My wife, Eileen just read in the paper that the European Central Bank is guaranteeing loans by smaller banks throughout Europe, to keep them from going under in this time of financial instability.
Aha! So that's why there is financial instability, so that the ECB can come to the rescue. So now all those smaller banks will owe money to the ECB and it will be in control.
And like I said in my conspiracy trilogy: Deadly Research, Research Triangle and Terminal Research, it's all about control.
Gawd! I hate it when I'm right.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Friday, October 7, 2011
Doing a job on Steve Jobs
Marilyn Monroe came along and the world was not the same thereafter. She changed the game for bathing beauties everywhere. It was not long before she was dead of a fatal overdose.
Elvis Presley, AKA The King, came along and the world of music was changed forever. It was not long before he was dead of a fatal overdose.
Michael Jackson came along and became The King of Pop, unstoppable, but he had drug problems of his own. It was not long before he was dead of a fatal overdose.
Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, River Phoenix, Heath Ledger: all standouts in their fields, all incredible talents. Where could they have gone if not … well, it's only speculation. But still, I see a pattern forming.
Steve Jobs came along and changed the way we communicate, the way we do business, the way we spend our leisure time, what we had in our pockets, what students carried to class and the whole game. Before he came along, there was the typewriter, the Ozilid machine, the font template, and art was done by hand with a brush and toxic paints. After Steve Jobs, it was all done on the computer. He came along and the world was different.
The terrible thing was that the world was better, and therefore, Steve Jobs had to go. So they threw him out of his own company. What could he do? He started the most successful animated film company ever. He conceived of the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. And he got his company back. Take that!
He was also heckled and hounded, badgered and bothered until he was sick. But he beat the sickness. Take that!
He got sick again. And this time the sickness won. Steve Jobs died. He was ten years younger than I am, but then I haven't done anything near as grand, so I am relatively overlooked.
Somewhere in a ragged, overused notebook, in Steve Job's handwriting, are a thousand ideas for a thousand things you and I have not even thought of. They will change the world. Once put into production and released to the public, we will wonder what we ever did without them.
There are people in this world who are evil, who look at someone doing good and want to destroy them. There are people who latch on to a celebrity, an upcoming talent, and seek to bring them down. We should have formed a circle around Steve Jobs and protected him from such people.
You can say, “well, after all, it was cancer. No one can give someone cancer.”
But we don't know that. We don't know enough about cancer yet to say what brings it on or how one gets it. That “no one knows” theory is mighty handy, if you are someone evil and want to get rid of someone who is really making the world a far more interesting place. After all, the old “died of an overdose” line is getting a bit worn, don't you think?
One thing's sure: the man who changed the world is gone. Who will change the world now? I'm sure there are a few who are pretty smart guys and gals who are saying to themselves, “Better not get too effective. Remember Steve Jobs.”
But that's rather the point, isn't it? If you make it dangerous to achieve, the smart ones will stop achieving. The evil people win. And that's the whole idea, to be the one who wins.
Right now you are saying, “That's insane!”
That's right.
Elvis Presley, AKA The King, came along and the world of music was changed forever. It was not long before he was dead of a fatal overdose.
Michael Jackson came along and became The King of Pop, unstoppable, but he had drug problems of his own. It was not long before he was dead of a fatal overdose.
Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, River Phoenix, Heath Ledger: all standouts in their fields, all incredible talents. Where could they have gone if not … well, it's only speculation. But still, I see a pattern forming.
Steve Jobs came along and changed the way we communicate, the way we do business, the way we spend our leisure time, what we had in our pockets, what students carried to class and the whole game. Before he came along, there was the typewriter, the Ozilid machine, the font template, and art was done by hand with a brush and toxic paints. After Steve Jobs, it was all done on the computer. He came along and the world was different.
The terrible thing was that the world was better, and therefore, Steve Jobs had to go. So they threw him out of his own company. What could he do? He started the most successful animated film company ever. He conceived of the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. And he got his company back. Take that!
He was also heckled and hounded, badgered and bothered until he was sick. But he beat the sickness. Take that!
He got sick again. And this time the sickness won. Steve Jobs died. He was ten years younger than I am, but then I haven't done anything near as grand, so I am relatively overlooked.
Somewhere in a ragged, overused notebook, in Steve Job's handwriting, are a thousand ideas for a thousand things you and I have not even thought of. They will change the world. Once put into production and released to the public, we will wonder what we ever did without them.
There are people in this world who are evil, who look at someone doing good and want to destroy them. There are people who latch on to a celebrity, an upcoming talent, and seek to bring them down. We should have formed a circle around Steve Jobs and protected him from such people.
You can say, “well, after all, it was cancer. No one can give someone cancer.”
But we don't know that. We don't know enough about cancer yet to say what brings it on or how one gets it. That “no one knows” theory is mighty handy, if you are someone evil and want to get rid of someone who is really making the world a far more interesting place. After all, the old “died of an overdose” line is getting a bit worn, don't you think?
One thing's sure: the man who changed the world is gone. Who will change the world now? I'm sure there are a few who are pretty smart guys and gals who are saying to themselves, “Better not get too effective. Remember Steve Jobs.”
But that's rather the point, isn't it? If you make it dangerous to achieve, the smart ones will stop achieving. The evil people win. And that's the whole idea, to be the one who wins.
Right now you are saying, “That's insane!”
That's right.
Monday, August 1, 2011
How Bad Laws Go National: Case Study HB 235
WRITTEN BY BEVERLY K. EAKMAN
At this writing, a piece of state legislation in Maryland, HB 235, has passed the state House in Annapolis and is poised to be fast-tracked through the state Senate via the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee within a matter of days. Conveniently, there will be no public hearing on the Senate side, because there is no Senate version of the bill. This is not exactly an anomaly, but it’s not Standard Operating Procedure, either. Almost no one likes the bill, as it involves using the force of law to impose cross-dressing, "transgenderism," and a range of related behaviors in public places. As written, the bill appears designed to intimidate average citizens, most of whom, despite Maryland’s liberal bent, still lean, in practice, toward traditional values and standards.
Because HB 235 defines gender identity as “a gender-related identity or appearance of an individual, regardless of the individual’s assigned sex at birth,” the bill:
requires Maryland employers, including government agencies, to hire, promote, and include cross-dressers in all facets of the workplace without bias, with business owners facing threats of lawsuit or punishment if, say, men cannot wear dresses to wait on customers.
extends into public schools and day-care centers, which will be legally bound to hire cross-dressers and “transgenders,” if they apply, to teach and work with children.
normalizes "transgenderism," cross-dressing, and related behaviors and incites activists to promote bizarre sexual conduct through diversity-training workshops targeting businesses and school assemblies.
covers real estate transactions — further eroding the right of choice in renting or selling units and homes.
provides for easy access by “transgenders” — and sexual predators — to restrooms in stores, restaurants, schools, day-care facilities and workplaces.
forbids genetic testing to determine the actual sex of any employee or applicant.
It should be noted here that attempting to change one’s sex is biologically impossible, as every human cell’s chromosomes identify one as male or female. While it may be true that secondary sex characteristics occasionally get mixed up, there’s a medical term for that: birth defects. By lumping together homosexuals, exhibitionists and those with bona fide birth deformities (i.e., rare instances in which male babies are born with undersized genitalia or, at onset of puberty, breast development; and females who never menstruate), HB 235 is bureaucratic overkill.
Opponents of the bill are expected to fight it on moral and religious grounds. Advocates backing and promoting HB 235 are counting on that, because it gives them a psychological advantage. They already know that neither the U.S. Constitution nor the Bill of Rights provides any stipulation about individuals having a “right” to choose their gender or change their mind about which sex they want to be.
