Psychiatric Hospitals

For the most part, psychiatric hospitals, institutions that house people for their lifetimes, are things of the past. In Oregon most hospitals are shutting down their inpatient wards. At OHSU we only have 10 inpatient beds for psychiatric patients. This in a hospital of 550+ beds.

One reason: they lose money. Another reason: there's no need for them. It's better for people to stay in the community, even the chronically mentally ill.

Across the country this is true; in upstate New York one mental institution was closed completely in 1995. When they went to clean out the building they found a stack of suitcases in the attic of the main building. These suitcases were the possessions of the inmates, brought with them when they checked into the hospital. A few curious people decided to sort through these things with great care and ended up writing a book about what they found. It is a bittersweet story. There's a display at the New York Public Library, chronicling the lives of some of the inmates. Many of them appear to be immigrants who had some horrible temporary circumstance in their lives, which led to incarceration. Over half of those committed to these institutions spent their entire lives there, and ultimately died there.

Oregon still has two state mental hospitals up and running. One is in Pendleton. The other in Salem. The hospital in Salem is in deplorable physical condition, and is being replaced by a new hospital. Where? Junction City. Stay tuned....I will know more about this when I start my job....

I have a new job!

This just in: I've been offered (and I have accepted) the job as the Administrator of OHSU's Psychiatric Department! I've been looking around for a new job, as my current gig with OHSU's Center for Evidence-based Policy is coming to an end. I had two serious contenders who interviewed me for days, literally.

I meet with my new boss next Wednesday where we will hammer out the details of the new position. Until then, stay tuned.....

Update: See the announcement on OHSU's website.

Sears stove, update

Never buy anything from Sears. I'm serious.

Now that the stove works again, I've been tempted to use it. Like today, for example. I'm doing my annual Christmas Cookie Bake, opening and closing the oven door a billion times.\

Until, the handle came completely apart on the oven. No fear, I'm not helpless. I went and got my tools and screwed it back on. But really. This stove/oven sucks.

We're Back...

....back from our trip to Maui! David and I have made this an annual trek the last couple of years. We go to Maui to get some much-needed sunshine so we can survive the black winters around here. However, this trip to Maui was a little bit stormy. When we arrived, the power had been out on Maui; trees had blown over; the roads were flooded and some were impassable.

We spent the first three days on the island in our room reading books, typing on the computer (editing stories) and eating whatever came our way.

The last two days there were sunshiny and bright, which made it all worthwhile. David and I explored a little bit and checked in at the surfing championships (the Billabong) north of where we stay at Ka'anapali.

It was pretty warm, but not the first few days. I wore everything I had to walk on the beach one day.

Sears and the New Gas Stove

In addition to the exterior changes we're making, we've updated some interior stuff. Like I re-did the cabana for guests (see the cabana posts from July for pictures.)

David, back in May, bought a new gas stove for our kitchen from Sears. So the evening after my rotten experience with the exterior door I told David I would cook dinner. I was frying up the Chinese tofu dish that Susan Duncan taught me to make. I had my back turned to the stove as I was chopping vegetables for stir-fry. Suddenly I hear a beeping alarm coming from the stove. I turned around to see that the plastic keypad on the stove had melted (!) and a flashing F11 sign was telling me to do something.

I turned everything off, but the alarm wouldn't quit sounding. I had to call David to help me get the stove entirely unplugged to make it stop beeping.

When I called Sears they blamed me for this problem; but the "diagnostician" will be here on Monday am to see how much it will cost to fix. In the meantime, David and I are using the Cabana stove top for making coffee and food; but we have no oven. And that's a shame, since today is David's 65th birthday and I wanted to make him a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.

Changing an Exterior Door

David and I have been slowly updating some stuff around the exterior of our house this year, in an effort to make sure all is secure, no water leaking in, etc. We re-stuccoed and painted the Cabana, which made our out-building (and guest quarters!) safe, sound and comfy!

We have been trying to replace an exterior door on the side of our house for several months now. I decided to not do this ourselves, but hire a professional carpenter to help out. We called in August. Made an appointment for September. Went to see about ordering a new door and the first roadblock was apparent: Our exterior door is not a standard size, so the door had to be manufactured specially for the job.

This last week, some two months after ordering the door, our carpenter called to say it was in. I left work in a rush and came home to meet the carpenter. We excitedly ripped off the south side of the house, in preparation of the new door. The new door was a beauty: a nicely made exterior door with tempered low-e glass in a rectangle down the middle, brass hinges and a sturdy threshold that would help keep the inside warm and the spiders outside.

So we prepared to put in the door, but something was wrong. It was too narrow (by about 3 inches) and too tall (by about 2 inches). This wasn't good. The carpenter looked at the paperwork and we ordered the correct dimensions; the manufacturer, for some unknown reason, manufactured a door to the wrong dimensions.

We can't go and buy a door that fits. So we called another manufacturer, played the lottery to see if another manufacturer could use a tape measure, and it will be another month to get the new door.

The WORST part was putting the old door back up, and tacking up all the rotten old trim again. It looks worse than before; I joked with the carpenter that he may want to pay me to be quiet that he put that old door back on (it looks so awful). He wasn't amused.

It's now raining, cold, and the wind is whipping underneath the door. Let's not talk about the spider traffic.

Lights Out, Updated

Although I seem to think it's a good idea to turn off lights, the City of Portland administration does not. I received this e-mail from an aide to Mayor Tom Potter:

This sounds like something that the Energy Trust of Bureau of Sustainable Development (BSD) might consider. That said, BSD is hesitant to talk about darken the west coast. Darken implies the negative side of conservation...using less at the expense of standard of living. Remember Jimmy Carter and his sweater in a cold room! BSD prefers efficiency and that is the recent direction of national and regional programs, for example, the "change a light, change the world" program which encourages use of CFLs.

All I can to this response is: You couldn't turn off one light for one hour on one day of your life to make a point? Evidently, the city administration isn't ready to make any points. That's too bad.

Lights Out, Portland!

A couple of weeks ago David and I saw the movie "Arid Lands"a documentary feature about the land and people of the Columbia Basin in southeastern Washington state. The film was done by a couple of kids (well, they're 20-somethings so they're kids to us) and it is exceptional. It captures, in the inhabitants own words, their feelings about the Tri-Cities in Washington, from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation,to agricultural interests, to sport fishing, to environmentalists.

One of the messages of the film is how the folks in the Tri-Cities feel about Portland. (Not positively). At about 5:00 pm the river levels drop up there when Portlanders go home and turn on their lights. That really surprised me; I had no idea that power usage anywhere determined the water level in the river. (That's an admission that I'm really stupid or something, but whatever: I'll admit it)

Anyway, when the river levels drop up there there are serious consequences, not the least of which are the effects on the fish, or more accurately, smolt. They can die easily if they're stranded on the banks with no water.

Then, I started thinking about what it would mean if people in Portland turned their power off for a day. David and I discussed that it was improbable we'd get many people to join into that experiment. A few days later I saw an event posting in San Francisco. A group has picked a date in March 2008 where they are asking San Franciscans to turn off one light bulb for one hour on one day. If they coordinate this right, and people do it, they figure that they will save 15% of the normal power consumed in San Francisco on a Saturday evening.

Why don't we do the same thing in Portland???? Heck, couldn't we turn off TWO bulbs for TWO hours and beat San Francisco??? What's wrong with us if we think turning off a light bulb for one hour is an inconvenience???

Anyway, I'm on a mission now. Come on, Portland, we can do it. Let's turn off our light bulbs March 29, 2008 from 8:00-10:00 pm - let's get our neighbors to the north in Seattle and our neighbors to the south in Los Angeles to join us. Let's darken the West Coast for an hour or two on a Saturday night and let's see how much energy we can save. I would love to see satellite pictures of the West Coast turning off its lights on March 29, 2008 for an hour or two and save some smolt in the Columbia River, and maybe make the people in the Tri-Cities a little less irritated with us.

