A Vast Wasteland May Be Soon Upon Us

UPDATE: I wrote the original essay below in October 2013. I so hate to be right.

Antibiotic resistance now 'global threat', WHO warns

By Pippa Stephens

We need the Affordable Care Act. Why is the government shut down to prevent us from having health care? I have nothing funny, happy or partisan to say about this debacle. I say this:

CDC Threat Report: ‘We Will Soon Be in a Post-Antibiotic Era’

• BY MARYN MCKENNA
 

The agency’s overall — and, it stressed, conservative — assessment of the problem:

• Each year, in the U.S., 2,049,442 illnesses caused by bacteria and fungi that are resistant to at least some classes of antibiotics;

• Each year, out of those illnesses, 23,000 deaths;

• Because of those illnesses and deaths, $20 billion each year in additional healthcare spending;

• And beyond the direct healthcare costs, an additional $35 billion lost to society in foregone productivity.

“If we are not careful, we will soon be in a post-antibiotic era,” Dr. Tom Frieden, the CDC’s director, said in a media briefing. “And for some patients and for some microbes, we are already there.”

WPA Poster

We are in bad shape. We are 37th in health care outcomes among all the nations. And we pay the most for health care. That is bad, it is true. It is worse than folks think. Some Governors are resisting the ACA. Their solutions to these serious disease issues are, for example:

1. Defund women's health clinics which diagnose and treat men and women for STDs;

2. Close the only public tuberculosis hospital in the state and house the contagious patients in an old motel in a large city.

This creates active disease vectors in major population areas. These diseases will bubble upward from the poor, who cannot get medical treatment, to the rich and privileged. Disease is no respecter of gated communities, security guards, or wealth. Everyone has heard of Typhoid Mary, right? As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Do we really want to go back to 1940s? Those who do not remember and learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Response to the Canonization of Pope John Paul II

I remember how shocked everyone was when Sinead OConnor sang this on Saturday Night Live in the 70s. I was there watching the TV. Ms. OConnor was reviled.

Fight the real enemy. It was appropriate then and is even more appropriate now. I am a Catholic baptized and confirmed.

'How can you post this and call yourself a Catholic' you may ask. It is complicated.

"Over the pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority there still stands one's own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, if necessary even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. Conscience confronts [the individual] with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even of the official church."  (Pope Benedict XVI [then Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger], "Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II", ed. Vorgrimler, 1968, on Gaudium et spes, part 1, chapter 1.)

Ghetto Garden Fabulous

My New Fig among the Daffodils

My house is a tiny HUD row house I bought as a veritable shell a decade ago. I have had to dedicate any money I had to serious repairs like putting in a heating system and erecting a front door.

I love to garden. However, my garden gets the least investment in terms of capital available. Nevertheless, I have turned it from hard packed clay with a scraggly lawn I had to mow to its present state.

I scavenged antique bricks from an old house and we made a walk. Who wants a lawn to mow? Not me. I use fallen tree branches to make garden beds. I use chunks of cement. I scavenge fallen leaves that others bag up and throw away. I compost to make soil and keep weeds down. In that way, I have raised the level of my garden 6 inches of fertile composted soil all over. Took some time.

I write a lot about garden design here. Even so, I did not realize quite what I was doing, until my Daughter suggested I get some nicer paving stones on a trip to the garden store. I recoiled. And I was not sure why. I mean, I just spent $50.00 on new fig trees.

And then the light dawned. I like the scavenging. Saves money so I can indulge in fig trees. It is a challenge. I just did not know it was a design theme. I scavenged every single one of those Iris and in another few weeks they will be glorious. I have the Herbs in and my Blueberries are doing fine.

My garden theme is Ghetto Fabulous. Example is the old ladder. It is a bean tower. I think it will be beautiful. We shall see. God bless my Daughter. Eventually she will whip me into shape. One way or another. Kind of like my garden.

Letter from Finland to America

Jore Puusa 
I am a Fin living in Finland, Europe. ( BTW Europe is on the other side of Atlantic ocean for those who had no free education)

We have free education and free healthcare. Of course we pay lots of taxes- me about 21% and richer people even 50%. But, this way everybody can stay healthy and study whatever he/she likes and has talent. Most of fins learn english, swedish, germany or french in schools, I hear that even American English is a problem at certain areas in US???.

We are a small country of five million and we do not try to learn how to live to other nations. So here I´m only telling to US citizens what real freedom sounds.

On the opposite of US we have real freedom of speech cause most of us can read or write ---as I`ve heard 14% millions of US citizens cannot read. Our people do not beg or sleep in the streets. If one gets sick he/she goes to local health station and sees a doctor. If You go only once or twice a year You pay 40 USD for those two first... all the rest is free. I does not depend on disease, if You have cancer it is as cheap as a broken leg or a flu. So why can we pay for it and mighty US cannot??

Maybe cause we are not to the right so much and we really care for other people.
Or for some other reason. Maybe You could care about Your citizens if You did not throw away Your money in useless wars. maybe.

I am a photojournalist, I´we been twice to USA. In 1984 La Olympics and in Lake Placid olympics. No other problems but the racism everywhere and crime all over seemed a bit sad. When I read angry and almost facist comments in this thread I understood that You just cannot make it better, so sad.

But its Your choice. Good luck.
Jore Puusa
Helsinki
Finland