"Write now is good."

A health care news hunt continues at NewsTrust

 

The topic of U.S. health care reform has been top of mind for many. If you live in America, you have a stake in it, whether you're insured or not.

That's why the information we get from the media is so important. If it is well researched, accurately sourced and fair, the news will help us make better informed decisions because it helps us figure out what is really going on. If it is biased, poorly sourced and lacking in solid facts or statistics, it could misguide those of us who read or view it.

This week, NewsTrust and the Huffington Post's Eyes & Ears team have joined forces in a health care news hunt. The communities have found some of the best, most accurate and enlightening news and opinion pieces currently on the Web. Together, they've created an impressive collection which anyone can read and contribute to.

The news hunt runs through this Sunday. Read what the community has reviewed so far. If you'd like to join the hunt, click here.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Please leave a comment -- thanks!

Note: I am co-hosting this news hunt and I'm a NewsTrust staff member.

Could universal health care eliminate poverty?

Over the past week, I've received quite an education on the connection between poverty and lack of health insurance. I was co-host of a “news hunt” at NewsTrust, a vibrant media literacy project online. The NT community looked for the best journalism on health care, and read and reviewed a wide range of health care stories. Those that stayed with me most explained how the lives of the working poor have been destroyed when they lose health insurance.

Solving poverty is a complex issue, but one within our control if we act widely and directly on it. One solution to poverty in the United States is to provide universal health coverage. The working poor, who amount to roughly 80% of the 45 million uninsured in the U.S., will benefit most from this.

During the news hunt, I read and reviewed 36 health care stories (including a podcast and a documentary) from many sources. Based on what I've read, I know now that there is a consistent, tragic pattern that occurs when the working poor lose health insurance. The basic steps are:

1. working adult gets sick and loses job
2. after losing job, they lose their health insurance
3. they can no longer afford medications, so they get sicker
4. since they have no insurance, they receive either no care at all or substandard health care which they have to pay for themselves
5. the bills pile up
6. still sick, they cannot work, so they lose their home and belongings because any money they have goes to basic subsistence and paying medical bills
7. very few rebound, and many die

Providing health insurance, available no matter their employment status, would solve this horrible situation. It would help the working poor in multiple ways. It would give them access to any needed medical care for themselves and their dependents. They would stay healthy and be able to look for and get additional work. If sick workers could no longer work, they would still get care, which is the right and compassionate thing to provide.

When people are healthy, they can still contribute meaningfully to their communities; when many in one community are unemployed and sick, their community suffers along with them. With health insurance, adults can take care of the children who depend on them; without it, their children may lose, either temporarily or permanently, their mother's or father's care.

During this economic downturn, prospects for the working poor will absolutely become more dire. Adding guaranteed, universal health insurance to the poverty equation would directly improve the quality of their lives. To read some of the top rated stories from NewsTrust's health care news hunt and decide on this issue for yourself, click here.

THANK YOU to those who left comments here that they too would join Blog Action Day:

- Crafty Green Poet writes on "Poverty and the Environment".
- Lily Hydrangea penned "Blogging for Poverty".
- Nipun at 50 Word Fiction has an "uber short" take on the theme.
- Rachel's post is titled "My skin or my soul" over at The Slow-Cooked Sentence.

Now, THIS is a big turnoff!

Photo: Swamp TV. by James Good

A big TV turnoff, that is.

April 21-27, 2008 is TV Turnoff Week. Starting tomorrow, millions of TV gazers worldwide will dare to hide their remotes and cut the cord for seven days. Past reported results are astounding. Many have experienced:

- increased creativity
- more time with family and friends
- better quality sleep ... and more of it
- additional time spent enjoying the outdoors, often walking
- a greater sense of calm and relaxation
- the ability to sit, focus and read a book—something many had not done in years

Need some additional reasons to turn off your TV? Go to TurnOffYourTV.com.

TV Turnoff Week is every week for me. I don't watch TV at all (unless it's a DVD, something on YouTube, or something on at a friend's—I'm not anti-TV). In these times, it's difficult to unplug entirely, and there is some quality stuff worth seeing.

However, there is no way I would have time to blog or be involved in my other creative pursuits if I filled up my minuscule free time with TV watching.

What are your top priorities in your life? Is TV one of them?

Want to write a novel? Turn off your TV and use that time for writing instead. You may have a first-draft completed before you know it.

A view of a hidden conversation

Amanda Baggs is autistic. She gave up speaking in her early 20s, yet she types 120 words per minute. She has creative a rich life for herself online where she can express herself clearly and comfortably.

This is her video "In My Language", which has gone completely viral. It has been viewed 467,320 times on YouTube since she uploaded in January 2007. The first four minutes show her singing and speaking in what she describes as her language. The last four minutes feature narration: it's Amanda's writing spoken by her DynaVox.

Get ready to have your view of what conversation and language is expanded vastly.

Article link: "The Truth About Autism: Scientists Reconsider What They Think They Know" from Wired.com

Because books are better than cigarettes

If reading takes the place of smoking, lungs and brains everywhere will rejoice. I'm sure a few publishers, authors, writers, English teachers and parents will join the celebration.