Italy Update

My friend Carolyn and her family are back in their routine in Cesena. Recently, Carolyn let me know that her Mom had suffered another setback with her bowel problem, and had been hospitalized again. But all is evidently fine again.

I remember one fall Sunday when my roommate or someone in Munich invited me to go out to Cloister Andechs, a S-Bahn trainride away from Munich. One Sunday we went out and attended a church service, exiting the train and making a trek around a village and up a hill to the castle of sorts. The buildings were right out of the middle ages.

After the service, a monk motioned everyone to go out the side door of the church into a bright courtyard where I was surprised to see a full-service restaurant with a commanding view of the countryside. There were several chickens roasting, a bunch of kegs, and what-not. But what surprised me the most were the kegs of beer. The monks specialized in brewing beer. That blew my North American Protestant mind.

Carolyn took her family to Munich in August and they visited Andechs. Here's a funny picture of Antonio from that trip (and no, he wasn't really drinking beer).

Kindness, People

Yesterday I drove into downtown Portland at lunchtime to do some errand. I was driving behind a van that had a couple of bumper-stickers on the back. I love bumper stickers and was catching up to the van so I could read one. It said: "When everyone yogas the world will be a better place." A bumper sticker on the other side of the van read "Namaste." I was clearly following a yoga fanatic.

Just then, a mercedes pulled out in front of the van, causing the van to swerve. The van driver shouted angrily at the mercedes driver and shook his fist at him, clearly not practicing loving kindness. Oh, well.

When Mahatma Gandhi was asked what he thought of Western Civilization, his response was "I think it would be a good idea." I would add the addendum, as I am guilty of it nearly every day, that civil people everywhere would be a good idea. Starting now I'm going to practice kindness and see how it goes. I will try to think of one thing I can do every day to be kind in an unkind world. It may be more courteous driving. It may be doing the dishes at work. It may be sending somebody flowers unexpectedly. I don't know, but starting now I'm going to try it for a week. I'll let you know how it goes.....

Communication Skills

One great thing about my friends Anne & Jeff Kayser is that they keep me up-to-date on communication skills. They are experts at difficult communications, having learned from experience with their autistic son Thomas. Tom is a sweet boy and David and I enjoyed spending time with him and his parents last night at dinner. He communicates so much better than he used to, and is delightful to be around. He tells jokes! And his jokes are funny!

Anne and I are in SpiritFish, a group of writers who get together about once a month to share our writings and encourage each other to hone our craft. One of the members shared a YouTube video with us yesterday that Anne & I watched together. You can see it here. It's about a person who is autistic describing their language processes. Judge for yourself.

But what I found even more delightful was an email exchange between Julia (who is at Stanford) and her little brother Tom.

From: Julia
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 6:19 PM
To: Anne Kayser
Subject: For Tom

Hi, Tom! How are you doing? How is school? Is running on the cross country team fun?I miss you. Today I missed you so much that I hummed Leroy Anderson's "Bugler's Holiday!" What track number is that?

LEIFO EATS WORMS!

I love you! I'll see you on the computer again on Sunday night at five o-clock.~Julia

To which Tom replied:

Dear Julia

Leroy Anderson's Buglers Holiday is track number 13

Mommy's corvax! How are you doing? Do you get sunscreen on the dogs ears ?

I'm running with Matt. Do you miss Julia? I love you Julia. Do dogs get sunburned? November 22 we fly to Florida ! dogs don't get sunburned that's silly! Are you telling jokes!
Julia will be home for Thanksgiving. I like turkey!

Love Tom

I wish any of my four brothers communicated this nicely with me and, at the very least, told me that they loved me.

Julia at Stanford

My dear friend Julia Kayser, who was a little baby girl not long ago, just started college at Stanford in Palo Alto, or "tall stick" as she tells me that translates. As you can see in her picture she sent, she has come down with an infectious disease which has destroyed her normally beautiful skin. It's too bad she's not having a good time at school. My prayers go out to her that the antibiotic starts working real soon.

Just a few days ago, when Anne & Jeff dropped her off, and before the rash, she seemed happy with her new roommate, especially when I promised to send the sauerkraut that John Stevenson's neighbor in Tenino made and canned sometime in the 20th century, and which I still have sitting in a corner of my basement gathering dust. Wait! I've got to send the sauerkraut soon! It must have antibiotic properties in it that will clear that skin rash up right away!

Deep Water, Sea Disaster

Last Sunday night David and I visited Cinema 21, a local avant garde movie theater in NW Portland, to see the British documentary Deep Water. This is the disturbing story of an around-the-world single-handed yacht race back in 1967-1968. A single-handed yacht race means that one person pilots one yacht around the world. It takes a little less than a year to do this, and is quite a grueling adventure that only the most responsible, experienced yachtspeople should undertake.

Deep Water is the true story of an occasional weekend British sailor who takes up this cause because he is in desperate financial straits and thinks he can win for the money. As anyone knows who has been to sea in a yacht, there are always problems, either with your boat, the rigging, the food, or with your physical body and/or soul.

As I've always heard: there are two kinds of people in the world. People with the boat dream, and people without the boat dream. Don't head out to sea unless you have an insatiable boat dream. Otherwise, it ain't worth it.

I simply wouldn't do it unless I had absolutely no other choice. The romance of it all wears off pretty fast when the first big swell comes by and washes over you, rocking and rolling the boat underneath you mercilessly. Landlubbers like me need as firm a terra firma as we can get.

The Doctor Is In, If You're Under 40

As many of you know, I work in health policy. I know a lot about the practice of medicine in this country. So this story that hit the blogosphere today struck my fancy: A young doctor in NYC has set up a virtual practice, limiting his patients to the under 40 crowd. He doesn't see people over 40 because they could be *big gulp* actually sick. He charges people with insurance less money than he does people with cash (and they say medical schools don't teach doctors how to make money). Hospitals and clinics aren't "his thing." To get a better idea of this plastic, fantastic doctor, see interview below.

I sincerely hope he is flooded with hypochondriacal phone calls from 20-somethings with major mental illness. Is that mean of me?

How did you get the idea to do this?

Well, I’m not a typical doctor. I get along fine with other physicians, but I didn’t enjoy the hospital or clinic environment. I’m a photographer as well. I shoot for Men’s Journal and stuff like that.

Are there any special hurdles to running your practice this way?

No, not really. You have to have your New York State license. The e-visits are more for things like acne, allergies and follow-up labs. Things that aren’t life-threatening. There’s no way in hell I would prescribed narcotics online. It’s a kind of telemedicine. People have traditionally used it for access [for care in rural areas]. I’m looking at it as a way to practice convenient medicine.
Is your service cash only?

If somebody has insurance, I’ll charge them less and provide them with receipts. You can get cheaper care. But you can’t get it immediately, nor will you get care where people will help you spend your money wisely. I’ve spent the the last two or three months calling physicians associated with the best hospitals in New York City and getting their prices. I called one radiologist and found he’d do a chest X-ray for $75 and another would charge, say, $300. For cash-paying patients the prices are all over the place. I’ll make referrals based on quality and price.
What’s your online process for taking a patient?

I have a few questions that I ask whenever patients contact me. Name, age, that sort of thing. If they’re over 40, I’m not going to see them. The disease profile changes after that. If you’re under 40 you have the same disease profile as an older child, adolescent or young person that I saw during my preventive medicine and pediatrics training. I’m not going to deal with people who have old-people diseases.