Moreover, undercutting traditional norms and religious beliefs are, for advocates, only spin-off returns from this bill. Proponents have a larger stake — namely, compromising property and ownership rights, thereby diverting more authority to government to regulate people’s lives. Miss this causal relationship, and taxpayers lose — twice.
The fact that there is no Senate version of the bill to debate facilitates the process of taking what is essentially a “pilot project” in Maryland from the blueprint stage to a national mandate. Passage of model legislation in one state serves as a precedent for others. Once a number of states have passed similar bills, the national/federal version is usually a slam-dunk.
That is how the “medicinal” marijuana tactic helped normalize and legitimize marijuana use; how the “civil unions” approach assured passage of same-sex “marriage” in state after state; and how psychological screening of schoolchildren under the cover of health reform made privacy violations part and parcel not only of the educational experience, but normalized interrogations, searches and seizure projects that spread to other demographics.
A prime example is the New Freedom Initiative (NFI). It blazed a trail in federalizing unpopular state initiatives. What began as survey to identify troubled schoolchildren now covers nursing-home residents, pregnant women and others. More significantly, it promotes the use of newer, more expensive antipsychotics and antidepressants as a sop to drug companies which, of course, can bankroll politicians.
Here’s how the scheme worked: A 1995 blueprint called the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP) was funded via a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation “philanthropic” grant and support from then-governor George W. Bush. While Texas was enacting the TMAP blueprint, Illinois was drafting the national legislative model: Its state legislature passed the $10 million Illinois Children's Mental Health Act creating a Children's Mental Health Partnership (ICMHP), which promptly was picked up, with a phrase changed here and there, by other states. (Such well-coordinated efforts are frequently facilitated by the Commission on Uniform State Laws.) ICMHP required the Illinois State Board of Education to develop and implement a plan that — get this! — incorporated social and emotional standards as part of mandatory Illinois Learning Standards. Social and emotional standards became the benchmarks for universal mental-health screening — the New Freedom Initiative (NFI), ostensibly an early-detection strategy.
By 2004, pre-emptive mental-health screening was ubiquitous, even though it didn't work. President George W. Bush created the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health in 2002 and instructed more than 25 federal agencies to develop a nationwide implementation plan based on the old TMAP blueprint (Read "What? Are You Crazy?" by this author). NFI was born. The U.S. Congress passed it by a large majority, making behavioral “health” a priority, with assessment of private opinions, and referrals to psychiatric services. Other states jumped on the bandwagon with their own versions of mental health screening, expecting monetary “incentives.”
Inevitably, such federal incentives to state and local entities translate to government dictating how citizens must live. As columnist and Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly stated in her March 2005 analysis of TeenScreen, an integral part of NFI aimed at youth depression, parents find themselves facing coercion and threats from school staff; permanent, stigmatizing labeling of their children; charges of child neglect for refusing privacy-invading surveys; and an avalanche of unproved, even deadly, medications.
What does this have to do with Maryland’s HB 235? Just this: The route to nationalization is following a familiar course, in the name of pre-empting discrimination in housing, education, employment and providing tax-supported social services.
In an effort to explain her support for the bill, Maryland Senator Karen Montgomery wrote to this author in an e-mail that “[t]his bill is just clarifying that it is not acceptable to discriminate against people regardless if it is a choice, part of their genetic make-up, or a ‘shifting psychological state’…. ”
So, HB 235 isn’t about disability. It is a blank check aimed at providing sexual license and, in so doing, also restricting the property rights and decision-making prerogatives of citizens who balk.
Consider: Most people with embarrassing medical conditions do not wear a sign announcing their ailments. An individual with migraine headaches or kidney disease may approach a potential employer with the caveat: “I get migraines and occasionally need to lie down,” or “my kidney condition requires dialysis at specified times. But I'm good at what I do; please hire me anyway." If the job-seeker’s credentials and background are otherwise solid, many employers would go the extra mile.
If, on the other hand, a job-seeker approaches an employer (or an apartment owner) loudly announcing his or her sexual proclivities, then that candidate is a provocateur. In an era when special keys or codes are required to enter an office restroom and abductions and sexual murders by deviants are almost daily news, accommodating exhibitionists is counterproductive — unless, of course, there is another agenda entirely, one that utilizes sexual license as a side-show to divert attention from ulterior motives.
Let’s hope Marylanders see through this one before HB 235 goes from state model to federal law. Right now, most of the advocacy seems to be on the side of the bill’s proponents, while its real originators sit back and watch outraged traditionalists miss the larger issue — again.
At this writing, a piece of state legislation in Maryland, HB 235, has passed the state House in Annapolis and is poised to be fast-tracked through the state Senate via the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee within a matter of days. Conveniently, there will be no public hearing on the Senate side, because there is no Senate version of the bill. This is not exactly an anomaly, but it’s not Standard Operating Procedure, either. Almost no one likes the bill, as it involves using the force of law to impose cross-dressing, "transgenderism," and a range of related behaviors in public places. As written, the bill appears designed to intimidate average citizens, most of whom, despite Maryland’s liberal bent, still lean, in practice, toward traditional values and standards.
Because HB 235 defines gender identity as “a gender-related identity or appearance of an individual, regardless of the individual’s assigned sex at birth,” the bill:
requires Maryland employers, including government agencies, to hire, promote, and include cross-dressers in all facets of the workplace without bias, with business owners facing threats of lawsuit or punishment if, say, men cannot wear dresses to wait on customers.
extends into public schools and day-care centers, which will be legally bound to hire cross-dressers and “transgenders,” if they apply, to teach and work with children.
normalizes "transgenderism," cross-dressing, and related behaviors and incites activists to promote bizarre sexual conduct through diversity-training workshops targeting businesses and school assemblies.
covers real estate transactions — further eroding the right of choice in renting or selling units and homes.
provides for easy access by “transgenders” — and sexual predators — to restrooms in stores, restaurants, schools, day-care facilities and workplaces.
forbids genetic testing to determine the actual sex of any employee or applicant.
It should be noted here that attempting to change one’s sex is biologically impossible, as every human cell’s chromosomes identify one as male or female. While it may be true that secondary sex characteristics occasionally get mixed up, there’s a medical term for that: birth defects. By lumping together homosexuals, exhibitionists and those with bona fide birth deformities (i.e., rare instances in which male babies are born with undersized genitalia or, at onset of puberty, breast development; and females who never menstruate), HB 235 is bureaucratic overkill.
Opponents of the bill are expected to fight it on moral and religious grounds. Advocates backing and promoting HB 235 are counting on that, because it gives them a psychological advantage. They already know that neither the U.S. Constitution nor the Bill of Rights provides any stipulation about individuals having a “right” to choose their gender or change their mind about which sex they want to be.
Moreover, undercutting traditional norms and religious beliefs are, for advocates, only spin-off returns from this bill. Proponents have a larger stake — namely, compromising property and ownership rights, thereby diverting more authority to government to regulate people’s lives. Miss this causal relationship, and taxpayers lose — twice.
The fact that there is no Senate version of the bill to debate facilitates the process of taking what is essentially a “pilot project” in Maryland from the blueprint stage to a national mandate. Passage of model legislation in one state serves as a precedent for others. Once a number of states have passed similar bills, the national/federal version is usually a slam-dunk.
That is how the “medicinal” marijuana tactic helped normalize and legitimize marijuana use; how the “civil unions” approach assured passage of same-sex “marriage” in state after state; and how psychological screening of schoolchildren under the cover of health reform made privacy violations part and parcel not only of the educational experience, but normalized interrogations, searches and seizure projects that spread to other demographics.
