31
December
2006
Just a quickie in the spirit of the season.
After 5 years both of our toilets are leaking. We had a big earthquake recently, but I don’t blame it on that. The Toto’s, model Augusta, and have worked well until now. But there is a continuous small leak of water from the tank into the bowl, big enough so you can hear it, but not big enough to jump in and call a plumber.
I’m suspecting the toilet flap since that’s the only hole from the tank into the bowl, and since it seems as if the flap is pulled too far back. That is, its circle isn’t concentric with the opening hole.
We bought the toilets from a big store called Familian Northwest. Well, Familian Northwest no longer exists here, though the store is still there, now run by “Ferguson, a Woolsey Company.” So I’m disassembling the toilet mechanism (the entry value seems to be acting weird too), so I’m grabbing the seals parts and head down to Ferguson to get some spares. It’s just a toilet, right?
Entring the supplies side (not the showroom) of the business. A young vendor is behind the counter. A plumber is nearby.
Vendor: “Oh, I don’t like what I’m seeing.”
I’m explaining what he’s seeing in my bag of parts.
Vendor: “The thing is, we don’t really support Toto anymore.”
Me: “I called yesterday to make sure you still carry Toto.”
Vendor: Well, yes we do, we just don’t service it.”
Me: “Is there anybody on the island that still services Toto toilets.”
At this point the plumber steps in. He’s a wiry guy, blond, thin, below should hair, neon-yellow T-shirt.
Plumber: “Just a moment.”
He bends his head down and then yanks his head up and like a heavy-metal rocker swings his hair to behind his head, then
Plumber: “Baaaa ha ha ha ha haaaaaa!”
The vendor is amused. I’m now.
Me: “So can I still get parts?”
Vendor: “Well, they’re all special order, we need to air freight them in.”
Now I’m thinking, this is a toilet flap, a rubber part, why does that need to be flown in, and flown in by airmail at that (and air freighting to Hawaii will cost $30)?
Me “But this is not a Toto part?”
Vendor (taking a close look at it): “Looks like one to me.”
Frick. The inside valve mechanism isn’t by Toto, it’s made in the US someplace. Why would the rubber flap be made by Toto?
Me: “Thank you very much.”
and off I go.
Two roads away is Home Depot. They carry various Toilet Flappers made by Korky. One is a 1.6 gallon low flush flapper. It seems to look very similar, in fact the pivot point is a little further back, so it might actually be more concentric than the existing one. It costs $5.
I bring it home. We install it. It seals. We’re done.
Now I don’t know if the Ferguson guy was just stupid, or just pulling my leg, but would it have killed him to give me some advice, or just tell me “the flappers are all the same, you can pick one up at the supermarket?”
Well, eventually it will kill him not to give me the advice, because given that treatment I can’t go back there.
So earlier I had an article about a councilman trying to protect small businesses from the big box stores (see here). With service like that you have to wonder why? I don’t mind spending a little more for a little service. But without that service I would be stupid to continue supporting them.
Posted: social/culture, local
31
December
2006
It must be the season of medical experimentation. I just wrote an article (here) on medical side effects. Here is another followup pointing in the same direction.
Article 1) is a little pessimistic and talks about the fact that the medicine people take for chronic heartburn being prevents calcium intake and thus leads to weaker bones. Oops. And clinical trials did not consider that a possibility?
Article 2) is more optimistic and mentions that children may be able to overcome food allergies through training.
Not the easiest field to worry about:
(Originals found here and here.)
Popular heartburn drugs linked to hip fractures
By CARLA K. JOHNSON
Associated Press
CHICAGO - Taking such popular heartburn drugs as Nexium, Prevacid or Prilosec for a year or more can raise the risk of a broken hip markedly in people over 50, a large study in Britain found.
The study raises questions about the safety of some of the most widely used and heavily promoted prescription drugs on the market, taken by millions of people.
Researchers speculated that when the drugs reduce acid in the stomach, they also make it more difficult for the body to absorb bone-building calcium. This can lead to weaker bones and fractures.
Hip fractures in the elderly often lead to life-threatening complications. As a result, doctors should make sure patients have good reason to stay on heartburn drugs long term, said study co-author Dr. Yu-Xiao Yang of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
“The general perception is they are relatively harmless,” Yang said. “They often are used without a clear or justified indication for the treatment.”
Some people find relief from heartburn with over-the-counter antacids such as Tums, Rolaids and Maalox. But for others, those medicines do not work well. Moreover, heartburn can be more than a source of discomfort. People with chronic heartburn can develop painful ulcers in the esophagus, and in rare cases, some can end up with damage that can lead to esophageal cancer.
Dr. Sandra Dial of McGill University in Montreal, who was not involved in the study but has done similar research, said patients should discuss the risks and benefits with their doctors and taper off their use of these medicines if they can.
Nexium, Prevacid and Prilosec are members of a class of drugs known as proton pump inhibitors. The study found a similar but smaller risk of hip fractures for another class of acid-fighting drugs called H2 blockers. Those drugs include Tagamet and Pepcid.
The study, published in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at medical records of more than 145,000 patients in England, where a large electronic database of records is available for research. The average age of the patients was 77.
The patients who used proton pump inhibitors for more than a year had a 44 percent higher risk of hip fracture than nonusers. The longer the patients took the drugs, the higher their risk.
The biggest risk was seen in people who took high doses of the drugs for more than a year. That group had a 2 1/2 times greater risk of hip fractures than nonusers.
Yang said that for every 1,262 elderly patients treated with the drugs for more than a year, there would be one additional hip fracture a year attributable to the drugs. For every 336 elderly patients treated for more than a year with high doses, there would be one extra hip fracture a year attributable to the drugs.
our paper left out this portion
Dr. Doug Levine of AstraZeneca PLC, which makes Nexium and Prilosec, said the study does not prove that proton pump inhibitors cause hip fractures. It merely suggests a potential association, he said. Doctors need to monitor their patients for proper dosage and watch how long they take the drugs, Levine said.
Julia Ellwanger, a spokeswoman for TAP Pharmaceutical Products Inc., which markets Prevacid, said proton pump inhibitors’ safety has been well-established by rigorous studies, and the new study does not prove or disprove a connection to hip fractures.
Dr. Alan Buchman of Northwestern University, who was not involved in the research, said the study should not change medical practice, since doctors already should be monitoring the bone density of elderly people taking the drugs and recommending calcium-rich diets to all patients.
“Most people are not taking enough calcium to start with,” he said. He also wondered if a similar result would have been found in a sunny climate, because vitamin D from sunshine helps with calcium absorption.
Also, Buchman said it not known whether the acid-fighting drugs prevent esophageal cancer. He said the risk of esophageal cancer has been exaggerated in the marketing of these drugs.
“I think the risk has been overplayed and scared the community,” Buchman said.
Heartburn medicines are heavily advertised in “Ask your doctor about …” commercials in this country, particularly during the evening news.
Nexium is the third-biggest selling drug in the world, behind the cholesterol medicine Lipitor and blood thinner Plavix, with global sales totaling $5.7 billion last year, according to IMS Health, which tracks drug sales.
