Hot Air

I never took the global warming debate very seriously, so I did not follow it all that closely. I do, however, remember some general turning points. Back in the 90’s, the Clinton Administration signed onto the Kyoto accords, an international treaty which declared with astonishing certainty that (1) the general temperature of the earth’s atmosphere is on the rise and (2) the cause of this is human activity such as burning of fossil fuels and the greenhouse effect therefrom. The Kyoto accord was an agreement by the signatory nations to somehow limit this activity in an attempt to halt or reverse the effect. The accord also extended exemptions to “developing” nations and imposed most of the heavy lifting on the United States.

Taking it in the Rear – Part II

In my attempts thus far to provide anecdotal support for the case against government run health care, I have talked about my generally positive experience with the U.S. healthcare system. Of course the other side of the coin is all the negatives of socialized medicine in places like England and Canada where people have to wait months for surgeries, interventions, treatments and even medical tests which we take for granted in the USA. The results, such as significantly lower survival rates for cancer and other serious illnesses, are well documented.

Of course, the amount of time I have spent in England or Canada can be expressed in terms of hours, so I have not had the pleasure of personal exposure to their public health systems. Italy is another matter, though I am reticent to criticize the beloved homeland of my fathers. Indeed, there are some good things I can say about Italian health care. They have some excellent medical schools. They have also conducted some decent research which has resulted in medical innovations. I remember last year translating some Italian articles for a friend of a friend who was almost fatally injured in a roadway accident in Salerno, Italy. The article discussed the excellent care he received from Italian orthopedic surgeon Antonino Valente, and the innovative techniques used to bring about an incredibly speedy recovery, which was acknowledged in congratulatory letters from the U.S. Consul and from U.S. doctors who provided follow-up treatment. And in the interest of full disclosure, I must mention my father’s positive experience with a back operation in Rome (for which he did not pay a dime because he was also an Italian citizen), shortly after having had a less-than-positive outcome months earlier at the University of Maryland Medical Center.

Based on the above information relayed to me by others, I suppose there are some things to boast about Italian medical care, but my personal experience tells me that it leaves much to be desired. I have personally visited relatives at Italian hospitals and found a barracks-like atmosphere, with three and four beds to a room. Very often, patients’ families have to bring toilet paper, soap and other personal hygiene items that are routinely supplied by U.S. hospitals.

Taking it in the Rear – Part I

As evidenced by my last two posts, health care has been on my mind as of late, as it is indeed on many people’s minds. I can approach the issue from a philosophical standpoint and provide reasons why I believe the free market and competition have given us the best health care on the planet (despite its flaws), and why the last thing we need is more government involvement, which inevitably invites inefficiency and abuse, as well as the mediocrity and poor service that are inherent in a one-size-fits-all government operation.

But I also have plenty of anecdotal reasons to buttress my philosophical position, as to why the free market works and the public option does not. What follows is one of the few negative experiences I have had with the private system, but in the end it turned out okay. I posted this story last December at a blog called “Down with Absolutes”, where I served as one of the few conservative voices amidst a sea of lefties.

Nationalized Health Care? Say What?

I have thankfully spent precious little time as a patient in a hospital. I got my tonsils out when I was six years old, and I don’t remember much from the experience other than being in a good bit of pain the morning after the operation. The discomfort was immediately mitigated by getting to eat all the ice cream and Jell-O I wanted.

Other than that, I don’t think I was ever admitted to a hospital until I was forty-nine. That winter, I caught a nasty cold that seemed to stick around longer than usual and even developed into an ear infection, or so I thought. It got to the point where I had difficulty hearing in my right ear, but being the stubborn and clueless male that I am, I ignored it for a couple of months before Susan persuaded me to see an Ear, Nose and Throat Specialist.

