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Front Page News
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It was hard to get my 7 a.m. mouth to move at digital, rather than metronome, speed but -- wow, the topic was health reform -- and nearly 20 members of the Fresno Sunrise Rotary Club were slamming back bacon and coffee. After my 20-minute presentation...
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It's been a little more than five months since President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act -- aka, health reform -- into law. Following are some of the topics that the media have spotlighted from the 2,000-plus pages of legislation...
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I read where a police helicopter camera mounted to the "bird", fell off in mid-flight and struck at least three vehicles in a parking lot (no one was hurt thankfully). The infra-red camera was valued at $100K and came crashing down as the heli was on...
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No scientific research to back me up, but I believe bloggers are social creatures. For some, blogging is their only way of making contact with the world. For others, including me, I could strike up a conversation with a former president I met at the airport...
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Credit the Wall Street Journal for these tidbits from recent days: Unspent stimulus money: $39.48 billion appropriated for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, of which 23% or roughly $8.89 billion has been paid out. (For health care info...
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Not quite in keeping with the old Johnny Cash ("I've Been Everywhere") song, but I've been in nearly every Fresno/Clovis emergency room either as a patient or advocating for a patient in the last couple years. You don't earn bragging rights or discount...
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...and I love sleeping in on the weekends (as I get up at 0430 every day during the week). I especially like to sit in my "papa-saun" chair in the family room and settle in for an afternoon nap when I can spare one. My husband says he knows I'm catching...
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Have trouble remembering your spouse's birthday? Well, how well do you know the prescriptions and over-the-counter medications they take? Surgeries, which leg and when? Food allergies? If the world went to heck, do you know what their final wishes are?...
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Well, apparently millions of "non words" that failed to make the dictionary, are locked in a vault at Oxford University Press (OUP). Examples: "wurfing"...definition: surfing the internet at work. "Polkadodge": wierd dance move where two people try to...
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Nice to name-drop some big names. Here are some snippets from keynote speakers at the recent American Hospital Association health summit in San Diego: Ian Morrison, emcee/futurist/synthesizer: "Maybe I missed the class, but somehow Medicaid has become...
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... like 18 times worse than a toilet handle! What?!? Eeeeuuuuwwww! Well, I guess if ya think about it...that is certainly possible. According to a U.K. study, the tested phones had high levels of organisms (total viable bacteria count...TVC). The researchers...
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I was pretty proud of myself, having hiked stem to stern, knocking neither my shins nor my head and seated myself in the captain's chair on the bridge of the USS Midway in San Diego. Then I met a guy who flew some of the military aircraft aboard the floating...
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Huh? What will they think of next? Yep...apparently there's a "Heads Up Virtual Reality" (HUVR) device that is a combo of 3D HDTV and a high-tech mirror that projects an image into a viewer's surroundings. You can maneuver a touch-sensitive device to...
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Visited the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services near Baltimore a few years back. Kind of a Fort Knox of regulations, and then some. Required a guard or some funky security to pay a stop at the rest room. Have never met Dr. Donald Berwick but he...
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You never know what "news" you stumble into while trying to keep abreast of health care while absorbing the fury of a floor fan and an air-conditioning vent. Zombie aerobic exercise -- It's a running, vaulting, climbing fitness program built on the premise...
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Amazing what you see when a) you are on vacation; b) not the driver in twisty mountains; and, c) not looking for anything in particular. Explains why I noticed the signs on two adjacent stores near Pollock Pines on US 50, the traditional pathway to Tahoe....
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You couldn't seen the ocean from my Brooklyn tenement. Too many subway, bus rides away. Too many gang lines to cross. But you could find your way to the beach -- to the roof. In summer, we called it "tar beach." A soda. A thick scratchy woolen blanket....
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...mmmm, in an effort to reduce costs, some hotels are cutting back on housekeeping services...they are encouraging guests to forgo daily changing of linens, towels and toiletries. This isn't exactly a new concept, but as travelers frequent hotels less,...
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Wish I had a nickel for every time I've heard a politician, especially those in the Valley, say they were voting against something because they "were tired of nickel and diming the voters." So, now we routinely cut millions in jobs and services, while...
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I read an article recently about a New York businessman who returned his newly purchased iPad within about two weeks of obtaining it indicating it was "too good"....huh? Yep, he said that the robust applications, ease of use, and amazing features kept...
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So much news, so few employed, reputable journalists to cover the world. When did you last see coverage of that earthquake in Chile (after the quake in Haiti)? We know more about Miley's latest dancing affectations and the latest of Charlie Sheen's cars...
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It's very possible the U.S. public debt may be $13 trillion by 2012, or roughly $42,200 per American. The good folks at the Wall Street Journal wondered what that might buy in today's dollars: Nine 32-gig IPhones for every breathing person on the globe....
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..."Robonaut", developed by the International Space Station, is a prototype consisting of a head, torso, two arms and two hands...could this be your newest colleague?!?!? Well, at an El Camino Hospital in Silicon Valley...a similar prototype (19 of them)...
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I've been thinking of blessings, big and small, and irritations. What got me started was getting up at 4:30 a.m. and finding a parade of baby spiders marching out of the bathroom light socket. Later the same day, as my 24-year-old son was exiting the...
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It's been a while since her political foes and national comics had a field day at the expense of Nevada Senate candidate Sue Lowden, who suggested that bartering -- maybe paying for a medical checkup with a chicken -- was one way to reduce health costs....
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