Yang and his co-authors disclosed in the paper that they have worked as consultants and received speaking fees from companies making acid-fighting drugs. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the American Gastroenterological Association/GlaxoSmithKline Glaxo Institute for Digestive Health.
Men in the study had a higher drug-associated risk of hip fracture than women, possibly because women may be more aware of osteoporosis and may get more calcium in their diets, Yang said. He plans more research on whether calcium-rich diets or calcium supplements can prevent the problem.
and second article at:
Study: Overcoming allergies possible
By LAURAN NEERGAARD
AP Medical Writer
Mon Dec 25, 6:02 PM ET
Elizabeth White’s first encounter with peanuts - a nibble of a peanut butter cracker at age 14 months - left the toddler gasping for breath. Within minutes, her airways were swelling shut.
A mere fifth of a peanut was enough to trigger an allergic reaction.
So it was with trepidation that her parents enrolled Elizabeth, at 4 1/2, in a groundbreaking experiment: Could eating tiny amounts of the very foods that endanger them eventually train children’s bodies to overcome severe food allergies?
It just may work, suggest preliminary results from a handful of youngsters allergic to peanuts or eggs - and who, after two years of treatment, seem protected enough that an accidental bite of the forbidden foods is no longer a huge threat.
“We’re so lucky,” says Carrie White, Elizabeth’s mother.
Now 7, Elizabeth can safely tolerate the equivalent of seven peanuts. For the first time, the Raleigh, N.C., girl is allowed to go on playdates and to birthday parties without her parents first teaching the chaperones to use an EpiPen, a shot of epinephrine that can reverse a life-threatening reaction.
“Our whole worry level is really gone.”
Don’t try this experiment on your own, warns lead researcher Dr. A. Wesley Burks of Duke University Medical Center. Children in the study are closely monitored for the real risk of life-threatening reactions.
But if the work pans out - and larger studies are beginning - it would be a major advance in the quest to at least reduce severe food allergies that trigger 30,000 emergency-room visits and kill 150 people a year.
“I really think in five years there’s going to be a treatment available for kids with food allergy,” says Burks.
Millions of Americans suffer some degree of food allergy, including 1.5 million with peanut allergy, considered the most dangerous type. Even a whiff of the legume is enough to trigger a reaction in some patients.
Moreover, food allergies appear to be on the rise. Peanut allergy in particular is thought to have doubled among young children over the past decade, prompting schools to set up peanut-free cafeteria zones or ban peanut-containing products.
There’s no way to avoid a reaction other than avoiding the food, something the new research aims to change.
Allergies to pollen and other environmental triggers often are treated with shots called immunotherapy. A series of injections containing small amounts of the allergen builds up patients’ tolerance, reducing or even eliminating symptoms in many people.
Shots proved too dangerous for food allergy. So Burks and colleagues at Duke and the University of Arkansas developed an oral immunotherapy.
Here’s how it worked: First, youngsters spent a day at the Duke hospital swallowing minuscule but increasing doses of either an egg powder or a defatted peanut flour, depending on their allergy. They started at 1/3,000th of a peanut or about 1/1,000th of an egg, increasing the amount until the child broke out in hives or had some other reaction.
Then the children were sent home with a daily dose just under that reactive amount. Every two weeks, the kids returned for a small dose increase until they reached the equivalent of a tenth of an egg or one peanut - a maintenance dose that they swallowed daily.
After two years, four of the seven youngsters in the egg pilot study could eat two scrambled eggs with no problem, and two more ate about as much before symptoms began, researchers report in the January edition of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
In the peanut pilot study, yet to be published, six of the children challenged so far could tolerate 15 peanuts, Burks says; Elizabeth’s limit was seven.
“We thought it would make some difference. We’re surprised about the amount of difference it made,” says Burks. “From one peanut to 15 peanuts is basically a huge difference.”
But will it last? These youngsters still take their daily maintenance dose, which Elizabeth’s mother nicknamed “peanut medicine” so as not to confuse a child taught to avoid peanut products. No one knows if the protection will last if they stop that daily dose, notes Dr. Marshall Plaut of the National Institutes of Health, which has a Food Allergy Research Consortium that’s closely tracking Burks’ work.
The next step: Burks’ team is beginning larger studies that randomly assign youngsters to take either dummy powders or the egg- or peanut-containing ones, seeking better evidence for the treatment.
He’s also giving patients like Elizabeth larger doses, to try to increase their resistance to the allergens. Blood tests signal promise: People who tolerate higher doses in turn have lower blood levels of a compound called immunoglobulin-E that’s key to immune cells’ overreaction to allergens.
“Inducing tolerance is an attractive approach,” says NIH’s Plaut. But, “you don’t go into this kind of a study lightly” because of the risks.
“It’s not something we’re ready for everybody to do yet,” stressed Burks.
EDITOR’S NOTE - Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.
Posted: health
31
December
2006
This was a weird article to pop up on our local paper, a basic rundown on how capitalsim is supposed to address inequality. This is rather dense for a newspaper article.
Turns out from the original that there is a whole series of articles on addressing inequality found here at the Washington Post. I may print the other ones for reading offline.
But here is the summary on the effects of capitalism.
(Original found here.)
Just Capitalism
Not all attacks on business are crazy. Here is the sane version.
Friday, December 22, 2006; Page A32
THIS SERIES has described ways to address inequality: Increase tax progressivity; invest more in education; reform health care. But there’s pressure to reach beyond that: to tackle inequality where it apparently originates, meaning the workplace. This pressure can be dangerous. Companies are not instruments of social policy; their first duty is to make money by serving customers, and they can provide for their workers only so long as they do that. Nevertheless, two sorts of corporate reform are warranted. It should be easier for labor unions to organize. And it should be harder for top executives to pay themselves outlandish sums.
Union membership has fallen from 20 percent of the workforce in 1980 to 13 percent in 2005, and part of this decline is inevitable. It reflects attrition in the manufacturing industries that are most easily organized. It reflects the rise of sophisticated human resource departments that provide workers with training, savings plans and grievance procedures — usurping some of unions’ traditional functions. And it reflects the deregulation of domestic industries such as trucking and airlines, plus tougher foreign competition. These forces spur businesses to innovate, but they also constrain their ability to make wage concessions to unions. In competitive markets, companies will pay workers what it takes to prevent them from being lured away by rivals — and not more.
Yet the decline of organized labor also reflects a legal climate that is neither inevitable nor desirable. The way labor law is enforced now, employers can block attempts to establish unions by intimidating workers; a supervisor can summon an employee to daily meetings to discuss the dangers of unions or ban discussion of a union during work hours. If these tactics are not enough, employers can fire union organizers; although this is supposed to be illegal, the penalties are too feeble to serve as a deterrent. Meanwhile, a series of decisions from the National Labor Relations Board has narrowed the definition of workers who are eligible for union membership. Two months ago, for example, the three board members appointed by President Bush outvoted the two appointed by President Bill Clinton in ruling that relatively junior workers can be defined as “supervisors,” thus restricting their right to join a union.
