Hitting The Jackpot At The Record Shop

All on vinyl for $20.

Google Reader

I've become addicted to Google Reader, and I changed the color scheme of my blog to reflect my enthusiasm, because it reminds me of it. All you have to do is type in the websites that you normally visit, and whenever they're updated, it uses the RSS feed to automatically notify you in google reader. And if you want to make things super easy, you can use iGoogle to make a google homepage, and then you get to have gmail, google reader, google notebook, and a whole bunch of other things all in one window. Chicks love it, guys are envious of it. It's revolutionizing my existence, and perhaps one day I will read so much that I'll eventually be able to predict all the things that will be written.

On a more dreary note, my ipod's battery finally died (after a good 2.5 years), so I took it apart and looked at the inside, which was pretty cool. If anybody has an extra 4th generation ipod they don't use anymore, can I have the battery? I am pumped though to be able to go get an 80 gigabyte ipod with video, maybe after one more paycheck.
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Now playing: The Knife - Listen Now
via FoxyTunes

Wes Anderson's AT&T Commercials

So good

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Now playing: A Tribe Called Quest - Oh My God
via FoxyTunes

Cyanide and Happiness

A pretty funny cartoon.




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Now playing: Elliott Smith - All Cleaned Out
via FoxyTunes

Health Promotion

So, awhile ago I was noticing how nearly all of my blogging friends use blogger to upload their masterpieces. I kinda thought blogging was cool, so I wanted to have one, but I was struck with a dilemma: Why would anyone want to read my blog? I posted anyway, and people read (likely due to boredom), but I was still left with an underlying feeling that my blog was pretty pointless.

Over the summer, during my Public Health Nursing class, I realized this blog might be a good avenue to offer miniature pearls of wisdom and snippets of information that I come across in order to help people live healthier and dispel many of the health rumors that become ingrained in our society through the media. My plan is to post small, interesting, health-related information that I come across, and I can also answer questions or look into researching that topic.

DISCLAIMER: It is also important to mention that I'm not a physician, so I cannot diagnose or answer people's quirky questions. If anything ever seems different or not right, it is essential that you make an appointment with your doctor or go to the hospital. There are a lot of legal issues involved in distributing health information electronically, so I want to stay out of that by limiting my posts to more general health concepts rather than try to solve individual's specific questions.

Ok, so my first post is going to be mostly for the ladies, but all the guys that read my blog should know it too so you can tell girls about it. Folic Acid (or folate) is an essential vitamin in the diet to produce red blood cells. Generally, people don't have a deficiency of folic acid in the diet in the U.S., but the important consideration is for sexually-active females. In the early development of the fetus, folic acid is essential to build the neural tube (which eventually becomes the spinal cord and brain), and not having enough folic acid may cause the fetus to have defects such as spina bifida or anencephaly (latin: without head). 400 mcg (micrograms) is the recommendation set for all women of child-bearing age, which happens to be around the usual amount in a multivitamin; otherwise you might find folic acid in leafy vegetables, orange juice, peanuts, and whole grain bread and cereals.

So, that's about what you can expect for the future. There are many important considerations and minerals, like iron, during pregnancy, so always be sure to schedule the prenatal visits with your doctor. I'm thinking my next post is going to address smoking.

And Now For Something Completely Different

This is the sort of stuff I look forward to reading about on the internet.

Sicko

This is a little write-up I had to for my "Healthcare Delivery Systems" class. I didn't take much time on it, so don't expect it to be too eloquent. Also, I highly recommend that you see the movie "Sicko," it's a Michael Moore film, so you have to take it with a grain of salt. It does, however, do a good job at illustrating the disparity of healthcare in the US compared to other countries. One more thing: I definitely did not address all of the factors associated with the healthcare dilemma, but there are a few important points in there.

In the film, Michael Moore elucidated many shortcomings within our present healthcare delivery system. There is definitely a method to the way Moore presents the material, a predictable formula of heart-wrenching stories, shortcomings of the US government, a comparison to other industrialized nations, and finally a return the feasibility of instituting changes within the system for the benefit of the masses.
The stories Moore found to portray the awful state of conditions in the US were terrible, despicable consequences of a capitalist society without checks on quality. One example I remembered from the film was when Cigna Healthcare approved a 9-month-old child going deaf for a hearing aid in one ear, but not the other ear. Understandably, this angered the father so much that when he became aware that Moore was collecting stories for his film, the father submitted a letter to Cigna management detailing this, and within a few days, miraculously, the child was approved for a hearing aid in both ears. There is no question this absolutely deplorable, and illustrates exactly the point Moore was attempting to shape by producing the film: that our current system of for-profit healthcare is a fundamentally inept program, because the incentive for healthcare organizations is to provide care, but also concurrently minimize costs to maximize profits. Therefore, it is impossible for a healthcare organization to try to convey a message of caring and extending care to as many people as possible, because by doing so, they lose a substantial amount of money.
Another innerving point the movie made was the footage of Nixon in the White House, discussing healthcare. The decision to use the Kaiser Permanente model for healthcare was the origin of a system structured to meet the needs of masses while remaining for-profit. Given the fact that England developed their national health service following World War II, it’s amazing that US would not have followed suit and developed a similar program. The only rationale that could be provided is that the current system really benefits the upper class and government. And then, when Hilary Clinton really spearheaded the campaign to institute a national health care system, she was amazingly close, if it weren’t for the system’s overwhelming complexity and intense opposition that did a very effective job of convincing the general public that would inevitably lead to a socialist society where the people had no say in the government. This idea is strongly refuted in the depictions of England, France, and Canada, because while all three of these countries have accommodated universal healthcare, they are still are very much a free society.
In summary, healthcare in the US is the best in the world, for those who can afford it. However, due to the increasing cost of healthcare, more and more people are unable to afford it. By moving to a national system, additional taxes would be taken out of individual’s earnings, but at the same time, those individuals would be paying less in premiums. Its time that the our society stopped focusing on an each individual for themselves mentality, because doing slows contributes to a less and less healthy society, which undoubtedly holds considerations for economic implications in the future.