By John Ballard
This post is strictly recreational reading. Anyone looking for heavy, important stuff should move on to whatever is next on your list.By John Ballard
If more Congressional interns and staff would tear themselves away from legislative mouseprint long enough to read another language (scientific research, for example) health care reform would be more effective and less costly at the same time. It's a stretch, but I keep hoping.
By John Ballard
Some might think it's inappropriate for a non-Jew to talk about Hanukkah, but I've been doing it for years. I consider myself an honorary Jew because during my high school years in Columbus, Georgia all the Jewish families sent their kids to the same high school where I [...]
By John Ballard
Fred Clark observes...That new book, Surviving Against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia, happens to have been written by Dr. Ann Dunham, the late mother of President Barack Obama. And that means if you're Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Steele or John Boehner, then [...]
By John Ballard
UNNATURAL CAUSES is the acclaimed documentary series broadcast by PBS and now used by thousands of organizations around the country to tackle the root causes of our alarming socio-economic and racial inequities in health.
The four-hour series crisscrosses the nation uncovering startling new findings that suggest there [...]
By John Ballard .
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If you want to see Chuck Kramer himself doing this piece, here is another link that I couldn't embed. [Windows Media Player]
' [...]By John Ballard
Radio blogging here.
NPR ran a story Monday about Real ID, a form of national identification I had never heard of, despite the fact that legislation was introduced in 2005 mandating that states get their acts together to meet federal requirements for identification.
Less than four weeks from now, [...]
By John Ballard
As a student I hated history. It is filled with stories and dates that no longer make any difference. Or so I thought. But as I got older I came into contact with people for whom history was more important than the present. In fact, it was history [...]
By John Ballard
His name will be synonymous with health care reform. Dr. Gawande may have influenced more thinking than any other individual. In this latest piece he compares changing the way we do medicine with the way America changed the way we do agriculture.
What [...]
By John Ballard
I'm learning to monitor tweets while doing my morning surfing. This can be distracting, especially when themes intersect in delightful ways.
Steve points to a great piece in the Guardian explaining how special interests advance the claims of climate change deniers.
..."members of the public feel more'" [...]By John Ballard
Color this post dry but important.
I would like to point to something new and sexy but health care reform, despite the histrionics, is basically a boring repetition of already known facts in the hope that reform efforts will eventually reach critical mass and those in authority will enact [...]
By John Ballard
Lest we get warm and fuzzy about America's success in Iraq, a look at Iraq Today is a head-snapping corrective. Mounting casualties and security incidents in the Afghanistan Adventure are also being tracked here. I keep a link to the site but find it depressing so I [...]
By John Ballard
MD Whistleblower is a blogging doctor in Ohio. He started blogging in January and only averages one post a week, but he knows his stuff and writes about himself.
His candor is refreshing. I'm taking the whole post for your reading pleasure. I have a feeling this' [...]
By John Ballard
I've been busy this week with Christmas stuff and a variety of personal chores, and today I'm catching up with reading. Here's what I'm into...
Via The Arabist
Book Report, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders Short story of the title page A Spoiled Man The Swiss screw-up (and' [...]By John Ballard
Crof points to a post at the Virology Blog about this question.
The 1968 pandemic began with the emergence of a novel H3N2 influenza virus in Hong Kong in July 1968. First isolates... were obtained globally throughout the summer. The previous seasonal H2N2 strain was last isolated [...]
By John Ballard
Nouri Lumendifi prefers to be called Kal but I have a hard time making that adjustment because he first got my attention with a book report he posted at the age of seventeen that impressed me more than the book. That was only three and a half [...]
By John Ballard
Ian Welsh doesn't always carry a cell phone.Sprint Nextel provided law enforcement agencies with customer location data more than 8 million times between September 2008 and October 2009, according to a company manager who disclosed the statistic at a non-public interception and wiretapping conference in October.' [...]
By John Ballard
I wondered how long it would take. Or if it ever might.
In her early days Arianna Huffington was a poster child for the political right. Sullivan is by no means the first to make such a switch.
...there has to come a point at which a movement or [...]
By John Ballard
My other post sank like a rock. Not surprising since the subject was abstruse and my hypothesis far-fetched. The odds are small, but if anyone reading this should follow through and read the same material, I would appreciate feedback. That Atlantic article and the post [...]
While I'm doing homework, readers are invited to check out this video and reflect on whether it may have political implications.
Yesterday I watched the Fox network long enough to see their reporting of the growing Teabagger phenomenon. With the influence and prestige of a major' [...]
By John Ballard
Before he got famous for his superior journalism revealing The Family at C Street, Jeff Sharlet, together with Peter Manseau, founded Killing The Buddha, another of my favorite reads. That was the source of this offering which is appropriate for Thanksgiving, especially for anyone of a [...]
By John Ballard
Crof tweets a link to a Canadian study validating a usually ignored common sense conclusion.
The study and numbers may be Canadian, but there is no reason to imagine similar results anywhere in the world.
Only 51.2 per cent of Canadian men in the lowest income [...]
By John Ballard
Lou Dobbs is betraying his base, backpeddling on past statements, in an appearance on Telemundo.
He's trying hard to stuff a big pile of poop back into an elephant, or as the Wall Street Journal said "reaching out to Latinos with politics in mind."
The comments' [...]
By John Ballard
Via Bernard Avishai.Sometimes tourists show up at Jerusalem's mental health centers, convinced that a voice from the heavens told them they were the messiah. The illness, commonly known as Jerusalem Syndrome, usually passes once they have left the city. However, Israelis, mostly public figures, have been afflicted' [...]
By John Ballard
Health Information Technology is to wasted revenue what tapeworms are to nutrition.
If waste is part of the revenue stream, then reducing waste reduces revenue.
Most people would reply "So what?" until they realize that reduced revenue leads to reduced profits, especially if you are selling something that is [...]
By John Ballard
Let us turn our attention away from the turkeys in Washington to those in the grocery stores.
Thanksgiving Day is nigh.
Purists may want to consider a real turkey this year instead of what we have been taught to eat in recent years.
I've not had one, incidentally. They're [...]
By John Ballard
Frank Sharry is Founder and Executive Director of America's Voice. With the support of allies in the immigration reform community, he created the new organization in early 2008 to focus on communications and media as part of a renewed effort to win comprehensive immigration reform. Prior to heading America's Voice, Frank [...]
By John Ballard
Said before.What a golden opportunity has been missed to educate Americans about the implications of their health care choices. Otis W. Brawley, the chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, in an op-ed in today's Washington Post condemning the USPSTF guidelines, confirms [...]
By John Ballard
This is too long to tweet and too short to blog, but too good to miss.
Tom Watson riffs on the Palin phenomenon.
Journalistic poetry.
...Newsweek went with the full Joan on its cover this week, fronting essays by Evan Thomas and Christopher Hitchens, pieces that are also accompanied by [...]
By John Ballard
This quote speaks for itself.
For a fuller view go to the link.
Hospitals have no incentives to prevent unnecessary hospitalization. Physicians, paid mostly by fee-for-service, have every incentive to order more tests and procedures. Neither is rewarded directly for making – or keeping – patients healthy. Key to [...]
