Thought For The Day

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did.”

Mark Twain

Health Care In America - A Reality Check

Please read through the two following blog posts on the debate (or lack of it via Our Modern Media, which instead aims their cameras at train wrecks rather than dig into the facts and figures of a handful of proposed bills -- and recall that None Yet Have Been Voted On By Congress) --

First, some Facts:

"Pathetically but predictably, the health care reform debate is not focused on health care or reform, but rather on imagery meant to trigger our reptilian responses. In another article, I shall address what the "debate" should really be about (hint: improved health!), but in the public interest, in the hopes of lassoing crocodile frenzy before it totally consumes its young, I offer help for those struggling with friends and family who may be shaken by what has occurred during our own August recess.

"This is not to suggest that those who already believe that health reform is designed to kill Granny, or that the government just wants to "take over" Medicare are salvageable. Rather, that there may be increasing numbers of people who do not buy the inflammatory rhetoric, but do not know how to respond (to themselves) otherwise.

Here's a little primer on addressing some of the most absurd claims:

1. The government -- i.e., not private enterprise -- wants to kill Granny. Let us get this straight. The government wants to kill Granny and, by implied contrast, private enterprise, that we all learned in Economics 101 exist for the sole purpose of caring for each and every citizen, will look out for Granny's well-being.

Is this the same private enterprise that sells death (cigarettes), needing to addict 15,000 new children per month just to maintain revenues? Or, is it the same private enterprise that resisted selling safe cars? Or, perhaps it is the same private enterprise that would never pollute our air or water, or, if they did, rush to clean it up before they hurt anyone? Or, maybe they mean the private enterprise that imported toxic toys for children? Or, the private enterprise that so generously donates candy and soda pop machines to public schools?

We actually do know the private enterprise they mean -- it is the private insurers who try not to insure people who are or may get sick, try to drop them from their rolls when they do, and deny every claim they can when they cannot drop you from their policies. That's the private enterprise that has been caring for you for years.

And what about the government? Perhaps the evil government they refer to is the one that determined cigarette smoking caused lung cancer in the first place; or the one that established pollution controls and standards for clean air and clean water; or, perhaps it is the evil government, out to kill Granny, that administers Medicare with less than a 5 percent administrative cost compared to 25-30 percent for private enterprise; or, the evil people at the Food and Drug Administration that ensure the integrity of the food supply and the safety (and potency) of drugs people take to combat illness?

Let us concede, however, that the government does deliberately kill people. It is called the death penalty. And, although the goal is not to have our own people killed, war usually does a pretty good job of ensuring people die. So, if Granny refrains from committing a capital offense, and does not -- like the Limbaughs and O'Reillys and Bushes and Cheneys and Kristols and Lowrys and Buchanans and Chamblisses who love war so long as they do not get called to fight it -- volunteer for the armed forces, it is not the government she needs to fear for her life.

2. We cannot afford it. Here's a shocker--we are affording it today, paying for it now. Hospitals, doctors, pharmaceutical companies are not giving away treatment and medicine for free. They are not printing their own money (although the word "scrip" is indeed in prescription). They are getting paid.

Now, how can that be? Well, if you are among the 260 million Americans who have health insurance, you are already paying for the 47 million who do not. Health care providers overcharge you assuming a predictable percentage of bills will go uncollected. You see, along with your insurance exec's Gulfstream, you pay for the uninsured with your premiums for those higher charges.

But, you don't mind, do you? Because they never called it a "tax."

If we get universal coverage, there will be no unpaid charges. Charges per item or service could come down and, therefore, insurance premiums could come down -- unless of course the insurance execs wants a company yacht along with the Gulfstream, or just to report higher profits, then they won't. Wonder what a competing public option would do? Hmmm....

And, by the way, there are huge savings to be had just from improved efficiencies of a system in which total costs count more than the cost of one procedure or drug or intervention.

The secret reason they never called part of your premiums a "tax" is that if we ever got health care reform, and premiums declined, or at least did not increase more rapidly than other parts of the economy, then we might have called it a "tax cut." And one of the "Old Rules" is the only the right wing gets to say the word, "tax cut." (Are you listening, Bill Maher?).

But, they are correct that health care costs are spinning out of control and that one of the purposes of reforming the system is to reduce those costs. One of the best ways of reducing costs is improving outcomes. More on that in another article.

3. Let private competition solve everything: Imagining a world without Medicare

Ok, to test that hypothesis, let us examine what our world would be like without Medicare. One possibility would be that the elderly would be insured privately and randomly in the same plans as the rest of us. Care to guess how high your premiums would be if your plan carried those higher risk seniors?

Or, suppose no insurance company really wanted to insure the elderly and they were without insurance. Then Granny gets sick. Who pays? Do you let Granny go untreated? Does Granny "allow" you go bankrupt, and deprive your kids, her grandchildren(!), of their college funds, to pay for her care?

Or, suppose there are insurance companies only covering the elderly? Their insurance premiums would be ... oh, doesn't seem to work does it? Very few would be covered since it would be unaffordable, so we are back to no coverage.

How about this? Your children can be covered to the age of 18 under your policy. What about your parents getting covered under your policy once they hit 65? Think we are back to sky-high premiums with that one.

I know, I know, I know (says Newtie), let's give each Medicare recipient a lump sum, and let them go out and buy private insurance with it. For starters, about 20-30 percent of that is no longer going into actual care, but into "administrative" costs, so their coverage would decline.. Then again, if a person is ill, the insurer may not wish to cover him; if there were a law against such discrimination, we are back to both skyhigh premiums few could afford and the contribution coming from Medicare being insufficient.

