Health Care Reform? Ask a Canadian

Camp Connell, Ca -- I am trying not to get discouraged as I read the latest news about the health care debate in Congress: millions of dollars being spent by insurance companies lobbying Congressmen; Congressmen who should know better, failing to do homework on the basic facts of the awful situation we are in; the medical professions monopolizing health care training, even to the number of doctors in the training system paid for by taxpayers; the White House compromising to try and get some sort of reform to a system all acknowledge is broke, and the cynicism of the rich talking heads convincing people -- even the poor and uninsured -- that some evil plot is behind reform.

Consider this fact from the article cited/linked below: we waste $800 Billion a year paying for unnecessary administrative costs for big insurance companies and lawyers defending their practices, and that is 6% of our GNP.

Read it to find out what a Canadian health care official thinks of the current systems in our two countries:


www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-rachlis3-2009aug03,0,538126.story

(I could not get this link to work correctly, so try pasting it in and adding one word : "STORY" at the very end. Otherwise, just search the LA Times Opinion pages. It is worth the effort.)

www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-rachlis3-2009aug03,0,538126.story

Everything changed at that moment

Camp Connell, CA -- And forty years ago today, Astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the surface of the moon.
Very late that night, after filing numerous stories via Western Union from my desk in the press center at NASA's mission control center near Houston, I went outside for a moment alone.
I looked up at the moon, shining over Texas.
It was so unreal to think that a quarter-million miles away human beings were taking a walk on a foreign body. I just stood there and soaked it in.
I think I should go outside tonight and do it again, just to remind myself that such triumphs are possible.
Feel free to join me.
I may even howl while I am at it.

(FOOTNOTE: I tried, but couldn't find the moon for the forest. I know it's still there.)

Apollo launch to the moon

Camp Connell, CA -- I was one -- of many-- that went to the moon with Apollo.
Forty years ago today I was working as Aerospace Writer for the TODAY newspaper and Gannett News Service, covering the launch and moon mission of Apollo 11.
My wife Pat had only recently quit her job at NASA where she worked in the public information office She was at home, pregnant and dealing with morning sickness, glued to the television.
I had worked till midnight the night before the blastoff, and drove to the Kennedy Space Center before dawn so I could be there to watch the Apollo crew walk in their spacesuits from their crew quarters to a special bus that carried them to the launch site.
My family had driven down from Georgia and Alabama and were parked alongside a causeway, looking over the waters of the Banana River at the launch site with hundreds of thousands of other people.

No one who knew anything about the space program assumed the astronauts would survive that day, or that week. We all knew that great risks were involved. And great rewards.

But the crew was happy to be heading for the moon, as confident as only test pilots could be.

The goal of landing on the moon before the end of the decade, established by President Kennedy shortly before his death, was shared and accepted by most of America and the world.
The press site at the space center was a zoo. Thousands of people had managed to get press credentials, including more than a few barmaids from Cocoa Beach who had befriended the television folks from New York or newspaper publishers. The TV people all had trailers, some of them fancy, with air conditioning and refrigerators and chairs and gofers to run errands.
Most newspaper reporters had a work space in the press bleachers, with a telephone and a place for a portable typewriter. My typewriter was inherited from my father who used it for his work in the 1940s and 50s. (I still have it.) There wasn't a single laptop anywhere to be seen, not that we would have known what the word meant.
The countdown moved along and when Jack King's voice started the famous backward chant "ten, nine, eight...." the tension was incredible.
The rocket engines flashed into life, and by the time the sound reached the bleachers, rattling the roof and making the light fixtures dance, the rocket was clear of the tower and headed into space.
It was an enormously emotional moment for everyone who witnessed it, in person or on television. A woman standing near me was groaning loudly and crying, causing one of her companions to joke about the source of her ecstasy. More than one reporter cried with joy.
I was taking notes, watching through binoculars, and trying to help with a live radio broadcast. One of my jobs was to provide color and expertise to the newspaper-owned radio station. Another was to help my excitable friend Louis DeRoche with his instant reports to Agency France Press.
Once the astronauts were out of sight and well on their way, we were all glued to the communications system that provided a constant flow of information.
When things settled down enough to be sure the crew was safely in earth orbit, I went back to the newspaper office across the river and worked at my desk into the night. I had a radio link wired into my desk so I could monitor all the Apollo communications with Mission Control, and help the other reporters working on different aspects of the story.
Because we were THE local newspaper for the Cape Kennedy area, it was the biggest day in the newspaper's history and no detail went uncovered.
Around mid-night I finished working on the next day's stories, and went home for a few hours sleep.
The next morning, as the astronauts headed for the moon, I flew to Houston to cover the rest of the flight from the Mission Control Center.
At the time of Apollo 11 only a dozen or so men had ever flown into space, and we knew them all. This week, with the launch of the shuttle, the total has now reached 500 men and women, most unknown.
Forty years later some things have definitely not changed about my impressions on that July day:
I still believe Apollo was worth the effort, the money and even the lives it required to make that day possible;
I still believe the desire to explore is part of human nature which should be encouraged;
I still believe space travel represents the greatest adventure left for us and should be pursued;
I still believe the men who made that journey -- and the thousands of people who supported them - are heroes;

