Wrong Time, Wrong Place

The cold blooded execution style murder of two Britons in Sarasota, Florida is a cautionary tale about alcohol, bad luck, bad neighborhoods and, guns.

The scene could easily have been Washington, DC. and I could have been the victim or the murder could have happened to any unsuspecting traveler in Any City, USA.

Newly arrived in the USA from England in 1993, I was invited to join an acquaintance at a bar in central Washington, famous for its range of beers. He imbibed, I imbibed, and later than intended I (by this time quite inebriated) set off for the Metro intending to take the Orange Line west in the direction of Vienna, Fairfax and thence home.

Except, I took an Orange Line train east instead of west.

Unbeknown to me, the lateness of the hour, near midnight, meant the train journey was to terminate a few stations East of Capitol Hill, which as any Caucasian traveler familiar with the DC area is not a place to be after midnight on a week night, or any night.

Drunk and lost, I innocently stumbled off the terminated train, through the exit, up the escalator and onto a street, the name of which I had not a clue. All I knew was I was East of Eden and there was no going back.

Now I don’t know about the alcohol induced condition of the two young Britons who stumbled disastrously into a housing estate and into the arms of a waiting killer with a gun; but I do relate to the fear and apprehension they must have felt prior to their deaths by shooting.

The saying: “There but for the Grace of God, go I,” comes to mind.
I was fortunate in that I was able to flag down a taxi driver whose passenger was heading West to Arlington, Virginia and safety. He drove my Good Samaritan woman home and then me to my residence also in Arlington, Virginia.

These two young white Britons were not so lucky. Yes they were drunk, and therefore not in command of their faculties. But did they deserve to die at the hands of a black man with a gun whose avowed intent was to rob them?

Yet these young men were found dead execution style with their trousers pulled down to thigh level and their wallets and belongings still on them.

Lack of Qualified Workers Thwarts Dansko's Aim to Make High-End Shoes in the USA

MAINE-March 17,2012 - For those of us who despair at the US worker's unpreparedness for life in the 21st century, look no further than the cautionary tale of Dansko, the Philadelphia-based manufacturer of expensive clogs and high end shoes.

Under the guidance of Dansko's founders and owners, the company is striving to make the "Made in America" moniker a reality. It is attempting to do what few US shoe companies have been able to do in the last 30 years: that is, to make in America the shoes that it sells to Americans.

According to an article in the Portland Press Herald, that it lifted from the Philadelphia Inquirer, Dansko is adding the finishing touches to a plan for a new line of shoes to be made from molds in a stateside factory. Production could begin as early as 2013, that is next year.

According to the article, 80 percent of Dansko's clogs and other ergonomically designed shoes are assembled in China, and 20 percent in Italy.

If all goes well, Dansko hopes to manufacture a new clog from recyclable material in Arkansas next year. A non-recyclable version called Avalon Pippa debuted this spring in stores. It is made in China.

Now, gentle reader, before your chest puffs up with pride at the thought that you, the American consumer, will be able to purchase shoes that are genuinely 'Made in America,' wait a moment!

What this Philadelphia Inquirer article implicitly asks is: Where is the American worker who has the skill and the desire to assemble shoes in this country? Is there such a person?

MusingsintheMaine stream notes that Dansko LLC's owners, Mandy Cabot and husband Peter Kjellerup, have previously tried employing American workers to make their clogs - but abandoned those efforts when those Maine-based workers were unable to produce clogs of a quality that this husband and wife team could stand behind.

They abandoned Maine because their shoemaker employees were not craftsmen (and craftswomen) enough to do the job. And this from a state that not that many years led the world in well made craftsmentlike footwear.

The Philadelphia Inquirer article quotes Cabot as saying that she and her husband would have loved to have continue to making their clogs in Maine, but that "... attrition in the workers and workforce up there (Maine)..." was such that "we simply couldn't continue.

Now, Governor Le Page, whose state is "Open for Business," Dansko is trying again - this time in Arkansas. What, dear Governor, are you going to do to try and bring skilled craftsmen and craftswomen back to Maine and to keep them here?
End

I Say Tomehto You Say Tomahto

Dear Gentle Reader,

As I close in on nearly 20 years as a resident (and now citizen) of the great United States of America, I am musing on the linguistic differences between American English and that spoken back in the Old Country, England.