Now, for the most likely scenario without Medicare. Granny is covered, premiums are higher but not outrageously. Why? Because when Granny does get ill, the insurance companies will deny coverage, or drop her. So, you can have the wonderful experience of paying higher premiums and then going bankrupt a bit sooner, all while Granny is wondering how she could allow herself to do this to you, and her grandchildren. Now that would really kill her.

4. The free market can solve everything, and at lower cost. No, it cannot. First, and most convincingly, it has not. Since most systems tend toward equilibrium, it might have been surmised that, after all these years, everything would have already been solved. The purists would say that there are government programs around (like Medicare) that have distorted the system so that free markets cannot reach an equilibrium solution. But, that is nonsense. See # 3 above.

Secondly, though, free markets are genetically incapable of providing high-quality, low-cost, health care for all. Why? Because most people incur most of their health care costs when they are old. By the time they are old, health care prices have risen (even if at a normal rate), whereas their incomes were earned way-back-when wages and salaries were not nearly as high. Hence, even if they had saved prudently for the inevitable rainy day, it is unlikely most people would have enough saved from wages during their youth and middle age to cover the costs that they are now charged in their old age.

In addition, the costs of an illness can be, and often are, catastrophic to individuals, and only the very wealthy would have the money to pay for the total costs of care.

Ok, the free-market-solve-everything crowd would say, they would all purchase insurance. But, that is today's system, not everyone purchases it, not everyone can afford it, and private markets in search of profits do what would be expected: they weed out those most likely to add costs.

5. Your health care will be rationed. Don't know how to break this to you, except to say it in a whisper -- your health care is rationed today. Insurance companies do not cover everything, and, when they do, it is often just up to a point. Medicare likewise has certain rules about the level of nursing care required to qualify for reimbursement.

For example, we now know that highly intensive, properly guided physical therapy can restore motor function in people after strokes. A different part of the brain is trained to take over motor control. Here is a real-life case: A professor had a stroke. He is otherwise young and vigorous, formerly a champion-level athlete. But, his insurance will not cover the costs of 12-16 weeks of the highly intensive physical rehabilitation required to recover motor function. He gets just 3 weeks, only one hour on alternate days, but not even at the facility closest to his home, he has to go to one the insurance company approved.

One of the benefits of a comprehensive system is that treating this man for 12-16 weeks so that he can recover his motor function is not only better for the patient but, in the long run, is also much less expensive than forcing him, because of lack of coverage, to remain partially paralyzed. For any given insurance company, however, it is not less expensive, because he is likely to get passed into a different company. Thus, outcomes are worse and costs are higher.

6. Medicare is bankrupt ... or will be in 2042.

Name the private insurance company who is funded for all the healthcare expenses it will have to pay for the next 33 years, and I'll buy you 3 cheeseburgers, freedom fries deep-fried in beef fat with all you can drink Mountain Dew."

Meanwhile, Vibinc voices a more urgent reality:

"I know this whole “death panel” thing has been going on for weeks now, but I’ve gotten to the point where I want to slap someone every time I hear them talk about Government pulling the plug on granny because she’s too expensive. What bullshit.

We already have death panels you douchenozzle, they’re called INSURANCE COMPANIES.

As The Memphis Liberal points out the Supreme Court has ruled that

Inducement to ration care is the very point of any HMO scheme.

The argument on the right is that you can sue an insurance company. Perhaps, but you’re still dead if you don’t get the treatment you need because some corporation hedged their bets.

It’s not like it’s ever happened before or anything.

Oh, and how does a lawsuit play with conservative notions that tort reform will magically fix what’s driving up the cost of healthcare. Come on people be consistent.

Nope, the reality is we’re talking about two different cultures. One that believes corporations are going to do what’s right for people and that the government can’t do ANYTHING right, and one that believes government’s role is to provide an equitable foundation for all Americans and that corporations are more interested in protecting shareholders than doing right by regular folks.

Which one sounds more realistic?

Seriously, conservatives have been working for 30 years to protect shareholders and corporations far more than help regular Americans. Their perspective is that if the corporation benefits, somehow so does everyone else. From the union busting that the Reagan Admin. engaged in, to trade deals that have sent American jobs hither and fro, with the help of conservative and largely southern Democrats that have served as compliant enablers, the conservative ideology has destroyed America’s manufacturing base and left us in a position where good jobs for regular people are going the way of the dodo. All the while this same “Conservative ideology” is largely responsible for a tenfold increase in the national debt over the past 28 years.

Somehow, this is supposed to provide a better quality of life for all us little people. But aside from making really affordable “cheap plastic crap” made in places most people couldn’t find on a map, the only real benefit has been the availability of second rate goods to people who used to make a first rate version of the same damn thing.

So when we apply this ideological difference to the healthcare “debate”, if that’s what you want to call it, you have some people talking about healthcare, and others talking about something else entirely. Sobeale hit on this back in June when talking about the difference between the left and the right on the healthcare debate.

Progressives want to give everyone healthcare. The other side wants to give everyone health insurance.

Healthcare. That’s what I’m talking about, not insurance. Insurance is the ONLY thing in the world you buy and pray you don’t have to use. Healthcare is something EVERYONE NEEDS, but that a growing minority of working Americans DON’T HAVE ACCESS TO. Sure, they can go to the doctor or the hospital, but if it’s something serious, they’ll likely go bankrupt. That’s the reality, and 50% of the people who go bankrupt every year are in that situation.

