Harvesting items, newsworthy or not

 
Yesterday Mom was scheduled for eye surgery. A few months ago she went to the ophthalmologist for an exam, because she thought her glasses were no longer the correct prescription. After the usual round of checks, the doctor discovered the real cause of the problem: a cataract in one eye. After another round of tests to confirm the diagnosis, she decided to have an intra-ocular lens implant done. This is an outpatient procedure nowadays, so off we went, bright and early (7:00 am for an 8:30 appointment; Honolulu�s traffic is no better than any other city in the country) Thursday morning.

We arrived at the hospital downtown a half-hour early. The physician�s assistant took measurements, conducted a standard eye exam with the chart, and generally exuded a calming presence. Then it was off to the general admissions office for the usual �what insurance do you have� round of questions. From there we headed up to the Surgery Admissions Center. As I was pushing the wheelchair towards the check-in desk there, I noticed something; there was a hospital chapel located directly outside the doors to the Admissions office. This seemed ominous; however, we rolled on.

The nurses accepted my Mom as the duly registered patient they were expecting, and sent me off to wait/worry elsewhere. Surgery was scheduled for 11:30 am, and a completion time (through recovery) was set for 2:00 pm. Well, Murphy�s Law makes no exceptions for hospitals; the surgeon was late getting started, and the pick-up time was pushed back to 4:00 pm. Great. Not only did we have to fight rush-hour traffic in the morning to get to the hospital, now we were going to fight the same battle on the way home. This hassle is going to be compounded by a passenger who will a) have a bandaged eye, b) be in increasing pain as the anesthetic wears off, and c) be hungry, since fasting was required before the procedure.

The procedure went well. We got home in a reasonable time, and the patient was fed. The prescribed painkiller was Tylenol, which didn�t kick in very quickly, but� The balance of the evening was taken up with me reading all the ladies� figure skating scores from the TV screen, since the pain was too great to keep her eyes open for that long.

Postscript: Friday morning most of the pain was gone. We returned to the doctor�s office (same time, same traffic) for post-op checkup. The doctor admired his handiwork and was pleased. He gave the patient several varieties of eyedrops, warned her against dentists too soon, as the mouth stretching might have an effect on the implant, and sent her home. The dental appointment deferral saves me from a cleaning for another month, too; who am I to object? The patient is doing well; she puts the drops in, meditates for 3-4 minutes with eyes closed, and then picks up the newspaper as though nothing unusual had happened recently. All in all, it has been a pretty satisfactory experience so far.
posted by Link Meister at 4:50 PM

 
If this is accurate (and maybe the author has an axe to grind), one of the finest landscapes in the Southwest is being destroyed by Bush, Cheney, and their cronies in the oil bidness. If we just have more faith however, I'm sure no permanent harm will be done (there's quite a discussion of this particular item over here). In yet another sign of White House arrogance, try this on for size: "In addition, the White House indicated that if it failed in its defense against the GAO lawsuit, it would seek to have the statute empowering the GAO declared unconstitutional -- an action that, if successful, would sharply curtail the legislative branch's oversight of the executive branch."

Moosie and Ruminator, take heed! Don't fret, notions fanciers, there's good news for you. Perhaps you could make CD sleeves with this new royalties scheme proposed for Internet music. And hey, Batgrl, heard any woodpeckers out there in your woods amidst the coyotes? Faith, have you and Boris been out to hear your new neighbors? More critter news: kidnaping dominant males may prove to be helpful in saving endangered species. And you think you've got stress? Try living under 16 atmospheres of pressure! That might be about the amount of pressure Mom and I felt yesterday when she went in for cataract surgery. More on that later.
posted by Link Meister at 4:05 PM

 
Here's a little more analysis of the copyright case now before the Supreme Court. More privacy news: customer thumbprinting may be coming soon to a supermarket or McDonald's near you. Unrelated to privacy, but still electronic: how about an artifical nose, not for transplantation, but for industrial use? How about a special MTV channel piped into dorm rooms? Part of the marketing pitch--"another reason to cut class." Oh, great.

"...humans are closer to zombies than sentient beings much of the time." Your honor, I object! This one has puzzled me ever since I took my first anti-inflammatory drug; how the hell does the drug know where to go to fight the inflammation? I have a gout attack in a big toe, and somehow the indomethacin pill finds it and reduces it. Why? In other drug news, green tea at Zero-G? The Japanese plan a small tea-room in their part of the Int'l. Space Station.

