I thought that this was a general function of aging and I accepted my decline, albeit sadly. I may have been premature. It’s possible that my flat affect and memory condition were a product of simvastatin. Of course I may be rapidly descending into a state of senile dementia and we all should ignore any of my ideas, consider them the ravings of a mad man.

Statins have been shown to improve the survival chances of atherosclerotic patients. I’m one of those. I shouldn’t mess with my meds. q.e.d.

OTOH (as the messagers using a shorthand for the common phrase “on the other hand” say), since I stopped the statins I haven’t felt quite as stupid. OTOH, I stopped taking my statins, so what does that tell you?

I’ve an appointment with the cardio guy soon. In all likelihood I’ll remember to bring this up since I’m not taking the statins. OTOH, I may not live long. Just a joke… macabre sure, but not to be taken seriously. Informed opinions abound regarding the “statin stupids,” my self-diagnosed condition. A few links:

• Do Statins Make You Stupid?
• Do Statins Make You Stupid?
• Can a Drug That Helps Hearts Be Harmful to the Brain?

Here’s a link to a list of other rankings by country. Check out arms shipments! Guess who’s number one there! Take that, Frenchie!

Here is how it works in Canada. My thanks to Jon Husband for the link.

When I was a student, the University provided health care (for which I was grateful once when I needed spackling and repair following a motorcycle accident).

Those first twenty years or so of my life were, I guess, the good old days.

When I found work in Northern California, I became a member of the Kaiser Permanente HMO, where I remained for twenty years. Mostly, I never saw the money that Kaiser cost me as anything more than a modest deduction noted on a pay stub. Health care was easy, inexpensive, and more than adequate. My twin sons were born prematurely at Kaiser Hospital in San Francisco. The week or more they spent in the premie intensive care nursery cost no more than if their mom had delivered normally and gone home with them the next day. I was certainly grateful for that.

Those next twenty or twenty-five years of my life were, I guess, the good old days too.

For the last twenty years Beth and I have had great health insurance coverage. We had the luxury of choosing which of our employer paid plans would benefit us more. Then, when I started my own business, I had coverage under Beth’s plan, nicely avoiding the health care overhead that so many sole proprietors face.

These may still be the good old days.

But Medicare has appeared on my personal horizon just as the country is engaged in the great Health Care Reform debate and it is held up as a model of health cost coverage. Medicare may be the lowest common denominator for Health Care Reform legislation. It may be the model for our new system.

This may not be a good thing and here’s why.

First, about $1,200 will be withheld from my retirement checks in 2024 to pay for Medicare Part B coverage. Second, if I’m hospitalized, I have to pay a $1068 deductible before Medicare kicks in. Third, the Part B coverage that’s costing me $1200 only covers 80% of medical expenses.

But there’s a solution waiting in the wings! First, I’m still covered by Beth’s group policy until she retires. Then, when she’s retired too, we can choose to pay $1200 or so a year (each) for continued coverage on her group plan, coverage which will fill in the awkward gaps left by the Medicare Part A and Part B deductibles and 80% payment limitations and so forth.

Medicare Part A and B provide enough coverage to help you avoid bankruptcy if you are hospitalized with a serious condition. Sure, you’ll be forced to live a penurious existence after that. Your home will be sold to pay the deductibles, you’ll move into a public housing project and be forced to eat government cheese, but the fixed income from your pittance of a retirement annuity won’t be attached by the hospital to help pay for your cardiologist’s fifty foot sailboat.

Mindful of this, congress added a few more bureaucratic hoops: Medicare Part C, and Medicare Part D. Part C covers the deductible gap and Part D helps you manage the outrageous prescription prices the pharmaceutical industry has foisted off on us. The extension of Beth’s group coverage, while not precisely a “Medicare part C” product functions nicely to fill in the gaps that other private insurers cover with Part C and Part D plans. These plans have different names, like “Medicare Advantage” and “Medicare Select,” but, hey! Branding is part of competition and competition is what keeps this great wheel of commerce turning, right?

