Hi again and yep, from the ramparts of the Bastion on the Puget Sound, it’s been another interesting week. How many of you caught President Obama’s address to Congress last night? I did and I enjoyed it for several reasons. I’ve worked in the health care industry and I understand the complexities of the issues discussed. Political speeches are also a form of performance art in our house and, in my opinion, our national chief executive is one of the most captivating orators since John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
When I was living in Oregon, I worked for the local community hospital as their public relations person. My chief responsibility was to educate the general public on how this particular health care system worked and profile the physicians, staff and services offered by the facility and its dozen or so satellite clinics.
I was fortunate in that this particular health care provider was one of the most efficiently administered rural facilities in the Northwest. Its doctors ~ several of them from the Middle East, India and Asia ~ were extremely well educated and, though older than many of their American contemporaries, impressively experienced in providing quality health care under difficult and challenging circumstances.
So simply informing the public through the local media about Umpqua Valley Community Hospital was relatively easy because I did not have to justify the kinds of conditions to which President Obama alluded when he said that one of the ways this health care program was to be funded was by cleaning up and reforming existing health care providers. Implicit in this, I am assuming, is the promulgation of common performance standards and legal sanctions to enforce them.
I’ve worked in the health care industry here in Seattle, as well, and because of privacy and confidentiality issues, I can’t go into specifics. I can, however, witness for need for an examination of the infrastructure because some of it simply is not working. Some patients receive outstanding care. Others go through hell just trying to get the basics. President Obama said, in no uncertain terms, that no American should be treated that way and I concur. And if the industry cannot police itself, I don’t see that we have much choice but to do it for them. As the president also reminded us, we, the American people, are the government.
Well, this next one seems to fall under the classification of “Bound To Happen Sooner or Later.” It’s also nudging the weirdness scale because from the Bastion, looking east across Lake Washington to Redmond, we can almost see the first residential treatment center in the United States specifically for those who have become addicted to the Internet.
Yep, Redmond’s also the headquarters of Microsoft so to me, it’s a little like having the pub and the alcohol rehab facility in the same building. Convenient to say the least and certainly more than a little ironic.
But there’s no doubt in my mind the need is certainly there and the program appears to be extremely well designed and cost-reasonable. It’s called ReSTART and for more information, please go here.
Well, for the last week or so, a 140 lb. male cougar’s been making himself at home in Seattle’s Discovery Park. It didn’t hurt anyone but it certainly aroused some interesting reactions. Some of the citizenry felt really put out that Fish and Wildlife was closing the park for the weekend in order to simply the search, capture and subsequent relocation of this big cat.
I’m thinking to myself, if I knew that there was a mountain lion prowling around Cowan Park here in my neighborhood, would I still want to go there for a picnic? Would I want to maybe accidentally get in the way of said puma trying to elude capture? Maybe it’s just me but…ummmmm…no.
This story also explains why it seems the true first citizens of this land seem to move so easily and so often through this state’s largest metro region. There’s a railroad line running north and south with a greenbelt on the right-of-way. Seattle’s essentially right in the middle of a great deal of natural habitat and these creatures ~ Discovery Park had a black bear hanging out several years back ~ are essentially just passing through. If they overstay and get caught, they get a humane assist making it home. Works in my house.
Finally, we’d like to extend our wishes for a speedy recover to Prairie Home Companion’s Garrison Keilor who, Monday, suffered a minor stroke. He drove himself to a St. Paul, Minnesota hospital after “feeling ill.”
For years, he’s been a regular visitor to my home and to millions of others in North America and beyond. I’ve found his radio show one of the most wholesome, entertaining and ingenuous on the air waves and while it bothers me that Garrison had that attack, I am more than a little relieved that it looks like he’s going to be okay and be around awhile longer. He’s 67.
Well, that’s it for this week and thanks once again for the ear. Until next time, take care, stay well and God Bless.
Rusty
NORTHSTAR RECOMMENDS
To Your Health
If you’d like to know whether your eating habits are either adding years to your life or taking them off, take this RealAge quiz. It will not only score your real age against your health age but give you a program for improvement. I’ve been working this one for about a month now and yep, I feel a lot better.
Want to know how to live to be 100? Try this one.
Ever had trouble getting behind eating a lot of fruits and vegetables despite how good they are for you? Ever had trouble selling that one to your kids and grandkids? Ever been totally sold on the idea then gone to the market and been totally tasered by the price of good health in some places? If your answer is yes to any or all of the above, you really need to check this site out. Fruits and veggies: more matters.
