Support local/state/federal representatives and community organizations focused on well-researched healthcare policies. Share your experiences and ideas to improve health programs and legislative initiatives. Ask – are these elected officials truly representing their constituents? Or do they yield to lobbyists, corporate or their own financial interests? Promises made to voters during campaigns are meant to be kept.
Another Monopoly
September 10, 2026
If all goes as planned, President Trump is going to “save” Argentina by importing tons of their beef into the U.S. Never mind what will happen to our farmers and ranchers. According to Joe Maxwell, a Missouri farmer and President of the Farm Action Fund, “63 farmers go out of business each day in America.” When asked how could this be, given that beef prices at the grocery store ...
moreInsanity 2.0
May 28, 2026
“In 1962, President Jack Kennedy warned that ‘the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Half a century later, this captures well the pernicious impact of America’s Iran mythology . . . More ominously, they are conditioning the political climate in the U.S. for an eventual war again...
moreLet’s Make a Deal
October 28, 2025
I believe that saying what you think without self-censoring in order not to offend someone has never advanced a person’s sense of self. I also believe that people can respectfully disagree on important topics and remain colleagues and friends. Maybe one way to do this is to find commonality before simply discarding the other person. But, these days, that has been lost to righteously choosing a s...
moreWhy Architecture Matters
October 8, 2025
“We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” This quote by Winston Churchill refers to the restoration of the House of Commons after being bombed in 1941. On the Culturist’s latest blog post he wrote: “This quote gets to a deep-rooted truth about architecture. The spaces we inhabit have a significant impact on us. Some buildings fill you with awe, while others depress you. But why i...
moreThank You
August 6, 2025
It’s been awhile since I wanted to thank a member of Congress. I imagine that I’m like many Americans, tired of this “august body” ignoring what Americans say they want or need. I haven’t seen a poll that says Americans want forever wars and government corruption. But recently, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, held a significant...
moreThe WHO Debate
July 23, 2025
If it hadn’t been for Covid-19 and the role the World Health Organization played in mandates, lockdowns, and the vaccines, this specialized UN agency might not be in the news. As a result of the Trump administration, a sharpened focus is on the attempt of the WHO to take primacy over individual nation states when/if another pandemic occurs. But first, a quick reminder of WHO’s history. WHO...
moreWho Owns the Land – Part II
June 26, 2025
Would you be surprised if I told you that these numbered circles represent a recent tally of data centers in the U.S. What is a data center? According to Cisco, one of the tech giants: “At its simplest, a data center is a physical facility that organizations use to house their critical applications and data. Data centers accommodate the following: Email and file sharing, productivity ...
more100 Million People
July 15, 2022
I thought I’d read it wrong when I saw this heading in a recent posting from Kaiser Health News (KHN). I looked again and saw that the full title of the well-researched article was as follows: “100 Million People in America Are Saddled with Health Care Debt.” This is slightly less than one-third the estimated population in 2022. This 100 million includes 41% of adults “beset by a health ca...
moreWorking for Something Better
December 15, 2024
Imagine kicking over a rotting log and finding all manner of centipedes running to escape the sunlight when darkness is their life. This is how I have come to view the healthcare industry we’re living with today. Just that, it’s become an industry rather than one of the elements committed to creating good health and promoting wellbeing. For more than a dozen years, beginning in 1982, I work...
moreElections belong…to the people
March 1, 2024
Up until the Supreme Court gave us George W. Bush as President, I didn’t give the process of voting much thought. I assumed it was fair and uncorrupted—with one exception. In 1960, I was living outside of Chicago and thrilled to vote for JFK. At the time, there was a rumor that Mayor Daley had “made sure” that Kennedy carried the state. I’m ashamed to admit, election corruption—alleged...
moreThe New Canaries?
July 1, 2023
I couldn’t stop thinking about a short notice I read in my local newspaper and wanted to share this in a post. “Runaway youth in Washington State will now have the option to defer shelters and host homes from contacting their parents if they leave home to seek gender affirming or reproductive health care under Senate Bill 5599.” The state’s House and Senate passed the bill and sent it on ...
moreHow Sausage is Made
November 1, 2022
As a kid, I watched my Grandma Rosie make link sausage (all that gross fat and pork). Gross! Remembering that experience, I am thinking about the midterm elections on November 8th. Like who can ignore them? I thought since we have candidates promising us the sun and the moon, it would be a good time to brush up on how our laws are actually made. We’re told there might be new sausage chefs eager ...
moreThe Catch-22 of US Healthcare
September 5, 2021
I worked in the health insurance industry from 1982 to 1989, with one regrettable relapse. My first job was with an HMO. I actually believed if we provided more preventive services and made care affordable, the health of all Americans would improve. Those were innocent days, before doctors’ practices were owned by venture capitalists, before medicine became Big Pharma, before insurance companies...
moreSocial In-Security
October 15, 2020
We all face risks to our economic security throughout our lifetime including loss of wages, outliving one’s savings in retirement, and high health care costs at any age. In the US, we claim to meet these and other personal disasters through various social insurance programs – including the Social Security Act of 1935. According to various scholars, the Act was the “foundation on which modern...
moreSymptomology
September 29, 2020
As some of you know, I’m working on a hybrid—part memoir and part how to get us off our collective ass and provide affordable, accessible healthcare to our people. The biggest barrier is that all we read and talk about are the symptoms—not the disease. This is like hearing an odd noise coming from under the hood of your car. You drive to your regular automotive shop and the son of the boss w...
moreMoral Injury
August 29, 2020
If I ever find an agent and/or publisher for a book I’m working on, this is how it will open: Imagine kicking over a rotting log and finding all manner of centipedes running to escape the sunlight when darkness is their life. This is how I view the healthcare industry we’re living with today. Photo by Viktor Talashuk For more than a dozen years, beginning in 1982, I was a sales and marketing ...
more