In a landmark decision yesterday, the Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate of the Affordable Healthcare Act.
Some comments beware of soapbox stands:
1. Our past employer has put out nearly 10,000 dollar each year for each employee of the district. That doesn't come close to the costs of the insurance that is needed to maintain. The added cost to the employee for total coverage adds another 6 thousand dollars a year.
2. Many employers and employees do not have a plan that puts that much money into the benefits. Less than that moves people and institutions into the gambling mode. Would you gamble you life savings and the life savings of your family so that you can pay the health care cost when you need it? This is one of the reasons that employers felt that it was so important for their employees to have good coverage. Sadly some classified people have told be over the years that the main reason that they work for the High School District is so that they can have family healthcare coverage not provided by their spouse that makes more money but whose job does not have family health care benefits. One family member works for the money the other for the benefits. Pretty sad. What is gong on with the freeloader employers that provide good salary but no benefits for their employee and the families. This is what this decision is all about. Those that don't pay should be taxed or added to the pool so that the overall cost is less for those that do pay.
3. Why are these costs so high? The doctors on the TV yesterday were griping about the reimbursement for medicare patients. They were also grousing about the most of serving medi cal patients and that many were leaving the profession early because the costs of running the business was more than the cost of their overhead.
4. Although 51 percent of those surveyed, said that they did not like the Affordable Health Care Act, 13 percent included in the 31 percent felt that it didn't go far enough and favored a single payer system that would essentially gut the Health insurance Companies.
5. The Supreme Court stated that the Individual Mandate portion of the Affordable Health Care Act constituted a "Tax" and therefore was admissible as valid congressional bill. The interesting thing is that it is a tax to only those that do not have the coverage. Even then the tax would be around a thousand dollars. Compare that to the figures stated above.
6. The bottom line is that Health Care Coverage has gotten to be a major cost to almost everyone. Without some sort of control of this, it will consume every available dollar that we have in a discretionary way. In some ways it has. The ability to bargain at the table for Cost of Living increases for the last 10 years has been severely thwarted by the shadow of health care costs. The cost of paying premium increases that far exceed other price factors has lead to a pocket inflation that has become onerous. It used to be that much of the raise that people got in public employment could be reported out and buried in the tax friendly health care categories. It was an area that the employee's income was not taxed. It was also a part that didn't come into figuring the retirement fund contribution for the district or the employee. It was a sweet part of the deal that the workers loved and the employers benefited. And then it grew and grew and grew. It consumed every dollar that could be thrown at it. Caps sprang up and suddenly the burden was shifted to the employee for the additional cost.
7. In some senses its not hard to see where the conservatives have seen this cost escalation as a threat to liberty and freedom and the things that our country stands for. Yet, when they need hospitalization for life threatening acute illnesses, its too late to go get some insurance to cover it... in their model. They have not been paying the 16K that the rest of us have been paying do to the losses that the health industry picks up when non payers need help. This also falls on the budget worries of local governments that try to maintain a handle on their county medical costs.
8. So who really benefits from this decision? The 31 million people that will be added to the rolls of the health care insured. The kids that can be maintained on their parent's health plans... which increases the cost of these plans for everyone... just a little since most kids are dramatically less costly than older adults. The people that have chronic health care issues that the insurance companies do not ever want to see on their rolls. Local county support for hospitals should see a decrease in their need to cover the tight wads that didn't want to every pay insurance but were using the emergency rooms as urgent cares.
9. Who loses? The conservative groups that put huge amounts of money into the anti Affordable Health Care movement. I think that Huckabee with his sign my petition adds that streamed throughout the splinter satellite channels for months should be kicking themselves over the loss. One can only guess what major corporations were behind that multimillion dollar campaign that targeted the Obamacare provisions without having anything to support its replacement. Everyone seems to agree, we just cannot continue the way it is in Healthcare.
10. The Affordable Health Care Plan is not perfect. It is a step to moving us toward making health care coverage a right and not a privileged of just the few that can afford it.
Just a few months of not paying for a foreign war would bring this cost into the chump change category. Well someday.
