Oncologists call for Medicare for All

> January 20, 2014
> 11:23 AM
> CONTACT: Physicians for a National Health Program
>
> Mark Almberg, communications director, Physicians for a National Health Program, mark@pnhp.org
>
> Oncologists call for Single Payer in Leading Cancer Journal
> Article in leading cancer journal calls on oncologists to support single-payer national health insurance

> WASHINGTON - January 20 - A feature article published this week in the Journal of Oncology Practice contains an evidence-based appeal by two oncologists, including a past president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), for their colleagues to endorse a single-payer health system.
>
> The authors are Dr. Ray Drasga, a longtime community-based oncologist who founded a free clinic in his own community of Crown Point, Ind., and Dr. Lawrence Einhorn, a distinguished professor of medicine at Indiana University Hospital in Indianapolis.
>
> Einhorn is perhaps best known for his pioneering research in the treatment of testicular cancer; his successful treatment of cyclist Lance Armstrong received widespread media attention. His research interests also include tumor oncology and lung cancer.
>
> Einhorn is also past president of ASCO, the largest and most respected oncology society in the world, and has won numerous professional awards for his achievements in clinical cancer research.
>
> "With the costs of cancer care skyrocketing out of control, most people with cancer are burdened not only physically but also financially," said Dr. Drasga, the lead author. "They delay or do not receive care due to their inability to pay.
>
> "The crisis in health care is much more pronounced in cancer due to the high costs of drugs, tests, and procedures," he said. "For example, the cost of a new cancer drug has increased to a median price of $10,000 per month since 2010, and some drugs cost much more.
>
> "The situation is worsening," he said. "We need a fundamental shift in our approach to funding health care in the United States."
>
> The authors ask their fellow oncologists and their society, ASCO, to endorse a single-payer system of national health care insurance. They say they do not believe that the Affordable Care Act, or "Obamacare," will be able to solve the health care crisis that cancer patients face.
>
> The Journal of Oncology Practice is a publication of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Its focus is on providing oncologists and other oncology professionals with information aimed at enhancing practice efficiency and promoting a high standard for quality of patient care.
>
> ###
> Physicians for a National Health Program is a single issue organization advocating a universal, comprehensive single-payer national health program. PNHP has more than 15,000 members and chapters across the United States

Query

Why doesn't the post office sell "forever" second-ounce stamps for first-class letters?

Likewise, why no forever stamp for postcards? (Maybe the second-ounce forever stamp could also be the same one for postcards.)

The whole point of the forever stamp was to avoid having to print small-stamp denominations to accommodate rate changes, but the problem persists when you get to a second ounce or try to save money by using postcards; the forever stamp doesn't cut it above one ounce.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-denominated_postage

Phones to Replace Farecards Aboard U.S. Transit Systems [feedly]

Salem needs to implement this in an expanded way, to create a single system that let's the user use a cell phone to pay for or receive credits from others for parking, transit, tolls, and ride shares and even gasoline. 

Anything having to do with mobility should be accessible/payable with this system, which users can add to via their phone cards, but which can accept credits from employers (for using transit, say, preserving parking for others) and public trip reduction programs.  Payment systems accessible via texting are already here.  

What is needed is to stop thinking in silos, with mobility services and services that critically depend on mobility all Balkanized among agencies that don't communicate or even acknowledge each other (schools with massive bus systems and acres of free parking encouraging driving, parking services, bus system, public health workers, etc). 

Phones to Replace Farecards Aboard U.S. Transit Systems
http://read.feedly.com/html?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.planetizen.com%2Fnode%2F66809&theme=white

A Suburb that Makes Walking to School a Priority [feedly]

A Suburb that Makes Walking to School a Priority
http://read.feedly.com/html?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.planetizen.com%2Fnode%2F66959&theme=white

lol my thesis- urban planning

http://lolmythesis.com/page/86

1. 11 Dec

   
   
   

   Inequality in the built environment makes us fat and sick, but because how we measure these things is governed by an equally inequal power structure, no real change will happen any time soon. Hooray!

   Environmental Studies, University of Chicago

    

We'll be using this one a lot, too late though: lol my thesis

http://lolmythesis.com/page/40

1. 2 Jan

   
   
   

   If you want people to make good decisions about climate change policy, tell them about it when it is really, really hot.

   Geography, University of Colorado - Boulder

lol my thesis, the saddest one of all

http://lolmythesis.com/page/55

1. 26 Dec

   
   

   Looking for a reason to give up on humanity? Study climate change. That shit isn't changing back.

   Environmental Studies, New York University

    From Nick Kristof's NYT column:  "Here’s a scary fact about America: We’re much more likely to believe that there are signs that aliens have visited Earth (77 percent) than that humans are causing climate change (44 percent). . . . A reader from Virginia quoted James Hansen, the outspoken climate scientist: “Imagine a giant asteroid on a direct collision course with Earth. That is the equivalent of what we face now.” . . .  My take is that when Democrats, led by Al Gore, championed climate change, Republicans instinctively grew suspicious. Yet the scientific consensus is stronger than ever. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in September raised its confidence that human activity is the main cause of warming from 90 percent probability to 95 percent or higher.  . . . Nordhaus warns that “the pace of global warming will quicken over the decades to come and climate conditions will quickly pass beyond the range of recent historical experience.” . . .In politics and the military, we routinely deal with uncertainty. We’re not sure that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon, but we still invest in technologies and policies to reduce the risks. We can’t be sure that someone is going to hijack a plane, but we still screen passengers. . . ."

