News and Commentary as Aunt Bloggie sees it. May 15 – 31, 2008
World News
|
Art and Entertainment
|
| I read about Google launching their new service for storing your and my medical records. I have decidedly mixed feelings. On the one hand anything that actually makes a logical system out of the mess of files, x-rays, and code numbers that passes for medical records is a welcome sight. On the other hand, just how protected and confidential that information will stay is a matter of debate.
By the fall of 2009, if all goes as planned, Oregon’s 400,000 Medicaid recipients records would be accessible to authorized health care providers and would not be available to outside interests who seek to market or use the information in those records, according to the Oregon Department of Human Services. But in the April 24, 2008 Computerworld This raised my blood pressure quite a bit. However, I soon discovered the situation may not be any worse than plain old paper! Just have a look at this news. Local6.com KISSIMMEE, Fla. — Medical records and private identification numbers of Central Floridians were exposed in an auction of a storage unit. A woman who wanted to be identified as Melody said she paid $175 at auction for office furniture inside a storage unit at the Personal Mini Storage in Osceola County. Inside of several boxes inside of the unit were medical histories attached to copies of Central Florida driver’s licenses and medical records. Yep, names, ssn’s, addresses, and medical records. Boxed up and ready to go, courtesy of a doctor with an absent mind for protecting medical records and paying storage bills!
|
My taste in the Arts runs the field like a rabbit from a hound. I kinda bounce all over the place. Ever since my great-nephew Herbert took me to a performance art exhibit, I’ve had to open my perspective a bit. Agree or disagree, one such artist to be reckoned with has a new exhibit called “A Season in Hell”
Randall Packer is internationally recognized as a pioneering artist, composer, educator, and scholar in the field of multimedia. His work has been exhibited throughout the world. Packer’s book, Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality, has been adopted internationally as one of the leading educational texts in the field. He is Assistant Professor of Multimedia at American University. Mr. Packer, the self proclaimed Secretary of the US Department of Art and Technology, has composed an “opera in progress” about his view of the state of America. Readers, it ain’t for the faint of heart, but then neither is the state of America. I do recommend that all of us get a mite more agreeable to different opinions and points of view, and art is one of the best tonics for this I know of.
|
Blogosphere
|
Politics
|
| It was an interesting week in the bloggerhood. I checked in on Laurie Kendrick and got hoodwinked but good.She starts a telling a fearful story about bread, claiming… “As they are want to do, the noted thinkers at Laurie Industries did some in-depth investigating and have uncovered startling evidence which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that bread kills, maims, leads to terrorism…”Well, I nearly choked on my apple butter and toast! 89 years of unbridled bread ingestion, and all this time I’ve been recklessly expediting an imminent end. Oh, I should have seen the signs. Just to confirm my suspicionings, I dug out a old black and white of yours truly 60 years ago and compared it to my current visage in the mirror. My God! I look like HELL compared to that picture! And all because of of my lust for the loaf!
On a brighter note, I wrote to Inez about her post…The Power of Duct tape. Dear Inez, It wasn’t that he couldn’t afford a christmas tree.. he just lost track of the days till, and in pops the hoard of grandkids and great grandkids, and no tree. Well he galavants all over town but its too late. No tree, even the pitifull ones are gone, and he won’t abide by a “fakey” one. Just as the little tears are about to commence, he grabs some faded newpaper and broken crayons, and….yes.. duct tape… and he and the littlest child make a tree. They start a stickin on hair barrets and pennies and scraps of tinfoil, and next thing you know the whole gang of’em.. including the teenagers, are decorating this tree. Finally I must mention The Letter T where a post about “sweet tea” and McD got my attention. Dear Letter T,Well being from the Letter R.. as in R-Kansas and cyphering mention of Sweet Tea, I had to read. Don’t fret girl.. I learned sailor talk while you was still a protein. Not suprprised either about that poor thing in McDs. My nephew is a chemical taste engineer. They got chemicals for every taste there is and ain’t. Thats why I started blogging. Truly these days you cannot account for taste..cepting for the accountants. Sincerely
|
The Presidential Election of 80 years ago is the first I have any recollection of, and it was a doozy. In August 1927, President Calvin Coolidge announced to the nation: “I do not choose to run for president in 1928.”At that time no Republican approached the public esteem enjoyed by Herbert Hoover, the secretary of commerce.A a week after the convention ended, Republican nominee Hoover said: “We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of this land… We shall soon with the help of God be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this land.”