A fairer legal climate might reduce inequality slightly. According to David Card of the University of California at Berkeley, de-unionization explains about 15 percent of the increase in wage inequality among men over the past quarter-century. But the larger gain from reforming labor law would be political. Freedom of association is a core democratic right, and polls suggest that between 30 and 50 percent of nonunion workers would choose union representation if they had a chance to vote for it. The suppression of freedom of association is wrong in itself, and it fosters the suspicion that the rules of the economy are rigged against workers. Setting aside the debate over how much union membership can improve wages or benefits, the option of union membership is crucial to the legitimacy of capitalism.
The same goes for rules on executive compensation. Since 1970, the pay of chief executives has jumped from less than 30 times the average wage to almost 300 times that level. This helps explain why the richest 1 percent of Americans pocketed 21.6 percent of all the gains in national income between 1996 and 2001, according to Ian Dew-Becker of the National Bureau of Economic Research and Robert J. Gordon of Northwestern University. As with the decline of labor unions, some of the rise in executive compensation reflects market forces and is inevitable. Yet similar market forces are at work in other advanced nations, where executive pay has grown more modestly. In 2003, the ratio of U.S. chief executives’ pay to that of manufacturing workers was more than double the norm in 13 other rich countries.
This reflects the way that bosses’ pay is often set in the United States. Chief executives negotiate with a committee of board members whose independence is sometimes suspect, whose personal interests (particularly if they are CEOs of their own companies) may be served by rising executive-pay scales and who see little upside in risking a fight with the chief executive. In the absence of real discipline from compensation committees, CEOs can get away with pointing to the typical pay rate in their industry and asserting that they deserve a little more. The result is an inflationary spiral in executive compensation, unhinged from CEOs’ real contribution to firms’ performance.
What proportion of bosses’ pay should be regarded as excessive? In a paper published last year, Harvard’s Lucian Bebchuk and Cornell University’s Yaniv Grinstein take a careful look at this question. They begin by noting that executive pay was already raising eyebrows back in 1993 and that it has nonetheless grown mightily since then. Then they observe that sales and profits of top companies have risen, which would tend to cause the bosses’ pay to rise in tandem; and that an increasing share of the top companies are new-economy outfits, which tend to pay more. By analyzing the statistical relationship between executive pay and firms’ size, profits and product mix, Mr. Bebchuk and Mr. Grinstein calculated how much compensation could have been expected to rise between 1993 and 2003. Their result: In 2003 the top five executives at the average public company could have been expected to earn a collective $6 million — but they actually received almost twice that.
Overall, that means that the 1,500 companies studied “overpaid” a total of $8.7 billion in 2003 — and this number is an understatement because it leaves out executive pensions, which are thought to have grown especially dramatically. If corporate governance reforms reestablished discipline over executive compensation, that excessive pay might shrink a bit. Inequality would decline, though only slightly — the money would flow to shareholders, and more than three-quarters of all stocks are owned by the richest 10 percent of the population. But, as with labor law reform, the chief gain from corporate governance reform would be political. Executive overpayment running into the billions sends a terrible signal about the justice of the capitalist system.
Most critics of business are misguided. It is wrong to denounce managers who relocate factories to other countries or who fight to control wages; they are responding to market signals, as indeed they should. But when managers distort market forces by rigging the legal environment, that is a different matter. An entire industry of consultants exists to advise companies on how to avoid recognizing a union; a second industry of consultants exists to legitimize super-sized executive pay. Until this changes, the growing material inequality in the nation will be compounded by the corrosive perception that the rules are unequal, too.
Posted: social/culture
31
December
2006
So this is a strange article. The former leader of our County Council, a rather abrasive personality with aspirations to become mayor, is calling for an islandwide ban on supercenters.
This is weird because
- it’s counter-development from the person that kept shoving down development on the West side of the island (and “shove down” is the correct expression as he had a 5-4 majority, with 4+1 east, 4 west group voting consistently.
- I haven’t heard any plans of a supercenter being built on this island (in fact, we have two Walmarts already in the two population centers).
- we already have superstores (maybe not supercenters) like Walmart, KMart, Costco, Home Depot, Lowes and even broadly spread “super-stores” like Starbucks and Borders destroy local businesses (Middle Earth Books, HPM anyone?).
So how come?
- is it popular to be counter-development on something so benign, because it builds your credibility that you’re not entirely “pro-development”?
- is your support base (I’m assuming that means “local supermarkets”) asking for your help?
- are you still pursuing mayoral aspirations by appearing to be reasonable and innovative?
One funny thing is that there is currently only one company that would be affected by this and that’s Wal-Mart, and only because they would be offering groceries. So if Wal-Mart were to build 2 smaller stores, one with a supermarket, and one without, then this would not be an issue?
Why is government (actually why is the Councilman) getting involved with this “afterwards”?
(Original found here.)
Higa: Ban big-box retail
Hilo councilman calling for islandwide ban on ’supercenters’
by Jason Armstrong
Stephens Media
Thursday, December 28, 2006 8:26 AM HST
Hawaii County should outlaw certain big-box retail stores to protect small businesses, says one Hilo lawmaker.
County Councilman Stacy Higa is calling for an islandwide ban on retail and grocery store hybrids like the “supercenter” Wal-Mart is hoping to build on Kauai.
“The reason I brought that forward was to try to be consistent with Honolulu and Kauai, and I believe Maui is also looking at it, to kind of protect some of the local businesses,” Higa said Wednesday while traveling on the mainland. “Most of the supercenters that have started up on the mainland have pretty much destroyed a lot of the small businesses. So, again, the idea is just to keep the supercenters out.”
Higa would define a “superstore” as being larger than 90,000 square feet, including a supermarket section of more than 20,000 square feet, and with 25,000-plus different products available for sale.
The county’s Zoning Code allows stores of that size and style, provided the site is big enough and it’s zoned for large-scale commercial use, Deputy Planning Director Brad Kurokawa said.
Wal-Mart’s Hilo store and Costco’s Kailua-Kona store don’t meet that definition, so they could be duplicated elsewhere even if the ban passes. Also, home-improvement outlets would be unaffected because they don’t have companion grocery stores.
While Higa’s proposal does not single out any particular company, it would prohibit construction of a superstore in “any zoning district in the County of Hawaii.”
Still, Wal-Mart is the only company with the type of store configuration that would fall under the ban criteria, Wal-Mart spokesman Kevin McCall said.
“It’s basically the large grocery stores that are protecting their interests,” he said of people who supported bans elsewhere.
Noting Wal-Mart has donated thousands of dollars to benefit Hawaii communities, McCall said the world’s largest retailer wants to be a “good neighbor” and does studies to identify appropriate areas for its new stores. Wal-Mart’s $2,000 donation to the Police Department is now pending before the council.
“We take our role as a community member seriously,” McCall added. “We are focused on trying to bring the best value for our customers.”
But those value prices have a tendency to increase over time, Higa said.
He has introduced a resolution that, if approved, would direct the county’s planning director and Planning Commission to review his accompanying bill and provide recommendations within 120 days. The County Council’s Planning Committee is scheduled to review his resolution during its 2 p.m. meeting Wednesday in Hilo.
