Monday, June 28, 2010

Pain

When I suddenly developed shoulder and back pain and a numb left wrist diagnosed as the consequence of a bone spur pressing on a spinal nerve, our family doctor (reluctantly) referred me to the the Manhattan Center for Pain Management: http://www.wehealny.org/services/pain/services.html

I was assigned to an anesthesiologist who prescribed a heavy pain medication that left me is a daze with which I tried to cope with pots of coffee.

Pain was not new to me. I had suffered it as a 4-year-old with a diagnosis of rheumatic fever which made one's legs ache. This being prior to anti-biotics (I am 77), I was totally restricted in activity and carried each warm day out to cot where my English nurse variously taught me to count (beyond 100) and to read.

My later visits to the pain center were depressing with an army of elders kept waiting for hours past appointment times -- I caught my doctor one day slipping away and we had a 15 second appointment. I was called in periodically for appointments which I began to assume were to collect my medical insurance. Finally I quit them and turned pain management over to my excellent family doctor who recommended cutting way back on the pain medication. I am now trying to cut it out entirely. It among other things seems to cause stomach pain.

The bottom line here is that I have decided that I would rather live with some bearable pain than walking around in a daze. As I type now the pain in my left wrist (in a splint to prevent excessive bending where arthritis has attacked a high school wrist injury) is bearable.

As we age probably few of us will escape some sorts of pain. I am extremely careful to avoid falls.

Would be curious to know how others are coping? I should mention that a nightly sleeping pill seems to quell the pain to allow me to sleep.
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"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent [blind copies]

Sunday, June 27, 2010

No TV Coverage of NYC Gay Pride March?

I have looked in vain for local TV coverage of this parade, probably the most important NYC event this week. Instead one discovers every kind of trivia. Major channels are rightly focused on Afghanistan and events in Canada.

But there is no justice issue apart from poverty here in NYC that needs to be resolved more than equal treatment of gays and lesbians. Living here we have a host of them as friends and colleagues and judge them as persons as we do all others. As one trained in theology I am all too aware that anti-gay attitudes were promulgated thousands of years ago by ancient Israel distinguishing itself from the gay tolerant cultures of the Hellenes which even encouraged gay relations between soldiers so that they would fight harder to protect each other -- so much for our military policies hopefully to be revised soon. Other nations have led the way.

It should be mentioned that many of those marching are not gay, but representing supporting groups. One of my relatives is marching with his girl friend as member of a church group:

http://www.nycpride.org/march.html


Hopefully we will get there as we did with race. It took some time to permit mixed marriages, too -- Loving v. Virginia in 1967:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=5103666188878568597&q=loving+v.+virginia&hl=en&as_sdt=20000000002&as_vis=1

May we can speed up this reform?
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent [blind copies]

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Afghanistan -- Damned If We Do . . .

I would hate to be in Obama's shoes figuring how to cope with Afghanistan. If we walk away, we risk the take over of Pakistan by its dissident military with nuclear weapons threatening India not the least. If we stay, there is no way to implement a unified country under Karsai. Various middle way solutions have been suggested. Get nearby states including Iran involved, appealing to local leaders and Taliban and others wanting peace, economic support rather than military domination, etc. But how to put together all these potentially conflicting things is a less than 50% possibility. The Taliban are not going to disappear and they have intimidated most Iranians even if they are not liked by them.

If one Google's "Afghan Solutions, one finds every conceivable easy answer, but no coherence and no plausibility:

http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&tab=nw&ned=us&q=#hl=en&source=hp&q=Afghan+Solutions&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=Afghan+Solutions&gs_rfai=Cl3g86hQmTLfnDovwygSA17imAwAAAKoEBU_QklEi&fp=e0fa4b5da4f245a4


Manifestly the Bush administration (Cheney) blew our brief window of opportunity with the Iraq diversion. I wonder what Petraeus will come up with. As has been pointed out, Afghanistan is no Iraq:

http://www.stripes.com/news/petraeus-may-soon-find-afghanistan-is-no-iraq-1.108729

Again, I would not want to be Obama trying to put this one together -- along with all the other problematic situations in the area.

May he figure something beyond mere words.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent [blind copies]

Friday, June 25, 2010

The Columbia Problem

Columbia has won the eminent domain battle in Manhattanville (lower west Harlem). But the problem with Columbia versus the conduct of Yale and Harvard is that it is short of cash and greedy. It is the profit-making bully wherever it moves in. We have seen this in our Morningside Heights community and nearby former low income areas. Particularly there is a huge housing complex just the the north of where Columbia is moving. It was until recently rent protected until a 25 year subsidized lease program ran out. Columbia is already moving its students in as the owners drive out residents by raising rents.

I happen to have degrees from both Yale and Columbia and so am conscious of the differences in attitudes towards their communities of each.

It is sad to see a major academic institution driven by its corporate board rather than its faculty and students.

Caring for people versus grabbing what one can no matter what seems to be the new battlefront of the modern world. Obama has been trying to do something (his medical reforms), but he and the Democrats are up against it with the naked appeals to greed both to the greedy and the scared. 'G-d' will reward me if I pray right and vote for the Republicans (Tea Party). One need not look far to see this unholy alliance which, needless to say, despises the best traditions of the three major Western religions.

----------------------
"New York’s highest court handed Columbia University a major victory on Thursday for its $6.3 billion plan to build a satellite campus in Harlem, ruling that the state could seize private property for the project."

Columbia has a $6.3 billion plan for a campus in Harlem.
Raymond McCrea Jones/The New York Times
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent [blind copies]

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Caring Medicine

We have been fortunate as a family to have found caring medicine at the various homes where we have lived ranging from Poughkeepsie to Morningside Heights in NYC. We have preferred various hospitals for specific ailments; particularly Mt. Sinai gave my dear wife, Lyn, best care which enabled her to live a rich and active life while coping with cancer during her last 9 years.

Our caring family doctor, Martin Frankel, is the center of a range of area specialists to whom he refers us as needed.

It is unfortunate (and ironic) that so many corporations, other institutions (some hospitals), and individuals (doctors and others) connected with medicine are greedy profit-seekers. The upshot is that American medicine costs twice as much and delivers far less than comparable modern nations.

Apart from profit-making, there are some horrendous scandals -- those who participated in torture during the Bush years.

It is fortunate that Obama was able to press as far as he could with medical reform in the face of other crises and the usual Republican opposition to such things that have been overcome in the past. There are still some loose ends to be resolved -- the public option which would guarantee medical care to all and a curb on the profit-making which still makes medicine far more expensive than it should be. And the 'no more taxes' jingo endangers many necessary things here as well as medicine.

May the repairs be continued!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent [blind copies]