How many patients do you think you’ll take on?

I want to keep this small. About a 1,000 patients. It fails in its mission if it’s a large corporate thing.

Without an office, how will you pull this off?

I run this entire thing off my iPhone and a laptop. I can access any patient records from my iPhone. Patients can make an appointment on my website and it’ll text me and I’ll go see them. This is, to me, what’s missing from medicine: personalized attentiveness. Going to someone’s home allows you to get to know them ridiculously well.

Astronomy, Science, The Proving of Theories

Back in 1919 a famed British astronomer, knighted for his deeds, embarked upon a journey to prove Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington took two teams of scientists to spots on the equator to measure the bending of light from stars during a solar eclipse. This would prove Einstein's theory of relativity, that asserts that gravity is the result of a distortion of space-time by massive objects. Even light cannot ignore this rule of space, so the theory predicts that light rays from distant stars should bend slightly as they skim past the Sun. When blotted out during a total solar eclipse, the bending should be visible, or so thought Eddington.

At the time his conclusions were published, it was a major news story around the globe. According to Wikipedia, when asked by a reporter whether he was one of only three people in the world who understood relativity theory, he quipped "Who's the third?"

His measurements proved Einstein's theory correct: but ever after, people have spent time dismissing his "proof" and claiming that Eddington wanted Einstein to be correct (for several reasons, including political ones) and therefore over-interpreted his findings to come to the conclusion that he wanted.

Today, researchers have found that Eddington is, indeed, correct and that he did not bend his data to find the conclusion that he wanted. Which goes to show, science is not infallible and we all must learn and re-learn the same lessons again. While he was alive, however, his theories were constantly being challenged and he was discredited in a couple of different ways. He died in 1944 in Cambridge, England.

This week's story in Nature vindicates an honorable man. You see, Sir Arthur Eddington wasn't just a British astrophysicist from another era, he was also a cousin to my husband's grandmother (Minnie Shout Wilmott). Eddington met once with David's mother, Mary Wilmott, at Cornell where they walked the Gorges together. David reports that his mother always told him that he was a fascinating man, a Quaker, and a deeply ethical human being. It means a lot to David to see this week's story vindicating his distant cousin's work.

And now we know where David got the astrophysicist gene from!

Oregon's Feeling about Hanford

It is quite sad, and telling, that the only active opposition to the US Department of Energy dumping more hazardous nuclear waste at Hanford seems to come from Oregon, those downstream from the project. Senator Wyden is up on the issue, and his statement, reprinted below, captures the feelings of those in Oregon who face disaster should Hanford's nonsense and foolishness get out of control.

Statement of Senator Ron Wyden
Opposing the Department of Energy’s Plans to Increase
Radioactive Waste Disposal at Hanford Nuclear Reservation
Troutdale, Oregon
August 27, 2007

The Hanford Nuclear Reservation is already one of the most polluted places on the planet. It currently stores more high-level nuclear waste than any other site in the United States and it is not safely managing all the nuclear waste it already has on-site today. And now, the Department of Energy (DOE) proposes to use Hanford as a national nuclear waste dump. The bottom line is the Energy Department should not be adding more waste to Hanford when it isn’t safely handling the waste it already has on-site.

The Energy Department and its contractors have a long history of mismanagement and failures to protect public health and safety at Hanford over the past twenty years. A report by the contractor responsible for the Hanford tank farms, which store 53 million gallons of highly radioactive and toxic wastes, indicates that removal of all these wastes just from the aging and leaking single shell tanks would not be completed until the year 2032. And even that far off date was based on an invalid assumption that the treatment plant to vitrify these wastes would begin operating in 2014. With recent problems and delays, the waste treatment plant won’t start operating until 2019 at the earliest. Hanford is decades away from dealing with the waste it already has on-site. Sending more waste to Hanford will mean more delay of the cleanup and more danger to workers at the site and the one million people who live downstream.

Just last month, Hanford had a spill of high-level nuclear waste while retrieving it from the single shell tanks that endangered workers at the site. I have requested that the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, an independent DOE safety oversight agency, investigate this spill as well as the entire single shell retrieval program.

Given the long history of mismanagement of waste cleanup at Hanford, the Energy Department’s proposal to bring more waste to Hanford is essentially a proposal to turn Hanford and the Northwest into a national sacrifice zone.

According to news reports, DOE is now planning to dispose of an additional amount radioactive waste at Hanford that is equal to the contamination estimated from the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown, or about three-quarters of the radiation contained in 177 leak-prone underground tanks already located at Hanford.

The waste under discussion at today’s hearing is the most radioactive in the low-level category. Federal officials concede that some of it is as radioactive as high-level waste, which includes spent nuclear fuel. The inventory is also likely to contain "transuranic waste," often contaminated with plutonium and likely to remain radioactive for thousands of years.

As many of you know, I have long been concerned about the DOE’s history of unkept promises to clean-up Hanford. I say, enough is enough. It’s time to address the current problems and not add additional risks and dangers by adding huge volumes of additional nuclear wastes to Hanford. Over some 45 years, Hanford produced some 74 tons of plutonium, first to make nuclear weapons and later as part of its continued operation of the N-Reactor despite the fact that it was no longer needed. The results are well known to all. Some 1,600 identified waste sites. Some 53 million gallons of high-level waste stored in 177 underground storage tanks. Sixty-seven of those 177 tanks are suspected to have leaked that waste into the soil. The list goes on.

What is amazing to me is that DOE has now been trying to clean up the nuclear waste and environmental contamination for half as long as the site was actually in operation – more than 20 years – with no end in sight. We are now coming up on the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Tri-Party Agreement between DOE, the State of Washington, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that was supposed to set specific, enforceable milestones for the clean-up. Instead, we’re miles away from meeting those cleanup goals.

In March of this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a fine of more than $1 million for the failure of DOE’s contractor to properly manage the existing low-level nuclear waste disposal facility – the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility. This fine shows that DOE is not properly managing the low-level nuclear waste it already has on site. How can the Department be seriously considering sending more of the same waste to Hanford?

The situation with Hanford’s high-level nuclear waste is even more troubling. The high-level waste vitrification plant was supposed to be completed and in operation by 2011 according to the Tri-Party Agreement. It is now being delayed another eight years and construction won’t be completed until 2019 at a cost that has more than doubled – from $5.8 billion estimated in 2003 to this year’s estimate of $12.3 billion. And the plan still leaves no solution for more than half of the so-called low-activity waste that is supposed to be removed from the tanks and which also has to be vitrified. There’s still no plan for dealing with the waste that has leaked out of the tanks. There’s still no plan for dealing with strontium and cesium capsules that have been retrieved from all over the country from another failed DOE program to spin gold out of nuclear waste.

In March 2006, I requested that the Inspector General conduct an investigation into the safety of the waste vitrification plant after a former employee of Bechtel National, Inc – the U.S. Department of Energy’s principle contractor for the Hanford Nuclear Waste Treatment Plant Project – raised concerns about his former employer’s use of unproven and flawed control systems.

Last May, in response to my request, the DOE Inspector General issued report which stated that the control system intended for use at Hanford, “does not meet the stringent procedures, plans specifications, or work practices associated with nuclear quality standards.” I subsequently wrote to Energy Secretary Bodman asking what the Energy Department planned to do to address the Inspector General’s findings. I have yet to receive a substantive response from Secretary Bodman. This hardly inspires confidence in DOE’s ability to safely process the high-level tank wastes any time soon.

My point here is a simple one. DOE has not fulfilled its obligation to clean up Hanford. It’s not clear when it will. But now, DOE is proposing to bring more waste to Hanford – this time in the form of waste from commercial nuclear power plants, medical wastes and other nuclear processing facilities.