So now that the Healthcare industry has dumped some $130m since April into putting the kibosh on any plan that includes a “public option” by stirring irrational fears and mobilizing a vocal but largely uninformed group of people to disrupt anything and everything that might further the “public option”. The debate has shifted from providing healthcare to all Americans to providing Americans with insurance, something they don’t want to have to use.

This is just plain madness.

The right wing reactionaries that show up in force at Town Hall meetings across this nation are grounded in the same ideology that has helped bankrupt this county and millions of it’s citizens. They are not there to debate, they are there to debase the process, to incite fear, and ultimately, deny you a right to affordable treatment when you need it most.

This is not the huge movement that the media would play it up to be. They are not taking to the streets demanding that things stay the same. They are a couple of hundred people per district, out of some 600,000+ constituents, mobilized to make a good show of strength for a very short period of time. It’s media manipulation at it’s worst, and the media is playing the role of compliant enabler, just like those conservative Democrats who are paralyzed with fear anytime someone proposes a change that they might have to defend.

A Month of Free Gifts For You - Win New Designs of Classic Movie Posters

Elvis Presley, John Wayne, Gene Hackman, Sidney Poitier, Peter Sellers, Frank Sinatra, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn are all working together for the first time to thank you, dear readers, for having that Cup of Joe here on the internet.

As a part of the celebration of this blog's 4th birthday and in conjunction with Turner Classic Movies, August is full of stars, including you!! So, I'm giving away 2 sets of 6 movie posters, all newly designed and original creations based on some classic American movies. To win, all you have to do is enter your name in the comments section below this post before midnight August 31st, 2009. Two winners will be selected among all entries - and only one entry per household.

If you would like to peek at the 31 new posters designs created by the folks at Turner Classic Movies, then click here and you can zoom in and out on the images for close-up views.

Each day this month, Turner Classic Movies are highlighting the movies from some icons of cinema - like those listed above. Today, for example, they are featuring 24 hours of the films of Gloria Grahame, in great films like "The Big Heat" and "The Greatest Show on Earth" and "In A Lonely Place."

A full schedule of the films and stars are right here in a PDF format.

Also, check back here on this blog the rest of the month, and I'll have articles and info on these legendary films and their stars, and you can also see an easy-to-read widget which will have each day's featured performer. As shown below, the poster for Grahame is taken from the terrific crime thriller "The Big Heat", and for the daring scene where a cruel (and young) Lee Marvin hurls a pot of boiling coffee at her face, scarring her beyond imagination. I think the new poster design is pretty amazing and if you'll click around on the widget, you can learn a lot more about each star each day.



It's all a way to celebrate the start of the 5th year for this blog and to thank you for reading. So just enter your name in the comment section today and you could grab the gear. Thanks!

I'm Giving Away Presents For My Blog Birthday

Since this tasty, fresh, piping-hot and aromatically stimulating Cup of Joe just had it's Blog Birthday, turning into a humble-but-lovable 4-year-old -- I am giving presents to YOU this year.

Tune in tomorrow to find out how you can get this special present.

What is it?

It's full of stars.

"Death Panels" Are Real - They Come From Your Insurance Policy

I was glad to see that former Gov. Sarah Palin was forced to choke on her own words thanks to a major blast of reality from folks like my blogging friend Southern Beale.

Palin's idiotic "government death panels" are fantasy, but the reality is insurance companies DO have them, as Beale experienced first-hand. Her blog post has been rocketing around the internet:

"I’ve been part of a death panel conversation. I know about death panels.

You have no idea what it’s like to be called into a sterile conference room with a hospital administrator you’ve never met before and be told that your mother’s insurance policy will only pay for 30 days in ICU. You can't imagine what it's like to be advised that you need to “make some decisions,” like whether your mother should be released “HTD” which is hospital parlance for “home to die,” or if you want to pay out of pocket to keep her in the ICU another week. And when you ask how much that would cost you are given a number so impossibly large that you realize there really are no decisions to make. The decision has been made for you. "Living will" or no, it doesn't matter. The bank account and the insurance policy have trumped any legal document.

If this isn’t a “death panel” I don’t know what is.

So don’t talk to me about “death panels” you heartless, cruel, greedy sons of bitches, who are only too happy to keep the profits rolling in to the big insurance companies while you spout your mealy-mouthed bumper sticker slogans about the evils of socialism. You don't even know what socialism is. You don't know what government healthcare is."

Other tales of of the way our current insurance systems operate (or fail to provide for operations perhaps) are in Salon today.

At KnoxViews, TN Senator Lamar Alexander says no reform bill currently being debated is worthwhile. Certainly, what is being termed "debate" has no value.

At MetaFilter, their readers comment on the way wild rumors are getting credibility thanks to enablers from the lunatics and protectors of big insurance companies with some humor:

"Two recent concerns appear to have been omitted:

(1) "Obama's gonna EAT mah BABY!!1"

and

(2) "Keep the government out of my Medicare!"

===

"I'm convinced Americans have gradually been duped into becoming the best consumers in the world: a whole nation full of dyed-in-the-wool suckers whose biggest blind-spot is thinking ourselves savvier than everyone else.

