Peony Moss: April 2007 Archives

Libertarianism

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From Mark Stricherz's comments on the Virginia Tech horror:

"Libertarianism offers nothing to those who suffer from severe mental illness. It is the political philosophy of entrepreneurs, sexual liberationists, artists, and the wealthy."

Via the Daily Eudemon: Wal-Mart to open 400 in-store clinics.

I am not crazy about Wal-Mart, but this could be a really good idea, particularly if the clinics are open extended hours. One of the factors driving up health care costs is the high number of patients going to emergency rooms for matters that are urgent but not life-threatening: ear infections, bladder infections, stuff like that. They do this because they can't afford to take off work to visit the doctor or because they can't get in to see the doctor at all.

I ran into this the other day. My husband's out of town on business, so it's just me and Hambet this week. I'd had the flu last weekend and had thought I was on the mend, but then I woke up in the wee hours of the morning with severe pain in my left ear.

I called my doctor early the next morning. (By that time I was having difficulty hearing and my right ear was starting to fill up as well.) It was 7:10 and I had to leave soon to drop Hambet off at school and then go to work.

Well, the office told me I couldn't be seen until 2:30. "But all I need is someone to look in my ear...." "Sorry, can't see you until 2:30." Problem was, 2:30 was when I needed to be leaving to pick Hambet up at school. And even if I'd managed to find someone who could pick him up for me, that meant that I probably wouldn't be able to start antibiotics until 3:30 at the very earliest. With my eardrums feeling like they were about to pop, I really wanted to be seen sooner than that.

So I said no thanks and decided to go to an urgent care center -- a "doc in the box" type place. But after I dropped off Hambet, I reconsidered. "Doc in the box" wouldn't open for another hour -- and was half an hour's drive in the wrong direction. The emergency room was five minutes away. So I decided to try the E.R.

I was optimistic when I walked in -- the waiting room was empty -- but right after I signed in the paramedics brought in three vomiting old ladies. I ended up waiting almost three hours before I was seen, but I was still able to start the antibiotics that much earlier. As I was being discharged, I remarked to the nurse that I felt silly coming to the E.R. for a mere ear infection, but the urgent care center was so far away, and so on.... "Oh, don't worry about it," she said. "They would have sent you here anyway."

And for all my impatience, I had the luxury of taking half a day off work to try to get seen right away. I was also doing better than when I had an ear infection a couple of years ago. My doctor couldn't see me for two days, I didn't want to mess with the E.R., my ear was killing me, and I ended up doing the Bad Thing and mooching a leftover bottle of unexpired amoxicillin from a friend.

That was before I'd found out about Minute Clinics. When we were living in Maryland, a couple of pharmacies near us had opened "Minute Clinics" -- drop-in clinics with extended hours (and fixed prices) for treating limited conditions (ear infections, sore throats, etc.) We'd gone there for flu shots before and that would have been a good option in this situation. But alas, no Minute Clinics in Virginia as yet. I wonder if Wal-Mart clinics would be along the same line.

piling on

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Well, I guess I would lose my already endangered blogger cred if I didn't say something about Don Imus. So here it is: Good riddance.

Now, what about his enablers -- the guests, sponsors, and networks that kept him and his foul mouth on the air all these years? Really, they're like a bunch of kids who egg on the class clown but play dumb when he gets caught and leave him to take the punishment alone.

Imus wasn't born yesterday (unless by "yesterday" you mean "sometime during the Holocene Epoch") . He wouldn't have been filling up airtime with that kind of trash if he thought he'd get in trouble for it. The networks were paying him to be coarse and vulgar. So he did coarse and vulgar, and was paid big bucks to push people's buttons, and he happen to push the wrong button during a slow news week and now he's been hung out to dry.

"We are shocked -- shocked! -- that he would say such a thing!" If anyone should be apologizing to the Rutgers team, it should be CBS and MSNBC, for putting Imus on the air and giving him the idea that it would be remotely okay to say such a thing. (Followed by the record execs who are getting rich off the filthy rap music that puts slurs like that out there.)

People who don't use words like that don't have to apologize for them. Our society had boundaries and rules for a reason. But when you're always trying to "push boundaries" and "be edgy" it's only a matter of time before you fall over the cliff.

awesome

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I'm terza rima, and I talk and smile.
Where others lock their rhymes and thoughts away
I let mine out, and chatter all the while.

I'm rarely on my own - a wasted day
Is any day that's spent without a friend,
With nothing much to do or hear or say.

I like to be with people, and depend
On company for being entertained;
Which seems a good solution, in the end.
What Poetry Form Are You?

Which is the perfect lead in to this:

Ask DNA

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Di Fattura Caslinga: Pansy's Etsy Shop
The Sleepy Mommy Shoppe: Stuff we Like
(Disclaimer: We aren't being compensated to like this stuff.
Any loose change in referral fees goes to the Feed Pansy's Ravenous Teens Fund.)


Pansy and Peony: The Two Sleepy Mommies



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