And, I still believe that I have been one of the luckiest journalist in the world. I was at the right place at the right time to witness and report on history.

Footnote: For the New York Times' coverage of the anniversary, follow the link below. The Times' John Noble Wilford, incidentally, is one of only two reporters still actively writing the space program forty years later. The other is Sue used to write for the Daytona Beach newspaper, and has a new last name unknown to me. Some of those colleagues have died, and many others have retired.

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/science/space/index.html?hp?hp

California's north coast

(The sequence is backwards, but what the heck. A picture of a dog worn out from running all day on the beach is not a bad way to start...)







These pictures are a few of the many I took during our eight day camping trip to the coast.
We went with daughter Ruth. her husband Brian, their children Delaney and Connor, the grand-dog Bodie, and Brian's mother and father and sister ad her two children.
A great family time was had by all.
The pictures were taken primarily at Patrick's Point State Park, one of the state parks the legislature is considering shutting down completely.

More Yosemite

Camp Connell -- I finally went through the photographs we took on our two day Yosemite trip and decided to share a few.

The first photo is of the Housekeeping cabin where we spent the night. It was perfectly adequate, and many families have enjoyed these rustic concrete-sided cabins located alongside the Merced River for generations. I do not understand exactly why a shelter like this costs $80 or so a night, but we had a good night's sleep and great views all around. It was the last place available in the park.
Location. Location. Location.




The second image is of the view downstream from the site of the cabins during an early morning walk. The quality of light in Yosemite Valley is astounding and different all times of the day. Once school is out, and the tourist season is in full swing, the river will fill up with rafts and the beaches and banks with sunbathers.




The third image is what you see when you take time to look up from the Valley floor. Yosemite Falls, the tallest in the United States, tumbling down the northern cliff face on a late May morning. The park was crowded, as it almost always is, but a short walk brings you to quiet places.




The fourth image is what you see when you turn and look to the East. Half Dome, looming over everything. Thousands of people climb to the top every year. Once in a while, as happened last week, someone slips and falls and dies. But the rock does not change except as a result of wind, rain, snow and ice. And the pace of that is slow.




The fifth image was taken after a one-hour drive from the floor of the Valley to the tip of Glacier Point, location of the best views you will ever hope to see. The weather was cloudy and grey, with rain blowing in from the East. You are looking across the canyon that holds Nevada and Vernal Falls,on the lower right, with Half Dome in the bottom center. The high Sierra Nevada looms on the horizon, still coated with snow. I believe the peak is Cathedral Peak, with Mount Dana to the left. Hidden among the granite canyons is Tenaya Lake.




The sixth image looks down, through the rain and mist, on the most popular hiking trail in Yosemite, and perhaps in any national park in America, the Mist Trail. It gets so much traffic it is paved part of the way, and steps are cut into the granite between the waterfalls. Despite warning signs along the way, people often swim in the pools at the top of the waterfalls. It's better just to look. This also is the starting section of the grueling day hike that takes climbers around the back side and to the very top of Half Dome, seen on the left.




And finally, an action shot of a bear doing what bears do and a ranger doing what park rangers do. This was taken as we left the park and drove through Crane Flat. The orphaned yearling bear was prowling around near some downed logs just off the road, probably snacking on carpenter ants, and a traffic jam resulted. Bears have very bad eyesight, and he probably did not notice the crowd he attracted which was downwind. Cars were everywhere along the road, and people gathered in groups to watch from the roadside. The ranger is running to head off a tourist with camera who decided to walk up close to the bear and snap a souvenir photo, a dangerous thing to do with a large wild animal. The ranger protected the tourist from himself. This bear was orphaned last year, according to the ranger, when a tourist killed the mother bear on the road.