So we gladly pay for food packed with cheap fillers (practices like injecting water into meat products to weigh them down that might have gotten a butcher's hand chopped off in a medieval marketplace are routine in ours). And by default, the beverages in restaurants and bars come with more ice than beverage in them. And our health insurance policies feature high deductibles and so many exclusions they don't even cover things as fundamental to human health and continued existence as childbirth. Hell, after Katrina, how many people in the affected regions were astonished to learn that their catastrophic hurricane insurance included a flooding exclusion that allowed insurers to get out of paying claims if they could demonstrate virtually any degree of water damage (even if the damage was due to rain coupled with wind damage, not flooding)?

And yet, we always remain convinced that the choices we have as consumers are better than the equivalent choices available to consumers in any other part of the world. My first extended stay in Germany, seeing first hand that my mom and my sisters, even living near the bottom of the economic ladder as they did, ate better food and enjoyed a better quality of life and higher standard of health care than virtually any American I knew--man, that was something.

Lunacy Over Health Care and Insurance Reforms

It's getting ugly out there -- rabid, illogical and often just plain old-fashioned lying -- as efforts are made to change the way insurance and health care work.

Really ugly -- but not really surprising, given that the voices from the Right are led by the small-minded self-aggrandizers like Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Late Summer Night Music

When it is a hot summer August night, like this one, and tomorrow looks to be even hotter, I often spend far too many hours searching for music to enjoy and to post here on this humble but lovable blog.

In the past few days, I've been listening a lot to Donald Fagen's "Morph The Cat", which is rich and thick with some seriously irresistible grooves and laid back funkiness. So I picked out two of my favorites from the album -- and a couple of other older favorites which somehow all melt together in this summer heat around the midnight hour.

Camera Obscura: John Hughes, King of Comedy; 'Perfect Getaway'; 'Lovely Bones'; Vampire's Assistant

I was talking just this week with a friend about writer/director John Hughes, who died suddenly on Thursday at age 59. Hughes made some of the most-loved movies through the 1980s, capturing the lives and loves and comic errors of American teens (and the idiocy of adults). He didn't write schlock or pander to fearful parents. His characters became companions and icons to millions of movie fans.

In the 1990s, he walked away from Hollywood and film-making and returned to Chicago, content to avoid the press and the ever-growing cult of fans who praised his movies. At the time, he had the power to make any film he wanted, and he, apparently, decided to just take a break. I cannot blame him - by 1989 he had cranked out a massive amount of work in a single decade.

He was still working as a writer through the last few years, using the name Edmond Dantes as screenwriter on movies like "Flubber" and "Maid In Manhattan".

I first heard of Hughes through his writing for National Lampoon, where he and writer P.J. O'Rourke created the brilliant parody of a Sunday newspaper in the fictional town of Dacron, Ohio. You can still buy copies of the "Ohio Republican-Democrat", first published in 1978. His writing and skill soon led him to be the editor of National Lampoon in 1979 - they have posted a short remembrance of Hughes and promise to reprint online some of his best tales. The story he wrote in for them in 1982, called "Vacation '58" was soon turned into a hit movie, "National Lampoon's Vacation". And even back then, he had an eye and an ear for life in America which was somehow both hilarious satirical and still fond and gentle.

Hughes had a great skill for writing about American teens, and how there were some adults who had retained a vivid ability to be young in heart and mind. He knew the ways teens moved into groups of the popular and the unpopular, and through most of his movies, he urged them to forget about conformity and instead to be true to self. And he did that with such comic ease. He celebrated life, embraced it, and made all of us laugh at ourselves and each other.

Hughes had another skill which makes his movies so memorable - his use of music. The music he used covered rock and roll from the 50s through the 90s, and it always worked to build a scene or a laugh or capture a more solemn moment. He never talked down to the audience, he talked with us and sang with us, and made movies that were just fun and we have watched them over and over.

That kind of legacy has worth beyond measure.

And a clip from one of my favorite Hughes' movies - 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off" - complete with the most famous high school home room roll call ever made:



---

Writer/Director David Twohy has a new movie in theaters today, "Perfect Getaway", a thriller starring Steve Zahn, Milla Jovovich, and Timothy Olyphant about a vacation trip to Hawaii which goes from fun to fear in pure pulp style.

Twohy has been steadily making some excellent genre films for years, all of them great Grade-B suspense tales. Other movies from Twohy include "Pitch Black," "Warlock", the vastly underrated alien invasion movie "The Arrival", a haunted submarine movie called "Below" and a real gem of a time travel movie which has had several titles - "Disaster In Time" or "Timescape". It is a sci-fi film that casually draws you in to a very strange and terrifying series of events whose meaning is a real jaw-dropper.

Although he is no A-lister, I've always been greatly entertained by Twohy's movies - summer popcorn fare with plenty of adventure and plot twists.

---

A new preview trailer hit the web this week from the new movie by director Peter Jackson, "The Lovely Bones", based on the novel by Anne Sebold and featuring a soundtrack by Brian Eno. Check it out here at the official website. The movie is set for a December release.

---

The really weird this week is for a movie called "Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant". It features actor John C. Reilly as a vampire in a traveling circus of the bizarre who decides to take on a young teenage vampire apprentice. I think the trailer sort of says it all --

How To Improve Television - Drop Glenn Beck

MediaMatters reports today that the jabbering madness of Glenn Beck is losing major advertisers.

"Three companies who run ads during Glenn Beck -- NexisLexis-owned Lawyers.com, Proctor & Gamble and Progressive Insurance -- today distanced themselves from Beck. LexisNexis has pulled its advertising from Beck and says it has no plans to advertise on the program in the future. Both Proctor & Gamble and Progressive Insurance called the Beck advertising placements an error that they would correct.