A prime example is the New Freedom Initiative (NFI). It blazed a trail in federalizing unpopular state initiatives. What began as survey to identify troubled schoolchildren now covers nursing-home residents, pregnant women and others. More significantly, it promotes the use of newer, more expensive antipsychotics and antidepressants as a sop to drug companies which, of course, can bankroll politicians.
Here’s how the scheme worked: A 1995 blueprint called the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP) was funded via a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation “philanthropic” grant and support from then-governor George W. Bush. While Texas was enacting the TMAP blueprint, Illinois was drafting the national legislative model: Its state legislature passed the $10 million Illinois Children's Mental Health Act creating a Children's Mental Health Partnership (ICMHP), which promptly was picked up, with a phrase changed here and there, by other states. (Such well-coordinated efforts are frequently facilitated by the Commission on Uniform State Laws.) ICMHP required the Illinois State Board of Education to develop and implement a plan that — get this! — incorporated social and emotional standards as part of mandatory Illinois Learning Standards. Social and emotional standards became the benchmarks for universal mental-health screening — the New Freedom Initiative (NFI), ostensibly an early-detection strategy.
By 2004, pre-emptive mental-health screening was ubiquitous, even though it didn't work. President George W. Bush created the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health in 2002 and instructed more than 25 federal agencies to develop a nationwide implementation plan based on the old TMAP blueprint (Read "What? Are You Crazy?" by this author). NFI was born. The U.S. Congress passed it by a large majority, making behavioral “health” a priority, with assessment of private opinions, and referrals to psychiatric services. Other states jumped on the bandwagon with their own versions of mental health screening, expecting monetary “incentives.”
Inevitably, such federal incentives to state and local entities translate to government dictating how citizens must live. As columnist and Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly stated in her March 2005 analysis of TeenScreen, an integral part of NFI aimed at youth depression, parents find themselves facing coercion and threats from school staff; permanent, stigmatizing labeling of their children; charges of child neglect for refusing privacy-invading surveys; and an avalanche of unproved, even deadly, medications.
What does this have to do with Maryland’s HB 235? Just this: The route to nationalization is following a familiar course, in the name of pre-empting discrimination in housing, education, employment and providing tax-supported social services.
In an effort to explain her support for the bill, Maryland Senator Karen Montgomery wrote to this author in an e-mail that “[t]his bill is just clarifying that it is not acceptable to discriminate against people regardless if it is a choice, part of their genetic make-up, or a ‘shifting psychological state’…. ”
So, HB 235 isn’t about disability. It is a blank check aimed at providing sexual license and, in so doing, also restricting the property rights and decision-making prerogatives of citizens who balk.
Consider: Most people with embarrassing medical conditions do not wear a sign announcing their ailments. An individual with migraine headaches or kidney disease may approach a potential employer with the caveat: “I get migraines and occasionally need to lie down,” or “my kidney condition requires dialysis at specified times. But I'm good at what I do; please hire me anyway." If the job-seeker’s credentials and background are otherwise solid, many employers would go the extra mile.
If, on the other hand, a job-seeker approaches an employer (or an apartment owner) loudly announcing his or her sexual proclivities, then that candidate is a provocateur. In an era when special keys or codes are required to enter an office restroom and abductions and sexual murders by deviants are almost daily news, accommodating exhibitionists is counterproductive — unless, of course, there is another agenda entirely, one that utilizes sexual license as a side-show to divert attention from ulterior motives.
Let’s hope Marylanders see through this one before HB 235 goes from state model to federal law. Right now, most of the advocacy seems to be on the side of the bill’s proponents, while its real originators sit back and watch outraged traditionalists miss the larger issue — again.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Got Meds? Not Necessarily, Say U.S. Hospitals
WRITTEN BY BEVERLY K. EAKMAN
FRIDAY, 03 JUNE 2011 14:37
Over the Memorial Day weekend, while many were getting their first taste of summer — ergo, not reading the news — it was reported that U.S. hospitals were experiencing shortages of both common and specialized drugs, so much so that they are looking for substitutes and combing the globe for overseas suppliers. An Associated Press story announced that some “89 drug shortages occurred in the first three months of this year, according to the University of Utah’s Drug Information Service (UUDIC)…which tracks shortages for the American Society of Health-System Pharmacies.”
Turns out, this is not a new problem. According to Linda S. Tyler, Pharm. D., FASHP, Pharmacy Manager, Drug Information Services, University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics, the first drug shortages in the United States occurred in 1996, during the Clinton Administration, when data collection on the topic began. At the time, there were only five drugs affected, but that number rose swiftly to 20 drugs between 1997 and 2000, according to UUDIC tracking. In 2001 the number of shortages grew to 120, most of which were resolved by the following year because they didn’t rise to the level of adversely affecting hospitals and patient care. Today, that has changed.
Shortages are not only inconvenient, but expensive. Tyler wrote that “[c]hanges in drug supply can alter the way medications are prepared in the pharmacy, the way they are administered to patients, and, in some cases, whether patients receive medications at all.” She estimates that “many organizations spend between one-half and three full-time equivalent (FTE) personnel on the management of drug shortages. These extra FTEs spend their time investigating the reason for the shortage, finding alternative agents, working with wholesalers, finding alternative suppliers, compounding a replacement product internally, or communicating with other practitioners.”
The knee-jerk public response to this news is along the lines of: Do we make anything in this country anymore? Is there anything that is not still outsourced, imported, or subject to rationing?
The real factors are more complicated, and more disturbing. In 2003, Tyler categorized several reasons for shortages, summed up as regulatory issues (7 percent), product discontinuation (20 percent), raw materials issues (8 percent), manufacturing problems (28 percent), and supply-and-demand (10 percent). In her updated publication, Tyler notes that this leaves some 27 percent of shortages unexplained. Deeper, more hidden, reasons include “Grey” Market Vendors, Prime Vendors and Just-in-time Vendors, Industry Consolidations, Market Shifts, Manufacturer Rationing, Restricted Distribution, Manufacturer Discontinuation — and the fact that sometimes drug companies are loathe to reveal the details of shortages for fear of a public, legal or other backlash.
Most of these categories appear to be self-explanatory, although the motives pretty much revolve around demand (read: money). Thus persons with legitimate, but rare, disorders who rely on particular drugs may find their doctors hard-pressed to locate a new source or alternative (the National Association for Rare Disorders helps), while well-hyped, trendy complaints (like attention-deficit “disorder” and depression) see a new pill on the market several times a year. War is certainly a factor, when soldiers require an unexpectedly large quantity of a certain product, creating temporary shortages in the U.S.
But “grey market vendors” are more troublesome. Tyler explains that “the profitability of [certain] pharmaceuticals attracts vendors who [then] create artificial shortages by selectively purchasing excessive quantities of products, … thereby depleting the available stock. These vendors then re-sell the products back to the users at inflated prices.”
“Prime Vendors and Just-in-Time Inventories” are another development that makes for concern. Tyler explains:
The increased use of prime vendors may have contributed to the drug shortage situation by reducing the amount of product available in the supply chain. It is no longer easy to weather shortages by relying on stockpiled inventories because both wholesalers and health systems maintain minimum levels of stock. As a result, manufacturer supply issues are transmitted directly to the user without the benefit of an inventory buffer, thereby increasing the number of short-term shortages that may impact [larger] institutions.
The practice of maintaining minimum supply levels could be disastrous, especially as we contemplate bio- and chemical weapon attacks, not to mention out-sized, super-toxic strains of E. coli that have now killed some 18 Europeans and sickened 1,600 via an unknown, salad-vegetable-borne contaminant. Persons who get any E. coli infection can suffer horribly (somewhat reminiscent of Hemorrhagic Fever (Ebola)/Renal Syndrome [HFRS]), as this one attacks the kidneys, too, and is apparently drug-resistant.