“The experience of communities across the United States has shown that development of ’superstores’ … results in tremendous adverse community impacts including traffic congestion, increased demand on government infrastructure, negative environmental consequences, and harmful, often fatal, impacts on small businesses,” states Higa’s resolution.
They also go against the county’s “smart-growth” policies of preserving quality of life, natural beauty and rural character of Hawaii Island, it adds.
The San Diego City Council thought the same way when its members voted 5-3 last month to prohibit the building of superstores within city limits. That ban, which took three years to craft and pass, applies to retail stores larger than 90,000 square feet and which generate 10 percent of their revenue from non-taxable items, which in California includes food, plants and medicines.
Last July, the California Supreme Court turned down Wal-Mart’s appeal of the state Court of Appeal’s decision to uphold a similar superstore ban that the city of Turlock, Calif., has implemented.
Asked if Wal-Mart would wage a legal challenge to a Hawaii County superstore ban, McCall said the company would look at its options.
“One-stop shopping is popular because people’s lives are busier,” he said of the hybrid stores.
The grocery section of the Hilo Wal-Mart store is only a few thousand square feet, McCall said, which is too small to meet the more than 25,000 square feet called for in the proposed law.
The store does exceed the other criteria with about 130,000 square feet of retail space and roughly 120,000 different products on the shelves, he said.
Costco also opposes the proposed ban, even though it has only about 4,000 different products at its Kailua-Kona store, said Bob Nelson, vice president of finance and investor relations.
“We are vehemently against (superstore bans) because we want to open warehouses,” he said. “We love the state of Hawaii. We do great business on all the islands.”
Council Chairman Pete Hoffmann of Kohala said he wants to hear what the public has to say about the proposed ban.
“At the moment, I really don’t have a firm position on how I would vote on that,” Hoffmann said Wednesday.
While the mega-retailers can impact small businesses, they also provide customers with lower prices and greater product selection, said Robert Williams, president-elect of the Hawaii Island Chamber of Commerce.
“Hopefully we won’t see this ban or moratorium go through,” Williams said. “My personal opinion is I’m opposed to it. I think it’s bad for consumers.”
Small businesses simply have to provide better customer service to compete with the retail giants, he said.
“I think the consumer should have options,” Williams said, adding a superstore ban would send the message of “no outside business.”
Posted: politics, local
31
December
2006
So here is an article of the state government being asked to help fix the medical situation on our island, where doctor’s are leaving, but nobody new is coming.
Now what happened to the market where magically over time the forces of capitalism will raise the whole boat? Even if you had money, you couldn’t get services, which is why my neighbor is running back to the mainland, after building his retirement home.
So the fix is … ta daaaa … government control. Wait, wait, wait that goes against everything we’re constantly being preached.
The best thing you can do for yourself is to be a turtle and just to not get sick. Don’t do anything you could break something. Don’t do anything risky. Don’t overdo anything. Just float along.
But just try.
(Original found here.)
Legislature called on to fix doctor shortage on the Big Island
by Nancy Cook Lauer
Stephens Capitol Bureau
Wednesday, December 27, 2006 8:27 AM HST
HONOLULU — Expect Hawaii’s doctor shortage to get a lot of attention in the state Legislature next year.
A task force lawmakers created to study the “physician on-call crisis” is recommending a professional analysis of the myriad reasons hospitals can’t retain on-call doctors for emergency rooms. But Gov. Linda Lingle, a Republican, says making it harder to sue doctors is an important first step.
“Medical malpractice insurance reform is going to be a huge issue this upcoming legislative session,” Lingle told reporters last week. “We can’t go on the way we are; hospitals will close because they can’t keep up with the expenses because of the increase in medical malpractice insurance doctors are not going to stay in the market because they cannot afford it any more because of the cost of insurance.”
Lingle said she hadn’t settled on what kind of reform is best — her legislative priorities are due to the Democrat-controlled Legislature on Jan. 22 — but she’s been reaching out to the insurance industry, plaintiff’s attorneys and physicians.
“And then after thinking it through, we’ll come up with what we feel is the right approach to medical malpractice reform,” Lingle said.
But Rep. Josh Green, himself an emergency room physician and chairman of the House Health Committee, thinks the focus should be broader than just medical malpractice insurance. Green, D-Kona, Keauhou, Honokohau, says adequate pay for doctors would go a long way toward resolving the on-call crisis.
“You can’t ask them to do that job and not pay them,” Green said. “The primary reason is there is a shortage of docs overall, so every doc has a bigger load.”
Green himself has been on call for 144 separate 24-hour shifts over the past year, in addition to his work in the Legislature. One month, he was on call for the entire month because there was no other doctor available to cover, he said.
Being on call means the doctor must be within a 15-minute drive of the hospital. In Kailua-Kona and other rural hospitals, that means staying at the hospital itself, Green said. Some doctors are paid a stipend for being on call; other doctors get paid only if they are actually called in.
The seriousness of the crisis and the shortage of doctors — especially specialists — on the Big Island was illustrated vividly last April when a Keauhou resident wrote a letter to the editor of West Hawaii Today praising Kona Community Hospital for finding an orthopedic physician for his wife after she was told she would have to wait almost a week to have her broken leg set because no doctors had openings until then.
The Physician On-Call Crisis Task Force, in its report to the Legislature, cites insufficient government reimbursements, high malpractice insurance and a shortage of specialists — especially on the neighbor islands — as the primary problems. Doctors working in emergency rooms think they are more likely to get sued because of the nature of the emergency and not knowing the patients’ medical history.
Government reimbursements through Medicaid and Medicare are running 15 percent to 25 percent lower than private-sector charges, the task force found. Total call-related costs for the 2005 fiscal year ran to $30.9 million, according to the Healthcare Association of Hawaii. The bulk of that — $22.9 million — was the cost of physicians, with only $8 million going to facilities.
But other factors play a role as well, the task force concluded.
Doctors in Hawaii tend to be older, and they may have moved to the state because of a lifestyle preference to relax more. Being on call is disruptive to that. Younger doctors who have borrowed heavily for their education, on the other hand, are more often attracted to states that pay better — and have a lower cost of living.
Insurance Commissioner J.P. Schmidt, chairman of the task force, said the task force did what it could, but he wants the Legislature to pay for a more in-depth study.
“To really get to the heart of it, we felt we needed a professional study,” Schmidt said. “The medical malpractice issue continually comes up, but it’s a problem with multiple facets.”
Certainly, medical malpractice insurance reform will play a role.
The Hawaii Health Systems Corporation will likely ask the Legislature to provide immunity to physicians performing Good Samaritan activities, said Vice President for Public Affairs Miles Takaaze. He said HHSC is also looking at call compensation for physicians as well as more on-call contracts.
The state House is considering some immunity for certain types of physicians in certain situations, said House Majority Leader Kirk Caldwell, D-Manoa, Manoa Valley.
