Barack Obama’s healthcare reform plan is a series of compromises that don’t go far enough, but certainly promise improvements. As I write, a vote in the US House of Representatives looms close, and there is much uncertainty that a healthcare reform bill can pass—or should.
A recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece called so-called Obamacare “The worst bill ever.”
One of my blogging goals is to shift the focus away from dry technology to people, whether they be innovators or consumers. Focus should be the people and the stories they tell. That’s what Oddly Together is really about. Today’s unexpected Microsoft layoffs—800 employees—is good opportunity to tell stories.
I sit outside the auto repair shop waiting for the brake light switch on my aging Toyota Corolla to be fixed. I type on the Nokia N97 smartphonne, on which I also have been reading news. I had blogged that the N97 would get a second chance. The iPhone 3GS is on ice, so to speak. But my N97 experience is topic for another post.
My interest here is the news I was reading in the New York Times about an analyst report suggesting that the economy is starting to recover. It’s not. But first, the Times asserts: “A measure of supplier deliveries, rising stock prices, an increase in consumer expectations, a jump in building permits and the ‘interest rate spread’ bolstered the index in August.”
I have a suggestion for Joel Klein, chancellor of New York City schools: Publish a teaching offenders list.
I must be a slow learner, because until Saturday I hadn’t understood New York City’s losing battle with the powerful teachers union. Once teachers achieve tenure—after 3 years—they are employed for life and damn near undismissible, even for cause. Journalism professor Samuel Freedman wrote about the situation for the New York Times two years ago: “Where Teachers Sit, Awaiting Their Fates.” I missed that one, but not Steven Brill’s shocking “The Rubber Room: The battle over New York City’s worst teachers” in Aug. 31, 2009, The New Yorker.
Two things that go oddly together: $20 and a quick physical. That’s what my daughter got yesterday so she could try out for the local high school volleyball team. The school recommended the doctor, who was fast, friendly, thorough and cheap. From watching the patients going in and out of the physician’s office, I observed that he provides a valuable service to San Diego’s uninsured.
The doctor’s visit got me to thinking, again, about what’s fundamentally wrong with America’s health-care system and why the Obama Administrations’ reform proposal can’t fix it. The problem and solution go oddly—and quite badly—together. Litigation, not legislation, is the solution.
I spent the last two days at Comic-Con 2009 here in San Diego. I sacrificed Day 1, and not happily, to cover Microsoft’s fiscal fourth-quarter and year-end earnings. Several big Microsoft stories broke on Friday, but I refused to give up another day at Comic-Con; it’s the 40th show. Comic-Con is fun and chaotic. More importantly, for a journalist, people are willing to talk—and why not? They’re playing a role and ready to perform.
Finally, I took some test shots with the PEN E-P1, the exciting new Olympus micro four-thirds camera; I got the camera on July 7, 2009. This camera can swap lenses. Oh, yeah. I have the […]
Now this is storytelling and the right way to use social media tools. The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the first manned Apollo moon landing by essentially rebroadcasting the event. This may go down as the mother of all reruns.
U Cal Berkley prof Robert Reich astutely and concisely sums up the prospects for economic revival in commentary “When Will the Recovery Begin? Never.” I saw it today at Salon, but Robert posted to his blog on July 9.
Other economic observers who talk about a recovery underway go oddly together with reality. There is no recovery now, and there isn’t going to be one in the foreseeable future.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8922u9f4MU] Ten-minute documentary “RE:Invention” captures some of the spirit I hope to convey at this website. I lost my job on April 30, 2009. While there is demand for the kind of analysis […]
Every picture tells a story. Apple presented this one during the October 2008 launch of unibody MacBook Pros. So many Macs among so many students seems outta sorts. Where are the Windows laptops? The students and Mac laptops go so oddly together.
Steve Jobs doesn’t want your love. He wants you to buy his stuff. David Carr