The State of Wisconsin Commissioner of Insurance says,

Finding the right coverage at an affordable price may be difficult as no one policy is right for everyone. Coverage options include:

• Group Insurance, including Employer group plans and Association group plans
• Individual Medicare supplement policies
• Individual Medicare cost-sharing policies
• Individual managed care Medicare supplement policies, including: Medicare select policies and Medicare cost policies
• Medicare Advantage (formerly called Medicare+Choice plans)

A person could get downright confused. Fortunately, I have until December to get it all sorted out. Unfortunately, it seems likely–after we are both retired–that in order to get complete health care coverage, we’re going to have to spend four or five hundred dollars a month (including $200 that goes straight back to the government). Oh, well. I’m one of the fortunate ones. I’ll have coverage and I can just about afford it. But I wonder if the insurance industry and the government will get together on a “public option” for the forty or fifty million uninsured Americans, a “public option” that includes squeezing them for $5,000 a year that they just don’t have.

• That next week, on Thursday 20 August, elderbloggers rise up on their blogs in support of health care reform including a public option
• That we denounce the say-no-to-everything Republicans and their handmaidens, the Blue Dog Democrats
• That we call out the health industry and their lobbyists who are bribing Congress with campaign donations to maintain the health care status quo and preserve their staggering profits
• That we fact check the lies, half-truths and exaggerations of the scare-mongering media nitwits who dare to compare the health care bill to Nazi Germany and who shout fascism, socialism and Communism without a gram of understanding of those terms
• That we reinforce the the fact of the backbreaking cost of health care that will skyrocket so high in the next decade, without health care reform there can be no economic recovery.

Tall order, and it’s not easy to pick a point of entry. The power of honest political organizing was demonstrated with the Obama mandate last November. It seems that to make progress (and we are after all progressives) we have to keep the pressure on congress and the White House to remember campaign promises and to do the right thing.

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, has suggested a march on Washington supporting health care reform efforts to be held on “Grandparents Day,” September 13. On September 12 the know-nothings have planned a teabagger march on Washington, so–as Reich says–it could prove to be an interesting weekend.

I’m looking for a scorecard, a tally of who in congress is with us and who is against us. Separating the sheep from the goats now will be useful when congress turns over next November. Clearly we don’t have a large enough majority if congressmen can be influenced by the know-nothings. The teabagger demonstrations are cathartic for the deluded people who have been called out by the corporations, the right wing Christian fundamentalists, and the talk radio obstructionists, and I don’t doubt the sincerity of most people in that mob. But they’ve been lied to, they’ve been mistreated by their organizers, and their grasp of the facts of health care reform alternatives is largely non-existent. Many of them conflate reproductive health issues with the health care reform debate. Many of them are afraid they will be taxed until they bleed. These people, the opposition to meaningful legislation, comprise an alienated minority who are passionate and fearful. They are people who think that if we give somebody a hand then someone else will have to suffer. They have a zero-sum lifeboat mentality. There are far fewer of them than the media coverage would have us believe.

Tomorrow, Ronni will be linking to all the posts she can find about the elder perspective on health care reform. It’s likely that there will be a some cogent conservative voices speaking out. And I expect there will be ranters and screamers from the edges too. I’m looking forward to the discussion.

I can’t find that list of Congressmen and Senators who support meaningful reform but I’m sure somebody is keeping score. If I find it I’ll share the link.

“A public option is a fundamental part of ensuring health care reform brings about real change. Opposing the public plan is an endorsement of the status quo in this country that has left tens of millions of Americans uninsured or underinsured and put massive burdens on employers. I have heard too many horror stories from my constituents about how the so-called competitive marketplace has denied them coverage from the outset, offered a benefit plan that covers everything but what they need or failed them some other way. A strong public option would ensure competition in the industry to provide the best, most affordable insurance for Americans and bring down the skyrocketing health care costs that are the biggest contributor to our long-term budget deficits. I am not interested in passing health care reform in name only. Without a public option, I don’t see how we will bring real change to a system that has made good health care a privilege for those who can afford it.”
— Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat from Wisconsin

Worried about the cost of medical care? You’re not alone. But don’t worry. Be happy. The truth about health care costs has been teased out of a cost/benefit analysis and the results are, well… not surprising. The most efficient way to save money on health care costs is to cull the herd. For example, this study shows that prevention of obesity and of tobacco use is likely to increase lifetime health expenditures because prevention of tobacco use and obesity both lengthen life.

