"Button Tricks" is my latest submission to NPR's three minute fiction series. Unlike last round, which used a picture as inspirational point of focus, this round requires the use of four words within the story.
Those words are Button, plant, trick and fly. The other requirement was that it be held in length to no more than six hundred words.
Here is my submission.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Salt crusted mangrove leaves sparkled and danced with reflections of the ripples below. It wasn’t a large mound as middens go, at twenty-seven feet above the river that opened below. But, in the expansive flatness spread before him this promontory allowed an amazing panorama of faraway horizons wherever a break in the thick underbrush allowed.
The old Indian had been very reluctant, only after months of visits to the old, stilted shack listening, learning, debating and warnings had he agreed. Hidden in the heart of a cypress bay, he’d discovered the hideaway and its occupant quite by accident, while kayaking a tributary of the St. John’s looking for that connection afforded by the small, brief solitude of a natural world that seemed more dream and distant everyday.
Crimson, orange, gold and scarlet flashed on the river. The sun sank below a line of black, gray, and green that crackled in the distance with heat baked from the day. It’s anvil shape reaching almost to the scimitar of moon brightening in the growing dusk above. Cool air spilled from this boiling wall, stirring leaves and creating strange patterns on the face of the lagoon.
A low echoing rumble competed with the sounds of surf breaking to the east. A strong smell of cedar and salt filled his senses, his skin began to tingle, as the four gnarled guardians of the mound began to sway, their limbs creaking and lush green crowns dancing wildly in the cold downdraft.
It was time. Facing East he lifted his hands and recited the prayer he’d memorized then put the first button in his mouth and began to chew. Earthy, metallic assaulted his pallet. Thoughts of spoiled blood flitted at the edges of awareness as small leaves and shell dust began to dance at his feet.
Swallowing the first button he turned south. As instructed, he knelt on both knees to plant the seeds and sacrifice for his return. Firming the earth he stood, arms raised and chanted the prayer to the south wind, then ate the second button. Facing north, he raised his arms and began the slow chant that was the prayer to the north wind. Finishing as he’d been taught, he slowly chewed the third button.
Turning west, arms raised to the last of the setting sun he began the low, sing song chant of his last prayer. Words lost in the rising gale, he slowly sat cross legged, taste of the fourth and last button still on his tongue. His mind raced, but his body was still. Doubts swept over him and he choked back the fears rising from below.
He uncorked the bottle of rain water he’d collected as instructed and pulled long on its contents, as though water could dilute his doubts and wash the fear from his throat.
What if it was all a cruel trick?
Lying back, struggling for control of his racing thoughts and emotions he focused on his breathing. Slow and deep, inhale, hold it, slowly purge, hold it, repeat. Feeling much better by the third cycle, he opened his eyes and forgot his fears.
Lightness came over him as he felt the first fat cold drops falling through him. Turning west he looked down to see his body, but felt no fear or pain only thrill and exhilaration at the sight of sparkling coast and the lights of Orlando on a curved and starry horizon broken by glowing storm clouds. The old Indian was right. He could fly.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
The No way to success, Senate GOP strategy
My Comments on the GOP's Senate Strategy as reported by NPR.
Having so spuriously twisted every proposal in such a way as to fan the flames of fear about every possibility of any change in the health care industry, GOP Senator McConnell's reliance upon current poll data to support the GOP position presumes that the continuous distortions and out right lies,(Think death panels here folks.), that created the public's current impressions (what's driving today's poll data.)of what is actually in the bill will continue through election day.
Basically McConnell and the entire GOP machine are counting on being able to keep the flames of fear going with their continued campaign of misinformation. They create false impressions, then point to them in the polls as the evidence to support their opposition.
The GOP is betting on their ability to kill any legislation, counting on the public never getting to see any of the actual or potential benefits the democrat's plan might provide.
They are so vested in the status quo, so comfortable with their deceptions and their beliefs that they will be able to outspend any and all challengers in the upcoming elections and that they will basically be able to buy the majority again in the next election.
No doubt the GOP are counting on all those corporate donors that can now, due to the recent Supreme Court ruling that they cried all those crocodile tears over earlier, freely and directly flow into their campaign coffers. After all who are they really serving by their position excepting all those special health care, insurance, pharmaceutical and banking interests?
No guarantees more of the same gravy train for this elected and their monetary masters and more of the same rising costs, and dwindling coverages and ever larger percentage of our income devoted to just trying to stay healthy.
If, the Democratic leadership cannot move this legislation, then the GOP wins. They will paint all Democrats as those losers who tried to shove an unwanted health care plan down voters throats and will give them the trouncing they deserve. A trouncing they will have coming if they don't prove themselves capable of getting anything done, even with large majorities in both houses and a Democrat in the White House.
Having so spuriously twisted every proposal in such a way as to fan the flames of fear about every possibility of any change in the health care industry, GOP Senator McConnell's reliance upon current poll data to support the GOP position presumes that the continuous distortions and out right lies,(Think death panels here folks.), that created the public's current impressions (what's driving today's poll data.)of what is actually in the bill will continue through election day.
