Welcome to this site, which focuses largely on politics. Those of you who have read my blogs on Huffingtonpost.com, books or articles (see bio below) will find this site at times an elaboration and extension of some of those views.  At other times separate discussions.

February 1, 2010

In the blog, “Who Is The Authentic President Obama” asking for a list of five of the president’s values was a way of getting at what governs his actions.  Here is a list of some core values:

Freedom

Equality

Honesty

Fairness

Compassion

Civility

Responsibility

Loyalty

Courage

Justice

Spirituality

Generosity

Power

Inclusion/Love

Knowledge/Experience

Humility

Our actions are guided by our values.  Compassion, for example, may lead to charity.  Loyalty leads us to stand by friends.  Justice can cause us to give to someone who has less than others but can also lead to revenge.  We can overdo adherence to values by, for example, being loyal to someone whose actions are callous.  Values can conflict.  We may value civility but let it guide our actions in the face of injustice.  So values tell us what matters to a person but don’t always tell us what they’ll do as a result.  Nevertheless, knowing someone’s values gives us far more to go on than not knowing them at all.   Knowing our own values keeps us grounded -- helps us define the parameters of our actions.  Knowing the values of our leaders and how they prioritize when values are in conflict allows us to determine if they deserve our trust.  If leaders value power over responsibility, we know they are not likely to act in the interests of individuals if doing so might cause them to lose status, money or whatever they perceive as assurance of their power. 

So, while the exercise of identifying and rank ordering President Obama’s values may not predict his actions in all cases, it tells us who he is and what we can generally expect.  If he

can link his actions to a set of core values, he might

be able to better clarify choices that have upset and

angered many people who passionately supported his

election.  At least he’d be able to provide a

framework  for understanding why one value may

have been given a lesser priority in favor of another.

On Break

November 23, 2009

I appreciated reading that Dr. Oz disagrees with the task force recommendation to stop teaching women to do BSE.  Half of young women with breast cancer, he noted, found it themselves.  Whether you call is BSE or breast self-awareness as described below, it’s important that women be familiar with what is normal for them -- in fact, it’s important that men and women know what is normal for their bodies and what is not.  That way if a doctor dismisses your concern, you’ll know it isn’t in your mind. 

Hopefully, you’ll also know to get a second opinion.  Without such confidence, patients are in the dark.  They are dependent on their doctors who know what is typical and even within a range beyond that.  But you may not be typical when it comes to cancer or another illness.  And so knowing your body is critical to maintaining your health. 

It’s ironic that when so much attention is being given to prevention, when taking care of yourself  has been described by so many experts as a means to avoid chronic illness, women are being told to be less vigilant --  to be more dependent on a health system that doesn’t want to see as much of them anymore.

As one of my friends said in response to the new guidelines, “Something just isn’t right here.”

November 18, 2009

With regard to the new breast cancer guidelines, read what Dr. Otis Brawley, Chief Medical Officer of The American Cancer Society, had to say in an interview with Gwen Ifill, especially about “breast awareness.” 

It may be a bit like splitting hairs to say on the one hand you’re against training women to do BSE but in favor of advocating breast awareness.   But breast awareness, if we want to call it that, less a matter of training than of vigilant observation over time, is very important.  You should know if there has been a change.  If money is not spent on educating women to do BSE, that does not mean that they should not be encouraged by their doctors to be breast aware – to notice in the shower, as so many cancer patients have – that something is different.

Dr. Brawley:

“We (ACS) happen to think that that means that all women in their 40s ought to get screened annually. They should be informed of the potential harms, the potential for over-diagnosis, the potential for false positives or for false alarms. If they're informed of this beforehand, it will decrease the anxiety. And then we can have that 15 percent decrease in mortality.”

“Most women, by the way, in their 40s who are diagnosed with breast cancer are not diagnosed through mammography. They usually are diagnosed through finding a mass in the shower. And we actually need to encourage women who find a mass in their breast to get to a doctor quickly for evaluation.

So, I'm not in favor of breast self-exam, per se. I am very much in favor of breast awareness and keeping observation looking for masses in one's breast.”