Hanford should have less nuclear waste, not more. It should be cleaned up, not dumped upon. So, today, I am putting myself on the record as being fiercely opposed to DOE’s plans to dump more waste at Hanford and I will do everything in my power to fight to keep it from happening.

3:10 to Yuma

David and I had a night at the St John's Cinema & Pub for dinner and a show. It's a great place to see a movie because you can order pizza and a drink for a reasonable price and sit and eat it while you're watching your movie.

3:10 to Yuma is an excellent, excellent movie. I couldn't believe my eyes, truly. This was made in Hollywood? Has Hollywood come to its senses about the value of a good story, interesting character development and smart dialog?

The answer seems to be 'yes.'

Russell Crowe (Wade) is a truly creepy and brilliant outlaw intent on making a livin' the violent way, along with his sickly devoted psychopathic gang. Ben Foster (Charlie) plays a sociopathic side-kick of Wade's intent on garnering Wade's release from the iron grip of the law, or at least the railroad law intent on having him hanged for thieving. Christian Bale (Evans) is astounding as the quiet, beaten-down one-legged Civil War veteran/rancher tempted by much-needed funds to do what he shouldn't get involved with in the first place.

It's probably a better idea not to read the short story by Elmore Leonard before you see the movie. David had read the story; I had not. I liked the movie a lot; David was disappointed. I caution those seeing it: there's a lot of ways to tell a story. Movie-making and book-writing can be two different experiences, but each is valuable in its own way.

Kudos to the director, James Mangold, who also directed "Walk the Line" (the story of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash).

Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times) gives it a thumbs up and says of James Mangold:

"To remake "3:10 to Yuma" seems an odd choice after such other modern films
as "Girl, Interrupted," but the movie itself proves he had a good reason for choosing
it. In hard times, Americans have often turned to the Western to reset their
compasses. In very hard times, it takes a very good Western. Attend well to Ben
Wade's last words in this movie, and who he says them to, and why."


http://view.break.com/315989 - Watch more free videos

People Disagree on Clean-up Efforts to Date at Hanford

I know Hanford is a hot-button issue for a lot of people. But I thought others might be interested in the comments left on a listserv I belong to talking about the subject. Here is one person's opinion of how clean-up efforts are going at Hanford:

Sir, I would take exception to the statement, "The federal government has
made scant progress in cleaning up nuclear waste left-over from decades of
dumping at Hanford."

There has been major progress in the cleanup. We would not
be anywhere near where we are now had it not been for the efforts of hundreds
and thousands of individuals and several agencies. Major buildings have been
removed, hundreds of contaminated sites have been removed or cleaned and years
of planning, permit writing and budgeting have been accomplished.

The work ahead is huge, more than 60 more years. For anyone to think that it can be cleaned up in a couple years is terribly miss informed. We will go through more that ten Presidential administrations, twenty Governors and countless representatives in congress all during the period to clean this up. Cleanup should not be a political process, however getting money for the cleanup is.

The foundation for the cleanup was formed with the Tri Party Agreement more than 15 years ago. We have representatives from EPA, State of Washington, State of Oregon, Tribes, Department of Health, City Governments and citizens that will comment, scrutinize and offer advice on how to protect the people and environment.

Respectfully, Rob Davis

However, others are not convinced.

I would like to offer another perspective. 18 years of cleanup $ 25 billion spent and yes there is progress but hardly where would should be by now.

We have had virtually no cleanup of the groundwater, We are leaving large quantities of waste in the deepervadoze zone that will further contaminate the groundwater. We have no milestones for when the groundwaterwill be cleaned up. We have the Tri-Parties switching the intent and legal requirement for cleanup along the River Corridor from unrestricted to a surface cleanup that is only protective for surface use. We havethe most contaminated part of Hanford the 200 Area/Central Plateau now in its beginning of cleanup where444 billion gallons of
liquid waste was dumped and no hard plans to cleanup the soil and more than likely no plansto deal with the deep soil contamination. We have an admitted 1 million gallons of tank waste that has leaked, more thanlikely a lot more has leaked. The 177 high level waste tanks most all of them have exceeded their design life and now USDOE is delaying the start of the vit plant to deal with the 53 million gallons of high level waste until 2019. This is a blue print fordisaster. Pretty Scary!

Yes we can say we have made progress, a lot of muck and truck hauling and tearing down. K-Basins have been a great success with several delays. A lot of surface cleanup has taken place but now the hard part
begins 18 years later.We have an agency USDOE that has proven time and time again that it can not meet any hard milestones that delays after delays will happen. USDOE has constantly tried ways to do less cleanup, like trying to leave Pre-70 transuranic waste buried, like not dealingwith the deep soil contamination and the list goes on.The people of the NW and the laws demand a more protective cleanup. Surface use cleanup is not acceptable and is not legal.The aquifer needs to be cleaned up, the deep soil contamination needs to be stabilized, or removed, treated and disposed.The River Corridor needs to be cleaned up to an unrestricted use level in order to meet the Trust Responsibility to the Tribesand future generations.The vit plant needs to operate now and not later.The vadoze zone in the Central Plateau needs to be fully characterized to understand how deep the contamination is,what are the volumes and how fast is it moving.The waste under the tanks needs to be cleaned up.We need a credible comprehensive cumulative RIver Corridor Risk Assessment not this so called Baseline Risk Assessmentthat is a joke.

Remember the Baseline Risk Assessment was supposed to be done at the start of cleanup, 18 years ago and it is supposed to look at the current risk and estimate future risk.One thing we have learned in 18 years and 25 billion USDOE is an expert at delaying the real hard issues.It is time for all of to ask is it not perhaps time to rethink who is in charge of cleanup. USDOE has proven to all of us including Congress that it can spend $25 billion and you still not deal with the real issues that threaten
the Columbia River and the people of the NW.

And to top it off USDOE is now proposing to ship more waste and make Hanford the defacto Nations DUMP. I suggest that we who track Hanford have a responsibility to the taxpayers and future generations to change the cleanupparadigm, we have to much proof that USDOE does not intend to do what is legally and morally right. We need to create a NW Cleanup Commission for the cleanup of Hanford and not sacrifice the future using an agency like USDOE thatsimply is failing to do a comprehensive cleanup.If you want to disagree with this suggestion than I ask you to tell me why you trust that USDOE will start up the vit plantin 2019, what basis you have for this.

Please remember in your response that the original vit plant was supposed to startin 2007. Also remember that cleanup for the River Corridor was supposed to be 2018 and that was supposed to a level that allowed unrestricted use. Not just surface use.

Respectfully Greg deBruler

Hanford

In the summer of 2006, a little over a year ago, some of you know I visited Hanford, obtaining a "seat on the bus" of one of Department of Energy's bus tours.

It was eye-opening in many ways. I'd read a lot about the facility but hadn't appreciated how incredibly huge it was, in terms of acreage. It takes a couple of hours to drive from one end to the other. But the other thing that was apparent was the amount of money spent by the federal government to clean up that place, and not much has been done for those billions of dollars.

This year, Department of Energy has announced that Hanford is one of the sites where they're considering dumping new hazardous wastes from nuclear activities elsewhere.

Last Monday was a public meeting in Oregon about this proposed reclassification of Hanford's mission. As reported in a Tri-Counties newspaper, Oregon's public officials (and many citizens)are opposed to this. Citizens around Hanford, however, continue to be enamored with the amount of money they get from the federal government and seem not to be concerned about this. I attach a Tri-Counties news article about the Portland meeting. It was contentious.

