Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Spectacular


12 comments:

  1. Huzzah for Dean!

    Bill Thomasson10/28/2015 12:54:00 AM wrote:
    WHOOP! Afraid I let myself get sidetracked reading things I had no real need to read.

    There's a lot of that going around, Bill!

    --Alan

    P.S.: Lots of news articles about the current discombobulation of the Republican Party, and opinions about when it started. One person suggested it started with McCain's selection of Palin as running mate, but I think it is the ultimate result of Nixon's Southern Strategy. The GOP establishment set out to manipulate and use people whom they despised for the votes they could cast, thinking it would be sufficient to throw them a little red meat and some code words from time to time. But those people finally gained control. It was bound to happen sooner or later, and now is the time, at long last.

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    1. I think Nixon was reaching out to people who basically shared Republican values but who had been voting Democratic for historical reasons that had been irrelevant for decades and became obviously so during LBJ's presidency.

      At one level, I think we're looking at a late, unintended consequence of Karl Rove's Contract for America (wasn't that 1994?). This not only pulled social conservatives and fiscal conservatives into a somewhat unnatural alliance but imposed ridged party discipline that the American party system had never before seen. This seems to have had the effect of giving some of the more extreme social conservatives the feeling they *are* the real Republicans. Here in Illinois, after the GW Bush victory in 2000 social conservatives started refusing to support the regular Republican nominees -- which is why Democrats have a supermajority in both houses of the legislature even though Illinois is fundamentally purple. National effects came somewhat later and with a somewhat different dynamic. Nationally, the extreme social conservatives elected a number of Representative, and those Representatives -- like their counterparts among Illinois Republican voters -- refuse to cooperate with "establishment" members of their party.

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    2. Contract for America, unnatural alliance of social and fiscal conservatives--good thoughts there. I mark the beginning of the radicalization of the Republican Party in California to the mid- to later 1960's, when Max Rafferty knocked out Tom Kuchel in the Republican Primary for US Senator. I miss the GOP of my youth.

      --Alan

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  2. My "sidetrack" on Tuesday was authoring my Living Will in advance of my doctor checkup on Thursday. I need Wednesday to get it notorised. My priority is quality of life over longevity, and as much as possible I prefer no mind-altering pain meds. I'm glad to have that done.

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    1. My preferences are different: I would fundamentally choose longevity. There may be specific circumstances under which my choice would be different, but I would trust Penny to recognize those circumstances more than I would trust my own ability to specify them in advance.

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    2. Bill, what we have in common is our utmost trust in our spouse. I have given full permission for my spouse, and only my spouse, to act apart from my stated directives, if he discerns that the situation warrants it.

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  3. No argument there, listener. If there is a particular hospital you are likely to use, make sure they have an advance directive on file--a living will will be of limited use for them. I have been remiss in that and related things, but plan to take care of them next year. (Yes, I know tomorrow never comes.)
    --Alan

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  4. Interesting economics piece; it has echoes of Social Credit theory, which was much more popular in the Commonwealth countries than in the US, but it is none the less interesting for that. Over a short term during which there is no dramatic change in productivity, it should be a fair approximation. I will have to look up the corresponding figures for the US.
    Britain is heading for another 2008 crash: here’s why. [Click]

    —Alan

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    1. I don't begin to buy the argument that the total amount of debt in society is somehow fixed. But the article says, "Conservative policy is to create a housing bubble." We know that a housing bubble was the source of the US crash of 2008. And the Japanese crash -- wasn't that in the 1990s? -- from which the economy has still not fully recovered.

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    2. Those graphs are in percentages of GDP, as I recall--not absolute amounts.

      --Alan

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  5. Alan, I recognize that Living Will and Advance Directive are often used interchangeably. Legally speaking, this is an Advance Directive document. How would the hospital have this on file? Who would one bring it to?

    The two Primary doctors I name will have a copy in my file at their respective offices, my spouse and eldest son (also named in the document) will have copies.

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    1. listener--If you have been seen at a hospital in the past, you will have a medical record number there. If you go to the [appropriate] office, they will be able to transcribe the information from your advance directive into the computer (they may want a paper copy on file--they shouldn't need a notarized original), and whenever you are admitted and they pull up your information, even to print an armband for you, there will be a notice that you have an advance directive on file; it will be instantly accessible by those who have legitimate need for the information (admitting and attending physicians surely, nurses probably, at least at the nursing station where you are). If there is more than one hospital in the area and you have not been seen at the one accident victims are likely to be taken to, go ask them if they could assign you a medical record number and put your advance directive on file against possible future need; they ought to be agreeable to that.

      --Alan

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