On my first visit, the ENT took out a handy little suction hose and pulled out what seemed to be a crusty buildup that had accumulated on my ear drum. When this seemed to provide little or no benefit, he administered an audiogram, which confirmed a hearing loss in the right ear. He then ordered up a multitude of tests, most of which I can’t remember, but there were several tests for meniere's disease. lyme disease or other maladies which might have damaged my cochlear nerves. Already suspecting that this was the case, he put me on steroids in hopes of either stopping or reversing the damage. At the same time, he also ordered up an MRI of the brain, mentioning that in certain very rare instances, such hearing losses are caused by something called a vestibular schwannoma (also known as an acoustic neuroma), which is a tumor wrapped around the auditory nerve between the ear and the brain. The ENT reassured me that such tumors are extremely rare and he highly doubted I had one, but he felt compelled to order the MRI just in case. Long story short, I got a call from the ENT a few days later, asking me to come back into his office and advising that I no longer needed to take the steroids. The MRI was positive.

The Weather and People's Health

-- Mrs. Eynsford-Hill: I do hope we won’t have any unseasonable cold spells; they bring on so much influenza. And the whole of our family is susceptible to it.

-- Eliza Doolittle: My Aunt died of influenza, or so they said. But it’s my belief they done the old woman in.

After thoroughly training Eliza Doolittle in culture, refinement and speech, Henry Higgins was ready to test her ability to maneuver in high society without betraying her humble upbringing and Cockney accent. As a safeguard, he had one proviso: “She's to keep to two subjects: the weather and everybody's health.” These memorable lines from My Fair Lady have perhaps contributed to the almost proverbial notion that “the weather and people’s health” are the last polite and safe topics for conversation, as opposed to, for instance, religion and politics.

Alas, as Eliza discovered, I am not sure either topic is safe anymore. This day and age, even an innocent comment about a delightfully mild winter might provoke a diatribe about global warming, caused by the evils of corporations and the American way of life, which are responsible for excess emissions of carbon dioxide--that newest of pollutants that also happens to be what we exhale.

And speaking of exhaling, people’s health is no longer a safe topic either, as it has the potential to devolve into a debate about doctors, health insurance and national health care. I have known this for a while, but it was brought home to me recently on Facebook. It all started last week when my niece posted the following:

No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.

Great Food Away from the Tourist Traps

I have heard it said that it is hard to get a bad meal in Italy. Indeed, any establishment that tried to serve one would not be in business for very long. Even the Autogrill’s (the fast food establishments along the major highways) offer some reasonably priced fare that could easily pass for something authentic in a stateside Little Italy restaurant. But as for traditional sit-down restaurants, the real trick in Italy is to find a place that not only serves delicious fare but does so at a reasonable price. The best ones are usually the smaller, family-run affairs, off the beaten path and away from the tourist traps.

Susan and I found one such gem on our ascent up Mt. Etna. Just beyond Taormina off of highway A-18 from Messina to Catania, about 10 kilometers up from the Fiumefreddo exit and toll plaza, the winding road takes you through the small town of Linguaglossa. Just beyond the town, the road resumes its hairpinning ascent through vineyards and olive groves that cling to the Etnean foothills. If you aren’t paying attention, you might miss a small sign that says “Trattoria Le Sciare”.

Miserere: A Sinner’s Prayer Set to Contemporary Music

The sinner’s prayer is as old as Christianity itself. It can be as simple as the lines in the parable told by Jesus in the 18th chapter of Luke, where He commended a despised tax collector for uttering the simple words: “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” A variation of the prayer has been repeated since the dawn of the Church every Sunday in liturgical masses, be they in Latin or in the vernacular:

If spoken in sincerity from the heart, such a prayer is indeed salvific. Of course, the danger of its repetition Sunday after Sunday is that it easily becomes formulaic and loses its meaning, even though the “Miserere”, as this portion of the liturgy has come to be known, is unsurpassed in its simplicity, beauty and truth.

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world, have mercy on us.

And yet the prayer has a way of taking on a life of its own, even breaking forth into contemporary pop culture and music, which otherwise seldom makes room for the sacred. An example is the song Miserere, composed by Italian artist Zucchero Fornaciari (known simply as “Zucchero”), with alternate English lyrics written by U2’s Bono.

