Category: Health
My last juggling performance with my brother was 15 years ago
The 20th Knoxville Kuumba Festival begins tonight at 5pm. The last time my brother and I did a juggling performance on stage was at Kuumba Festival roughly 15 years ago (I may be off a year more or less). I was wounded at the time with a splinted finger so much of the performance for me was done with one hand. They had a camera crew but didn’t start filming until the end of our performance. So if it’s truly been 15 years, does this mean my brother and I need a reunion tour? Or do we have to wait another 5 years?
On Healthcare Reform
Why doesn’t everyone have health insurance? Shouldn’t we make a law like the one that requires car owners to carry car insurance? Seems simple enough right? I have health insurance therefore everyone must have it. Those 50 million people without it are just bums unwilling to pay their premiums or welfare abusers who won’t get a job right?
If only it were that simple. Take Jen for instance. She has a job with an employer who offers health coverage. That employer happens to be a hospital but Jen is still uninsured. Why? Because pre-existing conditions cause her to be uninsurable (possibly NSFW). That’s criminal.
Please get involved! Talk to your representatives. Look at options such as Standing with Dr. Dean. (I’ll update here with other options as they appear in comments below or I find them)
My family is trying to kill me
I have a challenge ahead of me that is keeping me on the computer night and day. Last night at midnight I decided to rest a couple of hours then try to work through the night but it would take all night to get those couple of hours:
- midnight: I close my eyes.
- 12:15am: Evan comes into the room and asks for yogurt.
- 12:15am-2:30am: The rumbling of the thunderstorm keeps me tossing an turning. Exhausted but unable to rest.
- 3am: I realize the thunder is actually my daughter trying to put together a desk in the room above us.
- 4am: Dog asks to go outside. I brush her off as neurotic.
- 5am: I concede she’s not neurotic and take her for a walk. She really needed to go out.
- 5am-8am: Score some sleep!
I’m in print!
Some of my digital words seem to have leaked into today’s newspaper! Go to Knoxnews and read Teach cell phones, don’t ban them. Comments are open on Knoxnews or commentary can be added at the School Matters website.
Google Study Tips for Students
Chasing that early bird
I like to get up early. I accomplish a lot and the sound of near silence plus chirping birds is very appealing to me. However, I don’t do it often anymore. I’ve become a 6am riser although today I scored 5am. I went to bed at midnight and almost rose from bed at 2am. But almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
US could insure everyone by reducing bureaucracy
By adopting Canada’s system of administration, the cost savings would allow all uninsured people in the United States to have medical care.
USA wastes more on health care bureaucracy than it would cost to provide health care to all of the uninsured … Administrative expenses will consume at least $399.4 billion out of total health expenditures of $1,660.5 billion in 2003. Streamlining administrative overhead to Canadian levels would save approximately $286.0 billion in 2003, $6,940 for each of the 41.2 million Americans who were uninsured as of 2001. This is substantially more than would be needed to provide full insurance coverage. [Source, Medical News TODAY]
The benefit to the single payer plan is the reduced overhead and associated costs of managing the health care system. France has issues but it may be a better model for the US health care system.
The American health care model, [Houston native Jennifer Hua] says, is too expensive and too insecure. France offers her family good medical treatment, better insurance, more convenience and no worries about how to pay medical bills if her husband’s job changes.
French model encourages people to put health ahead of economic anxiety.
As America seeks a better way to provide medical care, France offers an example of a system where everyone has government-provided, basic health insurance – citizens and immigrants alike. Expenses for such chronic illnesses as cancer, diabetes and multiple sclerosis are covered entirely by the state so patients can focus on treatment rather than financial ruin.
[Source, Dallas News, Is French health system a model for U.S.?]
I personally think I’d live longer and contribute more to our society if I wasn’t constantly worrying about how I will be able to pay for my family’s health care. The worry makes me more ill than anything else.
Juggling for the Elementary School
I had a great day of juggling this morning. Since Clown Day was canceled, the school invited me to participate in their Field Day event so I had an opportunity to juggle for each of the 1st grade classes which mean 20 or so students each time (about 20 minutes) for about 5 classes. The juggling went pretty well without too many horrid mistakes. Amy even did the hand game in which she stands with both feet in one of my hands and balances above my head.