For would-be journal keepers

Keeping a journal using email 

Oh Life

Jan 13, 2014 01:00 am

I've written so many "first" journal entries that I've lost count. I have always wanted the benefits of a journal, but could never build the habit, or muster the discipline, to consistently write entries. That all changed when I discovered OhLife.com three years ago.

Oh Life is the tool that helped me successfully keep a journal for the first time. Thanks to it, I now have a record of my life that is richer and more meaningful than I ever expected. Oh life is where I wrote about the birth of my first son, my decision to quit a terrible job, and my excitement about starting a new, better job. It's where I wrote about my brother's cancer diagnosis and where I chronicled the daily milestone's of my son's infant and toddler years. Now I can look back on those events with a clarity that I never had before. In short, given me everything that I'd hoped for in a journal.

What makes Oh Life different is the medium. It is entirely email based. Every day, they send you an email, asking how your day went. All you do is respond to the email, and whatever you write is entered into your journal. The system is completely private so your entries are only accessible by you. As a bonus, each email contains an excerpt from a previous entry, which is a great way to get a daily glimpse into your own past.

I've also known a few people who used it as a shared-private journal. One family wanted a common place for kids, parents and grandparents to share day-to-day experiences and thoughts with each other. They set up an email address that automatically forwarded the daily prompts to all of them. This let them all make contributions in a format that was accessible to all family members but shielded from the public.

The basic service is free, and it offers all of the functionality I've ever needed. However the premium service offers some nice features. For $48 a year, you get:

-Up to 5 photo uploads per entry (vs. 1 with the free version)

-Customized email prompts

-Searchability

-Automatic Backups

-Trending tools, to see changes in particular terms or concepts over time.

If you want the benefits of keeping a journal, but can never seem to make it work, Oh Life might be the tool you need.

-- Scott Lyman

Oh Life
Free

Underdog law blog: Obsidian v Cox -- First Amendment Protects Bloggers!

Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit issued a landmark opinion providing Constitutional protections to bloggers.

The pro bono efforts of attorneys Benjamin Souede and Eugene Volokh appear nothing short of heroic. 

Summary of case: http://www.underdoglawblog.com/2014/01/bloggers-deserve-first-amendment.html

Full text of case: http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2014/01/17/12-35238.pdf

Undernews: What the test tyrants have done to one teacher

http://prorevnews.blogspot.com/2014/01/what-test-tyrants-have-done-to-one.html

What the test tyrants have done to one teacher

Lynnie Vessels, Virginia Journal of Education - I used to be a great teacher. Then I became a good teacher. Last year I wondered who I was as a teacher.

I used to create the most wonderful lesson plans that allowed me to teach my students developmentally, and by the end of the year they were synthesizing everything they learned. One parent told me if her daughter had lousy English teachers for the rest of her schooling, it wouldn't matter because her love for English was ignited.

Another parent, who was also a teacher, told me, "You understand the mind of a middle-schooler." I do. My own middle school years were painful, and I do everything I can to shake it up for my students, getting them laughing and loving the written word. I had an English teacher in middle school that did that and I learned from him a hundred tricks I've used my whole life.

I used to be a star in my classroom, more exciting than television, a comedian, and I made every kid a star. I created an atmosphere where students learned volumes without ever knowing it. I acted silly, even foolish, and taught them to do the same. I role modeled someone in her element. By the end of the year, the shyest child was able to perform like a pro on the stage with his peers.

I used to stand up every back-to-school night and say, "I love my job, I love the kids, I love my classroom, I love this school. I wake up every day happy and can't wait to get here."

Last year I could still say that, but just barely.

I still love my students but this multiple-choice testing feels like little bombs going off throughout my year. I prepare the kids. They take the tests. Then it feels like I spend weeks cleaning up the debris, collecting data I don't really need because I already know what they know and don't know.

I get that there are slacker teachers, but I've only met three in my 26 years of teaching. While standard multiple-choice tests are meant to lift "up" bad teachers, what about those of us that were soaring all along? We are forced to dumb ourselves and the students down.

The students I released from my care five years ago were far more knowledgeable and better prepared than the students I released this June. If I were a parent, I'd be livid that my children were being prepared for multiple-choice tests and a dumbed-down curriculum.

... This year my school is starting an IB Middle Years Program that is meant to create knowledgeable, principled, global, critical thinkers, but we are still expected to test students constantly, until the point of test exhaustion. Frankly, the two are diametrically opposed and it impossible to do both well. Most educators know this, but we have to "go along" with what we do not believe in. This is why good teachers are leaving in droves.

Do you know how long it takes to prepare a seventh-grader to pass material he'll likely never use? It wastes valuable teaching time when we could be reading, writing and discussing big ideas. I feel like a bird with rubber bands put around her wings, being placed on a moving sidewalk headed to the robotic-teacher factory. I'm flapping, but no one is hearing me. Or worse, I'm seen as a renegade. I cannot compromise my integrity in order to do what I know is wrong for the children in my charge.

I see teachers regularly on YouTube reading letters of resignation. They have given up and left. I haven't given up. I am writing this. I want to stay. But I want to go back to creating my own lessons and tests with my own brain. I want to be the teacher I used to be. I love my colleagues dearly, but none of us wants to be a clone of the other. I respect them enough to see how incredibly talented they are. And I see the young, bright teachers coming in wanting to fly.

... For many of us, teaching is a calling. We are motivated by our love for children. Teaching has been the greatest spiritual journey of my life. I could not have chosen a better profession for my talent, creativity and intelligence. It is what I was put on earth to do, yet I feel like I am being asked to change something as fundamental as a religion is to some. I cannot help my sadness. I miss being excited for another school year.