For example, the old song "I Say Tomehto and You Say Tomahto; I Say Potehto and You Say Potarto"..comes to mind.

If you say to someone "I am going back to bed for a bit," your friend who speaks American English may inquire "for a bit of what?" whereas the friend who speaks the Queen's English, or some derivative thereof, would understand the expression as meaning "I going back to bed to sleep for a while." So I would advise substituting the word "bit" for "a while."

We've all heard how to avoid the embarrassment of asking your American tennis-playing friend for a "knock up", by substituting the question "shall we hit a few balls before we start scoring games?" The very idea of having a knock up, that is sex, on a tennis court in full view of the public likely may be a deterrent for all but the most brazen of us.

A vest in American English is a waistcoat in English. Suspenders keep your pants up in American English, whereas they keep a woman's hose up in England. Pants are trousers in American English, but are underpants in English English.

And so on.

While comparing England to America, someone (was it George Bernard Shaw?) said something about..."two great peoples divided by a common language."

How true.

My point here is that English, whether spoken in Oxford or in Philadelphia for example, can be a wonderfully facile tongue and is open to many interpretations.

In this global age English is widely spoken. A friend who teaches English and who has taught in China and plans to teach in Japan says that English for a non-speaker is one of THE most difficult languages to learn. What makes it so flexible and open to interpretation and nuance, also makes it harder.

So if the English spoken by an educated Brit differs so much from that spoken by an educated American, imagine the miscommunications that can ensue when slang and colloquialisms are introduced into the equation.

Cheers

Osama Bin Laden

Oh Osama Bin Laden
Where U Bin a ‘hidin?
In them tha’r hills
Since you went for the kill(s)

You thought you had u.s. licked
When you bombed out those sticks
That towered above us
In the Land of the Free!

But that was 10 years ago
And who was to know?
That we’d soon track you down
And put you (6 feet) in the ground

You shook u.s. like dust
Back in ‘ole Tora Bora
But you always knew
That night leads to a ‘morrow;
And that one of these days
You’d be caught in a haze
Of bullets and sorrow

There is an old adage,
I’ve heard tell
That if you live by the sword,
You might go to Hell;
I trust that your life
Was pleasantly spent
Blowing up people
‘Til your energy went;

And now that you’ve gone,
We’ll all carry on
In happier ways
Now the ‘battle’ is won

Goodbye!

Why Doctors are Bad for Your Health - Part III

Well, apparently President Obama agrees!

Agrees with what? you ask.

That doctors, or rather hospitals, CAN be bad for your health!

'One recent study published in the journal Health Affairs estimated that 1 in 3 hospital patients experienced an "adverse event" such as being given the wrong medication, acquiring an infection or receiving the wrong surgical procedure." (McClatchy News Service).

On April 29,2011, the president took an important step toward rectifying this endemic quality of health care issue when he finalized plans to reward hospitals that provide high quality health care. These steps are a by-product of the new health care reform act the president signed into law last year.

In other words, hospitals that reduce that 1-in-3 ratio of mistakes and inappropriate treatment will receive more money from Medicare than those institutions that continue to misdiagnose and fail to take adequate precautions against secondary infections such as Staph and others

We all know of people have gone into hospital for a surgical procedure only to contract pneumonia or some viral infection that delays and complicates recovery from that surgery.

The hope is by hitting hospitals where it hurts, that is in the pocket-book, the Obama administration will gain traction in a bid to improve the quality of health care without sacrificing the many benefits that Medicare confers on Americans.

Why Doctors are Bad for Your Health - Part II

In my last Blog I noted that an 85-year family friend, who has since died, saw very little of doctors during his life on Earth. Maybe he'll meet a few in Heaven. Until he suffered a massive stroke earlier this year, it was thought that he had not been to a doctor since he was in the Service during World War II. Not strictly accurate, I am told; but not too far from the truth. Once, aged 45 or so, he voluntarily visited a doctor, for something specific. About 10 years ago he broke his wrist - so there was a doctor involved for that. Doctors wanted to operate on the wrist to repair it, but he said NO. And not on religious grounds.