This is not to question the ethical standards of the men and women who conducted this research, nor is it to voice a cultural criticism regarding the Veterans Administration as a source of clinical subjects for evaluation. Rather, it’s presented as an eye-opener. Lecture fees, consulting fees, and grant support from the pharmaceutical industry seem to power the engine of clinical research, while cross ventilation of ideas from the clinical researchers to their industry counterparts seems to be the quid pro quo.

“Dr. Boden reports receiving consulting fees and lecture fees from Kos Pharmaceuticals, PDL BioPharma, Pfizer, CV Therapeutics, and Sanofi-Aventis, and grant support from Merck and Abbott Laboratories; Dr. O’Rourke, consulting fees from King Pharmaceuticals, Lilly, and CV Therapeutics; Dr. Teo, grant support from Boehringer Ingelheim; Dr. Knudtson, lecture fees from Medtronic and Lilly; Dr. Harris, having equity ownership in Amgen; Dr. Chaitman, receiving consulting fees from CV Therapeutics, Merck, and Bayer, lecture fees from Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and CV Therapeutics, and grant support from Pfizer, CV Therapeutics, and Sanofi-Aventis; Dr. Shaw, grant support from Bristol-Myers Squibb and Astellas Healthcare; Dr. Booth, grant support from Actelion; Dr. Bates, consulting fees from Sanofi-Aventis and AstraZeneca and lecture fees from Sanofi-Aventis; Dr. Spertus, consulting fees from Amgen and United Healthcare and grant support from Amgen, Roche Diagnostics, and Lilly (and in the past, consulting fees and grant support from CV Therapeutics and owning the copyright for the Seattle Angina Questionnaire, the Peripheral Artery Questionnaire, and the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire); Dr. Berman, consulting fees and lecture fees from Bristol-Myers Squibb, Astellas, Tyco, and Siemens and grant support from Bristol-Myers Squibb and Astellas; Dr. Mancini, consulting and lecture fees from Pfizer, Abbott, and GlaxoSmithKline, lecture fees from Merck and Sanofi-Aventis, and grant support from Cordis and GlaxoSmithKline; and Dr. Weintraub, consulting fees from Sanofi-Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squibb and grant support from Sanofi-Aventis. No other potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.”

because it’s raw and pure, it’s raw energy.” But rather than being an absent-minded character locked in the ivory tower of academe, Choe is running loose in the streets (dressed in slacks and blazer, can of spray paint in hand, skateboarding), being paid to destroy movie sets, and falling in love with oils in his studio. He lives. He lives out his artwork and philosophies—the postmodern and crazed version of the Zenga artist quickly drawing the enso.

These apparent paradoxes eventually clue the reader into the nature of Choe and his artwork: He is a cultural satirist who is serious about his personal life, with a sincerity that Urb magazine sarcastically described as “secretly romantic.”

Choe doesn’t try to create some great piece of art. It comes naturally. Choe is just doing his thing, following a method similar to what San Jose artist Joseph Demaree calls “Telling-My-Story-Wellism.” In all of his art, from the mixed media (watercolors, pen and ink, white out, acrylics, oils, spray paints, crayons, Polaroids, and Mexican candy wrappers) of his 1999 Self Portrait, to the traditional materials of his more recent Water Color Sketch from Parked Car Outside 7-11, to the pages of his newest book Bruised Fruit (Slow Jams, $20.00), he captures and conveys a stimulating self-reflection that is always