The decision by the three companies comes as over 45,000 ColorofChange.org members call on advertisers to pull their ads from Glenn Beck after the controversial news host called President Obama a "racist" who "has a deep-seated hatred for white people" on "Fox & Friends" last week.

"Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention," said John Michaels, Senior Communications Manager at LexisNexis in an email to ColorOfChange.org. "We have suspended further advertising during Mr. Beck's program."

Yes, Glenn, in America, we all have the right to free speech - however, each of us will still be held accountable for what we choose to say. Your account is way overdue, so even though I'm sure you'll drama-queen this loss as proof of the downfall of America, instead it is proof that most of us do not want to hear anything you say and that free speech does not mean free from responsibility for what is said.

(HT to KnoxViews)

Secret Deals Between Jefferson County Government and The Railroad

Several citizens groups have formed to halt the plan to construct a Norfolk-Southern rail and truck facility, though the reporting via today's Knoxville News Sentinel pretty much implies the residents are out of luck and their county's landscape will be forever changed.

So far, the Powers That Be have excluded local residents from having any voice in this project, a tactic which serves only to alienate and anger residents -- isn't it time these kind of secret government-business deals end once and for all??

The KNS report by Ed Marcum says:

"Upset that local officials have signed confidentiality agreements with the railroad company and that the Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce has excluded them from a meeting with Norfolk Southern, about 10-12 people have formed Jefferson County Tomorrow to take action.

They have set up a Web site, are arranging to get help from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, are talking with the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, distributing letters to property owners, collecting names on a petition and looking into legal options - all toward stopping a Norfolk Southern facility they say would take out a three-mile swath of farmland along Highway 11E in New Market.

"The point is this thing is growing," Alex Miller, a Jefferson County Tomorrow organizer, said of the group. "It is not going away, we are going to fight this to the very last minute. We will take this all the way, and Norfolk Southern and the county and the state need to understand that this is our homes we are protecting."

Summing up the group's concerns, Miller said it made no sense to put a huge industrial facility in the middle of prime farmland adjacent to an elementary school and next to railroad tracks but about 10 miles from Interstate 40 and in a county that already is in air pollution non-attainment from vehicle emissions.

Norfolk Southern proposes to build a $60 million intermodal facility on 280 acres along Highway 11E next to New Market Elementary School. Such a facility would allow trucks to bring in trailers or cargo containers that could be loaded onto flatbed railroad cars for shipment across great distances. The proposed facility would handle about 180 trailers or containers a day, plus about 67 additional trucks without separate trailers. Studies have projected it could be an economic engine for Jefferson County and East Tennessee, generating 1,801 jobs in New Market by 2020 and 2,600 to 2,700 jobs in Jefferson County by 2025.

But the way officials have handled the issue rankles many people, members of the group say.

Harvey Young said about a week ago Jefferson County's Chamber of Commerce held an informational meeting with Norfolk Southern officials. About seven members of Jefferson County Tomorrow tried to attend but were turned away by a law enforcement officer, Young said.

"They told us this meeting was by invitation only," he said.

Another issue is the confidentiality agreements some officials signed with Norfolk Southern, stirring concern about government secrecy. One of the public officials who signed a confidentiality agreement was Phil Kindred, Jefferson County Commission chairman and a commissioner in the district where the proposed facility would be built.

In a July newsletter to constituents, Kindred said that in October 2007, Norfolk Southern asked him and others on a county task force to sign a "confidentiality letter" about the project. Other officials included Jefferson County Mayor Alan Palmieri, Appalachian Electric Cooperative representatives Bill Underwood and Greg Williams, Industrial Development Board representative Ed Stiner, Chamber of Commerce President Eli Matijevich and Chamber Executive Director Don Cason.

Kindred said other residents also have signed agreements, bringing the total number to about 17.

The letter prohibited signers from sharing information until a decision was made to release a public announcement, Kindred said. Initially he was reluctant to sign, but he felt he would be able to learn more about a project that could have a huge impact on the county, he said.

Task force members believed a public statement would be forthcoming, releasing them from their pledge of silence, but the slowing economy caused the process to drag on, Kindred said.

"Although the local task force members felt an urgent need to inform the community and our Industrial Board, the process never seemed to reach that point and ultimately some of the information was 'leaked' to New Market residents," he wrote.

Leaked information prompted a July 2 public meeting at Jefferson Middle School. There, Palmieri confirmed he had signed the agreement and said he had also signed agreements for a NASCAR speed park complex, an amusement park and other proposals that never became public issues because they fell through. To jeers from the crowd at the public meeting, Palmieri said he has not withheld any information from the public.

Jefferson County Tomorrow members John Kramer and Jennifer Nicely wrote the mayor for copies of the confidentiality agreement, but received letters from Jefferson County's attorney, S. Douglas Drinnon, saying they were not available.

"I understand that the document you requested is not in the possession or custody of the Jefferson County mayor or any governmental agency of Jefferson County," Drinnon wrote. He did not return a call Tuesday for comment.

Miller said the group has been told that Norfolk Southern has all copies of the agreement. The group contacted Norfolk Southern but the company would not release any of those copies, he said."

You can contact the Jefferson County government offices via their web page.
You can contact the Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce via their web page.

Post-Peach; Or The Other News in the News

After many Summer months working with some fantastic actors, this weekend saw the first and last appearance of "James and the Giant Peach" - a live stage show for Rose Center's Summer Players. I confess some sadness to see The Peach fade into memory - but what fine memories for the actors, their hard-working parents, the staff at Rose Center, the sponsors and the audiences, who all cheered the good work of the cast.

