|
Back to the Weekly Notes
Archives
January 10, 2005:
Time and Tasks:
There are 24 hours in a day. There are 7 days in a week. There
are usually 365 days in a year. There are things to do. There
should be no pressure in this. It's a matter of prioritizing
and choosing the next thing to do. Then go ahead, as they say,
one day at a time. This is how a simpleton behaves. He understands
that the list of things to do will never end. It will never be
complete, nor should it be. If there was nothing to do life would
not be worth bothering with. So choose the thing that seems most
worthy and do it. Then choose another. Never mind what others
demand. There is only one person who can prioritize the tasks
according to their worthiness. That is the doer.
Choices:
How often have we heard the phrase, "I did not have any
choice"? It's a lie of course. We always have and we always
make choices. In general we choose what is easiest in the immediate
situation. Most of the time our lives are not consciously directed.
We just deal with whatever confronts us and select the most painless
way of dealing with it. We usually choose without regard to the
long term effects of our choices, but we always choose.
Demons:
When I read of the demons who tormented Hemingway it seems my
demons are kind of small potatoes, off Broadway so to speak.
Shake Out:
There are too many automobile manufacturing companies in the
world. The situation is very similar to that in America early
in automotive history. What happened then will most likely happen
now. Through merger and various failures the American auto industry
shook down to the big three. I predict, when the crap is over,
GM will still be the dominant kid on the block. There will most
likely be two other survivors. I'm sure one will be Honda. Which
of the others will survive is a toss up. The most likely two
seem to be Daimler and Ford. It may be a question of which one
can come into the 21st century first. Both have neanderthal management
and hindsight styling. Let's wait and see. If you have stock
in either of those companies, why not exercise your option to
vote against the established officers and board. It won't change
anything, but it may send a message.
The Toady:
The administration paid Armstrong Williams to promote George's
education program. Williams is supposed to be an independent
political commentator, but he was bought and paid for by the
Republicans. $240,000 is the number we heard. That's a big time
payoff. Someone in the news found out, but he is not going to
give the money back. He says he earned it. They paid him to lie
and he did.
Affirmative Action:
Excuse me while I rage. I do not support affirmative action or
special treatment of any kind. I do support equal rights for
all people. There is no way you can right a wrong by committing
another wrong. The fact is, you cannot right a wrong once it
has been done. You cannot change history. Once a wrong is done
you cannot fix it. What you can do is to make sure everyone has
an equal chance. Beyond that, we cannot do anything without creating
more wrong.
These thoughts also apply to American Indians. Special rights
are crap. American Indians live in this culture, they take advantage
of this culture, they take all of the benefits, but they have
special laws. That is not acceptable. Of course, this will only
change when those government agencies which are taking advantage
of these dishonest policies get honest. That will most likely
be never. We can be sure that the current government will never
get honest.
In truth, the government could cut the Indian's legs off by
making gambling legal. Of course, in Michigan that would cut
the governments legs off too. There would not be any lotto money
for them to steal. Stealing is what they do. The Michigan government
is running one of the biggest gambling swindles in the world.
The government and the Indians can run gambling dens, but the
rest of us can't. That is ridiculous on the face of it. You cannot
fix immorality by making it illegal. All you do is drive it underground,
onto reservations, and into state capitals.
Routine:
When we are doing routine things which we do over and over again,
we tend to not notice differences and just do what we have always
done. We tend to not listen but record instead what we expected
to hear. In medicine, this can be very serious. It can result
in catastrophic events, like amputating the leg of the wrong
person, amputating the wrong leg of the correct person, or giving
incorrect medication. It can, and has, caused death.
Recently on a pre-op examination, I told a medical person,
I had an EKG six months ago which was two doctor visits ago,
she only heard the two and recorded that I had an EKG 2 weeks
ago. My doctor caught it and scolded my for misinforming the
R. N. I was not able to convince him, I had not fibbed.
There is a recent development in the health care field which
can only make this situation worse. This is the new practice
of scheduling medical personnel, especially nurses, to regularly
work 12 hour shifts. The idea is to attract nurses by offering
them a 36 hour, full pay, three day work week. It may be efficient
from the standpoint of cost and scheduling but it's just too
dangerous for the patients. Do we really want a person who has
been working for eleven hours to be calculating medication dosages?
Not on me, thank you!
Back to the Weekly Notes
Archives
|