Category: Politics, Religion & Money

Made for Each Other

“Clarence and Ginni Thomas: Politics, Power and the Supreme Court” is scary enough without Frontline’s ominous music bed.

What Clarence and Ginni have in common is anger and resentment. Having failed to resolve their lifelong internal conflicts, they cling to the certainty of an intolerant faith that is anything but Christian in its outlook. They’ll take everything they can get while hating the world and everyone in it including, it seems, themselves.

The Hearst Follies – 2

As Howard Hughes would do later, William Randolph Hearst bought his way into the movie business. One of Hearst’s productions was Gabriel Over the White House. Walter Huston, who played a bank president in American Madness before the election of FDR, is promoted by Hearst to dictatorial President.

While watching Gabriel Over the White House, I wished that eye-catching Jean Parker had been given more screen time, as the daughter of a labor leader.

Part 3 will be about the woman who caught Hearst’s eye years before Gabriel, his mistress and protégé, Marion Davies.

Gunslinger Nation

I was going to compose a long, carefully thought-out essay on the recent wave of mass shootings. Screw it, why bother? I’ll just borrow a couple of videos from reputable news outlets.

Love the dress, Nora!

I’ll make a prediction. The Second Amendment will be repealed. Not in my lifetime, certainly, but eventually. The extreme interpretation by the Supreme Court, ironically from its “originalist” members, effectively removed “A well regulated Militia” from the amendment, making its repeal inevitable.

DO vs MD in WV

The PBS News Hour wraps up its series on the crisis in rural healthcare. The problem is two-fold, with both of them resulting from a lack of funding.

First, many hospitals have closed and, second, with a nationwide shortage of primary care physicians, very few are working at the remaining rural facilities. You will note the report is mostly about Doctors of Osteopathy stepping in where there aren’t enough Medical Doctors.

Chiropractic and Acupuncture have no scientific basis. People who use those services are, in my opinion, wasting their money and/or the money of insurance carriers that have been pressured into covering the treatments.

The holistic approach of Osteopathy includes chiropractic treatment. Which, in my view, has all the validity of astrology compared to astronomy. The “treating the person not the disease” concept is, in my opinion, junk science. Focusing on the importance of diet, exercise, and sleep is my idea of holistic medicine.

Making a person feel they’re being heard works when their problem is emotional, not medical. Without getting into any detail, I saw this for myself with my late father when taking him to an appointment with a DO at a pain clinic.

Despite my unshakable doubts about Osteopathic medicine, DO’s deserve credit and support for providing services in regions where there aren’t enough MD’s. I also think the role of nurse practitioners — RN’s who become NP’s — as primary care providers should be encouraged.