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Friday 22 January 2010

A Healthy State

I saw Michael Moore's "Sicko" documentary last night.  You might think the Australian health system is in a sorry state, but all I can say is thank goodness I wasn't living in the USA this time last year.  Thanks to our Australian health system I was operated on from an affliction that I would have died from had I not had the operation.  It would have cost at least $60,000 to have the operation in this country, so in USA, it would be probably twice as much.  And I have no health insurance, so to have this life-saving operation, I would have been given a debt of over $100,000, which I'd be paying off for many years to come.

Here, in NSW, I left hospital requiring a few drug purchases (about $90 - heavily subsidised, too mind you) and no bill at all.

In "Sicko" you hear the story of an employee of a health insurance company (known in USA as an HMO - health maintenance organisation) whose principal task is to find non-disclosures by applicants in policy applications in order to deny claims.

You hear the story of a young mother taking her three-year-old into a hospital with a temperature of 104 degrees farenheit (40 degrees celsius - normal is 36.8).  They start to treat the girl realising the situation is urgent then realise she's insured with a particular HMO which doesn't cover this hospital's services.  So they tell her to take the girl to a hospital subsidised by this HMO by private car.  The girl gets to the "proper" hospital, but dies within half an hour of arrival.

(We have mixups in this state and take people to the wrong hospital occasionally, but you don't hear of a small child with a temp of 40 degrees being turfed out on the street do you?)

You hear the story of the unlucky guy who sawed off two fingers with a circular saw told it'd cost $60,000 to re-attach his middle finger but only $12,000 for the ring finger (much less damage), so opted to say goodbye to his middle finger entirely as there was no way he could afford it to be re-attached.

(I once dropped an (operating) angle grinder into my left hand - I'd have been ropable had I been given a quote to clean up and stitch my wounds).

You hear the story of how Guantanamo Bay inmates have access to far better healthcare than 9/11 volunteers (so many of them have respiratory problems due to the toxic gases given off by the burning computers).

You hear the story of a 79-year old guy who cannot retire, because to do so would mean the end of his (employer-provided) medical insurance.  Unfortunately for him, he is dependant on various expensive drugs he will need for the rest of his life.  So when he stops working, he probably won't have long to live...

Then you hear about how many Republicans are opposed to Barack Obama's healthcare reform proposals.  There are some guys in USA so vehemently opposed to it that they are angrily marching in the streets and abusing supporters of the reforms.  And there are heaps of them.  In fact they might almost be a majority: they are certainly a substantial proportion of the US populace...

It is so disappointing that a vast proportion of a nation can be so misguided over a universal healthcare system based on the ability to pay and the need for treatement.

However, I am reminded that in 1976, as soon as Malcolm Fraser came to power in Australia that he dismantled Gough Whitlam's Medibank system - and was allowed to get away with it.  After Hawke re-introduced it in 1983 and we got used to it until 1996 John Howard didn't dare dismantle it as Fraser had done, and we thankfully still have a universal health care system in this country.  My only question is why it doesn't include dental services.  I have had to have a decayed tooth removed at 2am one morning, and I can assure you the need was essential.  Fortunately Mum and Dad paid the dentist for me.

I cannot understand the problem people have with the introduction of a universal health system, yet a large number do seem to have a problem.  I think once they see what happens without such a system when their own need for services arise they will change their minds.  After all, such a system demonstrably works in the UK, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, Italy, France, Sweden, etc, etc, etc, and these places have not become communist outposts, which seems to be the main argument against it.

Tuesday 19 January 2010

Abba Fans Unite!

Well, after enjoying a full two and a half hours of Abba music at "Mamma Mia" it has confirmed what I probably already knew.  That is, I am a died-in-the-wool Abba fan.  I have "Abba Gold" and "More Abba Gold" at home (naturally), and immediately put on the "More Abba Gold" CD upon returning from the musical on Saturday night.  I have since listened to "Abba Gold" itself on the computer.

The plot for the show was nothing to write home about, really.  It is the story of a daughter who lives in "Melbourne" (for the Australian version) who has booked her wedding at the mother's taverna which just happens to be built on a Greek Island.  Twenty-one years ago Mum had a series of dalliances with blokes, and as a result the daughter has no idea who her father is.  She sneaks a glimpse of Mum's diary from the period, and concludes there are three candidates for father, and invites them all to the wedding using her mother's name.  They all turn up.