: ) Pat
Friday, June 29, 2012
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Losing Our Camera Stores
We have lost our camera stores.
They used to be a ubiquitous part of every shopping mall. They are gone. So what is there instead. There was Circuit City.. gone. I guess that you might say that Best Buy is a camera store. But often the smart assed clerk that thinks that they know more about computers than God is also cruising and "supporting" people the camera section. Don't ask them at what level the point and shoots map... not a clue... but that is probably true of most folks near a camera. Photography has turned digital and because of this, instantaneous an ubiquitous. Its everywhere. Camera phones on cells take great photos. They are even adjustable through apps or stand alone programs. When the photo is taken there is no little economic investment in the produce. Therefore it doesn't have to right each time. Not being right each time means less dependence on photographic advice. And a decrease in photographic sales of film, flashbulbs and paper, projectors and screens. No one has to advise you on how to use your cell phone camera. Billion dollar businesses have sprung up to modify the photos that are taken to make them look like they were done with toy cameras or ancient Instamatic cameras. People are sharing these "shots" in free or low cost web albums in facebook, flickr, and instagram.
Last week I have had some fun using Apple's Aperture Program to make slide shows of the Merced County Fair's demolition derby. If I were to use the old technology, I would be taking the photos with a camera that would produce"slides" that were cut and glued into cardboard frames. A big company would have processed these photos from a tiny metal canister that hopefully I correctly wound loose film from its light tight storage loop back through the pressure plates and back into the canister. I would have bought my camera at a camera store. The processing at a camera store if I expected careful processing. I would have paid extra to have Kodak do the process and it would have taken two weeks to get back the little box that could have been under exposed. In years the color would fade from these slides and they were subject to coffee spills and dirt and abrasion. I would have bought a slide projector to sequence and project the slides on a screen that I bought from a camera store. My friends would gather around on some given night and allow me to show them my latest photographic quest.
Today, all of this is done without the help of Photographic experts. I shot the photos with a camera I bought at Costco without any advice from anyone. I went on line to pick up the fine details of the new camera and how to modify and save the photos I had taken to hard drive connected to my computer. The photos are in formats that the computer and a computer program understands. I can and have changed the color balance, cropped, framed and set to music that was previously stored on my computer. I can share the results in social media and my friends may choose the look at them or not. I can get comments and support from all of my friends that wish to see a few photos. The photos show up on their computer screens or their television screens. I may use the photos to make my own photo book that people that come to my house can look at while I am making dinner. Or we can sit down together and I can narrate just like we used to do from behind the projector with a wired remote in hand and darkened room. Clearly no camera shop is need to produce these marvels of modern technology.
Still my mom longs for the stack of photos to sift through and sort. She feels that many good photos will never get printed or shared. And that is a loss.
Her new camera is digital and since she bought it at Costco a hundred free prints were included. She has her stack of photos that was printed from her new camera, but dad likes to goad her as they are not sorted or edited in any way. Its not that far away from the photographer that projected hundreds of his images in a darkened room to a crowd totally bored to sleep.
At least now the room is not darkened. : ) Pat
They used to be a ubiquitous part of every shopping mall. They are gone. So what is there instead. There was Circuit City.. gone. I guess that you might say that Best Buy is a camera store. But often the smart assed clerk that thinks that they know more about computers than God is also cruising and "supporting" people the camera section. Don't ask them at what level the point and shoots map... not a clue... but that is probably true of most folks near a camera. Photography has turned digital and because of this, instantaneous an ubiquitous. Its everywhere. Camera phones on cells take great photos. They are even adjustable through apps or stand alone programs. When the photo is taken there is no little economic investment in the produce. Therefore it doesn't have to right each time. Not being right each time means less dependence on photographic advice. And a decrease in photographic sales of film, flashbulbs and paper, projectors and screens. No one has to advise you on how to use your cell phone camera. Billion dollar businesses have sprung up to modify the photos that are taken to make them look like they were done with toy cameras or ancient Instamatic cameras. People are sharing these "shots" in free or low cost web albums in facebook, flickr, and instagram.