Green said the House Health Committee has already taken some steps to earmark money from tobacco funds for a trauma special fund, which will provide for physicians as well as trauma care facilities. The fund, created last year, will start providing about $15 million a year for trauma care after two years, he said.
“If there is no other way to get the on-call care we need without the state paying for it, then I’ll have the state pay for it until we get a better solution,” Green vowed.
Posted: local, health
31
December
2006
Interesting article from a military “sister” explaining what her brother, who is in Iraq, is thinking about defending. It’s a good view from somebody on the inside that is not caught up in any patriotic rhetoric - well, actually it is, but this is a non-pre-digested-and-approved rhetoric, but somebody who is thinking about his actions.
Too bad the article is titled “The freedoms my brother is defending”, because this is really about our obligations in this situation. We send them to fight and perhaps get killed, but what we need to do on our end is …
Give us good wars to fight.
I’m not sure if there are any. But making that statement at least causes one to think about itand should one cause to think about the role each of us plays in any war. I notice that she wants us to honor her brother’s faith in the system, not the faith in the leadership. Defending the system can take many more paths than just unquestioned support of the leadership.
(Original found here.)
The Freedoms My Brother Is Defending
By Emily Miller
Tuesday, December 26, 2006; A25
Here is what my brother, a member of the Army National Guard, told me as he prepared to serve in Iraq this year:
The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is who controls the armed forces. Civilian command of the Army is a cornerstone of our democratic system.
My brother told me that he takes his oath to defend the Constitution seriously and that he will fight and die if necessary to honor his commitment. When I asked him if he would be offended if I participated in activities opposing the war, he replied that it was not only my right but my obligation, and the obligation of all civilians opposing this war, to try to change bad policy. “Give us good wars to fight,” he said.
While acknowledging that another possible moral option is to refuse to participate in a bad war, my brother chooses to place his oath to the Constitution and his belief in our democratic system at the pinnacle of his moral convictions. That some of us might differ with him is basically irrelevant — we (most of us) are not faced with his decision.
For the record, he believes that the war on terrorism is necessary to deal with real threats facing the United States. He is not convinced of what Iraq has to do with the matter, which puts him fairly well in the mainstream of American opinion.
So it is terribly upsetting to me to hear that some people despair that there is “no point” to their soldier’s death or wounding in the Iraq war. America does not have to be right in order for our soldiers’ service to have meaning.
What I find offensive is the idea that we have to “follow through” in order to give their deaths meaning post hoc. It is dreadfully apparent from the Iraq Study Group report that Iraq isn’t going to have a democracy in any meaningful time frame. Even if this administration does everything perfectly, the best-case scenario is that we might maintain the barest outlines of order.
Victory being out of the question at this point, the only democracy my brother is fighting for in Iraq is our democracy. The only constitution he is in Iraq fighting to defend is our Constitution. If my brother dies, it will not be for a mistake but rather because of his deeply held belief that the time it takes us as a people to figure out through democratic processes that we are wrong is more important than his own life.
This places upon us an obligation. My brother and other service members living and dead have given us the sacred responsibility to use the democratic means we have at hand to bring judgment to bear on whether any given war is worth our soldiers’ lives.
Despite the clear results in last month’s elections and the grim conclusions of the Iraq Study Group, we are still hearing intransigent rhetoric and seeing unrealistic posturing from some of our leaders. This is unacceptable.
It’s not too late for us to honor the almost 3,000 U.S. service members who have died defending the principles of our democracy. It is morally imperative for us to honor our living service members and to do what is demanded of us by our democracy and by common decency. We have taken a small step by changing some of our leadership in Washington, but now it is upon us to follow through at home and demand accountability from our leaders.
What are you, fellow citizens, willing to do to defend our Constitution? Will you dignify the sacrifices of our soldiers? Will you honor my brother’s faith in our system? Will you let my brother or others die to eke out a slightly smaller disaster in Iraq? These are the questions we face in the wake of the Baker-Hamilton report.
My brother is betting his life that you are not going to ask this of him. He has placed his trust in the idea that we will not ask him to die for anything less than the necessary defense of our democracy. Reasonable people may at one time have disagreed about the necessity of the Iraq war, but now that it has become abundantly clear from every quarter that we cannot win, will you be responsible for asking my brother to stay?
My family begs of you: Do not ask this of him. Do not ask this of us. My brother is doing his constitutional duty. Now it is time for us to do ours.
The writer is a member of Military Families Speak Out, an organization of more than 3,100 military families opposed to the war in Iraq.
Posted: social/culture, politics
31
December
2006
A short editorial pointing out what kind of people are running this country. Not sure if it’s better to ignore people like Rep. Goode, or whether it’s appropriate to point them out and keep an eye on them.
Yes, this is rather stupid, but there are people that voted for him, because they want that person to represent them. I hope he’s not representative of his constituents.
It’s somewhat weird that the representative worries about
an outbreak of elected Muslims in this country.
(Original found here)
A Bigot in Congress
One Muslim congressman is one too many for Virgil Goode.
Friday, December 22, 2006; A32
BIGOTRY COMES in various guises — some coded, some closeted, some colossally stupid. The bigotry displayed recently by Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr., a Republican who represents a patch of south-central Virginia, falls squarely in the third category. Mr. Goode, evidently in a state of xenophobic delirium, went on a semi-public tirade against the looming peril and corrupting threat posed by Muslim immigration to the United States. “I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America,” he wrote in a letter to constituents.
The inspiration for Mr. Goode’s rant is Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat who last month became the first Muslim elected to Congress. Mr. Ellison, who was born in Detroit and converted to Islam in college, has decided to use the Koran during a ceremonial swearing-in, as is his constitutional right. This does not sit well with Mr. Goode, who, obnoxiously referring to his congressional colleague-to-be as “the Muslim Representative from Minnesota,” warned ominously that current immigration policy would lead to an outbreak of elected Muslims in this country and unfettered use of the Koran.
Forget that Muslims represent a small fraction of immigrants to America. And leave aside the obvious point that Mr. Goode was evidently napping in class the day they taught the traditional American values of tolerance, diversity and religious freedom. This country’s history is rife with instances of uncivil, hateful and violent behavior toward newcomers, be they Jewish, Irish, Italian or plenty of others whose ethnicities did not jibe with some pinched view of what it means to be American. Mr. Goode’s dimwitted outburst of nativism is nothing new.
No, the real worry for the nation is that the rest of the world might take Mr. Goode seriously, interpreting his biased remarks about Muslims as proof that America really has embarked on a civilizational war against Islam. With 535 members, you’d think that Congress would welcome the presence of a single Muslim representative. Whether it can afford a lawmaker of Mr. Goode’s caliber is another question.
Posted: social/culture, politics
31
December
2006
How appropriate. An article looking at the economic impacts of Christmas gift giving and how it doesn’t make any sense, because there is an instant loss of value of $20 billion.
I just had a little rant on the whole season myself (see here).
There are more economic impacts you could consider (if you want to use economics as your yardstick). Saw that society was a machine that - to perform best - needed to run continuously at a set performance, because, you know, usually startups and shutdowns are a bad thing that will cause excessive wear on a machine.