Today's political tomfoolery:

"I worry about a regime that is closed, and not transparent." That was George W. Bush, speaking of North Korea in a speech at the DMZ today. Umm...sir? About your Executive Order not to release former Presidents' papers? Your Attorney General's order to agencies not to cooperate any more than necessary with FOIA requests? This is transparency? Can you spell hypocrisy? Well, no, probably not, based on past performances with nuclear and subliminal. The worst of it is, in my view, he and his handlers don't even recognize these statements as hypocritical. Ah, democracy.
posted by Link Meister at 5:20 PM

 
"So what's next? Support tax cuts or we'll break your legs?" That's a comment regarding Hastert, Armey et. al. holding unemployment benefits hostage to the passage of their stimulus bill. When the bromide "Politics is the art of compromise" was passed around, these guys had ideological cotton in their ears. In another case, however, ideology seems to be in conflict; one of conservatism's basic tenets (as practiced by the Republican Party) was to keep government "off people's back." Yet one of the goals of the new HHS Undersecretary for Children and Families is to "promote marriage." Apparently these folks see no dichotomy here, not even the Heritage Foundation, normally a bastion of conservative rhetoric. More dichotomy: EPA and DOE are apparently in a low-grade war over the rules governing the Clean Air Act. And Howard Kurtz has a wonderful suggestion in the first section of his column: MTV-style "pop-up videos" detailing contributions to, and pork distributed by, Congresspeople when they rail in committee about some aspect of policy they abhor. In the judicial branch, the Supreme Court will hear a copyright case which could keep current law at 70 years or, alternatively, reduce it.

Here's a concept: charge your client/customer according to how much of a jerk he is. Maybe the phone companies should be relocated at sea level or below; nah, let's just go have a beer. And with that beer, maybe I'll have a biotech cigarette. Hey, no nicotine! In other news of personal interest, I've got a marginally bad back; a new disk implant procedure might augment fusion as an option.
posted by Link Meister at 5:25 PM

 
Any ally in the privacy-protection war is welcome: "When your government, employer,...gang up to picture, digitize and permanently record your every activity, you are placed under unprecedented control." In somewhat related news, a major proponent of "sunshine" government, John Gardner, has died. In digital privacy news, the record labels still seem to be playing by rules which don't benefit the artists much, if at all. Speaking of questionable ethics, politicians who claim the high ground in the stem cell wars seem to have few scruples about misusing research findings for their own ends. We also see other researchers being "advised" not to disseminate their results broadly, in the name of security. And lookie here! The UK is apparently trying to do the same thing!

Ok, enough viewing with alarm...how about some frivolity? This may never replace Tigger (see below), but it's a novel idea. Would you trust a Tamagotchi to remind you to take your pills? Help you regain motion after a debilitating stroke? Or play drums in your band? I'm not sure this was covered by Mr. Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. And finally, pass the bran, please; better mental health through fibrous lunch!

Today's Enron news: Ralph Reed, formerly of the Christian Coalition, allegedly offered to sell his influence with his former colleagues to foster Op/Ed columns, talk show topics, and endorsement letters targeted at various Congressional leaders. Innocuous enough, except that Reed was a consultant to Bush's 2000 campaign at the time. Ethics and conflicts of interest are as subjective as figure skating judges' votes, it appears.
posted by Link Meister at 4:35 PM

 
I've mentioned the beastie often enough; time she had a moment in the spotlight. Herewith Tigger the spoilt, glaring menacingly (or maybe disdainfully; kinda "Whaddya you want?" expression, don't you think?). If this photo were to be believed, she's a very surly sort. Nothing could be further from the truth. She is my four-legged alarm clock (had I known that, I'd have named her Tick-Tock, after the alligator in Peter Pan), and was once a Christmas present to my father, about eight months before he passed away. She was originally named "Cocoa," I suppose due to her coloring, but within an hour of her arrival we'd changed the name to Tigger, because she bounces. If you believe the behavior, she's mostly pointer, but the Westminster folks don't necessarily agree. When we first got her, we were very worried about her right foreleg, because she kept holding it up in the air while looking at things; little did we know! She displays all the characteristics of the true German Short-haired pointer, in spades. She is a ferocious barker, but the moment that stranger walks in the door, he/she is Tigger's new best friend. We've had her nine years now; virtually every day she does something which makes us laugh out loud.
posted by Link Meister at 5:49 PM