Siren Happy Seattle

Let me preface what I am bout to write by saying that I have a great deal of respect for our emergency services people and recognize that many of them, readily put their "lives on the line" for us every day. For their service and tragic sacrifices, I am truly grateful. But I am frustrated but the seemingly promiscuous use of sirens in our little urban core.

The "Emerald City"? Try the "Siren City". After living in the downtown area of Seattle for 5 years, I can pronounce our little city as the most siren happy of anyplace I have ever lived- and that includes New York City (28 years), Hong Kong (8 years) and Tokyo (2 years). Given the number of times in any given day you hear a siren wailing through the urban core, you could be forgiven for thinking you were in Baghdad, circa 2002 or in the city with the worst crime rate and public safety record in America.

It's just unbelievable! Siren wailings average out to about 1 every 20 - 40 minutes in the "urban core"- where we live; which is pretty amazing given Seattle's small population. I grant that: living 2 blocks away from a police precinct, 1/2 a mile from Swedish General (Hospital), a few blocks away from a fire department and a few blocks away from I5 are part of the reason we notice the sirens as much as we do.

I also admit that, given the fields of construction sites in our area, accidents will happen and that is yet another reason we have emergency services swirling through our corner of the city. Yet discounting these facts; allowing for genuine emergencies and false alarms it still seems that the emergency services people are guilty of a whimsical use of their little sirens; or from overdosing on TV dramas.

Use of sirens for anything but genuine emergencies, both real and preceived, would be wrong; and would simply amount to noise pollution. Far be it from me to play the cynic :-), but I am tempted to think these guys switch their sirens on when they go for coffee or lunch, need to get back to the firehouse for a pee; or simply to practice. There just aren't that many fires or accidents or crimes committed in our little urban core.

I wonder....do the police use their sirens when a bicycle theft is reported? Or a burnt waffle sets off a smoke alarm? Seattle Vice? Now there's a TV drama in the making. Is this yet another piece of evidence that our little, aspirational city has all the pretense of a metropolis such as New York? "We may not be as big as New York, but we use sirens more than they do!" Seattle is the Little City that Could.....

Should We Ration Healthcare?

According to Professor Singer of Princeton University the answer is "yes". In his recent letter to the New York Times, Professor Singer argues eloquently and passionately that rationing healthcare should at least be an option and tries to establish that there is a dollar value on human life. I find this appalling, and yet another piece of evidence that our national healthcare system is dysfunctional, our business leaders are out of ideas and our politicians are too beholden to vested interests.

President Obama recently declared that the current endeavor to reform healthcare is "different this time", alluding to the doomed effort Hillary Clinton made 15 years ago. It is different, or so he says, and ostensibly has a better chance of success because all of the parties are "at the table" this time: patients' advocates, "Big Pharma", labor, management, Democrats and Republicans. Unfortunately I am reminded of the old saying (attribution, anyone?) that, "A camel is a horse, designed by committee."

So what sort of a compromise can we expect from this combination of business men, lobbyists and politicians? I shudder to think. Professor Singer argues that as with all scarce national resources, we should ration our healthcare. Imagine if you can, that we imported no foreign oil. American consumers could only purchase oil and all its derivatives from American oil companies sourced from American territories. We would be forced to ration oil and would probably be paying $73 a gallon for gas.

Pretty absurd, right? Countries import what they cannot produce or provide their citizenry. We have been importing oil for decades, and our hydro carbon society would literally collapse without sources of foreign oil. Our national healthcare system may not be near collapse, but it is certainly in crisis and the call to ration healthcare is yet another sign of fatigue and submission to the ossified ways of the past.

Rather than ration our healthcare, why not embrace the "importing" of foreign healthcare alternatives by sending more American patients overseas for treatment? The trend in "medical tourism" is already well underway, and will only accelerate in the near future- thanks exclusively to the private sector. If our government got behind the idea, and allowed Medicare and Medicaid to pay for medical treatments at accredited hospitals overseas this would go a long way towards alleviating the stress on our system.

In March, Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN profiled a woman from Las Vegas who, rather than pay $175,000 for surgery to correct her atrial fibrillation travelled to Delhi, India where she had the procedure done (successfully) for $10,000. There are many other examples of how people are traversing borders in search of better and, or more affordable healthcare. Think of the savings to insurance companies and to tax payers.