Online Tools for the Kit
Free People Search – This is an American online White Pages that I found really simple, quick and user friendly. I looked for myself under the several versions of my name and it found them all. It’s also free and doesn’t involve anything to download.
Know Thy Elected Officials - Just type in your zip code and this site will supply you with the names and contact information for your legislators from the state level up. This is a two click site with a host of other relevant features.
Media
Vinyl Cafe with Stuart McLean – Live from the smallest record store in North America. Canadian humor, entertainment and commentary at its maple leaf best. Popular on National Public Radio in the States.
Sightline Daily (formerly Tidepool) – The “United Press International/Reuters of the American West/ Updated and informative news shorts with links to the source. Its editors draw from a coverage area which includes Alaska, British Columbia, California, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. Update and informative collected news shorts from those sources. They also put out an excellent weekly environmental edition.
U Got Style is a monthly ezine dedicated to independent films. Fully illustrated, it features hard news, interviews, reviews and a wide variety of other information. It’s also fun to read.
The Vancouver Sun, outstanding source for Canadian and world news.
Other Blogs
The Tomatoman Times – a life commentary blog with the blended stylings of John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Jack London and Will Rogers. Poignant, at times rancorous but very contemporary and ultimate celebration.
Lords and Ladies of Leisure is sooooo misnamed and it’s an example of the humour with which a Seattle high tech victim deals with the wonderful world of unemployment. Kerri Marshall’s admittedly offbeat sense of humour spices up a blog also rich in practical advice. The comments from her readers are almost as entertaining of she is. If you’ve got a few minutes and want a little perspective on your own hard times, I highly recommend this one.
Talent For Hire
Rusty Miller, Freelance Photojournalist – Whether it’s a one time press release, book or product review, difficult business correspondence, resume or classified ad composition you need, take a look at the services offered menu on my writer-for-hire homepage and we’ll get together on it.
Are you a travel editor looking for color shots of Seattle? Are you an art dealer looking for new work to carry on consignment? You might enjoy checking out a gallery of my work for sale
COMING ATTRACTIONS
In the weeks to come, we’re going to create ~ in addition to Northstar Recommends ~ a Northstar General Store in which you, the readers, will have an opportunity to market your own goods and services and, as well, to shop here. We’re going to get real creative with this and whenever possible, we’ll have tried what we’re carrying on the shelves, as it were. We’ll be taking a straight ten percent for this, via Paypal. We’ll also consider barter and trade.
If you’ve got any recommendations of your own and are interested in the General Store, email me and we’ll talk.
When I was living in Oregon, I worked for the local community hospital as their public relations person. My chief responsibility was to educate the general public on how this particular health care system worked and profile the physicians, staff and services offered by the facility and its dozen or so satellite clinics.
I was fortunate in that this particular health care provider was one of the most efficiently administered rural facilities in the Northwest. Its doctors ~ several of them from the Middle East, India and Asia ~ were extremely well educated and, though older than many of their American contemporaries, impressively experienced in providing quality health care under difficult and challenging circumstances.
So simply informing the public through the local media about Umpqua Valley Community Hospital was relatively easy because I did not have to justify the kinds of conditions to which President Obama alluded when he said that one of the ways this health care program was to be funded was by cleaning up and reforming existing health care providers. Implicit in this, I am assuming, is the promulgation of common performance standards and legal sanctions to enforce them.
I’ve worked in the health care industry here in Seattle, as well, and because of privacy and confidentiality issues, I can’t go into specifics. I can, however, witness for need for an examination of the infrastructure because some of it simply is not working. Some patients receive outstanding care. Others go through hell just trying to get the basics. President Obama said, in no uncertain terms, that no American should be treated that way and I concur. And if the industry cannot police itself, I don’t see that we have much choice but to do it for them. As the president also reminded us, we, the American people, are the government.
Well, this next one seems to fall under the classification of “Bound To Happen Sooner or Later.” It’s also nudging the weirdness scale because from the Bastion, looking east across Lake Washington to Redmond, we can almost see the first residential treatment center in the United States specifically for those who have become addicted to the Internet.
Yep, Redmond’s also the headquarters of Microsoft so to me, it’s a little like having the pub and the alcohol rehab facility in the same building. Convenient to say the least and certainly more than a little ironic.
But there’s no doubt in my mind the need is certainly there and the program appears to be extremely well designed and cost-reasonable. It’s called ReSTART and for more information, please go here.
Well, for the last week or so, a 140 lb. male cougar’s been making himself at home in Seattle’s Discovery Park. It didn’t hurt anyone but it certainly aroused some interesting reactions. Some of the citizenry felt really put out that Fish and Wildlife was closing the park for the weekend in order to simply the search, capture and subsequent relocation of this big cat.