There's a Ford in my Future

I have never purchased a new car in my life. My first car was a 1975 Fiat 128, which my brother Nick acquired for next to nothing because it had a blown engine, and he worked his mechanical magic, dropping in a new engine and otherwise refurbishing it for his kid brother. Since then, my vehicular history has been as follows:

• 1977 Fiat 131 Brava, purchased from my brother
• 1980 Fiat 131 Brava, SW, purchased from my brother (Are we sensing a pattern here?)
• 1981 Toyota Corolla, purchased from one of my brother’s customers
• 1983 Mercury Grand Marquis, “purchased” from my parents (very reasonable price)
• 1988 Dodge Caravan, purchased from one of my brother’s customers
• 1989 Ford Ranger, purchased from a total stranger (I was getting brave!)
• 1992 Pontiac Transport, actually purchased from my parents at near market value
• 1991 Mercury Grand Marquis, “purchased” from my parents
• 2000 Dodge Caravan, actually purchased from my parents at near market value

The closest I have come to owning a new vehicle was a 2005 Ford Taurus purchased used with very low mileage from CarMax (but since totaled), followed by a 2006 Taurus also from Carmax.

The 2006 Taurus and the 2000 Caravan are now sitting in my driveway, but it looks like the latter is on its way out. And for the first time in my life, I am thinking of actually buying a new car, despite the fact that new cars depreciate significantly in value the moment you drive them off the lot. So why the change? Let me go into a little history, some from last century, and some more recent. It’s a little convoluted, and not all of it has to do with cars, but bear with me.

Baia di Puolo: Another Golden Find off of Italy's Beaten Path

Five years ago, Susan and I celebrated our twenty-fifth anniversary in style. It was the first time she and I got to go to Italy sans enfants, thoroughly enjoying a glorious three weeks together in which we cruised up and down the Italian boot in a rented Peugeot 307 (Okay, maybe we could have done without the French car, but I must admit it was fun to drive). We started north of Milan on the picturesque Lago Maggiore, one of the lakes that straddle the Italian-Swiss border, and spent our first week southbound, stopping in Venice, Rimini, San Marino, Assisi and the Amalfi coast before spending a week in Sicily and another week northbound through Pompeii, Rome, Florence and Genoa.

Every stop, including the places we had been to before, had a new and interesting discovery, but the one that stands out in my mind was on the Amalfi Coast. In fact I had never been there before and—like most first timers who drive the narrow roads that hug the mountainside hundreds of feet above the crystal clear waters of the Tyrhennian Sea, my mouth hung open in amazement at the breathtaking panorama. But I’m getting ahead of myself, because our adventure started well before we reached the Amalfi Coast.

The Musings of a Happily Married Man

Thirty years ago today Susan and I exchanged vows at Ebenezer United Methodist Church, just outside of Rising Sun Maryland. It was a sweltering hot day with 200+ people packed in a small country church with no air conditioning. There was no sacristy or side room for the groom to hide in, so there I was standing in front of the whole congregation, for some reason trying not to make eye contact with anyone as I awaited the bride. As Susan walked up the aisle, she was obviously more nervous than I was. Her hands were shaking so badly that I thought the petals on her bouquet were going to start dropping.

We had somewhat of an ecumenical service, officiated by the Rev. Lloyd Foard, a family friend and former minister of Susan’s home church, and Father Douglas Dempster, a Roman Catholic priest and personal friend. Between the two of them, we probably had received a total of one hour of pre-marital counseling. I don’t fault either of them for it, because it’s not like we exactly sought their advice. Looking back now, I think if we had approached the pastors of our current church, Solid Rock Church, and said we wanted to get married, they would have lovingly and wisely asked us to reconsider. We were both much too selfish and immature and had no clue what we were getting into. Scratch that sentence. I was too selfish and immature and had no clue what I was getting into.