DoctorD's Diary

What is this blog?

This is a collection of thoughts, notes, and comments that began on Vox several years ago--a delightful blogging platform which has now (sadly) been discontinued by its (former) owner, Six Apart.  

When I started blogging my life was at a crucial stage:  I was a widower, and in poor health, and recently retired.  Thus I was grieving three losses at once: wife, well-being, and career.

 But somehow I have kept on living--despite some dire medical forecasts and stern warnings--and I also have remarried.  Though I have no "job" really, I do volunteer work for various local social service agencies as a peer counselor and support group facilitator.

Thus the adventure continues.  What follows are scattered notes I've  jotted down along the path--mostly on my life and its triple transitions; on politics & public affairs, the field I worked in professionally my whole adult life; and road-trips and travel, which have become my principal passion.

We are back

from a trip down to Texas, mostly off the expressways, and often near the Mississippi.  

For a while we will be overwhelmed with mail and stuff, but I will try to write some observations and post a few photos.

We did have a good time.

Weather and climate

On our swing through south we have seen terrible drought, and resultant fires, in a good part of Texas.  But on our way home, we have come across flooded fields near the Mississippi, and very significant storms.

April 2001  has been a month for the record books.  Indeed, this year so far has been one for the record books.

There is no doubt in my mind that the climate has been changing, becoming both warmer and more extreme, during my lifetime of about 70 years.  The real clincher for me was seeing, with my own eyes, how much the glaciers in the National Park of the same name have been shrinking.

And I challenge anyone who has been alive for 60 years or more to deny that they have seen similar changes.  As Bobbi D said, "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."

Assessing Obama among others

I want to record, mostly to keep myself honest, that I consider Barack Obama to be the best possible president for the US at this difficult time in history. Really: who could be better. John McCain? He was candid in admitting that he doesn't know much about economics. And, rather than being a maverick, he's been a flip-flopper. Sarah Palin? She knows almost nothing, and is totally self-obsessed. Joe Biden? Well, maybe okay, but Obama is smarter and has a finer temperament. Ralph Nader? Donald Trump, the GOP frontrunner now? He has no political experience or philosophy. More a joke than a candidate. Hillary Clinton? Okay--but better?

No incumbent would be judged as "perfect" by any of us. We are a very opinionated people! But of the candidates thrown into the ring by the Democrats, and most certainly those by the Republicans, Barack "steady Eddie" Obama is by far the best to attempt what is really an impossible job in treacherous economic and political circumstances.

We are blessed that Obama has been willing to give it a try. He is a lot better than we the people probably truly deserve, and is paying a huge price.

Sometimes we just get lucky.

Seasonal changes

Spring has sprung in Texas, but not in Illinois or Wisconsin. It was over 90 near Austin, but there was snow in Chicago and Milwaukee.

The great river road

Along the Mississippi. Always worth following.

Okay, no shut down

I am glad that the government isn't closing.  It would have forced us to change travel plans.  Plus a relative who works in the State Department would not have gotten paid.

Yes, I care about the potential loss of thousands of government employees, and the loss of the services they provide.  I care about the great damage to the still-fragile economy that either a shutdown or the cuts that were accept can impose.

I fear for the safe future of the Republic, seeing how frivolous and uninformed the teabaggers are, their mendacity, their unwillingness to even try to understand government, budgetary, or financial issues.  But, still, at the moment, I am mostly thinking about myself.

It will all start up again next week, I expect, but at least we will have some cactus to look at.

Bye again for a while

I've just gotten going a bit on TypePad again, replacing Vox.  But this weekend we will be off on a second vacation, and so I won't be at a computer very much of the time.

Road trips are what I enjoy most now.  We've had one along the California coastline (in February) and now intend to travel down the Mississippi into the deep South and then Texas during April.  

No, we aren't ready to leave yet.  There are still jobs to do.  But things are coming together, we are watching the weather and hoping it will be facilitative of pleasant motoring, and can start loading up my car (a Subaru Forester) fairly soon.

Anyhow, I do hope to return to TypePad when the trip is done, and I hope to find someone of you here again.

Happy Spring!

Shutdown?

If there is a government shutdown as of Monday, in fact less than 1/2 half of the federal government will be closed. My opinion, though, if it is shut down to please the Teabagging Republicans, I would say shut it all. Not just the National Parks. Send the guards in federal prisons home too. And the air traffic controllers. No more social security checks. Don't process income taxes or refunds either. Stop weather information. No loans to college students. No welfare. No health care through the Veterans Administration. No pay for the soldiers either. Definitely no pay for Congress, and no medical either.

Let's get real. The freshman teabaggers still haven't still mastered the little booklet on "how a bill becomes law.". Certainly they don't have any understanding of the budget or budget process. Yet these yahoos are trying to destroy our government. I say, let them do it, at least long enough to learn just what it is that the US government does. I say let them do it, even though the costs imposed of a closing are substantial. Even though it will worsen the recession. I say, let them do it. We can all stay home for a few days, freezing in the dark.

And how about getting the teaparty members to move to Canada or somewhere? If they don't like America, get out!!

Picture by Ma Yuan

A Chinese "painter-poet"

Don't forget to vote!

It is election day, at least in Illinois.

Chicago has many aldermanic run-off elections. We have a friend running for the Village Board in a nearby community. An important school referendum in another nearby community.

It takes a lot of effort to keep democracy functioning. Sadly, we ourselves didn't do enough!

Solemnizing

I married this couple a few years back. That could be done legally in Illinois.

They are good friends of ours. And Aren't they cute? I felt that conducting the ceremony was a real honor. Fine people.

Eliminate Medicare. Really??

We were in the doctor's office today, getting checkups (me) and an annual physical (my wife). While we were there, I read in the WSJ about the Republican proposal to dismantle Medicare, replacing it with a voucher to help the elderly buy insurance from a private company (if they can).

As we left, I noticed at the front desk a sign listing the insurances that doctors in that office will accept. There are only three: Medicare, Blue Cross, and Aetna. None of the many rest.

The head doctor there has a lot of concern about money and red tape. All along, they had a fairly short list of insurance companies they will deal with. Now it is down to just three.

The problem, I was told, that the red tape involved in dealing with many insurance companies is just too great. They take a long time to reimburse the doctors for services provided. They are slow. They require additional submissions. They pay the wrong amount. Too much staff time is needed. (Taking the nation as a whole, a very big segment of so-called health care expenses are wasted in exactly this kind of private bureaucratic overhead).

But Medicare, I also was told, is the gold standard. The rules are clear, and it pays up. It is the best insurance. Apparently those two others are also pretty good--at least good enough to do business with.

But Medicare is what the Republicans want to do away with. The best health insurance program we have, and of course the only one that is willing to accept patients as old, and risky, as those over 65.

End Medicare??

According to a story on the front page of today's Wall Street Journal, Republicans are proposing to "essentially end Medicare.". They want to replace it with a "premium support system," which really is a way of privatizing it to insurance companies.

Today isn't still April 1st, is it? Really, this is hard to believe!

Progressives of course want a system of "Medicare for all," like most other nations do. What we have is Medicare for only the elderly, still a very valuable program

I can understand that Republicans want to give businesses an ever-greater share of our tax dollars, whether this way or also by privatizing Social Security. But any ordinary person who would support such measures and candidates is simply a fool, playing into the hands of their financial exploiters.