While pondering the present-day problems of the Colorado River in a time of drought, it occurred to me … there is one river that is thriving today, even bursting out of its banks. The thought gives me little comfort, however, because it is the river of anti-science and disinformation in matters of public health flowing out of Washington DC. It is a noxious slurry that manages to do the impossible by flowing uphill as well as down, and thereby reaching the farthest corners of our land.
This damage done by the Cluck administration will be one of its lasting legacies when he is finally ridden out of town (my personal suggestion would be to use a Saguaro cactus rather than the traditional rail). One of the best public health agencies in the world has been attacked, hamstrung, had its funding reduced, and has lost layers of competent leadership. The result of this criminal mismanagement is that it is no longer trustworthy.
As a physician who looked to the CDC for help and advice on so many occasions during my working years, I could almost cry. But what I do have instead of tears is a rock-solid and abundant sense of anger.
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The damage continues as the Secretary of Health prefers to come up with rules and regulations that are pulled in toto from his behind rather than from our diligently collected national library of scientific studies. When the presence of these charlatans are only bitter memories, we can begin to rebuild, but what a waste of time and lives we have already endured, with more to come.
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Coming from a trip to the grocery store I was listening to KVNF, our local NPR station, and heard this lovely piece of music. I tracked it down and now share it. I think that the more cellos there are playing in the world the better off we all are for it.
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My first days as an intern in pediatric training had a very steep learning curve. It turned out that there were a great many things to learn, immediately, that had little to do with what the academic side of becoming a physician. Like when was the cafeteria open after midnight? Was the food really free? Who among all the white-coated notables we meet in the department of Pediatrics is to be counted on and who is as reliable as a gnat? How do we get pare down the business of getting some sleep and rising quickly for emergencies while in the on call room?
At first I tried to solve the being on-call business by sleeping in my clothes, and although this saved me at least a minute or two in my response to the phone ringing or my beeper going off, it only meant that I arrived at the bedside looking like a basket of dirty laundry and not exactly the picture of competence a worried family might be hoping for. So I came to a compromise. I would hang my uniform carefully on the back of a chair that was only three feet away and then climb into bed. When the inevitable call came I could dress in under a minute. No hunting for anything … it was all there.
I learned to do that in the summer of 1966, and although I have been retired from active practice for a couple of decades now, it is still my nighttime routine.
I can’t even remember when the last time anyone called me after I had gone to bed. There is no one, thank God, whose life is dependent upon my running down the hall with a clear head and a functioning stethoscope. But nearly every night I continue to hang my clothes on that chair. Like the motto of the U.S. Coast Guard, I am semper paratus.
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What is the scariest thing and most life-changing thing I have ever heard? That’s an easy one. It was at a movie theater, watching a newsreel, when I was about eight years old. The narrator had just told the audience that our sun would cease to exist in 5 billion years. That was stunning news to me.
That meant that everything and everyone I know would be gone in what seemed like a very short time (a billion being a number almost without meaning at that time of my life). But after I’d left the theater I realized that – no worries – I would be dead long before that.
However, I would definitely be dead, and somehow that particular thought was not comforting to a young man of eight years.
Since then I’ve learned that life on earth won’t be extinguished in 5 billion years at all, we’ve really got only 500 million to go.
No worries …
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Here’s a Dolly Parton tune, recorded by the O’Kanes.
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Octavia E. Butler was an American science-fiction writer, and someone posted this quotation of hers on Substack. It moved me in its perennially applicable message.
Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.
To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.
To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.
To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies.
To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.Octavia Butler
I had not heard of Butler before, so I looked her up and found this photograph. She looks like a person made of sterner stuff than most of us. What that fierce and level gaze says to me is: “Sir, you mess with me and you will find that you have brought a knife to a gunfight.“
I found another quote of hers that was mildly disquieting. I realized that although I completely accepted the premise of the first line, I had no idea where I was along the spectrum.
You don’t start out writing good stuff.
You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it.
That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.Octavia Butler
I suspect that what I put in this blog is part crap and part good stuff and unfortunately for the reader I can’t tell the difference. Caveat lector and all that.
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Little Home In The Valley 