Basically McConnell and the entire GOP machine are counting on being able to keep the flames of fear going with their continued campaign of misinformation. They create false impressions, then point to them in the polls as the evidence to support their opposition.
The GOP is betting on their ability to kill any legislation, counting on the public never getting to see any of the actual or potential benefits the democrat's plan might provide.
They are so vested in the status quo, so comfortable with their deceptions and their beliefs that they will be able to outspend any and all challengers in the upcoming elections and that they will basically be able to buy the majority again in the next election.
No doubt the GOP are counting on all those corporate donors that can now, due to the recent Supreme Court ruling that they cried all those crocodile tears over earlier, freely and directly flow into their campaign coffers. After all who are they really serving by their position excepting all those special health care, insurance, pharmaceutical and banking interests?
No guarantees more of the same gravy train for this elected and their monetary masters and more of the same rising costs, and dwindling coverages and ever larger percentage of our income devoted to just trying to stay healthy.
If, the Democratic leadership cannot move this legislation, then the GOP wins. They will paint all Democrats as those losers who tried to shove an unwanted health care plan down voters throats and will give them the trouncing they deserve. A trouncing they will have coming if they don't prove themselves capable of getting anything done, even with large majorities in both houses and a Democrat in the White House.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Big Pharma vs. Comparative Effectiveness
An NPR story this morning dealing with how doctors make prescription decisions for their patients highlighted a serious void in our health care system. What drugs doctors prescribe, for which problems is huge business!
Management of all manner of chronic ailments and debilities uses prescription drugs. Yet no comparative effectiveness studies are available for most of the most commonly prescribed ailments, like high blood pressure, cholesterol, heart disease and most other chronic conditions.
This lack of easily accessible information on the comparative effectiveness of one drug vs. another is a real void that the pharmaceutical industry is more than happy nobody has filled.
My practice is right next door to a pair of gerontologists and a half a dozen nurse practitioners. There is hardly a day goes by but what there is a steady stream of drug company representatives bringing in breakfast, lunch, or snacks so they might have the opportunity to "detail" the staff on the latest patent, prescriptive medication.
How can prescribers not be swayed by such a constant stream of free samples, goodies and "best practice tips" for how to prescribe their product for whatever is ailing their patients.
Without broad based comparative effectiveness studies, doctors and patients are left in the dark about alternatives to what the patent medicine salesmen are peddling. Neither has easy access to accurate information about some of the most important decisions being made, those about their health care.
If, we are ever to have a health care system that even begins to reign in costs, it simply has to include such studies. By having them we certainly won't know what works best for everyone, but we will have a much better idea of what works best for most of us.
And that is a far cry from the abundant ignorance faced each day by doctors and patients alike under the present system where only safety and effectiveness are studied, documented and published, not a drugs relative effectiveness, compared with other drugs of it's class, or even, with dietary changes, vitamin supplements, or simple exercise.
That we do not already have a broad base of such information, easily accessible to the general public is a pox on the FDA and medical community in general and serves no one but the huge pharmaceutical companies.
Management of all manner of chronic ailments and debilities uses prescription drugs. Yet no comparative effectiveness studies are available for most of the most commonly prescribed ailments, like high blood pressure, cholesterol, heart disease and most other chronic conditions.
This lack of easily accessible information on the comparative effectiveness of one drug vs. another is a real void that the pharmaceutical industry is more than happy nobody has filled.
My practice is right next door to a pair of gerontologists and a half a dozen nurse practitioners. There is hardly a day goes by but what there is a steady stream of drug company representatives bringing in breakfast, lunch, or snacks so they might have the opportunity to "detail" the staff on the latest patent, prescriptive medication.
How can prescribers not be swayed by such a constant stream of free samples, goodies and "best practice tips" for how to prescribe their product for whatever is ailing their patients.
Without broad based comparative effectiveness studies, doctors and patients are left in the dark about alternatives to what the patent medicine salesmen are peddling. Neither has easy access to accurate information about some of the most important decisions being made, those about their health care.
If, we are ever to have a health care system that even begins to reign in costs, it simply has to include such studies. By having them we certainly won't know what works best for everyone, but we will have a much better idea of what works best for most of us.
And that is a far cry from the abundant ignorance faced each day by doctors and patients alike under the present system where only safety and effectiveness are studied, documented and published, not a drugs relative effectiveness, compared with other drugs of it's class, or even, with dietary changes, vitamin supplements, or simple exercise.
That we do not already have a broad base of such information, easily accessible to the general public is a pox on the FDA and medical community in general and serves no one but the huge pharmaceutical companies.
Monday, March 1, 2010
The Listings
"The Listings" Would have been my entry into NPR's three minute fiction contest and is inspired by the photo they supplied. However, I failed to notice that their deadline for submissions was midnight the 28th. I submitted a little after six in the evening on the 1st. Clearly my error. But, I've posted it anyway and won't let the dog eat my homework for the next one. Hope you enjoy. Dan......
He left the listings on the table in the coffee shop where he’d found them. Leaving the relative quiet of his afternoon refuge he headed north to the sounds of the city exhaling the last of it’s daily tower dwellers.
