People - The Best Cure to The World's Ills

You live in Mississippi, one of the most impoverished areas of the country. It also has some of the worst health statistics. What do you do? Turn to government?

No. You turn elsewhere; somewhere that has experienced the same problem and ask for help. In this case it's Iran. Yes. Iran. Facing a shortage of doctors after the Iran/Iraq war they experimented with a series of "health houses" to serve within their communities. Rather than having the ill travel to a hospital, locals were trained to go out among the people to give advice about healthy practices as well as monitoring conditions such as blood pressure and diabetes.

It took one man visiting the area to consult with a financially strapped rural hospital. Remembering a conference in Europe where Iranian doctors explained how they revolutionized their system, he joined forces with another mover and shaker to study what had been done to achieve near miraculous results.

The Americans were, to their surprise, welcomed with open arms when they travelled to Iran to learn more. The Iranians were equally surprised to be asked for advice rather than being told what to do! Especially from Americans!

Iranian experts then came to Mississippi to help get the project up and running. The first "health house" to facilitate training will be in an abandoned car showroom leasing for $1 per month. Fifteen more communities are interested in pursuing the concept and Harvard's School of Public Health will monitor the project.

All this is being done by people in the field who know the field and all the needs that are part of it. This is being done by interacting with others who are ahead of their position on the curve, not by a bunch of politicians who know little if anything about the problems needing to be addressed.

Iranians and Americans who care about the well being of their people over and above personal agendas. I'm sure there are more projects like this going on around the world. It is refreshing and encouraging to hear about them. So much can be learned, so many can be helped.

Too bad our politicians have placed themselves so far above the people they have no idea what we can do together down here on our level. Government of the people, by the people and for the people seems to exclude the people these days. The people are doing it all by themselves.

The Pope And The President - They Are Merely Men!

I'm beginning to get annoyed by two things. One, the current defense of the Pope accompanying denial that he could have possibly had anything to do with pedophile priests while he was a Bishop in Germany. The other is the accusation that by criticizing the President one is a radical or racist.

Look, these are both men. Mortals. Period. Neither is exempted from what he did throughout his lifetime just because of the position he now holds. Both are capable of bad judgement now just as they were as children and adults before attaining these positions.

The Pope wears Prada while his third world followers starve. The President is having trouble breaking his smoking habit and is deaf to the mood of the nation. Neither, as a human being, is any different than anyone else. Circumstance brought them to where they are. And well thought out campaigns which were not necessarily of their own making.

Heck, we don't even know if the President was indeed a scholar or merely a successful affirmative action candidate. Since he refuses to release his college and law school transcripts it is easily assumable that he is not what he'd like us to believe.

Two things need to happen. We need to quite building pedestals for mere men and they need to quit believing the hype that puts them on one.

If we could do that then maybe a degree of mutual understanding could be re-established. Easter is just around the corner. Recognizing the difference between the individual and his office might be as idea worth raising from the dead.

The Palin Endorsement - Beware Or Blessing

We have a candidate aiming for our Blue Dog's congressional seat. He has to face one, if not more, primary challengers. He is a decorated war veteran. He has Sarah Palin's endorsement. I wonder if it's a blessing or a curse.

I watched her with interest at a campaign rally for McCain over the week end. She made him look as old and tired as I remember him from the end of the Presidential campaign. She literally took over the stage; had I not known better I would have thought she was the candidate.

She has really embraced her role as spokesperson for everything Tea Party and conservative. The problem is she hasn't learned how to sound anything more than enthusiastically scripted. If I were a candidate receiving her endorsement I'd not dismiss that aspect.

There is a percentage of Republican and Independent voters who do not think Mrs. Palin lives up to her hype. Include me. I'm wondering if her current celebrity as a FOX News contributor and keynote speaker at Tea Party events might diminish her credibility as an endorser of candidates. As a cheer leader she is unsurpassable. As a critic of qualifications, I'm not so sure.

As popular as she is, if I were a candidate I would not seek nor necessarily reject her endorsement. Her word will be enough for many. During this election cycle, however, we need look for more than flash. Being a war veteran does not qualify nor disqualify one for office. When Palin tells us said candidate "knows that real job growth comes from the private sector, not government" she could be talking about every Republican candidate in the country. It's what Republicans believe. No. I need more than that.