Furthermore, many of the drugs that are ubiquitous and easy to get are also the most misleading (e.g., Exedrin Migraine and Extra Strength Exedrin contain identical ingredients, including the percentages of each compound; Eli Lilly’s antidepressant Prozac gets only a new color (pink) and a new name (Sarafem) for treatment of so-called premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), dubbed a mental illness in women.
Warehousing medicines are not in the same category as warehousing books. A case can be made for no longer warehousing books, as computerized printing and the Internet have made doing so unnecessary, given easy on-demand operations. Warehousing medicines, however, is critical, even as a stop-gap measure until a better drug can be researched.
Moreover, the medical and pharmaceutical community may need to work to get a handle on the supply-and-demand problem quickly, giving the heave-ho to misrepresented drugs and quick approval and distribution for critical ones, including those for rare diseases. Shortages are not an option.
FRIDAY, 03 JUNE 2011 14:37
Over the Memorial Day weekend, while many were getting their first taste of summer — ergo, not reading the news — it was reported that U.S. hospitals were experiencing shortages of both common and specialized drugs, so much so that they are looking for substitutes and combing the globe for overseas suppliers. An Associated Press story announced that some “89 drug shortages occurred in the first three months of this year, according to the University of Utah’s Drug Information Service (UUDIC)…which tracks shortages for the American Society of Health-System Pharmacies.”
Turns out, this is not a new problem. According to Linda S. Tyler, Pharm. D., FASHP, Pharmacy Manager, Drug Information Services, University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics, the first drug shortages in the United States occurred in 1996, during the Clinton Administration, when data collection on the topic began. At the time, there were only five drugs affected, but that number rose swiftly to 20 drugs between 1997 and 2000, according to UUDIC tracking. In 2001 the number of shortages grew to 120, most of which were resolved by the following year because they didn’t rise to the level of adversely affecting hospitals and patient care. Today, that has changed.
Shortages are not only inconvenient, but expensive. Tyler wrote that “[c]hanges in drug supply can alter the way medications are prepared in the pharmacy, the way they are administered to patients, and, in some cases, whether patients receive medications at all.” She estimates that “many organizations spend between one-half and three full-time equivalent (FTE) personnel on the management of drug shortages. These extra FTEs spend their time investigating the reason for the shortage, finding alternative agents, working with wholesalers, finding alternative suppliers, compounding a replacement product internally, or communicating with other practitioners.”
The knee-jerk public response to this news is along the lines of: Do we make anything in this country anymore? Is there anything that is not still outsourced, imported, or subject to rationing?
The real factors are more complicated, and more disturbing. In 2003, Tyler categorized several reasons for shortages, summed up as regulatory issues (7 percent), product discontinuation (20 percent), raw materials issues (8 percent), manufacturing problems (28 percent), and supply-and-demand (10 percent). In her updated publication, Tyler notes that this leaves some 27 percent of shortages unexplained. Deeper, more hidden, reasons include “Grey” Market Vendors, Prime Vendors and Just-in-time Vendors, Industry Consolidations, Market Shifts, Manufacturer Rationing, Restricted Distribution, Manufacturer Discontinuation — and the fact that sometimes drug companies are loathe to reveal the details of shortages for fear of a public, legal or other backlash.
Most of these categories appear to be self-explanatory, although the motives pretty much revolve around demand (read: money). Thus persons with legitimate, but rare, disorders who rely on particular drugs may find their doctors hard-pressed to locate a new source or alternative (the National Association for Rare Disorders helps), while well-hyped, trendy complaints (like attention-deficit “disorder” and depression) see a new pill on the market several times a year. War is certainly a factor, when soldiers require an unexpectedly large quantity of a certain product, creating temporary shortages in the U.S.
But “grey market vendors” are more troublesome. Tyler explains that “the profitability of [certain] pharmaceuticals attracts vendors who [then] create artificial shortages by selectively purchasing excessive quantities of products, … thereby depleting the available stock. These vendors then re-sell the products back to the users at inflated prices.”
“Prime Vendors and Just-in-Time Inventories” are another development that makes for concern. Tyler explains:
The increased use of prime vendors may have contributed to the drug shortage situation by reducing the amount of product available in the supply chain. It is no longer easy to weather shortages by relying on stockpiled inventories because both wholesalers and health systems maintain minimum levels of stock. As a result, manufacturer supply issues are transmitted directly to the user without the benefit of an inventory buffer, thereby increasing the number of short-term shortages that may impact [larger] institutions.
The practice of maintaining minimum supply levels could be disastrous, especially as we contemplate bio- and chemical weapon attacks, not to mention out-sized, super-toxic strains of E. coli that have now killed some 18 Europeans and sickened 1,600 via an unknown, salad-vegetable-borne contaminant. Persons who get any E. coli infection can suffer horribly (somewhat reminiscent of Hemorrhagic Fever (Ebola)/Renal Syndrome [HFRS]), as this one attacks the kidneys, too, and is apparently drug-resistant.
Furthermore, many of the drugs that are ubiquitous and easy to get are also the most misleading (e.g., Exedrin Migraine and Extra Strength Exedrin contain identical ingredients, including the percentages of each compound; Eli Lilly’s antidepressant Prozac gets only a new color (pink) and a new name (Sarafem) for treatment of so-called premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), dubbed a mental illness in women.
Warehousing medicines are not in the same category as warehousing books. A case can be made for no longer warehousing books, as computerized printing and the Internet have made doing so unnecessary, given easy on-demand operations. Warehousing medicines, however, is critical, even as a stop-gap measure until a better drug can be researched.
Moreover, the medical and pharmaceutical community may need to work to get a handle on the supply-and-demand problem quickly, giving the heave-ho to misrepresented drugs and quick approval and distribution for critical ones, including those for rare diseases. Shortages are not an option.
Conservatives Lose Ground on Social Issues
The Agenda Game: Part I -
FRIDAY, 03 JUNE 2011 00:04 BEVERLY EAKMAN
Conservatives and traditionalists appear to be hopelessly outclassed when it comes to organizing and strategy. How else to explain the lack of bang for the conservative buck, even with umpteen nonprofits, volunteer groups and lobbying organizations devoted to promoting a traditional approach to social issues? Inboxes overflow with “urgent” admonitions to contact members of Congress over one issue after another: the Defense of Marriage Act, gays in the military, women on submarines, pro-homosexual curricula. This past May, it was the politically-correct censorship of six year-olds (“Candy Cane Case”) and transgendered classrooms.
The very concept of marriage now appears to be in trouble—a cornerstone of the pro-family, conservative movement—even as celebrities brag on and on about conceiving out of wedlock. Focus on the Family President Jim Daly, in an interview just published in WORLD magazine, allowed that pro-family leaders probably are losing the battle for traditional marriage among younger generations of Americans, “as casual ‘hookups’ continue to replace the romance of dating”. A combination of factors has contributed to this result: teen magazine articles; hypersexual advertising; and age-inappropriate, graphic sex education. The one in four girls reported to have had a sexually transmitted disease (STD) in 2008 hasn’t changed much from year to year—a little more among some demographics one year, a little less in others.
Any way you look at it, promiscuity is pervasive, and risky sexual behaviors increasingly are expected and normalized, despite the emotional and physical toll on girls, in particular.
Then, there are ongoing issues like crime, low academic performance, loss of personal privacy, the practice of sending naughty and/or “slow” children to psychiatrists for therapy and drugs, human trafficking and dozens more that have seen little or no gain for traditionalists since heaven-knows-when.
