Biomedlog

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1880)

Lettrice — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 19:57:15 +0000

Ivan, Dimitri, and Alexander–who’s not to love–each in his own way. I had 796 pages to learn how. This was D’s last novel and I think he wrote it over a decade. I did love, sort of, each of the brothers even though 2 out of 3 acted in unloving ways. His characters could have come out of the 21st Century–at least the stream of consciousness and some of the actions, although extreme, are eminently understandable. A woman wronged, testifies in court against the man who crushed her ego; a man who hated his father says he is guilty of his murder; a young boy from the wrong side of town takes on a pack of his schoolboy tormenters. Admittedly, his characters show the dark side more often than not. [7/11]

The Idiot by Fyodor Dosteovsky (1864)

Lettrice — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 19:52:50 +0000

Can a good man make it in this vile world–this world of pettiness and greed and, well, searching for the “right” spouse? The good man here is Prince Mishky, naive, kind, democratic, epileptic (as was Dostoevsky) and loved by all except those who call him an idiot. The novel flowed, then clogged up, then flowed again. I liked total immersion in 19th C Russia.[8/10]

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2004) The Girl Who Played with Fire (2005) The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (2007) by Steig Larsson

Lettrice — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 19:50:22 +0000

Lisbeth Salander. How can you not love her? She’s brilliant, driven, shy, brash, fearless, and vulnerable, oh, so vulnerable. She’s part Everywoman and part every woman’s dream. What woman wouldn’t want to stomp on the face of a rapist, or a slimey sexist? Larsson –may he r.i.p.–keeps the pages churning and turning. I think the secret to the phenom success of the “Millennium Trilogy” is women who are not usually thriller fans are reading these books. The female characters are exemplars of their gender and not in the least sleazy. I had a feeling, reading the third book, that someone else finished it and padded it needlessly. Why Salender’s Gibralter trip and the brief intro of a new character who seemed to have nothing to do with the rest of the story?[10/10-2/11]

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (2008)

Lettrice — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 16:32:21 +0000

Winner Man Booker in the same year as published. The book is an allegory/description/condemnation of democracy in 21st Century India. The poor are still enslaved, the rich, still entitled. The plot revolves around a young man from the country who uses his wits—and murder—to rise to wealth and prominence in Bombay. He is facile and witty, and he paints a penetrating portrait of his country. [12/08]

2008 Democrats on Health Care

Lettrice — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 16:18:18 +0000

Neither of the two front runners–Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton–offer anything but platitudes and tepid fixes of the current private insurance scheme. Do they forget that private insurance companies are in it for the dough? That they are profit-making entities? The market may work for automobile companies, but thus far it hasn’t worked for health care. Only dear Dennis Kucinich has mentioned the words, “single payer,” like the heroic Physicians for a National Health Program.

“Sicko”: Michael Moore does US Health Care

Lettrice — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 18:39:39 +0000

The Internet Movie Data Base describes Moore’s latest succinctly: “This film will focus on the American healthcare system …. “ Even with a noncommittal statement like that, you know this docu is not going to be laudatory. I, a film buff to the bone, would not hazard a review in advance of the completion of the film, but just let’s say, I hope Michael has done himself proud. You know his POV from the request he sent out to viewers of his website earlier this year: “Send Me Your Health Care Horror Stories… ” I’m sure he got even more than he expected.

Cheers for the VA/Tears for Massachusetts

Lettrice — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 03:15:43 +0000

Paul Krugman’s Sunday column extols the elegance of the VA health system as I have so extolled in the past. The benefits are decent, the record system fantastic. Once you’re in the system, you can get sick anywhere in the country, go to any VA doc, and all your records are at his or her fingertips. It’s single payer and single provider which is probably way too much to ask for us non-military citizens of the USA. But I still have probably unrealistic hope that the US will see its way into some kind of single payer plan like Medicare for everyone: old, young, rich, poor, employed or not. Meanwhile, Massachusetts’s feeble attempt to at least get insurance for all–even though it was a hodgepodge of many insurance plans and variegated benefits–seems to be foundering according to this week’s Nation. Imperfect as it was, it’s still too much for the special health interests.

PGD – Survival of the Richest

Lettrice — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 02:50:14 +0000

A New York Times story today reports on a procedure to insure that an in vitro fertilized embryo does not carry a known defective gene of either parent. Embryos are culled, the defective ones tossed, and a healthy one implanted. I really have no comment on that. It’s all to the good if a baby is saved from having a life-threatening or debilitating disease later in life. The culling is part of Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis–PGD. It is, of course, only available only to people rich enough to shell out tens of thousands of dollars. So, now the rich get not only richer but healthier too. Nothing new there. The irony is that the rich would be more able to take care of a diseased or handicapped child than the poor citizens of our health-insurance-for-some land.

Poverty, static; Uninsured, climbing

Lettrice — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 22:20:51 +0000

The poor among us Americans–the wealthiest nation in the world–was 12.7 % in 2005, no change over the previous year. But it’s a pretty steady rise in the poverty rate since Bush took office in 2001. This is a fine contrast with the percent of the nation’s millionaires which gained 21 percent in 2004. And those making 5 million or more per year rose a whopping 38%.

Meanwhile, the number of people without health insurance continues to climb, up over a million in 2005 from the year before.

Walmart & the Single-Payer Health Plan

Lettrice — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 18:45:33 +0000

Walmart. We know that the shopping warehouse has been getting bad press about the Medicaid enrollment of its workforce. What we don’t know–but what some are suspecting–is that the bargains behemoth might be moving (inching) towards supporting some kind of national health insurance–the single payer kind. Maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part, but I would love to see the fight between Walmart and the insurance companies: The Big Bad Wolf against Harry & Louise?