He shoved his right hand deep into his hip pocket as much to offer some cover from the raw wind blowing off the lake as, to return the meager silver of his change to rest with the few crumpled bills in the bottom of his pocket.
He’d mused over long this afternoon over today’s listings and now he was worried he might miss the cut. With the sky darkening and sleet in the forecast and freezing after two, he didn’t linger on the implications, just quickened his limp.
He had followed those same listings in a much more intense way until the crash, making sure each day that the details were right; address, hook, price and call back numbers. Now, they provided mere intellectual distraction to his daily routine, a faint touchstone to another world.
In that other world, in that other time, the listings were much thicker, some days up to a hundred and fifty pages or more. Back then it wasn’t unusual for him and his agency to be responsible for twenty-five or thirty pages themselves. Now, there weren’t enough pages to properly wrap an old mackerel. He grunted when he thought about how much he’d paid “The Times” for those listings each day.
Mind wondering over those old listings, he made his way down the block, cap pulled low against the first sting of the promised forecast. He wondered if whoever left the listings each day was still in the market, or like him, only following out of a stunned sense of what was and might have been.
Like most, he hadn’t seen it coming. God knows it wasn’t because the signs weren’t there. Prices had gotten absurd. Everybody was flipping anything they could hawk as fast and often as the paper would allow.
Nobody cared about underwriting. The wizards had it all figured out; default rates the points you name it. They securitized the bundles and peddled as much as they could print to little old ladies and pension funds everywhere.
The models and algorithms all agreed. Hell, Greenspan himself had even gone before Congress and reassured everyone about how much better the financial institutions systemically managed their risks.
Back then the money flowed. Qualifying for a mortgage was as difficult as breathing. Nobody did the math. Nobody asked the obvious questions. Nobody wanted to know as long as the money flowed.
Nobody cared about any of that until those first variable rates began to adjust and the teasers were over. But, by the time they figured out that Bubba, Billy and Mary Jane made less each month than their new mortgage payments, it was too late.
Back then the real estate he obsessed over, swapped flipped and flipped again with the paper the wizards supplied, consisted of whole city blocks, condo complexes and new strip malls. Tonight his thoughts focused on a much smaller tract.
Rounding the corner to the welcoming smell of hot soup and freshly baked bread coming from the back of the church, he relaxed his gate. He was going to make it. Door open, familiar volunteer, clipboard in hand, he was in. Tonight he’d bunk, warm, and dry, and while a far cry from his loft by the lake, tonight it was the only real estate that mattered.
By: R. D. Taylor,
He left the listings on the table in the coffee shop where he’d found them. Leaving the relative quiet of his afternoon refuge he headed north to the sounds of the city exhaling the last of it’s daily tower dwellers.
He shoved his right hand deep into his hip pocket as much to offer some cover from the raw wind blowing off the lake as, to return the meager silver of his change to rest with the few crumpled bills in the bottom of his pocket.
He’d mused over long this afternoon over today’s listings and now he was worried he might miss the cut. With the sky darkening and sleet in the forecast and freezing after two, he didn’t linger on the implications, just quickened his limp.
He had followed those same listings in a much more intense way until the crash, making sure each day that the details were right; address, hook, price and call back numbers. Now, they provided mere intellectual distraction to his daily routine, a faint touchstone to another world.
In that other world, in that other time, the listings were much thicker, some days up to a hundred and fifty pages or more. Back then it wasn’t unusual for him and his agency to be responsible for twenty-five or thirty pages themselves. Now, there weren’t enough pages to properly wrap an old mackerel. He grunted when he thought about how much he’d paid “The Times” for those listings each day.
Mind wondering over those old listings, he made his way down the block, cap pulled low against the first sting of the promised forecast. He wondered if whoever left the listings each day was still in the market, or like him, only following out of a stunned sense of what was and might have been.
Like most, he hadn’t seen it coming. God knows it wasn’t because the signs weren’t there. Prices had gotten absurd. Everybody was flipping anything they could hawk as fast and often as the paper would allow.
Nobody cared about underwriting. The wizards had it all figured out; default rates the points you name it. They securitized the bundles and peddled as much as they could print to little old ladies and pension funds everywhere.
The models and algorithms all agreed. Hell, Greenspan himself had even gone before Congress and reassured everyone about how much better the financial institutions systemically managed their risks.
Back then the money flowed. Qualifying for a mortgage was as difficult as breathing. Nobody did the math. Nobody asked the obvious questions. Nobody wanted to know as long as the money flowed.
Nobody cared about any of that until those first variable rates began to adjust and the teasers were over. But, by the time they figured out that Bubba, Billy and Mary Jane made less each month than their new mortgage payments, it was too late.
Back then the real estate he obsessed over, swapped flipped and flipped again with the paper the wizards supplied, consisted of whole city blocks, condo complexes and new strip malls. Tonight his thoughts focused on a much smaller tract.
Rounding the corner to the welcoming smell of hot soup and freshly baked bread coming from the back of the church, he relaxed his gate. He was going to make it. Door open, familiar volunteer, clipboard in hand, he was in. Tonight he’d bunk, warm, and dry, and while a far cry from his loft by the lake, tonight it was the only real estate that mattered.
By: R. D. Taylor,
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