“In general, I imagine Pynchon is so important because of the emphasis in his work on epistemology, technology and history. His work amounts to an ongoing critique of the way these themes are articulated in Western culture,” says Rick Moody, author of The Diviners and the forthcoming collection Right Livelihoods. “Because, moreover, he happens to understand technology deeply, more deeply than most contemporary American writers. That theme is perhaps especially rigorously thought through, with the result that Pynchon seems to have more to say about technology than just about anyone.”
“With Pynchon, one can’t help but feel simultaneously intimidated and embraced. The breadth of the work’s intelligence is nothing short of obscene, and such intellectual formidability is dazzling, seductive and utterly enduring,” says author Bret Anthony Johnston, author of the critically acclaimed stories collection Corpus Christi. “I love the endless abundance of dualities in all of his books, and how they — whether political or scientific or conspiratorial or infrastructural — are precariously teetering on a kind of cultural seesaw — tipped one way, we’re saved, tipped the other, we’re goners.”
Robert Bramkamp, a German filmmaker whose Preufstand 7 loosely adapts Pynchon’s magnum opus, Gravity’s Rainbow, for the big screen, telling the cinematic biography of the novel’s screaming missile, says, “Pynchon’s novels operate interconnected within their own time zone, and that mystery and wonder is the key to our own times.”
Steve Erickson, prodigious author of Our Ecstatic Days and Amnesiascope, both significantly influenced by Pynchon, calls the American maestro “the lunatic god of American literature” and says Pynchon’s novels are full of “infinite secrets.” Gravity’s Rainbow, Erickson says, “transcends assessment: Whatever you think of it, whatever you can even begin to think of it, you can’t resist it, it’s inexorable, the event horizon of contemporary literature. The only novel of the last 50 years in its league is One Hundred Years of Solitude.”
“Pynchon knows the culture before the culture knows itself, and in some cases, he knows the culture in a way the culture will never know itself,” says columnist and author Jim (The Buzzing, Slackjaw) Knipfel, whose work has been blurbed by the reclusive Pynchon. “In a world of constant acceleration, Mr. Pynchon somehow manages to remain five steps ahead at all times.”
If praise for Pynchon were only limited to this quintet of artists, it would still be a heady song. But the world’s ongoing heralding of Pynchon as one of the artists for our time is raucous, lively and utterly deafening. Much of the fervor surrounding the 69-year-old author centers not only on his books, but also on the impenetrable air of enigma that surrounds the man himself. Pynchon has never given an interview, has been photographed publicly only a few times, and lives, according to many, a hermitic existence. This level of personal intrigue, coupled with the author’s penchant for conspiracy and code-laden narratives, has long been a game of intellectual marksmanship among fans and academics alike who piece together textual clues, biographical tidbits and urban legend to craft a portrait of the author many call God. Or Dog, as the case may be. (Pynchon himself has been known to refer to the Almighty as Dog, and author Knipfel, for one, believes the key to Pynchon’s genius may lie in the author’s ability to convincingly conjure the canine. “Mr. Pynchon does dogs better than anyone,” Knipfel says. “Consider Zoyd’s dog, who opens and closes Vineland, or the various dogs who romp through Gravity’s Rainbow, or even Mason & Dixon’s Learned English Dog. They’re perfect. He captures Dogness — the Platonic Form of Dogness — in a way no one ever has before. To my mind, that’s the key to his genius.”)
What we know about Pynchon, for sure: Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. was born May 8, 1937. He spent two years in the U.S. Navy. He studied engineering physics and English at Cornell University, where Lolita author Vladimir Nabakov was one of his professors. Pynchon graduated in 1959 with a degree in literature. After college, Pynchon was hired as a technical writer at Boeing, the aerospace juggernaut, then developing its surface-to-air missiles. In 1963, Pynchon published his first novel, V., which was awarded William Faulkner Foundation’s Award for best first novel of the year. And then, for all intents and purposes, Pynchon disappeared. He has lived in Southern California, Northern California, Mexico City and, currently, reportedly, New York. He is married to his agent, Melanie Jackson, with whom he has a young son, Jackson. He has published five novels and one story collection, V. (1963), The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), Vineland (1990), Mason & Dixon (1997) and Slow Learner (1984), respectively. The Penguin Press will publish his sixth novel, Against the Day, in December. Critics and academics aren’t the only ones who love his books, which are often unlikely bestsellers. They have inspired legions of obsessive admirers, collectors and followers throughout the world.
That’s essentially everything we know for certain about Pynchon. Which hasn’t stopped his global following from concocting some truly intriguing, if barely rooted in reality, theories about who Pynchon really is, and why he insists on flying under the radar. What people think they know about Thomas Pynchon: He is J.D. Salinger; after all, have you seen them in the same place at the same time? He had loose connections to Lee Harvey Oswald and the assassination of JFK. He was part of the CIA’s program to unleash LSD and other psychedelics on the baby boomer generation. He is a member of the cult rock band The Residents.

…as to this last assertion, I know The Residents, and they do not include Pynchon physically among them. Go ask Homer. When you’re ten feet tall.