Crowd says no to more waste at Hanford

Published Tuesday, August 28th, 2007

ANNETTE CARY HERALD STAFF WRITER TROUTDALE, Ore. -- A standing-room-only crowd near Portland had a clear message for the Department of Energy on Monday night: Send no more radioactive waste to the Hanford nuclear reservation. It's different than the usual "not in my backyard," said Ken Niles, assistant director of the Oregon Department of Energy. "We're saying no more in our backyard because it is so horribly contaminated already," he said.

DOE is looking at Hanford as one option for disposing of an estimated 7,280 cubic yards of radioactive waste generated through 2062.It's a relatively small volume of
waste compared with the vast amount of waste already planned to be disposed of
at Hanford. But the amount of radiation it contains is significant. It has an
estimated 130 million curies of radioactivity. That compares to the 190 million
curies of radioactivity in the millions of gallons of waste held in underground
tanks from the past production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons
program, much of which DOE plans to dispose of off Hanford.

DOE officials faced a crowd of about 80 people Monday who ranged from skeptical to hostile. "I'm outraged. It's a lie. Isn't it?" demanded Gerald Pollet, executive director of Heart of America Northwest, when a DOE official identified a pictured waste
container that was apparently abandoned as one that was being used. Similar
waste vaults are being considered for disposal at Hanford, eight other sites or
undetermined commercial facilities.

"We're being massaged with a lot of statistics," said Ruth Currie of Portland, who also said she didn't think DOE knows what it is doing. Problems at Hanford and other DOE sites were a recurring theme, with public comment hitting on delays in construction at the Hanford vitrification plant, last month's spill of high level radioactive waste at the Hanford tank farms and doubts that DOE would ever open the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada. Given DOE's long history of waste and cleanup mismanagement, a proposal to bring more waste to Hanford is essentially a plan to turn Hanford into a permanent national sacrifice zone, according to comments by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, read into the meeting record by a congressional
staffer.

"Hanford should be cleaned up, not dumped on," according to Wyden. Some
of the waste proposed to be sent to Hanford is extremely long-lived and must be
isolated for eternity, said Bill Mead, director of the Public Safety Resources
Agency in Portland. The meeting was an early step in determining what to do with
radioactive waste that includes activated metals from decommissioning nuclear
power plants and high-activity radioactive materials used for medical diagnosis
and treatment.

More than half would be from DOE nondefense work, with much of
that coming from a West Valley, N.Y., project. DOE is considering sending the
waste to a geological repository deep underground, such as Yucca Mountain, or
burying it at a site such as Hanford in a deep bore hole or waste containers
closer to the surface of the ground. The international nuclear community has
settled on deep bore hole disposal as the preferred option for similar waste,
said Christine Gelles, director of DOE's environmental management office of
disposal operations. Keeping the waste on site where it is generated and adding
protection to keep it safe from terrorists is a better option, said Angela
Crowley-Koch, executive director of the Oregon Chapter of Physicians for Social
Responsibility. Keith Harding of Hood River had another suggestion for where to
store the waste -- a certain ranch in Texas, he said, alluding to President
Bush's home.

Another public meeting will be held at 6 p.m. today at the Red Lion Hotel, 2525 N. 20th Ave., Pasco.

Portland Oregon Closed for Construction

This morning, on the way to work, I stopped at a downtown Safeway to get coffee and milk for the office. A construction worker yelled at me that I couldn't park next to Safeway. "Why?" I asked, perplexed. The answer is that all parking places downtown are now for construction crews, construction vehicles or construction materials. Please people! Don't get in their way! If you're trying to run a business in Portland, don't. You're just getting in the construction people's way!


Don't drive through, by or around downtown Portland right now. It is a mess. We have closed our city for the duration.

Floods in Midwest Threaten Great Wall of Hammond

Probably not, but I can speculate....

For up-to-date weather for our friends in Hammond, go here

News Flash!

The sign of early dementia in women is.....[drum roll please]......

WEIGHT LOSS!

Read about it here

This is a huge relief to me as there is no way I am developing dementia.

...and here's some poetry for ya...

Child Development

As sure as prehistoric fish grew legs
and sauntered off the beaches into forests
working up some irregular verbs for their
first conversation, so three-year-old children
enter the phase of name-calling.

Every day a new one arrives and is added
to the repertoire. You Dumb Goopyhead,
You Big Sewerface, You Poop-on-the-Floor
(a kind of Navaho ring to that one)
they yell from knee level, their little mugs
flushed with challenge.
Nothing Samuel Johnson would bother tossing out
in a pub, but then the toddlers are not trying
to devastate some fatuous Enlightenment hack.

They are just tormenting their fellow squirts
or going after the attention of the giants
way up there with their cocktails and bad breath
talking baritone nonsense to other giants,
waiting to call them names after thanking
them for the lovely party and hearing the door close.

The mature save their hothead invective
for things: an errant hammer, tire chains,
or receding trains missed by seconds,
though they know in their adult hearts,
even as they threaten to banish Timmy to bed
for his appalling behavior,
that their bosses are Big Fatty Stupids,
their wives are Dopey Dopeheads
and that they themselves are Mr. Sillypants.

Billy Collins

Being a Writer

I belong to a writing group called "SpiritFish." I don't know why it's called that. Lately, I've wanted to write something to read to the group, because I have to, because our next meeting is coming up and we're all expected to perform like trained seals, but I haven't had any va-va-voom necessary to sit my a$$ in the chair and write. So tonight, while it rains outside, and my fingers feel the uncomfortable stiffness of cold (that's right: cold. In August.) I am looking for inspiration. I remember my favorite short story writer: Lorrie Moore. And her great essay on being a writer....here it is....for you....and for me. Find it at this link, if you don't want to read it here.

March 3, 1985

How to Become a Writer Or, Have You Earned This Cliche?

By LORRIE MOORE

First, try to be something, anything, else. A movie star/astronaut. A movie star/ missionary. A movie star/kindergarten teacher. President of the World. Fail miserably. It is best if you fail at an early age - say, 14. Early, critical disillusionment is necessary so that at 15 you can write long haiku sequences about thwarted desire. It is a pond, a cherry blossom, a wind brushing against sparrow wing leaving for mountain. Count the syllables. Show it to your mom. She is tough and practical. She has a son in Vietnam and a husband who may be having an affair. She believes in wearing brown because it hides spots. She'll look briefly at your writing then back up at you with a face blank as a doughnut. She'll say: ''How about emptying the dishwasher?'' Look away. Shove the forks in the fork drawer. Accidentally break one of the freebie gas station glasses. This is the required pain and suffering. This is only for starters.

In your high school English class look at Mr. Killian's face. Decide faces are important. Write a villanelle about pores. Struggle. Write a sonnet. Count the syllables: 9, 10, 11, 13. Decide to experiment with fiction. Here you don't have to count syllables. Write a short story about an elderly man and woman who accidentally shoot each other in the head, the result of an inexplicable malfunction of a shotgun which appears mysteriously in their living room one night. Give it to Mr. Killian as your final project. When you get it back, he has written on it: ''Some of your images are quite nice, but you have no sense of plot.'' When you are home, in the privacy of your own room, faintly scrawl in pencil beneath his black- inked comments: ''Plots are for dead people, pore- face.''

Take all the baby-sitting jobs you can get. You are great with kids. They love you. You tell them stories about old people who die idiot deaths. You sing them songs like ''Blue Bells of Scotland,'' which is their favorite. And when they are in their pajamas and have finally stopped pinching each other, when they are fast asleep, you read every sex manual in the house, and wonder how on earth anyone could ever do those things with someone they truly loved. Fall asleep in a chair reading Mr. McMurphy's Playboy. When the McMurphys come home, they will tap you on the shoulder, look at the magazine in your lap and grin. You will want to die. They will ask you if Tracey took her medicine all right. Explain, yes, she did, that you promised her a story if she would take it like a big girl and that seemed to work out just fine. ''Oh, marvelous,'' they will exclaim.