I never regret visiting Yosemite but I always leave with mixed feelings. It is one of the most beautiful places on the planet, and three million visitors a year sometimes make it so crowded it can be a grueling experience to get around and look at the sights.
Accommodations are few, and grow more expensive every year.
The Park Service has an impossible job trying to protect the place, and make it available to all of the public. The only answer in my opinion, which I do not like, is to severely limit the number of automobiles allowed into the park. That idea was floated, more than once, and shot down immediately. Politically impossible.
But when you are there, and walk ten minutes away from the crowded sidewalks and trails and look around, you get to see an earthly version of Heaven.

We'll be back.

Yosemite -- a primitive movie

Camp Connell, CA - I cheered up significantly today after getting advice from friends, ranging from "take an anger management class" to "take a walk in the woods."

So I went to the woods nearby, talked to the trees, watched the squirrels and listened to the woodpeckers beating their heads against something hard. I met a lot of nice people along the way.

Lots of life lessons there.

And I came home happy and tried to put together some video clips from a short trip Pat and I made to see Yosemite's waterfalls at peak flow. Understand that it is a primitive film -- no Ken Burns techniques here -- but you'll hopefully get the picture.

A week for the ISMISOB* sign

Things have been pretty quiet here in Camp Connell, my home town. But that doesn't mean nothing at all has been happening.

-- The governor announced, and the legislature may go along with, shutting down 80% of the state parks to save money in the budget crunch. He acts like parks don't employ real people-- just scientists, interpreters, law enforcers, and maintenance folks. Here in one of the smaller counties in the biggest state the local park draws 300,000 tourists a year and generates more than double the expenses in the local economy. Everybody is mad at him about something, and now I am joining the angry throng. What can he be thinking?

-- The weather has been unusual for the first week of June. Temps in the 40s in the morning, with a fair amount of rain, even thunder and lightening. I think I lived in this part of the world almost ten years before I ever heard the sound of thunder. What's up with that? Can I blame this on George Bush and the GOP?

-- Thinking about the state park, and the weather, I was on volunteer duty yesterday on the slightly wet trail through the giant Sequoias when I noticed that some visitor left a just-emptied beer bottle hidden under a bench, rather than take it to a trash or recycle bin. His mother raised an idiot. Enjoy nature and dump your trash for folks to admire?

-- We supported the national economic recovery this week by purchasing a brand new car. It's another Subaru Forester, the best snow/ice vehicle for the mountains. And then I discovered they put bigger and fancier wheels on the new car and our almost-brand-new snow tires won't fit. Zapped by the fashion mavens of the auto industry. Why would they do that?

-- Went to a musical today at the historical Fallon Playhouse in Columbia State Park (another place that may close) to see a performance about the Andrews Sisters. Lots of music, dance, attractive young women who sing well, and a very funny man (the only male in the play). The costumes were great. The dancing right on the mark. The singing was absolutely first rate, and the humor had the entire audience rocking. But I made the mistake of reading two reviews in local newspapers. They were luke warm, pointing out that the audience was older (which it almost always is), and even though it was pretty good, the audience (being older, I assume) didn't leap to its collective feet and make the house thump. Don't these part-time reviewers understand there actually was good music before Eminem?

-- A right-wing loudmouth, who didn't notice how the last national election turned out, is trying to take over local websites that report news. He comments on every item regarding state or national government, usually quoting misinformation heard on talk radio and insulting elected officials by accusing them of being Marxist Commie Pinkos. Anyone who disagrees he calls a fool, and he is getting uglier all the time. It has the effect of spoiling useful public forums. He also is testing my boundless belief in unlimited free speech, but I'll stick with it so far. What sort of manners do you suppose he has at the dinner table?

He would certainly qualify for the "ISMISOB" award.

Many years ago my wife and another woman worked in a Cape Canaveral NASA office dominated by older males who thought they were very important. When the men got out of line and the ladies who did the real work could not take it any more, the women had a little ceremony. They delivered a brass and wooden plaque with "ISMISOB" stamped on the face to the egregious offender. It took the guys a while to figure out that the initials stood for "Inconsiderate Self Made Insufferable Son Of a Bitch."*
They got the message.

I have to be very careful not to move from the "merely grouchy" category to something deserving a plaque.

(Added late: I just learned some numbers this morning that REALLY make me grouchy. From the New York Times:
"According to a 2008 survey of physician salaries by the American Medical Group Association, their average annual salary is $201,555, versus $356,166 for a general surgeon and $614,536 for a neurological surgeon."
Now THAT explains a lot about why we have a health care problem.)