November 17, 2009

My Huffington Post blog, “I’d Be Dead By Now” is a reminder of how each of us is different.  Research can tell us about ourselves as groups.  It’s valuable, to say the least.  But as health care costs are looked at through magnifying glasses by those seeking  places to cut, we need to be aware of the value and limitations of research.  It is conducted by human beings and even the most rigorous research provides evidence more than indisputable facts.  When you read the research report upon which the new guidelines were formulated (the estimates, assumptions and calculations involved), that becomes abundantly evident.  

When it comes to health care decisions it’s wise to read the research, especially that most highly regarded by the medical community. But, it is equally important to know what is best for you as a patient and to advocate to achieve that.  Doctors are pressed for time and often exhausted.  We need to be consumers of health care information, ready to ask questions, willing to do so, and then along with doctor advice and often second opinions, do what seems best for us.  This is especially the case for significant illness where there are a varieties of treatment options. 

I’m not advocating that patients do whatever crosses their minds as therapy -- far from it.  Medical advances have bettered our lives in many ways.  But as budgets are cut, you have to be even more sure that you’ve done your own research, considered your own needs, consulted a doctor you trust and maybe one you don’t know who is well regarded, and then, at least then, you can feel good about your decision. 

November 9, 2009

Tomorrow we celebrate Veteran’s Day.  And they deserve our gratitude.  My father fought in Siapan, my brother is a Navy Captain (submarines -retired), my niece and nephew went to The Naval Academy and my daughter wants to join the military.  My family is not by any stretch of the imagination against the military.  We are quite the contrary.  But such commitment does  not preclude having questions about why we’re in Afghanistan and why we don’t seem to remember Vietnam and how badly the Russians were beaten in Afghanistan. 

All of that might be beside the point if we had a good reason for fighting in Afghanistan, one other than serving the desires of corporations that benefit from war.  You can’t help but wonder when we’ll have a president that prides himself on his skillfulness at bringing about peace.  At least we should have one that declines to commit our troops to wars that are likely to fail and en route deplete our resources and thereby weaken our country.  Perhaps we are in a rut -- a very foolish one.  It’s hard to know because, contrary to our expectations in electing President Obama, we’re told very little. 

November 3, 2009

Leadership that isn’t shallow involves courage.  That is not to say that those aspiring to be effective leaders should fight every battle or “go to the mat” on every issue.  But on critical ones, leadership is not shy and certainly not obsequious.  Too often people forget how short our lives are; they fail to find their center and to be guided from that powerful place.  Is that what our president is doing?  He should ask himself.  We should ask him.  Such talent should not be wasted in the shadow of those who have no sense of time, no obligation to the future.  Yes, we should ask him.

November 2, 2009

It’s getting more and more difficult to find doctors who feel they have the time to listen to patients as carefully as is often required for good care.  So, it has become even more imperative that patients learn how to communicate with doctors in ways that encourage those doctors to listen and ask the right questions.  Women aren’t the only ones who often aren’t good at this, although they are the ones to whom I addressed my comments in today’s blog on Huffington Post. 

When ill the same communication characteristics that cause women to be interrupted more, talked over, dismissed and not heard at work  (unless they have trained themselves to communicate effectively) also can work against them in doctors’ offices.  Sometimes you simply need to say, “Doctor are you listening to me?”  or “You’re looking at me but you don’t seem to be hearing me.”  Why not?  If that’s what is going on, then the truth, directly delivered, may be what the doctor needs.  He or she may be having a long, hard day.  Doctors are human.  It falls to you to make sure that the effects of that don’t diminish your care.

October 28, 2009

On the Michael J. Fox Foundation website you’ll find an article I wrote on particular challenges women with PD face when communicating with doctors.  If you or someone you know has PD, you might want to take a look.  Some of it applies to anyone not feeling his or her best trying to communicate effectively with a doctor.  Given how costly medical care is and how difficult it is at times to get good care and more than a few minutes with doctors, it’s important to be heard and understood.

October 27, 2009

If you’ve read Rolling Stone this month, you’re wondering as I am whether we can believe anything coming out of Washington.  We’re told by some who should know in the press that Vice President Joe Biden differs with President Obama with regard to increasing troops in Afghanistan and has gone public with that against the wishes of the president.  I doubt it.  Joe Biden is no fool. 

We’re also told that generals like Stanley McChrystal, overseeing the war in Afghanistan, are in revolt against the president, wanting him to escalate the troops.  Who do we believe?  And why believe anything we’re told about H1N1?  We’re being kept in the dark when we’re not being scared out of our wits. 

When does reality match the message out of the White House?  When do we stop seeing Michelle mastering the hoola hoop when most of us would rather hear from her, as a mother, a bright person, and an insider, how to protect our children and ourselves from H1N1?

What happened to “change” where we were going to be more informed?   Isn’t this more of the same?  We don’t know who is on first most of the time, who is on whose side, and who is just having us on.  It’s time to demand more candidness, more fulfillment of promises.  It’s time to demand honest answers.  And to keep demanding until we get them.

On a break.

August 14, 2009

What wonderful things Eunice Shriver did for people with disabilities.  How much she cared for those with mental illnesses.  If only there were enough people like her with the ability to make things happen, then maybe the disasters of mental health care in America would end.  They’d be brought out into the open. 

Doctors and insurance companies would have to sit up and take notice. As it is many get to hide behind laws enacted with no common sense, as I wrote about on Huffington Post today.

Sure, there are good and even great doctors out there treating mentally ill patients, but they need to speak out for their patients.  We need to hear more from them.  What needs to be fixed and how?   They know but for many the unwritten code of silent assent -- let no doctor speak ill of another -- scares them into corners leaving many patients wandering about alone.  I’m not a mental illness expert, but it doesn’t take one to know how messed up things have gotten in this area. 

And I haven’t even begun to talk about the power exerted by pharmaceutical companies owning a piece of too many doctors, encouraging them to throw pills at patients without adequate care and follow up.  That’s a blog for another day, but one that needs to be written and rewritten until the ones we love are given the care they need.

August 10, 2009

When you’re under attack, it’s difficult to avoid defensiveness.  It’s natural to respond with an explanation, as President Obama so often does.  But when Sarah Palin or the likes of Rush Limbaugh spew lies, the president and his staff should step back and take a deep breath before responding.  Some attacks don’t deserve a protracted response.  Palin’s “death panel” attack is one of them.

Instead of playing Whack A Mole as each ugly attack is leveled, the president and his team should consider moving to a less exhausting, no-win counter offensive.  They should create a category system for unsubstantiated, shock-and-awe attacks like these and deftly move each into it.  President Reagan’s “There you go again” comment essentially did this.   Short retorts like this would serve our president well now and then: “There’s stretching the truth and then there’s disregarding it entirely.  You find a lot of both in politics.” 

President Obama places so much confidence in the power of astute reasoning, he often neglects to notice that he lost the audience six sentences back.  He is such a pragmatist that he distrusts his gut, his intuition, and instead of calling a lie what it is, he instead tells us why we should find his perspective more compelling.  I dearly love an intellectual discussion or debate,  and there are times and places for both, but these days it’s easy to lose the war of words to lesser opponents merely because they are treated as if they have uttered something worth hearing.  President Obama, should give this some thought.

 

August 4, 2009

Who Isn’t Either On The Take or Lying To Us?

When does it end?  When do we say, “That’s enough!”  Sure, there are political favors to be paid but apparently as soon as we send people to Washington, their brains shrink.  They get a dose of what passes for “reality” that we purists supposedly can’t possibly understand and therefore don’t know what’s good for us. 

We bought the change agenda.  That was exciting.  Briefly anyway.  But it’s just more of the same.

How about these Blue Dogs whose backgrounds are worth a few minutes overview.  They seemed quite happy with a Democratic win in November but now huff and puff and threaten to blow the House down on healthcare.  Why weren’t they letting us know their reservations about Obama’s healthcare proposals before the election?  Wasn’t that disingenuous at best?  Now they’re beating their chests in the name of fiscal conservatism, so long as it doesn’t apply to banks. 

Paul Krugman thinks we should be outraged or else we’re not paying attention.  He’s right, but even if you’re paying attention, what you’re hearing is a lot of noise and very little of substance.  Our “leaders” would rather take money from the elderly or children’s programs than tell some high flyers that they’re going to pay more taxes this year. 

And what about the lies?  Who’s raising the bar on what passes as credible? Why do so many get to say so little that’s accurate with no accountability?   Where’s the courage to stand up and say, “That’s just bull and you know it!”

Who on the hill is not on the take now days?  Who isn’t deceiving us?  It’d be good to hear more from them.  Who honestly has as their highest priority the needs of Americans in debt and in trouble?   A few names please.  And when do we start insisting that these exceptions become the rule?  When exactly does change begin?