Until well into the twentieth century medicine was such that a visit to a doctor was best avoided.

It had been worse in the 19th Century, as military campaigns suffered huge casualties due to disease. Soldiers suffered at the hands of surgeons who, in many cases, were little more than meat butchers. During the American Civil War more soldiers died of disease than perished in battle, despite the terrible slaughter at battles such as Antietam and Gettysburg.

So are doctors bad for your health? I don't necessarily believe it, but I have many reasons to avoid hospitals and hospitalization.

Not least because I could come out missing the wrong limb, or be misdiagnosed with a terminal illness. But what scares me also about hospitals is the fear that I could go in for some minor procedure; and nearly die from a staph infection, as happened to my wife's aunt a few years ago.

Doctors are human beings who can take on a God-like status: which ill-fits them. May be it is a power thing: you know being able to dispense life and death. We all know good, kind and capable doctors. We also know doctors who are arrogant, teacher-knows-best types, with lousy bedside manners. Competence may excuse a bad bedside manner; but only rarely. After all, a patient should be treated as a human being by members of the Caring Profession.

A Code of Silence

Here is what bothers me about doctors collectively. Their code of silence. They back each other to the hilt, when they shouldn't.

Take the case of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia back street abortionist, whose butchery and ineptitude practiced on desperate women, was covered up by the very doctors who had to sort out his surgical mess. Doctors at the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which operates two hospitals within a mile of Gosnell's clinic in West Philadelphia, saw at least six of those patients - two of whom died.

But, according to a report by the Associated Press, 'they largely failed in their legal and ethical duties to report their peer's incompetence." Much in the same way that certain Roman Catholic bishops colluded with pedophile priests under their jurisdiction, which, as a Catholic, leaves a horrid, bitter taste in my mouth.

"Why did these doctors who treated these women fail to report a fellow physician who was so obviously endangering his patients," wrote the Philadelphia grand jurors who, according to the same AP report, recommended a slew of charges against Gosnell and his staff.

Maybe the problems is specific to Philadelphia's health care system. My son, for one, had a very bad experience concerning psychiatric health care in the Philadelphia health care system. The source of this woeful tale is a registered psychiatrist who took a laissez-faire approach to monitoring my son's well being after prescribing him a powerful medication to treat his depression.

That hands-off attitude nearly proved fatal to my son. Judging from responses he and I have got from that trick cyclist, he apparently could care less about my son.

So maybe my family friend was on to something.

Why Doctors are Bad for Your Health!

A story comes to me about an 85-year old man recently hospitalized after a major stroke who had not visited a doctor since he was in military service in the Second World War! This U.S. Vet, it seems, had no time for doctors of any description, and was none too happy when the emergency services took him away on a gurney and put him into the hospital. Indeed he has been - to say the least - an uncooperative patient, pulling out all manner of wires, saline drips, and other medical paraphernalia intended to keep him alive.

What prompts this stubbornness, this wholesale rejection of the caring professions? Who know? He is not a Christian Scientist, a religion which I understand eschews medical intervention. Rather he is a practicing Roman Catholic whose church to the best of my knowledge encourages people to take care of themselves and seek medical attention if needed, and to protect and prolong life wherever possible.

Which leads me to another musing. Do regular trips to the doctor really help? Or can they harm you? Suppose you or I have always enjoyed robust health and been lucky enough not to seek out medical help, would it not be just as well to stay away from the doctor?

For all the life-saving advances in medical treatment and technology, are patients really better off than in the old days when a local physician visited them at home if they were really sick, or had a one person practice for the more able bodied?

Is the current tendency by some in the medical profession to over-treat, over-medicate and over proscribe a response to societal needs? Or is the proliferation of drug-company products and the concomitant advertising that promises enhanced quality of life, foisting on people drugs that may or may not work? Can the woesome litany of side-effects that follow each new ad for anti-depressants such as Cymbalta, or Abilify, arthritis pain reliever Vimovo, or sex-life enhancers Viagra or Citalis inspire confidence in a patient who as the ad says, should "ask your doctor" to prescribe bla, di, bla!

Was the octogerian stroke victim at the beginning of this article on to something when he sought to live his life free of doctor's visits?