Even when we win one, it’s soon back to Square One. For example, the organization MassResistance gleefully reported May 23, that Kevin Jennings will be leaving his post as the U.S. Department of Education’s “Safe Schools Czar” this coming July. Jennings has been the driving force behind pro-homosexual curricula and “tolerance,” as well as founder of the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Educational Network (GLSEN), which has so much money invested in getting its message out that it even managed to register-trademark (®) its own slogan. Jennings is credited with helping to introduce Bill 4530 in Congress that would require normalization of homosexuality, transgenderism, cross-dressing, etc., in America’s public schools. (Two copycat “transgender” bills at the state level are already taking a toll in California schools; AB 433 and SB 48 are poised to be passed by the California Legislature, but at least one elementary school in Oakland is already indoctrinating kids starting in kindergarten about “gender diversity.”)
No sooner had Jennings announced he was exiting as Safe Schools “czar,” than he was slated to head up an outfit called Be the Change, described by MassResistance as “a turbo-charged community-organizing organization founded by well-known Massachusetts liberal activist Alan Khazei,” who is poised to run for U.S. Senate against a Republican. Khazei, a fellow whom most conservatives never heard of, founded City Year in 1998 as a program for organizing youth, in the spirit of Hitler’s Youth and the communists’ Comintern and Young Pioneers, his goal being to “put their idealism to work” through “community transformation.” (This is the type of “community activism” Barack Obama cut his teeth on in Chicago.) The organization now has 22 offices across the US, and also in places as far removed as London and South Africa, given its slew of high-profile corporate sponsors. Jennings’ new role will not only give him access to Khazei’s fortune and influence, although he may have had it all along, but he will now be poised to include adults and take City Year to even greater heights once he takes the reigns of Be the Change.
With the 2012 election less than a year and a half away, conservatives are asking why things like this keep happening. Why, they wonder, can’t conservatives slam the lid shut whenever a new radical activist-turned-“expert” comes out of the woodwork?
They are finding that, just as housing prices are all about location, location, location, success in politics is all about strategy, strategy, strategy. Conservatives keep trying to recycle the same strategies—and sometimes even the same candidates—year after year. That is one factor in the rise of the Tea Party: the feeling that it’s time for some new blood.
It’s not that conservative ideals are blown off by the public—in fact, most Americans, when push comes to shove, actually identify more with the traditional social mores than not. Polls show that most people value their privacy; they don’t want to be snooped on. They zealously guard what they see as personal property. They expect schools to turn out knowledgeable kids and to instill discipline, not just kids who will be “team players.” They still admire the traditional white wedding, and they’re a bit squeamish about sharing bathroom and sleeping quarters with homosexuals.
So, what exactly is the problem?
It’s the hostile political environment. By the mid-1980s, even with the Reagan Revolution in full gear, the Marxists and anarchists of the 1960s had been trained to carry the day. They became the wealthy, the focused, the movers and shakers. They knew exactly how, and where, to invest their money (media, media, media) and learned to push conservatives’ hot buttons over and over so that traditionalists were left flailing about, hopelessly divided, at each other’s throats, disorganized and angry.
For 35 years, the left has used “the dog-bone strategy.” It tosses one outrageous issue after another to conservatives, and the conservatives always bite. Today, “medicinal” marijuana, tomorrow government bail-outs, the next day gay pride, and the day after that universal government health care. Pretty soon conservatives are left sputtering, grasping at straws, desperately latching on to something they hope will be the issue that carries them to victory—Medicare, school “standards,” energy shortages, taxes. They rarely have time to think anything through, so as to have something substantial to bring to the public table. Just about the time they do get a proposal together, they get kicked into another outrageous “crisis” that must be addressed—right now!
Every month, conservatives must seize a new crisis—climate change, the deficit, sex scandals—launching yet another pitiful exhibition of outrage, while the left-wing laughs all the way to …well, the presidency.
Many conservatives now realize they need to change the dynamics of this game. They know they must take the debate—and the agenda—away from the Left and devise a means of getting the leftist-liberal-anarchist cabal to debate on conservative turf. To do that, conservatives must first figure out where the conservative turf is.
That topic will be taken up in Part II in this series.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Same Old Song
My wife woke me up for Face the Nation this morning. She does that. She knows I like the show. I hate that it is on at the same time as Meet the Press, as I'd like to see both shows. Getting a fair and balanced view of what is happening in my state, my country, my world, is near impossible, with so many opposing sound bites out there.
By the time I had a cup of coffee and was focused on the guest speaker, Harry Reid, D – Nev, Senate Majority Leader, the question on the table was “Will the government shut down at the end of the week?” It was a question he did not answer. Instead he sang the same old song: Oh, the poor children! Oh, the poor vets! Oh, all our favorite causes!
The senator hit the high notes right on cue: “We're going to have to cut Helping Hand, all the aid to orphaned children and homeless veterans.” Every time someone brings up actually running the government on a budget, out come the widows and orphans, the homeless vets. Next comes the police, fire and education. (See my earlier blog on balancing the budget.)
What, does Senator Reid say, is causing the difficulty? It's the Republicans and the Tea Party causing all the trouble. Congress is afraid of the Tea Party, when there aren't any members around. Sn. Reid says that at the last rally, “there weren't thousands, there weren't hundreds, there were tens...”
We're talking about 12% of the budget, right? So what about the hundreds of redundant government agencies and top heavy bureaucracy? There are more people in the Department of Agriculture than there are farmers. If you go in with a paring knife and carve out some of the fat and waste in the government, you will find that we can run the country on a budget.
Going for the heart, lungs and brain as the first to go when cutting out fat is insane. Let's get rid of the crazy people and put someone sane in the government.
Then came Lindsey Graham, R – South Carolina, who brought up another ghastly waste of government funds, the proposed State Department Army.
Our choices seem to be, in Libya and other countries, 1) putting soldiers there for years and years, 2) arming the rebels or 3) putting a State Department Army there for years and years (see option 1 – only more expensive.)
Remember that we poured money into Libya for the current regime to stay in power. Now we should pour more in to oust him and put in another government? The rebels we arm today will be the enemy we fight tomorrow – and they will be armed with our guns. We have squandered American taxpayers' money giving it to other countries and now we are throwing good money after bad in expensive “Police Actions” which will be followed by expensive rebuilding. The United States is the only country in the history of the world that rebuilds a country after it destroys it. How stupid are we?
Teddy Roosevelt, a Democrat, gave us the Big Stick. We should , as Senator Graham has suggested, take the fight to the leaders, sitting fat and happy in their stronghold, and end this thing. Then let them rebuild without us. It will be a lesson to the rest of the world: “Mess with us and we leave you broken.”
Arm the rebels? No! Build a State Department Army to hemorrhage money onto foreign soil? No! Take the fight to Gadhafi and his crew? Yes – and then stop sending our money overseas, we have need of it here. You want to rebuild something? Rebuild New Orleans.
When there is a bully in the neighborhood, you take him out and then you go home. You do not then become the next bully. And when there is a household budget to trim, to make it fit within your income, you do not cut the buying of food, clothing and shelter first.
It has been a song heard too long by government voices, all chanting in unison: if you want to cut the budget, the first things to go will be the fire department, police department and education – then all your favorite charitable agencies. Oh, weep for the widows, orphans and homeless vets. They are the chorus of the old familiar song. What is missing from the song is the billions showered on the Middle East and countries that want us dead. Time for a new song.
By the time I had a cup of coffee and was focused on the guest speaker, Harry Reid, D – Nev, Senate Majority Leader, the question on the table was “Will the government shut down at the end of the week?” It was a question he did not answer. Instead he sang the same old song: Oh, the poor children! Oh, the poor vets! Oh, all our favorite causes!