New York Governor Al Smith was the first Roman Catholic to gain a major party’s nomination for President, and his religion did become an issue during the campaign. Although Smith did not openly come out against Prohibition, he was perceived to be a “wet” by many, and soft in the war against alcohol. Both major candidates actively campaigned across the country, but for this election we also had radio commercials and sound newsreels. It was a modern campaign in more ways than one.In late October, Hoover criticized the Democrats for their socialistic policies and preached the virtues of open competition and private enterprise. Well I guess the more things change, the more they remain the same.
|
News and Commentary as Aunt Bloggie (barely) sees it. June 15th – June 30th
World News
Of course the news of the world the last few weeks delivered a large dose of Hillary and Obama, but we’ll save those comments for the “Politics” section.
Earthquakes continue to rattle in China and Greece. I recommend a re-reading of Candide, and in the blosophere, a look at “Earthquakes and other disasters in the age of the long lens” by Don Murray.
“Food Summit, Overcoming Disputes, Calls for Boosting Farm Aid” by Karl Maier summarizes the recent World Conference.
Its hard to fault World Leaders who actually spend some time and energy on World Hunger instead of World War, but not that hard. Here’s a quote from the article that handles it well.
“These are political ceremonies and after that, nothing is done,” said Rabelais Yankam Njomou, an agricultural economist at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in Cameroon. “I don’t want to say that this is a waste of time, but it is near that, it is not far from a waste of time.”
Arts and
Entertainment
Spike Lee and Clint Eastwood traded their director chairs for cowboy hats after the Cannes Festival. Highlighting the unfinished business of US race relations, they played out their roles with gusto.
In round one of the senior citizen tough-man championship, both scored good points. Spike noting the absence of African American POV in four hours of WWII storytelling, and Clint pleading artistic integrity for not representing something that did not exist in the story.
By round two, things had degenerated into schoolyard rock throwing, with Mr. Eastwood deadpanning “shut your face,” and Mr. Lee calling Clint names.
Since neither one of these bantam weights is too old for Aunt Bloggie to put over her knee, I might
have been sorely tempted, if it weren’t for the simple truth that it would just make both of them more hard-headed than they already are. I am going
to invite them to join Bill and Hillary and Barak and Michelle to my next tea party. Chamomile I think.
Blogosphere
Aunt Bloggie responded to a blog suggestion that we send Canadian politicians to Mars to “dumb down” any superior intelligence there.
I am not sure the number of politicians from Canada and the US would be enough. To fully tilt the balance of power in Earth’s favour please feel free – as a special sacrifice, mind you; it’s not fair that you guys save the world all the time – to send all Indian politicians to Mars. Mars won’t recover till hell freezes over. Not even if it does.
Quirky
Indian http://quirkyindian.wordpress.com
I’m with Quirky. You are on to something big. This concept transcends liberal, conservative, country, and continent. Send all the politicians to Mars.
The sheer inertia generated by their presence is sure to buy Earth eons.
Come to think of it, this may have happened before… hence the lack of atmosphere on Mars!
Sincerely
Aunt
Bloggie
Politics
Well how many of you dear readers read the transcript of Hillary’s concession speech? If you did, then you know she addressed me personally.
OK, not individually personally, but close. She talked about all those women still alive and kicking that were born before women could vote. Love her or hate her, she has absolutely cleared the path for women in the future to run successfully for president.
So now we have Obama and McCain. I don’t know where people get the idea that there has not been much choice between candidates in recent elections. Mr. Ralph Nader was unsafe at any speed when he declared no difference between Gore and Bush.
Bill and Bush I? McGovern and Nixon? Sorry… don’t buy it.
IMHO….It’s breaks my old heart to hear Mike Love sing a Brian Wilson song, but I’d rather listen to
that old stick in the mud all day and night than ever hear again John McCain singing “bomb Iran” to the tune of Barbara Ann again.