Thursday, January 01, 2004
NEW LEAVES
We are in need of some changes now that the New Year is under way.
One leaf we need to turn is that of medical care and that is not just for older folks, either - but for all of us.
The cost of medical care - both services and products of all types have skyrocketed in recent years and nothing has been done about except for some token payment of presription medicines under certain conditions.
Are you aware of how many mecical offices have signs in the lobby area reading: "Full payment required in Advance of Treatments" – or, words to that effect and that they are becoming common. No "on account" payments without regard to regularity of such payments in the past. It is now:"Pay At the Door" – or else.
A second medical leaf which needs turning is the one which encourages citizens to believe that Medicare free.
Medicare is far from being a freebie. It is more accurately called, a compulsory health insurance plan and recipients pay monthly premiums. My wife and I will ante up $132.00 each and every month as long as we both shall live. That's $1,584 per year. It makes limited payments toward a list of qualyfing medical conditons. Among those portions for which Medicare does not pay is prescribed drugs, as you, no doubt, have heard since that subject became a political football. Because payment by Medicare is limited in this way, it is essential that a supplmentary insurance be bought to take care of more of the expenses involved. Mine costs $109.00 per month;my wife's is $144.00 per month. That's $253.00 per month or $3036 for the year for supplementary protection. We spend, then, at total of:$4620.00 which is well over one third of our total earnings for the year.
I am not knocking any of this.
I'm glad we have such protection, but I would like to see and hear our young people being made aware of just how much and why they need to save for their old age. The medical-business world, our politicians and much of the media spend far too much time and effort dwelling on bankruptcy rumors and narrow political and economic skullduggery.
One more leaf to turn, please.
Much of the medical profession seems hell-bent on bringing completely socialized medicine to these shores as soon as possible. Witness steadily increasing prices at all levels. The prescription I bought ten years less than $20.00 is not just under $100.00 for an identical, four-ounce bottle. The local pharmacy pays more for their supplies, so it must be somewhere beyond the local level, but where? Do we dare ask?
Medicine has gone "big business,"as well. Since our local doctors joined a cosmopolitan group, charges have risen to new heights. When our community office was opened - about twenty-five years ago - the charge for an "in office" visit was $4.00. Today you will need well over one hundred dollars, depending on what procedures were done. Many of those who have insurance have not noticed the increases because "my insurance copany pays for everything." Many of them are, at the moment, doing so, but how longer can we expect that to continue in the face of steadily rising prices?
The New Year suggests some changes be made.
A.L.M. January 1, 2004 [c561wds].
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
BLOTTERS
I had spilled bit of coloring on the desk! I needed a blotter, and said so.
My fellow worker, young and innocent, in the ways of office routine, looked puzzled and quickly replied: "What you need is a paper towel!" She turned away and promptly returned with several paper towels and hurriedly wiped way the stains.
"There!" She said proudly. "Like new! You didn't hurt a thing. It won't show at all." She glossed over the area with a clean towel and held it up as to reassure me.
I had no idea she, and most of the other young workers in the area, would not know what I had meant when I demanded a "blotter."
I, suddenly, realized they were gone! Blotters no longer exist in offices anywhere today.
Not too ago the blotter was an essential part of the office setup, along with rubber bands and thunb tacks. We used pen and ink for many office jobs before typewriters and, then, ball point pens came into style. The blotter was usually about the size of a dollar bill - which was a tad larger than than today, as well. Most would have been, oh perhaps 8-1/2 by 4 inches, as I recall, They were mainly made of a thin sheet of very absorbant paper covered with a slicker sheet on which advertisements were printed. Most town had small print shop which specialzed is such advertising, match book covers, calanders, key chain tags of heavy cardboard and a stock of signs for utility purposes.
I have seen the working side of some blotters take on a design of reversed writing in blue, red and black which formed a pattern such as Jackson Pollock, the painter, might well have been proud, But the use of the blotter went out of existence with Penmanship, I suppose. The pencil, for some reson, was always there and it has been vastly improved butthe fact that its work could be so easily erased and edited made it useless in keeping company books and other records.
Occasionally,the stained blotter would turn us as clue in detective stories. The slueth could hold the used blotter up before a mirror and present a written confession from the vile crimial..
There must be, somewhere, a museum of blotter designs. They had other not-intended uses, as I remember. I have used them as bookmarks and know of others who have done so. Some of those must be available today and treated as curiousities more and more as the yers go by.
A.L.M. December 30, 2003 [c433wds]
Tuesday, December 30, 2003
THINGS TO COME
So often, at this tag end of the calandar, many people take stock of the posessions we have which help to make life more easier and enjoyable.
This is a good thing. Not only does it remind us of our many blessings, but it also causes us to list those things we don't have but think we need.
This, you see, changes the old maxim somewhat. "Need", rather "necessity" has become the "Mother of Invention".
Now that the fantastic SST fleet of superairliners has been retired and generously given to gawk gallieres worldwide, that era is being used as a good exmple of how we make mistakes in building things we don't need. We her in the United States, however, pointing out that SST "preying mantis" aircraft undetaking from design through application. It inferred that the real, underlying problem was one of proper management rather than a lack of demand for such an aircraft generation.
With such thinking rather well set in the public mind, we are continuing with plans for our pnderous flying wing MACH II passanger plane.
A leading avation magazine predicts it will be operative in this century. The same editorial breath shows us a "photograph" - air-brushed - to show what the future personal air car for individual use will look like not too far ahead. Imagine a small car, with a bulb-like, helicoper probosis area. To each side - a hint of a wing. There is a tail assmbly more like a jet ending.. The craft has no overhead rotor.Instead what appears to be the top the heat pump imstallation you see ,on top of your back yard heat pump installation. The whole rig lands, it seems, on a single skid in the center of its rounded belly.