Try to smile proudly.

Apply to college as a child psychology major.

As a child psychology major, you have some electives. You've always liked birds. Sign up for something called ''The Ornithological Field Trip.'' It meets Tuesdays and Thursdays at 2. When you arrive at Room 134 on the first day of class, everyone is sitting around a seminar table talking about metaphors. You've heard of these. After a short, excruciating while, raise your hand and say diffidently, ''Excuse me, isn't this Bird-Watching 101?'' The class stops and turns to look at you. They seem to all have one face - giant and blank as a vandalized clock. Someone with a beard booms out, ''No, this is Creative Writing.'' Say: ''Oh - right,'' as if perhaps you knew all along. Look down at your schedule. Wonder how the hell you ended up here. The computer, apparently, has made an error. You start to get up to leave and then don't.

The lines at the registrar this week are huge. Perhaps you should stick with this mistake. Perhaps your creative writing isn't all that bad. Perhaps it is fate. Perhaps this is what your dad meant when he said, ''It's the age of computers, Francie, it's the age of computers.''
Decide that you like college life. In your dorm you meet many nice people. Some are smarter than you. And some, you notice, are dumber than you. You will continue, unfortunately, to view the world in exactly these terms for the rest of your life.

The assignment this week in creative writing is to narrate a violent happening. Turn in a story about driving with your Uncle Gordon and another one about two old people who are accidentally electrocuted when they go to turn on a badly wired desk lamp. The teacher will hand them back to you with comments: ''Much of your writing is smooth and energetic. You have, however, a ludicrous notion of plot.'' Write another story about a man and a woman who, in the very first paragraph, have their lower torsos accidentally blitzed away by dynamite. In the second paragraph, with the insurance money, they buy a frozen yogurt stand together. There are six more paragraphs. You read the whole thing out loud in class. No one likes it. They say your sense of plot is outrageous and incompetent. After class someone asks you if you are crazy.

Decide that perhaps you should stick to comedies. Start dating someone who is funny, someone who has what in high school you called a ''really great sense of humor'' and what now your creative writing class calls ''self-contempt giving rise to comic form.'' Write down all of his jokes, but don't tell him you are doing this. Make up anagrams of his old girlfriend's name and name all of your socially handicapped characters with them. Tell him his old girlfriend is in all of your stories and then watch how funny he can be, see what a really great sense of humor he can have. Your child psychology adviser tells you you are neglecting courses in your major. What you spend the most time on should be what you're majoring in. Say yes, you understand.
In creative writing seminars over the next two years, everyone continues to smoke cigarettes and ask the same things: ''But does it work?'' ''Why should we care about this character?'' ''Have you earned this cliche?'' These seem like important questions.

On days when it is your turn, you look at the class hopefully as they scour your mimeographs for a plot. They look back up at you, drag deeply and then smile in a sweet sort of way.
You spend too much time slouched and demoralized. Your boyfriend suggests bicycling. Your roommate suggests a new boyfriend. You are said to be self-mutilating and losing weight, but you continue writing. The only happiness you have is writing something new, in the middle of the night, armpits damp, heart pounding, something no one has yet seen. You have only those brief, fragile, untested moments of exhilaration when you know: you are a genius. Understand what you must do. Switch majors. The kids in your nursery project will be disappointed, but you have a calling, an urge, a delusion, an unfortunate habit. You have, as your mother would say, fallen in with a bad crowd.

Why write? Where does writing come from? These are questions to ask yourself. They are like:
Where does dust come from? Or: Why is there war? Or: If there's a God, then why is my brother now a cripple?

These are questions that you keep in your wallet, like calling cards. These are questions, your creative writing teacher says, that are good to address in your journals but rarely in your fiction.
The writing professor this fall is stressing the Power of the Imagination. Which means he doesn't want long descriptive stories about your camping trip last July. He wants you to start in a realistic context but then to alter it. Like recombinant DNA. He wants you to let your imagination sail, to let it grow big-bellied in the wind. This is a quote from Shakespeare.
ell your roommate your great idea, your great exercise of imaginative power: a transformation of Melville to contemporary life. It will be about monomania and the fish-eat-fish world of life insurance in Rochester, N.Y. The first line will be ''Call me Fishmeal,'' and it will feature a menopausal suburban husband named Richard, who because he is so depressed all the time is called ''Mopey Dick'' by his witty wife Elaine. Say to your roommate: ''Mopey Dick, get it?'' Your roommate looks at you, her face blank as a large Kleenex. She comes up to you, like a buddy, and puts an arm around your burdened shoulders. ''Listen, Francie,'' she says, slow as speech therapy. ''Let's go out and get a big beer.''

The seminar doesn't like this one either. You suspect they are beginning to feel sorry for you. They say: ''You have to think about what is happening. Where is the story here?''

The next semester the writing professor is obsessed with writing from personal experience. You must write from what you know, from what has happened to you. He wants deaths, he wants camping trips. Think about what has happened to you. In three years there have been three things: you lost your virginity; your parents got divorced; and your brother came home from a forest 10 miles from the Cambodian border with only half a thigh, a permanent smirk nestled into one corner of his mouth.

About the first you write: ''It created a new space, which hurt and cried in a voice that wasn't mine, 'I'm not the same anymore, but I'll be O.K.' ''

About the second you write an elaborate story of an old married couple who stumble upon an unknown land mine in their kitchen and accidentally blow themselves up. You call it: ''For Better or for Liverwurst.''

About the last you write nothing. There are no words for this. Your typewriter hums. You can find no words.

At undergraduate cocktail parties, people say, ''Oh, you write? What do you write about?'' Your roommate, who has consumed too much wine, too little cheese and no crackers at all, blurts: ''Oh, my god, she always writes about her dumb boyfriend.''

Later on in life you will learn that writers are merely open, helpless texts with no real understanding of what they have written and therefore must half-believe anything and everything that is said of them. You, however, have not yet reached this stage of literary criticism. You stiffen and say, ''I do not,'' the same way you said it when someone in the fourth grade accused you of really liking oboe lessons and your parents really weren't just making you take them.

Insist you are not very interested in any one subject at all, that you are interested in the music of language, that you are interested in - in - syllables, because they are the atoms of poetry, the cells of the mind, the breath of the soul. Begin to feel woozy. Stare into your plastic wine cup.
''Syllables?'' you will hear someone ask, voice trailing off, as they glide slowly toward the reassuring white of the dip.

Begin to wonder what you do write about. Or if you have anything to say. Or if there even is such a thing as a thing to say. Limit these thoughts to no more than 10 minutes a day, like sit- ups, they can make you thin.

You will read somewhere that all writing has to do with one's genitals. Don't dwell on this. It will make you nervous.

Your mother will come visit you. She will look at the circles under your eyes and hand you a brown book with a brown briefcase on the cover. It is entitled: ''How to Become a Business Executive.'' She has also brought the ''Names for Baby'' encyclopedia you asked for; one of your characters, the aging clown-schoolteacher, needs a new name. Your mother will shake her head and say: ''Francie, Francie, remember when you were going to be a child psychology major?''
Say: ''Mom, I like to write.''

She'll say: ''Sure you like to write. Of course. Sure you like to write.''

Write a story about a confused music student and title it: ''Schubert Was the One with the Glasses, Right?'' It's not a big hit, although your roommate likes the part where the two violinists accidentally blow themselves up in a recital room. ''I went out with a violinist once,'' she says, snapping her gum.