The era of sound bite qualifications is over for this voter. I need to hear hows and whys. On that basis I'll probably stick with our Blue Dog. I know we have differences on issues; I also know he has business experience and the fortitude to go against his party when he thinks they are wrong.

I could change my mind but his challengers are going to have to show some depth of understanding, present not only solutions but also show how to implement them. No small task.

I have seen neither from Mrs. Palin which indicates to me her opinion of a candidate is meaningless.

Hate Crime Or Free Speech?

Volumes could be written about the happenings of the day but it all takes it's place behind a headline in Wichita Eagle, Marine's dad ordered to pay protesters' court fees.

Remember the funeral for the young Marine being protested by a bunch of religious zealots calling themselves Baptists who do so as a practice in their belief that the war is God's "divine retribution" for America's sins, Catholics and Gays ?

The Supreme Court is to decide whether they can do so under the right of free speech or if they are violating privacy and religious rights. The Court should also also consider if what they are doing could be considered a hate crime!

The story doesn't stop with this. On the way up the judicial ladder, judgements were made and appealed. The young Marine's father, Albert Snyder, is having difficulty paying fees already brought to bear, yet the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered him to pay $16,000 to the lead protester and head of the "church", Fred Phelps.

When one of Snyder's lawyers commented the decision adds "insult to injury" it is an understatement.

It's bad enough the military hierarchy is is taking away the few reminders of home the soldiers have in Afghanistan. You'd think the family would at least be able to bury their loved one with the dignity and peace deserved after having given one's life for his/her country!

I would like to know, you legal eagles out there, why Phelps and his followers' actions aren't considered a hate crime? Their message is nothing but hate delivered upon those who are most likely neither gay nor Catholic! If the law is in his favor, it needs to be changed!

You Congressmen who have been accusing Tea Party members and even Sarah Palin and her innocuous cross-hairs comments as inciting hate, how about this? Ladies and gentlemen, and I use that term loosely these days, this is hate!

Inside Information

For most of the past five years I have had burning, aching pain in the areas shown in the illustration. I have changed family practitioners, gone to physical therapy ad nauseam, tried acupuncture and chiropractors, orthopedic surgeons and spine experts, all to no avail. Increasingly stronger doses of medications do not work. Finally, my current GP sent me to a chronic pain specialist.

Herein lies the story. It is not about my discomfort. It is, surprise, about the health care bill!

I was in this morning for my latest whammy; shots in both hips to see if we could quell at least some of the inflammation. While waiting my turn, the medical assistant asked me if I'd like something to read and laid a selection of magazines next to where I was sitting. An issue of Newsweek with Obama on the cover was on top. She turned it face down commenting that he wasn't very popular in that office of late.

Everyone in the room joined in the conversation. The Dr. doesn't understand how seniors can be happy with it considering the cuts.

The nurses all made a point of being concerned about both their salaries and benefits. You might say they just don't understand. I think that is beside the point. The fear is palpable and Obama running around the country still trying to sell it isn't helping.

The conversation turned to the reimbursements the doctors are now forced to live with and the increases coming. They talked about how family practitioners will no longer take chronic pain patients because they are a "pain". I was beginning to feel guilty being a Medicare patient on top of it!

Doctors are going to be leaving their profession looking for more lucrative opportunities. This particular doctor is thinking of creating a blog to talk about chronic pain and also, from what I've seen, help you wade through the information out there from a physicians perspective. At best it will be a difficult undertaking.

Staff? Those who are part time have decreased opportunity to go full time. Benefits, you know.

I've had similar conversations with the staff in my GP's office. They all have fear of what's ahead. My pain doctor had read my post where I commented I was off to see him while he still took Medicare. He laughed. I was dead serious.

Hub has for some time now thought I am a hypochondriac because none of the doctors and specialists I have been to have been able to pin point anything. I understand where he's coming from but he doesn't have the pain.

Then again, maybe he's right and it's all the fear factor in my head that the care may not be there when I really need it. I'm no longer sure. One thing I am sure of, however, Obama's ongoing campaign telling us we're going to love it won't ever convince me it's a good bill. It's not. That is not my imagination!

It would seem many in the medical community agree with me.