One of the major reasons healthcare costs of surged in recent years is the gay abandon with which Americans sue for malpractice- driving up insurance premiums and in some cases causing Dr.s to move from 1 state to another. Part of the healthcare reform initiative should be to cap awards in malpractice suits and raise the standards for determining malpractice. Another reason healthcare costs have increased so dramatically? The fact that so many Americans subsist on a high trans fat diet, smoke and do little to no exercise is also a major factor .

So I echo Steve Burd's call to "gear" patients' share of their medical treatments to their behavior- since some 70% of serious illnesses and diseases are behaviour-related. In his Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal on June 12 Mr. Burd, the CEO of Safeway, revealed how his company had saved a huge amount of money simply by rewarding those employees who stayed healthy or made efforts to improve their health; by quitting smoking, dieting / losing weight and doing more exercise.

Ration healthcare? No way. And unless our business leaders and politicians start to imagine more creative alternatives to cutting spending and increasing taxes? Brace yourselves for "Camel Healthcare"!

The History Channel

For want of anything better to lament about or deplore this evening, I turn now to an old favorite: the History Channel and its conspicuous omission of anything to do with history. If there were an award for the most mis-named TV channel, it would have to go to the (so-called) "History Channel". Why don't "they" simply sell the domain name (for a handsome profit- even in this economy) and re-name the channel?

To what? I haven't the slightest idea. A glance at today's and tomorrow's offerings will give those of you not already "fed up" with their programming an idea. Between "Ice Road Truckers" (little or nothing to do with history) and Monster Quest (absolutely nothing to do with history) there is nothing else to watch. Ax men and programs about UFOs are also a staple of History Channel programming.

The other day I dared to think there was something worth watching on the History Channel and tuned in to find yet another worthless program- Modern Marvels; this time the scintillating subject was "corn". No. I am not joking; an hour devoted to corn. I remember one not long ago (saw, not watched) on cotton candy. I recall when the History Channel was nicknamed "the Hitler Channel" because so many of their programs were about WWII and about Hitler in particular.

What is this now? Revenge? I do not want to watch programs on "Hitler's Madness", "Hitler's Menace", "Hitler's Killers", "Hitler's Family" ad nauseum; but neither am I interested in the "time-fill" programs. To be fair, I can see how some people would be interested in Ice Road Truckers and Ax Men (I guess) but these programs have no place on the History Channel. Is it unreasonable to ask for more programs on WWI, the Korean War, the Renaissance, the British empire and so forth? Please?

The Greatest Rock & Roll Song Ever Composed

After over 35 years of listening, sorting and sifting I have reached a conclusion. The greatest Rock & Roll song ever composed is, "Won't Get Fooled Again" from the album "Who's Next" by the Who. The finalists were:

Satisfaction (Rolling Stones)

Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting (Elton John)

Black Dog (Led Zeppelin)

You Shook Me All Night Long (AC/DC)

White Wedding (Billy Idol)

Spirit of Radio (Rush)

Train Kept A'Rollin' (Aerosmith)

Sweet Jane (Lou Reed, live version)

Baba O'Reilly (the Who)

Can't You Hear Me Knockin' (Rolling Stones)

Hard Day's Night (the Beatles)

I'm In Love with My Car (Queen)

You Never Can Tell (Chuck Berry)

Aqualung (Jethro Tull)

Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On (Jerry Lee Lewis)

Smile Away (Paul McCartney)

Mystery Achievement (the Pretenders)

Go All The Way (the Rasberries)

Photograph (Ringo Starr)

Here Comes the Sun (the Beatles / George Harrison)

Too Rolling Stoned (Robin Trower)

Do You Feel Like We Do (Peter Frampton)

What I Like About You (the Romantics)

Refugee (Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers)

Dance the Night Away (Van Halen)

Keep the Faith (Bon Jovi)

Piece of My Heart (Janis Joplin)

Maggie May (Rod Stewart)

China Grove (Doobie Brothers)

Foreplay / Long Time (Boston)

Radar Love (Golden Earing)

...yes, yes I know. I have left off artists like Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, Motley Crue, Santana, Elvis, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Little Richard, Bill Haley and scads of others, as well as many songs from artists included in my list and that some of the songs might be a bit obscure: but this is MY list! I have also decided to pronounce that the '70s, much reviled as the era of "disco", was arguably the greatest decade for Rock n' Roll, in terms of virtuosity and production; when all the artistic creativity of the former 2 decades really peaked.