The senator hit the high notes right on cue: “We're going to have to cut Helping Hand, all the aid to orphaned children and homeless veterans.” Every time someone brings up actually running the government on a budget, out come the widows and orphans, the homeless vets. Next comes the police, fire and education. (See my earlier blog on balancing the budget.)
What, does Senator Reid say, is causing the difficulty? It's the Republicans and the Tea Party causing all the trouble. Congress is afraid of the Tea Party, when there aren't any members around. Sn. Reid says that at the last rally, “there weren't thousands, there weren't hundreds, there were tens...”
We're talking about 12% of the budget, right? So what about the hundreds of redundant government agencies and top heavy bureaucracy? There are more people in the Department of Agriculture than there are farmers. If you go in with a paring knife and carve out some of the fat and waste in the government, you will find that we can run the country on a budget.
Going for the heart, lungs and brain as the first to go when cutting out fat is insane. Let's get rid of the crazy people and put someone sane in the government.
Then came Lindsey Graham, R – South Carolina, who brought up another ghastly waste of government funds, the proposed State Department Army.
Our choices seem to be, in Libya and other countries, 1) putting soldiers there for years and years, 2) arming the rebels or 3) putting a State Department Army there for years and years (see option 1 – only more expensive.)
Remember that we poured money into Libya for the current regime to stay in power. Now we should pour more in to oust him and put in another government? The rebels we arm today will be the enemy we fight tomorrow – and they will be armed with our guns. We have squandered American taxpayers' money giving it to other countries and now we are throwing good money after bad in expensive “Police Actions” which will be followed by expensive rebuilding. The United States is the only country in the history of the world that rebuilds a country after it destroys it. How stupid are we?
Teddy Roosevelt, a Democrat, gave us the Big Stick. We should , as Senator Graham has suggested, take the fight to the leaders, sitting fat and happy in their stronghold, and end this thing. Then let them rebuild without us. It will be a lesson to the rest of the world: “Mess with us and we leave you broken.”
Arm the rebels? No! Build a State Department Army to hemorrhage money onto foreign soil? No! Take the fight to Gadhafi and his crew? Yes – and then stop sending our money overseas, we have need of it here. You want to rebuild something? Rebuild New Orleans.
When there is a bully in the neighborhood, you take him out and then you go home. You do not then become the next bully. And when there is a household budget to trim, to make it fit within your income, you do not cut the buying of food, clothing and shelter first.
It has been a song heard too long by government voices, all chanting in unison: if you want to cut the budget, the first things to go will be the fire department, police department and education – then all your favorite charitable agencies. Oh, weep for the widows, orphans and homeless vets. They are the chorus of the old familiar song. What is missing from the song is the billions showered on the Middle East and countries that want us dead. Time for a new song.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Television Sells!
I can always tell when the government, medical or psychiatric organizations have been dabbling in our television shows, the message is singular, obvious and insane.
It was clear as a bell when the popular (for a while) television show, Touched by an Angel, came out in favor of psychotropic medications. In that episode, a jazz musician was a danger to himself and his family if he was not on his medication, but he was not creative or even a good musician when he was all doped up like that – in fact, he hated it. So he didn't take his meds, got creative and was happy playing music to die for. The “Angel of the Lord” came and told him, “Your medication is a gift from God. You must take it.” Thereafter, he did “the right thing,” taking his meds and opting for mediocrity instead of musical greatness. That was the last time I turned that show on. It was canceled soon after.
The other night, I was doing late work and my wife was watching “Law and Order.” The culprit was a loving mother who did not believe in getting her child vaccinated. Her failure to get her child vaccinated caused another child to be sick and die. They arrested the mother, took her child away and the world was again safe. The message repeated again and again during the show was “Get your child vaccinated.”
For years I have feared that there was something going into the vaccine that the government wanted us to get but that we wouldn't stand for given the choice. The answer: remove the choice. There are many parents who will not have their child vaccinated. They do not believe in it, or they do not believe in government intrusion. Perhaps they are organic people and do not believe in the artificial, chemical, Brave New World that is being sold to us daily.
For years, I have had a rule: Where there is a hard sell, there is something of which I should beware. Now here is none other than the “Do no evil” cops of “Law and Order” telling us we should get vaccinated. I say “No!” Just because the government or some medical organization or psychiatric organization (especially a psychiatric organization) says to line up and get stuck with a needle full of something mysterious and magical, that is no reason for me or anyone else to do so. In fact, when they sell it to us so hard, that's a good reason to be extra careful.
It was Karl Marx who said, “Give me a child before he's five and I'll have him for life.” I fear that what is in that vaccination is something that will be in my child for life and not to his betterment. The proof of the pudding is that the powers who want that needle in the kid's arm have gone to the writers of popular television shows to sell it to us.
Shame on you, Law and Order.
It was clear as a bell when the popular (for a while) television show, Touched by an Angel, came out in favor of psychotropic medications. In that episode, a jazz musician was a danger to himself and his family if he was not on his medication, but he was not creative or even a good musician when he was all doped up like that – in fact, he hated it. So he didn't take his meds, got creative and was happy playing music to die for. The “Angel of the Lord” came and told him, “Your medication is a gift from God. You must take it.” Thereafter, he did “the right thing,” taking his meds and opting for mediocrity instead of musical greatness. That was the last time I turned that show on. It was canceled soon after.
The other night, I was doing late work and my wife was watching “Law and Order.” The culprit was a loving mother who did not believe in getting her child vaccinated. Her failure to get her child vaccinated caused another child to be sick and die. They arrested the mother, took her child away and the world was again safe. The message repeated again and again during the show was “Get your child vaccinated.”
For years I have feared that there was something going into the vaccine that the government wanted us to get but that we wouldn't stand for given the choice. The answer: remove the choice. There are many parents who will not have their child vaccinated. They do not believe in it, or they do not believe in government intrusion. Perhaps they are organic people and do not believe in the artificial, chemical, Brave New World that is being sold to us daily.
For years, I have had a rule: Where there is a hard sell, there is something of which I should beware. Now here is none other than the “Do no evil” cops of “Law and Order” telling us we should get vaccinated. I say “No!” Just because the government or some medical organization or psychiatric organization (especially a psychiatric organization) says to line up and get stuck with a needle full of something mysterious and magical, that is no reason for me or anyone else to do so. In fact, when they sell it to us so hard, that's a good reason to be extra careful.
It was Karl Marx who said, “Give me a child before he's five and I'll have him for life.” I fear that what is in that vaccination is something that will be in my child for life and not to his betterment. The proof of the pudding is that the powers who want that needle in the kid's arm have gone to the writers of popular television shows to sell it to us.
Shame on you, Law and Order.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
The PBS-NPR Debate's Unmentionable Dilemma
WRITTEN BY BEVERLY K. EAKMAN
MONDAY, 14 MARCH 2011 14:59 The New American (www.thenewamerican.com)
As House Republicans pushed to eliminate federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) this month, Democrats fought back with a vengeance. Barack Obama even upped the ante a whopping $6 million, by asking $451 million for CPB as part of his $3.7 Trillion-Dollar Baby. This is the same historic 2012 budget that many lawmakers say is already trimmed to the bone (with a gross federal debt approaching $14 trillion).
In response, NPR and PBS stations nationwide stepped up their rhetoric to listening and viewing audiences, going so far as to ask them to “stop the Senate” (and even “Republicans” in particular) and “defend federal funding” for public broadcasting. Some legislators and opponents predictably cried “foul,” insisting that CPB and/or its affiliates had violated laws that ban nonprofits and government-funded entities from lobbying.
Try telling that to leaders at the National Education Association, which for years has not only produced a highly politicized, and barely education-related, Legislative Agenda, but by advocating for every leftist cause imaginable. It also owns a big, apparently tax-exempt, office building in the heart of Washington, D.C.