TankBooks targets smokers-on-the-verge-of-reading through a design-and-packaging ruse:

As one habit dies hard, another takes hold. The ban on smoking in public places comes into operation in the UK on July 1, 2007. Tank is launching a series of books designed to mimic cigarette packs – the same size, packaged in flip-top cartons with silver foil wrapping and sealed in cellophane.

Titles include classics: "Heart of Darkness", "The Metamorphosis" and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" among them.

Questions for further discussion:
1. Will these books make reading so cool that people will pick up smoking again to be bookish?
2. Can these books be dispensed through old cigarette machines?
3. Quick — guess what their tagline is?

Via NOTCOT

Cautionary tales with happy endings

A few years ago — way before I had a blog — my husband and I both got mild cases of carbon monoxide poisoning and lived to tell the tale. The next day we told everyone we knew about it — via email, phone, and face-to-face conversations — and told them to buy carbon monoxide detectors. A friend I shared the story with saved someone's life with this knowledge months later.

Now I have a blog, so I'm going to post about why everyone should learn the Heimlich Maneuver. Years ago, I took an infant/child CPR class while I was pregnant, and that knowledge has paid off. Today I used it, and dislodged a large, half-eaten grape from a child's windpipe while he was choking. A horrifying experience, which would have been much more so if I hadn't known the Heimlich Maneuver. I'm extremely thankful that I learned how to do this; it's very simple, and my ability to spring into action and do it was still with me years later.

The eternal optimist part of me always hopes to turn negative experiences into something positive, so I share this information in case someone reading this can benefit from it. (I'll be on the phone and email telling all of my non-blog-reader friends and family about this tomorrow, too.)

Want to write better? Take care of your body.

Those of us who happily spend hours in front of computer monitors typing away or scribbling madly in our notebooks often need the following reminder: take a break from all the cerebral stuff and reconnect with your body! In the following quotation, the late journalist and editor Edgar Watson Howe explains the benefits of doing so:

The joy of feeling fit physically is reflected in a clearer and more useful mind. You may read and study forever, but you come to no more important truthful conclusions than these two:
1. Take care of your body (eat and exercise properly), and your mind will improve.
2. Work hard, and be polite and fair, and your condition in the world will improve.

My writer friends and I all have been guilty of unconsciously attempting to become "brains only" — not a complete rejection of our bodies, but absolutely a neglect and denial of them in our quest to produce great works, push ourselves, and commune with our muses. The irony of this is that our minds cannot do all of the wonderful things we want them to do without the total help and cooperation of our bodies.

There is such a thing as "too much thinking." And too much thinking while on heavy doses of nicotine and caffeine? Ouch. (Yoga and walking have been my saving grace here, as I used to live a heavily caffeinated lifestyle, but that is a post for another time.)

And his point #2, that's just a helpful reminder on priorities. It's all about what one chooses to do with one's energy.

A solid 8-hour stretch

Blogging versus sleep.
Tonight I'll compose words in
Slumbers as I dream.

Sometimes the eyes just close...

But there's always more blogging fun tomorrow.

Healing notebook

I received an email from a family friend who's been diagnosed with a serious illness. Surgery and its aftercare regimen are scheduled to begin mid-August.

She asked that each person send her a page for a "healing notebook" she's creating — something she'll be able to bring with her to the hospital to look at while she's recovering. The page should contain a photo of the sender and a joke/humorous anecdote of some kind.

This notebook is a fantastic idea. Using email, she's reaching a ton of people. They're replying from far and wide with photos and jokes. Her notebook is filling up. She going into major surgery by having some fun preparing for it. She'll have something familiar and real with her which holds images and words to make her laugh while she's in the hospital. It will remind her how many people care about her. It will help her heal. She's taking incredibly good care of herself.

In addition to the photo and joke, I sent her a copy of one of my favorite editorials ever from The Onion: Fire Truck! Fire Truck! Fire Truck! by Edwin Brauer (from the photo, he looks about age 3).

WANTED: Fertility-improving Comedians

Aiming to conceive? Having someone tell you hysterical knock-knock jokes might be your best first step.

I have always believed that laughter improves health — physically, emotionally and mentally. Here's some interesting proof of laughter's power, from an article in the U.K.'s Daily Mail:

"Laughter can be the key to success in IVF treatment, it was claimed yesterday.

"One infertility clinic found pregnancy rates soared when patients were visited after treatment by a comedian who cracked jokes and performed magic tricks.

"The doctor behind the approach said it showed humour can cut stress levels and boost the chances of success.

"Dr Shevach Friedler of the Assaf Harofeh Medical Centre in Zerifin, Israel, released details of the study at Prague conference.

"He said 93 women were visited by the comic while they were lying down for 15 minutes after embryos were implanted into their womb.

"A similar number were left alone. 'To our surprise we found a significant difference,' he said. 'I didn't expect such a good result.'"

I think this will create an entirely new circuit for comedians to practice their routines, too.

To read the complete article, click here.