Last week I have had some fun using Apple's Aperture Program to make slide shows of the Merced County Fair's demolition derby. If I were to use the old technology, I would be taking the photos with a camera that would produce"slides" that were cut and glued into cardboard frames. A big company would have processed these photos from a tiny metal canister that hopefully I correctly wound loose film from its light tight storage loop back through the pressure plates and back into the canister. I would have bought my camera at a camera store. The processing at a camera store if I expected careful processing. I would have paid extra to have Kodak do the process and it would have taken two weeks to get back the little box that could have been under exposed. In years the color would fade from these slides and they were subject to coffee spills and dirt and abrasion. I would have bought a slide projector to sequence and project the slides on a screen that I bought from a camera store. My friends would gather around on some given night and allow me to show them my latest photographic quest.
Today, all of this is done without the help of Photographic experts. I shot the photos with a camera I bought at Costco without any advice from anyone. I went on line to pick up the fine details of the new camera and how to modify and save the photos I had taken to hard drive connected to my computer. The photos are in formats that the computer and a computer program understands. I can and have changed the color balance, cropped, framed and set to music that was previously stored on my computer. I can share the results in social media and my friends may choose the look at them or not. I can get comments and support from all of my friends that wish to see a few photos. The photos show up on their computer screens or their television screens. I may use the photos to make my own photo book that people that come to my house can look at while I am making dinner. Or we can sit down together and I can narrate just like we used to do from behind the projector with a wired remote in hand and darkened room. Clearly no camera shop is need to produce these marvels of modern technology.
Still my mom longs for the stack of photos to sift through and sort. She feels that many good photos will never get printed or shared. And that is a loss.
Her new camera is digital and since she bought it at Costco a hundred free prints were included. She has her stack of photos that was printed from her new camera, but dad likes to goad her as they are not sorted or edited in any way. Its not that far away from the photographer that projected hundreds of his images in a darkened room to a crowd totally bored to sleep.
At least now the room is not darkened. : ) Pat
Sunday, June 17, 2012
The Olympic Club Defeats the Equipment
This week the U.S. Olympic Club in San Francisco hosted the U.S. Open.
In recent years, the venues have been structured to allow the advances in golf equipment to dominate scores. Last year at the Congressional, the winning score bested par by 12 strokes. Not so in San Francisco this year.
This hundred year course carved out of a gigantic sand dune extracted its revenge on the tour pros. In my opinion its about time. Even though they fade cut the semi rough around the holes, it was not enough when many shots ended up in the trees and into the 7-8 inch rough. The winner on Sunday will score close to par. That is how it should be. A major tournament is not like just any other stop on the tour. At least 6 months of course preparation goes into the hosting of this event. This is one tough course.
In another sport the same event disparity exists. Baseball home runs in Denver despite its huge middle outfields are frequent. San Francisco sports a "pitchers" park with heavy air and strange right field sight lines. Very few home runs are made. New parks take on a concept of being hitters parks or pitchers parks. This has not happening in the world of professional golf. New courses are made to be successes for their members. When the pros hit it.... its mincemeat. It takes an old time golf course to remind the faithful that golf is game of toughness.
A true golf champion will come out of the U.S. Open this year The winner will have to stay concentrated as 35,000 adoring fans will fan across the fog banked hills. They will watch their favorite golf struggle. The golfers will have to use their heads and plan each shot. The holes are terraced and narrow. The greens are hard and tricky. The fairways have always been narrow. The elevation changes are tremendous. Many of holes are blind. They cannot see from the Tee box where the ball needs to end up. Physically this course is demanding. It takes it out even the spectator to walk from the bottom of the golf course as it parallels the road that encircles Lake Merced to the club house on top of the hill.
As for Lake Merced, after sailing this wonderful lake for 5 years in our little 14 foot sloop I can tell you first hand that the wind never comes exactly from the same place in any consecutive hour. The golfers will have to figure this wind vulnerability into their game right off.