The finish to the day was a bit of bummer. The principal had okay’d juggling fire out of the baseball field but nix’d it when I went home to have lunch. I returned and the teachers had gathered the students but I had nothing to show them. I’d run through most of my tricks, gags, and jokes between the classes. With all the students gathered together outside I really didn’t have anything they had not already seen. So I pulled out the diabolo and tried to reproduce the Clement Hall days. See, in college I juggle a lot. I mean an absurd amount of juggling. And I was fit, toned, and on my game. I once threw a diabolo higher than 8 stories and caught it on a string. I know this because a friend who lived on the 8th floor said he kept seeing this thing fly past his window and he looked down to see me in the court yard catching it. Today wasn’t so good. It went high but got missed several times. Anxious to give them a little more, I pulled out the crystal balls. I never perform with the crystal balls because my contact juggling is super sloppy and when trying to juggling 5 crystal balls I tend to scatter them more than catch them. And that’s what happened today. So the close act was rubber chickens. I must do better next year. The laser light juggling spectacular will be ready ready READY! Moral of the story? Quit while you’re ahead. When they canceled fire I should have said we were done for the day. But like Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a true artist has to always go for the next level.
Now my swing shift Tuesday begins. Between now and midnight I’m programming with one break for an errand around dinner.
But playing with fire is so fun!
Internet has ruined nudity!
The human form, particularly the female form, is beautiful! All shapes sizes colors. It doesn’t matter. They hang in our art galleries, appear in photographic journals, hang on the walls of our homes (most fun thing to say at a friend’s house “so, is that your wife?” answer “yes”), are used in advertisement, sculptures, and so many other places. Nudity is art. I think religion was first to try to ruin the human body. Granted, some Pagan religions actually celebrate nudity. But the Internet succeeded where religion failed. How? Religion made it taboo and that raises curiosity actually making the forbidden object/fruit/alcohol/drug more desirable. The Internet threw it in our faces making it meh.
When I was a child to understand the human body, you had to sneak a peek at your friend’s father’s 2 or 3 adult magazines (if you could find them), or squint your eyes at the fuzz on the scrambled Playboy channel (how do you think The Magic Eye pictures
What brought me here today? A leg cramp. Last night my left calf spasmed nearly bringing tears to my eyes. I sat up in bed and grabbed my leg pressing my palm hard against the muscle. I tried stretching the muscle and relaxing the muscle, pointing the toes down and up, and it laughed in my face and wriggled beneath my palm as if infested with a thousand alien worms. I needed water and a banana. This seemed to go on forever and deemed a post. I sought a picture to accompany the post by Googling calf muscle. Clicked a link (NSFW). And uttered these words aloud: Oh, I like the bridge! Apparently, I now see dolphins again.
Swine Flu Started by an American Company
That dirty pig farm in Mexico which is the suspected source of the swine flu…it’s 50% owned by the American company Smithfield.
A lot of pig shit is one thing; a lot of highly toxic pig shit is another. The excrement of Smithfield hogs is hardly even pig shit: On a continuum of pollutants, it is probably closer to radioactive waste than to organic manure. The reason it is so toxic is Smithfield’s efficiency. The company produces 6 billion pounds of packaged pork each year. That’s a remarkable achievement, a prolificacy unimagined only two decades ago, and the only way to do it is to raise pigs in astonishing, unprecedented concentrations. [Source, RollingStone, Boss Hog ]
New Swine Flu Cases
A visual inspection of the swine flu map reveals that last night another suspected case was added to North Carolina (closer to the TN border! Here it comes), 6 suspected cases were added to South Carolina, 5 confirmed cases were added to New Jersey (a neighbor is traveling in NJ right now…will he bring it to TN?). Michigan adds a suspected case along with its confirmed case.
Just for the count, New York City has 7 suspected cases and 7 confirmed.
Swine Flu Cases in North Carolina
According to the H1N1 Swine Flu Map, 4 suspected cases of swine flu have come to North Carolina. That’s a little too close to home. I cannot tell what is happening up in New York City; just too many cases to determine if more have been added just by looking at the map. Same with Austin/San Antonio. Two confirmed cases have definitely been added to Sacramento. I haven’t been watching the rest of the world to tell what is happening beyond the borders.
New Swine Flu Cases
According to the Swine Flu map, Michigan has a confirmed case. It has also moved to northern California.