Thank god you are taking other courses. You can find sanctuary in 19th-century ontological snags and invertebrate courting rituals. Certain globular mollusks have what is called ''Sex by the Arm.'' The male octopus, for instance, loses the end of one arm when placing it inside the female body during intercourse. Marine biologists call it ''Seven Heaven.'' Be glad you know these things. Be glad you are not just a writer. Apply to law school.

From here on in, many things can happen. But the main one will be this: You decide not to go to law school after all, and, instead, you spend a good, big chunk of your adult life telling people how you decided not to go to law school after all. Somehow you end up writing again. Perhaps you go to graduate school. Perhaps you work odd jobs and take writing courses at night. Perhaps you are working and writing down all the clever remarks and intimate personal confessions you hear during the day. Perhaps you are losing your pals, your acquaintances, your balance.
You have broken up with your boyfriend. You now go out with men who, instead of whispering ''I love you,'' shout: ''Do it to me, baby.'' This is good for your writing.

Sooner or later you have a finished manuscript more or less. People look at it in a vaguely troubled sort of way and say, ''I'll bet becoming a writer was always a fantasy of yours, wasn't it?'' Your lips dry to salt. Say that of all the fantasies possible in the world, you can't imagine being a writer even making the top 20. Tell them you were going to be a child psychology major. ''I bet,'' they always sigh, ''you'd be great with kids.'' Scowl fiercely. Tell them you're a walking blade.

Quit classes. Quit jobs. Cash in old savings bonds. Now you have time like warts on your hands.

Slowly copy all of your friends' addresses into a new address book.

Vacuum. Chew cough drops. Keep a folder full of fragments.

An eyelid darkening sideways.

World as conspiracy.

Possible plot? A woman gets on a bus.

Suppose you threw a love affair and nobody came.

At home drink a lot of coffee. At Howard Johnson's order the cole slaw. Consider how it looks like the soggy confetti of a map: where you've been, where you're going - ''You Are Here,'' says the red star on the back of the menu.

Occasionally a date with a face blank as a sheet of paper asks you whether writers often become discouraged. Say that sometimes they do and sometimes they do. Say it's a lot like having polio.
''Interesting,'' smiles your date, and then he looks down at his arm hairs and starts to smooth them, all, always, in the same direction.

From ''Self-Help,'' a collection of short stories by Lorrie Moore

Cat Doctor

We have the best veterinarian - and she loves our cat. (Even the dead one) Best of all, her office is less than six blocks from our house.

So when Lucy started throwing up her food every time we fed her, we of course became concerned and immediately took her to see Dr. Rebecca. She was great - she thinks she's reacting to something she's eating. So we have new food for her tonight that shouldn't upset Lucy's tummy so. Lucy needed some shots as well, so David had her done while there. Lucy didn't like the shots much, David reports. I said, worried, "did she bite the vet?" and David assured me that Lucy just gave her a sincere snarl.

But most impressive, Dr. Rebecca kept saying to David (who had the vet duty today) "you two have done a great job of taking care of this cat, bringing her back to health." Rebecca hadn't seen Lucy since we brought her home from the Humane Society, where she was five pounds and really sick.

Three months later, Lucy has gained 3 pounds (she's now an 8 pound cat) and is as feisty as ever. Rebecca says she can't gain much more weight and that 8 pounds is it. So, Lucy is on a maintenance diet and has all her shots. She has resumed her post, as usual, above David's head. Sometimes she reaches down and pats his bald spot. It's heart-warming.

Bookcases, part deux

I have spent the better part of the last two weeks working off and on with my bookcase project.

I have learned a lot in the last two weeks. Here's a recap:

1. Buy your lumber from a reputable place, not Home Depot or Lowe's. In Portland this place would be called "Mr. Plywood" and is now my mecca for carpentry projects.

2. Don't wear sandals when ripping or chopping your materials.

3. Do wear eye protection when using saws.

4. Remember to add in the blade dimension when cutting wood to a particular dimension.

5. Give yourself a break: your first set of shelves won't be your prettiest, so put these shelves in the basement and practice on them there.

6. You can always heed your friend's husband's warnings about do-it-yourself shelving projects: if you really don't want to spend the time doing carpentry, go to IKEA and buy them there.

7. Remember the power of paint.

8. But also remember that a painted pig is still a pig.

Anyway, I'm off to do a Sunday's worth of projects, including painting the pig in my basement. Pictures later, when it's finished.

Bridge O'Death

Imagine David's surprise (and eventually mine) when we heard that the bridge in our neighborhood was worse than the one in Minneapolis! That it could fall at any minute!



Well, you know what David and I did immediately: that's right. We drove over it, twice, today and cheated death for fun!


(Not this bridge - this is the St John's Bridge, it's not going to fall anytime soon, but it is kind of pretty)

Medicare for David!

David will be 65 years old this year.... !!!

He is being bombarded with Medicare supplemental plans, and parenthetically so am I as they figure we must be the same age. Which, when David pointed that out, made me feel really old.

Last night I was harvesting produce from our garden and preparing a delicious dinner, but David didn't come home. It was 8:00 and still NO DAVID. So I called him on his cell phone, but he didn't pick up. Then our home phone rang and there he was. He said, "Liz, don't panic, I'm at Portland Adventist Hospital," and immediately I panicked.

"Everything's fine!" he insisted. He explained that he had been at a meeting of some insurance company to explain Medicare to new enrollees. He had mentioned he was going to do this once and I poo-pooed it, telling him that he would just be subject to a bunch of marketing. So, he was reluctant to mention it to me again.

He came home with this information: because he is still employed (and hopes to remain that way a little longer, thank you very much!) he will accept Part A of Medicare (Doctor) but respectfully decline Parts B & D (Hospital and Prescription Meds) because he has his employer-sponsored insurance. He didn't buy anything from the sales people last night, but I expect he will at some point. These marketing guys, as I know from work, are really good at what they do.

Anyway, this is boring, I'm sure. At least Lucy thought so. She slept through the entire episode.

ah, summer produce...

The corn we harvested was delicious....David and I devoured two ears for dinner this evening. My gosh, we'll never get corn that good again.....Also harvested some Japanese eggplant, which I sliced and baked in the oven with lots of olive oil and parmesan cheese. Oh, it's good to be a farmer. Farmer Liz

From my Alaskan friend...

In a local Alaskan newspaper:

"Engagements: McCarthy-Terry.

Julia McCarthy and Jamez Terry will be married on Aug. 7 in Fairbanks. They will be joined by friends and family from Alaska and beyond.

Julia has most recently been employed at Abused Women's Aid in Crisis in Anchorage. She was formerly a ballerina and has done lots of other things in between. She is fond of pie.

Jamez has been a dog handler, a physical education teacher, and a zine librarian. He hopes to become an itinerant minister.

Following the wedding the couple will roadtrip to Maine, where they will make babies, do crossword puzzles, and throw stones in the ocean."

Ah, L'Amour....

I'm a farmer...

....and here is my produce from my garden so far this year!

(Don't miss the japanese eggplant underneath the corn)....

Work...

"Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar."--Drew Carey

I don't hate my job, but parts of it are irritating. I work, generally, at OHSU, but I am not a clinician (obviously) and I am reminded nearly daily that I'm not a researcher, either. Well, not an evidence-based researcher, anyway. I have an MPH degree, but at best I am a policy analyst.

But what's good about my job? I get to watch the smartest medical educators in the country create unbiased curriculum to teach doctors how to prescribe medications WITHOUT influence from the pharmaceutical companies. It's so cool to watch these smart people take on the challenge, and overcome obstacles (and there's a lot of them), with such grace.

What do I do? Make sure they're paid on time. Encourage them to keep going. Keep them up-to-date with the latest information from the pharmaceutical world, the FDA, and any other group working on the same stuff. Like the Canadians or Europeans or WHO who are very interested in what this program is doing.