It is by far the most complicated golf course to have a US Open held in many years. I am happy that it is held there this year. It was the first place that I learned to follow golf. I covered it in 1998 with my friend Tom Olson, and my father, Ken Brown. We had some of the first digital cameras on the course. It is fun to see the coverage and see that the trees have grown and the course is a tough as it was when Jensen won. Tiger was a sensation on the course and in the final rounds failed again.
:) Pat
In recent years, the venues have been structured to allow the advances in golf equipment to dominate scores. Last year at the Congressional, the winning score bested par by 12 strokes. Not so in San Francisco this year.
This hundred year course carved out of a gigantic sand dune extracted its revenge on the tour pros. In my opinion its about time. Even though they fade cut the semi rough around the holes, it was not enough when many shots ended up in the trees and into the 7-8 inch rough. The winner on Sunday will score close to par. That is how it should be. A major tournament is not like just any other stop on the tour. At least 6 months of course preparation goes into the hosting of this event. This is one tough course.
In another sport the same event disparity exists. Baseball home runs in Denver despite its huge middle outfields are frequent. San Francisco sports a "pitchers" park with heavy air and strange right field sight lines. Very few home runs are made. New parks take on a concept of being hitters parks or pitchers parks. This has not happening in the world of professional golf. New courses are made to be successes for their members. When the pros hit it.... its mincemeat. It takes an old time golf course to remind the faithful that golf is game of toughness.
A true golf champion will come out of the U.S. Open this year The winner will have to stay concentrated as 35,000 adoring fans will fan across the fog banked hills. They will watch their favorite golf struggle. The golfers will have to use their heads and plan each shot. The holes are terraced and narrow. The greens are hard and tricky. The fairways have always been narrow. The elevation changes are tremendous. Many of holes are blind. They cannot see from the Tee box where the ball needs to end up. Physically this course is demanding. It takes it out even the spectator to walk from the bottom of the golf course as it parallels the road that encircles Lake Merced to the club house on top of the hill.
As for Lake Merced, after sailing this wonderful lake for 5 years in our little 14 foot sloop I can tell you first hand that the wind never comes exactly from the same place in any consecutive hour. The golfers will have to figure this wind vulnerability into their game right off.
It is by far the most complicated golf course to have a US Open held in many years. I am happy that it is held there this year. It was the first place that I learned to follow golf. I covered it in 1998 with my friend Tom Olson, and my father, Ken Brown. We had some of the first digital cameras on the course. It is fun to see the coverage and see that the trees have grown and the course is a tough as it was when Jensen won. Tiger was a sensation on the course and in the final rounds failed again.
:) Pat
Thursday, June 14, 2012
A No HItter!
Matt Cain of the San Francisco Giants three a no no last night.
As I went about my evening life, I had one eye on the TV. Matt Cain, the main man pitcher for the Giants was running through the order of the Houston Astros in prime shape. There didn't seem to be anyone reaching first base. The score was 10 zip. Half way through the game, things got tense. Not that Houston was going to score a huge number of runs, but rather was he going to make the no hitter stick. Just an errant fly ball dropped by an infielder or a ball that falls in could be the end of the perfect game.
As the innings added up the tension grew. The pitcher and dugout did not reflect the great job being done so as not to influence the chance that the perfect game could be made. The collective heart of the sellout crowd skipped a beat more than once as balls were hit into the outfield and plays were made within the very young infield.
The ninth inning the Houston Astros sent to the plate a Bay area boy to wreck the perfect game. Throughout the plate appearance, the crowd as on its feet and some said the noise has greater than the final game of the World Series the giants won just two years ago.
The final play of the day was a hot ball sent to the newly acquired third basemen or before coming to the Giants had only played second base just two times before. The ball was hit sharply, and the Arias grabbed the ball deep in the third baseman's infield's place. The batter ran to first and almost beat the throw.
The celebration that ensued will probably keep the Giants from winning the next day. It was the first recorded no hitter in all of the Giant's franchise history.
What a marvel to behold.