I’m thinking to myself, if I knew that there was a mountain lion prowling around Cowan Park here in my neighborhood, would I still want to go there for a picnic? Would I want to maybe accidentally get in the way of said puma trying to elude capture? Maybe it’s just me but…ummmmm…no.
This story also explains why it seems the true first citizens of this land seem to move so easily and so often through this state’s largest metro region. There’s a railroad line running north and south with a greenbelt on the right-of-way. Seattle’s essentially right in the middle of a great deal of natural habitat and these creatures ~ Discovery Park had a black bear hanging out several years back ~ are essentially just passing through. If they overstay and get caught, they get a humane assist making it home. Works in my house.
Finally, we’d like to extend our wishes for a speedy recover to Prairie Home Companion’s Garrison Keilor who, Monday, suffered a minor stroke. He drove himself to a St. Paul, Minnesota hospital after “feeling ill.”
For years, he’s been a regular visitor to my home and to millions of others in North America and beyond. I’ve found his radio show one of the most wholesome, entertaining and ingenuous on the air waves and while it bothers me that Garrison had that attack, I am more than a little relieved that it looks like he’s going to be okay and be around awhile longer. He’s 67.
Well, that’s it for this week and thanks once again for the ear. Until next time, take care, stay well and God Bless.
Rusty
NORTHSTAR RECOMMENDS
To Your Health
If you’d like to know whether your eating habits are either adding years to your life or taking them off, take this RealAge quiz. It will not only score your real age against your health age but give you a program for improvement. I’ve been working this one for about a month now and yep, I feel a lot better.
Want to know how to live to be 100? Try this one.
Ever had trouble getting behind eating a lot of fruits and vegetables despite how good they are for you? Ever had trouble selling that one to your kids and grandkids? Ever been totally sold on the idea then gone to the market and been totally tasered by the price of good health in some places? If your answer is yes to any or all of the above, you really need to check this site out. Fruits and veggies: more matters.
Online Tools for the Kit
Free People Search – This is an American online White Pages that I found really simple, quick and user friendly. I looked for myself under the several versions of my name and it found them all. It’s also free and doesn’t involve anything to download.
Know Thy Elected Officials - Just type in your zip code and this site will supply you with the names and contact information for your legislators from the state level up. This is a two click site with a host of other relevant features.
Media
Vinyl Cafe with Stuart McLean – Live from the smallest record store in North America. Canadian humor, entertainment and commentary at its maple leaf best. Popular on National Public Radio in the States.
Sightline Daily (formerly Tidepool) – The “United Press International/Reuters of the American West/ Updated and informative news shorts with links to the source. Its editors draw from a coverage area which includes Alaska, British Columbia, California, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. Update and informative collected news shorts from those sources. They also put out an excellent weekly environmental edition.
U Got Style is a monthly ezine dedicated to independent films. Fully illustrated, it features hard news, interviews, reviews and a wide variety of other information. It’s also fun to read.
The Vancouver Sun, outstanding source for Canadian and world news.
Other Blogs
The Tomatoman Times – a life commentary blog with the blended stylings of John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Jack London and Will Rogers. Poignant, at times rancorous but very contemporary and ultimate celebration.
Lords and Ladies of Leisure is sooooo misnamed and it’s an example of the humour with which a Seattle high tech victim deals with the wonderful world of unemployment. Kerri Marshall’s admittedly offbeat sense of humour spices up a blog also rich in practical advice. The comments from her readers are almost as entertaining of she is. If you’ve got a few minutes and want a little perspective on your own hard times, I highly recommend this one.
Talent For Hire
Rusty Miller, Freelance Photojournalist – Whether it’s a one time press release, book or product review, difficult business correspondence, resume or classified ad composition you need, take a look at the services offered menu on my writer-for-hire homepage and we’ll get together on it.
Are you a travel editor looking for color shots of Seattle? Are you an art dealer looking for new work to carry on consignment? You might enjoy checking out a gallery of my work for sale
COMING ATTRACTIONS
In the weeks to come, we’re going to create ~ in addition to Northstar Recommends ~ a Northstar General Store in which you, the readers, will have an opportunity to market your own goods and services and, as well, to shop here. We’re going to get real creative with this and whenever possible, we’ll have tried what we’re carrying on the shelves, as it were. We’ll be taking a straight ten percent for this, via Paypal. We’ll also consider barter and trade.
If you’ve got any recommendations of your own and are interested in the General Store, email me and we’ll talk.
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