The Haze Filter

Inauguration Day! ::

Well, actually the official inauguration was yesterday, January 20, but the public celebration will be today and it promises to be a pretty good throw-down! I'm sure it will be a great spectacle and one of my co-workers is there for the event. Hopefully she will be bringing me back a souvenir!

Happy New Year ::

Happy New Year to everyone! I'm not one to make resolutions, but I'm going to try and post more here in the coming year.

CNN Polls ::

I don't know when CNN brought back their silly little polls, but I really enjoy them most of the time. Here is the one from this morning:

Post Election Thoughts ::

I felt bad that I hadn't posted anything here in the lead up to this year's presidential election and I have to confess that my enthusiasm for sharing my thoughts about the electoral process was at a minimal level, but I have to say that I'm very much heartened by the outcome although I think that we have miles to go before I'm completely satisfied, if that ever happens.

I've always been a Howard Dean fan I think that if the Democratic party had continued to follow his 50 state strategy we would be in a much better position than we are now, but my hopes are still high for the 2014 elections if we can get to the point where we have Democratic opposition to all republicans no matter how inconsequential the race. When I was marking my ballot a couple of weeks ago I was struck by how many races, mostly judicial, where there was no Democratic opposition. I really hope we can change that.

My congressional representative, republican Mo Brooks, had marginal opposition; Democrat Charlie Holley. Unfortunately Holley did not have much of a political machine, but he did better than I thought by losing by only something like a 30 point margin. I'm hoping that we can find a viable candidate for 2014 who will be able to generate some serious support!

Been Gone Too Long ::

I guess I kinda lost track of my blogging to this site as well as one other, but I was kicked in the butt today when another site that links to me announced that it was going to update its links so I figured I'd better post something here. I'm going to try to do better since it's been around 5 months since my last post.

Alabama's Immigration Bill H.B. 56 ::

I seldom read the N.Y. Times any more since the paper has limited so much of its content, but I decided to check it this morning and came across this article by Diane McWhorter, a Birmingham native. Here's one of the money quotes from the article:

Since Alabama has no foreign border and a Latino population of less than 4 percent, the main purpose of H.B. 56 seems to be the id-gratification of tribal dominance and its easy political dividends. A bill co-sponsor, State Senator Scott Beason, was frank about his motive: “when their children grow up and get the chance to vote, they vote for Democrats.”

That's a brutally honest statement regarding at least part of the intent of the bill. The modern republican party is all about voter suppression while maintaining its power!

Memorial Day, 2012 ::

There's this little country cemetery near where I live and where I often stop in to take a photograph. Here is one of the footstones:

During WWII Sgt. Bolden was a foot soldier in Belgium when his platoon came across a house full of German soldiers and they were pinned down by enemy fire. Bolden attacked the enemy position and was severely wounded in the failed attempt, but he tried again even given his wounds and this time he was successful.

His Medal Of Honor citation states:

He voluntarily attacked a formidable enemy strong point in Petit-Coo, Belgium, on 23 December 1944, when his company was pinned down by extremely heavy automatic and small-arms fire coming from a house 200 yards to the front. Mortar and tank artillery shells pounded the unit, when S/Sgt. Bolden and a comrade, on their own initiative, moved forward into a hail of bullets to eliminate the ever-increasing fire from the German position. Crawling ahead to close with what they knew was a powerfully armed, vastly superior force, the pair reached the house and took up assault positions, S/Sgt. Bolden under a window, his comrade across the street where he could deliver covering fire. In rapid succession, S/Sgt. Bolden hurled a fragmentation grenade and a white phosphorus grenade into the building; and then, fully realizing that he faced tremendous odds, rushed to the door, threw it open and fired into 35 SS troopers who were trying to reorganize themselves after the havoc wrought by the grenades. Twenty Germans died under fire of his submachinegun before he was struck in the shoulder, chest, and stomach by part of a burst which killed his comrade across the street. He withdrew from the house, waiting for the surviving Germans to come out and surrender. When none appeared in the doorway, he summoned his ebbing strength, overcame the extreme pain he suffered and boldly walked back into the house, firing as he went. He had killed the remaining 15 enemy soldiers when his ammunition ran out. S/Sgt. Bolden's heroic advance against great odds, his fearless assault, and his magnificent display of courage in reentering the building where he had been severely wounded cleared the path for his company and insured the success of its mission.

Never forget the cost of war!

A Landline Poll From CNN ::

I have a landline phone now, but I'm very seriously thinking of getting rid of it!

Changes In My Patient/Doctor Relationship ::

A few months ago my family physician sent out a survey asking several questions about how I felt about the scope and quality of the health care that we had received from him and his office. I have always been very happy and satisfied with all of my interactions with him and both his nursing staff and his business staff, but the final question on the survey gave me pause and provided an obvious clue to what was to come.

The final question was something like this: would I be adverse to essentially paying a yearly membership fee in exchange for an enhanced level of service?

From that point on I could see what was, most probably, in my future and I came home a couple of days ago to a letter stating that my physician had decided to join what is termed a "Personalized Healthcare" group and that he would be limiting his practice to 600 patients with a yearly membership fee of $1,500! That equates to $3,000/year for us, not to mention a cool $900,000/year for the doctor and the "Personalized Healthcare" group.

The sad reality is that is very much out of my range, so I guess that I will be shopping for a new family physician after over 20 years of seeing the same doctor a couple of times each year generally for nothing more than routine visits. I have no idea how difficult this will be, but I'm certainly not looking forward to it.

Obviously, I have no clue as to the needs of other of his patients, but I cannot escape the feeling that this is nothing less than end run around the insurance companie's fee for service schedule in an attempt to maximize the clinic's revenue and I am, understandingly, angry about this move!

A CNN Poll ::

This should be an interesting for trend tracking over the next few hours: