Archive for May, 2015

Chicago 2015

Sunday, May 31st, 2015

I went back to the neighborhood where I grew up today. Here are some photos from that visit.

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This is the church I attended as a child. To the left is the rectory, the priests’ house. Behind that was the school where I attended kindergarten for a couple of days. After being rapped on the knuckles for some reason, I decided not to return. The next day, instead of going to school (I heard the school bell and knew I would be late, I went next door to the florist shop and nursery owned by friends of my father’s who knew me. I helped “Hug” Krause in the nursery until I heard the school bell ring at noon. I then left and walked home. I did not go back to school and, fortunately for me, we moved in November to our new house.

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This was the house we lived in until my father bought a new house on Paxton Avenue about a mile away. It is on Clyde Avenue between 75th and 76th streets.

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This is another view showing the house next door. That one was owned by an older couple who retired to Michigan where they bought a peach farm.

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St Philip Neri was the new parish and the church is still beautiful although the neighborhood shows serious trouble. The interior is worthy of a cathedral.

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At Christmas time the altar had life sized figures in a cresh on the altar to the side.

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St Philip Neri school where I attended from 4th grade until graduation from 8th grade. The elementary school building, which housed kindergarten to 3rd grade, has been razed to build a supermarket. Also gone is Aquinas high school where my sister attended. The school is larger now although the number of students is much reduced. The school building is dated 1913 and was originally the church, as well.

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This is the house I lived in from November 1944 until I left for college in August 1956. The house looks in good shape although the neighborhood has deteriorated.

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The basement had a party room built by my father after the purchase of the house for $12,000 in 1944. It was built in 1912 and had gas fixtures in the living room and the bathroom on the second floor. They were never used but installed as a precaution, I guess. The photo of the party room was taken about 1946 or so. Everybody was home from the war.

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The house next door was owned by an elderly man, Mr Hausler, with whom I spent many hours watching him build a new fence and restore his bluebird house every spring. He had a lovely yard which he kept meticulously. He even had the first sprinkler system I had ever seen.

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Directly across the street was the house owned by a patent attorney named Nearman who enjoyed working on electronics and who volunteered to repair any TV in the neighborhood that needed work.

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Next to Nearman’s was the house owned by a dentist named Cox. His daughter played with my sister.

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Across the street next to Nearman’s was the McGuire house, now in sad shape. Jack and Bobby and Ginny were kids we played with. Tom, the oldest was a music major and later moved to San Francisco where he was a church organist. The youngest, Billy, was born after I had left for college and he became an artist. He painted a very nice picture of our house. The house is now abandoned. It was a very nice home when I lived across the street.

Next to the McGuire house is one that was owned by an attorney named Monaghan. My sister Pat used to babysit for them. He had a beautiful wife named Lois and they had several servants. Lois Monaghan was serene except on the servants’ day off when she looked like different person. They were lovely people.

Michelle Obama grew up in a home on the next block long after we had left.

The neighborhood shows the effects of years of crime and the lack of commercial business although most of the houses show care by the owners.

Why Doctors Quit.

Friday, May 29th, 2015

Today, Charles Krauthammer has an excellent column on the electronic medical record. He has not been in practice for many years but he is obviously talking to other physicians. It is a subject much discussed in medical circles these days.

It’s one thing to say we need to improve quality. But what does that really mean? Defining healthcare quality can be a challenging task, but there are frameworks out there that help us better understand the concept of healthcare quality. One of these was put forth by the Institute of Medicine in their landmark report, Crossing the Quality Chasm. The report describes six domains that encompass quality. According to them, high-quality care is:

1) Safe: Avoids injuries to patients from care intended to help them
2) Equitable: Doesn’t vary because of personal characteristics
3) Patient-centered: Is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs and values
4) Timely: Reduces waits and potentially harmful delays
5) Efficient: Avoids waste of equipment, supplies, ideas and energy
6) Effective: Services are based on scientific knowledge to all who could benefit, and it accomplishes what it sets out to accomplish

In 1994, I moved to New Hampshire and obtained a Master’s Degree in “Evaluative Clinical Sciences” to learn how to measure, and hopefully improve, medical quality. I had been working around this for years, serving on the Medicare Peer Review Organization for California and serving in several positions in organized medicine.

I spent a few years trying to work with the system, with a medical school for example, and finally gave up. A friend of mine had set up a medical group for managed care called CAPPCare, which was to be a Preferred Provider Organization when California set up “managed care.” It is now a meaningless hospital adjunct. In 1995, he told me, “Mike you are two years too early. Nobody cares about quality.” Two years later, we had lunch again and he laughed and said “You are still too years too early.”

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Iran is over-reaching ? Is Assad about to fall ?

Monday, May 25th, 2015

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I have previously postulated that Iran my be getting too stretched.

The Saudis are also in trouble.

Is this good or bad for our interests ?

One might argue that president Obama really played a deep game from his first day in office, perhaps intending all along to single-handedly destroy the Islamic world by withdrawing from the region. But the refutation for this hypothesis surely lies in his single-minded determination to let Iran acquire a nuclear weapon. What sense does it make to trap Iran in a corner then give them a bomb? Especially since the Saudis have made noises about buying their own nuke in turn?

More probably there was no deep calculation behind the events unleashed by administration. They simply blundered into the position they find themselves in now. As Daniel Halper notes, president Obama formally greeted the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia by the wrong name, getting the names of his ancestors wrong too. Hillary couldn’t even remember the name of the US ambassador on the night of the attack on the Benghazi consulate.

Incompetence, rather than deep genius, may be more important in history than we would like to admit.

Obama is a community organizer with all the talent that implies. What is going to happen now?

A more vivid description of BOP (Balance of Power) was provided by Michael Scheuer, former CIA head of the Bin Laden team in an interview with Britain’s Channel 4.

I think we should back away from the whole thing. The thing was ideal when IS was advancing on Baghdad because Sunnis were killing Shias. That’s exactly what we need. We’ve proven that we’re just militarily incompetent or that the military is so shackled by its political leaders, that it can’t defeat these people. But our best hope right now is to get the Sunnis and Shias fighting each other and let them bleed each other white. …

Mr Cameron and Mr Obama and most Western leaders seem to love the idea of us being bled to death by them, rather than the other way round. And we have the problems that have been created by multiculturalism and diversity in our own countries, in Europe more severely than ours but it’s coming our way too.

This is reminiscent of the Iran-Iraq War when Henry Kissinger famously said, “It is too bad both can’t lose.”

Of course, that is 4,000 American lives ago.

What now ? Why in the world is Obama proposing to let the Iranians have nuclear weapons ?

If Assad falls, China and Russia “lose” along with Iran.

The Russians and Chinese clearly understood that if this [Iranian expansion] had happened, the United States would have had an intense interest in undermining the Iranian sphere of influence — and would have had to devote massive resources to doing so. Russia and China benefitted greatly in the post-9/11 world, when the United States was obsessed with the Islamic world and had little interest or resources to devote to China and Russia. With the end of the Afghanistan war looming, this respite seemed likely to end. Underwriting Iranian hegemony over a region that would inevitably draw the United States’ attention was a low-cost, high-return strategy.

The Chinese primarily provided political cover, keeping the Russians from having to operate alone diplomatically. They devoted no resources to the Syrian conflict but did continue to oppose sanctions against Iran and provided trade opportunities for Iran. The Russians made a much larger commitment, providing material and political support to the al Assad regime.

But as Assad began to fold the wily Russians decided to cut their losses, leaving the Iranians holding the bag.

Again, why nuclear weapons ? And, of course, it is our fault Arabs are killing each other.

Memorial Day

Sunday, May 24th, 2015

Another Memorial Day is coming upon us and we are sinking slowly into the morass that Barack Obama has created. I am frankly surprised that a community organizer can do this much harm.

Anyway, memories of better times beckon.

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That was 1944 and I was welcoming home my cousin Arthur G Kerrison who was home on leave. He was a bombardier with the 301st Bomb Group, 352nd Squadron in North Africa.

Here is another photo of him.

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This one is with his sister, Marion, and yours truly about 1943 or early 1944 since it seems to be in front of the house we moved from in November 1944. “Bud” as he was known in the family, completed his training at Roswell, NM and went over seas to join the 15th Air Force in North Africa. His first mission was in June of 1943 over Leghorn Italy. His 50th was in January 1944. He must have been home after he completed his missions.

My own service was at home in California with the 146th Air Transport Command and I saw no combat. The worst danger was the drive to Van Nuys Airport.

I did try to teach the girls about the history of war and its cost in France in 2006.

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There they are at Utah Beach.

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And at Omaha Beach

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And in the US military cemetery above Omaha Beach.

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This is me wearing the medals that were sent to me by a member of Bud’s squadron who was shot down before I received them.

Please remember them. We owe them our freedom.

The Gay Marriage Follies.

Saturday, May 23rd, 2015

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Today, we learn that Ireland has voted to legalize gay marriage. A Catholic Church spokesman said something very intelligent.

If the measure is passed, Catholic churches will continue to decide for themselves whether to solemnise a marriage.
The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Eamon Martin, has said the church may look at whether it continues to perform the civil side of solemnisation if the change comes in.

I think this is where all this is going. The alternative is to see the Church attacked for the tax exemption, which may happen anyway. Many mainline Protestant churches are seeing membership collapse as the clergy swings far left and gets into the gay lifestyle.

There is also a very good essay at Ace of Spades today.

First, a jeweler in Canada makes rings for a lesbian wedding, then, after the lesbians find out he doesn’t approve for religious reasons, he is attacked.

Nicole White and Pam Renouf were looking for engagement rings a few months ago and eventually landed at Today’s Jewellers in Mount Pearl where the couple said they were given excellent service and great price for their rings.

“They were great to work with. They seemed to have no issues. They knew the two of us were a same-sex couple,” Ms. White told Canada’s CBC news. “I referred some of my friends to them, just because I did get good customer service and they had good prices.”

BUT…

A friend of the couple went in to the store to purchase a ring for his girlfriend and saw a poster that read “The sanctity of marriage is under attack. Let’s keep marriage between a man and a woman,” CBC reported May 16.

The friend took a photo of the poster and sent it to Ms. White, who said she had no idea about the poster until that point.

“It was really upsetting. Really sad, because we already had money down on [the rings], and they’re displaying how much they are against gays, and how they think marriage should be between a man and a woman,” Ms. White said, CBC reported.

Horrors !

They demanded their money back. After much pressure, they got it and the Jeweler paid for his beliefs. So much for “equality.”

Ace goes on…

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Muslim Lives Matter

Tuesday, May 19th, 2015

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The current trope on the left is that “Black Lives Matter.”

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The Democrats have an impressive record of genocide, beginning with the abandonment of South Vietnam. The Vietnam War was begun by Democrats, specifically John F Kennedy, who agreed to the assassination of South Vietnam leader Ngo Dinh Diem, who was killed by Vietnamese generals with Kennedy’s agreement.

Now we are faced with a somewhat similar situation in the Middle East. To quote Richard Fernandez, who I have always found reliable,

The collapse in the Middle East feels like Black April, 1975, the month South Vietnam fell. And it should, because just as the collapse of Saigon did not happen in Black April, but in a political American decision to allow South Vietnam to fall after a “decent interval”, so also is the ongoing collapse rooted, not in the recent tactical mistakes of the White House, but in the grand strategic decision president Obama made when he assumed office.

We are about to witness the total collapse of any American influence in the Middle East.

The reason the press has been trying to corner interviewees into “admitting” that George Bush made an error in toppling Saddam Hussein is the need to reassure themselves that catastrophe in the Middle East isn’t really their fault. The constant need to be told it’s not their doing is a form of denial. The more certain they are of their blunder the more they will need to tell themselves that the sounds they hear aren’t the footfalls of doom.

Because the alternative is to admit the truth and accept that to reverse the tide, 20th century Western liberalism has to die or radically reform itself. None of the people who have built political and establishment media credentials want to hear that, but all the same …

We are on the verge of a massive human catastrophe, one that the world has not seen since the fall of the Soviet Union or, in terms of percentage, since the fall of Rome.

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Why Bush Invaded Iraq.

Friday, May 15th, 2015

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There is quite a series of Republican politicians declaring that they would not invade Iraq if they knew then what they know now. JEB Bush is not the only one. Ted Cruz has made Talking Points Memo happy with a similar declaration.

Earlier in the week, Kelly asked Bush if he would have authorized the invasion, and he said he would have. On Tuesday, Bush told Sean Hannity that he hadn’t heard the question correctly and wasn’t sure what he would have done. Cruz, on the other hand, said he knows what he would have done.

“Of course not,” Cruz said in response to Kelly asking if he would have authorized an invasion. “I mean, the entire predicate of the war against Iraq was the intelligence that showed they had weapons of mass destruction and they might use them.

Of course, the “WMD” argument is a more recent addition to the story. Nobody talks anymore about why Bush was forced to invade in 2003. WMD were a small part of it. That is forgotten, of course.

Mr Speaker, thank you for recalling Parliament to debate the best way to deal with the issue of the present leadership of Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Today we published a 50 page dossier detailing the history of Iraq’s WMD, its breach of UN resolutions and the current attempts to rebuild the illegal WMD programme. I have placed a copy in the Library of the House.

