhattan, downtown Brooklyn, western, central queens.
OK, so if you want to go to checkfreepay centers. They do not take checks
they want cash.
As I have been typing this, I have been on hold for 55 minutes on bothn my landline to 1-888-669-9901, and my cellphone to Verizon's standard local number for service/ payment matters, 1-718-890-1550.
Hello, Verizon! This blogpost should be a wake up call that you have to reform your ways, or people will search out your competitor phone companies.
Another route that we should take is to rally to have a consumer's bill of rights, just as Congressman Barney Frank and President Barack Obama have been pushing to roll back the most egregious abuses of the credit card companies.
THE WORKERS' SOLIDARITY ASPECT OF LUDDISM
You know, in the not so far distant past, like ten years ago, you could go to centers, staffed by real humans (as I noted earlier). The elimination of these centers has meant the elimination of jobs. And furthermore, it is apparent that many of your service assistance calls are not being handled by employees in the United States but by people in India. In a time of declining domestic (i.e., American) employment, it is critical to do what little one can to support live human beings that are working in the United States. Off-sourcing and modern technology are sending jobs abroad.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Rob Miller, Democratic challenger to Joe "You Lie" Wilson reaps cash rewards
South Carolina Democratic Iraq War veteran Rob Miller has cashed in, in the fallout over Joe Wilson's "you lie" retort, disrupting President Barack Obama's speech.
... and he boost his opponent's fund-raising, on the order of $500,000 in one day.
See this story from Congressional Quarterly Politics at yahoo.com:
"'You Lie' Fallout: Foe Hauls in Quick Half-Million":
Rob Miller, Wilson's Democratic challenger for the 2010 contest for Wilson's seat, reaped half a million dollars in the 24 hours following the Congressman's disruptive yell.
By 48 hours, Miller garnered $1,000,000 in donations, the "Washington Post" reported.
Miller has apparently surpassed Wilson's fundraising.
Click here to reach two-Iraq tour Iraq vet, Rob Miller's website.
... and he boost his opponent's fund-raising, on the order of $500,000 in one day.
See this story from Congressional Quarterly Politics at yahoo.com:
"'You Lie' Fallout: Foe Hauls in Quick Half-Million":
Rob Miller, Wilson's Democratic challenger for the 2010 contest for Wilson's seat, reaped half a million dollars in the 24 hours following the Congressman's disruptive yell.
By 48 hours, Miller garnered $1,000,000 in donations, the "Washington Post" reported.
Miller has apparently surpassed Wilson's fundraising.
Click here to reach two-Iraq tour Iraq vet, Rob Miller's website.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Teabagger South Carolinian Congressman heckles President, spikes searches, bad press for GOP
South Carolina Republican tea-party-type Congressman Joe Wilson heckles President Obama with "you lie"
... and he boost his opponent's fund-raising, on the order of $500,000 in one day.
See this story from Congressional Quarterly Politics at yahoo.com:
"'You Lie' Fallout: Foe Hauls in Quick Half-Million":
Rob Miller, Wilson's Democratic challenger for the 2010 contest for Wilson's seat, reaped half a million dollars in the 24 hours following the Congressman's disruptive yell.
Some observers believe that this incident could garner critical donations that would help Miller in 2010.
If this is the case, we would wish for more such incidents!
... and he boost his opponent's fund-raising, on the order of $500,000 in one day.
See this story from Congressional Quarterly Politics at yahoo.com:
"'You Lie' Fallout: Foe Hauls in Quick Half-Million":
Rob Miller, Wilson's Democratic challenger for the 2010 contest for Wilson's seat, reaped half a million dollars in the 24 hours following the Congressman's disruptive yell.
Some observers believe that this incident could garner critical donations that would help Miller in 2010.
If this is the case, we would wish for more such incidents!
Sunday, September 6, 2009
How has anti-Semitic filth evaded amazon.com's filters?
Read through the reviews of Bernard Malamud's Pulitzer Prize winning "The Fixer" at www.amazon.com, and you'll see a lead to a sickening review title, "A brief and painful history of why Christians were annoyed by Jews and what they did about it," February 24, 2008
HOW DISGUSTING AND SHAMEFUL!!! You want to know about Christians' treatment of Jews? Begins with medieval era expulsions from towns or nations, and it caps with genocide, The Holocaust, in World War II.
Doesn't anyone vet the reviews?!?! How did this post last in the system for a year and a half??
Report this to amazon.com By the way, I'm of Christian background.
HOW DISGUSTING AND SHAMEFUL!!! You want to know about Christians' treatment of Jews? Begins with medieval era expulsions from towns or nations, and it caps with genocide, The Holocaust, in World War II.
Doesn't anyone vet the reviews?!?! How did this post last in the system for a year and a half??
Report this to amazon.com By the way, I'm of Christian background.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Health benefits of weekend trips, vacation, unions
On the fly today, but let me add:
1) This blog quote brings to mind: taking breaks, as weekend trips or longer vacations, have health benefits.
2) France has a better policy than the US has. More people get more vacation --FIVE weeks at minimum-- in France than people do in the US.
3) The French have their strong union movement to thank for these accomplishments.
Now why can't those tea-bag party Joe the Plumber / Glenn Beck following yahoos absorb that message?
By Sara Altshul
My first cousin Laura asked me and another cousin, Liz, to join her on a weekend mini-vacation. I knew it would be good for me, but now a new study backs me up!