During the course of a few days we hear their own stories, have a buck's night and hen's night and have a wedding.  I really loved the way the show would segue into an Abba song.  It was a little corny sometimes, but I really loved the use of the details of the song "Our Last Summer", which has the verse "And now you’re working in a bank / The family man, the football fan / And your name is Harry" which was used well into the second act.  Of course, these details had been setup right from the start of the show.  Sharon asked me on the train on the way back whether these were the original lyrics, and I confidently replied that they certainly were.

But the plot was not the main feature of the show, the star of the show were the great Abba songs.

Since the show, I've spent a few hours downloading as many Abba tracks as possible; there are quite a few available out there, I must say.  Almost all of the songs used in "Mamma Mia" are on the two "Abba Gold" compilation CDs, but not all of them.  There's a very interesting one from Bjorn entitled "Slipping Through My Fingers" which starts off "Schoolbag in hand, she leaves home in the early morning / Waving goodbye with an absent-minded smile" which is a nice little parable about his seven-year-old daughter, which was used in the second act and in the show, is sung by the mother on the eve of her daughter's wedding.  This was one of the last Abba songs ever recorded in 1982, although it was included on "The Visitors", their final album (track 8).

I know all the lyrics to the early Abba songs, however I'm nowhere near as familiar with the later stuff.  I did actually have the album of "Super Trouper" (second last album), but I never had their third last "Voulez-Vous" and last "The Visitors".

After the tour of Australia in 1977, Abba's popularity in the country plummeted.  It was simply because the Sydney concerts were a very wet affair at the Showgound.  We couldn't see a thing from where we were, 3/4 of the way back, and we were shrouded in garbage bags trying to keep dry.  There were many stackable metal chairs in the grounds, and a popular practice was to stack them up ten or fifteen high and climb up on them.  Doing this meant you could see the stage, at least, but did rather block the view of people behind, and was probably quite a dangerous thing.

After this concert, you were considered a pariah if you admitted to being an Abba fan.  It had a deleterious effect on their popularity in Australia, and was the catalyst for the construction of the Sydney Entertainment Centre (which finally opened in 1983).  At last, Sydney had a venue seating 12,000 people out of the rain, which would make enough money for the promoters, but allow protection from the rain for the patrons.  Incidentally, Acer Arena at Homebush Bay is now the largest indoor venue in Australia and seats 21,000 - completely eclipsing the Entertainment Centre.

I have borrowed the DVD of the movie of "Mamma-Mia" from Mum, and will certainly be watching it again shortly.  I've had Abba songs playing whilst typing this, of course!

Friday 15 January 2010

Mamma Mia

We're off to see Mamma Mia at Star City Casino in Sydney tomorrow.  It's in the Lyric Theatre, which is the huge three-level theatre in Star City (probably a better venue than the Ball Room).

We last saw Mamma Mia probably four years ago, again at Star City, and it is a musical you would want to see again.  I was a diehard Abba fan, even braving the weather at the Sydney Showground back in 1979, and just managed to catch a glimpse of them in the distance.  Mind you, we had no problems hearing them.

I've always been impressed by Benny and Bjorn's compositions.  They are usually quite difficult to play - a sign of true musicians.  Some songs like "Achy Breaky Heart" for instance, while selling zillions of copies, are only a few chords (in Achy's case only two) and dreadfully easy to play.  This is not a sign of good musicology, for sure :-)

The litmus test of a good musical is that you'll come away humming the songs.  "The Sound of Music", "Oklahoma", "Cats", "The Rocky Horror Show", "Grease" and "Guys 'n' Dolls" all spring to mind.  There are, of course, a lot more.  I reckon "Wicked" failed dismally in this department.  However, with so many number one Abba hits to choose from, the writers of Mamma Mia cannot fail to impress.

I'll let you know how it went shortly.

Thursday 14 January 2010

Ultrasound and Prevention

I went in for an abdominal ultrasound yesterday.  I am starting to experience increased oesophageal pain, but with my costo-chondritis, it's really hard to pick the cause, and indeed this can easily be mistaken for oesophagitis in itself.

When I went into hospital in September 2006 I was showing gastro-intestinal symptoms.  My costo-chondritis (a rheumatic affliction) was actually diagnosed by a gastro-enterologist.  In February 2009 when I went into hospital and had a ruptured oesophagus, I actually thought the problem was a flare-up of the costo-chondritis.  (Fortunately this latter admission was diagnosed almost immediately and I was flown down to RNS hospital for emergency surgery within 8 hours - in 2006 it took twelve days to get a diagnosis, if it had've been a ruptured oesophagus then I would have been long dead).