At the end of the Gulf War, the full extent of Saddam’s chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programmes became clear. As a result, the UN passed a series of resolutions demanding Iraq disarm itself of such weapons and establishing a regime of weapons inspection and monitoring to do the task. They were to be given unconditional and unrestricted access to all and any Iraqi sites.

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Moderate Islam shows its hand.

Wednesday, May 13th, 2015

This is a college group. Listen to the speaker and ask yourself, “Is this the population we want to increase in this country ?”

Then, of course, we have the professors who defend poor misunderstood Muslims.

Bruce Lawrence is emeritus professor of Islamic studies at Duke University. In 2013 he was reported as saying that Islam “has no connection with terrorism and the propaganda of the forces which are trying to link Islam with terrorism is baseless.” In 2005, he said that Osama bin Laden sounded “like somebody who would be a very high-minded and welcome voice in global politics.”

There you have it ! Who do you believe ? Professor Lawrence or your lying eyes ?

Another Loser Riot.

Sunday, May 10th, 2015

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We have been treated to lots of images from Baltimore and Ferguson the past year. Now it is time for the angry left in Britain to riot. I thought it was an American phenomenon with a healthy French contribution but here we are.

A group calling itself The People’s Assembly planned to meet up in Whitehall at 1pm to protest against Thursday’s election result which seen David Cameron returned to office with a clear Commons majority.
The mob chanted ‘get the Tories out’ as large sections of the city were shut down as a result of the demonstration.
Some of the protesters brandished highly offensive home-made banners proclaiming F*** The Cuts’, while others described the Conservative Party as Tory Scum.
Protesters threw bottles, cans and smoke bombs at the police. Scuffles broke out when the demonstrators, blaring hooters, banging pots and chanting obscenities, confronted lines of police outside the gate protecting the Prime Minister’s official residence.

I am enjoying the hysterical reaction to the election by the angry left. They lost ! Get over it.

I do wonder where the money comes from that pays these professional protestors.

The protesters included members of the Socialist Worker Party. Others brandished flags proclaiming membership of hard-left anarchist organisations.
A large police presence met protesters outside Conservative campaign headquarters in Westminster, where David Cameron had issued a rousing speech to party activists little over 24 hours earlier, following the Tories’ success at the ballot box.
And in Cardiff, anti-Conservative protesters made their feelings known at a 200-strong rally at the Aneurin Bevan statue on Queen Street.

I suspect there is an element of the old communist left involved here, as well as in the US protests. Somebody pays these people and I would like to know who.

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Take a look at these protesters. Lots of cameras including iPhones. Hoodies and balaclava masks. We’ve seen these in the Baltimore and Seattle riots. Most of these rioters are white but so were many in Baltimore and Ferguson who hid their faces behind masks.

Former pop singer and opera star Charlotte Church was among those taking part.
In London, police said an estimated crowd of 100 people gathered outside Tory HQ before moving on to Downing Street.
On social media, protesters complained they were being ‘kettled’ by the Metropolitan Police.
Amid the crowd there were some sinister looking men in balaclavas covering up their identity as they jostled with police.
The Metropolitan Police said that 17 people were arrested during the ‘unplanned anti-austerity protest’.

That’s not enough arrests. And those arrested should not be promptly released. They should be fined the costs of damage and police overtime.

Obamacare = Medicaid

Friday, May 8th, 2015

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I have been interested in health care reform for some time and have proposed a plan for reform. It is now too late for such a reform as Obamacare has engaged the political apparatus and sides have been taken. The Obamacare rollout was worse than anticipated and it was hoped that the Supreme Court would have mercy on the country, but that didn’t happen and it has been the law for two years.

What has it accomplished ? Well, the forecast drop in ER visits hasn’t happened. It also didn’t happen in Massachusetts when that plan took effect.

Wasn’t Obamacare supposed to solve the problem of people going to the ER for routine medical problems? We were told that if everyone had “healthcare” — either through the ACA exchanges or through Medicaid expansion — people would be able to go to their family doctors for routine care and emergency rooms would no longer be overrun by individuals who aren’t actually experiencing emergencies.

As it turns out, Medicaid patients can’t get appointments with physicians.

“America has severe primary care physician shortages, and many physicians will not accept Medicaid patients because Medicaid pays so inadequately,” said Michael Gerardi, MD, FAAP, FACEP, president of the ACEP.

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