Weekly Standard writer Philip Terzian has pointed out in his recent article that just because “public broadcasting depends on federal funds does not mean that it cannot subsist without federal funds"; and advocated breaking its “welfare dependency.” He also notes that “If NPR and PBS were to go private, that would not only end the perpetual tension … between taxpayer funds and public accountability, it would leave them exempt from political pressure and interference” so they could air whatever they wanted.
All true. But Mr. Terzian’s best point broaches an issue rarely discussed in public, although frequently in closed company: “…while it is theoretically possible that a certain number of stations in marginal markets would succumb, that might well be the cost (if it happens)….” The underlying issue here is a topic that other countries, such as France, once believed to be crucial. Like our own nation, France, too, wound up overwhelmed by what some disdainfully describe as “the popular culture,” despite a Ministry that worked for years, in their case, to avoid what one appointee once described as “the horror of American radio and television.”
Mr. Terzian opined that the kinds of radio and television he likes — classic jazz and classical music, as well as documentaries on history, literature, and science — were nearly nonexistent on the air, except on PBS and NPR, but that “the market has demonstrated that no private broadcaster would [ever] fill the vacuum.”
He is not alone in his basic complaint, but it is far from clear that the “market” per se has demonstrated any such thing. If Mr. Terzian is correct in his view that the typical fare presented on commercial radio and television is “predominantly … or relentlessly lowbrow” whereas “the kind of elitist fare” he likes is found only on PBS and NPR, then it might be because the “market” for lowbrow entertainment has been artificially subsidized.
Beginning in the 1950s (read about "Payola"), disc jockeys were lambasted for taking kickbacks from managers and other interested parties to play certain songs and music, to feature the works of particular entertainers, and, finally, to offer only “reliable” genres like soul, country, classical, or rock to the public. Stations were often bought and sold with that in mind. By the 1990s, many people were turned off by the nonstop howling and screeching of so-called popular music, not to mention noisy, crass commercials. They didn’t want to set their alarms and wake up to such cacophony.
So, radios started being sold that had an accompanying audiotape feature so one could awake to a favorite tape, commercial-free. As digital came along, Sirius and XM satellite providers provided listeners with the capability to access their favorite genre 24/7, even in their car. No more station-fade-out problems on the road or local jabber when traveling through an unfamiliar part of the country.
The only problem was that one didn’t get any weather, traffic updates or news that way. That is probably the largest reason why local radio stations stayed in business. Even those who like “popular culture” listen to MP3 players and iPods; they are not necessarily listening to the radio the way Baby Boomers did. Talk shows, of course, are in a class of their own, and conservative hosts have to carve out their own niche instead of having it handed to them. Some do not listen to talk shows at all, of course, conservative or otherwise.
But the thorniest dilemma in Mr. Terzian’s piece is the part about it being “theoretically possible that a certain number of stations in marginal markets would succumb [without government subsidies]."
The problem is that not everyone can be a one-man Annie B. Casey Foundation or a Pew Charitable Trust. We live in a mobile society, and that means people transfer with their jobs — lots of people. Dallas, Texas, for example, abolished its PBS stations a few years ago, which meant not only classical music disappeared, but financial TV shows such as "Wall Street Week," which caters to an audience a bit more sophisticated that the one that listens to Dr. Phil. As classical music stations dwindled to the point of no return, anyone wishing to listen to complex orchestral pieces was forced to purchase a CD player, CDs, subscribe to satellite and/or cable (a sizeable outlay in some cases), and change out the radios that once graced the nightstand.
So, when we talk about a “market” for music, are we willing to say that only the elite, the rich, could possibly be attracted to Harry Connick, Jr.? Or guitarist Chet Atkins? Or what is, perhaps, the greatest stage musical of all time, Les Misérables? Now that’s a stretch….
Yet the musicians and musicals above were among the cream-of-the-crop features of PBS channels during last week’s Pledge Drive, not the music of controversial political figures, regardless of their merits at other times of the year. So, it is obvious that PBS executives know what the public likes best and what kind of programming is apt to draw pledges. If they know, so do a lot of other media moguls, philanthropists, and heads of charitable organizations — including conservative patriots.
In Tony-award-winning actress Patti LuPone’s new autobiography, she describes how she and her fellow thespians lived for years out of suitcases, traveling all over the country to perform before throngs of enthusiastic audiences, some of them out-of-the-way locales. The stages ranged from relatively small, as in college towns, to medium-sized like the Dallas Theater Center, to larger venues the size of The Strathmore in Kensington, Maryland, or The National Theater in Washington, D.C., and, of course, the biggest of them all, Broadway in New York City. The point, however, is that there is no dearth of fans for sophisticated entertainers, even among those who cannot afford large donations. In fact, many an individual’s one big splurge for the year might be for a chance to see, say, Andrea Boccelli, the blind Italian tenor from Tuscany whose incredible voice was first heard by many people on PBS. Boccelli then proceeded to pack sold-out houses the size of a football stadium around the country.
That kind of thing is going to change as young people and those living in outlying areas, long distances from major cities, hear nothing but boorish performances from the likes of Christina Aguilera and Eminem. Without a PBS around, they will never know whether they might have enjoyed operatic-crossover tenor Josh Grobin; or the dance phenomenon of Riverdance fame, Michael Flatley; or the Irish-Riverdance-spinoff female group, Celtic Woman — all seen for the first time by most people on PBS.
Of course, our “Ministry of Culture,” as it were, is called the National Endowment for the Arts. But it, too, has surrendered to political correctness, proliferating the works of extremists such as Robert Mapplethorpe, the “artist” of gross-out homosexual works, and Annie Sprinkle, the talent-challenged goofball who urinates in public.
In the present political climate, where even children’s programming is rife with leftist messages, junk science, and psychobabble, however subdued, it is probably a mistake to support CPB with taxpayer dollars. However, if the culture is ever to be turned around, conservative traditionalists need to step up to the plate and get on the boards of organizations that will present the kinds of high-culture programs that PBS does. The Left managed to get hold of the reins of the media, not by calling themselves The Marxist Entertainment Group. They simply got their act and funding partners together until they held a majority on most boards in journalistic circles, film, and television.
Monikers such as National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting carry no self-defining political terminologies. Conservatives, on the other hand, stupidly advertise themselves — and, thus their intentions — by labeling their networks, programs, and groups using religious and conservative titles right up front, so the Left doesn’t have to do it for them.
The result is hundreds of channels and stations to choose from and, more often than not, nothing uplifting to hear or watch.
_______________
Beverly K. Eakman began her career as a teacher in 1968. She left to become a science writer for a NASA contractor and went on to serve as a speechwriter — for the Voice of America and for the late Chief Justice Warren E. Burger when he chaired the Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution. She was an editor and writer for the U.S. Dept. of Justice before retiring from federal government. She became an expert on education policy, mental-health issues, data-trafficking and political strategy with six books and dozens of speeches, feature articles and op-eds to her credit. Her most recent works are A Common Sense Platform for the 21st Century and the 2011 Edition of her ever-popular seminar manual, How To Counter Group Manipulation Tactics (Midnight Whistler Publishers). Mrs. Eakman can be reached through her website at www.BeverlyE.com .
MONDAY, 14 MARCH 2011 14:59 The New American (www.thenewamerican.com)
As House Republicans pushed to eliminate federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) this month, Democrats fought back with a vengeance. Barack Obama even upped the ante a whopping $6 million, by asking $451 million for CPB as part of his $3.7 Trillion-Dollar Baby. This is the same historic 2012 budget that many lawmakers say is already trimmed to the bone (with a gross federal debt approaching $14 trillion).