: ) Pat
As I went about my evening life, I had one eye on the TV. Matt Cain, the main man pitcher for the Giants was running through the order of the Houston Astros in prime shape. There didn't seem to be anyone reaching first base. The score was 10 zip. Half way through the game, things got tense. Not that Houston was going to score a huge number of runs, but rather was he going to make the no hitter stick. Just an errant fly ball dropped by an infielder or a ball that falls in could be the end of the perfect game.
As the innings added up the tension grew. The pitcher and dugout did not reflect the great job being done so as not to influence the chance that the perfect game could be made. The collective heart of the sellout crowd skipped a beat more than once as balls were hit into the outfield and plays were made within the very young infield.
The ninth inning the Houston Astros sent to the plate a Bay area boy to wreck the perfect game. Throughout the plate appearance, the crowd as on its feet and some said the noise has greater than the final game of the World Series the giants won just two years ago.
The final play of the day was a hot ball sent to the newly acquired third basemen or before coming to the Giants had only played second base just two times before. The ball was hit sharply, and the Arias grabbed the ball deep in the third baseman's infield's place. The batter ran to first and almost beat the throw.
The celebration that ensued will probably keep the Giants from winning the next day. It was the first recorded no hitter in all of the Giant's franchise history.
What a marvel to behold.
: ) Pat
Artichoke Chicken
This dish was a featured Marie Calendar's entree that my wife could not resist when we used to have a Marie Calendar's in town.
I have modified this dish so that it can be made easily for two at home without left overs. Also some additions that we favor have been added.
Noodles
Egg Noodles (The original had used rice)
1/2 bag of Egg Noodles, added to 2 Cups of boiling water.
Sauce
Cream Sauce for Two (my spell checker isn't fond of my spelling of Beshemel)
2Tablespoons of butter
2 Tablesppoons of flour
One thin slice of onion chopped very fine or one clove of garlic pressed
Medium heat and whisked until smooth and a little brown in a skillet.
add a half a Cup of milk and wisk
add a scant pinch of pepper flakes, a scant pinch of salt
Heat over medium heat to get a thick spoon coated consistency
Meat and Vegetables
As the cream sauce reaches its consistency, add the following ingredients:
1 Cup of chicken from a rotisserie chicken (left over) chopped into "pulled chicken" like consisency.
1/2 Cup of bottled artichoke hearts drained and chopeed in rough consistency
1/2 Cup of sliced olives
1/4 Cup of chopped almonds
Topping
Drain the noodles and spoon the cream sauce with the chicken and artichokes over the top and serve. I also enjoy a sprinkle of dried cheese of the works.
Sue said that she could eat this every day... even as I pointed out that it hit many of the spots that she didn't like:
Hot chicken
cream sauce
To me this wasn't that hard to make. It was tasty and not too high in calories.
: ) Pat
I have modified this dish so that it can be made easily for two at home without left overs. Also some additions that we favor have been added.
Noodles
Egg Noodles (The original had used rice)
1/2 bag of Egg Noodles, added to 2 Cups of boiling water.
Sauce
Cream Sauce for Two (my spell checker isn't fond of my spelling of Beshemel)
2Tablespoons of butter
2 Tablesppoons of flour
One thin slice of onion chopped very fine or one clove of garlic pressed
Medium heat and whisked until smooth and a little brown in a skillet.
add a half a Cup of milk and wisk
add a scant pinch of pepper flakes, a scant pinch of salt
Heat over medium heat to get a thick spoon coated consistency
Meat and Vegetables
As the cream sauce reaches its consistency, add the following ingredients:
1 Cup of chicken from a rotisserie chicken (left over) chopped into "pulled chicken" like consisency.
1/2 Cup of bottled artichoke hearts drained and chopeed in rough consistency
1/2 Cup of sliced olives
1/4 Cup of chopped almonds
Topping
Drain the noodles and spoon the cream sauce with the chicken and artichokes over the top and serve. I also enjoy a sprinkle of dried cheese of the works.
Sue said that she could eat this every day... even as I pointed out that it hit many of the spots that she didn't like:
Hot chicken
cream sauce
To me this wasn't that hard to make. It was tasty and not too high in calories.