So the fact that right now about 2/3rds of all people are on vacation, that people have been taking off for holidays (or say shopping), and the fact that since mid-November productivity drastically decreased across the board and does so every year, does not even get factored in. You just know that come Thanksgiving, forget about starting anything new till the holidays are over.
And it’s only getting more so. This may not be a bad thing, it just is. And it’s only going to get worse as global society becomes less diverse.
You have to like the conclusion though
But all of us - even economists - can enjoy the immeasurable happiness of the season.
Immeasurable? Hmmm, wouldn’t a social scientist be able to measure this with a survey? Wouldn’t the health care providers dealing with seasonally depressed people be able to measure this (or with the people getting beaten up looking for that one present)? Wouldn’t the amount of “sick days” in December be a measure of our happiness?
Ah bah humbug.
(Original here)
Really, you shouldn’t have
St. Louis Post Dispatch
12/29/2006
“Out upon merry Christmas. What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer. . . . If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.” - Ebenezer Scrooge
Mr. Scrooge was a “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner” who ran a counting house in Charles Dickens’ tale. Had he lived in the 21st century, Mr. Scrooge might have been an economist.
Viewed by the coldest of numbers crunchers, all the holiday frivolity - the tree decorating, the eggnog swilling and especially the gift giving - is mostly a waste of money or, to put it in econospeak, “a resource allocation disaster.”
Rather than buying each other home espresso makers and thermal underwear, we supposedly would do better, resource allocation-wise, by handing out envelopes stuffed with money.
Joel Waldfogel of the University of Pennsylvania became chief economic Grinch with a 1993 article for the American Economic Review cheerily titled “The Deadweight Loss of Christmas.” He surveyed students on how much they willingly would have paid for the gifts they received. It turned out to be a lot less than gift givers actually paid.
“On average, a dollar that people spend for themselves creates nearly 20 percent more satisfaction than a dollar that someone else spends on them,” Mr. Waldfogel wrote recently in Slate. “Put another - depressing - way, gift-giving effectively discards 20 percent of the gift’s price. So, of the nearly $100 billion spent on holiday gifts each year, one-fifth is effectively flushed down the toilet.”
There’s logic to that, as many a husband has learned the hard way after presenting his wife with a new vacuum cleaner. Gift buyers have to guess at someone else’s desires and often guess wrong.
The Waldfogel hypothesis seems to be winning converts. Sales of gift cards are up $6 billion to a total of $25 billion this year. A card is slightly more personal and slightly less crass than cash, and it gives the recipient a whole store full of stuff to choose from.
Professor Waldfogel is not the final word on holiday gift giving, of course. Other economists have challenged him, and, in any case, numbers can’t measure joy. The funny-looking tie becomes Dad’s favorite because his daughter bought it with her baby-sitting money. A wife values the ugly purple dress all the more because her fashion-challenged husband spent hours trying to pick it out. To parents, the delight of children on Christmas morning is worth more than the presents under the tree - as are the memories.
We’ll leave it to the economists to make dollars and sense out of our transactions. But all of us - even economists - can enjoy the immeasureable happiness of the season.
Posted: social/culture, personal finance
25
December
2006
Finally … the big omnibus posting. Today is Christmas. I don’t like Christmas. I used to, back when it was about something else.
But now, what is Christmas? Is it a religious holiday? Do you need to be a Christian to celebrate it? What does that mean when Menorahs quietly go up at airports because they’re supposed to balance the Christmas tree symbols, but then have to come down locally because the government can’t endorse religious symbols. The Christmas trees stay up, however, because they are really secular. Are Menorahs and Christmas trees the only acceptable symbols? Would we accept Muslim symbols up at Ramadan, or Buddhist symbols at Songkran?
And who is this Santa Claus? Besides the fact that, by design, he is Coca-Cola red and white, obese and obscenely happy? I used to celebrate 6. December as Saint Nicholas Day (and he was a real guy, and I imagined him skinny) and that the Nikolaus and the Weihnachtsmann used to be two different dudes. But that was my childhood belief. Nowadays we run into the situation of local kids making up local front-page stories about the local origin of Santa Claus. Yes, this is about Santa Claus and not Christmas, but is there a difference between the two?
Some churchgoers feel that Christmas should be a solemn time, in quiet churches, spent in reflection. A time when things slow down. But instead, I have a friend who’s going home for Christmas and all he wants to do is spend time with the family, drinking beer and sitting in front of the TV watching football. That’s all that Christmas is really about. It’s the great communal holiday, when people head “home,” which is usually anyplace but where they live. For people without families, this holiday can get mightily depressing.
Christmas is great. It’s the time when we all get to be nice to each other. It’s the only time of the year when we have to be nice to each other. We may hate each other for the rest of the year, but come December 25, we’re all getting together for a gigantic cultural group hug.
It is really a giant feast of peer pressure. It is the season of gift giving, and the shopping starts at the beginning of November. Some people get really stressed, fighting for that critical gift. In this season of peace and love (and according to a corporate christmas card “pro life”), it gets so aggressive that employees need to be coached in anger management. Stores take the hottest items off the shelves to avoid fights. One article below talks about a combustible environment in Macy’s.
But it’s all supposed to be cheery. I have some music of “Christmas Goes Brass” recorded outside the country. Trumpets can be very soothing. So I checked at a Music Subscription service for Christmas and Brass, and hidiho, there are pages of pages of brassy Christmas music. Great. Except, that they’re all the same 20 songs, over and over again (you know, Carol, Three Ships, Wenceslas, Holy Night). The exception being Vince Guaraldi and his Charlie Brown Christmas. But Christmas Songs here are supposed to put you into an energetic mind. Be happy, they say, it’s Christmas time. The shops build on that, play happy, happy, happy songs for weeks at a time, in order to get you to shop, shop, shop. I was in Costco Thursday night, and while it was busier than usual, it was eerily silent. People were walking about like zombies, drained from this season of giving.
Yesterday, I heard Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer” at home, and thought “oh, Christmas is finally over.”
Well not quite. Today is officially the gift giving day. Yes, everybody needs to give gifts. Why? Because we’re really thankful, or because we’re building this intricate network of “I rub your back, you rub mine.” Or perhaps “well, I just gotta. Everybody else is doing it.”
How do you respond when you get a crappy gift? Do you pay them back next time? Or, if you didn’t give them anything, but got something, do you have to pay them back next year? Who do you give gifts to, and who do you not? If you don’t believe in Christmas, do you give gifts to those that do? Or if you do believe in Christmas, do you give gifts to those that don’t? If the stress is too much to think of something for everybody on your long list, give the gift that’s a non-gift because it takes so little thought from you: a gift card with cash.
But then there are problems with those to, because you can give virtual gift cards. My manager gives me a card and in the card says “you should be getting an email from Amazon by tomorrow. If you don’t, let me know.” Well, I did not get the email. So now I have to inform him that I did not get my present and that he should get his house in order. I didn’t ask for the present, but now I need to correct his actions, so that he can give it to me anyways. I’m still not asking for it, but he needs to know. Awkward.
Christmas sucks.