Later today (9:30am) I am off to see Dr John Dowsett, who is a gastro-enterologist who will hopefully refer me for a gastroscopy.  An interesting piece of trivia is that back in 2006, it was Dr Dowsett himself who visited me in Gosford Hospital and diagnosed the costo-chondritis!

If I had had a gastroscopy in early 2009 I would have saved myself a hell of a lot of grief.  The rupture in the oesophagus was caused by an ulceration about 4cm long, which would have been festering for many months before it finally gave way and perforated the oesophagus.  It would have been picked up on a gastroscope quite easily and I could have started treatment BEFORE it ruptured.  So today we start using preventative techniques rather than reactive methods.

Mind you, the way Medicare works is strange.  Last year I spent 78 days in hospital, nearly four weeks of which in intensive care.  It would have cost tens of thousands of dollars for my treatment.  All of it was covered by Medicare.

What I'm trying to do now is prevent a similar occurence.  However I will have a bill for the gastroscopy and apart from the fact that Dr Dowsett is going to be generous and bulk bill my visits, I'd also have a bill for the specialist visit.  Medicare will cover part of these expenses, but nowhere near all of it.

Wednesday 13 January 2010

It's not as hard as it seems

I want to complain.  It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine, but why can't people get apostrophes in the right places?

I have been watching the incredible rise in the number of apostrophes used for plurals lately.  Or as they'd erroneously put it, "the number of apostrophe's used for plural's" and even "why ca'nt they get apostrophe's in the right place's". (sigh)

Apostrophes are used in English when letters are missed out.  They are used for possesive forms of nouns because back in Middle English you used to simply add "es" most of the time.  For example "the Kinges horses".  For some reason this got "shortened" to "King's" hence the apostrophe.  The "e" has been omitted.

They are NOT used in possesive pronouns, however, probably because they never had the "es" ending, but simply always ended in a plain old "s".  The prime examples are "his" and "hers".  You will frequently see "her's" wrongly used (shudder), but rarely do you see "hi's" (thank heavens for that).  But how many times do you see "it's" written in the wrong form?  I suppose the problem with "it's" is that the spell-checker won't catch it, as it IS a correctly spelled word, as the contraction for "it is".  However as a possesive pronoun ("the cat sat on it's mat") it has no legitimate place.

Apostrophes also used in contractions where letters certainly are missed out.  Isn't that right? Where "isn't" is actually short for "is not", and so where the "o" comes out, the apostrophe goes in.   Please get that right, too, people: the apostrophe goes in where the letters are left out.  So it's NOT "ca'nt" or "should'nt", it's "can't" and "shouldn't".

Apostrophes are NEVER used for plurals.  It is quite simple.  It seems people like to use them especially when a word ends in a vowel.  Their "quota's" are used up.  The "apostrophe's" are in the wrong "place's".  Of course many people use them to form "plural's" outright, unfortunately.  What really peeves me is when you see the inconsistent use of them such as in a menu.  You can have "tomatoe's egg's and chips" for instance.  (Yuck, I say, not because of the flavour combination, but because of the apostrophe misplacement.  Surely if you have "tomatoe's" and egg's" you need "chip's" (better still, since you have "chips" why not "eggs" and "tomatoes".  Hell, with the latter you're already adding an "es" rather than an "s", why chuck in an apostrophe as well?  Oh, I see it's a word that ends in a vowel.  Or indeed two vowels...)

We are fighting a losing battle with the apostrophe, as society becomes more illiterate every day?  Or am I wrong?  We are probably more literate (back in the 1600s only a small percentage actually could read) but since there is much more use of the written form of language, the total number of errors is increasing.  I wonder what the error RATE actually is?  Apparently back in the 1600s there were spelling variants abounding, and people just made things up.  I see nothing has changed.

Tuesday 12 January 2010

The KFC Straw Man

The "Straw Man Principle" is an argumentative technique whereby a person's contention is misrepresented as a different contention and then that misrepresentation is argued down.  It is, of course, invalid as arguments go.  When you do a logic or critical reasoning course it will be one of the first invalid arguments pointed out to you (there are many others).

It's quite a cowardly technique as it enables the arguer to substitute any old contention for what the proposer is saying, then argue that down.  This is usually twenty times easier than a proper argument because you can substitute anything you want for what was actually being said.  Rather than doing your job and actually attacking your opponent's contentions, you can substitute anything you like and then have a go at that instead.

The KFC Windies Ad being racist is a prime example.  It was actually withdrawn from use on 7 January 2010 after some culturally unaware Americans came in hard, claiming it was offensive to African Americans, portraying the stereotype that to shut them up all you need do is give them fried chicken.