Those memories are beyond price and my complete joy in working with such talented folk are likewise priceless.

The rest of the world, of course, slowly turned and turned, so I thought it best to ease back into the regular blogging world with a few items which show, if nothing else, that being a part of the family of our Giant Peach could have improved more lives than one might imagine. Long live The Peach!!

In politico news:

Morristown City Government gave the heave-ho to their City Administrator, Jim Crumley (heck of a Golden Parachute for him!!)

State election commissions across the state of Tennessee have filed a class action suit over the apparent political hijinks of naming new bosses.

In other news:

Law enforcement officers in Chattanooga stopped a man threatening suicide by firing some 59 shots at him, striking him 43 times "The autopsy report, which is not yet final, details gunshot wounds on nearly every part of Mr. Heyward's 5-foot-9-inch, 180-pound body. Bullet holes were present from his chin to his ankle, but Lt. Noorbergen said it's not clear which of those were entry or exit wounds.". This story is almost too tragic and awful to be believed.

The constant mis-information about a plan to revamp the nation's health care system has been so steady and constant that the malformed remnants of the legislation also falls into the realm of tragedy.

In other News o' The Web:

I've been catching up on the year-long interview project from producer/director David Lynch. A recent sample is below -- for so many of these interviews done with people from across the country, people who seldom make the news or even creep into our daily awareness - I learn something most memorable about the lives us of us all: we struggle through good times and hard times and if we are fortunate, we learn to embrace the good times and simply learn to accept the bad.

InterviewProject.com
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Last Chance Today to See James and The Giant Peach

The final performance of "James and the Giant Peach" at Rose Center in Morristown is today with curtain time at 2 pm -- come early, tickets are going fast and will be available at the door!!

Directing this show for the Rose Center Summer Players has been one of the best events I have ever had the pleasure of working on - and the cast of actors are absolutely top-notch. Here's a preview from rehearsals:

'James and The Giant Peach' Opens Friday at Rose Center in Morristown

This weekend is the ONLY chance to see the 18th annual theatrical production from the Rose Center Summer Players program, with "James and the Giant Peach" at Rose Center in Morristown starting Friday. The cast of young actors and their parents and the RC staff and even humble me, as director, are eager for you to come see the show. Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8 pm at Rose Center and a Sunday matinee at 2 pm. Tickets are only Five Dollars (What A Bargain!!) and you can make reservations now by calling Rose Center at 423-581-4330. Seating is limited so reservations are very much suggested.

MJPhotography Online has three pages of photos of the cast and the show, like the one at the top of the page and one more for you below. You can look through all of them by clicking here. She sure does excellent work!!



Also, the Citizen Tribune of Morristown has a short video promoting the show, with some cast interviews, which you can see by clicking here. (I hope to have a video here on the blog very soon, so check back later today.

The story of the play is based on Roald Dahl's classic children's story, "James and The Giant Peach" and has many funny scenes, and some staging wonders including the Giant Peach itself and a host of giant insects who all become the new best friends of young James. His parents sadly are taken from him in a bizarre fatal accident involving a large rhinoceros which has escaped from the zoo. His two mean and very selfish Aunts - Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker - take young James into their home, but a chance magical encounter with a mysterious stranger allows for James to help create a Giant Peach, which he uses to escape from his evil Aunts and travel across the ocean and into America. The insects and the peach and James have to battle sharks and even a large and deadly giant octopus on their way to safety.

The young actors have worked very hard to create the costumes and help make the sets and even selling ads for the show's program, all a part of Rose Center's annual educational program. And it has been a real honor for me to help stage this production and a whole lot of fun putting this show together for all those who attend and we hope you can make time to see it. I know that the cast and myself have had a fantastic summer putting this show together.

We'll even make sure to have some fresh, hot and tasty peach cobbler and ice cream and other suitable snacks on sale at the concession stand for all who attend.

Hope to see you there this weekend!!

"Heads Will Roll" In TVA Toxic Spill?

From the very creation of the coal ash containment site in Kingston through decades of warnings about increasing risks of catastrophic failure and even through the days following the massive toxic flood of coal ash into the rivers and land in Kingston, TVA failed and support those failures with more flawed policy -- all this according to TVA's own inspector general's report on the disastrous spill in December of 2008. The Knoxville News Sentinel reports:

"The Tennessee Valley Authority ignored warnings for more than two decades about the safety of the fly ash pond at its Kingston Fossil Plant and could have prevented its catastrophic collapse by addressing them, the TVA inspector general wrote in a scathing report issued Tuesday.

The utility's independent watchdog found TVA management has not accepted responsibility for decisions leading to the catastrophe. Instead, the report found, officials limited the scope of an investigation into the cause of the disaster in an apparent effort to shore up its legal defense in lawsuits.

The utility's actions, the report concluded, were fueled by a cultural resistance to change that looked at ash as insignificant.

And, he warned, a similar spill could occur at other power plants if TVA doesn't take action.

The report, issued by Inspector General Richard W. Moore, is the most comprehensive review to date of the spill, which dumped 5.4 million cubic yards of fly ash sludge into the Emory River and surrounding countryside on Dec. 22. No one died, but 26 houses were destroyed or damaged, and the tab for the cleanup could approach $1 billion.

"Any restoration for individual victims or the community of necessity involves an acknowledgement of TVA's role in what happened in the early morning hours of December 22, 2008," Moore wrote.