What exactly is it after all, I mean, really?
OK, here are a couple of random articles that have been in the paper in the spirit of this season. Originals are found here and here and and here and here and here.)
Menorahs grace Hawaii airports beside Christmas trees
By Tara Godvin
Associated Press
Despite a dustup in Seattle over whether Christmas trees and menorahs have a place in that city’s airport, both were put up at airports throughout the islands without controversy.
“In light of everything that’s going on, we thought it was a good idea to approach the state … and see if we can put the menorahs up there. And we got a very, very favorable response,” said Rabbi Itchel Krasnjansky, director of Chabad of Hawaii.
The national Chabad organization has put up menorahs in public places throughout the country, including one in Waikiki, which Gov. Linda Lingle helped light last night to celebrate Hanukkah, the eight-day Jewish festival of lights.
Last week, maintenance staff restored 14 plastic trees to their places at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport after the trees had been removed because a rabbi threatened to sue over the lack of a menorah in the airport’s holiday display.
Airport managers believed that if they allowed an 8-foot-tall menorah as the rabbi requested, they would also have had to display symbols of other religions and cultures. On Monday, port officials learned that the rabbi’s organization would not file a lawsuit.
This year marks a first for menorahs in the common areas of Hawaii’s airports, said Krasnjansky and Scott Ishikawa, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, which has authority over the state’s airports.
“It’s a general holiday display. We’re not going to have one or the other stand out,” Ishikawa said.
Each Hawaii airport menorah is 6 feet tall, with one each on all the major islands except Oahu, where one is in the international terminal and another in the interisland terminal.
Ishikawa said the state has so far received no complaints from the public over the trees and menorahs.
Displays of faith aren’t uncommon in Hawaii, where sessions of the state Legislature’s House and Senate open with religious prayers.
And while the historic Kawaiahao Church in Honolulu is demurely decorated for the season with two wreaths on its front door and a simple, abstracted nativity scene in a side garden, across the street at Honolulu Hale is another whole story.
Massive effigies of Mr. and Mrs. Claus bathe their feet in a public fountain amid frolicking penguins. Next to them is a giant tree adorned with giant pieces of candy. And on the other side of the hall, a site set aside for charity groups features a nativity display by the Knights of Columbus urging everyone to “Keep Christ in Christmas” and a rainbow-colored display by Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays of Oahu declaring “All You Need is Love.”
“I’ve never seen a Christmas display like you have here,” said John Packer of Vancouver, Canada, who visited Honolulu Hale yesterday with his wife, Ellen.
Taking a rest on a city bench, the couple said people should rejoice in their cultural and religious differences and avoid conflicts over them.
“Give peace a chance … couldn’t hurt,” John Packer said.
then
How a boy named Nicholas became Santa
by Kim Eaton
West Hawaii Today
keaton@westhawaiitoday.com
Monday, December 18, 2006 8:42 AM HST
(as told by Mary Zuiderveen’s first-grade class -at Waikoloa Elementary School)
One snowy Christmas Eve many years ago, a baby boy was born to Thomas and Mary Nicholas. From the moment he drew his first breath, his parents knew there was something special about their child. He would represent hope and belief in children — he would be Santa Claus.
Born in a magical place, where a child’s greatest fantasy could become reality, Nicholas grew up in a home made entirely of candy. With 100 rooms and a large kitchen where his mother made hot cocoa every night, this North Pole residence rested in the middle of a large field, surrounded by hundreds of smaller cottages and the biggest toy factory ever built. The town also consisted of a mall and a post office; toy statues lined the peppermint-covered streets.
Nicholas’s childhood was not that different from most children — he attended school (taught by elves) and had chores (mostly consisting of reindeer duty). During free time, the children played football and hockey, and they had snowball fights and built snowmen.
While most students were deciding what they wanted to be when they grew up, that decision had been made for Nicholas, though it was not an easy job that awaited him. He had years of intense training before he was ready to take on the important role of the jolly old man himself.
Nicholas had to learn how to fly a sleigh and navigate with reindeer, utilizing Rudolph’s bright red nose. Using magic, he learned how to easily slide down chimneys, carrying a bulky bag of toys. Then by placing his finger on the side of his nose and giving a little nod, he flew right back up. However, that did not always work, and when he got in a sticky situation, his reindeer would have to give him a push with their antlers. During those times, he was most thankful for the extra padding that grew from the cookies and milk he constantly devoured.
For those homes without chimneys, the elves taught him how to get in and out of locked doors without waking anyone. But the most challenging of all his tasks was learning how to say “Ho, ho, ho,” just right — with the perfect amount of jolliness.
Despite his hectic training schedule, Nicholas still had time for a love life. Meeting his future wife in high school, it was love at first sight, and they married on Christmas Eve soon after high school graduation.
Settling down to begin their life together, the couple spent every year making toys for children worldwide. Nicholas would supervise the elves, check the naughty and nice list and read all the letters sent in by the children.
Mrs. Claus would spend her time in the kitchen baking cookies, making soup and other goodies for the elves, sewing, reading, watching television and helping Nicholas when he came home at the end of the day. She sometimes even rubbed his feet.
When the big night would arrive, Mrs. Claus sent Nicholas on his way with a kiss, and with Rudolph’s shiny nose leading the way, all the toys would be delivered in one magic evening.
For those boys and girls who had been naughty, a lump of coal would be placed in their stocking. But that rarely happened, for Nicholas gave the children many chances to be good.
To keep up his strength, Nicholas would snack on the cookies and milk left by children along his journey, making sure to take some home to Mrs. Claus and the elves.
Following a long and tiring, but successful night, Nicholas would bed down the reindeer, curl up next to Mrs. Claus and fall fast asleep. Once things settled down, and the surplus stock had been stored for next year, the couple would vacation to Hawaii, where they would ride bikes, take a sleigh ride to Mauna Kea and sun on the beach.
Then it would be back to the North Pole where preparations would be under way for next Christmas. After all, there’s much to be done and only 365 days to do it.
then
Somber services mark ‘Blue Christmas’
By KRISTEN GELINEAU, Associated Press Writer
Wed Dec 20, 2:25 PM ET
RICHMOND, Va. - There were no jolly Christmas carols at the Cannon Memorial Chapel. No brilliant poinsettias or festive branches of holly. No smiling faces or hearty wishes of happiness.
Instead, melancholy piano music echoed through the hushed church. Dead branches were lain on a table covered in blue cloth, representing the “winter of our souls.” Men and women held each other and cried.
“This is not a traditional Christmas service,” chaplain Kate O’Dwyer Randall said Tuesday, opening the University of Richmond’s nondenominational “Blue Christmas” service, which drew around 60 people.
Somber Blue Christmas services are being held at many churches around the country this year, in recognition of what psychologists have long known: that the contrived good cheer of the holiday season can actually make some people who are dealing with heartbreak feel worse. The Blue Christmas services confront feelings of grief and loss head-on.
“Holidays in our culture are often about families, and families are not always happy institutions,” said O’Dwyer Randall, who once worked as a grief counselor. “I think that particularly if you’re facing a death or a divorce, the ‘empty chair syndrome’ becomes very real at this time of year.”