This is the classic Staw Man argument, completely misrepresenting the intention of the ad.  Firstly the black guys were actually West Indian cricket fans, not African Americans.  The claims were that they were behaving in a rowdy manner which is a stereotype offensive to African Americans (they are actually behaving as typical West Indian cricket fans do behave), and that the white guy is calm, again an offensive stereotype of white people (more like trying to keep his head down while being outnumbered by a bunch of supporters of the other team).  He then calms them down by giving them fried chicken just like the Yankees in the South used to do to their slaves (he really gives them some tasty distraction, a product supplied by their team's sponsor - KFC).

Sigh.

There have been quite a few claims by Americans that Aussies are fooling themselves that they cannot see the racism in the ad.  If the ad had in fact represented what they claim is being presented then they would have a case.  However they have setup a classic Straw Man and proceded to attack that instead.

There's no way the ad is racist and for KFC to pull it from transmission is to simply give these people more credence than they deserve.  I am calling for its return to the airwaves for when the West Indies return for the limited overs matches in February.  Allowing them to use the Straw Man technique to get the ad pulled is rewarding their use of an invalid argument, and that is just so unfair.

I suppose the benefit to KFC is that the ad has gone viral and the coverage achieved is probably well beyond their wildest dreams.  Artistically the ad is not particularly brilliant, but it has achieved the recognition of millions more people than KFC would have originally anticipated.

Monday 11 January 2010

A La Carte

One thing Sharon and I have been doing recently is cooking.  It's a hobby that adds kilograms to your mass and centimetres to your waistline, however.

Since Christmas we have made Honey Jumbles, Fruit Mince Pies and Bread (damper) which are over and above the usual fare, and it has been showing, unfortunately!!

We've been doing a lot of main courses, too, and the technique is to cook something nice that we can store in the fridge, and heat up in the microwave as required.  There are only two of us in the household, and so cooking nightly is not only an arduous chore, but also an inefficient way of doing things.  By doing it this way, we have meals for the next three or four nights from one lot of cooking which must save on energy and ingredients, and most certainly saves on time.

Probably our major source of recipes is the monthly magazine called Super Food Ideas.  We like it as it's a realistic publication that doesn't use ingredients that can only be obtained from a merchant with a yak who visits the mountains.  The things called for are obtainable at the local supermarket and fruit shop.

We have been getting more adventurous lately, however, and have ingredients such as burghul (cracked wheat) and caradamon pods.  Our spice rack, which is a three level job, and has had plenty of room in the past is now completely full.  We sort the spices alphabetically (I think this is quite anal really), and apart from Basil, the top shelf has only spices that begin with "C".  We have cinammon quills and ground; cloves, whole and ground; the aforementioned cardamon pods, cumin, curry powder, chilli powder and coriander!

We got a Kenwood Prospero mixer for Christmas and it will be used frequently with appreciation.  It came in handy today with its dough hook for making bread.  The old mixer I used to have is quite small and getting old.  It's an old Waltons Celestial rebadged Sunbeam model and would be well over forty years old.  It's enjoying its retirement.

Sunday 10 January 2010

Lovely Bones

We went to see "The Lovely Bones" a couple of days ago.  It's been a while since we've seen a big box-office drawcard, and I suppose this was one of them.  It certainly would have cost a pretty penny to make.  As is usual we watched until the end of the credits and were naturally the only two audience members in the cinema.  There was a staff member still there packing up rubbish left behind by the patrons too lazy to take the stuff to the bin themselves.  Quite a few of them, I note.

The movie was, basically, nothing to write home about.  It was ostensibly about what happens after death, but the post-death episodes were so stylised that nothing could really be concluded from them.  I'm not sure why I expected a movie to have inside knowledge about post-death experiences anyway!  There was a fantastic opportunity to present some pretty weird special effects in these scenes, and Peter Jackson definitely took advantage of this.

There was a suspenseful story of a murder presented, but it wasn't actually solved by the police!  It took someone else to do that, someone who you'd least expect to, really.  And there was a final retribution and resolution so the movie did at least leave us with a sense of closure.  However if you're looking for it as an answer to "what happens after death?" I think you'll be sadly disappointed.

Friday 8 January 2010

USB Key Dodgy

Why is it USB keys seem to be an unreliable piece of equipment?  We have four in the house at the moment, one of which has decided to kark it.  In fact it probably never was a goer.

This is the third one I've had that's rubbish.  It's uncanny that they all have a common characteristic in that they were all bought for someone else!