Moore and TVA President and Chief Executive Officer Tom Kilgore testified on the report and the environmental cleanup before the House Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment on Tuesday morning. Kilgore told members of the subcommittee, which oversees TVA, that the utility might have to clean house in light of the spill and its aftermath.

"We have to change," Kilgore said. "If that means heads have to roll, if people have to leave, so be it."

Moore hired the engineering firm Marshall Miller and Associates of Bluefield, Va., to assist in the investigation, and his conclusions are based on their review of documents and facilities, plus his office's interviews with key TVA personnel.

Moore found TVA could have prevented the spill if the utility had corrected problems raised by internal engineers and consultants beginning as early as 1985. That year, TVA's director of engineering projects noted in a memorandum that an earthen dike that held back the sludge wasn't built to design specifications and had a calculated safety factor below acceptable levels. The dike's rupture 23 years later released the flood of toxin-laden sludge.

A pair of contractors' reports, issued in 2004 after TVA temporarily closed the facility because of a blowout in one of the dredge cells, also should have raised red flags, Moore wrote. One, by Geosyntec Consultants, "should have served as a clear warning to TVA regarding the stability of the Kingston ash storage facilities," Moore wrote.

TVA didn't follow Geosyntec's recommendations to conduct more studies on the stability of the pond and install monitoring and drainage systems at the facility. Moore wrote that Kilgore "was unable to ascertain why" TVA didn't make the improvements.

"Had corrective measures been taken in a timely fashion, it is possible that TVA could have potentially prevented the occurrence of the failure," the report stated.

One TVA engineer told investigators that "TVA had a cheap solution to ash storage by stacking higher, so that is what they did."

A video of the hearing is here at the subcomittee's web site.

Previous posts from this blog - many tracking the constantly changing "facts" provided by TVA - are here.

Blogger R. Neal points out testimony in the hearing mentioned above where Congressman John Duncan ridiculed those investigating and demanding corrective action:

"It's interesting that U.S. Representatives from Texas and Minnesota are strong advocates for the residents of Roane County and other areas affected by TVA coal-fired power plants, while Tennessee's Rep. Jimmy Duncan (R-TN2) refers to disaster victims and cleanup advocates as "extremists" and "kooks."

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Rep. Lincoln Davis (D-TN4) take a different view. Sen. Alexander says the IG report "raises major concerns which must be taken seriously." Rep. Davis says that TVA "has a long road ahead to regain the trust of Tennessee families."

Rep. Duncan's remarks are disgraceful and an insult to the residents of Roane County."


RoaneViews has local reactions from residents to this report and many more stories on the ongoing problems with TVA.

"Heads will roll" says Kilgore -- really? When? Who? The future safety of so many, and the future operations of TVA demand a heavy price today and will for many years to come.

Morristown Near 20% Unemployment

The figures for months have shown a steady march upward on unemployment here in East Tennessee, and June's report shows Morristown near 20% and Hamblen County above 13%.

The numbers:

The state's four most populous combined statistical areas (CSAs) in May reported:

* Chattanooga, 10.3 percent, up from from 9.7 percent in May;

* Knoxville, 10.1 percent, up from 9.6 percent in May;

* Nashville, 10.3 percent, up from 9.4 percent in May;

* Memphis, 10.3 percent, up from 9.6 percent in May.

NEARBY CITIES

The May unemployment rates in nearby smaller cities were:

* Bristol, 11.6 percent, up from 10.6 percent in May;

* Johnson City, 9.1 percent, up from 8.4 percent in May;

* Kingsport, 12.7 percent, up from 12.6 percent in May;

* Morristown, 19.4 percent, up from 18.5 percent in May;

* Oak Ridge, 8.9 percent, up from 8.4 percent in May.

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* Cocke County, 13.2 percent;

* Hamblen, 13.3 percent;

* Hawkins, 12.9 percent;

* Sullivan, 9.6 percent;

* Unicoi, 12.6 percent;

* Washington, 9.2 percent.

Source

If, as usual, the end of summer brings an end to some temporary and part time employment, this Fall's unemployment rate might be even higher.

Camera Obscura: Comic-Con News; Miyazaki's 'Ponyo'; Scorsese's 'Shutter Island'

Filmmakers and fans and media reps from all corners have been busy at the Annual San Diego Comic-Con this week. When first held in 1970, a few hundred fans and comic creators attended and the event was barely noticed - except among fans and creators. And it grew quickly.

In the last few years, all major movie studios, every news agency, agents, actors, writers, artists, fans and fans and more fans swirl about the convention center in the must-see and must-be-seen event.

From Time magazine, writer Lev Grossman spoke with legendary animators Hayao Miyazaki and John Lassiter - though the newsman can barely contain his fan-boy appreciation for Miyazaki, whose newest animated feature (as always a hand-drawn movie) "Ponyo" is set to hit American theaters in a few weeks, boasting a cast of top name Hollywood talent:



Grossman writes:

"I find it doesn't help to get fanboyish in situations like this -- it just freaks famous people out -- so I keep it together, helped by Miyazaki's translator -- she's a calming presence. I'm not going to run through the whole interview, which I have to save for the print magazine for now. But we talked about where Ponyo came from -- she was a frog before she was a goldfish, and her story to some extent parallels that of the Little Mermaid, a story Miyazaki loved as a child, though he didn't like the ending. ... We talked about the cartoons Miyazaki loved as a little kid.