This is the first Christmas in a long time that 77-year-old Charles Minter Jr. will have to celebrate without Barbara, whom he married 19 days after they met and stayed with for “57 years, four months and three days.” In May, she succumbed to cancer.
“I hate the holidays. I see the lights and Christmas — I just get the chills,” he said. “I hope this is going to help.”
Sharon Van de Walle’s husband of 40 years died suddenly earlier this month.
“This just is a preparation for Christmas, which is going to be rather difficult,” she said tearfully.
“And it’s a good place to have a cry and no one will mind,” her friend, Anita McCabe, said as she embraced her.
The “Blue Christmas” concept serves an important function for those who have lost loved ones, O’Dwyer Randall said. “The biggest sigh of relief for people who are grieving comes when you name it. When you say, `Hey, you’re probably having a hard year.’ When you say the person’s name,” she said.
Christine Moll, a mental health counselor in Buffalo, N.Y., who has helped two churches develop holiday programs for depressed parishioners, said that all the holiday cheer can make people dealing with death, divorce or family dysfunction feel more out of place, and more miserable.
“All the glitz, the tinsel, and what have you, the decorations, conjure up that we all need to be having some sort of Norman Rockwell experience,” she said.
The Rev. Emily Richards, pastor of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Ridgefield, Conn., said there has been a huge response to her church’s first Blue Christmas service.
“We have to have the perfect Christmas and we have to be happy this time of year — when the reality is that we’re not,” she said. “This is an opportunity for people to come and be in the presence of God and acknowledge their grief and despair and loneliness and give it to God.”
Some churches refer to such programs as “Longest Night” services and hold them on the shortest day — and therefore, the longest night — of the year. This year, that falls on Thursday.
“I find in my ministry that there’s quite a bit of pastoral work to be done in December. It just seems that whatever griefs or pain people have increase in this time,” said Rev. Cynthia Maybeck, pastor of the Trinity Church of Northborough, Mass., which has been offering such services for more than a decade. “Everything on the commercials is `Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas, such a season of tidings and great joy’ — and there’s a lot of people whose hearts are breaking.”
and (hopefully enough)
Merchants try to deal with mad shoppers
By LAUREN VILLAGRAN, AP Business Writer
Wed Dec 20, 6:31 PM ET
NEW YORK - ‘Tis the season to be … angry? The countdown to Christmas has dwindled to the single digits: As the mall crowds have worsened, so has the stress on shoppers faced with a creeping deadline to buy gifts — and they’re increasingly taking that stress out on salespeople.
Now merchants from toy sellers to electronics chains have buckled down to deal with irate shoppers. Their strategies vary but the goal is generally the same: to keep customers happy (and from wrestling each other in the aisles) and employees safe.
“We’ve all done it: I know I’ve lost my temper, and everyone else has probably done it,” said Ernest Speranza, chief marketing officer of KB Toys. “At this time of year, people start out with all the best intentions. They’re busy buying toys for a young child. They’re happy about doing that. Then they get caught up in the frenzy … and a nice experience now starts to spiral out of control.”
With shoppers procrastinating even more this year than last year, according to reports, retailers are bracing for an even bigger rush this weekend — and doing what they can to manage the mad multitudes. Stores have beefed up security and coached their employees in anger management. They’re taking the hottest items off the shelves to avoid fights in the aisles. While retailers are reluctant to say how much they’re spending to manage the mayhem, they do say the measures are worth it to keep their customers happy, employees sane and stores safe during the busiest time of the year.
Shoppers have become angrier, suggests a recent study by ComPsych Corp., a provider of employee assistance programs. This year, ComPsych has seen a marked increase in the number of acute-stress counseling sessions it provides to retailers related to customer abuse. The number rose 13 percent in 2006 following a 65 percent jump last year.
“During the holiday season, (retailers) bring on people who are less familiar with where products are, how stores operate,” said Richard A. Chaifetz, chairman and chief executive of ComPsych. “Shoppers are agitated. Put those together and you create a combustible environment.”
On the corner of 34th Street and 7th Avenue in New York, Melanie Marquez took a deep breath as she set down two handfuls of red and white Macy’s shopping bags. She had just been shopping at the flagship store of Federated Department Stores Inc.
Marquez, 47, said she made her way to the front of the Macy’s checkout line only to find that the register didn’t recognize the discounts she expected on a set of towels. After leaving the line to search for the proper sales ticket, Marquez waited another hour to save about $14 on a receipt that totaled $450 — that, after putting up a fight.
“Poor Macy’s,” she said. “You have to be mean to them.”
People are “pushy and rude,” said 18-year-old Cheryl Warshauer, while shopping in New York. “I try not to be. But they’re all so pushy, you have to be pushy back.”
This season, fewer retail workers will bear the increased aggression. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of people employed in the retail sector slipped in November, compared to the same month last year. Meanwhile, workers employed by general merchandise stores has dropped to the lowest number since 2002.
To diffuse an incendiary situation before it sparks, KB Toys’ Speranza said the chain has stopped putting the year’s hottest toys on the shelves altogether. Fisher-Price’s T.M.X. Elmo — one of this season’s most fought-over items — didn’t make it onto shelves until just this week, he said. Instead, KB Toys created a waiting list and called customers one by one as shipments arrived.
Meanwhile, Toys “R” Us Inc. said it puts hot products on display but tries to be sure supply meets demand, said Ron Boire, president of Toys “R” Us in the U.S. Still, there have been periodic shortages of T.M.X. Elmo, Nintendo’s new Wii gaming console and Sony’s Playstation3, he said.
To keep customers under control — lest a stressed-out shopper become a violent shopper — Boire said the chain beefs up security during the holidays, including hiring plainclothes officers to police its aisles and checkout lines.
Electronics retailer Best Buy Co. preps its employees for the holiday rush with preseason rehearsals.
Customers who normally come to browse or toy with Best Buy’s interactive displays, “during the holidays, they come with a purpose,” said Ryan Seymour, general manager of a Best Buy store in Alexandria, Va. “They’re aggressive.”
So a few days before Black Friday — the day after Thanksgiving that marks the start of the holiday shopping season — Best Buy stores do a “dry run” of the frenzy. Seasonal employees are made to wait in their respective departments when, at once, the other employees bully their way toward the department with a flood of questions. Employees are “armed with a strategy” for organization and inventory, Seymour said.
And the crowds won’t be going away after Dec. 25. The nation’s retailers are set to expand hours next week to accommodate the post-Christmas shopper rush, which has been increasing in recent years with the popularity of gift cards. That means the stress on employees continues, and retailers are keeping holiday season measures intact.
At a street vendor’s table in New York, Lourdes Maria Gonzalez haggled for a bottle of perfume. After settling for the $10 price, she hurriedly stashed the canister in a stroller where her 3-month-old son slept and slung a large bag of wrapped presents over her shoulder.
“Everything is a rush,” she said. “I’m behind. After Christmas, I’ll still be doing Christmas shopping.”
Posted: social/culture, local
