Present - January 2, 2007

Visiting the Louvre: During the holidays I went with family to the High Museum in Atlanta. They have a visiting exhibit from the Louvre. This was a very popular exhibit and we were there with hundreds of others. --- I just realized why I am reluctant to go forward with this topic. In fact I did not enjoy the art particularly because the crowds pushed me along at a pace that wasn't comfortable and they were in the way of where I wanted to stand to look at the paintings and their talking and even their presence detracted from just absorbing the art. I responded by chattering to my companions which seemed wrong somehow too. But jabbering my complaints isn't even very interesting to me. One of the things that got me excited about blogging the other day was being able to celebrate ideas that I feel passionate about. I want be free to be critical of things when I need to be, but not as a matter of course. I want blogging to be a more positive experience in my day. So I am going to try harder to find things that please me to write about. [In spite of it being the painting that has gotten all the press, I am really charmed by the little princess. She has so much dignity, but at the same time looks like she knows that she is missing out on the carefree life a young girl should have.]
Health Care: I just finished reading a blog by Warren Redlich about health care. I certainly take issue with some of his propositions, but that isn't what struck me. I continue to have a theory that there is a missing range of services that would improve the health of sick folks and help keep healthy people feeling that way that do not require all the expensive gadgetry or years and years of professional education that we all take for granted when talking about the health care system. I think we like MRIs and specialists the same way that we like iPods and flat screen TVs. What we need to do is get the community college system set up to train folks in a whole range of personal services connected to getting and staying well -- all low tech. If you are well off and want your own dedicated individuals, so be it. If you are one of the rest of us, then you obtain the use of these folks in group settings (like maybe at work or at your gym). Think about what it is like when you have someone you love in the hospital. All the high tech diagnosis, surgery, and critical care procedures are handled with a good deal of proficiency. But there is never anyone around to help them walk to the toilet or see that they drink enough water or assess how well they will be able to carry on once sprung from the hospital. Likewise there are few people who get regular nutrition counseling, a camp-counselor type leader for a brisk five-mile hike, a morning phone call to remind them of resolutions, not to mention meals-on-wheels type deliveries of nutritious fare to help with avoiding fast food on busy days. Elderly folks have ridiculous drug cocktails and the mechanisms for making sure they are taken on schedule and for collecting symptoms of adverse events, signals of incorrect dosages, or drug interactions is simply haphazard or missing altogether. All these simple low-tech strategies I am thinking of have the potential IMHO to save millions in health care dollars because the expensive procedures performed in an impersonal vacuum devoid of any holistic monitoring of the whole self and related living context simply do a lousy job of getting folks well and keeping them healthy. This inevitably plays out in more tests and procedures and incomplete treatments for avoidable conditions. How many expensive medical procedures are simply the result of there being no way to provide people with assistance in changing habits?
Service Economy: Could one of the answers to the loss of manufacturing jobs in the US be a return to the creation of a neo servant class? Although the term is loaded with negative connotations, I am thinking of the provision of personal services by professionals who have been trained to be experts at particular types of service. This approach, it seems to me, could make them able to command more respect and pay for the work they do. We already see some of this going on, of course, with housekeeping and catering services and such. With the aging population, including quite a few folks who won't have any money to retire on, the idea of creating complex interdependency networks where everyone gets lots of personal services from other people seems both economically practical and conducive to a more harmonious society.
Escape Fiction: A quick update on The Lighthouse. I am about two thirds of the way through the book, and I am getting bad vibes on the prospects for Adam D. I wish one of my more lighthearted writers would turn up with a new [paperback]. I have a Nora Roberts, two in fact, but I just can't warm up to vampires, especially as protagonists, so I haven't started to read them yet.