Movies, Living Room Theaters, Hip & Groovy Portland

David and I have discovered the Living Room Theaters on Stark Street in downtown (about a block away from Powell's). We've seen two movies there so far, "Unconscious" (ENTHUSIASTIC THUMBS UP) and "Broken English" (we're agnostic on this one, to put it politely). The deal with this theater is that you sit in posh chairs and they bring you food and drink, if you like. The theaters are small, the movies are mostly subtitled and obscure, but that's just the kind of thing we need now and then to get out of our own heads.

But this is what I wanted to mention: sometimes when I go downtown in Portland I forget what city I'm in. Really. I don't recognize NW Portland (Pearl District) at all and easily get lost in all the pearl, pink, mauve glitzerati, poodle-walking, loft-living urban center that Portland has become. Who are these people? Who am I? Do I even belong here? More and more David and I have commented to each other that we are an anachronism in our own town.

More pool party pictures....

So here's more pictures of that pool party day back in June where Carolyn, her Mom Marianne, Alberto and the kids came for a swim and dinner.

Carolyn's Going Home to Italia....

I drove Carolyn to SeaTac airport this morning to catch her flight back to Europe. She stayed an extra 10 days to take care of Marianne while she recuperated from her emergency surgery. Carolyn's brother Chris arrived yesterday from Texas to take over caretaker duties from Carolyn, and so we sped off in the wee hours this morning so she could catch her flight.

It was great to have Carolyn visit this summer, and for an unexpected longer time than at first anticipated. It gave us some extra time to catch up. I found these pictures of her kids on David's computer from the year 2000 (on the left), swimming in our pool. I'd forgotten how little Antonio and Camilla were when they first came to visit us.

Now, the little buggers are quite a bit bigger. They came for a pool party in June (right), soon after arriving here for their summer vacation this year. Even though it was cloudy that day and looked like it could rain any moment, they still dove right on in and had a wonderful time.

Updates on all activities...

No pictures this morning - just a quick update on my activities: bookcases. Well, we're still measuring carefully on that project. I've been practicing using a level and a square. I am also becoming acquainted with bandages. Just a few knicks here and there, nothing to worry about.

Carolyn's Mom (Marianne): She is out of the hospital and doing great. She doesn't want to eat much, but she's doing really wonderful. I had dinner last night with Carolyn, Marianne and Peter Newell (from down the street) at a Cuban restaurant called Pambiche (a bastardization of the name Palm Beach) which was really wonderful.

Peter hangs wallpaper and paints. He's a fair carpenter, as well. We talked shop and I got some good tips from Peter on these bookcases. He's promised to come over and give me a hand if I get stuck.

The problem with the bookcase project is that I don't have the time to do them for any extended period of time; and I don't have a shop area, so I have to work on them outside. It's very dependent on time of day (light) for this project. More later. I've learned a lot about mathematics and precision.

Carolyn is going to Sutherlin this weekend to help her Dad pack things and move to Corvallis, where he is going to be living next door to Carolyn's brother Steve and Steve's family. It will be good for him to have family close by. I'm taking Carolyn back to SeaTac on August 7 (Tuesday) so she can catch her flight home. Alberto and the kids went home last week, so I'm sure Carolyn misses them.

OK - off to work; more later, especially pictures!

Making Bookcases....

I've been busy making bookcases. I've got all the tools. I've got the Battery-powered DeWalt drill Dad got me for a birthday or Christmas sometime (I love that thing); I've got the Delta chop saw David got me for my last birthday, on a Delta table no less; I've got my circular saw that I'm ripping boards with; I've got the pneumatic nailer I bought at Jerry's last weekend. I've got eye, ear and hand protection. I've got it all.

Except for one thing: I'm not much of a carpenter. I mean, I try. And eventually I'll finish this project, but it takes me forever to get stuff square and level. So, for now, as I go along, I'll try to remember to get David to take pictures of me sweating, chopping, drilling and nailing stuff together. And hopefully we like the results and I can finally unpack books and display them in my music/office/library room in our tiny house. But for now, things are a mess around here.

Carolyn's Mom, Update

I've been requested to update Marianne's condition: She is doing as well as can be expected. She is out of the ICU and in a ward bed. She is taking short walks. She is finding it difficult to eat, though, and today she's pretty tired. But if she does start eating and things go well, she could be home as early as Friday! Wow!

Alberto and the kids are going home to Italy tomorrow (Thursday). Carolyn will stay until August 7.

Gesture Research

My friend Susan does gesture research and works at the McNeill Lab at the University of Chicago. Recently the Chicago Tribune wrote a story about gesture research after an international conference held at Northwestern in Evanston.

"What came first: words or gestures? Researchers aren't 100 percent sure, but they've been asking the question a long time. Gesture studies didn't really emerge, though, until 1941, when Daniel Efron published "Gesture and Environment," a study of how gestures differed among first- and second-generation Italians and Jews in New York City. More recently, work by two University of Chicago professors is carrying the field forward. Professor emeritus David McNeill and professor Susan Goldin-Meadow each lead research labs that bear their names at the university in Hyde Park. Because of their work, Chicago is considered the world's center for gesture studies.

McNeill and Goldin-Meadow were among 200 or so conference presenters and hundreds more attendees catching up on and comparing notes about the latest research."

Susan, although she lives in Hammond, does fascinating research. More later....

Ethical Dilemmas in Health Care: the special case of psychiatrists

The health care business in this country is full of conflicts of interest and insider dealing. It's rife with ethical dilemmas, however most healthcare professionals act as if they couldn't find an ethical dilemma if their lives depended on it.

Consider today's press release by the American Psychiatric Association. They have formed a national committee of experts to go through the DSM, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V). This manual is used by everyone in the mental health profession to diagnose a mental disorder and encourages best practices for treating diagnoses. Certain diagnoses encourage prescribing of certain very expensive medications. So there's lots of incentives for drug companies to influence psychiatrists and their diagnoses. So who would you want inventing the diagnoses? Somebody who isn't conflicted, correct?

According to their press release: "Of the 27 task force members, eight had no relationship with industry and 19 disclosed relationships with industry during any of the 36 months leading up to their nominations. The APA made all task force members' disclosures available during the announcement of the task force. Several otherwise highly qualified indivduals were ruled ineligible fortask force appointments due to their competing interests."The press release goes on to say "The APA Board of Trustees established limits on relationship with industry that are more stringent than federal agency limits," said APA President Carolyn Robinowitz, M.D."What makes the DSM powerful is its value in clinical practice. Patients deserve a diagnostic manual based upon the latest science and free of conflicts of interest."

So I took a look at the disclosures made by the committee members to see what they must attest to before becoming a committee member. They must disclose the last 36 months of connections to the pharmaceutical industry, and they must limit their income from the industry (excluding unrestricted grants) to $10,000 per year for the next year.

70% of these committee members are ONLY taking $10,000 a year from industry while they work on reworking the DSM-V. When I look at what they're getting from industry, it's really astounding to me. It includes things like: consulting fees, speakers bureau, honoraria, stock options, royalties and much much more. It makes me ask: who did they NOT accept on their committee?

One of the grantees for the AG program, Elissa Ladd (who signed a conflict of interest form which says that she has not taken - in the last two years - and will not accept for the duration of the grant any of this kind of funding from industry) has put together curricula in a movie format that you can watch to tell you why these kinds of conflicts are not good for consumers. Watch it, and weep for the psychiatrists. They evidently have no clue what a conflict of interest is and why people shouldn't trust them. For any reason, let alone medical reasons.

My Pal Susan, Part III

And what does Susan do to keep sane in this little town of Hammond?

She drives back towards Illinois, Calumet City, and visits the closest Starbucks. Everyday.