Recently I have followed  a few of NPR’s interviews with their staffer Barbara Bradley Hagerty concerning her new book Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirtuality.  Based on the interviews and the reviews, I plan to read the book in the very near futur… Read full post »

 Ross Douthat

In the May 26 edition of the New York Times, the Times’ conservative editorialist Ross Douthat briefly summarizes a new study indicating that the happiness of women has declined relative to men over the past 30 years.  Significantly, this decline cut/… Read full post »

During the past 30 years, cigarettes have been regulated because of the demonstrated detrimental relationship between their use and public health.  Not everyone who smokes dies at an early age or suffers smoking related diseases, but enough do to allow the public to feel tha/… Read full post »

Designator has a recent post about Salon’s financial status.  Two things are very important to note in his post:

• As of September 30, 2008, Salon had an accumulated deficit of $98.2 million.
• Salon also derives a significant portion of its revenues from its Salon
… Read full post »

It was the fall of 1967.  I was almost 16, anxiously awaiting my next birthday so I could get my drivers’ license.  My two friends were in the front seat of the large Buick station wagon and I was sitting in the back, alone.  Jeff, the driver, was/… Read full post »

It was Saturday night.  The woman was trying to engage Dr. F in a discussion about her mother, the patient in ICU 2.  It was the middle of the night.  Dr. F was alternately at the computer writing orders and attending to a very sick patient who had been/… Read full post »

The Trials of Ted Haggard is currently being broadcast on HBO.  The movie is a 45 minute documentary by Alexandra Pelosi who previously directed Friends of God.  It is certainly worth watching if one is interested in following the fate of a former fundamentalist Christian supe/… Read full post »

Kestrawling has written a very thought provoking post (http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=86051) that I felt I had to respond to with my own post concerning the depiction of cruelty and violence in movies, art, and literature.

I don’t enjoy watching movies that depict t… Read full post »

Bob Herbert has a superb editorial in the New York Times today (12/23/08) defending the efforts of teachers' and auto workers' unions to adapt to the economic crisis.  Check it out at : http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/opinion/23herbert.html?ei=5070 . Read full post »

One thing I feel that the Obama administration should do concerning national energy policy is increase the tax on gasoline to the point that the price at the pump never goes below $3.50 a gallon.  This would do several things:

1. It would make gasoline less competitive than other for/
… Read full post »

It was the start of the last of my usual three twelve hour weekend shifts that I work during the night in a medium sized ICU.  I had just taken report on a middle aged male who had had a blockage removed from the arteries of his heart the previous/… Read full post »

I work three nights a week, twelve hour shifts, on weekends.  The workload is such that I am often able to peruse OS off and on over the middle part of the shift.  I can assure you, though, that I don't do this on the nights I am off.  Then I… Read full post »

Sarah Palin attacked Joe Biden during the recent vice presidental debate for Biden saying that paying higher taxes is patriotic.  She went on to say that for her, her husband, and the middle class, that was not patriotic.  She and her running mate, John McCain, have championed variations of/… Read full post »

     Read full post »