Can the government make my doctor pay more attention to me than her computer?

I am a healthy active 26 year and I am grateful to have health insurance through my employer. But I rarely use it. The last time I went to the doctor I had an appointment scheduled for 11am. I arrived early, but ended up waiting until 11:45 to be called in. After which I was lead to a cold, sterile room and was told that my doctor would be in shortly to see me. But she never did; see me. I waited for another 45 more minutes, and the doctor came in, introduced herself and sat down in a chair on the opposite end of the room from me and she faced the computer. I thought to myself, “The computer is not sick I am!” She then asked me questions and fervently typed into the computer. She barely looked at me, she hardly touched me, (except for with a cold stethoscope) and she made her diagnoses wrote me a prescription for something and sent me off to the pharmacy. I felt cheated. The computer got more attention than I did. I won’t go back unless it’s an emergency. When I was a kid the doctor use to comfort me, talk to me and offer me that very potent physiological medicine of attentive listening, gentle appropriate touch and genuine concern. Doctors need to remember they can make us feel better, as well as cure us. I am for health reform! But it needs to go beyond insurance companies, and health plans, the whole culture of medicine needs to change. Doctors need to see patients as people not machines.

Free flow scat in the park

Spectrum of sound and sight.
Multilingual chatter of voices and laughter.
The crashing of the fountain fills my ears and its cool mist soothes my sin
like cool drops of holy water on my skin.
Jazz music floats through the air infusing its creative sound, and sensation into everything.
I can feel it all come together vibrating
as if searching for a tonal climax.
Encircled by cement sitting areas, park benches, and trees, I sit back and relax.

The food vendors send their greasy aromas out wafting through the air,
inciting a rebellion against my hunger,
catching my belly in its lies.
The hustlers are hustling, doing their dances with their quick shifty glances, twisted smiles, and half cocked bloodshot eyes.
The chess players strategize, the intellectuals intellectualize, and the politicos politicize.
The bums are bumming change, while the jugglers juggle, and the smugglers smuggle and the dealers deal,
the birds chirp and I am the thief on the bench trying to steal
a smile, or perhaps a glance, or even a batting of the eye.
I am the poet in the shade searching for the perfect line.
In fact I am a bit surprised
that in the park
more pigeons in flight and pedestrians don't collide.

Waiting in vain...

Watching the sun come up on the city, trembling in the dark as internal walls carefully constructed over time came crumbling down. Resting peacefully in the arms of dawn. A night to remember and to know that I was not waiting in vain.

E Pluribus Unum

A living organism.

New York is a living organic city that seems to feed itself and its people on its own activity, the constant building up, tearing down and destruction, renovation and construction. The diversity here is like no where I have ever seen or experienced. When the founding fathers designed this country as a nation based on the principle of E Pluribus Unum, I don’t think that they had any idea of how vastly that principle would expand. America is baffling to me. It is a dynamic, flexible, mobile, shifting country solid in so far as its constitution and bill of rights are allowed to manifest and provide a strong legal framework for the multiple chords that are brought into harmony to make us one. I am baffled that from so many we can truly be, and remain one nation, despite our divisions. This unity amongst such diversity is the greatest weapon we have, it is our most valuable asset and our greatest strength, and it is our foundation. Without it we will surely parish into the infinite sands of history. However our unity without our diversity, without being able to harness the multitude of diverging rivers and streams that flow throughout this country, without being able to create and maintain our dynamic unity open for all those willing to be open to it, our unity will be false and inconsistent with the reality of our time. And our survival depends upon our real and honest assessment, and acceptance and invitation of our vast global diversity of today. The more people that become Americans, live in, or visit America from all over the world the better. For who could want to destroy what they are a part of? But that means we must build an America where everyone can be a part of it if they so choose. A kingdom divided against it must fall, but a kingdom that embraces diversity and difference can adapt and survive. There is yet hope for the future…

Bread crumbs from God...

Every once in a while I hit a glass ceiling in life, where I can see my own limitations and I feel as if I were literally being encased and contained by my own attitudes, perceptions and behaviors. The glass ceiling allows me to see clearly what my limitations are, but I don't have to power to burst through the glass in order to continue to grow and change. However, it seems just as I am pressed up against the glass, my mind starts to unravel and I get trapped in warring mental extremes. I start to loose my serenity and as I become untethered from truth I start to mentally, physically and emotionally choke until some outside stimulus, or power, or God hammers through the glass and allows me to clearly breathe, think, act and change. New knowledge is gained and I move forward in life, only I am stronger and wiser than before. It is like I am walking on path that I have been on long before and I lost my way coming home. I am reliant on the bread crumbs from God left long ago to remind me the right path to take...

AND ONE!

Every outdoor basketball court has its own culture and ethic. In the summer time park basketball is a an institution. Today I played at Loring Park in Minneapolis. It was my first time there and for a white boy from St. Paul it feels at first like stepping into a strangers living room. In truth I was on someonelse's court and when I got there I felt I needed to act as a guest and observe the culture and mores before I could feel comfortable. Luckily for me I showed up with a veteran, my friend Jonah and while we watched on the sideline waiting to play he explained the rules of the court.

It is a loosely organized game but there is a strong social contract and structure that keeps it together. There were a group of elders with lawn chairs set up on the east sideline of the court and while they were not officiating the game in the same way a referee would they acted as the keepers of the social order and they commanded respect by all the players. Their position seated in the east and facing west suggested wisdom and foresight, like they had seen much of life, much of basketball and that they were there guarding and passing on a sacred tradition. Surrounding the court on all sides were players waiting to get in and make there mark, there were families with blankets, coolers, grills and barbeque's. There were dope fiends smoking weed on the sidelines and yuppies in sandals watching from the shade and trying to catch a tan in the sunshine.

As Jonah and I were waiting for our game controversy arose as to whose the next game really was. One of the older players, a man who did not yet make up one of the observing elders but perhaps soon, told us that the game was not ours and that they had been playing here for 30 years and there was a specific way to do things. He said we could not just come in here and change that. In essence he was trying to intimidate us out of the game. Jonah stood his ground though and after considerable argument a peaceful and amicable solution was found and we got to play in the next game.

While observing the controversy I learned an important lesson about being a man. Don't back down just because someone else talks tough. A man holds his ground respectfully, and never gives into intimidation. Instead he firmly, patiently and respectfully waits for the solution to come and than takes action.

When we took the court I found the game to be exactly the way I like it, tough, physical and fast paced. We won our first game and lost the second and than left. But I went home feeling more at home on that court, having learned some important lessons about life and basketball. As Jonah and I were leaving one of the elders sitting in the sidelines, an older tall black women wearing a green and white black history month t-shirt walked past us and said, "nice run." Hearing that made me leave the game holding my head a little higher with a little more confidence to carry out on to the court of life.

The Red-tailed Hawk

"What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected...
Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves. This we know, the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth.“ ~Chief Seattle~

This quote is one of my favorites and I have always felt a great kinship with the Red-tailed Hawk....