The first one that died was bought for my wife for Christmas a long time ago.  She had bought me one for my birthday I think, from Dick Smith and it is still going strong, however time has crept up on it and it's only 1 gigabyte...  However I mainly use it to keep a backup of the drama group website, among general file transfers.  The one I bought her was a 2 gig unit, obtained from Big W.  Alas, it never worked from the start, however Big W were quite okay when I brought it back for an exchange.  At the time, these things were quite expensive.  The replacement is still going strong and copping a lot of use.  It travels with my wife to and from work every day.

The second one to die was one bought from Joyce Mayne for my Dad.  It was 1 gigabyte and I think it was $4.95 (oh how they have come down in price).  Dad was doing a course in basic emailing so we could send him stuff on an overseas trip rudely aborted by my oesophageal rupture. It was working fine and had been used to get a few test pictures emailed to his Yahoo address.  Then we went and plugged it into his $39 DVD player and it simply ceased functioning.  We're convinced the DVD player was the culprit, however the USB key itself WAS only $4.95 so we're really not sure.  This one was thrown out after I fished out the receipt and original packaging and had it sitting on the kitchen bench for about 6 months.  I think the cost of the petrol to get me over to Joyce Mayne would have exceeded the benefit from an exchange.

The third one was one bought from (hmmmmmm) Joyce Mayne as one of nine raffle prizes for the last play at Wyong Drama Group.  It was won by my father-in-law's brother who gave it to my father-in-law who then used it to transfer genealogy data down here so Sharon could do some more work on it.  It worked fine for that, and fine in her laptop.  It was then used downstairs here on our desktop and it wouldn't have a bar of it.  Sharon then took it to work the next day and again, not recognised by any work machine.

It still works in the laptop, however, so I went and formatted it, and discovered it only works on the laptop if plugged into the USB ports on the left hand side: not the ones on the right!  Also I gave it a better test by copying a 1.5 gigabyte file to it (it's a 2 Gig stick) and it failed, even plugged into the left hand side USB ports.

I'm of a definite mind to take this one back to Joyce Mayne.  I can put up with one dieing (and it may have been killed rather than actually dieing of its own volition) but a second one is inexcusable.

Thursday 7 January 2010

The Big C

We were hit with some pathetic news today.  That is, a relative has had a resurgence of cancer which has been supposedly succesfully treated in the past.

It makes you feel so incredibly useless.  I feel like I want to be able to do something about it, but in all reality I can do diddly squat to help.

Given that I've had my own brush with cancer I do know full well that cure can be achieved.  Lance Armstrong is the real testament to this: in 1996 he had an aggressive form of testicular cancer, but he came back and won seven Tours de France from 1999 to 2005.  The most influential book I read during my three months in hospital was "It's Not About the Bike: My journey back to life" which describes his illness and recovery.  It took me all of about three days to read the thing (I wasn't well at all at the time: even watching TV was proving a biut much at the time) but as things went I could hardly put it down.

So there are plenty of success stories.  However, the day before yesterday at the cricket it was Jane McGrath Day.  She was taken from us all too early.

It really gets you thinking about the existence of a god.  If there is a god, why is such pain and suffering foisted upon people.  If there isn't, then what's the point of it all, particularly when you are taken so early?

Alas, I feel almost as useless at coming to a conclusion on that as about being able to do anything about the affliction with the Big C itself.

Wednesday 6 January 2010

I'm back for 2010

It seems it's commonplace for bloggers to take a few days off over the festive season, and I'm no exception.  Its good to be back, as I actually have missed the therapeutic nature of a daily rant.

For the first time in many years, Sharon and I actaully went to a New Year's Eve party at a drama group member's house.  Normally our NYEs have been rather sedate, this year it was sedate, I suppose, but it was shared with about 50 other people!

Talk about fireworks!  Our location was Caves Beach, and there were displays at the Mawson Hotel at 9pm, also we could see ones at the Newcastle foreshore albeit hazily in the distance.  At midnight we could see the Newcastle ones, and ones at Swansea RSL club.  We also had the Sydney fireworks on TV playing, and the interesting thing was that the Swansea display, although nowhere near as ex(t/p)ensive as the Sydney ones, went on a whole lot longer!  The credits were rolling on the TV show and the Swansea display was still going strong.

Some of the many coal carriers anchored off Newcastle which we could see from Caves Beach chipped in by letting off a few flares, plus there were a few "independent" probably illegal displays from a few homes in the area.

It's often the case that we're in bed even before midnight on NYEs, but this year we didn't hit the sack until after 3am!

I haven't made any NY resolutions this year - in fact I generally don't anyway.  I can only hope for better health.  Fingers are crossed.