I must be getting close to my actual age, because I did not thrill to the promotional copy that went with the picture of the just-aouund-the-next-cloud air car. The gist of the spiel was that this car would put an end to the ravaging of large parcels of the nation's best farm land for super highway construction.
When I first read the item, I kept thinking of how such an air car might bring about in the parking lots of any of the four Wal-Mart Super Stores in our area. Maybe by that time we can have reinforced roof strustures to sustain elegantly layered, valet-staffed air parks. But, who knows what Wal-Mart itself will look like that far the future?
The rate at which inventing things moves along today is much faster than it has been. Either one or both of these advances could be a reality long before this century wanes.
A.L.M. December 29, 2003 [c462wds]
Monday, December 29, 2003
BEHOLDEN
Appalachian mountain folks, among whom I grew up, used to make use of the term “to be beholden” a great deal.
Most of them,though somewhat lacking, perhaps,in the physical trappings that,so often accompany formal religion, were intensely religious. One of the first things they seemed to feel was that they were “beholden” to God for life itself and all the riches of family life in a land so rich with blessings, challenges and potential.
Once that basic sense of gratitude is established we can, as they did, turn to individuals who have meant something special in our lives. Our initial step in this direction is to remember what our parents did without on our behalf. We appreciate the goodness of favorite school teachers, aunts, uncles, cousins, relatives of all sorts - a whole “tree” full of them. And,from time-to -time outsiders, almost total strangers, have influenced our lives, particularly in relation to our career potential.
I have added a new member in my group of people to whom I am “beholden” in my declining years. One never gets too old to do so,I have found. I am most grateful to at young lady who is a Heart Surgeon at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, who headed up a team of skilled and dedicated fellow doctors and technicians who provided me with additional years of living.
Moments after being unloaded from the “Pegasus” helicopter which brought me in, I felt the soft touch of her hands across the affected area where my abdominal aorta was on the verge of bursting. At that moment when her fingers touched me, I knew I had found the right person - among all people - who could bring me through it all. I was even more convinced later on when I had an honest, factual talk with her. She told me, very plainly what had to be done and what my chances were. I knew I was right where I was supposed to be at that moment in my life. That ls been several years ago, and I am more than ever beholden to that amazing team of doctors and to Dr. Nancy Harthun, in particular. She fashioned for me a new abdominal aorta out of,I understand, Dacron(R) material and, aside from being a bit pot-bellied on my port side I have been doing very well.
To help keep myself out of mischief, I started this daily TOPIC column on the Internet. And, thus it is that I am now “beholden” to each and every one of you who have helped me feel it has been a successful venture.
Thank you.
A.L.M. December 28,2003 [c647wds]
Sunday, December 28, 2003
JUNQUE
Don't count on it!
Just because a thing has been constant for many years does not mean it is going to be here tomorrow.
Quality is not the main thing in many cases, no is deception forbidden.
Entire categories of foodstuffs which used to be marketed by the pound or by the dozen are now available in same-sized packages or larger of eight or ten units. The price remains the same or is actually higher.
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y Never pull your car into the empty full-service bay at your local gas station and say “Fill 'er Up!” as you once did so casually and with confidence and pride, With gas in the present low range or $1.35 per, you will find trusted nostalgia a bit too readily.
Some people I understand, actually they read the nutritional charts on the packages of food they buy. What they mean to say is that they read one once while waiting for their toast to burn. Some of those charts have tiny footnotes below which explain why the carton is a bit less than full. They blame it on gravity. The box was full when they packaged it. They never explain how fluid containers on the next shelf and never subject o such natural shrinkage. Apparently it does occur because if you place a light behind a plastic or translucent glass container will often appear that he fluid level is somewhat below the plug than up there where it ought to be. They are legally correct, if course, but you bought the bottle which was a full inch higher than the puny thing beside it... You get a bigger bottle, box or carton, but the same amount of product.
The nutritional charts are flexible, as well. That fact has recently been dramatized effectively by the TV commercial for one bowl of cereal preparation which is contrasted to many bowls of competitive brands of like products and the number of bowls needed to equal their product in some, specifically named ingredient found in the competing product in a smaller amount.
Have you noticed how magazines have been downsized.? We used read big,, floppy, center-stapled issues of “The Saturday Evening Post” or “Life” which could be folded over and read in columns. No-more. They all look alike on the kiosk and other than the gallery of over models, they all bear all bear a price tag of around $2.00 or more per copy.
Nutritional charts are not printed on newspaper and magazine enrichments we get today. Check the actual reading material and compare it to the whole sections of Classified Ads, unclassified ads and just plain ads and if you find more than twenty percent reading materials you are lucky. The very first thing I do when I get a new magazine is to tear out all the cardboard inserts so the pages stay put when I turn them. In one popular home magazine this month,. I removed thirty-two such cards and heavy-paper inserts..
The concert of changed quality applies to so much of living today. Things are not what they used to be at all, and you cannot find anything which remains the the same..
And - in spite of my critical tone - I am not opposed to such modifications as they constantly evolve/ Such changes are indicative of growth and improvement. That's the only way we can stay above the level of generational debris. We will know we are near the end when all new homes are constructed solely of attics, basements, two-car, car-less garages, extra storage buildings in the back yard and paid-up membership cards to several nearby storage cubicle installations.
If you think everything is being sold on e-bay, think again! They have made but a small dent in the American treasure trove. They have merely made it movable - shifting it about - from one part of the country to another.
A.L.M. December 27, 2003 [c665wds]
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