At the very end I broke character and thanked him for everything he's done, and how Totoro is the first movie my daughter and I really loved together. I am not a stone."

Fans get more than a chance to learn the latest news about projects they like, such as the long anticipated "Avatar" from director James Cameron, another long-in-planning production for a sequel to "Tron", the new movie "District 9" from producer Peter Jackson and they can get into a Q and A with some very famous directors (Sam Raimi, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez) on breaking into the business:



Cinematical and IGN have very complete coverage on just about all topics, panels and news from the Comic-Con.

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Director Martin Scorsese works once again with his favorite actor in recent years, Leonardo DiCaprio for "Shutter Island", based on a novel by Dennis Lehane and set in a grim (what else for Scorsese??) asylum for the criminally insane located on a island. The preview for the movie follows:

Seduction and Scandal In The Tennessee Legislature

State Senator Paul Stanley and one of his interns, McKensie Morrison, are at the center of a sex scandal and an alleged blackmail plot, a story burning up the state blogging world. Kleinheider at PostPolitics has been reporting quite a bit on the sordid tale and has a blistering accusation from an intern about what women who work in the legislature face when they work with elected officials:

"What I can also tell you is that almost every man up there feels entitled to look, touch, and flirt with any female in that place, regardless of whether she is an intern, lobbyist, guest, etc.

"I was shocked when I heard about this, but not really. The ego that exists in most men up there is enough to make me sick.

"Just to let you know, I think its the men up there who have the potential to ruin the internship program. If it goes because one or two Senators or Representatives couldn’t keep their married johnsons in their pants, I will be utterly devastated."

Knoxville's state representative Stacey Campfield has this to say about the skanky environment in Nashville:

"Well, I guess this is just more proof, Republicans are clearly irresistible to females."
Name withheld to protect the legislator. "

Channel 5 has a video of Morrison's boyfriend which makes all involved look bad in a situation where everyone already looks pretty terrible -

Way to stay classy, Tennessee.

Newspapers: 180 Years of Not Charging For Content

The newspaper business has - since it's earliest days - used a business model where readers are never really charged for the content the newspaper provides.

That's the argument presented at NewsFuturist.com:

"Newspapers haven't actually charged for news content since the 1830s.

Up until then, most newspapers were subscription-only and cost about 6 cents a day (or about $1.20 in today's dollars, adjusted for inflation).

By asking subscribers to bear the full cost of production, newspapers limited their audience to the few who could afford the luxury. That was actually OK for the time, because literacy rates were quite low anyway.

But compulsory education raised literacy rates as the 19th century progressed, and in the 1830s publishers realized a new model to reach the growing market -- the penny press.

Newspapers cut their price from 6 cents to just 1 cent (about 20-25 cents today), thus reaching a much broader circulation and finding advertisers would pay to reach that market. The first popular penny paper, the New York Sun, printed this motto at the top of every front page: "The object of this paper is to lay before the public, at a price within the means of every one, all the news of the day, and at the same time offer an advantageous medium for advertisements."

As news now moves online, the same rule of economics apply: The price of a product in a competitive market falls to the marginal cost of creating and delivering one more unit."

A very small portion of the folks who create that content earn a large salary. Most do it for very small pay. And what I write on this blog and on most others, I do for virtually nothing. Don't get me wrong, I am always seeking ways to make my writing pay - advertising still offers the best model for that. Still, I am reluctant to clutter the page with ads, though in truth, since ads are the best source for funding, then ads may soon appear here.

Fatal Flaws in TVA

A very critical report on TVA's operations at their coal-fired plants, prompted by the disastrous spill of coal ash in December of last year, says TVA failed in key areas:

"The consultants said the "necessary systems, controls and culture were not in place" to properly manage the coal ash sites at TVA's 11 coal-fired power plants.

The report found TVA had no standard operating or maintenance procedures and failed to conduct annual training for engineers doing inspections. It said there was little or no internal communication between the four TVA divisions responsible for ash retention." (link)

The Knoxville News Sentinel reports:

"TVA's board of directors adopted a resolution Tuesday calling for a host of measures to restructure the public utility's procedures and culture companywide.

The resolution calls for development of a remediation plan at all TVA coal ash ponds and hiring an outside firm to help the utility create a plan to fix problems in systems, standards, controls and its culture of accountability. Plans for achieving these goals are to be ready for board review at TVA's Aug. 20 meeting.

"Also Tuesday, board members approved the hiring of David Mould, former NASA assistant administrator of public affairs, as senior vice president of communications."

Outside consultants were needed to reveal these fatal flaws and more consultants are to be hired to ensure TVA does the job right?

Are there fatal flaws throughout TVA? When will they be addressed?

Better Living Thru Swearing and Bras?

Science!! is always striving to improve our lives and last week two new developments pushed forward some ideas which science and business are beginning to embrace.

A study from Britain's Keele University provides information that swearing when injured or being hurt alleviates pain.

"Swearing has been around for centuries and is an almost universal human linguistic phenomenon. It taps into emotional brain centers and appears to arise in the right brain, whereas most language production occurs in the left cerebral hemisphere of the brain. Our research shows one potential reason why swearing developed and why it persists."

Perhaps this explains why I often swear when watching the news or reading some blog posts.

Meanwhile a company in Japan, Wishroom, is promoting their bras for men, saying their product alleviates stress:

"Japanese salary men have a lot of stress, and the bras seem to relieve that."

Yeah, I'll just keep my stress, thanks - or just swear at it.