Laura and I share a July birthday, which we’ve never celebrated together. And though Laura, Liz, and I love seeing each other at family events, we’ve never hung out, just the three of us. So we unanimously decided to make some new family history.
Laura was due for some fun: Her mother recently passed away after a 10-year battle with a blood cancer, and Laura dropped everything to tend her while working a demanding job in television sports. Liz, too: She’s a top retail executive and the mother of three boys. Her workday starts at 5:30 a.m. and ends at 8 p.m.
Compared to the lives of Laura and Liz, my whole life is a vacation; I don’t commute and I don’t answer to a boss. Still, the stresses of being family breadwinner and a freelance writer are real enough. Plus, I haven’t taken a vacation in years.
So off we went to a lovely resort just outside of Atlantic City, N.J. I admit, I worried a little at first about how relaxing it would be to share a room for two nights (and a bathroom) with two women relatives that I haven’t spent much time with.
I absolutely needn’t have. I was stunned to discover how utterly relaxed I became in the short time between Friday afternoon and Sunday. I’m sure the heavenly massage, facial, and spa manicure I enjoyed, to say nothing of the strolling, shopping, pool-lounging, and divine food, and our brief stint in the resort’s fitness room, and the howling fun we had staying up late on Friday playing pool and air hockey, helped me unwind so quickly. I swear I could literally feel the stress hormones leaving my body.
Study says: Have fun!
Turns out, that’s exactly what was happening to me. According to a study published Thursday in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine,
Blogger's comment: that journal title, I admit, doesn't give me a lot of confidence.
And a wonderful comment from a reader named Sally:
1) This blog quote brings to mind: taking breaks, as weekend trips or longer vacations, have health benefits.
2) France has a better policy than the US has. More people get more vacation --FIVE weeks at minimum-- in France than people do in the US.
3) The French have their strong union movement to thank for these accomplishments.
Now why can't those tea-bag party Joe the Plumber / Glenn Beck following yahoos absorb that message?
The Health Benefits of a Weekend Getaway
Weekly advice from our herbs and alternatives expert
By Sara Altshul
My first cousin Laura asked me and another cousin, Liz, to join her on a weekend mini-vacation. I knew it would be good for me, but now a new study backs me up!
Laura and I share a July birthday, which we’ve never celebrated together. And though Laura, Liz, and I love seeing each other at family events, we’ve never hung out, just the three of us. So we unanimously decided to make some new family history.
Laura was due for some fun: Her mother recently passed away after a 10-year battle with a blood cancer, and Laura dropped everything to tend her while working a demanding job in television sports. Liz, too: She’s a top retail executive and the mother of three boys. Her workday starts at 5:30 a.m. and ends at 8 p.m.
Compared to the lives of Laura and Liz, my whole life is a vacation; I don’t commute and I don’t answer to a boss. Still, the stresses of being family breadwinner and a freelance writer are real enough. Plus, I haven’t taken a vacation in years.
So off we went to a lovely resort just outside of Atlantic City, N.J. I admit, I worried a little at first about how relaxing it would be to share a room for two nights (and a bathroom) with two women relatives that I haven’t spent much time with.
I absolutely needn’t have. I was stunned to discover how utterly relaxed I became in the short time between Friday afternoon and Sunday. I’m sure the heavenly massage, facial, and spa manicure I enjoyed, to say nothing of the strolling, shopping, pool-lounging, and divine food, and our brief stint in the resort’s fitness room, and the howling fun we had staying up late on Friday playing pool and air hockey, helped me unwind so quickly. I swear I could literally feel the stress hormones leaving my body.
Study says: Have fun!
Turns out, that’s exactly what was happening to me. According to a study published Thursday in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine,
Blogger's comment: that journal title, I admit, doesn't give me a lot of confidence.
engaging in enjoyable leisure activities can lower stress hormones and blood pressure, make you feel better all over, and reduce your waist circumference and body mass index (although I’m pretty sure the Friday night gala all-you-could-eat seafood buffet probably canceled out those last two benefits).
In the study, 1,400 people reported how often they participated in activities like vacationing, going to clubs, playing sports, or plain old loafing around. Folks who spent the most time doing many different fun activities reaped the most health benefits. Though the study may sound like “duh” research (what I call studies whose results seem painfully obvious), the scientist at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine who conducted it makes a good point.
“When you’re under stress, the usual thing is to cut back on enjoyable activities because you’re feeling uncomfortable and you need more time to deal with the stress. But these data suggest that’s the wrong thing to do, and that continuing enjoyable activities can be helpful,” says study coauthor Karen Matthews, PhD, a professor of psychiatry, epidemiology, and psychology.
That’s all I needed to hear. I’m planning to take a real vacation with my husband, Frank, at the end of August. Not sure where yet, but it will absolutely be someplace that has lots and lots of fun things to do. Suggestions are welcome!
And a wonderful comment from a reader named Sally:
Sally
I’m amazed that someone had to study this issue. Of course time off is good for you. Just like breathing is good for you.
In America, the 10 days most people get are spread out over the year, to make for long weekends. It’s a rare treat to actually take a whole week off of work. In France, 5 weeks vacation per year is the minimum. Going away for 2-3 weeks at a time is normal. All that is courtesy of their unions. Why do Americans hate unions?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