: ) Pat
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Standard Chinese Restaurant Fare
It was interesting to read my sister's blog and figure out the progression of common Chinese American food.
She writes: I ordered plum wine for everyone and we enjoyed it along with the classics: Hot and Sour Soup, egg rolls, mu shu pork, sweet and sour chicken, spicy beef, mongolian noodles, chicken fried rice and the ubiquitous fortune cookie. From her Travel with the Rents blog.
Growing up in the 60's the fare was a little different than even this menu.
We started of with egg flour soup. This was bits of egg white drizzled into a chicken noodle broth. It was somewhat exotic to try hot an sour soup.
Almond chicken was an exotic dish. Imagine putting in nuts with your meat? Mushrooms were the exotic ingredient. It was often served on top of rice.
Sweet and sour pork was fancy stuff. It had that ubiquitous red sauce and highlighted pineapple chunks (canned) and sauteed green peppers.
Egg foo Young was pretty cool then. It was a fried patty of bean sprouts and whole eggs.
It was true that with more people ordering the "combination," the more side dishes would be included at no cost. Chinese food was the original value added product. With four people ordering you could get egg rolls. With five people they added pork buns. The egg rolls were generally bean sprout infested, no meat. Not that I minded.. it was just all that we knew.
Everyone ordered rice and tea. Dishes came in giant platters that were swirled around on lazy Susan turntables. And yes there was the ubiquitous fortune cookie.
Since that time, the menu has evolved to the one noted above. I seem to remember eating at a Chinese restaurant in Morgan Hill with the parents before. it was behind the Monterey boulevard storefronts. We just had to try out the new "lemon chicken." It was a deep fried chicken filet that had a very sweet lemon sauce on it. It was the first lemon chicken that I had every eaten. It may have been the beginning of the famous "orange chicken" that the Panda restaurants are known for. When I eat at a Panda Express, it rare to hear a customer pass up the orange chicken. Sadly, I am one of the orange chicken eaters too.
At least we made it out of the chicken chow mein, chop souie era. I still miss those crispy noodles in the food!
: ) Pat
She writes: I ordered plum wine for everyone and we enjoyed it along with the classics: Hot and Sour Soup, egg rolls, mu shu pork, sweet and sour chicken, spicy beef, mongolian noodles, chicken fried rice and the ubiquitous fortune cookie. From her Travel with the Rents blog.
Growing up in the 60's the fare was a little different than even this menu.
We started of with egg flour soup. This was bits of egg white drizzled into a chicken noodle broth. It was somewhat exotic to try hot an sour soup.
Almond chicken was an exotic dish. Imagine putting in nuts with your meat? Mushrooms were the exotic ingredient. It was often served on top of rice.
Sweet and sour pork was fancy stuff. It had that ubiquitous red sauce and highlighted pineapple chunks (canned) and sauteed green peppers.
Egg foo Young was pretty cool then. It was a fried patty of bean sprouts and whole eggs.
It was true that with more people ordering the "combination," the more side dishes would be included at no cost. Chinese food was the original value added product. With four people ordering you could get egg rolls. With five people they added pork buns. The egg rolls were generally bean sprout infested, no meat. Not that I minded.. it was just all that we knew.
Everyone ordered rice and tea. Dishes came in giant platters that were swirled around on lazy Susan turntables. And yes there was the ubiquitous fortune cookie.
Since that time, the menu has evolved to the one noted above. I seem to remember eating at a Chinese restaurant in Morgan Hill with the parents before. it was behind the Monterey boulevard storefronts. We just had to try out the new "lemon chicken." It was a deep fried chicken filet that had a very sweet lemon sauce on it. It was the first lemon chicken that I had every eaten. It may have been the beginning of the famous "orange chicken" that the Panda restaurants are known for. When I eat at a Panda Express, it rare to hear a customer pass up the orange chicken. Sadly, I am one of the orange chicken eaters too.
At least we made it out of the chicken chow mein, chop souie era. I still miss those crispy noodles in the food!
: ) Pat
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