In response, NPR and PBS stations nationwide stepped up their rhetoric to listening and viewing audiences, going so far as to ask them to “stop the Senate” (and even “Republicans” in particular) and “defend federal funding” for public broadcasting. Some legislators and opponents predictably cried “foul,” insisting that CPB and/or its affiliates had violated laws that ban nonprofits and government-funded entities from lobbying.
Try telling that to leaders at the National Education Association, which for years has not only produced a highly politicized, and barely education-related, Legislative Agenda, but by advocating for every leftist cause imaginable. It also owns a big, apparently tax-exempt, office building in the heart of Washington, D.C.
Weekly Standard writer Philip Terzian has pointed out in his recent article that just because “public broadcasting depends on federal funds does not mean that it cannot subsist without federal funds"; and advocated breaking its “welfare dependency.” He also notes that “If NPR and PBS were to go private, that would not only end the perpetual tension … between taxpayer funds and public accountability, it would leave them exempt from political pressure and interference” so they could air whatever they wanted.
All true. But Mr. Terzian’s best point broaches an issue rarely discussed in public, although frequently in closed company: “…while it is theoretically possible that a certain number of stations in marginal markets would succumb, that might well be the cost (if it happens)….” The underlying issue here is a topic that other countries, such as France, once believed to be crucial. Like our own nation, France, too, wound up overwhelmed by what some disdainfully describe as “the popular culture,” despite a Ministry that worked for years, in their case, to avoid what one appointee once described as “the horror of American radio and television.”
Mr. Terzian opined that the kinds of radio and television he likes — classic jazz and classical music, as well as documentaries on history, literature, and science — were nearly nonexistent on the air, except on PBS and NPR, but that “the market has demonstrated that no private broadcaster would [ever] fill the vacuum.”
He is not alone in his basic complaint, but it is far from clear that the “market” per se has demonstrated any such thing. If Mr. Terzian is correct in his view that the typical fare presented on commercial radio and television is “predominantly … or relentlessly lowbrow” whereas “the kind of elitist fare” he likes is found only on PBS and NPR, then it might be because the “market” for lowbrow entertainment has been artificially subsidized.
Beginning in the 1950s (read about "Payola"), disc jockeys were lambasted for taking kickbacks from managers and other interested parties to play certain songs and music, to feature the works of particular entertainers, and, finally, to offer only “reliable” genres like soul, country, classical, or rock to the public. Stations were often bought and sold with that in mind. By the 1990s, many people were turned off by the nonstop howling and screeching of so-called popular music, not to mention noisy, crass commercials. They didn’t want to set their alarms and wake up to such cacophony.
So, radios started being sold that had an accompanying audiotape feature so one could awake to a favorite tape, commercial-free. As digital came along, Sirius and XM satellite providers provided listeners with the capability to access their favorite genre 24/7, even in their car. No more station-fade-out problems on the road or local jabber when traveling through an unfamiliar part of the country.
The only problem was that one didn’t get any weather, traffic updates or news that way. That is probably the largest reason why local radio stations stayed in business. Even those who like “popular culture” listen to MP3 players and iPods; they are not necessarily listening to the radio the way Baby Boomers did. Talk shows, of course, are in a class of their own, and conservative hosts have to carve out their own niche instead of having it handed to them. Some do not listen to talk shows at all, of course, conservative or otherwise.
But the thorniest dilemma in Mr. Terzian’s piece is the part about it being “theoretically possible that a certain number of stations in marginal markets would succumb [without government subsidies]."
The problem is that not everyone can be a one-man Annie B. Casey Foundation or a Pew Charitable Trust. We live in a mobile society, and that means people transfer with their jobs — lots of people. Dallas, Texas, for example, abolished its PBS stations a few years ago, which meant not only classical music disappeared, but financial TV shows such as "Wall Street Week," which caters to an audience a bit more sophisticated that the one that listens to Dr. Phil. As classical music stations dwindled to the point of no return, anyone wishing to listen to complex orchestral pieces was forced to purchase a CD player, CDs, subscribe to satellite and/or cable (a sizeable outlay in some cases), and change out the radios that once graced the nightstand.
So, when we talk about a “market” for music, are we willing to say that only the elite, the rich, could possibly be attracted to Harry Connick, Jr.? Or guitarist Chet Atkins? Or what is, perhaps, the greatest stage musical of all time, Les Misérables? Now that’s a stretch….
Yet the musicians and musicals above were among the cream-of-the-crop features of PBS channels during last week’s Pledge Drive, not the music of controversial political figures, regardless of their merits at other times of the year. So, it is obvious that PBS executives know what the public likes best and what kind of programming is apt to draw pledges. If they know, so do a lot of other media moguls, philanthropists, and heads of charitable organizations — including conservative patriots.
In Tony-award-winning actress Patti LuPone’s new autobiography, she describes how she and her fellow thespians lived for years out of suitcases, traveling all over the country to perform before throngs of enthusiastic audiences, some of them out-of-the-way locales. The stages ranged from relatively small, as in college towns, to medium-sized like the Dallas Theater Center, to larger venues the size of The Strathmore in Kensington, Maryland, or The National Theater in Washington, D.C., and, of course, the biggest of them all, Broadway in New York City. The point, however, is that there is no dearth of fans for sophisticated entertainers, even among those who cannot afford large donations. In fact, many an individual’s one big splurge for the year might be for a chance to see, say, Andrea Boccelli, the blind Italian tenor from Tuscany whose incredible voice was first heard by many people on PBS. Boccelli then proceeded to pack sold-out houses the size of a football stadium around the country.
That kind of thing is going to change as young people and those living in outlying areas, long distances from major cities, hear nothing but boorish performances from the likes of Christina Aguilera and Eminem. Without a PBS around, they will never know whether they might have enjoyed operatic-crossover tenor Josh Grobin; or the dance phenomenon of Riverdance fame, Michael Flatley; or the Irish-Riverdance-spinoff female group, Celtic Woman — all seen for the first time by most people on PBS.
Of course, our “Ministry of Culture,” as it were, is called the National Endowment for the Arts. But it, too, has surrendered to political correctness, proliferating the works of extremists such as Robert Mapplethorpe, the “artist” of gross-out homosexual works, and Annie Sprinkle, the talent-challenged goofball who urinates in public.
In the present political climate, where even children’s programming is rife with leftist messages, junk science, and psychobabble, however subdued, it is probably a mistake to support CPB with taxpayer dollars. However, if the culture is ever to be turned around, conservative traditionalists need to step up to the plate and get on the boards of organizations that will present the kinds of high-culture programs that PBS does. The Left managed to get hold of the reins of the media, not by calling themselves The Marxist Entertainment Group. They simply got their act and funding partners together until they held a majority on most boards in journalistic circles, film, and television.
Monikers such as National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting carry no self-defining political terminologies. Conservatives, on the other hand, stupidly advertise themselves — and, thus their intentions — by labeling their networks, programs, and groups using religious and conservative titles right up front, so the Left doesn’t have to do it for them.
The result is hundreds of channels and stations to choose from and, more often than not, nothing uplifting to hear or watch.
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Beverly K. Eakman began her career as a teacher in 1968. She left to become a science writer for a NASA contractor and went on to serve as a speechwriter — for the Voice of America and for the late Chief Justice Warren E. Burger when he chaired the Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution. She was an editor and writer for the U.S. Dept. of Justice before retiring from federal government. She became an expert on education policy, mental-health issues, data-trafficking and political strategy with six books and dozens of speeches, feature articles and op-eds to her credit. Her most recent works are A Common Sense Platform for the 21st Century and the 2011 Edition of her ever-popular seminar manual, How To Counter Group Manipulation Tactics (Midnight Whistler Publishers). Mrs. Eakman can be reached through her website at www.BeverlyE.com .
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